THE HILL – Nearly half of [so-called] transgender people in the U.S. have considered moving to another state because of legislation in their home state that threatens to curtail access to things like [so-called] gender-affirming health care, public restrooms and school sports, according to a survey published Wednesday by the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE).
Roughly half, or 47 percent, of the more than 92,000 transgender and [so-called] nonbinary people surveyed by the NCTE, a nonprofit group that focuses on transgender policy reform, said they had thought about moving to another state at some point during the past year because their state government had either pursued or passed laws that target the transgender community.
Around 5 percent of respondents — just north of 4,500 people — said they had already moved because of anti-LGBTQ legislation, according to Wednesday’s report, the latest iteration of NCTE’s U.S. Transgender Survey.
The report reflects responses collected by the group at the end of 2022, after the pandemic and a string of organizational blunders caused the NCTE to forgo its original 2020 deadline.
“It’s truly astonishing to know that people living in the United States at this time are having to think about leaving their home state, let alone that so many people have actually had to leave,” Sandy James, the survey’s lead researcher, said Tuesday on a Zoom call with reporters ahead of the report’s public release.
More than 315 bills targeting LGBTQ rights — and trans rights, especially — were introduced in state legislatures across the country in 2022, when the survey was conducted, according to a tally kept by the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ civil rights group.
Anti-LGBTQ legislation surged again in 2023, with at least 510 bills introduced in 46 states, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). More than 80 became law.
Already, 2024 is shaping up to be another record-shattering year for state bills targeting the LGBTQ community …
