News (USA)

Georgia GOP fails in attempt to pass last-minute slew of anti-trans bills

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Georgia Republicans bundled over a dozen measures that targeted the state’s transgender residents into omnibus packages in a desperate attempt to get them passed. In a stunning defeat for the GOP, every single one of them failed.

Legislators gutted bills that had passed through committee and instead stuffed them full of their anti-LGBTQ+ wishlist items.

Bills that would ban transgender students from playing on teams aligned with their gender identity, ban transgender students from bathrooms aligned with their gender identity, opt parents into notification for every book a student checks out of the library, bar sex education before sixth grade, make all sex-ed classes opt-in and expand obscenity laws to make it easier to ban books with LGBTQ+ content all failed.

“MAGA politicians in Georgia tried it all in service to their anti-LGBTQ+ agenda,” said Human Rights Campaign Georgia State Director Bentley Hudgins, “including silencing debate and gutting unrelated, popular bills that had bipartisan support to ram through policies that would have put young LGBTQ+ Georgians in harm’s way. They failed.”

“It’s undeniable that the tides are shifting, both here in Georgia and across the nation,” Georgia Equality executive director Jeff Graham added. “Anti-LGBTQ actors are losing their political power, and more and more Georgians who know and love LGBTQ people are standing up against their baseless fear-mongering.”

In Florida recently, nearly two dozen anti-LGBTQ+ bills were defeated in the wake of Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s (R) presidential campaign implosion, dozens of measures in Virginia were tabled, and Ohio’s governor backed off his attempt to restrict gender-affirming care access for transgender adults and minors. 

Meanwhile, in D.C., Democrats successfully excised 50 anti-LGBTQ+ provisions in the two budget bills passed and signed by President Joe Biden to fund the federal government.

Even Fox News has been forced to acknowledge transgender issues are among the lowest-priority concerns among voters.

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