5 days into 2022, 5 anti-trans bills have already been introduced across the US

• State legislators are already attempting to pass bills that target the rights of trans youth in 2022.
• Five bills were prefiled in the first five days of 2022 in Arizona, Alabama, and South Dakota.

Less than a week into the new year, state legislators are already starting to table new bills that target the rights of trans youth.

Chase Strangio, the Deputy Director for Transgender Justice at the ACLU, said that, so far this year, state representatives in Arizona (SB 1045 and SB 1046), Alabama (SB 5), and South Dakota (HB 1005 and HB 1006) have prefiled five anti-trans bills which will be reviewed in 2022.

Prefiling is the first stage of a bill, when it is introduced before the official legislative session begins.

—Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) January 5, 2022

The bills range from those that bar trans children from participating in team sports to bills that ban life-saving, gender-affirming medical care to minors.

Arizona's SB 1045 would make it illegal for any school official maintain a trans child's privacy about their gender, effectively outing them to their parents. The bill would also ban medical professionals from providing any gender-affirming medical care to a minor, including puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy, despite evidence that such medication cuts suicide rates.

The state's second proposed anti-trans bill, SB 1046, would force schools to organize team sports by assigned sex at birth, barring trans children from participating.

Similar to Arizona's bill, Alabama's SB 5 mandates schools disclose all information about a trans child's gender to their parents, regardless of what the child wants or their safety.

South Dakota's HB 1005 would bar trans children from locker rooms and the state's HB 1006 would prevent trans kids from participating in team sports.

Last year, the Human Rights Campaign stated the US faced the worst legislative attack on trans people in the nation's history in 2021, as state legislators attempted to pass over 150 anti-trans bills and passed 13 anti-trans laws. Like the 2022 bills, last year's bills primarily limited the rights of trans children.

Advocates like Strangio say they anticipate legislative attacks on trans people will only continue to intensify in 2022.

"I think all of us need to think about the ways we're going to care for each other because I would say it is about to get much worse," Strangio told Gender Reveal podcast host Tuck Woodstock in December 2021.