Texas enacts controversial “bathroom bill” into law
By Marissa Armas
Updated on: September 27, 2025 / 1:01 PM CDT / CBS Texas
It’s a controversial new law that’s drawing sharp criticism from LGBTQ advocates across Texas.
Gov. Greg Abbott officially signed the so-called “bathroom bill” on Monday. While some are applauding the move, others say it unfairly targets transgender people and others.
On Monday, Abbott signed Senate Bill 8 into law, which requires people in government buildings and schools to use certain facilities based on the sex they were assigned at birth.
Impact on public institutions statewide
The law applies to restrooms, locker rooms, and other changing facilities in public schools, universities, prisons, jails, and other government-owned buildings. It also limits which family violence shelters transgender people can access.
The only exceptions are for children under 10 accompanied by an adult, as well as custodians, law enforcement, and medical workers.
Community leaders express concern
Because of the new law, community engagement strategist Gordy Carmona is having tough conversations with many of the people they serve.
“It’s just heartbreaking,” said Carmona. “I know how it’s going to impact so many of the people that I care about that I know, both personally and professionally.”
Brad Pritchett, CEO of Equality Texas, said the law’s intent is clear.
“Even though the letter of this law is plainly written, the intent of the law is really about trying to keep transgender, nonbinary, and intersex Texans from being able to participate in public life here in the state of Texas,” Pritchett said.
Supporters call it ‘common sense’
Abbott posted a video Monday about the bill signing, saying, “I signed a law banning men in women’s restrooms. It is a common-sense public safety issue.”
State Rep. Angelia Orr echoed that message, saying, “Let’s hope more states follow suit. This is common sense policy to protect the women and girls of Texas!”
Enforcement details remain unclear
Pritchett said there are still many questions about how the law will be enforced.
“We don’t really know what cities or school districts, or political subdivisions are going to do to try to enforce this bill,” said Pritchett. “There are things that are reasonable, and there are things that are unreasonable, and our goal is to ensure that no unreasonable things are taking place, with regards to how people are accessing essential spaces for themselves.”
Fines target institutions, not individuals
While individuals won’t be fined for violating the law, institutions can face steep penalties — $5,000 for a first offense and up to $125,000 for subsequent violations
Last month, it was reported that the Supreme Court will formally consider a petition for a case calling on them to overturn their 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, the historic ruling that made gay marriage legal nationwide. The petition comes from former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, who has made headlines and been embroiled in legal battles since she refused to sign marriage licenses for gay couples.
While Davis has been fighting against gay marriage since it was made legal, her lawyers have been doing it for longer. Davis is being represented by Liberty Counsel, a far-right Christian legal group and Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group.
Since its inception in 1989, the group has opposed gay rights causes, including fighting against gay marriage, the legalization of homosexuality, and bans onconversion therapy. In one instance, the group’s Facebook cover photoreferenced the Bible verse Leviticus 20:13, which reads, “If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”
When asked about the cover photo, the group responded in an email that “Liberty Counsel has never promoted or condoned the killing of anyone or asked anyone to ‘like’ any quote about killing gays.”
Experts say Liberty Counsel is arguably more powerful than ever in 2025, fueled by publicity from Davis’ case and the opportunity to capitalize on a moment when American politics are stacked toward the right-wing—something that could upend gay marriage.
“The alignments will never be as favorable as they are at this moment,” Anne Nelson, author of “Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right,” told Uncloseted Media. “That’s why they’re going for broke.”
History
Liberty Counsel was founded by preacher turned lawyer Mat Staver and his wife, Anita.
Mat Staver, who now serves as the chairman, senior pastor, and primary spokesperson for the group, authored the 2004 book “Same-sex Marriage: Putting Every Household at Risk,” where he wrote that “homosexuality is rooted in fractured emotions” and “a common thread in virtually every case is some sort of sexual or emotional brokenness.”
While the organization started operations solely in Florida, Mat Staver told the Orlando Sentinel shortly after Liberty Counsel launched that the group “would be a Christian antithesis to the ACLU” and that he “always felt the Lord calling [him] to combine [ministry and law] together.”
Liberty Counsel was active throughout the 1990s, with a focus on First Amendment cases, but Staver and his group didn’t gain national attention until 1994, when he argued before the Supreme Court for a case that challenged the constitutionality of a Florida court ruling that barred anti-abortion protests outside of a clinic. Some parts of the ruling were successfully overturned while others remained in place.
After that, the group built up a reputation for taking up cases related to religion in schools and other public institutions, including one instance where they threatened a lawsuit against one school for changing the lyrics of a Christmas song in a school play.
Attacking Gay Rights
After the turn of the century, Liberty Counsel became more active on gay issues. In 2003, they filed an amicus brief in Lawrence v. Texas, the case that decriminalized gay sex nationwide, arguing in favor of state laws banning it by saying that “deregulating human sexual relations will erode the institution of marriage.”
When California was taken to court over Proposition 8, a 2008 state constitutional amendment that sought to ban gay marriage in the state, Liberty Counsel attempted to be among the lawyers defending it. The group publicly criticized fellow far-right Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom for, in their view, arguing the case poorly.
One lawyer for Liberty Counsel also disagreed with legal positions taken by one pro-Prop 8 lawyer, who reportedly refused to argue that homosexuality is an “illness or disorder.” In their amicus brief in support of the proposition, Liberty Counsel argued that homosexuality “presents serious physical, emotional, mental, and other health-related risks.”
And in 2015, just months before the Obergefell ruling, the group offered to represent Alabama judges who refused to perform gay marriages after a state ban was overturned.
Once gay marriage became legal nationwide, Liberty Counsel took up Kim Davis’ case, which brought them more media attention than ever before.
“Kim Davis was a boon to Liberty Counsel,” says Peter Montgomery, research director at People for the American Way, an advocacy group aimed at challenging the far right. “[She] got them a huge amount of publicity, and I think they’ve really grown since they first took up her case.”
Much of the earned media from the Davis case, however, was negative. Liberty Counsel received criticism for encouraging Davis to continue refusing gay marriage licenses in violation of a court order. And even a Fox News panel of legal experts called Davis a “hypocrite” and Mat Staver’s legal arguments “stunningly obtuse” and “ridiculously stupid.”
In an email to Uncloseted Media, Liberty Counsel took issue with criticism of the group’s past litigation, writing that “[they] have 40 wins [they] briefed or argued at the US Supreme Court, including a 9-0 win in Shurtleff v. City of Boston.”
Liberty Counsel has created their own media, including a daily 11-minute radio broadcast, Faith and Freedom. Launched in 2010, the program is syndicated on 145 stations across the country and frequently contains anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, including assertions that LGBTQ-inclusive policies in the Boy Scouts create “a playground for pedophiles”; that gay people “know intuitively that what they are doing is immoral, unnatural, and self-destructive”; and that gay people are “not controlled by reason,” but rather “controlled by … lust.”
And after being boosted in popularity by Kim Davis, a 2016 CBS News investigation found that the group had worked with lawmakers in at least 20 states to author anti-LBGTQ bills, including trans bathroom bans.
“They’re pretty much anti-LGBT in every way you can be,” Montgomery told Uncloseted Media. “Staver is pretty shameless in lying about gay people and the laws.”
Why Now?
Davis’ case has fallen in and out of public attention over the years, with the Supreme Court rejecting a previous petition in 2020. Despite this, Liberty Counsel has remained confident in the case’s potential to upend gay marriage. In 2023, the group told their supporters in an email that they planned to use Davis’ case to persuade the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell. These comments came a year after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas expressed interest in reconsidering Obergefell in his opinion on the case that overturned Roe v. Wade.
“[The far right have] been working for decades to get their pieces in place, so at this particular moment, looking at the chessboard, they’ve got a critical mass of conservative states with Republicans in the state house, they’ve got the White House, they’ve got both houses of Congress, and they’ve got a majority on the Supreme Court,” says Nelson. “In a year, that could change.”
Increasing Notoriety
Montgomery says that Liberty Counsel’s popularity and influence has been on the rise since the start of the pandemic, when the group gained traction by opposing restrictions on churches meeting during COVID lockdowns. During this period, Staver claimed that COVID-19 vaccines are designed to “prevent people from procreating.”
“One of the ways that [Staver] has boosted his visibility and influence was riding that parade, which a number of people on the religious right did, and took advantage of the resentment of public health restrictions,” says Montgomery.
Since then, the group has falsely claimed that the Respect for Marriage Act “would allow pedophiles to marry children,” and Staver wrote in a newsletter that “the LGBTQ agenda seeks nothing less than to eliminate all religious freedom rights that might make them feel bad about their choices.”
In the meantime, affiliates of the group have been cozying up to the Supreme Court. In 2022, a representative of the Liberty Counsel-owned D.C. ministry Faith & Liberty was caught bragging about praying with Supreme Court justices just weeks after the court overturned Roe v. Wade. Staver told Rolling Stone these allegations are “entirely untrue.”
In his majority opinion on the case, Justice Alito cited an amicus brief filed by Liberty Counsel where the group argues that “the birth control and abortion movements are racist and eugenic.”
Part of a Bigger Picture
Liberty Counsel’s website reports that it generated nearly $28 million in revenue between July 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024. While their internal team has roughly 40 employees listed on LinkedIn, they have claimed to have anywhere from 90 to 700 affiliate attorneys across the country. Some of the group’s larger and more consistent donors reportedly include fracking baron Farris Wilks; the Christian TV network Good Life Broadcasting; and Liberty University, where Staver previously worked as dean of the law school.
“The big Christian nationalist and plutocratic donors understand that the Supreme Court, and the judiciary in general, are central to their aims … so over the past few decades they spent enormous sums grooming and promoting candidates for the judiciary whose interpretation of the law is favorable to their interests,” Katherine Stewart, an author and expert on religious nationalism, told Uncloseted Media in an email. “Liberty Counsel has successfully positioned itself as one of the players in that space. It only picks up a slice from the total pie, but the pie is so well-funded that even a slice is rich indeed.”
Beyond this, Liberty Counsel is affiliated with a number of other right-wing groups, several of which operate directly under the group’s umbrella. Staver holds leadership positions in other conservative groups, including Salt & Light Council and National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference—the former of which has been outspokenly anti-LGBTQ. Liberty Counsel is also a member of the Remnant Alliance, a coalition of groups known for coordinating to elect Christian nationalist candidates to local school boards. A leaked membership directory from 2020 also listed Staver as a member of the Council for National Policy, a secretive group that includes Republican politicians and major leaders of Christian right organizations, though Staver told Uncloseted Media that Liberty Counsel and the Council for National Policy are not affiliated.
Nelson says connections like these allow different groups on the far right to coordinate together on anti-LGBTQ policies.
“They’ll have coordinated messaging about whatever campaign they’re launching at the moment. And it’s highly coordinated, as in the same story, the same language, the same spokespeople. It’s really quite impressive. And so all of a sudden there’ll be a story that will just erupt.”
The Council for National Policy did not respond to a request for comment.
When Liberty Counsel filed its most recent petition for Davis’ case to the Supreme Court, multiple right-wing media outlets whose leadership have been members of the Council for National Policy quickly covered the story with a favorable spin, including Salem Media Group, the WashingtonTimes and WorldNetDaily. And earlier this year, Staver networked at the National Religious Broadcasters conference, where he discussed plans to overturn Obergefell.
Montgomery says that this coordination is especially powerful because different groups are able to influence different spheres. For example, while Liberty Counsel pressures the courts, a group like Salt & Light Council works to activate supporters in ministry.
“They have this broader vision of wanting to change the culture and change the country,” he says. “They are all different approaches to moving the country in the direction they want: courts, legislative advocacy, lobbying, organizing, and media outreach.”
Nelson says the far right’s recent legal success is thanks in part to the influx of right-wing judges since the start of Trump’s first term.
“It’s worked initially with trying to get local and political opposition to these laws, and it’s linked to getting the appointments of judges who’ve had to pass a litmus test,” she says. “And then [their strategy involves] mounting the lawsuits, starting usually at the state level and working their way up the court system, specializing in states where they believe they’ll have sympathetic judges. … It’s gaming [the system].”
In an email to Uncloseted Media, Liberty Counsel says this characterization does not describe their litigation strategy.
What Does This Mean for Marriage Equality?
Despite all of this, many legal experts believe that this latest challenge to marriage equality is a long shot. Liberty Counsel’s arguments were largely rejected by a federal appeals court panel earlier this year, and several of the justices have shown little to no interest in revisiting Obergefell. Just this month, conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that the right to marriage is “fundamental” and called for people to “tune … out” concerns about gay marriage being overturned.
However, given the current political moment, Nelson says that the threat to Obergefell should not be underestimated.
“This long-range strategy is coming to fruition, and a lot of the pieces are in place,” she says. “Under the current circumstances, with the current judiciary, they’ve got a reasonable chance of allowing states to ban same-sex marriages on a state level with an eye towards eventually banning it [on a nationwide level] in the future.”
The Slovak government on Wednesday indefinitely postponed a proposed constitutional amendment that would limit the rights of same-sex couples and toughen rules surrounding gender transition.
The amendment would also see national law take precedence over European Union law.
The government admitted to “not having secured enough votes” to pass the contentious text in parliament and postponed it indefinitely.
Following the amendment’s publication in late January, nationalist Prime Minister Robert Fico invoked “the traditions, the cultural and spiritual heritage of our ancestors” to construct a “constitutional barrier against progressive politics” and restore “common sense”.
“There are two sexes, male and female”, defined at birth, the proposal states — an echo of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration speech.
“Sex cannot be modified except for serious reasons, according to procedures that will be established by law,” it continues.
The amendment only authorises adoption for married couples, with rare exceptions.
It also states that Slovakia’s “sovereignty” regarding “cultural and ethical questions” should override EU law.
A pair of Christian couples in Massachusetts are suing the state, saying their rights were violated when they lost their foster licenses over their views on gender and sexuality.
The couples — Audrey and Nick Jones, in Worcester County, and Greg and Marianelly Schrock, in Middlesex County — argue their First Amendment rights to freedom of religious exercise and freedom of speech are being violated in the lawsuit filed in federal court this month.
Their argument hinges on a state requirement that foster parents sign an agreement that they will “support, respect, and affirm the foster child’s sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression” — and that refusing to do so forced them out of the foster parent role.
The case comes as Massachusetts faces a dire shortage of families willing to serve as foster parents. The Joneses and Schrocks would provide a loving home for any child — including a gay or transgender child, their attorney told GBH News.
But, as Audrey Jones told their licensing agent, she and her husband “cannot support a child dating someone of the same sex or affirm a child who wanted to use different pronouns.” They argue the policy is unconstitutionally restrictive and ultimately harms foster children who have no place to go.
LGBTQ+ advocates told GBH News they were saddened and outraged by the case and worry it will test the strength of anti-discrimination laws. They specifically point to the vulnerability of LGBTQ+ youth in foster care: Nationally, 40% have run away or have been kicked out of their homes for being LGBTQ+, and LGBTQ+ youth who are in foster care are three times more likely to attempt suicide than LGBTQ+ youth who are not, according to the Trevor Project.
“These are already traumatized kids facing additional trauma because of their identity — and this isn’t about the foster parents,” said Tanya Neslusan, the executive director of MassEquality. “When you are parenting children, it is never about the parents — it is about the children and making sure that their needs are prioritized. And if you can’t in good conscience do that, then that’s really what it comes down to.”
This lawsuit follows a similar case filed two years ago by Mike and Kitty Burke, a Catholic couple from Southampton. They sued after being denied a foster care license because they would “not be affirming to a child who identified as LGBTQIA,” per court filings. Attorneys for the state recently asked the court to dismiss that case since the Burkes have since moved to Florida.
“Because it’s a state-run system, the state has to have some leeway to make some decisions about … what it means to keep a child emotionally safe and healthy while that child is in state custody.”
Josh Gupta-Kagan, Columbia Law School
Mallory Sleight, an attorney on the Jones-Schrock case who works for the Alliance Defending Freedom’s parental rights team, says her organization has been contacted by six Massachusetts families about this issue. The Joneses and Schrocks, she says, previously served as foster parents without issue and want their licenses back. But she said requiring them to sign the agreement violates their religious beliefs.
“DCF has said that these families are required to agree ahead of time that they would use any chosen pronouns,” she said. “And by using chosen pronouns, you are agreeing that a boy is in fact a girl, or a girl is in a fact a boy. And biblically, these families simply do not hold that belief. And by speaking that belief, especially to a child, they are violating their own religious convictions.”
Legal experts say this case follows more than a century of legal battles and legislation about the role religion can play in the foster care system — and, in the last few years, how that overlaps with LGBTQ+ foster children. Experts agreed that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent openness to religious discrimination lawsuits could give the plaintiffs reason to hope.
In the lawsuit, the families suggested a less restrictive policy that would give the Department of Children and Families discretion about which children are placed with which parents. Department leadership could choose to not revoke foster parents’ licenses and instead just give social workers leeway to not place gender non-conforming children with such parents — a stance the Boston Globe Editorial board endorsed last week.
“If the department wants to, the department can specifically match them with children that they think would be good fits for their homes. So that could be religious children — because there are religious foster children who would love to be with religious foster parents who they could go to church with and be in Sunday school and read the Bible with,” Sleight told GBH News.
“By using chosen pronouns, you are agreeing that a boy is in fact a girl, or a girl is in a fact a boy. And biblically, these families simply do not hold that belief.”
Mallory Sleight, an attorney representing the Joneses and Schrocks
Still, some experts doubt the merits of the case. They say the rights of the legal parent or guardian and the child’s right to health and safety will outweigh the rights of a foster parent acting as a temporary caretaker.
“This is not like going to speak in the town square,” said Josh Gupta-Kagan, a Columbia Law School professor who focuses on children and families issues. “Because it’s a state-run system, the state has to have some leeway to make some decisions about … what it means to keep a child emotionally safe and healthy while that child is in state custody.”
And advocates say they want LGBTQ+ children to feel safe and comfortable in their foster homes.
“We would hope that the goal of every foster parent coming into the system to help … we hope that everyone comes in thinking: ‘I will affirm every child no matter their race, their gender identity, their sexual and their sexual orientation,’” said Shaplaie Brooks, executive director of the Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth.
Brooks said the Department of Children and Families has been “moving the needle” on helping LGBTQ+ youth in the foster care system — but says that big steps still need to be taken. Her commission has been helping support couples fostering LGBTQ+ children, connecting them with gender-affirming care resources.
“Especially as of late … DCF has tried to center the needs of each child as best as possible in their care,” she said.
In fact, Gupta-Kagan imagines a hypothetical lawsuit if the policy didn’t exist and the state allowed foster parents to not affirm or support LGBTQ+ youth — a lawsuit “that the state is not fulfilling its obligation to keep children in its custody safe.”
A spokesperson for DCF told GBH News it does not comment on pending litigation. State attorneys have not responded to the complaint in court, and an initial hearing hasn’t been set yet in the case.
Six months after Iowa removed gender identity as a protected class from its civil rights laws, the state now must pay $85,000 to LGBTQ+ students ejected from the Iowa Capitol in 2020, among them trans students who were denied access to the building’s bathrooms.
Iowa Safe Schools, an LGBTQ+ youth advocacy group, sponsored the visit of about 150 Iowa students and chaperones to the Capitol to meet with legislators in 2020. The group’s then-executive director, Nate Monson, told the Iowa Register that, at the time, Iowa State Patrol troopers told several transgender students they couldn’t use one of the bathrooms and had to use a gender-neutral restroom instead.
When Monson intervened, arguing that the troopers’ directions were inconsistent with state law, the entire group was ordered to leave.
“I went up to the trooper and said, ‘No, that’s not what the law says,’” Monson said. “The civil rights code includes gender identity. He told me it did not. Then I told him yes, it did. And he said, ‘Well it doesn’t include bathrooms.’”
The students were then told to leave the Capitol altogether, that they had been banned from the Capitol grounds, and they would be arrested if they returned.
The students and several Iowa Safe Schools leaders filed suit in 2022, alleging sex-based discrimination, harassment, and unlawful retaliation.
Under terms of a settlement agreement — filed in July and approved by the Iowa State Board of Appeals on Tuesday — the state will pay the students and group leaders to settle the case without admitting any wrongdoing.
“These individuals were exercising their constitutional and civil rights when they were singled out and removed from the Iowa Capitol solely because of their identity and their affiliation with an LGBTQ+ organization,” said Devin C. Kelly, an attorney for the plaintiffs, following the Board of Appeals approval.
“At a time when LGBTQ+ Iowans and their families continue to face growing challenges, this settlement reaffirms a simple truth: all Iowans are equal under the law,” Kelly added.
In a letter to the Board of Appeals, state attorney Jeffrey Peterzalek made it a point to say that the plaintiffs’ legal claims “would now not be allowed” under the updated Civil Rights Act.
With Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds’ signature in February, Iowa became the first state in the nation to remove a previously protected class from its civil rights laws. The change took effect July 1.
The law, which took effect Sept. 1, bars schools from sponsoring a “student club based on sexual orientation or gender identity.” It also forbids schools from providing instruction, guidance or programming on sexual orientation or gender identity. Schools are barred from helping in the social transitioning of a transgender child, which can include using new names or pronouns.
A former faculty sponsor for a Gender and Sexuality Alliance in Plano ISD; a Houston high schooler; the Gender and Sexuality Alliances Network, a nonprofit that represents GSA clubs in Texas schools; and advocacy group Students Engaged in Advancing Texas say their freedom of speech and expressive association “will be irreparably suppressed” under the new law.
Texas AFT, the teachers’ union, joined the lawsuit as a plaintiff Sept. 15.
“S.B. 12 is one of the most extreme education censorship laws in the country, undermining the free speech rights of Texas students, parents, and educators,” said Brian Klosterboer, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas, who filed the suitin the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.“We’re challenging this law in court because our schools should be places of truth, inclusion, and opportunity — not fear and erasure.”
The lawsuit names Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath as a defendant, as well as Plano, Katy and Houston ISDs.
“Plano ISD is obligated to comply with the law as written unless or until the courts provide further direction,” said Zoheb Hassanali, the district’s assistant director of communications, public relations and social media.
He said district staff have received training to ensure compliance with the law.
“Our focus continues to be on educating and supporting our students, and we will not allow external litigation to distract us from that responsibility,” he added.
Houston ISD’s press office said the district does not comment on pending litigation.
Representatives from Katy ISD and the Texas Education Agency did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
The legal action comes as school districts across Texas are adopting policies to comply with the state law, which prohibits diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in K-12 schools.
Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Allen, who introduced the legislation, said it ensures parents are at the “head of the table when it comes to their kids’ education.”
In addition to the ban on LGBTQ clubs, the legislation requires schools to get a parent’s permission before a child can join any school club.
“Our schools should be about teaching history and reading, writing and math and civic responsibility,” Leach said as he advocated for the bill in the Legislature. “We need to get away from some of the more toxic social issues.”
If the law is not blocked, all 22 student-run Gender and Sexuality Alliance clubs registered with the GSA Network will likely shut down, according to the filing.
Leach criticized the organizations during legislative discussions, calling them “school-sponsored and school-sanctioned sex clubs.” Supporters and members of the clubs say they provide safe and welcoming spaces for students.
The groups in the lawsuit say the ban “ostracizes” students “who have a sexual orientation or gender identity that differs from other students.” It also “harms allies of LGBTQ+ students who seek to learn about issues impacting their friends and advocate for a safer and more inclusive school environment,” according to the filing.
At least one Gender and Sexuality Alliance in Plano ISD disbanded ahead of the law’s implementation date, according to court documents. Students tried to start a new club, but school administrators said it would not be allowed.
One student decided to be homeschooled because the club shut down “and the fact that their affirming name and pronouns will no longer be respected by teachers and staff,” court documents read.
The law has created “a climate of fear and discrimination” in the Plano ISD school, “where the voices of LGBTQ+ students and educators are suppressed.” The school is not identified in the lawsuit, and the teacher and student plaintiffs go by pseudonyms to protect them from retaliation.
The Plano ISD teacher, who was also the faculty sponsor of the now-disbanded Gender and Sexuality Alliance, said the law’s “vague and broad” requirements create “a massive gray area about how and whether she can support her transgender students.”
Texas AFT, the teachers’ union, said it has already received a “high volume of inquiries” from members on its grievance hotline about what the law means, its “harsh professional consequences and the harm it is causing their relationships with their students and concerned parents.”
For a Houston high schooler at Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, the law could mean she can’t join or start a Gender and Sexuality Alliance at her new school.
The high schooler participated in GSA in middle school, where she “found community and support in her own experience of coming out as an LGBTQ+ student and felt safer and happier,” the filing reads.
Under the law, she worries she won’t have that same experience. She already feels the law “is suppressing her ability to speak with teachers” about certain topics, including social transitioning.
California lawmakers passed legislation this week to prevent health providers from releasing transgender patients’ confidential medical records in investigations of gender-affirming care in states that ban treatment for minors.
Senate Bill 497, introduced in February by Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat representing San Francisco, builds upon a 2022 state law that established California as a state of refuge for transgender people. That law, also authored by Wiener, prevents states that have banned gender-affirming care for minors from taking legal action against trans youth, their families and their doctors over treatment administered in California.
The latest bill would require law enforcement requesting health information about transgender people in California to provide a warrant, according to Wiener’s office. It would also bar medical providers from complying with out-of-state requests, including subpoenas, for information related to gender-affirming care.
“California must do everything in our power to protect the transgender community, and I’m confident that the Governor will continue his longstanding leadership on trans issues,” Wiener said in a statement on Thursday after the bill passed.
The California Senate voted 30-10 on Wednesday to pass Wiener’s bill, which the state Assembly passed earlier this week. A spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) declined to comment, saying the governor’s office does not typically remark on pending legislation.
Newsom must sign or veto the measure by Oct. 13.
The vote on Wiener’s bill comes after the Justice Department announced in June that it had sent more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics “involved in performing transgender medical procedures on children” in investigations of alleged health care fraud and false statements. A subpoena sent to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia that was made public in a court filing last month requested patients’ birth dates, Social Security numbers and home addresses, as well as “every writing or record of whatever type” from doctors related to the provision of gender-affirming care to adolescents younger than 19 years.
The subpoena requested information dating back to January 2020, more than a year before transition-related care was banned anywhere in the U.S.
On Tuesday, a federal judge blocked an effort by the Trump administration to subpoena medical records of transgender patients who received gender-affirming care at Boston Children’s Hospital, calling the Justice Department’s investigation improper and “motivated only by bad faith.”
In an email on Friday, a spokesperson for Wiener said Senate Bill 497, if signed, would “strengthen the case for any medical provider who wishes to fight Trump’s vicious assault on the transgender community.”
President Trump and administration officials have broadly sought to ban gender-affirming care for minors. A Jan. 28 executive order states that the U.S. “will rigorously enforce” laws that ban transition-related care for anyone younger than 19.
Laws adopted by more than half the nation since 2021 ban gender-affirming care for minors, which major professional medical groups say is medically necessary and often lifesaving for transgender youth and adults. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that states can ban treatment for minors, finding that Tennessee’s prohibition on puberty blockers, hormones and rare surgeries for adolescents does not constitute sex discrimination.
“These provisions… exacerbate, if not condone, the stigmatisation of homosexual persons in civil society and engender feelings of hostility fueled by persons who are inclined to take the moral high ground,” stated Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court Judge Shawn Innocent in his late July ruling striking down St. Lucia’s ban on same-sex intimacy.
The ruling coming down from the Heraldine Rock Building sparked swift, though not unanimous, reaction. The Caribbean’s LGBTQIA community celebrated the long-overdue victory, while religious conservatives issued dire warnings.
As Judge Innocent explained on the bench, many islanders and Caribbean citizens continue to navigate the fault lines between a dated colonial inheritance and a modern identity.
“It is the law itself which violates their constitutional rights,” Innocent’s ruling said. “They do not have to await prosecution under those sections to experience a violation. Without any equivocation, his liberty has been emasculated and abridged.”
The ruling made St. Lucia the latest in a growing list of Caribbean nations—including Barbados, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Kitts and Nevis—to decriminalize consensual same-sex relations through the courts. In doing so, it affirms what many legal scholars and LGBTQIA activists have long argued: that the region’s colonial-era sodomy laws are not just outdated, they are unconstitutional.
The win in St. Lucia comes at a time when the Caribbean LGBTQIA movement appears to not only be making progress in changing laws, but changing attitudes. This stands in contrast to the United States, where movement workers are fighting back against regressive measures, state-based legislation, and attempts by the Trump administration to gut federal civil rights protections.
For Glenroy Murray, St. Lucia’s policy change, part of a nearly decade-long strategy led by the Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality (ECADE) and other local organizing groups, is the product of years of sustained advocacy.
“In the Caribbean, queer activists are saying: we deserve space, and we’re going to claim it—despite prevailing attitudes that have existed in this region for a long time,” said Murray, the Caribbean lead for Human Dignity, a legal advocacy organization that provides technical, legal, and communications support to queer organizations and governments worldwide.
What began as a debate among legal scholars, researchers, and grassroots LGBTQIA activists about the countries most ripe for a legal challenge to colonial-era sodomy laws has since evolved into a broad-based movement to decriminalize sexuality and fight for human rights across the region.
For the Caribbean movement, the struggle has been twofold: first, dismantling outdated “saving law clauses” that shield colonial-era statutes from constitutional challenge. Found in several post-independence constitutions, these clauses preserve pre-existing laws—even if they conflict with modern human-rights protections. In practice, they’ve made it far more difficult to overturn criminal statutes against same-sex intimacy. Activists argue that true equality cannot be achieved without dismantling these legal shields.
Compounding this are well-funded, transnational conservative movements determined to make LGBTQIA rights in the Caribbean harder to secure. Angelique Nixon, senior lecturer and researcher at University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus’ Institute for Gender and Development Studies, said that these actors, backed by U.S.-based evangelical and faith-based groups, frame equality as a Western imposition and deploy religious and moral rhetoric to stir cultural resistance.
“Globally, we’re seeing the rise of well-funded, transnational anti-rights movements that actively export homophobic and transphobic ideologies across borders, often under the guise of protecting traditional values or religious freedoms,” Nixon said.
“This transnational dimension makes our struggle particularly challenging,” she emphasized.
The American religious right has directly targeted the Caribbean: groups affiliated with the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) have conducted legal training in Belize, while Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and other U.S. advocacy networks have bolstered local opposition to reform.
Meanwhile, Family Watch International—designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center—has expanded its regional influence, launching campaigns in Africa and elsewhere.
“Without strong political leadership, these laws will stay in place and continue to justify stigma, discrimination, and violence—even if they’re not enforced,” Nixon said. “The mere existence of these laws creates a chilling effect. Legal ambiguity and inaction can silence LGBTQI+ people and make them more vulnerable.”
Murray underscored that these laws are rooted in colonial imposition. “Many of the laws against sodomy, buggery, and so-called ‘unnatural offenses’—in other words, laws criminalizing sexuality—were imposed across the Caribbean by the British,” he said. “In Jamaica, the law criminalizing intimacy between men dates back to 1864, and it remains in effect today.”
Quick not to lay all the blame on colonial powers, Murray added: “I won’t let Caribbean governments off the hook. They could have changed these laws a long time ago—there have been repeated calls to repeal them. In some cases, governments have not only retained these provisions but made them worse. And at times, there’s been a clear intentionality to keeps them in place.”
While legal reform remains paramount, organizers have also worked diligently to change hearts and minds—advancing broader issues like health equity, education, and housing.
In its fight against liberal American misconceptions about Caribbean homophobia, the movement’s organizing strategy has centered on balancing the region’s often-professed anti-LGBTQIA identity with lived experiences that are far more varied. Murray explained that this nuance does not discount the violence, displacement, and harm faced by LGBTQIA people, but it has remained front of mind for organizers.
“For a time, much of our culture was not pro-gay, but it still allowed for a type of existence,” Murray said. “Over time, as queer people became more visible, violence escalated—and that’s when the region became known for being homophobic.”
Despite stigma, advocates have advanced regional efforts like the Pan-Caribbean Partnership Against HIV/AIDS, housing access expansion, and educational equity.
“In general, our leadership across the region is clear: they don’t support discrimination,” Murray said “When we talk about housing, we make it inclusive. When we talk about healthcare, we make it inclusive. And that matters.”
Murray’s analysis came with a caveat.
“But on hot-button issues like discrimination protections or relationship recognition, leaders tend to be far more cautious—often because of misperceptions about voters,” he said.
Beyond policy and legal reform, organizers recognize that shifting public opinion is essential. A 2023 survey by the Equality for All Foundation/J-FLAG, Jamaica’s leading LGBTQIA rights group, found that 50 percent of Jamaicans support changing laws to ensure equal rights, a dramatic shift from 2018, when 69 percent predicted strong resistance.
This change, advocates say, stems from grassroots organizing, increased visibility of LGBTQIA people, and the political engagement of younger voters. Nixon believes the movement could benefit from even greater international support.
“We need solidarity rooted in care, justice, and long-term commitment,” Nixon said. “Effective support must go beyond symbolic gestures to include sustained material and strategic assistance. That means funding community-led initiatives, creating safe spaces for healing and organizing, and backing the grassroots work that makes all this possible.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton withdrew the state’s lawsuit against pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Hector Granados on Thursday after finding no evidence that he violated the state’s ban on gender affirming care for trans youth.
Paxton sued Granados in October 2024, accusing him of providing puberty blockers and hormones to patients as young as 12 in treatment for gender dysphoria. Paxton accused Granados of falsifying medical and billing records to mislead pharmacies and insurance providers into covering the care.
Paxton initially called Granados a “scofflaw who is harming the health and safety of Texas children,” and Granados wasn’t notified before the lawsuit’s filing, in worries that he might try to destroy relevant records, The Hill reported.
However, Granados said he stopped providing gender-affirming care in May 2023, after the state’s legislature passed the law. Now that Paxton’s office has dropped its charges against him, Paxton’s office will now “focus on other ongoing cases against doctors who illegally provided harmful ‘transition’ treatments and drugs to children,” an attorney general spokesperson said, according to The Hill.
The state has also sued May Lau and M. Brett Cooper, two medical providers from the University of Texas’ Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. If found guilty, both could possibly lose their medical licenses and face hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
Despite Paxton’s claim about gender-affirming care being “harmful,” the medications used in such care have been used safely in children for decades for the purposes of gender transition and to treat other medical issues in cisgender children as well. In fact, Texas’ law stands in opposition to the best care practices for treating gender dysphoria recommended by every major American medical association. These associations agree that such care is safe, effective, and essential for the overall well-being of trans people.
Six months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Lilia Khvylka had a decision to make.
The transgender Ukrainian, who grew up on the Crimean Peninsula, was already living under Russian occupation; Vladimir Putin invaded and annexed that Ukrainian territory in 2014.
Now Khvylka was under house arrest for posting pro-Ukrainian messages on social media, she told Mezha, an independent Ukrainian news outlet.
“They opened a case against me under Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. This is a very serious crime, which they classify as terrorism. They were going to set a preventive measure for me literally in the coming days.”
Khvylka had already been outfitted with an ankle bracelet to monitor her movements.
She recalled taking part in the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, which ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych and restored the 2004 Constitution of Ukraine.
The same year, Putin invaded Crimea.
“When the Russian authorities arrived, freedom of speech completely disappeared. Ukrainian activists and journalists immediately began leaving or disappearing,” Khvylka said.
At the same time, Khvylka was navigating her transition.
“At 16, I already knew I would undertake a transgender transition, because I am a girl. But I was very afraid to go to doctors in Russia or talk to anyone about it.”
In Crimea, she was forced to hide her identity; there, she was known as Illya Gantsevskyi.
Facing the prospect of 15 years in prison for her posts and terrified her true identity would come to light, Khvylka fled. The so-called head of the Republic of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, had already declared war on LGBTQ+ people.
“I cut off my bracelet and ran away,” she said.
Khvylka left the peninsula through Russia and Belarus, holding only a Ukrainian birth certificate. Volunteers, whom she found online through an underground network of supporters, helped in her getaway.
With her flight to freedom, Khvylka avoided a fate that other LGBTQ+ Ukrainians have been unable to escape.
“This included torture, torment, public humiliation, bodily injuries, and sexual violence,” said human rights lawyer Karolina Palaychuk.
Documented testimonies from people in the Kherson region, occupied by Russia for nine months at the start of the war, confirm the terror inflicted on LGBTQ+ people in the Russian-occupied territory.
“One of the people who gave these testimonies said that he was stopped at a checkpoint, his phone was checked, they saw the relevant content, and they immediately threw him into a basement,” said Iryna Yuzyk, manager for the Center for Human Rights, ZMINA. “There, they beat him, forced him to wear a red dress, took him to interrogations in a red dress, naked, they tormented him. He was lucky to survive.”
Another captive was Diana, a 24-year-old lesbian.
“She used to work as a shop assistant. She had colorful hair; they drew attention to her. They came with searches to her home, found a rainbow flag, and also threw her into the basement, where there were another 15 people. Then they lined them up and shot them at random. Only four survived.”
Human rights advocates are advising all LGBTQ+ Ukrainians — in particular activists who have a history of advocacy in conflict with Russia’s 2023 Supreme Court ruling declaring the LGBTQ+ community a “terrorist organization” — to leave the occupied territories, where protection under Ukrainian law no longer applies.
According to NGO Prozhektor, at least 50 people who’ve left the occupied territories have endured torture and violence due to their LGBTQ+ identity.
Seven victims have filed statements; thirteen are witnesses to other crimes.
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