Equality Maps
Forecasting Equality: Expected Changes to LGBTQ Legislation in 2025
Political attacks on LGBTQ people, and especially transgender people, are at an all-time high in state legislatures. The Trump administration has made many promises or threats to escalate these attacks to the federal level. This forecast takes stock of recent years in anti-LGBTQ legislation and suggests what may lie ahead in 2025.
Potential Federal Policy Changes
In addition to this week’s executive orders, Trump has made many statements in recent months signaling his intent to target LGBTQ and especially transgender people while in office.
Importantly, however, many executive actions alone cannot single-handedly or immediately change federal law. Rather, these actions would initiate a series of steps or processes that, by law, must be followed before going into effect.
For example, an executive order to restrict federal funding for gender-affirming health care would likely initiate new proposed agency or administrative rules that would first need to be drafted and developed; then put forth for public comment, allowing people across the country an opportunity to respond; then the agency would be required to review these comments; and only then issue final rules. Additionally, lawsuits and other challenges may slow the process before a given executive action actually becomes an enforceable policy.
That said, here are some of the ways the new administration may attempt (or have already initiated) to restrict LGBTQ rights:
- Executive order to regulate gender
- Executive order rescinding protections for transgender military members
- Potential legislation or other actions to ban best-practice medical care for transgender people
- Legislation banning transgender students from playing school sports
- and more
As discussed above, there are time-intensive processes required for both legislation and executive action before these proposed policies would go into effect. Each step of these processes is an opportunity for LGBTQ people and our allies to fight and potentially stop these attacks.
Potential State Level Policy Changes
Since 2020, there has been a dramatic escalation in state legislative attacks on LGBTQ people, across virtually every aspect of life from healthcare and school settings to identity documents, access to public spaces, and much more. For a review of developments in 2024 alone, see our recent year-end wrap-up here.
While there are many types of bills attacking the rights of LGBTQ people, four key areas have seen especially rapid movement in recent years:
- bans on best-practice medical care for transgender youth,
- bans on transgender youth’s participation in school sports,
- bans on transgender people’s ability to use restrooms according to their gender identity, and
- broader gender regulation bills (sometimes called sex definition bills).
As shown below, more than half of states (27) have enacted at least one of these four key anti-LGBTQ policies since 2020 — and virtually all of those states have enacted more than one.
Given the level of attention on these four key issues in recent years, states that have enacted some, but not all four policies will likely continue to focus on these. For example, states with a medical care ban that do not currently have a bathroom ban will likely target bathroom-related legislation.
The seven states that have already enacted all four of these key policies will likely focus their 2025 efforts on expanding their existing bans (e.g., expanding the grade levels that a transgender sports ban applies to) or on new legislative attacks (e.g., bans on public funding of gender affirming healthcare, as discussed below).
It is important to note that any state can introduce these new anti-LGBTQ bills and/or revisit existing bad laws (like expanding a sports ban) — but this general analysis sheds light on where such efforts may be especially likely.
Policies to Watch
Restroom bans
All the existing bans apply to government-owned spaces, such as public schools or government buildings, though they vary in terms of which government-owned spaces they cover. Only two states — Florida and Ohio — have bans that apply to some select privately-owned bathroom settings, though importantly these are limited provisions that do not apply broadly (e.g., to private businesses).
In 2025, expect more states to consider new bathroom bans; to potentially expand the scope of existing bans in government-owned spaces; and to consider more bills that would apply to private spaces.
Gender regulation
Gender regulation bills — sometimes referred to as sex definition bills — are a new type of legislative attack on LGBTQ people, with the first such bill only becoming law in 2023. Now, 10 states have policies on the books attempting to regulate gender by re-defining “sex” throughout the entirety of state law, and one of the first actions of the Trump administration was to issue a similar attack at the federal level.
Using definitions of “sex” that reduce people to their biological parts and, in some cases, their ability to reproduce, these bills attempt to green-light state-approved discrimination against transgender people throughout all state law.
In 2024, the gender regulation bills that became law were more likely (compared to gender regulation bills that failed) to be combination bills — bills that had multiple components, such as gender regulation and a bathroom ban, or gender regulation and identity documents restrictions (discussed further below), rather than standalone gender regulation bills.
In 2025, expect many more of these gender regulation bills, and especially in combination with other anti-transgender attacks.
Attacks on — and protections for — best-practice medical care for transgender people
Today, 26 states have banned best-practice medical care for transgender youth, and these attacks continue to escalate — including impacting transgender adults’ access to care.
Expect 2025 to bring bills revisiting and expanding states’ existing bans, such as deleting existing exceptions (e.g., deleting grandfather clauses that allow transgender youth who were receiving medication before the ban to continue to receive their prescription); adding new and potentially criminal penalties; adding attempted restrictions on Telehealth, traveling to receive this care, or otherwise “aiding and abetting”; and more. In particular, we expect to see increased efforts to restrict care for transgender adults, similar to attempts already seen in Florida, Ohio, and Missouri.
While these attacks continue to escalate, it’s also important to remember that 16 states and the District of Columbia have also enacted healthcare “shield” laws, protecting access to best-practice medical care for both transgender people and their medical providers.
This year, expect more states to consider such bills and for states that already have these shield laws to revisit them for expanded protections (e.g., for healthcare data privacy and protections) in the face of escalating attacks at both the state (e.g., here) and now federal levels.
Bans on public funding of medical care for transgender people
Public funding will be a primary tactic used to attack transgender adults’ access to best-practice medical care. This is part of a continuing trend (e.g., see Figure 8 in our report here) in bills attacking transgender medical care in general.
In 2025, expect a spike in bills specifically banning public funds from being used toward gender-affirming healthcare (including for adults), whether in specific areas like a state’s Medicaid program or in prison settings, or for all public funding across the board.
Depending on how a given bill is written, public funding bans might also affect transgender people’s access to care even if they themselves do not use public-funded health insurance. For example, a bill might prohibit any medical provider that receives public dollars from providing gender-affirming healthcare, even if the public dollars are not used for that healthcare — in which case that provider may no longer be able to provide gender-affirming services even to individuals with private insurance.
Importantly, however, many public funding bans in different states or settings (e.g., Medicaid or state employee health plans) have been found unconstitutional by various courts over the years, and these bans would similarly be fought if enacted into law.
Focus on transgender people in prison settings
Building on the focus on public funding for transgender medical care, 2025 will also bring added attention to prison settings, given that they are often funded through public dollars.
Expect a spike in the number of bills explicitly targeting gender-affirming healthcare for prisoners, as well as bathroom bans in prison settings and similar policies forcing transgender prisoners to be housed according to their sex assigned at birth.
Identity documents
Having accurate and consistent identity documents that reflect a person’s gender identity helps transgender people stay safe and minimizes their risk of harassment, discrimination, and even violence. However, many states have targeted identity document policies in recent years, as part of this broader and coordinated attack on LGBTQ people’s lives. Some of the most egregious attacks on identity document policies in the last few years have been accomplished through virtually overnight agency policy changes with no opportunity for public comment.
We expect more of the same in 2025, in addition to more state legislation explicitly banning or restricting the ability of transgender people to update the gender marker on their driver’s license or birth certificate.
Sports ban expansions
Twenty-seven states already have bans on transgender youth’s ability to participate in school sports according to their gender identity, though they vary in what school grades they apply to.
Expect states that already have these bans to revisit them for potential expansion, such as applying to more grades (e.g., expanding an existing K-12 ban to also include college sports) or to other settings like private schools.
Protections for marriage and family formation
For many LGBTQ+ families, recent years have revived concerns about the safety of our marriages and parental rights. In 2024, advocates advanced a number of key laws and policies that proactively protect the rights of same-sex couples, LGBTQ+ parents, and their children.
Expect additional states to continue these efforts, such as repealing outdated and unconstitutional bans on marriage equality, or modernizing parenting laws to protect and recognize many different ways of family formation.
States to Watch
Georgia
Georgia is the last remaining state in the South without a ban on transgender youth’s participation in school sports, and politicians there have already signaled this will be a top priority. In fact, Senate Bill 1 — presumably the state’s most important priority — a proposed sports ban, has already been filed.
Texas
The state legislature in Texas only meets in odd-numbered years, and so years that Texas is in session typically see a very high volume of anti-LGBTQ bills. This is already holding true in 2025, with Texas leading the way across the country with over 40 anti-LGBTQ bills already filed.
Idaho and North Dakota
Both states have already enacted all four of the key policies described above, and both states have been key sites in recent years for unusual or especially extreme policy proposals.
Idaho, for example, was the very first state in the country to enact a transgender sports ban, and North Dakota was the second state in the country to enact a gender regulation ban. In 2025, expect both states to signal where anti-LGBTQ extremists may be focusing next — and indeed, both states have already pre-filed new resolutions calling again for the Supreme Court to overturn marriage equality.
Colorado
Colorado advocates have secured multiple wins in recent years, from repealing the state’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage to enacting a transgender healthcare shield law and more. In 2025, expect continued focus on repealing the state’s remaining legislative ban on marriage equality, as well as further protections for transgender healthcare and data privacy in the face of escalating attacks nationwide.
Maryland
Advocates in Maryland have been working for years to repeal the state’s HIV criminalization law, and this year will be no different. Expect additional work on expanding the state’s parenting protections and more.
▸▸ Learn more
- Visit MAP’s website to view all of our resources about policies affecting LGBTQ people in the U.S.
- Read MAP’s 2025 forecast for voting and election-related policies.
- View the Equality Maps to see each of the 50+ policies we track.
- Follow MAP’s socials on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Bluesky to stay connected as we release new research and analysis.
