The State of Trans Healthcare in 2025
This post originally appeared on A4TE’s blog, which can be viewed here.
As we enter into a new year, with a new Congress and new legislative sessions in states across the country, MAP is collaborating with the Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE) to ensure that our community has the information and resources that we need.
Sadly, transgender healthcare has been attacked by anti-trans extremists across the nation, from state capitols to Congress. Since late 2024, we saw lawmakers pre-file 120 anti-trans bills — an alarming increase from the 80 anti-trans bills introduced last year.
We’re pushing back against this fearmongering over trans healthcare, which is just one part of the backlash against the extraordinary progress that our LGBTQI+ community has made over the last few decades.
It’s clear that anti-trans lawmakers are reacting to our community’s progress by attacking trans people’s basic needs and sending a dangerous message about who is supposedly allowed to exist safely in society.
It’s important to know that these attacks on our healthcare are rooted in misinformation and misunderstanding of the reality of trans people’s lives. Everyone deserves to pursue the care that is right for them, and this healthcare has been studied by experts for decades. The healthcare that helps trans people live more fully and joyfully in their bodies is both safe and effective. Most importantly, these decisions are deeply personal, and they belong with trans people and our doctors — not politicians.
The following resources detail the bans and other efforts to limit our healthcare that affect the lives of transgender Americans in states across the country. The team at the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) updates these maps in real time, and we hope this can serve as a helpful resource to our partners and advocates across the nation who are working to protect our community.
Check out these resources and share them widely:
- “Shield” Laws
This Equality Map tracks the growing number of states that have enacted “shield” or “refuge” laws in response to attacks on crucial medical care for both transgender youth and adults. These laws aim to protect transgender people, their families, and their medical providers against these attacks and to protect access to transgender-related health care. If a person travels from a state where transgender healthcare is banned and gets that care in another state, a “shield” law can protect the recipient and/or provider of that healthcare against civil or criminal charges from the state where healthcare is banned.
- Bans on Medical Care for Transgender Youth
This Equality Map tracks the current landscape of bans on essential medical care for transgender youth. These bans represent one of the most extreme and coordinated political attacks on transgender people in recent years. To date, there are bans on care in 26 states, which are home to 40% of transgender youth aged 13–17 in the United States.
- Bans on Insurance Exclusions of Transgender-Related Health Care
This set of Equality Maps details laws and policies related to health insurance covering transgender-related health care. The first map displays both inclusive policies prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity for private insurers, as well as states that permit such exclusions. The second map reflects state laws or administrative policies which explicitly include, explicitly exclude, or have no clear policy covering transition-related or gender-affirming care for transgender people who are state employees as part of their state employee health benefits.
- LGBTQ Policy Spotlight: Bans on Medical Care for Transgender People
This April 2023 report provides a comprehensive look to date at the sweeping attempts to ban and restrict medical care for not only transgender youth — but also transgender adults. MAP analyzed the more than 250 bills introduced in recent years that attack access to medical care for transgender people. MAP’s analysis illustrates the extent of how recent bills targeting medically necessary care for transgender people are expanding and becoming more extreme. We saw continued anti-trans legislation throughout 2024, but this 2023 report shows how quickly these attacks escalated.
