Johnathan Gooch did a lot of wishful thinking throughout this legislative session. Most recently, he’s been wishing for soundproof walls. 

“The worst thing about being queer in Texas right now is having neighbors, because I just want to scream all the time,” said Gooch, the communications director for Equality Texas, an LGBTQ+ rights advocacy group.  

This session, the group identified and tracked over 200 anti-LGTBQ+ bills, more than any other state in any point in history, Gooch said. A dozen of those bills were ultimately passed by the Legislature and have made it to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk or already been signed into law. Those various bills could threaten to negatively impact queer Texans with restrictions targeting public schools and healthcare and new legal standards that could create unsafe environments for LGBTQ+ people, particularly children. 

Though the deluge of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation isn’t anything new (in 2023, legislators filed 160 such bills), Gooch said that this session, the bills that gained the most traction tended to seem less overtly harmful. “[The harmful provisions are] sometimes buried in other bills or deal with complicated policy areas that might not be immediately evident to queer people or allies across the state who are concerned about what’s going on,” Gooch said. 

One such bill is Senate Bill 1257, which will require insurance providers to cover any adverse consequences relating to gender-affirming healthcare, including procedures to reverse or recover from a gender transition. These procedures are uncommon: According to a 2021 study, about 1 percent of trans people regret gender-affirming surgeries. The bill may cause risk-averse health insurers to stop covering gender-affirming healthcare, Gooch said, making it more difficult for adults to access or afford. Abbott signed SB 1257 into law on May 24 and it will go into effect on September 1. This bill follows the state’s 2023 ban on gender-affirming care for minors. 

Other bills, like House Bill 1106, enact seemingly innocuous changes in legal language that could have devastating impacts. HB 1106 amends the Texas family code’s definition of child abuse to explicitly exclude a parent who refuses to affirm a child’s gender identify or sexual orientation. “This exception, unfortunately, could enable a lot of harmful behavior,” Gooch said. “There’s a long history of using a variety of violent, physically abusive tactics to ‘reform’ young queer people. … If a parent is so aggressively opposed to their child’s orientation or gender identity … where is the limit? What are they allowed to do to force them not to be queer?”

Senate Bill 412, which the governor signed on May 19, similarly tweaks language, removing a legal protection that previously exempted parents, teachers, and librarians from prosecution for providing kids with material that could be considered “harmful” if it was done with an educational intent. 

Emily Witt, a communications strategist for the Texas Freedom Network, said bills that put more power in the hands of parents are part of a larger project of “weaponizing parental rights.”

“Parents love their kids and want what’s best for their kids, and if they’re being told that there is this harmful agenda, or that there is something wrong with their kid being trans or LGBTQ+ … I think that parents are a lot more likely to go along with that.” 

This weaponization extends into schools, particularly with Senate Bill 12 and Senate Bill 13, two of Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick’s priority bills. Witt said going after public schools is the first way to change the overall mindset of a population. “It has to do with how foundational our schools are,” Witt said. “Making our public schools places where kids can’t be fully accepted or don’t feel like they can talk to their teachers or be who they are is just another piece of how Republicans are attacking our public education system and changing it from what it’s supposed to do, which is serve our kids.” 

Senate Bill 12, dubbed the “parental bill of rights,” would prohibit teachers from teaching LGBTQ+ topics and from helping students “socially transition” by using a name or pronouns that don’t align with their biological sex. The final version, which passed over the weekend, also clarifies that school districts may not authorize or sponsor clubs based on sexual orientation or gender identity. It also allows parents to have access to their child’s mental health records, which Gooch of Equality Texas said could pose serious risks to queer children. 

“If a young queer person fears that their parents might not be affirming, they need an outlet to process that,” Gooch said. “Having access to counselors at school can be a lifeline to young queer people who are trying to make sense of how they fit in the world and also trying to maintain a healthy relationship with their parents.” 

SB 13 would allow parents to access student library records and prevent their children from checking out certain books. It would also establish procedures to remove books with “indecent or profane” content. According to PEN America, of the most commonly banned books in the 2023-2024 school year, 39 percent featured LGBTQ+ people and characters. SB 13 was approved by both chambers over the weekend. 

House Bill 229, one of several proposed bills seeking to classify people along binary definitions of biological sex, would codify the terms “male” and “female” and require government agencies to abide by these definitions in sex-based data collection. Witt said this bill could pose problems for trans Texans whose gender identity does not align with their biological sex and intersex Texans who do not fit into binary definitions of biological sex. “That’s just another way that we’re seeing lawmakers try to erase Texans and try to really attack freedoms,” Witt said. “They’re trying to control every aspect of trans and queer Texans’ lives. This kind of legislation really just feels like a way to push people out of the state and make them feel like they don’t belong here.” 

Senate Bill 1188 similarly relies on the idea of biological sex, requiring health agencies to create a new field in medical records for sex assigned at birth. It doesn’t, however, prohibit health agencies from including gender identity information. 

Still, the majority of anti-LGBTQ+ bills died during the legislative process, including Senate Bill 18, one of Patrick’s priorities, which made it to the House calendar but didn’t get a reading before the May 27 deadline. SB 18 would have prohibited public libraries from hosting “drag queen storytime” events, and Senate Bill 2920, which would have classified gender-affirming hormone treatment as prohibited steroid use for athletic competitions in the University Interscholastic League, met the same fate. 

Though not much about the session surprised Witt—she said the amount of anti-LGBTQ+ bills was to be expected—she said lawmakers seemed less interested in listening to the testimony of Texans during hearings. “I think they are aware that they’re wasting time attacking a small community instead of passing meaningful legislation that actually affects most Texans,” Witt said. “They just think that they’re in charge and they don’t have to listen to the public anymore, and I think that they’re going to see that that’s a big mistake when it comes election time.” 

Despite the onslaught of bad bills, Texans continued to show up, even at the end of the session: Witt said over 100 people came to a “read-in” protest of SB 13 over Memorial Day weekend. 

“This is a minority of people who are extremists and have been given millions of dollars to push forth this anti-trans legislation, but they don’t actually reflect Texas,” Witt said. “We still have so many people who are willing to show up for each other and keep each other safe, and I saw that throughout the entire session.”