Washington, D.C. — With 2022 poised to see a record number of anti-LGBTQI+ state legislative attacks, a new column released today by the Center for American Progress urges the Senate to pass the Equality Act. The bill’s highly popular comprehensive nondiscrimination protections would provide a national solution to today’s patchwork of state laws and expand federal civil rights laws to ensure clear and consistent protections for all LGBTQI+ people.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, as of January 28, 2022, there were already approximately 120 anti-LGBTQI+ bills active in almost 30 states. The bills range from granting states a license to discriminate against LGBTQI+ people, to erasing LGBTQI+ people from education curricula, to denying transgender people access to health care. These proposals, which are rooted in anti-equality organizations’ hateful agendas, severely affect LGBTQI+ people’s well-being: A 2020 CAP and NORC at the University of Chicago survey found that more that 1 in 3 LGBTQI+ adults faced discrimination in the past year, including 2 in 5 LGBTQI+ people of color and more than 3 in 5 transgender individuals.
“It is unconscionable that state legislatures are seeking to create a country where one child has more rights than another simply because of who they are or where they live,” said Sharita Gruberg, vice president of CAP’s LGBTQI+ Research and Communications Project and co-author of the column. “The Senate must denounce this flood of dangerous state bills and pass the Equality Act in 2022.”
Click here to read: “The 2022 Legislative Landscape for LGBTQI+ Rights” by Sharita Gruberg and Caroline Medina
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