More than 90 percent of transgender teens live in states that have proposed or passed anti-trans laws: report

Over 90 percent of transgender teens live in states that have proposed or passed anti-transgender laws, according to a new report.

The report from the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that 93 percent of transgender teens from the ages of 13 to 17 live in states where there are laws or proposed laws “banning access to gender-affirming care, participation in sports, use of bathrooms and other sex-separated facilities, or affirmation of gender through pronoun use.” 

“For the second straight year, hundreds of bills impacting transgender youth were introduced in state legislatures,” Elana Redfield, federal policy director at the Williams Institute and the lead author of the report said in a press release. “The diverging legal landscape has created a deep divide in the rights and protections for transgender youth and their families across the country.”

The report also found that about 85 percent of transgender teens in the South and 40 percent of transgender teens in the Midwest lived in states with at least one of the previously mentioned anti-transgender laws. The report defined transgender teens as those between the ages of 13 and 17.

On Friday, the Biden administration unveiled a final set of changes to Title IX that add protections for transgender students to the federal civil rights law on sex-based discrimination. The changes will take effect in early August.

“These final regulations build on the legacy of Title IX by clarifying that all our nation’s students can access schools that are safe, welcoming, and respect their rights,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement.

The new regulations could possibly prevent people from going along with laws like those preventing individuals from using facilities aligned with their gender identity, according to a senior administration official.