20/09/2024
Nico Lang writing for the website News is Out says that there is cautious optimism in US Republican states that the high tide of anti-LGBTQIA+ legislative proposals has peaked, and that electors are more interested in issues of social welfare, safety and infrastructure. Nico writes "As anti-LGBTQ+ candidates come up short at the ballot box, their queer opponents are continuing to fare well. At least 238 LGBTQ+ hopefuls won office in 2023, the largest-ever field in a year without a presidential election or midterm races. Those wins include a record number of LGBTQ+ state lawmakers in Virginia, where Danica Roem became just the second trans state senator in U.S. history. In this year’s Texas Democratic primaries, Lauren Ashley Simmons, a queer progressive, crushed incumbent state House Rep. Shawn Thierry, a Democrat who broke with her party to vote in favor of a medical ban for trans youth in 2023. Simmons won by 29 points." Cathryn Oakley, the Human Rights Campaign's senior director of legal policy, says "“It’s not that they haven’t continued to try ... The Right Wing continued to introduce anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, but there’s a diminished appetite for it. These pieces of legislation that have been put forward by powerful anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups who have been convincing legislators that this is a winning issue. Legislators are starting to see that that’s just not true.”
