Date of Award

5-2025

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Departmental Honors

Department

Political Science

Abstract

Starting in 2015, anti-transgender bills have been introduced in state legislatures in exponentially increasing numbers, with a sharp uptick in 2020 and numbers that nearly doubled every year since then. These bills concern a wide variety of issues, from sports participation for transgender adolescents to drag bans to restrictions on bathroom usage. This paper finds that only a small percentage of the bills are passed into law, indicating that passing laws is less important to legislators than introducing bills. Given these intentions, this paper seeks to analyze the demographic makeup of chambers that introduce and pass these bills to understand who is supporting these bills and whether descriptive representation has a positive effect on transgender policy priorities. The results indicate that in tightly controlled chambers, more LGBTQ+ legislators indicate more anti-transgender legislation. Additionally, in Republican controlled chambers, having more women indicates a higher percentage of anti-transgender legislation. These findings have important implications for the causes of anti-transgender legislation and the effects of descriptive representation.

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Faculty Mentor

Josh Ryan

Departmental Honors Advisor

Greg Goelzhauser