Trans Day of Visibility: Hope amid record-breaking targeting of rights

Three months into an already record-shattering year for legislation targeting the rights of transgender Americans, LGBTQ legal groups and community organizers are focusing on the road ahead, where they say they see successful court battles, repealed anti-LGBTQ laws and a better future in their sight line.

More than 430 state bills targeting the rights of LGBTQ people in the U.S. have been introduced this year in more than 40 state legislatures, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and more than 20 have become law.

More than 90 percent of the 315 proposed bills targeting the rights of LGBTQ people last year failed to become law, however, according to a January report by the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ advocacy group.

That’s in no small part because of grassroots organizing that has mobilized LGBTQ people and their allies to protest at state houses across the country this year and speak up during bill hearings, even when their testimonies fall on deaf ears.

“You show up because it shows just how many of us there are,” Allison Chapman, a 26-year-old LGBTQ activist and legislative researcher in Virginia, told The Hill this week in an interview. “It also signals to lawmakers that we’re not going to just stand by while this happens.”

“Any massive change has to be done from multiple angles,” Chapman said. “I think protesting is one of those angles.”

Chapman added that it has been uplifting to see young students protest laws that target transgender people in their state by walking out of class, often in coordination with students at other schools.

“The next generation is so bright and so loud,” she said. “They’re going to change everything.”

Legislation targeting transgender Americans has also been introduced at the federal level, and House Republicans this year have proposed bills that would bar transgender women and girls from competing on female sports teams and