One of the most high-profile anti-LGBTQ+ bills passed by the Texas Legislature in 2025 was SB 12, the “bathroom bill,” which bans transgender people from using public restrooms matching their gender identity.
CAROLINE SAVOIE | East Texas Staff Writer
CaroSavo@StoryDustSearch.com
Texas lawmakers passed seven anti-LGBTQ+ bills that Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law during the 2025 legislative session, marking one of the most significant expansions of state-level restrictions targeting LGBTQ+ people in recent years.
The seven laws reshape policies governing schools, health care, state records and public facilities, with most of them written to target transgender Texans. Civil rights advocates say the legislation reflects Texas’ growing role as a testing ground for policies that may later spread to other states.
Shelly Skeen is the Southwest Region director for Lambda Legal, a national human rights nonprofit that is challenging some of these new laws in court. She noted that these discriminatory laws affect everyone: “When you restrict anyone’s civil rights, you restrict everyone’s civil rights,” Skeen said.
Texas as an incubator for model legislation
Still, seven bills ultimately became law.
Skeen said Texas legislators increasingly rely on model legislation promoted by national conservative legal organizations, positioning the state as an “incubator” for policies that often reappear in other legislatures.
National data show a sharp rise in such proposals, according to Lambda Legal’s reported statistics. In 2022, 267 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced nationwide, with 27 becoming law. In 2023, that number nearly doubled to 510 bills, 84 of which passed.
Lawmakers proposed at least 538 bills in 2024, with 45 enacted. By 2025, the total climbed to 616 anti-LGBTQ+ bills proposed nationwide, with 61 signed into law.
“Our work is year-round,” Skeen said. “We meet with legislators, explain how these bills actually play out in people’s lives and help them ask the right questions of their colleagues.
“Oftentimes,’” she added, “that’s enough to stop a bill. But sometimes, it isn’t.”
The seven anti-LGBTQ+ bills now law in Texas
SB 1257: Health insurance and detransition-related coverage
Senate Bill 1257 requires health plans that cover gender-affirming care to also cover what the law describes as adverse consequences and costs associated with detransitioning.
Opponents argue the bill’s language is medically vague and could discourage providers from offering care altogether.
“Insurance companies are now required to cover complications in perpetuity, when that isn’t the case with other procedures,” Skeen said. “The language is purposefully vague to discourage medical professionals from providing gender-affirming care that their patients need.”
HB 1106: Parental refusal and family code changes
House Bill 1106 changed the definition of abuse or neglect in the Texas Family Code, removing a parent’s refusal to support a child’s LGBTQ+ identity or gender expression from the code.
Advocates say the law could make it harder for queer and transgender youth to seek protection or intervention in unsafe home environments, which could lead even more LGBTQ+ youth into homelessness.
SB 1188: Medical records and sex designation
Senate Bill 1188 requires electronic health records to include a designation for “biological sex at birth,” enforcing binary sex classifications across state health systems regardless of a person’s gender identity or legal documents.
Critics say the requirement will increase administrative burdens for providers and increase risks around both privacy and discrimination for transgender and intersex patients.
“For all state records, if sex appears on them, it has to be sex assigned at birth,” Skeen said.
“That doesn’t account for intersex people, who are about 1.9 percent of the population, which is the same percentage as people with red hair.”
HB 229: State definition of sex
House Bill 229 codifies a definition of sex rooted in reproductive biology. Civil rights groups say the law erases transgender, gender-expansive and intersex people from state recognition.
While Skeen acknowledged that the bill still allows for name changes, it stops people from having a biomarker and name that match their gender, which can affect a person’s placement in public services, increase discrimination in policing, create misalignment between official documents and affect eligibility for certain programs.
SB 12: School restrictions and social transition
Senate Bill 12 prohibits teachers and school staff from assisting students with “social transitioning,” including honoring a student’s chosen name or pronouns. The law also restricts LGBTQ+-related student groups and expands curriculum censorship.
“If a child comes out to a teacher, that teacher may now be required to tell parents,” Skeen said. “That has serious safety implications.”
Civil liberties groups, including the ACLU of Texas, have filed legal challenges arguing the law violates students’ First Amendment and privacy rights. Skeen also said the bill may have a chilling effect, prompting educators to self-censor out of fear of penalties.
HB 18: Mental health care and parental consent
House Bill 18 was originally billed as a measure to expand access to health care in rural Texas through grants, telehealth expansion and infrastructure support for rural hospitals. But lawmakers added an amendment invalidating parental consent for minors to receive gender-affirming mental health services through state-funded programs.
The final law prohibits funded providers from offering mental health care that affirms a child’s gender identity if it differs from the child’s biological sex.
Because significant funding and infrastructure assistance are tied to the bill, advocates warn rural providers may limit services to avoid risking noncompliance.
“This could worsen existing disparities in access to affirming care for youth in rural communities,” Equality Texas said in a policy analysis, warning the law may strain relationships between families and health care providers.
Supporters of the amendment argued the provision protects parental authority and prevents what they describe as “harmful therapeutic practices.”
SB 8: Public accommodations and facilities
Senate Bill 8 restricts access to multi-occupancy bathrooms, locker rooms, showers and sleeping quarters in buildings owned or operated by the state, political subdivisions and public universities.
The law authorizes enforcement by the attorney general and allows civil penalties exceeding $100,000 per violation. It also relies heavily on complaints from members of the public.
“How do you enforce this?” Skeen asked. “Trans men are now expected to use women’s restrooms. Schools, shelters, prisons and city buildings are all exposed to liability.”
Advocates say the law conflicts with existing federal workplace protections under Title VII and could deter tourism and relocation.
Bills that failed — and why it matters
Despite the seven new laws, dozens of high-profile proposals failed, including bills that would have banned gender-affirming care for adults, mandated forced outing in schools, restricted drag performances and expanded religious refusals in health care and public services.
Among them was House Bill 239, a bathroom ban that never received a hearing despite widespread support among House Republicans, and House Bill 3817, which would have created a felony offense for “gender identity fraud.”
Equality Texas credits coordinated opposition from advocacy coalitions, educators, parents and LGBTQ+ Texans who testified throughout the session.
“The fact that most of these bills failed matters,” Skeen said. “It shows that organizing works, but also it shows that we’re going to see many of these ideas surface again.”
Legal challenges underway
Several of the new laws are already facing court challenges.
Legal has multiple cases pending in Texas, including litigation involving parental rights, state investigations into families of transgender children and demands that could expose members of LGBTQ+ organizations to lawmakers.
In one case, Lambda Legal and allied groups secured an injunction blocking child welfare investigations tied to gender-affirming care, arguing the policy change bypassed required rulemaking procedures. Other lawsuits challenge efforts to compel disclosure of private organizational information.
“These cases will shape what enforcement actually looks like,” a Lambda Legal spokesperson said.
Community response and education
In response to the legislative session, the Transgender Education Network of Texas launched its “Texas Belongs to All of Us” tour, hosting free community teach-ins and creative workshops across the state.
The tour will stop in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, Denton and other cities through early 2026. Each event reviews bills that passed and failed, shares safety resources and offers space for community connection.
“This session was overwhelming for a lot of people,” TENT said in tour materials. “These spaces are about understanding what happened and taking care of each other moving forward.”