Equality Caucus report documents GOP’s anti-LGBTQ attacks in 2023

The Congressional Equality Caucus on Monday released a 36-page report titled “Obsessed: House Republicans’ Relentless Attacks Against the LGBTQI+ Community in 2023,” which meticulously documents a year of anti-LGBTQ legislative activity in the lower chamber.

Trends detailed in the report map onto those seen in legislatures across the country. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, a total of 510 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced last year, 84 of which were ultimately signed into law.

The caucus noted measures targeting the community that were proposed last year are likely to see movement in 2024. And just two days shy of six weeks into the new year, the ACLU is tracking 411 new anti-LGBTQ bills.

“When Republicans took control of the House of Representatives last year, we saw an
avalanche of attacks against the LGBTQI+ community,” U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), who chairs the caucus, said. “In one year, they forced more than 50 anti-LGBTQI+ votes on the House floor.”

“The cruelty is the point,” he said. “You expect bullies in school, but yet there are bullies walking around the halls of Congress. These elected officials target LGBTQI+ youth, especially
trans youth, because it helps increase their clout with a small slice of their base.”

The congressman highlighted efforts by his Republican colleagues to prohibit transgender women and girls from participating on women’s and girls’ sports teams and to ban medically necessary healthcare interventions for trans Americans.

Pocan added, “Not only have they passed numerous amendments to restrict access to medically necessary care, but 46 Republicans have signed on to a Marjorie Taylor Greene bill to throw doctors and parents in jail for providing evidence based care to transgender youth.”

Along with the more than 50 votes on anti-LGBTQ measures that House Republicans took to the floor of the chamber, the caucus’s report notes that GOP members filed more than 95 anti-LGBTQ amendments, introduced more than 55 anti-LGBTQ bills.

During more than 40 committee hearings, these lawmakers and the witnesses they brought made disparaging comments about LGBTQ people, according to the caucus.

Last year, House Republicans used their majority to pass legislation like House Resolution 5 and House Resolution 734 — which, respectively, “require schools that take steps to respect a student’s gender identity to forcibly out those transgender youth to their parents” and “ban all trans girls and trans women — as young as kindergarten — from participating on school sports teams.”

The bills were destined to fail in the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate, and President Joe Biden vowed never to sign them. Still, advocacy groups warn the introduction of policies targeting LGBTQ people, along with the rhetoric in legislatures where they are debated, heightens the risk of depression, anxiety, self harm behaviors and suicide, particularly among queer youth.

With respect to gender affirming care — which is supported by every mainstream scientific and medical society in the U.S. — House Republicans were focused on restricting access for both youth and adults, the caucus’ report notes.

Additionally, nearly every appropriations bill introduced by Republican members in 2023 contained language permitting discrimination against LGBTQ people, the caucus said. “These provisions create a license for people and organizations, especially those receiving taxpayer funds, to discriminate against LGBTQI+ people by preventing the federal government from adequately responding.”

Among the other details contained in the caucus’s report are:

• How GOP members hijacked funding bills that have traditionally passed with wide bipartisan margins to demand anti-LGBTQ provisions, despite the near certainty that they would be rejected by the Senate and by President Biden
• How House Republicans stripped funding from three community-based projects because they supported LGBTQ centers
• How GOP members are trying to exclude children’s hospitals that provided gender affirming care for patients younger than 18 from eligibility for funding under the Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education program, which trains medical residents and fellows
• The extreme anti-LGBTQ career of the Republican House Speaker U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson (La.)
• A breakdown of bills targeting the LGBTQ community, those with anti-LGBTQ provisions, and votes on various amendments on matters including anti-discrimination protections, use of the “Holman rule to reduce the salary of federal employees due to their LGBTQI+ status or because of their support of LGBTQI+ rights,” and HIV/AIDS funding
• Examples of hearings in which Republicans and their witnesses made anti-LGBTQI+ remarks or asked questions motivated by opposition to LGBTQI+ policies and equality