Even as the number of youths who identify as LGBTQ rises, so has the number of state-level bills seeking to curtail their rights, a new analysis finds.
The number of bills aimed at rolling back or prohibiting in-school protections and health care access has tripled from 77 in 2020 to some 300 a year in 2023, 2024 and 2025, according to the Movement Advancement Project.
The drumbeat of legislation, report the researchers, has taken a steep toll on the mental health of the students in the crosshairs — regardless of where they live. When the dramatic escalation in legislation started in 2023, 90% of LGBTQ people ages 13 to 24 said politics had a negative impact on their well-being — up from 71% in 2022.
Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter
Policies enabling in-school support are particularly important to LGBTQ youth. Slightly more than half say they are accepted by peers or teachers at school, compared with 40% who are supported at home. The presence of even one supportive educator in a child’s life has long been shown to reduce rates of suicidality, anxiety and depression.
The number of young people impacted has risen sharply in recent years, though estimates vary depending on how data is tabulated. According to a recent Gallup survey, almost 2 million — or 9.5% — of teens ages 13 to 17 now identify as something other than straight or cisgender. That’s nearly twice as many as in 2020.
The project tracks state LGBTQ and elections policies using interactive maps featuring detailed information that is continually updated. For the new report, researchers tallied the number of states that enacted one or more of 16 types of laws commonly proposed in statehouses since 2020 — nine restrictive and seven protective — throughout the country.
They then combined that information with demographic data and surveys of LGBTQ young people’s well-being from a number of advocacy organizations. The top takeaway: Whether a student attends a school where teachers are able to talk about LGBTQ history, enforce anti-harassment rules, maintain confidences about a child’s identity and allow gender-nonconforming youth to play sports depends on where they live.
Nearly half of queer youth live in one of 27 states that have enacted one or more restrictions on their rights, ranging from bathroom bans to laws prohibiting schools from enacting anti-bullying policies. Thirty-eight percent live in the South, 24% in the West, 21% in the Midwest and 17% in the Northeast.
Of the nine negative state laws the researchers looked at, seven involve schools. The other two are bans on medical care for transgender youth and laws exempting providers of child welfare services, such as foster care, from nondiscrimination rules on religious grounds.
Tennessee has adopted eight, Arkansas, Montana and Idaho enacted seven each, and six other states imposed six or more new restrictions. Three-fourths of Southern states and two-thirds of the Midwest ban trans youth sports participation and medical care, while a third or fewer do in the West and Northeast.
While several states have adopted new, protective laws since 2020, MAP estimates that 6 in 10 LGBTQ youth live in places where there is no legal guarantee of support.
In 2023, 2 in 5 LGBTQ young people and their families said they had considered moving because of politics in their home state. Just 4% actually had — but if that rate is an accurate reflection of all affected families, at least 266,000 people have likely relocated, the researchers estimate.
Survey: More Than Half of LGBTQ Florida Parents Are Thinking About Moving
According to a survey released earlier this year by The Trevor Project, 25% of cisgender queer youth and their families and 45% of trans families have considered moving to a state with more protective laws. Seven in 10 families with a transgender member living in states with restrictive laws have thought about relocating, while 12% have crossed state lines for medical care.
Along with its state policy tally, the project released a second paper summarizing information gathered by half a dozen LGBTQ advocacy groups about the impact the recent political climate has had on queer young people. The data echoes the 2023 findings of a 74 investigation that found harassment, victimization and discrimination have spiked in blue states as well as red.
Recent surveys by The Trevor Project and GLSEN, which advocate for protective school policies, found there is no state where fewer than 93% of LGBTQ students reported hearing slurs in school in 2023. Nationwide, 83% were harassed, 54% were sexually harassed and more than 12% assaulted.
Research has long established that a hostile school climate translates to absenteeism, lower grade-point averages and graduation rates, and dramatically higher discipline rates, depression and stress — all of which can impact a student’s life trajectory.
Data Show LGBTQ Students Report Bullying and Attacks from Kids — and Teachers
The number of young people impacted has swelled, a change the report attributes in part to generational shifts. While 3% of Baby Boomers and 5% of Gen X identify as LGBTQ, a 2025 Gallup survey found the rate is 14% among Millennials and 23% for Gen Z.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the number of high school students ages 13 to 17 who identify as LGBTQ rose from 11% in 2015 to 26% in 2023.
Some of the sharp increase can be attributed to changes in how data is collected and categorized; to people realizing at younger ages they are not straight or cisgender; and to internet access to queer communities. But much of the rise can be attributed to the number of young people who identify as bisexual and/or nonbinary.
The number of transgender people of all ages, for example, has hovered around half a percent for the last decade, according to the University of California, Los Angeles’ Williams Institute. Meanwhile, Gallup found 59% of LGBTQ people in Gen Z, defined as those born between 1997 and 2006, are bisexual, and 76% of nonbinary adults are under age 29.