Tennessee leads GOP charge on new laws restricting LGBTQ rights

As Republican lawmakers nationwide have pushed a historic wave of legislation targeting LGBTQ rights this year, Tennessee is in the vanguard of the movement after years of passing similar legislation and emerging as one of the most restrictive states in the nation on the issue.

This week, Tennessee was set to become the first state to enforce wide-ranging restrictions on drag performances while nearly a dozen other states consider similar bills, before a federal judge temporarily blocked the law.

Since 2015, Tennessee has enacted at least 13 laws that restrict LGBTQ rights — the most in the nation in that time frame, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from two groups that track such legislation. Georgia and Arkansas enacted at least nine similar laws in the same time frame, followed by Alabama with six laws.

This year has seen a particularly rapid acceleration in efforts by GOP-controlled legislatures across the country to pass bills targeting transgender rights, with more legislation introduced since January than in all of 2018-2022, according to a Post analysis of ACLU data.

This week alone, Kansas lawmakers overrode the Democratic governor’s veto to ban transgender women and girls from sports teams, North Dakota Republicans approved a package of eight bills that would severely restrict transgender residents and ban drag shows, and Idaho’s governor signed a ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender youth.

But even amid the current flurry of legislation, Tennessee stands out in the tempo and severity of its legislation. The state passed three separate transgender bathroom bills in recent years, with a one-of-a kind measure in 2021 that required businesses to hang warning signs outside restrooms if they allowed transgender patrons to use bathrooms different from their sex assigned at birth.

The Tennessee legislature’s GOP majority demonstrated its power and willingness to quash liberal resistance again this week when it voted to expel a Democratic lawmaker in the wake of his gun control protests after a mass killing at a Nashville school.

GOP legislators have broadly said the laws restricting LGBTQ rights are aimed to protect children, an argument they echoed when the drag show restrictions were passed and signed last month.

“I’ve seen videos of sexually graphic performances where children are present, and it is absolutely despicable,” state Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson said in a statement after the drag bill was signed. “This is a common-sense protection that provides clarity regarding what performances are not appropriate for children.”

Critics say Republicans are trying to push boundaries on an issue that they believe resonates with their base. The bills have also gained prominence and political traction as conservative activist groups and media figures have relocated to the state in recent years, keeping gay and trans rights as a top priority for lawmakers.

“It has become a social issues arms race for the GOP in Tennessee,” said Kent Syler, a political science professor at Middle Tennessee State University. “It’s a winning formula that has helped Republicans win primaries. So, they keep returning to it, which means they have to top what they did last session with something more extreme.”

Democrats and activists argue that the focus on restricting LGBTQ rights has distracted from more pressing issues and accuse top Republicans of hypocrisy. Gov. Bill Lee (R) faced pushback for signing the anti-drag bill after a high school yearbook photo emerged showing him in a cheerleader uniform and wig — an incident Lee said was not equivalent to the drag shows targeted by the bill. Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, meanwhile, apologized after using his Instagram account to make flirtatious comments on racy photos of men.

“The only wins with these bills are the political wins for a very small handful of people,” said state Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D). “It’s depressing and devastating. It weighs on you heavily when you can’t beat this stuff back.”

In a state where Republicans control the legislature and the governor’s mansion, though, opponents have had little success in resisting a movement that shows no sign of slowing down.

This year, 27 bills seeking to restrict LGBTQ rights were introduced in Tennessee — a historic high. Thus far, two have passed and seven are still alive in committees, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group that tracks these bills.

“This is the year that things came crashing down in Tennessee,” said Sarah Warbelow, legal director of the group. “We’ve seen a number of anti-LGBTQ bills in past years, but this year they were introduced earlier than ever, are more extreme and have grown in number.”

An escalating movement

Tennessee lawmakers and voters have long backed tight restrictions on LGBTQ rights.

The state passed an anti-sodomy law in 1829 that held until it was overturned in 1996. And in 2006, 81 percent of voters backed a same-sex marriage ban that had been approved by the legislature.

A new wave of measures targeting LGBTQ rights started about 15 years ago, according to lawmakers and lobbyists in the state.

“There are two things that really disrupted politics in Tennessee over the past decade-plus, and that was the election of Barack Obama and the Supreme Court’s ruling on Obergefell [v. Hodges], which sent shock waves through the state,” said Tom Lee, a longtime lobbyist in the state who represents the Tennessee Pride Chamber, referencing the 2015 ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationally. (Lee is not related to the governor.)

After the Obergefell ruling nullified Tennessee’s same-sex marriage ban, Republican legislators sought new ways to limit gay rights.

They passed bills the following year allowing mental health professionals, including school and substance abuse counselors, to turn down LGBTQ clients if it conflicts with their “sincerely held principles” or “religious beliefs” — even in cases where people are at risk of harming themselves or others. The bills came in response to the American Counseling Association’s 2014 update of its ethics code, which requires counselors nationwide to provide care regardless of a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation.

“The legislature said, ‘Not so fast,’” said Chris Sanders, executive director of the Tennessee Equality Project, an LGBTQ advocacy group. “‘No, you can indeed turn people away.’”

In the next six years, 10 other laws were enacted that affect gay and transgender rights. Those include the state’s bathroom bill and a law that allows child placement agencies, which contract with the state, to refuse in assisting with adoption or foster care placement with LGBTQ parents and guardians.

As GOP lawmakers nationwide have begun sponsoring hundreds of new measures in recent years to reduce protections for transgender or gay youth or to limit discussions of LGBTQ topics in public schools, that trend accelerated in Tennessee.

The 27 bills targeting LGBTQ rights introduced this year in Tennessee include the drag bill, which bans “adult cabaret performances” in public or in front of children and blocks the shows from within 1,000 feet of public parks, schools and places of worship. Lawmakers this year also passed a law prohibiting people under 18 from receiving any gender transitioning medical treatments, which is set to go into effect on July 1.

The new boom in bills targeting gay rights has been driven in part by conservative media outlets and far-right podcasters who have kept pressure on legislators to prioritize the issues.

Matt Walsh, a conservative pundit with 1.5 million Twitter followers and an influential podcast, moved to Tennessee in 2020. He’s organized a private screening of his anti-transgender rights film for GOP lawmakers and prompted the state’s attorney general to investigate Vanderbilt University’s transgender health clinic. Walsh, who didn’t respond to requests for comment, was invited by Republican lawmakers to testify before a legislative committee in January on the transgender health-care ban.

“Matt Walsh and other conservative commentators appear to be serving as consultants to the legislature about transgender care; people with no medical background,” said Kathy Sinback, executive director of the ACLU of Tennessee.

Walsh’s efforts echo those of other conservative media in the state, including recently founded outlets like the Tennessee Star and Tennessee Conservative and political advocacy group Tennessee Stands, whose executive director — Gary Humble — has played a notable role in pressing GOP lawmakers further right on culture war issues. In last year’s Republican primary, Humble came within about 800 votes of beating Johnson, a 16-year incumbent and leader of the senate. Johnson then moved this year to become a lead sponsor on the drag show and gender-affirming care bans.

“He has really pushed people to the fringes,” state Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D) said of Humble, who declined an interview request. “After Johnson nearly lost to him, he started sponsoring these bills. ... Leadership is now behind these bills. That wasn’t the case before.”

Johnson declined an interview request. Instead, his spokesperson emailed news releases issued after the governor signed the drag and transgender bills on March 2, which the senate leader lauded by saying, “In Tennessee we prioritize protecting children.”

Some lawmakers in hearings have also echoed the rhetoric of the state’s influential conservative pundits.

“Maybe there are children listening and you may not know, or you may not think you know what you are,” state Rep. Paul Sherrell (R) said at a legislative hearing last month about the transgender health-care ban. “Our preacher would say: ‘If you don’t know what you are, a boy or girl, male or female, just go in the bathroom and take your clothes off and look in the mirror. You’ll find out what you are.’”

Evangelical Christian organizations have also helped craft legislation, testified in favor of the bills and rallied their members to petition state lawmakers to support the measures. The Family Action Council of Tennessee, a conservative advocacy organization led by former state senator David Fowler, helped write at least two of the bills targeting gay rights that have become law in Tennessee since 2015, according to lawmakers, advocates and Fowler’s blog posts. He also successfully lobbied on many other laws restricting LGBTQ rights.

In 2017, Fowler helped write a bill that became law, which, according to LGBTQ advocates, keeps same-sex couples from having the same legal rights as straight couples in family court and other legal proceedings. After the bill passed, Fowler wrote in a blog post that the law was needed because judges are pushing a “gay agenda” in their decisions.

In 2021, Fowler lobbied and told media he provided “legal wordsmithing” for a law banning transgender student-athletes from playing on sports teams that don’t align with their sex assigned at birth. Last year, he worked with lawmakers on legislation to create a legal marriage recognition available only to straight couples, which did not pass.

A Pew Research Center study shows 52 percent of Tennesseans identify as evangelical Christians, while another Pew study found that evangelicals are second only to Jehovah’s Witnesses in their lack of support for LGBTQ rights.

Gerrymandering has helped keep conservatives in control of the legislature and has incentivized candidates to focus on conservative policy positions to win primaries, political observers said. Republicans have also taken aim this year at the city of Nashville, introducing bills and launching investigations that would diminish the power of the Democratically-controlled city government. These actions, which took place after the city voted last year against a proposal to host the 2024 Republican National Convention, include shrinking the size of its Metropolitan Council as well as efforts to change election laws in ways that could make it harder for Democrats to win mayoral elections.

Republicans have also passed a number of laws that make voting more difficult for groups traditionally inclined to vote Democratic, including Black and young Tennesseans, according to political scientists and the League of Women Voters of Tennessee. Debby Gould, president of the nonpartisan voting rights group, said a bundle of state laws have made it nearly impossible for ex-felons to vote, creating an outsize impact on Black Tennesseans. One in 12 people in Tennessee are former felons, and nearly half of them are Black, Gould said.

Democrats have also failed to advance bills allowing students attending public colleges to vote with their student IDs, which Republicans argue are not secure. State law, however, already allows faculty at public colleges to use their campus identification cards.

“They have created so many hurdles, especially for young people, who this type of discriminatory legislation is not aimed to attract,” said Clemmons. “Rather, it is aimed at a small population of older people who vote in these Republican primaries.”

As the Tennessee legislature approaches the end of this year’s session, which closes May 4, several bills targeting transgender rights are still viable, including a private school anti-trans sports ban and another that would allow teachers to refuse to refer to transgender or nonbinary students by their preferred pronouns.

But some activists say public pressure could stem further action. Last month, as a Senate committee considered a second, more restrictive anti-drag bill, a group of Nashville music stars held an LGBTQ rights benefit concert blocks from the capitol that drew more than 10,000 people.

As drag queens flooded the stage, billboard chart-topping artists like Sheryl Crow and Maren Morris embraced the performers and criticized the law. “I introduced my son to some drag queens today. So, Tennessee, f---ing arrest me,” Morris told the crowd in a moment that went viral on social media.

Hours later, the drag bill died without debate.

“I don’t think we should underestimate the power this concert had at the capitol the following day,” said Lee, the longtime lobbyist. “It was noticed.”

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