Check out our updated report, “Preempting LGBTQ+ Rights: How States Undermine Local Leadership and Innovation on LGBTQ+ Equality,” created in partnership with A Better Balance, the Local Solutions Support Center, and Equality Federation. The report is authored by Jesse Workman, Senior Staff Attorney at A Better Balance.
Attacks on LGBTQ+ dignity and equality are increasingly happening at the state level, where lawmakers are using abusive preemption laws to target LGBTQ+ kids in school, restrict bathroom access, roll back anti-discrimination protections, and more.
In the last two years, abusive preemption bills have been introduced in 48 states that would limit the ability of cities and counties to protect their LGBTQ+ residents in different ways. The vast majority of these bills target transgender and nonbinary people specifically. So, we teamed up with the Local Solutions Support Center and A Better Balance to study trends in these bills and help advocates understand the landscape of anti-LGBTQ+ attacks.
“Preempting LGBTQ+ Rights: How States Undermine Local Leadership and Innovation on LGBTQ+ Equality” examines 200 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced during the 2025 and 2026 legislative sessions. This white paper is an updated edition of a 2024 report that traced the local roots of LGBTQ+ equality in the United States and documented how states have used abusive preemption to erode LGBTQ+ protections and target local authority. Since the publication of that report, states have continued to refine, escalate, and expand abusive preemptive strategies.
The rapid rise of anti-LGBTQ+ preemption in recent years marks a fundamental shift in how attacks on LGBTQ+ rights are unfolding. Increasingly, states are not only restricting the rights of LGBTQ+ people, but they are also preventing local communities from choosing a different path. Abusive preemption is actively and insidiously reshaping the landscape of LGBTQ+ rights and reversing earlier wins.
States and localities can still take steps to protect LGBTQ+ communities, including passing nondiscrimination protections. These could include laws and policies that prohibit discrimination in places of public accommodation and housing, lowering the employee threshold to include employees of small businesses, protecting independent contractors, and more.
The stakes of these anti-LGBTQ+ attacks extend beyond LGBTQ+ rights. They raise a broader question about who gets to shape the communities where people live: state politicians or the local leaders elected to represent them. As this report shows, the future of LGBTQ+ equality is increasingly tied to the future of local democracy itself.
Read the full report to understand recent trends in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and ways localities can work to protect LGBTQ+ people in their communities still. Understanding these attacks is the first step to pushing back and protecting LGBTQ+ equality.
