Here are the new Texas laws that will affect trans and LGBTQ+ people

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While largely avoiding the same level of heated pushback of years’ past, Texas lawmakers passed several bills that give LGBTQ+ people in Texas, specifically transgender residents, less opportunity to receive care and maintain their identities in state records.

Texas legislators filed over 100 anti-trans bills through the session, some containing provisions that have been shot down in years’ prior while others proposed new restrictions. Less than 10 were ultimately approved by lawmakers.

The new bills that are likely to be signed by Gov. Greg Abbott represent a yearslong movement from state conservatives to find new ways to restrict the presence of trans and LGBTQ+ Texans, advocates say. The bills that failed may also be resurrected by lawmakers in future sessions. Here’s what to know.

State definitions of man and woman

Several bills filed in the Legislature aimed to craft legal definitions of sex and gender in addition to their target goals — but House Bill 229 makes that goal its sole purpose, establishing state definitions for male and female and applying those definitions across statute.

HB 229 defines a woman as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce ova,” and a man as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to fertilize the ova of a female.”

Most immediately, the bill will bolster an already existing block from state agencies on changes to gender markers on state documents, which was backed by a nonbinding opinion from Attorney General Ken Paxton in March. The bill may also force those who have already switched their documents to match their identified gender to have changes reverted when they are renewed.

The longer-term effects of HB 229 are still not immediately apparent, as references to man and woman are used hundreds of times in statute and may ripple into other laws affecting people’s lives. Texas joins 13 other states that have also crafted their own definitions, and several other bills that also passed in the state have individual definitions for related terms like “biological sex.”

President Donald Trump issued an executive order named “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism” in January providing federal definitions of male and female. Similarly, HB 229 has been dubbed the “Women’s Bill of Rights” by supporters, claiming it protects women in the state from men invading their spaces.

Abbott released an executive order of his own shortly after Trump’s affirming the president’s directive, but did not provide his own definitions. Abbott has signed the bill into law, which will go into effect Sept. 1.

New requirements for medical records and insurance coverage

Tightening the ability to change the gender on state records like drivers’ licenses has been a key issue for conservative lawmakers for years, and while HB 229 sets a precedent in disallowing new changes, another bill creates new requirements entirely. Senate Bill 1188 creates a new section on all state medical records listing patients’ assigned sex at birth and any physical sexual development disorders. It also bans changes to those gender markers for any reason other than clerical errors, and creates civil penalties for medical professionals who do change them.

House Democrats opposing the measure during floor discussion worried that SB 1188 may scare medical providers into inputting vague or inaccurate health information out of fear of fiscal or legal retribution. The bill does allow the new section to include information on a patients’ gender identity, however health care services must opt-in to provide it.

The bill also creates restrictions on where health care providers can store patient data and the physical servers they use to store them, and new regulations on how artificial intelligence can be used to create diagnoses.

SB 1188 is not the only bill opponents have said will create a chilling effect on the LGBTQ+ community. Some bills may be more immediate in blocking options people have to do things like change their state records, but others like SB 1188 and Senate Bill 1257 may reduce what resources are available. SB 1257 was signed by Abbott in May and mandates that insurance companies provide coverage for gender detransitioning care if they already cover gender transition care.

Proponents of the law claim it enforces responsibility onto insurance companies. The law is not a ban on gender-affirming care, however opponents worry it may act as one by incentivizing insurance companies to pull coverage altogether rather than take on potential new costs.

SB 1257 is the first legal mandate for detransition care in the United States, making Texas a testing ground for insurance companies’ appetite to keep or pull coverage. Similar bills in Arizona, Florida and Tennessee did not pass out of their respective state legislatures in 2024.

Less protections and resources for LGBTQ+ youth

Medical gender transition care for minors was banned in Texas by the Legislature in 2023, a restriction that was upheld by the state Supreme Court in 2024. House Bill 18, primarily an overhaul of rural health care including a rural pediatric mental health care program, bans minors from accessing its resources for gender-affirming mental health counseling “inconsistent with the child’s biological sex.”

The current gender transition care ban for minors does not include mental health services, only puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery, which is rare for those under 18. Another proposal headed to Abbott’s desk, House Bill 1106, asserts that parents who do not recognize or affirm their child’s gender identity cannot be held liable for abuse or neglect because of that lack of recognition.

More restrictions on LGBTQ+ presence in schools

Access to materials and resources related to LGBTQ+ subjects are also being restricted by legislators through two key bills primarily aimed at schools. Senate Bill 12 bans Texas schools from teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity and forbids student clubs “based on” those subjects.

The bill would prevent clubs like Gay-Straight Alliances and pride clubs, which are often tailored toward anti-bullying initiatives in schools. Opponents of the bill claim a ban on those clubs would cut off LGBTQ+ students from communities and resources that can save lives.

“One of the deadliest things that our youth go through is experiencing the perception at least of isolation, and GSAs are a powerful way that we can combat that and make sure that our youth are getting support,” said Ash Hall, ACLU Texas’ policy and advocacy strategist for LGBTQIA+ rights.

While SB 12 restricts instruction and student groups, Senate Bill 13 gives school boards and new advisory councils greater oversight to remove books from school libraries that go against “local community values.” Some lawmakers and advocates worry school boards and advisory councils would be able to restrict books containing LGBTQ+ material.

A third bill, Senate Bill 18, would have banned “drag-time story hours” at municipal libraries and cut funding to those who host them, however that bill was unintentionally killed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick after a procedural error at the end of the Senate’s deadline to pass bills.

Bills that failed to pass

The small set of bills passed by legislators shift the state’s treatment of LGBTQ+ Texans significantly, but still represent a fraction of what lawmakers proposed. House Bill 239, this session’s bathroom ban bill, was one of the over 100 bills that did not survive and was never heard by lawmakers despite half of the House signing on as coauthors. House Bill 2704 sought a similar ban through private lawsuits rather than criminal charges, but was never picked up by lawmakers.

Also left unheard was House Bill 3817, filed by Rep. Tom Oliverson, R-Cypress, which would have created a new felony charge for “gender identity fraud” if a person represented themselves as a gender besides the one they were assigned at birth to state agencies or employers.

Advocates like Johnathan Gooch, communications director for Equality Texas, say that the Legislature has kept its course on anti-trans legislation for the last few sessions, and that bills that didn’t get picked up by legislators may be at the forefront of future sessions.

“We're hearing rhetoric that we've heard for a very long time and just more, more bills, a variety of new ways to narrow the rights of trans people,” Gooch said. “It just doesn't come as a mistake that the number of bills is escalating.”

Disclosure: ACLU Texas and Equality Texas have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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