Southern Queer Newsroom
A Late 2025 Legislative Roundup
The 2025 Georgia General Assembly legislative session was a difficult session to witness for many transgender advocates. In the wake of Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential race, Republicans across the country have pursued discriminatory policies against the LGBTQ+ community, especially transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people. While this is not a new phenomenon, the scope and vitriol expressed throughout this process is especially strong.
Multiple bills were passed this session targeting gender-diverse Georgians in particular, despite the best efforts of organizations like Georgia Equality. This is in stark contrast to the 2024 session, where not a single anti-trans bill was passed.
What Passed
Senate Bill 1, introduced by State Sen. Greg Dolezal (R-27), is a ban on transgender students playing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity. Called the "Riley Gaines Act of 2025," after a University of Kentucky swimmer who placed in fifth during an NCAA freestyle swimming championship against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, the bill bans participation based on "biological sex," defined as either male or female. This definition of sex writes intersex individuals out of the law, creating a gray area around intersex participation in any school sports.
It is also unclear just how many students would be affected by this. Testimony during these hearings revealed that fewer than ten transgender athletes were competing at the collegiate level, and that bills like this have been used to crack down on the gender expression of young students for not looking feminine enough. Accusations of being secretly trans have been levied by conservative politicians against Imane Khalif, an Algerian boxer, and Britney Grimer, an American professional basketball player.
SB 1 passed the Senate 35-17 on February 6th, passed the House 100-64 on March 31 with amendments, which then passed the Senate 34-20 the same day.
Senate Bill 36, also known as the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act," or RFRA, is a bill banning the state government from infringing on the religious rights of individuals. Such a bill exists at the federal level, but so do multiple civil rights laws outlawing discrimination in employment, housing, and other areas of public life, which does not exist in the state of Georgia.
Because Georgia lacks a civil rights law, critics of the bill often said it would legalize discrimination against vulnerable minorities, including queer Georgians, based on religious grounds. Conservatives often said that the bill would be good for all religious communities, not just evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics, but heavy opposition came from an Episcopal minister in the Senate, and the only Jewish and Muslim representatives in the House.
Sen. Ed Seltzer (R-37), the sponsor of the bill, repeatedly opposed any amendments that would add non-discrimination ordinances to SB 36, saying "it's not something we could or should do." RFRA laws in other states like Texas and South Carolina have been used to discriminate against other religious groups and marginalized communities.
SB 36 passed the Senate 32-23 on March 4, and passed the House 96-70 on April 2.
Senate Bill 185 is a bill banning the government from providing gender-affirming care to prisoners in state custody. It is the only bill banning some form of healthcare for transgender Georgians that passed this year, affecting five individuals in the state carceral system. Introduced by Sen. Dolezal, a major leader on anti-trans legislation, it is an escalation of the attack from banning trans youth from accessing care beyond puberty blockers to attacking adult access.
Much of the rhetoric from Republican lawmakers was dishonest. The bill was touted as banning sex reassignment surgeries only, but the text clearly stated all gender affirming care was being banned for transgender inmates.
This bill drew a lot more attention from advocates for two main reasons. First, Sen. Elena Parent, who throughout the rest of session had been an advocate for transgender Georgians, flipped her vote in the Senate and supported SB 185. After an amendment to change a clause only allowing hormone access for forced detransitioning into a grandfather clause (preserving access for inmates already on HRT), she voted in favor of it due to her personal discomfort in allowing any gender affirming care for inmates.
Second, House Democrats' anger at being walked over by the Senate and continued harassment of a minority population led to a mass walkout on the 39th day of session. It was substantial enough that Associated Press covered it. 75 of the 80 Democrats in the chamber walked out, demanding the GOP-dominated legislature cease its attacks and focus on issues Georgians actually cared about, including passing a budget.
Given that there are currently federal lawsuits underway challenging the Trump administrations ban of gender affirming care being provided to federal inmates, this may be overturned in court as a violation of a transgender prisoner's Eighth Amendment rights. Currently, the Trump administration must provide that care due to a court order on Kingdom v. Trump.
SB 185 passed the Senate 35-17 on March 3, and passed the House 100-2 on April 2. In the Senate, 4 Democrats voted in favor, while in the House, 3 voted in favor and 2 voted against.
What Didn't
Despite those losses for gender-diverse Georgians, it was not a complete loss. More harmful bills were not passed this session, although most are likely to be picked back up for the 2026 session, as they are still live.
House Bill 267 was a companion bill to SB 1, also focused on banning transgender student athletes from participating in school sports. However, this bill went much further than a simple sports ban: it would have removed the word gender from the entire Georgia Code – including the hate crimes law – and introduced code-wide definitions of sex that would have erased all recognition of transgender, nonbinary, and intersex Georgians.
Rep. John Bonner (R-73) sponsored this legislation and worked heavily on anti-trans legislation this session, likely coordinating with Sen. Dolezal as Bonner carried SB 1 to the floor of the House for its March 31 vote. As the bill worked its way through the House, pieces started coming off. First, the section targeting the hate crimes law was removed. Next, the entire "code revision" section was cut and the bill added a lot of language from SB 1. Finally, it passed the House 102-54, with several Democrats voting in favor and many more abstaining from the vote for one reason or another. It never made it past a subcommittee hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, as SB 1 was likely to pass by that point.
SB 30 is a bill that would further restrict gender-affirming care for minors. Current Georgia law bans treating minors for gender dysphoria except for puberty blockers if they started taking them before July 1, 2023—this new bill would remove that exemption, banning any minor from accessing gender-affirming care from any providers in the state. It passed the Senate 34-19 on March 3, and was approved by the House Public and Community Health Committee on March 27, but was moved back on April 4, the last day of legislative session.
SB 39 would ban state employees from using their health insurance to cover gender-affirming care for themselves or their family members, and would ban Medicaid from covering that care. The preamble to the bill trafficks in the debunked "rapid onset gender dysphoria" theory. It passed the Senate 33-19 on February 11, was approved by the House Health Committee April 2, and was recommitted on April 4, same as SB 30.
SB 74 and SB 248 are two similar bills, both banning Georgia students from accessing any LGBTQ+ content in school libraries, although each is slightly different. SB 74 is focused on school libraries, including university libraries, and SB 248 goes further in banning any social transition for students while at school, including something as simple as changing a student's preferred name and/or pronouns.
According to sources familiar with the matter, SB 74 is the main bill Republican lawmakers will push in the 2026 session. SB 248 remains a concern among some pro-education groups that it will have its text inserted into another bill unrelated to its original purpose – what's known as a "zombie bill."
SB 248 never got to a vote in the Senate, or even passed out of committee. SB 74, meanwhile, passed the Senate 32-23 on March 3 with every Democrat opposed.
SB 120 is an anti-DEI bill. It would ban colleges from "promoting" any sort of events or education about "racial privilege," "systemic oppression," or "anti-racism." While the bill itself was never voted on by the full Senate, the text of the bill was pasted into another bill, HB 127. HB 127 would have increased the allowed sick days for teachers from 3 days to 5 days, but that text was completely removed.
The new HB 127 was met with intense backlash from Senate Democrats, as they put forward twenty amendments to the bill that ranged from clarifying that schools would still be allowed to teach African American History to ensuring that schools could not teach that the Confederacy were the heroes. Lt. Governor Burt Jones refused to hold any votes on these amendments and the bill passed 33-21 on April 2.
2026 and Beyond
In the wake of U.S. v. Skrmetti, Georgia civil rights organizations are already preparing for another grueling fight in the state capitol. Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality and former ACT UP activist, said in a press conference on June 18 that while the Skrmetti ruling does not give legislators a mandate to pursue further antagonistic actions, that groups in the Georgia General Assembly would do so.
“There is nothing in this opinion that should be taken by legislators as a mandate,” he said. “It may have given them the authority to do this, but that doesn’t make it right. That doesn’t make it moral. That does not create a sense of urgency where none exists.”
In the meantime, LGBTQ+ Georgians are supporting each other, organizing, and ensuring that they will not give up without a fight.