Southern Queer Newsroom
Despite much anxiety among advocates in the state, Georgia has wrapped up its legislative session without passing a single anti-trans law. This is a welcome turn of events from last year, when a sports ban, prisoner care ban, and "religious freedom restoration act" passed over the protests of advocates and allied politicians.
In a statement, Georgia Equality executive director Jeff Graham said "Despite state leadership fixating on restricting LGBTQ+ rights as their core priority over the past years, we made it clear that scapegoating LGBTQ+ Georgians is not a winning political strategy," and thanked the advocates who came out to stand against this legislation.
Two big bills died along with several others that were not pushed for as hard.
SB 74 and HB 54: Clean Libraries and Old Hangups
SB 74 was a ban on libraries showing "explicit material" to children. While pitched as getting pornography away from children, it was clear from the beginning that it was meant to prohibit children from being shown queer lives and histories under the old guise of LGBTQ+ people as sexually explicit. The bill passed the Senate 32-23 along party lines last year but stalled in the House and did not receive a hearing before the end of session last year. This year, author Sen. Max Burns and the Frontline Policy Institute – an evangelical Christian lobbying group opposed to abortion rights and calling itself "the tip of the spear" against children identifying as LGBTQ+ – tried several times to advance the bill without compromising on its underlying purpose.
After passing a House committee with an amendment, SB 74 failed to be put on a calendar and be voted on in the full House. Even after two separate presentations on the bill by Sen. Burns, House Rules Chair Butch Parrish never once let it come up fro a vote in the House, including on the last day of legislative session, where shenanigans are guaranteed to happen. Shenanigans did occur around the budget, which was only voted on after the sun had set, but nothing around LGBTQ+ rights came up.
HB 54, the other major bill advocates were worried about after its amendment in the Senate, also failed to come up for a vote. The bill was amended in the Senate after passing the House, which technically meant it went straight back to the Speaker's desk to be called up whenever he felt like it. Surprisingly, he didn't bring it up at all, despite being pressured by Frontline and other conservative and evangelical advocates for nearly two months.
The Also-Rans: HB 267, HB 1210, and Others
SB 30 and SB 39, two of the worst bills from last years banning puberty blockers and banning state funds for transition expenses respectively, failed last year, and the attempt to pass them through with HB 54 also failed. SB 39 was actually passed out of the House Health Committee again, but did so as a substitute with completely different language around certified community health workers.
HB 267, originally the "Riley Gaines Act" and combination sports ban and legal erasure of trans identities, was not voted on in the Senate. The text was stripped out entirely and replaced with an anti-DUI bill that required those convicted of a DUI who had killed a parent or legal guardian in an accident to pay the child support costs of any dependents they had until they were 18 or graduated high school. It was an ignoble death to one of Frontline's main priorities in 2025 and the bill that eventually led to this newsletter being formed.
Other vice-signaling bills like HB 1210, which would have made abusing trans children an impermissible reason to put that child into protective custody, were not even heard in their committees. Georgia Equality says 15 anti-trans bills failed to pass this session overall.
What Comes Next for the Peach State?
While this is an important win for trans Georgians and their loved ones, the work is far from over. Anti-trans laws like SB 140 (banning trans children from receiving gender-affirming care except for puberty blockers), SB 1 (trans sports ban), and SB 36 (license to discriminate) are still on the books and actively enforced in the state. SB 185, the prisoner care ban, has been permanently blocked since December 2025.
There's also nothing stopping Gov. Brian Kemp from calling for a special election to pursue election rigging laws, which were the main priority of the Georgia Republican Party this year and also completely failed to materialize. Given Texas' previous special session included one of the harshest bathroom bans in the county, advocates will likely be keeping a close eye on one should it be called here.
Also of note is that while nothing passed this year, there's no reason to assume that 2027 would be more failure for the GOP. No anti-trans bills passed in 2024 and then three did in 2025. If Democrats are not able to win a majority in the State House, then trans Georgians can expect to see more of the same from the state legislature. It's likely that legislative repeals of these laws would not be possible until a Democratic trifecta comes to power in Georgia.
As for what local governments can do, passing non-discrimination ordinances has become more common over the past decade. Atlanta, Fulton County, DeKalb County, Gwinnett County, several cities in DeKalb, and cities like Statesboro and Savannah all have non-discrimination ordinances covering things like employment and public accommodations. Not every county in the Metro Atlanta area has them, either. Cobb County and Clayton County do not have local non-discrimination protections. Not one local government in Georgia has a shield law like that which exists in New York or a trans sanctuary law like exists in Louisville, Kentucky. If real legislative relief continues to be years away, that does not mean there is nothing to do but wait.