Source: Trans Legislation Tracker · *2026 as of March 14 (73 days into year)
Before It Repeats — Starwater Research — March 2026
740
bills filed in 2026 in 73 days
126
signed into law in 2025 alone
12.3%
2025 pass rate post-Skrmetti
687
bills still pending in 2026 pipeline
4,671
total bills filed since 2015
452
signed into law since 2015
~2,400
projected 2026 filings
Two weapons in one chart. Most of these bills won’t pass. But the damage happens when a bill is filed, not when it passes. Hospitals pause care while lawyers review it. Families start making plans to leave. Organizations burn through their budgets fighting on hundreds of fronts simultaneously. This is called the “chilling effect”—the filing alone causes the harm. But passage is accelerating: 26 laws in 2022, 87 in 2023, 126 in 2025. The Skrmetti decision (June 2025) unlocked state legislatures by signaling courts would apply the most deferential review standard.
The 2024 dip (7.3% pass rate) reflected organized resistance and pre-Skrmetti judicial skepticism. The 2025 rebound to 12.3% shows what happens when the judicial permission structure activates.
THE DUAL WEAPON
The “chilling effect”—how bills cause harm before they pass. The moment a bill is filed, institutions react: hospitals pause care, legal teams mobilize, organizations spend reserves, families make fear-driven decisions. Multiply that across 740 filings and the defense is overwhelmed. That’s the first weapon.
But passage is accelerating. 26 laws (2022) → 87 (2023) → 126 (2025). Skrmetti unlocked state legislatures.
The coordination is documented. ADF distributed 130+ model bills across 34 states. Identical language in 30+ states. Fall 2019 coordination meeting between ADF, Heritage, and allies produced templates shipped to legislators.
The pattern matches the apartheid model—148 interlocking statutes designed so each requires every other. 126 laws in one year across healthcare, ID, education, sports, and employment create the same architecture.
Introduced Passed into law
The escalation is not gradual. 21 bills in 2015. 740 in the first 73 days of 2026. That is a 35x increase in filing volume. The passed count went from single digits to 126 in a single year.
2015–2021 passed counts approximate (HRC/ACLU annual reports). 2022–2026 are TLT-verified.
INFLECTION POINTS
2019: The coordination meeting. Fall 2019, ADF, Heritage Foundation, and allied groups met to produce model legislation templates. Filing volume nearly tripled the following year (32 → 91).
2023: The flood gates. Bills jumped from 174 to 615—a 253% increase in a single year. ADF distributed 130+ model bills across 34 states. Identical bill language appeared in 30+ legislatures simultaneously.
2025: Judicial permission.U.S. v. Skrmetti (June 2025) applied rational basis review to trans healthcare bans. State legislatures read the signal: courts would defer. 126 bills became law—the highest annual total on record.
2026: The current pace. 740 bills in 73 days projects to 1,800–2,400 by year-end. The infrastructure is operating at industrial scale.
The pass rate tells the infrastructure story. In 2024, only 7.3% of bills passed. Then U.S. v. Skrmetti landed (June 2025). The 2025 pass rate jumped to 12.3%—and 126 bills became law.
2026 at 3% is misleadingly low—93% of bills are still pending. Most passage occurs April–June as sessions progress. If 2025's rate holds, 85–90 more laws by year-end.
Florida's 2025 success (stopped every bill) broke in 2026—HB 1001 passed both chambers. The pattern across resistance victories: they are temporary without structural change.
THE JUDICIAL PERMISSION STRUCTURE
How courts enable passage. Before Skrmetti, federal courts frequently blocked anti-trans laws under heightened scrutiny. State legislators faced real legal risk. After Skrmetti applied rational basis review, the legal barrier dropped to its lowest level.
The signal effect. The 2024 dip (7.3%) wasn’t because fewer bills were filed—701 were introduced, the second-highest count ever. It was because courts were still blocking them and legislators anticipated failure. Once Skrmetti landed, the 2025 rate nearly doubled.
The forced outing precedent.Mirabelli v. Bonta (March 2, 2026): SCOTUS vacated a 9th Circuit stay, allowing a California school district to notify parents about students’ gender identity. The court’s silence was read as permission.
Resistance works—temporarily. Organized legal defense suppressed passage in 2024. But without structural reform (legislation, not litigation), the pressure rebuilds. Florida stopped every bill in 2025. In 2026, HB 1001 broke through.
The attack surface is total. Healthcare and education together comprise ~48% of all 2026 filings—targeting the body and the classroom simultaneously.
The emerging category: "Sex Definition" laws—59 bills rewriting legal definitions of sex across entire state codes. These aren't targeting a specific service. They're rewriting the infrastructure to erase transgender identity from employment, housing, healthcare, and civil rights law simultaneously.
Categories from TLT, ACLU, and Prism Reports (March 2026). Many bills span multiple categories. 113 additional federal-level bills (119th Congress) tracked separately.
THE INTERLOCKING ARCHITECTURE
No single category stands alone. Healthcare bans force people to travel for care. ID laws prevent them from updating documents. Bathroom bills make public space unsafe. Education bans erase visibility. Sports bans signal social exclusion. Each law makes every other law more effective.
“Sex Definition” bills are the infrastructure play. These 59 bills don’t target a service—they rewrite the legal definition of sex across entire state codes. One bill, once passed, retroactively activates every existing sex-based law as an anti-trans enforcement mechanism.
The apartheid comparison is structural, not rhetorical. South Africa’s system required 148 interlocking statutes because each depended on every other. 126 laws across 6 categories in a single year replicate that same design pattern: a web where removing one strand doesn’t collapse the structure.
The federal layer. 113 bills in the 119th Congress mirror the state-level pattern: healthcare bans, sports bans, ID restrictions, data collection mandates. The SAVE America Act (H.R. 7296) bundles voter suppression with anti-trans provisions—targeting the mechanism of democratic pushback itself.
Missouri leads the nation with 68 bills—including 5+ healthcare bans seeking to make temporary restrictions permanent.
Texas is absent. Biennial legislature—doesn't meet in 2026. Its 32 pre-filed bills land in 2027. When Texas returns, numbers will surge again.
Already passed this session: Kansas (SB 244—bathroom + ID), New Hampshire (SB 268—biological sex classification), Wisconsin (SB 146—name change felony). Alabama and Nebraska passed adult healthcare restrictions.
Rankings based on TLT, ACLU, and Erin Reed risk assessment data (March 2026). Model legislation from ADF, ALEC, and Family Policy Alliance accounts for identical language across states.
THE MODEL LEGISLATION PIPELINE
How identical bills appear in 30+ states simultaneously. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), ALEC, and the Family Policy Alliance produce templates. ADF alone distributed 130+ model bills across 34 states. Legislators receive near-final bill text with instructions.
The funding infrastructure. ADF’s annual budget exceeds $100M. Combined anti-LGBTQ+ legal and lobbying spending tops $500M annually. This is not grassroots—it is industrial-scale legislative manufacturing funded by a documented network of foundations.
The “labs of democracy” inversion. States are supposed to experiment independently. Instead, identical language appears across state lines within weeks of template distribution. The variation is cosmetic; the legal architecture is standardized.
Shield law counter-pattern. 26 states + DC have enacted some form of shield or sanctuary legislation. Shield laws protect providers and patients from out-of-state enforcement. This is the structural resistance counterpart to the model legislation pipeline.
1,800 – 2,400
projected bills introduced by Dec 2026
220 – 295
projected new laws if 2025 pass rate holds
The SAVE Act variable. House passed Feb 11 (218-213). Senate vote expected week of March 16. Trump is demanding anti-trans amendments be added—a federal sports ban and minor care ban bundled with voter suppression.
If enacted with anti-trans provisions, it becomes the second legislative fusion after OBBBA—and the first targeting voting rights infrastructure. That means the mechanism by which affected populations could vote against the targeting is itself being targeted.
Projection assumes filing rate follows front-loaded curve similar to 2025. Key variables: SAVE Act outcome, additional state sessions convening through April, Texas 2027 return.
WHAT RESISTANCE LOOKS LIKE
Zero documented cases of successful single-vector resistance. Every historical reversal required simultaneous pressure: legal, electoral, economic, diplomatic, and social. ACT UP combined direct action with policy demands with public narrative. The anti-apartheid movement combined boycotts with sanctions with legal challenges with international pressure.
Current resistance vectors active. 26 states with shield laws. 19 state AGs + DC coalition (Oregon v. Kennedy). NC primary: anti-trans candidate lost by 40+ points. International pressure from 7+ allied nations. Legal defense network across ACLU, Lambda Legal, NCLR, Transgender Law Center.
The historical record on reversal. Paragraph 175 lasted 123 years before repeal. Jim Crow laws lasted ~90 years. Apartheid lasted 46 years. ACT UP compressed the timeline—from mass deaths to federal policy change in under a decade—through convergence of all vectors simultaneously.
Hope is structural. These patterns have been reversed before. The question is not whether resistance works—it is whether it activates fast enough and on enough fronts at once.