Friday was the bill filing deadline for Texas’ 2025 legislative session, and Equality Texas’ Interim Executive Director Brad Pritchett today issued a fundraising message warning the state’s LGBTQ community that “we have reached a grim milestone:”
As of Monday, March 15, 205 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills have been filed in the Texas legislature, Pritchett noted. That is, he said, the highest number ever recorded in Texas, surpassing the previous record of 141 bills filed in 2023.
“This is a distinction no Texan should be proud of,” Pritchett wrote. “These bills target our community’s basic rights and freedoms, from healthcare access to education to simply being able to live our lives with dignity. They aim to marginalize LGBTQIA+ Texans and erase our existence from public life.”
Pritchett pointed to Equality Texas’ efforts so far in 2025 which include hosting 30 advocacy training sessions across the state and training more than 1,000 advocates to mobilize at the Capitol, launching the largest pro-transgender TV ad campaign in Texas history, conducting more than 30 issue briefings on LGBTQ rights with legislators and stakeholders and organizing the “largest LGBTQIA+ advocacy day in Texas history.”
Pritchett said that while Equality Texas knows such strategies work, “we need your support to implement them, effectively … . The sheer volume of anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation means we must redouble our efforts.”
— Tammye Nash