Written by Katie Carter
This Pride month, nearly ten years to the day of the Supreme Court affirming marriage equality nationwide, we are devastated and furious by the decision of SCOTUS to uphold Tennessee’s ban on gender affirming care for trans youth. This decision paves the way to strip critical care from trans youth in at least 25 other states and opens the door to limiting healthcare access for trans adults, further restrictions on abortion and reproductive healthcare access, the increased risk of mental health issues for trans youth, bans on gender expression, and the criminalization of parents and providers.
Underpinning the majority’s decision was not only a blatantly anti-science ideology, but the dangerously inaccurate claim that there is no need for heightened scrutiny in this case because there is no technical history of discrimination against trans people. This underscores how dangerous the ruling is — not just in practice, but in precedent.
Though this outcome was not surprising given the Court’s makeup and the larger socio-political moment we’re in, the contrast of where LGBTQ+ people and communities were following the Obergefell decision in 2015 and where we are right now is both telling and an ominous harbinger of what is to come. How did we get here?
While the 2015 Supreme Court ruling on Obergefell was certainly historic, it bears remembering, that it wasn’t just the Court’s decision that won marriage equality: it was decades of organizing, mobilizing, and fighting on behalf of our community and substantial investments in movement-building and infrastructure that drove the victory ultimately codified by the court.
Winning Marriage, Still Fighting for Our Lives
The week after the Obergefell decision, the energy at Pride Foundation shifted quickly from celebration to strategy. Despite this huge, historic win, we knew that our work — both at Pride Foundation and in our movement — was far from over. We hoped to leverage the momentum of that victory to fight for the full breadth of our community. To ensure all LGBTQ+ people could access everything we needed to live and thrive as our full, authentic selves — in every place we call home.
While marriage equality represented one important step toward LGBTQ+ liberation, it didn’t address the full scope of what our communities need to live and thrive. Access to housing, healthcare, safety, and self-determination are still out of reach for so many —especially LGBTQ+ youth, trans folks, folks in conservative states, and Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) in our communities. We knew that part of our work in that moment was to ensure we could sustain for the long road still ahead, that we continue to engage our community of donors, support our grantees and scholars, and expand our advocacy work.
We also knew we had to remain mobilized because every step forward in our collective liberation has come with a coordinated backlash. What we’re facing now is no exception.
The backlash to winning marriage equality came swiftly and it has continued to grow in the decade since Obergefell. The backlash we’re experiencing now — particularly the targeting of trans people — is not separate from that moment of victory, it’s a direct response to it.
The Backlash Playbook
In the past decade, we have seen one of the most coordinated and widespread attacks on LGBTQ+ people that has come at legislative, political, judicial, and cultural levels. They didn’t come for marriage directly at first as the pendulum of public opinion and support had swung too far in support for that to be a productive strategy. Rather, conservative groups organized a calculated and coordinated legislative strategy that would divide our community and pave the way for the anti-trans movement we see today:
- 2016: A wave of so-called “bathroom bills,” falsely and dangerously casting trans people as a threat in public spaces.
- 2018: The rise of “religious freedom” exemptions to justify discrimination.
- Today: Disingenuous debates over “fairness in sports,” “parental rights,” and gender-affirming care.
A key way to measure this is through the growth of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in 2015 to now. Policy and advocacy groups tracked over 100 anti-LGBTQ bills filed in 29 state legislatures in 2015. Today, there are an astounding 597 anti-LGBTQ bills across 49 states and Puerto Rico.
It’s not just legislative attacks though. Combatting so-called ‘gender ideology extremism’ is a prominent part of Project 2025 and has surfaced in Executive Orders, and there is a concerted effort to erase LGBTQ+ from every aspect of public life and defining us out of existence.
These are not new tactics — they were repurposed from the anti-marriage equality playbook. The language has changed, but the intent is the same: sow fear, create moral panic, and erode support for LGBTQ+ rights by targeting the most vulnerable.
They are relentless, and when a strategy like the bathroom bills doesn’t work, they pivot — now it’s about “fairness in sports”. Both are disingenuous, fabricated issues that make targets out of the people most vulnerable. The anti-trans backlash is a manufactured crisis, designed to distract from real issues and dismantle hard-won progress. And it’s being fueled by the same forces that once tried to stop us from marrying the people we love.
These are not separate fights—they are the same fight, rebranded.
A Call to Solidarity
The focus on trans people is by design, it is the cudgel they are using as a wedge to dismantle the rights of not only the LGBTQ+ community, but many other communities as well.
This divide-and-conquer strategy isn’t new, it mirrors tensions that surfaced during the fight for marriage equality itself, when some — including those from within our own movement — believed that excluding trans people from our fight would make the movement more “palatable” to the mainstream. We reject that logic, then and now, when claims are being made that the fight for our trans siblings are “too much” or “too fast”.
Every fight for civil rights and justice has involved pushing past what the majority finds acceptable — because ultimately, public opinion is not what should be limiting peoples’ rights. Our work in this moment is to keep fighting and keep pushing while we continue to build empathy and understanding in the face of so many hostile and blatantly false claims being made by the opposition.
It is vital that we continue to fight together as a full LGBTQ+ community because no one is safe under systems of oppression. Appeasement is not protection.
Pride as Resistance
It is not all bad news though, and it’s important to remember that part of what is fueling this backlash is that our community keeps winning. Just a few examples:
- We have made massive strides in visibility and representation, from LaVerne Cox on the cover of Time Magazine, to a record high number of LGBTQ+ representatives in Congress including the first openly trans member, Rep. Sarah McBride from Delaware.
- We have shifted our culture in ways that have made it safer for folks to come out. A Gallup poll earlier this year showed that 23% of Gen Z now identifies as LGBTQ+. Not to mention that now at least 9.3% of adults in the US are LGBTQ+ — the highest that number has ever been, and triple what it was when we won marriage.
- Despite the increase in anti-trans legislation being filed, most anti-trans bills have not been passed or are actively being challenged in court. Our community and movements continue to fight this legislation every step of the way.
The roots of Pride are protest and resistance. We owe our progress to Black and brown trans leaders who put everything on the line, people like Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy. Their legacy calls us in and fuels our fight.
It has never been more critical that we understand the foundational ways our fights for justice are fundamentally interconnected and how our collective liberation is bound together. That means our pride must always be rooted in resistance — and action.
To our cisgender LGBQ+ siblings: this is your fight too.
To our allies: show up in real, tangible ways.
- Support trans-led organizations.
- Share your resources and contribute to mutual-aid networks.
- Speak out at local hearings and school boards.
- Vote — especially in state and local elections.
- Run for office — especially in state and local elections.
Ten years ago, we won marriage equality. Today, we must fight like hell to protect the full humanity of our trans siblings and in doing so, protect us all.