Texas Legislature
The Texas Legislature is the state's bicameral legislature, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives. It meets in regular session in odd-numbered years, and the archive cites several of those sessions by number. Entries naming it record bills it passed on school instruction and student organisations, restroom use in public buildings, and related measures, generally alongside the governor who signed them.
2025 Events (7)
Texas enacted SB 8 requiring birth-sex use of restrooms in government buildings, schools, and prisons
On September 22, 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 8, the "Texas Women's Privacy Act," passed during the 89th Legislature's second special session. The law requires people to use restrooms, locker rooms, and other sex-designated spaces in government buildings — including K-12 schools, public universities, and prisons and jails — according to the sex on their birth certificate, bars transgender inmates from being housed by gender identity, and creates civil penalties of $25,000 for a first violation and $125,000 for subsequent ones, enforceable through complaints to the Texas Attorney General. The measure took effect December 4, 2025.
Texas enacted SB 12 barring public-school instruction and student clubs on sexual orientation or gender identity
On June 20, 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 12, a "parental rights" law that prohibits instruction, guidance, activities, and student clubs regarding sexual orientation or gender identity in K-12 public schools and bars school employees from referring to a student by a name or pronouns differing from those on record. Authored by state Sen. Brandon Creighton, the law also requires prior parental consent for student health services and club participation and took effect September 1, 2025. LGBTQ+ advocates and educators said the measure erases transgender students and dismantles support systems in public schools.
Texas Gov. Abbott signed HB1106, excluding refusal to affirm a child's gender identity from the state's child-abuse definition
On June 20, 2025, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed HB1106, which amends the Texas Family Code so that a parent's refusal to affirm a child's gender identity or sexual orientation — including withholding gender-affirming care or declining to use a child's chosen name or pronouns — does not constitute child abuse or neglect. The law, passed by the 89th Legislature, took effect September 1, 2025. It removes a category of parental conduct from the reach of Child Protective Services intervention.
Texas Gov. Abbott signed HB 229 writing a binary biological-sex definition into state government code and excluding gender identity from recognition
On June 20, 2025, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 229, enacted by the 89th Legislature, which writes binary definitions of "male," "female," and "sex" into the Texas Government Code based strictly on reproductive biology. The law directs governmental entities that collect vital statistics to record each individual as either male or female on that basis and excludes gender identity from governmental recognition of sex. It took effect September 1, 2025.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 1188, requiring an unalterable 'biological sex' field in every electronic health record
On June 20, 2025, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 1188, which requires every electronic health record in the state to include a "distinct, unalterable" field for a person's biological sex as defined at birth, changeable only to correct a clerical error or for a diagnosed disorder of sexual development. The measure, part of a broader electronic-health-records law, is enforceable by the Texas attorney general with civil penalties of up to $250,000 per violation and grants parents access to their minor children's records. Most provisions take effect September 1, 2025.
Texas enacted SB 1257 requiring plans that cover gender-transition care to also cover detransition and lifelong monitoring
On May 24, 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 1257, which requires any health benefit plan covering gender-transition procedures or treatments to also cover all adverse effects of that care, "detransition" and reversal procedures, and testing and annual health screenings for the life of anyone who received transition-related treatment. Authored by state Sen. Bryan Hughes and sponsored in the House by Rep. Jeff Leach, the law took effect September 1, 2025 and applies to plans issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2026. LGBTQ+ advocates warned the added mandates are designed to make such coverage prohibitively expensive and push insurers to drop gender-affirming care entirely.
Texas enacted SB 412, exposing teachers and librarians to prosecution by removing 'harmful material' defenses
On May 19, 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 412, which stripped the affirmative-defense protections in the state Penal Code that had shielded public schools, libraries, and museums from prosecution for distributing material "harmful to minors" when that material carried educational, medical, scientific, or artistic value. By removing those defenses, the law exposes teachers, librarians, and parents to criminal charges over books available in public institutions. The measure took effect September 1, 2025, and civil-liberties and library groups warned it would drive broad removals of books, disproportionately affecting LGBTQ+ titles.
2023 Events (4)
Texas Gov. Abbott signed SB 12 restricting drag and other "sexually oriented performances" on public property and before minors
On June 18, 2023, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 12 into law, restricting "sexually oriented performances" on the premises of a commercial enterprise, on public property, or in the presence of an individual younger than 18. The law, authored by Sen. Bryan Hughes, creates a criminal offense for performers and authorizes civil penalties of up to $10,000 against businesses; though its text does not name drag, its sponsors and Abbott described it as targeting drag performances. It took effect only in 2026, after years of litigation in which it was initially struck down as unconstitutional.
Texas Gov. Abbott signed SB 15 barring transgender college athletes from competing under their gender identity
On June 18, 2023, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 15, the "Save Women's Sports Act," requiring students at public institutions of higher education to compete in intercollegiate athletics based on their biological sex assigned at birth. The law bars transgender college athletes from competing consistent with their gender identity and extends a 2021 Texas law that had already imposed the same restriction on K-12 student-athletes. It took effect September 1, 2023.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 17, banning diversity, equity, and inclusion offices at public colleges and universities
On June 17, 2023, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 17, enacted by the 88th Legislature and authored by state Sen. Brandon Creighton, barring public colleges and universities from maintaining diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices, mandating DEI training, or requiring diversity statements in hiring and admissions decisions. The law, which took effect January 1, 2024, tasks the Texas State Auditor with compliance enforcement and puts noncompliant institutions at risk of losing eligibility for state funding increases. Ahead of the deadline, universities closed DEI and related offices, including multicultural and LGBTQ+ resource centers.
Texas Gov. Abbott signed HB 900, requiring vendors to rate and pull sexually explicit books from public school libraries
On June 12, 2023, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 900, the READER Act, into law at a Texas Capitol bill-signing ceremony. The law requires book vendors, as a condition of selling to Texas public schools, to rate the titles they sell for sexual content and to recall any rated "sexually explicit," which must then be removed from school library shelves, while books rated "sexually relevant" require written parental consent to check out. The Texas Education Agency was given authority to overrule a vendor's ratings, and vendors that refuse to comply are barred from selling to Texas schools.
2021 Events (1)
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed HB 25, barring transgender K-12 students from school sports matching their gender identity
On October 25, 2021, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 25 into law, enacted during the 87th Legislature's third called special session. The law requires public school students to compete in University Interscholastic League athletic competitions based on their sex assigned at birth, barring transgender K-12 student-athletes from competing consistent with their gender identity. It took effect January 18, 2022.
2017 Events (2)
Texas Gov. Abbott signed HB 3859, shielding faith-based child welfare providers that refuse LGBTQ placements
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed HB 3859 on June 15, 2017, creating Human Resources Code Chapter 45 to bar the state and government-contracted child-placement entities from penalizing a child welfare services provider that declines, on religious grounds, to provide or facilitate services including placements, contraception/abortion referrals, or contracts inconsistent with its beliefs. The law exempts race, ethnicity, and national origin from the refusal but includes no equivalent carve-out for sexual orientation or gender identity, letting state-funded, state-licensed faith-based foster and adoption agencies decline to place children with same-sex couples, LGBTQ individuals, or people of other faiths.
Texas Gov. Abbott signed HB100, defining "sex" in ride-hailing nondiscrimination law to exclude gender identity
On May 29, 2017, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed HB100, a statewide ride-hailing regulatory framework that preempted local ordinances. During House debate, Rep. Tony Tinderholt amended the bill's new driver nondiscrimination policy to define "sex" as "the physical condition of being male or female," language contemporaneous reporting tied to the same session's transgender restroom-access fight; a Senate committee substitute briefly stripped the amendment before the committee reinstated the House version and the bill was signed into law.