A legislative tide that is running out is not the same as trans rights being safe. Republicans introduced record numbers of anti-trans bills in 2026, yet most have stalled in Congress, blocked by Democratic opposition and the Senate filibuster. Meanwhile, executive orders and state-level laws have already caused serious harm to trans people across the United States.

What is actually happening in Congress?

The Politico piece reads, on the surface, like a story about Republican failure. Hard-liners are frustrated. Leaders aren't listening. The filibuster keeps getting in the way. Senator Josh Hawley can't get his Planned Parenthood provision into reconciliation. Representative Nancy Mace's bathroom bill hasn't moved. The sports bills keep dying in the Senate.

And yes, in narrow legislative terms, most of what the hard-liners wanted has not passed. Over 125 anti-trans measures were introduced in Congress in 2026 alone, up from 109 the year before, and the vast majority have gone nowhere. Democrats on the Congressional Equality Caucus have been working hard to strip anti-LGBTQ+ riders from funding bills, and they've pulled it off more than forty times this session. That matters, and the people doing that work deserve acknowledgement.

But I want to be careful about how we read this, because the story underneath the story is not a reassuring one.

The damage that has already been done

While Congress has stalled, the executive branch and the states have not. Donald Trump signed a cluster of executive orders in the opening days of his second term: declaring the federal government would recognise only two sexes, cutting funding from institutions providing gender-affirming care to minors, and banning trans people from the military. Those orders didn't need Congress. They happened immediately.

At state level, at least fifty anti-trans bills have passed in 2026 alone, in Florida, Tennessee, Utah, Kansas, Idaho, and elsewhere. More than 350 anti-trans bills have passed across the states in total. Trans girls locked out of school sport. Trans young people losing access to healthcare. Trans students' names and pronouns subject to parental veto in their school records. These are not hypothetical harms. They are happening to real children right now.

The picture Politico paints is of a party frustrated that it hasn't finished the job at federal level, not a party that has been stopped from doing harm. The harm is already very real.

What the polling actually tells us

The article mentions a Gallup poll finding that sixty-nine percent of US adults believe trans athletes should compete in line with their birth sex. Republicans lean on that number hard. But the same article notes that eighty-five percent of Americans surveyed, according to the Human Rights Campaign, believe trans people should have the same rights as everyone else. Those two numbers can coexist, and both deserve to be in the frame, not just the one that suits the political argument being made.

The gap between those figures is significant. Most Americans, by a very large margin, do not want trans people to be treated as lesser citizens. The specific anxieties about sport, which have been amplified by over $110 million in political advertising, do not represent the full picture of where the public actually stands. The advertising was designed to generate exactly the fear it generated. That is what $110 million buys.

The bill that should alarm everyone

Among the bills mentioned almost in passing, one deserves much more attention: a measure introduced by former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene that would establish criminal penalties for providing gender-affirming care to minors. It passed the House. Doctors, nurses, therapists, and pharmacists could face criminal prosecution for delivering care that the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the Endocrine Society, WPATH, and the American Psychological Association all support. That is not a fringe position from those medical bodies. It is the settled clinical consensus.

Criminalising doctors for following evidence-based guidelines is not a policy disagreement. It is an attempt to scare clinicians out of providing care, and it is working. Across the United States, trans young people are losing access to healthcare not because the science changed, but because the politics became dangerous enough to frighten providers away.

What this means for trans people watching from the sidelines

If you are a trans person in the United States, or a parent of a trans child, you are probably not reading this story as good news, even though some of the headlines want you to. A legislative logjam in Congress is small comfort when your child's doctor has stopped prescribing, when your state has already passed the law that affects your family, or when you know the next reconciliation bill, or the one after that, is coming.

The Republicans who spoke to Politico are frustrated because they haven't finished. They are not finished. Josh Hawley is already planning for the next bill. The filibuster is under pressure. And whatever doesn't pass at federal level has often already passed at state level.

A running tide that slows is still a tide. The trans community in America needs support, solidarity, and legal protection, not reassurance that the water has stopped rising.

If there is a news story you would like me to cover then just let Sammy know.

Dr Helen Webberley is a Gender Specialist, writer, and advocate, and the founder of GenderGP. She writes about gender diversity, trans healthcare, and the lives at the centre of them.