Defending LGBTQ+ Missourians
March 11, 2026
Re: Woodhull Opposition to MO HB2536 “Establishes definitions and provisions for the protection of women”, MO HB2075 “Establishes provisions for restroom designations in all public buildings”, and MO HB1893 “Establishes immunity from civil liability for certain actions taken by private schools related to access to restrooms or changing areas”
Dear Chair Hardwick, Vice-Chair Diehl, and Ranking Minority Member Aune of the Missouri House Emerging Issues Committee,
My name is Ricci Levy, and I am the President and CEO of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, a national organization whose mission is to affirm sexual freedom as a fundamental human right. Woodhull protects individuals’ rights across the United States to enjoy sexual dignity, privacy, and consensual sexual expression without societal or governmental interference, coercion or stigmatization. As a representative of Woodhull and in my capacity as an expert on the human right to sexual freedom, I write to you all today to express our strong opposition to HB 2536, HB 2075, and HB 1893.
Today, you and your colleagues are considering these bills in an Executive Session of the Emerging Issues Committee. We implore you to stop the progression of these bills as they represent a grave attack on the LGBTQ+ community in Missouri. HB 2536, HB 2075, and HB 1893 will create barriers for transgender, nonbinary, intersex, and gender expansive Missourians to access bathrooms and other public spaces that align with their gender identity. These bills will hurt Missourians.
At Woodhull, we are tracking bills and legislation like this, which target the LGBTQ+ community and are part of broader societal and political attacks on LGBTQ+ people. This includes in your neighboring state of Kansas with the shocking invalidation of more than 1,000 transgender people’s driver’s licenses and birth certificates in February of this year when Senate Bill 244 came into effect. The state law bans changing sex markers to align with a person’s gender identity on state-issued documents. The law provides no grace period, meaning trans and nonbinary people’s documents with previously changed sex markers were immediately invalidated. Overnight, Kansas disenfranchised trans people, threatening their right to vote and infringing on their freedom of movement. Instead of following Kansans’ lead, we urge you and your colleagues to stand up for the rights and freedoms of your constituents in Missouri.
This assault on the LGBTQ+ community includes myriad attacks by the White House as enshrined in several Executive Orders which erase transgender, nonbinary, and gender expansive people from public life and falsely treats sex as a fixed male and female binary, direct federal agencies to impede young people’s access to lifesaving gender-affirming healthcare, and ban trans women and girls from competing on sports teams that align with their gender. The assault on trans people is so dire that the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security has warned that policies targeting transgender people in the United States are indicative of the early stages of genocide.
Our opposition to HB 2536, HB 2075, and HB 1893 is informed by this wide sweeping assault on LGBTQ+ people and sexual freedom more broadly and by irrefutable facts about sexual orientation and gender identity, which we have exhaustively researched as part of our Fact Checked by Woodhull series. In this series, we address the reality that LGBTQ+ people are not a public danger but instead are in danger of harassment, discrimination, and violence, with current laws not sufficiently protecting LGBTQ+ people’s rights. We also address the truth about gender and sex which is not reflected in the bills you are considering today. This includes the fact that restrictive binary categories of gender and sex cause serious harm by excluding and shaming anyone who exists outside of these lines, especially transgender and intersex people.
We strongly urge you and your colleagues to be on the side of human rights and protect the dignity, health, and safety of LGBTQ+ people by opposing HB 2536, HB 2075, and HB 1893.
Your consideration of these urgent matters is very much appreciated.