The rights and freedoms of members of the LGBTQ+ community –particularly young people-- continue to come under attack from state legislatures in the U.S. According to the Human Rights Campaign—one of the leading organizations fighting to protect members of the LGBTQ+ community from discrimination. Data from HRC published by Axios Exclusive: Anti-LGBTQ+ legislative agenda momentum slows in U.S. , finds that while the number of state bills seeking to restrict the rights of gay Americans is still on the rise, the number of such bills passed in 2024 was less than half the number passed the year before. That’s welcome news to those in the LGBTQ+ community and their allies, but with the number of Americans identifying as members of the community continues to grow, these laws targeting them are having a chilling effect. In 2020, the U.S. Census found that 7.7% of Americans identified as belonging to the LGBTQ+ community, but among those in Gen Z, that figure grew to 21%. Medical experts say that gay Americans are at an elevated risk of engaging in self-harm, and that was even before the flurry of state laws targeting Trans and other LGBTQ+ people. In 2022, a study by the CDC found that students identifying as LGBTQ are four times as likely to have attempted suicide as compared to their heterosexual peers. But a national survey by the Trevor Project—also in 2022—found that LGBTQ youth who attended a school or lived in a community that supports and accepts “people like them,” reported lower rates of suicide attempts.