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In Texas, for instance, Governor Greg Abbott issued a directive calling on “licensed professionals” and the general public to report to state authorities the parents of any transgender minor undergoing “elective procedures for gender transitioning.” A Texas judge halted the order, but for young trans people, the damage was already done, said Ricardo Martinez, CEO of Equality Texas, a statewide LGBTQ+ political advocacy organization. Red-state lawmakers seem especially determined to curb the rights of transgender individuals. “It does impact the perception of safety within the state, because as a student at Florida-whether it be Florida State or University of Central Florida, or any of the other campuses across the state-students there live in the communities they don’t just live on the campus,” Windmeyer said. Students who are in college in Florida are impacted-their mental health, their ability to feel safe and welcomed on a campus in a state that is passing these atrocious laws is disturbing, even though they’re focused on K-12.” “LGBTQ students have a degree of resilience in college, but at the same time, they are impacted by the rhetoric, the actions and lack of support from the community. “Any time you have any type of extreme anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, it impacts not only young people in K-12, but by having this climate where the news and media are all focused on this very antitrans and antiqueer perspective with oftentimes demeaning language,18- to 24-year-olds are also impacted,” said Shane Mendez Windmeyer, executive director of Campus Pride, a national nonprofit that works to create more LGBTQ+-inclusive campuses. But the deleterious effects of these legislative efforts are seeping into higher education, normalizing antagonism toward LBGTQ+ students on some campuses and creating additional pain and stress for a population that already bears more than its fair share. Much of the legislation is aimed at K-12 students, including Florida’s "Parental Rights in Education" bill-known by opponents as “Don’t Say Gay”-that prohibits classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in certain elementary grades. They range from a proposed school library ban on books about sexual or gender identity in Oklahoma to legislation prohibiting scholars from publicly discussing or teaching “LGBT issues or lifestyle” in Tennessee. State lawmakers have proposed a record 238 anti-LGBTQ+ bills so far this year, according to an analysis by NBC News-nearly six times as many as in all of 2018.