Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) has signed two anti-transgender bills into law: one banning trans people from using restrooms, changing rooms, and sleeping quarters matching their gender identities, and another banning trans female athletes from playing on sports teams that match their gender identities. The latter bill also allows students to misgender and deadname trans and nonbinary students and also punishes schools that use diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) student admission policies.

In his video statement about the laws, Gianforte denounced “radical” “far-left gender ideology” and implied that trans people threaten the safety of women and girls. In reality, cisgender men harm women and girls far more than trans women.

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Record number of anti-trans bills introduced just before 2025
120 bills have been introduced, topping last year’s count of 80.

The first bill, House Bill 121, bans trans individuals from using multiple-occupancy restrooms, changing rooms, and sleeping quarters in detention facilities, local domestic violence programs, public schools, and public buildings, including libraries, museums, hospitals, auditoriums, dormitories, or university buildings.

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Anyone who encounters someone using a facility that doesn’t match the biological sex they were assigned at birth can sue the trans or nonbinary individual for breaking the law. The law doesn’t apply to janitors, maintenance workers, medical providers, law enforcement officials, or family members and guardians helping young people or assisting people with disabilities.

The second bill, House Bill 300, prohibits educational institutions from allowing trans women and girls to play on girls’ and women’s sports teams. The law also says it is “not an unlawful discriminatory practice for a student to call another student by the student’s legal name or refer to another student by the student’s sex.” Put another way, the law says it’s not discriminatory for transphobic students to deadname or misgender trans or nonbinary students.

H.B. 300 also forbids schools from using policies that admit students on the basis of race, color, sex, marital status, age, creed, religion, physical or mental disability, or national origin. These bills follow similar transphobic executive orders signed earlier this year by the U.S. president.

In a video statement about the bills, Gov. Gianforte said that the laws “safeguard fairness, privacy and security for women and girls.”

“We think it’s pretty simple: A man shouldn’t be in a woman’s restroom, shouldn’t be in a woman’s shower room, and shouldn’t be housed in a women’s prison,” he said. “These are common sense bills. But in these days, common sense isn’t so common.”

He claimed that H.B. 300 “builds on our work to protect fairness and integrity in women’s sports,” but critics of anti-trans sports bans note that such laws do nothing to address the sexism, unequal funding, and physical/sexual abuse that actually harms girls’ and women’s sports.

Montana is now the 27th state to ban trans female athletes from sports teams and the 17th to adopt an anti-trans bathroom law, according to the Movement Advancement Project.

“These bills are another cruel attempt by Montana Republicans to harass trans people,” transgender state legislator Rep. Zooey Zephyr (D) said via Bluesky, adding that she expects the laws to be deemed as unconstitutional by the court. “These bills do not make women safe. They merely infringe on the privacy rights of trans Montanans & endanger us as we live our lives in public.”

Commenting on H.B. 121, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wrote, “The truth is that it is transgender people who are most vulnerable to harassment in restrooms. One survey found that 12% had been verbally harassed in public restrooms in the previous year, and 60% had avoided using public restrooms because they feared confrontation.”

“In addition, HB 121 threatens intersex, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people. First, it offers an incorrect, binary definition of ‘sex,'” the ACLU continued. “This definition erases intersex people, who make up around 2% of the population. The act  also invites public scrutiny — and exclusion — of anyone who doesn’t conform to gender stereotypes.”

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