Over three special legislative sessions this year, Texas legislators introduced 47 proposed bills that aimed to restrict transgender kids’ access to sports or gender-affirming care, plus three bills that would block birth certificate updates for minors. The word “transgender” didn’t appear in any of them. Proponents of the bills in Texas, which brought triple the number of anti-trans bills this year of any other state, also rarely reference trans people during debate, even though the legislation is about what trans kids can and cannot do. Instead, they use language that categorizes trans girls as boys by using sex assigned at birth to define gender identity. More anti-trans bills were introduced in state legislatures in 2021 than in any previous year on record.