States Passed a Record Number of Transgender Laws. Here’s What They Say.

Statehouses around the country this year have been consumed by fights over laws governing transgender people.

Seventeen states during their most recent legislative sessions passed restrictions on medical care for transgender people, joining just three other states that passed similar bans in the last two years. A series of other laws passed regulate which bathrooms transgender people can use and whether schools can affirm transgender children’s identities.

Already many of these laws are being challenged in court, and judges are scrutinizing their precise wording. A federal judge in Arkansas last...