Texas ‘Death Star’ Suit Enables More Erosion of LGBTQ+ Bias Laws

A suit poised to eliminate Dallas’ LGBTQ+ anti-bias ordinances brought under a sweeping Texas preemption law threatens to accelerate a burgeoning movement across states to undercut local legal protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.

A law banning bias against LGBTQ+ individuals in employment, housing, and public accommodations is one of dozens of Dallas ordinances that courts could void under the state’s sweeping 2023 preemption law, nicknamed the “Death Star” by critics. Austin, Fort Worth, and Plano have similar anti-bias ordinances.

The state law that allows private plaintiffs to challenge local laws has been largely dormant since its passage. But three Dallas residents now are asking a court to declare nearly a hundred ordinances void, in what appears to be the first such lawsuit under the statute.

The Texas measure is a sweeping version of states’ perennial preemption efforts, primarily GOP-majority statehouses opposing Democratic-controlled cities’ progressive policies. Ordinances banning workplace discrimination have historically been largely spared as LGBTQ+ advocates and some business groups argued for preserving them, but a wave of policy shifts opposing transgender protections may change the tide.

“We’ve seen an extreme escalation in anti-LGBTQ legislation,” said Johnathan Gooch, spokesperson for Equality Texas. The advocacy group tracked 70-some Texas bills it deemed as hostile in 2021, rising to 140 in 2023 and then more than 200 in 2025, he added. The Texas legislature meets once every two years.

“The mood in the legislature has definitely shifted to be more anti-trans, anti-queer, and that has coincided with a move toward overriding home rule,” he said.

Texas isn’t unique. Policy shifts eroding transgender protections include President Donald Trump ordering federal agencies to only recognize two biological sexes and states banning gender-affirming medical procedures for minors and restricting schools’ teaching of curriculum involving LGBTQ+ topics.

Currently, only Arkansas and Tennessee explicitly ban cities and counties from enforcing nondiscrimination ordinances that go beyond state law. A similar North Carolina preemption law expired in 2020, after which a spate of local governments passed anti-bias policies.

The litigation against Dallas isn’t meant to target anti-discrimination protections, but rather to protect taxpayers and businesses against overreaching local ordinances, said Nathan Seltzer, an attorney at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which represents the plaintiffs.

“Texas regulates nondiscrimination already, so does the federal government,” he said. “When you add layer after layer of regulations, it becomes very hard for businesses to know if they’re operating within the law.”

Nick Starling, a spokesperson for Dallas, said city officials couldn’t comment on pending litigation.

Escaping Preemption

Cities and counties have passed anti-bias ordinances with LGBTQ+ protections in more than 20 states from Florida to Alaska that lack statewide protections, according to the Movement Advancement Project.

Nondiscrimination ordinances have largely escaped preemption, as GOP-led state legislatures targeted local mandates on other labor issues. Those include bans on local minimum wages, paid sick leave, employee scheduling, and heat safety measures.

State chambers of commerce at times have opposed anti-LGBTQ+ legislation for fear it could hurt local economic prospects. Controversy over North Carolina’s 2016 law restricting transgender individuals’ use of public restrooms led to backlash and the National Basketball Association pulling its 2017 All Star game out of Charlotte.

Past hesitance to override anti-bias laws extended to the conservative-leaning American Legislative Exchange Council. In a 2020 model bill designed to broadly preempt certain local labor ordinances, the suggested language exempted nondiscrimination ordinances.

In the 2023 Texas session, there was behind-the-scenes talk that the Death Star measure might spare nondiscrimination ordinances from preemption, Gooch said. The final version didn’t.

Whether many more states will go the way of Texas by broadly attacking nondiscrimination ordinances remains to be seen, but states have made steps in this direction recently.

Iowa’s legislature this year became first in the nation to remove a protected trait, gender identity, from its civil rights statute.

Tennessee, which already preempts nondiscrimination ordinances, passed a law in 2025 (HB 1097) empowering its attorney general to review local government actions suspected of violating state law.

AG Jonathan Skrmetti recently successfully defended a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors at the US Supreme Court. He also led a multistate challenge in 2024 against the Biden administration’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission workplace harassment guidance that protected against gender identity-related harassment.

Missouri legislators considered a similar bill (SB 459). Missouri lawmakers could use such a law to demand review of anti-bias ordinances in Kansas City and St. Louis.

There’s been no shortage of approaches to overriding local authority on LGBTQ+ rights, said Katie Belanger, lead consultant for the Local Solutions Support Center, including in public education and health care. The movement extends to removing cultural landmarks such as rainbow-painted crosswalks in Florida and Texas, including one honoring victims of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.

“There’s legal equality and there’s lived equality. The policies are only a part of it,” Belanger said.

Shrinking Enforcement Options

Local nondiscrimination ordinances often provide explicit bans on bias related to sexual orientation and gender identity that are absent from the corresponding state civil rights laws, such as in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas.

The Supreme Court in 2020 affirmed those traits as protected in the workplace within Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s ban on sex-based discrimination. That decision still empowers LGBTQ+ workers to pursue claims of job discrimination in federal court.

But the EEOC under Trump recently rolled back processing of worker charges claiming gender identity discrimination—a policy choice that’s facing legal challenge. The move followed Trump’s “two sexes” order.

The federal policy shifts leave local ordinances as the only option for agency enforcement of LGBTQ+ discrimination in some states, said Jared Make, vice president at A Better Balance.

“Local authority is so crucial to LGBTQ rights, to economic and social justice,” he said, “particularly at a time when the federal government is hostile to transgender rights.”