Groomers, gays, and gender ideology: Why the anti-LGBTQIA+ legislative backlash is a moral panic and why criminologists should care

In 2024, US state legislatures across the country introduced a record number of bills targeting LGBTQIA+ communities; according to the ACLU, 533 such bills were proposed, 49 of which passed into law. The past few years have seen a dramatic increase in formal attempts to criminalize and restrict queer and transgender people's rights, legal protections, access to healthcare, and participation in public life, as well as coverage of gender and sexuality in educational contexts. The rapid proliferation of these legislative efforts, and the intense animosity toward queer and trans people underpinning them, have led some to colloquially describe the situation as a moral panic. While these laws carry the potential for increased carceral system contact for queer and trans people and their allies, as well as facilitating violence toward these groups, criminologists have paid little attention to this issue thus far. This article reviews the sociological literature on moral panics and their component criteria, examines whether the recent rise in political and cultural targeting of LGBTQIA+ populations meets these criteria, and poses an argument for a criminological research agenda that incorporates a moral panic framework into examinations of anti-LGBTQIA+ harm and victimization.