Evan Low, president and CEO of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund and Victory Institute, has warned that anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and a national political climate is becoming more restrictive. Low, who recently returned from a gathering of advocates and organizers at the National LGBTQ Task Force, confirmed the scale of anti-gay legislation and political backlash that has escalated into something new. In 2025 alone, lawmakers introduced over 600 anti- LGBTQ+ bills nationwide, with the majority aimed at transgender people. The ACLU reported that in the first 29 days of 2026, state legislatures introduced 366 additional anti-Gay+ bills. In the 2026 midterm elections, Low argues that the response to these attacks must be power, with record number of queer and trans candidates running at every level of government in 2026. The rise in transgender candidates, many of whom entered politics after being pushed out of public institutions, is particularly notable.