No state has recently lowered its age of consent. Claims that states are lowering the age of consent circulate regularly on social media, but the verified legislative record over the past several years runs the other direction: states have raised thresholds, expanded position-of-trust protections, and tightened rules around educators and minors. Most viral posts on the subject either misread a bill that addresses something else entirely or mistake a close-in-age exemption for a change in the age itself.
What Recent State Legislation Actually Did
The examples people can point to are increases, not decreases. Wyoming and New Mexico both raised their ages of consent from 16 to 17. In Alaska, a 2024 amendment to House Bill 264 proposed raising the age from 16 to 18. It stalled in committee over concerns that it would criminalize relationships between 18-year-olds and slightly younger partners already covered by the state’s close-in-age provision.
The broader pattern in state capitols involves adding protections rather than removing them. More than three-quarters of states have passed laws recognizing that students cannot consent to sexual relationships with educators regardless of the student’s age. That effectively raises the consent threshold well above the general baseline in any setting involving a teacher, coach, or school employee.
Where the Viral Claims Come From
Two bills have circulated widely as supposed proof that states are quietly cutting the age of consent. Neither one does anything of the sort.
West Virginia’s House Bill 5193 has been described online as a consent-law change. The actual bill text from the 2024 session addresses financial exploitation of persons in recovery, and the 2026 version addresses adverse possession of land.1West Virginia Legislature. West Virginia Legislature – House Bill 5193 Neither touches sexual offenses or the age of consent.
Tennessee’s SB 2732 has been mischaracterized the same way. The bill actually addresses voter registration procedures.2Tennessee General Assembly. Tennessee Code SB2732 Before trusting a claim that a specific bill lowers the age of consent, read the bill text on the legislature’s own site. Secondhand summaries frequently get it wrong.
Why Close-in-Age Laws Get Mistaken for a Lower Age
A lot of the confusion comes from close-in-age exemptions, sometimes called Romeo and Juliet laws. These provisions do not lower the age of consent. They reduce or eliminate criminal penalties when both people are close in age and the activity is consensual, so the law does not treat a 17-year-old and a 15-year-old partner the same way it treats an adult exploiting a child.
Tennessee illustrates how these work. If the older person is four to five years older than a partner who is at least 15 but under 18, the offense is mitigated statutory rape, a less severe felony than the standard or aggravated versions.3Justia. Tennessee Code 39-13-506 – Mitigated Statutory Rape – Statutory Rape – Aggravated Statutory Rape When the age gap is under four years, the framework generally protects against prosecution. The threshold age itself does not move.
Florida takes a different route to the same idea. Its general age of consent is 18, and the statute makes it a second-degree felony for anyone 24 or older to engage in sexual activity with a 16- or 17-year-old.4The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 794.05 – Unlawful Sexual Activity With Certain Minors Florida also allows people convicted of certain offenses to petition for removal from the sex offender registry when they were no more than four years older than the other person, who was between 13 and 17 at the time.5The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 943.04354 – Removal of the Requirement to Register as a Sexual Offender or Sexual Predator in Special Circumstances
When a state passes or expands a Romeo and Juliet provision, headlines sometimes describe it as the state “lowering” the age of consent. It isn’t. The general threshold stays where it was, and the exemption only narrows who gets prosecuted or how heavily, and only in specified circumstances without coercion or an authority relationship.
Protections Are Expanding, Not Contracting
Alongside the general age of consent, states have been steadily strengthening position-of-trust laws. In nearly every state, the effective age of consent rises to 18 when the older person is a teacher, coach, therapist, employer, or anyone else with formal authority over the younger person, even if the state’s general age is 16 or 17.
Colorado’s general age of consent is 17, but sexual contact by someone in a position of trust with anyone under 18 is a separate felony. When the victim is under 15, it is a class 3 felony; when the victim is 15 to 17, it is a class 4 felony.6Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 18-3-405.3 – Sexual Assault on a Child by One in a Position of Trust Alabama’s general age of consent is 16, but school employees who engage in sexual contact with students under 19 face separate charges regardless of whether the student has reached the general age.7Alabama Department of Human Resources. Child Protective Services Sexual Abuse Guidelines
The list of people covered by these statutes has grown over time. Early versions focused on teachers and school administrators. Modern ones commonly reach coaches, counselors, school volunteers, clergy, foster parents, and medical providers. Every one of these expansions has the practical effect of raising the age of consent for the covered relationship, not lowering it.
Who Actually Has the Power to Change It
The authority to set the age of consent belongs to individual states, not the federal government. The Tenth Amendment reserves to the states powers not given to the federal government, and criminal law governing sexual conduct sits squarely inside the states’ traditional authority over public health and safety.8Congress.gov. Tenth Amendment
That decentralized structure is why the age of consent can shift when you cross a state line, and it is also why changing the age of consent in any given state requires a bill passed by that state’s legislature and signed by its governor. Congress cannot lower a state’s age of consent, and federal statutes covering sexual offenses on military bases, in federal prisons, on federal lands, and in interstate cases don’t override state consent ages for conduct that stays inside a single state. A claim that “the age of consent is being lowered” without naming a specific state’s enacted law is almost always inaccurate.
If you want to verify a claim about your state, the direct route is to look up the bill number on the state legislature’s website and read the text. Bill summaries in social media posts are frequently wrong; the enrolled text is not.