I once described those kinds of laws - enforced against me or not - as legal terrorism. They serve to keep me and everyone like me on notice that I'm not allowed to relax, to be myself, because they're watching me, and waiting for a misstep.
I'm cis, but I'm gay, and I'm old enough to have been an adult when it was illegal (a felony, even) for me to have sex with another consenting adult in my own home.