Inside the Secret Working Group That Helped Push Anti-Trans Laws Across the Country – Mother Jones
Deutsch’s legislation, called the Vulnerable Child Protection Act, was killed in the Senate after doctors showed up at the South Dakota statehouse to argue they should not be sent to prison for following the medical consensus.
“Though our session in SD is now over and our efforts to protect gender-confused vulnerable children failed, I continue to receive ugly email and social media posts,” Deutsch complained to the group in March 2020.
“Please do not say that the South Dakota effort failed!!” Margaret Clarke, general counsel for the Alabama branch of the #Phyllis #Schlafly–founded Eagle Forum, replied. “You successfully inspired, encouraged and counseled numerous VCAP [sic] efforts around the country. You established the ideal witness list that we are all still following in our individual states…And, most importantly you connected us all to each other. This is just the beginning.”
Indeed, Deutsch’s bill has proved influential in the recent surge of #anti-#LGBTQ lawmaking. This legislative session, at least 18 states have considered bills containing language closely resembling the text of the Vulnerable Child Protection Act.
The leaked emails reveal how Deutsch’s proposal helped proponents of the national movement to #restrict #gender-#affirming #care establish a playbook for their now-common attacks.
“They’ve very much increased sophistication since then, but the roots are there,” says activist and writer Erin Reed, who tracks anti-trans legislation.
Reed says that when she meets with legislators, they’re often surprised to learn of the #outside #forces pushing anti-trans bills. “This isn’t coming from an in-state grassroots support system,” she says.
The emails demonstrate close collaboration between groups working behind the scenes to push bills banning transgender health care, including #ADF—which has defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people in Europe—and the #ACPeds—which has opposed adoption by gay couples and supported conversion therapy for LGBTQ youth.
In recent years, ADF has drafted legislation banning trans children from using school restrooms or playing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity.
(Both groups are also staunchly anti-abortion; ADF, which drafted the Mississippi abortion ban at the heart of the case that overturned Roe v. Wade, is currently representing ACPeds in a closely-watched lawsuit to ban an abortion pill, mifepristone, nationally.)
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/03/anti-trans-transgender-health-care-ban-legislation-bill-minors-children-lgbtq/
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