The sudden flood of state-level efforts to restrict transgender rights is being fueled by many of the Christian and conservative groups that led the charge against Roe. v. Wade, Axios’ Russell Contreras reports on Friday’s Transgender Day of Visibility.
Driving the news: The push by groups such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Research Council, the Liberty Counsel and the American Principles Project represents a multimillion-dollar effort to build on the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade with new restrictions on LGBTQ rights.
- The groups have shaped similarly worded “parents’ rights” bills that seek to ban minors from attending drag shows, prevent trans youths from receiving gender-affirming care, and restrict their participation in high school sports.
Yes, but: The sponsor of Georgia’s new law banning gender-affirming care for minors, State Sen. Carden Summers (R-Cordele) told Axios Atlanta state and national conservative groups did not spark his interest: “I’ve got a friend that’s got an issue, and it just sort of started.”
- In fact, he said, state and national conservative groups did not even support the final bill, though not for their lack of lobbying.
Summers defended his law as a compromise because it exempted puberty blockers and limited the restrictions to minors.
- “This bill lacks compared to what’s been passed nationally,” he said. “Their bills are very strict.”
The intrigue: Cole Muzio, president of the Georgia conservative Christian group Frontline Policy Action — which also advocated for the state’s 2019 anti-abortion law — agreed that Summers ignored national and state conservative groups’ lobbying by exempting puberty blockers and other language differences.
- “It was not done with any sort of adherence to what is working nationally, what’s being done nationally, what conservatives wanted or were thinking,” Muzio said.
- Frontline and other state and national groups, he said, supported a different bill that stalled. They did, however, get…
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