Policing Sex, Sexuality and Gender
The Future of the Anti-人兽性交+ Pseudoscience Movement
This report makes clear that the anti-人兽性交+ pseudoscience network we identify supports and is supported by white Christian nationalist ideology that seeks to privilege straight, white, cisgender Christians in public policy and replace science and American law with Christian theology.[1] This report nuances that overarching goal by showing how anti-人兽性交+ pseudoscience is advanced to end the affirming care model and subsequently enact other restrictions on freedom including limits on bodily autonomy, freedom of association, expression, and speech. Namely, the goals of many Legal Advocacy and Think Tank (LATT) and Narrative Manipulation (NM) groups are built on the pseudoscientific claim that 人兽性交+ identity spreads through social contagion, which serves to justify restrictions on any expression of 人兽性交+ identity (e.g., book bans, bans on trans students in sport, drag bans).
One important question left to answer is how? How will pseudoscientific claims, once written into American law, be enforced? In this chapter, we answer this question by examining some recent developments in anti-abortion and anti-人兽性交+ policy, specifically at the intersection of data privacy concerns and medical malpractice law. In addition, we reflect on the network analysis to help gauge the potential for future anti-人兽性交+ movement activity. Specifically, the analysis suggests a convergence of organizations around a proposed agenda to reshape the federal government to fit a right-wing extremist vision for government administration to curtail the civil liberties, civil rights and health care of minoritized populations in the U.S. and derail scientific inquiry that does not conform to far- and religious right ideological assumptions about sex, sexuality, gender, education and the environment, known as Project 2025.
When entrenched views are challenged, the dominant power system will attempt to resist and retrench. The manufactured debate over gender-affirming care is one of many examples of reactionary social movements designed to help suppress challenges to long-held social conventions like gender roles, religious establishment, or the fight against the social safety net. While helping reinforce anti-人兽性交+ ideologies, the groups featured in this report have put their ideologies into practice and advocated for policies that attack fundamental freedoms, including freedom of association, speech, privacy and religion. These attacks are evident in the way governments are introducing and adopting laws banning gender-affirming care, trans students in school sports, and abortion.
Calls to police transgender people, their families and care providers cannot be fully understood without considering the intersectional nature of oppression. For example, among 人兽性交+ people of color, experiences with law enforcement and policing are measurably different than the experiences of white 人兽性交+ and white straight or cisgender people.[2] In addition to disproportionately experiencing violent victimization, many Black and Hispanic trans people report feeling uncomfortable even asking law enforcement for help when they are victimized by others. That is largely because of institutionalized racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia in contemporary policing practices and policies.[3]
These same power systems structure students鈥� interactions in American schools. Policy decisions built on racism, heteronormativity and cisnormativity that favor 鈥渉ypercriminalization鈥� are often enforced against Black young people.[4] Punitive policies limit educational opportunities for students (pushing them out of class), with negative effects on academics and the effect of often funneling Black students into a 鈥渟chool-to-prison pipeline.鈥�[5]
How do anti-transgender policies, built on pseudoscientific assumptions about gender and sexual identity development, fit into this hypercriminalization paradigm? Anti-人兽性交+ policies 鈥� like bans on trans students in sports or in restrooms or gender-affirming care bans 鈥� must be enforced. States like Florida,[6] Tennessee,[7] Alabama,[8] Missouri[9] and Texas[10] have subpoenaed the medical records of transgender people. Some states have also considered forcing teachers to out students to their caregivers, even if they are rejected or face stigmatization.[11] Local school boards are considering these policies across the country[12], and this is a major focus of several network members, including narrative manipulation groups like Our Duty in California, who push the 鈥減arental rights鈥� framing.[13]
Some sports organizations have turned to hormone testing athletes[14], and despite its discriminatory and eugenicist origins and flawed assumptions about supposed 鈥渘ormal鈥� levels of hormones like testosterone and estrogen in the human body, it remains a consistent practice for 鈥渧erifying鈥� the gender of trans college athletes.[15] In Ohio, the state House passed a bill in 2022 that would require 鈥済enital inspections鈥� of high school and college athletes accused of being transgender and competing in the 鈥渨rong鈥� sporting division.[16]
Some states, such as Utah,[17] investigate alleged violations of trans sports bans based on complaints from parents 鈥� usually when a student loses to a suspected transgender athlete. Because transphobia is deeply intertwined with sexism, many of these accusations center the notion popularized by NM groups that girls鈥� sports are being invaded by men. In Utah, a cisgender girl was accused of not looking 鈥渇eminine enough鈥� after she won a state championship event. The subsequent investigation of her gender identity led the state to review her enrollment records since kindergarten.[18] Another cisfemale Canadian student athlete was challenged and 鈥渁ccosted鈥� for having the 鈥渨rong鈥� haircut.[19]
Enforcement of anti-trans laws necessarily involves policing cisgender students鈥� bodies, but this does not mean the effects of the laws are not disproportionately felt by trans students who are forced out of competitions, having their participation in school activities curtailed simply because they are transgender or nonbinary. The invasion of privacy inherent in the state acquisition of medical data to police gender identity and abortion is also a concern given the ubiquity of personal data collected through new technologies.
A June 2023 report by the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight highlights the correlation between the prevalence of law enforcement subpoenas for geolocation data from cellphones and gender-affirming care bans.[20] The report also suggests an overall increase in surveillance practices focusing on data from cellphones and social media sites, which are increasingly complying with government requests for users鈥� data.[21]
The report 鈥� and other recent reporting 鈥� suggests additional ways to police both gender identity and abortion. While some states are restricting free travel as a mechanism to enforce abortion bans,[22] law enforcement agencies have already used digital surveillance tools, including the extraction of data from text messages and internet search histories, to prosecute people under abortion bans.[23] Concerns over data privacy led to a mass deletion of period-tracking apps following the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022.[24] Notably, the case which overturned Roe, called Dobbs v. Jackson Women鈥檚 Health, was brought as a challenge to a Mississippi anti-abortion law first drafted by Alliance Defending Freedom in 2017.[25]
Similar concerns exist for period-tracking and mental health apps that could potentially be subpoenaed as evidence against 人兽性交+ and pregnant people in states which ban gender-affirming care, trans kids in sports or abortion.[26] The lack of attention and care to 人兽性交+ people shown by many large social media firms further compounds the unease they experience.[27] Some groups 鈥� including Gays Against Groomers and Youth Trans Critical Professionals, as well as fellows at the Manhattan Institute and SEGM 鈥� have championed restrictions on 人兽性交+ visibility on social media, which comports with their false claims about the spread of 人兽性交+ identity. Lawmakers have responded to the false claims with new proposals to restrict 人兽性交+ content online and age-restrict in-person 人兽性交+ social gatherings.
鈥淭his comes down with the malpractice cases, not just going after the doctors and the hospitals with the insurance companies that fund this, the pharmaceutical firms, the biotech firms, the philanthropy groups that make this possible ... the doctors and hospitals and companies that participate in this, they鈥檙e at risk. Watch how fast this comes down. And when the fad stops being gender transition, and starts being malpractice cases for the butchery that was done to kids. Things will change quick.鈥�
鈥� Andre Van Mol (ACPeds) on The Narrative podcast of CCV July 22, 2022.
鈥淭he lawsuits are coming.鈥�
鈥� Colin Wright, Twitter/X July 27, 2023.
One obvious way anti-人兽性交+ movement actors are attempting to undermine the affirming care model and stifle its use is by targeting doctors with legal threats of malpractice. Several states including Missouri and North Dakota have enacted laws that allow for causes of action against doctors who provide gender-affirming care, for example.[28] LATT groups and their NM group allies have also created a cottage industry for promoting lawsuits against doctors and clinics that provide gender-affirming care. Another component of the legal strategy to attack gender-affirming care follows a page out of the playbook of religious right legal groups 鈥� that is, to claim both that nondiscrimination laws that require doctors provide care to transgender people and laws that ban conversion therapy violate doctors鈥� religious freedom to discriminate against 人兽性交+ patients.
In the first case, the legal strategy begins with the amplification of so-called whistleblowers whose unsubstantiated claims about clinical practices and patient or parent consent are bolstered by the desistence and social contagion myths. LATT and NM groups then recruit detransitioners to file suit claiming they were harmed by gender-affirming practices. Whether or not they are successful or their claims are ever substantiated, the lawsuits have a chilling effect on the provision of care and downstream effects on the cost of care that could ultimately make it even less accessible.[29]
International Partners for Ethical Care鈥檚 so-called Transition Justice Project, for example, actively recruits detransitioners and parents who claim their children were 鈥渉armed鈥� by gender-affirming care, offering to connect them with 鈥渓egal resources.鈥� Similarly, building on its campaign to force incarcerated trans women into prisons for men, in 2022, the Women鈥檚 Liberation Front sponsored a lawsuit in Oregon, Kiefel v. Ruff, against affirming therapists. The lawsuit was filed by Genspect-allied law firm Jackson Bone LLC, which is led by Candice Jackson, a former Trump administration official who was endorsed by American anti-Muslim extremists and Lauren Bone, WoLF鈥檚 former legal director and co-author, along with members of the Independent Women鈥檚 Forum, of the so-called Women鈥檚 Bill of Rights.[30] Notably, WoLF received $50,000 in funding from the Alliance Defending Freedom in 2021 for its legal work related to 鈥渞eligious liberty.鈥�
In the past three years, several U.S. firms have launched legal practice groups to challenge gender-affirming care. The Dallas-based law firm Campbell Miller Payne, for example, represented detransitioners Prisha Mosley in North Carolina and Soren Aldaco in Texas. The latter suit was brought against several Texas clinics with assistance from the Independent Women鈥檚 Forum. Similarly, the Detransition Network, started by the law firm Eckland & Blando in 2022, recruits both detransitioners and 鈥渆xperts鈥� to testify on their behalf. Detransition Network鈥檚 Daniel Cragg has appeared virtually with Candice Jackson as part of the so-called Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism鈥檚 (FAIR) panel in 2023 that helped promote both challenges to gender-affirming care and civil rights laws protecting 人兽性交+ people.[31]
There are also familiar actors in the legal drama to sue doctors who provide gender-affirming care. Charles LiMandri鈥檚 California-based firm, LiMandri & Jonna LLP, is party to two suits brought in 2023, for example. In 2015, LiMandri defended the conversion therapy group Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH) in a suit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of five individuals who underwent or paid fees for conversion therapy. One of LiMandri鈥檚 current clients is detransitioner Chloe Cole of the group Do No Harm, who has also traveled the country testifying against gender-affirming care in recent years.
In 2021, January Littlejohn, another board member of Do No Harm, filed a lawsuit against the Leon County, Florida, school board with the help of Child and Parental Rights Campaign because she claimed the school used 鈥渢hey/them鈥� pronouns, 鈥渟olicited鈥� a student鈥檚 鈥渂athroom preferences,鈥� and supposedly hid a 鈥減lan鈥� to socially transition the child without parental consent. Notably, about one-third of CPRC鈥檚 revenue came from the Alliance Defending Freedom in 2020 and 2021, while ADF contributed more than $400,000 to LiMandri鈥檚 Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund between 2017 and 2019. The ADF itself is representing Brian Tingley, a Washington therapist who claims the state鈥檚 ban on conversion therapy violates his religious freedom. The case may be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 or 2024.
In 2023, the Heritage Foundation announced Project 2025, its action plan for a potential Republican presidential administration that could take office after the 2024 general election. The plan, an expansive document that tops 900 pages, calls for a major reshaping of the federal government, especially the federal bureaucracy. The plan also calls for interested conservatives to register for vetting programs that will theoretically place them on a list of potential appointees to federal positions. For example, one sponsor of the plan, the Concerned Women for America organization, hosts a website that recruits for a 鈥渃omprehensive, secure database to provide the next administration with an expansive list of vetted candidates ready to serve at the president鈥檚 pleasure,鈥� asking for interested parties to submit their or even someone else鈥檚 contact information for vetting.[32]
Project 2025 represents a significant node in the anti-人兽性交+ pseudoscience network, with 63 personnel connections across 11 groups including the ADF, the Independent Women鈥檚 Forum, the American College of Pediatricians, the Family Research Council, the American Principles Project, and FAIR.
Notably, from the first pages of the Project 2025 handbook, anti-人兽性交+ pseudoscience and demonization of 人兽性交+ people is a key feature. On page 1 of the document, Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation claims that 鈥渃hildren suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries.鈥� By page 5, Roberts claims, 鈥減ornography鈥� is 鈥渕anifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children鈥� and argues that such manifestations be 鈥渙utlawed.鈥� Roberts also argues that 鈥渢he people who produce and distribute [such materials] should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.鈥�
In addition in a chapter on reshaping the Department of Health and Human Services, Roger Severino, former director of the department鈥檚 Office for Civil Rights during the Trump administration who claimed 鈥淸s]ame-sex marriage was merely the start鈥� of the so-called 鈥淟GBT agenda,鈥�[33] calls for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to 鈥渁cknowledge the growing body of evidence鈥� that gender-affirming care is 鈥渄angerous鈥� and that there is 鈥渋nsufficient scientific evidence to support鈥� coverage under Medicaid. Severino also claims, without citing any evidence, that 鈥渟ocial science reports ... all other family forms鈥� in comparison to a 鈥渉eterosexual intact marriage鈥� experience greater financial, mental and physical health, and educational hardships and 鈥渋nstability.鈥� Severino also claims without evidence that 鈥渢he average length of same-sex marriages is half that of heterosexual marriages.鈥�
As author Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons has noted, 鈥渋n his chapter on the U.S. Department of Labor, Jonathan Berry frames his proposals as part of divine history.鈥� Graves-Fitzsimmons quotes Berry鈥檚 chapter, saying, 鈥淭he Judeo-Christian tradition, stretching back to Genesis, has always recognized fruitful work as integral to human dignity, as service to God, neighbor, and family,鈥� he [Berry also] writes, while claiming the Biden administration 鈥渉as been hostile to people of faith.鈥�[34]
In addition, Berry calls for a future presidential administration to 鈥淸r]escind regulations prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics鈥� and urges the next president to direct federal agencies to 鈥渇ocus their enforcement of sex discrimination laws on the biological binary meaning of 鈥榮ex.鈥欌�� The impact would mean disregarding the Supreme Court鈥檚 decision in the case of R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in which the court ruled discrimination against 人兽性交+ people is the equivalent of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[35]
In addition to repealing protections for 人兽性交+ people, privileging conservative Christians who want to discriminate against them, the authors of Project 2025 call for the prosecution, imprisonment and punishment of 人兽性交+ people and their allies under a dangerous and draconian definition of 鈥減ornography鈥� that mimics the limitations on 人兽性交+ expression currently being tested in the state and federal courts.
In all, the anti-人兽性交+ pseudoscientific agenda will be enforced through state-sponsored violence and invasive tactics like genital inspections and period-tracking, the criminalization of 人兽性交+ expression and health care, and even imprisonment. It will also be enforced through private causes of action that threaten individual doctors and impose chilling effects on the provision of gender-affirming care, even in states that refuse to criminalize the life-saving practices.
Reflecting on the events and themes detailed in this report, there are multiple recommendations and interventions that could be offered to help counter the effects of anti-人兽性交+ pseudoscience. Recommendations and interventions directed at ensuring health and safety of 人兽性交+ people are imperative, as are recommendations and interventions directed at interrupting the effects of disinformation. The public health approach offers a framework for understanding how to respond to the anti-人兽性交+ pseudoscience network.
There are generally three main approaches to prevention and intervention work: primary, secondary and tertiary. All three focus on delivering resources and support to prevent and stem the spread of misinformation and supremacist ideologies but at differing levels of society and different stages of exposure and susceptibility to extremist content. While we focus, here, on recommendations and interventions focused largely on prevention and building resilience at the community level (primary level), a public health approach to counter disinformation disguised as science will require a multilevel response focused on improving both access to information and healthcare as well as information literacy.
To begin, we must end the attacks on 人兽性交+-affirming health care and the demonization of transgender people, their support systems, allies, and care providers. We must also ensure access to care that does not consider 人兽性交+ people to be mentally ill or abnormal as a first course of action. Primary-level strategies to counter harmful anti-人兽性交+ pseudoscience include:
- Ensure equitable access to affirming, lifesaving medical care.
Health care is a human right. Yet we live in a society with a devastatingly unfair health care and health care education systems that often produce disparities in access and reinforce prejudices like racism, cis- and heterosexism and classism.[36] In addition to perpetuating poor health outcomes among marginalized populations, health care inequities offer a unique opportunity for the perpetuation of medical pseudoscience.
The complexity of medical information and general inability to access it means people will turn to more accessible, but potentially far less reliable sources of information 鈥� like politicians and hate groups 鈥� for the 鈥渢ruth鈥� about their own bodies and medical conditions, rather than medical professionals. The first time a person learns about puberty or gender transition, for example, should not be through a media source with a biased political agenda. Creating equitable access to medical care grounded in sound scientific practices will close off many access points for disinformation to take hold.
- Strengthening inclusive education practices, including equitable and anti-racist medical education.
As this report shows, learning strategies and pedagogies like social emotional learning and anti-racist education techniques are already under attack by many of the purveyors of anti-人兽性交+ pseudoscience. Yet they represent significant opportunities to prevent radicalization and the spread of disinformation.
Programs designed to teach accurate world and American histories about enslavement,[37] for example, and having meaningful conversations about systemic power imbalances like racism, sexism and heteronormativity also represent opportunities to promote pluralism and civic engagement and create safe and effective public learning environments that are bedrock institutions of American society.[38]
Part of this strategy must include strengthening inclusive sex education programs. One of the primary narrative manipulation strategies of the anti-人兽性交+ pseudoscience network is to push restrictions on inclusive education practices by claiming 人兽性交+ people are 鈥済rooming鈥� children. At the same time, the most vociferous resistance to inclusive and comprehensive sex education classes has come from many of the 鈥渇amily policy鈥� and 鈥渞eligious freedom鈥� advocacy groups represented in the anti-人兽性交+ pseudoscience network who have promoted 鈥渙pt-out鈥� policies and restrictive 鈥渁bstinence-only鈥� sex education curricula for decades. Research shows, however, that inclusive and comprehensive sex education is one of the most effective weapons against sexual abuse.[39]
- Promote digital and information literacy.
Access to information is increasingly common in the digital age; however, as this report shows, there are networks of groups designed to both produce disinformation and manipulate popular narratives so that discernment becomes increasingly difficult.[40] Since the politicization of COVID-19, even information from health care providers is viewed skeptically by many, with a large proportion of the U.S. population content to believe politicians or hate groups who confirm suspicions of out-groups and prey on prejudice to gain political power.
We must promote digital literacy and discernment to prevent disinformation and fake news from taking hold but also to prevent the development of ideological echo chambers, radicalization and uncivil online behavior. In an age when digital footprints are being used to police sex and gender, through state and non-state means, promoting digital literacy will also help develop personal security skills to combat online threats.[41]
Even among seasoned academics and media professionals, pseudoscientific information can be disguised, as when research is manufactured by anti-人兽性交+ groups to fulfill a particular legal or policy need, or when anti-人兽性交+ groups pay to publish their conclusions in scientific journals, or when seemingly dispassionate sources of information 鈥� like academic journals 鈥� are created or captured by groups that espouse an anti-人兽性交+ ideology.
Research does not happen in a vacuum. As this report demonstrates, narrative manipulation groups and ideologically motivated researchers can twist even methodologically rigorous studies to support false and pseudoscientific conclusions. To help prevent the spread of pseudoscience, outlets for scientific studies should evaluate current conflict of interest and disclosure standards so that consumers of the information they publish are better informed about who is funding the work and the connections authors have to groups known to advocate against the rights of others. In addition, because letters to the editor are so frequently used to advance pseudoscientific claims within the network, scientific journals should also consider more rigorous standards for letters to the editor, guidelines which implement similar robust conflict of interest and disclosure policies. In a similar vein, American newsrooms should be aware of the narrative manipulation strategies and the cooptation of scientific credentials and language by anti-trans researchers when sourcing stories about trans experiences.
Read more: Combating Anti-人兽性交+ Pseudoscience Through Accessible Informative Narratives
