---

Paid influence ecosystem

A key feature of today’s anti-trans backlash is a paid influence ecosystem that elevates a small number of detransitioners and other “personal story” messengers into policy weapons—treating their narratives as representative proof that transition-related care is broadly harmful, and then routing those narratives through media, sponsored events, litigation strategy, and legislative testimony. This happens even alongside peer-reviewed outcomes research that points in a very different direction—for example, a Vanderbilt cohort using the validated VMP-G instrument reported 2.8% postoperative regret among respondents. (PubMed)

Story messengers and later repudiation 

• Elisa Rae Shupe (Oregon-linked example of “story” cultivation and later repudiation)
  Shupe became nationally known after an Oregon judge granted legal recognition of a nonbinary sex designation in Multnomah County. (Willamette Week)
  Later reporting describes how Shupe was brought into conservative “pro-family” political spaces, including Family Policy Alliance’s Statesmen Academy—which FPA describes as providing “training, mentorship, support and coordination” for “pro-family legislators…for…Christ-centered public service.” (Family Policy Alliance)
  Shupe later repudiated this world; Uncloseted Media quotes Shupe describing a “wink-wink theatrical relationship” in which the goal was to make her detransition sound “as bad as [she] could,” and describes the “rock star treatment” and all-expenses-paid trip framing. (Uncloseted Media)
• Ky Schevers (and collaborator Lee Leveille) — public shift / pushback after earlier involvement
  ABC News profiles Schevers as someone who previously fell into online detrans spaces that fed anti-trans politics and later organized to push back against how detransition narratives get weaponized. (ABC News)
• Prisha Mosley — repeated testimony + reported financial assistance for travel
  The Washington Post describes Mosley as part of a small cohort of detransitioners gaining prominence in conservative campaigns, including documentaries “often sponsored by right-wing groups,” and reports that Mosley said private groups assisted her financially when she traveled to testify. (The Washington Post)

Coming out as transgender—or as any LGBTQ person—can mean moving from a life organized around performance for survival to a life organized around aliveness. In environments where authenticity feels unsafe—because of religion, family rules, bullying, discrimination, or rigid gender expectations—people often learn to monitor themselves constantly: voice, clothes, posture, interests, crushes, facial expressions, even vocal tone. They become skilled at fitting in, achieving, and seeming “fine,” sometimes living mostly in their head because it’s safer than feeling what their body and inner experience are trying to say. From the outside, this can look like confidence or success; on the inside, it can feel unreal—like playing a role, and the more praise you get for doing it “right,” the more phoney you feel. Coming out is often less a single announcement and more a gradual reorganization of a life: a slow loosening of protective performance, a decision to stop negotiating with your own reality, and a rebuilding of self that’s rooted in what actually feels true—so life stops being a script you follow and becomes something you’re finally living.

Becoming your true self usually isn’t about ripping off a mask overnight—it’s about building enough safety, over time, that you don’t need the mask to survive. When your nervous system has learned that honesty brings punishment, rejection, or chaos, it will default to management: staying “acceptable,” staying small, staying numb, constantly checking for danger. Safety changes the math. Safety looks like consistent care, predictable relationships, boundaries that actually hold, and spaces where you’re not argued out of your own reality. As safety accumulates, your body can finally relax its grip; you start noticing what you actually feel, what you actually want, what brings relief or joy, and you can take small risks—one honest sentence, one pronoun, one piece of clothing, one disclosure to a safe person. Over time, those protected experiments add up to something bigger: a life where your identity isn’t handled like a threat, but held like something real.

When someone grows up in punishing or discriminatory environments, that pressure doesn’t stay “out there.” It often gets installed inside as a punishing part—an internal enforcer that tries to keep you safe by keeping you controlled. Instead of treating basic needs as signals (rest, comfort, connection, desire, self-expression), it treats them like liabilities. It regulates through self-criticism, shame, and emotional punishment: “Don’t want that,” “Don’t show that,” “Don’t be like that,” “You’ll lose everything if you’re honest.” Early on, that harshness can function like armor—because in a threatening world, being “acceptable” can reduce harm. But over time it becomes its own injury, shrinking the person’s life and cutting them off from the very needs that make them feel real, alive, connected to their bodies, genuinely connected to others, and capable of joy. Freud called this internal punisher the superego: the internalized voice of external authority that can become especially cruel in shaming systems, enforcing “goodness” through guilt and self-attack.

That same pressure helps explain why some people detransition. Detransition is not one thing and reasons vary, but discrimination can be a major driver: when the world makes it costly to be trans—socially, economically, medically, or physically—some people conclude that the safest available option is to step back, blend in, or return to a role that reduces danger. In those circumstances, detransition can function less like a “change of truth” and more like a change in what a person can safely afford. And it’s precisely because this can be painful and real that it becomes politically useful to people who want to restrict care for everyone else.

Freud also described reaction formation: when something true inside is forbidden, a person may unconsciously perform the opposite with extra force—hyper-conformity, exaggerated “normalcy,” rigid certainty, performative piety, even hostility toward queer/trans people—to reduce anxiety and avoid internal punishment. Over time, this can become an outsourcing of conscience: the person’s internal moral compass gets replaced by an external authority that promises safety and belonging—we will tell you what’s real, and we will protect you, if you stay in line. The paid influence ecosystem exploits this pressure point. It often approaches people whose lives already come with instability—because stigma has narrowed their support, safety, and options—and then offers a powerful package: attention, certainty, community, and material support tied to public performance.

This is where payment and sponsorship can function as a behavioral lever. The ethical issue isn’t “payment exists” (that’s too simplistic). The ethical issue is how incentives can shape compliance when someone’s options have already been narrowed by stigma and structural vulnerability. The Belmont Report draws a clear line between coercion (threats) and undue influence, which can occur through offers of “excessive, unwarranted, inappropriate or improper reward…to obtain compliance.” (HHS.gov) And, crucially, even when the “reward” isn’t life-changing money, it can still produce dependence if it’s structured as ongoing access: the next invitation, the next flight, the next appearance, the next check, the next surge of belonging. That dynamic is visible in mainstream reporting: the Washington Post notes detransitioners headlining conservative events and documentaries “often sponsored by right-wing groups,” and reports Mosley saying private groups helped financially when she traveled to testify. (The Washington Post)

The point here is not to deny responsibility. People are responsible for aligning with systems that target other people’s rights. The point is to illuminate why alignment can become compelling—and why it can harden into repetitive performance. In this ecosystem, complexity costs you; certainty pays. Nuance risks losing the platform; loyalty keeps you held. Personal experience gets refined into a portable script that travels cleanly to legislators, media, and courts, while ambiguity—or any affirmation that trans people’s lives remain real and deserving of care—is treated as disloyalty. That’s how a person’s pain can be recruited into a public machinery that converts private disruption into political coercion aimed at narrowing everyone else’s options, too.

This is also why affirming therapy matters. It offers an alternative to coercion and performance: a stable, internal reality-respecting relationship where identity isn’t treated as negotiable and need isn’t treated as pathology. In a steady, non-shaming space, the nervous system learns new evidence—that honesty doesn’t automatically lead to punishment, that needs aren’t moral failures, and that connection can exist without self-erasure. Over time, that kind of support softens the internal punisher (the superego when it’s organized around shame), restores internal authority, and makes it more possible for someone to build a life organized around aliveness rather than compliance—without having to hand their conscience over to whoever is offering the loudest certainty and the next paid stage.

---

A Timeline of Anti-LGBTQ+ Organizing and Legislation in the United States

---

1966 — Johns Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic Opens

[Clinical]

Johns Hopkins Hospital opens the first Gender Identity Clinic in the United States, founded by plastic surgeon John Hoopes and psychologist John Money (STAT News, 2022). It becomes the first American academic institution to offer gender-affirming surgery. By 1979, twenty similar clinics exist across the country (STAT News, 2022).

---

1973 — APA Removes Homosexuality from DSM; Heritage Foundation and ALEC Founded

[Clinical / Political / Funding Network]

In December, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Board of Trustees votes to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, second edition (DSM-II), replacing it with “Sexual Orientation Disturbance” — retained only for individuals distressed by their own orientation. 5,854 psychiatrists voted to remove it; 3,810 to retain it (Burton, 2015; Psychiatric News, 2019). Dr. Charles Socarides, who led the opposition, forces a full membership mail referendum; the membership votes 58% for removal in 1974 (Gay & Lesbian Review, 2022). Socarides will co-found the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) in 1992 explicitly in reaction to this decision (Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — Quacks, n.d.). His son Richard Socarides, not yet out as gay, will later work in President Clinton’s White House (Gay & Lesbian Review, 2022).

That same year, Paul Weyrich — an ordained deacon of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church who had campaigned for Alabama segregationist George Wallace — co-founds the Heritage Foundation with Edwin Feulner and Joseph Coors, seeded with an initial $250,000 from the Coors Brewing fortune and additional funding from Richard Mellon Scaife (Political Research Associates, 2018; SourceWatch, n.d.). From the same Capitol Hill office, Weyrich co-founds the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) (Monitoring Influence, 2024). Both are explicitly rooted in a Christian moral framework Weyrich describes as “a moral one” even when “packaged in non-religious language” (Public Seminar, 2024). Weyrich is particularly focused on opposing homosexual rights from the outset (University of Wyoming Archives, n.d.). The Coors family’s connection to anti-LGBTQ+ organizing does not go unnoticed. Beginning in 1973, San Francisco Teamsters strike against Coors distributors over discriminatory hiring practices; by 1974 the boycott has expanded to include LGBTQ+ consumers, Chicanx and Latinx organizations, Black activists, and Native American community leaders, united around Coors’ use of pre-employment polygraph tests that asked applicants directly about their sexual orientation (Slate, 2023; Zócalo Public Square, 2024). Harvey Milk negotiates the gay community’s participation in the boycott in exchange for Teamsters’ commitment to hiring openly gay workers — a coalition that becomes a model for labor-LGBTQ+ organizing (Good Beer Hunting, 2021). The boycott spreads from California to Chicago, Boston, and New York through the late 1980s, driven explicitly by the public politics of Joe Coors himself — his co-founding of Heritage, his backing of Reagan, and his funding of right-wing causes (Slate, 2023). It is one of the earliest sustained economic campaigns by the LGBTQ+ movement, and it is launched in the same year Heritage is founded. The simultaneity of the Heritage founding and the DSM vote is not coincidental, it is reactionary.

---

1975 — Paul McHugh Joins Johns Hopkins with Intent to Close the Gender Clinic

[Clinical / Political]

Paul McHugh joins Johns Hopkins as Henry Phipps Professor of Psychiatry and Psychiatrist-in-Chief, later acknowledging his intent on arrival: “It was part of my intention, when I arrived in Baltimore in 1975, to help end it” (TransAdvocate, 2018; Baltimore Magazine, 2019). He joins what Magrath (2022), writing in the Annals of Internal Medicine, describes as “a quorum of hospital leaders already intent on ending gender-affirming surgery” — the clinic is already under pressure from funding constraints, space limitations, and institutional opposition before McHugh arrives, though he later overstates his own causal role in its closure. He is a noted Catholic conservative whose views on sexuality are shaped by his faith rather than clinical evidence (Transgender Map, n.d.). He frames being transgender as a “psychiatric disorder” and calls trans women “guilt-ridden homosexual men” (Baltimore Magazine, 2019). McHugh has no published academic expertise in either gender or sexual orientation (Human Rights Campaign (HRC), n.d.) and actively avoids publishing his views in peer-reviewed journals, choosing instead op-ed outlets including the Wall Street Journal and First Things.

---

1976 — Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) Founded

[Clinical / Political / Funding Network]

The Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) is founded in 1976 by Ernest Lefever — whose Reagan-era nomination to the State Department fails due to his excuse-making for torture abroad — with a stated mission of “applying the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy” (Important Context, 2026). It is a right-wing think tank operating at the intersection of Catholic conservative theology and federal policy, publishing position papers, placing fellows in government, and from 2003 to 2017 publishing the non-peer-reviewed journal The New Atlantis — the outlet McHugh and Lawrence Mayer use in 2016 to publish their 143-page anti-trans “special report” (InfluenceWatch, n.d.). The New Atlantis is not a scientific journal; it describes itself as dedicated to applying religious tradition to technology and society, and explicitly prides itself on not being peer-reviewed.

EPPC’s documented funders include: the Bradley Foundation ($450,000 in 2019), DonorsTrust ($400,000 in 2019), and the John Templeton Foundation ($200,000 in 2016) (InfluenceWatch, n.d.). Leonard Leo sits on EPPC’s board of directors. Leo’s 85 Fund gives EPPC a combined $3,168,000 in 2020, 2021, and 2022 (Supreme Transparency, n.d.). EPPC is on the advisory board of Project 2025 (Important Context, 2026). In May 2025, Trump appoints EPPC president Ryan Anderson — formerly a Heritage Foundation fellow whose anti-trans book When Harry Became Sally was pulled from Amazon — to his Religious Liberty Commission. By 2025, the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) adopts EPPC’s specific framing of gender-affirming care as “sex-rejecting procedures” — language that originates in EPPC publications and is not found in any mainstream medical literature (Important Context, 2026). The SPLC identifies EPPC as part of the anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network. The funding circuit is direct: DonorsTrust funds both EPPC and the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) simultaneously.

---

1976 — Exodus International Founded

[Clinical / Religious]

Exodus International is founded in San Rafael, California in 1976 by Frank Worthen, Michael Bussee, Gary Cooper, Ron Dennis, and Greg Reid — originally as a loose network of ex-gay Christian ministries claiming that sexual orientation could be changed through prayer and faith (NBC News, 2013). It grows into the oldest and largest ex-gay Christian umbrella organization in the United States, claiming more than 260 affiliated ministries across North America and more than 150 in 17 other countries by the mid-2000s (ABC News, 2013). It becomes the primary ministry infrastructure into which NARTH routes individuals who want clinical-sounding language alongside religious intervention. Mike Johnson, who works for the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) from 2002 to 2010, collaborates with Exodus from 2006 to 2010 on the annual “Day of Truth” event in schools (CNN KFile via AOL, 2023). In 2012, president Alan Chambers renounces conversion therapy, saying it did not work and was harmful, and acknowledges his own ongoing same-sex attraction. In July 2012, this triggers a direct schism — more hardline member ministries break away and form the Restored Hope Network. In June 2013, Exodus International closes entirely. Chambers issues a formal apology: “I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced” (CNN, 2013).

---

1977 — Save Our Children Founded; Focus on the Family Founded

[Political]

Singer Anita Bryant founds Save Our Children after successfully repealing a Dade County, Florida anti-discrimination ordinance protecting gay people in housing and employment. The repeal passes by more than 2-to-1, the largest response to any special election in Dade County history (PBS, n.d.). The campaign’s central tactic — framing gay rights as a threat to children, using the claim that “homosexuals cannot reproduce, so they must recruit” — becomes the template for every subsequent wave of anti-LGBTQ+ organizing (American Archive of Public Broadcasting, n.d.; NBC News, 2022).

That same year, psychologist James Dobson founds Focus on the Family in Arcadia, California as a weekly radio program (Britannica, n.d.). It moves to Colorado Springs in 1991, earns the city the nickname “the Vatican of the Religious Right,” immediately backs Colorado’s anti-gay Amendment 2, and grows into a $140 million multimedia empire (SPLC — Focus on the Family, n.d.). Dobson later co-founds ADF. He dies in August 2025 at age 89.

---

1978 — Briggs Initiative, California

[Political]

Following Bryant’s successful Dade County campaign, she works with California state senator John Briggs to place a ballot measure that would bar gay people from teaching in public schools and allow teachers to be fired for “advocating, encouraging, or promoting” homosexuality (EBSCO, n.d.). Rev. Lou Sheldon serves as executive director of the organizing group (Political Research Associates, 1993). The initiative fails, defeated in part by Ronald Reagan. Sheldon carries the infrastructure forward. The school-and-children frame it established becomes the preferred legislative vehicle of the network for the next five decades (SPLC — Anti-Gay Movement, n.d.).

---

1979 — Moral Majority Founded; Johns Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic Closed

[Political / Clinical]

Jerry Falwell establishes the Moral Majority, a coalition of conservative evangelicals organized explicitly to influence the national Republican Party (Making Gay History, 2024). Until its dissolution in 1989, it promotes anti-gay laws, works to block the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and legislates against abortion and pornography (SPLC — Anti-Gay Movement, n.d.). It is the direct organizational heir of the Save Our Children campaign and proof of concept for Weyrich’s strategy of fusing evangelical Christianity with partisan political infrastructure (Political Research Associates, 1993).

In the same year, McHugh petitions Psychiatric Consultation Service chair Jon Meyer and his secretary Donna Reter to produce a follow-up study of the Gender Identity Clinic’s patients. The study has a fundamental design problem from the outset: the clinic had offered surgery to only 29 patients over the entire course of its operation as part of a study, with 21 patients in a non-surgical control group — a sample size too small to support the conclusions drawn (Magrath, 2022). The study samples only patients who underwent vaginoplasty prior to 1971, meaning it does not reflect the state of the art at the time of publication — in particular, Georges Burou’s Penile Skin Flap Inversion Vaginoplasty, which had significantly advanced surgical outcomes and was the operative standard by 1979 (Magrath, 2022). Meyer and Reter (1979) measure “adjustment” by scoring job, educational, marital, and domiciliary stability — awarding points for heterosexual marriage and economic security, deducting points for gender nonconformity, homosexuality, or criminality — without accounting for the role of discrimination in suppressing societal adjustment. The study finds no patients express regret and no negative effects from surgery, but concludes surgery “confers no objective advantage in terms of social rehabilitation” (Meyer & Reter, 1979). A 1979 New York Times article reports that other doctors call it “seriously flawed in its methods and statistics and draws unwarranted conclusions” (Johns Hopkins News-Letter, 2014). A direct peer-reviewed rebuttal — Fleming, Steinman & Bocknek (1980) — documents the methodological problems in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.

Within two months of the study’s publication, McHugh uses it to assert Hopkins is “fundamentally cooperating with mental illness” and shuts the Gender Identity Clinic (Baltimore Magazine, 2019). McHugh later admits his intent was predetermined: “It was part of my intention, when I arrived in Baltimore in 1975, to help end it” (TransAdvocate, 2018). Twenty university-based clinics exist at the moment of closure; only two or three remain by the mid-1990s (STAT News, 2022). Gender-affirming surgery does not return to Johns Hopkins until 2017.

---

1980 — DSM-III Introduces “Transsexualism” and “Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood”

[Clinical]

The American Psychiatric Association (1980) publishes DSM-III, introducing for the first time two psychiatric diagnoses specific to gender: “transsexualism” for adolescents and adults, and “gender identity disorder of childhood” (GIDC). The APA’s (n.d.) own clinical guidance confirms it was “not until 1980 with the publication of DSM-III that the diagnosis ‘transsexualism’ first appeared.” According to Drescher (2010), writing in the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health, the decision was based on the clinical contributions of John Money, Harry Benjamin, Robert Stoller, and Richard Green. DSM-III-R (APA, 1987) further categorizes gender diagnoses into three subtypes (LGBTQIA+ Midwest, n.d.).

The placement of trans identity in a psychiatric manual — even as homosexuality has just been removed — reinforces the medical framing of trans identity as disorder. As Drescher (2010) documents, GIDC meets the accepted criteria for DSM-III inclusion, but the structural effect is the same: trans identity remains classifiable as mental illness. Socarides, who has just failed to retain homosexuality in the DSM, will co-found NARTH in 1992 and use the DSM’s continued inclusion of gender diagnoses to argue that homosexuality’s removal was politically rather than scientifically motivated (SPLC — Quacks, n.d.). McHugh uses the existence of DSM-III’s gender diagnoses to argue that trans identity is a mental disorder requiring psychiatric treatment rather than medical affirmation — a framework he deploys for the next four decades.

---

1980 — Traditional Values Coalition Founded

[Political]

After serving as California executive director of Bryant’s Save Our Children campaign, Lou Sheldon founds the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) in Anaheim (SPLC — Sheldon obituary, 2020). The SPLC designates TVC an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group. TVC claims to represent 43,000 churches nationally. Sheldon and his daughter visit the George W. Bush White House 69 times combined (SPLC — Rise and Fall of TVC, 2018). In 1984, TVC organizes parents against Project 10, a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) program supporting LGBTQ+ youth — the school-and-children frame running without interruption from 1977 (The Advocate, 2020).

---

1981 — Council for National Policy Founded

[Political / Funding Network]

Weyrich co-founds the Council for National Policy (CNP) with Falwell, Phyllis Schlafly, Richard Viguerie, and others — a secretive, invitation-only strategy body with no public membership lists or published meeting records (SourceWatch — CNP, n.d.). CNP consolidates Heritage, ALEC, the Moral Majority, religious leaders, and billionaire donors into a single coordinated private strategy apparatus. The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), and the Federalist Society emerge directly from this network.

---

1983 — Family Research Council Incorporated

[Political]

The Family Research Council (FRC) incorporates in Washington D.C. with Dobson, Harvard psychiatrist Armand Nicholi Jr., and George Rekers — who will later co-found NARTH — among its founding board (SPLC — FRC, n.d.). Under Gary Bauer — a Reagan domestic policy adviser — FRC merges with Focus on the Family in 1988, then separates in 1992 over concerns its political activity might threaten Focus’s tax-exempt status. The SPLC designates FRC an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group in 2010. In 2020, FRC reclassifies as an “association of churches,” exempting it from filing public tax returns (ProPublica, n.d.). Tony Perkins, FRC’s president since 2003, is described by House Speaker Mike Johnson as “probably the single greatest influence on my life and my professional trajectory.”

---

1985 — ALEC Internal Memo

[Political]

An internal ALEC memo explicitly links gay and lesbian people to pedophilia and advocates against government AIDS research funding (HRC, n.d.) — the same false conflation FRC’s Tony Perkins repeats in congressional testimony twenty-five years later, and that drives the “groomer” rhetoric of 2022–present.

---

1992 — NARTH Founded; McHugh Appointed to National Academy of Sciences

[Clinical / Political]

Charles Socarides, Joseph Nicolosi, and Benjamin Kaufman co-found the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), explicitly in reaction to the APA’s 1973 declassification (SPLC — Quacks, n.d.). NARTH frames conversion therapy in clinical language — “reparative therapy,” “trauma,” “bad attachment” — to provide religious ex-gay programs with a veneer of scientific legitimacy (New Republic, 2017). George Rekers, who co-founded FRC, is also among NARTH’s founding figures. Nicolosi states: “I don’t believe anyone is really gay” (New Republic, 2017). That same year, McHugh is elected to the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine, giving his anti-trans advocacy a continued institutional imprimatur (Recovered Memory Archive, n.d.).

---

1993 — “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Enacted; Organizations Opposing the Lifting of the Military Gay Ban

[Political / Military]

Clinton campaigns in 1992 on a promise to lift the military’s longstanding ban on gay service members. Upon taking office, he encounters fierce opposition from Senator Sam Nunn, the Georgia Democrat chairing the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Colin Powell (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), and all five service chiefs (Advocate, 2026; Britannica, n.d.). Powell testifies that “homosexual behavior is inconsistent with maintaining good order and discipline” and argues that race is a “benign characteristic” while sexual orientation is not — a distinction the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Veterans of America directly compares to arguments used against racial integration in 1948 (Washington Blade, 2021). The New Republic documents that the arguments are “almost verbatim” those used against racial integration in 1948 (New Republic archive, 1993). Nunn stages a theatrical tour of military bases — including a visit to Norfolk where Senator Strom Thurmond lectures openly gay Lieutenant Tracy Thorne — designed to demonstrate enlisted resistance (TIME, 2018). Congress codifies the regulatory ban into federal statute. Clinton acknowledges in his July 19 announcement: “Shortly after I took office and reaffirmed my position, the foes of lifting the ban in the Congress moved to enshrine the ban in law” (American Presidency Project, 1993).

Organizations opposing the lifting of the ban: The Heritage Foundation publishes a report arguing a “total ban” is required to “retain unit cohesion and professionalism” and “prevent AIDS” (Heritage Foundation, 1993). The Center for Military Readiness (CMR) is founded in 1993 by Elaine Donnelly, a Defense Department adviser under Secretary Caspar Weinberger, specifically to oppose LGBTQ+ military integration (CMR, n.d.). FRC opposes lifting the ban throughout this period. Clinton signs the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy on December 21, 1993 under Department of Defense Directive 1304.26, taking effect February 28, 1994 (EBSCO, n.d.). In the 18 years it remains in effect, 14,346 gay and lesbian service members are discharged — disproportionately people of color and women, who together account for 79% of discharges in 2008 while comprising 44% of the military (National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), n.d.).

---

1994 — DSM-IV Consolidates to “Gender Identity Disorder”

[Clinical]

The American Psychiatric Association (1994) publishes DSM-IV, consolidating “transsexualism” and “gender identity disorder of childhood” into a single diagnosis: “gender identity disorder” (GID). The APA’s (n.d.) own clinical guidance states the change was made “in an effort to reduce stigma,” but acknowledges “controversy continued with advocates and some psychiatrists pointing to ways in which this diagnostic category pathologized identity rather than a true disorder.” Drescher (2010) documents that while prior subtypes were collapsed, the overarching framing of gender variance as disorder remained intact. The First Circuit Court of Appeals’ (2013) DSM-5 fact sheet names the structural tension: “While diagnostic terms facilitate clinical care and access to insurance coverage that supports mental health, these terms can also have a stigmatizing effect.” In parallel, the World Health Organization (WHO) (1992) publishes the International Classification of Diseases, tenth revision (ICD-10), placing “gender identity disorders” in Chapter V: Mental and Behavioural Disorders. As the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH, 2010) notes, “gender identity disorder and transsexualism appear in both the DSM-IV and ICD-10, but the terms are used somewhat differently.”

---

1994 — Alliance Defending Freedom Founded

[Political / Legal]

On January 31, more than 30 Christian right leaders launch the Alliance Defense Fund — later renamed the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) — with Dobson, Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ, D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries, and Don Wildmon of the American Family Association (AFA) on the founding board (SPLC — ADF, n.d.). Its first fundraising solicitation warns that “hiring homosexuals in Christian schools, churches, and even as Sunday School teachers may soon become the law of the land” (Conservative Transparency, n.d.). ADF files amicus briefs supporting criminalization of sodomy in Lawrence v. Texas, defends European laws requiring sterilization of trans citizens, and becomes what one analysis calls “the most influential group working to roll back LGBTQ rights in America” (NBC News, n.d.). The SPLC designates ADF an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group.

---

1999 — DonorsTrust Founded

[Funding Network]

DonorsTrust is established as a donor-advised fund (DAF) allowing wealthy donors to give anonymously while retaining a tax deduction. It becomes the primary financial anonymization layer for the entire network. By 2023 it holds more than $1.2 billion in assets and disburses $351 million in a single year (Washington Examiner, 2024). Recipients include Heritage Foundation, ADF, SEGM, Do No Harm, the Cato Institute, the Federalist Society, and the State Policy Network (Salon, 2023). In 2023 alone it routes $365,000 to Heritage specifically earmarked for “Going On Offense On Gender Ideology” (NOTUS, 2024). Talent Market — DonorsTrust’s own program service for placing conservative staffers inside right-wing organizations — is listed as a grant recipient in Do No Harm’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 990 Schedule I (primary source: ProPublica, n.d.).

Key donors to DonorsTrust: John M. Olin Foundation, Castle Rock Foundation, Searle Freedom Trust, Bradley Foundation ($650,000, 2001–2010), DeVos family ($2.5 million, 2009–2010), Robert and Rebekah Mercer ($20 million in 2020), Leonard Leo’s Marble Freedom Trust ($41 million in 2021 from Barre Seid) (EXPOSEDbyCMD, 2020).

---

2001–2002 — McHugh Appointed to Bush Bioethics Council and Catholic Bishops’ Review Board

[Political / Clinical]

In 2001, President Bush appoints McHugh to the President’s Council on Bioethics (Recovered Memory Archive, n.d.). In 2002, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) appoints him as a founding member of the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People — where McHugh frames the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal not as pedophilia but as “homosexual predation on American Catholic youth” (The Advocate, 2015). He files an amicus brief in support of California’s Proposition 8 on the basis that homosexuality is a “choice” (GLAAD, n.d.). He successfully lobbies for more than 30 years to keep gender-affirming surgery from becoming a Medicare benefit (Recovered Memory Archive, n.d.). He describes trans women as “caricatures of women,” “counterfeits,” and “impersonators” (HRC, n.d.) and compares gender-affirming care to “the practice of frontal lobotomy” (The Advocate, 2015). McHugh co-authors a position paper with the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) — designated an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group by the SPLC — titled “Gender Ideology Harms Children” (GLAAD, n.d.).

---

2002 — American College of Pediatricians Founded

[Clinical / Political]

The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) is founded in 2002 when approximately 60 socially conservative members break away from the 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) after the AAP issues a policy statement affirming that children of gay and lesbian parents have the same developmental potential as children of heterosexual parents (SPLC — ACPeds, n.d.; GLAAD, n.d.). The SPLC designates ACPeds an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group. ACPeds opposes adoption by LGBTQ+ couples, links homosexuality to pedophilia, and endorses conversion therapy for gay youth. In 2010, ACPeds sends a letter to 14,000 school district superintendents promoting reparative therapy for gay and lesbian students and incorrectly cites National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Francis Collins — who swiftly denounces the letter as “misleading and dangerous” (Psychology Today, 2017).

Its relationship to the broader network is documented by internal communications obtained by WIRED and reported by the SPLC (2024): between September and December 2014, ADF sends ACPeds a letter commissioning custom “white papers” on five topics related to LGBTQ+ children and healthcare because “ADF lacked scientific evidence to back up its claims that nondiscrimination protections put children at risk.” ADF’s letter cites a 2013 Heritage Foundation article by Ryan Anderson as the model. ACPeds members are subsequently recruited to testify in support of anti-trans healthcare bans in Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, and Ohio. ACPeds receives large in-kind donations from ADF and Heritage, including media training and messaging guidance (HRC, 2025). In 2025, ACPeds files an amicus brief in United States v. Skrmetti arguing in favor of Tennessee’s ban on healthcare for transgender youth (GLAAD, n.d.).

---

2002 — United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) — McHugh Appointment; Ongoing Anti-LGBTQ+ Policy

[Political / Clinical]

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is the assembly of Catholic bishops in the United States. Its engagement with anti-LGBTQ+ policy is sustained and structural across more than two decades. In 2002, the USCCB appoints McHugh as a founding member of its National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People — where McHugh frames the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal not as pedophilia but as “homosexual predation on American Catholic youth,” serving simultaneously to deflect institutional accountability and to reinforce the false linkage between homosexuality and predatory behavior (The Advocate, 2015).

The USCCB opposes: HHS non-discrimination rules protecting LGBTQ+ patients under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) (New Ways Ministry, 2022); the Equality Act; and provisions of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that include LGBTQ+ funding, a stance maintained since March 2013 (National Catholic Reporter, n.d.). It opposes HHS proposed rules mandating non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation across more than 100 federal programs (New Ways Ministry, 2024). In November 2024, conservative USCCB leaders act swiftly to implement the transgender-negative passages of the Vatican’s Dignitas Infinita declaration (New Ways Ministry, 2024). In November 2025, the USCCB adopts new Ethical and Religious Directives (ERDs) banning gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals — without consulting WPATH or any mainstream healthcare organization (New Ways Ministry, 2025). New Ways Ministry states: “The directives adopted by the USCCB will harm, not benefit transgender persons… it gives a blessing to people who seek to deny, hurt, and too often, even murder transgender people.” The USCCB’s ERDs apply to the largest nonprofit hospital system in the United States.

---

2003 — Lawrence v. Texas; Federal Marriage Amendment Introduced

[Political / Legal]

On June 26, 2003, the Supreme Court rules 6-3 in Lawrence v. Texas, striking down Texas’s anti-sodomy law and overturning Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) (Human Rights Watch, 2003). ADF had filed an amicus brief in support of Texas; the ruling is a direct defeat for the network. Justice Scalia’s dissent, joined by Rehnquist and Thomas, warns that the decision places at risk laws against “bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution… adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity” — a dissent the anti-LGBTQ+ network treats as a roadmap for the next legislative campaign.

Within months, Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave introduces the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) with 108 co-sponsors (Brennan Center, n.d.). Heritage, FRC, and Focus on the Family immediately mobilize in support. The Heritage Foundation publishes analysis arguing that Lawrence and Romer v. Evans (1996) have made the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) constitutionally vulnerable and that a constitutional amendment is the only reliable protection (Heritage Foundation, 2005).

---

2004 — State Marriage Amendment Campaign; 13 States Ban Same-Sex Marriage

[Political]

In May 2004, Massachusetts becomes the first state to legally recognize same-sex marriage through Goodridge v. Department of Public Health. Bush campaign strategist Karl Rove, working with state-level activists, orchestrates campaigns to introduce ballot initiatives in 13 states amending state constitutions to ban same-sex marriage — calculating that the issue will drive evangelical turnout for Bush’s reelection (Brennan Center, n.d.). All 13 pass on Election Day 2004, often by wide margins — 3-to-1 in Kentucky and Georgia, 6-to-1 in Mississippi (CBS News, 2004; NPR, 2004). By 2012, voters in 27 states have approved constitutional measures defining marriage as between one man and one woman (Ballotpedia, n.d.). FRC, Heritage, and ADF provide legal drafting, messaging, and model legislation throughout. The campaign uses the same children-protection framing Save Our Children established in 1977 — proponents argue the amendment is “not about discrimination… It is about safeguarding the best environment for children” (JSTOR Daily, n.d.).

---

2004–2006 — ADF Writes State Marriage Amendment Language; Federal Marriage Amendment Fails Twice

[Political / Legal]

Anti-gay groups meet in Washington, D.C., immediately after the 2004 ballot sweep to plan campaigns in 10 more states for 2005 (SPLC — Anti-Gay Movement, n.d.). ADF literally writes the original language for same-sex marriage bans in Idaho (2005), Colorado (2006), and South Carolina (2006) (HRC — 10 Shocking Facts About ADF, n.d.). ADF senior counsel Michael Norton is identified as the drafter of Colorado’s Amendment 43 (HRC — 10 Things, 2014). In 2004 and 2006, Congress votes on two iterations of the Federal Marriage Amendment — both fail to reach 60 votes in the Senate (Brennan Center, n.d.). The federal constitutional strategy is abandoned; the state-by-state model legislation strategy is confirmed as the primary mechanism.

---

2005–2010 — Mike Johnson at ADF; “Day of Truth”; Blackstone Fellowship Pipeline

[Political / Legal]

Mike Johnson works as an attorney for ADF from 2002 to 2010, filing an amicus brief aiming to criminalize gay sex and writing publicly that homosexual relationships are “inherently unnatural” and a “dangerous lifestyle” (Rolling Stone, 2023). In 2004 he writes that if gay people receive the right to marry, “pedophiles and others would be next in line” and that gay marriage was “the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic.” In 2005, ADF launches the “Day of Truth” — a counterprotest to the “Day of Silence” against anti-LGBTQ+ bullying — at which Johnson distributes T-shirts reading “The Truth Cannot be Silenced.” From 2006 to 2010, Johnson and ADF collaborate with Exodus International to run the annual Day of Truth in schools nationwide (CNN KFile via AOL, 2023). Exodus International shuts down in 2013, its president publishing a public apology for “pain and hurt” caused. Johnson is elected to Congress in 2016 and House Speaker in 2023. ADF’s Blackstone Fellowship — a pipeline program for Christian law students — produces ADF-aligned attorneys placed in legislatures, courts, and advocacy organizations across the country throughout this period (Rolling Stone, 2023).

---

2005–2016 — ADF Develops “Student Physical Privacy Act” Model Legislation

[Political / Legal]

Following the marriage amendment wave, ADF turns to a parallel track: model legislation restricting trans students’ access to bathrooms and locker rooms. ADF drafts the Student Physical Privacy Act (SPPA), which bills in Minnesota, Kansas, Texas, Illinois, Kentucky, South Dakota, and Nevada are later found to mirror — in some cases word-for-word (NBC News, 2017). In December 2014, ADF sends letters to school boards in Minnesota, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Wisconsin warning of litigation if they adopt trans-inclusive bathroom policies, while simultaneously commissioning anti-trans white papers from ACPeds (SPLC — ADF/ACPeds, 2024). In March 2016, North Carolina passes House Bill 2 (HB2) — the first state law in U.S. history to regulate public bathroom use based on trans identity — within 11 hours and 10 minutes of introduction (Slate, 2024). The resulting economic damage and Governor Pat McCrory’s electoral defeat make HB2 the template for what the network needs to do differently — shift the target from bathrooms in general public spaces to schools and children specifically, which is precisely what the 2021–present wave does (Axios Raleigh, 2026).

---

2008 — California Proposition 8; LDS Church Mobilization

[Political]

California voters pass Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, with 52% of the vote after the California Supreme Court had legalized it that year. The “Yes on 8” campaign raises $39.9 million — the most expensive social-issue ballot campaign in American history at that point (NBC News, 2009). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) mobilizes its California membership through a letter read in every congregation urging members to “do all you can” to support the measure and solicits a $10 million internal fundraising goal (Religion Dispatches, 2010). Mormon donors account for approximately 46% of total financial support for Proposition 8 (NPR, 2008). ADF provides legal support to the “Protect Marriage” coalition. McHugh files an amicus brief in favor of Proposition 8 (GLAAD, n.d.). The California Fair Political Practices Commission later fines the LDS Church $5,539 for underreporting its contributions (Fox News, 2010).

---

2010–2011 — DADT Repealed; Network Opposition

[Political / Military]

On December 22, 2010, President Obama signs the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010, passed by the Senate 65–31 and the House 250–175 (Archives Foundation, n.d.). DADT officially ends September 20, 2011, after Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen provide required certification on July 22, 2011 (Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) History, n.d.).

Organizations opposing repeal: FRC calls repeal “a tragic day for our armed forces” hijacked by “a radical social agenda” (SPLC, 2010). FRC’s Peter Sprigg tells MSNBC the repeal is “guaranteed” to lead to gay-on-straight sexual assault (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), 2010). FRC holds a national webcast titled “Mission Compromised: How the Military is Being Used to Advance a Radical Agenda” (Dallas Voice, 2010). Perkins cites ACPeds on live television to claim “homosexuality poses a danger to children” in the same breath as opposing DADT repeal — connecting the military fight directly to the broader anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network (SPLC — Tony Perkins, n.d.). ADF opposes repeal on religious liberty grounds for chaplains (Christian Post, 2011). CMR’s Elaine Donnelly predicts the military will lose up to 500,000 service members — a prediction falsified within one year (Palm Center, 2012). The American Family Association’s (AFA) Bryan Fischer claims on radio that “homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and 6 million dead Jews” (SPLC — AFA, n.d.). Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy (CSP) warns open gay service could force a return to the draft (Palm Center, 2012). Heritage publishes analysis arguing repeal would damage military readiness. The pattern is identical to 1993 and will be recycled again in 2017 against transgender service.

---

2012 — Restored Hope Network Founded

[Religious / Clinical / Funding Network]

In spring 2012, hardline ex-gay ministries break from Exodus International after president Alan Chambers announces there is no “cure” for homosexuality. The Restored Hope Network (RHN) is founded in Sacramento, led by Exodus co-founder Frank Worthen of New Hope Ministries, Andrew and Annette Comiskey of Desert Stream Ministries, and Anne Paulk — formerly manager of the Homosexuality and Gender Department at Focus on the Family, where she co-founded Focus’s “Love Won Out” ex-gay conferences (Political Research Associates, 2013). RHN’s Board of References includes Dobson, Albert Mohler, and Christopher West — positioning it directly inside the Dobson/Focus on the Family network. NARTH co-founder Joseph Nicolosi joins its board.

Funding: RHN explicitly instructs donors on its website to give through the National Christian Foundation (NCF), via “the NCF Restored Hope Network Single Charity Fund (#5396681),” and through Schwab’s donor-advised fund infrastructure, the Restored Hope Fund (#6916-6974) (Restored Hope Network, n.d.). NCF is the fourth-largest donor-advised fund in the United States, identified by Inside Philanthropy as “probably the single biggest source of money fueling the pro-life and anti-LGBT movements over the past 15 years” (Salon, 2021). NCF’s three-year IRS filings (2015–2017) show it funneling $56.1 million from anonymous donors to 23 SPLC-designated hate groups — its largest recipients are ADF and FRC (Sludge, 2019). NCF’s donors include the DeVos family, the Anschutz oil network, Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy, and the late billionaire Foster Friess (Salon, 2021).

---

2013 — DSM-5 Replaces “Gender Identity Disorder” with “Gender Dysphoria”; Exodus International Closes

[Clinical]

The American Psychiatric Association (2013) publishes DSM-5, eliminating “gender identity disorder” and replacing it with “gender dysphoria” — focused on distress that may accompany gender incongruence, not on trans identity itself. The APA (n.d.) states explicitly that “gender non-conformity is not in itself a mental disorder.” The First Circuit Court of Appeals’ (2013) DSM-5 fact sheet clarifies: “The critical element of gender dysphoria is the presence of clinically significant distress associated with the condition.” Britannica (n.d.) confirms this shift “removes the connotation that people with gender nonconformity are ‘disordered’ by only pathologizing the discontent experienced by these patients.”

The APA (n.d.) itself acknowledges the unresolved tension: “discussions continue among advocates and medical professionals about how best to preserve access to gender transition-related health care while also minimizing the degree to which such diagnostic categories stigmatize the very people that physicians are attempting to help.” The anti-LGBTQ+ network exploits this directly. The Trump administration’s 2025 HHS report, co-authored by a SEGM founder, cites the continued existence of “gender dysphoria” in DSM-5 as a clinical basis for restricting care while making no reference to ICD-11’s full depathologization (Transgender Map, 2025).

In June 2013, Exodus International closes entirely. Alan Chambers issues a formal apology: “I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn’t change” (CNN, 2013). The closure is not the end of the conversion therapy infrastructure — it is a schism, with the hardline wing already operational as the Restored Hope Network.

---

2013/2016 — Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) Founded

[Political / Legal]

The Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) is founded in 2013 by Lierre Keith and incorporated in 2016, earning 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in 2018 (SourceWatch, n.d.). It identifies as a radical feminist organization and has “found an increasingly influential platform by teaming up with conservatives” according to the Washington Post as cited by SourceWatch. Its function in the anti-trans network is structural: it provides a nominally feminist, nominally left-wing face for legislative and legal campaigns organized and funded by the Christian right.

In 2016, WoLF receives a $15,000 grant from ADF to fund a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s Title IX guidance on gender identity (Transgender Map, n.d.). Total documented ADF grants to WoLF reach $65,000 (GLAAD, n.d.). WoLF files amicus briefs alongside ADF in G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board and Doe v. Boyertown Area School District, opposing trans students’ access to bathrooms (Media Matters, 2019). In 2017, WoLF partners with the Hands Across the Aisle Coalition (HATAC) — a self-described coalition of “radical feminists, lesbians, Christians and conservatives that are tabling our ideological differences to stand in solidarity against gender identity legislation” — along with Concerned Parents and Educators and the Family Policy Alliance (FPA) to submit a petition to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) arguing for the exclusion of trans women from women’s homeless shelters (Trans Data Library, n.d.; Political Research Associates, 2020).

In 2019, three WoLF members appear on a Heritage Foundation panel on the Equality Act, where Kara Dansky argues that if the Equality Act passes, “male rapists will go to women’s prisons” and “girls who would have taken first place will be denied scholastic opportunity” (Trans Data Library, n.d.). A Heritage legislator attending that panel later invites WoLF’s Natasha Chart and Dansky to testify in support of South Dakota anti-trans healthcare legislation (Political Research Associates, 2020). WoLF’s function in the network is precisely what the anti-LGBTQ+ network has sought since Save Our Children in 1977: a non-religious, progressive-coded framing for the same legislative agenda. The framing is new. The infrastructure, the funding, and the bills are the same.

---

2014 — NARTH Rebrands as Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity (ATCSI)

[Clinical / Political]

Following the DSM-5’s replacement of “Gender Identity Disorder” with “Gender Dysphoria” in 2013, the World Medical Association’s condemnation of conversion therapy in 2013, and increasing legislative bans on conversion therapy for minors — beginning with California in 2012 — NARTH rebrands as the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity (ATCSI), also operating under the name “the NARTH Institute,” in 2014 (World Religions & Spirituality Project, 2022). The rebrand is partly driven by NARTH having lost its tax-exempt status in 2012 and by the increasing political toxicity of the term “conversion therapy” (SPLC, 2015). ATCSI creates five organizational divisions — including one framed around “client rights” and “therapeutic choice” — and in 2016 formally adopts new terminology to avoid the phrase “sexual orientation change efforts” (SOCE), instead using language about “unwanted homosexual attractions” and therapeutic “exploration” (SPLC — Unwanted, 2026). The rebrand is a direct structural precursor to the “gender exploratory therapy” framing the Gender Exploratory Therapy Association (GETA) will deploy starting in 2021. ATCSI lists GETA’s co-founders as affiliated members and GETA lists ATCSI as a partner organization (Trans Data Library, n.d.).

---

2016 — McHugh and Mayer Publish The New Atlantis Report; Pentagon Lifts Transgender Military Ban

[Clinical / Political / Military]

In August 2016, McHugh co-authors a 143-page “special report” with biostatistician Lawrence Mayer — published in The New Atlantis, a non-peer-reviewed journal affiliated with EPPC — titled “Sexuality and Gender: Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences” (HRC, n.d.). The Advocate (2016) notes that Mayer has never published a single article on human sexuality or gender, and that McHugh “has a long history of blocking such efforts.” Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal promotes the report immediately on publication. Following publication, 600 Hopkins faculty, students, and alumni sign a petition demanding the university disavow the paper. Hopkins announces the re-opening of its gender clinic, which reopens in 2017 as the Center for Transgender and Gender Expansive Health (STAT News, 2022). In 2019, McHugh files an amicus brief in R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), arguing against Title VII protections for transgender workers (McHugh, 2019). As of 2026 he is 94 years old and still giving media interviews (EWTN, 2026).

On June 30, 2016, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announces the end of the Pentagon’s longstanding ban on transgender people serving openly in the U.S. military (Washington Post, 2016). A RAND Corporation study estimates 2,500 to 15,500 transgender service members in active duty and reserves. Carter states: “We have transgender soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines — real, patriotic Americans — who I know are being hurt by an outdated, confusing, inconsistent application of the rules.” FRC’s Tony Perkins writes that lifting the ban would be “a fatal blow to unit cohesion and readiness” (Media Matters, 2014). CMR’s Elaine Donnelly recycles the same predictions made about DADT repeal (Media Matters, 2014).

---

2016–2018 — “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” Constructed; the ROGD Pipeline

[Clinical / Political]

The concept of “rapid onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD) — the idea that trans identity spreads like a social contagion among adolescents — is not invented by an academic. It originates in 2016 on three anti-trans parent blogs: 4thWaveNow, TransgenderTrend, and YouthTransCriticalProfessionals (Trans Data Library, n.d.). In July 2016, all three websites post recruitment requests for respondents to a survey for a paper by Dr. Lisa Littman (SPLC — Foundations, n.d.). Crucially, ADF warns supporters about ROGD in an email on August 24, 2016 — during the participant recruitment phase and long before the results become public, citing a National Review column that links to 4thWaveNow and TransgenderTrend (SPLC — Foundations, n.d.). ACPeds cites the anonymous 4thWaveNow blog in a press release describing gender dysphoria as a “social contagion” (Trans Data Library, n.d.). Littman’s paper is published in PLOS ONE in August 2018 — its methodology recruiting survey participants exclusively from the anti-trans websites that originated the theory (MIT Technology Review, 2022). PLOS ONE subsequently publishes an apology noting that ROGD is “not a clinically validated phenomenon or a diagnostic guideline.” WPATH publishes a statement dismissing ROGD as a valid diagnosis in September 2018. The American Psychological Association (APA) and 61 other healthcare organizations publish a joint statement disavowing ROGD in 2021. Despite its rejection by every major medical body, ROGD becomes central to legislative testimony, ADF amicus briefs, Heritage Foundation publications, and the Trump administration’s 2025 HHS report.

---

2019 — Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) Founded

[Clinical / Funding Network]

The Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) is founded by Roberto D’Angelo, Anastassis Spiliadis, and others whose leadership substantially overlaps with Genspect (Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — Pseudoscience Network, 2023). The SPLC designates SEGM an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group. Its primary activities are providing members as expert witnesses in litigation opposing gender-affirming care and filing amicus briefs worldwide (Trans Data Library, n.d.). Nearly a third of SEGM’s 2024 revenue comes directly from DonorsTrust (Reed, 2026). Additional funders include the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund — over $350,000 (SPLC — Pseudoscience Network, 2023) — and the Edward Charles Foundation (Undark, 2024).

SEGM’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 990 Schedule I (primary source: ProPublica, n.d., EIN 844520593) shows it routing $10,000 to United Charitable (EIN 20-4286082) — a Virginia-based donor-advised fund (DAF) functioning as a re-anonymization layer. SEGM co-founder Zhenya Abbruzzese co-authors the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) report on gender dysphoria in 2025 (Reed, 2026). Texas Attorney General (AG) Ken Paxton cites SEGM twice in a legal opinion arguing gender-affirming care for minors constitutes child abuse (Undark, 2024). A Yale School of Medicine research team describes SEGM’s 14 core members as “a small group of repeat players in anti-trans activities” (SPLC — Pseudoscience Network, 2023).

---

2019 — Kelsey Coalition Founded; Parent Anti-Trans Network Formalizes

[Political]

The Kelsey Coalition is founded in March 2019 under a pseudonym (“Katherine Cave”), named after Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pharmacologist Frances Kelsey (Transgender Map, n.d.). In 2019, the Kelsey Coalition collaborates with the Minnesota Family Council — affiliated with the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and Focus on the Family — to produce a national “Gender Resource Guide,” co-produced with the Family Policy Alliance (FPA), the Heritage Foundation, the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), and Parents of ROGD Kids (Transgender Map, n.d.). Kelsey Coalition members appear at multiple Heritage Foundation panels in 2019, alongside Ryan T. Anderson of Heritage and Walt Heyer — a prominent anti-trans detransitioner (Transgender Map, n.d.). The parent anti-trans network in this period — 4thWaveNow, Parents of ROGD Kids, the Kelsey Coalition, and TransgenderTrend — is the civil society infrastructure for the ROGD pipeline: it produces the survey respondents, the legislative witnesses, and the “concerned parents” deployed in statehouses.

---

2019/2022 — ICD-11 Moves “Gender Incongruence” Out of Mental Disorders

[Clinical]

The World Health Organization (WHO) (2019) releases the International Classification of Diseases, eleventh revision (ICD-11), formally adopted in May 2019 and taking effect January 1, 2022. It removes all gender identity categories from Chapter 6 (Mental and Behavioural Disorders) and places “gender incongruence” in the newly created Chapter 17: Conditions Related to Sexual Health. The WHO (n.d.) states: “This reflects current knowledge that trans-related and gender diverse identities are not conditions of mental ill-health, and that classifying them as such can cause enormous stigma.” The term “transsexualism” — which had appeared in ICD-10 as a mental disorder — is eliminated entirely.

Sam Winter, a public health professor at Curtin University and member of the WHO Working Group on Sexual Disorders and Sexual Health, tells NBC News: “This is a historic move. An end to a classification that was a historical artifact, had little basis in science, and had massive consequences for the lives of trans people” (Jacobs & Haas, 2019). ICD-11 also removes residual diagnoses for same-sex attraction used to justify conversion therapy (Jacobs & Haas, 2019).

The same year ICD-11 takes effect, SEGM files amicus briefs against gender-affirming care in courts worldwide (SPLC — Pseudoscience Network, 2023), Do No Harm produces model legislation to ban it (HuffPost, 2024), and DonorsTrust funds both (Reed, 2026). As Robles et al. (2022) document in the Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, the gap between DSM and ICD has been deliberately exploited by the anti-LGBTQ+ legislative network.

---

2021 — Arkansas HB1570; Coordinated Legislative Campaign Begins; Genspect Founded; Biden Restores Transgender Military Service

[Political / Legal / Military]

Arkansas becomes the first state to make gender-affirming care for patients under 18 illegal, passing House Bill 1570 (HB1570) over a Republican governor’s veto (Arkansas Advocates, 2021). Governor Hutchinson calls it “government overreach” and “letting lawmakers interfere with healthcare.” The legislature overrides him 71–24 (TIME, 2021). The bill’s language is nearly identical to model legislation produced by a coalition led by ADF, the Family Policy Alliance, and Heritage Foundation (EXPOSEDbyCMD, 2021). Genspect is founded this year by Stella O’Malley in Ireland; in leaked recordings O’Malley describes her mission as stopping children from medically transitioning (Trans Data Library, n.d.). The SPLC designates Genspect an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group.

On January 25, 2021 — Day One of the Biden administration — Biden signs Executive Order 14004 (EO 14004), “Enabling All Qualified Americans to Serve Their Country in Uniform,” revoking the Trump ban and restoring the Obama-era policy allowing transgender service members to serve openly (Biden EO 14004, 2021). Gender-affirming medical care is covered; records of those previously discharged may be corrected.

---

2021 — Gender Exploratory Therapy Association (GETA) / Therapy First Founded

[Clinical / Political / Funding Network]

The Gender Exploratory Therapy Association (GETA) is founded in late 2021 by Sasha Ayad, Roberto D’Angelo, Stella O’Malley, Lisa Marchiano, and Genspect adviser Joseph Burgo — all of whom are simultaneously on the boards of SEGM and Genspect (SPLC — Pseudoscience Network, 2023). The SPLC identifies the triad of SEGM, Genspect, and GETA as “the strongest triad within the anti-LGBT pseudoscience network,” sharing over two dozen personnel connections. GETA officially registers as a nonprofit in July 2022 and is subsequently renamed Therapy First. Its stated mission is to develop a network of “gender exploratory” therapists — mental health professionals who view non-cisgender gender identity primarily as psychological issues to work through rather than identities to affirm (Trans Data Library, n.d.). What GETA calls “gender exploratory therapy” (GET) is what every major medical and psychological organization calls conversion therapy: GETA members oppose conversion therapy bans precisely because such bans would include their practice. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) describes gender exploratory therapy as “delayed transition” (Transgender Map, n.d.). GETA’s advisor Stephen Levine is employed by ADF to testify against LGBTQ+ rights in federal cases (SPLC — Pseudoscience Network, 2023). GETA has ties to the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity (ATCSI) — the rebranded NARTH — and produces the podcast Gender: A Wider Lens — co-hosted by O’Malley and Ayad, sponsored by Genspect and the Rethink Identity Medicine Ethics (RIME) project — as a primary vehicle for normalizing gender exploratory therapy (SPLC — Pseudoscience Network, 2023).

Funding: GETA/Therapy First brings in less than $50,000 in annual revenue — below the threshold requiring a full IRS Form 990 — meaning its exact funding is not publicly disclosed (Trans Data Library, n.d.). Its known revenue sources are therapist membership fees ($25/year per member) and individual donations. Its funding significance is not in its own revenue but in its personnel integration with SEGM and Genspect — both funded through DonorsTrust — meaning GETA’s clinical operations are functionally subsidized by the same dark money network. RIME reported spending nearly $7,000 in 2022 on the Gender: A Wider Lens podcast, connecting GETA’s public-facing advocacy directly to DonorsTrust-funded organizations.

---

2022 — Do No Harm Founded; Florida “Don’t Say Gay” Law; Legislative Wave Accelerates; Institute for Comprehensive Gender Dysphoria Research (ICGDR) Formalized

[Political / Legal / Funding Network / Clinical]

Do No Harm is founded by Stanley Goldfarb, presenting itself as a grassroots doctors’ organization. Documented incoming funding: $1 million seed from Joseph Edelman and his wife Suzy, who calls “transgenderism” a “fiction designed to destroy” (HuffPost, 2023); $750,000 from Leonard Leo’s Concord Fund (HuffPost, 2024); approximately $3 million total from the Leo network (The Advocate, 2024). The SPLC designates Do No Harm an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group.

Do No Harm’s IRS Form 990 Schedule I (primary source: ProPublica, n.d., EIN 874701865) shows outgoing grants to: Talent Market (EIN 52-1928321, DonorsTrust’s staffing arm — DeSmog, n.d.); DAFgiving360 / Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc. (EIN 31-1640316, formerly Schwab Charitable — donors routed over $2 million each to ADF and Focus on the Family between 2019–2023 (Uncloseted Media, 2026)); Benjamin Rush Institute (EIN 46-1848302, free-market medical school recruitment organization embedded in the State Policy Network (SourceWatch, n.d.)); Heritage Foundation (EIN 23-7327730); and Family Policy Foundation (EIN 46-4577178, the 501(c)(3) arm of the Family Policy Alliance — identified by the SPLC as the single most influential organization behind the 2021–present wave of anti-trans state legislation (Baptist News Global, 2023)).

Florida’s House Bill 1557 (HB1557) — the “Don’t Say Gay” law — passes and is signed by Governor DeSantis. Anti-trans bills are introduced in 174 states; 26 pass. The Trans Legislation Tracker (2025) documents a 2,489% increase in anti-trans bills since 2015.

The Institute for Comprehensive Gender Dysphoria Research (ICGDR), founded by Lisa Littman in 2021 and receiving its 501(c)(3) status in 2022 (EIN 85-2892486), formalizes this year as the primary research vehicle for ROGD. Its 2024 IRS Form 990 (primary source: ProPublica, n.d.) shows total revenue of $226,000 — nearly 90% of which comes from two organizations: DonorsTrust and the Santa Fe Boys Educational Foundation, the latter of which makes its largest single-year donation in its history ($100,000) to ICGDR in 2024 (Reed, 2026). The Santa Fe Boys Fund is also a documented funder of Genspect. The board of ICGDR is the board of GETA is the board of Genspect: co-principal officer Stella O’Malley, treasurer J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University, and president Lisa Littman.

---

2022–present — Chloe Cole and the Detransitioner Industry

[Political / Legal / Funding Network]

Chloe Cole — born 2004, who detransitioned before age 18 — is deployed as a patient advocate by Do No Harm, which facilitates her access to congressional testimony and state legislative hearings (Daily Northwestern, 2024). In 2024, Cole testifies in an Ohio court and is recorded stating she earns upwards of $200,000 per year opposing transgender care — through speaking engagements, Donorbox donations, and employment with Do No Harm (Reed, 2024). Cole is represented by Harmeet Dhillon and the Center for American Liberty in her lawsuit against Kaiser Permanente (Trans Data Library, n.d.). She speaks alongside Daily Wire host Matt Walsh and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene at a Do No Harm-organized rally on the steps of the Supreme Court on December 4, 2024 (National Catholic Register, 2024). She is invited as House Speaker Mike Johnson’s special guest at the State of the Union address. The SPLC (2026) documents that anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups have systematically weaponized detransitioner experiences to support the “social contagion” theory. Elisa Rae Shupe’s account of how detransitioners were recruited by this network — “a lot of these women have serious mental health issues and way too much time on their hands… that plays a role in them getting sucked into the GC movement and subsequently radicalized” — is documented in KELOLAND News (2023).

---

2023 — Record Legislative Wave; Coordinated Campaign Exposed; Project 2025 Published

[Political / Funding Network]

More than 492 anti-transgender bills are filed in 47 states (Axios, 2023). DonorsTrust IRS Form 990 filings (primary source: ProPublica, n.d.) confirm simultaneous grants to SEGM, Do No Harm, ADF, and $365,000 to Heritage earmarked for “Going On Offense On Gender Ideology” (NOTUS, 2024). Heritage president Kevin Roberts states publicly: “You outlaw it.” Detransitioner Elisa Shupe describes to KELOLAND News how detransitioners were recruited: “A lot of these women have serious mental health issues and way too much time on their hands. They’re sitting at home on disability with nothing to do, just like I was and still am, and that plays a role in them getting sucked into the gender-critical (GC) movement and subsequently radicalized” (KELOLAND News, 2023).

Heritage publishes Project 2025. It equates being transgender to pornography, calls for cutting federal funding for gender-affirming care at all ages, and directs HHS to adopt a “biblically based” definition of family. It describes gender-affirming care for youth as a “social contagion” (Wisconsin Watch, 2024; 19th News, 2024).

---

January 20–28, 2025 — Trump Executive Orders; Transgender Military Ban Reinstated

[Political / Legal / Military]

On his first day in office, Trump signs Executive Order 14168 (EO 14168) — “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” — eliminating the “X” gender marker from passports and directing all federal agencies to recognize only two sexes defined at conception (American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 2025). Within 24 hours the State Department begins holding passports submitted by transgender people (Lambda Legal, n.d.). On January 20, Trump also revokes Biden’s EO 14004, reinstating the transgender military ban (The Hill, 2025). On January 27, Trump signs EO 14183 formally banning transgender people from military service — the same ban Trump imposed by tweet in 2017 and Biden revoked in 2021. On January 28, he signs EO 14187 — “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” — directing federal agencies to withhold funds from providers offering gender-affirming care to anyone under 19 (LGBTQ+ Bar Association, n.d.). Anti-trans politicians had spent more than $215 million on ads scapegoating trans people in the 2024 election cycle (ACLU, 2025).

---

January 27, 2025 — Elisa Rae Shupe Dies

[Witness]

Seven days after Trump begins signing executive orders targeting trans people, Elisa Rae Shupe — a nonbinary Army veteran who served nearly two decades, became the first American to receive legal recognition as nonbinary, and had been discharged in the weeks prior to her death — dies by suicide at the Syracuse VA Medical Center, found wrapped in a transgender pride flag (Task & Purpose, 2025). In her note she refuses a military burial. Journalist Sue Kerr writes: “I do not believe Elisa was broken by her identity. She was broken by failed systems, including her family of origin and the military as well as the anti-transgender movement” (Xtra Magazine, 2023). Her life traces the exact arc this timeline documents: a neurologically grounded identity that persisted despite military suppression, family rejection, inadequate medical care, deliberate exploitation by the legislative network, a public detransition performed under duress, a private reality that never changed, and the weight of having been a weapon in a campaign she came to understand and condemn (KELOLAND News, 2023).

---

May 1, 2025 — HHS Gender Dysphoria Report Published

[Political / Clinical]

HHS publishes “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices” — commissioned by EO 14187. Authors are not disclosed until November 19, 2025, when SEGM co-founder Zhenya Abbruzzese is identified as a co-author (Reed, 2026). The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) characterizes the report as “misrepresent[ing] the current medical consensus.” The American Psychological Association (APA) states the concealment of authorship “undermines scientific rigor and contradicts standards for evidence-based policymaking” (PBS NewsHour, 2025). The pipeline is documented: DonorsTrust funds SEGM (Reed, 2026) → SEGM provides medical credentialing → SEGM personnel author the federal report used to justify stripping healthcare access. The report cites the DSM-5 “gender dysphoria” diagnosis while ignoring ICD-11’s full depathologization, and adopts EPPC’s framing of gender-affirming care as “sex-rejecting procedures” (Transgender Map, 2025; Important Context, 2026).

---

May 2025 — Focus on the Family Designated SPLC Hate Group

[Political]

Focus on the Family — founded by Dobson in 1977 — is classified as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), 48 years after its founding (SPLC — Focus on the Family, n.d.).

---

June 18, 2025 — United States v. Skrmetti

[Legal]

The Supreme Court rules 6-3 to uphold Tennessee’s Senate Bill 1 (SB1), banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth under 18 (United States v. Skrmetti, 605 U.S. ___ (2025)). Chief Justice Roberts writes for the majority, joined by Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett — all nominees shaped or selected by Leonard Leo. The court holds the law is subject only to rational basis review (Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), 2025). The ruling leaves bans in place in 25 states (Human Rights Campaign (HRC), 2025). Sotomayor, Jackson, and Kagan dissent (American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 2025). The Trevor Project (2025) reports anti-transgender state laws directly caused a 72% increase in suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary youth. The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority was assembled by Leonard Leo (TIME, 2025) — the same Leonard Leo who funds Do No Harm (HuffPost, 2024), sits on the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s (EPPC) board, and whose Marble Freedom Trust gave $41 million to DonorsTrust in 2021.

---

November 2025 — Supreme Court Allows Discriminatory Passport Policy; USCCB Bans Gender-Affirming Care at Catholic Hospitals

[Legal / Political]

The Supreme Court grants the Trump administration’s request to stay a preliminary injunction in Orr v. Trump, allowing the passport policy to be enforced while the ACLU’s challenge continues (ACLU, 2025; PBS NewsHour, 2025). Jackson, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissent.

In the same month, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) adopts new Ethical and Religious Directives (ERDs) banning gender-affirming care at every Catholic hospital in the United States — without consulting the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) or any mainstream healthcare organization. New Ways Ministry states: “The directives adopted by the USCCB will harm, not benefit transgender persons… it gives a blessing to people who seek to deny, hurt, and too often, even murder transgender people” (New Ways Ministry, 2025). Catholic hospitals constitute the largest nonprofit hospital system in the United States.

---

2025–2026 — 914 Bills; The Network Operating as Designed

[Political]

In 2025, 914 anti-trans bills are introduced across 49 states and nationally — 109 pass. Texas leads with 130 bills (Trans Legislation Tracker, 2025). It is the fifth consecutive record-breaking year.

The scale of that number is only legible in light of everything documented above. The organizations that produced it are not a recent movement. Heritage, ALEC, Focus on the Family, FRC, and ADF predate most of the people they are now targeting by decades. The clinical infrastructure — McHugh’s methodologically fraudulent 1979 study, NARTH’s reparative therapy framework, EPPC’s non-peer-reviewed journal, ACPeds’ ADF-commissioned white papers, NARTH’s rebranding as ATCSI, the ROGD concept built on anonymous anti-trans blogs and promoted by ADF before the data were public, and the SEGM/GETA/Genspect triad funded through DonorsTrust — was not assembled in response to a sudden surge in trans visibility. It was assembled over fifty years specifically to provide the legislative and legal campaigns with a scientific-sounding foundation that mainstream medicine has repeatedly and uniformly rejected.

The money that funds it flows through four donor-advised fund layers — DonorsTrust, the National Christian Foundation (NCF), DAFgiving360, and Fidelity Charitable — that make the donors legally invisible while preserving their tax benefit. The Koch network, the Bradley Foundation, Leonard Leo’s Marble Freedom Trust, the DeVos and Mercer families, the Edelmans, and Barre Seid’s fortune are documented contributors. The same dollars fund the legal strategy at ADF, the legislative model bills at Heritage and the Family Policy Alliance, the clinical pseudoscience at SEGM and ICGDR, and the deployment of paid detransitioners as witnesses at up to $200,000 per year through Do No Harm (Reed, 2026; American Journal News, 2023; Atmos, 2025).

The 1973 network and the 2025 network are not parallel structures. They are the same structure, funded by the same money, running the same arguments — children at risk, social contagion, disordered identity, religious liberty — through successively updated institutional vehicles. What changed is not the goal. What changed is the target.

---

REFERENCES

ABC News. (2013, June 20). Exodus International: ‘Gay cure’ group leader shutting down ministry after change of heart. https://abcnews.go.com/US/exodus-international-gay-cure-group-leader-shutting-ministry/story?id=19446752

American Archive of Public Broadcasting. (n.d.). The backlash against gay rights in Florida (1977). https://americanarchive.org/primary_source_sets/conservatism/9-507-qn5z60ct7w

American Civil Liberties Union. (2025, January 27). Trump’s executive orders promoting sex discrimination, explained. https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/trumps-executive-orders-promoting-sex-discrimination-explained

American Civil Liberties Union. (2025, June 18). ACLU, Lambda Legal respond to Supreme Court ruling in U.S. v. Skrmetti. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-lambda-legal-respond-to-supreme-court-ruling-in-u-s-v-skrmetti

American Civil Liberties Union. (2025, November). Supreme Court allows Trump administration to enforce discriminatory passport policy. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/supreme-court-allows-trump-administration-to-enforce-discriminatory-passport-policy

American Journal News. (2023, May 30). The dark money funding conservative anti-trans groups. https://americanjournalnews.com/dark-money-conservative-anti-trans-movement/

American Presidency Project. (1993, July 19). Remarks announcing the new policy on homosexuals in the military. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-announcing-the-new-policy-homosexuals-the-military

American Psychiatric Association. (1980). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (3rd ed.).

American Psychiatric Association. (1987). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (3rd ed., rev.).

American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.).

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596

American Psychiatric Association. (n.d.). Gender dysphoria diagnosis. https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/diversity/education/transgender-and-gender-nonconforming-patients/gender-dysphoria-diagnosis

Archives Foundation. (n.d.). Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010. https://archivesfoundation.org/documents/dont-ask-dont-tell-repeal-act-2010/

Armiak, D. (2021, April 2). The pro-LGBTQ companies that helped elect Arkansas anti-trans bill sponsors. EXPOSEDbyCMD. https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2021/04/02/the-pro-lgbtq-companies-that-helped-elect-arkansas-anti-trans-bill-sponsors/

Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. (2021, June). Pride month and a reflection on Arkansas’s recent passage of anti-transgender legislation. https://www.aradvocates.org/pride-month-and-a-reflection-on-arkansass-recent-passage-of-anti-transgender-legislation/

Atmos. (2025, July 25). Fossil fuel billionaires are bankrolling the anti-trans movement. https://atmos.earth/political-landscapes/fossil-fuel-billionaires-are-bankrolling-the-anti-trans-movement/

Axios. (2023, March 31). The forces behind anti-trans bills across the U.S. https://www.axios.com/2023/03/31/anti-trans-bills-2023-america

Axios Raleigh. (2026, March 23). HB2’s lasting economic and political legacy in N.C. https://www.axios.com/local/raleigh/2026/03/23/house-bill-2-north-carolina-economy-modern-culture-fights-bathroom-bill

Baltimore Magazine. (2019, December 22). Johns Hopkins gender identity clinic: A history. https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/section/health/johns-hopkins-gender-identity-clinic-transgender-surgery/

Ballotpedia. (n.d.). History of same-sex marriage ballot measures. https://ballotpedia.org/History_of_same-sex_marriage_ballot_measures

Baptist News Global. (2023, May 31). Focus on the Family affiliate is the unifying force behind campaign to restrict transgender rights. https://baptistnews.com/article/focus-on-the-family-affiliate-is-the-unifying-force-behind-campaign-to-restrict-transgender-rights/

Biden, J. R. (2021, January 25). Executive Order 14004 — Enabling all qualified Americans to serve their country in uniform. Federal Register. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-202100083/pdf/DCPD-202100083.pdf

Brennan Center for Justice. (n.d.). The improbable victory of marriage equality. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/improbable-victory-marriage-equality

Britannica. (n.d.). Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. https://www.britannica.com/event/Dont-Ask-Dont-Tell

Britannica. (n.d.). Focus on the Family. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Focus-on-the-Family

Britannica. (n.d.). Gender dysphoria. https://www.britannica.com/science/gender-dysphoria

Britannica. (n.d.). GLAAD. https://www.britannica.com/topic/GLAAD

Burton, N. (2015, September 18). When homosexuality stopped being a mental disorder. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201509/when-homosexuality-stopped-being-a-mental-disorder

CBS News. (2004, November 3). 11 states ban same-sex marriage. https://cbsnews.com/news/11-states-ban-same-sex-marriage

Center for Military Readiness. (n.d.). About Elaine Donnelly. https://www.cmrlink.org/about-elaine-donnelly

Christian Post. (2011, July 23). DADT repeal unfounded, defies religious freedom, ADF says. https://www.christianpost.com/news/dadt-repeal-unfounded-defies-religious-freedom-adf-says.html

CNN. (2013, June 20). Group apologizes to gay community, then shuts down ‘cure’ ministry. https://www.cnn.com/2013/06/20/us/exodus-international-shutdown/index.html

CNN KFile via AOL. (2023, October 27). Before he became a politician, House Speaker Mike Johnson partnered with an anti-gay conversion therapy group. https://www.aol.com/became-politician-house-speaker-mike-113706083.html

Conservative Transparency. (n.d.). Alliance Defending Freedom. http://conservativetransparency.org/org/alliance-defending-freedom/

Daily Northwestern. (2024, February 28). NU College Republicans hosts “detransitioned” activist Chloe Cole. https://dailynorthwestern.com/2024/02/28/lateststories/nu-college-republicans-hosts-detransitioned-activist-chloe-cole/

Dallas Voice. (2010, December 1). FRC to livestream military discrimination’s last gasps. https://dallasvoice.com/frc-to-livestream-military-discriminations-last-gasps/

DeSmog. (n.d.). Talent Market. https://www.desmog.com/talent-market/

Drescher, J. (2010). Transsexualism, gender identity disorder and the DSM. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health, 14(2), 109–122. https://doi.org/10.1080/19359701003589637

EBSCO Research Starters. (n.d.). Antigay and antilesbian Briggs Initiative is defeated. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/social-sciences-and-humanities/antigay-and-antilesbian-briggs-initiative-defeated

EBSCO Research Starters. (n.d.). Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy is implemented. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/social-sciences-and-humanities/dont-ask-dont-tell-policy-implemented

EWTN News. (2026, March 14). Psychiatrist Dr. Paul McHugh speaks about his decades-long career and the transgender movement. https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/us/psychiatrist-dr-paul-mchugh-speaks-about-his-decades-long-career-and-the-transgender-movement

EXPOSEDbyCMD. (2020, January 22). Koch-favored DonorsTrust keeps funding anti-Muslim and anti-LGBTQ hate groups. https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2020/01/22/koch-favored-donorstrust-keeps-funding-anti-muslim-anti-lgbtq-hate-groups/

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting. (2010). Don’t ask gays about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. https://fair.org/extra/dont-ask-gays-about-dont-ask-dont-tell/

First Circuit Court of Appeals. (2013). Gender dysphoria [DSM-5 fact sheet]. United States Courts. https://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/sites/ca1/files/citations/Gender%20Dysphoria%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf

Fleming, M., Steinman, C., & Bocknek, G. (1980). Methodological problems in assessing sex-reassignment surgery: A reply to Meyer and Reter. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 9(5), 451–456. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02115944

Fox News/documentary coverage. (2010). New documentary exposes Mormon church’s alleged secret involvement in passage of Proposition 8. https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/new-documentary-exposes-mormon-churchs-alleged-secret-involvement-in-passage-of-proposition-8.amp

Gay & Lesbian Review. (2022, June 2). How 3 activists stopped the madness. https://glreview.org/article/how-3-activists-stopped-the-madness/

GLAAD. (n.d.). American College of Pediatricians. GLAAD Accountability Project. https://glaad.org/gap/american-college-pediatricians/

GLAAD. (n.d.). Family Research Council. GLAAD Accountability Project. https://glaad.org/gap/family-research-council-frc/

GLAAD. (n.d.). Paul McHugh. GLAAD Accountability Project. https://glaad.org/gap/paul-mchugh/

GLAAD. (n.d.). Women’s Liberation Front. GLAAD Accountability Project. https://glaad.org/gap/womens-liberation-front/

Heritage Foundation. (1993). The military gay ban: Why Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell don’t work. https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/the-military-gay-ban-why-dont-ask-dont-tell-dont-work

Heritage Foundation. (2005, July 15). Court of public opinion. https://www.heritage.org/marriage-and-family/commentary/court-public-opinion

HuffPost. (2023, October 31). Billionaire Joseph Edelman is quietly financing anti-trans advocacy across the U.S. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joseph-edelman-political-donor-transgender_n_653a8605e4b0783c4ba04deb

HuffPost. (2024, June 25). A Leonard Leo-linked group is secretly funding legislative attacks on trans rights. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/leonard-leo-transgender-rights-do-no-harm_n_6679bd3fe4b09762019914a8

Human Rights Campaign. (n.d.). Far-right organization has long anti-gay history. https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/far-right-organization-has-long-anti-gay-history

Human Rights Campaign. (n.d.). 10 shocking facts about the Alliance Defending Freedom. https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/10-shocking-facts-about-the-alliance-defending-freedom

Human Rights Campaign. (n.d.). McHugh Exposed: HRC launches website debunking the junk science of Paul McHugh. https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/mchugh-exposed-hrc-launches-website-debunking-the-junk-science-of-paul-mchu

Human Rights Campaign. (2014). 10 things you should know about the Alliance Defending Freedom [PDF]. https://assets2.hrc.org/files/assets/resources/10_Things_You_Should_Know_About_the_Alliance_Defending_Freedom_-_FINAL.pdf

Human Rights Campaign. (2025, April 11). Right wing labs: How state legislatures are driving anti-LGBTQ+ attacks at the federal level. https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/right-wing-labs-how-state-legislatures-are-driving-anti-lgbtq-attacks-at-federal-level

Human Rights Campaign. (2025, June 18). Supreme Court shuts down access to healthcare for transgender youth in 27 states. https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/supreme-court-shuts-down-access-to-healthcare-for-transgender-youth-in-27-states-strengthening-legal-hurdles-in-the-fight-for-lgbtq-rights

Human Rights Watch. (2003, July 1). Lawrence v. Texas. https://www.hrw.org/news/2003/07/01/lawrence-v-texas

Important Context. (2026, February 9). HHS has been using anti-trans language from a Christian right think tank. https://www.importantcontext.news/p/hhs-is-using-anti-trans-language

InfluenceWatch. (n.d.). The Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC). https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/the-ethics-and-public-policy-center-eppc/

InfluenceWatch. (n.d.). United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/united-states-conference-of-catholic-bishops-usccb/

Jacobs, J., & Haas, A. (2019, May 28). ‘Transsexualism’ removed from World Health Organization’s disease manual. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/transsexualism-removed-world-health-organization-s-disease-manual-n885141

Johns Hopkins News-Letter. (2014, May 1). Hopkins Hospital: A history of sex reassignment. https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2014/05/hopkins-hospital-a-history-of-sex-reassignment-76004/

Joint Chiefs of Staff. (n.d.). SHS 15: Repealing DADT [declassified history]. https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/History/Dec21/SHS_15_Repealing_DADT.pdf

JSTOR Daily. (n.d.). Protecting kids from gay marriage. https://daily.jstor.org/protecting-kids-from-gay-marriage/

Kaiser Family Foundation. (2025, August 13). What are the implications of the Skrmetti ruling? https://www.kff.org/lgbtq/what-are-the-implications-of-the-skrmetti-ruling-for-minors-access-to-gender-affirming-care/

KELOLAND News. (2023). How outside involvement from an anti-trans coalition shaped South Dakota law. https://www.keloland.com/keloland-com-original/how-outside-involvement-from-an-anti-trans-coalition-shaped-south-dakota-law/

Lambda Legal. (n.d.). Passport and identity document information for the transgender community. https://lambdalegal.org/tgnc-checklist-under-trump/

LGBTQ+ Bar Association. (n.d.). Trump anti-LGBTQ+ executive order litigation tracker. https://lgbtqbar.org/programs/advocacy-resources/trump-executive-order-tracker/

LGBTQIA+ Midwest. (n.d.). A brief history of sexuality and gender identity classifications in the DSM and ICD. https://www.lgbtqiamidwest.org/chai-resources/a-brief-history-of-sexuality-and-gender-identity-classifications-in-the-dsm-and-icd

Magrath, W. J. (2022). The fall of the nation’s first gender-affirming surgery clinic. Annals of Internal Medicine, 175, 1462–1467. https://doi.org/10.7326/M22-1480

Making Gay History. (2024, March 9). Chapter five: Thank you, Anita [podcast episode]. https://makinggayhistory.org/podcast/chapter-five-thank-you-anita/

McHugh, P. R. (2019, August 22). Amicus curiae brief of Dr. Paul R. McHugh, M.D., in R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (No. 18-107). United States Supreme Court. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-107/113262/20190822151939369_TO%20PRINT%2019-8-22%20Dr.%20Paul%20McHugh%20Amicus%20Brief%20FINAL.pdf

Media Matters for America. (2014, September 23). Anti-gay pundits recycle doomsday DADT rhetoric to defend military’s transgender service ban. https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2014/09/23/anti-gay-pundits-recycle-doomsday-dadt-rhetoric/200852

Media Matters for America. (2019, February 26). Right-wing media and think tanks are aligning with fake feminists who dehumanize trans people. https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/right-wing-media-and-think-tanks-are-aligning-fake-feminists-who-dehumanize-trans

Media Matters for America. (2019, August 17). Right-wing and evangelical media helped land anti-trans parent group the Kelsey Coalition in USA Today. https://www.mediamatters.org/heritage-foundation/anti-trans-parent-group-kelsey-coalition-usa-today

Meyer, J. K., & Reter, D. J. (1979). Sex reassignment: Follow-up. Archives of General Psychiatry, 36(9), 1010–1015. https://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.1979.01780090096010

MIT Technology Review. (2022, August 18). How the idea of a “transgender contagion” went viral — and caused untold harm. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/08/18/1057135/transgender-contagion-gender-dysphoria/

Monitoring Influence. (2024, November 18). Heritage Foundation. https://www.monitoringinfluence.org/org/heritage-foundation/

National Catholic Register. (2024, December 6). Detransitioner Chloe Cole speaks at rally on the steps of the Supreme Court. https://www.ncregister.com/cna/detransitioner-chloe-cole-speaks-at-scotus-rally

National Catholic Reporter. (n.d.). For US bishops, LGBTQ ‘anthropology’ rules out Equality Act compromises. https://www.ncronline.org/news/us-bishops-lgbtq-anthropology-rules-out-equality-act-compromises

National Center for Lesbian Rights. (n.d.). Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010. https://www.nclrights.org/our-work/legislation-policy/dont-ask-dont-tell-repeal-act-of-2010/

NBC News. (2009, February 3). More than $83 million spent on Prop 8. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna28985504

NBC News. (2013, June 20). ‘Ex-gay’ group says it’s shutting down; leader apologizes for ‘pain and hurt.’ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ex-gay-group-says-its-shutting-down-leader-apologizes-pain-flna6c10389785

NBC News. (2017, March 3). This law firm is linked to anti-transgender bathroom bills across the country. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/law-firm-linked-anti-transgender-bathroom-bills-across-country-n741106

NBC News. (2022, April 14). How 1970s Christian crusader Anita Bryant helped spawn Florida’s LGBTQ culture war. https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/1970s-christian-crusader-anita-bryant-helped-spawn-floridas-lgbtq-cult-rcna24215

NBC News. (n.d.). Activists take aim at anti-LGBTQ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/activists-takes-aim-anti-lgbtq-hate-group-alliance-defending-freedom-n936391

New Republic. (1993, February 22). Discrimination, 1948 and 1993 [archived]. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/scotts/OldFiles/ftp/bulgarians/military-48-93.html

New Republic. (2017, March). The abominable legacy of gay conversion therapy. https://newrepublic.com/article/141294/abominable-legacy-gay-conversion-therapy

New Ways Ministry. (2022, November 16). U.S. Bishops’ Conference elects president with anti-LGBTQ record. https://www.newwaysministry.org/2022/11/16/u-s-bishops-conference-elects-president-with-anti-lgbtq-record/

New Ways Ministry. (2024, November 27). U.S. Bishops act swiftly to implement transgender-negative declaration. https://www.newwaysministry.org/2024/11/27/u-s-bishops-act-swiftly-to-implement-transgender-negative-declaration/

New Ways Ministry. (2024, December 9). U.S. Bishops’ Conference seeks end to federal non-discrimination proposal. https://www.newwaysministry.org/2024/12/09/u-s-bishops-conference-seeks-end-to-federal-non-discrimination-proposal/

New Ways Ministry. (2025, November 13). New Ways Ministry criticizes U.S. Bishops on anti-trans health policies. https://www.newwaysministry.org/2025/11/13/new-ways-ministry-criticizes-u-s-bishops-on-anti-trans-health-policies/

Newsweek. (2019, April 2). America’s biggest Christian charity funnels tens of millions to hate groups. https://www.newsweek.com/biggest-christian-charity-funding-hate-groups-1370055

19th News. (2024, July). Project 2025: Women, education, LGBTQ+, workforce. https://19thnews.org/2024/07/project-2025-women-education-lgbtq-workforce/

NOTUS. (2024, November 21). Trump-aligned groups get big boost from dark money DonorsTrust. https://www.notus.org/money/trump-donors-trust-america-first-policy-institute-legal-foundation-donations

NPR. (2004, November 3). Eleven states vote to ban same-sex marriage. https://www.npr.org/2004/11/03/4141481/eleven-states-vote-to-ban-same-sex-marriage

NPR. (2008, October 31). Mormons divided on same-sex marriage issue. https://www.npr.org/2008/10/31/96405866/mormons-divided-on-same-sex-marriage-issue

OpenDemocracy. (2021, July 5). DAFs: How ‘donor-advised funds’ let anonymous US givers bankroll anti-LGBTQ groups. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/donor-advised-funds-daf-us-charity-law-loophole-bankroll-hate/

Palm Center. (2012). One year out: An assessment of DADT repeal’s impact on military readiness. https://www.palmcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/One-Year-Out_0.pdf

PBS NewsHour. (n.d.). Out of the past: 1977. https://www.pbs.org/outofthepast/past/p5/1977.html

PBS NewsHour. (2025, November 6). Supreme Court lets Trump block transgender Americans from choosing passport sex markers. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/supreme-court-lets-trump-block-transgender-americans-from-choosing-passport-sex-markers

PBS NewsHour. (2025, December 24). Tracking how much of Project 2025 the Trump administration achieved this year. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/tracking-how-much-of-project-2025-the-trump-administration-achieved-this-year

Political Research Associates. (1993, March 19). Constructing homophobia. https://politicalresearch.org/1993/03/19/constructing-homophobia

Political Research Associates. (2013, April 5). Profiles on the right: Restored Hope Network. https://politicalresearch.org/2013/04/05/profiles-right-restored-hope-network

Political Research Associates. (2018, June 22). Profile on the right: The Heritage Foundation. https://politicalresearch.org/2018/06/22/profile-right-heritage-foundation

Political Research Associates. (2020, July 14). A room of their own: How WoLF became a tool of the right. https://politicalresearch.org/2020/07/14/room-their-own

ProPublica. (n.d.). Do No Harm [Form 990, EIN 874701865]. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/874701865

ProPublica. (n.d.). Institute for Comprehensive Gender Dysphoria Research [Form 990, EIN 852892486]. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/852892486

ProPublica. (n.d.). Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine Corp [Form 990, EIN 844520593]. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/844520593

ProPublica. (n.d.). Nonprofit Explorer [database]. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/

Psychiatric News. (2019, October). Courageous actions led to removal of homosexuality as a diagnosis in DSM. https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.pn.2019.10b11

Psychology Today. (2017, May 8). The American College of Pediatricians is an anti-LGBT group. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/political-minds/201705/the-american-college-of-pediatricians-is-an-anti-lgbt-group

Public Seminar. (2024, August 24). Project Christian radicalism. https://publicseminar.substack.com/p/project-christian-radicalism

Recovered Memory Archive. (n.d.). Paul McHugh. https://www.recoveredmemory.org/proponents-of-rm-1/paul-mchugh

Reed, E. [Erin in the Morning]. (2024, July 29). Chloe Cole testifies she makes up to $200,000 opposing trans care. https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/chloe-cole-testifies-she-makes-up

Reed, E. [Erin in the Morning]. (2026, March 24). The same dark money behind Project 2025 is bankrolling a Northwestern study recruiting trans kids. https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/the-same-dark-money-behind-project

Reed, E. [Erin in the Morning]. (2026, April 22). Trump’s HHS report co-author is headlining a trans youth care panel. https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/trumps-hhs-report-co-author-is-headlining

Religion Dispatches. (2010, February 2). When Mormons mobilize: Anti-gay marriage Prop. 8 effort ‘outed.’ https://religiondispatches.org/2010/02/02/when-mormons-mobilize-anti-gay-marriage-prop-8-effort-outed

Restored Hope Network. (n.d.). Donations. https://www.restoredhopenetwork.org/donation

Robles, R., Ayuso-Mateos, J. L., & Reed, G. M. (2022). How gender dysphoria and incongruence became medical diagnoses — a historical review. Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 76(Suppl. 1), S5–S12. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9286744/

Rolling Stone. (2023, October 29). Mike Johnson’s Alliance Defending Freedom pushed anti-LGBTQ legislation. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/mike-johnson-alliance-defending-freedom-anti-lgbtq-1234865340/

Salon. (2021, June 3). Millions in Christian-right dark money funding counterattack on LGBTQ+ equality. https://www.salon.com/2021/06/03/millions-in-christian-right-dark-money-funding-counterattack-on-lgbtq-equality/

Salon. (2023, December 10). The ‘dark money ATM of the right’ is funneling money to hate groups while hiding donor identities. https://www.salon.com/2023/12/10/the-dark-money-atm-of-the-right-is-funneling-money-to-hate-groups-while-hiding-donor-identities/

Slate. (2023, May 2). Trans kids: What gender-exploratory therapy is really about. https://slate.com/technology/2023/05/gender-exploratory-therapy-trans-kids-what-is-it.html

Slate. (2024, July 22). Anti-trans bathroom bills: Why the once dead legislation is making a major comeback. https://slate.com/life/2024/07/bathroom-bills-anti-trans-legislation-comeback.html

Sludge. (2019, March 19). America’s biggest Christian charity funnels tens of millions to hate groups. https://readsludge.com/2019/03/19/americas-biggest-christian-charity-funnels-tens-of-millions-to-hate-groups/

Southern Poverty Law Center. (n.d.). Alliance Defending Freedom [extremist file]. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/alliance-defending-freedom/

Southern Poverty Law Center. (n.d.). American College of Pediatricians [extremist file]. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/american-college-pediatricians/

Southern Poverty Law Center. (n.d.). American Family Association [extremist file]. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/american-family-association/

Southern Poverty Law Center. (n.d.). Family Research Council [extremist file]. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/family-research-council/

Southern Poverty Law Center. (n.d.). Focus on the Family [extremist file]. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/focus-family/

Southern Poverty Law Center. (n.d.). Foundations of contemporary anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/foundations/

Southern Poverty Law Center. (n.d.). History of the anti-gay movement since 1977. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/history-anti-gay-movement-1977/

Southern Poverty Law Center. (n.d.). QUACKS: ‘Conversion therapists,’ the anti-LGBT right, and the demonization of homosexuality. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/quacks-conversion-therapists-anti-lgbt-right-and-demonization-homosexuality/

Southern Poverty Law Center. (n.d.). Tony Perkins [extremist file]. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/tony-perkins/

Southern Poverty Law Center. (2010, December 20). DADT comments by FRC’s Perkins echo old racist fears. https://www.splcenter.org/news/2010/12/20/dadt-comments-frc-perkins-echo-old-racist-fears

Southern Poverty Law Center. (2015, May 17). NARTH Institute affiliate addresses anti-LGBT audience in Dublin. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2015/05/17/narth-institute-affiliate-addresses-anti-lgbt-audience-dublin

Southern Poverty Law Center. (2018, March 30). Rise and fall of the Traditional Values Coalition. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/03/30/rise-and-fall-traditional-values-coalition

Southern Poverty Law Center. (2020). Louis Sheldon, founder of anti-LGBTQ Traditional Values Coalition, dead at 85. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/louis-sheldon-founder-anti-lgbtq-traditional-values-coalition-dead-85/

Southern Poverty Law Center. (2023). Defining the pseudoscience network. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/defining-pseudoscience-network/

Southern Poverty Law Center. (2024, December 3). Documents reveal ADF requested anti-trans research from American College of Pediatricians. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/documents-reveal-adf-requested-anti-trans-research-american-college-pediatricians/

Southern Poverty Law Center. (2026). Hard-right exploitation of detransition narratives flourishes at event, online. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/detransition-narratives/

Southern Poverty Law Center. (2026, April). Unwanted: The resurgent hateful language of ‘conversion therapy.’ https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/unwanted-lawsuit-resurgent-hateful-language-conversion-therapy/

SourceWatch. (n.d.). Benjamin Rush Institute. https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Benjamin_Rush_Institute

SourceWatch. (n.d.). Council for National Policy. https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Council_for_National_Policy

SourceWatch. (n.d.). Ethics and Public Policy Center. https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Ethics_and_Public_Policy_Center

SourceWatch. (n.d.). Heritage Foundation. https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Heritage_Foundation

SourceWatch. (n.d.). Women’s Liberation Front. https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Women’s_Liberation_Front

STAT News. (2022, October 3). ‘History is repeating itself’: The story of the nation’s first clinic for gender-affirming surgery. https://www.statnews.com/2022/10/03/gender-affirming-surgery-hospitals-johns-hopkins/

Supreme Transparency. (n.d.). Ethics and Public Policy Center. https://supremetransparency.org/powerbrokers/ethics-and-public-policy-center/

Task & Purpose. (2025, March 3). Transgender troops say the military will lose key skills under ban. https://taskandpurpose.com/military-life/transgender-troops-forced-separation/

The Advocate. (2015, December 15). The scary science at Johns Hopkins University. https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/12/15/scary-science-johns-hopkins-university

The Advocate. (2016, January 26). Don’t ask, don’t tell: A compromise that didn’t work. https://www.advocate.com/history/dont-ask-dont-tell-history

The Advocate. (2016, August 29). New ‘scientific’ study on sexuality, gender is neither new nor scientific. https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2016/8/29/new-scientific-study-sexuality-gender-neither-new-nor-scientific

The Advocate. (2020, May 30). Lou Sheldon dies; led anti-LGBTQ+ Traditional Values Coalition. https://www.advocate.com/news/2020/5/30/lou-sheldon-dies-led-anti-lgbtq-traditional-values-coalition

The Advocate. (2024, August 13). Powerful conservative operative’s Do No Harm group is a threat to transgender kids. https://www.advocate.com/politics/leonard-leo-danger-transgender-kids

The Hill. (2025, January 21). Trump revokes Biden-era order allowing transgender members to serve in military. https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5096977-trump-revokes-biden-era-order-allowing-transgender-members-to-serve-in-military/

TIME. (2018, November 30). How ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ continues to impact the military. https://time.com/5339634/dont-ask-dont-tell-25-year-anniversary/

TIME. (2021, April 9). In Arkansas, trans youth face the country’s strictest laws yet. https://time.com/5953363/trans-youth-arkansas/

TIME. (2025, June 18). Supreme Court upholds gender-affirming-care ban. https://time.com/7295695/supreme-court-skrmetti-transgender-healthcare-minors/

Trans Data Library. (n.d.). Chloe Cole. https://transdatalibrary.org/person/chloe-cole/

Trans Data Library. (n.d.). Gender Exploratory Therapy Association. https://transdatalibrary.org/organization/gender-exploratory-therapy-association/

Trans Data Library. (n.d.). Genspect. https://transdatalibrary.org/organization/genspect/

Trans Data Library. (n.d.). Institute for Comprehensive Gender Dysphoria Research. https://transdatalibrary.org/organization/institute-for-comprehensive-gender-dysphoria-research/

Trans Data Library. (n.d.). Lisa Littman. https://transdatalibrary.org/person/lisa-littman/

Trans Data Library. (n.d.). Rapid onset gender dysphoria. https://transdatalibrary.org/concept/rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria/

Trans Data Library. (n.d.). Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. https://transdatalibrary.org/organization/society-for-evidence-based-gender-medicine/

Trans Data Library. (n.d.). Women’s Liberation Front. https://transdatalibrary.org/organization/womens-liberation-front/

Trans Legislation Tracker. (2025). 2025 anti-trans bills tracker. https://translegislation.com/

Trans Safety Network. (2021, August 26). SEGM uncovered: Large anonymous payments funding dodgy science. https://transsafety.network/posts/segm-uncovered/

TransAdvocate. (2018, June 26). Johns Hopkins resumes trans care. https://www.transadvocate.com/johns-hopkins-resumes-trans-care_n_19077.htm

Transgender Map. (n.d.). Gender Exploratory Therapy Association vs. transgender people. https://www.transgendermap.com/issues/academia/gender-critical/gender-exploratory-therapy-association/

Transgender Map. (n.d.). Paul McHugh vs. transgender people. https://www.transgendermap.com/issues/psychiatry/paul-mchugh/

Transgender Map. (n.d.). The Kelsey Coalition vs. transgender people. https://www.transgendermap.com/issues/groups/kelsey-coalition/

Transgender Map. (n.d.). Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) vs. transgender people. https://www.transgendermap.com/issues/academia/gender-critical/womens-liberation-front/

Transgender Map. (2025). 2025 US HHS report attacking gender-affirming care. https://www.transgendermap.com/issues/medicine/pediatrics/2025-hhs-report/

Trevor Project. (2025, June 18). Supreme Court greenlights healthcare discrimination for transgender youth in U.S. v. Skrmetti. https://www.thetrevorproject.org/blog/supreme-court-greenlights-healthcare-discrimination-for-transgender-youth-in-u-s-v-skrmetti/

Uncloseted Media. (2026, March 20). In the hidden world of donor-advised funds, anti-LGBTQ groups make big money. https://www.unclosetedmedia.com/p/in-the-hidden-world-of-donor-advised

Undark. (2024, May 20). Pediatric transgender care and the contentious rise of SEGM. https://undark.org/2024/05/20/pediatric-transgender-care-contentious-segm/

United States Supreme Court. (2025). United States v. Skrmetti, 605 U.S. ___ (No. 23-477). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-477_2cp3.pdf

University of Wyoming, American Heritage Center. (n.d.). Paul M. Weyrich papers, 1968–2002 [finding aid]. Archives West. https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:80444/xv971551

UPI/CMU archive. (1993, January 29). Nunn criticized for opposing end to gay military ban. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/scotts/ftp/bulgarians/nunn-ban.html

Washington Blade. (2021, October 18). ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ clouds Powell’s legacy. https://www.washingtonblade.com/2021/10/18/dont-ask-dont-tell-clouds-powells-legacy/

Washington Examiner. (2024, November 19). Conservative ‘dark money ATM’ DonorsTrust records $351 million disbursements. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/investigations/3234126/conservative-dark-money-atm-donorstrust-record-351-million/

Washington Post. (2016, June 30). The Pentagon’s ban on transgender service just fell — but the details are complicated. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/06/30/the-pentagons-ban-on-transgender-service-just-fell-but-the-details-are-complicated/

Wisconsin Watch. (2024, July). Project 2025: What is the Heritage Foundation’s vision for a second Trump term? https://wisconsinwatch.org/2024/07/project-2025-trump-heritage-foundation-gender-abortion-lqbtq-republican/

World Health Organization. (n.d.). Gender incongruence and transgender health in the ICD [FAQ]. https://www.who.int/standards/classifications/frequently-asked-questions/gender-incongruence-and-transgender-health-in-the-icd

World Health Organization. (1992). International statistical classification of diseases and related health problems (10th rev.). WHO.

World Health Organization. (2019). International statistical classification of diseases and related health problems (11th rev.). WHO. https://icd.who.int

World Professional Association for Transgender Health. (2010). Consensus statement on considerations of the role of distress (criterion D) in the DSM diagnosis of gender identity disorder. International Journal of Transgenderism, 12(2), 100–106. https://doi.org/10.1080/15532739.2010.513927

World Religions & Spirituality Project. (2022, April 11). Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity (ATCSI/NARTH). https://wrldrels.org/2022/04/11/20291/

Xtra Magazine. (2023). Detransition, the TERF movement, and Elisa Shupe. https://xtramagazine.com/power/detransition-terf-movement-elisa-shupe-247592

APA → American Psychiatric Association

DSM → Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (with edition noted)

NARTH → National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality

SPLC → Southern Poverty Law Center

ALEC → American Legislative Exchange Council

HRC → Human Rights Campaign

EPPC → Ethics and Public Policy Center

ADF → Alliance Defending Freedom

AFA → American Family Association

FRC → Family Research Council

TVC → Traditional Values Coalition

CNP → Council for National Policy

ACLJ → American Center for Law and Justice

GLAAD → Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation

CMR → Center for Military Readiness

DADT → Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

NCLR → National Center for Lesbian Rights

WHO → World Health Organization

ICD → International Classification of Diseases (with edition)

WPATH → World Professional Association for Transgender Health

GID → gender identity disorder

GIDC → gender identity disorder of childhood

USCCB → United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

ACA → Affordable Care Act

VAWA → Violence Against Women Act

ERDs → Ethical and Religious Directives

DOMA → Defense of Marriage Act

FMA → Federal Marriage Amendment

LDS → Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

JCS → Joint Chiefs of Staff

FAIR → Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

CSP → Center for Security Policy

RHN → Restored Hope Network

NCF → National Christian Foundation

DAF → donor-advised fund

IRS → Internal Revenue Service

SEGM → Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine

ROGD → rapid onset gender dysphoria

ACPeds → American College of Pediatricians

AAP → American Academy of Pediatrics

NIH → National Institutes of Health

HUD → Department of Housing and Urban Development

HATAC → Hands Across the Aisle Coalition

FPA → Family Policy Alliance

SOCE → sexual orientation change efforts

ATCSI → Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity

GETA → Gender Exploratory Therapy Association

GET → gender exploratory therapy

RIME → Rethink Identity Medicine Ethics

ICGDR → Institute for Comprehensive Gender Dysphoria Research

HB1570 → House Bill 1570

EO → Executive Order (with number)

SPPA → Student Physical Privacy Act

HB2 → House Bill 2

HB1557 → House Bill 1557

SB1 → Senate Bill 1

ACLU → American Civil Liberties Union

KFF → Kaiser Family Foundation

AG → Attorney General

FDA → Food and Drug Administration

ERA → Equal Rights Amendment

LAUSD → Los Angeles Unified School District

WoLF → Women’s Liberation Front (expanded and then abbreviated)

Transgender History Source Document (LINK)

---

---

Statement on Research Methodology & Ethical Use of AI

I created this page as a researcher using AI technology, drawing on my training and background in research, counseling, and psychology, as well as a broader interdisciplinary foundation across diverse subjects. You can view my training certificates via the link on the Bio Page. This work was also supported by AI tools, which assisted with research synthesis, identifying key figures and themes, and providing editing support.

I also recognize that AI technology depends on significant human and environmental resources, including the energy required to power large-scale data systems. As I integrate these tools into my work, I remain responsible for continuously evaluating their ethical integrity—especially in relation to algorithmic bias, community safety, and environmental impact.

I have been intentionally learning how to use AI over the past year to better support the communities I serve.

This is a living, collaborative project—please feel free to use the information here in any classroom or educational space that affirms LGBTQ people.

Downloadable Document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17UbtQtLFoW9RHqMWuj9WCOYNvimiFDYvj7VEzglycV4/edit?usp=sharing

Constitutional Foundations

As a transgender counselor publishing public-facing research and historical education during this time in history, the First, Fourteenth, and Fifth Amendments matter directly to my work. The First protects my right to speak, write, and share evidence-based information in the public sphere; the Fourteenth anchors equal protection and due process when discriminatory laws target transgender people and healthcare; and the Fifth reinforces due process protections in investigations, discipline, or licensing actions. The Eighth Amendment also matters in contexts where cruel or harmful conditions—including denial of medically necessary care—are at issue, and the Ninth reflects that fundamental rights are not limited to what is explicitly listed in the Constitution. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/

If you believe any factual statement is inaccurate, email saren@resonanceportland.com with the specific sentence and source; I will correct errors promptly.