2600 Leaked Anti-trans Lobbyist Emails Show Fundamentalism, Not Evidence, Is How First Anti-Trans Bills Were Drafted

This week, 2600 Leaked lobbyist emails from the Alliance Defending Freedom, Vernadette Broyles, The Kelsey Coalition, and SEGM show the religious network ties to passing anti-trans bans.

This week, a trove of leaked emails from nearly every anti-trans group was released by Maia, a transgender digital activist and security researcher. Hours before the full trove was released, Mother Jones reported on the documents showing the way in which anti-trans legislation is drafted behind the scenes. While anti-trans experts have tried to argue that the bills that target the transgender community are being written using “science” and “evidence,” the disturbing message behind the scenes is clear: the attacks on transgender rights are crafted with religious motivation and political calculations that have no ties to evidence whatsoever. Lets dive deep into how the care of transgender youth is dictated by far-right organizations writing laws and how things like age restrictions and medical policy are drawn up to meet political goals and accomplish religious doctrine.

The list of people on these emails is extensive - anybody that has paid attention to anti-trans policy will recognize most or all of the names. While it should be unsurprising that they are all coordinating in drafting legislation, we finally have direct evidence. Browsing the emails, you’ll see fake anti-trans medical organizations like the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine and the American College of Pediatricians alongside people such as deacon Patrick Lappert who runs a gay conversion therapy organization, Courage International. You’ll see major figures like the Alliance Defending Freedom and Michael Laidlaw alongside attorney Vernadette Broyles, the woman responsible for Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law as well as recent attacks on a Children’s Hospital in Missouri through “whistleblower” Jamie Reed. You’ll even see TERF organizations like the Women’s Liberation Front and Kara Dansky. They all exchange emails strategizing over how to eradicate transgender rights in America to statements like “The lord is blessing our efforts!” and “awaiting further marching orders from the good Lord in His timing."

Some of the emails point out the cruel way in which this legislation is drafted. In one email, for instance, age ranges for gender affirming care bans are chosen for “purely political calculations” in the words of South Dakota Representative Fred Deutsch. He then emails Vernadette Broyles and others about how they intend to raise the age range over time. See these exchanges:

Email exchanges between the team members over the political calculations that went into setting ages for gender affirming care bans.

Later on the same bill in South Dakota, they speak about how the point of the bills are not medical benefits, explicitly saying that the benefits are besides the point - the main purpose of the bill is to ban trans people from getting care:

Email establishing a complete rejection of evidence of medical benefits as a premise.

As the group continued to strategize over anti-trans legislation, they reacted to every bit of good and bad news with divine fervor. It is clear that this group in crafting legislation saw themselves as ordained by god to eradicate transgender people from public life. When the South Dakota bill banning gender affirming care was to be heard on the house floor, Vernadette Broyles sent a message to everyone on the email chain, “Do not back down, nor should you be afraid. Know that the Lord is with you. The children of South Dakota belong to him. He is jealous over them.”

See Vernadette’s email:

Vernadette’s email of religious fervor in passing anti-trans legislation.

These types of exchanges are extremely common throughout the emails. In one case when learning that Wisconsin would cover gender affirming care for Medicaid recipients, Michelle Cretella, president of the American College of Pediatricians, states that “The Devil never sleeps. I pray for the second coming more and more.”

At some points, the group appears to struggle with clear signs that they are being purposefully discriminatory. When workshopping language, one drafter states that male and female people require separate but unequal treatment when it comes to transgender gender marker changes. A Liberty Counsel member replies, indicating that “separate but equal” may not be the best language to use.

Similarly, the group struggles with the utilization of evidence based care - they realize that their recommendations fly in the face of the standards of care, and so they formulate the idea to create their own. Michelle Cretella states that they are incubating a new group to draft “alternative standards of care,” referring to Michael Laidlaw and Will Malone. This corresponds with the creation of the Society For Evidence Based Gender Medicine, of which Will Malone helped found. The SEGM would go on to be utilized in the drafting of Florida’s alternative standards of care in 2022 banning gender affirming care for trans youth. SEGM affiliates were on the board which made that decision:

Alejandra Caraballo @Esqueer_

Meet Patrick Hunter, a doctor on the Florida board of medicine who is an affiliate for Genspect and SEGM. He will get to decide how to forcefully detransition thousands of trans Floridians and force them into conversion therapy by threatening their doctor's medical licenses.

These emails confirm that these groups are drafting legislation which is purposefully discriminatory. The use of religious doctrine in order to guide legislative policies flies in the face of American principles such as freedom of religion. It also shows that these groups only try to build “evidence” after starting from the premise that transgender people are “the devil’s work.” Externally, they try to pretend that they are following evidence-based guidelines and practices. Internally, they outright say that “medical benefit” is not even a consideration for their policies. They propose policies with language such as “separate but equal” and need to pull the language back due to clear discriminatory intent.

The names in this email are almost all extremely active in anti-trans policymaking. The Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine is actively lobbying internationally for countries to change their standards of care. Vernadette Broyles is the principle attorney on most of the biggest anti-trans cases in the United States. Michael Laidlaw is consistently cited by legislatures and called in to testify. The American College of Pediatrics is routinely used to confuse legislators into thinking they are the American Academy of Pediatricians. The language in the bills they drafted in these emails are still in anti-trans bills being pushed and passed this year. Representative Fred Deutsch was involved in the drafting and passage of anti-trans bills in South Dakota this year. While we could previously claim to know that these bills were drafted in complete ignorance of standards of care and evidence, we now have outright proof. The same ideas drafted in these emails in 2019 are now being enacted and targeted to the transgender community nationwide in 2023, and trans people are paying the price spelled out in these conversations.