Introduction

December 12, 2023

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) people exist in all societies across the world and thrive in all areas of life. They come from all backgrounds and walks of life, spanning racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, religious and cultural categories.[i] Being LGBTQ+ is natural.[ii] LGBTQ+ people raise healthy families and have fulfilling lives.[iii] They succeed in business and politics.[iv] They help create and define the human experience through artistic and dramatic expression, and they help us understand the benefits of ideological pluralism.[v] In short, LGBTQ+ people, especially when their identities are affirmed and respected by society, live happy and full lives.

It is important to say these things at the outset of this report because society regularly tells LGBTQ+ people that they are not normal.[vi] The assumptions that LGBTQ+ people are abnormal are called heterosexism and cisnormativity, and they are pervasive in our culture.[vii] These assumptions can be reflected in popular media like movies, books, television and even advertisements for goods and services. They sometimes show up in our conversations with friends or family, religious communities or in our schools. They also affect everyone – both defining and limiting the possibilities for identity and expression for us all.

These assumptions also show up in faulty scientific studies that sustain medical and policy industries dedicated to changing who LGBTQ+ people are and limiting LGBTQ+ rights by promoting conversion therapy, detransitioning, bans on gender-affirming health care, bans on transgender people playing sports, censorship of LGBTQ+ topics in public schools, bans on public expression of LGBTQ+ culture like drag performances, and other politically motivated attempts to erase LGBTQ+ identities. In recent years, anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience has become a prominent component of anti-LGBTQ+ policy networks who want to disguise their bigoted motivations with seemingly objective language. These networks help translate anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience into legislative and legal campaigns to limit bodily autonomy and LGBTQ+ people’s human rights.

This report examines recent developments in the anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience industry. In Chapter 1, we offer an overview of pseudoscience as an enforcement mechanism of white, heterosexual, cisgender supremacy. In Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, we chronicle the events that contributed to the current anti-LGBTQ+ moral panic and the anti-LGBTQ+ movement strategy of attacking transgender identity and the rights of transgender people, focusing on the role of pseudoscience.

In Chapter 4, we share the results of an analysis of the 100 most frequently cited scientific studies used to support litigious attacks on LGBTQ+ rights in four prominent court cases filed between 2019 and 2022.[1] The systematic evaluation offers the first comprehensive insight into the tactics by which medical and social science is used to launder anti-LGBTQ+ ideology and attempt to codify it into American jurisprudence.

After detailing the creation and perpetuation of pseudoscientific studies grounded in anti-LGBTQ+ prejudice, stereotypes and ultra-conservative religious beliefs, in Chapter 5, we share a network analysis highlighting the connections between many of the purveyors of anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscientific claims, the organizations they founded or advise, and the broader anti-LGBTQ+ movement, which helps translate and encode the pseudoscience into public policy through legislative and legal advocacy. Specifically, we identify three subnetwork typologies to define the division of labor between groups within the anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network: Research and Practice Groups, Narrative Manipulation Groups, and Legal Advocacy and Think Tanks. In Chapter 6, we offer an assessment of how pseudoscience influences the policing of sex and gender and the future of network activity. We also provide recommendations for advocacy and policy action based on our research.

Combating Anti-LGBTQ Pseudoscience Through Accessible Informative Narratives

The anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience industry does not only threaten LGBTQ+ people’s lives, livelihoods and rights. A diverse, inclusive society that affirms pluralism is a hallmark of a functioning, multiracial democracy. Social, legal and legislative attacks on LGBTQ+ inclusion fueled by pseudoscience threaten pluralism by demanding conformity to white and conservative religious interpretations of sexuality and gender identity.

Yet as this report and accompanying documentation detail, the actors funding and using anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience are also linchpins of political campaigns to dismantle gender and racial equity, the rights of pregnant people and rights to privacy and bodily autonomy. Many of the same actors also sustain political movements to expand white Christian privilege, undermine confidence in science and medicine, dismantle public education, and, ultimately, limit the political engagement of marginalized people as well as democratic accountability.

To expose these connections as well as address and mitigate the harm done by the anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience and the accompanying policy networks, the SPLC envisioned Project CAPTAIN.

Goals of CAPTAIN

Analyze the proliferation of anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience in the United States and report on the predominant sources and purveyors of anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience.
Support LGBTQ+ people by creating a repository of information cataloging debunked myths and junk science studies that are used to justify anti-LGBTQ+ public policy and medical practices.
Explicitly name and unpack anti-transgender extremism to better track groups that traffic in pseudoscience targeting transgender, gender-nonconforming and intersex people and understand the experiences of marginalized groups at the intersection of gender identity.

What is Pseudoscience?

Pseudoscience is a term that applies to knowledge or conclusions we assume were produced by following the scientific method or best practices within a specific field of study – like psychology, psychiatry and various fields of medicine – but are not actually scientific.

Many pseudoscientific studies:

Make faulty assumptions or contain logical inconsistencies. Examples include:
- Making claims that are not testable
- Operating on biased assumptions
Present unverifiable evidence. Examples include:
- Using faulty methodologies
- Manipulating data to reach a predetermined conclusion
- Having been retracted and/or corrected by scientific authorities
Intentionally mislead others. Examples include:
- Sharing selected findings or findings without context
- Misrepresenting the meaning or source of information
- Obscuring an author’s conflict(s) of interest

Purveyors of pseudoscience generally rely on the fact that most people will take information for granted because they:

Do not have the time, resources or knowledge to conduct a study of their own.
Do not have the expertise to question the methodology used to reach a conclusion.
Refuse to critically analyze information.
Mistakenly trust the source.

Pseudoscience is an enforcement mechanism for systemic inequality, and it is not victimless. In the case of anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience, the goal is to reinforce hetero- and cisnormativity, most recently by perpetuating disinformation about gender-affirming health care and equating transgender identity with an ideological contagion. As we detail in the next section, however, anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience has a long history and is deeply intertwined with other pseudoscientific movements to sustain white supremacy, male supremacy and antisemitism. The consequence of this disinformation is twofold.

First, anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience harms individuals – including individual LGBTQ+ people and their families. For example, pseudoscience grounded in the false assumption that being LGBTQ+ is unnatural has been used to create “treatments” that purport to “cure” LGBTQ+ people – falsely claiming to change them from gay or trans to straight and cisgender. The industry of “ex-gay” and conservative religious counseling services has been accused of using barbaric, draconian and laughable tactics to convince LGBTQ+ people and their families that their identities are aberrations, do not really exist or that their LGBTQ+ identities are incompatible with their faith traditions, with dangerous and deadly[2] consequences.[viii]

In recounting the individual-level harms of anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience, it is imperative to note that the proper communication of scientific information is as important as the underlying science itself. That is to say, even properly and ethically obtained scientific information is not shared in a vacuum. Conclusions and social context can be easily manipulated to make a point that is otherwise unsupported by data in a particular study.

In recent years, researchers, social scientists and historians have all shown how social media amplification of anti-LGBTQ+ disinformation that includes conspiracy theories about medical providers derived from pseudoscientific claims about LGBTQ+ identity fuels violent attacks targeting individual LGBTQ+ people and health care providers.[ix] Notably, LGBTQ+ people are already four times more likely than non-LGBTQ+ people to experience violent victimization, and LGBTQ+ youth are disproportionately victimized by peers and even adults in the various spaces (like schools) they occupy every day.[x] By providing justification for oppression and manipulating information derived from scientifically sound studies, anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience perpetuates social stigma of LGBTQ+ people, makes it harder to access health care, legitimizes attacks on LGBTQ+ identity and makes it harder for LGBTQ+ people to exist. It‘s also used to justify attacks on doctors, teachers and librarians and allow for separation of trans kids from their families.[3]

Secondly, at the societal level, pseudoscience fuels legal suppression of LGBTQ+ identities and the intersectional oppression of LGBTQ+ people. The same pseudoscientific ideas that create individual-level harms, like conversion therapy efforts, also reinforce homophobia, transphobia and disgust toward LGBTQ+ people that fuels systemic violence.

As we detail in Chapter 2 and Chapter 4 of this report, one such idea is so-called “rapid-onset gender dysphoria,” which assumes that transgender identity spreads through “social contagion” in spaces that affirm LGBTQ+ identities. Popularized by Dr. Lisa Littman, among others, in a published study later amended with multiple corrections, the idea that LGBTQ+ identity spreads through “social contagion” has also been spread by anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups and used to justify anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.[xi]

Because pseudoscience is an enforcement mechanism employed to sustain systems of unequal power and control like racism, sexism and hetero- and cisnormativity, and because these systems of unequal power are experienced by marginalized people simultaneously, anti-LGBTQ+ violence and disproportionate access to health care are especially likely to affect LGBTQ+ people of color.

The effects of systemic anti-Black racism on Black LGBTQ+ people, for example, mean the group disproportionately experiences a lack of access to medical care in the United States.[xii] Bans on gender-affirming care, couched in the pseudoscientific “social contagion” myth and working in concert with underlying health care inequalities attributable to anti-Black racism, will necessarily result in even fewer health care options for Black LGBTQ+ people. It is important to note, then, that the anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network we analyze contains organizations founded to oppose anti-racist education in medical schools and often insinuate that diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education (i.e., recruiting more doctors from communities of color) will diminish the quality of medical care in the U.S.

The Pseudoscience of Race, Mental Health, and LGBTQ+ Identity in America

In the United States, anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience has largely been informed by conservative interpretations of Christian religious traditions.[xiii] The assumption that LGBTQ+ identity is not “natural” and is contrary to the “biblical binary” understanding of sexuality and gender has fueled common stereotypes and false narratives that LGBTQ+ people are not only flawed but dangerous to society.

While it may be easy for some to shrug off these harmful assumptions, social and medical practices that attempt to force LGBTQ+ people to be straight or cisgender through unsound counseling, psychological and medical practices, by forcibly outing them to unsupportive parents and caregivers, or by limiting their access to affirming health care only works to ensure that everyone is bound to follow rigid social conventions that keep women subjugated to men; Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) subjugated to white people; and everyone subjugated to white European, conservative Christian values.

To understand how and why the modern anti-LGBTQ+ movement uses pseudoscience as a tool to advance extremism, it is instructive to look to history because pseudoscience has long been a tool used to justify marginalization. For example, white supremacists frequently use pseudoscience to control the lives and bodies of people of color. Beginning with the Enlightenment, the science of racism, ableism, male supremacy, hetero- and cisnormativity took on a new fervency when those committed to white supremacy and colonialism found a new outlet to peddle their racist beliefs – “science.”

This period was marked by a general turn toward logic and reason, rather than spirituality, as explanations for things happening in the natural world.[4] It stood in contrast to the period of European history known as the “Dark Ages,” which is typically recognized as ending with the Renaissance and the re-emergence of philosophical, political, scientific and artistic inquisitiveness, invention and rationality as the preferred modes of thought. The popularization of the “scientific method” to acquire objective (value-free) knowledge about the world represents one of the major achievements of this time. Yet during and since this period, people have used pseudoscience to generate so-called “proof” to support their animus toward others.

Pseudoscientific studies of human anatomical or skeletal features, such as measurements of human skulls (a field known as phrenology[xiv]), were cited as incontrovertible evidence that Caucasians were a superior “race” to humans from other regions of the world. In the United States, Thomas Jefferson wrote an infamous book in which he deployed this kind of pseudoscience to justify his view that white Europeans were inherently superior to African Americans.[xv]

Similarly, the eugenics movement, founded by Francis Galton in the 19^th century, was started with the intent to breed out maladies, mental illnesses and other conditions/traits that supposedly made an individual a less desirable member of society.[xvi] Although claiming to “improve” humanity, the objectives were laced with racism, ableism and other forms of prejudice. This period also witnessed the development of many scientific and medical fields or specialties including gynecology and psychology. These fields and others largely began as a way to control the bodies of Black, Indigenous, and women of color and grew through experimentation on enslaved people.[xvii]

Throughout the 19^th century, pseudoscientific studies claimed to document deficiencies of non-white populations. American lawmakers used this eugenic research, which at the time was considered scientifically rigorous, to diminish the agency of people considered to be “unfit.” These studies were used to justify slavery, segregation throughout the Jim Crow era and race-based immigration restrictions, as well as the institutionalization, medical experimentation and forced sterilization of many BIPOC, disabled and LGBTQ+ people.[5]

By the 1930s, “32 states passed explicit eugenics laws that allowed for the government to sterilize the ‘insane,’ the ‘feebleminded,’ the ‘dependent’ and the ‘diseased’ – all of whom were deemed incapable of making their own decisions about reproduction.”[xviii] Alongside these restrictions, beginning in the 20^th century, eugenicists led campaigns to promote reproduction among rural, white, Protestant families whose “ideal” offspring, they believed, would stave off the decline of the white population – a common pseudoscientific fear that many contemporary white supremacists repeat.[6]

The eugenics movement in the United States significantly influenced Nazism and the Holocaust, especially pseudoscientific ideas about preserving the white race. The most infamous example of pseudoscientific genocide occurred from 1933 to 1945 in Germany as roughly 400,000 forced sterilizations and 275,000 “euthanasia deaths” are contributed to Nazi “race science” during the Holocaust.[xix]

By the end of the 19^th century, the study of sexual “deviancy” was used to create the label “homosexual,” or people who experience same-sex attraction, to describe a deviant form of sexuality distinct from “heterosexuals,” or people who experience opposite-sex attraction. Just like debunked studies of racial inferiority, pseudoscientific studies of gender and sexuality claimed women were mentally and physically inferior to men, claimed “homosexuals” were sexually underdeveloped and that they are sexual predators.

For most of the American colonial period, incarceration or capital punishment were used to police non-normative sexuality and gender expression. However, the advent of modern psychiatry and psychology and the willingness of dubious researchers to use pseudoscience meant that some doctors, religious leaders and policymakers could claim to not only identify (i.e., diagnose) homosexuals and gender “inverts,” but also “treat” and “cure” their medical afflictions.

Thousands of people were given “blue discharges” from the U.S. armed forces during World War II, for example, because they were “identified” as “homosexuals.”[xx] The methods of identification included: inkblot (Rorschach) tests, hormone tests, tongue depressor tests, overly effeminate appearance or speech among cismen or masculine appearance or speech among ciswomen.

The “treatments” for “sexual psychopaths” diagnosed through these pseudoscientific processes usually involved medical procedures including surgery to remove supposedly damaged parts of the brain, electrocution of the body and especially genitals, the overuse of pharmaceuticals and almost always institutionalization in “hospitals” that housed many people medical science of the time deemed too mentally ill or physically debilitated to function in society.

Pseudoscience is and remains an attractive tool to marginalize others because it allows dominant groups in society to subjugate other groups while claiming objectivity. Science, unlike religion, is imbued with a sense of neutrality. Furthermore, scientists are viewed as neutral truth-seekers and trained experts in their fields of study. We often defer to experts, allowing them to substitute their judgment for our own. Purveyors of hate and extremism count on this deference when they market pseudoscience as objective truth and use it to discriminate (and worse) against others.

Pseudoscientific studies of human anatomical or skeletal features, such as measurements of human skulls (a field known as phrenology[xiv]), were cited as incontrovertible evidence that Caucasians were a superior “race” to humans from other regions of the world. In America, Thomas Jefferson wrote an infamous book in which he deployed this kind of pseudoscience to justify his view that white Europeans were inherently superior to African Americans.[xv]

Similarly, the eugenics movement, founded by Francis Galton in the 19^th century, was started with the intent to breed out maladies, mental illnesses and other conditions/traits that supposedly made an individual a less desirable member of society.[xvi] Although claiming to “improve” humanity, the objectives were laced with racism, ableism and other forms of prejudice. This period also witnessed the development of many scientific and medical fields or specialties including gynecology and psychology. These fields and others largely began as a way to control the bodies of Black, Indigenous, and women of Color and grew through experimentation on enslaved people.[xvii]

Throughout the 19^th century, pseudoscientific studies claimed to document deficiencies of non-white populations. American lawmakers used this eugenic research, which at the time was considered scientifically rigorous, to diminish the agency of people considered to be “unfit.” These studies were used to justify slavery, segregation throughout the Jim Crow Era and race-based immigration restrictions, as well as the institutionalization, medical experimentation and forced sterilization of many BIPOC, disabled and LGBTQ+ people.[5]

By the 1930s, “32 states passed explicit eugenics laws that allowed for the government to sterilize the “insane,” the “feebleminded,” the “dependent” and the “diseased” — all of whom were deemed incapable of making their own decisions about reproduction.”[xviii] Alongside these restrictions, beginning in the 20th century, eugenicists led campaigns to promote reproduction among rural, white, Protestant families whose ”ideal” offspring, they believed, would stave off the decline of the white population – a common pseudoscientific fear that many contemporary white supremacists repeat.[6]

For most of the American colonial period, incarceration or capital punishment were used to police non-normative sexuality and gender expression. However, the advent of modern psychiatry and psychology and the willingness of dubious researchers to use pseudoscience meant that some doctors, religious leaders, and policymakers could claim to not only identify (i.e. diagnose) homosexuals and gender “inverts,” but also “treat” and “cure” their medical afflictions.

The “treatments” for “sexual psychopaths” diagnosed through these pseudoscientific processes usually involved medical procedures including surgery to remove supposedly damaged parts of the brain, electrocution of the body and especially genitals, the over-use of pharmaceuticals and almost always institutionalization in “hospitals” that housed many people medical science of the time deemed too mentally ill or physically debilitated to function in society.

Pseudoscience is and remains an attractive tool to marginalize others because it allows dominant groups in society to subjugate other groups while claiming objectivity. Science, unlike religion, is imbued with a sense of neutrality. Furthermore, scientists are viewed as neutral truth-seekers and trained experts in their fields of study. We often defer to experts, allowing them to substitute their judgement for our own. Purveyors of hate and extremism count on this deference when they market pseudoscience as objective truth and use it to discriminate (and worse) against others.

Modern Anti-LGBTQ+ Pseudoscience

In a July 22, 2022, interview with the Ohio-based Center for Christian Virtue, Dr. Andre Van Mol, a family physician in California who is co-chair of the American College of Pediatricians’ (ACPeds) Committee on Adolescent Sexuality[7] and board member of the group Moral Revolution,[8] was asked what motivates him to speak out against gender-affirming care. He responded that leaving a mark on legislatures, courts, and “the peer review literature” was his goal. “If you influence the idea makers,” he reasoned, “that carries out for three generations, because they’re the ones who set policy.”[xxi] Indeed, this is representative of the goals and strategies of the anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience industry.

Public policy networks disseminating anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience first started to appear in the 1980s.[xxii] Paul Cameron, an instructor of psychology at the University of Nebraska, began publishing pseudoscientific pamphlets purporting to “prove” gay people committed more serial murders, molested children and intentionally spread disease.[xxiii] In 1982, Cameron became chairman for the Committee to Oppose Special Rights for Homosexuals, which formed in resistance to a proposed anti-discrimination ordinance in Lincoln, Nebraska. His numerous ethics violations, flawed methodology, obvious bias and willingness to mislead the public about his findings eventually got Cameron expelled from the American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association.

Seemingly undeterred, Cameron published many other studies, with the help of his son Kirk, a statistician. These studies were critiqued by another professor of psychology, Dr. Gregory Herek of the University of California, Davis, who debunked work produced by Cameron and the Family Research Institute (FRI), formerly known as the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality (ISIS).[xxiv]

Cameron’s most prominent study echoed in contemporary anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric is Child Molestation and Homosexuality. This study was published in Psychological Reports, which was characterized at the time as “not employ[ing] a stringent peer review panel of scientists to guard against flawed studies.”[xxv] The paper purported to refute a 1978 study that demonstrated gay men are no more likely to molest children than heterosexual men. Despite its flaws, Cameron’s study and the harmful stereotype it supported have been used by anti-LGBTQ+ groups like the American Family Association (AFA) and Family Research Council (FRC) and is the foundation for the resurgence of the “groomer” myth – one of the most harmful anti-LGBTQ+ tropes that is shared thousands of times daily across social media.[xxvi]

While Cameron was one of the first modern perpetuators of anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience, he certainly hasn’t been the last to use extreme errors in methodology and ethics to co-opt the language of science to purportedly confirm anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs and harmful stereotypes about the LGBTQ+ community.

“Conversion therapy” focusing on gays and lesbians has come under increased scrutiny and regulation in the 2010s, especially because of the known harms when practiced on young people. In response, and in responding to the relatively quick progress of gay and lesbian rights, anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience has taken a distinctive turn, focusing on the experiences of transgender people and attempting to undermine affirming health care models and create medical treatments that assume transgender identity is a mental illness which will “resolve” if not encouraged and, as a first course of action, deny affirming care. In the next two chapters, we analyze the pseudoscientific and right-wing extremist focus on transgender identity and rights.

Because the anti-LGBTQ+ movement can no longer easily find medical or scientific justification for conversion therapy, it is generally left with one option – poking holes in the affirming care model, labeling affirming health care practices as too “experimental” and advocating so-called “talk” therapies and “gender exploratory therapies.” With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, these claims found a ready-made audience of science deniers and conspiracy theorists to promote their pseudoscience and anti-LGBTQ+ political agenda.

Anti-LGBTQ+ organizations use pseudoscience to attack not only affirming medical practices, but almost any social, religious, commercial or governmental affirmation of LGBTQ+ identity and LGBTQ+ representation in popular culture. With the help of right-wing and extremist social media personalities, anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience is sold as “proof” that a conspiracy of “leftists” is infiltrating schools with “Marxist gender ideology,” indoctrinating kids and even turning them transgender, and that transgender identity is spread through “social contagion” when schools accept and affirm LGBTQ+ children.

Anti-LGBTQ+ groups have peddled and continue to use pseudoscience for several reasons. Most importantly, their agenda is unpopular among the general public.[xxvii] The guise of objectivity offered by peddling pseudoscience, however, can help them claim they are not anti-LGBTQ+, but simply “following the science.” Also, they know that perpetuating harmful stereotypes to keep the “debate” over LGBTQ+ rights alive is financially lucrative.[xxviii] Finally, many anti-LGBTQ+ groups see potential in dividing public opinion and policymakers over transgender rights. They see an opportunity to reinvigorate their anti-LGBTQ+, anti-abortion, “parental rights” and “religious freedom” agendas by promoting junk science about transgender people, gender-affirming health care and the experiences of LGBTQ+ young people, specifically.

In this context, it is more important than ever to document the groups and harmful studies that underpin much of the contemporary anti-LGBTQ+ movement activity. It is also important to share sound information about LGBTQ+ identity, offer resources which affirm LGBTQ+ people, and provide policy recommendations that support LGBTQ+ health and well-being. These are the goals of Project CAPTAIN – to help those with a stake in affirming and uplifting LGBTQ+ people navigate the pitfalls of pseudoscience fueled by anti-LGBTQ+ prejudice.

Chapter 2: Foundations of the Contemporary Anti-LGBTQ+ Pseudoscience Network | Home

Endnotes

[1] The methodology is described in detail in Chapter 3. The cases are Kadel v. Folwell (filed in North Carolina), Eknes-Tucker v. Ivey (filed in Alabama, this case is also known as Eknes-Tucker v. Marshall or Boe v. Marshall), Dekker v. Weida (filed in Florida), and Tingley v. Ferguson (filed in Washington state).

[2] In 2013, Alan Chambers, the leader of now-defunct Exodus International, an “ex-gay” organization that promoted conversion therapy, issued an apology to LGBTQ+ people affected by the group’s work, saying, “I’m sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I’m sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions did not change. More than anything, I’m sorry that so many have interpreted this religious rejection from Christians as God’s rejection. I’m profoundly sorry that many have walked away from their faith, and that some have chosen to end their lives.” See: Burnett, John. June 20, 2013. “Group That Claimed To ‘Cure’ Gays Disbands, Leader Apologizes.” NPR. https://www.npr.org/2013/06/20/193965227/group-that-claimed-to-cure-gays-disbands-leader-apologizes. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[3] https://newrepublic.com/post/172444/florida-passes-bill-allowing-trans-kids-taken-families

[4] Importantly, Alumkal (2017, 19) notes the “ex-gay” movement has a legacy in American theology that “integrated the scientific perspectives” of Enlightenment thinkers like Francis Bacon “into their theology of scripture,” resulting in the development of a scientific philosophy in the 19^th century that viewed the Bible as the source of “objective facts not only about God but also about history, geography, and science.” Conservative Evangelicals and their ideological progeny in the 20^th and 21^st centuries, Alumkal (2017, 19) argues, saw scientists who “offered ideas that contradicted the Bible” as practicing “flawed science” because, they believed, “properly executed science would eventually come along and correct the error.”

[5] Stern, Alexandra Minna. (2015). Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America. University of California Press.

[6] See: Uenuma, Francine. January 17, 2019. “‘Better Babies’ Contests Pushed for Much-Needed Infant Health but Also Played Into the Eugenics Movement” Smithsonian Magazine. (Accessed 9/13/23).; Lovett, Laura L. (2007) Conceiving the Future: Pronatalism, Reproduction, and the Family in the United States, 1890-1938. University of North Carolina Press.; Stern, Alexandra Minna. (2002). “Making Better Babies: Public Health and Race Betterment in Indiana, 1920-1935,” American Journal of Public Health 92 (5): 742-752.; Pernick, Martin S. (2002). “Taking Better Baby Contests Seriously,” American Journal of Public Health 92 (5): 707-708.

[7] American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) opposes adoption by LGBTQ+ couples, links homosexuality to pedophilia, endorses so-called reparative or sexual orientation conversion therapy for homosexual youth, believes transgender people have a mental illness and has called transgender health care for youth child abuse. An investigation by Dr. R.G. Cravens of the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2023 also showed that documents left on a public Google drive by ACPeds suggest the group was asked to produce research to “substantiate” anti-transgender legal claims by Alliance Defending Freedom as part of their legal campaign to deny transgender students access to public facilities under Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972. See, Southern Poverty Law Center. N.d. “American College of Pediatricians Extremist File.” https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/american-college-pediatricians. (Accessed 8/9/2023). Cravens, R.G. June 5, 2023. “Documents Reveal ADF Requested Anti-Trans Research from American College of Pediatricians.” Hatewatch. Southern Poverty Law Center. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2023/06/05/documents-reveal-adf-requested-anti-trans-research-american-college-pediatricians. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[8] Moral Revolution is a group that promotes the “ex-gay” movement.

[i] Conron, Kerith J., and Shoshana K. Goldberg. July 2020. “Adult LGBT Population in the United States.” Williams Institute. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/adult-lgbt-pop-us/. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[ii] Human Rights Campaign Foundation. N.D. “The Lies and Dangers of Efforts to Change Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity.” https://www.hrc.org/resources/the-lies-and-dangers-of-reparative-therapy. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[iii] Movement Advancement Project, Family Equality Council, and Center for American Progress. March 2012. Obstacles and Opportunities: Ensuring Health and Wellness for LGBT Families. https://www.lgbtmap.org/obstacles-and-opportunities-ensuring-health-and-... (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[iv] National LGBT Chamber of Commerce. March 27, 2023.””NGLCC Certifies 2,000^th LGBTQ-Owned Business.” https://nglcc.org/news/2000lgbtqbusinesses/. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[v] Bittker, Bobbie. July 5, 2022. “LGBTQ-Inclusive Curriculum as a Path to Better Public Health.” American Bar Association. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/intersection-of-lgbtq-rights-and-religious-freedom/lgbtq-inclusive-curriculum-as-a-path-to-better-public-health/. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[vi] Medina, Caroline and Lindsay Mahowald. January 12, 2023. “Discrimination and Barriers to Well-Being: The State of the LGBTQI+ Community in 2022.” Center for American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/discrimination-and-barriers-to-well-being-the-state-of-the-lgbtqi-community-in-2022/. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[vii] Worthen, M. G. F. (2016). Hetero-cis–normativity and the gendering of transphobia. International Journal of Transgenderism, 17(1), 31–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/15532739.2016.1149538.

[viii] Alumkal, Antony. (2017). Paranoid Science: The Christian Right’s War on Reality. New York, NY: NYU Press. https://nyupress.org/9781479827138/paranoid-science/. Erzen, Tanya. (2006). Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520245822/straight-to-jesus.

[ix] See Ryan, Hugh. July 31, 2023. “Who’s Afraid of Social Contagion?” Boston Review. https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/whos-afraid-of-social-contagion/. (Accessed 8/9/2023). Wilson, Jason. November 22, 2022. “Colorado Springs: Far-Right Influencers Made LGBTQ People into Targets.” Hatewatch. Southern Poverty Law Center. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2022/11/22/colorado-springs-far-right-influencers-made-lgbtq-people-targets. Berger, J.M. Interviewed by William Brangham. June 14, 2022. “Why far-right groups are increasingly targeting the LGBTQ community.” PBS Newshour. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-far-right-groups-are-increasingly-targeting-the-lgbtq-community.

[x] Flores, Andrew R., Lynn Langton, Ilan H. Meyer, and Adam P. Romero. (2020). “Victimization rates and traits of sexual and gender minorities in the United States: Results from the National Crime Victimization Survey, 2017.” Science Advances 6(40): https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aba6910. Palmer, Neal A., and Emily A. Greytak. (2017). “LGBTQ Student Victimization and its relationship to school discipline and justice system involvement.” Criminal Justice Review 42(2): https://doi.org/10.1177/0734016817704698.

[xi] See. Reed, Erin. July 31, 2023. “No Evidence Being Transgender is a ‘Social Contagion.’” Los Angeles Blade. https://www.losangelesblade.com/2023/07/31/no-evidence-being-transgender-is-a-social-contagion/. (Accessed 8/9/2023). Yurcaba, Jo. August 3, 2022. “‘Social Contagion’ Isn’t Causing More Youths to be Transgender, Study Finds.” NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-health-and-wellness/social-contagion-isnt-causing-youths-transgender-study-finds-rcna41392. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[xii] American Medical Association. June 24, 2021. “Black & LGBTQ+: At the intersection of race, sexual orientation & identity.” https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/population-care/black-lgbtq-intersection-race-sexual-orientation-identity. (Accessed 8/9/2023). Marrow, Elliot. 2023. “Why Should Other People Be the Judge:” The Codification of Assessment Criteria for Gender-Affirming Care, 1970s-1990s. History of Psychology 26(30):210-46.

[xiii] Alumkal (2017).

[xiv] See Colbert, Charles. 1997. A Measure of Perfection: Phrenology and the FIne Arts in America. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. https://uncpress.org/book/9780807846735/a-measure-of-perfection/.

[xv] See “Thomas Jefferson: On food and freedom.” January 24, 2016. Washington Post Presidential Podcast Series. https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/presidential/thomas-jefferson-on-food-and-freedom/. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[xvi] Farber, Steven A. (2008). “U.S. Scientists' Role in the Eugenics Movement (1907–1939): A Contemporary Biologist's Perspective.” Zebrafish 5(4): 243-45. https://doi.org/10.1089%2Fzeb.2008.0576. See also, “Early American Eugenics Movement: Topics in Chronicling America.” Library of Congress Research Guide. https://guides.loc.gov/chronicling-america-early-eugenics. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[xvii] Owens, Deirdre Cooper. (2017). Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. https://ugapress.org/book/9780820354750/medical-bondage/.

[xviii] Villarosa, Linda. June 8, 2022. “The Long Shadow of Eugenics in America.” New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/magazine/eugenics-movement-america.html. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[xix] United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. October 30, 2020. “Eugenics.” https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/eugenics. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[xx] Berube, Allan. (1990). Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. https://uncpress.org/book/9780807871775/coming-out-under-fire/ for the 20th Anniversary release.

[xxi] Van Mol, Andre interviewed by David Mahan. July 22, 2022. “The Business of Woke Medicine with Andre Van Mol, M.D.” The Narrative Podcast. Center for Christian Virtue.

[xxii] “History of the Anti-Gay Movement Since 1977.” Spring 2005. Intelligence Report. Southern Poverty Law Center. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2005/history-anti-gay-movement-1977. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[xxiii] Southern Poverty Law Center. N.d. “Paul Cameron Extremist File.” https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/paul-cameron. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[xxiv] See Herek, Gregory. 2012. “Paul Cameron Bio and Fact Sheet.” https://lgbpsychology.org/html/facts_cameron_sheet.html#notes2_4_text. (Accessed 8/9/2023). Southern Poverty Law Center. January 31, 2006. “UC-Davis Psychology Professor Gregory Herek Aims to Debunk Anti-Gay Extremist Paul Cameron.” Intelligence Report. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2006/uc-davis-psychology-professor-gregory-herek-aims-debunk-anti-gay-extremist-paul-cameron. (Accessed 8/9/2023). Herek, Gregory. 2012. “The Cameron Group’s Survey Studies: A Methodological Critique.” https://lgbpsychology.org/html/facts_cameron_survey.html. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[xxv] Holthouse, David. January 31, 2006. “Paul Cameron’s Falsehoods Cited by Anti-Gay Sympathizers.” Intelligence Report. Southern Poverty Law Center. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2006/paul-cameron%E2%80%99s-falsehoods-cited-anti-gay-sympathizers. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[xxvi] Berg-Brousseau, Henry. August 10, 2022. “Anti-LGBTQ+ Grooming Narrative Surged More Than 400% on Social Media Following Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay or Trans’ Law, As Social Platforms Enabled Extremist Politicians and their Allies to Peddle Inflamatory, Discriminatory Rhetoric.” Human Rights Campaign. https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/new-report-anti-lgbtq-grooming-narrative-surged-more-than-400-on-social-media-following-floridas-dont-say-gay-or-trans-law-as-social-platforms-enabled-extremist-politicians-and-their-allies-to-peddle-inflamatory-discriminatory-rhetoric. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[xxvii] Public Religion Research Institute. March 23, 2021. “New Survey Shows Strong Support for LGBTQ Rights Championed in the Equality Act.” https://www.prri.org/press-release/new-survey-shows-strong-support-for-lgbtq-rights-championed-in-the-equality-act/. (Accessed 8/9/2023).

[xxviii] Richardson, Stuart. March 23, 2022. “Groups opposed to gay rights rake in millions as states debate anti-LGBTQ bills.” NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/groups-opposed-gay-rights-rake-millions-states-debate-anti-lgbtq-bills-rcna21016. (Accessed 8/9/2023).