The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is at it again. The organization, which functions as a left-wing propaganda outlet, is known for falsely labeling organizations as “hate groups” for the simple crime of disagreeing with its politics.
But now, the group has released a report in which one of its authors is making some more questionable claims about those who are not on board with progressive gender ideology and the overall LGBTQ agenda. In this instance, the group is once again going after one of its favorite targets: Christians.
The organization’s Intelligence Project, the entity that publishes the “hate map,” released its Combatting Anti-LGBTQ+ Pseudoscience Through Accessible Information Narratives (CAPTAIN) on Tuesday. The report features a slew of essays promoting its agenda and ideology.
One of the essays, titled “Merging Pseudoscience and Politics,” accuses the conservative anti-LGBTQ+ movement of employing divisive tactics to attack the community. The author contends that despite experiencing some losses, certain right-wing groups have worked to “reframe their anti-LGBTQ+ ideology and repackage their theocratic intentions for American society.”
The essay claims that conservative groups have tried to isolate transgender individuals from the rest of the LGBTQ community:
Specifically, anti-LGBTQ+ activists plotted an alignment with conspiracy-minded LGBTQ+ people, including advocates of QAnon[3] and anti-trans conspiracies, in a divisive campaign to isolate transgender people from the LGBTQ+ community. That plot coincided with the rise of a disaffected group of researchers seeking to undermine the LGBTQ+ affirming health care model and even re-legitimize conversion therapy practices for trans kids using pseudoscientific claims.
By melding pseudoscientific claims and manipulative Religious Right narratives about “parents’ rights” and “religious freedom,” the strategy is intended to pit members of the LGBTQ+ community and their allies against one another, invigorate moral crusaders who might otherwise be out-mobilized by pro-choice activists in the wake of the unpopular overturning of Roe v. Wade, and, ultimately, rollback LGBTQ+ rights across the board and further the white Christian nationalist takeover of American law and society.
The author also noted that the right no longer focuses as much on conversion therapy to attack LGBTQ+ people, which “laid the foundation for the anti-LGBTQ+ movement to advance this kind of extremist agenda.”
The pseudoscience advanced in response to professional abandonment of conversion therapy laid the foundation for the anti-LGBTQ+ movement to advance this kind of extremist agenda. In its early stages, the plan was to focus on transgender people, reestablish conversion therapy as a legitimate therapeutic practice and undermine the affirming care model. As it progresses, it is tearing down long-established rights to privacy and bodily autonomy, civil rights and discrimination protections, as well as marriage equality. In their place, the plan seeks to erect a theocracy built on a right to discriminate against people who do not hold conservative white Christian beliefs. The far right’s decades-long institution building allowed it to quickly spread. The coalition-building between anti-LGBTQ+ organizations and anti-trans LGBTQ+ groups has allowed it to succeed, so far.
In a nutshell, the author appears to be arguing that those opposing the promotion of gender ideology in the public school system and medical facilities that serve children are somehow a part of some widespread conspiracy theory to target members of the LGBTQ+ community. Moreover, those who oppose the use of “gender-affirming care,” which involves prescribing puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and even surgery to minor children, are essentially trying to establish a theocracy.
In essence, this entire diatribe outlines the progressive agenda to destroy parental rights and religious freedom. By falsely portraying those who dare to suggest that parents should have the ultimate authority over their children and also possess the right to practice their religion as they see fit as bigots, they seek to legitimize their efforts to infuse government-run schools with their extreme gender ideology.
The bottom line is that people expressing authentic and valid concerns about pushing this belief system on children are not trying to erase LGBTQ+ people. They are simply trying to protect their children from efforts to promote this agenda among children, which is the real reason why these folks are upset.
