"Overwhelmingly, state legislators behind recent anti-trans legislation have argued that they were introducing these bills with the intent to protect children – whether that be “protecting children” from “profoundly unethical and morally wrong” medical practices"
"Much of H.B. 5511 is modeled after controversial legislation passed in California (A.B. 1043) and New York’s Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act"
"The surge in funding to the ADF, which has been termed an “anti-LGBTQ hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, saw it record revenue of $104.5m in 2021, according to filings with the Internal Revenue Service."
this is very much like the funding of these 'privacy' acts by Meta, Alphabet, etc - lots of money directly into the hands of local legislators across multiple state legislatures with the ultimate goal of providing institutional power over individuals, one just has a slightly more Machiavellian economic logic foregrounding it but the strategy, tactics, and overall erosion of civil liberties make for very similar outcomes
alt Hacker News
they're both grounded in fearmongering that's led to cultural panics and utilize the rhetoric of 'protecting children' as the sell
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/gender-journal/wp-content/upl...
"Overwhelmingly, state legislators behind recent anti-trans legislation have argued that they were introducing these bills with the intent to protect children – whether that be “protecting children” from “profoundly unethical and morally wrong” medical practices"
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/eff-gov-pritzker-veto-...
"Much of H.B. 5511 is modeled after controversial legislation passed in California (A.B. 1043) and New York’s Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act"
there's also the rampant astroturfing
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/30/christian-hate...
"The surge in funding to the ADF, which has been termed an “anti-LGBTQ hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, saw it record revenue of $104.5m in 2021, according to filings with the Internal Revenue Service."
ADF's main funders being the Servant Foundation or a single billionaire family's pet foundation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_Foundation) and the National Christian Foundation which receives large donations from multiple extremely wealthy individuals like David Green, co-founder of Hobby Lobby (https://readsludge.com/2019/03/19/americas-biggest-christian...)
this is very much like the funding of these 'privacy' acts by Meta, Alphabet, etc - lots of money directly into the hands of local legislators across multiple state legislatures with the ultimate goal of providing institutional power over individuals, one just has a slightly more Machiavellian economic logic foregrounding it but the strategy, tactics, and overall erosion of civil liberties make for very similar outcomes