Anti-LGBTQ

A central theme of anti-LGBTQ+ organizing and ideology is the opposition to LGBTQ+ rights or support of homophobia, heterosexism and/or cisnormativity, often expressed through demonizing rhetoric and grounded in harmful pseudoscience that portrays LGBTQ+ people as threats to children, society and often public health.

Top Takeaways

In 2024, the number of anti-LGBTQ+ groups increased by about 13% from the previous year. Anti-LGBTQ+ groups maintained a trend in heavy mobilization across multiple strategies with increasing political and financial support from the hard right.

Anti-trans narratives were instrumental to the 2024 election at all levels of government, especially at the local level where anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-inclusive education activism continue to heavily overlap. The politicization of gender-affirming health care and LGBTQ+-inclusive school curricula contributed to what has been characterized as the “most Anti-LGBTQ election in decades.” Republicans spent almost $215 Million on TV ads to smear trans people, surpassing ads on rival issues such as economy, immigration and housing. Another wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation broke records at state and federal levels, but such bills were not as nearly as successful as last year.

Anti-LGBTQ+ groups are heavily invested in the courts and pushing policy change by judicial decision. Hard right and anti-LGBTQ+ extremists on social media continue their campaign to “make pride toxic” by targeting inclusive business and marketing practices while anti-LGBTQ+ legal groups take up administrative law and lobbying strategies to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion practices in the public and private sectors under the guise of “viewpoint diversity” and “religious freedom” advocacy.  

Key Moments

Throughout the state legislative sessions, anti-LGBTQ+ movement organizations continued their facilitation of a decades long effort to foment anti-trans moral panic in public discourse. Legislative assaults broke records for the fifth consecutive year, albeit with fewer successes.

Several factors slowed the trend, including coordinated community responses and reporting, such as the SPLC’s Project CAPTAIN, on the networks that perpetuate anti-LGBTQ+ talking points and legislation. Legislation trends of concern include:

A Florida bill promoted insurance coverage conversion therapy for detransition. The bill passed the House, but died in the Senate.

  • Anti-trans bathroom bans made a comeback, with four passed in Alabama, Idaho, Ohio and South Carolina.
  • Policy changes enacted barriers to gender markers and name changes for IDs/personal documents in Arkansas and Florida.
  • Florida introduced a bill that limited free speech, making public accusations, whether true or false, of a person being homophobic, transphobic, racist or sexist equivalent to defamation and punishable by fine. The bill did not pass.

In February 2024, anti-trans influencers spun a disinformation campaign to exploit the tragic shooting at Lakewood Church in Houston by alleging the shooter was trans. Hard-right social media influencers, equipped with talking points that help fuel gun purchases, used this and other mass shootings in 2024 to perpetuate anti-immigrant and anti-trans conspiracy theories. Despite claiming anti-trans activism helps “protect children,” the SPLC reported that in the wake of mass shootings, anti-trans extremists divert attention from meaningful reforms to prevent gun violence, which is the leading cause of death for children in the United States.

In response to online campaigns by hard-right social media personalities, many major brands scaled back Pride merchandise in 2024. Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) reported anti-LGBTQ+  protests at Pride events decreased in 2024; however, GLAAD documented 110 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents during June 2024. In addition, the SPLC monitored at least 74 bomb threats targeting LGBTQ people and events between January 1 and June 30, 2024.

The Colorado Republican Party posted “Burn all the #pride flags this June” and shared a video clip titled “God Hate F__s.” There was no shortage of vandalism: In Poulsbo, Washington, 14 Pride banners were slashed, and over 200 pride flags were stolen from the town center in Carlisle, Massachusetts. Throughout June, SPLC tracked dozens of protests, bomb threats and harassment campaigns directed at civil society groups like Pride committees and LGBTQ+-inclusive religious congregations. Hate groups including MassResistance, Gays Against Groomers, Protect Texas Kids, White Lives Matter, and Aryan Freedom Network were active at Pride events in June 2024.

In July and August 2024, anti-trans influencers manufactured controversy over the gender identity of Olympic athletes Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting. This anti-trans controversy exclusively targeted Taiwanese and Algerian athletes, scrutinizing the legitimacy of their womanhood. The crux of arguments made by the anti-trans actors re-animated misogynoir stereotypes to exclude women of color from being considered women based on white Eurocentric beauty standards of femininity. The series of events suggests eugenics and racism underlie transphobia and exhibited how anti-trans hysteria disproportionately impacts women of color on an international scale.

In September 2024, the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Family Research Council held its annual Pray Vote Stand conference. FRC hosted a variety of anti-immigrant commentary ranging from Katy Faust, president of the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Them Before Us, urging attendees to “breed out” immigrants and trans people. At the conference, Oklahoma superintendent of public instruction Ryan Walters alleged illegal immigrants were bringing fentanyl into schools; and the summit featured population control myths espoused by both anti-abortion and anti-vax panelists. FRC devoted multiple plenary sessions to anti-trans, anti-abortion and anti-immigrant coded topics.

The election of the first trans member of congress, Sarah McBride, was immediately met with a trans bathroom ban on all restrooms on the House side of the Capitol complex. The resolution was introduced by Nancy Mace and supported by House Speaker and former Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Mike Johnson. Mace posted anti-trans slurs on X following a bathroom sit-in at the Capitol in protest of the bathroom ban. The protesters were arrested and taken to the Capitol Police station; Mace then posted a video showing her outside the stations saying, “Some tr——s got arrested protesting my ban.” She then began reading them their Miranda rights along with demeaning commentary about the protesters.

On Dec. 4 the Supreme Court heard a challenge to the Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Over 20 anti-LGBTQ+ and antigovernment groups filed amicus briefs in support of the ban, including Gays Against Groomers (GAG), American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), American Family Association (AFA), Family Research Council (FRC) and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Groups and individuals associated with a network of anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience purveyors filed another 10% of the amici opposing gender-affirming healthcare.

What’s Ahead

States will continue to be labs for experimenting with anti-LGBTQ+ public policy. The legislative early filing period in Texas shows 32 anti-trans bills already filed for the 2025 legislative session. This year will show a continued pressure on erasing trans people from public life. With Donald Trump’s re-election, federal civil rights enforcement litigation will likely swing against LGBTQ+ inclusion.

Authors of Project 2025 are being tapped as cabinet picks for the second Trump administration. Project 2025 is an authoritarian and theocratic road map, and anti-trans scapegoating makes up key policy recommendations.

Background

Anti-LGBTQ+ groups in the United States oppose LGBTQ+ rights but also generally support heterosexism, an ideology that assumes heterosexuality is the only “normal” sexuality, and/or cisnormativity, an ideology that assumes one’s gender identity always matches the sex one was assigned at birth. Anti-LGBTQ+ groups primarily consist of Christian Right groups but also include such organizations as the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) that purport to be scientific. Anti-LGBTQ+ groups in America have employed a variety of strategies in their efforts to oppose LGBTQ+ rights or support heterosexism and/or cisnormativity, including engaging in the crudest type of name-calling.

Anti-LGBTQ+ groups on the SPLC hate list often link being LGBTQ+ inherently to criminal behavior; claim that the marriage equality and LGBTQ+ people in general are dangers to children and families; contend that being LGBTQ+ itself is dangerous and support the criminalization of LGBTQ+ people and transgender identity. These groups also believe in a false conspiracy that LGBTQ+ people seek to destroy Christianity and the whole of society. More recently, hard-line anti-LGBTQ+ groups have promoted their discriminatory laws and policies that limit the rights of LGBTQ people under the guise of religion, blurring the lines between the separation of church and state and discarding anti-discrimination civil rights policies. These same groups have promoted legislative models to push anti-trans legislation into law under a conservative religious assumption that gender can only be understood as either “male” or “female.”

Many leaders and spokespeople of SPLC-designated anti-LGBTQ+ groups have used degrading and derogatory language to describe LGBTQ+ people. Others disseminate disparaging information about LGBTQ+ people that are simply untrue – an approach no different from how white supremacists and nativist extremists propagate lies about African American people and immigrants to make these communities seem like a danger to society. Viewing LGBTQ+ people as unbiblical or simply opposing marriage equality does not qualify an organization to be listed as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group.

2024 Anti-LGBTQ+ Hate Groups

Map outline of US states with number of anti-lgbtq+ hate groups.

* – Asterisk denotes headquarters.    

Abiding Word Baptist Church, Revival Baptist Church
Orange Park, Florida

Advocates Protecting Children
Arlington, Virginia

Alliance Defending Freedom
Scottsdale, Arizona

American College of Pediatricians
Gainesville, Florida

American Family Association
Indianapolis, Indiana
Tupelo, Mississippi *
Franklin, Pennsylvania

American Vision
Powder Springs, Georgia

Americans for Truth About Homosexuality
Columbus, Ohio

ATLAH Media Network
New York, New York

California Family Council
Fresno, California

The Campus Ministry USA
Terre Haute, Indiana

Center for Christian Virtue
Columbus, Ohio

Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM)
New York, New York*
Washington, D.C.

Chalcedon Foundation
Vallecito, California

Child and Parental Rights Campaign
Johns Creek, Georgia

Church Militant/St. Michael’s Media
Ferndale, Michigan

Concerned Christian Citizens
Temple, Texas

D. James Kennedy Ministries
Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Do No Harm
Glen Allen, Virginia

Faith2Action
North Royalton, Ohio

Faithful Word Baptist Church
Tempe, Arizona

Straight Paths Baptist Church
Tucson, Arizona

Family Action Council of Tennessee
Franklin, Tennessee

The Family Foundation of Virginia
Richmond, Virginia

Family Policy Alliance
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Family Research Council
Washington, D.C.

Family Research Institute
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Family Watch International
Gilbert, Arizona

First Works Baptist Church
Anaheim, California

Florida Family Voice
Orlando, Florida

Focus on the Family
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Frontline Policy Council
Atlanta, Georgia

Gays Against Groomers
Fountain Hills, Arizona
California
Georgia
Kansas City, Missouri
Monroe, North Carolina
Vancouver, Washington
Milwaukee, Wisconsin*

Generations
Elizabeth, Colorado

Genspect
Chicago, Illinois

Heterosexuals Organized for a Moral Environment (H.O.M.E.)
Downers Grove, Illinois

Illinois Family Institute
Tinley Park, Illinois

Liberty Baptist Church
Rock Falls, Illinois

Liberty Counsel
Orlando, Florida

Louisiana Family Forum
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

MassResistance
Torrance, California
Pocatello, Idaho
Idaho
Waltham, Massachusetts*
New Jersey
Fort Worth, Texas
Houston, Texas
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Gilette, Wyoming
Lander, Wyoming

Massachusetts Family Institute
Wakefield, Massachusetts

Mission: America
Columbus, Ohio

Montana Family Foundation
Laurel, Montana

Pacific Justice Institute
Sacramento, California
Santa Ana, California
Miami, Florida
Mississippi
Reno, Nevada
Salem, Oregon
Seattle, Washington

Partners for Ethical Care
Chicago, Illinois

Pass the Salt Ministries
Hebron, Ohio

Pennsylvania Family Institute
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Pilgrims Covenant Church
Monroe, Wisconsin

The Pray In Jesus Name Project
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Probe Ministries
Plano, Texas

Public Advocate of the United States
Merrifield, Virginia

Revival Baptist Church
Clermont, Florida

Ruth Institute
Lake Charles, Louisiana

Save California
Sacramento, California

Scott Lively Ministries
Springfield, Massachusetts

Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine
Twin Falls, Idaho

Stedfast Baptist Church
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Cedar Hills, Texas *

Strong Hold Baptist Church
Norcross, Georgia

Sure Foundation Baptist Church
Indianapolis, Indiana
Vancouver, Washington*
Seattle, Washington
Spokane Valley, Washington

Them Before Us
Seattle, Washington

Tom Brown Ministries
El Paso, Texas

True Light Pentecost Church
Spartanburg, South Carolina

United Families International
Gilbert, Arizona

Verity Baptist Church
Sacramento, California

Warriors for Christ
Mount Juliet, Tennessee

Westboro Baptist Church
Topeka, Kansas

World Congress of Families/International Organization for the Family
Rockford, Illinois

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