Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, did not respond to a request for comment about whether she would work with the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left group that puts organizations on a “hate map” with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan if they oppose experimental transgender medical interventions for minors.
The Biden-Harris administration has worked with the SPLC, so it seems likely a Harris administration might do so, too. The campaign of former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, also did not respond to a request for comment, but his administration does not have a history with this group. Trump has pledged to ban transgender interventions for minors without parental consent.
The SPLC doubled down last week, branding as “extremist” organizations that filed amicus briefs at the Supreme Court supporting a Tennessee law that bans so-called puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries for minors. (The Biden-Harris Justice Department sued Tennessee, accusing the state of discriminating against children on the basis of gender identity.)
In an article for SPLC’s “Hatewatch” blog, R.G. Cravens and Creede Newton noted that various parties filed more than 80 amicus briefs in the case, and “21 anti-LGBTQ+ hate and antigovernment groups are represented among them.” The article also notes that S.B. 1, the Tennessee law in question that Gov. Bill Lee signed in March 2023, is based on model legislation from the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian nonprofit the SPLC condemns as an “anti-LGBTQ+ hate group.”
In 2012, a terrorist targeted FRC’s Washington, D.C., office for a mass shooting. He later told the FBI that he used the SPLC’s “hate map” to find FRC. While SPLC condemned the attack, it has kept FRC on the “hate map” ever since.
SPLC Criticism
What does it mean that the SPLC considers 21 of the organizations filing amicus briefs in support of Tennessee’s law to be “hate groups” or “antigovernment groups”?
The SPLC talks a good game about “monitoring hate groups” and undermining the “infrastructure upholding white supremacy,” but critics say its “hate map” boils down to a cynical fundraising tool-meets-ideological enemies list.
The SPLC gained its reputation by suing Klan groups into bankruptcy, but then it expanded the “Klanwatch” program into a broader “Hatewatch” that demonizes as forms of “hate” and “extremism” differences of opinion on rhetoric and policy.
The SPLC calls for a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens, and it brands groups that disagree “anti-immigrant hate groups.” It supports policies like the Equality Act and it brands those who oppose it “anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups.” It advocates for critical race theory (a lens by which teachers tell kids to deconstruct American society to find systemic racism and claim that white people are oppressors and black people oppressed) in schools, and brands groups like Moms for Liberty “antigovernment extremists.”
Critics say that placing ideological opponents on the “hate map” enables the SPLC to exaggerate the number of “hate groups” in the U.S., scaring donors into ponying up cash, while at the same time delegitimizing those who oppose its hard-left agenda. A former employee called the “hate” accusations a “highly profitable scam.”
‘Gender-Affirming Care’
The SPLC has long advocated for gender ideology, pushing lessons that Harry might really be Sally through its education arm, Learning for Justice. Meanwhile, it puts critics of gender ideology on the “hate map.” Earlier this year, SPLC added organizations of doctors to the “hate map,” branding them “anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups” because they oppose “gender-affirming care.”
Do No Harm, Genspect, Partners for Ethical Care, and the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine oppose the medical interventions euphemistically referred to as “gender-affirming care” because they leave kids stunted, scarred, and infertile—all in the pursuit of a false identity. Those who struggle with gender dysphoria—the painful and persistent identifying with the gender opposite one’s biological sex—need therapy to come to terms with their biology, not invasive interventions to try to force their bodies to resemble the opposite sex.
Internal documents from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, a pro-transgender activist group, revealed that WPATH leaders knew about various side effects of “gender-affirming care,” including cancer in teens and reduced sexual function, as well as the lack of informed consent for procedures with lifelong impacts. These medical professionals endorse the experimental treatments anyway.
But some doctors have gone on record opposing such treatments. Back in 2023 in Florida, many doctors testified in favor of a rule that would prevent Medicaid dollars from funding “gender-affirming care.” The doctors—including psychiatrists, endocrinologists, neurologists, and a former WPATH leader—testified that these interventions are experimental and may do more harm than good.
European countries have begun to restrict “gender-affirming care” for minors for these reasons.
Yet the SPLC brands criticism of “gender-affirming care” “anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience,” and places doctors who disagree with the experimental “treatments” on the “hate map” with Klan chapters.
Biden-Harris Administration Record
Harris has pledged to listen to people who disagree with her, saying that she doesn’t believe they are “the enemy.”
Yet the Biden-Harris administration has worked with the SPLC. SPLC leaders and staff have visited the White House at least 18 times, President Joe Biden nominated an SPLC lawyer to a top federal judgeship, and SPLC leaders and staff have briefed bureaucrats at the Departments of Justice and Education about the “hate map.”
Democrats are seeking to muddy the waters on gender ideology—denying their own support for biological males competing in women’s sports, for example—and Harris has dodged questions about whether she supports taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for illegal aliens in prison (a position she took in 2019). While transgender orthodoxy may be on the back foot, Harris has done nothing to distance herself from one of the most egregious enforcers of gender ideology in the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The SPLC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
