One of the major drivers in anti-trans media and legislation on both sides of the Atlantic is the Alliance Defending Freedom, ADF for short. When there’s a Christian bully taking legal action claiming oppression, the ADF is there. When there’s an anti-trans test case trying to remove healthcare, the ADF provides “expert” witnesses. And for at least six years, trans and other LGBTQ+ people in the UK have been trying to raise the alarm that their ultimate goal is the removal of LGBTQ+ rights and women’s reproductive freedom.

This week, The New Yorker reports on how the ADF’s ultimate goal is the removal of LGBTQ+ rights and women’s reproductive freedom.

There’s more to it than that, of course. As the article points out, the ADF is effectively trying to remove any and all restrictions on what religious extremists can do and say, even if that means opening the door to even more vile people such as violent racists. That may even be a feature rather than a bug, as bigotries tend to apply to multiple groups, even if the bigots are usually careful not to admit it.

As ever with reporting like this, it’s both valuable and worthless: valuable because it’s well researched, accurate and clearly sets out the danger; worthless because the people who need to read it won’t read it. And here in the UK, both print and broadcast media will continue to platform the ADF without explaining to readers and listeners what it is and what its goals are. I’m long past the point of caring whether that’s incompetence or malevolence because the result is the same.