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........