In the months leading up to the 2022 US midterm elections, hundreds of thousands of Facebook users in swing states were targeted with advertisements asking them to sign the Women’s Bill of Rights – a relatively innocuous-sounding initiative presented as a crusade for women’s empowerment. “The Real Fight For Women”, read one version featuring a woman looking down at a cityscape and flexing her biceps. “We know what a woman is,” proclaimed another, its text hovering over a closeup of the Statue of Liberty.
But the Women’s Bill of Rights is a weapon in a war against gender equity being waged by a conservative non-profit women’s group. Independent Women’s Voice, or IWV, lobbies against the equal rights amendment, criticizes public school curriculum and opposes government-funded parental leave. Recently, they have turned their resources to fighting transgender rights. And, according to documents shared with the Guardian by watchdog True North Research, IWV budgeted nearly $6m to promote anti-trans messaging in 10 swing states in advance of last year’s midterms.
“Do not be fooled by their name,” said Alyssa Bowen, senior researcher and managing editor at True North. “This group is a tool of the right to advance an extremist agenda.”
When Facebook users follow a link to sign the Women’s Bill of Rights, they are taken to a website that promotes traditional gender roles and characterizes transgender people as a threat to women’s success and safety. The page includes a copy of the bill itself, which insists “males and females possess unique and immutable biological differences” and “biological differences … warrant the creation of separate social, educational, athletic, or other spaces in order to ensure safety”.
To researchers and policy experts, these bullet points are thinly veiled attempts to stoke anti-LGBTQ+ fears and erase legal protections for transgender people. “The Women’s Bill of Rights does nothing for women,” said Gillian Branstetter of the American Civil Liberties Union. “All they do is seek to target trans people. They’re trying not only to suggest that trans people are a threat to women, but that they are the only threat to women.”
The documents show this messaging has significant fiscal backing. The “Women’s Bill of Rights Proposal” indicates that in order to promote women’s rights as a midterm issue in states with “tossups or tight races”, as much as $575,000 per state was allotted for marketing in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, though the documents do not show how much of this total was actually spent. When asked to confirm, Heather R Higgins, IWV’s CEO, said they “don’t discuss specifics with the media on non-reportable education and advocacy expenses”.
Another document uncovered by True North – authored by the Independent Women’s Law Center, a project of IWV’s sister organization, the Independent Women’s Forum – states that focusing on issues other than abortion separates the Independent Women brand from other conservative women’s groups, enabling it to more successfully “convince moderates” to support initiatives like abolishing the equal rights amendment by voting Republican.
That disclosure adds important context to IWV promotional materials rolled out in advance of the midterms that challenge their claims to abortion neutrality. These include a website for “abortion facts” that downplays the fall of Roe, and social media ads that encourage voters to worry about crime and inflation rather than reproductive rights. Another difficulty is their association with Erin Hawley, an attorney who is fighting to bar access to medication abortion and worked for the Alliance Defending Freedom in Dobbs v Jackson’s Women’s Health, the lawsuit that overturned Roe. Hawley was formerly an Independent Women’s Law Center fellow. She is also the wife of Senator Josh Hawley, who has been accused of transphobia and has a track record of supporting anti-choice legislation.
IWV denies any intention to draw eyes away from abortion. “There is no connection whatsoever between abortion and WBOR,” said Higgins. “Far from being a distraction, supporting WBOR is the first test of whether anyone from across the political spectrum is serious about whether they stand with women,” she said, claiming the bill has bipartisan support.
True North argues that IWV’s campaign to present trans rights as threatening to cis women could be part of a through-line strategy to distract voters from the fallout of last summer’s supreme court ruling against the constitutional right to abortion.
Policy experts are not surprised. “GOP candidates really suffered from headlines about abortion,” said Kelly Baden, vice-president for public policy at the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks policies related to sexual and reproductive health. “It makes absolute sense that they would rather talk about a 12-year-old being on puberty blockers.”
The connection between anti-trans and anti-choice initiatives, she says, runs deeper than electoral strategy; preventing women from getting abortions and blocking people from accessing gender-affirming care are attacks on bodily autonomy. “The messaging strategy for both is that [the bans] have to do with our own health and protection. But what they’re saying is that they know better than a family or a physician,” said Baden.
Baden also sees parallels in the “shared tactics” of anti-trans and anti-choice legislative methods. In both cases, “model bills are pushed into the hands of state legislators” from outside groups, she explained. Organizations like the National Right to Life Committee and Americans United for Life, for instance, are credited with having drafted many of the abortion trigger bans that went into law shortly after Roe fell.
As of publication, IWV’s Women’s Bill of Rights has been passed in Kansas and Tennessee, and Montana has ratified a similar oppressive bill that defines “biological gender”.
Branstetter says another commonality is the perpetuation of rigid traditional gender norms, a Republican priority, especially among members of the religious right. “Anti-trans and anti-abortion laws both define women by their reproductive functions,” she said. “The idea that the issues are not connected is fantastical.”
The effectiveness of the messaging is hard to gauge. The 2022 midterms were a largely unsuccessful election cycle for Republicans, who squandered key races and failed to win the Senate. That performance has been attributed by many – including Republicans – to losing the votes of women and young people who support abortion.
The chair of the New Hampshire Democratic party, Ray Buckley, doesn’t think swing voters in his state are so easily distracted. “Our independent women are more progressive than that,” he said.
Last fall, far-right New Hampshire Republican candidate Karoline Leavitt sent out mailers spotlighting her crusade against trans athletes in women’s sports. She lost to Democrat Chris Pappas by more than seven points. “If that was their goal in New Hampshire, they failed,” said Buckley.
In Colorado, former Trump aide Stephen Miller’s political non-profit sent anti-transgender brochures to Latino voters. Democratic strategists there believe such messaging pushed voters away. “I think they’re just weirding people out,” said the state party chair, Shad Murib.
Both New Hampshire and Colorado were targeted states in IWV’s Women’s Bill of Rights proposal. Looking to 2024, Buckley and Murib expect to see more anti-transgender vitriol, but doubt it will win over moderates and independents. “If they want to distract from [abortion], there are plenty of things we can talk about, but they picked another wedge issue, and Colorado is just not going to bite,” said Murib, pointing to voters’ concerns about employment, drought and housing.
Others aren’t so sure. Bowen emphasizes the outsized influence that scare tactics can have on voters. “The GOP is manufacturing fear of the LGBTQ+ community to try to drive fleeing moderates back to Trump’s party to aid the 2024 elections,” she said. Higgins confirmed that “advancing WBOR remains a top priority for Independent Women’s Voice”.
Baden believes tactics to block access to both abortion and gender-affirming care will intensify as the next election cycle approaches, with young people as a key messaging strategy. She points to Idaho’s recently enacted travel ban for minors seeking abortions out of state. “They start with minors because they think they have both an easier messaging win and easier legal avenues,” she said. “I think we’ll see more of those kinds of bills next year, but … that is just a testing ground for them.”
Branstetter, too, sees restrictions for young people as the beginning of a larger escalation. “They’re dropping the pretense that this was about young people,” she said. “We’re probably stepping into a legislative session and an election where outright bans on gender transitions for anyone of any age are on the table.”
For her, that prospect is yet another reason to see abortion and transgender rights as two sides of the same coin. Both impact historically marginalized groups, both employ technologies that help people break free of gender norms, and both save lives. Said Branstetter, “Their goal is to make people so scared of trans freedom that you’ll sacrifice your own … [but] trans rights are women’s rights.”
The Guardian contacted Republican party leadership in each of the 10 states identified in the Women’s Bill of Rights Proposal, but received no response.
• This article was amended on 17 June 2023. A previous version stated that Erin Hawley was an Independent Women’s Law Center fellow, which is no longer the case.
