GA Gov. Signs Trans Sports Ban After Activists Halt Several Bills - Lessons to Learn from Legislative Activism

This week, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) signed into law Senate Bill 1, which bans transgender students from participating in scholastic sports teams and from using the correct restroom. This bill was one of three that passed through the state Congress in early April, after an intense push from far-right politicians aligned with the Evangelical Christian lobbying group Frontline Policy Action. The other two bills are Senate Bill 36, a bill justifying anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination under the guise of religious freedom that was signed by Kemp earlier this month, and the yet-to-be-signed bill Senate Bill 185, which bans transgender inmates from receiving gender-affirming care.

There is not a single documented trans athlete in Georgia’s schools.

This sports ban had been in the works for some time. Free Radical’s Mira Lazine wrote last year about several special hearings held upon the order of Lt. Governor Burt Jones (R) that encouraged lawmakers to pass a Frontline draft bill dubbed the ‘Riley Gaines Act, which has wording closely matching SB1’ These articles revealed that Frontline, an organization on the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 Advisory Board, had been openly bragging about their affiliation with state government officials, including their direct ties to bill sponsor Sen. Greg Dolezal (R).

These three bills were far from the only ones that Georgia Republicans and Frontline sought to push. Over a dozen were introduced into the legislature, including the puberty blocker–banning Senate Bill 30 and Don’t Say Gay bill House Bill 671, though the majority of these didn’t get off the ground or were held in dormancy until the 2025–2026 legislative session.

Georgian trans lobbyist Marisa Pyle (they/she) spoke with Free Radical via phone about these bills and the fight against them. “It was definitely clear from day one that this was going to be one of the big fights of the session. In the Senate, the first bill that was introduced, SB 1, was a bathroom ban and a sports ban. Their priorities were very clear. We did get— I hesitate to say ‘lucky’ because some passed, but it was mitigated in that we didn't see a lot of the worst bills pass. Some of that was due to the really incredible work of coalition folks and advocates and people who were able to muster the fight in the legislature and slow these down. Some of it was due to infighting among the Republican legislators.”

Groups like Frontline focus on commanding state Republican leadership, who then often leverage political capital and future career prospects to get more ideologically diverse Republicans to fall in line. According to Georgia Representative Karen Lupton (D), who spoke to Free Radical via phone during the legislative session, “Frontline is a very well known lobbying group down here. It is open that they have Republicans in their pocket — I mean, they walk around with them in the halls,” she recounted.

“This is not the first nor will it be the last time that they get through legislation. If you go to Frontline's website, they have, word for word, their own bills right now. And one of the reasons that we knew that [SB1] was from Frontline is that it was almost word for word exactly what Frontline has on their website,” she said in reference to the organization’s aforementioned ‘Riley Gaines Act’ draft. This text was made in direct collaboration with Gaines herself, who is not from Georgia. “This is trouble being stirred up by the ultra-religious right to ‘raise a biblical standard in Georgia,’ whatever the hell they think that is.”

This sense is shared among activists as well. According to Pyle, Frontline “has a really profound and concerning influence. They're very close with the governor. They're extremely close this year with the Speaker of the House.… They’re usually in lockstep. They’re able to dictate priorities to a pretty concerning degree.”

But Lupton went even further, pointing out that the success of bills is dependent on Kemp’s electoral success. “The Governor has determined what bills are going to go through. He calls the shots. We have this trifecta in Georgia of Republican majorities in the Senate and the House and a Republican in the Governor's ship. So the Governor calls the shots on what's getting through and what's not. Now in Georgia, that means that if you want to express your displeasure, expressing it directly to the Governor is going to be the most effective. And tell him, because Governor Brian Kemp wants to run for something bigger.”

She further speculated about his electoral prospects. "It's probably [for] President. I don't think he's going to run for Senate in my opinion. I don't think he's humble enough to run for Senate and be part of the group anymore. I think he wants to run the whole fucking show."

While the Republican Party has often marketed itself as a big-tent party, in recent months this has proven to be its biggest flaw. As “old-money” billionaires spend inconceivable amounts of money in attempts to buy elections in favor of a party that sports the wealthiest and most influential as their figureheads, this comes at the cost of alienating their base demographics of blue collar workers. President Donald Trump, whose net worth is currently estimated at around $4.7 billion, is a shining example of this, with the lowest 100-day approval ratings since former President Harry Truman nearly 80 years ago.

This can be seen even in the Georgia legislature. While Frontline’s reach is described by Pyle as “above the infighting,” they went on to note that much of the internal conflict stems from a historic disconnect between the House and the Senate in early April that led to the Senate adjourning their session prematurely, leaving all untouched bills left in limbo until the next session begins. A major source of this conflict is careerism — “there are a lot of folks who are angling for higher office,” Pyle said, with divides stemming from who supports who internally. 

This created a discordance among Republican ranks. According to the Human Rights Campaign’s Georgia State Director Bentley Hudgins (they/them), these attempts to seize power turned off more legal-minded Republicans. They referenced a recent legal conflict between Frontline and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), in which the SPLC alleged that lobbyists with Frontline failed to register with state electoral ethics authorities, potentially violating the law.

“Their whole modus operandi was to just be quick, dirty, fast, and to intimidate anybody who did not do what they said. So if there were Republicans who just did not like what they were doing or didn't want to make what they were doing a priority, they would threaten them with the primary… They were a little too big for their shoes,” Hudgins said.

Hudgins mentioned that this internal conflict has previously led to Republicans sabotaging each other, including with what items end up on agendas. “So what happened — which is what actually helped us last year — is that they would mess with the speakers' stuff and with other House Republicans’ [agenda] items. And this session was no different. Republicans don't like looking crazy. They are even more appearance-motivated by the Democrats. That's the one part of respectability politics that helps us in that regard, is they don't like to look like they don't have their shit together, and they don't like to look like they are just mean, hateful people. They want to have the appearance of looking civil while being hateful.”

They brought up the substantial disconnect that is seen when comparing the moderate Republican agenda to Frontline. “Frontline just does not do that. They bring hack scientists and hyperbolic testimonies from outside Georgia.”

This line represents a fundamental part of how activists respond to the growing threat of the far-right — namely, legislative activists are focused on pointing out how disconnected Republicans are from their bases, showing that they are no ally to the working class. Activists focus on minimizing damage in the short-term so more people have time to respond in the long-term. Hudgins describes this as “harm reduction,” a term originating among those who treat drug addiction by focusing on minimizing the risk of using drugs during rehabilitation.

“I’m not under any sort of illusion that Republicans are our friends, but there are some of them that don't like to vote on this stuff, and they are tired of it. Because they know that a lot of just normal, civil people don't want to take rights away from other people, and some of those people are also Republicans. And so there are people who are in closer districts that are barely in their seats or barely hanging on who don't like to vote on this stuff, because it opens them up to more vulnerability for their seats to be flipped,” Hudgins said. 

They went on to discuss how many Republicans believe themselves to have a “mandate to rule” because of Trump’s victory, thus prompting them to cater to a far-right demographic. “No one was listening to reason, logic, science, facts, polls, or their own voters.”

The attacks are unlikely to end anytime soon. Pyle described how, given the Georgia legislature meets twice a year, the defeated bills are “still kind of alive,” and that the primary strategy for legislative activists is to delay their passing as much as possible. “[Bills] go back to committee and they have to start the process over, but they're still there. So we may have to contend with the bills that didn't pass this year. And it's usually a case of flowing them down as a win in and of itself because you buy people another year.”

Hudgins agrees, mentioning that the best way people can prepare for the next session is to start getting involved in their local community, including in causes independent from queer issues. “We shouldn't have to do it, but we need to work on educating not only our lawmakers about who we are, what our life looks like, who we are in community, and what we mean to people, but also [on educating] the people in our communities. We have to start showing up in ways that are unconventional. One thing that I found to be really effective is going to neighborhood groups or local community organizations that have nothing to do with LGBTQ+ issues. That way the people are like, ‘Oh, Bentley's nonbinary, they're my neighbor. They're cool, they help us get our park redone.’”

Hudgins emphasizes the importance of this to counteract the divisions sewed by politicians, and to find unity with people who also have been harmed by far-right policies in different ways. “People need a political home. They need a community home. One of the tools of the right is to isolate us, to tear down our spirits and to divide each other up for those of us who are in community. What is so, so, so important right now is not only that we're visible and active in the community at large, but that we are taking care of ourselves and have our own political home,” they said, adding that there is a growing need for collaboration with other individuals of different strains on the radical left, and emphasizing that their political home is with “the angsty ACT UP rah-rah folks of Atlanta.”

This view continues to resonate with activists, especially among modern anarchists. Black anarchist author Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin describes in his seminal book Anarchism and the Black Revolution how anarchism is fundamentally a broad ideology, one that adapts to a new world and new climate, and necessarily must take into account the needs of all marginalized peoples, especially people of color who have historically been excluded from these radical movements. “It is the concept of making ideology fit the demands of life, rather than trying to make life fit the demands of ideology,” he writes.

Deric Shannon and J. Rogue argue a similar point in their essay Refusing to Wait: Anarchism and Intersectionality. They cite the organization INCITE! Women, Gender Non-Conforming, and Trans people of Color Against Violence as putting into practice the intersectional and anarchist ideals of liberation for all. “Incite! makes a point to focus on the needs of the working class who have generally been neglected (i.e. sex workers, the incarcerated, trans folks and injection drug users). By centering these people in their organizing, they are focusing on the people standing at more dangerous intersections of oppression and exploitation, therefore tackling the entirety of the system and not just the more visible or advantaged aspects,” they say.

Other authors make similar points, with a particular emphasis on international solidarity. These authors include anarchist personality Andrewism in his piece “What is Black Anarchism,” Alexander Dunlap in his essay “Compost the Colony: Exploring Anarchist Decolonization,” and the contributors of the essay collection “Queering Anarchism,” among many others. Central to radical praxis is the need for unity among all strains that share common principles of liberation.

In this vein, Pyle gives a word of advice to those looking to get involved in legislative activism — that this form of activism has been made “hard on purpose.” They add, “If you feel like you're missing something, you're not. A lot of times I know this to be  the case in Georgia. They make it very hard to find information even for the folks that work in that building. So do not feel like everyone else is inherently smarter than you. They're not. For most elected legislators, I would argue, this is not the case. It just means they're good at fundraising.”

They add that a solid workaround to feeling intimidated is to plug into groups already doing the work in your local area. “In every state, there are organizations on the ground, largely local organizations, largely not the bigger national organizations. Transparent here in Georgia is incredible. And there are orgs that you will see if you watch hearings, you will see people testifying for these orgs every time — lock in with them. It is also lonely being in the legislature if you do not have a coalition. There is one that you can find a spot in. It'll be easier to get information. You'll get information faster. And also, frankly, it's just nicer if you have more people around you. A lot of these systems are set up to be intimidating and to try to keep people out. And a lot of the folks that work in that building try to bring people in as much as we can.” 

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Thank you to Ryan Fae (@ryan.staticnoi.se) for editing this article. Subscribe to support more journalism like this.