Executive Summary

The targeting of transgender and LGBTQ+ communities is not happening in a vacuum. Across the world, authoritarian and authoritarian-leaning governments have used attacks on LGBTQ+ rights as a deliberate strategy to consolidate power — scapegoating vulnerable minorities to distract from corruption, economic failure, and the systematic dismantling of democratic institutions.

This brief examines the global pattern, identifies the common strategies employed, draws lessons from civil society resistance movements that have succeeded, and argues that defending transgender rights in Washington State is inseparable from defending democratic governance itself.

The Global Pattern

Hungary: The Blueprint

Viktor Orbán's Fidesz government provides the clearest example of how anti-LGBTQ+ campaigns function as a tool of democratic backsliding:

Each of these steps was accompanied by broader democratic erosion: the gutting of judicial independence, seizure of independent media, rewriting of election laws to entrench Fidesz power, and the channeling of public funds to regime-aligned oligarchs. The anti-LGBTQ+ campaigns served a dual function: rallying a political base around cultural grievance while normalizing state overreach that affected all Hungarians.

Russia: The Model

Vladimir Putin's escalating anti-LGBTQ+ laws have served as a template for authoritarian leaders worldwide:

The progression from "protecting children" to comprehensive erasure mirrors a pattern seen in every case study: initial restrictions framed as moderate and reasonable are systematically expanded once the political infrastructure of targeting has been normalized.

Turkey, Poland, and Beyond

Turkey: The Erdoğan government has used morality campaigns against LGBTQ+ communities as cover for broader crackdowns on civil liberties, press freedom, and political opposition. Istanbul Pride, once the largest in the Muslim world, has been banned since 2015.

Poland: Local governments declared over 100 "LGBT-free zones" between 2019 and 2021. While many were later rescinded under EU pressure, the campaign normalized the targeting of LGBTQ+ people and coincided with broader erosion of judicial independence and media freedom.

Brazil: The Bolsonaro government's anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric served as a wedge to build evangelical political coalitions while undermining environmental protections, Indigenous rights, and democratic norms.

The Common Playbook

Despite differences in context, the anti-LGBTQ+ campaigns deployed by authoritarian-leaning governments share a consistent set of strategies:

  1. Start with children. Frame initial restrictions as "protecting children" — a framing that is difficult to oppose without appearing to disregard child safety. Use this wedge to establish the infrastructure of targeting.
  2. Define a deviant minority. Construct a narrative in which LGBTQ+ people — and transgender people in particular — represent an existential threat to traditional values, national identity, or public safety. The specifics vary; the structure is constant.
  3. Exploit existing divisions. Deploy anti-LGBTQ+ campaigns specifically to drive wedges between communities that might otherwise unite in opposition — pitting religious communities against secular ones, parents against educators, racial and ethnic groups against one another.
  4. Normalize state overreach. Once the public accepts that the state can regulate the bodies, identities, and personal lives of one group of people, the political threshold for extending that regulation to others is dramatically lowered.
  5. Consolidate while distracted. While public attention is focused on culture war controversies, advance the structural changes that entrench power: court-packing, media capture, election law manipulation, and the defunding of civil society organizations.

The American Context

The United States is not immune to this pattern. Since 2020, state legislatures have introduced more than 2,500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills — with the pace accelerating each year. In 2025 alone, more than 850 such bills were introduced. The targets have expanded systematically: from youth sports to healthcare bans to bathroom restrictions to classroom censorship to attacks on legal gender recognition.

At the federal level, the current administration has pursued executive actions targeting transgender people in military service, education, and healthcare — while simultaneously undermining independent agencies, attacking press freedom, and testing the boundaries of executive power.

The parallel is not a coincidence. It is the same playbook, adapted to the American political system — where ballot initiatives, rather than parliamentary supermajorities, serve as the mechanism for bypassing legislative bodies that have declined to strip civil rights protections.

Lessons from Resistance

Not every country that has faced democratic backsliding has succumbed to it. The civil society movements that have successfully resisted share common features that are directly applicable to the fight in Washington State:

South Korea: Sustained Civic Mobilization

The candlelight revolution of 2016-2017 — in which millions of South Koreans engaged in sustained, peaceful mass mobilization — led to the impeachment and removal of President Park Geun-hye. The movement succeeded because it was broad-based, sustained over months, and maintained its focus on democratic accountability rather than being drawn into narrow single-issue debates.

Poland: Coalition Breadth

The coalition that defeated Poland's Law and Justice party in 2023 succeeded by uniting groups that had previously operated in silos — women's rights organizations, LGBTQ+ groups, environmental activists, democratic reform movements, and pro-European coalitions. The breadth of the coalition made it impossible to dismiss as a special interest.

Serbia: Youth-Led Innovation

Student-led protests against democratic erosion in Serbia have demonstrated the power of creative, decentralized organizing that uses social media, art, and humor to maintain public attention and resist narrative capture by authoritarian media.

Common Threads

What This Means for Washington

The 2026 ballot initiatives targeting Washington's LGBTQ+ communities are not isolated questions about school policy or sports. They are a test case for whether well-funded national interests can use the ballot initiative process to target vulnerable communities — and whether the same playbook used by authoritarian movements worldwide can succeed in one of America's most progressive states.

IL26-001 would force schools to out LGBTQ+ students and restrict their access to counselors. IL26-638 would mandate invasive genital exams for girls in school sports. Both initiatives target children — the same "start with children" strategy identified in the authoritarian playbook above.

If they succeed, the model will be replicated in every state with similar protections. The principle at stake is whether civil rights are inalienable or whether they are subject to the shifting winds of a campaign that can outspend and out-message the communities being targeted.

The No Hate in WA State coalition's response to this challenge is informed by the lessons of global democracy movements:

Conclusion

We have seen what happens when civil society stays silent while democratic institutions are dismantled piece by piece. We have also seen what happens when communities organize, build broad coalitions, and refuse to be divided.

Gender Justice League Action exists because we chose the second path. Defending our community's rights and defending democracy are the same fight — and we intend to win both.

Gender Justice League Action is a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. This policy brief is provided for educational and advocacy purposes. For press inquiries: [email protected]