Hate Group Urged Georgia Governor to Ban Trans Kids From School Sports
Anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion groups have joined forces with Georgia’s largest association of Baptist churches to sway Gov. Brian Kemp in support of a far-right policy agenda that rolls back the rights of transgender children, according to emails obtained through a public records request.
In a February 2022 email to Kemp’s office, Cole Muzio, president of the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Frontline Policy Council (FPC), said he believed a state prohibition against transgender children participating in public school sports “is going to be the issue (more than CRT [critical race theory], obscenity, parental rights, etc.) where the Governor needs to devote the most political capital inside the building to bring to fruition.”
Muzio’s email is one of several exchanged between Kemp’s office and a self-described group of “conservative leaders” in the state who held two meetings with the governor – on Feb. 21, 2022, and Feb. 15, 2023. In both cases, the emails show the groups make stripping away transgender rights a top priority. In pursuing their policy goals, they are perpetuating a dangerous trope that LGBTQ+ people, especially trans people and drag performers, are a threat to women and children.
Coordinated lobbying
Hatewatch previously reported on ethics questions raised by Muzio’s interactions with state policymakers without being registered as a lobbyist with the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission. From 2017 to 2022, Muzio was registered as a lobbyist for Frontline Policy Action and its progenitor, Frontline Policy Alliance of Georgia. Muzio was not registered as a lobbyist at the time of the February 2023 meeting with Kemp.
The list of proposed attendees at the February 2023 meeting included FPC’s Muzio and Taylor Hawkins, who was registered as a lobbyist for Frontline Policy Council; Tim Head, executive director of Faith and Freedom Coalition; Kevin Cooke of Americans for Prosperity; and Claire Bartlett, executive director of the anti-abortion Georgia Life Alliance. The group also included Mike Griffin of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board (GBMB). A similar but smaller group assembled for the 2022 meeting with Kemp, according to the emails.
In a Feb. 7, 2023, message to Kemp’s office, Griffin said the groups represent the “most conservative organizations. And they are big supporters of the Governor.”
The same email includes a list of priority issues that repeat numerous anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion tropes and prioritize government interventions in bodily autonomy including “abortion pill legislation”; banning gender-affirming health care for young people; banning “sex education/discussion” in public schools and making “sex ed opt-in”; and what Griffin referred to as “drag queen harmful to minors legislation.”
The list is similar to the one shared prior to the February 2022 meeting proposed by Muzio, in the same email in which he stated his belief that Kemp should “devote the most political capital” to banning transgender kids from all public school sports. In his email, Muzio says he believes that Kemp is already “out front and leading on much of our agenda” but offers to coordinate with his office to “make sure we are all on the same page regarding these issues.”
Muzio tells Kemp’s scheduler in the Feb. 17, 2022, email that he supports a House bill (which was not assigned a number at the time of the email) sponsored by state Rep. Will Wade, which Muzio said included language that barred trans girls from playing sports in all public schools.
As originally introduced, however, the bill only prohibited teaching “divisive concepts” in public education – a common strategy among conservative legislatures to forbid public schools from teaching such concepts as implicit bias and systemic racism.
According to , Wade’s bill became law after a last-minute amendment was inserted in the Senate to prohibit trans girls from playing sports in high school, but not college. Kemp signed that bill into law on April 28, 2022.
Campaign contributions
State campaign finance disclosures show that on May 17, 2022, Frontline Policy Action spent more than $2,000 on campaign literature and mailers supporting Wade in that year’s Republican Party primary for his 9th District House seat.
FPC continues to lobby and raise money to oppose LGBTQ+ rights and reproductive health care and to pursue legal actions to bar transgender athletes from college sports.
According to campaign finance records, in 2024, Frontline Policy Action gave $350,000 to Kemp’s Georgians First Leadership Committee to support the campaign of state Supreme Court Justice Andrew Pinson, who was appointed to the court by Kemp in 2022. Less than one week after the donation, Kemp announced that the committee planned to spend $500,000 to elect Pinson, suggesting Frontline’s money made a major impact in a race that was closely tied to restrictions on abortion in the state. Pinson won election to a six-year term in May 2024.
In April 2024, Muzio appeared at a press conference on Facebook to promote a lawsuit filed by anti-trans activist Riley Gaines and others against the NCAA and the University System of Georgia. The lawsuit claims that allowing transgender athletes to compete in school sports violates federal Title IX rules.
In the press conference, Muzio characterized transgender identity as “the left’s ultimate attempt to shake their fist at God” and repeated anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscientific claims that equate transgender identity with mental illness, saying transgender identity is a “fantasy” that can no longer be “indulged.”
“The first gift [God] gave to man was woman,” Muzio said.
Reflecting both the male supremacy and Christian theocracy supporting much of the anti-LGBTQ+ movement, Muzio concluded, “We need to make sure that biological reality is enforced all the way through” the public education system.
Illustration at top: Emails exchanged between Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s office and a self-described group of “conservative leaders” include conversations regarding banning transgender kids from all public school sports, and other anti-LGBTQ+ policies. (Credit: °Ä˛ĘżŞ˝±)
