Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has resigned from his role in order to join the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) – a powerful anti-LGBTQ+ hate group responsible for thousands of pieces of anti-transgender legislation across the country.
Yost said he will step down next month to assume his new role as ADF’s president of Strategic Research and Innovation.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine appointed current director of the Ohio Department of Public Safety Andy Wilson to serve the remainder of Yost’s term.
During his seven-year tenure as Ohio’s 51st Attorney General, Yost has been a vocal supporter of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation at the Ohio Statehouse, including the state’s current ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender youth.
Overall, Yost said his political and religious values align well with the hate group’s goals.
“ADF isn’t just responding to these threats — it’s leading the charge,” Yost said via ADF’s official announcement. “I’m honored to join this renowned organization.”
Building the anti-transgender blueprint
Yost joins ADF at a moment of unprecedented political power and influence for the group: Last year, President Trump appointed ADF president Kristen Waggoner to a national “religious liberty commission” as an advisory board member.
However, ADF has been crafting model legislation designed to ban gender-affirming healthcare for transgender adults for more than decade.
In a series of leaked emails obtained by Mother Jones, ADF attorneys discussed long-term anti-transgender political strategies with conservative South Dakota lawmaker Rep. Fred Deutsch.
In 2016, Deutsch introduced one of the country’s earliest versions of an anti-transgender bathroom ban based on model legislation crafted by ADF attorneys.
Four years later, he introduced South Dakota’s “Vulnerable Child Protection Act” – one of the nation’s first bans on gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth, also based on model legislation drafted by ADF.
Today, the bill has served as a legislative blueprint for banning gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth in 27 states, including Ohio.
Anti-LGBTQ+ roots
Founded in 1994 by several prominent members of the Christian right, ADF has battled “the radical homosexual agenda” for more than three decades, creating model legislation to fight marriage equality, promote anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience and teach conservative Christian lawmakers how to use anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric effectively at the state level.
In 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) included ADF on their list of anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups for the first time. ADF has appeared on the list every year since.
SPLC – the national legal organization responsible for bankrupting the Ku Klux Klan – has become a target for conservatives under President Trump, whose Department of Justice (DOJ) recently indicted the civil rights group on federal fraud charges.
SPLC lists several reasons for ADF’s continued hate group designation, including:
- Support for the re-criminalization of certain sex acts between consenting LGBTQ+ adults
- Support for disproven conversion “therapy” practices based on anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience, often including electroshock treatments, forced vomiting and other forms of physical torture
- Support for the state-sanctioned forced sterilization of transgender people in Europe
- Repeating false claims that LGBTQ+ people engage in pedophilia at higher rates that their cisgender, heterosexual counterparts – which researchers have repeatedly proven to be false
- Opposition to marriage equality for LGBTQ+ Americans
- Opposition to anti-discrimination laws for LGBTQ+ Americans
- Opposition to LGBTQ+ Americans’ right to adopt
Banning gender-affirming care in Ohio
ADF claims to have trained more than 5,000 attorneys via its Young Lawyers Academy, Areté Academy and ADF Academy programs – along with the secretive Blackstone Legal Fellowship, which allows “Christian law students to study under prominent scholars, participate in internships, and prepare for life and leadership in the legal profession.”
The group then sends those attorneys across the country to work closely with conservative Christian lawmakers at the state level.
In Ohio, ADF attorney Matt Sharp was instrumental in crafting and passing the state’s current ban on gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth – which includes most types of primary care and talk therapy.
In 2022, while providing public testimony in favor of Ohio House Bill (HB) 454, the “Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act,” Sharp called healthcare for transgender youth “ideologically and financially motivated.”
He also provided committee members with inaccurate medical information regarding hormone replacement therapies, puberty blocking medications and the increased risk of suicide among transgender youth. 🔥
Ignite Action
- To register to vote or to check your voter eligibility status in the state of Ohio, click here.
- To find contact information for your Ohio state representative, click here.
- To find contact information for your Ohio state senator, click here.
- If you are a young LGBTQ+ person in crisis, please contact the Trevor Project: 866-4-U-Trevor.
- If you are an transgender adult in need of immediate help, contact the National Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860
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