Gov. Hobbs Signs Arizona LGBTQ Bill Amid Criticism

In a blow to LGBTQ+ and civil rights groups, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs broke with her party writ-large to sign a bill that could make posting information or images of LGBTQ+ people—and literature related to them—illegal without age verification.

House Bill 2112 requires any website where more than one-third of the content could be considered “sexual material” to implement an age verification system. The proposal, already passed in 12 Republican-led states, is intended to prevent people under age 18 from accessing lewd content. But similar laws have effectively shut down access to most adult entertainment websites in those places.

While the bill does not explicitly outlaw LGBTQ+ content, some Republican lawmakers have publicly claimed that certain books and educational art about queer and transgender people are “pornographic.” The law also lacks a clear definition of what qualifies as sexual material, leaving the language open to interpretation.

"I think that these bills are a Trojan horse," said Mike Stabile, the public policy director for Free Speech Coalition, a trade and advocacy organization of the adult entertainment industry and its workers. "They come in with what seems like a very common sense argument: That we should keep kids from accessing adult websites. In reality, what's being passed is a broad censorship bill for the internet."

Originally, HB2112 had wide Democratic support in the House of Representatives, but after lobbyists met with lawmakers and explained the possible impacts of the bill, the majority of those lawmakers who voted for the bill switched their vote when an amendment was introduced.

The bill mirrors efforts of Project 2025, a coalition of prominent conservative organizations, including Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council, Heritage Foundation, American Legislative Exchange Council, and others. The organization’s initial goal was to outline an agenda for the current Republican administration's first 180 days, and to recruit fringe conservatives to fill positions within the federal government.

Project 2025’s playbook “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” detailed how the Executive branch and its appointees can implement extreme changes across the U.S. In its mandate, it specifically listed "transgender ideology" and "sexualization of children" (a commonly used attack for critics of people who display Pride flags in classrooms, for example) as pornographic:

Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.

For years, one of the Project 2025 co-authors Russ Vought and his right-wing think tank, the Center for Renewing America, have been pushing laws that call for porn websites to confirm their visitors are not minors.

Stabile noted that the term material harmful to minors is vague, saying that it is "being used in other contexts to remove LGBTQ+ books out of libraries; to threaten librarians with arrest; to stop drag shows in states like Tennessee; and, in some states, to threaten Target even over pride displays in their stores." Sex education platforms, such as O.school, are worried about liability and decided to sue states with laws like HB 2112.

The move surprised many queer and allied politicos in Arizona, who saw Hobbs as an ally. Although she has previously been recognized by multiple civil rights organizations for her rejection of anti-LGTBQ+ policies, Hobbs is now facing criticism for signing the measure.

In the past month, the governor used her veto stamp on legislative proposals to remove the reference to gender from state laws and replace it with narrow definitions of "sex," to bar judges from issuing an order to amend trans folks’ birth certificates, to sanction health care providers who conduct life-saving gender-transition procedures on youth, and several bills to ban equity practices in hiring and post-secondary education.

LOOKOUT emailed and left a message for the governor’s office asking for clarity on her action, yet hasn’t received a response.

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