Fossil Fuel Billionaires & the Anti-Trans Funding Connection

Anti-trans fund­ing by Fos­sil fuel bil­lion­aires has been sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly exposed through an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion reveal­ing that 80% of anti-trans­gen­der orga­ni­za­tions receive finan­cial sup­port from oil and gas com­pa­nies or their wealthy own­ers. On 10 June 2025, Atmos report­ed that major fos­sil fuel enti­ties, includ­ing Shell USA Com­pa­ny Foun­da­tion and bil­lion­aire Phil Anschutz, have donat­ed sig­nif­i­cant sums to groups like Alliance Defend­ing Free­dom, which has authored mod­el bath­room bills and sued states over trans­gen­der rights pro­tec­tions. The arti­cle begins:

Across the U.S., a dan­ger­ous move­ment is brew­ing, one that seeks to silence trans folks and push them into the shad­ows. One of its lead­ers is the Alliance Defend­ing Free­dom. On May 20, the right-wing orga­ni­za­tion ADF sued Min­neso­ta over its advo­ca­cy for trans rights. ADF argues that allow­ing trans girls and women in wom­en’s sports dis­crim­i­nates against cis girls and women. ADF, a Project 2025 advis­er, has been at the helm of sev­er­al anti-trans ini­tia­tives, its lawyers author­ing mod­el bath­room bills that would force trans peo­ple into the bath­rooms of their assigned sex at birth. In 2025, law­mak­ers have already passed more than 100 anti-trans bills across the U.S., includ­ing 13 bath­room bills. But where is ADF get­ting mon­ey for its anti-trans advo­ca­cy? These days, it’s almost impos­si­ble to tell due to reg­u­la­tions that allow non­prof­its to hide their donors, but one ver­i­fi­able source is the fos­sil fuel industry.

           Read more: https://atmos.earth/fossil-fuel-billionaires-are-bankrolling-the-anti-trans-movement/

Key Points

• Inde­pen­dent analy­sis of 45 anti-trans orga­ni­za­tions found 80% have received dona­tions from fos­sil fuel com­pa­nies or bil­lion­aires between 2013–2022
• Shell USA Com­pa­ny Foun­da­tion donat­ed $58,002 to Alliance Defend­ing Free­dom, while Phil Anschutz con­tributed $110,000 between 2011–2013
• Frack­ing bil­lion­aires Dan and Far­ris Wilks helped launch The Dai­ly Wire with $4.7 mil­lion, a media out­let that reg­u­lar­ly pro­motes anti-trans­gen­der content
• Researchers argue fos­sil fuel indus­try funds anti-trans move­ments to dis­tract from cli­mate change risks and main­tain tra­di­tion­al gen­der bina­ries sup­port­ing sub­ur­ban car culture

GIOR Analysis

This Atmos/HEATED col­lab­o­ra­tion offers a pow­er­ful nar­ra­tive: that fos­sil fuel bil­lion­aires are fund­ing anti-trans orga­ni­za­tions as part of a broad­er strat­e­gy to deflect from cli­mate account­abil­i­ty. The arti­cle is strongest where it traces ver­i­fi­able dona­tions from fig­ures like Shell, Phil Anschutz, the Wilks broth­ers, and the Koch net­work to orga­ni­za­tions such as ADF and The Dai­ly Wire—highlighting a clear pat­tern of sup­port for both cli­mate denial and anti-trans activism.

How­ev­er, its cen­tral claim—that 80% of anti-trans groups receive fos­sil fuel funding—relies on an unpub­lished, non-peer-reviewed analy­sis with lim­it­ed method­olog­i­cal trans­paren­cy. The piece also does not quan­ti­fy the scale or impact of these dona­tions, leav­ing read­ers with­out con­text for how sig­nif­i­cant the fund­ing tru­ly is. While the arti­cle leans heav­i­ly into activist fram­ing, it suc­ceeds in illus­trat­ing how cli­mate obstruc­tion and cul­ture war pol­i­tics often share fun­ders, if not always strate­gies. It’s best read as a provoca­tive hypoth­e­sis, not a con­clu­sive exposé, but one that rais­es impor­tant ques­tions about the inter­sec­tion of extrac­tive cap­i­tal­ism and social conservatism.

Use with interest—and skepticism.

The Alliance Defending Freedom: Driving the GNCA

The Alliance Defend­ing Free­dom (ADF), found­ed in 1993, is among the most orga­nized and influ­en­tial Chris­t­ian legal advo­ca­cy groups in the Unit­ed States, known for its expan­sive bud­get, strate­gic lit­i­ga­tion port­fo­lio, and exten­sive net­work of affil­i­at­ed attor­neys. ADF has played a cen­tral role in shap­ing the legal agen­da of the Amer­i­can right, oppos­ing abor­tion, LGBTQ+ rights, and aspects of pub­lic health law under the ban­ner of pro­tect­ing reli­gious free­dom. Its influ­ence reach­es into the high­est lev­els of gov­ern­ment: Speak­er of the House Mike John­son is a for­mer ADF attor­ney, and oth­er promi­nent fig­ures linked to the orga­ni­za­tion include Supreme Court Jus­tice Amy Coney Bar­rett, for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence, and for­mer Attor­neys Gen­er­al William Barr and Jeff Ses­sions. Sen­a­tor Josh Haw­ley and his wife Erin Haw­ley also have ties to ADF, the lat­ter serv­ing as senior coun­sel. Under the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, ADF became one of the most influ­en­tial groups advis­ing exec­u­tive branch legal pol­i­cy. Despite its promi­nence, the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter has des­ig­nat­ed ADF as an anti-LGBTQ hate group due to its con­sis­tent efforts to lim­it the rights of LGBTQ+ indi­vid­u­als in the U.S. and abroad.

The GIOR has recent­ly pub­lished a report detail­ing how Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance (GNCA) par­ties across the globe, while not out­right cli­mate deniers, con­sis­tent­ly slow or stall mean­ing­ful cli­mate action by refram­ing decar­boniza­tion as a threat to nation­al sov­er­eign­ty, iden­ti­ty, and jobs. While some sup­port select tech­nolo­gies like nuclear or car­bon cap­ture, their poli­cies often delay time­lines, dilute reg­u­la­tions, or reverse pri­or com­mit­ments. This “drag coali­tion” under­mines long-term invest­ment in renew­ables and rais­es emis­sions through piece­meal roll­backs. Although pub­lic sup­port for clean ener­gy remains strong, these par­ties only advance cli­mate goals when they align with nation­al­ist or indus­tri­al inter­ests, leav­ing net-zero pledges intact while push­ing real emis­sions cuts fur­ther into the future.

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis