Good Law Project uncovers Russian link to transphobic hate group

The Good Law Project has long been a staunch defender of trans rights and its latest investigation into anti-trans group, CitizenGO, has exposed shady far right backers and Kremlin-adjacent figures. The investigation also identifies the lobby group’s worrying intentions to prevent preparations for future pandemics.

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Good Law Project investigation

According to its own website, CitizenGO is a global advocacy and petition platform founded in Madrid, Spain, in 2013. It was founded by Ignacio Arsuaga and connected originally with the conservative Catholic group HazteOir. Its stated mission is to defend “life, family, and freedom” by influencing governments, institutions, and businesses through online petitions and alerts in up to 50 countries and 12 languages.

The group also state that their funding comes solely from small individual donations, and that ‘under no circumstances does CitizenGO accept financial support from public institutions or private entities.’ However, there’s little information to be found on their website as to the privileges of ‘member associations’ or what they have contributed. In a sign that they’re ramping up their efforts, that funding has now increased by $2m, with the group amassing a huge $7m in ‘donations’.

The EPF traced the group’s financial backing to ultra-Catholic Hazte Oir. GLP state their investigation found this ultra-religious organisation to have direct ties to VOX, Spain’s far-right political party.

They have a purpose

These campaign groups exist to further a far-right agenda, and it’s proving successful. We wrote about how the far-right have made significant gains in Spain, challenging the current Socialist Workers’ Party government. This saw the centre-right entirely collapse, showing it really is socialism or barbarism.

This GLP investigation provokes the question; whose lives, families and freedoms matter to these groups? Their campaigns so far have focused on campaigns against abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, comprehensive sexual education, and in Ghana, supported campaigns for severe criminal penalties against LGBTQ+ people.

CitizenGO’s cruel intentions are all the more questionable following the investigation by GLP, which exposed deep connections to pro-Putin Russian oligarchs Konstantin Malofeev and Vladamir Yakunin. This connection was made by the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights (EPF), according to GLP’s investigation.

Unsurprisingly, CitizenGO have disputed this evidence.

In the UK, the investigation by GLP revealed that the group have expanded their operations in the UK. GLP cite an undercover reporter’s conversation with a CitizenGO member of staff. Informing that the group are looking to now fund legal cases, the staffer bragged:

We have good income, let’s put it to good use!.

Flat denial, of course

CitizenGO’s global campaign manager Caroline Farrow has denied the ties to Russian oligarchs. Farrow insists that her work is:

Grounded in long-established beliefs about the dignity of human life and the importance of safeguarding children.

It’s worth pointing out that this virtue-signaling commitment to human dignity and safeguarding clearly doesn’t apply to trans children and adults. No, Farrow affords them no dignity and has long had the support of renowned anti-trans writer JK Rowling. Farrow’s stewardship of ‘global campaigns’ has undoubtedly been instrumental in its choice to target the trans community in the UK, such as the legal challenges to the NHS puberty blocker trial brought by British anti-trans campaigner Keira Bell.

Maybe Farrow just can’t tell a Russian Kremlin billionaire from a Western one. Let’s be honest, a massive pile of money can be pretty distracting. At worst, she’s willingly advancing Kremlin interests; at best, she and others are chasing their own far-right agendas, oblivious to who’s really backing them.

Good Law Project trans rights lead Jess O’Thomson said:

Everyone should be concerned about the potential dark money funding behind this intervention which poses a threat not just to trans rights, but British democracy. This challenge to the puberty blocker trial is part of an attempt to eradicate gender-affirming care in the UK, with a wider extremist agenda in mind.

CitizenGO: Funding the far-right

To understand the intentions of this lobby group, we need only look at their track record.

Byline Times reported in 2021 on the dodgy funding behind the group’s board members, writing:

CitizenGO, the international petition website that sought to be the anti-gender alternative to campaigning websites such as Avaaz and 38 Degrees, boasts that it is funded solely by “small online donations arranged by thousands of citizens from all over the world”.

But new research from Neil Datta’s European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights has revealed that its founder Ignacio Arsuaga approached wealthy influencers of the far and religious-right to gather seed funding.

And while the site boasts of its reliance on “small” donations, a 2017 leak revealed that numerous wealthy Spanish people had made large gifts to anti-gender organisation HazteOir – Arsuaga’s original organisation that “belongs to the CitizenGO group”.

GLP also reminds us that CitizenGO put great effort behind US President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill in May last year. This controversial bill saw a huge defunding of the state, including education. The group apparently hoped the bill would permanently defund Planned Parenthood in the US, a service to support low-income parents. It isn’t hard to see the thinly veiled intention to further impede access to abortions, especially following moves by Republican states to criminalise the practice.

The investigation reveals worrying signs that CitizenGO’s ambitions would not only further endanger marginalised group, but also harm wider society. GLP highlights that CitizenGO campaigned against a WHO treaty that would ensure the world is more prepared for future pandemics. Subsequent COVID enquiries clearly show the UK was not prepared for the pandemic, significantly increasing the numbers of preventable deaths.

Come for one, come for us all

We wrote recently about an investigation by the Charity Commission into Sex Matters, following a complaint made by the Good Law Project. This highlights the threat that anti-trans groups represent in wider society. We also wrote about how the UK Supreme Court’s ruling simply just plays into the hands of bullies. The adopted legal declaration that sex is assigned at birth has only emboldened anti-trans hate.

Attacks on one group’s rights are never in isolation. In the US, women’s reproductive freedoms are under siege; in the UK, the far right has found an easier target in the trans community. By sowing division and distrust, these attacks normalise state abuses of human rights.

Featured image via the Canary