Transgender activists flood Utah tip line with hoax reports to block bathroom law enforcement

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 375 points – Transgender activists flood Utah tip line with hoax reports to block bathroom law enforcement
apnews.com

Transgender activists have flooded a Utah tip line created to alert state officials to possible violations of a new bathroom law with thousands of hoax reports in an effort to shield trans residents and their allies from any legitimate complaints that could lead to an investigation. 

The onslaught has led the state official tasked by law with managing the tip line, Utah Auditor John Dougall, to bemoan getting stuck with the cumbersome task of filtering through fake complaints while also facing backlash for enforcing a law he had no role in passing.

“No auditor goes into auditing so they can be the bathroom monitors,” Dougall said Tuesday. “I think there were much better ways for the Legislature to go about addressing their concerns, rather than this ham-handed approach.”

In the week since it launched, the online tip line already has received more than 10,000 submissions, none of which seem legitimate, he said. The form asks people to report public school employees who knowingly allow someone to use a facility designated for the opposite sex.

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These two links show all of the Republican legislators in Utah if anyone needs to report seeing them using the "wrong" bathroom.

https://senate.utah.gov/senate-roster/

https://house.utleg.gov/house-members/

This would be the form you should fill out. I would definitely report any of those people for using the "wrong" bathroom if you happen to have any information on that.

https://ut-sao-special-prod.web.app/sex_basis_complaint2.html

Please use a VPN and no identifiable info when submitting.

I don't think they would trawl through hundreds of thousands of submissions to go after individuals. I also doubt they would extradite me from the UK. So fuck the VPN.

VPNs do not make you anonymous

No, but not providing them with personal information like one's email, address, name, phone number or social media accounts, and not screaming "I live within # km of xxx!" by accessing their website with your actual IP address? That kinda helps. Plus, they're definitely blocking any reports made from out of state at this point.

FWIW I'd just use a random name generator. They could just filter out common/obviously fake submissions of legislators. The goal should be obfuscation, make it hard to tell what is a genuine report and what is a report for someone who doesn't even exist—reports that they can't just toss until they investigate and realize it was just a waste of time.

Not only "trans activists".

It's also just average people who are frustrated with the stupidity of these kinds of discriminatory laws.

I would say that spending the time and energy to resist a law to specifically discriminate against trans people does make you a trans activist, in the literal sense of doing activism foe trans people, whether you would call yourself that or not lol

To split some hairs, I'm not trans, but I'm all in favor of trans rights. If I take action in favor of trans rights, I'm a "trans rights activist", but not a "trans activist".

I wanted to help them out, so I sent in a report, even though I'm in the UK. Everyone should send in a report so they know how vital their work is.

What is real fun is finding the name of a real legislator who voted for the bill, then find a real, random school in Utah and then submit a report that seems legit so they have to go chase it and waste time. Not that it's any fun for the people on the end of the tip line of course.

I think there were much better ways for the Legislature to go about addressing their concerns, rather than this ham-handed approach.

You mean the made up concerns about trans women in bathrooms that have no basis whatsoever in reality? Maybe the legislature should be more concerned with improving the lives of their constituents, or the fact that Utah has one of the highest CSA rates in the country.

I feel like this was the point of the protest as well. Squeeze the squishy, parts of the system/laws. In this case one single human that manages a lever of that system. Have them speak in objection against the law, then tell the people what it's realty about.

Mission accomplished in my opinion. All the weak parts are exposed and it's absurdity is up for demonstration.

Did they not get numbers for the other 19 states?

Sadly no, as some states don't have data for all the years or choose to not participate altogether. One example is Florida, which recently withdrew from the survey because they had "grave concerns" about the survey’s "inflammatory and sexualized" content: https://www.floridapolicy.org/posts/its-time-to-reinstate-the-youth-risk-behavior-survey

You can see the results for all available states and years here though: https://nccd.cdc.gov/Youthonline/App/Results.aspx?TT=K&OUT=0&SID=HS&QID=H20&LID=LL&YID=YY&LID2=&YID2=&COL=T&ROW1=N&ROW2=N&HT=QQ&LCT=LL&FS=S1&FR=R1&FG=G1&FA=A1&FI=I1&FP=P1&FSL=S1&FRL=R1&FGL=G1&FAL=A1&FIL=I1&FPL=P1&PV=&TST=&C1=&C2=&QP=G&DP=1&VA=CI&CS=Y&SYID=&EYID=&SC=DEFAULT&SO=ASC

grassroots resistance to horseshit laws gives me hope for humanity