A controversial TV commercial this fall featured a teenage girl, undressing in a ladies locker room, while a hooded cisgender man leers at her from within a stall. As she unbuttons her top, the creepy guy reveals himself, and the message of this horrifying ad becomes clear: allowing trans people to use bathrooms matching their gender identity gives male sexual predators permission to prey upon women and children.

As it turns out, transphobic messaging like this — which links access to public bathrooms and locker rooms to the threat posed by sexual offenders — was “concocted,” according to a Massachusetts-based “pro-family activism” organization Mass Resistance. Its president, Brian Camenker, is believed to be the author of the group’s November 9th “Election Analysis” post, in which the organization (which is designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center) admitted its scary campaign to repeal a statewide Massachusetts nondiscrimination law was a lie.

“Our side concocted the ‘bathroom safety’ male predator argument as a way to avoid an uncomfortable battle over LGBT ideology, and still fire up people’s emotions. It worked in Houston a few years ago,” reads the post. Read more via INTO