> anti-sex work and anti-LGBTQIA+ legislative changes
Don't get me wrong. The laws are incredibly stupid and entirely pointless. Some silly age check won't stop a teen from accessing porn. Decloaking won't stop people being assholes online.
However, I find it hard to characterise the laws as anti-LGBTQIA+ without making questionable links and using suspicious statistics.
You could potentially link any legislative change to harming gay people if you look hard enough, but I really don't think that's the motivation of these dumb laws, nor does it seem like it particularly harms gay people over any other group in society.
The narrative running through the article is that this is something white men are pushing through. At least in the UK, most of the push for deanonymisation and against encryption has come about because of men, probably mostly white, saying incredibly disgusting and illegal things to women, gay and black people anonymously online. Consequently women's groups in particular (see https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/201...) have been pushing for ways to decloak users and punish them. I still think it's misguided, but this isn't some imperialist project to oppress minorities.
Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but I feel like there is a trend to invoke gay people, women and minorities any time someone wants to get their way. On both sides of the spectrum: the people trying to bring these laws in are doing the exact same thing.