Co-Founder, Funder of Mass. Org Pushing Transgender Bill Backed Republican Gov. Charlie Baker

A co-founder and top funder of the national organization leading the push to expand transgender protections in Massachusetts is a billionaire hedge fund manager who contributed thousands of dollars to help elect Gov. Charlie Baker, and the organization’s top staffer has contributed to the Massachusetts Republican Party.

A spokesperson for Freedom Mass, the Massachusetts organization that is working to add public accommodations protections to the state’s transgender anti-discrimination law, told Bay Windows that its national umbrella organization, Freedom for All Americans, is essentially calling the shots — and funding the majority of the effort in the Commonwealth.

Matt McTighe, Freedom for All Americans’ Executive Director, denied that his group sets the agenda for their Massachusetts affiliate’s effort to pass the bill, but said “we’re certainly putting a lot of resources into it.”

New York businessman Paul Singer was one of the founders of Freedom for All Americans and both as an individual and through a PAC he also founded to support Republican candidates, remains a major funder of the group.

In October of 2010, Singer contributed the maximum amount allowed by law to Baker’s failed first bid for the Corner Office and to the Massachusetts Republican Party. In all Singer, contributed $5,500 to back Baker, according to the Office of Campaign and Political Finance, or OCPF.

Singers’ contributions to Baker’s effort to oust then-incumbent Gov. Deval Patrick came more than six months after Baker first declared his opposition to what he called a “bathroom bill” at a controversial Massachusetts Republican Party Convention earlier that year.

According to the Center for Public Integrity, Singer has also been a top donor to the Republican Governor’s Association, a group that backed both of Baker’s campaigns. Singer gave the RGA more than $1 million in the year leading up to Baker’s election, the campaign finance watchdog says.

McTighe, also contributed to Baker’s 2010 running mate, openly gay former State Sen. Richard Tisei, and to the Massachusetts Republican Party, OCPF records show.

In 2011, Patrick signed a skim-milk transgender equality bill into law after legislative leaders stripped away language on banning discrimination in public accommodations, like bathrooms.

During his second run for governor in 2014, and again after he was elected, Baker reiterated his opposition to expanding the 2011 law to cover public accommodations.

Baker has maintained for more than six years that he opposes public accommodations protections for transgender citizens, though he has declined to say specifically that he would veto the bill if it reaches his desk, forcing legislative leaders to delay the progress of the bill while they attempt to recruit a veto-proof majority.

While other LGBT groups have begun to ratchet up the pressure on Baker to support transgender rights, Freedom For All Americans and Freedom Mass has come to the governor’s defense.

When the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, a group that worked with the Baker Administration on a groundbreaking LGBT-inclusive supplier diversity initiative, withdrew an invitation for Baker to speak to the group, Freedom Mass praised the governor for his “commitment to equality” in a statement.

After a group of transgender activists organized a protest that forced Baker to leave the stage at an LGBT business networking event to a chorus of boos and shouts, Freedom Mass called the frustration of the protestors “understandable” in a statement that then went on to repeat key lines of Baker’s speech.

“Governor Baker said in his remarks that he opposes discrimination and that Massachusetts residents should continue telling stories of transgender people and their loved ones,” the statement read.

After a long week of dodging questions about that protest and his position on the transgender rights bill, Baker’s office sought to quell the controversy by saying only that “Governor Baker believes people should use the restroom facility they feel comfortable using.”

Though Baker’s statement again stopped short of taking a specific position on the one-page bill currently before the legislature, Freedom Mass quickly blasted out a statement giving Baker credit for supporting “transgender access to restrooms.”

McTighe denied that his group is pulling their punches with Baker.

“Our only mission in life…is to get this bill passed,” he said.

Kevin Franck is a political consultant and former Democratic Party spokesman