Politics
Republican Pa. governor nominee opposes LGBTQ rights
Former President Trump backed state Sen. Doug Mastriano

Republican leadership in the Keystone State are expressing quiet alarm over the emergence of radical-right state senator who secured his place as the party’s nominee in the race against Democratic nominee for governor, Josh Shapiro, who is himself currently serving as the commonwealth’s attorney general.
State Sen. Doug Mastriano, who represents Cumberland, Adams, Franklin and York Counties in the South Central Pennsylvania area bordering Maryland, was not seen as a truly viable candidate in the primary race to be the party standard-bearer until he was endorsed by former President Trump.
Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race has serious implications for the outcome of the 2024 presidential election cycle as well. The commonwealth is a strategic swing state and the occupant of the governor’s chair in Harrisburg will lend considerable influence to a final vote count.
Mastriano is a polarizing figure within the state’s Republican Party.
The retired U.S. Army colonel has campaigned at political events that included QAnon adherents, he espoused a political agenda that embraced Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election, rejected measures taken to protect Pennsylvanians including masks in the coronavirus pandemic, holding an anti-vaccine “Medical Freedom Rally” rally on the state Capitol steps days after declaring his candidacy for the GOP governor’s primary race, and also mixing in messaging of Christian nationalism.
He also supports expanding gun rights in Pennsylvania and in the state Senate sponsored a bill to ban abortion once a heartbeat is detected.
NBC News noted that Mastriano pledged in his election night address that on the first day of his administration he would crack down on “critical race theory,” a catchall term Republicans have used to target school equity programs and new ways of teaching about race, transgender rights and any remaining COVID-19 vaccine requirements.
“CRT is over,” Mastriano declared. “Only biological females can play on biological females’ teams,” he added, and “you can only use the bathroom that your biology and anatomy says.”
His anti-LGBTQ views have long been part of his personal portfolio. The Washington Post reported that 21 years ago while attending the Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College in 2001, then-Maj. Mastriano wrote his master’s thesis on a hypothetical “left-wing ‘Hitlerian putsch'” that was caused by “the depredations of the country’s morally debauched civilian leaders.” Among those “depredations,” in his words, was the “insertion of homosexuality into the military.”
As the Post reported, his paper shows “disgust for anyone who doesn’t hold his view that homosexuality is a form of ‘aberrant sexual conduct.'”
The paper is posted on an official Defense Department website and lists Mastriano as the author at a time when he said he received a master’s degree from the school.
Two decades before he was Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor, Doug Mastriano warned in a master’s thesis that morally debauched political leaders weren’t fit to oversee the U.S. military. https://t.co/NHOnijBng7
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 20, 2022
This is not the only instance of Mastriano professing anti-LGBTQ beliefs.
In 2018, he stated his belief that LGBTQ couples should not be allowed to adopt a child. During an interview with 103.7 FM, when asked “should LGBTQ couples, i.e. two moms or two dads, be allowed to adopt?” Mastriano answered, “No.” [This takes place at the 16:00 mark.]
NBC News interviewed David La Torre, a Republican and former adviser to fellow gubernatorial candidate Jake Corman.
“As far as what a Pennsylvania government would look like with Mastriano in charge, quite frankly, it’s just not something I’m ready to think about at this point,” La Torre said, adding that while there are many unknowns, the dynamic between Mastriano and the state General Assembly, currently controlled by Republicans, would be one to watch.
“All I know is this — he will govern as governor like he campaigned,” he said. “He would govern with a sledgehammer and expect Republicans to fall in line. And it would be one of the more fascinating tugs of war we’ve seen in Harrisburg.”
Dave Ball, chairman of the Washington County GOP, told NBC News that Mastriano’s victory was “a shame” for the party, the product of “a phenomenon that I truly don’t understand.” But any misgivings won’t stop Ball from working toward the ultimate goal: taking back the governor’s mansion, saying it’s a must-win race. (The two-term incumbent, Tom Wolf, a Democrat, is term-limited.)
As if telegraphing the battles to come should he take the governor’s chair, Politico reported: “Our biggest problem,” said Mastriano on Steve Bannon’s “War Room: Pandemic” podcast on Tuesday, “is going to be these feckless RINO-type Republicans here that will not allow us to have a fighter as governor. But we’re going to beat them and they’re going to lose power, and they’re going to be put to shame.”
Mastriano lists agenda as governor during Pa. GOP nominee victory speech:
Congress
House passes reconciliation with gender-affirming care funding ban
‘Big Beautiful Bill’ now heads to the Senate

The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday voted 215-214 for passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” reconciliation package, which includes provisions that would prohibit the use of federal funds to support gender-affirming care.
But for an 11th hour revision of the bill late Wednesday night by conservative lawmakers, Medicaid and CHIP would have been restricted only from covering treatments and interventions administered to patients younger than 18.
The legislation would also drop requirements that some health insurers must cover gender-affirming care as an “essential health benefit” and force states that currently mandate such coverage to find it independently. Plans could still offer coverage for transgender care but without the EHB classification patients will likely pay higher out of pocket costs.
To offset the cost of extending tax cuts from 2017 that disproportionately benefited the wealthiest Americans, the reconciliation bill contains significant cuts to spending for federal programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The Human Rights Campaign criticized House Republicans in a press release and statement by the group’s president, Kelley Robinson:
“People in this country want policies and solutions that make life better and expand access to the American Dream. Instead, anti-equality lawmakers voted to give handouts to billionaires built on the backs of hardworking people — with devastating consequences for the LGBTQ+ community.
“If the cuts to programs like Medicaid and SNAP or resources like Planned Parenthood clinics weren’t devastating enough, House Republicans added a last minute provision that expands its attacks on access to best practice health care to transgender adults.
“This cruel addition shows their priorities have never been about lowering costs or expanding health care access–but in targeting people simply for who they are. These lawmakers have abandoned their constituents, and as they head back to their districts, know this: they will hear from us.”
Senate Republicans are expected to pass the bill with the budget reconciliation process, which would allow them to bypass the filibuster and clear the spending package with a simple majority vote.
Changes are expected as the bill will be reviewed and amended by committees, particularly the Finance Committee, and then brought to the floor for debate — though modifications are expected to focus on Medicaid reductions and debate over state and local tax deductions.
Congress
Gerry Connolly dies at 75 after battle with esophageal cancer
Va. congressman fought for LGBTQ rights

Democratic U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia died on Wednesday, according to a statement from his family.
The 75-year-old lawmaker, who served in Congress since 2009, announced last month that he will not seek reelection and would step down from his role as the top Democrat on the powerful U.S. House Oversight Committee because his esophageal cancer had returned.
“We were fortunate to share Gerry with Northern Virginia for nearly 40 years because that was his joy, his purpose, and his passion,” his family said in their statement. “His absence will leave a hole in our hearts, but we are proud that his life’s work will endure for future generations.”
“He looked out for the disadvantaged and voiceless. He always stood up for what is right and just,” they said.
Connolly was memorialized in statements from colleagues and friends including House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.), former President Joe Biden, and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).
Several highlighted Connolly’s fierce advocacy on behalf of federal workers, who are well represented in his northern Virginia congressional district.
The congressman also supported LGBTQ rights throughout his life and career.
When running for the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in 1994, he fought the removal of Washington Blade newspapers from libraries. When running in 2008 for the U.S. house seat vacated by Tom Davis, a Republican, Connolly campaigned against the amendment to Virginia’s constitution banning same-sex marriage and civil unions in the state.
In Congress, he supported the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality, the Biden-Harris administration’s rescission of the anti-trans military ban, and the designation within the State Department of a special LGBTQ rights envoy. The congressman also was an original cosponsor of the Equality Act and co-sponsored legislation to repeal parts of the Defense of Marriage Act.
Congress
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill to criminalize gender affirming care advances
Judiciary Committee markup slated for Wednesday morning

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)’s “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” which would criminalize guideline-directed gender affirming health care for minors, will advance to markup in the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning.
Doctors and providers who administer medical treatments for gender dysphoria to patients younger than 18, including hormones and puberty blockers, would be subject to Class 3 felony charges punishable by up to 10 years in prison if the legislation is enacted.
LGBTQ advocates warn conservative lawmakers want to go after families who travel out of state to obtain medical care for their transgender kids that is banned or restricted in the places where they reside, using legislation like Greene’s to expand federal jurisdiction over these decisions. They also point to the medically inaccurate way in which the bill characterizes evidence-based interventions delineated in standards of care for trans and gender diverse youth as “mutilation” or “chemical castration.”
Days into his second term, President Donald Trump signed “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” an executive order declaring that the U.S. would not “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit” medical treatments and interventions intended for this purpose.
Greene, who has introduced the bill in years past, noted the president’s endorsement of her bill during his address to the joint session of Congress in March when he said “I want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body.”