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State and local LGBTQ elected officials detail how they battle hate

LGBTQ Victory Fund endorsed many out candidates in 2022.

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State and local LGBTQ officials. (Photos courtesy of the LGBTQ Victory Institute.)

Just a few months ago, the midterm elections saw a ā€œrainbow waveā€ with a record-breaking number of LGBTQ candidates elected to public office across the country.

After statehouses and city councils and other legislative bodies opened for new business, however, within weeks it became clear that Americans can expect to see a greater number of anti-LGBTQ bills and policies in 2023 than were introduced in any year in recent memory.

Five LGBTQ officials, both newly elected and reelected, recently connected with the Washington Blade to discuss their observations from the campaign trail and experiences in elected office. They shared reactions to the spate of harmful proposals that have been introduced so far and detailed plans for advancing pro-equality legislation while fighting against anti-LGBTQ policies this year and beyond.  

New Hampshire State Rep. Gerri Cannon talked with the Blade earlier this month, and newly elected Trenton (N.J.) City Councilwoman Jennifer Williams responded to written questions last week. First-time officeholders Montana state Rep. Zooey Zephyr and Connecticut State Treasurer Erick Russell, along with returning Colorado Senate Majority Leader Dominick Moreno, each sat down with the Blade last month during the International LGBTQ Leaders Conference in D.C.

The conference was hosted by the LGBTQ Victory Institute, which administers programs and trainings for elected leaders whose campaigns are supported by the LGBTQ Victory Fund political action committee. Former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who serves as president of the LGBTQ Victory Fund and Institute, also talked to the Blade earlier this month.

So diverse are the identities, backgrounds, experiences and political views of these officeholders that they shatter restrictive notions that LGBTQ candidates must fit into a certain mold or serve only in certain elected positions.

How were they treated on the campaign trail?

Montana state Rep. Zooey Zephyr. (Photo courtesy of the Victory Institute)

Zephyr, who became the first openly transgender person elected to the deep-red Montana Legislature, told the Blade she was nervous about the prospect of knocking on doors for the first time.

ā€œThere’s always that fear as a trans person that it only takes one scary moment,ā€ she said. ā€œBut what I found was what I always knew: My community supported me and loved me.ā€

Many of Zephyrā€™s constituents, she said, ā€œwere excited to see me and to be talking to a trans woman about policy,ā€ as well as LGBTQ issues. Many voters were eager to get into substantive discussions on topics as wonky as how policies concerning solar power might intersect with local unionization efforts, she said.

ā€œWhat I saw in my community, and what I’ve seen, broadly, across Montana, is first and foremost kindness and community,ā€ Zephyr said.

Russell, who with his election for Connecticut treasurer became the first gay Black man to serve in statewide office, said his constituents were ā€œexcited about the fact that they felt they were represented in a campaignā€ with many voters relating to Russellā€™s ā€œhumble beginnings.ā€

Connecticut State Treasurer Erick Russell speaks at the International LGBTQ Leaders Conference on Dec. 1, 2022. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Voters were also heartened to see a younger candidate running, said Russell, who earned his bachelorā€™s degree in 2009 and graduated from law school at the University of Connecticut in 2012.

His identity aside, ā€œat the end of the day, we were running a campaign that was built on substance,ā€ he said. And ā€œpeople want to know that they’re going to have advocates for their communities.ā€

Likewise, Cannon told the Blade, ā€œI donā€™t use my status as being a trans person as a lever in most cases. Iā€™m fighting for people in my community; Iā€™m there to do the peopleā€™s business, and I just happen to be transgender.ā€

New Hampshire state Rep. Gerri Cannon (Photo courtesy of the LGBTQ Victory Institute)

ā€œI havenā€™t run into anyone thatā€™s used my status as a trans person during an election cycle,ā€ said Cannon, who has served in the New Hampshire Legislature since 2018.

ā€œWhen I ran for City Council here in Trenton,” Williams said by email, we “probably knocked on 3-4,000 doors and spoke with all kinds of people.” The questions she and her team received concerned crime, jobs, public utilities like water and roads, and Williamsā€™ ability to work constructively with other councilmembers, she said.

Trenton (N.J.) City Councilwoman Jennifer Williams. (Photo courtesy of Jennifer Williams)

Williams, who recently became Trenton, N.J.’s first LGBTQ city council member and is the one of the state’s first openly transgender officeholders, said that voters did not ask about her gender identity or sexual orientation, nor did they bring up politically divisive topics like policies concerning the participation of trans athletes in school sports leagues or drag queen story hours.

Likewise, since her election to the city council, Williams’ Council colleagues who have been sworn in as well as her at-large colleagues who won their runoff elections last Tuesday have been supportive ā€” ā€œvery much so,ā€ she told the Blade.  

At the same time, Williams said she encountered some challenges because of her being a Republican. It “has been an issue with some people who are beyond my immediate circle or who haven’t gotten a chance to know me and support me,” she said.

“Some of my biggest supporters are very well-known local Democrats because they have seen the LGBTQ advocacy work and civic involvement that I have done in the past,” Williams said. “They also have very good ‘ears to the ground’ and trust me, people would tell them if I had come to canvass their neighborhood and if they spoke with me.'”

Williams expressed gratitude for the “endorsement and support” she received for her candidacy from the Victory Fund as well as for her progressive and Democrat supporters, because “they took a chance on believing in me and stuck with me even when they caught some hell for doing so.” 

How will they approach challenging colleagues or difficult political circumstances?

Parker told the Blade there is room for LGBTQ elected officials to make a positive impact even in the most challenging of circumstances.

ā€œWe are just as interested in seeing them be who they are and stand up and speak out in their legislatures ā€” whether or not they can pass pro-equality legislation,ā€ she said.

When passing pro-equality policy or batting away harmful policy is difficult, Zephyr said she expects to draw from some of the lessons she learned as an athlete: ā€œif you put in the work, day in and day out, you will see the progress. If you trust that process and do the work, you’ll see the results.ā€

Most people have nuanced opinions on policy matters and are sincere in their convictions, including legislators who might not support pro-equality bills or the LGBTQ community, she said. ā€œAnd I trust that if I go into those conversations, ā€” I would even say most ā€” of themā€ will engage in good faith. ā€œTo me, that’s how you change hearts and minds.ā€

Earlier this month, the Montana Free Press reported that during a sausage making party for Montana lawmakers, Zephyr was caught chatting amicably with Billings Republicans. She later told reporters that she enjoyed the chance to connect with her colleagues outside the Capitol building ā€œto just hang out and talk to someone about where they grew up.ā€

There can often be more room for diversity, including ideological diversity, among candidates elected to state legislatures because these bodies are typically governed less by the strictures of calcified partisan politics that are difficult to overcome at the national level, Moreno told the Blade.

Dominick Moreno (Screen capture via YouTube)

ā€œItā€™s vastly more personal,ā€ he said, which means ā€œyou do see a lot more cross-party collaborationā€ in the Legislature.

With his first election to public office in 2012, Moreno, who is gay, became one of the four LGBTQ members of the Colorado House of Representatives elected to serve that year, which was hailed by the Denver Post as ā€œa historic first for gays.ā€

Zephyr and Moreno both discussed how hateful and vitriolic rhetoric informs the development and passage of harmful laws and policies ā€” all factors that raise the likelihood of violence against LGBTQ and particularly trans people.

The painful reality of violence against the community was a top of mind for the officeholders as well as the organizers and attendees of the International LGBTQ Leaders Conference, which fell just a couple of weeks after a gunman killed five people and injured 25 in Club Q, a Colorado Springs, Colo., LGBTQ nightclub.

Moreno recalled that when he first joined the Colorado Legislature 10 years ago, as he and his colleagues were debating a bill concerning conversion therapy, ā€œsome Republican members associated being LGBTQ with being an alcoholic.ā€

ā€œI took an opportunity to have a conversation with them to let them know how offensive that rhetoric is,ā€ Moreno said. ā€œWhat I think the Club Q tragedy will do is remind people to be more careful with their language, because I do think that the kind of very hateful rhetoric we’re seeing today has played a role in the instigation of violence against minority communities.ā€

There are some extreme state legislators in New Hampshire, Cannon said, noting last yearā€™s proposal by Republicans to secede (in the language of the bill, New Hampshire ā€œpeaceably declares independenceā€ from the U.S. ā€œand proceeds as a sovereign state.ā€)

Asked whether these lawmakers are a ā€œlost cause,ā€ Cannon did not hesitate: ā€œI would absolutely use that term,ā€ she said, comparing them to committed anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists. ā€œThey really donā€™t care for LGBT people; they donā€™t want to learn.ā€

However, Cannon said, ā€œIā€™ve talked to Republicans who are favorable who have gotten to know trans people in the Legislature.ā€

Russell stressed the importance of representation: “I think the important piece is electing folks to office who are committed to fighting for our values.”

For her part, Williams joins the City Council at an interesting juncture. Following a series of ugly incidents in which previous members displayed ā€œanti-LGBTQ bigotry and anti-Semitism,ā€ a few years ago, ā€œour city was crying for new start and a new City Council that would welcome, respect and affirm everyone,ā€ she said.

Williams added that while she hopes Trenton will never again face that kind of scandal ā€” partly because it happened when the members were working remotely and in-person meetings tend to discourage officeholders from making hateful comments to each other ā€” ā€œI am confident that all six of my colleagues will have my back if anything happens.ā€

How are they approaching policy that impacts LGBTQ constituents?

In the legislature, consistent with the approach she has employed in her prior work as an activist, Zephyr said she expects to focus her work on ā€œmaking sure that we are taking action behind the scenesā€ to make sure each measure carrying a pro-equality message also carries a pro-equality impact.

For example, she said, passing a nondiscrimination ordinance is commendable, but when residents have cause to file a complaint, is there an accessible and effective means for them to do so?

Among the work Zephyr has done since she was seated has been the introduction of bills to ban the ā€œgay and trans panic defenseā€ and protect same-sex adoptive parents. She has also been a vocal critic of her Republican colleaguesā€™ move to table Democratsā€™ proposal to allow police to temporarily take firearms from those deemed by a court as a danger to themselves or others.

The Club Q shooting provides for the opportunity for Colorado to build upon its already strong gun safety laws, such as by passing an assault weapons ban and achieving universal implementation of the stateā€™s ā€œred flag law,ā€ Moreno told the Blade, adding that ā€œweā€™re going to explore some of that in this next [now current] legislative session.ā€

Democratic state lawmakers in Colorado introduced an assault weapons earlier this month. With expanded Democratic majorities in both chambers of the state legislature serving with Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, who is gay, the state is in a position to pass more progressive legislation across the board, Moreno said.

In New Hampshire, Cannon has proposed a bill to make it easier for residents to change the sex listed on their birth records, having previously introduced the proposal to allow for people to change the sex listed on their driverā€™s licenses and state-issued IDs with the option to check a box for “nonbinary.” Republican Gov. Chris Sununu signed that bill into law and it went into effect in 2020.

Despite his support for that proposal, Cannon said Sununu pushed back against a previous version of her birth records bill because it had included an option to identify as nonbinary. She told the Blade she has reintroduced the measure this year without that provision, with the expectation that its success will provide for an opportunity to make it more inclusive in the future.

In her position on the school board, too, where until recently she served concurrently, Cannon focused her approach on working towards incremental change ā€” voting, for instance, for a proposal that allows students to use restrooms and facilities that align with their gender identities even though it requires parental permission, therefore excluding trans students who are not out and supported at home.

ā€œGetting that policy in place will open the door in the futureā€ for a more inclusive policy, Cannon said.

Another bill introduced by Cannon, which was modeled after Californiaā€™s, would make New Hampshire a sanctuary for LGBTQ families to escape prosecution in states that have criminalized parents for facilitating their childrenā€™s access to medically necessary and guideline directed medical treatments for gender dysphoria.

Parker noted that these types of bills were a major topic discussed by LGBTQ legislators when they convened for programs hosted by the Victory Institute.

Republicans, meanwhile, including Cannonā€™s GOP colleagues, are continuing to advance proposals to outlaw healthcare for minors for the treatment of gender dysphoria.

ā€œIā€™m speaking out against the [GOPā€™s] healthcare bill, flagging it as discriminatory and in violation of HIPPA rights,ā€ Cannon said, referring to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which prohibits the disclosure of sensitive health information without the patient or guardianā€™s consent or knowledge.

ā€œYou have to be able to use medical information to prosecute a family [for facilitating access to gender affirming healthcare],ā€ Cannon said, adding constitutional issues might also be raised under the Fifth Amendmentā€™s protection against self-incrimination.

Cannon is confident she will be able to convince enough of her Republican colleagues to table the bill so it never reaches a vote, adding that she expects Sununu would veto the proposal should it ever reach his desk.

Others see room to leverage their backgrounds to make positive impacts elsewhere

Williams told the Blade that apart from bringing back Pride weekend celebrations that were on pause during the pandemic, Trenton does not have any LGBTQ-specific policy matters on the horizon.

“I think that is due to our being the capital of a very protective state that has strong LGBTQ protections written into law,” she said.

At the same time, she said, “my lived experience as a LGBTQ person informs me in many ways that correlate with the experiences of other marginalized groups,” Williams said.

“From issues ranging from youth homelessness to economics to law enforcement, LGBTQ people can bring much to government and its decision-making that can benefit everyone,” she said. 

Likewise, Russell said, “being an advocate for LGBTQ rights and issues is going to be something that I will continue to do in my role” as treasurer. “But I think the there are opportunities for there to be overlap with a lot of different things.”

For instance, the attacks on LGBTQ rights come alongside efforts to abridge women’s reproductive freedoms. “One of the policies that I built through the campaign and worked with some legislators and nonprofits on was the creation of a safe harbor fund within the treasurer’s office,” Russell said.

“It would ultimately be a fund that we would put in place, and it would be used to help individuals traveling from anti-choice states who needed to access safe reproductive health care,” he said.

Other matters on Russell’s agenda will impact all residents in Connecticut, policies like “baby bonds, which was passed in our Legislature,” and will provide publicly funded trust accounts for every new child. Another priority is “expanding financial literacy programs so that we [will] have young folks who are coming out of school who know how to manage money,” he said.

Anti-LGBTQ bills, motivated by prejudice, will help no one

Whatever their putative purpose might be, Cannon stressed that the impact of anti-LGBTQ legislation proposed by her colleagues is often a solution in search of a problem ā€” a message that was echoed by Parker and Williams.

ā€œIn New Hampshire, the trans population is one-tenth of one percent,” she said. Nevertheless, “We have people trying to put forth legislation against the trans community when weā€™re such a small community of people.”

Likewise, regarding the debate over her proposal to allow residents to change the gender listed in their birth records, Cannon said, ā€œthe number of people born in the state who want to change their birth records is incredibly small,ā€ while, ā€œmany of us who were born outside the state already had our information changed.ā€

Zephyr stressed the ways in which anti-LGBTQ bills are based on lies about LGBTQ people.

She pointed to a proposal in the Montana Legislature that would prohibit minors from attending drag shows, which comes from the baseless smear propagated on the right that organizers of and participants in all-ages drag performances are sexually abusing or exploiting children.

Bills like these are ā€œnot a matter of logic or facts or information,ā€ Parker told the Blade, but rather are intended as politically motivated attacks on the LGBTQ community. It’s ā€œpolitical theatreā€ cooked up by ā€œright wing think tanks that circulate these bills to legislators around the country,ā€ she said.

Russell noted how unpopular these policies are, broadly speaking. “Republicans are really using these campaigns to target trans kids, for instance, or to create these kinds of social wars around issues that the large majority of Americans believe that people should have the freedom and right to be who they are, and love who they love, and express themselves how they want to,” he said.

Williams sees both political opportunism and sincere bigotry motivating these anti-LGBTQ proposals: “There is definitely some hard-core prejudice behind some of these bills, but for many of these bills’ sponsors I believe they feel that they have put forth anti-LGBTQ legislation because they think they need to do so for their ‘conservative street cred’ and to raise money or gain a few percentage points in a primary.”

“There are definitely some Republican legislators who believe their legislation will solve problems that don’t exist,” Williams said. “I also learned that there are more moderate Republicans willing to push against such bad legislation, but they need support to help defend themselves when they get attacked for supporting LGBTQ people and in particular, trans kids.” 

Parker has had first-hand experience dealing with anti-LGBTQ legislation when serving as mayor of Houston from 2010-2016, during which time, as an out lesbian, she was one of the first openly LGBTQ mayors of a major U.S. city.

In 2015, when voters repealed a broad nondiscrimination ordinance that included sexual orientation and gender identity, “it was about fear,” Parker said, stoked in large part by ā€œthe smear that trans women are sexual predators.ā€

She added that the effect of anti-LGBTQ bills can be both harmful and performative at the same time, pointing to efforts by conservative lawmakers to ban books that contain LGBTQ characters or themes.

“We [in the the LGBTQ community] have fought so hard to have affirming depictions of our lives in books and other media, so, to have books about LGBT lives removed from school libraries is really frustrating,ā€ Parker said.

Particularly after the bills addressing “performative culture war stuff,” including book bans, are signed into law, she said, it often becomes clear that their proponents had failed to consider what that their implementation will look like in practice, perhaps in many cases because they did not expect the proposals to succeed in the first place.

From anti-LGBTQ laws to the onerous abortion restrictions that have been passed by many conservative states, GOP legislators are discovering the unintended and unforeseen consequences of poorly-construed policies and suffering the backlash from voters, Parker said. ā€œItā€™s like the dog who chased the car.”

Victory Fund President and CEO Annise Parker speaks at the International LGBTQ Leaders Conference on Dec. 2, 2022. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
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Congress

Sens. Butler, Smith introduce Pride in Mental Health Act to aid at-risk LGBTQ youth

Bill is backed by Democrats in both chambers

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U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) speaks at the International LGBTQ Leaders Conference on Nov. 30, 2023. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

U.S. Sens. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) introduced the Pride in Mental Health Act on Thursday, legislation that would strengthen resources in mental health and crisis intervention for at-risk LGBTQ youth.

ā€œAccessing mental health care and support has become increasingly difficult in nearly every state in the country,ā€Ā said Butler, who is the first Black LGBTQ senator. ā€œBarriers get even more difficult if you are a young person who lacks a supportive community or is fearful of being outed, harassed, or threatened.”

“I am introducing the Pride in Mental Health Act to help equip LGBTQ+ youth with the resources to get the affirming and often life-saving care they need,” she said.

ā€œMental health care is health care,” said Smith. “And for some LGBTQ+ youth, receiving access to the mental health care they need can mean the difference between living in safety and dignity, and suffering alone through discrimination, bullying, and even violence.ā€Ā 

The Minnesota senator added that data shows LGBTQ students are experiencing “an epidemic” of “anxiety, depression and other serious mental health conditions.”

For example, a 2023 study by The Trevor Project found that 54 percent of LGBTQ youth reported symptoms of depression, compared to 35 percent of their heterosexual counterparts.

Joining the senators as cosponsors are Democratic U.S. Sens. Ed Markey (Mass.), Bob Casey (Penn.), Peter Welch (Vt.), Alex Padilla (Calif.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Cory Booker (N.J.), and Tammy Baldwin (Wis.). Baldwin was the first LGBTQ woman elected to the House in 1999 and the first LGBTQ woman elected to the Senate in 2013.

Leading the House version of the bill are LGBTQ Democratic U.S. Reps. Sharice Davids (Kan.), Eric Sorensen (Ill.), and Ritchie Torres (N.Y.), along with 163 other House members.

Organizations that have backed the Pride in Mental Health Act include the Human Rights Campaign, GLSEN, American Academy of Pediatrics, National Education Association (NEA), National Center for Transgender Equality, Seattle Indian Health Board, PFLAG National, The Trevor Project, American Psychological Association, Whitman-Walker Institute, InterACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth, National Alliance on Mental Illness, American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Mental Health America, and Center for Law and Social Policy.

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Congress

Before TikTok, the U.S. took action over national security concerns with Grindr

House voted to pass TikTok ban on Wednesday

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Grindr's IPO at the New York Stock Exchange (Screen capture: YouTube/NYSE)

In a bipartisan vote of 352-65 on Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives cleared a bill that would force a divestiture of TikTok by its Chinese parent company ByteDance or ban the video sharing platform’s use in the U.S.

While the legislation faces an uncertain path to passage in the U.S. Senate, Wednesday’s vote provided additional evidence of the extent to which lawmakers are concerned about U.S. national security risks that could stem from TikTok.

More specifically, as recent years have seen relations between the U.S. and China become more fraught than they have been since the two countries first established diplomatic ties in 1979, questions have been raised about the access government leaders in Beijing might have to data from America’s 150 million TikTok users who are active on the platform each month.

Concerns have also been raised about whether and how the platform’s content moderation policies, algorithmic recommendation engine or other features might be manipulated to advance Chinese interests ā€” including, potentially, by sowing political strife in the U.S. or manipulating or undermining American elections.

Many of these claims are speculative, lacking the type of evidence that might be required if they were presented in a court of law. Nevertheless, for purposes of forcing a divestiture through an act of Congress or a decision by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, they are sufficient.

CFIUS is a nine-member interagency panel that adjudicates questions of whether business transactions between foreign buyers and U.S. targets may raise national security concerns. Since 2020, the committee has investigated TikTok because the platform was created by ByteDance’s 2017 purchase of U.S. startup Musical.ly.

The probe led to negotiations over a deal in which American user data from TikTok would be sold to U.S. based multinational computer technology company Oracle, which would vet and monitor the platform’s algorithms and content moderation practices ā€” but Axios reported on Monday that talks between TikTok and CFIUS have stalled for months.

Parallels to Grindr case

As directed by CFIUS, in 2020, Grindr, the location-based app used primarily by gay and bisexual men and transgender or gender diverse communities, was sold by the Chinese-based Beijing Kunlun Tech to San Vicente Acquisition, a firm that was incorporated in Delaware.

According to Reuters, Kunlun’s failure to notify CFIUS when the company purchased Grindr in 2018 was likely one of the reasons the committee decided to force the divestiture and thereby unwind an acquisition that, by that point, had been consummated for two years.

While CFIUS does not share details about the specific nature of national security risks identified with transactions under its review, reporting at the time suggested concerns with Grindr had to do with the Chinese government’s potential to blackmail Americans, potentially including American officials, with data from the app.

Cooley LLP, an international law firm with attorneys who practice in the CFIUS space, notes that the committee uses a “three-part conceptual framework” to assess national security threats:

  1. What is the threat presented by the foreign personā€™s intent and capabilities to harm U.S. national security?
  2. What aspects of the U.S. business present vulnerabilities to national security?
  3. What would the consequences for U.S. national security be if the foreign person were to exploit the identified vulnerabilities?

The firm writes that “issues that have raised perceived national security risks range from the obvious (e.g., foreign acquisitions of U.S. businesses with federal defense contracts) to the seemingly benign (e.g., foreign minority investments in offshore wind farm projects or online dating apps.)

Cooley additionally notes that CFIUS considers vulnerabilities such as “whether the U.S. business deals in ‘critical technology,’ ‘critical infrastructure’ or ‘sensitive personal data'” and threats such as “the foreign buyerā€™s/investorā€™s track record of complying with U.S. and international laws (e.g., export controls, sanctions and anti-corruption regimes.)”

Some critics argue CFIUS has been overzealous in enforcing investment restrictions against Chinese buyers, but assuming this may be true ā€” and putting aside questions of whether U.S. national security concerns are best served by this approach ā€” China’s foreign direct investment has “declined considerably,” according to another global law firm with a substantial CFIUS practice, Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP.

The firm notes heightened scrutiny has been applied particularly in cases of “Chinese investment in the U.S. biotechnology industry,” while Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld highlighted CFIUS’s expanded jurisdiction over Chinese investments in U.S. real estate ā€” noting, however, that the committee’s increased authority is “unlikely to satisfy members of Congress and state legislators who want to prohibit investments in agricultural and other land by investors from ‘countries of concern’ such as China.”

Two years after the finalization of Grindr’s divestiture in 2020, the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange and enjoyed a 400 percent rise in its stock price. Its current value is $1.75 billion.

TikTok is privately owned, but Angelo Zino, a vice president and senior equity analyst at CFRA Research, told CNBC that the platform’s U.S.-only business ā€œcould fetch a valuation north of $60 billionā€ if Congress passes the bill to force its divestiture from ByteDance.

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Congress

AOC’s announcement of new bill quotes a group with history of anti-LGBTQ advocacy

NCOSE still has ties to extremists

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U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) (Screen capture: YouTube/MSNBC)

A press release issued on March 7 by the office of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) included quoted remarks from the CEO of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, a group with a history of anti-LGBTQ advocacy that was previously named Morality in Media.

The release concerns a bipartisan, bicameral bill that was introduced by Ocasio-Cortez to fight the proliferation of non-consensual, sexually explicit “deepfake” media ā€” created by “software, machine learning, artificial intelligence, or any other computer-generated or technological means” ā€” by establishing a federal civil right of action for victims.

ā€œRep. Ocasio-Cortez is leading a bipartisan bill to stop nonconsensual deepfake pornography that centers survivorsā€™ civil right of action,” the congresswoman’s chief of staff, Mike Casca, said in a statement to the Washington Blade on Saturday. “Organizations from left, right, and center support it.ā€

Separately, in a discussion about these topics on X, Casca said, “I disagree that quoting a group in a release is an endorsement of that group, especially at a time when gop support is required to pass anything in the house & the senate, nonetheless ‘partnering’ with them.”

Remarks by NCOSE CEO Dawn Hawkins that were included in the announcement from Ocasio-Cortez’s office are inoffensive and germane to the legislation. For instance, she said “it is past time that our laws catch up and hold the perpetrators of this abuse accountable,” calling the measure “a critical step forward” in securing “justice for survivors through civil remedies.”

Primarily focused on opposing pornography, NCOSE has sought to distance itself from the avowed anti-LGBTQ positions that were held by the organization and its leadership in the past, but there is ample reason to doubt the narrative that the group underwent an ideological evolution.

Hawkins authored a statement on behalf of her organization in December 2023 that promised to fight against the sexual exploitation of LGBTQ victims and expressed “deep regret that there were moments in our organizationā€™s history prior to our leadership change in 2011, when remarks were made that were indeed anti-LGBTQ+.”

The statement also noted that “our former namesake, Morality in Media (MIM), was associated with actions that starkly contrast with our current values,” including possible advocacy against Disney’s extension of benefits to employees’ same-sex partners and a press statement “arguing that homosexuality is connected to crime.”

Casting doubt on the sincerity of these statements, along with Hawkins’ proclamation that “we do not tolerate statements and actions by current employees that spread harmful misinformation and hate towards any particular group or individual,” are the following facts:

  • NCOSE’s current general counsel Benjamin Bull previously served as chief counsel of the far-right legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated an anti-LGBTQ hate group. The attorney also served as executive director for ADF International.
  • During an interview with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, Bull praised a 2013 decision by the Supreme Court of India that re-criminalized LGBTQ sex.
  • Amherst College professor Hadley Arkes, a conservative political scientist with longstanding ties to NCOSE — he was listed as a board member on the group’s 2022 990 form — supports the discredited practice of conversion therapy, which is banned in 20 U.S. states. When delivering public remarks in 2021, he said, “Weā€™ve had many people who, with therapy and conversion, just have come out away from that life.”
  • Arkes also opposes same-sex marriage. During the same event in 2021, he compared the decision by gay and lesbian couples to wed with the choice to shoot heroin. Close to the end of his two-hour lecture, the professor conceded that, ā€œI think Iā€™ve said enough to offend everybody tonight.”
  • Hawkins organized a conference in South Africa in 2022 whose keynote address was delivered by Errol Naidoo, an anti-LGBTQ minister who has blamed abortion and the “homosexual agenda” for”a culture of death” in his country and was quoted in a Nigerian newspaper as saying “I hate gays. It runs against Godā€™s wishes.”
  • Also delivering a presentation during the conference was Sharon Slater, president of Family Watch International. The SPLC lists the organization as an anti-LGBTQ hate group, noting that Slater has claimed LGBTQ people are more prone to disease, more promiscuous, and likelier to engage in pedophilia.
  • Slater has also defended the criminalization of LGBTQ conduct by African countries like Uganda and forged close relationships with proponents of these policies like Ugandan pastor Martin Ssempa, who supported the law passed last year that imposes prison sentences for homosexuality (and the death penalty, in certain cases).

Along with the bill introduced last week by Ocasio Cortez, the DEFIANCE Act, NCOSE is a major supporter of the Kids Online Safety Act ā€” another bipartisan legislative effort to combat the sexual exploitation of minors along with other harms facilitated by Big Tech and social media companies.

Earlier iterations of KOSA drew opposition from LGBTQ and civil rights groups over concerns that, for instance, the law might suppress affirming or pro-LGBTQ online content or prevent queer youth from accessing online communities.

On Feb. 15, however, a coalition of seven national LGBTQ organizations wrote a letter to U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who introduced KOSA along with Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), informing him that they would no longer oppose the bill.

Signed by GLAAD, GLSEN, the Human Rights Campaign, PFLAG National, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the National Center for Transgender Equality, and The Trevor Project, the letter thanked Blumenthal for “hearing our concerns” and “updating the legislation to address potential adverse consequences for LGBTQ+ youth.”

For years, Congress has sought to pass legislation to curb the power of market-dominant tech platform companies and hold these firms accountable for harms they have facilitated. More recently, many lawmakers have agreed on the need for a bipartisan federal privacy law and regulations targeting emerging technologies like artificial intelligence ā€” but so far have failed to pass any.

Support among Republicans and Democrats for bills like KOSA and the DEFIANCE Act were bolstered by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on online child sexual exploitation at the end of January, where the senators grilled the CEOs of TikTok, Discord, Snap Inc. (Snapchat), X (formerly Twitter), and Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram).

Meanwhile, the Republican-controlled U.S. House is preparing to vote on a bill that would force the divestiture of TikTok by its Chinese parent company ByteDance or ban the popular video sharing platform in the U.S.

While the measure would have to overcome opposition from Senate Democrats to pass, bipartisan support comes because of the national security risks presented by TikTok along with concerns about the harms suffered by American users ā€” even though the evidence for some of these claims is scant, unclear, or disputed.

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