Politics
Victory Institute letter with 375+ signatories urges Senate to confirm Gigi Sohn for FCC
‘If [Democrats] remain silent and complicit, this will become a go-to strategy to tank LGBTQ nominees’

The LGBTQ Victory Institute submitted a letter Monday with more than 375 signatories urging Senate leadership to confirm Gigi Sohn’s nomination for commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission.
Sohn, whose appointment has been languishing since October 2021, would be the first LGBTQ person ever to serve in that role where she would become the tie-breaking vote on the bipartisan-led commission.
“Gigi is one of the nation’s leading public advocates for open, affordable, and democratic
communications networks,” the Victory Institute wrote in its letter. “Gigi has worked across the country to defend and preserve the fundamental competition and innovation policies that have made broadband internet access more ubiquitous, competitive, affordable, open, and protective of user privacy. During this time, she has worked across the industry, notably as Counselor to former FCC Chair Tom Wheeler.”
Despite these qualifications – and the Biden-Harris administration’s decision to nominate her for a third time – Sohn’s confirmation has been delayed amid coordinated attacks by industry lobbyists, conservatives on the Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and right-wing media organizations.
Fox News, Breitbart, and the Daily Mail have recently focused on Sohn’s membership on the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a respected organization that has come out against a pair of laws that were enacted in 2018 amid the panic over child sex trafficking.
The laws, according to the Los Angeles Times, “have proved to be largely ineffective for their stated purpose and rife with adverse side effects,” with the EFF writing that they “will not stop sex trafficking and will instead make stopping it harder.” Regardless, the matter has nothing to do with the work in which Sohn would be engaged at the FCC.
Nevertheless, these attacks on Sohn, an out lesbian, dovetail with efforts to link the LGBTQ community with child sexual abuse and exploitation. The EFF came out in support of Sohn, too, arguing that the attacks against her were “dog whistles.”
“Democrats can’t claim to support LGBTQ rights while failing to stand up to blatant bigotry targeting one of their own nominees,” Evan Greer, director of the digital rights organization Fight for the Future, told the Los Angeles Times. “If they remain silent and complicit, this will become a go-to strategy to tank LGBTQ nominees to any public position,” she said.
According to research provided by GLAAD, one of the groups that signed the Victory Institute’s letter, “These criticisms [of Sohn] have led extremists, especially those from the QAnon movement, to conclude that Sohn supports sex trafficking and is participating in a secret plot by Democrats and other ‘far left elites’ to silence conservatives.”
Former U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) called Sohn a “she-male” and “fringe lunatic,” claims that prompted other users to make death threats against her, according to research provided by GLAAD.
Separately and in the past, Sohn earned criticism for her social media posts, including one authored by the acclaimed actor and comedian Issa Rae that Sohn shared, which read: “Your raggedy white supremacist president and his cowardly enablers would rather kill everybody than stop killing black people.”
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.”