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EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Blumenthal defends Kids Online Safety Act

Blackburn comment on ‘trans influence’ raises alarms

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Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Responding to criticism from some in the LGBTQ community about the Kids Online Safety Act, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) defended the legislation and reiterated his strong support for queer youth.

“I would never put my name on any bill that targets or disparages or harms the trans or LGBTQ community,” Blumenthal told the Washington Blade on Friday.

“There have been a lot of eyes” on the Kids Online Safety Act, he said. “A lot of very smart and careful people have reviewed its language, and they and I have worked to make it as rigorous and tight as possible.”

The proposed legislation, introduced by Blumenthal and Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), would address harms experienced by children and their families at the hands of dominant social media and tech platform companies. It enjoys broad bipartisan support in the Senate.

Critics took issue with previous iterations of the bill, however, raising alarms that conservative state attorneys general tasked with enforcing its provisions might treat positive or tonally neutral LGBTQ content as harmful to children under the statute.

A coalition of organizations issued a letter last year warning Congress that “online services would face substantial pressure to over-moderate,” at a time in which “books with LGBTQ+ themes are being banned” and “people providing healthcare to trans children are being falsely accused of ‘grooming.'”

Blumenthal told the Blade changes to the 2023 version in areas including the duty of care, which were made in consultation with a bevy of LGBTQ groups and individual advocates, have changed these organizations’ positions on the legislation.

“We have tightened the statute – tightened and clarified the statute – as much as we can to try to make it as rigorous as possible to avoid both the misuse and potential chilling effect,” the senator said.

He also highlighted some reasons for the urgent need for passage.

“The real devastating harms done to children by the bullying,” along with toxic content promoting eating disorders and suicide, “largely as a result of black-box algorithms, is the kind of evil that I have fought throughout my career,” he said.

The senator has fought for accountability from these companies for decades, combatting child predation on Myspace and Facebook as attorney general of Connecticut in the early aughts and, in Congress, championing antitrust reforms targeting Big Tech that have come to the fore in recent years.

He has also been a staunch pro-equality ally for the LGBTQ community, earning a perfect 100 on the Congressional Scorecard from the Human Rights Campaign, America’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group.

“I care deeply about that community as is evidenced by a lifetime of work in this area, as attorney general and now as the U.S. senator,” he said.

“The Kids Online Safety Act is designed to give children and their parents tools to protect themselves,” Blumenthal said, “and also to impose accountability on those companies that are profiteering; achieve more transparency about those algorithms; and give parents reporting mechanisms and other means, in effect, to take back control and [also for] children to take back control.”

The proposed bill would require covered platforms to “take reasonable measures” to “prevent and mitigate” harms to youth such as “anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use disorders, and suicidal behaviors,” along with “patterns of use that indicate or encourage addiction-like behaviors” and “physical violence, online bullying, and harassment of the minor.” 

LGBTQ youth are affected by these challenges and harms, too, and in many cases, disproportionately.

“Take bullying, for example,” Blumenthal told the Blade. No longer relegated to the school yard, this behavior follows victims home, he said, adding, “the addictive quality of social media is so powerful that it can be all consuming.”

During an interview Thursday on the Rated LGBT Radio program, attorney Laura Marquez-Garrett noted how LGBTQ youth will turn to social media platforms searching for affirmation about their sexual orientation or gender identity only to find “this really harmful experience that is causing, in many cases, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts.”

Marquez-Garrett, a litigator who left her law practice in 2020 to join the Social Media Law Center, explained the Kids Online Safety Act includes a carve-out, “added in the last couple months, which says that a covered platform has no duty to prevent or preclude any minor under 17 from deliberately and independently searching for or specifically requesting content.”

Still, concerns persisted after Blackburn noted, in March, efforts toward “protecting minor children from the transgender [sic] in this culture and that influence” before talking about the Kids Online Safety Act.

Her legislative director later clarified that, “KOSA will not — nor was it designed to — target or censor any individual or community.”

Addressing these matters, Blumenthal told the Blade, “whatever anyone including Senator Blackburn may say about their personal beliefs, I know what the bill does and that’s what’s important here.”

“My goal,” he said, is to remedy the problems caused by social media and online platforms, problems that in too many cases are fatal for young people, while avoiding “any of the unintended consequences” because “it’s not enough to have good motives.”

Blumenthal said that while “my colleagues on the Republican side and I may differ in certain beliefs about a wide variety of issues” and “Senator Blackburn and I vote together a small minority of times, where we’re united, we try to work together.”

“And we’re united on preventing the harms that are so egregiously crippling and killing,” he added.

So, Blumenthal said, “looking at it substantively, putting aside who’s for it and who’s against it, I think on the merits, it holds up. The merits and the substance and the actual words of the proposed statute really refute those arguments that the tech companies have sought to make.”

Asked whether he believes the dominant tech platforms and social media companies might be behind efforts to sow doubt and distrust with respect to the Kids Online Safety Act among LGBTQ and other communities, the senator noted, “they have no compunction about distorting or misrepresenting the facts and trying to twist and deceive about specific provisions of legislation.”

“They resort to any and every means,” he said, “And they will try to exploit communities that may be susceptible to their misrepresentation.”

Additionally, Blumenthal said, the “tech and social media companies have – I don’t know how to put it politely – but they’ve essentially tried to ignore the important changes that we have made” including “the narrowing of the duty of care provisions” and “the broadening of support services.”

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Congress

Top Congressional Democrats reintroduce Equality Act on Trump’s 100th day in office

Legislation would codify federal LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination protections

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Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and Democratic members reintroduce the Equality Act, April 29 2025 (Washington Blade photo by Christopher Kane)

In a unified display of support for LGBTQ rights on President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office, congressional Democrats, including leadership from the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, reintroduced the Equality Act on Tuesday.

The legislation, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, codifying these protections into federal law in areas from jury service to housing and employment, faces an unlikely path to passage amid Republican control of both chambers of Congress along with the White House.

Speaking at a press conference on the grass across the drive from the Senate steps were Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.), U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), who is the first out LGBTQ U.S. Senator, U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (Calif.), who is gay and chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (N.H.), who is gay and is running for the U.S. Senate, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore.).

Also in attendance were U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (Del.), who is the first transgender member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Dina Titus (Nev.), U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (Ill.), and representatives from LGBTQ advocacy groups including the Human Rights Campaign and Advocates 4 Trans Equality.

Responding to a question from the Washington Blade on the decision to reintroduce the bill as Trump marks the hundredth day of his second term, Takano said, “I don’t know that there was a conscious decision,” but “it’s a beautiful day to stand up for equality. And, you know, I think the president is clearly hitting a wall that Americans are saying, many Americans are saying, ‘we didn’t vote for this.'”

A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released Sunday showed Trump’s approval rating in decline amid signs of major opposition to his agenda.

“Many Americans never voted for this, but many Americans, I mean, it’s a great day to remind them what is in the core of what is the right side of history, a more perfect union. This is the march for a more perfect union. That’s what most Americans believe in. And it’s a great day on this 100th day to remind our administration what the right side of history is.”

Merkley, when asked about the prospect of getting enough Republicans on board with the Equality Act to pass the measure, noted that, “If you can be against discrimination in employment, you can be against discrimination in financial contracts, you can be against discrimination in mortgages, in jury duty, you can be against discrimination in public accommodations and housing, and so we’re going to continue to remind our colleagues that discrimination is wrong.”

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which was sponsored by Merkley, was passed by the Senate in 2013 but languished in the House. The bill was ultimately broadened to become the Equality Act.

“As Speaker Nancy Pelosi has always taught me,” Takano added, “public sentiment is everything. Now is the moment to bring greater understanding and greater momentum, because, really, the Congress is a reflection of the people.”

“While we’re in a different place right this minute” compared to 2019 and 2021 when the Equality Act was passed by the House, Pelosi said she believes “there is an opportunity for corporate America to weigh in” and lobby the Senate to convince members of the need to enshrine federal anti-discrimination protections into law “so that people can fully participate.”

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Democratic lawmakers travel to El Salvador, demand information about gay Venezuelan asylum seeker

Congressman Robert Garcia led delegation

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Andry Hernández Romero (photo credit: Immigrant Defenders Law Center)

California Congressman Robert Garcia on Tuesday said the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador has agreed to ask the Salvadoran government about the well-being of a gay asylum seeker from Venezuela who remains incarcerated in the Central American country.

The Trump-Vance administration last month “forcibly removed” Andry Hernández Romero, a stylist who asked for asylum because of persecution he suffered because of his sexual orientation and political beliefs, and other Venezuelans from the U.S. and sent them to El Salvador.

The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.” President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.”

Garcia told the Washington Blade that he and three other lawmakers — U.S. Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), and Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) — met with U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador William Duncan and embassy staffers in San Salvador, the Salvadoran capital.

“His lawyers haven’t heard from him since he was abducted during his asylum process,” said Garcia.

The gay California Democrat noted the embassy agreed to ask the Salvadoran government to “see how he (Hernández) is doing and to make sure he’s alive.”

“That’s important,” said Garcia. “They’ve agreed to that … we’re hopeful that we get some word, and that will be very comforting to his family and of course to his legal team.”

The U.S. Embassy in El Salvador in 2023. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Embassy of El Salvador’s Facebook page)

Garcia, Frost, Dexter, and Ansari traveled to El Salvador days after House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) denied their request to use committee funds for their trip.

“We went anyways,” said Garcia. “We’re not going to be intimidated by that.”

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on April 14 met with Trump at the White House. U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) three days later sat down with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who the Trump-Vance administration wrongfully deported to El Salvador on March 15.

Abrego was sent to the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT. The Trump-Vance administration continues to defy a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ordered it to “facilitate” Abrego’s return to the U.S.

Garcia, Frost, Dexter, and Ansari in a letter they sent a letter to Duncan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday demanded “access to” Hernández, who they note “may be imprisoned at” CECOT. A State Department spokesperson referred the Blade to the Salvadoran government in response to questions about “detainees” in the country.

Garcia said the majority of those in CECOT who the White House deported to El Salvador do not have criminal records.

“They can say what they want, but if they’re not presenting evidence, if a judge isn’t sending people, and these people have their due process, I just don’t understand how we have a country without due process,” he told the Blade. “It’s just the bedrock of our democracy.”

President Donald Trump greets Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele at the White House on April 14, 2025. (Public domain photo)

Garcia said he and Frost, Dexter, and Ansari spoke with embassy staff, Salvadoran journalists and human rights activists and “anyone else who would listen” about Hernández. The California Democrat noted he and his colleagues also highlighted Abrego’s case.

“He (Hernández) was accepted for his asylum claim,” said Garcia. “He (Hernández) signed up for the asylum process on an app that we created for this very purpose, and then you get snatched up and taken to a foreign prison. It is unacceptable and inhumane and cruel and so it’s important that we elevate his story and his case.”

The Blade asked Garcia why the Trump-Vance administration is deporting people to El Salvador without due process.

“I honestly believe that he (Trump) is a master of dehumanizing people, and he wants to continue his horrendous campaign to dehumanize migrants and scare the American public and lie to the American public,” said Garcia.

The State Department spokesperson in response to the Blade’s request for comment referenced spokesperson Tammy Bruce’s comments about Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador.

“These Congressional representatives would be better off focused on their own districts,” said the spokesperson. “Instead, they are concerned about non-U.S. citizens.”

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Goodlander endorses Pappas’s Senate bid

Announcement puts gay congressman on the path to securing his party’s nomination

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U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.) on Thursday announced she will not run to represent her state in the U.S. Senate, endorsing gay U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas’s (D-N.H.) bid for the seat of retiring U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, putting him on the path to secure the Democratic nomination.

“We are in the fight of our lifetimes right now, of a moment of real crisis and challenge,” she said. “I feel humbled and grateful to so many people across our state who have encouraged me to take a look at the U.S. Senate, and after a lot of thought and conversations with people I love and people I respect and people who I had never met before, who I work for in this role right now, I’ve decided that I’m running for re election in the House of Representatives.”

When asked by a reporter from the ABC affiliate station in New Hampshire whether she would endorse Pappas, Goodlander said, “Yes. Chris Pappas has been amazing partner to me in this work and for many years. And I really admire him. I have a lot of confidence in him.”

She continued, “He and I come to this work, I think with a similar set of values, we also have really similar family stories. Our families both came to New Hampshire over 100 years ago from the very same part of northern Greece. And the values that he brings to this work are ones that that I really, really admire. So I’m proud to support him, and I’m really excited to be working with him right now because we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“Maggie Goodlander has dedicated her career to service, and we can always count on her to stand up to powerful interests and put people first,” Pappas said in a post on X. “I’m so grateful to call her my friend and teammate, and I’m proud to support her re-election and stand with her in the fights ahead.”

Earlier this month, former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, announced he would not enter the Senate race, strengthening the odds that Democrats will retain control of Shaheen’s seat.

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