Congress
Garcia slams effort to ban drag shows as GOP passes NDAA with anti-LGBTQ riders
Equality Caucus denounces anti-LGBTQ amendments

U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) slammed Republican U.S. Rep. Josh Brecheen’s (Okla.) effort to ban drag shows on American military bases during a debate over the annual National Defense Authorization Act spending bill on Thursday.
The appropriations package, which contains five anti-LGBTQ riders pushed by House GOP members, was passed on Friday.
“We know there are a lot of threats to the health and well-being of our service members and their families: poisoned water, toxic mold in military housing, PTSD, and suicide,” said Garcia, who is gay and a co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus.
“So I’m stunned to see that the Republican idea to protect our troops is to ban drag shows,” he said. “Mr. Speaker, my Republican colleagues want us to believe that ‘these gays are trying to murder us.’ They want us to believe that drag is harmful, or immoral and wrong. This is ridiculous.”
“We can document and celebrate drag shows on military bases since the late 1800s, and through both world wars,” Garcia continued. “The USO and the Red Cross supported drag during World War II. That’s right: the Army that defeated Hitler and saved the world included drag queens.”
“Ronald Regan starred in a movie called ‘This Is the Army!’ — a movie about World War II that featured four drag performances,” he said. “And he’s not the only Republican president who knew that drag can be fun and sometimes silly.”
Garcia displayed a photo of former president and presumptive 2024 GOP nominee Donald Trump alongside former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was dressed in drag.
“Mr. Speaker,” the congressman said, “drag is Art. Drag is Culture. Drag is Creativity. Drag is Comedy. And no, drag is Not a Crime. It’s not pornography. The real obscenity is when one of our colleagues, the gentlewoman from Georgia, shows literal posters of revenge porn in our Oversight Committee! If we want to end porn in government facilities, let’s ban that.”
In a statement on Friday, the Equality Caucus called out House Republicans’ politicization of the military appropriations bill.
“Like last year, House Republicans voted to add poison pill, anti-LGBTQI+ provisions to the NDAA that discriminate against our LGTBQI+ servicemembers and their families,” said Caucus Chair U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) “The Equality Caucus remains committed to preventing these discriminatory provisions from becoming law.”
Along with Brecheen’s drag show ban, the caucus highlighted four of these riders from this year’s NDAA:
- Amendment 46 by U.S. Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), which would “prohibit funds for the Department of Defense Education Activity from being used to purchase, maintain, or display in a school library or classroom books that include transgender and intersex characters or touch on topics related to gender identity or variations in sex characteristics,”
- Amendment 49 by U.S. Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), which would “ban Pride flags from any workplace, common access area, or public area of the Department of Defense,” and
- Amendments 52 and 53 by U.S. Reps. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) and Ralph Norman (S.C.), which would, respectively, “ban TRICARE from covering and furnishing gender-affirming surgeries and hormone treatments,” and “prohibit the Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP) from covering or providing referrals for “gender transition procedures”—including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries—for servicemembers’ dependent minor children.”
Congress
Shaheen, Collins reintroduce bill prohibiting anti-LGBTQ discrimination in jury service
Senators note the absence of protections in federal courtrooms

U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) reintroduced a bill on Wednesday that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity during the federal jury selection process.
The bipartisan Jury Access for Capable Citizens and Equality in Service Selection (ACCESS) Act would enshrine protections for LGBTQ Americans who are serving or who might be selected to serve on juries, alongside rules proscribing discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, and economic status that are already enforced in federal courtrooms.
Co-sponsoring the bill with Shaheen and Collins are U.S. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.)
“Serving on a jury is a civic duty that no one should be prevented from fulfilling because of who they are or who they love,” Shaheen said in a press release. “It’s preposterous that under current law there are no protections prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ+ jurors in federal courts and Congress must take action to rectify this injustice.”
“Serving on a jury is a fundamental right and obligation that no individual should be prohibited from fulfilling based on their sexual orientation or gender identity,” said Collins. “I have long worked to fight discrimination, and I am proud to join this effort to help eliminate bias from our judicial system.”
Amid the absence of nationwide protections, the release notes that only 17 states “prohibit exclusion from jury service in state court based on sexual orientation” while “just 12 protect against discrimination based on gender identity.”
This spring, Democratic lawmakers from the House and the Senate, including leadership from both chambers, reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ inclusive federal nondiscrimination rules in a range of contexts from employment and housing to public accommodations and education.
Shaheen and Collins were integral to the bill’s inclusion of protections applying to jury service.
Congress
Torres: gay Venezuelan asylum seeker is ‘poster child’ for Trump’s ‘abuses against due process’
Congressman spoke with the Blade Thursday

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York told the Washington Blade during an interview Thursday that his party erred in focusing so much attention on demands for the Trump-Vance administration to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the U.S. when the wrongful deportation of Andry Hernández Romero “was much more egregious.”
Hernández is a gay Venezuelan national who was deported to El Salvador in March and imprisoned in the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT.
“In the case of Andry, the government admits that it has no evidence of gang membership, but he was deported without due process, without a notification to his attorney, without a court hearing to contest the allegations against him, without a court order authorizing his deportation,” the congressman said.
“He had not even the slightest semblance of due process,” Torres said. “And even though he had a court hearing scheduled for March 17, the Trump administration proceeded to deport him on March 15, in violation of a court order.”
“I think we as a party should have held up Andry as the poster child for the abuses against due process, because his case is much more sympathetic,” Torres said. “There’s no one who thinks that Andry is a gang member.”
“Also,” the congressman added, “he’s not a quote-unquote illegal immigrant. He was a lawful asylum seeker. He sought asylum lawfully under the statutes of the United States, but he was deported unlawfully at the hands of the Trump administration.”
Torres was among the 49 members of Congress who joined with Democratic U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff of California in writing to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday demanding information about Romero, including proof of life.
The lawmakers urged the State Department to facilitate his access to legal counsel and take steps to return him, expressing fear for his safety — concerns that Torres reiterated on Thursday.
“Jails and prisons can be dangerous places for gay men, and that is especially true of a place like CECOT,” the congressman said. “He fled Latin America to escape violent homophobia. There are a few places on earth that have as much institutionalized homophobia as jails and prisons, and so I do fear for his safety.”
“I released a video telling the story of Andry,” Torres noted, adding, “I feel like we have to do more to raise awareness and the video is only the beginning … And you know, the fact that Abrego Garcia is returning to the United States shows that the administration has the ability to bring back the migrants who were unlawfully deported.”
ICE deported the wrong guy. Now they're trying to hide it.
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorresNY) June 11, 2025
Free Andry. pic.twitter.com/G4hK33oJpw
Torres spoke with the Blade just after Padilla was forcibly removed from a federal building in Los Angeles after attempting to question U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a press conference on immigration Thursday.
Footage of the senator being pushed out of the room, onto the floor, and handcuffed by officers wearing FBI identifying vests drew outrage from top Democrats in California and beyond.
“It’s the latest reminder that Donald Trump and his administration have no respect for anything or anyone but himself,” Torres told the Blade. “And every bit as outrageous as Donald Trump himself has been the enabling on the part of the congressional Republicans who are aiding and abetting his authoritarian abuses.”
“We have to be vigilant in resisting Donald Trump,” the congressman said. “We have to resist him on the streets through grassroots mobilization. We have to resist him in the courtrooms through litigation. We have to resist him in the halls of Congress through legislation.”
Torres added that “we have to win back the majority in 2026” and “if Republicans have no interest in holding Donald Trump accountable, then those Republicans should be fired from public office” because “we need a Congress that is able and willing to hold Donald Trump accountable, to stand up to his authoritarian assault on our democracy.”
Resisting is “a matter of free speech,” he said, noting that the president’s aim is to “create a reign of terror that intimidates people into silence,” but “we cannot remain silent. We have to unapologetically and courageously exercise our right to free speech, our right to assemble peacefully, and our right to resist an authoritarian president like Donald Trump.”
Congress
Padilla forcibly removed from federal building for questioning DHS secretary
Prominent Democrats rushed to defend senator

Democratic U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla of California was forcibly removed from a federal building in Los Angeles after attempting to ask questions of U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a press conference on immigration Thursday
The city has been rattled in recent days as protestors objecting to the Trump-Vance administration’s immigration crackdowns clashed with law enforcement and then the president deployed National Guard troops and U.S. Marines, which was seen as a dramatic escalation.
According to a video shared by his office, the senator, who serves as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, introduced himself and said, I have questions for the secretary.” After he was pushed out of the room, officers with FBI-identifying vests told Padilla to put his hands behind his back and handcuffed him.
“Senator Padilla is currently in Los Angeles exercising his duty to perform Congressional oversight of the federal government’s operations in Los Angeles and across California,” reads a statement from his office.
“He was in the federal building to receive a briefing with General Guillot and was listening to Secretary Noem’s press conference,” the statement continued. “He tried to ask the secretary a question, and was forcibly removed by federal agents, forced to the ground and handcuffed. He is not currently detained, and we are working to get additional information.”
Democrats were furious, with many releasing strong statements online condemning the actions of law enforcement officers, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D), and the state’s other U.S. senator, Adam Schiff (D).
Human Rights Campaign Chief of Staff Jay Brown also issued a statement: “A sitting U.S. senator should be allowed to ask a Cabinet secretary a question at a press conference — in his own state, on an issue affecting his constituents — without being violently thrown to the floor and handcuffed. Everyone who cares about our country must condemn this undemocratic act. Full stop.”
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