Politics
Emails show JD Vance’s right-wing, anti-LGBTQ pivot
Correspondences were between VP candidate, transgender law school classmate

Written correspondence between U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and transgender attorney Sofia Nelson, a former friend and Yale Law School classmate, sheds new light on the extent of the Trump critic-turned-running mate’s right-wing, anti-LGBTQ pivot.
In about 90 emails that the Detroit-based public defender shared with the New York Times, which were largely dated from 2014 through 2017, the Republican vice presidential nominee emerges as a thoughtful and respectful debate partner who, in one instance, took pains to apologize for inaccurately referring to Nelson as a lesbian in his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.”
“I hope that you recognize that the description came from a place of ignorance, when I first started writing [the book] years ago,” he wrote. “I hope you’re not offended, but if you are, I’m sorry! Love you, JD.”
The two ultimately fell out in 2021 over Vance’s endorsement of an Arkansas bill banning gender affirming care for patients younger than 18. Then, as the author and attorney pursued his political ambitions, he firmly embraced the Republican Party’s anti-LGBTQ extremism.
In 2022, Vance came out against the Respect for Marriage Act, a law supported by 12 GOP senators that codified legal protections for married same-sex and interracial couples. Shortly after he took office the following year, when far-right U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) proposed a nationwide gender affirming care ban with criminal penalties for healthcare providers of up to 15 years in prison, Vance introduced the companion bill in the Senate.
The senator has also espoused anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, including in campaign appearances with Trump. On social media, he endorsed the “groomer” slur against opponents of laws criminalizing classroom discussion of matters concerning sexual orientation and gender identity.
Along with his vocal criticism of former President Donald Trump, which was well documented before he officially joined the 2024 GOP ticket on July 15, Vance’s positions on policy matters as reflected in the exchanges with Nelson stand in stark contrast with those espoused since his campaign for and election to the Senate in 2022.
For instance, Vance voiced support for “anything that puts cops back in the mindset of service and protection instead of control and coercion,” proclaiming “I hate the police. Given the number of negative experiences I’ve had in the past few years, I can’t imagine what a Black guy goes through.”
As Trump campaigned on proposals to stem immigration from Muslim countries in 2015, Vance told Nelson “I worry most of all about how welcome Muslim citizens feel in their own country.” Americans have always been susceptible to “demagogues willing to exploit the people who believe crazy shit,” he lamented.
In another exchange about the former president, he wrote “the more white people feel like voting for Trump, the more Black people will suffer. I really believe that.”
“These revelations are more proof of who JD Vance really is: a bully and a coward, whose only allegiance is to power and ambition, and who will betray those closest to him in order to be accepted as a MAGA clone,” Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said in a statement on Tuesday.
“This election is not just about two presidential tickets, it is about two fundamentally visions of America,” she said. One is led by a convicted felon, who will stop at nothing to destroy democracy and impose his dystopian Project 2025 agenda, and his opportunist sidekick, who cast his own friends aside when power came calling. The other vision is led by Kamala Harris, a champion of unity and accountability, who means it when she says freedom and justice for all.”
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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