Two Russian courts have meted out the first convictions in connection with what the government calls the “international LGBT social movement” and which was designated as extremist last year.
On Thursday, a court in the southern region of Volgograd found a man guilty of “displaying the symbols of an extremist organization” after he posted a photograph of an LGBTQ flag online, according to the court’s press service.
Artyom P., who was ordered to pay a fine of 1,000 rubles, admitted guilt and repented, saying he had posted the image “out of stupidity,” the court said.
On Monday, a court in Nizhny Novgorod, east of Moscow, sentenced to five days in administrative detention a woman who had been in a cafe when a man approached her and demanded she remove her frog-shaped earrings displaying an image of a rainbow, said Aegis, an LGBTQ rights group.
The woman was called to the police station after the man, who filmed the encounter, posted it online.
A trial is set to resume next week in Saratov in southwestern Russian against a photographer who posted images of rainbow flags on Instagram, independent Russian news outlet Mediazona reported.
The rainbow flag represents the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community. Russian law prohibits anyone in the country “displaying the symbols” of organizations it considers extremist, a list that includes social network Meta.
Russia’s Supreme Court banned the “LGBT movement” last November, continuing a pattern of increasing restrictions in Russia on expressions of sexual orientation and gender identity.
A law passed last July outlawed legal or medical changes of gender for transgender Russians, and a law banning the promotion of “nontraditional” sexual relations has been on the books for over a decade.
South Dakota has apologized and will pay $300,000 under a settlement with a transgender advocacy group that sued Gov. Kristi Noem and her health secretary last year after the state terminated a contract with it.
Attorneys for the Transformation Project announced the settlement Monday. The nonprofit sued last year after the state canceled the contract for a community health worker in December 2022. The contract included a roughly $136,000 state-administered federal grant, about $39,000 of which the group received, according to its attorneys.
The organization alleged the state’s decision “was based purely on national politics,” citing Noem’s statement to conservative media outlet The Daily Signal that the state government shouldn’t participate in the group’s efforts. The outlet had asked Noem about the group and one of its events.
“This settlement marks a significant milestone in our ongoing commitment to civil rights advocacy,” lead attorney Brendan Johnson said. “We commend the resiliency of the LGBTQ community and remain committed to vigorously upholding their rights.”
The apology, in a letter dated Jan. 18 and signed by South Dakota Secretary of Health Melissa Magstadt, reads: “On behalf of the State of South Dakota, I apologize that the Transformation Project’s contract was terminated and for treating the Transformation Project differently than other organizations awarded Community Health Worker contracts.
“I want to emphasize that all South Dakotans are entitled to equal treatment under the law — regardless of their race, color, national origin, religion, disability, age, or sex. South Dakota is committed to ensuring that no person is excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subject to discrimination under any program, activity, or service that it provides,” she wrote.
Transformation Project Executive Director Susan Williams said she is glad the lawsuit is over and “it feels good to know that we won.”
“I would say that we settled with the apology. It would have been nice to have the apology come from our governor,” she said.
Magstadt was not health secretary at the time the contract was terminated. Her predecessor announced her retirement days after the state terminated the contract. The Transformation Project had hired a community health worker before the state ended the contract.
The state alleged contract violations in a letter from the deputy secretary noticing the termination. The group said it had complied.
Spokespersons for Noem and the state Department of Health did not immediately respond to email requests for comment on the settlement.
Transformation Project Community Health Worker/Project Coordinator Jack Fonder said in a statement: “I assumed the role of CHW with the intention of providing trans people in our community with the resources they require to succeed in this state, little realizing that doing so would result in my own outing as a trans man for standing up for what is right. We promise to keep up the battle for transgender rights and to make sure they have access to the resources they require.”
Fundraising helped continue Fonder’s position, Williams said. Fonder helps transgender people find shelter, housing and employment, as well as support with legal paperwork and driving people to appointments, among other needs.
Williams said the organization would apply for future grants from the state, and she hopes similar groups “will feel more confident” to apply, too.
The nonprofit offers help for LGBTQ people and their families, such as suicide prevention and guiding people through health care and social services, and educates about gender identity.
South Dakota and other Republican-led states have passed laws in recent years that have raised complaints about discrimination against transgender people, such as restricting school sports participation and banning gender-affirming care for kids.
Join Positive Images LGBTQIA+ Center and North Bay LGBTQI Families for a Social Saturday: Intergenerational Gathering on February 10th from 12-3pm at Guerneville Library!
All LGBTQIA+ youth, families, adults, and elders are welcome at Social Saturdays, which are a recurring series of monthly events taking place throughout Sonoma County where we are seeking to bring community across generations, particularly gender expansive youth, teens, and adults.
At our February gathering we invite you to come join us at the library for art activities, music, storytime readings and games. There will be a special storytime with Frida and Friends where they read a variety of stories of different genres in both English and Spanish!
********** Acompañe a Positive Images LGBTQIA + Center y North Bay LGBTQI Families para un sábado social: Reunión intergeneracional el 10 de Febrero 12-3p en la biblioteca de Guerneville!
Todes les jóvenes, familias, adultes y ancianes LGBTQIA + son bienvenides en esta reunión, que es parte de una serie recurrente de eventos mensuales que se llevan a cabo en todo el condado de Sonoma, donde buscamos reunir a nuestra comunidad a través de generaciones, particularmente jóvenes, adolescentes y adultes con género expansivo.
En nuestra reunión de Febrero los invitamos a que se unieran con nosotres en la biblioteca para actividades artísticas, música, lecturas de cuentos y juegos. Habrá unos cuentos especiales con Frida y sus amigues! Elles leerán una variedad de cuentos de diferentes géneros en inglés y en español!
Rockland Palace was filled to capacity. The venue at 155th St. and 8th Ave. in Harlem saw nearly 8000 guests that night. It was March 6, 1936, and the Palace was hosting its 68th annual Hamilton Lodge “Odd Fellows” Ball, an event it had hosted since its inception in the 1860s.
Not since 1929 had the ball seen this much action, and visitors came from as far as Chicago, Atlanta, and Memphis to witness the spectacle. Ed Bonelli and his 20-piece Lido Society Orchestra provided a soundtrack for the festivities, and during intermission, the Smalls Paradise floor show entertained the anxious crowd. This night was set to be the biggest yet, and all the ball’s participants picked out only their most extravagant outfits for the occasion.
This night would be different, however, because a Black queen took home the top prize for the first time in the nearly 70 years that the balls had been taking place. Sporting a grayish-blonde wig and a white tulle gown designed for the occasion by Dan Hazel, Jean La Marr, won the pageant by popular choice, walking away with a grand prize of 50 dollars. Entertainer Ethel Waters presented La Marr’s award, and Black Harlem basked in the historic occasion, erupting in excitement at the victory of one of their very own.
That night, the Hamilton Lodge served its original purpose as the black Queens took center stage.
Hamilton Lodge 710 is the first example of a venue hosting drag parties, events, and masquerades. Billed initially as being of the “Grand United Order of Odd Fellows,” the lodge was a creation of a well-to-do class of African-Americans that sprang up in New York in the mid-19th century. The club’s story begins in 1842, when the Philomathean Institute, an organization of free black men in New York, petitioned for a lodge of Odd Fellows.
A Fraternal organization with origins in 18th century England, the order of Odd Fellows believed in and advocated for “Odd” Fellowship. This belief championed a non-partisan view of fellowship involving individuals of all races, ethnicities, and sexualities. When their request was denied in New York due to their race, Peter Ogden, a black sailor, went to England to receive formal permission from the board to begin the organization. Of the 22 separate lodges launched under Peter’s leadership, Hamilton Lodge 710 of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows officially opened its doors in February 1844.
Though law enforcement historically sought to end such masquerades, police officers in Harlem worked to officiate the balls.
Though it’s unclear why the Lodge began hosting drag balls and masquerades, the more progressive stance about members of the Lodge may have attracted individuals to the organization in search of a place where their identities were not explicitly taboo. By the late 1860s, balls were well underway, and newspapers noted the occasions for not only their “bizarre” nature, but their organization and formality.
In a March 1886 article in the New York Freeman, the writer commended the masquerade as credible and organized. Prof. Green, described as wearing a gaudy Turkish dress, commented on not only the formality of the reception, but its diversity.
The writer’s allusion that the costumes at that year’s event, eclipsing those at similar white events, points to the presence of other houses and organizations that may have held drag balls in New York in the latter 19th century. The New York Freeman’s categorization of the ball as the “event of the season” and the generally positive tone of the paper also shed light on why New York was the perfect city for Hamilton Lodge to spread its wings fully. Coming into the 20th century, on the heels of the Great Migration, Lodge 710 was well underway to becoming the place to be as far as Drag Balls were concerned.
The arrival of millions of African-Americans to New York to escape growing persecution in the Jim Crow South spelled prosperity for the Lodge. Its location was perfect as the Harlem Renaissance came underway. The cultural zeitgeist that swept through black Harlem promoted an atmosphere where for the first time, queerness was not forced into the closet but allowed room to breathe, grow and even prosper.
This culture birthed performers like Gladys Bentley, an openly lesbian blues singer who sang explicitly about sex with other women in a white tux and top hat. The Ubangi Club of Harlem featured a full chorus line of drag queens, and openly gay writer Richard Bruce Nugent wrote and published his book Smoke, Lilies, and Jade, which dealt candidly with bisexuality and interracial romantic desire.
Beyond the Harlem renaissance, relaxed social mores were a fixture of the 1920s following prohibition-era restrictions. People rebelled openly against society’s long-held notions of sex, sexuality, and race. Hamilton Lodge, described as an “ultra-modern” structure offering a sweeping view of Lower Manhattan, an entrance of tri-colored marble, and two passenger elevators of the “latest” safety devices, became the perfect venue for the change sweeping the nation.
By the mid-1920s, New York papers like the New York Age regularly covered the Lodge’s events. Hamilton Lodge attracted an incredibly diverse crowd of individuals, and in a March 5, 1927, article, it was noted that “Nordic contestants mixed freely with their dark skin brethren.” Asian participants also took part in the festivities. The formality of the balls at Hamilton Lodge is perhaps best noted by the police presence at the events. Though law enforcement historically sought to end such masquerades, police officers in Harlem worked to officiate the balls. They arrested troublemakers and kept angry and boisterous crowds at bay.
By the mid-30s, a new administration began looking to end the famed ball. Officers, who once helped officiate the balls, began arresting participants and guests on charges of indecency, vagrancy, or female impersonation.
As the 20s drew to a close, thousands of people from all over the United States made a yearly trek to Harlem in March to experience the balls in person. Despite Hamilton’s black origins, most of the ball’s participants were noticeably white by that point. In an era where women like Mae West, Clara Bow, Greta Garbo, and Jean Harlow graced a silver screen out of reach for black women, their likeness permeated the ball’s aesthetic.
The Afro-American paper noted in April 1932 that Black queens preferred blonde wigs. This Eurocentric ideal of beauty made it so that, though routine participants, black Queens were typically shut out from winning pageants. After a nearly 70-year-long rivalry between Black and white queens for the trophy, Jean La Marr’s win represented a significant victory in the pageant’s history. Described as brown-skinned with almond-shaped eyes, a stunning smile, nifty feet, and very effeminate mannerisms, Jean La Marr took home first prize in 1936, and black Harlem was understandably prideful.
1936 wasn’t just significant because of La Marr’s win, but because, by the mid-30s, a new administration in New York concerned with vice began looking to end the famed ball. Officers, who once helped officiate the balls, began arresting participants and guests on charges of indecency, vagrancy, or female impersonation. In a country reeling from the effects of the Great Depression, events full of men parading as women became public indecency and had to be put to an end. Following the election of a new district attorney, the Harlem Lodge held its final drag ball in 1937.
The Hamilton Lodge Ball was a beacon of black creativity, freedom, and expression in post-slavery America. The lodge fostered an atmosphere where Black drag queens could find solace in the company of others like themselves. The Hamilton Lodge of Odd Fellows, a black fraternity built on the idea of an accepting and diverse fraternity, was the perfect vessel for creating solidarity where people of a colorful array of identities and personalities could carve out a reality where they could be themselves unapologetically.
Cheryl King hosts an original spin on Valentine’s Day – Blue Valentines. This celebration of love and its opposite will feature stories of love gone wrong (and right). Join us for comedy, burlesque, song and dance routines, and magic as we celebrate couplehood and singlehood. Featuring new comedy routines from the mind of Cheryl King, plus new sexy routines from Malia Abayon, Titus Androgynous, The Phoenix Dancers, singer/songwriter Karenna Slade, and The Forbidden Magician. Adult-oriented material, for those 18+. Parental guidance is suggested. Tickets $20 in advance, $25 at the door.
Time & Location
Feb 10, 2024, 7:30 PM – 9:30 PM
The California, 528 7th St, Santa Rosa, CA 95401, USA
Alongside bans on gender-affirming care for minors and bans on teaching LGBTQ+ topics in public schools, the state enacted a law that also requires school districts to “at a minimum” prohibit trans students from using restrooms that align with their gender identity, and mandates that schools staff out LGBTQ+ students to their guardians.
But something else significant happened in Kentucky in 2023: The state swore in its first-ever transgender elected official. Even more significant, she was sworn in to her local school board.
Rebecca Blankenship has been a member of the Berea Independent School District’s board of education for one year now and is still the only out transgender person who’s ever been elected to any office in Kentucky. Moreover, during her time in the position, the state legislature has “forced us to implement policies that turn our stomachs,” she says.
While this may seem like a cause for despair, Blankenship isn’t losing focus. Despite the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation being pumped out by state lawmakers, there are pro-LGBTQ+ measures she believes are capable of passing in the state. More importantly, there is no law the Kentucky Legislature can pass that bans basic kindness.
“Our Berea board would have loved to stand up for LGBT kids. Our state legislature, though, which is completely power mad, completely out of control, wants to come into small communities and dictate how we are going to treat each other,” Blankenship tells The Advocate. “They have forced us to implement policies that turn our stomachs, but what they cannot do is force teachers, and school staff, and bus drivers, and everybody who does their job because of the kids, to start treating those kids with cruelty or disrespect.”
“The legislature cannot ban their kindness,” she adds.
While a spate of anti-LGBTQ+ laws has gone through in the state – the majority of which target transgender minors – there’s one policy Blankenship is pushing for that could protect trans kids, and its approval is showing “early promise.” The initiative? Ban conversion therapy within the state of Kentucky. The strategy? Highlight anti-transgender hypocrisy.
Three local governments in the state have passed ordinances banning the draconian practice, but none have enforced them, Blankenship claims. This has helped “increase the pressure on the state legislature [to say] that they need to take action, so that they can’t just leave this to somebody else.”
“Another thing that has helped us increase interest in doing this bill is that the legislature banned gender-affirming care for minors last year,” Blankenship notes. “They spent the whole year talking about how they wanted to ban unethical experimental medical treatments for LGBT youth. Well, here’s one. … I think that we’re really turning some heads with the idea that we need to be consistent.”
The Kentucky Legislature’s attacks on LGBTQ+ people have significant consequences, but they have also fostered a greater sense of community among queer people in the state. Blankenship says that lately more and more people have been inspired to get involved in local politics and even to run for office – particularly transgender people. In fact, the state may soon have its second transgender elected official and first trans representative if Emma Curtis wins her bid for the 93rd House District in Lexington.
Those are two of the biggest steps Blankenship believes people can take to support the trans community in a time where they’re under attack: run for office, and donate to those running for office who are LGBTQ+, or at least supportive of queer people. The third step is to “push their local party establishments and democratic powerhouses to do the same things: to endorse these candidates, to put money behind these candidates, to put effort behind these candidates.”
“The City Council and the school board are more important than the president,” Blankenship says. “Our local governments affect our lives so, so profoundly, and LGBT people have the same basic needs as everybody else. We pay rent, we drive on roads, we send our kids to school. … If we can all uplift each other, we can achieve a new kind of power. We can achieve a new kind of community and a new kind of politics that works for everybody.”
Enfranchising such candidates won’t just change policy nationally, she explains, but it will also “change hearts and minds locally,” as it “demonstrates that we have so much more in common with regular people, working people, than we have differences.”
“It’s not regular people who want to hurt us, it’s national organizations that try to co-opt religion to build power through hate,” Blankenship continues. “The fact that Kentucky’s first openly trans elected official didn’t come from a city, but from a little bitty mountain town, proves that the stereotype of queerphobic rural conservatives is just not the reality.”
She adds: “My election showed that this is something that can happen. … If a trans person can win here in Appalachian State hills, they can win anywhere.”
The CEOs of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, Snap, and Discord testified in the Senate on Wednesday to discuss the online exploitation of children. The discussion brought up the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a bipartisan bill that seeks to protect minors from online harm. But KOSA has come under fire from some LGBTQ+ activists and groups who fear that the bill will enable Republicans to block queer youth from seeing age-appropriate LGBTQ+ content online.
Laura Marquez-Garrett, an attorney with the Social Media Victims Law Center, says revisions to the bill have helped ensure that its current version will protect all kids and safeguard against potential misuse by anti-LGBTQ+ politicians. But Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, a nonprofit that protects people’s human rights in the digital age, says KOSA unconstitutionally violates free speech rights and will result in social media companies broadly censoring LGBTQ+ content rather than risking lawsuits from attorneys general.
It’s undeniable that social media can negatively impact mental health. Last year, the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory noting how the frequency and kinds of information shown to young people on social media can cause a “profound risk of harm” to their mental health.
“Children and adolescents on social media are commonly exposed to extreme, inappropriate, and harmful content, and those who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of poor mental health including experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety,” the Surgeon General’s report on Social Media and Youth Mental Health said. Social media’s content and design can also make some young people feel addicted to it, increasing body dysmorphia, low self-esteem, and even self-harming behaviors, the report added.
KOSA tries to remedy this by requiring online platforms to take measures to prevent recommending content that promotes mental health disorders (like eating disorders, drug use, self-harm, sexual abuse, and bullying) unless minors specifically search for such content. KOSA also requires platforms to limit features that result in compulsive usage — like autoplay and infinite scroll — or allow adults to contact or track young users’ location. The bill says platforms must provide parents with easy-to-use tools to safeguard their child’s social media settings and notify parents if their kids are exposed to potentially hazardous materials or interactions.
Furthermore, KOSA requires platforms to submit annual reports to the federal government containing details about their non-adult users, the internal steps they’ve taken to protect minors from online harms, the “concern reports” – or reports platforms issue parents when their child encounters any harmful content – they’ve issued to parents, and descriptions of interventions they’ve taken to mitigate harms to minors. These reports will be overseen by an independent third-party auditor who consults with parents, researchers, and youth experts on additional methods and best practices for safeguarding minors’ well-being online.
KOSA has bipartisan support, including that of President Joe Biden as well as 46 senatorial co-sponsors, 21 of whom are Democrats, including lesbian Sen. Tammy Baldwin (WI) and LGBTQ+ allies like Sen. Amy Klobuchar (MN) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA). LGBTQ Nation reached out to Baldwin and Warren’s offices for additional comment but didn’t receive a response by the time of publication. KOSA is also supported by groups like Common Sense Media, Fairplay, Design It For Us, Accountable Tech, Eating Disorders Coalition, American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
But while parents of transgender youth and numerous pro-LGBTQ+ organizations agree that social media can negatively impact young people’s mental health, many other groups have nonetheless opposed the bill, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the LGBT Technology Partnership, as well as LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations in six states.
“KOSA is, at its heart, a censorship bill,” Mandy Salley, Chief Operating Officer of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, a group that advocates for sexual freedom as a fundamental human right, told LGBTQ Nation. “If passed in its current form, we believe that KOSA will hinder the ability of everyone to access information online and negatively harm many communities that are already censored online, including sex therapists, sex workers, sex educators, and the broader LGBTQ+ community. Our human right to free expression cannot be ignored in favor of supposed ‘safety’ on the Internet.”
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The big sticking point: KOSA’s Duty of Care provision
Specifically, Woodhull and the other aforementioned organizations are worried about the bill’s Duty of Care provision that allows attorneys general to conduct investigations, issue subpoenas, require documentation from, and file civil lawsuits against any platforms that have “threatened or adversely affected” minors’ well-being. LGBTQ+ advocates fear that Republican attorneys general who consider LGBTQ+ identities as harmful forms of mental illness will use KOSA to censor such web content and prosecute platforms that provide access to such content.
In a July 2023 Teen Vogue op-ed, digital rights organizer Sarah Philips wrote that the bill “authorizes state attorneys general to be the ultimate arbiters of what is good or bad for kids. If a state attorney general asserts that information about gender-affirming care or abortion care could cause a child depression or anxiety, they could sue an app or website for not removing that content.”
It didn’t help that KOSA was introduced by anti-LGBTQ+ Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who has said that one of the bill’s top priorities is to protect children from “the transgender in this culture.”
“[Social media] is where children are being indoctrinated,” Blackburn told the Family Policy Alliance, a conservative Christian organization, in a September 2023 speech. “They’re hearing things at school and then they’re getting onto YouTube to watch a video and all of a sudden this comes to them… They click on something and, the next thing you know, they’re being inundated with it.”
Blackburn’s office told LGBTQ Nation that her comment had been “taken out of context” and wasn’t related to KOSA, stating, “KOSA will not — nor was it designed to — target or censor any individual or community.” But the anti-LGBTQ+ conservative think tank Heritage Foundation has also said it wishes to use the law to “guard” kids against the “harms of… transgender content.”
But Marquez-Garrett told LGBTQ Nation that these concerns are based on an old version of the bill that has since been revised after consultation with concerned LGBTQ+ activists.
“If [the possibility of an attorney general misusing a law is] the standard by which we judge all laws, we’re never going to have new laws because the reality is an unscrupulous attorney general can try,” she said. “But it doesn’t mean they’re going to succeed.”
First, she points out that Philips’s concern about attorney generals suing platforms for not removing pro-LGBTQ+ content doesn’t necessarily apply for two reasons: KOSA doesn’t regulate what LGBTQ+ or allegedly harmful content a site can host — it regulates what content that websites automatically suggest to young users. Users of all ages can still access any material that they deliberately search for.
Moreover, attorneys general have to prove to a judge and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that, by KOSA’s definitions, LGBTQ+ content harms young users’ mental health. Such arguments won’t pass muster with every judge or FTC commissioner.
Marquez-Garret noted that after Sen. Blackburn made her concerning comments, the bill was revised with input from queer advocates and reintroduced with amendments meant to account for those concerns. For example, while the original bill broadly required web platforms to prevent all “harms” to minors, the revised bill specifically mentions the harms companies must work against (including suicidal behaviors, eating disorders, substance use, sexual exploitation, and ads for tobacco and alcohol).
She also notes that KOSA says an attorney general who begins civil actions under KOSA will be required to issue a report of any action to the FTC. The FTC will then have the right to intervene.
“The FTC is only as good as the people running it,” Marquez-Garrett told LGBTQ Nation. “And we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future.” But, assuming that the FTC is “not nefarious and is reasonable,” she continued, if the FTC begins an investigation into the actions, the attorney general’s home state is forbidden from taking any additional actions.
Marquez-Garrett also points out that the revised version of KOSA contains a carveout that says that if a minor searches for any sort of content, including LGBTQ+ content, then they’re allowed to see it even if an attorney general considers it harmful. Additionally, KOSA also explicitly excludes many websites from its control, including government platforms, libraries, and non-profits. That means if a minor finds pro-LGBTQ+ content on the websites of the ACLU, The Trevor Project, or the Human Rights Campaign, an attorney general can’t prosecute.
Furthermore, under the revised KOSA, websites aren’t required to install age verification or parental consent functionality that might prevent young people from accessing different platforms. Though Greer questioned how social media platforms can comply with the bill without conducting age verification, Marquez-Garrett says Greer’s question ignores KOSA’s plain language and echoes “another Big Tech narrative about Big Tech’s ability or inability to comply with KOSA.”
Regardless, under KOSA, platforms are also expressly forbidden from being required to disclose a minor’s browsing behavior, search history, messages, contact list, or other content or metadata of their communications that could potentially out them to their parents.
“We totally agree that big tech platforms and the surveillance capitalist business model that they employ are doing real harm, and that they’re specifically harming LGBTQ people and communities,” Greer, director of Fight for the Future (FFF), told LGBTQ Nation. “But as long as KOSA attempts to dictate what content platforms can recommend, it will be unconstitutional.”
FFF and the ACLU have said that the government cannot force platforms to suppress entire categories of content or to suppress all content that might lead to a minor becoming depressed or anxious without violating the First Amendment.
Greer said that legislators behind KOSA should have consulted more with civil liberties and human rights advocates, like her organization and the ACLU, to consider a bill’s potential constitutional and human rights pitfalls.
Marquez-Garrett disagrees with Greer’s characterization, telling LGBTQ Nation, “KOSA does not prohibit content of any sort, nor does it prohibit posting of any content by third parties, so does not run afoul of the First Amendment.”
Apart from the constitutionality issue, Greer most worries that if social companies are subjected to liability for content, they will over-remove content to avoid getting sued. “This is exactly what happened with SESTA,” she said, referencing two bipartisan laws passed in 2018 that sought to reduce sex trafficking online.
Because the law held online companies liable for any user content that could be seen as facilitating sex work, many online businesses just opted to shut down any forums for sex or dating. Others banned any potential “adult content” (including discussion boards), deleted content about avoiding sexually transmitted infections, and created rules forbidding sexual comments. The law made sex workers much more vulnerable to traffickers and made actual sex trafficking much more difficult to track, its critics say. Even Sen. Warren, who supported the law, expressed regret for its unintended consequences.
“Do I think that Mark Zuckerberg is going to go to bat in court to protect my kid’s ability to continue engaging in the online communities that she finds supportive and loving and caring? Absolutely not,” Greer said. “He’s gonna roll over and do whatever he thinks he needs to do to avoid his company getting sued,” she added, especially if they’re threatened by “rogue” attorneys general, conservative judges, or an FTC run by the administration of Donald Trump.
“Do people really want to gamble with trans kids’ lives hoping that we’ll never have a bigot in the White House ever again? I sure don’t,” Greer added.
In an informational white paper, FFF said that if a user searches for “Why do I feel different from other boys,” and a platform returns search results about gender identity, an attorney general can argue that that’s not what the user was searching for, and thus the platform is liable for “algorithmically recommending” that content.
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Is there a way to fix KOSA’s potential problems?
If KOSA becomes law, social media companies won’t risk attracting these attorneys’ attention, Greer and other groups worry. Instead, the companies will react by omitting, algorithmically suppressing, or blocking large swaths of LGBTQ+ content — not just “recommended” served by platform algorithms.
This would affect not only content related to LGBTQ+ issues and other controversial but important topics for users they believe could be minors (including content from The Trevor Project or the Human Rights Campaign, Greer says), but also any users’ or resources’ posts sharing information about queer health resources, life experiences, and social events, Greer predicted, since all social media content is regulated by algorithms.
“I truly believe that legislation [like KOSA] that enables this type of government censorship makes kids less safe, and not more safe,” Greer says. “It feels to me like it’s driven by the same bad thinking behind abstinence-only sex education: the idea that we protect kids by cutting them off from information rather than by allowing them to access it.”
Marquez-Garrett disagrees. “KOSA is plain on its face, and efforts to misinterpret KOSA will not succeed. If a conservative attorney general could simply attack a type of content it doesn’t like, then liberal attorneys general could do the same, such as with guns, or political content, or any number of potentially objectionable topics. And KOSA’s own limitations would provide complying platforms with viable defenses.”
But instead of supporting KOSA in its current form, FFF has encouraged legislators to ditch its Duty of Care provision and replace it with a strict privacy regime that bans any use of minors’ personal data to power algorithmic recommendation systems. The FFF also suggested explicitly prohibiting specific manipulative business practices, like autoplay, infinite scroll, intrusive notifications, and surveillance advertising.
Lawmakers should also drop the provision in KOSA allowing enforcement by attorneys general, the FFF suggests. Instead, its provisions could be enforced by the FTC as “unfair or deceptive business practices,” which the FTC already has a mandate to crack down on. This would aid the law’s constitutionality and bring the law into the realm of regulating these businesses the same way that the federal government already regulates many other businesses.
Some social media platforms and influencers are opposed to any government oversight, Marquez-Garrett says, because policies that limit what their algorithms can recommend also reduce their overall content engagement and, thus, their profits.
Currently, social media platforms aren’t protecting LGBTQ+ kids, she adds. A minor who searches for “gay pride” may be served videos telling them that being gay is bad and that gay people are going to hell and should kill themselves. Platforms also regularly remove LGBTQ+ content for allegedly violating platform policies or potentially offending users in other countries.
She believes that KOSA could help open the playing field for platforms that don’t harmfully target kids because any such actions will become a matter of public record and scrutiny. This will allow ethical web designers to create better systems that protect children’s needs. That’s especially important, she said, since numerous studies have shown that access to positive online LGBTQ+ media and communities can improve young queers’ mental health.
Ultimately, she believes that everyone should support protecting children, especially as more studies show how negative online experiences can increase mental distress and suicidality among kids.
“We cannot give big tech a free pass and assume they have our kids’ best interests at heart,” she said.
Two gay elders have opened their home and lives to a slew of foster children since they retired. So far, they have fostered 33 kids and have no intention of stopping any time soon.
Their first placement was a six-year-old boy and his nine-year-old sister. The siblings stayed with the couple for a year.
Swiis Foster Care clients Barney and Rajainder spoke to Pink News about the challenges and rewards of being foster parents.
“As the main carer, I decided that emergency and respite care would be more suitable to our lifestyle. Obviously, emergency and respite care entails a high turnover of placements, which can last anywhere from 24 hours to a few months,” Barney told the outlet.
“We have cared for children and young people from the age of six to 17 years old over the past four years, so needs, routines, interventions, and boundaries change constantly.”
He added, “Whatever the day brings, providing a constant calm, safe, and caring environment is paramount.”
The rewards are obvious, they say. The goal is to provide the children with the safety and encouragement to handle the adversity life has thrown at them.
“Some children and young people come to us in a state of chaos, with low self-esteem and confidence, and they leave with increased confidence and self-esteem, having learned age-appropriate, independent living skills to help them move further in life,” Barney said.
They encouraged other queer couples to consider becoming foster parents too. There are approximately 391,000 children in foster care in the United States, and every state needs loving individuals who are willing to open their homes to kids in need.
“I can only assume that many from the LGBTQ+ community who are concerned that their sexual orientation or identity would be a barrier to fostering associate their concern with negative attitudes that still exist in society,” Barney said.
“For us, the positive outcomes that can and have been achieved for the vulnerable children and young people we have cared for far outweigh any concern we have for narrow-minded, intolerant individuals.”
Rivule Sykes announced their candidacy Monday for U.S. House in the Fifth Congressional District of Louisiana, launching a campaign that they say aims to bring “people’s attention to the issues we all face together.”
As a transgender woman who is a member of Gen Z, Sykes says they understand how both groups are “uniquely” challenged in the country today. With previous experience in property management, working as a resident assistant, and being a lighting designer technician, they also have a deep interest in the policies affecting the average American worker.
“There are broad common ground issues that are affecting all of us. Living through or the threat of poverty and income inequality, workers’ rights, the industrial prison complex, corporate greed, and lack of access to health care, to name a few,” they tell The Advocate, adding, “So when we talk about those issues, I can add in how LGBTQ+ people are often uniquely affected by them.”
While Gen Z are proven to be more progressive than previous generations, candidates still regularly struggle to reach younger voters. Part of this, Sykes says, is because they don’t see themselves represented. There is currently only one Gen Z member of Congress, and many racial/ethnic groups are disproportionately underrepresented across the nation. Beyond that, many of them do not see themselves economically represented.
“Gen Z and Alpha are facing a future of such wealth inequality across the board. Millennials as well. Over half of each of those generations that are working age still live with family, as do I technically,” Sykes explains, continuing, “I’ve had my viewpoints completely invalidated by people who don’t think I’m responsible or ‘grown up’ just because I don’t own my own house yet. And that is harmful to not only our generation but our democracy.”
Sykes’s platform aims to bridge these gaps, focusing largely on worker’s rights and economic growth through policies that benefit people before profit. Their plans for housing and urban development policies include affordable housing, anti-gentrification, and homeownership assistance programs.
They are also a proponent of universal health care and expanded access to mental health services. Sykes promotes education funding and development, including teacher support programs. Their advocacy for workers’ rights doesn’t stop at educators — the candidate is also in favor of raising the minimum wage and developmental programs that would support small businesses.
Hailing from the small towns of Hammond and Holden, Sykes has firsthand experience of wealthy state policymakers overlooking rural and low-income communities. They say that this “lack of diverse representation affects all of us,” as “when the majority of politicians come from wealthy backgrounds, they are less likely to vote in favor of policies that will help the most poor and vulnerable of our generation.”
“There needs to be diversity in our representation when it comes to who forms our policy,” they continue. “While older politicians are valuable for the experience they have and the knowledge of our systems, we need younger policymakers to inform on new perspectives and bring energy for action and change.”
Sykes is an advocate for systemic change in both government and the criminal justice system. Alongside transparency and restrictions on lobbying, they also seek the abolition of bail and the private prison industry in Louisiana in favor of restorative justice systems. Their lobbying restrictions are particularly significant, as Sykes cites the practice as one of the causes behind young people’s disillusionment.
“Some of the traditional action that we’ve been told is effective just isn’t getting through to our politicians, and that’s because of corporate lobbying,” they explain, adding, “So, we’re seeing that inequality not only in wealth but also in representation of voice.”
Sykes is running in the state’s Fifth Congressional District, which is currently represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow. Louisiana elections use the majority-vote system, meaning candidates all compete in the same primary regardless of party, and a candidate can win outright if they receive over 50 percent of the vote. If a candidate does not win at least half of the votes, the top two advance to the general election.
Sykes is running as a third-party candidate in “a traditionally heavily Republican district.” Because of this, they say that “knowledge of electoral politics would inform my chances of getting elected as slim to none.”
While they are aware it’s an uphill battle, they believe that the purpose of political campaigns goes beyond winning and losing — instead, they can serve as an opportunity to shed a light on important issues while uplifting marginalized voices.
“That is one of the biggest reasons I am running, even if I don’t get elected. We need more representation in our choices,” Sykes explains. “But I do feel like I have a lot of those unique perspectives. And I feel like I am well informed on a lot of the issues we are facing collectively. And collectively, the majority of us are working class and poor, and we need more people in Congress who understand that struggle.”
They add, “At the end of the day, my campaign isn’t about electing me, it’s about bringing people’s attention to the issues we all face together, and coming together to form community-focused solutions that won’t leave anyone behind.”
