The bodies of a gay couple were discovered yesterday after a weeklong search following a police officer’s arrest for their murder.
New South Wales cop and aspiring social media influencer Beau Lamarre-Condon, 28, was charged with killing Jesse Baird, 26 – a former TV presenter whom Lamarre-Condon had casually dated until recently – and Baird’s boyfriend, Luke Davies, 29, a Qantas flight attendant.
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The victims’ bodies were found Tuesday stuffed inside surfboard bags and buried in a bush grave.
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Now leadership at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade have disinvited NSW Police from marching at the signature Mardi Gras event on Saturday.
“Having the NSW Police march this year could add to the distress within our communities, already deeply affected by recent events.”
Parade officials added, “This decision was not made lightly.”
Lamarre-Condon was arrested Friday after he turned himself in at Bondi police station, following a widely publicized search to locate the missing couple.
The NSW senior constable did not apply for bail and remains in protective custody.
Police say Lamarre-Condon shot and killed Baird and Davies at Baird’s home the previous Monday.
On Wednesday, following the discovery of blood-soaked clothing belonging to the victims in a Sydney suburb dumpster, investigators discovered “a large amount of blood” at Baird’s home, according to detective superintendent Daniel Doherty, who spoke to a packed news conference on Friday.
Police also found a single bullet that was a ballistic match for Lamarre-Condon’s own police-issued firearm.
Authorities asked for help from the public tracking a white van that they believe Lamarre-Condon used to transport and dispose of Baird and Davies’ bodies.
Still, the couple’s whereabouts remained unknown.
Then on Tuesday, police discovered the two men’s bodies, which they say Lamarre-Condon stuffed in surf bags and buried sometime between Wednesday night and Thursday morning in a remote area in the Southern Tablelands southwest of Sydney, close to a fence line and partially hidden by rocks and debris.
In addition to his day job as a Sydney cop, Lamarre-Condon’s social media revealed he was a celebrity-obsessed wannabe influencer who managed to project an online image of wealth and privilege despite his modest policeman’s salary.
Photos on his Instagram account, which has since been shut down, show Lamarre-Condon sipping champagne on private jets and posing in exotic tropical destinations, as well as on Mediterranean beaches dressed in designer-label outfits.
He also boasted selfies with multiple celebrities, including Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Lady Gaga and New Zealand singer Lorde. According to the Daily Mail, earlier this month Lamarre-Condon successfully snapped a pic with Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker.
For decades, LGBTQ+ people have been explicitly banned from Staten Island’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, with organizers claiming the policy is justified based on the teachings of the Catholic Church. After endless battles to make the parade more inclusive, activists have taken a different approach this year and will host their own separate LGBTQ+-inclusive parade.
The inclusive event will take place on March 17th, about two weeks after the original parade.
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“We join the overwhelming majority of our neighbors in expressing our relief at the news that an inclusive St. Patricks’ Day parade will finally be held on Staten Island,” Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon said in a joint statementwith Michael Cusick, CEO of the Staten Island Economic Development Corporation and Staten Island Zoo CEO Ken Mitchell.
“We look forward to once again donning our green, sharing perhaps a pint of Guinness, and kicking off a St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Staten Island that will not exclude participants based on who they are or who they love.”
McMahon has boycotted the parade in the past, as has New York City Mayor Eric Adams, due to its exclusionary policy.
A statement from Adams’s team also indicated he’d be participating in the March 17th event.
“From day one, Mayor Adams has been clear that celebrations in our city should be welcoming and inclusive. That is why we are thrilled to be collaborating with the Staten Island Business Outreach Center for their first-ever St Patrick’s Day parade this year where everyone interested – regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity, race, or beliefs – will be welcome to march together.”
The Staten Island parade is thought to be one of the only St. Patrick’s Day celebrations left in the world that still excludes LGBTQ+ people, according to the Staten Island Advance.
Carol Bullock, executive director of the Pride Center on Staten Island, told the publication, “I’m just so excited to walk down Forest Avenue in celebration of Irish heritage with The Pride Center banner.” Bullock has reportedly applied to join the original parade for years but has always been rejected.
In 2022, Bullock spoke about submitting her application in person to the president of the parade committee, Larry Cummings, who immediately placed it in the rejection pile when she handed it to him. He then did the same with applications from organizations supporting LGBTQ+ firefighters and officers.
“That made it a little more painful because you have F.D.N.Y. and N.Y.P.D. people who are protecting our community, but they can’t march in a parade,” Bullock told the New York Times.
But Cummings has long stood his ground.
“Our parade is for Irish heritage and culture,” Cummings reportedly told The Irish Voice in 2018. “It is not a political or sexual identification parade.”
In 2020, he maintained that position, griping at the Advance that “it’s a non-sexual identification parade and that’s that.”
According to the Times, parade organizers have not only been hostile to the participation of LGBTQ+ groups, but they have even physically removed folks from the parade who they felt supported LGBTQ+ people. In the past, they have also banned individual people from participating.
In 2020, Miss Staten Island, Madison L’Insalata, couldn’t march because she came out as bisexual, and Republican City Councilman Joseph Borelli was barred by parade marshals because he had a rainbow pin on his jacket.
“They physically blocked me, my wife, and two boys in strollers,” Borelli said at the time, adding, “I didn’t come with it looking for an argument. My friends handed a pin to me. I really didn’t think it was a big affront to the Irish.”
But activists are thrilled that this year there will finally be a place for everyone to celebrate.
Bullock told the New York Times, “I am so happy we have taken this parade back for the Staten Island community.”
The theater lights are about to dim at Prayer for the French Republic, a new Broadway play that tracks the journey of a Jewish family in Paris from World War II through the 2017 French presidential election and the country’s rise in antisemitism. My companion leans over and asks earnestly, “Why do the Jews get a country and no other religion?”
Playwright Joshua Harmon’s cast of characters debates the question for nearly three hours, as do we over post-show cocktails. I suggest, perhaps with a bit of earnest strain in my voice, that it might have something to do with millennia of persecution, from the biblical story of Exodus and the pogroms of the Russian Empire to a CNN poll indicating that a third of Europeans believe Jews use the Holocaust to advance their own positions or goals. But does that give the Jewish people a right to land also claimed sacred by Palestinians?
I was born and raised Jewish — jumping through the Bar Mitzvah and confirmation hoops and celebrating the High Holy Days with requisite challah and subsequent fasting. I visited Israel in 2015 for Tel Aviv Pride, thinking I’d feel an immediate kinship with my fellow Jews.
I didn’t.
While I fell in love with the city, pulsating with the youthful sun-kissed glow of tech millennials, I didn’t feel any more “Jewish.” Upon my return home, I resided myself to the fact that my Russian and Polish ancestral roots — pale skin, receding hairline, perpetually nervous stomach — was my lot in life, and my desire for a larger sense of community needed to be cultivated from within.
Tel Aviv Pride. Photo by Matthew Wexler
Though rarely asked before the horrific Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, and subsequent retaliation by Israeli forces that has left upward of 22,000 Palestinians dead, I would describe myself as Jewish but not Zionist. But it’s not that simple.
In a recent interview with the New York Times, Anti-Defamation League chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt said, “Zionism is fundamental to Judaism,” comparing it to the civil rights movement by suggesting that to be anti-Zionist but not antisemitic is the equivalent of saying, “I’m against the civil rights movement, but I’m also against racism.”
The article’s author, Charles M. Blow, further dismantles the argument, questioning, “There are several forms of Zionism, and people in these debates rarely seem to be explicit about which form they are for or against. Political Zionism? Cultural Zionism? Religious Zionism? Some combination of them? Does it matter?”
I ask myself the same questions regarding my gay identity. Am I politically queer? Culturally queer?
In a recent interview with LGBTQ Nation, out actor Danny Kornfeld told me, “One of the things I love about the Jewish religion is the encouragement to ask questions, to say, ‘Why is this?’”
Barry Manilow’s “Harmony” unearths the story of a musical group impacted by Hitler’s Germany. Marginalized communities see the terrifying connection.
So I’m asking why.
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I’m asking how this near extermination came to be. And January 29, the anniversary of the Bear River Massacre that left hundreds of Native Americans. And June 12, when Omar Mateen killed 49 people and injured more than 50 at Pulse Nightclub. And on September 11, when I watched the plumes of smoke and disintegrated souls hover above lower Manhattan from my apartment window.
Depending on the algorithms of one’s digital search history, the day’s social media feed may be flooded with Holocaust-related content, or scrolling might look like any other, filled with reels and TikToks and stitches and tweets and posts. Made-up words and content that often pretends to be rooted in reality.
As nearly eight decades drive a wedge between World War II’s end and modern-day atrocities, it becomes increasingly harder for me to put on a happy face. Jews weren’t the only ones sent to the gas chambers. Under Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code, upwards of 15,000 gay men were deported to concentration camps, where many were subjected to medical experiments or castration and ultimately died.
Photos of arrested gay men under Paragraph 175 of Germany’s Penal Code circa World War II. Schwules Museum, Berlin. Photo by Matthew Wexler.
My identity on this particular day leaves me feeling vulnerable as I question what may become of us outliers in the years to come. But then I recall pot-stirring intellectual Susan Sontag, who wrote in 1964’s Notes on ‘Camp’: “Jews and homosexuals are the outstanding creative minorities in contemporary urban culture. Creative, that is, in the truest sense: they are creators of sensibilities. The two pioneering forces of modern sensibility are Jewish moral seriousness and homosexual aestheticism and irony.”
I could do worse than a modern sensibility and homosexual aesthetic. Yet a growing number of anti-LGBTQ+ laws threaten my very existence in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Happy? With a side of caution, yes, aware that we’re one small step away from history repeating itself.
It can be hard to follow what states are doing to attack (and sometimes protect) transgender people’s rights. Here are some stories from us and from around the web.
Ohio’s governor backs off his attempt to restrict gender-affirming care access for transgender adults and minors. (LGBTQ Nation)
West Virginia Republicans want to pass a “Women’s Bill of Rights” that contains no actual rights for women. Instead, the bill says that “equal” does not mean “same” or “identical” and bans trans people from using the correct bathroom. (AP)
A similar “Women’s Bill of Rights” bill made it out of committee in the Iowa legislature. (LGBTQ Nation)
Georgia Republicans introduced a “Women’s Bill of Rights” that would also end hate crimes protections for LGBTQ+ people in the state. (LGBTQ Nation)
Arizona Republicans have a bill to legally erase transgender people and ban trans women and girls from participating in school sports as their gender. (AZ Mirror)
Florida Democrats want the Biden administration to block the state’s new ban on transgender people correcting the gender markers on their ID. (LGBTQ Nation)
Virginia lawmakers voted to table all anti-transgender bills in their state, which included another “Women’s Bill of Rights,” a sports ban, and a bill to forcibly out transgender students to their parents. (Los Angeles Blade)
A transgender sports ban in Maryland was killed in committee. (Metro Weekly)
Tennessee Republican introduces a “detransitioner bill of rights.” (News Channel 9)
Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine warned of “medical refugees” being forced to travel from their home states to other states to get access to gender-affirming and reproductive health care. (Politico)
Kansas’s attorney general is telling public schools to out transgender students to their parents. (LGBTQ Nation)
A Colorado Democrat proposed a law that would require teachers to use their students’ correct names and pronouns. (LGBTQ Nation)
A bill to ban the Pride flag from Oklahoma state premises passed a committee vote. (KJHR)
Indiana launched an anti-LGBTQ+ tip line to combat “political ideology” in schools. Online activists flooded it with memes. (LGBTQ Nation)
Since he moved from Atlanta in 2012, Detroit native Kevin Heard has been devoted to one ambitious goal: creating opportunity for LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs to succeed in the challenging business environment of Motor City.
“I didn’t see or was aware of a professional LGBTQ community. I wanted to cultivate that,” Heard told The Detroit News. “I saw a need for organizations that have a fiscal responsibility, voice for and advocate for LGBT-owned businesses. I also felt as though it’s really important to possibly and intentionally curate an LGBT business district within the city of Detroit, like all major metropolitan areas across the nation have.”
She faces off against Trump’s hand-picked election-denier, MAGA Republican Matthew DePerno.
So Heard founded the Detroit LGBT Regional Chamber of Commerce, which has distributed thousands of dollars to up-and-coming small businesses and entrepreneurs to pay for leases, buy equipment, and scale their dreams. Recent contracts for members include a Ford Motor Co. agreement and a pending contract with the NFL Draft when it comes to Detroit in April.
One chamber member is coffee house Eastside Roasterz, a passion project from Tiffany and Riss Dezort, who moved from Washington, D.C., where the LGBTQ+ population is three times higher than in Detroit.
It was a culture shock.
“When it comes to building a business with all of that in mind, that’s really what we went to Kevin for. ‘Hey, would you have a better understanding of queerness and business crossover and how to navigate that here in Michigan?” Riss Dezort said.
The Dezorts have earned over $35,000 in business grants from Michigan organizations, but the biggest boost came from the LGBT Chamber, which provided a 12-week accelerator program and mentorship in navigating the business environment in Detroit.
Members of the LGBT Chamber include Corktown Health, La Feria + Cata Vino, Welcome Home Yoga and Wellness, and the Dezort’s Eastside Roasterz, which supplies coffee for BasBlue, Sister Pie, and Next Chapter Books. The coffee spot also offers wholesale coffee purchases online and operates pop-up shops.
Heard offered, “I’m looking at this as an opportunity to bring more great, innovative young people who would like to stay and live in the state of Michigan. To be inclusive of that, to know that this is a space that people can start their families regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity expression.”
“Discrimination is bad for business… we know this to be true,” out Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said recently at a town hall for the LGBT Chamber. “This is not wishful thinking… the more inclusive we are, the more we do to reach out to all communities, the better it is for business in our state.”
People want to live in a place “that will treat them equally and fairly, where they know that they won’t be discriminated against in all different areas of their life,” Nessel said.
But obstacles remain, Heard says.
“The barriers in which LGBT people get when it comes to businesses are the gatekeepers at traditional banks that are maybe homophobic, may have their unconscious biases in when looking at or actually meeting the candidate. They look great on paper, but they don’t like their lifestyle, and that has been honestly one of the biggest barriers.”
Part of the Chamber’s mission, Heard said, is showing LGBTQ+ people in spaces “other than just the typical bar-hopping, Pride parades.”
“We are in every industry, every level of an organization,” Heard said, “and we own more than bakery shops and bars.”
A landmark ruling by a Pennsylvania court could set crucial precedent for child custody decisions when LGBTQ+ couples separate or divorce.
Nicole Junior and Chanel Glover went through the entire IVF process together, splitting the massive costs to help Glover get pregnant, co-signing contracts, and establishing Junior as the intended co-parent, according to a report from the Philadelphia Inquirer. They had also been working on paperwork for Junior to obtain a second-parent adoption.
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But the couple experienced trouble in their marriage when Glover was about halfway through the pregnancy. Once Junior moved out, Glover declared she wanted to be a single mom and that Junior would not be allowed any contact with the baby.
The court, however, decided Glover had no right to make that decision.
Junior petitioned to be recognized as the baby’s parent, and the judge agreed that she deserved to be, as the couple had participated in the conception of the baby together.
Glover accused Junior of emotional abuse and volatile behavior, but Junior denied the accusations. The judge said accusations of abuse also do not have bearing on parental rights and could be discussed in a future custody hearing.
Glover appealed the judge’s decision just before the baby was born, and in August 2023, a panel of nine judges on the Pennsylvania Superior Court unanimously determined that Junior deserved full co-parental rights due to the couple’s “intent-based parentage.”
The decision declared, “The couple not only evidenced their mutual intent to conceive and raise the child, but they also participated jointly in the process of creating a new life.”
The decision is considered a victory by LGBTQ+ advocates, who praised the court for thinking beyond marriage and genetic connections for what makes someone a parent – especially as the number of LGBTQ+ people using assisted reproductive technologies continues to rise.
Helen Casale, a fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, told the Inquirer the state now has precedent for judges to take into account the decisions and actions that lead to a child’s birth.
“How did they come to this determination to plan this family together?” Casale explained. “Did they go to doctors appointments? Did they make decisions related to the type of person who’s going to be the sperm donor?”
Attorney Mark A. Momjian described the suit as a “multigenerational legal battle to confirm civil rights in the LGBTQ community.”
Grover is now trying to get the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to take the case. According to Inquirer, she said someone contributing money to the IVF process is not enough to show intent, and if it were, her mom could claim parental rights as well.
“My mom was at the majority of my doctors appointments, majority of my son’s pediatrician appointments. My mom has done more,” Grover said.
But Junior has desperately been trying to be part of the child’s life. She has yet to meet her son or even see a photo of him since he was born.
The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) has paused enforcement of lewd conduct regulations following outcry over raids conducted late last month at multiple Seattle LGBTQ+ bars.
The Stranger reports that the LCB sent a letter last Thursday to state officials informing them of the pause. The board also announced that it would not issue citations for any violations reported by officers during the raids and that it has paused its participation in the city’s Joint Enforcement Team (JET), the coalition of police, fire, and other departments that conducted the January raids.
“Since LCB’s participation last week with the City of Seattle Joint Enforcement Team (JET) on Capitol Hill and additional enforcement work Saturday at some historically gay venues in the greater Seattle area, the agency has become acutely aware of the fear and alarm it raised within the LGBTQ+ community,” the February 1 letter read. “At Wednesday’s Board meeting and in many private conversations, we heard strong objections to our actions. The community expressed concerns that LGBTQ+ venues are being targeted and that the LCB did not understand the troubling history of such enforcement or the value of these clubs as a safe place for people who often face discrimination, threats, and violence.”
The LCB said that it would present a proposal to change the lewd conduct rules at its February 6 caucus and vote on the proposal next week.
The raids, conducted over the January 26 weekend, sparked outrage in Seattle’s LGBTQ+ community and drew national attention. Shortly after midnight on January 27, ten JET task force members enter LGBTQ+ bar The Cuff wielding flashlights, according to owner Joey Burgess, causing patrons to leave the venue in fright. All they discovered was a bartender with his nipple visible. According to The Stranger, JET also raided two other LGBTQ+ venues, Neighbours Nightclub and The Lumberyard, on the same night.
The following evening, two JET members entered the Eagle at around 11:30 p.m., where they found patrons wearing jockstraps. They also reportedly photographed patrons.
Both the Cuff bartender’s exposed nipple and the Eagle patrons’ jockstraps were cited as violations of LCB’s rules prohibiting “lewd conduct” in venues that serve liquor. Meanwhile, Washington state has no other laws restricting public nudity. As Eater Seattle notes, you can wear a G-string outside in a public park but not in a bar.
According to The Stranger, during a recent meeting with the LCB, the state Senate LGBTQ caucus made it clear they wanted changes to the regulation.
“As the only openly LGBTQ member of the board, I take that role and responsibility seriously,” said LCB Board member Jim Vollendroff. “I made a commitment to the Legislature to see this through and to hold the Board accountable. To make long-lasting change to make sure this doesn’t occur in the future, long after the leadership that’s in place now changes.”
State Sen. Jamie Pedersen (D), the out gay majority floor leader, saidlawmakers are working to repeal the “lewd conduct” regulation.
Meanwhile, Seattle’s LGBTQ+ community cheered the LCB’s announcement.
“This is a huge victory for queer people, queer spaces, and queer self-expression,” a group of club owners said in a statement.
“The relief that I have–that I no longer have to strip away queer culture and honestly people’s right to be themselves on behalf of an agency that’s threatening our liquor license–is probably one of the most gratifying things in my career, period,” Cuff and Queer/Bar owner Joey Burgess told The Stranger. “I feel like a ton of bricks are off me, and that heading into this weekend people can feel safe and good about themselves.”
Stephanie Vigil, a queer Colorado state legislator, flipped her district from Republican to Democrat. Now, she’s ready to make some other changes.
While the GOP has launched repeated attacks on transgender students nationwide, a local effort to prevent teachers from asking a teenager about their preferred pronouns has spawned a response from Vigil.
She’s introduced a bill requiring teachers to use a student’s preferred name in the classroom. Deadnaming a trans student would be considered discrimination.
“Making sure that we can create space for them to be seen and heard as their true self is very important,” said Nadine Bridges, the executive director of One Colorado, told the local news after the bill was introduced. “It’s a great opportunity to kind of create equity and inclusion in schools.”
A controversial effort by a school board that would have prevented school staff from accommodating trans students was ultimately defeated after students, parents, and activists objected.
“I’m kind of old-fashioned,” one school board member said at the time. “I know a boy when I see one, and I know a girl when I see one.”
The board has reservations about the proposed law too, insisting that “parents are responsible for determining the upbringing, education, care, and moral development of their child.”
“Parents do have the right, for their specific child, to make whatever decisions they deem best for that young person,” Bridges said. “They do not have the right to make decisions for every student that attends a charter school or a public school.”
“We’re talking about pronouns and names and making sure that a young person can be seen as their authentic selves. Why wouldn’t anybody want to create space for that?”
The bill would also create a task force to “examine existing school policies and provide recommendations to schools on how to best implement student non-legal name change policies.”
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.”
