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Since June, Amtrak Police officers have arrested dozens of people for alleged “public lewdness” at New York City’s Penn Station, a sting operation that sent at least one person to an ICE detention facility — and which one university professor says was conducted, in part, through popular cruising apps like Sniffies.
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As reported by NYC news outlet The City on Wednesday, Amtrak Police arrested 23 people for public lewdness in June — LGBTQ+ Pride Month — after making only eight such arrests in the five months prior. “Lewdness” arrest numbers have remained high since then, according to the NYC-based Legal Aid Society, which told The City that 20 people were arrested for lewdness at Penn Station in a single day in September.
One of the people arrested in June was David, a 31-year-old gay man and healthcare worker who said he was arrested while trying to use a Penn Station urinal on his way home from visiting a friend. He was wearing a rainbow bracelet. David told The City that he was taken to a cell inside the station and handcuffed to a wall, at which point he heard one officer tell others “we got three more fag pervs.” The lewdness charge against him was eventually dropped, but David said he was “traumatized” by the experience.
Immigration attorney Danney Salvatierra also told The City that one of her clients, an asylum seeker from Mexico, was arrested by Amtrak Police while using the bathroom at Penn in July and immediately handed off to ICE agents. Salvatierra said the arrest documents did not contain a charge against her client, who spent over a month in a detention facility before being released by a judge.
Last week, City University of New York (CUNY) law professor Jared Trujillo posted a TikTok video warning others about sting operations in Penn Station bathrooms. Trujillo claims that police have been using Sniffies to lure potential cruisers to a bathroom near a police booth, then arrest them. The arrests come during a marked increase in visibility for Sniffies through print media like The New Yorker and New York Magazine, though Trujillo pointed out that the platform wasn’t the only way police have targeted travelers.
Be safe!! Amtrak officers are using Sniffies and otherwise approaching people in the men’s Amtrak bathroom at Penn Statuon and charging them with lewdness #sniffies#NYC#civilrightawyer#amtrak#pennstation
“There are other instances where officers will approach someone who’s at a urinal, the officer will touch himself or will just peer at the person, and if the person — who is there just trying to pee — responds in any way, that person is then arrested or at least charged with lewdness,” Trujillo said in his video. (In his comments to The City, David said he felt “watched” by a nearby man shortly before his arrest.) Trujillo further noted that such stings closely resemble tactics used in the past decade by Port Authority police, who settled a class action lawsuit over similar arrests in 2022, promising to end plainclothes bathroom patrols and step up sensitivity training.
“Police have long weaponized constitutionally dubious tactics to target men they perceive as gay. Officers sometimes expose or touch themselves, or leer at men, only to arrest the man — even when he has done nothing wrong,” Trujillo told Them in a statement Wednesday. “These arrests are about padding numbers, not public safety. They waste resources and inflict trauma, and the charges can carry devastating immigration and employment consequences. The Port Authority police engaged in the same conduct until Legal Aid sued and forced a settlement in 2022.”
Trujillo urged LGBTQ+ people to exercise caution when dealing with the police to reduce the chance of harm. “If you are arrested, invoke your right to remain silent and ask for an attorney,” he told Them. “Do not consent to police searching your phone.”
The arrests come during a marked increase in visibility for Sniffies through print media like The New Yorker and New York Magazine.
It’s Thursday. There are 404 days until the midterm elections. Disinformation from Dallas, Kimmel’s big ratings and making us defend Jim Comey. Read on Substack
Note: Well, Sexy Patriots, we went from the Tylenol meltdown to the UN pants-shittening to a total goddamn presidential freakout over a broken fucking escalator. We assume for today that Trump will be walking around with both of his feet and his head stuck in buckets of some kind. Despite all the dumb, we actually have some good news. One of the creepiest goddamn weirdos of all time will no longer be in a position to fuck with kids…
Na-na-na-na. Na-na-na-na. Hey Hey Hey. Goodbye! We’ve been kinda sorta paying attention to this freakshow’s tenure as superintendent and we have wondered for a while just how dumb the kids in Oklahoma must be by now. The poor little morons have been forced to eat Trump Bibles for months, half of them think Be Best is good grammar and the rest think 2 + 2 = Bigly. Plus, doesn’t this dude put off all the vibes of someone whose hard drive would get them sent away for life? That moustache definitely used to hang out on Epstein’s island. Dude is out here looking like Jim Dangle from Reno 911.
Anyway, congratulations to the children of Oklahoma who would be bursting out in song today if their music programs hadn’t been cut in favor of Trump Appreciation Class. As for Ryan, well, he can kiss our asses, eat shit and fuck all the way off. Goddamn weirdo. Y’all have a blessed day.
Note two: This has nothing to do with anything, but remember those switchblade combs? Those were cool. We want to bring those back in style. Also, we did a therapy session yesterday and you can catch it here if you missed it live.
Note three: We’re getting closer to a government shutdown, and the White House’s big threat is that they would use a shutdown to fire federal workers. Someone should tell these assholes they already did that and they’re currently busy trying to rehire them all. Idiots. More: NBC News
Note four: We have got to hand it to the Onion. They made an Epstein documentary. Wired describes it as “absolutely unhinged.” It’s called “Jeffrey Epstein: Bad Pedophile.” It says a lot about where we are as a country that we rely on the Onion for this stuff instead of CNN. More: Wired
Note five: We wish we were kidding about our dumbshit president totally freaking out about a stopped escalator. He’s calling for investigations and Fox News has his back. It reminds us of the line from Ace Ventura — “Had I been drinking from the toilet, I could’ve been killed.” For a big tough guy, Trump sure is a whiny little bitch.
Note six: Senate Democrats are out with a report about what Elon Leon’s DOGE d-bags were really up to and it is infuriating. We can’t wait for a Democratic administration to lock these little shits up. More: Wired
Note seven: The French sentenced Sarkozy to five years. How the hell does every other country know how to do this except ours? More: NBC News
Note eight: Gross Stephen Miller’s gross wife is talking about having gross sex with him. Here’s a link, but we don’t recommend clicking on it. More: HuffPost
Note nine: Trump is upset that people are upset about his friendship with Epstein and the ensuing cover-up. He says Palm Beach in the 90s was a “different time.” Motherfucker child rape was still bad in the 1990s. More: Mediaite
Note 10: After a couple weeks off, South Park returned last night and Kyle’s mom (who is Jewish) went off on Bibi Netanyahu.
Note 11: The New York Times was very worried that a Trump official might get booed during one of their ass-kissing sessions. To that, we say BOOOOOOOOO!!!!! More: Mediaite
Note 12: The Tylenol thing was such a fucking disaster that Trump’s own allies are walking it back. Can you imagine the coverage if Biden… More: Independent
Note 13: Please don’t forget we have some big elections coming up in New Jersey, Virginia, California and Pennsylvania! Please get involved however you can. Those candidates need some Sexy Patriot energy. More: Pix11
Note 14: It’s honestly wild how much of a disconnect there is between Democratic leadership in D.C. and Democrats in the states. And it’s not hard to see which one is actually in touch with what voters are demanding. More: NBC News
Note 15: Just a reminder that before Kimmel was put through the ringer, plenty of corporate media outlets fired Black women with little to no public outrage. Thank you to Karen Attiah, formerly of the Washington Post, for firing back. And thanks to our friend Katie Phang for helping her.
Note 16: Two things to look forward to — Taylor Swift has a new album out next week, and the second part of Wicked will be out soon. Also, we don’t know about y’all, but we can’t freaking wait to see that new Paul Thomas Anderson movie. It seems pretty timely. More: USA Today
Note 17: It is fucking wild how hard the White House and the Republican Party are working to keep the Epstein files hidden. It’s even wilder how the people who used to want to see them don’t seem to give a shit anymore. More: CNN
Note 18: We’re starting to have a little hope that our country isn’t as dumb as it seems. The brain worm guy’s polling numbers are in the shitter. Which means he’ll probably swim in them. More: CNN, WSAV
Note 19: For today’s Happy Ending, we’re going back to South Park. If we’ve learned anything this week, it’s that comedy is leading the resistance while other institutions bend the knee and kiss the ass. We picked this clip because the Don Jr. impression had us fucking howling…
Note 20: And on that note, let’s go do some news! We sure hope y’all are having a great week. Except Ryan Walters. That dude and his creepy stache can smooch our taints. Love y’all! (snip-MORE news on the page)
Some of it is not being covered so well elsewhere, what with the proponents being women and all, so some may still be new this morning! 🙂 A bit of blue language.
But will MAGA hack companies Sinclair and Nexstar put it on their air? Who knows.
But we guess Disney got hurt right in the wallet. And it’s got to be pretty embarrassing when big Hulu documentaries are coming out and the literal stars of them (Sarah McLachlan) are declining to perform at the premieres, because of this whole censorship/fascism crisis we are in. Did you hear about that? That happened. [Billboard]
Um, we did not realize Trump was already babbling and making up “sir” stories about men with tears in their eyes in Memphis thanking him for the National Guard, but they have not been deployed.
Anyway, crime is down in Memphis. It has nothing to do with shit nor shinola done by Donald J. Trump. [Tennessee Lookout]
Doctor Donald Trump says the old Ass Met Min Fin — how you say it? Words is hard — is more commonly known as “tylenol” and is definitely what causes the autism. You betcha.
Politico reports that Trump and Marco Rubio have absolutely destroyed the state of American diplomacy around the world. We knew that, but interesting details in this article. [Politico]
You guyssssssss, Tom Homan and Kristi Noem are having a diva fight about who goes on TV too much, you guyssssssss. [Daily Beast]
There was no Moral High Ground this week, because I’ve been out and about. It’ll be back later this week, but why don’t you go subscribe to it anyway? [The Moral High Ground]
A federal appeals court on Thursday evening took steps that Democratic appointees wrote could represent that best possible way of helping organizations funded by foreign aid payments to get money before a quickly approaching September 30 deadline.
It was the latest unusual sets of rulings in a case challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to cut foreign aid funding — raising the “impoundment” question about the president’s ability not to spend money that Congress has, with its control over appropriations, directed the federal government to spend — that has been up to the U.S. Supreme Court already twice this year.
On Thursday evening over the course of 30 minutes, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit took seven actions that ultimately sent the case — technically, a pair of cases — back to the district court, where it is before U.S. District Judge Amir Ali.
It was a stark sign of where we’re at: Judges on the court generally thought of as second only to the Supreme Court taking strategic steps to try to protect people and organizations’ rights due to the ways other branches — and actors within their own branch — are failing to do so. (snip-go read the rest, if you’re interested. It’s very well-written.)
This is a thread on Bluesky. One doesn’t need an account to read there. It’s also an excellent explanation.
This was an extraordinarily shrewd *and* principled resolution by the en banc court, in a case in which the various arguments in the trial court and on appeal were *almost* hopelessly entangled and hard to parse. Of greatest importance are two things: [1]
Are Good Pierogis the only pierogis you’ll ever need? Yes! Drive to Martha’s Vineyard and eat them. Tell them, “Alan Dershowitz ain’t got no panties on.” We don’t know if they’ll give you a discount, but they might laugh.
If there’s one thing anybody knows about famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz’s life and career, it’s that he has panties on, except for all the times he’s being a nudist, which by definition implies the absence of panties. One time he definitely always had panties on? When he was getting a massage at Jeffrey Epstein’s Haus of Naked. That’s a five-alarm-panty-party for Alan Dershowitz, he has always assured us.
Another time Alan Dershowitz is always wearing panties — at least as far as we’ve heard — is when he’s having his civil rights and his bill of rights and his human rights violated by the evil shopkeepers and librarians of Martha’s Vineyard, where nobody will invite him over for dinner because they hate his guts, avec ou sans panties. Apparently the Jewish Democrats on Martha’s Vineyard really loathe El Chico Desnudo. Also everybody else on Martha’s Vineyard hates him, all the other liberals, and this makes Alan Dershowitz feel lonely and, well, naked. They won’t let him come to brunch, and it’s definitely not because he’s naked and won’t stop dipping his balls in the hollandaise, why would he dip his balls there, that’s not where Alan Dershowitz’s balls go. They won’t let him do his world-renowned standing-room-only readings and lectures at the meeting room at the library, it is an outrage, it is a seven deadly sins, it is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Larry David doesn’t invite him over, Barack Obama skips his birthday parties, and now he has to sue a Martha’s Vineyard farmer’s market vendor because they wouldn’t give him a dumpling.
A pierogi, to be specific. The vendor wouldn’t give him a pierogi, so now he has to show them his pierogi.
WITH PANTIES ON.
Dershowitz explained what’s going on in exhaustive detail on his Rumble show, but first here’s a tweet:
OK, so here’s the situation, here is Alan Dershowitz’s Yelp review for “that guy at the farmer’s market with the pierogis.”
“There was the pierogi place,” he said. “They’re Ukrainian, Russian delicacies. And I had gone there a few times before, and I bought the pierogi. They were ok. They were not my grandmother’s pierogi, but they were ok.”
Alan Dershowitz just wanted some pierogis, even though they weren’t that good, just OK.
BUT THEN HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED, ALAN SAYS:
DERSHOWITZ: Can I have six pierogi?
“BIGOTED VENDOR”: No.
DERSHOWITZ: Oh, you’ve run out of pierogi? Too bad.
“BIGOTED VENDOR”: No, no, no. We have plenty of pierogi. I just won’t sell them to you.
DERSHOWITZ: What do you mean you won’t sell them to me?
“BIGOTED VENDOR”: I won’t sell them to you because I don’t approve of your politics. I don’t approve of who you’ve represented. I don’t approve of who you support.
DERSHOWITZ: What is it about my politics that you don’t–
“BIGOTED VENDOR”: I’m not gonna tell you. I just don’t like your politics.
Love it when vendors at the farmer’s market are like “Forsooth, I don’t approve of you! I forsake you! You shan’t have six pierogis today, not to put in your belly, not to eat with panties on, not to slather in your Alan Dershowitz ball-ondaise sauce and save for later!” It’s just how farmer’s market vendors talk.
“The clear implication was that he opposed me because I defended Donald Trump on the floor of the Senate,” Dershowitz added. “I think that’s illegal.”
Alan Dershowitz is a very famous lawyer.
It gets better, because there’s video of at least part of the situation, or at least the aftermath, don’t worry it’s safe for work. Dershowitz was also filming, because he is a serious lawyer and we imagine he knows that sometimes cops and ICE agents and pierogi vendors are full of lies.
Therein, you can see the cop gently explaining to Alan Dershowitz The Very Famous Lawyer that according to his own understanding, restaurants can refuse service, but if he wants to pursue it further, he can pursue it civilly. Oh yes, Alan Dershowitz says! He is going to put this on the internet too, Alan Dershowitz says! That’ll be the end of this reign of terror for this pierogi seller whose pierogis are OK but not like Alan Dershowitz’s grandmother’s pierogis!
If you’d like to listen to Dershowitz debate the cop for one hundred hours on whether it’s OK for people to discriminate against Alan Dershowitz based on his protected class of sucking so much, that’s in that video. You can’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or race, so how is it fair to discriminate against Alan Dershowitz on the basis of fuck that guy, we hate him? He asks to speak to the manager. The cop explains that actually he’s in charge right now. Dershowitz explains he’s lived here for 53 years and nobody has ever sent him home without pierogi in his belly. He accuses the extremely patient cop of “silencing” him. The cop gently explains that he is causing a disruption, that multiple people have complained, and that no, he may not stand next to the pierogi stand and tell people not to go to the pierogi stand. Alan Dershowitz explains that he would like to get some lemonade.
The user who posted the video says:
“I met Allen Dechowitz [sic] today. I stopped him from harassing a vendor who wouldn’t serve him pierogi at the farmer’s market on Martha’s Vineyard.”
The pierogi person, or the person who is presumably the pierogi person, replied, “Hey, thank you so much!”
Again, Dershowitz rushed to get on Rumble and talk about all of this, and he did so wearing a Martha’s Vineyard Farmer’s Market T-shirt. If you choose to subject yourself to this, skip to 3:54 or so in the video. He talks for a LONG VERY LONG TIME, about how the farmer’s market is on QUASI public land, and he pronounces QUASI like SWAYZE.
He explains that he really wanted to go to the farmer’s market that day because it was corn day, and he got there early, because corn day. He says corn day wasn’t supposed to be until August 1, but he had “insider information” that told him corn day would be this weekend instead.
So that’s insider corn day trading, by his own legal admission, somebody should sue Alan Dershowitz for tortious corn day.
In the Rumble video, Alan Dershowitz is much more agreeable than he is on the video with the cop, so we can only imagine what the actual encounter with the pierogi vendor was like. He does mention that when he was told that the pierogi vendor identifies as non-binary and uses the pronoun “they,” Alan Dershowitz responded, “I’ll use whatever language I choose to use, that’s a matter between me and my grammarian,” and when he said “grammarian,” it was like he was gesturing to the Great Grammarian in the Sky, so that might have also contributed to why Alan Dershowitz did not receive any pierogi, for himself or for his grammarian.
In the video, Dershowitz creates his own new metric for whether it’s OK to discriminate, based on the categories of “race, religion or politics,” which is, legal factcheck, not what it is. (The nice cop also tries to explain that to him.)
Dershowitz says he wrote an op-ed about this, he has sent an email to Sean Hannity — yes because the pierogi person was mean to him — and then, having babbled for over 10 minutes about this, starts explaining other times he’s faced discrimination on Martha’s Vineyard, just for being Alan Dershowitz too much. He’s discriminated against by the book fair, he’s discriminated against by the library, he’s discriminated against by the synagogue — he says they hate Israel — and blah blah blah blah blah Alan Dershowitz.
And then we turned off the video.
If you, like us, don’t want to watch the whole video, here is a screengrab of Alan Dershowitz making an Alan Dershowitz face while he complains.
So that is what has happened. Everybody on Martha’s Vineyard still hates Alan Dershowitz and Alan Dershowitz did not get a pierogi, therefore SUING.
Cannot hardly wait for Pam Bondi’s press conference on how she’s filed charges against the pierogi stand for discrimination and anti-semitism and also probably announcing that she found the real Epstein files in the pierogi stand’s fryers, they were there the whole time. (snip)
FOX HOST BILL HEMMER: “Did President Trump have anything to do with the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show?”
BRENDAN CARR: “I think there are a lot of consequences that are flowing from President Trump deciding, ‘I won’t play by the rules of politicians in the past and let these legacy outfits dictate the narrative and terms of the debate.’ He is succeeding. Look at what is happening. NPR has been defunded, PBS has been defunded, Colbert is getting canceled. You’ve got anchors and news media personalities losing jobs downstream of President trump’s decision to stand up. He stood up for the American people. American people don’t trust the legacy gate keepers anymore.”
BILL HEMMER: “I asked a very direct question. I did not hear a yes or a no in your answer. I heard a maybe. Is The View now in the crosshairs of this administration?”
BRENDAN CARR: “Look, it’s entirely possible that there’s issues over there. I mean, again, stepping back, this broader dynamic, once President Trump has exposed these media gatekeepers and smashed this facade, there’s a lot of consequences. I think the consequences of that aren’t quite finished.”
FOX: Is The View now in the crosshairs of this administration?
FCC CHAIR BRENDAN CARR: It's entirely possible there are issues over there … the consequences aren't quite finished pic.twitter.com/sDZAbtf07I
I am so depressed over the drive of the Fundamentalist Christian rights success at trying to erase the LGBTQ+ people. Now they are trying to again return to the discredited idea that sexual ordination can be changed if you torture a kid badly enough. I read so many horror stories of kids as young as 13 and 14 having their genitals hooked up to electrical shock devices, being beaten, being sexual abused so that they would be turned off by same sex hook ups, being curatively raped for both lesbian and gay boys, and so many more. And it doesn’t work. People can be forced to control behavior and lie about their feelings. But sexual attraction can not be changed.
I keep saying the same question to those straight cis people who think orientation or gender is simply a choice rebellious teenagers make. Can you willingly change your attraction from straight to gay and live that life for a year having sex with your same gender? Can you do happily what same sex couples do to please each other sexually? Can you stop being the gender you were assigned at birth and change every aspect of your gendered life and live that way for a few years to show me it is a choice? They tell me that is stupid and why should they … they are the normal ones!
I feel sorry for the kids because of the stories of abuse I have read about at these conversion camps, at these “therapist offices”. The male survivor site has an entire forum dedicated to this subject. Why is it so important to these people to wipe us out socially / publically. Why can’t they let the kids be, why must they sexually force them to be mini me straight cis clones of the parents.
As I said I don’t understand and I do know it is not all Christians. But seriously we need progressive Christian churches to stand up to these groups. After 9/11 we kept hearing people demand Muslims in the US denounce publically the terrorist act of other Muslims. Recently a Muslim won the democratic nominee for NY City and democratic politicians were demanding he denounce every bad thing ever done by a Muslim. Why is that a one way street? Shouldn’t white people be required to denounce bad white people? Shouldn’t Christians be required to speak out against hateful Christians.
I am seeing a return to the 1970s Anita Bryant rhetoric and no one seems to see the connection. She used her faith to claim that no one wanted to see gay teachers in public schools indoctrinating and recruiting (sexualizing) kids. Well these are the same words used against the gay teachers and trans people today by the republicans and hate Christians. It was the anti-Christian oppression Samuel Alito wrote in his ruling that just having books with people happy to celebrate a same sex wedding was discrimination against Christians who did not want people to be happy at same sex weddings. Read his ruling it really says that kids being read a picture book of people being happy at a same sex wedding is oppression and discrimination against Christians.
I am tired. I am 62 years old. I fought this fight as a child, suffered from it, faced the discrimination, lost jobs, got assaulted at work and school, lost promotions, and had hate poured out on me at every turn for at least 25 years. Hell as I was being raped as a child I had anti-gay bigotry screamed at me. Think on that for a mindfuck. Those raping me screamed I deserved it as a 7 year old because I clearly was a faggot. I lost my right to keep going with my Army career due to a new unit commander who bragged about his deep Christian faith. He called me into his office, told me he knew I was out to my unit and even though I was respected, well liked, and had the skills to save the unit even on the day I was leaving, he was not going to tolerate an “evil deviant homosexual” to be in the army or his unit. I feel so sorry for the kids kicked out of their homes to have to sell their bodies on the street to strangers for food and lodging due to this hate. I am so tired as history is repeating and I need to find the strength to fight for the LGBTQ+ kids once again. I don’t think I can. Hugs
The therapy practice tries to influence gender or sexuality identity and has been denounced by experts for negative effects to patients’ mental or physical health.
From left to right: Family Foundation president Victoria Cobb, Founding Freedoms Law Center lawyer Josh Hetzler, and counselors/plaintiffs John and Janet Raymond celebrate a court ruling to overturn a ban on talk-based conversion therapy. (Photo by Charlotte Rene Woods/Virginia Mercury)
A Henrico County Circuit Court judge ordered that licensed counselors be allowed to engage underage clients in a controversial form of talk therapy about gender identity and sexual orientation that medical and mental health experts say can be harmful.
The case underpinning the new consent decree with the Virginia Department of Health Professions stemmed from a 2020 state law banning “any practice or treatment that seeks to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” Last year, Front Royal-based counselors John and Janet Raymond challenged the ban.
“The Raymonds desired to engage in talk therapy with minors through voluntary conversations, prayer, and providing written materials such as Scripture, but Virginia’s law and regulations prohibited them from doing so,” read a Tuesday statement from the Founding Freedoms Law Center, the Family Foundation’s legal arm that represented the Raymonds in the case. The Center hailed the court’s ruling as a “landmark free speech victory.”
Conversion therapy entails attempts to change or influence a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The American Psychological Association has denounced conversion therapy, stating that it is not an accepted form of therapy based on medical or scientific evidence, as has the American Medical Association. The groups and advocates have also said conversion therapy is used as a tool to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people and lifestyles.
Conversion therapy treatments have garnered national controversy over the years and range from inducing nausea, providing electric shocks to having people snap an elastic band around their wrist when they become aroused by same-sex erotic images or thoughts.
The Raymonds told the court they previously practiced talk therapy for conversion therapy clients, as they do with their other clients. The ban meant they couldn’t have conversations to try to guide clients away from embracing their sexual or gender identities. The new consent decree means they can practice conversion therapy again.
Opponents of the practice have argued that conversion therapy can put LGBTQ+ people at higher risk ofmental health issues like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse or suicide.
The Raymonds emphasized that the talk therapy they engage in with their clients is voluntary and stressed that nothing about their case should be construed as allowing any counselor to perform acts associated with conversion therapy, such as electro-shock therapy.
“With this court order, every counselor in Virginia will now be able to speak freely, truthfully and candidly with clients who are seeking to have those critical conversations about their identity and to hear faith-based insights from trusted professionals,” said Josh Hetzler, the couple’s legal counsel with the Founding Freedoms Law Center.
The Family Foundation is a Christian and conservative advocacy group and legal firm that opposes same-sex marriage, supports more parental input in public education, and supports increased restrictions on abortions. While the consent decree was ordered on June 4, Family Foundation and the plaintiffs announced it on July 1.
“We thank God that He gives us the freedom to speak, to believe, to seek His wisdom,” John Raymond said Tuesday in the Family Foundation’s office in Richmond — formerly a house that Confederate General Robert E. Lee rented following his surrender at Appomattox that ended the Civil War.
Raymond said he felt like Virginia’s 2020 law gave him no choice but to challenge it and called it a “hostile ideological invasion within our country.”
Likewise, Hetzler noted a “growing number of parents” seeking counseling services with a religious lens for their children “in an era when gender dysphoria has become a contagion among young people.”
Virginia lawmakers weigh in
Sen. Danica Roem, D-Prince William, noted on a press call Tuesday that there have been bipartisan efforts to support LGBTQ constituents in Virginia’s legislature in recent years. When the conversion therapy ban was clearing the House of Delegates five years ago, 11 Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues in voting for it. Seven Republican lawmakers — to include then-delegate and now Attorney General Jason Miyares — abstained from voting. Over in the Senate, a former GOP lawmaker joined Democrats in supporting that version as well.
While Miyares did not express support or dissent in 2020, his office has signed the consent decree effectively lifting the ban on conversion therapy.
As attorney general, Miyares has pressed for banning transgender youth from participating in sports teams of their identity as a suite of anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in the state during Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration.
Localities have pushed back on former Gov. Ralph Northam’s order that transgender students be able to use the bathrooms of their identities. And an in-progress constitutional amendment to remove a defunct same-sex marriage ban from the state’s constitution has advanced with slim bipartisan support.
Advocates for that law say it’s important, as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has expressed interest in revisiting a decade-old ruling that protects gay marriage federally. He expressed the opinion after the court struck down federal abortion protections. Should marriage protections fall, Virginia is among states that would immediately ban the unions.
Roem reiterated the risks of conversion therapy, saying medical care for transgender people like hormone therapies or surgeries are constantly subject to medical review to assess quality of care, while talk-based conversion therapy isn’t.
Roem, the state’s first transgender senator, said she has been on the receiving end of efforts to dissuade her from her sexual identity but it never stopped her from embracing being transgender.
“I spent 13 years in Catholic school — I heard everything,” she said. “I am just as trans today at age 40 as I was when I got into Catholic school in 4th grade.”
Ultimately, what the conversion therapy ban came down to for Democrats, she and Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax said, is public health. Given how various medical associations have denounced conversion therapy, they felt it had no place in state-licensed counselor’s services.
“I have no problem if somebody wants to go look at religious counseling from their priest or their minister, their rabbi, their imam — that’s perfectly fine,” Surovell said. “When somebody goes to get therapy from somebody licensed by the Commonwealth of Virginia, there’s a different set of rules applied. You can’t just say whatever you want because you have a license. That’s why we have professional standards, that’s why we have statutes.”
While several studies have shown negative mental and physical health impacts of conversion therapy on LGBTQ+ people, the Raymonds said a 2024 report in the United Kingdom called for more research on gender identity services for minors. However, the report’s author noted their belief that “no LGBTQ+ group should be subjected to conversion practice.”
With an appeal deadline having passed, lawmakers could further tweak their 2020 law when they convene next year.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect that the order was issued in June and announced in July. Sen. Surovell also said “imam” rather than “mom.”
In their celebratory video below, the group rants about LGBTQ “contagion among young people.”
Last year the Family Foundation joined a hate group coalition seeking to “save” the 2024 Republican Party platform from caving on LGBTQ issues.
In 2023, the Family Foundation successfully pressured Virginia lawmakers against repealing the state’s still-existing ban on same-sex marriage.
Also in 2023, a spokesman for the group claimed that they’d been refused service by a Virginia restaurant due to their anti-LGBTQ activism.
MONUMENTAL VICTORY
Founding Freedoms Law Center won a major, free speech victory for all Virginia counselors—securing their right to offer compassionate, common-sense talk therapy to minors who seek help with unwanted sexual feelings or identity confusion. pic.twitter.com/ahoJ5rY68J
— The Family Foundation of Virginia (@TFFVA) July 1, 2025
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