Age Verification and the Censorship LGBTQ+ Content Online

March 19, 2025

As a human rights organization working to protect the fundamental human right to sexual freedom, it’s no surprise that we’ve written repeatedly about age verification laws, which facilitate censorship of information critical to the exercise of our rights. In the words of Rindala Alajaji and Paige Collings, the age verification craze is ultimately “about giving government and companies the power to decide what’s ‘harmful’ and rolling back all Americans’ rights, especially those of LGBTQ+ people.”

Defining what content is “harmful” and thus subject to age verification laws (i.e., censored) is often conflated with whether the content amounts to “sexual material.” And time and time again, “sexual material” has been loosely defined to encompass any LGBTQ+ content.

Alajaji and Collings cite the example of Oklahoma’s newly enacted SB 1959, which defines “harmful to minors” as content involving “sexual conduct.” What counts as “sexual conduct”? Well, according to Oklahoma, “homosexuality” counts. To clarify, if someone browsing the internet clicks on a page that includes LGBTQ+ content, under SB 1959, the page would need to verify that person’s age before displaying such content.

Sadly, Oklahoma’s SB 1959 is not unprecedented. Per the ACLU, Texas’s HB 1181, which became law back 2023, similarly defines “harmful to minors” as essentially “anything that an average person would consider too sexual and too devoid of value for anyone under 18 – whether they’re a toddler or a teenager.” It’s important to be clear that this means anything that would be deemed inappropriate for a 3-year-old is also treated as inappropriate for a 17-year-old. Read that again and ask yourself if it makes sense. And the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which was first introduced in Congress in 2022, is according to co-sponsor Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) aimed at “protecting minor children from the transgender [sic] in this culture and that influence.”

We at the Woodhull Freedom Foundation staunchly oppose SB 1959 and all similar age verification laws aimed at eroding our 1st Amendment rights to communicate and access information online, including LGBTQ+ content. We join wholeheartedly in Alajaji and Collings’ rallying cry for allies, advocates, and marginalized communities to “push back against these dangerous laws and policies to ensure the internet remains a space where all voices can be heard free from discrimination and censorship.”