Transgender Minnesota lawmaker pushes back on adult site age verification bill over fears of overreach

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Minnesota State Rep. Leigh Finke on Thursday appeared to offer skepticism about age verification laws for adult sites, worrying it could sweep up sites that are "educational" for LGBTQ youth. 

"You mentioned the [Ken] Paxton case and the AGs in many states are very clear about - they're almost jubilant about being able to use these laws to ban young people from accessing content that could be educational if they are queer," Finke, who identifies as a transgender woman, said during remarks at a House Commerce Finance and Policy Committee meeting. 

"And you're a principal, you have LGBT students in your school, and we also know that they're not receiving sex education for queer kids," Finke added. "We know that prurient interest, could be for many people, the very existence of transgender kids. More and more people are saying there simply are no transgender kids. To transgender kids, that is a problem."

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Finke was addressing Minnesota state Rep. Ben Bakeberg, who is an author of H.F. 1434, a bill that "would require websites where 25 percent or more of the webpages feature pornography to verify that a person seeking to access the website is 18 or older."  

Finke also appeared to reference Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and a Texas law, recently upheld by the Supreme Court, that requires pornography websites to verify visitors' ages to shield minors from sexually explicit content online.

Earlier in Finke's remarks, where Finke was discussing H.F. 1434, Finke mentioned there was an "underlying goal" in the bill to support. 

"There is an underlying goal in this bill that I agree with, right? There is something happening in this bill," Finke said. 

"I mean, people don't have to take me at my word because of who I am, because they often don't," Finke added. "But in this committee, I've made it very clear who I am. You know, I put this in the category of some of our liquor bills. Like, I do not want people to have access to things that do harm to them when they are young. And I use this as a precursor because a lot of terrible things are said about me and what I believe and what I want. And I want to support the basic part of this."

Finke said the bill had to get to a place where it wouldn't be used against content designed to educate people under 18 about themselves and their "community," adding it shouldn't become a "weapon" to "penalize trans kids or LGBT kids once we have a different attorney general in that office."

Fox News Digital reached out to Finke and Finke's staff for comment. 

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Bakeberg replied that everyone's goal with the bill was to "protect kids" and help them grow into who they're "created to be."