National
Anti-gay bias found in Pentagon ‘Don’t Ask’ survey
Activists divided over whether gay troops should participate
A recently issued Pentagon survey asking service members about their thoughts on repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is inspiring consternation among LGBT advocates who say the questions have an anti-gay bias.
The survey was issued last week and is intended to gather perspectives from 400,000 non-deployed active duty service members on lifting “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The results of the survey are aimed to help inform a Pentagon working group that’s developing a plan to implement repeal of the 1993 law banning gays, lesbians and bisexuals from serving openly in the U.S. military. The group’s work is due Dec. 1.
The survey was created and administered by the research firm Westat in conjunction with the Pentagon Working Group, and, according to Servicemembers United, came at a cost to taxpayers of $4.4 million.
A copy of the survey obtained by the Blade and other media outlets is 32 pages. The survey uses the term “homosexual” interchangeably with the term “gay or lesbian” in its questioning.
One question asks responders if they “currently serve with a male or female” service member that they believe to be gay or lesbian.
Other questions address “If Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed, how, if at all, would the way your family feels about your military service be affected?” and “Have you shared a room, berth or field tent with a Service member you believed to be homosexual?”
Another question asks service members how they would respond if they were assigned to share bathroom facilities or an open bay shower with an openly gay or lesbian person. Possible responses include “take no action,” “use the shower at a different time than the Service member I thought to be gay or lesbian,” “discuss how we expect each other to behave and conduct ourselves” or “talk to a chaplain, mentor or leader about how to handle the situation.”
No question on the survey asks service members about their sexual orientation or asks them whether they think “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” should be repealed.
In a statement, Alex Nicholson, executive director for Servicemembers United, said imaging a survey with “such derogatory and insulting wording, assumptions, and insinuations” on any other minority group is impossible.
“Unfortunately, this expensive survey stokes the fires of homophobia by its very design and will only make the Pentagon’s responsibility to subdue homophobia as part of this inevitable policy change even harder,” he said. “The Defense Department just shot itself in the foot by releasing such a flawed survey to 400,000 servicemembers and it did so at an outrageous cost to taxpayers.”
Nicholson cited as among the flawed aspects of the survey the use of the term “homosexual” and a focus on potential negative aspects of repeal, with little attention to potential positive aspects.
He also noted what he called a “repeated and unusual suggestion” that a service member may need to talk to military comrades and leaders about appropriate behavior and conduct.
Michael Cole, a Human Rights Campaign spokesperson, also expressed concern about the questions, but said the survey is important for the Pentagon working group to complete its examination on implementing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.
“While surveying the troops on the issue like this is problematic from the start and the questions exhibit clear bias, the fact remains that this study exists,” Cole said. “We urge the [Defense] Department to analyze the results with an understanding of the inherent bias in the questions and use it as a tool to implement open service quickly and smoothly.”
According to Reuters, Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesperson, addressed the notion that the survey had anti-gay bias at a press conference last week, saying he “absolutely, unequivocally” rejects the accusations as “nonsense.”
“We think it would be irresponsible to conduct a survey that didn’t address these kinds of [privacy-related] questions,” Morrell said.
Morrell reportedly added that more training, education or facility adjustments may be needed required to prepare the U.S. military if “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is repealed.
One LGBT advocate familiar with the working group, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Pentagon doesn’t intend to make the results of the survey public once they are compiled. Still, the advocate noted that the Defense Department expects they will be leaked or known through the Freedom of Information Act.
Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, said the survey is sending a “complicated mixed message” with regard to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
On one hand, Belkin said, the survey is “is part of an education process” in which the Defense Departmant is “just starting to talk with the troops and hear from the troops” about the impact of repeal. Still, Belkin noted that the Pentagon is asking questions about LGBT people that wouldn’t be asked about other minority groups.
“You would never ask a survey question [such as] what would it be like to share a tent with a Chinese soldier, or would you take orders from a Catholic officer, or how would your husband or wife feel if you lived on post next to a Jewish family?” Belkin said. “And the reason we don’t ask questions like that is because those questions, by their very nature, constitute the group you’re asking about as a second-class citizen.”
Belkin said he didn’t think male service members bunking with female troops would be an appropriate analogy for the survey questions because that isn’t as germane as serving with people of different racial or ethnic backgrounds.
“The troops are already living next to and serving with and showering with and sharing tents with and doing everything with gays,” he said. “This is not a change that is any different from civilian society. It would be a change if we were asking them to shower with and share tents with women.”
Belkin said that advocates shouldn’t be focusing on the survey, but on an upcoming “leadership moment” in which the president and defense leaders would have to certify that repeal should happen.
“The question is not, ‘Does the survey say 46 percent will share a tent or 42 percent will share a tent?’” Belkin said. “That’s not what this moment is about. This moment is about whether leadership steps up and certifies that it’s time for repeal and implements non-discrimination — that’s what we should be focusing on.”
SLDN to LGBT troops:
Don’t take this survey
Also sparking debate among advocates is whether LGBT service members would be at risk of being outed under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” if they participated in the survey.
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network issued a statement July 8 warning LGBT service members about a potential risk if they participate in a Pentagon survey over “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Aubrey Sarvis, SLDN’s executive director, said his organization “cannot recommend” that LGBT service members “participate in any survey being administered by the Department of Defense, the Pentagon Working Group, or any third-party contractors.”
“While the surveys are apparently designed to protect the individual’s privacy, there is no guarantee of privacy and DOD has not agreed to provide immunity to service members whose privacy may be inadvertently violated or who inadvertently outs himself or herself,” he said.
The statement says SLDN asked the Pentagon working group for information about the survey, including the survey texts, possible certificates of confidentiality, and whether the Pentagon could guarantee immunity for people inadvertently outed by the surveys. According to SLDN, the Pentagon was unable to satisfy this request.
Sarvis advised LGBT service members who participate should do so in a way that doesn’t identify their sexual orientation.
In contrast to SLDN, Nicholson issued a statement encouraging LGBT service members to take part in the study.
“Servicemembers United encourages all gay and lesbian active duty troops who received the survey to take this important opportunity to provide their views,” Nicholson said.
Nicholson added his organization is “satisfied” sufficient safeguards are in place to “protect the confidentiality of any gay and lesbian servicemember who would like to fully and honestly participate in this survey.”
Cole said HRC likewise is encouraging LGBT service members to take part in the survey.
“It is critical that voices of lesbian and gay service members are included in this study and we feel that the privacy safeguards are sufficient to maintain anonymity,” he said.
Nicholson told the Blade that as part of its contract, Westat has to “strip out information about survey respondents” before the company delivers the information to the Defense Department and “destroy” any personally identifying information.
“They cannot contractually give DOD any personally identifying information about any of the survey respondents,” Nicholson said.
At a press briefing last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates also maintained that LGBT service members wouldn’t be in danger of discharge if they participated in the study.
“I strongly encourage gays and lesbians who are in the military to fill out these forms,” he said. “We’ve organized this in a way to protect their privacy and the confidentiality of their responses through a third party, and it’s important that we hear from them as well as everybody else.”
The LGBT advocate familiar with the Pentagon study, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said a member of the Defense Department working group found SLDN’s response “jaw-dropping.”
“He has complete faith that the agreement they have with their third-party vendor, which is administering the survey, the anonymous drop-box option, and the other pieces of the survey that are designed to protect the anonymity of respondents are pretty air-tight,” he said.
The advocate said he was told if gay or lesbian troops don’t respond, it would remove a significant number of service members from the sample who would respond favorably to repeal.
On the other side, the advocate said, the Marine Corps and religious groups are “really making a major effort” to get anti-repeal comments to the Pentagon working group.
“The responses that they’ve gotten thus far have been overwhelmingly anti-repeal, and the attempt by SLDN to keep gay service members from responding is not going to help,” he said.
Belkin said the Palm Center is deferring to SLDN on whether taking the survey would be safe for LGBT service members and he had no recommendation for service members. Still, he noted that the Palm Center has an assessment of the risks.
“On the one hand, we think the Pentagon has actually been pretty careful about dividing privacy protections, and so we think that the risk of participation is minimal, but at the same, we don’t think it’s zero,” Belkin said.
National
Victory Institute to honor Biden at D.C. conference
Former president to receive award on Friday
The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute on Friday will honor former President Joe Biden at its annual International LGBTQ+ Leaders Conference in D.C.
Biden will receive the Chris Abele Impact Award in recognition of what the Victory Institute described as “his historic role in championing LGBTQ+ rights and for his leadership in achieving the most LGBTQ+ inclusive administration in U.S. history.” Biden will be the award’s third recipient.
“President Biden has shown unwavering commitment to ensuring LGBTQ+ people can participate fully and openly in our democracy,” said Victory Institute President Evan Low in a press release. “From appointing a record number of LGBTQ+ leaders to reversing harmful policies and expanding civil rights protections, his administration set a new and necessary standard for what inclusive governance looks like.”
“And now, we’re seeing LGBTQ+ elected officials lead the way on everyday issues that are important to most Americans like groceries, housing, and lowering the costs of healthcare,” he added. “This award honors not only his achievements, but also the real impact these changes have had on LGBTQ+ Americans across the country.”
The conference will take place Dec. 4-6 at the JW Marriott Hotel in Downtown Washington, where more than 700 elected LGBTQ+ political leaders and human rights advocates are expected to attend.
Notable officials slated to participate include Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey; Maine Gov. Janet Mills; Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel; Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez; Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes; U.S. Reps. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.); Maine House of Representatives Speaker Ryan Fecteau; Mississippi state Sen. Fabian Nelson; San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones; San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria; West Hollywood (Calif.) Mayor Chelsea Byers and Providence (R.I.) Mayor Brett Smiley.
Transgender Spanish Sen. Carla Antonelli, former U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina Eric Nelson, and Robert Biedroń, a gay member of the European Parliament from Poland, are slated to attend. Earlene Budd, a longtime trans activist in D.C., and D.C. Councilman Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) are also expected to participate.
Michael K. Lavers contributed to this story.
National
Faith leaders denounce anti-transgender attacks
‘You are holy. You are sacred. We love you.’
This past Trans Awareness Week, 10 heads of diverse religious traditions issued a statement proclaiming that transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people are worthy of love, support, and protection. Led by Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, representatives from the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Presbyterian Church, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), The Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, and Reconstructing Judaism called out the violent and systemic persecution of trans, nonbinary, intersex, and queer people–proclaiming that their faith and their humanity urged them to affirm that trans, intersex, and quere people are “sacred” and “holy.”
Their statement comes at a critical time. Over the past three months, Trump and his Cabinet’s anti-trans rhetoric has only intensified, with a report released late September by journalist Ken Klippenstein in which national security officers leaked that the FBI is planning to classify trans people as “extremists.” By classifying trans people as “Nihilistic Violent Extremists,” far-right groups would have more “political (and media) cover,” as Abby Monteil reports for them, for anti-trans violence and legislation.
While the news is terrifying, it’s not unprecedented – the fight against trans rights and classification of trans people as violent extremists was included in Project 2025, and in the past several weeks, far-right leaders’ transphobic campaign has expanded: boycotting Netflix to pressure the platform to remove trans characters, leveraging anti-trans attack ads in the Virginia governor’s race and banning professors from acknowledging that trans people exist. In fact last month, two Republican members of Congress called for the institutionalization of trans people.
It seems that the government shutdown was predicated, at least partially, on Trump’s own anti-trans policies that were attached as riders in the appropriations bill.
It’s a dangerous escalation of transphobic violence that the Human Rights Campaign has classified as an epidemic. According to an Everytown for Gun Safety report published in 2020, the number of trans people murdered in the U.S. almost doubled between 2017 and 2021. According to data released by the Gun Safety report from February 2024, 34 percent of gun homicides of trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive people remain unsolved.
As Tori Cooper, Director of Community Engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative for the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, this violence serves a purpose. “The hate towards transgender and gender expansive community members is fueled by disinformation, rhetoric and ideology that treats our community as political pawns ignoring the fact that we reserve the opportunity to live our lives full without fear of harm or death,” Cooper said.
The faith leaders came out in this statement to affirm that it is their spiritual and human imperative to call out this escalating violence and protect trans, nonbinary, intersex, and queer people. The leaders acknowledge that historically and today, religion is used as a weapon of hate to degrade and deny the human dignity of LGBTQ+ peoples. The Supreme Court is hearing Chiles v. Salazar, a case about the constitutionality of a Colorado ban of conversion therapy for minors, with the majority of conversion therapy practices being faith based. And despite the Supreme Court declining to hear a case challenging the constitutionality of same-sex marriage conferred in Obergefell v. Hodges, efforts to end marriage equality remain ongoing with Katy Faust’s End Obergefell movement.
“During a time when our country is placing their lives under increasingly serious threat,” the statement reads, “there is a disgraceful misconception that all people of faith do not affirm the full spectrum of gender – a great many of us do. Let it be known instead that our beloveds are created in the image of God – Holy and whole.”
The faith leaders argue that commendation of LGBTQ peoples and religiously motivated efforts to deny their dignity and rights is not the belief of all faith communities, and far-right Christian nationalist communities and others who uphold homophobia and seek to exact it writ large in the United States do not speak for all faith leaders.
This is a critical piece of the statement and builds on historical precedence. During the 1980s AIDS crisis, when far-right Christian leaders like Jerry Falwell, one of the founders of the Moral Majority, stated that HIV was “God’s punishment” for LGBTQ+ people and indicative of a broader moral decline in America, affirming faith communities came out to affirm the dignity and divinity of queer people. As funeral homes and churches refused to prepare the dead and bury them, some faith communities stepped up to say that these homophobic leaders do not speak on behalf of all people of faith.
In 1985, the United Church of Christ General Synod urged its member congregations to claim and declare themselves “Open and Affirming,” in order to express their welcome and support for LGBTQ+ people, and two years later, the Church of the Brethren issued a statement titled “A Call to Compassion” where conference members urged member congregations to speak out boldly against discrimination, provide direct care to people with HIV/AIDS, and actively educate themselves and others to stop the spread of fear and prejudice surrounding the disease.
Just one year later, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Church Council issued a statement, “AIDS and Church’s Ministry of Caring,” which outlined the ways in which welcoming, ministering to and advocating on behalf of people with HIV/AIDS is critical to their mission. Even the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which earlier this month banned gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals, issued a statement in 1987 calling discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS “unjust and immoral,” and denouncing the label of “innocent” or “guilty” patients.
Thus, the faith leaders’ statement this past week builds on a rich history of faith communities fighting the stigma that far-right faith groups perpetuate about LGBTQ+ people and committing to action. What sets this latest statement apart is its decidedly interfaith heart, which speaks to the history of the Pride Interfaith Service in Washington, DC that was first started by a group of faith leaders and lay people who gathered at the AIDS Memorial quilt.
As the statement reads, “Our scriptures vary, but they share a common conviction. As we make justice our aim we must give voice to those who are silenced. Our shared values, held across many faiths, teach us that we are all children of God and that we must cultivate a discipline of hope, especially in difficult times. As such, we raise our voices in solidarity to unequivocally proclaim the holiness of transgener, nonbinary, and intersex people, as well as the recognition of the entire spectrum of gender identity and expression.”
The statement ended by arguing that they need to call out the violence they are witnessing. Their silence, they argue, would be in compliance and reinforce the idea that homophobic religious leaders and lay people speak on behalf of all people of faith. Their statement is not only words, however, it is a written promise affirming the dignity and holiness of queer people but also to protect them in the face of increasing violence and persecution.
“When people of faith and conscience stay silent in the face of oppression, we are all made less whole. When people of faith and conscience speak out against that which violates the sacred in its own name, we have the power to stay the hand of sin. Transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people are vulnerable today,” the statement concluded.
“Our faiths, our theologies, and our practices of prophetic witness call on us to say with one voice to transgender people among us: ‘You are holy. You are sacred. We love you. We support you, and we will protect you.’”
The White House
White House halts World AIDS Day recognition amid HIV funding cuts
Trump-Vance administration under increased criticism over policies
For the first time since the global observance began, the U.S. government did not commemorate World AIDS Day on Monday.
World AIDS Day, first marked in 1988, has long served as an annual reminder of the ongoing effort to end an epidemic that has killed more than 44.1 million people worldwide and continues to disproportionately impact LGBTQ people, communities of color, and those in the American South. Yet the Trump-Vance administration declined to acknowledge the day this year, severing a symbolic but consistent tradition upheld by every president since Ronald Reagan.
The move comes despite the scale of the epidemic today. Approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. are living with HIV, according to federal estimates, and about 13 percent — 158,249 people — do not know their status. Globally, the World Health Organization reports 40.8 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2024.
Presidents of both parties have historically used World AIDS Day to highlight progress, remember lives lost, and recommit to reducing disparities in prevention and treatment. Past administrations have also commemorated the day through displays of the AIDS Memorial Quilt — first created in 1987 and later spread across the National Mall and White House lawn. Today, the quilt includes the names of more than 94,000 people lost to AIDS on more than 47,000 panels.
This year’s silence from the White House follows several sweeping foreign aid rollbacks instituted by President Donald Trump after his 2024 inauguration. According to an October report by KFF, the administration enacted a “90-day review of foreign aid; a subsequent ‘stop-work order’ that froze all payments and services for work already underway; the dissolution of USAID, including the reduction of most staff and contractors; and the cancellation of most foreign assistance awards.”
These cuts have created significant funding gaps for nongovernmental organizations around the world — many of which work directly to prevent HIV transmission and expand access to lifesaving treatment.
The State Department dismissed criticism of the administration’s decision not to acknowledge World AIDS Day.
“An awareness day is not a strategy. Under the leadership of President Trump, the State Department is working directly with foreign governments to save lives and increase their responsibility and burden sharing,” deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement CNN first reported. “Earlier this year, we released a global health strategy aimed at streamlining America’s foreign assistance and modernizing our approach to countering infectious diseases.”
The U.S. historically played a central role in the global HIV response. Since 2003, the United States has been the largest financial supporter of HIV/AIDS programs — primarily through President George W. Bush’s PEPFAR initiative, which has invested more than $110 billion into the fight to end the epidemic.
Despite overall declines in transmission, HIV continues to disproportionately affect racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ people, and men who have sex with men. More than half of new HIV diagnoses occur in the South.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. initiative focuses on the 48 counties, D.C., San Juan, Puerto Rico, and seven rural states that accounted for more than half of all new diagnoses in 2016 and 2017.
Advocates say the administration’s withdrawal from World AIDS Day — combined with its cuts to foreign and domestic health programs — risks reversing hard-won gains.
“Though new HIV infections declined 12 percent from 2018 to 2022, progress is uneven with Black people accounting for 38 percent of new diagnoses, Latino people accounting for 32 percent of new diagnoses and more than half (52 percent) of new HIV diagnoses were among people living in the South,” Jarred Keller, senior press secretary at the Human Rights Campaign, told the Washington Blade via email. “Cuts to CDC funding have driven HIV prevention resources to historic lows, stripping support from HIV-focused programs.”
Legal and public health experts echoed that concern, saying that there is a possibility to stop HIV/AIDS, but only if efforts are taken gradually over time.
“HIV is a preventable and treatable condition, but only if the research, organization, and effort continue to be a priority to those looking out for the health of Americans and people worldwide,” said Lambda Legal HIV Project Director Jose Abrigo.
Victory Institute to honor Biden at D.C. conference
Colombia anunció la inclusión de las categorías ‘trans’ y ‘no binario’ en los documentos de identidad
Faith leaders denounce anti-transgender attacks
Tokyo court upholds Japan’s same-sex marriage ban
White House halts World AIDS Day recognition amid HIV funding cuts
Comings & Goings
Impulse Group DC to host fundraiser
Calendar: November 28-December 4
India’s Jharkhand state works to improve trans people’s access to health care
