National
Troop survey draws criticism
Activists assail ‘derogatory’ language in Pentagon questionnaire
Defense Secretary Robert Gates (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
A new Pentagon study that aims to gather the views of military spouses on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal has invoked the ire of LGBT advocacy groups that are claiming bias in the questionnaire.
According to the Defense Department, the survey went out Aug. 20 to 150,000 military households and is intended to inform the work of the Pentagon group working on a plan to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“We’re going to look at that information and develop an implementation plan for a possible repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’” said Cynthia Smith, a Defense Department spokesperson.
But LGBT rights groups advocating for repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” say the survey questions are biased and assume a negative impact of repealing the 1993 law banning open service in the U.S. military.
Among the survey questions:
• Has your spouse ever worked on a daily basis with an individual he or she believed to be a homosexual service member?
• Compared with other service members in the community, how much did that service member participate in military social activities?
• Would a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” affect your preference for your spouse’s plans for his or her future in the military?
• Assume “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is repealed and you live in on-base housing. If a gay or lesbian service member lived in your neighborhood with their partner, would you stay on-base or would you try to move out?
Alex Nicholson, executive director of the Servicemembers United, said Monday in a statement that the spousal survey was even more derogatory toward gay and lesbian personnel than a previous survey sent directly to U.S. troops.
“While it is wise to solicit and consider military spouse input on policy changes that will have a major impact on military families, it is extremely unwise to do so for issues that have minimal impact on spouses while also using poorly designed, biased and derogatory survey instruments,” Nicholson said.
Nicholson added that the Pentagon should be concerned with what he called “real family readiness issues,” such as excessive deployments, inadequate mental health support and low troop pay.
Michael Cole, a Human Rights Campaign spokesperson, said in response to a Blade inquiry on the survey that his organization doesn’t believe the survey is necessary in the first place.
“Gay and lesbian troops are serving now, albeit in silence,” Cole said. “Given that this entire process is about how, not if, to implement repeal, we look forward to the day sometime soon when all of these are non-issues to open service.”
The spousal survey comes on the heels of another survey the Pentagon issued to 450,000 troops to collect their views on eliminating “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
According to the Pentagon, only about one-quarter of those surveys were returned by their due date on Aug. 25. Smith said the Pentagon received 110,000 of the 450,000 surveys it distributed.
Nicholson said such a return rate shows troops have little interest in the survey and don’t care about changing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“While the Department of Defense and [survey coordinator] Westat are spinning the low response rate to the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ survey as expected and sufficient, neither are disclosing the fact that the military leaders have had to put significant pressure on troops on multiple occasions to even get this level of response,” Nicholson said. “Some commanders and senior leaders have even told subordinates that participation is mandatory.”
Nicholson said the limited responses degrade of the credibility of the survey and “violate ethical standards that prevent researchers from compelling respondents to participate in survey research.”
In addition to seeking input from military spouses, the Pentagon also is working with LGBT groups to find a way to obtain feedback from the same-sex partners of U.S. service members without outing those troops under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Smith said the Pentagon is “currently in the process” of working with advocacy groups to determine how to reach out to partners of gay and lesbian service members.
Trevor Thomas, spokesperson for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said SLDN is among the groups with which the Pentagon is consulting on this matter.
“While there are legal questions and concerns around confidentiality, we’re working to find the safest approach possible and make sure their important voices are heard,” he said.
Palm Center report
shows ‘Don’t Ask’ costs
In a related development, the Palm Center, a think tank on gays in the military at the University of California, Santa Barbara, last week published a report outlining 12 “costs” of the law.
The report, titled “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Detailing the Damage,” cites several ways in which the U.S. military has been harmed as a result of having the law in place for 17 years.
According to the report, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” harms the armed services by:
• wasting the talents of essential personnel with critical skills who were fired for their sexual orientation, including Arabic language specialists, medical professionals and combat aviators. The report cites a Governmental Accountability Office study saying 757 troops with “critical occupations” were fired between fiscal years 1994 and 2003;
• hampering recruitment and retention by shrinking the pool of potential enlistees for the U.S. military. The report cites a study from the Williams Institute at the University of California that says 41,000 qualified gay Americans may join the U.S. armed forces if the ban on open service were lifted;
• imposing financial costs on the U.S. military. The report cites a 2005 GAO study saying “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has cost the military $190.5 million: $95.4 million to recruit replacements for service members separated under the policy and $95.1 million to train them;
• wasting the time of officers who must investigate and discharge outed gay, lesbian and bisexual troops.
In a statement, Nathaniel Frank, who wrote the report as a senior fellow at the Palm Center, said the work is intended to draw new attention to the damage that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” inflicts on the military.
“Much of the debate about whether to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ has focused on the fact that the ban is unfair and unnecessary,” he said. “But there is less familiarity with the profound damage the policy causes, and so there isn’t quite the sense of urgency among some policymakers to lift the ban. This report details a long list of costs imposed by ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’, that show the policy has achieved the opposite of what it was supposed to accomplish.”
South Carolina
Man faces first S.C. ‘hate intimidation’ charge
Timothy Truett allegedly shot at gay club in Myrtle Beach on April 1
A South Carolina man remains in custody on a more than $300,000 bond after he allegedly opened fire at a Myrtle Beach nightclub on April 1, according to WMBF.
Reports say 37-year-old Timothy James Truett Jr., of Clover, S.C., was detained by the Myrtle Beach Police Department after the April 1 incident outside Pulse Ultra Club. He was later arrested and charged with possession of a weapon during a violent crime, discharging a firearm into a dwelling, discharging a firearm within city limits, malicious injury to real property valued over $5,000, and assault or intimidation due to political opinions or the exercise of civil rights.
At 10:57 a.m. on April 1, officers responded to a call about a possible shooting at Pulse Ultra Club, located in the 2700 block of South Kings Highway.
In an affidavit released later, the club’s owner, Ken Phillips, said he was doing paperwork that morning when he heard “five or six” gunshots. He went outside and found a window and the windshield of his SUV shattered by bullets. An SUV with blue plastic covering one window was left at the scene.
Police later reviewed footage that showed a silver vehicle stopping in the middle of the road. The video appeared to capture muzzle flashes coming from the passenger-side window.
According to the affidavit, an officer later pulled over a vehicle driven by Truett and found spent shell casings in the back seat, along with a gun.
Documents do not detail why Truett was ultimately charged under the state law covering assault or intimidation tied to political opinions or the exercise of civil rights.
As of April 1, records show Truett is being held in Horry County on a combined bond of more than $312,000.
WMBF spoke with Phillips after the incident and asked whether there was any prior conflict that might have led to the shooting.
“I don’t know if it’s personal, I don’t know if it’s related to being gay, I don’t know if it’s related to the bar issues,” Phillips told WMBF. “Anybody with a mindset of pulling out a weapon in broad daylight is not right.”
“My primary concern has and always will be the safety of my community and my customers,” he added. “It’s given me great concern … as to how far people will go.”
WMBF also spoke with Adam Hayes, vice chair of Myrtle Beach’s Human Rights Coalition, who was involved in pushing for the ordinance. He said that while the incident itself is troubling, it shows the policy is being put to use.
The ordinance is intended to deter “crimes that are motivated by bias or hate towards any person or persons, in whole or in part, because of the actual or perceived” identity, in the absence of a statewide hate crime law.
“It’s nice to see that something we put into policy is not just a piece of paper, that it’s actually being used,” said Hayes.
He said the shooting underscores the need for a statewide hate crime law in South Carolina and added that the incident has left the local LGBTQ community shaken.
South Carolina and Wyoming are the only two states in the U.S. without a comprehensive statewide hate crime law.
Truett remains in jail as of publication.
The White House
Trump budget would codify expanded global gag rule
Funding for LGBTQ health programs around the world would also be cut
The Trump-Vance administration’s fiscal year 2027 budget would codify the expanded global gag rule and eliminate funding for LGBTQ-specific programs in global health initiatives.
“The budget would ensure no funding supports abortion, unfettered access to birth control, and also eliminates funding for circumcision and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer services to better focus funds on life-saving assistance,” reads the proposed budget the White House released on April 3. “The United States should not pay for the world’s birth control and therapy.”
The proposed budget includes four examples of “eliminated activities.”
- In the last administration, PEPFAR funded health workers who performed over 21 abortions in Mozambique
- Promoting reproductive health education and access to birth control and other harmful programs couched under ‘family planning’ in Ghana
- A supply chain “control tower” to provide a “holistic commercial of the shelf solution” on the Office of Population and Reproductive Health (PRH)
- Promoting health equity and providing condoms and contraception in Kenya.
President Ronald Reagan in 1985 implemented the global gag rule, also known as the “Mexico City” policy, which bans U.S. foreign aid for groups that support abortion and/or offer abortion-related services.
Trump reinstated the rule during his first administration. The Biden-Harris administration shortly after it took office in January 2021 rescinded it.
The Trump-Vance White House earlier this year expanded the global gag rule to ban U.S. foreign aid for groups that promote “gender ideology.” The expansion took effect on Feb. 26.
US funding cuts have devastated global LGBTQ rights movement
The Trump-Vance administration after it took office in January 2025 moved to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded LGBTQ and intersex rights groups around the world. USAID officially shut down on July 1, 2025.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio in March 2025 announced the State Department would administer the 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled. Rubio issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the U.S. foreign aid freeze the White House announced shortly after it took office.
The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding because of these cuts. The Washington Blade has previously reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down.
The Trump-Vance administration has signed healthcare-specific agreements with Kenya, Uganda, and other African countries through its American First Global Health Strategy. Advocacy groups with whom the Blade has spoken have expressed concern these partnerships will result in further exclusion and government-sanctioned discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
The proposed fiscal year 2027 budget includes $5.1 billion for “global health to end the previous administration’s abuse of these programs and to execute (the State Department’s) newly released America First Global Health Strategy.” This figure represents a $4.3 billion cut from the previous year.
“The president’s new vision of bilateral health assistance eliminates bloated Beltway Bandit contracts, does more with fewer dollars, and transitions recipient countries to self-reliance,” reads the proposed budget. “The budget would also eliminate disease-specific accounts and provide the department crucial agility to address the actual needs of each recipient country — across HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and polio — to strengthen global health security and protect Americans from disease.”
“The budget would focus on new compacts that unify funding, achieving economies of scale in both implementation and oversight,” it adds. “Under the prior administration, only about 40 percent of PEPFAR funds supported actual service delivery, including medications, testing, commodities, and health workers, with the remaining 60 percent wasted on duplicative administrative costs, unwieldy supply chains, and layers of endless bureaucracy. The new AFGHS (America First Global Health Strategy) compacts would improve efficiency, cut red tape, and dismantle the bloated ecosystem of foreign assistance profiteers.”
The Council for Global Equality on April 3 reiterated its criticism of the expanded global gag rule, and urged Congress to reject the proposed budget.
“We won’t mince words: people are dying because of this policy,” said the Council for Global Equality in a statement. “Making this policy permanent will only ensure that U.S. foreign assistance discriminates against those who need services the most, all while forcing people around the world to adhere to the Trump administration’s extremist, ideological agenda that denies the very existence of transgender, nonbinary, and intersex persons.”
“We will not be silent as Trump threatens to upend decades of bipartisan foreign assistance programs to appease his extremist base,” added the group. “We call on Congress to immediately reject this budget and block implementation of the expanded global gag rules.”
Vice President JD Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, will visit Hungary next week.
An announcement the White House released on Thursday said the Vances will be in Budapest, the Hungarian capital, from April 7-8.
JD Vance “will hold bilateral meetings with” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The announcement further indicates the vice president “will also deliver remarks on the rich partnership between the United States and Hungary.”
The Vances will travel to Hungary less than a week before the country’s parliamentary elections take place on April 12.
Orbán, who has been in office since 2010, and his Fidesz-KDNP coalition government have faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
The Associated Press notes polls indicate Orbán is trailing Péter Magyar and his center-right Tisza party.
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