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Frank: ‘Zero chance’ for LGBT bills next year

Gay congressman hopeful on ‘Don’t Ask’ repeal in lame duck

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15 years ago

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Gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who won re-election last week in one of his toughest challenges, said LGBT legislation would have no chance of passing in Congress under the Republican-controlled House next year.

In an interview Tuesday with the Washington Blade, Frank also said he was confident that the Senate, of which Democrats retained control, would join President Obama in blocking any anti-gay bills that conservative Republicans might introduce over the next two years.

“Next year there’s no chance of anything happening,” he said of pro-LGBT legislation. “There’s zero chance.”

He added, “It will be a status quo. They don’t have the votes to hurt us but we don’t have the votes to advance anything in the cause.”

Frank also said he was certain that Republicans would fail in an attempt to overturn D.C.’s same-sex marriage law.

“Do you think Barack Obama is going to sign a bill to repeal the D.C. marriage law,” he asked. “It won’t go through the Senate. There is no chance that could happen. None—zero.”

Frank noted that only five out of 179 House Republicans voted earlier this year to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

“The Republicans have become much more anti-gay in their voting patterns,” he said. “There is zero chance of anything good happening with Republicans in control of the House.”

Frank said he was hopeful that the Senate would vote to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the congressional lame duck session over the next two weeks. The House passed a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal measure earlier this year as part of a defense authorization bill.

The Senate killed a similar defense authorization bill containing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal language in a filibuster organized by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Every Senate Republican voted against a cloture motion to break the filibuster.

Frank noted that a number of GOP senators cited the Senate bill’s inclusion of a controversial immigration provision known as the DREAM Act as their reason for voting against the bill, saying they otherwise would have supported repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

He said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told him he won’t insert the DREAM Act immigration language in the defense authorization bill when he brings it to the Senate floor in the lame duck session.

With the immigration language removed as an “excuse,” Frank said he’s hopeful that Republican senators who support repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will now join Democrats in supporting the overall defense bill to which repeal language will be attached. Among the GOP senators that repeal advocates hope will back the bill this time are Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snow, both from Maine.

In one of his first comments on a campaign ad by the conservative gay Republican group GOProud opposing him in his re-election race, Frank said the ad had little or no impact on the election.

He noted that his GOP opponent, Sean Bielat, opposes repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and is against “every other gay issue.”

“So I have no idea who these people are,” he said of the GOProud group. “And they have no influence whatsoever. The LGBT community in my district continues to be virtually unanimously supportive.”

The following is a transcript of the Blade’s interview with Rep. Frank, conducted on Nov. 8.

Rep. Barney Frank: I’ve been working today on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” In fact, I think it’s time for people to hold the Republicans’ feet to the fire because we didn’t get any votes from them. Last time around, they had the excuse – some of them – that they didn’t want to vote because [Senate Majority Leader] Harry [Reid] was going to put the DREAM Act in there on immigration. He now says he’s not going to put the DREAM Act in there. He’s going to put that in some other place. So now the question is why do Republicans — Sen. Snow, Sen. Collins and Sen. Brown — what reason would they have for voting against the whole bill?

And I spoke today to Pete Rouse [the acting White House Chief of Staff] and to Sen. Reid and Sen. [Richard] Durbin [D-Ill.] and Sen. [Carl] Levin [D-Mich.], and they all agree. They want to pass the defense bill with ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ in it. They have two weeks. The question is whether Republicans filibuster it to death. But the Democrats are going to try very hard to do it. I think by the way, that’s why [Secretary of Defense Robert] Gates spoke out. I am sure, nobody’s told me this, but I’m sure the president said to Harry Reid, look, we’ve got to get this done. And Reid said fine, would it be helpful if I got some military support? And eventually Gates spoke out as he did.

Washington Blade: Your press person sent us a copy of your statement on that today.

Frank: I’ve spent — I made a lot of phone calls today. Plus, one fear was I saw, oh well, they’ll take ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ back out of the defense bill. It won’t pass in the House if they do that. I believe the speaker wouldn’t allow it to come up.

Blade: Do you mean next year?

Frank: No, [Rep. John] Boehner [R-Ohio, who will become Speaker of the House in January] is not who I was talking about. The thought was that the Republicans would say if they took ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ out of the [defense] bill this year in the lame duck session they would get it passed. And my answer is that’s not going to get them anywhere because we wouldn’t pass it in the House. We will not accept — there’s been some speculation about that — and the answer is no, the House—we’re going to tell the Senate that’s not going to work. And I don’t think the Senate is planning to do that. Harry is not planning to do that.

… ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal is in the defense authorization bill. What I just said was there was some suggestion that [Sen. John] McCain [R-Ariz.] would say strip that out and I’ll let you pass the defense bill. And the answer is that won’t work because the House won’t pass it. In other words, the Democratic leadership is thoroughly committed to getting ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repealed. The only question is — you know, Log Cabin says, oh, the Democrats couldn’t do it. Well they got us five Republican votes in the House … And no Republican votes in the Senate. The Democrats can’t do that all by ourselves without a single Republican supporter.

Blade: Did Harry Reid give an indication of when he might bring it up?

Frank: Right away — they only have two weeks. He’s committed to getting it done. He and I talked to the three — the Democratic leader, the Democratic whip, the Democratic committee chairman … They all agree they want to get it done. Unfortunately, if we have no Republican votes it can’t be done. So the question is will any Republicans and their supporters get us anything?

Blade: What’s the prospect of advancing LGBT-related bills next year, when the Republicans take charge of the House?

Frank: Next year there’s no chance of anything happening. There’s zero chance. We got five Republican votes out of 179 to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ The Republicans have become much more anti-gay in their voting patterns. There is zero chance of anything good happening with Republicans in control of the House.

Blade: Have you heard of anything about a Log Cabin supported gay-related tax reform bill? They won’t give us any details but the head of Log Cabin says that’s the first thing they’re going to work on next year and he thinks they might get Republican support.

Frank: If they’re suggesting that there will be Republican support for recognition of same-sex marriage that’s a lie and they know it. There’s no chance of that.

Blade: I asked them about that and he wouldn’t give me details but —

Frank: Yes, the Log Cabin club would like to make it easier for taxing – they would like to reduce taxes for rich people. I understand that. But there will be no help for gay people. Now for some of them, I think their income is skewed pretty high anyway. So they’ll feel good about it. But, no, there is zero chance that the Republicans will do anything that would recognize same-sex couples.

Blade: What about ENDA? He did say they would try to move ENDA.

Frank: There is zero chance of them doing anything on ENDA — zero.

Blade: Then the next step is whether the Republican majority or some Republicans will try to harm gay people such as attempting to repeal D.C.’s same-sex marriage law.

Frank: They can’t. That would take the president and the Senate … Do you think Barack Obama is going to sign a bill to repeal the D.C. marriage law? It won’t go through the Senate. There is no chance that could happen. None, zero.

Blade: So essentially it’s going to be a standstill?

Frank: It will be a status quo. The one thing we have a chance for is ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal in this lame duck session. And we can get that if we get any Republican cooperation. … On the other hand, they don’t have the votes to hurt us but we don’t have the votes to advance anything in the cause.

Blade: What’s your prediction on Nancy Pelosi’s decision to run for the Democratic leadership post as House Minority Leader?

Frank: Oh, she’ll win.

Blade: Your press spokesperson said you are supporting her.

Frank: I’m supporting her. I think she’ll win. … And from the LGBT standpoint, nobody’s going to get elected to any Democratic [leadership] office who isn’t 100 percent supportive.

Blade: In terms of your re-election campaign, did the ad attacking you from the conservative gay Republican group GOProud have any impact?

Frank: I don’t think anybody knew about it. Can you answer a question?

Blade: Yes.

Frank: What is it they are proud of? Does anybody know?

Blade: I guess they say they’re proud of being Republicans.

Frank: You guess? My [opponent, Republican Sean Bielat] was against repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ He did not take a single pro-gay position.

Blade: Their ad said they supported him because you were ‘catty.’

Frank: It means that these are people who have no interest in advancing gay causes, and I have no idea what it means. He’s a guy who’s against ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal, against every other gay issue and ran an ad in the YouTube, which I never saw, which two newspaper editorials condemned as anti-gay — two separate newspapers have condemned it as anti-gay. So I have no idea who these people are. And they have no influence whatsoever. The LGBT community in my district continues to be virtually unanimously supportive.

Blade: How do you feel about your role on the House Financial Services Committee under Republican leadership? [Frank will lose his position as chair of the highly influential committee in the GOP-controlled House in January.]

Frank: I believe we will be able to defend the financial regulation reform. Of all the issues, that was the one where we are on the most popular side. If they try to undo the consumer protection or other stuff, we’ll be able to block them.

Blade: And are you going to serve as the ranking minority member on the committee?

Frank: Yes.

Blade: Will the Democrats be reshuffling committee chairs in the new Congress?

Frank: Well everybody that’s returning will stay. Obviously there are some vacancies.

Blade: Concerning the health care reform law, do you think that will stay intact?

Frank: They can’t change it legislatively. They may try to un-fund it. That will be what they will try to do. Thank you.

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California

DOJ launches investigation into Calif. trans student-athlete policy

State AG vows to defend Golden State laws

Published

1 day ago

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May 30, 2025

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Justice Department (Bigstock photo)

One day after President Donald Trump threatened to strip California of “large scale federal funding” over its policy on transgender student-athletes, his Justice Department announced it is investigating the state for potentially violating Title IX.

“The investigation is to determine whether California, its senior legal, educational, and athletic organizations, and the school district are engaging in a pattern or practice of discrimination on the basis of sex,” the DOJ said in a statement. 

The DOJ said it notified State Attorney General Rob Bonta, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, the Jurupa Unified School District, and the California Interscholastic Federation of its investigation. 

AB Hernandez, 16, is an out trans female student-athlete at Jurupa Valley High School who qualified for this weekend’s state track and field championship. As the Washington Blade reported earlier this week, the CIF announced a change in the rules at the finals to accommodate girls who were displaced by Hernandez, including giving medals to cisgender competitors who earn a podium spot should Hernandez place ahead of them.

“We remain committed to defending and upholding California laws and all additional laws which ensure the rights of students, including transgender students, to be free from discrimination and harassment,” said Bonta in a statement. “We will continue to closely monitor the Trump administration’s actions in this space.”

As KTLA reported, California is one of 22 states that allow trans student-athletes to participate in sports consistent with their gender identity. Former Gov. Jerry Brown signed that policy into law in 2013.

The DOJ announced it is also now supporting a federal lawsuit targeting Bonta and the state Department of Education, claiming that California law and CIF policy discriminate against cisgender girls by allowing trans female athletes to compete according to their gender identity. 

The lawsuit was filed by a conservative law group, Advocates for Faith and Freedom, representing the families of two girls at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside. Their suit claims the school’s cross-country team dropped one athlete from her varsity spot in favor of a trans athlete and that school administrators compared their “Save Girls Sports” T-shirts to swastikas.

Officials in Washington also weighed-in, referring to trans girls and women as “males.” 

“Title IX exists to protect women and girls in education,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet K. Dhillon. “It is perverse to allow males to compete against girls, invade their private spaces, and take their trophies.”

“The law is clear: Discrimination on the basis of sex is illegal and immoral,” said U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli. “My office and the rest of the Department of Justice will work tirelessly to protect girls’ sports and stop anyone — public officials included — from violating women’s civil rights.”

According to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, out of the 5.8 million students in California’s K-12 public school system, the number of active trans student-athletes is estimated to be in the single digits.

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U.S. Federal Courts

Immigration judge dismisses Andry Hernández Romero’s asylum case

Gay makeup artist from Venezuela ‘forcibly removed’ to El Salvador in March

Published

2 days ago

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May 29, 2025

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Andry Hernández Romero (Photo courtesy of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center)

An immigration judge on Tuesday dismissed the asylum case of a gay makeup artist from Venezuela who the U.S. “forcibly removed” to El Salvador.

The Immigrant Defenders Law Center represents Andry Hernández Romero.

The Los Angeles-based organization in a press release notes Immigration Judge Paula Dixon in San Diego granted the Department of Homeland Security’s motion to dismiss Hernández’s case. A hearing had been scheduled to take place on Wednesday.

Hernández asked for asylum because of persecution he said he suffered in Venezuela because of his sexual orientation and political beliefs. NBC News reported Hernández pursued his case while at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.

The Trump-Vance administration in March “forcibly removed” Hernández and other Venezuelans from the U.S. and sent them to El Salvador.

The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.”

President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.” Hernández is one of the lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit that seeks to force the U.S. to return those sent to El Salvador under the 18th century law.

The Immigrant Defenders Law Center says officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection claimed Hernández is a Tren de Aragua member because of his tattoos. Hernández and hundreds of other Venezuelans who the Trump-Vance administration “forcibly removed” from the U.S. remain at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earlier this month told gay U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing that Hernández “is in El Salvador” and questions about his well-being “would be best made to the president and to the government of El Salvador.” Garcia, along with U.S. Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), and Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), were unable to meet with Hernández last month when they traveled to the Central American country.

“DHS is doing everything it can to erase the fact that Andry came to the United States seeking asylum and he was denied due process as required by our Constitution,” said Immigrant Defenders Law Center President Lindsay Toczylowski on Thursday in the press release her organization released. “We should all be incredibly alarmed at what has happened in Andry’s case. The idea that the government can disappear you because of your tattoos, and never even give you a day in court, should send a chill down the spine of every American. If this can happen to Andry, it can happen to any one of us.”

Toczylowski said the Immigrant Defenders Law Center will appeal Dixon’s decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which the Justice Department oversees.

The Immigrant Defenders Law Center, the Human Rights Campaign, and other groups on June 6 plan to hold a rally for Hernández outside the U.S. Supreme Court. Protesters in Venezuela have also called for his release.

“Having tattoos does not make you a delinquent,” reads one of the banners that protesters held.

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California

Calif. governor ‘encouraged’ by new state guidelines for trans student-athletes

Gavin Newsom responded to California Interscholastic Federation announcement

Published

3 days ago

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May 28, 2025

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom, center, at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Governor Gavin Newsom is “encouraged” by a new policy announced Tuesday by the California Interscholastic Federation which critics say basically erases the concept that finishing first matters. 

The CIF’s “pilot entry process” will give high school girls who lost to a transgender student-athlete at last weekend’s qualifying meet an invitation to compete at the state championship next weekend.

“CIF’s proposed pilot is a reasonable, respectful way to navigate a complex issue without compromising competitive fairness,” said Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon in a statement. “The governor is encouraged by this thoughtful approach.”

The change came hours after President Donald Trump threatened to pull “large scale federal funding” from the state if officials allowed trans athletes to compete according to their gender identity. 

The CIF statement did not address Trump’s comments or whether the pilot entry process was in response to his social media post. 

KCRA quoted a source as saying the policy had been in the works for weeks. The station also reported judges will score trans athletes separately from cisgender competitors, so there will ultimately be three winners: a cisgender male winner, a cisgender female winner, and a trans student-athlete winner. 

“The CIF believes this pilot entry process achieves the participation opportunities we seek to afford our student-athletes,” the statement by CIF said.

CIF did not clarify if this pilot entry process will continue beyond this year’s championship, or how judges will determine whether an athlete is trans. A spokesperson for CIF did not immediately respond to these questions by the news media.

The trans athlete in question, AB Hernandez, 16, qualified to advance to the May 30-31 finals in Clovis, Calif., by winning regional competitions in long jump and triple jump on May 15. Now, she also will be competing against those same cisgender student-athletes she already beat. 

In an interview with the California news outlet Capital & Main earlier this month, Hernandez refuted claims that she has an unfair advantage because she was presumed to be male at birth. She finished eighth in the high jump and third in the long jump at a recent meet. 

“All I thought was, I don’t think you understand that this puts your idiotic claims to trash,” Hernandez told the paper. Of her critics, who booed so loudly at a recent meet they caused a false start at one event, Hernandez said, she said she pays them no mind. 

“There’s nothing I can do about people’s actions, just focus on my own,” Hernandez told Capital & Main. “I’m still a child, you’re an adult, and for you to act like a child shows how you are as a person.”

The paper reported two of her most stringent opponents confronted the teen’s mother at a recent meet. “What a coward of a woman you are, allowing that,” said local superintendent candidate Sonja Shaw to Nereyda Hernandez. “How embarrassing!”

Shaw was at a meet with Jessica Tapia, an ex-gym teacher who was fired by Hernandez’s high school for refusing to respect trans and nonbinary students’ pronouns. They are part of the Save Girls Sports association that opposes inclusion of transgender female students in girls’ and women’s sports.

As of press time, Trump has not responded on social media to CIF’s announcement. 

Podcaster and anti-trans inclusion activist Riley Gaines, a former college swimmer who tied for fifth place with a trans athlete in a 2022 national championship meet, denounced the CIF’s new policy, claiming “boys would still be competing against girls.”

For his part, Newsom has already gone on the record against trans female athletes participating in girls’ and women’s sports, calling it an “issue of fairness.” That statement drew the ire of advocacy organizations, including Human Rights Campaign. Although Trump said he planned to speak to the governor, Newsom’s office did not say whether Newsom and the president had spoken.

As Politico reported, Republican lawmakers across California denounced the CIF’s new policy, some claiming it did not go far enough to “safeguard the interests of all female athletes.” 

A spokesperson for the Jurupa Unified School District, where the trans student attends school, noted that the athlete is competing fairly and in accordance with the law.

“Both state law and CIF policy currently require that students be permitted to participate in athletic teams and competitions consistent with their gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records,” said spokesperson Jacquie Paul. 

“We remain committed to following the law as written and ensuring that all students are granted the rights afforded to them in a safe and welcoming environment.”

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