National
YEAR IN REVIEW: ‘Don’t Ask’ repeal is year’s top story
Rollercoaster fight ends with Obama’s signature
The passage of legislation to end the 17-year-old ban on service by open gays in the U.S. military after a year-long fight makes the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” saga the story of the year for 2010.
Throughout the course of the year, supporters of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal endured a rollercoaster ride during which many observers predicted efforts to lift the military’s gay ban would end in failure.
In January, President Obama set up the path for repeal in his State of the Union address.
“This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are,” Obama said. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Efforts to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” got a significant boost in February during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing when Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen announced that he personally supports the service of openly gay people in the U.S. military.
“It is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do,” Mullen said. “No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.”
Mullen’s support for ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is seen by many as the lynchpin that ultimately led to repeal of the law because he is an authoritative voice in the military and was seen as outside the influence of LGBT advocates.
During the same hearing, Defense Secretary Robert Gates unveiled plans to establish a Pentagon working group study of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” that would determine the best way to implement repeal of the law should Congress should take action. Gates appointed Jeh Johnson, the Pentagon’s general counsel, and Gen. Carter Ham, commander of U.S. Army Europe, as co-chairs of the working group, and directed them to produce a study by Dec. 1.
At the same hearing, U.S. senators opposed to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal expressed consternation over plans to move forward and Mullen’s declared support for allowing gays to serve openly in the armed forces.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he was “deeply disappointed” by Gates’ statement and the defense secretary’s plans to move forward with a study to determine how to implement repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as opposed to whether it should be repealed.
As the study on implementing an end to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was underway, those seeking to end the law made plans to pass a repeal of the law as part of major defense budget legislation pending before Congress as part of the fiscal year 2011 defense authorization bill. In 1993, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was enacted into law as part of the defense authorization bill and LGBT advocates believed attaching a measure as part of defense spending legislation would bolster chances for success of repeal.
But the path to passage of repeal encountered a significant roadblock in April when Gates wrote a letter to Congress saying he’s “strongly opposed” to any legislative change to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” before the Pentagon study is complete.
Many thought Gates had doomed any chances for legislative repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” But repeal advocates came forth with a compromise measure that would institute an end to the law only after the Pentagon report was finished and the president, defense secretary and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certify that the U.S. military is ready.
The White House and Pentagon issued statements saying pursuing legislation after the Pentagon study is complete would be the ideal way to address repeal, but that they could support the proposed compromise legislation.
In May, the House attached the repeal measure as part of the defense authorization bill as an amendment by a vote of 234-194 before approving the legislation as a whole. On the same day, the Senate Armed Services Committee did the same to its version of the bill before reporting it out to the Senate floor.
On the House floor, Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.), an Iraq war veteran and the sponsor of repeal legislation, urged his colleagues to approve an end to the military’s gay ban.
Following the votes, the prospects for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal seemed bright. But the efforts to move forward with the legislation were stymied as the Senate didn’t take up the measure for months. In July, McCain objected to a motion to proceed to the defense authorization bill upon lawmakers’ return from August recess.
In September, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) file cloture to proceed on the defense authorization bill regardless of the objections from any other senator.
At first, many LGBT advocates were confident that 60 votes were present in the U.S. Senate to proceed to defense legislation over McCain’s objection. But this support began to crumble away as many U.S. senators said they disapproved of the limited number of amendments that would be allowed.
On the Senate floor, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who voted for the repeal amendment in committee, was among those expressing discontent over the procedural conditions for the defense authorization.
The motion to proceed on the defense authorization bill failed 56-43, four votes short of the 60 votes necessary to proceed with the legislation. Reid pledged to bring up the legislation again, but the bill’s fate was uncertain.
When Republicans took control of the House in the November elections, it became clear that Congress needed to act before the end of the year.
With the legislative route to ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in limbo, another route to end the military’s gay ban opened up in September when a California federal court ruled that the law was unconstitutional in the case of Log Cabin Republicans v. United States.
In October, U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips affirmed her earlier ruling by issuing an injunction enjoining the U.S. government from the enforcement of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
The U.S. Justice Department appealed the decision to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and asked for a stay in the injunction, arguing that the Pentagon needs time to implement a repeal of the law.
On Oct. 21, the Ninth Circuit granted the stay in the injunction, ending the eight-day period in which gays could serve openly in the U.S. military.
But the court action put increased pressure on Congress to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” before the year was out. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs maintained Congress should repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” legislatively before the courts strike down the statute to provide the Pentagon more wiggle-room with implementation.
Efforts to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” received another significant boost on Nov. 30 when the Pentagon finally released its study and found that repeal could be implemented with low risk to the armed forces over the long term.
The 256-page report included the results of survey sent out to 400,000 service members regarding openly gay people in the U.S. military. Of the more than 115,000 who responded, 70 percent said they believed repeal would have a positive, mixed or no effect on a unit’s ability to get the job done.
Hopes were high that with the Pentagon report, the Senate would be able to move forward with the defense authorization and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal. But those hopes were dashed on Dec. 9 when a motion to proceed on the defense authorization bill failed 57-40.
Immediately following the vote, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Collins called a news conference and announced they would introduce stand-alone “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” legislation — a move seen by many as a “Hail Mary” pass to make repeal happen before the end of the year.
With limited time remaining in the lame duck session, the U.S. House on Dec. 15 approved “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” yet again as a standalone measure by a vote 250-175. The move enabled the House to send the legislation to the Senate as “privileged” bill, shaving off the first 30 hours of debate that would have otherwise been needed in the Senate.
After the Senate approved the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts, repeal advocates became optimistic that 60 votes were present to support the legislation as Sens. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) signaled they would support repeal.
On Dec. 18, repeal advocates finally cleared the last major hurdle for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” when the Senate invoked cloture on the legislation by a vote of 63-33. On the same day, the Senate agreed to final passage of the bill by a vote of 65-31.
LGBT advocates heralded the Senate vote — the first time Congress has approved a pro-gay bill as a standalone measure — as an unprecedented accomplishment for LGBT Americans.
President Obama brought to a close on Dec. 22 the legislative journey to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” when he signed the repeal legislation into law.
Hungary
Vance speaks at Orbán rally in Hungary
Anti-LGBTQ prime minister trailing ahead of April 12 vote
Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday urged Hungarians to support Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the country’s April 12 elections.
“We have got to get Viktor Orbán re-elected as prime minister of Hungary,” Vance told Orbán supporters who gathered at Budapest’s MTK Sportpark.
Vance and Orbán on Tuesday met before they held a press conference in Budapest. Orbán also spoke at the rally.
The U.S. vice president after he took to the stage called President Donald Trump, who told the crowd he is “a big fan of Viktor” and is “with him all the way.” Vance, as he did during Tuesday’s press conference with Orbán, criticized the European Union.
“We want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do. I’m not telling you exactly who to vote for, but what I am telling you is that the bureaucrats in Brussels, those people should not be listened to,” said Vance. “Listen to your hearts, listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people.”
Vance in his speech noted “across the West, we’ve got a small band of radicals” who, among other things, “condemn children to mutilization and sterilization in the name of gender care.” Vance also criticized a “far-left ideology given quarter in university circles, in the media, and in our entertainment industry, and increasingly among bureaucrats on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Vice President JD Vance speaks at MTK Sportpark in Budapest, Hungary, on April 7, 2026
Orbán has been in office since 2010. He and his Fidesz-KDNP coalition government have faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
A Hungarian activist with whom the Washington Blade previously spoke said it is “impossible to change your gender legally in Hungary” because of a 2020 law that “banned legal gender recognition of transgender and intersex people.” Hungarian MPs the same year effectively prohibited same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the country’s constitution as between a man and a woman.
The European Commission in 2022 sued Hungary, which is a member of the EU, over the country’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law.
Hungarian lawmakers in March 2025 passed a bill that banned Pride events and allowed authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs later amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
Upwards of 100,000 people last June defied the ban and marched in Budapest’s annual Pride parade.
Polls indicate Orbán is trailing Péter Magyar and his center-right Tisza party ahead of the April 12 election. Vance at Tuesday’s rally told Orbán supporters that he and Trump “want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do.”
“I’m not telling you exactly who to vote for, but what I am telling you is that the bureaucrats in Brussels, those people should not be listened to,” said Vance. “Listen to your hearts, listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people.”
“Unlike some of the leadership of Brussels, I’m not threatening you or telling you that we’re going to withhold funds to which you’re legally entitled,” he added. “You will make the decision about Hungary’s future.”
The White House
White House ends protections for trans students in multiple school districts
Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware among administration’s targets
The Department of Education has terminated agreements with five school districts and a college aimed at protecting the rights of transgender students, backtracking requirements made in prior administrations, according to the Associated Press.
Allowing the reversal of these federal obligations removes formerly mandatory measures, including faculty training on responding to a student’s preferred name and pronouns, and policies allowing trans children to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
This policy change is a major shift from past democratic-led administrations, and will impact Delaware Valley School District in Pennsylvania, Sacramento City Unified School District in California, Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware, Fife School District in Washington, and La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, as well as Taft College in California.
Delaware Valley School District received notice from the Trump-Vance administration in February and has since voted to roll back anti-discrimination protections. Other schools, like Sacramento City Unified School District, said the change in minimum protections a district must offer will not affect their policies because it “remains committed to the support of our LGBTQ+ students and staff.”
This is part of a wider wave of anti-trans actions taken by the Trump-Vance administration. This White House has penalized schools attempting to accommodate students’ gender identity, filed lawsuits in California and Minnesota over state policies allowing trans students to participate in interscholastic sports, and opened civil rights investigations into multiple schools and universities over their policies on trans students.
Kimberly Richey, the Department of Education’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, said the action underscored the administration’s efforts to prevent trans students from participating in girls’ and women’s sports teams and accessing shared locker rooms.
“Today, the Trump administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda,” she said in a written statement.
According to the AP, this is just one instance of the administration rescinding civil rights protections in education. Last year, the Department of Education terminated two agreements: one involving the removal of books from a school library in Georgia, and another addressing harsh discipline and unequal education opportunities for Native students in the Rapid City Area School District in South Dakota.
Shiwali Patel, the senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center, issued a statement in response to the removal of protections for trans students, saying the rollback will negatively impact all students — not just trans ones.
“There is absolutely no basis for what the Department of Education is doing, and it is unimaginably cruel. Title IX exists to ensure that students are protected from discrimination and treated with dignity so that they can learn and thrive in our schools,” Patel said. “It’s what students, families, lawmakers, and advocates fought for when Title IX was passed decades ago. But the Trump administration’s Department of Education has spent its limited resources to strip Title IX of that very purpose.”
She continued, highlighting the issues that will arise from the agreement removals in schools.
“Real complaints of discrimination and sexual assault are going unanswered by the Department of Education while conservative lawmakers continue to escalate their attacks on a small minority of students,” the nationally recognized Title IX expert and advocacy leader for gender-based harassment added. “Parents, teachers, and students need the Department to focus on addressing real harms on campuses instead of rolling back policies that keep all students safe.”
The schools that had their agreements terminated vary, but stem from the same issue: treating trans students with the same protections from harassment as their cisgender peers.
In 2023, Taft College, a community college in California’s Central Valley, became one of the few schools to settle a case with the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Office after a student accused faculty of discrimination, including refusing to use the student’s preferred pronouns. The college agreed to faculty training on Title IX protections and revised its policies to clarify that refusing to use a person’s preferred name and pronoun can constitute harassment.
The now-canceled agreement with Sacramento City Unified School District stemmed from a 2022 complaint brought by a student after a teacher refused to use the student’s preferred pronouns and/or refused to allow the male-identifying student to work in a boys’ group for a class activity. The 2024 resolution agreement had mandated training for employees on civil rights law, sexual harassment, and how to handle formal complaints.
Under a settlement the Delaware Valley School District reached with the Obama-Biden administration, the district was required to permit students to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identity. In February, the Trump-Vance administration sent the district a letter rescinding the settlement and requiring the rollback of antidiscrimination protections for trans students. The school board voted in late March to change its policies accordingly.
This move is part of a broader pattern of anti-trans actions from the White House since Trump returned to office.
In addition to restricting protections in federally funded education spaces, the administration has attempted to end trans girls’ and women’s participation in sports competitions and has sued states that have not complied. It has also blocked trans and nonbinary people from choosing sex markers on passports and attempted to stop those under 19 from receiving gender-affirming medical care.
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.
Vance speaks at Orbán rally in Hungary
White House ends protections for trans students in multiple school districts
Amendments to India’s transgender rights law criticized
Cuba under pressure and without answers
Police mental health struggles gain growing attention
Belarusian lawmakers approve bill to crackdown on LGBTQ rights
How new barriers to health care coverage are hitting D.C.
Kenyan advocacy groups launch LGBTQ voter mobilization campaign
Calendar: April 3-9
