National
After ‘Don’t Ask’ repeal, what’s next?
‘Our goals have been met’
Groups that worked to advance “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal last year aren’t resting on their laurels as they continue to see work ahead in ensuring that open service is implemented and gays in the military are treated fairly.
In the near term, the main priority for those organizations now that President Obama has signed legislation allowing for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal is to ensure that certification of open service happens swiftly.
Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said his organization will pursue open service as required by the law signed by the president.
“Dec. 22 was a great day, but the reality is, we don’t have repeal,” Sarvis said. “The reality is ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is still the law. So, our first priority is the first 90, the first 180 days is to get certification.”
Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, a think tank on gays in the military at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said his organization will be in “monitoring mode” for possibly the remainder of the year.
“The finishing line is here, but we haven’t crossed it yet, unless and until we get certification and good regulations,” Belkin said. “Our job at this point is to just make sure that the process continues and that if there’s any foot-dragging at the Pentagon, that we call attention to it.”
Belkin said he anticipates the Palm Center will produce another study about three or six months after certification is issued to determine if implementation was successful.
The measure Obama signed would only enact open service after the president, the defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certify that the U.S. military is ready for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.
Further, after certification takes place, a 60-day waiting period for congressional review must pass before gays can serve openly in the U.S. military without fear of discharge.
In the State of the Union address on Tuesday, Obama committed to certifying “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal before the year is out. The president said he expects certification to happen in a “matter of months” in an interview last month with The Advocate.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he won’t issue certification for open service until new regulations are drafted and training has been instituted in the armed forces.
Beyond certification, groups working on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” foresee a number of outstanding tasks that will remain, including providing legal services and ensuring that benefits are offered to gay troops.
Sarvis said SLDN will continue to provide legal services to gay service members who are facing discharges or who have questions about coming out while in service.
“I think, as an organization, SLDN will still be here providing legal services, working with Congress on oversight and being a resource to the Pentagon to make open service a reality,” he said.
Sarvis said since the legislation was signed, SLDN has heard from more than 225 service members who’ve called with questions about continuing to serve safely or receiving benefits in the post-repeal military.
Further, Sarvis said ensuring gay service members receive the same benefits afforded to straight service members would be another aim for SLDN.
“The post-repeal focus, in large part, will be parity for LGBT service members — particularly parity with respect to benefits: health benefits, GI benefits across the board,” Sarvis said.
The Pentagon report on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — published Nov. 30 — states that the Defense of Marriage Act prohibits the U.S. military from affording many benefits to same-sex partners of service members, but other benefits, such as death benefits and hospital visitation access, would still be available.
Sarvis said a combination of DOMA and other regulations prohibit gay service members from receiving the same benefits as their straight counterparts, but there is some leeway.
“There are some instances where the [defense] secretary has some authority with respect to definitional changes for dependents … but for most benefits, particularly involving spouses … DOMA is a big barrier,” Sarvis said.
Belkin also acknowledged that a number of tasks will remain even after certification takes place and open service is implemented — although he said he doesn’t know if the Palm Center would be the best organization to address them.
Among the outstanding jobs that Belkin cited are providing employee resources to liaison between gay troops and the Pentagon; promoting public education on transgender people in the U.S. military; and working with the Department of Veterans Affairs to create programming for gay service members.
Beyond the upcoming year, Belkin said he isn’t sure what tasks the Palm Center will pursue, but added he suspects consultation with other organizations could be on the agenda.
“We’ll be offering advice or pro-bono consulting to any organization that wants to learn some of the lessons that we learned along the way about public education and how to use social science to inform public policy conversations,” Belkin said.
Pro-LGBT groups that took on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as part of a portfolio that included other issues plan to continue to use resources for other items on the agenda.
Fred Sainz, HRC’s vice president of communications, said his organization last year contributed about $3.5 million to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal effort. But he cautioned against asking where that money would go this year.
“It’s not necessarily a fair posit to say, ‘You have these resources, which you dedicated to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” what are you going to do with that pot of money now?'” Sainz said. “Because as you know, the [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’] issue changed considerably over the course of the year and we don’t yet know either the opportunities or the vulnerabilities that we have going into this coming year.”
One lingering question: What will anti-gay groups dedicated to keeping “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” on the books do now that legislative action on repealing the law is complete.
Elaine Donnelly, president of the Michigan-based Center for Military Readiness, was among the leading advocates attempting to stop gays from serving openly in the military. The “forced intimacy” of having gay troops serve with straight service members was among her favorite phrases.
The Center for Military Readiness didn’t respond to multiple requests on what the organization will pursue now that legislation has been passed to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Belkin noted that Donnelly pursued keeping gays out of the military as part of a broader effort that includes preventing women from serving in combat.
“Her broad concern is the feminization of the military,” Belkin said. “So, there are a lot of ways in which she has tried to roll the country back to the 20th or the 19th century, so she has plenty of culture wars left to fight.”
Whether groups that have focused on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will have reduced resources now that legislative action is complete also remains in question.
Sarvis said “time will tell” what kind of resources SLDN will have as he acknowledged the organization’s board approved in November — and reaffirmed in December — a slightly smaller budget from what it had last year.
According to Sarvis, SLDN’s board approved a budget for 2011 that was around 12.5 percent smaller than it was in 2010. He said it decreased from $2.4 million to $2.2 million.
Belkin said he doesn’t think the Palm Center will have same budget as it had in previous years and said the organization plans to stop fundraising.
“We have endowments that will keep sustaining us at a lower level capacity, but, I think, for the most part, once “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is gone, then the biggest part of our mission will be over, and we’ll be one of those organizations that’s fortunate enough to say, ‘Our goals have been met,'” Belkin said.
Servicemembers United couldn’t be reached for comment on what the organization intends to pursue now that legislative action on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal is complete.
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 honor 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.”
“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.”
The conference will take place at the JW Marriott Hotel in Downtown Washington from Dec. 4-6.
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
