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Christian conservatives ‘in driver’s seat’ in Va.
Dems consider lawsuit to force power-sharing as activists fear onslaught of anti-gay bills
Virginia Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling would cast the deciding vote in any tie on bills coming up for a vote, effectively giving Republicans a razor-thin majority in the Senate. (Courtesy photo)
LGBT activists said they were hopeful that the threat of a lawsuit by Democratic members of the Virginia Senate this week would persuade Republicans to share control of the chamber and decrease the chance that it will enact anti-LGBT bills following the GOP gains in last week’s election.
No one disputes the fact that Republicans have gained a one-vote legislative majority in the Virginia Senate after Republican candidates defeated two incumbent Democrats in the 40-member Senate, resulting in a 20-20 split between the two parties.
Under the Virginia Constitution, the lieutenant governor — in this case Republican Bill Bolling — has authority to cast the deciding vote in any tie on bills coming up for a vote, effectively giving Republicans a razor-thin majority in the Senate.
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But Democrats argue that the constitution doesn’t give Bolling authority to vote on non-legislative matters, such as who should be named as chairs of the body’s powerful committees and which party should control the committees. Both sides say the matter could wind up in court if a compromise isn’t reached before the new legislative session begins in the second week of January.
Republicans increased their existing majority in the state’s House of Delegates in the Nov. 8 election. With Republican Robert McDonnell as governor, if Republicans win the dispute over who fully controls the Senate, the conservative-leaning GOP would be in control of all branches of the Virginia government for the first time since the Civil War.
“Virginia is never a place to look for gay-friendly legislation,” said Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political communications at George Mason University and a specialist in Virginia politics. “But what you’re looking at now is a Christian conservative element of the Republican Party that is very much in the driver’s seat going forward.”
Gay Democratic leaders and LGBT activists acknowledge that even if Democrats prevail on the issue of power sharing regarding Senate committees, the Republican majority for votes on legislation means that that the Senate is now far less likely to block anti-gay bills as it did when it was under Democratic control.
“We can certainly expect that there’s going to be a cascade of really unsavory bills flooding over to the Senate from the House as there have been in recent years pertaining to issues of immigration, women’s rights and obviously gay rights, too,” said Nick Benton, editor and publisher of the Falls Church News-Press and board member of LGBT Democrats of Virginia.
“And how many of those bills can be made to die in the Senate at this point becomes a much dicier situation,” Benton said. “There’s no guarantee at all that any of that stuff is going to be beaten back.”
Nearly all news media outlets, including the Washington Post, have reported since last week’s election that Lt. Gov. Bolling’s authority to break a tie vote in the Senate would extend to votes on committee and internal Senate organizational issues as well as votes on bills.
But some Democrats this week said they dispute Republicans’ contention that the lieutenant governor has the power to vote on non-legislative issues.
“Fundamentally, the question is whether under the Virginia Constitution he has the authority to vote on Senate organizational issues as contrasted to legislative matters, substantive matters,” said Claire Gastanaga, legislative counsel and chief lobbyist for Equality Virginia, a statewide LGBT advocacy group.
“I’m not ready to predict exactly what’s going to happen with respect to the issues that we care about,” she said. “We’ll be pursuing Equality Virginia’s agenda as we always have, and once the organizational decisions are made then we’ll know who we needed to be talking to.”
Since committees and their chairs decide which bills reach the Senate floor for a vote, a determination of which party controls the committees will play a key role in deciding which bills are passed, including a bill introduced in past years calling for banning adoptions by gay and lesbian parents.
Democrats note that when there was a similar 20-20 split between the two parties in the Senate in 1996 and 1997, party leaders worked out a power sharing agreement that enabled Republicans and Democrats to chair different committees.
Newly elected Va. State Sen. Adam Ebbin said he plans to introduce a bill to bar employment discrimination against state employees based on sexual orientation and gender identity. (Photo courtesy Adam Ebbin)
House of Delegates member Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria), the Virginia Legislature’s only openly gay member, won his race last week for a seat in the Virginia Senate, becoming the first out gay in that body.
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Ebbin said this week that he, too, is uncertain about the outcome of the dispute over whether Republicans will gain full control over the Senate committees or whether a power-sharing agreement will be reached. In either case, Ebbin said he plans to introduce a bill calling for banning employment discrimination against state employees based on sexual orientation and gender identity similar to the bill he introduced earlier this year.
The bill passed in the then Democratic-controlled Senate but died in committee in the GOP-controlled House.
Ebbin said he and LGBT allies in the Senate and House will do all they can to block anti-gay bills in the 2012 legislative session. But similar to Benton, Ebbin said the ability to block hostile bills will be more difficult under a GOP-controlled Senate.
“In the past, we’ve been able to count on the Senate to thwart anti-gay legislation passed by the House,” he said. “We can’t count on the Senate to do that in the next legislative session. I’m not saying that things won’t get killed in the Senate. It’s just that we can’t absolutely count on it.”
Ebbin said that in addition to a possible bill to ban gay adoptions, conservative GOP lawmakers could bring up other hostile bills that either surfaced or had been proposed in past years but died in committee. Among them were calls for banning Gay-Straight Alliance clubs in the state’s public schools and a call for banning colleges in the state from adopting non-discrimination polices related to sexual orientation and gender identity.
Ebbin said that although it would be unlikely, anti-gay groups might also attempt to persuade the legislature to repeal the only pro-gay bills it has ever passed – separate measures in 2005 and 2010 that removed an arcane state law that prohibited private insurance companies from selling health and life insurance policies to same-sex couples.
Farnsworth, the George Mason University professor, noted that virtually all Republican candidates in Virginia this year stressed economic and jobs-related issues along with their disagreements with the Obama administration over the economy. He said few if any of the GOP candidates raised social issues, such as gay rights, during their campaigns.
“It will be interesting to see just how the Republican unified government system operates in Virginia,” he said. “The lessons that Republicans have learned from the experiences in Wisconsin and Ohio and other places is that overreaching, offering up polarizing messages can be counterproductive.”
He added, “Careful Republicans with their eyes on the future may be hesitant to go too far in the conservative direction and risk a backlash.”
Are moderate Republicans the answer?
LGBT activists were hopeful that more moderate Republicans would join Sen. Tommy Norment (R-Williamsburg), the current minority leader who’s in line to become Republican majority leader. Norment was the only Republican in the Senate to vote for the state employment non-discrimination bill earlier this year when the Democratic-controlled Senate passed the measure.
Tiffany Joslyn, president of LGBT Democrats of Virginia, said she doubts that very many Republican lawmakers in the state would join Norment in backing LGBT supportive bills.
“I have no doubt they will do the same thing that they always do,” she said. “They preach moderation, they preach jobs, and then they get into office and they govern from the far right and to their far-right base.”
Joslyn called on Log Cabin Republicans of Virginia to join her group and Equality Virginia in urging more GOP lawmakers to support legislation seeking to bar LGBT discrimination in the workplace and in other areas.
Log Cabin Republicans of Virginia President David Lampo couldn’t be immediately reached this week. Christian Berle, deputy executive director of the national Log Cabin Republicans organization, said both the national and Virginia group would continue their ongoing efforts to encourage Republican lawmakers to support LGBT equality in all levels of government.
Berle also disputed predictions by gay Democrats that a GOP-controlled Virginia Legislature would result in the passage of anti-gay bills.
“They said the same thing would happen with Gov. McDonnell, that all kinds of bad things would happen,” said Berle. “It didn’t happen.”
He criticized Equality Virginia for taking the position that “only Democrats” could be counted on to support LGBT equality in the state and expressed concern that more LGBT advocates didn’t support gay Republican candidate Patrick Forrest’s race for a state Senate seat in the Northern Virginia city of Reston in this year’s election.
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Gay Democrats said most LGBT activists didn’t support Forrest because he ran against incumbent Sen. Janet Howell, one of the LGBT community’s strongest allies in the Virginia Legislature.
District of Columbia
Activists praise Mayor Bowser’s impact on city, LGBTQ community
‘She made sure LGBTQ residents knew they were seen, valued, loved’
Members of D.C.’s LGBTQ community offered their thoughts on the impact Mayor Muriel Bowser has had on them, the city, and LGBTQ people in statements and interviews with the Washington Blade in the week following Bowser’s announcement that she will not run for re-election in 2026.
Bowser’s Nov. 25 announcement came during the third year of her third four-year term in office as mayor and after she served as a member of the D.C. Council representing Ward 4 from 2007 to Jan. 2, 2015, when she took office as mayor.
The LGBTQ activists and mayoral staffers who spoke to the Blade agreed that Bowser has been an outspoken and dedicated supporter on a wide range of LGBTQ-related issues starting from her time as a Council member and throughout her years as mayor.
Among them is one of the mayor’s numerous openly LGBTQ staff members, Jim Slattery, who has served in the Cabinet-level position as the Mayor’s Correspondence Officer since Bowser first became mayor.
“As Mayor Muriel Bowser’s longest serving LGBTQIA+ staffer – dating back to her first term as the Ward 4 Council member – and a proud member of her Cabinet since day one of her administration, I have had the opportunity to witness her at work for the people she serves and leads,” Slattery said in a statement. “Noteworthy is that throughout the entirety of my 27 years in District government, I have always been able to do so as an out and proud gay man,” he stated.
Slattery added that he has witnessed first-hand Bowser’s “absolute belief” in supporting the LGBTQ community.
“She has led on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, on shelter for vulnerable members of our community, housing for older members of the community, and has been a reliable and constant presence at events to LGBTQIA+ residents,” Slattery said. Among those events, he said, have been World AIDS Day, the D.C. Pride Parade, the 17th Street LGBTQ High Heel Race, and WorldPride 2025, which D.C. hosted with strong support from the mayor’s office.
Ryan Bos, CEO & president of Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C. group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events and served as lead organizer of WorldPride 2025, praised Bowser for being a longtime supporter of that organization.
“She played a very supportive role in helping us as an organization grow and to be able to bring WorldPride to Washington, D.C.,” Bos told the Blade. “And we commend her years of service, And our hope is that she helps us to continue to advocate for the support from the D.C. government of the LGBTQ+ community, especially during these times,” Bos said.
Bos, who was referring to the Trump administration’s hostility toward LGBTQ issues and sharp cutbacks in federal funds for nonprofit organizations, including LGBTQ organizations, said Capital Pride Alliance appreciated Bowser’s efforts to provide city funding for events like WorldPride.
“She provided support through the event process of WorldPride and ultimately along with the D.C. Council provided necessary funding to ensure WorldPride was a success,” Bos said. “And we are proud that we are able to show that Capital Pride and WorldPride had such a large economic impact for D.C. and the D.C. government,” he added.
Marvin Bowser, Mayor Bowser’s gay brother who operates a local photography business and has been active in the D.C. LGBTQ community for many years, said he has also witnessed first-hand his sister’s support for the LGBTQ community and all D.C. residents since the time she became a Council member and even before that.
Among his vivid memories, he said, was his sister’s strong support for the marriage equality law legalizing same-sex marriage in D.C. that the Council approved in 2009 under then-Mayor Adrian Fenty.
“I remember the first time she was standing up and giving clear and unequivocal support to the community when that law passed,” Marvin Bowser told the Blade. “And she was front and center in speaking very strongly in support of marriage equality,” he said.
Marvin Bowser also credits his sister with expanding and strengthening the then-Mayor’s Office of GLBT Affairs, among other things, by appointing advocate Sheila Alexander Reid as the office’s director in 2015.
Reid, who for many years prior to becoming director of the GLBT Affairs office was founder and publisher of the national lesbian publication Women In The Life, had the reputation of a “rock star,” according to Marvin Bowser.
He recalls that Mayor Bowser also played a lead role in D.C.’s bid to host to the quadrennial international LGBTQ sports competition Gay Games for 2022.
D.C lost its bid for the 2022 Gay Games after the Federation of Gay Games selected Hong Kong to host the event in an action that Marvin Bowser says was unfair and based on the effort to hold the Gay Games for the first time in Asia even though D.C. had a stronger bid for carrying out the event.
“Everything she’s done for the community has been very visible and from the heart,” he said of Muriel Bowser. “And in my personal relationship with her, she has also been nothing but absolutely supportive of me and my partner over the years,” he said.
“And we were just at her house helping her put up Christmas decorations,” he added. “And so, it’s been wonderful having her as a sister.”
Veteran D.C. LGBTQ advocate Japer Bowles, who serves as the current director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, discussed the mayor’s record on LGBTQ issues in his own statement to the Blade.
“Mayor Muriel Bowser has been an unwavering champion for D.C.’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual community and movement,” he said. “Her more than 20 years of leadership brought consistent and historic investments for our LGBTQIA+ youth, seniors, veterans, and residents experiencing homelessness as well as impactful violence-prevention initiatives,” he added.
“Under her leadership, the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs grew into a national leader, delivering more than $10 million in community grants for LGBTQIA+ programs and managing 110 Housing Choice vouchers,” Bowles said in his statement.
“Because of her work, we are stronger, safer, more visible, and, proudly, ‘the gayest city in the world,’” he said in quoting Bowser’s often stated comment at LGBTQ events about D.C. being the world’s gayest city.
In a statement that might surprise some in the LGBTQ community, gay D.C. small business owner Salah Czapary, who served from 2022 to 2024 as director of the Mayor’s Office of Nightlife and Culture as a Bowser appointee, criticized some of the city’s non-LGBTQ related polices under the Bowser administration as being harmful to small businesses.
Bowser appointed Czapary, a former D.C. police officer, to the nightlife office position shortly after he lost his race as an openly gay candidate for the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat held by incumbent Brianne Nadeau.
“Mayor Bowser led D.C. through turbulent years and major growth, and we can all be proud of her leadership on many fronts,” Czapary said in a statement to the Blade. “She is also setting an example that more leaders should follow by stepping aside to allow a new generation to lead,” he said. “But as we turn the page, we must be honest about what the next mayor should deliver,” he says in his statement.
Without mentioning Bowser by name, he went on to list at least four things the next mayor should do that implied that Bowser did not do or did wrong. Among them were treating the D.C. Council as a “true governing partner,” not letting residents and small businesses “feel the weight of outdated, slow, and unresponsive systems,” and the need for leadership that “values competence over loyalty.”
He added that a “reversal” by the city of the city’s streetery program that was put in place during the COVID pandemic to allow restaurants to install outdoor seating into street parking lanes, was a “roll it back” on progress for small businesses.
He concluded by stating, “LGBTQ rights and inclusion are among the many fronts on which we can be very proud of the mayor’s leadership.”
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to an offer by the Blade to give the office an opportunity to respond to Czapary’s statement.
A significantly different perspective was given by Sheila Alexander Reid, who said she was proud to serve as director of the Mayor’s LGBTQ Affairs Office during the first six-and-a-half years of Bowser’s tenure as mayor.
“I watched her evolve from a newly elected mayor finding her footing into a confident, seasoned leader who met every challenge head-on and time after time slayed the competition,” Alexander Reid said in a statement to the Blade.
“With each year in office, her voice grew stronger, more grounded, and more fearless,” her statement continues. “And she needed that strength, because being a Black woman mayor is not for the faint of heart, But Mayor Bowser never backed down. Instead, she showed the city what courageous, compassionate leadership truly looks like.”
Alexander Reid added that Bowser funded a new LGBTQ Community Center facility, expanded a workforce development program for the transgender community, and “made D.C. the first jurisdiction in the nation to require LGBTQ+ cultural competency training for healthcare providers.”
She also pointed to the mayor’s LGBTQ “safety nets” through low-barrier shelters and housing vouchers and her support for LGBTQ celebrations like the 17th Street High Heel Race.
“But what inspired me most was this,” Alexander Reid stated. “At a time when some elected officials across the country were retreating from LGBTQ support, Mayor Bowser was doing the opposite. She leaned in, she doubled down. She made sure LGBTQ residents knew they were seen, valued, protected, and loved by their city.”
District of Columbia
HIV/AIDS activists block intersection near White House
World AIDS Day provided backdrop for calls to fully fund PEPFAR
Upwards of 100 HIV/AIDS activists on Monday blocked an intersection near the White House and demanded the Trump-Vance administration fully fund PEPFAR.
Housing Works, Health GAP, Treatment Action Group, AIDS United, ACT UP Philadelphia, and the National Minority AIDS Council organized the protest that took place at the intersection of 16th and I Streets, N.W. The activists then marched to Lafayette Park.
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
Activists since the Trump-Vance administration took office in January have demanded full PEPFAR funding.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio Jan. 28 issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Washington Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, has severely impacted their work.
The State Department in September announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir in countries with high prevalence rates. The first doses of the breakthrough HIV prevention drug arrived in Eswatini and Zambia last month.
The New York Times in August reported Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought “apportioned” only $2.9 billion of $6 billion that Congress set aside for PEPFAR for fiscal year 2025. (PEPFAR in the coming fiscal year will use funds allocated in fiscal year 2024.)
Bipartisan opposition in the U.S. Senate prompted the Trump-Vance administration in July withdraw a proposal to cut $400 million from PEPFAR’s budget. Vought on Aug. 29 said he would use a “pocket rescission” to cancel $4.9 billion for HIV/AIDS prevention and global health programs and other foreign aid assistance initiatives that Congress had already approved.
“Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, has defied the appropriations authority of Congress, slashing the budget for the program despite full funding enacted by lawmakers, stealing $1.6 billion despite the direction of Congress that PEPFAR be fully funded,” notes a press release that detailed Monday’s protest. “As a result, lifesaving treatment and prevention programs have closed across dozens of sub-Saharan African countries, while Vought has refused to release money ringfenced by Congress to save lives.”
Monday’s protest coincided with World AIDS Day.
The White House has not publicly acknowledged World AIDS Day. A State Department directive the New York Times obtained last week mandated employees and grantees “to refrain from messaging on any commemorative days, including World AIDS Day.”
“Trump thinks by banning commemoration of World AIDS Day, he can hide from the death and destruction that he’s causing around the world,” said Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell in Lafayette Square. “But we’re here to say, we can see him. We see him stealing medicine, stealing support services, stealing HIV testing, stealing life-saving care from communities all around the world suffering and dying without access.”
The Clinton Health Access Initiative in a report it published last month said more people with HIV or are at risk of contracting the virus because of “HIV treatment and prevention cascades” during the first half of 2025. Specific figures include:
• 3.4 million fewer adults tested for HIV
• 24,000 fewer infants tested for HIV
• A 22 percent decline in new HIV diagnoses due to a reduction in testing among the most vulnerable, highest-risk people
• An 8 percent decline in people living with HIV receiving CD4 tests to diagnose advanced HIV disease
• 2,000 fewer infants and children with HIV started on life-saving medication
• A 37 percent reduction in PrEP initiations for people at risk for HIV
• 26,000 fewer infants and children on antiretroviral medications
• A 5 percent reduction in adults starting antiretroviral medications
• A 10 percent increase in people living with HIV disengaging from treatment
The Clinton Health Access Initiative also said more children around the world will die “due to undiagnosed and un- or under-treated HIV infection” if “these trends persist.”
The Human Rights Campaign Foundation in its 2025 Annual LGBTQ+ Community Survey notes more than 20 percent of adults said “policies the federal government have made accessing HIV prevention and treatment care more difficult in the last year.” The report indicates 30 percent of respondents identify as LGBTQ.
The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected].
Congratulations to RODRIGO HENG-LEHTINEN on his new role as Trevor Project Senior Vice President of Public Engagement Campaigns. On accepting the position, he said, “My mission has long been to stop LGBTQ, and especially trans, people from being perceived as political footballs and start getting us seen as real people – your friends, your families, your neighbors. Now I get to focus on that 100% at The Trevor Project.”
Prior to this, he was executive director, Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE), where he co-led the merger of two national transgender rights organizations, NCTE and TDLEF, to create the new organization. He had served as executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, leading that organization through a period of growth, restoring organizational size and stability. He had served as deputy executive director prior to that. Previously he served as vice president of Public Education, Freedom for All Americans, where he led a successful campaign for transgender nondiscrimination protections in New Hampshire. He oversaw a full range of legislative lobbying, field organizing, and communications strategies and oganized a leadership coalition, established structure, and divided roles for key committees of 17 state and national partner organizations and local activists.
Heng-Lehtinen conducted English-language interviews with outlets such as The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, and Politico. He planned a Transgender Leadership Summit for the Transgender Law Center and served as Development & Donor Services Assistant, Liberty Hill Foundation. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies from Brown University.
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