National
‘Pinning-on’ ceremony ‘big deal’ for lesbian couple
Wallace to participate with same-sex partner at Pentagon event
Air Force intelligence officer Ginger Wallace will receive the rank of colonel in a ceremony Friday with her partner Kathy Knopf. (Photo courtesy of the couple)
An upcoming “pinning-on” ceremony in which Air Force intelligence officer Ginger Wallace will receive the rank of colonel will be distinct among similar events involving other service members.
Wallace’s partner of more than a decade, Kathy Knopf, will help pin the new rank of colonel on her jacket during the event beginning at 3 p.m. Friday at the Pentagon.
Knopf is participating in the ceremony after the lifting of the military’s gay ban known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which came to an end on Sept. 20.
Wallace, a lesbian, said she’s looking forward to acknowledging Knopf during the ceremony because the commitment her partner has made “is just as real as any other spouse.”
“To be able to acknowledge and thank her is a big deal, and I’m just so thankful to be able to do it before I retire,” Wallace said. “There was one point where I thought I would retire before ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ was repealed, so I never thought I’d see the day. So, I’m very thankful to be able to do it.”
Wallace, a lesbian, entered the military in 1990 and worked through the entire span of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” from when it was passed into law in 1993 until its end in September.
Knopf said she’s pleased the timing of the ceremony took place after the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” so she could take part.
“It’s just nice after 11 years to be able to have it recognized and not dance around the issue any longer,” Knopf said. “So it’s wonderful for me to be able to play a small part and for both of us to acknowledge it instead of keeping it hidden after so long.”
Wallace, 43, is currently participating in language training in anticipation that she’ll be deployed to Afghanistan in the spring as part of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands Program, which is geared toward building long-term relationships with South Asian countries. She lives in McLean, Va., with Knopf, 50, who works as an analyst for SpecTal, a government contractor.
In addition to her partner, Wallace’s brothers and parents will participate in the ceremony. During the event, her new rank will be pinned on both her jacket and shirt. Each family member is slated to help in a different way.
“So Kathy and my brothers, James and Ryan, will pin on my rank on my jacket, and then I’ll take that off and then my parents will do my rank on my shirt,” Wallace said.
The “pinning-on” ceremonies are major events for service members in which they celebrate the advancement of their careers with family members and friends — especially when the promotion is to a high rank like colonel.
Alex Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United, said he knows of U.S. troops who’ve participated in such ceremonies with their same-sex partners even with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in place. Such participation was possible because a service member could designate whomever they wanted to take part — including a same-sex partner — without referring to them as such.
Still, Nicholson — who’s also slated to attend the event with Wallace — said the events are more meaningful for gay service members in the wake of the end to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Nicholson added Wallace’s ceremony is the first that he knows of since “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was lifted in which a same-sex partner has participated.
Even with repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Wallace said she thinks some gay service members will keep their sexual orientation a secret. But Wallace said she wanted to make a statement with her “pinning-on” ceremony.
“I don’t really have anything to lose, and I think it’s important to make people more aware of what we’re trying to do as far as equal rights go and moving from being second-class citizens to being first-class citizens,” Wallace said.
Wallace said the end to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was “the biggest day” over the course of her 21-year career in the military, although she finds the change difficult to describe.
“I’m not sure that my life is really any different except for what I talked about before — just the release and now knowing that I can’t lose my job and lose the life that I love simply because I’m gay,” she said.
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.
The White House
Trump travels to Middle East countries with death penalty for homosexuality
President traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates
Homosexuality remains punishable by death in two of the three Middle East countries that President Donald Trump visited last week.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the handful of countries in which anyone found guilty of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations could face the death penalty.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia from May 13-14. He traveled to Qatar on May 14.
“The law prohibited consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men but did not explicitly prohibit same-sex sexual relations between women,” notes the State Department’s 2023 human rights report, referring specifically to Qatar’s criminalization law. “The law was not systematically enforced. A man convicted of having consensual same-sex sexual relations could receive a sentence of seven years in prison. Under sharia, homosexuality was punishable by death; there were no reports of executions for this reason.”
Trump on May 15 arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes the “penalty for individuals who engaged in ‘consensual sodomy with a man'” in the country “was a minimum prison sentence of six months if the individual’s partner or guardian filed a complaint.”
“There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. LGBTQI+ identity, real or perceived, could be deemed an act against ‘decency or public morality,’ but there were no reports during the year of persons prosecuted under these provisions,” reads the report.
The report notes Emirati law also criminalizes “men who dressed as women or entered a place designated for women while ‘disguised’ as a woman.” Anyone found guilty could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 dirhams ($2,722.60.)
Trump returned to the U.S. on May 16.
The White House notes Trump during the trip secured more than $2 trillion “in investment agreements with Middle Eastern nations ($200 billion with the United Arab Emirates, $600 billion with Saudi Arabia, and $1.2 trillion with Qatar) for a more safe and prosperous future.”
Former President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022.
Saudi Arabia is scheduled to host the 2034 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup took place in Qatar.
State Department
Rubio mum on Hungary’s Pride ban
Lawmakers on April 30 urged secretary of state to condemn anti-LGBTQ bill, constitutional amendment
More than 20 members of Congress have urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to publicly condemn a Hungarian law that bans Pride events.
California Congressman Mark Takano, a Democrat who co-chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, and U.S. Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), who is the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Europe Subcommittee, spearheaded the letter that lawmakers sent to Rubio on April 30.
Hungarian lawmakers in March passed a bill that bans Pride events and allow authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs last month amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
“As a NATO ally which hosts U.S. service members, we expect the Hungarian government to abide by certain values which underpin the historic U.S.-Hungary bilateral relationship,” reads the letter. “Unfortunately, this new legislation and constitutional amendment disproportionately and arbitrarily target sexual and gender minorities.”
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government over the last decade has moved to curtail LGBTQ and intersex rights in Hungary.
A law that bans legal recognition of transgender and intersex people took effect in 2020. Hungarian MPs that year also effectively banned same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the constitution as between a man and a woman.
An anti-LGBTQ propaganda law took effect in 2021. The European Commission sued Hungary, which is a member of the European Union, over it.
MPs in 2023 approved the “snitch on your gay neighbor” bill that would have allowed Hungarians to anonymously report same-sex couples who are raising children. The Budapest Metropolitan Government Office in 2023 fined Lira Konyv, the country’s second-largest bookstore chain, 12 million forints ($33,733.67), for selling copies of British author Alice Oseman’s “Heartstopper.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who is gay, participated in the Budapest Pride march in 2024 and 2023. Pressman was also a vocal critic of Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
“Along with years of democratic backsliding in Hungary, it flies in the face of those values and the passage of this legislation deserves quick and decisive criticism and action in response by the Department of State,” reads the letter, referring to the Pride ban and constitutional amendment against public LGBTQ events. “Therefore, we strongly urge you to publicly condemn this legislation and constitutional change which targets the LGBTQ community and undermines the rights of Hungarians to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”
U.S. Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Sarah McBride (D-Del.), Jim Costa (D-Calif.), James McGovern (D-Mass.), Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Julie Johnson (D-Texas), Ami Bera (D-Calif.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Gabe Amo (D-R.I.), Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Dina Titus (D-Nev.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) signed the letter alongside Takano and Keating.
A State Department spokesperson on Wednesday declined to comment.
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Calendar: May 16-22
