National
Senate confirms gay nominee to Calif. federal court
Fitzgerald approved by vote of 91-6
Michael Fitzgerald (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
The Senate on Thursday confirmed to the bench a gay judicial nominee whom Republicans had held up for four months from receiving a floor vote along with other appointees.
Michael Fitzgerald, whom President Obama nominated for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in July, was approved by a vote of 91-6. A simple majority was required for confirmation.
The six senators who voted “no” were Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and David Vitter (R-La.). Not voting were Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) as well as Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who’s been recovering from a stroke.
“I am honored by the Senate’s confirmation vote today,” Fitzgerald said in a statement. “I am grateful to the President for my nomination. I am grateful to Senator Boxer for her recommendation of me to the President. I am grateful to Senator Feinstein for her support in the Senate Judiciary Committee. I look forward to serving the people of the Central District of California.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee reported out his nomination in November unanimously by voice vote to the Senate floor, but his confirmation has been held up along with other nominees.
Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who recommended the Fitzgerald nomination, spoke highly of him on the Senate floor prior to the vote as she chided Republicans for holding up his confirmation.
“He is an historic choice, and a vote of Mr. Fitzgerald’s nomination is long overdue, because he was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously 133 days ago, on Nov. 3, 2011,” Boxer said. “It really shouldn’t take this long to confirm such a highly-qualified nominee like Mr. Fitzgerald, especially because this seat has been designated a judicial emergency.”
According to Boxer’s office, former President George W. Bush’s district court nominees waited an average of 22 days as of March 2004 for confirmation after being reported out by the Judiciary Committee. Comparatively, President Obama’s district court nominees have waited an average of 93 days. Fitzgerald has waited 132 days for a vote on his nomination.
Fitzgerald was among 17 nominees pending before the Senate on which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) filed cloture Monday as a result of Republicans objecting to floor votes on their confirmation. But as a result of a deal that was reached on Wednesday, Democrats and Republicans will move 12 district court judges and two circuit court judges through the confirmation process by May 7. Fitzgerald’s vote was locked in Thursday under the agreement.
LGBT advocates praised the confirmation of Fitzgerald and said his previous work over the years as an attorney makes him qualified for the position on the bench. Fitzgerald has had experience in private practice in addition to working as a U.S. attorney.
Chuck Wolfe, CEO of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, said Fitzgerald’s legal experience “makes him an excellent choice for the federal bench.”
“He joins a still very small but growing group of openly LGBT federal judges, and we commend the Obama administration for making sure these esteemed positions are open to all qualified Americans, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity,” Wolfe said.
Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said he applauds for the Senate for the confirming Fitzgerald — calling him “eminently qualified nominee” — as he took a jab at Republicans for holding up the nomination for so long.
“We are disappointed that it took months for the Senate to consider his nomination because Republican leadership has been refusing to give President Obama’s judicial nominees a timely up or down vote,” Solmonese said.
Michael Fleming, executive director of the David Bohnett Foundation and longtime friend of Fitzgerald’s, also had good things to say about the new judge upon his confirmation.
“I’ve known Michael for years and no one better embodies the qualities we seek to find in all of our judges — wisdom, honesty and integrity,” Fleming said. “There’s a reason why he was nominated by the president and why he has sailed through this process with such ease — because he has the skills and strengths to be a great judge.”
Lorri Jean, CEO of L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, also said she’s known Fitzgerald for many years and believes he’ll serve the country with honor.
“I’m grateful to the President and the Senate for appointing a judge who brings to the bench not only a keen intellect, a wealth of legal experience and strong ethics, but life experience as a gay man,” Jean said. “It’s essential to have sexual orientation and gender identity diversity on the bench for the same reason it’s important to have racial and gender diversity in the judiciary; the life experience of judges provides valuable insight, and influences, their interpretation of the law. As Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor once said, ‘Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.’”
Congratulations also came from the White House.
“The president welcomes the confirmation of Michael Fitzgerald,” said White House spokesperson Shin Inouye. “He will serve the American people well on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.”
Fitzgerald was given a review by the American Bar Association, which gave him a rating of “unanimously well-qualified.”
Most recently, Fitzgerald worked at Corbin, Fitzgerald & Athey LLP in 1998, but prior to that experience, he worked at the Law Offices of Robert L. Corbin PC and at the law firm of Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe.
The new judge also served as an assistant U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles, where he handled criminal cases, such as a drug and money laundering case involving what at that time was the second-largest cocaine seizure in California.
In his questionnaire response to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Fitzgerald wrote that he has participated in some LGNT activism, including the 2008 campaign against Proposition 8 as a door-knocker. Fitzgerald is also a member of the Harvard-Radcliffe Gay & Lesbian Caucus. From 2007 to 2008, he served on the leadership task force for the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center. In the 1990s, he was a member of the Stonewall Democratic Club.
Fitzgerald isn’t a stranger to represent client in cases related to LGBT rights. He was involved in the settlement of Buttino v. FBI, the 1993 class-action lawsuit involving Frank Buttino, a gay FBI specialist who was anonymously outed to his superior, resulting in the removal of his security clearance and subsequent firing. Fitzgerald asked his law firm at the time to represent Buttino on a pro bono basis.
As a result of the settlement, the FBI renounced its prior policy of viewing homosexuality as a negative factor in regard to security clearances, the FBI agreed to hire an openly lesbian special agent and Buttino’s pension was restored.
Fitzgerald is the fourth out federal judicial nominee chosen by the White House, but third one to receive confirmation from the Senate. Fitzgerald’s confirmation makes him the first openly gay federal judge to serve in California.
In July, the Senate confirmed J. Paul Oetken to the U.S. District Court of Southern District of New York, making him the first openly gay male to sit on the federal judiciary. In October, the Senate confirmed lesbian Alison Nathan to the same court.
Another one of Obama’s gay judicial nominees, Edmund DuMont, was withdrawn after he asked the White House to remove him from consideration. DuMont was first nominated on April 14, 2010, but his nomination languished for more than 18 months without the taking Senate taking action. He was nominated the U S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and would have been the first openly gay federal appellate judge.
National
213 House members ask Speaker Johnson to condemn anti-trans rhetoric
Letter cites ‘demonizing and dehumanizing’ language
The Congressional Equality Caucus has sent a letter urging Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to condemn the surge in anti-trans rhetoric coming from members of Congress.
The letter, signed by 213 members, criticizes Johnson for permitting some lawmakers to use “demonizing and dehumanizing” language directed at the transgender community.
The first signature on the letter is Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, the only transgender member of Congress.
It also includes signatures from Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (MA-05), House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (CA-33), every member of the Congressional Equality Caucus, and members of every major House Democratic ideological caucus.
Some House Republicans have used slurs to address members of the transgender community during official business, including in committee hearings and on the House floor.
The House has strict rules governing proper language—rules the letter directly cites—while noting that no corrective action was taken by the Chair or Speaker Pro Tempore when these violations occurred.
The letter also calls out members of Congress—though none by name—for inappropriate comments, including calls to institutionalize all transgender people, references to transgender people as mentally ill, and false claims portraying them as inherently violent or as a national security threat.
Citing FBI data, the letter notes that 463 hate crime incidents were reported due to gender identity bias. It also references a 2023 Williams Institute report showing that transgender people are more than four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization, despite making up less than 2% of the U.S. population.
The letter ends with a renewed plea for Speaker Johnson to take appropriate measures to protect not only the trans member of Congress from harassment, but also transgender people across the country.
“We urge you to condemn the rise in dehumanizing rhetoric targeting the transgender community and to ensure members of your conference are abiding by rules of decorum and not using their platforms to demonize and scapegoat the transgender community, including by ensuring members are not using slurs to refer to the transgender community.”
The full letter, including the complete list of signatories, can be found at equality.house.gov. (https://equality.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/equality.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/letter-to-speaker-johnson-on-anti-transgender-rhetoric-enforcing-rules-of-decorum.pdf)
The White House
EXCLUSIVE: Garcia, Markey reintroduce bill to require US promotes LGBTQ rights abroad
International Human Rights Defense Act also calls for permanent special envoy
Two lawmakers on Monday have reintroduced a bill that would require the State Department to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.
A press release notes the International Human Rights Defense Act that U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced would “direct” the State Department “to monitor and respond to violence against LGBTQ+ people worldwide, while creating a comprehensive plan to combat discrimination, criminalization, and hate-motivated attacks against LGBTQ+ communities” and “formally establish a special envoy to coordinate LGBTQ+ policies across the State Department.”
“LGBTQ+ people here at home and around the world continue to face escalating violence, discrimination, and rollbacks of their rights, and we must act now,” said Garcia in the press release. “This bill will stand up for LGBTQ+ communities at home and abroad, and show the world that our nation can be a leader when it comes to protecting dignity and human rights once again.”
Markey, Garcia, and U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) in 2023 introduced the International Human Rights Defense Act. Markey and former California Congressman Alan Lowenthal in 2019 sponsored the same bill.
The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.
The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement since the Trump-Vance administration froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded dozens of advocacy groups around the world, officially shut down on July 1. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year said the State Department would administer the remaining 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled.
Then-President Joe Biden in 2021 named Jessica Stern — the former executive director of Outright International — as his administration’s special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights.
The Trump-Vance White House has not named anyone to the position.
Stern, who co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice after she left the government, is among those who sharply criticized the removal of LGBTQ- and intersex-specific references from the State Department’s 2024 human rights report.
“It is deliberate erasure,” said Stern in August after the State Department released the report.
The Congressional Equality Caucus in a Sept. 9 letter to Rubio urged the State Department to once again include LGBTQ and intersex people in their annual human rights reports. Garcia, U.S. Reps. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who chair the group’s International LGBTQI+ Rights Task Force, spearheaded the letter.
“We must recommit the United States to the defense of human rights and the promotion of equality and justice around the world,” said Markey in response to the International Human Rights Defense Act that he and Garcia introduced. “It is as important as ever that we stand up and protect LGBTQ+ individuals from the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to further marginalize this community. I will continue to fight alongside LGBTQ+ individuals for a world that recognizes that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”
National
US bishops ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals
Directive adopted during meeting in Baltimore.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week adopted a directive that bans Catholic hospitals from offering gender-affirming care to their patients.
Since ‘creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift,’ we have a duty ‘to protect our humanity,’ which means first of all, ‘accepting it and respecting it as it was created,’” reads the directive the USCCB adopted during their meeting that is taking place this week in Baltimore.
The Washington Blade obtained a copy of it on Thursday.
“In order to respect the nature of the human person as a unity of body and soul, Catholic health care services must not provide or permit medical interventions, whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim not to restore but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function,” reads the directive. “This includes, for example, some forms of genetic engineering whose purpose is not medical treatment, as well as interventions that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics of a human body.)”
“In accord with the mission of Catholic health care, which includes serving those who are vulnerable, Catholic health care services and providers ‘must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who experience gender incongruence or gender dysphoria’ and to provide for the full range of their health care needs, employing only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body,” it adds.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2024 condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.” The USCCB directive comes against the backdrop of the Trump-Vance administration’s continued attacks against the trans community.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical interventions for minors.
Media reports earlier this month indicated the Trump-Vance administration will seek to prohibit Medicaid reimbursement for medical care to trans minors, and ban reimbursement through the Children’s Health Insurance Program for patients under 19. NPR also reported the White House is considering blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors.
“The directives adopted by the USCCB will harm, not benefit transgender persons,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a statement. “In a church called to synodal listening and dialogue, it is embarrassing, even shameful, that the bishops failed to consult transgender people, who have found that gender-affirming medical care has enhanced their lives and their relationship with God.”
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