National
Fired gay employee sues Library of Congress
Lawsuit says boss cited anti-gay biblical passages before terminating staffer
Peter TerVeer (Blade photo by Michael Key)
A gay man has charged in a lawsuit filed on Friday that he was fired in April from his job at the Library of Congress after being harassed and humiliated for more than a year by a supervisor who repeatedly quoted biblical passages condemning homosexuality.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, charges that management analyst Peter TerVeer, 30, suffered employment discrimination based on his gender, gender stereotyping and his religious beliefs in violation of Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The lawsuit charges that his supervisor John Mech and library official Nicholas Christopher, Mech’s immediate supervisor, further violated Title VII by retaliating against TerVeer when he attempted to challenge their actions in an internal library complaint.
“Mech imposed his sex stereotypes and fundamentalist religious beliefs on homosexuality upon the plaintiff, resulting in a hostile working environment,” the lawsuit alleges.
In addition, the suit charges the library with violating TerVeer’s Fifth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection; violating an internal Library of Congress policy banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and religious beliefs; and violating the Library of Congress Act, a federal law that calls for the library to consider decisions related to employees “solely” on an employee’s “fitness” for his or her job duties.
Library of Congress spokesperson Gale Osterberg said the library has no immediate comment on the lawsuit. She said the library’s official response would come in the form of a legal brief filed in court that addresses each of the allegations made in the lawsuit. Under court rules, the Library of Congress has 60 days to file its response from the time TerVeer’s attorneys serve the library with an official copy of the lawsuit.
In April, when TerVeer and his attorney disclosed that TerVeer had filed a complaint against Mech and other officials with the library’s Equal Employment Opportunity office, which adjudicates employment discrimination cases, Osterberg said TerVeer’s case was a personnel matter and the library never comments on personnel matters pertaining to an individual employee.
She told the Blade at that time that under library rules, neither Mach, an accountant and lead auditor for the library’s Office of the Inspector General, where TerVeer worked, nor any other library employee familiar with TerVeer’s case, would be permitted to comment on the case.
When asked about a Library of Congress internal policy adopted in the 1990s that bans employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, Osterberg said only that, “We adhere to Title VII, period.”
She was referring to the provision in the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, sex, and other criteria but not on sexual orientation.
Arthur Spitzer, legal director of the ACLU’s Washington, D.C. office, said TerVeer’s lawsuit’s claim that Mech and other Library of Congress officials violated Title VII by discriminating against TerVeer based on his sex and religious beliefs could make him eligible for relief under Title VII.
Spitzer noted that a U.S. District Court judge in D.C. ruled in 2008 that the Library of Congress illegally discriminated against a transgender woman on grounds of sex discrimination. Spitzer’s ACLU office represented the transgender woman, Diane Schroer, in the case along with the ACLU’s LGBT Rights Project.
The ACLU called the judge’s action “a groundbreaking decision that found that discriminating against someone for changing genders is sex discrimination under federal law.”
Spitzer said TerVeer’s case could potentially result in expanding the scope of Title VII, the federal civil rights statute, to cover gay people if the court issues a favorable decision on TerVeer’s lawsuit.
But Spitzer noted that unless the case is appealed by the library and an appeals court upholds the lower court decision, the favorable ruling would only apply to TerVeer.
Schroer was a retired and highly decorated Army colonel assigned to the Army Airborne Rangers before she applied for a Library of Congress job as a terrorism research analyst. The library hired her before reversing its decision and turning her down for the job when it learned she was transitioning from a man to a woman.
In its ruling against the library, the court ordered the library to pay Schroer nearly $500,000 in compensation for the discrimination it found the library to have committed. Schroer chose not to take the job there.
TerVeer is being represented for his lawsuit by attorneys Christopher Brown and Glen Ackerman of Ackerman Brown, PLLC; and Thomas Simeone of Simeone & Miller. (Ackerman Brown, PLLC also represents the Washington Blade in legal matters.)
The lawsuit says that when TerVeer began his job in February 2008 as a management auditor in the auditing division of the Library of Congress Office of the Inspector General, his work was well received and he soon received promotions.
The lawsuit says Mech and TerVeer had a cordial, professional relationship until Mach discovered TerVeer was gay in August 2009.
“Mech facilitated an introduction to his single daughter, Katie Mech, and the two became ‘friends’ on the social networking website Facebook in January 2009,” the lawsuit says.
It says that in August 2009 TerVeer missed noticing that Facebook changed its privacy settings, enabling Facebook friends to see certain postings on his site that previously could not be seen by people other than those he allowed to see them. One of the postings was a page linked to a group that supports gay fathers and advocates for ending discrimination against gay parents.
When Katie Mech apparently saw the “gay” link on TerVeer’s Facebook page she wrote him a message saying, “Don’t tell me you’re weird like that,” the lawsuit says. It says TerVeer responded offline by confirming that he was gay but noting that he was not “weird,” the lawsuit says.
According to the lawsuit, from that time going forward John Mach dramatically changed his attitude toward TerVeer in a negative way, leading TerVeer to believe Katie Mach told her father he was gay.
“Now, at the beginning of almost every work-related conversation, Mech would engage in a religious lecture to the point where it became clear that Mech was targeting TerVeer by imposing his conservative Catholic beliefs on TerVeer throughout the workday,” the lawsuit says. “TerVeer proclaims a Christian faith, but one that is accepting of his sexual orientation,” says the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says that on June 21, 2010 Mech called TerVeer into an unscheduled meeting and delivered a stern lecture to “educate” TerVeer on “hell” and the sin of homosexuality.
Mech began reciting Bible verses to TerVeer, the lawsuit says, telling him, “I hope you repent because the Bible is very clear about what God does to homosexuals.” The lawsuit says Mech went on to quote the biblical passage of Leviticus that says, “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman…they must be put to death.”
TerVeer charges in the lawsuit that Mech, with help from Mech’s supervisor, Nicholas Christopher, “continued to manufacture a negative paper trail” to downgrade TerVeer’s work performance ratings. The lawsuit says this was an effort to justify Mech’s alleged goal of orchestrating TerVeer’s termination from his job.
“TerVeer was subjected to a hostile work environment and continued harassment from Mech based upon religious affiliation, sex stereotyping, and sexual orientation,” the lawsuit says. Christopher, Mech, and other supervisors failed to inform TerVeer of his right to file a discrimination claim and retaliated against TerVeer because he sought to and ultimately did file a discrimination claim, the suit says.
“The work environment became too hostile for TerVeer to continue working under Mech or Christopher’s supervision, and his requests for transfer were denied,” the lawsuit says. “TerVeer was constructively terminated on April 6, 2012 because he was unable to return to a workplace where he had to confront constant discriminatory treatment from Mech and Christopher.”
The suit calls for injunctive relief, including reinstatement and an “order restraining defendant from engaging in further discriminatory conduct…”
It calls for back pay, compensatory and punitive damages, including for emotional distress, and reimbursement for attorneys’ fees and other court related costs. The suit doesn’t seek a specific dollar amount for damages and compensation and other costs, saying the amounts would be determined at trial.
Minnesota
Flanagan beats Craig in Minn. Senate primary after winning key LGBTQ endorsements
The race highlights a growing ideological shift within the Democratic Party, as Democrats increasingly seek a more robust pushback against Trump.
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan won the Democratic primary for the Senate in Minnesota, as progressive Democrats continue to clinch nominations across the country.
On Tuesday night, NBC News called the race for Flanagan, who received 59.0% of the state’s Democratic primary vote, while her opponent, Rep. Angie Craig, received 39.4%. Flanagan ran against Craig for retiring Sen. Tina Smith’s seat.
Smith, along with Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., endorsed Flanagan, while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., backed Craig.
Flanagan also received the endorsement of the Christopher Street Project, a transgender rights organization that has been at the center of efforts to counter the Republican Party’s push against transgender rights. The group chose Flanagan over Craig in part because Craig has not co-sponsored the Trans Bill of Rights, legislation that has been introduced multiple times in Congress and seeks to establish federal protections for transgender Americans.
The endorsement underscored a key difference between the two Democrats on LGBTQ issues. While Craig is the first openly lesbian mother in Congress, the Christopher Street Project said LGBTQ identity alone is not enough without a strong commitment to transgender rights as they are increasingly debated in legislative offices around the country.
In 2022, the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy organization in the U.S., endorsed Flanagan’s re-election campaign for lieutenant governor alongside Tim Walz, calling the duo “Champions of Equality.”
Flanagan called the race an expensive fight of the “many versus the money,” Flanagan told NBC News’ “Meet the Press Now.” Craig and her allies combined to spend nearly $20 million on the airwaves, while Flanagan and her allies spent $4.7 million, according to AdImpact and NBC.
“I’m running to make sure that people can afford the lives they want to live,” Flanagan said. “I want to get big money out of our politics, and I want to fight for things like ‘Medicare for All’ so that people aren’t just paying for health insurance but actually have access to health care.”
Flanagan criticized Craig, who is in her fourth term, for not standing up enough to President Donald Trump’s administration, a characterization Craig disputed. Craig flipped a competitive House seat in the Twin Cities metro area and had argued that she was the best candidate to win in November.
Craig faced criticism for voting for the Laken Riley Act, an immigration detention measure that Trump signed into law shortly after he started his second term in January 2025. Craig said she later regretted that vote.
Flanagan has been vocal about her stance on abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In a recent Minnesota Public Radio debate she said that ICE “has to be ripped apart.” Flanagan said she does support immigration enforcement to ensure secure borders.
Immigration and ICE debates are especially pertinent in the Twin Cities, as ICE agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis during an enforcement crackdown at the behest of President Trump.
Despite the contested race, Craig made it clear that Democrats are committed to unifying.
“We have an existential crisis in our nation with Trump and Republicans, and so I would be right by the lieutenant governor’s side asking my supporters to support her,” Craig said. “The most important thing in this election is that we beat Republicans. That’s what matters.”
On the Republican side, former NFL sideline reporter Michele Tafoya won the Senate primary. Considered an outsider to the Republican Party structure, she did not win the state GOP’s endorsement at the May convention, where delegates instead backed retired Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze.
She has run her campaign on a slew of issues Republicans have deemed worthy — including transgender sports participation, corruption, and minimizing illegal immigrants in the area.
This recent pattern of moderate and centrist Democrats raising huge funds — in many instances backed by major PACs — only to lose to more progressive and less experienced candidates is growing as more people grow disillusioned with the Democratic Party’s inability to push back against Trump and Republicans. A similar outcome happened in Michigan’s Democratic primary last week when progressive physician Abdul El-Sayed won over incumbent U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.).
Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who decided not to run for re-election, stayed neutral in the Senate primary but his wife, Gwen, backed Craig over Flanagan, the governor’s ticketmate.
The Senate seat will be determined in the election on Tuesday, November 3, later this year.
Federal Government
Todd Blanche’s record on LGBTQ issues comes under scrutiny as he takes over DOJ
Blanche was confirmed by the Republican controlled Senate 50-49.
Todd Blanche, President Trump’s former personal lawyer, was sworn in as attorney general of the United States on Monday.
Blanche secured the position as the country’s 88th chief law enforcement officer on Sunday night after a contentious Senate confirmation process, ultimately ending with a 50-49 vote in his favor. All Democrats, as well as Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, voted against him.
The confirmation hearing — and subsequent vote — brought questions surrounding Blanche’s credibility and integrity, as well as concerns about Trump’s ethical dilemmas surrounding cronyism, to the forefront.
The attorney general acts as the head of the Department of Justice, responsible for enforcing federal laws, representing the U.S. in court, and advising the president.
Blanche has a long history in Washington, beginning when he attended American University for his undergraduate education, like fellow former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. He began his legal career as an intern in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, which eventually became a full-time position.
That job eventually led him to work as a paralegal in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York while attending Brooklyn Law School at night. Blanche graduated cum laude in 2003.
Blanche left the public sector in 2014, taking a job in the Manhattan office of the law firm WilmerHale. In September 2017, he moved to Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, where he was a partner in the White Collar Defense and Investigations practice.
There, Blanche represented several figures associated with President Donald Trump, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort.
In 2024, Blanche switched from Democrat to Republican and moved from New York City to Palm Beach, Fla., where he would be closer to Trump’s primary legal residence at Mar-a-Lago.
He then served as Trump’s personal defense attorney in the New York state case that led to Trump’s 2024 conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
While serving as acting head of the Department of Justice before his official confirmation, Blanche played a central role in overseeing the department and was involved in leadership decisions tied to several controversial actions affecting LGBTQ people.
One of the first issues was transgender rights and gender-affirming care, particularly for minors — an issue the White House and Republican Party have made a key part of their broader cultural agenda and federal policy efforts.
In a letter to New York Attorney General Letitia James, Blanche declared that the Justice Department “will not sit idly by while you attempt to use your office to force harmful procedures on our most vulnerable population.”
The letter came before NYU Langone ended its gender-affirming care at the behest of the president, forcing the hospital system to stop prescribing puberty blockers and hormones to minors.
The hospital’s change in policy came after the Trump-Vance administration threatened to pull all federal funding if it continued providing the care.
Blanche wrote that “the Justice Department believes the law is clear, and anti-discrimination laws cannot be used to force NYU Langone to perform sex-rejecting procedures on children.”
“As just one example, your office’s position would require a hospital to prescribe certain medications for certain diagnoses, regardless of the hospital’s or its doctors’ independent medical determination about the propriety of such treatment,” he continued in the letter.
In addition to his anti-transgender positions, Blanche also echoed his predecessor, Pam Bondi, in taking a public stance on limiting LGBTQ-related protections at the federal level.
He aligned with Bondi’s sentiments in June 2025 regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision that restricted LGBTQ history lessons in schools and limited lower federal courts from issuing nationwide injunctions — rulings that have often blocked Trump administration policies.
Blanche called it “another great decision that came down today,” arguing the ruling “restores parents’ rights to decide their child’s education.”
“It took the Supreme Court to set the record straight, and we thank them for that,” he said. “Now that ruling allows parents to opt out of dangerous trans ideology and make the decisions for their children that they believe is correct.”
In December 2025, a Justice Department memo stated that, “effective immediately,” prisons and jails would no longer be held responsible for violations of standards meant to protect LGBTQ people from harassment, abuse and rape under the Prison Rape Elimination Act.
The law, passed unanimously by Congress in 2003, requires that incarcerated people be screened for their risk of sexual assault, including consideration of LGBTQ status, and applies to all correctional facilities.
Additionally, when the Justice Department, under Blanche’s deputy leadership and at Trump’s behest, attempted to force Children’s National Hospital in D.C. to turn over medical records related to gender-affirming care, U.S. District Judge Julie R. Rubin ruled that the effort “appears to have no purpose other than to intimidate and harass.”
Blanche also faced scrutiny over a slew of other issues surrounding his leadership during his tenure as acting AG.
The Justice Connection, a watchdog organization that works to protect current and former civil servants working in the U.S. Department of Justice, called his work so far “devastating.”
The organization said Blanche “harmed the department’s workforce, advanced the politicization of the department, undermined the rule of law, and threatened public safety.”
The group cited several issues, including what it described as Blanche minimizing the violent reality of the January 6 insurrection led by Trump supporters; investigating and attempting to prosecute President Trump’s perceived political enemies; the botched release of the Epstein Files to Congress and the public, including the release of victim and witness details and censorship surrounding the scope of Trump’s relationship with the convicted sex trafficker and pedophile; and the expansion of federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota which lead to the death of two U.S. citizens by federal officials.
Sharon McGowan, senior vice president of Policy & Litigation at the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the country, provided a statement to the Blade about Blanche’s confirmation calling it “chilling.”
“The last thing Todd Blanche deserves is a promotion,” McGowan said via email. “For months, Blanche has used his position as Acting Attorney General to advance President Trump’s personal and financial interests and to weaponize the Justice Department against the President’s enemies, whether they be transgender kids or civil rights organizations trying to help people vote. His notion of justice is warped and dangerous, and LGBTQ+ Americans deserve better.”
National
HRC condemns DoE removal of LGBTQ bullying data from federal survey
Organization cites rise in homophobic, transphobic policies, worse mental health outcomes
The Human Rights Campaign is slamming the White House — and the Department of Education — following their removal of some LGBTQ bullying data from federal data collection.
The Civil Rights Data Collection is a mandated survey of all public school districts that collects figures on a wide variety of statistics about students — including demographics that include race, ethnicity, sex, disability status, and English learner status; course-level enrollment data, such as how many students are enrolled in advanced placement or honors classes; and school climate information, such as rates of bullying, harassment, suspensions, and expulsions.
That data collection has been ongoing since 1968 — nearly six decades — but now has a major change in what questions are being asked, or not asked, that advocates are largely attributing to the Trump-Vance administration’s culture war fight on LGBTQ children in the country.
Changes to the 2025-2026 survey questions — approved by the Office of Budget and Management in July — eliminated a space for schools to report how many students identify as nonbinary, how often those students are victims of harassment and bullying, and whether school districts have policies prohibiting gender identity-based incidents.
K-12 Dive, a publication that focuses its reporting on news related to K-12 education, first published a list of these data collection changes from 2024-2025 to 2025-2026.
These questions, as well as others that included LGBTQ student topics on treatment in schools, were added to the CRDC under the Biden-Harris administration. By including these questions, policymakers hoped this would lead to increased investigations into discrimination complaints, initiate compliance reviews, and provide policy guidance to districts, according to Education Department documents.
The CRDC also eliminated the mention of “gender identity” from the definition of rape and sexual assault. The prior collection of data (before the Trump-Vance administration changed it) defined rape as something that could be done to “all students, regardless of sex, or sexual orientation, or gender identity.” Now, the new data collection questions say, “All students, regardless of sex, or sexual orientation can be victims of rape,” removing “gender identity” from the new definition.
By removing and changing definitions, this could have a real-world impact on some of the school’s most vulnerable students. According to CRDC data from 2021-2022, more than 1,800 school districts reported enrolling one or more nonbinary students.
Additional data also shows that the changes to data collection is harming public school students. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee released a report in April finding that the Trump-Vance administration’s efforts to all but close the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights has left students facing discrimination and harassment throughout the country without the federal recourse they are entitled to under federal law.
The Williams Institute, a think tank that collects data and conducts research on issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity, has data indicating the true number of nonbinary and transgender children is much higher — they estimate that for children ages 13 to 17, nearly 724,000 identify as nonbinary or trans.
This is in line with a slew of policies pushed by the Trump-Vance administration since their federal takeover. Within his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14168, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” This directive attempts to make the federal definition of gender unchangeable, determined by sex assigned at birth alone.
Within his first month of his second term, Trump issued Executive Order 14187, titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” The order directs federal agencies to restrict gender-affirming medical care — including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries — for individuals under the age of 19.
He also pushed multiple anti-trans executive orders, including Executive Order 14201, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” and Executive Order 14183, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” targeting trans athletes and military members, respectively.
These policies have a real-world impact on trans people.
The Trevor Project, a nonprofit dedicated to crisis and suicide prevention for LGBTQ people under 25, reported that, for the seventh year in a row, LGBTQ youth are at higher risk for suicide as a result of mistreatment and stigmatization.
Trevor Project data showed that nearly 60 percent of LGBTQ young people ages 13-17 said they were bullied in the past year, and that 36 percent of LGBTQ youth seriously considered suicide in the last year. The data shows a bigger discrepancy for trans youth, with that number hovering around 40 percent considering suicide.
HRC President Kelley Robinson issued a statement following the approval of the new data collection questions that leaves LGBTQ students’ bullying statistics under — if not completely unreported.
“If there was even a shadow of a doubt, this latest move by the Trump administration makes it abundantly clear they do not care about the safety of LGBTQ+ students, and trans students in particular,” Robinson said. “These are adults who should be protecting our kids. And instead, they are making sure bullying and harassment are not tracked. If they are not tracked, bullying and harassment cannot be prevented or stopped — which is exactly what the Trump administration wants. Parents deserve to know their kids are safe at school, and every single young person deserves dignity and safety at school. Anything less is plain evil.”
HRC has a “Welcoming Schools” initiative that they say is the “most comprehensive” bias-based bullying prevention program in the nation. The program includes LGBTQ and gender-inclusive resources for schools, help navigating special education and disability resources for LGBTQ-identifying students, and other tools to help schools become more inclusive.
This program has been in effect for nearly two decades and, according to HRC, reaches nearly 750,000 students.
The Washington Blade reached out to both the Department of Education and Office of Management and Budget for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
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