National
Bay Buchanan tells gay audience Romney will win
Ignores LGBT issues in speech to GOProud conservatives

Republican strategist Bay Buchanan urged an audience of gay conservatives on Monday to remain optimistic that Mitt Romney will win the presidential race.
“We have the message,” Buchanan said. “We have the candidate, we now have the momentum and the energy and the excitement on our side, and the undecideds are breaking our way.”
Buchanan addressed a crowd of about 65 at the Hotel Monaco in D.C. during the gay conservative group GOProud’s “Unity” event, which was aimed at building support for Romney a month prior to the election.
Blaming the media for the polling disparities between Obama and Romney — which were heightened after the release of the “47 percent” video — Buchanan said, “There were some mistakes on our part, and they managed to do their best to make it much worse than it really was.”
But Buchanan, a senior adviser to the Romney campaign, said polls are narrowing thanks to the Romney campaign’s engagement with the local media across the country and Romney’s performance in the first presidential debate last week.
“At each question, he had such a command of the issue, and the way he spoke, it was clear he is also a caring man,” Buchanan said. “He is concerned, but he also happens to be perfectly competent, clear in thought, understands the issues, has some answers out there and he truly has the kind of courage necessary to do the job that is necessary to put Americans back to work.”
Buchanan also disparaged Obama’s performance during the debate, saying, “You got to give the guy a break. Can you imagine an hour-and-a-half of trying to defend that record?” The audience responded with peals of laughter.
No explicit mention of LGBT issues was made during the speech, but Buchanan conveyed a sense of solidarity with the audience of gay conservatives over the issue of the economy.
“The economy and jobs is the most serious issue the country faces, and we face these issues together,” Buchanan said.
Prior to her remarks, Buchanan refused to take questions from the Washington Blade. She shook hands after her speech with a number of attendees in the room who thanked her for her work.
Buchanan’s attendance at the event was noteworthy because she managed the three presidential campaigns of her brother Pat Buchanan, who in his 1992 speech before the Republican National Convention said the GOP stands with then President George H.W. Bush against the “amoral idea that gay and lesbian couples should have the same standing in law as married men and women.”
Just in May on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Buchanan responded negatively to President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage, saying the move would be politically costly for Democrats in battleground states.
“They have trouble, we now have Mitt Romney, who’s always been opposed to gay marriage, I might add,” Buchanan said at the time. “But that is where America is. You have 32 states out there who have banned it. They have never won on the ballot. And so what happens in North Carolina now? This is great in Iowa, in several states, but 32 of them are with us. I think it’s no question if this was good politics for Barack Obama, he’d have done it a long time ago. He wouldn’t have been dragged kicking and screaming to do this.”
But the audience seemed largely unconcerned about Buchanan’s position on LGBT issues or the lack of any mention of them.
Jose Romero, 34, a gay D.C. resident, said he came to the event because “it’s time for a change” and after four years of the Obama administration “people aren’t in a better place than they were four years ago.”
“I think everyone has their own issues that are important to them and not everyone’s No. 1 issue is getting married,” Romero said. “The economy, international politics, those types of issues are more important, I think, to some people than others.”
Jimmy LaSalvia, GOProud’s executive director, introduced Buchanan, reminding them his organization is the only national gay organization to endorse Romney because “on issue after issue, a Romney administration would be better for gay Americans, indeed all Americans.”
“Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan understand the single most important issue facing this country right now is the issue of jobs and the economy,” LaSalvia said. “President Obama wants to run this race on social issues. He talks about abortion and gay marriage and contraception — anything that distracts from his failed record on jobs and the economy.”
LaSalvia praised Romney’s performance in the debate last week, saying Romney exemplified the conservative approach to economic prosperity, while Obama was “stammering and stuttering to defend his record.”
But LaSalvia also explained that the presidential race is one of three key races in which his organization has issued endorsements. The GOProud chief touted his organization’s endorsement of Tommy Thompson in the U.S. Senate race in Wisconsin against lesbian Tammy Baldwin as well as Linda McMahon in the U.S. Senate race in Connecticut, who on Sunday came out for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. Additional endorsements, LaSalvia said, will be made in coming weeks.
Federal Government
UPenn erases Lia Thomas’s records as part of settlement with White House
University agreed to ban trans women from women’s sports teams

In a settlement with the Trump-Vance administration announced on Tuesday, the University of Pennsylvania will ban transgender athletes from competing and erase swimming records set by transgender former student Lia Thomas.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found the university in violation of Title IX, the federal rights law barring sex based discrimination in educational institutions, by “permitting males to compete in women’s intercollegiate athletics and to occupy women-only intimate facilities.”
The statement issued by University of Pennsylvania President J. Larry Jameson highlighted how the law’s interpretation was changed substantially under President Donald Trump’s second term.
“The Department of Education OCR investigated the participation of one transgender athlete on the women’s swimming team three years ago, during the 2021-2022 swim season,” he wrote. “At that time, Penn was in compliance with NCAA eligibility rules and Title IX as then interpreted.”
Jameson continued, “Penn has always followed — and continues to follow — Title IX and the applicable policy of the NCAA regarding transgender athletes. NCAA eligibility rules changed in February 2025 with Executive Orders 14168 and 14201 and Penn will continue to adhere to these new rules.”
Writing that “we acknowledge that some student-athletes were disadvantaged by these rules” in place while Thomas was allowed to compete, the university president added, “We recognize this and will apologize to those who experienced a competitive disadvantage or experienced anxiety because of the policies in effect at the time.”
“Today’s resolution agreement with UPenn is yet another example of the Trump effect in action,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. “Thanks to the leadership of President Trump, UPenn has agreed both to apologize for its past Title IX violations and to ensure that women’s sports are protected at the university for future generations of female athletes.”
Under former President Joe Biden, the department’s Office of Civil Rights sought to protect against anti-LGBTQ discrimination in education, bringing investigations and enforcement actions in cases where school officials might, for example, require trans students to use restrooms and facilities consistent with their birth sex or fail to respond to peer harassment over their gender identity.
Much of the legal reasoning behind the Biden-Harris administration’s positions extended from the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court case Bostock v. Clayton County, which found that sex-based discrimination includes that which is based on sexual orientation or gender identity under Title VII rules covering employment practices.
The Trump-Vance administration last week put the state of California on notice that its trans athlete policies were, or once were, in violation of Title IX, which comes amid the ongoing battle with Maine over the same issue.
New York
Two teens shot steps from Stonewall Inn after NYC Pride parade
One of the victims remains in critical condition

On Sunday night, following the annual NYC Pride March, two girls were shot in Sheridan Square, feet away from the historic Stonewall Inn.
According to an NYPD report, the two girls, aged 16 and 17, were shot around 10:15 p.m. as Pride festivities began to wind down. The 16-year-old was struck in the head and, according to police sources, is said to be in critical condition, while the 17-year-old was said to be in stable condition.
The Washington Blade confirmed with the NYPD the details from the police reports and learned no arrests had been made as of noon Monday.
The shooting took place in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, mere feet away from the most famous gay bar in the city — if not the world — the Stonewall Inn. Earlier that day, hundreds of thousands of people marched down Christopher Street to celebrate 55 years of LGBTQ people standing up for their rights.
In June 1969, after police raided the Stonewall Inn, members of the LGBTQ community pushed back, sparking what became known as the Stonewall riots. Over the course of two days, LGBTQ New Yorkers protested the discriminatory policing of queer spaces across the city and mobilized to speak out — and throw bottles if need be — at officers attempting to suppress their existence.
The following year, LGBTQ people returned to the Stonewall Inn and marched through the same streets where queer New Yorkers had been arrested, marking the first “Gay Pride March” in history and declaring that LGBTQ people were not going anywhere.
New York State Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, whose district includes Greenwich Village, took to social media to comment on the shooting.
“After decades of peaceful Pride celebrations — this year gun fire and two people shot near the Stonewall Inn is a reminder that gun violence is everywhere,” the lesbian lawmaker said on X. “Guns are a problem despite the NRA BS.”
New York
Zohran Mamdani participates in NYC Pride parade
Mayoral candidate has detailed LGBTQ rights platform

Zohran Mamdani, the candidate for mayor of New York City who pulled a surprise victory in the primary contest last week, walked in the city’s Pride parade on Sunday.
The Democratic Socialist and New York State Assembly member published photos on social media with New York Attorney General Letitia James, telling followers it was “a joy to march in NYC Pride with the people’s champ” and to “see so many friends on this gorgeous day.”
“Happy Pride NYC,” he wrote, adding a rainbow emoji.
Mamdani’s platform includes a detailed plan for LGBTQ people who “across the United States are facing an increasingly hostile political environment.”
His campaign website explains: “New York City must be a refuge for LGBTQIA+ people, but private institutions in our own city have already started capitulating to Trump’s assault on trans rights.
“Meanwhile, the cost of living crisis confronting working class people across the city hits the LGBTQIA+ community particularly hard, with higher rates of unemployment and homelessness than the rest of the city.”
“The Mamdani administration will protect LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers by expanding and protecting gender-affirming care citywide, making NYC an LGBTQIA+ sanctuary city, and creating the Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs.”
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