National
Obama awards Citizens Medal to PFLAG founder
President says sense of citizenship binds diverse nation


Suzanne Manford Swan receives the Presidential Citizens Medal on behalf of PFLAG founder Jeanne Manford (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
President Obama awarded the nation’s second-highest civilian honor on Friday to the recently deceased founder of Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays.
During a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Obama offered the Presidential Citizens Medal posthumously to PFLAG founder Jeanne Manford, who died last month at age 92. Accepting the award on Manford’s behalf was her daughter, Suzanne Manford Swan.
Prior to presenting the award, Obama recounted the story of how Manford founded PFLAG out of love for her gay son, Morty Manford, who came home beaten after participating in a gay rights march.
“This was back in 1972,” Obama said. “There was a lot of hate, a lot of vitriol toward gays and lesbians and anyone who supported them. But instead, she wrote to the local newspaper and took to the streets with a simple message: No matter who her son was — no matter who he loved — she loved him, and wouldn’t put up with this kind of nonsense.”
Obama added with “that simple act,” Manford helped give rise to a national organization “that has given so much support to parents and families and friends, and helped to change this country.”
Speaking generally about the 13 awardees of the medal this year, Obama said the work these individuals have done is important because a sense of citizenship binds a country as diverse as the United States.
“In America, we have the benefit of living in this big and diverse nation,” Obama said. “We’re home to 315 million people who come from every background, who worship every faith, who hold every single point of view. But what binds us together, what unites us is a single sacred word: ‘citizen.'”
Following the ceremony, Swan, a San Francisco resident, told the Washington Blade during the ceremony she was thinking about future generations who won’t know prejudice against LGBT people thanks to the work of her mother.
“My granddaughter will grow up knowing nothing but love and respect because people are different,” Swan said. “It won’t matter if they’re left-handed, whether they’re homosexual, whether they’re any color. My mother believed that homosexuality was put in the same category. She liked people, and she thought that everybody deserved their civil rights.”
Asked by another reporter how Manford would have felt upon hearing Obama’s inaugural speech and his references to the Stonewall demonstrations and equal rights for gay people, Swan said her mother “would have been thrilled” and noted the progress that PFLAG has seen over the decades.
“The early meetings may have had two people, may have had 20 people,” Swan added. “If they had any, they were happy because they were helping somebody, and that has gotten to be this big. So many people, everyplace I go, people know PFLAG.”
Swan told reporters Manford was informed before she died that she may receive the medal, but didn’t live long enough to come to the White House for the ceremony.
“My mother learned of his award — that it was possibly going to happen, but didn’t know — soon before she died,” Swan said. “She smiled. She couldn’t even talk, but she knew what it meant, and it was very important to her.”
It’s not the first time President Obama has awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to an LGBT activist. In October 2011, Obama presented the award to lesbian activist Janice Langbehn, a lesbian who was unable to visit her partner Lisa Pond as she died in a Florida hospital and whose activism led Obama to issue a memorandum requiring hospitals receiving Medicare and Medicaid funds to grant visitation rights to same-sex partners.
Jody Huckaby, PFLAG National’s executive director, called the awarding of the Citizens Medal “an extraordinary and unprecedented honor” for not only Manford but “her family, and PFLAG members and supporters everywhere.”
“The message is powerful: the voices of parents, family members, friends and straight allies, united with the voice of LGBT people, is critical to the advancement of acceptance and equality,” Huckaby said.
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.”