National
Christine Quinn formally announces NYC mayoral campaign
She would become city’s first female and first gay mayor

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (Photo by Thomas Good / NLN via Wikimedia Commons)
New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn on Sunday officially launched her mayoral campaign.
“Today I’m announcing, making it official, that I’m running for mayor of the city of New York,” she said in a video posted to her campaign website. “I’m running because I love this city. It is the greatest place in the world.”
Quinn mentioned in the video she was executive director of the New York City Anti-Violence Project in the late 1990s. She also referenced her grandparents who immigrated from Ireland a century ago and her mother’s long battle with breast cancer when she was a child.
“My mother’s life and death left me with a belief that our obligation is to use every moment we have on this earth to make it a better place, to make other people’s lives better, to make sure nobody is left behind because they might need a little more help,” Quinn said.
A Quinnipiac University poll released late last month finds Quinn, who would become the city’s first female and openly gay mayor, leads New York City Public Advocate Bill De Blasio and other leading Democratic challengers. The survey also found 63 percent of respondents are comfortable with a gay mayoral candidate.
Quinn told the Washington Blade last September LGBT issues remain an integral part of her agenda.
She introduced a bill in 2004 to require city contractors to offer equal benefits to registered same-sex domestic partners and married heterosexual couples. Quinn also worked with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York City Department of Education to implement an anti-bullying curriculum in the city’s public schools.
Quinn has frequently spoken out against anti-LGBT violence in the five boroughs — and she joined other New York City officials who criticized then-Puerto Rico Gov. Luís Fortuño for what they contend was his unwillingness to stop anti-LGBT violence on the island in the wake of gay teenager Jorge Steven López Mercado’s 2009 murder.
She also continues to boycott the city’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade because organizers prohibit gay men and lesbians from marching.
Quinn, who married her long-time partner Kim Catullo last May, told the Blade “one could feel the joy on the streets” after the New York’s same-sex marriage law passed in 2011.
“We had the opportunity to publicly commit in a legal ceremony in front of our family and friends, that we are a couple, we are family,” she said. “We are just as important as any other family. I will always be grateful for that day and remember that day for the rest of my life.”
In spite of her advocacy on these and other issues, Quinn has faced criticism from LGBT Democrats and other progressives over her support of the extension of term-limits that allowed the mayor, herself and other city officials to run for a third-term.
She acknowledged in 2008 a City Council slush fund appropriated more than $17 million to community organizations that did not exist. Quinn sparked further controversy last July when she demanded the president of New York University remove Chick-fil-A from campus in response to CEO Dan Cathy’s opposition to marriage rights for same-sex couples.
“Speaker Christine Quinn running for mayor of New York City creates an exciting and historic opportunity for LGBT people in New York,” Melissa Sklarz, president of the Stonewall Democratic Club of New York City, told the Blade. “Having an out lesbian like Chris succeeding in this campaign will send a message around the world that homophobia and politics do not mix in the 21st century.”
“We are enthusiastic about Christine Quinn’s official announcement that she’s running to be the next mayor of New York,” Nathan Schaefer, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, added. “The LGBT community could have no greater ally in Gracie mansion.”
Victory Fund CEO Chuck Wolfe also welcome Quinn’s announcement.
“Chris is so clearly and deeply passionate about New York City and the people who call it home,” he said. “She works hard to make sure the city works for everyone, and that’s what people expect of their elected leaders. As mayor of New York City, she will be a worldwide symbol of what openly LGBT people can achieve when we work hard, earn the respect of our communities and fight to win.”
The White House
Trump nominates Mike Waltz to become next UN ambassador
Former Fla. congressman had been national security advisor

President Donald Trump on Thursday announced he will nominate Mike Waltz to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
Waltz, a former Florida congressman, had been the national security advisor.
Trump announced the nomination amid reports that Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, were going to leave the administration after Waltz in March added a journalist to a Signal chat in which he, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other officials discussed plans to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen.
“I am pleased to announce that I will be nominating Mike Waltz to be the next United States ambassador to the United Nations,” said Trump in a Truth Social post that announced Waltz’s nomination. “From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our nation’s Interests first. I know he will do the same in his new role.”
Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as interim national security advisor, “while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department.”
“Together, we will continue to fight tirelessly to make America, and the world, safe again,” said Trump.
Trump shortly after his election nominated U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Trump in March withdrew her nomination in order to ensure Republicans maintained their narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
U.S. Federal Courts
Second federal lawsuit filed against White House passport policy
Two of seven plaintiffs live in Md.

Lambda Legal on April 25 filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of seven transgender and nonbinary people who are challenging the Trump-Vance administration’s passport policy.
The lawsuit, which Lambda Legal filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Baltimore, alleges the policy that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers “has caused and is causing grave and immediate harm to transgender people like plaintiffs, in violation of their constitutional rights to equal protection.”
Two of the seven plaintiffs — Jill Tran and Peter Poe — live in Maryland. The State Department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the federal government are defendants.
“The discriminatory passport policy exposes transgender U.S. citizens to harassment, abuse, and discrimination, in some cases endangering them abroad or preventing them from traveling, by forcing them to use identification documents that share private information against their wishes,” said Lambda Legal in a press release.
Zander Schlacter, a New York-based textile artist and designer, is the lead plaintiff.
The lawsuit notes he legally changed his name and gender in New York.
Schlacter less than a week before President Donald Trump’s inauguration “sent an expedited application to update his legal name on his passport, using form DS-5504.”
Trump once he took office signed an executive order that banned the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers. The lawsuit notes Schlacter received his new passport in February.
“The passport has his correct legal name, but now has an incorrect sex marker of ‘F’ or ‘female,'” notes the lawsuit. “Mr. Schlacter also received a letter from the State Department notifying him that ‘the date of birth, place of birth, name, or sex was corrected on your passport application,’ with ‘sex’ circled in red. The stated reason was ‘to correct your information to show your biological sex at birth.'”
“I, like many transgender people, experience fear of harassment or violence when moving through public spaces, especially where a photo ID is required,” said Schlacter in the press release that announced the lawsuit. “My safety is further at risk because of my inaccurate passport. I am unwilling to subject myself and my family to the threat of harassment and discrimination at the hands of border officials or anyone who views my passport.”
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.
Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an “X” gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.
Lambda Legal represented Zzyym.
The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022.
Trump signed his executive order shortly after he took office in January. Germany, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands are among the countries that have issued travel advisories for trans and nonbinary people who plan to visit the U.S.
A federal judge in Boston earlier this month issued a preliminary injunction against the executive order. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of seven trans and nonbinary people.
Federal Government
HHS to retire 988 crisis lifeline for LGBTQ youth
Trevor Project warns the move will ‘put their lives at risk’

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is planning to retire the national 988 crisis lifeline for LGBTQ youth on Oct. 1, according to a preliminary budget document obtained by the Washington Post.
Introduced during the Biden-Harris administration in 2022, the hotline connects callers with counselors who are trained to work with this population, who are four times likelier to attempt suicide than their cisgender or heterosexual counterparts.
“Suicide prevention is about risk, not identity,” said Jaymes Black, CEO of the Trevor Project, which provides emergency crisis support for LGBTQ youth and has contracted with HHS to take calls routed through 988.
“Ending the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ+ youth specialized services will not just strip away access from millions of LGBTQ+ kids and teens — it will put their lives at risk,” they said in a statement. “These programs were implemented to address a proven, unprecedented, and ongoing mental health crisis among our nation’s young people with strong bipartisan support in Congress and signed into law by President Trump himself.”
“I want to be clear to all LGBTQ+ young people: This news, while upsetting, is not final,” Black said. “And regardless of federal funding shifts, the Trevor Project remains available 24/7 for anyone who needs us, just as we always have.”
The service for LGBTQ youth has received 1.3 million calls, texts, or chats since its debut, with an average of 2,100 contacts per day in February.
“I worry deeply that we will see more LGBTQ young people reach a crisis state and not have anyone there to help them through that,” said Janson Wu, director of advocacy and government affairs at the Trevor Project. “I worry that LGBTQ young people will reach out to 988 and not receive a compassionate and welcoming voice on the other end — and that will only deepen their crisis.”
Under Trump’s HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the agency’s departments and divisions have experienced drastic cuts, with a planned reduction in force of 20,000 full-time employees. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has been sunset and mental health services consolidated into the newly formed Administration for a Healthy America.
The budget document reveals, per Mother Jones, “further sweeping cuts to HHS, including a 40 percent budget cut to the National Institutes of Health; elimination of funding for Head Start, the early childhood education program for low-income families; and a 44 percent funding cut to the Centers for Disease Control, including all the agency’s chronic disease programs.”
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