National
New AIDS group debuts as NAPWA successor
‘Pozitively Healthy’ to be volunteer arm of HealthHIV
Frank Oldham, Jr. is the former CEO of NAPWA, which closed in bankruptcy earlier this year. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
A newly created national coalition called Pozitively Healthy will advocate for people with HIV and AIDS following the closing in February of the 30-year-old National Association of People With AIDS (NAPWA), according to the coalition’s organizers.
In a May 10 statement, organizers said the new coalition will be an arm of the Washington, D.C.-based national AIDS group HealthHIV, which will manage the coalition’s finances and infrastructure.
“Pozitively Healthy’s mission is to ensure the strong independent voice of the 1.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States,” the statement says.
It says the coalition will advocate for “access to quality health care and the most impactful prevention, care and treatment services in this era of health reform implementation.”
The statement says organizations, including the Names Project Foundation associated with the national AIDS Quilt, and AIDS-related publications will be a part of the coalition in addition to individuals.
“Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Pozitively Healthy coalition will develop and drive an advocacy and education agenda to address issues impacting People Living With HIV/AIDS, with special attention to African-American MSM [men who have sex with men], women, and transgender populations,” the statement says.
Brian Hujdich, executive director of HealthHIV, said HealthHIV and organizers of Pozitively Healthy are inviting AIDS activists and their supporters from throughout the country to apply for membership on a national steering committee created to set the coalition’s agenda and mission.
He said organizers are also inviting activists and others supportive of the coalition’s efforts to become members of the coalition. He said membership is free. Information about Pozitively Healthy and a sign-up form to become a member is available at HealthHIV.org.
Five members of the steering committee, which had 16 members as of early this week, are former officials at NAPWA, including NAPWA’s former executive director and CEO Frank Oldham.
Veteran Washington State AIDS activist Judi Billings, a former NAPWA board chair, has been named co-chair of the Pozitively Healthy steering committee.
David Waggoner, founder and publisher of the Albany, N.Y.-based national AIDS magazine A&U, has been named as the other co-chair.
The prominent role being played by former NAPWA officials and staffers prompted AIDS activists and bloggers Michael Petrelis of San Francisco and Greg Milward of Wisconsin to raise concern, saying events leading up to NAPWA’s financial collapse and bankruptcy took place under their watch.
With creditors owed more than $750,000, NAPWA filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy at the time it announced it was shutting its doors permanently in February.
Oldham announced his resignation from his post as NAPWA’s executive director and CEO in October and left the organization in November before news of the impending bankruptcy surfaced. A document filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Maryland lists Oldham as owing NAPWA more than $80,000 in “accounts payable.”
Oldham and all other former officials at NAPWA have declined to comment on any of the details that surfaced in the public records associated with the bankruptcy filing.
Stephen Bailous, NAPWA’s former deputy executive director and a current member of Pozitively Healthy’s steering committee, told the Blade shortly after the bankruptcy filing that NAPWA’s financial problems stemmed from the organization’s difficulty in raising funds during the downturn in the economy, which he said led to a mounting debt.
Hujdich of HealthHIV told the Blade that Oldham, Billings and the other former NAPWA officials were named to the Pozitively Healthy steering committee because of their years of experience in AIDS-related matters and their distinguished record of advocacy for people with AIDS.
He said that similar to all members of the steering committee, the former NAPWA officials’ role in the coalition would be limited to policy and advocacy matters.
“We’re handling the management of it so that we’ll handle everything financial and any infrastructure with regards to how to help support it,” Hujdich said.
“As it relates to the way NAPWA was managed, none of the former NAPWA board or staff members that are part of the coalition are connected in any way to the running of the coalition financially,” he said. “And so they have no role in anything fiscal.”
According to Hujdich, Pozitively Healthy will operate as an all-volunteer entity, with a membership and most steering committee members located throughout the country.
Added Hujdich, “There shouldn’t be an issue about their involvement. And all the more reason — not just those who were involved with NAPWA but others who are long committed to HIV advocacy — why wouldn’t we want to include their voice and give them an opportunity to do this?”
Just three days after the announcement of the creation of Pozitively Healthy, Oldham testified on behalf of the new coalition at a D.C. City Council hearing on Tuesday.
The hearing, before the Council’s Committee on Health, reviewed the city’s implementation of President Obama’s healthcare reform program related to insurance exchanges created to enable consumers to select affordable health insurance policies.
Federal Government
RFK Jr.’s HHS report pushes therapy, not medical interventions, for trans youth
‘Discredited junk science’ — GLAAD
A 409-page report released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services challenges the ethics of medical interventions for youth experiencing gender dysphoria, the treatments that are often collectively called gender-affirming care, instead advocating for psychotherapy alone.
The document comes in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order barring the federal government from supporting gender transitions for anyone younger than 19.
“Our duty is to protect our nation’s children — not expose them to unproven and irreversible medical interventions,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement. “We must follow the gold standard of science, not activist agendas.”
While the report does not constitute clinical guidance, its findings nevertheless conflict with not just the recommendations of LGBTQ advocacy groups but also those issued by organizations with relevant expertise in science and medicine.
The American Medical Association, for instance, notes that “empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression.”
Gender-affirming care for transgender youth under standards widely used in the U.S. includes supportive talk therapy along with — in some but not all cases — puberty blockers or hormone treatment.
“The suggestion that someone’s authentic self and who they are can be ‘changed’ is discredited junk science,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “This so-called guidance is grossly misleading and in direct contrast to the recommendation of every leading health authority in the world. This report amounts to nothing more than forcing the same discredited idea of conversion therapy that ripped families apart and harmed gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people for decades.”
GLAAD further notes that the “government has not released the names of those involved in consulting or authoring this report.”
Janelle Perez, executive director of LPAC, said, “For decades, every major medical association–including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics–have affirmed that medical care is the only safe and effective treatment for transgender youth experiencing gender dysphoria.
“This report is simply promoting conversion therapy by a different name – and the American people know better. We know that conversion therapy isn’t actually therapy – it isolates and harms kids, scapegoats parents, and divides families through blame and rejection. These tactics have been used against gay kids for decades, and now the same people want to use them against transgender youth and their families.
“The end result here will be a devastating denial of essential health care for transgender youth, replaced by a dangerous practice that every major U.S. medical and mental health association agree promotes anxiety, depression, and increased risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts.
“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice, and no amount of pressure can force someone to change who they are. We also know that 98% of people who receive transition-related health care continue to receive that health care throughout their lifetime. Trans health care is health care.”
“Today’s report seeks to erase decades of research and learning, replacing it with propaganda. The claims in today’s report would rip health care away from kids and take decision-making out of the hands of parents,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of NCLR. “It promotes the same kind of conversion therapy long used to shame LGBTQ+ people into hating themselves for being unable to change something they can’t change.”
“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice—it’s rooted in biology and genetics,” Minter said. “No amount or talk or pressure will change that.”
Human Rights Campaign Chief of Staff Jay Brown released a statement: “Trans people are who we are. We’re born this way. And we deserve to live our best lives and have a fair shot and equal opportunity at living a good life.
“This report misrepresents the science that has led all mainstream American medical and mental health professionals to declare healthcare for transgender youth to be best practice and instead follows a script predetermined not by experts but by Sec. Kennedy and anti-equality politicians.”
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.
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