National
Iraq war vet who fought ‘Don’t Ask’ dies in car accident
Manzella discharged under military’s gay ban after coming out on ’60 Minutes’
Darren Manzella, shown here in 2008, came out as gay while serving in the Army under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” He died at age 36. (Washington Blade file photo by Henry Linser).
A gay veteran of the Iraq war who fought against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has died in a car accident in Pittsford, N.Y.
Darren Manzella, who came out as gay in 2007 while serving in the Army during an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” died on Thursday at the scene of the crash. He had just turned 36 on Aug. 8.
Steve Ralls, the former spokesperson for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network who handled his public relations at the time, said openly gay troops currently serving around the world today are able to do so, in part, because of Darren’s sacrifice.
“Darren knew he would be discharged for speaking out, but he volunteered to do it because he wanted the men and women who followed him to be able to serve openly without fear of discharge or discrimination,” Ralls said. “That’s the kind of guy, and the kind of soldier, Darren was. I know how deeply proud his family was of him, and that pride was shared by all of us who had the privilege of working with him, too.”
Manzella served as an Army medic in Kuwait and Iraq and earned a Combat Medical Badge for treating his fellow soldiers. His “60 Minutes” interview was filmed, in secret, in Kuwait City while he was still a Staff Sergeant in the Army.
He was the first openly gay service member on active duty to speak to the press from a war zone. Months after coming out publicly, Manzella was given an honorable discharge under the military’s gay ban in 2008.
Since August 2011, Manzella had been working as a health science specialist for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Rochester. According to his Facebook page, he very recently married his spouse, Javier Lapeira, on July 5.
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, who also faced discharge under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” for being gay, knew Manzella and said he was an inspiration.
“Darren Manzella wasn’t just a hero and an inspiration to me personally, he was an American hero and a civil rights leader,” Fehrenbach said. “When my ordeal started in May 2008, I saw Darren’s interview on 60 minutes. He inspired me to speak out and tell my story. He had such a great impact in the repeal of DADT.”
Fehrenbach, who was ultimately able to stay in the Air Force before he retired on his own volition, said his friend will leave a lasting legacy.
“The only blessing is that Darren died as a soldier and a husband,” Fehrenbach said. “He was able to fulfill his dreams to serve his country openly and marry the man he loved. I will miss him dearly, and I will never forget him. He made the world a better place and he made me better and stronger for knowing him.”
The Rochester-based Democrat and Chronicle quotes Michael Manzella, Darren’s father, as identifying his son as a person who was killed in the accident Thursday night.
Michael Manzella reportedly said Darren was struck by a sport utility vehicle while pushing his car that was already damaged in an accident that happened immediately beforehand on Interstate 490. Michael Manzella is quoted as saying as of Friday afternoon, his calls to police so far haven’t been returned.
In the same report, Cpl. John Helfer of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office reportedly confirmed an accident involving two collisions took place on Thursday that caused someone’s death. However, Helfer reportedly wouldn’t name the person.
Helfer reportedly said the incident began as a two-car crash on the westbound lanes of the highway in Pittsford, when one car sideswiped another car about 8:30 p.m. The man in the struck car stopped in the middle lane of I-490, got out and started pushing it from behind, Helfer was quoted as saying.
But a sport utility vehicle rear-ended the car, pinning the man between the two vehicles. The man was pronounced dead at the scene, Helfer reportedly said. The other two involved drivers were reportedly taken to Strong Memorial Hospital with minor injuries.
Lapeira told the Blade the police came to his apartment to notify him that they had found Manzella’s car and his body, which remained at the Medical Examiner in Rochester until Saturday.
“Needless to say, Darren was a hero in every sense of the word,” Lapeira said. “Even at the moment of his death, his first instinct was to push his car off the freeway to avoid any injuries to others.”
After coming out on “60 Minutes,” Manzella was discharged months later under the military’s gay ban known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” President Obama signed legislation to repeal that law in December 2010 and lifted the ban the following year.
In January 2008, the Washington Blade published an article — the first byline in the paper for this reporter — on Manzella’s appearance on “60 Minutes” during a period of uncertainty on whether he’d be expelled from the military. After he was subsequently kicked out of the Army under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the Blade followed up in July 2008 with an article on his experience.
At the time, the former soldier told the Blade during his discharge proceedings he had the opportunity to request a board to rebut statements that he made to the press. But Manzella waved this option.
“I said I wouldn’t take back anything,” he said. “It would defeat the purpose of why I participated in the [“60 Minutes”] segment. It would defeat the purpose of working with SLDN.”
The former soldier told the Blade experience of being out in the military, making media appearances and ultimately being discharged from service has made him “much more aware” of his identity.
“My belief that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ needs to be repealed has magnified significantly because I’m personally affected by it now,” he said.
Darren Manzella in 2008. (Washington Blade file photo by Henry Linser)
National
Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information
Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources
Nine private medical and public health advocacy organizations, including two from D.C., filed a lawsuit on May 20 in federal court in Seattle challenging what it calls the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s illegal deletion of dozens or more of its webpages containing health related information, including HIV information.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, names as defendants Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HHS itself, and several agencies operating under HHS and its directors, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration.
“This action challenges the widespread deletion of public health resources from federal agencies,” the lawsuit states. “Dozens (if not more) of taxpayer-funded webpages, databases, and other crucial resources have vanished since January 20, 2025, leaving doctors, nurses, researchers, and the public scrambling for information,” it says.
“These actions have undermined the longstanding, congressionally mandated regime; irreparably harmed Plaintiffs and others who rely on these federal resources; and put the nation’s public health infrastructure in unnecessary jeopardy,” the lawsuit continues.
It adds, “The removal of public health resources was apparently prompted by two recent executive orders – one focused on ‘gender ideology’ and the other targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) programs. Defendants implemented these executive orders in a haphazard manner that resulted in the deletion (inadvertent or otherwise) of health-related websites and databases, including information related to pregnancy risks, public health datasets, information about opioid-use disorder, and many other valuable resources.”
The lawsuit does not mention that it was President Donald Trump who issued the two executive orders in question.
A White House spokesperson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit.
While not mentioning Trump by name, the lawsuit names as defendants in addition to HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., Matthew Buzzelli, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health; Martin Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Thomas Engels, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration; and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
The 44-page lawsuit complaint includes an addendum with a chart showing the titles or descriptions of 49 “affected resource” website pages that it says were deleted because of the executive orders. The chart shows that just four of the sites were restored after initially being deleted.
Of the 49 sites, 15 addressed LGBTQ-related health issues and six others addressed HIV issues, according to the chart.
“The unannounced and unprecedented deletion of these federal webpages and datasets came as a shock to the medical and scientific communities, which had come to rely on them to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, assist physicians and other clinicians in daily care, and inform the public about a wide range of healthcare issues,” the lawsuit states.
“Health professionals, nonprofit organizations, and state and local authorities used the websites and datasets daily in care for their patients, to provide resources to their communities, and promote public health,” it says.
Jose Zuniga, president and CEO of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC), one of the organizations that signed on as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the deleted information from the HHS websites “includes essential information about LGBTQ+ health, gender and reproductive rights, clinical trial data, Mpox and other vaccine guidance and HIV prevention resources.”
Zuniga added, “IAPAC champions evidence-based, data-informed HIV responses and we reject ideologically driven efforts that undermine public health and erase marginalized communities.”
Lisa Amore, a spokesperson for Whitman-Walker Health, D.C.’s largest LGBTQ supportive health services provider, also expressed concern about the potential impact of the HHS website deletions.
“As the region’s leader in HIV care and prevention, Whitman-Walker Health relies on scientific data to help us drive our resources and measure our successes,” Amore said in response to a request for comment from the Washington Blade.
“The District of Columbia has made great strides in the fight against HIV,” Amore said. “But the removal of public facing information from the HHS website makes our collective work much harder and will set HIV care and prevention backward,” she said.
The lawsuit calls on the court to issue a declaratory judgement that the “deletion of public health webpages and resources is unlawful and invalid” and to issue a preliminary or permanent injunction ordering government officials named as defendants in the lawsuit “to restore the public health webpages and resources that have been deleted and to maintain their web domains in accordance with their statutory duties.”
It also calls on the court to require defendant government officials to “file a status report with the Court within twenty-four hours of entry of a preliminary injunction, and at regular intervals, thereafter, confirming compliance with these orders.”
The health organizations that joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs include the Washington State Medical Association, Washington State Nurses Association, Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Academy Health, Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Fast-Track Cities Institute, International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, National LGBT Cancer Network, and Vermont Medical Society.
The Fast-Track Cities Institute and International Association of Providers of AIDS Care are based in D.C.
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.
The White House
Trump travels to Middle East countries with death penalty for homosexuality
President traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates
Homosexuality remains punishable by death in two of the three Middle East countries that President Donald Trump visited last week.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the handful of countries in which anyone found guilty of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations could face the death penalty.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia from May 13-14. He traveled to Qatar on May 14.
“The law prohibited consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men but did not explicitly prohibit same-sex sexual relations between women,” notes the State Department’s 2023 human rights report, referring specifically to Qatar’s criminalization law. “The law was not systematically enforced. A man convicted of having consensual same-sex sexual relations could receive a sentence of seven years in prison. Under sharia, homosexuality was punishable by death; there were no reports of executions for this reason.”
Trump on May 15 arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes the “penalty for individuals who engaged in ‘consensual sodomy with a man'” in the country “was a minimum prison sentence of six months if the individual’s partner or guardian filed a complaint.”
“There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. LGBTQI+ identity, real or perceived, could be deemed an act against ‘decency or public morality,’ but there were no reports during the year of persons prosecuted under these provisions,” reads the report.
The report notes Emirati law also criminalizes “men who dressed as women or entered a place designated for women while ‘disguised’ as a woman.” Anyone found guilty could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 dirhams ($2,722.60.)
Trump returned to the U.S. on May 16.
The White House notes Trump during the trip secured more than $2 trillion “in investment agreements with Middle Eastern nations ($200 billion with the United Arab Emirates, $600 billion with Saudi Arabia, and $1.2 trillion with Qatar) for a more safe and prosperous future.”
Former President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022.
Saudi Arabia is scheduled to host the 2034 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup took place in Qatar.
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