National
Year ahead filled with promise, pitfalls
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent comment that her 2010 agenda wouldn’t include controversial votes unless the Senate acts first has disappointed some LGBT lobbyists on Capitol Hill.
There are several LGBT-related bills pending at the federal level, including repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the enactment of employment non-discrimination and extending benefits to the same-sex partners of federal workers.
But the closest to a sure thing will be Congress permitting D.C.’s recently passed same-sex marriage law to stand. Lobbyists on both sides of the issue have said it’s unlikely that the Democratic-controlled Congress would move to derail the law.
Meanwhile, action could come on the Domestic Partnership Benefits & Obligations Act for federal workers with same-sex partners, a priority for Reps. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.).
The bill was reported out of a Senate committee with support from ranking Republican Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), which lobbyists saw as a sign it would get the necessary support to pass in the Senate if allowed a vote. The bill has 26 Senate co-sponsors. U.S. Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry is expected to provide offset savings in his department early this year, a necessary precursor to the bill’s Senate floor vote.
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, meanwhile, has been subject to significant lobbying with high expectations in 2010. Frank previously told the Washington Blade that he expected a vote on the issue “no later than February.”
One gay Republican group said those plans might have hit a snag, however, after Pelosi told freshmen members that House-initiated controversial votes wouldn’t happen in 2010.
“This shows the Democratic leadership has no interest in fulfilling the commitments they made to the LGBT community,” said Charles Moran, a Log Cabin Republicans spokesperson.
The Republican group’s highest priority is repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and Moran said members have become increasingly frustrated with President Obama over the issue. Moran said Log Cabin’s supporters in 2010 will lobby for the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal to be included in the 2011 defense authorization bill.
Separately, Moran said Log Cabin members are hoping that a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will succeed. The case, which argues that declaring sexual orientation is a protected form of free speech, will see its next hearing in April.
Another effort to overturn “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, currently has 186 co-sponsors in the House and has been referred to the Subcommittee on Military Personnel. The bill would repeal the ban on openly gay service members and replace it with a non-discrimination policy.
Major federal bills making their way through the legislative process this year are poised to include some LGBT-related provisions.
At DC Agenda deadline, a pending health care reform package was expected to extend recognition of LGBT health issues in several areas, such as research categories. And efforts are ongoing to make LGBT concerns a part of immigration reform, despite the lack of such language in the initial bill.
The Uniting American Families Act, which would recognize same-sex partners for immigration purposes, has 118 co-sponsors in the House and 23 co-sponsors in the Senate. It has stalled in a House subcommittee and Senate committee; it’s unclear how prominently the bill will figure into this year’s immigration debate.
Also unclear is how much closer federal officials will come this year to recognizing the rights of same-sex couples. The Respect for
Marriage Act, an effort to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act that was introduced by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), has 107 House co-sponsors. Nadler recently told DC Agenda he doesn’t expect the bill to pass this year.
Meanwhile, LGBT advocacy organizations have started looking at the November elections to advance their priorities and politicians of choice.
State and local elections of interest include the governor’s races in Maryland, California and New York. Also, all 62 state Senate seats in New York will be up for grabs, and last year’s failed same-sex marriage vote could figure into some of the races.
“Stonewall Democrats’ hope for 2010 is that the LGBT community now understands acutely — after stinging defeats like the one in the New York Senate and in the governor’s mansions in New Jersey and Virginia — that electing pro-equality Democrats is an essential part of fighting for equal rights,” said Michael Mitchell, executive director of Stonewall Democrats.
“We need more people in office who refuse to engage in the politics of fear and instead govern from a place where equality means everyone, and we hope that in 2010, more LGBT people will join the fight to put them there.”
The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund was upbeat about the role that LGBT voices would play in the 2010 elections, noting that more than 100 openly LGBT candidates are slated for endorsement and assistance.
“The bulk of our candidates will be at the state level, but we’ve already endorsed one candidate for Congress: Steve Pougnet, who is running against [Republican U.S. Rep.] Mary Bono Mack,” said Denis Dison, a Victory Fund vice president.
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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