National
LGBT Democrats defend Obama at DNC winter meeting
The Democratic National Committee’s LGBT Americans Caucus is giving high marks to President Obama and the Democratic Party’s efforts to advance LGBT rights over the past year, caucus members said this week.
Veteran Democratic activist Rick Stafford of Minnesota, who chairs the LGBT Caucus, said members at the Feb. 5 meeting were impressed with DNC Chair Timothy Kaine, a former Virginia governor, and gay White House official Brian Bond. Both addressed the LGBT Caucus during the DNC’s annual winter meeting.
Stafford told DC Agenda that Kaine “talked about the achievements, but he also talked about the frustration he knows our community has on some issues, with the lack of forward progress.”
“He hears that and he wants the community to know he hears that,” Stafford said. “But he also talked about the accomplishments the administration has made on our issues, and many of us believe they are very important.”
Stafford said Bond, who serves as deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, outlined “a litany of impressive achievements” by the Obama administration on gay-related issues. He noted that Bond also acknowledged concern among many LGBT supporters that Congress has been slow to pass several gay-related bills.
Kaine also talked about “the importance of the 2010 elections so that we don’t slide back,” Stafford said. He noted that Kaine told the caucus “the national party is committed in terms of the outreach to our community and to highlight the issues and the achievements that we have made in this administration for our community and where we need to go forward.”
Meetings of the 25-member LGBT Americans Caucus come at a time when some LGBT activists have called for a boycott of DNC fundraisers. The activists, led by longtime gay Democratic activist and fundraiser David Mixner and gay blogger John Aravosis, have said the boycott is aimed at pressuring the DNC and the administration to more aggressively push the Democratic-controlled Congress to pass several LGBT-related bills.
Mixner and Aravosis have said the boycott should be limited to the DNC and that people should continue to contribute money to individual Democratic candidates who are supportive on LGBT issues.
Among the bills that Mixner and Aravosis want Congress to pass is the long stalled Employment Non-Discrimination Act, also known as ENDA, which would bar job discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Other congressional action sought by activists is repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law preventing gays, lesbians and bisexuals from serving openly in the military, and repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars legally married same-sex couples from receiving nearly 1,200 federal rights and benefits associated with marriage.
“What we are saying is people should absolutely hold off on their donations until the party comes through on their promises, and then continue supporting them,” Aravosis said. “But currently they’re not coming through.”
LGBT Caucus members Earl Fowlkes of Washington, D.C., who supported Obama’s presidential campaign, and Heather Mizeur, a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, joined Stafford in strongly opposing the boycott. The three said withholding contributions to the DNC would hurt efforts to elect LGBT-supportive Democratic candidates to Congress and state legislatures.
Also expressing opposition to the boycott was Barbara Siperstein, president of Stonewall Democrats of New Jersey and the first openly transgender person to be named to the DNC.
“I share, from my own experience, the frustration they’re talking about,” Siperstein told DC Agenda. “But very honestly, I disagree with a strategy of boycotting the DNC. I can only see it as unsuccessful for our community. It can only help the Republicans.”
Siperstein, Fowlkes and Mizeur each said the Democratic leaders in Congress and most congressional Democrats strongly support the LGBT-related bills in question. They note that a small group of moderate and conservative Democrats have so far withheld support for some or all of these bills. And with nearly all congressional Republicans opposed to the bills, supporters have been unable to line up the votes needed to pass the LGBT bills, the three said.
“You can’t blame the party or the president for that,” said Siperstein.
Mizeur, whose Maryland district includes the largely Democratic and suburban Montgomery County, said she’s “never been for a boycott.”
“But I think that our contributions should come with some strings attached, if you will,” she said. “They need to come along with conversations about how ‘I am an LGBT American who is investing in this party and this money I want to see goes toward an agenda that includes “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” [repeal] and marriage equality,’ and you go down the list.”
Aravosis, however, said the approach suggested by Mizeur and other DNC supporters doesn’t appear to have worked.
He said the national party angered many LGBT Democrats in November when it remained silent during a heated campaign in Maine over a ballot measure that struck down same-sex marriage in the state.
DNC-sponsored phone canvassers reminded Maine residents to vote, but made no mention of the anti-gay ballot measure. And the canvassers urged Maine political activists to participate in an operation urging New Jersey voters to support the failed re-election bid of Democratic Gov. John Corzine.
Aravosis called the development “outrageous,” noting that the DNC effectively ignored an anti-gay campaign in Maine while asking Democrats in Maine to get involved in a New Jersey race.
“The point isn’t to stop helping New Jersey,” said Aravosis. “The point is we don’t want them to keep avoiding gay issues. And that’s what they did.”
Stafford said DNC officials have acknowledged that “miscommunication” between the DNC and the Maine Democratic Party resulted in the national party apparatus not providing resources to help defeat the ballot measure. The state party in Maine strongly opposed the ballot measure.
The Maine flap prompted several members of the LGBT Americans Caucus and non-gay supporters to introduce a resolution at the DNC meeting last week to address this problem, Stafford and other caucus members said. The resolution, which the full DNC approved, requires the DNC and its grassroots arm, Organizing for America, to follow the lead of state parties on a wide range of issues, including state ballot measures.
Fowlkes, who has been active in organizing black LGBT Pride events in D.C. and other cities, said the Obama administration has come up short only in failing to communicate as well as it could its “extensive” record of support for LGBT issues during its first year in office.
“A lot of the focus of the LGBT community has been misplaced in blaming Obama and putting pressure only on Obama,” Fowlkes said. “But what we also have to understand is that there are moderate Democrats, conservative Democrats [in Congress]. Some of those people have to be brought along, and that’s where the LGBT community can be putting pressure on those people to make them come along with the administration and vote the correct way.”
New York
Men convicted of murdering two men in NYC gay bar drugging scheme sentenced
One of the victims, John Umberger, was D.C. political consultant
A New York judge on Wednesday sentenced three men convicted of killing a D.C. political consultant and another man who they targeted at gay bars in Manhattan.
NBC New York notes a jury in February convicted Jayqwan Hamilton, Jacob Barroso, and Robert DeMaio of murder, robbery, and conspiracy in relation to druggings and robberies that targeted gay bars in Manhattan from March 2021 to June 2022.
John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant from D.C., and Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, died. Prosecutors said Hamilton, Barroso, and DeMaio targeted three other men at gay bars.
The jury convicted Hamilton and DeMaio of murdering Umberger. State Supreme Court Judge Felicia Mennin sentenced Hamilton and DeMaio to 40 years to life in prison.
Barroso, who was convicted of killing Ramirez, received a 20 years to life sentence.
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.
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