National
Gates unveils new ‘Don’t Ask’ regulations
Changes intended to reflect ‘common sense and common decency’
Defense Secretary Robert Gates (left) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen are changing how the Pentagon will implement "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." (DC Agenda photo by Chris Johnson)
Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Thursday that the Pentagon is changing how it will implement “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” including limiting third-party outings and raising the rank of the officers handling inquiries.
Joined by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, Gates unveiled the changes to enforcing the ban on gays serving openly during a Pentagon press conference.
“I believe these changes represent an important improvement in the way the current law is put into practice, above all, by providing a greater measure of common sense and common decency to a process for handling what are difficult and complex issues for all involved,” Gates said.
Gates said Mullen, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James Cartwright and the service chiefs are unanimous in their support for these new regulations.
While unveiling the changes, Gates said in response to a DC Agenda question that he doesn’t recommend legislative action to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law until the Pentagon working group completes its review of the law.
Gates established the working group in February to examine the implications of repealing the 1993 ban on open service. The group’s study is set for completion by Dec. 1.
“I do not recommend a change in the law before we have completed our study,” he said. “There is a great deal we don’t know about this in terms of the views of our service members and trying to get the views of our families.”
Gates said the working group also is necessary to examine changing regulations for benefits and look at other implementation issues.
“I think we need to do this thoroughly and professionally,” he said. “I think we need to do this right, if you will, and I think doing it hastily is very risky and I think does not address some of the concerns that have been expressed by the chiefs of staff of the services and a number of the questions that have been raised associated with this.”
Mullen, who testified in favor of open service for gays, lesbians and bisexuals last month, said he would “echo” Gates’s remarks with regard to legislative action on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” before the working group completes its study.
“It’s very important for us to go through this process — and doing it with haste could easily generate a very bad outcome,” he said. “So understanding where we are — having that information from those it will affect most — is a very important part of this process.”
Asked whether the White House shares this view on the timing of repeal, Gates replied, “You would have to ask them, but I would tell you that my impression is the president is very comfortable with the process that we’ve laid out, and certainly with the changes that I have announced today.”
A senior defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, later clarified for DC Agenda that the Pentagon isn’t taking a position on legislation related to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” before the working group’s review is complete.
“It’s been very consistent out of here that the issue is not whether, it is how,” said the official. “In doing this, because this is the military, they wanted to do this in a way that is professionally thorough. So they are not going to be taking any position on any legislation at all. They’re not going to be supporting any legislation; they’re just not taking any position on legislation.”
The official said that Gates’ remarks during the press conference were consistent with his congressional testimony and other statements.
“This is not taking sides,” said the official. “There is no position on legislation. The position is follow through with this process, and he basically stated that they’d like to see this process be done to inform legislation.”
In a statement, Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese said Congress should undertake repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as the Pentagon continues work on its study.
“Two branches of government can and should work concurrently toward repeal,” he said. “There is no reason for Congress to wait for the details on implementation when Secretary Gates and the president have made it clear that this law should be repealed.”
Also during the press conference, Gates noted that the goal of the working group’s study on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is to determine how to implement repeal.
“The study is about how you implement it — if the law changes, how we deal with it,” Gates said. “This study is not about should we do it; this study is about how we do it.”
Gates added the working group will take into consideration the feelings of service members and their families.
“We need to identify where [there] might be problems and issues — or just issues to be addressed — whether it’s a change in regulations or benefits or something like that, so then when the time comes we have some idea of what we have to do in order to carry forward with the change,” Gates said.
But the new regulations issued Thursday will change implementation of the law until legislative action is taken. Specifically, the new changes will:
• raise the rank of the officer who can start fact-finding inquiries or separation proceedings to a general or admiral;
• raise the rank of the person who can conduct fact-finding inquiries to lieutenant colonel or Navy commander or above;
• raise the level of the officer who can separate an enlisted service member to general or admiral;
• raise the bar for what constitutes credible information to start an inquiry or separation proceeding, by mandating, for example, that information from third parties be given under oath and that use of overheard statements and hearsay are discouraged;
• raise the bar on what constitutes a reliable person upon whose word an inquiry can begin, with special scrutiny of third parties who may want to harm a service member;
• and specify that certain confidential information cannot be used for discharge proceedings, such as information provided to lawyers, clergy or psychotherapists; information provided to medical professionals for medical treatment; information provided in seeking assistance for domestic or physical abuse; or information about sexual orientation discovered during security clearance investigations.
Gates said the new regulations will take effect immediately and would apply to all open and future discharge cases. He noted that the services have 30 days to conform their own regulations to these changes.
Following the briefing by Gates, Jeh Johnson, the Pentagon’s general counsel who helped draft the new regulations, offered additional details.
In response to one question regarding what would happen in pending cases if a service member was outed by what is now considered unreliable information, and, following the start of an investigation, the service member acknowledged they were gay, Johnson said he didn’t know what would happen in such a situation.
“That’s a good question — and we’ll have to work that through,” he said.
In a statement, Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.), the sponsor of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal legislation in the U.S. House, praised the Pentagon for implementing the changes, but said full repeal is still necessary.
“Today’s announcement from Defense Secretary Gates is another step forward in the fight to repeal the discriminatory policy of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ and a signal that momentum for change continues to build,” he said. “While I am encouraged by the Pentagon’s announcement, I remain committed to working toward full legislative repeal of this law, which hurts our national security and military readiness.”
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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