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Frank called ‘faggot’ during health care protests & more

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Frank called ‘faggot’ during health care protests

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said protesters opposed to health care reform did “more harm than good” last weekend when they used slurs against him and another congressman.

Frank told Talking Points Memo that the March 20 protesters on Capitol Hill, which included Tea Party members and others rallying against the health care reform bill, demonstrated an “unwillingness to be just civil.”

In separate incidents, one man called Frank a “faggot” and a group punctuated chants of “kill the bill” with the word “nigger” in the presence of Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who’s black.

“[T]he objection to the health care bill has become a proxy for other sentiments,” Frank told Talking Points Memo. “Obviously there are perfectly reasonable people that are against this, but the people out there today on the whole — many of them were hateful and abusive.”

Frank said it’s incumbent upon “the leaders of the movement” to condemn such behavior.

“If this was my cause, and I saw this angry group yelling and shouting and being so abusive to people, I would ask them to please stop it,” Frank told Talking Points Memo. “I think they do more harm than good.”

House Republican backs ‘Don’t Ask’ repeal bill

WASHINGTON — Legislation in the U.S. House that would repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” gained a Republican co-sponsor last week, according to the Log Cabin Republicans.

Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.) signed on March 17 in support of the bill, making him one of two Republican co-sponsors. The other GOP co-sponsor is Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.).

In a statement, Cao said he supports the bill in part because “discrimination that puts our national security in jeopardy is a double threat.”

“America is a land where we embrace our diversity as a sign of strength, and where anybody can work hard and be judged solely on the basis of their ability to do the job,” he said. “Nothing about one’s sexual orientation impacts the ability to perform to the highest expectations that we hold for our men and women in the armed forces.”

Representing a traditionally Democratic district, Cao could face a difficult fight for re-election this year. Since he joined Congress last year, he’s voted for what are sometimes seen as Democratic partisan bills. When the health care reform first came to the House floor, Cao was the lone Republican vote in favor of the legislation.

In a statement, Terry Hamilton, Log Cabin’s board chair, commended Cao for his support and said Log Cabin would continue working to build Republican support for the repeal bill.

“Congressman Cao’s commitment to the health and strength of our national defense and speaking out against one of the last forms of state-sanctioned discrimination shows his strong character, something that is missing in too many debates in Washington,” he said.

Cao’s support brings the number of co-sponsors for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal legislation to 190.

Tales of LGBT housing discrimination sought

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development last week launched a web site to collect public comments for a national study on LGBT discrimination in housing accommodation.

The web site is at http://portal.hud.gov/portal/page/portal/HUD/LGBT_Discrimination_Study.

On the web site, HUD says a national study on discrimination against LGBT people in the sale and rental of housing has never been conducted, although state and local studies “have suggested this sort of bias exists.”

Leading the study is Raphael Bostic, assistant secretary of housing and urban development for policy development and research. In a statement, he said it’s critical for researchers to hear from people “who may have been denied housing based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

“The comments we received in our town hall meetings, and those we will gather from this new web site, will help inform how we might test for housing discrimination in the sale or rental of housing based on LBGT status,” he said.

In addition to seeking comments through the web site, HUD has held a series of town halls to hear potential stories of discrimination. Events have taken place in Chicago, San Francisco and New York City.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) has introduced legislation that would amend the Fair Housing Act to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill is pending before the House Judiciary Committee.

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State Department

Transgender, nonbinary people file lawsuit against passport executive order

State Department banned from issuing passports with ‘X’ gender markers

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(Bigstock photo)

Seven transgender and nonbinary people on Feb. 7 filed a federal lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s executive order that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.

Ashton Orr, Zaya Perysian, Sawyer Soe, Chastain Anderson, Drew Hall, Bella Boe, and Reid Solomon-Lane are the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Massachusetts, and the private law firm Covington & Burling LPP filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The lawsuit names Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as defendants.

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.

The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022.

Trump signed the executive order that overturned it shortly after he took office on Jan. 20. Rubio later directed State Department personnel to “suspend any application requesting an ‘X’ sex marker and do not take any further action pending additional guidance from the department.”  

“This guidance applies to all applications currently in progress and any future applications,” reads Rubio’s memo. “Guidance on existing passports containing an ‘X’ sex marker will come via other channels.”

The lawsuit says Trump’s executive order is an “abrupt, discriminatory, and dangerous reversal of settled United States passport policy.” It also concludes the new policy is “unlawful and unconstitutional.”

“It discriminates against individuals based on their sex and, as to some, their transgender status,” reads the lawsuit. “It is motivated by impermissible animus. It cannot be justified under any level of judicial scrutiny, and it wrongly seeks to erase the reality that transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people exist today as they always have.”

Solomon-Lane, who lives in North Adams, Mass., with his spouse and their three children, in an ACLU press release says he has “lived virtually my entire adult life as a man” and “everyone in my personal and professional life knows me as a man, and any stranger on the street who encountered me would view me as a man.”

“I thought that 18 years after transitioning, I would be able to live my life in safety and ease,” he said. “Now, as a married father of three, Trump’s executive order and the ensuing passport policy have threatened that life of safety and ease.”

“If my passport were to reflect a sex designation that is inconsistent with who I am, I would be forcibly outed every time I used my passport for travel or identification, causing potential risk to my safety and my family’s safety,” added Solomon-Lane.

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Federal Government

Education Department moves to end support for trans students

Mental health services among programs that are in jeopardy

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The U.S. Department of Education headquarters in D.C. (Photo courtesy of the GSA/Education Department)

An email sent to employees at the U.S. Department of Education on Friday explains that “programs, contracts, policies, outward-facing media, regulations, and internal practices” will be reviewed and cut in cases where they “fail to affirm the reality of biological sex.”

The move, which is of a piece with President Donald Trump’s executive orders restricting transgender rights, jeopardizes the future of initiatives at the agency like mental health services and support for students experiencing homelessness.

Along with external-facing work at the agency, the directive targets employee programs such as those administered by LGBTQ resource groups, in keeping with the Trump-Vance administration’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the federal government.

In recent weeks, federal agencies had begun changing their documents, policies, and websites for purposes of compliance with the new administration’s first executive action targeting the trans community, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”

For instance, the Education Department had removed a webpage offering tips for schools to better support homeless LGBTQ youth, noted ProPublica, which broke the news of the “sweeping” changes announced in the email to DOE staff.

According to the news service, the directive further explains the administration’s position that “The deliberate subjugation of women and girls by means of gender ideology — whether in intimate spaces, weaponized language, or American classrooms — negated the civil rights of biological females and fostered distrust of our federal institutions.”

A U.S. Senate committee hearing will be held Thursday for Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for education secretary, who has been criticized by LGBTQ advocacy groups. GLAAD, for instance, notes that she helped to launch and currently chairs the board of a conservative think tank that “has campaigned against policies that support transgender rights in education.”

NBC News reported on Tuesday that Trump planned to issue an executive order this week to abolish the Education Department altogether.

While the president and his conservative allies in and outside the administration have repeatedly expressed plans to disband the agency, doing so would require approval from Congress.

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State Department

Protesters demand US fully restore PEPFAR funding

Activists blocked intersection outside State Department on Thursday

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HIV/AIDS activists block an intersection outside the State Department on Feb. 6, 2025. They were demanding the Trump-Vance administration to fully restore PEPFAR funding. (Photo courtesy of Housing Works)

Dozens of HIV/AIDS activists on Thursday protested outside the State Department and demanded U.S. officials fully restore President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief funding.

The activists — members of Housing Works, Health GAP, and the Treatment Action Group — blocked an intersection for an hour. Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell told the Washington Blade that police did not make any arrests.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Jan. 24 directed State Department personnel to stop nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for 90 days in response to an executive order that President Donald Trump signed after his inauguration. Rubio later issued a waiver that allows PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze.

The Blade on Wednesday reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of a lack of U.S. funding.

“PEPFAR is a program that has saved 26 million lives and changed the trajectory of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic,” said Housing Works CEO Charles King in a press release. “The recent freeze on its funding is not just a bureaucratic decision; it is a death sentence for millions who rely on these life-saving treatments. We cannot allow decades of progress to be undone. The U.S. must immediately reaffirm its commitment to global health and human dignity by restoring PEPFAR funding.” 

“We demand Secretary Rubio immediately reverse his deadly, illegal stop-work order, which has already disrupted life-saving HIV services worldwide,” added Russell. “Any waiver process is too little, too late.”

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