National
Charges against ENDA protesters to be dropped
Demonstrators must stay away from Pelosi’s office

Charges filed against (from left) Jay Carmona, Samantha Ames, Chas Kirven and Michelle Wright following a sit-in protest last month in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office will be dropped if they abide by certain conditions. (DC Agenda photo by Chris Johnson)
Charges against Capitol Hill demonstrators who last month targeted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, accusing her of failing to advance the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, will be dropped provided they abide by certain conditions.
Jay Carmona, Samantha Ames, Chas Kirven and Michelle Wright pleaded not guilty in D.C. Superior Court Tuesday to misdemeanor charges of unlawful entry. They were arrested March 18 following a sit-in protest in Pelosi’s office in the Cannon House Office Building. The group refused to leave despite police orders to do so.
The group demanded that Pelosi move a transgender-inclusive version of ENDA to the House floor by the end of March. The demonstrators said they wanted a vote on the bill — even if it lacked the necessary votes for passage — to best determine where lawmakers stand.
Representing the protesters in court was Claire Morris Clark, an attorney for D.C. law firm Schertler & Onorato.
Clark said the U.S. attorney general’s office would drop the charges if demonstrators met the terms of the agreement by their next scheduled court appearance, Oct. 6.
If the protesters meet the terms of the agreement, Clark said, they wouldn’t have to appear in court. Any violators would be required to make an appearance and potentially face additional penalties.
One term of the agreement is that demonstrators arrested March 18 must stay away from Pelosi’s office in the Cannon House Office Building unless invited in writing. Another term is that the protestors must not be arrested under probable cause before Oct. 6.
Additionally, Clark said the two protesters who are D.C. residents, Carmona and Ames, must complete 60 hours of community service. Clark noted that because Kirven and Wright aren’t D.C. residents, the D.C. government doesn’t have jurisdiction to require them to meet this term of the agreement.
Clark said another term of the agreement is that protesters cannot engage in activity in the U.S. Capitol that the U.S. attorney’s office deems disruptive.
But she noted that Judge Harold Cushenberry said in court he wouldn’t enforce this part of the agreement because he didn’t think the agreement clearly defined what the U.S. attorney’s office might find disruptive.
The protesters who consented to the agreement said they were happy with the outcome of the proceedings.
Ames, a queer D.C. resident, said she’s “actually quite excited” to do the community service assigned to her as part of the agreement. She planned to fill her time with Transgender Health Empowerment in D.C.
Noting that the ENDA protesters who were arrested weren’t transgender, Ames said being arrested as a transgender person is “so much more dangerous.”
“Working for an organization that does community service that is working making that right and working toward making the prisons safer for transgender folks in the area is, I think, something that I should feel fortunate to have the opportunity to do,” she said.
Carmona, a lesbian D.C. resident, called the court agreement “just another step” toward “getting ENDA passed for equality.”
“So, I think I don’t really feel a sense of joy or accomplishment so much as I feel like we just took another step,” she said. “It’s definitely not party time.”
Noting that an early version of ENDA was first introduced in the U.S. House in 1974, Carmona said that LGBT people have been waiting “close to 40 years for basic employment protections, and we’re not going to wait another 40.”
Clark said after the protesters’ court appearance that the agreement was a “very good outcome.”
“The U.S. attorney’s office has a couple different mediums where they’ll try and work things out, and this is the best one,” she said. “It doesn’t require a guilty plea. It’s a very good deal.”
The protesters also expressed satisfaction with the result of their protest. Ames said she thought the protest led to showing sufficient votes exist to pass ENDA, despite claims to the contrary.
As she was being handcuffed at the end of her protest March 18, Ames said a member of Pelosi’s staff asked her if she thought there were enough votes to pass ENDA.
“And I said, ‘Yes,” Ames said. “And she said, ‘We don’t.’ And I said I really wish we could have had this conversation earlier because I would have liked to have this conservation with her.”
Following her arrest, Ames said media reports emerged quoting Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) as saying that enough support existed in the House to pass ENDA.
“So the fact that that was starting the next day — I don’t want to make this about egos, I want to make this about ENDA — but it would seem that it got something accomplished,” she said.
Present in the courtroom Tuesday to show support for the ENDA protesters was Lt. Dan Choi, who was arrested the same day after chaining himself to the White House fence in opposition to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and Robin McGehee, co-chair of GetEqual.org, which helped coordinate the protests.
Choi said he wanted to show his support for the ENDA protesters because the shared experience of being arrested following their respective protests is “in a lot of ways, like being in combat.”
“We have waged war against inequality,” he said. “Sometimes, as soldiers, you don’t have a lot of money, you don’t have a lot of trappings of what we have in terms of political power — but we have each other, and until we have full equality, this is a battle that none of us are going to step away from.”
Asked whether further acts of civil disobedience could occur to further LGBT civil rights, Choi replied, “Of course,” and said that he personally plans to take part in such protests.
“Until we have that American promise of equality and access to truth and truthful living manifest to everyone, it has to continue,” he said.
McGehee said GetEqual.org is planning further acts of civil disobedience to push for LGBT civil rights.
“We will be back and we will continue to organize non-violent civil disobedience throughout D.C. and other areas across the United States until we’re equal,” she said.
McGehee declined to offer any details, but said she expects the next such event will occur in D.C. before the end of April.
“Our goal with GetEqual is to create the lunch-counter moments that so clearly defined the civil rights movement around racial justice,” she said. “In an equality movement, we believe that we need to create those images that highlight the injustices that are clearly out there.”
National
Federal judge blocks Trump’s order restricting gender-affirming care for youth
Seven families with transgender, nonbinary children challenged directive

A federal judge on Thursday issued a temporary restraining order that blocks President Donald Trump’s Jan. 29 executive order restricting access to gender-affirming health care for transgender people under age 19.
The order by Judge Brendan Hurson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, came in response to a request from the plaintiffs in a lawsuit, filed on Feb. 4, against Trump’s directive.
The plaintiffs are seven families with trans or nonbinary children. They are represented by PFLAG National, GMLA, Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Maryland, and the law firms Hogan Lovells and Jenner & Block.
Hurson’s temporary restraining order will halt enforcement of Trump’s order for 14 days, but it can be extended. This means health care providers and medical institutions can provide gender-affirming care to minor patients without the risk of losing federal funding.
Families in the lawsuit say their appointments were cancelled shortly after the executive order was issued. Hospitals in Colorado, Virginia, and D.C. stopped providing prescriptions for puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and other interventions for trans patients as they evaluated Trump’s directive.
The harms associated with suddenly withholding access to medical care for these patients were a major focus of Thursday’s hearing on the plaintiffs’ request for the temporary restraining order.
The president’s “order seems to deny that this population even exists, or deserves to exist,” Hurson said, noting the elevated risk of suicide, poverty, addiction, and other hardships among trans people.
National
Trump’s trans erasure arrives at National Park Service
Fate of major 2016 LGBTQ Theme Study unclear

President Trump’s efforts at erasing trans identity intensified this week as employees at the National Park Service were instructed to remove the “T” and “Q” from “LGBTQ” from all internal and external communications.
The change was first noticed on the website of the Stonewall National Monument; trans people of color were integral to the events at Stonewall, which is widely viewed as the kickoff of the modern LGBTQ rights movement. The Stonewall National Monument is the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history.
Reaction to that move was swift. New York City Council member Erik Bottcher wrote, “The Trump administration has erased transgender people from the Stonewall National Monument website. We will not allow them to erase the very existence of our siblings. We are one community!!”
But what most didn’t realize is that the removal of the “T” and “Q” (for transgender and queer) extends to all National Park Service and Interior Department communications, raising concerns that the move could jeopardize future LGBTQ monuments and project work.
The Blade reached out to the National Park Service for comment on the trans erasure and received a curt response that the agency is implementing Trump’s executive order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” as well as agency directives to end all DEI initiatives.
The question being debated internally now, according to a knowledgable source, is what to do with a massive LGBTQ Theme Study, which as of Feb. 14 was still available on the NPS website. In 2014, the Gill Foundation recognized an omission of historic LGBTQ sites in the nation’s records, and the organization made a grant to the National Park Service to commission a first-of-its-kind LGBTQ Theme Study, which was published in 2016. It was a landmark project that represented major progress for the LGBTQ community in having our contributions included in the broader American story, something that is becoming increasingly difficult given efforts like “Don’t Say Gay” laws that ban the teaching of LGBTQ topics in schools.
A source told the Blade that National Park Service communications staff suggested that removing chapters of the 2016 Theme Study that pertain to transgender people might placate anti-trans political appointees. But one employee pushed back on that, suggesting instead that the entire Theme Study be removed. Editing the document to remove one community’s contributions and perspective violates the academic intent of the project, according to the source. A final decision on how to proceed is expected soon.
Meanwhile, a protest is planned for Friday, Feb. 14 at noon at Christopher Park in New York City (7th Ave. S. and Christopher Street). The protest is being planned by staff at the Stonewall Inn.
“The Stonewall Inn and The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative are outraged and appalled by the recent removal of the word ‘transgender’ from the Stonewall National Monument page on the National Park Service website,” the groups said in a statement. “Let us be clear: Stonewall is transgender history. Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and countless other trans and gender-nonconforming individuals fought bravely, and often at great personal risk, to push back against oppressive systems. Their courage, sacrifice, and leadership were central to the resistance we now celebrate as the foundation of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.”
National
Victory Institute executive director speaks about movement response to Trump 2.0
Advocacy groups will lead efforts to push back against anti-LGBTQ administration

President Donald Trump’s issuance of a series of executive orders targeting transgender rights and LGBTQ-inclusive diversity programs on the first day of his second term was a clear signal of the new administration’s appetite for going after queer and gender diverse people.
The Jan. 20 directives also brought into focus the extent to which organizations in the LGBTQ movement, particularly those whose work includes impact litigation, will be responsible for protecting the communities they serve from harmful and discriminatory laws and policies over the next four years.
At a critical time that is likely to test the limits of their capacity, these groups are facing challenges that could restrict their access to critical resources thanks in part to the conservative movement’s opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion in both government and the private sector.
LGBTQ organizations expected federal funding for their work would dry up when the incoming administration took over, given that Trump and his allies made no secret of their plans to aggressively reshape the government including by ridding U.S. agencies of all DEI-related programs, policies, and activities.
Trump went even further, however, issuing orders to categorically freeze the disbursement of government funds tied to preexisting grants and contracts, while threatening investigations of private companies for “illegal” policies and practices related to DEI.
Partly in response to pressure from conservative leaders and activists, over the past couple of years companies have increasingly backed away from DEI efforts including, especially, support for LGBTQ communities and causes.
Coupled with the loss of federal funding, a decline in corporate giving to LGBTQ organizations could have devastating impacts on the communities they serve, potentially leading to cutbacks in programs and services core to their missions or imperiling their efforts to push back against a hostile regime.
“Continuing to fund our work is obviously top of mind for everyone right now,” Elliot Imse, executive director of the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute, told the Washington Blade during an interview last week.
The move by many private companies away from supporting LGBTQ equality has been surprising, Imse said, but “what we know is it’s a very uncertain environment for corporations right now, and they are feeling out these new realities.”
On the other hand, the moment also presents an opportunity to remind businesses that commitments to DEI are good for their bottom line while rewarding companies that resist pressure to abandon their LGBTQ customers, employees, and communities, Imse said.
“There’s a lot of courageous corporations out there, too, right now, a lot that are continuing to step up. And we need to be grateful; we need to be making purchasing decisions as a community with those corporations in mind. Every corporation that has reaffirmed its commitment to us, we need to go out and support them.”
“While Victory Institute — like all LGBTQ+ organizations — is concerned about the current fundraising environment, we have a programmatic plan in place that directly addresses the realities of what is happening across the country right now,” he said, with programs to support LGBTQ elected officials serving everywhere from small municipal offices to the most powerful positions in government.
A diverse pipeline of out leaders from diverse backgrounds is the best bulwark “against attacks on our equality and democratic backsliding,” Imse said. “We have a very robust programmatic plan for 2025 — and we need to execute on it at this critical moment.”
While the Victory Institute is currently looking for funding to support the organization’s international work to compensate for the loss of federal grants, Imse said the group plans to expand U.S.-based programs, maximizing their reach at a time when this work is especially critical.
“We’re going to be in more cities than ever before. We’re going to have a larger training presence than ever before, including our LGBTQ+ Public Leadership Summits, which are specifically designed to inspire and recruit LGBTQ+ people to run for office. It is essential folks reject the demoralization of the current moment and that we have more boots on the ground to support those willing to step up and run.”
He added, “we are hopeful that we will be able to raise the money we need to carry these programs out, and we believe we can make the case to donors that these programs are an essential path forward.”
At the same time, Imse acknowledged that LGBTQ groups, including the Victory Institute, are in a difficult position at the moment and “we’ll absolutely have to adjust if we see a downturn in fundraising throughout the year.”
“it’s going to be an uphill battle, there’s no doubt about that. Like all other organizations, we’re going to watch the numbers and adjust as necessary,” he said, adding, “the people we have at our organization are what makes our organization strong — their expertise, their relationships, the networks that they’ve built.”
And while he said “making sure that we meet the moment is something that keeps me up at night,” Imse stressed that “figuring out how to balance the reality we are in versus optimism is something that is on everyone’s mind as you talk to LGBTQ+ community members, your staff, your funders” who recognize that “you must have hope, because if people back away from our equality at this moment, it’ll be much worse than even the situation we’re in right now.”
There is no shortage of good reasons to hold onto hope, Imse said. “Our movement has always thrived in moments of crisis. While we’d prefer no crisis, it refocuses us. It motivates us. And oftentimes leads to breakthroughs that we may not have had otherwise. It destroys complacency. It instills urgency.”
After Trump took office and the new Congress was sated with GOP majorities in both chambers, LGBTQ groups whose work includes lobbying or government relations understood their ability to influence policy at the federal level would be limited, at least until Democratic allies have the opportunity to retake control of the House in 2026.
The Victory Institute was especially well positioned to shift away from Washington, Imse said, because state legislatures, city councils, and school boards have always been the organization’s “bread and butter” and the elections for these positions “truly matter” even if they are less “high profile” than U.S. congressional races.
“When we’re talking about opportunities to make progress in the near future, opportunities to launch a successful offense and defense, it is in these legislative bodies,” he said. “And they arguably make more impact on individuals’ lives than the federal government does.”
Imse added this is especially true with regard to opportunities for legislative action to support LGBTQ Americans and defend their rights, which is unlikely to happen on Capitol Hill for a “long time.”
It is especially important now that LGBTQ communities and organizations support each other, he said.
LGBTQ movement groups, particularly those with international focus, “have been phenomenal in bringing us together and trying to find out what’s been done, keeping us up to date on potential litigation opportunities, as well as looking for funders that are willing to step up at this absolutely critical moment in our movement’s history,” Imse said.
“We also need our community to step up in terms of supporting these organizations,” he said, “financially through resources and capacity and giving their time, because that’s the only way we’re going to be able to move forward effectively.”
It is “important that our community members remain active, engaged, and involved, and that our LGBTQ+ media continues to ensure our stories are being told,” Imse said, adding, “Especially right now, this is an entire movement ecosystem that is working to make sure whatever backsliding is about to occur is not permanent.”
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