National
Six months later, HUD changes still pending
Department’s pro-LGBT moves taking ‘quite some time’
Gary Gates, research fellow at the Williams Institute at the University of California, said one survey revealed that 5 percent of people who identified as LGBT have experienced discrimination in housing. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
LGBT rights advocates are still waiting for the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development to issue regulations on changes it announced late last year to include LGBT families in low-income housing programs.
The department announced plans to make the changes Oct. 26 — more than six months ago — but the changes have yet to be enacted.
Natalie Chin, a Lambda Legal staff attorney, said she didn’t know whether HUD has taken an unreasonably long time to implement the changes, but acknowledged that “it’s been quite some time” since they were first announced.
“It would be nice to get updates just to let us know what’s going on,” she said. “We just haven’t heard anything about it, so that just makes me concerned they’re getting credit for something that doesn’t even exist yet, and it’s important that this actually happens and that they follow through.”
Darlene Nipper, deputy executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, said her organization is among those waiting for HUD to issue the new regulations.
“Like everyone else, we’re hoping that they do it sooner rather than later,” she said. “And probably, like everyone else, we’re not surprised that it’s taking time. Unfortunately, that’s the way things go with the government sometimes.”
The changes are intended to ensure the department’s low-income housing programs don’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. They would clarify the term “family,” as used to describe the public housing and Housing Choice Voucher programs, to include otherwise eligible LGBT people and couples.
Additionally, the changes would require grantees and others who participate in HUD programs to comply with local and state non-discrimination laws regarding LGBT people. The changes also would ensure that all Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgage loans are based on a borrower’s credit-worthiness and not on unrelated characteristics such as sexual orientation or gender identity.
The proposed but unimplemented changes were among the accomplishments that Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese recently cited in crediting the Obama administration with improving the lives of LGBT people. He praised HUD for making the changes during an April 22 discussion on the Michelangelo Signorile radio show on Sirius XM’s OutQ.
“We asked them to do a number of things at HUD to ensure that LGBT families are not discriminated against in housing issues,” Solmonese said. “They’ve done all of them.”
In a statement, Michael Cole, an HRC spokesperson, said Solmonese’s comments during the radio show “gave credit where credit is due” to the Obama administration.
“The Department of Housing & Urban Development committed to concrete steps to protect our community and they are doing so,” Cole said. “A proposed regulation prohibiting LGBT discrimination in HUD programs is under internal review and will soon be published for public comment.”
Cole said HRC would like the process to “move more quickly,” but that doesn’t “diminish the fact that they are positive and praiseworthy steps forward.”
“We will continue to urge HUD and the myriad other agencies to move as quickly as possible to address the real problems facing our community every day,” he said.
Brian Sullivan, a HUD spokesperson, confirmed that the regulations for the changes haven’t yet been issued and said he didn’t know when they’d be published.
He said putting forth new regulations after changes have been announced often doesn’t happen “with the speed many people want it to,” but that the process is “methodical and deliberate and necessarily so.”
“Lawyers are looking at this and trying to discover what is our authority to do this,” he said. “Can we support this if it were challenged? You don’t want to go down a certain road and then fail ultimately.”
Sullivan said issuing new regulations for proposed changes can often take some time and recalled how recently issued HUD rules changing the way people buy and refinance their homes under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act took about seven years to implement.
“I don’t believe that this will take that long because when we were talking about RESPA reform, it was changing how people do business,” Sullivan said. “Millions of people buy and refinance homes every year, so it was a giant rule to be sure.”
Concurrent with developing regulations for proposed pro-LGBT changes in housing programs, Sullivan said HUD is also in the process of seeking public comment for a multi-year, comprehensive project examining housing discrimination that LGBT people throughout the country have faced.
“You should know that there is a series of things that have been suggested in helping promote inclusion and to broaden the prohibition of exclusive activities in our federal programs,” he said. “You know that we’re undertaking an unprecedented study of housing discrimination as it relates specifically to the LGBT community.”
Gary Gates, research fellow at the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, said a question in the General Social Survey for 2008 revealed that 5 percent of people who identified as LGBT said they’d experienced discrimination in housing.
He noted that the question wasn’t restricted to low-income housing programs and the sample surveyed for the initiative was about 70 people, so the finding “comes with a pretty wide margin of error.”
Whatever the number of LGBT people facing discrimination in housing programs, advocates say the new guidelines would benefit the LGBT community.
Chin said the LGBT community “just really needs to be persistent” in making sure that HUD follows through on its proposed changes because current practices have a significant impact.
“If you’re not considered a family because you’re LGBT and your relationship isn’t recognized, then you can lose your home after living with the same person for 45 years,” she said. “It’s a really unfortunate and really unequal treatment.”
Nipper said she considers HUD’s proposals “very important changes” because they would enable the department to “take our community, which, up until now, has been rendered virtually invisible within this agency, and redefine family to include us.”
“Everyone thinks that our community is somehow all rich, white men,” she said. “The reality is that that’s not an accurate picture of the LGBT community. We’re from all racial and ethnic backgrounds and all across the social-economic strata. So, there are certainly people within our community who will benefit from these changes.”
U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court to consider bans on trans athletes in school sports
27 states have passed laws limiting participation in athletics programs
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear two cases involving transgender youth challenging bans prohibiting them from participating in school sports.
In Little v. Hecox, plaintiffs represented by the ACLU, Legal Voice, and the law firm Cooley are challenging Idaho’s 2020 ban, which requires sex testing to adjudicate questions of an athlete’s eligibility.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals described the process in a 2023 decision halting the policy’s enforcement pending an outcome in the litigation. The “sex dispute verification process, whereby any individual can ‘dispute’ the sex of any female student athlete in the state of Idaho,” the court wrote, would “require her to undergo intrusive medical procedures to verify her sex, including gynecological exams.”
In West Virginia v. B.P.J., Lambda Legal, the ACLU, the ACLU of West Virginia, and Cooley are representing a trans middle school student challenging the Mountain State’s 2021 ban on trans athletes.
The plaintiff was participating in cross country when the law was passed, taking puberty blockers that would have significantly reduced the chances that she could have a physiological advantage over cisgender peers.
“Like any other educational program, school athletic programs should be accessible for everyone regardless of their sex or transgender status,” said Joshua Block, senior counsel for the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Project. “Trans kids play sports for the same reasons their peers do — to learn perseverance, dedication, teamwork, and to simply have fun with their friends,” Block said.
He added, “Categorically excluding kids from school sports just because they are transgender will only make our schools less safe and more hurtful places for all youth. We believe the lower courts were right to block these discriminatory laws, and we will continue to defend the freedom of all kids to play.”
“Our client just wants to play sports with her friends and peers,” said Lambda Legal Senior Counsel Tara Borelli. “Everyone understands the value of participating in team athletics, for fitness, leadership, socialization, and myriad other benefits.”
Borelli continued, “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit last April issued a thoughtful and thorough ruling allowing B.P.J. to continue participating in track events. That well-reasoned decision should stand the test of time, and we stand ready to defend it.”
Shortly after taking control of both legislative chambers, Republican members of Congress tried — unsuccessfully — to pass a national ban like those now enforced in 27 states since 2020.
Federal Government
UPenn erases Lia Thomas’s records as part of settlement with White House
University agreed to ban trans women from women’s sports teams
In a settlement with the Trump-Vance administration announced on Tuesday, the University of Pennsylvania will ban transgender athletes from competing and erase swimming records set by transgender former student Lia Thomas.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found the university in violation of Title IX, the federal rights law barring sex based discrimination in educational institutions, by “permitting males to compete in women’s intercollegiate athletics and to occupy women-only intimate facilities.”
The statement issued by University of Pennsylvania President J. Larry Jameson highlighted how the law’s interpretation was changed substantially under President Donald Trump’s second term.
“The Department of Education OCR investigated the participation of one transgender athlete on the women’s swimming team three years ago, during the 2021-2022 swim season,” he wrote. “At that time, Penn was in compliance with NCAA eligibility rules and Title IX as then interpreted.”
Jameson continued, “Penn has always followed — and continues to follow — Title IX and the applicable policy of the NCAA regarding transgender athletes. NCAA eligibility rules changed in February 2025 with Executive Orders 14168 and 14201 and Penn will continue to adhere to these new rules.”
Writing that “we acknowledge that some student-athletes were disadvantaged by these rules” in place while Thomas was allowed to compete, the university president added, “We recognize this and will apologize to those who experienced a competitive disadvantage or experienced anxiety because of the policies in effect at the time.”
“Today’s resolution agreement with UPenn is yet another example of the Trump effect in action,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. “Thanks to the leadership of President Trump, UPenn has agreed both to apologize for its past Title IX violations and to ensure that women’s sports are protected at the university for future generations of female athletes.”
Under former President Joe Biden, the department’s Office of Civil Rights sought to protect against anti-LGBTQ discrimination in education, bringing investigations and enforcement actions in cases where school officials might, for example, require trans students to use restrooms and facilities consistent with their birth sex or fail to respond to peer harassment over their gender identity.
Much of the legal reasoning behind the Biden-Harris administration’s positions extended from the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court case Bostock v. Clayton County, which found that sex-based discrimination includes that which is based on sexual orientation or gender identity under Title VII rules covering employment practices.
The Trump-Vance administration last week put the state of California on notice that its trans athlete policies were, or once were, in violation of Title IX, which comes amid the ongoing battle with Maine over the same issue.
New York
Two teens shot steps from Stonewall Inn after NYC Pride parade
One of the victims remains in critical condition
On Sunday night, following the annual NYC Pride March, two girls were shot in Sheridan Square, feet away from the historic Stonewall Inn.
According to an NYPD report, the two girls, aged 16 and 17, were shot around 10:15 p.m. as Pride festivities began to wind down. The 16-year-old was struck in the head and, according to police sources, is said to be in critical condition, while the 17-year-old was said to be in stable condition.
The Washington Blade confirmed with the NYPD the details from the police reports and learned no arrests had been made as of noon Monday.
The shooting took place in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, mere feet away from the most famous gay bar in the city — if not the world — the Stonewall Inn. Earlier that day, hundreds of thousands of people marched down Christopher Street to celebrate 55 years of LGBTQ people standing up for their rights.
In June 1969, after police raided the Stonewall Inn, members of the LGBTQ community pushed back, sparking what became known as the Stonewall riots. Over the course of two days, LGBTQ New Yorkers protested the discriminatory policing of queer spaces across the city and mobilized to speak out — and throw bottles if need be — at officers attempting to suppress their existence.
The following year, LGBTQ people returned to the Stonewall Inn and marched through the same streets where queer New Yorkers had been arrested, marking the first “Gay Pride March” in history and declaring that LGBTQ people were not going anywhere.
New York State Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, whose district includes Greenwich Village, took to social media to comment on the shooting.
“After decades of peaceful Pride celebrations — this year gun fire and two people shot near the Stonewall Inn is a reminder that gun violence is everywhere,” the lesbian lawmaker said on X. “Guns are a problem despite the NRA BS.”
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