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.”
National
Man charged in Mall of America shooting plot inspired by Pulse massacre: report
Suspect exchanged hundreds of messages, pledged loyalty to ISIS
The U.S. Department of Justice charged Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, of Richfield, Minn., on Oct. 7 with one count of knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition in order to commit a federal crime of terrorism. Mohamud allegedly planned to carry out a mass-casualty attack in support of ISIS, inspired in part by the Pulse nightclub massacre that took place on June 12, 2016 when then-29-year-old Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and wounded 58 – one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history, and the deadliest targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
According to a DOJ statement release, Mohamud was arrested on Oct. 6 by the FBI, which had arranged to sell him an AK-47 assault rifle, magazines, and ammunition through an undercover FBI employee. Mohamud was arrested shortly after paying $600 in cash and taking possession of those items; he reaffirmed his intention to shoot people at the Mall of America during the transaction.
“Mohamud allegedly sought to carry out a mass-casualty shooting at the Mall of America, expressing a desire to emulate some of the most horrific ISIS-inspired attacks in the United States, including the atrocities at Pulse Nightclub and 2025 New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg in the statement by the DOJ. “The National Security Division will continue to work closely with the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force to track down and prosecute ISIS-inspired terrorists in the United States.”
According to the complaint, beginning on or about December 2024, Mohamud had exchanged hundreds of messages through multiple social media and messaging apps with a confidential source, and expressed a desire to travel to Somalia to join a designated foreign terrorist organization to fight on their behalf.
The defendant stated many times that if he was unable to travel overseas because of a lack of funds, he planned to carry out a mass-casualty event in Minnesota in support of ISIS.
According to the DOJ, “In July 2026, Mohamud sent messages discussing his intent to carry out a mass-casualty shooting attack at the Mall of America because he claimed it was owned by Jews. He wrote that [he] wanted to kill 30 to 60 people so no one would go there.”
“During the course of his communications, Mohamud stated that he wanted to commit an attack similar to those of the Pulse Nightclub mass-shooting in Orlando, the Bondi Beach mass-shooting in Australia, and the New Year’s Day vehicle-ramming attack in New Orleans.”
This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Ryan White of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Bejar for the District of Minnesota.
California
Calif. GOP gubernatorial candidate ad ‘disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy’
Activists, anti-LGBTQ religious leaders criticized Steve Hilton spot
Two women sit on a bed, a Pride flag hanging behind them. One is nervous; the other tells her to be calm and that she’ll do “all the work.” The music swells. The two hold hands and — fill out a ballot voting for Steve Hilton?
This is the new advertisement from the Hilton gubernatorial campaign that is drawing rebuke from both sides of the aisle, but for very different reasons.
Jorge Reyes Salinas, the communications director at Equality California, said the ad was an insult to the queer community.
“This ad is a disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy for political attention,” he said. The advertisement plays on media tropes that Salinas says “reduce lesbian and bisexual women … to sexual entertainment,” rather than showing them as well-rounded characters. “Any group of the LGBTQ+ community deserves the same dignity and respect as everyone else,” he said.
The ad is truly hyper-sexualized. It ends with one woman telling the other, “Now lick it.” The two pause and stare before she reveals an envelope to send the ballot, and large text pops up saying, “Just try it!”
Salinas characterized the ad as a desperate attempt to get attention from a candidate who is trailing far behind in the polls in heavily Democratic California. The Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra, who is endorsed by Equality California, holds a 25-point lead over Hilton according to recent polling by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.
Conservatives have also criticized the ad.
Influential evangelical Pastor Jack Hibbs thought the ad was distasteful and said, “lesbianism among college girls and some high school girls that right now is an actual pandemic of social ill.” Republican attorney general candidate Michael Gates said it undermines “the sanctity of the relationship between parents and their children.” This criticism is rather confusing because although the ad features two relatively young women, they both appear to be adults, not minors.
“The comments from Pastor Jack Hibbs should be criticized because there is nothing wrong with two women being attracted to each other,” Salinas said. “We’re calling out the ad’s stereotypes, while also rejecting the homophobia in the response to it … by other Republicans.”
The backlash from Hilton’s own party and supporters shows that an advertisement full of queer innuendo was ill-considered, considering the national GOP’s attacks on LGBTQ people in recent years. Hilton himself has been campaigning against transgender girls and women competing in school sports and using locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity. This context might be why Hilton’s political base responded to the ad just as poorly as the liberal voters he was attempting to court.
Hilton says the ad is part of a new series rolling out before Election Day, showing stereotypical California liberal archetypes voting for Hilton. He claims these ads are authentically filmed with real actors, as opposed to being A.I. generated, like many of his previous ads. One other advertisement has been released so far by the campaign showing a man at a spiritual retreat also being swayed to vote for Hilton, although it is notably absent of sexual innuendo.
Caleb Kaufman is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
2026 Midterm Elections
Trump uses anti-trans slur against Democratic Senate candidate
President mocked Annie Andrews
President Donald Trump used an anti-trans slur against Democratic South Carolina Senate candidate Annie Andrews on Monday as he sought to rally support for Republicans in the state’s Senate race.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump attacked Andrews three times, referring to her as “trannie” while promoting U.S. Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.)’s campaign.
Andrews is running against Graham for a Senate seat in the solidly Republican state.
Earlier this year, Graham was specially appointed to the seat following the death of her brother, Lindsey Graham, who represented South Carolina in the Senate from 2003 to 2026.
Andrews, the Democratic nominee from the state, is a pediatrician that lives in Charleston with her three children. She told NBC News that she will “work with anyone to put South Carolina first.”
“As a mom and a pediatrician, I’m in this race to fight for my patients, my three kids, and South Carolina,” Andrews said, adding that “lowering costs and making life better for families across our state is going to take all of us working together.”
Andrews used the attention from the president’s attack to emphasize what she described as a focus on policy issues rather than the culture wars that have dominated much of the political debate.
“If you care more about your bills than the politics in Washington, this campaign is for you,” she added.
Trump’s remarks have drawn criticism from leaders on both sides of the aisle.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) condemned Trump’s words Monday night on social media, calling his attacks on Andrews “despicable.”
“Annie Andrews is a mom and pediatrician who’s always put her community first — and she’s exactly who South Carolina needs representing them in the Senate,” Schumer said on X.
Former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, a Republican, also criticized the president’s attack on Andrews, urging voters to “reject politics based on division and hate.”
“This is abhorrent. Elections don’t have to be about cruelty and lies. South Carolina deserves better,” Beasley wrote Monday night on X.
South Carolina has not elected a Democratic senator in nearly three decades.
Andrews’s campaign website does not mention her positions on LGBTQ issues.
The Washington Blade reached out to Andrews’s campaign for comment on Trump’s attack and her positions on transgender rights but did not hear back by time of publication.
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