National
Mormon leader’s lesbian descendant running for Congress
Claudia Wright forces runoff against five-term incumbent
The lesbian great, great granddaughter of an early leader of the Mormon Church is attracting LGBT support in her bid to represent Utah in Congress.
In what could be an uphill battle, Claudia Wright, a retired high school teacher, is seeking to steal the Democratic nomination from five-term incumbent Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) in a primary election set for June 22.
Wright said she pursued a run against Matheson because she was displeased with his opposition to health care reform legislation, and doesn’t think he is accurately representing voters in the congressional district.
“As this became a gerrymandered district, his attitude was he’d have to move further to the right, but he’s now further to the right — especially on things like health care — he’s now further to the right than [Republican Sen. Bob] Bennett was,” Wright said. “I think he’s too far to the right to represent most of Utah.”
Wright forced a runoff in the race after Matheson failed to secure 60 percent of the vote from delegates at the Utah State Democratic Convention on May 8. Matheson received 55 percent of the vote; Wright received 45 percent.
This marks the first time Matheson hasn’t received enough support from delegates and has faced a primary runoff, according to the Utah-based Deseret News.
Wright said she believes she can beat Matheson in the primary because she’s focusing on issues of concern to Democrats and Republicans. She cited as two priorities public financing of campaigns and reform eliminating “too big to fail” safeguards for banks.
“I think that does appeal to moderates, and I think it does appeal to independents,” she said. “So I think I have a really good shot at perhaps getting the nomination and also winning in the fall.”
An out lesbian, Wright has been in a relationship for 13 years with Stephanie Pace, a retired college professor.
Wright said she has a limited portfolio in LGBT activism, but she contributed to the Utah Pride Center when it first opened in Salt Lake City and is a member of the Human Rights Campaign. She’s received support from a number of LGBT groups and associations within Utah, including an endorsement from the Stonewall Democrats of Utah Caucus.
Bruce Bastian, a gay billionaire philanthropist known for supporting many LGBT organizations, also has thrown his support behind Wright.
Wright has the distinction of being the great, great granddaughter of Brigham Young, an early leader of the Church of Latter-day Saints. He became church president in 1847. Wright said while that lineage may be impressive to people who live outside of Utah, “it’s not unusual” among people within the state because Young was known to have 55 wives and many descendants.
“So about every fourth person in the state is Brigham Young’s descendant,” she said. “Outside of the state, that sounds like a really big deal; inside of the state, it doesn’t get you very far.”
Wright, who said she was a Mormon but now doesn’t belong to any organized religion, is critical of the Mormon Church’s tenet that “sexuality is entirely choice.”
The church is recognized as having played a significant role in backing anti-gay initiatives, most notably Proposition 8, which ended same-sex marriage in California in 2008.
“I felt very out of place, first, as a single women, and then, as a lesbian, later on in the church,” she said. “I haven’t been an active member of the LDS Church in over 20 years.”
Still, Wright said she doesn’t “have any animosity” and that members of both sides of her family subscribe to the Mormon faith.
“I think eventually they’ll have to come around — just like the Catholic Church will, the Baptist Church will, and the Methodist Church will over time,” she said. “And they will. They’ll come to understand the issue better.”
Matheson is known for having a mixed voting record on LGBT issues during his tenure in Congress. He voted in favor of the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004 and 2006.
The lawmaker voted in favor of hate crimes legislation and a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in 2007, but he also voted in favor of a motion of recommit to kill ENDA.
Still, Matheson was vocal in his support last week for legislation to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Before voting in favor of the measure, he spoke on the House floor in support of it.
“Anyone who’s willing to put on this country’s uniform and put his or her life on the line to protect our freedoms deserves our respect and should not be subject to discrimination,” he said. “Repealing this flawed policy is an important way for us to show that respect.”
But Wright said she considers Matheson’s vote on the matter — as well as his co-sponsorship of an environmental bill — a way to appease more liberal voices in his district.
“He is trying to win back some of the environmentalists that endorsed me and he’s trying to do the same thing with the LGBT community,” she said. “I think he’s having limited success with both of those.”
Overtaking Matheson in the primary could be a challenge for Wright as his financial resources dwarf the amount she’s raised. According to the most recent Federal Election Commission reports, Matheson had more than $1.4 million in cash on hand, while Wright had about $9,000.
Wright dismissed the funding disparity, saying she’s “running a very different campaign” from Matheson.
She said “a lot of people” are working for her campaign across the state on a volunteer basis and would support her plans to go “town by town, county by county through the state” to compete with Matheson on the grassroots level.
“I can’t compete with him in money,” she said. “He’s always going to be able to afford more ads on TV and more ads on the radio, and I hope to do this person to person.”
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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