National
LGBT youth included in plan to end homelessness
Housing secretary says programs will aid ‘ostracized and targeted’ teens
The Obama administration highlighted the longstanding problem of homelessness among LGBT youth this week when it announced a strategy that U.S. Housing & Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donavan called “the most far-reaching and ambitious plan to end homelessness in our history.”
Administration officials released the plan Tuesday during a White House event at which Donovan, two other cabinet secretaries and the head of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness pledged to find stable housing for most of the nation’s homeless within 10 years.
Donavan, who serves as chair of the Interagency Council on Homelessness, said that many people who fall victim to homelessness face discrimination based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.
“What I would say is so many of those at risk of homelessness are marginalized in various ways,” he told the Blade after the event. “As we’ve seen with youth, those who age out of foster care … [and] who are ostracized and targeted because of their gender identity or sexual orientation are one of the populations that are at increased risk for homelessness.
“So everyone has a stake in making sure that those who are at risk of homelessness, including those targeted because of their gender identity and sexual orientation, need to be part of this effort, and they are.”
He said that curtailing bias against homeless LGBT youth would result in broader benefits for the country.
“It’s also wrong for taxpayers of the nation, more broadly, because ultimately the costs of homelessness to our society and the taxpayers are far larger when folks fall into homelessness than if we prevent that homelessness in advance,” he said.
The 67-page document released Tuesday, “Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent & End Homelessness 2010,” calls for building on what it says have been highly effective strategies for addressing the homeless problem that local and state governments and private charitable groups in many parts of the country have used.
Among other things, it calls for eradicating homelessness among military veterans and the chronic homeless within five years. It calls for eliminating homelessness among “unaccompanied youth” and “individual adults” within 10 years.
“Youth often leave home as a result of severe family conflict which may include physical and/or sexual abuse,” says the plan. “Some studies suggest that racial and ethnic minority youth as well as youth who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning represent a larger proportion when compared to the overall population.”
The plan says that, in general, homeless youth need shelter along with transitional programs and services that emphasize “stabilization and reunification with families when appropriate.”
However, it notes that “in many cases, youth have become homeless because of hostile and dangerous conditions at home and that reunification with families may not be appropriate for groups such as victims of abuse and many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth.”
Donovan said the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which prepared the plan, consists of 19 federal agencies, including HUD and the U.S. departments of Health & Human Services and Veterans Affairs.
Barbara Poppe, the Council’s executive director and who is credited with coordinating the project, told the Blade that experts on LGBT youth and homelessness provided information to the Council through a special working group that focused on youth issues.
“We believe they should have absolute access to shelter and support,” she said of LGBT youth. “But more importantly, we want to set them on a path to employment and transition to adulthood. We’re very excited to implement the plan with a strong focus on any homelessness among youth over the next decade.”
The Obama administration’s plan for addressing homelessness comes four year after the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and the National Coalition for the Homeless issued what many LGBT activists considered a groundbreaking report on homelessness among LGBT youth.
The report, based on an extensive review of research conducted by private and local governmental agencies throughout the country, said its findings suggest that between 20 percent and 40 percent of all homeless youth identity as LGBT.
Among other things, the report found that LGBT youth were often victims of violence and harassment in homeless shelter. The report also noted that faith-based shelters sometimes created further problems for LGBT youth because of certain religious teachings on homosexuality.
“Our country can do better, and its leadership has an obligation to ensure that all people — including LGBT youth and adults — are not left without fundamentals such as food, safety and a roof over one’s head,” said Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey in prepared comments on the administration’s new homelessness plan.
“While we are pleased to see that LGBT people are being considered in a strategy to confront homelessness, real progress will occur when such inclusive strategies are actually implemented,” she said. “Homelessness is a critical issue for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. For far too long, too many of our young people have been kicked out of their homes, forced to live on the streets, for simply being who they are. This has been a national disgrace of epidemic proportions.”
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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