National
Gay Fla. city councilman seeks U.S. House seat
Galvin, Victory Fund see ‘path to victory’ despite crowded primary
A gay city councilman in Florida has won several high-profile endorsements in his bid for a U.S. House seat.
Scott Galvin, who serves on the North Miami City Council, is among nine contenders seeking the Democratic nomination to represent Florida’s 17th congressional district. The primary is set for Aug. 24.
Galvin said he’s running for Congress because the U.S. faces what he called “a challenging time in our nation’s history.” Among the issues that Galvin said he wants to “bring background to Washington on” are national security issues overseas.
“We’ve got military challenges not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but, I think, right around the corner, right in front of us — challenges in the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula,” Galvin said.
The seat Galvin is seeking to win is held by Rep. Kendrick Meeks (D-Fla.), who’s vacating the position to run for the U.S. Senate.
Among the national LGBT organizations that are backing Galvin are the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund and the National Stonewall Democrats. Galvin said Florida Together, a local LGBT organization, also has thrown its support behind him.
Denis Dison, spokesperson for the Victory Fund, said his organization endorsed Galvin because he met the criteria considered in the organization’s endorsements. Such criteria include having a plan necessary to raise the money to compete.
“The political team and our board both agreed that there was a path to victory for Scott,” he said.
One of the factors that Dison cited in the Victory Fund’s endorsement was the crowded Democratic primary.
“When there are nine people running for this nomination, it’s much different than if you just have one or two people competing,” Dison said.
Local endorsements for Galvin have also come from Broward County Mayor Ken Keechl and Broward County Tax Appraiser Lori Parrish.
Galvin said he is additionally pursuing an endorsement from the Human Rights Campaign. He noted the organization was expected to meet this week to discuss an endorsement for his campaign.
Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, said Galvin “has a strong shot” at winning because of the crowded primary field.
“A strong … turnout can make the difference between winning and losing,” she said. “So, I think there’s going to be a real race.”
Smith said Equality Florida won’t make an endorsement in the race because her organization doesn’t have a federal political action committee. She nonetheless noted Equality Florida would help in get-out-the-vote efforts.
Galvin said LGBT issues would be “a very high priority” for him if elected to Congress. But he noted that Congress would likely tackle some of those issues, such as repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” before he would take office.
Among the pro-LGBT issues Galvin said he would support are the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Uniting American Families Act. Galvin also supports same-sex marriage and repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act.
Galvin said the Food & Drug Administration’s ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood has long been “a pet peeve” for him and that the policy makes no sense “at all levels.”
“I don’t know why there would be a need to wait,” Galvin said. “Most of the blood banks themselves advocate for getting rid of it. Unfortunately, the stars haven’t aligned.”
Galvin said he would support legislation to overturn the ban, even though he thinks the Department of Health & Human Services should end the ban administratively.
Another issue Galvin cited as important to him was LGBT adoption rights, a priority spurred in part by Florida’s law preventing gays and lesbians from adopting.
Galvin said he was adopted by a straight couple and can “speak quite personally for the need for babies that are put up for adoption to find loving, caring homes.”
Still, Galvin called the ban “a state issue” and said he doesn’t know how much he’d be able to impact the ban as a member of Congress.
“It’s not something I’d have a direct vote in necessarily, but I would use my influence to pressure local legislators — from the governor on down to our local House people — to overturn it if there was an opportunity,” he said.
Legislation pending in Congress known as the Every Child Deserves a Family Act would address the adoption ban in Florida. The bill would restrict federal funds for states like Florida that allow discrimination in adoption based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Galvin said he wasn’t familiar with the legislation, but said it sounds like something he’d support as well as “whatever the federal government can do” to address the adoption issue.
Galvin said discussions about whether sufficient progress has already been made 18 months within the Obama administration shows “things are actually moving quicker than … some want to give the president credit for.”
“Would I rather see him with a sweeping stroke of the pen do everything on one day?” Galvin said. “Absolutely. I also know — and this is just politics — things do move slowly.”
Galvin said judging the president would be more effective at the end of his first term as opposed to before the mid-term election.
“I certainly applaud the president for pushing LGBT issues and I’d like to see him move faster,” he said. “Hopefully, if I’m one of those sitting in Congress, I’ll be able to help make that happen.”
During his tenure on the city council following his first election in 1999, Galvin advocated for LGBT issues. He said he helped obtain domestic partner benefits for city workers and institute a policy requiring city contractors to provide such benefits to their employees.
Galvin is a member of the Miami-Dade Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and the Gay & Lesbian Community Center, according to a campaign bio.
As far as family, Galvin said he’s been dating someone for four years, but declined to identify him for this article. Galvin said his sexual orientation has “not really” yet factored into his campaign either in positive or negative ways.
Galvin said Miami-Dade County has three openly gay officials and his sexual orientation is widely known.
“It’s not like it’s a surprise or anything,” he said. “Are there people out there who are perhaps using it as a negative behind the scenes? I don’t know. None of that’s gotten back to me at this stage.”
Despite Galvin’s ambitions to serve in Congress, he faces a funding disparity among other candidates seeking the Democratic nomination in the election, according the most recent Federal Election Commission reports.
Rudolph Moise, a physician and president of the Comprehensive Health Center in North Miami, has accumulated the most money of any candidate in the field, raising more than $515,000. By comparison, Galvin reportedly raised about $56,000.
Still, Galvin said he knows his “pathway to victory” exists despite the challenge in financing.
“It’s a good-old-fashioned, shoe-leather, hitting-the-ground, get-your-voters-to-the-polls effort,” he said. “We’ll continue pushing it.”
Galvin attributed Moise’s lead in fundraising to “self-financing” of his campaign. Galvin said Moise has “a large burn rate” because he lent himself more than $200,000, but also spent more than $200,000 in the race.
“Just raising money — if you don’t do something of substance with it — doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re doing a [good] job with it,” Galvin said. “So, I think raising money in a campaign is — you got to look at [it] in a fashion that more than just, the bottom line, how much have you raised?”
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.
The White House
Trump travels to Middle East countries with death penalty for homosexuality
President traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates
Homosexuality remains punishable by death in two of the three Middle East countries that President Donald Trump visited last week.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the handful of countries in which anyone found guilty of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations could face the death penalty.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia from May 13-14. He traveled to Qatar on May 14.
“The law prohibited consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men but did not explicitly prohibit same-sex sexual relations between women,” notes the State Department’s 2023 human rights report, referring specifically to Qatar’s criminalization law. “The law was not systematically enforced. A man convicted of having consensual same-sex sexual relations could receive a sentence of seven years in prison. Under sharia, homosexuality was punishable by death; there were no reports of executions for this reason.”
Trump on May 15 arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes the “penalty for individuals who engaged in ‘consensual sodomy with a man'” in the country “was a minimum prison sentence of six months if the individual’s partner or guardian filed a complaint.”
“There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. LGBTQI+ identity, real or perceived, could be deemed an act against ‘decency or public morality,’ but there were no reports during the year of persons prosecuted under these provisions,” reads the report.
The report notes Emirati law also criminalizes “men who dressed as women or entered a place designated for women while ‘disguised’ as a woman.” Anyone found guilty could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 dirhams ($2,722.60.)
Trump returned to the U.S. on May 16.
The White House notes Trump during the trip secured more than $2 trillion “in investment agreements with Middle Eastern nations ($200 billion with the United Arab Emirates, $600 billion with Saudi Arabia, and $1.2 trillion with Qatar) for a more safe and prosperous future.”
Former President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022.
Saudi Arabia is scheduled to host the 2034 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup took place in Qatar.
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