National
LGBT voters approve of Obama’s performance: poll
But numbers slip on president’s handling of gay issues
President Obama received high marks in an unscientific straw poll of LGBT voters the Blade conducted during Capital Pride. (Photo by Pete Souza, courtesy of White House)
Nearly 77 percent of LGBT participants in an unscientific straw poll the Washington Blade conducted during last month’s Capital Pride street festival said they approve of the job President Barack Obama is doing as president.
The president’s 76.9 percent approval rating among the LGBT respondents — most of whom said they live in D.C., Maryland or Virginia — far exceeds the 46 percent approval rating he received from American voters nationwide who participated in a Gallup Poll in June.
Just over 17 percent of the 519 LGBT people who responded to the Blade straw poll said they disapprove of the president’s job performance, and about 6 percent said they had no opinion.
In a separate question on the Blade straw poll, about 51 percent of LGBT respondents said they approve of the job Obama is doing in “addressing LGBT-related issues.” On the matter, about 36 percent said they disapprove and about 13 percent said they had no opinion.
A third question asking respondents to grade Obama “on his handling of LGBT issues” showed a range of opinions. About 8 percent of the straw poll’s LGBT respondents gave Obama an “A” grade, whereas 37.7 percent gave him a “B,” 37.5 percent gave him a “C,” about 13 percent gave him a “D,” and about 2 percent gave him an “F.” The remaining respondents had no opinion.
The Blade straw poll follows a year in which the president has faced sharp criticism from some LGBT activists who say he hasn’t been forceful enough in pushing for LGBT-related bills in Congress, including legislation to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
At the time of his election in November 2008, most LGBT activists agreed that Obama was about to become the nation’s most LGBT-supportive president. As a candidate, Obama said he supported civil unions rather than same-sex marriage, but expressed strong support on virtually all other LGBT issues.
Among other things, he called for repealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act, a measure passed by Congress in 1996 that federally defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The act bars married same-sex couples joined in states that allow same-sex marriage from receiving any of the federal rights or benefits of marriage that wedded opposite-sex couples receive.
The president has continued to speak in favor of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and DOMA, has appointed a record number of high-level openly LGBT officials throughout the federal government, and has hosted LGBT events at the White House.
His LGBT supporters say the criticism is unfair. They note that the Obama administration has taken extensive action on the LGBT front and should not be held responsible for inaction by Congress, which has stalled in the approval of most LGBT-related bills.
That the Blade straw poll shows the president with an overall 76.9 percent approval rating among LGBT respondents suggests large numbers of LGBT people continue to have confidence in Obama while having concerns about his handling of at least some LGBT-related issues.
“I think the overall view is that we still like him,” said Peter Rosenstein, a gay Democratic activist.
“But I think it shows there’s a feeling it would be very nice if he spoke out on our issues in the same forceful way he did about health care to the Congress,” Rosenstein said. “There’s a frustration that he is not speaking out forcefully enough on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and on [the Employment Non-Discrimination Act] and our community wants to see more action.”
Andrew Tobias, who’s gay and serves as treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, said he understands the frustration of some of the Blade poll respondents who are disappointed that more LGBT-related advances have not materialized.
“But we also need to recognize that in less than two years, with so much else on his plate, Obama’s made a terrific start, and a night-and-day difference over where we were or where we would have been with [Republican presidential candidate John] McCain.”
Tobias said the Blade poll results show an overwhelming majority gave the president a favorable rating and a passing grade.
“If you had asked people to rate the Republicans, virtually 100 percent would have flunked them outright,” he said.
But Clarke Cooper, executive director of the gay partisan group Log Cabin Republicans, said the Blade poll indicates that LGBT voters are questioning the president’s actions on LGBT issues, especially the administration’s decision to oppose in court a Log Cabin lawsuit seeking to overturn the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law.
“It is presumptuous of President Obama and the DNC to assume LGBT voters will march in blind lock-step support of the president,” Cooper said.
Organizers of the Capital Pride festival, the D.C. area’s annual LGBT Pride event, estimated about 200,000 people turned out for the event, which was held June 13 along Pennsylvania Avenue near the U.S. Capitol.
The Blade staff invited festival attendees to participate in the straw poll as they walked past the Blade’s booth. Participation included filling out a one-page, confidential questionnaire and placing the completed questionnaire in a closed ballot box.
Of the 559 respondents, about 59 percent identified as gay, about 26 percent as lesbian, about 5 percent as bisexual, about 1 percent as transgender, and about 3 percent as queer. The remaining 6 percent identified as straight.
The Blade isolated the respondents identifying as straight from its calculation of the results so that a more accurate presentation of the straw poll’s LGBT sample could be obtained.
A separate calculation of the poll’s 36 straight respondents, showed that about 72 percent approved of the job the president is doing, while about 22 percent disapproved and about 5 percent had no opinion. On the question of how the president was doing on LGBT-related issues, about 34 percent of the straight respondents expressed approval, while some 25 percent expressed disapproval and 40 percent had no opinion.
Among all straw poll respondents, about 82 percent identified themselves as white, about 10 percent as black, 5 percent as Latino, about 3 percent as Asian/Pacific Islander, and another 3 percent as other.
Similar to nationwide public opinion polls such as the Gallup Poll, black respondents to the Blade poll gave a higher approval rating to the president than white respondents.
On the Blade poll’s question on whether respondents approve or disapprove of how Obama is doing as president, nearly 91 percent of the black LGBT respondents said they approve compared to less than 2 percent who said they disapprove. The remaining 7 percent of black LGBT respondents had no opinion.
On the same question, more than 77 percent of white LGBT respondents said they approve of the job the president is doing compared to about 18 percent who said they disapproved, while about 4 percent had no opinion.
The difference between black and white respondents narrowed on the question of how the president is doing on LGBT-related issues. About 60 percent of black respondents said they approved of the president’s handling of LGBT issues, while about 19 percent said they disapproved and some 21 percent had no opinion on the question.
Among white respondents, nearly 50 percent said they approved of President Obama’s handling of LGBT-related issues and about 35 percent said they disapproved, while about 15 percent said they had no opinion.
Gallup Poll results from a June survey shows 46 percent of American voters approve of Obama’s job performance. A Rasmussen Poll also conducted in July shows that just 27 percent of the respondents “strongly approve” of the overall job the president is doing compared to 43 percent who “strongly disapprove.”
High unemployment rates and the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster were among the issues that the Gallup and Rasmussen polls indicated were factors in respondents saying they disapprove of the job the president is doing.
Dan Pinello, who’s gay and a political science professor at the City University of New York, said the overall support the Blade straw poll found for Obama’s job performance is consistent with national exit polls of LGBT voters conducted by the news media for presidential elections.
He noted that the exit polls have consistently shown that LGBT voters support the Democratic presidential candidate at about 75 percent.
Pinello said he was unsurprised over the Blade poll finding that the Obama approval rating drops to about 50 percent on the question of how the president is handling LGBT-related issues. He noted that since the sample consists of self-identified LGBT people at a Pride event in Washington, the respondents most likely are “skewed” toward more politically aware people.
“But in the minds of many in our community, Barack Obama has not lived up to his campaign promises,” Pinello said. “Plus, Barack Obama has had an ambitious political agenda, much of which he’s accomplished. He got the health reform bill through Congress. He got the stimulus package passed. He got financial reform passed. Lots of major, consequential, historic legislation has passed in the last year and a half. And I think a lot of gay people, especially in the nation’s capital who are very attuned to these issues, are looking at that and saying, ‘Why not us?’”
U.S. Federal Courts
Renee Good’s family files two federal lawsuits
ICE officer killed lesbian mother of three in Minneapolis in January
The family of lesbian woman who a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement killed in Minneapolis in January have filed two federal lawsuits.
The Associated Press notes Renee Good’s partner, Becca Good, and her brother, Brent Ganger, in the lawsuits accuse the Trump-Vance administration and ICE officer Jonathan Ross of “unjustified and excessive use of force.”
Renee Good was a 37-year-old mother of three.
Ross on Jan. 7 shot and killed her in Minneapolis.
The shooting took place during the Trump-Vance administration’s so-called Operation Metro Surge that targeted Somalis and other immigrant groups in Minneapolis. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents on Jan. 24 shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who worked for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, in Minneapolis.
Both shooting sparked outrage across the U.S. and around the world.
“Every morning, she is my first thought. I think about how the kids are growing up without their mama, and how I will grow old without the love of my life. I think about how we should have had 40 more years together. But I also think about what she would have wanted after all of this,” said Becca Good in a statement the Human Rights Campaign released after she and her partner’s family announced the lawsuits.
“As we have tried to navigate our own massive loss, I am also devastated by how many other lives have been destroyed in this darkest of times. So many other families are dealing with the loss of their loved ones; to everyone who has had to witness it — the pain of this moment extends far beyond our family,” added Becca Good. “What happened to us should never happen to any family. No child should grow up without a parent because of it. No one should lose their sister or their daughter. No one should have to live without their soulmate. Accountability — real accountability — is the only way to make sure that no other family has to go through what we have.”
HRC President Kelley Robinson in her own statement said the Good family “is one of our own — and today, the Human Rights Campaign joins them in demanding justice.”
“It has been eight months and 24 days since Renee was shot and killed by an ICE agent, and the United States government has failed to take responsibility for its actions,” said Robinson. “Her partner, Becca, and brother Brent, have made the brave and bold decision to hold the government accountable, and we stand with them. Like every person murdered by ICE, Renee should be alive today. The Goods were robbed of what every American family deserves: to be together.”
Federal Government
988 restores crisis services for LGBTQ youth
The lifesaving 988 call-in number to help people experiencing mental health crises or suicidal thoughts has once again restored its specialized services for LGBTQ youth.
The lifeline, which used to have the option to “press 3” to be directly sent to specialized services for LGBTQ youth facing mental health crises or suicidal thoughts, was returned on Wednesday following an over-year-long battle with the Trump-Vance administration, which removed the service in May 2025.
The Press 3 option rolled out as a pilot program in 2022 through a government contract with the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ people.
Then, in June 2025, the federal government announced that the lifeline would be eliminated within a month. By July 2025, 988 Lifeline’s “Press 3” services were terminated.
Openly gay U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) helped lead Congress in reversing the removal of the lifesaving resource from American phones. As a member of the Senatw Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee, she started the process of securing $535 million for 988 — a $15 million increase — as well as dedicated funding for LGBTQ youth specialized services.
Then, in September 2025, Baldwin, along with U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), introduced bipartisan legislation in the Senate, the 988 LGBTQ+ Youth Access Act, to codify the 988 Lifeline’s specialized services for LGBTQ young people.
At the same time, U.S. Rep Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) introduced the legislation in the House of Representatives alongside U.S. Reps. Michael Lawler (R-N.Y.) Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Seth Moulton (D-Mass.)
The Senate passed Baldwin’s bipartisan funding bill in January 2026, funding the Department of Health and Human Services with explicit language mandating the return of 988’s LGBTQ youth specialized services.
In February 2026, Congress passed legislation mandating that the previously eliminated “Press 3” specialized services be restored and funded with $33,100,000 — but it was unclear if the Press 3 option would still be allowed under current executive orders, namely Executive Order 14168, or “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
Despite the securing of federal funding for the Press 3 resource, the battle to get the 988 LGBTQ+ Youth Access Act through Congress is ongoing — and would provide codafied protection from this removal ever happening again.
According to data on the Trevor Project’s website, LGBTQ young people are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers.
Baldwin’s office touts the immense help the lifeline provides to LGBTQ people in their moments of greatest need. The press release on the reinstatement of Press 3 highlighted the continued demand for the service:
“The volume of calls, texts, and chats 15 percent higher than a year earlier and nearly 50 percent higher than two years ago. Since the lifeline launched, it has received over 27 million contacts, including over 18 million calls, 4 million texts, and 3 million chats.”
Advocates for LGBTQ rights and mental health awareness have agreed with the increasing numbers and hailed the return as a win for everyone.
“Suicide and mental health struggles touch every community across our state, and that’s why creating the 988 crisis lifeline to make sure help is there for everyone is one of my proudest accomplishments,” said Baldwin said in a statement. “But, last year, the Trump administration decided to make these real struggles a political football and ripped away the specialized line that helped LGBTQ children. This was a deliberate choice. The Trump administration chose to put children’s lives on the line to score some political points.
“I’ve fought tooth and nail to restore this lifesaving resource. When I realized the Trump administration was not going to do it on their own, I wrote it into federal law to require them to restore the Press 3 option,” the Wisconsin senator said. “This lifesaving resource never should have gone away in the first place, but I am glad the lifesaving support Press 3 provides is once again there for people who need it.”
“I’m proud that we secured the funding to restore this lifesaving LGBTQ+ crisis line and successfully pressured the Trump administration to bring the program back,” Krishnamoorthi said. “When an LGBTQ+ young person reaches out for help in a moment of crisis, they deserve to reach a counselor trained to understand and support them. This program should never have been taken away, and now we need to make sure it stays available for every young person who needs it. I’m grateful to the Trevor Project, NAMI Chicago, Equality Illinois, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and all the advocates and young people who worked alongside us to bring these services back.”
Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project who works with the SAMHSA, in their press three operations celebrated the return of the resource.
“We are grateful to see that the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s ‘Press 3’ specialized services for LGBTQ+ youth have been restored. Resuming this national resource will be critical in addressing the public health crisis of suicide among LGBTQ+ young people, and supporting the estimated more than 1.8 million LGBTQ+ youth who seriously consider attempting suicide in the U.S. each year,” Black said via a statement. “We are thankful for the large coalition of bipartisan lawmakers, mental health advocates, allies, and supporters who fought tirelessly for this restoration. We will monitor the launch and usage of these important services to ensure all LGBTQ+ youth are supported with clinically best standards.”
If you or someone you know needs mental health resources and support, please call, text, or chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or visit 988lifeline.org for 24/7 access to free and confidential services. Trans Lifeline, designed for transgender or gender-nonconforming people, can be reached at (877) 565-8860. The lifeline also provides resources to help with other crises, such as domestic violence situations. The Trevor Project Lifeline, for LGBTQ+ youth (ages 24 and younger), can be reached at (866) 488-7386. Users can also access chat services at TheTrevorProject.org/Help or text START to 678678.
California
Calif. governor signs 6 pro-LGBTQ bills, vetoes 1
Gavin Newsom rejected measure he claimed is legislative overreach
Last week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed and vetoed a slew of bills into state law. Among them were seven pertaining to California’s LGBTQ community. Newsom signed six while vetoing one. His actions drew applause and scorn from advocacy groups in the state.
The six signed bills:
Assembly Bill 1775 allows transgender veterans, who were banned from service last year by the Trump-Vance administration, to access housing assistance, use California’s discharge upgrade assistance program, and get support for gaining employment.
Assembly Bill 1930 strengthens privacy protections for healthcare patients and providers by creating clear guidelines for California agencies, individuals, and corporations to respond to out-of-state subpoena requests relating to abortion or gender-affirming care. This includes a requirement to contact the California Attorney General at least seven days prior to responding to the subpoena or providing legal documents. This should add additional protection to those residing in California from investigations in states where abortion or gender-affirming care has more restrictions.
Senate Bill 934 targets conversion therapy in California and increases the amount of time a patient has to bring a medical malpractice lawsuit against a provider for attempting to change the patient’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The bill takes aim at the widely debunked practice that treats queerness as a mental disorder that could be cured through psychotherapeutic methods. Conversion therapy has been illegal in California since 2012; however, a recent Supreme Court decision threw the ban into question, prompting lawmakers to write this new bill that legally defines it as medical malpractice.
Senate Bill 1023 expands access to PrEP, a medication that protects people from contracting HIV. The bill requires insurers to cover the drug through the medical benefit and the pharmacy benefit pathways, allowing for more providers to give patients PrEP.
Senate Bill 1114 strengthens privacy protections for voluntary self-identification data about sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill limits when California government agencies can share this data and bars it from being disclosed outside of the state government, with few exceptions.
Senate Bill 1328 expands support for LGBTQ students and staff in California colleges. The bill requires any institution of higher education to designate an employee at any campus, satellite campus, branch campus, or outreach center to support the needs of LGBTQ individuals.
Equality California, the largest statewide LGBTQ civil rights group in the country, commended the governor for his support of legislation that protects and supports the queer community amid escalating threats, attacks, and rollbacks from the federal government.
Executive Director Tony Hoang said in a written statement, “California is once again demonstrating that when LGBTQ+ people are targeted, our state will respond with action,” adding, “We are grateful to Gov. Newsom for signing these measures.”
The vetoed bill:
Assembly Bill 2164 would have banned California from extraditing anyone residing in California for providing abortions or gender-affirming care in another state. Newsom vetoed this bill despite agreeing with its principles, claiming in a written statement that “extradition is an exclusively executive function” and that he did not want to limit the “executive authority of an incoming governor.”
This bill was created in response to Louisiana’s attempt to extradite a California physician for allegedly sending abortion pills in the mail to a Louisiana woman. Newsom responded forcefully to the extradition request, publicly denying it and stating, “We will not allow extremist politicians from other states to reach into California and try to punish doctors based on allegations that they provided reproductive health care services.”
In a written statement responding to the veto, Lizzy Hinkley, the legal director of the bill’s lead sponsor, Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, criticized Newsom, stating, “[the] outgoing governor’s principled stance is cold comfort to Californians living and working in the real world post-Dobbs. A high-brow, academic justification for refusing to codify legal protections only reveals an ignorance for the lived reality of patients and providers — and does nothing to help them.”
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