National
Push for LGBT bills continues during recess
Activities planned in local districts while Congress takes break
Advocacy groups are planning to take advantage of this month’s congressional recess by stepping up efforts with district offices to build support for pro-LGBT initiatives while lawmakers are at home.
One joint effort between the Human Rights Campaign and Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, for example, is geared toward influencing senators to support repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” when the issue comes before the Senate, possibly in September.
As part of this same effort, HRC is also working on building support for bringing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to a House vote.
Meanwhile, grassroots LGBT group GetEqual is considering ways to expand its direct action work outside the Capital Beltway to reach lawmakers in their home districts.
HRC and SLDN last week announced their effort, called Countdown 2010, which aims to mobilize new grassroots efforts to build support in part toward ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the Senate.
Marty Rouse, HRC’s national field director, said the effort consists of engagement from the organization’s field team as well as encouraging HRC members to reach out to key lawmakers.
“We can’t just talk to our legislators and members of Congress inside the Beltway,” Rouse said. “We have to talk to them in the district so that they see that there’s interest and concern back home.”
Aubrey Sarvis, SLDN’s executive director, said the effort will last until lawmakers return from their August recess and vote on the fiscal year 2011 defense authorization bill, the legislative vehicle to which the Senate Armed Services Committee in May attached a provision that would lead to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.
“We’ll be down in the targeted states with veterans, former clients of SLDN, friends and family of veterans — hopefully to visit with senators and their key staffers to urge senators to support, one, the [Defense Department] bill and, secondly, to support the provisions in the bill as it came out of the Senate Armed Services Committee,” Sarvis said.
The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” portion of the Countdown 2010 effort is focused on influencing senators in 10 states — Arkansas, Indiana, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Virginia — where HRC and SLDN feel they don’t have a firm commitment from senators on the issue.
Rouse said the senators in the states on which HRC is focusing its efforts are Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), John Ensign (R-Nev.), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), George Voinovich (R-Ohio), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.).
Although Rouse said HRC’s field team is engaged in nearly all of these states throughout the country as part of this effort, he added efforts aren’t yet underway in Montana because of priority and efficiency reasons.
“Montana is a big state, and it’s hard to cover and hard to get to,” Rouse said. “There’s no one in Montana right now, but there will be.”
One of the senators on the list has already publicly indicated his position on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the defense authorization bill. Last month, Lugar told the Blade he wouldn’t support removing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” language from legislation and is unlikely to support a filibuster of the main bill.
Sarvis said SLDN feels Indiana should nonetheless be among the states on which efforts are focused.
“With Sen. Lugar, the commitment is not as firm and unequivocal as we would like, so we hope to engage him back home,” Sarvis said. “But, yes, we are somewhat encouraged by what Sen. Lugar has said to date. But, again, it’s not done until all the votes are cast.”
Also as part of Countdown 2010, HRC is working to influence senators in the targeted states on ENDA while engaging House members in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas to build support for the bill. Rouse said urging senators to support ENDA in these three additional states is less of a priority.
“We really focused on the House and we need to do significant [work] in House districts throughout the country before we even can think of the Senate,” Rouse said. “Our focus right now in the field is making sure that we target these House members. That’s most important.”
Paul Guequierre, an HRC spokesperson, said the efforts in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas are geared toward influencing House Democratic members in these states that aren’t ENDA co-sponsors.
Five of eight House Democrats from North Carolina, five of 12 House Democrats from Pennsylvania and five of 12 House Democrats from Texas aren’t co-sponsors, Guequierre said.
Sarvis said the shared work between HRC and SLDN in this effort would complement the strength of each organization. He noted that HRC has more field organizers and thus would provide more field workers to the effort while SLDN would bring more service members and veterans.
“Whether it’s working with field organizers in place or SLDN veterans, clients, it’ll be a matter of sharing resources and bringing that [all] together over the next six to eight weeks in the most efficient way possible,” Sarvis said.
Rouse said HRC would look at local media to determine whether efforts in these states are making progress and noted that efforts in many states have already produced results.
“We’ve already seen letters to the editor printed, op-eds printed and meetings with the Senate staff have already taken place,” he said. “None of this would have happened were it not for HRC’s staff being on the ground, mobilizing and reaching out to people.”
But for SLDN, evaluating the progress of Countdown 2010 would depend on the results of the meetings with senators and their staffers in these states.
“But the bottom line is you won’t know until the votes have been cast,” Sarvis said. “In some cases, we may get affirmative answers over the next several weeks, but I suspect that in many cases, we won’t get a definitive answer until the senators’ votes.”
GetEqual plans district actions
Meanwhile, GetEqual is planning efforts to draw more attention to ENDA as lawmakers return from break. The efforts are intended to build off previous protests last month in Las Vegas and at the U.S. Capitol.
Robin McGehee, co-founder of GetEqual, said her group has been talking with local organizers about working collaboratively on direct action throughout the country on ENDA and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“We’re trying to work to set up some in-district actions,” she said. “At this moment, we don’t have any targets that we’ll release only because we’re trying to figure out where is the weakest link and what we feel like is going to be strategically the best one to plan most of our attention.”
McGehee said GetEqual will be sending out instructions on ways people can engage in the political process as lawmakers work in their home district.
“It may be some people planning actions; it may be just giving them avenues of engagement that can just get them to engage their legislator around ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ or ENDA,” she said.
McGehee said GetEqual is looking at lawmakers’ speaking engagements, town halls, fundraisers and office times as possible opportunities for action.
Wherever the actions take place, McGehee said GetEqual is in part learning from the tactics that conservative protesters used in interrupting town hall meetings last year over health care reform.
“Obviously, you don’t want to be compared to someone who has a conservative platform,” she said. “But, in my opinion, one of the things that we did learn from watching that was the squeaky wheel was getting the grease.”
In the past month, GetEqual asked supporters which of four lawmakers should be targeted for direct action over ENDA: U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) or Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.).
According to GetEqual, Pelosi won 46.5 percent of the vote, Reid won 18.5 percent, Miller took 17.6 percent and Frank took 17.4 percent. The organization declined to make public the total number of votes.
McGehee said the first and second place rankings of Pelosi and Reid were behind a protest last month in Las Vegas, which was directed against Reid, and another protest in the U.S. Capitol, which targeted Pelosi.
But whether GetEqual continues to target Pelosi and Reid during their August break remains to be seen.
“I don’t know for sure that we’ll go back to those targets,” McGehee said. “Honestly, for us, it’s just looking at where you have local organizers that also want to be involved, and finding out from the advocacy groups that really have the inside strategy where do they feel like the hold up is actually happening.”
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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