National
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Equality Forum asks first lady to launch GLBT History Month & more

Equality Forum asks first lady to launch GLBT History Month
WASHINGTON — Equality Forum has invited first lady Michelle Obama to launch this year’s GLBT History Month in October.
“GLBT History Month teaches history, provides role models, builds community and celebrates the GLBT community’s national and international contributions,” said Malcolm Lazin, Equality Forum’s executive director. “The White House celebration of GLBT History Month is an important demonstration of the administration’s support of our equality.”
In connection with GLBT History Month, Equality Forum annually features a different icon each day at GLBTHistoryMonth.com. The project presents each icon, which this year includes such people as actress Cynthia Nixon and Houston Mayor Annise Parker, by way of video and biography.
Equality Forum noted that Obama was asked to help launch this year’s event in part because she and the White House have held celebrations for Women’s History Month, Black History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month.
A White House aide said the Equality Forum’s invitation would be “given careful consideration.”
Only a fourth of troops surveyed on gays respond
WASHINGTON — The Defense Department said that only about a quarter of the troops sent a survey on gays in the military responded.
The Associated Press reported that Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said that close to 103,000 service members completed the survey, which asked questions like how they would react if assigned to a room with a gay person.
The Defense Department had delivered 400,000 surveys to troops as part of its study on how it could lift the ban without hurting morale. The deadline to respond was Sunday.
Smith said 150,000 surveys will be sent to troops’ family members later this month.
Despite early victory, aviator faces ‘Don’t Ask’ discharge
WASHINGTON — A highly decorated gay Air Force aviator whose pending discharge under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has been highly publicized won Monday a request to temporarily prevent his expulsion from the U.S. military.
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and Morrison & Foerster LLP had filed the request for a temporary restraining order last week on behalf of Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, according to SLDN. Fehrenbach is 13 months away from retirement.
SLDN and Morrison & Foerster announced Monday that they’d “reached an agreement” with the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Air Force and the U.S. District Court in Idaho, where the case is pending.
“The agreement prevents the Air Force from discharging Lt. Col. Fehrenbach under ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ the discriminatory law barring gay and lesbian service members from serving openly and honestly, until the court can schedule a hearing on the motion for a preliminary injunction,” says the announcement.
Fehrenbach previously said he’s been waiting more than two years for the U.S. military to “do the right thing” and allow him to continue his service.
“I have given my entire adult life to the Air Force that I love,” he said. ”I have deployed six times and risked my life for my country. In the two years that I’ve been sitting at my desk rather than inside my jet, I’ve offered to deploy numerous times. I’m ready, willing, and able to deploy tomorrow, but I’m barred from deployment, because of this unjust, discriminatory law.”
The injunction was filed after the General Counsel’s Office to the Secretary of the Air Force reportedly reviewed Fehrenbach’s case and sent a recommendation to Air Force Secretary Michael Donley. Without action by Donley, Fehrenbach could have been discharged within days, according to SLDN.
In a statement, Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, urged Donley to employ the new regulations for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” implemented earlier this year to keep Fehrenbach in service.
“Lt. Col. Fehrenbach signed up nearly 19 years ago willing to risk all and die for his country, flying nearly 90 combat missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo,” he said. ”Why and how the hell do we end up firing our best and brightest when we’re fighting in two wars?”
Sarvis said Fehrenbach’s discharge would “dramatically underscore that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is still the law and all gay and lesbian service members should be on notice.”
National
Baldwin, Pocan named on alleged Minn. shooter’s target lists
Gunman killed state lawmaker, husband on Saturday

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, Democrats of Wisconsin, were named on lists of targets belonging to the man suspected of killing Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband and of injuring Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife.
The Hoffmans sustained multiple gunshot wounds and are reportedly in serious but stable condition.
Vance Boelter, the suspect, was apprehended on Sunday in connection with the shootings, which occurred on Saturday. He faces federal murder and stalking charges as well as state-level murder and attempted murder charges.
“Senator Baldwin was informed by law enforcement that she was included on the alleged shooter’s list of names,” Baldwin’s Communications Director Eli Rosen told Channel3000.com. “She is grateful for law enforcement’s swift action to keep the community safe and remains focused on the things that matter most here: honoring the legacy and life of Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, praying for the other victims who are fighting for their lives, and condemning this abhorrent, senseless political violence.”
“I recently heard that my name was in one of the Minnesota shooting suspect’s notebooks and I’m appreciative that law enforcement apprehended the suspect,” Pocan said in a statement to Channel3000.com. “I will not back down in the face of terror, however, we as elected officials, must do better to lower the temperature. That said, my schedule remains unchanged.”
The news outlet reported on Monday that Baldwin’s name appeared on a list of 70 targets, while Pocan’s name was found on additional documents. The senator and congressman are both openly LGBTQ.
Democratic U.S. Reps. Greg Landsman (Ohio), Hillary Schotlen (Mich.), Veronica Escobar (Texas), and Joaquin Castro (Texas) also confirmed that their names appeared in notebooks recovered from Boelter’s vehicle.
Other Democrats who were reportedly targeted but whose offices have not yet provided confirmation as of Tuesday afternoon include LGBTQ congresswoman Angie Craig, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, and Attorney General Keith Ellison, all from Minnesota, along with U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski of Illinois, and U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri.
Walz called the shootings a “politically motivated assassination.”
Federal Government
Trump anti-trans EO used to deny health care to Democrats, unmarried vets
Veterans warn impacts will be felt disproportionately by women and LGBTQ people.

New rules would allow doctors at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to deny care to unmarried veterans and Democrats at hospitals across the country, pursuant to President Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
According to the Guardian, which was first to report the hospital guidelines on Monday, they apply also to psychologists, dentists, and other providers — allowing for individual staff to refuse care for veterans on the basis of characteristics not covered under federal law, which proscribes discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, and sex.
Doctors can also be barred from working on VA hospitals based on their marital status, political party affiliation or union activity, per documents reviewed by the Guardian. The agency confirmed changes to the rules came in response to Trump’s executive order.
Specifically, per the paper:
Until the recent changes, VA hospitals’ bylaws said that medical staff could not discriminate against patients “on the basis of race, age, color, sex, religion, national origin, politics, marital status or disability in any employment matter”. Now, several of those items — including “national origin,” “politics” and “marital status” — have been removed from that list.
Similarly, the bylaw on “decisions regarding medical staff membership” no longer forbids VA hospitals from discriminating against candidates for staff positions based on national origin, sexual orientation, marital status, membership in a labor organization or “lawful political party affiliation.”
Experts warn that changes to the guidelines may lead to situations where, for example, doctors may question patients about whether they attended a rally for a political candidate or in support of gay rights, potentially denying care on those bases or because of the reasons given for seeking care, such as cases where the patient may report a rape or sexual assault.
Veterans warn impacts will be felt disproportionately by women and LGBTQ people.
National
New LGBTQ+ Archive to save scrubbed federal resources
Trump’s anti-DEI crusade seeks to erase entire communities

Generally, when someone says, “The internet is forever,” it is not a positive statement.
But for Shae Gardner, policy director at LGBT Tech, it has become a lifeline as she and her team have spent the last couple of months tracking down documents removed from government websites.
After a series of anti-DEI and LGBTQ executive orders, thousands of pages across the federal government have been removed or altered—with LGBTQ topics taking a big hit.
The LGBTQ+ Archive, launched by LGBT Tech last month, aims to restore lost resources about the LGBTQ community into a centralized hub. They have tracked down approximately 1,000 documents—all available as downloadable PDFs and sorted by agency—but know that more are missing. Users can submit missing documents or requests for missing documents.
Archived resources range from the 2023 Equity Action Plans mandated under Biden to HIV resource sheets.
Sid Gazula, LGBT Tech’s Google Policy Fellow said reviewing the documents scrubbed from the Department of Health and Human Services was striking. “You have these important documents related to people’s health. Health isn’t subjective,” he said, “The fact that an executive order could take away all this information was very eye-opening.”
For Gazula it made an already urgent project more urgent. “We, as a community, need access to these resources,” he said, “The archive presents a mechanism to get that access out there.”
The LGBT community has a long history of engaging in archival work, explained K.J. Rawson, professor at Northeastern University and director of the Digital Transgender Archive, in an email. He described archives as “key avenues for preserving and making accessible queer and trans history.”
Since mainstream archives often erase or misrepresent the LGBTQ community, Rawson pointed out that LGBTQ archives “fight against this trend and wrest control back into LGBTQ+ hands,” citing Cait McKinney’s phrase “information activism.”
Gardner feels appreciative of the history of LGBTQ preservation, which guided their work: “I want to make it abundantly clear that we are not the first or only organization doing this sort of preservation work.” She also mentions the Internet Archive, a non-profit library of web pages, which was invaluable during their research.
When the Blade asked about the LGBT Archive, Rawson described it as “crucial!” He elaborated that, “the overt erasure of LGBTQ+ people––but especially trans people––from federal websites has been a hostile move that’s one part of larger efforts to strip us of our humanity and our history.”
Beyond creating a record for the future, the archive is also useful in fighting for LGBTQ representation today. Gardner explained that numerous journalists and advocacy groups have already been using it. Gazula, who is a student, shared that some of their professors said it was an important resource for academic work.
To access it, users have to create an account. Gardner said this is not for marketing. Instead, they want to “put a stop gap between us and malicious actors and attacks on the site” and have a basic understanding of who is using the site. She assures users that the data is backed up on servers globally, but encourages folks to download freely from the archive.
“We decided that we wanted every document and resource on it to be a PDF that they would be able to save it themselves,” said Gardner, “This is not only meant to be very user-friendly, but is also meant to help with those resources being dispersed and being kept.”
“It is the history of our community,” Gardner continued, “we deserve to have continued access to it.”