National
A dismal future under GOP control?
Advocates fear ‘zero probability’ of pro-gay advances in next Congress
The prospects of House minority leader John Boehner becoming speaker are frightening for LGBT rights supporters. HRC has given Boehner a zero in its annual congressional scorecard. (Photo courtesy of Republican National Conference)
LGBT rights supporters are bracing for a freeze on pro-gay legislation in the next two years if — as many pundits predict — Republicans take control of the U.S. House and Democrats have a reduced majority in the Senate.
Patrick Egan, a gay New York University political science professor, said what he sees for outstanding pro-LGBT legislation in the 112th Congress is “not a pretty picture.”
“I would say nothing’s going to happen,” Egan said. “You can see how difficult it was getting any kind of pro-gay legislation out of two houses that were solidly controlled by Democrats, and the picture’s just going to get worse to the extent that Republicans gain power on Capitol Hill.”
Egan said he couldn’t identify which bills — such as the Domestic Partnership Benefits & Obligations Act or the Employment Non-Discrimination Act — have a greater chance of passing than others because he thinks, “the probability of all of them is zero.”
“I’m just so pessimistic about anything moving at all that I actually don’t think that question is very meaningful,” he said.
Michael Cole, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, drew on the record of Republican control throughout the 1990s and early 2000s in his prediction of what could happen next year.
“We saw what Republican leadership looked like in the House, and that was when we had a Federal Marriage Amendment being debated, it’s when we saw [the Defense of Marriage Act] passed, it’s where we saw a slew of efforts that delayed our progress,” Cole said.
Cole said the possibility of a hostile Congress underscores the need for LGBT rights supporters to work to elect friendly lawmakers during the campaign season.
“I don’t want to be too fatalistic about where things are going to end up because while there’s six weeks until the election, six weeks is a long time, and no one can honestly say they’ll know what’s going to happen,” Cole said.
Still, political experts across the board are predicting that Republicans will achieve enough gains in the U.S. House on Election Day to take a majority in the chamber.
Nate Silver, founder of the FiveThirtyEight blog, estimated last week that Republicans have a 65 percent chance of taking the House. His model projects that Republicans will go from holding 188 seats to approximately 223 seats and give them a narrow majority.
Earlier this month, Cook Political Report on its website also identified Republicans as modest favorites to take control of the House.
“The Cook Political Report’s current outlook is for a Republican net gain of at least 40 seats,” the website states. “A turnover of 39 seats would tip majority status into Republican hands.”
Such an outcome would lead to the retirement of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the ascension of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) to her role.
Many Washington insiders are anticipating that House Democrats will be facing bad news on Election Day. At a recent D.C. fundraiser where Pelosi didn’t appear at the expected time, attendees joked that she was delayed because she was trying to get rid of a tape-measure wielding Boehner from her office.
Cole said the possibility of Boehner taking control of the House would be bad news for LGBT people and noted HRC has previously given the minority leader — as well as others in Republican leadership, such as Reps. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.) — a “0” on its congressional scorecards.
“These are the people who would be deciding the agenda of what gets to the floor,” Cole said.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), a lawmaker known for her support for the LGBT community and co-sponsor of numerous pro-LGBT bills in Congress, said she’s unsure of what will happen with these bills if her party takes control of the House as she criticized the current Democratic majority for not taking action.
“I don’t know what will happen with Republicans,” she told the Blade last week. “I know what’s happening now. I don’t really get an opportunity to get to vote on those [bills] very often on the floor.”
Ros-Lehtinen was also reluctant to say that she’d be the champion of pro-LGBT legislation under GOP control in the House.
“I think that there are a lot of champions in a bi-partisan way on these issues,” she said. “I would not consider myself a champion of anything, but I’m proud to support the bills. But right now, it’s Democrat control, so you got to ask [U.S. House Speaker] Nancy [Pelosi] what’s up.”
Even with fears and uncertainty about how a GOP-controlled Congress would handle LGBT issues, the Republicans haven’t been emphasizing social issues in their quest to retake Congress.
The House Republicans’ “Pledge to America,” which was unveiled last week, notably has little to do with social issues and instead plays up economic policy.
The pledge has one line saying Republicans will work to defend “traditional marriage.” Other issues, such as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” aren’t mentioned in the document.
Brian Moulton, HRC’s chief legislative counsel, wrote in a blog posting last week that the document shows LGBT people wouldn’t fare well under a Republican-controlled Congress.
“While the document focuses heavily on economic issues, its ‘pledge’ also includes hostility to LGBT equality, promising support for ‘traditional marriage’ and, in a thinly veiled attack on LGBT advances through legislation and the courts, criticizing actions that ‘thwart the will of the people and overturn their votes and their values,'” Moulton said.
Even under Republican control, options would be available to the Democratic minority to work to pass pro-LGBT legislation.
One possibility would be to pass bills through a discharge petition, a maneuver that could bring legislation that’s bottled up in committee to the House floor. Supporters of pro-LGBT bills in the Democratic minority could find Republican moderates to sign the discharge petition to obtain 218 signatures needed to move forward with the legislation.
But Egan was skeptical about the use of a discharge petition to pass pro-LGBT legislation and said he doesn’t think moderate Republicans would join such an effort.
“The few moderate Republicans who are left are going to be worried about a primary challenge from their right in the cycle,” Egan said. “One of the true ways to invite a primary challenge from your right-wing is to vote for LGBT-friendly legislation.”
As Democrats face dismal prospects in the House, LGBT rights supporters may be able to look to a Democratic-controlled Senate to advance pro-gay legislation.
In the Senate, where only one-third of the seats are up for grabs during any given election cycle, the forecast is better for the Democrats, although Republican gains are still expected.
Silver estimates that Republicans have an 18 percent chance of taking the Senate. Still, his model projects Democrats will go from having 59 seats in the chamber to having an estimated 52.2 seats.
The reduced Democratic majority in the Senate may mean that the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster in the chamber could be further out of reach.
Still, Democratic control in the Senate could provide the opportunity of amending larger pieces of legislation with pro-LGBT measures in the chamber in the hopes that such language would survive in conference committee for both chambers to approve and send to the president’s desk.
Such a tactic would be similar to how the Senate in 2000 amended major defense legislation with a hate crimes protections measure as a way forward. The hate crimes measure didn’t become law that year and only made it into the books last year as part of defense legislation signed by President Obama.
But Egan was skeptical about the prospects of being able to move forward with pro-LGBT legislation in the Senate even by amending larger legislation.
“That sort of tactic tends to be blocked by Republican senators who are social conservatives, and I would imagine that would continue to happen in the next session,” Egan said.
Egan said he expects a number of Democratic senators will be replaced after Election Day with “hard-core social conservatives” and said the scenario under which pro-LGBT legislation advances under those circumstances seems “really unlikely.”
With a possible block on pro-LGBT legislation in the upcoming Congress, eyes could be on Obama to make administrative changes beneficial to the LGBT community as opposed to having to rely on enacting legislation.
Matt Foreman, program director for LGBT and immigrant rights at the Haas Jr. Fund, said the Obama administration has at its disposal the means to help the LGBT community regardless of the election results in November.
“There are dozens and dozens of ways in which the Obama administration can continue to change federal policies and practices to improve the response of the federal government to needs of LGBT people,” Foreman said.
Foreman said he thinks advocates often elevate legislation over potential policy changes, such as funding for community centers and anti-violence programs as well as determining how a family is defined in the health care reform and how jobs programs treat LGBT applicants.
“All of those things are incredibly important to people, so I think that even if strong anti-LGBT majorities take control of Congress, there will still be lots and lots of opportunities to make progress within the administration,” Foreman said.
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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