National
Gay diplomat presses LGBT issues at int’l conference
Guest focuses on hate crimes, Pride celebrations in remarks
Michael Guest, former U.S. ambassador to Romania, headed a delegation during the human rights portion of an annual conference for the Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe. (Blade photo by Michael Key)
A gay diplomat led a U.S. delegation at an international conference earlier this month that touched on the importance of LGBT rights as a human rights issue.
Michael Guest, former U.S. ambassador to Romania, headed a delegation of about 25 U.S. diplomats during the human rights portion of an annual review conference for the Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe. The review conference took place between Sept. 30 and Oct. 8 in Warsaw, Poland.
The Warsaw Review Conference was a primer engagement for trans-Atlantic countries to discuss human rights principles — including hate crimes against LGBT people and the freedom to association to have Pride celebrations across the globe — in anticipation of a later OSCE summit that this year is set to take place in December in Astana, Kazakhstan.
In an interview with the Washington Blade, Guest said that his sexual orientation made his designation as head of the delegation representational of the Obama administration’s stated principle that international LGBT rights are human rights.
“I also think that it made an impact with other delegations,” Guest added. “It was clearly a prominent feature of my biography, so there were a number of delegation members that come and it’s representative in their eyes as a sense of progress that an openly gay man would be appointed.”
Still, Guest said he thinks his 26-year service as a diplomat was the primary reason he was selected for the position and noted that during much of his career he focused on OSCE policy.
“I dealt with it at the time when all these changes were happening in Europe in 1989, 1990 and 1991 and when most of the commitments on fundamental freedoms and human rights were signed by the newly independent countries of the former Soviet Union and the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe,” he said.
Guest attained notoriety in 2007 when he retired from the State Department in protest because it didn’t offer certain benefits — such as security training and free medical care — to the same-sex partners of Foreign Service officers. The situation has since been rectified by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Mark Bromley, chair of the Council for Global Equality, which took part in the review conference as an non-governmental organization, said the selection of an out gay man to lead the U.S. delegation was significant because previous administrations have been reluctant to incorporate LGBT issues in foreign policy.
“The United States in the past has been reluctant to address LGBT concerns within this forum,” Bromley said. “I think the fact that they selected Michael Guest as someone who is openly gay and works with organizations that promote issues on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity was an important statement.”
The OSCE was established in 1975 after 35 trans-Atlantic countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union, signed the Helsinki Accords and agreed to take part in annual meetings. During the Cold War, the OSCE served as a forum where the United States could raise human rights and security issues with Warsaw Pact countries.
But Guest said the tone of the conference has changed since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 to become less of an East-West dialogue and more of a pan-Atlantic conversation.
“It’s an opportunity to look at what has been done and is being done on human rights issues ranging from migration to freedoms of assembly and freedom of religion, to human trafficking, to capital punishment, to gender balance to hate crimes and intolerance — the whole range of human rights related issues,” Guest said.
During the course of the discussion on human rights, Guest impressed upon the 56 participating states in the conference the importance of inclusion of LGBT rights as human rights issues.
The former ambassador mentioned LGBT issues during his opening statement at the conference’s plenary session, including bias-motivated violence against LGBT people and the right to freedom of association at Pride celebrations. Such activities in Eastern Europe, where the conference took place, are often the targets of hostility and violence.
Guest lamented human rights abuses such as “when civil society assemblies are denied permits on spurious grounds, or police allow bigots to attack Gay Pride parades.” The former ambassador also acknowledged the United States has more to accomplish on human rights issues because “equality under the law continues to elude those of us who are gay or transgender.”
During a later discussion, Guest also appealed to governments in attendance to implement hate crimes protections measures and recalled his own personal experience as the victim of bias-motivated violence.
After a hostile non-governmental organization equated homosexuality to pedophilia and necrophilia at the end of the meeting, Guest responded that the connection was offensive and such inflammatory allegations can be responsible for hate crimes.
Guest told the Blade he raised LGBT issues during the conference because he believes they should be brought up in any comprehensive discussion of human rights.
“We raised it in questions of freedom to assembly, freedom of association and in the course of the discussions on hate crimes and tolerance,” he said. “We had some good news stories to tell from the standpoint of the United States, such as the passage of the Matthew Shepard Act and the overall trend in hate crimes going down, but the negative, of course, being that the reported number of LGBT hate crimes and hate crimes against immigrants has, in fact, gone up.”
LGBT issues were also raised by non-governmental institutions at the conference, including the Council for Global Equality.
Bromley delivered a statement at the conference on behalf of his organization — as well as two European international LGBT right groups — that called for passage of hate crimes protections in other countries as well as the decriminalization of sodomy.
Emphasizing the importance of accurate documentation and effective prosecution of bias-motivated violence against LGBT people, Bromley said hate crimes won’t go away as long as countries have anti-gay statutes on the books.
“As a first step, we call on all participating states in the OSCE region to remove any laws that continue to criminalize homosexual conduct or identity or the public dissemination of scientifically supported information on homosexuality and sexual health,” Bromley said.
Bromley told the Blade that discussion of LGBT rights at the conference was significant because the U.S. delegation had only begun to bring up such issues last year after the start of the Obama administration.
“We’re very pleased to see that level of emphasis from the head of the delegation, but a number of other governments also spoke to the issue, so it’s certainly gaining ground and giving additional attention to LGBT hate crimes,” Bromley said.
The delegations from other countries and other non-governmental organizations at the conference responded to the U.S. delegation’s promotion of LGBT rights in varied ways. Guest said the session in which he spoke personally about hate crimes issues caused delegations from other countries to take note.
“It was a very quiet session,” Guest said. “People were listening very quietly, and a lot of people did respond specifically to what I said including non-governmental organizations. A number of delegations told us afterwards — either to me directly or others on the team — how that more personal approach really had resonated with them.”
Guest said a representative from the Catholic Church in Vatican City was among those that approached him afterward and mentioned that talking about hate crimes in a personal manner was “a way that we could build bridges.”
But Guest said the outcome was different for discussions of freedom of association and the right to hold Pride celebrations. The former ambassador speculated these talks made less of an impact on the delegation because they had already come up at last year’s conference.
“I think it’s just that because Gay Pride issues have come up before, there were some delegations that maybe expected it and maybe didn’t really reflect as much as might otherwise be the case,” Guest said.
So-called “ex-gay” groups and other organizations hostile to LGBT rights were also present.
Bromley said Redeemed Lives, a Christian ministry, spoke out at the conference about bias-motivated violence against “ex-gay” people for giving up what the ministry called a “homosexual lifestyle.”
“That was somewhat alarming to see a strong showing of ex-gay activists who were waving issues that were, as far as I know, not legitimate concerns,” Bromley said. “I don’t doubt that there could be violence directed at ex-gay individuals, but I never heard of any reports to that effect.”
Reparative therapy programs that seek to change sexual orientation have been widely discredited by major medical and psychiatric associations around the world.
A spokesperson for Redeemed Lives deferred comment to a statement the organization made at the conference, which was published on the OSCE website. In the statement, Mario Bergner, director of Redeemed Lives, stresses the importance passing legislation to protect the free speech of Christian academics and clerics to “teach the sexual morality of their faith traditions” so that they can help those with “unwanted sexual desires.”
“Such people include Christians with sexual addictions for whom freedom means living free of internet pornography, Christians with compulsive sexual behaviours for whom freedom is fidelity in marriage, and Christians, like myself, with unwanted same sex attractions for whom freedom is the self emancipation that comes through effective pastoral care or psychological treatment for homosexuality,” Berger said.
Bromley said the organization’s concern about hate crimes against people who identify as “ex-gay” is ironic because the Matthew Shepard Act already protects them.
“It would actually be covered under our current hate crime law because it would still be violence on the basis of sexual orientation,” Bromley said.
But the conference nonetheless provided a forum to discuss international LGBT rights as a human rights issue.
Guest noted progress was made at the conference, although he said more work is needed.
“I think there are moments like that where you feel that you are making headway in getting people to understand that these are issues that governments have to take seriously,” Guest said. “And then, there are other times where it seems to go right past — certainly on some the freedom of association things.”
The White House
Trump tells Fox News he won the ‘gay vote’ — but polls tell a different story
Trump falsely claims LGBTQ support on Fox despite polling showing overwhelming opposition.
President Donald Trump claimed he won the “gay vote” in 2024, despite evidence showing otherwise.
While appearing by phone on Fox News’s panel show “The Five” on Thursday, Trump falsely claimed he performed particularly well among gay voters while discussing the ongoing war in Iran — a conflict he initiated without formal congressional approval.
“Now I think I did very well with the gay vote, OK? I even played the gay national anthem as my walk-off, OK?” Trump said on air.
“And I think it probably helped me. But I did great. No Republican’s ever gotten the gay vote like I did and I’m very proud of it, I think it’s great. Perhaps it’s because I’m from New York City, I don’t know…”
His claim contradicts 2024 polling from NBC News, which found that the GOP presidential ticket captured fewer than 1 in 5 LGBTQ male voters — a figure that may also include bisexual and transgender men. Trump’s support among LGBTQ female voters was even lower, at just 8%.
White LGBTQ voters favored Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump by a margin of 82% to 16%, while LGBTQ voters of color backed Harris by an even wider 91% to 5%.
Trump also used the appearance to criticize “Gays for Palestine,” saying: “Look at ‘Gays for Palestine’… they kill gays, they kill them instantly, they throw them off buildings, and I’m saying, ‘Who are the gays for Palestine?’”
He further pointed to his campaign’s use of the song “Y.M.C.A.” by the Village People — which he has repeatedly described as a “gay national anthem” — noting that it was frequently used as a walk-off song at rallies, as an indication that he and his campaign were supported by the gay community. The track, long associated with camp and hyper-masculine gay imagery, became a staple of Trump campaign events.
The Village People were later booked to perform at Turning Point USA’s inaugural ball celebrating Trump’s second inauguration. Lead singer Victor Willis previously criticized Trump’s use of the song dating back to 2020 and considered legal action to block it, but ultimately said there was “not much he can do about it.” He later acknowledged the renewed exposure was “beneficial” and “good for business,” boosting the song’s popularity and chart performance.
Despite Trump’s claims of strong support from gay voters, polling has consistently shown otherwise — even as several prominent gay men have held roles in or around his orbit, sometimes dubbed the “A-gays.” These include Richard Grenell, former executive director of the Kennedy Center and Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent; Under Secretary of State Jacob Helberg; Department of Energy official Charles T. Moran; and longtime supporter Peter Thiel, co-founder and CEO of Palantir.
His efforts to portray himself as aligned with the gay community stand in conflict with policies advanced under his leadership. These include removing LGBTQ-related data from State Department reports, attempting to narrowly redefine gender identity in federal policy, restricting access to gender-affirming health care, and rolling back anti-discrimination protections. His administration also rescinded initiatives focused on LGBTQ health equity, data collection, and nondiscrimination in health care and education — moves advocates say contribute to stigma and worsen mental health outcomes.
Additionally, some HIV programs and community health centers have lost funding from the federal government after supporting initiatives inclusive of transgender people as a direct result of Trump-Vance policies.
National
Anti-trans visa ruling echoes Nazi regime destroying trans documents
Trump administration escalates attacks on queer community
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security earlier this month released its third Red Flag Alert for the United States about the Trump administration’s anti-trans legislation. As the Lemkin Institute shared in the press release, “the Administration has moved from identifying transgender people as as threat to the family and to the nation’s military prowess to claiming that transgender people constitute a cosmic threat to the spiritual health of the nation and the great direct threat to the US national security in the world.”
The news came the same day that the State Department issued a new rule, “Enhancing Vetting and Combatting Fraud in the Immigrant Visa Program.” Under this new guidance, all visa applicants are required to disclose their “biological sex at birth” during all stages of the process, “even if that differs from the sex listed on the applicant’s foreign passport or identifying documentation.”
This rule also orders that applicants to the green card lottery program share their passport information, so in knowingly collecting passport information that the agency knows will not match a person’s biological sex at birth, it’s creating grounds to deny trans peoples’ biases on the basis of “fraud,” Aleksandra Vaca of Transitics explains.
As is written in the new ruling, “the Department is replacing ‘gender’ with ‘sex’ in accordance with E.O. 14168, Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, which provides that the term ‘sex’ shall refer to an individual’s sex at birth. Only male and female sex options are available for entrants completing the Diversity Visa entry form.”
Along with outright denying the existence of nonbinary, genderqueer and gender expansive people, this policy creates a precedence for trans people to be stripped of their visas and deported because under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(C)(i), any foreigner found to have obtained or possess a visa “by fraud or willfully misrepresenting a material fact” will have their visa revoked and face deportation.
By requesting information on “biological sex at birth,” the State Department is forcing a mismatch between documents and enabling officials to accuse trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive immigrants of fraud. Thus, trans and nonbinary immigrants can have their visas revoked and can be deported, and information gathered from immigrants during the visa request process can be added to federal databases and used by immigration authorities, including ICE agents.
With the Supreme Court’s decision this past year allowing ICE officers to use racial profiling, Vaca argues that “now, The Trump administration has given ICE the reason it needs. Under this rule, ICE agents now have the enforcement rationale to assert that trans people–especially those belonging to racial minority groups–are more likely than cis people to have ‘misrepresented’ themselves during the visa process, and therefore, are more likely to enter the country ‘unlawfully.’”
This would enable ICE agents to target trans individuals specifically for being trans. If the goal of this were unclear, a day later the Trump administration released its statement for Women’s History Month 2026, writing that “we are keeping men out of women’s sports, enforcing Title IX as it was originally written and ensuring colleges preserve–and, where possible, expand–scholarships and roster opportunities for female athletes. We are restoring public safety and upholding the rule of law in every city so women, children, and families can feel safe and secure.”
And this is not the first time that ICE has targeted and harmed trans and nonbinary immigrants. Last June, Vera reported that ICE is not including trans people in detection in their public reports, and back in 2020, AFSC reported that trans people held in ICE detention faced “dreadful, ugly” conditions.
While it seems like a new development in Trump’s anti-trans escalation, it echoes a deeply upsetting history of denying and destroying transgender people’s documents following members of the Nazi party seizing power in 1933.
In the early 20th century, Weimar, Germany was an epicenter for gender affirming care with Maganus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science. One of the first book burnings of the rising Nazi regime destroyed the Institute’s extensive clinical records and library on trans health and history by Nazi students and stormtroopers. In doing so, the Nazis effectively destroyed the world’s first trans health clinic and one of the richest and most comprehensive collective of information about trans healthcare.
Similarly, the Nazi government invalidated or refused to recognize what was called “transvestite passes,” or passing certificates that allowed trans people to avoid arrest under Paragraph 175 which prohibited cross-dressing. During the Weimar Republic — the regime that preceded the Third Reich — recognized and affirmed the identities of trans people (in limited ways) with specific documentation that helped prevent them from arrest. Invalidating and disregarding these passes allowed police and Nazi officials to target trans people and harass, extort and arrest them, and the record of passes themselves helped officials target trans people.
The changes to visa guidelines — alongside Kansas’s move to revoke trans drivers’ licenses last month — is reflective of this escalation of violence against trans people during the Nazi’s rise to power, which scholars like Dr. Laurie Marhoefer is just beginning to uncover. And along with the revocation of identification documents this past week, a recent Fourth Circuit Court ruled that states can deny Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming surgery.
The Fourth Circuit Court decision affirmed the Supreme Court’s decision in Skrmetti, which ruled that bans on gender affirming healthcare for young people are constitutional. This ruling extends this ban to include adult healthcare bans, allowing West Virginia’s exclusion of Medicaid coverage for adult gender affirming healthcare to take full effect. Even more upsetting was what the ruling itself said, calling gender affirming healthcare “dangerous.”
As was written in the Fourth Circuit Opinion, “it’s not irrational for a legislature to encourage citizens ‘to appreciate their sex’ and not ‘become disdainful of their sex’ by refusing to fund experimental procedures that may have the opposite effect.”
In reality, what this ruling and the opinion reflect, is the next step in government regulation and oversight over marginalized peoples’ bodies. From the overturn of Roe v. Wade, which removed federal protection of access to abortion, this next step represents the denial of people’s access to vital, lifesaving care–and to be clear, gender affirming care is not just for trans, nonbinary, and intersex people. It’s a dangerous escalation and one that echoes previous violence against trans people under fascist regimes; the Lemkin Institute is right to raise concern.
Pennsylvania
Pa. House passes bill to codify marriage equality in state law
Governor supports gay state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta’s measure
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill that would codify marriage equality in state law.
House Bill 1800 passed by a 127-72 vote margin. Twenty-six Republicans voted for the measure.
The Republican-controlled Pennsylvania Senate will now consider the bill that state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Philadelphia), who is the first openly gay person of color elected to the state’s General Assembly, introduced. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro supports the measure.
“Here in Pennsylvania, we believe in your freedom to marry who you love,” said Shapiro on Wednesday. “Today, the House has stepped up to protect that right.”
BREAKING: The Pennsylvania House just passed @RepKenyatta's bill to codify marriage equality into law in PA — and they did it with broad bipartisan support.
— Governor Josh Shapiro (@GovernorShapiro) March 25, 2026
Here in Pennsylvania, we believe in your freedom to marry who you love. Today, the House has stepped up to protect that…
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Calendar: March 27-April 2
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Virginia General Assembly’s 2026 legislative session ends
Markwayne Mullin confirmed as next DHS secretary
Gay man murdered in Va.
