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Appeals court extends stay on ‘Don’t Ask’ injunction

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A U.S. appellate court is allowing for the continued enforcement of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as judges consider a legal challenge against the law.

On Monday, the U.S Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision to extend a stay on an injunction that would have blocked enforcement of the military’s gay ban. The injunction, issued last month by a lower court, temporarily stopped the enforcement “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

But in a 2-1 split decision, the majority on the three-judge panel write that the continued enforcement of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is necessary because the U.S. government has convincing arguments that an injunction will result in “immediate harm and precipitous injury.”

“We also conclude that the public interest in ensuring orderly change of this magnitude in the military — if that is what is to happen — strongly militates in favor of a stay,” the judges write.

The majority decision, written by U.S. Appellate Judges Diarmuid O’Scannlain and Stephen Trott, means that discharges can continue under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and military recruiters can turn away openly gay Americans seeking to join the armed forces.

In his dissent, U.S. Appellate Judge William Fletcher says he favors a partial stay, but the part of the injunction blocking the discharges of gay service members should remain in place.

“Defendants would not be required during the pendency of the appeal to change their recruiting practices, to change their personnel manuals, or, subject only to the requirement that they not actually discharge anyone, otherwise to change their practices,” Fletcher writes.

R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, which filed the lawsuit in 2004, said he’s “disappointed” the court will allow the continued enforcement of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

“Despite this temporary setback, Log Cabin remains confident that we will ultimately prevail on behalf of servicemembers’ constitutional rights,” Cooper said.

Cooper urged Obama to use his stop-loss authority to prevent the further discharges of gay service members as the Ninth Circuit hears the case.

Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, also expressed disappointment with the Ninth Circuit’s decision.

“Every day that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is in force, Americans are losing out on the best and brightest service members defending our country,” Solmonese said. “For the good of our national security, the endless legal wrangling and political posturing has to stop.”

Solmonese called on President Obama and Congress to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” legislatively by the end of the year.

The Obama administration brought the case of Log Cabin v. United States to the Ninth Circuit after U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips last month issued an injunction against the enforcement of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

The U.S. government argued the court should place a stay on the injunction because, among other reasons, the U.S. military needs to devise training and guidance to those affected by ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

The Ninth Circuit’s decision on Monday affirms a temporary stay the appellate court had already issued as it heard arguments over whether to keep the injunction in place.

Alex Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United and sole named plaintiff in the lawsuit, called the Ninth Circuit’s decision “really unfortunate” and said the U.S. goverment “tricked” the judges into issuing a stay on the injunction.

Nicholson said none of the “enormous consequences” that Defense Secretary Robert Gates had previously expressed concern about with respect to ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” had to pass when the law was enjoined under the injunction.

“It is concerning that the government can so blatantly pull one over on an appeals court, and it is equally frustrating that such a distinguished court would allow itself to be fooled so obviously and so publicly in the name of ‘deference,'” Nicholson said. “Abdication is more like it.”

Legal experts are expecting the Ninth Circuit to make a decision in the case next year after the court hears oral arguments.

Download a copy of the decision here.

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State Department

Transgender, nonbinary people file lawsuit against passport executive order

State Department banned from issuing passports with ‘X’ gender markers

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(Bigstock photo)

Seven transgender and nonbinary people on Feb. 7 filed a federal lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s executive order that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.

Ashton Orr, Zaya Perysian, Sawyer Soe, Chastain Anderson, Drew Hall, Bella Boe, and Reid Solomon-Lane are the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Massachusetts, and the private law firm Covington & Burling LPP filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The lawsuit names Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as defendants.

Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.

Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an “X” gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.

The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022.

Trump signed the executive order that overturned it shortly after he took office on Jan. 20. Rubio later directed State Department personnel to “suspend any application requesting an ‘X’ sex marker and do not take any further action pending additional guidance from the department.”  

“This guidance applies to all applications currently in progress and any future applications,” reads Rubio’s memo. “Guidance on existing passports containing an ‘X’ sex marker will come via other channels.”

The lawsuit says Trump’s executive order is an “abrupt, discriminatory, and dangerous reversal of settled United States passport policy.” It also concludes the new policy is “unlawful and unconstitutional.”

“It discriminates against individuals based on their sex and, as to some, their transgender status,” reads the lawsuit. “It is motivated by impermissible animus. It cannot be justified under any level of judicial scrutiny, and it wrongly seeks to erase the reality that transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people exist today as they always have.”

Solomon-Lane, who lives in North Adams, Mass., with his spouse and their three children, in an ACLU press release says he has “lived virtually my entire adult life as a man” and “everyone in my personal and professional life knows me as a man, and any stranger on the street who encountered me would view me as a man.”

“I thought that 18 years after transitioning, I would be able to live my life in safety and ease,” he said. “Now, as a married father of three, Trump’s executive order and the ensuing passport policy have threatened that life of safety and ease.”

“If my passport were to reflect a sex designation that is inconsistent with who I am, I would be forcibly outed every time I used my passport for travel or identification, causing potential risk to my safety and my family’s safety,” added Solomon-Lane.

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Federal Government

Education Department moves to end support for trans students

Mental health services among programs that are in jeopardy

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The U.S. Department of Education headquarters in D.C. (Photo courtesy of the GSA/Education Department)

An email sent to employees at the U.S. Department of Education on Friday explains that “programs, contracts, policies, outward-facing media, regulations, and internal practices” will be reviewed and cut in cases where they “fail to affirm the reality of biological sex.”

The move, which is of a piece with President Donald Trump’s executive orders restricting transgender rights, jeopardizes the future of initiatives at the agency like mental health services and support for students experiencing homelessness.

Along with external-facing work at the agency, the directive targets employee programs such as those administered by LGBTQ resource groups, in keeping with the Trump-Vance administration’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the federal government.

In recent weeks, federal agencies had begun changing their documents, policies, and websites for purposes of compliance with the new administration’s first executive action targeting the trans community, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”

For instance, the Education Department had removed a webpage offering tips for schools to better support homeless LGBTQ youth, noted ProPublica, which broke the news of the “sweeping” changes announced in the email to DOE staff.

According to the news service, the directive further explains the administration’s position that “The deliberate subjugation of women and girls by means of gender ideology — whether in intimate spaces, weaponized language, or American classrooms — negated the civil rights of biological females and fostered distrust of our federal institutions.”

A U.S. Senate committee hearing will be held Thursday for Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for education secretary, who has been criticized by LGBTQ advocacy groups. GLAAD, for instance, notes that she helped to launch and currently chairs the board of a conservative think tank that “has campaigned against policies that support transgender rights in education.”

NBC News reported on Tuesday that Trump planned to issue an executive order this week to abolish the Education Department altogether.

While the president and his conservative allies in and outside the administration have repeatedly expressed plans to disband the agency, doing so would require approval from Congress.

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State Department

Protesters demand US fully restore PEPFAR funding

Activists blocked intersection outside State Department on Thursday

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HIV/AIDS activists block an intersection outside the State Department on Feb. 6, 2025. They were demanding the Trump-Vance administration to fully restore PEPFAR funding. (Photo courtesy of Housing Works)

Dozens of HIV/AIDS activists on Thursday protested outside the State Department and demanded U.S. officials fully restore President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief funding.

The activists — members of Housing Works, Health GAP, and the Treatment Action Group — blocked an intersection for an hour. Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell told the Washington Blade that police did not make any arrests.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Jan. 24 directed State Department personnel to stop nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for 90 days in response to an executive order that President Donald Trump signed after his inauguration. Rubio later issued a waiver that allows PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze.

The Blade on Wednesday reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of a lack of U.S. funding.

“PEPFAR is a program that has saved 26 million lives and changed the trajectory of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic,” said Housing Works CEO Charles King in a press release. “The recent freeze on its funding is not just a bureaucratic decision; it is a death sentence for millions who rely on these life-saving treatments. We cannot allow decades of progress to be undone. The U.S. must immediately reaffirm its commitment to global health and human dignity by restoring PEPFAR funding.” 

“We demand Secretary Rubio immediately reverse his deadly, illegal stop-work order, which has already disrupted life-saving HIV services worldwide,” added Russell. “Any waiver process is too little, too late.”

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