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Service members torn over coming out

In wake of repeal, some ready to talk, others staying in closet

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For one gay Air Force pilot, it remains business as usual as he keeps his sexual orientation a secret despite passage of legislation allowing for repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

The Charleston, S.C., resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he considers himself a private individual and sees no need to make public to his Air Force comrades his gay identity.

“It’s just not my style,” he said. “So, no, I’m probably not going to say anything. If somebody asks me, I might say, ‘Well, if you’re asking the question, then you probably already know the answer to it, so I’ll leave it at that.'”

The pilot said he sees no need to take a date to squadron picnic as straight airmen might bring their spouses.

“As far I can tell, nobody suspects that I’m gay at work, other than I’m single,” the pilot said. “We’re a bunch a pilots, so sometimes it’s not easy for relationships, so a lot of guys that are even older than I am have never been married, so it’s not uncommon. I don’t stand out being in my early 30s and single.”

The pilot’s decision to keep his sexual orientation a secret represents one option for gay service members now that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is on its way out the door.

On Dec. 22, President Obama signed into law legislation allowing for repeal of the military’s gay ban, bringing to a close a long struggle to repeal the 17-year-old law.

Following the signing of the legislation, some service members say they intend to make no changes in how they interact with their military colleagues, others plan to make their sexual orientation public, while others say they’re already out to others in their unit.

Alex Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United, said he thinks the service members will respond to the lifting of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the variety of ways that civilian gays and lesbians handle their sexual orientation.

“I largely think it’ll reflect civilian society,” Nicholson said. “Some people will make that personal judgment to not come out, some people will decide to come out for the first time.”

But for the most part, Nicholson said he thinks the end of the military’s gay ban will “in all likelihood be a boring event” that won’t change things for gay service members.

“Some people are already out, and that will continue,” Nicholson said. “Others are not out, and it’s not necessarily because of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ that they’re not out because of personal choice or environmental judgments.”

Nicholson predicted that a “small minority” of gay service members will come out to make a statement about their sexual orientation.

“In the rest of the gay community, you see some people who subscribe to the philosophy it’s important to be out to get people more accustomed with gays and lesbians,” Nicholson said. “And I think you’ll see that reflected in a certain group of the military as well.”

One Navy corpsman who spoke to the Blade said he expects no changes after “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal because he’s already out to the majority of his colleagues in his unit.

“I’ve also never straight-up told people, but a lot of people have met people that I’ve dated or people have come out to a bar with me or just with my friends,” he said.

The corpsman, a D.C. resident, said he hasn’t been discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” even though he’s out to many of his colleagues because “it was never an issue.”

“You’re carrying yourself in a certain way wearing the uniform and whatever you do outside of work has nothing to do with your job performance,” he said. “I feel like I performed to where anything I did in my off time shouldn’t bother anybody.”

Meanwhile, in Southern Maryland, a Marine Corps sergeant who’s not out to his unit said he intends to make his sexual orientation public after repeal has been in effect for a while.

“In the military life, I don’t see right now as the time to jump out of the closet until after everything goes through and they do all the sensitivity training,” he said. “Probably within a couple years, I’ll probably slowly start just coming out.”

But delaying his coming out process doesn’t mean the sergeant is indifferent to passage of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal legislation. When Obama signed repeal, he said his reaction was to “have a couple bottles of Champagne.”

“I was ecstatic about it,” he said. “It came a lot faster than I thought it was going to come because I didn’t see it coming before Congress let out.”

The sergeant said he wants to wait before making any declarations about his sexual orientation because he wants senior military leadership that may be uncomfortable with gays to retire first.

“I want to see a lot of more them retire and get out of the picture and a lot more of my peers and my generation move up into their spots,” the sergeant said. “The others from my age range, from what I see, are a lot more accepting of it.”

The sergeant said younger Marines went to school “with five, six, seven, 10 people in their graduating class who were openly gay” — an experience not shared by senior leadership.

Among the strongest opponents of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal prior to Obama’s signing of the legislation was Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos, who said an end to the military’s gay ban could be a distraction that could “cost Marines’ lives.”

Still, after the law was signed, the commandant issued guidance stating that the Marine Corps will lead the way in implementing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.

The sergeant said he doesn’t share Amos’ earlier concerns that open service in the military would be a problem and predicted that Marines would still be able to work as a team.

“That person still wants to survive just as much as I want to survive and go home to mom’s home cooking with apple pie,” he said.

As others make plans to come out at a future time, some service members who were previously closeted are reportedly already making headway in the coming out process in the short time since Obama signed repeal.

The co-director of OutServe, a global network of LGBT service members, who goes by the alias J.D. Smith to avoid being outed under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” said he’s already seeing an “interesting trend” of gay service members starting to come out to their families and others with whom they’re close.

“I think the process is people are coming out to people in their units,” Smith said. “People are coming out to their close friends that they trust because they know that it’s about to happen, so I think the coming out process in general has begun even with the law still in effect.”

Smith said he knows gay service members who for the first time brought home their significant others over the holidays to introduce them to their families as a result of Obama signing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.

Even though the president has signed the legislation, repeal has yet to take effect and gay service members could still be ousted under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” for some time.

Open service will only happen after the president, the defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certify that that U.S. military is ready for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.

The law provides no timeline for when this certification must take place, but Obama said in a recent interview that he foresees it happening in the course of “months, not years.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he wants to implement training for service members before going forward with allowing gays to serve openly in the military. Gates hasn’t given a specific timeline for how long the process would take, but has told reporters he wants to move in a “matter of weeks” through the early stages of the process.

Further, after certification takes place, a 60-day waiting period for congressional review must pass before gays can serve openly in the military without fear of discharge.

Although an implementation date remains uncertain, gay service members are expressing confidence that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will soon be off the books.

The naval corpsman said he’s confident that repeal of the military’s gay ban will become final, but said he still anticipates that the end may take between six months and a year.

“You can’t expect for something like night to day,” he said. “It’s going to take a little bit of time for all these things to go through and for people to be accepting of it.”

The Air Force pilot said he thinks repeal will be implemented this year because he believes Gates and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen want open service to happen on their watches.

“They don’t want to drag it out forever,” the pilot said. “I’m thinking that probably by the end of September, it’ll be all said and done. That’s my personal opinion just based on what I heard about how it’s going to take to do the different training at different levels.”

Nicholson said the perception that open service will come to the military soon is widely shared among gay troops and that the people who are “raising the alarm bells” tend to come from outside the military.

“The tone is celebratory and one of relief,” Nicholson said. “I think a lot of people that I’ve talked to and that have proactively talked to me about it seem to think it’s inevitable, it’s just a matter of time.”

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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

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(Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

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.

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National

Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information

Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources

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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is named as a defendant in the lawsuit. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

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.

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U.S. Federal Courts

Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections

Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent

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Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Screen capture: YouTube)

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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