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Advocates seek Obama order barring LGBT job bias

Directive could be alternative to ENDA

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An executive order to prohibit workplace discrimination against LGBT people is receiving renewed attention now that the makeup of Congress makes passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act highly unlikely for at least two years.

LGBT rights supporters are pressing President Obama to issue a directive requiring the federal government to contract only with companies that have non-discrimination policies based on sexual orientation and gender identity protecting their employees.

Richard Socarides, president of Equality Matters, said an executive order for LGBT workplace protections “ought to be something the president seriously considers doing.”

“It’s definitely an administrative device the president can use to help advance the cause of full equality, especially if the Congress is unwilling to take action,” Socarides said.

Even though some companies don’t contract with the federal government, Socarides said the directive would set an example for all U.S. businesses to comply with the new rules.

“Most people are going to want to do that — whether or not they contract with the government,” he said.

Fred Sainz, the Human Rights Campaign’s vice president of communications, noted his organization has been calling on Obama to make the change since the beginning of the administration as part of a broad portfolio of proposals.

“The recommendation to issue an executive order is part of HRC’s ‘Blueprint for Positive Change,’ which includes the various policy changes that we have asked of the federal government,” Sainz said.

As it was introduced in the 111th Congress, ENDA would bar job discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in most situations in the public and private workforce.

An executive order on LGBT workplace discrimination could be a workable alternative now that Republicans have taken control of the House and cut into the Democratic majority in the Senate after the 2010 midterm elections, making passage of ENDA in Congress significantly more challenging, if not impossible.

Whether Obama would be willing to issue such an executive order remains to be seen. The president has called for passage of ENDA, but hasn’t voiced an opinion about an administrative action instituting workplace protections for LGBT people.

“The president continues to examine steps the federal government can take to help secure equal rights for LGBT Americans,” said White House spokesperson Shin Inouye. “While I can’t speak to this specific proposal, we’ve already taken steps such as extending benefits to the same-sex domestic partners of federal employees and ensuring equal access to HUD programs, and we hope to continue making progress.”

Nan Hunter, a lesbian law professor at Georgetown University, said a directive protecting LGBT people would be a “terrific idea” because history has shown executive orders for non-discrimination often precede changes in law.

“I think the pertinent piece in terms of the civil rights history is that the federal contractor requirements were put in place prior to the enactment of the statutes,” Hunter said.

In 1964, President Johnson issued an executive order prohibiting most federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin — prior to the enactment of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which provides similar protections in statute. Johnson’s directive could be used as a model for a directive protecting LGBT people.

Hunter said she sees no legal impediment to Obama issuing a workplace non-discrimination order for LGBT people and noted the federal government has “long had the custom” of instituting requirements for contractors that the majority of businesses don’t satisfy.

“That kind of executive order exists with regard to race, sex, religion, other protected characteristics — there is no reason why it could not be issued with regard to sexual orientation and gender identity,” she said.

Still, Hunter acknowledged that Obama may face political challenges in issuing such an order — much like the difficulties Congress had in passing ENDA — if the directive includes protections for transgender people.

“I think that’s the political concern at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue,” she said. “On the other hand, I think that it would be unfortunate — or it would be wrong, really — to have an executive order that covered only sexual orientation and not gender identity.”

An executive order prohibiting the federal government from doing business with companies that don’t have non-discrimination policies protecting LGBT people would have less reach than ENDA.

According to the Williams Institute, the federal government contracts with 91,367 companies. The percent of the U.S. workforce that these companies employ is unknown. However, the executive order that Johnson issued in 1964, which covered most federal contractors, protected only an estimated 22 percent of the civilian workforce.

Sainz disputed the notion that an administrative action for workplace protections could take the place of legislatively passing ENDA.

“It is not an ENDA,” Sainz said. “It would only apply to companies that have contracts with the federal government. We believe it to be an incredibly important step forward but would not replace a fully inclusive ENDA that would apply to all workplaces, whether they be a federal contractor or not.”

Socarides acknowledged legislation would be the preferred route to provide workplace protections to LGBT people, but said an executive order would have some reach in lieu of an act of Congress.

“It sometimes comes after congressional hearings and often, after legislative action, there’s some sense that there’s been some national consensus around it,” he said. “But absent the willingness of Congress to move on it, I don’t think it would be as effective, but it could get a lot of the job done.”

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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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