National
Baldwin sees hope in 112th Congress
LGBT Equality Caucus meeting set for March 16
Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) (Blade photo by Michael Key)
Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) maintained this week that pro-LGBT legislation could see progress in the Democratic-controlled Senate during the 112th Congress as prospects of movement are unlikely in the Republican-controlled House.
In an interview with the Washington Blade, the only out lesbian in Congress said she sees room for progress on pro-LGBT bills in the Senate, where Democrats retained control following the mid-term elections.
“There’s still a prospect with a Democratically controlled Senate that bills could progress through committee and maybe even come to the floor, depending on the circumstances,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin said determining which pro-LGBT legislation would have a shot of passing the Senate is hard to say, but cited one bill that she previously sponsored that would extend health and pension benefits to partners of LGBT federal employees.
“I think the Domestic Partnerships Benefits [& Obligations Act] could be one that might advance,” Baldwin said. “Obviously, they still have their 60-vote rule for advancing certain measures to the floor. But could something come up as an amendment to a bill that’s very likely to pass? Well, that remains to be seen.”
While Baldwin said the Senate could lead the way for pro-LGBT legislation in the 112th Congress, she said lawmakers who would introduce the bills have yet to determine the schedule for doing so.
“We’re having some initial discussions about timing, but as the bills have different co-sponsors, I think that different folks have their own timeline,” she said.
Even for her own Domestic Partnership Benefits & Obligations Act, Baldwin said the timing for introduction of her bill remains uncertain as House and Senate sponsors work on hammering out identical legislation.
“We just want to make sure that we’re on the same page with the Senate sponsors and introduce the bill in the same [form],” Baldwin said.
Baldwin also commended President Obama for his recent declaration that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and his decision to no longer defend the statute in court.
The Wisconsin lawmaker called the move a significant step toward DOMA’s “ultimate demise” and said it would bolster efforts to legislatively repeal the law. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) have announced they plan to introduce repeal legislation in the 112th Congress.
“In terms of the advancement of Congressman Nadler’s bill on repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, I expect that the president’s announcement and the administration’s decision will give it a boost and renewed attention,” Baldwin said. “Obviously, we should be working to repeal statutory measures that aren’t constitutional. I’m hoping that that will enable us to gather more co-sponsors than we’ve had in the past, and to draw attention to the topic of why it’s so necessary that we repeal this.”
Still, Baldwin expressed skepticism about the prospects of advancing DOMA repeal legislation to passage in the Republican-controlled House. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has convened a panel to direct House counsel to defend DOMA in court now that the Obama administration is no longer willing to defend it.
Despite Republican control of the House, Baldwin expressed continued optimism about the strength of the LGBT Equality Caucus, which she co-chairs along with the other three openly gay members of Congress, and said the group is only three lawmakers short of the membership it had in the 111th Congress before Democrats lost 63 seats in the chamber.
“That’s encouraging,” she said. “Even though we had these sweeping changes in House membership, we still have a very rock-solid core of people who are supporting equality.”
Baldwin said she expects the LGBT Equality Caucus to hold public events during the 112th Congress to highlight pro-LGBT legislation and discuss the members’ commitment to passing the bills.
One such meeting is already scheduled for March 16, when the caucus will host its first business meeting to honor its new chairs and vice chairs. Baldwin said the meeting will be open to the public.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) — known as perhaps the most pro-LGBT House Republican — is the only GOP member of the LGBT Equality Caucus, but Baldwin said she’s courting other Republicans to sign on to the group now that they have control of the House.
“I’ve made it a personal goal during the next Congress to try to enroll a greater number of Republicans to our ranks,” Baldwin said. “We certainly know that there are some in the Republican caucus who do not wish it to remain the party of discrimination and hope that LGBT equality can become a bipartisan issue in the future.”
Among the GOP lawmakers that Baldwin said she may solicit to join the LGBT Equality Caucus is Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.), who voted for an amendment to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in May even before the Pentagon report was released.
Also on Baldwin’s list is Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.), who has cast votes for hate crimes protection legislation, a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as well as votes against a U.S. constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
Although Baldwin said she believes the prospects for sending legislation to President Obama’s desk are slim, she said she expects all 33 bills identified as pro-LGBT legislation from the previous Congress to make an appearance again.
“I certainly anticipate that all of the pro-LGBT equality legislation that was introduced in the last Congress will be reintroduced in this Congress with a focus on those bills to educate our colleagues and to enlist larger numbers of supporters for that legislation even if we anticipate that the Republican leadership will not allow those bills to advance,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin also said omnibus legislation that would encompass all the pro-LGBT measures from the previous Congress into one bill could be a way to highlight their importance. Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), the newest openly gay member of Congress, has said he wants to explore the possibility of introducing such legislation.
“I think that pointing out that discrimination still exists in many different arenas is a powerful and important point to keep on raising, and you can do so with legislation, you can do so with other means,” Baldwin said.
Still, Baldwin said she expects members of Congress who introduced the individual pro-LGBT bills to want to introduce them again and said omnibus legislation would work to complement those efforts.
“Any such omnibus bill would be in addition to a complement to the wonderful legislation that so many pro-equality colleagues have introduced,” Baldwin said.
Of all the pro-LGBT legislation that would be introduced in the 112th Congress, Baldwin expressed the greatest optimism about legislation that would eliminate the federal tax on employer-provided health benefits for same-sex partners. In the previous Congress, the legislation was known as the Tax Equity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act.
Baldwin said work that gay GOP groups are doing to promote the legislation may give the bill “a slim chance.”
“I have been pleased to see both GOProud and Log Cabin Republicans make these tax equity issues a high priority,” Baldwin said. “Obviously, those organizations have some influence that we only hope increases over time. But, I think, probably if there were one legislative issue that there were rosier prospects for, that might be it.”
One possible vehicle for a measure that may see movement in the 112th Congress is reauthorization of the Elementary & Secondary Education Act. Gay rights supporters have been hoping this measure could pass with anti-bullying safeguards for LGBT students even with Republican control of the House.
Standalone legislation that would have addressed this issue was known as the Student Non-Discrimination Act and the Safe Schools Improvement Act in the 111th Congress.
Still, Baldwin expressed reservations about whether Republicans would agree to such a provision and said she has been discouraged by talk against anti-bullying efforts among her GOP colleagues.
“I have heard rhetoric from some of my Republican colleagues on the issue of anti-gay bullying that has disappointed me profoundly,” Baldwin said. “I would expect that if the Senate could include some language on anti-bullying measures, there would be some prospect to reach out to more reasonable-minded Republicans, but I certainly anticipate that there would be opposition.”
Additionally, talk in the Senate about restarting efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform have given LGBT advocates hope that such legislation might include a provision to allow gay Americans to sponsor to sponsor their foreign same-sex partners for residency.
In the previous Congress, standalone legislation that would achieve such a goal was known as the Uniting American Families Act.
But Baldwin said she hasn’t yet gotten “a good read” on the prospects of passing comprehensive immigration reform at this stage in the 112th Congress — with or without the UAFA language.
“I know when the president mentioned it in his State of the Union address, I certainly saw some of my Republican colleagues either leap to their feet or express optimism about another attempt at passing comprehensive immigration reform,” Baldwin said. “But I would say that as we started our session, things have been quite divisive and whether this is the two-year term in which we can get it done or not is a big question mark to me.”
While generally pessimistic about the chances of passing pro-LGBT legislation this Congress, Baldwin also dismissed chances that anti-gay bills could make it into law.
The lawmaker said the Democratic-controlled Senate should be able to block the passage of anti-gay bills that pass the House — such as measures to repeal same-sex marriage in D.C. or thwart “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal — from making it to the president’s desk.
“We do know that at the federal level, we still have divided government,” Baldwin said. “While it would be a sad day for the representatives of the People’s House to pass any of these specific measures, we do know that their likelihood of being considered or embraced by the U.S. Senate is slim, and we also know that the president can exercise his veto if anything were to get to his desk.”
U.S. Supreme Court
Activists rally for Andry Hernández Romero in front of Supreme Court
Gay asylum seeker ‘forcibly deported’ to El Salvador, described as political prisoner
More than 200 people gathered in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday and demanded the Trump-Vance administration return to the U.S. a gay Venezuelan asylum seeker who it “forcibly disappeared” to El Salvador.
Lindsay Toczylowski, president of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a Los Angeles-based organization that represents Andry Hernández Romero, is among those who spoke alongside U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and Human Rights Campaign Campaigns and Communications Vice President Jonathan Lovitz. Sarah Longwell of the Bulwark, Pod Save America’s Jon Lovett, and Tim Miller are among those who also participated in the rally.
“Andry is a son, a brother. He’s an actor, a makeup artist,” said Toczylowski. “He is a gay man who fled Venezuela because it was not safe for him to live there as his authentic self.”
(Video by Michael K. Lavers)
The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.”
President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.” The Trump-Vance administration subsequently “forcibly removed” Hernández and hundreds of other Venezuelans to El Salvador.
Toczylowski said she believes Hernández remains at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT. Toczylowski also disputed claims that Hernández is a Tren de Aragua member.
“Andry fled persecution in Venezuela and came to the U.S. to seek protection. He has no criminal history. He is not a member of the Tren de Aragua gang. Yet because of his crown tattoos, we believe at this moment that he sits in a torture prison, a gulag, in El Salvador,” said Toczylowski. “I say we believe because we have not had any proof of life for him since the day he was put on a U.S. government-funded plane and forcibly disappeared to El Salvador.”
“Andry is not alone,” she added.
Takano noted the federal government sent his parents, grandparents, and other Japanese Americans to internment camps during World War II under the Alien Enemies Act. The gay California Democrat also described Hernández as “a political prisoner, denied basic rights under a law that should have stayed in the past.”
“He is not a case number,” said Takano. “He is a person.”
Hernández had been pursuing his asylum case while at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.
A hearing had been scheduled to take place on May 30, but an immigration judge the day before dismissed his case. Immigrant Defenders Law Center has said it will appeal the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which the Justice Department oversees.
“We will not stop fighting for Andry, and I know neither will you,” said Toczylowski.
Friday’s rally took place hours after Attorney General Pam Bondi said Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who the Trump-Vance administration wrongfully deported to El Salvador, had returned to the U.S. Abrego will face federal human trafficking charges in Tennessee.
National
A husband’s story: Michael Carroll reflects on life with Edmund White
Iconic author died this week; ‘no sunnier human in the world’
Unlike most gay men of my generation, I’ve only been to Fire Island twice. Even so, the memory of my first visit has never left me. The scenery was lovely, and the boys were sublime — but what stood out wasn’t the beach or the parties. It was a quiet afternoon spent sipping gin and tonics in a mid-century modern cottage tucked away from the sand and sun.
Despite Fire Island’s reputation for hedonism, our meeting was more accident than escapade. Michael Carroll — a Facebook friend I’d chatted with but never met — mentioned that he and his husband, Ed, would be there that weekend, too. We agreed to meet for a drink. On a whim, I checked his profile and froze. Ed was author Edmund White.
I packed a signed copy of Carroll’s “Little Reef” and a dog-eared hardback of “A Boy’s Own Story,” its spine nearly broken from rereads. I was excited to meet both men and talk about writing, even briefly.
Yesterday, I woke to the news that Ed had passed away. Ironically, my first thought was of Michael.
This week, tributes to Edmund White are everywhere — rightly celebrating his towering legacy as a novelist, essayist, and cultural icon. I’ve read all of his books, and I could never do justice to the scope of a career that defined and chronicled queer life for more than half a century. I’ll leave that to better-prepared journalists.
But in those many memorials, I’ve noticed something missing. When Michael Carroll is mentioned, it’s usually just a passing reference: “White’s partner of thirty years, twenty-five years his junior.” And yet, in the brief time I spent with this couple on Fire Island, it was clear to me that Michael was more than a footnote — he was Ed’s anchor, editor, companion, and champion. He was the one who knew his husband best.
They met in 1995 after Michael wrote Ed a fan letter to tell him he was coming to Paris. “He’d lost the great love of his life a year before,” Michael told me. “In one way, I filled a space. Understand, I worshiped this man and still do.”
When I asked whether there was a version of Ed only he knew, Michael answered without hesitation: “No sunnier human in the world, obvious to us and to people who’ve only just or never met him. No dark side. Psychology had helped erase that, I think, or buffed it smooth.”
Despite the age difference and divergent career arcs, their relationship was intellectually and emotionally symbiotic. “He made me want to be elegant and brainy; I didn’t quite reach that, so it led me to a slightly pastel minimalism,” Michael said. “He made me question my received ideas. He set me free to have sex with whoever I wanted. He vouchsafed my moods when they didn’t wobble off axis. Ultimately, I encouraged him to write more minimalistically, keep up the emotional complexity, and sleep with anyone he wanted to — partly because I wanted to do that too.”
Fully open, it was a committed relationship that defied conventional categories. Ed once described it as “probably like an 18th-century marriage in France.” Michael elaborated: “It means marriage with strong emotion — or at least a tolerance for one another — but no sex; sex with others. I think.”
That freedom, though, was always anchored in deep devotion and care — and a mutual understanding that went far beyond art, philosophy, or sex. “He believed in freedom and desire,” Michael said, “and the two’s relationship.”
When I asked what all the essays and articles hadn’t yet captured, Michael paused. “Maybe that his writing was tightly knotted, but that his true personality was vulnerable, and that he had the defense mechanisms of cheer and optimism to conceal that vulnerability. But it was in his eyes.”
The moment that captured who Ed was to him came at the end. “When he was dying, his second-to-last sentence (garbled then repeated) was, ‘Don’t forget to pay Merci,’ the cleaning lady coming the next day. We had had a rough day, and I was popping off like a coach or dad about getting angry at his weakness and pushing through it. He took it almost like a pack mule.”
Edmund White’s work shaped generations — it gave us language for desire, shame, wit, and liberation. But what lingers just as powerfully is the extraordinary life Ed lived with a man who saw him not only as a literary giant but as a real person: sunny, complex, vulnerable, generous.
In the end, Ed’s final words to his husband weren’t about his books or his legacy. They were about care, decency, and love. “You’re good,” he told Michael—a benediction, a farewell, maybe even a thank-you.
And now, as the world celebrates the prolific writer and cultural icon Edmund White, it feels just as important to remember the man and the person who knew him best. Not just the story but the characters who stayed to see it through to the end.
District of Columbia
In town for WorldPride? Take a D.C. LGBTQ walking tour
Scenes of protest, celebration, and mourning
As Washington welcomes the world for WorldPride, it’s essential to honor the city’s deep-rooted LGBTQ history—an integral part of the broader story of the nation’s capital. The following locations have served as cornerstones of queer life and activism in D.C., shaping both local and national movements for LGBTQ rights. So take a walk around “the gayest city in America” and check out these sites.
DUPONT CIRCLE AREA
Dupont Circle
Central hub of LGBTQ life since the early 20th century, hosting Pride parades, Dyke Marches, and cruising culture. A long-standing site of protests and celebrations.
Washington Hilton – 1919 Connecticut Ave NW
Hosted D.C.’s first major hotel drag event in 1968 and the iconic Miss Adams Morgan Pageant. Protested in 1978 during Anita Bryant’s appearance.
Lesbian Avengers – 1426 21st St NW
Formed in 1992, the group empowered lesbians through bold direct actions. They met in Dupont Circle and launched the city’s first Dyke March.
Lambda Rising Bookstore (former) – 1724 20th Street NW
D.C.’s first LGBTQ bookstore and the birthplace of the city’s inaugural Pride celebration in 1975.
Women In The Life (former office) – 1623 Connecticut Ave NW
Founded in 1993 by Sheila Alexander-Reid as a safe space and support network for lesbians of color.
17th Street NW Corridor – Between P & R Streets NW
Core of the LGBTQ business district, home to the annual High Heel Race in October and the June Block Party celebrating the origins of D.C. Pride.
CAPITOL HILL / SOUTHEAST
Tracks (former) – 80 M St SE
Once D.C.’s largest gay club, famous for inclusive parties, RuPaul shows, and foam nights from 1984 to 2000.
Ziegfeld’s / The Other Side – 1345 Half Street SE
Legendary drag venue since 1978, hosting famed performers like Ella Fitzgerald.
Club 55 / Waaay Off Broadway – 55 K Street SE
Converted theater central to D.C.’s early drag and Academy pageant scenes.
Congressional Cemetery – 1801 E Street SE
Resting place of LGBTQ figures like Sgt. Leonard Matlovich and Peter Doyle. Offers queer history tours.
Mr. Henry’s – 601 Pennsylvania Ave SE
LGBTQ-friendly bar since 1966 and the launching stage for Roberta Flack’s career.
The Furies Collective House – 219 11th Street SE
Home to a 1970s lesbian feminist collective that published “The Furies.” Members included Rita Mae Brown.
ARCHIVES / PENN QUARTER
Archives Metro & Center Market Site – 7th St & Pennsylvania Ave NW
Where Walt Whitman met Peter Doyle in 1865, commemorated by a sculpture linking Whitman and poet Fernando Pessoa.
COLUMBIA HEIGHTS / PETWORTH
Palm Ballroom (former) – 4211 9th Street NW
Mid-20th century venue for Black drag balls and LGBTQ events during segregation.
NATIONAL MALL AREA
National Mall / Washington Monument Grounds
Historic site of LGBTQ activism and remembrance, including the 1987 display of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and a mass same-sex wedding. Hosted major civil rights marches in 1979, 1987, and 1993.
NORTHWEST DC
Dr. Franklin E. Kameny House – 5020 Cathedral Ave NW
Home of gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny and the Mattachine Society of Washington; now a national landmark.
LAFAYETTE SQUARE / WHITE HOUSE
Lafayette Park – Pennsylvania Ave & 16th St NW
Historic gay cruising area and epicenter of government surveillance during the Lavender Scare.
Data from: SSecret City by James Kirchick, The Deviant’s War by Frank Kameny, Brett Beemyn, The Rainbow History Project, NPS Archives, Washington Blade Archives.
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