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National news in brief: April 22

N.Y. groups join forces in renewed marriage fight; video footage from Prop 8 battle unleashes controversy

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Cuomo to help with marriage campaign

NEW YORK ā€” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has pledged support for a same-sex marriage bill in his state that gay activists hope will help overcome Republican resistance, the New York Times reported this week.

Under the supervision of the governorā€™s staff, the groups intend to raise more than $1 million for a media blitz, hire a powerful political consultant close to the Cuomo administration and deploy field organizers to the districts of more than a dozen key lawmakers to drum up support, the Times reported citing interviews with those involved in the effort.

In contrast to their failed drive for a marriage bill two years ago, the advocates envision a short, disciplined and intense run-up to a vote in the legislature, raising the prospect that gay couples may be allowed to wed in New York by early summer. The hope to avoid the mistakes and miscommunications of 2009, when those lobbying for same-sex marriage sent conflicting messages, misjudged the opposition and won far fewer votes than they had predicted, the Times story said.

After passing in the Assembly, the bill was defeated in the Senate, 38 to 24. Four gay rights groups ā€” Empire State Pride Agenda, HRC, Freedom to Marry and Marriage Equality will form a single organization called New Yorkers United for Marriage. Two Democratic senators who voted against the bill in 2009 have since departed, replaced by supporters of the bill. Advocates now need to attract six more senators to ensure its passage. So far, they are focusing on about 15 lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans, whose votes could prove pivotal, the New York Times said.

Marriage foes intervene in Prop 8 trial controversy

SAN FRANCISCO ā€” The federal judge who presided over the Proposition 8 trial is under fire from Christian conservatives for showing a three-minute videotape of the trial on the lecture circuit, the Los Angeles Times reported this week.

The sponsors of the 2008 ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage have asked a federal appeals court to order retired Judge Vaughn Walker, who ruled against Proposition 8, to return the videotape so it can be put under lock and key. The Associated Press reported that several media organizations are joining lawyers for two gay couples in urging a federal appeals court to release the tapes. The 13 organizations, which include the AP, argued in a motion filed Monday with the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals that the videos are court records and the First Amendment requires them to be open to the public.

Lawyers for ProtectMarriage, the Proposition 8 campaign, have told the 9th Circuit that Walker’s use of the video recording “defied” the U.S. Supreme Court, violated his own court order sealing the video, flouted various court policies and amounted to judicial misconduct, the Times reported.

Walker, who presided over the 12-day trial in San Francisco last year, initially planned to videotape the proceedings for public viewing. But ProtectMarriage objected and took its case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 along ideological grounds against cameras in the courtroom. The high court’s conservatives said the Proposition 8 trial was unsuitable for broadcast because witnesses might be intimidated or suffer retaliation. Walker relented but permitted videotaping for the court’s use and for viewing by an overflow crowd in another courtroom.

Gay students warned to ‘act straight’ after attack

ROCK HILL, S.C. ā€” The attack of a gay teenager by a group of men at a Rock Hill, S.C., gas station has some Winthrop University leaders warning gay students to “act straight,” according to a report from WBTV, a news agency in the region.

The warning comes after 19-year-old Joshua Esskew was beaten by a group of at least eight men at the Spot Convenience Store on 990 South Cherry Road on April 9.Ā  Esskew believes the attack happened because he is gay. The attack has sparked an investigation by the FBI and the York County Sheriff’s Office, who are hoping to identify the men who attacked Esskew.

Images of the attack, which was caught on surveillance video, have been released to the public, in hopes of identifying the men, WBTV said. Esskew said he was walking to the gas station when someone yelled a derogatory anti-gay comment at him.Ā Words were exchanged and when he turned back around, someone hit him in the head with a 40-ounce malt liquor bottle. He was then beaten by at least eight men for nearly 15 seconds, being kicked and punched by the group.

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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 ā€œXā€ 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 ā€œsuspend any application requesting an ā€˜Xā€™ sex marker and do not take any further action pending additional guidance from the department.ā€  

ā€œThis guidance applies to all applications currently in progress and any future applications,” reads Rubio’s memo. “Guidance on existing passports containing an ā€˜Xā€™ sex marker will come via other channels.ā€

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.”

ā€œI 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, Trumpā€™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 familyā€™s safety,ā€ 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 ā€œfail to affirm the reality of biological sex.ā€

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, ā€œDefending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.ā€

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 ā€œThe deliberate subjugation of women and girls by means of gender ideology ā€” whether in intimate spaces, weaponized language, or American classrooms ā€” 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 ā€” members of Housing Works, Health GAP, and the Treatment Action Group ā€” 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 ā€œlife-saving humanitarian assistanceā€ 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.

ā€œPEPFAR 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.” 

ā€œWe 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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