National
‘Don’t Ask’ repeal a non-issue for Marines in training
Service conducts training session to prepare for open service
Gunnery Sgt. Anthony Taylor conducts 'Don't Ask' repeal training for Marines (Blade photo by Michael Key)
Uneventful.
That’s the word that might best describe the impact of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal on the U.S. armed forces based on briefings held this week to prepare service members for the post-repeal military.
On a warm, sunny spring day earlier this week, Marines stationed at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Va., take a break from their day-long training in sharpshooting and physical conditioning — which the service has practiced and perfected for its nearly 236 years of existence — to engage in something completely new: preparation to serve alongside openly gay, lesbian and bisexual troops.
Prior to start of the briefing, scheduled to begin on Monday at 1300 hours, Marines dressed in their summer camouflage gear begin settling into a briefing room at the barracks to prepare for the training. One Marine patiently awaits the training while reading the Quantico Sentry. Another Marine entering the room smacks his comrade on the shoulder with a notepad before taking a seat.
Standing in the back, this reporter — clad in a bright magenta dress shirt — wilts in the sun-baked room, which is overheated thanks to a malfunctioning air conditioner. One Marine responds, “This is nothing! Try taking a tour in Iraq!”
The start of the training is delayed for 15 minutes — unusual in the military, which almost always follows its schedules with precision — to ensure that as many Marines as possible can sign up to participate. The Marine Corps is set to finish training for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal by June 1.
Col. Jay Johnson, commander of the Marine Corps’ Headquarters and Service Battalion, begins the briefing by greeting his Marines with “Good afternoon,” a salutation they repeat in unison. All Marines present are part of the battalion, which comprises more than 3,200 service members and is the largest battalion in the service.
Johnson stands before his audience displaying a slide presentation with four bulletpoints: leadership, professionalism, discipline and respect. The commander has a simple message: The key to handling “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal is for Marines to continue to treat one another respectfully.
“We don’t need anybody to remind us about that,” Johnson says. “We do that every day. We do that out of San Diego or Paris Island — the transfer over to civilian to Marine — we understand about treating each other with dignity and respect.”
Even under the change, Johnson maintains that no one will pry into the sexual orientation or relationships of Marines while they’re in the service — nor will anyone attempt to alter their personal views or religious beliefs.
“Sexual orientation — that’s personal, that’s private,” Johnson says. “Nobody’s going to get in and starting asking you about these kinds of things.”
A video plays from Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos and Sgt. Maj. Carlton Kent instructing Marines on how to prepare for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal. When Congress considered repeal legislation last year, Amos was among those who opposed it — going so far as to say open service could prove a distraction that might cost Marines’ lives on the battlefield. But in February he issued guidance saying the Marine Corps would work to implement repeal.
“I want to be clear to all Marines, we will step out smartly to faithfully implement this new law,” Amos says. “It’s important that we value the diversity of background, culture and skills that all Marines bring to the service of our nation. As we implement repeal, I want leaders at all levels to reemphasize the importance of maintaining dignity and respect for one another throughout our force.”
The Marines watch silently as their top uniformed commander instructs them on his expectations of them during the transition to open service.
Gunnery Sgt. Anthony Taylor (Blade photo by Michael Key)
After the video is complete, Gunnery Sgt. Anthony Taylor, who’s set to handle the briefing, kicks off the training with his own words of wisdom. He’s been handling the training session since repeal implementation for two months and has already conducted four briefings.
“Like I said earlier, 235 years we’ve been doing this,” Taylor said. “The implementation of this new policy — nothing will change. As Marines, you’re first and foremost a rifleman — first and foremost. Nothing will change. I want everybody to take that away along with leadership, professionalism, dignity and respect.”
The slideshow begins detailing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal and that repeal states that open service will be implemented after 60 days pass following certification from the president, the defense secretary and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
What does this mean for the Marine Corps? The female voice states that Marines are responsible for executing the change “in a manner consistent with readiness, unit cohesion while treating all Marines and sailors with dignity and respect.”
Another recorded male voice states, “Gay, lesbian or bisexual orientation in the military is no longer a disqualifying factor for entering military service. Marines and sailors are no longer subject to administrative separation on the basis of lawful homosexual conduct.”
Still, the voice states that the Marines will continue to be evaluated on their own merit in the post-repeal military and that sexual misconduct — for either gay or straight Marines — will be a violation of the rules.
“It remains the policy of the Marine Corps to evaluate all Marines on the basis of their individual merit, fitness and capability,” the voice states. “Sexual misconduct, regardless of sexual orientation, that violates that standards of rule, regulation, policy or law will still be considered grounds for administrative or legal action to include possible discharge.”
Taylor interrupts the briefing to pose a question: What happens if two Marines object to sharing a room with someone they believe to be gay and want to live elsewhere? Unlike the other military services, the Marine Corps has for decades focused on housing designed for two Marines.
“They know he’s gay, or think he’s gay, but due to the fact that he dresses a certain way — his mannerisms, the way he fluffs his hands up in the air or anything else of that nature,” Taylor says, “they request to move out of that room. Do you think that’s right, No. 1, to request to move out of that room if the only lead they can go on is that they assume that [he’s] gay? Do they have the right? And two, the company commander, does he have that moral right to make the request happen?”
A Marine in the audience stands and responds that the move may only be granted on a case-by-case basis, such as if the Marine believed to be gay has engaged in lewd activity or other actions in violation of conduct rules.
“That’s the question I was looking for,” Taylor says. “That could be classified as discrimination. Again, we’re going into a whole other avenue — possibly a [Military Equal Opportunity] complaint.”
Additional slides state that the same-sex partners of gay service members may be eligible for designation as emergency contacts or life insurance beneficiaries. Still, the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriage, blocks other benefits such as co-location in military housing or survivor benefits.
Taylor asks the audience if anyone has heard of DOMA. One Marine staff sergeant belts out, “It means that marriage is one man, one woman!” — perhaps the most overt anti-gay remark of the briefing.
“Exactly,” Taylor responds. “Right now, the Department of Defense recognizes that marriage is between one man and one woman, heterosexual. It does not recognize same-sex homes.”
But Taylor poses the hypothetical question: If a Marine with a same-sex partner and three children deploys to Afghanistan, can the same-sex partner receive obligations for the children?
The same Marine who answered the question about billeting responds, “Can the same-sex partner have access to the commissary or the [Post Exchange]? Yes, he can. But that’s only as long as what he’s buying is for your children.”
“You’ve been doing your reading,” Taylor says in response to the Marine.
The closing slide features a female voice restating that the main mission of the Marine Corps as a war-fighting service remains the same as it has been for nearly 236 years.
“We cannot allow these few changes to divert our focus from our warfighting mission, readiness and unit cohesion,” the voice states. “We will continue to treat all Marines with dignity and respect while demanding that all [have] exemplary behavior in keeping with our traditions and faithful service.”
Alex Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United, is among those observing the briefing and, afterwards, says participants may have been muted because media outlets were in the room covering the session.
“I think there might have been a number of more questions asked,” Nicholson says. “It wasn’t silent … but I think it’s just to be expected. The people in attendance are a little nervous and they’re in front of strangers. They may not feel as comfortable asking a question that may be perceived in a certain way, or that may be recorded or taken down.”
Still, Nicholson says the training presents views of gays and lesbians to a conservative audience that may not have otherwise been exposed to them.
“People from Oklahoma, Alabama and Mississippi would never have exposure to people talking about gay couples being normal and maybe having kids and living together in housing,” Nicholson says. “I think we’re going to see a … long-term benefit because it’s unprecedented. It really is showing the normal side of the gay community to a lot of people who wouldn’t normally be exposed to it.”
Following the briefing, Marines who attended say the training was helpful and that proceeding toward open service should be no problem for the Marine Corps.
Marine Lance Corp. Christina Monti (Blade photo by Michael Key)
Lance Cpl. Christina Monti, 22, says she was interested in all the steps the Marine Corps is taking to make sure the entire service is prepared for repeal.
“I think that it’s not going to be much of a change at all,” she says. “I think that we adapt and overcome. We don’t discriminate against anyone — race, gender, sexual orientation. So, it shouldn’t be any different.”
Sgt. Jonathan Garrigues, 27, says the briefing helped to put all Marines “at ease” during the transition to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal and serving alongside openly gay service members will be “not a big deal.”
“I’m a combat veteran as well,” Garrigues says. “I don’t think that it’s going to make any difference. Especially [with] the polls and everything saying homosexuals are — gays and lesbians are already serving with us, so their ability to be open [and] to be comfortable with who they are. I don’t think that’s going to be any kind of impact whatsoever.”
Capt. Stewart Coles, 27, says he thinks the briefing was “absolutely helpful” and laid out “very plainly” the Marine Corps’ plan for allowing open gay service.
“It, of course, laid out some of those basic things,” Coles says. “For instance, no matter what happens, without regard to [sexual] orientation, gender, race anything like that, it goes back to discipline and respect. Those are always the most important things.”
Asked about his personal views on serving with openly gay Marines, Coles says, “If I or any Marine had personal concerns, then, once again, that’s — orientation is a personal and private matter, just as any belief. We’re not expected to change any of our beliefs. What we’re expected to do is follow our orders and treat each other with dignity and respect.”
One remark that a Marine shouted at this reporter perhaps best sums up the ease of transition to permitting gay service members to serve openly alongside their straight counterparts.
“Hey! I have that magenta shirt at home!” the Marine says.
California
Calif. governor signs 6 pro-LGBTQ bills, vetoes 1
Gavin Newsom rejected measure he claimed is legislative overreach
Last week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed and vetoed a slew of bills into state law. Among them were seven pertaining to California’s LGBTQ community. Newsom signed six while vetoing one. His actions drew applause and scorn from advocacy groups in the state.
The six signed bills:
Assembly Bill 1775 allows transgender veterans, who were banned from service last year by the Trump-Vance administration, to access housing assistance, use California’s discharge upgrade assistance program, and get support for gaining employment.
Assembly Bill 1930 strengthens privacy protections for healthcare patients and providers by creating clear guidelines for California agencies, individuals, and corporations to respond to out-of-state subpoena requests relating to abortion or gender-affirming care. This includes a requirement to contact the California Attorney General at least seven days prior to responding to the subpoena or providing legal documents. This should add additional protection to those residing in California from investigations in states where abortion or gender-affirming care has more restrictions.
Senate Bill 934 targets conversion therapy in California and increases the amount of time a patient has to bring a medical malpractice lawsuit against a provider for attempting to change the patient’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The bill takes aim at the widely debunked practice that treats queerness as a mental disorder that could be cured through psychotherapeutic methods. Conversion therapy has been illegal in California since 2012; however, a recent Supreme Court decision threw the ban into question, prompting lawmakers to write this new bill that legally defines it as medical malpractice.
Senate Bill 1023 expands access to PrEP, a medication that protects people from contracting HIV. The bill requires insurers to cover the drug through the medical benefit and the pharmacy benefit pathways, allowing for more providers to give patients PrEP.
Senate Bill 1114 strengthens privacy protections for voluntary self-identification data about sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill limits when California government agencies can share this data and bars it from being disclosed outside of the state government, with few exceptions.
Senate Bill 1328 expands support for LGBTQ students and staff in California colleges. The bill requires any institution of higher education to designate an employee at any campus, satellite campus, branch campus, or outreach center to support the needs of LGBTQ individuals.
Equality California, the largest statewide LGBTQ civil rights group in the country, commended the governor for his support of legislation that protects and supports the queer community amid escalating threats, attacks, and rollbacks from the federal government.
Executive Director Tony Hoang said in a written statement, “California is once again demonstrating that when LGBTQ+ people are targeted, our state will respond with action,” adding, “We are grateful to Gov. Newsom for signing these measures.”
The vetoed bill:
Assembly Bill 2164 would have banned California from extraditing anyone residing in California for providing abortions or gender-affirming care in another state. Newsom vetoed this bill despite agreeing with its principles, claiming in a written statement that “extradition is an exclusively executive function” and that he did not want to limit the “executive authority of an incoming governor.”
This bill was created in response to Louisiana’s attempt to extradite a California physician for allegedly sending abortion pills in the mail to a Louisiana woman. Newsom responded forcefully to the extradition request, publicly denying it and stating, “We will not allow extremist politicians from other states to reach into California and try to punish doctors based on allegations that they provided reproductive health care services.”
In a written statement responding to the veto, Lizzy Hinkley, the legal director of the bill’s lead sponsor, Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, criticized Newsom, stating, “[the] outgoing governor’s principled stance is cold comfort to Californians living and working in the real world post-Dobbs. A high-brow, academic justification for refusing to codify legal protections only reveals an ignorance for the lived reality of patients and providers — and does nothing to help them.”
National
HRC report: LGBTQ students face ‘far greater challenges’ in non-supportive states
Survey finds anti-LGBTQ school harassment, bullying highest in 17 states
The Human Rights Campaign Foundation, the educational arm of the national LGBTQ advocacy organization Human Rights Campaign, has released a report showing LGBTQ public school students are more likely to face bullying, harassment, and “other barriers” in states that have less overall supportive LGBTQ laws and policies.
The report is based on the HRC Foundation’s National Educator Survey of School Climate and Bullying, which was released on Sept. 17.
“The report finds that harassment, bullying, and other barriers to LGBTQ+ inclusion are more prevalent in states with limiting policies, where educators report widespread restrictions on LGBTQ+ resources, visible expressions of support, and assistance for transgender students,” a statement released by HRC says.
“As just one example,” the statement adds, “while 59 percent of educators in states with limiting policies report restrictions on supporting their transgender students, just 6 percent to 8 percent of educators in states with supportive policies report the same, underscoring the impact of these policies on school climate, student well-being, and the stakes of the upcoming midterm elections for LGBTQ+ youth and inclusive classrooms.”
The report says the survey consisted of responses by 826 educators in 42 states who worked as teachers, principals, counselors, administrators, and others who worked in support services. All worked at schools with students from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade, most being public schools and a smaller number being charter schools, the report says.
It says the survey was conducted between April 15 and May 21, 2026, and included a survey questionnaire with about 55 questions covering a wide range of LGBTQ related school issues.
According to the report, its classification of LGBTQ supportive and non-LGBTQ supportive states is based on a detailed analysis of the LGBTQ related laws and policies of all 50 states, D.C., and U.S. territories conducted by the Movement Advancement Project, or MAP, which describes itself as an “independent, nonprofit thinktank.”
The report includes a chart consisting of 51 boxes representing the 50 states and D.C., with 32 plus D.C. colored as blue and said to have overall LGBTQ supportive policies. The 17 boxes colored in red are said to have overall non-LGBTQ supportive policies and laws, Each of the boxes has the initial of a state or D.C. printed inside it.
In addition to D.C., the chart shows Maryland, Virginia, New York, California, and Massachusetts as among the supportive states. Florida, Texas, West Virginia, and Ohio are among the states shown to be non-LGBTQ supportive.
The HRC statement includes these “key” findings from the survey:
- In states with restrictive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies, 59 percent of educators report restrictions on supporting transgender students, compared to just 6-8 percent of educators in states with supportive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies.
- In states with restrictive policies, nearly 50 percent of educators reported restrictions on LGBTQ+ books or resources, compared to just 7 percent of educators in states with supportive policies.
- Roughly 32 percent of educators in states with restrictive policies reported anti-LGBTQ+ harassment was a moderate or serious problem, compared with 11 percent of educators in states with supportive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies.
- In states with restrictive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies, 29 percent of educators were very worried about anti-LGBTQ+ harassment, compared to 15 percent in states with supportive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies.
- In states with restrictive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies, 36 percent of educators witnessed anti-LGBTQ+ student bullying, compared to 27 percent in states with supportive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies.
- In states with supportive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies, 75 percent of educators reported no restrictions on LGBTQ+-supportive displays, highlighting a substantially more supportive school environment than in states with restrictive policies.
- Educators in states with restrictive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies also reported significant harassment of students based on appearance (57 percent), race or ethnicity (43 percent), sexual orientation (42 percent), and gender identity or expression (39 percent). (No direct comparison figure from supportive-policy states is provided in the data above.)
“Every young person deserves to feel safe and supportive at school, but this report makes clear that for too many LGBTQ+ students, especially transgender youth, are being failed by policies designed to exclude them,” said HRC President Kelley Robinson in the HRC statement.
“We know that when students feel seen, supported, and affirmed, they are more likely to thrive, but when schools become places of exclusion or hostility, young people pay the price through lower engagement, missed opportunities to learn, and poorer mental and physical health,” Robinson said.
The HRC statement notes that the survey findings come at a time when a growing number of states have passed laws targeting LGBTQ students and the school officials and teachers who support them. It says that for the first time, the survey found that “educators themselves are also experiencing anti-LGBTQ+ harassment, highlighting the growing impact of these policies on school staff as well as students.”
The full survey findings and report can be accessed here:
U.S. Supreme Court
Trump asks Supreme Court to allow restrictions on gender-affirming care in prisons
SCOTUS could further restrict rights of trans inmates
The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow its policy limiting gender-affirming treatment for federal inmates to take effect while a legal challenge plays out in court.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the government to continue providing gender-affirming care, such as hormone therapy, which had become policy nearly a decade ago for inmates who were transitioning.
The Trump administration argues in its application that its policy restricting transgender rights was properly adopted and that the judge overstepped, posing nationwide “security and prison-administrative concerns.”
If allowed, the policy would halt surgeries, hormones and social accommodations such as wigs while allowing mental health therapy to continue as the legality of the policy reversal is litigated.
The government also argues in the application that the Bureau of Prisons had “determined that sex-trait-modification surgeries, hormone interventions in general, and social accommodations could no longer be justified as treatment for gender dysphoria.”
American Civil Liberties Union attorneys for the inmates said the policy is “a direct threat to the well-being of transgender people in federal custody and an open violation of their fundamental rights,” and said withholding necessary gender-affirming healthcare constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
The Blade has covered the ongoing developments surrounding changes to Federal Bureau of Prisons transgender inmate policy that went into effect earlier in Trump’s term. The changes primarily focus on rolling back Biden-era protections for trans inmates.
Earlier this year, the Blade published a joint letter from multiple senators in response to the rollback of the policy. Multiple senators — including Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Jeffrey A. Merkley (D-Ore.) and Mazie K. Hirono (D-Hawaii) — sent a letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche and Federal Bureau of Prisons Director William Marshall III calling for them to reverse the policy change, saying it endangers inmates’ health and safety.
The senators described how the policy shift, along with President Trump’s Executive Order 14168, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” is forcing policy changes they argued are rooted more in political rhetoric than in medical research or evidence-based correctional practices.
Federal Bureau of Prisons responded to the Blade’s request for comment in May, declining to reconsider its transgender inmate policy.
The Blade reached out to the Federal Bureau of Prisons once again over the application to the Supreme Court, but did not hear back before publication.
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