National
Will the real Mitt Romney please stand up?
GOP frontrunner supports ‘equal rights in employment’
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has previously endorsed ENDA (Blade file photo by MIchael Key)
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s recently stated support for “equal rights in employment” for gays is raising questions about whether he supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act — as well as the extent to which he would back other LGBT rights issues.
The current front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination said he backs employment protections last week during an interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan as he noted gay appointments made during his time as governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007.
Asked which gay rights he favors, Romney replied, “Well, equal rights in employment, equal rights in — for instance, as the governor, I had members of my team that were gay, I appointed a couple of judges, who, apparently, I find later, were gay.”
Romney didn’t say whether he thinks these protections should be instituted through legislation or some other manner.
A Romney campaign spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to the Washington Blade’s request for comment on whether the remarks mean that the the candidate supports ENDA, pending legislation that would bar job discrimination in most situations for LGBT Americans in the public and private workforce.
Romney’s support for employment rights — through ENDA or otherwise — is unusual for Republican presidential candidates early on during the primary season. Candidates usually veer hard right to win support among social conservatives who participate in Republican primaries. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, for example, have said they would reinstitute “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” if elected.
Still, support for ENDA from Romney would be consistent with a previously articulated position he held in 1994 when he was running against the late Sen. Edward Kennedy for his seat representing Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate.
In a letter to the Log Cabin Republicans, Romney recalled earlier conversations he’s had with the group and said he would be a co-sponsor of ENDA and would seek to expand the provisions in the legislation.
Additionally, Romney pledged to “make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern” and said Kennedy, who was known as a champion of LGBT rights in the Senate, would be unable to make that promise to the LGBT community.
“We have discussed a number of important issues such as the Federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which I have agreed to co-sponsor, and if possible broaden to include housing and credit, and the bill to create a federal panel to find ways to reduce gay and lesbian youth suicide, which I also support,” Romney wrote.
It should be noted that the version of ENDA that was pending before Congress at the time offered protections based only on sexual orientation and didn’t include language protecting transgender people in employment.
Romney also said the then-recently enacted “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law was the compromise that was a step in the right direction and “the first in a number of steps” that will ultimately lead to open service in the U.S. military.
According to a 1994 article from Bay Windows, Romney also articulated support for ENDA during a public meeting of the Massachusetts Log Cabin Club with his then-Republican opponent, John Lakian. The meeting between Republican candidates and the gay group was hailed as a milestone for LGBT rights in Massachusetts.
“I will fight against discrimination of any kind throughout our system,” Romney was quoted as saying. “I don’t know exactly where you legislate and where you don’t legislate or how you make that work and where you don’t. But I am not limiting my support of equal rights for all people just to [U.S. Rep.] Barney Frank’s legislation in the area of employment. I would be happy to continue the fight in other areas such as credit and housing.”
Romney reportedly touted that Bain & Company, a Boston-based management consulting firm whose board he chaired, had explicit directions regarding equal employment opportunity in hiring and promotions.
But Kara Suffredini, executive director of MassEquality, said the support that Romney expressed for ENDA in 1994 doesn’t square with his later actions as governor and predicted he wouldn’t keep his promise to support the legislation.
“That’s all the same stuff that he said when he ran for governor in 2002, and then once he was governor, I mean, do a Google search, and you’ll find out how quickly he positioned himself as anti-LGBT in order to benefit his own political career,” she said.
Suffredini predicted that Romney would be “pretty bad” for the LGBT community as a whole as president because of the inconsistency with which he addressed LGBT issues as governor.
“I would say based on his record as governor here that the only thing consistent about Romney’s relationship with the LGBT community is how inconsistent he is,” Suffredini said.
Suffredini said during his campaign as governor, Romney pledged to sign a civil rights bill for the LGBT community. However upon taking office, she said he took several anti-gay actions, such as abolishing a governor’s commission on LGBT youth, which the legislature later reinstated; rescinding an executive order prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation; and discouraging the Massachusetts Department of Public Health from releasing data on public health disparities.
Romney also struck a markedly different tone on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” on Monday during the Republican presidential debate compared to what he expressed in his 1994 letter to Log Cabin.
“I believe it should have been kept in place until conflict was over,” Romney said, invoking an argument that opponents of repeal employed when legislation that would end the military’s gay ban was pending before Congress.
Romney’s position on ENDA could become a more prominent issue as he advances through the Republican primaries.
Romney remains the front-runner in the Republican presidential field among potential participants in the early primaries. According to recent polls from Public Policy Polling, Romney leads by six points in Iowa, 23 in New Hampshire, nine in South Carolina and 15 in Nevada.
Further, Romney could be the Republican presidential candidate who has the strongest chance against President Obama in 2012. According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll published last week, Romney leads Obama in a head-to-head contest by a margin of 49-46.
R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the National Log Cabin Republicans, said his organization would hold Romney to his promises on ENDA should he win the Republican nomination and go on to challenge President Obama in 2012.
“Gov. Romney recently stated on CNN he opposes discrimination and supports equal rights in employment,” Cooper said. “We hope he would stand by his pledge from 17 years ago to prevent discrimination in the workplace and support ENDA.”
While Romney’s position on most LGBT issues may have changed over the years, on one issue he has maintained consistent opposition: same-sex marriage.
During his interview on CNN last week, Romney reiterated his previously stated opposition to same-sex marriage.
“What happened was that the gay community changed as to what they wanted,” Romney said during the CNN interview. “When I ran for governor, one of the big issues was marriage, gay marriage. My opponent said she would sign a bill in favor of gay marriage. I said I would not, that I opposed same-sex marriage. At the same time, I would advance the — if you will — the efforts not to discriminate against people who are gay.”
According to Bay WIndows, Romney stated his opposition to same-sex marriage at the Log Cabin forum 17 years ago when he was seeking the Republican nomination in the U.S Senate race.
“I stand with Gov. [Bill] Weld on that,” he was quoted as saying, “and say that in my view it is not appropriate to authorize legally same-sex marriages and I will continue to endorse that view.”
In 2003, After the Massachusetts State Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage rights for gay couples, Romney backed various state measures that would have rolled back marriage rights for gay couples in the Bay State. Romney also voiced support for a U.S. constitutional amendment known as the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would ban same-sex marriages throughout the country.
Additionally, Romney renewed enforcement of a 1913 law preventing out-of-state couples from marrying in Massachusetts to prevent gay couples from coming into the Bay State to wed. The law has since been repealed by the state Legislature.
Suffredini recalled that as governor, Romney “positioned himself as a national leader” during this time when the first state in the nation was attempting to advance marriage rights for gay couples.
“He did everything he could here to prevent marriage equality — even going so far as to resurrect what we call here the 1913 law, basically an anti-miscegnation law, which hadn’t been enforced in decades,” Suffredini said. “He resurrected it specifically in his words to prevent the spread of same-sex marriage to other states, and what it did was it prevented gays and lesbians from other states from coming here and marrying.”
Fred Sainz, the Human Rights Campaign’s vice president of communications, said Romney’s frequent position changes on LGBT issues make it difficult to predict how friendly to the LGBT community he’d be as president.
“It’s hard to know which Mitt Romney will show up,” Sainz said. “He’s gone back and forth more on issues of equality than a revolving door at a hotel and appears willing to say whatever the audience in front of him will want to hear.”
Still, some remain hopeful that Romney will continue his support for ENDA. Sainz said the decision for Republican candidates on whether or not to support ENDA should be easy.
“It should be a no-brainer for Republican presidential candidates to support legislation that allows all Americans to work and support their families,” Sainz said.
New York
Judge blocks DOJ from obtaining transgender patients’ medical records
Advocacy groups sued White House
A judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has granted a request from multiple transgender people for a temporary restraining order, blocking the disclosure of plaintiffs’ and class members’ medical information to the Justice Department.
Judge Katherine Polk Failla approved the Temporary Restraining Order and Provisional Class Certification, preventing any further information from being provided to the Trump-led DOJ.
The medical data was requested through subpoenas issued by the Trump-Vance administration’s DOJ to multiple hospitals in New York City — most notably NYU Langone — which halted its Transgender Youth Health Program in May following a federal push to stop providing trans minors with gender-affirming care.
In May 2026, NYU Langone Hospitals received a subpoena from a federal grand jury in Fort Worth, Texas, demanding that the hospitals turn over the identities and sensitive health information of any patient who had received medical treatment for gender dysphoria while under the age of 18 at NYU Langone between January 2020 and May 2026.
Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit, “Coe, et al. v. Blanche, et al.,” against the Trump-Vance administration on behalf of three families with trans youth and two trans young adults who were minors when they began care, in June 2026.
The lawsuit requests a temporary restraining order blocking the DOJ from violating the patients’ constitutional privacy rights by obtaining identifying and sensitive health information as part of its investigation into unspecified health offenses. The DOJ issued subpoenas to NYU Langone and other similar healthcare institutions in New York City, including Mount Sinai, that provide or have provided gender-affirming medical care to trans minors. All plaintiffs have filed under pseudonyms to maintain their privacy and anonymity.
Multiple leaders of organizations that helped push for the restraining order provided quotes about the ongoing situation and what it means for the fight for trans children’s access to healthcare in the U.S.
“Today’s order from the court is a victory for the basic privacy of our clients and all families like theirs across New York City. It is no secret that this administration will use every lever in its power to attack transgender people and fulfill its misguided goal to ‘end’ gender-affirming medical care — care that is legal and protected in New York State. Using subpoenas to attain the identities and sensitive health information of transgender young people to effectuate such goals should send chills down the spine of every American. Our laws and our Constitution recognize that we all have a right to confidentiality about the most intimate and private information about ourselves,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, senior counsel and health care strategist at Lambda Legal. “Whether a young person receives any type of medical care is a decision for that patient, their family, and their doctor, not for political appointees to decide, interfere with, or know. The government cannot abuse its powers to violate the constitutional rights of transgender young people and their families. It is an enormous relief for these families that the court has stopped them from doing so as this case proceeds.”
“We’re thankful the court has granted our emergency request to protect the privacy interests of transgender New Yorkers and their families,” said Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project. “Patients and families trust their doctors with their most intimate, private information and should trust in turn that this information will be protected from impermissible and harassing demands for disclosure from the federal government or anyone else. For the past year, the Trump administration has not only decided that it knows better than these families and their doctors what their medical needs are, but has also sought to obtain troves of sensitive information about patients in New York. We will continue to fight on behalf of these families and the fundamental liberty of all transgender New Yorkers and those who come here to seek needed medical care.”
“New York’s laws recognize that transgender youth deserve fundamental privacy protections for their sensitive medical records and unobstructed access to the care they need,” said Bobby Hodgson, deputy legal director at the New York Civil Liberties Union. “As the Trump administration tries to bully transgender youth, scare families, and intimidate healthcare providers into dropping their patients, we’re thankful the court found these tactics are likely unconstitutional and put a stop to them here in New York.”
Federal Government
Trump holds housing bill hostage to anti-trans SAVE Act
President’s SAVE Act failed in the Senate
President Donald Trump is refusing to sign a new bipartisan housing bill unless his SAVE Act is approved by the legislative branch.
The bill being prevented from being enacted into law is the “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.” The legislation is an attempt by Congress to make buying a home in the U.S. Senate more affordable in response to various factors — including housing shortages and regulatory constraints — that have made homeownership increasingly difficult. The total number of homeowners has nearly stopped growing, with high interest rates and surging home prices pushing more Americans toward renting.
The housing bill was considered highly bipartisan, something that is rare in this Congress. The House voted to pass the bill 358-32 on Tuesday after the Senate approved the measure 85-5 a day earlier. The legislation was led by U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in the Senate and U.S. Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and French Hill (R-Ark.) in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Some of the highlights of the legislation are aimed at increasing the supply of affordable housing while making homeownership more accessible. The bill would streamline environmental reviews and direct the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to provide guidance to communities on reforming zoning and land-use policies that can create barriers to housing development.
The legislation would also expand the definition of “manufactured housing,” making it cheaper and easier to mass-produce homes built in factories before being transported to their sites. To encourage additional development, the bill would provide grants and loans for the construction of new housing, the rehabilitation of aging properties, and the conversion of vacant buildings into residential units. It would also increase certain banks’ Public Welfare Investment cap, allowing them to direct more capital toward low-income and affordable housing projects.
In an effort to help more Americans purchase homes, the legislation would create a program to expand access to small-dollar mortgages, which are often used to finance lower-cost homes, while also seeking to improve housing opportunities for veterans. The bill would further promote homeownership by limiting the number of single-family homes that large institutional investors can own and requiring them to disclose how many such properties they control, a measure intended to prioritize American families over corporate buyers.
The bill the president wants enacted — the SAVE Act — is a restrictive and anti-transgender piece of proposed legislation.
The bill would impose a number of new limitations on voter registration across the country by amending the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require in-person proof of citizenship for anyone seeking to vote in U.S. elections. The bill would also limit acceptable forms of identification to documents such as a birth certificate or passport — records that the Brennan Center for Justice estimates more than 21 million Americans do not possess — effectively restricting access to the ballot. It would also ban online voter registration, DMV voter registration efforts, and mail-in voter registration.
Trump pushed for the SAVE Act to include a provision that would ban gender-affirming medical care for trans minors, even with parental consent, and prohibit trans people from participating in school or professional sports consistent with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.
Trump also pressed Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to eliminate the filibuster so the Republican-controlled Congress could pass the SAVE Act, saying Republicans will never win another election without it.
It is expected that Congress will override the president’s veto and pass the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, as it requires a two-thirds supermajority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate — a threshold the legislation currently exceeds.
It is not expected that the SAVE Act will pass the Senate in its current form. It passed the House, but every Democrat and four Republicans voted against it in the Senate.
New York
N.Y. governor’s race presents stark contrast on LGBTQ rights
Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul expected to face Republican Bruce Blakeman
As states across the country grapple with a rapidly changing federal landscape under President Donald Trump, governors have increasingly become the first line of defense — or enforcement — on issues ranging from healthcare and education to LGBTQ rights.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in New York, Trump’s home state, where the 2026 gubernatorial race is shaping up as a high-profile battle over the future of LGBTQ protections.
Incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul is seeking a second full term as New York’s 57th governor and the state’s first female governor. She enters the race with strong support from LGBTQ advocates and organizations, including an endorsement from the Stonewall Democrats of New York City. Earlier this year, Hochul was also endorsed by progressive leaders like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She is running alongside New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams as her lieutenant governor candidate.
Throughout her tenure, Hochul has signed a series of measures aimed at strengthening protections for LGBTQ New Yorkers, particularly transgender residents.
Among the most notable is New York’s “Trans Safe Haven Act,” which protects out-of-state trans youth, their parents, and medical providers who travel to New York to access legally protected gender-affirming care. Hochul has also signed legislation requiring health insurance plans to cover HIV prevention medications, including PrEP and Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP), without out-of-pocket costs.
Additionally, Hochul signed a Long-Term Care Bill of Rights that prohibits discrimination against LGBTQ seniors and people living with HIV in long-term care facilities.
“As the birthplace of the LGBTQ+ rights movement, New York has long been at the forefront of advancing equality,” Hochul said in a statement during Pride month. “During Pride month, we celebrate New York’s vibrant LGBTQ+ community and acknowledge the importance of protecting the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ+ New Yorkers. This month and every month, we proudly stand with the LGBTQ+ community and remain committed to building a more inclusive and equitable future for all where everyone can live freely with dignity, safety, and respect.”
On the Republican side, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman has emerged as the party’s leading candidate. Blakeman is running with Madison County Sheriff Todd Hood as his lieutenant governor pick.
Blakeman, Nassau County’s 10th county executive, was first elected in 2021 after defeating Democratic incumbent Laura Curran. He previously served as a commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a Nassau County legislator, and a Hempstead town councilman.
A longtime supporter of Trump, Blakeman appeared alongside the president during a 2024 event honoring slain NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller.
LGBTQ advocates have frequently criticized Blakeman for his positions on trans issues, particularly his opposition to trans women participating in women’s sports.
In February 2024, Blakeman signed an executive order barring women’s sports teams that include trans women from using Nassau County athletic facilities. The policy applies to youth, collegiate, and professional teams. Teams that include trans men were not affected. The order has since been halted by the New York State Appellate Division swiftly issued an injunction halting enforcement while the plaintiffs appeal the decision
Ahead of announcing the order, Blakeman repeatedly referred to trans women as “biological males” and argued they should compete on men’s or co-ed teams. LGBTQ rights groups condemned the policy, saying it discriminates against trans athletes and contributes to the marginalization of trans youth.
Trump endorsed Blakeman’s gubernatorial campaign in December 2025, shortly after U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) announced she would not seek the Republican nomination. The president made his endorsement via Truth Social that “Bruce is MAGA all the way, and has been with me from the very beginning.”
The Washington Blade contacted Blakeman’s campaign seeking comment on his LGBTQ policy priorities and views on issues including nondiscrimination protections, trans rights, and healthcare access. The campaign did not respond.
The race highlights two sharply different approaches to LGBTQ policy in a state widely regarded as the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement, home to the 1969 Stonewall uprising that helped launch the contemporary movement for LGBTQ equality.
Despite the ideological contrast, early polling suggests Hochul remains the clear favorite. Most public surveys show the incumbent holding a double-digit advantage over her potential Republican challengers, with some polls placing her lead at roughly 20 percentage points ahead of the November election.
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