National
Gates unlikely to certify ‘Don’t Ask’ repeal before retirement
Experts expect final action during summer months
Defense Secretary Robert Gates (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is unlikely to issue certification for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal before his retirement at the end of the month, triggering debate over whether his departure will mean an extended delay for lifting the military’s gay ban.
According to a report in Stars & Stripes, senior defense and military officials have said Gates is unlikely to certify repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” before leaving office on June 30, which would leave the responsibility to his successor, CIA Director Leon Panetta.
Eileen Lainez, a Defense Department spokesperson, was unable to confirm whether or not Gates would certify repeal before retirement, but said the Pentagon remains on track to implement open service by mid-summer.
“The secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will certify after careful consideration of the views of the secretaries of the military departments, the military service chiefs and the combatant commanders,” she said. “I don’t have information on whether this will occur before or after Secretary Gates departs.”
Under the repeal law signed in December, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” won’t be off the books until pass 60 days after the president, the defense secretary and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certify that the U.S. military is ready for open service. Gates has said before issuing certification he wants the armed forces to receive training, which has been taking place since February.
Alex Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United, said the chances of Gates issuing certification before his departure are increasingly slim, but added there’s no reason he shouldn’t be able to give the OK before his departure.
“Everything is in place, everything is set, everything is in line with the cautious approach that defense leaders and the administration have taken,” Nicholson said.
Some advocates have said the retirement of Gates before certification could lead to delays if Panetta wants to examine the issue further, but at least one LGBT advocate says certification could happen within weeks regardless of who’s at the helm at the Pentagon.
Winnie Stachelberg, senior vice president for external Affairs at the Center for American Progress, said she expects certification will happen soon, even if Gates isn’t in the position of defense secretary.
“I think it will happen in the next several weeks,” Stachelberg said. “It would have been our hope to have done this under Secretary of Defense Gates, who was secretary of defense while the legislative effort went forward and the survey went forward, but that seems not the way it’s going to end up. But this will happen in a matter of a few weeks after Secretary Gates leaves and Secretary Panetta arrives.”
Nicholson predicted the period for certification would be sometime between Gates’ retirement on June 30 and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen’s retirement on Sept. 30.
“[I’ve been hearing] different things from different people — informed sources who expressed skepticism about it happening in the next few weeks,” Nicholson said.
Nicholson said the Pentagon could face consequences in manpower if “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” isn’t lifted because gay service members may decide not to re-enlist if they feel the process is being dragged out.
“People make career decisions every day, every month, based upon projections of how likely it’s going to be for the years to come,” Nicholson said. “If someone has to decide in July whether or not to enlist for another four years, and they expected certification to happen by June, and there’s no concrete information being put out on a timeline, they may opt to not re-enlist.”
Additionally, Nicholson said President Obama could face political pressure from supporters of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal if delays in certification continue.
“I think the consequences accrue on the administration, the political side of the house, because there’s no reason left to give why certification has not happened,” Nicholson said. “There’s no longer any reasonable excuse for why it’s stretching out for this amount of time.”
According to Stars & Stripes, one step that remains on the path to implementing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is an Army assessment on the progress of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal training. As the largest service with around 1.1 million soldiers, the Army is scheduled to be behind the other services in the progress made for repeal training.
Stars & Stripes reported that Army leaders said in a message to commanders that this assessment is due Friday. Those reports will help the Army Chief of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey compile final recommendations on repeal, which Gates and Mullen are set to review before issuing certification.
Stachelberg said the process and training for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal could have moved faster, but maintained the process for training the armed forces isn’t lengthy “because there are problems.”
“It’s taking time because it’s being done in a thorough comprehensive way, and it’s a large force,” Stachelberg said. “[An end to this process] hasn’t happened as soon as some would like, ourselves included, but it isn’t because there are problems and obstacles and issues along the way. It’s because of the sheer size of the military.”
The White House
Report: Grenell wants Russian ambassadorship
Country’s anti-LGBTQ record a reported barrier
Richard Grenell, President Donald Trump’s special envoy for “special missions,” is making it known that he is interested in the Russian ambassadorship.
According to reporting by the Daily Mail, Grenell has “floated” his interest in the role to coworkers, but issues surrounding the former German ambassador’s sexuality have made securing the position more difficult.
“He had an interest in the job — or at least he floated the idea to select colleagues. But Putin’s regime is extremely anti–LGBTQ, so I’m sure they didn’t take that thought too seriously,” one source close to Grenell told the Daily Mail. “That would never happen anyway.”
Grenell has long been one of Trump’s closest allies and was the first openly gay person to hold a Cabinet-level position. He was ousted last month as acting director of the Kennedy Center, a position he had held since Trump reestablished the board to be composed of his political supporters in 2025.
In addition to leading the nation’s cultural arts center, Grenell previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Germany from 2018 to 2020, and as the special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations from 2019 to 2021. He was also a State Department spokesperson to the U.N. under the George W. Bush administration and a Fox News contributor.
Russia has a longstanding history of being anti-LGBTQ.
In 2013, the country passed a law banning any public endorsement of “nontraditional sexual relations” among minors. In December 2022, Putin signed legislation expanding the ban, making it illegal to promote same-sex relationships or suggest that non-heterosexual orientations are “normal” for people of any age, widening censorship across media and public life.
The Russian courts have also supported the restriction of LGBTQ identity in the country. In November 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court granted a request from the Justice Ministry to outlaw the “international LGBT movement” as “extremist,” allowing authorities to criminalize advocacy and potentially prosecute individuals for expressions of LGBTQ+ identity or support.
In addition to LGBTQ rights issues, the war between Russia and Ukraine has become a global concern. Ukraine, which was part of the former Soviet Union, includes the territory known as Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. The annexation remains a major point of international dispute over sovereignty. Since 2022, Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine has escalated the conflict, drawing global attention and sanctions while straining U.S.-Russia relations.
The U.S. has spent $188 billion in total related to the war in Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Russian ambassadorship seems to be a difficult role to fill, according to additional information presented by the Daily Mail. With Trump already being seen as relatively positive by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and with close ties to members of his Cabinet and family — like son-in-law Jared Kushner — the ambassadorship is complicated and viewed as less critical than in previous administrations.
“There is no rush to fill that role because it has now been deemed unnecessary,” another source told the U.K.-based publication.
Bob Foresman, a seasoned businessman with decades-long ties to the Kremlin, was reportedly once the frontrunner, according to the Daily Mail. Foresman served as vice chair of UBS Investment Bank and Deputy Chairman of Renaissance Capital between 2006 and 2009, and earlier led investment banking for Russia at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein from 1997 to 2000.
“This is a pattern, especially in the Trump administration — special envoys big–footing the ambassadors,” a source told the Daily Mail. “It is shocking that we are already in April and we don’t have an ambassador to one of the most important countries in the world.”
Tennessee
Tenn. lawmakers pass transgender “watch list” bill
State Senate to consider measure on Wednesday
The Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill last week to create a transgender “watch list” that also pushes detransition medical treatment. The state Senate will consider it on Wednesday.
House Bill 754/State Bill 676 has been deemed “ugly” by LGBTQ advocates and criticized by healthcare information litigators as a major privacy concern.
The bill would require “gender clinics accepting funds from this state to perform gender transition procedures to also perform detransition procedures; requires insurance entities providing coverage of gender transition procedures to also cover detransition procedures; requires certain gender clinics and insurance entities to report information regarding detransition procedures to the department of health.”
It would require that any gender-affirming care-providing clinics share the date, age, and sex of patients; any drugs prescribed (dosage, frequency, duration, and method administered); the state and county; the name, contact information, and medical specialty of the healthcare professional who prescribed the treatment; and any past medical history related to “neurological, behavioral, or mental health conditions.” It would also mandate additional information if surgical intervention is prescribed, including details on which healthcare professional made a referral and when.
HB 0754 would also require the state to produce a “comprehensive annual statistical report,” with all collected data shared with the heads of the legislature and the legislative librarian, and eventually published online for public access.
The bill also reframes detransitioning as a major focus of gender-affirming healthcare — despite studies showing that the number of trans people who detransition is statistically quite low, around 13 percent, and is often the result of external pressures (such as discrimination or family) rather than an issue with their gender identity.
This legislation stands in sharp contrast to federal protections restricting what healthcare information can be shared. In 1996, Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, requiring protections for all “individually identifiable health information,” including medical records, conversations, billing information, and other patient data.
Margaret Riley, professor of law, public health sciences, and public policy at the University of Virginia, has written about similar efforts at the federal level, noting the Trump-Vance administration’s push to subpoena multiple hospitals’ records of gender-affirming care for trans patients despite no claims — or proof — that a crime was committed.
It has “sown fear and concern, both among people whose information is sought and among the doctors and other providers who offer such care. Some health providers have reportedly decided to no longer provide gender-affirming care to minors as a result of the inquiries, even in states where that care is legal.” She wrote in an article on the Conversation, where she goes further, pointing out that the push, mostly from conservative members of the government, are pushing extracting this private information “while giving no inkling of any alleged crimes that may have been committed.”
State Rep. Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby), the bill’s sponsor, said in a press conference two weeks ago that he has met dozens of individuals who sought to transition genders and ultimately detransitioned. In committee, an individual testified in support of the bill, claiming that while insurance paid for gender-affirming care, detransition care was not covered.
“I believe that we as a society are going to look back on this time that really burst out in 2014 and think, ‘Dear God, What were we thinking? This was as dumb as frontal lobotomies,’” Faison said of gender-affirming care. “I think we’re going to look back on society one day and think that.”
Jennifer Levi, GLAD Law’s senior director of Transgender and Queer Rights, shared with PBS last year that legislation like this changes the entire concept of HIPAA rights for trans Americans in ways that are invasive and unnecessary.
“It turns doctor-patient confidentiality into government surveillance,” Levi said, later emphasizing this will cause fewer people to seek out the care that they need. “It’s chilling.”
The Washington Blade reached out to the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, which shared this statement from Executive Director Miriam Nemeth:
“HB 754/SB 676 continues the ugly legacy of Tennessee legislators’ attacks on the lives of transgender Tennesseans. Most Tennesseans, regardless of political views, oppose government databases tracking medical decisions made between patients and their doctors. The same should be true here. The state does not threaten to end the livelihood of doctors and fine them $150,000 for safeguarding the sensitive information of people with diabetes, depression, cancer, or other conditions. Trans people and intersex people deserve the same safety, privacy, and equal treatment under the law as everyone else.”
Iran
LGBTQ groups condemn Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization
Ceasefire announced less than two hours before Tuesday deadline
The Council for Global Equality is among the groups that condemned President Donald Trump on Tuesday over his latest threats against Iran.
Trump in a Truth Social post said “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran did not reach an agreement with the U.S. by 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
Iran is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
Israel and the U.S. on Feb. 28 launched airstrikes against Iran.
One of them killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran in response launched missiles and drones against Israel and other countries that include Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, and Cyprus.
Gas prices in the U.S. and around the world continue to increase because the war has essentially closed the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway that connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s crude oil passes.
Trump less than 90 minutes before his deadline announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran that Pakistan helped broker.
“We the undersigned human rights, humanitarian, civil liberties, faith-based and environmental organizations, think tanks and experts are deeply alarmed by President Trump’s threat regarding Iran that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ if his demands are not met. Such language describes a grave atrocity if carried out,” reads the statement that the Council for Global Equality more than 200 other organizations and human rights experts signed. “A threat to wipe out ‘a whole civilization’ may amount to a threat of genocide. Genocide is a crime defined by the Genocide Convention and by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as committing one or more of several acts ‘with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, racial or religious groups as such.'”
The statement states “the law is clear that civilians must not be targeted, and they must also be protected from indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.”
“Strikes on civilian infrastructure — such as the recent attack on a bridge and the attacks President Trump is repeatedly threatening to carry out to destroy power plants — have devastating consequences for the civilian population and environment,” it reads.
“We urge all parties to respect international law,” adds the statement. “Those responsible for atrocities, including crimes against humanity and war crimes, can and must be held accountable.”
The Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice, Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, MADRE, and the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center are among the other groups that signed the letter.
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Tenn. lawmakers pass transgender “watch list” bill
