National
Will Obama’s jobs speech be LGBT-inclusive?
Legalized discrimination persists, ENDA frozen

With the nation awaiting President Obama’s jobs speech later this week, some advocates are hoping for a mention of employment protections for LGBT workers.
Justin Tanis, spokesperson for the San Francisco-based Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, said the Thursday speech before a joint session of Congress is “absolutely” an opportunity for Obama to address the absence of federal protections for LGBT workers.
“I think any serious plan to get Americans back to work has to look at the forces that are keeping Americans from working — and it’s clear that homophobia and transphobia are still very present in the lives of LGBT people,” Tanis said. “As long as our country fails to address those, discrimination is going to continue.”
While some states have laws that prohibit employers from discriminating against LGBT workers, in many places these protections are non-existent. Firing a person based on sexual orientation is legal in 29 states, while firing someone based on gender identity is legal in 35 states.
Federal legislation that would prohibit discrimination against LGBT people in most situations in the public and private workforce is known as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The bill is sponsored by gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).
Tanis said Obama should express “vigorous support” for the enactment of employment protections such as ENDA in Congress during his much-anticipated jobs speech.
“It’s clear there needs to be a long-term plan for addressing anti-LGBT discrimination in the workplace whether it takes the form of ENDA or other measures,” Tanis said.
Whether President Obama will spend political capital to address the lack of non-discrimination protections for LGBT workers remains to be seen. A White House spokesperson declined to comment on whether the speech would be LGBT-inclusive.
Last week, the monthly jobs report from the Labor Department revealed that the unemployment rate remains fixed at 9.1 percent and a net of zero job growth took place in August.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said last week the proposals Obama will unveil on Thursday would “absolutely” change these numbers into something more positive.
“The president will come forward with specific proposals that by any objective measure would add to growth and job creation in the short term,” Carney said. “And that will be part of a broad package that reflects his commitment to grow the economy now and to build a foundation for economic growth for the future to ensure that we win the future.”
Some LGBT advocates are skeptical that these proposed policy changes would be inclusive of ENDA or, more generally, the lack of federal job protections for LGBT workers.
Richard Socarides, president of Equality Matters, said he thinks the incorporation of LGBT job protections as part of these measures would be “highly unrealistic.”
“I don’t think they will see the connection,” Socarides said. “To be candid, I don’t think it’s a particularly good strategic opportunity. I think that all Americans — including LGBT Americans — want to see the economy improve and for the administration’s policies to create jobs.”
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said she doesn’t know enough about the president’s speech to say whether Obama should address the lack of federal job protections for LGBT Americans.
“I would bet he’s not likely to, and I don’t know enough about the speech to know if he should,” Keisling said. “If it’s a speech just about rebuilding infrastructure, it probably isn’t all that appropriate. If it’s an overall getting people working thing, it may be appropriate.”
Keisling said the most important part of the speech — even for LGBT people — is “there’ll be jobs for us to have because the economy is really, really hurting.”
Still, the jobs speech could be an opportunity for Obama to unveil an administrative action he could take on his own to prevent some LGBT Americans from experiencing discrimination in the workplace.
With Congress unlikely to act on ENDA as long as Republicans remain in control of the House, some LGBT advocates have called for an executive order barring the federal government from contracting with companies that don’t have their own non-discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Carney last week said the proposals Obama would unveil on Thursday would be both legislative and administrative. An executive order barring LGBT job bias among federal contractors could fall into this latter category.
But Carney emphasized that regulatory changes — as opposed to an executive order — would be the administrative means by which the president would address the job situation.
“He can also do things, as he has in the past, administratively that can help the economy grow, that can … relieve businesses from burdensome regulations; other measures he can take administratively that don’t require legislative action, he will continue to do that as well,” Carney said.
Socarides said Obama could unveil an executive order barring LGBT job bias among federal contractors at any time even without the jobs speech as a backdrop,
“Any day and everyday is a good day to do that,” Socarides said. “You don’t need a special day or a special day or a special speech. I would be surprised if they were considering it in the context of a jobs creation speech, but it is important.”
New York
Men convicted of murdering two men in NYC gay bar drugging scheme sentenced
One of the victims, John Umberger, was D.C. political consultant

A New York judge on Wednesday sentenced three men convicted of killing a D.C. political consultant and another man who they targeted at gay bars in Manhattan.
NBC New York notes a jury in February convicted Jayqwan Hamilton, Jacob Barroso, and Robert DeMaio of murder, robbery, and conspiracy in relation to druggings and robberies that targeted gay bars in Manhattan from March 2021 to June 2022.
John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant from D.C., and Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, died. Prosecutors said Hamilton, Barroso, and DeMaio targeted three other men at gay bars.
The jury convicted Hamilton and DeMaio of murdering Umberger. State Supreme Court Judge Felicia Mennin sentenced Hamilton and DeMaio to 40 years to life in prison.
Barroso, who was convicted of killing Ramirez, received a 20 years to life sentence.
National
Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information
Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources

Nine private medical and public health advocacy organizations, including two from D.C., filed a lawsuit on May 20 in federal court in Seattle challenging what it calls the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s illegal deletion of dozens or more of its webpages containing health related information, including HIV information.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, names as defendants Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HHS itself, and several agencies operating under HHS and its directors, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration.
“This action challenges the widespread deletion of public health resources from federal agencies,” the lawsuit states. “Dozens (if not more) of taxpayer-funded webpages, databases, and other crucial resources have vanished since January 20, 2025, leaving doctors, nurses, researchers, and the public scrambling for information,” it says.
“These actions have undermined the longstanding, congressionally mandated regime; irreparably harmed Plaintiffs and others who rely on these federal resources; and put the nation’s public health infrastructure in unnecessary jeopardy,” the lawsuit continues.
It adds, “The removal of public health resources was apparently prompted by two recent executive orders – one focused on ‘gender ideology’ and the other targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) programs. Defendants implemented these executive orders in a haphazard manner that resulted in the deletion (inadvertent or otherwise) of health-related websites and databases, including information related to pregnancy risks, public health datasets, information about opioid-use disorder, and many other valuable resources.”
The lawsuit does not mention that it was President Donald Trump who issued the two executive orders in question.
A White House spokesperson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit.
While not mentioning Trump by name, the lawsuit names as defendants in addition to HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., Matthew Buzzelli, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health; Martin Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Thomas Engels, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration; and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
The 44-page lawsuit complaint includes an addendum with a chart showing the titles or descriptions of 49 “affected resource” website pages that it says were deleted because of the executive orders. The chart shows that just four of the sites were restored after initially being deleted.
Of the 49 sites, 15 addressed LGBTQ-related health issues and six others addressed HIV issues, according to the chart.
“The unannounced and unprecedented deletion of these federal webpages and datasets came as a shock to the medical and scientific communities, which had come to rely on them to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, assist physicians and other clinicians in daily care, and inform the public about a wide range of healthcare issues,” the lawsuit states.
“Health professionals, nonprofit organizations, and state and local authorities used the websites and datasets daily in care for their patients, to provide resources to their communities, and promote public health,” it says.
Jose Zuniga, president and CEO of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC), one of the organizations that signed on as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the deleted information from the HHS websites “includes essential information about LGBTQ+ health, gender and reproductive rights, clinical trial data, Mpox and other vaccine guidance and HIV prevention resources.”
Zuniga added, “IAPAC champions evidence-based, data-informed HIV responses and we reject ideologically driven efforts that undermine public health and erase marginalized communities.”
Lisa Amore, a spokesperson for Whitman-Walker Health, D.C.’s largest LGBTQ supportive health services provider, also expressed concern about the potential impact of the HHS website deletions.
“As the region’s leader in HIV care and prevention, Whitman-Walker Health relies on scientific data to help us drive our resources and measure our successes,” Amore said in response to a request for comment from the Washington Blade.
“The District of Columbia has made great strides in the fight against HIV,” Amore said. “But the removal of public facing information from the HHS website makes our collective work much harder and will set HIV care and prevention backward,” she said.
The lawsuit calls on the court to issue a declaratory judgement that the “deletion of public health webpages and resources is unlawful and invalid” and to issue a preliminary or permanent injunction ordering government officials named as defendants in the lawsuit “to restore the public health webpages and resources that have been deleted and to maintain their web domains in accordance with their statutory duties.”
It also calls on the court to require defendant government officials to “file a status report with the Court within twenty-four hours of entry of a preliminary injunction, and at regular intervals, thereafter, confirming compliance with these orders.”
The health organizations that joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs include the Washington State Medical Association, Washington State Nurses Association, Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Academy Health, Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Fast-Track Cities Institute, International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, National LGBT Cancer Network, and Vermont Medical Society.
The Fast-Track Cities Institute and International Association of Providers of AIDS Care are based in D.C.
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.
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