National
New group joins fight against workplace discrimination
Freedom to Work seeks passage of ENDA in two years
Tico Almeida (photo by Scott Henrichsen)
A new group has formed to push for passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and its leaders hope to disband after achieving their primary legislative goal in just two years.
The organization, called Freedom to Work, is headed by Tico Almeida, a civil rights litigator who served as ENDA’s lead counsel on the U.S. House Education & Labor Committee from 2007 to 2010.
In an interview with the Washington Blade, Almeida, who’s gay, said he’s personally committed to the passage of ENDA because he’s worked on workplace discrimination issues for several years and cares deeply about the problem.
“My legal career has been about workplace justice issues — not just for LGBT people — but on wage and hour issues, on immigrant workplace issues,” Almeida said. “My passion lies in workplace fairness and that’s what I want to be working in the next few years.”
Joe Racalto, Freedom to Work’s vice president for public policy and development, comes to the organization after working as a senior policy adviser for more than a decade for gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).
“Few, if any, issues have dominated my professional and personal life like ENDA,” Racalto said. “I am joining the team at Freedom to Work because I don’t want LGBT workplace issues to get left behind any longer.”
Discriminating against workers — or even firing them — is legal on the basis of sexual orientation in 29 states and on the basis of gender identity in 35 states.
As it currently stands, ENDA would provide federal protections against this kind of discrimination in most situations against LGBT people in the private and public workforce. The legislation is sponsored by Frank in the House and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) in the Senate.
Almeida said the first step for Freedom to Work before the start of the next Congress over the course of the next 14 months is building up its speaker’s bureau of LGBT people who’ve experienced workplace discrimination.
The personal stories of these people in the workplace, Almeida said, will help match statistics and studies showing the problem of workplace discrimination “with compelling stories to personalize the issue.”
“We don’t have that many recent compelling stories to tell — especially compared to the successful advocacy that there was done to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ in which dozens and dozens of service members were telling their stories to national media, to newspapers both local and national throughout the course of the year to build up toward repeal,” Almeida said.
Jarrod Chlapowski, development and outreach director for Servicemembers United, said educational and personal stories helped in the effort to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and should contribute to the campaign to pass ENDA.
“In every movement, real momentum begins when the political climate is not so favorable and transformational figures choose to lay the basic educational groundwork from which a critical mass for change can be achieved,” Chlapowski said. “This was the model used by Servicemembers United in the movement to repeal [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’], and I am pleased and exhilarated that lessons and tactics learned in the [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’] repeal fight are finally being utilized in the movement for full workplace equality.”
Chlapowski is a member of Freedom to Work’s national advisory board and said he’s honored to be part of the organization as it “moves forward with its ambitious vision.”
The organization already has one LGBT individual as a member of its speaker’s bureau who’s experienced workplace discrimination and is calling for passage of ENDA.
Ronald Crump, a sergeant for the Los Angeles Police Department, is a founding member of the bureau and says he experienced discrimination while on the job as a police officer.
After his supervisor targeted him with anti-gay harassment and insults, Crump complained to his superiors, but they responded with further retaliation.
“I was retaliated against and received a transfer that amounted to a demotion after I complained to the L.A.P.D. that my direct supervisor was harassing me for being gay,” Crump said.
According to Crump, he was told by his supervisor: “I was a religion major at Liberty University — Jerry Falwell would roll over in his grave if he knew I hired you.”
Because such discrimination is illegal under California state law, Crump was able to take his claims to a jury in a Los Angeles courthouse and prevailed earlier this year. However, the same legal action wouldn’t be possible in many places in the country.
“I am grateful that earlier this year I got my day in court to prove my case of retaliation, and a jury of my peers agreed with me and awarded a significant verdict,” Crump said. “That was possible only because California laws guarantee LGBT employees the freedom to work without discrimination. If I had worked as a police officer in Philadelphia, Miami, St. Louis or Houston, I never would have gotten my day in court. That’s why we need ENDA.”
Highlighting these stories is what Freedom to Work is focusing on over the course of the 112th Congress. Almeida said he thinks passing ENDA before the end of next year will be a “Hail Mary” and the work for the time being will be on spreading personal stories “so that we start the next Congress much better prepared.”
“And by telling those stories, we think we will change hearts and minds and convince even more Americans — who already overwhelmingly support the bill — but even more Americans that this is the right policy and convince more lawmakers that they should vote ‘yes,'” Almeida said.
Asked when he thinks ENDA will become law, Almeida made a pledge for his organization: Freedom to Work will dissolve after ENDA has been passed into law and is hoping to do so before its two-year anniversary.
“We will exist for the sole purpose of increasing public education about LGBT workplace discrimination and for passing ENDA, and will disband after the statute goes into effect,” Almeida said. “So, it is our goal and would be an enormous success if we dissolve Freedom to Work by our two-year anniversary in the fall of 2013.”
Almeida acknowledged that passage of ENDA might not happen by that time, but said he thinks passage would be a “solid accomplishment” even if it occurred at a later time.
“If it took three years or four years, I still think that would be a solid accomplishment and we would still be very happy with the outcome and dissolve the organization that way,” Almeida said.
Any oversight role that would be needed after ENDA is passed, Almeida said, would be fulfilled by the private bar and other LGBT groups.
“It will always be the case for all civil rights statutes that courts will roll back advances, and Congress may have to come out and fix or improve statutes, and there are a large number of civil rights groups within the LGBT community, outside of it, lawyers’ groups that monitor those things and work on enforcement,” Almeida said.
One issue with ENDA that has instigated discussion — even heated conflict — within the LGBT community is the inclusion of gender identity language in the legislation.
In 2007, Frank dropped the gender identity protections in the legislation after he determined the votes were lacking in the 110th Congress to pass an inclusive version of the legislation.
The House passed the measure 235-184, but the removal of the language caused a firestorm in the LGBT community. The legislation never saw action in the Senate.
Almeida called the inclusion of both sexual orientation and gender identity language “absolutely essential” ingredients.
“It’s a matter of fairness, it’s a matter of unity and solidarity in our community and it’s the best policy,” Almeida said.
Concurrent with the goal of passing ENDA, Freedom to Work also aims to convince President Obama to take administrative action to address workplace discrimination against LGBT people.
Along with other advocates, the organization is pushing for an executive order prohibiting federal money from going to contractors and suppliers that don’t have their own non-discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
“In the next year, one of our main policy areas of focus will be encouraging the Obama administration to create and amend the executive order for federal contractors,” Almeida said. “We will do public education through op-eds, blogs, other social media to increase awareness about how such an executive order will save U.S. taxpayer money and protect LGBT Americans’ freedom to work for federal contractors.”
The order has been seen as an interim alternative to passing ENDA as long as Republicans remain in control of the U.S. House, but Almeida said the legislation and the order are “completely complementary.”
“That is a goal worth pursuing in and of itself because the executive order will have real enforcement powers that the Department of Labor can use on behalf of real life victims of workplace discrimination even before ENDA passes, and even after ENDA passes,” Almeida said.
Having both the order and law in place would provide two avenues for LGBT people seeking remedies for discrimination they’ve experienced in the workplace.
The directive would provide recourse through the Department of Labor while ENDA would provide recourse through the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Other workers — including racial minorities and women —have both options to protect them.
Almeida added the order will “build political momentum” and raise the visibility of LGBT workplace discrimination issues to “make getting ENDA through Congress even easier.”
The Obama administration hasn’t said whether it would be open to issuing such an executive order. Still, Almeida said he’s “optimistic” the administration will come through with the directive before the end of the Obama’s first term.
“I’m optimistic because of the Obama administration’s strong record on LGBT issues in the past three years and I’m optimistic because this politically is far easier than some of the things they have already done,” Almeida said.
Federal Government
Protesters say SAVE Act targets voters, transgender youth
Bill described as ‘Jim Crow 2.0’
Members of Congress, advocates, and people from across the country gathered outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday to protest proposed federal legislation that voting rights activists have deemed “Jim Crow 2.0.”
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require in-person proof of citizenship for anyone seeking to vote in U.S. elections.
President Donald Trump has also pushed for the proposed legislation to include a section that would ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender 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.
In addition to changing voter registration requirements, the bill would 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 have — effectively restricting access to the ballot. It would also ban online voter registration, DMV voter registration efforts, and mail-in voter registration.
A 2021 investigation by the Associated Press found that fewer than 475 people voted illegally or improperly, a tiny fraction of the estimated 160 million Americans who voted in the 2020 election.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke at the event.
“It will kick millions of American citizens off the rolls. And they don’t even require you to be told,” the highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate told protesters and reporters outside the Capitol. “If this law passes — and it won’t — you’re gonna show up in November … and they’ll say… sorry, you’re no longer on the voting rolls.”
He, like many other speakers, emphasized the bill in the context of American history, pointing to what he described as its racist roots and its impact on Black and brown Americans.
“I have called this act, over and over again, Jim Crow 2.0 … because they know it’s the truth.”
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) was one of the lawmakers leading opposition to the legislation and spoke at the rally.
“It’s not just voting rights that are on the line — our democracy is on the line,” the California lawmaker said. “It’s not a voter I.D. bill. It’s a bait and switch bill.”
He added historical context, noting the significance of voting rights legislation passed more than 60 years ago. In 1965, Alabama civil rights activists marched to protest barriers to voter registration. Alabama state troopers violently attacked peaceful demonstrators at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, using tear gas, clubs, and whips against more than 500 — mostly Black — protesters.
“61 years ago — not to the day — but this week, President Lyndon Johnson came to the Capitol and addressed a joint session of Congress in the wake of Bloody Sunday and pushed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act,” Padilla said. “61 years later, Donald Trump and this Republican majority wants to take us backwards. We’re not gonna let that happen.”
U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) also spoke, emphasizing that he views the effort as a Republican-led and Trump-backed attempt to restrict voting access, particularly among Black, brown, and predominantly Democratic communities.
“President Trump told Republicans when they were meeting behind closed doors that ‘The SAVE Act will guarantee Republicans win the midterms and ensure they do not lose an election for 50 years,’” Luján said. “The first time I think Donald Trump’s been honest … This voter suppression bill is only that. Taking away vote by mail? I hope my Republican colleagues from states that voted for Donald Trump or where vote by mail is popular have the courage and the backbone to stand up and say no to this nonsense, because their constituents are going to push back.”
U.S. Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) also spoke.
“Our Republican colleagues have already cut Medicaid, Medicare, people don’t know how they’re gonna be able to afford energy,” she said, providing context for the broader political moment. “We’re in the middle of a war that they can’t even get straight while we’re in it and don’t have a way to get out of it. And we are now faced with defending our democracy?”
She then showed the crowd something that she said has been with her throughout her political journey in Washington.
“I brought with me something that I carried on the day that I was sworn into the House of Representatives when I was elected in 2016, and I carried it with me on the day that I was sworn in as United States senator. And I also carried it with me when I was trapped up in the gallery on Jan. 6 and all I could think to do was pray … This document allowed my great great great grandfather, who had been enslaved in Georgia, to have the right to vote. We took this and turned it into a scarf. It is the returns of qualified voters and reconstruction code from 1867. This is my proof of what we’ve been through. This is also our inspiration.”
“I got to travel between the Edmund Pettus Bridge two times. And even as I thought about this moment, I recognized that while we wish we weren’t in it, while we don’t know why we’re in it, I do know we were made for it … So I came today to tell you that, um, just like the leader said, that he calls it Jim Crow 2.0. I call it Jim Crow 2.NO.”
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy organization in the U.S., also spoke, highlighting the impact of the bill’s proposed provisions affecting trans people.
“This bill is not about saving America. This bill is about stealing an election. This bill is about suppressing voters,” Robinson said. “This bill not only tries to disenfranchise voters that deserve their right to vote, it also tries to criminalize trans kids and their families … It tries to criminalize doctors providing medically necessary care for our trans youth.”
The SAVE Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 11 but has not yet been considered in the U.S. Senate.
Idaho
Idaho advances bill to restrict bathroom access for transgender residents
HB 752 passed in state House of Representatives on Monday
The Idaho House of Representatives passed House Bill 752 on Monday, a measure that would make it a crime for a person to use a bathroom other than the one designated for their “biological sex.”
The story was first reported by the Idaho Capitol Sun after the bill cleared the House.
House Bill 752 would make it a criminal offense — either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the number of prior offenses — for individuals who “knowingly and willfully” enter a bathroom or changing room designated for the opposite sex.
The bill would apply to public buildings, including government-owned spaces, and places of “public accommodation,” a category that includes private businesses.
According to the bill’s text, it would “prohibit a person from entering a restroom or changing room designated for the opposite sex; provide a penalty; provide exceptions; define terms; and declare an emergency and provide an effective date.”
A first offense would be a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in prison. A second or subsequent offense within five years would be a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.
The bill passed in a 54–15 vote on Monday. Six Republicans broke with their party’s majority to join nine Democrats in opposing the measure.
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Cornel Rasor, a Republican from Sagle near the Washington-Idaho border, told House lawmakers that the legislation is intended to protect women and girls.
“It prevents discomfort and voyeurism escalation and assaults, while preserving single-user options and narrow exceptions so no one is denied access for emergency aid,” Rasor said.
State Rep. Chris Mathias, a Democrat from Boise, disagreed, arguing that the legislation would unfairly target transgender Idahoans.
“The truth of the matter is — and I know a lot of people don’t want to say it — but forcing people who don’t look like the sex they were assigned at birth, or transgender folks, to use other people’s bathrooms is going to put a lot of people in danger,” Mathias said.
The Idaho American Civil Liberties Union made a statement about the bill following its passage.
“Idaho lawmakers continue pushing these harmful, invasive bathroom laws, yet cannot present credible evidence that transgender people using gender-aligned bathrooms threaten public safety,” the Idaho ACLU said. “The bill does nothing to address real criminal acts, such as sexual assault or voyeurism, and disregards concerns from law enforcement about the burden enforcement would place on local resources.”
In addition to human rights advocates, who have spoken out against similar bills advancing in state legislatures across the country, Idaho law enforcement groups have also opposed the measure. They argue that the way the legislation is written would “pose significant practical enforcement challenges,” noting that officers are tasked with maintaining public safety — not conducting gender checks or policing bathroom access.
During a committee hearing last week, law enforcement representatives and several trans Idahoans testified that the bill would make many residents less safe.
“Officers responding to a complaint would be placed in the difficult position of determining an individual’s biological sex in order to enforce the statute,” Idaho Fraternal Order of Police President Bryan Lovell wrote. “In many circumstances, there is no clear or reasonable way for officers to make that determination without engaging in questioning or investigative actions that could be viewed as invasive and inappropriate.”
The Idaho Sheriffs’ Association requested that lawmakers amend the bill to require that individuals be given an opportunity to leave a bathroom immediately before facing potential prosecution.
The bill now heads to the Idaho Senate for consideration. To become law, it must pass both chambers and avoid a veto from the governor.
A separate bathroom bill, House Bill 607, which would be enforced through civil lawsuits, passed the House last month but has not yet received a committee hearing in the Senate.
State Department
Report: US to withhold HIV aid to Zambia unless mineral access expanded
New York Times obtained Secretary of State Marco Rubio memo
The State Department is reportedly considering withholding assistance for Zambians with HIV unless the country’s government allows the U.S. to access more of its minerals.
The New York Times on Monday reported Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a memo to State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs staffers wrote the U.S. “will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale.” The newspaper said it obtained a copy of the letter.
Zambia is a country in southern Africa that borders Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Times notes upwards of 1.3 million Zambians receive daily HIV medications through PEPFAR. The newspaper reported Rubio in his memo said the Trump-Vance administration could “significantly cut assistance” as soon as May.
“Reports of (the) State Department withholding lifesaving HIV treatment in return for mining concessions in Zambia does not make us safer, stronger, or more prosperous,” said U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Tuesday. “Monetizing innocent people’s lives further undermines U.S. global leadership and is just plain wrong.”
The Washington Blade has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Zambia received breakthrough HIV prevention drug through PEPFAR
Rubio on Jan. 28, 2025, issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during a freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, 2025, has severely impacted their work.
The State Department last September announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir in countries with high prevalence rates. Zambia two months later received the first doses of the breakthrough HIV prevention drug.
Kenya and Uganda are among the African countries have signed health agreements with the U.S. since the Trump-Vance administration took office.
The Times notes the countries that signed these agreements pledged to increase health spending. The Blade last month reported LGBTQ rights groups have questioned whether these agreements will lead to further exclusion and government-sanctioned discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
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