National
LGBT groups withhold support from education bill
Orgs say legislation is ‘ideal vehicle’ to address bullying
Several LGBT organizations say they “do not support” the Senate version of education reform legislation as it currently stands due to the lack of protections for LGBT students and what they say is a rollback of federal accountability for schools.
In a letter dated Nov. 1, a group of eight LGBT organizations wrote to leaders on the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee to express “grave concerns” about the Elementary & Secondary Education reauthorization bill and to withhold support from the bill.
“As legal and advocacy organizations committed to ensuring that [LGBT] students, as well as those who are perceived to be LGBT, have access to an education unhindered by discrimination and harassment, we are writing to express our grave concerns with the Elementary and Secondary Education Reauthorization Act of 2011, which we do not support in its current form,” the letter states.
The Senate HELP Committee passed the ESEA reauthorization bill on Oct. 20 with a bipartisan vote of 15-7. However, despite calls from LGBT advocates, measures providing explicit protections for LGBT students known as the Student Non-Discrimination Act and the Safe Schools Improvement Act weren’t included in the larger bill.
The letter has eight co-signers: the American Civil Liberties Union, the Family Equality Council, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, Lambda Legal, the National Black Justice Coalition, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force Action Fund and PFLAG National. The Human Rights Campaign and the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network are not among the co-signers.
The letter, addressed to Senate HELP Committee Chair Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Ranking Member Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), asks the senators to “address our significant concerns” as the legislative process moves forward
The signers criticize the lack of explicit protections for LGBT students in the education reform bill on the basis that studies have shown LGBT students are a vulnerable group and face a higher risk of suicide. The letter says the education bill, intended to update the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, is “the ideal vehicle” to address the problem.
“Discrimination and harassment of LGBT students, and those perceived to be LGBT, is a serious problem in public elementary and secondary school districts across the United States,” the letter states. “Despite this fact, the ESEA Reauthorization Act of 2011 fails to include any express protections for this vulnerable student population, or even to make reference to them.”
The groups write that the need for the federal government and schools to act to address discrimination and harassment of LGBT students “is critical.” Additionally, they urge that the action taken shouldn’t “rely on overly punitive school discipline policies which worsen the problem of the school-to-prison pipeline.”
The groups also say they “share the concerns” of other civil rights organizations, business groups and education officials on what they say is the bill’s “weak accountability system” for schools. Non-LGBT groups involved in education, including the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, have said the legislation doesn’t require states and districts to set measurable goals for students and lacks consequences for states failing to demonstrate continuous improvement.
The letter says proposed rollbacks will “have a particularly harmful impact” on minority students, such as students with disabilities, low-income students and students of color — as well as LGBT students.
“Unfortunately, this reauthorization, in its current form, will permit far too many low-achieving students across the country to slip through the cracks, without any federal accountability,” the letter concludes.
In response to the letter, a Harkin spokesperson said the senator “has long supported efforts to ensure that all children feel safe and secure in our schools.”
“As is well-known and as he emphasized during the Committee’s consideration of the bill to fix NCLB, Chairman Harkin believes that no student should be forced to endure harassment, discrimination, violence, bullying or intimidation for any reason, including their sexual orientation or gender identity, and is an original cosponsor of the Student Non-Discrimination Act,” the spokesperson.
The Student Non-Discrimination Act, or SNDA, would prohibit school activities receiving federal funds from discriminating against or allowing the harassment of LGBT students. During the committee markup of the education reform bill, SNDA’s sponsor, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn) introduced the bill as an amendment but then withdrew the measure before a vote could be held, saying he would introduce the measure on the Senate floor.
The Harkin spokesperson said the senator “is committed to working with Sen. Franken to bring up and pass SNDA as an amendment when the reauthorization of ESEA comes before the full Senate and is hopeful that his colleagues will join him in standing against discrimination, bullying and harassment of any student.”
Enzi’s office didn’t respond to the Washington Blade’s request for comment on the letter or concerns about the lack of protections for LGBT students in the measure.
In addition to SNDA, the Safe Schools Improvement Act, or SSIA, is another bill that would address school bullying. The legislation would require schools receiving federal funds to adopt codes of conduct that prohibit bullying and harassment, including on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill was also offered as an amendment during the markup by its sponsor, Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), who withdrew it before a vote could be held and said he’d bring the measure up on the floor.
Although the education reform bill doesn’t contain either SNDA or SSIA, the legislation addresses bullying under a provision called Successful, Safe and Healthy Schools, which requires schools receiving grants under the program to have student conduct policies that prohibit bullying and harassment.
Ian Thompson, the ACLU’s legislative representative, said the general anti-harassment language in the education reform legislation isn’t enough for the signers of the letter.
“The general anti-harassment language in ESEA is insufficient, as it includes no enumeration, including actual/perceived sexual orientation and gender identity,” Thompson said. “In addition, we feel strongly that it is critically important to bring LGBT students under the protections of federal civil rights law, as SNDA would do.”
The absence of two LGBT groups — HRC and GLSEN — from the list of signers is notable because HRC is the largest LGBT rights organization and GLSEN is the LGBT group that focuses most directly on LGBT students.
Michael Cole-Schwartz, an HRC spokesperson, said the organization shares the concerns expressed in the letter, but didn’t want to sign a missive withholding support for ESEA reauthorization.
“We share the concerns but we do not have a position on the underlying ESEA reauthorization bill therefore we were unable to sign a letter that said we ‘do not support’ it,” Cole-Schwartz said.
Daryl Presgraves, a GLSEN spokesperson, said his organization is working to pass specific pro-LGBT student bills, but backs the organizations that signed the letter.
“Our focus has been specific to SSIA/SNDA, but we support the work of our partners who signed on,” Presgraves said.
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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