National
Second lady urges acceptance of LGBT youth
Jill Biden touts Obama administration’s work against bullying

Second lady Jill Biden emphasized acceptance and support in a speech Friday against school bullying before an audience largely made up of parents of LGBT youth.
“There is a direct connection between acceptance and positive, healthy outcomes in every important area of life, including education, mental health, and physical health,” Biden said.
Biden, an educator at Northern Virginia Community College and wife of Vice President Joseph Biden, made the remarks during the opening ceremony for PFLAG’s 2011 national convention, which took place at the Westin Alexandria. PFLAG is an organization that aims to provide a voice for the parents, family and friends of LGBT people.
Amid news stories of gay youths committing suicide after they had been bullied because of their sexual orientation, Biden stressed the importance of instilling a sense of self-confidence in children as they head through their teen years.
“For children who are struggling with understanding their sexual orientation or gender identity, the teen years can be particularly challenging,” Biden said. “And, of course, kids are not always kind to each other during these times, especially when one of them is different.”
As English teacher, Biden said she has students write about themselves in journals and through these entries knows the “pain and anxiety” felt by LGBT students who are bullied. She said this harassment “makes it almost impossible for students to concentrate on their school work.”
Biden said “no child should be subjected” to the kind of bullying that would lead to them to commit suicide and “no parent should suffer that horrific loss.”
In addition to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal and passing hate crimes protection legislation, Biden touted the work the Obama administration has done for LGBT youth, such holding a White House summit on bullying and issuing guidance to schools to combat student harassment and support gay-straight alliances.
“This progress is important, but there is still more to do,” Biden said. “At this critical time for education in our country, we need to ensure that our schools are producing the next generation of American leaders and heroes. We must insure that our classrooms are safer for all students
to learn, grow, and thrive.”
Biden’s speech was well received by those in attendance at the convention. An estimated 300 attendees from across the country took part in events after participating Thursday in a lobby day on Capitol Hill.
Jody Huckaby, PFLAG’s executive director, said Biden’s message “connected the dots” between acceptance and support and “positive mental health and education outcomes.”
“Spending so many years in the classroom, [she] really recognizes when she’s got a student who is LGBT or thinks that they might be that — when the family is accepting — there’s a much, much higher likelihood that they’re going to have a positive education outcome,” Huckaby said.
Rustin Furlow, a gay 21-year-old from Lubbock, Texas, said he thought Biden’s speech was “inspirational” and he related to her remarks about student harassment.
“Going up I experienced bullying,” Furlow said. “Just to hear someone of that caliber mention bullying — it made me feel like people are hearing that — do understand the problem. It was nice to hear someone acknowledge that it is a problem, and we’re trying to do something to fix it.”
Ann Ogg, a 63-year old Littleton, Colo, resident, she said came to the convention to advocate for her adult lesbian daughter and praised Biden’s speech.
“It was really good to get support for our LGBT loved ones from high offices because we want our LGBT people to have equal rights,” Ogg said. “We want them to have the very same rights we have. We think it’s horrible that they don’t. I want my gay daughter to have the very same rights that all the rest of us enjoy.”
Despite the work the Obama administration has done to combat bullying, President Obama has yet to endorse legislation that would help protect LGBT students: the Student Non-Discrimination Act and the Safe Schools Improvement Act. The administration has said it supports the goals of the bills, but has yet to provide full-throated support.
Advocates have been pushing for inclusion of the anti-bullying bills as part of an education measure known as Elementary & Secondary Education Act reauthorization. The Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee approved this legislation on Oct. 20 while leaving out the anti-bullying bills, although their backers pledged to bring them up as amendments on the Senate floor.
Huckaby said “there’s no reason” the Student Non-Discrimination Act and the Safe Schools Improvement Act should left out of education reform.
“We’re talking about life and death for young people,” Huckaby said. “In terms of the Safe Schools Improvement Act and the Student Non-Discrimination Act, there’s no reason why those issues of key pieces of legislation can’t be a part of the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act if that’s the direction that we need to take to get those things accomplished and create safer schools.”
Asked whether he wants the Obama administration to endorse the bills, Huckaby replied, “I think it’s critically important they speak up, and if they take a look at what our opportunities are, I think there are tremendous opportunities right now for them to speak out and to say this legislation that can make a difference.”
PFLAG was among eight LGBT organizations that signed a letter to the leaders on the Senate HELP committee saying they’re withholding support from the education reform bill as it currently stands because it lacks enumerated protections for LGBT students.
Federal Government
RFK Jr.’s HHS report pushes therapy, not medical interventions, for trans youth
‘Discredited junk science’ — GLAAD

A 409-page report released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services challenges the ethics of medical interventions for youth experiencing gender dysphoria, the treatments that are often collectively called gender-affirming care, instead advocating for psychotherapy alone.
The document comes in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order barring the federal government from supporting gender transitions for anyone younger than 19.
“Our duty is to protect our nation’s children — not expose them to unproven and irreversible medical interventions,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement. “We must follow the gold standard of science, not activist agendas.”
While the report does not constitute clinical guidance, its findings nevertheless conflict with not just the recommendations of LGBTQ advocacy groups but also those issued by organizations with relevant expertise in science and medicine.
The American Medical Association, for instance, notes that “empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression.”
Gender-affirming care for transgender youth under standards widely used in the U.S. includes supportive talk therapy along with — in some but not all cases — puberty blockers or hormone treatment.
“The suggestion that someone’s authentic self and who they are can be ‘changed’ is discredited junk science,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “This so-called guidance is grossly misleading and in direct contrast to the recommendation of every leading health authority in the world. This report amounts to nothing more than forcing the same discredited idea of conversion therapy that ripped families apart and harmed gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people for decades.”
GLAAD further notes that the “government has not released the names of those involved in consulting or authoring this report.”
Janelle Perez, executive director of LPAC, said, “For decades, every major medical association–including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics–have affirmed that medical care is the only safe and effective treatment for transgender youth experiencing gender dysphoria.
“This report is simply promoting conversion therapy by a different name – and the American people know better. We know that conversion therapy isn’t actually therapy – it isolates and harms kids, scapegoats parents, and divides families through blame and rejection. These tactics have been used against gay kids for decades, and now the same people want to use them against transgender youth and their families.
“The end result here will be a devastating denial of essential health care for transgender youth, replaced by a dangerous practice that every major U.S. medical and mental health association agree promotes anxiety, depression, and increased risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts.
“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice, and no amount of pressure can force someone to change who they are. We also know that 98% of people who receive transition-related health care continue to receive that health care throughout their lifetime. Trans health care is health care.”
“Today’s report seeks to erase decades of research and learning, replacing it with propaganda. The claims in today’s report would rip health care away from kids and take decision-making out of the hands of parents,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of NCLR. “It promotes the same kind of conversion therapy long used to shame LGBTQ+ people into hating themselves for being unable to change something they can’t change.”
“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice—it’s rooted in biology and genetics,” Minter said. “No amount or talk or pressure will change that.”
Human Rights Campaign Chief of Staff Jay Brown released a statement: “Trans people are who we are. We’re born this way. And we deserve to live our best lives and have a fair shot and equal opportunity at living a good life.
“This report misrepresents the science that has led all mainstream American medical and mental health professionals to declare healthcare for transgender youth to be best practice and instead follows a script predetermined not by experts but by Sec. Kennedy and anti-equality politicians.”
The White House
Trump nominates Mike Waltz to become next UN ambassador
Former Fla. congressman had been national security advisor

President Donald Trump on Thursday announced he will nominate Mike Waltz to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
Waltz, a former Florida congressman, had been the national security advisor.
Trump announced the nomination amid reports that Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, were going to leave the administration after Waltz in March added a journalist to a Signal chat in which he, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other officials discussed plans to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen.
“I am pleased to announce that I will be nominating Mike Waltz to be the next United States ambassador to the United Nations,” said Trump in a Truth Social post that announced Waltz’s nomination. “From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our nation’s Interests first. I know he will do the same in his new role.”
Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as interim national security advisor, “while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department.”
“Together, we will continue to fight tirelessly to make America, and the world, safe again,” said Trump.
Trump shortly after his election nominated U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Trump in March withdrew her nomination in order to ensure Republicans maintained their narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
U.S. Federal Courts
Second federal lawsuit filed against White House passport policy
Two of seven plaintiffs live in Md.

Lambda Legal on April 25 filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of seven transgender and nonbinary people who are challenging the Trump-Vance administration’s passport policy.
The lawsuit, which Lambda Legal filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Baltimore, alleges the policy that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers “has caused and is causing grave and immediate harm to transgender people like plaintiffs, in violation of their constitutional rights to equal protection.”
Two of the seven plaintiffs — Jill Tran and Peter Poe — live in Maryland. The State Department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the federal government are defendants.
“The discriminatory passport policy exposes transgender U.S. citizens to harassment, abuse, and discrimination, in some cases endangering them abroad or preventing them from traveling, by forcing them to use identification documents that share private information against their wishes,” said Lambda Legal in a press release.
Zander Schlacter, a New York-based textile artist and designer, is the lead plaintiff.
The lawsuit notes he legally changed his name and gender in New York.
Schlacter less than a week before President Donald Trump’s inauguration “sent an expedited application to update his legal name on his passport, using form DS-5504.”
Trump once he took office signed an executive order that banned the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers. The lawsuit notes Schlacter received his new passport in February.
“The passport has his correct legal name, but now has an incorrect sex marker of ‘F’ or ‘female,'” notes the lawsuit. “Mr. Schlacter also received a letter from the State Department notifying him that ‘the date of birth, place of birth, name, or sex was corrected on your passport application,’ with ‘sex’ circled in red. The stated reason was ‘to correct your information to show your biological sex at birth.'”
“I, like many transgender people, experience fear of harassment or violence when moving through public spaces, especially where a photo ID is required,” said Schlacter in the press release that announced the lawsuit. “My safety is further at risk because of my inaccurate passport. I am unwilling to subject myself and my family to the threat of harassment and discrimination at the hands of border officials or anyone who views my passport.”
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.
Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an “X” gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.
Lambda Legal represented Zzyym.
The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022.
Trump signed his executive order shortly after he took office in January. Germany, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands are among the countries that have issued travel advisories for trans and nonbinary people who plan to visit the U.S.
A federal judge in Boston earlier this month issued a preliminary injunction against the executive order. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of seven trans and nonbinary people.