National
Catching up with gay locals in New Hampshire
Some pledge to support Obama; others favor Romney

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Chatting with gay and lesbian locals, one thing they seem to agree on is their newly won marriage rights shouldn’t factor into presidential politics.
Otherwise, customers at Manchester’s gay bars were divided over their pick for president, with some favoring President Obama and others choosing among the GOP field.
Two patrons at Element Lounge expressed their support for Obama as they enjoyed drinks with friends and others danced to local amateurs singing on karaoke night.
Alicia Appleton, a lesbian factory worker, said she plans to vote for Obama in the Democratic primary even though he’s the only serious candidate on the ticket for that party.
“If he’s on the ballot, I’ll vote for him,” Appleton said. “Obama is a person, I believe, that listens to both sides of the spectrum — whether you’re against something or for something. He sits and he listens to both sides, and then he tries to compromise what should be done about issues.”
As for what she thinks about the Republicans, Appleton said, “I don’t pay attention to the Republicans because … I believe they’re one-sided — they don’t listen to what the people have to say; they just listen to what their beliefs are. Like what they think is right and not what the people want.”
Barry Leger, 27, a personal service representative at the Catholic Medical Center, said he’s likely to cast his ballot in the Republican primary for a candidate who’s considered a tremendous long-shot: Fred Karger.
“I’m not sure if I’m even going to vote at this time, but if I were to vote, Fred Karger would get my vote because he’s the first gay Republican to be running for office, so I would stand up for that,” Leger said.
Leger said he’s never voted in a primary before, but voted for Obama in the general election in 2008 and expressed satisfaction with Obama’s performance over the last three years.
“I think he’s done the best job that he can because he was handed a lot of shit,” Leger said. “The only thing he could do in four years was put Band-Aids on it. There’s no way he could fix it in four years, but I think he’s trying to do the best he can, and I will probably vote for him again because the Republicans just have such an ancient way of thinking.”
When the general election rolls arounds in November, Leger said he’ll likely vote for Obama because he’ll want to do “anything to keep a Republican out of office.”
“I feel a lot of the Republican candidates are very hypocritical because they all talk about how there’s going to be a change and freedom for all Americans, but they say they’re trying to repeal gay marriage in states like New Hampshire,” Leger said. “As a gay American, why would I vote for somebody who stands for that?”
At The Breezeway bar a few blocks down Elm Street, another gay man said he plans to stick with Obama as he and others downed drinks while Madonna’s “Vogue” played in the background.
Bob Sheridan, a gay 57-year-old retired server, expressed similar support for Obama — saying he backed him in the 2008 Democratic primary.
“He came into a lot of shit,” Sheridan said. “His inaugural address, he was like, ‘You know it’s gonna take time.’ I knew it’s gonna take time, and a lot of people are upset that it’s taking too long. I mean, gimme a break. Everything’s starting to turn around now.”
Sheridan accused Republicans of withholding credit that Obama deserves for his accomplishments. Noting that recent numbers from the Department of Labor showed an increase of 200,000 jobs, Sheridan said the Republican response was “Well, that wasn’t because of Obama.”
“Republicans have done everything to kill Obama,” Sheridan said. “And I think a lot of Americans are naive, and they go by what they hear, and they’ve got like five, six, seven Republican candidates running for the nomination all slamming him. And I think they have a habit of just thinking what they hear and then not looking at the total picture.”
On gay rights, Sheridan said he’s satisfied with Obama’s accomplishments. But his view on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is a different story. A former Massachusetts resident, Sheridan sees a big change in how Romney is approaching the LGBT community today.
“He ran for governor courting the gay community, and he won,” Sheridan said. “Now he’s looking for the conservative vote, so he’s against the gay community. I mean, I’ve seen it being from Massachusetts and moving into New Hampshire. I’m like, who’s he trying to fool? The Republican conservatives? The independents? I don’t know.”
In a debate on Sunday, Romney said in response to a question that he favors “full rights” for gay people. But his campaign seemed to contradict that statement later in the week when it disavowed a 2002 Pride flier issued by Romney’s campaign that read, “All citizens deserve equal rights, regardless of their sexual preference.”
Obama doesn’t support marriage rights for gay couples, but Sheridan said he isn’t disappointed by that position because he’s lukewarm on the marriage issue.
“I don’t think there’s any need,” Sheridan said. “If there’s two guys who are really interested and want to be married, fine. Civil union, marriage, fine. I, myself, I don’t think I could ever marry another man.”
But the exception among those who are supportive of Obama was Ryan Lantagne, a gay 27-year-old bill collector. Smoking with friends outside Element Lounge, Lantagne, a Democrat, said he thinks Obama has been a failure.
“I feel he failed the country in a few ways,” Lantagne said. “I know he had a lot to handle when it came to taking over for President Bush, but I think that he didn’t do a very good job of anything. The job numbers are still down, and a lot of the country is in bad standing, so I just hope something can give and Obama wasn’t the option and is still not the option.”
Lantagne said he hasn’t decided which candidate to support and may not even vote in the primary, but said he’s leaning toward Romney.
“He’s raised a very political family,” Lantagne said. “He’s strong-willed. He knows what he’s doing. He’s got a very good outlook for the country. … It’s really tough to tell who’s going to be the most supportive candidate if elected.”
The bar patrons also weighed in on potential repeal of the state’s same-sex marriage law. The legislature is likely to vote this month on repealing the law, and the Republican supermajority may have enough votes to override Gov. John Lynch’s (D) promised veto of the measure.
Leger said he was particularly unhappy with the Republican candidates’ decision to weigh in on possible repeal of New Hampshire’s same-sex marriage law.
“Candidates like Mitt Romney and all the others who want to take it away from us,” Leger said. “I don’t understand how it affects them because they’re heterosexuals, but if two gay people marry, why does it affect them? They can’t give a straight answer.”
Romney and Rick Perry have expressed support for repealing the marriage law. The White House hasn’t commented on the repeal effort.
Sheridan said he doesn’t think there will be enough support in the state to undo the law because “there’s too many gay Republicans in New Hampshire.”
“There a lot of Republicans in New Hampshire that are for gay rights,” Sheridan said. “I have two daughters. One of them is a Republican. One of them is a Democrat. My Republican daughter believes in gay rights.”
Federal Government
Treasury Department has a gay secretary but LGBTQ staff are under siege
Agency reverses course on LGBTQ inclusion under out Secretary Scott Bessent

A former Treasury Department employee who led the agency’s LGBTQ employee resource group says the removal of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) from its discrimination complaint forms was merely a formalization of existing policy shifts that had already taken hold following the second inauguration of President Donald Trump and his appointment of Scott Bessent — who is gay — to lead the agency.
Christen Boas Hayes, who served on the policy team at Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) from 2020 until March of this year, told the Washington Blade during a phone interview last week that the agency had already stopped processing internal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaints on the basis of anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
“So the way that the forms are changing is a procedural recognition of something that’s already happening,” said Hayes. “Internally, from speaking to two EEO staff members, the changes are already taking place from an EEO perspective on what kind of cases will be found to have the basis for a complaint.”
The move, they said, comes amid the deterioration of support structures for LGBTQ workers at the agency since the administration’s early rollout of anti-LGBTQ executive orders, which led to “a trickle down effect of how each agency implements those and on what timeline,” decisions “typically made by the assistant secretary of management’s office and then implemented by the appropriate offices.”
At the end of June, a group of U.S. House Democrats including several out LGBTQ members raised alarms after a Federal Register notice disclosed Treasury’s plans to revise its complaint procedures. Through the agency’s Office of Civil Rights and EEO, the agency would eliminate SOGI as protected categories on the forms used by employees to initiate claims of workplace discrimination.
But Hayes’s account reveals that the paperwork change followed months of internal practice, pursuant to a wave of layoffs targeting DEI personnel and a chilling effect on LGBTQ organizing, including through ERGs.
Hayes joined Treasury’s FinCEN in 2020 as the agency transitioned into the Biden-Harris administration, working primarily on cryptocurrency regulation and emerging technologies until they accepted a “deferred resignation” offer, which was extended to civil servants this year amid drastic staffing cuts.
“It was two things,” Hayes said. “One was the fact that the policy work that I was very excited about doing was going to change in nature significantly. The second part was that the environment for LGBTQ staff members was increasingly negative after the release of the executive orders,” especially for trans and nonbinary or gender diverse employees.
“At the same time,” Hayes added, “having been on the job for four years, I also knew this year was the year that I would leave Treasury. I was a good candidate for [deferred resignation], because I was already planning on leaving, but the pressures that emerged following the change in administration really pushed me to accelerate that timeline.”
Some ERGs die by formal edict, others by a thousand cuts
Hayes became involved with the Treasury LGBTQ ERG shortly after joining the agency in 2020, when they reached out to the group’s then-president — “who also recently took the deferred resignation.”
“She said that because of the pressure that ERGs had faced under the first Trump administration, the group was rebuilding, and I became the president of the group pretty quickly,” Hayes said. “Those pressures have increased in the second Trump administration.”
One of the previous ERG board members had left the agency after encountering what Hayes described as “explicitly transphobic” treatment from supervisors during his gender transition. “His supervisors denied him a promotion,” and, “importantly, he did not have faith in the EEO complaint process” to see the issues with discrimination resolved, Hayes said. “And so he decided to just leave, which was, of course, such a loss for Treasury and our Employee Resource Group and all of our employees at Treasury.”
The umbrella LGBTQ ERG that Hayes led included hundreds of members across the agency, they said, and was complemented by smaller ERGs at sub-agencies like the IRS and FinCEN — several of which, Hayes said, were explicitly told to cease operations under the new administration.
Hayes did not receive any formal directive to shutter Treasury’s ERG, but described an “implicit” messaging campaign meant to shut down the group’s activities without issuing anything in writing.
“The suggestion was to stop emailing about anything related to the employee resource group, to have meetings outside of work hours, to meet off of Treasury’s campus, and things like that,” they said. “So obviously that contributes to essentially not existing functionally. Because whereas we could have previously emailed our members comfortably to announce a happy hour or a training or something like that, now they have to text each other personally to gather, which essentially makes it a defunct group.”
Internal directories scrubbed, gender-neutral restrooms removed
Hayes said the dismantling of DEI staff began almost immediately after the executive orders. Employees whose position descriptions included the terms “diversity, equity, and inclusion” were “on the chopping block,” they said. “That may differ from more statutorily mandated positions in the OMWI office or the EEO office.”
With those staff gone, so went the infrastructure that enabled ERG programming and community-building. “The people that made our employee resource group events possible were DEI staff that were fired. And so, it created an immediate chilling effect on our employee resource group, and it also, of course, put fear into a lot of our members’ hearts over whether or not we would be able to continue gathering as a community or supporting employees in a more practical way going forward. And it was just, really — it was really sad.”
Hayes described efforts to erase the ERGs from internal communication channels and databases. “They also took our information off internal websites so nobody could find us as lawyers went through the agency’s internal systems to scrub DEI language and programs,” they said.
Within a week, Hayes said, the administration had removed gender-neutral restrooms from Main Treasury, removed third-gender markers from internal databases and forms, and made it more difficult for employees with nonbinary IDs to access government buildings.
“[They] made it challenging for people with X gender markers on identification documents to access Treasury or the White House by not recognizing their gender marker on the TWAVES and WAVES forms.”
LGBTQ staff lack support and work amid a climate of isolation
The changes have left many LGBTQ staff feeling vulnerable — not only because of diminished workplace inclusion, but due to concerns about job security amid the administration’s reductions in force (RIFs).
“Plenty of people are feeling very stressed, not only about retaining their jobs because of the layoffs and pending questions around RIFs, but then also wondering if they will be included in RIF lists because they’re being penalized somehow for being out at work,” Hayes said. “People wonder if their name will be given, not because they’re in a tranche of billets being laid off, but because of their gender identity or sexual orientation.”
In the absence of functional ERGs, Hayes said, LGBTQ employees have been cut off from even informal networks of support.
“Employees [are] feeling like it’s harder to find members of their own community because there’s no email anymore to ask when the next event is or to ask about navigating healthcare or other questions,” they said. “If there is no ERG to go to to ask for support for their specific issue, that contributes to isolation, which contributes to a worse work environment.”
Hayes said they had not interacted directly with Secretary Bessent, but they and others observed a shift from the previous administration. “It is stark to see that our first ‘out’ secretary did not host a Pride event this year,” they said. “For the last three years we’ve flown the rainbow Pride flag above Treasury during Pride. And it was such a celebration among staff and Secretary Yellen and the executive secretary’s office were super supportive.”
“Employees notice changes like that,” they added. “Things like the fact that the Secretary’s official bio says ‘spouse’ instead of ‘husband.’ It makes employees wonder if they too should be fearful of being their full selves at work.”
The Blade contacted the Treasury Department with a request for comment outlining Hayes’s allegations, including the removal of inclusive infrastructure, the discouragement of ERG activity, the pre-formalization of EEO policy changes, and the targeting of DEI personnel. As of publication, the agency has not responded.
U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court to consider bans on trans athletes in school sports
27 states have passed laws limiting participation in athletics programs

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear two cases involving transgender youth challenging bans prohibiting them from participating in school sports.
In Little v. Hecox, plaintiffs represented by the ACLU, Legal Voice, and the law firm Cooley are challenging Idaho’s 2020 ban, which requires sex testing to adjudicate questions of an athlete’s eligibility.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals described the process in a 2023 decision halting the policy’s enforcement pending an outcome in the litigation. The “sex dispute verification process, whereby any individual can ‘dispute’ the sex of any female student athlete in the state of Idaho,” the court wrote, would “require her to undergo intrusive medical procedures to verify her sex, including gynecological exams.”
In West Virginia v. B.P.J., Lambda Legal, the ACLU, the ACLU of West Virginia, and Cooley are representing a trans middle school student challenging the Mountain State’s 2021 ban on trans athletes.
The plaintiff was participating in cross country when the law was passed, taking puberty blockers that would have significantly reduced the chances that she could have a physiological advantage over cisgender peers.
“Like any other educational program, school athletic programs should be accessible for everyone regardless of their sex or transgender status,” said Joshua Block, senior counsel for the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Project. “Trans kids play sports for the same reasons their peers do — to learn perseverance, dedication, teamwork, and to simply have fun with their friends,” Block said.
He added, “Categorically excluding kids from school sports just because they are transgender will only make our schools less safe and more hurtful places for all youth. We believe the lower courts were right to block these discriminatory laws, and we will continue to defend the freedom of all kids to play.”
“Our client just wants to play sports with her friends and peers,” said Lambda Legal Senior Counsel Tara Borelli. “Everyone understands the value of participating in team athletics, for fitness, leadership, socialization, and myriad other benefits.”
Borelli continued, “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit last April issued a thoughtful and thorough ruling allowing B.P.J. to continue participating in track events. That well-reasoned decision should stand the test of time, and we stand ready to defend it.”
Shortly after taking control of both legislative chambers, Republican members of Congress tried — unsuccessfully — to pass a national ban like those now enforced in 27 states since 2020.
Federal Government
UPenn erases Lia Thomas’s records as part of settlement with White House
University agreed to ban trans women from women’s sports teams

In a settlement with the Trump-Vance administration announced on Tuesday, the University of Pennsylvania will ban transgender athletes from competing and erase swimming records set by transgender former student Lia Thomas.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found the university in violation of Title IX, the federal rights law barring sex based discrimination in educational institutions, by “permitting males to compete in women’s intercollegiate athletics and to occupy women-only intimate facilities.”
The statement issued by University of Pennsylvania President J. Larry Jameson highlighted how the law’s interpretation was changed substantially under President Donald Trump’s second term.
“The Department of Education OCR investigated the participation of one transgender athlete on the women’s swimming team three years ago, during the 2021-2022 swim season,” he wrote. “At that time, Penn was in compliance with NCAA eligibility rules and Title IX as then interpreted.”
Jameson continued, “Penn has always followed — and continues to follow — Title IX and the applicable policy of the NCAA regarding transgender athletes. NCAA eligibility rules changed in February 2025 with Executive Orders 14168 and 14201 and Penn will continue to adhere to these new rules.”
Writing that “we acknowledge that some student-athletes were disadvantaged by these rules” in place while Thomas was allowed to compete, the university president added, “We recognize this and will apologize to those who experienced a competitive disadvantage or experienced anxiety because of the policies in effect at the time.”
“Today’s resolution agreement with UPenn is yet another example of the Trump effect in action,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. “Thanks to the leadership of President Trump, UPenn has agreed both to apologize for its past Title IX violations and to ensure that women’s sports are protected at the university for future generations of female athletes.”
Under former President Joe Biden, the department’s Office of Civil Rights sought to protect against anti-LGBTQ discrimination in education, bringing investigations and enforcement actions in cases where school officials might, for example, require trans students to use restrooms and facilities consistent with their birth sex or fail to respond to peer harassment over their gender identity.
Much of the legal reasoning behind the Biden-Harris administration’s positions extended from the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court case Bostock v. Clayton County, which found that sex-based discrimination includes that which is based on sexual orientation or gender identity under Title VII rules covering employment practices.
The Trump-Vance administration last week put the state of California on notice that its trans athlete policies were, or once were, in violation of Title IX, which comes amid the ongoing battle with Maine over the same issue.
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