National
Carey: Voter suppression could ‘derail’ LGBT progress
Task Force head delivers 2012 State of the Movement address
National Gay & Lesbian Task Force chief Rea Carey (Blade photo by Michael Key)
BALTIMORE — The head of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force on Friday identified efforts to keep minorities from going to the polls on Election Day as the latest tool in the arsenal of anti-gay forces to stop LGBT progress.
Rea Carey, the Task Force’s executive director, said during her 2012 “State of the Movement” address that “the very ability to cast a vote” has been under attack and called on LGBT rights supporters to fight those efforts and bring voters to the polls.
“They could derail our progress for years by focusing on something that our movement could easily mistake as not ‘our’ issue,” Carey said. “Believe me, it is our issue when we or our allies find ourselves without easy access to the polls.”
Carey said executive orders in 14 states and 20 new laws have made it harder for five million people to vote this year. According to Carey, these initiatives are a “systematic effort” to take the vote away from people of color, students, the working poor and unemployed and other groups.
Her views are supported by a report published in December by the Voting Rights Institute, which says new Republican-initiated laws have cut early voting, challenged the citizenship of eligible voters and mandated that voters produce photo ID at the polls.
One such law is Florida’s HB 1355, an omnibus elections overhaul passed after the Tea Party came into power in the state in 2010. In addition to early voting cuts, the law imposes restrictions on non-governmental entities conducting voter registration.
Carey said these efforts — which she called “one of the last desperate ploys by those who can no longer compete with the power of their ideas” — particularly affect LGBT people because they have “a devastating effect on the ability of transgender people to vote” and impact states where marriage equality could be on the ballot in 2012.
“If we do not protect the right to vote, we will not win on immigration, we will not win on non-discrimination, we will not protect affirmative action and we will not win on marriage,” Carey said.
The Task Force chief called on the audience to register voters that anti-gay forces don’t want at the polls and urged voters who are turned away to cast a provisional ballot, post their story on Facebook and Twitter and contact the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice.
Carey made the remarks during the 24th annual Creating Change conference at the Hilton Baltimore, where an estimated 3,000 attendees came to discuss LGBT rights. Conference participants ranged from government officials in suits, female activists wearing combat boots and bloggers in graphic tees. The hotel bathrooms were modified as “gender neutral restroom” to accommodate attendees.
During her speech, Carey offered a litany of accomplishments that the LGBT community has achieved in the past year, including the passage of statewide transgender non-discrimination laws in four states, defeating an anti-trans bill in Maine and the lifting of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Carey also said the Task Force and LGBT advocates had a hand in issues facing a broader range of people, such as beating an anti-choice “personhood” ballot measure in Mississippi and a measure in Maine that would end same-day voter registration.
Carey noted the heavy emphasis that marriage receives in the LGBT rights movement.
“The LGBT movement is not a movement for marriage only,” Carey said. “It is a movement for the full dignity of our lives, for a transformed society.”
“Marriage has motivated our allies and captured the attention of people who weren’t paying attention before,” Carey said. “But someday, when we succeed in nationwide recognition of our marriages, and even along the way, we will likely see that the engagement in our movement will drop off. Severely.”
Carey said in states where marriage equality has been achieved, advocacy groups find they have less attention, engagement — and fewer donations. She said these groups in some cases have had to lay off workers “even while struggling to get attention for other very pressing issues.”
“We have learned that with a win, we usually have to turn right around and defend that win,” Carey said. “We also know that people who aren’t included in that win remain vulnerable to discrimination.”
New York is an example of a state that could be in such a situation. The state legalized same-sex marriage last year, but workplace non-discrimination protections for transgender people haven’t yet been enacted.
“At the Task Force, we say we want more than marriage — there is no singular solution to the many ways we experience discrimination, violence and bigotry,” Carey said. “At the Task Force we insist that immigration, housing, health care, fair wages, Social Security and ending systemic racism and sexism are all LGBT issues.”
Carey referred to the opening song “Defying Gravity” in the musical “Wicked” and compared the struggles faced by the character Elphaba, or the Wicked Witch of the West, to the struggles faced by LGBT people.
“LGBT people have been called a repulsion, a harm to society,” Carey said. “We have been called wicked. The fact that we have made it this far, surviving childhood taunts, the neglect of churches and schools, the laws and policies of a country that have treated us as criminals — this is already a testament to our ability to defy gravity.”
Carey’s speech was well-received by those in audience, and her remarks that marriage shouldn’t be the singular focus of the LGBT rights movement were met with significant applause.
Katherine Acey, a former executive director for the New York City-based Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, said Carey’s speech was “expansive and visionary” and useful because it “laid out everything we’ve accomplished.”
“Her looking at the big picture and looking at how we must stand with all of the members of our community — also allies who are part of our world community — I thought that was striking, the way she delivered that,” Acey said.
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.
New York
Two teens shot steps from Stonewall Inn after NYC Pride parade
One of the victims remains in critical condition
On Sunday night, following the annual NYC Pride March, two girls were shot in Sheridan Square, feet away from the historic Stonewall Inn.
According to an NYPD report, the two girls, aged 16 and 17, were shot around 10:15 p.m. as Pride festivities began to wind down. The 16-year-old was struck in the head and, according to police sources, is said to be in critical condition, while the 17-year-old was said to be in stable condition.
The Washington Blade confirmed with the NYPD the details from the police reports and learned no arrests had been made as of noon Monday.
The shooting took place in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, mere feet away from the most famous gay bar in the city — if not the world — the Stonewall Inn. Earlier that day, hundreds of thousands of people marched down Christopher Street to celebrate 55 years of LGBTQ people standing up for their rights.
In June 1969, after police raided the Stonewall Inn, members of the LGBTQ community pushed back, sparking what became known as the Stonewall riots. Over the course of two days, LGBTQ New Yorkers protested the discriminatory policing of queer spaces across the city and mobilized to speak out — and throw bottles if need be — at officers attempting to suppress their existence.
The following year, LGBTQ people returned to the Stonewall Inn and marched through the same streets where queer New Yorkers had been arrested, marking the first “Gay Pride March” in history and declaring that LGBTQ people were not going anywhere.
New York State Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, whose district includes Greenwich Village, took to social media to comment on the shooting.
“After decades of peaceful Pride celebrations — this year gun fire and two people shot near the Stonewall Inn is a reminder that gun violence is everywhere,” the lesbian lawmaker said on X. “Guns are a problem despite the NRA BS.”
New York
Zohran Mamdani participates in NYC Pride parade
Mayoral candidate has detailed LGBTQ rights platform
Zohran Mamdani, the candidate for mayor of New York City who pulled a surprise victory in the primary contest last week, walked in the city’s Pride parade on Sunday.
The Democratic Socialist and New York State Assembly member published photos on social media with New York Attorney General Letitia James, telling followers it was “a joy to march in NYC Pride with the people’s champ” and to “see so many friends on this gorgeous day.”
“Happy Pride NYC,” he wrote, adding a rainbow emoji.
Mamdani’s platform includes a detailed plan for LGBTQ people who “across the United States are facing an increasingly hostile political environment.”
His campaign website explains: “New York City must be a refuge for LGBTQIA+ people, but private institutions in our own city have already started capitulating to Trump’s assault on trans rights.
“Meanwhile, the cost of living crisis confronting working class people across the city hits the LGBTQIA+ community particularly hard, with higher rates of unemployment and homelessness than the rest of the city.”
“The Mamdani administration will protect LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers by expanding and protecting gender-affirming care citywide, making NYC an LGBTQIA+ sanctuary city, and creating the Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs.”
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