National
Santorum’s trusted gay ‘friend and confidante’
Despite calling himself a political commentator, gay former Santorum staffer Robert Traynham refuses to talk to gay media
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is back in the limelight after sweeping Tuesday’s GOP primaries and caucuses in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri. Most voters are aware of Santorum’s abysmal record on LGBT-related issues. He was a leading supporter of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and even declared that overturning the nation’s sodomy laws would mean Americans had the right to “bigamy, polygamy and incest.”
But what many don’t remember is that one of Santorum’s top aides and closest advisers in the Senate was an openly gay man, Robert Traynham. The Blade has reached out to Traynham in recent weeks but he declined our interview requests. He now describes himself as a political commentator and has appeared on MSNBC.
Below is a story the Blade published in July 2005 on Santorum and Traynham.
Santorum defends outed gay staffer
Anti-gay senator calls aide ‘a trusted friend and confidante’
By LOU CHIBBARO JR.
U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), considered one of the strongest opponents of gay civil rights in Congress, acknowledged to the media last week that his chief spokesperson is a gay man who he considers an “exemplary” employee and “trusted friend.”
News that Santorum’s communications director, Robert Traynham, is gay and has been open about his sexual orientation to Santorum since he joined the senator’s staff eight years ago stunned gay activists and Pennsylvania’s political establishment.
“It disturbs me that he has a gay person on his staff and yet he is so hostile to the rights of LGBT people,” said Stacey Sobel, executive director of the Philadelphia-based Center for Lesbian & Gay Civil Rights. “If he is open minded enough to have an openly gay staff member, why is he not open minded about the issues important to his LGBT constituents?”
Traynham’s sexual orientation surfaced in the news media after gay activist Michael Rogers reported on the Web site, PageOneQ.com, that he had recorded a telephone conversation in which Traynham confirmed that he is gay and out to Santorum. Rogers reported that he learned about Traynham’s sexual orientation through readers of his Web sites.
Nearly all the major press outlets in Pennsylvania, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, quickly picked up on Traynham’s status as a gay man. Santorum and some of his supporters charged that the outing was aimed at hurting Santorum’s re-election bid next year, where he trails in the polls to Democrat Robert Casey Jr., the state treasurer.
In a statement released by his office, Santorum said Traynham has worked for him for eight years. During the past four years, Santorum said, Traynham served as deputy chief of staff for the Senate Republican Conference, which Santorum heads, before returning to Santorum’s personal office to become communications director.
“He is widely respected and admired on Capitol Hill, both among the press corps and among congressional staff, as a communications professional,” Santorum said. “Not only is Mr. Traynham an exemplary staffer, he is also a trusted friend and confidante to me and my family,” Santorum said in his statement.
“It is entirely unacceptable that my staff’s personal lives are considered fair game by partisans looking for arguments to bolster my opponent’s campaign,” Santorum said. “Mr. Traynham continues to have my full support and confidence as well as my prayers as he navigates this rude and mean-spirited invasion of his personal life.”
Aide’s friends step forward
Traynham has declined all requests for interviews by the media. However, he released information to the Blade this week through several intermediaries who know him through his role as a trusted Santorum aide.
“Robert says Sen. Santorum is a great boss, a wonderfully kind, generous, and able person and a caring friend,” said gay Republican activist Jim Driscoll, who has had dealings with Traynham in his role as a past member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.
Bill Reynolds, communications director for Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), said Traynham does not share all of Santorum’s views on homosexuality or gay rights but prefers to “work on the inside” to present differing viewpoints.
“He is intelligent and competent,” Reynolds said. “Everybody likes him.”
Reynolds said he did not know Traynham was gay until he learned about it from news media reports last week.
“The issue is this is really not an issue,” Reynolds said. “Whether he is gay or not, nobody cares.”
Erica Wright, who worked as Santorum’s communications director before Traynham took the job, said “everyone” who worked with Traynham on Santorum’s staff knew of his sexual orientation.
“Robert is who he is,” she said. “He has been out since he was 20 years old,” she recalled Traynham telling her. “He did not always bring this out, but he did not conceal it.”
A prominent Capitol Hill news reporter, who asked not to be identified, said Traynham “is saddened by what he considers an invasion of his privacy.”
“Robert feels he can be effective inside the system to try to work for change as it relates to gay policy — quietly, behind the scenes,” the reporter said.
The reporter, who knows Traynham from his coverage of the Senate, added, “Robert is a devout Catholic who tries to get to Mass three times a week, usually before work or during lunch. He says he has a strong sense of his faith and struggles just like everyone else about how to deal with these issues.”
Author and gay civil rights activist Keith Boykin reported on his Web site, which focuses on African-American gay issues, that Traynham’s status as a black gay man working for an anti-gay senator considered hostile to civil rights in general came as a shock to many black gays.
Boykin noted that before joining Santorum’s staff, Traynham served as political director for Black America’s Political Action Committee, or BAMPAC, which works to elect black conservatives to public office.
“But Traynham is not one of those black gay Republicans who is challenging his party on their racism and homophobia,” Boykin wrote. “No, instead he’s defending the party and its most vocal bigots. The only reason we know of Traynham’s sexual orientation is because he was outed.”
Santorum has been one of the leading supporters of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, declaring on the Senate floor last year that legalizing gay marriage would threaten the existence of the traditional family unit of a husband and wife with children.
Shortly before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws making consensual sodomy a crime, Santorum said if the high court says same-sex partners have a right to consensual sex in their homes, “then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.”
Hungary
Vance speaks at Orbán rally in Hungary
Anti-LGBTQ prime minister trailing ahead of April 12 vote
Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday urged Hungarians to support Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the country’s April 12 elections.
“We have got to get Viktor Orbán re-elected as prime minister of Hungary,” Vance told Orbán supporters who gathered at Budapest’s MTK Sportpark.
Vance and Orbán on Tuesday met before they held a press conference in Budapest. Orbán also spoke at the rally.
The U.S. vice president after he took to the stage called President Donald Trump, who told the crowd he is “a big fan of Viktor” and is “with him all the way.” Vance, as he did during Tuesday’s press conference with Orbán, criticized the European Union.
“We want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do. I’m not telling you exactly who to vote for, but what I am telling you is that the bureaucrats in Brussels, those people should not be listened to,” said Vance. “Listen to your hearts, listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people.”
Vance in his speech noted “across the West, we’ve got a small band of radicals” who, among other things, “condemn children to mutilization and sterilization in the name of gender care.” Vance also criticized a “far-left ideology given quarter in university circles, in the media, and in our entertainment industry, and increasingly among bureaucrats on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Vice President JD Vance speaks at MTK Sportpark in Budapest, Hungary, on April 7, 2026
Orbán has been in office since 2010. He and his Fidesz-KDNP coalition government have faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
A Hungarian activist with whom the Washington Blade previously spoke said it is “impossible to change your gender legally in Hungary” because of a 2020 law that “banned legal gender recognition of transgender and intersex people.” Hungarian MPs the same year effectively prohibited same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the country’s constitution as between a man and a woman.
The European Commission in 2022 sued Hungary, which is a member of the EU, over the country’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law.
Hungarian lawmakers in March 2025 passed a bill that banned Pride events and allowed authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs later amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
Upwards of 100,000 people last June defied the ban and marched in Budapest’s annual Pride parade.
Polls indicate Orbán is trailing Péter Magyar and his center-right Tisza party ahead of the April 12 election. Vance at Tuesday’s rally told Orbán supporters that he and Trump “want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do.”
“I’m not telling you exactly who to vote for, but what I am telling you is that the bureaucrats in Brussels, those people should not be listened to,” said Vance. “Listen to your hearts, listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people.”
“Unlike some of the leadership of Brussels, I’m not threatening you or telling you that we’re going to withhold funds to which you’re legally entitled,” he added. “You will make the decision about Hungary’s future.”
The White House
White House ends protections for trans students in multiple school districts
Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware among administration’s targets
The Department of Education has terminated agreements with five school districts and a college aimed at protecting the rights of transgender students, backtracking requirements made in prior administrations, according to the Associated Press.
Allowing the reversal of these federal obligations removes formerly mandatory measures, including faculty training on responding to a student’s preferred name and pronouns, and policies allowing trans children to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
This policy change is a major shift from past democratic-led administrations, and will impact Delaware Valley School District in Pennsylvania, Sacramento City Unified School District in California, Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware, Fife School District in Washington, and La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, as well as Taft College in California.
Delaware Valley School District received notice from the Trump-Vance administration in February and has since voted to roll back anti-discrimination protections. Other schools, like Sacramento City Unified School District, said the change in minimum protections a district must offer will not affect their policies because it “remains committed to the support of our LGBTQ+ students and staff.”
This is part of a wider wave of anti-trans actions taken by the Trump-Vance administration. This White House has penalized schools attempting to accommodate students’ gender identity, filed lawsuits in California and Minnesota over state policies allowing trans students to participate in interscholastic sports, and opened civil rights investigations into multiple schools and universities over their policies on trans students.
Kimberly Richey, the Department of Education’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, said the action underscored the administration’s efforts to prevent trans students from participating in girls’ and women’s sports teams and accessing shared locker rooms.
“Today, the Trump administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda,” she said in a written statement.
According to the AP, this is just one instance of the administration rescinding civil rights protections in education. Last year, the Department of Education terminated two agreements: one involving the removal of books from a school library in Georgia, and another addressing harsh discipline and unequal education opportunities for Native students in the Rapid City Area School District in South Dakota.
Shiwali Patel, the senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center, issued a statement in response to the removal of protections for trans students, saying the rollback will negatively impact all students — not just trans ones.
“There is absolutely no basis for what the Department of Education is doing, and it is unimaginably cruel. Title IX exists to ensure that students are protected from discrimination and treated with dignity so that they can learn and thrive in our schools,” Patel said. “It’s what students, families, lawmakers, and advocates fought for when Title IX was passed decades ago. But the Trump administration’s Department of Education has spent its limited resources to strip Title IX of that very purpose.”
She continued, highlighting the issues that will arise from the agreement removals in schools.
“Real complaints of discrimination and sexual assault are going unanswered by the Department of Education while conservative lawmakers continue to escalate their attacks on a small minority of students,” the nationally recognized Title IX expert and advocacy leader for gender-based harassment added. “Parents, teachers, and students need the Department to focus on addressing real harms on campuses instead of rolling back policies that keep all students safe.”
The schools that had their agreements terminated vary, but stem from the same issue: treating trans students with the same protections from harassment as their cisgender peers.
In 2023, Taft College, a community college in California’s Central Valley, became one of the few schools to settle a case with the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Office after a student accused faculty of discrimination, including refusing to use the student’s preferred pronouns. The college agreed to faculty training on Title IX protections and revised its policies to clarify that refusing to use a person’s preferred name and pronoun can constitute harassment.
The now-canceled agreement with Sacramento City Unified School District stemmed from a 2022 complaint brought by a student after a teacher refused to use the student’s preferred pronouns and/or refused to allow the male-identifying student to work in a boys’ group for a class activity. The 2024 resolution agreement had mandated training for employees on civil rights law, sexual harassment, and how to handle formal complaints.
Under a settlement the Delaware Valley School District reached with the Obama-Biden administration, the district was required to permit students to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identity. In February, the Trump-Vance administration sent the district a letter rescinding the settlement and requiring the rollback of antidiscrimination protections for trans students. The school board voted in late March to change its policies accordingly.
This move is part of a broader pattern of anti-trans actions from the White House since Trump returned to office.
In addition to restricting protections in federally funded education spaces, the administration has attempted to end trans girls’ and women’s participation in sports competitions and has sued states that have not complied. It has also blocked trans and nonbinary people from choosing sex markers on passports and attempted to stop those under 19 from receiving gender-affirming medical care.
South Carolina
Man faces first S.C. ‘hate intimidation’ charge
Timothy Truett allegedly shot at gay club in Myrtle Beach on April 1
A South Carolina man remains in custody on a more than $300,000 bond after he allegedly opened fire at a Myrtle Beach nightclub on April 1, according to WMBF.
Reports say 37-year-old Timothy James Truett Jr., of Clover, S.C., was detained by the Myrtle Beach Police Department after the April 1 incident outside Pulse Ultra Club. He was later arrested and charged with possession of a weapon during a violent crime, discharging a firearm into a dwelling, discharging a firearm within city limits, malicious injury to real property valued over $5,000, and assault or intimidation due to political opinions or the exercise of civil rights.
At 10:57 a.m. on April 1, officers responded to a call about a possible shooting at Pulse Ultra Club, located in the 2700 block of South Kings Highway.
In an affidavit released later, the club’s owner, Ken Phillips, said he was doing paperwork that morning when he heard “five or six” gunshots. He went outside and found a window and the windshield of his SUV shattered by bullets. An SUV with blue plastic covering one window was left at the scene.
Police later reviewed footage that showed a silver vehicle stopping in the middle of the road. The video appeared to capture muzzle flashes coming from the passenger-side window.
According to the affidavit, an officer later pulled over a vehicle driven by Truett and found spent shell casings in the back seat, along with a gun.
Documents do not detail why Truett was ultimately charged under the state law covering assault or intimidation tied to political opinions or the exercise of civil rights.
As of April 1, records show Truett is being held in Horry County on a combined bond of more than $312,000.
WMBF spoke with Phillips after the incident and asked whether there was any prior conflict that might have led to the shooting.
“I don’t know if it’s personal, I don’t know if it’s related to being gay, I don’t know if it’s related to the bar issues,” Phillips told WMBF. “Anybody with a mindset of pulling out a weapon in broad daylight is not right.”
“My primary concern has and always will be the safety of my community and my customers,” he added. “It’s given me great concern … as to how far people will go.”
WMBF also spoke with Adam Hayes, vice chair of Myrtle Beach’s Human Rights Coalition, who was involved in pushing for the ordinance. He said that while the incident itself is troubling, it shows the policy is being put to use.
The ordinance is intended to deter “crimes that are motivated by bias or hate towards any person or persons, in whole or in part, because of the actual or perceived” identity, in the absence of a statewide hate crime law.
“It’s nice to see that something we put into policy is not just a piece of paper, that it’s actually being used,” said Hayes.
He said the shooting underscores the need for a statewide hate crime law in South Carolina and added that the incident has left the local LGBTQ community shaken.
South Carolina and Wyoming are the only two states in the U.S. without a comprehensive statewide hate crime law.
Truett remains in jail as of publication.
Vance speaks at Orbán rally in Hungary
White House ends protections for trans students in multiple school districts
Amendments to India’s transgender rights law criticized
Cuba under pressure and without answers
Police mental health struggles gain growing attention
Belarusian lawmakers approve bill to crackdown on LGBTQ rights
How new barriers to health care coverage are hitting D.C.
Kenyan advocacy groups launch LGBTQ voter mobilization campaign
Calendar: April 3-9
