National
White House holds LGBT health summit
Officials hail LGBT progress at Philadelphia conference

PHILADELPHIA — The White House heard the concerns of LGBT people here during the first of a series of conferences aimed at allowing the Obama administration to engage directly with the LGBT community and highlight its achievements.
More than 300 people from 22 states attended the conference, which was focused on LGBT health, on Thursday in the Dorrance H. Hamilton Building at Thomas Jefferson University.
Obama administration officials touted their work over the past three years on health and LGBT issues. Conference participants asked questions of officials in a town-hall style format — many focused on transgender inclusion of the administration’s LGBT work — and participated in workshops on issues such as LGBT aging, youth and transgender health as well as the health care reform law and engagement opportunities with the administration.
Secretary of Health & Human Services Kathleen Sebelius delivered the keynote speech and emphasized the purpose of the conferences was to allow the Obama administration to have greater engagement with the LGBT community.
“The goal of these conferences is to talk about some of the work that we’re doing that might be of interest to you in health, but it’s also a real opportunity … to listen, to have you share your ideas and your challenges and your struggles with us because that really helps us inform our policy each and every day,” Sebelius said.
The secretary invoked President Obama’s State of the Union address, recalling his emphasis on “fairness” as a core American value, and said this sense of fairness applies to LGBT people.
“We need to have an America that values everyone and has the same set of values and same set of rules for everyone,” Sebelius said. “And that belief means ensuring that LGBT Americans have the same protections and opportunities as their neighbors, as their colleagues, as their family members.”
Sebelius also emphasized the importance of the health care reform law. Among the LGBT-specific areas the secretary trumpeted was preventing insurers from discriminating against someone based on LGBT status, initiating data collection efforts on LGBT health and expanding HealthCare.gov to facilitate searches for health insurance plans covering same-sex partners.
The secretary also touted the insurance exchanges aimed at lowering costs to make health care more affordable.
“Every American in 2014 will have access to an insurance exchange, either run by the state or run by the federal government,” she said. “The only thing that the state can do is opt out of running it themselves, but believe me, right behind them, is us.”
Sebelius also addressed the administration’s effort to combat HIV/AIDS through the National AIDS Strategy, noting that half of all black gay men in urban areas are living with the disease.
“The result is more momentum behind domestic HIV efforts today than we’ve had for nearly a decade, and we’re only just beginning,” Sebelius said. “We think we have an opportunity … to look at a generation that will be HIV free.”
On Monday, Obama made public his budget request for fiscal year 2013, which includes an increase in funding for domestic HIV/AIDS programs, but flat-lined research programs and cut the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which is aimed at fighting AIDS overseas.
No mention was made about progress in research efforts to lift the Food & Drug Administration’s ban prohibiting gay and bisexual men from donating blood. HHS told members of Congress in July it was studying four areas to determine whether it could end the ban.
John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management and the most senior openly gay official in the Obama administration, delivered opening remarks at the event that catalogued Obama’s LGBT achievements, including repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and discontinuation of the defense of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act in court.
“I grew up in a time when it was OK to discriminate based on sexual orientation, when I could be kept from a loved one’s hospital bed, when I couldn’t serve the country I loved just because of who I loved,” Berry said. “Many of us in this room grew up in the midst of that fear and hostility, but thankfully the tide is turning.”
Berry cited the legal briefs the Obama administration has filed in cases against DOMA: both in Golinski v. United States and Windsor v. United States.
“I encourage you, if you’ve never read a legal brief, pick this one up,” Berry said. “It explains why discrimination based on sexual orientation is entitled to heightened constitutional scrutiny, and that is based upon the history that we have lived through and why they conclude — the president and the Justice Department — that Section 3 fails that scrutiny.”
Outstanding work on LGBT issues that the president wants to see accomplished, Berry said, includes removing DOMA from the books and passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
After his speech, Berry told the Washington Blade that he couldn’t “go into any specifics” about forthcoming LGBT-related policy changes.
“The beauty of having over 200 LGBT appointees embedded across our government is that every day they’re making changes in regulations and forms and laws and working in policies that are making the future,” Berry said.
Berry deferred questions to the White House on whether the new initiatives would include an executive order requiring federal contractors to have LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination policies.
The conference also featured a panel of three HHS officials: Kathy Greenlee, assistant secretary for aging; Howard Koh, assistant secretary of health; and Ken Choe, deputy general counsel. Greenlee and Choe are openly gay.
During his remarks on the panel, Greenlee said she “must crow about” how HHS recognizes diversity within the LGBT community as it works on related issues.
“The people at HHS are sophisticated enough and committed enough to understand that LGBT is not a word and that each of those letters represents a different community,” Greenlee said. “As we do the analysis of our work, there are times that we stop and say, ‘What are we doing for the transgender community? Do we have anything for bisexuals? And lesbian and gay health are different issues.”
According to the White House, later conferences planned in other places throughout the country will focus on topics including — but not limited to — housing and homelessness, safe schools and communities, and HIV/AIDS prevention. An informed source said the next conference will take place March 9 in Detroit and will focus on LGBT homelessness.
Kellan Baker, a health policy analyst for the Center for American Progress’ LGBT research and communications project, attended the conference.
“It’s amazing that LGBT health is the first in this series of really groundbreaking events that the White House is doing, and it’s really exciting to have the secretary here to talk about all the great work that HHS is doing now and that they’re planning to do in the future,” Baker said.
But Baker identified one area of improvement that HHS could pursue: expanding the search option on HealthCare.gov to find plans that don’t exclude care for transgender people.
“I get a lot of questions about where to find lists of plans or policies that don’t include these exclusions,” Baker said. “Almost every single plan — including Medicare, most state Medicaid plans, most private plans, including those sold through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program — has exclusions that specifically target care for transgender people and make it impossible for them to get a wide range of care, including basic primary care.”
Laurie Young, director of aging and economic security for the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, was also in attendance and said the conference was important because it enabled members of the LGBT community to voice concerns.
“I think it’s just stunning that everyday people get to stand up and talk about what they feel and talk about what they need, and the administration’s listening,” Young said.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Howard Koh, assistant secretary of health, is openly gay. The Blade regrets the error.

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Congratulations to Ted Lewis M.ED. on being named executive director of Rainbow Families. On their appointment they said, “Right now, when we are facing tremendous opposition to our very existence, is the time to build up our community and our community resources. LGBTQ+ families are innovative, supportive, loving, and resilient and we will need all those tools and more in this moment. My hope as Rainbow Families’ Executive Director is to expand our membership and welcome the vast community resources, expertise, and lived experiences to support new family formation and new parents. I hope to bring education, advocacy and support to LGBTQ+ families, parents, and prospective parents when we are worried about our rights disappearing. I’m also excited to join the joyous and thriving community at Rainbow Families and expand on fun events that bring families together from our weekend camping trip, to picking pumpkins at Cox Farms, and dancing at family parties. It is within a beloved community that we can both prepare for challenges ahead and celebrate our fabulousness together.”
Prior to this, Lewis served as director of Youth Well-Being for the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. Lewis served as project manager for Project THRIVE, a multi-year campaign with 30+ national organizations committed to the thriving of LGBTQ youth resulting in industry specific resources and professional development on LGBTQ best practices. Lewis was also founder and CEO of Ted Lewis Consulting, advising K-12 school districts, Fortune 500 companies, higher education institutions, and non-profits on LGBTQ inclusive practices. They also served as assistant director for Sexual/Gender Diversity, UNC Charlotte, responsible for LGBTQ student programming as well as Men’s & Women’s programming for the institution. Lewis has presented on numerous panels including: “Othermuvas: How Black LGBTQ+ Chosen Families Provide Support to Black LGBTQ+ Youth” National Mentoring Summit, 2025; “Addressing the Issues of LGBTQ+ Cultural Competency, Parity and Inconsistency” Richmond Bench-Bar Conference, 2019; and “The Unmasking: Race & Reality in Richmond” Richmond Magazine Panel, 2017. Lewis was named in Style Weekly’s 40 Under 40, in 2018; and received the VA Pride Firework Award in 2019.
Lewis earned a bachelor’s degree in English and History, University of Mary Washington; Master of Education, University of South Carolina, and an Education Master Certificate in Women & Gender Studies, University of North Carolina, Charlotte.
Federal Government
Garcia writes to HHS Secretary about the dismantling of HIV programs in Trump’s second term
Out congressman was elected top Democrat on House Oversight on June 24

U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter on Thursday to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. demanding answers about the Trump-Vance administration’s “systematic” elimination of programs to fight HIV in the U.S. and around the world.
Also signed by Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, the letter requests information about cuts to federal support for HIV research, including vaccine development efforts, the shuttering of the HIV prevention division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the defunding of programs providing HIV treatment and prevention services since President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
The lawmakers requested responses by or before the end of July.
“It is shameful that HHS Secretary RFK Jr. and the Trump Administration are working to dismantle our HIV research, care, and prevention programs aimed at eradicating the disease across the world,” Garcia said. “This decision is absolutely reckless and puts millions of lives at risk. Oversight Democrats refuse to let Secretary Kennedy’s reliance on conspiracy theories and misinformation threaten the health and safety of our public health.”
“The Trump Administration’s reckless decision to gut HIV prevention and research programs is not only scientifically indefensible—it’s morally unconscionable. These cuts jeopardize the health of millions, both at home and abroad, and reverse decades of bipartisan progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS,” Krishnamoorthi said. “We’re demanding answers because the American people, and the global community, deserve better than politically motivated neglect of public health.”
Echoing warnings from HIV and public health experts, the congressmen in their letter stressed that backsliding in efforts to fight the disease at home and abroad come just as advancements in treatment and prevention have finally put some of the most ambitious goals to end the epidemic within reach.
The letter suggests that Kennedy’s embrace of misinformation about HIV might explain, to some extent, his dismantling of programs to end the epidemic at home and abroad, specifically, pointing to the secretary’s history of challenging the overwhelming and longstanding scientific and medical consensus about the causal relationship between HIV and AIDS.
The congressmen also detailed many of the real-world consequences of health policy concerning HIV in Trump’s second term. For example, they note experts anticipate there will be millions of excess new HIV infections and hundreds of thousands of excess HIV-related deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa in just one year.
The letter also warns that “President Trump’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget request for domestic HIV program calls for a $1.5 billion reduction in funding,” which “could lead to more than 143,000 additional HIV cases in the United States within five years and about 127,000 additional deaths from HIV and AIDS-related causes.”
Garcia’s leadership of Oversight Dems will be closely watched
If Democrats recapture a majority of seats in the House next year, Garcia becomes chair of the committee and has access to far more powerful tools to exercise oversight — like the authority to issue subpoenas (unilaterally or by majority vote) compelling witnesses to testify or requiring officials to turn over documents.
Leadership positions, especially coveted spots leading the most powerful committees in Congress, are typically awarded based on seniority. When the House Democratic caucus elected Garcia on June 24, it marked the first first time in more than a century that a second-term member was selected for the role.
During his brief time in Washington, the congressman, who is openly gay and formerly served as mayor of Long Beach, has emerged as arguably one of the strongest communicators in the House Democratic caucus and one of his party’s most vocal critics of the second Trump administration.
Thursday’s letter, which comes less than a month after his election as ranking member, may signal how Garcia will approach fact finding missions and investigations, or where he will focus the committee’s work, under the vastly expanded powers that might be available to him after the midterms.
National
Trump threatens Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship
Comedian responds with post linking him to Epstein

Donald Trump threatened to revoke Rosie O’Donnell’s U.S. citizenship last weekend amid his administration’s pattern of targeting people with whom he has publicly disagreed.
The actress and comedian, known for her roles in major motion pictures like “A League of Their Own” and “Harriet the Spy,” was singled out by the president on his social media app Truth Social, where he called the lesbian entertainer a “Threat to Humanity.”
“Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship,” Trump also posted. “[She] should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
In response to the post—which reignites a decade-old feud between the two—O’Donnell shared a collage of photos from her time in Ireland, along with an old photo of Trump with convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The president of the usa has always hated the fact that i see him for who he is – a criminal con man sexual abusing liar out to harm our nation to serve himself,” the former talk show host posted on Instagram. She continued, “this is why i moved to ireland – he is a dangerous old soulless man with dementia who lacks empathy compassion and basic humanity – i stand in direct opposition [to] all he represents – so do millions of others – u gonna deport all who stand against ur evil tendencies – ur a bad joke who cant form a coherent sentence.”
Trump’s threat is both irregular and constitutionally unsound. The Supreme Court has ruled over multiple decades that stripping someone of their citizenship violates the Constitution—and the 14th Amendment.
Three Supreme Court cases in particular—Trop v. Dulles (1958), Afroyim v. Rusk (1967), and Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)—have all affirmed that once legally obtained, citizenship is not something that can simply be revoked, even if the president disagrees with what a person says or does. In Afroyim v. Rusk, the Supreme Court wrote: “In our country the people are sovereign and the Government cannot sever its relationship to the people by taking away their citizenship.”
This authoritarian threat echoes Trump’s broader efforts to undermine birthright citizenship, which has been a foundational part of the U.S. Constitution since the ratification of the 14th amendment.
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