National
Griffin says LGBT youth will motivate him at HRC
Activist wants Obama to endorse marriage equality, issue ENDA exec order
Chad Griffin has an image in mind as he prepares for his role to become the new president of the Human Rights Campaign: young LGBT Americans who lie awake in bed at night worrying about their future.
Griffin, a Los Angeles-based activist who has a long career in progressive advocacy and roots on both the East and West Coast, said growing up in a small town in Arkansas he identified as that young person who couldn’t acknowledge or be open about who he was.
“Some people know me as a guy who lives in L.A. and used to live in Washington, but my entire childhood was in Arkansas, and it’s where my entire family lives today,” Griffin said.
Griffin said his motivation over the next few years at HRC will be to impact the lives of “that young kid, the young student, who lives in Fresno or Bakersfield or Arkansas, or Washington, D.C., for that matter.”
“The fact that every single night, where we all have very lucky lives and live in places where we’re accepted, there are thousands, if not millions, of kids who go to bed every night staring at the ceiling — something that so many of us all did — not being able to go to sleep out of fear of waking up the next day and facing that next day,” Griffin said.
Griffin spoke with the Washington Blade over the phone from Dulles Airport as he awaited his flight back to Los Angeles. He was on his way to attend on Saturday Dustin Lance Black’s play ‘8,’ which is about the enactment of Proposition 8 in California.
The new HRC president, who’s set to take on his role in June, comes to the organization after having started and served as board president for the American Foundation for Equal Rights. The group, founded in 2009, is responsible for the ongoing litigation against California’s marriage ban.
During the interview, Griffin was hesitant to talk about specific policies he’d like to pursue, noting Joe Solmonese is still running HRC, but said he wants to continue the positive change the LGBT community has seen over the past few years.
“It means changes in the workplaces, changes at the state and local level, and, obviously, it means significant policy changes at the federal level,” Griffin said. “So much has been accomplished over the past several years, but we’re not finished. And that kid is still waking up staring at the ceiling because he or she lives in a country where their government directly and intentionally discriminates against them.”
Griffin said his sense of urgency will be his top challenge at the helm of HRC, saying, “If in fact patience is a virtue, it’s a virtue I do not possess. I voice frustration consistently at the pace at which we make progress.”
“If you were to talk to anyone who knows me, I think that they would describe first and foremost my lack of patience and how self-critical I am when I can’t achieve what we need to achieve,” Griffin said.
When he comes to HRC in June, the race for the White House will be well underway, as well as the race for control of Congress. The LGBT community will see measures on marriage in Minnesota and Maine, and possibly Washington State and Maryland. (The anti-gay ballot measure in North Carolina is set for a vote in May prior to when Griffin will take over HRC.)
Griffin said he has a background as a political strategist and is used to working behind-the-scenes, developing campaign plans and executing them.
“If you’re going to win the war, you’ve got to fight the battle on every single front,” Griffin said. “So that’s at the federal level. It’s on the state and local level. With any campaign, with limited resources, you have to be smart about your investments and about your plan, but I am not one who believes we should forego any avenues of victory.”
The incoming HRC president also comes into the role as many critics contend HRC has been too cozy with the Obama administration and too afraid to criticize Democratic lawmakers.
Griffin said observers should look to his previous work to discover that he’s “not one who’s shy about disagreeing with friends and colleagues” when he believes they’re wrong.
“I have a long record in that and think that’s the best way to judge how I will act,” Griffin said. “I’m not one who is thought to be shy or easily intimidated, and you typically will always know what I’m thinking and how I feel.”
Asked about criticism that HRC caters too much to more affluent members of the LGBT community by hosting black-tie dinners while others in the community feel left behind, Griffin said the organization’s outreach will be inclusive.
“LGBT people comes in all ages, all religions, all political affiliations, all colors,” Griffin said. “They are all part of the inclusion strategy and they are my motivation.”
Griffin said he’s on board with two major asks for President Obama from the LGBT community: an endorsement of same-sex marriage and an executive order requiring federal contractors to have LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination policies.
“I fundamentally believe that not only the president but our members of Congress and all of our leaders should support marriage equality, and we should do everything in our power to get them to that position,” Griffin said.
Griffin called the proposed directive for federal contractors “something that should happen, and should happen as quickly as possible,” but said it’s only the first step and passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is necessary.
“It’s so frustrating that we’re in a country where we still don’t have an inclusive ENDA,” Griffin said. “That is something that has to remain a priority, but I would think that the executive order that has been discussed and proposed and pushed forward is a good step and should happen.”
As Griffin takes on his new role, he said the work at AFER against Proposition 8 will continue. The only change, he said, will be that he’s stepping down as board president, although he’ll continue to serve on the board. Griffin said there are no plans to absorb AFER into HRC.
New York
Men convicted of murdering two men in NYC gay bar drugging scheme sentenced
One of the victims, John Umberger, was D.C. political consultant
A New York judge on Wednesday sentenced three men convicted of killing a D.C. political consultant and another man who they targeted at gay bars in Manhattan.
NBC New York notes a jury in February convicted Jayqwan Hamilton, Jacob Barroso, and Robert DeMaio of murder, robbery, and conspiracy in relation to druggings and robberies that targeted gay bars in Manhattan from March 2021 to June 2022.
John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant from D.C., and Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, died. Prosecutors said Hamilton, Barroso, and DeMaio targeted three other men at gay bars.
The jury convicted Hamilton and DeMaio of murdering Umberger. State Supreme Court Judge Felicia Mennin sentenced Hamilton and DeMaio to 40 years to life in prison.
Barroso, who was convicted of killing Ramirez, received a 20 years to life sentence.
National
Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information
Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources
Nine private medical and public health advocacy organizations, including two from D.C., filed a lawsuit on May 20 in federal court in Seattle challenging what it calls the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s illegal deletion of dozens or more of its webpages containing health related information, including HIV information.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, names as defendants Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HHS itself, and several agencies operating under HHS and its directors, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration.
“This action challenges the widespread deletion of public health resources from federal agencies,” the lawsuit states. “Dozens (if not more) of taxpayer-funded webpages, databases, and other crucial resources have vanished since January 20, 2025, leaving doctors, nurses, researchers, and the public scrambling for information,” it says.
“These actions have undermined the longstanding, congressionally mandated regime; irreparably harmed Plaintiffs and others who rely on these federal resources; and put the nation’s public health infrastructure in unnecessary jeopardy,” the lawsuit continues.
It adds, “The removal of public health resources was apparently prompted by two recent executive orders – one focused on ‘gender ideology’ and the other targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) programs. Defendants implemented these executive orders in a haphazard manner that resulted in the deletion (inadvertent or otherwise) of health-related websites and databases, including information related to pregnancy risks, public health datasets, information about opioid-use disorder, and many other valuable resources.”
The lawsuit does not mention that it was President Donald Trump who issued the two executive orders in question.
A White House spokesperson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit.
While not mentioning Trump by name, the lawsuit names as defendants in addition to HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., Matthew Buzzelli, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health; Martin Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Thomas Engels, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration; and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
The 44-page lawsuit complaint includes an addendum with a chart showing the titles or descriptions of 49 “affected resource” website pages that it says were deleted because of the executive orders. The chart shows that just four of the sites were restored after initially being deleted.
Of the 49 sites, 15 addressed LGBTQ-related health issues and six others addressed HIV issues, according to the chart.
“The unannounced and unprecedented deletion of these federal webpages and datasets came as a shock to the medical and scientific communities, which had come to rely on them to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, assist physicians and other clinicians in daily care, and inform the public about a wide range of healthcare issues,” the lawsuit states.
“Health professionals, nonprofit organizations, and state and local authorities used the websites and datasets daily in care for their patients, to provide resources to their communities, and promote public health,” it says.
Jose Zuniga, president and CEO of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC), one of the organizations that signed on as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the deleted information from the HHS websites “includes essential information about LGBTQ+ health, gender and reproductive rights, clinical trial data, Mpox and other vaccine guidance and HIV prevention resources.”
Zuniga added, “IAPAC champions evidence-based, data-informed HIV responses and we reject ideologically driven efforts that undermine public health and erase marginalized communities.”
Lisa Amore, a spokesperson for Whitman-Walker Health, D.C.’s largest LGBTQ supportive health services provider, also expressed concern about the potential impact of the HHS website deletions.
“As the region’s leader in HIV care and prevention, Whitman-Walker Health relies on scientific data to help us drive our resources and measure our successes,” Amore said in response to a request for comment from the Washington Blade.
“The District of Columbia has made great strides in the fight against HIV,” Amore said. “But the removal of public facing information from the HHS website makes our collective work much harder and will set HIV care and prevention backward,” she said.
The lawsuit calls on the court to issue a declaratory judgement that the “deletion of public health webpages and resources is unlawful and invalid” and to issue a preliminary or permanent injunction ordering government officials named as defendants in the lawsuit “to restore the public health webpages and resources that have been deleted and to maintain their web domains in accordance with their statutory duties.”
It also calls on the court to require defendant government officials to “file a status report with the Court within twenty-four hours of entry of a preliminary injunction, and at regular intervals, thereafter, confirming compliance with these orders.”
The health organizations that joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs include the Washington State Medical Association, Washington State Nurses Association, Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Academy Health, Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Fast-Track Cities Institute, International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, National LGBT Cancer Network, and Vermont Medical Society.
The Fast-Track Cities Institute and International Association of Providers of AIDS Care are based in D.C.
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.
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