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State advocates pleased with White House meeting

Obama administration briefs visitors on federal initiatives

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The White House (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Representatives from statewide LGBT equality groups expressed satisfaction with a White House briefing that took place last week in which Obama administration officials informed them about federal initiatives to benefit the LGBT community.

Bernard Cherkasov, CEO of Equality Illinois, said attendees at the June 8 briefing were informed about recent administration policy changes that have affected LGBT people.

“We wanted to know what the administration accomplished recently, and what it’s planning on doing in the very near term, so we can relay the information back to educate the LGBT people in our communities,” Cherkasov said. “The second thing that was important to Equality Illinois is to take some of our priorities and our community’s priorities back to the administration, and say, ‘Here are concrete steps that we’re looking for you to take in the coming months and the coming year.'”

Among the federal accomplishments that officials discussed were coverage of LGBT individuals under the health care reform law, including non-discrimination protections, prosecutorial discretion initiatives aimed at keeping bi-national same-sex couples in the United States and a change enabling same-sex couples to file a joint declaration at customs upon returning to United States after being abroad.

The Equality Federation, a national San Francisco-based organization that works to support state LGBT groups, arranged the four-hour plus briefing amid Pride celebrations that are taking place in D.C. at around the same time.

An estimated 100 people from more than 20 state LGBT groups participated in the briefing, with some groups having as many as three representatives. Among the groups were Equality California, MassEquality, Fair Wisconsin, Equality Alabama, Equality Illinois, Equality North Carolina, Georgia Equality, Equality Texas, Equality Maryland and the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition.

Rebecca Isaacs, the Equality Federation’s president, said the intent of the briefing was to ensure state LGBT groups were aware of the initiatives happening at the federal level.

One of the goals that Isaacs had prior to the meeting was examining which federal administrative policy changes could be replicated at the state level in places where legislators may be unwilling to enact pro-LGBT policies. Isaacs said movement toward this goal happened at the briefing.

“The first stage is people need to understand the changes that have happened,” Isaacs said. “I can be more specific when we figure out what policies, for what states. Some places may already have things very clearly laid out, but other places may not. Because we have so many states that have a long way to go in terms of LGBT equality, these are places that they can really look to.”

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment on the briefing after it took place. Prior to the event, Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, confirmed the event was taking place but offered limited details. The briefing wasn’t open to the press or the public. An informed source said the administration told attendees it was confidential and advised them not to speak with the media after the event.

According to a schedule obtained by the Washington Blade, a number of Obama administration officials spoke before conference attendees on LGBT issues. At a welcome session, White House LGBT liaison Gautam Raghavan spoke in addition to Issacs. The initial session was set to last 15 minutes.

A subsequent series of briefings under the heading “Updates” had three sessions and three different speakers: “Bullying Prevention” with Deborah Temkin of the Education Department’s Office of Safe & Healthy Students; “International LGBT Human Rights” with Liz Drew, director of human rights and gender on the National Security Staff; and “LGBT Inclusion in the Violence Against Women Act” with Tonya Robinson, special assistant to the president for justice and regulatory affairs for the White House Policy Council.

Five sessions took place at the next series of briefings under the heading, “Implementing Policies on the Ground.” These were “Equal Access to Housing” with Kenneth Carroll, director of the Fair Housing Assistance Program Division for the Department of Housing & Urban Development; “Hospital Visitation, the Affordable Care Act and Spousal Impoverishment” with A.J. Pearlman from Office of the Secretary at the Department of Health & Human Services; “Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act” with Matt Nosanchuk, who’s gay and senior counselor at the Justice Department; “Customs Declaration Regulation, Immigration Prosecutorial Discretion Review” with Phil McNamara, executive secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and “Family & Medical Leave Act” with Helen Applewhite, a senior adviser at the Labor Department.

After a break, the final briefing, titled “Update on Congressional ‘To-Do’ List,” was delivered by Jon Carlson, director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.

On the Thursday prior to the briefing proper, Isaac said a reception took place at the D.C. Jewish Community Center where Chai Feldblum, who’s a lesbian and serves on the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, informed state advocates about the new interpretation of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 covering transgender workers in cases of workplace discrimination.

Clarissa Filgioun, Equality California’s board president, was among the attendees at the event and said she was taken aback by the level of engagement the Obama administration was prepared to offer LGBT advocates — something she felt wouldn’t be seen under a President Romney administration. Filigioun was the sole representative of her organization.

“I stepped into the meeting, and I really realized what the stakes are for the upcoming election,” Filgioun said. “Frankly, I feel we desperately need four more years of this administration to keep all this work going because I shudder to think what a Romney administration would mean for the LGBT community. I really sat there and I thought, my goodness, there’s no way that there would be this level of engagement with a Romney administration.”

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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

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(Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

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.

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National

Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information

Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources

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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is named as a defendant in the lawsuit. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

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.

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U.S. Federal Courts

Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections

Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent

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Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Screen capture: YouTube)

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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