National
AIDS group criticizes Obama as int’l conference approaches
Others praise administration, call attacks ‘misplaced’


Tom Myers, chief of public affairs and general counsel for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (Blade photo by Michael Key)
President Obama is facing criticism from an HIV/AIDS group for not yet committing to speak at the upcoming International AIDS Conference and not doing more to confront the global and domestic epidemic. Other groups, meanwhile, are calling the criticism of Obama misguided.
On Monday, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation held a news conference in D.C. at the offices of Parry, Romani, DeConcini & Symms Associates to call on Obama to speak at the conference and take more action to confront HIV/AIDS. The organization provides advocacy and medical care to more than 166,000 people with HIV/AIDS in 26 countries.
Tom Myers, chief of public affairs and general counsel for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, was particularly critical of Obama for not yet confirming that he’ll make an appearance at the upcoming 19th International AIDS Conference, which will will take place at D.C.’s Walter E. Washington Convention Center during the week of July 22.
“We are here to express our concern and dismay that, less than two weeks from the start of the conference, President Obama has yet to commit to attending it,” Myers said. “In the 20-odd year history of this conference, it is virtually obligatory for the head of state of the host nation to address the conference at its opening.”
It’s the first time since 1990 that the conference will take place in the United States. Organizers agreed to hold the conference in D.C. after the lifting of the HIV travel ban in 2009, which had prevented HIV-positive foreign nationals from entering the United States. The process for removing the ban started under the Bush administration through legislative action and ended under the Obama administration.
As of Monday, the conference hadn’t yet announced whether it had received confirmation that Obama would speak. Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, said he had no updates on whether Obama will attend the conference.
Former President Bill Clinton has agreed to speak at the conference this year as well as former first lady Laura Bush. High-ranking administration officials who are set to speak include Secretary of Health & Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and Eric Goosby, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator.
It’s not unprecedented for the head of state to be absent from the conference, according to organizers. The Canadian prime minister didn’t speak when the conferences were held in that country in 1996 in Vancouver or 2006 in Toronto, nor did Spain’s prime minister attend the 2002 conference in Barcelona. In 1990, then-President George H.W. Bush didn’t address the conference in San Francisco, but then-Secretary of Health & Human Services Louis Sullivan delivered remarks at the closing ceremony.
While criticizing Obama for not confirming his attendance, Myers at the same time said the administration wasn’t doing enough to confront HIV/AIDS and said “it may be better if the president not attend the conference if he is coming without any concrete proposals to fix these problems.”
For starters, Myers criticized the president for cutting funds in the fight against the global AIDS epidemic, calling on Obama to restore the money that was cut from PEPFAR, as part of the fiscal year 2013 budget request.
“Internationally, the Obama administration is the first administration to actually propose cutting funding to America’s efforts, including cutting almost half a billion dollars from PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief,” Myers said. “A retreat in the efforts to fight the global epidemic is unprecedented.”
The sentiment that Obama has taken a step back in global fight against HIV/AIDS was echoed by Omonigho Ufomata, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s director of global policy and advocacy.
“We demand he restore funding to PEPFAR and expand treatment prior to addressing the International AIDS Conference,” Ufomata said. “We have a blueprint for stopping AIDS, i.e get more people on treatment, but that can only be achieved if President Obama gets real about the money.”
Further, Myers faulted Obama for not providing enough support to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, the primary program for providing lifesaving HIV/AIDS drugs to low-income people, saying the wait list for the programs stands at 2,000 people.
“Domestically, President Obama has presided over the longest and deepest waiting lists for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, or ADAP in history,” Myers said. “ADAP is the primary program for providing lifesaving HIV/AIDS drugs to uninsured people of limited means in this country and for years, thousands of people, at one point almost 10,000 people, have had to wait to receive these drugs.”
Myers called on Obama to redirect funds within the Department of Health & Human Services “to immediately end the ADAP waitlists once and for all.”
Despite these criticisms, Obama has generally received praise for his work on HIV/AIDS. On World AIDS Day in December, President Obama announced an additional $35 million for the ADAP program and $15 million more for Part C of the Ryan White Care Program as well as a three-year, $4 billion pledge to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Additionally, under the FY-13 budget request, funding for the Ryan White AIDS Drug Assistance Program would increase by $75 million. The budget also bumps up $1 billion for AIDS drug assistance programs, an increase of $67 million above the previous fiscal year’s levels. The administration is predicting this funding will end ADAP waiting lists next year.
A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said PEPFAR is able to accomplish more with less money in previous years as the number of people the United States directly supports with lifesaving antiretroviral treatment has more than doubled from around 1.7 million to more than 3.9 million.
“PEPFAR continues to improve efficiency and lower costs,” the official said. “By using generic drugs, shipping commodities more cheaply, task-shifting to nurses and community health workers as appropriate, and linking AIDS services to other programs (such as maternal and child health), the per-patient cost to the U.S. of providing anti-retroviral treatment for AIDS patients has fallen by over 50 percent since 2008.”
Based on this commitment, the leaders of other HIV/AIDS groups said they didn’t share the criticisms levied against Obama by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
Carl Schmid, deputy executive director of the AIDS Institute, said he’s still hoping Obama will make an appearance at the AIDS conference, but believes the criticism is “misplaced” and should be directed elsewhere.
“We feel the president has been leading on domestic AIDS and has put forth an ambitious National HIV/AIDS Strategy, passed health care reform, and proposed budget increases for ADAP and HIV prevention,” Schmid said. “While he could always do more, we feel the criticism is misplaced and instead the focus should be on some members of the Congress, many of whom want to repeal health reform and cut funding to AIDS programs.”
Chris Collins, vice president and director of public policy for the Foundation for AIDS Research, or amfAR, said Obama has “greatly advanced” the domestic response to HIV.
“His national strategy, the Affordable Care Act — these are game changers in the domestic epidemic, so we should be proud of what the president has done on domestic AIDS,” Collins said.
Collins added he wants “to see increases” in PEPFAR funding, but said Obama has made historic commitments to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria and “new and more substantial commitments in terms of scaling up services.”
Asked by the Washington Blade during the news conference if Obama deserves credit for increasing funds for the Ryan White Care Program, Myers said Obama deserves some praise, but more is needed.
“The problem is, again, even with that, the ADAP waiting list – and ADAP is a part of the Ryan White Program — it’s chronic, it’s ongoing. … So, again, increases that have occurred, credit is where credit is due, but the point is, it is not enough,” Myers said.
Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, who joined the conference via telephone, dismissed Obama’s increase in funds for the Ryan White Care Program on the basis that a minority percentage of people with HIV/AIDS are in regular care under the program.
“We are sending out a really mixed message when we have more waiting lists for these drug programs and we’re telling people that they should be tested,” Weinstein said. “I mean, why would they want to get tested when they don’t know if they can have access to treatment? But the bottom line is that to have only 41 percent of people in routine care and having more than 600,000 people who either don’t know that they’re positive or are not in routine care is not a success.”
Weinstein added his organization has tried “without a lot of success” to enlist help from the administration in bringing down the cost of medications, saying the federal government could offer more support “in negotiations with the drug companies to make these drugs more accessible.”
Blade photo editor Michael Key contributed to this report.
CORRECTION: An initial version of this article misquoted the AIDS Institute’s Carl Schmid as saying the AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s criticisms of Obama were “misguided.” The word he used was “misplaced.” The Blade regrets the error.
Federal Government
RFK Jr.’s HHS report pushes therapy, not medical interventions, for trans youth
‘Discredited junk science’ — GLAAD

A 409-page report released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services challenges the ethics of medical interventions for youth experiencing gender dysphoria, the treatments that are often collectively called gender-affirming care, instead advocating for psychotherapy alone.
The document comes in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order barring the federal government from supporting gender transitions for anyone younger than 19.
“Our duty is to protect our nation’s children — not expose them to unproven and irreversible medical interventions,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement. “We must follow the gold standard of science, not activist agendas.”
While the report does not constitute clinical guidance, its findings nevertheless conflict with not just the recommendations of LGBTQ advocacy groups but also those issued by organizations with relevant expertise in science and medicine.
The American Medical Association, for instance, notes that “empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression.”
Gender-affirming care for transgender youth under standards widely used in the U.S. includes supportive talk therapy along with — in some but not all cases — puberty blockers or hormone treatment.
“The suggestion that someone’s authentic self and who they are can be ‘changed’ is discredited junk science,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “This so-called guidance is grossly misleading and in direct contrast to the recommendation of every leading health authority in the world. This report amounts to nothing more than forcing the same discredited idea of conversion therapy that ripped families apart and harmed gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people for decades.”
GLAAD further notes that the “government has not released the names of those involved in consulting or authoring this report.”
Janelle Perez, executive director of LPAC, said, “For decades, every major medical association–including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics–have affirmed that medical care is the only safe and effective treatment for transgender youth experiencing gender dysphoria.
“This report is simply promoting conversion therapy by a different name – and the American people know better. We know that conversion therapy isn’t actually therapy – it isolates and harms kids, scapegoats parents, and divides families through blame and rejection. These tactics have been used against gay kids for decades, and now the same people want to use them against transgender youth and their families.
“The end result here will be a devastating denial of essential health care for transgender youth, replaced by a dangerous practice that every major U.S. medical and mental health association agree promotes anxiety, depression, and increased risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts.
“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice, and no amount of pressure can force someone to change who they are. We also know that 98% of people who receive transition-related health care continue to receive that health care throughout their lifetime. Trans health care is health care.”
“Today’s report seeks to erase decades of research and learning, replacing it with propaganda. The claims in today’s report would rip health care away from kids and take decision-making out of the hands of parents,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of NCLR. “It promotes the same kind of conversion therapy long used to shame LGBTQ+ people into hating themselves for being unable to change something they can’t change.”
“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice—it’s rooted in biology and genetics,” Minter said. “No amount or talk or pressure will change that.”
Human Rights Campaign Chief of Staff Jay Brown released a statement: “Trans people are who we are. We’re born this way. And we deserve to live our best lives and have a fair shot and equal opportunity at living a good life.
“This report misrepresents the science that has led all mainstream American medical and mental health professionals to declare healthcare for transgender youth to be best practice and instead follows a script predetermined not by experts but by Sec. Kennedy and anti-equality politicians.”
The White House
Trump nominates Mike Waltz to become next UN ambassador
Former Fla. congressman had been national security advisor

President Donald Trump on Thursday announced he will nominate Mike Waltz to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
Waltz, a former Florida congressman, had been the national security advisor.
Trump announced the nomination amid reports that Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, were going to leave the administration after Waltz in March added a journalist to a Signal chat in which he, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other officials discussed plans to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen.
“I am pleased to announce that I will be nominating Mike Waltz to be the next United States ambassador to the United Nations,” said Trump in a Truth Social post that announced Waltz’s nomination. “From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our nation’s Interests first. I know he will do the same in his new role.”
Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as interim national security advisor, “while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department.”
“Together, we will continue to fight tirelessly to make America, and the world, safe again,” said Trump.
Trump shortly after his election nominated U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Trump in March withdrew her nomination in order to ensure Republicans maintained their narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
U.S. Federal Courts
Second federal lawsuit filed against White House passport policy
Two of seven plaintiffs live in Md.

Lambda Legal on April 25 filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of seven transgender and nonbinary people who are challenging the Trump-Vance administration’s passport policy.
The lawsuit, which Lambda Legal filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Baltimore, alleges the policy that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers “has caused and is causing grave and immediate harm to transgender people like plaintiffs, in violation of their constitutional rights to equal protection.”
Two of the seven plaintiffs — Jill Tran and Peter Poe — live in Maryland. The State Department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the federal government are defendants.
“The discriminatory passport policy exposes transgender U.S. citizens to harassment, abuse, and discrimination, in some cases endangering them abroad or preventing them from traveling, by forcing them to use identification documents that share private information against their wishes,” said Lambda Legal in a press release.
Zander Schlacter, a New York-based textile artist and designer, is the lead plaintiff.
The lawsuit notes he legally changed his name and gender in New York.
Schlacter less than a week before President Donald Trump’s inauguration “sent an expedited application to update his legal name on his passport, using form DS-5504.”
Trump once he took office signed an executive order that banned the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers. The lawsuit notes Schlacter received his new passport in February.
“The passport has his correct legal name, but now has an incorrect sex marker of ‘F’ or ‘female,'” notes the lawsuit. “Mr. Schlacter also received a letter from the State Department notifying him that ‘the date of birth, place of birth, name, or sex was corrected on your passport application,’ with ‘sex’ circled in red. The stated reason was ‘to correct your information to show your biological sex at birth.'”
“I, like many transgender people, experience fear of harassment or violence when moving through public spaces, especially where a photo ID is required,” said Schlacter in the press release that announced the lawsuit. “My safety is further at risk because of my inaccurate passport. I am unwilling to subject myself and my family to the threat of harassment and discrimination at the hands of border officials or anyone who views my passport.”
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.
Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an “X” gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.
Lambda Legal represented Zzyym.
The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022.
Trump signed his executive order shortly after he took office in January. Germany, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands are among the countries that have issued travel advisories for trans and nonbinary people who plan to visit the U.S.
A federal judge in Boston earlier this month issued a preliminary injunction against the executive order. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of seven trans and nonbinary people.
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