National
LGBT bills unlikely to advance in Senate before Election Day
Advocates hope for markup on ENDA
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is unlikely to schedule floor time for pro-LGBT bills. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
With a few months remaining in the 112th Congress — and a few weeks until lawmakers adjourn for August recess — advocates say the chances for advancing any pro-LGBT legislation even in the Democratic-controlled Senate are slim — at least before Election Day.
Michael Cole-Schwartz, spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, expressed the sentiment that progress on pro-LGBT bills is unlikely in Congress anytime soon.
“Obviously the calendar is tight with only seven legislative weeks between now and the election,” Cole-Schwartz said. “Further, as summer rolls on, it begins to get harder and harder to get much done on Capitol Hill.”
Still, Cole-Schwartz said HRC will look to see what could be accomplished in the lame duck session and push to include LGBT provisions in any major tax bill or other omnibus spending package that comes to the floor.
Few had expected pro-LGBT legislation to move through the House while Republicans remain in control of the chamber, although some progress was made on bills in the Senate — including the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the Domestic Partnership Benefits & Obligations Act, and the Respect for Marriage Act — leading to hopes that more progress could be made in at least one chamber of Congress.
On ENDA, which would bar job discrimination against LGBT people in the workplace, the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee held a historic hearing last month featuring the first-ever testimony from an openly transgender person before the Senate. Earlier in the Congress, the DPBO bill, which would extend health and pension benefits to partners of federal workers, and the RMA, which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, were reported out of their respective committees of jurisdiction.
But even these bills may not advance. A Senate Democratic aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was unlikely that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would schedule time for votes on these bills before Election Day, but left the door open for the possibility of them being tacked on to larger legislation coming to the floor.
“There is very little chance that any of these bills will be voted on in the Senate — as freestanding legislation – before the end of 2012,” the aide said. “However, it’s possible that one of the first three listed could be pushed by their sponsors as an amendment to another bill.”
A spokesperson for Reid’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment on whether floor time would be scheduled for any pending pro-LGBT legislation for the remainder of this Congress.
Progress on one measure, the reauthorization of the Elementary & Secondary Education Act, which was intended as a vehicle for pro-LGBT legislation, has apparently reached an impasse. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), the sponsor of the Student Non-Discrimination Act, and Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), had pledged to offer their anti-bullying bills as amendments to ESEA reauthorization when it came to the floor.
Cole-Schwartz said ESEA reauthorization “has stalled and is not expected to move further this year,” but advocates are looking for other options on the anti-bullying bills.
“While we had hoped it to be a vehicle for LGBT-inclusive schools legislation, we are working with allies to identify other options,” Cole-Schwartz said.
Shawn Gaylord, director of public policy for the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, or GLSEN, echoed the sentiment that negotiations on ESEA reauthorization have stalled and “the general consensus in the education community is that any movement within this Congress is unlikely.”
“ESEA is the vehicle that will most likely move both the Safe Schools Improvement Act and Student Non Discrimination Act,” Gaylord said. “However, without any momentum for reauthorization, it’s unlikely that either of those bills will reach the floor of the House or Senate. GLSEN is continuing to build support for the bills among members so that we’re in a stronger position if ESEA moves in the next Congress.”
It’s on ENDA where advocates are still optimistic about the prospects of at least a markup for the legislation — although the proper strategy for advancing the bill is in dispute among some groups.
LGBT advocates have been calling for a markup of ENDA for months at the same time they previously called for a Senate hearing on the legislation. Cole-Schwartz said HRC is “pushing hard to have an ENDA markup in the HELP committee” as a follow-up to the hearing.
A spokesperson for the HELP committee, which is chaired by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), didn’t respond to a request for comment on any updates to plans to hold a markup on ENDA.
Tico Almeida, president of Freedom to Work, has been pushing for a Senate floor vote on ENDA this summer regardless of whether or not the committee first holds a markup of the legislation. While acknowledging the chances of a vote before August recess remain slim, Almeida said a floor vote on ENDA before the end of this year could still happen.
“I think there is a real possibility that ENDA will get a full Senate vote in September or in a lame duck [session], if LGBT groups make a strong effort to push for that,” Almeida said. “We are fortunate that Sen. [Mark] Kirk and Sen. [Jeff] Merkley are strongly pushing for it, and I think Sen. Harkin’s committee staff is very engaged in determining how to most strategically move the bill forward and that might mean skipping markup and going straight to the floor.”
Almeida said the timing of this vote demonstrates there should no problem holding a vote on the legislation before Election Day and Reid can live up to his promise in 2009 that a Senate vote on ENDA can happen soon.
“ENDA’s first and only full Senate vote was in September 1996 — just weeks before a presidential election — so nobody should use this year’s election as an excuse to further delay a vote that Senator Reid promised three years ago would be coming ‘soon,'” Almeida said. “Voters deserve to know whether our representatives support LGBT Americans’ freedom to work without discrimination. By bringing ENDA to the floor before the election, voters in key Senate races in places like Massachusetts and Nevada will finally learn where Senators [Scott] Brown and [Dean] Heller stand.”
But other groups are saying the markup needs to happen before the floor vote. HRC’s Cole-Schwartz said “a successful markup is an important step” on ENDA as part of the strategy for the bill, which includes securing 60 votes beforehand to avoid a filibuster and achieving a successful vote.
“Building a strong legislative history for any piece of legislation is important,” Cole-Schwartz said. “Given that neither the House nor the Senate has ever marked up the inclusive bill, we believe a markup has two major benefits: one, it removes a procedural objection that some senators would likely use to object to floor consideration and two, it creates a more complete and solid legislative record should the law ever be challenged in court.”
Almeida insisted that any technical changes that are necessary for ENDA can be done on the Senate floor and the legislation — such as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal — has gone to the Senate floor prior to markup.
“Senate rules allow a bill to skip markup, and it may be the most strategic thing to go directly to the floor,” Almeida said. “Freedom to Work would support that strategic option, if that’s what Harkin, Merkley and Kirk think is best.”
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.
‘Things Like This’ embraces formula and plus-size visibility
Calendar: May 23-29
Comings & Goings
New doc chronicles gay hero’s journey from rape to forgiveness
Murdered Israeli embassy officials were supporters of D.C.’s LGBTQ synagogue
Looking back at 50 years of Pride in D.C
WorldPride events round-up
Pope Leo XIV: Family based on ‘stable union between a man and a woman’
Wes Moore signs HIV decriminalization bill
