National
AIDS 2012: Protesters disrupt congressional panel on AIDS
Activists want to repeal ban on PEPFAR funds from going to sex workers
Protesters disrupt a congressional panel moderated by former Sen. Bill Frist (left) at the 19th International AIDS Conference (Blade photo by Chris Johnson)
Protesters disrupted an HIV/AIDS panel discussion on Wednesday involving members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, accusing the Republican senators of blocking efforts to thwart the disease at home and abroad.
The activists, many of whom were affiliated with the umbrella group called the Global Network of Sex Work Projects, stormed the dais where the members of Congress began speaking shortly after former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, who was serving as moderator, started the event at the 19th international AIDS conference in D.C.
The session was titled, “The United States Congress & the Global AIDS Epidemic.” In addition to Frist, four sitting members of Congress took part: Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).
Chanting “Repeal the pledge for PEPFAR” and ringing cowbells, protesters called on Congress to repeal the portion of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, requiring organizations that receive money under the program to have policies against prostitution — even though sex workers around the world are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS. Protesters later chanted, “Sex workers rights are human rights!”
Many of the protesters carried red umbrellas. Their signs read, “U.S.A. Repeal the Anti-Prostitution Pledge” and “Export Justice; Not Bad Policy.” A banner unfurled before the dais read, “Export Justice: Not Bad Policy.”
The shouts continued for about five minutes as Frist seemed helpless in his efforts to regain control of the panel even after he said activists had made their point. After one protester said, “You have the floor, senator,” discussion on the panel began to proceed.
But as the members of Congress began to speak activists continued to criticize Republican members of the panel throughout the event — and not all the shouts were about U.S. aid to protect sex workers overseas against HIV/AIDS.
After Enzi gave his remarks recalling the process leading to passage of PEPFAR, protesters shouted, “What about epidemic at home? Where’s the Senate bill?” Enzi replied he’s voted twice to reauthorize funding for the Ryan White Care Act, which provides AIDS drugs to low-income people. The AIDS Institute later affirmed that Enzi twice voted for the measure in 2006 and 2009.
Frist also came to Enzi’s defense, saying the Wyoming senator has traveled to Africa seven times since his initial visit to monitor progress that U.S. global funds have been making on HIV/AIDS.
Rubio didn’t fare any better. When he began speaking, a member of the audience criticized the senator, saying the level of HIV criminalization is higher in Florida than any other part of the country. Another protester silently held up a sign reading, “Rubio Make Mitt Ends AIDS.”
Still, Rubio, a Tea Party favorite, seemed amenable to the United States confronting HIV/AIDS despite his general opposition to government spending, saying foreign aid represents about 1 percent of the U.S. budget and wouldn’t significantly reduce the deficit if taken away.
But the situation was different for Democratic lawmakers, particularly Lee, who last week introduced a bill in Congress called the “Ending HIV Act,” which, among other things, would repeal the ban prohibiting PEPFAR funds from going to sex workers. One protester before the dais held up a sign saying, “We <3 Barbra Lee.” Coons also didn’t endure significant barbs.
In her remarks on the panel, Lee touted the bipartisan work that has been done to confront HIV/AIDS, but said an expanded approach that includes drug users and sex workers is necessary because they represent the majority of people living with HIV. The lawmaker left immediately after her remarks to return to Capitol Hill for votes.
In the last 10 minutes of the discussion, Frist lost complete control of the event. When it became apparent that no time would be allocated for questions from the audience, protesters began to shout “Time for Q&A! Time for Q&A!”
Frist initially said he’d allow some time for questioning as panelists continued discussion, but the chants continued. Finally, as one male audience member demanded to talk and others chanted, “Let him speak,” Frist allotted him a full minute to talk, asking him to take up the full minute. The speaker, who didn’t identify himself, said he was an activist who hailed from Gambia, and accused panelists of allowing people in Africa to die, saying, “We could have saved lives if you allowed us to talk.”
The panel concluded shortly afterward. Protesters continued to chant as they exited the room together along with others.
Shawn Jain, a spokesperson for the conference, said the protesters and organizations with which they are affiliated do not face any consequences.
“The conference expects marches and other peaceful protests during AIDS 2012, including actions inside the conference venue,” Jain said. “AIDS activism has been very important to bringing about critical changes in how the world responds to HIV, and the conference endorses freedom of expression and peaceful protest as an essential principle in the fight against AIDS.”
Kelli Dorsey, one of the protesters and executive director of Different Avenues, said afterward the goal of the protest was to encourage Congress to lift the anti-prostitution pledge that is conditional for U.S. funds against AIDS under PEPFAR.
“What’s happened is some organizations — because of fear and because the guidelines are unclear — don’t provide the same services to sex workers, and therefore sex workers are marginalized from the health care systems,” Dorsey said.
Still, Dorsey expressed doubt that Congress will take action on this issue, saying, “I think it’s going to take a while for us to see action. I think Barbara Lee will put it in, [but] it’s going to be a slow build up because we have a very conservative Congress right now.”
Michael Tikili, a community organizer with an international AIDS activist group HealthGAP who held up the sign calling on Rubio to take action, said afterward Rubio “can actually influence” Romney because the senator is considered a contender as a vice presidential nominee.
“It’s really important for him to speak up on AIDS,” Tikili said. “The fear is that if Romney were to come into office, and he doesn’t have the same beliefs and intuition on AIDS funding, then we’re screwed.”
Tikili expressed confidence that Rubio got the message, saying, “I saw him look directly at me and frown.” And this message may have instigated progress. According to Tikili, Sally Canfield, Rubio’s deputy chief of staff, told the protesters after the event the senator would speak to Romney about issuing an AIDS strategy.
A Senate staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, characterized the situation slightly differently, but acknowledged Rubio agreed to talk to Romney on AIDS.
“After the panel, someone shouted out the general question, ‘Will you talk to Governor Romney about AIDS?'” the staffer said. “Marco said ‘sure.’ Nothing on a ‘national AIDS strategy’ though.”
Hungary
Vance speaks at Orbán rally in Hungary
Anti-LGBTQ prime minister trailing ahead of April 12 vote
Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday urged Hungarians to support Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the country’s April 12 elections.
“We have got to get Viktor Orbán re-elected as prime minister of Hungary,” Vance told Orbán supporters who gathered at Budapest’s MTK Sportpark.
Vance and Orbán on Tuesday met before they held a press conference in Budapest. Orbán also spoke at the rally.
The U.S. vice president after he took to the stage called President Donald Trump, who told the crowd he is “a big fan of Viktor” and is “with him all the way.” Vance, as he did during Tuesday’s press conference with Orbán, criticized the European Union.
“We want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do. I’m not telling you exactly who to vote for, but what I am telling you is that the bureaucrats in Brussels, those people should not be listened to,” said Vance. “Listen to your hearts, listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people.”
Vance in his speech noted “across the West, we’ve got a small band of radicals” who, among other things, “condemn children to mutilization and sterilization in the name of gender care.” Vance also criticized a “far-left ideology given quarter in university circles, in the media, and in our entertainment industry, and increasingly among bureaucrats on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Vice President JD Vance speaks at MTK Sportpark in Budapest, Hungary, on April 7, 2026
Orbán has been in office since 2010. He and his Fidesz-KDNP coalition government have faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
A Hungarian activist with whom the Washington Blade previously spoke said it is “impossible to change your gender legally in Hungary” because of a 2020 law that “banned legal gender recognition of transgender and intersex people.” Hungarian MPs the same year effectively prohibited same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the country’s constitution as between a man and a woman.
The European Commission in 2022 sued Hungary, which is a member of the EU, over the country’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law.
Hungarian lawmakers in March 2025 passed a bill that banned Pride events and allowed authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs later amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
Upwards of 100,000 people last June defied the ban and marched in Budapest’s annual Pride parade.
Polls indicate Orbán is trailing Péter Magyar and his center-right Tisza party ahead of the April 12 election. Vance at Tuesday’s rally told Orbán supporters that he and Trump “want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do.”
“I’m not telling you exactly who to vote for, but what I am telling you is that the bureaucrats in Brussels, those people should not be listened to,” said Vance. “Listen to your hearts, listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people.”
“Unlike some of the leadership of Brussels, I’m not threatening you or telling you that we’re going to withhold funds to which you’re legally entitled,” he added. “You will make the decision about Hungary’s future.”
The White House
White House ends protections for trans students in multiple school districts
Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware among administration’s targets
The Department of Education has terminated agreements with five school districts and a college aimed at protecting the rights of transgender students, backtracking requirements made in prior administrations, according to the Associated Press.
Allowing the reversal of these federal obligations removes formerly mandatory measures, including faculty training on responding to a student’s preferred name and pronouns, and policies allowing trans children to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
This policy change is a major shift from past democratic-led administrations, and will impact Delaware Valley School District in Pennsylvania, Sacramento City Unified School District in California, Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware, Fife School District in Washington, and La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, as well as Taft College in California.
Delaware Valley School District received notice from the Trump-Vance administration in February and has since voted to roll back anti-discrimination protections. Other schools, like Sacramento City Unified School District, said the change in minimum protections a district must offer will not affect their policies because it “remains committed to the support of our LGBTQ+ students and staff.”
This is part of a wider wave of anti-trans actions taken by the Trump-Vance administration. This White House has penalized schools attempting to accommodate students’ gender identity, filed lawsuits in California and Minnesota over state policies allowing trans students to participate in interscholastic sports, and opened civil rights investigations into multiple schools and universities over their policies on trans students.
Kimberly Richey, the Department of Education’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, said the action underscored the administration’s efforts to prevent trans students from participating in girls’ and women’s sports teams and accessing shared locker rooms.
“Today, the Trump administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda,” she said in a written statement.
According to the AP, this is just one instance of the administration rescinding civil rights protections in education. Last year, the Department of Education terminated two agreements: one involving the removal of books from a school library in Georgia, and another addressing harsh discipline and unequal education opportunities for Native students in the Rapid City Area School District in South Dakota.
Shiwali Patel, the senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center, issued a statement in response to the removal of protections for trans students, saying the rollback will negatively impact all students — not just trans ones.
“There is absolutely no basis for what the Department of Education is doing, and it is unimaginably cruel. Title IX exists to ensure that students are protected from discrimination and treated with dignity so that they can learn and thrive in our schools,” Patel said. “It’s what students, families, lawmakers, and advocates fought for when Title IX was passed decades ago. But the Trump administration’s Department of Education has spent its limited resources to strip Title IX of that very purpose.”
She continued, highlighting the issues that will arise from the agreement removals in schools.
“Real complaints of discrimination and sexual assault are going unanswered by the Department of Education while conservative lawmakers continue to escalate their attacks on a small minority of students,” the nationally recognized Title IX expert and advocacy leader for gender-based harassment added. “Parents, teachers, and students need the Department to focus on addressing real harms on campuses instead of rolling back policies that keep all students safe.”
The schools that had their agreements terminated vary, but stem from the same issue: treating trans students with the same protections from harassment as their cisgender peers.
In 2023, Taft College, a community college in California’s Central Valley, became one of the few schools to settle a case with the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Office after a student accused faculty of discrimination, including refusing to use the student’s preferred pronouns. The college agreed to faculty training on Title IX protections and revised its policies to clarify that refusing to use a person’s preferred name and pronoun can constitute harassment.
The now-canceled agreement with Sacramento City Unified School District stemmed from a 2022 complaint brought by a student after a teacher refused to use the student’s preferred pronouns and/or refused to allow the male-identifying student to work in a boys’ group for a class activity. The 2024 resolution agreement had mandated training for employees on civil rights law, sexual harassment, and how to handle formal complaints.
Under a settlement the Delaware Valley School District reached with the Obama-Biden administration, the district was required to permit students to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identity. In February, the Trump-Vance administration sent the district a letter rescinding the settlement and requiring the rollback of antidiscrimination protections for trans students. The school board voted in late March to change its policies accordingly.
This move is part of a broader pattern of anti-trans actions from the White House since Trump returned to office.
In addition to restricting protections in federally funded education spaces, the administration has attempted to end trans girls’ and women’s participation in sports competitions and has sued states that have not complied. It has also blocked trans and nonbinary people from choosing sex markers on passports and attempted to stop those under 19 from receiving gender-affirming medical care.
South Carolina
Man faces first S.C. ‘hate intimidation’ charge
Timothy Truett allegedly shot at gay club in Myrtle Beach on April 1
A South Carolina man remains in custody on a more than $300,000 bond after he allegedly opened fire at a Myrtle Beach nightclub on April 1, according to WMBF.
Reports say 37-year-old Timothy James Truett Jr., of Clover, S.C., was detained by the Myrtle Beach Police Department after the April 1 incident outside Pulse Ultra Club. He was later arrested and charged with possession of a weapon during a violent crime, discharging a firearm into a dwelling, discharging a firearm within city limits, malicious injury to real property valued over $5,000, and assault or intimidation due to political opinions or the exercise of civil rights.
At 10:57 a.m. on April 1, officers responded to a call about a possible shooting at Pulse Ultra Club, located in the 2700 block of South Kings Highway.
In an affidavit released later, the club’s owner, Ken Phillips, said he was doing paperwork that morning when he heard “five or six” gunshots. He went outside and found a window and the windshield of his SUV shattered by bullets. An SUV with blue plastic covering one window was left at the scene.
Police later reviewed footage that showed a silver vehicle stopping in the middle of the road. The video appeared to capture muzzle flashes coming from the passenger-side window.
According to the affidavit, an officer later pulled over a vehicle driven by Truett and found spent shell casings in the back seat, along with a gun.
Documents do not detail why Truett was ultimately charged under the state law covering assault or intimidation tied to political opinions or the exercise of civil rights.
As of April 1, records show Truett is being held in Horry County on a combined bond of more than $312,000.
WMBF spoke with Phillips after the incident and asked whether there was any prior conflict that might have led to the shooting.
“I don’t know if it’s personal, I don’t know if it’s related to being gay, I don’t know if it’s related to the bar issues,” Phillips told WMBF. “Anybody with a mindset of pulling out a weapon in broad daylight is not right.”
“My primary concern has and always will be the safety of my community and my customers,” he added. “It’s given me great concern … as to how far people will go.”
WMBF also spoke with Adam Hayes, vice chair of Myrtle Beach’s Human Rights Coalition, who was involved in pushing for the ordinance. He said that while the incident itself is troubling, it shows the policy is being put to use.
The ordinance is intended to deter “crimes that are motivated by bias or hate towards any person or persons, in whole or in part, because of the actual or perceived” identity, in the absence of a statewide hate crime law.
“It’s nice to see that something we put into policy is not just a piece of paper, that it’s actually being used,” said Hayes.
He said the shooting underscores the need for a statewide hate crime law in South Carolina and added that the incident has left the local LGBTQ community shaken.
South Carolina and Wyoming are the only two states in the U.S. without a comprehensive statewide hate crime law.
Truett remains in jail as of publication.
Vance speaks at Orbán rally in Hungary
White House ends protections for trans students in multiple school districts
Amendments to India’s transgender rights law criticized
Cuba under pressure and without answers
Police mental health struggles gain growing attention
Belarusian lawmakers approve bill to crackdown on LGBTQ rights
How new barriers to health care coverage are hitting D.C.
Kenyan advocacy groups launch LGBTQ voter mobilization campaign
Calendar: April 3-9
