National
Bay Buchanan tells gay audience Romney will win
Ignores LGBT issues in speech to GOProud conservatives
Republican strategist Bay Buchanan (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Republican strategist Bay Buchanan urged an audience of gay conservatives on Monday to remain optimistic that Mitt Romney will win the presidential race.
“We have the message,” Buchanan said. “We have the candidate, we now have the momentum and the energy and the excitement on our side, and the undecideds are breaking our way.”
Buchanan addressed a crowd of about 65 at the Hotel Monaco in D.C. during the gay conservative group GOProud’s “Unity” event, which was aimed at building support for Romney a month prior to the election.
Blaming the media for the polling disparities between Obama and Romney — which were heightened after the release of the “47 percent” video — Buchanan said, “There were some mistakes on our part, and they managed to do their best to make it much worse than it really was.”
But Buchanan, a senior adviser to the Romney campaign, said polls are narrowing thanks to the Romney campaign’s engagement with the local media across the country and Romney’s performance in the first presidential debate last week.
“At each question, he had such a command of the issue, and the way he spoke, it was clear he is also a caring man,” Buchanan said. “He is concerned, but he also happens to be perfectly competent, clear in thought, understands the issues, has some answers out there and he truly has the kind of courage necessary to do the job that is necessary to put Americans back to work.”
Buchanan also disparaged Obama’s performance during the debate, saying, “You got to give the guy a break. Can you imagine an hour-and-a-half of trying to defend that record?” The audience responded with peals of laughter.
No explicit mention of LGBT issues was made during the speech, but Buchanan conveyed a sense of solidarity with the audience of gay conservatives over the issue of the economy.
“The economy and jobs is the most serious issue the country faces, and we face these issues together,” Buchanan said.
Prior to her remarks, Buchanan refused to take questions from the Washington Blade. She shook hands after her speech with a number of attendees in the room who thanked her for her work.
Buchanan’s attendance at the event was noteworthy because she managed the three presidential campaigns of her brother Pat Buchanan, who in his 1992 speech before the Republican National Convention said the GOP stands with then President George H.W. Bush against the “amoral idea that gay and lesbian couples should have the same standing in law as married men and women.”
Just in May on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Buchanan responded negatively to President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage, saying the move would be politically costly for Democrats in battleground states.
“They have trouble, we now have Mitt Romney, who’s always been opposed to gay marriage, I might add,” Buchanan said at the time. “But that is where America is. You have 32 states out there who have banned it. They have never won on the ballot. And so what happens in North Carolina now? This is great in Iowa, in several states, but 32 of them are with us. I think it’s no question if this was good politics for Barack Obama, he’d have done it a long time ago. He wouldn’t have been dragged kicking and screaming to do this.”
But the audience seemed largely unconcerned about Buchanan’s position on LGBT issues or the lack of any mention of them.
Jose Romero, 34, a gay D.C. resident, said he came to the event because “it’s time for a change” and after four years of the Obama administration “people aren’t in a better place than they were four years ago.”
“I think everyone has their own issues that are important to them and not everyone’s No. 1 issue is getting married,” Romero said. “The economy, international politics, those types of issues are more important, I think, to some people than others.”
GOProud Executive Director Jimmy LaSalvia (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Jimmy LaSalvia, GOProud’s executive director, introduced Buchanan, reminding them his organization is the only national gay organization to endorse Romney because “on issue after issue, a Romney administration would be better for gay Americans, indeed all Americans.”
“Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan understand the single most important issue facing this country right now is the issue of jobs and the economy,” LaSalvia said. “President Obama wants to run this race on social issues. He talks about abortion and gay marriage and contraception — anything that distracts from his failed record on jobs and the economy.”
LaSalvia praised Romney’s performance in the debate last week, saying Romney exemplified the conservative approach to economic prosperity, while Obama was “stammering and stuttering to defend his record.”
But LaSalvia also explained that the presidential race is one of three key races in which his organization has issued endorsements. The GOProud chief touted his organization’s endorsement of Tommy Thompson in the U.S. Senate race in Wisconsin against lesbian Tammy Baldwin as well as Linda McMahon in the U.S. Senate race in Connecticut, who on Sunday came out for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. Additional endorsements, LaSalvia said, will be made in coming weeks.
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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