News
9 races to watch as gays run for Congress
Baldwin seeks to become first openly gay senator


U.S. Representative Tammy Baldwin (D—Wisc.) is in a tight race against her state’s former governor, Tommy Thompson, for the state’s seat in the U.S. Senate. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
A record number of openly gay candidates running for Congress will face their critical test on Tuesday as many — including U.S. Senate candidate Tammy Baldwin — are seeing polls tighten as Election Day approaches.
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A total of nine openly gay, lesbian and bisexual candidates are seeking office in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. With the retirement of gay Rep. Barney Frank, openly LGBT representation in Congress will look very different after next week.
Baldwin’s race is the most high-profile among these candidates because she’d be the first openly gay person elected to the U.S. Senate and the outcome of the race against Republican former Gov. Tommy Thompson may determine which party controls the chamber after the election.
Denis Dison, a spokesperson for the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, said all eyes will be on the race because — following the spike in polls that Baldwin enjoyed after her speech at the Democratic National Convention — the contest has become increasingly high-profile and competitive due to spending from outside conservative groups.
“I know groups like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity — also the U.S. Chamber [of Commerce] — I think the total amount is about $13 million they have spent on ads attacking Tammy,” Dison said. “That has caused the race to get very close.”
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For her part, Baldwin made public on Oct. 30 her closing TV ad showing workers and families as well as footage of her campaigning with former President Bill Clinton.
“One big difference between Tammy Baldwin and Tommy Thompson is that she stood up to the special interests, and he’s stood up for them,” Clinton says in a voice over. “If you put people first, it works better than trickle-down economics.”
Another race that will be closely watched is Massachusetts’ 9th congressional district — where gay Republican challenger Richard Tisei seems poised to beat Democratic incumbent Rep. John Tierney.
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New York’s 18th congressional district is another race of interest to the LGBT community. Gay Democrat Sean Patrick Maloney is seeking to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Nan Hayworth, who has a pro-LGBT record in Congress and the backing of gay conservative groups.
In a statement to the Washington Blade, Maloney said the LGBT community should rally behind him because Hayworth has aligned herself with conservative groups.
“Tea Party Congresswoman Nan Hayworth doesn’t believe that my family is equal to hers or that members of the LGBT community deserve equal protection under the law,” Maloney said. “I think folks around the country, LGBT and otherwise, are tired of this extreme ideology.”
9 gay candidates to watch this election day
REP. TAMMY BALDWIN
Race: U.S. Senate seat in Wisconsin
Opponent: Republican former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson
Significance: Baldwin, a Democrat, would be first openly gay person elected to the U.S. Senate.
Polls: 10/28 Rasmussen Reports — Thompson 48, Baldwin, 47; 10/22 Mason-Dixon — Baldwin 47, Thompson, 45.
RICHARD TISEI
Race: U.S. House seat in Massachusetts, District 6
Opponent: Incumbent Democrat U.S. Rep. John Tierney
Significance: Tisei would be the first openly gay Republican elected to Congress as a non-incumbent and the only out Republican serving on Capitol Hill.
Polls: 10/1 Boston Globe — Tisei 37, Tierney 31.
REP. DAVID CICILLINE
Race: U.S. House seat in Rhode Island, District 1
Opponent: Republican challenger Brendan Doherty
Significance: Cicilline, a Democrat, is pursuing his first re-election effort since becoming the fourth sitting openly gay member of Congress in 2010.
Polls: 10/10 Brown University — Cicilline 46, Doherty 40.
SEAN PATRICK MALONEY
Race: U.S. House seat in New York, District 18
Opponent: Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Nan Hayworth
Significance: Maloney, a Democrat, would be the first openly gay member of Congress from New York State.
Polls: 10/19 Siena College — Hayworth 49, Maloney 42.
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MARK POCAN
Race: U.S. House seat in Wisconsin, District 2
Opponent: Republican candidate Chad Lee
Significance: Pocan would replace Baldwin in the U.S. House.
Polls: The district is widely considered a Democratic safe seat and Pocan is expected to win.
REP. JARED POLIS
Race: U.S. House seat in Colorado, District 2
Opponent: Republican challenger Susan Hall
Significance: Polis is set to become the most senior openly gay member of the U.S. House.
Polls: The district is widely considered a Democratic safe seat and Polis is expected to win re-election.
KYRSTEN SINEMA
Race: U.S. House seat in Arizona, District 9
Opponent: Republican candidate Vernon Parker
Significance: Sinema, a Democrat, would be the first openly bisexual person elected to Congress.
Polls: 10/16 Summit Consulting Group —Parker 44, Sinema 42.
MARK TAKANO
Race: U.S. House seat in California, District 41
Opponent: Republican candidate John Tavaglione
Significance: Takano, a Japanese-American Democrat, would be the first openly gay person of color elected to Congress.
Polls: 8/21 EMC Research — Takano 42, Tavaglione 38
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NICOLE LEFAVOUR
Race: U.S. House seat in Idaho, District 2
Opponent: Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson
Significance: LeFavour, a Democrat, isn’t endorsed by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund.
Polls: The district is widely considered a Republican safe seat and Simpson is expected to win.

The government of Tamil Nadu in southern India has proposed a policy that is designed to improve the lives of LGBTQ and intersex people in the state.
The Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission introduced the “Draft Policy for the Welfare of LGBTQIA+ Persons” in July 2023. Key provisions include a 1 percent quota for transgender and intersex people in education and employment. Progress to implement the policy has been hindered because of the government’s fragmented approach of developing separate policies for different groups within the community.
The Madras High Court in January 2024 acknowledged Tamil Nadu’s proposed policy and commended the state’s efforts.
The court highlighted key recommendations, such as establishing a State Commission for Sexual and Gender Minorities and introducing quotas, while stressing the need to combat discrimination and violence. The court this month, however, raised concerns about the government’s separate policies for trans people and the broader LGBTQ community.
Justice N. Anand Venkatesh stressed the need for a single, unified policy to effectively address the challenges the LGBTQ community faces. He directed the Social Welfare and Women Empowerment Department to submit a separate proposal for trans people and a consolidated LGBTQ one by Feb. 17 that would allow stakeholder input and improvements.
The Madras High Court has been actively guiding the Tamil Nadu government towards formulating a unified and comprehensive policy for the LGBTQ community, rather than separate policies for different groups within the community.
Tamil Nadu’s proposal offers several advantages aimed at promoting inclusivity and equality. It would provide healthcare inclusion, recommending the extension of the Chief Minister’s Health Insurance Scheme to cover trans-specific medical procedures, such as gender-affirming surgeries, to ensure essential healthcare is accessible. The proposal calls for nondiscrimination policies in all government departments and public authorities that seek to protect LGBTQ people from bias and violence.
The proposal calls for educational institutions to adopt policies that raise awareness and address issues of violence, abuse, and discrimination against students with diverse gender identities and sexual orientations. It also suggests the creation of bodies like the Tamil Nadu Council for LGBTQ Persons and District Level LGBTQ Welfare and Justice Committees to coordinate efforts across government departments.
“Tamil Nadu is the first state in India to develop a unified policy covering sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics, based on a recent Madras High Court directive,” said L. Ramakrishnan from SAATHII, an organization that works to create an inclusive healthcare system, and a member of the policy drafting committee. “This is important because critical sensitization interventions for inclusive education, healthcare and employment require understanding of sexual, sexuality, and gender diversity,”
“At the same time, recognizing the added vulnerabilities of trans and intersex individuals, provisions such as horizontal reservations and free land allocation are proposed only for transgender and intersex individuals,” added Ramakrishnan.
The proposal, among other things, calls for gender-neutral bathrooms and hostels. It also seeks to protect LGBTQ people from family violence and from corrective rape and so-called conversion therapy that medical providers and faith healers carry out.
The proposed policy would also acknowledge and support relationships outside the traditional marriage framework. It proposes a Deed of Familial Association that would legally recognize queer relationships as the Madras High Court ruled in a case of a lesbian couple who sought protection from harassment. While the deed would offer protection from family and societal harassment, it would not extend legal status or rights associated with marriage or civil unions.
The Indian Supreme Court on Oct. 17, 2023, ruled against marriage rights for same-sex couples.
“We have long been working and sensitizing the government for a policy,” said Kalki Subramaniam, a trans activist and artist who founded the Sahodari Foundation, an organization that supports trans people in India. “It seems to be happening. We, the trans community, demand a separate policy for us because we are the most marginalized and poorest community in the entire LGBTQI spectrum.”
“I insist on two different policies: One for us, trans and intersex persons, and the other for the LGB community. Practically, it is very much possible,” added Subramaniam. “The state government, months ago, held public meetings with the trans community in all districts, and the community’s overall demand is a separate policy. I welcome the commission and insist it should have representatives from trans women, trans men, and intersex communities.”
She told the Washington Blade the proposed policy is something for which the community has been waiting for years, and is happy to see it on the table. Subramaniam noted the quota, in particular, will ensure equal opportunities in jobs and education.
“Tamil Nadu government’s laudable efforts in building equity for the LGBTQIA+ community stands as a magnificent beacon of hope,” said Harish Iyer, an Indian LGBTQ activist. “In times of absolute disregard across the world, this effort puts not just the queer community, but India in the forefront of humanitarian efforts.”
District of Columbia
Dancing protesters denounce Trump’s Kennedy Center takeover
‘This is an attack, not only on free speech, but on artists’

Waiting in the windy cold of a 45-degree February day in Washington, Tara Hoot stood in Washington Circle wearing a canary yellow dress, heels, and a rainbow feather boa. Hoot was waiting, along with about 100 others, although most of them were wearing layers of clothes, for a protest to begin.
“I am here because, well, I’m angry at the situation we find ourselves in,” Hoot told the Blade amid a growing crowd of pro-drag and pro-LGBTQ protesters who gathered behind her. “I’m just so annoyed that this sitting president is attacking a marginalized population. It’s a distraction for the country when everything’s falling apart. The cost of eggs is up there, and inflation is rising, and he’s here attacking a marginalized population in D.C.? It’s like, go do your job, right? It’s immoral what he’s doing, and it’s weak to attack the marginalized population. He’s just showing his own weakness.”
Last week President Trump promised followers that he would remove anyone that “do not share our vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture,” specifically targeting drag performers at the Kennedy Center. On Wednesday he made that goal a reality by removing the 18 Democratic members on the formerly bipartisan Kennedy Center board, replacing them with Trump loyalists.
This raised questions of the legality of removing the board, and his seeming attempt to silence First Amendment rights. As a result, the Kennedy Center issued a statement following Trump’s post.
“Per the Center’s governance established by Congress in 1958, the chair of the board of trustees is appointed by the Center’s board members,” the statement read. “There is nothing in the Center’s statute that would prevent a new administration from replacing board members; however, this would be the first time such action has been taken with the Kennedy Center’s board.”
Of the newly appointed board members, all have stood behind the twice impeached president as he continues to slash the federal government. These loyalists include Richard Grenell, a gay man who served as Trump’s ambassador to Germany in his first term; Usha Vance, the second lady of the United States; Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff; and Patricia Duggan, a philanthropist and top GOP donor.
The newly appointed board then elected Trump as chair.
When asked what Hoot, a local drag icon who has performed at the Kennedy Center, would say to the current board, she was quick with an answer.
“Well darling, they missed their chance!” Hoot said. “I was running for board president of the Kennedy Center, the people’s princess, I would say. Art is gorgeous and diverse and beautiful, and it’s a way that we all tell our stories. The board needs to keep the heart of the Kennedy Center in mind, no matter who their board chair is. They actually need to have a spine and push back when these ideas that art has to be one thing or another, the board needs to push back and keep the Kennedy Center a people’s place for art.”
Brooke N Hymen, a self-described “professional crossdresser” and trans person explained that to them, the changes in public attitude is more than a silencing of free speech, but an erasure of trans people.
“I find that attacks on drag are not just an attack on my heart, my livelihood, but also a veiled attack on trans people,” Hymen said. “They want to code trans people and what they do in their daily expression as drag as a way to ban trans people. So if we don’t stand up against these attacks on drag, trans people are the first people that will be harmed.”
Hymen went on to say there are clear and simple ways that the board could offset these actions that directly and negatively impact the LGBTQ community.
“More drag programming, more queer artists, more queer musicians, and more queer casts,” they said. “Tara Hoot was running for board of the Kennedy Center. I don’t know how possible that is under Trump, but I think that it’s a lovely sentiment and something that we should all push for.”
Putting Hoot back in the Kennedy Center was also on the mind of other participants of the protest dance party. John Borstel, a former arts administrator, also said that appointing someone like Hoot to the board would be beneficial—if only to ensure that someone would speak out at the Kennedy Center.
“Get out and let the bipartisan board back in,” Borstel said. “Get out and get people who know the arts back in. Let Tara Hoot in here! The drag queen who’s performed at the Kennedy Center. She’s been outspoken about this. She’s gone on record where the Biden appointed and ousted board members won’t even make a public statement about what happened. They’re afraid for themselves. We’ve got drag queens speaking out. The bureaucrats won’t speak up.”
His sentiment regarding the lack of response from former Kennedy Center officials was echoed in his grievances with other established members of the arts community who didn’t show up at the protest. It did make him proud in a unique way though.
“I have never been prouder than I am tonight, to be a gay man, to be queer, because it’s the queers who have come out to protest it — but it’s affecting everybody,” Borstel said. “He’s going to cut it all down. Everybody should be out here. I worked in the arts sector for over 30 years here. Where are those folks? But the queers are here. And they’re dancing!”

Bennett Shoop, one of the protest organizers with the Claudia Jones School for Political Education, told the crowd at Washington Circle—just before their march down New Hampshire Avenue to the front of the Kennedy Center—that drag is deeply intertwined with Washington’s history and that ignoring it means erasing that history.
“Drag is really important to D.C. and it’s important to D.C. history,” Shoop said to the diverse and growing crowd of people listening. “William Dorsey Swann was the first drag queen in the United States, an enslaved person who called themselves “the queen of drag,” who threw drag balls right here in this city. Drag is a D.C. institution, one that Trump has decided is going to be one of his top targets for his fascist administration. But it’s not just about drag performers at the Kennedy Center. This administration wants to remove all kinds of gender non-conformity and LGBTQ people at large from public life, just like the Nazis did at the Hirschfeld Institute when they burned all of those books.”
“This is D.C.,” he continued as the crowd cheered him on. “D.C. is the queerest city per capita in the United States. We may not have representation in the federal government, but we do have a fighting spirit…He could pass all the executive orders and do all of the fascist takeovers that he wants, but queer and trans people will still be here. You know, we will still dance, and that dance will long outlive them.”
One of those members of the LGBTQ community who resisted oppression through dance and protest, Shoop explained as he concluded his speech, could be credited with sparking the modern gay rights movement.
“Let us never forget that it was none other than drag king Stormé DeLarverie who inspired the Stonewall uprising that led to the gay liberation revolution of the ‘70s. Drag was a part of our revolution then, and it must be a part of our revolution now. I just want to end with a quote from the namesake of our school, Claudia Jones, who once said ‘that a people’s art is the genesis of their freedom.’ So like our predecessors, let this be the genesis of ours.”
Following speeches by the other organizing groups, the group of 200 or so walked in the middle of the road toward the Kennedy Center singing and occasionally stopping to dance. Onlookers from apartments along the road opened windows waving at the group, occasionally screaming words of support from stories up.
One of those marching in protest was Jennifer Ives of Germantown, Md. She was bundled up in a coat and hat while holding a sign, dancing along the protest route.
“I’m here because I want to support the trans and gay communities,” Ives told the Blade. “I believe that soldiers should get their hormone treatment, their therapy, their pills. I believe that Trump should get out of the Kennedy Center. I believe that right now, there’s an assault on the trans community, and we just can’t stand for it. So we gotta protest, and we gotta dance.”
Another participant, dressed in full drag—from voluminous black and red hair to a sparkly, tinsel-covered suit and thick white heels—emphasized that no matter what executive orders are signed or what bans pass through state legislatures, LGBTQ people have always been here and always will be.
“The main reason is to show that even though these actions have been taken, and though they want to strip us of our power, that we’re still here,” said drag performer Rhiannon LLC. “I think an important thing that stuck with me after the election, even though we lost, Kamala Harris, her main message was, we’re not going back. And if we let that message die, then we kind of go along with it. So to be here and to be out, it’s awesome.”
They continued, saying that if they had the ability to say one thing to the Kennedy Center board, it would be two words: “Have integrity. Although Trump may be there for the next four years, you are there after. These actions will follow you, and your job right now is to support the arts. So support the arts.”
One of the last speeches of the night was delivered directly in front of the Kennedy Center, its marble walls and gold columns providing a final backdrop for the protest. Pussy Noir, another local drag legend, was handed a mic to wrap up the night.
“This is an intense time for all of us,” said Noir, who currently has a residency with the Kennedy Center REACH program and performs in drag across the city. “I don’t know if you know this about me, but I’m the main drag queen that brought drag to the Kennedy Center, and with many other drag queens in this city, helped establish it as a real art form.”
Noir took a moment to look out at the crowd, their faces illuminated by the glow of the Kennedy Center, before finishing with a message of resilience and solidarity for all drag artists — those currently protesting in front of the Kennedy Center and those performing in hole-in-the-wall gay bars across the country.
“So no matter what anyone says, If you are a drag performer, you are an artist. If you support drag, you are supporting artists. Right now this is an attack, not only on free speech, but on artists, on small business owners, and I think that’s something that everyone in this country can understand. We must be supportive of each other and kind to each other. More than anything, that is the only way that we can fight this.”
National
Federal judge blocks Trump’s order restricting gender-affirming care for youth
Seven families with transgender, nonbinary children challenged directive

A federal judge on Thursday issued a temporary restraining order that blocks President Donald Trump’s Jan. 29 executive order restricting access to gender-affirming health care for transgender people under age 19.
The order by Judge Brendan Hurson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, came in response to a request from the plaintiffs in a lawsuit, filed on Feb. 4, against Trump’s directive.
The plaintiffs are seven families with trans or nonbinary children. They are represented by PFLAG National, GMLA, Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Maryland, and the law firms Hogan Lovells and Jenner & Block.
Hurson’s temporary restraining order will halt enforcement of Trump’s order for 14 days, but it can be extended. This means health care providers and medical institutions can provide gender-affirming care to minor patients without the risk of losing federal funding.
Families in the lawsuit say their appointments were cancelled shortly after the executive order was issued. Hospitals in Colorado, Virginia, and D.C. stopped providing prescriptions for puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and other interventions for trans patients as they evaluated Trump’s directive.
The harms associated with suddenly withholding access to medical care for these patients were a major focus of Thursday’s hearing on the plaintiffs’ request for the temporary restraining order.
The president’s “order seems to deny that this population even exists, or deserves to exist,” Hurson said, noting the elevated risk of suicide, poverty, addiction, and other hardships among trans people.
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