National
HRC joins calls for agreement to avoid ‘fiscal cliff’
ADAP waiting lists, loss of funds for LGBT centers among issues cited
HRC President Chad Griffin is among those calling for a plan to avert the ‘fiscal cliff.’ (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
The Human Rights Campaign is becoming active in the effort to avert the “fiscal cliff” crisis following a White House meeting President Obama convened with the LGBT organization and other civic groups.
Last week, HRC launched a campaign highlighting how the LGBT community would be negatively affected by the upcoming “fiscal cliff” — a colloquial term used for the time when various tax cuts would expire and massive budget cuts would befall U.S. government programs under the Budget Control Act.
HRC details several reasons why sequestration under the Budget Control Act — legislation signed by Obama as part of a deal to raise the nation’s debt ceiling — would be detrimental unless Congress agrees to an alternate plan.
Among the issues affecting LGBT people cited by HRC:
• nearly 10,000 low-income people will lose access to life-saving medicines under AIDS Drug Assistance Programs;
• hundreds of millions of dollars will be taken from federal programs providing treatment and housing to people with HIV/AIDS;
• cuts could interfere with the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes, including those against LGBT people;
• and funds for long-sought programs like the National LGBT Aging Resource Center and the LGBT Refugee Resource Center could be reduced — if not cut entirely.
In addition to pledging to inform its members about the consequences of the “fiscal cliff” through blog posts and social media, HRC has an online letter that supporters can sign to ask their representatives in Congress to come to an agreement.
But the “fiscal cliff” is about more than just the sequester. At the same time that these budget cuts are instituted, tax cuts signed into law by former President George W. Bush will expire as well as payroll tax cuts extended last year. President Obama campaigned on allowing the high-end tax cuts for those making more than $250,000 a year to expire as a means of generating more revenue to reduce the deficit.
The Washington Blade reported in October that doing nothing about the “fiscal cliff” could result in devastating cuts for HIV/AIDS programs and other federally funded initiatives affecting the LGBT community. According to a report from the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee, as many as 12,219 people receiving drugs from ADAP would lose access to medicine.
Chad Griffin, HRC’s president, underscored the importance of coming together around a plan — a not-so-easy task considering different parties control each chamber of Congress.
“Programs designed to serve the most vulnerable Americans, including LGBT people, are on the brink of annihilation if Congress doesn’t get its act together,” Griffin said. “Sequestration would take away vital lifelines that so many in our community rely on to get by — many even to live.”
The announcement from HRC about its new campaign came on the same day Griffin took part in a White House meeting on the “fiscal cliff” with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden as part of a group of 13 civic leaders. Others set to attend were Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights; Ben Jealous, president of the NAACP; and Rev. Al Sharpton.
Fred Sainz, HRC’s vice president of communications, said LGBT issues unrelated to the “fiscal cliff” were not brought up by Griffin.
“The president convened the various heads of organizations … and during that meeting, obviously, there was a discussion by the president and folks that were there about the implications of the road ahead on the communities affected,” Sainz said.
The discussion took place after another bipartisan meeting earlier in the day with Obama, Biden and congressional leaders: House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
It’s not the first time HRC has launched a campaign for an initiative that has broader implications beyond the LGBT community. But Sainz said each position the organization takes is in some way related to LGBT issues.
For example, HRC has a pro-choice position because the right to privacy affects LGBT legal issues and it supports the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would streamline the unionization process, because it would allow for collective bargaining to ensure protections for LGBT employees.
HRC has also supported the health care reform law. Components of that measure specifically impact the LGBT community, such as non-discrimination protections in health care and allowing data collection in federal health surveys for the LGBT community.
“There is always an LGBT component when we weigh in on any initiative — though it might not be as obvious or direct as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal, etc.,” Sainz said.
Richard Grenell, a gay conservative pundit who briefly served as a spokesperson for the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, nonetheless said the “fiscal cliff” initiative demonstrates Griffin is taking HRC away from its intended mission.
“The revelation that HRC is working with some of the country’s most vocal tax and spend advocates to help the White House raise taxes is clearly a decision by Chad to move HRC from a gay civil rights organization to a broadly liberal activist one,” Grenell said. “It may be exactly what the board brought Chad in to do, but aligning gay rights with a partisan agenda relegates our issues to further partisan games.”
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.
Calendar: May 23-29
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