National
Clinton: LGBT-inclusion ‘the smart thing’ for U.S. foreign policy
Secretary speaks before LGBT Foreign Service officers
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered on Wednesday what might be her last public address before an LGBT audience as chief diplomat for the United States when she told group of LGBT Foreign Service officers their service is integral to the country.
“Creating an LGBT-welcoming workplace is not just the right thing to do, it’s also the smart thing,” Clinton said. “And part of that is because the nature of diplomacy has changed and we should and need to keep up. Today, we expect our diplomats to build relationships not just with their counterparts in foreign governments, but from people from every continent and every walk of life, and, in order to do that, we need a diplomatic core that is as diverse as the world we work in.”
Additionally, Clinton said having an LGBT-inclusive State Department makes the Foreign Service corps “better advocates” for American values.
“When anyone is persecuted anywhere and that includes when LGBT people are persecuted, we’re kept from fully participating in their societies,” Clinton said. “They suffer, but so do we. We are diminished because our commitment to the human rights of all people has to be a continuing obligation and mission of everyone who serves in the government of the United States.”
Clinton delivered the remarks in Benjamin Franklin room at the State Department to observe the 20th anniversary of the department’s LGBT affinity group, Gays & Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies, or GLIFAA.
She reminded the estimated 200 people in attendance that world in which GLIFAA was created was much different than today and the organization has worked over the course of 20 years to create a fairer workplace for LGBT Foreign Service officers.
“As we heard, in 1992, you could be fired for being gay,” Clinton said. “Just think about all of the exceptional public servant — the brilliant strategists, the linguists, the experts — fired for no reason other than their sexual orientation. Think of what we lost because we were unable of their hard work, expertise and experience.”
Clinton also gave recognition to Tom Gallagher, whom she said joined the State Department in 1965 and in the early 1970’s became the first openly gay Foreign Service officer. He was in the audience during Clinton’s speech and rose when the secretary mentioned him.
“He served in the face of criticism and threats, but that did not stop him from serving,” Clinton said. “I want to take this moment just to recognize him, but also to put into context what this journey has meant for people for people of Tom and my generation because I don’t want any of you who are younger ever to take for granted what it took for people like Tom Gallagher to pave the way for all of you. It is not a moment for us to be nostaglic; it is a way for us to remember.”
The speech occurs almost one year after Clinton gave a high-profile speech in Geneva in favor of LGBT human rights, telling LGBT people that face human rights abuses overseas they “have an ally in the United States of America.” Clinton noted her speech from the previous year during her remarks at the State Department.
“When I gave that speech in Geneva and said we were going to make this a priority for American foreign policy, I didn’t see it as something special, something that was added on to everything else we do, but something that was integral to who we are and what we stand for,” Clinton said.
Toby Quaranta, who’s gay and president of the D.C Young Democrats, was among those in attendance and said the speech was “an example of why she is such a popular secretary of state.”
“She wants to make advances for LGBT people not just as a way to advance the cause of human rights, but also as a way to advance American interests abroad,” Quaranta said. “It’s a moral issue with a pragmatic end. That’s her way of doing business, and that is why she has been so successful as secretary of state.”
No new announcements were made during the State Department address, but the event was geared toward thanking those present as opposed to addressing policy issues.
Clinton gave no update during the speech on where she stands on marriage equality. She remains one of the few high-profile Democrats who’s yet to publicly endorse same-sex marriage and has remained silent in the issue even after her employer President Obama came out for marriage equality in May.
Also absent from Clinton’s speech was any mention of anti-gay legislation in Uganda that’s received considerable international attention out of fears the bill may soon be headed toward passage. It would institute a sentence of life in prison for homosexuality acts and possibly the death penalty.
But Clinton did tout the LGBT achievements the State Department has made under her watch. Among them are extending benefits to the same-sex partners of Foreign Service officers. On transgender issues, the department instituted policy against workplace discrimination for transgender employees and eased the process to allow transgender Americans to change the gender marker on their passports.
“Together we have worked to make something very simple and right come true: Our people should not have to choose between serving the country they love and sharing a life with the people with they love,” Clinton said.
Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff and a long-time adviser who worked on her 2008 presidential campaign, also commended those present as she said her boss seeks to ensure each person across the globe can “live up to his or her God-given potential.”
“That principle is a very simple one, but its implementation too often requires courage and persistence, relentlessness and willingness to actual do something when doing nothing is absolutely the easiest course of action,” Mills said. “Those who have been part of and stayed with GLIFAA, they have always managed to do something, and the work that you all have done together has brought the change that we have seen in the department.”
Clinton has indicated that she intends to step down as secretary of state after the conclusion of Obama’s first term. Speculation persists that she may pursue that Democratic nomination for the presidency when Obama completes his second and final term in 2016, although she hasn’t stated she’d run.
Lane Hudson, a gay Democratic activist and outspoken Clinton supporter, said he expects her to maintain a strong relationship with the LGBT community whatever her course of action she pursues after she leaves the State Department.
“Given her long history with the LGBT community and her exemplary record on issues of equality at the State Department, I fully expect there to be a meaningful ongoing relationship between her and the community, whether she pursues the presidency or continues to advocate for equality for all as a private citizen,” Hudson said.
Others who spoke before the audience were GLIFAA President Ken Kero-Mentz, USAID Deputy Administrator Donald Steinberg, and Daniel Baer, who’s gay and deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights & Labor.
Notable members of the LGBT community who were in the audience included U.S. ambassador to New Zealand David Huebner, former U.S. ambassador to Romania Michael Guest, Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin, White House LGBT liaison Gautam Raghavan and Amanda Simpson, who was first openly transgender woman political appointee in any U.S. administration.
NOTE: This article has been updated to include a statement from Toby Quaranta.
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
