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Republican Pa. state lawmaker comes out

Fleck says he’s still ‘a servant of God and the public’

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Mike Fleck, Pennsylvania, gay news, Washington Blade
Mike Fleck, Pennsylvania, gay news, Washington Blade

Pennsylvania state Rep. Mike Fleck (Photo courtesy of www.repfleck.com)

A Republican state lawmaker in Pennsylvania came out in an interview a local newspaper published on Saturday.

ā€œComing out is hard enough, but doing it in the public eye is definitely something I never anticipated,ā€ state Rep. Mike Fleck told the Huntingdon (Pa.) Daily News. ā€œIā€™m still the exact same person and Iā€™m still a Republican and most importantly, Iā€™m still a person of faith trying to live life as a servant of God and the public. The only difference now is that I will also be doing so as honestly as I know how.ā€

Fleck, who became an Eagle Scout in 1991, has represented portions of Blair, Huntingdon and Mifflin Counties in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives since voters first elected him in Nov. 2006. The 1995 graduate of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., became a district executive for the Boy Scouts of America once he earned his degree in history with a minor in youth ministry and returned to Huntington County in central Pennsylvania.

The organization in July reaffirmed its ban on out members and openly gay scoutmasters and troop leaders. Fleck told the Huntingdon Daily News his ā€œlivelihood depended on hiding my true sexual orientation, something I was very good at.ā€

The newspaper further reported Fleck suppressed his homosexuality throughout his 20s. He married his wife in 2002 after they dated for two years.

ā€œShe was everything I could have ever asked for and to this day she is still my best friend,ā€ Fleck told the Huntingdon Daily News. ā€œI sought out treatment from a Christian counselor, but when that didnā€™t work out, I engaged a secular therapist who told me point blank that I was gay and that I was too caught up in being the perfect Christian rather than actually being authentic and honest.ā€

The newspaper reported that Fleck and his wife separated last year ā€” he said they ā€œbecame closer than ever before, but it was bittersweet as we both concluded that the marriage was over.ā€ Fleck told the Huntingdon Daily News he continues to reconcile his homosexuality with his Christian faith.

ā€œThrough years of counseling, Iā€™ve met a lot of gay Christians who have tried hard to change their God-given sexual orientation, but at the end of the day, I know of none whoā€™ve been successful,ā€ he told the newspaper. ā€œTheyā€™ve only succeeded at repressing their identity, only to have it reappear time and time again and always wreaking havoc not only on themselves, but especially on their family.ā€

Fleck came out less than seven months after Philadelphia lawyer Brian Sims became the first openly gay person elected to the state legislature when he won a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Tim Brown will be the only other openly gay Republican state lawmaker in the country who’s poised to take a seat. He won election to the Ohio House of Representatives on Nov. 6.

Former Massachusetts lieutenant gubernatorial candidate Richard Tisei last month narrowly lost against incumbent Congressman John Tierney.

Fleck did not immediately return the Washington Bladeā€™s requests for comment, but LGBT advocates in Pennsylvania and across the country welcomed his decision to come out.

ā€œIt is definitely quite a big deal,ā€ Ted Martin, executive director of Equality Pennsylvania, told the Blade earlier on Monday. ā€œAlong with Brian [Sims] weā€™ll have now two openly gay legislators, so for a state like Pennsylvania that just voted Brian in in May itā€™s pretty remarkable.ā€

Victory Fund CEO Chuck Wolfe agreed.

ā€œComing out is never easy, but coming out in the public eye is particularly difficult,ā€ he said, noting the Victory Fund worked with Fleck through his coming out process. ā€œRepresentative Fleck made a difficult decision to be honest and open with his constituents and colleagues, and that has the power to change hearts and minds. We applaud his courage.ā€

“State Representative Mike Fleck is to be commended for his honesty,” Casey Pick of Log Cabin Republicans added. “The journey is never easy, but by coming out Rep. Fleck puts a human face on these issues, demonstrating that you can be a conservative, a person of faith and a good Republican while also a member of the LGBT community. Having an openly gay member of the Republican caucus in Pennsylvania brings us that much closer to achieving freedom and equality under the law.”

Martin said he hopes to discuss efforts to ban anti-LGBT discrimination in Pennsylvania and to fight bullying in the commonwealth with Fleck when they meet in the near future. He noted state law does not protect the newly out lawmaker and other gay Pennsylvanians from housing discrimination based on their sexual orientation.

ā€œMy hope is that this will actually in a larger way cause people to talk about issues in Pennsylvania just like that,ā€ he said, specifically referring to anti-bullying and anti-discrimination efforts. ā€œMy hope is that it will give people some ability to start saying, you know what, weā€™ve ignored these issues for long in the legislature and in many different ways in Pennsylvania that we need to start thinking about them.ā€

Sims, who told the Blade he has spoken with Fleck several times in recent days, stressed the same point.

“Pennsylvania doesnā€™t have LGBT non-discrimination,” he said. “Weā€™ve seen in some other states that Republicans can get behind the idea of statewide LGBT non-discrimination and Iā€™m hoping that Rep. Fleck gives us an opportunity to really speak directly to the leadership in the state about why this is so important.ā€

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Congress

House Dems urge OPM not to implement anti-trans executive order

Authors were Dem. U.S. Reps. Mark Takano (Calif.), Jamie Raskin (Md.), and Gerald Connolly (Va.)

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Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Three House Democrats including Congressional Equality Caucus Chair Mark Takano (Calif.) issued a letter on Wednesday urging the Office of Personnel Management to not implement President Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order, “Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.”

Also signing the letter were U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Rep. Gerald Connolly (Va.), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.

The lawmakers wrote the order “unlawfully attacks the civil rights of transgender Americans” while the White House’s corresponding memo and guidance “implements unlawful discrimination by the federal government against transgender people in the civil service and the provision of federal services.”

Specifically, they call unconstitutional the directive for agencies to “end all programs, contracts, grants, positions, documents, directives, orders, regulations, materials, forms,
communications, statements, plans, and training that ‘inculcate’ or ‘promote’ ‘gender
ideology’ā€”which the Executive Order defines broadly to encompass acknowledging the simple
existence of transgender people and gender identity.”

ā€œWe are deeply alarmed by these and other actions the Trump Administration has taken in its first few weeks to eliminate all government support for the transgender community, including efforts designed to enforcing the rights and support the health of transgender individuals,” the congressmen wrote.

They added, “We are also appalled by the Administrationā€™s attempts to weaponize federal agencies to target the transgender community for discrimination and exclusion. These actions contradict federal law, Supreme Court precedent, and most importantly the Constitutionā€™s guarantee of equal protection under the law.ā€

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Politics

Trump administration sued over gender affirming care ban

Plaintiffs represented by Lambda Legal, ACLU, PFLAG National, others

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President Donald Trump (Photo via White House/X)

Lambda Legal, the ACLU, and the ACLU of Maryland, joined by the law firms Hogan Lovells and Jenner & Block, have sued the Trump-Vance administration over its issuance of an executive order banning gender affirming care nationwide for patients younger than 19.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, seeks “preliminary and permanent injunction preventing the Agency Defendants, including any subagencies of Defendant HHS, from enforcing or implementing the Denial of Care and the Gender Identity Orders.”

PFLAG National and GMLA are also representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, seven families with transgender or nonbinary children.

Trump’s executive order last week prohibits health insurers run by the federal government, including Medicaid and TRICARE, from funding medical care for trans and gender diverse youth that is recommended by mainstream scientific and medical organizations like the American Medical Association.

Hospitals throughout the country subsequently suspended or shut down their gender affirming care programs. Those that have acknowledged the move publicly cited the administration’s order, which threatens federal funding and grants for noncompliance.

New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a letter on Monday, signed by a coalition of 22 state AGs, informing hundreds of recipients of federal funding, including healthcare providers, “who were informed that funding cannot be frozen or withdrawn on the basis of providing gender affirming care to minors.”

Likewise, the lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal and the ACLU argues the executive orders are ā€œunlawful and unconstitutional,ā€ first because they seek to withhold federal funds previously authorized by Congress and second because they violate anti-discrimination laws.

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Politics

Trump previews anti-trans executive orders in inaugural address

Unclear how or when they would be implemented

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President Donald Trump's inauguration, Jan. 20 2025 (Screen capture via YouTube)

President Donald Trump, during his inaugural address on Monday, previewed some anti-trans executive orders he has pledged to sign, though it was not yet fully clear how and when they would be implemented.

“This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life,” he said. “Today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government, that there are only two genders, male and female.”

The president added, “I will sign an order to stop our warriors from being subjected to radical political theories and social experiments, while on duty. It’s going to end immediately.”

After taking the oath of office inside the U.S. Capitol building, Trump was expected to sign as many as 200 executive orders.

On issues of gender identity and LGBTQ rights, the 47th president was reportedly considering a range of moves, including banning trans student athletes from competing and excluding trans people from the U.S. Armed Forces.

NBC News reported on Monday, however, that senior officials with the new administration pointed to two forthcoming executive orders ā€” the official recognition of only two genders, and “ending ‘radical and wasteful’ diversity, equity and inclusion programs inside federal agencies.”

With respect to the former, in practical terms it would mean walking back the Biden-Harris administration’s policy, beginning in 2022, of allowing U.S. citizens to select the “x” gender marker for their passports and other official documents.

“The order aims to require that the federal government use the term ‘sex’ instead of ‘gender,’ and directs the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to ‘ensure that official government documents, including passports and visas, reflect sex accurately,'” according to NBC.

Additionally, though it was unclear what exactly this would mean, the first EO would take aim at the use of taxpayer funds for gender-transition healthcare, such as in correctional facilities.

The Human Rights Campaign in a press release Monday indicated that a “fulsome review of executive actions” is forthcoming, but the group’s President Kelley Robinson said, ā€œToday, the Trump administration is expected to release a barrage of executive actions taking aim at the LGBTQ+ community instead of uniting our country and prioritizing the pressing issues the American people are facing.ā€ Ā 

ā€œBut make no mistake: these actions will not take effect immediately,” she said.

ā€œEvery person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect in all areas of their lives,” Robinson said. “No one should be subjected to ongoing discrimination, harassment and humiliation where they work, go to school, or access healthcare. But todayā€™s expected executive actions targeting the LGBTQ+ community serve no other purpose than to hurt our families and our communities.”

She continued, ā€œOur community has fought for decades to ensure that our relationships are respected at work, that our identities are accepted at school, and that our service is honored in the military. Any attack on our rights threatens the rights of any person who doesnā€™t fit into the narrow view of how they should look and act. The incoming administration is trying to divide our communities in the hope that we forget what makes us strong. But we refuse to back down or be intimidated.”

ā€œWe are not going anywhere. and we will fight back against these harmful provisions with everything weā€™ve got,” Robinson said.

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