National
EXCLUSIVE: National Stonewall Democrats faces $30,000 budget gap
Organization ‘will likely be forced to close our doors’ if it doesn’t raise money by Dec. 31
National Stonewall Democrats Executive Director Jerame Davis (Blade photo by Michael Key)
The Washington Blade has obtained an e-mail that indicates National Stonewall Democrats will likely shut down if it does not close a $30,000 budget gap by Dec. 31.
“It’s no secret that we’ve struggled with fundraising over the past few years, but today we are at a crossroads and we’re turning to you – our members and supporters,” wrote Jerame Davis, the group’s executive director, in an e-mail he will send to his organization’s e-mail list later on Wednesday. “As the year closes, we’re facing a budget deficit of over $30,000 and if we do not bridge this gap, we will likely be forced to close our doors.”
Davis told the Blade in an exclusive interview on Tuesday night the National Stonewall Democrats’ 2012 budget is between $130,000-$140,000. This figure includes up to $40,000 in organizational debt he inherited when he became executive director in Dec. 2011.
Internal Revenue Service documents indicate the organization reported $223,202 in revenue, while spending $253,133 (a deficit of $19,931) in 2011. These figures were $305,745 and $328,803 (a deficit of $23,058) in 2010 and $346,679 and $425,927 (a deficit of $79,248) in 2009 respectively.
Davis said fundraising picked up “quite a bit” at the beginning of the year – an April fundraiser in D.C. that honored gay Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, who founded National Stonewall Democrats in 1998, raised nearly $70,000. Davis said the organization was debt-free by the end of July, but it spent roughly $20,000 at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte in September.
“In doing so we kind of depleted our reserves hoping that we would come out the other side with some fundraising momentum out of that,” he said. “Instead, quite the opposite happened. The campaigns started heating up so a lot of the fundraising started shifting towards President Obama and towards Tammy Baldwin and we took a hit fast and having no reserves coming out of the convention it kind of snowballed to where we are now.”
Organization received anonymous $100,000 donation in 2011
This is not the first time National Stonewall Democrats’ financial problems have threatened to shutter the organization.
The Blade reported in Feb. 2011 that an anonymous donor gave $100,000 to National Stonewall Democrats amid reports then-Executive Director Michael Mitchell did not effectively manage the group’s budget. Davis said the organization was “kind of back in the same boat when I took over” in Nov. 2011 after Mitchell stepped down.
“When I took over the organization, there was $1,800 in the bank and a boat load of debt,” he said. “We were facing eviction from our office; I mean there were all kinds of problems that I had to tackle. I had payroll to make two weeks after I took over and $1,800 in the bank and no donors and that was in November last year, the worst time for a 501c4 to be fundraising.”
Davis noted 2008 was his organization’s best year in terms of fundraising when its budget nearly topped $700,000. IRS records indicate National Stonewall Democrats reported $465,391 in revenue and $435,946 in expenses that year.
A changing political landscape, however, began to take its toll.
“We didn’t adapt to that, especially with the election of President Obama in 2008,” said Davis.
Melissa Sklarz, who co-chaired National Stonewall Democrats Board of Directors from 2009 through early 2011, noted then-President Bill Clinton had signed the ban on openly gay servicemembers and the Defense of Marriage Act into law in the years before Frank created the organization.
“It’s a very different Democratic party,” she told the Blade. “It’s a very different America. So maybe people feel they don’t need to go through national Stonewall. It’s mostly internal.”
The departure of Mitchell and two other executive directors before him has also had an adverse impact on the organization’s ability to raise money.
“That’s a big part of the problem, that kind of turnover, but also decisions that were made in that time, directions the organization took for its messaging, the directions that our programs took, some of them lost their bang so to speak,” said Davis. “We didn’t develop a lot of new programs that appeal to folks. Our fundraising took a hit as a result.”
The latest revelation about National Stonewall Democrats’ uncertain future comes less than a month after Obama, who endorsed marriage rights for same-sex couples in May, won re-election. Wisconsin Congressman Tammy Baldwin became the first openly gay U.S. senator-elect; while gay U.S. Reps. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) won re-election. Voters in New York, California, Wisconsin and Arizona also elected openly gay and bisexual congressional candidates.
The Gertrude Stein Democratic Club in D.C., the Virginia Partisans Gay and Lesbian Democratic Club and the Barbara Gittings Delaware Stonewall Democrats are three of the more than 80 chapters and affiliates throughout the country.
Davis, who has remained National Stonewall Democrats’ only full-time staffer since shortly after he became the group’s executive director, said expenses have been cut to about $10,000 a month. He stressed his organization remains relevant.
“There are a number of state and local Democratic parties that aren’t on board with LGBT equality,” said Davis. “Some of whom are still outwardly hostile in some of the red states and more conservative states. And in a lot of ways its those areas where LGBT equality really hasn’t caught on; the places like Indiana, the places like Alabama, the places like Kentucky. That’s where we really need to do the work because they’re the ones holding us back. It’s the lack of a strong Democratic party, the lack of a strong pro-LGBT party that even the Democrats who are elected from these areas aren’t necessarily fully on board with full LGBT equality.”
He added grassroots organizing among Democrats in the aforementioned states is one of the many ways where “we excel.”
“Our clubs and our affiliates they have special relationships with their local elected leaders because they’re the ones that are out there knocking on doors and raising money and stuffing envelopes and making phone calls for these candidates,” said Davis. “On a national level we have to help coordinate that work, we have to help expand.”
National Stonewall Democrats Board Co-Chair Stephen Driscoll agreed.
“The stuff we do is grassroots, our mission has always been to make the Democratic Party better on our issues,” he said, while acknowledging what he described as ineffective organizational leadership before Davis’ tenure as a contributing factor to National Stonewall Democrats’ current financial situation. “There is no question that we have done that, especially in the national party and in many state orgs around the country we still have a lot of work to do in those diminishing number of states that are less than supportive on LGBT issues.”
“There’s still lots of work to be done in the national legislative arena,” added Sklarz. “National Stonewall is the perfect organization for that. HRC [the Human Rights Campaign] has its niche and Victory Fund has theirs and national Stonewall’s is to elect pro-equality Democrats. And there are lots of places, there is lots of room.”
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
