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.”
National
Top 10 LGBTQ national news stories of 2025
Trump, Supreme Court mount cruel attacks against trans community
President Trump’s anti-LGBTQ agenda dominated national news in 2025, particularly his cruel attacks on trans Americans. Here are our picks for the top 10 LGBTQ news stories the Blade covered in 2025.
10. Trump grants clemency to George Santos
President Donald Trump granted clemency to disgraced former Long Island Rep. George Santos. Santos was sentenced to 87 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft and had served just 84 days of his more than seven-year sentence. He lied to both the DOJ and the House Ethics Committee, including about his work and education history, and committed campaign finance fraud.
9. U.S. Olympics bans trans women athletes
The United States Supreme Court decided in 2025 to take up two cases — Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J.— both of which concern the rights of transgender athletes to participate on sports teams. The cases challenge state laws under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which prevents states from offering separate boys’ and girls’ sports teams based on biological sex determined at birth. Both cases are set to be heard in January 2026. The developments follow a decision by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee to change eligibility rules to prohibit transgender women from competing in women’s sporting events on behalf of the United States, following Trump’s Executive Order 14201, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
8. FDA approves new twice-yearly HIV prevention drug
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on June 18 approved a newly developed HIV/AIDS prevention drug that needs to be taken only twice a year, with one injection every six months. The new drug, lenacapavir, is being sold under the brand name Yeztugo by pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences. According to trial data, 99.9 percent of participants who received Yeztugo remained HIV negative. This emerging technology comes amid direct cuts to HIV/AIDS research measures by the Trump–Vance administration, particularly targeting international HIV efforts such as PEPFAR.
7. LGBTQ people ‘erased’ from gov’t reports
Politico reported in March that the Trump–Vance administration is slashing the State Department’s annual human rights report, cutting sections related to the rights of women, people with disabilities, the LGBTQ+ community, and more. Members of Congress objected to the removal of the subsection on “Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC)” from the State Department’s Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.
In a Sept. 9 letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.) urged the department to restore the information or ensure it is integrated throughout each report, noting that the reports serve as key evidence for asylum seekers, attorneys, judges, and advocates assessing human rights conditions and protection claims worldwide.
6. Trump admin redefines ‘sex’ in all HHS programs
The Trump administration canceled more than $800 million in research into the health of sexual and gender minority groups. More than half of the National Institutes of Health grants scrapped through early May involved studies of cancers and viruses that disproportionately affect LGBTQ people.
The administration is also pushing to end gender-affirming care for transgender youth, according to a new proposal from the Department of Health and Human Services, NPR reported. The administration is considering blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding for services at hospitals that provide pediatric gender-affirming care. “These rules would be a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s attack on access to transgender health care,” said Katie Keith, director of the Center for Health Policy and Law at Georgetown University.
5. FBI plans to label trans people as ‘violent extremists’
The Human Rights Campaign, Transgender Law Center, Equality Federation, GLAAD, PFLAG, and the Southern Poverty Law Center condemned reports that the FBI, in coordination with the Heritage Foundation, may be working to designate transgender people as “violent extremists.” The concerns followed a report earlier this month by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, who cited two anonymous national security officials saying the FBI is considering treating transgender subjects as a subset of a new threat category.
That classification—originally created under the Biden administration as “Anti-Authority and Anti-Government Violent Extremists” (AGAAVE) — was first applied to Jan. 6 rioters and other right-wing extremists. Advocates said the proposal appears to stem from the false claim that the assassination of Charlie Kirk was committed by a transgender person.
4. Pentagon targets LGBTQ service members
Acting in agreement with the growing anti-LGBTQ sentiment from the Trump administration, during a televised speech to U.S. military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico in late September, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denounced past military leadership for being too “woke,” citing DEI initiatives and LGBTQ inclusion within the Department of Defense. During the 45-minute address, Hegseth criticized inclusive policies and announced forthcoming directives, saying they would ensure combat requirements “return to the highest male standard only.”
Since 2016, a Navy replenishment oiler had borne the name of gay rights icon Harvey Milk, who served in the Navy during the Korean War and was separated from service under other than honorable conditions due to his sexuality before later becoming one of the first openly LGBTQ candidates elected to public office. In June 2025, the ship was renamed USNS Oscar V. Peterson.
The U.S. Air Force also announced that transgender service members who have served between 15 and 18 years would be denied early retirement and instead separated from the military without benefits. Transgender troops will be given the option of accepting a lump-sum payout offered to junior service members or being removed from service.
In February, the Pentagon said it would draft and submit procedures to identify transgender service members and begin discharging them from the military within 30 days.
3. Trump blames Democrats, trans people for gov’t shutdown
Republicans failed to reach an agreement with Democrats and blamed them for the government shutdown, while Democrats pointed to Republicans for cutting health care tax credits, a move they said would result in millions of people paying significantly higher monthly insurance premiums next year. In the White House press briefing room, a video of Democrats discussing past government shutdowns played on a loop as the president continued to blame the Democratic Party and “woke” issues, including transgender people.
“A lot of good can come from shutdowns. We can get rid of a lot of things. They’d be Democrat things,” Trump said the night before the shutdown. “They want open borders. Men playing in women’s sports. They want transgender for everybody.”
2. Supreme Court joins attacks on LGBTQ Americans
The U.S. Supreme Court issued multiple rulings this year affecting LGBTQ people. In Mahmoud v. Taylor (6–3), it ruled that public schools must give parents advance notice and the option to opt children out of lessons on gender or sexuality that conflict with their religious beliefs. The case arose after Montgomery County, Md., schools added LGBTQ-inclusive storybooks to the elementary curriculum.
In June, the court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors, protecting similar laws in more than 20 states. Lawmakers and advocates criticized the ruling, and a coalition of seven medical associations warned it strips families of the right to direct their own health care.
The Court also allowed the Trump administration to enforce a ban on transgender military personnel and to implement a policy blocking passports with “X” gender markers, with the federal government recognizing only male and female designations.
1. Trump inaugurated for second time
President Donald Trump became the 47th president after winning Wisconsin, securing 277 of the 270 electoral votes needed. His guidebook, Project 2025, outlined the Republican Party’s goals under his new leadership, with a particular focus on opposing transgender rights.
Trump nominated openly gay hedge fund executive Scott Bessent as U.S. Treasury Secretary, a role he eventually assumed. Bessent became the highest-ranking openly gay U.S. government official in American history.
Honorable mention: The war on rainbow crosswalks escalates around the country
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) ordered state transportation officials to remove a rainbow-colored crosswalk in Orlando next to the Pulse gay nightclub, where 49 mostly LGBTQ people were killed in a 2016 mass shooting. The move follows a July 1, 2025, announcement by U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy that, with support from President Trump, the department adopted a “nationwide roadway safety initiative” that political observers say could be used to require cities and states to remove rainbow street crosswalks.
Federal Government
Holiday week brings setbacks for Trump-Vance trans agenda
Federal courts begin to deliver end-of-year responses to lawsuits involving federal transgender healthcare policy.
While many Americans took the week of Christmas to rest and relax, LGBTQ politics in the U.S. continued to shift. This week’s short recap of federal updates highlights two major blows to the Trump-Vance administration’s efforts to restrict gender-affirming care for minors.
19 states sue RFK Jr. to end gender-affirming care ban
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced on Tuesday that the NYAG’s office, along with 18 other states (and the District of Columbia), filed a lawsuit to stop U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from restricting gender-affirming care for minors.
In the press release, Attorney General James stressed that the push by the Trump-Vance administration’s crusade against the transgender community — specifically transgender youth — is a “clear overreach by the federal government” and relies on conservative and medically unvalidated practices to “punish providers who adhere to well-established, evidence-based care” that support gender-affirming care.
“At the core of this so-called declaration are real people: young people who need care, parents trying to support their children, and doctors who are simply following the best medical evidence available,” said Attorney General James. “Secretary Kennedy cannot unilaterally change medical standards by posting a document online, and no one should lose access to medically necessary health care because their federal government tried to interfere in decisions that belong in doctors’ offices. My office will always stand up for New Yorkers’ health, dignity, and right to make medical decisions free from intimidation.”
The lawsuit is a direct response to HHS’ Dec. 18 announcement that it will pursue regulatory changes that would make gender-affirming health care for transgender children more difficult, if not impossible, to access. It would also restrict federal funding for any hospital that does not comply with the directive. KFF, an independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism, found that in 2023 federal funding covered nearly 45% of total spending on hospital care in the U.S.
The HHS directive stems directly from President Donald Trump’s Jan. 28 Executive Order, Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation, which formally establishes U.S. opposition to gender-affirming care and pledges to end federal funding for such treatments.
The American Medical Association, the nation’s largest and most influential physician organization, has repeatedly opposed measures like the one pushed by President Trump’s administration that restrict access to trans health care.
“The AMA supports public and private health insurance coverage for treatment of gender dysphoria and opposes the denial of health insurance based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” a statement on the AMA’s website reads. “Improving access to gender-affirming care is an important means of improving health outcomes for the transgender population.”
The lawsuit also names Oregon, Washington, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin as having joined New York in the push against restricting gender-affirming care.
At the HHS news conference last Thursday, Jim O’Neill, deputy secretary of the department, asserted, “Men are men. Men can never become women. Women are women. Women can never become men.”
DOJ stopped from gaining health care records of trans youth
U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon blocked an attempt by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to gain “personally identifiable information about those minor transgender patients” from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), saying the DOJ’s efforts “fly in the face of the Supreme Court.”
Journalist Chris Geidner originally reported the news on Dec. 25, highlighting that the Western District of Pennsylvania judge’s decision is a major blow to the Trump-Vance administration’s agenda to curtail transgender rights.
“[T]his Court joins the others in finding that the government’s demand for deeply private and personal patient information carries more than a whiff of ill intent,” Bissoon wrote in her ruling. “This is apparent from its rhetoric.”
Bissoon cited the DOJ’s “incendiary characterization” of trans youth care on the DOJ website as proof, which calls the practice politically motivated rather than medically sound and seeks to “…mutilate children in the service of a warped ideology.” This is despite the fact that a majority of gender-affirming care has nothing to do with surgery.
In United States v. Skrmetti, the Supreme Court ruled along party lines that states — namely Tennessee — have the right to pass legislation that can prohibit certain medical treatments for transgender minors, saying the law is not subject to heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it does not involve suspect categories like race, national origin, alienage, and religion, which would require the government to show the law serves a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored, sending decision-making power back to the states.
“The government cannot pick and choose the aspects of Skrmetti to honor, and which to ignore,” Judge Bissoon added.
The government argued unsuccessfully that the parents of the children whose records would have been made available to the DOJ “lacked standing” because the subpoena was directed at UPMC and that they did not respond in a timely manner. Bissoon rejected the timeliness argument in particular as “disingenuous.”
Bissoon, who was nominated to the bench by then-President Obama, is at least the fourth judge to reject the DOJ’s attempted intrusion into the health care of trans youth according to Geidner.
A Wider Bridge on Friday announced it will shut down at the end of the month.
The group that “mobilizes the LGBTQ community to fight antisemitism and support Israel and its LGBTQ community” in a letter to supporters said financial challenges prompted the decision.
“After 15 years of building bridges between LGBTQ communities in North America and Israel, A Wider Bridge has made the difficult decision to wind down operations as of Dec. 31, 2025,” it reads.
“This decision comes after challenging financial realities despite our best efforts to secure sustainable funding. We deeply appreciate our supporters and partners who made this work possible.”
Arthur Slepian founded A Wider Bridge in 2010.
The organization in 2016 organized a reception at the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change Conference in Chicago that was to have featured to Israeli activists. More than 200 people who protested against A Wider Bridge forced the event’s cancellation.
A Wider Bridge in 2024 urged the Capital Pride Alliance and other Pride organizers to ensure Jewish people can safely participate in their events in response to an increase in antisemitic attacks after Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported authorities in Vermont late last year charged Ethan Felson, who was A Wider Bridge’s then-executive director, with lewd and lascivious conduct after alleged sexual misconduct against a museum employee. Rabbi Denise Eger succeeded Felson as A Wider Bridge’s interim executive director.
A Wider Bridge in June honored U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) at its Pride event that took place at the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C. The event took place 15 days after a gunman killed two Israeli Embassy employees — Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim — as they were leaving an event at the museum.
“Though we are winding down, this is not a time to back down. We recognize the deep importance of our mission and work amid attacks on Jewish people and LGBTQ people – and LGBTQ Jews at the intersection,” said A Wider Bridge in its letter. “Our board members remain committed to showing up in their individual capacities to represent queer Jews across diverse spaces — and we know our partners and supporters will continue to do the same.”
Editor’s note: Washington Blade International News Editor Michael K. Lavers traveled to Israel and Palestine with A Wider Bridge in 2016.
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