National
Discharged service members among first to marry in Wash.
Cammermeyer planning to wed as new law takes effect


Grethe Cammermeyer (left) and Margaret Witt will be among the first to marry their partners in Washington State. (Blade file photo by Pete Exis)
A number of those who will be among the first to enter into same-sex marriages in Washington State are high-profile gay service members discharged for their sexual orientation who say the legalization of same-sex marriage represents the next step forward for LGBT rights.
In Washington, where voters legalized marriage equality on Election Day by a 54 percent majority via a measure known as Referendum 74, same-sex couples were set to be able to obtain marriage licenses on Thursday. The three-day waiting period in the state means gay couples that obtain licenses on that day will be able to legally marry beginning Sunday.
Washington is the first of three states — which includes Maine and Maryland — where voters legalized same-sex marriage at the ballot on Election Day to allow same-sex couples to obtain marriage licenses and legally wed.
Col. Grethe Cammermeyer, who in 1992 was discharged from the Washington National Guard under the military’s gay ban in the years before “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” is set to marry her partner of 24 years, Diane Divelbess, in their Langley, Wash., home on Sunday after obtaining a marriage license from the clerk’s office in Island County.
For Cammermeyer, the ability to marry in Washington represents the next step in advancing LGBT rights following the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — and she said the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act is in her sights. That ban on the federal recognition of same-sex partners precludes gay service members from obtaining health and pension benefits for their partners.
“I think, for me, it was a 20-year battle to overturn ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,'” Cammermeyer said. “That felt like a vindication of those who started to change the policy and was truly monumental for me on a personal level. What you realize is that once you get done with one hurdle, there is another one right ahead of you, and that now is marriage equality. Because until the Defense of Marriage Act is repealed, those serving in the military now who happen to be gay service members who have family still are treated as second-class citizens and their families have no standing.”
Cammermeyer, 70, and Divelbess, 77, said they’ve invited other same-sex couples into their home to marry on the same day and are expecting 10 couples to wed during their own individual ceremonies. It’ll be the third ceremony for Cammermeyer and Divelbess: the couple previously wed in Oregon in 2004, when marriage licenses were briefly offered to same-sex couples in Multnomah County for unions that were later nullified, and again in a religious ceremony in Washington State.
Divelbess said she’s already felt she’s like been married to Cammermeyer for years following their religious ceremony and expressed excitement that religious organizations that want to legally marry same-sex couples in Washington can now do so under the law.
“When we were married in 2004, all you heard was the voices of the churches that were unhappy with gay marriage,” Divelbess said. “The public was never aware of the churches who wanted their ceremony recognized as being legal by the state. I’m thrilled that now we’re going to have a legal status accepted as well as the spiritual commitment.”
Another couple planning to wed had a similar involvement in “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal. Maj. Margaret Witt, an Air Force nurse who was discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 2007, and her partner of nine years, Laurie Johnson, intend to be the first same-sex couple to obtain a marriage license in Spokane. They’ll marry on Dec. 15 in a small ceremony officiated by James Lobsenz, Witt’s attorney from her ACLU case against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” known as Witt v. Air Force.
Witt said the legalization of same-sex marriage in Washington State is “absolutely thrilling and surreal all at the same time,” but, like Cammermeyer, she said it demonstrates the battle for gay service members must continue and DOMA must be lifted from the books.
“The work is definitely not done because now we can serve our country openly, but the marriages still aren’t recognized by the military or the federal government,” Witt said. “That’s kind of painful for those that are willing to serve their country and have been willing to serve their country for so long.”
The Defense Department could offer limited partner benefits to gay service members even with DOMA on the books — including joint duty assignments, issuance of IDs, use of the commissary and family housing — through administrative change. The Pentagon has said since the lifting of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in September 2011 that it’s been looking into these benefits, but hasn’t yet enacted them.
The couple has been talking about marriage for years, but Witt took the opportunity to make things final during a speech at an ACLU dinner on Nov. 15 where she received a civil libertarian award. Following her speech at an ACLU dinner, the couples joined onstage amid applause and tears in the audience and Witt announced her proposal to Johnson.
Witt, 48, said she decided to propose to Johnson, 54, at the dinner in part because of the ACLU’s effort as part of the campaign to win marriage equality at the ballot in Washington.
“I just thought it was really perfect to share it with the ACLU, not only for what they did for me, but all that they did for marriage, and I wanted them to see that in real life,” Witt said.
‘An overwhelming sense of joy’
These military couples are among the estimated 19,000 same-sex couples who will be able to legally marry in Washington State amid anticipation an increased number of couples will flock to the clerk’s office when same-sex marriage becomes available in the state.
County auditors’ offices have updated their forms and their websites to prepare for these same-sex couples. On Thursday, King and Thurston counties were set to open at midnight, Pierce at 6:30 a.m. and Clark and Island counties at 8 a.m.
Anne Levinson, one of Washington’s first lesbian public officials and strategic adviser to the Approve Referendum 74 campaign, said she’s hearing from couples across the state that intend to marry and many of them have been waiting for the opportunity for decades.
“There is an overwhelming sense of excitement and joy, among the couples themselves, but also from friends, neighbors and colleagues,” Levinson said. “What makes it even more special is that we have seen an amazing outpouring of support all across the state, from county auditors working with us on how they will issue licenses, from judges and clergy helping make sure ceremonies are all set, from businesses offering to help however they can.”
A retired municipal judge, Levinson said on Sunday she intends to officiate some of the first weddings in Seattle on the stage of its grand concert hall as the Seattle Men’s Chorus and the Seattle Women’s Chorus perform.
Other same-sex couples that intend to be among the first to marry in California are noteworthy, but not for their participating in “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal efforts.

Paul Harris (right) manages marriage licenses at the clerk’s office and is now able to receive one for him and his partner, Jamer Griener (photo courtesy Griener)
One such couple living in Camas, Wash., is James Griener, 58, and Paul Harris, 64, whose wedding is noteworthy because Harris is the manager of marriage license and recording for Clark County. After delivering marriage licenses to opposite-sex couples for 17 years, he’ll finally be able to obtain one of his own.
Harris said he’s surprised that same-sex marriage was legalized in Washington because marriage equality had been defeated previously in every state where it’s come up for a vote.
“To me, it’s a great surprise because I never thought it would happen,” Harris said. “Since I have been responsible for issuing marriage licenses for 17 years, it makes me feel great to be able to get one of my own.”
Griener and Harris were set to claim their marriage license on Thursday and were planning a small wedding in their home on Wednesday — 12/12/12.
The couple, who’ve been together for 39 years after in meeting in New York in 1973, has many differences between them. Harris was born and raised in Brooklyn, while Griener was raised in Southeast Oregon on a ranch.
Griener said the upcoming ceremony makes more permanent their union and builds off a previous wedding they had in Multnomah County in 2004 that was later nullified.
“We’re very pleased that the legislature of Washington passed same-gender marriage, the governor signed it and even though it was challenged and put on a referendum, the majority of Washington citizens voted in favor,” Griener said. “I think it’s a wonderful thing, and everyone knows, a long time coming.”
Federal Government
Treasury Department has a gay secretary but LGBTQ staff are under siege
Agency reverses course on LGBTQ inclusion under out Secretary Scott Bessent

A former Treasury Department employee who led the agency’s LGBTQ employee resource group says the removal of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) from its discrimination complaint forms was merely a formalization of existing policy shifts that had already taken hold following the second inauguration of President Donald Trump and his appointment of Scott Bessent — who is gay — to lead the agency.
Christen Boas Hayes, who served on the policy team at Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) from 2020 until March of this year, told the Washington Blade during a phone interview last week that the agency had already stopped processing internal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaints on the basis of anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
“So the way that the forms are changing is a procedural recognition of something that’s already happening,” said Hayes. “Internally, from speaking to two EEO staff members, the changes are already taking place from an EEO perspective on what kind of cases will be found to have the basis for a complaint.”
The move, they said, comes amid the deterioration of support structures for LGBTQ workers at the agency since the administration’s early rollout of anti-LGBTQ executive orders, which led to “a trickle down effect of how each agency implements those and on what timeline,” decisions “typically made by the assistant secretary of management’s office and then implemented by the appropriate offices.”
At the end of June, a group of U.S. House Democrats including several out LGBTQ members raised alarms after a Federal Register notice disclosed Treasury’s plans to revise its complaint procedures. Through the agency’s Office of Civil Rights and EEO, the agency would eliminate SOGI as protected categories on the forms used by employees to initiate claims of workplace discrimination.
But Hayes’s account reveals that the paperwork change followed months of internal practice, pursuant to a wave of layoffs targeting DEI personnel and a chilling effect on LGBTQ organizing, including through ERGs.
Hayes joined Treasury’s FinCEN in 2020 as the agency transitioned into the Biden-Harris administration, working primarily on cryptocurrency regulation and emerging technologies until they accepted a “deferred resignation” offer, which was extended to civil servants this year amid drastic staffing cuts.
“It was two things,” Hayes said. “One was the fact that the policy work that I was very excited about doing was going to change in nature significantly. The second part was that the environment for LGBTQ staff members was increasingly negative after the release of the executive orders,” especially for trans and nonbinary or gender diverse employees.
“At the same time,” Hayes added, “having been on the job for four years, I also knew this year was the year that I would leave Treasury. I was a good candidate for [deferred resignation], because I was already planning on leaving, but the pressures that emerged following the change in administration really pushed me to accelerate that timeline.”
Some ERGs die by formal edict, others by a thousand cuts
Hayes became involved with the Treasury LGBTQ ERG shortly after joining the agency in 2020, when they reached out to the group’s then-president — “who also recently took the deferred resignation.”
“She said that because of the pressure that ERGs had faced under the first Trump administration, the group was rebuilding, and I became the president of the group pretty quickly,” Hayes said. “Those pressures have increased in the second Trump administration.”
One of the previous ERG board members had left the agency after encountering what Hayes described as “explicitly transphobic” treatment from supervisors during his gender transition. “His supervisors denied him a promotion,” and, “importantly, he did not have faith in the EEO complaint process” to see the issues with discrimination resolved, Hayes said. “And so he decided to just leave, which was, of course, such a loss for Treasury and our Employee Resource Group and all of our employees at Treasury.”
The umbrella LGBTQ ERG that Hayes led included hundreds of members across the agency, they said, and was complemented by smaller ERGs at sub-agencies like the IRS and FinCEN — several of which, Hayes said, were explicitly told to cease operations under the new administration.
Hayes did not receive any formal directive to shutter Treasury’s ERG, but described an “implicit” messaging campaign meant to shut down the group’s activities without issuing anything in writing.
“The suggestion was to stop emailing about anything related to the employee resource group, to have meetings outside of work hours, to meet off of Treasury’s campus, and things like that,” they said. “So obviously that contributes to essentially not existing functionally. Because whereas we could have previously emailed our members comfortably to announce a happy hour or a training or something like that, now they have to text each other personally to gather, which essentially makes it a defunct group.”
Internal directories scrubbed, gender-neutral restrooms removed
Hayes said the dismantling of DEI staff began almost immediately after the executive orders. Employees whose position descriptions included the terms “diversity, equity, and inclusion” were “on the chopping block,” they said. “That may differ from more statutorily mandated positions in the OMWI office or the EEO office.”
With those staff gone, so went the infrastructure that enabled ERG programming and community-building. “The people that made our employee resource group events possible were DEI staff that were fired. And so, it created an immediate chilling effect on our employee resource group, and it also, of course, put fear into a lot of our members’ hearts over whether or not we would be able to continue gathering as a community or supporting employees in a more practical way going forward. And it was just, really — it was really sad.”
Hayes described efforts to erase the ERGs from internal communication channels and databases. “They also took our information off internal websites so nobody could find us as lawyers went through the agency’s internal systems to scrub DEI language and programs,” they said.
Within a week, Hayes said, the administration had removed gender-neutral restrooms from Main Treasury, removed third-gender markers from internal databases and forms, and made it more difficult for employees with nonbinary IDs to access government buildings.
“[They] made it challenging for people with X gender markers on identification documents to access Treasury or the White House by not recognizing their gender marker on the TWAVES and WAVES forms.”
LGBTQ staff lack support and work amid a climate of isolation
The changes have left many LGBTQ staff feeling vulnerable — not only because of diminished workplace inclusion, but due to concerns about job security amid the administration’s reductions in force (RIFs).
“Plenty of people are feeling very stressed, not only about retaining their jobs because of the layoffs and pending questions around RIFs, but then also wondering if they will be included in RIF lists because they’re being penalized somehow for being out at work,” Hayes said. “People wonder if their name will be given, not because they’re in a tranche of billets being laid off, but because of their gender identity or sexual orientation.”
In the absence of functional ERGs, Hayes said, LGBTQ employees have been cut off from even informal networks of support.
“Employees [are] feeling like it’s harder to find members of their own community because there’s no email anymore to ask when the next event is or to ask about navigating healthcare or other questions,” they said. “If there is no ERG to go to to ask for support for their specific issue, that contributes to isolation, which contributes to a worse work environment.”
Hayes said they had not interacted directly with Secretary Bessent, but they and others observed a shift from the previous administration. “It is stark to see that our first ‘out’ secretary did not host a Pride event this year,” they said. “For the last three years we’ve flown the rainbow Pride flag above Treasury during Pride. And it was such a celebration among staff and Secretary Yellen and the executive secretary’s office were super supportive.”
“Employees notice changes like that,” they added. “Things like the fact that the Secretary’s official bio says ‘spouse’ instead of ‘husband.’ It makes employees wonder if they too should be fearful of being their full selves at work.”
The Blade contacted the Treasury Department with a request for comment outlining Hayes’s allegations, including the removal of inclusive infrastructure, the discouragement of ERG activity, the pre-formalization of EEO policy changes, and the targeting of DEI personnel. As of publication, the agency has not responded.
U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court to consider bans on trans athletes in school sports
27 states have passed laws limiting participation in athletics programs

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear two cases involving transgender youth challenging bans prohibiting them from participating in school sports.
In Little v. Hecox, plaintiffs represented by the ACLU, Legal Voice, and the law firm Cooley are challenging Idaho’s 2020 ban, which requires sex testing to adjudicate questions of an athlete’s eligibility.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals described the process in a 2023 decision halting the policy’s enforcement pending an outcome in the litigation. The “sex dispute verification process, whereby any individual can ‘dispute’ the sex of any female student athlete in the state of Idaho,” the court wrote, would “require her to undergo intrusive medical procedures to verify her sex, including gynecological exams.”
In West Virginia v. B.P.J., Lambda Legal, the ACLU, the ACLU of West Virginia, and Cooley are representing a trans middle school student challenging the Mountain State’s 2021 ban on trans athletes.
The plaintiff was participating in cross country when the law was passed, taking puberty blockers that would have significantly reduced the chances that she could have a physiological advantage over cisgender peers.
“Like any other educational program, school athletic programs should be accessible for everyone regardless of their sex or transgender status,” said Joshua Block, senior counsel for the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Project. “Trans kids play sports for the same reasons their peers do — to learn perseverance, dedication, teamwork, and to simply have fun with their friends,” Block said.
He added, “Categorically excluding kids from school sports just because they are transgender will only make our schools less safe and more hurtful places for all youth. We believe the lower courts were right to block these discriminatory laws, and we will continue to defend the freedom of all kids to play.”
“Our client just wants to play sports with her friends and peers,” said Lambda Legal Senior Counsel Tara Borelli. “Everyone understands the value of participating in team athletics, for fitness, leadership, socialization, and myriad other benefits.”
Borelli continued, “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit last April issued a thoughtful and thorough ruling allowing B.P.J. to continue participating in track events. That well-reasoned decision should stand the test of time, and we stand ready to defend it.”
Shortly after taking control of both legislative chambers, Republican members of Congress tried — unsuccessfully — to pass a national ban like those now enforced in 27 states since 2020.
Federal Government
UPenn erases Lia Thomas’s records as part of settlement with White House
University agreed to ban trans women from women’s sports teams

In a settlement with the Trump-Vance administration announced on Tuesday, the University of Pennsylvania will ban transgender athletes from competing and erase swimming records set by transgender former student Lia Thomas.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found the university in violation of Title IX, the federal rights law barring sex based discrimination in educational institutions, by “permitting males to compete in women’s intercollegiate athletics and to occupy women-only intimate facilities.”
The statement issued by University of Pennsylvania President J. Larry Jameson highlighted how the law’s interpretation was changed substantially under President Donald Trump’s second term.
“The Department of Education OCR investigated the participation of one transgender athlete on the women’s swimming team three years ago, during the 2021-2022 swim season,” he wrote. “At that time, Penn was in compliance with NCAA eligibility rules and Title IX as then interpreted.”
Jameson continued, “Penn has always followed — and continues to follow — Title IX and the applicable policy of the NCAA regarding transgender athletes. NCAA eligibility rules changed in February 2025 with Executive Orders 14168 and 14201 and Penn will continue to adhere to these new rules.”
Writing that “we acknowledge that some student-athletes were disadvantaged by these rules” in place while Thomas was allowed to compete, the university president added, “We recognize this and will apologize to those who experienced a competitive disadvantage or experienced anxiety because of the policies in effect at the time.”
“Today’s resolution agreement with UPenn is yet another example of the Trump effect in action,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. “Thanks to the leadership of President Trump, UPenn has agreed both to apologize for its past Title IX violations and to ensure that women’s sports are protected at the university for future generations of female athletes.”
Under former President Joe Biden, the department’s Office of Civil Rights sought to protect against anti-LGBTQ discrimination in education, bringing investigations and enforcement actions in cases where school officials might, for example, require trans students to use restrooms and facilities consistent with their birth sex or fail to respond to peer harassment over their gender identity.
Much of the legal reasoning behind the Biden-Harris administration’s positions extended from the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court case Bostock v. Clayton County, which found that sex-based discrimination includes that which is based on sexual orientation or gender identity under Title VII rules covering employment practices.
The Trump-Vance administration last week put the state of California on notice that its trans athlete policies were, or once were, in violation of Title IX, which comes amid the ongoing battle with Maine over the same issue.
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