National
Gays just wanted to have fun at HRC ball
LGBT advocates, buoyed by inaugural speech, celebrate 2nd term
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) speaks at HRC’s inaugural celebration (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
The official start of President Obama’s second term was cause for excitement on Monday at the Human Rights Campaign’s “Out for Equality” inaugural ball.
A jubilant crowd of about 1,500 donned tuxedos and designer duds after Obama was sworn into office by Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts and the inaugural parade. They braved the cold night to gather at D.C.’s Mayflower Hotel, which sported a rainbow flag above its front entrance.
Audra McDonald (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Entertainment included Audra McDonald, a five-time Tony Award winner, and Will Swenson, a Tony nominated actor known for his roles in “Priscilla Queen of the Desert” and “Hair.” Ending the celebration was gay icon Cyndi Lauper, a longtime HRC supporter, who closed the night with a rendition of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” also made an appearance.
A number of high-profile pro-LGBT figures made appearances. At one point the stage featured Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.,) the leader on anti-bullying legislation in the Senate; New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, whose recent election assured the preservation of marriage equality in her state; and Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a rising Democratic star considering a bid to represent New Jersey in the U.S. Senate.
But the political star who received the most attention during the ball was lesbian Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), who called for a toast to Obama in response to LGBT references in his inaugural address after Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin introduced her on stage.
“I was so struck in the passage about going from Seneca Falls to Selma to Stonewall — all of us working so hard to advance true equality, but all woven into the small fabric of our American story,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin declined to take questions from the Washington Blade after her remarks.
As he shook hands with supporters, Booker took a question from the Blade about the prospects of legalizing same-sex marriage in New Jersey. The Democratic legislature last year passed marriage legislation, but Gov. Chris Christie vetoed it.
“It’s still not a matter of not if, but when,” Booker said. “But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be pushing and working for it every single day. So, hopefully we can still override the governor’s veto, or frankly, in the next election in November, bring in a governor who shares the values of the majority of the state of New Jersey that will stand up for marriage equality.”
But the buzz during the party was the inaugural speech Obama delivered a few hours earlier in which he twice included the LGBT community by including the 1969 Stonewall riots in his speech.
“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well,” he also said.
It was the first time a U.S. president had ever addressed the LGBT community in an inaugural address.
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), the newly seated gay U.S. House member, was among those who praised Obama’s speech and said he “became emotional” listening to the president deliver his remarks on LGBT rights.
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
“I’ve never been more proud of an American president,” Maloney said. “I thought about my kids and I brought my kids who are African American to watch the president because I wanted them to understand that anyone can do anything in this country, but I never imagined that they would also get a lesson on how we’re all equal regardless not just of race, but sexual orientation and to receive that lesson from the president was beautiful and remarkable.”
Gay Democratic lobbyist Steve Elmendorf also had high praise for Obama’s decision to include LGBT references in his inaugural address, calling it “historic.”
“It was surprising, I guess,” Elmendorf said. “We know where he is, but at an inaugural event, nobody has ever said ‘gay’ at an inaugural. Nobody has ever done such a good job of making the case about how the gay rights movement, sort of follows from the women’s rights movement and civil rights movement and put it all together. There were not a lot of dry eyes among the gays watching that speech.”
Corey Johnson, a gay New York City Council candidate, echoed that sentiment.
“I was pleased when Stonewall was put in the same sentence as Seneca Falls and Selma and I thought that could have been enough, but then to go on and explicitly talk about equal rights for LGBT Americans for the first time ever in an inaugural address I thought was unexpected, yet incredibly welcomed, so I was very moved actually,” Johnson said.
Michael K. Lavers contributed to this article.
New York
Men convicted of murdering two men in NYC gay bar drugging scheme sentenced
One of the victims, John Umberger, was D.C. political consultant
A New York judge on Wednesday sentenced three men convicted of killing a D.C. political consultant and another man who they targeted at gay bars in Manhattan.
NBC New York notes a jury in February convicted Jayqwan Hamilton, Jacob Barroso, and Robert DeMaio of murder, robbery, and conspiracy in relation to druggings and robberies that targeted gay bars in Manhattan from March 2021 to June 2022.
John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant from D.C., and Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, died. Prosecutors said Hamilton, Barroso, and DeMaio targeted three other men at gay bars.
The jury convicted Hamilton and DeMaio of murdering Umberger. State Supreme Court Judge Felicia Mennin sentenced Hamilton and DeMaio to 40 years to life in prison.
Barroso, who was convicted of killing Ramirez, received a 20 years to life sentence.
National
Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information
Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources
Nine private medical and public health advocacy organizations, including two from D.C., filed a lawsuit on May 20 in federal court in Seattle challenging what it calls the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s illegal deletion of dozens or more of its webpages containing health related information, including HIV information.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, names as defendants Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HHS itself, and several agencies operating under HHS and its directors, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration.
“This action challenges the widespread deletion of public health resources from federal agencies,” the lawsuit states. “Dozens (if not more) of taxpayer-funded webpages, databases, and other crucial resources have vanished since January 20, 2025, leaving doctors, nurses, researchers, and the public scrambling for information,” it says.
“These actions have undermined the longstanding, congressionally mandated regime; irreparably harmed Plaintiffs and others who rely on these federal resources; and put the nation’s public health infrastructure in unnecessary jeopardy,” the lawsuit continues.
It adds, “The removal of public health resources was apparently prompted by two recent executive orders – one focused on ‘gender ideology’ and the other targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) programs. Defendants implemented these executive orders in a haphazard manner that resulted in the deletion (inadvertent or otherwise) of health-related websites and databases, including information related to pregnancy risks, public health datasets, information about opioid-use disorder, and many other valuable resources.”
The lawsuit does not mention that it was President Donald Trump who issued the two executive orders in question.
A White House spokesperson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit.
While not mentioning Trump by name, the lawsuit names as defendants in addition to HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., Matthew Buzzelli, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health; Martin Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Thomas Engels, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration; and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
The 44-page lawsuit complaint includes an addendum with a chart showing the titles or descriptions of 49 “affected resource” website pages that it says were deleted because of the executive orders. The chart shows that just four of the sites were restored after initially being deleted.
Of the 49 sites, 15 addressed LGBTQ-related health issues and six others addressed HIV issues, according to the chart.
“The unannounced and unprecedented deletion of these federal webpages and datasets came as a shock to the medical and scientific communities, which had come to rely on them to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, assist physicians and other clinicians in daily care, and inform the public about a wide range of healthcare issues,” the lawsuit states.
“Health professionals, nonprofit organizations, and state and local authorities used the websites and datasets daily in care for their patients, to provide resources to their communities, and promote public health,” it says.
Jose Zuniga, president and CEO of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC), one of the organizations that signed on as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the deleted information from the HHS websites “includes essential information about LGBTQ+ health, gender and reproductive rights, clinical trial data, Mpox and other vaccine guidance and HIV prevention resources.”
Zuniga added, “IAPAC champions evidence-based, data-informed HIV responses and we reject ideologically driven efforts that undermine public health and erase marginalized communities.”
Lisa Amore, a spokesperson for Whitman-Walker Health, D.C.’s largest LGBTQ supportive health services provider, also expressed concern about the potential impact of the HHS website deletions.
“As the region’s leader in HIV care and prevention, Whitman-Walker Health relies on scientific data to help us drive our resources and measure our successes,” Amore said in response to a request for comment from the Washington Blade.
“The District of Columbia has made great strides in the fight against HIV,” Amore said. “But the removal of public facing information from the HHS website makes our collective work much harder and will set HIV care and prevention backward,” she said.
The lawsuit calls on the court to issue a declaratory judgement that the “deletion of public health webpages and resources is unlawful and invalid” and to issue a preliminary or permanent injunction ordering government officials named as defendants in the lawsuit “to restore the public health webpages and resources that have been deleted and to maintain their web domains in accordance with their statutory duties.”
It also calls on the court to require defendant government officials to “file a status report with the Court within twenty-four hours of entry of a preliminary injunction, and at regular intervals, thereafter, confirming compliance with these orders.”
The health organizations that joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs include the Washington State Medical Association, Washington State Nurses Association, Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Academy Health, Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Fast-Track Cities Institute, International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, National LGBT Cancer Network, and Vermont Medical Society.
The Fast-Track Cities Institute and International Association of Providers of AIDS Care are based in D.C.
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.
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