National
Boy Scouts board meets to consider lifting gay ban
Gay scouts deliver 1.4 million petition signatures calling for end to ‘discrimination’


Zach Wahls, who is straight, but has two lesbian mothers, delivers petitions to lift a ban on gay scouts to the national Boy Scouts of America conference in Orlando last year. (Photo courtesy of Change.org)
The Boy Scouts of America’s national board began a three-day meeting in Irving, Tex., on Monday in which it was expected to vote Wednesday on a proposal to end its national policy of banning gay scouts and scout leaders.
As the board met behind closed doors in a hotel near the BSA’s national headquarters just outside Dallas, a contingent of current and former gay scouts, scout leaders, and their straight supporters delivered stacks of petitions with 1.4 million signatures calling for the Boy Scouts to end the gay ban.
“Today’s delivery marks one final push by the more than 1.4 million signers who’ve taken action on Change.org demanding an end to the Boy Scout’s national ban on gay youth and parents,” said Mark Anthony Dingbaum, senior campaign manager for Change.org.
The national LGBT groups Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and Human Rights Campaign joined the gay-supportive scouts and scout leaders, including Scouts for Equality, in drawing national attention to the BSA’s board meeting.
Groups opposed to lifting the Boy Scouts’ ban on gays, including the Family Research Council, announced they had organized their own efforts to lobby the board against changing its policy. Among those calling on the BSA to leave the gay ban in place is Texas Governor Rick Perry.
But the gay supportive side appeared to be capturing more media attention on the opening day of the board’s meeting.
In a full-page ad in Monday’s edition of the Dallas Morning News, HRC urged the Boy Scouts to go beyond their proposal to allow local Boy Scout councils to decide whether to admit gay scouts or scout leaders.
The BSA announced last week that its proposal would end the organization’s national ban on gay scouts and scout leaders. The announcement said the change, if adopted by the board, would leave it to the local Councils and chartered organizations that sponsor Boy Scout troops across the country to decide whether to admit gay scouts and scout leaders.
“While the proposed change is a step in the right direction, we can’t pretend that passing the buck to the local level will eliminate anti-gay discrimination because it won’t,” said HRC’s vice president for communications Fred Sainz.
“Generations of gay Americans have been told they’re not good enough to join the Scouts, simply because of who they are,” Sainz said. “BSA has an opportunity to change that this week by adopting a non-discrimination policy.”
HRC also announced that its foundation has adopted a more stringent criterion for its widely watched Corporate Equality Index, which rates corporations on their policies on LGBT related issues, including personnel policies.
“To receive a perfect score in the future, companies would have to prohibit philanthropic giving to non-religious organizations that have a written policy of anti-gay discrimination, or permit its chapters, affiliates, or troops to do so,” HRC announced in a Feb. 4 press release.
The newly announced criterion would lead to a lower the rating for companies that donate money to the Boy Scouts if the BSA or local Boy Scout councils don’t eliminate their ban on gays.
D.C. area Boy Scouts Council calls for ‘courteous’ discussion
Daniel Mullin, director of the D.C. district for the BSA’s National Capital Area Council, told the Blade on Monday that Boy Scouts and scout leaders in the D.C. region were watching with interest over how the national board will decide on the issue of the gay ban.
He pointed to a statement in the National Capital Area Council’s February newsletter, which invites the scouting community to share their opinions and concerns on the issue with the Council’s leadership.
“This is a topic that many leaders, parents and community members have strongly held opinions about,” the Council’s newsletter statement says. “It is a complex issue and can engender significant debate. As you discuss the issue with your friends and fellow Scouts, please remember that a Scout is courteous and kind.”
Federal Government
RFK Jr.’s HHS report pushes therapy, not medical interventions, for trans youth
‘Discredited junk science’ — GLAAD

A 409-page report released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services challenges the ethics of medical interventions for youth experiencing gender dysphoria, the treatments that are often collectively called gender-affirming care, instead advocating for psychotherapy alone.
The document comes in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order barring the federal government from supporting gender transitions for anyone younger than 19.
“Our duty is to protect our nation’s children — not expose them to unproven and irreversible medical interventions,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement. “We must follow the gold standard of science, not activist agendas.”
While the report does not constitute clinical guidance, its findings nevertheless conflict with not just the recommendations of LGBTQ advocacy groups but also those issued by organizations with relevant expertise in science and medicine.
The American Medical Association, for instance, notes that “empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression.”
Gender-affirming care for transgender youth under standards widely used in the U.S. includes supportive talk therapy along with — in some but not all cases — puberty blockers or hormone treatment.
“The suggestion that someone’s authentic self and who they are can be ‘changed’ is discredited junk science,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “This so-called guidance is grossly misleading and in direct contrast to the recommendation of every leading health authority in the world. This report amounts to nothing more than forcing the same discredited idea of conversion therapy that ripped families apart and harmed gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people for decades.”
GLAAD further notes that the “government has not released the names of those involved in consulting or authoring this report.”
Janelle Perez, executive director of LPAC, said, “For decades, every major medical association–including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics–have affirmed that medical care is the only safe and effective treatment for transgender youth experiencing gender dysphoria.
“This report is simply promoting conversion therapy by a different name – and the American people know better. We know that conversion therapy isn’t actually therapy – it isolates and harms kids, scapegoats parents, and divides families through blame and rejection. These tactics have been used against gay kids for decades, and now the same people want to use them against transgender youth and their families.
“The end result here will be a devastating denial of essential health care for transgender youth, replaced by a dangerous practice that every major U.S. medical and mental health association agree promotes anxiety, depression, and increased risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts.
“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice, and no amount of pressure can force someone to change who they are. We also know that 98% of people who receive transition-related health care continue to receive that health care throughout their lifetime. Trans health care is health care.”
“Today’s report seeks to erase decades of research and learning, replacing it with propaganda. The claims in today’s report would rip health care away from kids and take decision-making out of the hands of parents,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of NCLR. “It promotes the same kind of conversion therapy long used to shame LGBTQ+ people into hating themselves for being unable to change something they can’t change.”
“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice—it’s rooted in biology and genetics,” Minter said. “No amount or talk or pressure will change that.”
Human Rights Campaign Chief of Staff Jay Brown released a statement: “Trans people are who we are. We’re born this way. And we deserve to live our best lives and have a fair shot and equal opportunity at living a good life.
“This report misrepresents the science that has led all mainstream American medical and mental health professionals to declare healthcare for transgender youth to be best practice and instead follows a script predetermined not by experts but by Sec. Kennedy and anti-equality politicians.”
The White House
Trump nominates Mike Waltz to become next UN ambassador
Former Fla. congressman had been national security advisor

President Donald Trump on Thursday announced he will nominate Mike Waltz to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
Waltz, a former Florida congressman, had been the national security advisor.
Trump announced the nomination amid reports that Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, were going to leave the administration after Waltz in March added a journalist to a Signal chat in which he, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other officials discussed plans to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen.
“I am pleased to announce that I will be nominating Mike Waltz to be the next United States ambassador to the United Nations,” said Trump in a Truth Social post that announced Waltz’s nomination. “From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our nation’s Interests first. I know he will do the same in his new role.”
Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as interim national security advisor, “while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department.”
“Together, we will continue to fight tirelessly to make America, and the world, safe again,” said Trump.
Trump shortly after his election nominated U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Trump in March withdrew her nomination in order to ensure Republicans maintained their narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
U.S. Federal Courts
Second federal lawsuit filed against White House passport policy
Two of seven plaintiffs live in Md.

Lambda Legal on April 25 filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of seven transgender and nonbinary people who are challenging the Trump-Vance administration’s passport policy.
The lawsuit, which Lambda Legal filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Baltimore, alleges the policy that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers “has caused and is causing grave and immediate harm to transgender people like plaintiffs, in violation of their constitutional rights to equal protection.”
Two of the seven plaintiffs — Jill Tran and Peter Poe — live in Maryland. The State Department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the federal government are defendants.
“The discriminatory passport policy exposes transgender U.S. citizens to harassment, abuse, and discrimination, in some cases endangering them abroad or preventing them from traveling, by forcing them to use identification documents that share private information against their wishes,” said Lambda Legal in a press release.
Zander Schlacter, a New York-based textile artist and designer, is the lead plaintiff.
The lawsuit notes he legally changed his name and gender in New York.
Schlacter less than a week before President Donald Trump’s inauguration “sent an expedited application to update his legal name on his passport, using form DS-5504.”
Trump once he took office signed an executive order that banned the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers. The lawsuit notes Schlacter received his new passport in February.
“The passport has his correct legal name, but now has an incorrect sex marker of ‘F’ or ‘female,'” notes the lawsuit. “Mr. Schlacter also received a letter from the State Department notifying him that ‘the date of birth, place of birth, name, or sex was corrected on your passport application,’ with ‘sex’ circled in red. The stated reason was ‘to correct your information to show your biological sex at birth.'”
“I, like many transgender people, experience fear of harassment or violence when moving through public spaces, especially where a photo ID is required,” said Schlacter in the press release that announced the lawsuit. “My safety is further at risk because of my inaccurate passport. I am unwilling to subject myself and my family to the threat of harassment and discrimination at the hands of border officials or anyone who views my passport.”
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.
Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an “X” gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.
Lambda Legal represented Zzyym.
The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022.
Trump signed his executive order shortly after he took office in January. Germany, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands are among the countries that have issued travel advisories for trans and nonbinary people who plan to visit the U.S.
A federal judge in Boston earlier this month issued a preliminary injunction against the executive order. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of seven trans and nonbinary people.
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