National
Will Obama include ENDA in State of the Union?
Move would echo Clinton’s 1999 speech before Congress
President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Amid expectations that President Obama will encourage Congress to pass jobs legislation during his upcoming State of the Union address, LGBT advocates are calling on him to articulate the need for legislative and administrative action to protect against anti-LGBT job bias.
President Obama will deliver the State of the Union address on Tuesday at 9 p.m. before a joint session of Congress to inform lawmakers about legislation he wants passed during the first year of his second term, which may include immigration reform, deficit reduction, gun control and job creation initiatives.
But LGBT rights supporters — recalling Obama’s historic LGBT-inclusion in his inaugural address — are asking Obama to address one LGBT issue that remains outstanding since the start of his administration in 2009: the lack of federal non-discrimination protections for LGBT workers. Legislation addressing the issue that has languished in Congress for decades is known as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
Tico Almeida, president of the LGBT group Freedom to Work, said “it would be fantastic” for Obama to follow-up on his inaugural speech to call for ENDA passage.
“The year 2013 should bring important steps forward on ENDA, with a high probability of a successful Senate Committee mark-up and the possibility of a long overdue ENDA vote on the Senate floor,” Almeida said. “It would be very helpful for the president to use the State of the Union to assert his strong leadership on this issue by publicly calling on both chambers of Congress to vote on ENDA.”
It wouldn’t be the first time ENDA was mentioned during a State of the Union address. In 1999, then-President Clinton called for passage of the bill in addition to approval of hate crimes protections legislation, which Obama eventually signed into law in 2009.
“Discrimination or violence because of race or religion, ancestry or gender, disability or sexual orientation is wrong and it ought to be illegal,” Clinton said. “Therefore, I ask Congress to make the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Hate Crimes Prevention Act the law of the land.”
Obama has also made references to the LGBT community in previous State of the Union addresses. In 2010, he foreshadowed the legislative effort to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” promising to “work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.”
In 2011, Obama pledged to finish the job on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” by certifying an end to the military’s gay ban before the end of the year. And last year, as lesbian Air Force Col. Ginger Wallace sat in the box near first lady Michelle Obama, Obama alluded to repeal of the ban, saying, “When you put on that uniform, it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white; Asian or Latino; conservative or liberal; rich or poor; gay or straight.”
What Obama will say during the State of the Union address this year is unknown. Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, said he doesn’t have a preview of Obama’s remarks.
But the request to articulate the need for workplace protections for LGBT people isn’t limited to legislation. LGBT advocates say the State of the Union would also be an opportunity for Obama to commit to an executive order that would bar federal contractors from discriminating against workers on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Fred Sainz, vice president of communications for the Human Rights Campaign, said the nation’s largest LGBT group “would love to see” Obama pledge to issue this order during his remarks.
“With federal employment discrimination legislation for LGBT people currently stalled in Congress, such an order would be an important step forward and would provide important protections for millions of American workers,” Sainz said. “It’s also a natural extension of the president’s ‘We Can’t Wait’ campaign.”
The White House has repeatedly said it prefers a legislative approach to instituting federal non-discrimination protections as opposed to administrative action. Asked about the directive by the Washington Blade in December, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the legislative approach to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal should be “a model for the way to approach these issues.”
But Freedom to Work’s Almeida said observers may see a reversal during the upcoming State of the Union address because Obama has previously taken the opportunity of these speeches to announce administrative action.
“President Obama has announced other executive orders during prior addresses to Congress, and it would be great if the president used this opportunity to announce that he is fulfilling a campaign promise to prevent taxpayer money from being squandered on workplace discrimination and harassment against LGBT employees,” Almeida said.
If Obama doesn’t elect to enumerate any specific pro-LGBT initiative during the speech, it’s possible he could offer a more general sense of support for the LGBT community as he did during his inaugural.
Sainz noted the importance of including such language in the State of the Union regardless of whether any mention of ENDA is made.
“Language that speaks to the inclusion of LGBT people as being a vital and important part of America is always important,” Sainz said. “The president’s recognition of the historical significance of Stonewall was incredibly important not just to the dignity of our movement but also to growing support among fair-minded Americans for the whole host of unfinished priorities.”
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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