National
Pentagon to offer partner benefits to gay troops
Panetta sets goal for implementation of Aug. 31
Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta (Blade photo by Michael Key)
The Pentagon announced on Monday that it will start the process of offering limited benefits available under current law to gay troops with same-sex partners.
In a memo dated Feb. 11 to senior Pentagon officials, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta enumerated the benefits that will be afforded to gay troops — which include military IDs, joint duty assignments and access to the commissary — and set a goal for implementing these benefits by Aug. 31, but no later than Oct. 1.
“Taking care of our service members and honoring the sacrifices of all military families are two core values of this nation,” Panetta said in a statement accompanying the memo. “Extending these benefits is an appropriate next step under current law to ensure that all service members receive equal support for what they do to protect this nation.”
Other benefits that will be afforded are access to morale, welfare and recreation programs; sexual assault counseling; legal assistance; child care; and space-available travel on military aircraft. A full list of the benefits can be found on Attachment 2 of the Panetta memo here.
The memo states the Pentagon will “immediately proceed” with implementing these changes and provide a plan within 60 days.
However, the Pentagon won’t at this time offer certain benefits that LGBT advocates have been seeking under current law, such as access to on-base housing, covering costs for transportation to an overseas post and burial at Arlington National Cemetery.
During a news briefing on Monday, a Pentagon senior official said housing wouldn’t be offered because extending that benefit would be “violating the spirit” of the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriage.
Panetta writes in the memorandum that the Pentagon will continue to review these benefits, indicating they haven’t yet been outright rejected.
“With regard to on-base housing, burial and benefits related to command sponsorship overseas, these benefits present complex legal and policy challenges due to their nexus to statutorily-prohibited benefits and due to ongoing reviews about how best to provide scarce resources,” Panetta wrote.
A Pentagon senior legal official at the briefing said the issue of housing was “sensitive” in 2010 as the Defense Department solicited comment among service members for its report on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” because of the sense there isn’t enough housing for service members under current policy already.
“It’s a very sensitive issue because we don’t have enough housing for everybody,” the official said. “The other thing that factors is because it’s sensitive and there is a limited amount, you end up bumping people, and there’s sensitivity behind that. So, the secretary is going to let the working group work through it a little bit longer before they make a final decision.”
Asked who decided that housing shouldn’t be extended at this time, the Pentagon senior official said, “the decision was made by the department, by the department that we would not extend housing at this time.”
Despite the lack of inclusion of some benefits, OutServe-SLDN — which has called for the extension of these benefits since August 2011, before “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was lifted — praised Panetta in a statement and described the move as “substantive.”
“Secretary Panetta’s decision today answers the call President Obama issued in his inaugural address to complete our nation’s journey toward equality, acknowledging the equal service and equal sacrifice of our gay and lesbian service members and their families,” said Allyson Robinson, executive director of OutServe-SLDN.
Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, said President Obama “welcomes” the benefits extension at the Pentagon. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney had previously told the Washington Blade the president was aware of the issue.
“The president welcomes the announcement by the Secretary of Defense that the department will extend certain benefits to the same-sex partners and families of service members based on its thorough and deliberate review of this issue,” Inouye said. “This step will strengthen our military and help ensure that all our troops and their families are treated with fairness and equality.”
The move will also be followed by the Coast Guard. In a statement following the news on Monday, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said she directed U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Robert Papp to implement partner benefits along the lines of the ones enacted in other branches of the military.
“The Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Coast Guard stand with the Department of Defense on the extension of benefits for military same-sex partners,” Napolitano said. “The extension of benefits for military same-sex partners honors our Department’s guiding principles to treat all service members and applicants equally and with dignity and respect.”
Other benefits, such as health, pension and housing allowances, are precluded from gay service members because of Section 3 of DOMA. Litigation challenging that law, known as Windsor v. United States, is pending before the Supreme Court, and justices are expected to make a decision on the constitutionality of the law before their term ends in June.
Because implementation of these benefits won’t happen until months after the Supreme Court rules on DOMA, a decision from justices striking down the law could shake up which benefits will be afforded at that time.
“In the event that the Defense of Marriage Act is no longer applicable to the Department of Defense, it will be the policy of the Department to construe the words ‘spouse’ and ‘marriage’ without regard to sexual orientation, and married couples, irrespective of sexual orientation, and their dependents, will be granted full military benefits,” Panetta wrote.
The Pentagon senior official maintained the DOMA litigation had no impact on the timing to extend benefits and it was instead based on “what it takes to actually roll out the benefit.”
“Normally, you’re looking at eight months to a year or so,” the official said. “This is a very ambitious schedule. We’re really pressing hard to do this as quick as possible.”
The Pentagon senior legal official clarified the military IDs given to gay troops with same-sex partners or spouses will be different to denote these service members aren’t eligible for certain benefits under DOMA. The card won’t be a different color, although there will be a new code in place — “DP” — in the relationship category.
Gay service members need not be married to their same-sex partner for benefit eligibility. An unmarried same-sex couple can register with the Pentagon for benefits by signing a declaration attesting to the existence of their committed relationship. Benefits also may be available in some cases to the children of same-sex domestic partners.
The Pentagon senior official estimated the new benefits would reach 5,600 active duty troops, 3,400 members of the National Guard and Reserve and 8,000 retired service members. The official also said any cost of these benefits would be negligible on the federal government.
Pentagon officials have said since the time “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was lifted in September 2011 that they’ve been reviewing the benefits issue, but no action has been taken until now. LGBT advocates, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said the military service chiefs objected to issuing these benefits because they believed the move would be seen as political if they were extended before the Supreme Court made a decision on DOMA.
The Pentagon senior legal official declined to comment on the opinion of the service chiefs when asked about any objections they might have had.
“There was a robust internal dialogue about all the issues,” the official said. “At the end of the day, the chiefs rendered their opinion and their advice to the secretary, and he considered it, and decided to do what he’s doing. To answer the question about what was the chiefs’ advice, I’ll defer to the chiefs.”
Beyond benefits, another move that LGBT advocates have been pushing for is an explicit non-discrimination policy for gay service members who feel they’re facing harassment or discrimination. OutServe-SLDN has said Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel upon confirmation “must use his authority to ban discrimination” against LGBT service members.
The Pentagon senior official suggested the Defense Department was disinclined to take this action, saying, “We have not changed our policy at this time.” Asked to clarify if such a move is on the table, the senior official said, “The Pentagon’s position is always to treat all members with dignity and respect regardless of sexual orientation, and that has not changed.”
There will also be exclusion of these benefits for the partners of gay service members who are now deceased. Following the briefing, Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christiansen confirmed “there will not be grandfathering of benefits” for partners and spouses in this situation. That means Karen Morgan — the spouse of Chief Warrant Officer Charlie Morgan, who died Sunday after fighting DOMA and cancer — won’t be eligible for these benefits.
Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said the Pentagon took a “historic step” by extending these benefits, but said more work is necessary as long as DOMA is in place.
“It’s time to right this wrong,” Griffin said. “When the Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of DOMA in the coming weeks, they should take note of the real harm this law inflicts every day. The Court should reflect on the sacrifice made by Americans like Staff Sergeant Tracy Johnson, whose wife was killed in action late last year, or the family of Chief Warrant Officer Charlie Morgan, who succumbed to cancer earlier this week. In both cases, DOMA barred specific benefits that could soften the tragic blow of the loss of a loved one.”
Hungary
Vance speaks at Orbán rally in Hungary
Anti-LGBTQ prime minister trailing ahead of April 12 vote
Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday urged Hungarians to support Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the country’s April 12 elections.
“We have got to get Viktor Orbán re-elected as prime minister of Hungary,” Vance told Orbán supporters who gathered at Budapest’s MTK Sportpark.
Vance and Orbán on Tuesday met before they held a press conference in Budapest. Orbán also spoke at the rally.
The U.S. vice president after he took to the stage called President Donald Trump, who told the crowd he is “a big fan of Viktor” and is “with him all the way.” Vance, as he did during Tuesday’s press conference with Orbán, criticized the European Union.
“We want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do. I’m not telling you exactly who to vote for, but what I am telling you is that the bureaucrats in Brussels, those people should not be listened to,” said Vance. “Listen to your hearts, listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people.”
Vance in his speech noted “across the West, we’ve got a small band of radicals” who, among other things, “condemn children to mutilization and sterilization in the name of gender care.” Vance also criticized a “far-left ideology given quarter in university circles, in the media, and in our entertainment industry, and increasingly among bureaucrats on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Vice President JD Vance speaks at MTK Sportpark in Budapest, Hungary, on April 7, 2026
Orbán has been in office since 2010. He and his Fidesz-KDNP coalition government have faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
A Hungarian activist with whom the Washington Blade previously spoke said it is “impossible to change your gender legally in Hungary” because of a 2020 law that “banned legal gender recognition of transgender and intersex people.” Hungarian MPs the same year effectively prohibited same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the country’s constitution as between a man and a woman.
The European Commission in 2022 sued Hungary, which is a member of the EU, over the country’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law.
Hungarian lawmakers in March 2025 passed a bill that banned Pride events and allowed authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs later amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
Upwards of 100,000 people last June defied the ban and marched in Budapest’s annual Pride parade.
Polls indicate Orbán is trailing Péter Magyar and his center-right Tisza party ahead of the April 12 election. Vance at Tuesday’s rally told Orbán supporters that he and Trump “want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do.”
“I’m not telling you exactly who to vote for, but what I am telling you is that the bureaucrats in Brussels, those people should not be listened to,” said Vance. “Listen to your hearts, listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people.”
“Unlike some of the leadership of Brussels, I’m not threatening you or telling you that we’re going to withhold funds to which you’re legally entitled,” he added. “You will make the decision about Hungary’s future.”
The White House
White House ends protections for trans students in multiple school districts
Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware among administration’s targets
The Department of Education has terminated agreements with five school districts and a college aimed at protecting the rights of transgender students, backtracking requirements made in prior administrations, according to the Associated Press.
Allowing the reversal of these federal obligations removes formerly mandatory measures, including faculty training on responding to a student’s preferred name and pronouns, and policies allowing trans children to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
This policy change is a major shift from past democratic-led administrations, and will impact Delaware Valley School District in Pennsylvania, Sacramento City Unified School District in California, Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware, Fife School District in Washington, and La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, as well as Taft College in California.
Delaware Valley School District received notice from the Trump-Vance administration in February and has since voted to roll back anti-discrimination protections. Other schools, like Sacramento City Unified School District, said the change in minimum protections a district must offer will not affect their policies because it “remains committed to the support of our LGBTQ+ students and staff.”
This is part of a wider wave of anti-trans actions taken by the Trump-Vance administration. This White House has penalized schools attempting to accommodate students’ gender identity, filed lawsuits in California and Minnesota over state policies allowing trans students to participate in interscholastic sports, and opened civil rights investigations into multiple schools and universities over their policies on trans students.
Kimberly Richey, the Department of Education’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, said the action underscored the administration’s efforts to prevent trans students from participating in girls’ and women’s sports teams and accessing shared locker rooms.
“Today, the Trump administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda,” she said in a written statement.
According to the AP, this is just one instance of the administration rescinding civil rights protections in education. Last year, the Department of Education terminated two agreements: one involving the removal of books from a school library in Georgia, and another addressing harsh discipline and unequal education opportunities for Native students in the Rapid City Area School District in South Dakota.
Shiwali Patel, the senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center, issued a statement in response to the removal of protections for trans students, saying the rollback will negatively impact all students — not just trans ones.
“There is absolutely no basis for what the Department of Education is doing, and it is unimaginably cruel. Title IX exists to ensure that students are protected from discrimination and treated with dignity so that they can learn and thrive in our schools,” Patel said. “It’s what students, families, lawmakers, and advocates fought for when Title IX was passed decades ago. But the Trump administration’s Department of Education has spent its limited resources to strip Title IX of that very purpose.”
She continued, highlighting the issues that will arise from the agreement removals in schools.
“Real complaints of discrimination and sexual assault are going unanswered by the Department of Education while conservative lawmakers continue to escalate their attacks on a small minority of students,” the nationally recognized Title IX expert and advocacy leader for gender-based harassment added. “Parents, teachers, and students need the Department to focus on addressing real harms on campuses instead of rolling back policies that keep all students safe.”
The schools that had their agreements terminated vary, but stem from the same issue: treating trans students with the same protections from harassment as their cisgender peers.
In 2023, Taft College, a community college in California’s Central Valley, became one of the few schools to settle a case with the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Office after a student accused faculty of discrimination, including refusing to use the student’s preferred pronouns. The college agreed to faculty training on Title IX protections and revised its policies to clarify that refusing to use a person’s preferred name and pronoun can constitute harassment.
The now-canceled agreement with Sacramento City Unified School District stemmed from a 2022 complaint brought by a student after a teacher refused to use the student’s preferred pronouns and/or refused to allow the male-identifying student to work in a boys’ group for a class activity. The 2024 resolution agreement had mandated training for employees on civil rights law, sexual harassment, and how to handle formal complaints.
Under a settlement the Delaware Valley School District reached with the Obama-Biden administration, the district was required to permit students to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identity. In February, the Trump-Vance administration sent the district a letter rescinding the settlement and requiring the rollback of antidiscrimination protections for trans students. The school board voted in late March to change its policies accordingly.
This move is part of a broader pattern of anti-trans actions from the White House since Trump returned to office.
In addition to restricting protections in federally funded education spaces, the administration has attempted to end trans girls’ and women’s participation in sports competitions and has sued states that have not complied. It has also blocked trans and nonbinary people from choosing sex markers on passports and attempted to stop those under 19 from receiving gender-affirming medical care.
South Carolina
Man faces first S.C. ‘hate intimidation’ charge
Timothy Truett allegedly shot at gay club in Myrtle Beach on April 1
A South Carolina man remains in custody on a more than $300,000 bond after he allegedly opened fire at a Myrtle Beach nightclub on April 1, according to WMBF.
Reports say 37-year-old Timothy James Truett Jr., of Clover, S.C., was detained by the Myrtle Beach Police Department after the April 1 incident outside Pulse Ultra Club. He was later arrested and charged with possession of a weapon during a violent crime, discharging a firearm into a dwelling, discharging a firearm within city limits, malicious injury to real property valued over $5,000, and assault or intimidation due to political opinions or the exercise of civil rights.
At 10:57 a.m. on April 1, officers responded to a call about a possible shooting at Pulse Ultra Club, located in the 2700 block of South Kings Highway.
In an affidavit released later, the club’s owner, Ken Phillips, said he was doing paperwork that morning when he heard “five or six” gunshots. He went outside and found a window and the windshield of his SUV shattered by bullets. An SUV with blue plastic covering one window was left at the scene.
Police later reviewed footage that showed a silver vehicle stopping in the middle of the road. The video appeared to capture muzzle flashes coming from the passenger-side window.
According to the affidavit, an officer later pulled over a vehicle driven by Truett and found spent shell casings in the back seat, along with a gun.
Documents do not detail why Truett was ultimately charged under the state law covering assault or intimidation tied to political opinions or the exercise of civil rights.
As of April 1, records show Truett is being held in Horry County on a combined bond of more than $312,000.
WMBF spoke with Phillips after the incident and asked whether there was any prior conflict that might have led to the shooting.
“I don’t know if it’s personal, I don’t know if it’s related to being gay, I don’t know if it’s related to the bar issues,” Phillips told WMBF. “Anybody with a mindset of pulling out a weapon in broad daylight is not right.”
“My primary concern has and always will be the safety of my community and my customers,” he added. “It’s given me great concern … as to how far people will go.”
WMBF also spoke with Adam Hayes, vice chair of Myrtle Beach’s Human Rights Coalition, who was involved in pushing for the ordinance. He said that while the incident itself is troubling, it shows the policy is being put to use.
The ordinance is intended to deter “crimes that are motivated by bias or hate towards any person or persons, in whole or in part, because of the actual or perceived” identity, in the absence of a statewide hate crime law.
“It’s nice to see that something we put into policy is not just a piece of paper, that it’s actually being used,” said Hayes.
He said the shooting underscores the need for a statewide hate crime law in South Carolina and added that the incident has left the local LGBTQ community shaken.
South Carolina and Wyoming are the only two states in the U.S. without a comprehensive statewide hate crime law.
Truett remains in jail as of publication.
Vance speaks at Orbán rally in Hungary
White House ends protections for trans students in multiple school districts
Amendments to India’s transgender rights law criticized
Cuba under pressure and without answers
Police mental health struggles gain growing attention
Belarusian lawmakers approve bill to crackdown on LGBTQ rights
How new barriers to health care coverage are hitting D.C.
Kenyan advocacy groups launch LGBTQ voter mobilization campaign
Calendar: April 3-9
