National
NOM president’s 80-hour workweek?
IRS forms raise questions, reveal Brown’s $253,000 salary
NOM President Brian Brown (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
In its recently released IRS 990 reports for 2011, the National Organization for Marriage says its president Brian Brown received a salary and benefits package totaling $253,917 and works an average of 80 hours a week as the head of NOM and its affiliated charitable arm, the NOM Education Fund.
D.C. attorney Marcus Owens, a nationally recognized expert on 990 reporting requirements who formerly headed the IRS division overseeing tax-exempt organizations, told the Blade that claims of an 80-hour work week could raise a red flag for the IRS and possibly prompt the tax agency to conduct an audit of NOM.
“Nobody works 80 hours a week on something like this,” Owens said.
But NOM communications director Thomas Peters said in a statement released to the Blade that Brown often puts in more than 80 hours in a week.
“Since no CEO punches a time clock, the intent of the completed forms is to show that Mr. Brown works tirelessly for both NOM’s c4 (through which he is paid) and the c3,” he said.
“In fact there are many weeks he works in excess of 80 hours for NOM while others are certainly less than 80 hours,” Peters said. “Only during the rare vacation does he work less than 40 hours in a week.”
Since its founding in 2008, NOM has emerged as the leading organization opposing legalization of marriage for same-sex couples. It has raised millions of dollars for state ballot measures seeking to ban same-sex marriage.
Peters was referring to the IRS tax code that classifies tax-exempt charitable organizations as a 501 (c)(3) organization, which allows contributors to write off their donations as a tax deduction; and a tax-exempt political organization, like NOM, Inc., which is listed as a 501 (c)(4) group, whose contributors cannot write off their donations.
Owens said groups like NOM that have overlapping staffs for their c3 and c4 entities and where the two entities share the same office are required to keep careful records that separate their expenses and income and ensure that the c3 group doesn’t subsidize the c4 group.
Since the c3 group receives donations that are tax deductible it usually has an easier task of raising money than the c4 group, Owens said. He said the c4 group is allowed to subsidize the c3 group but not vice versa.
“What I advise organizations when they have that sort of dual structure is to make it clear on the 990 that they do track expenses for each organization because otherwise you’re setting yourself up for speculation and a possible IRS audit just to see what’s going on,” he said. “There should be a cost sharing arrangement between the two organizations and employees ought to be keeping time sheets to show which hat they’re wearing when they do something.”
The 990 forms filed by NOM for 2011 show both of its entities are located in the same suite of offices on K Street, N.W.
Owens confirmed that NOM spokesperson Peters was correct when he told the Blade in an earlier statement that gay rights advocate and NOM critic Fred Karger issued a press release on Jan. 30 that incorrectly claimed that Brown’s salary and benefits exceeded $500,000. Owens noted that Karger apparently misread NOM’s 2011 990 form for its c3 NOM Education Fund.
All 990 forms have two columns for reporting salary and compensation – one for the organization for which the 990 applies and another column for income and compensation from “related organizations.” NOM’s 990 report for the c3 Education Fund group includes an entry of $230,000 in compensation and $23,917 in “other” compensation, such as benefits, in the column designated for “related organizations,” which, in this case, means salary and benefits from NOM, Inc., the c4 entity.
“It can get pretty hard to understand,” said Owens, who noted that understanding the 990 forms is difficult for the untrained eye.
“Fred Karger has made another embarrassing mistake, which is typical of someone whose stock and trade is the reckless charge,” Peters said in the earlier statement.
Karger, who filed an ethics complaint against NOM before the Maine election regulatory agency in 2009 that led to a finding of a campaign reporting violation, said it was NOM that has been reckless in “concealing” its finances.
“They stonewall as much as they can until they’re forced to release information,” he said.
Peters said NOM believes its 990 reports for 2011 are in proper order.
“If the IRS has any questions about this, we will be happy to discuss it with them,” he said. “If they inquire we will certainly take the opportunity to ask them about the status of the criminal investigation into NOM’s stolen income tax return, which appears to have come from the IRS and given to our opponents.”
He was referring to a NOM IRS filing that was leaked to the Human Rights Campaign, the national LGBT advocacy group that released the leaked information that caused embarrassment for NOM.
The White House
Trump tells Fox News he won the ‘gay vote’ — but polls tell a different story
Trump falsely claims LGBTQ support on Fox despite polling showing overwhelming opposition.
President Donald Trump claimed he won the “gay vote” in 2024, despite evidence showing otherwise.
While appearing by phone on Fox News’s panel show “The Five” on Thursday, Trump falsely claimed he performed particularly well among gay voters while discussing the ongoing war in Iran — a conflict he initiated without formal congressional approval.
“Now I think I did very well with the gay vote, OK? I even played the gay national anthem as my walk-off, OK?” Trump said on air.
“And I think it probably helped me. But I did great. No Republican’s ever gotten the gay vote like I did and I’m very proud of it, I think it’s great. Perhaps it’s because I’m from New York City, I don’t know…”
His claim contradicts 2024 polling from NBC News, which found that the GOP presidential ticket captured fewer than 1 in 5 LGBTQ male voters — a figure that may also include bisexual and transgender men. Trump’s support among LGBTQ female voters was even lower, at just 8%.
White LGBTQ voters favored Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump by a margin of 82% to 16%, while LGBTQ voters of color backed Harris by an even wider 91% to 5%.
Trump also used the appearance to criticize “Gays for Palestine,” saying: “Look at ‘Gays for Palestine’… they kill gays, they kill them instantly, they throw them off buildings, and I’m saying, ‘Who are the gays for Palestine?’”
He further pointed to his campaign’s use of the song “Y.M.C.A.” by the Village People — which he has repeatedly described as a “gay national anthem” — noting that it was frequently used as a walk-off song at rallies, as an indication that he and his campaign were supported by the gay community. The track, long associated with camp and hyper-masculine gay imagery, became a staple of Trump campaign events.
The Village People were later booked to perform at Turning Point USA’s inaugural ball celebrating Trump’s second inauguration. Lead singer Victor Willis previously criticized Trump’s use of the song dating back to 2020 and considered legal action to block it, but ultimately said there was “not much he can do about it.” He later acknowledged the renewed exposure was “beneficial” and “good for business,” boosting the song’s popularity and chart performance.
Despite Trump’s claims of strong support from gay voters, polling has consistently shown otherwise — even as several prominent gay men have held roles in or around his orbit, sometimes dubbed the “A-gays.” These include Richard Grenell, former executive director of the Kennedy Center and Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent; Under Secretary of State Jacob Helberg; Department of Energy official Charles T. Moran; and longtime supporter Peter Thiel, co-founder and CEO of Palantir.
His efforts to portray himself as aligned with the gay community stand in conflict with policies advanced under his leadership. These include removing LGBTQ-related data from State Department reports, attempting to narrowly redefine gender identity in federal policy, restricting access to gender-affirming health care, and rolling back anti-discrimination protections. His administration also rescinded initiatives focused on LGBTQ health equity, data collection, and nondiscrimination in health care and education — moves advocates say contribute to stigma and worsen mental health outcomes.
Additionally, some HIV programs and community health centers have lost funding from the federal government after supporting initiatives inclusive of transgender people as a direct result of Trump-Vance policies.
National
Anti-trans visa ruling echoes Nazi regime destroying trans documents
Trump administration escalates attacks on queer community
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security earlier this month released its third Red Flag Alert for the United States about the Trump administration’s anti-trans legislation. As the Lemkin Institute shared in the press release, “the Administration has moved from identifying transgender people as as threat to the family and to the nation’s military prowess to claiming that transgender people constitute a cosmic threat to the spiritual health of the nation and the great direct threat to the US national security in the world.”
The news came the same day that the State Department issued a new rule, “Enhancing Vetting and Combatting Fraud in the Immigrant Visa Program.” Under this new guidance, all visa applicants are required to disclose their “biological sex at birth” during all stages of the process, “even if that differs from the sex listed on the applicant’s foreign passport or identifying documentation.”
This rule also orders that applicants to the green card lottery program share their passport information, so in knowingly collecting passport information that the agency knows will not match a person’s biological sex at birth, it’s creating grounds to deny trans peoples’ biases on the basis of “fraud,” Aleksandra Vaca of Transitics explains.
As is written in the new ruling, “the Department is replacing ‘gender’ with ‘sex’ in accordance with E.O. 14168, Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, which provides that the term ‘sex’ shall refer to an individual’s sex at birth. Only male and female sex options are available for entrants completing the Diversity Visa entry form.”
Along with outright denying the existence of nonbinary, genderqueer and gender expansive people, this policy creates a precedence for trans people to be stripped of their visas and deported because under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(C)(i), any foreigner found to have obtained or possess a visa “by fraud or willfully misrepresenting a material fact” will have their visa revoked and face deportation.
By requesting information on “biological sex at birth,” the State Department is forcing a mismatch between documents and enabling officials to accuse trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive immigrants of fraud. Thus, trans and nonbinary immigrants can have their visas revoked and can be deported, and information gathered from immigrants during the visa request process can be added to federal databases and used by immigration authorities, including ICE agents.
With the Supreme Court’s decision this past year allowing ICE officers to use racial profiling, Vaca argues that “now, The Trump administration has given ICE the reason it needs. Under this rule, ICE agents now have the enforcement rationale to assert that trans people–especially those belonging to racial minority groups–are more likely than cis people to have ‘misrepresented’ themselves during the visa process, and therefore, are more likely to enter the country ‘unlawfully.’”
This would enable ICE agents to target trans individuals specifically for being trans. If the goal of this were unclear, a day later the Trump administration released its statement for Women’s History Month 2026, writing that “we are keeping men out of women’s sports, enforcing Title IX as it was originally written and ensuring colleges preserve–and, where possible, expand–scholarships and roster opportunities for female athletes. We are restoring public safety and upholding the rule of law in every city so women, children, and families can feel safe and secure.”
And this is not the first time that ICE has targeted and harmed trans and nonbinary immigrants. Last June, Vera reported that ICE is not including trans people in detection in their public reports, and back in 2020, AFSC reported that trans people held in ICE detention faced “dreadful, ugly” conditions.
While it seems like a new development in Trump’s anti-trans escalation, it echoes a deeply upsetting history of denying and destroying transgender people’s documents following members of the Nazi party seizing power in 1933.
In the early 20th century, Weimar, Germany was an epicenter for gender affirming care with Maganus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science. One of the first book burnings of the rising Nazi regime destroyed the Institute’s extensive clinical records and library on trans health and history by Nazi students and stormtroopers. In doing so, the Nazis effectively destroyed the world’s first trans health clinic and one of the richest and most comprehensive collective of information about trans healthcare.
Similarly, the Nazi government invalidated or refused to recognize what was called “transvestite passes,” or passing certificates that allowed trans people to avoid arrest under Paragraph 175 which prohibited cross-dressing. During the Weimar Republic — the regime that preceded the Third Reich — recognized and affirmed the identities of trans people (in limited ways) with specific documentation that helped prevent them from arrest. Invalidating and disregarding these passes allowed police and Nazi officials to target trans people and harass, extort and arrest them, and the record of passes themselves helped officials target trans people.
The changes to visa guidelines — alongside Kansas’s move to revoke trans drivers’ licenses last month — is reflective of this escalation of violence against trans people during the Nazi’s rise to power, which scholars like Dr. Laurie Marhoefer is just beginning to uncover. And along with the revocation of identification documents this past week, a recent Fourth Circuit Court ruled that states can deny Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming surgery.
The Fourth Circuit Court decision affirmed the Supreme Court’s decision in Skrmetti, which ruled that bans on gender affirming healthcare for young people are constitutional. This ruling extends this ban to include adult healthcare bans, allowing West Virginia’s exclusion of Medicaid coverage for adult gender affirming healthcare to take full effect. Even more upsetting was what the ruling itself said, calling gender affirming healthcare “dangerous.”
As was written in the Fourth Circuit Opinion, “it’s not irrational for a legislature to encourage citizens ‘to appreciate their sex’ and not ‘become disdainful of their sex’ by refusing to fund experimental procedures that may have the opposite effect.”
In reality, what this ruling and the opinion reflect, is the next step in government regulation and oversight over marginalized peoples’ bodies. From the overturn of Roe v. Wade, which removed federal protection of access to abortion, this next step represents the denial of people’s access to vital, lifesaving care–and to be clear, gender affirming care is not just for trans, nonbinary, and intersex people. It’s a dangerous escalation and one that echoes previous violence against trans people under fascist regimes; the Lemkin Institute is right to raise concern.
Pennsylvania
Pa. House passes bill to codify marriage equality in state law
Governor supports gay state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta’s measure
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill that would codify marriage equality in state law.
House Bill 1800 passed by a 127-72 vote margin. Twenty-six Republicans voted for the measure.
The Republican-controlled Pennsylvania Senate will now consider the bill that state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Philadelphia), who is the first openly gay person of color elected to the state’s General Assembly, introduced. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro supports the measure.
“Here in Pennsylvania, we believe in your freedom to marry who you love,” said Shapiro on Wednesday. “Today, the House has stepped up to protect that right.”
BREAKING: The Pennsylvania House just passed @RepKenyatta's bill to codify marriage equality into law in PA — and they did it with broad bipartisan support.
— Governor Josh Shapiro (@GovernorShapiro) March 25, 2026
Here in Pennsylvania, we believe in your freedom to marry who you love. Today, the House has stepped up to protect that…
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Anti-trans visa ruling echoes Nazi regime destroying trans documents
Japanese Supreme Court to consider marriage equality
The outrage economy is not the LGBTQ community
Calendar: March 27-April 2
Trans Day of Visibility events planned
Virginia General Assembly’s 2026 legislative session ends
Markwayne Mullin confirmed as next DHS secretary
Gay man murdered in Va.
