National
Fire Island continues post-Sandy recovery
Gay business owners prepare for new season after storm


Crews continue to reconstruct the Pavilion nightclub in Fire Island Pines, N.Y., after a Nov. 2011 fire destroyed it. (Photo courtesy of FIP Ventures)
More than four months after Superstorm Sandy devastated the New York and New Jersey coastline, residents and business owners on Fire Island continue to prepare for the upcoming season.
Diane Romano, president of the Cherry Grove Community Association, told the Washington Blade on Tuesday the beachfront dunes that had been damaged during Sandy have begun to rebuild because of dune fencing the hamlet installed immediately after the storm.
The storm surge that reached nearly 14 feet in parts of New York City and Long Island flooded dozens of bay front homes, damaged a number of boardwalks and destroyed beach accesses. In spite of this damage, Romano stressed Cherry Grove weathered Sandy relatively well compared to other Fire Island communities.
“The people of Cherry Grove seem to be thankful and looking forward to a great season,” she said.
Jay Pagano, president of the Fire Island Pines Property Owners Association, said “necessary repairs” to the harbor are underway. He said the resort’s marina will be “up and running” by April 15, and debris removal will be completed by the end of this month.
Construction on the Pavilion, a nightclub that burned to the ground during a November 2011 fire that destroyed several other businesses in the Fire Island Pines commercial district, continues. It is slated to open later this spring in time to commemorate the gay resort’s 60th anniversary.
“The new Pines Pavilion complies to a heightened [Federal Emergency Management Agency] sea level, and none of the crucial elements of the building were touched by water,” Matthias Hollwich of Hollwich Kushner Architects, which designed the building, said. “Thankfully the foundations are deep and strong enough to easily withstand Sandy. The only challenge that we experienced was a delay in construction.”
The storm washed several oceanfront homes in Davis Park, a hamlet that is roughly two miles east of Fire Island Pines, out to sea. Dozens of others along the 34-mile long barrier island east of New York City also suffered damage.
The surge also caused numerous overwashes and at least three breaches — including one on the eastern end of Fire Island through which water continues to flow between the ocean and the Great South Bay.
The debris removal process had been delayed because of controversy over the bidding process through which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded the contract. The National Park Service’s announcement last month that it would begin to enforce a state law on some Fire Island beaches that bans public nudity, in part because Sandy destroyed the dunes that had obstructed nude sunbathers, sparked outrage among some. It does not, however, apply to Fire Island Pines or Cherry Grove.
‘We’re still kind of homeless’
Gay Staten Island residents with whom the Blade spoke roughly a month after Sandy made landfall continue to struggle to recover from the storm.
Up to six feet of water inundated Wayne Steinman and Sal Iacullo’s oceanfront townhouse on Father Capodanno Boulevard in the borough’s Midland Beach neighborhood during Sandy. The couple continues to live with Ianullo’s parents in Brooklyn as they try to repair their home.
Contractors have replaced the condominium’s back and side walls. A new furnace and hot water heater have been installed, but Steinman said he cannot begin the bulk of the needed structural repairs until he receives a payout from his insurance company.
“It’s really very, very frustrating,” Steinman said. “We’re still kind of homeless.”
Allison Galdorisi and Claire Watson fled their home in the Cedar Grove neighborhood of Staten Island during the height of the storm as several feet of water inundated the area.
Galdorisi told the Blade on Wednesday she and her wife “cleaned and dried the house out really quickly,” but the couple continues to rent an apartment in Midland Beach. The women are considering lifting their home to meet new FEMA flood standards, or even accepting a buyout that would take more than a year to complete.
“We’re just stuck,” Galdorisi said. “We’re pretty much out of shock and going into this new shock of not knowing what’s the best thing to do.”
Staten Island resident Michele Karlsberg, who is lesbian comedian Kate Clinton’s publicist, coordinated volunteer efforts in the borough in the weeks after Sandy.
She said her mother will move back into her apartment in the borough’s Ocean Breeze neighborhood that had eight feet of water inside it after the storm on March 15. Karlsberg added her sister has spent $30,000 so far to repair her home.
“The zone looks the same as if it was day one,” she said.
Sandy also inundated the Ali Forney Center’s drop-in center for homeless LGBT youth near the Hudson River in Manhattan’s West Chelsea neighborhood.
Gay MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts and his husband, Patrick Abner, were among those who helped the organization raise funds to recoup some of their losses and to help pay for some of the renovations to a second drop-in center that opened in Harlem less than two months after the storm. The new facility does not yet have showers or medical facilities for the 60 young people who access it each day, but Ali Forney Center Executive Director Carl Siciliano stressed he feels his organization has recovered well from the storm.
“Because of that really strong support, we were able to pretty quickly get back on our feet,” he said.
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.