National
Meet the trans editor covering Major League Baseball
Bobbie Dittmeier combines dual passions for sports, journalism

A day at the office at MLB.com for Bobbie Dittmeier is just about the same for her as it is for other editors working to produce news stories on developments in Major League Baseball.
Upon coming to the New York office, she’ll speak with the copy chief about potential articles for the day with other editors, who will then assign the stories to reporters.
“We have a lot of stories coming in everyday,” Dittmeier says. “We have 30 different reporters plus other columnists, part-timers and interns. We have a lot of writers for our staff. We cover all 30 teams full time. So, there’s a lot of copy that comes into the desk every day.”
FIND MORE OF THE WASHINGTON BLADE SPORTS ISSUE HERE.
The big news in recent weeks? The biogenesis investigation, which has led to the suspension of several players, including New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez.
“Waiting for the news on Alex Rodriguez is like waiting for your wife to go into labor,” she says. “You got the bags packed and the cars gassed, and you’re just going about your regular routine waiting for the pager to go off. And knowing that when the pager does go off that the next 12 to 18 hours is going to be crazy.”
But Dittmeier, who spoke to the Washington Blade earlier this month, is unique among other editors and baseball enthusiasts working at MLB.com: She’s transgender and the only openly LGBT person on staff at the site.
Dittmeier says being the only openly transgender person on staff hasn’t been an issue on the job, which she attributes to changing attitudes over time and her own job performance.
“I think the most significant part of it is that I have a lot of experience and I do good work, if I may say so myself,” Dittmeier says. “And I think that the people I work for value that. They certainly didn’t want to throw me out of the office for being transgender.”
One exception to the acceptance she’s found was what Dittmeier calls a “blip” among two individuals upon her announcement she would transition. Reluctant to go into detail, she characterizes it as more of a misunderstanding and says neither of those people works at MLB.com any longer.
In 2007, after working for MLB.com for six years, Dittmeier announced she would transition from male to female. She had already married and had a child. And it wasn’t her first attempt; she made an earlier attempt at transitioning in the 1990s.
“It was really only after I had been at MLB for a number of years that I felt comfortable and confident enough that transition wasn’t going to put me on the street,” Dittmeier said. “So, I felt I had job security, I knew the people I worked for, I knew that they knew I do a good job, that I’m good at what I do, so I didn’t think it would be that much of an issue. So, I worked toward it for a couple years, starting probably around 2005, and then finally culminating in coming out at work in 2007.”
Dittmeier says she “always kind of felt something different” about her when she was growing up in Long Island during her youth, but wasn’t at the time able to identify it because of a lack of information.
“I kind of figured it out in my teens, but you don’t act upon it because, again, it was a different time,” Dittmeier says. “You didn’t know if you were going to be ostracized from your family, you didn’t have the resources, you certainly didn’t have the Internet. Going to a shrink was really frowned upon. You certainly didn’t talk about these things with your parents.”
At the same time growing up, Dittmeier was an avid enthusiast of all things baseball and newsprint. After school, she would read the sports columns in Newsday, a Pulitzer Prize-winning paper that was distributed in her hometown.
“And it was an afternoon paper, so it would come to the house during the day, and I would come home from school, and the first thing I would do before I went out to play ball was I would make myself a sandwich and I would read the newspaper, then I would go out and play ball,” Dittmeier says. “So, I always loved journalism. I always loved writing.”
Dittmeier started in the business of sports writing as a beat reporter covering hockey and horseracing, mostly in Westchester County just outside of New York, and then in Albany for a number of years. She wanted to get involved in baseball, but didn’t have the opportunity. Landing the job at MLB.com 12 years ago made that dream come true.
One recent big news story hit close to home. In July, Major League Baseball announced that it had adopted an employment non-discrimination policy prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. Dittmeier says she didn’t cover the story personally, although MLB.com had a reporter, Paul Hagen, covering it.
“Personally, it doesn’t impact me at all, I don’t think,” Dittmeier says. “But I’m certainly glad to see Major League Baseball take it to that level and respond like that. I think that’s more for clubhouses, players, the teams more than me.”
The policy doesn’t cover gender identity, but Dittmeier isn’t discouraged. New York City, where she lives and works, has employment non-discrimination protections based on gender identity.
“It’s not troubling for me personally,” Dittmeier says. “It would be nice if they took a look at that. But again, for me, personally I don’t think that I’m at any kind of risk as long as I’m doing my job well. If I don’t do my job well, then I’m subject to changes just like everybody else. If it’s not there, it would be nice if they would include it, I’m sure.”
Asked about the prevalence of gay players in Major League Baseball, Dittmeier insists there are such players who haven’t made their sexual orientation or gender identity public yet.
“There has to be,” Dittmeier says. “I remember having a debate with a hockey coach years and years ago who insisted there were no gay players anywhere in professional hockey, and I told him I thought that was ridiculous. If the number is 10 percent of the population is gay, then there has to be.”
But even with the MLB’s non-discrimination policy on sexual orientation in place, Dittmeier says it would take a player with exceptional skills to come out as gay — more talent than what an average baseball player normally has.
“If you are hitting 300 and you’re a perennial all-star, and you happen to be [gay, bi or trans], your chances of successfully coming out are pretty good,” Dittmeier says. “If you’re going up and down between Triple-A and the major leagues, that’s a tough one, because if it comes down to a decision between that player and someone else as to whether they’re going to make the roster, then you have to worry about someone, consciously or unconsciously, choosing the other player because of your sexual orientation.”
Although he’s not a baseball player, the most notable coming out of a gay athlete this year was former Washington Wizards center Jason Collins. It’s his status as a veteran that Dittmeier says made that coming out possible.
“He’s 34 years old,” Dittmeier says. “He’s a good ball player at this point in his career. If, for some reason, he discontinues to play, he’s had a pretty good career. So he doesn’t have very much to lose. When he was 23, 24, 25 years old, he certainly had a lot more to lose than he does now. I think security is really, really important.”
Dittmeier says she’s seen attitudes change positively in recent decades, and expects those to change even further as time progresses — particularly for transgender people like herself.
“I know most people don’t know someone who is transgender, but certainly most people know someone else who’s LGBT,” Dittmeier says. “And 20 years ago, I don’t think you could say that. Once you know someone, either someone in your life or someone you get to know, someone they work with or whatever, they understand it better. I guess that’s probably like with anything in life.”
CORRECTIONS: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of MLB.com reporter Paul Hagen. It was also incorrect about the position that Alex Rodriguez currently plays and Dittmeier’s hometown. The article has also been updated to clarify that New York City has transgender non-discrimination protections. The Blade regrets the errors.
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.
-
a&e features2 days ago
Looking back at 50 years of Pride in D.C
-
Maryland3 days ago
Wes Moore signs HIV decriminalization bill
-
U.S. Federal Courts5 days ago
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
-
Congress4 days ago
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill to criminalize gender affirming care advances