Politics
Gov’t shutdown impacts HIV/AIDS programs, LGBT fed’l workers
Loss of oversight for Ryan White grants as 818,000 employees placed on furlough


As the shutdown begins, key programs related to HIV/AIDS are affected. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key).
The federal government shutdown is impacting certain services related to HIV/AIDS programs and LGBT federal employees are among hundreds of thousands furloughed on Tuesday.
The shutdown began at midnight on Tuesday after Congress failed to pass a budget that would continue funding the federal government after the start of fiscal year 2014.
The Republican-controlled House passed several resolutions that would continue to fund the government, but would also repeal portions of health care reform or delay its implementation. The Democratic-controlled Senate refused each proposal, stripping out the language related to the Affordable Care Act and insisting on legislation that would only fund the government.
Although certain federal government functions will continue, such as the U.S. Postal Service and programs related to national security, programs and offices that have closed include the National Park Service, the Environmental Protection Agency and housing vouchers from the Department of Housing & Urban Development, according to the Washington Post.
Key programs for people with HIV/AIDS are among the programs affected by the government shutdown. According to a shutdown plan from the Department of Health & Human Services, the cut off of federal funds means a loss of oversight for Ryan White AIDS Grants, a freeze in new medical research at the National Institutes of Health and no more updates for treatment and prevention recommendations for HIV at the Centers for Disease Control.
The guidance takes note of how the discontinuation of oversight from Health Resources & Services Administration will have a negative impact on programs related to Ryan White, which provides medication to low-income people with HIV/AIDS.
“Monitoring of Ryan White grants – particularly AIDS Drug Assistance Program Grants, Emergency Relief Grants and Comprehensive Care would be insufficient to assure states, cities and communities are complying with statutory guidance and necessary performance,” the guidance states.
Winnie Stachelberg, executive vice president for external affairs at the Center for American Progress, blamed the right-wing of the Republican Party for the negative impact on these HIV/AIDS programs.
“The Tea Party Republicans are playing irresponsible politics with men, women and children living with HIV and AIDS,” Stachelberg said.
Michael Cole-Schwartz, spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, said the situation for HIV/AIDS programs isn’t yet dire because they’re by-and-large grant funded and won’t face a loss of funds for some time.
“Many of the grants… are on an April 1-March 31 cycle and won’t be immediately impacted by the shutdown,” Cole-Schwartz said. “That said, there is uncertainty about the FY 14 funding levels and the impact this will have on grantees for the next grant cycle.”
Cole-Schwartz also said there are LGBT-related implications to the shutdown because furloughing may impact the enforcement efforts at the Justice Department for hate crimes and Title IX cases involving LGBT students.
Issues related to these programs under the government shutdown are basically the same as the ones they faced under sequestration, but magnified because the funding level has gone from significantly reduced to potentially zero.
It’s unclear when Congress will come to an agreement to continue funding for the government. House Republicans have proposed a conference committee to iron out the differences between the different versions of the legislation, which would likely mean some give on health care reform.
But Senate Democrats are refusing to conference and insisting the House pass a measure that funds the government. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said late Monday night, “We will not go to conference with a gun to our head.”
Gregory Angelo, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, declined to assign blame for the shutdown, but said a “compromise” is in order. His group had joined conservative organizations in calling health care reform “tyrannical.”
“Don’t think for an instant that anyone wanted a government shutdown,” Angelo said. “Whether the House GOP votes or Harry Reid’s stubbornness were prudent or not is immaterial at this point — the fact is we are in the midst of a shutdown that Democrats are as responsible for as Republicans. We hope it’s resolved soon with a compromise that gets this country back on track.”
Even though the government has shut down, the health care reform law that Republicans had sought to thwart became effective the same day other services stopped because funds to start it up were already appropriated. Open enrollment into health insurance exchanges began today as well as the Medicaid expansion for states that elected to participate. That’s significant because most people who receive HIV/AIDS medications through federal assistance get them through Medicaid.
Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, slammed Republicans for halting the government over a law that she said would afford significant help to LGBT Americans.
“This tantrum could end up costing our nation billions of dollars and will negatively affect the most marginalized in our society,” Carey said. “The truth is, the Affordable Care Act will help ensure access to health care for millions of Americans who are uninsured — including many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people who desperately need it. Health care delayed is health care denied. And health care denied is putting lives in jeopardy.”
Meanwhile, LGBT workers are among the more than 818,000 federal workers estimated by the Wall Street Journal deemed “non-essential” and placed on furlough while the government is shut down.
Leonard Hirsch, president of the LGBT affinity group known as Federal GLOBE, said conservative denigration of federal workers and continual worries over funds and government shutdown has made work difficult to complete for all workers.
“We are all working to fulfill our mission for an effective administration of the laws of the land,” Hirsch said. “We worry about the lasting impacts on our economy and on our international standing. Having multiple years without real budgets, and discussion of yet another full year omnibus is destructive. It makes developing new initiatives difficult if not impossible.”
Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, is among the federal employees placed on furlough and was unable to answer questions about the government shutdown for the Washington Blade.
Robyn McCutcheon, president of Gays & Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies, or GLIFAA, said for the time being work for LGBT employees in the State Department continues, although there are limitations.
“We are given to understand that State has sufficient operating funds for these initial days and that all employees are expected to report to work as usual,” McCutcheon said. “There has been guidance that in the interim, there should be no new travel, no representational events, and so on.”
Still, McCutcheon said LGBT State Department employees worry the situation may change if Congress doesn’t come to a resolution about continued funding for the government.
“GLIFAA shares the concerns and worries of all government employees over what will happen should the shutdown continue,” McCutcheon said.
Congress
Shaheen, Collins reintroduce bill prohibiting anti-LGBTQ discrimination in jury service
Senators note the absence of protections in federal courtrooms

U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) reintroduced a bill on Wednesday that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity during the federal jury selection process.
The bipartisan Jury Access for Capable Citizens and Equality in Service Selection (ACCESS) Act would enshrine protections for LGBTQ Americans who are serving or who might be selected to serve on juries, alongside rules proscribing discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, and economic status that are already enforced in federal courtrooms.
Co-sponsoring the bill with Shaheen and Collins are U.S. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.)
“Serving on a jury is a civic duty that no one should be prevented from fulfilling because of who they are or who they love,” Shaheen said in a press release. “It’s preposterous that under current law there are no protections prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ+ jurors in federal courts and Congress must take action to rectify this injustice.”
“Serving on a jury is a fundamental right and obligation that no individual should be prohibited from fulfilling based on their sexual orientation or gender identity,” said Collins. “I have long worked to fight discrimination, and I am proud to join this effort to help eliminate bias from our judicial system.”
Amid the absence of nationwide protections, the release notes that only 17 states “prohibit exclusion from jury service in state court based on sexual orientation” while “just 12 protect against discrimination based on gender identity.”
This spring, Democratic lawmakers from the House and the Senate, including leadership from both chambers, reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ inclusive federal nondiscrimination rules in a range of contexts from employment and housing to public accommodations and education.
Shaheen and Collins were integral to the bill’s inclusion of protections applying to jury service.
Congress
Torres: gay Venezuelan asylum seeker is ‘poster child’ for Trump’s ‘abuses against due process’
Congressman spoke with the Blade Thursday

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York told the Washington Blade during an interview Thursday that his party erred in focusing so much attention on demands for the Trump-Vance administration to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the U.S. when the wrongful deportation of Andry Hernández Romero “was much more egregious.”
Hernández is a gay Venezuelan national who was deported to El Salvador in March and imprisoned in the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT.
“In the case of Andry, the government admits that it has no evidence of gang membership, but he was deported without due process, without a notification to his attorney, without a court hearing to contest the allegations against him, without a court order authorizing his deportation,” the congressman said.
“He had not even the slightest semblance of due process,” Torres said. “And even though he had a court hearing scheduled for March 17, the Trump administration proceeded to deport him on March 15, in violation of a court order.”
“I think we as a party should have held up Andry as the poster child for the abuses against due process, because his case is much more sympathetic,” Torres said. “There’s no one who thinks that Andry is a gang member.”
“Also,” the congressman added, “he’s not a quote-unquote illegal immigrant. He was a lawful asylum seeker. He sought asylum lawfully under the statutes of the United States, but he was deported unlawfully at the hands of the Trump administration.”
Torres was among the 49 members of Congress who joined with Democratic U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff of California in writing to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday demanding information about Romero, including proof of life.
The lawmakers urged the State Department to facilitate his access to legal counsel and take steps to return him, expressing fear for his safety — concerns that Torres reiterated on Thursday.
“Jails and prisons can be dangerous places for gay men, and that is especially true of a place like CECOT,” the congressman said. “He fled Latin America to escape violent homophobia. There are a few places on earth that have as much institutionalized homophobia as jails and prisons, and so I do fear for his safety.”
“I released a video telling the story of Andry,” Torres noted, adding, “I feel like we have to do more to raise awareness and the video is only the beginning … And you know, the fact that Abrego Garcia is returning to the United States shows that the administration has the ability to bring back the migrants who were unlawfully deported.”
ICE deported the wrong guy. Now they're trying to hide it.
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorresNY) June 11, 2025
Free Andry. pic.twitter.com/G4hK33oJpw
Torres spoke with the Blade just after Padilla was forcibly removed from a federal building in Los Angeles after attempting to question U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a press conference on immigration Thursday.
Footage of the senator being pushed out of the room, onto the floor, and handcuffed by officers wearing FBI identifying vests drew outrage from top Democrats in California and beyond.
“It’s the latest reminder that Donald Trump and his administration have no respect for anything or anyone but himself,” Torres told the Blade. “And every bit as outrageous as Donald Trump himself has been the enabling on the part of the congressional Republicans who are aiding and abetting his authoritarian abuses.”
“We have to be vigilant in resisting Donald Trump,” the congressman said. “We have to resist him on the streets through grassroots mobilization. We have to resist him in the courtrooms through litigation. We have to resist him in the halls of Congress through legislation.”
Torres added that “we have to win back the majority in 2026” and “if Republicans have no interest in holding Donald Trump accountable, then those Republicans should be fired from public office” because “we need a Congress that is able and willing to hold Donald Trump accountable, to stand up to his authoritarian assault on our democracy.”
Resisting is “a matter of free speech,” he said, noting that the president’s aim is to “create a reign of terror that intimidates people into silence,” but “we cannot remain silent. We have to unapologetically and courageously exercise our right to free speech, our right to assemble peacefully, and our right to resist an authoritarian president like Donald Trump.”
Congress
Padilla forcibly removed from federal building for questioning DHS secretary
Prominent Democrats rushed to defend senator

Democratic U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla of California was forcibly removed from a federal building in Los Angeles after attempting to ask questions of U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a press conference on immigration Thursday
The city has been rattled in recent days as protestors objecting to the Trump-Vance administration’s immigration crackdowns clashed with law enforcement and then the president deployed National Guard troops and U.S. Marines, which was seen as a dramatic escalation.
According to a video shared by his office, the senator, who serves as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, introduced himself and said, I have questions for the secretary.” After he was pushed out of the room, officers with FBI-identifying vests told Padilla to put his hands behind his back and handcuffed him.
“Senator Padilla is currently in Los Angeles exercising his duty to perform Congressional oversight of the federal government’s operations in Los Angeles and across California,” reads a statement from his office.
“He was in the federal building to receive a briefing with General Guillot and was listening to Secretary Noem’s press conference,” the statement continued. “He tried to ask the secretary a question, and was forcibly removed by federal agents, forced to the ground and handcuffed. He is not currently detained, and we are working to get additional information.”
Democrats were furious, with many releasing strong statements online condemning the actions of law enforcement officers, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D), and the state’s other U.S. senator, Adam Schiff (D).
Human Rights Campaign Chief of Staff Jay Brown also issued a statement: “A sitting U.S. senator should be allowed to ask a Cabinet secretary a question at a press conference — in his own state, on an issue affecting his constituents — without being violently thrown to the floor and handcuffed. Everyone who cares about our country must condemn this undemocratic act. Full stop.”
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