National
Activist: Russia LGBT rights record continues to deteriorate
Tarya Polvakova arrested last month in Moscow’s Red Square
Tarya Polyakova (Photo courtesy of Tarya Polyakova)
A Russian activist earlier this week said the Kremlin’s LGBT rights record has continued to deteriorate since the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi ended.
Tarya Polyakova – a journalist and human rights advocate who is a member of a prisoners rights organization that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina of Pussy Riot founded – said during a conference call with reporters on March 19 that authorities recently charged the founder of an LGBT youth group under the country’s law that bans gay propaganda to minors.
They later dropped them.
“She thinks that this was pure luck,” said Polyakova.
Polyakova said a student who was recently attacked at school was beaten up by her parents after Russian child protective services told them she is a lesbian. The advocate further noted her friend last week lost her job after her boss discovered on her Facebook page that she was dating another woman.
“With this piece of legislation, our government basically gave [its] consent to treat people based on their personal characteristics, not on their criminal behavior,” said Polyakova, “and allow any homophobe out there to attack anyone who dares to come out as a gay person.”
Polyakova is among the 10 LGBT rights advocates police arrested in Moscow’s Red Square on Feb. 7 just before the Olympics’ opening ceremony as they tried to sing the Russian national anthem while holding rainbow flags. She said they remained in a local police station for several hours – and officers beat some of the advocates while in custody.
“The police were filming us on their mobile phones the whole time we were sitting in that cage like we were some sort of animals in a zoo,” said Polyakova.
Polyakova and the nine other LGBT rights advocates arrested in Red Square were scheduled to go on trial on Feb. 19 for unauthorized public assembly and incorrectly singing the Russian national anthem. Prosecutors have delayed their court appearance.
“I won’t be surprised if they charge me with treason or something,” said Polyakova. “This is Russia.”
Polyakova said several of her friends who participated in protests against Russia’s possible incursion into Ukraine and the annexation of the country’s Crimea region were taken into custody earlier this month. She said they spent two days in jail before they were “immediately dragged to court” and given 10 day sentences – they were released from detention earlier this week.
“All the LGBT activists are really concerned about the conflict in Crimea and we’re really standing up against war and military intervention in Ukraine,” Polyakova told the Washington Blade in response to a question about whether the ongoing conflict has worsened the Kremlin’s LGBT rights crackdown. “They cut us down when we try to raise our voices, but now we [have] temporarily stopped because we were charged.”
Russian LGBT rights advocates with whom the Blade spoke before and during the Olympics expressed concern their U.S. and European counterparts will no longer pay attention to their plight after the games end.
Retired Olympic diver Greg Louganis and the more than 300 others who participated in the Russian Open Games in Moscow that ended on March 2 faced bomb threats and other efforts that sought to disrupt the event. Shawn Gaylord of Human Rights First, who traveled to Sochi last month with gay Olympian David Pichler, said his organization continues to anticipate the reintroduction of a proposal in the Russian Duma that would allow authorities to take children away from their LGBT parents.
Lithuanian parliamentarians last week postponed the final vote on a bill that would have imposed fines on those who denigrate the “constitutional value of family life.” Lawmakers in neighboring Latvia and Kyrgyzstan have also proposed measures similar to the propaganda law that Russian President Vladimir Putin signed last June.
“It is really important that we don’t keep our eyes off of Russia and the LGBT community there,” said Gaylord.
Pichler and Gaylord during the conference call also discussed efforts in support of the campaign that urges the International Olympic Committee to add sexual orientation to the Olympic charter’s non-discrimination clause. They said the Obama administration and members of Congress are among those who have endorsed the effort.
Pichler added he feels the IOC should also take into account a potential host country’s LGBT rights record during the selection process.
“They should need to look into places when these issues come up and should never have an Olympic games in a location like this,” he said as he discussed Russia.
The conference call took place two days after President Obama issued an executive order authorizing U.S. officials to freeze the American assets of Yelena Mizulina, a state Duma deputy who sponsored the propaganda bill, and six other Russian officials over their country’s incursion into Ukraine that includes the annexation of Crimea.
The anti-gay lawmaker on Twitter said the White House’s decision to sanction her is revenge over the propaganda bill she introduced. Polyakova said another female member of the Duma announced she will support Mizulina and nobody is “going to back down on this law.”
“Regardless of the reason that she ended up on this list, we obviously think if the U.S. is going to respond to human rights concerns that we’re glad that she’s among the people who are facing this kind of response, regardless of how it may have come about,” said Gaylord.
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.
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