News
Trend watch: gay Republicans for Congress
Innis seeks N.H. House seat in ‘historic’ year for GOP
Dan Innis is running for Congress in New Hampshire (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key).
The New Hampshire Republican is one of three openly gay Republicans running in the congressional mid-terms along with Richard Tisei in Massachusetts and Carl DeMaio in San Diego.
The significance of the triumvirate of gay GOPers running for Congress at the same time isn’t lost on Innis, who spoke with the Washington Blade during a trip to D.C. last week between meetings on K Street.
“I think it’s an indicator of how far we have moved as a nation because 10 years ago, this wouldn’t be happening,” Innis said. “And we have really come a long way, and I think we will continue to move along this path. To me, it’s a real statement about our continued push for full equality.”
But it’s the Republican aspect of Innis’ candidacy that’s at the forefront of his mind as he seeks to oust incumbent Democrat Rep. Carol Shea-Porter from her seat representing New Hampshire’s 1st congressional district.
During his tenure since 2007 as dean of the College of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire, Innis said the young people with whom he works don’t see the world in the same way as he did when he was younger.
“I’ve been working with young people for 23 years in higher education,” Innis said. “I have three kids of my own, 13, 20 and 22. And the way that they see the world today is different from the way that I saw it. They don’t feel the same level of freedom, they don’t feel the same opportunities, they don’t feel that their future is as bright as I felt mine was.”
For Innis, the downward shift has its roots in Washington, and it’s time for New Hampshire to send representatives to Congress “who are not career politicians, who can help to turn things back around, and bring back that sense of optimism about the future.”
Innis earlier this month won an endorsement from the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, which has also endorsed Tisei in his bids for Congress. The Victory Fund has yet to endorse DeMaio.
“Dan Innis is a sensible and visionary leader, two qualities New Hampshire constituents deserve in a representative,” said Torey Carter, chief operating officer at the Victory Fund. “His unique combination of corporate and academic backgrounds has allowed him to address issues that affect others with careful consideration.”
Innis said he hasn’t sought an endorsement from the Human Rights Campaign. The Log Cabin Republicans are prohibited from making endorsements in the primary.
Even with the Victory Fund endorsement, the New Hampshire Republican said he doesn’t see LGBT issues as a priority for him if elected as much as the advancement of equality in general.
“I think, for me, it’s about equality for all, and those are the issues that I’ll always champion, so any issue that relates to equality — whether it’s related to gender, race, sexual orientation — those are values that I think all Americans hold, and those are things that I would always fight for,” Innis said. “It’s a broad-based equality mission for me.”
But among the pieces of legislation at the top of his list is the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a bill that has languished in Congress for years that would prohibit bias against LGBT people in the workforce.
“It’s time that that come up for a vote, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t,” Innis said. “We’ve seen support for that on the Senate side, New Hampshire senators both supported it, Republican and Democrat, and I’m proud of that. And I believe the House will do the right thing.”
The legislation passed in the Senate late last year on a bipartisan vote of 64-32, but House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said he opposes it and it hasn’t yet come up for a vote in the Republican-controlled chamber.
Even though his vote first in Congress would be for Republican leadership, Innis said he sees the ability for LGBT legislation to advance under a GOP-controlled House because he’d bring a different voice to the caucus.
“When they’re not there with you, you don’t see it the same way,” Innis said. “The minute I’m sitting down next to John Boehner or somebody else, I’m there, and that bill affects me, and that affects how they perceive that bill, and I think it will really change the way the Republican Party will move forward.”
Innis isn’t alone in his bid for the Republican nomination. Also running is Frank Guinta, a former member of the U.S. House who defeated Shea-Porter in 2010, but lost to her in the 2012 election. The primary is Sept. 9.
A recent WMUR Granite State Poll showed Guinta ahead of Shea-Porter, but Innis behind her. He attributed that discrepancy to name recognition, saying that would change as the campaign gets underway and Super PACs come to his aid.
Although significant gains for LGBT equality have been made under the Obama administration, Innis insisted credit for progress should be given to all who contributed.
“You know, we’ve seen previous presidents, the one before Obama, put an awful lot of money into AIDS research,” Innis said, “And I think that deserves credit. George W. Bush was phenomenal on that. He deserves credit. Any leader who’s taken a stand on these issues deserves credit regardless of party. To me, this is not a partisan issue; this is a human issue.”
Despite his support for LGBT rights, Innis stopped short of endorsing the idea of an executive order barring LGBT workplace bias against federal contractors. No Republican lawmaker or candidate has yet to endorse the order.
“I have some issues with executive orders,” Innis said. “I’m not a big fan of executive orders generally speaking, and I will say I haven’t given this one an awful lot of thought, but I think equality is always a good thing.”
Asked whether he was leaning in favor of supporting the executive order, Innis said he’d like to see an end to LGBT discrimination “done in a more open and participative way.”
Coming from a state where same-sex marriage was made legal in 2009 through the legislative process, Innis had a role in helping resist an effort from a Republican supermajority in the legislature to repeal the statute.
Innis acknowledged he didn’t have an active role in the legalization of same-sex marriage at that time because he had recently come out as gay and was still in his position at the university, but said he lent his voice as a Republican when the law was under threat.
“I guess I was on a brochure that went to all the legislators with my story,” Innis said. “I gave a couple of talks, some things in newspapers, and really I think represented equality in the state in that battle. It became very visible for me. I was featured in the Portsmith Herald on the front page the day after. It was a little more public than I wanted to be, but so be it.”
Innis said he faced criticism for his role in convincing the Republicans to drop efforts to repeal the law, but wouldn’t identify who was unhappy with him.
“I think it’s important to note that that was a Republican legislature that had a veto-proof majority in both houses. Think about that and equality was supported,” Innis said. “That’s New Hampshire. And we believe in equality and freedom for all.”
Innis said he hasn’t yet spoken to the other two gay Republican candidates running for Congress, but said he expects to talk to them soon. He’s also not a member of the joint fundraising committee formed by Tisei and DeMaio called the Equality Leadership Fund. Innis said he’s aware of the fund but remains focused on his campaign.
It should be noted all three openly gay Republicans seeking seats in the U.S. House are trying to oust incumbent Democrats.
Ray Buckley, who’s gay and chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, said Shea-Porter is the best candidate because New Hampshire voters expect elected officials “to stand up against injustice and support families of all varieties.”
“Instead, Dan Innis failed to fight for LGBT rights in New Hampshire as the legislature debated marriage equality,” Buckley said. “He failed them again during the fight for the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, in which strong Republican voices could have helped turn the tide, ending the ability to discriminate against someone in the workplace for simply being who they are. Meanwhile, Congresswoman Shea-Porter has consistently been on the right side of history, defending LGBT families and advancing civil rights. Dan Innis is the wrong candidate for families of all kinds in the state of New Hampshire.”
But Innis insisted that he’s the right candidate for the LGBT community because, unlike Shea-Porter, he’s lived the experience of being openly gay.
“I live it and understand it more thoroughly than she ever will. I’m LGBT; Carol Shea-Porter is not,” Innis said. “And though I appreciate her support of the community, I think the support coming from me is genuine and it’s part of me.”
It’s the new voices the gay Republican candidates are bringing to the fore that Innis said are making the campaigns valuable in and of themselves.
“I think we have three historic races,” Innis said. “Races that wouldn’t have taken place not that many years ago. And I think that in and of itself adds value for our community, and if we’re going to move equality forward, we’ve got to do it in every way possible – Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, independent, doesn’t matter — I think that if one or all of us wins, we’re that much closer to equality.”
CORRECTION: An initial version of this article incorrectly stated the Victory Fund endorsed Carl DeMaio. The Blade regrets the error.
Hungary
Vance speaks at Orbán rally in Hungary
Anti-LGBTQ prime minister trailing ahead of April 12 vote
Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday urged Hungarians to support Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the country’s April 12 elections.
“We have got to get Viktor Orbán re-elected as prime minister of Hungary,” Vance told Orbán supporters who gathered at Budapest’s MTK Sportpark.
Vance and Orbán on Tuesday met before they held a press conference in Budapest. Orbán also spoke at the rally.
The U.S. vice president after he took to the stage called President Donald Trump, who told the crowd he is “a big fan of Viktor” and is “with him all the way.” Vance, as he did during Tuesday’s press conference with Orbán, criticized the European Union.
“We want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do. I’m not telling you exactly who to vote for, but what I am telling you is that the bureaucrats in Brussels, those people should not be listened to,” said Vance. “Listen to your hearts, listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people.”
Vance in his speech noted “across the West, we’ve got a small band of radicals” who, among other things, “condemn children to mutilization and sterilization in the name of gender care.” Vance also criticized a “far-left ideology given quarter in university circles, in the media, and in our entertainment industry, and increasingly among bureaucrats on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Vice President JD Vance speaks at MTK Sportpark in Budapest, Hungary, on April 7, 2026
Orbán has been in office since 2010. He and his Fidesz-KDNP coalition government have faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
A Hungarian activist with whom the Washington Blade previously spoke said it is “impossible to change your gender legally in Hungary” because of a 2020 law that “banned legal gender recognition of transgender and intersex people.” Hungarian MPs the same year effectively prohibited same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the country’s constitution as between a man and a woman.
The European Commission in 2022 sued Hungary, which is a member of the EU, over the country’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law.
Hungarian lawmakers in March 2025 passed a bill that banned Pride events and allowed authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs later amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
Upwards of 100,000 people last June defied the ban and marched in Budapest’s annual Pride parade.
Polls indicate Orbán is trailing Péter Magyar and his center-right Tisza party ahead of the April 12 election. Vance at Tuesday’s rally told Orbán supporters that he and Trump “want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do.”
“I’m not telling you exactly who to vote for, but what I am telling you is that the bureaucrats in Brussels, those people should not be listened to,” said Vance. “Listen to your hearts, listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people.”
“Unlike some of the leadership of Brussels, I’m not threatening you or telling you that we’re going to withhold funds to which you’re legally entitled,” he added. “You will make the decision about Hungary’s future.”
The White House
White House ends protections for trans students in multiple school districts
Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware among administration’s targets
The Department of Education has terminated agreements with five school districts and a college aimed at protecting the rights of transgender students, backtracking requirements made in prior administrations, according to the Associated Press.
Allowing the reversal of these federal obligations removes formerly mandatory measures, including faculty training on responding to a student’s preferred name and pronouns, and policies allowing trans children to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
This policy change is a major shift from past democratic-led administrations, and will impact Delaware Valley School District in Pennsylvania, Sacramento City Unified School District in California, Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware, Fife School District in Washington, and La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, as well as Taft College in California.
Delaware Valley School District received notice from the Trump-Vance administration in February and has since voted to roll back anti-discrimination protections. Other schools, like Sacramento City Unified School District, said the change in minimum protections a district must offer will not affect their policies because it “remains committed to the support of our LGBTQ+ students and staff.”
This is part of a wider wave of anti-trans actions taken by the Trump-Vance administration. This White House has penalized schools attempting to accommodate students’ gender identity, filed lawsuits in California and Minnesota over state policies allowing trans students to participate in interscholastic sports, and opened civil rights investigations into multiple schools and universities over their policies on trans students.
Kimberly Richey, the Department of Education’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, said the action underscored the administration’s efforts to prevent trans students from participating in girls’ and women’s sports teams and accessing shared locker rooms.
“Today, the Trump administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda,” she said in a written statement.
According to the AP, this is just one instance of the administration rescinding civil rights protections in education. Last year, the Department of Education terminated two agreements: one involving the removal of books from a school library in Georgia, and another addressing harsh discipline and unequal education opportunities for Native students in the Rapid City Area School District in South Dakota.
Shiwali Patel, the senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center, issued a statement in response to the removal of protections for trans students, saying the rollback will negatively impact all students — not just trans ones.
“There is absolutely no basis for what the Department of Education is doing, and it is unimaginably cruel. Title IX exists to ensure that students are protected from discrimination and treated with dignity so that they can learn and thrive in our schools,” Patel said. “It’s what students, families, lawmakers, and advocates fought for when Title IX was passed decades ago. But the Trump administration’s Department of Education has spent its limited resources to strip Title IX of that very purpose.”
She continued, highlighting the issues that will arise from the agreement removals in schools.
“Real complaints of discrimination and sexual assault are going unanswered by the Department of Education while conservative lawmakers continue to escalate their attacks on a small minority of students,” the nationally recognized Title IX expert and advocacy leader for gender-based harassment added. “Parents, teachers, and students need the Department to focus on addressing real harms on campuses instead of rolling back policies that keep all students safe.”
The schools that had their agreements terminated vary, but stem from the same issue: treating trans students with the same protections from harassment as their cisgender peers.
In 2023, Taft College, a community college in California’s Central Valley, became one of the few schools to settle a case with the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Office after a student accused faculty of discrimination, including refusing to use the student’s preferred pronouns. The college agreed to faculty training on Title IX protections and revised its policies to clarify that refusing to use a person’s preferred name and pronoun can constitute harassment.
The now-canceled agreement with Sacramento City Unified School District stemmed from a 2022 complaint brought by a student after a teacher refused to use the student’s preferred pronouns and/or refused to allow the male-identifying student to work in a boys’ group for a class activity. The 2024 resolution agreement had mandated training for employees on civil rights law, sexual harassment, and how to handle formal complaints.
Under a settlement the Delaware Valley School District reached with the Obama-Biden administration, the district was required to permit students to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identity. In February, the Trump-Vance administration sent the district a letter rescinding the settlement and requiring the rollback of antidiscrimination protections for trans students. The school board voted in late March to change its policies accordingly.
This move is part of a broader pattern of anti-trans actions from the White House since Trump returned to office.
In addition to restricting protections in federally funded education spaces, the administration has attempted to end trans girls’ and women’s participation in sports competitions and has sued states that have not complied. It has also blocked trans and nonbinary people from choosing sex markers on passports and attempted to stop those under 19 from receiving gender-affirming medical care.
India
Amendments to India’s transgender rights law criticized
Lawmakers approved changes that narrow definition of trans person
India has enacted the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, that will reshape the country’s legal approach to gender identity.
Both houses of parliament approved the legislation last month, and it received presidential approval on March 28.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, narrows the definition of a trans person, removes the provision for self-perceived gender identity, and requires medical certification for legal recognition. These changes mark a shift from the framework established under a 2019 law.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, replaces the earlier definition of a trans person — previously framed as someone whose gender does not align with the gender assigned at birth — with a set of specified categories. It further provides that the term does not include, and is deemed never to have included, people defined solely by their sexual orientation or by self-perceived gender identity.
The bill retains certain categories within its definition, including people with socio-cultural identities such as kinner, hijra, aravani, or jogta. It also includes people with variations in sex characteristics at birth, such as differences in primary sexual characteristics, external genitalia, chromosomes or hormones from the normative standards of male or female bodies.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, removes certain categories from the definition, including a trans man or trans woman, irrespective of whether such a person has undergone sex reassignment surgery, hormone therapy, laser procedures, or other forms of medical intervention. It also excludes genderqueer people — a category that had been recognized under the earlier framework. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, however, includes eunuchs, as well as people compelled to assume a trans identity through mutilation, emasculation, castration, or other surgical, chemical or hormonal interventions.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, also revises the process for legal recognition, requiring a trans person to apply to a district magistrate for a certificate of identity, which can now be issued only after the recommendation of a designated medical board. The law specifies that the board will be headed by a senior medical officer and may include other experts. It further provides that individuals issued such a certificate will be entitled to change their first name in official documents, including birth records and other government-issued identification.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, also introduces stricter penalties for certain offences, including cases in which a person is forced to assume a trans identity through kidnapping, coercion or physical harm. Such offenses may attract imprisonment ranging from 10 years to life in prison, along with fines, depending on the severity and whether the victim is an adult or a child. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, further requires medical institutions to report gender-affirming surgeries to the district magistrate, and mandates that individuals obtain a revised certificate of identity following such procedures.
India’s 2011 Census recorded 487,803 trans persons, yet only 5.6 percent had applied for a trans identity card, according to the Washington Blade’s previous reporting. These identity cards, required to access government welfare programs, have remained difficult to obtain, with delays and administrative barriers limiting uptake.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, revised the certification process, which introduces additional requirements for legal recognition. This change is against this backdrop of uneven access to identity documentation.
India’s Election Commission in 2009 directed states to modify voter registration forms to include an “other” category, allowing individuals who did not identify as male or female to register accordingly. The Supreme Court in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India in 2014 recognized trans persons as a “third gender” and affirmed their right to self-identification.
Justice Kalavamkodath Sivasankara Radhakrishna Panicker said that “recognition of transgenders as a third gender is not a social or medical issue, but a human rights issue.” Parliament in 2019 approved the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019.
An advisory committee the Supreme Court created that former Delhi High Court Justice Asha Menon has urged the government to withdraw the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026. The panel said the proposal to deny self-identification of gender is inconsistent with theNational Legal Services Authority v. Union of India ruling.
Menon on March 25 wrote to Social Justice Minister Virendra Kumar conveying the panel’s resolution. According to the Hindu newspaper, the committee described the amendment as a “great shock” and a “tremendous setback” to efforts to mainstream trans communities.
The Queer Hindu Alliance, an advocacy group that seeks to uphold the dignity of LGBTQ people within India’s cultural and constitutional framework, expressed concern over the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026.
“We write not in the spirit of opposition, but in the spirit of samvad — dialogue — and with a sincere call for community consultation before this legislation proceeds further,” the group said in a statement. “The Supreme Court of India recognized the concerns of the transgender community in 2014. The National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India judgment affirmed that a person knows who they are. This bill seeks to reverse that. The Queer Hindu Alliance finds this troubling as a question of basic human dignity.”
The Queer Hindu Alliance added that India “is not a young civilization fumbling for answers on how to understand human identity.”
“This culture has contemplated the nature of the self more deeply, and for longer, than any legal system that has existed. This is not a foreign conversation imported from the West. It is a conversation Bharat (India) has always been capable of having, on its own terms,” the Queer Hindu Alliance said.
Harish Iyer, an LGBTQ rights activist who was among those who fought for marriage equality in the Supreme Court, told the Blade that the amendment is “not just a rollback, but a blatant, arrogant insult” to the Supreme Court.
“The NALSA judgment gave us the fundamental dignity of self-determination — the right to look in the mirror and say, ‘This is who I am.’ This amendment drags us right back into the dark ages, handing over our bodily autonomy to a bunch of sarkari babus (government officers) and medical boards,” said Iyer. “But here is the most absurd part: you simply cannot define if someone is trans through any physical test. How exactly are you going to diagnose a human mind? Are they only going to regard those who have had gender affirmation surgery as trans? Because that is fundamentally not the definition of being transgender; transition is a choice and a privilege, not a prerequisite for identity. Or are they going to look at someone born with ambiguous genitalia and label them trans? Because that is intersex, which is a completely different reality.”
“Forcing a trans person to undergo degrading physical scrutiny based on the government’s spectacular ignorance of basic gender science isn’t a legal process; it’s state-sponsored trauma,” he added. “We fought too hard for our dignity to let a bureaucratic tribunal demand that we strip down to prove our humanity.”
Iyer said the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, goes beyond protection and instead imposes control.
“You don’t ‘protect’ a community by criminalizing the chosen families and allies who offer safe haven to trans youth fleeing abusive homes,” he said, referring to provisions in the law. “This bill is about regulation, policing and control. By gatekeeping who gets to be trans and punishing those who support us, the government isn’t acting as a guardian — it’s acting as a warden. It is a calculated attack on our existence.”
Iyer said the revised definition could exclude individuals who do not fall within the listed categories.
“It effectively writes them out of existence,” he said.
Iyer added the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, could create an administrative “black hole” for gender-fluid individuals and nonbinary people who do not fit into the government’s rigid categories.
“If you are legally invisible, you don’t get access to gender-affirming healthcare, you don’t get legal protection, and you are entirely cut off from participating in society,” said Iyer. “They are trying to legislate us into non-existence because they are too lazy to understand us.”
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White House ends protections for trans students in multiple school districts
Amendments to India’s transgender rights law criticized
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Belarusian lawmakers approve bill to crackdown on LGBTQ rights
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Calendar: April 3-9
