National
Trump’s U.S. Census proposes, immediately cuts LGBT survey questions
Agency says proposed LGBT categories ‘inadvertently’ included in report
The U.S. Census proposed, then removed LGBT questions in the U.S. Census and American Community Survey. (Photo courtesy the National LGBTQ Task Force.)
The inclusion of LGBT categories in the Planned Subjects for the 2020 Census Report unveiled on Tuesday must have been music to the ears of LGBT advocates seeking to include sexual orientation and gender identity in federal surveys. But the celebration was short-lived: The U.S. Census on the same day announced those categories were included in error.
Just days before its deadline, the U.S. Census delivered to Congress its report on planned subjects for the survey, including gender, age, race, ethnicity, relationship and homeownership status. Under law, the report is due three years before Census Day, with the next one set to occur April 1, 2020.
“Our goal is a complete and accurate census,” Census Bureau Director John Thompson said in a statement. “In planning for the 2020 Census, the Census Bureau has focused on improving its address list by using imagery, finding ways to increase household self-response, leveraging resources inside and outside the government, and making it easier and more efficient for census takers to complete their work. Furthermore, for the first time ever, the decennial will offer an online response option with the ultimate goal of improving question design and data quality while addressing community concerns.”
The report outlines the importance of including these questions in either the decennial U.S. Census or the newer and more detailed annual American Community Survey, which was established in 1985 and seeks to ascertain socio-economic and housing statistics.
But apparently an initial version of this report went too far. The U.S. Census issued a notice shortly afterward indicating the report was corrected because the initial appendix “inadvertently” included LGBT categories.
“The Subjects Planned for the 2020 Census and American Community Survey report released today inadvertently listed sexual orientation and gender identity as a proposed topic in the appendix,” the statement says. “The report has been corrected.”
The National LGBTQ Task Force has downloaded and published an unredacted copy of the report and posted on its website an image of the initial report and the redacted one that followed.
Neither the U.S. Census, nor the American Community Survey, had ever included questions about sexual orientation or transgender status. However, during the Obama years, other federal surveys included questions seeking to identify responders who are LGBT.
With efforts to streamline the decennial U.S. Census, the addition of LGBT questions would have been unlikely. The inclusion of LGBT categories in the report may indicate those categories were initially planned for the more detailed annual American Community Survey, then taken away.
The Blade has placed a call to the Census Bureau seeking comment on why the LGBT categories were included in the report in the first place and why those categories were removed.
LGBT advocates had been pressing for the inclusion of questions about sexual orientation and gender identity in federal surveys and criticized the Trump administration for proposing to include them in the U.S. Census or American Community Survey, then immediately took them away.
Meghan Maury, criminal and economic justice project director for the National LGBTQ Task Force, said in a statement the cut is the latest step from the Trump administration “to deny LGBTQ people freedom, justice, and equity.”
“LGBTQ people are not counted on the Census — no data is collected on sexual orientation or gender identity,” Maury said. “Information from these surveys helps the government to enforce federal laws like the Violence Against Women Act and the Fair Housing Act and to determine how to allocate resources like housing supports and food stamps. If the government doesn’t know how many LGBTQ people live in a community, how can it do its job to ensure we’re getting fair and adequate access to the rights, protections and services we need?”
According to the Task Force, federal agencies have urged the Census Bureau to collect sexual orientation and gender identity data to aid with implementation of the law. Maury called on Congress “to conduct oversight hearings to reveal why the Administration made the last-minute decision not to collect data on LGBTQ people.”
The redaction of LGBT categories is similar to the proposal at the Department of Health & Human Survey to remove established questions seeking to identify LGBT elders in from the National Survey of Older Americans Act Participants, or NSOAAP. The survey is intended to evaluate the effectiveness of programs funded by the Older Americans Act, such as services for home-delivered meals, homemaker services and the National Family Caregiver Support Program.
Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of GLAAD, said in a statement the removal of the proposed LGBT questions from the U.S. Census report demonstrates a systematic effort on behalf of the Trump administration to erase LGBT people.
“By erasing LGBTQ Americans from the 2020 U.S. Census, the Trump administration is adding a disgusting entry to a long list of tactics they’ve adopted to legally deny services and legitimacy to hard-working LGBTQ Americans,” Ellis said. “The Trump administration is trying hard to erase the LGBTQ community from the fabric of America, but visibility has always been one of the LGBTQ community’s greatest strengths.”
CORRECTION: An initial version of this article inaccurately reported transgender questions were never included in federal surveys, but at least federal surveys have included gender identity questions. The Blade regrets the error.
National
213 House members ask Speaker Johnson to condemn anti-trans rhetoric
Letter cites ‘demonizing and dehumanizing’ language
The Congressional Equality Caucus has sent a letter urging Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to condemn the surge in anti-trans rhetoric coming from members of Congress.
The letter, signed by 213 members, criticizes Johnson for permitting some lawmakers to use “demonizing and dehumanizing” language directed at the transgender community.
The first signature on the letter is Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, the only transgender member of Congress.
It also includes signatures from Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (MA-05), House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (CA-33), every member of the Congressional Equality Caucus, and members of every major House Democratic ideological caucus.
Some House Republicans have used slurs to address members of the transgender community during official business, including in committee hearings and on the House floor.
The House has strict rules governing proper language—rules the letter directly cites—while noting that no corrective action was taken by the Chair or Speaker Pro Tempore when these violations occurred.
The letter also calls out members of Congress—though none by name—for inappropriate comments, including calls to institutionalize all transgender people, references to transgender people as mentally ill, and false claims portraying them as inherently violent or as a national security threat.
Citing FBI data, the letter notes that 463 hate crime incidents were reported due to gender identity bias. It also references a 2023 Williams Institute report showing that transgender people are more than four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization, despite making up less than 2% of the U.S. population.
The letter ends with a renewed plea for Speaker Johnson to take appropriate measures to protect not only the trans member of Congress from harassment, but also transgender people across the country.
“We urge you to condemn the rise in dehumanizing rhetoric targeting the transgender community and to ensure members of your conference are abiding by rules of decorum and not using their platforms to demonize and scapegoat the transgender community, including by ensuring members are not using slurs to refer to the transgender community.”
The full letter, including the complete list of signatories, can be found at equality.house.gov. (https://equality.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/equality.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/letter-to-speaker-johnson-on-anti-transgender-rhetoric-enforcing-rules-of-decorum.pdf)
The White House
EXCLUSIVE: Garcia, Markey reintroduce bill to require US promotes LGBTQ rights abroad
International Human Rights Defense Act also calls for permanent special envoy
Two lawmakers on Monday have reintroduced a bill that would require the State Department to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.
A press release notes the International Human Rights Defense Act that U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced would “direct” the State Department “to monitor and respond to violence against LGBTQ+ people worldwide, while creating a comprehensive plan to combat discrimination, criminalization, and hate-motivated attacks against LGBTQ+ communities” and “formally establish a special envoy to coordinate LGBTQ+ policies across the State Department.”
“LGBTQ+ people here at home and around the world continue to face escalating violence, discrimination, and rollbacks of their rights, and we must act now,” said Garcia in the press release. “This bill will stand up for LGBTQ+ communities at home and abroad, and show the world that our nation can be a leader when it comes to protecting dignity and human rights once again.”
Markey, Garcia, and U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) in 2023 introduced the International Human Rights Defense Act. Markey and former California Congressman Alan Lowenthal in 2019 sponsored the same bill.
The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.
The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement since the Trump-Vance administration froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded dozens of advocacy groups around the world, officially shut down on July 1. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year said the State Department would administer the remaining 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled.
Then-President Joe Biden in 2021 named Jessica Stern — the former executive director of Outright International — as his administration’s special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights.
The Trump-Vance White House has not named anyone to the position.
Stern, who co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice after she left the government, is among those who sharply criticized the removal of LGBTQ- and intersex-specific references from the State Department’s 2024 human rights report.
“It is deliberate erasure,” said Stern in August after the State Department released the report.
The Congressional Equality Caucus in a Sept. 9 letter to Rubio urged the State Department to once again include LGBTQ and intersex people in their annual human rights reports. Garcia, U.S. Reps. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who chair the group’s International LGBTQI+ Rights Task Force, spearheaded the letter.
“We must recommit the United States to the defense of human rights and the promotion of equality and justice around the world,” said Markey in response to the International Human Rights Defense Act that he and Garcia introduced. “It is as important as ever that we stand up and protect LGBTQ+ individuals from the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to further marginalize this community. I will continue to fight alongside LGBTQ+ individuals for a world that recognizes that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”
National
US bishops ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals
Directive adopted during meeting in Baltimore.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week adopted a directive that bans Catholic hospitals from offering gender-affirming care to their patients.
Since ‘creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift,’ we have a duty ‘to protect our humanity,’ which means first of all, ‘accepting it and respecting it as it was created,’” reads the directive the USCCB adopted during their meeting that is taking place this week in Baltimore.
The Washington Blade obtained a copy of it on Thursday.
“In order to respect the nature of the human person as a unity of body and soul, Catholic health care services must not provide or permit medical interventions, whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim not to restore but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function,” reads the directive. “This includes, for example, some forms of genetic engineering whose purpose is not medical treatment, as well as interventions that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics of a human body.)”
“In accord with the mission of Catholic health care, which includes serving those who are vulnerable, Catholic health care services and providers ‘must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who experience gender incongruence or gender dysphoria’ and to provide for the full range of their health care needs, employing only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body,” it adds.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2024 condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.” The USCCB directive comes against the backdrop of the Trump-Vance administration’s continued attacks against the trans community.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical interventions for minors.
Media reports earlier this month indicated the Trump-Vance administration will seek to prohibit Medicaid reimbursement for medical care to trans minors, and ban reimbursement through the Children’s Health Insurance Program for patients under 19. NPR also reported the White House is considering blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors.
“The directives adopted by the USCCB will harm, not benefit transgender persons,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a statement. “In a church called to synodal listening and dialogue, it is embarrassing, even shameful, that the bishops failed to consult transgender people, who have found that gender-affirming medical care has enhanced their lives and their relationship with God.”
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