News
Trump budget assailed for ‘troubling’ cuts to LGBT civil rights
Proposal would zap agency charged with enforcing Obama LGBT order
President Donald Trump has proposed a budget that includes cuts to civil rights agencies. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
President Trump’s commitment to upholding civil rights for LGBT people has come into renewed question in the wake of a budget proposal that makes substantial cuts to agencies enforcing non-discrimination laws and cumulative actions over the course of his administration undermining those statutes.
Trump’s $4.1 trillion budget proposal for fiscal year 2018 — unveiled late last month — calls for major cuts from Obama-era levels to civil rights agencies within federal departments across the board, including the Justice Department, the Department of Health & Human Services and the Education Department.
Also, the budget proposes the elimination of the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance — which is charged with enforcing President Obama’s executive order barring anti-LGBT workplace discrimination among federal contractors — and merging it with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the U.S. agency that enforces federal employment non-discrimination law.
Sharita Gruberg, associate director of LGBT research and communications for the Center for American Progress, said the proposed cuts are “really troubling” for the continued enforcement of laws barring discrimination against LGBT people.
“There are cuts across every single federal agency charged with enforcing civil rights laws and it would undo a lot of the gains that we’ve gotten over the last administration in ensuring that civil rights are robustly enforced,” Gruberg said.
A White House Office of Management & Budget official pointed to other aspects of the Trump budget the administration says demonstrates a commitment to civil rights, such as $2.7 million for the Education Department’s Civil Rights Data Collection program, which is three times more than what was planned for FY-17.
“The president’s budget proposal maintains the administration’s commitment to the enforcement of the nation’s civil rights laws,” the official said. “It straightlines funding for DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, supporting efforts to combat human trafficking; prosecute hate crimes; protect the rights of U.S. workers, service members, and veterans; safeguard the voting rights for all Americans; and promote fair housing and educational opportunities.”
For the HHS Office of Civil Rights, the Trump budget proposes a 15 percent cut — down from an estimated $53 million from FY-17 to $44 million in FY-18 — and a 10 percent staff reduction, from 177 to 161.
That office is charged with enforcing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which bars discrimination on the basis of sex in health care. The Obama administration issued a rule clarifying that provision applies to transgender people, ensuring access to transition-related care and gender reassignment surgery.
Although U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Texas issued an injunction barring the Obama administration from applying the Section 1557 to cases of transgender discrimination, Gruberg said the HHS Office of Civil Rights “presumably should still be investigating complaints from LGBT people of discrimination in health care” and the cuts would be harmful.
“These are complaints that would not get the resources or staffing needed to ensure that they are investigated and that LGBT people are getting the health care that they’re entitled to without discrimination,” Gruberg said.
For the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, which is charged with enforcing Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the funding is maintained between FY-17 and FY-18 at $107 million. However, with the same level of funding the proposed budget calls for a seven percent reduction in staff, from 569 employees to 523.
Courts are beginning to construe Title IX, which bars discrimination on the basis of sex, to apply to LGBT students. The Obama administration issued guidance indicating schools that bar transgender kids from the restroom consistent with their gender identity may lose funding under this law, but U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos revoked the guidance.
Even though the Trump administration rescinded the guidance, Gruberg said the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights is still charged with investigations under Title IX, citing a 75 percent increase in complaints from 2009 to 2015.
“The law is still the law and this would hurt the office’s ability to provide technical assistance about what their obligations are under the law even without the guidance in place,” Gruberg said.
For the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the Trump budget proposes the elimination of 121 staff positions. That division is responsible for upholding civil rights laws, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars employment discrimination based on sex, and the Violence Against Women Act, which specifically bars anti-LGBT discrimination in domestic abuse relief programs.
Under former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the civil rights division filed a lawsuit against North Carolina’s anti-LGBT House Bill 2 based on the laws before the litigation was withdrawn under Trump.
“At a time when they filed the most criminal civil rights complaints and trafficking complaints ever, this staffing cut will severely diminish the ability of DOJ civil rights to file and prosecute criminal and civil rights violations,” Gruberg said.
In addition to merging OFCCP with EEOC, the budget calls for the elimination of 130 full-time staff positions from the latter agency since FY-17, although funding would be flatlined at $364 million.
Gruberg said the cuts were “shocking” and the proposed merger spells trouble because OFCCP has oversight authority to investigate federal contractors for violations unlike EEOC, which generally awaits discrimination complaints filed by employees before taking action.
“They’re able to proactively investigate the status of equal opportunity at companies receiving taxpayer funds and ensure that they are not discriminating in ways that individuals employees might not be able to really grasp, such as hiring disparities, pay disparities, some of these systemic issues that an individual employee in their position might not know what’s happening to them,” Gruberg said.
The Department of Housing & Urban Development is also charged with enforcing a non-discrimination policy for LGBT Americans, a Obama administration rule barring anti-LGBT discrimination in government-sponsored housing and homeless shelters.
But assessing the capacity to enforce the rule is hard, Gruberg said, because that task is spread out across the agency. Primarily, HUD implements the rule through the Office of Fair Housing & Equal Opportunity, but the gender identity equal access piece is primarily implemented by the Office of Community Planning & Development, she said.
In Trump’s proposed budget, staffing levels for the Office of Fair Housing & Equal Opportunity would decrease by 10 and 26 full-time equivalents would be cut from Office of Community Planning & Development.
The proposed reductions in the budget for the enforcement of civil rights law are consistent with assertions the Trump administration has undertaken actions undermining civil rights, including a travel ban, review of police consent decrees and formation of an “election integrity” task force that seems to attempt to justify voter suppression efforts. On LGBT rights, the Trump administration has made anti-LGBT appointments, omitted LGBT questions from federal surveys and declined to defend LGBT rights measures in court.
Led by the Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights, a coalition of more than 100 groups this week co-signed a letter to Trump earlier this week urging him to reverse course and defend civil rights.
“Our nation should honor equal protection for all, view its diversity as its strength, and strive to be an inclusive place where all in America can live, work, study, and participate in our democracy as free and equal people,” the letter says. “We call on you and your administration to take affirmative steps to halt the problematic policies and initiatives we have outlined, and to provide positive leadership on these issues in order to promote inclusion and respect for the basic rights and dignity of every person in America.”
The EEOC doesn’t seem fazed by the prospects of having to implement the duties of OFFCP in addition to investigations and prosecutions already underway.
Kimberly Smith-Brown, an EEOC spokesperson, said the merger wouldn’t happen until FY-19 and the agency expects a “smooth transition” into the change.
“The FY 2018 budget refers to the proposed merger which would take place in FY 2019, with 2018 being a transition year during which OFCCP and EEOC would engage in transition talks and planning,” Smith-Brown said. “There were no financial or staffing implications for EEOC in FY 2018. Should the proposal to merge OFCCP and EEOC be approved by Congress, we are committed to a smooth transfer and transition.”
The OFFCP never publicly announced any investigations, charges or victories under Obama’s 2014 executive order against LGBT discrimination. It seems unlikely there were any because the Labor Department usually announces them as they occur.
The Labor Department for a span of years under the Obama administration and Trump administration hasn’t responded to the Washington Blade’s request to comment on whether investigations under the order had taken place.
Even though the EEOC has stated it can handle the transition, Gruberg said she thinks those remarks are aspirational and the proposed changes under the Trump budget aren’t “practically feasible.”
“You’re combining two offices that play very different roles in equal opportunity enforcement,” Gruberg said. “At the same time, you’re severely cutting staffing at these offices. And so, I think the combination of these two moves are really going to hinder the ability of these agencies to secure equal opportunity in the workforce for LGBT people.”
The Washington Blade on Wednesday spoke with Max Polonsky, a queer American who lives in Israel, about the Iran war and its impact on the country.
“It’s been tiring,” Polonsky told the Blade during a telephone interview from his home in Jaffa, an ancient port city with a large Arab population that is now part of Tel Aviv.
Polonsky grew up in Cherry Hill, N.J. He lived in D.C. for eight years before he moved to Israel in March 2022.
Israel and the U.S. on Feb. 28 launched airstrikes against Iran.
One of them killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran in response launched missiles and drones against Israel and other countries that include Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, and Cyprus.
An Iranian missile on March 1 killed nine people and injured 27 others in Beit Shemesh, an Israeli town that is roughly 20 miles west of Jerusalem. Shrapnel from an Iranian missile that struck a hair salon in Beit Awa, a Palestinian town in the West Bank, on Wednesday killed four women and injured more than a dozen others.
An Iranian drone that hit a command center in Kuwait on March 1 killed six U.S. soldiers: Sgt. Declan Coady, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, Capt. Cody Khork, Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, and Maj. Jeffrey O’Brien. Another American servicemember, Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, died on March 8, a week after Iranian drones and missiles targeted the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
Iranian drones and missiles have damaged hotels, airports, oil refineries, and other civilian and energy infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and elsewhere. Israel on Wednesday attacked Iran’s South Pars natural gas field in the Persian Gulf.
The Associated Press notes roughly 20 percent of the world’s crude oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz that connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Gas prices in the U.S. and around the world continue to increase because the war has essentially closed the strategic waterway to ship traffic.
The war also left hundreds of thousands of people who were traveling in the Middle East stranded.
The Blade on March 6 spoke with Mario, who had stopped in his native Lebanon while traveling from the U.S. to India for work.
Mario was about to board a flight at Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on Feb. 28 when the war began and authorities closed the country’s airspace. Mario is now back in the U.S.
Polonsky told the Blade there were “alarms all day … sometimes multiple alarms an hour, sometimes every hour, every two hours” on Feb. 28.
Israel’s Home Front Command typically issues warnings about 10 minutes ahead of an anticipated Iranian missile attack. Sirens then sound 90 seconds before an expected strike.
People in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and in other cities in central Israel have 90 seconds to seek shelter if a rocket or missile is fired from Lebanon or the Gaza Strip. (Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shia militant group in Lebanon that Israel and the U.S. have designated a terrorist organization, launched rockets at the Jewish State after Khamenei’s death. Israel, in turn, continues to carry out airstrikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, killed upwards of 1,200 people when they launched a surprise attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip.) People who live close to Lebanon and Gaza have 15 seconds to seek shelter.
Polonsky has a safe room — known as a “mamad” — in his apartment. Polonsky also uses it as his home office and a second bedroom.
He told the Blade the alerts in recent days have become less frequent.
“We’ll get maybe a handful of alarms during the day, maybe some at night,” said Polonsky.
Israel on June 12, 2025, launched airstrikes against Iran that targeted the country’s nuclear and military facilities. The subsequent war, which lasted 12 days, prompted the cancellation of Tel Aviv’s annual Pride parade. An Iranian missile destroyed Mash Central, the city’s last gay bar.
Iran on Oct. 1, 2024, launched upwards of 200 ballistic missiles at Israel. This reporter arrived in Israel three days later to cover the first anniversary of Oct. 7 and the impact the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip had on LGBTQ Israelis and Palestinians.
‘Iranian regime was bad’
Polonsky admitted he doesn’t “know what to think” about the latest war against Iran.
“I don’t know what I think about the war,” he said. “Ultimately what happens is just not in my personal control: whatever Donald Trump, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, the ayatollah, whoever is running Iran are going to organize and launch attacks and reach any deals is not anything I personally have any control over, so I try to just kind of let that aspect of it go as I’m living my life.”
Polonsky told the Blade he understands “there are very serious questions about how” the war started, and Congress’s role in it.
“Those are serious and valid, important questions,” he said. “And at the same time, the Iranian regime was bad.”
Polonsky noted Iran has supported and funded Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and other groups “who were attacking Israel.” Polonsky added the Iranian government has “terribly oppressed their people.”
Iran is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
Reports indicate Iranian authorities killed upwards of 30,000 people during anti-government protests that began late last year. Sources with whom the Blade spoke said LGBTQ Iranians are among those who participated in the demonstrations.
“I’m not sad to see them pressured,” said Polonsky, referring to the Iranian regime.
He also described Khamenei as “a bad guy.”
“Him not being there is better,” said Polonsky.
Federal Government
Protesters say SAVE Act targets voters, transgender youth
Bill described as ‘Jim Crow 2.0’
Members of Congress, advocates, and people from across the country gathered outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday to protest proposed federal legislation that voting rights activists have deemed “Jim Crow 2.0.”
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require in-person proof of citizenship for anyone seeking to vote in U.S. elections.
President Donald Trump has also pushed for the proposed legislation to include a section that would ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, even with parental consent, and prohibit trans people from participating in school or professional sports consistent with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.
In addition to changing voter registration requirements, the bill would limit acceptable forms of identification to documents such as a birth certificate or passport — records that the Brennan Center for Justice estimates more than 21 million Americans do not have — effectively restricting access to the ballot. It would also ban online voter registration, DMV voter registration efforts, and mail-in voter registration.
A 2021 investigation by the Associated Press found that fewer than 475 people voted illegally or improperly, a tiny fraction of the estimated 160 million Americans who voted in the 2020 election.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke at the event.
“It will kick millions of American citizens off the rolls. And they don’t even require you to be told,” the highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate told protesters and reporters outside the Capitol. “If this law passes — and it won’t — you’re gonna show up in November … and they’ll say… sorry, you’re no longer on the voting rolls.”
He, like many other speakers, emphasized the bill in the context of American history, pointing to what he described as its racist roots and its impact on Black and brown Americans.
“I have called this act, over and over again, Jim Crow 2.0 … because they know it’s the truth.”
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) was one of the lawmakers leading opposition to the legislation and spoke at the rally.
“It’s not just voting rights that are on the line — our democracy is on the line,” the California lawmaker said. “It’s not a voter I.D. bill. It’s a bait and switch bill.”
He added historical context, noting the significance of voting rights legislation passed more than 60 years ago. In 1965, Alabama civil rights activists marched to protest barriers to voter registration. Alabama state troopers violently attacked peaceful demonstrators at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, using tear gas, clubs, and whips against more than 500 — mostly Black — protesters.
“61 years ago — not to the day — but this week, President Lyndon Johnson came to the Capitol and addressed a joint session of Congress in the wake of Bloody Sunday and pushed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act,” Padilla said. “61 years later, Donald Trump and this Republican majority wants to take us backwards. We’re not gonna let that happen.”
U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) also spoke, emphasizing that he views the effort as a Republican-led and Trump-backed attempt to restrict voting access, particularly among Black, brown, and predominantly Democratic communities.
“President Trump told Republicans when they were meeting behind closed doors that ‘The SAVE Act will guarantee Republicans win the midterms and ensure they do not lose an election for 50 years,’” Luján said. “The first time I think Donald Trump’s been honest … This voter suppression bill is only that. Taking away vote by mail? I hope my Republican colleagues from states that voted for Donald Trump or where vote by mail is popular have the courage and the backbone to stand up and say no to this nonsense, because their constituents are going to push back.”
U.S. Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) also spoke.
“Our Republican colleagues have already cut Medicaid, Medicare, people don’t know how they’re gonna be able to afford energy,” she said, providing context for the broader political moment. “We’re in the middle of a war that they can’t even get straight while we’re in it and don’t have a way to get out of it. And we are now faced with defending our democracy?”
She then showed the crowd something that she said has been with her throughout her political journey in Washington.
“I brought with me something that I carried on the day that I was sworn into the House of Representatives when I was elected in 2016, and I carried it with me on the day that I was sworn in as United States senator. And I also carried it with me when I was trapped up in the gallery on Jan. 6 and all I could think to do was pray … This document allowed my great great great grandfather, who had been enslaved in Georgia, to have the right to vote. We took this and turned it into a scarf. It is the returns of qualified voters and reconstruction code from 1867. This is my proof of what we’ve been through. This is also our inspiration.”
“I got to travel between the Edmund Pettus Bridge two times. And even as I thought about this moment, I recognized that while we wish we weren’t in it, while we don’t know why we’re in it, I do know we were made for it … So I came today to tell you that, um, just like the leader said, that he calls it Jim Crow 2.0. I call it Jim Crow 2.NO.”
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy organization in the U.S., also spoke, highlighting the impact of the bill’s proposed provisions affecting trans people.
“This bill is not about saving America. This bill is about stealing an election. This bill is about suppressing voters,” Robinson said. “This bill not only tries to disenfranchise voters that deserve their right to vote, it also tries to criminalize trans kids and their families … It tries to criminalize doctors providing medically necessary care for our trans youth.”
The SAVE Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 11 but has not yet been considered in the U.S. Senate.
Obituary
Thomas A. Decker of Arlington dies at 73
Active in visiting AIDS patients, urging Congress to fight HIV
Thomas A. Decker Jr, of Arlington, Va., died March 3, 2026 following an extended illness, according to a statement released by his family. He was 73.
Born and raised in Canton, Ohio, Decker attended the University of Akron and earned his bachelor’s degree in political science. He then moved to the Washington, D.C. area and accepted a position with Beaver Press where he worked for 32 years, according to the statement.
He later worked in the Inova Juniper Program working with HIV/AIDS clients to assist them with support services and was active as a volunteer visiting AIDS patients in the hospital or advocating on Capitol Hill for HIV funding.
Tommy, as he was called by family, is survived by three sisters, a sister-in-law and two brothers-in-law: Carol Decker and Kathryn Kramer of West Newbury, MA, Margaret and Thomas Williams of Bluffton, SC, Mary Sue and Timothy Desiato of New Philadelphia, Ohio, Niece’s Trina and Chad Wedekind of Jacksonville Fl and great niece Isabella, Lindsay and Will Burgette of Dublin, Ohio and great nephews Colin and Luke and Nephews David Williams of Jacksonville, Florida, and Michael and Lucy Desiato of Dublin, Ohio and great nieces Lena and Stella. In accordance with Tom’s wishes, he will be buried at Calvary Cemetery in Massillon, Ohio.
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