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Commerce Dept. omits, restores LGBT people in non-discrimination policy

Trump admin pledges to restore missing protections in future update

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Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross omitted LGBT workers from his EEO policy statement. (Photo via wikimedia)

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross issued a new non-discrimination policy this week omitting explicit assurances LGBT workers won’t face discrimination in his department, prompting an outcry that resulted in an updated version of the document making clear the prohibition on anti-LGBT discrimination.

The 2017 Secretarial Policy Statement on Equal Employment Opportunity initially found on the Commerce Department’s website declares it won’t tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age or disability. Omitted from the policy: sexual orientation and gender identity — two categories that were included in the policy under the Obama administration.

According to a report in Buzzfeed, the Ross policy statement was circulated among department staff on Thursday. The new policy statement was posted in the last 10 days, Buzzfeed reports, because an archived view of the website from June 6 reveals the 2016 LGBT-inclusive statement was included. The Commerce Department employs nearly 47,000 workers, according to its website.

David Stacy, the Human Rights Campaign’s government affairs director, said in a statement the omission represents “the Trump/Pence Administration actively seeking to undermine rights for LGBTQ people.”

“The Commerce Department’s EEO statement is meant to inform workers and applicants about their legal protections,” Stacy said. “Cutting specific mention of sexual orientation and gender identity protections is a slap in the face to LGBTQ federal employees who proudly serve at the Department of Commerce and sadly signals that this administration does not value them.”

After initial media reports and outcry over the omission, the Commerce Department sent out a new version of the non-discrimination policy Friday with sexual orientation and gender identity specifically included.

A Commerce Department spokesperson said the omission was “never intended to change the policy or exclude any protected categories” and insisted the department doesn’t discriminate against LGBT people.

“I hope we can help people understand that the impression this whole situation gave people is really not who Secretary Ross is,” the spokesperson said. “As soon as this was brought to his attention, he was appalled and directed immediate action be taken to rectify any misconceptions. From his first day at Commerce, Secretary Ross has made clear that he will tolerate no bias or discrimination of any sort.”

Even if the Commerce Department no longer prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, LGBT workers there would still have protections under the executive order signed by President Clinton barring anti-gay discrimination in the federal workforce, which President Obama expanded to include transgender people.

LGBT workers at the Commerce Department may also find restitution for claims of discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights of 1964. The law contains no explicit prohibition on anti-LGBT discrimination, but the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and a growing number of courts have determined the prohibition on sex discrimination under the law applies to LGBT people.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) decried the Commerce Department omission as “appalling” in a statement and was among those who called on Ross to reinstate sexual orientation and gender identity in the policy.

“While LGBT employees of the Department remain protected under the government-wide policy instituted by former President Obama, this decision by Secretary Ross sends a signal that LGBT Americans are not welcome at the department he leads,” Hoyer said. “In addition to the injustice of his move, the Secretary ought to reflect on the role of the LGBT community in our economy and the importance of LGBT businesspeople in creating jobs and expanding trade to benefit our country and its workers.”

Joel Kasnetz, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, also criticized the Trump administration for the LGBT omission and said the restoration of the language is an insufficient remedy.

“You can’t un-ring a bell,” Kasnetz said. “By trying to erase LGBTQ people from the Commerce Department’s nondiscrimination policy, the Trump administration sent a crystal clear message to LGBTQ Americans: ‘You’re not welcome here.’”

The Commerce Department didn’t respond to a follow-up inquiry on why sexual orientation and gender identity were excluded from the policy in the first place.

A White House official deferred to the Commerce Department statement in response to inquiries on whether President Trump was OK with the omission and whether it was the result of an administration-wide directive. In January, the White House said Trump would leave in place Obama’s executive order barring anti-LGBT workplace discrimination among federal contractors.

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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

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(Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

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.

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National

Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information

Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources

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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is named as a defendant in the lawsuit. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

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.

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U.S. Federal Courts

Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections

Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent

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Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Screen capture: YouTube)

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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