National
GSA accused of omitting LGBT people from non-discrimination rules
Omission would contravene EOs from Clinton, Obama eras


The U.S. agency known as GSA has removed LGBT categories from its non-discrimination policy. (Photo public domain)
The U.S. General Services Administration is being accused of leaving out LGBT workers from its employment non-discrimination policy, which would contradict executive orders prohibiting such discrimination in the federal workforce, although the U.S. agency is pushing back on that claim.
David Stacy, government affairs director for the Human Rights Campaign, said Monday night in a statement the GSA, which manages functions of government agencies, removed LGBT workers from its Equal Employment Opportunity website.
That omission, Stacy said, is yet another attempt by “the Trump-Pence Administration actively seeking to undermine rights for LGBTQ people” and called for inclusion of the categories.
“The GSA’s move to exclude sexual orientation and gender identity from their Equal Employment Opportunity statement is mean-spirited, deceptive and irresponsible,” Stacy said. “The GSA’s EEO statement is meant to inform workers and applicants about their legal protections — protections that federal employees have had for decades. Cutting specific mention of sexual orientation and gender identity protections is a slap in the face to LGBTQ federal employees who proudly serve and sadly signals that this administration does not value them. The GSA should immediately restore the previous, accurate EEO policy.”
A look at the Equal Employment Opportunity statement on GSA’s website reveals no mention of prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, even though other categories — race, color, national origin, religion, gender, age, disability and genetic information — are spelled out.
That’s different from a 2015 non-discrimination policy, which explicitly identified discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity as a subset of sex discrimination. The memo say that policy will only become outdated in 2022.
But the GSA is denying any change was made. In response to the Human Rights Campaign statement and an earlier version of this article, a GSA spokesperson said the 2015 policy “is in full effect and has not changed.” Further, the spokesperson said the information page on the GSA webpage was set up years ago — possibly as late as 2012 — and represents no change.
“GSA is proud of our diverse and talented workforce and is committed to ensuring all agency employees feel welcome,” the spokesperson said. “GSA prohibits discrimination in the workplace and will continue to make sure our employees’ legal rights are protected.”
But there’s an additional wrinkle. Acting Administrator Timothy Horne, whom Trump appointed upon his inauguration on Jan. 20., outlined the EEO policy in a memo to workers on Oct. 25 emphasizing the importance of non-discrimination in the workforce — but left out potential discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
“EEO is a critical component of GSA’s efforts to recruit, develop, and retain the most qualified, diverse workforce possible to support our agency’s multifaceted strategic mission,” Horne writes. “Toward that end, it is GSA’s policy that all employees and applicants for employment be afforded equal opportunities in employment without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, genetic information, disability or retaliation for engaging in an EEO-protected activity.”
Stacy said in a follow-up statement GSA still needs to take action to make its position clear even if the agency has retained its policy of non-discrimination against LGBT workers.
“If the GSA’s EEO policy is that protections from discrimination on the bases of sexual orientation and gender identity are still in effect, it is important that they make that clear to their employees,” Stacy said. “The email they sent to 12,000 GSA employees is unclear and misleading. And, simply saying that they are ‘committed to ensuring all agency employees feel welcome’ and that their ‘legal rights are protected’ again fails to provide the necessary clarity to LGBTQ employees.”
Any removal of sexual orientation and gender identity from GSA’s non-discrimination policy would contravene former President Bill Clinton’s executive order in 1998, which banned anti-gay discrimination in the federal workforce, and former President Barack Obama’s executive order in 2014 barring anti-trans discrimination in the federal workforce as well as anti-LGBT discrimination among federal contractors. President Trump agreed to allow those executive orders to remain standing.
Even without inclusion in the non-discrimination policy, LGBT workers at GSA should be still be able seek recourse under the Clinton and Obama executive orders and cite the 2015 memo if necessary. Federal laws against sex discrimination, which courts are increasingly interpreting to apply to LGBT people, would also cover workers there. The General Services Administration employs an estimated 12,000 federal workers.
A similar situation emerged in June when the Commerce Department under Wilbur Ross removed LGBT categories from its non-discrimination policy, but promptly reinstated them after media attention. A spokesperson at the time said the omission was an oversight and the department “never intended to change the policy or exclude any protected categories.”
NOTE: This article has been modified from its initial version to correspond to the updated response from the U.S. General Services Administration.
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.