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Tom Gallagher, U.S. Foreign Service officer, dies at 77

Longtime LGBT rights advocate came out publicly in 1975

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Tom Gallagher, gay news, Washington Blade

Tom Gallagher

Tom Gallagher, who became the first known U.S. Foreign Service officer to come out as gay in 1975 and who switched careers to become a social worker before returning to the Foreign Service in 1994, died July 8 in his hometown of Tinton Falls, N.J. from complications associated with a bacterial infection. He was 77.

In a write-up of his life and career that he prepared shortly before his passing and in an earlier interview published in the online publication Slate, he said he decided to disclose his sexual orientation at a 1975 conference in Washington, D.C., organized by the then Gay Activists Alliance called Gays and the Federal Government.

Knowing the disclosure would jeopardize his then 10-year career at the State Department and Foreign Service, he decided to come out because he became tired of having to conceal the truth of who he was, he recounted in the interview.

One year later, in 1976, after he determined longstanding policies making it difficult if not impossible for gays working in the Foreign Service to retain their required security clearances, he resigned and moved to California, where he began a new career as a social worker

His biographical write-up says he was born Sept. 11, 1940 in Manhattan before his family moved to New Jersey. He graduated from Holy Spirit School and Red Bank Catholic High School in Asbury Park, N.J. before entering New Jerseyā€™s Monmouth University, where he received a bachelorā€™s degree in 1962.

Five days after graduating from Monmouth he signed up as a Peace Corps volunteer and entered the first Peace Corps group to go to Ethiopia, his biographical write-up says. After completing a Peace Corps training program at Georgetown University he and his group of volunteers were invited to the White House, where President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy hosted a send-off tea party.

According to his write-up, upon their arrival in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Peace Corps group was welcomed by Emperor Haile Selassie, the countryā€™s monarch and leader. A month after arriving in the city of Agordot for his assignment to teach a seventh grade history class, Gallagher recounted he heard the ā€œfirst shotā€ of what became the province of Eritreaā€™s protracted war of independence.

His write-up says he ā€œremained devoted to Eritrea and its people for the rest of his lifeā€ and ā€œsixty years after leaving the Peace Corps Tom was still in touch with 13 of the 80 boys he taught in Agordot.ā€

Upon returning to the U.S. he began his first full salaried job at the White House where he worked for President Lyndon Johnsonā€™s War on Poverty program. It was at that time that he met Carolyn Worrell, the bright young woman also interested in foreign affairs whom he married a short time later.

In his Slate interview with freelance journalist Jacqui Shine he said he believed he was in love with Worrell at a time when he was struggling within himself to fight what he always knew deep inside himself ā€“ that he liked men. He had ā€œfooled around with boysā€ since he was a teenager growing up on the New Jersey shore, he said in the interview.

Gallagher began his first stint in the Foreign Service in 1965, with his first overseas assignment sending him to Jidda, Saudi Arabia.

Subsequent assignments took him to Nigeria and Ecuador, where he served as acting U.S. Consul General in the city of Guayaquil, becoming, at age 34, the youngest ever chief of a major U.S. diplomatic mission. He later returned to Washington where he served in various positions at the State Department headquarters before coming out at the gay conference.

In 1970, shortly after completing his tour in Nigeria, he told his wife he wanted a divorce and arranged for the couple to stay together until Worrell found a job with a federal agency and got ā€œsettled,ā€ he said in the Slate interview. It wasnā€™t until years later that he told his then ex-wife that the marriage breakup was due to his struggle with his sexual orientation, he said in the interview.

Meanwhile, after resigning from the Foreign Service in 1976 he moved to California and underwent training to become a social worker. A short time later he began work in the first of a number of positions, including a post as an emergency room social worker at UCLA Hospital in Los Angeles. He also volunteered as director of counseling programs at the Gay Community Services Center in LA.

Other positions he held included supervisor for the Travelers Aid Society in San Francisco; director of a Napa County, Calif., psychiatric emergency program; and as a volunteer for AIDS programs in the state.

In 1994, when President Bill Clinton removed policies preventing gays from working in the Foreign Service, Gallagher returned to his earlier career as a Foreign Service officer, his write up says. His first assignment was that of the position of American Consul at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, Spain. While holding that post Gallagher helped raise $3 million for the Spanish AIDS Foundation.

Following his post in Spain he was appointed as Country Officer for Eritrea and Sudan in the State Departmentā€™s Office of East African Affairs. In 1999, he became head of the visa section at the U.S. Embassy in Brussels, where he was credited with refusing a visa for a radical Moroccan who was linked to a terrorist organization considering a plot to spray poison on a U.S. city, according to his biographical write-up.

The write-up says he next returned to Washington and worked at the State Departmentā€™s Office of Central African Affairs where he served as Country Officer for the Republic of the Congo. His final tour at the State Department was with the Office of International Health, where he served as Regional Advisor for Europe and worked on an international AIDS program.

After retiring in 2005, Gallagher continued to take on short tours for the State Department including assignments at 17 embassies and consulates on five continents, the write-up says. He also taught a course on the Middle East as an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Monmouth University.

In 2012, during an event at the State Department celebrating the 20thĀ anniversary of the State Departmentā€™s LGBT employee group, to which Gallagher was invited, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talked about Gallagherā€™s role in advocating for LGBT equality when he came out as a Foreign Service officer in 1975.

ā€œI donā€™t want any of you who are a lot younger ever to take for granted what it took for people like Tom Gallagher to pave the way for all of you,ā€ Clinton told the gathering. ā€œItā€™s not a moment to be nostalgic,ā€ she said. ā€œItā€™s a moment for us to remember and to know that all of the employees who sacrificed their right to be who they are were really defending your rights and the rights and freedoms of others at home and abroad.ā€

Shine, who conducted the Slate interview, said she got to know Gallagher when she interviewed him for another story about three years ago.

ā€œI was very fond of Tom, who was very funny, sweet, and a hell of a storyteller,ā€ she told the Washington Blade. ā€œHe was as astonished as anyone by the extraordinary turns his life took, and humbled by and grateful for all he experienced.ā€

Gallagher is survived by his former wife, Carolyn Worrell, who is now a judge in Nevada; and his husband, Amin Dulgumoni, a senior software engineer at Goldman Sachs.

Plans for a memorial were expected to be announced soon.

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Federal Government

Lambda Legal praises Biden-Harris administration’s finalized Title IX regulations

New rules to take effect Aug. 1

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U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona (Screen capture: AP/YouTube)

The Biden-Harris administration’s revised Title IX policy “protects LGBTQ+ students from discrimination and other abuse,” Lambda Legal said in a statement praising the U.S. Department of Education’s issuance of the final rule on Friday.

Slated to take effect on Aug. 1, the new regulations constitute an expansion of the 1972 Title IX civil rights law, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs that receive federal funding.

Pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the landmark 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County case, the department’s revised policy clarifies that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity constitutes sex-based discrimination as defined under the law.

ā€œThese regulations make it crystal clear that everyone can access schools that are safe, welcoming and that respect their rights,ā€ Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said during a call with reporters on Thursday.

While the new rule does not provide guidance on whether schools must allow transgender students to play on sports teams corresponding with their gender identity to comply with Title IX, the question is addressed in a separate rule proposed by the agency in April.

The administration’s new policy also reverses some Trump-era Title IX rules governing how schools must respond to reports of sexual harassment and sexual assault, which were widely seen as imbalanced in favor of the accused.

Jennifer Klein, the director of the White House Gender Policy Council, said during Thursday’s call that the department sought to strike a balance with respect to these issues, “reaffirming our longstanding commitment to fundamental fairness.”

ā€œWe applaud the Biden administration’s action to rescind the legally unsound, cruel, and dangerous sexual harassment and assault rule of the previous administration,” Lambda Legal Nonbinary and Transgender Rights Project Director Sasha Buchert said in the group’s statement on Friday.

“Todayā€™s rule instead appropriately underscores that Title IX’s civil rights protections clearly cover LGBTQ+ students, as well as survivors and pregnant and parenting students across race and gender identity,” she said. “Schools must be places where students can learn and thrive free of harassment, discrimination, and other abuse.”

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Michigan

Mich. Democrats spar over LGBTQ-inclusive hate crimes law

Lawmakers disagree on just what kind of statute to pass

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Members of the Michigan House Democrats gather to celebrate Pride month in 2023 in the Capitol building. (Photo courtesy of Michigan House Democrats)

Michigan could soon become the latest state to pass an LGBTQ-inclusive hate crime law, but the stateā€™s Democratic lawmakers disagree on just what kind of law they should pass.

Currently, Michiganā€™s Ethnic Intimidation Act only offers limited protections to victims of crime motivated by their ā€œrace, color, religion, gender, or national origin.ā€ Bills proposed by Democratic lawmakers expand the list to include ā€œactual or perceived race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, ethnicity, physical or mental disability, age, national origin, or association or affiliation with any such individuals.ā€ 

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel have both advocated for a hate crime law, but house and senate Democrats have each passed different hate crimes packages, and Nessel has blasted both as being too weak.

Under the house proposal that passed last year (House Bill 4474), a first offense would be punishable with a $2,000 fine, up to two years in prison, or both. Penalties double for a second offense, and if a gun or other dangerous weapons is involved, the maximum penalty is six years in prison and a fine of $7,500. 

But that proposal stalled when it reached the senate, after far-right news outlets and Fox News reported misinformation that the bill only protected LGBTQ people and would make misgendering a trans person a crime. State Rep. Noah Arbit, the bill’s sponsor, was also made the subject of a recall effort, which ultimately failed.

Arbit submitted a new version of the bill (House Bill 5288) that added sections clarifying that misgendering a person, ā€œintentionally or unintentionallyā€ is not a hate crime, although the latest version (House Bill 5400) of the bill omits this language.

That bill has since stalled in a house committee, in part because the Democrats lost their house majority last November, when two Democratic representatives resigned after being elected mayors. The Democrats regained their house majority last night by winning two special elections.

Meanwhile, the senate passed a different package of hate crime bills sponsored by state Sen. Sylvia Santana (Senate Bill 600) in March that includes much lighter sentences, as well as a clause ensuring that misgendering a person is not a hate crime. 

Under the senate bill, if the first offense is only a threat, it would be a misdemeanor punishable by one year in prison and up to $1,000 fine. A subsequent offense or first violent hate crime, including stalking, would be a felony that attracts double the punishment.

Multiple calls and emails from the Washington Blade to both Arbit and Santana requesting comment on the bills for this story went unanswered.

The attorney generalā€™s office sent a statement to the Blade supporting stronger hate crime legislation.

ā€œAs a career prosecutor, [Nessel] has seen firsthand how the stateā€™s weak Ethnic Intimidation Act (not updated since the late 1980ā€™s) does not allow for meaningful law enforcement and court intervention before threats become violent and deadly, nor does it consider significant bases for bias.  It is our hope that the legislature will pass robust, much-needed updates to this statute,ā€ the statement says.

But Nessel, who has herself been the victim of racially motivated threats, has also blasted all of the bills presented by Democrats as not going far enough.

ā€œTwo years is nothing ā€¦ Why not just give them a parking ticket?ā€ Nessel told Bridge Michigan.

Nessel blames a bizarre alliance far-right and far-left forces that have doomed tougher laws.

ā€œYou have this confluence of forces on the far right ā€¦ this insistence that the First Amendment protects this language, or that the Second Amendment protects the ability to possess firearms under almost any and all circumstances,ā€ Nessel said. ā€œBut then you also have the far left that argues basically no one should go to jail or prison for any offense ever.ā€

The legislature did manage to pass an ā€œinstitutional desecrationā€ law last year that penalizes hate-motivated vandalism to churches, schools, museums, and community centers, and is LGBTQ-inclusive.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Justice, reported hate crime incidents have been skyrocketing, with attacks motivated by sexual orientation surging by 70 percent from 2020 to 2022, the last year for which data is available. 

Twenty-two states, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have passed LGBTQ-inclusive hate crime laws. Another 11 states have hate crime laws that include protections for ā€œsexual orientationā€ but not ā€œgender identity.ā€

Michigan Democrats have advanced several key LGBTQ rights priorities since they took unified control of the legislature in 2023. A long-stalled comprehensive anti-discrimination law was passed last year, as did a conversion therapy ban. Last month the legislature updated family law to make surrogacy easier for all couples, including same-sex couples. 

A bill to ban the ā€œgay panicā€ defense has passed the state house and was due for a Senate committee hearing on Wednesday.

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Indiana

Drag queen announces run for mayor of Ind. city

Branden Blaettne seeking Fort Wayne’s top office

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Branden Blaettner being interviewed by a local television station during last yearā€™s Pride month. (WANE screenshot)

In a Facebook post Tuesday, a local drag personality announced he was running for the office of mayor once held by the lateĀ Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry, whoĀ died last monthĀ just a few months into his fifth term.

Henry was recently diagnosed with late-stage stomach cancer and experienced an emergency that landed him in hospice care. He died shortly after.

WPTA, a local television station, reported that Fort WayneĀ resident Branden Blaettne, whose drag name is Della Licious, confirmed he filed paperwork to beĀ one of the candidatesĀ seeking to finish out the fifth term of the late mayor.

Blaettner, who is a community organizer, told WPTA he doesnā€™t want to ā€œget Fort Wayne back on track,ā€ but ratherĀ keep the momentum started by HenryĀ going while giving a platform to the disenfranchised groups in the community. Blaettner said he doesnā€™t think his local fame as a drag queen will hold him back.

ā€œItā€™s easy to have a platform when you wear platform heels,ā€ Blaettner told WPTA. ā€œThe status quo has left a lot of people out in the cold ā€” both figuratively and literally,ā€ Blaettner added.

The Indiana Capital Chronicle reported that state Rep. Phil GiaQuinta, who has led the Indiana House Democratic caucus since 2018, has added his name to a growing list of Fort Wayne politicos who want to be the cityā€™s next mayor. A caucus of precinct committee persons will choose the new mayor.

According to theĀ Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, the deadline for residents to file candidacy was 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday. A town hall with the candidates is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Thursday at Franklin School Park. The caucus is set for 10:30 a.m. on April 20 at the Lincoln Financial Event Center at Parkview Field.

At least six candidates so far have announced they will run in the caucus. They include Branden Blaettne, GiaQuinta, City Councilwoman Michelle Chambers, City Councilwoman Sharon Tucker, former city- and county-council candidate Palermo Galindo, and 2023 Democratic primary mayoral candidate Jorge Fernandez.

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