National
Remembering the lives we lost in 2018
Tab Hunter, SpongeBob creator, AIDS activists and others
Actor and 1950s heartthrob Tab Hunter died earlier this year. (Photo courtesy the Film Collaborative)
Many acclaimed LGBTQ people died in 2018 from the worlds of entertainment, sports, advocacy, business and beyond. They include:
Victor Salisbury, a Realtor, banking analyst, gay rights supporter and D.C. area resident, died on Jan. 4 at 66.
Eddie Weingart, a D.C.-based massage therapist and anti-gun violence activist died at age 39 on Jan. 11. After the 2012 Newtown, Conn. mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, he helped to found the Project to End Gun Violence. In 2013, Weingart received the “Be the Change Award from the Washington Peace Center for his advocacy.
Dr. Mathilde Krim, a wealthy straight scientist and who was a pioneer in AIDS activism and research, died on Jan. 15 at age 91. She was the founding chairwoman of amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research. In 2000, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Dennis Peron who led an effort to legalize marijuana for medical purposes in California died on Jan. 27 at age 71 in a San Francisco hospital.
Robert Pincus-Witten, a renowned art critic, died on Jan. 28 at 82 after a long illness.
John Mahoney, British-born actor, beloved for his portrayal of Martin Crane, the father on the hit TV sitcom “Frasier,” died on Feb. 3 at age 77. He was nominated twice for an Emmy for his role on “Frasier.”
Judy Blame, the fashion stylist, died at age 58 from cancer in London on Feb. 20. There was a retrospective of Blame’s work at the ICA in London in 2016.
David Ogden Stiers, who played Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III in the renowned TV show “MASH,” died March 3 at age 75. At age 66, he came out as queer.
Barbara Wersba, an acclaimed lesbian author of books for young adults, died at age 85 on Feb. 18 in Englewood, N.J. She was among the first YA authors to write about same-sex relationships.
Hubert de Givenchy, the renowned French fashion designer who for decades dressed icons from Jacqueline Kennedy to Grace Kelley to Audrey Hepburn, died at age 91 on March 10.
Steve Elkins, founder and executive director of CAMP Rehoboth in Rehoboth Beach, Del., died at age 67 on March 15.
J.D. McClatchy, a Lambda Award-winning-poet, died at age 72 on April 10. He was the author of eight poetry collections and several opera librettos, including “Our Town” for Ned Rorem’s settings of Thornton Wilder’s drama.
Jean McFaddin, who planned Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parades, Santaland at Christmas, spring flower shows and July 4th fireworks in Manhattan for 24 years, died on April 18.
Richard Peck, a gay author of stories about rape, suicide and other difficult topics for young readers, died on May 27 at age 84.
LGBTQ rights activist Connie Kurtz died at age 81 at her home in West Palm Beach, Fla. Kurtz and her wife Ruth Berman were plaintiffs in a lawsuit over domestic partner benefits for New York City school employees.
On April 14, David Buckel, a prominent LGBTQ rights lawyer and environmental advocate, age 60, committed suicide by dousing himself with gas and setting himself on fire, in Brooklyn, N.Y. His death was a political act of self-immolation.
Robert M. Higdon, a friend of President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan and fund-raising director for the Reagan Presidential Library, died at age 58 on June 19.
Dick Leitsch, a pioneering gay rights activist, died at age 83 on June 22 in Manhattan. In 1966, Leitsch led a protest when a bartender at Julius’ in the West Village in New York wouldn’t serve openly gay patrons.
Tab Hunter, a 1950s movie star, died on July 8 at age 86. He was closeted until he came out in his 2005 autobiography (written with Eddie Muller) “Tab Hunter Confidential.”
Tom Gallagher, the first Foreign Service officer to come out publicly as gay, died on July 8 at age 77. “I don’t want any of you… ever to take for granted what it took for people like Tom Gallagher to pave the way for all of you,” Hillary Clinton said in 2012 on the 20th anniversary of GLIFAA, a State Department LGBT employee organization.
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, feminist, activist and author died at age 72 on July 10.
Gary Beach, an actor who won a Tony Award for his performance as director Roger De Bris in “The Producers,” died at age 70 on July 17.
Charles Hamlen, the founder of Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS, died at age 75 on Aug. 1. He started the group, which later merged with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, in 1993 five years after his partner died of AIDS in 1988.
John Glines, who won a Tony Award as a producer of “Torch Song Trilogy,” in 1983, died on Aug. 8 at age 84. At the Tonys, Glines thanked his lover Lawrence Lane. It’s believed to have been the first time anyone at the Tonys said they were thanking their gay lover, reported the New York Times.
Vivian Matalon, who won a Tony Award for directing “Mornings at Seven” in 1980, died at age 88 on Aug. 15.
Craig Zadan, who with his producing partner Neil Meron, won the Academy Award for best picture for Chicago in 2003, died on Aug. 21 at age 69. They produced “The Sound of Music” and other live musical revivals for NBC.
Rev. Robert Wood, the first American clergy to support marriage equality and to urge churches to welcome gay people died on Aug. 20 at age 95, the Blade reported.
Lindsay Kemp, a choreographer and teacher of David Bowie and Kate Bush, died at age 80 on Aug. 24. Kemp and Bowie were lovers for a time.
Crime writer Amanda Kyle Williams died at age 61 on Aug. 31. She is the author of the Keye Street series, whose titles include “The Stranger You Seek.”
Disability advocate and gay rights activist Janet Weinberg died on Sept. 1 at age 63. She was a leader at LGBTQ rights groups, including the Gay Men’s Health Crisis Center.
Jeanne Ashworth, who won a bronze medal in the 500-meter race at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, Calif., died on Oct. 4 at age 80 at her home in Wilmington, N.Y. She was one of the first women to compete in speedskating in the Olympics.
Ruth Gates, an acclaimed coral-reef biologist and marine conservationist died at age 56 from brain cancer on Oct. 25. Gates advocated breeding a “super coral” to resist the impact of climate change.
Maria Irene Fornés, a playwright who won eight Obie awards, died at age 88 on Oct. 30. Acclaimed for her experimental theater work, she received an Obie for lifetime achievement in 1982. “She’s not spoken of as an important American playwright, and she should be,” playwright Tony Kushner told the New York Times.
Ray Hill, a former Baptist evangelist and ex-convict who became a Houston LGBT rights activist and helped to organize the first gay rights march on Washington died at age 78 on Nov. 24. In the 1980s, he helped to found Omega House for AIDS patients. Hill hosted a radio talk show for prisoners and their families.
Stephen Hillenburg, the creator of the cultural phenomenon “SpongeBob SquarePants” died at age 57 on Nov. 26. Hillenburg, who was straight, had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. “SpongeBob,” the animated adventures of a yellow, pineapple-dwelling, sea creature, that airs on Nickelodeon, has a big queer following.
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.
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