News
Mattis claims (dubiously) Joint Chiefs had no input on trans service
Former defense secretary defines anti-trans restrictions he endorsed
Former Defense Secretary James Mattis continues to defend the transgender military ban, making a dubious claim the military service chiefs had no input when openly transgender service was implemented during the Obama years.
Mattis made the remarks in an interview with Time Magazine on the publication of his book, “Call Sign Chaos” in response to a question about why he agreed to roll back policy allowing transgender people to serve in the military.
Although President Trump tweeted he’d ban transgender service members “in any capacity,” Mattis said the new policy was “not a roll back; it was a study.”
Mattis, in apparent reference to the six-month study he was carrying out on transgender service as Trump made the anti-trans tweets, said the policy he proposed “was absolutely a study” based on concerns he said the Joint Chiefs brought up with him.
The military service chiefs, Mattis said, brought up concerns about allowing transgender people into basic training and told him “we’re not ready.”
“I said, ‘What do you mean you’re not ready? Do you have any guidance on what the expectations are? Well, where was your input?’ Mattis said. “They said we didn’t have input.”
It should be noted that when Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced in 2016 the military would lift the medical regulations banning transgender service and begin its policy of allowing openly transgender people into the armed forces, none of the military service chiefs were present at the news conference.
Mattis said he called for the study on transgender service because he didn’t want to sacrifice the readiness of the armed forces. (Transgender advocates would say the addition of an estimated 14,700 transgender people in the military enhances readiness.)
“I am not going to lose any military efficiency or effectiveness,” Mattis said. “And that’s why I called for a study. And then I just need to leave it there because it’s in courts right now and I shouldn’t be addressing things when I’m no longer privy to the ongoing discussions or where the policy is at.”
Mattis said he was couching his remarks because litigation challenging the transgender military ban remains pending. Although the U.S. Supreme Court essentially issued a green light allowing the Trump administration to implement the ban, the process of litigation continues in lower courts.
The study Mattis conducted resulted in his recommendation to restrict the military service of transgender people in a policy that essentially amounts to a ban. Although transgender people who came out under the Carter policy can remain in the armed forces, transgender people now face significant barriers in enlisting in the armed forces and those who are diagnosed at a later time are now discharged.
Aaron Belkin, director of the San Francisco-based Palm Center, said in a statement Mattis “continues to bury his head in the sand when the health and unity of the nation are at stake,” placing any blame on lack of readiness on the feet of the military service chiefs.
“When it comes to transgender military service, Secretary Mattis asserted falsely that the Service Chiefs had no input into how new transgender recruits would be integrated into basic training,” Belkin said. “In fact, the Chiefs were put in charge of applying transgender policy to the basic training environment, and they were given an entire year to figure it out. They didn’t do anything and then complained about it when the deadline came.”
Mattis’ remarks are similar to comments he gave in Senate testimony defending the transgender military ban in a moment when he clashed with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). At the time, Gillibrand had recently gotten all service chiefs on the record saying transgender service has resulted in no incidents of unit disruption, but Mattis insisted reports of that nature wouldn’t have reached them.
Referencing the favorable testimony the military service chiefs gave Gillibrand on transgender service, Belkin concludes Mattis continues to miss the mark.
“As he has on other issues, Mattis seems to want to have his status as a Trump critic without renouncing any of the Trump policies he put into practice,” Belkin said.
Mattis resigned as defense secretary under the Trump administration following an announcement from Trump he’d remove all U.S. soldiers from Syria, which was criticized as a hasty decision and influenced by Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Trump has since reversed himself on that decision.
Congress
10 HIV/AIDS activists arrested on Capitol Hill
Protesters interrupted Secretary of State Marco Rubio during hearing
U.S. Capitol Police on Tuesday arrested 10 HIV/AIDS activists who protested Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
The activists from Housing Works, Health GAP, the Treatment Action Group, and ACT UP held signs and chanted “Rubio’s Cuts Kill People with AIDS, PEPFAR Saves Lives!” before officers removed them from Dirksen Senate Office Building room where the hearing took place.
A media advisory the Washington Blade received before the protest noted “mounting evidence of Rubio’s attempts to sabotage PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, U.S. bilateral AIDS program) and vital global health programs.” The press release specifically highlighted three specific points:
• Eliminating Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) lifesaving PEPFAR programs, which currently support approximately 12 million people on HIV treatment across 51 countries. Instead, Rubio intends to dismantle CDC’s current PEPFAR role and stamp out their global footprint in disease outbreak and surveillance for pandemics beyond HIV. Experts including eight former CDC Directors under Republican and Democratic administrations have spoken out against this effort to dismantle PEPFAR. Recent PEPFAR data showed sharp decreases in the numbers of people newly tested, diagnosed, and treated for HIV, but these data would have been even worse if not for CDC’s PEPFAR programs.
• Withholding $2 billion in Congressionally appropriated FY25 funding, including $330 million to combat HIV, $250 million to fight malaria, $320 million for maternal and child health programs, and nearly $650 million in global health security programs.
• Negotiating secret bilateral deals blackmailing African governments by demanding access to critical mineral wealth as a condition of access to HIV treatment and prevention funding.
The groups have staged several protests against the Trump-Vance administration’s HIV/AIDS policies since it took office.
Rubio on Jan. 28, 2025, issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during a freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, 2025, has severely impacted their work.
The State Department last September announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir in countries with high prevalence rates.
The New York Times last summer reported Vought “apportioned” only $2.9 billion of $6 billion that Congress set aside for PEPFAR for fiscal year 2025. (PEPFAR in the coming fiscal year will use funds allocated in fiscal year 2024.)
Bipartisan opposition in the U.S. Senate prompted the Trump-Vance administration last July withdraw a proposal to cut $400 million from PEPFAR’s budget. Vought a few weeks later said he would use a “pocket rescission” to cancel $4.9 billion for HIV/AIDS prevention and global health programs and other foreign aid assistance initiatives that Congress had already approved.
The White House in January expanded the global gag rule to ban U.S. foreign aid for groups that promote “gender ideology.” President Ronald Reagan in 1985 implemented the original regulation, also known as the “Mexico City” policy, which bans U.S. foreign aid for groups that support abortion and/or offer abortion-related services. Advocacy groups insist the expanded rule will adversely impact HIV prevention efforts around the world.
“Congress must stop Secretary Rubio before he dismantles PEPFAR,” said Treatment Action Group’s Kendall Martinez-Wright. “Rubio continues to defy the will of Congress and the American people who want this program restored and repaired. Under his leadership he is diverting funding and trying to eliminate the essential role of technical experts in global HIV and global health, while program performance is flailing.”
District of Columbia
JR.’s hosts meet & greet for mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George
Event organized by Capital Stonewall Democrats, Queers for Janeese
D.C. mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George spoke to a crowd of LGBTQ supporters on June 1 at a meet & greet event held at JR.’s on 17th Street in the Dupont Circle neighborhood.
The event, organized by Capital Stonewall Democrats, which has endorsed Lewis George for mayor, with support from a group called Queers for Janeese, was followed by a “get out the vote” canvassing endeavor in which several of those attending the meet & greet visited the homes of nearby residents known to be Lewis George supporters.
The purpose of the canvassing was to remind Lewis George supporters to return their mail-in ballots or go to the polls on June 16 to elect Lewis George as the city’s next mayor, according to Matthew Kavanagh, one of the leaders of Queers for Janeese who attended the meet & greet event at JR.’s.
Local political observers consider Lewis George, a Ward 4 D.C. Council member, and former At-Large D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie, to be the two leading candidates in this year’s race for mayor. The two are among seven mayoral candidates competing in the city’s June 16 Democratic primary.
Lewis George told those attending the meet & greet, which was held on the JR.’s outdoor patio, that she has a long record of advocating for and initiating city polices and laws in support of the LGBTQ community. She said large corporate donors were backing her opponents and urged her LGBTQ supporters to help raise funds for her in the remaining days of the campaign.
Among those attending the meet & greet was gay longtime Dupont Circle civic activist Randy Downs who last November opened a nearby eatery called Protest Pizza. “I am queer and I am a Janeese supporter,” Downs told the Blade.
Stevie McCarty, president of Capital Stonewall Democrats, who also spoke at the meet & greet event, said his group would organize events in support of Lewis George in the remaining days of the campaign. Among them, he said, was an LGBTQ bar crawl in which supporters of Lewis George, including the candidate herself, would visit LGBTQ bars to promote her candidacy.
Virginians for Marriage Equality on Monday launched a campaign in support of repealing Virginia’s constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman, former state Sen. Adam Ebbin, former state Del. Mark Sickles, and American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia Executive Director Mary Bauer are among those who spoke at the launch that took place in Richmond. State Del. Kirk McPike (D-Alexandria), who co-chairs the campaign, also participated.
“This amendment is about making clear that the government has no business deciding which marriages or which families are worthy of recognition,” said Bauer. “The ACLU of Virginia has been fighting for Virginians’ right to marry who they love since the landmark case, Loving v. Virginia, which struck down the ban on interracial marriage. Now we are proud to carry that legacy forward by standing with our coalition partners in the fight to pass this amendment and finally enshrine the right to marriage equality in the commonwealth’s constitution.”
Voters in 2006 approved the Marshall-Newman Amendment.
Same-sex couples have been able to legally marry in Virginia since 2014. Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is a Republican, in 2024 signed a bill that codified marriage equality in state law.
Two successive legislatures must approve a proposed constitutional amendment before it can go to the ballot.
Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger in February signed a bill that finalized the referendum’s language.
The referendum will take place on Nov. 3.
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