News
Damning N.Y. AG report on Cuomo ensnares HRC president
The damning report finding New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo violated the law by barring sexually harassing as many as 11 women on his staff has ensnared the president of the nation’s leading LGBTQ group, Alphonso David of the Human Rights Campaign.
The damning report finding New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo violated the law by sexually harassing as many as 11 women on his staff has ensnared the president of the nation’s leading LGBTQ advocacy group, Alphonso David of the Human Rights Campaign.
Although David insists the report does not indicate any wrongdoing on his behalf, the findings indicate after his tenure as counselor to Cuomo, that he kept the personnel file for an employee within the office accusing the governor of sexual misconduct, then assisted in efforts to leak that file to the media in an attempt to discredit her.
Further, the report finds David allegedly said he would help find individuals to sign their names to a draft op-ed that sought to discredit the survivor, but went unpublished, although he wouldn’t sign the document himself. Also, the report indicates David was involved in the discussions about another staffer secretly calling and recording a call between a former staffer and another survivor in a separate effort to smear her.
The explosive report from New York Attorney General Letitia James sent shockwaves when it came out Tuesday at a time when the country is still grappling with the treatment of women in the workplace after the “Me Too” movement, prompting fellow Democrats — including President Biden — to call on Cuomo to resign. Cuomo has denied the conclusions of the report and not given any indication he’ll step down from his position as governor.
Nearly a dozen references are made in the report to David, who prior to his tenure as president of the Human Rights Campaign served as counsel for Cuomo. In fact, the report came out on the two-year anniversary of David’s joining the Human Rights Campaign after his time in public service for the State of New York.
Following the issuing of the report on Tuesday, David joined the chorus of high-profile individuals calling on Cuomo to resign as governor. David tweeted, “After reading the AG’s devastating report that concluded Gov. Cuomo engaged in a pattern of sexual harassment, in violation of both federal and state law, he should resign.” The tweet, however, ignores his mentions in the findings or alleged participation in discrediting sexual harassment survivors.
Criticism of David emerged from both the right and left in the aftermath of the report at a time when morale among many in the LGBTQ movement is low amid states advancing and enacting anti-transgender legislation and inaction on the Equality Act in Congress.
The Human Rights Campaign itself has had significant turnover, including in the communications department. Last year, the organization laid off 22 employees, citing the coronavirus pandemic, at a time when the latest IRS 990 for the organization revealed former president Chad Griffin and David drew combined compensation of more than $825,000 in fiscal year 2019. (From January-August 2019, Griffin earned $570,446 plus $18,771 in other compensation; David earned $229,332 and $7,016 in other compensation for the balance of that year after taking over the job.)
David, responding to the report on Cuomo in an email to board members of the Human Rights Campaign and in a phone interview late Tuesday with the Washington Blade, is standing firm in denying any wrongdoing.
In the email to board members, David said the findings “are beyond comprehension to me and they break my heart as a former employee,” referencing the tweet he made calling for Cuomo to resign but also addressing the sections pertaining to himself. David confirmed the accuracy of the email to the Blade.
Maintaining he “had no knowledge of the allegations of harassment outlined in the report,” David said he informed the board of ignorance on the issue “earlier this year” and except for one person, he doesn’t know any survivors referenced in the report. Further, David said that one person “never disclosed” any allegations of sexual misconduct. David discloses his “substantive engagement” with this survivor “involved an investigation of her regarding allegations of racial discrimination by other employees.”
“A final conclusion was ultimately memorialized in a privileged and confidential memo drafted and retained by counsel’s office,” David writes. “After initially being unable to find the file, the Governor’s office requested a copy of the electronic memo from me which I provided (as I am required to do as a former counsel) but my copy was subsequently not relied on because the office found the full official file.”
Addressing the unpublished op-ed intended to discredit the survivor, David writes Cuomo’s office “had reached out to many former employees requesting that we sign a letter supporting the Governor and the office,” but he “declined to sign the letter and it was never released.”
Speaking with the Blade, David confirmed the survivor whom he knows is Lindsey Boylan, a former senior staffer for Cuomo, who was among the first to accuse him of sexual misconduct in the workplace last year.
Meanwhile, the board of the Human Rights Campaign has shown no sign of turning on David. In fact, HRC announced it renewed David’s contract on his two-year anniversary for five more years.
Morgan Cox, chair of the Human Rights Campaign board of directors, and Jodie Patterson, chair of the non-profit Human Rights Campaign Foundation board of directors in a joint statement to the Washington Blade affirmed both boards “have full confidence in Alphonso David as president of the organization.”
“In recognition of his extraordinary leadership during extremely challenging times, we were proud to extend his contract to stay on in his role for five more years,” Cox and Patterson said. “For the last two years he has been boldly leading the organization as it works to achieve its mission: full equality for all LGBTQ people, in the midst of a global pandemic, a nationwide reckoning on racial justice, and the most important presidential election of our lifetimes.”
Speaking with the Blade, David also said he has no intention of stepping down from his position as president of the Human Rights Campaign voluntarily.
“This is my life’s work,” David said. “I’ve been a civil rights lawyer for 20 years. This is what I’ve been doing, this is what I did in government. I wrote the marriage equality law. I drafted the Paid Family Leave Law, drafted the minimum wage law, drafted regulations to prohibit discrimination against trans people. This is my life’s work. So, I intend to continue the work that I’ve been doing because the work of marginalized communities, the work to actually represent marginalized communities is too important.”
David’s role in the report stems mostly from the situation with Boylan. According to the report, Cuomo commented on her attractiveness, including comparing her to a former girlfriend; physically touched her on various parts of her body, including her waist, legs, and back; made inappropriate comments, including saying to her once on a plane, words to the effect of, “let’s play strip poker”; and kissed her on the cheeks and, on one occasion, on the lips.
After Boylan went public, the report says Cuomo’s aides “actively engaged in an effort to discredit her” as a survivor. Among the efforts cited in the report are “disseminating to the press confidential internal documents that painted her in a negative light and circulating among a group of current and former Executive Chamber employees (although not ultimately publishing) a proposed op-ed or letter disparaging Ms. Boylan that the Governor personally participated in drafting.”
David is mentioned in the report both during his tenure as counsel to Cuomo and during his time as Human Rights Campaign president. As part of a workplace conflict in 2018 noted in the report as unrelated to the sexual harassment but otherwise not described, David in his capacity as counsel was charged with managing the situation, the report says. Boylan tendered her resignation from the governor’s office. David, in his capacity as counsel, asked to create a file on Boylan and added the incident to her personnel file, according to the report.
After Boylan tweeted Cuomo is “one of the biggest abusers of all time” a secretary of Cuomo’s, Melissa DeRosa, reached out to David, who was serving as Human Rights Campaign president, on Dec. 9 for a request to see the “full file” for Boylan. David said another staffer would have the information in her possession and be able to provide the file. Days later, David sent files relating to his investigation into Boylan shortly before her departure from the governor’s office, the report says.
David is quoted in the report as saying he kept a copy of Boylan’s files because it “may have been the only instance where [he] was actually involved in a counseling of an employee when [he] was in the Executive Chamber.”
It’s not immediately clear whether David keeping a confidential personnel file of an employee after leaving the workplace violates any laws. A New York State Bar Association spokesperson said the organization has “no ethics opinion on this issue.”
The report, in a subsequent section, continues to address the personnel file from which Cuomo’s office distributed unflattering information about Boylan, saying it came from “counsel’s office,” suggesting the information, at the end of the day, didn’t come from David.
A connection between David and Boylan comes up again in the report in a discussion about a potential op-ed from Cuomo’s office that was intended to discredit Boylan, but was never published. The report says David signaled he wouldn’t be among the signatories of the letter, but would help gather signatures. According to a footnote in the report, DeRosa told other former staff members whom she had asked to sign the letter David said he would sign the letter “if we need him.”
David, commenting on the unpublished op-ed when speaking with the Blade, said there were multiple iterations of the document in a draft form. Although one version was focused on more positive aspects of the workplace under Cuomo, David said another was more focused on Boylan and he wouldn’t sign it.
“I wasn’t willing to sign it because it included facts I couldn’t verify,” David said. “I was not aware of it. I wasn’t personally involved and had no personal knowledge, so I refused to sign the letter and I think everybody else did.”
David comes up in the report in the description of another survivor’s account of Cuomo’s alleged sexual misconduct, identified in the report by her first name Kaitlin.
After coming forward with sexual misconduct allegations, Kaitlin says she suspected she would be smeared for going forward, the report says. True to her predictions, Cuomo allegedly attempted to call her and surreptitiously record her, but nothing came of the effort, the report says.
David and other Cuomo staffers were involved in the internal discussion of plans to call Kaitlin and secretly record her in an effort to defame her, according to the report.
David, speaking with the Blade, said he doesn’t deny that aspect of the report, but his role in the conversation about Kaitlin was limited and pertained to his duties as counsel to Cuomo.
“In that instance, it was simply asking me, in my role as a former counsel what the law was, not the context,” David said.
Charles Moran, managing director of Log Cabin Republicans, was among those seizing on the report as evidence corporate donors should reconsider their support for the Human Rights Campaign.
“It should disturb every corporate donor to the HRC that its president Alphonso David colluded with Gov. Cuomo to smear one of the women Cuomo sexually harassed,” Moran said. “Alphonso David’s behavior is disqualifying and he should resign immediately, but the fault doesn’t just lie with him. The Human Rights Campaign markets itself as champions for LGBT Americans. In reality, it champions left-wing Democrats – apparently even those guilty of sexual harassment – and bullies anyone who gets in their way.”
Max Micallef, a queer rights activist who serves on the Advisory Council of EqualityNY and as the Public Policy Coordinator with GLSEN Lower Hudson Valley, issued a statement on Tuesday calling for both Cuomo and David to resign.
“We all deserve so much better,” Micallef said. “The LGBTQ+ community does not stand for this level of complicity and cowardice. Along with Gov. Cuomo himself, Director McMorrow and President David must step down from their positions immediately as they have clearly failed to represent the interests of LGBTQ+ New Yorkers, and advocate against their systemic violence.”
Politics
Log Cabin Republicans to honor Scott Presler
Event to take place at Capitol Hill Club on Friday
The Log Cabin Republicans, a group representing LGBTQ conservatives and their allies within the Republican Party, is set to honor gay conservative commentator and activist Scott Presler on Friday.
Presler will receive the organization’s 2026 “Game Changer Award” during its Spring Forward Cocktail Reception at the Capitol Hill Club, a private club steps from the U.S. Capitol that regularly hosts Republican political events.
Presler has risen to prominence through a combination of pro-LGBTQ conservative activism, political organizing, and a series of controversial affiliations.
He first gained national attention in 2017 for organizing the “March Against Sharia” rallies across the country. The demonstrations came amid heightened tensions in Portland, Ore., following a deadly attack on a metro train, in which Jeremy Joseph Christian killed two people and injured others after harassing Muslim women for wearing a hijab.
The rallies were organized in partnership with ACT for America, which advocates against what it describes as “the threat of radical Islam” in the U.S. and has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Presler volunteered with the organization for three months.
He has said he was first motivated to “fight Muslim extremism” following the Pulse nightclub massacre, he told NPR, in which a gunman who pledged allegiance to ISIS killed 49 people at an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, Fla. The site now serves as a memorial to the victims of the attack.
Born May 15, 1988, in Jacksonville, Fla., Presler is the son of a U.S. Navy captain and was raised in both Florida and Fairfax County. He later attended George Mason University, where he earned a degree in criminal justice.
In addition to his anti-Islam activism, Presler has been involved in a number of other high-profile and controversial efforts. He co-founded “Gays for Trump” and attended their 2017 DeploraBall in Maryland for the first inauguration of Trump. According to a 2021 report from Media Matters for America, he also promoted the QAnon conspiracy movement through social media posts in 2018 and 2019.
He has also faced criticism tied to his early political work. According to a 2023 report from Politico Playbook, Presler’s work with the Republican Party of Virginia in 2016 ended after he allegedly engaged in sexual activity in a shared office space and posted explicit images online.
Beyond ideological activism, Presler has also organized community-focused initiatives. In 2019, he led a widely publicized cleanup effort in Baltimore that drew more than 100 volunteers and resulted in approximately 29 tons of trash being removed. The event was a result of criticism from President Donald Trump, calling the area, represented by then-U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) a “rodent infested mess.”
Presler has also been active in election-related organizing, leading a two-day “Stop the Steal” demonstration at the Pennsylvania State Capitol following the 2020 presidential election. He has appeared on the “War Room” podcast hosted by former Trump strategist and well-known right-wing populist conspiracy theorist Steve Bannon.
He has also expressed a controversial stance within the LGBTQ community for supporting then-candidate Trump for President over Hillary Clinton. He told prioritizing Second Amendment rights over certain LGBTQ policy goals, saying he is more supportive of gun rights than efforts to codify same-sex marriage, and adding, “I 100 percent believe in the notion that armed gays don’t get bashed. It is our right to feel safe.”
Presler voiced his support for the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, more commonly referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022.
Cuba
Cuba bajo presión y sin respuestas
Cubanos no hablan en términos geopolíticos. Hablan de sobrevivir
Las tensiones entre Estados Unidos y Cuba han vuelto a subir de tono. No es algo nuevo, pero este momento se siente distinto. Las medidas más recientes desde Washington buscan cerrar aún más los espacios financieros del gobierno cubano, limitar sus fuentes de ingreso y presionar sectores clave de la economía. No es simbólico. Es una política directa.
Desde Estados Unidos, el mensaje es claro. Se busca provocar cambios que no han ocurrido en más de seis décadas. También hay un componente interno, una presión política que responde a sectores del exilio que llevan años exigiendo una postura más dura. Todo eso forma parte del escenario.
Pero esa es solo una parte.
Del lado cubano, la respuesta sigue un patrón conocido. El gobierno habla de agresión externa, de guerra económica, de un embargo que se endurece. Cada medida se convierte en argumento para reforzar su narrativa y cerrar filas. No hay espacio para reconocer errores propios. Todo apunta hacia afuera.
Mientras tanto, la vida en la isla va por otro camino.
La crisis energética que hoy vive Cuba no empezó con estas medidas. Lleva años acumulándose. El sistema eléctrico está deteriorado, sin mantenimiento suficiente, con fallas constantes. Los apagones no son nuevos. Lo que ha cambiado es la frecuencia y la duración.
Durante años entró petróleo a Cuba, especialmente desde Venezuela. Hubo acuerdos. Hubo suministro. Y aun así, la vida del cubano no mejoró. La electricidad seguía fallando, el combustible seguía racionado, el transporte seguía siendo un problema diario.
Entonces la pregunta sigue siendo la misma.
Si el petróleo estaba entrando, ¿por qué nada cambiaba?
¿Dónde fue a parar ese recurso?
¿Dónde está el dinero que generó?
Hoy se habla de restricciones al petróleo como si fueran la causa principal de la crisis. No lo son. Empeoran una situación ya frágil, pero no la explican completamente.
Hay una historia más larga que no se puede ignorar.
Lo mismo ocurre con las brigadas médicas.
Durante años se presentaron como un gesto de solidaridad internacional. Y en muchos casos lo fueron. Médicos cubanos trabajaron en condiciones difíciles, salvaron vidas, sostuvieron sistemas de salud en otros países. Eso es real.
Pero también funcionaron como una de las principales fuentes de ingreso del Estado cubano.
Muchos de esos profesionales no recibían el salario completo por su trabajo. Una parte significativa quedaba en manos del gobierno. En algunos casos, ni siquiera tenían control sobre el dinero que generaban.
Y hay algo más duro.
Si uno de esos médicos decidía no regresar a Cuba, ese dinero no llegaba a su familia. Se quedaba retenido.
Hoy varios países están revisando o cancelando esos acuerdos. Y otra vez, la respuesta oficial es señalar hacia afuera. Pero la pregunta sigue siendo inevitable.
¿Se está perdiendo un modelo de cooperación o un sistema que dependía del control sobre sus propios profesionales?
Dentro de Cuba, la conversación suena diferente.
La gente no habla en términos geopolíticos. Habla de sobrevivir. De cómo llegar al final del día. De los apagones, de la comida que no alcanza, del transporte que no aparece, de una vida que cada vez se hace más difícil.
Hay quienes miran las medidas de Estados Unidos con cierta expectativa. No porque quieran más escasez, sino porque sienten que el sistema no cambia por sí solo. Hay una sensación de estancamiento que pesa.
Pero esa expectativa convive con una realidad concreta.
Las sanciones no golpean primero a quienes toman decisiones. Golpean al ciudadano común. Al que hace la fila. Al que pierde la comida por falta de electricidad. Al que no tiene cómo moverse.
Esa es la contradicción.
El gobierno cubano pide solidaridad internacional. Y la recibe. Países que envían ayuda, organizaciones que se movilizan, voces que defienden a la isla.
Pero hay otra pregunta que también está ahí.
¿Esa ayuda llega realmente al pueblo?
La falta de transparencia en la distribución de recursos es parte del problema. Porque no se trata solo de lo que entra, sino de lo que realmente llega a quienes lo necesitan.
Reducir lo que pasa en Cuba a un conflicto entre dos gobiernos es no querer ver el cuadro completo.
Aquí hay responsabilidades compartidas, pero no iguales.
Estados Unidos ejerce presión con efectos reales sobre la economía cubana. Eso no se puede negar. Pero dentro de la isla hay un sistema que ha tenido décadas para corregir, para abrir, para responder a su gente, y no lo ha hecho.
Esa parte no se puede seguir esquivando.
Yo escribo esto como cubano. Desde lo que vi, desde lo que viví y desde la gente que sigue allá tratando de resolver el día.
Porque al final, más allá de lo que se diga entre gobiernos, la realidad es otra.
Cuba hoy está más apretada, sí. Pero también lleva años arrastrando problemas que nadie ha querido enfrentar de verdad.
Y mientras eso siga así, da igual lo que venga de afuera. El problema sigue estando adentro.
Tennessee
Tenn. lawmakers pass transgender “watch list” bill
State Senate to consider measure on Wednesday
The Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill last week to create a transgender “watch list” that also pushes detransition medical treatment. The state Senate will consider it on Wednesday.
House Bill 754/State Bill 676 has been deemed “ugly” by LGBTQ advocates and criticized by healthcare information litigators as a major privacy concern.
The bill would require “gender clinics accepting funds from this state to perform gender transition procedures to also perform detransition procedures; requires insurance entities providing coverage of gender transition procedures to also cover detransition procedures; requires certain gender clinics and insurance entities to report information regarding detransition procedures to the department of health.”
It would require that any gender-affirming care-providing clinics share the date, age, and sex of patients; any drugs prescribed (dosage, frequency, duration, and method administered); the state and county; the name, contact information, and medical specialty of the healthcare professional who prescribed the treatment; and any past medical history related to “neurological, behavioral, or mental health conditions.” It would also mandate additional information if surgical intervention is prescribed, including details on which healthcare professional made a referral and when.
HB 0754 would also require the state to produce a “comprehensive annual statistical report,” with all collected data shared with the heads of the legislature and the legislative librarian, and eventually published online for public access.
The bill also reframes detransitioning as a major focus of gender-affirming healthcare — despite studies showing that the number of trans people who detransition is statistically quite low, around 13 percent, and is often the result of external pressures (such as discrimination or family) rather than an issue with their gender identity.
This legislation stands in sharp contrast to federal protections restricting what healthcare information can be shared. In 1996, Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, requiring protections for all “individually identifiable health information,” including medical records, conversations, billing information, and other patient data.
Margaret Riley, professor of law, public health sciences, and public policy at the University of Virginia, has written about similar efforts at the federal level, noting the Trump-Vance administration’s push to subpoena multiple hospitals’ records of gender-affirming care for trans patients despite no claims — or proof — that a crime was committed.
It has “sown fear and concern, both among people whose information is sought and among the doctors and other providers who offer such care. Some health providers have reportedly decided to no longer provide gender-affirming care to minors as a result of the inquiries, even in states where that care is legal.” She wrote in an article on the Conversation, where she goes further, pointing out that the push, mostly from conservative members of the government, are pushing extracting this private information “while giving no inkling of any alleged crimes that may have been committed.”
State Rep. Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby), the bill’s sponsor, said in a press conference two weeks ago that he has met dozens of individuals who sought to transition genders and ultimately detransitioned. In committee, an individual testified in support of the bill, claiming that while insurance paid for gender-affirming care, detransition care was not covered.
“I believe that we as a society are going to look back on this time that really burst out in 2014 and think, ‘Dear God, What were we thinking? This was as dumb as frontal lobotomies,’” Faison said of gender-affirming care. “I think we’re going to look back on society one day and think that.”
Jennifer Levi, GLAD Law’s senior director of Transgender and Queer Rights, shared with PBS last year that legislation like this changes the entire concept of HIPAA rights for trans Americans in ways that are invasive and unnecessary.
“It turns doctor-patient confidentiality into government surveillance,” Levi said, later emphasizing this will cause fewer people to seek out the care that they need. “It’s chilling.”
The Washington Blade reached out to the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, which shared this statement from Executive Director Miriam Nemeth:
“HB 754/SB 676 continues the ugly legacy of Tennessee legislators’ attacks on the lives of transgender Tennesseans. Most Tennesseans, regardless of political views, oppose government databases tracking medical decisions made between patients and their doctors. The same should be true here. The state does not threaten to end the livelihood of doctors and fine them $150,000 for safeguarding the sensitive information of people with diabetes, depression, cancer, or other conditions. Trans people and intersex people deserve the same safety, privacy, and equal treatment under the law as everyone else.”
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