Politics
EXCLUSIVE: 64 members of Congress urge US to evacuate LGBTQ Afghans
Chris Pappas spearheaded letter to Antony Blinken

More than 60 members of Congress on Tuesday urged the U.S. to evacuate LGBTQ Afghans from their country after the Taliban regained control of it.
The letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken that U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) spearheaded notes LGBTQ+ Afghans face an “existential threat” under Taliban rule. Pappas and the 63 other members of Congress who signed the letter asked the State Department to allow LGBTQ+ Afghans to access the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.
The letter notes the State Department on Aug. 2 announced a “Priority 2 (P-2 designation” that grants “eligible Afghan nationals and their family members access to the USRAP for Afghans looking to flee Taliban rule but who arenāt eligible for a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV).”
“The P-2 designation is made at the discretion of the Department of State and is typically used for ‘groups of special concern’ the department determines ‘as having access to the program by virtue of their circumstances’,” it reads.
“We have a moral obligation to uphold our values and utilize every tool at our disposal to protect the LGBTQ+ Afghan community,” adds the letter. “In the spirit of upholding our values and leading by example, we urge you to expand the Department of Stateās P-2 designation granting USRAP access for Afghan nationals to explicitly include LGBTQ+ Afghans.”
“We further implore you to work with the Department of Defense to ensure that charter flights receive uninterrupted access to the (Kabul) airport, as charter flights will likely provide the best opportunity for priority refugees to escape,” stressed the members of Congress.
The Taliban on Aug. 15 entered Kabul, the Afghan capital, and toppled the country’s government. The U.S. has subsequently evacuated more than 80,000 people from Kabul’s airport.
President Biden on Tuesday reiterated the Aug. 31 deadline for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan to end. The previous White House in 2020 brokered a peace deal with the Taliban that set the stage for the withdrawal.
A Taliban judge last month said the group would execute gay people if it were to once again return to power in Afghanistan. Canada thus far is the only country that has specifically said it would offer refuge to LGBTQ Afghans.
“With the Talibanās takeover of the country, LGBTQ+ Afghans face the prospect of violent death. Sharia law, cemented in Afghanistanās constitution, prohibits all forms of same-sex activity, and makes same-sex activity punishable by death,” reads the letter to Blinken. “Just as it was for ISIS in Iraq, Sharia law is the Talibanās guiding compass as it establishes its rule over Afghanistanās government and society. During its campaign in Iraq and Syria, ISIS frequently executed LGBTQ+ individuals by stoning them to death, castrating and hanging them in public squares, and throwing them off buildings.”
“Under Taliban rule, LGBTQ+ Afghans will suffer a similar fate,” it adds.
The letter notes President Biden in February signed a memorandum that committed the U.S. to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.
The lawmakers acknowledge “the situation in Afghanistan is fluid,” but stress Blinken has “the power to protect the lives of countless LGBTQ+ Afghans from the horrors they face living under a regime that threatens their very existence.”
The Human Rights Campaign, the Council for Global Equality, the National Center for Transgender Equality, the Trevor Project, Lambda Legal, PFLAG, Athlete Ally and the National Equality Action Team support the lawmakers’ call for the U.S. to offer refuge to LGBTQ Afghans.
āThe Human Rights Campaign recognizes that those LGBTQ+ individuals fleeing Taliban rule deserve unique attention as they are particularly vulnerable and fear imminent violence and death following the rapid takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, and this particular vulnerability requires expedited redress by the Department of State,” said HRC Senior Vice President for Policy and Political Affairs JoDee Winterhof in a press release that Pappas’ office sent exclusively to the Washington Blade.
Council for Global Equality Chair Mark Bromley stressed “time is running out and the lives of LGBTQI Afghans are at extreme risk.”
āAs a country, we can do more to evacuate the LGBTQI community and to provide LGBTQI-affirming support for their successful resettlement here in the United States,” he said in the press release.
Congress
Five HIV/AIDS activists arrested during USAID hearing
Protesters demanded full restoration of PEPFAR funding

Capitol Police on Thursday arrested five HIV/AIDS activists who disrupted a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that focused on the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The activists ā including Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell, Housing Works CEO Charles King, and ACT UP NY co-founder Eric Sawyer ā started chanting “PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) saves lives. Restore AIDS funding now” shortly after Max Primorac, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, began to testify. They also held posters that read “Trump kills people with AIDS worldwide.”
The Trump-Vance administration last month froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for at least 90 days. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later issued a waiver that allows PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze.
The Washington Blade last week reportedĀ PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of a lack of U.S. funding. The Trump-Vance administration’s efforts to dismantle USAID, along with the suspension of nearly all U.S. foreign aid, has been “a catastrophe” for the global LGBTQ rights movement.
“I guess these guys don’t watch the news. They didn’t realize that PEPFAR was one of the many programs that did prove to be lifesaving, so the funding was restored,” said U.S. Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, after Capitol Police removed the activists from the room. “Somebody better give ’em a link to … I don’t know, maybe Fox News or something like that.”
Protesters interrupt a House hearing on USAID spending, demanding that funding be restored to PEPFAR, but "the funding was restored" says Rep. Brian Mast. pic.twitter.com/9bQduNEwnQ
— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 13, 2025
Russell and King are two of the dozens of HIV/AIDS activists who protested outside the State Department on Feb. 6 and demanded U.S. officials fully restore PEPFAR funding.
Politics
Trump picks Richard Grenell as interim Kennedy Center executive director
President proclaimed “no more drag shows” at D.C. institution

President Donald Trump on Monday picked Richard Grenell to serve as interim executive director of the Kennedy Center, just days after appointing himself chair the national cultural center and removing several members of the institution’s board of trustees.
Grenell is an openly gay diplomat and fierce ally to the president who served in high profile roles, including as acting director of national intelligence, during his first administration.
“Ric shares my vision for a GOLDEN AGE of American arts and culture, and will be overseeing the daily operations of the Center,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ā ONLY THE BEST. RIC, WELCOME TO SHOW BUSINESS!”
In a previous post announcing his takeover of the center and purging of Democratic board members including appointees of former President Joe Biden , Trump wrote “Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured drag shows specifically targeting our youth ā THIS WILL STOP.”
Board members oversee the administration of federally appropriated funds for the āoperation, maintenance, and capital repair of the presidential memorial as well as its trust-funded artistic programming,ā per the 2025 fiscal year budget justification to Congress. Together with previous honorees, they are responsible for selecting new Kennedy Center Honors recipients each year.
The federal government provided about $45 million in funding to the center last year, roughly a fifth of its $268 million operating budget in 2024.
On Wednesday, Grenell said on X that he was briefed by the center’s CFO and learned there is “ZERO cash on hand. And ZERO in reserves. And the deferred maintenance is a crisis.”
I was briefed today by the CFO of the Kennedy Center on its financial situation.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) February 13, 2025
She told me there is ZERO cash on hand. And ZERO in reserves. And the deferred maintenance is a crisis.
For the past months theyāve been digging into the DEBT RESERVES.
We must fix this greatā¦
Congress
House Dems urge OPM not to implement anti-trans executive order
Authors were Dem. U.S. Reps. Mark Takano (Calif.), Jamie Raskin (Md.), and Gerald Connolly (Va.)

Three House Democrats including Congressional Equality Caucus Chair Mark Takano (Calif.) issued a letter on Wednesday urging the Office of Personnel Management to not implement President Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order, “Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.”
Also signing the letter were U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Rep. Gerald Connolly (Va.), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.
The lawmakers wrote the order “unlawfully attacks the civil rights of transgender Americans” while the White House’s corresponding memo and guidance “implements unlawful discrimination by the federal government against transgender people in the civil service and the provision of federal services.”
Specifically, they call unconstitutional the directive for agencies to “end all programs, contracts, grants, positions, documents, directives, orders, regulations, materials, forms,
communications, statements, plans, and training that ‘inculcate’ or ‘promote’ ‘gender
ideology’āwhich the Executive Order defines broadly to encompass acknowledging the simple
existence of transgender people and gender identity.”
āWe are deeply alarmed by these and other actions the Trump Administration has taken in its first few weeks to eliminate all government support for the transgender community, including efforts designed to enforcing the rights and support the health of transgender individuals,” the congressmen wrote.
They added, “We are also appalled by the Administrationās attempts to weaponize federal agencies to target the transgender community for discrimination and exclusion. These actions contradict federal law, Supreme Court precedent, and most importantly the Constitutionās guarantee of equal protection under the law.ā
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