National
From surviving ‘Don’t Ask’ to Space Force: An epic journey for Gen. Lauderback
Lesbian flag officer manages intel for newly minted service
You might not know it, but there’s a role for the U.S. Space Force in Afghanistan.
It could well be one of the many topics Maj. Gen. Leah Lauderback, director of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance for Space Force, is briefed on each morning when she comes into her office at the Pentagon.
Lauderback, speaking last week with the Washington Blade, said that speaks to the role of the newly minted service as primarily a “space-enabling capability.”
“You can’t do anything with your iPhone as an example, with your computer, with the GPS in your car without those space-enabling capabilities,” Lauderback said. “And so that truly is our role in Afghanistan, to support the United States contingent that is there today, and that’s through our GPS capabilities or communications capabilities.”
Lauderback assumed the role as head of the office overseeing intelligence for Space Force last year shortly after the previous administration created it. With a record of intelligence-gathering roles in her three decades of serving in the Air Force, the sister service to Space Force, Lauderback is a natural fit for the crucial position in the new service.
Still technically serving in the Air Force, Lauderback said she intends to leave the role next summer for a Guardian (the term bestowed to service members in the Space Force), and was chosen for the current role because she was a senior intelligence officer at the U.S. Space Command. Lauderback, nonetheless, said she was eager to take on those duties for a new service because she found the work “fascinating.”
“There is a lot of activity that is happening on orbit, and it’s not all good activity, right?” she said. “There are threats that present themselves almost on a daily basis. And so we were very busy, one, standing up to command at that time but then doing operational missions on a daily basis to compete with other near-peer competitors out there as well as to mitigate areas where we were in trouble from a threat perspective.”
One example Lauderback identified as a recent achievement came last year when a Russian satellite got very close to a U.S. satellite, and Gen. John Raymond, now commanding officer of U.S. Space Force, was able to push out into the media that the United States was concerned it was a Russian weapons system. The incident, Lauderback said, demonstrated U.S. capability to “call out the bad behavior and unprofessional behavior we thought of Russia.”
For an openly gay woman like Lauderback, the role as head of intelligence for a U.S. service holds special significance. Such a position would have been out of reach for an openly gay person in years past, when more LGBTQ people were closeted and the pervasive view was employing them in intelligence roles would be a national security threat if they were blackmailed.
Lauderback, who served when the military asked applicants whether or not they were homosexual and barred those who responded “yes,” recognizes the importance of an openly gay woman now heading up an entire office of intelligence for a U.S. military service.
“It’s really very significant that the fact that I can be out means that nobody can hold this over my head and I can serve openly and be the best intelligence officer that I could possibly be,” she said.
But it took a while to get there. Lauderback graduated from college in 1993, when “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” became the law of the land, and has had assignments in the military since that time as she continued to pursue advanced degrees. Under that law, Lauderback had to keep quiet about being a lesbian or risk being discharged.
“Certainly, when I first came out — and I was really enjoying my job, and I wanted to make the Air Force a career — but every day it was a concern, and absolutely made me untruthful at times, which is so embarrassing to say and humiliating at this point,” Lauderback said. “I had to lie at times. I was still hidden as a gay member in the service, but I trudged through that.”
Lauderback said during the years under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” she became “less and less paranoid” and was able to find a friend at every base where she was stationed that she could trust with the truth about her sexual orientation. Those friends, she said, supported her on base and when she went on deployment.
Things changed in September 2011. After former President Obama signed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal, the U.S. military certified it was ready to allow openly gay people in its ranks. The long ban was over and Lauderback was no longer forced to keep being gay a secret.
“I, like many others I’m sure, wept a little bit,” she said. “We had the conversations with friends about how different this was going to be, and it was very different. Immediately I felt the weight off my shoulders, immediately I knew that I had recourse if I felt that I was going to be discriminated against at any point in time, I felt that I knew I could go and make a complaint about things.”
Since that time, Lauderback married her spouse, Brenda Hall. The two have been happily married for years, Lauderback said.
But nearly 10 years since “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was lifted, and shortly after transgender service members were allowed to begin service after President Biden reversed the previous administration’s ban, Lauderback said issues for LGBTQ service members remain and many gay service members are still afraid to come out.
For that reason, Lauderback in March helped set up the LGBTQ Initiatives Team for the Air Force and Space Force, one of the barrier-analysis working groups ordered by senior leadership. Five months later, Lauderback said the task force continues to have conversations with leadership about policies, such as wording and terminology, that make people feel unwelcome in service.
“This barrier-analysis working group is really kind of grassroots,” Lauderback said. “While there are a few of us that are of higher rank on the team, it is mostly made up of folks that are much younger, have very different experiences than we do. And so, they are uncovering what are those barriers, those unconscious biases that folks have … and identifying those areas that we can start knocking out.”
One example of a change Lauderback said the team would “love to see” is the use of pronouns in some of the signature blocks in communications from service members.
“It is well known and well practiced outside of the military in the public sphere, but within the government, I don’t think anybody’s actually brought it up to the senior leadership,” Lauderback said. “If you could use a pronoun, and especially if it’s for transgender members, it could be for women, it could be for somebody who doesn’t have a Westernized name, it was really nice to be able to say, you know, in my signature block ‘she, her, hers.’”
Lauderback said her team is working through that change and thinks “we’ll be successful at some point.”
Meanwhile, Lauderback continues to wear her main hat as head of intelligence for Space Force, for which she manages the delivery of intelligence to the secretary of the Air Force and the chief of space operations and ensures analysts are adhering to the framework for rules in gathering intelligence.
“There’s just a lot of two steps forward, one step back type of potential, where you need to have facility space or you need to have — if it’s IT equipment and things like that,” she said. “And you have to hire people. So, we’re still making all of that happen in our directorate and across the entire enterprise, but I think we’re in a really good position, and certainly for the Space Force as it continues to mature, continues to grow.”
Space is made up of, well, mostly empty space, as any scientist will tell you. However, that adage is becoming incrementally less true as entrepreneurs, such as Elon Musk, continue to launch private satellites into orbit in numbers that could surpass the nearly 2,000 belonging to the United States. Starlink, the SpaceX program that manages its satellites, has 300 satellites in orbit — and has signaled plans for an eventual goal to deploy a total of 30,000 or more.
Lauderback, asked if that was a threat or should be welcomed, downplayed any concern of private companies surpassing U.S. government presence in space, saying the entrepreneurial endeavors would lower overall costs for launching satellites.
“It’s very much something to be welcomed, and we see it as a positive,” Lauderback said. “And I know Gen. Raymond as the CSO has remarked on this a number of times. What happens when you have commercial entities like this one, they’re able to operate sometimes at a much faster pace than we can in the government, so we want to be able to take advantage of that and then secondly, they truly drive the price point down for us.”
Launching astronauts into space remains an exciting event, including the prospect of sending the next human spaceflight to the Moon, and the first-ever landing on Mars. Lauderback, however, said she couldn’t comment directly because those projects are part of NASA’s domain.
“I would say, from my perspective as an intelligence officer,” Lauderback said, “when there is more exploration in space, as there has been on every other domain — the air domain or land domain or the maritime domain — the Department of Defense needs to be prepared to protect and defend our capabilities … so as an intelligence officer that’s really part of my job is to watch what it is that other countries might be doing or what their desires and their intentions are.”
While transporting human beings to other worlds continues to be an aspiration, questions have arisen recently about whether other worlds are sending living beings to Earth amid new interest in government reports on UFOs. U.S. intelligence over the summer revealed 140 sightings by American military pilots between 2004 and 2021 — and the Pentagon has no idea what they’re seeing.
Lauderback, asked what she makes of the findings given her position as head of space intelligence, declined to comment directly on what she makes of the phenomena, citing an ongoing study in other military services, although she quibbled with the use of the term “UFOs” to describe them.
“I would say it’s not UFOs, but it’s unidentified aerial phenomena,” Lauderback said. “So I key in on the term aerial in that case. I’ll leave it to the folks that are operating in the air domain and we’re working in the space domain, so I think that’s about all that I would be able to tell you.”
Luke Schleusener, president of Out of National Security, an affinity group for LGBTQ staffers in national security, said the absence of any backlash to an out lesbian in Lauderback’s position “tells us how far much of the country has come in the decade since the repeal of DADT.”
“She’ll bring her whole self to work,” Schleusener said. “At a time of ‘resurgent great power competition,’ having diverse teams and diverse leaders will make the Space Force more effective. It’s also a matter of our government and our military best serving the nation when our public servants and service members reflect those they’re sworn to serve, at all levels.”
Florida
AIDS Healthcare Foundation sues Fla. over ‘illegal’ HIV drug program cuts
Tens of thousands could lose access to medications
Following the slashing of hundreds of thousands of dollars from Florida’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program, AIDS Healthcare Foundation filed a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Health over what it says was an illegal change to income eligibility thresholds for the lifesaving program.
The Florida Department of Health announced two weeks ago that it would make sweeping cuts to ADAP, dramatically changing how many Floridians qualify for the state-funded medical coverage — without using the formal process required to change eligibility rules. As a result, AHF filed a petition Tuesday in Tallahassee with the state’s Division of Administrative Hearings, seeking to prevent more than 16,000 Floridians from losing coverage.
The medications covered by ADAP work by suppressing HIV-positive people’s viral load — making the virus undetectable in blood tests and unable to be transmitted to others.
Prior to the eligibility change, the Florida Department of Health covered Floridians earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level — or $62,600 annually for an individual. Under the new policy, eligibility would be limited to those making no more than 130 percent of the federal poverty level, or $20,345 per year.
The National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors estimates that more than 16,000 patients in Florida will lose coverage under the state’s ADAP because of this illegal change in department policy. Florida’s eligibility changes would also eliminate access to biktarvy, a widely used once-daily medication for people living with HIV/AIDS.
Under Florida law, when a state agency seeks to make a major policy change, it must either follow a formal rule-making process under the Florida Administrative Procedure Act or obtain direct legislative authorization.
AHF alleges the Florida Department of Health did neither.
Typically, altering eligibility for a statewide program requires either legislative action or adherence to a multistep rule-making process, including: publishing a Notice of Proposed Rule; providing a statement of estimated regulatory costs; allowing public comment; holding hearings if requested; responding to challenges; and formally adopting the rule. According to AHF, none of these steps occurred.
“Rule-making is not a matter of agency discretion. Each statement that an agency like the Department of Health issues that meets the statutory definition of a rule must be adopted through legally mandated rule-making procedures. Florida has simply not done so here,” said Tom Myers, AHF’s chief of public affairs and general counsel. “The whole point of having to follow procedures and rules is to make sure any decisions made are deliberate, thought through, and minimize harm. Floridians living with HIV and the general public’s health are at stake here and jeopardized by these arbitrary and unlawful DOH rule changes.”
AHF has multiple Ryan White CARE Act contracts in Florida, including four under Part B, which covers ADAP. More than 50 percent of people diagnosed with HIV receive assistance from Ryan White programs annually.
According to an AHF advocacy leader who spoke with the Washington Blade, the move appears to have originated at the state level rather than being driven by the federal government — a claim that has circulated among some Democratic officials.
“As far as we can tell, Congress flat-funded the Ryan White and ADAP programs, and the proposed federal cuts were ignored,” the advocacy leader told the Blade on the condition of anonymity. “None of this appears to be coming from Washington — this was initiated in Florida. What we’re trying to understand is why the state is claiming a $120 million shortfall when the program already receives significant federal funding. That lack of transparency is deeply concerning.”
Florida had the third-highest rate of new HIV infections in the nation in 2022, accounting for 11 percent of new diagnoses nationwide, according to KFF, a nonprofit health policy research organization.
During a press conference on Wednesday, multiple AHF officials commented on the situation, and emphasized the need to use proper methods to change something as important as HIV/AIDS coverage availability in the sunshine state.
“We are receiving dozens, hundreds of calls from patients who are terrified, who are confused, who are full of anxiety and fear,” said Esteban Wood, director of advocacy, legislative affairs, and community engagement at AHF. “These are working Floridians — 16,000 people — receiving letters saying they have weeks left of medication that keeps them alive and costs upwards of $45,000 a year. Patients are asking us, ‘What are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to survive?’ And right now, we don’t have a good answer.”
“This decision was not done in the correct manner. County health programs, community-based organizations, providers across the state — none of them were consulted,” Wood added. “Today is Jan. 28, and we have just 32 days until these proposed changes take effect. Nearly half of the 36,000 people currently on ADAP could be disenrolled in just over a month.”
“Without this medication, people with HIV get sicker,” Myers said during the conference. “They end up in emergency rooms, they lose time at work, and they’re unable to take care of their families. Treatment adherence is also the best way to prevent new HIV infections — people who are consistently on these medications are non-infectious. If these cuts go through, you will have sicker people, more HIV infections, and ultimately much higher costs for the state.”
“Patients receiving care through Ryan White and ADAP have a 91 percent viral suppression rate, compared to about 60 percent nationally,” the advocacy leader added. “That’s as close to a functional cure as we can get, and it allows people to live healthy lives, work, and contribute to their communities. Blowing a hole in a program this successful puts lives at risk and sets a dangerous precedent. If Florida gets away with this, other states facing budget pressure could follow.”
The lawsuit comes days after the Save HIV Funding campaign pressed Congress to build bipartisan support for critical funding for people living with or vulnerable to HIV. In May of last year, President Donald Trump appeared to walk back his 2019 pledge to end HIV as an epidemic, instead proposing the elimination of HIV prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and housing services in his budget request to Congress.
House appropriators, led by the Republican majority, went further, calling for an additional $2 billion in cuts — including $525 million for medical care and support services for people living with HIV.
While Senate appropriators ultimately chose to maintain level funding in their version of the spending bills, advocates feared final negotiations could result in steep cuts that would reduce services, increase new HIV infections, and lead to more AIDS-related deaths. The final spending package reflected a best-case outcome, with funding levels largely mirroring the Senate’s proposed FY26 allocations.
“What the state has done in unilaterally announcing these changes is not following its own rules,” Myers added. “There is a required process — rule-making, notice and comment, taking evidence — and none of that happened here. Before you cut 16,000 people off from lifesaving medication, you have to study the harms, ask whether you even have the authority to do it, and explore other solutions. That’s what this lawsuit is about.”
National
Federal authorities arrest Don Lemon
Former CNN anchor taken into custody two weeks after Minn. church protest
Federal authorities on Thursday arrested former CNN anchor Don Lemon in Los Angeles.
CNN reported authorities arrested Lemon after 11 p.m. PT while in the lobby of a hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., while he “was leaving for an event.” Lemon’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, in a statement said his client was in Los Angeles to cover the Grammy Awards.
Authorities arrested Lemon less than two weeks after he entered Cities Church in St. Paul, Minn., with a group of protesters who confronted a pastor who works for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (An ICE agent on Jan. 7 shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis woman who left behind her wife and three children. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents on Jan. 24 shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs, in Minneapolis.)
Lemon insists he was simply covering the Cities Church protest that interrupted the service. A federal magistrate last week declined to charge the openly gay journalist in connection with the demonstration.
“Don Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents last night in Los Angeles, where he was covering the Grammy awards,” said Lowell in his statement. “Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done. The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable.”
“Instead of investigating the federal agents who killed two peaceful Minnesota protesters, the Trump Justice Department is devoting its time, attention and resources to this arrest, and that is the real indictment of wrongdoing in this case,” Lowell added. “This unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration will not stand. Don will fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi on X confirmed federal agents “at my direction” arrested Lemon and three others — Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort, and Jamael Lydell Lundy — “in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.”
Fort is also a journalist.
At my direction, early this morning federal agents arrested Don Lemon, Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort, and Jamael Lydell Lundy, in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.
More details soon.
— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) January 30, 2026
Lemon, who CNN fired in 2023, is expected to appear in court in Los Angeles on Friday.
“Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of a free society; it is the tool by which Americans access the truth and hold power to account. But Donald Trump and Pam Bondi are at war with that freedom — and are threatening the fundamentals of our democracy,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson on Friday in a statement. “Don Lemon and Georgia Fort were doing their jobs as reporters. Arresting them is not law enforcement it is an attack on the Constitution at a moment when truthful reporting on government power has never been more important. These are the actions of a despot, the tactics of a dictator in an authoritarian regime.”
The White House
Expanded global gag rule to ban US foreign aid to groups that promote ‘gender ideology’
Activists, officials say new regulation will limit access to gender-affirming care
The Trump-Vance administration has announced it will expand the global gag rule to ban U.S. foreign aid for groups that promote “gender ideology.”
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau in a memo, titled Combating Gender Ideology in Foreign Assistance, the Federal Register published on Jan. 27 notes “previous administrations … used” U.S. foreign assistance “to fund the denial of the biological reality of sex, promoting a radical ideology that permits men to self-identify as women, indoctrinate children with radical gender ideology, and allow men to gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women.”
“Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. It also threatens the wellbeing of children by encouraging them to undergo life-altering surgical and chemical interventions that carry serious risks of lifelong harms like infertility,” reads the memo. “The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women and children but, as an attack on truth and human nature, it harms every nation. It is the purpose of this rule to prohibit the use of foreign assistance to support radical gender ideology, including by ending support for international organizations and multilateral organizations that pressure nations to embrace radical gender ideology, or otherwise promote gender ideology.”
President Donald Trump on Jan. 28, 2025, issued an executive order — Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation — that banned federal funding for gender-affirming care for minors.
President Ronald Reagan in 1985 implemented the global gag rule, also known as the “Mexico City” policy, which bans U.S. foreign aid for groups that support abortion and/or offer abortion-related services.
Trump reinstated the rule during his first administration. The White House this week expanded the ban to include groups that support gender-affirming care and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
The expanded global gag rule will take effect on Feb. 26.
“None of the funds made available by this act or any other Act may be made available in contravention of Executive Order 14187, relating to Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation, or shall be used or transferred to another federal agency, board, or commission to fund any domestic or international non-governmental organization or any other program, organization, or association coordinated or operated by such non-governmental organization that either offers counseling regarding sex change surgeries, promotes sex change surgeries for any reason as an option, conducts or subsidizes sex change surgeries, promotes the use of medications or other substances to halt the onset of puberty or sexual development of minors, or otherwise promotes transgenderism,” wrote Landau in his memo.
Landau wrote the State Department “does not believe taxpayer dollars should support sex-rejecting procedures, directly or indirectly for individuals of any age.”
“A person’s body (including its organs, organ systems, and processes natural to human development like puberty) are either healthy or unhealthy based on whether they are operating according to their biological functions,” reads his memo. “Organs or organ systems do not become unhealthy simply because the individual may experience psychological distress relating to his or her sexed body. For this reason, removing a patient’s breasts as a treatment for breast cancer is fundamentally different from performing the same procedure solely to alleviate mental distress arising from gender dysphoria. The former procedure aims to restore bodily health and to remove cancerous tissue. In contrast, removing healthy breasts or interrupting normally occurring puberty to ‘affirm’ one’s ‘gender identity’ involves the intentional destruction of healthy biological functions.”
Landau added there “is also lack of clarity about what sex-rejecting procedures’ fundamental aims are, unlike the broad consensus about the purpose of medical treatments for conditions like appendicitis, diabetes, or severe depression.”
“These procedures lack strong evidentiary foundations, and our understanding of long-term health impacts is limited and needs to be better understood,” he wrote. “Imposing restrictions, as this rule proposes, on sex-rejecting procedures for individuals of any age is necessary for the (State) Department to protect taxpayer dollars from abuse in support of radical ideological aims.”
Landau added the State Department “has determined that applying this rule to non-military foreign assistance broadly is necessary to ensure that its foreign assistance programs do not support foreign NGOs and IOs (international organizations) that promote gender ideology, and U.S. NGOs that provide sex-rejecting procedures, and to ensure the integrity of programs such as humanitarian assistance, gender-related programs, and more, do not promote gender ideology.”
“This rule will also allow for more foreign assistance funds to support organizations that promote biological truth in their foreign assistance programs and help the (State) Department to establish new partnerships,” he wrote.
The full memo can be found here.
Council for Global Equality Senior Policy Fellow Beirne Roose-Snyder on Wednesday said the expansion of the so-called global gag rule will “absolutely impact HIV services where we know we need to target services, to that there are non-stigmatizing, safe spaces for people to talk through all of their medical needs, and being trans is really important to be able to disclose to your health care provider so that you can get ARVs, so you can get PrEP in the right ways.” Roose-Snyder added the expanded ban will also impact access to gender-affirming health care, food assistance programs and humanitarian aid around the world.
“This rule is not about gender-affirming care at all,” she said during a virtual press conference the Universal Access Project organized.
“It is about really saying that if you want to take U.S. funds — and it’s certainly not about gender-affirming care for children — it is if you want to take U.S. funds, you cannot have programs or materials or offer counseling or referrals to people who may be struggling with their gender identity,” added Roose-Snyder. “You cannot advocate to maintain your country’s own nondiscrimination laws around gender identity. It is the first place that we’ve ever seen the U.S. government define gender-affirming care, except they call it something a lot different than that.”
The Congressional Equality Caucus, the Democratic Women’s Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Congressional Asian and Pacific American Caucus, and the Congressional Black Caucus also condemned the global gag rule’s expansion.
“We strongly condemn this weaponization of U.S. foreign assistance to undermine human rights and global health,” said the caucuses in a statement. “We will not rest until we ensure that our foreign aid dollars can never be used as a weapon against women, people of color, or LGBTQI+ people ever again.”
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