National
Legal advocates turn attention to Supreme Court abortion cases
No major LGBTQ rights cases before court this term
With the new term for the U.S. Supreme Court underway, justices for the first time in years won’t have to consider a major case specifically impacting LGBTQ rights, which legal advocates say will lead to them to focus their attention on high-profile cases that challenge a woman’s right to access abortion.
At the top of the watch list for court, which now has 6-3 conservative majority as a result of appointments under former President Trump, is Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which will determine the constitutionality of the Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks and is widely considered a direct challenge to long-standing precedent established by Roe v. Wade guaranteeing a right to abortion. The Texas law banning any abortion after six weeks, which the Supreme Court allowed to take effect as litigation against it proceeds, is still pending in lower courts, but will likely reach the high court soon.
For many LGBTQ legal advocates, the abortion cases are important because they say the outcome could directly impact legal precedent underpinning major Supreme Court decisions in favor, including the 2003 decision of Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down state bans on sodomy, and the 2015 decision of Obergefell v. Hodges in favor of same-sex marriage nationwide.
Camilla Taylor, director of constitutional litigation for Lambda Legal, said the outcome abortion cases is crucial not only because LGBTQ people need access to abortion.
“Just as importantly, there are a lot of ways in which the landmark precedents that we obtained that vindicate the rights of LGBT people rely upon a foundation of substantive due process precedent that includes Roe v. Wade, and other cases dealing with reproductive health,” Taylor said. “So, if Roe versus Wade crumbles, then the foundation on which our own cases also crumbles.”
As such, a coalition of LGBTQ legal groups—including the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the National Center for Transgender Equality and Equality California—was among those who filed a friend-of-the-court brief in September arguing the Mississippi law is unconstitutional.
Key among the arguments is the denial of abortion access is a form of sex discrimination, just as the Supreme Court determined last year in Bostock v. Clayton County that anti-LGBTQ discrimination is a form of sex discrimination, this illegal under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“By the same logic, laws that restrict abortion also facially discriminate based on sex,” the brief says, “Like being LGBTQ, pregnancy is a sex-based characteristic; it is ‘inextricably bound up with’ an individual’s sex. Accordingly, laws that force a pregnant woman to bear a child necessarily discriminate based on sex, as would a law that barred a reproductive medical procedure available only to men.”
It’s true that both Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court’s decision for LGBTQ were based on principals of due process and equal protection under the 5th and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. But not all legal experts agree LGBTQ rights are on the line depending on the outcome of abortion litigation.
Dale Carpenter, a conservative law professor at the SMU (Southern Methodist University) Dedman School of Law who’s written in favor of LGBTQ rights, said the Supreme Court is “probably going to write a narrower opinion, if it even overrules Roe,” but won’t issue a radical decision “that reaches out and destroys all unenumerated rights.”
“Obergefell relies on the fundamental right to marry,” Carpenter said. “There’s no chance the Supreme Court is going to say there is no right to a fundamental right to marry. The doctrine upon which Obergefell rests is on much more solid footing than abortion rights. The basic doctrine underlying Obergefell has never seriously been challenged; abortion rights have been for 50 years.”
Other key differences between the right to abortion and same-sex marriage, Carpenter said, are an arguable state interest in protecting fetal life and reliance interests in the case of marriage rights given thousands of same-sex couples have wed in the wake of the Obergefell decision.
But what about Lawrence v. Texas, which were both that LGBTQ rights decision and Roe v. Wade decided at least in part on finding an unenumerated right to privacy in the constitution? Carpenter said a Supreme Court decision undoing a right to privacy would mean undoing nearly 60-year precedent that began with the 1965 decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, which overturned a state ban on contraceptives.
“There’s not even a single brief in the case, that I know of, on the anti-abortion side that’s supporting that,” Carpenter said.
Carpenter concluded with a wry jab: “By the way, the LGBT rights advocates who are now saying that these LGBT rights decisions are in danger will be the same people say after Roe is a overruled that those decisions are not affected.”
Indeed, the Supreme Court under its current 6-3 conservative makeup had an opportunity to take up an Indiana birth certificate case, Box v. Henderson, that was a direct challenge to the Obergefell marriage decision, but declined to take up the case. No state is any where close to recriminalizing sexual relations for same-sex couples, which in 2021 would widely be seen as a human rights violation.
But legal advocates for the LGBTQ community aren’t limiting the relationship between abortion and LGBTQ rights to legal principles. Additionally, the identify solidarity with another minority group under siege, in this case women seeking access to abortion, and need among certain members of the LGBTQ community—lesbian and bisexual women, transgender men and non-binary people—to have the access to abortion.
Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, echoed the sense LGBTQ legal advocates are focused on abortion cases, but cited “overlap between the reproductive rights, and justice movement and the LGBTQ movements.”
“What we see is the primary impact of this case on our community is a very direct one,” Minter said. “It’s extremely direct. The ability to obtain abortions is of great importance to women in our community, and also to transgender men and non-binary people as well.”
Minter cited data finding upwards of 80 percent of bisexual women will experience pregnancy over their lives and said LGBTQ women “are significantly more likely to have unintended pregnancies as a result of sexual violence, which is very distressing, but that is a reality for our community.”
Lesbian young adults and adolescents are at particular risk for unwanted pregnancy, Minter added, because there’s still “so much stigma and discrimination that they tried to sort of hide their sexual orientation, and prove that they’re straight when they’re not, so they actually have high rates of unprotected sex.”
Religious schools funding, gun control, Obamacare on docket
The abortion cases aren’t the only litigation on the radar for LGBTQ legal advocates. Also on the list are cases that will determine whether Maine religious schools have access to public funds, the legality of New York State gun regulations and disparate impact claims under Obamacare.
Taylor said the case of CVS Pharmacy v. Doe before the Supreme Court, which was brought by people living with HIV/AIDS, will determine whether disparate impact claims are cognizable in the context of disabilities under the Affordable Care Act.
“That’s really important for people living with HIV and other people with disabilities,” Taylor said. “It could do a lot of harm.”
The oral arguments in the Dobbs case are set to take place before the Supreme Court on Dec. 1.
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.
The White House
Trump travels to Middle East countries with death penalty for homosexuality
President traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates
Homosexuality remains punishable by death in two of the three Middle East countries that President Donald Trump visited last week.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the handful of countries in which anyone found guilty of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations could face the death penalty.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia from May 13-14. He traveled to Qatar on May 14.
“The law prohibited consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men but did not explicitly prohibit same-sex sexual relations between women,” notes the State Department’s 2023 human rights report, referring specifically to Qatar’s criminalization law. “The law was not systematically enforced. A man convicted of having consensual same-sex sexual relations could receive a sentence of seven years in prison. Under sharia, homosexuality was punishable by death; there were no reports of executions for this reason.”
Trump on May 15 arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes the “penalty for individuals who engaged in ‘consensual sodomy with a man'” in the country “was a minimum prison sentence of six months if the individual’s partner or guardian filed a complaint.”
“There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. LGBTQI+ identity, real or perceived, could be deemed an act against ‘decency or public morality,’ but there were no reports during the year of persons prosecuted under these provisions,” reads the report.
The report notes Emirati law also criminalizes “men who dressed as women or entered a place designated for women while ‘disguised’ as a woman.” Anyone found guilty could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 dirhams ($2,722.60.)
Trump returned to the U.S. on May 16.
The White House notes Trump during the trip secured more than $2 trillion “in investment agreements with Middle Eastern nations ($200 billion with the United Arab Emirates, $600 billion with Saudi Arabia, and $1.2 trillion with Qatar) for a more safe and prosperous future.”
Former President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022.
Saudi Arabia is scheduled to host the 2034 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup took place in Qatar.
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