National
‘Very familiar’: Mark Glaze’s story brings into focus mental health for gay men
Experts see common story as LGBTQ people enter middle age
The death by suicide at age 51 of Mark Glaze, a gun reform advocate who was close to many in D.C.’s LGBTQ community, is striking a chord with observers who see his struggles with mental health and alcoholism as reflective of issues facing many gay men as they enter middle age.
Glaze’s story resonates even though much of the attention on mental health issues in the LGBTQ community is devoted to LGBTQ youth going through the coming out process and transgender people who face disproportionate violence and discrimination within the LGBTQ community in addition to a growing focus on LGBTQ seniors entering later stages of life.
Randy Pumphrey, senior director of behavioral health for the D.C.-based Whitman-Walker Health, said Glaze’s story was “very familiar” as a tale of mental health issues facing gay men in the middle stage of life.
“You’re talking about a gay-identified man who is in his 50s, somebody who has struggled with alcohol misuse — or maybe abuse or dependence— and also depression,” Pumphrey said. “I think that there has always been a higher incidence of suicide for men in general in their middle age 50 and above, but this increases when you’re talking about gay men, and also if you’re talking about gay men who suffer with mental health issues, or substance use disorder issues.”
Several sources close to Glaze said his death did not come as a surprise. His family has been open about his death by suicide last month while he was in jail after allegedly fleeing the scene of a car accident in Pennsylvania and a long history of depression and alcoholism.
Pumphrey said Glaze’s situation coping with mental health issues as well as the consequences for his role in the accident, were reflective of someone who might “begin to perceive that this is an issue that they can’t get away from, or the consequences they can’t get away from exposure and that can lead somebody to a fatal outcome.”
“My experience is that there have been gay men that I have worked with over the years — particularly in their 50s and early 60s — it’s taken them a long time to recognize the severity of the problem, whether it’s their depression or their substance abuse, and then they find themselves in a very precarious situation because of shame, and so they may not necessarily seek help even though they need help.”
A 2017 study in the American Journal of Men’s Health found the prevalence of depression among gay men is three times higher than the general adult population, which means they are a subgroup at high risk for suicide.
The study found “scant research exists about gay men’s health beyond sexual health issues,” most often with HIV, which means issues related to depression and suicidality “are poorly understood.”
“Gay men’s health has often been defined by sexual practices, and poorly understood are the intersections of gay men’s physical and mental health with social determinants of health including ethnicity, locale, education level and socioeconomic status,” the study says.
The study acknowledged being male itself is one factor incorporated in addressing mental health issues in this subgroup because “regardless of sexual orientation, men can be reluctant to seek help for mental health problems.” Another study quoted in the report found 23 percent, less than one quarter of gay men, who attempted suicide sought mental health or medical treatment.
In addition to mental health issues facing gay men in Glaze’s age group, others saw his situation as a common story in the culture of Washington, which is notorious for celebrating and prioritizing success with little tolerance for personal setbacks.
In the case of Glaze, who had sparred on Fox News with Tucker Carlson as executive director of Everytown for Gun Safety, the threat of exposure and threat to his career may have seemed overwhelmingly daunting.
Steven Fisher, who knew Glaze since the 1990s and worked with him at the D.C.-based Raben Group, said one factor that contributed to Glaze’s condition was “he could only see upward in terms of his career trajectory.”
“We saw that in him and it had me very concerned because I felt like he might end up in a place that wasn’t good once he left Everytown, and that’s tragically and sadly what happened,” Fisher said. “I think he just had trouble adjusting to what is usually a roller coaster ride, I think, in people’s careers, especially in the D.C. world.”
Along with Glaze, Fisher has worked on gun issues for Everytown, which has been a client of his since 2015 after he worked for them in 2012 after the Newtown shooting.
Compounding the challenges that Glaze faced is a culture among many gay men focused on sexuality, which prioritizes youth and appearance and presents problems as those qualities start fading when men enter middle age.
Fisher said another factor in Glaze’s condition was social media, pointing out public perception about his identity was important to him.
“If you look at his social media — I think this is instructive to the rest of us — a lot of the comments are about how Mark was so good looking and he was charming, and he was so smart and so funny,” Fisher said. “That’s all true, and that’s why he was very appealing to many people, but those qualities don’t really tell you everything about a person. In fact, one could argue they’re superficial in a way, and people have to remember people are more complicated than what you see on social media.”
One issue for gay men facing mental health issues as they enter middle age is they don’t have the same resources as those available to LGBTQ youth, who have been more of a focus in terms of mental health issues in the LGBTQ community.
Among the leading organizations for LGBTQ youth is the Trevor Project, which has resources and a hotline for LGBTQ youth facing mental health crises.
Kevin Wong, vice president of communications for the Trevor Project, said his organization would be receptive to an older LGBTQ person who calls the hotline, but ultimately would refer that person elsewhere.
“If an LGBTQ person above the age of 25 reaches out to The Trevor Project’s crisis services for support and expresses suicidal thoughts, our counselors will listen, actively and with empathy, and work with them to de-escalate and form a safety plan, like any other contact,” Wong said. “However, our organization has remained youth-centric since its founding and our volunteer crisis counselors are specifically trained with younger LGBTQ people in mind.”
Much attention is focused on the coming out process for LGBTQ people, a time that can upend close relationships — as well as reaffirm them — and a process more commonly associated with youth.
Ilan Meyer, senior scholar of public policy at the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, said data is scant about suicide rates among LGBTQ people, but information on suicide attempts shows they tend to be at a heightened rate for LGBTQ people as they go through the coming out process.
“What we do know is that there is a connection with the coming out period at whatever age coming out happens,” Meyer said. “And so, we see a proximity to coming out whatever age that happened, we see the suicide attempts proceeding and after that.”
Suicide attempts, Meyer said, are much higher for LGBTQ people than the population at large. The self-reported rate of suicide attempts in the U.S. population as a whole, Meyer said, is 2.4 percent, but that figure changes to 20 to 30 percent among LGBTQ youth, which about to 10 to 15 times greater.
Black and Latino people, Meyer said, have been less likely to make suicide attempts in their lifetimes, although he added that may be changing in recent years.
With the primary focus on mental health issues elsewhere in the LGBTQ community, Glaze’s death raises questions about whether sufficient resources are available to people in his demographic, or whether individuals are willing to seek out care options that are available.
Meyer said whether the resources for suicidal ideologies among LGBTQ people are sufficient and what more could be done “is the the million-dollar question.”
“It’s definitely not determined by just mental health,” Meyer said. “So many people have depression, but they don’t attempt suicide. And so, then the difficult thing is to find the right moment to intervene and what that intervention should be.”
Meyer said much of the focus on mental health is on a person’s last moments before making a suicide attempt, such as making suicide hotlines readily available, but some of the stressors he sees “are more chronic, ongoing things related to homophobia and the kind of experience that LGBT people have as they come to terms to realize their sexual identity.”
Pumphrey said another factor in mental health issues not to be underestimated for almost two years now is “dealing with the COVID and loneliness epidemic,” which appears to have no immediate end in sight with the emergence of the Omnicron variant.
“There was always this piece of sometimes the experience of being in your 50s and early 60s…we talk about the invisibility factor,” Pumphrey said. “But when there’s just this sense of being disconnected from community, especially in the early days of the pandemic, and kind of being locked down, I think that just raised the risk.”
State Department
Rubio mum on Hungary’s Pride ban
Lawmakers on April 30 urged secretary of state to condemn anti-LGBTQ bill, constitutional amendment
More than 20 members of Congress have urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to publicly condemn a Hungarian law that bans Pride events.
California Congressman Mark Takano, a Democrat who co-chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, and U.S. Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), who is the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Europe Subcommittee, spearheaded the letter that lawmakers sent to Rubio on April 30.
Hungarian lawmakers in March passed a bill that bans Pride events and allow authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs last month amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
“As a NATO ally which hosts U.S. service members, we expect the Hungarian government to abide by certain values which underpin the historic U.S.-Hungary bilateral relationship,” reads the letter. “Unfortunately, this new legislation and constitutional amendment disproportionately and arbitrarily target sexual and gender minorities.”
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government over the last decade has moved to curtail LGBTQ and intersex rights in Hungary.
A law that bans legal recognition of transgender and intersex people took effect in 2020. Hungarian MPs that year also effectively banned same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the constitution as between a man and a woman.
An anti-LGBTQ propaganda law took effect in 2021. The European Commission sued Hungary, which is a member of the European Union, over it.
MPs in 2023 approved the “snitch on your gay neighbor” bill that would have allowed Hungarians to anonymously report same-sex couples who are raising children. The Budapest Metropolitan Government Office in 2023 fined Lira Konyv, the country’s second-largest bookstore chain, 12 million forints ($33,733.67), for selling copies of British author Alice Oseman’s “Heartstopper.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who is gay, participated in the Budapest Pride march in 2024 and 2023. Pressman was also a vocal critic of Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
“Along with years of democratic backsliding in Hungary, it flies in the face of those values and the passage of this legislation deserves quick and decisive criticism and action in response by the Department of State,” reads the letter, referring to the Pride ban and constitutional amendment against public LGBTQ events. “Therefore, we strongly urge you to publicly condemn this legislation and constitutional change which targets the LGBTQ community and undermines the rights of Hungarians to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”
U.S. Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Sarah McBride (D-Del.), Jim Costa (D-Calif.), James McGovern (D-Mass.), Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Julie Johnson (D-Texas), Ami Bera (D-Calif.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Gabe Amo (D-R.I.), Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Dina Titus (D-Nev.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) signed the letter alongside Takano and Keating.
A State Department spokesperson on Wednesday declined to comment.
Federal Government
HRC memo details threats to LGBTQ community in Trump budget
‘It’s a direct attack on LGBTQ+ lives’
A memo issued Monday by the Human Rights Campaign details threats to LGBTQ people from the “skinny” budget proposal issued by President Donald Trump on May 2.
HRC estimates the total cost of “funding cuts, program eliminations, and policy changes” impacting the community will exceed approximately $2.6 billion.
Matthew Rose, the organization’s senior public policy advocate, said in a statement that “This budget is more than cuts on a page—it’s a direct attack on LGBTQ+ lives.”
“Trump is taking away life-saving healthcare, support for LGBTQ-owned businesses, protections against hate crimes, and even housing help for people living with HIV,” he said. “Stripping away more than $2 billion in support sends one clear message: we don’t matter. But we’ve fought back before, and we’ll do it again—we’re not going anywhere.”
Proposed rollbacks or changes at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will target the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, other programs related to STI prevention, viral hepatitis, and HIV, initiatives housed under the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and research by the National Institutes of Health and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Other agencies whose work on behalf of LGBTQ populations would be jeopardized or eliminated under Trump’s budget include the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Small Business Administration, and the U.S. Department of Education.
U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court allows Trump admin to enforce trans military ban
Litigation challenging the policy continues in the 9th Circuit
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Trump-Vance administration to enforce a ban on transgender personnel serving in the U.S. Armed Forces pending the outcome of litigation challenging the policy.
The brief order staying a March 27 preliminary injunction issued by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington notes the dissents from liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump issued an executive order requiring Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to effectuate a ban against transgender individuals, going further than efforts under his first administration — which did not target those currently serving.
The DoD’s Feb. 26 ban argued that “the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms with, gender dysphoria are incompatible with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service.”
The case challenging the Pentagon’s policy is currently on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The lead plaintiff is U.S. Navy Commander Emily Shilling, who is joined in the litigation by other current transgender members of the armed forces, one transgender person who would like to join, and a nonprofit whose members either are transgender troops or would like to be.
Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, both representing the plaintiffs, issued a statement Tuesday in response to the Supreme Court’s decision:
“Today’s Supreme Court ruling is a devastating blow to transgender servicemembers who have demonstrated their capabilities and commitment to our nation’s defense.
“By allowing this discriminatory ban to take effect while our challenge continues, the Court has temporarily sanctioned a policy that has nothing to do with military readiness and everything to do with prejudice.
“Transgender individuals meet the same standards and demonstrate the same values as all who serve. We remain steadfast in our belief that this ban violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection and will ultimately be struck down.”
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer noted that courts must show “substantial deference” to DoD decision making on military issues.
“The Supreme Court’s decision to allow the military ban to go into effect is devastating for the thousands of qualified transgender servicemembers who have met the standards and are serving honorably, putting their lives on the line for their country every single day,” said GLAD Law Senior Director of Transgender and Queer Rights Jennifer Levi. “Today’s decision only adds to the chaos and destruction caused by this administration. It’s not the end of the case, but the havoc it will wreak is devastating and irreparable. History will confirm the weight of the injustice done today.”
“The Court has upended the lives of thousands of servicemembers without even the decency of explaining why,” said NCLR Legal Director Shannon Minter. “As a result of this decision, reached without benefit of full briefing or argument, brave troops who have dedicated their lives to the service of our country will be targeted and forced into harsh administrative separation process usually reserved for misconduct. They have proven themselves time and time again and met the same standards as every other soldier, deploying in critical positions around the globe. This is a deeply sad day for our country.”
Levi and Minter are the lead attorneys in the first two transgender military ban cases to be heard in federal court, Talbott v. Trump and Ireland v. Hegseth.
U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) issued a statement on behalf of the Congressional Equality Caucus, where he serves as chair.
“By lifting the lower court’s preliminary injunction and allowing Trump to enforce his trans troop ban as litigation continues, the Supreme Court is causing real harm to brave Americans who simply want to serve their nation in uniform.
“The difference between Donald Trump, a draft dodger, and the countless brave Americans serving their country who just happen to be trans couldn’t be starker. Let me be clear: Trump’s ban isn’t going to make our country safer—it will needlessly create gaps in critical chains of military command and actively undermine our national security.
“The Supreme Court was absolutely wrong to allow this ban to take effect. I hope that lower courts move swiftly so this ban can ultimately be struck down.”
SPARTA Pride also issued a statement:
“The Roberts Court’s decision staying the preliminary injunction will allow the Trump purge of transgender service members from the military to proceed.
“Transgender Americans have served openly, honorably, and effectively in the U.S. Armed Forces for nearly a decade. Thousands of transgender troops are currently serving, and are fully qualified for the positions in which they serve.
“Every court up to now has found that this order is unconstitutional. Nevertheless, the Roberts Court – without hearing any evidence or argument – decided to allow it to go forward. So while the case continues to be argued, thousands of trans troops will be purged from the Armed Forces.
“They will lose their jobs. They will lose their commands, their promotions, their training, pay and benefits, and time. Their units will lose key players; the mission will be disrupted. This is the very definition of irreparable harm.”
Imara Jones, CEO of TransLash Media, issued the following statement:
“The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Trump’s ban on transgender soldiers in the military, even as the judicial process works its way through the overall question of service, signals that open discrimination against trans people is fair game across American society.
“It will allow the Trump Administration to further advance its larger goal of pushing trans people from mainstream society by discharging transgender military members who are currently serving their country, even at a time when the military has struggled recently to meet its recruiting goals.
“But even more than this, all of my reporting tells me that this is a further slide down the mountain towards authoritarianism. The hard truth is that governments with authoritarian ambitions have to separate citizens between who is worthy of protection and who’s not. Trans people are clearly in the later category. And this separation justifies the authoritarian quest for more and more power. This appears to be what we are witnessing here and targeting trans people in the military is just a means to an end.”
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