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LGBTQ groups stop short of criticizing Sinema for obstructing filibuster reform
Bisexual senator rebuffs Biden on voting rights proposal
Despite an out bisexual being among two Democrats responsible for thwarting President Biden’s call to advance voting rights, LGBTQ groups that supported Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) stopped short of criticizing her directly for impeding legislation at the top of progressives’ wish lists.
Although the change being sought was limited to voting rights legislation, the refusal from Sinema to change the filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes to move legislation to the Senate floor as opposed to a simple majority, effectively put a stake in the heart of the legislative agenda for Democrats, including any possibility of enacting LGBTQ civil rights legislation like the Equality Act.
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s leading LGBTQ group, declined to identify Sinema by name in an organizational statement provided by a spokesperson via email in response to a Washington Blade inquiry on her refusal to change the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation.
“The core of our democracy is the right to vote,” the statement says. “The United States Senate must act on legislation to protect that right now, including passage of federal voting rights and voting protection legislation. Without its essential safeguards guaranteeing that the voices of all voters — including LGBTQ+ Black, Brown and other minority voters — will be heard at the ballot box, we cannot ensure that any other right, even those currently enshrined in law, will be protected in the years to come.”
The closest the statement comes to criticizing Sinema, without actually doing so, is the final line: “As a result, we feel that it is necessary for the Senate to take whatever actions are required, including changes to Senate rules, to ensure a majority to pass this essential legislation.”
The Human Rights Campaign endorsed Sinema in the past as a candidate for U.S. Senate and hosted her as a special guest for fundraising and promotional events. It should be noted, JoDee Winterhof, HRC’s senior vice president of policy and political affairs, once worked for Sinema as chief of staff.
Asked whether HRC’s position was informed by Winterhof’s past work, the spokesperson replied: “Many of our staff have experience working on the Hill. Regardless of who they have worked for, we continue to believe that it is necessary for the Senate to take whatever actions are required, including changes to the Senate rules, to pass federal voting reform.”
Moments before Sinema was set last Thursday to meet with Biden on the filibuster, she took to the Senate floor preemptively and declared she wouldn’t budge.
“There’s no need for me to restate my long-standing support for the 60-vote threshold to pass legislation,” Sinema said.
Added Sinema: “When one party need only negotiate with itself, policy will inextricably be pushed from the middle towards the extremes,” adding that she doesn’t support that outcome and “Arizonans do not either.”
Joining Sinema in refusing to budge on the filibuster is her fellow moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who has proposed alternatives to the current state of Senate rules, but ultimately rejected the changes proposed by the caucus.
In contrast to the relatively muted response from LGBTQ groups, other civil rights organizations were quick to denounce Sinema and Manchin for supporting the filibuster, calling the Senate rules as they stand Jim Crow 2.0. Late Monday, Emily’s List announced it would no longer support Sinema for re-election over her position on voting rights.
Martin Luther King III, the son of the late civil rights leader, compared Manchin and Sinema to white moderates who half-heartedly supported his father’s work.
“History will not remember them kindly,” the younger King said, referring to Sinema and Manchin by name, according to PBS News Hour.
One exception to LGBTQ groups declining to criticize Sinema was the National LGBTQ Task Force, which said the senator should be coming up with alternatives to filibuster reform.
Kierra Johnson, executive director of the Task Force, said she’s been “asking questions because Sen. Sinema is known for being a supporter of so many pieces of progressive legislation and culture change related to queer people and women’s civil and human rights.”
“I want to see better and more, right?” Johnson said. “Yes, we should be working to build bridges across the aisle, across political ideology, but for me, the question is if you’re not going to support filibuster reform, then what are you supporting, and what is the pathway forward?”
Johnson added Sinema “owes it to the people who have supported her over the years to come up with these alternatives if she won’t support filibuster reform.”
Asked whether the Task Force has done any outreach to Sinema, Johnson said the organization is “in the process of trying to meet with her folks” and looking at ways to bring to her voices from LGBTQ movement community leaders.
Biden’s call to reform the filibuster — even though it was limited to voting rights legislation — may have been dead on arrival as Sinema and Manchin have consistently resisted efforts in the Senate to reform the filibuster. The efforts to change Senate rules, however, appeared to have new strength after Biden’s speech in Georgia last week making a plea for reform based on the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and the restrictive voting law passed in that state.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, asked Friday about Sinema and Manchin refusing to budge on the filibuster, said the administration would continue to push for voting rights legislation.
“I would say that the president’s view, as you heard him say yesterday, is that we’re going to continue to press to get this done moving forward,” Psaki said. “And that means continuing to engage with a range of officials who are supportive, some who have questions and some who are skeptical.”
Psaki pointed out Biden ended up having the meeting with Sinema despite her remarks on the floor, adding “that’s evidence of his continued commitment to keep engaging.”
The LGBTQ community, as with any issue, isn’t uniform in thinking Sinema should be obligated to have a certain view against the filibuster simply because she’s bisexual, or that LGBTQ groups should criticize her for being obstructionist.
One LGBTQ strategist, who agreed to talk on condition of anonymity, outright rejects calls for Sinema to support a change in rules because the filibuster “ensures that minority perspectives cannot be trampled by majoritarianism.”
“Portraying an LGBTQ woman as a gender and sexuality traitor shows a deep disrespect for our history,” the strategist added. “Sinema’s success in fighting for working families, vulnerable populations and LGBTQ rights is grounded in the belief that building large coalitions is how to best effect legal and social changes. Naturally, it follows she would be against a change in decades of Senate precedent that would prioritize hyper partisanship over persuasion.”
Biden’s speech in Georgia may have been more of an attempt to excite the progressive base as opposed to making a strategic push for filibuster reform. After all, his popularity is at an all-time low, which limits his influence. A POLITICO/Morning Consult poll asking voters to grade Biden after his first year in office found 37 percent gave him an “F,” compared to the 31 who gave either “A” and “B,” which is a touch worse than Trump at this point in his presidency.
The LGBTQ Victory Fund, which has endorsed Sinema in the past, declined to make any declarations about withholding an endorsement when asked by the Washington Blade.
“Our Victory Fund Campaign Board – made up of more than 150 political leaders and advocates from across the country – votes to determine our endorsements,” said Elliot Imse, a Victory Fund spokesperson. “If Sen. Sinema runs for reelection, a review of her record as it relates to equality will of course be a primary consideration for whether she receives our endorsement. That board vote would take place, if she applies for endorsement, in late 2023 or 2024.”
Imse added as a U.S. senator Sinema is not currently up for election because after being elected in 2018 she is set to hold her seat for another four years.
“Sen. Sinema is not currently endorsed by Victory Fund and is not on an active ballot,” Imse said. “We last endorsed her in 2018 when she was running against Martha McSally – a right-wing extremist candidate vociferously opposed to equality for LGBTQ people.”
World
Report: 90 percent of LGBTQ groups around the world have lost funding since 2025
Trump-Vance administration cut US support after it took office
A new report that Outright International released on Thursday notes 90 percent of LGBTQ and intersex rights groups around the world have lost funding since January 2025.
The New York-based global advocacy group surveyed 229 LGBTQ and intersex rights groups in 94 countries.
Forty-nine percent of the organizations that responded said they have lost more than half of their total budget since January 2025 — 75 percent of the groups said they lost more than a quarter of their total funding.
“For nearly half of the respondents, the cuts removed most of the resources that sustained the organization,” reads the report.
When asked which funders “had reduced, suspended, or withdrawn support,” more than half of the responding groups “pointed to a source tied to the United States government, including USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development), the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and the Department of State.”
“No other funder came close,” notes the report.
‘What was initially framed as a temporary freeze has become a structural disruption’
The Trump-Vance administration froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid shortly after it took office on Jan. 20, 2025.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio in March 2025 announced 83 percent of USAID contacts had been cancelled, and the State Department would administer the remaining programs. USAID officially shut down on July 1, 2025.
Rubio issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the funding freeze. The Washington Blade has previously reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of gaps in U.S. funding.
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
The Outright International report notes the State Department under the Trump-Vance administration “terminated the programs of the Global Equality Fund, the public-private partnership it launched in 2011 with allied governments, companies, and foundations, which distributed more than $100 million in its first decade to LGBTIQ organizations and human rights defenders in over 100 countries.” The Trump-Vance administration, among other things, has withdrawn the U.S. from the U.N. LGBTI Core Group, a group of U.N. member states that have pledged to support LGBTQ and intersex rights.
Outright International Executive Director Maria Sjödin in an op-ed the Blade published on Jan. 28, 2026, wrote the global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement since January 2025 lost more than $125 million — or 30 percent of its total annual funding.
“What was initially framed as a temporary freeze has become a structural disruption,” notes the Outright International report. “The effects have cascaded far beyond U.S. government funding: corporate, institutional, and philanthropic donors have also shifted, stalled, or quietly withdrawn, often without public scrutiny.”
“The broader environment in which LGBTIQ movements operate has continued to deteriorate — with democratic backsliding, anti-NGO legislation, rising violence, coordinated legislative attacks on trans and intersex people’s rights, and emboldened anti-rights actors filling the space left by the retreat of U.S. global leadership.”
The report contains specific examples that include:
• Iraqi lawmakers in 2024 passed a law that criminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations and transgender people. Funding cuts forced IraQueer, an Iraqi advocacy group, to stop offering safety and security trainings and workshops to activists and LGBTQ rights organizations in the country.
• An intersex-led organization in West Africa can no longer maintain office space or pay its staff.
• An Ecuadorian group that operated a community center for a decade was “forced to close” it on Feb. 1, 2026. “It has been a true loss for the LGBTIQ+ communities in our city and the country as a whole, as we were a model of self-management and resistance in one of Ecuador’s most conservative cities,” said the group in the report.
• An “LGBTIQ-led refugee organization” in Uganda “has lost the emergency relocation support that once moved people facing immediate violence to safer locations.”
• An advocacy group in Ukraine that lost funding said it was “forced to stop paying some of our specialists and reduce our hours for handling inquiries … We used to be able to respond promptly to requests and support people throughout the entire process of resolving their issues, whereas now we are forced to limit ourselves to one-time consultations or refuse assistance altogether due to a lack of resources.”
• The Tonga Leitis Association in the report said a lack of funding has forced it to reduce “the number of activities the organization can run and erodes the prevention infrastructure behind” the country’s low HIV rate.
The Outright International report notes “global LGBTIQ funding had begun to fall even before the current U.S. administration took office.”
It further cites statistics from the Human Rights Funders Network that project “rights-focused development assistance will fall by between” $1.4-$1.9 billion a year by 2026, “with movements for LGBTIQ people’s rights and gender equality among the hardest it.”
“At the same time, LGBTIQ organizations have not stood still,” reads the Outright International report. “They have continued to resist, adapt, and serve their communities under extraordinary pressure, often absorbing the costs of these funding shocks in ways that remain largely invisible.”
“This report is an effort to make those costs — and that resilience — visible,” it adds.
United Kingdom
Grindr settles UK lawsuit over claims it shared users’ personal information
Plaintiffs allege gay hookup company disclosed HIV status to third parties
Grindr has agreed to pay £26 million ($35.24 million) to settle a lawsuit in the UK over allegations it shared users’ HIV status and other personal information with third parties.
The BBC on Monday reported a lawsuit was filed in the High Court of England and Wales in 2024. A class action lawsuit with more than 11,000 plaintiffs was later filed in the U.S.
Grindr in a U.S. Security and Exchange Commission filing notes the California-headquartered company as part of the settlement it reached on Sept. 2 will pay £13.0 million ($17.62 million) “to the counterparties” by Dec. 31, 2026, and another £13.0 million ($17.62 million) by March 31, 2027.
“As previously disclosed, in April 2025, Grindr Inc. and Grindr LLC, its indirect and wholly-owned operating subsidiary (collectively, ‘Grindr’), were served with proceedings in the High Court of England and Wales, which proceedings were originally issued in April 2024, brought on behalf of UK Grindr users from a period up to early 2020 alleging violations of UK privacy laws,” reads the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission filing.
“On Sept. 2, 2026, Grindr resolved the above-described UK group action related to historical data practices before 2020, when Grindr was owned and controlled by the Chinese conglomerate Kunlun,” it continues. “The settlement includes no findings or admission of liability. While Grindr disputes the allegations, it recognizes and acknowledges the distress and loss of trust expressed by some of its UK users regarding that pre-2020 period.”
The filing further notes Grindr in 2020 “was sold to new owners and appointed new management” and in 2022 became a publicly listed company on the New York Stock Exchange.
“Since 2020 Grindr has overhauled its privacy program with a keen focus on the unique needs of its community,” reads the filing. “Grindr is and remains a safe space for users, committed to transparency, user control, and responsible data practices.”
A Grindr spokesperson in the UK on Tuesday referred the Washington Blade to the filing for comment on the settlement.
Maryland
Md. groups receive state grants to fight hate crimes
Pride Center of Maryland among recipients
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and the Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention and Policy are awarding a total of $10 million in grants in the 2027 fiscal year to nonprofit organizations that work to prevent hate crimes in the state.
The funds will be used to support those who feel targeted or discriminated against because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability status.
The Pride Center of Maryland is among the recipients. Churches, synagogues, mosques, and LGBTQ organizations are all eligible to receive grants
“The safety and security of all Marylanders is my top priority, so we are drawing a hard line because we have no tolerance for hate,” said Moore, according to media reports. “We are committed to protecting and ensuring safe and sacred spaces stay that way by investing in non-profit organizations, houses of worship, and community centers to protect and honor every community that makes our state so diverse and special.”
“Protection Against Hate Crime funding has strengthened the Pride Center of Maryland’s ability to protect, educate, and support the communities we serve … at a time of heightened concern associated with the Trump administration’s anti-LGBTQ/SGL (same-gender-loving) policies and pressures,” Pride Center of Maryland CEO Cleo Manago said. “PAHC funding helps us do more than improve physical security — it strengthens our community’s knowledge, preparedness, connection to resources, and ability to respond to hate with greater awareness and support.”
Maryland’s hate crimes law includes both sexual orientation and gender identity. The state’s nondiscrimination statute is also LGBTQ-inclusive.
Report: 90 percent of LGBTQ groups around the world have lost funding since 2025
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