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Man sentenced to life in prison for 1992 murder of gay sailor recommended for parole

Family of Allen Schindler organizes campaign opposing release

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Terry M. Helvey pleaded guilty to the 1992 murder of gay Navy sailor Allen Schindler (pictured above).

A former U.S. Navy sailor sentenced to life in prison for the 1992 anti-gay murder of fellow U.S. Navy sailor Allen Schindler while the two were stationed in Japan received a recommendation for parole at a Feb. 17 hearing, according to Schindler’s sister who attended the hearing.

Members of Schindler’s family, who expressed strong opposition to approving parole for former Navy Airman Apprentice Terry M. Helvey, are calling on the LGBTQ community and others to send email messages and letters opposing parole for Helvey to an official with the U.S. Parole Commission, which is an arm of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Kathy Eickhoff, Schindler’s sister, told the Washington Blade that a parole examiner issued the recommendation that Helvey be approved for parole at the Feb. 17 Zoom hearing after listening to testimony by Helvey and his sister. Eickhoff said she, her mother, and her daughter also gave testimony at the hearing in their role as the victim’s family.

“He was given a recommendation to be paroled on Oct. 26, 2022,” Eickhoff said. “It will now go to a parole board for a final decision,” she said. “That will happen in the next week to three weeks.”

Porcha L. Edwards, the Parole Commission official that Schindler’s family members are urging people to contact to oppose parole for Helvey, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Schindler’s murder triggered expressions of outrage by LGBTQ activists when news surfaced that Schindler, 22, had been subjected to harassment and threats of violence on board the Navy’s amphibious assault ship Belleau Wood when rumors surfaced on the ship that Schindler was gay, and the ship’s captain ignored Schindler’s request for protection.

Naval investigators disclosed that Helvey and another one of Schindler’s shipmates, Airman Charles Vins, attacked Schindler on Oct. 27, 1992, in a men’s bathroom at a public park in Sasebo, Japan near where their ship was docked.

A Naval investigative report says a witness to the attack saw Helvey repeatedly stomp on Schindler’s head and body inside the bathroom. An autopsy later found that Schindler’s head and face were crushed beyond recognition, requiring that his body be identified by a known tattoo on his arm.

Another Naval investigator, according to media reports, presented evidence that Helvey admitted to his hostility toward Schindler when Helvey was interrogated at the time of his arrest the day after the murder. “He said he hated Homosexuals. He was disgusted by them,” the investigator said in a report. In describing Helvey’s thoughts on Schindler’s murder, the investigator, Kennon F. Privette, quoted Helvey as saying, “I don’t regret it. I’d do it again…He deserved it.”

Helvey, 21, was later sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to killing Schindler. The guilty plea was part of a plea bargain offer by military prosecutors not to seek the death penalty, which could have been pursued under military law.

Charles Vins, the other sailor implicated in Schindler’s murder, whose lawyer argued that he was an accomplice to the attack who did not actually physically assault Schindler, also pleaded guilty to three lesser charges, including failure to report a serious crime, as part of a separate plea bargain offer by prosecutors. As part of that plea offer, Vins cooperated with prosecutors in the case against Helvey. He was released after serving 78 days of a one-year prison sentence.

After being dishonorably discharged from the Navy, Helvey was transferred to a federal prison and has been an inmate in several federal prisons for the past 29 years. He is currently an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Greenville, Ill.

Eickhoff, Schindler’s sister, said Helvey has been applying for parole and clemency almost every year for at least the past 20 years. She said federal parole authorities have turned down all those requests until last week, when, for the first time, a parole examiner issued the recommendation for parole.

According to Eickhoff, Helvey, who is now 50 years old, has expressed remorse for what he did 29 years ago and claims he is a different person. She said the Feb. 17 parole hearing, in which the parole examiner asked Helvey questions, appeared to focus on whether Helvey would “reoffend” if released from prison.

“He [Helvey] said what he has lined up,” Eickhoff told the Blade. “He’s going to go home. He’s got three different jobs lined up. His mother and his stepfather need him. He wants to be a truck driver,” Eickhoff said. “And then, of course, all of the things he has done while he’s been in prison,” she recounted Helvey saying at the hearing. “All of the mentoring and all of the classes and all the wonderful things he’s done.”

Eickhoff noted that if Helvey is approved for parole and is released on Oct. 26 of this year, it will take place one day short of the 30th year after her brother’s murder. She said the parole examiner also stated at the hearing that 30 years of incarceration in a federal prison can sometimes become a threshold for when a prisoner becomes eligible for parole under federal law.

“And he does have a parole hearing every two years and a clemency hearing every other year,” Eickhoff said. So, it’s more or less every year we are going through this,” she told the Blade. “Twenty-nine years ago, we thought that was it,” she said when Helvey was sentenced to life in prison. “But no, that’s not what happened.”

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons website says all federal and state prisoners are eligible to apply for clemency, which can be granted by a state governor or the U.S. president depending on the circumstances of the case.  

Among those joining Schindler family members in urging opposition to parole for Helvey is longtime gay activist Michael Petrelis of San Francisco, who called on the Navy to publicly recognize the Schindler murder as a hate crime shortly after the murder took place in 1992.

In 2015, Petrelis released to the public a 900-page Naval investigative report he obtained from the Navy through a Freedom of Information Act request that revealed new information that the Navy had withheld in earlier years.

Among other things, the investigative report provided further details that the captain of the ship on which Schindler was stationed discussed Schindler’s request for protection from anti-gay harassment in front of other shipmates. Doing so further spread the word that Schindler was gay, a development that subjected him to intensified anti-gay harassment on the ship, according to Petrelis.  

Eickhoff and her family are urging members of the LGBTQ community and others supportive of what they say is justice for Allen Schindler to send letters and email messages expressing opposition to parole for Helvey to:

Porcha L. Edwards
Victim Witness Specialist
United States Parole Commission
United States Department of Justice
90 K Street, N.E., Third Floor
Washington, D.C. 20530
Email: [email protected]
Office: 202-346-7003
Work Cell: 202-880-2156

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Federal Government

RFK Jr.’s HHS report pushes therapy, not medical interventions, for trans youth

‘Discredited junk science’ — GLAAD

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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

A 409-page report released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services challenges the ethics of medical interventions for youth experiencing gender dysphoria, the treatments that are often collectively called gender-affirming care, instead advocating for psychotherapy alone.

The document comes in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order barring the federal government from supporting gender transitions for anyone younger than 19.

“Our duty is to protect our nation’s children — not expose them to unproven and irreversible medical interventions,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement. “We must follow the gold standard of science, not activist agendas.”

While the report does not constitute clinical guidance, its findings nevertheless conflict with not just the recommendations of LGBTQ advocacy groups but also those issued by organizations with relevant expertise in science and medicine.

The American Medical Association, for instance, notes that “empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression.”

Gender-affirming care for transgender youth under standards widely used in the U.S. includes supportive talk therapy along with — in some but not all cases — puberty blockers or hormone treatment.

“The suggestion that someone’s authentic self and who they are can be ‘changed’ is discredited junk science,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “This so-called guidance is grossly misleading and in direct contrast to the recommendation of every leading health authority in the world. This report amounts to nothing more than forcing the same discredited idea of conversion therapy that ripped families apart and harmed gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people for decades.”

GLAAD further notes that the “government has not released the names of those involved in consulting or authoring this report.”

Janelle Perez, executive director of LPAC, said, “For decades, every major medical association–including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics–have affirmed that medical care is the only safe and effective treatment for transgender youth experiencing gender dysphoria.

“This report is simply promoting conversion therapy by a different name – and the American people know better. We know that conversion therapy isn’t actually therapy – it isolates and harms kids, scapegoats parents, and divides families through blame and rejection. These tactics have been used against gay kids for decades, and now the same people want to use them against transgender youth and their families.

“The end result here will be a devastating denial of essential health care for transgender youth, replaced by a dangerous practice that every major U.S. medical and mental health association agree promotes anxiety, depression, and increased risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts.

“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice, and no amount of pressure can force someone to change who they are. We also know that 98% of people who receive transition-related health care continue to receive that health care throughout their lifetime. Trans health care is health care.”

“Today’s report seeks to erase decades of research and learning, replacing it with propaganda. The claims in today’s report would rip health care away from kids and take decision-making out of the hands of parents,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of NCLR. “It promotes the same kind of conversion therapy long used to shame LGBTQ+ people into hating themselves for being unable to change something they can’t change.”

“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice—it’s rooted in biology and genetics,” Minter said. “No amount or talk or pressure will change that.” 

Human Rights Campaign Chief of Staff Jay Brown released a statement: “Trans people are who we are. We’re born this way. And we deserve to live our best lives and have a fair shot and equal opportunity at living a good life.

“This report misrepresents the science that has led all mainstream American medical and mental health professionals to declare healthcare for transgender youth to be best practice and instead follows a script predetermined not by experts but by Sec. Kennedy and anti-equality politicians.”




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The White House

Trump nominates Mike Waltz to become next UN ambassador

Former Fla. congressman had been national security advisor

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U.N. headquarters in New York (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

President Donald Trump on Thursday announced he will nominate Mike Waltz to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

Waltz, a former Florida congressman, had been the national security advisor.

Trump announced the nomination amid reports that Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, were going to leave the administration after Waltz in March added a journalist to a Signal chat in which he, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other officials discussed plans to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen.

“I am pleased to announce that I will be nominating Mike Waltz to be the next United States ambassador to the United Nations,” said Trump in a Truth Social post that announced Waltz’s nomination. “From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our nation’s Interests first. I know he will do the same in his new role.”

Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as interim national security advisor, “while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department.”

“Together, we will continue to fight tirelessly to make America, and the world, safe again,” said Trump.

Trump shortly after his election nominated U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Trump in March withdrew her nomination in order to ensure Republicans maintained their narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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U.S. Federal Courts

Second federal lawsuit filed against White House passport policy

Two of seven plaintiffs live in Md.

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Lambda Legal on April 25 filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of seven transgender and nonbinary people who are challenging the Trump-Vance administration’s passport policy.

The lawsuit, which Lambda Legal filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Baltimore, alleges the policy that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers “has caused and is causing grave and immediate harm to transgender people like plaintiffs, in violation of their constitutional rights to equal protection.”

Two of the seven plaintiffs — Jill Tran and Peter Poe — live in Maryland. The State Department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the federal government are defendants.

“The discriminatory passport policy exposes transgender U.S. citizens to harassment, abuse, and discrimination, in some cases endangering them abroad or preventing them from traveling, by forcing them to use identification documents that share private information against their wishes,” said Lambda Legal in a press release.

Zander Schlacter, a New York-based textile artist and designer, is the lead plaintiff.

The lawsuit notes he legally changed his name and gender in New York.

Schlacter less than a week before President Donald Trump’s inauguration “sent an expedited application to update his legal name on his passport, using form DS-5504.”

Trump once he took office signed an executive order that banned the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers. The lawsuit notes Schlacter received his new passport in February.

“The passport has his correct legal name, but now has an incorrect sex marker of ‘F’ or ‘female,'” notes the lawsuit. “Mr. Schlacter also received a letter from the State Department notifying him that ‘the date of birth, place of birth, name, or sex was corrected on your passport application,’ with ‘sex’ circled in red. The stated reason was ‘to correct your information to show your biological sex at birth.'”

“I, like many transgender people, experience fear of harassment or violence when moving through public spaces, especially where a photo ID is required,” said Schlacter in the press release that announced the lawsuit. “My safety is further at risk because of my inaccurate passport. I am unwilling to subject myself and my family to the threat of harassment and discrimination at the hands of border officials or anyone who views my passport.”

Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.

Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an “X” gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.

Lambda Legal represented Zzyym.

The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022.

Trump signed his executive order shortly after he took office in January. Germany, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands are among the countries that have issued travel advisories for trans and nonbinary people who plan to visit the U.S.

A federal judge in Boston earlier this month issued a preliminary injunction against the executive order.  The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of seven trans and nonbinary people.

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