National
Pride police bans stir debate in D.C., around country
Uniformed officers prohibited from Capital Pride parade
As cities across the U.S. once again hold in-person Pride month festivities after two years of pandemic-related pauses, a growing trend among Pride organizations attempting to restrict police presence at Pride events is gaining momentum.
The trend, which has only grown in recent years, has ignited debate among the LGBTQ community and outside groups attempting to balance support for the community with support for local law enforcement.
These calls for an end to police involvement in the events largely stem from a detailed history of discrimination and use of force among police departments toward the LGBTQ community and communities of color.
The Stonewall rebellion, during which patrons and local residents protested a police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village, are largely credited with sparking the modern-day LGBTQ rights movement. The narrative set by this history has organizations in some of the country’s largest cities trying to ban uniformed law enforcement personnel from Pride parades and festivals.
Pride groups in San Francisco and other cities have recently engaged in their own efforts to ban uniformed police from marching in their annual parades altogether.
Drawing the ire of San Francisco Mayor London Breed and the city’s police department, San Francisco Pride last month banned police in its annual Pride parade.
“One of the top priorities is that San Francisco Pride remains a positive, celebratory event for all, especially for our Black, trans, and lesbian/gay/queer+ family,” San Francisco Pride said in its statement announcing the ban. “For the 2022 [San Francisco] Pride Parade, [San Francisco] Pride requested that those participating from law enforcement agencies do so out of uniform and in an alternative attire that still represents their organization.”
In announcing their initial decision, San Francisco Pride directly related their reasoning to past harm done by law enforcement to the LGBTQ community.
“[San Francisco] Pride remains committed to practicing radical inclusion, practicing harm reduction in our space, and supporting those who are marginalized within our community,” the group stated. “We acknowledge and appreciate the steps that have been taken to heal decades of distrust between law enforcement agencies and the LGBTQ+ communities.”
Although the ban has since been reversed following a compromise between San Francisco Pride and the San Francisco Police Officers Pride Alliance, debate still lingers in other major cities with large LGBTQ communities.
New York, Seattle, and Denver are among the cities in which activists have banned or requested an absence of uniformed police presence at Pride events.
NYC Pride announced last year it would prohibit uniformed police officers’ participation in its events through at least 2025.
“NYC Pride is unwilling to contribute in any way to creating an atmosphere of fear or harm for members of the community,” the group said in a statement. “The steps being taken by the organization challenge law enforcement to acknowledge their harm and to correct course moving forward, in hopes of making an impactful change.”
But the bans are not met with open arms by all, with some believing the trend does more harm than good.
The New York Times Editorial Board characterized NYC Pride’s decision as a “misstep.”
“The organizers are certainly within their rights to reduce the number of armed police officers providing security, but let’s be honest: It’s a poke in the eye at law enforcement more than a meaningful action to address police violence or foster a dialogue about law enforcement reform,” said the board in an editorial. “These moves do nothing to celebrate and demonstrate solidarity within the LGBTQ community.”
Even among members of the LGBTQ community, opinions on banning police from Pride events remain divided.
In their response to NYC Pride’s ban on uniformed police at Pride, the New York Times Editorial Board cited a 2019 poll of 801 LGBTQ Americans conducted by Whitman Insight Strategies and Buzzfeed that found 79 percent of respondents favored having police participation in Pride events.
In D.C., the situation is a bit confusing. The Capital Pride Alliance adopted a policy in 2018 that bans uniformed police from participating in the Pride parade it organizes. The ban remained in place last year, and the Capital Pride Alliance has not publicly stated any change or retraction of the policy.
“In 2018 the decision was made that [Metropolitan Police Department] would not participate as a contingent in the Pride parade, and has not since,” the group said in a 2020 statement. “Going forward, [Capital Pride Alliance] will not permit any uniformed and armed police officers to march in the Pride parade or participate in [Capital Pride Alliance]-sanctioned events.”
But uniformed police did walk at the start of the D.C. Pride parade in 2019 (see photo), raising questions about the policy. Technically, the officers were not part of an official parade contingent, and rather were on duty. But they were seen waving to the crowd with at least one officer carrying a Pride flag.
Going into this year, it remains unclear whether the ban on uniformed police presence in D.C.’s Pride parade will lead to any friction with government officials similar to that seen during the events that played out in San Francisco. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office in a press release said she remains supportive of the efforts being made throughout June to highlight the LGBTQ community and intends to march in the city’s Pride parade.
“We are focused, especially this year, on using Pride to bring people back together and to uplift and advance our D.C. values,” Bowser said in the statement. “We are proud that, for years, D.C. has led the nation in supporting LGBTQ+ rights, and together we will keep it that way. We are the District of Pride, and I look forward to seeing people at the return of the Pride Parade on June 11.”
Bowser’s office did not respond to request for further comment regarding the issue.
National
213 House members ask Speaker Johnson to condemn anti-trans rhetoric
Letter cites ‘demonizing and dehumanizing’ language
The Congressional Equality Caucus has sent a letter urging Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to condemn the surge in anti-trans rhetoric coming from members of Congress.
The letter, signed by 213 members, criticizes Johnson for permitting some lawmakers to use “demonizing and dehumanizing” language directed at the transgender community.
The first signature on the letter is Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, the only transgender member of Congress.
It also includes signatures from Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (MA-05), House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (CA-33), every member of the Congressional Equality Caucus, and members of every major House Democratic ideological caucus.
Some House Republicans have used slurs to address members of the transgender community during official business, including in committee hearings and on the House floor.
The House has strict rules governing proper language—rules the letter directly cites—while noting that no corrective action was taken by the Chair or Speaker Pro Tempore when these violations occurred.
The letter also calls out members of Congress—though none by name—for inappropriate comments, including calls to institutionalize all transgender people, references to transgender people as mentally ill, and false claims portraying them as inherently violent or as a national security threat.
Citing FBI data, the letter notes that 463 hate crime incidents were reported due to gender identity bias. It also references a 2023 Williams Institute report showing that transgender people are more than four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization, despite making up less than 2% of the U.S. population.
The letter ends with a renewed plea for Speaker Johnson to take appropriate measures to protect not only the trans member of Congress from harassment, but also transgender people across the country.
“We urge you to condemn the rise in dehumanizing rhetoric targeting the transgender community and to ensure members of your conference are abiding by rules of decorum and not using their platforms to demonize and scapegoat the transgender community, including by ensuring members are not using slurs to refer to the transgender community.”
The full letter, including the complete list of signatories, can be found at equality.house.gov. (https://equality.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/equality.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/letter-to-speaker-johnson-on-anti-transgender-rhetoric-enforcing-rules-of-decorum.pdf)
The White House
EXCLUSIVE: Garcia, Markey reintroduce bill to require US promotes LGBTQ rights abroad
International Human Rights Defense Act also calls for permanent special envoy
Two lawmakers on Monday have reintroduced a bill that would require the State Department to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.
A press release notes the International Human Rights Defense Act that U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced would “direct” the State Department “to monitor and respond to violence against LGBTQ+ people worldwide, while creating a comprehensive plan to combat discrimination, criminalization, and hate-motivated attacks against LGBTQ+ communities” and “formally establish a special envoy to coordinate LGBTQ+ policies across the State Department.”
“LGBTQ+ people here at home and around the world continue to face escalating violence, discrimination, and rollbacks of their rights, and we must act now,” said Garcia in the press release. “This bill will stand up for LGBTQ+ communities at home and abroad, and show the world that our nation can be a leader when it comes to protecting dignity and human rights once again.”
Markey, Garcia, and U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) in 2023 introduced the International Human Rights Defense Act. Markey and former California Congressman Alan Lowenthal in 2019 sponsored the same bill.
The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.
The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement since the Trump-Vance administration froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded dozens of advocacy groups around the world, officially shut down on July 1. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year said the State Department would administer the remaining 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled.
Then-President Joe Biden in 2021 named Jessica Stern — the former executive director of Outright International — as his administration’s special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights.
The Trump-Vance White House has not named anyone to the position.
Stern, who co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice after she left the government, is among those who sharply criticized the removal of LGBTQ- and intersex-specific references from the State Department’s 2024 human rights report.
“It is deliberate erasure,” said Stern in August after the State Department released the report.
The Congressional Equality Caucus in a Sept. 9 letter to Rubio urged the State Department to once again include LGBTQ and intersex people in their annual human rights reports. Garcia, U.S. Reps. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who chair the group’s International LGBTQI+ Rights Task Force, spearheaded the letter.
“We must recommit the United States to the defense of human rights and the promotion of equality and justice around the world,” said Markey in response to the International Human Rights Defense Act that he and Garcia introduced. “It is as important as ever that we stand up and protect LGBTQ+ individuals from the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to further marginalize this community. I will continue to fight alongside LGBTQ+ individuals for a world that recognizes that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”
National
US bishops ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals
Directive adopted during meeting in Baltimore.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week adopted a directive that bans Catholic hospitals from offering gender-affirming care to their patients.
Since ‘creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift,’ we have a duty ‘to protect our humanity,’ which means first of all, ‘accepting it and respecting it as it was created,’” reads the directive the USCCB adopted during their meeting that is taking place this week in Baltimore.
The Washington Blade obtained a copy of it on Thursday.
“In order to respect the nature of the human person as a unity of body and soul, Catholic health care services must not provide or permit medical interventions, whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim not to restore but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function,” reads the directive. “This includes, for example, some forms of genetic engineering whose purpose is not medical treatment, as well as interventions that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics of a human body.)”
“In accord with the mission of Catholic health care, which includes serving those who are vulnerable, Catholic health care services and providers ‘must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who experience gender incongruence or gender dysphoria’ and to provide for the full range of their health care needs, employing only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body,” it adds.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2024 condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.” The USCCB directive comes against the backdrop of the Trump-Vance administration’s continued attacks against the trans community.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical interventions for minors.
Media reports earlier this month indicated the Trump-Vance administration will seek to prohibit Medicaid reimbursement for medical care to trans minors, and ban reimbursement through the Children’s Health Insurance Program for patients under 19. NPR also reported the White House is considering blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors.
“The directives adopted by the USCCB will harm, not benefit transgender persons,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a statement. “In a church called to synodal listening and dialogue, it is embarrassing, even shameful, that the bishops failed to consult transgender people, who have found that gender-affirming medical care has enhanced their lives and their relationship with God.”
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