National
Remembering those we lost in 2022
Pioneering artists, designers, actors, and more
The acclaimed LGBTQ people and allies who died in 2022 include:
Jorge Diaz-Johnston, 54, died on Jan. 8. He and his husband were plaintiffs in a lawsuit that led to the legalization of same-sex marriage in Miami-Dade County, the Blade reported.
Andre Leon Talley, 73, the groundbreaking fashion editor, curator, and television personality died on Jan. 18 at a White Plains, N.Y., hospital.
Arnie Kantrowitz, 81, a founding member of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (now known as GLAAD), died on Jan. 21 at a New York City rehabilitation center from complications of COVID-19.
Spiritual fitness leader Patricia Moreno, 57, died on Jan. 22 at her home in Los Angeles from cervical cancer.
Alan A. Stone, 92, died on Jan. 23 at his Cambridge, Mass., home from laryngeal cancer. When he was president of the American Psychiatric Association, homosexuality was removed from the list of mental disorders.
Genre-busting French designer Thierry Mugler, 73, died on Jan. 23 in his Vincennes home outside Paris.
James Bidgood, 88, an acclaimed gay photographer and filmmaker who anonymously directed the 1971 cult classic “Pink Narcissus,” died on Jan. 31 in Manhattan from complications of COVID-19.
Isabel Torres, 52, the actress best known for her portrayal of Cristina Ortiz Rodriguez, the transgender singer on the series “Veneno” on HBO Max, died on Feb. 11.
Joe Tom Easley, 81, an LGBTQ advocate who played a key role in the effort to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ died on Feb. 13 at a hospital near his Miami Beach home from complications of lung disease.
Leo Bersani, 90, a scholar of French literature whose work at the height of the AIDS crisis influenced debates about queer identity, died on Feb. 20 at a Peoria, Ariz., assisted-living facility.
Rusty Mae Moore, 80, a transgender educator and activist died on Feb. 23 at her home in Pine Hill, N.Y. from cardiovascular complications.
Richard Lipez, 83, who under the pen name Richard Stevenson wrote a groundbreaking series of novels featuring the out gay detective Donald Strachey, died on March 16 of pancreatic cancer at his home in Becket, Mass.
Ashton Hawkins, 84, executive vice president and counsel to the trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, died on March 27 at a White Plains, N.Y., assisted living facility from complications of Alzheimer’s disease.
Richard Howard, 92, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, died on March 31 in Manhattan from complications of dementia.
Eric Little, owner of the iconic 17th Street bar JR.’s and the closed gay bar Cobalt died on May 1 in his sleep at his Hollywood, Md., home of unknown causes.
Margot Heuman, 94, a rare Holocaust survivor who spoke of her same-sex relationship in the concentration camps, died on May 11 at a hospital in Green Valley, Ariz.
Urvashi Vaid, 63, leader of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force during the AIDS crisis who founded a super PAC to promote LGBTQ women in politics, died on May 14 from cancer at a hospital in Manhattan.
Kristine Gebbie, 78, the first U.S. AIDS czar, died from cancer in Adelaide, Australia on May 17.
Jeffrey Escoffier, 79, a renowned scholar who wrote about gay identity and as a New York City public health official directed campaigns on HIV and other issues, died on May 20 from complications from a fall.
Paul Gunther, 65, a champion of art and architecture in New York nonprofit preservation organizations, died on May 29 in a Manhattan hospital from injuries, which authorities said were sustained due to an attempted suicide, The New York Times reported.
Ronni Solbert, 96, a children’s illustrator most known for her illustrations for “The Pushcart War” written by her partner Jean Merrill, died on June 9 at her Randolph, Vt., home.
Gloria Allen, 76, a transgender activist whose work with at-risk transgender Chicago youth inspired the documentary “Mama Gloria” and the play “Charm,” died on June 13 at her home from respiratory failure.
Clela Rorex, 78, who, in 1975, as a groundbreaking Boulder County, Colo., clerk issued a marriage license to a same-sex couple, died on June 19 from complications of an infection at a Longmont, Colo. hospice.
David Pichette, an ordained Roman Catholic priest who for many years was involved with the LGBTQ Catholic organizations Dignity Washington and Dignity Northern Virginia, died on June 27 from complications of pancreatic cancer at a Boynton Beach, Fla. hospice.
Poet and writer of opera librettos and musicals Kenward Elmslie, 93, died on June 29 at his New York City home.
Gay journalist Chuck Colbert, 67, who covered the Catholic clergy sexual abuse scandal died on June 30.
Noah Vincent, lesbian, journalist and author of the well-regarded book “Self-Made Man” about passing as a man died on July 6 at a clinic in Switzerland. Her death was medically assisted (a voluntarily assisted death).
Computer programmer and art collector John Camp, 77, died on July 12 at an Arlington, Va. hospital from complications of prostate cancer.
Pat Carroll, 95, the game show and sit-com star who reinvented herself in a one-woman show on Gertrude Stein, died on July 31 at her Cape Cod, Mass. home from pneumonia.
Author, poet and activist Elana Dykewomon, 72, died on Aug. 7 at her Oakland, Calif. home from esophageal cancer.
Queer ally, pop singer and “Grease” star Olivia Newton-John, 73, died on Aug. 8 at her Southern California ranch. No cause of death was given. She had lived with breast cancer since 1992.
Actress Anne Heche, 53, died on Aug. 14 from injuries sustained in a car accident.
Stephen Peter Gorman, 69, who once served as chair of the D. C. Mayor’s Committee on Persons with Disabilities, died on Aug. 19 in Washington, D.C.
Founder of the Chelsea Theater Center Robert Kalfin, 89, died on Sept. 20 at a Southampton, N.Y. hospice from myeloid leukemia.
D.C. LGBTQ rights advocate and events promoter Jacob Pring, 47, died on Sept. 26 at his Springfield, Va. home.
Celebrated D.C. LGBTQ activist Kathleen Joan DeBold, 66, died suddenly on Oct. 9 in Ocean City, Md.
Queer icon and legendary star of stage, screen, and TV Angela Lansbury, 96, died on Oct. 10.
Max Woodward, 76, who retired in 2016 as Kennedy Center vice president of theater programming, died on Oct. 14 at a Washington, D.C. care facility from complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
Leslie Jordan, 67, an actor known for his work on “Will & Grace” whose pandemic Instagram postings went viral, died on Oct. 24 in Los Angeles after a car accident.
Gay country music pioneer Patrick Haggerty, 78, died on Oct. 31 at his home in Bremerton, Wash. He had suffered a stroke on a flight after a show on Sept. 30.
Harry Bates, 95, an acclaimed architect who designed houses on Fire Island and the Hamptons, died on Nov. 1 at a hospital in Fernandina Beach, Fla.
Doris Grumbach, 104, acclaimed author who wrote about the plight of women, died on Nov. 4 at a retirement community in Kennett Square, Pa.
Kevin Conroy, 66, the voice of Batman for three decades, died on Nov. 10 from intestinal cancer.
Frederick Swann, 91, a renowned master of the pipe organ died from cancer at his home in Palm Desert, Calif. on Nov. 13
Barbara Love, 85, a feminist and gay rights activist, died on Nov. 13 in the Bronx, N.Y. from complications of leukemia and Parkinson’s disease.
Don Luce, 88, an activist who helped to end the Vietnam War, died on Nov. 17 at a Niagara Falls, N.Y. hospital after suffering a sudden cardiac ischemia.
Ned Rorem, 99, renowned composer of music and diary writer, died on Nov. 18 at his home in Manhattan.
Marijane Meaker, 95, the lesbian author whose 1952 novel “Spring Fire” brought lesbian pulp fiction into the mainstream, died on Nov. 21 at her East Hampton, N.Y. home from cardiopulmonary arrest.
Irene Cara, 63, queer icon, singer and star of “Fame” and “Flashdance,” died on Nov. 26 at her Largo, Fla. home.
Former Republican Congressman James (Jim) Kolbe, 80, who represented Southern Arizona in Congress for 22 years, died on Dec. 3 from a stroke. He was the first openly gay Republican member of the House of Representatives.
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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