National
EXCLUSIVE: 200+ community centers issue letter denouncing state anti-LGBTQ bills
Details ‘tidal wave’ of legislation, threats, and harassment
At least 222 LGBTQ community centers and groups aligned with them across the country have issued a joint letter denouncing the record number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures this year.
The one-page letter was prepared by CenterLink, the national coalition of LGBTQ community centers, which says the nation’s LGBTQ centers collectively serve more than 51,800 people each week or nearly 2.7 million people each year.
“We, the undersigned centers, denounce the tidal wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation that lawmakers are hurling at our community,” the letter says. “We continue to stand united as safe havens for LGBTQ people and as pillars against hate and discrimination,” the letter continues. “We will not relent until these attacks stop and LGBTQ people are treated fairly and equally under the law.”
Denise Spivak, CenterLink’s CEO, told the Washington Blade the letter on Tuesday morning, May 9, was being sent to the White House, several federal government agencies, and the LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus in Congress.
Spivak said CenterLink would not immediately send copies of the letter to state lawmakers who have been supporting the anti-LGBTQ legislation. “But we will be posting it publicly and we will be providing it to all of our centers,” she said. “They’ll have a copy of the letter to post as well and to send to those that they feel it makes sense to send to locally and regionally.”
Among the D.C. groups that signed on to the letter are Rainbow Families and SMYAL, which represents LGBTQ youth and operates group homes for homeless LGBTQ youth.
Also signing the letter were CAMP Rehoboth, the LGBTQ community center in Rehoboth Beach, Del.; the Delmarva Pride Center in Easton, Md.; the Roanoke Diversity Center in Roanoke, Va.; the Shenandoah LGBTQ Center in Staunton, Va.; and Us Giving Richmond Connections, a Richmond, Va.-based group that has organized Black LGBTQ Pride events.
The D.C. Center for the LGBT Community, the largest LGBTQ community center in the D.C. metro area, did not sign on to the letter as of Monday, May 8. A spokesperson for the D.C. Center couldn’t immediately be reached.
Spivak said CenterLink is leaving the letter open for signing by LGBTQ centers that have not done so as of Tuesday, May 9, when the letter was scheduled to be officially released.
“We had two that just came in this morning,” she said in referring to Monday, May 8. “So, even those who you don’t see on there doesn’t mean they won’t or that they don’t support the spirit of the letter,” she said. “It’s just that they have not yet signed on.”
The letter points out that state lawmakers have introduced more anti-LGBTQ legislation this year than in the previous five years combined.
“With 470 anti-LGBTQ bills on state dockets, and 362 of them specifically attacking the transgender community, LGBTQ people are literally fighting for their lives,” the letter says.
“These bills enforce discriminatory bathroom bans, censor drag shows or even make them illegal, stop transgender students from participating in sporting activities at school, force teachers to out students, eliminate school curriculum around LGBTQ and racial issues, attempt to allow states to put restrictions on same-sex marriages, erase LGBTQ people from schools and public life, and prevent transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming care or even force them to de-transition,” the letter states.
“And despite almost three quarters of centers having experienced anti-LGBTQ threats or harassment over the past two years, the community of LGBTQ centers has remained stalwart in their missions,” according to the letter.
Spivak said many of the LGBTQ centers serve as the lead organizer of LGBTQ Pride events in their area, and most if not all of the centers provide support for Pride-related events. She said she was not aware of any specific threats targeting Pride events this year but said she believes organizers of those events, including LGBTQ centers, would be arranging for appropriate security measures.
Among other things, the CenterLink letter calls on members of the LGBTQ community and allies to find the local LGBTQ community center near them and support its services by volunteering or making a donation.
It concludes by adding, “Make sure you’re registered, then when the time comes, vote for lawmakers who support equality for all Americans.”
The CenterLink letter and the list of the LGBTQ community centers that signed on can be accessed at CenterLink’s website and below.
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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