Congress
Republican senators focus on trans women in sports during ‘Protecting Pride’ hearing
HRC President Kelley Robinson among committee witnesses
During the Senate Judiciary Committee’s “Protecting Pride” hearing on Wednesday morning, Republican members were largely focused on transgender women’s participation in competitive sports.
Members on the other side of the aisle, meanwhile, addressed a variety of LGBTQ topics — including the need for passage of the Equality Act, which the Democrats reintroduced with a press conference just after the hearing.
Most questions from the GOP senators were addressed to one of their witnesses, Riley Gaines, who once competed with trans swimmer Lia Thomas and rose to public attention last year for her advocacy against the inclusion of trans women in athletics.
During the hearing, Gaines claimed not to be transphobic and insisted she harbored no negative feelings toward her former teammate, but used incendiary language about trans women, including repeatedly describing Thomas’ genitals and deliberately misgendering her.
For example, Republican Committee member U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) asked for her response to Thomas’ comments that she has used, as a pretext, “the guise of feminism to sort of push transphobic beliefs,” which Gaines dismissed by saying her former teammate was “mansplaining what it means to be a feminist.”
Despite the barrage of anti-trans laws introduced and passed in statehouses across the country this year, conservative federal lawmakers so far have made progress advancing just one, a bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in April that would prohibit trans girls and women from competing on women’s and girls’ sports teams. (The bill is almost certainly destined to languish in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and President Joe Biden promised he would veto the measure should it ever reach his desk.)
While Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee dedicated most of their time to consternation over competitive sports, conservative state lawmakers have clawed back the rights and freedoms of their trans residents on multiple other fronts — including, notably, by restricting or blocking their access to guideline directed medical interventions consistent with the best practices standard of care as ordained by scientific and medical societies with the requisite expertise.
And while they engaged far less with him than they did with Gaines, the GOP senators invited another witness to Wednesday’s hearing, Matt Sharp, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom.
ADF, notes the Southern Poverty Law Center, “has supported the recriminalization of sexual acts between consenting LGBTQ adults in the U.S. and criminalization abroad; has defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people abroad; has contended that LGBTQ people are more likely to engage in pedophilia; and claims that a ‘homosexual agenda’ will destroy Christianity and society.”
Sharp used the opportunity to advocate for his client Laurie Smith whose case before the U.S. Supreme Court, 303 Creative v. Elenis, could lead to a ruling permitting business owners to claim religious exemptions from statewide laws prohibiting anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
Most of his prepared remarks before the committee, however, concerned healthcare treatments for trans youth, which he described in misleading and inaccurate ways, such as by claiming that LGBTQ advocates are pushing “to get dangerous and potentially irreversible gender transition procedures” performed on children.
Extreme positions like these are not inconsistent with views that many of the Republicans on the committee have expressed in the past. Last year, U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) headlined her state’s “Rally to End Child Genital Mutilation,” a commonly used — and inaccurate — term used by anti-trans activists to describe gender affirming care even though genital surgeries are not recommended for minor patients.
Doctor Ximena Lopez, a witness invited by the Democratic senators, followed Sharp’s remarks by swatting down healthcare related misinformation and discussing her practice as a pediatrician trained in pediatric endocrinology with experience treating minor patients with gender affirming care.
“Misinformation,” she said, “is having a chilling effect,” and “the general public should know” that guideline directed gender affirming care is “based on more than two decades of research and clinical practice [and] accepted as established medical care by every leading medical organization including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and many others.”
Lopez said the decision to opt for one’s child to undergo treatments for gender dysphoria per the best practices standard of care and clinical practice guidelines is “highly complex” and “not easy” for “any parent from any background.”
“It takes a lot of time and effort to meet with different health providers and physicians to discuss risks, benefits, and possible alternatives,” Lopez said.
She added, “I’m here because I’m very worried for the mental health of my patients, the ones I see in my clinic who are supported by their parents and receiving gender affirming care and thriving.”
Lopez, whose practice is located in Texas, said if these patients suddenly lose access to gender affirming care, she fears for the consequences on their mental health. They are “debating whether to leave or hide,” she said, “and it’s really devastating.”
Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson, the Democrats’ third witness, dedicated a portion of her prepared remarks to the Equality Act ahead of her appearance at the press conference announcing its reintroduction.
The legislation, which would extend federal nondiscrimination protections to LGBTQ Americans, has been introduced in Congress several times over more than a decade.
Particularly now that the Congress has made major inroads toward LGBTQ rights — codifying protections for same-sex couples, for instance, and repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — Robinson said “it’s time for Congress to catch up to where our country already is.”
The Equality Act enjoys broad support, including from major companies, said Democratic Committee member U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.). She asked Robinson to confirm that it remains lawful in certain parts of the country to deny loans to LGBTQ applicants based only on bias toward their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Robinson had previously noted LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination protections are on the books in only 23 states.
She began her prepared remarks, however, by proclaiming that “LGBTQ+ people in the United States are living in a state of emergency.”
Robinson detailed the proliferation of legislative attacks against the community and described how each of the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced this year caused a spike in violent threats and dehumanizing rhetoric while putting families in the position of having to decide whether they might need to relocate to other states to protect their safety. Robinson described how the uptick in homophobia and transphobia has dramatically exacerbated the mental health crisis afflicting LGBTQ people, especially youth. She talked about the deadly shootings in LGBTQ spaces, and the murders of trans people.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) used his time to question Robinson.
Rather than addressing any of the matters she had discussed in her opening remarks, Cruz asked Robinson to state for the record whether she believes there are differences between men and women, repeatedly interrupting and haranguing her when she tried to answer.
Congress
10 HIV/AIDS activists arrested on Capitol Hill
Protesters interrupted Secretary of State Marco Rubio during hearing
U.S. Capitol Police on Tuesday arrested 10 HIV/AIDS activists who protested Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
The activists from Housing Works, Health GAP, the Treatment Action Group, and ACT UP held signs and chanted “Rubio’s Cuts Kill People with AIDS, PEPFAR Saves Lives!” before officers removed them from Dirksen Senate Office Building room where the hearing took place.
A media advisory the Washington Blade received before the protest noted “mounting evidence of Rubio’s attempts to sabotage PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, U.S. bilateral AIDS program) and vital global health programs.” The press release specifically highlighted three specific points:
• Eliminating Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) lifesaving PEPFAR programs, which currently support approximately 12 million people on HIV treatment across 51 countries. Instead, Rubio intends to dismantle CDC’s current PEPFAR role and stamp out their global footprint in disease outbreak and surveillance for pandemics beyond HIV. Experts including eight former CDC Directors under Republican and Democratic administrations have spoken out against this effort to dismantle PEPFAR. Recent PEPFAR data showed sharp decreases in the numbers of people newly tested, diagnosed, and treated for HIV, but these data would have been even worse if not for CDC’s PEPFAR programs.
• Withholding $2 billion in Congressionally appropriated FY25 funding, including $330 million to combat HIV, $250 million to fight malaria, $320 million for maternal and child health programs, and nearly $650 million in global health security programs.
• Negotiating secret bilateral deals blackmailing African governments by demanding access to critical mineral wealth as a condition of access to HIV treatment and prevention funding.
The groups have staged several protests against the Trump-Vance administration’s HIV/AIDS policies since it took office.
Rubio on Jan. 28, 2025, issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during a freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, 2025, has severely impacted their work.
The State Department last September announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir in countries with high prevalence rates.
The New York Times last summer reported Vought “apportioned” only $2.9 billion of $6 billion that Congress set aside for PEPFAR for fiscal year 2025. (PEPFAR in the coming fiscal year will use funds allocated in fiscal year 2024.)
Bipartisan opposition in the U.S. Senate prompted the Trump-Vance administration last July withdraw a proposal to cut $400 million from PEPFAR’s budget. Vought a few weeks later said he would use a “pocket rescission” to cancel $4.9 billion for HIV/AIDS prevention and global health programs and other foreign aid assistance initiatives that Congress had already approved.
The White House in January expanded the global gag rule to ban U.S. foreign aid for groups that promote “gender ideology.” President Ronald Reagan in 1985 implemented the original regulation, also known as the “Mexico City” policy, which bans U.S. foreign aid for groups that support abortion and/or offer abortion-related services. Advocacy groups insist the expanded rule will adversely impact HIV prevention efforts around the world.
“Congress must stop Secretary Rubio before he dismantles PEPFAR,” said Treatment Action Group’s Kendall Martinez-Wright. “Rubio continues to defy the will of Congress and the American people who want this program restored and repaired. Under his leadership he is diverting funding and trying to eliminate the essential role of technical experts in global HIV and global health, while program performance is flailing.”
Congress
Eight Democrats break with party as House advances ‘Don’t Say Trans’ bill
Measure not expected to pass in Senate
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a federal “Don’t Say Trans” bill on Wednesday, attempting to force teachers to out transgender students nationwide.
The bill, House Resolution 2616, also called the “Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act,” would require schools to get parental consent before allowing students to use their preferred, rather than originally assigned, gender markers, pronouns, or preferred name on any school form, and to use any sex-based accommodations, including locker rooms or bathrooms.
The bill amends Section 8526 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, legislation that allows for federal aid to help elementary and secondary education programs — particularly those under its lowest-income Title I-A program — to stop allocating funds to any education that teaches concepts “related to gender ideology.”
This is directly related to Executive Order 14168, also known as the “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” order, one of President Donald Trump’s first executive orders of his second term. It requires the federal government to recognize only sex assigned at birth and dismiss gender identity rather than sex.
The bill was sponsored by U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and passed by a 217-198 margin. The vote fell mostly along party lines; however, eight Democrats voted for its passage. They were U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Donald Davis (D-N.C.), Cleo Fields (D-La.), Laura Gillen (D-N.Y.), Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), and Eugene Vindman (D-Va.).
Proponents of the bill argue a child’s gender identity should be directed by parents at home rather than in public schools.
Critics say this is dangerous and will force students to be outed by their teachers to parents — some of whom may not be supportive of their gender identity — which could lead to violence or possibly conversion therapy.
California Congressman Mark Takano, chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, spoke on the House floor while the bill was being debated.
“Republicans claim to be the party of small government, but they have no problem bringing the full force of the federal government down against children. The GOP thinks they can legislate transgender people out of existence with this inhumane Don’t Say Trans bill, but all they’re doing is making life worse for a small minority of already-vulnerable children,” Takano said. “I spent 24 years as an educator where I worked with hundreds of high school students and their parents. Most children go to their parents when they need help or are struggling — including transgender children — but not all parents are accepting. The forced outing provision of this bill puts teachers in an impossible situation by requiring them to out trans kids to their parents in certain situations — even if the teacher knows the student will likely face physical abuse. Students like these are who Republicans want to put in immediate physical danger with this bill.”
The Washington Blade talked to Tyler Hack’s, founder and executive director of the trans advocacy organization and Christopher Street Project PAC, following the bill’s passage.
“Most queer kids go to their families when they are figuring out who they are, and then not all queer kids have that option,” Hack told the Blade. “If this became law, it would harm those already vulnerable kids who rely on school as a safe place and might not have a safe place at home.”
They explained this is not about protecting parents’ rights to know what is going on with their children, but rather the weaponization of trans identity that has become a mainstream Republican ideal pushed by the Trump-Vance administration.
“Young people deserve the space to figure out who they are without the federal government interfering in their lives,” they said. “It is beyond the pale, or rather it should be beyond the pale, and has become a norm for Republicans in Congress to villainize kids, because I mean, this bill targets kids, it’s in the name of the bill, and it’s in the implications.”
Hack continued, saying that amid the rising cost of everyday necessities — from gas to groceries — and while the Trump-Vance administration continues to defund programs intended to help the most vulnerable Americans while creating slush funds for political allies, this is not what Congress should be focusing on.
“At a time when people are really struggling, and politicians need to be focused on lowering costs, they’re using queer and trans kids as political pawns,” Hack said. “They want to divide and conquer this country, and we need to stand up against them and unite behind values of inclusion and of trust in our teachers.”
David Stacy, the Human Rights Campaign’s vice president of government affairs, provided a statement to the Blade.
“Trans kids are not a political agenda — they are students who deserve safety and affirmation at school like anyone else,” Stacy said. “Despite the many pressing issues facing our nation, House Republicans continue their bizarre obsession with trans people. HR 2616 does not protect children. It targets them. This bill is cruel, and we’ll continue to fight to ensure it never becomes law.”
The bill will move to the U.S. Senate in the coming days and weeks, but it must first be reviewed by a Senate committee before leadership schedules it for a floor vote, where it will need 60 votes to pass.
Congress
Bill seeks to block global gag rule expansion
Policy now bans US foreign aid to groups promoting ‘gender ideology’
Lawmakers on Wednesday introduced a bill that would block the expansion of the global gag rule.
President Ronald Reagan in 1985 implemented the global gag rule, also known as the “Mexico City” policy, which bans U.S. foreign aid for groups that support abortion and/or offer abortion-related services.
Trump reinstated the rule during his first administration. The Biden-Harris administration shortly after it took office in 2021 rescinded it.
The Trump-Vance administration earlier this year expanded the global gag rule to ban U.S. foreign aid for groups that promote “gender ideology.” The expansion took effect on Feb. 26.
U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) introduced the Protecting Human Rights and Public Health in Foreign Assistance Act in the U.S. Senate. U.S. Reps. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), and Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) introduced it in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“Using taxpayer money to export the Trump administration’s anti-trans, anti-science, and anti-abortion ideological agenda isn’t just immoral — it’s antithetical to efficient, effective, and rights-based foreign assistance,” said Council for Global Equality Senior Policy Fellow Beirne Roose-Snyder on Wednesday in a press release.
Meng added the Trump-Vance administration’s “crusade against healthcare and global aid is putting millions of lives at risk worldwide.”
“No one will flourish under the new expanded global gag rule,” said the New York Democrat. “These policies weaponize foreign aid and will result in greater harm, particularly for women and girls, marginalized communities, and LGBTQI+ individuals.”
“They should never have been implemented at all, let alone without even a basic public comment process,” she added. “This legislation will reverse these dangerous policies.”
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