National
Pioneering LGBTQ rights advocate Lilli Vincenz dies at 85
Helped organize protests in early 1960s, co-founded Washington Blade
LGBTQ rights activist, psychotherapist, and documentary filmmaker Lilli Vincenz, who played an important role in helping to organize groundbreaking gay rights protests outside the White House and Philadelphia’s Independence Hall in the 1960s, died June 27 of natural causes at her residence in an assisted living center in Oakton, Va. She was 85.
Vincenz is believed to be the first known lesbian to participate in a gay rights protest in front of the White House in April 1965, when she joined pioneering gay rights leader Frank Kameny, seven other gay men, and a bisexual and straight woman in a first-of-its-kind White House protest calling for equal rights for homosexuals.
The protest took place about two years after Vincenz also is believed to have been the first lesbian to join the Mattachine Society of Washington in 1963, which was D.C.’s first significant gay rights organization co-founded by Kameny and gay activist Jack Nichols in 1961. The Mattachine Society of Washington led the 1965 White House protest and other 1960s era gay protests in D.C.
According to a biographical write-up on Vincenz by lesbian historian Lillian Faderman for the current Mattachine Society of Washington that was reconstituted years later by D.C. gay rights advocate Charles Francis and others, Vincenz participated in other protests in the 1960s in support of what was then known as the homophile movement.
Among them were protests outside the Pentagon and the U.S. Civil Service Commission in Washington, which oversaw enforcing the federal government’s policy at the time of firing gay men or lesbians found to be working at federal government agencies.
Vincenz joined Kameny and other D.C. Mattachine Society members in another historic first in a protest outside Philadelphia’s Independence Hall beginning in the mid-1960s in support of homosexual rights.
Faderman’s biographical write-up on Vincenz says that in 1968, Vincenz brought her 16-millimeter movie camera to the Independence Hall gay protest to film what became the fourth annual Remembrance Day gay picketing at Independence Hall.
It would become the start of Vincenz’s practice as an amateur filmmaker to film other early gay rights protests and other gay events, including the 1970 gay and lesbian rights march in New York City to commemorate the first anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York’s Greenwich Village that’s credited with rapidly advancing the modern LGBTQ rights movement.
In 1966, according to Faderman, Vincenz was named editor of the D.C. Mattachine Society’s monthly newsletter called The Homosexual Citizen. In 1969, Vincenz and D.C. lesbian activist Nancy Tucker co-founded an independent gay newspaper as a spinoff of the Mattachine newsletter called the Gay Blade, which later evolved into the Washington Blade.
Vincenz was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1937 and lived through World War II and the fall of the Nazi regime before immigrating to the U.S. in 1949 with her mother and sister at the age of 12.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in French and German at Douglas College in New Jersey in 1959 and a master’s degree in English at Columbia University in New York City in 1960, according to a biography on her by the LGBTQ organization Equality Forum.
The biography says Vincenz enlisted in the U.S. Army’s Women Corps or WAC after completing her master’s degree. But she was discharged from the Army after serving nine months at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in D.C. on grounds of homosexuality. According to the Equality Forum write-up, she was outed by her roommate, which led to a general discharge under honorable conditions.
While involved in gay rights endeavors in the 1970s, Vincenz received a second master’s degree in psychology from George Mason University in Virginia in 1976. In 1990, she received her Ph.D. in human development at the University of Maryland, according to a write-up on her background by the Library of Congress.
That write-up came about shortly after Vincenz donated her papers and the films she had made of LGBTQ rights events in 2013 to the Library of Congress. The donation included some 10,000 papers, photographs, 16-mm movies, and memorabilia collected over a period of more than 50 years.
The Library of Congress statement says the donation of Vincenz’s papers and memorabilia was made through her agent, Charles Francis, the co-founder of the Kameny Papers Project, which facilitated the donation of Kameny’s papers to the Library of Congress in 2006.
It was at the time of her discharge from the Army in 1963 that Vincenz became involved with the Mattachine Society of Washington, according to the Library of Congress statement. Her LGBTQ rights activities continued through the 1970s while she also began her private psychotherapy practice with a focus on mental health issues faced by lesbians and bisexual women.
In 1971, Vincenz supported Frank Kameny’s campaign for the D.C. congressional seat in his role as the first known openly gay person in the country to run for public office. Kameny lost the election but is credited, through help from Vincenz, with opening the way for other LGBTQ candidates to run for and win election to public office.
Through most of the 1970s Vincenz hosted the Gay Women’s Open House in D.C. as a means of providing a safe space for lesbians to socialize and discuss what was then referred to as gay activism. She continued her activism in the 1980s and 1990s and during the peak of the AIDS epidemic she provided support for gay men through her psychotherapy practice, according to fellow activists and friends. Among the organizations she became involved with was the Daughters of Bilitis, a national lesbian rights organization.
People who knew Vincenz have said she and her domestic partner since 1986, Nancy Davis, hosted many LGBTQ-related events in their Arlington, Va., home where the two founded an organization in 1992 called the Community for Creative Self-Development.
D.C.’s Rainbow History Project says in a write-up on the two women that they called the organization a “holistic learning community for empowering gay women and men and all gay-friendly people, creatively, spiritually, and psychologically.”
Davis died of natural causes in 2019 at the age of 82.
“Lilli honored us all by donating her thousands of pages of papers, photographs, and iconic historical documentaries, ‘The Second Largest Minority’ (1968) and ‘Gay and Proud’ (1970) to the Library of Congress,” Francis said. “Through her gift, Lilli’s films now belong to the American people as does her legacy.”
Vincenz’s friend Bob Brown said Vincenz is survived by a nephew and three nieces and many friends. He said plans for a memorial service for Vincenz would be announced sometime later.
The current day Mattachine Society of Washington produced a film on Vincenz’s life that focuses on her role as one of the first to film historic LGBTQ events, especially her film ‘Gay and Proud’ that captured the gay march in 1970 in New York to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots.
Among those interviewed in the Mattachine film and who praised Vincenz’s work were U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), lesbian historian Faderman, and gay historian Eric Cervini.
The film, which Mattachine official Charles Francis says captures the essence of Vincenz’s work and legacy, can be viewed on YouTube.
National
Demonstrators disrupt OMB director hearing over PEPFAR
Capitol Police arrested five protesters
A group of protesters interrupted Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought during his testimony before Congress on Wednesday.
Vought was at the Cannon House Office Building to give testimony to the House Budget Committee.
Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) began the hearing by touting what he described as economic accomplishments of the Trump-Vance administration’s economic accomplishments. Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) disputed those claims in his opening statement.
Boyle went on to admonish Vought for not attending a committee hearing in the previous year.
Vought, the “Project 2025” architect, was invited to speak after Arrington and Boyle made their statements.
Shortly after Vought began reading his statement, Housing Works CEO Charles King stood up in the gallery and began shouting, “PEPFAR saves lives: spend the money!”
The U.S. Capitol Police moved quickly to escort King from the room. Other activists began chanting with King as they unfolded signs bearing a picture of Vought’s face and statements such as, “Vought’s cuts kill people with AIDS,” and “Protect PEPFAR from Vought.”
The group of HIV/AIDS activists included independent activists, former U.S. Agency for International Development and PEPFAR staff, members of Health GAP, Housing Works, and the Treatment Action Group. Six activists were escorted from the hearing and the U.S. Capitol Police detained five of them.
The HIV/AIDS treatment activists protested at the hearing in response to the dismantling of global health programs, including PEPFAR, a federally-funded program credited with saving millions of lives from HIV/AIDS, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.
“Russell Vought is directly responsible for illegally withholding Congressionally appropriated funds for PEPFAR and related global health initiative,” King said in a statement provided to the Washington Blade. “These funding disruptions have already contributed to preventable deaths and threaten to reverse decades of progress in the fight against HIV worldwide. Enough is enough. Congress must ensure Vought stops this deadly sabotage.”
National
HIV/AIDS group NMAC is ‘destabilized’ and in financial crisis: sources
Organization disputes allegations of mismanagement by new CEO
A statement sent to the Washington Blade by an anonymous source claiming to be a current staff member at NMAC, formerly known as the National Minority AIDS Council, alleges that the prominent HIV/AIDS advocacy organization is facing “a rapid and systemic collapse of leadership, governance, and ethical standards.”
The three-page detailed statement sent on April 4 by someone identifying himself only as “John Doe” includes multiple specific allegations that NMAC CEO Harold Phillips, who began his position in October 2025, “has destabilized the organization at every level,” including hiring nine new high-level appointees with salaries of $220,000 each who are performing “duplicative and unjustifiable roles.”
The Blade was able to corroborate some of the allegations by talking to two other knowledgable sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. Those sources said they had received the John Doe statement and believed many, if not most, of its allegations were accurate.
With a total staff of about 30 to 35 employees, the John Doe statement claims the high salaries of the nine new staff members have added to financial problems NMAC has been facing in recent years. It says that at least two NMAC staffers who raised concerns about Phillips’s actions were terminated on grounds of insubordination.
One of the two anonymous sources who spoke to the Blade said one of the dismissed staff members was considering filing a lawsuit against NMAC in response to the firing.
“An external firm was recently brought in to assess the organizational health,” the John Doe statement to the Blade says. “The findings were staggering — more than 50% of staff reported they are actively seeking employment elsewhere,” it says.
The Blade sent the John Doe statement to NMAC this week and asked for a response to the allegations.
NMAC spokesperson Jennifer Moore Phillips, who serves as chief strategy officer and who is not related to Harold Phillips, sent the Blade a short statement calling the John Doe allegations “false and purposefully misleading,” but which did not comment on each of the specific allegations.
“A recent anonymous letter containing unfounded allegations about NMAC makes claims that are simply false and purposefully misleading,” the NMAC statement says. “Evidenced by our new strategic plan and recent successful Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit in Chicago, NMAC’s new leadership is laser focused on delivering on our mission serving the HIV community with renewed energy and vision,” the statement concludes.
The Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit referred to in the statement, which took place in Chicago April 8-10 of this year, is one of the two largest HIV/AIDS related conferences that NMAC organizes each year. Jennifer Phillips said more than 1,400 people attended the event.
The largest NMAC event, the United States Conference on HIV/AIDS, the most recent of which was held in D.C. Sept. 4-7, drew more than 2,400 participants and was hailed by AIDS activists as a highly successful gathering of a diverse group of experts seeking to push for the end to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
One of the keynote speakers at that conference was Paul Kawata, who served as executive director and CEO of NMAC for 36 years and who delivered his farewell address at the conference following the announcement that he would retire on Oct. 7, 2025.
Many of the conference speakers praised Kawata, who became NMAC’s leader two years after its founding in 1987, as the leading force behind its growth and evolution into one of the nation’s leading HIV/AIDS advocacy organizations with a special outreach to people of color.
It was at that time that Harold Phillips, who served as director of the White House Office of AIDS Policy under then-President Joe Biden and who later joined NMAC as deputy director before the NMAC board named him Kawata’s successor as CEO, emerged as NMAC’s next leader.
“The Board has exuberantly elected Harold Phillips as our new CEO,” said Lance Toma, chair of the NMAC Board of Directors at the time Phillips’s appointment was announced. “In this unprecedented moment, there is no one more strategically positioned and experienced to lead our movement through what we know will be some of the most tumultuous and complicated times ahead,” the statement said.
The John Doe statement raising questions about Phillips’s actions and leadership says NMAC staff members formally appealed to the board of directors to intervene.
“The Board has remained silent, while Harold arrogantly told the staff that ‘the board has my back,’” the statement says.
The Blade has also attempted to reach out to Kawata by email for comment on how he feels NMAC is doing six months after his retirement. As of April 14, Kawata had not responded to the Blade’s inquiry.
According to the John Doe statement, NMAC officials have recently “sought external financial rescue,” including a visit by an NMAC official to California to request assistance from the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences. “Without such intervention, layoffs seem imminent,” the statement says.
“This is not a functioning nonprofit,” the John Doe statement concludes. “It is an organization in crisis – bleeding resources, hemorrhaging staff, and operating without transparency, accountability, or governance,” it says, adding, “The communities NMAC serves, the donors who fund its mission, and the public at large deserve to know what is happening behind closed doors.”
By contrast, the NMAC website describes the organization as a highly functioning nonprofit continuing to lead the fight against HIV/AIDS.
“Launched in 1987 during the early years of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the United States, NMAC is a national HIV organization that offers capacity building, leadership development, policy education, and public engagement to end the HIV epidemic among communities most impacted in the United States,” a statement on the NMAC website says.
“In 2026, we mark 45 years of the HIV movement,” the statement adds. “NMAC continues to pivot to center the needs of people of color impacted by HIV by responding to political challenges that threaten federal funding and programs that have provided an essential survival safety net,” it says. “Simultaneously, as HIV treatment allows people to age with HIV, our whole-person approach extends to achieving optimal quality of life beyond attaining viral suppression.”
In its most recent action, NMAC issued a detailed press release on April 14 criticizing President Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal year 2027 budget provisions that call for cutting more than $1.5 billion in HIV prevention, substance use, housing and other programs. The release provides details on how the cuts would negatively impact important HIV prevention programs and urges Congress to reject the proposed cuts.
Federal Government
Inside the LGBTQ records of Todd Blanche and Markwayne Mullin
Two men are acting attorney general, DHS secretary
President Donald Trump became famous for his use of the phrase “You’re fired!” while hosting the reality TV show “The Apprentice” in the early 2000s. However, during his time in the Oval Office, he has attempted to distance himself from that image.
Despite those efforts, the phrase once again comes to mind as Trump has fired two high-level female Cabinet members within the past month: Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem.
Their replacements — Todd Blanche at the Justice Department and Markwayne Mullin at the Department of Homeland Security — bring records that, while different in depth, both reflect limited support for LGBTQ protections and, in some cases, direct opposition.
Todd Blanche
Acting attorney general
Little has been found regarding Todd Blanche’s LGBTQ history prior to his role as acting head of the Department of Justice. Unlike those who have worked within the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division or served as state attorneys general, he has not developed a public-facing legal ideology on LGBTQ issues.
Blanche attended American University for his undergraduate studies — like fellow Trump attorney Michael Cohen — where he met his future wife, Kristin, who was studying at nearby Catholic University in D.C.
He began his legal career as an intern at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, which eventually became a full-time position. He later worked as a paralegal in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York while attending Brooklyn Law School at night. Blanche graduated cum laude in 2003. He and his wife later married and had two children.
Blanche left the U.S. attorney’s office in 2014, taking a job in the Manhattan office of the law firm WilmerHale. In September 2017, he moved to Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, where he was a partner in the White Collar Defense and Investigations practice.
In his personal capacity, he represented several figures associated with Donald Trump and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, including Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, businessman Igor Fruman, and attorney Boris Epshteyn.
In 2024, Blanche switched from Democrat to Republican, aligning himself with Trump’s political orbit. He later served as Trump’s personal defense attorney in the New York State case that led to Trump’s 2024 conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to bisexual adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Now the highest-ranking official at the Justice Department, Blanche has played a central role in overseeing the department and has been involved in leadership decisions tied to several controversial actions affecting LGBTQ people.
In a letter to New York Attorney General Letitia James, Blanche declared that the Justice Department “will not sit idly by while you attempt to use your office to force harmful procedures on our most vulnerable population,” if legal action were taken against NYU Langone. The hospital had “permanently” ended a program earlier that month after the Trump-Vance administration threatened to pull all federal funding if it continued prescribing puberty blockers and hormones to minors.
Blanche wrote that “the Justice Department believes the law is clear, and anti-discrimination laws cannot be used to force NYU Langone to perform sex-rejecting procedures on children.”
“As just one example, your office’s position would require a hospital to prescribe certain medications for certain diagnoses, regardless of the hospital’s or its doctors’ independent medical determination about the propriety of such treatment,” he said.
Blanche also echoed his predecessor’s public stance on limiting LGBTQ-related protections at the federal level, aligning with Bondi’s sentiments in June 2025 regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision that restricted LGBTQ history lessions in schools and limits lower federal courts from issuing nationwide injunctions — rulings that have often blocked Trump administration policies.
Calling it “another great decision that came down today,” Blanche argued that the ruling “restores parents’ rights to decide their child’s education,” adding: “It seems like a basic idea, but it took the Supreme Court to set the record straight, and we thank them for that. And now that ruling allows parents to opt out of dangerous trans ideology and make the decisions for their children that they believe is correct.”
In December 2025, a Justice Department memo stated that, “effective immediately,” prisons and jails would no longer be held responsible for violations of standards meant to protect LGBTQ people from harassment, abuse, and rape under the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The law, passed unanimously by Congress in 2003, requires that incarcerated people be screened for their risk of sexual assault, including consideration of LGBTQ status, and applies to all correctional facilities.
Additionally, when the Justice Department, under Blanche’s deputy leadership and at Trump’s behest, attempted to force Children’s National Hospital in D.C. to turn over medical records related to gender-affirming care, U.S. District Judge Julie R. Rubin ruled that the effort “appears to have no purpose other than to intimidate and harass.”
Blanche is also described as having a “strong belief in executive authority.”
Markwayne Mullin
Secretary of Homeland Security
While Blanche’s record is defined more by recent actions than a long paper trail, Markwayne Mullin brings a more established history on LGBTQ issues from his time in Congress.
The head of the Department of Homeland Security has served in Congress since 2013, in both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. He has been actively engaged in shaping restrictions and aligns with broader cultural rhetoric that frames anti-LGBTQ speech as protected expression.
In May 2016, Mullin criticized the Department of Education and the Justice Department’s “Dear Colleague” letter on transgender students, arguing that trans girls should not use girls’ restrooms in public schools.
By January 2021, Mullin and then-Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard had introduced a bill to prevent trans women from participating in women’s sports.
Mullin was not recorded as voting on the final passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, which codified federal recognition of same-sex and interracial marriage.
In 2023, Mullin received a rating of just 6 percent from the Human Rights Campaign.
While serving in the Senate and as a member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, Mullin has been a vocal critic of policies aimed at expanding LGBTQ inclusion in federal programs. He has participated in broader Republican efforts questioning equity-based implementation of the Older Americans Act, including guidance related to sexual orientation and gender identity in aging services, arguing such policies could have unintended consequences.
Mullin also makes history as the first Native American — and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation — to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
He was among the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results despite no evidence of widespread fraud, and was present in the House on Jan. 6.
The Washington Blade reached out to DHS and the DOJ for comment on the two cabinet choices’ records on LGBTQ rights. DHS responded, telling the Blade, “Secretary Mullin’s record at the Department of Homeland Security will be one of protecting ALL Americans,” while the DOJ has yet to respond.
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