National
Top 10 national news stories of 2023
Pride stunt gone wrong, state houses attack, and more
It was an alarming year for queer Americans as state legislatures took aim at everything from gender-affirming care for transgender people to banning books with queer themes. Here are the Blade’s staff picks for the top 10 stories of 2023.
#10 Pride at the White House
The Biden-Harris administration in June hosted the largest Pride celebration ever held on White House grounds. Thousands gathered on the South Lawn to hear the president reaffirm his commitment to the LGBTQ community, decry the introduction and passage of legislation targeting queer people, and outline new actions the administration would take to tackle issues from bias-motivated threats and violence to youth homelessness. After the event, right-wing activists drew attention to a trans activist attendee’s topless TikTok video, which prompted a rebuke from the White House. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the “influencer” would not be invited back.
#9 Off-year elections spell victory for Dems, poor showing for Moms for Liberty
Polls show that Democrats largely over-performed in off-year elections that were held in November 2023, with Democratic hopefuls in competitive races securing decisive victories up and down the ballot – from the gubernatorial race in Kentucky to school board contests in states across the country. Moms for Liberty, an anti-LGBTQ right-wing organization considered an extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, backed 139 candidates in school board races who vowed to oppose books, materials, and classroom discussion or instruction on LGBTQ matters or those concerning racial justice. Just over a third of those candidates – 50 – won.
#8 FDA finalizes new, inclusive blood donation guidelines
Gay and bisexual men who have sex with men have been prohibited from donating blood for decades since the discovery of AIDS, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration narrowing its restrictions only twice since the 1980s. Revisiting blood donation guidelines has been a major priority for the Biden-Harris administration, and the FDA’s decision this year to take a major step away from the discriminatory ban was lauded by LGBTQ groups – some of which vowed that they would continue, in the words of GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis, “advocating for the FDA to lift all restrictions against qualified LGBTQ blood donor candidates.”
#7 Battle over the Republican speakership
U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) narrowly secured the votes to become speaker in January and only after a historic 15 ballots were cast. He was summarily ousted by a small group of ultraconservative members before the end of the year, throwing the House into turmoil as the Republican conference flailed for weeks without a speaker until they united around U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.). Johnson is an anti-LGBTQ far-right Christian fundamentalist who has advocated for the reinstatement of sodomy laws and nurtured close ties with the most extreme figures on the religious right.
#6 Pelosi steps down from leadership and is interviewed by the Blade
In January, just after the end of her tenure as one of the most celebrated and accomplished House speakers, U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sat down with the Washington Blade in her office for an interview about her work advancing the social, legal, and political equality of LGBTQ people in America. From her first speech on the House floor in 1987 demanding congressional action on AIDS to her leadership in 2022 passing the Respect for Marriage Act, the California Democrat has been at the forefront of the battle for LGBTQ rights while also blazing a trail for women to serve in the highest levels of American politics and government.
#5 George Santos drama
Before his time in Washington had even begun, the first out gay Republican elected to Congress was revealed to be a total fraud with respect to matters that ranged from the frivolous (claims of collegiate athletic prowess) to the legally actionable (pilfering campaign donations to buy Ferragamo loafers and content on OnlyFans). At first, House Republican leadership stood by Santos through the torrent of unflattering news coverage, mindful of the party’s narrow majority control of the lower chamber. Eventually, however, lawmakers were handed a damning report by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee and made the unprecedented move of booting him out of office.
#4 303 Creative v. Elenis
The Alliance Defending Freedom, which is deemed an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, represented a Colorado website designer who, though she had never been asked to provide services in connection with a same-sex wedding, feared that she would be prohibited from refusing such a request because of the state’s LGBTQ inclusive nondiscrimination statute. The U.S. Supreme Court not only agreed to review the case, concluding that the business owner had standing to sue, but ruled in her favor – delivering a blow to LGBTQ rights in a decision weakening the court’s precedent on marriage equality.
#3 Anti-trans policies to figure prominently in Trump v. Biden rematch
Former President Trump has maintained a decisive lead over the rest of the Republican presidential primary field since the start of 2023, which has widened considerably since the summer. Announcing his plans to run again in January, Trump outlined a plan of attack against transgender Americans, including policy proposals targeting access to gender affirming care and appeals for congressional Republicans to define gender as immutable and assigned at birth. President Biden, meanwhile, has no meaningful competition from other Democrats leading into 2024, and has vowed to protect and defend transgender Americans while taking steps to shore up protections for the community during his time in office.
#2 Major companies fend off right-wing attacks
The year 2023 saw publicly traded corporations like Target and Anheuser-Busch InBev take financial hits after their outreach to LGBTQ communities inspired reactionary right-wing backlash. The companies’ responses, in turn, ignited criticism from LGBTQ customers who felt abandoned by their decisions to, for instance, scale back on next year’s Pride collections. Transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney partnered with Bud Light for a social media promotion in April – consisting of a single video posted on her Instagram page – and it was only in December that right-wing activist and musician Kid Rock dropped his boycott against the company, having made headlines months earlier by mowing down cases of the product with an assault rifle.
#1 State of emergency for LGBTQ people in America
State legislatures across the country introduced more than 500 bills targeting the LGBTQ community in 2023, passing 75 in 23 states. Most are restrictions on medically necessary healthcare interventions for transgender minors, treatments that are backed by every scientific and medical society with relevant clinical expertise. Others target trans student athletes, restrict bathroom and locker room access, or prohibit schools from any discussion or instruction on matters of sexual orientation and gender identity. LGBTQ people and their families have become refugees in their own country. And the Human Rights Campaign declared a state of emergency for the first time ever.
Honorable mention: Blade uncovers Trevor Project scandals
In July, the Washington Blade broke an explosive exposé concerning one of the country’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organizations, the Trevor Project, which provides crisis intervention services to LGBTQ youth. The story revealed financial woes, raised questions about the possible mismanagement of millions of dollars in funds, and pointed to staff dissension — including over management’s alleged union-busting efforts.
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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