The White House

Jane Rigby awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom

Published

8 months ago

May 7, 2024

NASA astrophysicist Jane Rigby, the senior project scientist for the space agency's James Webb Space Telescope, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden on May 3, 2024, at the White House. (Photos courtesy of NASA)

Sitting among a diverse and venerable group of Americans from every walk of life on the dais in the East Room of the White House on May 3 was lesbian and NASA astrophysicist Jane Rigby, awaiting her turn to be honored by President Joe Biden who would bestow the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, on her.

Rigby, an astronomer who grew up in Delaware, is the chief scientist of the world’s most powerful telescope who alongside her team operating NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, studies every phase in the history of the universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of the solar system.

A member of Penn State’s Class of 2000, Rigby graduated with a bachelor’s degrees in physics and astronomy. She also holds a master’s degree and a PhD in astronomy from at the University of Arizona. Her work as the senior project scientist for NASA’s Webb Telescope includes studies on how galaxies evolve over cosmic time and she has published more than 140 peer-reviewed scientific papers.

Rigby was named to Nature.com’s 2022 list of 10 individuals who shaped science and to the BBC’s list of 100 inspiring and influential women in the same year. Rigby had postdoctoral fellowships at Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, Calif., before landing her job at Goddard Space Flight Center. In 2013 Rigby was awarded the Robert H. Goddard Award for Exceptional Achievement for Science.

A founding member of the American Astronomical Society’s Working Group on LGBTQ Equality in January 2012, now called the Committee for Sexual Orientation and Gender Minorities in Astronomy, Rigby serves as its Board Liaison until her term expires this June.

The lesbian astrophysicist in an interview for SGMA’s website spoke about her experiences including coming out:

“I’ve been out since 2000. My story’s simple — I fell in love with a fellow grad student in the department. It was a close-knit department, so hiding would have been ludicrous. Nor did I want to hide the best thing in my life! So, we were out as grad students. I certainly heard people say awful homophobic things at work there. They weren’t directed at me, and they weren’t said by people with power over me. If I recall, I was much less afraid of homophobic discrimination at work, than I was afraid of the two-body problem, and the lack of support we would receive as a same-sex couple in astronomy. That fear turned out to be justified. I’ve seen numerous different-sex couples get a wide range of support in solving the two-body problem, which was never offered to us,” she told the interviewer.

She reflected on American astronaut and physicist Sally Ride, her childhood role model who had an impact on her career:

“One of my biggest role models when I was young was Dr. Sally Ride. A few years ago, on her deathbed, Dr. Ride chose to write in her obituary that her life partner had been a woman. Dr. Ride was the most influential woman scientist when I was growing up — the person that made me say, “I want to do THAT when I grow up.” It was because of her that I realized that astrophysics was a profession, that physics was a subject girls could study, that NASA needed astrophysicists. So I’m so … amused, I suppose, that Sally Ride was this influence on my life’s path, at a time when I was completely unaware that it was even possible to *be gay* — and at the same time, she was gay, in love, and deeply closeted to keep her job.”

The interviewer noted that “for some women being gay is a cause for concern at the work place. Some say they were unsure about how to turn their sexual orientation into a positive aspect of their work persona.” Then asked Rigby what is your view on this?

“My experience is that absolutely I am a *better* astronomer because I’m queer. For a few reasons. First, I see things different than my colleagues. On mission work, as we weigh a decision, my first thought is always the community impact: ‘If we do things this way, who benefits, and who gets left out in the cold?’ Will this policy create inclusion, or marginalization? I think about science in terms of community-building. What team do we need to tackle a given science problem, with skills that are different from mine? Absolutely I think that way because I’m an outsider, because I’ve been marginalized. And because community-building is central to LGBTQ culture,” she said.

Editor’s note: You can read Rigby’s complete SGMA interview here: (Link)

Married to Dr. Andrea Leistra, Rigby, her wife and their young child reside in Maryland not far from her workplace at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in suburban Washington and when not studying the universe is often found on the neighboring Chesapeake Bay wind boarding, a favored pastime.

Also honored in the ceremony Friday were a former U.S. vice president, a civil rights worker and martyr, two former Cabinet secretaries — one a former U.S. secretary of state, a speech writer for the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., an Olympian and gold medalist, and one of the most powerful woman political leaders and the speaker emeritus of the U.S. House of Representatives, among others, and LGBTQ advocate Judy Shepard.

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The White House

Biden honors two LGBTQ advocates with Presidential Citizens Medal

Evan Wolfson, Mary Bonauto among 20 awardees

Published

1 week ago

January 3, 2025

Christopher Kane

President Joe Biden (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

President Joe Biden awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal on Thursday to LGBTQ advocates Evan Wolfson, founder of Freedom to Marry, and Mary Bonauto, senior director of civil rights and legal strategies at GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD Law).

They, along with 18 other awardees, were honored in the East Room of the White House with a ceremony celebrating their exemplary deeds of service to their country or fellow citizens.

In a statement, the White House said that, “By leading the marriage equality movement, Evan Wolfson helped millions of people in all 50 states win the fundamental right to love, marry, and be themselves,” while Bonauto, an attorney who argued the Obergefell case that made same-sex marriage the law of the land in 2015, “made millions of families whole and forged a more perfect union.”

“Together, you embody the central truth: We’re a great nation because we’re a good people,” the president said. “Our democracy begins and ends with the duties of citizenship. That’s our work for the ages, and it’s what all of you embody.”

Former Republican U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Democratic U.S. Rep. Benny Thompson (Miss.) were honored on Thursday for their work leading the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, siege of the U.S. Capitol.

The White House

Biden signs NDAA with anti-transgender health care provision

Spending bill bans gender-affirming treatment for servicemembers’ children

Published

2 weeks ago

December 27, 2024

Staff reports

President Joe Biden speaks at a World AIDS Day commemoration at the White House on Dec. 1, 2024. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

President Joe Biden on Dec. 23 signed the National Defense Authorization Act with a provision that bans gender-affirming health care for children of U.S. servicemembers.

The U.S. Senate last week approved the NDAA by an 85-14 vote margin.

Biden in a statement the White House released after he signed the NDAA said his administration “strongly opposes” the anti-trans provision.

“By prohibiting the use of appropriated funds, the Department of Defense will be compelled to contravene clinical practice guidelines and clinical recommendations,” said the statement. “The provision targets a group based on that group’s gender identity and interferes with parents’ roles to determine the best care for their children.”

“This section undermines our all-volunteer military’s ability to recruit and retain the finest fighting force the world has ever known by denying health care coverage to thousands of our service members’ children,” added Biden. “No service member should have to decide between their family’s health care access and their call to serve our nation.”

The Human Rights Campaign in a statement noted the NDAA is the first anti-LGBTQ federal law signed since the Defense of Marriage Act.

The White House

President of anti-LGBTQ Catholic group nominated to become next Vatican ambassador

Brian Burch criticized Francis’s decision to allow priests to bless same-sex couples

Published

3 weeks ago

December 23, 2024

Michael K. Lavers

Brian Burch (Screen capture via The Catholic Professional/YouTube)

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated the president of an anti-LGBTQ Catholic group to become the next U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.

The incoming president on Dec. 20 announced he had nominated Brian Burch, president and co-founder of CatholicVote, for the ambassadorship.

“Brian loves the church and the United States,” said Trump on Truth Social. “He will make us all proud.”

Burch on X said he is “deeply honored and humbled to have been nominated by President Trump to serve as the United States Ambassador to the Holy See.”

“The role of ambassador is to represent the government of the United States in its relations with the Holy See,” said Burch. “The Catholic Church is the largest and most important religious institution in the world, and its relationship to the United States is of vital importance.”

“I am committed to working with leaders inside the Vatican and the new administration to promote the dignity of all people and the common good,” he added. “I look forward to the confirmation process and the opportunity to continue to serve my country and the church. To God be the glory.”

Burch in his post also thanked his wife, Sara, and their nine children for their support.

I am deeply honored and humbled to have been nominated by President Trump to serve as the United States Ambassador to the Holy See. Words cannot express my gratitude to all those that have helped me achieve this nomination, most especially my wife Sara…

— Brian Burch (@BrianBurchCV) December 20, 2024

The National Catholic Reporter reported Burch last year sharply criticized Pope Francis’s decision to allow priests to bless same-sex couples.

CatholicVote’s website repeatedly refers to transgender people in quotes.

A Dec. 5 post on the U.S. v. Skrmetti case notes the justices heard oral arguments on “whether Tennessee can protect children from puberty blockers, which chemically sterilize, and sexual surgeries that mutilate and castrate.” A second CatholicVotes post notes the justices grilled the Justice Department “on challenge to Tennessee protections for children against ‘transgender’ mutilations and sterilizations.”

The Vatican’s tone towards LGBTQ and intersex issues has softened since Pope Francis assumed the papacy in 2013.

Francis, among other things, has described laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust.”

He met with two African LGBTQ activists — Clare Byarugaba of Chapter Four Uganda and Rightify Ghana Director Ebenezer Peegah — at the Vatican on Aug. 14. Sister Jeannine Gramick, one of the co-founders of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, organized a meeting between Francis and a group of trans and intersex Catholics and LGBTQ allies that took place at the pontiff’s official residence on Oct. 12.

Francis during a 2023 interview with an Argentine newspaper described gender ideology as “one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations” in the world because “it blurs differences and the value of men and women.” A declaration the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released in March with Francis’s approval condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.”