National
Politicians, activists pay tribute to Barney Frank
Former congressman died on Tuesday
Former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1981 until his retirement in 2013 and who became the first member of Congress to voluntarily come out as gay in 1987, died on May 19, at the age of 86, at his home in Ogunquit, Maine.
His passing came less than a month after he announced he had entered home hospice care due to terminal congestive heart failure under the care of his husband, Jim Ready, and shortly after finishing writing a new book entitled, “The Hard Path to Unity: Why We Must Reform the Left to Rescue Democracy.”
Despite his frail health, during the last few weeks of his life, Frank agreed to do interviews with multiple news media outlets, including the Washington Blade, where he reflected on his sometimes-controversial positions on issues such as transgender rights.
He told the Blade he had been living with his husband in their shared home in Maine since the time of his retirement in 2013 and called his husband a “saint” for caring for him during his illness. In 2012, at the age of 72, Frank married Ready, becoming the first sitting member of Congress to marry someone of the same sex.
News of his passing prompted an outpouring of praise and reflection on his life as a groundbreaking out gay lawmaker by current and former members of Congress and LGBTQ rights leaders.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey announced on May 20 that she had ordered the U.S. flag and the state flag to be lowered to half-staff at all state buildings in honor of Frank’s life and legacy and the recognition of his passing.
“Barney Frank was nothing short of a trailblazer,” said Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, in a statement. “At a time when being openly gay in public service could cost you everything, he chose visibility,” Robinson said.
Robinson and other LGBTQ advocates also pointed to Frank’s role in speaking out in Congress for stronger efforts to address the AIDS epidemic during the early years of HIV/AIDS, his push for the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy to initially allow gays to serve openly in the military, the enactment of marriage equality for same-sex couples, and broader anti-discrimination protections.
Frank has also been credited with helping to pass the federal Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Protection Act of 2009.
In addition to his longstanding support for LGBTQ rights, political observers have said one of his most important achievements in Congress was his role, as chair of the House Financial Services Committee, in becoming co-author of what became known as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.
Coming at the time of a nationwide banking crisis, the New York Times has called the Frank bill that he and then-U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) wrote “the most significant overhaul of the nation’s financial regulations since the Great Depression.”
Frank was born and raised in Bayonne, N.J., and graduated from Bayonne High School.
He graduated from Harvard College in Massachusetts in 1962 and worked in various places, including as an assistant to then-Boston Mayor Kevin White, before winning election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1972, where he served for eight years representing a Boston area district. During that time he attended and graduated from Harvard Law School and became a member of the Massachusetts bar in 1979 after passing the bar exam.
In 1980, Frank became a candidate for the U.S. House in the Massachusetts 4th Congressional District, which he won with 52 percent of the vote in a four-candidate race, taking office in January 1981. He won re-election decisively over the next 30 years until announcing in 2012 his plans to retire and he would not run for re-election that year.
The New York Times is among the publications that have reported this week since Frank’s passing that his record as an esteemed and admired lawmaker helped him survive a sex scandal that surfaced in 1990 linking him to male prostitute Stephen Gobie.
Media reports at the time said Frank had patronized Gobie as one of his customers and for a time had Gobie as a roommate in Frank’s D.C. residence in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. In its article this week, the New York Times says Gobie “claimed that in the mid-1980s he had run a prostitution ring out of Mr. Frank’s home.”
Like other media accounts, the Times report adds that following an investigation, “The House Ethics Committee did not substantiate that claim, but it did find that Mr. Frank had fixed 33 parking tickets for Mr. Gobie and sought to shorten his probation on drug and sex-offense convictions by writing a misleading memorandum on congressional stationery to an official involved in supervising Mr. Gobie’s probation.”
The full House voted 408-18 to reprimand Frank for misuse of his office, but it rejected calls by some to censure or expel him.
“I should have known better,” Frank said in a speech on the House floor at that time, according to the New York Times. “There was in my life a central element of dishonesty,” the Times quoted him as saying. “Three years ago, I decided concealment wouldn’t work. I wish I decided that long ago,” he said referring to his 1987 decision to come out publicly as gay.
Despite all of this, Frank was re-elected that year with 66 percent of the vote, a development that his friends and supporters attribute to his reputation as a beloved and highly regarded public figure.
PFLAG, the national advocacy group for parents and friends of LGBTQ people, is among the groups that issued statements this week reflecting on Frank’s positive impact on the LGBTQ community.
“Frank was not only the first openly gay member of Congress, but he was also co-author of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 as chair of the House Financial Services Committee, which helped enshrine housing access for LGBTQ+ people,” PFLAG says in a statement.
“He was also a leading advocate on laws to combat HIV/AIDS,” the statement says, adding that PFLAG’s national office honored Frank with its Champion of Justice Award in 2018.
“Barney was candid, outspoken, quick-witted and downright funny, and he always had his eye on making progress,” said U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), the first openly lesbian woman elected to the U.S. Senate, in a statement. “He was willing to take on anyone who was in his way, regardless of who they were — I should know, I was one of the many who on occasion got an earful from him,” Baldwin said.
‘But I, and anyone else who spent time with him, were lucky to watch him in action and learn from him,” her statement continues. “Barney was a masterful legislator, savvy and strategic, and always thinking of the long game,” she said. “Our country is a better, more just, more equal place because of him, and he will be sorely missed.”
U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), who serves as chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, which represents LGBTQ members of Congress and their congressional allies, issued his own statement on behalf of the caucus pointing out that Frank was one of the two founding members of the caucus.
“I was honored that he came to campaign for me during my run for Congress just a few years after he co-founded the Congressional Equality Caucus, which I now have the distinct honor of leading,” Takano said.
He was referring to Frank and then-Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin’s action in 2008 to found the House LGBT Equality Caucus as the only two openly gay members of Congress, which evolved into the Congressional Equality Caucus.
“Barney proved that what mattered most was the work you did for others,” Takano says in his statement. “I truly believe that we are closer to a more equal world because of Barney Frank,” he said, adding, “Congressman Frank’s legacy touches every part of our fight for LGBTQI+ equality: from his work advocating for HIV and AIDS research to helping pass major pro-equality legislation like the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act and the Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law.”
In his May 5 interview with the Blade, Frank responded to criticism he received during his tenure in Congress from some LGBTQ rights advocates, especially trans activists, who claimed he had not provided sufficient support for trans rights legislation.
He said he fully supported ongoing efforts to advance trans rights but said those efforts could be jeopardized by pushing issues for which many voters have yet to accept, such as “male to female transgender people playing in women’s sports.”
Among those praising Frank’s life and legacy at the time of his passing is longtime trans activist Diego Sanchez, who became the first openly trans congressional staffer when Frank hired Sanchez as his office’s Senior Policy Advisor. Sanchez remained on Frank’s staff until Frank’s retirement in 2013.
“Barney was a revered statesman for our country at the local, state, and federal levels and a treasured friend to me,” Sanchez told the Blade in a statement. “His belief that prejudice comes from ignorance and is only stricken by visibility explains how he came out openly and how he brought me to his staff, with intent and without apology,” Sanchez said.
He added, “I miss him terribly and am glad I got to spend a week with his husband Jim and him this month. Barney made sure that members of Congress could not say they had never met a trans person. I was honored to be a groomsman in their wedding and will miss Barney’s brilliance, counsel, friendship, and wit.”
Sanchez said celebration of life events are expected to take place in Boston and D.C. and details of those events will be announced soon.
Netherlands
Dutch prime minister visits Stonewall Inn
Rob Jetten is the Netherlands’ first openly gay prime minister
Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten on Monday visited the Stonewall Inn in New York.
“The Stonewall Inn is not just a gay bar in New York, but the place where in 1969 riots took place as a reaction to years of discrimination and police violence,” wrote Jetten on X. “This is seen as the starting point of the global LGBTIQ+ emancipation and activism. Nowadays, the bar is a national monument, dedicated to the LGBTIQ+ rights movement.”
“For me, it is impressive and moving to be here tonight. And also fitting, because the defense of human rights is an important part of our foreign policy,” he added. “The Netherlands stands alongside the Stonewall Inn community when it comes to everyone’s right to live openly, safely, and with pride, no matter who you are or who you love.”
De Stonewall Inn is niet zomaar een gay bar in New York, maar de plaats waar in 1969 rellen plaatsvonden als reactie op jarenlange discriminatie en geweld van de politie. Dit wordt gezien als startpunt van de wereldwijde lhbtiq+-emancipatie en activisme. Tegenwoordig is de bar… pic.twitter.com/hJmFYjF91Z
— Rob Jetten (@MinPres) September 23, 2026
Jetten in February became the Netherlands’s first openly gay prime minister.
He opened last month’s World Pride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam. Jetten also participated in a panel with former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, former San Marino Captain Regent Paolo Rondelli, and other current and former heads of government who are gay or lesbian.
Jetten is scheduled to speak to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.
National
For lesbian victims of domestic violence, competent care is scare
Heteronormative assumptions, funding cuts contribute to lack of resources for survivors
Uncloseted Media published this story on Sept. 22.
By EMMA PAIDRA | Claire, a 25-year-old Los Angeles resident, distinctly remembers the night she and her ex-girlfriend broke up.
“She was strangling me in a CVS parking lot,” Claire recalls, adding how she was gasping for air as bystanders looked on. “I made eye contact with one man who just kept walking, and we were right behind a car that was trying to reverse out of a parking spot. No one got out of the car. They didn’t honk; they didn’t do anything.”
Claire, who asked to use a pseudonym due to safety concerns regarding her ex, says she managed to fight her way out of her then-girlfriend’s grasp. It was at this moment in 2024 she realized things had reached a breaking point.
While research on intimate-partner violence has traditionally focused on opposite-sex couples, two recent reports found that queer women, like Claire, are not immune to this type of abuse. An international research review published last year in the Journal of Media Critiques found “IPV rates in same-sex relationships are comparable to or exceed those in heterosexual relationships,” with up to 46 percent of lesbians encountering such abuse, compared to 36 percent of straight women. A separate review published earlier this year found that nearly 27 percent of lesbians surveyed had experienced IPV.
Despite the prevalence of IPV in lesbian relationships, heteronormative and outdated assumptions have left many queer women feeling like they have nowhere to turn for competent services and support, according to experts, advocates and victims interviewed by Uncloseted Media.
“Queer folks are joining the conversation to say, ‘This is happening in our communities, too, and we need the same resources and support services that straight women are offered,’” Tori Stranges, a professor of women’s studies at the University of British Columbia, told Uncloseted Media.
A frequently overlooked problem
Stranges says the false notion that only men are domestic abusers can result in violent same-sex relationships not being taken seriously.
“People assume that violence is perpetrated by men against women,” she says, adding that this “has left queer people out of the conversation.”
“If it was a man that was doing all these things, and people heard and saw it, I’m sure I would have been taken seriously,” says Claire. “People saw a 5-foot-7 woman who didn’t look that strong — and above all, she was a woman. Men, especially, don’t really see that as a threat. So they’re like, ‘If I’m not threatened, then I’m sure it’s not a big deal.’”
Outdated assumptions about IPV can even result in victims themselves overlooking their abuse.
“When it comes to abuse in heterosexual relationships, there are national campaigns, there are resources that you can access,” Stranges says. “There are people coming into the school systems to talk about relationship violence. We don’t have similar recognition and the same conversations about queer people.”
Claire says the violence she was subjected to was paired with moments of intense affection, which made it harder for her to recognize the abuse.
“We would get into a fight, and she would physically abuse me, and then apologize. She was actually also very gentle with me sometimes,” Claire recalls. “That kind of cycle can be really addicting. I would always wait for the good parts.”
The role of mental illness
K.P., a 47-year-old lesbian living in Maine, was with her abusive ex-girlfriend for five years before ending the relationship in 2023. During their time together, K.P. says her ex, who struggled with panic disorders, ADHD and depression, experienced a decline in her mental health, which contributed to more frequent outbursts of rage. When it comes to the link between rage and violence, one 2022 meta-analysis found that “anger was a significantly stronger correlate of IPV perpetration for women than men.”
K.P., who was working from home at the time and felt like she had no escape, says her ex’s verbal abuse spiraled into physical violence.
“I was on the couch with my laptop, trying to work, and she was just being belligerent,” recalls K.P., who asked to be identified by only her initials because of safety concerns. “I tuned her out, but when she realized I wasn’t giving her the attention that she expected, she went to the kitchen, grabbed two knives and started coming at me.”
K.P. ran outside, trying to get away. Her ex ran after her and then chased her back inside to avoid being seen by neighbors.
Once inside, her partner hid her phone. K.P. used this brief window to message a co-worker on her laptop, asking him to call the police.
“I was confused and afraid,” K.P. told Uncloseted Media. “I’d never been chased with a knife before, let alone by someone who I cared about.”
Research shows LGBTQ people have higher rates of mental health conditions than their non-LGBTQ peers. A study published last year in JAMA Network Open found sexual and gender minorities had “significantly higher odds of at least four of 10 commonly diagnosed mental health conditions,” including post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder.
IPV may also contribute to negative mental health effects, with research finding that victims experience an increase in depression, anxiety and PTSD and a reduction in life satisfaction.
“After we broke up, I was messed up,” K.P. says. “It took me a good six or eight months to feel like I could breathe again.”
Trapped in a ‘double closet’
In addition to mental health, the stigma of being queer may affect a victim’s response to being in an abusive relationship. When Claire first came out to her family, she says they kicked her out of their home until she returned to the proverbial closet. They eventually accepted her sexuality, but Claire says the residual shame she carried afterwards led her to avoid the added stigma she feared she’d experience if she admitted to being in an abusive relationship.
“All of that combined made me feel so trapped. I just thought, ‘Oh my god, I’m being judged from every single angle,’” she says. “There was just nowhere to go.”
Letícia Yuki de Araujo Furukawa, a clinical psychologist specializing in supporting survivors of IPV, says this kind of thinking is not uncommon among queer women in abusive relationships.
“Sometimes lesbian women who are experiencing IPV relationships start to isolate themselves, to prevent themselves from the shame and judgment they think they are going to suffer,” she says.
Furukawa says this impulse is rooted in the layers of stigma queer women face.
“It comes down to two things that make it like a double closet: We have the closet of being a lesbian, and you have the other one that comes from being in a violent relationship.”
According to Furukawa, having a supportive family can decrease the risk of entering an abusive relationship. Unfortunately, strained familial relationships are common among queer people: A 2022 study in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that 32 percent of gay and lesbian adult children — compared to 22 percent of their heterosexual counterparts — were estranged from their fathers.
Because of the shame Claire faced from her family when she came out, she was reluctant to admit there was a problem in her relationship when her mother and sister expressed concern. She worried that if her family knew her lesbian relationship was abusive, they would stop accepting her queer identity.
“My mom and sister would say to me during the relationship that they thought my ex looked evil, and that I changed so much. I used to be such a bubbly girl, and my personality made a complete 180,” she remembers. “In my head, I was like, ‘I can’t admit that it’s true.’”
‘Gaps in, policy, care, and services’
When queer women have the courage to report IPV, some don’t receive the response they’re hoping for. When police arrived at K.P.’s home following the knife-wielding incident, she says they opened a case file and wrote an incident report but said there was nothing else they could do because her ex had fled the scene.
“It was a little frustrating that since my ex-girlfriend drove away, the police couldn’t do anything,” K.P. explains.
Laura Elizabeth, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Virginia Union University who researches IPV, says there may have been additional steps police could have taken to support K.P., including connecting her with resources for domestic-violence survivors.
“It is vital that [police] make the proper referrals, and that it not just be limited to handing the victim a brochure,” she says. “There needs to be an active discussion with victims about what their options are in terms of who they can reach out to, who can offer what services.”
Kimberley Jackson, an associate professor at the Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing at Western University, says lack of research on same-sex domestic violence also impacts the support services available to lesbian victims.
“The intersection of IPV and the LGBTQ community is really not well understood,” Jackson told Uncloseted Media. “What we can tell you based on really limited evidence, is that there are huge gaps in policy, care and services. And with respect to shelters, we haven’t really moved the needle very far.”
One area in which shelters may be failing lesbian victims has to do with both the perpetrator and the victim being able to access the same shelter.
“This issue is further compounded in rural areas, where there’s likely only one shelter,” Jackson says. “There’s a chance they won’t be able to turn someone away, even if they’re the perpetrator.”
Jackson says queer victims of domestic violence who aren’t open about their sexuality may face additional obstacles.
“With respect to anonymity, in a lot of rural places, you’re going to know people in the community,” she says. “There are issues with accessing help if you’re worried about outing yourself.”
Calls for change
Experts and victims say LGBTQ training for shelter workers and law enforcement, as well as funding for research, could help prevent same-sex IPV and address the damage done by such abuse.
But under the Trump-Vance administration, these funding resources are slipping away. In March of last year, the administration canceled at least 68 grants, totaling nearly $40 million, that were focused on LGBTQ health. A second round of cuts followed two months later, during which $800 million worth of grants dedicated to researching LGBTQ health were terminated.
Rebecca Hobbs, co-executive director of Through These Doors, a domestic violence resource and advocacy center in Portland, Maine, says LGBTQ training materials are essential to ensuring shelters can support lesbian victims.
“LGBTQ people will not come to us unless they see themselves reflected in our materials,” Hobbs says. “We want our advocates to be well versed in understanding the additional barriers and challenges that LGBTQ people might experience.”
Advocates say police departments could also benefit from LGBTQ-awareness training.
The state of California and a number of large cities — including Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia and D.C. — have implemented some form of LGBTQ-sensitivity training.
But Greg Miraglia, founder and CEO of Out to Protect, a national organization supporting LGBTQ police officers and equipping all officers to serve queer people, says these programs are the exception, not the rule.
“Most other states do not require any type of LGBT awareness training,” Miraglia, a retired police officer who is based in California., told Uncloseted Media “There are over 18,000 law enforcement agencies out there, and I don’t think we’ve scratched the surface.”
“The problem comes about when law enforcement goes into a domestic violence incident with a same-sex couple without any training, carrying a lot of stereotypes that are common,” Miraglia adds. “They’re not picking up the fact that this is a couple that’s involved in an intimate relationship, and therefore domestic violence laws in that state apply.”
Claire says she wishes someone had intervened when her ex abused in the CVS parking lot and on her college campus. “The police had the biggest missed opportunity to intervene, as well as campus security,” she says. “A lot of our fights were in public, and she would get very loud. I made a promise to myself that if I ever saw anything like that in public, I would say something, because that’s all I needed at the time.”
National
Long-time DignityUSA executive director announces retirement
Marianne Duddy-Burke has been with LGBTQ Catholic group for decades
The executive director of the world’s oldest LGBTQ Catholic organization has announced she will retire once her successor has been chosen.
Marianne Duddy-Burke has been with DignityUSA for more than four decades. She has been the group’s executive director since 2007.
DignityUSA announced Duddy-Burke’s retirement on Sept. 17.
Duddy-Burke during her tenure has urged the Vatican to do more to welcome LGBTQ Catholics. She has also, among other things, championed marriage equality and advised the State Department on LGBTQ-specific issues. (The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to freeze nearly all U.S. foreign aid shortly after it took office in January 2025 has had a devastating impact on the global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement and efforts to fight HIV/AIDS around the world. A report that Outright International released earlier this month notes 90 percent of LGBTQ and intersex rights groups around the world have lost funding since 2025.)
Duddy-Burke met with Pope Francis in 2023.
She traveled to Rome in 2025 for the papal conclave to choose the Argentine-born pope’s successor. Pope Leo XIV, who was born in Chicago, succeeded Francis.
DignityUSA in the press release that announced Duddy-Burke’s retirement notes she expressed “particular appreciation to people who spoke honestly about the reality of being a queer Catholic or family member.”
“I have been inspired every day by your stories and have done my best to lift them up,” said Duddy-Burke. “It is your lives, your faith, your struggles, your hopes that I have strived to reflect in my work, and doing this has been a great honor.”
DignityUSA President Meli Barber praised Duddy-Burke.
“It is almost impossible to sum up the scope and depth of Marianne’s achievements and contributions to DignityUSA over her more than four decades of service,” said Barber. “Under her wisdom and leadership, DignityUSA has only grown in stature as an advocate for LGBTQIA+ Catholics and as a visionary thought leader for LGBTQIA+ ministry and spirituality.
“Marianne has been more than an extremely able executive director,” added Barber. “Her care for and ministry to chapters, her deep personal relationships with countless Dignity members, her connections to LGBTQIA+ Catholics around the world, the relationships she has built with other progressive Catholic organizations, her skill as a public representative, the respect with which she is universally regarded, and her tireless devotion to service all leave an indelible mark. It is not an exaggeration to say that she has shaped not only Dignity but a generation of LGBTQIA+ Catholics.”
Barber said DignityUSA will “soon begin a search for a new executive director.” Barber added Duddy-Burke “will assist with the transition.”
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