National
Remembering the LGBTQ heroes of 9/11 terrorist attacks
25 years later, ‘the heartbreak remains strong’
Many in the LGBTQ community in the D.C. area and throughout the country were expected to join friends, co-workers, and family members this week in commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the New York World Trade Center’s Twin Towers and on the Pentagon just outside D.C. as well as the jetliner hijacking that ended in a fatal crash in an open field in Shanksville, Pa.
A total of 2,996 people died in the 9/11 attacks, including 19 terrorists who hijacked four jetliners whose passengers included Americans and citizens of many other countries.
Activists involved with local and national LGBTQ advocacy organizations recall witnessing a coming together of LGBTQ people and their co-workers, neighbors, and family members to support one another during a time of unimaginable horror and grief.
Among those who lost their lives in the 9/11 terrorist attacks was American Airlines co-pilot David Charlebois, an out gay man and member of the Gay Pilots Association, who was on American Airlines Flight 77, which the terrorists crashed into the Pentagon.
Also among the terrorist victims in the 9/11 attacks was gay public relations executive and rugby enthusiast Mark Bingham of San Francisco, who was among several passengers of the hijacked United Airlines jet who reportedly stormed the cockpit to regain control of the jetliner before one of the hijackers crashed the jet into the countryside in rural Pennsylvania.
The jet had taken off from Newark, N.J. with its destination being San Francisco. Investigators learned the hijackers turned the plane around and were heading to Washington, D.C., with plans to crash it into the White House or the U.S. Capitol.
The passengers, including Bingham, who stormed the cockpit and were among the 44 passengers and crew who lost their lives in the crash are credited by investigators and family members and friends with saving the lives of hundreds of others if the hijackers succeeded in crashing into the White House or Capitol.
Among the other LGBTQ people known to have lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks was Father Mychal Judge, 68, a gay Franciscan priest who served as a Catholic chaplain for the New York City Fire Department. According to the National Catholic Reporter, Judge rushed to the scene of the World Trade Center shortly before the Twin Towers collapsed. He was fatally struck by debris falling from the south tower while giving last rites to a fallen firefighter, the Catholic publication reported.
“He was a decent, wonderful human being,” said New York gay journalist Andy Humm, who had interviewed Judge for LGBTQ-related stories prior to the 9/11 attacks. “I saw him at many demonstrations for gay and AIDS causes, showing up in his Franciscan monk’s cassock,” Humm told the Washington Blade five years ago at the time of the 9/11 20th anniversary. “And he was equally beloved by the fire department, there at every major fire tragedy in the city, lending moral support to firefighters,” Humm said.
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministries, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic group that advocates for LGBTQ supportive policies within the church, reported five years ago that his group was supporting an effort to call on the Catholic Church to officially recognize Fr. Judge as a saint by canonizing him. But DeBernardo told the Blade this week that those efforts failed to obtain the needed support from various Catholic entities, including the Franciscan Order of Friars Minors, of which Judge was affiliated, ending efforts to canonize Judge as a saint.
DeBernardo has written a book about Judge’s life and legacy published in 2023 called “Mychal Judge:Take Me Where You Want Me to Go.”
Among the other widely reported LGBTQ victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks were a gay couple from California, Daniel Brandhorst and Ronald Gamboa, and their adopted son, David, who were among those who died aboard the United Airlines flight that crashed in Pennsylvania. The Los Angeles Times reported that Brandhorst, an attorney, and Gamboa, the manager of a Santa Monica Gap store, had adopted three-year-old David when he was an infant.
For many LGBTQ residents of New York and the D.C. area, the suffering over the loss of loved ones, including same-sex partners, was heightened a short time later when they learned they were initially ineligible for local and federal programs aimed at providing financial assistance to survivors of the 9/11 attack victims because same-sex couples were not legally recognized.
At the urging of LGBTQ rights organizations, state and local officials in the New York and the D.C. area took steps to address the initial denial of financial support for surviving same-sex partners In programs under their control. Officials with a massive federal aid program for 9/11 survivors, however, said they did not have legal authority to authorize payments to same-sex partners.
The officials, in the administration of then-President George W. Bush, said the best they could do would be to leave it up to local authorities to determine whether state probate laws would recognize a same-sex partner as a family member for eligibility in the federal aid program for 9/11 survivors, many of whom lived in states outside the New York and D.C. area.
Nicole Nava, a spokesperson for the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, a federally funded program established to compensate for physical harm or death caused by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including support for surviving family members, said she would inquire into whether same-sex surviving partners were being supported under that program in subsequent years in response to a request from the Washington Blade.
Jenny Pizer, an attorney for the LGBTQ litigation group Lambda Legal, which supported LGBTQ partner survivors of victims of the 9/11 attacks, said the information she and her organization had showed that many if not most of the LGBTQ partner survivors were unable to obtain the federal Victim Compensation Fund payment benefits that married heterosexual spouses obtained. She said she didn’t have a definitive answer on whether some LGBTQ surviving partners were compensated.
However, at least one case where an LGBTQ partner was compensated was reported by the Washington Post in a Jan. 22, 2003, news story about Peggy Neff, the lesbian partner of 18 years of Sheila Hein, 51, a civilian employee at the Pentagon, who was killed when the terrorist hijacked jetliner crashed into the Pentagon.
The Post reported that the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund, under the leadership of its director, Kenneth Feinberg, approved an award of $557,390 for Neff in compensation for the loss of her partner. The Post story quoted a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign as saying, “It is our sincere hope that this signals that other gay families who have suffered the loss of a loved one will be treated similarly.”
The compensation program, which is operated by the U.S. Department of Justice, remains in operation until 2090. The Blade will report on any additional similar awards for LGBTQ surviving partners if Nava provides such information.
Events commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks were scheduled to take place this week at memorial sites honoring the 9/11 victims located outside the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., at the site of the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York City, and the site of the jetliner crash in Shanksville, Pa., which is operated by the U.S. National Park Service.
The U.S. Congress in 2017 and 2021 approved separate bills signed by President Donald Trump during his first term in office and President Joe Biden creating the Global War on Terrorism Memorial and its construction, to be built on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. that’s scheduled to be completed in 2028.
The memorial, to be located near the Lincoln Memorial and Vietnam Veterans Memorial close to 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W., is intended to honor people who served and were lost in the wars and counterterrorism operations that followed the 9/11 attacks, including U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Longtime LGBTQ rights advocate Jay Fisette, who at the time of the 9/11 attacks held the elected position of chair of the Arlington County Board, which serves as the county’s governing body, was among the Arlington officials that came to the Pentagon’s grounds in Arlington to oversee efforts by firefighters to rescue Pentagon workers on the day of the attack.
At an Oct. 7, 2001, 9/11 Day of Remembrance and Appreciation ceremony held in Arlington, Fisette expressed the views of many in the community in response to the 9/11 attacks.
“Tonight, our community gather as a family,” he told the gathering. “We gather in sorrow and in disbelief, in remembrance and appreciation,” he said. “But we come here, too, with resolve and pride. We come together as Arlingtonians who love our country, as Americans who love our country,” he said.
“Our enemies may hurt our bodies and destroy our buildings, but they will never defeat our determination to make this a world of peace and a community in which our children grow up safe and secure,” Fissette said.
Although some of the same-sex partners of those killed in the 9/11 attacks faced obstacles in obtaining financial support through the federal 9/11 relief program, Tom Hay, the surviving partner of 14 years of American Airlines pilot David Charlebois was treated with respect and honor by American Airlines officials and colleagues at Charlebois’s funeral mass at D.C.’s St. Matthew Cathedral.
More than a dozen uniformed company pilots and flight attendants attended the mass. And a press release issued by American Airlines mentioned Charlebois’s relationship with Hay and told how Hay stood with Charlebois when Charlebois advocated for equal rights for LGBTQ people in the airline industry through his involvement with the National Gay Pilots Association.
“David was an early member of the NGPA,” the American Airlines statement said. “His contribution helped ensure ongoing progress toward fairness and solidarity.”
Activists in New York have said the 9/11 attacks drew attention to the need for legal protections for same-sex couples, including the need for recognition of same-sex marriage, which the U.S. Supreme Court legalized nationwide in its landmark ruling in 2015.
But LGBTQ advocates in New York pointed to the difficulties LGBTQ surviving partners faced when desperately seeking to find out if a partner had survived at the site of the World Trade Center attack where the Red Cross and other emergency relief agencies set up a station near the site of the attack.
“Literally, gay people had to go there, turn around, go back home, and get some paperwork that spouses didn’t have to get to prove a relationship existed,” said Ross Levi, who at the time served as executive director of the New York LGBTQ advocacy group Empire State Pride Agenda.
“You were nervous and scared and sad and then you had to go through that,” Levi told the Blade in 2011 at the time of the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. “And worse yet, other people turned them away, even with the paperwork, saying sorry you’re not a family according to our guidelines.”
Activists said New York City and New York State officials quickly recognized the inequities faced by same-sex partner survivors and took steps to change polices and laws to correct the situation. Among other things, New York’s then-Gov. George Pataki (R) issued an executive order in October 2001 that included surviving partners of gay and lesbian victims of the World Trade Center attacks in receiving full spousal benefits from the state’s Crime Victims Board.
In a separate development, the LGBTQ litigation group Lambda Legal, ESPA, the Human Rights Campaign, and other LGBTQ advocacy groups created the September 11 Gay & Lesbian Family Fund to provide some support to surviving same-sex partners who were ineligible for help from the federal relief fund program.
“The terrorist attack on September 11th is a tragedy that touched every American, impacting people and families from all walks of life,” Jonathan Lovitz, the Human Rights Campaign’s Senior Vice President for Campaigns and Communications told the Blade in a statement this week.
“As in all moments in American history, LGBTQ+ Americans were there, and feel the impact of this day,” he said. “As we remember the lives lost 25 years later, the heartbreak remains strong and the work to ensure that every person can live safe from violence in this country continues.”
National
HRC report: LGBTQ students face ‘far greater challenges’ in non-supportive states
Survey finds anti-LGBTQ school harassment, bullying highest in 17 states
The Human Rights Campaign Foundation, the educational arm of the national LGBTQ advocacy organization Human Rights Campaign, has released a report showing LGBTQ public school students are more likely to face bullying, harassment, and “other barriers” in states that have less overall supportive LGBTQ laws and policies.
The report is based on the HRC Foundation’s National Educator Survey of School Climate and Bullying, which was released on Sept. 17.
“The report finds that harassment, bullying, and other barriers to LGBTQ+ inclusion are more prevalent in states with limiting policies, where educators report widespread restrictions on LGBTQ+ resources, visible expressions of support, and assistance for transgender students,” a statement released by HRC says.
“As just one example,” the statement adds, “while 59 percent of educators in states with limiting policies report restrictions on supporting their transgender students, just 6 percent to 8 percent of educators in states with supportive policies report the same, underscoring the impact of these policies on school climate, student well-being, and the stakes of the upcoming midterm elections for LGBTQ+ youth and inclusive classrooms.”
The report says the survey consisted of responses by 826 educators in 42 states who worked as teachers, principals, counselors, administrators, and others who worked in support services. All worked at schools with students from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade, most being public schools and a smaller number being charter schools, the report says.
It says the survey was conducted between April 15 and May 21, 2026, and included a survey questionnaire with about 55 questions covering a wide range of LGBTQ related school issues.
According to the report, its classification of LGBTQ supportive and non-LGBTQ supportive states is based on a detailed analysis of the LGBTQ related laws and policies of all 50 states, D.C., and U.S. territories conducted by the Movement Advancement Project, or MAP, which describes itself as an “independent, nonprofit thinktank.”
The report includes a chart consisting of 51 boxes representing the 50 states and D.C., with 32 plus D.C. colored as blue and said to have overall LGBTQ supportive policies. The 17 boxes colored in red are said to have overall non-LGBTQ supportive policies and laws, Each of the boxes has the initial of a state or D.C. printed inside it.
In addition to D.C., the chart shows Maryland, Virginia, New York, California, and Massachusetts as among the supportive states. Florida, Texas, West Virginia, and Ohio are among the states shown to be non-LGBTQ supportive.
The HRC statement includes these “key” findings from the survey:
- In states with restrictive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies, 59 percent of educators report restrictions on supporting transgender students, compared to just 6-8 percent of educators in states with supportive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies.
- In states with restrictive policies, nearly 50 percent of educators reported restrictions on LGBTQ+ books or resources, compared to just 7 percent of educators in states with supportive policies.
- Roughly 32 percent of educators in states with restrictive policies reported anti-LGBTQ+ harassment was a moderate or serious problem, compared with 11 percent of educators in states with supportive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies.
- In states with restrictive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies, 29 percent of educators were very worried about anti-LGBTQ+ harassment, compared to 15 percent in states with supportive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies.
- In states with restrictive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies, 36 percent of educators witnessed anti-LGBTQ+ student bullying, compared to 27 percent in states with supportive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies.
- In states with supportive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies, 75 percent of educators reported no restrictions on LGBTQ+-supportive displays, highlighting a substantially more supportive school environment than in states with restrictive policies.
- Educators in states with restrictive LGBTQ+ inclusion policies also reported significant harassment of students based on appearance (57 percent), race or ethnicity (43 percent), sexual orientation (42 percent), and gender identity or expression (39 percent). (No direct comparison figure from supportive-policy states is provided in the data above.)
“Every young person deserves to feel safe and supportive at school, but this report makes clear that for too many LGBTQ+ students, especially transgender youth, are being failed by policies designed to exclude them,” said HRC President Kelley Robinson in the HRC statement.
“We know that when students feel seen, supported, and affirmed, they are more likely to thrive, but when schools become places of exclusion or hostility, young people pay the price through lower engagement, missed opportunities to learn, and poorer mental and physical health,” Robinson said.
The HRC statement notes that the survey findings come at a time when a growing number of states have passed laws targeting LGBTQ students and the school officials and teachers who support them. It says that for the first time, the survey found that “educators themselves are also experiencing anti-LGBTQ+ harassment, highlighting the growing impact of these policies on school staff as well as students.”
The full survey findings and report can be accessed here:
U.S. Supreme Court
Trump asks Supreme Court to allow restrictions on gender-affirming care in prisons
SCOTUS could further restrict rights of trans inmates
The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow its policy limiting gender-affirming treatment for federal inmates to take effect while a legal challenge plays out in court.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the government to continue providing gender-affirming care, such as hormone therapy, which had become policy nearly a decade ago for inmates who were transitioning.
The Trump administration argues in its application that its policy restricting transgender rights was properly adopted and that the judge overstepped, posing nationwide “security and prison-administrative concerns.”
If allowed, the policy would halt surgeries, hormones and social accommodations such as wigs while allowing mental health therapy to continue as the legality of the policy reversal is litigated.
The government also argues in the application that the Bureau of Prisons had “determined that sex-trait-modification surgeries, hormone interventions in general, and social accommodations could no longer be justified as treatment for gender dysphoria.”
American Civil Liberties Union attorneys for the inmates said the policy is “a direct threat to the well-being of transgender people in federal custody and an open violation of their fundamental rights,” and said withholding necessary gender-affirming healthcare constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
The Blade has covered the ongoing developments surrounding changes to Federal Bureau of Prisons transgender inmate policy that went into effect earlier in Trump’s term. The changes primarily focus on rolling back Biden-era protections for trans inmates.
Earlier this year, the Blade published a joint letter from multiple senators in response to the rollback of the policy. Multiple senators — including Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Jeffrey A. Merkley (D-Ore.) and Mazie K. Hirono (D-Hawaii) — sent a letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche and Federal Bureau of Prisons Director William Marshall III calling for them to reverse the policy change, saying it endangers inmates’ health and safety.
The senators described how the policy shift, along with President Trump’s Executive Order 14168, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” is forcing policy changes they argued are rooted more in political rhetoric than in medical research or evidence-based correctional practices.
Federal Bureau of Prisons responded to the Blade’s request for comment in May, declining to reconsider its transgender inmate policy.
The Blade reached out to the Federal Bureau of Prisons once again over the application to the Supreme Court, but did not hear back before publication.
Federal Government
Education Department rolls back protections for LGBTQ students under Title IX
The DoE policy rescinds Biden-era protections
The Department of Education rolled back a Biden-era Title IX interpretation on Monday that secured sex-based discrimination protections for students on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Title IX was established in 1972 as landmark civil rights law. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon spoke about the revision of the policy, claiming the decision would explicitly help “women and girls.”
“Thanks to today’s action, the published Title IX regulations faithfully reflect court orders and congressional intent — reducing confusion for parents, students, and educational institutions. We will continue to relentlessly champion equal opportunity for all Americans and hold accountable any school or college that violates the rights, privacy, or athletic opportunities of our women and girls,” McMahon said via press release.
Prior to her work under the Trump-Vance administration, McMahon was a World Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Entertainment executive before resigning to pursue a career in politics. She was appointed to the Connecticut State Board of Education by then-Gov. Jodi Rell in January 2009, but resigned from her role shortly afterward to run what ultimately became two failed campaigns for Connecticut’s U.S. Senate seat in 2010 and 2012.
A “fact sheet” provided by the Department of Education also called the inclusive sexual assault and gender identity protections expanded under the Biden-Harris unlawful, saying, “This change is necessary to provide clarity in the Code of Federal Regulations so that institutions, administrations, students, and families can see the rules that are actually in force and to help eliminate public confusion about the Biden administration’s unlawful attempt to stretch Title IX’s legal protections to cover ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity.’”
This is not the first time this policy has faced judicial hurdles. While Biden was still in office, the plan was struck down in multiple courts in Republican states.
Opponents of the move say it will harm transgender athletes and weaken protections for sexual assault victims.
“Sexual harassment and assault continue to be pervasive in schools and, to the fullest extent possible, we should be working to enforce the laws that protect student survivors of sexual violence. Yet, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and the Trump administration have decided to ignore what survivors need, instead weaponizing Title IX to attack trans students,” said Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center.
This is a return to a first Trump term policy after Biden issued an executive order to attempt to curb discrimination for all — especially those with different sexual orientations and gender identities — that had been given a pass during Trump’s first term. Much of Title IX’s policy has a narrow vision of what sex protections look like that often and enthusiastically leave gender-diverse and non-heterosexual people out.
In March 2021, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 14021, “Guaranteeing an Educational Environment Free From Discrimination on the Basis of Sex, Including Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity,” to attempt to undo some of the flagrantly anti-LGBTQ policy the Trump-Pence administration had set forth relating to Title IX protections for LGBTQ students and sexual assault survivors.
The secretary focused this “win” for the administration as one more step toward restricting transgender students from competing in women’s sports, but the 2020 rule, completed under former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, didn’t explicitly ban trans students from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity. It did limit the types of sexual harassment and assault complaints that schools had to investigate and required live hearings so male students could respond to accusations.
McMahon didn’t discuss those aspects in her statement or in requests for comment. The 2020 rule drew praise from conservatives and intense opposition from advocates who said it downplayed sexual abuse and left victims unprotected.
In a statement, U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), who chairs the House Education Committee, said, “Returning to the 2020 regulations restores longstanding protections for women and girls that the Biden-Harris administration attempted to dismantle and realigns Title IX policy with court precedents.”
LGBTQ activists have called this decision a direct attack on LGBTQ safety — particularly for trans students who continue to face a barrage of legislative, executive, and judicial attacks in recent years from the Trump-Vance administration.
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the world, released a statement following the DoE’s announcement.
“Title IX is, quite simply, about protecting students and ensuring that they are safe from abuse, harassment, and discrimination while they pursue their education. But Donald Trump and his cronies aren’t interested in any of that,” Robinson said. “Donald Trump’s Department of Education has completely lost sight of that mission. Instead of enforcing protections for students, they’re rescinding them. They don’t care if sexual harassment and assault go unaddressed. And they’re happy to strip funding away from school districts and states that are actually trying to keep students safe.
“We know who will be hurt: women, girls, and others who are vulnerable to sexual harassment, assault and abuse — including LGBTQ+ students. The fact that they’re dropping this rule into place abruptly, without a comment period, denying families, educators, loved ones, and the students themselves a say in how they should be treated, shows how little they care about the safety of our students.
“This is a monstrous injustice, and it drives home how essential it is that we take action at the polls this November to start bringing some accountability to an administration that has turned its back on the very students Title IX was written to protect,” she added.
The Washington Blade reached out to the DoE for comment and questions on whether Title IX protections still included LGBTQ students, and received this email response from Education Spokesman Sabin Sidney:
“Your questions indicate you are clearly missing the entire point of this Final Rule. The Biden Administration illegally rewrote Title IX to include ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identification’ in the definition of sex-based discrimination. The Trump Administration is rescinding this rule—only after every federal court that heard legal challenges rejected it as unlawful.
“Since January 2025, the Department has been enforcing Title IX consistent with the President’s Executive Order grounded in biological truth that there are only two sexes. The Trump Administration is restoring the original promise of Title IX and providing clarity to students, parents, and educational institutions. We will vigorously defend equal opportunity consistent with the law’s intended purpose.”
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