National
‘Don’t Ask’ repeal is priority No. 1 as Congress returns
Advocacy groups plan aggressive lobbying effort next week
A gay veterans group is planning a series of events next week to highlight the need to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as the Senate could take action on the issue this month.
Servicemembers United is organizing a lobby day on Sept. 16 for gay veterans and other supporters of repeal to ask members of Congress to support passage of the fiscal year 2011 defense authorization bill and pending language that would lead to repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Additionally, the organization is planning on the same day an event for the same-sex partners of U.S. service members. Servicemembers United will also host a gala Sept. 17 at its office to raise money for the organization.
The events come as many repeal supporters are pushing for and expecting the Senate to take up the fiscal year 2011 defense authorization bill and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” this month after lawmakers return from August recess.
Michael Cole, a Human Rights Campaign spokesperson, said taking up repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is the first priority for HRC when lawmakers return next week.
“We are communicating with our allies on the Hill to let them know that we’re looking for them to finish the job,” Cole said. “We feel confident that the votes are there and that it’s time that we rid our laws of this terrible policy.”
Cole said the Senate reportedly is looking at the week of Sept. 20 to take up the defense authorization bill and the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” language in the legislation.
The upcoming lobby day and other events are intended to build pressure on Congress in the remaining days before the vote to move forward with repeal.
Alex Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United, said the idea for the upcoming lobby day came after the organization and HRC jointly organized a similar lobby day on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in May.
“It’s something that has value outside of just the lobbying,” Nicholson said. “It’s an opportunity for vets from all over the country, supporters to get together and connect to socialize, to meet, to work together, collaborate.”
Nicholson said he’s expecting around between 50 and 100 people to attend the upcoming lobby day and estimated around 75 percent of attendees would be former U.S. service members.
But Nicholson said the lobby day next week would be different from the lobby day in the spring in many respects. One major difference will be that rather than simply pushing lawmakers to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” participants in the upcoming lobby day would ask members of Congress to support certain concrete actions.
“We’re focused on a different objective right now with this lobby day, which is the quality of the visits and the nuances of where the issue is right now,” Nicholson said. “We’re in a very different place right now than we were in early May and there’s some very specific procedural votes that are going to happen.”
Nicholson said the five actions that participants will ask lawmakers to take will be to:
• Oppose a motion to strike the repeal language from the defense authorization bill;
• Oppose any replacement or substitute amendment with respect to the repeal language;
• Oppose any other attempt to modify or remove the repeal language in the defense authorization bill;
• Oppose any filibuster attempt of the defense authorization bill as a whole;
• and support final passage of the defense authorization bill.
Nicholson said this approach to repeal is necessary because many members of Congress hold nuanced positions on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“People like Sen. Jim Webb can say, ‘I do support repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, just not this year,’ or ‘I do support it; I’m just going to support it within an expanded certification,'” Nicholson said. “So, we want to make sure that people who are doing our work have the detailed knowledge to be able to push back on these attempts to get around to actually voting for repeal this year.”
Additionally, the upcoming lobby day will differ from the previous lobby day because different members of the Senate are being targeted.
Previously, the repeal supporters had been working to influence the Senate Armed Services Committee to adopt repeal language as part of the defense authorization bill. Now that the committee has taken action to include the language in the legislation, the focus is on the Senate as a whole.
Nicholson said the targeted senators of the upcoming lobby day are Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.).
One senator that Nicholson said will get “special attention” is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) because he’s the sole person who can ensure the defense authorization bill sees a vote this month.
Even though the Senate is the priority for repeal supporters because a vote in that chamber is imminent, Nicholson said the lobby day will also involve visits to members of the U.S. House, which has already approved the defense authorization bill with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal language.
“I’m a big believer in follow up and gratitude and appreciation,” Nicholson said. “And so, we’re also doing, where possible, we’re doing some visits with House staff to follow up and thank them for their support, especially for some of the members for whom it was hard to take this vote.”
Servicemembers United is the sole organizer of the upcoming lobby day and is not working with HRC to draw citizen lobbyists from across the country.
“We’ve grown to the point now where we can do something like this by ourselves, and so we decided to convene another lobby day,” Nicholson said.
Still, Nicholson said while previously Servicemembers United was able to rely on HRC to pay to bring people into D.C. from across the country, interested participants will now have to pay their own travel expenses
“They paid for a lot of tickets for people to come into town, and we don’t have that kind of money to throw down on this, so we’re obviously relying on people who are motivated and have the capacity to bring themselves here,” Nicholson said.
As the lobby day approaches, Nicholson said he’s feeling “fairly optimistic” that the Senate will pass a defense authorization bill that includes language for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal, provided Reid brings the legislation to the floor for a vote.
“I think chances are pretty good that we’ll get that through to fruition if Sen. Reid brings it to the floor for a vote before they recess for election season,” Nicholson said. “If he doesn’t, I don’t know what to think. I sort of throw my hands up in the air at that point at that and say, ‘Let’s wait and see,’ because anything could happen.”
On the same day as the lobby day on Capitol Hill, Servicemembers United is also hosting a forum for the same-sex partners of U.S. service members.
Nicholson said the forum is the first ever for the same-sex partners of U.S. service members and is intended to facilitate conversations among those who are in same-sex relationships with those serving in the military.
“Partners are coming to meet each other to talk, to connect, to share their stories and experiences with each other to talk about they challenges, offer advice and get to know one another,” Nicholson said.
Nicholson said the event will be small in scale and estimated about 10 to 15 people will attend.
One component of this forum will be a meeting with the partners and the Pentagon working group that is developing a plan to implement repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Nicholson said he thinks this meeting will be similar to the meeting that repeal supporters arranged with the Pentagon working group for gay veterans in May.
“The Pentagon working group’s style with meeting with groups of people like this has been to let it be an open dialogue with some introductions and talking a little bit about their work and what they’ve been charged with,” Nicholson said.
Nicholson said he thinks that military partners would talk about their experience being the partner of a gay, lesbian or bisexual service members serving under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and advocate on their partners’ behalf.
Cynthia Smith, a Pentagon spokesperson, confirmed that members of the Pentagon working group are set to meet with the same-sex partners of U.S. service members. Still, she said she couldn’t yet identify which members of the working group would meet with the partners.
“We’re just going to discuss what impact the possible repeal would have on military readiness, unit cohesion, family readiness and recruiting and retention — the same thing we’re asking the spouses of heterosexual partners,” she said. “We understand their voice is very important and we want to hear from them as well.”
But could the same-sex partners of service members inadvertently out their partners under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” during the discussion with the working group?
Smith said the working group will establish guidelines prior to the meeting warning participants not to identify their partners.
“We’re going to establish ground rules that we don’t want them to out a partner,” she said. “Obviously, we’re going to establish those ground rules up front.”
Nicholson said he doesn’t think U.S. service members would be outed by same-sex partners because they “live under the cloud of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ just like their active duty partners.”
“They develop the same risk-aversion instincts as active duty gay and lesbian troops and are fully capable of avoiding the inadvertent outing of their partners,” Nicholson said. “This experience won’t be an unfamiliar one for them in that sense.”
New York
Court orders Pride flag to return to Stonewall
Lambda Legal, Washington Litigation Group filed federal lawsuit
The Pride flag will once again fly over the Stonewall National Monument in New York following a court order requiring the National Park Service to raise it over the site.
The decision follows a lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal and the Washington Litigation Group in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, which challenged the removal as unconstitutional under the Administrative Procedure Act and argued that the government unlawfully targeted the LGBTQ community.
In February, the NPS removed the Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument, the first national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history in the U.S. The move followed a Jan. 21 memorandum issued by President Donald Trump-appointed NPS Director Jessica Bowron restricting which flags may be flown at national parks. The directive limited displays to official government flags, with narrow exceptions for those deemed to serve an “official purpose.”
Plaintiffs successfully argued that the Pride flag meets that standard, given Stonewall’s status as the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement. They also contended that the policy violated the APA by bypassing required public input and improperly applying agency rules.
The lawsuit named Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Bowron, and Amy Sebring, superintendent of Manhattan sites for the NPS, as defendants. Plaintiffs included the Gilbert Baker Foundation, Village Preservation, Equality New York, and several individuals.
The court found that the memorandum — while allowing limited exceptions for historical context purposes — was applied unlawfully in this case. As part of the settlement, the NPS is required to rehang the Pride flag on the monument’s official flagpole within seven days, where it will remain permanently.
“The sudden, arbitrary, and capricious removal of the Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument was yet another act by this administration to erase the LGBTQ+ community,” said Karen Loewy, co-counsel for plaintiffs and Lambda Legal’s Senior Counsel and Director of Constitutional Law Practice. “Today, the government has pledged to restore this important symbol back to where it belongs.”
“This is a complete victory for our clients and for the LGBTQ+ community,” said Alexander Kristofcak, lead counsel for plaintiffs and a lawyer with Washington Litigation Group. “The government has acknowledged what we argued from day one: the Pride flag belongs at Stonewall. The flag will be restored and it will fly officially and permanently. And we will remain vigilant to ensure that the government sticks to the deal.”
“Gilbert Baker created the Rainbow Pride flag as a symbol of hope and liberation,” said Charles Beal, president of the Gilbert Baker Foundation. “Today, that symbol is restored to the place where it belongs, standing watch over the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.”
“The government tried to erase an important symbol of the LGBTQ+ community, and the community said no,” said Amanda Babine, executive director of Equality New York. “Today’s accomplishment proves that when we stand together and fight back, we win.”
“The removal of the Pride flag from Stonewall was an attempt to erase LGBTQ+ history and undermine the rule of law,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of Village Preservation. “This settlement restores both.”
With Loewy on the complaint are Douglas F. Curtis, Camilla B. Taylor, Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, Kenneth D. Upton Jr., Jennifer C. Pizer, and Nephetari Smith from Lambda Legal. With Kristofcak on the complaint are Mary L. Dohrmann, Sydney Foster, Kyle Freeny, James I. Pearce, and Nathaniel Zelinsky from Washington Litigation Group.
Federal Government
Trump budget targets ‘gender extremism’
Proposed spending package would target ‘leftist’ political ideologies
The White House submitted its 2027 budget request to Congress last month, outlining a push for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to “proactively” target what it describes as “extremism” related to gender — raising concerns about the potential for law enforcement to target LGBTQ people.
The Trump-Vance administration’s 2027 budget request, submitted to Congress on April 4, proposes a dramatic increase in national security and law enforcement spending, while reducing foreign aid and restructuring multiple domestic security programs. In total, the administration is requesting $2.16 trillion in discretionary budget authority (including mandatory resources), a 15.3 percent increase over the 2026 proposal.
Central to the proposal is the creation of a new “NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center,” a direct follow-up to the September 2025 National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7). The directive instructs the Justice Department, the FBI, and other national security agencies to combat what the administration defines as “political violence in America,” effectively reshaping the Joint Terrorism Task Force network to focus on “leftist” political ideologies, according to reporting by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein.
The American Civil Liberties Union has characterized NSPM-7 as a way for President Donald Trump to intimidate his political enemies.
In a press release following the memorandum, Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, said, “President Trump has launched yet another effort to investigate and intimidate his critics,” and had described the move as an “intimidation tactic against those standing up for human rights and civil liberties.”
The proposed mission center would include personnel from 10 federal agencies tasked with targeting “domestic terrorists” associated with a wide range of ideologies. Among them is what the administration labels “extremism” related to gender, alongside categories such as “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christianity,” and “support for the overthrow of the U.S. government.” The document also cites “hostility toward those who hold traditional American views” on family, religion, and morality — language LGBTQ advocates have increasingly warned could be used to frame queer and transgender rights movements as ideological threats.
The mission center is one component of a proposed $166 million increase in the FBI’s counterterrorism budget.
In total, the FBI would receive $12.5 billion for salaries and expenses under the proposal, a $1.9 billion increase. Planned investments include unmanned aerial systems operations and counter-drone capabilities, counterterrorism efforts, and security preparations for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The budget also cites 67,000 FBI arrests since Jan. 20, 2026, which it describes as a 197 percent increase from the prior year.
When Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001, it also enacted 18 U.S.C. § 2331(5), which defines domestic terrorism as activities involving acts dangerous to human life that violate criminal laws and are intended to intimidate or coerce civilians or influence government policy through violence. That statutory definition has not changed.
However, federal agencies have historically categorized domestic terrorism threats into groups such as racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism, anti-government or anti-authority violent extremism, and other threats, including those tied to bias based on religion, gender, or sexual orientation.
The language in the budget suggests a shift in how those categories are interpreted and applied — particularly by explicitly linking “extremism” to gender and to perceived opposition to “traditional” views — without any corresponding change to federal law. Only Congress has the power to change the definition of domestic terrorism by passing legislation.
The budget document states:
“DT lone offenders will continue to pose significant detection and disruption challenges because of their capacity for independent radicalization to violence, ability to mobilize discretely, and access to firearms. Additionally, in recent years, heinous assassinations and other acts of political violence in the United States have dramatically increased. Commonly, this violent conduct relates to views associated with anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the U.S. government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility toward those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”
This language echoes earlier actions by the Trump-Vance administration targeting trans people.
On the first day of his second term, President Trump signed Executive Order 14168, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
The order establishes a strict binary definition of sex and withdraws federal recognition of trans people.
“It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” the order states. “‘Sex’ shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female. ‘Sex’ is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of ‘gender identity.’”
Appropriations committees in both chambers are expected to begin hearings in the coming weeks.
Puerto Rico
The ‘X’ returns to court
1st Circuit hears case over legal recognition of nonbinary Puerto Ricans
Eight months ago, I wrote about this issue at a time when it had not yet reached the judicial level it faces today. Back then, the conversation moved through administrative decisions, public debate, and political resistance. It was unresolved, but it had not yet reached this point.
That has now changed.
Lambda Legal appeared before the 1st U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston, urging the court to uphold a lower court ruling that requires the government of Puerto Rico to issue birth certificates that accurately reflect the identities of nonbinary individuals. The appeal follows a district court decision that found the denial of such recognition to be a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
This marks a turning point. The issue is no longer theoretical. A court has already determined that unequal treatment exists.
The argument presented by the plaintiffs is grounded in Puerto Rico’s own legal framework. Identity birth certificates are not static historical records. They are functional documents used in everyday life. They are required to access employment, education, and essential services. Their purpose is practical, not symbolic.
Within that framework, the exclusion of nonbinary individuals does not stem from a legal limitation. Puerto Rico already allows gender marker corrections on birth certificates for transgender individuals under the precedent established in Arroyo Gonzalez v. Rosselló Nevares. In addition, the current Civil Code recognizes the existence of identity documents that reflect a person’s lived identity beyond the original birth record.
The issue lies in how the law is applied.
Recognition is granted within specific categories, while those who do not identify within that binary structure remain excluded. That exclusion is now at the center of this case.
Lambda Legal’s position is straightforward. Requiring individuals to carry documents that do not reflect who they are forces them into misrepresentation in essential aspects of daily life. This creates practical barriers, exposes them to scrutiny, and places them in a constant state of vulnerability.
The plaintiffs, who were born in Puerto Rico, have made clear that access to accurate identification is not symbolic. It is a basic condition for moving through the world without contradiction imposed by the state.
The fact that this case is now being addressed in the federal court system adds another layer of significance. This is not a pending policy discussion or a legislative proposal. It is a constitutional question. The analysis is not about political preference, but about rights and equal protection under the law.
This case does not exist in isolation.
It unfolds within a broader context in which debates over identity and rights have increasingly been shaped by the growing influence of conservative perspectives in public policy, both in the United States and in Puerto Rico. At the local level, this influence has been reflected in legislative discussions where religious arguments have begun to intersect with decisions that should be grounded in constitutional principles. That intersection creates tension around the separation of church and state and has direct consequences for access to rights.
Recognizing this context is not an attack on faith or religious practice. It is an acknowledgment that when certain perspectives move into the realm of public authority, they can shape outcomes that affect specific communities.
From within Puerto Rico, this is not a distant debate. It is a lived reality. It is present in the difficulty of presenting identification that does not match one’s identity, and in the consequences that follow in workplaces, schools, and government spaces.
The progression of this case introduces the possibility of change within the applicable legal framework. Not because it resolves every tension surrounding the issue, but because it establishes a legal examination of a practice that has long operated under exclusion.
Eight months ago, the conversation centered on ongoing developments. Today, there is already a judicial finding that identifies a violation of rights. What remains is whether that finding will be upheld on appeal.
That process does not guarantee an immediate outcome, but it shifts the ground.
The debate is no longer theoretical.
It is now before the courts.
Court orders Pride flag to return to Stonewall
Sri Lankan government withdraws support for LGBTQ tourism initiative
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