National
Reid recommits to ‘Don’t Ask’ repeal in lame duck
Senators talk of extending session to vote on gay ban
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reaffirmed on Monday his commitment to bring a vote "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal (Blade photo by Michael Key).
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) reaffirmed on Monday his commitment to bring “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal to vote in the lame duck session of Congress amid fears other legislative priorities will bump the issue from the agenda.
Reid pledged to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” by year’s end on the Senate floor as he described a litany of legislative items he wants the chamber to take on during lame duck, including passage of the DREAM Act, renewing tax cuts for middle class families and ratification of the START Treaty.
“We’re also going to repeal the discriminatory ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law,” Reid said. “We’re going to match our policy with our principles and finally say in the United States, everyone who steps up to serve our country can be welcome.”
Legislation to repeal the military gay’s ban is pending before the Senate as part of the fiscal year 2011 defense authorization bill. A previous attempt to bring the legislation to the Senate floor in September failed when a united Republican caucus blocked consideration of the measure.
Many senators — including Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) — said they wanted a more fair amendment process with more amendments for the minority as a condition to moving forward with the legislation.
In his remarks, Reid said Republicans are blocking consideration of the defense authorization bill because they don’t believe they have the votes to take out the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” provision by amendment once the legislation reaches the floor.
Reid said when Republicans refuse to debate the defense authorization bill, they also “hold up a well-deserved raise for our troops, better health care for our troops and their families” as well as other important initiatives for the U.S. military.
A White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also affirmed President Obama wants Congress to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” before lawmakers adjourn for the year.
“The White House remains fully committed to passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, including the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ during the lame duck,” the official said. “This is a priority for the president, and are we confident that the Congress will be able to address this issue this year.”
Concern that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal may have fallen from the schedule emerged when Reid offered remarks earlier in the day and didn’t include the defense authorization bill as among the legislative items for which he would file cloture on Monday.
Instead he listed other items, including the DREAM Act and legislation that would provide healthcare benefits and compensation to workers who responded to Ground Zero during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Reid only mentioned the defense authorization bill after Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin (D-Mich.) reminded him on the floor to say something about the legislation.
The majority leader responded by saying he had bipartisan conversations on Sunday about trying to find a way to move forward with the defense authorization bill.
“The issue on that, Madam President, is what we do with amendments,” Reid said. “And without belaboring the point here, I would be happy to consider doing a number of amendments if we had time agreements on those amendments. But to just have an open process — at this stage, I don’t see how we can do that.”
Jim Manley, a Reid spokesperson, said Reid didn’t include “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” among the items on which he would file cloture on Monday because the Senate leadership is still in talks to find enough Republican support to move forward with the defense authorization bill.
“Discussion are ongoing that involve Sen. Levin, Sen. [Joseph] Lieberman, Sen. Collins and others about trying to put together a debate that will satisfy folks and both of the aisle,” Manley said.
Manley said he couldn’t make a prediction on when these discussion would conclude, but said Reid remains committed to bringing up the legislation to a vote during lame duck.
Despite the commitment from Reid for a vote on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” concerns that time will run out before lawmakers act persist.
In a brief exchange with the Washington Blade on Capitol Hill, Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin (D-Mich.) expressed concerns about being able to move forward with the defense authorization in the limited time that remains in the session.
“The longer this go on the more difficult it becomes, but I’m obviously … still hopeful,” Levin said.
Christopher Neff, deputy executive director of the Palm Center, a think tank on gays in the military at the University of California, Santa Barbara, acknowleged that time is an issue as he said he still sees a path forward for repeal.
“The calendar, in my estimation, has always been a bit more difficult than the vote count, but I do think that there are scenarios where this can be finalized for a signature before Congress adjourns,” Neff said.
Neff cited what he perceived as Obama’s commitment to repeal as a reason for why repeal can still happen and noted a recent call the president made to Levin against stripping the defense authorization bill of its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” language.
“President Obama has shown strong leadership in reaching out to Sen. Levin and to Sen. Reid to try to move this process forward,” Neff said. “I think the White House has taken a leadership role on this and they want to see it delivered and I think there’s more to be done.”
Talk is emerging about extending the legislative session beyond what was previously planned to accomodate a vote on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.
During his earlier remarks, Reid set Dec. 17 as the target date for when he wants the Senate to adjourn for this Congress and said he doesn’t think his colleagues want to stay until Christmas Eve as they did last year.
But Manley said the Dec. 17 target date for adjournment is “not hard and fast” and “we’ll have to wait and see how long we’re going to need.” He added the entire Democratic caucus would agree to extending the session for that to happen.
In a statement, Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) said the Senate should stay in session for until the remainder of the calendar year if that’s what’s necessary to complete legislative work before the chamber, such as passage of the defense authorization bill.
“It’s time to follow Elvis Presley’s advice — we need ‘a little less conversation, and a little more action,’” Udall said. “I’m willing to stay through Christmas and New Year’s, if that’s what it takes, to fight for middle-class tax relief, the defense authorization bill, public lands legislation — which means jobs for Coloradans — and other important work.”
On Monday, the Huffington Post reported that Lieberman and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) were in favor of extneding the legislative session to pass “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.
“Sen. Lieberman believes that there are at least 60 votes to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ this year, provided that leadership allows time for sufficient debate and amendments,” Lieberman spokeswoman Erika Masonhall was quoted as saying. “Wanting to go home is not an acceptable excuse for failing to pass a bill that provides essential support for our troops and veterans and failing to take action that the president, the Secretary of Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have called for.”
Hungary
Vance speaks at Orbán rally in Hungary
Anti-LGBTQ prime minister trailing ahead of April 12 vote
Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday urged Hungarians to support Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the country’s April 12 elections.
“We have got to get Viktor Orbán re-elected as prime minister of Hungary,” Vance told Orbán supporters who gathered at Budapest’s MTK Sportpark.
Vance and Orbán on Tuesday met before they held a press conference in Budapest. Orbán also spoke at the rally.
The U.S. vice president after he took to the stage called President Donald Trump, who told the crowd he is “a big fan of Viktor” and is “with him all the way.” Vance, as he did during Tuesday’s press conference with Orbán, criticized the European Union.
“We want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do. I’m not telling you exactly who to vote for, but what I am telling you is that the bureaucrats in Brussels, those people should not be listened to,” said Vance. “Listen to your hearts, listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people.”
Vance in his speech noted “across the West, we’ve got a small band of radicals” who, among other things, “condemn children to mutilization and sterilization in the name of gender care.” Vance also criticized a “far-left ideology given quarter in university circles, in the media, and in our entertainment industry, and increasingly among bureaucrats on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Vice President JD Vance speaks at MTK Sportpark in Budapest, Hungary, on April 7, 2026
Orbán has been in office since 2010. He and his Fidesz-KDNP coalition government have faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
A Hungarian activist with whom the Washington Blade previously spoke said it is “impossible to change your gender legally in Hungary” because of a 2020 law that “banned legal gender recognition of transgender and intersex people.” Hungarian MPs the same year effectively prohibited same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the country’s constitution as between a man and a woman.
The European Commission in 2022 sued Hungary, which is a member of the EU, over the country’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law.
Hungarian lawmakers in March 2025 passed a bill that banned Pride events and allowed authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs later amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
Upwards of 100,000 people last June defied the ban and marched in Budapest’s annual Pride parade.
Polls indicate Orbán is trailing Péter Magyar and his center-right Tisza party ahead of the April 12 election. Vance at Tuesday’s rally told Orbán supporters that he and Trump “want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do.”
“I’m not telling you exactly who to vote for, but what I am telling you is that the bureaucrats in Brussels, those people should not be listened to,” said Vance. “Listen to your hearts, listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people.”
“Unlike some of the leadership of Brussels, I’m not threatening you or telling you that we’re going to withhold funds to which you’re legally entitled,” he added. “You will make the decision about Hungary’s future.”
The White House
White House ends protections for trans students in multiple school districts
Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware among administration’s targets
The Department of Education has terminated agreements with five school districts and a college aimed at protecting the rights of transgender students, backtracking requirements made in prior administrations, according to the Associated Press.
Allowing the reversal of these federal obligations removes formerly mandatory measures, including faculty training on responding to a student’s preferred name and pronouns, and policies allowing trans children to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
This policy change is a major shift from past democratic-led administrations, and will impact Delaware Valley School District in Pennsylvania, Sacramento City Unified School District in California, Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware, Fife School District in Washington, and La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, as well as Taft College in California.
Delaware Valley School District received notice from the Trump-Vance administration in February and has since voted to roll back anti-discrimination protections. Other schools, like Sacramento City Unified School District, said the change in minimum protections a district must offer will not affect their policies because it “remains committed to the support of our LGBTQ+ students and staff.”
This is part of a wider wave of anti-trans actions taken by the Trump-Vance administration. This White House has penalized schools attempting to accommodate students’ gender identity, filed lawsuits in California and Minnesota over state policies allowing trans students to participate in interscholastic sports, and opened civil rights investigations into multiple schools and universities over their policies on trans students.
Kimberly Richey, the Department of Education’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, said the action underscored the administration’s efforts to prevent trans students from participating in girls’ and women’s sports teams and accessing shared locker rooms.
“Today, the Trump administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda,” she said in a written statement.
According to the AP, this is just one instance of the administration rescinding civil rights protections in education. Last year, the Department of Education terminated two agreements: one involving the removal of books from a school library in Georgia, and another addressing harsh discipline and unequal education opportunities for Native students in the Rapid City Area School District in South Dakota.
Shiwali Patel, the senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center, issued a statement in response to the removal of protections for trans students, saying the rollback will negatively impact all students — not just trans ones.
“There is absolutely no basis for what the Department of Education is doing, and it is unimaginably cruel. Title IX exists to ensure that students are protected from discrimination and treated with dignity so that they can learn and thrive in our schools,” Patel said. “It’s what students, families, lawmakers, and advocates fought for when Title IX was passed decades ago. But the Trump administration’s Department of Education has spent its limited resources to strip Title IX of that very purpose.”
She continued, highlighting the issues that will arise from the agreement removals in schools.
“Real complaints of discrimination and sexual assault are going unanswered by the Department of Education while conservative lawmakers continue to escalate their attacks on a small minority of students,” the nationally recognized Title IX expert and advocacy leader for gender-based harassment added. “Parents, teachers, and students need the Department to focus on addressing real harms on campuses instead of rolling back policies that keep all students safe.”
The schools that had their agreements terminated vary, but stem from the same issue: treating trans students with the same protections from harassment as their cisgender peers.
In 2023, Taft College, a community college in California’s Central Valley, became one of the few schools to settle a case with the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Office after a student accused faculty of discrimination, including refusing to use the student’s preferred pronouns. The college agreed to faculty training on Title IX protections and revised its policies to clarify that refusing to use a person’s preferred name and pronoun can constitute harassment.
The now-canceled agreement with Sacramento City Unified School District stemmed from a 2022 complaint brought by a student after a teacher refused to use the student’s preferred pronouns and/or refused to allow the male-identifying student to work in a boys’ group for a class activity. The 2024 resolution agreement had mandated training for employees on civil rights law, sexual harassment, and how to handle formal complaints.
Under a settlement the Delaware Valley School District reached with the Obama-Biden administration, the district was required to permit students to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identity. In February, the Trump-Vance administration sent the district a letter rescinding the settlement and requiring the rollback of antidiscrimination protections for trans students. The school board voted in late March to change its policies accordingly.
This move is part of a broader pattern of anti-trans actions from the White House since Trump returned to office.
In addition to restricting protections in federally funded education spaces, the administration has attempted to end trans girls’ and women’s participation in sports competitions and has sued states that have not complied. It has also blocked trans and nonbinary people from choosing sex markers on passports and attempted to stop those under 19 from receiving gender-affirming medical care.
South Carolina
Man faces first S.C. ‘hate intimidation’ charge
Timothy Truett allegedly shot at gay club in Myrtle Beach on April 1
A South Carolina man remains in custody on a more than $300,000 bond after he allegedly opened fire at a Myrtle Beach nightclub on April 1, according to WMBF.
Reports say 37-year-old Timothy James Truett Jr., of Clover, S.C., was detained by the Myrtle Beach Police Department after the April 1 incident outside Pulse Ultra Club. He was later arrested and charged with possession of a weapon during a violent crime, discharging a firearm into a dwelling, discharging a firearm within city limits, malicious injury to real property valued over $5,000, and assault or intimidation due to political opinions or the exercise of civil rights.
At 10:57 a.m. on April 1, officers responded to a call about a possible shooting at Pulse Ultra Club, located in the 2700 block of South Kings Highway.
In an affidavit released later, the club’s owner, Ken Phillips, said he was doing paperwork that morning when he heard “five or six” gunshots. He went outside and found a window and the windshield of his SUV shattered by bullets. An SUV with blue plastic covering one window was left at the scene.
Police later reviewed footage that showed a silver vehicle stopping in the middle of the road. The video appeared to capture muzzle flashes coming from the passenger-side window.
According to the affidavit, an officer later pulled over a vehicle driven by Truett and found spent shell casings in the back seat, along with a gun.
Documents do not detail why Truett was ultimately charged under the state law covering assault or intimidation tied to political opinions or the exercise of civil rights.
As of April 1, records show Truett is being held in Horry County on a combined bond of more than $312,000.
WMBF spoke with Phillips after the incident and asked whether there was any prior conflict that might have led to the shooting.
“I don’t know if it’s personal, I don’t know if it’s related to being gay, I don’t know if it’s related to the bar issues,” Phillips told WMBF. “Anybody with a mindset of pulling out a weapon in broad daylight is not right.”
“My primary concern has and always will be the safety of my community and my customers,” he added. “It’s given me great concern … as to how far people will go.”
WMBF also spoke with Adam Hayes, vice chair of Myrtle Beach’s Human Rights Coalition, who was involved in pushing for the ordinance. He said that while the incident itself is troubling, it shows the policy is being put to use.
The ordinance is intended to deter “crimes that are motivated by bias or hate towards any person or persons, in whole or in part, because of the actual or perceived” identity, in the absence of a statewide hate crime law.
“It’s nice to see that something we put into policy is not just a piece of paper, that it’s actually being used,” said Hayes.
He said the shooting underscores the need for a statewide hate crime law in South Carolina and added that the incident has left the local LGBTQ community shaken.
South Carolina and Wyoming are the only two states in the U.S. without a comprehensive statewide hate crime law.
Truett remains in jail as of publication.
Vance speaks at Orbán rally in Hungary
White House ends protections for trans students in multiple school districts
Amendments to India’s transgender rights law criticized
Cuba under pressure and without answers
Police mental health struggles gain growing attention
Belarusian lawmakers approve bill to crackdown on LGBTQ rights
How new barriers to health care coverage are hitting D.C.
Kenyan advocacy groups launch LGBTQ voter mobilization campaign
Calendar: April 3-9
