National
UPDATED: GLAAD’s communication breakdown; Barrios voted out
Media watchdog group dogged by allegations of dishonesty, incompetence
UPDATE: According to Politico, the Executive committee of GLAAD’s Board of Directors has voted to remove Jarrett Barrios as President of the organization.
UPDATE 2: According to both Michelangelo Signorile and the Bilerico Project, Rich Ferraro is confirming that Jarrett Barrios has stepped down as GLAAD’s President.
A former GLAAD board chair has called for the resignation of its president, Jarrett Barrios. (Photo courtesy GLAAD)
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation raised eyebrows last week when the media watchdog group released a statement supporting the merger of telecom giants AT&T and T-Mobile. It marked the second time the organization, which was founded in 1985 as a grassroots action network, had weighed in on major business news. The prior statement had been released a year earlier objecting to the NBC-Comcast merger, due to concerns about negative portrayals of LGBT characters in the media.
The AT&T statement was curious, but attracted little media attention.
That changed on Tuesday, when former GLAAD board of directors co-chair Laurie Perper appeared on Michelangelo Signorile’s Sirius-XM OutQ show to sound the alarm on other alleged improprieties at the organization and questions facing its leader, Jarrett Barrios.
Since then, Barrios — who has been at the helm of GLAAD for 23 months — has granted a flurry of interviews to counter Perper’s claims. His responses, however, have only served to attract more scrutiny of the organization.
While speaking with Perper, Signorile pressed about why she left her position as board chair early. “You stepped down because you just thought he was not qualified. Obviously, as the months went on, others agreed with that assessment,” Signorile summarized. “I believe that over 14 board members have left, [since Barrios took over],” Perper relayed to the radio host.
Signorile continued, “Is it fair to say that most of these people stepped down because of the direction the organization was going, because of Jarrett Barrios?”
“Absolutely,” Perper said.
Reached by phone last week along with GLAAD director of communications Richard Ferraro and GLAAD board member and Florida PR consultant Gary Bitner, Barrios insisted that his short time working with Perper — only five weeks — was marked by a positive working relationship, and was focused on solving the organization’s financial problems.
“It’s perplexing and disappointing, considering that she worked for many years to help build this organization, but this happens sometimes,” Barrios told the Blade. “We form in our movement a circular firing squad, and we for whatever reason feel it’s necessary to hurt somebody else in the movement. [Laurie Perper and I] worked well together. Frankly the time we interacted was the time I was getting my feet wet, learning that the org at the time was running a rather large deficit.”
After booking Perper on the Signorile show, the producers reached out and arranged to have Barrios on the following day to respond to the statements that had been made. However, when GLAAD later attempted to arrange to have Bitner join him on the Signorile show, the show’s producers refused and the GLAAD team pulled out of the arrangement, opting to contact other media outlets and bloggers instead.
Barrios insists that the financial figures that Perper presented on the Signorile show were inaccurate and misleading, including a quote about a $14 million discrepancy after 2008, which Barrios says is the result of an IRS reporting requirement of a major multi-million dollar bequest by the late Ric Weiland of Microsoft that was dispersed over seven years. GLAAD insists that it has righted its financial footing thanks to cuts made early in Barrios’ term, though Ferraro also disputes Perper’s claim that six senior staff members left the organization since Jarrett’s start. GLAAD insists it was only three, with another just having left a few months ago.
“In 2009, there was a substantial deficit — I think it was like $1.2 million,” Barrios said. “Last year, we cut the operating deficit to $300,000 — shrunk it by about $900,000 — and this year, I’m happy to say, we’re running ahead of budget … most notably, our national presenting sponsor has already renewed for next year. That typically doesn’t happen until January. It’s already happened for next year. We’re very pleased. Our corporate revenues this year are substantially higher than last year, which were higher than the year before.”
Perper’s main purpose for appearing on Signorile’s show, however, was to question the reasoning behind GLAAD’s unexpected statement voicing support for the AT&T/T-Mobile merger. GLAAD joined unions, advocacy organizations and other LGBT-specific organizations like the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and Out At Work in supporting the merger. These three organizations joined the NAACP, and the National Education Association in pushing the FCC for the merger.
Perper points to this as evidence that AT&T may have “bought influence with these” non-profits to advocate for the merger with the FCC.
Hours after his conversation with the Blade, Barrios appeared on Chicago’s “Feast of Fun” podcast with Marc Felion and Fausto Fernos. The issue of GLAAD’s curious support of the AT&T/T-Mobile merger and Perper’s statements regarding that merger soon came up, and Barrios seemed to change his story on a long-forgotten episode from more than a year ago when GLAAD released two letters regarding the principles of “net-neutrality” and expressed support for expanding Internet access. The second letter was later retracted.
At the time, Barrios wrote the FCC asking the letter to be removed from the public record, stating that he’d not given his permission for the letter to be submitted and that the signature is “not in my hand.” However, while speaking with “Feast of Fun,” his story seemed to change.
“It was like January of 2010. And it, it sort of supported the telecom industry’s position on net neutrality, which was not GLAAD’s position,” Barrios said. “In fact, GLAAD, at the time and still, doesn’t endorse bills and doesn’t endorse regulatory actions. So, it would have been impossible for us to do that.”
When reached by phone last week, Richard Ferraro explained why GLAAD cannot take a position on net neutrality.
“As a 501(c)3 there’s a question about whether or not we can,” Ferraro told the Blade. “It’s obvious where we stand [on universal access] … mergers are different.”
On “Feast of Fun,” Barrios shifted his story about the letter’s submission, after taking the position a year earlier that the organization had no knowledge of the letter prior to its submission.
“After an investigation, we determined that it was an administrative error, internally at GLAAD, and I’ll own that, and we withdrew the letter. At the time we withdrew the letter, we didn’t know that, so I was — you can imagine reading a letter in a public submission with your name on it that you had never seen, and it wasn’t your signature — after we did an internal investigation, we realized it was an internal error, an administrative error.”
“[The letter] was pulled, one, because it’s an anti-net-neutrality letter,” Ferraro clarified for the Blade. “Two, because at that point and currently, GLAAD does not take positions on legislation or regulation.”
In January, when the letter had been submitted and subsequently retracted, the narrative that emerged was that the letter had been forged. However, after the Feast of Fun statements, Bil Browning of Bilerico Project sought a clearer explanation about the letter.
In an interview last week with Browning, Barrios revealed his personal assistant — a woman Bilerico identified as Jeanne Christiano who has worked for Barrios consistently for seven years, and goes back to his days as a Massachusetts state senator — had called him while he was on the road, and in a hurry, he gave the letter his approval thinking that the two were discussing the previous letter with language Barrios had approved.
“We made a mistake. I authorized my assistant over the phone to sign and submit a letter that I understood to be a re-filing of the October letter in support of broadband proliferation,” Barrios told Browning. “When I realized she had inadvertently submitted an anti-net neutrality letter, I withdrew it … at the time, I had never seen the letter that was filed, and did not recognize the signature.”
Last week, after the story broke of the retracted letter to the FCC supporting the telecom’s position on net-neutrality, the Blade again spoke with Ferraro, this time about the new information emerging about the FCC letter.
“There’s an October letter that Jarrett wrote to the FCC that’s on the FCC site,” Ferraro told the Blade, “that very broadly talks about broadband proliferation, and speaks to our statement Friday about net-neutrality, which is that we don’t currently have a position, but we support universal access … we support the ideas behind, the principles behind net-neutrality – that we can do.”
According to Ferraro, GLAAD board member and communications law professor at American University, Anthony Varona, noticed the subtle pro-telecom messages in the letter after having served as a lawyer at the FCC in the past and immediately contacted the organization’s leadership asking why GLAAD was supporting the telecom industry’s anti-net-neutrality stance.
“When Tony Verona — who speaks FCC language — read this,” Ferraro explained, “he said ‘Why the heck did you send in a letter anti-net-neutrality?’ Jarrett of course said, ‘I never read that letter, I never said I’m against net-neutrality.’”
According to Ferraro, the suggested language is believed to have come directly from AT&T, and was copied verbatim by Barrios’ assistant, Jeanne Christiano.
Ferraro explained, “He was traveling, as he still does [a lot] … she’s more than an assistant — they’ve worked together for seven years. … I was not on the call, so can’t speak with certainty, but he said she called him and said something along the lines of ‘so I have the letter on broadband. They want the letter, do you want me to go forward with it?’ and he said, ‘yeah yeah,’ thinking it was the October letter.”
Ferraro agreed there must have been a major communication breakdown at GLAAD.
“He never saw the letter, and he said, ‘yeah, send it in.’ And obviously he didn’t mean to send it in, because as soon as the board member [questioned the letter], he said, ‘huh? I never saw that letter. I didn’t sign that letter. That’s not my signature.’ and he didn’t authorize it. The thing that he’s been trying to do is he doesn’t want to throw her under the bus. This was his mistake. He should have read the letter — he didn’t.”
The controversy raises the question: will GLAAD start weighting in on other FCC-related matters if a business has any ties to the LGBT community?
“One thing that has happened since Jarrett came on board, is that we’ve been more engaged with the FCC, which is a government agency that needs to hear more from the LGBT community … since then, you did hear us weigh in on the NBC merger, you did hear us weigh in on AT&T and we did file an FCC complaint about ‘Jose Luis Sin Censura,’ which is the most anti-gay program on television today,” Ferraro said.
Some activists argue there are larger issues at play than GLAAD’s support of the AT&T merger, or whether or not GLAAD can take a position on net-neutrality. Some leaders in the community are wondering if GLAAD is ready to unravel. Laurie Perper herself called for the dissolution of GLAAD, and discussed it with Signorile when she appeared on his show.
When the Blade asked Perper if GLAAD could survive this controversy, she said it would require a massive change in personnel and makeup of the board.
“One of the things that has come forward is GLAAD’s brand name has been heavily tied to the media awards and people feel that GLAAD is owned by the broadcasters,” Perper said. “The word transparency gets thrown around a lot and unfortunately I found in trying to manage Jarrett that he was far from transparent. So I was actually there for five months with him, and that was long enough for me to see that he was going to make decisions against the board, without consulting the board, the co-chairs and against their will.”
Perper also believes a narrower focus would help GLAAD recover.
“I think that they’ve expanded their programmatic work too much and therefore don’t have a solid impact in any one area, so I think they need to retract a little bit in this difficult economy, decide where they want to make an impact, and truly come out with thoughtful statements, rather than the flip-flopping I’ve seen them do with Adam Lambert, with the AT&T situation. … So they just need a consistent message and vision that they can put forth, that people can understand, and then they need to act on it as hard as they can.”
She continued, “I’ve had a lot of discussions with people who happen to be aware of a lot of the situation that’s going on with GLAAD and a lot of the controversy,” she continued, “and they all feel very strongly about the GLAAD brand name and that it still has tremendous value in the marketplace. So when I talk about the dissolution of it, I do it with a really heavy heart, not ‘how do you ever rebuild a brand name like that,’ but thinking ‘how do you get rid of a president and half of the board members who have helped enable him to bring such tarnish to the name?’”
Barrios, however, sees the organization heading in the right direction.
“We’ve enjoyed some of our highest profile victories ever in the last 18 months,” said Barrios. “So where we’re going is down that path … we’ve had some major victories with the ‘Today’ show, the marriage contest last year. A number of victories with our ‘no two sides’ campaign last year … Mostly that work is happening behind the scenes.”
When members of the media continued to pursue answers to the questions left unanswered at the onset of last weekend, GLAAD tried to shift attention to the Tracy Morgan scandal on Friday. GLAAD backed off from a promise to have Barrios chat on the phone with the Blade in regard to the new confusion brought about by the Friday morning Bilerico report and the Thursday morning Feast of Fun interview.
What’s still unclear is how the suggested language ended up in an official letter on GLAAD letterhead. GLAAD would not comment on whom from AT&T delivered the suggested language, noting only that “AT&T is the source.” However, with a former AT&T lobbyist on the board of directors, who now consults for telecom companies including AT&T, some wonder if Troupe Coronado was the conduit for this “suggested language” that turned GLAAD into an anti-net-neutrality advocate for the telecom industry.
Also unanswered is how unauthorized language was allowed to be submitted by an assistant to a government agency. If this specific language was not approved, why was there no protocol in place to prevent a scenario where an employee of the organization can sign the president’s name to an official document and send it as an agent of the entire group?
There are also nagging questions about Troupe Coronado’s influence and role in the controversy. In January 2006, the Washington Post’s Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Thomas B. Edsall investigated Coronado for allegedly exceeding the gift-giving limits on lobbyists when schmoozing lawmakers. He was still with BellSouth at the time. BellSouth is now part of AT&T. In addition, OpenSecrets.org lists him as a “revolving door personnel,” someone who has bounced from industry lobbying jobs, to government jobs and back again.
Coronado’s connections to the telecom industry and GLAAD’s subsequent misfires in the field of telecom regulation and corporate dealings is troubling for many activists, even if those connections are tenuous and possibly only coincidental.
National
Barney Frank on trans rights, 2028, and the need to ‘reform the left’
Gay former congressman starts home hospice care while completing new book
Former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who served in the House from 1981 until his retirement in 2013 and who became the first member of Congress to voluntarily come out as gay in 1987, has resurfaced in the news over the past two weeks after announcing he has entered home hospice care and plans to publish a new book on, among other things, how Democrats can and should regain control of Congress.
According to media reports and an interview Frank conducted this week with the Washington Blade, his book, entitled “The Hard Path to Unity: Why We Must Reform the Left to Rescue Democracy,” calls on the Democratic Party’s progressive left leaning members to be more strategic in pushing for laws and policies initially considered “politically unacceptable” to most U.S. voters and the American people.
Frank told the Blade he believes the LGBTQ rights movement has succeeded in advancing most of its agenda seeking protections against discrimination by initially pushing less controversial advances such as the end to the ban on gays in the military and non-discrimination in employment before taking on the more controversial issue of same-sex marriage.
While acknowledging that Congress has yet to pass a national law banning discrimination against LGBTQ people in employment, housing, and public accommodations as 22 states and D.C. have already done, he points to the two landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions, one legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, and the other declaring sexual orientation and gender identity are protected categories for which employment discrimination is prohibited under existing federal law in Bostock v. Clayton County in 2020.
Frank notes that while some in the LGBTQ community are fearful that LGBTQ rights are under attack and may be pulled back under the Trump administration, he believes Republicans in Congress at this time will not attempt to repeal any existing LGBTQ protections, especially those regarding marriage rights and employment protections secured by the Supreme Court rulings.
He says transgender rights are the remaining LGBTQ issue that have yet to be adopted rationally, and he fully supports ongoing efforts to advance trans rights. But like his criticism of the progressive left among Democrats, Frank says the efforts to advance trans rights could be jeopardized by the highly controversial issue of “male to female transgender people playing in women’s sports.”
He added, “That’s the most controversial, the most difficult. It affects the fewest number of people.” While he says trans rights supporters should continue to advocate for that, “they should not make it a litmus test and say well if you’re not for that you’re not a supporter of the rights of transgender people. There are places where people are supportive, and we want to encourage that.”
Frank, 86, told Politico he has entered home hospice care as he deals with ongoing congestive heart failure. He said he is remaining in his home in Ogunquit, Maine, where he has lived with his husband, Jim Ready, since retiring from Congress in 2013.
“I’ve been doing some writing. I wrote this book,” Frank told the Blade. “I’ve relaxed. Meanwhile, my health has been failing. Jim has been a saint in taking care of me,” he said. “And so, I take it easy.”
Frank spoke to the Washington Blade in a phone interview from his home on May 4.
Washington Blade: We’re hearing some interesting reports about the book you’ve been writing. Can you say when it will be published?
Barney Frank: Sept. 15 is the publication date.
Blade: Some of the reports about the book in the media have said you want the far left within the Democratic Party to be more cautious.
Frank: No, I’ll give you this. The job is to defeat populism to keep democracy. Clearly you have to know what caused it. I believe that the essential cause in the surge of populism was economic inequality and the failure of mainstream liberals to address inequality. And beginning in the ‘80s economic growth became less and less fair in its institutions. And that led to all this anger.
So, the mainstream left finally figured that out after [Bernie] Sanders and Trump in ’16. So, we then – because I was working to make that change – got the Democrats to pay attention to economic inequality. And Joe Biden’s program did. The problem is at that point, people on the left who had correctly been critical of the failure to address equality said, OK, that’s not the only problem you guys are missing. There are all these other problems.
And they jumped from being right on the question of inequality and equality to believing in a lot more social changes, some of which were just unacceptable to the public. And the mistake they make is they don’t distinguish – there are a lot of issues I’ve been for in my life, but I had to assert that they were not currently politically survivable.
So, you do two things. Those that are politically survivable work to get them done. Others, you become an advocate. But you don’t make the most controversial part of your agenda litmus tests and drive away your allies. You will remember that on marriage that was an issue and in 2000 they insisted you will be for marriage.
So, my thesis is that while the mainstream understood its mistake on inequality, the most militant and ideological of our left misunderstand public opinion and they are pushing the public to — and they are insisting on acceptance of things that are not politically acceptable.
Blade: Having said what you said, how do you see that impacting gay rights or LGBTQ rights?
Frank: Well in the first place, gay rights – one of the things I want to address – is this fear that gay rights are going to be taken away – rights for LGB people. Nonsense. We’re not going to lose any of those rights. If they tried to undo marriage, for instance, the political reaction they would get would be abortion type sentiment. They are just not going to do that because it causes them too many political problems.
The problem is advances we hope to make in the area of transgender people. But there is no chance of losing – I can’t think of a single right that is in jeopardy. They are not going to reintroduce the ban in the military. They’re not going to tell people their marriages are cancelled. Again, the Republicans are not even trying to do that because they know there would be a terrible backlash.
With regard to LGBT there is one analogy. And that is the most controversial issue we faced over the years on what was the gay-bisexual agenda was same-sex marriage. And we left that until the end. And you remember we did the military. We did ENDA. We moved on to everything else, and it wasn’t until the very end that we went into marriage. [NOTE: ENDA did not ultimately pass.]
I think the analogy to that is male to female transgender people playing in women’s sports. That’s the most controversial, the most difficult. It affects the fewest number of people. And I believe had we deferred on marriage — people who believe that’s important should advocate for it. But they should not make it a litmus test and say well if you’re not for that you’re not a supporter of the rights of transgender people. There are places where people are supportive, and we want to encourage that.
Blade: You said you don’t think we will lose any rights, most of the laws related to nondiscrimination are from the states or municipal laws that were passed.
Frank: Tell me what you think will be lost. You and I always have this problem. I’ve always felt you were cynical and skeptical. Tell me what right we now have that’s in jeopardy.
Blade: One would be if the Supreme Court reverses its decision on same-sex marriage.
Frank: If they do, Congress would now step in on that, which would be the passage of Tammy Baldwin’s bill.
Blade: But what I was going to ask you next is in all the years you’ve been in office and as of now a federal LGBTQ rights bill has not been passed by Congress yet. Is there a chance of that happening?
Frank: I do not think it will happen because the members of Congress do not want to be in the position of voting to cancel people’s marriages. There are valid marriages throughout the country. And the notion that Congress will pass a bill invalidating those, no they won’t. They won’t do anything that’s as disruptive and that will cause a strong reaction. Have you seen a federal bill to do that? I haven’t.
Blade: No, and I am sorry if I’m not putting the question across correctly. I’m talking about the bill that bans discrimination based on employment, public accommodations and other areas for LGBTQ people that Congress has not yet passed. You co-sponsored that for many years.
Frank: I know that, and the Supreme Court did that one. No, I don’t think that – oh, all right, that’s a different question than marriage. If the Supreme Court reverses itself on that – I don’t see any sign that they’re going to, then I think you would see the federal bill passed.
[He is referring to the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision that employment discrimination against gay, bi, and trans people was equivalent to sex discrimination, which is prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.]
Blade: Are you talking about marriage?
Frank: For both for marriage and for non-[discrimination] – I don’t think a marriage bill would pass nationally. To distinguish, I don’t think a bill striking down marriages would pass. Too much violent reaction. As to employment discrimination, where they haven’t acted yet, if the Supreme Court changes that – I think that’s extremely unlikely – then I think Congress would step in.
Blade: Are you saying we may not need an LGBTQ non-discrimination act by Congress for the states that haven’t passed that?
Frank: I would be in favor of that, yes. But again, I think you and I – you have always been pessimistic. There is a political time now that works in our favor. And as I said, on abortion, they burned themselves very badly on abortion. And yes, I’m still for a national anti-discrimination bill. But I do not think the right wing wants to be caught taking rights away that already exist. Because that’s a lot harder than denying them in the first place. And I don’t see any movement for that. You tell me what you are worried about. What bills are you worried about?
Blade: I was simply saying they haven’t yet passed a federal non-discrimination bill.
Frank: No, what’s going to change on the Supreme Court? I don’t see a pretty quick reversal on the Supreme Court. So, I think people are just – they have to have a cause. And they are inflating the likelihood that we are going to lose some rights when I see no evidence of it. And in fact, I see a lot of political reasons why those in Congress don’t want to do that.
I’ll tell you there are a lot of Republicans who would vote for same-sex marriage. For example, the leadership would say for Christ’s sake, don’t bring that up. They don’t want to take a position on it. And they got burned on abortion, badly.
Blade: To the extent that you are observing this, do you think the LGBTQ rights organizations are doing what they should be doing?
Frank: Well, I think some are stressing the negative too much. Because when people believe nothing good ever happens, they may get discouraged. I think they should be concentrating on the transgender issue. And I know the most controversial parts are protecting people’s rights to medical care, their rights selecting their own gender. And that’s what I would be working on.
And yeah, it would be nice to pass the national bill. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Well, if the Democrats get the House, the Senate, and the presidency, maybe it will happen. But I don’t see the urgency of that because I don’t see any movement to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision.
Blade: What message would you have for the LGBTQ community?
Frank: My message is one, we’re in good shape. And two, that what remains in the transgender issue – who is first? Which are those of your issues that are the most politically acceptable. And you work your way through and as you win on some of those the resistance on the tougher ones will diminish. And the other issue is we are – the problem is the stand to protect the rights of transgender people. But the rights for lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, I do not think they are in jeopardy and I do not think a lot of resources should be spent on being what I think is a very small threat.
Blade: For those states and municipalities that do not have laws protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination, do you think attitudes are changing so there would be little or no discrimination?
Frank: Oh, no question. First of all, I think it’s very unlikely that any of the rights they have will be taken away. And secondly, if they had to take some positive steps to take away protections they would not do it. And I think that ship has sailed in our direction and isn’t going back. In the end, you cannot underestimate there’s a big political difference between denying people their rights in the first place and taking it away from them after they’ve enjoyed it.
Anything is theoretically possible, but I don’t see any evidence that’s likely to happen.
Blade: We’re coming up to the midterm elections this year, but is there anyone coming up in the next presidential election who you might be supporting?
Frank: Oh, I think at this point we’re going to have a fairly open Democratic process. And it’s very clear at this point the way American politics is going it will be a basically supportive Democrat against a basically opposed Republican. And I’ll be supporting the Democrat. And so, this Democrat would be the best one, the most electable. And which one, I haven’t decided that. I want to see how people will fare when they start running.
But I think it is inconceivable that the Democrats would nominate someone who is not fully supportive.
Blade: Some people might be asking what you have been doing since you retired from Congress.
Frank: I’ve been doing some writing. I wrote this book. I’ve relaxed. Meanwhile, my health has been failing. Jim [husband Jim Ready] has been a saint in taking care of me. And so, I take it easy. In terms of what I do, I have two rules, two pieces of advice for people who retire. One is that you should make up two lists. One is you should have a bucket list, a list of things you want to do before you’re through. But more important than the bucket list is a list that rhymes with bucket. That’s a very important list. And that’s one that I increasingly defer to.
Blade: And what is the one other than bucket?
Frank: It rhymes with bucket. What rhymes with bucket?
Blade: Oh, OK.
Frank: That’s the list I follow.
Florida
Key West Pride’s state funding pulled
Republican Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed anti-DEI bill
Following the passage of anti-DEI legislation in Florida, Key West will no longer receive any state funding for its future Pride events.
In a letter provided to the Key West Business Guild, the LGBTQ visitor and tourism center for the string of islands, a senior assistant county attorney for Monroe County officially said that the organization would no longer receive funding for its ongoing projects as a result of Senate Bill 1134 and House Bill 1001, starting in 2027.
The popular Key West Pride, gay men–leaning Tropical Heat weekend, and Womenfest will no longer receive any state money. This is something that Gay Key West Visitor Center Executive Director Rob Dougherty highlighted will shift how all the largest LGBTQ events in the Keys will be held after this year.
He said that the explanation is solely a result of SB 1134 and HB 1001, which limits the official actions of local governments by “prohibiting counties and municipalities, respectively, from funding or promoting or taking official action as it relates to diversity, equity, and inclusion …”
The legislation is being used to impose restrictions on funding events that exclude — whereas the events’ true purpose is to uplift already marginalized groups.
“Womenfest lost it [funding] because it’s a women’s-only event. Tropical Heat lost it because it’s a men’s-only event … that’s how this is being applied.”
This will not impact anything this year, Dougherty assured the Washington Blade; however, the future is not as certain.
“The law that (Republican Florida) Gov. DeSantis signed does not go into effect until Jan. 1, so for 2026 we’re okay,” Dougherty told the Blade. “But it impacts Key West Pride 2027, it impacts Tropical Heat 2027 and Womenfest — so we have lost all funding for those three events.”
He said that this will amount to a large chunk of the expected funding for the LGBTQ celebrations, which the Key West tourism board says is “internationally known as a gay mecca.”
“We’re due to lose about $200,000. Not all of that is direct, but the way that the Tourist Development Council (TDC) distributes their money, about $75,000 of it is for Key West Pride, and that helps to pay for things like marketing, swag, and other things that promote the event.”
He went on to explain that marketing to many major metropolitan areas with large LGBTQ populations may not see the same Key West advertisements and push as in years past — and that is the point.
“Our digital marketing, our print marketing, our SEO marketing — all of that is paid for through there, and it targets places with direct flights like Washington, D.C., New York, Philly, Atlanta, Dallas. So it’s definitely going to impact that.”
The money that will stop coming is not just to run events and celebrations, he explained. Money that goes back directly into the community is going to be hardest hit.
“An estimated 250,000 LGBTQ+ travelers make it to Key West on an annual basis, and on a very conservative basis, for every LGBTQ+ person there are two to four allies traveling with the same values.”
“The TDC also estimates that $1,500+ is spent per person per visit … so if you take those figures and multiply those all together, it comes up to about $1.2 billion … that is potentially going to be lost.”
He says that this will intrinsically change how Key West’s tourism — especially the large LGBTQ side of it — will run, especially since gay vacations need a foundation and expectation of safety and support to blossom.
“We travel based upon where we feel most welcome,” Dougherty said. “Key West has always been its own little place … the LGBTQ+ history of Key West and everything about Key West has always been a little bit weird for people, and that’s why they come here.”
The Guild was formed in 1978 to encourage summer tourism and support Key West’s gay community — becoming the nation’s first LGBTQ destination marketing organization. It has grown tremendously from its original membership to now include more than 475 enterprises representing virtually every facet of the island’s business community.
He also went on to say that this should be eye-opening for anywhere considered an LGBTQ destination, regardless of whether it is in a blue state or a red one.
“I think it can be a wake-up call across the country, because if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.”
Federal Government
DOE investigates Smith College’s trans-inclusive policy
Mass. college accused of violating Title IX
The U.S. Department of Education announced on Monday that it opened an investigation into Smith College for admitting transgender women.
Smith College, a private and famously all-women’s college in Northampton, Mass., established in 1871 and opened in 1875, has a long list of women who make up its historic alumni — including first ladies, influential political figures, and cultural leaders.
The DOE released a statement about the investigation into the institution through the Department’s Office for Civil Rights, saying it was looking into the possibility that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was violated by allowing trans women, referred to in the statement as “biological males,” into women’s intimate spaces protected by IX.
The statement explicitly highlighted that this stems from trans women being granted “access to women-only spaces, including dormitories, bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletic teams” while also allowing their audience into the school itself.
This is the first time the Trump-Vance administration has taken a step into admissions processes, a stark jump past investigating policies that allowed trans women to participate in women’s sports and use women’s bathrooms, and allows for the administration to go more after trans acceptance policy as a whole.
Smith’s admission policy allows for “any applicants who self-identify as women,” including “cis, trans, and nonbinary women,” according to the college’s website, and has since 2015, when it updated its policy.
“The college is fully committed to its institutional values, including compliance with civil rights laws,” Smith’s statement in response to the DOE’s investigation said. “The college does not comment on pending government investigations.”
“An all-women’s college loses all meaning if it is admitting biological males,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey. “Allowing biological males into spaces designed for women raises serious concerns about privacy, fairness, and compliance under federal law. The Trump administration will continue to uphold the law and fight to restore common sense.”
This move continues to align with actions the Trump-Vance administration has taken to curtail LGBTQ — and specifically trans — rights in America, as members of the administration attempt to break down safeguards and protections that have long been used to protect marginalized communities.
Since Trump took office in his second term, there have been significant legal challenges. According to the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association, there are over 35 court cases that have emerged since his second swearing-in that directly relate to the administration’s attempts to minimize the rights and protections of trans Americans — from medical care and educational protections to military policy.
Much of this anti-trans policy direction was outlined beginning in 2022 with the Project 2025 playbook, which Trump officials have used as a guide to scale back protections for LGBTQ people, Black Americans, poor and Indigenous communities, while also increasing costs for lower-income Americans and providing tax cuts to the wealthy and ultra-wealthy. The plans also “erode” Americans’ freedoms and remove crucial checks and balances that have allowed the executive branch to remain in line with the Constitution without becoming too powerful over either the courts or the legislative branch.
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