National
In first, fed’l appeals court rules anti-gay bias barred under current law
Panel finds sexual orientation bias barred under Title VII
For the first tine, a federal appeals court has ruled anti-gay bias is illegal under current law.
For the first time, a federal appeals court has determined discrimination based on sexual orientation amounts to sex discrimination and is unlawful under current civil rights law.
In a 69-page decision, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled Tuesday in the case of Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College anti-gay workplace bias is unlawful under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, reversing an earlier decision from a three-judge panel finding precedent precludes the court from making that determination.
Writing for the majority in the 8-3 decision, U.S. Chief Judge Diane Wood, a Clinton appointee, finds discrimination based on sexual orientation constitutes discrimination based on one’s perception of gender stereotypes, which the U.S. Supreme Court has determined is unlawful under Title VII.
“Any discomfort, disapproval, or job decision based on the fact that the complainant—woman or man— dresses differently, speaks differently, or dates or marries a same-sex partner, is a reaction purely and simply based on sex,” Wood writes. “That means that it falls within Title VII’s prohibition against sex discrimination, if it affects employment in one of the specified ways.”
Wood also relies heavily on the reasoning in the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Loving v. Virginia, which struck down bans on interracial marriage and served as a basis for the court’s ruling in favor of marriage equality in 2015.
“Changing the race of one partner made a difference in determining the legality of the conduct, and so the law rested on distinctions drawn according to race, which were unjustifiable and racially discriminatory,” Wood writes. “So too, here. If we were to change the sex of one partner in a lesbian relationship, the outcome would be different. This reveals that the discrimination rests on distinctions drawn according to sex.”
Wood cautions the ruling “decided only the issue put before us” and not, for example, whether Ivy Tech is a religious institution and therefore entitled to the religious exemption under Title VII, nor the legality of anti-gay discrimination “in the context of the provision of social or public services.”
“We hold only that a person who alleges that she experienced employment dis- crimination on the basis of her sexual orientation has put forth a case of sex discrimination for Title VII purposes,” Wood concludes. “It was therefore wrong to dismiss Hively’s complaint for failure to state a claim.”
In a new trend, a number of district courts have begun to rule anti-gay discrimination violates federal laws against sex discrimination, but federal appeals courts — including the 11th Circuit and the 2nd Circuit — had continued to reject that interpretation of Title VII until now. The 7th Circuit ruling marks the first time a federal court has reached that conclusion after decades of gay, lesbian and bisexual plaintiffs filing complaints before federal courts under that law.
The ruling reverses and remands the lower court ruling in the case, which was filed in 2014 by Kimberly Hively against her former employer, the Indiana-based Ivy Tech Community College, where she worked as a part-time professor. The lawsuit alleged the school violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by denying Hively full-time employment and promotions because she’s a lesbian.
Echoing Wood in a concurring decision is U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner, who was responsible for the 7th Circuit’s decision in favor of marriage equality in 2015 and opined in this case changing attitudes toward sex and gender call for a new interpretation of Title VII.
“The position of a woman discriminated against on account of being a lesbian is thus analogous to a woman’s being discriminated against on account of being a woman,” Posner writes. “That woman didn’t choose to be a woman; the lesbian didn’t choose to be a lesbian. I don’t see why firing a lesbian because she is in the subset of women who are lesbian should be thought any less a form of sex discrimination than firing a woman because she’s a woman.”
But Posner cautioned against basing the decision on Supreme Court precedent prohibiting gender stereotyping in Oncale, which he wrote is “rather evasive,” or Loving, which he said was a constitutional case based on race and “had nothing to do with the recently enacted Title VII.”
Despite criticism of the judiciary for allegedly interpreting the law in ways inconsistent with the intentions of Congress, Posner writes that’s not a problem because he says courts do it “fairly frequently to avoid statutory obsolescence and concomitantly to avoid placing the entire burden of updating old statutes on the legislative branch.”
Also writing a concurring opinion was U.S. Circuit Judge Joel Flaum, a Reagan-appointed judge who writes that sexual orientation discrimination constitutes sex discrimination under Title VII without any need to reinterpret the law.
“So if discriminating against an employee because she is homosexual is equivalent to discriminating against her because she is (A) a woman who is (B) sexually attracted to women, then it is motivated, in part, by an enumerated trait: The employee’s sex,” Flaum writes. “That is all an employee must show to successfully allege a Title VII claim.”
Writing the dissent in the case was U.S. Circuit Judge Diane Sykes, a George W. Bush-appointed judge who writes the majority “deploys a judge-empowering, common-law decision method that leaves a great deal of room for judicial discretion.”
“Respect for the constraints imposed on the judiciary by a system of written law must begin with fidelity to the traditional first principle of statutory interpretation: When a statute supplies the rule of decision, our role is to give effect to the enacted text, interpreting the statutory language as a reasonable person would have understood it at the time of enactment,” Sykes writes. “We are not authorized to infuse the text with a new or unconventional meaning or to update it to respond to changed social, economic, or political conditions.”
Sykes was on the list of judges from which President Trump said during his campaign he’d make appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court and reportedly was one of the three picks on the short list for the late U.S. Associate Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat before Trump nominated U.S. Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch.
The decision was a source of joy for LGBT rights supporters, who for decades have made a priority of protecting LGBT workers from discrimination.
Greg Nevins, employment fairness program director for Lambda Legal and attorney for the plaintiff, said in a statement the decision is a “gamechanger” for gay people facing workplace discrimination and “sends a clear message to employers: It is against the law to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.”
“In many cities and states across the country, lesbian and gay workers are being fired because of who they love,” Nevins said. “But, with this decision, federal law is catching up to public opinion: ninety-percent of Americans already believe that LGBT employees should be valued for how well they do their jobs—not who they love or who they are. Now, through this case and others, that principle is backed up by the courts.”
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the U.S. agency charged with enforcing federal employment civil rights law, determined in its 2015 decision in the case of Baldwin v. Foxx that discrimination against workers for being gay, lesbian or bisexual violates Title VII.
Chad Feldblum, a lesbian and commissioner of the EEOC, said in reaction to the Hively ruling she hopes the decision will serve as model for outside the 7th Circuit in sexual-orientation discrimination cases.
“I am gratified to see that the Seventh Circuit has adopted the simple logic that sexual orientation discrimination is a form of sex discrimination and I hope its reasoning can serve as a model for other courts,” Feldblum said.
The 7th Circuit is composed of Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. Wisconsin and Illinois already had state laws against sexual-orientation discrimination in employment, but the ruling assures for the first-time gay, lesbian and bisexual workers have recourse if they face discrimination in Indiana.
Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said the decision “opens the door to a new era for LGBTQ plaintiffs under federal sex discrimination law.”
“With this historic decision, the 7th Circuit is the first federal appellate court to acknowledge that discrimination because a person is gay, lesbian or bisexual can only reasonably be understood as discrimination based on sex,” Minter said. “The court deserves credit for rejecting the tortured rationales of older decisions and undertaking a principled analysis, based on the Supreme Court’s affirmation in Price Waterhouse and other cases, that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 must be broadly construed to prohibit the full range of sex-based discrimination.”
Although Ivy Tech Community College could file a petition for certiorari to urge the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the 7th Circuit decision, the school has indicated it won’t pursue that route.
“Ivy Tech Community College rejects discrimination of all types, sexual-orientation discrimination is specifically barred by our policies,” said Jeff Fanter, an Ivy Tech spokesperson. “Ivy Tech respects and appreciates the opinions rendered by the judges of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and does not intend to seek Supreme Court review. The college denies that it discriminated against the plaintiff on the basis of her sex or sexual orientation and will defend the plaintiff’s claims on the merits in the trial court.”
With the 7th Circuit decision, workplace protections for gay, lesbian and bisexual people are catching up to those of transgender people. For years, federal appeals courts have determined discrimination against workers for being transgender amounts to sex discrimination under Title VII, but haven’t done so for sexual orientation discrimination. In 2012, the U.S. EEOC affirmed anti-trans discrimination is unlawful under Title VII in the case of Macy v. Holder.
National
Top 10 LGBTQ national news stories of 2025
Trump, Supreme Court mount cruel attacks against trans community
President Trump’s anti-LGBTQ agenda dominated national news in 2025, particularly his cruel attacks on trans Americans. Here are our picks for the top 10 LGBTQ news stories the Blade covered in 2025.
10. Trump grants clemency to George Santos
President Donald Trump granted clemency to disgraced former Long Island Rep. George Santos. Santos was sentenced to 87 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft and had served just 84 days of his more than seven-year sentence. He lied to both the DOJ and the House Ethics Committee, including about his work and education history, and committed campaign finance fraud.
9. U.S. Olympics bans trans women athletes
The United States Supreme Court decided in 2025 to take up two cases — Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J.— both of which concern the rights of transgender athletes to participate on sports teams. The cases challenge state laws under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which prevents states from offering separate boys’ and girls’ sports teams based on biological sex determined at birth. Both cases are set to be heard in January 2026. The developments follow a decision by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee to change eligibility rules to prohibit transgender women from competing in women’s sporting events on behalf of the United States, following Trump’s Executive Order 14201, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
8. FDA approves new twice-yearly HIV prevention drug
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on June 18 approved a newly developed HIV/AIDS prevention drug that needs to be taken only twice a year, with one injection every six months. The new drug, lenacapavir, is being sold under the brand name Yeztugo by pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences. According to trial data, 99.9 percent of participants who received Yeztugo remained HIV negative. This emerging technology comes amid direct cuts to HIV/AIDS research measures by the Trump–Vance administration, particularly targeting international HIV efforts such as PEPFAR.
7. LGBTQ people ‘erased’ from gov’t reports
Politico reported in March that the Trump–Vance administration is slashing the State Department’s annual human rights report, cutting sections related to the rights of women, people with disabilities, the LGBTQ+ community, and more. Members of Congress objected to the removal of the subsection on “Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC)” from the State Department’s Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.
In a Sept. 9 letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.) urged the department to restore the information or ensure it is integrated throughout each report, noting that the reports serve as key evidence for asylum seekers, attorneys, judges, and advocates assessing human rights conditions and protection claims worldwide.
6. Trump admin redefines ‘sex’ in all HHS programs
The Trump administration canceled more than $800 million in research into the health of sexual and gender minority groups. More than half of the National Institutes of Health grants scrapped through early May involved studies of cancers and viruses that disproportionately affect LGBTQ people.
The administration is also pushing to end gender-affirming care for transgender youth, according to a new proposal from the Department of Health and Human Services, NPR reported. The administration is considering blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding for services at hospitals that provide pediatric gender-affirming care. “These rules would be a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s attack on access to transgender health care,” said Katie Keith, director of the Center for Health Policy and Law at Georgetown University.
5. FBI plans to label trans people as ‘violent extremists’
The Human Rights Campaign, Transgender Law Center, Equality Federation, GLAAD, PFLAG, and the Southern Poverty Law Center condemned reports that the FBI, in coordination with the Heritage Foundation, may be working to designate transgender people as “violent extremists.” The concerns followed a report earlier this month by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, who cited two anonymous national security officials saying the FBI is considering treating transgender subjects as a subset of a new threat category.
That classification—originally created under the Biden administration as “Anti-Authority and Anti-Government Violent Extremists” (AGAAVE) — was first applied to Jan. 6 rioters and other right-wing extremists. Advocates said the proposal appears to stem from the false claim that the assassination of Charlie Kirk was committed by a transgender person.
4. Pentagon targets LGBTQ service members
Acting in agreement with the growing anti-LGBTQ sentiment from the Trump administration, during a televised speech to U.S. military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico in late September, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denounced past military leadership for being too “woke,” citing DEI initiatives and LGBTQ inclusion within the Department of Defense. During the 45-minute address, Hegseth criticized inclusive policies and announced forthcoming directives, saying they would ensure combat requirements “return to the highest male standard only.”
Since 2016, a Navy replenishment oiler had borne the name of gay rights icon Harvey Milk, who served in the Navy during the Korean War and was separated from service under other than honorable conditions due to his sexuality before later becoming one of the first openly LGBTQ candidates elected to public office. In June 2025, the ship was renamed USNS Oscar V. Peterson.
The U.S. Air Force also announced that transgender service members who have served between 15 and 18 years would be denied early retirement and instead separated from the military without benefits. Transgender troops will be given the option of accepting a lump-sum payout offered to junior service members or being removed from service.
In February, the Pentagon said it would draft and submit procedures to identify transgender service members and begin discharging them from the military within 30 days.
3. Trump blames Democrats, trans people for gov’t shutdown
Republicans failed to reach an agreement with Democrats and blamed them for the government shutdown, while Democrats pointed to Republicans for cutting health care tax credits, a move they said would result in millions of people paying significantly higher monthly insurance premiums next year. In the White House press briefing room, a video of Democrats discussing past government shutdowns played on a loop as the president continued to blame the Democratic Party and “woke” issues, including transgender people.
“A lot of good can come from shutdowns. We can get rid of a lot of things. They’d be Democrat things,” Trump said the night before the shutdown. “They want open borders. Men playing in women’s sports. They want transgender for everybody.”
2. Supreme Court joins attacks on LGBTQ Americans
The U.S. Supreme Court issued multiple rulings this year affecting LGBTQ people. In Mahmoud v. Taylor (6–3), it ruled that public schools must give parents advance notice and the option to opt children out of lessons on gender or sexuality that conflict with their religious beliefs. The case arose after Montgomery County, Md., schools added LGBTQ-inclusive storybooks to the elementary curriculum.
In June, the court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors, protecting similar laws in more than 20 states. Lawmakers and advocates criticized the ruling, and a coalition of seven medical associations warned it strips families of the right to direct their own health care.
The Court also allowed the Trump administration to enforce a ban on transgender military personnel and to implement a policy blocking passports with “X” gender markers, with the federal government recognizing only male and female designations.
1. Trump inaugurated for second time
President Donald Trump became the 47th president after winning Wisconsin, securing 277 of the 270 electoral votes needed. His guidebook, Project 2025, outlined the Republican Party’s goals under his new leadership, with a particular focus on opposing transgender rights.
Trump nominated openly gay hedge fund executive Scott Bessent as U.S. Treasury Secretary, a role he eventually assumed. Bessent became the highest-ranking openly gay U.S. government official in American history.
Honorable mention: The war on rainbow crosswalks escalates around the country
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) ordered state transportation officials to remove a rainbow-colored crosswalk in Orlando next to the Pulse gay nightclub, where 49 mostly LGBTQ people were killed in a 2016 mass shooting. The move follows a July 1, 2025, announcement by U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy that, with support from President Trump, the department adopted a “nationwide roadway safety initiative” that political observers say could be used to require cities and states to remove rainbow street crosswalks.
Federal Government
Holiday week brings setbacks for Trump-Vance trans agenda
Federal courts begin to deliver end-of-year responses to lawsuits involving federal transgender healthcare policy.
While many Americans took the week of Christmas to rest and relax, LGBTQ politics in the U.S. continued to shift. This week’s short recap of federal updates highlights two major blows to the Trump-Vance administration’s efforts to restrict gender-affirming care for minors.
19 states sue RFK Jr. to end gender-affirming care ban
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced on Tuesday that the NYAG’s office, along with 18 other states (and the District of Columbia), filed a lawsuit to stop U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from restricting gender-affirming care for minors.
In the press release, Attorney General James stressed that the push by the Trump-Vance administration’s crusade against the transgender community — specifically transgender youth — is a “clear overreach by the federal government” and relies on conservative and medically unvalidated practices to “punish providers who adhere to well-established, evidence-based care” that support gender-affirming care.
“At the core of this so-called declaration are real people: young people who need care, parents trying to support their children, and doctors who are simply following the best medical evidence available,” said Attorney General James. “Secretary Kennedy cannot unilaterally change medical standards by posting a document online, and no one should lose access to medically necessary health care because their federal government tried to interfere in decisions that belong in doctors’ offices. My office will always stand up for New Yorkers’ health, dignity, and right to make medical decisions free from intimidation.”
The lawsuit is a direct response to HHS’ Dec. 18 announcement that it will pursue regulatory changes that would make gender-affirming health care for transgender children more difficult, if not impossible, to access. It would also restrict federal funding for any hospital that does not comply with the directive. KFF, an independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism, found that in 2023 federal funding covered nearly 45% of total spending on hospital care in the U.S.
The HHS directive stems directly from President Donald Trump’s Jan. 28 Executive Order, Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation, which formally establishes U.S. opposition to gender-affirming care and pledges to end federal funding for such treatments.
The American Medical Association, the nation’s largest and most influential physician organization, has repeatedly opposed measures like the one pushed by President Trump’s administration that restrict access to trans health care.
“The AMA supports public and private health insurance coverage for treatment of gender dysphoria and opposes the denial of health insurance based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” a statement on the AMA’s website reads. “Improving access to gender-affirming care is an important means of improving health outcomes for the transgender population.”
The lawsuit also names Oregon, Washington, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin as having joined New York in the push against restricting gender-affirming care.
At the HHS news conference last Thursday, Jim O’Neill, deputy secretary of the department, asserted, “Men are men. Men can never become women. Women are women. Women can never become men.”
DOJ stopped from gaining health care records of trans youth
U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon blocked an attempt by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to gain “personally identifiable information about those minor transgender patients” from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), saying the DOJ’s efforts “fly in the face of the Supreme Court.”
Journalist Chris Geidner originally reported the news on Dec. 25, highlighting that the Western District of Pennsylvania judge’s decision is a major blow to the Trump-Vance administration’s agenda to curtail transgender rights.
“[T]his Court joins the others in finding that the government’s demand for deeply private and personal patient information carries more than a whiff of ill intent,” Bissoon wrote in her ruling. “This is apparent from its rhetoric.”
Bissoon cited the DOJ’s “incendiary characterization” of trans youth care on the DOJ website as proof, which calls the practice politically motivated rather than medically sound and seeks to “…mutilate children in the service of a warped ideology.” This is despite the fact that a majority of gender-affirming care has nothing to do with surgery.
In United States v. Skrmetti, the Supreme Court ruled along party lines that states — namely Tennessee — have the right to pass legislation that can prohibit certain medical treatments for transgender minors, saying the law is not subject to heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it does not involve suspect categories like race, national origin, alienage, and religion, which would require the government to show the law serves a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored, sending decision-making power back to the states.
“The government cannot pick and choose the aspects of Skrmetti to honor, and which to ignore,” Judge Bissoon added.
The government argued unsuccessfully that the parents of the children whose records would have been made available to the DOJ “lacked standing” because the subpoena was directed at UPMC and that they did not respond in a timely manner. Bissoon rejected the timeliness argument in particular as “disingenuous.”
Bissoon, who was nominated to the bench by then-President Obama, is at least the fourth judge to reject the DOJ’s attempted intrusion into the health care of trans youth according to Geidner.
A Wider Bridge on Friday announced it will shut down at the end of the month.
The group that “mobilizes the LGBTQ community to fight antisemitism and support Israel and its LGBTQ community” in a letter to supporters said financial challenges prompted the decision.
“After 15 years of building bridges between LGBTQ communities in North America and Israel, A Wider Bridge has made the difficult decision to wind down operations as of Dec. 31, 2025,” it reads.
“This decision comes after challenging financial realities despite our best efforts to secure sustainable funding. We deeply appreciate our supporters and partners who made this work possible.”
Arthur Slepian founded A Wider Bridge in 2010.
The organization in 2016 organized a reception at the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change Conference in Chicago that was to have featured to Israeli activists. More than 200 people who protested against A Wider Bridge forced the event’s cancellation.
A Wider Bridge in 2024 urged the Capital Pride Alliance and other Pride organizers to ensure Jewish people can safely participate in their events in response to an increase in antisemitic attacks after Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported authorities in Vermont late last year charged Ethan Felson, who was A Wider Bridge’s then-executive director, with lewd and lascivious conduct after alleged sexual misconduct against a museum employee. Rabbi Denise Eger succeeded Felson as A Wider Bridge’s interim executive director.
A Wider Bridge in June honored U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) at its Pride event that took place at the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C. The event took place 15 days after a gunman killed two Israeli Embassy employees — Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim — as they were leaving an event at the museum.
“Though we are winding down, this is not a time to back down. We recognize the deep importance of our mission and work amid attacks on Jewish people and LGBTQ people – and LGBTQ Jews at the intersection,” said A Wider Bridge in its letter. “Our board members remain committed to showing up in their individual capacities to represent queer Jews across diverse spaces — and we know our partners and supporters will continue to do the same.”
Editor’s note: Washington Blade International News Editor Michael K. Lavers traveled to Israel and Palestine with A Wider Bridge in 2016.
