National
White House holds LGBT health summit
Officials hail LGBT progress at Philadelphia conference
PHILADELPHIA — The White House heard the concerns of LGBT people here during the first of a series of conferences aimed at allowing the Obama administration to engage directly with the LGBT community and highlight its achievements.
More than 300 people from 22 states attended the conference, which was focused on LGBT health, on Thursday in the Dorrance H. Hamilton Building at Thomas Jefferson University.
Obama administration officials touted their work over the past three years on health and LGBT issues. Conference participants asked questions of officials in a town-hall style format — many focused on transgender inclusion of the administration’s LGBT work — and participated in workshops on issues such as LGBT aging, youth and transgender health as well as the health care reform law and engagement opportunities with the administration.
Secretary of Health & Human Services Kathleen Sebelius delivered the keynote speech and emphasized the purpose of the conferences was to allow the Obama administration to have greater engagement with the LGBT community.
“The goal of these conferences is to talk about some of the work that we’re doing that might be of interest to you in health, but it’s also a real opportunity … to listen, to have you share your ideas and your challenges and your struggles with us because that really helps us inform our policy each and every day,” Sebelius said.
The secretary invoked President Obama’s State of the Union address, recalling his emphasis on “fairness” as a core American value, and said this sense of fairness applies to LGBT people.
“We need to have an America that values everyone and has the same set of values and same set of rules for everyone,” Sebelius said. “And that belief means ensuring that LGBT Americans have the same protections and opportunities as their neighbors, as their colleagues, as their family members.”
Sebelius also emphasized the importance of the health care reform law. Among the LGBT-specific areas the secretary trumpeted was preventing insurers from discriminating against someone based on LGBT status, initiating data collection efforts on LGBT health and expanding HealthCare.gov to facilitate searches for health insurance plans covering same-sex partners.
The secretary also touted the insurance exchanges aimed at lowering costs to make health care more affordable.
“Every American in 2014 will have access to an insurance exchange, either run by the state or run by the federal government,” she said. “The only thing that the state can do is opt out of running it themselves, but believe me, right behind them, is us.”
Sebelius also addressed the administration’s effort to combat HIV/AIDS through the National AIDS Strategy, noting that half of all black gay men in urban areas are living with the disease.
“The result is more momentum behind domestic HIV efforts today than we’ve had for nearly a decade, and we’re only just beginning,” Sebelius said. “We think we have an opportunity … to look at a generation that will be HIV free.”
On Monday, Obama made public his budget request for fiscal year 2013, which includes an increase in funding for domestic HIV/AIDS programs, but flat-lined research programs and cut the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which is aimed at fighting AIDS overseas.
No mention was made about progress in research efforts to lift the Food & Drug Administration’s ban prohibiting gay and bisexual men from donating blood. HHS told members of Congress in July it was studying four areas to determine whether it could end the ban.
John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management and the most senior openly gay official in the Obama administration, delivered opening remarks at the event that catalogued Obama’s LGBT achievements, including repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and discontinuation of the defense of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act in court.
“I grew up in a time when it was OK to discriminate based on sexual orientation, when I could be kept from a loved one’s hospital bed, when I couldn’t serve the country I loved just because of who I loved,” Berry said. “Many of us in this room grew up in the midst of that fear and hostility, but thankfully the tide is turning.”
Berry cited the legal briefs the Obama administration has filed in cases against DOMA: both in Golinski v. United States and Windsor v. United States.
“I encourage you, if you’ve never read a legal brief, pick this one up,” Berry said. “It explains why discrimination based on sexual orientation is entitled to heightened constitutional scrutiny, and that is based upon the history that we have lived through and why they conclude — the president and the Justice Department — that Section 3 fails that scrutiny.”
Outstanding work on LGBT issues that the president wants to see accomplished, Berry said, includes removing DOMA from the books and passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
After his speech, Berry told the Washington Blade that he couldn’t “go into any specifics” about forthcoming LGBT-related policy changes.
“The beauty of having over 200 LGBT appointees embedded across our government is that every day they’re making changes in regulations and forms and laws and working in policies that are making the future,” Berry said.
Berry deferred questions to the White House on whether the new initiatives would include an executive order requiring federal contractors to have LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination policies.
The conference also featured a panel of three HHS officials: Kathy Greenlee, assistant secretary for aging; Howard Koh, assistant secretary of health; and Ken Choe, deputy general counsel. Greenlee and Choe are openly gay.
During his remarks on the panel, Greenlee said she “must crow about” how HHS recognizes diversity within the LGBT community as it works on related issues.
“The people at HHS are sophisticated enough and committed enough to understand that LGBT is not a word and that each of those letters represents a different community,” Greenlee said. “As we do the analysis of our work, there are times that we stop and say, ‘What are we doing for the transgender community? Do we have anything for bisexuals? And lesbian and gay health are different issues.”
According to the White House, later conferences planned in other places throughout the country will focus on topics including — but not limited to — housing and homelessness, safe schools and communities, and HIV/AIDS prevention. An informed source said the next conference will take place March 9 in Detroit and will focus on LGBT homelessness.
Kellan Baker, a health policy analyst for the Center for American Progress’ LGBT research and communications project, attended the conference.
“It’s amazing that LGBT health is the first in this series of really groundbreaking events that the White House is doing, and it’s really exciting to have the secretary here to talk about all the great work that HHS is doing now and that they’re planning to do in the future,” Baker said.
But Baker identified one area of improvement that HHS could pursue: expanding the search option on HealthCare.gov to find plans that don’t exclude care for transgender people.
“I get a lot of questions about where to find lists of plans or policies that don’t include these exclusions,” Baker said. “Almost every single plan — including Medicare, most state Medicaid plans, most private plans, including those sold through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program — has exclusions that specifically target care for transgender people and make it impossible for them to get a wide range of care, including basic primary care.”
Laurie Young, director of aging and economic security for the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, was also in attendance and said the conference was important because it enabled members of the LGBT community to voice concerns.
“I think it’s just stunning that everyday people get to stand up and talk about what they feel and talk about what they need, and the administration’s listening,” Young said.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Howard Koh, assistant secretary of health, is openly gay. The Blade regrets the error.
National
Man charged in Mall of America shooting plot inspired by Pulse massacre: report
Suspect exchanged hundreds of messages, pledged loyalty to ISIS
The U.S. Department of Justice charged Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, of Richfield, Minn., on Oct. 7 with one count of knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition in order to commit a federal crime of terrorism. Mohamud allegedly planned to carry out a mass-casualty attack in support of ISIS, inspired in part by the Pulse nightclub massacre that took place on June 12, 2016 when then-29-year-old Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and wounded 58 – one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history, and the deadliest targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
According to a DOJ statement release, Mohamud was arrested on Oct. 6 by the FBI, which had arranged to sell him an AK-47 assault rifle, magazines, and ammunition through an undercover FBI employee. Mohamud was arrested shortly after paying $600 in cash and taking possession of those items; he reaffirmed his intention to shoot people at the Mall of America during the transaction.
“Mohamud allegedly sought to carry out a mass-casualty shooting at the Mall of America, expressing a desire to emulate some of the most horrific ISIS-inspired attacks in the United States, including the atrocities at Pulse Nightclub and 2025 New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg in the statement by the DOJ. “The National Security Division will continue to work closely with the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force to track down and prosecute ISIS-inspired terrorists in the United States.”
According to the complaint, beginning on or about December 2024, Mohamud had exchanged hundreds of messages through multiple social media and messaging apps with a confidential source, and expressed a desire to travel to Somalia to join a designated foreign terrorist organization to fight on their behalf.
The defendant stated many times that if he was unable to travel overseas because of a lack of funds, he planned to carry out a mass-casualty event in Minnesota in support of ISIS.
According to the DOJ, “In July 2026, Mohamud sent messages discussing his intent to carry out a mass-casualty shooting attack at the Mall of America because he claimed it was owned by Jews. He wrote that [he] wanted to kill 30 to 60 people so no one would go there.”
“During the course of his communications, Mohamud stated that he wanted to commit an attack similar to those of the Pulse Nightclub mass-shooting in Orlando, the Bondi Beach mass-shooting in Australia, and the New Year’s Day vehicle-ramming attack in New Orleans.”
This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Ryan White of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Bejar for the District of Minnesota.
California
Calif. GOP gubernatorial candidate ad ‘disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy’
Activists, anti-LGBTQ religious leaders criticized Steve Hilton spot
Two women sit on a bed, a Pride flag hanging behind them. One is nervous; the other tells her to be calm and that she’ll do “all the work.” The music swells. The two hold hands and — fill out a ballot voting for Steve Hilton?
This is the new advertisement from the Hilton gubernatorial campaign that is drawing rebuke from both sides of the aisle, but for very different reasons.
Jorge Reyes Salinas, the communications director at Equality California, said the ad was an insult to the queer community.
“This ad is a disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy for political attention,” he said. The advertisement plays on media tropes that Salinas says “reduce lesbian and bisexual women … to sexual entertainment,” rather than showing them as well-rounded characters. “Any group of the LGBTQ+ community deserves the same dignity and respect as everyone else,” he said.
The ad is truly hyper-sexualized. It ends with one woman telling the other, “Now lick it.” The two pause and stare before she reveals an envelope to send the ballot, and large text pops up saying, “Just try it!”
Salinas characterized the ad as a desperate attempt to get attention from a candidate who is trailing far behind in the polls in heavily Democratic California. The Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra, who is endorsed by Equality California, holds a 25-point lead over Hilton according to recent polling by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.
Conservatives have also criticized the ad.
Influential evangelical Pastor Jack Hibbs thought the ad was distasteful and said, “lesbianism among college girls and some high school girls that right now is an actual pandemic of social ill.” Republican attorney general candidate Michael Gates said it undermines “the sanctity of the relationship between parents and their children.” This criticism is rather confusing because although the ad features two relatively young women, they both appear to be adults, not minors.
“The comments from Pastor Jack Hibbs should be criticized because there is nothing wrong with two women being attracted to each other,” Salinas said. “We’re calling out the ad’s stereotypes, while also rejecting the homophobia in the response to it … by other Republicans.”
The backlash from Hilton’s own party and supporters shows that an advertisement full of queer innuendo was ill-considered, considering the national GOP’s attacks on LGBTQ people in recent years. Hilton himself has been campaigning against transgender girls and women competing in school sports and using locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity. This context might be why Hilton’s political base responded to the ad just as poorly as the liberal voters he was attempting to court.
Hilton says the ad is part of a new series rolling out before Election Day, showing stereotypical California liberal archetypes voting for Hilton. He claims these ads are authentically filmed with real actors, as opposed to being A.I. generated, like many of his previous ads. One other advertisement has been released so far by the campaign showing a man at a spiritual retreat also being swayed to vote for Hilton, although it is notably absent of sexual innuendo.
Caleb Kaufman is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
2026 Midterm Elections
Trump uses anti-trans slur against Democratic Senate candidate
President mocked Annie Andrews
President Donald Trump used an anti-trans slur against Democratic South Carolina Senate candidate Annie Andrews on Monday as he sought to rally support for Republicans in the state’s Senate race.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump attacked Andrews three times, referring to her as “trannie” while promoting U.S. Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.)’s campaign.
Andrews is running against Graham for a Senate seat in the solidly Republican state.
Earlier this year, Graham was specially appointed to the seat following the death of her brother, Lindsey Graham, who represented South Carolina in the Senate from 2003 to 2026.
Andrews, the Democratic nominee from the state, is a pediatrician that lives in Charleston with her three children. She told NBC News that she will “work with anyone to put South Carolina first.”
“As a mom and a pediatrician, I’m in this race to fight for my patients, my three kids, and South Carolina,” Andrews said, adding that “lowering costs and making life better for families across our state is going to take all of us working together.”
Andrews used the attention from the president’s attack to emphasize what she described as a focus on policy issues rather than the culture wars that have dominated much of the political debate.
“If you care more about your bills than the politics in Washington, this campaign is for you,” she added.
Trump’s remarks have drawn criticism from leaders on both sides of the aisle.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) condemned Trump’s words Monday night on social media, calling his attacks on Andrews “despicable.”
“Annie Andrews is a mom and pediatrician who’s always put her community first — and she’s exactly who South Carolina needs representing them in the Senate,” Schumer said on X.
Former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, a Republican, also criticized the president’s attack on Andrews, urging voters to “reject politics based on division and hate.”
“This is abhorrent. Elections don’t have to be about cruelty and lies. South Carolina deserves better,” Beasley wrote Monday night on X.
South Carolina has not elected a Democratic senator in nearly three decades.
Andrews’s campaign website does not mention her positions on LGBTQ issues.
The Washington Blade reached out to Andrews’s campaign for comment on Trump’s attack and her positions on transgender rights but did not hear back by time of publication.
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2026 Midterm Elections5 days agoTrump uses anti-trans slur against Democratic Senate candidate
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