National
Gay troops tell personal stories at Pentagon Pride
Event marks first such celebration since ‘Don’t Ask’ repeal
The personal story of a gay service member warmed the hearts of attendees during a panel discussion at the first ever Pentagon event celebrating June as Pride month.
Marine Corps Capt. M. Matthew Phelps, who serves as a commanding officer at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego was among the three panelists who talked about the difficulties of serving in the closet before “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was lifted.
Phelps said the situation was particularly difficult for him in 2007 when he was deployed to Iraq and fellow Marines would meet on Saturday to smoke cigars, watch movies and talk about their families at home.
“I sat there in the back of the room not talking to anybody because not only was it so hard to have left somebody at home — just like it was hard for everybody else — but when everyone was getting together and growing closer as a unit, by virtue of the fact that I wasn’t allowed to say anything, I was actually growing more distant from my unit,” Phelps said.
After graduating from the University of Rochester in November 2001 with a degree in applied music, Phelps said he enlisted in the Marine Corps after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, because he felt the need to serve his country. But Phelps said “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was a strain on him until the ban was lifted on Sept. 20.
“I went into work on the 20th of September thinking that my life was going to change, and I went in and I sat down at my desk and I braced myself on the desk waiting for everyone to come and ask me if I was gay,” Phelps said. “Believe it or not, nobody did. I didn’t get any email. I didn’t get any phone call. In fact, the phone didn’t even ring. I was waiting — saying, ‘Please somebody talk to me today’ — because I felt like I was going to work for the very first time. For almost 10 years, Matthew was going to work as a Marine in uniform doing my job, doing the job that I thought I had been doing for 10 years, but I had only been half doing.”
Phelps was among the attendees at the White House Pride reception earlier this month where for the first time openly gay service members could participate while wearing their uniforms thanks to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.
Others on the Pentagon panel, which was moderated by Pentagon Director of Press Operations Navy Capt. Jane Campbell were Gordon Tanner, the Air Force’s principal deputy general counsel, and Brenda “Sue” Fulton, a member of the board of visitors at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and communications director for OutServe. All three panelists — Phelps an active duty troop, Tanner a civilian and Fulton a veteran — were gay and selected by word of mouth recommendations.
Tanner said he was supposed to distribute a list of benefits available to gay troops, but opted instead to encourage gay service members to serve as openly as possible because only that can help straight allies bridge their understanding of LGBT people.
“What I really want to talk about today is what each of us can do in our own day-to-day lives to make a difference,” Tanner said. “First of all, and most importantly, we need to be as visible as we can be. Everybody has a different comfort level. Everyone is in a different place. Let me encourage you to be as open and honest as you can possibly be.”
Fulton talked about the commitment she saw from straight allies in the military who wanted to make sure the transition to open service went smoothly and gay troops weren’t harmed. She described a commitment ceremony that took place over the weekend involving gay couples who served in the military.
“In the back of the church … was another chaplain, a senior chaplain Air Force O-6, Southern Baptist,” Fulton said. “I asked him why he was there and he said, ‘I just want to make sure everything goes smoothly for my airmen. I just want to make sure there aren’t any problems.'”
The one-hour event marks the first time that a Pride celebration has taken place for Defense Department personnel within the Pentagon. This is the first Pride month to have taken place since “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was lifted from the books last year.
More than 350 attendees filled the Pentagon auditorium to capacity. The event was broadcast on the Pentagon channel and Tanner said during his remarks that troops as far away as Afghanistan were interested in watching a video of the event.
Attendees were made up of civilian Defense Department workers, service members who came in their uniforms and LGBT advocates who helped lead the way for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal. The program began after service members “presented the colors” and video messages were shown from President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Delivering the keynote address at the event was Jeh Johnson, the Pentagon’s general counsel and co-chair of the Pentagon working group that wrote the report leading the way for legislative repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 2010. He spoke mostly of the process by which he and fellow co-chair Army Gen. Carter Ham, then commanding general of U.S. Army Europe, evaluated the risk of lifting the military’s gay ban.
While they pursued the task at hand without any predetermination on whether the ban should be repealed, Johnson said the group heard stories from gay service members who were eagerly awaiting an end to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“In communications with gay and lesbian current and former service members, we repeatedly heard a patriotic desire to serve and defend the nation subject to the same rules as everyone else,” Johnson said. “In the words of one gay service member, ‘Repeal would simply take a knife out of my back. You have no idea what it is like to serve in silence.'”
As a result of the process, Johnson said the institution of open service in the military has brought some isolated incidents, but “almost no issues or negative effects associated with repeal on unit cohesion, including within warfighting units.”
Even during his remarks, Johnson wouldn’t reveal his personal views on LGBT rights — saying he thinks as Pride is celebrated participants should remember the military is about Americans from a variety of backgrounds coming together to serve the country.
“Within the military, events such as this must occupy a different and qualified place because in the military, individual personal characteristics are subordinate to the good of the unit and the mission — service above self,” Johnson said. “From all that we learned in 2010 about the struggles and the sacrifice to remain in the military, I believe gay men and women in uniform readily agree with this.”
Johnson also said the Pentagon is examining ways to extend additional benefits to gay troops now that open service is in place. Pentagon officials have said they’ve been looking at these possible benefits since “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was lifted last year.
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and other LGBT groups have been pushing for benefits such as joint duty assignments, military family housing as well as access to certain family programs and free legal services. All are deemed by advocates to be within the authority of the Pentagon even with the Defense of Marriage Act in place.
“Going forward, the personnel and readiness community is now in the midst of reviewing which military family benefits can be extended to the partners and other family members of gay and lesbian service members,” Johnson said. “The repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ exposes certain inequalities between similarly situated couples in the military community. This concerns many of our leaders. On the other hand, we must comply with current law, including the Defense of Marriage Act.”
Aubrey Sarvis, SLDN’s executive director, was among the attendees at the celebration and said he wished Johnson had “been more specific” in his remarks with regard to benefits.
“It’s just taking an inordinate amount of time to bring closure on this,” Sarvis said. “So, the day for a decision and an announcement by Secretary Panetta is here. In fact, it’s overdue.”
Sarvis added the decision to extend these benefits to gay troops should be resolved “within a matter of days,” but predicted more time will pass before an announcement is made.
Despite qualms about the lingering issue of benefits, Sarvis noted the historic nature of the Pride event.
“I think for all of these things to have happened in the past year — having finality on repeal, being here to celebrate — is something that many, many people could not have anticipated, so, yes, this is very much a historic occasion,” Sarvis said. “I think a number of people here are still pinching themselves.”
A number of gay service members who attended said they were elated being able to participate in the first Pride event at the Pentagon after the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Army Sgt. Bryan LaMadrid, 22, who’s gay, said coming to the event was particularly emotional for him.
“I’m stationed up at Ft. Meade right now, but I’m driving here and I’m kind of tearing up and have shivers going down my back and my neck because two years ago, you would have never imagined this, and now it’s happening this year,” LaMadrid said.
Navy Lt. Kevin Naughton, 32, who’s gay, was among those who helped plan the event and said “it was a big deal” to obtain approval from Panetta’s office to plan the Pride celebration.
“It was just an amazing process that we’ve gone through from going from repeal all the way to being able to have an event where we’re treated equally at work,” Naughton said.
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
