News
Senate confirms anti-LGBT judicial nominee who stood up for Kim Davis
Trump nominee works ‘religious freedom’ law firm
Flouting the recognition of June as Pride Month, the U.S. Senate approved on Wednesday a Trump judicial nominee who has a long anti-LGBT record, including defense of Kim Davis for refusing to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
The Senate confirmed Matthew Kacsmaryk to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas by a vote of 52-46.
Joining the united Democratic caucus in opposition to Kacsmaryk was Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who cited in a statement his “alarming bias against the rights of LGBTQ Americans and disregard for Supreme Court precedents.”
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), the first out lesbian elected to the Senate, called on her colleagues from the Senate floor to vote against Kacsmaryk based on his anti-LGBT record, displaying on a placard the title of one of his writings: “The Inequality Act: Weaponizing Same-Sex Marriage.”
Baldwin said he heard from dozens of parents of transgender children who have voiced concern about the prospect of Kacsmaryk on the bench.
“I urge my colleagues to send the message to those children, their parents, and the broader LGBTQ community, and the country, that they do count, that they count, that they matter, that we hear their voices, and please, reject this nominee,” Baldwin said.
Also speaking out on the Senate floor against Kacsmaryk was Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who said his history demonstrates he won’t be an impartial judge and his views are “hateful and out the mainstream.”
“Mr. Kacsmaryk is another example of an extreme choice by President Trump to jam courts with individuals who will put their political views above the law and use their positions of power to chip away at people’s rights,” Murray said.
Before his confirmation, Kacsmaryk served as deputy general counsel of the Texas-based First Liberty Institute, an organization that seeks to advance religious freedom even at the expense of LGBT rights.
First Liberty Institute is responsible for the litigation filed by Aaron and Melissa Klein, the owners of “Sweetcakes by Melissa” in Oregon, who were fined $135,000 under state law for refusing to make a wedding cake to a lesbian couple and are now asserting a First Amendment right to refuse service to LGBT people.
Just this week, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the fine and ordered the Oregon state courts to revisit the case under new guidance from the 2018 ruling in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case.
But Kacsmaryk has a long record of anti-LGBT positions and writings, defining the LGBT rights struggle at one time as a “clash of absolutes” between “religious liberty and sexual liberty.”
In response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in favor of same-sex marriage nationwide, Kacsmaryk said the ruling found an “unwritten” right under the Fourteenth Amendment that was “a secret knowledge so cleverly concealed in the nineteenth century amendment that it took almost 150 years to find.”
When Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis refused to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Kacsmaryk defended her, comparing her to Quakers who refuse fight in war and Jewish butchers who follow kosher dietary laws.
After the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled in 2015 the prohibition on sex discrimination applies to cases of anti-gay discrimination, Kacsmaryk told The World, an outlet that reports on religious freedom, the decision was the latest in efforts to undermine marriage law.
“Traditionally and legally, we define sex according to chromosomes…That’s typically how we define sex,” Kacsmaryk said. “That’s how we ordered our marriage laws and made certain presumptions of paternity in the family code. All of that is cast into disarray if you declare sex irrelevant to marriage.”
When the Obama administration issued a rule interpreting the prohibition of sex discrimination under the Affordable Care Act to apply to transgender people, Kacsmaryk opposed the regulation and called it “radical self-definition and sex-actualization.”
LGBT rights supporters have also criticized Kacsmaryk for signing onto a comment when the rule was proposed saying transgender people suffer from a “psychological condition in need of care” and are “not a category of persons in need of special legal protection.”
The comment cites the opinion of a psychiatrist who has said having a transgender identity are suffering from a “delusion,” which critics have attributed to Kacsmaryk himself.
The White House didn’t respond to the Washington Blade’s request to comment on the LGBT opposition to Kacsmaryk.
Although Collins joined Democrats in voting against Kacsmaryk, the Maine Republican hasn’t applied a consistent standard with respect to judicial nominees based on their LGBT rights records.
For example, Collins last year voted in favor of the confirmation U.S. Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan despite his anti-LGBT record, which includes representing the Virginia school that sought to prevent transgender student Gavin Grimm from using the restroom consistent with his gender identity.
The Blade has placed a request in with Collins’ office on why she’d oppose Kacsmaryk, but not Duncan.
Cuba
Cuban lawmakers to consider simplifying process for trans people to change IDs
National Assembly in July will reportedly debate proposal
Cuban lawmakers are reportedly poised to consider a proposal that would allow transgender people to legally change the gender marker on their ID documents without surgery.
Cubadebate, a government-run website, on May 11 referenced the proposal in an article about an International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia march in Havana that the National Center for Sexual Education organized.
Mariela Castro, the daughter of former Cuban President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBTQ issues on the island, is CENESEX’s director.
Cubadebate notes the National Assembly in July will consider an amendment to the country’s Civil Registry Law that “for the first time would allow citizens to determine the sex on their identification cards without the need for a court order or gender assignment surgery.”
Argentina, Uruguay, Germany, and Malta are among the countries that allow trans people to legally change their name and gender without surgery.
Cuba’s national health care system has offered free sex-reassignment surgery since 2008, but activists who are critical of Mariela Castro and CENESEX have said access to these procedures is limited. Mariela Castro, who is also a member of the National Assembly, in 2013 voted against a measure to add sexual orientation to Cuba’s labor code because it did not include gender identity.
The Cuban constitution bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, among other factors. Authorities routinely harass and detain activists who publicly criticize the government.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore on Tuesday signed a bill that decriminalizes HIV in the state.
State Dels. Kris Fair (D-Frederick County) and Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore City) are among the lawmakers who sponsored House Bill 39 or the Carlton R. Smith Act, which is named after the long-time activist known as the “mayor” of Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood who died in May 2024.
Smith was a member of the Coalition to Decriminalize HIV in Maryland that advocated for the bill. FreeState Justice, a statewide LGBTQ rights group, was also part of the coalition.
“At FreeState Justice, we are proud to stand with advocates, health experts, and lawmakers who worked diligently to advance this bill. The bipartisan support for the Carlton R. Smith Act is a testament to the power of education, research, and courageous leadership,” said FreeState Justice Executive Director Phillip Westry in a statement. “It sends a clear message: Maryland is committed to evidence-based policymaking and to ending the criminalization of people living with HIV. We honor the memory of Carlton R. Smith by continuing the work of building a more just, inclusive, and informed society.”
Maryland is the fifth state to decriminalize HIV.
North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong, a Republican, in March signed a bill that decriminalized HIV in his state.
National
Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information
Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources
Nine private medical and public health advocacy organizations, including two from D.C., filed a lawsuit on May 20 in federal court in Seattle challenging what it calls the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s illegal deletion of dozens or more of its webpages containing health related information, including HIV information.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, names as defendants Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HHS itself, and several agencies operating under HHS and its directors, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration.
“This action challenges the widespread deletion of public health resources from federal agencies,” the lawsuit states. “Dozens (if not more) of taxpayer-funded webpages, databases, and other crucial resources have vanished since January 20, 2025, leaving doctors, nurses, researchers, and the public scrambling for information,” it says.
“These actions have undermined the longstanding, congressionally mandated regime; irreparably harmed Plaintiffs and others who rely on these federal resources; and put the nation’s public health infrastructure in unnecessary jeopardy,” the lawsuit continues.
It adds, “The removal of public health resources was apparently prompted by two recent executive orders – one focused on ‘gender ideology’ and the other targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) programs. Defendants implemented these executive orders in a haphazard manner that resulted in the deletion (inadvertent or otherwise) of health-related websites and databases, including information related to pregnancy risks, public health datasets, information about opioid-use disorder, and many other valuable resources.”
The lawsuit does not mention that it was President Donald Trump who issued the two executive orders in question.
A White House spokesperson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit.
While not mentioning Trump by name, the lawsuit names as defendants in addition to HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., Matthew Buzzelli, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health; Martin Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Thomas Engels, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration; and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
The 44-page lawsuit complaint includes an addendum with a chart showing the titles or descriptions of 49 “affected resource” website pages that it says were deleted because of the executive orders. The chart shows that just four of the sites were restored after initially being deleted.
Of the 49 sites, 15 addressed LGBTQ-related health issues and six others addressed HIV issues, according to the chart.
“The unannounced and unprecedented deletion of these federal webpages and datasets came as a shock to the medical and scientific communities, which had come to rely on them to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, assist physicians and other clinicians in daily care, and inform the public about a wide range of healthcare issues,” the lawsuit states.
“Health professionals, nonprofit organizations, and state and local authorities used the websites and datasets daily in care for their patients, to provide resources to their communities, and promote public health,” it says.
Jose Zuniga, president and CEO of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC), one of the organizations that signed on as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the deleted information from the HHS websites “includes essential information about LGBTQ+ health, gender and reproductive rights, clinical trial data, Mpox and other vaccine guidance and HIV prevention resources.”
Zuniga added, “IAPAC champions evidence-based, data-informed HIV responses and we reject ideologically driven efforts that undermine public health and erase marginalized communities.”
Lisa Amore, a spokesperson for Whitman-Walker Health, D.C.’s largest LGBTQ supportive health services provider, also expressed concern about the potential impact of the HHS website deletions.
“As the region’s leader in HIV care and prevention, Whitman-Walker Health relies on scientific data to help us drive our resources and measure our successes,” Amore said in response to a request for comment from the Washington Blade.
“The District of Columbia has made great strides in the fight against HIV,” Amore said. “But the removal of public facing information from the HHS website makes our collective work much harder and will set HIV care and prevention backward,” she said.
The lawsuit calls on the court to issue a declaratory judgement that the “deletion of public health webpages and resources is unlawful and invalid” and to issue a preliminary or permanent injunction ordering government officials named as defendants in the lawsuit “to restore the public health webpages and resources that have been deleted and to maintain their web domains in accordance with their statutory duties.”
It also calls on the court to require defendant government officials to “file a status report with the Court within twenty-four hours of entry of a preliminary injunction, and at regular intervals, thereafter, confirming compliance with these orders.”
The health organizations that joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs include the Washington State Medical Association, Washington State Nurses Association, Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Academy Health, Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Fast-Track Cities Institute, International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, National LGBT Cancer Network, and Vermont Medical Society.
The Fast-Track Cities Institute and International Association of Providers of AIDS Care are based in D.C.
Cuban lawmakers to consider simplifying process for trans people to change IDs
Frank Kameny’s legacy lives on
Wes Moore signs HIV decriminalization bill
Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information
