News
Russia boycott calls divide LGBT activists
Group protested country’s gay rights record outside Russian embassy in D.C.
Protesters gathered outside of the Russian Embassy on Wednesday, July 31, 2013. (Washington Blade photo by Damien Salas)
LGBT rights advocates remain divided over calls to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia and Russian vodka in response to the country’s gay rights record.
Author Dan Savage, LGBT rights advocate Cleve Jones and the group Queer Nation last week launched the “Dump Russian Vodka” campaign that calls for a boycott of Stoli, Russian Standard and other Russian vodka brands. The campaign also urges the U.S. and other countries to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics that will take place in Sochi, Russia, in February.
“Do not drink Russian vodka,” Savage said in an op-ed in the Stranger, a weekly newspaper in Seattle, published on July 24. “Do not buy Russian vodka. Ask your bartender at your favorite bar — gay or otherwise — to DUMP STOLI and DUMP RUSSIAN VODKA.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent weeks signed a broadly worded law that bans the promotion of so-called gay propaganda to minors and a statute that bans foreign same-sex couples and any couple from a country in which gays and lesbians can legally marry from adopting Russian children. LGBT rights groups are among those that face fines under a law that requires non-governmental organizations that receive funding from outside Russia to register as a “foreign agent.”
About a dozen LGBT rights advocates gathered in front of the Russian embassy in Northwest D.C. to protest the country’s anti-LGBT rights record on Wednesday.
Larry Poltavtsev of Spectrum Human Rights was among those who attended.
“We’re here today to protest LGBT human rights violations in Russia,” he said.
The anti-gay laws have come into effect against the backdrop of increasing anti-LGBT discrimination and violence in Russia.
Two men in the southern Russia city of Volgograd and on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the country’s Far East have been killed in recent months during what local authorities have described as anti-gay attacks.
Police in St. Petersburg on June 29 arrested 40 LGBT activists and a handful of nationalists who confronted them during a gay rights rally. Authorities in the Russian capital in May arrested 30 LGBT rights advocates who tried to stage a Pride celebration outside Moscow City Hall.
Authorities in the city of Murmansk on July 21 took into custody four Dutch LGBT rights advocates who were filming a documentary about gay life in Russia. A St. Petersburg appellate court on July 25 overturned a lower court’s ruling that fined Coming Out, a local LGBT advocacy group, 500,000 rubles or slightly more than $15,202 for violating the “foreign agent” law.
Russian advocate: Boycott will have no effect
Gay bars in Seattle, Chicago, London and other cities have already begun to remove Stoli and other Russian products from their shelves. Gay City News reported a handful of ACT UP members protested a Stoli event at a gay bar in New York City on Tuesday night.
Gay bars in D.C. have thus far not indicated they will participate in the boycott.
Cobalt had been scheduled to host a Stoli-sponsored event for the website GayCities on Thursday, but the company postponed it.
The company did not return the Blade’s request for comment.
Val Mendeleev, CEO of SPI Group, Stoli’s parent company, said in a July 25 statement from Luxembourg the Russian government does not own the brand. He acknowledged the vodka contains Russian ingredients, but it is distilled in a factory in neighboring Latvia.
Mendeleev further pointed out SPI Group has supported a number of pro-LGBT groups and initiatives. These include Pride celebrations in South Africa and Austria and its “Most Original Stoli Guy” partnership with Gaycities.com.
“Stoli firmly opposes such attitude and actions,” Mendeleev said in response to growing concerns over Russia’s gay rights record. “As a company that encourages transparency and fairness, we are upset and angry.”
Nikolai Alekseev of Gay Russia, an LGBT advocacy group, told the Washington Blade from Moscow on Tuesday he feels a boycott of Russian vodka will “not have an effect.”
“The real target of this protest should be the politicians who are behind these initiatives,” he said.
Actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein called for a Sochi boycott in an op-ed the New York Times published on July 21.
Gay Olympic diver Greg Louganis, who was unable to compete in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow because then-President Jimmy Carter boycotted them over the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan the year before, told Frank Bruni of the New York Times on July 28 that he feels athletes should have the opportunity to compete in Sochi in spite of Russia’s LGBT rights record. Retired tennis champion Martina Navratilova; the LGBT advocacy groups All Out and Athlete Ally and Cyd Zeigler, Jr., co-founder of OutSports, are among those who also oppose a boycott of the Sochi games.
“We want to encourage and support athletics, particularly the Olympics, and feel that a boycott would only hurt the athletes,” Hudson Taylor, executive director of Athlete Ally, told the Blade on Tuesday. “We understand the rationale behind a boycott, but are also cognizant that our call for a boycott could result in negative ramifications and backlash for regional LGBT and ally organizations in Russia.”
State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki on July 26 said the U.S. does not support calls to boycott the Sochi Olympics.
“That’s certainly not what we’re calling for,” she told reporters during her daily briefing in response to the Blade’s question about Russia’s LGBT rights record.
Gay athlete to wear rainbow pin in Sochi
Blake Skjellerup, a gay short track speed skater from New Zealand who plans to compete in Sochi in spite of the calls to boycott the games, last week announced he will wear a gay Pride pin during the Olympics.
He stressed to the Blade his decision is “not about defiance.”
“Wearing a Pride pin is about humanity and unity,” Skjellerup said. “It’s about representing something that is very important to me, and standing up for those who cannot stand up or help themselves.”
The Human Rights Campaign said in a July 24 letter to NBC Universal that the network has “a unique opportunity — and a responsibility — to expose” what it described as the “inhumane and unjust” anti-gay propaganda law during its coverage of the Sochi games. Mark Lazarus, chair of NBC’s sports group, deflected questions about his network’s potential coverage of Russia’s LGBT rights record during a presentation at the Television Critics Association gathering in New York City over the weekend.
The International Olympic Committee has assured gay athletes and others who travel to Sochi that authorities will not arrest them under the Russia’s anti-gay propaganda law. Vitaly Milonov, a St. Petersburg lawmaker behind the city’s gay propaganda to minors ban that took effect in 2012, told the Interfax news agency on Tuesday he has not heard of any plans to suspend the national statute during the games.
“If a law has been approved by the federal legislature and signed by the president, then the government has no right to suspend it,” Milonov said, according to Gay Star News. “It doesn’t have the authority.”
Officials urged to ban Russian lawmakers from U.S.
Alekseev and other Russian LGBT rights advocates have launched a petition on the White House’s website that urges the U.S. to ban Milonov and Elena Mizulina, a Russian Parliamentarian who co-sponsored the national gay propaganda ban, from entering the country. It has received 4,775 signatures as of late on July 30.
“This is the way forward because these people are the real people behind the homophobic legislation,” Alekseev told the Blade.
District of Columbia
Man charged with anti-gay assault in D.C. accepts plea offer
Community service offered in exchange for dismissing hate crime charge
A Germantown, Md., man arrested by D.C. police on a charge of simple assault with a hate crime designation for allegedly assaulting a gay man while using “homophobic slurs” has agreed to an offer by prosecutors to plead guilty to simple assault without the hate crime designation and with the promise of having the charge dismissed if he completes, among other requirements, 48 hours of community service work.
Dean Edmundson, 26, standing beside his attorney, officially accepted the offer of a Deferred Sentencing Agreement at an Aug. 18 status hearing in D.C. Superior Court after Senior Judge Hiram Puig-Lugo explained the details of the agreement and confirmed Edmundson’s decision to waive his right to a trial.
Among other things, the judge said the agreement offered by prosecutors with the Office of the United States Attorney for D.C. includes the requirement that he successfully completes 48 hours of community service work, stays away from the victim of the assault, writes a letter of apology to the victim, and does not violate any other laws or get into trouble for the next 12 months.
Puig-Lugo then announced he scheduled a sentencing hearing for Edmundson for Aug. 18, 2027, at which time a determination will made on whether he has fulfilled all the requirements under the agreement and whether the simple assault charge will be dismissed. The judge added that if it is determined that Edmundson did not fulfil the terms of the agreement the charge would remain in place and he could be sentenced to a possible maximum penalty of 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Edmundson, who appeared in court wearing a business suit with a dress shirt and tie, was released on his own recognizance following his arrest by D.C. police on Feb. 7, 2026.
Police and court records show he was initially charged by arresting officers with simple assault with a hate crime designation. In a statement announcing the arrest, D.C. police said, “On Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026, at approximately 7:45 p.m. the victim and suspect were in the 1500 block of 14th Street, Northwest. The suspect requested a ‘high five’ from the victim. The victim declined and kept walking,” the statement says.
A follow-up arrest affidavit filed by police states that Edmundson followed the victim and called him “bald, ugly, and gay,” and then “pushed the victim with both hands, shoving them, causing the victim to feel the force of the push.” The affidavit adds, “The victim stated that they felt offended and that they were also gay.”
According to the court records, the Office of the U.S. Attorney filed its official charge of simple assault against Edmunson on Feb. 9 without the hate crime designation. The office has not responded to a request by the Washington Blade for its reason for dropping the hate crime designation. The office has also not immediately responded to a follow-up inquiry from the Blade this week asking if prosecutors consulted the victim to obtain the victim’s thoughts about the plea offer.
The Blade, which has a policy of not disclosing the identify of crime victims in cases like this without their consent, could not immediately obtain contact information to reach the victim for comment.
Court records show that Edmundson rejected an earlier plea agreement offer by prosecutors and he was scheduled for a non-jury trial on Aug. 18. The records show his attorney filed a motion earlier this month asking the judge to convert the trial into status hearing on that same day after his client accepted the Deferred Sentencing Agreement offer by the U.S. Attorney’s office. The judge approved the motion without objection from prosecutors.
The White House
White House targets gender-affirming care funding, states fight back
Attorneys general from Md. and elsewhere are fighting directives
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced last week that federal funding could no longer be used to pay for gender-affirming care through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
The rule prohibits federal Medicaid dollars from covering puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and rare instances of surgery for enrollees under the age of 18 in the Medicaid program and under the age of 19 in CHIP. It does not prohibit coverage of counseling or psychotherapy as part of gender-affirming care.
The decision to restrict what healthcare is covered by federal dollars is part of a longer, more aggressive stance the Trump-Vance administration is taking toward LGBTQ healthcare.
Since taking the White House back for his second term, Trump has signed three executive orders that directly target transgender Americans. They include Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” that requires the federal government to recognize only a person’s sex at birth, not their gender identity; Executive Order 14183, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” which attempts to remove transgender service members from the military and prevent them from enrolling; and an executive order that helped spur this change by restricting gender-affirming care.
The administration’s choice to villainize gender-affirming care, despite it being considered a best medical practice recommended by nearly every major medical group for gender dysphoria or gender incongruence, including the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, and American Psychological Association, comes as KFF, a source for health policy research and polling data, estimates about 130,000 young trans people with Medicaid or CHIP coverage could be impacted by the policy.
“Today, we are ending federal taxpayer funding for sex-rejecting procedures on children,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said last week when announcing the change. “These interventions carry serious risks and can cause irreversible harm. The federal government will no longer use Medicaid and CHIP dollars to fund procedures that fail to meet the evidentiary standard our children deserve.”
“Children deserve our protection, not experimental interventions that pose serious risks and convey no proven benefits,” said CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz. “By cutting off federal funds for these sex-rejecting procedures, we’re following the science, saving taxpayer dollars, and, most importantly, protecting children from potentially irreversible harm so they can truly flourish.”
The administration’s push is having a chilling effect on state healthcare legislation — more states now prohibit gender-affirming care than ever before. States with gender-affirming care restrictions jumped from four in 2023 to 27 states today.
The funding change has been met with fierce pushback from LGBTQ advocates, health experts, and government officials across the country before the rule goes into effect.
Some of the first actions against this policy began in July 2025.
Twenty-one states have attempted to restrict this effort in some fashion from going through as the White House intends. They include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin, as well as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on behalf of his state.
The coalition of attorneys general filed lawsuits challenging nine separate provisions of the final rule, arguing that they would make it harder for consumers to get coverage through the ACA, increase costs for states, and weaken key ACA protections.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on Aug. 15 struck down a key provision of a Trump-Vance administration final rule that would have excluded coverage of certain types of gender-affirming care as essential health benefits under the Affordable Care Act. Essential health benefits are subject to the ACA’s financial protections, including limits on out-of-pocket costs.
“Everyone deserves access to health coverage,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta. “The Trump administration tried to exclude gender-affirming care from qualifying as an essential health benefit. We fought back, and the court’s ruling means this care can — and in many states must — qualify for the ACA’s financial protections, ensuring transgender people have an equal opportunity to benefit from the ACA.”
“The Trump administration tried to make essential care unaffordable for transgender Marylanders by stripping it out of the ACA’s cost protections,” said Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown. “We fought to keep that care covered, and we won. My Office will always defend Marylanders’ right to the care they need.”
The final rule at issue — the “Marketplace Integrity and Affordability” rule — was proposed by the Trump-Vance administration in March 2025, purportedly to “curb ACA enrollment fraud” and reduce federal spending on subsidies that help consumers afford ACA coverage. Among other changes, the rule would have removed certain types of gender-affirming care from the ACA’s 10 essential health benefit categories.
“This president would rather target young people than lower costs or expand access to health care. It is reprehensible that our federal government is intent on hurting and isolating the adolescents it is supposed to protect. I will use every tool at my disposal to fight this proposal and protect transgender Americans and their families,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in December after the policy was announced.
In addition to state government resistance to the change, multiple LGBTQ advocates have committed to protecting the right to healthcare for LGBTQ children.
Rocky Mountain Equality CEO Mardi Moore affirmed those in Colorado would continue to help people most at risk if the change goes through.
“First, to the families impacted by this news: you will not be cut off immediately. The rule takes effect Oct. 13, 2026, and providers can continue to bill Medicaid and CHIP for youth already receiving gender-affirming care for up to six months after that. Rocky Mountain Equality is here, and we can help you understand your options to continue your child’s care.
“This is discrimination dressed up as rule-making. Government healthcare policy should expand what people can access, not strip away care that families and doctors have already determined is medically necessary,” Moore added. “We’ve seen this pattern before with other kinds of essential care, and it rarely stops with just one restriction. Any effort to ban or limit care opens the door for more restrictions on more kinds of care.”
The Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ lobbying group in the U.S., issued multiple statements following the announcement, and has filed a similar lawsuit against the federal government for prohibiting gender-affirming care to federal employees using federal health plans.
HRC President Kelley Robinson said taking a hard stance against what the administration is presenting as a win for the American people that will ultimately restrict healthcare options for thousands of Americans.
“Every young person is entitled to the health care that they, their parents, and their medical providers agree that they need, without politicians interfering with these important and highly personal decisions. And yet, rather than working to make healthcare more affordable and accessible, the Trump administration continues to obsess over the healthcare needs of trans youth, this time by cutting off health insurance coverage for those who rely on Medicaid and CHIP to access that care,” Robinson said. “The Trump administration is terrorizing trans youth and their families with these kinds of actions, and it has to stop.”
Virginia
Winsome Earle-Sears ‘Life and Marriage Tour’ to include Northern Va. stops
Voters to consider marriage equality, reproductive rights referenda in November
Former Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears has announced her campaign against efforts to enshrine marriage equality and reproductive rights in the state constitution will make several stops in Northern Virginia.
Her “Life and Marriage Tour” will include stops in Manassas, Winchester, and Harrisonburg. Earle-Sears said the “Life and Marriage Tour” will also travel to Virginia Beach, Lynchburg, Roanoke, Charlottesville, and other cities across Virginia “throughout September and October.”
The announcement did not include specific dates.
“Virginia, you’ve been asking where the Life and Marriage Tour is headed — here’s a look at our current tour locations,” she said on X on Tuesday. “We’ll be traveling across the commonwealth throughout September and October, and we’re still building the journey.”
Current Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, last November defeated Earle-Sears, a Republican, in the race to succeed Republican Glenn Youngkin.
Voters in 2006 approved the Marshall-Newman Amendment, which defined marriage in Virginia as between a man and a woman.
Same-sex couples have been able to legally marry in Virginia since 2014. Youngkin a decade later signed a bill that codified marriage equality in state law.
Two successive legislatures must approve a proposed constitutional amendment before it can go to the ballot.
Spanberger signed bills that finalized the marriage equality and reproductive rights referenda’s language.
The referenda will take place on Nov. 3.
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White House targets gender-affirming care funding, states fight back
Winsome Earle-Sears ‘Life and Marriage Tour’ to include Northern Va. stops
