News
DNC chair discouraged support for ENDA directive: sources
Wasserman Schultz’s office calls allegation a ‘bald-faced lie’
DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz is among those who haven’t articulated support for an ENDA executive order. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
A gay Democratic activist claims that Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) has discouraged House members from asking President Obama to take administrative action to protect LGBT workers, an assertion her office calls a “bald-faced lie.”
Paul Yandura, political director for gay philanthropist Jonathan Lewis, made the allegation when speaking with the Washington Blade from his home in West Virginia on Thursday regarding a 2013 missive that was circulated among House members by Reps. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Lois Capps (D-Calif.).
“I was told personally by two members that she was tamping down on public calls for the president to make good on his promise — this was last year when the issue was really getting hot,” Yandura said. “She is most likely doing the same still.”
Yandura’s allegation comes as lawmakers — led by the LGBT Equality Caucus and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) — are circulating a new missive among members of Congress calling on Obama to sign an executive order barring federal contractors from engaging in anti-LGBT workplace discrimination.
Two sources familiar with the 2013 letter told the Washington Blade that Wasserman Schultz discouraged members of Congress from signing it, but Yandura was the only source willing to go on the record. The other source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Wasserman Schultz, who represents Florida’s 23rd congressional district in the U.S. House, dissuaded Democrats from signing the letter in private conversations on the House floor.
Although these sources said Wasserman Schultz may be engaging in the same tactic for the letter currently being circulated, no one has made the same claim to the Blade about the upcoming letter. As the Blade reported this week, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has already pledged to sign it.
Yandura said he wouldn’t disclose the names of the House members who told him Wasserman Schultz was discouraging support for the 2013 letter because he didn’t want to “rat them out.”
“I’m sure she’ll come with something that sounds like a good excuse, but it’s about time,” Yandura said. “It’s time that she not only signs it, but tells people that they should publicly, and that it’s OK and that there’s no pressure not to sign it.”
Mara Sloan, a Wasserman Schultz spokesperson, disputed the allegations made by Yandura, saying any assertion that she discouraged members from signing the letter “is a bald-faced lie.”
“The congresswoman believes the most effective way to ensure equal rights for LGBT Americans in the workplace is through passing comprehensive non-discrimination legislation,” Sloan said. “The congresswoman regularly speaks to the administration about issues important to the LGBT community, and will continue to be a fierce advocate for full equality.”
Sloan didn’t immediately respond to a follow-up email about whether that response means Wasserman Schultz won’t sign the group letter currently being circulated among House members calling for the LGBT executive order. The response is along the lines of responses to requests for comment about the order by the White House, which consistently redirects attention to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
Despite her record of support for the LGBT community, Wasserman Schultz has never explicitly called on Obama to sign an executive order barring LGBT discrimination among federal contractors. Asked about the issue in January by The Huffington Post, Wasserman Schultz said she supports the idea of Obama using his executive authority in “as broad a way as he can to ensure that we can move this country forward.”
Yandura said he thinks Wasserman Schultz refuses to express support for the executive order and has discouraged House members from speaking out in favor of it for political reasons.
“I think she doesn’t want to embarrass the president, and still doesn’t want to embarrass the president, because it is an embarrassment that he still hasn’t done it,” Yandura said. “We’re now coming down to the end of the second term, and if they don’t get moving on it, it’ll never even get implemented.”
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has refused to bring ENDA to the floor for a vote; the Senate passed a version last year.
Yandura said he heard from House members about Wasserman Schultz because he was part of the effort to gather signatures for the 2013 letter. It ultimately was signed by 110 House Democrats. A separate letter to the same effect was signed by 37 Senate Democrats.
At the time, Yandura said he didn’t speak to the media about what he heard, but urged other groups working on the letter — Freedom to Work and most likely GetEQUAL — to address the situation with Wasserman Schultz. Freedom to Work didn’t immediately respond to a request to comment.
Heather Cronk, managing director for GetEQUAL, said she couldn’t corroborate allegations that Wasserman Schultz was actively discouraging House members from signing the letter.
“I actually can’t corroborate that,” Cronk said. “I’ve heard that she wasn’t a fan of the Executive Order, but I don’t have any evidence that she actively worked against it.”
Fred Sainz, vice president of communications for the Human Rights Campaign, said he hasn’t heard anything about Wasserman Schultz discouraging members from the signing the letter, even though his group was active in gathering signatures.
Yandura said he didn’t contact HRC about about Wasserman Schultz “probably because I don’t see them as good accountability enforcers for the president or Dems.”
The offices of Capps and Pallone, who were responsible for gathering signatures for the House letter, didn’t immediately respond with information about whether they had heard anything about Wasserman Schultz discouraging support for it.
Yandura has a history of making inflammatory statements against the DNC for not undertaking sufficient efforts on behalf on LGBT rights. In 2004, he landed his partner Donald Hitchcock, then the DNC’s LGBT liaison, in hot water by publicly asserting that the Democratic Party wasn’t doing enough to combat the multitude of anti-gay marriage amendments on the ballot that year.
Yandura’s boss has contributed to LGBT organizations such as Freedom to Work and GetEQUAL. Last year, Lewis announced that he would no longer donate to the Democratic Party after Senate Democrats excluded same-sex bi-national couples from immigration reform legislation (which was later remedied by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision against the Defense of Marriage Act) and President Obama’s decision to continue to withhold an executive order barring LGBT discrimination.
Invoking the assertion from LGBT advocates that the executive order is a 2008 campaign promise from then-candidate Obama, Yandura said the best way to convince Obama to pen his name to the directive is increased pressure.
“I think that if the pressure could get built again, we might be able to shame him into doing it,” Yandura said. “We’ve waited for him to do the right thing. Now, I don’t know what it will take other than what it took to get him to do other things — and that is causing a shitstorm, getting up in his face and demanding it get done.”
State Department
Democracy Forward files FOIA request for State Department bathroom policy records
April 20 memo outlined anti-transgender rule
Democracy Forward on Tuesday filed a Freedom of Information Act request for records on the State Department’s new bathroom policy.
A memo titled “Updates Regarding Biological Sex and Intimate Spaces, Including Restrooms” that the State Department issued on April 20 notes employees can no longer use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
“The administration affirms that there are two sexes — male and female — and that federal facilities should operate on this objective and longstanding basis to ensure consistency, privacy, and safety in shared spaces,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Piggot told the Daily Signal, a conservative news website that first reported on the memo. “In line with President Trump’s executive order this provides clear, uniform guidance to the department by grounding policy in biological sex as determined at birth.”
President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in January 2025 issued an executive order that directed the federal government to only recognize two genders: male and female. The sweeping directive also ordered federal government agencies to “effectuate this policy by taking appropriate action to ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by sex and not identity.”
Democracy Forward’s FOIA request that the Washington Blade exclusively obtained on Tuesday is specifically seeking a copy of the memo that details the State Department’s new bathroom policy. Democracy Forward has also requested “all” memo-specific communications between the State Department’s Bureau of Global Public Affairs and the Daily Signal from April 1-21.
Federal Government
House Republicans push nationwide ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill
Measures would restrict federal funding for LGBTQ-affirming schools
Republicans have been gaining ground in reshaping education policy to be less inclusive toward LGBTQ students at the state level, and now they are turning their focus to Capitol Hill.
Some GOP lawmakers are pushing for a nationwide “Don’t Say Gay” bill, doubling down on their commitment to being the party of “traditional family values” by excluding anyone who does not identify with their sex at birth.
The largest anti-LGBTQ education legislation to reach the House chamber is House Bill 2616 — the Parental Rights Over the Education and Care of Their Kids Act, or the PROTECT Kids Act. The PROTECT Kids Act, proposed by U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), and co-sponsored by U.S. Reps. Burgess Owens (R-Utah), Mary Miller (R-Ill.), Robert Onder (R-Mo.), and Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.), would require any public elementary and middle schools that receive federal funding to require parental consent to change a child’s gender expression in school.
The bill, which was discussed during Tuesday’s House Rules Committee hearing, would specifically require any schools that get federal money from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 — which was created to minimize financial discrepancies in education for low-income students — to get parental approval before identifying any child’s gender identity as anything other than what was provided to the school initially. This includes getting approval before allowing children to use their preferred locker room or bathroom.
It reads that any school receiving this funding “shall obtain parental consent before changing a covered student’s (1) gender markers, pronouns, or preferred name on any school form; or (2) sex-based accommodations, including locker rooms or bathrooms.”
LGBTQ rights advocates have criticized both national and state efforts to require parental permission to use a child’s preferred gender identity, as it raises issues of at-home safety — especially if the home is not LGBTQ-affirming — and could lead to the outing of transgender or gender-curious students.
A follow-up bill, HB 2617, proposed by Owens, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, prevents the use of federal funding to “advance concepts related to gender ideology,” using the definition from President Donald Trump’s 2025 Executive Order 14168, making that an enshrined definition in law of sex rather than just by executive order. There is also a bill making its way through the senate with the same text— Senate Bill 2251.
Advocates have also criticized this follow-up legislation, as it would restrict school staff — including teachers and counselors — from acknowledging trans students’ identities or providing any support. They have said that this kind of isolation can worsen mental health outcomes for LGBTQ youth and allows for education to be politicized rather than being based in reality.
David Stacy, the Human Rights Campaign’s vice president of government affairs, called this legislation out for using LGBTQ children as political pawns in an ideology fight — one that could greatly harm the safety of these children if passed.
“Trans kids are not a political agenda — they are students who deserve safety and affirmation at school like anyone else,” Stacy said in a statement. “Despite the many pressing issues facing our nation, House Republicans continue their bizarre obsession with trans people. H.R. 2616 does not protect children. It targets them. This bill is cruel, and we’re prepared to fight it.”
This is similar to Florida House Bills 1557 and 1069, referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and “Don’t Say They” bill, respectively, restricting classroom discussions on sexual orientation and gender identity, prohibiting the use of pronouns consistent with one’s gender identity, expanding book banning procedures, and censoring health curriculum.
The American Civil Liberties Union is tracking 233 bills related to restricting student and educator rights in the U.S.
Botswana’s government has repealed a provision of its colonial-era penal code that criminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations.
The country’s High Court in 2019 struck down the provision. The Batswana government in 2022 said it would abide by the ruling after country’s Court of Appeals upheld it.
The government on March 26 announced the repeal of the penal code’s “unnatural offenses” section that specifically referenced any person who “has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature” and “permits any other person to have carnal knowledge of him or her against the order of nature.”
Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana, a Batswana advocacy group known by the acronym LEGABIBO, challenged the criminalization law with the support of the Southern Africa Litigation Center. LEGABIBO in a statement it posted to its Facebook on April 25 welcomed the repeal.
“For many, these provisions were not just words on paper — they were lived realities,” said LEGABIBO. “They affected access to healthcare, safety, employment, and the freedom to love and exist openly.”
“LEGABIBO believes that the deletion of these sections is a necessary and long-overdue step toward restoring dignity and aligning our legal framework with constitutional values of equality and human rights,” it added. “It is a clear message that LGBTIQ+ persons are not criminals, and that their lives and relationships deserve protection, not punishment.”
LEGABIBO further stressed that “while this does not erase the harm of the past, it creates space for healing, inclusion, and continued progress toward full equality.”
Democracy Forward files FOIA request for State Department bathroom policy records
House Republicans push nationwide ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill
Botswana repeals colonial-era sodomy law
LGBTQ people are leaving Orthodox Judaism behind
Madonna makes rare club appearance in West Hollywood
Second trans member announces plans to resign from Capital Pride board
Adoption under suspicion
Why we need to recognize and celebrate Lesbian Day of Visibility
Calendar: April 24-30
