National
NETROOTS: Bloggers, activists discuss LGBT issues at pre-conference
Greater trans inclusion, more accurate representation of LGBT people in media among topics mentioned
MINNEAPOLIS — More complete representation of the LGBT people in the media and greater attention to transgender issues were among the issues bloggers and activists discussed on Wednesday during an LGBT pre-conference for the annual Netroots Nation convention.
About 115 activists and bloggers were registered for the pre-conference — organized by gay D.C. blogger Mike Rogers — to facilitate greater cooperation for shared goals in the LGBT movement.
During an opening session of pre-conference, LGBT bloggers and activists aired concerns and made observations about issues that they felt weren’t receiving enough national attention.
* Pam Spaulding, lesbian blogger for Pam’s House Blend, said too much national attention is focused on advancing marriage rights in states where they don’t exist or retaining marriage equality in states where it may be taken away.
Meanwhile other states, such as North Carolina and Minnesota, face the possibility of passing marriage amendments even though they have statutes prohibiting same-sex marriage. Minnesota voters face a ballot measure in 2012 and North Carolina will also likely face one in 2012.
“I’ve heard people say that it’s a lost cause to do anything in the South, but North Carolina staved off an amendment six times in a row,” Spaulding said. “So, I think that there is a lot of … people who have ‘blue’ state protections who ignore places where there’s a lot of activism going on and the distinct possibility that we could stave this off.”
* Jillian Weiss, a transgender blogger for the Bilerico Project, urged for greater emphasis on transgender inclusion. Even for LGBT issues that primarily affect gay, lesbian and bisexual people, Weiss said there should an effort to show how the issue affects transgender people.
“To use a prime example is ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ where [we’re] concentrated specifically on gay and lesbian soldiers, which is definitely very important, and I’m behind that 100 percent, but very few people talk about the fact that it’s leaving transgender and transsexual veterans behind,” Weiss said. “If we don’t speak about these other portions of the community, they get completely lost.”
* Daniel Villarreal, a gay blogger for Queerty, said greater pressure should be placed on media to include representation for all parts of the LGBT community, including LGBT people of color.
“GLAAD just released a report that looks mainly at cable and networks’ depictions of queer people,” Villarreal said. “The number of bisexual, lesbian and transgender people are incredibly low, depressing low. Not only that, the numbers of minorities are incredibly low.”
Villarreal said all media — even LGBT media — should be “taken to task” for not accurately representing the LGBT community as a whole.
“The only time I ever see a black guy outside of RuPaul’s Drag Race on Logo is in an HIV commercial, and that’s pretty fucking sad,” Villarreal said.
* Felipe Matos, a gay Miami-based strategist, said more attention should focused on the pressures LGBT immigrant youths face. Matos said after coming out, LGBT immigrant youths are often ostracized from their communities, and, if they’re undocumented, could be apprehended by the police and deported.
“When you come out, many times you are, in your community and outside your community, you are hurt and then you don’t have any recourse [or] anyone to go to because you are afraid the police is going to deport you,” Matos said.
As part of his work with an youth group in Florida, Matos said these situations happen “over and over again.” LGBT youths, he said, are afraid to talk about their sexual orientation or gender identity for fear of being cast aside and potentially deported.
* Christopher Edwards, communications manager for Immigration Equality, said there should be greater emphasis on the impacts that state immigration laws have on LGBT people. Pending legislation in Utah, Edwards said, would increase the penalty for harboring undocumented immigrants and prevent bi-national couples from staying together in the state.
“A lot of bi-national families include a partner who is undocumented, so you could basically be arrested for living with your partner,” Edwards said.
Edwards also said his organization is having “a horrible time” convincing Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) to sign on as a co-sponsor of the Uniting American Families Act, which would enable gay Americans to sponsor their foreign spouses for residency in the United States.
* Zack Ford, a gay blogger with Think Progress, said activists should devise a better way to present the sexuality of LGBT people as more mainstream. In the fight for same-sex marriage, Ford said LGBT people have moved away from presenting themselves as sexual beings.
“We’ve hidden our sexuality from the mainstream world, but I think as long as that ick factor works against us, we need to find ways to show we’re not just people that deserve to be married, but whole, healthy, happy human beings,” Ford said. “I think finding some better approaches to talking about queer sexuality in a positive, affirmative way will be very helpful.”
* Jeremy Hooper, the gay blogger for Good as You, said LGBT activists could do better with the way they talk about same-sex marriage and how it wouldn’t impact religious freedom.
“From my experience, LGBT people and progressives are better at understanding true religious freedom than the opposition, yet we let them work the idea that we’re seeking something more … than [what] we deserve,” Hooper said. “We don’t want churches to marry us. We’re not asking for that. What we’re seeking is civil marriage.”
Several breakouts sessions followed the opening sessions of the LGBT pre-conference and hit on topics including the intersection of immigration and LGBT issues as well as fitting the fight for same-sex marriage into the broader LGBT movement.
For the immigration session, activists working for passage of the DREAM Act, an immigration bill that would provide a path to U.S. citizenship for young, undocumented youths, called on the LGBT community for greater supporter.
* Tania Unzueta, advocacy co-ordinator for the Association of Latino Men for Action’s LGBTQ Immigration Rights Project, said LGBT rights supporters should have been made last year when Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) voted for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal, but against the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act.
“There really wasn’t anything from the LGBT community that was like, ‘This was bad,'” Unzueta said. “It was always, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.'”
Unzueta said her organization has been devising ways to change the discussion on LGBT issues and immigration issues to demonstrate that they are, in fact, both part of the larger struggle for human rights.
In the marriage session, activists and bloggers talked about whether the fight for same-sex marriage had become too much of a priority for the LGBT community and making other issues secondary.
* Andy Szekeres, a gay activist and progressive political consultant, said the fundraising that groups undertake to win same-sex marriage can be used for the fights to win other battles.
“Marriage is where the money is,” Szekeres said. “Look at the trans groups, look at the adoption groups, look at the immigration groups. The marriage world is 10-1 fundraising over them, so we need to figure out a way to sort of spread the wealth.”
* Carisa Cunningham, director of public affairs and education for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, said the fight for marriage came about to address fundamental issues facing the LGBT community.
“I think the question of whether it’s strategic is kind of neither here nor there,” Cunningham said. “It’s here because we went through the AIDS epidemic and gay men found that at the end of their lives, they could not have their partners come and see them in the hospital [or] make medical decisions for them. Gsy men found that they could not have any say over their partner’s bodies when they died and their partner’s families could come, swoop in and take everything away.”
Cunningham continued, “The other thing was the lesbian baby boom. Women were leaving straight marriages and finding out that they had no rights vis-a-vis their children or they were creating families with their partners and finding again that rights that come to you vis-a-vis your children automatically by marriage have to fought for. There is a real sense that the marriage movement has demand-driven; it has been driven by the bottom up.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article underestimated the number of attendees at the LGBT pre-conference. The Washington Blade regrets the error.
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.
The White House
Trump budget would codify expanded global gag rule
Funding for LGBTQ health programs around the world would also be cut
The Trump-Vance administration’s fiscal year 2027 budget would codify the expanded global gag rule and eliminate funding for LGBTQ-specific programs in global health initiatives.
“The budget would ensure no funding supports abortion, unfettered access to birth control, and also eliminates funding for circumcision and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer services to better focus funds on life-saving assistance,” reads the proposed budget the White House released on April 3. “The United States should not pay for the world’s birth control and therapy.”
The proposed budget includes four examples of “eliminated activities.”
- In the last administration, PEPFAR funded health workers who performed over 21 abortions in Mozambique
- Promoting reproductive health education and access to birth control and other harmful programs couched under ‘family planning’ in Ghana
- A supply chain “control tower” to provide a “holistic commercial of the shelf solution” on the Office of Population and Reproductive Health (PRH)
- Promoting health equity and providing condoms and contraception in Kenya.
President Ronald Reagan in 1985 implemented the global gag rule, also known as the “Mexico City” policy, which bans U.S. foreign aid for groups that support abortion and/or offer abortion-related services.
Trump reinstated the rule during his first administration. The Biden-Harris administration shortly after it took office in January 2021 rescinded it.
The Trump-Vance White House earlier this year expanded the global gag rule to ban U.S. foreign aid for groups that promote “gender ideology.” The expansion took effect on Feb. 26.
US funding cuts have devastated global LGBTQ rights movement
The Trump-Vance administration after it took office in January 2025 moved to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded LGBTQ and intersex rights groups around the world. USAID officially shut down on July 1, 2025.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio in March 2025 announced the State Department would administer the 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled. Rubio issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the U.S. foreign aid freeze the White House announced shortly after it took office.
The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding because of these cuts. The Washington Blade has previously reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down.
The Trump-Vance administration has signed healthcare-specific agreements with Kenya, Uganda, and other African countries through its American First Global Health Strategy. Advocacy groups with whom the Blade has spoken have expressed concern these partnerships will result in further exclusion and government-sanctioned discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
The proposed fiscal year 2027 budget includes $5.1 billion for “global health to end the previous administration’s abuse of these programs and to execute (the State Department’s) newly released America First Global Health Strategy.” This figure represents a $4.3 billion cut from the previous year.
“The president’s new vision of bilateral health assistance eliminates bloated Beltway Bandit contracts, does more with fewer dollars, and transitions recipient countries to self-reliance,” reads the proposed budget. “The budget would also eliminate disease-specific accounts and provide the department crucial agility to address the actual needs of each recipient country — across HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and polio — to strengthen global health security and protect Americans from disease.”
“The budget would focus on new compacts that unify funding, achieving economies of scale in both implementation and oversight,” it adds. “Under the prior administration, only about 40 percent of PEPFAR funds supported actual service delivery, including medications, testing, commodities, and health workers, with the remaining 60 percent wasted on duplicative administrative costs, unwieldy supply chains, and layers of endless bureaucracy. The new AFGHS (America First Global Health Strategy) compacts would improve efficiency, cut red tape, and dismantle the bloated ecosystem of foreign assistance profiteers.”
The Council for Global Equality on April 3 reiterated its criticism of the expanded global gag rule, and urged Congress to reject the proposed budget.
“We won’t mince words: people are dying because of this policy,” said the Council for Global Equality in a statement. “Making this policy permanent will only ensure that U.S. foreign assistance discriminates against those who need services the most, all while forcing people around the world to adhere to the Trump administration’s extremist, ideological agenda that denies the very existence of transgender, nonbinary, and intersex persons.”
“We will not be silent as Trump threatens to upend decades of bipartisan foreign assistance programs to appease his extremist base,” added the group. “We call on Congress to immediately reject this budget and block implementation of the expanded global gag rules.”
Vice President JD Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, will visit Hungary next week.
An announcement the White House released on Thursday said the Vances will be in Budapest, the Hungarian capital, from April 7-8.
JD Vance “will hold bilateral meetings with” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The announcement further indicates the vice president “will also deliver remarks on the rich partnership between the United States and Hungary.”
The Vances will travel to Hungary less than a week before the country’s parliamentary elections take place on April 12.
Orbán, who has been in office since 2010, and his Fidesz-KDNP coalition government have faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
The Associated Press notes polls indicate Orbán is trailing Péter Magyar and his center-right Tisza party.
Cuba under pressure and without answers
Police mental health struggles gain growing attention
Man faces first S.C. ‘hate intimidation’ charge
Trump budget would codify expanded global gag rule
D.C. is the place for the Democratic Socialists of America
VIDEO: Gay journalist detained for booing Trumps at ‘Chicago’ opening night
Pam Bondi ousted as attorney general
Idaho Gov. signs harshest anti-trans bathroom bill in the country
JD Vance to travel to Hungary next week
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
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The White House5 days agoVIDEO: Gay journalist detained for booing Trumps at ‘Chicago’ opening night
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