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.
The White House
Report: Grenell wants Russian ambassadorship
Country’s anti-LGBTQ record a reported barrier
Richard Grenell, President Donald Trump’s special envoy for “special missions,” is making it known that he is interested in the Russian ambassadorship.
According to reporting by the Daily Mail, Grenell has “floated” his interest in the role to coworkers, but issues surrounding the former German ambassador’s sexuality have made securing the position more difficult.
“He had an interest in the job — or at least he floated the idea to select colleagues. But Putin’s regime is extremely anti–LGBTQ, so I’m sure they didn’t take that thought too seriously,” one source close to Grenell told the Daily Mail. “That would never happen anyway.”
Grenell has long been one of Trump’s closest allies and was the first openly gay person to hold a Cabinet-level position. He was ousted last month as acting director of the Kennedy Center, a position he had held since Trump reestablished the board to be composed of his political supporters in 2025.
In addition to leading the nation’s cultural arts center, Grenell previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Germany from 2018 to 2020, and as the special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations from 2019 to 2021. He was also a State Department spokesperson to the U.N. under the George W. Bush administration and a Fox News contributor.
Russia has a longstanding history of being anti-LGBTQ.
In 2013, the country passed a law banning any public endorsement of “nontraditional sexual relations” among minors. In December 2022, Putin signed legislation expanding the ban, making it illegal to promote same-sex relationships or suggest that non-heterosexual orientations are “normal” for people of any age, widening censorship across media and public life.
The Russian courts have also supported the restriction of LGBTQ identity in the country. In November 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court granted a request from the Justice Ministry to outlaw the “international LGBT movement” as “extremist,” allowing authorities to criminalize advocacy and potentially prosecute individuals for expressions of LGBTQ+ identity or support.
In addition to LGBTQ rights issues, the war between Russia and Ukraine has become a global concern. Ukraine, which was part of the former Soviet Union, includes the territory known as Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. The annexation remains a major point of international dispute over sovereignty. Since 2022, Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine has escalated the conflict, drawing global attention and sanctions while straining U.S.-Russia relations.
The U.S. has spent $188 billion in total related to the war in Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Russian ambassadorship seems to be a difficult role to fill, according to additional information presented by the Daily Mail. With Trump already being seen as relatively positive by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and with close ties to members of his Cabinet and family — like son-in-law Jared Kushner — the ambassadorship is complicated and viewed as less critical than in previous administrations.
“There is no rush to fill that role because it has now been deemed unnecessary,” another source told the U.K.-based publication.
Bob Foresman, a seasoned businessman with decades-long ties to the Kremlin, was reportedly once the frontrunner, according to the Daily Mail. Foresman served as vice chair of UBS Investment Bank and Deputy Chairman of Renaissance Capital between 2006 and 2009, and earlier led investment banking for Russia at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein from 1997 to 2000.
“This is a pattern, especially in the Trump administration — special envoys big–footing the ambassadors,” a source told the Daily Mail. “It is shocking that we are already in April and we don’t have an ambassador to one of the most important countries in the world.”
Tennessee
Tenn. lawmakers pass transgender “watch list” bill
State Senate to consider measure on Wednesday
The Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill last week to create a transgender “watch list” that also pushes detransition medical treatment. The state Senate will consider it on Wednesday.
House Bill 754/State Bill 676 has been deemed “ugly” by LGBTQ advocates and criticized by healthcare information litigators as a major privacy concern.
The bill would require “gender clinics accepting funds from this state to perform gender transition procedures to also perform detransition procedures; requires insurance entities providing coverage of gender transition procedures to also cover detransition procedures; requires certain gender clinics and insurance entities to report information regarding detransition procedures to the department of health.”
It would require that any gender-affirming care-providing clinics share the date, age, and sex of patients; any drugs prescribed (dosage, frequency, duration, and method administered); the state and county; the name, contact information, and medical specialty of the healthcare professional who prescribed the treatment; and any past medical history related to “neurological, behavioral, or mental health conditions.” It would also mandate additional information if surgical intervention is prescribed, including details on which healthcare professional made a referral and when.
HB 0754 would also require the state to produce a “comprehensive annual statistical report,” with all collected data shared with the heads of the legislature and the legislative librarian, and eventually published online for public access.
The bill also reframes detransitioning as a major focus of gender-affirming healthcare — despite studies showing that the number of trans people who detransition is statistically quite low, around 13 percent, and is often the result of external pressures (such as discrimination or family) rather than an issue with their gender identity.
This legislation stands in sharp contrast to federal protections restricting what healthcare information can be shared. In 1996, Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, requiring protections for all “individually identifiable health information,” including medical records, conversations, billing information, and other patient data.
Margaret Riley, professor of law, public health sciences, and public policy at the University of Virginia, has written about similar efforts at the federal level, noting the Trump-Vance administration’s push to subpoena multiple hospitals’ records of gender-affirming care for trans patients despite no claims — or proof — that a crime was committed.
It has “sown fear and concern, both among people whose information is sought and among the doctors and other providers who offer such care. Some health providers have reportedly decided to no longer provide gender-affirming care to minors as a result of the inquiries, even in states where that care is legal.” She wrote in an article on the Conversation, where she goes further, pointing out that the push, mostly from conservative members of the government, are pushing extracting this private information “while giving no inkling of any alleged crimes that may have been committed.”
State Rep. Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby), the bill’s sponsor, said in a press conference two weeks ago that he has met dozens of individuals who sought to transition genders and ultimately detransitioned. In committee, an individual testified in support of the bill, claiming that while insurance paid for gender-affirming care, detransition care was not covered.
“I believe that we as a society are going to look back on this time that really burst out in 2014 and think, ‘Dear God, What were we thinking? This was as dumb as frontal lobotomies,’” Faison said of gender-affirming care. “I think we’re going to look back on society one day and think that.”
Jennifer Levi, GLAD Law’s senior director of Transgender and Queer Rights, shared with PBS last year that legislation like this changes the entire concept of HIPAA rights for trans Americans in ways that are invasive and unnecessary.
“It turns doctor-patient confidentiality into government surveillance,” Levi said, later emphasizing this will cause fewer people to seek out the care that they need. “It’s chilling.”
The Washington Blade reached out to the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, which shared this statement from Executive Director Miriam Nemeth:
“HB 754/SB 676 continues the ugly legacy of Tennessee legislators’ attacks on the lives of transgender Tennesseans. Most Tennesseans, regardless of political views, oppose government databases tracking medical decisions made between patients and their doctors. The same should be true here. The state does not threaten to end the livelihood of doctors and fine them $150,000 for safeguarding the sensitive information of people with diabetes, depression, cancer, or other conditions. Trans people and intersex people deserve the same safety, privacy, and equal treatment under the law as everyone else.”
Iran
LGBTQ groups condemn Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization
Ceasefire announced less than two hours before Tuesday deadline
The Council for Global Equality is among the groups that condemned President Donald Trump on Tuesday over his latest threats against Iran.
Trump in a Truth Social post said “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran did not reach an agreement with the U.S. by 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
Iran is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
Israel and the U.S. on Feb. 28 launched airstrikes against Iran.
One of them killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran in response launched missiles and drones against Israel and other countries that include Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, and Cyprus.
Gas prices in the U.S. and around the world continue to increase because the war has essentially closed the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway that connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s crude oil passes.
Trump less than 90 minutes before his deadline announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran that Pakistan helped broker.
“We the undersigned human rights, humanitarian, civil liberties, faith-based and environmental organizations, think tanks and experts are deeply alarmed by President Trump’s threat regarding Iran that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ if his demands are not met. Such language describes a grave atrocity if carried out,” reads the statement that the Council for Global Equality more than 200 other organizations and human rights experts signed. “A threat to wipe out ‘a whole civilization’ may amount to a threat of genocide. Genocide is a crime defined by the Genocide Convention and by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as committing one or more of several acts ‘with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, racial or religious groups as such.'”
The statement states “the law is clear that civilians must not be targeted, and they must also be protected from indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.”
“Strikes on civilian infrastructure — such as the recent attack on a bridge and the attacks President Trump is repeatedly threatening to carry out to destroy power plants — have devastating consequences for the civilian population and environment,” it reads.
“We urge all parties to respect international law,” adds the statement. “Those responsible for atrocities, including crimes against humanity and war crimes, can and must be held accountable.”
The Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice, Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, MADRE, and the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center are among the other groups that signed the letter.
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