There is really only one clear choice for mayor of Rehoboth Beach, and that is Susan Stewart. She has the experience, knowledge, and clear vision, to successfully lead the city forward. If you want to see in detail what her priorities are, check out her website, www.Stewart4Mayor.com. 

I have been coming to Rehoboth Beach for more than 40 years and love it. I want to see it continue to thrive, and be the place where people will enjoy living, retiring to, and vacationing. All those factors are important to consider when choosing the next mayor. 

Susan has said, “I will work to preserve the character of Rehoboth Beach while responsibly investing in the infrastructure, financial stability, and community partnerships needed for the future.” She understands it is important to manage growth if you are to maintain a great quality of life, and sense of belonging, for those who live there now, and those who will come in the future. In a conversation I had with her, she said something important to me. She said, “As mayor, I will make sure every resident, regardless of who they are or whom they love, feels welcome and represented at City Hall. Rehoboth Beach has long been a place where the LGBTQ community has found belonging, built businesses, and shaped the character of this city. That is not incidental to what makes Rehoboth special. It is central to it.” She went on to say, “Our city works best when all residents feel heard, respected, and engaged in the decisions that affect their lives. I am committed to bringing people together around shared priorities, and practical solutions.”

When it comes to the city’s financial picture and growth Susan said, “A town’s growth must reflect the community’s values, not be imposed upon it. I am committed to collaborate with the community to preserve the walkable scale, natural beauty, and neighborhood character, that make Rehoboth Beach irreplaceable.” Susan understands investments in the future must be made in a thoughtful way to guarantee the city continues to thrive. This includes maintaining a great quality of life, with clean streets, safe and attractive structures, accessible beaches, and a vibrant commercial district. Every decision made by the mayor, with the Commission, must ensure that those who live here, feel the city truly belongs to them. 

Susan began her career as an attorney, then transitioned into the financial services sector. Her early experience included roles at major banks and brokerage firms, where she developed deep expertise in investment strategy, and client advising. In 1996, she founded her own financial advisory firm where she advised high net worth individuals and families, managing large-cap equity mandates for several state retirement systems and a Fortune 500 company. After successfully leading the firm for 15 years, she closed it in 2011 and returned to the brokerage industry. Today, she is a financial adviser, and senior vice president with The StewartGroup, RBC Wealth Management. Her daughter, Taylor Stewart, is a business partner in their practice. Stewart works remotely from her home in Rehoboth Beach. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Ursinus College; and a Juris Doctor from The Dickinson School of Law, Pennsylvania State University. She is deeply committed to public service, and currently serves on the City of Rehoboth Beach Commission, and has previously served on the Planning Commission, as well as the Mixed-Use and Stormwater Utility Task Forces. She is also a member of the board of trustees for Ursinus College.

With her strong financial background people can be assured Susan will ensure Rehoboth Beach maintains its strong fiscal position. Contrary to what one of the commissioners who is also running for mayor has said, Rehoboth is in strong fiscal shape. It is projected the city will end the year with a surplus of about $1.5 million, and projections are for surpluses through 2031. With her financial background, Susan has the ability to manage taxpayer resources carefully, and has committed to maintaining healthy reserves for the future. She understands any investments must deliver lasting value for residents. 

Susan hopes to engage with residents on important questions like deciding which infrastructure projects should be the top priority; how the city should use reserves that exceed its own requirements; what investments will deliver the most value to residents; and how to maintain long-term financial stability while meeting community needs.  I believe as an experienced professional, Susan truly believes these are the real policy conversations that should be had, and she will have them. 

Since I have heard people discussing another candidate for mayor, Commissioner Suzanne Goode, it is important to recognize she clearly doesn’t represent the people, or values, we have come to love about Rehoboth Beach. I last wrote about her when she tried to have her husband elected to join her on the Commission. She thought that was an appropriate thing to do. If she is elected mayor, will she try to have her husband appointed to fill her seat on the Commission? Rehoboth Beach is better than that. When I last wrote about her, I said she appears to represent MAGA Republicans. Apparently, she cleaned up her Facebook page but it had included attacks on Obamacare, President Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and support for Ron DeSantis. That is not who we want for mayor of Rehoboth Beach. 

On Saturday, Aug. 8^, I urge you to cast your ballot for Susan Stewart for mayor. She will make us all proud. 

Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.

Following the start of the Iran war, many Americans were worried for the first time in decades about a potential draft. When asked about the possibility, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt noted that it was not part of the current plans but that, “The president wisely keeps his options on the table.”

While the Trump administration did not rule out the option to conscript unwilling young citizens, it had no problem alienating willing service members, removing high-ranking female or African-American officers, and banning transgender people from serving in the military, stating that “a history of gender dysphoria is incompatible with the high physical, surgical, and mental health standards required for military service.”

The decision to discharge thousands of service members who have already proven their dedication and efficacy in serving their country, simply because of their gender identity, seems counterintuitive for a nation that has just struggled through a war, a regression toward a long past of discrimination in our military, and a ruling that has been questioned in judicial systems.

On June 1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit issued a decision blocking the government from discharging 28 transgender plaintiffs from the military (Talbott vs. United States), calling the policy “animus” toward a politically unpopular group. News outlets reported it as a win for LGBTQ rights, but that hardly seems to matter for the close to 15,000 other transgender military service members who have either already been separated or constantly fear that they will soon be removed.

I interviewed a recently separated transgender Naval healthcare worker for this editorial, who used the initial S. for anonymity and who told me that hearing the news of the Talbott court decision was more bitter than sweet, remarking, “While the recent ruling in favor of trans service members offers fleeting hope, Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has already announced the decision to appeal to the Supreme Court, where we will likely expect the same outcome as before. Unfortunately, any definitive outcome in favor of trans service members will likely come long after the damage has been done.”

Studies by the RAND Corporation have found that transgender military service showed no significant impact on operational readiness, and according to the BBC, the Department of Defense spends eight to 10 times more on erectile dysfunction drugs than on gender-affirming care.

S. served a critical role in the Navy, as active-duty service members are far more likely to experience mental health challenges than the civilian population, and it doesn’t sound like his gender identity was a problem for any of his coworkers: “Everyone judged me by my ability, not my identity; most of them didn’t know that I was transgender until the separation process forced my public acknowledgement.”

Dedicating years of his life to serving his country, not only did S. lose that dream, but it also impacted his entire caseload of clients. “One by one, I had to meet with them and explain that I was abruptly leaving the clinic and ultimately separating from military service. It was death by a thousand cuts—having to tell people back-to-back, session after session, that I could no longer work with them. Many of them were in the midst of their own crises while I was quietly navigating mine. It was heartbreaking.”

He also spent 11 months in a state of limbo, waiting to be officially separated – having secured a job at another federal agency and beginning to treat new patients, the Department of Defense rescinded its approval, citing that you cannot work at two federal agencies at once, and effectively sidelined a critical health care worker until they could formally discharge S. from the Navy.

The irony of citing mental health standards to remove a Naval healthcare worker in good standing, at a time when many personnel are in dire need of clinical care is notable. To maximize operational readiness, the Trump administration should not turn its back on accomplished service members who hold critical roles in the military.

Tyler Kania is an independent journalist and 2025 IAN Book of the Year finalist.

On June 30, the Supreme Court ruled, 6-3 that states may bar transgender girls and women from girls’ and women’s sports teams. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that states may keep these teams for “biological females” and set eligibility by “biological sex.” The country will now spend days arguing about fairness on the field. We’ll debate race times, records, and who has earned a place on the roster.

I want to redirect this conversation, because I study something different and because the frame we’ve settled on misses the something important. 

I’m a public health researcher. My work focuses on how the conditions people live under get into the body and influence health over a lifetime. I’m talking about conditions such as laws, policies, and the everyday climate of acceptance or rejection. 

Two features of this ruling deserve more attention than the sports fight is giving them: the lifelong costs even a “narrow” decision sets in motion, and the question the Court declined to decide.

Start with how a ruling like this reaches the body, because that pathway is what makes this a public health story. My area of research has a name for what laws like this do: structural stigma. It’s the way statutes and court rulings can mark an entire group as lesser, and in doing so become a chronic stressor for every member of that group. 

The overwhelming majority of transgender kids will never compete for a state title. They still learned, from the highest court in the country, that their belonging is conditional. The stress that follows from that lesson is associated with higher rates of depression, anxiety, and poorer health across LGBTQ populations. A consistent finding in this literature is that social acceptance can disrupt such harmful trajectories. But this ruling pushes the country the other way.

I want to emphasize that the question of fairness is important, and the girls and women who raise it deserve to be heard. But the ruling does not resolve this question. It flattens it.

The science on athletic performance and gender transition is truly complicated and individual. It varies by sport, by person, by age, and by life circumstance. The Court grounded its decision in biological sex and then declined to reckon with what biology shows. The West Virginia teenager at the center of the case has been on puberty blockers since before male puberty began. The advantage the law claims to police never developed in her. A rule that treats her like an adult athlete disregards biology.

Here is the part a policy-minded reader should pay attention to. For decades, the central legal question about transgender Americans has been this: When the government treats transgender people differently, how good does its reason have to be? Courts don’t judge all discrimination in the same way. If a law sorts people by race or sex, the state must provide a strong justification, and many such laws fail. But if a law tries to draw an ordinary distinction, like who qualifies for a license, judges tend to wave it through as long as there’s a reasonable purpose. Whether a law singling out transgender people gets the skeptical look (what lawyers call heightened scrutiny) or the easy pass has not been settled. And this ruling, despite its subject, still did not settle it.  

How did the Court avoid the question its own case raised? Following last year’s decision in Skrmetti (the gender-affirming care case), the Court described these laws as drawing lines by biological sex, not transgender status. Courts endorsed sex-separated teams long ago; separate teams are the reason girls’ sports exist. So a law framed as a “sex” line lands on ground the courts have already approved, while a “transgender” line would have forced the choice between the skeptical look and the easy pass. The Court chose the frame that let it stay silent.

That silence creates exposure for transgender people – and I mean that word the way my field of public health uses it, for a condition that puts a whole population at risk. The same unanswered question now hangs over health care, employment, identification documents, public accommodations, and every domain where the level of scrutiny is the whole ballgame. And the Court read Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in schools, through the same lens: “biological sex,” full stop. Advocates are right to see protections far beyond sports as newly vulnerable.

This is where my own research makes me most uneasy. I study LGBTQ adults in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, who came of age in a far more hostile America. Their lives show that the cost of stigma accumulates. Chronic stress works its way under the skin and surfaces years and decades later. Researchers see these deleterious outcomes in mental health, in physical health, and in emerging research like my own that explores the aging brain. So we should understand this decision for what it is: a long-term health decision the country is making on behalf of a generation of children.

Practically, the ruling compels no state to do anything. It tells the more than two dozen states that have passed these bans that they stand on solid ground, and it sends the rest of the fight back to statehouses and school boards, where trans youth and their families often hold little power. The ruling arrives just over a year after the Court let states ban the medical care many of these same young people depend on. Each law is a single stressor. Together they are a dangerous environment.

We know what protects these children. Acceptance, inclusion, and the dignity of being treated as though they belong. The Court made all three harder to offer, and left open the question that determines how much harder it can get. It is the children who needed those protections who will bear the cost, this sports season and for the rest of their lives. 

Harry Barbee, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where they study LGBTQ health, aging, and public policy.