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Annise Parker on leading Victory Fund: ‘My focus is on the candidate’

“Trump is not the embodiment of the Republican Party for a lot of people.”

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Annise Parker, gay news, Washington Blade

Annise Parker is now CEO of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund and Institute. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

After more than 40 years of activism and three terms as mayor of Houston, Annise Parker has taken on a new leadership role as CEO of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund and Institute.

The change in leadership for the organizations was announced Friday at the annual International LGBTQ Leaders Conference. Parker, 61, told the crowd times have changed since she began her activism in the 1970s, but too many LGBT people “still have to fear” many of the dangers LGBT people faced decades ago.

“We celebrate milestones,” Parker said. “My race was one. But when you’re checking off milestones, it means you have not reached the end of the journey, and we don’t reach the end of this journey until all those fears are swept away and until all of our communities — across the United States, across cultures, across ethnicities — everyone of us has an equal opportunity to succeed.”

In an interview with the Washington Blade on Friday at the conference, Parker said the focus of her work would be on supporting LGBT candidates ready to make a difference.

“But it’s not just about having candidates, it’s about making sure that those candidates are funded and the Victory Fund does a great job of vetting candidates,” Parker said. “You have to have a good candidate, but passion’s not enough. You have to demonstrate their viability, and their ability to be successful.”

Parker takes the reins of the Victory Fund and Institute after the organizations were led for two-and-a-half years by Aisha Moodie-Mills, whose tenure was marked by historic wins by transgender candidates in local races in 2017. Moodie-Mills has left the organization with the stated purpose of championing work as a progressive activist.

Based on her long history in the LGBT movement, Parker said she brings a “different mindset” than Moodie-Mills and will be focused on the candidates, not progressive activism.

“I bring a different energy, I bring a different focus. My focus is on the candidate, but that doesn’t mean that anything we’ve done has been wrong or misplaced or inappropriate,” Parker said. “We just bring different styles and interests.”

Parker said the Victory Fund and Institute would take on the Trump administration “whenever we feel it’s necessary,” but keep electing LGBT candidates as the focus.

“Because it’s clear that simply standing up and speaking out against President Trump doesn’t have an impact, the best way to blunt his ability to hurt us is to put people in office who can vote against his anti-gay policies,” Parker said.

Parker will stay in Houston as CEO of the Victory Fund and Institute, but plans to travel often for the organizations, and will regularly be in D.C. Her tenure as CEO begins Monday.

Read the full interview here:

Washington Blade: We’ve seen a lot of success with LGBT candidates in 2017, particularly with the transgender wins in local races. How do you plan on building on that success going forward?

Annise Parker: Being successful in political campaigns starts with the candidate, so we are just as proud of the turnouts for our candidate training, the expressions of interest from candidates all over the country in running out and seeking Victory Fund support, so continuing to tap into the passion that people have right now and helping channel that into the campaigns.

But it’s not just about having candidates, it’s about making sure that those candidates are funded and the Victory Fund does a great job of vetting candidates. You have to have a good candidate, but passion’s not enough. You have to demonstrate their viability, and their ability to be successful. And so, that process is an important piece.

But then, once you have the right candidate in right race, it’s about making sure they have the resources and I know a lot of what I’ll be focused on, as the board does, is making sure that our candidates have the funding they need.

What I’ve seen over this — not quite a year — now, but through 2017 is the energy across the country. LGBT candidates, candidates of color, candidates who are women who are stepping up saying, “Enough is enough.” I want to make a difference and I’m going to jump into races, and they’re not discouraged at all by the idea that it’s an uphill battle, or that from an objective perspective, doesn’t look like they can win there.

They’re in it to win, but they’re not afraid of losing. They want to get out there and make statements. It’s a great time to come and tap into that kind of energy.

So we’re going to do that, but the fundamentals of Victory Fund haven’t changed in a very long time.

Blade: I wanted to ask you about that because I know you talked in your speech about how hard it was to be part of an organization in 1975 compared to 2017.

Parker: Different and it’s not different.

We have made tremendous progress, but if you look at when I was an activist in the 70s and 80s, I used to debate homophobes all the time, and they used to talk about the gay agenda. Remember the gay agenda? And I used to laugh and say there was no gay agenda.

Over time, I finally realized that there was a gay agenda, and the gay agenda is fairly straight forward. We want to be able to go to school without being bullied, we want to be to work at jobs we love and earn a paycheck so we can pay taxes to this country, we want to be able to serve openly in the military, we want to be able to walk down any street in America in safety, we want to be able to marry the people we love, we want to be able to adopt and raise children. That’s the GLBT agenda.

Many of those things we have achieved, but what we see now is how easily they can be swept away when we have the wrong person in the White House and the wrong attitude in Congress. So we made progress, but we can take this giant step back if we don’t keep our eyes focused on moving forward.

Blade: But what I wanted to get at there is do you think it’s simply enough for candidates to be out about their sexual orientation and gender identity, or is there something more that’s needed in 2017 in order to make an impact?

Parker: Yes and no.

It’s not enough to be a gay candidate. You have to be good at what you do. We have high expectations for our candidates, and that’s why we vet them, it’s why we look closely at their viability and the races they’re in. Not everybody who seeks a Victory Fund endorsement gets that Victory Fund endorsement.

But are we sending them out to be activists? No. We are sending them out to be who they are and represent their constituents and do the job they’ve been elected to do because when they do that, they make the really profound changes that we need to see that have been so transformative in America.

This latest anti-trans movement really, I think, unfortunately, wasn’t launched in Houston, but our HERO campaign [the 2015 campaign to preserve the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance] was where it really flowered. We had right-wing groups from all over the country, pouring money and resources in Houston. We had the right-wing ideologues coming through, the Mike Huckabees and Ted Cruzes coming though Houston and doing trans-bashing in Houston, and then they took it on the road to North Carolina and back to Texas with the statewide bathroom bill.

The difference in my more than 40 years of activism: No one in America can say they know no person who is gay or lesbian. Whether it’s simply they say, “Well, I know Ellen on TV,” whatever it is, they know someone, and very, very few people in America today can say they don’t know anyone, either in their family or their community who is gay.

But for too many Americans, transgender issues are unknown. They don’t know someone who is transgender; they don’t understand what the issues are, and they make them the other. And a lot of what we’re seeing is the arguments are the same arguments they used against us — us meaning the gay and lesbian part of the LGBT community — against the transgender community. Today, it’s the same arguments just slightly repackaged, but it’s all about taking something that is unknown and that you can create a fear around it and use it for either for political purposes or economic purposes.

And so, what is going to be so powerful, just as it took us a long time to get there for the gay and lesbian community, but this is a different era, and I think we’re going to make much faster progress, but what it’s going to take is our transgender brothers and sisters to get out there and speak for themselves, to go out as candidates and raise awareness.

And again, they don’t have to carry the flag for the community. They have to be out and they have to do a good job, and that’s what changes hearts and minds.

 Blade: Let’s talk about the Victory Institute. Where do you envision that going as an organization, particularly the robust international program?

Parker: I started by saying the focus is on the candidates. We can’t win races if you don’t have the candidates, and that is the Victory Institute.

But we all understand we can turn this negative tide that’s coming out of Washington, we can firmly secure our rights here in America and we have to realize that agenda that I outlined, that still has to be won in all of these other countries around the world, and that we have a responsibility from our positions of relative privilege to make sure to support people who are doing the seminal work in those countries. It’s not about America; it’s about the LGBT community.

And some of the most horrific problems are going on in other places. When I was mayor of Houston, Houston has a huge international focus and I did a lot of trade missions. And everywhere I went, I made a practice of meeting with local LGBT leaders and women’s organizations, so I have met with lesbians in South Africa and transgender women in Indonesia, India and Brazil.

The tip of the spear right now is transgender issues. Their courage particularly in countries where it’s not — they’re not worried about walking down the street and having someone say something rude to them, they’re worried about walking down the street and having someone kill them. And we have to make sure that we stand together with them.

 

Blade: The anti-LGBT policies of the Trump administration are ongoing. To what extent will the Victory Fund and the Institute tackle that?

Parker: As an organization, our focus is on supporting candidates, but we are advocates for LGBT rights and issues, so with the other organizations in this space, we’ll stand up whenever we feel it’s necessary, but we also believe that the best way to blunt that — because it’s clear that simply standing up and speaking out against President Trump doesn’t have any impact, the best way to blunt his ability to hurt us is to put people in office who can vote against his anti-gay policies.

What I’ve seen over the last year, I actually did some extensive polling in Houston for other purposes, people in an odd way, they see Trump as a one-off. Trump is not the embodiment of the Republican Party for a lot of people. I know we like to think that that’s the case, those of us who are Democrats probably think that’s the case and we’re going to use that to demonize him, which doesn’t take much work, and use that to run. It’s not enough.

He’s Donald Trump, and there’s a core following that he has, but for most Americans, whether they love him or hate him, he’s over there, he’s a one-off, and it doesn’t translate into other down-ballot races.

 

Blade: That’s kind of what I wanted to get at with your vision for the Victory Fund and Institute. Would you say that they’re progressive organizations, or do they seek to advance LGBT people, LGBT rights regardless of political affiliation or ideology?

Parker: So that’s a really interesting question.

It’s clear that Aisha Moodie-Mills is very much a part of the progressive movement. I like to consider myself there as well, but as an organization our focus is completely bipartisan and it is about finding capable, qualified LGBT candidates, helping them get elected.

Now, capable and qualified, someone who’s LGBT but is ashamed of it, someone who’s LGBT and actively supports anti-gay legislative initiatives, we would not support that kind of candidate. So does that make us a progressive organization?

We also build alliances. Many of our candidates are pro-choice, they have progressive political agendas and they build coalitions in order to get elected. It’s not as if there’s any place in America — well, maybe West Hollywood, who knows — where we are a majority, so it requires us to build coalitions.

And our LGBT candidates are masters of putting together strong coalitions across racial and ethnic lines, with labor, with environmental organizations and voters in order to put a winning package together, so by that definition, we are absolutely a progressive organization, but that’s not our focus.

 

Blade: Would you say you’d have a different approach than Aisha going forward, or is it building off what she did?

Parker: I think we have to reflect what’s happening in the world around us as an organization. I’m a generation of activists older than she. I have children older than she is — adopted children, children nonetheless — and I bring a different mindset.

I was an activist in the 70s and I have seen the changes and sort of the arc of our history. I bring a different energy, I bring a different focus. My focus is on the candidate, but that doesn’t mean that anything we’ve done has been wrong or misplaced or inappropriate. We just bring different styles and interests, and as I said, we have to have coalitions to get elected. Maybe someday the right will offer us opportunities for coalition building, but today all of our coalitions are going to be on the left and in progressive communities because the right has become so virulently anti-gay.

There are gay elected officials here who are Republicans and so stand up proudly within their party and never waver on our issues, and we need more of that.

Annise Parker, gay news, Washington Blade

Annise Parker (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Blade: In the past, the Victory Institute has sought to appoint LGBT people to the U.S. government. Will the Victory Institute continue that within the Trump administration? I’m aware of four Trump appointees who are LGBT. Would the Victory Institute support them?

Parker: Our goal is to put people into office where they can make a difference. It’s not very fertile ground to plow, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to try to plow it.

Blade: And will you continue to support Republican candidates who are LGBT?

Parker: Yes. But they have to, obviously, support, as I have outlined, the LGBT agenda.

It’s not about political party, it’s about making sure we have candidates who can advocate, or just being present. There are times when I was in office in the 18 years that I was in office that I had to stand up and articulate LGBT issues, but I think I was just as effective those times when I was simply there with my wife and making sure that they had to deal with me on human basis.

And if you talk to the office holders in the room, you’ll find out that they all have those kinds of stories where they’ve managed to change the trajectory of a bill or made inroads in some way simply because they were there and fully present in all aspects of their life.

Blade: Let’s talk about the approach to the candidates Victory Fund endorses. I think one big issue, and you talked about this in your speech, is religious freedom and the tension that has with LGBT rights, rightly or wrongly.

Parker: No one has a right to discriminate against me. I mean, that’s what RFRA bills are. The right to discriminate. If you are given the right to discriminate against me because I’m gay or because I’m transgender, why is that any different from you having to discriminate against someone who happens to be black or who happens to be a religion you don’t agree with. We have to fight against these bills.

Blade: But what would be your advice to candidates who are confronted with this? I remember when you were mayor of Houston, this became an issue with the subpoena of the sermons and there was this big argument that was infringing upon these pastors’ religious liberty.

Parker: There was a big argument. It happened without me knowing about it. I didn’t think it was wrong, but I rescinded it simply because it created too much of a peripheral issue. But that had to do with litigation around HERO. It wasn’t anything to do with RFRA or the ability to discriminate. That actually was around the litigation.

Blade: But what would be your advice to candidates who are confronted by those who say your views are an assault on religious liberty?

Parker: We are all Americans, and one of the bedrock values of America is that we treat each other fairly and decently and that everyone should be afforded the full rights of being an American.

We have fought wars against people who targeted minority populations. In World War II, millions of Americans died to fight an enemy that was specifically targeting Jews, Gypsies and LGBT people. It is fundamentally un-American. It took us a long time to get it right. We had to go through segregation, but it is fundamentally un-American to say I don’t like you, I’m not going to serve you. Once you allow someone to do that, it’s impossible to draw the line again.

Blade: One other thing I wanted to ask you about, we mentioned the Trump administration, I’m very curious as to what your take is on the massive hurricanes we had in recent months and Houston was devastated by Hurricane Harvey. How would you evaluate the administration’s handling of the response?

Parker: And I had a great deal of fun with Ann Coulter and my hurricane weather control abilities.

His response to the hurricane?

Blade: How would you evaluate that?

Parker: Inadequate across the board, but mediocre in Texas and in Florida and absolutely embarrassing in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Blade: Why do you think there’s that discrepancy?

Parker: I think it’s all about his voting base. In Texas we’re also fighting against an incompetent state government that is not fully funding the recovery.

And this is my opinion. I’m not going to speak for the Victory Fund here because this is far afield of that. But having been an elected official at the local level, the Bush 43 administration learned after Katrina, and the Obama administration absolutely, Texas, Republican leadership, Rick Perry — I had a great working relationship with Rick Perry — they understood what was needed to recover from those kinds of storms, and you saw that in Sandy.

Now I think we have an administration that fundamentally doesn’t understand the role of the federal government in disaster recovery, doesn’t want to spend money on people who aren’t part of the president’s voting base and have had a tremendous amount of turnover in those positions, so actually have lost the expertise to know what to do, so it’s a three-fer, and it’s causing tremendous problems.

Texas voted for Trump.

Blade: Houston did not, though.

Parker: Houston did not. The big cities across Texas are all Democratic islands in a big, red sea, but Texas voted for Trump. 20 percent of the refining capacity is in Houston or just on the border of the city of Houston. You would think from a strategic standpoint that he’d be focusing on making sure that there’s a complete recovery across the energy industry base down there, but it’s not happening.

And Puerto Rico? They don’t vote. It’s an afterthought.

Blade: I want to go back to Texas and talk about Pigeon v. Turner. [A case in which the Texas Supreme Court questioned whether the Obergefell ruling guarantees same-sex spousal to city employees. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the decision of the Texas Supreme Court, which remanded its findings to lower state court.]

Parker: Actually, it was Piegon v. Parker. It’s referred to both ways, but yeah.

Blade: You mentioned that in your speech. How concerned are you about that litigation?

Parker: When you track what happened, the state Supreme Court refused to intervene, and then the lieutenant governor of the state of Texas, the governor and the right-wing leaders across the state put pressure on the elected state Supreme Court, and they re-evaluated and then sent it back down to the appellate court.

It’s transparent to everybody in the state that they bowed to political pressure. That said, the argument being made by the right is that the Supreme Court says you can have marriage, but you can’t have benefits. There’s no right to benefits. Well, that’s absurd. Ultimately, if we get all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, they’ll straighten it out.

But from a practical standpoint, even if we lose Pigeon v. Parker, Pigeon v. Turner, even if the city of Houston loses, there’s no impact because the mayor of Houston is going to continue to offer benefits. They possibly have a pyrrhic victory which says no you don’t have to offer benefits, and well say, no, we don’t have to offer them but we’re going to. Mayor Turner’s clear on that and we’ll go forward.

But I have no faith in the Texas Supreme Court. In fact, we have several really great candidates running statewide. One of our LGBT candidates is a local elected judge who’s running for the state Supreme Court for precisely this reason, that they are making these kinds of political decisions. But there’ll be no practical impact from it.

Blade: My last question is as someone how has been part of the movement for so many years, how would you evaluate the LGBT movement now? Is it stronger than it was, or is it more anemic?

Parker: Yes and no.

It’s stronger in the sense there’s so many more people, it’s broader and deeper and it’s really reflective of the vast diversity of our community across America, but it’s weaker in only one sense. And that is that we have made gains and there a lot of folks who felt we can lay our burden down, no, we got this, it’s going to go in the right direction, I can go do other things, I don’t have to show up and vote every time, I don’t have to send money to all these organizations, I don’t have to protest or write letters or do this. Yes you do.

So on the whole it is much stronger, but it’s different and the issues evolve, and how we have to address those issues evolved. And I’ll just close with we had a vote on Houston’s non-discrimination ordinance.

And to be clear, because the media gets this wrong all the time, we had no non-discrimination ordinance. We didn’t decide to add gender identity and sexual orientation. We had zero ordinance. So we wrote a comprehensive ordinance that included everybody, and when the citizens of Houston voted it down, we don’t have an ordinance that protects black people in Houston.

Everything about the anti-HERO vote was about men in women’s bathrooms, but what was interesting is the average age of voters was 68 years old. If the average age of voter in the city of Houston election had been 50, we would have won. If the average age of voter had been 35, they would have laughed it off the ballot.

I think we’re going to win the war. In fact, we’ve already won the war, but we lose a lot of battles between now and then, and we can’t take our foot off the pedal. All of the things we’ve been doing for the last 45 years since Stonewall basically throwing ourselves into the political process, showing up, voting, protesting when necessary, we still have to keep doing it.

It’s extremely frustrating, the HERO vote because of the low turnout. And young people, you absolutely got it, but they have to vote.

Note: This interview has been edited for length.

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National

Biden, other administration officials mark Transgender Day of Remembrance

‘Epidemic of violence towards transgender people’

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(Bigstock photo)

Democratic officials marked Transgender Day of Remembrance, which took place on Wednesday, honoring the lives lost to anti-trans violence and calling out rising anti-trans rhetoric and discrimination.

President Joe Biden in a statement said “we mourn the transgender Americans whose lives were taken this year in horrific acts of violence.”

“There should be no place for hate in America — and yet too many transgender Americans, including young people, are cruelly targeted and face harassment simply for being themselves. It’s wrong,” he said. “Every American deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, and to live free from discrimination. Today, we recommit ourselves to building a country where everyone is afforded that promise.”

U.S. Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), and Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.), as well as U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), all members of the Congressional Equality Caucus, introduced a bicameral resolution commemorating the Transgender Day of Remembrance and “recognizing the epidemic of violence toward transgender people and memorializing the lives lost this year.” 

“As anti-transgender rhetoric and legislation has increased in the United States over recent years, unfortunately so has anti-transgender violence,” Jayapal said in a statement announcing the resolution. “On Transgender Day of Remembrance, this resolution stands as a symbol of the strength and resilience of the trans community and honors the lives of the trans people we have lost to horrific violence.”

Jacobs also addressed President-elect Donald Trump’s anti-trans rhetoric. 

“Donald Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-trans agenda will likely fuel this anxiety and violence against queer communities,” Jacobs said. “That makes this year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance even more important. Our bicameral resolution is a powerful reminder that anti-trans rhetoric can cost lives.”

A report by the Human Rights Campaign documenting anti-trans violence found at least 36 trans and gender-expansive people in the U.S. lost their lives to violence since last year.

Transgender Day of Remembrance was founded in 1999 by trans activist Gwendolyn Ann Smith to commemorate the one year anniversary of the murder of Rita Hester, a trans woman who was killed in Boston. The day has since grown into a national and international event.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a statement honored Transgender Day of Remembrance. 

“Transgender individuals exist in every country, every culture, and every faith tradition,” he said. “ The United States recognizes Transgender Day of Remembrance to affirm the dignity and human rights of transgender persons globally.” 

In a post on X, U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) wrote, “On this Transgender Day of Remembrance, we honor the trans and nonbinary lives lost to violence simply for being who they are. Every American deserves to live their truth and feel safe doing so. Hate has no place here.”

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield noted the Biden-Harris administration’s advocacy for the trans community, which has included issuing a policy that prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation under the Title IX federal civil rights law this year. 

“On Transgender Day of Remembrance, we reaffirm there is no place for hate in America. The Biden-Harris Administration is proud to advocate for the safety of transgender and all LGBTQI+ Americans, including at the UN,” she said in a post on X. 

Victor Madrigal-Borloz, a former independent UN expert on LGBTQ+ and intersex rights, also on X, said trans people’s human rights are questioned “for reasons that have nothing to do with them and a lot with bigotry.”

“Support them actively,” he urged.

Xavier Becerra, the secretary of health and human services, seemingly mixed up the day that was being observed, releasing a statement mistakenly commemorating Transgender Day of Visibility, which takes place on March 31. 

“We fight so that trans Americans can go to the doctor and receive the same treatment as any other patient … so that they feel welcomed at school and in their community for who they are,” Becerra said. 

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, issued a proclamation recognizing Transgender Day of Remembrance, continuing the precedent he set last year as the first Maryland governor to issue such a proclamation. 

Moore in May signed into law a bill that added gender-affirming care to Maryland’s definition of legally protected health care, affirming its status as a sanctuary state for trans people and their healthcare providers. 

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National

Reports of hate-filled messages under investigation

Racist, homophobic, messages reported across the U.S. following presidential election

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Canva graphic by Gisselle Palomera

On Friday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation stated they are now investigating a series of racist and offensive messages sent to LGBTQ+ communities and communities of color around the country. At first, text messages were targeted at Black Americans and African Americans, then the wave of hateful digital rhetoric spread to target the LGBTQ+ and Latin American communities. 

Earlier this month, the initial text messages were sent out to Black American and African American people regarding a fake work assignment that suggested they were going to be working as slaves in a plantation. College students, high school students, professionals and even children, reported receiving the mass texts from unrecognized phone numbers following the presidential election. 

Since then, at least 30 states throughout the nation have reported cases of similar messages containing hate-filled speech, according to CNN. 

According to the report issued by the FBI, the texts and emails that target the LGBTQ+ and Latin American communities stated that the receivers of these messages were selected for deportation or to report to re-education camps. 

The Federal Communications Commission’s enforcement bureau is investigating the text messages. Chair Jessica Rosenworcel issued a statement regarding the texts. 

“These messages are unacceptable,” said Rosenworcel. “That’s why our Enforcement Bureau is already investigating and looking into them alongside federal and state law enforcement. We take this type of targeting very seriously.”

The FBI reports that though they have not received reports of violence related to the messages, they are working with the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, to evaluate all reported incidents across the U.S. 

Last year, the Leadership Conference Education Fund launched a report stating that hate crimes increase during elections, pointing to white supremacists being particularly active during the past four presidential election cycles.

A portion of the report reads: “The Trump candidacy empowered white nationalists and provided them with a platform — one they had been seeking with renewed intensity since the historic election of America’s first Black president in 2008. Since 2015, communities across the country have experienced some of the most violent and deadliest years for hate in modern history.”

If you have received a similar text or email, you can report it here.

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Federal Government

House races could decide Department of Education’s future

Second Trump administration could target transgender students

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The Lyndon Baines Johnson Building, Washington D.C., headquarters of the U.S. Department of Education (Photo Credit: GSA/U.S. Dept. of Education)

The Associated Press reports that more than a dozen races for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, including 10 for congressional districts in California, remain too close to call as of Tuesday — a full week after voters cast their ballots on Nov. 5.

Democrats hope that if they can flip the lower chamber, which is now governed by a narrow Republican majority, it might function as a bulwark against President-elect Donald Trump, his incoming administration, and the 53-47 majority in the U.S. Senate that his party secured last week.

If, on the other hand, the GOP retains control of the House, the Republican victory would clear a major roadblock that could otherwise have stymied a major plank of Trump’s education agenda: Plans to permanently shutter the U.S. Department of Education.

Congress ultimately scuttled the former president’s effort to do so during his first administration — though, technically, the proposal then was to merge the agency with the U.S. Department of Labor.

The Wall Street Journal notes that some Republicans, at the time and in the years since, have come out against plans to abolish the 44-year-old agency, in some cases even objecting to major funding cuts proposed by Trump that they understood were likely be unpopular.

However, if the second term plans for DOE as delineated in the Trump campaign’s Agenda47 and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 governing blueprint become a major policy priority once the incoming administration takes over in January, reluctant Republican lawmakers will face tremendous pressure to get out of Trump’s way.

Federal government will remain in schools to advance anti-trans, anti-woke agenda

Among other responsibilities, DOE disburses and manages student loans, enforces the civil rights laws in public schools, and provides funding for students with disabilities. The agency’s programs, such as Title I, offer assistance for low-achieving or high-poverty K-12 schools, while Pell Grants help undergraduates who otherwise would not be able to pay for college.

It is unclear whether or how those functions will continue if the DOE is disbanded.

Trump’s aim, at least in large part, is to give states — rather than the federal government — the ultimate say over how their schools are run. At the same time, perhaps paradoxically, the other cornerstone of his education policy agenda is to issue proscriptive rules governing the content, curricula, and classroom discussion that will be permitted in the country’s public schools.

Specifically, this means “critical race theory, gender ideology or other inappropriate racial, sexual or political” topics or materials are forbidden. Reasonable people are likely to disagree about what is and is not “inappropriate,” and they may well have different, even disparate, definitions for terms like “gender ideology.”

When Florida and other states enacted similar anti-LGBTQ content and curricular restrictions in their public schools, critics warned the ambiguous language in the statute and the resulting confusion would lead to censorship, or perhaps self-censorship, especially for students and staff who, by virtue of their skin color or sexual orientation or gender identity, are more likely to be targeted with targeted or overzealous enforcement in the first place.

DOE plays major role investigating alleged civil rights violations in schools

According to the National Education Association, “federal civil rights laws prohibit school boards and other employers from discriminating against or harassing staff or students based on their sexual orientation or gender identity,” which “means, for example, that a school district may not prohibit only LGBTQ+ educators from answering students’ questions about their families, may not prohibit recognition and discussion in class only of LGBTQ+ families, and may not require that only LGBTQ+ students hide their sexual orientation or gender identity at school.”

However, the NEA warns, “some school districts, administrators, and the Florida Department of Education may nonetheless choose to do so until a court orders otherwise.”

If officials at a public high school allow heterosexual teachers to display family photos in their classrooms but warn the openly gay teacher that he must put his away or be terminated for violating restrictions on in-school discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity, the manner in which the policy was enforced against him would presumably run afoul of the federal civil rights laws, which prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The teacher could assume the expense of hiring an attorney to pursue legal remedies, shouldering the burden and the risk that litigation that could drag on for months and conclude with a judgment in favor of his employer. Alternatively, until or unless Trump dissolves the agency, he could file a complaint with DOE’s Office of Civil Rights.

Alternatively, until or unless Trump dissolves the agency, the teacher could file a complaint with DOE. The agency’s Office of Civil Rights would evaluate the information he shared to determine whether there were sufficient grounds to open an investigation and, if so, would deploy “a variety of fact-finding techniques” that can include a review of documentary evidence submitted by both parties, interviews with key witnesses, and site visits.

After the investigation is complete, if a “preponderance of the evidence supports a conclusion that the recipient failed to comply with the law,” OCR will attempt to negotiate a resolution agreement. If the recipient refuses to resolve the matter in this manner, OCR can “suspend, terminate, or refuse to grant or continue federal financial assistance to the recipient, or may refer the case to the Department of Justice.”

According to the DOE’s website, the agency has 11,782 investigations that were open as of Tuesday, with complaints against institutions of all kinds operating in all 50 states, from rural elementary schools in the Deep South to prestigious medical schools, community colleges, and charter schools for students with developmental disabilities. Likewise, the six civil rights laws over which OCR has jurisdiction cover a wide range of conduct, from sexual harassment to discrimination, retaliation, and single-sex athletics scholarships.

Should Trump succeed in abolishing the department, it is not yet clear how those active investigations will be handled, nor how complaints about violations of civil rights law by educational institutions would be reported and investigated moving forward in the agency’s absence.

During his first administration, Trump passed proposed changes to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which retooled the process for reporting sexual assault on college campuses in ways that were widely seen as imbalanced in favor of the accused.

President Joe Biden in April issued new guidelines that featured “significant shifts in how institutions address sexual harassment, and assault allegations while expanding protections for LGBTQ+ and pregnant students,” the American Council on Education wrote. Specifically, the administration provided a “new definition of sexual harassment, extending jurisdiction to off-campus, and international incidents,” while “clarifying protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, and parenting status.”

The regulations sidestepped thornier questions, however, about how schools should approach issues at the intersection of gender identity and competitive sports, specifying only that they should avoid bans that would categorically prohibit transgender athletes from participating.

Shortly after the Biden administration’s guidelines were introduced, Trump vowed they would be “terminated” on his first day in office. He also pledged to enact anti-trans policies that appear to have been modeled after some of the most extreme of the roughly 1,600 anti-trans bills that conservative statehouses have proposed from 2021-2024.

Among other promises Trump made during the campaign were plans to enact a nationwide ban on trans student athletes competing in accordance with their gender identity, a federal law that would recognize only two genders, and the prosecution of health care providers who administer gender affirming care to patients younger than 18.

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Trump refers to Anderson Cooper as ‘Allison’

Crude insults continue in effort to attract male voters

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Donald Trump is referring to CNN’s Anderson Cooper as ‘Allison.’

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump referred repeatedly over the weekend to CNN’s Anderson Cooper as “Allison Cooper.”

Cooper, one of the nation’s most prominent openly gay television anchors, moderated a town hall last week with Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump last Friday called Anderson “Allison” in a social media post, then used the moniker again at a Michigan rally.

“If you watched her being interviewed by Allison Cooper the other night, he’s a nice person. You know Allison Cooper? CNN fake news,” Trump said, before adding, “Oh, she said no, his name is Anderson. Oh, no.”

Trump repeated the name during another Michigan rally on Saturday, according to the Associated Pres, then followed it up during a reference in Pennsylvania. “They had a town hall,” Trump said in Michigan. “Even Allison Cooper was embarrassed by it. He was embarrassed by it.”

Describing Anderson Cooper as female plays into offensive and stereotypical depictions of gay men as effeminate as Trump continues to pursue the so-called “bro vote,” amping up crude and vulgar displays in an effort to appeal to male voters.

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National

HRC rallies LGBTQ voters in 12 states ahead of Election Day

10 Days of Action campaign targets pro-equality candidate

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Human Rights Campaign headquarters in D.C. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The Human Rights Campaign said it filled 1,426 new volunteer shifts and held 174 events across key swing states between Oct. 10-20 as part of its 10 Days of Action campaign. 

The LGBTQ civil rights advocacy group is working to mobilize and turn out voters in support of pro-equality and LGBTQ candidates, including the Harris-Walz ticket, on Election Day.

HRC reported exceeding its recruitment goals, noting the strong response across the 12 states as a “clear and resounding message” that LGBTQ and allied voters are energized to back the Harris-Walz ticket. 

To kick off the 10 Days of Action, Gwen Walz, the spouse of Minnesota governor and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, spoke at a Philadelphia event that HRC and the Out for Harris-Walz coalition hosted on Oct. 10.

Walz highlighted her husband’s long-standing support for LGBTQ issues, such as his role in fighting to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in Congress and banning so-called conversion therapy as governor, according to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star

Other events launched canvassing efforts for Senate candidates, such as U.S. Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.), along with House candidates, such as Will Rollins and Mondaire Jones in California and New York respectively. 

A virtual organizing call on Oct. 11 that the Out for Harris-Walz coalition hosted featured prominent figures, including actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Andy Cohen, U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), and Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride, who is running for Congress.

To close out the 10 Days of Action, HRC President Kelley Robinson canvassed with LGBTQ organizers in Phoenix on Oct. 20. 

In a statement, Robinson said the campaign’s work is “far from over.”

“We plan to spend every day until the election making sure everyone we know is registered to vote and has a plan to vote because no one is going to give us the future we deserve — we have to fight for it and show America that when we show up, equality wins,” she said. “Together, we will elect pro-equality leaders like Vice President Harris and Governor Walz who value our communities and are ready to lead us forward with more freedom and opportunity.”

A September HRC poll found that LGBTQ voters favor Kamala Harris over Donald Trump in the presidential race by a nearly 67-point margin.

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National

73 percent of LGBTQ community centers face harassment: Report

Findings show threats triggered by ‘anti-LGBTQ politics or rhetoric’

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(Washington Blade photo by Daniel Truitt)

The biennial 2024 LGBTQ Community Center Survey Report, which was released Oct. 16, shows that 73 percent of 199 U.S.-based LGBTQ community centers that participated in the survey reported they had experienced anti-LGBTQ threats or harassment during the past two years.

The survey, which included LGBTQ centers in 42 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, is prepared by the Fort Lauderdale-based CenterLink, which provides services and support for LGBTQ community centers; and the Boulder, Colo.-based Movement Advancement Project (MAP), a research organization that focuses on social justice issues impacting the LGBTQ community.

“The biennial survey series started in 2008 and highlights the crucial role these centers play in the broader LGBTQ movement, offering an invaluable link between LGBTQ people and local, state, and national efforts to advance LGBTQ equality,” a statement released by the two organizations says.

The statement and the findings in the report point out that most of the LGBTQ centers that faced anti-LGBTQ threats or harassment said they were triggered by “anti-LGBTQ politics and rhetoric” that has surfaced across the country in the past several years.

“As attacks on LGBTQ people escalate year after year, we applaud these centers’ ongoing dedication to serving on the front lines – meeting both the immediate and long-term needs of LGBTQ people, their families, and their communities across the country,” Tessa Juste, a Movement Advancement Project official, said in the statement.

“This report illustrates the vital difference these centers make in people’s everyday lives, while also highlighting the urgent need for continued funding and support of these centers and the lifelines they provide,” Juste said.

“A majority of centers said they had experienced these threats or harassment offline (63 percent of centers) as well as online (68 percent),” the report states. “Almost half of centers (47 percent) said they had experienced both online and offline harassment in the past two years,” the report says.

“Numerous centers mentioned in open-ended comments that these threats or harassment were specifically in response to anti-LGBTQ politics or rhetoric (77 percent), transgender-related events or programs (50 percent), and youth-related programming (42 percent), again reflecting the current political environment and its targeted attacks on LGBTQ and specifically transgender youth,” according to the report.

Although the report lists in its appendix the names of each of the 199 LGBTQ community centers that participated in the survey, it does not disclose the names and locations of the LGBTQ centers that reported receiving threats or harassment.

Dana Juniel, director of communications for the Movement Advancement Project, told the Washington Blade in a statement that the two organizations that conducted the survey have a policy of not disclosing the centers’ responses to specific questions in the survey.

“Not identifying the specific centers has been our policy since the inception of this report and it is a typical policy for this type of report,” Juniel said. “It’s important to understand that the goal of the survey is to better understand the landscape and capacity of the movement as a whole, not to identify gaps or challenges for specific organizations,” she said.

The report shows that among the LGBTQ community centers that participated in the 2023-2024 survey were the D.C. Center for the LGBTQ Community; the D.C. LGBTQ youth advocacy group SMYAL, which the report lists as an LGBTQ center; the Delmarva Pride Center in Easton, Md.; the Frederick Center in Frederick, Md.; the CAMP Rehoboth LGBTQ center in Rehoboth Beach, Del.; the Sussex Pride center also  in Delaware; and LGBTQ centers in Virginia based in the cities of Richmond, Norfolk, Winchester, Oakton, and Staunton.

Spokespersons for the D.C. Center and CAMP Rehoboth did not immediately respond to a Blade inquiry on whether they were among the centers that experienced threats or harassment. Sussex Pride Executive Director David Mariner told the Blade that his center was among those that had not received anti-LGBTQ threats or harassment in the past two years.

The Blade reported in August of this year that D.C. police were investigating threats made against SMYAL following the publication of an article criticizing SMYAL’s programs supporting LGBTQ youth in the conservative online publication Townhall.com. A D.C. police report said the threats were reported by SMYAL Executive Director Erin Whelan.

The statement released by CenterLink and Movement Advancement Project also points out that the LGBTQ center survey shows LGBTQ community centers in the U.S. serve more than 58,700 people each week, or three million people each year, “with many centers primarily serving people and communities that are historically under-resourced and under-served, including low-income, people of color, transgender people, and those under the age of 18.”

Denise Spivak, CEO of CenterLink, says in the joint statement that the report “is a crucial guidepost for us to see the positive impact of LGBTQ centers across the U.S. as well as what areas need additional resources.” She added, “As we celebrate our 30th anniversary, this report makes clear the importance of LGBTQ centers in our communities.”

Among other things, the report includes these findings:

• 66 percent of LGBTQ community centers directly provide physical health, mental health, and/or anti-violence services or programs

• Half of the centers (50 percent) offer computer resources or services to the public, providing needed tools for job searching, career development, social services, and schoolwork.

• Nearly all centers (92 percent) engage in advocacy, public policy, or civic engagement activities across a wide range of issues and areas.

• While nearly half of all centers remain thinly staffed, 84 percent of responding centers employ paid staff, providing jobs to 3,100 people.

• In 2023, roughly 11,600 people volunteered more than 421,000 hours at responding community centers, helping centers with and without paid staff to significantly expand their reach and impact.

The 2024 LGBTQ Community Center Survey Report can be accessed here.

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Federal Government

Pentagon gives honorable discharges to 800+ LGBTQ+ veterans

Administration has committed to remedying harms of anti-LGBTQ military policies

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Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (screen capture/YouTube/CNN)

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday announced the Pentagon has upgraded the paperwork of more than 800 veterans who were discharged other than honorably before discriminatory policies like “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” were repealed.

“More than 96 percent of the individuals who were administratively separated under DADT and who served for long enough to receive a merit-based characterization of service now have an honorable characterization of service,” said Christa Specht, director of legal policy at the department’s Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.

The change will allow veterans to access benefits they had been denied, in areas from health care and college tuition assistance to VA loan programs and some jobs.

Separately, this summer President Joe Biden issued pardons to service members who had been convicted for sodomy before military laws criminalizing same-sex intimacy were lifted.

More than a decade after the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the administration has made a priority of helping LGBTQ+ veterans who are eligible to upgrade their discharge papers, directing the department to help them overcome bureaucratic barriers and difficult-to-navigate processes.

However, as noted by CBS News, which documented the challenges faced by these former service members in a comprehensive investigation published last year, these efforts are ongoing.

The department is continuing to review cases beyond the 800+ included in Tuesday’s announcement, with an official telling CBS, “We encourage all veterans who believe they have suffered an error or injustice to request a correction to their military records.” 

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National

Detroit teen arrested in fatal stabbing of gay man

Prosecutor says defendant targeted victim from online dating app

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Officials say Ahmed Al-Alikhan allegedly fatally stabbed Howard Brisendine.

A 17-year-old Detroit man has been charged with first-degree murder for the Sept. 24 stabbing death of a 64-year-old gay man that prosecutors say he met through an online dating app.

A statement released by the Wayne County, Mich., Prosecutor’s Office says Ahmed Al-Alikhan allegedly fatally stabbed Howard Brisendine inside Brisendine’s home in Detroit before he allegedly took the victim’s car keys and stole the car.

The statement says police arrived on the scene about 4:04 p.m. on Sept. 29 after receiving a call about a deceased person found in their home. Upon arrival police found Brisentine deceased in his living room suffering from multiple stab wounds, the statement says.

“It is alleged that the defendant targeted the victim on an online dating app because he was a member of the LGBTQ community,” according to the prosecutor’s statement.

“It is further alleged that on Sept. 24, 2024, at the victim’s residence in the 6000 block of Minock Street in Detroit, the defendant stabbed the victim multiple times, fatally injuring him, before taking the victim’s car keys and fleeing the scene in his vehicle,” it says.

It further states that Al-Alikhan was first taken into custody by police in Dearborn, Mich., and later turned over to the Detroit police on Oct. 1. The statement doesn’t say how police learned that Al-Alikhan was the suspected perpetrator. 

In addition to first-degree murder, Al-Alikhan has been charged with felony murder and unlawful driving away in an automobile.

“It is hard to fathom a more planned series of events in this case,” prosecutor Kym Worthy said in the statement. “Unfortunately, the set of alleged facts are far too common in the LGBTQ community,” Worthy said. “We will bring justice to Mr. Brisendine. The defendant is 17 years and 11 months old – mere weeks away from being an adult offender under the law.”

She added, “As a result of that and the heinous nature of this crime, we will seek to try him as an adult.”

A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office said the office has not designated the incident as a hate crime, but said regardless of that designation, a conviction of first-degree murder could result in a sentence of life in prison. The spokesperson, Maria Lewis, said the prosecutor’s office was not initially disclosing the name of the dating app through which the two men met, but said that would be disclosed in court as the case proceeds.

The NBC affiliate station in Detroit, WDIV TV, reported that Brisendine was found deceased by Luis Mandujano, who lives near where Brisendine lived and who owns the Detroit gay bar Gigi’s, where Brisendine worked as a doorman. The NBC station report says Mandujano said he went to Brisendine’s house on Sept. 29 after Brisendine did not show up for work and his car was not at his house.

Mandujano, who is organizing a GoFundMe fundraising effort for Brisendine, states in his message on the GoFundMe site that Brisendine worked as a beloved doorman at Gigi’s bar.

“We will do what we can to honor Howard’s life as we put him to rest,” Mandujano states in his GoFundMe message. “He left the material world in a volatile manner at the hand of a monster that took his life for being gay. Let’s not allow hate to win!”

In response to a Facebook message from the Washington Blade, a spokesperson for Gigi’s said the money raised from the GoFundMe effort will be used for Brisendine’s funeral expenses and his “remaining bills.” The spokesperson, who didn’t disclose their name, added, “Any leftover money will be donated to local LGBTQ nonprofit groups to combat hate.”

The GoFundMe site can be accessed here.

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Congress

Baldwin attacked over LGBTQ rights support as race narrows

Wis. Democrat facing off against Republican Eric Hovde

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U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

As her race against Republican challenger Eric Hovde tightens, with Cook Political Report projecting a toss-up in November, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) is fielding attacks over her support for LGBTQ rights.

Two recent ads run by the Senate Leadership Fund, a superPAC that works to elect Republicans to the chamber, take aim at her support for gender affirming care and an LGBTQ center in Wisconsin. Baldwin was the first openly LGBTQ candidate elected to the Senate.

The first ad concerns her statement of support for Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’s veto of a Republican-led bill to ban medically necessary healthcare interventions for transgender youth in the state.

Treatments require parental consent for patients younger than 18, and genital surgeries are not performed on minors in Wisconsin.

The second ad concerns funding that Baldwin had earmarked for Briarpatch Youth Services, an organization that provides crucial services for at-risk and homeless young people, with some programming for LGBTQ youth.

Baldwin’s victory is seen as key for Democrats to retain control of the Senate, a tall order that would require them to defend a handful of vulnerable incumbents. U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, an Independent who usually votes with the Democrats, is retiring after this term and his replacement is expected to be the state’s Republican Gov. Jim Justice.

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Supreme Court begins fall term with major gender affirming care case on the docket

Justices rule against Biden admin over emergency abortion question

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The Supreme Court as composed June 30, 2022 to present. Front row, left to right: Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. Back row, left to right: Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Photo Credit: Fred Schilling, The Supreme Court of the U.S.)

The U.S. Supreme Court’s fall term began on Monday with major cases on the docket including U.S. v Skrmetti, which could decide the fate of 24 state laws banning the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors.

First, however, the justices dealt another blow to the Biden-Harris administration and reproductive rights advocates by leaving in place a lower court order that blocked efforts by the federal government to allow hospitals to terminate pregnancies in medical emergencies.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had issued a guidance instructing healthcare providers to offer abortions in such circumstances, per the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which kicked off litigation over whether the law overrides state abortion restrictions.

The U.S. Court of appeals for the 5th Circuit had upheld a decision blocking the federal government from enforcing the law via the HHS guidance, and the U.S. Department of Justice subsequently asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

The justices also declined to hear a free speech case in which parents challenged a DOJ memo instructing officials to look into threats against public school officials, which sparked false claims that parents were being labeled “domestic terrorists” for raising objections at school board meetings over, especially, COVID policies and curricula and educational materials addressing matters of race, sexuality, and gender.

Looking to the cases ahead, U.S. v. Skrmetti is “obviously the blockbuster case of the term,” a Supreme Court practitioner and lecturer at the Harvard law school litigation clinic told NPR.

The attorney, Deepak Gupta, said the litigation “presents fundamental questions about the scope of state power to regulate medical care for minors, and the rights of parents to make medical decisions for your children.”

The ACLU, which represents parties in the case, argues that Tennessee’s gender affirming care ban violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by allowing puberty blockers and hormone treatments for cisgender patients younger than 18 while prohibiting these interventions for their transgender counterparts.

The organization notes that “leading medical experts and organizations — such as the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics — oppose these restrictions, which have already forced thousands of families across the country to travel to maintain access to medical care or watch their child suffer without it.”

When passing their bans on gender affirming care, conservative states have cited the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), which overturned constitutional protections for abortion that were in place since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.

The ACLU notes “U.S. v. Skrmetti will be a major test of how far the court is willing to stretch Dobbs to allow states to ban other health care” including other types of reproductive care like IVF and birth control.

Also on the docket in the months ahead are cases that will decide core questions about the government’s ability to regulate “ghost guns,” firearms that are made with build-it-yourself kits available online, and the constitutionality of a Texas law requiring age verification to access pornography.

The latter case drew opposition from liberal and conservative groups that argue it will have a chilling effect on adults who, as NPR wrote, “would realistically fear extortion, identity theft and even tracking of their habits by the government and others.”

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