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Meet Imani Rupert-Gordon, NCLR’s new leader

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Laughter. Full-throated, hesitancy-clearing, energetic laughter. Thirty seconds into Imani Rupert-Gordon’s inaugural phone interview with the Los Angeles Blade, the new executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights poofs away old ideas of protocol and power differentials and launches into a conversation between two humans living in a shared space.

Kate Kendell, the LGBTQ icon Rupert-Gordon is replacing at the helm of NCLR after Kendell’s 22 years of service, had a similar experience.

“Apart from her substantial resume, experience and gravitas, the thing I most remember when I first met Imani in San Jose was a smile that had a wattage unlike most I had ever seen and an open heartedness that made me feel like we had been friends for years, rather than this being our first meeting,” Kendell tells the Los Angeles Blade. “You cannot teach that kind of openness and generosity of spirit. It is something one either possesses or never gets. And she had it and that quality is one of those intangibles that marks a leader for the ages.”

Rupert-Gordon’s humor and humility are evident immediately, disarming in a context where leadership generally implies an air of assumed arrogance. But her way of being reflects an apparent larger trend in new leadership at other national LGBTQ organizations, where the character derived from lived experience is as important as a resume packed with prestigious degrees and power-punch relationships.

“Do they know that I’m a social worker?” Rupert-Gordon asked when told NCLR’s head-hunters wanted to meet her. “I went into this thinking OK, obviously they’re looking for something different and I said, so I’m just going to talk about where I think the movement is, where I think the movement should go next, and NCLR’s place in that,” she tells the Los Angeles Blade.

“I think what really stood out to them was my understanding of intersectional issues and the way that I look at the movement. I think it probably provided a unique perspective, as well as someone that’s not a lawyer. Something that I’ve been telling people over and over again — they have a lot of lawyers at NCLR and they are at the top of their fields. Perhaps they don’t need another lawyer. I think that they really saw and appreciated my vision. I’ve always been very impressed by the work at NCLR. NCLR was created to be intersectional. That’s something I really value in the movement, and so, I feel really good about moving to this organization.”

Imani Rupert-Gordon with sister Maya Rupert (Photo from Maya Rupert’s Facebook page, Jan. 19, 2017)

In fact, NCLR is kind of a family thing. Rupert-Gordon’s straight sister Maya Rupert, a 2006 graduate of Berkley Law School, joined NCLR in 2010 as federal policy director because of her sister.

“My work for the LGBT community came from my sister and wanting to do something that would be meaningful and impact a number of lives, hers included,” Rupert told Hello Beautiful. “The question that NCLR always asks is who’s being left out of the conversation, so this is an organization that’s specifically being active about being proactive for people who are a part of marginalized communities and so many other issues that we talk about and think about.”

Rupert took that fight against discrimination through an intersectional lens to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development where she became a Senior Policy Advisor to HUD Sec. Julian Castro. She pointed out, for instance, that while the seemingly neutral Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing based on race, color, religion and other categories, it does not include protection for people with a personal criminal background.

Rupert – a widely honored writer with such essays as “Imagining a Black Wonder Woman,” “This ‘cool black girl’ is gone,” and “Nothing defensible about DOMA” –subsequently became Castro’s campaign manager when he announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.

When Rupert-Gordon settles into her new San Francisco-based job next March, she will be leaving Chicago and coming home to California. Born in Bedford Heights, Ohio 40 years ago last April 17, Rupert-Gordon grew up in Yucca Valley.

“My experience was very much in the Joshua Tree, Yucca Valley County where I grew up, went to elementary school and high school,” she says. Upon graduation, she went to school near San Diego until her sister went to UC Santa Barbara. “I transferred to UC Santa Barbara with her by the winter. My sister and I are very, very close,” she says.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, Rupert-Gordon went to the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she worked in residential life for almost eight years, lectured, and cofounded the Social Fiction Conference, which uses science fiction as a lens through which to view bias and injustice.

Though happy there, she started thinking about going to graduate school. “When I was thinking about what it is that I loved, I really enjoyed working with folks as they’re sort of working through things themselves,” something she experienced as a student navigating life without a cohesive bridge between her academic and non-academic worlds.

Rupert-Gordon intended to get her master’s degree in social work through an online program but her then-girlfriend, now wife Derah (38) encouraged her to go to graduate school and have a great experience as she had. Derah promised to move with her to a big city where advertising jobs were more readily available than in Santa Cruz.

Imani Rupert-Gordon with wife Derah Rupert-Gordon (Photo courtesy Rupert-Gordon)

“When there’s this person you want to spend your life with who just wants more for you than you do with yourself in that moment — and that’s how I really thought of that — we went to Chicago,” where she earned her master’s degree from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration.

But upon graduation, Rupert-Gordon found it hard to find a job. She landed at Broadway Youth Center providing therapy to LGBTQ youth. But she grew restless. “I felt like I still had things to give, but I didn’t feel like the things that I had to give were as unique in such a way that no one else could do that,” she says.

Fortuitously, the executive director of Affinity Community Services — the nation’s oldest Black LGBTQ social justice organization — was leaving and encouraged her to take the job. She’s been there for four years.

Now Rupert-Gordon thinks she has something to give the national movement.

“I think that as we’re working to do more inclusive and more intersectional work, that I have something to provide here,” she says. “I’m really excited about working specifically at a law firm where we’re going to be integrating litigation and legislation and policies and public education. I think working to create an integrative approach is something that social workers do often. So, I’m excited to bring that perspective to NCLR.”

That includes frank discussions about social justice issues.

“I’ve experienced overt racism before,” though that experience is not always as relevant to the way she approaches race politics, Rupert-Gordon says. “Overt racism is sometimes easier to confront because most people understand overt racism as racism. For instance, if someone says ‘the N-word,’ most people recognize that as racism.

“What I experienced growing up,” she continues, “is people explaining that ‘You’re not like other Black people, you’re cool,’ or saying something like, ‘You don’t sound Black.’ I knew that these people were trying to compliment me, but it didn’t feel like a compliment. What they were saying hurt and I didn’t always have the language to explain why it hurt.

“Systemic and institutional oppression often requires a more thoughtful and nuanced analysis because not everyone recognizes it as oppression,” Rupert-Gordon says. “I’m interested in the systems in place that support oppression. For example, the G.I. Bill made it possible for folks to really buy homes for the first time, but loans from the FHA were given to people based on race and subsequently the equity in those homes were then attached to race—and that is just one example of how generational economic mobility is attached to race in this country.

“So when people talk about people with low incomes being ‘lazy,’ I’m frustrated because there is something systemic being ignored —and that is not a little thing. That’s a big thing. And that narrative is untrue, and dangerous,” she says. “So when I think of racism, or any oppression, I don’t necessarily think about individual events that happened to me but systematic ways that people experience oppression based on identity. I’m not saying that racism is the exact same as heterosexism or sexism. I’m saying that we are missing something if we don’t think about the institutional, systemic dynamic.”

And, says Rupert-Gordon, “if we don’t consider institutional oppression within the LGBTQ movement, then folks that experience multiple jeopardy or oppression because of multiple parts of our identity, will not be able to fully benefit from the wins of the LGBTQ movement. Our movement has to be intersectional if we are going to achieve equality.”

Rupert-Gordon had to use her own critical thinking to grasp the concept of “intersectionality.”

“It’s an experience I had growing up [in Yucca Valley] that I didn’t have a word for. When I think about my first understanding of intersectionality,” she says, “it was when we were talking about the Constitution,” and the different times Black people and women were given the right to vote. “They had this conversation as if there were no Black people that were women, and I was the only one, and I think that’s how my teacher at the time was just talking about that.

“I remember being incredibly confused — when does that mean that I would be able to vote?” Rupert-Gordon continues. “I just realized that I didn’t know how to ask the question, and I was the only one that would’ve asked the question. I knew that I was the only one that was having this experience.”

Later, she learned the term “intersectional,” a term developed in 1989, that became “really everywhere for me,” and still is.

People under-represented identities are talked about “as if we can segment the parts of our identity and we can talk about it, just one thing,” Rupert-Gordon says. “The thing is — I can’t talk about being a queer person without my experience being a Black woman. All of those things happen together. And so, when the expectation is for me to separate it, that’s not something I can do.” She wants to talk about “how someone can bring their entire self, their entire experience and be represented in this movement.”

But, Rupert-Gordon adds, “representation is important, but representation doesn’t shift cultures. It doesn’t change institutions. It doesn’t shift the power dynamic. And so, it would mean putting the education in schools [and] changing the culture fundamentally,” realizing, for instance, that while history is a mandatory course, Black history is an elective.

“I’m a Black, queer woman. There was definitely a time in the feminist movement that I wasn’t included in that. When we looked back on the first and second waves of feminism, many of us are ashamed that it looked the way that it did, and when we think about being inclusive about what our feminism looks like, we have an opportunity to mention that are learning from the past, and we are including more,” says Rupert-Gordon. “I’m sympathetic when folks explain that they feel like they’re going to be left out of the movement because, the thing is — many of us have been left out of a movement, and we are sometimes just terrified that that will happen again, that we would be ignored in the movement.

Rupert-Gordon is blunt. “There is enough equality to go around, and that’s what I want to make sure that we are paying attention to — that we’re all going to be better when we’re all better,” she says. “Once upon a time, my Blackness made someone question how much of a woman I could be. Any time you’re in a situation where you’re having people question your gender or if you belong somewhere, then that hurts all of us. Our feminism and our movement has to be thoughtful around that.”

The “future core for our movement,” she says, “absolutely has to become a racial justice movement. It has to become an economic justice movement. It has to become a gender justice movement. It doesn’t help when we are working to fight for protection and to provide support and liberation for all LGBTQ folks if people aren’t able to fully access them because they experience racism or they don’t have the economic power to utilize or appreciate what’s happening. We have to work with folks that are at the margins, people that are experiencing discrimination at multiple levels. Because when we start working with folks that are experiencing the most amount of discrimination, if we start from those folks, everyone will benefit from what we do.”

Rupert-Gordon says she doesn’t have all the answers but she knows it starts with working in coalition, with everyone working to achieve the same goal. But it’s more, going beyond inclusion.

“Inclusion is getting everyone to the table,” she says. “It’s providing perspective. But it doesn’t get that power shift. That is what’s going to need to happen. We’re going to need to shift power” to create a movement that’s more economically just, more gender inclusive and picks leaders who “can actually lift up our entire movement.”

Rupert-Gordon says she’s already having discussions about this transformation, including with NCLR’s renowned legal director, Shannon Minter.

“Shannon is also an icon, so I definitely have had conversations with Shannon about this — about sort of what’s next and being really thoughtful, really strategic in finding new ways to be successful in supporting this community,” especially since President Donald Trump has remade the judiciary to be more conservative and anti-LGBTQ.

“When we think about being more inclusive, we’re looking at a variety of things that keep folks in places of oppression,” she says. “We’re thinking about issues that people don’t necessarily think about being LGBTQ issues — things like voter suppression and criminalization of sex work. When we think about prison systems in juvenile justice and folks in foster care systems, there are many things that are keeping folks from being free.”

Kendell is “over the moon” about Rupert-Gordon leading NCLR into the future.

“What she brings is a lived experience of what we popularly call ‘intersectionality.’ It’s not an experience that is intellectual, although it might have pieces of that. It’s not an experience that is scholarly, although it likely has that. It’s not an experience that is born of empathy, although certainly there will be some of that, too,” Kendell tells the Los Angeles Blade, as if rhetorically handing off the mantle.

“It is an experience as a Black lesbian, of understanding that the world every LGBTQ person deserves is a world where every piece of themselves is integrated, seen, valued and acknowledged and appreciated,” says Kendell. “And it is a unique life experience that queer people of color possess and that is so much about where the movement is headed next that will make Imani exactly the kind of leader to keep NCLR current and relevant and to assure that the movement is a movement for the entire queer community, not just certain segments.”

Rupert-Gordon is not cavalier about the work ahead. “Trust is not something I take for granted. It’s something you have to work for,” she says. “I have a commitment to radical transparency. I want to be part of transforming our movement so that it includes more of us.”

 

 

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Military families challenge Trump ban on trans healthcare

Three military families are suing over Trump’s directive cutting transgender healthcare from military coverage

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A supporter of transgender healthcare holds a sign advocating for gender-affirming care during Baltimore Pride earlier this year. (Blade by Michael Key)

Three military families sued the Department of Defense on Monday after President Trump’s anti-transgender policies barred their transgender adolescent and adult children from accessing essential gender-affirming medical care.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, challenges the legality of the Trump administration’s decision to ban coverage of any transgender-related medical care under Department of Defense health insurance plans.

Under the new directive, military clinics and hospitals are prohibited from providing continuing care to transgender adolescent and adult children. It also prevents TRICARE, the military’s health insurance program, from covering the costs of gender-affirming care for both transgender youth and young adults, regardless of where that care is received.

A press release from the families’ attorney explained that the plaintiffs are proceeding under pseudonyms to protect their safety and privacy. They are represented by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law), the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), Brown, Goldstein & Levy, LLP, and Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP.

“This is a sweeping reversal of military health policy and a betrayal of military families who have sacrificed for our country,” said Sarah Austin, Staff Attorney at GLAD Law. “When a servicemember is deployed and focused on the mission they deserve to know their family is taken care of. This Administration has backtracked on that core promise and put servicemembers at risk of losing access to health care their children desperately need.”

“President Trump has illegally overstepped his authority by abruptly cutting off necessary medical care for military families,” said Shannon Minter, Legal Director at NCLR. “This lawless directive is part of a dangerous pattern of this administration ignoring legal requirements and abandoning our servicemembers.”

“President Trump’s Executive Order blocks military hospitals from giving transgender youth the care their doctors deem necessary and their parents have approved,” said Sharif Jacob, partner at Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP. “Today we filed a lawsuit to put an end to his order, and the agency guidance implementing it.”

“This administration is unlawfully targeting military families by denying essential care to their transgender children,” said Liam Brown, an associate with Keker, Van Nest & Peters. “We will not stand by while those who serve are stripped of the ability to care for their families.”

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Supreme Court sides with transgender boy in bathroom access fight

Plaintiff challenging SC law

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A inclusive LGBTQ flag flies below the american flag at the entrance of the Supreme Court following the US vs Skrmetti case. (Blade Photo by Michael Key)

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a transgender boy may use the boy’s bathroom in a South Carolina public high school while pursuing a challenge to a state law that requires students to use the bathrooms corresponding to their sex assigned at birth.

The order, which was unsigned by any of the justices, did not provide reasons for the court’s decision, but made clear that it applied only to the one student in this case. The order specifically stated that it was “not a ruling on the merits of the legal issues presented in the litigation” and was instead “based on the standards applicable for obtaining emergency relief.”

It should be noted that Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., and Neil M. Gorsuch filed dissents to the order, though they did not provide any explanation for their opposition.

This is not the first time the highest court in the nation has addressed trans rights in the country.

In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that federal law prohibits anti-trans discrimination in employment. Despite this significant victory for trans rights, in June the court upheld a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming medical care for trans minors in U.S. v. Skrmetti. That ruling, which suggested the court could be used to remove protections for trans people, has contributed to increased scrutiny and the reconsideration of previous rulings favorable to trans rights, placing broader LGBTQ protections at risk.

The recent order comes as the Supreme Court prepares to hear two cases involving trans athletes and their rights to participate in sports under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in educational programs and activities that receive federal funding. Advocates for trans rights have expressed concern that these upcoming cases could further challenge the legal landscape surrounding gender identity in schools and other public institutions.

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Trump to honor Charlie Kirk with Medal of Freedom

Anti-LGBTQ political activist assassinated in Utah on Wednesday

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Charlie Kirk moments before his assassination on Sept. 10, 2025. (Screenshot)

At a Sept. 11 remembrance ceremony at the Pentagon on Thursday, President Donald Trump announced that he will award right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Kirk was assassinated less than 24 hours earlier at Utah Valley University while speaking on conservative talking points to a crowd.

The 31-year-old conservative commentator is best known for founding Turning Point USA, a nonprofit that sought to build a robust conservative youth movement. He earned notoriety for his unwavering loyalty to Trump, his advocacy of expansive Second Amendment rights, and his opposition to LGBTQ rights. Conservatives and far-right supporters have quickly elevated Kirk to martyr status since his death.

“Before we begin, let me express the horror and grief so many Americans feel at the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk,” Trump said. “Charlie was a giant of his generation, a champion of liberty, and an inspiration to millions and millions of people.”

As of now, there is no indication when the award ceremony will take place, although Trump said “I can only guarantee you one thing, that we will have a very big crowd.”

Many credit Kirk with helping Trump return to the White House in 2024 by mobilizing young voters — particularly young men — on behalf of the twice-impeached president.

Kirk’s stance against LGBTQ rights was a central part of his political brand.

A staunch opponent of Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark Supreme Court ruling requiring states to recognize same-sex marriage, Kirk often used incendiary rhetoric, at times calling for the erosion of LGBTQ rights altogether.

As host of “The Charlie Kirk Show” on the Salem Radio Network, he frequently denounced transgender participation in sports, referring to trans people and their supporters as “sick.” He also suggested they should be “taken care of like how things in the 1950s and 60s” were — an allusion many critics interpreted as a reference to lobotomies, shock therapy, and forced institutionalization.

Kirk often framed his views through the lens of “Christian values.”

On his YouTube channel, he invoked biblical passages, at one point citing Leviticus 20:13 to claim that the Bible’s call for the stoning of gay men reflected “God’s perfect law.”

The Washington Blade contacted several LGBTQ advocacy organizations for comment on Trump’s decision to posthumously honor Kirk, a man widely criticized for his hostility toward the LGBTQ community. Many focused instead on condemning the violence that ended his life.

“Political violence is unacceptable and has no place in this country,” said Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, in an emailed statement. “We cannot ever accept this epidemic of gun violence as normal. We cannot keep living like this.”

Kristen Browde, president of the Florida LGBTQ+ Democratic Caucus, which has 21 chapters across the state, making it one of the largest LGBTQ caucuses in the nation, echoed those sentiments while pointing to the consequences of Kirk’s rhetoric.

“Political violence, for any reason, is wrong. Gun violence, for any reason, is wrong. Spending your life, inciting violence, demonizing political opponents? Attacking those who are different? Every bit as wrong. And when violence follows such actions? One can’t be shocked. All you can do is recommit yourself to fight against it.”

According to videos — and witnesses at Utah Valley University, Kirk was shot seconds after beginning to answer a question about how many”transgender” people were responsible for “mass shootings,” where he answered “too many.”

As of Thursday evening, Kirk’s killer remained at large. The FBI has identified a person of interest in its investigation and is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

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Charlie Kirk shot to death at Utah university

Anti-LGBTQ figure asked about trans shooters moments earlier

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Charlie Kirk, center, at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, Sept. 10. (Screen capture via @MidnightMonaye/X)

Charlie Kirk, a right-wing political activist, outspoken anti-LGBTQ figure, and founder of Turning Point USA, a conservative nonprofit, was shot and killed at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah on Wednesday.

The 31-year-old was visiting the university’s Turning Point USA chapter and speaking to a large outdoor audience when he was struck in the neck by a single bullet fired from about 200 yards away. NBC reported that no suspect is in custody, despite university police previously indicating otherwise. President Trump announced Kirk’s death on social media.

Just moments before the shooting, an audience member asked Kirk, “How many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?”

“Too many,” Kirk replied—seconds before being shot. Videos of the graphic incident have since gone viral online.

Kirk had long opposed LGBTQ rights and publicly opposed same-sex marriage. He frequently cited his “Christian values” as the basis for his positions, often quoting Leviticus 20:13 (“men lying with men… abomination”) as “God’s perfect law” on sexual matters.

He was also a prominent national voice in efforts to ban transgender healthcare, saying, “Donald Trump needs to run on this issue.” Kirk further proclaimed, “Pride is a sin,” and dismissed “gay corporations that hate America.”

On his YouTube show, he declared there are “only two genders” and described “transgenderism and gender ‘fluidity’ … lies that hurt people and abuse kids.” He also warned that LGBTQ efforts would not stop at marriage equality but instead aimed to “corrupt your children,” according to Media Matters for America.

Utah Valley University, established in 1941 as Central Utah Vocational School, is the state’s largest public university, with more than 46,000 students. It is located about 40 miles south of Salt Lake City.

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Concerns for future emerge at U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS

‘I’m done being treated like shit in the country I grew up in’

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Members of the Host Committee gather at the stage of the U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS. (Blade photo by Michael Key)

More than 2,400 people, including public health experts, scientists, physicians, local government officials, and community activists, turned out for the 29th annual United States Conference on HIV/AIDS, which took place Sept. 4-7 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in D.C.  

Organized by the D.C.-based group NMAC, formerly known as the National Minority AIDS Council, the conference is considered the nation’s largest and most comprehensive gathering of experts involved in addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S.

NMAC spokesperson Pavni Guharoy said NMAC officials will be completing a final count of the conference participants based on registration numbers later this week, but she said the current estimated attendance was at least 2,500.

The conference included more than 100 workshop sessions that focused on a wide range of issues related to the status of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S., with a focus on the large and growing number of people living with HIV who are 50 years of age or older.

Information released at the conference shows that as of 2022, of the nearly 1.1 million people living with HIV in the U.S., approximately 54 percent were 50 years of age or older. 

Many of the sessions addressed the needs, concerns and sometimes stigma faced by diverse communities of people living with HIV and those at risk for HIV, including African American, Latinx, and LGBTQ communities, both those who are aging as well as young adults.

The conference also included four plenary sessions in which all conference attendees listened to two-dozen prominent keynote speakers. Among them was former U.S. National Institutes of Health official Dr. Anthony Fauci, who pointed out that continuing advances in HIV research have led to effective medical intervention that changed AIDS from a once fatal illness to a condition in which people with HIV can live “a normal life span.”

Other keynote speakers included Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson, the acclaimed basketball player who became an advocate for people with HIV after testing positive for HIV 33 years ago, and Dr. Rachel Levine, who made history by becoming the first out transgender person to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2021as an appointee by then-President Joe Biden as a U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health.

Also speaking was Jeanne White-Ginder, the mother of Ryan White, who was diagnosed with AIDS in 1984 at the age of 13 from a blood transfusion. White-Ginder told conference attendees how Ryan faced discrimination when he was initially barred from going to his school in Indiana out of fear that he could transmit the virus to others at school.

Jeanne White-Ginder speaks at the 2025 U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS. (Blade photo by Michael Key)

In a moving presentation, she told how Ryan became one of the nation’s early advocates for people with HIV/AIDS up until the time of his death in 1990, one month before his high school graduation. She said then-U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) invited her to come to Washington to help lobby for a bill Kennedy introduced and which Congress passed in her son’s honor called the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act in August 1990.

“Now, today, thanks to your hard work and dedication, Ryan’s bill and your bill, too, provides treatment and support to more than half a million Americans in big cities, small towns and rural communities across the country,” she said. “It has dramatically reduced suffering. It has enabled people to live with HIV, to live long and healthy lives.” 

But White-Ginder joined the many conference speakers, including Magic Johnson, in calling on attendees and the public to urge Congress to reject the dramatic cuts in funding for federal AIDS programs, including the Ryan White program, proposed by President Donald Trump and Republican congressional leaders for the Fiscal Year 2026 federal budget.

Among those calling on the AIDS community and allies to speak out against the proposed budget cuts were Paul Kawata, NMAC’s outgoing executive director and CEO, who is retiring Oct. 7, and Harold Phillips, the former director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy during the Biden administration and current NMAC Deputy Director for Programs who was chosen to succeed Kawata as NMAC CEO.

NMAC officials, led by members of its board of directors, praised Kawata for his 36 years of service as NMAC’s leader and his dedication to the cause of service and support for people with HIV and AIDS.

Kawata reflected on his work at NMAC and his concerns over the current political climate in Washington in a sometimes-emotional farewell address at one of the conference’s plenary sessions on Sept. 5.

“I’ll be honest with you. After 36 years the thought of leaving all of you is much more difficult than I thought it was going to be,” he told the gathering. “You are my family. You are the people that I love,” he said.

“You taught me how to be a better version of me. And I am so extraordinarily grateful for everything that you have given me,” he continued. “And you will always be a part of my heart.”

Pointing to members of the NMAC staff, both current and former members in the audience, Kawata said, “NMAC is NMAC because of what you do every single day with your life. You fight to make a difference in the world. And I am honored and privileged to call you my friends.”

Without mentioning the Trump administration by name, Kawata had harsh words for what he said was happening now in the United States and its impact on people living with HIV.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “I’m done being treated like shit in the country that I grew up in. I’m done being told that I’m a second-class citizen because of who I love,” he continued. “It’s not my America anymore. And I’m worried for our future.”

He added, “We always talk about the pendulum of justice, about the arc of justice. And I really want you to know in this moment, as difficult and as awful and how hellacious it is, we are on the right side of history. We are the ones who will change the world.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks at the 2025 U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS. (Blade photo by Michael Key)

In his remarks at the conference’s closing Sept. 7 plenary session, Fauci said, “We’re in very difficult times. You don’t need me to tell you that. But we’ve got to continue to put the pressure on what we did in the ‘80s with the activist groups, to make sure we do end the epidemic.”

He noted that he was at his job as director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases in the early 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic first surfaced and the AIDS patients he and his colleagues cared for, had little chance of survival.

“Fast forward now, 44 years, extraordinary things have happened,” Fauci said. “We now have drugs that you are all very aware of that can have an individual living with HIV live essentially a normal life span in putting under the care and the availability of drugs,” he continued.

“We know what U equals U – something that we didn’t imagine some years ago. That undetectable equals untransmissible,” he said, referring to the current HIV medication that suppresses the HIV virus to an undetectable level that prevents an infected person from transmitting it to someone else.

“And right now, with these drugs that we have for the prevention of HIV we have what we actually hoped for years ago – and that is to end the HIV epidemic,” he said.

Dr. Rachel Levine, who during the Biden administration served in the dual role as Assistant Secretary of Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and as director of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, also spoke at the closing session of the conference.

She noted that she began her career as a pediatric physician in 1983 in New York City, at the time of the early stages of the AIDS epidemic. From that time through her years as Assistant Secretary of Health, Levine said she observed first-hand the skills and dedication of doctors, nurses, and others who cared for people with HIV/AIDS who she described as the HIV care workforce.

Dr. Rachel Levine speaks at the 2025 U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS. (Blade photo by Michael Key)

“The HIV care workforce since that time has been incredibly dedicated, with many people working for decades,” she said. “And working to end the HIV epidemic in the United States and around the world. We applaud you. You are in this room. We applaud you arduously for your dedication and for your passion.”

Levine also noted that the cuts in funding and large-scale federal worker layoffs brought about by the Trump administration have had a direct impact on the HIV care workforce.

“Many dedicated public health leaders, including most of the HIV and infectious disease team who I worked with in my office at HHS have had their positions eliminated,” she said. “These hard-working civil servants went to work every single day to support the health and wellbeing of all Americans, including those living with HIV.”

She added, “And we know that there are shortages in HIV care. And it is so critical at this challenging time that we support you, the HIV care workforce.”

Many conference attendees said Magic Johnson played a leading role in boosting morale and spirit at the 2025 U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS by his inspirational speech at the Sept. 5 plenary session.

Upon receiving a prolonged, standing ovation after being  introduced as the next speaker, Johnson said, “When I think about 33 years living with HIV in a moment that changed my life forever. And what a blessing to be here 33 years later to tell that story at a time when there was only one drug.”

Johnson added, “Wow, and they said it probably is a death sentence for myself, and I had to wrap my arms around making the toughest decision I probably had to make in my life, which was to retire from the NBA.”

Among other things, Johnson said his doctors told him that while he was physically capable of continuing to play basketball, the stress of an 80-game season could impact his immune system and lower his T-cell count.  

Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson speaks at the 2025 U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS. (Blade photo by Michael Key)

With the support of family, friends, and his community, Johnson said he miraculously survived the early days without a known fully effective HIV drug. And at the request of community activists, he agreed to speak out as a well-known figure and a person with HIV to inform “my community,” especially people of color, he said, about how to live with HIV and how uninfected people can lower their risk.

“But what I do, I adhere to my doctor. I take my meds. I work out, and then I love life and myself,” he said. 

In response to the challenge facing people with HIV under the current political situation, Johnson said, “We got to pull ourselves together and continue this fight, because it’s important and we got to keep this at the forefront. Now, HIV and AIDS kind of slipped back. We got to bring it back up.”

Among other things, he said the nonprofit foundation he helped to form has “given away over $15 million” in grants to HIV/AIDS organizations. “And we will continue to do that because of the work you are doing.”

He received another thunderous applause and standing ovation upon the completion of his speech.

Phillips, who will succeed Kawata as NMAC’s CEO on Oct. 7, told the Washington Blade he believes this year’s U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS was “extraordinary” under difficult circumstances.

NMAC CEO Harold Phillips speaks at the 2025 U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS. (Blade photo by Michael Key)

“I think so, because this year we did this without a lot of federal support,” he said. “And many of the attendees – the federal government, HRSA, the Ryan White program told them they couldn’t use their grant funds to attend the conference, which was a shame.”

Phillips added, “But I think with a crowd of over 2,400, some people found a way to be here regardless and thought that it was important, and the topic was important enough. And I think our listening sessions, our workshops, our plenaries hopefully gave them what they needed to continue to be activated to serve people living with HIV. “

“And also gave them a sense of hope, especially in these dark times that we can continue to work to end the HIV epidemic,” he said.  

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House GOP seeks to cut all U.S. HIV prevention programs in 2026

‘A disastrous bill that will reignite HIV in the United States’

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President Trump’s own Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative is on the GOP chopping block. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

The Republican-controlled Appropriations Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives has released its Fiscal Year 2026 funding bill that calls for cutting funds for domestic HIV prevention, treatment, and care programs by at least $1.7 billion, which is an amount significantly greater than the AIDS budget cuts proposed by President Donald Trump.

Among other things, the bill, if passed by the full Congress, would eliminate federal funding for all HIV prevention programs in the U.S. as well as eliminate the Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative program that Trump persuaded Congress to pass during his first term as president.

“This is not a bill for making America healthy again, but a disastrous bill that will reignite HIV in the United States,” said Carl Schmidt, executive director of the D.C. based HIV + Hepatitis Policy Institute, in a Sept. 1 statement.

“We urge Congress to reject these reckless cuts,” Schmidt says in the statement.  “Eliminating all HIV prevention means the end of state and local testing and surveillance programs, educational programs, and linkage to lifesaving care and treatment, along with PrEP,” the statement continues. “It will translate into an increased number of new HIV infections, which will be costlier to treat in the long run.”

It adds, “At a time when we have the tools to prevent HIV, including new long-acting forms of PrEP, we must not abandon the bipartisan progress our nation has made in combating HIV.”

The proposed bill by the House Appropriations Committee, which has not yet taken a full committee vote on the bill, would also cut the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Care and Treatment Program by $525 million or 20 percent.

The bill would eliminate the entire $1 billion in prevention funding at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including $220 million allocated to President Trump’s Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) initiative.

Schmidt points out that nearly 90 percent of this funding “flows to state and local health departments, including those in the South that do not have dedicated state funding and carry over half of HIV cases in the country.”

The House committee proposal supports the president’s budget proposal to eliminate $43 million in dedicated funding for hepatitis prevention at the CDC and instead proposes a $353 million block grant to states that would also include STD and tuberculosis prevention. This is $53 million more than the president proposed but still represents a combined cut of $24 million, Schmidt says in his statement.

“Instead of decreasing and diluting funding for hepatitis, if the country is serious about addressing chronic health conditions,” added Schmid, “we should be increasing funding so that people with hepatitis can be identified through testing and linked to treatment, and in the case of hepatitis C, a cure.”

The proposal by the House Appropriations Committees follows the U.S. Senate’s release earlier this year of a bipartisan FY 2026 budget bill that would maintain current funding for domestic HIV programs. If the House committee passes its proposed budget bill the budget provisions would have to be reconciled with the Senate version, and a reconciled version must then be passed by the full Congress. 

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Doctor who led mpox response resigns from CDC, slams administration

‘Unskilled manipulation of data to achieve a political end’

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Dr. Demetre Daskalakis (Screen capture via Zoom)

Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, resigned from his position on Wednesday in a scathing social media post.

“I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health.” Daskalakis wrote in a resignation letter he posted to X. “Having worked in local and national public health for years, I have never experienced such radical non-transparency, nor have I seen such unskilled manipulation of data to achieve a political end rather than the good of the American people.”

Daskalakis, who’s gay, was among three senior officials to resign following President Trump’s firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez. She is fighting her dismissal. 

In 2022, Daskalakis drew praise from the LGBTQ community while serving as White House National Monkeypox Response Deputy Coordinator. Daskalakis previously served as medical director for the New York-headquartered Mount Sinai Health System and then was made deputy commissioner for the Division of Disease Control at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In late 2020, as the U.S. saw thousands of new covid fatalities each day, Daskalakis joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention.

In an exclusive interview with the Blade during the mpox crisis in 2022, he warned of the dangers of homophobic stigma. 

“Stigma is stigma, and homophobia is homophobia,” Daskalakis said, and while these problems are older, more intractable, and broader in scope than public health messaging around MPV, it is important to not “attach an infection to an identity.” 

“Stigmatizing a disease and creating stigma really creates rabbit holes that take people away from [figuring out] how to respond to an infectious disease — and the way that you respond to infectious diseases, the focus on community, the focus on knowledge, and the focus on data, which should act as a guidance” in getting messages to people, whether through online social platforms or other channels, he said.  

Dr. Monarez, who only served in her job for one month, said she refused “to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives” and accused HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of “weaponizing public health.”

Dr. Monarez reportedly clashed with Kennedy over vaccines. The government announced earlier this week that healthy adults would not be eligible for a new COVID booster and instead only those 65 and older, children, and those with underlying medical conditions would be eligible for the new vaccine.

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CVS Health withholds coverage for new HIV prevention drug

AIDS activists criticize delay for acclaimed twice-yearly PrEP medication

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CVS Health, one of the nation’s largest pharmacy benefit manager companies that play a lead role in deciding which drugs are covered by health insurance plans, has initially decided not to approve coverage for the new HIV prevention drug Yeztugo

Developed and manufactured by the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, Yeztugo was approved for use in June of this year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as an HIV prevention or PrEP medication that needs to be taken just twice a year by injection.

HIV prevention advocates hailed the new drug as a major breakthrough in the years long effort to curtail and end the HIV/AIDS epidemic by enabling far more people at risk for HIV infection to adhere to a prevention drug regimen that needed to be taken once every six months rather than daily pills or through bi-monthly injections.

But the same advocates warned that the benefits of Yeztugo, which tests showed is greater than 99 percent effective in preventing HIV infection, could not be realized if the cost of the drug is not covered by health insurance plans or other coverage programs.

At the time the FDA approved its drug, Gilead Sciences announced that the yearly retail price for Yeztugo without insurance coverage would be $26,218.

According to reports by Reuters and Bloomberg news publications, a CVS Health spokesperson disclosed on Aug. 21 that the company “for now” would not add Yeztugo to its commercial coverage plans.

“As is typical with new-to-market products, we undergo a careful review of clinical, financial, and regulatory considerations,” Bloomberg News quoted CVS spokesperson David Whitrap as saying. Bloomberg reports that Whitman added that Yeztugo hasn’t been added to CVS Caremark’s commercial drug plans or U.S. Affordable Care Act plans.

“The entire world is excited by this drug and its potential contribution to preventing and eventually ending HIV,” said Carl Schmid, executive director of the D.C.-based HIV + Hepatitis Policy Institute. “However, a drug will only work if people can access it and right now CVS Health, which owns the largest pharmacy benefit manager in the country, is shamefully blocking people from taking it, unlike other payers,” Schmid said in a statement.

“We urge CVS, which has been committed to ending HIV in the past, to reconsider their decision immediately,” Schmid said. “Additionally, we call on federal and state regulators to ensure that plans are in compliance with the federal government’s PrEP coverage guidance and the many state laws that require coverage of all PrEP drugs.”

Gilead Sciences, meanwhile, has said it is “extremely pleased” with the progress it is making with other health insurance companies and  “payers” to arrange for coverage of Yeztugo, according to Reuters. “[T]he company said it is on track to secure 75 percent of U.S. insurer coverage of Yeztugo by year-end, and 90 percent coverage by June 2026,”  Reuters reports. 

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After targeting youth, state lawmakers now going after the rights of LGBTQ adults

Legislators are also teeing up challenges to same-sex marriage

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Georgia State Capitol Building (Washington Blade photo by Michael Lavers)

The proliferation of anti-LGBTQ bills proposed by state legislatures across the country, which ticked up dramatically in 2021 and has since increased year-over-year, looks different in 2025.

Efforts that once focused on school sports and pediatric gender care have now broadened, as many advocates warned they would, to target adult life and the legal scaffolding of hard-won freedoms like same-sex marriage.

LGBTQ issues remain fraught political battlegrounds, but the fight has shifted to driver’s licenses, hospital policies, state-worker speech rules, and even marriage licenses — exposing these communities to greater risk of civil-rights violations.

This shift comes at a moment when legal avenues for challenging discrimination by state governments or the Trump-Vance administration have narrowed significantly, even as rhetorical and political attacks intensify.

The new types of bills

By the numbers, this year is shaping up to be the worst in recent memory. The ACLU tracked 520 anti-LGBTQ bills in 2023, 533 in 2024, and by February the organization had already logged 339, an accelerated pace for 2025.

Predictably, these legislative efforts are clustered in conservative places like Texas, where state lawmakers teed up 32 anti-trans bills on the first day of pre-filing for 2025, as GLAAD noted.

At the same time, however, the group reports that the year kicked off with similar activity in far bluer statehouses located in places like Massachusetts, Colorado, and New York.

The new crop of bills share some distinguishing features. For instance, Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, and Illinois are considering (or have enacted, in Alabama’s case) proposals to adopt restrictive definitions of sex and gender.

Not only does the establishment of a legal definition for gender based on a fixed binary that must be determined by one’s sex at birth exclude the recognition of people who are trans or have other gender diverse identities, but it also carries significant downstream impacts.

President Donald Trump has already demonstrated how this can work. Issued on the first day of his second term, his Executive Order 14168 recast “sex” across all federal policy as a fixed category that is limited to “male” or “female,” defined at “conception,” and unchangeable.

Pursuant to the order, the administration mandated that agencies replace all mention of “gender” with “sex,” strip gender self-identification options from passports, and halt funding for anything deemed “gender ideology,” including gender‑affirming care.

With respect to restrictions on gender markers on passports and official documents, the consequences for Americans who are not cisgender are far-reaching, touching areas of their lives from housing to employment and travel.

Georgia, meanwhile, previewed how conservative lawmakers can restrict guideline-directed best practices medical interventions for not just transgender youth, but adults as well, with a bill introduced this year that would bar coverage by state employees’ health benefits plans.

Georgia has also enacted a law prohibiting all gender-affirming care (hormones, surgeries, and even personal funding of such care) for incarcerated individuals in state prisons, which came after Trump’s executive order requiring the Bureau of Prisons to halt funding for these treatments and move trans women inmates into men’s facilities.

Broadened healthcare restrictions did not necessarily start this year, however. Florida passed a law in 2023, for example, that requires trans adults to receive in-person, state-approved informed consent for gender-affirming care, while banning nurse practitioners and telehealth delivery of such treatments, thereby limiting access for patients.

Following years of conservative activism focused on censoring pro-LGBTQ speech from schools — banning books and other materials with gay or trans characters or themes; restricting classroom instruction on matters of sexual orientation and gender identity — some states have taken a new tack in 2025: protecting anti-LGBTQ speech.

Once again, the scope of these efforts now extends beyond educational institutions and their focus is broadened from youth to youth and adults.

Montana’s Free to Speak Act, enacted in May, protects students and public employees from being disciplined for refusing to use a person’s preferred name or pronouns, establishing a private right of action allowing affected individuals to sue for injunctive relief, monetary damages, and attorney fees.

Lawmakers in Florida are going even further with a proposal that would bar public employers from requiring the use of trans individuals’ preferred pronouns, remove “nonbinary” as an option on state job applications, and make LGBTQ+ cultural competence training optional rather than mandatory.

Marriage equality under fire

On Monday, news outlets around the world reported on the return of Kim Davis. The thrice divorced former Kentucky county clerk has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her case, which seeks to overturn the High Court’s precedent setting ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that established marriage equality as the law of the land in 2015.

Some legal experts believe the gambit is a long shot. Others are less confident, pointing to the establishment of a 6-3 conservative supermajority in October 2020 and Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring statement in the 2022 decision overturning abortion rights, where he expressed interest in revisiting the marriage decision.

In what may be a harbinger of another battle over same-sex marriage, or a sign that the matter was never settled in the first place, five states this year have considered non-binding resolutions asking the justices to overturn Obergefell: South Dakota, North Dakota, Idaho, Michigan, and Montana.

Other measures have been more concrete. In Tennessee and several other states, lawmakers introduced “covenant marriage” bills defining marriage as a union between “one male and one female” with heightened divorce restrictions — a move that would effectively exclude same-sex couples from that marital track. While none have yet been passed or enacted, they illustrate how legislatures can reshape marriage law without directly challenging Obergefell.

Such bills raise a potential clash with the Respect for Marriage Act, legislation passed during the Biden-Harris administration that requires states to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere but does not require them to issue licenses.

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District of Columbia

Trump’s federal takeover of D.C. police sparks outrage among LGBTQ leaders

Move threatens marginalized communities and undermines city’s autonomy

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Protesters call out President Donald Trump's federal overreach of D.C. police system in Dupont Circle on Aug. 11, 2025. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

As President Donald Trump pushes forward with his takeover of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department using federal agents, local LGBTQ leaders are sounding the alarm.

Trump on Monday invoked Section 740 of the D.C. Home Rule Act to “declare a crime emergency” in the District and began sending 800 National Guard troops to patrol the nation’s capital.

Multiple leaders in the District have criticized Trump for using misleading statistics to justify this power grab, one that will disproportionately impact Black, brown, and LGBTQ residents.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser initially tried to reframe Trump’s takeover as something that could benefit the District, saying to “make the most of the additional officer support that we have” during a Tuesday meeting with Attorney General Pam Bondi. She later began to backtrack on that statement.

“This is a time where community needs to jump in and we all need to, to do what we can in our space, in our lane, to protect our city and to protect our autonomy, to protect our Home Rule, and get to the other side of this guy, and make sure we elect a Democratic House so that we have a backstop to this authoritarian push,” Bowser said in a virtual meeting with local leaders later that day.

One of those local leaders, Ward 5 Council member Zachary Parker, called the Trump administration’s claims of “bloodthirsty criminals” and “roving mobs of wild youth” unsubstantiated and a distraction from “the bigger game in motion.”

In two separate Instagram posts, Parker — the District’s only openly LGBTQ Council member — called the move more about Trump “flexing” his power over a Democratic stronghold than fixing any issues of crime.

“The suggestion that crime is out of control is not supported by data,” Parker wrote Tuesday on his personal account, citing Department of Justice data from earlier this year showing the president’s claims are unsubstantiated. “Violent crime hit a 30-year low in 2024,” he continued, citing Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) data showing a 26% decrease in violent crime in the past year alone.

In another post, Parker called the tactic by the Trump administration a stark move that echoes the dictatorial takeovers of history.

“The raids today from those in power are derivatives of the instruments of power that have policed neighborhoods since the ’70s,” his second post said. “The ploy to seize capitals and collapse power traces back to colonial times and, more recently, Hungary and Turkey.”

The D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition, comprised of multiple organizations and advocates that fight for resources supporting LGBTQ residents — including trans people of color, low-income individuals, those with disabilities, and migrants — called this an “attack on D.C. autonomy.”

“This is a blatant violation of D.C.’s right to self-govern and a dangerous escalation rooted in political theater, not public safety,” the coalition’s official statement read. “We stand with local community leaders and other advocates fighting for D.C. to be free (including our evergreen fight for statehood), and all who reject this federal overreach… This move is not about safety, but about control and fear.”

The statement also echoed Council member Parker’s point that both federal and local data show a decline in violent crime despite massive budget cuts to the city prompted by Trump.

“Crime is down — the data is clear. And any attempts to combat the District’s issues were directly thwarted during the federal budget battles that forced our government to cut $1 billion from the local budget.”

The letter, sent to coalition members and supporters, explicitly called these actions anti-LGBTQ and anti-people of color.

“This kind of horrific federal overreach will inevitably cause the most irrevocable harm to our Black, brown, immigrant, and LGBTQ+ siblings — communities who already bear the brunt of systemic violence, over-policing, and underinvestment,” the email said.

“As LGBTQ+ advocates working to ensure equitable investment in our communities, we know that safety comes from housing, healthcare, and justice — and we will not demonize those most vulnerable in this city.”

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