Politics
LA County native Leondra Kruger may be nominee for U.S. Supreme Court
If nominated and confirmed, Kruger would be not only the first Black woman on the court, but also the youngest justice
By Amy Howe | WASHINGTON – During a 2020 Democratic presidential primary debate, then-candidate Joe Biden pledged that, if elected, he would nominate a Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. With Justice Stephen Breyer expected to retire at the end of this term, California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger is one of the frontrunners to succeed him.
If nominated and confirmed, Kruger – who is just 45 years old – would be not only the first Black woman on the court, but also the youngest justice by over four years and the youngest justice confirmed since Clarence Thomas joined the court in 1991 at age 43. Despite her relative youth, Kruger would bring substantial experience at the high court, with 12 Supreme Court arguments under her belt, as well as a seven-year record on the California Supreme Court that resembles the record of the justice she would replace.
Early life and career
A native of southern California, Kruger is the daughter of two physicians. Her mother hails from Jamaica, while her late father was the son of Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe. Kruger attended the prestigious Polytechnic School, a private prep school in Pasadena, California, whose other alumni include Julia Child and James Ho, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit who was on former President Donald Trump’s short list to fill a Supreme Court vacancy.
After graduating from Polytechnic, Kruger compiled the kind of sterling resume the public has come to expect from Supreme Court nominees. She graduated with honors from Harvard University, where she was a reporter for the Harvard Crimson. Kruger covered a wide range of stories, including a hearing on Cambridge’s affirmative-action policy, the 1994 Senate race between the late Sen. Edward Kennedy and Mitt Romney, and a travel guide to her hometown of Pasadena that humorously dismissed East Coast stereotypes about catastrophes in California (“Earthquakes! Fires! Mudslides! Riots!”) as “only jealousy.”
After Harvard, Kruger went to Yale Law School, where she was the editor in chief of the Yale Law Journal – the first Black woman to hold that job. During law school, Kruger spent one summer as an intern for the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles and a second summer as a summer associate at Munger, Tolles & Olson. After graduating from Yale in 2001, she spent a year working as an associate at Jenner & Block in Washington, D.C., before going to clerk for Judge David Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2002 to 2003. Kruger went from the D.C. Circuit to the Supreme Court, where she clerked for Justice John Paul Stevens during the 2003-04 term.
When Kruger finished her clerkships, she went into private practice at a third firm, now known as WilmerHale. During her two years there, her clients included Shell Oil, which Kruger represented in an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit involving a half-billion-dollar judgment in a Nicaraguan court against Shell and others, as well as Verizon Communications, which Kruger represented in federal district court in California in litigation challenging the participation by telecommunications companies in the government’s domestic-terrorist surveillance program. Kruger left WilmerHale for the University of Chicago Law School, where she taught a class in transnational litigation as a visiting assistant professor.
A stint in the Obama administration, including arguments at the Supreme Court
Kruger returned to Washington in 2007 to take a job as an assistant to the U.S. solicitor general. She served in that role for several years, until she was named the acting principal deputy solicitor general. The lawyer who holds that job, which is sometimes known as the “political deputy,” is normally the only deputy in the solicitor general’s office who is not a career civil servant (and the only other political appointee, beyond the solicitor general, in the office).
During her six years in the solicitor general’s office, Kruger argued 12 cases at the Supreme Court on behalf of the federal government. One of those cases was a high-profile dispute involving whether the “ministerial exception” to employment-discrimination laws – the idea that religious institutions normally have the sole right to determine who can act as their ministers – barred a lawsuit by a teacher and ordained minister who had been fired by the Lutheran school where she worked. Kruger argued that the teacher should be able to pursue her lawsuit against the school for alleged discrimination on the basis of disability. The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, unanimously rejected that position and held that the ministerial exception applied.
The other cases Kruger argued touched on a wide range of issues, from the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause and right to counsel to federal “career criminal” laws and federal benefits laws. At the lectern, Kruger’s tone with the justices was conversational from the start, with a quiet confidence. She was poised even when she was being peppered with questions from all sides of the bench, as she was in defending an ultimately unsuccessful position in her first argument, in Begay v. United States.
Kruger left the solicitor general’s office in 2013 to serve as a deputy assistant attorney general in another section of the Department of Justice: the Office of Legal Counsel, which (among other things) provides legal advice to the president and other agencies within the executive branch. As Rory Little observed, that office has “yielded an unusual share of prominent federal judges and Justices over the past half century,” including the late Justice Antonin Scalia and the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
During her time in the Department of Justice, Kruger twice received the attorney general’s award for exceptional service, the department’s “highest award for employee performance.” Both awards give a glimpse into her work at DOJ beyond the courtroom. In 2013, she was part of a team that won the award for its work in defending the Affordable Care Act, while in 2014 she was a member of a group that won the award for its work implementing the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in United States v. Windsor, striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
An “out of the box” pick for the California Supreme Court
In 2014, California Governor Jerry Brown nominated Kruger, then just 38 years old, to serve on the California Supreme Court when Associate Justice Joyce Kennard retired. Kruger’s former bosses in the solicitor general’s office praised her selection, with then-Solicitor General Don Verrilli describing her as “brilliant, deeply principled and eloquent” and former Solicitor General Paul Clement calling her an “outstanding lawyer” who “combines an understated and easygoing manner with a keen legal mind and unquestioned integrity.” Former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal echoed those thoughts, saying that “California, and the nation, could do no better than Leondra Kruger.”
But despite those accolades from Washington, Kruger’s nomination was not greeted with unbridled enthusiasm within California because Kruger was not a practicing lawyer in the state, was not a judge, and lacked trial experience. However, Kruger was rated “exceptionally well qualified” by the California state bar group responsible for evaluating judicial nominees, and in December 2014 she was confirmed by the Commission on Judicial Appointments, a three-member body that holds a hearing to consider and decide whether to confirm nominees to the state’s highest courts. The commission’s members included Kamala Harris, then the state’s attorney general and now the vice president of the United States. Kruger was sworn into office in January 2015, becoming only the second Black woman to serve on the California Supreme Court.
Lawyers who practice regularly before that court describe Kruger in terms that are not unlike those used to characterize Breyer. In a November 2020 story for The Recorder, appellate lawyer Ben Feuer indicated that Kruger was “not looking to create radical change in the law emanating from the judicial branch.” “Rather,” Feuer continued, she understands the limited yet critical role the judicial branch plays in the complex ballet of our representative democracy.”
In a 2018 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Kruger herself said that she tries to do her job “in a way that enhances the predictability and stability of the law and public confidence and trust in the work of the courts.” Many of the published decisions that Kruger has written or joined while on the California Supreme Court have been unanimous rulings, with largely (although not uniformly) liberal-leaning results.
Upholding rights of the accused, from juvenile court to death-penalty cases
Kruger wrote for a unanimous court in April 2018 in a decision holding that videotaped statements by a three-year-old who claimed that she had been sexually molested by her father should not have been used as the basis to find that the child had been abused, which in turn led to an order for the father’s removal from the family’s home. Kruger acknowledged that juvenile courts have a “sensitive and difficult task” in such cases. However, she continued, the evidence in this case of the child’s reliability was “weaker than the juvenile court acknowledged.” The juvenile court failed to take into account that the child had also recently been molested by an older child, and that “[h]er repeated statements about abuse were strikingly similar to descriptions of that” incident. Moreover, Kruger added, “the child’s account contained both inconsistencies and inaccuracies that were woven through her core allegations.”
Photo: State of California
With automatic appeals to the California Supreme Court, death penalty cases are a staple of the court’s docket. However, California has not executed anyone since 2006, and in 2019 the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, imposed an official moratorium on executions. In 2019, Kruger wrote for a unanimous court in overturning the death sentence of Jeffrey Scott Young, who was convicted of killing two people during a 2002 robbery and carjacking at an offsite parking lot near San Diego International Airport. The court agreed with Young that the jury should not have been allowed to consider evidence regarding his white supremacist beliefs and tattoos, which prosecutors had introduced during the sentencing phase of his trial to rebut evidence about his good character.
The specific evidence to which prosecutors had been responding, Kruger explained, was testimony from Young’s grandmother about, for example, “his commitment to his family and children.” Although the court did not rule out the possibility that, in a different case, evidence of a defendant’s racist beliefs could be admitted, it cannot be used, Kruger concluded, simply to demonstrate the offensiveness of those beliefs.
Kruger wrote again for a unanimous court in 2020 to throw out another death sentence, this time in the high-profile case of Scott Peterson, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2002 murders of his pregnant wife, Laci, and the couple’s unborn child, Conner. Kruger agreed with Peterson that the trial court had made “a series of clear and significant errors in jury selection that, under long-standing U.S. Supreme Court precedent, undermined Peterson’s right to an impartial jury at the penalty phase.” Most notably, Kruger explained, the trial court should not have dismissed potential jurors simply because they expressed general opposition to the death penalty, without also determining whether that opposition would have meant that they would be unable to follow the law and impose the death penalty if warranted. In December 2021, Peterson was resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Bodycam footage and sexual-abuse lawsuits
Two years ago, Kruger wrote for the court in its decision holding that a California city could not charge a public-interest group seeking public records for the approximately 40 hours that city employees spent editing footage from police body cameras. A local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild sought records relating to the Hayward Police Department’s actions in the 2014 demonstrations that followed grand jury decisions not to indict the police officers involved in the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. The city of Hayward billed the group $3,000, citing a state-law provision that requires the person or group requesting electronic records to pay the costs associated with producing copies of those records when producing those copies would require the extraction of data.
The extraction of data, Kruger explained, does not cover redacting exempt material from electronic records that the city would otherwise need to disclose. That interpretation, Kruger reasoned, is more consistent with both the text of the statute and the California legislature’s intent in enacting the law. Moreover, she added, interpreting the term “extraction” to include the costs of redaction “would make it more difficult for the public to access information kept in electronic format” – contrary to the state’s constitution, which “favors an interpretation that avoids erecting such substantial financial barriers to access.”
Kruger acknowledged the city’s argument that “requests for body camera footage present unique concerns for government agencies with limited resources” because of the privacy interests involved, among other things. But this provision does not only cover body-camera footage, Kruger stressed. Instead, she noted, “it covers every type of electronic record, from garden-variety emails to large government databases.” Only the legislature, Kruger indicated, can decide whether to create special rules for body-camera footage.
Last year, Kruger wrote for the court in a unanimous decision holding that three athletes who allege that they were sexually abused by a coach as teenagers can sue USA Taekwondo but not the U.S. Olympic Committee. In her opinion, Kruger rebuffed the plaintiffs’ suggestion that the court should adopt a “more flexible and holistic approach” to determine whether a defendant can be held responsible for failing to protect a victim from harm caused by another person. “Without denying the gravity of the injuries these plaintiffs suffered,” Kruger stressed, “nor the broader problem of sexual abuse of minors in organized youth sports and other activities,” a defendant cannot be held responsible for injuries that it did not cause “unless there are special circumstances” that create a special duty for the defendant to provide protection or help to the plaintiffs.
Other notable decisions Kruger joined
In 2018, Kruger joined a unanimous decision that upheld a state law requiring new handgun models to imprint “micro stamps” inside the guns and on shell casings to make it easier for police to identify them. The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for gun manufacturers, argued that the requirement should be invalidated because it was impossible to implement the technology. The decision by Justice Goodwin Liu emphasized that the ruling did not involve the constitutionality of the requirement, but instead was simply a question of statutory interpretation. The California Supreme Court’s cases, Liu explained, have acknowledged that statutes may contain an exception when it is impossible to comply with the law when that is what the legislature intended. But in this case, Liu wrote, neither the text nor the purpose of the law indicates that, once the law went into effect, gun manufacturers may be excused from the requirement because it is impossible to comply with it.
Kruger concurred in a 2019 opinion by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye that unanimously upheld the death sentence of a man convicted of a brutal double murder and robbery. Cantil-Sakauye’s opinion also rejected the challenge by the inmate, Thomas Potts, to the constitutionality of the state’s death-penalty scheme, as well as his contention that his more than two decades on death row constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
Kruger did not join a concurring opinion by Liu that, while expressing “tremendous compassion for the victims and their families,” characterized the state’s death-penalty system as “an expensive and dysfunctional system that does not deliver justice or closure in a timely manner, if at all.” It is time, Liu suggested, for a discussion of the death penalty’s “effectiveness and costs.”
Kruger joined a unanimous opinion by Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, another Brown appointee, abolishing the state’s cash bail system. The question came to the court in the case of Kenneth Humphrey, a 66-year-old man charged with robbery. Humphrey’s bail was initially set at $600,000 and then was reduced to $350,000 – an amount that Humphrey still could not pay. Cuellar concluded that the “common practice of conditioning freedom solely on whether an arrestee can afford bail is unconstitutional.” “Other conditions of release,” he continued, including “electronic monitoring, regular check-ins with a pretrial case manager, community housing or shelter, and drug and alcohol treatment,” can often “protect public and victim safety as well as assure the arrestee’s appearance at trial.”
A varied record in divided cases
But not all of the California Supreme Court’s opinions are unanimous. And when the court has divided, Kruger has been difficult to pigeonhole. She has sometimes joined Democratic appointees to reach an arguably “liberal” result, but at other times she has joined Republican appointees to arrive at an arguably “conservative” result.
In the 2016 case Augustus v. ABM Security Services, Kruger declined to join Cuellar’s majority opinion holding that an employer violated state labor laws by requiring its employees – security guards – to keep their radios and pagers on during their rest periods in case they were needed. Cuellar, whose ruling was joined by four other justices, reasoned that the employer’s policies “conflict with an employer’s obligation to provide breaks relieving employees of all work-related duties and employer control.”
In an opinion joined by Justice Carol Corrigan, who was named to the court by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, Kruger agreed with the majority that employers “must provide off-duty rest periods” for their employees. But, she continued, simply requiring those employees to carry a radio or a pager during their rest periods isn’t, standing alone, work – particularly when there is no evidence that the security guards’ rest periods were actually interrupted. Kruger would have sent the case back to the lower courts for them to determine whether the company’s “on-call policy actually interfered with its employees’ ability to use their rest periods as periods of rest.”
Kruger provided the key vote in 2018 in Hassell v. Bird, in which the court declined to uphold an order that would have required Yelp to remove negative reviews of a law firm from its site. A three-justice plurality, in an opinion by Cantil-Sakauye, another Schwarzenegger appointee, agreed with Yelp that requiring it to take down the reviews would violate Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996, which generally gives websites immunity for content created by their users. (Corrigan and Justice Ming Chin, who was appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican, provided the other two votes for Cantil-Sakauye’s opinion.)
In a separate concurring opinion, Kruger explained that in her view it was “unnecessary to reach” the Section 230 issue. Instead, she would resolve the case on the “more basic” ground that Yelp – which had not been named as a defendant in the case – could not be required to take the review down without “its own day in court.” Kruger agreed that the majority had reached the correct result, but she emphasized that she would not weigh in on how Section 230 might apply more broadly in future cases. She reasoned that although Section 230 “has brought an end to a number of lawsuits seeking remedies for a wide range of civil wrongs accomplished through Internet postings,” “the broad sweep of section 230 remedies also has ‘troubling consequences.’” “Whether to maintain the status quo,” Kruger concluded, “is a question only Congress can decide.”
Joined by Cuellar and two other Brown appointees — Liu and Justice Joshua Groban — Kruger wrote for a 4-3 court in 2019 in throwing out a lower-court ruling that upheld a search of a car without a warrant to look for the driver’s identification. Kruger described the “central issue” before the court as “not whether the search of” the driver’s car was “consistent with the guidance given in” an earlier case, but instead whether to “continue to adhere to” that earlier decision in light of U.S. Supreme Court cases since then.
Noting that the California decision had become an outlier, Kruger observed that although the California Supreme Court’s ruling had “attempted to cordon off” the power it gave to police officers, experience had shown that in practice, the searches have come “perilously close” to full searches of the cars. There are other ways for officers to obtain the information that they need, she suggested, such as asking a driver for her name and date of birth and cross-checking that information against the Department of Motor Vehicles database.
Addressing the dissent’s argument that, without carving out an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s general warrant requirement for cases like this one, “officers may not be able to achieve absolute certainty about the identity of some subset of traffic violators before issuing traffic tickets,” Kruger countered that “the test for whether an exception should be recognized is not whether, in its absence, there might be some cost in effective enforcement of the traffic laws.” Instead, she wrote, it is “whether the tradeoff to lower that risk is worth the coin in diminished privacy.” “It is not,” she concluded, “a price we should lightly require California drivers to pay.”
In 2018, Kruger wrote for a divided court – in an opinion joined by Cantil-Sakauye, Chin, and Corrigan – in rejecting a challenge to a state law that requires law enforcement officials to collect DNA samples and fingerprints from anyone arrested for a felony. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Maryland v. King, the majority concluded that the defendant in the case, Mark Buza, had been arrested for a serious offense – arson – and, at least as applied to him, the requirement therefore did not violate either the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment or the California constitution.
The majority did not weigh in on whether the law was valid for other defendants, and it rejected a suggestion – made by Liu and Cuellar, in dissenting opinions – that it determine whether the state can require a DNA sample before a judge determines that a defendant’s arrest was valid. Kruger stressed that the court’s holding was “limited,” and she explained that “the law teaches that we should ordinarily focus on the circumstances before us in determining whether the work of a coequal branch of government may stand or must fall.”
Kruger joined an opinion by Liu in 2019 that reinstated a challenge by psychotherapists to a state law that would require them to report to authorities patients who admit to viewing child pornography, even when the therapists don’t believe that the patients pose any harm to children. Writing for a four-justice majority, Liu acknowledged that the “proliferation of child pornography on the Internet is an urgent problem of national and international dimension,” but the court – over a dissent by Cantil-Sakauye, Chin, and Corrigan – concluded that the reporting requirement implicated an interest in privacy. Stressing that the court was not ruling that the reporting requirement was unconstitutional, Liu sent the case back to the lower courts for them to determine whether the reporting requirement actually advances the law’s purpose of protecting children, or whether it instead deters patients from seeking treatment for sexual disorders.
Kruger sided with the court’s conservative justices in a 4-3 ruling in 2017 that made it more difficult for inmates sentenced under the state’s “Three Strikes” law to obtain resentencing. In a separate concurring opinion joined by two of her colleagues, Kruger explained that the other provisions in the ballot initiative on which the inmates seeking resentencing relied reflected a “clear and exclusive focus on affording relief to individuals who have committed specified drug- and theft-related offenses, and neither the stated purposes of the proposition nor the ballot materials alerted voters to any possibility that a favorable vote might also result in a significant change to the separate statutory scheme governing the resentencing of life prisoners under the ‘Three Strikes’ law.” “Although this is certainly a choice the voters could make,” Kruger acknowledged, “I do not think we can say it is a choice the voters have already made.”
Under the California system, although Kruger was nominated by Brown and confirmed by the Commission on Judicial Appointments, she was still required to face the voters in a “retention election,” without an opponent, in 2018. Kruger won retention easily, with nearly 73% of voters – 6.6 million in total – voting “yes.”
Personal life
Kruger is married to Brian Hauck, a partner at the law firm of Jenner & Block and a former senior official in the Department of Justice during the Obama administration. The couple has two children: a son and a daughter.
When she had their daughter in 2016, Kruger became the first California Supreme Court justice to give birth while in office. A 2018 story in the Los Angeles Times recounted how Kruger traveled from the San Francisco Bay area, where she lives, to Los Angeles with her newborn to hear oral arguments; Kruger’s mother-in-law cared for the baby, then four weeks old, while Kruger was working.
If Biden nominates Kruger, it will not be his administration’s first effort to get Kruger to return to the east coast. In January, Marcia Coyle and Ryan Barber of the National Law Journal reported that Kruger had twice turned down offers to serve as the administration’s solicitor general. Like a position as a Supreme Court justice, that job requires Senate confirmation – but a job as a Supreme Court justice comes with life tenure.
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Amy Howe is the former editor and a reporter for SCOTUSblog and still is a contributor. She primarily writes for her eponymous blog, Howe on the Court.
Before turning to full-time blogging, she served as counsel in over two dozen merits cases at the Supreme Court and argued two cases there.
Amy is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and holds a master’s degree in Arab Studies and a law degree from Georgetown University.
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The preceding article was previously published by SCOTUSBlog and is republished by permission.
California Politics
Los Angeles LGBTQ+ organizers condemn ‘harmful anti-LGBTQ+ tropes’ in ads targeting John Erickson’s Senate race
Leaders worry about the impact of the ads on the LGBTQ+ community at large
Multiple organizations — including Equality California, the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization — condemned a recent string of political ads targeting West Hollywood councilmember John Erickson.
The political ad was mailed out to voters, with AI-generated photos of Erickson. One ad portrays a photo of Erickson, depicted leisurely in Paris with the phrase “John Erickson: Where public service meets room service.”
On the flyer, claims were made saying that Erickson “used taxpayer dollars to fund a trip to Paris,” implying he was there on vacation and or mismanaging funds.
In a joint statement with the Los Angeles County LGBTQ+ Elected Officials, the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, and the nonpartisan political organization HONOR PAC, Equality California said these ads “have raised serious concerns within the LGBTQ+ community for relying on imagery and stereotypes that evoke harmful anti-LGBTQ+ tropes.”
“Whether intentional or inadvertent, these tactics cause real harm and contribute to a broader climate in which LGBTQ+ people are increasingly being targeted and attacked across the country for who they are,” the statement continued.
Senate District 24, which Erickson is running for, is “among the most LGBTQ+ voters in California,” according to the statement.
“These tactics feel especially harmful and out of touch with a deeply inclusive district,” a portion of the statement said. “We demand that all candidates and committees in this and other races throughout California carefully review these materials and take meaningful steps to ensure future communications reflect the values of dignity, inclusion, and respect.”
The flyer was paid for by Keep California Golden, a coalition of “industry associations, labor unions, and businesses,” according to its website.
Beyond a paragraph as a description and a list of top donors being the California Association of Realtors, California Correctional Peace Officers Association, and California Building Industry Association, the website for Keep California Golden is blank.
On both the physical ads and website, a note says that the ads were “not authorized by a candidate or a committee controlled by a candidate.”
Additional AI political ad / Distributed by Keep California Golden
Keep California Golden has been around since 2017, but didn’t start receiving significant contributions until quarter 2 of 2018, according to Transparency USA, which tracks data on money in state politics.
Its second and third highest expenditures are to the U.S. Postal Service and Red Printing and Mail, at $411,431 and $218,600, respectively, according to Transparency USA.
Erickson’s trips referenced in the flyer were approved by the city council in a public council meeting, were unanimously approved, and went through proper channels, he told the Los Angeles Blade.
Erickson was elected to the West Hollywood City Council in 2020 and was reelected in 2024. This is his first run for the California Senate, where he’s running for the District 24 seat.
“They’re distorting the facts to make it seem like I’m one person, but in reality, they’re doing it because they’re afraid of what I actually am going to offer,” Erickson said.
His trips were official business, he said, one of which was a trip to meet the late Pope Francis as a West Hollywood representative, for a program that Los Angeles County and the city co-sponsored to foster youth civic engagement through sports.
The ads referenced another approved trip to the most recent Paris Olympics. West Hollywood is hosting Pride House, a housing village for LGBTQ+ Olympians during the upcoming 2028 Olympics.
“We have people here in California that are not only trying to further harm the LGBTQ+ community, but then spending millions of dollars to push it out to voters to mislead them,” Erickson added. “Even here in West Hollywood, we still face homophobia.”
He called the ads “disgusting and reprehensible,” but said he was honored that the community is standing behind him and pushing back.
“Billionaires are spending money against a candidate whom they are deeply afraid of,” Erickson said. “I’m out there calling to tax the billionaires and the corporations to pay their fair share to fund education, health care, social services… and they’re afraid of me, because I’m also supported and endorsed by the California Federation of Labor.”
He feels the ads are aiming to weaken him as a candidate due to his strong labor ties, as a former labor union president, and endorsements by multiple labor unions.
This is also part of a trend of attacking LGBTQ+ rights and existence, he said.
“This is how we’re engaging in politics at a time where LGBTQ+ people are so attacked in every way, shape, and form,” Erickson said. “In states like Kansas and other places, transgender individuals aren’t even able to get a driver’s license. Internationally, Senegal just increased the penalties for LGBTQ+ people to 10 years in prison.”
Whatever the reason, Erickson worries for future openly LGBTQ+ political leaders aiming to make a larger change in higher offices.
“More people need to be aware of how this impacts other LGBTQ+ elected officials or who might want to consider running for office,” Erickson said. “Those are the things that I’m most concerned about, because an attack on me as an out LGBTQ+ elected official is an attack on everyone.”
“Why would someone else want to put themselves up for the scrutiny of running, if all they’re going to do is get lied and distorted about? I think it does more harm to LGBTQ people than we actually know,” he added.
Politics
Scott Wiener seems headed to run without Pelosi’s endorsement
The gay State Senator is seeking the Speaker Emeritus’ seat
For a while, it seemed that Scott Wiener, a gay California state senator, would be a shoo-in to succeed Nancy Pelosi in the state’s 11th Congressional District. But Monday, 15 days before the June 2 primary election, Pelosi threw a wrench into the race by endorsing one of his rivals, San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan.
Wiener remains ahead in the polls; he, Chan, and former software engineer and congressional staffer Saikat Chakrabarti are the leading candidates in the race. They are among eight Democrats running, along with one Republican and one candidate declaring no party preference. In California’s primary system, the two top vote recipients in the primary advance to the general election, regardless of party. The district is heavily Democratic.
Pelosi is retiring after representing the district, which covers all of San Francisco, since 1987. In endorsing Chan, Pelosi said in a video, “She’s a mom who knows her power and knows her why. She has fought tirelessly to rebuild our middle class, strengthen our safety net, and protect our rights.” She also called Chan “the leader best prepared to carry forward the fight for San Francisco in the Congress of the United States.”
Wiener released a statement on the endorsement, saying, “I have tremendous respect for Speaker Emerita Pelosi and deep gratitude for everything she has done for our city and our country. Whoever wins in November will have giant stilettos to fill.” To the San Francisco Chronicle, he added, “I think it’s been crystal clear that I would be honored to have her endorsement, and I respect that she has made a choice, and that is entirely her choice to make, and that she’s made a choice.”
“There’s no longstanding disagreement nor any personal animus behind Pelosi’s decision,” political columnist Joe Garofoli wrote in the Chronicle. But Pelosi “bristled” when Wiener announced his candidacy for the seat last year, before she confirmed that she wouldn’t run again, Garofoli noted. She and Chan are also close allies of organized labor, although Wiener has significant labor support as well. And Pelosi, the first woman to be speaker of the U.S. House, often supports women for public office and urges them to “know their why”—why they’re running.
In a poll this month by the Chronicle, 40 percent of likely voters supported or were leaning toward Wiener, while 18 percent chose Chan and 17 percent preferred Chakrabarti. So Pelosi’s endorsement may not push Chan ahead of Wiener, but it may push her ahead of Chakrabarti, setting up Chan and Wiener to face off in the general election, according to Garofoli.
“This endorsement is more than an adrenaline shot in the arm for Chan’s campaign,” David McCuan, a professor of political science at Sonoma State University, told the columnist.
But Pelosi has not always backed winners. Last year, she called California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis a particularly great candidate for governor, but Kounalakis soon dropped out of the crowded race. Some of the San Francisco supervisors she’s supported have won their elections, and some have not. She did endorse then-Congressman Adam Schiff for U.S. senator from California in 2024, and he won. Pelosi remains popular in San Francisco, though some constituents wish she had stepped aside earlier in favor of younger pols.
Schiff has endorsed Chan in the 11th District race, along with many high-profile politicians and activists, such as Congresswoman Judy Chu, former San Francisco Mayors Willie Brown and Art Agnos, former California Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (a gay man), and veteran gay activist Cleve Jones. She has also been endorsed by the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club, which praises her as a champion of the working class.
Wiener has the endorsement of the California Democratic Party and many LGBTQ+ groups, including the Human Rights Campaign PAC, the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, Equality California, Equality PAC, and the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus. He has been endorsed by The Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco’s largest LGBTQ+ publication, as well.
Both Chan and Chakrabarti have positioned themselves to the left of Wiener, who “would be identified as pretty far to the left in most places; in San Francisco, he’s deemed a moderate,” Mother Jones noted. The three share many positions—support for LGBTQ+ rights, opposition to Donald Trump’s brutal treatment of immigrants, and condemnation of his cuts to many federal programs. They differ on new state taxes on the wealthiest residents, with Wiener opposed and Chan and Chakrabarti in support. Wiener does want to reverse Trump’s federal tax cuts for the rich.
However, the biggest problem facing San Francisco is a shortage of housing, at least housing that middle- and working-class people can afford. The three leading candidates have ideas to address that, but they differ on details. Wiener has pushed for more housing for residents of all income levels and for loosening regulations as an incentive to build. Chan opposes deregulation and says the focus should be on “housing that working people can afford,” she recently told local publication The Frisc. Chakrabarti is friendlier to deregulation and has proposed a public national bank to finance housing.
As a state senator, Wiener has put forth several bills calling for the construction of high-density housing near public transit, including in areas where such buildings were not previously allowed; he finally got one passed and signed into law in 2025, and it goes into effect July 1. Previous bills had drawn opposition from those who wanted to keep their neighborhoods exclusive to single-family homes, as well as from groups worried that the new construction would push out low-income residents. The law’s effective date could be delayed because of confusion over how to implement it; Wiener told Politico he’s open to that if it’s based on “good-faith feedback.”
Wiener was involved in another controversy recently, this one over the war in Gaza. At a candidates’ forum in January, he stayed silent when asked if Israel’s actions in the region constituted genocide, while Chan and Chakrabarti had said yes. Less than a week later, he shifted positions, saying the term was appropriate. Criticism from his fellow Jews then led him to resign as co-chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus. He went on to call Israel’s government an “abomination” that “is making Israelis less safe,” as quoted by The American Prospect.
A bit more about each candidate: Wiener was first elected to the California Senate in 2016. He previously represented Harvey Milk’s district on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, S.F.’s city council, and before that, practiced law. In the Senate, his persistence has annoyed some colleagues, but he has said it means he gets things done. Chan is a first-generation immigrant, having been born in Hong Kong and coming to the U.S. at age 13. She was an employee in several city departments, including a stint as an aide to then-District Attorney Kamala Harris, before her election as a supervisor. Chakrabarti amassed a fortune with Stripe, a payment processing company, and has put millions into his campaign. He was briefly chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York but offended many in Washington with his criticism that mainstream Democrats weren’t doing enough to fight Trump.
The hard-fought primary campaign will come to a head June 2—but expect another hard-fought campaign leading up to November.
Written by Trudy King, this is a cross-post from Karen Ocamb’s LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters Substack.
Congress
Eight Democrats break with party as House advances ‘Don’t Say Trans’ bill
Measure not expected to pass in Senate
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a federal “Don’t Say Trans” bill on Wednesday, attempting to force teachers to out transgender students nationwide.
The bill, House Resolution 2616, also called the “Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act,” would require schools to get parental consent before allowing students to use their preferred, rather than originally assigned, gender markers, pronouns, or preferred name on any school form, and to use any sex-based accommodations, including locker rooms or bathrooms.
The bill amends Section 8526 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, legislation that allows for federal aid to help elementary and secondary education programs — particularly those under its lowest-income Title I-A program — to stop allocating funds to any education that teaches concepts “related to gender ideology.”
This is directly related to Executive Order 14168, also known as the “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” order, one of President Donald Trump’s first executive orders of his second term. It requires the federal government to recognize only sex assigned at birth and dismiss gender identity rather than sex.
The bill was sponsored by U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and passed by a 217-198 margin. The vote fell mostly along party lines; however, eight Democrats voted for its passage. They were U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Donald Davis (D-N.C.), Cleo Fields (D-La.), Laura Gillen (D-N.Y.), Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), and Eugene Vindman (D-Va.).
Proponents of the bill argue a child’s gender identity should be directed by parents at home rather than in public schools.
Critics say this is dangerous and will force students to be outed by their teachers to parents — some of whom may not be supportive of their gender identity — which could lead to violence or possibly conversion therapy.
California Congressman Mark Takano, chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, spoke on the House floor while the bill was being debated.
“Republicans claim to be the party of small government, but they have no problem bringing the full force of the federal government down against children. The GOP thinks they can legislate transgender people out of existence with this inhumane Don’t Say Trans bill, but all they’re doing is making life worse for a small minority of already-vulnerable children,” Takano said. “I spent 24 years as an educator where I worked with hundreds of high school students and their parents. Most children go to their parents when they need help or are struggling — including transgender children — but not all parents are accepting. The forced outing provision of this bill puts teachers in an impossible situation by requiring them to out trans kids to their parents in certain situations — even if the teacher knows the student will likely face physical abuse. Students like these are who Republicans want to put in immediate physical danger with this bill.”
The Los Angeles Blade talked to Tyler Heck, founder and executive director of the trans advocacy organization and Christopher Street Project PAC, following the bill’s passage.
“Most queer kids go to their families when they are figuring out who they are, and then not all queer kids have that option,” Heck told the Blade. “If this became law, it would harm those already vulnerable kids who rely on school as a safe place and might not have a safe place at home.”
They explained this is not about protecting parents’ rights to know what is going on with their children, but rather the weaponization of trans identity that has become a mainstream Republican ideal pushed by the Trump-Vance administration.
“Young people deserve the space to figure out who they are without the federal government interfering in their lives,” they said. “It is beyond the pale, or rather it should be beyond the pale, and has become a norm for Republicans in Congress to villainize kids, because I mean, this bill targets kids, it’s in the name of the bill, and it’s in the implications.”
Heck continued, saying that amid the rising cost of everyday necessities — from gas to groceries — and while the Trump-Vance administration continues to defund programs intended to help the most vulnerable Americans while creating slush funds for political allies, this is not what Congress should be focusing on.
“At a time when people are really struggling, and politicians need to be focused on lowering costs, they’re using queer and trans kids as political pawns,” Heck said. “They want to divide and conquer this country, and we need to stand up against them and unite behind values of inclusion and of trust in our teachers.”
David Stacy, the Human Rights Campaign’s vice president of government affairs, provided a statement to the Blade.
“Trans kids are not a political agenda — they are students who deserve safety and affirmation at school like anyone else,” Stacy said. “Despite the many pressing issues facing our nation, House Republicans continue their bizarre obsession with trans people. HR 2616 does not protect children. It targets them. This bill is cruel, and we’ll continue to fight to ensure it never becomes law.”
The bill will move to the U.S. Senate in the coming days and weeks, but it must first be reviewed by a Senate committee before leadership schedules it for a floor vote, where it will need 60 votes to pass.
Federal Government
Texas Children’s Hospital reaches $10 million settlement with DOJ over gender-affirming care
Clinic specializing in detransition care will be established
The Justice Department announced May 15 that it has reached a settlement with Texas Children’s Hospital, one of the nation’s top pediatric hospitals.
Under the agreement, the hospital will pay more than $10 million in damages and civil penalties related to its provision of gender-affirming care and will establish a clinic specializing in detransition care.
The DOJ partnered with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office to resolve allegations that the hospital submitted false billings to public and private insurers to secure coverage for pediatric gender-affirming procedures. The department alleges the conduct violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the False Claims Act, and federal fraud and conspiracy laws.
The settlement was reached out of court, meaning neither party formally admitted wrongdoing. Both the DOJ and Texas Children’s Hospital denied liability.
“The Justice Department will use every weapon at its disposal to end the destructive and discredited practice of so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ for children,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a DOJ press release. “Today’s resolution protects vulnerable children, holds providers accountable, and ensures those harmed receive the care they need.”
The DOJ’s hardline stance on gender-affirming care sharply contrasts with the positions of major medical organizations, transgender healthcare advocates, and human rights groups, which broadly support gender-affirming care as an evidence-based treatment for gender dysphoria.
Adrian Shanker, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Policy and Senior Advisor on LGBTQI+ Health Equity at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under during the Biden-Harris administration, told the Los Angeles Blade the settlement could have sweeping consequences for trans youth and healthcare providers nationwide.
“The Trump administration’s framing of gender-affirming care is wildly inaccurate, scientifically implausible, and frankly, just mean-spirited,” Shanker told the Blade. “What’s really clear is that the science hasn’t changed, the evidence hasn’t changed — it’s only the politics that have changed. Unfortunately, the people that lose out the most with a settlement like this one are the patients that are denied access to care where they live.”
According to Shanker, the agreement also requires Texas Children’s Hospital to revoke privileges for physicians involved in providing gender-affirming care, potentially limiting their ability to practice elsewhere.
“This is a weaponized Department of Justice doing absurd investigations against providers that are providing care within the established standard of care,” he said. “They’ve come up with an absurd remedy in their settlement to require a so-called ‘detransition clinic’ to open at Texas Children’s. It’s harmful to science, it’s harmful to trans people, and it’s harmful to the medical profession.”
Shanker argued the case reflects a broader politicization of trans healthcare.
“Every American should be concerned about the weaponized Department of Justice and their obsession with trans people and their access to care,” he said. “These hospitals that provide gender-affirming care, the providers of gender-affirming care, have done nothing wrong. They followed the standards of care that are well established and followed the mountain of evidence.”
Karen Loewy, senior counsel and director of constitutional law practice at Lambda Legal, echoed those concerns.
“For Texas Children’s to capitulate to this pressure campaign of both Paxton and the Trump administration and end this care, and go after physicians who had been lawfully and faithfully taking care of their patients, it’s hard to see that as anything other than bending the knee in the face of political pressure,” Loewy told the Blade. “That’s not putting your mission above politics. Your mission is to provide health care for kids that need it.”
Loewy said the settlement reflects years of efforts by Paxton and the Trump-Vance administration to target gender-affirming care providers. Paxton has pursued investigations into providers across Texas since 2022 and supported a 2023 law banning gender-transition-related medical care for minors. Meanwhile, the Trump-Vance administration moved quickly in its second term to restrict trans healthcare access, including through Executive Order 14187, titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.”
“This is a perfect storm of Ken Paxton’s own mission to stigmatize and target trans young people and their healthcare in Texas with the Trump administration’s targeting of trans people and gender-affirming medical care,” Loewy said. “It is the two of them together. Without that, you wouldn’t have had this settlement.”
Loewy also emphasized that the settlement is part of a broader legal strategy targeting providers nationwide.
“You can’t view this one in isolation from all of the other administrative subpoenas that have been sent to hospitals or other kinds of medical providers that have provided gender-affirming medical care to trans adolescents,” she said. “It is all part and parcel of the same direct line from the executive orders that were issued in the first days of this Trump administration.”
“Every court that has considered those subpoenas has found them illegitimate and issued for an improper purpose, or at least narrowed them really dramatically,” she added. “Courts agree these hospitals didn’t do anything wrong. It’s the DOJ that has the problem here.”
Shanker also criticized the settlement’s requirement that the hospital establish a detransition clinic, arguing the move contradicts existing medical evidence.
“The irony shouldn’t be lost on anyone that the Trump administration is claiming that gender-affirming care lacks a scientific basis, and then is requiring the opening of a so-called detransition clinic, which certainly lacks a scientific basis,” Shanker said. “There’s less than a 1% regret rate when it comes to gender-affirming care. That’s lower than knee surgery, lower than bariatric surgery, lower than childbirth, lower than breast reconstruction, and lower than tattoos.”
Loewy was similarly blunt in her criticism.
“This is the most craven, political, ridiculous elevation of ideology over evidence,” she said. “They are creating a program built on an outcome that almost never happens. It is unprecedented and politically mandated rather than healthcare mandated.”
She said the settlement’s broader effect will be to intimidate providers and further marginalize trans people.
“The real effect here is to further stigmatize trans people and intimidate healthcare providers,” she said. “This is about sending a message nationwide that the DOJ is coming after the doctors. These are committed, faithful, law-abiding physicians and healthcare providers who just want to provide the healthcare their patients actually need.”
Both Loewy and Shanker warned that restricting access to gender-affirming care could deepen health disparities for trans people.
“We know that when transgender Americans lack the care that they need, we end up with higher rates of depression, higher rates of anxiety, higher rates of self-harm and suicidal ideation,” Shanker said. “We know that gender-affirming care is a medically appropriate, scientifically grounded form of care that resolves these challenges and leads us toward health equity. It’s unfortunate that the Trump administration has politicized not only transgender medicine, but the very basis of public health.”
Shanker said the restrictions are already prompting some trans people to relocate in search of care.
“We’re already seeing medical refugees leave states that have restricted access to care to move to states where it’s still available,” he said. “Frankly, we’ve already seen some trans people go to other countries to receive care or maintain access to care.”
Loewy said the DOJ’s recent subpoenas targeting hospitals, including those issued to NYU Langone Health in New York, suggest the administration is escalating its legal strategy.
“We’ve seen the DOJ escalate this by convening a grand jury and issuing grand jury subpoenas to hospitals,” she said. “That is going to be the next front in this fight.”
In addition to , there has been as large increase in anti-trans legislation in the past few years — with 126 federal pieces of legislation introduced this year and 26 state level policies passed across the country.
Still, Loewy pointed to recent court victories as evidence that challenges to these policies can succeed.
“Just yesterday, a state court in Kansas struck down that state’s ban on gender-affirming medical care in one of the most meticulous recognitions of the medical consensus and the harm of denying care to trans young people,” she said. “When courts actually look at the science and the impacts on trans people, they still can rule the right way.”
Asked whether there is any optimism to be found amid the ongoing legal battles, Loewy said she continues to draw hope from advocates, families, and community organizers fighting back.
“The solidarity of the community is really what brings hope,” she said. “There are incredible lawyers, advocates, families, and organizations fighting every day to protect these kids and their privacy and safety. It is that community strength and collaborative effort that continues to give me hope.”
Congress
Anti-LGBTQ+ commentator Tyler O’Neil to testify in Southern Poverty Law Center probe
House Judiciary Committee will hold hearing on group on Wednesday
The man behind some of the strongest push against the Southern Poverty Law Center, who has an extensive anti-LGBTQ+ history, is being asked to speak before the House Judiciary Committee as part of its ongoing investigations into the nonprofit legal organization.
Last month, the Justice Department indicted the SPLC on 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements made to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit money laundering related to payments to informants.
The DOJ alleges the civil rights group defrauded donors by using their money to fund the extremist groups it claims to be fighting. It also alleges the SPLC used more than $3 million paid to informants through a now-defunct program designed to infiltrate white supremacist and other extremist organizations.
Since then, the House Judiciary Committee, which says its main goals are to “protect constitutional freedoms and civil liberties, provide oversight of the U.S. Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, and manage legal and regulatory matters” has launched its own investigation into the ongoing litigation against the civil rights organization and tapped far-right journalist Tyler O’Neil to speak on the matter on Wednesday.
O’Neil has worked for several outlets that advance far-right perspectives, including the Washington Free Beacon and Fox News, and is currently the senior editor at the Daily Signal.
The Daily Signal began as a newsletter for the conservative Heritage Foundation, which authored Project 2025, a policy blueprint for a second Trump administration that outlines expanded executive power, increased conservative control of federal agencies, reduced civil and human rights protections, and a vision of the U.S. as a Christian nationalist nation.
O’Neil has written extensively about progressive organizations — most notably the SPLC. He authored the book “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” in which he argues that the organization’s “hate map,” which identifies extremist groups — including neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan groups, and openly antisemitic organizations — is “an organ of disinformation” for also including mainstream conservative groups. He also did an interview with the Heritage foundation in 2022 about his work on the civil rights group, where it was called a “left-wing smear factory.”
In addition to his work on the SPLC, O’Neil has a long history of anti-LGBTQ+ — and specifically anti-transgender — commentary. At one point, he spotlighted the Reintegrative Therapy Association, a practice likened to conversion therapy by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. The American Medical Association has condemned the practice, stating: “Professional consensus rejects pathologizing homosexuality and gender nonconformity and evidence does not support the efficacy of changing sexual orientation.”
He has also attacked Christian groups that actively support LGBTQ+ people, particularly the Episcopal Church. He called the church “one of the most flaccid and spineless of the dying mainline Protestant denominations” and criticized its theology as a “watered-down bastardization of Christianity.”
O’Neil has also defended the anti-LGBTQ+ “pro-family” policies of former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who had been in office from 2010 until earlier this month. Orbán and his government faced widespread criticism for policies including banning Pride celebrations and restricting legal gender recognition for trans and intersex people.
The European Commission in 2022 sued Hungary, a member of the EU, over the country’s 2021 anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda law.
Vice President JD Vance spoke at an April rally for Orbán, supporting the hardline anti-transgender approach the former prime minister has taken in Hungary.
Overall, O’Neil’s work reflects a clear pattern of endorsing anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, defending groups organizations have labeled as hate groups, and consistently writing through a Christian conservative nationalist lens.
Kyle Herrig of the Congressional Integrity Project, an organization “committed to exposing the reality behind Republicans’ politically motivated oversight and investigations,” gave a statement about the Judiciary Committee’s decision to have O’Neil testify, saying it further endangers those most vulnerable.
“House Republicans can’t find credible witnesses for their anti-civil rights crusade next week because they have no credible case. They’re giving a microphone to one of the far-right’s most discredited, anti-LGBTQ+ extremists and dressing it up as congressional oversight. It’s all in service of the Trump administration’s backwards prosecution of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the premiere organization tracking the very extremism people like Tyler O’Neill support. Attacking the SPLC doesn’t do anything to make Americans safer. It just makes it easier for racist, anti-LGBTQ+ organizations to operate in the dark.”
A Judiciary Democrats spokesperson provided a statement to the Los Angeles Blade on O’Neil’s relationship and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric:
“Mr. O’Neil is no stranger to the committee — he has already testified twice in this Congress and has become something of a default witness for people who want to support and platform far-right extremist rhetoric. Judiciary Republicans’ decision to rely on him again here suggests a shortage of both new evidence and credible claims against the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Committee Democrats remain focused on protecting civil rights and resisting political efforts to discredit organizations that track and combat extremism, hate, and discrimination. As in prior hearings, Democrats are prepared to carefully scrutinize Mr. O’Neil’s hateful and out-of-touch ideas and debunk his false allegations about organizations dedicated to defending all of our civil rights.”
The Blade reached out to O’Neil, the Daily Signal, Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) about O’Neil’s slated testimony for the committee.
Federal Government
Bureau of Prisons declines to reconsider transgender inmate policy
Democratic lawmakers raised concerns this week, lawsuit filed
Following a letter sent Monday by several Democratic senators raising concerns about the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ updated transgender inmate policy, the BOP responded to a request for comment from the Los Angeles Blade, saying it does not plan to reverse the changes implemented earlier this year.
The policy was revised in 2025 to comply with President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14168, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
In a statement to the Blade, BOP spokesperson Donald Murphy said the updated policy is rooted in medical guidance and data-driven decision making.
“The BOP implemented the February 2025 policy to ensure that inmates with gender dysphoria are properly diagnosed and treated consistent with best medical practices,” he said. “Unlike the prior administration’s one-size-fits-all approach, the BOP’s new policy ensures individualized assessments and treatments. And while the previous administration’s policies on treating inmates with gender dysphoria was driven by radical ideology, the BOP’s current policy is based on medical studies, medical expert opinions, state correctional policies, caselaw, and penological concerns. Absent court order, there are no plans to reconsider or revisit the policy.”
U.S. Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) signed the letter, arguing that the policy change fails to adequately prioritize the safety of trans inmates — protections they say are guaranteed under the Constitution.
This inquiry comes days after a federal lawsuit was filed against the Justice Department specifically on the concern that trans inmates are not receiving adequate care.
Earlier this month, the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, a legal organization focused on LGBTQ rights since 1977, filed a lawsuit in District Court of the District of Columbia against the Trump-Vance administration in collaboration with GLAD Law, Lowenstein Sandler LLP, and Wardenski P.C.
The suit, filed on May 6, alleges the administration is “ignoring federal protections” designed to prevent sexual abuse of incarcerated trans people.
“Transgender people in prison are sexually abused or assaulted at nearly 10x the rate of the general prison population,” the press release announcing the lawsuit states, adding that federal legislation was enacted to address those risks.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit, Paulina Poe, is a trans woman currently incarcerated in a men’s facility. According to the complaint, she has been “propositioned, groped, sexually harassed, and assaulted” by male inmates and subjected to strip searches by male officers — circumstances the Prison Rape Elimination Act regulations were intended to prevent.
The lawsuit also argues that the policy changes violate constitutional protections and deny trans inmates medically necessary care.
“The Eighth Amendment requires prisons and jails to provide ‘adequate medical care’ to incarcerated people which includes adequate treatment for people diagnosed with gender dysphoria,” says the Transgender Law Center. “‘Adequate medical care’ should be delivered according to accepted medical standards, such as WPATH’s Standards of Care. Some courts have said that in some circumstances ‘adequate medical care’ for gender dysphoria includes providing gender-appropriate clothing and grooming supplies, and the ability to present yourself consistent with your gender identity.”
GLAD Law Staff Attorney Sarah Austin also issued a statement when the lawsuit was announced, saying those responsible for the policy changes — and the rollback of protections under the Prison Rape Elimination Act — will be “held accountable for this egregious and lawless action.”
“The federal government’s unlawful attempt to roll back binding Prison Rape Elimination Act regulations is an especially dangerous step in its ongoing campaign to strip transgender people of legal protections,” Austin said. “The targeting of transgender incarcerated people is a deliberate choice to put vulnerable people in harm’s way simply because of who they are.”
The Justice Department has not responded to the Blade’s request for comment.
White House
White House counterterrorism strategy targets ‘anti-American, radically pro-transgender’ groups
Administration released document last week
The White House released the “United States Counterterrorism Strategy” last week, introducing enforcement priorities that include references to people with “extreme transgender ideologies.”
The document is the first executive branch counterterrorism strategy released since former President Joe Biden’s 2021 “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism,” which largely focused on threats tied to domestic extremism and the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. The Trump-Vance administration’s new strategy instead centers heavily on cartels, Islamist organizations, and what it describes as “violent left-wing extremists.”
The report identifies three primary categories of terror threats facing the U.S.: “Narcoterrorists and Transnational Gangs,” “Legacy Islamist Terrorists,” and “Violent Left-Wing Extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists.” The strategy repeatedly frames those groups as existential threats to the U.S. and outlines a more aggressive, militarized counterterrorism posture.
The introduction to the report closes with a warning from President Donald Trump referencing counterterrorism operations carried out during his second administration: “We will find you and we will kill you.”
In the section outlining the administration’s counterterrorism priorities, the document argues that federal intelligence, and law enforcement agencies under prior administrations focused on the wrong threats while overlooking violence committed by left-wing extremists. The strategy specifically references transgender ideology while discussing political violence.
“As real threats were ignored or underplayed, Americans have witnessed the politically motivated killings of Christians and conservatives committed by violent left-wing extremists, including the assassination of Charlie Kirk by a radical who espoused extreme transgender ideologies.”
Claims tying a trans person to Kirk’s killing have been disputed, however, and multiple news outlets later retracted or corrected early reports that identified the shooter as trans.
The report later expands on that argument, saying the administration will prioritize targeting “violent secular political groups” it describes as anti-American and “radically pro-transgender.”
“In addition to cartels and Islamist terror groups, our national CT activities will also prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist.”
The rhetoric mirrors claims frequently made by Trump allies and conservative commentators linking trans people and left-wing activism to political violence. However, data compiled by researchers and organizations tracking mass shootings does not support the idea that trans people are responsible for a significant share of such attacks.
Factcheck.org says rhetoric from Trump and several far-right political pundits contradicts available data, noting that the percentage of mass shootings committed by trans people is “exceedingly small.”
Despite the lack of evidence supporting generalized claims about trans people, the president’s son Donald Trump, Jr., told Fox News in September 2025 that he could not “name a mass shooting in the last year or two in America that wasn’t committed by, you know, a transgender lunatic.”
Factcheck.org also found that even if cases involving shooters with unclear gender identities were included in statistics about trans mass shooters, the number would still account for only a fraction of a percent.
Mark Bryant, founding executive director of the Gun Violence Archive, said the number of trans mass shooters could be as high as eight, but would still account for less than 0.1 percent of mass shootings over the last 12 years, according to GVA data. He added that the figure would remain below 0.2 percent even when examining incidents from 2018 to the present.
Beyond domestic extremism, the strategy frames the administration’s broader counterterrorism agenda through the lens of “America First” foreign policy and renewed U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere. The report repeatedly references the Monroe Doctrine, the nearly 200-year-old policy warning European powers against interference in the Americas.
“After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland” Trump said in the report.
The document also breaks down counterterrorism priorities by region, including the Middle East, where it argues the U.S. is “no longer as dependent” on the region because of increased domestic energy production.
“Our growing domestic energy production means the Middle East is no longer as central to America’s stability, yet threats from this region remain, and our counterterrorism goals continue to be specific and rooted in realistic threat analysis.”
The statement comes amid rising gas prices tied in part to instability surrounding the war involving Iran, with fuel costs reaching some of their highest levels since 2022. According to AAA, the national average price for gasoline climbed to $4.52 per gallon as the national average rose “$.25 for a second straight week.“
Congress
Senate Democrats press DOJ over anti-trans prison directives
Markey joins other lawmakers in demanding reversal of policies
U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) is urging acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and William Marshall III, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, to reverse a policy affecting transgender inmates that lawmakers say is “endangering” their “health and safety.”
Markey, along with U.S. Sens. Jeffrey A. Merkley (D-Ore.) and Mazie K. Hirono (D-Hawaii), sent the letter that the Los Angeles Blade verified on Monday.
The letter is a direct response to a change in prison policy that went into effect in February 2025, rolling back Biden-era protections for trans inmates. The senators described how President Trump’s Executive Order 14168, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” forced a policy shift they argue is rooted more in political rhetoric than in medical research or evidence-based correctional practices.
In the letter, the lawmakers wrote “On Feb. 21, 2025, the BOP issued a memo to implement President Trump’s EO, requiring BOP staff to ‘refer to individuals by their legal name or pronouns corresponding to their biological sex,’ banning the use of funds for any ‘items that align with transgender ideology,’ and suspending clothing accommodations, pat search accommodations, and support programs offered to transgender individuals.”
“In a second memo, issued one week later, the BOP banned the use of federal funds for ‘any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.’ These changes have resulted in the denial — or threatened denial — of hormone treatment and gender-affirming accommodations for transgender individuals in BOP custody.”
“On Feb. 19, 2026, the BOP escalated its attacks, issuing a program statement titled, ‘Management of Inmates with Gender Dysphoria.’ It prohibits incarcerated people from receiving gender-affirming care, even if paid for with private funds. This practice forces incarcerated people to discontinue care, regardless of medical recommendations.”
The senators continued, “The agency has repeatedly enacted policies that strip transgender individuals of their gender identity and dignity. This includes requiring staff to refer to transgender individuals by pronouns that ‘align with their biological sex’ rather than gender identity and to confiscate gender-affirming items, such as undergarments, clothing, cosmetics, and wigs.”
“These policies risk triggering mental health crises, including increased suicidality, among incarcerated people with gender dysphoria. The BOP’s repeated guidance to roll back gender-affirming protections — despite a federal court order finding that the BOP’s actions to discontinue gender-affirming care are likely unlawful — generate confusion about the current state of regulations and convey the BOP’s indifference to court orders and the rule of law.”
“By stripping away appropriate medical and psychiatric care, safety protections, and measures to provide dignity, the BOP is exposing transgender individuals to significant harm.”
The Marshall Project, a nonprofit newsroom focused on the U.S. criminal justice system and immigration enforcement through data-driven reporting, also reported on the policy change. The outlet spoke with Shana Knizhnik, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, about the impact of the changes.
“It’s clear that this new policy is a ban on gender affirming healthcare,” Knizhnik, who works for the nationwide chapter of the ACLU said. “This is a policy that disregards the medical needs of our plaintiffs.”
The letter also asked the BOP and the DOJ specific questions regarding why the policy went into effect, as lawmakers suggested the changes appear politically motivated rather than based on new medical evidence regarding treatment for trans inmates.
The senators requested answers to these trans policy-specific questions by May 21, including:
“Does the BOP plan to monitor and assess the impacts of recent policies that eliminate gender-affirming medical and psychiatric care?”
“Since January 20, 2025, how many transgender, nonbinary, intersex, and gender-diverse individuals have been transferred to a different facility to meet the EO’s goal of housing individuals ‘according to their biological sex?’”
“Given that the BOP has stopped enforcing Prison Rape Elimination Act regulations related to gender identity and collecting data on gender identity, how will the BOP protect the physical and emotional health and safety of incarcerated transgender individuals?”
“How does the BOP plan to monitor and assess the impact of eliminating protections against sexual violence for this population?”
“Does the BOP plan to institute a specific process by which transgender individuals may seek assistance or lodge complaints regarding harms they experience from the recent BOP policies and actions implementing President Trump’s EO?”
“Describe the specific criteria the BOP intends to use to determine whether it will allow a ‘social accommodation’ for gender dysphoria.”
Markey also included a personal statement to the Blade explaining why he is using his position on Capitol Hill to push for more information and advocate for reversing the policy.
“This administration continuously shows their contempt for trans people and a total disregard for their rights and humanity. As part of this cruel campaign, the Bureau of Prisons has systematically stripped health care access and basic protections from trans people, abandoning its duty to the people in its custody. I won’t stop fighting until this administration’s hateful anti-trans policies are reversed and trans people’s rights are secured.”
The Blade reached out to the DOJ and the BOP for comment but had not received a response at press time.
California Politics
Meet John Erickson, candidate for California State Senate District 24
“I’m the only candidate with a proven track record of courageous legislation,” Erickson says
As the June 2 primary election looms in California, one of the most crowded races is in State Senate District 24, where 10 candidates, including two out LGBTQ+ candidates, are vying to succeed term-limited Democratic incumbent Ben Allen. The state’s nonpartisan, free-for-all “jungle primaries” mean that the top two candidates will square off in the midterm elections on November 3rd, regardless of party.
Eight of the candidates are Democrats, and two are Republicans, but given the district’s makeup, the seat is likely to stay in Democratic hands. District 24 has a large LGBTQ+ population, as it includes West Hollywood, Santa Monica, the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Bel Air, Brentwood, Hollywood, and more, along with many surrounding communities.
The out candidates seeking the seat are community activist Ellen Evans, a lesbian we interviewed last week, and West Hollywood City Council member John Erickson, a gay man, profiled here.
“I’m running to fix the way we build housing, fund health care, defend democracy and LGBTQ+ rights, fight ICE, and protect reproductive rights,” Erickson said.
Erickson grew up in Ripon, Wis., where he was introduced to activism by his grandmother Gladys. While still in elementary school, he went with her to volunteer at the local food bank and to the state capitol to lobby for veterans’ and women’s rights. After getting a B.A. in English and women’s studies at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, he moved to California to be a teacher and attend graduate school. He received a Ph.D. in American religious history and public policy from the Claremont Colleges, specializing in the disconnect between the faith and LGBTQ+ communities. He’s now an adjunct faculty member at Claremont.
He became an intern for the West Hollywood City Council in 2010 and later a council deputy to then-Mayor Abbe Land (the WeHo mayor is chosen by their fellow City Council members and the position rotates among the members yearly). After that, he was a city staffer focusing on policies and programs involving women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, the environment, and civic engagement.
After leaving the city staff, he worked as a legislative representative for the Los Angeles International Airport, vice president of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles, and chief of staff for the Alliance for a Better Community, which advocates for L.A. County Latinos, including efforts to protect immigrants from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The latter is his current “day job,” as serving on the City Council is a part-time position—not that it doesn’t take a lot of work. He was first elected to the council in 2020, becoming its youngest member at age 35, and was reelected in 2024, the year he had his first rotation as mayor.
Erickson points to many accomplishments on the WeHo City Council. “I’m the only candidate with a proven track record of courageous legislation,” he said. These include raising the minimum wage, establishing the WeHo Cares program offering behavioral health care to the homeless, protections for senior renters and those with disabilities, and an ordinance for gender-neutral, multi-stall public restrooms with strong privacy protections in newly constructed buildings and those undergoing major renovation.
WeHo’s efforts led the state to pass a similar law on rentals for seniors and people with disabilities, plus a change to the state building code to make the gender-neutral, multi-stall restrooms possible in cities that wanted them. A bill for the latter passed the state legislature unanimously, which was “quite remarkable,” Erickson said.
He also notes his efforts to expand access to HIV prevention drugs and address the Mpox outbreak, plus his work with Planned Parenthood to protect reproductive rights after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which allowed states to ban abortion. He supported California’s moves to strengthen access and protections for those seeking the procedure, including out-of-staters.
In the California State Senate, Erickson said, he would continue to advocate for LGBTQ+ and women’s rights, along with addressing climate change; promoting public transit; reversing a policy freezing enrollment in Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, for undocumented immigrants; making billionaires pay their fair share to fund needed services; rebuilding after the recent wildfires; and generally standing up to the Trump administration. It’s shameful, he said, that Children’s Hospital Los Angeles ended gender-affirming care for trans youth because of the administration’s threats.
Then there’s the affordability crisis. California needs to prioritize solutions, Erickson stressed. “Everyone is struggling in one way or another,” he said. He’d like to ask elected officials to work a minimum wage job, live without a car, and live without health insurance—and then see how they manage.
Erickson would keep advocating for renters, too. He’s the only renter in the race in the majority-renter District 24, and he’d be one of only two renters in the legislature, he said.
Erickson, who is single, recently got some heat from WEHOonline, a digital publication that often criticizes him, because his campaign website doesn’t say he’s gay. He laughed it off, saying, “It’s pretty obvious that I’m a proud and out gay man.” He called WEHOonline “a gossip blog.”
Erickson has also been the subject of attack ads denouncing his city-funded travel to Paris and the Vatican, which he said was for the legitimate purposes of protecting youth programs and LGBTQ+ athletes ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympics to be held in Los Angeles. The trips were approved in open meetings where the public had a chance to comment, he noted.
West Hollywood will host Pride House, a gathering place for LGBTQ+ athletes, in 2028, and the Paris trip allowed him to see how it worked in that host city in 2024. At the Vatican in 2023, he was able to meet with Pope Francis and advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. He said the ads are funded by crypto-billionaires because of his support for regulating cryptocurrency—and they are “false and malicious.”
Erickson and Evans have both been endorsed by Equality California, the statewide LGBTQ+ organization. Neither of them won the endorsement of the Stonewall Democratic Club; Evans received 57 percent of the membership vote, Erickson 42 percent, but it takes 60 percent to get the endorsement. Erickson did get the endorsement of a separate but similarly named LGBTQ+ group, the Stonewall Young Democrats.
The California Democratic Party endorsed Dr. Sion Roy, a physician at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and vice chair of the Santa Monica College Board. Roy, a straight man, doesn’t mention LGBTQ+ rights on his campaign website, but he recently spoke in support of gender-affirming care for trans youth in an interview with The Orange County Register.
In addition to being an out and proud gay man, Erickson is an out and proud Catholic. In his visit with Pope Francis, he was part of a delegation from an international educational group founded by the pope. He praises Pope Francis as well as his successor, Pope Leo XIV.
“What Pope Francis did for the LGBTQ community and trans community was pretty amazing for a church that moves in decades rather than years,” Erickson said. “I’m not saying I agree with all the policies of the church, but I’m very impressed with two progressive popes.”
For more information on John Erickson’s race for California State Senate District 24, please visit his campaign website.
By Trudy Ring. This is a cross-post from Karen’s LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters Substack.
Federal Government
DOE investigates Smith College’s trans-inclusive policy
Mass. college accused of violating Title IX
The U.S. Department of Education announced on Monday that it opened an investigation into Smith College for admitting transgender women.
Smith College, a private and famously all-women’s college in Northampton, Mass., established in 1871 and opened in 1875, has a long list of women who make up its historic alumni — including first ladies, influential political figures, and cultural leaders.
The DOE released a statement about the investigation into the institution through the Department’s Office for Civil Rights, saying it was looking into the possibility that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was violated by allowing trans women, referred to in the statement as “biological males,” into women’s intimate spaces protected by IX.
The statement explicitly highlighted that this stems from trans women being granted “access to women-only spaces, including dormitories, bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletic teams” while also allowing their audience into the school itself.
This is the first time the Trump-Vance administration has taken a step into admissions processes, a stark jump past investigating policies that allowed trans women to participate in women’s sports and use women’s bathrooms, and allows for the administration to go more after trans acceptance policy as a whole.
Smith’s admission policy allows for “any applicants who self-identify as women,” including “cis, trans, and nonbinary women,” according to the college’s website, and has since 2015, when it updated its policy.
“The college is fully committed to its institutional values, including compliance with civil rights laws,” Smith’s statement in response to the DOE’s investigation said. “The college does not comment on pending government investigations.”
“An all-women’s college loses all meaning if it is admitting biological males,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey. “Allowing biological males into spaces designed for women raises serious concerns about privacy, fairness, and compliance under federal law. The Trump administration will continue to uphold the law and fight to restore common sense.”
This move continues to align with actions the Trump-Vance administration has taken to curtail LGBTQ+ — and specifically trans — rights in America, as members of the administration attempt to break down safeguards and protections that have long been used to protect marginalized communities.
Since Trump took office in his second term, there have been significant legal challenges. According to the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association, there are over 35 court cases that have emerged since his second swearing-in that directly relate to the administration’s attempts to minimize the rights and protections of trans Americans — from medical care and educational protections to military policy.
Much of this anti-trans policy direction was outlined beginning in 2022 with the Project 2025 playbook, which Trump officials have used as a guide to scale back protections for LGBTQ+ people, Black Americans, poor and Indigenous communities, while also increasing costs for lower-income Americans and providing tax cuts to the wealthy and ultra-wealthy. The plans also “erode” Americans’ freedoms and remove crucial checks and balances that have allowed the executive branch to remain in line with the Constitution without becoming too powerful over either the courts or the legislative branch.
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