Politics
How Stonewall Democratic Club retaliated against critics of its president
Stonewall Democratic Club is a powerful force in local politics, especially in the LGBTQIA+ enclave of West Hollywood.
By Kate Gallagher | LOS ANGELES – “I know the ugly side of politics quite well. Any endeavor that involves human beings, there’s going to be mischief somewhere,” said Lauren Buisson. “The system feeds on cronyism and self-dealing, and that’s what I saw at Stonewall.”
Buisson was a member of Stonewall Democratic Club’s Steering Committee until she was dismissed from her position in October 2018. Her capital offense was calling out the racist, transphobic, and otherwise inappropriate Facebook posts made by the organization’s president, Lester Aponte — whose current campaign for a third term as Stonewall president has the support of dozens of elected officials and Democratic Party leaders.
Stonewall Democratic Club is a powerful force in local politics, especially in the LGBTQIA+ enclave of West Hollywood. The organization’s leadership includes high-ranking members of the local, state, and national Democratic Party. Each election cycle, candidates for everything from the Santa Monica School Board to the U.S. Senate vie for Stonewall’s endorsement, a symbolic stamp of approval from the LGBTQIA+ community.
But beneath the veneer of progressivism, several current and former Stonewall members describe a toxic environment of harassment, bigotry, and abuses of power, where dissent is silenced and misconduct is swept under the rug.
“It’s just a really twisted culture about personal gain, personal access, and nothing about advancing LGBT standards of living,” said Craig Scott, a lifelong LGBTQIA+ activist who served on Stonewall’s Steering Committee from 2017 to 2018. “
Sean Kolodji was an enthusiastic young activist when he joined Stonewall in 2009. He soon got involved in the membership team, where he was responsible for recruiting and credentialing new members. By 2015, he’d been appointed to the Steering Committee as Membership Chair. “I felt like we’re really fighting for something,” he said. “We’re fighting for LGBT rights, fighting for the trans community, fighting for diversity, and I was passionate.”
But cracks in the facade quickly started to show. In April 2017, Kolodji won a Stoney Award — the organization’s annual award ceremony/fundraiser — for Member of the Year. Eric Bauman, longtime Stonewall president and then-LACDP Chair, was also there to accept the Public Official of the Year Award.
Bauman, who later resigned as CDP Chair amid sexual misconduct allegations, was “very handsy with everyone,” Kolodji recalled. At one point during the dinner, Bauman began massaging Kolodji’s 20-year-old guest while still seated at the table.
According to several former members, Bauman’s inappropriate behavior was an open secret at Stonewall. None of the club’s leadership ever intervened.
“The pain that we experienced in dealing with the way Eric Bauman interacted — what example did he set for us about how we get power?” Kolodji said. “I feel like there was a structural problem, where we didn’t set the ground rules and say, look, within a professional space we can’t do this.”
That summer, Kolodji was elected to Stonewall’s Executive Team as Communications Vice President. Just days later, Gemmel Moore was found dead in the home of prominent Democratic donor and Stonewall Steering Committee member Ed Buck.
Kolodji, Scott, and Alex Paris, who served as Social Media Chair, pushed the club to publicly disavow Buck’s behavior, and to donate $500 (the cost of Buck’s lifetime Stonewall membership) to Moore’s funeral expenses. They received pushback from several other Steering Committee members, including Aponte, Garry Shay (who serves as the parliamentarian for both Stonewall and the LACDP), and John Erickson, now a member of West Hollywood City Council.
“There were a lot of people in the party that just wanted to be quiet,” Kolodji said. He recalled that, when Black activists posted on Stonewall’s Facebook page asking where the organization stood on Buck’s behavior, Aponte asked that the posts be deleted.
Even once the Steering Committee voted to put out a statement regarding Moore’s death, Aponte fought to soften the statement’s language and frame it around the dangers of drug addiction, rather than Buck’s suspicious role in Moore’s overdose.
“They didn’t want to kick [Buck] out because he gave so much money to the club,” said Scott. “Lester was always like, we can’t jump to conclusions, we need more information.”
Although Buck soon resigned from the Steering Committee, Moore’s death, and the tepid reactions from the rest of the club’s leadership, was a tipping point for Kolodji. “Those experiences together radicalized me a little bit,” he said. “This organization has something rotten at its core, and I can’t just go along with it.”
Lauren Buisson joined Stonewall in the summer of 2017, just after the Ed Buck scandal broke. “I actually went to some other [organizations’] events, and of all the ones I went to, the only person who chatted me up as a potential recruit was Sean.”
Kolodji and Buisson met at the annual Stonewall BBQ, hosted at the family home of State Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer. Buisson soon signed on to join Kolodji and Alex Paris on Stonewall’s communications team, where she managed the club’s social media and led writing and production on the Stonewall Spotlight podcast.
“Alex, Sean, and I worked really, really well together. We had the same social justice driven agenda,” Buisson recalled. “[But] I noticed the problems in the organization almost from the jump. And it especially became clear when the first crisis in the assembly happened.”
In late October 2017, Assemblymember Raul Bocanegra was accused of sexual misconduct. Just a week later, similar allegations surfaced against state Senator Tony Mendoza. After the news broke, Buisson, Paris, and Kolodji led an effort to convince the Steering Committee to draft a statement condemning the two officials’ behavior.
However, Eric Bauman, who at that point was no longer a member of Stonewall’s Steering Committee, stepped in and cautioned them not to move forward with the statement. Buisson found his involvement alarming.
“You had this guy who was himself a serial sexual harasser stepping into club business when he was no longer supposed to be involved,” she said. “Parts of the California Democratic Party like to assert that they have no control or association with the clubs. They absolutely do.”
The statement, drafted by Buisson, was eventually approved by a majority of the Steering Committee, over the objections of Aponte, Garry Shay, and Political Vice President Jane Wishon. As soon as the votes were in, Kolodji sent out the statement.
Immediately afterwards, Aponte confronted Kolodji for “going behind his back” by releasing the statement without his prior approval. Kolodji was baffled, since Aponte had put him in charge of counting the votes for the motion. “It showed that Lester and Garry and the power in the organization were uncomfortable with this kind of rebellion of the grassroots,” he said.
In the coming months, Buisson, Kolodji, Paris, and Scott frequently came into conflict with the rest of the Steering Committee. They were the only four Steering Committee members to vote against accepting a donation from Wells Fargo Bank, which had recently been rocked by a storm of scandals. Aponte ultimately decided to decline the donation after Kolodji leaked the news to LA Health Commissioner and former Stonewall Steering member Susie Shannon, who vagueposted about it on Facebook.
It gradually became clear to Paris that Stonewall’s leadership was “completely ignoring the important mission that this organization was started for… They’re more concerned with consolidating power, more concerned with glad-handing politicos and influence sharing than they are with actually helping LGBT people.”
The political disagreements sometimes turned personal. While discussing endorsements for the 2018 election, Scott, a longtime San Francisco resident, criticized Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s history of moderate positions and suggested that the octogenarian was getting too old to do her job effectively. In response, Erickson criticized Scott’s comments as “ageist” and sent an email to the Executive Team suggesting that Scott should be removed.
“We looked at it, and we were like, okay, this isn’t… this is silly, right?” Kolodji recalled.
A more serious point of contention was the lack of diversity in Stonewall’s leadership. Of the eight elected officers, there’s currently only one who isn’t a cisgender man — Jane Wishon, who is a straight white woman. While officer positions are open to anyone, including straight allies, the lack of representation for LGBTQIA+ women within the club’s leadership is reflective of a larger problem, not just at Stonewall but in politics and LGBTQIA+ spaces in general.
In 2010, Aponte was on the board of a pro-marriage-equality organization called “Love, Honor, Cherish,” which crafted a failed ballot measure to overturn Proposition 8. The organization, which was entirely composed of cisgender gay men, failed to include any mention of gender identity in the measure.
In response to a Facebook post about the lack of trans-specific language, Aponte said that none of the over 100 activists who were involved in the discussions ever raised any concerns. He seemingly recognized the problem with the group’s lack of diversity without claiming any responsibility for fixing that problem, simply saying, “Obviously we needed some of you in the room. The door has always been open.”
To Hannah Howard, this sounded like a cop-out. Howard, who is trans, attended one Stonewall meeting in 2005, but decided not to engage further after being repeatedly misgendered during the meeting. She was surprised when, just a few years ago, a Stonewall member made a Facebook post about the reasons why trans people have trouble engaging with the movement — and Aponte responded with incredulity.
When Howard commented sharing her experience at the 2005 Stonewall meeting, Aponte “was shocked, disbelieving that such a thing could happen, but talking about [how] they were such great allies now,” she said.
However, according to current Steering Committee member Mackenzie Hussman, not much has actually changed. She recalled that, during a Pride event in 2018, a newer member of the Steering Committee, who is a trans woman, was working at Stonewall’s booth. An older man on the Steering Committee didn’t recognize her, and accused her of stealing from the booth. The incident was addressed awkwardly at the next Steering Committee meeting.
“Lester gave some sort of wash-overstatement like, ‘Oh we try to be inclusive of everyone.’ And then he proceeded to ask this trans woman how she would like to be treated,” Hussman recalled. “It just felt so insensitive. We’re an LGBT club, we should already know how to welcome trans members into our community. And she was publicly singled out in front of 30 people. It was embarrassing.”
In another example of Stonewall’s lukewarm commitment to inclusion, two Black LGBTQIA+ candidates, Steve Dunwoody and Ashley Marie Preston, intended to run in the 2018 special election for Assembly District 54. However, Wishon, as Vice President of Politics, made the decision that Stonewall shouldn’t endorse or support either candidate, because it would be “too divisive for us to choose between a Black gay man and a Black trans person,” according to Kolodji. In the end, neither candidate even made it onto the ballot.
In April 2018, Buisson posted an article to the Steering Committee’s private Facebook group about the need for more Black women in Democratic Party leadership. All hell broke loose.
Shay replied that Buisson’s post was “not productive,” and instructed Operations Vice President Steve Bott to remove the post. When Buisson noticed it was gone, she posted the article again. It was removed again, and Buisson was blocked from further posting in the group.
“I’m 6’1″ and 245 pounds. I don’t let men tell me when I can talk and when I can’t,” said Buisson. “You could throw a brick and not hit a person of color at these general meetings. This was a problem we needed to address internally. And they refused.”
Buisson brought her concerns to Kolodji, who raised the issue with the rest of the Executive Team, including Aponte, Shay, Wishon, and Bott. All four replied that any criticism of the Democratic Party is unwelcome on the Steering Facebook page.
Kolodji repeatedly pointed out the irony of silencing a Black woman for calling out the Party’s silencing of Black women. Aponte, who is Puerto Rican, is the only person who responded to this point — he replied mystifyingly, “The real irony is that the only ethnic minority in this thread is me.”
At the time, Stonewall had no official grievance process — if Buisson wanted to press the issue further, it would be judged by the Steering Committee, which was overwhelmingly white and male.
Interestingly, Wishon had said that “no one is trying to censor Lauren on her own page,” and Aponte agreed that Buisson and Scott (whom no one else had mentioned) had “the entire wide world web” to post whatever they wanted. They quickly changed their stance on this.
Just a few weeks later, Scott shared a link to a video on his personal Facebook page with the comment, “Fag hags need to be checked so often.” The video depicted a brawl between a group of intoxicated white women and a group of queer men of color in an alley in West Hollywood.
However, the Executive Team interpreted Scott’s comment differently. Within hours, the officers had been looped into an email with the subject line “URGENT: Regarding post encouraging violence against women.”
Scott insisted that his comment was meant to condemn the violence. “There’s this ongoing debate within the LGBT, especially gay men, culture about the appropriateness of straight women and bridal showers going to gay spaces,” he told Knock LA. “So I just said you got to check your fag hags because you don’t want them beating up on queer people. I basically saw it as a gay bashing.”
Shay recommended that the board should immediately ask for Scott’s resignation. Wishon agreed. Attaching a screenshot of an unrelated Facebook comment by Buisson, she added, “And Lauren…”
By the next day, seven of the eight officers had signed a letter calling for Scott’s resignation. Kolodji was the only one who dissented. While he agreed that Scott’s post was “in very poor taste,” he told the rest of the Executive Team that he didn’t feel it was a resignation-worthy offense.
Neither did Scott, who deleted the post but refused to resign. At that point, the Executive Team (except Kolodji) motioned for the formation of an investigation committee to address the issue.
The committee presented its findings at Stonewall’s June 25 general membership meeting. The room was packed. “They called all the members who don’t normally show up, describing [Scott] as this misogynist who’s endorsing violence against women,” Buisson said.
LACDP Chair Mark Gonzalez was brought in to preside over the session. DNC member Laurence Zakson served as Parliamentarian. Scott himself chose not to attend the meeting, but Buisson led the defense on his behalf.
“It was a circus,” Kolodji said. One LACDP leader described the proceedings as “absurd.” At one point, West Hollywood City Councilmember John Heilman called impatiently from the back of the room, “Let’s vote already!”
In the end, the members voted, 48 to 14, to remove Scott from the Steering committee. That was the end of his involvement with Stonewall.
Regardless of whether or not Scott’s post should have been considered grounds for dismissal, the affair revealed a glaring double standard for whose inappropriate behavior is, or isn’t, punished. Just a year earlier, Stonewall had vigorously supported Eric Bauman’s campaign for CDP Chair, despite his well-known sexual misconduct.
“They all jumped on [Scott] because they wanted to get rid of a critical voice,” Buisson concluded.
Throughout the controversy, Kolodji had warned the rest of the Executive Team that “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, so to speak. Be careful pursuing this with Craig, because this is an abuse of power, and you’re setting a precedent that is going to come back.”
Kolodji had been Facebook friends with Aponte for years, and he was aware of several posts Aponte had made that were just as offensive, if not worse than the comment that led to Scott’s removal. He mentioned this to Buisson, who began combing through Aponte’s most problematic posts.
In October 2011, Aponte posted a link to an article about Hermain Cain with the comment, “I hear the camp is iin [sic] the Spik Valley and overlooks Gook Mountain. Ain’t Texas grand?”
In November 2014, he posted an article about Mia Love, a Black Mormon Republican recently elected to Congress, commenting: “Until 1972, official Mormon Church doctrine was that Black people were evil and could not be saved. Perhaps this is their way of proving it?”
In 2015, he deliberately misidentified Ann Coulter as trans: “I am saying Ann Coulter is transgender. Go ahead and sue me.” The comments on the post became filled with vitriolic anti-trans and misogynistic remarks. Aponte did nothing to stop the hateful discussion.
In 2016, Aponte liked an anti-BLM post that said, “I think these people are assholes. There I said it. I’ve grown to despise BLM because of their tactics and narrative.”
In 2017, he joked that immigrant activists should be deported.
In 2018, Aponte described the Inclusive Pride Flag as “stupid.”
Buisson compiled 18 pages of screenshots of these and other inappropriate remarks. It was already clear to her that taking her concerns to the Steering Committee would be futile.
“It was not just about this one bigoted individual,” Buisson said. “It was infecting. You could see it in who was in the club, who was in leadership positions, who spoke from whom, who was excluded, the whole system was infected. And in my view at the time, that fish was rotting from the head.”
So, rather than rely on the club’s leadership to discipline themselves, Buisson sent the offending posts to several elected officials, asking them to withdraw their support for Stonewall until Aponte resigned.
Not a single official responded.
One of the recipients was Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, host of the annual Stonewall BBQ — which was coming up in just a few weeks.
“My feeling was, as somebody with a reputation for advocating for the Black community, this man might be a little bit pissed off about these racist things,” Buisson said. “It would be no problem for him to say, this event is canceled until you resign. You’re out of Stonewall or doesn’t go forward.”
Jones-Sawyer’s office did reach out to Stonewall’s leadership — but not to demand Aponte’s resignation. Instead, they passed along Buisson’s letter, fingering her as a whistleblower.
A few weeks after her letter-writing campaign began, Buisson suddenly found herself locked out of Stonewall’s digital assets and social media accounts. Paris, who chaired the social media team, called Aponte in confusion. Aponte informed him that Buisson was no longer allowed to serve on the communications team.
“I said, what are you talking about, you’re just [removing] her?” Paris recalled. “And [Aponte] is like, ‘yeah, I can do that, I’m president.’ I was like… pretty sure you can’t.”
When Aponte realized that he could not, in fact, unilaterally remove Buisson from her Steering Committee position, he told Paris and Kolodji to ask for her resignation. They refused.
On September 26, Aponte sent an email to the full Steering Committee revealing that Buisson had sent letters to several elected officials accusing him of making “racist and bigoted statements.” Without revealing any details about the “statements” in question, Aponte called Buisson’s accusations “false and defamatory… harmful, not just to my personal reputation, but the reputation and public standing of our organization.” He asked that the Steering Committee vote on whether to expel Buisson from her position.
In stark contrast to Scott’s widely-publicized hearing, Buisson’s removal was handled quietly at a Steering Committee meeting on October 4. So quietly, apparently, that Wishon told Knock LA she didn’t remember the meeting had even happened — although the minutes confirm she was in attendance.
“There were wild allegations and actual shouting matches at this meeting,” Paris recalled. “That was an absurdly fireworks meeting over an issue that was not taken seriously.”
Buisson chose not to attend the meeting, but Paris and Kolodji argued on her behalf that the real problem at hand was Aponte’s behavior, not Buisson’s. Even if the committee didn’t feel that Aponte’s Facebook posts were grounds for resignation, his attempt to retaliate against Buisson was itself an abuse of power that warranted investigation.
However, other Steering Committee members said that Buisson should have brought the issue directly to them — which Kolodji found ludicrous, given their handling of Buisson’s previous complaints. “We tried to deal with this stuff internally,” he said. “But it seemed like their side was kind of like, ‘we’re gonna use our power — and we have more power — to essentially drive you out.”
The Steering Committee ultimately voted, 17 to 3, to remove Buisson from her position. Paris resigned the same day in protest. Kolodji soon disengaged from Stonewall as well.
“The organization just seemed destined to be an unredeemable mess,” Kolodji said. “Is there no shame, to just ruthlessly try to target someone that we need as a leader in queer spaces? And instead, what do we get?”
As a parting shot, Kolodji and Paris motioned for a separate investigation into Aponte’s Facebook posts. The motion was approved, and an Ad Hoc Incident Review Committee was formed to review the posts. The five-member committee included Aponte’s longtime ally, Garry Shay.
Knock LA obtained a copy of the investigation’s report, which was finalized in June 2019 and sent only to the eight members of the Executive Team. In Aponte’s statement to the committee, he defends each of his insensitive posts, which he maintains are not “racist [or] bigoted.” He claims Buisson only called out his comments because of a “personal vendetta.”
The committee’s assessment notes that Aponte’s posts are in “poor taste” and that each of the committee members would “know better than to make these kind of comments.” However, they largely accept Aponte’s justifications, some of which strain credulity (in one example, he insists that his sarcastic use of racial slurs “was in no way meant to condone the use of racial slurs in place names, but rather the opposite.” He doesn’t elaborate further.)
Ultimately, the committee decides that the posts are not grounds for Aponte’s removal. The report concludes: “What appears most important now is to move forward from this point.”
It’s unclear whether the investigation’s findings were ever revealed to the full Steering Committee or the membership at large. Wishon claims the investigation’s report was presented at a general membership meeting; however, Knock LA reviewed the minutes for every meeting from 2018 to June 2021, and there is no mention of the incident review committee’s existence.
According to a current Steering Committee member, at some point Aponte made a brief apology and deleted the Facebook posts, but that’s where the consequences ended. In May 2019, Aponte was nominated, unopposed, for a second term as president. Three of the five members of the official nominating committee were also involved in the incident review committee, whose investigation into Aponte was still ongoing.
Ultimately, Aponte was reelected, and his now-deleted racist Facebook posts were seemingly never mentioned again. During this same time, however, Stonewall was implicated in a wave of controversies that weren’t so easily swept under the rug.
In November 2018, Eric Bauman resigned as CDP Chair after an onslaught of sexual harassment allegations. In January 2019, a second body was found in Ed Buck’s apartment. Later that year, a third victim narrowly escaped from Buck’s home alive, and Buck was finally arrested. He was eventually indicted on nine counts by a federal grand jury, and his trial is currently underway.
Meanwhile, in November 2020, John Erickson, a major player in several of Stonewall’s internal scandals, was elected to West Hollywood City Council, thanks in part to the resources that came along with his endorsement by Stonewall. Notably, four of the eight eligible candidates were inexplicably barred from participating in Stonewall’s endorsement process, and although two council seats were open, Stonewall’s membership voted to endorse only Erickson — Sepi Shyne, an LGBTQIA+ woman of color, failed to reach the 60% vote threshold for endorsement.
On May 24, Aponte announced his candidacy for a third term as Stonewall president. Interestingly, the same day as his announcement, he changed his Facebook cover photo to the Inclusive Pride flag that he previously decried as “stupid.” His slate, which is running on a platform of diversity and inclusion, includes five men and one straight woman (Wishon).
This time, however, Aponte isn’t the only candidate in the running — although he was chosen by the official nominating committee, another Stonewall member submitted a nomination for Alex Mohajer, who currently serves as Chair of Public and Media Relations.
According to Mackenzie Hussman, this year’s election has been tense from the very beginning, when the nominating committee itself was being chosen. “I felt rushed,” she said. “They were trying to put select people through who would nominate whoever [the current officers] wanted to.”
When other Steering Committee members spoke up and suggested different names for the nomination committee, there was procedural confusion. “They were just shocked that people would not go with what they were saying,” Hussman said. “It’s just been very key prominent people running this club without check or challenge, and now there’s people challenging them. You can tell they feel threatened.”
Hussman notes that Aponte has personally blocked several Steering Committee members on Facebook, ostensibly for opposing his campaign for reelection. In a blast of deja vu, Hussman, who is Chair of Social Media, and another communications team member were both inexplicably locked out of Stonewall’s social media accounts on July 12 with no explanation, although their access was restored when the issue was brought to Operations VP Bott’s attention.
According to Hussman, the only people who could have revoked the access are Bott, Aponte, and Wishon. When Knock LA asked Wishon about the incident, she explained vaguely, “The Operations team examined all our permissions on the website and socials. Two members were moved to different permissions on [Facebook], but as soon as Operations was made aware that the previous level was required in order to stream they were moved back to their original levels.”
Despite the internal dissent, Aponte still enjoys widespread support from the Democratic establishment. His reelection campaign has been endorsed by John Erickson; West Hollywood Mayor Lindsey Horvath; State Assemblymembers Reggie Jones-Sawyer, Laura Friedman, Jesse Gabriel, and Isaac Bryan; State Senators Ben Allen, Anthony Portantino, and Sydney Kamlager; LA City Councilmembers Paul Koretz and Mike Bonin; LA County Supervisor Holly Mitchell; LACDP Chair Mark Gonzalez; CDP Executive Director Yvette Martinez; and at least six DNC members.
As this roster of supporters suggests, the implications of Stonewall’s internal drama extend far and wide through state and local politics.
To Buisson, the problems at Stonewall are emblematic of a larger problem with how the Democratic Party treats marginalized communities, particularly the Black women on whose votes and volunteer labor they rely. She notes that the refusal to prioritize the needs of diverse communities could be an existential threat to the Party’s survival.
“Juneteenth does not make up for George Floyd. And Kamala Harris does not make up for all the slights that women of color suffer,” she said. “[Last year], the entire region went ultra progressive. We had a record turnout. And yet they’re still trying to preach to us, you know, what the well-heeled people want. You think that they would realize where this is headed… The younger voters are willing to suffer through a Republican administration to teach the Democrats a lesson.”
But perhaps one of the most worrying consequences of Stonewall’s toxic culture is the impact on the LGBTQIA+ community. “I don’t want these creeps mentoring our queer youth. I don’t want them jaded and cynical after their first election,” Buisson said. “We can’t have vulnerable people having weak leaders or corrupt leaders. That does harm to our children and makes them even more isolated.”
“I think at the end of the day, this is about restoring the important place that organizations like Stonewall play in the progressive movement,” Paris added. “We can sit by and let the party apparatus do what it’s going to do to protect its insular interests, or we can stand up and fight back for the interests of the people that the party proclaims that it is in service of.”
Buisson believes the first step is to expel Aponte, not just from Stonewall, but from the CDP, where he currently serves as co-chair of the LGBT Caucus. Beyond that, she suggests that the LACDP should temporarily revoke Stonewall’s charter — essentially disaffiliating the organization from the Democratic Party — until the internal issues are addressed.
This seems unlikely to happen, given that the LACDP’s executive director and parliamentarian are both members of Stonewall’s Executive Team, and LACDP Chair Mark Gonzalez has endorsed Aponte’s reelection campaign. But Buisson is hopeful that public pressure from elected officials could be enough to turn the tide and hold Aponte accountable.
“It’s one call from one of them… to the chair of the state party, to expel him, and to sanction Stonewall,” Buisson said. “It’s one call [from] one elected. That’s all it takes. And I’m laying down that gauntlet. Which one of you is it going to be?”
Knock LA contacted Aponte, who responded with a completely blank email. Garry Shay declined to comment. John Erickson didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Kate Gallagher is a freelance journalist and writer based in Los Angeles. She is also a Senior Content Writer for Parcast Studios on Spotify.
Gallagher is a graduate of the University of Iowa with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Language and Literature.
The preceding article was published at KnockLA, a Los Angeles based non-profit community journalism project and is republished by permission.
California
California’s perspective on the U.S. v Skrmetti case
A final ruling on the case won’t be made until June 2025
The U.S. v Skrmetti case has been on the Supreme Court’s radar since November 2023, when a writ of certiorari petition was filed on behalf of Jonathan Thomas Skrmetti and 2 other families.
On Dec 4, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the lawsuit that states the Tennessee ban on gender-affirming healthcare for youth is unconstitutional and violates the Fourteenth Amendment.
The question presented was whether Tennessee Senate Bill 1, which prohibits all medical treatments or courses of action intended to treat gender dysphoria or affirm gender transitions for youth, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits sex-based discrimination.
The far-reaching impacts of U.S. v Skrmetti are being felt even prior to the decision of the case. The Washington Post recently reported that following the results of the presidential election, LGBTQ+ Americans began stockpiling gender-affirming medications and making plans to move out of states that have not taken the necessary steps to provide sanctuary. This is reminiscent of reports earlier this year pointing toward a trend of women and non-male people stockpiling on abortion medication following the overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022.
Samantha and Brian Williams’ daughter, the trans teen at the center of this case, spoke about her perspective in a published case brief by the American Civil Liberties Union.
“I don’t even want to think about having to go back to the dark place I was in before I was able to come out and access the care that my doctors have prescribed for me,” she said. “I want this law to be struck down so that I can continue to receive the care I need, in conversation with my parents and my doctors, and have the freedom to live my life and do the things I enjoy.”
Understanding the case
Tennessee SB 1 is codified under section 68-33-103, states that a healthcare provider should not perform or offer to perform medical procedures with the purpose of treating discomfort or distress relating to gender dysphoria, except when it is explicitly necessary to treat defects, physical injury or diseases.
Under this code, it is also explicitly stated that “gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder, gender incongruence, or any mental condition, disorder, disability or abnormality,” do not count as a “disease.” That section of the code summarized above, specifically states that the only exceptions to the ban on trans healthcare are to treat defects, injuries or diseases. Meaning that the language here intentionally points toward closing a loophole that would allow patients to get treatment if being transgender was considered a disease.
If the Supreme Court sides with Tennessee, this could set the path for states to deny gender-affirming care to youth on the state level, affecting progress in many states like Colorado, Michigan, Maine and Rhode Island.
In August, the Human Rights Campaign listed Tennessee along with a dozen other states, stating they are all in current litigation proceedings challenging similar bans targeting trans youth. HRC published a map to track the legislation in a total of 26 states that have current bans on gender-affirming care in the U.S.
This case also marks the first time the Supreme Court has directly considered how the Equal Protection Clause in the fourteenth amendment applies to trans, gender nonconforming and intersex youth.
What’s to be determined
The Supreme Court will directly consider how the Equal Protection Clause would apply to gender-affirming care for youth.
The standard of that review is to be determined, which is how the case will be addressed, based on a level of scrutiny. There are 3 levels of scrutiny that determine how a law will be evaluated: strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny and rational basis review.
With strict scrutiny at the highest level, the first transgender lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court, Chase Strangio, argued that this case should be treated with skepticism, or the highest level of scrutiny, due to the law discriminating based on sex. Meaning, this law should be heavily questioned as to whether or not it violates the Constitution.
The Tennessee Att. General argued that the law does not make a sex classification and also argued that states have the power to regulate this issue without bringing in the skepticism of the Supreme Court.
This case will determine the precedent for future cases regarding human rights, freedoms and protections under The U.S. Constitution regarding healthcare.
The other part of the case to be determined, would be whether Tennessee could justify the ban.
At last Wednesday’s hearing, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Samuel Alito spoke in depth about the allegations raised by the state. They also discussed the level of effectiveness, against the levels of risk of gender affirming care. The sources that the Justices referenced have been determined by experts to be unreliable, biased, misleading and inaccurate. They argued that the state has a right to make a decision based on those sources, regardless of their credibility.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prologar’s oral argument on behalf of the petitioner stated that this case is about access to medications that have already been safely prescribed and safely used for decades to treat a wide range of conditions, including but not limited to, gender dysphoria.
“But SB1 singles out and bans one particular use. In Tennessee, these medications can’t be prescribed to allow a minor to identify with or live as a gender inconsistent with the minor’s sex,” argued Solicitor General Porlogar.
Lambda Legal’s Nonbinary and Transgender Rights Project Director, Sasha Buchert commented on the case.
“Since 2021, 26 states have banned hormone therapies for transgender youth. These are all similar cases introduced by conservative state legislatures targeting trans youth and their families pushed by conservative and far-right groups using copy-cat legislation and peddling misinformation and conspiracy theories,” she explained in a Lambda Legal FAQ.
The California Perspective
Though it is believed that there won’t be a decision from the court until sometime in June 2025, local organizations and community leaders have begun to discuss how the future will shape up once SCOTUS makes a ruling.
Planned Parenthood in California, issued a statement following the oral arguments case.
“The Planned Parenthood affiliates in California know this playbook all too well and no matter what lies ahead, we are ready to fight to protect the right of transgender people, including youth, to access the care they need and deserve. While some states may be emboldened by the Supreme Court’s eventual decision in this case to criminalize critical health care services once again, California will continue to be a safe haven for transgender people and their health, safety, privacy, and well-being,” said Jodi Hicks CEO and president at Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California.
Bamby Salcedo, president and CEO of the Trans Latin@ Coalition has built her entire career and legacy on championing transgender rights and believes that if the Supreme Court decides to uphold Tennessee’s right to enforce this law, California will also eventually see itself challenged as a safe haven for trans youth, as well as adults.
“When we launched our policy agenda, we were going to focus the following legislative session in California, on a bill to reform Cal Aid and after the election, we had to rethink that because we know the state gets its funding from the federal government for [programs like] Medical and Medicare.”
Following last Wednesday’s hearing of oral arguments, Attorney General Rob Bonta reinforced California’s commitment toward protecting trans youth and their access to healthcare.
“Following oral arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti in the Supreme Court, my office reaffirms our unwavering commitment to protecting the health and rights of transgender individuals to access medically necessary care,” said Attorney General Bonta.
“Laws such as Tennessee’s Senate Bill 1 are dangerous and discriminatory by denying transgender youth the critical, lifesaving care they need. Amid a growing wave of legislative attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, it is more important than ever to stand against these harmful measures. I urge the Supreme Court to protect the rights of transgender youth and ensure they are not denied the care they need to live full and authentic lives.”
In September, General Bonta led a multi-state coalition which included 20 attorney generals to challenge Florida’s law and administrative rule that severely limits access to gender-affirming care. He initially filed the amicus brief in May of last year, stressing California’s efforts and state responsibility in protecting transgender healthcare rights. In the brief, he also stressed the consequences of not receiving appropriate care.
Organizations like TransLatin@ Coalition, Bienestar Human Services and Equality California are amping up their voices and rolling up their sleeves to provide sanctuary, protections and resources to the LGBTQ+ and TGI communities.
The University of California, Los Angeles William’s Institute created an amicus brief which was submitted by Federal Policy Director Elana Redfield and Selendy Gay, a law firm based in New York, on behalf of Senior Scholar of Public Policy Jody Herman and Legal Director Christy Mallory. Herman and Mallory provided the court with appropriate and credible research to help the Justices understand the population affected by gender-affirming care bans and the impacts of the final ruling.
Regardless of what the outcome is, the decision will set a new standard for how transgender care, rights and issues will be viewed under the Constitution.
Politics
Heritage Foundation praises effort to ban transgender healthcare for military families
House GOP signals eagerness to implement Project 2025’s anti-LGBTQ policies
In a statement released Tuesday, the conservative Heritage Foundation praised House Republicans’ military spending bill, including the provision added by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) that would ban gender-affirming healthcare interventions for the children of U.S. service members.
Victoria Coates, vice president of the organization’s Kathyrn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, said the National Defense Authorization Act, which was passed by the U.S. House Rules Committee along party lines on Monday, marks an “important step toward a defense budget that flows from strategy and directs DOD to become as lethal as possible to protect the national security of Americans.”
“The bill authorizes resources for DOD at the border, retains the House’s ban on corrosive race-based policies, eliminates the Senate’s provision to draft our daughters, prohibits transgender surgeries for minors under TRICARE, supports military construction in the Indo-Pacific and shipbuilding, including a third Arleigh Burke–class destroyer, and incremental funding for a second Virginia-class submarine,” Coates said. “These policies in this bill, combined with new military leadership, will make America stronger.”
In April 2022, the Heritage Foundation published Project 2025, a comprehensive 920-page governing blueprint for President-elect Donald Trump’s second term that proposes radical reforms to imbue the federal government with “biblical principles” and advance a Christian nationalist agenda, including by stripping rights away from LGBTQ Americans while abandoning efforts to promote equality for sexual and gender minorities abroad.
“The next conservative president must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors,” the authors explain on page four, beginning “with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term … out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.”
The document also lays the groundwork for the incoming administration to revive the ban on military service by transgender troops that Trump implemented during his first term, arguing that “gender dysphoria is incompatible with the demands of military service.”
Leading up to the election, when Project 2025 became a political liability for Trump, he tried to distance himself from the document and its policy proposals, but as the New York Times documented, an “analysis of the Project 2025 playbook and its 307 authors and contributors revealed that well over half of them had been in Mr. Trump’s administration or on his campaign or transition teams.”
The Times also noted that Trump has held meetings with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts and a co-founder, Edwin Feulner.
In October, the Congressional Equality Caucus published a report entitled, “Ripping Away Our Freedoms: How House Republicans are Working to Implement Project 2025’s Assault on LGBTQI+ Americans’ Rights.”
The group’s openly gay chair, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), noted that “When Republicans took control of the House of Representatives last year, we saw an avalanche of attacks against the LGBTQI+ community.”
The congressman added, “During the past two years, they forced more than 70 anti-LGBTQI+ votes on the House floor. And nearly every bill and amendment idea was ripped out of the pages of Project 2025’s ‘Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise.’”
The NDAA filed by House Republicans is unlikely to pass through the U.S. Senate while the chamber remains under Democratic control, and President Joe Biden has vowed to veto legislation that discriminates against transgender and LGBQ communities, but the spending package will face far fewer obstacles after the new Congress is seated on Jan. 3 and Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20.
Objecting to the spending bill’s inclusion of language prohibiting military families from accessing gender affirming care are congressional Democrats like U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.), who serves as the ranking member of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, and advocacy groups like the Human Rights Campaign and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Politics
Trump nominates gay man for Treasury secretary
Hedge fund executive would be the second openly gay cabinet secretary
President-elect Donald Trump nominated openly gay hedge fund executive Scott Bessent as U.S. Treasury secretary on Friday.
Once a prolific donor to Democrats and a protege of liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros, if confirmed Bessent would be the first LGBTQ official to lead the Treasury Department and the second gay cabinet secretary after Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
“Trump’s selection of Bessent, who is also openly gay, married, and has two children with his partner, is also a reminder of President Trump’s love and respect for LGBT Americans,” the conservative LGBTQ group Log Cabin Republicans said in a statement.
“Scott Bessent is a terrific choice to become the next Treasury Secretary and the Log Cabin Republicans applaud President Trump for his pick,” the organization wrote. “As one of the most brilliant minds in the financial space and a vocal supporter of President Trump’s economic agenda, Bessent will be a strong asset to help President Trump put America back on the path to financial security and economic prosperity.”
Equality Forum, a national LGBTQ civil rights organization, which oversees LGBT History Month, noted the nomination of Scott Bessent in a press release, writing that he “is highly regarded by the financial community and founder of a global macro investment firm.”
Equality Forum Executive Director Malcolm Lazin added, “If confirmed, Bessent will be the highest ranking openly gay U.S. government official in American history.”
Politics
GOP resolution targets Sarah McBride, first trans member of Congress
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) on Monday proposed a resolution that would prohibit House members and staffers from “using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.”
The bill, which comes just two weeks after Sarah McBride was elected to become the first transgender member of Congress, would block her from accessing women’s bathrooms in the U.S. Capitol and House office buildings.
Republican leadership including House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) have indicated they will seriously consider the proposal, while House Democrats denounced the effort as a cruel attempt to bully an incoming freshman colleague.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) on Monday proposed a resolution that would prohibit House members and staffers from “using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.”
The bill, which comes just two weeks after Sarah McBride was elected to become the first transgender member of Congress, would block her from accessing women’s bathrooms in the U.S. Capitol and House office buildings.
Republican leadership including House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) have indicated they will seriously consider the proposal, while House Democrats denounced the effort as a cruel attempt to bully an incoming freshman colleague.
“Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness,” McBride said in a post on X.
“This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing,” she said. “We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars.”
“Delawareans sent me here to make the American dream more affordable and accessible and that’s what I’m focused on,” McBride added.
In her successful bid for Delaware’s at-large congressional seat, McBride’s campaign did not center the historic nature of her candidacy but rather her record of delivering results for her constituents like paid family and medical leave.
She did, however, talk about how everyone deserves a representative in Congress who respects them and their families.
Mace used transphobic language attacking McBride when speaking with reporters about her bill on Monday. “Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say. I mean, this is a biological man,” she said, adding that the lawmaker “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, period, full stop” and instead should “use the men’s restroom.”
“I’m going to be standing in the brink, standing in his or her way, putting a stop to this insanity and this nonsense,” the South Carolina congresswoman said. She did not directly address a question about what “mechanism” might be used for “checking who’s qualified to use the ladies’ room,” but her bill specifies that the House sergeant-at-arms would be responsible for enforcement.
Asked whether she introduced the bill “specifically because Sarah McBride is coming to Congress,” Mace said “that, and more.”
Fielding questions from reporters on the steps of the Capitol Monday, far-right U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) endorsed her colleague’s proposal while using anti-trans language and deliberately misgendering the incoming congresswoman from Delaware.
“He is a man. He is a biological male,” she said. “He has plenty of places he can go.”
LGBTQ House members rally behind soon-to-be colleague
Gay U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), who chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, shared a statement with the Washington Blade on Tuesday.
“It’s been a while since Nancy Mace has had her 15 minutes of fame,” he said. “Republicans keep desperately lashing out against trans people to try and distract from the fact that this Congress has been one of the least productive in history—they can’t even pass a Farm Bill or pass major appropriations bills, so they turn to using these cruel attacks to distract from their inability to govern and failure to deliver for the American people.”
“Nancy Mace’s resolution is a pathetic, attention-seeking attempt to grab Trump’s eye and the media spotlight—and trans people, including trans employees, are paying the price,” Pocan added.
Several of the eight other LGBTQ House members, all serving as co-chairs of the caucus, had spoken out against the bill as of Tuesday morning.
“The cruelty is the point,” U.S. Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) said. “Is that what we want the sergeant-at-arms to be doing when we had an attack on the freaking Capitol?”
“Let’s call this what it is: bullying,” Equality PAC Co-Chairs Ranking Member Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and Congressman Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) said in a joint statement. “Instead of working to lower daily household costs for families and provide real relief for those struggling across our country, House Republicans have decided to single out one newly elected Member of Congress and make her life more difficult for absolutely no reason at all.”
“This is nothing more than a pathetic attempt from a member who has repeatedly shown no interest in governing simply to make headlines and get attention,” they said. “Congress has a responsibility to focus on the issues that matter to all Americans, not to police who uses which bathroom.”
The congressmen added, “Equality PAC stands proudly with Sarah as we fight back against this baseless attack on her and the trans community. And we will always stand up to bullies – especially those we serve alongside in the US. Capitol Building.”
HRC condemns Mace’s resolution
Human Rights Campaign spokesperson Laurel Powell released the following statement on Tuesday:
“Let’s call this what it is: Rather than focusing on issues that matter to Americans, Rep. Mace is seeking a spotlight by cruelly discriminating against her incoming colleague, the first openly transgender person to be elected to Congress.
“Her resolution would also target trans people who have worked and served in the Capitol long before this month’s elections–more proof this is merely a political charade by a grown-up bully.
“It is another warning sign that the incoming anti-equality House majority will continue to focus on targeting LGBTQ+ people rather than the cost of living, price gouging or any of the problems the American people elected them to solve.”
India
Kamala Harris’s loss prompts mixed reaction in India
Vice president’s mother was born in Chennai
Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss in the U.S. presidential election has elicited mixed reactions among LGBTQ+ activists in India.
A notable portion of Indians expressed support for now President-elect Donald Trump over Harris, even though her maternal lineage traces back to India. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was born into a Brahmin family in Chennai in 1938, and her grandfather, PV Gopalan, hailed from the village of Thulasendrapuram in Tamil Nadu.
Harris’s loss prompted mixed reactions within the LGBTQ+ community.
While some individuals expressed disappointment, others backed Trump.
The Washington Blade in August reported that Harris’s grandfather moved to New Delhi to serve as a civil servant in British-ruled India. This move eventually facilitated Gopalan’s journey to the U.S., where she pursued biomedical science at the University of California, Berkeley a step that played a foundational role in shaping Harris’s future political aspirations.
The Washington Blade since Election Day has spoken with several LGBTQ+ activists and influencers in India.
Harish Iyer, a plaintiff in one of India’s marriage equality cases, in response to Trump’s election said the “path for queer liberation has never been straight.”
“The presidential election was filled with rhetoric from the Republican side against transgender persons,” said Iyer. “There has been a complete denial of the existence of transgender people and also widespread ignominy and ostracism. This, adding to the overturn of Roe vs. Wade, has aggravated tensions for everyone from gender variant persons to birthing parents of all genders.”
He further noted there is a strong change of more transphobic legislation and rhetoric in the U.S. with Trump in the White House, Republicans in control of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, and a conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.
“In a largely connected world, where many Indians and India-born people are in America, the effect of this will be palpable in India too,” said Iyer.
Indrani Chakraborty is a prominent social activist and advocate for transgender rights, particularly in northeast India. She has been outspoken about the challenges faced by her trans daughter.
Chakraborty said the effects will be felt around the world if Trump continues his transphobic rhetoric and the U.S. government does not support the LGBTQ+ community. Anwesh Kumar Sahoo, an Indian artist, writer, model, and the youngest winner of Mr. Gay World 2016, told the Blade that Trump’s policies are a setback in the ongoing fight for LGBTQ+ rights and visibility.
“It’s a strong reminder of how interconnected our struggles are globally,” said Sahoo. “It highlights the importance of standing up for equality everywhere.”
Abhijit Iyer Mitra, an LGBTQ+ activist and senior fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, in response to Harris’s loss said her Indian roots “really do not matter.”
“America expects assimilation and not just integration,” said Mitra. “She has no real connect to India in any sense or knowledge of India in any sense. So, being from here absolutely means nothing. She is American through and through, she has demonstrated no knowledge of India, no nothing, so it is what it is.”
“I am not really worried, certainly not from an Indian point of view because her particular political supporters are all viciously anti-India, but not Biden,” added Mitra. “Biden is pro-India. But Kamala, especially her supporters, belongs to the same woke circuit which would be… ‘Oh India … genocide happening’ etc. So just being Indian means nothing.”
While responding to the Trump campaign’s rhetoric on trans issues, Mitra said “the issue is not the transgender community, but the forcing of gender ideology on everyone, where you put kids on puberty blockers and have irreversible surgery done, and kids taken away from their parents.”
“I thought I was a girl when I was a kid,” said Mitra. “When I grew up, I realized that I was a man. I am very comfortable being who I am and thank God none of this happened. Had this happened now, I would have been taken away from my parents, asked to undergo surgery, and would not have been able to lead the life I am leading.”
“What is being propagated as this ‘trans ideology’ or ‘gender ideology’ is essentially homophobia, where you are told a man cannot be attracted to a man. A woman cannot be attracted to a woman. They are instead pushed to undergo irreversible sex changes and become something else,” added Mitra. “This is exactly what Iran does — they punish homosexuality with death, but if you have a sex change, it is considered acceptable.”
“There is nothing pro-LGBTQ about the Democrats — far from it. It is an LGBTQ genocide. It is erasing the viability of the LGBTQ community. It is a huge disservice to gender dysmorphic individuals, who are the ones who might genuinely need surgery. But why do they need surgery? It is because they are shunned by society and forced to undergo something that no one should have to endure,” said Mitra. “They need to be accepted and loved for who they are, not turned into something society demands them to be.”
Sarah McBride, a Democrat from Delaware, on Election Day became the first openly trans person elected to Congress. Biden, former President Barack Obama, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker are among those who specifically mentioned marriage equality and other LGBTQ+ rights during the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
“Kamala’s defeat is a huge setback for our friends from the LGBTQ community in the U.S.,” Kalki Subramaniam, an activist, queer artist, and actor who is a member of India’s National Transgender Council, told the Blade.
“As a Tamil woman from Kamala’s mother’s state, I am disappointed that Kamala was not elected,” added Subramaniam. “As Kamala said, never give up and burn bright. For all my LGBTQ families around the world, let us support more leaders like Kamala Harris and strengthen them. Let us step forward and take leadership to win back all our rights.”
California Politics
What does Measure G mean for Los Angeles County?
L.A. County makes historic strides toward achieving more government accountability and representation
Measure G campaign declares victory, making way for pivotal and significant reform in Los Angeles County and ushering in a new era of accountability. Voters in favor of the measure hope to see a transformation of the bureaucratic system and more valid representation from the additional board supervisor seats.
“With the passage of Measure G, we are advancing a vision of Los Angeles County that prioritizes transparency, accountability and equitable representation. This measure gives a voice to communities that have often been overlooked, creating a governance structure that truly reflects our diverse County,” said Nichelle Henderson, president of the Los Angeles Community College District.
This measure made history, declaring victory after gaining majority approval from voters. This measure makes history after various attempts to expand the LA County Board of Supervisors failed in 1962, 1976, 1992 and again in 2000.
The measure will now require County departments and agencies to present their budgets to the Board in open, public meetings, prior to adoption of annual budgets, effective immediately.
The “revolving door,” policy prohibiting former County officials from lobbying the County for a minimum of two years after leaving office, will now be strengthened, effective immediately.
Elected officials who are criminally convicted of a crime will be suspended without pay, also effective immediately.
The measure will establish and create an independent Ethics Commission, as well as an Office of Ethics Compliance, led by an Ethics Compliance Officer by 2026.
Under the measure, a County Executive will be elected in 2028 and the Board of Supervisors will nearly double in size by 2032, following the 2030 independent redistricting process.
The motion was originally co-authored by LA County Board Chair Lindsey Horvath and Supervisor Janice Hahn, with the support of Supervisor Hilda L. Solis. Horvath and Solis argued that five people could not effectively represent such a large and diverse population, while Supervisors Holly Mitchell and Kathryn Barger panned the move as rushed and ill-conceived.
LA County residents have affirmed that the way forward lies in a complete transformation of the County’s governance. Now that it’s been approved, the measure will add true checks and balances through a more representative legislative branch and executive branch with direct accountability to voters.
“We will now have the ability to fix what is broken and deliver the results our communities are counting on, especially in the face of threats to our most vulnerable residents from the next federal administration,” said Horvath.
“Through this historic change, we will address the most pressing issues facing Angelenos with greater urgency and accountability, and create a more ethical and representative government fit for the 21st century.”
The approval of this measure made history because previous attempts to change the county’s charter failed, while Measure G was approved through broad-based support from nurses, small businesses, civil rights groups and state–as well as–federal leaders from throughout the county.
The academic community responded to the approval of the measure, which is set to be enshrined into the L.A. County Charter shortly after it is certified by the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder on December 3, 2024.
“This historic victory gives voice to communities who have long been marginalized in the decision-making process,” said Sara Sadhwani, Ph.D., professor of politics at Pomona College. “With a more transparent and responsive governance structure, we’re creating a County government that truly reflects the diversity and needs of its people. This is a win for democracy and for all Angelenos.”
Politics
Will Rollins loses razor-close race for Republican Ken Calvert’s House seat
Gay Democrat lost to anti-LGBTQ+ Republican
A major, late-breaking U.S. House of Representatives race was called on Wednesday for the anti-LGBTQ+ Republican, U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert, who with his victory managed to stave off a second attempt by gay former U.S. Attorney Will Rollins to flip the 30+ year incumbent’s seat representing California’s 41st Congressional District.
The results all but extinguished the Democratic Party’s prospects of regaining control of the House, a stinging blow that comes a week after Republicans won the White House and retook their U.S. Senate majority.
Given how narrow the margin in their race was expected to be, and how narrow the House Republican majority was heading into the election, a lot of money was poured into the contest for CA-41.
While final vote counts have not yet been reported, their race was close, as was expected this year and as it was in 202 after Calvert’s district was redrawn to include the city of Palm Springs, a heavily Democratic area with a sizable LGBTQ+ population.
Endeavoring to reposition himself as a friend to the community, the congressman subsequently embraced some pro-LGBTQ+ policies such as by voting for the Respect for Marriage Act, which codified legal protections for married same-sex couples
Critics including Rollins said his “evolution” was insincere and opportunistic, pointing to Calvert’s anti-LGBTQ+ moves after 2022, like striking funds in an appropriations bill that had been earmarked for three LGBTQ+ centers.
Politics
Dems must not abandon trans people after Trump’s win: Kierra Johnson
LGBTQ advocates prepared for all outcomes ahead of election
As Democrats look inward following Vice President Kamala Harris’s electoral defeat, the party must not abandon transgender people or cede the fight to expand rights and protections for the community, National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund President Kierra Johnson told the Washington Blade.
President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign, and those run by other Republican candidates, spent tens of millions on anti-trans ads leading up to the election, a messaging strategy that has been credited with energizing the conservative base and ultimately defeating Democrats like U.S. Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), who ran for Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) U.S. Senate seat.
Others doubt whether the issue had much, if any, impact on the elections, especially the presidential race — arguing that the results are better explained by headwinds like the post-pandemic disadvantage faced by incumbent leaders around the world, or by the realignment of the American electorate that decisively sent Trump back to the White House.
When she was at Howard University on Wednesday to watch Harris deliver her concession speech, Johnson said she was asked twice whether “the alignment around trans rights was a part of the problem” or whether Harris was doomed by her campaign’s failure to distance the vice president from President Joe Biden. Her response: “God, no.”
Broadly, she said, “it’s pointless to be in this space of, ‘what could the Harris campaign have done differently’ when we’re operating in this context” where authoritarianism and fascism have taken hold while sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, anti-immigrant bigotry, and other forms of prejudice are now expressed so openly.
Plus, Johnson added, the vice president “had, what, 107 days of a campaign? And she got that close — that’s pretty damn amazing.”
Challenging the theory that the anti-trans advertising was effective, she said, is (1) the success of so many LGBTQ candidates like Delaware State Sen. Sarah McBride, who made history with her election to become the first transgender member of Congress, and (2) the fact that Trump and his allies did not just leverage anti-trans messaging in their campaigns, but also leaned into other forms of bigotry, from fear mongering about immigrant communities to racist attacks focused on Harris’s biracial identity.
NBC News reported on Friday that hundreds of LGBTQ candidates were elected to public office across the U.S., and many races have not yet been called. According to the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, the number of known LGBTQ people who ran this year, 1,017, marks a 1.1 percent increase from 2020, with more non-cisgender candidates running than ever before.
About 80 percent have been successful. Several, like McBride, have made history. For instance, Hawaii, Iowa, and Missouri will welcome the first transgender representatives to their state legislatures, Kim Coco Iwamoto, Aime Wichtendahl, and Wick Thomas.
“When I see this many trans people who were voted by the people into elected office, some who were reelected into office, I’m hard pressed to believe that that was the winning strategy,” Johnson said, pointing to wins by other trans candidates in Minnesota, Kentucky, New Jersey, and Illinois.
“The Trump campaign had a lot of bigotry, throughout the first campaign, continuing on till now, that was anti-Black, anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-queer, anti-trans,” she said, adding, “There’s an appetite for that kind of racist, bigoted way of doing and being. They did a whole lot of that. And, yeah, I think it spoke to a particular part of their base — and I don’t think that that was about us, what we did or didn’t do right.”
Dividing the Democratic coalition is a losing strategy
“It’s really easy for us to point our fingers at conservatives, right-of-center [folks] or Trumpers or Tea Partiers,” she said. “But it’s harder for us to admit and talk about racism” and other forms of discrimination and prejudice “that is existent and perpetuated in left, leftist parties and left communities and organizations that are doing social justice work.”
“When I hear people who identify as Democrats saying we need to distance ourselves from trans people and perpetuating this notion that that’s why we lost,” Johnson said, “that is transphobia among leftist political people” and evidence of the need to root out and combat it.
“We’ve got to start building our strategies with our whole community intact,” she said. “Not how we’re going to do this without trans people. Not how we’re going to do this without, you know, evangelical Black people. Not how we’re going to do this without people in the Midwest and the Rust Belt or the Bible Belt. Not how we’re going to do this without immigrants.”
Each of those approaches would alienate critical parts of the Democratic base, Johnson said.
Beyond the work of electing pro-equality candidates, she said the movement and the Democratic Party must “affirm the humanity of all of us and build strategies that put the most vulnerable at the center,” which “means we have to question how things have always been done” along with the systems that were not originally designed to accommodate the full diversity of people they serve.
“Part of it is about representation,” Johnson said, “the presence of non-binary, trans, queer people in the work, in ads, in media. But it’s also a power analysis” that involves, or requires, talking “about trans people not as a separate community of people, but part of the different communities we are in.”
For example, trans people are experiencing the struggle for affordable housing as much as anyone else, she said. “Regardless of the work that we’re doing — prison reform, voting rights, housing access — put our people at the center, trans people at the center, as yet another voice that is a part of that whole.”
The success of LGB and queer and trans candidates last week, and the protections for LGBTQ people and women’s reproductive freedoms in ballot measures that passed in states like New York, were important, Johnson said.
At the same time, “what I want people to understand,” she said, “is we’ve got to move beyond identity politics and representation and really think about how we are building power. So with these wins, how are we leveraging them for gained power in our communities? We’ve got to be working overtime to come up with the pathways and strategies to leverage that power toward progress for our whole community.”
LGBTQ movement ready for incoming administration
When asked to share a message for the LGBTQ community in the wake of the election, Johnson said “we’ve got to create space and time to feel and heal,” but “we also have to find our organizations, our community partners, our friend groups that we can actually dig in with to get the work done.”
“You have every reason to be mad, sad, confused, frustrated,” she said, “but do not be helpless.”
Johnson added, “Our communities have been resilient through decades, centuries. And that perspective is important. While we are in hard times, our ancestors and foreparents created a lot of progress, and now we’re called to do the same. We have a responsibility to do the same.”
“A lot of our peers didn’t make it to be freedom fighters,” she said, but “we have. Let’s step into that power.”
While LGBTQ advocacy groups, including the Task Force, are expected to lose their seats at the table once the Trump-Vance administration takes over in January, Johnson told the Blade, “That’s all good, because the power is actually in the people anyway.”
“Access to the White House, influence in the White House, is important,” she said, but “that’s never been the end-all-be-all. We know that power is built from the grassroots up, and so that just gives us more time to organize and strategize with our people on the ground.”
“Bring it,” Johnson added. “We’ve got powerful, powerful voices. Folks who are in Texas and in Michigan and Ohio, that that are ready. They’re ready to dig in, to keep this fight going — and to fight smarter, and in a broader, bigger coalition.”
“While we couldn’t have predicted exactly where we were going to be today, the Task Force and other organizations in the LGBTQ movement have been doing scenario planning for months,” she said, “so we’re not caught with our pants down. We’ve run scenarios, and we are already moving to implement different strategies in the communities that we’re working in.”
Johnson highlighted the Task Force’s flagship “Creating Change” conference in Las Vegas from Jan. 22 to 26, where the organization will be “bringing together legal minds to actually do, basically, office hours on-site,” allowing attendees the opportunity to consult attorneys with questions about their rights and protections under the next administration.
“It’s not about advocacy,” she said. “It’s about taking care of our people. I think you’re going to see more of that — in addition to the policy and advocacy work, more is going to be done to actually hold and support and protect our people.”
Politics
HRC’s Brandon Wolf reflects on Trump’s victory, path ahead for LGBTQ movement
He joined the Blade for a conversation on Rated LGBT Radio
Human Rights Campaign National Press Secretary Brandon Wolf and Washington Blade White House reporter Christopher Kane spoke with Rated LGBT Radio on Thursday, following Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.
They covered subjects ranging from the impact of anti-trans advertising by the former president’s campaign and other Republican candidates in down-ballot races to the future of the Democratic Party and what lies ahead for organizations in the LGBTQ movement.
Prior to joining HRC, Wolf served as press secretary for Equality Florida. A survivor of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, he is recognized for his work in LGBTQ advocacy, public speaking and media appearances, and his critically acclaimed 2023 memoir “A Place for Us.”
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
MODERATOR: What is the mood at HRC and what are leaders and staff saying?
BRANDON WOLF: Like millions of people, the folks at HRC are heartbroken. I know I can speak for myself in saying that I am most heartbroken for those who have had their humanity questioned for years by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. I’m most heartbroken for those who have been in the crosshairs, who have seen their freedoms and rights stripped away in state after state, in places like Texas and Tennessee and Florida. I’m heartbroken for the families who have been terrorized by their political leaders for years because of the kind of environment that people like Donald Trump have created, and I’m heartbroken for all the people who aren’t sure what happens next, the people who’ve listened to Donald Trump’s words, who’ve seen the ads that he’s run, who’ve read through Project 2025 and are deeply concerned about what happens next for themselves and their families.
This is a really challenging time, and the obstacles we’re facing are incredibly difficult, but we’ve also been here before as a community. I think about our ancestors a lot. I think about when we were being beaten and brutally assaulted by police officers, we fought back at Stonewall, and birthed a movement when people were dying by the 1,000s of AIDS and leaders refused to acknowledge that pain and suffering. We fought back, we formed Act Up, and we brought ourselves to this moment in time where we have the opportunity to potentially end that epidemic in our lifetime. We have been in incredibly challenging circumstances before, and at every one of those moments, we’ve locked arms with each other. We’ve chosen to get through it together. We dared ourselves to imagine what’s possible when we finally overcome those hurdles, and at every one of those moments, we have been successful. We’ve made progress happen. So, I’m heartbroken by the results of the election, but I’m certainly not feeling broken today.
MODERATOR: What are you hearing from LGBTQ groups you’ve spoken with in terms of their reaction to the election?
CHRISTOPHER KANE: The remarks that we just heard from Brandon actually echo what I heard earlier from Kierra Johnson, who’s the president of the LGBTQ Task Force and Task Force Action Fund. She was saying how we have this rich history as a community of activism, and how brave our forebears have been and how many of our brothers and sisters lost their lives defending our rights.
Something that I think these advocacy groups will be thinking about is what the next administration might cost [them], in terms of their access to levers of power. To what extent is the Trump administration going to work with these groups? And that means kind of a change in strategy, because the focus becomes, you know, political organizing and a lot of the other work that’s so important that these groups are engaged in, right? You know, whether it’s going out into the field and helping people get, in our community, get exactly what they need, Whether it’s providing legal resources for folks, in light of what we’re going to see in terms of regulatory and legal changes over the next administration. So there’s just so much work to be done.
[Note: Johnson told the Blade that Task Force and the other movement groups had been “doing scenario planning for months” to prepare for all possible outcomes, and together are already “moving to implement different strategies in the communities that we’re working in.”]
MODERATOR: It seems the Trump campaign sought to divide the community between LGB people on one side and trans and nonbinary communities on the other. VP-elect J.D. Vance saying, for example, that the ‘normal gay guy’ vote would break in their favor.
WOLF: First, I’m loath to let J.D. Vance tell anybody what normal is supposed to be. But the truth is, the data does not bear out that they won any significant part of the LGBTQ+ community. Exit polls show that people in the community backed Harris over Donald Trump by a 70 point margin, 84 to 14. That margin is second only to Black women in support of Vice President Harris. So, the LGBTQ+ community continues to be a very reliable part of the Democratic coalition, and I think that is because of a couple of things: Number one, we understand what’s at stake. We understand what we have to lose in these elections. We understand what we’re up against in Donald Trump. And number two, in Kamala Harris and [her VP pick, Minnesota Gov.] Tim Walz, we had real champions for our community — career-long champions who were doing the work of equality even before that was, maybe, politically advantageous or easy for them to do. It was Kamala Harris who was performing some of the first same-sex marriages in California when the country was having a debate over whether or not we should be able to get married at all. It was Tim Walz who, in the late ’90s, as a football coach, was the sponsor of the Gay-Straight Alliance club at his high school.
So, I think you saw that drive turnout in the LGBTQ+ community. That number expands when you get into some of these highly competitive battleground states. In Arizona, equality voters, who are people who prioritize LGBTQ+ equality when deciding who to vote for, equality voters backed Democratic candidates by a 92 to seven margin. So, again, we’re talking about a community that understands what’s at stake, and really showed up in this election cycle.
The other thing I want to address is, you’re talking about the MAGA agenda of driving people apart from each other. This is the old playbook. This is the right-wing playbook that they use every single time. And it’s because the MAGA agenda is not one that is designed to bring people together. MAGA candidates and campaigns don’t have a vision for our country. They don’t fundamentally believe in a multi-racial, multi-generational democracy, and so the only thing they have to offer the American people is division, chaos and hate. They pit neighbors against each other. They turn one community against another. They dare us to build higher walls and taller fences, because so long as we’re fighting with each other, we won’t find the time or the resources to organize against them collectively. And so that is what they have to offer us, this agenda of chaos, division, and hate, and that is what they’ve been trying throughout the election cycle, instead of offering policy proposals to help people address the cost of housing or groceries, instead of offering offering real comprehensive conversations on immigration reform, for instance, they serve up hate and xenophobia and transphobia and general bigotry. So, I think we have to be wary of falling into that same trap.
We’re going to spend years dissecting the election and figuring out how to build a winning coalition moving forward, but I can tell you that scapegoating trans people in this moment is not going to help us build the path forward. I think at HRC, I can speak for us that you know our job is to be in community with those other organizations. We’ve already been having conversations throughout the election cycle with our progressive partners, people in the labor space, people in the immigrant rights space, people in the civil rights space, the voting rights space, certainly the reproductive freedom space and others. We have to keep those conversations going. We have to make sure that we’re building a plan and a strategy that organizes communities across issue areas, and ultimately, we’re going to have to be united. We have to be a united front in defense of democracy and freedom and our basic civil liberties.
KANE: As Brandon said, first of all, the exit polls show that this strategy of dividing communities didn’t work, and it should come as no surprise, because [Brandon is] exactly right — that’s not how to win. We’re much stronger together.
It’s only been, what, less than 48 hours, right, since the election was called? We still have to collect a lot of information, and there’s plenty of time for reflection and recrimination and everything else to figure out exactly what happened here. To the extent possible. But I think one thing worth probing is whether the spend by Republicans on anti-trans advertising had any effect. And I think that’s something that’s perhaps worth looking into and maybe examining what would be the best way to respond to those anti-trans commercials. Should the campaign have done more to address it directly? Should they have pivoted to an economic message and said, you know, Republicans want to focus on [going after trans people] at the expense of improving materially the lives of the American people? You know, there are a lot of directions you could take that, but I think it’s worth revisiting in the future when we have more information.
MODERATOR: At Equality Florida, you fought against the extreme anti-LGBTQ laws passed under Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). How should the community prepare for or respond to those policies if or when they are introduced at the federal level after Trump takes office?
WOLF: Project 2025 is horrifying, but it’s not all that surprising if you’ve been living its beta test for years, and people in places like Florida and Texas and Tennessee have indeed been living this beta test of Project 2025. I think the next steps come in phases in my mind. And I would say, we start with community. We have to take care of our people. I’ve been at several of these inflection points when bad legislation is passing and leaders are trafficking in dehumanizing language, and the first thing we do is is reach out to people and ask what they need. I know that that’s what we’re going to be doing at HRC. We’ve got some plans in place to be with community, gathering information, listening, hearing what folks need. We’ve already put out a number of mental health resources that people can get access to. So, in these really difficult moments, we have to start with community. I’ve been in some really dark moments in my life, and in those moments, I didn’t know that the next day was worth living for, but it was community that reminded me I had to get up and fight every single day. We’re going to need that community right now more than ever.
The second thing I would say is we have the same rights today as we did when polls closed on Tuesday. In fact, we have the same congressional makeup today as we did when polls close on Tuesday. And there’s work to be done so long as we have control over the White House [and] a pro-equality majority in the Senate. There are things that we can do. I know that we’re having conversations internally with the administration to see where we can safeguard and shore up people’s access to freedoms and rights. We’ve got to do that work during the lame duck session.
And finally, I think we have work to do once Donald Trump is inaugurated. We’re going to have to work with Congress to try to blunt some of the attacks that will come through the legislative branch. We’re going to have to work with governors and state legislatures to try to safeguard people’s freedoms and protections on the state level. And we’re going to have to work with our foundation, our educational programs, to change the culture, to humanize people. So often we can get lost in the political rancor. People become talking points. It’s our job to put human faces and stories behind the policies that we’re debating, and we’re going to have to do that — whether it’s, you know, in classrooms, talking to young people about the kind of future they want for themselves and their peers, or whether it’s workplaces, challenging companies to make their values more than just a dusty poster on a wall, but living, breathing values that make people’s lives fundamentally better. So, it’s going to take a whole of organization, a whole-of-community approach, to resist Donald Trump, but I don’t want us to skip past the part where we we take care of each other first for a second.
MODERATOR: Reactions to Delaware State Sen. Sarah McBride’s victory in her race for the state’s at-large seat in the U.S. House, which distinguishes her as the first transgender candidate elected to Congress?
WOLF: You’re spot on when you’re talking about the power that Sarah has, and I don’t want to lose that. You know, Tuesday was a rough night in the presidential, and certainly did not go the way we wanted it to in other races, but we can’t lose sight of the historic wins that we got either. Sarah McBride’s victory is groundbreaking for people. There are trans kids out there who are wondering whether or not this country loves them, who will look up and see Sarah McBride’s face on a television screen and believe that they can be whoever they want to be. That really matters. When we say representation matters, that’s what representation really looks like.
And when you’re talking about the story that Sarah tells just by walking the halls or or giving speeches from the floor, don’t forget that Sarah did not just win this race for Congress. She dominated in the primary field because of her record of service. She cleared that field very early on. Adnd then in the general election, she garnered the highest support among any other Democrat running in Delaware, except for one, the insurance commissioner. We’re going to have to dissect how that happened. But, you know, we’re talking about Sarah McBride getting more votes, you know, than folks running for governor and for Senate. So Sarah is a gravitational pull right now in Delaware politics, she is a groundbreaking win for the community, and it matters that she got there by being an incredibly talented champion for her constituents.
And so, to answer your question, yes, we have to tell the story of why Sarah McBride’s race is historic, why her serving is groundbreaking. And we have to tell the story of how Sarah got there, that she got there by doing really good, hard, work. By connecting with her constituents. By delivering results for people every single day. That’s what it looks like to be successful. And when we tell those full, rich stories of all that people are, that’s when we see them as human, right?
I think we can do such a better job in the media and in digital social media spaces [of] telling the rich fullness of people’s lives. I want to hear the stories of the trans business owners. The trans parents. I want to hear the story of the trans woman who just graduated from law school. I want to hear those rich, full stories, and that’s how we chart a new path.
KANE: I agree with everything Brandon said. You know, I’ll add that when I interviewed President Biden at the end of September, one of the things we talked about was Sarah McBride. And he said something, I wish I had the exact words in front of me, but it was something like, ‘Sarah’s going to be, I pray to God, a member of Congress.’ And I think he understood and understands and was communicating just the unbelievable power of having a transgender woman serving in the United States Congress, and everything that that means.
And it’s not, of course, just that she’s elected and is serving there, but it’s the work that she’s going to be doing when she gets there. And, you know, Sarah is the real deal. She’s so widely respected and for her work, I mean, as a state senator in Delaware, she was very effective in securing a bill that provided paid family leave for people in Delaware. So, she’s just been very effective, and, again, very widely respected.
MODERATOR: The Trump-Vance administration will bring an influx of insiders — lobbyists, staffers, attorneys, advisers — to Washington. When contending with new policies concerning LGBTQ rights, how critical will it be to work with those folks, and what does that look like?
KANE: I just had a conversation with a senior employee at a federal government agency, and I was asking her about what the transition process looks like. I’ve never covered a presidential transition, but the process is more or less consistent and tends to work in the same way each time. You have folks that are eager to make their ins and make inroads at various agencies, and they have their eye on various jobs.
And then there’s a lot of, I think especially with this crowd, frankly, a lot of people knifing each other. There are warring factions. Also so that’s something that we need to understand, like within the Republican Party and even within Trump’s closest group of aides, there was conflict. A lot of conflict. So, ultimately, yes, of course, like it comes down to the people that are really effectuating these policies and and also the question, of course, of how effective they can be, especially where there’s a lot of dysfunction. And I think we can probably expect to see — as much as we’ve been promised that this administration is going to be a lot smoother, and he knows what he’s doing this time — I think based on the reporting about how his campaign went, that we can expect a lot of dysfunction.
WOLF: I will cosign that and say, you know, one of the things that people warned about Trump’s Project 2025 plan all along was this idea of purging the federal government and replacing dedicated career public servants with Trump acolytes. And what that would mean for those levers of power, right? You think about people like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon and the devastating impact they had the first time, you can just imagine a federal, you know, government full of people like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, with very few people there to act as a check and a balance.
Your second point is so important to me, Chris, which is about dysfunction. When you put unqualified, incompetent people in important positions, then systems and structures break down, right? You’re talking about putting Elon Musk in charge of anything — I’m not sure he knows how government works, and it concerns me that he would be overseeing large government agencies that have complicated functions that impact people’s daily lives. You’re talking about some of these other people that just have no background in public administration. They don’t know how these agencies are supposed to function, and you’re putting them in positions because they’re a pal or they’re a yes man. That’s incredibly dangerous, that the federal government plays a critical role in people’s everyday lives, and putting incompetent people in these positions could do real damage.
KANE: And it’s even hard when they put people in there that are really competent, because — this is part of the conversation I was having earlier today — it’s even hard for the most qualified people, because it is such a short timeframe to learn everything about the way the institution is run, whether it’s the Justice Department, State Department, or whatever. [New appointees and officials have to learn] everything from where the bathrooms are and how many employees are there to, you know, what are the active investigations that the outgoing administration is going to put in your hands? So you can imagine that having somebody in there that doesn’t know what they’re doing. I mean, you can imagine, right?
MODERATOR: How are LGBTQ movement organizations looking at the threat posed by Trump’s appointment of more judges on the federal bench?
WOLF: We’ve seen the devastating impact, not just on the Supreme Court level, but across the judiciary of Trump stacking the court system with his acolytes and, again, sometimes it is incompetence. We saw that with the judge down in Florida, where she just didn’t really know the basic functions of the job, and clearly had been put there to help influence cases in a direction that someone like Donald Trump might like.
And then, you know, you look at some things that are maybe more sinister, which is this bench of candidates that organizations like the Heritage Foundation and the Alliance Defending Freedom have groomed for these positions to use their roles as judges to reshape the United States of America legally and culturally. We saw the impact of that, obviously, most infamously with the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned Roe v Wade. There, you had these candidates who had been hand picked and groomed through the system, through the right wing system, who got up there, lied to the Senate committee, said that Roe v Wade was decided precedent, that there would be no reason to go back on that kind of precedent. Yet [they were confirmed and seated] and immediately [went] after Roe v Wade protections and precedent.
We’re in a very precarious position with a President Donald Trump and a Senate majority who could further stack the judiciary. And then you look at the threat on the Supreme Court. There’s a very real possibility that he could, you know, harass one or two justices into leaving and replace them with 40-year-old candidates that have been groomed and hand picked and cement a conservative majority on the Supreme Court for a very long time to come. So I think that’s why people named, in the beginning, the threat that Trump posed to the courts. That’s why it was a part of people’s pitch during the election cycle. And we’re up against some real challenges with him nominating judges.
KANE: I’m nodding in agreement. Kevin Jennings, the CEO of Lambda Legal, made the point recently that if she serves as long as Ruth Bader Ginsburg did, [Trump-appointed] Justice Amy Coney Barrett would leave the court in, I think he said, 2049. We’re talking like generational impact in terms of the rightward shift of the judiciary that we’re going to see in the next administration.
The [incoming] Trump administration is expected to be able to appoint, I believe, roughly as many judges as the Biden administration did, and as many as the [first] Trump administration did. I believe the first Trump administration also perhaps set a record — or, if not, came close — in the number of judges on the federal bench that they appointed. So we’re about to see massive, massive changes throughout the country. And, you know, it really matters who these judges are. They’re deciding things that affect our everyday lives for people across the United States.
MODERATOR: How are the LGBTQ movement organizations thinking about the makeup of the federal judiciary in the context of their legal strategy following Trump’s inauguration?
WOLF: I don’t want to get ahead of our legal team on what potential litigation tactics might look like, but I will say they know the law really well. They’re very savvy about understanding the ways in which discriminatory policies violate the law. They’re really good at helping to tell that story in courtrooms across the country, and every case is very different. So it is likely that there will be a lot of strategizing in the months and years to come.
MODERATOR: Over the past few years, a number of Democratic governors have made refuge for trans people who live in other (redder) states that have anti-trans laws and healthcare restrictions on the books. This week, many of those same governors pledged to resist a number of the incoming administration’s proposed policies. Where does that leave LGBTQ folks?
WOLF: We can’t deny that that’s happening to people, that they have been forced from their homes. I know plenty of people that I love and care about a lot who have made the really difficult decision to leave their homes. There was a trans woman that I used to work with in Florida who. through tears, called me one day and said, ‘if you see a GoFundMe on my Facebook page, it’s so that I can save enough to rent a U-Haul, put all my stuff in it, and I’ll just drive until I find somewhere that’s safer.’ Those kinds of stories are heartbreaking, and they’re already happening around this country. Trans people are made into refugees in their own states.
And I also think we can’t lose sight of the fact that some people just can’t do that, right? It’s too complicated for them to move. Maybe they’re taking care of a family member, or they have kids that are enrolled in school, or they can’t afford it. Maybe they’re in a home that their families had for generations, and they don’t want to leave it behind. People deserve to be treated with dignity and respect they deserve to have their humanity respected in their home. That’s what I get so passionate about, is that people should not be forced — in order to get the basics, the fundamental freedoms that they deserve simply on the basis of being a human being.
It’s going to be our job to, one. help to expand protections [for trans people that were passed in some blue states]. Minnesota is a great example. Under Governor Walz’s leadership, they’ve become a refuge for people who are seeking health care access. It’s going to be our job to help support those states and expand their footprint to give people as many options as possible, and it’s going to be our job to help get resources and support to people who are in states where they are facing the highest hurdles.
MODERATOR: Trump has promised to disband the U.S. Department of Education. He and his allies support anti-LGBTQ curriculum restrictions, book bans, etc. What are your concerns with the incoming administration’s approach to education?
WOLF: Project 2025 is a 900+-page manifesto of terrifying things, and this might be one of the most terrifying among them, which is the complete dismantling of our public education system. Just for reference for folks, as a society, we’ve decided that education K through 12 is a right, and that everyone should be able to have access to it, because it helps us build a better society together, that young people deserve to be able to go to school to get an education so they can go out and be the thriving adults they deserve to be.
The MAGA agenda stands in opposition to that idea that everyone should have access to education in that way, and it is in part because education poses a threat to the MAGA agenda. The more people know about who we are as a country and who we’ve been, the more they ask questions about who we want to be in the future. The more access they have to different kinds of communities and different lived experiences. The more compassionate they are to those lived experiences.
And MAGA can’t have that. Their agenda, again, is built on division and chaos and hate, and so they work to dismantle the education system. They work to influence young people by destroying their access to one of their most fundamental rights in this country. Dismantling the Department of Education would be disastrous for people, and I want people to maybe consider what it would mean for folks in everyday life. Schools are not just a place to learn, they’re a place where young people are for long periods of the day. Everything that they interact with while they’re at school impacts who they grow up to be. And families rely on schools to keep their kids safe, to make sure their kids are treated with dignity and respect, to make sure they get a good education. So disrupting the education system in this country would be absolutely devastating for families all over the place, and especially so for LGBTQ+ young people, many of whom don’t have a safe space outside of the classroom where they spend so many hours of the day.
MODERATOR: What is your advice for LGBTQ people, including young queer and trans people, who are worried?
KANE: As a journalist, I am poorly positioned to answer such a question, especially relative to someone in the advocacy or political organizing space, or someone with experience in social work and mental health. It’s not an easy question. I would encourage folks to look out for their personal welfare and the welfare of their families and friends, to lean on other people, and to avail themselves of the resources provided by LGBTQ movement groups like HRC.
WOLF: Especially for trans and non binary folks, things feel really daunting, for good reason. As someone who’s been on the front lines in Florida before and has seen these things firsthand, the first thing I would recommend is feel all the feelings. I have routines on days where I’m feeling all the feelings. Everybody has their routine, but you have to allow yourself to feel it. Sometimes the temptation is to bury yourself in work or to become numb to it, or try to tell yourself that your feelings aren’t valid or that you’re overreacting, but you have to feel all the feelings.
And the second thing is what Chris said, which is to lean on people around you. As I mentioned, I’ve been through some pretty dark times in my own journey, and on the days where I wasn’t sure that tomorrow was worth waking up for, it was the little things. It was somebody offering a shoulder to cry on. It was the woman at Publix who offered a hug even though she didn’t know what I was going through. It was the woman at the bank who offered me a tissue when I couldn’t stop crying. It was the person at a vigil who wrapped their arms around me and told me that I was loved exactly as I am. It was that sense of community that reminded me that every day is worth getting up and fighting for. We’re going to need that community in this moment. So feel all the feels. And then, as Chris said, lean into each other, do everything you can to care for each other. We’ve been through dark times. We’re in dark times again. And we’ve gotten through them before, but only together.
California Politics
Mark Gonzalez triumphs: A new era begins for Assembly District 54
Gonzalez will now represent neighborhoods in Montebello, Commerce, East L.A., Boyle Heights, Chinatown and Koreatown
LGBTQ+ Democratic candidate Mark Gonzalez wins Assembly District 54 seat against John Yi and succeeding Assemblymember Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles), who did not seek reelection for the position.
Both first-time candidates ran to represent one of the poorest districts in the state, with Gonzalez securing over 12,000 votes over Democrat John Yi, who ran against Gonzalez.
“Running to represent AD54 and earning the votes of those in our community, has been the honor of a lifetime,” said Gonzalez in an X post following the announcement of his win. “I remain committed to serving its people and our state as its next Assemblymember.
His opponent Yi, is the Executive Director of Los Angeles Walks, a pedestrian advocacy group and self-titled Local Nonprofit Leader. Yi is also a Democrat who championed a single-payer healthcare system that would insure all residents of California and previously advocated for the expansion of Medi-Cal benefits for all Californians, regardless of immigration status.
Gonzalez raised nearly ten times more than his opponent, who has had a history in nonprofit leadership and multiracial coalitions to promote health and justice-centered policies.
While running for Assembly, Gonzalez championed raising wages for working families, tackling LA’s homelessness and affordability crisis, and a guarantee for healthcare to all.
Gonzalez is an Assembly staffer who has served the area for over a decade, former Chair of the Los Angeles Democratic Party and Equality California Institute Board member. He worked for former Assembly Speaker John Pérez and served most recently as District Director for the current Assembly member, Miguel Santiago.
“This win is a testament to his dedication to the community and his vision for a more inclusive and equitable Los Angeles,” said Equality California’s executive director, Tony Houang. “We look forward to seeing the positive change he will bring to the Assembly and our state. On behalf of Equality California, we are excited to partner with him to continue the fight for equality and justice for all.”
As a former Chair of the L.A. County Democratic Party, Gonzalez championed change to make community college free, protect air and water quality, make housing affordable and safeguard abortion rights.
He grew up as the son of a single mother who relied on Section 8 to provide housing for them. He is a renter, organizer and activist who knows that the system as it is now, is not working towards the progress, safety or well-being of the marginalized and low-income communities of this district.
“I look forward to working with my colleagues in Sacramento to advance bold, common-sense policies that will make a meaningful impact on individuals and families across the state.”
Gonzalez will now represent District 54, will be responsible for neighborhoods in Montebello, Commerce, East L.A., Boyle Heights, Chinatown and Koreatown.
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