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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DOE plays major role investigating alleged civil rights violations in schools

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Among other things, the report includes these findings:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The GoFundMe site can be accessed here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Up until the early 2010s, if you searched “Babe Ruth” in the Baseball Hall of Fame, nothing would pop up. To find information on the greatest baseball player of all time, you would have to search “Ruth, George Herman.” 

That is the way online archival systems were set up and there was a clear problem with it. Kristen Gwinn-Becker was uniquely able to solve it. “I’m a super tech geek, history geek,” she says, “I love any opportunity to create this aha moment with people through history.” 

Gwinn-Becker is the founder and CEO of HistoryIT, a company that helps organizations create digital archives that are genuinely accessible. “I believe history is incredibly important, but I also think it’s in danger,” she says. “Less than 2% of our historical materials are digital and even less of that is truly accessible.”

Gwinn-Becker’s love for history is personal. As a lesbian, growing up, she sought out evidence of herself across time. “I was interested in stories, interested in people whose lives mirrored mine to help me understand who I was.” 

“[My identity] influences my love of history and my strong belief in history is important,” she says.

Despite always loving history, Gwinn-Becker found herself living and working in San Francisco during the early dot com boom and bust in the ‘90s. “It was an exciting time,” she recounts, “if you were intellectually curious, you could just jump right in.”

Being there was almost happenstance, Gwinn-Becker explained: “I was 20 years old and wanted to live in San Francisco.” Quickly, she fell in love with “all of the incredible new tools.” She was working with non-profits that encouraged her to take classes and apply the new skills. “I was really into software, web, and database development.” 

But history eventually pulled her back. “Tech was fun, but I didn’t want to be a developer,” she says. Something was missing. When the opportunity to get a Ph.D. in history from George Washington University presented itself, “I got to work on the Eleanor Roosevelt papers, who I was and remain quite passionate about.” 

Gwinn-Becker’s research on Eleanor Roosevelt planted the seeds of digital preservation. “Eleanor Roosevelt doesn’t have a single archive. FDR has lots but the first ladies don’t,” she says. Gwinn-Becker wondered what else was missing from the archive — and what would be missing from the archive if we didn’t start preserving it now.

Those questions eventually led Gwinn-Becker to found HistoryIT in 2011. Since then, the company has created digital archives for organizations ranging from museums and universities to sororities, fraternities, and community organizations.

This process is not easy. “Digital preservation is more than scanning,” says Gwinn-Becker. “Most commercial scanners’ intent is to create a digital copy, not an exact replica.” 

To digitally preserve something, Gwinn-Becker’s team must take a photo with overhead cameras. “There is an international standard,” she says, “you create an archival TIFF.” 

“It’s the biggest possible file we can create now. That’s how you future-proof.”

Despite the common belief that the internet is forever, JPEGs saved to social media or websites are a poor archive. “It’s more expensive for us to do projects in the 2000 to 2016 period than to do 19^th-century projects,” explains Gwinn-Becker, since finding adequate files for preservation can be tricky. “The images themselves are deteriorated because they’re compressed so much,” she says.

Her clients are finding that having a strong digital archive is useful outside of the noble goal of protecting history. “It’s a unique trove of content,” says Gwinn-Becker. One client saw a 790% increase in donations after incorporating the digital archive into fundraising efforts. “It’s important to have content quickly and easily,” says Gwinn-Becker, whose team also works with clients on digital strategy for their archive.

One of Gwinn-Becker’s favorite parts of her job is finding what she calls “hidden histories.”

“We [LGBTQ people] are represented everywhere. We’re represented in sports, in religious history, in every kind of movement, not only our movement. I’m passionate about bringing those stories out.” 

Sometimes queer stories are found in unexpected places, says Gwinn-Becker. “We work with sororities and fraternities. There are a hell of a lot of our stories there.”

Part of digital preservation is also making sure that history being created in the moment is not lost to future generations. HistoryIT works with NFL teams, for example. One of their clients is the Panthers, who hired Justine Lindsay, the first transgender cheerleader in the NFL. Gwinn-Becker was excited to be able to preserve information about Lindsay in the digital record. “It’s making history in the process of preserving it,” says Gwinn-Becker.

Preserving queer history, either through “hidden histories” or LGBTQ-specific archives, is vital says Gwinn-Becker. “Think about whose history gets marginalized, whose history gets moved to the sidelines, whose history gets just erased,” she prompts. “In a time of fake news, we need to point to evidence in the past. Queer people have existed since there were humans, but their stories are hidden,” Gwinn-Becker says.

Meanwhile, Gwinn-Becker accidentally finds herself as part of queer history too. Listed as one of Inc. Magazine’s Top 250 Female Founders of 2024, she is surrounded by names like Christina Aguilera, Selena Gomez, and Natalie Portman. 

One name stuck out. “Never in my life did I think I’d be on the same list – other than the obvious one – with Billie Jean King. That’s pretty exciting,” she said. 

But she can’t focus on the win for too long. “When I go to sleep at night, I think ‘there’s so much history, and we have to transfer it to the digital,’” she says, “We have a very small period in which to do that in a meaningful way.”

(This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab through News is Out. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.)

A D.C. Superior Court jury on Aug. 15 ordered a company that owned and operated a McDonald’s restaurant franchise in Northwest Washington to pay $930,000 in damages to a transgender employee who charged in a lawsuit that she was subjected to discrimination, harassment, and retaliation because of her gender identity in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act.

The lawsuit, which was filed in January 2021 by attorneys representing Diana Portillo Medrano, says Medrano was first hired to work at the McDonald’s at 5948 Georgia Ave., N.W. in 2011 as a customer service representative and was recognized  and promoted for good work until she began to transition as a trans woman two years later.

It says she was fired in 2016 after she filed a discrimination complaint with the D.C. Office of Human Rights on grounds that she did not have legal authorization to work in the U.S. as an immigrant from El Salvador. One of her attorneys, Jonathan Puth, said the jury agreed with the lawsuit’s allegation that the reason given for the firing was a “pretext” and the real reason was retaliation for her discrimination complaint.

Puth said evidence was presented during the eight-day civil trial that the McDonald’s had knowingly hired other immigrant employees who did not have legal authorization to work and never held that against them.

“Despite a successful five-year career with McDonald’s marked by raises, promotions, and awards and absence of discipline, Plaintiff Diana Medrano’s supervisors and co-workers subjected her to a barrage of taunts, laughter, ridicule, and harassment because she is a transgender woman,” the lawsuit states.

“Managers and supervisors routinely referred to her as male despite her expressed request that they respect her gender identity as female, encouraging co-workers to harass her relentlessly in like fashion,” it says. “When she complained to her managers, they claimed Ithat the harassment was justified because she hadn’t legally changed her name,” the lawsuit’s complaint continues.

“After she formalized and elevated her complaints, Defendants fired her on pretextual grounds. Defendants discriminated against Ms. Medrano because of her gender identity and retaliated against her in violation of the District of Columbia Human Rights Act,” the lawsuit complaint states.

The lawsuit names as defendants International Golden Foods LLC and MCI Golden Foods LLC, two companies based in Burke, Va. that it says were owned and operated by Luis Gavignano, who is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. The lawsuit says the two companies held the franchise rights to own and operate the McDonald’s where Medrano worked.

The Washington Blade’s attempts to reach a spokesperson for the two companies and for Gavignano as well as two of the attorneys that represented them in contesting the lawsuit through email and phone messages were unsuccessful. 

In a nine-page written answer to the lawsuit filed Feb. 12, 2021, on behalf of International Golden Foods, which is referred to as IGF, attorneys Amy M. Heerink and Kelvin Newsome dispute the allegations that Medrano was targeted for discrimination and harassment because of her gender identity.

The written answer to the complaint highlights the company’s claim that Medrano was fired because she didn’t have legal authority to work in the U.S. It refers to the company’s personnel official, Carla Vega, who informed Medrano that she could no longer work for the McDonald’s outlet.

“IGF admits that Ms. Vega informed Plaintiff that her employment had to be terminated due to Plaintiff’s voluntary and unprompted statement during the investigation that she was not authorized to work in the United States,” the written answer to the lawsuit states. “IGF admits that Plaintiff’s employment was terminated based on her ineligibility to work in the United States,” it says.

“The jury clearly found that IGF continually used unauthorized employees, hired and employed unauthorized workers knowingly,” Puth, Madrano’s attorney, told the Blade. “And they never fired anyone for that reason at any of their stores except for Diana,” Puth said.

“And so, the jury found that the reason given was a pretext for retaliation,” he said. “That was what was motivating them. They were motivated to retaliate against her because she kept complaining about discrimination.”

Puth noted that Medrano initially filed her complaint with the D.C. Office of Human Rights and was represented at that time by an attorney with Whitman-Walker Health’s legal clinic. He said Whitman-Walker later referred her to his law firm, Correia & Puth, after determining the case could not be resolved at the Office of Human Rights.

The jury’s verdict of $930,000 in damages included $700,000 in punitive damages and $230,000 in damages for the emotional distress Medrano suffered due to the discrimination and harassment to which she was subjected.

A statement released by the law firm representing her says the action by the jury is believed to be the first jury verdict in a transgender employment discrimination case under the D.C. Human Rights Act.

Attorney Puth and his law firm partner, attorney Andrew Adelman, were the attorneys of record representing Medrano in her lawsuit. 

 “When you are sure of what you have experienced, no matter how much time passes, the truth will come to light,” Medrano said in the statement released by her attorneys. “Our truth is our best weapon to achieve justice,” she said. “It is truth, justice, and faith in God that have helped me get here.”

In his law firm’s statement, Puth called the jury’s verdict a vindication of Medrano’s 11-year battle for her legal rights.

“Diana is our hero,” he said. “She stood up for her rights in the face of terrible harassment and kept fighting even after she was fired for doing so. This verdict puts other employers on notice that tolerating harassment of transgender employees is both unlawful and costly.”

Puth said earlier this year Medrano was approved for U.S. political asylum based on discrimination and harassment she faced in El Salvador. He said she is currently working full-time as a counselor for Empoderate, an LGBTQ health organization providing services for the Latina/Latino community that is affiliated with the D.C.-based La Clinica del Pueblo.