D.C. police are investigating as a suspected hate crime an incident in which a gay man says he was attacked and beaten by four or five employees of the Dupont Circle Shake Shack restaurant on Saturday, Aug. 17, after he and his male partner kissed each other while waiting for their food order.

District resident Christian Dingus, 28, told the Washington Blade the attack came after he tried to defuse an argument between his partner and one of the Shake Shack employees who told the two men not to kiss each other. Dingus said it started inside the popular food establishment and moved outside a side door where several employees knocked him down onto the sidewalk and repeatedly punched and kicked him.

He says after he was knocked down, he positioned himself in a “fetal position” on the sidewalk and remembers being repeatedly punched and hit in the head and body by four or five attackers.

The incident was captured on video taken by another Shake Shack customer on her cell phone, and which has been posted on social media, including Facebook. Although the faces of the attackers and of Dingus and his partner are not clearly visible on the dramatic video, it provides a vivid view of a man being knocked to the ground and being assaulted by several other men who are seen running out the door and attacking Dingus.

Dingus said he declined an offer to take him to a hospital when an ambulance arrived after police also arrived on the scene. But he said a friend took him to a hospital later that day after he experienced intense pain in his jaw, which was severely bruised but was not broken. He said he was released from the hospital the next day and continues to recover from multiple bruises to the head, face, and body.

A D.C. police report says one of the alleged attackers, identified as Suspect 1, told police that Dingus, identified in the report as Victim 1, “placed his hands” on the suspect’s neck. “Suspect 1 advised that he was defending himself,” the report says.

Dingus called that claim by the suspect a complete falsehood, saying he never touched any of the employees who attacked him.

In response to a request from the Blade for comment, a Shake Shack spokesperson sent the Blade a statement saying employees have been suspended as Shake Shack continues to cooperate with a D.C. police ongoing investigation into the incident.

“We are aware of the incident on Saturday, Aug. 17, involving team members and a guest at our Dupont Circle location and are taking it very seriously,” the statement says. “At Shake Shack, the safety and well-being of our guests and team members are our top priority, and we have a zero-tolerance policy for any form of violence,” it says.

“We are fully cooperating with local authorities in their investigation and have suspended the team members involved pending further review,” the statement continues. “We are committed to taking the appropriate action based on the findings.”

The Shake Shack where the incident took place is located at 1216 18th St., N.W., which is at the intersection of Connecticut Avenue, 18th Street, and Jefferson Place. The police report says the assault took place on Jefferson Place, where a Shake Shack’s side door entrance is located. 

The police report lists the incident as a “simple assault” and “suspected” hate crime. It shows that no arrests had been made as of the time the report was prepared on Aug. 17. Dingus said police asked him if he wanted to press charges against the men who assaulted him and he told them yes, “definitely,” he told the Blade.

With all the attackers being Shake Shack employees, Dingus said he was concerned that no arrests were made while police were on the scene speaking with him and witnesses.

D.C. police spokesperson Paris Lewbel told the Blade on Monday the incident remains under investigation. “All facts and evidence in the case will be presented to the United States Attorney’s Office for a determination on charges,” he said.

Dingus said the Shake Shack employees targeted him after he tried to defend his partner, who he believed was being threatened by the employees. “I started yelling at them, saying you have no right to do this. Leave him alone,” he said. “At that point I was pushed very forcefully, and really from that moment all five of them were coming at me. They were pushing me and punching me in my head,” he said.

“And then I got pushed, thrown to the ground,” he told the Blade. “At that point I covered my head and kind of went into the fetal position. And they just continued to punch me in my head and my side and my face.”  

U.S. Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Angie Craig (D-Minn.) will introduce a bill this week addressing the “rising elder abuse of LGBTQI+ individuals,” according legislation the Washington Blade previewed.

The Elder Pride Protection Act of 2024 would establish a task force through the Justice Department, with staff selected by the attorney general from the Elder Justice Initiative and the Division of Civil Rights.

They would be tasked with studying “the increased incidence of elder abuse” targeting LGBTQ individuals, developing best practices for a national approach and for state and local authorities to address these crimes, creating and distributing educational materials to raise awareness, and coordinating “the response of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies.”

The legislation establishes that the task force would be responsible for issuance of a progress report on its work to the U.S. House and U.S. Senate Judiciary Committees.

Importantly, elder abuse as defined under the bill ranges from the use of physical force to cause harm to forced or unwanted sexual interaction, emotional or psychological abuse, the failure to meet basic needs, and financial crimes.

“I’m incredibly excited to introduce my new legislation, the Elder Pride Protection Act, that I’m leading with Congresswoman Angie Craig of Minnesota,” Gottheimer said. “No one should ever be mistreated on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity, especially our vulnerable elderly populations.”

The congressman added, “This legislation is a critical step in coordinating our response to this runaway abuse at the federal level.”

“LGBTQ+ seniors paved the way for so many of the rights we have today, and they’re a vital part of our communities in Minnesota,” said Craig, who is the first lesbian mother elected to Congress and serves as a co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus.

“I’m working to pass the Elder Pride Protection Act to help empower LGBTQ+ seniors and combat any abuse they might face,” she said.

Garden State Equality, New Jersey’s largest LGBTQ rights group noted that “for too long, elder abuse of our older LGBTQ adults has gone un- or under- reported,” adding that, “The establishment of this task force will help bridge the gap experienced by our LGBTQ elders.”

“The work of this task force, particularly the creation of uniform procedures and communication between state and federal agencies, will be formative in combating the abuse and neglect of LGBTQ elders and is critical in creating true lived equality for all Americans,” Garden State Equality said.

“SAGE is proud to support the Elder Pride Protection Act of 2024,” said Aaron Tax, managing director of government affairs and policy advocacy for SAGE, a national advocacy and services organization for LGBTQ elders.

“LGBTQ+ elders deserve to age without fear of elder abuse,” Tax said. “We applaud Rep. Gottheimer for championing the establishment of this important task force, which we hope will improve the lives of LGBTQ+ older people.”

David Stacy, vice president for government affairs for the Human Rights Campaign, said, “By establishing the ELDER Task Force, this country has the chance to affirm its commitment to addressing and preventing the abuse that this community faces all too often.”

“Congress should pass this bill and send a message that they are dedicated to ensuring every elder can live free from fear and harm,” Stacy said.

In a stunning upset, transgender human rights activist Kim Coco Iwanoto knocked out one of Hawaii’s most powerful politicians, state House Speaker Scott Saiki, in the Democratic primary election on Saturday. 

Because there is no Republican in the race, Iwanoto has been elected to represent House District 25, making her Hawaii’s first openly trans state legislator. 

This was Iwanoto’s third attempt to win the urban Honolulu district, after close finishes against Saiki in 2020 and 2022, when she lost by less than 200 votes each time. In Saturday’s primary, she won with a margin of 254 votes, according to the latest results posted by the secretary of state — a margin of more than 5 percent.

Iwanoto says she was motivated to challenge Saiki for the seat due to a lack of transparency in Hawaiian politics, and out of concern that everyday issues were being ignored by Democratic Party leadership.

She says a key motivating issue for her was the state’s minimum wage. Although the wage is currently scheduled to rise to $18 per hour in 2028, following a bill passed in 2022, she says Saiki refused to consider a bill to raise the wage from $10.10 per hour in 2020.

“[Saiki] met with the Chamber of Commerce before the session and he held a press conference stating the legislature will not be taking up the issue of raising the minimum wage. I asked my friends who are representatives, did he ask you guys how you felt about not raising the minimum wage from a poverty wage to a living wage? And they said no,” Iwamoto tells the Los Angeles Blade.

“That made me very angry. He should’ve met with people who are living paycheck to paycheck to learn how their lives are impacted.” 

Iwamoto says Hawaiians are tired of politicians siding with moneyed interests over their constituents.

“Pay to play politics is rampant, and it’s blatant and obvious,” Iwamoto says. “It’s an open festering wound on the face of democracy in Hawaii. Through the fact of just sheer people-powered campaigning, I was able to get above Saiki’s vote.”

Iwamoto describes herself a fourth generation American of Japanese descent. Her great-grandparents worked on the sugarcane plantations of Kauai. She studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and earned a BA in creative writing at San Francisco State University and a law degree at the University of New Mexico. 

Her experiences as a foster parent and raising her 11-year-old daughter led her to run for the state board of education in 2006. That run also made history, as she became the first openly trans person to win statewide office in the U.S.

“Back in 2006, it was international news when Hawaii elected me to that statewide position. I got requests for interviews around the world. That election did trigger a lot of people of trans experience to see that they could run for office, where their gender identity and experience is just one aspect of who they are,” she says.

“More importantly, I think the lesson here is listen to the voters. It’s what the voters are concerned about. In my case, it was consumer protections for condo owners, safer streets for pedestrians and bicyclists, resources for homeless people who are sleeping in our sidewalks.”

Hawaii has long been held as one of the most progressive states when it comes to legislation to protect the LGBTQ community, a fact that Iwamoto appreciates.

“My opponent was there for 30 years, and he was an ally to the LGBT community,” she says. “What he ignored was the overrepresentation of the LGBT people within the homeless community, within the working community.”

“We are part of every marginalized experience. Whether it’s minimum wage earners, the homeless population, LGBT are overrepresented in youth homelessness, and that persists in cycles.”

Democratic U.S. Reps. Robert Garcia and Barbara Lee of California sent a letter on Thursday urging the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to compel health insurers to provide free access to doxy PEP, a drug regimen for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections.

The USPSTF is an independent panel of experts in primary care and preventative medicine organized under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services whose primary responsibility is to evaluate the evidence on the safety and efficacy of medical screenings, counseling, and preventative medications.

The lawmakers’ letter explains that in 2019, the USPSTF issued an “A-grade” recommendation for prescribing preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) — a different preventative regimen targeting HIV infections — to “those at increased risk of HIV acquisition.”

As required under the Affordable Care Act, the rating meant health plans were required to offer the drug with no cost-sharing, which “has been enormously beneficial to hundreds of thousands of Americans —particularly members of the LGBTQIA+ community.”

The letter points to disproportionately high rates of bacterial STIs (“chlamydia, gonorrhea, and especially syphilis”) among LGBTQ populations as well as recommendations published last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention instructing providers to counsel certain patients about PEP, with the agency writing that the drug intervention requires “a focused effort for equitable implementation.”

For these reasons, Garcia and Lee said, “we respectfully ask for your full and fair consideration of a USPSTF recommendation for doxy PEP to the populations outlined in the guidelines with an ‘A’ rating,” with those populations being “gay and bisexual men, other men who have sex with men, and transgender women, and who have a history of bacterial STIs in the past 12 months.”

“Surging STIs are disproportionately impacting LGBTQ+ individuals,” Garcia, a gay co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, said in a press release from his congressional office. “We must ensure that these folks have access to doxy PEP, a critical medication that can save lives and prevent these kinds of infections.”

He added, “By making doxy PEP coverage free by insurers, we can prevent infections and stop the spread of disease for those most vulnerable.”

Lee, a vice chair of the caucus, has a decades-long record of pro-LGBTQ advocacy, particularly in the healthcare space and on issues of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and around the world.

“Widespread use and education about doxy PEP could prevent thousands of bacterial STI cases every year,” she said in the press release. “However, in order to get this treatment to those who need it most, it’s imperative that doxy PEP is covered by insurance plans with no cost to patients.”

“By ensuring doxy PEP is available with grade A rating by the USPSTF, we’re taking a critical step toward promoting health equity and advancing our mission of using informed, evidence-based interventions to support those most in need,” said David Stacy, vice president of government Affairs for the Human Rights Campaign.

David C. Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors, said “providing healthcare providers with the guidance and encouragement they need to implement doxy PEP in accordance with the new CDC guidelines will be crucial in helping us use doxy PEP to address our out-of-control STI epidemic.”

During a briefing with reporters on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended the Biden-Harris administration’s expansion of Title IX to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. 

Changes to the rules came pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that LGBTQ employees are legally protected from sex-based discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

The new policy, which took effect last week, also revokes Trump-era rules governing how schools must respond to allegations of sexual assault, which were widely considered imbalanced in ways favoring those accused of sex crimes.

Asked to respond to conservatives who warn the policy will harm women and girls, including the Republican state attorneys general who have filed legal challenges and the GOP governors who have vowed to disregard the new rules, Jean-Pierre began by stipulating that “there’s still ongoing litigation, so I would have to refer you to DOJ.” 

“More broadly,” she said, “every student deserves the right to feel safe. Every student deserves the right to feel safe in schools. That’s what the rule is all about: Strengthening and restoring vital protections that the previous administration took away.”

“Ending violence against women and girls has been a priority” for President Joe Biden not just during his tenure in the White House but also throughout his decades-long career in the U.S. Senate, the press secretary added. 

“This is an important step in an ongoing work to end campus sexual assault,” Jean-Pierre said. “That’s what we want to see. And I cannot speak any further to the litigation.”

Republican former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan in a written interview with the Washington Blade discussed his decision to run for the U.S. Senate and defended his record on LGBTQ rights.

“It’s more important than ever to have strong, independent leadership at every level of government bringing people together and fighting for the exhausted majority,” said Hogan in response to the Blade’s questions that his campaign sent on July 30. “Marylanders know me, and they know I was proud to represent all Marylanders as governor, and that’s exactly what I’ll do in the U.S. Senate.”

Hogan was Maryland’s governor from 2015-2023.

He defeated then-Lieutenant Gov. Anthony Brown, who is now the state’s attorney general, by a 52-46 percent margin in 2014. Hogan four years later defeated former NAACP President Ben Jealous by a 56-43 percent margin.

Hogan in March 2023 said he would not run for president. He announced in February that he is running for retiring U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.)’s seat. 

Hogan in May easily won the Republican primary. He will face off against Democratic Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks in November. The outcome could determine whether Democrats maintain control of the Senate.

“I like the county executive and respect her — we worked together on a number of things as governor,” said Hogan, referring to Alsobrooks. “We just have fundamental disagreements on the issues, and how we approach things. I’m committed to taking an independent approach, challenging hyper-partisanship, and getting the country back to decency and common sense.”

Former governor defends LGBTQ record amid criticism

Hogan in 2018 signed a bill that banned so-called conversion therapy in Maryland. Hogan during a 2023 interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” criticized Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over his state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law he signed.

A bill that created the Commission on LGBTQ Affairs in the Governor’s Community Initiatives Office took effect in 2021 without Hogan’s signature. 

Hogan also did not sign a bill that banned the so-called LGBTQ panic defense in Maryland.

That law also took effect in 2021. 

Hogan spokesperson Blake Kernen further elaborated on the former governor’s LGBTQ rights record.

“After calling for ‘tolerance and mutual respect’ in his inaugural address, Gov. Hogan supported LGBTQ community priorities throughout his time in office,” Kernen told the Blade. “As some examples, he enacted legislation to ban the practice of conversion therapy, and he upheld and strengthened the state’s anti-discrimination protections — including allowing measures to take effect that extend IVF treatment coverage to same-sex couples, allow transgender Marylanders to revise their birth certificates, ban the ‘gay panic defense,’ and make it easier to prosecute hate crimes.”

(The panic defense ban bill became law without Hogan’s signature.)

Kernen pointed out Hogan appointed the first openly LGBTQ person to serve as a chief judge on a Maryland appellate court.

Hogan in 2022 named E. Gregory Wells as chief judge of the Court of Special Appeals. Wells, who is also Black, is also the first African American person named to the position.

Kernen also noted to the Blade that Hogan “appointed the first members and administrative director of the” Maryland Commission on LGBTQ Affairs. (The law took effect in 2021 without Hogan’s signature.)

“He signed anti-bullying laws, and championed numerous initiatives to combat bias and hate crimes–including increased funding, and expanded community and school resources,” said Kernen.

“In January 2023, when Gov. Hogan left office, the state continued to have the Human Rights Campaign’s highest rating for Working Toward Innovative Equality,” he added. “Maryland has a bipartisan legacy of supporting the LGBTQ community, and Gov. Hogan looks forward to building on this work in the Senate.” 

Hogan on June 1 participated in the Annapolis Pride parade.

Democratic Gov. Wes Moore also took part. An Alsobrooks campaign spokesperson told the Blade that she was unable to attend, but many of her campaign volunteers and supporters marched in the parade.

“We’re grateful to Annapolis Pride for giving candidates the opportunity to take part in their festival,” said Hogan. “I wish County Executive Alsobrooks had been able to join us, but it was an outstanding parade, and a true testament to the spirit of the community.” 

HRC last month endorsed Alsobrooks.

HRC President Kelley Robinson in a statement said Alsobrooks “has always been a champion for equality and freedom, from her support for the state law that legalized same-sex marriage in 2012, to becoming the first Maryland county executive to authorize flying the Progress Pride flag over county buildings, and much more.”

Alsobrooks throughout her campaign has highlighted abortion rights within the context of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down Roe v. Wade. Alsobrooks during interview with the Blade before the May 14 Democratic primary noted Hogan’s “well-known position as a person who is not pro-choice.”

Kernen in a May 22 statement criticized Alsobrooks over her comments about Hogan’s abortion rights record.

“Governor Hogan protected choice in Maryland for eight years, funding access to abortion in the budget every year and being the first governor in America to provide over-the-counter birth control paid for by Medicaid,” said Kernen. “He said in 2019, Roe was rightly decided and has been on the record against a national abortion ban since 1992.” 

“He rightly vetoed legislation to allow non-licensed medical professionals to perform abortions because that would have lowered health care standards for women,” added Kernen. “In the Senate, instead of playing politics with this issue, he will work to reinstate Roe v. Wade as the law of the land. Marylanders know that when Gov. Hogan gives his word, he keeps it, and that is why voters continue to reject these same tired, false, and fear-mongering attacks.”

Attempted Trump assassination was ‘terrible tragedy’

Hogan remains a vocal critic of former President Donald Trump.

He did not support Trump in 2016 or 2020. Hogan also did not attend last month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Trump in June endorsed Hogan for Senate. Kernen said the former governor “didn’t seek the endorsement, and has no interest in it.”

Trump on July 13 survived an assassination attempt during a rally in Butler, Pa.

Hogan described the assassination attempt as a “terrible tragedy.” He added the country is “at a dangerous inflection point — our nation is like a tinderbox right now.”

“I’ve long been a proponent of lowering the temperature and finding a way to do away with the divisive rhetoric and the angry, toxic politics,” said Hogan.

The Blade asked Hogan whether he thinks the country can unify in the wake of the assassination attempt.

“When I travel the state meeting Marylanders, they give me hope,” he said in response to the question. “If politicians and pundits were more like regular people, our whole nation would be in a better place.”

A Public Policy Polling poll conducted between June 19-20 found Alsobrooks ahead of Hogan by a 45-34 percent margin. Hogan would be the first Republican from Maryland in the U.S. Senate since Charles Mathias retired in 1987 if he wins in November.

“I think a lot of voters, both Republicans and Democrats, want strong independent leaders who will clean up the mess in Washington,” Hogan told the Blade. “They know me, and they know I’m that guy.”

“The pundits said for a long time the Hogan brand of politics is dead, but every time we prove them wrong,” he added. “I know I’m the underdog, but I’m seeking to prove them wrong again.”

Hogan responded to the Washington Blade’s questions before Vice President Kamala Harris chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.

“I want to extend my congratulations to Gov. Walz on being selected as the Democratic vice presidential nominee,” said Hogan on Tuesday in a statement. “We had the chance to work together as fellow governors, and while we come from different parties, I have always appreciated his dedication to public service. I believe we need more governors at the national level because governors have to actually get stuff done. I wish Tim and his family well in the campaign ahead.”

During a campaign rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris shared the story of how her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, served as faculty advisor to a gay-straight alliance in 1999 when he was a high school social studies teacher and football coach.

Speaking just hours after he was announced as Harris’s vice presidential candidate, she told the crowd that Walz “wasn’t only a role model on the football field” because “around that same time, Coach Walz was approached by student in his social studies class.”

The vice president continued, “The young man was one of the first openly gay students at the school, and was hoping to start a gay-straight alliance. At a time when acceptance was difficult to find for LGBTQ students, Tim knew the signal that it would send to have a football coach get involved.”

“So he signed up to be the group’s faculty advisor,” Harris said. “And as students said, he made the school a safe place for everybody.”

A campaign spokesperson for former President Donald Trump, along with Republican allies, criticized the Minnesota governor’s pro-LGBTQ record shortly after press outlets reported on Tuesday morning that he was selected to join the Democratic ticket.

“Tim and I have a message for Trump and others who would turn back the clock on our fundamental freedoms,” Harris said. “We’re not going back.”

Shortly after Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, earning praise from Democrats and LGBTQ advocacy groups close to the party, Republicans seemed to coalesce around an attack message.

First came efforts to characterize Walz as a liberal extremist. Then, in short order, conservative critics lashed out at the governor’s stridently pro-LGBTQ record.

“As a woman, I think there is no greater threat to our health than leaders who support gender transition surgeries for young minors, who support putting tampons in men’s bathrooms in public schools,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for former President Donald Trump’s campaign, said during an interview with Fox News.

Walz last year issued an executive order protecting access to medically necessary gender- affirming healthcare treatments, which include surgical interventions for minors only in extremely rare circumstances. He also signed a bill in 2023 to provide menstrual products in schools for all students “in restrooms regularly used by students in grades 4 through 12.”

A Democratic Minnesota legislator who authored the bill told the New York Times she received emails from trans students, “parents, teachers, librarians, custodians from across the country, talking about how they were — or that they knew — trans students who faced these barriers and needed these products, and how much it meant to them that they would have that access, and also that we were standing up for them.”

Walz’s pro-trans record nevertheless became fodder for conservative activists and pundits, such as Chaya Raichik, creator of Libs of TikTok, who the Southern Poverty Law Center considers an anti-LGBTQ extremist.

She and other right-wing Trump supporters began calling the governor “tampon Tim” online.

“I can’t imagine too many parents are OK with the government helping their children permanently mutilate their bodies without parental consent, while also revoke and custody if they don’t go along with the insanity!” Donald Trump, Jr., wrote on X.

In reality, the executive order to which the former president’s eldest son was referring directs state agencies to “coordinate to protect people or entities who are providing, assisting, seeking, or obtaining gender-affirming health care services,” per a press release from Walz’s office.

The document also stipulates that Minnesota will “decline to help other states that try to penalize individuals and entities seeking gender affirming health care services” including by refusing “requests to extradite individuals accused of committing acts related to, securing of, or receipt of gender affirming health care services.”

“As states across the country move to ban access to gender-affirming care, we want LGBTQ Minnesotans to know they will continue to be safe, protected, and welcome in Minnesota,” Walz said at the time. “In Minnesota, you will not be punished for seeking or providing medical care. This executive order delivers the urgent action that our LGBTQ Minnesotans deserve.”

BY JOE REPERKENNY | On July 9, after most members of Congress had left the Capitol, a small group began setting up a celebration. The halls were nearly silent, aside from the occasional tap of heels on the marble floor, as people slowly streamed into Emancipation Hall and down a corridor. Closer to Senate Meeting Room 212, the intertwining murmur of voices in Spanish and English began to grow.

Then one man stepped to the front of the room and a hush overcame the crowd.

“Today was a great opportunity to meet different members in the House and the Senate,” Frankie Miranda said. “It was an eye-opening experience in many different opportunities, seeing how our message was being welcomed. And in other cases, really not resonating at all, with some of them.”

Miranda, who is the president of the Hispanic Federation, a nonprofit membership and advocacy organization with a mission to “empower and advance the Hispanic community” with a particular focus to low-income, marginalized, and immigrant Latinos, assured that the advocacy for expanding protections for LGBTQ people would not end on Capitol Hill. 

“We are going to continue our push to make sure that the intersectionality in our communities — that our LGBTQ Latinx and that female voices are heard,” Miranda continued, conviction clear in his voice. “We’re going to continue pushing because we know that after pride, the work continues. We cannot just allow ourselves to just be recognized just one month out of the year.”

Miranda, who became the Hispanic Federation’s first gay president in 2019, has vowed to use his platform to help uplift Latino LGBTQ voices. The organization is doing so by giving money to organizations that help with grants and training that focus on LGBTQ Latinos’ experiences — especially those dealing with immigration, race, culture, and language access.

“In 2022, the Federation decided to invest a million dollars in funding to support Latinx LGBTQ organizations,” Miranda said. “Those grantees around this room are part of this incredible initiative that has done incredible work.”

According to the group’s website, 27 organizations have received up to $50,000 each to help serve the Latino LGBTQ community. In addition to providing funds, the Hispanic Federation also created meetings for these organizations to discuss their needs for the continued support of their communities. 

Discussions with Latino LGBTQ organizations have informed the Hispanic Federation about overlooked issues within these communities, eventually leading to the creation of the Advance Change Together (ACT) initiative. The ACT initiative includes grantees who are LGBTQ and Latino from various parts of the country, representing diverse segments of the LGBTQ community.

The ACT initiative is then able to promote specific pro-LGBTQ federal legislation through lobbying. 

“We came together as grassroots orgs to really talk about the current political climate, especially against LGBT rhetoric,” said grantee Kevin Al Perez, president of Somos Familia Valle. “Specifically, the rise of trans bills with youth, lots of anti-trans legislation that is thrown against the LGBT community. It also brings together the intersections of the Latine experience when it comes to immigration, when it comes to status, when it comes to all the intersections that all of our organizations meet.”

Somos Familia Valle is the leading local Latino LGBTQ organization in the San Fernando Valley that “supports, empowers, and mobilizes families, and allies for racial, gender, and economic justice” through community dialogue, advocacy, and civic engagement. 

Perez was able to take his successful dialogue techniques to the federal level, highlighting common challenges that California’s Latino LGBTQ community has endured. 

“I was able to meet with Sen. Alex Padilla, which was very amazing,” Perez explained after his day lobbying on the Hill. “We had our drag story hour protested, we had our local elementary school protested for having a rainbow assembly for children, which is just a book celebrating diverse families … I was able to really let him know that this even happens in his own community in Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley.”

He continued, explaining that the significant work done on the Hill is the first of its kind and will hopefully lead to change. 

“I think this is us coming together very historical in a way — that there hasn’t been specifically a Latine LGBT representation, especially here in the Capitol, especially a group, right?” Perez said. “We see a lot of LGBT movement work being led by white boards and I think our perspective really gives an opportunity for our communities to be heard.”

The specific legislation the ACT grantees were promoting includes the Equality Act that would establish uniform and explicit anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people, The Healthy Families Act which that would provide a guaranteed minimum of seven paid sick days per year to care for their families or themselves, and the PrEP Access and Coverage Act that would require all private and public insurance plans to cover the HIV prevention pill and related services.

Xelestiàl Moreno-Luz, a transgender activist and CEO of Saturn’s Wish, an arts and culture organization dedicated to “advancing the artistic and cultural efforts of TGI (trans, gender-diverse, and intersex) BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) works,” is another of the grantees lobbying on behalf of the ACT initiative. 

For Moreno-Luz, the Equality Act would give many in her community — specifically trans Latinos, the ability to be protected federally 

“One of the biggest things for me is how are our policymakers, the people in office, making sure that TGI (trans, gender-diverse, and intersex) people have employment opportunities,” Moreno-Luz said when asked why she was on Capitol Hill. “Even if they have an employment opportunity, Is this employment safe? Is this employment an affirming environment for TGI populations? And so that’s kind of like what I was addressing today.”

For her, this lobbying is more than just passing an act through the House and Senate. It’s about being able to live safely in her own skin. 

“A good colleague of mine mentioned today during one of our delegations that this year 17 trans people have been murdered in the United States,” Moreno-Luz said. “And those are just reported murders, with half of them being Latin.”

According to the Human Rights Campaign, which tracks instances of reported fatal trans violence, has said that in 2023 at least 32 trans and gender-expansive people had been killed through violent means. Moreno-Luz explained that if Congress passes the Equality Act, more trans people would be safe.

“We’re all humans: That’s the message I always try to tell people,” Hector Ruiz, president of the South Texas Equality Project (STEP), said while talking with other grantees. “We love the same, we breathe the same, we eat the same, whatever it may be. Ultimately we’re just people trying to fight for our rights that haven’t been given to us in the past — as a group that I feel has been underrepresented and undervalued.”

STEP works towards creating a more affirming community for LGBTQ people in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley through educational forums, support groups, fundraisers, meetups, and other events that include RGV+ Pride.

“We’re just here to let people [members of Congress] know that we’re humans just like everyone else,” Ruiz added.

Grantee Dagoberto Bailón, co-founder of Trans Queer Pueblo in Phoenix, emphasizes the importance of bridging the gap between members of Congress and those affected by the proposed legislation. He explains that such discussions are crucial for creating meaningful and impactful laws, which can help local organizations better protect LGBTQ Latinos.

“I think it’s important to build connections to really figure out how we can collectively change the way that the U.S. is talking about issues for LGBT people and Latinx people in general,” Bailón said. “Also to go back to our states to see what strategies are working in other states so that we can implement them and sort of build a coalition that can push different pressure points, so that we can achieve the same goal.”

Bailón is not alone in aiming to change attitudes towards LGBTQ people in the U.S. and increase protective measures.

Debo Ofsowitz, the development director for Hope CommUnity Center in Apopka, Fla., also highlighted the importance of getting federal protections for LGBTQ Latinos.

“Young LGBTQ people are growing up in a country where they feel like their own government is attacking them,” they said. “These are young people who know their identity from the day that they were born, just like the rest of us knew our identity from the day that we were born. They feel like they can’t be who they are. They feel like not only are their parents against them, not only their teachers, not only their church, but also their government. We’re trying to change that.”

And change that they will try.

All three protective bills — the Equality Act, Healthy Families Act, and PrEP Access and Coverage Act of 2023 — have all been formally introduced to Congress and have been passed along to committees regarding their issues, but nothing has passed yet. 

Visit the Hispanic Federation’s website for more information.

Civil liberties and LGBTQ rights advocates have expressed alarm that a proposal to criminalize pornography in a 920-page far-right blueprint for the first 180 days of a second Trump administration known as Project 2025 would have a far-reaching impact that threatens the rights of sex workers and the LGBTQ community, especially the transgender community.

Project 2025 was created by a coalition of several dozen conservative and religious-right organizations led by the D.C.-based Heritage Foundation, with most of them having opposed LGBTQ rights for many years and several having been designated as anti-LGBTQ hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

LGBTQ rights organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ rights group, and the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, point out that Project 2025 includes at least 32 specific provisions that call for rolling back LGBTQ rights, including marriage equality and LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections in federal government agencies.

“Project 2025 demonstrates what four years of a Trump-Vance administration would look like,” HRC said in a statement. “It is a wrecking ball aimed at the very foundations of civil rights, LGBTQ+ rights, health care access, voting rights, and environmental protections,” the statement says.

GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement that Project 2025 “would create an America where the freedoms that are a hallmark to our Democracy are replaced with authoritarianism and the progress we have made for LGBTQ people, people of color, women, and other marginalized communities is stripped away.”

Former President Donald Trump, who won the Republican presidential nomination last month at the GOP convention in Milwaukee, has disavowed Project 2025, saying he played no role in creating it and he does not agree with many of its provisions. But political observers point out that former Trump administration officials and many longtime Trump supporters played a lead role in developing Project 2025. Democratic Party leaders are predicting much of Project 2025’s content, including its anti-LGBTQ provisions, would likely be backed by a Trump administration.

With that as a backdrop, civil liberties advocates and representatives of the adult entertainment industry, including sex worker advocacy groups, are saying criminalization of pornography as proposed by Project 2025 would have far reaching negative consequences, including a negative impact on the LGBTQ community. 

“The impact would be vast, and censorship of ‘pornography’ is central to this project,” according to a statement released by the Free Speech Coalition, which describes itself as a nonpartisan trade association for the adult entertainment industry. “The mandate calls for banning ‘pornography’ – broadly defined to include LGBTQ+ content – and imprisoning those who distribute it,” the statement says.

The Free Speech Coalition and other groups and activists opposing a ban on pornography point out that the text of Project 2025’s provision calling for a ban on porn seeks to create a link between what it calls harmful pornography and the transgender and LGBTQ communities.

Here is the full text of the Project 2025 provision for criminalizing pornography:

“Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.”

According to the Free Speech Coalition, “With new laws calling for the imprisonment of those who produce or distribute adult content, Project 2025 advocates for the arrest of millions of adult content creators – a War on Porn that might mimic the War on Drugs.”

The group adds in its statement, “This risk to anyone working in the sex industry is enormous but given the project’s twin concerns about LGBTQ+ content, would likely fall most heavily on LGBTQ+ sex workers, pushing them further into the margins, and increasing risk of violence and exploitation.”

Among those who share that concern is Cyndee Clay, executive director of the D.C.-based sex worker advocacy group HIPS. “Calls to outlaw pornography are problematic enough, but they also take one more legal option for sex work away from people who do sex work,” Clay told the Washington Blade. “What’s more concerning is this push from Project 2025 seems to be less about pornography itself and more about attacking trans rights and trans voices,” Clay said.

The Blade’s attempt to reach some of the largest online porn sites like Pornhub and the popular gay dating and sex meet-up site Grindr were unsuccessful. The ACLU, which has championed rights of sexual freedom for many years, didn’t respond to the Blade’s request for comment on Project 2025. But in a brief statement on its website, the ACLU criticizes Project 2025 as a plan to “dismantle policies put in place to protect our civil rights and liberties and establish a more authoritarian rule of law.”

The statement adds, “Along with our network of affiliates and coalition partners in all 50 states, we are armed with tools and tactics to protect against executive action that would take away our rights.”

Blair Hopkins, executive director of the Sex Worker Outreach Project Behind Bars, known as SWOP, said she believes the large adult industry companies like Pornhub, and others will be working behind the scenes to oppose Project 2025. Hopkins said the criminalization of porn would have a dramatic impact on the multi-million adult entertainment industry, which through its online sites and employment of sex workers as actors and support workers is an important segment of the nation’s economy.

According to its website, Pornhub alone has more than 100 million daily visits to its adult website and 36 billion visits per year. It says it has 20 million registered Pornhub users.

Hopkins said Pornhub has provided financial support for SWOP and other organizations that support sex workers.

“It’s been said that sex workers are the canary in the coal mine when it comes to any kind of civil rights,” Hopkins told the Blade. “And that is proven to be true over and over again,” she said. “So, what I think they’re talking about is not only will pornography be banned and criminalized, but also that anything can be categorized as pornography. And that is directly targeting the LGBTQ community.”

Todd Evans, executive director of the National LGBT Media Association, which represents LGBTQ news publications across the country, said a ban on pornography like what is being proposed by Project 2025 could have a negative impact on LGBTQ media outlets.

“Just think about it,” he said. “Who is defining pornography? What does that mean? Is Michelangelo’s ‘David’ pornography?” 

Evans added, “It definitely has an effect on LGBT media because it goes back to what that definition of pornography is. And does it depend on who is delivering it? Like if it’s an LGBT publication, is that definition harsher than maybe a mainstream publication?”

Adult entertainment advocates have also pointed out that access to porn has already effectively been “banned” in several states that have passed laws calling for the adult sites to require anyone visiting the site to provide an identification document such as a driver’s license to show they are an adult. This has prompted some porn sites, including Pornhub, to discontinue operating in those states.