Washingtonblade.com, Volume 50, Issue 25, June 21, 2019

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VOLUME 50 ISSUE 25 ADDRESS

PO Box 53352 Washington DC 20009 PHONE

Sen. Kamala Harris sits down for a one-on-one with the Blade to talk LGBTQ issues and her long record of support.

PAGE 11

06

Looking back:

21

Viewpoint

50 years of the Blade

26

Remembering Judy

Disturbing spate of violence

28

QUEERY: Tariq Darrell O’Meally

targets D.C. queer community

30

‘Stop!’ for Miss Ross

10

Comings & Goings

34

Revisiting soap roots

11

Kamala Harris wants your vote

35

Baby surprise

12

Exclusive: Barr holds meeting

36

‘X’ marks the spot for daring

08

with LGBT employees 14

15

new Madonna album

Supreme Court vacates fine

37

Doolittle does much

against couple that refused

38

Transition trauma

to serve gays

39

Quality and speed

Blade granted access to ICE

40

The getaway car

trans detainee unit in N.M.

45

Don’t give up on that

17

Cannabis Culture

18

Some parents struggling 2 years

New Year’s resolution 46

Classifieds

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Nine years ago, city unveils Frank Kameny Way FROM STAFF REPORTS

Nine years ago this month, longtime gay civil rights advocate Frank Kameny was honored on June 10, 2010, when the stretch of 17th Street, N.W., between P and R streets, was renamed Frank Kameny Way. Speakers at the ceremony included Kameny, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, D.C. City Council member Jack

Evans, Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Mike Silverstein and Obama administration official John Berry.

Take a walk down memory lane — visit washingtonblade.com/archives to research and browse the Blade’s unique 50-year archive of LGBTQ news and features.

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Disturbing spate of violence targets D.C. queer community Trans woman dies in Fairmount Heights; gays attacked on U Street

By MICHAEL K. LAVERS MLAVERS@WASHBLADE.COM

From top: ZOE SPEARS Photo courtesy of Ruby Corado and KARL CRAVEN posted pictures that showed his boyfriend holding an ice pack to his head. Another picture shows him with a black eye and bloody gauze on his lip. Photo courtesy of Go Fund Me

The past week brought a series of disturbing, violent incidents targeting the city’s LGBTQ community.

A transgender woman was killed in Fairmount Heights on June 13. Major Brian Reilly of the Prince George’s County Police Department told reporters during a press briefing on Friday that 911 received a call “for a check on the welfare” on the 600 block of 59th Avenue near Eastern Avenue just before midnight.

He said officers who responded to the scene found Zoe Spears, 23, “suffering from several gunshots” and pronounced her dead a short time later.

Casa Ruby CEO Ruby Corado in a Facebook post said Spears was “staying with us” at Casa Ruby until around two weeks ago. Corado also confirmed to the Washington Blade that Spears was trans.

“It’s hard,” said Corado, speaking through tears. “It’s hard because we just lost another life. We just lost another soul

and it’s hard to be in their life and to be able to make sure they are fine and then they are gone.”

Earline Budd, a trans activist in D.C., on Saturday confirmed to the Blade that Spears had lived at Casa Ruby. Budd added Spears had recently moved into her own apartment and was working.

“She got her apartment and she was off and going,” said Budd. “She loved working … 23 is just so young to lose your life.”

The area in which Spears was killed is located near the Maryland-D.C. border where trans and cisgender women are known to engage in sex work. Spears is also the second trans woman killed in Fairmount Heights this year.

Ashanti Carmon, a 27-year-old trans woman, was murdered at the intersection of Jost and Aspen Streets near Eastern Avenue on March 30. Spears died less than four blocks away from where Carmon was killed.

Reilly acknowledged Spears and

Carmon “did know each other,” but said “there is no direct link that we see at this point” in their deaths.

“That is obviously something we are monitoring at this point,” he said.

Budd told the Blade that Spears “made it no secret” that she saw Carmon’s murder.

“We are urging them to investigate this murder,” said Budd, referring to the Prince George’s County Police Department.

Anyone with information is urged to call the Prince George’s County Police Department’s Homicide Office at 301-7724925 or Prince George’s County Crime Solvers at 1-800-411-TIPS. In another violent incident, three people were arrested in connection with an attack against a gay man on U Street early Sunday morning.

A Metropolitan Police Department press release says Marcus Britt, 19, of Fort Washington, Md., and two juvenile males at 1:44 a.m. “approached the victim” on the 1000 block of U Street, N.W., and “assaulted the victim.”

“The suspects took the victim’s property then fled the scene,” says the press release.

Karl Craven on Sunday wrote on a GoFundMe page that he and his boyfriend “were walking from Hawthorne’s to Nellie’s on U St (in DC) last night and we stopped to talk for a few minutes.”

“He was leaning against me and a few guys started yelling ‘faggot’ at him and started to swing at him,” wrote Craven. “It was all a quick blur but next thing you know there was literally a mob of 15 guys beating him. They came out of nowhere and I was powerless to stop them, all I could do was jump on him to try protect him and scream help. I don’t remember how long they kept beating him for. They stole his phone and my wallet. They chipped a major part of his front tooth and he had to get multiple stitches on his lip.”

“He doesn’t have insurance and can’t afford the ER and tooth repair bills,” wrote Craven on his GoFundMe page. “Any help would be greatly appreciated.”

The page has raised $6,760. The Washington Blade has reached out to Craven for additional comment about the incident.

The MPD press release says Britt and the two juveniles arrested in connection with the attack have been charged with robbery by force and violence. Lieutenant Brett Parson, who oversees the MPD LGBT Liaison Unit, confirmed the unit is involved in the case.

In yet another incident, the Metropolitan Police Department said a

man with a gun threatened transgender women near Casa Ruby on Saturday.

A police report the Washington Blade obtained notes officers received a call about a man with a gun. One of the callers told officers he “noticed a vehicle sitting in the parking lot … and he approached the vehicle.”

The report states the driver “stated, ‘I want my dick sucked, go get me one of those trannies.’” The caller told the officers he “advised the driver that the location was private property and advised the driver to leave.”

Casa Ruby CEO Ruby Corado told the Blade on Sunday night during a telephone interview the incident took place in the parking lot in front of Casa Ruby at around 6 p.m. on Saturday. The police report notes the caller also told officers he “was advised by three unknown witnesses that the same male in the same vehicle displayed a weapon to them in the parking lot” of a pizza restaurant “across the street from Casa Ruby.

“He pulled a gun and said, you will suck my dick,’” Corado told the Blade, referring to the second incident.

Corado in a Facebook post said the man threatened two trans Casa Ruby clients with a gun. She told the Blade the second incident took place as they were walking from a nearby McDonald’s on Georgia Avenue.

“They were able to run away,” said Corado.

And on Sunday, yet another attack took place, this time at the Fireplace in Dupont Circle.

D.C. police say three people were stabbed inside the gay bar in Dupont Circle on Sunday morning.

A Metropolitan Police Department press release says two suspects and the victims “were engaged in a verbal dispute” inside the Fireplace on P Street, N.W., near the corner of 22nd Street at 1:42 a.m. on Sunday.

“One suspect brandished a knife and stabbed three victims,” says the press release. “The suspects then fled the scene.

The victims sought treatment at area hospitals for non-life threatening injuries.”

Parson confirmed the stabbings took place on the Fireplace’s second floor. The press release does not say whether the victims are gay.

A nearby surveillance camera captured two men who have been identified as suspects. The MPD has asked anyone with information to call 202-727-9099 or text the MPD’s Text Tip Line at 50411.

A vigil against the recent spate of antiLGBT violence is scheduled to take place on Friday in Dupont Circle. A Facebook post says the vigil will begin at 7 p.m.

08 • WA S HI NGTO N B LAD E.CO M • J U N E 2 1 , 2 0 1 9 • LO CAL N EWS

THE SOCIAL POWER OF MUSIC

This year’s Festival explores the power of music to entertain, educate, inspire, preserve history, strengthen identity, and build community. Come enjoy a weekend of concerts, activities, food, and

JUNE 29 & 30, 2019

fun for all ages.

FREE • NATIONAL MALL NEAR 12 TH ST. FESTIVAL.SI.EDU Photo courtesy Grandmaster Flash

JU N E 21, 2019 • WA SHINGTONBLA D E.COM • 09

Accessibility Services Available

Comings & Goings Verona tapped by Univ. of Miami; honors for Feldblum

By PETER ROSENSTEIN

Blade wins journalism awards SPJ honors for reporting, opinion writing FROM STAFF REPORTS

The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at: comingsandgoings@washblade.com.

Congratulations to Tony Verona named the new dean of the University of the Miami School of Law. He is the first ever openly gay and Latinx dean at Miami Law. Upon being informed of his appointment he said, “I am deeply honored to have TONY VERONA been selected as the next dean of Miami Law, and exhilarated by the law school’s many strengths and opportunities.”

Verona is currently a professor of law and vice dean at American University, Washington College of Law. He worked for a number of law firms including Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo PC and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom LLP. He served for many years as general counsel and legal director of the Human Rights Campaign and HRC Foundation.

He has written and edited numerous CHAI FELDBLUM publications, including being co-editor since January 2018 of the Journal of Legal Education, a quarterly peer-edited scholarly publication of the Association of American Law Schools. He was a member of the New York Advisory Board, American Constitution Society; member of the Alliance for Justice board of directors and was founder and chair, Legal Advisory Council, AIDS Action. In addition he has appeared in interviews and debates, or as guest commentator, on various broadcast media, including CNN, Court TV, Fox News Channel, Pacifica Radio, among others.

Verona received his MA A.B., from Boston College, in political science and French; his MA J.D., from Boston College Law School and his LL.M from Georgetown University Law Center, with a focus on civil rights and civil liberties.

Congratulations also to Chai R. Feldblum who has been named the 2019 Spirit of Justice Award winner from GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD). Upon announcing the award, Janson Wu, executive director of GLAD said, “Chai combines a brilliant legal mind with a heart and soul dedicated to advancing civil rights. Her work has created the foundation for so many protections that LGBTQ people and those living with HIV count on today. GLAD is thrilled to recognize Chai with the 2019 Spirit of Justice Award.”

Feldblum said, “It’s gratifying and humbling to be honored by an organization whose values are so closely aligned with mine. We need the legal community to defend the values of equality and freedom, and we need cultural support for those values as well. I have admired GLAD for years as it has operated on both of these fronts.”

Feldblum was the first openly gay commissioner on the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She was nominated by President Obama in the fall of 2009 and served until January of this year. She is also a former Georgetown University law professor, an author and an advocate who has dedicated her career to advancing and defending the rights of LGBTQ people and people living with HIV. In announcing her award, GLAD said, “Her work at the EEOC was critical to fortifying the legal understanding that discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation is discrimination “because of sex,” and that LGBTQ workers are therefore protected under existing federal sex discrimination law. Her achievements while at the EEOC included expanding employment opportunities for people with disabilities and developing methods for preventing workplace harassment.”

Feldblum is currently partner and director of workplace culture consulting at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. She attended Barnard College and Harvard Law School and clerked for Judge Frank Coffin on the First Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Harry Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Several Washington Blade staffers were honored last week for their work by the Society of Professional Journalists’ D.C. chapter.

The Washington Blade was honored by the D.C. chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for reporting and opinion writing in the annual Dateline Awards competition.

In the category of Non-Breaking News, the Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. won first place for his 2018 in-depth report titled, “Revisiting 10 unsolved LGBT murders in D.C.” Chibbaro researched 10 cold case murders in the city and interviewed a wide range of police and family sources for each.

In the category of Editorial/Opinion Writing, the Blade’s international news editor, Michael K. Lavers, won first place for “US no longer stands for human rights around the world.” Reflecting on his travels throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, Lavers observed, “American exceptionalism, however flawed, teaches us the U.S. is a beacon of hope to those around the world who suffer persecution.

American exceptionalism, however flawed, teaches us the U.S. is the land of opportunity

where people can build a better life for themselves and for their families.

“Trump has turned his back on these ideals. He has also proven himself to be a danger not only to his country, but to the world as a whole.”

Lavers was also cited as a finalist in the non-breaking news category for two stories, “LGBT Venezuelans find refuge in Colombia” and “Trump immigration policy sparks concern on US-Mexico border.”

Blade features editor Joey DiGuglielmo was named a finalist in the features category for “Getting to know new Washington Bach Consort Conductor Dana Marsh” as well as in the Commentary & Criticism category for “Troye Sivan conjures up minimalist magic at the Anthem.”

“Congratulations to our staff for these well-deserved honors,” said Blade editor Kevin Naff. “These awards reflect our ongoing commitment to excellence in all of our reporting, from criticism to feature writing to hard news reporting.”

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Kamala Harris wants your vote Longtime ally talks LGBT issues and more

By KAREN OCAMB

Sen. KAMALA HARRIS at HRC/LA gala Photo courtesy HRC

LOS ANGELES — The conflict is internal.

It’s a secret struggle, really, that Kamala Harris has been forced to face in public.

The Democratic presidential candidate doesn’t like to brag. It’s unbecoming, it’s immodest, it places the individual ahead of the community. Instead, Harris, who was inculcated in the spirit of the 1960s civil rights and social and economic justice movements, profoundly believes in community and coalition building.

“That’s exactly how I was raised,” Harris tells the Los Angeles Blade in a June 18 phone interview. “It’s not about you. It’s about getting the job done.”

The job done of winning the presidency means not taking any group or voter for granted, including the LGBT community. Harris’ struggle to tout her own achievements, which she discusses in her memoir The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, stands in sharp contrast to the man she intends to defeat, Donald Trump, the biggest chest-pounding, klieg lights-seeking braggadocio con artist the world has seen in decades. Harris, a former district attorney and California attorney general who believes Trump is a racist, thinks the House should launch impeachment proceedings into the president’s illegal behavior. She also thinks Trump should be prosecuted after he leaves office.

Some wonder if Harris is “tough enough” to go up against Trump. They need only look at her precision prosecution of Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. Despite being interrupted by her Republican colleagues, Harris forced the

flabbergasted Sessions to throw his hands in the air. “I’m not able to be rushed this fast!”

Sessions said, as if needing a fan and mint julep. “It makes me nervous.”

Or juxtapose a visibly frightened Trump crouching behind a lectern during a disturbance at a rally before four burly men rushed to his rescue—to Harris who was initially surprised but sat calmly when a white man rushed the stage, grabbed her microphone and had only black lesbian MoveOn.org communications director Karine Jean-Pierre for protection. Harris calmly walked off the stage, smiling, while the man was hustled away. She calmly returned to deliver her talk about pay equity. No one talks about the courage it takes for Harris to stand alone onstage, despite what one presumes is an avalanche of death threats from Trump supporters.

The field of 23 Democratic presidential contenders is expected to narrow after the June 26-27 debates. But while Harris is top-tier, she is not a shoo-in for the nomination, which is still a long ways away.

“I hate to say this—but we need a man.

Nothing against her. I’m sure she’s smart and great. But I’m going with Joe Biden.

He’s got thick skin and he’s the only one who can beat Trump,” one white gay man tells the Blade on background.

Several younger LGBT voters support South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who smartly talks about the future. They think Buttigieg, a vet who served in Afghanistan, can take down the bully Trump and shame him for ducking the Vietnam War. Harris has lots of strong LGBT backing, including longtime politicos Mark Leno, Geoff Kors, Kate Kendell, and Kris Perry, former plaintiff in the federal lawsuit against Prop 8, whose wedding to Sandy Stier Harris officiated when Prop 8 was defeated. Perry’s son Spencer works on Harris’ presidential campaign.

Harris is the walking positive personification of intersectionality, with her brilliant immigrant parents coming from Jamaica and India. She fought hard to become the first female, the first black and the first Asian-American district attorney in San Francisco. Then she fought to become California’s first female, black, and Asian-American attorney general. She then the second black woman in U.S. history to win a Senate seat.

“I grew up exposed to many cultures, and it certainly did teach me from birth about the fact that people have so much more in common than what separates them,” Harris tells the Blade. “I didn’t have to learn it from reading about it. I didn’t know the word ‘intersectionality’ but I’ve always known the commonality between people. A mother’s love for her child, a parent’s desire for their family to be healthy and safe. These are universal truths, regardless of the last name and how

N AT I O NAL NE WS • J UNE 21, 2019 WA SHINGTONB L A DE . COM • 11

you spell it, or what your grandmother’s language is, or the God you pray to. That’s how I’ve always lived my life, which is knowing the commonality between people.”

Kamala (comma-la) Harris was born on Oct. 20, 1964, five years before the Stonewall Rebellion, and never needed an epiphany to discover that LGBT people were OK. “I grew up in a community and a culture where everyone was accepted for who they were, so there wasn’t a moment where it was like, ‘Okay, now let’s let this person in.’ Everyone was a part of everything.

It was about community,” Harris says. “It was about coalition building. It was about equality, inclusion. I mean, I had an uncle who was gay. [But] there was no epiphany” about gay people.

In fact, with the exception of Buttigieg’s very presence, Harris is the only toptier presidential candidate to constantly reference homophobia and transphobia in her speeches.

But some trans people are still angry over how Harris backed the Department of Corrections in its 2015 denial of gender reassignment surgery for then 51-year-old inmate Michelle-Lael Norsworthy.

The Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson asked Harris about the issue in January at Harris’ first news conference after announcing her 2020 presidential bid.

“I was, as you are rightly pointing out, the attorney general of California for two terms and I had a host of clients that I was obligated to defend and represent and I couldn’t fire my clients, and there are unfortunately situations that occurred where my clients took positions that were contrary to my beliefs,” Harris said.

“And it was an office with a lot of people who would do the work on a daily basis, and do I wish that sometimes they would have personally consulted me before they wrote the things that they wrote?” Harris said. “Yes, I do.”

“But the bottom line is the buck stops with me, and I take full responsibility for what my office did,” Harris said.

Harris confirmed to the Blade that she worked behind the scenes with the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation to establish a process enabling transgender inmates to receive transition-related care, including gender reassignment surgery, and she worked on getting Norsworthy paroled.

“I did it quietly, because I actually disagreed with my client initially, when they had the policy, and so I did it behind the scenes,” Harris tells the Blade. “I helped to resolve and change the policy.

The issue for me was to make sure the right thing would happen.”

But Harris adds: “Let me just be very clear. I don’t want to take full credit for that,

because I don’t deserve full credit for that.

I don’t want what I said to be interpreted as that. There were a lot of people involved in that.”

But Harris’ responses have been so cerebral, some feel she doesn’t see the humanity in trans individuals.

“I understand not only their humanity, but I also understand the unfair challenges that they face in a society that still hasn’t come to appreciate their full humanity,” Harris tells the Blade. “And I know the hate that also has been targeted at our transgender friends, and I know that it resulted in lethal proportions. That’s why, when I was the vice president of the National District Attorneys Association, I led the national DAs in a training on the ways that we can get rid of the ‘gay panic defense,’ because I knew it was being used as justification for the killing of many people, including transgender people.”

Transphobia “is something I care deeply about. I have known many people who are transgender, and talked with them and really shared their pain around what their life experience has been like, because of the ignorance that still exists about who they are and the challenges they face,” Harris says.

That includes all healthcare concerns.

On Thursday, June 20, Harris introduced the PrEP Access and Coverage Act, legislation to guarantee insurance coverage for PrEP and create a grant program to fund access for uninsured patients.

“PrEP is a critical advancement in the fight against HIV that can finally provide peace of mind to Americans who live in the shadow of the HIV epidemic. But for too many in our country, lack of insurance coverage and exorbitant costs have put PrEP out of reach—and that needs to change. We must truly commit ourselves to HIV prevention by finally requiring every health insurance plan—public and private— to cover PrEP and all of the required tests and follow-up doctors’ visits. We must also provide the resources necessary to help people without insurance access PrEP. Nearly four decades since the beginning of the HIV/AIDS crisis that took so many lives and caused countless others to live in fear, we can and will stop the spread of this disease,” said Harris in a statement.

Harris says that if elected president, she would sign an executive order to protect DREAMers and put them on a path to citizenship. The Blade asked if she would sign an executive order for the Equality Act, the LGBT civil rights bill that would prohibit discrimination against LGBT people in employment, housing and public accommodations.

CONTINUES AT WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

Exclusive: Barr holds meeting with LGBT employees Closed-door session pegged to Pride month

By CHRIS JOHNSON CJOHNSON@WASHBLADE.COM

U.S. Attorney General WILLIAM BARR met with LGBT employees within the Justice Department.

Washington Blade photo by Michael Key

In recognition of Pride Month, U.S. Attorney General William Barr held a closeddoor meeting with LGBT attorneys and law enforcement officials who work for the U.S. Justice Department and heard about ongoing anti-LGBT workplace concerns within the FBI and the Bureau of Prisons, sources familiar with the meeting told the Washington Blade exclusively.

At a time when the Supreme Court is set to determine whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 covers anti-LGBT discrimination, Barr also read a short statement prepared by the LGBT employees asserting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is “anathema.”

Barr’s meeting with LGBT employees stands out in the Trump administration, which is widely seen as hostile to LGBT rights.

The private meeting between Barr and DOJ Pride, the affinity group for LGBT employees at the Justice Department, took place on Thursday, June 13, according to the sources. One source said Barr initiated the meeting, although the Justice Department wouldn’t confirm as of late Tuesday.

In addition to Barr, participants in the meeting included the board of directors for DOJ Pride and DOJ Pride President Jason Lee, a trial attorney for the Consumer Protection Branch under the Civil Division, sources said.

At the meeting, Lee brought up allegations of anti-LGBT workplace hostility within the FBI and the Bureau of Prisons, which DOJ Pride previously raised in a March 27 letter to Barr, as well as what the LGBT affinity group understands has happened since the time of that letter, sources say.

The March 27 letter says anti-LGBT hostility within the Justice Department has caused low morale and the flight of LGBT employees. The letter includes anonymous complaints from LGBT employees at the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Bureau of Prisons who say the workforce environment is difficult, if not impossible.

Also at the meeting, sources say Barr read a statement prepared by DOJ Pride and DOJ GEN, the affinity group for women employees, on the current litigation before the Supreme Court on Title VII, a federal law that bars discrimination based on sex in the workplace.

The statement declares discrimination is “anathema” and “simply wrong.”

“Discrimination against employees or job applicants because of their sex, sexual orientation or gender identity is anathema to principles of fair treatment and advancement based on merit,” says a copy of the statement shown to the Blade.

It’s unclear what commitments, if any, Barr made to LGBT employees during the meeting. It’s likely no such meeting between DOJ Pride and the U.S. attorney general took place when Jeff Sessions or Matthew Whitaker were running the show, although the Justice Department didn’t confirm that.

As reported by Buzzfeed News, Barr previously said in an April 4 letter to DOJ Pride he’d investigate claims of anti-LGBT discrimination at the FBI and Bureau of Prisons. Additionally, Barr updated the Justice Department’s EEO statement clarifying discrimination, including on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, is prohibited within the Justice Department.

(Although the attorney general is required by law to issue the EEO statement, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions never did.)

Meanwhile, litigation pending before the Supreme Court will determine whether anti-LGBT discrimination is a form of sex discrimination and, therefore, prohibited under federal civil rights laws.

Two of the cases — Boston v. Clayton County and Zarda v. Altitude Express, will determine whether anti-gay discrimination is a form of sex discrimination. Another case, EEOC v. Harris Funeral Homes, will determine whether anti-transgender discrimination is a form of sex discrimination. A Supreme Court decision is expected by June 2020.

The Justice Department under the Trump administration has already articulated its view Title VII doesn’t cover anti-LGBT discrimination. It made that case with respect to anti-gay discrimination when the Zarda case was pending before the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Similarly, the Justice Department in a friend-of-thecourt brief to the Supreme Court asserted the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals wrongly concluded Title VII covers anti-trans discrimination in the Harris case.

The Pride Month meeting between Barr and LGBT employees took place about a week before DOJ Pride was scheduled to have its annual awards ceremony and reception in recognition of Pride Month. For the official ceremony this year, which is set for Wednesday, June 18, LGBT employees were set to gather in the 7th floor auditorium at the Justice

Department to hear from senior leadership and watch a viewing of the 2010 PBS documentary “Stonewall Uprising.” At a later reception, DOJ Pride will give awards to D.C.-based transgender activist Ruby Corado, founder of Casa Ruby, and David Cotton-Zinn, a member of the FBI’s Victim Services Response Team.

During Barr’s confirmation process, LGBT advocacy groups opposed Senate approval of his nomination based on his record as U.S. attorney general under George H.W. Bush and designation as a Trump appointee. One longtime gay friend of Barr’s, former Time Warner general counsel Paul Cappuccio, came to his defense and told the Blade, “He’s not going to ever let people be discriminated against, OK?” In his confirmation hearing, Barr suggested he’d uphold religious freedom at the expense of LGBT rights and continue the view LGBT people aren’t protected under Title VII. At the same time, Barr said he’d have “zero tolerance” for hate crimes, including those committed against LGBT people.

Since Barr took over at the Justice Department, the Trump administration has continued to defend in court the transgender military ban. It remains to be seen whether the Justice Department will reverse its litigation position regarding Title VII now that the issue is before the Supreme Court, but that seems unlikely.

The Justice Department deferred comment on the meeting with DOJ Pride, which provided background information on the discussion.

House votes to defund trans military ban

The U.S. House delivered on Tuesday evening a stinging rebuke to President Trump’s transgender military ban, adopting an amendment that would bar the use of U.S. funds to pay for the discriminatory policy.

The vote on the amendment, introduced by Reps. Anthony Brown (D-Md.) and Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), was 243-183 and largely along party lines. The measure was adopted as part of $983 billion minibus legislation for fiscal year 2020 seeking to fund the Defense Department, as well as labor, health and human services, education, state-foreign operations and energy and water development.

The amendment passed with bipartisan support. Nine Republicans — Reps.

Justin Amash (Mich.), Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.), Tom Emmer (Minn.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio), Trey Hollingsworth (Ind.), Will Hurd (Texas), John Katko (N.Y.) and Tom Reed (N.Y.) — voted “yes” on the measure.

However, one Democrat voted against it: Rep. Colin Peterson (Minn).

Before April, transgender people could enlist and serve openly in the military thanks to a policy change during the Obama administration. But under the new Trump administration policy, a diagnosis of gender dysphoria disqualifies potential enlistees, and a diagnosis of gender dysphoria — with the exception of transgender people already serving in the armed forces — is cause for discharge.

After the House approves the underlying minibus legislation, it will head to the Senate, which has yet to take up any appropriations bills for fiscal year 2020.

Any version of the spending bill with a provision against the transgender military ban would likely not fare well in the Republican-controlled chamber.

CHRIS JOHNSON

12 • WA S HI N GTON B LAD E.CO M • J U N E 2 1 , 2 0 1 9 • N AT IO N AL N EW S

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Supreme Court vacates fine against couple that refused to serve gays Move falls short of recognizing a right to discriminate

By CHRIS JOHNSON CJOHNSON@WASHBLADE.COM

Rachel Bowman-Cryer and Laurel Bowman-Cryer requested a wedding cake for a commitment ceremony, triggering the Oregon case.

Photo courtesy of Bigstock

The U.S. Supreme Court vacated on Monday a $135,000 fine against an Oregon-based family business that refused based on religious and free speech objections to make a wedding cake in 2013 for a same-sex couple.

In an order list on Monday, the Supreme Court indicated it had issued summary disposition in response to the petition for certiorari filed by Aaron and Melissa Kline, vacating the decision against the couple and remanding it back to the Oregon Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court’s action falls short of recognizing the First Amendment right sought by the couple to refuse service to same-sex couples.

The Oregon Court of Appeals is instructed to reconsider the case in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case. The ruling found the Colorado Civil Rights Commission held anti-religious bias when concluding Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop violated Colorado civil rights law. Based on those narrow facts of the case, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the decision against Phillips.

The Klein petition was filed by the Texas-based law firm First Liberty in October and been pending before the Supreme Court for eight months.

Kelly Shackelford, CEO of chief counsel of First Liberty, said in a statement the U.S. Supreme Court’s action “is a victory for Aaron and Melissa Klein and for religious liberty for all Americans.”

“The Constitution protects speech, popular or not, from condemnation by the government,” Shackelford said.

“The message from the court is clear, government hostility toward religious Americans will not be tolerated.”

In 2013, Rachel Bowman-Cryer, who was in same-sex relationship with Laurel BowmanCryer, came with her mother to Sweetcakes and, after an initial tasting, requested a wedding cake for a commitment ceremony.

(Oregon hadn’t yet legalized same-sex marriage.) Aaron Klein, who there to conduct the tasting, refused them the service on the basis that baking a wedding cake would be inconsistent with his religious beliefs. In subsequent exchange with Rachel’s mother, Aaron Klein quoted Leviticus from the Bible and said homosexual relationships were an “abomination.”

According to Lambda Legal, Aaron and Melissa Klein knew the BowmanCryers were a same-sex couple before the 2013 tasting based on an experience two years before that time when they bought a cake for the wedding of Rachel’s mother.

Melissa Klein had invited the couple for a tasting anyway before eventually refusing them service.

The Bowman-Cryers filed a complaint with the Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industries asserting Sweetcakes had violated Oregon’s human rights law, which bars anti-gay discrimination in public accommodations, and fined the couple $135,000. The administrative court cited Aaron Klein disparaging the couple’s relationship as an “abomination” and posting on Facebook page the couple complaint, which listed their address and phone number, in reaching the decision for the $135,000 fine.

The administrative court also issued a cease and desist order, which Aaron and Melissa Klein interpreted as a gag order preventing them from talking about their beliefs.

Melissa Klein and her spouse Aaron asserted the penalty put their company Sweetcakes out of business. (However, according to the Washington Times, the couple raised $352,500 through crowdsourcing as a result of donations from religious sympathizers.)

The Oregon Court of Appeals upheld the decision from the Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industries. Last year, the Oregon Supreme Court declined to review the petition, which prompted First Liberty to file the petition for certiorari before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sharon McGowan, chief strategy officer and legal director for Lambda Legal, said the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to outright dismiss the petition is “obviously frustrating” and justices could have made things easier with simply a detail of certiorari.

“Rachel and Laurel, the couple who is at the center of this case, has been in the middle of all of this so many years that it would have been wonderful from our perspective for this chapter to finally come to an end and for the Oregon decision vindicating their right to be free from discrimination [to stand] to allow them to bring closure to the case,” McGowan said.

McGowan said it was important not to lose focus on the couple that was denied service at Sweetcakes when they entered the business expecting the same kind of treatment as any other couple seeking a wedding cake.

“At the end of the day, it’s just important to remember that it’s about a couple who experienced…not only dignitary harm, but the larger stigma of walking into a business that is supposedly open to all

and being told that we don’t serve your kind,” McGowan said. “There’s nothing wrong with applying non-discrimination laws to ensure that businesses are open to all. The Supreme Court seems to making something much harder than it needs to be, when, in fact, it really seems to be a very straightforward application of wellsettled legal principles.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s action in the Klein case is similar to what the Supreme Court did with a petition filed by a Washington State florist, Barronelle Stutzman, who similarly sought a First Amendment right to refuse to supply floral arrangements to a same-sex wedding. After the U.S. Supreme Court remanded her petition and vacated the state ruling against Stutzman, the Washington State Supreme Court earlier this month came to the same conclusion she violated Washington State’s LGBT nondiscrimination law by refusing to serve floral arrangements in 2013 for a same-sex couple’s wedding.

However, that is no assurance the Oregon Court of Appeals will reaffirm its decision against Aaron and Melissa Kline under the new guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court. Based on Aaron Klein’s reference to the Bible in calling homosexual relations on abomination, the record shows religiosity played a clar role in the incident between the business owners and the same-sex couple.

Moreover, the $135,000 penalty levied against Aaron and Melissa Klein surprised some legal observers, who speculated the fine might be lowered upon re-evaluation of the case.

McGowan, however, was confident Oregon would reaffirm its decision and said she’s “not aware” of anything in the case that would stop the state from reaching the same conclusion it reached before.

“I think that their analysis below was extremely thorough, and, I think, in many ways should have been put to rest any of the concerns that the court found in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case,” McGowan said.

“To the extent that they want to ask them to go back just show their work and make absolutely sure that there’s nothing to be concerned about,” McGowan added, “I have no doubt that they will do it, but I don’t think that there’s any reason for us to be concerned that the Oregon Court of Appeals, which is where this was remanded back, will have any reason to revisit its underlying conclusion in that case.”

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Blade granted access to ICE trans detainee unit in N.M. Former detainees allege racist treatment, medical neglect

By MICHAEL K. LAVERS MLAVERS@WASHBLADE.COM

From top: A trans woman eats inside a unit for trans detainees in ICE custody at the Cibola County Correctional Center in Milan, N.M., on June 6 and The Cibola County Correctional Center in Milan, N.M. Roxsana Hernández, a transgender woman from Honduras with HIV, died in ICE custody last year after she had been held at the facility. Photo courtesy of ICE

MILAN, N.M. — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week for the first time granted reporters access to a unit created specifically for transgender women who are in their custody.

Reporters from the Washington Blade; the Associated Press; Univision and KFOX, a television station in El Paso, Texas, toured the unit at the Cibola County Correctional Center in Milan, N.M. ICE Assistant Field Office Director William Jepsen, who is based in Albuquerque, led the tour. Cibola County Correctional Center Assistant Warden Betty Judd and Corey A. Price, field office director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations in El Paso, were among those who accompanied the reporters alongside

ICE spokespeople Danielle Bennett and Leticia Zamarripa.

The reporters were not allowed to speak with individual detainees and were not granted access to the unit in which detainees are held in solitary confinement. The reporters were also not allowed to bring telephones or recording devices into the facility.

Jepsen showed the reporters “asylum hallway” with five attorney visitation rooms for detainees. There are also two videoconference rooms off the corridor that allow detainees to attend court hearings remotely.

Twenty-seven trans women were in the unit when the reporters toured it.

The detainees sleep in dorm-style bunkbeds that are in rooms without doors

I N T E R NATI O NAL NEWS • J UNE 21, 2019 WA SHI NGTON BL A DE . COM • 15

that open into a common area with tables and chairs, a television, a microwave, telephones, sinks and showers with curtains on them.

The unit also has its own outside recreation area where six detainees were playing volleyball with a male staffer from the Cibola County Correctional Center when the reporters were there.

Detainees stood along the wall as the staffer told the reporters they have planted flowers in a small garden that was a few feet away from them. Other staffers said during the tour the detainees also have access to Zumba classes, an arts and crafts program and classes at the unit’s beauty salon.

A Univision newscast with a story about the Trump administration’s agreement with Mexico to stop migrants from entering the U.S. was on a television in one of the unit’s day rooms during the tour.

Bulletin boards throughout the unit had notices that detailed schedules for laundry and religious services. One flyer had a Kosher food menu that included a lunch with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, canned vegetables, bread or crackers, fresh or canned fruit, Droxie cookies and beverages.

Posters in English and Spanish that read, “ICE has zero-tolerance for sexual abuse” and “Are you detained and separated from your child/children?” were visible throughout the facility.

One poster read, “I have a right to be treated fairly, regardless of my sexual orientation or gender identity.” Signs above the entrance to each unit read, “opposite gender must announce upon entry.”

Reporters also visited a gymnasium with basketball hoops and exercise equipment.

Judd said the trans detainees have access to it and a large, outdoor recreation yard with a track and soccer field.

“This affords them the opportunity to come outside each day to get some fresh air,” she said.

The reporters also visited the facility’s medical unit, which has exam rooms, dental suites and areas where detainees with Tuberculosis and other communicable diseases can be isolated.

“We stay busy, but we enjoy what we do,” said Cibola County Correctional Center Health Services Administrator Wendy Baca.

CoreCivic, a private company that was once known as the Corrections Corporation of America, operates the minimum-security men’s facility that is

roughly 80 miles west of Albuquerque in rural Cibola County.

The facility also houses cisgender men who are in the custody of ICE, the U.S. Marshals and Cibola County.

The trans unit opened in 2017 after ICE’s contract with the Santa Ana Jail in Orange County, Calif., which had a unit only for trans detainees, ended. Judd told the reporters the trans unit can house up to 60 detainees at a time.

Wednesday’s visit took place less than 13 months after Roxsana Hernández, a trans Honduran woman with HIV who had been briefly detained at the Cibola County Correctional Center, died in ICE custody at Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque.

Alejandra, a prominent trans rights activist from El Salvador who has been in ICE custody since 2017, remains detained at the facility. Nicole García Aguilar, a trans Honduran woman who the U.S. has granted asylum, was released from the Cibola County Correctional Center on Wednesday.

Johana “Joa” Medina Leon, a trans woman from El Salvador, died at an El Paso hospital on June 1, shortly after ICE released her from their custody.

Medina had been detained at the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, N.M. A dozen gay men and trans women who were in ICE custody at the same facility earlier this year alleged they suffered abuse while in detention.

The Blade on Tuesday spoke with three trans women from Mexico and El Salvador who were previously detained at the Cibola County Correctional Center.

Johely, who was born in Mexico’s Nayarit state, said during an interview at the offices of the Santa Fe Dreamers Project, an Albuquerque-based organization that advocates on behalf of immigrants, she was in ICE custody at the facility from Aug. 19, 2018, to Jan. 25.

Johely told the Blade she did not receive adequate treatment for her Type 2 diabetes and the facility’s medical personnel “do not have the resources to give medications.” Johely said the facility’s staff were “very racist” and “not trained to care for a transgender person.”

Johely and the other two trans women — Ginger, who was released from ICE custody on Monday, and Daniela, who left the facility on June 7, — also complained about the facility’s food.

“We are lucky to leave this place alive,” Johely told the Blade.

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Cannabis Culture Veterans substituting cannabis for alcohol, drugs PALO ALTO, Calif. — Military veterans who participate in a state’s medical marijuana access program frequently substitute cannabis for alcohol and other controlled substances, according to data published in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse.

A team of investigators from Palo Alto University in California, Harvard University, and the Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia surveyed marijuana use patterns in 93 U.S. military veterans participating in a medical cannabis collective.

Nearly 80 percent of respondents reported using cannabis “to treat both physical and mental health symptoms.” Respondents were most likely to report consuming cannabis therapeutically to mitigate symptoms of chronic pain (69 percent), anxiety (66 percent), posttraumatic stress (59 percent), and depression (56 percent).

More than 60 percent of respondents said that they consumed cannabis as a substitute for other illicit or licit substances, particularly alcohol. Nearly half of all respondents said that they use medical cannabis in place of other prescription medications.

Authors concluded, “The current study also confirms the findings of previous studies that have documented a trend in substitution behavior, where cannabis is substituted for other drugs, which, if associated with reduced harm, could be beneficial for overall health.”

Photo courtesy of Bigstock

THC levels not correlated with driver impairment: study The presence of THC in blood is not a consistent predictor of either driver performance or impairment, according to the conclusions of a new Congressional Research Service report assessing cannabis and psychomotor performance.

The report acknowledges: “Research studies have been unable to consistently correlate levels of marijuana consumption, or THC in a person’s body, and levels of impairment. Thus, some researchers, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, have observed that using a measure of THC as evidence of a driver’s impairment is not supported by scientific evidence to date.”

It further reports that data is “conflicting” with regard to whether marijuana usage plays a substantial role in traffic accidents, noting, “Levels of impairment that can be identified in laboratory settings may not have a significant impact in real world settings, where many variables affect the likelihood of a crash occurring.”

It concludes: “There is as yet no scientifically demonstrated correlation between levels of THC and degrees of impairment of driver performance, and epidemiological studies disagree as to whether marijuana use by a driver results in increased crash risk. ...

Based on current knowledge and enforcement capabilities, it is not possible to articulate a similarly simple level or rate of marijuana consumption and a corresponding effect on driving ability.”

The findings are consistent with prior studies by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and others reporting that the presence of THC in blood, particularly at low levels, is not consistently correlated with either psychomotor impairment or crash culpability.

Six states – Illinois, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington – impose various per se limits for the presence of specific amounts of THC in blood while 12 states (Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota Utah, and Wisconsin) impose zero tolerant per se standards. In those states, it is a criminal violation of the traffic safety laws to operate a motor vehicle with any detectable levels of THC in blood. Colorado law infers driver impairment in instances where THC is detected in blood at levels of 5ng/ml or higher.

H E A LT H • JU NE 21, 2019 • WA SHINGTONBLADE . COM • 17

Nevada bars employers from bias against cannabis users CARSON CITY, Nev. — Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak has signed legislation into law prohibiting certain employers from refusing to hire workers because they tested positive for cannabis on a pre-employment drug screen. The new law takes effect on Jan. 1, 2020.

Assembly Bill 132 makes it “unlawful for any employer in [Nevada] to fail or refuse to hire a prospective employee because the prospective employee submitted to a screening test and the results of the screening test indicate the presence of marijuana.”

The law is not applicable to prospective employees seeking certain safety sensitive positions, such as those seeking employment as firefighters, emergency medical technicians, or federally licensed drivers.

“This is a victory for both cannabis consumers and Nevada’s economy,” said Nevada NORML Director Madisen Saglibene. “Just as someone would not lose their job on a Monday for a cocktail they consumed the previous Friday, it is critical to protect the rights and dignity of individuals who choose to enjoy marijuana.”

Earlier this year, New York City lawmakers enacted municipal legislation barring non-safety sensitive employers from administering marijuana drug tests to prospective employees.

Urinalysis drug screening, which is most commonly utilized by employers, detects the presence of inactive marijuana metabolites (breakdown products). The residual presence of these compounds may be detectable in urine for several weeks or even months following cannabis abstinence.

The governor also signed legislation into law this session facilitating the expungement of prior marijuana convictions, expanding the state’s medical cannabis access program, prohibiting the courts from denying child custody or visitation solely based upon a parent’s medical marijuana patient status, and encouraging banking institutions to work with licensed marijuana businesses and to process financial transactions.

Cannabis Culture news in the Blade is provided in partnership with NORML. Visit norml.org for more information.

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NEW YORK — Parents say it’s still “moderately” or “very hard” for them to adjust to news that a son or daughter is LGB two years after finding out according to a new study released this week and reported on by MedicalXPress.

Their responses are the same, on average, as parents who just learn of a son or daughter’s being LGB. The study is called “Effects of Family Demographics and the Passage of Time on Parents’ Difficulty with Their Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual Youth’s Sexual Orientation.” It was published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. The National Institute of Mental Health funded the study.

“Surprisingly, we found that parents who knew about a child’s sexual orientation for two years struggled as much as parents who had recently learned the news,” said David Huebner, Ph.D., MPH, associate professor of prevention and community health at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health (Milken Institute SPH), according to MedicalXPress.

“Two years is a very long time in the life of a child who is faced with the stress of a disapproving or rejecting parent.”

This study is one of the first and largest to survey parents themselves, Huebner said. In addition, the study includes data from parents rarely ever studied, Huebner said, noting that 26 percent of the parents surveyed had only learned their son or daughter identified as LGB in the past month. Huebner and his colleagues studied more than 1,200 parents of LGB youth ages 10-25. The researchers asked parents who visited a website with LGB resources to fill out a questionnaire.

Huebner and his colleagues asked parents “How hard is it for you, knowing that your son or daughter is gay, lesbian or bisexual?” Parents responded using a fivepoint scale of magnitude that ranged from not at all hard to extremely hard.

Anti-gay author shut down on Fox News WASHINGTON — One guest’s antigay views and self-promotion were too much even for a Fox News segment, the Washington Examiner reports.

Fox News host Laura Ingraham cut short a segment on her show this week when author and Townhall columnst Arthur Schaper continually cut off Ingraham and

fellow guest Jonathan Merritt, a religion writer, the Examiner and other outlets report.

“That’s not true,” Schaper said while Ingraham tried to set the stage of the segment by reading a quote from the Washington Post. “Wrong,” Schaper added as soon as Merritt tried to respond to the quote.

As he continued to cut in, Ingraham told Schaper to “hold on, hold on, Arthur, wait a second” as she finished her point, the Examiner reports.

Near the end of the six-minute segment, Schaper started holding up his book “The Health Hazards of Homosexuality.” Ingraham chastised Schaper, “Here’s one thing I don’t like on this show, when people bring props.”

“All right, I got it,” Ingraham said, rolling her eyes and cutting off both guests as it became apparent Schaper was not going to put down his book.

Ingraham brought on the guests to discuss whether or not drag queen story hour events, which was being held in various libraries and bookshops in Texas, are a good thing.

LGBT youth mental health survey inspires concern WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — The findings of the Trevor Project’s first-ever report on LGBT youth mental health has been released with data from 34,000 respondents. It’s being billed as the “largest survey of LGBT youth mental health ever conducted and provides a critical understanding of the experiences impacting their lives.”

Among the findings: • 39 percent of LGBT youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past 12 months with more than half of transgender and non-binary youth having seriously considered it.

• 71 percent of LGBT youth reported feeling sad or hopeless for at least two weeks in the past year • Less than half of LGBT respondents were out to an adult at school with youth less likely to disclose their gender identity than sexual orientation.

The study was criticized almost immediately upon being released in conservative media.

“Is it possible the media’s obsession with the idea of LGBT oppression has created the negative environment marinating LGBT youth once they realize they belong to one of the hundreds of “other” sexual orientations and gender identities,” wrote one columnist in The Federalist.

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LGBT Health Forum 2019

Getting the Word Out: Stonewall, the Power of Information, and LGBTQ Health The 7th annual LGBT Health Forum will be held on July 9th in Washington, DC. The Forum is the primary annual public event of the LGBT Health Policy & Practice Graduate certificate program at the George Washington University wherein leaders, experts, and activists tackle topics related to the health of the LGBT population, locally, nationally, and globally.

Tuesday July 9 • 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm

Marvin Center Amphitheater, 800 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC Topic: Getting the Word Out: Stonewall, the Power of Information, and LGBTQ Health Admission: Free Post-Event Reception w/Panelists and VIP guests starting at 7:30 pm ($20 suggested donation)

2019 Forum Description

This year, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Stonewall rebellion, the LGBT Health Forum will consider how the 1969 uprising set in motion events that positively impacted the health of LGBTQ people. Specifically, we will examine how disseminators of ideas and information – authors, journalists, essayists, activists, novelists, and scientists – enabled the movement to grow and realize gains for LGBTQ people in their health and rights.

Victoria Cruz

Stonewall Veteran/Activist

Michael Denneny

Gay Publishing Pioneer

JU N E 21, 2019 • WA SHINGTONBLA D E.COM • 19

Joshua Johnson Host of NPR’s “1A”

Kevin Naff

Washington Blade Editor

Esther Newton

Queer Anthropologist

Charles Silverstein

Psychologist DSM Reformer

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Well-Strung:The Singing String Quartet is coming to Clear Space Theatre!

Sunday, July 28 6:00 pm and 9:00 pm Tickets: $35-100

For more information and tickets, please visit:

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This program is supported, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. The Division promotes Delaware arts events on www.DelawareScene.com. Clear Space Theatre Company, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

2 0 • WAS H IN GTO N B LAD E.CO M • J U N E 2 1 , 2 0 1 9

JEFFREY DINARDO

LPC, is a psychotherapist at Whitman-Walker Health.

PETER ROSENSTEIN

is a D.C.-based LGBT rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.

VI E WPO I NT • JU NE 21, 2019 • WA SHINGTON B L A DE . COM • 21

MARK LEE

is a long-time entrepreneur and community business advocate. Follow on Twitter: @ MarkLeeDC. Reach him at OurBusinessMatters@gmail.com.

2019 OFFICIAL CAPITAL PRIDE PARADE CONTINGENTS 9:30 Club Adoptions Together/Familyworks Together AFGE Aids Healthcare Foundation Airbus Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld Llp American Foundation For Suicide Prevention-National Capital Area Chapter American University Anita Bonds, Councilmember At-Large Ann Taylor & Loft Annie’s Paramount Steak House Api Pride ARC Arcadia Power Arlington-Alexandria Gay & Lesbian Alliance Assoc. Of Welcoming & Affirmimg Baptists Atlasvet Attache Corporate Housing Bae Systems Inc Balance Gym Bank Of America Barry’s Bootcamp DC BasecampDC Beatniks RC Bestbus Bill Miles Honorees: Alan Thompson Donald Burch Bobby Mckey’s Dueling Piano Bar Bookstore Movers Booz Allen Hamilton Bowdoin College Breaking Barriers Honoree: National Ctr For Transgender Equality Capital Area Young Republicans Capital City Ms Pcs Capital One Carefirst Bluecross Blueshield Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School Casa Ruby Centaur Mc Center City Public Charter Schools Center For Black Equity / DC Black Pride Chairman Phil Mendelson DC City Council Cheer DC Chesapeake And Potomac Softball Churchesunitedinpride Citi | AMPA Citizens To Elect Norton City Dogs Rescue & City Kitties Citylights Realty Group Civis Analytics Cliftonlarsonallen Llp Compass Group Inc Councilmember Jack Evans Councilmember Mary M. Cheh DC Area Quakers DC Democratic State Committee DC For Pete DC Front Runners DC Gay Flag Football League (DCgffl) DC Latinx Pride-Latino Glbt History Project DC Office Of The Attorney General DC Public Schools DC Strokes Rowing Club

DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center DC Water DC’s Different Drummers Deloitte Llp Department Of Aging And Community Living Dignity/Washington District Karaoke District Of Columbia Aquatics Club Dupont Circle Anc 2B Edmund Burke School Embassy Of Australia Embassy Of Canada Embassy Of Ireland Embassy Of Switzerland In The US Endgame Engendered Spirit: Larry Villegas-Perez Xemiyulu Manibusan Tapepechul Equity Residential European Union Delegation To The Usa Facebook Fairnesswv Fantasia Production Food & Friends Food Lion Foundation Angie Zomos Rosa Freddie’s Beach Bar Free2move Frito Lay Gamma Gay Men’s Chorus Of Washington DC Gentle Giant Moving Company Giant Food GLIFAA LGBT+ Pride In Foreign Affairs Agencies GLINT, World Bank GLOBE, Thursday People & International Organizations In DC GLOE: The Kurlander Program For GLBTQ Outreach & Engagement: Edlavitch DCJCC Grand Marshals: Brandon Wolf Dominque Jackson (Pose Cast) Earline Budd Hailie Sahar (Pose Cast) Matt Easton Grant Thornton Heineken Heroes: Amanda J. Hackett Ben de Guzman Kimberley Bush Martin Espinoza Rea Carey Tony Nelson Hilton Holy Trinity Lutheran In Falls Church Hot 99.5 HR Certification Institute Human Rights Campaign Immanuel Presbyterian Church In Mclean Imperial Court Of Washington DC Inspired Teaching School Intuit Jordan Grossman For Ward 2 Kaiser Permanente Of The Mid-Atlantic Karl Frisch For Fairfax County School Board Kimley-Horn | DC Kipp DC Public Schools

La Clinica Del Pueblo, Inc./Empoderate Center Larry Stansbury Honoree: Team DC Latin Soul DC DC’s Premier Promotion Co. Lee Montessori Pcs Leidos LGBT Congressional Staff Association, Senate Glass Caucus, Library Of Congress-Globe Liberation DC Lockheed Martin Long & Foster Lowell School Lulac Lambda Lyft Mac Viva Glam Fund Macy’s Marcum Llp Maret School Queer/Straight Alliance Marriott International, Inc. Mary’s Center Mayor’s Office Of LGBTQ Affairs McDonald’s Of Greater Washinton D.C. Mcps Gsa-Like Clubs Medstar Washington Hospital Center Metro DC Pflag Metro Weekly Metropolitan DC Synod Of The Elca Micron Technology Microsoft Nando’s Peri-Peri National Air Traffic Controllers Association National Geographic Partners National Trans Visibility March (Ntvm) Navigant NBC 4/T44/Xfinity NCRC Preschool Nellie’s Sports Bar Nestle Usa NGPA Washington DC Out On The Runway Noche Ardiente Nordic Embassies Nordstrom Northrop Grumman Nova Pride Nova Salud, Inc Office Of Representative Franklin Garcia Office Of Senator Paul Strauss Office Of The State Superintendent Of Education Office Of Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent C. Gray Organization Of American States Out & Equal Workplace Advocates Out For The Environment Outriders Womens Motorcycle Club Paving The Way Honoree: The Washington Blade Peace Corps Pepco, An Exelon Company Pitchers/A League Of Her Own Planned Parenthood Of Metropolitan Washington, D.C. PNC Bank Potomac Association United Church Of Christ Pride In Federal Service Pulse House Of Fitness Queeta’s Palace @ Chateau Remix Rainbow Families Red Bear Brewing Company

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Redfin REI Co-op Religious Action Center Of Reform Judaism Republic Restoratives Distillery Righteously Outrageous Twirling Corps (ROTCDC) Road To Stonewall Float Salesforce Salon Quency Sephora Seventh-Day Adventist Kinship International Shaw’s Tavern Sibley Hospital Johns Hopkins Health System Smithsonian Pride Alliance Smyal Sodexo Southern Decadence Claw Spartan Motorcycle Club St. George’s Episcopal Church, Glenn Dale St. John’s Norwood Parish SunTrust Bank, Inc. Tableau Software, Inc. Taqueria Del Barrio Target Taste TD Bank The Ace And Aro Advocacy Project The British Embassy The Brookings Institution The D.C. Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence The DC Center For The LGBT Community The Field School The Lesbian & Gay Big Apple Corps Marching Band The Nature Conservancy The One Street Company The Trevor Project Tito’s Handmade Vodka T-Mobile Tom Of Finland Vodka Transparentusa--Arlington/DC/Alexandria Uber United Airlines United Methodist Churches Of The National Capital Area United Nations Association Of The United States Of America United States Armed Forces Color Guard Uproar Lounge & Restaurant Verizon Vida Fitness Virginia Senator Adam Ebbin Visa Ward 5 Councilmember Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White, Sr. Washington Capitals Washington Gas Washington National Cathedral Washington Scandals Rfc Wegmans Wells Fargo Whitman-Walker Health Wunder Garten Ziegfeldsecrets Nightclub

WE GIVE A SPECIAL #shhhOUT to all the organizations that came to participate in the 2019 Capital Pride Parade—with a specific acknowledgment for those contingents that were prevented from stepping off and finishing the Parade. We invite all participants—and those affected in particular—to work with us as we re-envision the Pride Parade for the 45th Annual Celebration of Pride In the Nation’s Capital in 2020.

We invite all Parade contingents to submit their best photos to:

PHOTOS@CAPITALPRIDE.ORG THROUGHOUT history, in the courts, in Congress, in the media, and on main streets across the nation, there have always been, and continue to be, people attempting to silence our voices and erase our community. They openly challenge our right to exist as Americans with the same rights enjoyed by others.

WE must be willing to stand up and to speak out against all forms of injustice, discrimination, and violence wherever it exists and in whatever form it takes. Equality before the law is the guiding principle that has provided the foundation for the civil rights advances of the past two centuries.

AS we commemorate 50 years since the Stonewall Riots, we must all stand up with pride, and shhhOUT! WE shhhOUT! proudly about our past, our present, and most definitely as we move forward into the future!

PRESIDENTIAL ADVOCATES

CAPITALPRIDE.ORG JU N E 21, 2019 • WA SHINGTONBLA D E.COM • 23

PETER ROSENSTEIN

JEFFREY DINARDO

is a D.C.-based LGBT rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.

LPC, is a psychotherapist at Whitman-Walker Health.

After Pride, healing Sanders tries Hail Mary together with community Offering support to those impacted by gun scare at parade We at Whitman-Walker Health hope everyone had a wonderful Pride weekend.

There were so many great moments of love, community, activism, support, and fun to be had throughout D.C. For some people, there may have been moments that were maybe not as enjoyable and one particular episode during the parade that we as a community wish we didn’t have to endure during this special, shared time together.

There are many stories going around about what exactly happened, but independent of the details, it was a scary moment we experienced together. We wanted to take a moment to share a little about how people might be reacting to events like this and to offer support to those who may need a little extra care right now.

Some people may find that they aren’t really reacting to what happened at all and they are able to move forward with what new and exciting things are coming up for them; that’s great. If you find you are open to offering support and affirmation to those who may not be in this place, please be encouraged to do so. Some people may even find themselves called to action and wanting to volunteer or act in a greater way than they had previously.

Amazing! There are a lot of great agencies around D.C. that would love to have your support, Whitman-Walker included.

Some people may find that right after the event or in the couple of days following, they are a little upset or are having some rough moments. Overall, they may be feeling able to get by and feeling a little better as each day passes. This is actually quite a common response to something traumatic and it’s OK to have these feelings.

Keep working through it and leaning on others for support as you manage what it was like to experience something like this.

Some people may find that this event is really difficult to walk away from and that it is making it difficult to focus on things that are happening now. They may find that they can’t stop thinking about the event; they may be having bad dreams or memories of the event that get in the way of being able to be present.

Some people may find that they are avoiding things that remind them of what happened, avoiding things they used to enjoy, or avoiding people and crowded spaces in general. Some people might be feeling fear, sadness, anger, or any kind of less enjoyable feeling that they just can’t seem to shake. It may also be difficult

to feel things that are more enjoyable. Some people may find that they are having a hard time remembering exactly what happened or what they felt at all; they may also have ongoing feelings of being numb or empty.

Some people may find that are having trouble sleeping. They may also walk around not feeling safe and finding that they are looking around expecting to find something really wrong about to happen. It might make it difficult to concentrate or it may be very easy to become startled. It may be any combination of some of these above things for different people. Furthermore, they may find that it doesn’t seem to be changing at all over time and they are stuck in these kinds of reactions even as the event gets further in the past.

If you find yourself in the above category, it’s also OK. Your body is just doing the best it can to try and make sense of something that was very intense, and it might just be feeling a little overwhelmed by what happened.

It may be helpful to speak with a mental health professional to have a little assistance in letting your body sort through what happened in a safe environment. There are a lot of other people who experience similar reactions and are able to work through them.

There are a number of services around D.C. that can offer mental health support.

Regardless of what kind of reaction you are having, know that you are invited to discuss your response with others if you would like to, but you never have to discuss anything with anyone if you don’t want to. In fact, there is some research to support that being required to talk about your reactions might even make things worse if you aren’t feeling safe or wanting to share. It is also quite possible to offer support to one another without having to talk about the event and some people might just want a little more connection right now.

That’s great too! While therapy is a great option for those seeking it, most people don’t go to therapy and most people manage to be okay.

A lot of people turn to trusted friends, family members, religious/spiritual communities, colleagues—just know that you don’t have to work through your feelings on your own if you don’t want to. Part of this process will be finding a balance between getting support from others and finding some individual time that you may need.

pass to save candidacy But speech on Democratic Socialism falls flat Bernie Sanders’s campaign announced he was going to make a speech laying out the argument for why Democratic Socialism is right for the United States. After reading the speech he gave at the George Washington University in D.C., I agree with those who believe Sanders effectively ended his quest for the presidency.

The speech appeared to have been a ‘Hail Mary’ pass not caught by the voters. While polling in primaries, especially national polling, means little apparently the Sanders campaign team was reading the tea leaves and concluded without some miracle his candidacy is basically over and his time has passed.

As reported in the New York Times, “Mr. Sanders, 77, declared that his version of socialism was a political winner, having lifted Mr. Roosevelt to victory four times and powered his own career in government. They also said he did this “while tying his presidential campaign to the legacies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr.” Sanders declared, “Today in the second decade of the 21st century, we must take up the unfinished business of the New Deal and carry it to completion.”

To paraphrase the words of a former senator from Texas, “Mr. Sanders, you are no Franklin Roosevelt and no Martin Luther King, Jr. and I had the honor of meeting and talking with Martin Luther King Jr.” Sanders said “he has overcome attacks on him for being a Democratic Socialist his entire career.” One must question what he accomplished while overcoming those attacks. He won an election as mayor of Burlington, a small town in Vermont, population 42,000, and was then elected to the House of Representatives from Vermont in 1991 and to the Senate in 2007. He has served in Congress for more than 28 years and his most well-known legislation is the renaming of post offices in Vermont. It is known he was originally elected by cozying up to the National Rifle Association.

I have no issue with some of the things Sanders wants to get done, including raising the minimum wage and having universal healthcare or as he calls his version of it Medicare-for-All. Yet after all his years in Congress he has never understood how to effectively make progress in Congress toward his goals. Changes to our system have always

come incrementally and Sanders refuses to recognize that or be willing to work that way. From his speech it’s clear he doesn’t acknowledge Franklin Roosevelt was elected at a very different time in our history and it comes across as ludicrous that he might be comparing himself in any way to MLK, Jr. who had incredible charisma and could actually get people to work with him. Sanders is more inclined to yell at people rather than trying to bring them along with him.

Sanders has never been able to get Americans to distinguish between socialism and Democratic Socialism or what being a Social Democrat means. The speech he gave did nothing to help their understanding of that. In fact it will likely result in hurting the Democratic Party and all their candidates because it will be used against them by the Republican Party to wrongly confuse being a ‘progressive’ with being a ‘Socialist.’

Being a progressive and wanting to provide a public option for Americans to get their healthcare does not make you a socialist and it doesn’t even make you a Democratic Socialist. Wanting a good public education system does not make you a socialist. In fact if Sanders looked at the history of our public education system he would understand Americans have always fought any kind of national control over education, which is why some call our education system the last real ‘mom and pop’ business in the nation.

When it comes to healthcare, in 1992 Hillary Clinton fought for universal healthcare, which was dubbed Hillarycare. It went down to ignominious defeat never gaining traction in Congress. She understood then what Americans were able to grasp with regard to change and began to move incrementally.

She gets credit for Congress passing the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). President Obama won his version of ‘progressive’ healthcare, the Affordable Care Act by one vote in Congress and it was mainly responsible for Democrats losing Congress in the 2010 mid-term elections.

It took eight years for Americans to fully understand the value of ‘Obamacare’ and when they did Republicans found they were unable to repeal it.

Sanders will eventually be a footnote in history. Let’s hope in 2020 he will not screw the eventual Democratic nominee as he did in 2016.

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MARK LEE

琀栀攀

is a long-time entrepreneur and community business advocate.

Follow on Twitter: @MarkLeeDC. Reach him at OurBusinessMatters@gmail.com.

Will D.C. hear its coalmine canaries?

City officials ignore financial warnings while neglecting hometown enterprise conditions In recent days there have been widely reported dual chirpings of two separate coalmine canaries in D.C. The question is whether local elected officials will listen to these warnings or ignore both to the city’s economic detriment.

The first finch’s cautionary chirrup concerns the District government’s irresponsibly profligate spending, now totaling more than $22,000 per year for each resident of every age. Worse, the never-ending appetite of city politicians for ever-more expenditures producing a whopping $15.5 billion annual budget has them scouring the couch cushions for loose change to feed their unsustainable spendthrift habits.

This greed-grab suddenly extends to dedicated tax revenues originally levied to finance the Washington Convention Center. Now that this bank balance has been discovered, it’s being converted into a perpetual ATM for avaricious politicians who don’t much seem to know the value of a dollar.

Rankling hospitality and nightlife entrepreneurs is having to endure watching a highly publicized D.C. Council fight with the CFO over absconding with the funds these businesses contribute in special tax levies.

These costs are passed on to consumers in higher prices for every overnight stay, and every meal and drink enjoyed at local bars, restaurants, and nightclubs.

The second avian quarry quivers come via dispatches last week by Washingtonian food editor Jessica Sidman and Washington City Paper food editor Laura Hayes. Both reporters detailed worrisome local economic news of rapidly accelerating commercial lease rates and the inability of local small businesses to afford skyrocketing increases. Rising storefront rents affecting locally grown independent retailers, restaurateurs, and nightlife bar and entertainment venues threaten the District’s nationwide distinction for its dominant hometown commerce.

Fully 96 percent of the hospitality marketplace is conducted by local establishments.

These enterprises comprise the largest indigenous business sector, major local employer and leading tax provider, as well as contributing a government-estimated 20 percent or more of all economic activity

in the District.

National franchise chains and corporate purveyors of food and drink have begun eyeing cracks in a nationally unique business environment. They can pay the eye-popping commercial leasing rates, gradually shoving out what constitutes the heart and soul of a city increasingly respected for its nighttime scene.

If Events DC, the entity holding unspent reserves, has been the recipient of funds in excess of need, why did these tens of millions of dollars primarily deriving from dedicated small business taxes suddenly become just another piggybank to crack open and pillage? Not a single D.C. Council member suggested these tax levies be lowered. Instead, the slobbering over a new bounty of bucks has been unsavory to witness.

The city’s event and sporting facility and management bureau receives a dedicated one-percent portion of the city’s restaurant and bar 10-percent sales tax and 4.5-percent portion of the 14.5-percent hotel tax, both at the tip-top of the very worst tax rates nationwide. The budget battle involved reallocating an only-partial fund surplus amount of $47 million, or nearly 12-percent of special tax collections.

The reflexive reaction by elected officials was not to lower these tax rates, but to plunder the funds to facilitate everhigher levels of excessive splurging. Rather than search tenaciously for squandered expenditures due waste and misuse, or worthlessness and uselessness, their focus continues to be dollars expended and not results delivered.

Why not redirect these excess reserves as a reinvestment from where they came? Shouldn’t the city shift its current tax abatement strategies from bigger businesses toward smaller enterprise? It’s a startlingly simple solution that seems not to have occurred to anyone.

Let’s use these monies to convey a modicum of tax relief directly appropriated to community businesses as a small offset against rising commercial rents when and where applicable. It would provide a real investment and produce tangible results for the local economy, job opportunity growth, and strengthen social and cultural amenities.

At least while the birds are still breathing.

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㄀㌀㈀㄀ ㄀㐀琀栀 猀琀 一圀

Keep your promise to protect each other.

Wills & Trusts Powers of Attorney • Living Wills Partnership & Prenuptial Agreements

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Serving the LGBT Community in DC/MD/VA since 1983 Lawrence S. Jacobs/McMillan Metro, PC

JUDY GARLAND with co-star JAMES MASON in ‘A Star is Born.’

Photo courtesy AFI

Remembering Judy

Late star is undisputed gay saint but is her Stonewall connection reality or urban legend?

By BRIAN T. CARNEY

June 2019 marks not only the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, but also the 50th anniversary of the death of queer icon Judy Garland, as well as the anniversary of her birth in 1922.

In the early stories about the insurrection, there was a direct connection between the two events. Garland died in London on June 22, just 12 days after her 47th birthday.

On June 26, her remains were flown to Manhattan; thousands of devastated fans came to pay their respects and the funeral

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JUDY GARLAND (right) with MARGARET HAMILTON in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ Garland’s character’s plight has been widely seen as analogous to the gay experience.

Photo courtesy AFI

parlor had to remain open all night long to accommodate overflow crowds.

Her televised funeral service the next day, including a moving eulogy by her “A Star Is Born” co-star James Mason, was watched by millions.

That night, according to contemporary news reports and early historical accounts, queer fans gathered to mourn her death, including some of the patrons at the Stonewall Inn, a Mafia-owned gay bar in Greenwich Village. Shortly after 1 a.m. on July 28, police raided the bar, but this time, fueled by a potent mix of sorrow and rage, the patrons fought back.

In the intervening years, narratives about how the riots started have shifted, and historians such as David Carter now deny that there was any link between Garland’s death (deemed an accidental overdose of barbiturates) and the riots, despite the testimony of Sylvia Rivera herself.

Nonetheless, the identification of Judy Garland as the patron saint of the

Stonewall Riots is still strong in the queer imagination. For example, RuPaul recently said, “Now it has been 50 years since Judy passed and on the night of her funeral, in June 1969, the Stonewall Riots occurred.

Fed up with police harassment, the patrons of the Stonewall used their grief over Judy’s death to rise up and fight; and the gay liberation movement was born.”

RuPaul paid tribute to Garland in the episode of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” that aired Feb. 1. The drag superstar used the show to educate the contestants and the audience about the amazing legacy of the woman described as “one of the greatest stars that Hollywood ever produced.” RuPaul also explained that the phrase “friend of Dorothy,” referring to Garland’s legendary performance as Dorothy Gale in “The Wizard of Oz,” was used as a gay secret code pre-Stonewall.

Writer, performer and raconteur Justin Sayre, an expert on all things Garland, emphasizes her importance in the overall

JU N E 21, 2019 • WA SHINGTONBLA D E.COM • 27

narrative of queer resistance.

“The Judy component still means something to me,” Sayre says. “Here was a community reeling from the death of an icon of that community. Whether or not it led to the first brick being thrown, it informed the narrative. The invocation of Judy is sometimes seen as something flippant rather than a powerful moment of grief that we turned into something righteous. To me, that is much more of a queer narrative than one individual did one thing. I think queerness is about community and how we build things together.”

To honor Garland’s memory and the spirit of Stonewall, Sayre is the creator and host of “Night of a Thousand Judys,” an annual benefit for the Ali Forney Center, which houses homeless LGBT youth in New York City.

“It’s a wonderful fit,” Sayre says. “None of us get over the rainbow unless we all do.”

Renowned queer film historian Steven Cohan offers some additional reasons

why Garland still remains a popular queer icon. Cohan is the Dean’s Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of English at Syracuse University. Two of his books, “Incongruous Entertainment: Camp, Cultural Value and the MGM Musical” and “Hollywood By Hollywood,” include fascinating examinations of Garland’s “A Star Is Born.”

Citing critic Richard Dyer, Cohan identifies three features that continue to make Garland’s work so compelling to gay audiences: her androgyny (she frequently performed in male clothing), her camp sensibility (she had a sharp sense of humor and her screen persona was shaped by gay studio executives at MGM) and her identification with the girl next door who was never as ordinary as she seemed.

In addition, Cohan emphasizes her extraordinary resilience.

“She always came back,” Cohan notes, pointing to the record-breaking concert at the Palace Theatre in 1951, the 1954 movie “A Star Is Born” and the legendary concert at Carnegie Hall in 1961.

Cohan also notes that “her iconic status in gay culture is more historical that continually active.” Like her career, her legend has its ups and downs.

The current upswing may have started with the release of the latest remake of “A Star Is Born.” Queer icon and artist Lady Gaga took on Garland’s iconic role and scored a personal triumph.

This year, musicians across the country are offering birthday concerts for Judy. Here in Washington, the National Symphony Orchestra is hosting “50 Years Over the Rainbow: A Judy Garland Celebration” on June 28-29 at the Kennedy Center.

Under the direction of out Maestro Steven Reineke, the NSO will celebrate Garland’s life and work with singers Laura Osnes, Carpathia Jenkins and Jimmie Herrod.

In September, Renee Zellweger will star in “Judy” about Garland’s 1968 return to London for a series of cabaret performances.

Finally, some viewers see the spirit of Judy Garland inhabiting Armistead Maupin’s “Tales of the City” novels, which are now being revisited in a Netflix limited series. After all, as the saga starts, Mary Ann Singleton flees the drab Midwest for the Emerald (and very grassy) City of San Francisco and gathers a fabulous found family around herself.

And as the new series starts, Maupin’s Dorothy figure returns to San Francisco, perhaps answering one of the lingering questions about Judy Garland’s iconic character: Why does she go back to Kansas after her adventures in Oz? Mary Ann’s journey offers an alternative ending where Dorothy returns to Oz to live with her family of choice, the latest generation of rebels, visionaries and brick throwers.

QUEERY Tariq Darrell O’Meally Photo courtesy of Chris Ferenzi

QUEERY: Tariq Darrell O’Meally

The dancer/By the People performer answers 20 queer questions

By JOEY DIGUGLIELMO JOEYD@WASHBLADE.COM Dancer/choreographer Tariq Darrell O’Meally says the beauty and attraction of his chosen art form is two-fold.

“With dance, the body is the vessel/ object,” he says. “There is no catalyst needed to access it. There is you and your body. That means every human on earth has access to this thing always. The equity of that is powerful.”

He also says like all great art, it can convey powerful concepts in a way that doesn’t require any explanation.

“Dance, much like music, has the capacity to convey a multitude of ideas, emotion and experiences without having to say a word. That’s a form of magic I think.”

O’Meally, artistic director of his own eponymous company, lives in Baltimore but is participating in a nine-month fellowship program at the Halcyon ArtsLab in Georgetown. He’ll be at the By the People Festival this weekend sharing the fifth installment of a contemporary dance work he developed called “Night Light: Half-World,” a work in progress.

The 30-year-old Landover, Md., native calls it a “meditative, contemporary dance

and movement piece that explores the concepts of witnessing and being witnessed.”

“Through his work, O’Meally expresses his belief that knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom,” a press release for the performance states. “With this idea in mind, he searches for the power within introspection and vulnerability in the dancing African-American body as a means of transcendence.”

It will be performed on Saturday, June 22 at 7 p.m. at the Smithsonian’s Arts+Industries Building (900 Jefferson Dr., S.W.). Details at bythepeople.org.

O’Meally’s parents were house dancers in New York in the ‘80s so he grew up around dance. He started in theater but moved to dance when he discovered he “can’t hold a note to save my life.” “So You Think You Can Dance” became an “obsession,” he says. He specializes in what he calls “contemporary modern moving toward a post-contemporary context.”

O’Meally moved to Baltimore in 2015.

He’s single and enjoys wine, reading, TV, time with friends and family and movies in his free time.

How long have you been out and who was the hardest person to tell?

I’ve been out since I was 18. Honestly, it was difficult to tell my mother but, the hardest person to tell was myself. I think it’s hard for us to see ourselves with deep compassionate clarity. When you know what you are and what you are not, there is beautiful but terrible power in that. And at the time I didn’t k now what to do with that power.

Who’s your LGBTQ hero?

I am really in awe of the everyday, college night- and Sunday brunchhosting drag queen. There is a fearlessness that they show by rejecting American social norms. I hope to have that kind of day-to-day courage to stand in my truth.

What LGBTQ stereotype most annoys you?

I can’t really think of one.

What’s your proudest professional achievement?

As an educator, I’m always so proud when I see my students learning and integrating new ideas and concepts.

What terrifies you?

Not living up to my potential. Also, not being able find a partner to share my life with.

What’s something trashy or vapid you love?

Reunion specials for reality TV shows.

Like MTV’s “The Challenge,” “Drag Race” and “Real Housewives of Atlanta.” It’s so messy. Sometimes I don’t even watch the season, just the reunion.

What’s your greatest domestic skill?

I make delicious breakfast sandwiches at 3 a.m. after leaving a club or party.

What’s your favorite LGBTQ movie or show?

“To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything!

Julie Newmar” and “Moonlight” I watch once a month. “Queer as Folk” (American) is my favorite show.

Watching the very first episode was one of the first moments that let me know I liked men. I mean Brian Kinney.

What’s your social media pet peeve?

Being unnecessarily passive aggressive in someone’s comments. If there is an issue, just DM the person.

What would the end of the LGBTQ movement look like to you?

I think when we can lose the letters LGBTQIA+ will let us know that the greater society has stopped seeing us as other. I know its cliché, but just being a person, no labels, is very underrated.

What’s the most overrated social custom?

Small talk. I hate talking about absolutely nothing with someone I don’t know.

Sometimes it’s OK just to be quiet.

What was your religion, if any, as a child and what is it today?

Grew up in a Baptist church. I consider myself to be a Christian though probably not a pious one.

What’s Baltimore’s best hidden gem?

The people in Baltimore are consistently some of the funniest people I have ever met.

What’s been the most memorable pop culture moment of your lifetime?

Beychella/ Homecoming. I don’t have enough words to describe how ridiculous Beyonce and her team are.

They get millions of people to agree on one thing. And they know how to keep a secret.

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INAUGURAL

PARADE & FESTIVAL June 29, 2019 Parade: 12 PM Festival: 12 - 5 PM West Street, Annapolis

What celebrity death hit you hardest?

Brittany Murphy’s sudden death made me sad. I really enjoyed her as an actress. Also, Robin Williams’s death took my breath away.

If you could redo one moment from your past, what would it be?

My maternal grandmother died from pancreatic cancer when I was a teenager. I remember seeing her for the last time and knowing it would be the last time I’d see her alive. I wish I could have said something in that moment to let her know how much I loved her.

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Counterclockwise from left: DIANA ROSS is slated to perform at Wolf Trap on June 27. Photo courtesy Wolf Trap; Three gay men on the beach in the early ‘60s in a still used in the 1984 classic ‘Before Stonewall.

Photo courtesy First Run Features and MAYOR MURIEL BOWSER’s office hosts District of Pride Saturday night. Washington Blade photo by Michael Key.

‘Stop!’ for Miss Ross Legendary Motown icon Diana Ross will perform at Wolf Trap (1551 Trap Rd., Vienna, Va.) on Thursday, June 27 at 8 p.m. She’ll perform hits like “I’m Coming Out,” “Upside Down” and “Stop! In the Name of Love.”

Ross has been identified as a gay icon by most for her trailblazing thoughts on gay marriage, flamboyant outfits and influence on drag superstars like RuPaul.

Only lawn seats are available for purchase and tickets start at $40.

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit wolftrap.com.

Stonewall50 Rally set for June 28

The Pride train keeps chugging!

No Justice No Pride will have its “Stonewall50 Rally+Action to DecrimNow!” event on Friday, June 28 from 4-7 p.m. at Freedom Plaza (1455 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.).

The event is in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and to honor some of its leaders like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. In support of these leaders, organizers are speaking out to decriminalize sex work and their new bill the “Community Safety and Health Amendment Act of 2019.”

For more information, visit nojusticenopride.org/decrimnow.

A bevy of regional Pride events continue the next two weekends.

Frederick Pride is Saturday, June 22 from 11 a.m.- 6 p.m. at Carroll Creek Linear Park in downtown Frederick, Md. Full details at frederickpride.com.

Annapolis Pride parade and festival is Saturday, June 29 at Amos Garrett Blvd. and West St. from noon- 5 p.m. The event will be the city’s first pride and is family-friendly. For more information, visit annapolispride.org/pride-2019.

The Eastern Panhandle Pride and drag show is Saturday, June 29 at the War Memorial Building (102 East German St., Shepherdstown, W.Va.) at 8 p.m. This is a 21-and-up event with performers like Chasity Vain, Butch Kelly and Rya Banks.

Tickets start at $10. To purchase, visit eventbrite.com.

Howard County Pride is the same day from 11 a.m-5 p.m. at Centennial Park (10000 Clarksville Pike, Ellicott City, Md.). Activities will include Jumbo Jenga, button makers, food trucks, magic shows and more. For more information, visit howardcountrypride.org.

Montgomery County will host its first Pride Party 2019 on Saturday, June 29 at Rockville Town Square (200 E Middle Ln.) from 6:30-10:30 p.m. The night will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and will include performances from Miss Peppermint, who was featured on season nine of “Rupual’s Drag Race,” and others.

All proceeds will benefit the MoCo Pride Center and early bird tickets start at $7.50.

For more information, search “MoCo Pride Party” on Facebook.

Winchester Pride is also Saturday, June 29 at the Old Court House at the

3 0 • WAS H IN GTO N B LAD E.CO M • J U N E 2 1 , 2 0 1 9

TODAY

The 18th Street Singers will close their season with “Ties that Bind: Music Traditions from Around the World” tonight at the National City Christian Church (5 Thomas Circle, N.W.) at 8 p.m.

In this spring concert series, singers will “highlight classical and folk traditions to explore musical cross-currents that infuse and connect us all.” The group is a classical chorus that seeks to redefine the genre by performing a diverse selection to draw in a younger and wider audience. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit eventbrite.com.

Queer Girl Movie Night is hosting its June screening tonight at Republic Restoratives (1369 New York Ave., N.E.) tonight from 7:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m. The selected film will focus on the representation of queer womxn in film although the title has not been revealed yet. This is a monthly event featuring different films and seeks to create established inclusive places for queer womxn. It’s free and open to all ages.

Saturday, June 22

Downtown Walking Mall (S Loudoun St.) and kicks off at noon. The second annual Winchester Pride will have guest speakers, a family-friendly drag show, vendors and non-profit organizations to celebrate.

Speakers include John “David” Smith, mayor of Winchester; Jennifer Wexton, representative from the 10th district of Virginia; a conversion therapy survivor and more. For more information, visit winchesterpridecelebration.com.

Restored ’84 doc gets AFI Silver run A newly restored version of the 1984 movie “Before Stonewall: the Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community” from directors Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg, will be screened on Friday, June 28 at the AFI Silver (8633 Colesville Rd., Silver Spring, Md.).

Early LGBT icons such as (the late) Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings are interviewed in the film. It runs June 28-July 4 at AFI Silver. Screening times vary. Visit silver.afi.com for details.

JU N E 21, 2019

Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs will host its second annual District of Pride event at the Lincoln Theatre (1215 U St., N.W.) tonight at 7 p.m. The event will consist of queer artists from the area along with a special appearance by Rayceen Pendarvis, the Empress of Pride and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington.

The office advises the Mayor and D.C. government on the needs of the LGBTQ residents through technical assistance and training. The event is free but registration is required. For more information and to register, visit districtofpride2019. eventbrite.com.

The D.C. Reunion Project presents Thriving with HIV today at the Milken Institute (950 New Hampshire Ave., N.W.) from 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. The event is “a local experience for long-term survivors” living anywhere in the D.C. Metropolitan area and includes a continental breakfast and lunch. The Reunion Project “hosts one-day summits around the country, and is led by a National Steering Committee made up of people living with HIV.” Registration is free and confidential. For more information and to register, visit dcreunionproject2019.eventbrite.com.

Sunday, June 23 Geek Nite Out will host a “Getting Buzzed at Drag Brunch” event at St. Arnold’s Cleveland & The Abbey (3433 Connecticut Ave., N.W.) today at 11 a.m. Before going to see “Toy Story 4,” attendees can enjoy a “one of a kind drag brunch.” The show

• WA SHINGTONBLA DE.COM • 31

starts at 12:30 p.m. but the group will leave around 1:10 p.m. to see the movie at the AMC Loews Uptown 1 (3426 Connecticut Ave., N.W.). Geek Nite Out is a group for people looking to meet new people and sometimes do “extremely geeky things.”

For reservations, visit starnoldsmussel.com.

Dragon’s Breath Yoga (3423 14th St., N.W.) will start its Queer Yoga and Snacks event today from 2-4:30 p.m. The event will consist of 90 minutes of yoga followed with time to meet new people and build connections. Coordinators would like the event to be reccuring every fourth Sunday afternoon and are willing to expand. Tickets are $10 and participants are advised to bring snacks to share. To purchase tickets, visit clients.mindbodyonline.com.

Only One” and “Why Can’t I?” Other songs that will be performed are “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” and “Love Is a Battlefield.”

Tickets start at $35 and doors open at 5:30 p.m. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit wolftrap.com.

UFCW Outreach and NOVA Pride at Work present their Pride movie night event tonight with a screening of “Milk” at 6 p.m. at NOVA Labor (4536 John Marr Dr., Annandale, Va.). “Milk” is a biopic of slain elected official Harvey Milk. For more information, call Frank at 571-278-6186.

Wednesday, June 26

The Songbyrd Music House & Record Cafe (2477 18th St., N.W.) will host an Autostraddle Meetup with queer trivia tonight at 7 p.m. Autostraddle is an online community for lesbian, bisexual and queer women that’s the “most popular lesbian website.” Donations are being accepted and will go to Sylvia Rivera Law Center. To make a donation, visit eventbrite.com.

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton is celebrating pride at Red Bear Brewing (209 M St., N.E.) tonight from 7-8 p.m. She’ll be there to discuss issues concerning the LGBTQ and D.C. community. Congresswoman Norton is a strong supporter of the Equality Act and has recently introduced a bill to ban discrimination of LGBTQ jurors in local D.C. court. To register, visit eventbrite.com.

United Night Out 2019 will be hosted by Federal Triangles Soccer Club tonight from 6-10 p.m. at Audi Field (100 Potomac Ave., S.W.). D.C. United is celebrating its ninth annual Pride Night and a portion of ticket sales supports the club and Team D.C. The first 500 people to purchase tickets through its website will receive a D.C. United pride themed koozie.

Gates open at 5 p.m. and tickets are $30. To purchase tickets, visit offer.fevo.com.

The Lambda Bridge Club meets at the Dignity Center (721 8th St., S.E.) tonight at 7:30 p.m. The club will be playing duplicate bridge games and newcomers are welcomed. The group hosts games every first and third Wednesday of the month and serves gay bridge players. No reservation is required. To find a partner, call 202-841-0279.

NLGJA-D.C., a local LGBT journalism group, has a Pride happy hour tonight at 6 p.m. at Nellie’s (900 U St., N.W.).

Members are non-members are welcome.

Look for the event page on eventbrite. com for details.

Tuesday, June 25

Thursday, June 27

A “POSE” viewing party will be held at the D.C. Eagle (3701 Benning Rd., N.E.) tonight at 10 p.m. This is a weekly event that allows attendees to watch the hit show with two flatscreens. “POSE” is a drama spotlighting the legends, icons and ferocious house mothers of New York’s underground ball culture, a movement that first gained notice in the 1980s. The show was also recently renewed for a third season. To RSVP, visit eventbrite.com Desiree Dik will host drag bingo tonight at 7 p.m. at Red Bear Brewing (209 M St., N.E.). Four games will be played for prizes followed by a drag show. Its free to play and games are held every second and fourth Tuesday of the month. For more information, visit redbear.beer.

Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo will play tonight at the Wolf Trap (1551 Trap Rd., Vienna, Va.) at 7 p.m. The concert will open with Liz Phair and Melissa Etheridge performing their own hits like “I’m The

Reel Affirmations XTRA presents “Rafiki” at Landmark’s E Street Cinema (555 11th St., N.W.) tonight at 9 p.m. Rafiki is a movie about the love story between two young women in a country that still criminalizes homosexuality and forces them to choose happiness or safety. Reel Affirmations XTRA is The D.C. Center’s monthly film series that “keeps LGBTQ images and life stories on the foreground of the Arts and Culture scene.” Tickets are $14.

To purchase, visit dccenter.org/events/rafiki.

Peak Unlimited LLC is hosting an Evaluate & Elevate Business Forum today from 9 a.m.- 2 p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn Fairfax (3950 Fair Ridge Dr., Fairfax, Va.). The event will feature panelists who will evaluate issues within businesses and provide recommendations for elevation.

Peak Unlimited LLC provides “exceptional practical training, brand and business audits. Tickets start at $50. To purchase, visit eventbrite.com.

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VAN HANSIS will reunite with his former ‘As the World Turns’ boyfriend Jake Silbermann next weekend in Washington.

Photo courtesy Hansis

Revisiting soap roots

Gay ‘As the World Turns’ heartthrob known for historic kiss

By CRYSTAL SCHELLE Van Hansis was just barely a year out of graduating from Carnegie Mellon University when he landed the role of Luke Snyder on “As the World Turns.”

From 2005-2010, Hansis stepped into a role that made TV history and gave the Massachusetts native a sold training ground for his career.

Today, with credits in film, offBroadway and the long-running web series “EastSiders,” Hansis will revisit his character Luke for Daytime Pride on Saturday, June 29, at the Human Rights Campaign Equality Center.

Hansis will join fellow daytime drama stars Ryan Carnes, Lucas from “General Hospital”; Camryn Grimes, Mariah from “The Young & The Restless”; Greg Rikart, ex-Leo from “Days of Our Lives”; Jake Silbermann, ex-Noah from “As the World Turns” and Freddie Smith, Sonny from “Days.”

The morning event, which is from 10 a.m.-4 p.m., includes autographs, photo ops, panel as well as a meet and greet. A VIP dinner will be from 6:30-9 p.m. at the Mayflower Hotel. Proceeds from the event will be donated to True Colors United, which assists homeless LGBTQ youth.

When Luke was recast in what’s called “rapid aging” in soaps during which

the character magically becomes an adult overnight, Hansis says writers had already decided his character would be gay. Luke would be one of the first male gay soap opera characters. Whether he was uncomfortable or not to play a gay character so early in his career, Hansis knew he had to take it.

“When you’re an acting , to get an recurring role a soap opera — that was kind of my first on-camera professional job — I was not in any place to turn anything down,” he says during an interview from his homebase of New York City. “Luke was such a rich character and such a wonderful experience I ended up having for five years. It was a blessing.”

The role would earn Hansis three Daytime Emmy nominations.

“He was kind of a brat, but I really liked him,” he says of his character. “His heart was totally in the right place. I played the character for five years, and he grew up into a shipping heir. He was a good kid with a sweet heart who I think was also a little bit self-righteous and self-obsessed, but in spite of some of his negative qualities, he was still a human being. He was just a nice mix. He felt real to me. He felt like a real person.”

And to gay fans across the nation, Luke became one step closer to acceptance. On Aug 17, 2007, the first-ever gay male kiss on American television was aired, which was Luke and Noah Mayer (played by Silbermann, who will also be at the event) on “ATWT.” Luke and Noah shared the first-ever on-screen gay male kiss on an American daytime drama on Aug. 17, 2007.

One of Hansis’ favorite storylines was when Luke and Noah met. Another was when Luke was an alcoholic for a while, also when he got kicked out of college.

“I liked playing him when he was being bad,” he says.

Although Luke came out in 2007, Hansis waited until 2014 to officially come out to his fans during an interview about “EastSiders.” Openly gay in his personal life, Hansis says he was apprehensive about outing himself so early in the career, afraid that he might be stereotyped.

“Back when I started with Luke, and it being my first thing, a lot of people who were telling me, ‘Don’t come out publicly,’” he says. “Even back then, it was a different world, sort of. It was not like it is today, especially for an actor. If you come out gay, you’re only going to play gay for the rest of your life.”

Although it’s well-known that he has been in a relationship with Broadway star Tyler Haines since 2007, Hansis said he likes to keep his private life as private as he can.

“In retrospective, I wish I had come out earlier publicly, but I was out in my private life,” Hansis says. “Even to this day I keep my private life pretty private. I do social media, but I don’t do it a lot. I really try to choose what I put out there about my life because even though I have a public career, I am a private person. I want to stay that way.”

When he came out, he felt like things had changed and “I gave less of a fuck.”

This Daytime Pride event is the second one Hansis has been since “ATWT” ended eight years again.

“It’ll be interesting to try to relive all that stuff. I probably should try to watch it to help remember what I did,” he says, noting it will be nice to see Stilbermann who has remained a good friend. “It’ll be nice to get together a lot of gay characters.

What I like is that it’s specific, it’s not just on a soap opera, but a gay character on a soap opera.”

Since leaving “ASWT,” Hansis has had a varied career. He was cast in 2012 on the dark comedy web series “EastSiders,” which he was also nominated for a Daytime Emmy. The show will enter its fourth and final season this year.

Hansis is proud that he was able to be a part of what has become an iconic LGBTQ role.

“It was a big deal back then. I think almost soap from then on has gay characters now,” he says.

In addition to acting, he has directed a web series called “Ms. Guidance” that has been submitted to several festivals. He also teaches at MN Acting Studio in New York City.

Although a regular at New York Pride, this will be his first time doing anything Pride-related in Washington.

“I plan to do (this event) on Saturday, then Pride in New York on Sunday,” he says. “Then Monday, I’m taking a vacation.”

Daytime Pride Saturday, June 29 Morning event: 10 a.m.-4 p.m..

VIP dinner: 6:30-9 p.m.

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3 4 • WAS H IN GTO N B LAD E.CO M • J U N E 2 1 , 2 0 1 9

Baby surprise

Birth bombshell is central twist in ‘Byhalia, Mississippi’

By PATRICK FOLLIARD

CECELIA WINGATE and JACK FALAHEE in ‘Byhalia, Mississippi.’

Photo by Jeremy Daniel

Evan Linder’s “Byhalia, Mississippi” is a triumphant blend of everyday words and high ideals.

His heart-rending comedy is set a few years ago in the eponymous small town, a place where William Faulkner famously died during a stay at the local sanatorium in 1962 and where 12 years later and less famously, unarmed black suspect Butler Young, Jr. was shot dead by a white policeman.

But the playwright’s focus is on contemporary Byhalia personified by a struggling, young white couple dealing with issues of race, fidelity and trust, while embracing honestly, forgiveness and love.

The Kennedy Center’s production of Linder’s award-winning work (now at the Terrace Theater) co-stars the terrific Caroline Neff as feisty, evolving Laurel Parker and handsome Jack Falahee as Jim, Laurel’s weed smoking, underemployed husband. A vocal LGBTQ ally, Falahee is best known for playing Connor Walsh, a gay character in an interracial relationship with an HIV-positive man, on ABC’s “How to Get Away With Murder.”

When we meet Laurel, she’s very pregnant, but that doesn’t stop her from engaging in a hilarious bicker fest with her opinionated visiting mother Celeste (an uncannily convincing Cecelia Wingate). Their exchange of scathing ripostes appears an old game at which both excel.

Topics are varied: Laurel doesn’t like the way Celeste eats bananas. Celeste can’t bear that her daughter has left comparatively cosmopolitan Jackson for Byhalia where she lives in a messy prefab ranch house set on cinder blocks with her underwhelming spouse.

While Laurel can pick a fight, she can also end it. Declaring she and Celeste were never meant to be roommates, she sends her mother packing, promising to beckon her back once the baby is born.

Jim has cheated. Laurel is no angel either.

But after a wild youth, she seems to have put her life on track. Deeply in love, expecting a baby, working at the local high school, she is happily living a disorderly life of which her mother doesn’t approve, but it’s her plan

and she’s sticking to it. However, things go abruptly awry when the couple’s longed for baby is — to everyone’s surprise — black.

The reaction is fast and far reaching.

Just when Laurel is at her most vulnerable, her nearest and dearest pile on. Celeste reacts: “Please tell me you were raped.” Usually passive Jim decamps to the home of his AfricanAmerican buddy Karl (played with nuance by Blake Morris), and Laurel’s longtime AfricanAmerican frenemy, Ayesha (strongly assayed

by Aimé Donna Kelly) pays a visit designed to rub Laurel’s nose in her current situation. Both Laurel and Ayesha followed their husbands to Byhalia but with different results. Well dressed in heels, black designer dress and status bag, Ayesha exudes confidence. Secure and ostensibly happy as wife and mother, she comes bearing old and new resentments as well as a suggestion that Laurel leave town.

But Laurel has other plans. They involve loyalty to people. And, oddly enough, to her husband’s hometown, Byhalia, Mississippi.

In a uniformly top-notch cast, Caroline Neff stands out as Laurel, believably bringing to life a strong but vulnerable, rough yet refined heroine. Similarly, Cecilia Wingate persuasively relays Celeste’s many contradictions.

New York director Kimberly Senior helms a design team in creating a vivid world that extends no further than a cramped interior, accessible rooftop and side yard. It’s a place defined by the sounds of birds, passing cars, believable street clothes and clutter; a place where Jim’s framed Ole Miss jersey holds a place of pride in the living room and Laurel’s Scrabble game is stored under the coffee table. It’s lived in and it’s home.

‘Byhalia, Mississippi’ Through July 7 Terrace Theater The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts 2700 F St., N.W. $25-89 202-467-4600 kennedy-center.org

JU N E 21, 2019 • WA SHINGTONBLA DE.COM • 35

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MADONNA taps eclectic and varied influences for her new album ‘Madame X.’ Photo courtesy Interscope

‘X’ marks the spot for daring new Madonna album

Multicultural musical patchwork her best effort in years

By ROBBIE BARNETT

Madonna’s new album “Madame X,” released June 14, is many things — an alter ego, a love letter to Portugal, a multicultural musical patch work, a wild and daring musical experiment and also her best effort since “Confessions on a Dance Floor” (2005).

“Madame X is a secret agent,” she says.

“Traveling around the world. Changing identities. Fighting for freedom. Bringing light to dark places. She is a dancer. A professor. A head of state. A housekeeper.

An equestrian. A prisoner. A student. A mother. A child. A teacher. A nun. A singer.

A saint. A whore. A spy in the house of love.”

The nickname was given to her by famed dance instructor Martha Graham, who was her teacher at 19, because she would come to class each day with a different identity.

Clearly that moniker stuck with Madonna and through Madame X, she remains a

creative force with something to say.

The opening track is the Latin-infused “Medellin” featuring Colombian rapper Maluma. When compared to the other offerings on the album, this comes off as one of the weaker tracks. Why this was released as the lead single is as big a mystery as to why Madonna has chosen to wear a diamond-encrusted eye patch as high fashion. But since it’s been a national pastime to question or criticize Madonna’s choices, fans have learned to buckle up and weather the ride with her, for better or worse. Perhaps it’s fitting that she sings “Let’s take a trip” in this opener because that is exactly what’s in store.

As the “cha-cha-cha” of Medellin fades into the bleak start of “Dark Ballet,” Madonna sings with forceful confidence about how she can dress like a boy and dress like a girl and, ironically, how our

world is “obsessed with fame.” It then takes an abrupt left turn into a cascading piano solo that spills right into an electronic rendition of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite.”

Where is this going? Her bizarre tongue-in-cheek declamation midway through asks, “Can’t you hear outside of your Supreme hoodie, the wind that’s beginning to howl?” We’re not done.

It then make a swift U-turn back to the original composition and quietly ends with Madonna imitating the wind by repeatedly blowing air from her lips because “the storm isn’t in the air, it’s inside of us.”

Provocative pop art brilliance or extreme hot mess? Whatever it is, the song (and accompanying music video) is a bold statement of extreme artistic expression unprecedented by Madonna and is the first of several standout tracks.

Much like “Dark Ballet,” “God Control” starts off slow, but soon switches gears with colorful twists and turns before coming to an exhilarating end.This is arguably the best track on the album. “Everybody knows the damn truth/Our nation lied and lost respect,” Madonna sings through gritted teeth (or was she just wearing her grills?) and “I think I understand why people get a gun/I think I understand why we all give up.”

While no stranger to political commentary on past projects, the stark frankness in these lyrics make the statements from “American Life” sound like “Like a Virgin.” When it breaks into a church choir singing “We lost God control,” a breath can barely be caught before jumping into an infectious swirling disco beat perfectly fit for dance floor consumption, all while Madonna repeatedly urges us to “wake up.” When she whispers, “everybody knows the damn truth,” it sounds incredibly similar to her 2001 club hit “Impressive Instant” from “Music.” These elements successfully blend together to produce her best dance track since “Hung Up.” If “Music” and “American Life” had a baby with “Confessions on a Dance Floor” as its stepmother, it would be the mid-tempo treasure “I Don’t Search I Find.” There are strong references to her 1991 single “Rescue Me” due to carefully placed finger snaps and assertive spokenword verses during the bridge before exclamations of “Finally enough love.”

The comparisons to her earlier albums are easily made due to the heavy presence of Mirwais Ahmadzai, who produced and co-wrote six tracks on “Madame X,” five tracks “Music,” and virtually everything on “American Life,” which makes “Madame X” feel like the third entry in an album trilogy.

“Crave” (with Swae Lee) is the most radio friendly of the pack, which is why it is currently climbing Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart. Unlike “Medellin,”

where Maluma’s solo parts dominate, the contributions of Swae Lee are evenly placed and end up as the best vocal collaboration on the album.

“Crazy” is the unexpected earworm of “Madame X.” When, if ever, have you heard an accordion in a pop song outside of a Weird Al parody? The chorus pounds into your head in a good way and at one point Madonna sings “I bent my knees for your like a prayer” which is not the only “Like a Prayer” nod within this album.

“Batuka” and “Faz Gostoso” are the most notable examples of the influence Portugal has injected into Madonna since she moved to Lisbon early last year. With thundering drums and an eclectic mix of instruments and voices courtesy of Afro-Portuguese group Orquestra de Batukadeiras, “Batuka” comes off like a fabulous jam session. Madonna sings “Get that old man/Put him in a jail.” Is she talking about Trump? One can only assume as much. “Faz Gostoso,” which in Portuguese translates to “makes delicious,” features Brazilian singer Anitta. It is not quite as good as “Batuka,” but still fun.

While nothing completely falls flat, there are some tracks that don’t shine as brightly as others. “Bitch I’m Loca” (not to be confused with “Rebel Heart’s” “Bitch I’m Madonna”) is the first that comes to mind. Did we really need another flirty collaboration with Maluma? The reggae-drenched “Future” (released as a promotional single last month) has Madonna trading verses with American rapper Quavo.

While not entirely out of place nor as unnecessary as “Bitch I’m Loca,” it remains a shadow to the light of the other tracks surrounding it. “Killers Who Are Partying” enters martyrdom territory with lyrics like “I will be gay if the gay are burned” and “I will be Islam if Islam is hated.” It goes on and on, ending with “I’ll be a woman if she is raped and her heart is breaking.”

The empowering album closer “I Rise” was, in Madonna’s own words, written “as a way of giving a voice to all marginalized people who feel they don’t have the opportunity to speak their mind. This year is the 50th anniversary of Pride and I hope this song encourages all individuals to be who they are, to speak their minds and to love themselves.” Not without political commentary, the track opens with the voice of Parkland school shooting survivor Emma Gonzalez.

The deluxe edition includes bonus tracks “Looking for Mercy” and “Extreme Occident,” while the deluxe box set further includes “Funana”, “Back That Up to the Beat”, and “Ciao Bella,” The most interesting of the bonus tracks is “Funana” where late icons Whitney Houston, George Michael, Prince, and Aretha Franklin (among others) are name dropped in a “Vogue”-style memoriam.

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From top: SEAN DOOLITTLE is passionate about LGBTQ rights. Photo by Kevin Majoros Adidas cleats Sean Doolittle decorated for trans and gay rights. Photo by Sean Doolittle

Doolittle does much

Ally and baseball pro channels activism down to his cleats

By KEVIN MAJOROS

JU N E 21, 2019 • WA SHINGTONBLA DE.COM • 37

When Washington Nationals ace relief pitcher Sean Doolittle travels to away games, he uses his free time to hunt down local, independently owned bookstores.

He posts his findings on his Twitter feed to help raise awareness for the oftentimes struggling bookstores.

Small bookstores are one of the many causes locally and nationally that Doolittle has taken under his wing. In mid-May, he sat down with his wife Eireann Dolan and turned his attention to another cause they both advocate for – LGBTQ rights.

With Pride season approaching, Doolittle and Dolan put their heads together to come up with an idea that would be a monthlong celebration.

“Pride Nights at Major League Baseball stadiums are awesome, but I wanted to take things up a notch,” Doolittle says. “We thought about it and I decided I wanted to do something different and visual, something with my spikes.”

The couple found an art supply store while in Cincinnati, checked the paint markers to match the thought process and returned to the hotel where Doolittle sketched out ideas.

His adidas game cleats would soon become a canvas to reflect his support.

On June 1 at Pride Community Night at the Cincinnati Red’s Great American Ballpark, Doolittle debuted his red adidas cleats that he had hand-painted with the trans flag on his right shoe and the rainbow flag on his left shoe.

“The way my spikes are designed, they have the three adidas stripes on each shoe,” Doolittle says. “I sketched out a couple designs before I started painting to orient the colors on the shoes.”

Doolittle took to Twitter to show his support. He has dubbed himself Obi-Sean Kenobi Doolittle under the account name, @whatwouldDOOdo: Happy #Pride to my LGBTQ friends and family — we love you, support you and we’re grateful for you. I’m proud to celebrate and stand with you because everyone deserves to feel safe and free to be who they are and to love who they love.

Love is love.

On June 4 at Night OUT at the Nationals at Nationals Park, Doolittle was once again in his painted cleats and this time he was sporting a Nationals-branded rainbow shirt under his Nats uniform. He was also a part of the pregame activities honoring LGBT people including former Congressman Barney Frank.

“The paint has been chipping as I wear them, so I have been touching them up.

It’s been a labor of love,” Doolittle says. “I have received compliments on them from my Nats teammates and they have asked about the trans flag. It’s a small thing, but representation matters.”

The gesture continues efforts that Doolittle and Dolan started in 2015.

They received national attention that year when they purchased hundreds of tickets to the Oakland Athletics Pride Night after the event received backlash from fans. The tickets were donated to local

LGBTQ groups and an additional $40,000 was raised.

Doolittle was traded from the Oakland Athletics to the Washington Nationals in July, 2017. He eloped with Dolan one day after the regular baseball season ended that year.

Local LGBTQ youth leadership and housing program SMYAL caught the attention of Doolittle and Dolan and they have made multiple onsite visits to the SMYAL youth program’s headquarters and the SMYAL transitional housing program.

Dolan, who has two moms, became a SMYAL board member in 2018 and two-time Major League Baseball All-Star Doolittle, was the cover story of last year’s Washington Blade Sports Issue.

Doolittle will be at one more Major League Baseball Pride Night on June 29 for Pride in the Park against the Miami Marlins at Marlins Park. At both the Pride Community Night in Cincinnati and at Night OUT in Washington D.C. against the Chicago White Sox, the Nationals picked up wins and Doolittle stepped in for the save.

In both games he also managed to obtain a game ball, and both balls have been authenticated with a hologram sticker by Major League Baseball. The plan is the same for the Miami game.

The baseballs and the cleats will then be auctioned off to benefit SMYAL. “I know all the conversations about rainbow capitalism, you know it’s out there.

I want to use my platform to promote inclusivity and acceptance and drive some traffic for SMYAL,” Doolittle says. “What adidas did recently was an example of when giving back comes full circle. And that’s really cool.”

While adidas does sell a Pride line of clothing called Love Unites, to celebrate Pride this year, the company donated $250,000 to The Trevor Project, the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ young people.

“Baseball and sports can be a vehicle that creates change. There are people who don’t feel welcome in sports and we want them to feel welcome,” Doolittle says.

“There are people on the inside (of sports) that love them and support them. At the end of the day, it is what I stand for and what I believe in.”

Last Saturday was “Star Wars” Day at Nationals Park and the first 10,000 fans received a limited-edition Obi-Sean Kenobi bobblehead. Doolittle is a “Star Wars” fanatic and the bobblehead is an incredible likeness of him in a Jedi robe with a blue light saber. He calls the theme day “one of my favorite days of the year.”

Doolittle’s passion for inclusivity and acceptance has been mostly supported by his fans and he has received only a small amount of backlash. His Twitter post on June 1 about the cleats had some negative comments which have since been deleted.

“We are seeing less of those comments every year,” Doolittle says. “I hope that means we are making a difference.”

Northern Virginia Celebrates the 50th

FR

EE

Ev

en

t!

Anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising that launched the LGBT revolution

Join Us!!

Stonewall 50 Panel Hosted by Falls Church News-Press & Social Justice Committee of Falls Church and Vicinity

Transition trauma Masc trans memoir poignant but bogged down by mega detail

Sunday, June 23 @ 4 p.m.

Falls Church Episcopal Church 115 E. Fairfax St, Falls Church Reception at Clare & Don’s Beach Shack to follow.

Featuring: * Virginia State Del. Danica Roem * FCNP's Nick Benton, Co-Founder Gay Liberation Front, 1970 * F.C. Presbyterian's Diana Maloney * Don Davenport, He Was There!

Photo courtesy Greystone Books

Moderated by: The Washington Blade’s Lou Chibbaro Paid for by Benton Communications, Inc.

SET SAIL FOR ADVENTURE!

BLACKBEARD

Photo of Elan Zafir and Kevin McAllister by Christopher Mueller

The High Seas Musical Comedy

June 18 – July 14 Pride Night: June 28

Looks aren’t everything.

There’s a good chance someone’s reminded you of that fact at some point during your dating years: the outside pales in comparison to the inner person you love.

Appearance rarely matters, except, as in the memoir “This One Looks Like a Boy” by Lorimar Shenher, to the one who lives with it.

At 4 years old, Lori Shenher knew that lining up with the girls in kindergarten was somehow wrong. She wasn’t a girl; she belonged with the boys.

That wasn’t the first inkling that something was different about her; even her grandma had pointed out Lori’s appearance. Indeed, Lori did look like a boy and as she grew, things got more complicated. As often as possible, she dressed in boys’ clothing or androgynous fashion because girls’ clothes felt like a lie.

She was OK with people thinking she was a boy, but it also made her uncomfortable.

She was a teenager before she learned that there were people like her and she devoured information about Renée Richards and Christine Jorgensen. During a summer job, she met a trans man and was fascinated.

Was it possible that she might someday do what they did? Thinking that scared her.

To help deal with her feelings, Shenher threw herself into sports and attended college in Calgary, then in Alberta, on scholarship, where she was a shining star on the basketball court. After sustaining several painful injuries, she began drinking heavily and was later diagnosed with depression, which she seemingly carried with her when she gave up a journalism career to move to Vancouver — first to check out a transgender clinic, then to apply for work with the Vancouver police force.

And life settled down. Shenher met a woman she loved and they had a commitment ceremony. They started a family though, hard as she tried to tamp them down, those old familiar feelings of inadequacy and misery kept nagging at Shenher’s mind.

The idea of transitioning was terrifying.

But then, so was the idea of living as a woman for the rest of her life.

First thing you need to know: “This One Looks Like a Boy” is detailed, which can be both good and bad.

Author Lorimer Shenher begins with his birth and recounts his life story in plodding, almost year-by-year detail that often seems more tangential than not. Yes, that’s entertaining for awhile but don’t be surprised if you eventually find yourself skimming paragraphs in search of more action.

And yet, this book is one of the better, more definitive explanations of the feelings of isolation that trans individuals might experience and one of the finer accounts of the do-I-ordon’t-I swings that sometimes linger without resolution. Shenher’s words ache and readers are made clear on what it’s like to know/not know how to decide, man or woman.

Read or not? Ultimately, it’ll come down to your tolerance for story activity: “This One Looks Like a Boy” doesn’t have much of it. For the right reader, though, it’s still worth a look.

‘This One Looks Like a Boy: My Gender Journey to Life as a Man’

By Lorimar Shenher Greystone Books $26.95 304 pages

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3 8 • WAS H IN GTO N B LAD E.CO M • J U N E 2 1 , 2 0 1 9

Quality and speed Brit chain LEON thriving, expanding stateside

By EVAN CAPLAN

GLENN EDWARS moved to the U.S. from London to help launch LEON stateside.

Photo courtesy Carlen Dickerson

In subtle but steadfast British fashion, the London-based restaurant chain LEON is intent on redefining fast food.

Not fast casual, the fertile ground that nurtures Chipotle and Cava, but “authentic” fast food, that of the mealdeal variety, where the time it takes from placing a combo order of a burger, side and drink from its delivery to your mouth is short and sweet, and, according to LEON, less than 60 seconds.

It’s also run by a leadership team with significant gay representation.

John Vincent founded LEON (leon. co) in 2004 in England. The company now boasts 60 restaurants across six countries.

Its dishes are Mediterranean inspired with British touches. The menu is unfussy and straightforward with significant vegan representation. Wraps, burgers and “hot boxes” (protein, rice and salad) dominate; the most exotic dishes stretch not far beyond a halloumi sandwich, a fried fish wrap and a citrusy pea salad. Customers order at a counter and food arrives in compostable paper containers and sleeves. While allergens are listed and respected, customization is not recommended.

Lunch is brisk business. Last year, LEON landed in the U.S., choosing to plant its first seed of the new fast food right in Farragut Square. It already plans two more stores in Washington this summer, with several more in the works.

“As children, we considered fast food the biggest treat imaginable,” Vincent says.

“But then we grew up, and realized that most fast food doesn’t make you feel good or help you live well. So, we asked ourselves why can’t fast food be good food?”

Consultants who traveled extensively, Vincent and co-founder Henry Dimbleby consumed fast food, but not the kind of food they wanted to eat. They set about to make their own, bringing on famous chef and broadcaster Allegra McEvedy to oversee the

menu and round out the trio of co-founders.

The LEON founders were not content with a British empire. They wanted to spread the good-fast-food gospel to the United States, and tapped Glenn Edwards, who decamped to D.C. from London to dethrone the Golden Arches.

“America is home to fast food. We want to disrupt that,” Edwards says.

Edwards is also gay, and he and his partner have permanently settled in Logan to be part of the American invasion.

“We chose D.C. because it models London very similarly from a demographic and psychographic perspective. We really like the people, the energy and the diverse food scene. It’s a fun place to be, which was important to us starting LEON here,” he says.

When crafting his team, Edwards set out to make it the inclusive place that made him feel so at home at LEON in the first place.

“I wasn’t out when I first started in the restaurant industry, but that was never a problem at LEON,” he says.

In fact, McEvedy, though no longer with LEON, left her mark on the firm as an out lesbian in a leadership role.

“LEON has always had a very accepting culture,” Edwards says. “Allegra, one of our founders, is gay, and that always set the scene of acceptance and inclusion from our early beginnings.”

Today, three senior members of the U.S. leadership team are gay. Over the recent Capital Pride, the LEON team took to the parade to hand out rainbow temporary tattoos; anyone sporting it up to two weeks after Pride gets free coffee.

It’s this philosophy of acceptance and forward thinking that allows LEON to continue to grow in its specialty space.

“Our food keeps you from having to choose between quick and good for you,” Edwards says. “It’s food that makes you happy, recreates nostalgic moments, yet fast.”

JU N E 21, 2019 • WA SHINGTONBLA DE.COM • 39

‘HELLO, DOLLY’ IS MAKING PEOPLE CRAZY HAPPY! BETTY BUCKLEY JOINS THE PARADE AND THE PLEASURE OF IT DOESN’T PASS US BY. A WARM AND ROSY DOLLY, SHE SINGS WITH HER ACCUSTOMED POWER AND POLISH.

Betty, don’t go away again!

THE WASHINGTON POST

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VW TIGUAN SEL PREMIUM $38,000 MPG: 21 city/29 highway Zero-60 mph: 8.2 seconds Fully redesigned last year, VW’s tony Tiguan mirrors the Jetta sport sedan on the front end and the newish Atlas SUV everywhere else. While this compact crossover is not as Herculean as the Atlas, the Tiguan is almost a foot longer than the previous version, making it ideal now for stowing cargo or adding optional thirdrow seating.

VW also took a lesson from the Asian automakers, offering an upgraded warranty policy with some of the longest coverage in the business. Gas mileage from the new four-cylinder turbo (the only engine available) is surprisingly good, though the tradeoff is less power than before. Luckily, paddle shifters help, providing a nice boost when passing pokey Sunday drivers.

Another plus: All-wheel drive helps grip the road in dicey weather. Sure, the base-model starts at just $25,000, but the high-end SEL Premium — even though it costs another $13,000 — is still more affordable than many rivals. Inside the cabin, there’s plenty of Audi flair, including two-tone, faux-leather seats, a flat-bottom steering wheel and a space-age digital gauge cluster that can be customized for each driver.

There’s also a 480-watt, nine-speaker Fender premium stereo and smartphone integration for Apple Car Play and Android Auto. The most surprising feature: An enormous panoramic sunroof, which makes this crossover feel like a ritzy fourdoor convertible.

BMW X4 M40i $61,000 MPG: 20 city/27 highway Zero-60 mph: 4.2 seconds

From top: VW TIGUAN SEL PREMIUM, BMW X4 M40i, and MERCEDES GLE 450

The getaway car Three new Euro models perfect for vacation season

By JOE PHILLIPS Finally, it’s time for summer vacay.

Whether trekking to Rehoboth, P-Town or anywhere in between, getting away from it all can be super smooth, especially in a Euro ride that can tackle autobahns and the Alps.

Stepping up from the VW Tiguan to the BMW X4 M40i means plunking down extra cash — lots of extra cash. But then, this high-end hauler looks more like a spirited sports coupe than a classic crossover.

That’s because of the low-slung profile and a rakish roof that slopes sharply into the liftgate.

Even though the chassis sits close to the ground, the seat position is higher than in most passenger vehicles. That means good driver visibility, at least when looking forward. The slanted roofline reduces rear visibility and cargo space. It also impedes backset headroom. But this is the only real dilemma of style over substance.

Otherwise, the X4 is finely tuned, with choice of two stellar engines: four-cylinder turbo in the base-model or a strapping sixcylinder turbo in the high-test M40i. Smoosh the gas pedal and the M40i roars down the road as fast as a Porsche Cayman sportster.

Downshift and there’s a thrilling backfire of crackles and pops from the exhaust.

As for safety features, a head-up display also indicates the speed limit, a helpful feature for lead-footed drivers.

The steering wheel vibrates to warn you if a vehicle gets too close to your blind spot. And the forward-collision warning automatically applies the brakes if you don’t react fast enough.

If you ever are in a crash, this BMW automatically calls for help. What the X4 doesn’t do is integrate Android Auto, though it does support Apple CarPlay, but only for the first year, after which you have to pay a subscription fee. That’s a real bummer.

On the plus side, the infotainment system sparkles, with a large 10.25-inch touchscreen sitting atop the dashboard.

Sure, there’s a 360-degree parking camera that shows the vehicle from above. But this system also renders three-dimensional images to view the vehicle as if you were, say, standing on the sidewalk or across the street and watching your vehicle navigate in and out of the parking space.

That’s plenty cool. So is the ability to login to a BMW app and view 3D images of everything happening around your vehicle when you’re not there.

MERCEDES GLE 450 $63,000 MPG: 19 city/24 highway Zero-60 mph: 5.3 seconds For even more glam, consider the Mercedes GLE 450. Using the same design manual as the BMW X4, the sleek styling on this crossover evokes a sport-coupe vibe. Yet instead of a dramatically angled roof, Mercedes uses a bit of smoke and mirrors (or smoky glass, actually) to make the cargo area fade into the background and showcase the slanted rear roof pillars.

The result is not only twice as much cargo room as the X4, but also more headroom and legroom for rear-seat passengers. Of course, this also makes the Mercedes about 800 pounds heftier than the BMW, which hinders fuel efficiency and acceleration a smidge. But handling and braking are just as good. And Mercedes can’t seem to help itself when offering over-the-top options, including four-zone climate control, soft-close doors and an air-purification system that zaps nasty smells before they enter the cabin and can even emit your favorite fragrance.

The ambient lighting system, with a dazzling choice of 64 colors, will flash blue or red when you adjust the climate control temperature. And a 13-speaker Burmester sound system flawlessly mimics any type of acoustics, from concert hall to rock concert. There also are two, 12.3-inch display monitors on the digital dashboard: one for the speedometer, odometer and other assorted driving gauges, and the other for the exquisite infotainment system.

Operating so many high-tech gizmos can be overwhelming and, at times, less than intuitive. And yet, for most luxury buyers, my guess is these glitzy amenities will be hard to resist.

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Full name: Matt Howe Occupation: Social Media Favorite local restaurant: Commissary Favorite local bar/lounge: Bar Dupont Favorite vacation spot: Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica Favorite Charity: Washington Animal Rescue League Favorite thing to do on a weekend: Take photos of our cats

Full name: Dan Adler Occupation: Commercial Real Estate Favorite local restaurant: Floriana Favorite local bar/lounge: Dito’s Bar at Floriana Favorite vacation spot: Burning Man Favorite Charity: University of Virginia Favorite thing to do on a weekend: Watch a movie at home

Matt & Dan are wearing the latest items from the Summer 2019 collection.

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Don’t give up on that New Year’s resolution Now is the perfect time to get started on your home search

By TEDDY ROJANADIT

We’re almost halfway through 2019 and, by now, most of us have given up on those New Year’s resolutions we all set in January. Going to the gym every day?

Nope. Switching out that piece of cake for some fruit? Sometimes. Buying a new home? Not yet. Although we may not be able to help with your fitness goals or lessen that sweet tooth, we can definitely assist with your home purchase.

It’s not too late to purchase a new home in 2019. In fact, now is the perfect time to get started. Luckily for buyers, interest rates are still historically low. As UrbanTurf reported on June 6, mortgage rates actually fell to their lowest levels in almost two years. For buyers, this means you have increased purchasing power and less of your monthly mortgage payment goes toward interest. Additionally, some buyers may qualify for special programs that can really help make homeownership more affordable including DC Open Doors, Mortgage Credit Certificate (MCC), Home Purchase Assistance Program (HPAP), and DC Tax Abatement. By working with a local lender and an experienced Bediz Group agent, we can figure out the best financing options for your home purchase.

Want another reason to not give up on this resolution? NET WORTH! Every month you pay rent, you are actually paying a mortgage — someone else’s. Turn those monthly payments into YOUR greatest asset. According to the 2017 Survey of Consumer Finances, the average net worth of a renter is $5,200, while the average net worth of a homeowner is $231,400. That’s 45X more. The same study also noted that

Did you resolve to buy a house this year? It’s not too late.

Photo by bangoland; Courtesy of Bigstock

between 2013 and 2016 the average net worth of homeowners rose 15%, while it fell 5% for renters. Let us help you increase your net worth and build wealth through real estate.

Another perk to homeownership? You can have the same predictable monthly payment for the length of the loan. No more worrying if your rent will increase at the end of the lease or moving from rental property to rental property trying to save a few dollars. Plus, you get to make it own.

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Pick your paint colors, hang your artwork, and settle into YOUR new home.

Don’t forget about the great tax benefits too. As a homeowner, you get to deduct your property tax and mortgage interest from your taxes. As a renter, your landlord gets to take full advantage of this benefit.

Why wait? Let’s cross this New Year’s resolution off your list and get you into the home of your dreams. Give me a call at 202-664-3736 or email teddy@bediz.com.

Also, follow me on IG at @teddydcrealtor.

Teddy Rojanadit is a Realtor with Bediz Group, LLC at Keller Williams Capital Properties. Bediz Group has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and 5-star reviews on Zillow, Realtor.com & Yelp. They were the winner of the Washington Blade’s Best Real Estate Team in 2015 and 2017. For more information on how Bediz Group helps its buyers find the home of their dreams, please visit bediz.com/buyers.

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