Washingtonblade.com, Volume 51, Issue 35, August 28, 2020

The most pro-gay president in American history?

More unhinged GOP claims as convention wraps, Pages 11 & 16

AU GUST 2 8 , 2 0 2 0 • VOLUME 51 • IS S UE 35 • WA S HINGTO NB L A D E. CO M

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Retired D.C. Police Lt. Parson blasts NYPD union for endorsing Trump Gay retired D.C. Police Lt. Brett Parson, who served as commander of the department’s Special Liaison Branch which oversees the LGBT Liaison Unit, has released a statement denouncing the union representing rank and file police officers in New York City for its decision to endorse the re-election of President Donald Trump.

Patrick J. Lynch, the leader of the Police Benevolent Association, which represents 24,000 NYPD officers, released his own statement on Aug. 16 saying the endorsement came at a time when police are under attack across the country and “neighborhoods are being ripped apart by violence and lawlessness.”

Added Lynch, “Most politicians have abandoned us, but we still have one strong voice speaking up in our defense,” he said, referring to Trump.

Parson, who operates a law enforcement consulting service, said in his statement that the action by Lynch and the PBA leadership “has further jeopardized the safety of every private citizen and Police Officer in the USA.” He added, “This endorsement symbolizes a massive middle finger to the millions of Americans who fear or hate the police. By endorsing Trump, the leadership and members of NYPD PBA have said loud and clear, ‘We don’t care what you think. We are untouchable,

more powerful, and only care about our wealth and safety.’”

Parson concluded his statement by citing the late civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.’s statement that a “riot is the language of the unheard.”

“If a riot is a fire, those responsible for dousing those flames and saving lives just poured fuel upon it and stand chanting, ‘Burn baby Burn.’

I am ashamed of my brothers and sisters in blue.”

LOU CHIBBARO JR.

Delaware returned to D.C. ‘high-risk states’ list The D.C. Department of Health on Monday added Delaware to its current list of 30 high-risk states for COVID-19, two weeks after it had removed Delaware from the list that identifies states from which D.C. residents or visitors must self-quarantine for 14 days upon their arrival in D.C. for non-essential travel.

Similar to its earlier statement on Aug. 10 announcing Delaware had been removed from the high-risk state list, DOH’s latest statement on Aug. 24 says Delaware and two other states – Hawaii and South Dakota – were added to the list because their seven-day moving average of daily new COVID-19 cases reached 10 or more per 100,000 persons.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser issued an order last month establishing the quarantine requirement for visitors coming to D.C. or D.C. residents returning to the District from a high-risk state in an effort to curtail the spread of the coronavirus. The DOH has said it will update the list every two weeks and that the next revised list will be released on Sept. 7.

Travel to and from Maryland and Virginia is exempt from the mayor’s order.

Delaware’s placement on the city’s high-risk state list was expected to impact many D.C. residents, including LGBTQ residents, who own second homes or who are regular visitors to the popular Delaware resort city of Rehoboth Beach and other Delaware beach areas. Rehoboth officials have said D.C’s placement of Delaware on the list was expected to further impact the beach city’s hospitality businesses that have been suffering from the COVID pandemic since early spring.

“Anyone coming into Washington, D.C. from a high-risk state (within the prior 14 days) who was traveling for non-essential activities will be required to self-quarantine for 14 days from their arrival in the District,” the DOH statement released on Monday says.

“Individuals traveling from high-risk states after essential travel or arriving in the

BRETT PARSON said the action by PBA leadership ‘has further jeopardized the safety of every private citizen and Police Officer in the USA.’ (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The Purple Parrot is open in Rehoboth and observing strict social distancing protocols. D.C. residents who visit the resort town will have to quarantine for 14 days. (Photo by John Bator)

District for essential travel are required to self-monitor for symptoms of COVID-19 for 14 days and, if they show signs or experience symptoms of COVID-19, they are to selfquarantine and seek medical advice or testing,” the statement says.

LOU CHIBBARO JR.

Two gay candidates enter race for D.C. school board The number of out LGBTQ candidates running in D.C.’s Nov. 3 general election for public office other than Advisory Neighborhood Commission positions rose from two to four since July 31 when two gay men entered the race for seats on the nonpartisan, ninemember elected D.C. State Board of Education.

Mysiki Valentine, whose campaign website says he has taught and mentored students and teachers for over a decade, is one of six candidates running for the sole at-large seat on the Board of Education. According to his website, he “aspires to be a positive role model and advocate for D.C.’s youth – especially young black and gay men.”

Allister Chang, an education advocate who recently completed projects as a Visiting Researcher at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s Institute for Lifelong Learning, is one of six candidates running for the Ward 2 seat on the Board of Education. He is running to replace gay Ward 2 incumbent school board member Jack Jacobson, who chose not to run for re-election.

Chang said that among other things, he is “committed to working on improving how schools provide mental health resources and services for all students, and to ensure that school mental health professionals are properly prepared on working with LGBTQ youth.”

Jacobson will leave office in January after serving two four-year terms as the Ward 2 school board member. He served two years as president of the board. He told the Blade 0 6 • WA SHIN GTO N BLADE.COM • AUGUST 28, 2 0 2 0 • LO CA L NE WS

he decided to take a break after eight years of service on the board and a five-year tenure before that as an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner.

Last month out gay Ward 6 Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Alexander Padro announced his candidacy as an independent for one of two at-large seats on the D.C. Council up for election this year. Padro is one of 25 candidates running for the two at-large seats. Under D.C. election law, a Democrat can only hold one of the two seats.

Padro is among 21 independent candidates running for the so-called non-Democratic seat. Incumbent Democratic Council member Robert White is considered the strong favorite to win re-election to the seat for which a Democrat, independent, and any other party member is eligible to hold.

Gay Ward 2 Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Randy Downs is among five candidates running for the Ward 2 D.C. Council seat. Downs is also running as an independent. Among his four competitors is Democratic incumbent Brooke Pinto, who won the Democratic primary and a special election to fill the seat until January after longtime incumbent Jack Evans resigned following an ethics investigation.

In upcoming stories on the D.C. election the Blade will cover Advisory Neighborhood Commission races where more than a dozen LGBTQ candidates will be on the November ballot.

LOU CHIBBARO JR.

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New D.C. HIV cases decline by widest margin in 5 years: report City offering free home test kits to counter decline in clinic visits

By LOU CHIBBARO JR. | lchibbaro@washblade.com

The number of new HIV infections reported in D.C. in 2019 declined by 16 percent from 2018, the largest decline over the previous five years, indicating the city’s HIV prevention efforts are moving closer to achieving Mayor Muriel Bowser’s goal of ending the AIDS epidemic in the nation’s capital, according to a report released last week by the D.C. Department of Health.

The 2019 HIV data, which also show ‘Our goal of ending the HIV epidemic in D.C. is the city has met the mayor’s goal not yet done,’ said Mayor MURIEL BOWSER in a of ensuring that 90 percent of city statement. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key) residents with HIV know their HIV status by 2020, were released on Aug. 20 as part of the health department’s annual 2019 HIV, Sexually Transmitted Disease, Hepatitis, and Tuberculous Epidemiology and Surveillance Report.

The report shows the number of newly diagnosed HIV cases in D.C. decreased from 335 in 2018 to 282 in 2019, a 16 percent drop. The report notes that the 2019 figure of 282 new HIV cases represents a 79 percent decline from the 1,374 new cases reported in 2007.

DOH officials have said the decline in new cases appeared to have leveled off and reached a plateau between 2015 and 2018 when the number of new cases remained relatively stable. From 2015 to 2016, the new cases went from 399 to 379, a 5 percent decrease. The number of new cases from 2016 to 2017 dropped from 379 to 371, a decline of just 2 percent.

The new cases from 2017 to 2018 went from 371 to 335, a 9 percent decrease, the DOH report shows.

According to DOH officials, including DOH Director Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt, the 16 percent decline from 2018 to 2019 is an indication that stepped up efforts are working to encourage people to seek out the HIV prevention drug known as PrEP and for people who are HIV positive to become virally suppressed through medication that’s 99 percent effective in preventing transmission of the virus to someone else The report released last week says that among the D.C. residents newly diagnosed with HIV in 2019, 59 percent were “virally suppressed” with medication within 90 days of their diagnosis. It says that was an improvement from the 45 percent that were virally suppressed within 90 days after diagnosis in 2018.

“However, this indicates that not enough people are getting on HIV treatment timely to attain viral suppression,” a DOH statement accompanying the release of the report says.

DOH Officials said HIV data for 2020 will not be released until August of 2021. But the officials nevertheless disclosed they observed a downward change in the number of people being tested for HIV from 2019 to the first half of 2020.

Michael Kharfen, senior deputy director for DOH’s HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, STD, and TB Administration, told the Washington Blade that DOH has found that fewer people in D.C. in 2020 have been tested for HIV compared to this time last year.

Kharfen said restrictions and concerns related to the coronavirus pandemic are believed to be the main reason fewer D.C. residents are showing up this year at HIV testing sites offered by DOH, private community clinics, or doctors’ offices. He said DOH has responded to this development by offering free home HIV test kits to anyone who requests them by contacting DOH online or by phone.

Kharfen said the free test kits can be obtained through a special DOH website at: getcheckeddc.org.

“Our partnerships with the community have continued to yield promising results to both stem and reduce new HIV cases, while also delivering better and more efficient treatment to residents living with HIV,” Mayor Bowser said in the DOH statement.

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WILLIAM BOYD WHITTAKER, JR.

Comings & Goings Whittaker launches District Home Pro

By PETER ROSENSTEIN 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 William Boyd Whittaker, Jr. on opening his new business, District Home Pro, which offers investigative home inspections appropriate for many phases of an upcoming real estate transaction. During an hour-long walk-and-talk inspection, they provide you with information about the property that is tailored to help you make an informed offer. At a full inspection, they prepare an itemized report of existing issues that need attention so that you and your real estate professional can decide the next steps to successfully negotiate the best terms for the purchase of your new home. Previously, he apprenticed with Home Authority in D.C. He said, “I am thrilled to start a business in the area I have called home since I first moved here in 2000. In order to successfully transition from a long career in nightlife hospitality, I have spent several years studying the proper construction and maintenance of homes in the area. Sharing my knowledge with home buyers in the area will be a fulfilling next step in my professional life.”

Whittaker is licensed in Maryland and Virginia and is a member of the American Society of Home Inspectors and the International Association of Certified Home Inspectors.

Many may know him from his work in various nightlife spots in D.C. He has his bachelor’s from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Md., majoring in Classics and Comparative Literature with minors in Philosophy and the History of Mathematics and Science.

Exciting news from the LGBTQ Victory Institute, which recently announced it has launched a bold new initiative asking the next presidential administration post-Trump to appoint LGBTQ candidates for open spots in the administration including seats in the next Cabinet, on the Supreme Court and in other high-ranking leadership positions at the federal level.

Annise Parker, president & CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Institute, said, “Our appointments objectives are bold, but reasonable. The transformation in America’s electoral politics – with LGBTQ people being elected up and down the ballot – should be reflected in the next administration’s appointments process as well. America is ready for its first Senateapproved Cabinet member, first U.S. Supreme Court justice, and ambassadors that reflect the diversity of the LGBTQ community. And we stand ready to support the next administration in appointing them.”

The Presidential Appointments Initiative – first launched by Victory Institute during President Bill Clinton’s administration – achieved unprecedented success under President Barack Obama, who appointed approximately 330 LGBTQ people, the most in history.

Of those, 158 were assisted by the Presidential Appointments Initiative. It coordinated with the transition team, developed relationships with key officials and built a reputation for putting forward qualified candidates that excelled once appointed. LGBTQ people interested in a presidential appointment in the next administration can learn more about the Presidential Appointments Initiative and share their resumes at victoryinstitute.org/PAI. The Comings & Goings column looks forward to being filled with announcements of those members of the LGBTQ+ community who will be appointed to a Biden/Harris administration.

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New Orleans shelter to be ‘forever home’ for homeless trans people House of Tulip grew from coronavirus relief effort

By MICHAEL K. LAVERS | mlavers@washblade.com

NEW ORLEANS — Transgender activists are working to open a shelter for homeless trans and gender non-conforming people in New Orleans.

Milan Nicole Sherry, co-director of House of Tulip, told the Washington Blade on July 27 during an interview at her Uptown New Orleans home that she expects the shelter will open in the city next spring or summer.

“We wanted to create a forever home for our community, a space where there were no barriers, a space where they could actually come and get the resources that they need, get the love and nurturing that they need,” said Sherry as her husband, Za’hair Martinez, listened.

Sherry and Mariah Moore, a trans activist who also lives in New Orleans, first came up with the idea that became House of Tulip — Tulip is an acronym that stands for Trans United Leading Intersectional Progress — earlier this year after the coronavirus pandemic largely shut down the city’s hospitality and tourism industries.

“Many of the folks within our community, specifically transgender and non-conforming people who work in the service industry in New Orleans found themselves at risk of losing their jobs,” said Sherry.

House of Tulip Treasurer Dylan Waguespack is also the president of Louisiana Trans Advocates’ board of directors.

Waguespack and three other activists in March created the TGNC Peoples COVID Crisis Fund of Louisiana to help trans and gender non-conforming people in Louisiana pay for food, medication and housing during the pandemic. The fund has raised more than $20,000, but Sherry told the Blade it soon became clear the lack of housing in New Orleans was a long-term problem.

House of Tulip on its website notes a third of trans people in Louisiana “report experiencing homelessness at some point in their lives.”

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development notes the average rent for an apartment in the New Orleans metropolitan area during the first quarter of this year was $1,110 a month. The U.S. Census notes New Orleans has a 24.6 percent poverty rate.

Sherry noted poverty rates are even higher among the city’s Black trans residents. She also told the Blade they are more vulnerable to discrimination and violence because of their gender identity.

Louisiana’s hate crimes law includes sexual orientation, but not gender identity. Two Black trans women — Draya McCarty and Shakie Peters — were found dead earlier this summer in Baton Rouge and Amite City respectively.

“There’s no reason why, even in 2020, that we are seeing the amount of homelessness that we’re seeing in community,” Sherry told the Blade. “There’s no reason why in 2020 we should still be seeing the amount of violence that we’re seeing in this community, but we’re here and this is where we’re at.”

Sherry said GED and job training programs and access to mental health care are among the additional services to which House of Tulip clients will have access.

“This is not just providing folks with just housing,” she said, noting Tulip in the shelter’s name stands for Trans United Leading Intersectional Progress.

The GoFundMe campaign that House of Tulip has launched has thus far raised $412,995. More than 7,000 people have donated to the effort.

“Community has always taken care of community; we have done it since 50 years ago when Stonewall first started,” said Sherry. “Community has always taken care of community; even through times of pandemic, even through a time of Trump … we’ve always shown up for one another, so I’m not surprised that this community has really shown up once again and yet again.”

‘I have nothing to lose, but everything to gain’

Sherry, 29, grew up on New Orleans’ West Bank with nine siblings.

She told the Blade she grew up in a “dominantly male household.”

“I grew up with dealing with a lot of misogyny, toxic masculinity and things of that nature,” said Sherry.

Sherry in 2009 graduated from high school. Sherry the following year became a founding member of BreakOUT!, a group that, among other things, works to end police harassment of LGBTQ youth.

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MILAN NICOLE SHERRY, co-founder of House of Tulip, at her home in Uptown New Orleans on July 27, 2020. (Washington Blade photo by Yariel Valdés González)

“There was literally a time here in New Orleans where you could not walk down the street as a Black trans woman without literally being snatched off of the streets and then thrown into jail and charged with solicitation of prostitution, crimes against nature,” she said. “It was so easy to target and literally harass our community.”

Sherry further noted “as a trans woman, even in my moments where I could have gotten damn near the dog shit beaten out of me, I will not call the police because I had known just from experience … that calling the police did not work out in our best interests.”

“Police, you know, were just never our friends,” she added.

Sherry celebrated her 29th Birthday on July 23.

She told the Blade she was unable to celebrate previous Birthdays because she either could not afford it or was in jail. Sherry also noted a Black trans woman’s average life expectancy is 35 years.

“I have never envisioned myself where I am today,” she said. “To be honest I didn’t expect myself to be alive.”

Sherry said she on Tulane Avenue eight years ago with other trans women and sex workers. Sherry told the Blade she and other tenants paid rent to their landlord by the week.

“Literally when I say I have nothing to lose and everything to gain, I have nothing to lose, but everything to gain,” she said.

Sherry, who lives with HIV, told the Blade she has also struggled with addiction and mental health issues.

“If I wanted to be a bitch, I can justify about all of the trauma and just, but when you know better you do better,” she said. “I’m not going to cause the same harm that’s been caused over and over and over again.”

Martinez, a native of St. Augustine, Fla., who describes himself as a “trans masculine man,” praised his wife and Moore for their work on House of Tulip. Martinez also applauded trans women who supported him in his life.

“They are the ones who paved the way for me to be Za’hair,” he said. “It’s only right for me to follow the leadership of my wife and Mariah and to have their back.”

GOP convention reaches out to gays, bashes trans people

Log Cabin project seeks to duplicate success of Grenell video

By CHRIS JOHNSON | cjohnson@washblade.com

Much has changed since 1992, when Pat Buchanan used the stage of the Republican National Convention to demonize LGBTQ people. The event in 2020 avoided antigay animus and reached out to gay voters, although the transgender community remains in the GOP’s crosshairs.

The Republican Party is making some overtures to gay voters, most notably with plans at the largely virtual event for an openly gay speaker, a vague reference from a highprofile Republican congressional candidate and undoing its decision to renew an anti-LGBTQ platform.

Richard Grenell, who has the distinction of being the first openly gay Cabinet member after Trump named him acting director of national intelligence, was set to address the Republican convention on Wednesday night.

He’ll be the third openly gay speaker at a Republican convention, following former Rep. Jim Kolbe in 2000 and entrepreneur Peter Thiel in 2016.

In terms of gay visibility, Grenell will be filling the role Thiel played at the 2016 Republican convention, although he indicated on Twitter his focus would be foreign policy and not innovation.

As the Trump administration official who in his dual capacity as U.S. ambassador to Germany spearheaded its global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality, that topic may well be a component of his speech as well as his own identity as a gay conservative.

Sean Parnell, a Republican congressional candidate in Pennsylvania who landed a high-profile spot Monday at the convention, made a vague reference to gay people when arguing communities traditionally affiliated with Democrats, but disaffected by the party, should come to the other side.

Parnell, among other things, called for people to join Republicans regardless of “who you love” — a term of art Democrats have used in the past to incorporate the gay community into speeches.

“It doesn’t matter what you look like, who you love, how you worship, your gender or your job,” Parnell said.

“If you are a traditional Democrat who has become disillusioned with how radical your party has become, then stand with us! You are most welcome. America needs all her patriots to rush to her defense.”

The Republican National Committee also changed course amid consternation over its decision last month to renew its 2016 platform — which included anti-LGBTQ planks, including an endorsement of a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage, opposition to transgender people using the bathroom consistent with their gender identity and veiled support for widely discredited gay conversion therapy.

Instead of creating a new 2020 platform, the Republican National Convention adopted a resolution to support Trump’s second-term agenda, blaming the media for distorting coverage on its renewal of the 2016 document in lieu of the platform committee meeting during the coronavirus pandemic.

While the convention may have eased up on gay

people, the transgender community wasn’t so lucky.

Cissie Graham Lynch, granddaughter of evangelist Billy Graham, lambasted Democrats for supporting transgender youth in her remarks, drawing attention to Obama-era regulations allowing transgender kids to use the restroom consistent with their gender identity, which the Trump administration revoked.

“Democrats pressured schools to allow boys to compete in girls’ sports and use girls’ locker rooms,” Lynch said.

Lynch praised Trump for his anti-trans reversal, saying once he came to the White House, he “withdrew the policies that put our little girls at risk.”

Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of GLAAD, said Lynch’s remarks are evidence the Republican convention “seems to be embracing a theme of weaponizing religion to discriminate against LGBTQ people.”

“Cissie Graham Lynch is sadly not alone in her bigoted, inaccurate beliefs, as the Trump administration has been working hand-in-hand with anti-LGBTQ activists like her from day one,” Ellis said in a statement.

Grenell video inspires more There’s plenty more where that video of Ric Grenell calling President Trump the “most pro-gay president” ever came from.

Six more, in fact, according to Charles Moran, managing director of Log Cabin Republicans, whose organization produced the first video, and continues to shrug off assertions it inaccurately maligns Joe Biden as anti-LGBTQ and trumpets President Trump as a hero to the community.

“We’ve got about another six videos in the hopper,” Moran said in an interview Tuesday. “Not Ric, but other people who are gay conservatives and then lending their voice to our effort, articulating their message.”

Grenell was the star of the first video, but Moran said the upcoming six videos will be different.

Some will be of notable LGBTQ conservatives, some will be a montage of the larger LGBTQ conservative community, Moran said.

“We’ve actually sourced a larger community of gays and lesbians and encouraged gay conservatives to actually send us video of them being outspoken on telling their stories about what it’s been like for them to try to present an opposing viewpoint in their friend circles, or on campuses or in their social networks,” Moran said.

But Moran is keeping mum about the identities of the participants. When asked who exactly would be featured in the final videos, Moran said he doesn’t have a final list of participants.

It’ll be a tough act to follow — both in terms the slick presentation of the Grenell video and its visibility. The Grenell video had 6 million views as of Tuesday, Moran said. That’s in no small part a result of Trump himself retweeting out the video last week, saying the praise he received from Grenell was his “great honor.”

Grenell in the video makes the case Trump is an ally the LGBTQ community and Biden has worked to harm it, despite long records from both suggesting the opposite is true.

“There are millions of patriotic gay Americans who are sick of being told to sit down and shut up by those who want control us, those who are afraid of our voice,” Grenell says in the video, hinting at more videos to come from Log Cabin.

Log Cabin seeks to duplicate the success of the RICHARD GRENELL video with additional clips. (Screen capture via Twitter)

The videos are part of the new Outspoken project — a new media platform Log Cabin is gearing up to launch the same week as the Republican National Convention takes place.

A few recent posts on the Outspoken website criticize the left for coming after gay YouTube personality Randy Rainbow for 10-year-old jokes about race and gender, hail the establishment of Trump Pride as an official Trump campaign project and lambast the Human Rights Campaign for snubbing Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to endorse her Democratic challenger Sara Gideon.

The project, Moran said, is intended to be a forum not only for gay conservatives, but also the “larger LGBT community to engage with conservatives and Republicans,” who have said their voices are being silenced in cancel culture.

“We knew that the one common theme that we as LGBT conservatives have had is that, especially over the last four years of President Trump’s administration, is we believe that the left has actually tried to cancel our voices,” Moran said. “We talk about cancel culture, we talk about diminishing diversity and thought and it just kind of became clear that we needed to create that space for gay conservatives to have a voice to get that voice out there.”

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LGBTQ Democrats want to do more than defeat Trump

Gay Supreme Court justice, Cabinet member among goals

By CHRIS JOHNSON | cjohnson@washblade.com

The perspective there’s more to electing Biden than getting rid of Trump stands in Jason Rae, who as the first openly gay secretary for the Democratic National Committee contrast to the general public, according to a recent survey from the Pew Research Center made his national debut last week reading the roll call for states in the formal nomination of made public last week.

Joe Biden, has a personal anecdote to tell about the presidential nominee.

A majority of Biden supporters — 56 percent — say their top reason for backing the When Rae was in a different role as a page in 2003 for the U.S. Senate, Biden, then a U.S. candidate is “He is not Trump.” Other factors, including leadership, personality and policy, senator representing Delaware, introduced Rae to an important visitor. didn’t even break 20 percent.

“Then Sen.-Joe Biden came and said, ‘Hey, For Trump supporters, the reasons for backing hey, come here, I got to show you something. I him were more spread out: 23 percent cited want you to meet somebody,’” Rae said. “And he leadership, 21 percent cited policy, 17 percent came and introduced us to the Dalai Lama. Here’s said he’s for American values. “He is not Biden” a 16-year-old kid — fresh in D.C. from Wisconsin came in at 19 percent. for me — and here’s the senator who is wanting Glen Paul Freedman, an Atlanta-based gay to make sure that we get these experiences and delegate for the Democratic convention, said having such interest in that.” getting rid of Trump is “a top priority,” but “it’s In addition to his duties as DNC secretary, Rae not just so much” that goal, citing among other was one of 635 LGBTQ delegates to last week’s issues the president’s authority to appoint 2020 Democratic National Convention. An justices to the Supreme Court. uncommitted delegate representing his home “There’s other things that are outside LGBTQ state of Wisconsin, Rae hails from Glendale, Wis., rights, whether it be for you know personally for a suburb of Milwaukee and just outside the city health care, or just in a society that treats people where the half-virtual, half-live convention took with dignity and respect,” Freedman said. place.

With Biden continuing to lead in the polls For many Biden supporters across the country, against Trump, LGBTQ advocates are also the goal for the election is simple: Defeating beginning to pile on the demands they want to President Trump and removing him from the JASON RAE read the roll call as DNC secretary and LGBTQ delegate. see upon election of the Democratic nominee to White House. Rae, however, said from his (Photo by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons) the White House. perspective there’s more to it.

The LGBTQ Victory Institute, which trains Rae, now 33, said the election for him is LGBTQ political hopefuls and seeks to ensure LGBTQ people obtain appointments in the about making sure “we’re really going to move our country forward on a number of issues, U.S. government, identified last week four specific goals for the next administration. including LGBTQ rights.”

• Appoint a Senate-confirmed openly LGBTQ Cabinet member for the first time; “I know Joe Biden’s still gonna push to pass the Equality Act within his first 100 days, • Nominate an openly LGBTQ U.S. Supreme Court justice for the first time; reverse Trump’s ban on transgender military service, really push in a holistic way,” Rae said. “I • Appoint openly LGBTQ woman ambassadors, LGBTQ ambassadors of color, and think the Biden-Harris administration understands that LGBTQ equality is a civil rights issue, transgender ambassadors for the first time; and and that they are going to take the concerns of our community forward.”

• Ensure openly LGBTQ people receive equitable representation among presidential Rae is among LGBTQ delegates who spoke to the Washington Blade and said they don’t appointees and that they reflect the full diversity of the LGBTQ community. just want the election to be about getting ridding of Trump and anticipate results once Annise Parker, former mayor of Houston and CEO of LGBTQ Victory Institute, said in a Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris are elected. statement a coalition of 31 organizations will support the effort.

Earl Fowlkes, a D.C.-based gay Black activist and chair of the Democratic Party’s LGBTQ “Presidential appointees have tremendous influence over the policies and direction of Caucus, said “of course there’s more” than beating Trump and making that case will be a federal agencies and the executive branch, so it is essential LGBTQ people are included winning element to Biden’s election. both in high-level positions and throughout the next administration,” Parker said. “There is “I think we made a mistake in 2016 of believing saying that I’m not Trump is a winning an LGBTQ person qualified to fill nearly every position in the next administration and this formula,” Fowlkes said. “People have to have a reason to vote. It’s not just because of Trump coalition is determined to help them navigate a complex appointments process to ensure and who he is, but because of what we offer in response to Trump’s policies. We’re offering we are well represented.” comprehensive inclusive policies that will lift up all Americans, especially those who are Democrats are making promises they plan to deliver. Among them is Rep. David Cicilline most vulnerable, such as our transgender sisters and brothers and people who are poor.”

(D-R.I.), who was among the high-profile speakers at the convention’s LGBTQ Democratic Fowlkes also said promises from Democrats have to be more than just talking points and caucus last week. must be acted upon swiftly in the next administration.

Cicilline in his remarks envisioned passage of the Equality Act, legislation that would “It has to be really instituting policy changes, and in the first 100 days of the administration,” update the Civil Rights Act to expand the prohibition on anti-LGBTQ discrimination under Fowlkes said. “It has to happen.” the law.

The 635 delegates at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, which includes 30 “With Joe Biden as our president, it will become the law of the land, so this is an important transgender delegates, make up a sizable portion of the 3,979 delegates who are part of election for our count,” Cicilline said. “It is not an understatement to say our very democracy the event. depends on it, but our community has a special interest in this, because we can elect a It’s also the most LGBTQ delegates ever at a Democratic convention, and by a sizable president and a vice president who have a long record committed to full quality for our margin: In 2016, for example, the number was 515, and in 2012 the number was 550. community, and we’re fighting against a president who has in every way undermined full Fowlkes conceded his interaction with the LGBTQ caucus was limited because of the equality.” virtual nature of the convention, but was hopeful it would nonetheless infuse delegates with Other high-profile speakers at the LGBTQ caucus were Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, enthusiasm just before the election. who represents the largest city to elect an openly LGBTQ mayor, as well as lesbian Sen. “We won’t have these huge rallies when you’ll be able to say the candidates all fell flat, or Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.). The virtual caucus had 5,390 page there’s a lot of enthusiasm people are carrying more than they’re sure before,” Fowlkes said. views from 3,050 unique devices, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee “We don’t have that so we’re gonna have to do really one-on-one and use social networks told the Blade. to really drill down deep and convince queer people to vote.”

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Fight against HIV/AIDS ‘goes across party lines’ Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón and former U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) on Monday stressed the fight against HIV/AIDS remains a bipartisan issue.

“This is a health issue,” said González during a Zoom call that AIDS United organized. “This is not about a certain group of the community. This is not about a specific gender. This is about health care. This is about health.”

González is a Republican nonvoting member of the U.S. House of Representatives who is a member of Puerto Rico’s pro-statehood Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón New Progressive Party. California and former U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) (Photo of González Colón public domain; Blade photo of Ros-Lehtinen by Michael Key) Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who chairs the Congressional HIV/AIDS Caucus, late last year named González co-chair of the group.

González on Monday said more than 40,000 people in Puerto Rico live with HIV. She also noted she and Lee in March introduced a bill that would repeal laws that criminalize people with HIV/AIDS and discriminate against them.

“This is something that goes across party lines,” she said. “This is something that affects everybody … we should be doing something about it.”

Ros-Lehtinen, who was born in Cuba, in 1989 became the first Latina elected to Congress. She represented portions of South Florida in the House until her retirement in 2019.

Ros-Lehtinen co-chaired the Congressional HIV/AIDS Caucus until Lee named González as her successor.

“Jenniffer understands the issue,” said Ros-Lehtinen on the call, referring to González.

Ros-Lehtinen acknowledged the HIV/AIDS pandemic has “heavily impacted” South Florida.

Service providers in South Florida with whom the Blade recently spoke said the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated existing health and economic disparities for people with HIV/AIDS. Puerto Ricans with HIV/AIDS have struggled with the same disparities that Hurricane Maria, which devastated the U.S. commonwealth in 2017, and the current pandemic have made more acute.

González herself announced hours after she participated in the AIDS United call that she had tested positive for coronavirus.

Ros-Lehtinen noted she and Lee had vastly different positions on a variety of issues, but “on this subject and on many other subjects, there are no party labels.”

“You have the disease, there’s no discrimination,” said Ros-Lehtinen.

González agreed.

“I believe in equality,” she said. “I’m living in Puerto Rico where 3.2 million Americans are disenfranchised. They cannot vote for president. They cannot vote for their senators. They don’t have equal representation in Congress. I can’t be selecting how equality is going to be defined or what issues are equal or what not.”

“Equality is equality,” added González. “Health care is equality and in that sense I should be representing my island and all the people, including the people with HIV.” The AIDS United call coincided with the first day of the Republican National Convention.

President Trump in his 2019 State of the Union address vowed to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic within a decade. Advocates with whom the Blade spoke at the time expressed skepticism and noted, among other things, Trump in 2017 abruptly fired all members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/ AIDS without explanation.

The Trump administration’s record on LGBTQ rights issues has been sharply criticized. Outgoing Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced, who is a member of González’s party, has also faced intense criticism from activists in the U.S. commonwealth and elsewhere over her administration’s LGBTQ rights record.

Ros-Lehtinen on the call noted former Vice President Biden, like Trump, has also pledged to end the HIV epidemic.

“This is a human issue,” said Ros-Lehtinen. “It’s not a Republican problem or a Democratic problem.

We’ve got to come together to solve it.”

AIDS United President Jesse Milan, Jr., who has lived with HIV for 38 years, agreed.

“Ending this epidemic is clearly a bipartisan issue,” he said.

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Coronavirus reveals disparities for Floridians with HIV FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — HIV/AIDS service providers in Florida say the coronavirus pandemic has further exacerbated health care and economic disparities that many of their clients face.

Tatiana Williams is the co-founder and executive director of Transinclusive Group, a Fort Lauderdale-based organization that serves transgender people in South Florida. Williams is also the co-chair of South Florida FLUX, which advises AIDS Healthcare Foundation on trans-specific issues.

Williams told the Blade during a telephone interview from Fort Lauderdale the pandemic “just really highlighted some of the challenges that are happening within the transgender community.”

“A lot of our clients were already dealing with unemployment, dealing with a lack of access to health care, dealing with a lot of these issues,” she said.

Williams said her organization’s Transinclusive Emergency Crisis Fund has been able to provide clients emergency housing and a host of other services that include help paying utility bills and medications.

“You had a lot of our clients working in these nightclubs that were closed down, so a lot of them immediately went into a position of survival mode and not having access to a lot of things,” she said. “With COVID, it just turned their lives upside down.”

Williams said problems with Florida’s unemployment system delayed payments to many Transinclusive Group clients who lost their jobs because of the pandemic. Williams told the Blade they “were behind” once they began to receive unemployment checks, and this delay created “gaps” in their medications.

“A lot of health care providers weren’t working at full capacity,” she said. “A lot of them weren’t even returning calls, so a lot of the clients, especially HIVpositive clients, hadn’t received care, so we had to go into the telemedicine mode and we were linking people back to care.”

Other HIV/AIDS service organizations in Florida have made similar adjustments in response to the pandemic.

Arianna Lint is a Peruvian woman with HIV who founded Arianna’s Center, a Wilton Manors-based organization that serves trans women with HIV. She told the Blade during an interview at her office the pandemic has made her organization’s work “more difficult because we have (had) to invest more time” with teaching clients how to use technology to access health care. Lint said Arianna’s Center has also had to visit clients at their homes.

Stephen Fallon, co-founder and director of Latino Salud, another Wilton Manors-based organization that serves LGBTQ Latinos with HIV, during a July 23 Zoom call with other HIV/AIDS service providers that AIDS Healthcare Foundation organized said the majority of health care providers in his area remained open “to some extent” during the lockdown imposed when the pandemic began. Fallon said testing agencies were closed during this period.

“We were getting deluged with all the folks who needed testing services who couldn’t go anywhere,” he said.

Scott Pridgen is executive director of AH Monroe, an organization that serves people with HIV/AIDS in the Florida Keys.

AH Monroe has offices in Key West, Marathon, Tavernier and Key Largo.

Pridgen told the Blade during a telephone interview from Key West the pandemic has forced his organization to operate its offices virtually, “which is new because a lot of our case management, especially our older population that is living with HIV have other co-morbidities that require more of a physical, hands-on type of care versus doing it virtually.”

“We’ve had to take that into consideration,” said Pridgen.

The pandemic began during the height of the Keys’ tourism season, which Pridgen said is “when people make their money to carry them through during the slow season.”

MICHAEL K. LAVERS

D.C. COUNCIL AT-LARGE 2020 CANDIDATE FORUM Moderated by Rayceen Pendarvis and Krylios Tuesday, September 15 Tuesday, September 22 Tuesday, September 29 7-8:30 PM ET Streaming live on Facebook For more information, visit washingtonblade.com/atlarge2020

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KEVIN NAFF is editor of the Washington Blade. Reach him at knaff@ washblade.com

Gay Republicans a disgrace to an otherwise united community Grenell, Kabel going down with Trump’s sinking ship

How to explain the unlikely, perverse phenomenon of a gay Republican in 2020?

Delusion? Denial? Blinded by privilege? Daddy issues rendering them subservient to Master Trump?

Whatever the underlying issue, it’s truly sad to watch the once respected Log Cabin Republicans sink into further irrelevance. From Rich Tafel and Patrick Guerriero to R. Clarke Cooper and Patrick Sammon, Log Cabin has been led over the years by smart, committed advocates working to change the Republican Party from within. Whatever your views on the GOP, it’s important to fight from the inside, whether it’s inside political parties, organized religions, or sports leagues, to bring about change.

But 2020 is no ordinary year and Donald Trump is no ordinary president. Anyone who defends Trump’s indefensible behavior is lying to themselves. There’s no excusing racism, sexism, and transphobia. There’s no looking the other way when Trump allows his buddy, the murderous Vladimir Putin, to put bounties on the heads of American soldiers. And there’s no justification for snatching screaming toddlers from RICHARD GRENELL their mothers’ arms and locking them in cages.

Trump is running a criminal enterprise out of the people’s house; Steve Bannon is just the latest senior Trump official to be charged with felonies. What the hell more do people need to see to conclude that Trump is unfit for office, incapable and incompetent, and likely to leave Washington in handcuffs?

Despite the overwhelming and undeniable evidence, these hypocritical gay Republicans continue to carry water for their criminal master. The latest is Ric Grenell, the former acting Director of National Intelligence (key word: acting), who released an unintentionally hilarious video touting Trump as the “most pro-gay president in American history.”

In the Log Cabin-produced clip, Grenell refers to “gays and lesbians,” notably eschewing the more common “LGBTQ.” That’s because while Trump’s attacks on gays and lesbians may be more subtle, his assault on the transgender community is overt and aggressive. From banning transgender service members from the military, to enacting an HHS rule that ends non-discrimination protections for trans patients, Trump has used the transgender community as a punching bag to score cheap points with his bigoted base.

In the video, Grenell criticizes Joe Biden for not congratulating him on his acting appointment. Maybe that’s because the short, temporary, non-Senate-confirmed appointment was roundly criticized by experts in the intelligence community due to Grenell’s stunning lack of experience. “This is a job requiring leadership, management, substance and secrecy,” John Sipher, a former CIA officer, told the New York Times.

“He doesn’t have the kind of background and experience we would expect for such a critical position.” That’s quite the diplomatic understatement.

Grenell touts his experience as ambassador to Germany, another short-tenured post that led to widespread criticism about his inexperience and ham-handed efforts to interfere in internal German politics.

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He references Trump’s purported effort to decriminalize homosexuality around the world, but that effort seems to exist in word, not in deed.

Grenell further criticizes Biden for his past anti-gay positions. Yes, Biden, along with most other Democrats and Republicans, has evolved on LGBTQ issues over the decades (as have a majority of Americans), but we must allow allies to grow, change, and ultimately fight with us.

By contrast, Trump’s assault on LGBTQ equality is long and well documented. From picking the notoriously homophobic Mike Pence — who doth protest too much — as his vice president, to naming a slew of hostile, right-wing judges to the federal bench, to advocating for so-called “religious freedom” carveouts to enable anti-LGBTQ discrimination, Trump has undermined decades of work in just four short years.

Grenell isn’t the only gay toadie still standing in Trump’s corner. Robert Kabel, Log Cabin’s board chair and a former Reagan administration official, this week announced the impending release of his new book. In the press release announcing it, Kabel “is (Screen capture via Twitter) proud to call the GOP the true party of equality—not the Democratic Party.”

Again, these delusional sycophants cherry pick empty Trump gestures to justify their support while ignoring a tidal wave of attacks on LGBTQ Americans. Has Kabel read his own party’s platform?

The 2016 platform was recently re-adopted for 2020. As the Blade reported, “it calls for ending same-sex marriage either through judicial reconsideration or a constitutional amendment, offers veiled support for widely discredited conversion therapy and objects to enforcing civil rights laws to ensure transgender people can use the restroom consistent with their gender identity. Although the 2016 document doesn’t explicitly mention conversion therapy, it includes this line: ‘We support the right of parents to determine the proper medical treatment and therapy for their minor children.’”

Grenell, Kabel, and the rest of Trump’s twisted enablers aren’t just on the wrong side of history, they’re on the wrong side of the law. LGBTQ voters see through these last-gasp attempts by his enablers to hang onto power. From the botched COVID response that has claimed thousands of American lives, to the stoking of racial division and support for white supremacists, to retreating from the climate change fight, and the rolling back of LGBTQ equality, Trump has shown the world he is unfit for the presidency. He knows that clinging to power by any means necessary is the only way he will avoid prison.

Instead of Grenell and Kabel, let’s look to Pete Buttigieg for inspiration. As he put it in his convention speech Thursday night, “I believe in this country because America uniquely holds the promise of a place where everyone can belong. … Joe Biden is right: This is a contest for the soul of the nation.”

Indeed it is. Some of us will emerge with our dignity intact. Others like Grenell and Kabel will have to explain how they sided with a monster who worked to dismantle our government, destroy our democracy, and harm members of our LGBTQ community.

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History offers hope in the midst of rage

Fighting for right to vote is as vital today as it was in 1920 Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part special on the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage.

As I write this, Donald Trump is speaking to the delegates during the Republican National Convention’s roll call. I want (figuratively) to throw something across the room or to go to bed and pull the covers over my head as Trump falsely claims that the election will be “rigged” by fraud from voting by mail.

Fortunately, history offers hope in the midst of rage and hopelessness.

Recently, many of us were thrilled when Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), an LGBTQ ally, became the first Asian-American and Black woman to become the vice-presidential nominee of a major political party in the United States. It was spine-tingling on Aug. 12, the day after Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden selected her to be his running mate, when Harris said she remembered the “heroic and ambitious women before me.”

You can see why this is electrifying (especially to women and girls of color), when you put this milestone in perspective. Besides Harris, only two other women have been major political party vice-presidential nominees in U.S. history (Sarah Palin and Geraldine Ferraro). Women are half of America’s population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Yet, only about a quarter of the members of Congress are women, according to the Pew Research Center. That’s the highest percentage in United States history.

Sometimes, overwhelmed by this sexism, I forget that it’s only been a century since women (too often only white women) have been able to vote in America. One hundred years ago, on Aug. 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment, which was passed by Congress on June 4, 1919, was ratified. On Aug. 26, 1920, Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the 19th Amendment. (Women in a few Western states could vote before the 19th Amendment was certified.)

It’s easy for me to take voting for granted, until I remember my grandmother. Born in 1900, she was among the first generation of women who could vote. My grandma volunteered at the polls on Election Day because, “I was so excited when I first voted,” she told me, “and mad before that. When my older brothers could vote, but I couldn’t.”

Too often, narratives of women’s suffrage have been centered around white, heteronormative, upper-to-middle-class and non-disabled women. We begin to form our understanding of history when we’re in school. Growing up lesbian and loving to wear boys clothes, I never read of anyone like me in stories of how women got the right to vote. And, back in the day, history books were so dry they made Melba toast seem like strawberry shortcake – so exclusive that “The Brady Bunch,” was the paragon of (campy) diversity! Fortunately for kids, teens, and adults, things are changing.

“Finish the Fight!: The Brave and Revolutionary Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote,” by Veronica Chambers and the staff of The New York Times, released on Aug. 18, beautifully illustrated, is a badass, inclusive narrative of women’s suffrage. Though written for kids aged 8-12, the book is engaging and informative for adults. It tells the story of the many queer, Black, Asian-American, Latinx, and Native American women who fought for women’s suffrage. (I wish “Finish the Fight” had included disabled women in its narrative.

Women with disabilities such as deaf journalist Laura Redden Searing and American Civil Liberties Union co-founder Helen Keller supported women’s suffrage.)

People didn’t use the words “lesbian” and “gay” in the 19th century, the authors of “Finish the Fight” say. “But that doesn’t mean,” they write, “that women who loved other women did not exist.”

Angelina Weld Grimké, a suffragist and poet, is among the queer women whose story is told in “Finish the Fight.” Grimké was involved with several young women, including playwright Mary Burrill, the authors report. “They were part of a community of black women,” the authors write.

Now, when Trump threatens to decimate the U.S. Post office so that ballots cast by mail may not count, fighting for the right to vote is as vital as it was in 1920. Celebrating the badass women who fought for women’s suffrage will inspire us to finish the fight.

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PETER ROSENSTEIN

is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.

Trump’s convention: Liars spreading hate

Whatever your party, please vote him out in November Someone kidded after Michelle Obama’s brilliant speech to the Democratic National Convention where she again defended “going high when they go low,” suggesting the incredible commercials of the Lincoln Project “go low so Michelle can still go high.”

Going negative or low against Donald Trump is so easy because he is an openly disgusting individual apparently proud of his rampant racism, misogyny, sexism, and homophobia. Just listen to his older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, to confirm this. His former lawyer is set to release a tell-all book about him and his niece already has. The Lincoln Project’s stunning commercials are clearly getting under his skin. Trump is a congenital liar and willingly lends his support to what Joe Biden called “the darkest elements” in our society and around the world. He defends Neo-Nazis and white supremacists and cozies up to dictators and thugs like Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin.

It is as if he wants to be attacked believing it will generate heightened support from his cult of followers. The definition of a cult being “a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing, a cult of personality, surrounding the leaders.” He enthusiastically attacks anyone if he thinks it gets him a headline and will retweet any outrageous attack or conspiracy theory claiming later it wasn’t him who said it first. He has continued to attack the transgender community trying to keep them out of the military. He attacks women calling them names and using every trope as he did when he called Sen. Kamala Harris a ‘nasty’ woman. He attacks immigrants and puts their children in cages.

Trump continues to undermine the Constitution working to destroy our democracy.

He is as President Obama said ‘kneecapping’ the post office in an effort to keep people from voting and using the Department of Justice, with the assistance of scum like Bill Barr running it, as his personal lawyers to defend his friends and attack his enemies.

In one of his more outrageous statements he defended QAnon “a far-right conspiracy theory alleging a secret plot by a supposed ‘deep state’ against him and his supporters. No part of the conspiracy has been shown to be based in fact.” He said “he didn’t know much about the online community and its followers other than ‘they like me very much.’” He went on to say, “I heard that these are people who love our country. When a reporter partially summed up the conspiracy theory to him — that it revolves around a false narrative that Trump is leading a secret, government-led charge against pedophiles, cannibals and satanic worshippers — Trump responded: “Is that supposed to be a bad thing?” “If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it.” Recently a QAnon candidate, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, won her GOP congressional primary by professing her belief in the QAnon conspiracy and posting racist statements about Muslims, Hispanics and Black people online. When she won Trump tweeted his praise, calling her a “future Republican star.”

Everything I have written in this column is verifiable fact contrary to the lies Trump and his sycophants will have spewed at this week’s convention. Trump will claim he is overseeing a brilliant economy but facts contradict that. According to Reuters: “The U.S. economy contracted at its steepest pace since the Great Depression in the second quarter as the COVID-19 pandemic shattered consumer and business spending, and a nascent recovery is under threat from a resurgence in new cases of coronavirus. The Commerce Department said gross domestic product collapsed at a 32.9% annualized rate last quarter, the deepest decline in output since the government started keeping records in 1947.”

So I question how anyone with a brain, a conscience, empathy or decency would even consider voting for this megalomaniac who is single-handedly destroying our democracy and turning us into the next Belarus. So whatever your party, or no arty, whatever your place on the conservative to progressive spectrum, it is up to you to VOTE to ensure Trump is out of office at noon on Jan. 20, 2021.

JAMES DRISCOLL, Ph.D.

BENJAMIN EGERMAN

is a long time AIDS activist, and a resolute NPR (Never Pence Republican) whose most recent book is ‘How AIDS Activists Challenged America.’

is a librarian and LGBTQ+ historian living in Baltimore. He has provided research to statewide LGBTQ historic preservation initiatives, is currently establishing an LGBTQ oral history archive, and presents on our community’s history across Maryland. He was born and raised in Massachusetts. His views are his own.

Harris should make Pence’s bigotry an issue

Massachusetts turns back clock on gay rights

Of the four candidates seeking our highest offices, the least vetted is Mike Pence. Typically, he’s given a pass, his flaws downplayed or overlooked. A troubling omission considering that Pence has built his political career on defending anti-LGBT bias and bigotry. Indeed, protecting discrimination is the sole area where this consummate yes-man has shown notable leadership.

Pence has staunchly resisted each advance in gay rights, and championed every rollback and restriction. He repudiates same-sex marriage and upholds exclusion of LGBT people as an exercise of “religious liberty.” He opposed repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and favored restoring a full ban on openly gay soldiers. As vice president, Pence has filled the Trump administration with cronies bent on marginalizing gay people and curtailing our rights.

While Pence has not openly supported medically discredited gay conversion therapy, he has never abjured it. The vice presidential debates will give Sen. Kamala Harris a crucial opportunity to smoke him out on this travesty. For starters she could challenge him to join her in pledging his support for a bill to make gay conversion therapy illegal throughout the U.S. If Pence’s stand on conversion therapy remains masked, his worst transgression is blatant.

Pence and his wife Karen educated their children at Immanuel School in Northern Virginia where Karen still teaches. Immanuel boasts draconic anti-LGBT policies that are illegal in 29 states and immoral everywhere. It bars LGBT staff and students, and requires job applicants to agree that marriage unites one man with one woman “in a single, exclusive covenant union as delineated in Scripture.”

Its 2013 website declared: “Homosexual acts and lifestyles are clearly perversion and reprehensible in the sight of God.” The current website bases the school’s anti-LGBT policies on a cherry picked Old Testament verse: “If a man also lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death,” Leviticus 20:13. Stop and think about it. The Pences’ chosen school tells impressionable young children that God wants gay men to be put to death!

Americans need to ask themselves whether a candidate who countenances teaching school children that gay men should be killed is fit to lead our country. The suicide rate among LGBT youth is four times higher than among non-LGBT youth, a prime cause being that they must face the bigotry the Pences labor to protect. Anti-gay bigotry costs America in excess of 2,000 young suicides per year, more than twice the toll of all police killings.

Sen. Harris, don’t let Pence wriggle off the hook. Hold him accountable! He boasts he is proud that his wife Karen teaches at Immanuel; ask him if he is equally proud of the price many LGBT youth pay for her “religious” bigotry.

Some defend the Pences by claiming they “just follow the Bible.” Their devotion to Holy Scripture, however, is highly selective. In respect to LGBT people, they openly disregard Jesus’s core teachings: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and “Judge not that you be not judged.”

Few realize that Karen Pence divorced her first husband, Dr. Steven Whitaker, and then married Mike Pence. Jesus specifically condemns such divorces and remarriages, e.g.

Matthew 5:32, “whosoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” Here’s what Leviticus 20:10 says: “the man that commits adultery with another man’s wife . . . the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” Sound familiar?

Judged by the harsh biblical standards Immanuel School applies to LGBT people, Mike and Karen Pence deserve the same sentence. The Pences’ true Bible, however, is a handbook of political expediency where straight divorce is readily condoned, gay marriage is righteously forbidden, and Jesus’s ethic is utterly forgotten.

In the vice presidential debates, Harris should leave Trump to Joe and the media. Instead, aim her fire at the bigotry and hypocrisy facing her across the stage. The most likely next president after Trump or Biden will be either Pence or Harris. She must demonstrate that she is the better choice. Speaking the plain truth about Pence, Harris can help rescue young LGBT lives while again proving herself a champion of fair play and equal rights for all Americans.

Alex Morse, a 31-year-old gay man, suburban mayor, and congressional candidate in western Massachusetts, has been accused of having consensual sex with other men.

Because of this, the media have forced him to defend his sexual habits in ways no heterosexual man ever has had to or would be. Questions about the power dynamics and ethics of consensual casual sex between gay men several years apart in age have been made into a public concern by debate moderators and journalists.

Perhaps these people were unaware that his opponent, Congressman Richard Neal, claims to have exclusively sought out sex partners who make 70 cents to each dollar he makes, who are subject to forms of discrimination that he is not, and who are encouraged from a young age to see themselves as subservient to men. Maybe they are unaware that these power dynamics describe the romantic and sexual history of most of the men in their newsrooms and in Massachusetts. Or maybe they just see the power men hold over women as natural, and this is a transparently homophobic (and obviously sexist) double standard.

My interest in Alex Morse is not about elections. Certainly the politics are disturbing, but he could be running to be head of a PTA chapter or a union local and I would still feel the same sense of disgust toward politicians and the press in my home state. I would still feel ashamed to be from Massachusetts, as should any decent person.

My interest in Alex Morse is because I am a gay man in his 30s; one who grew up in a family involved in Massachusetts progressive politics, and who wanted to do the same when I was a child. When I first realized I was gay, the idea of being involved in anything high profile became a site of intense fear, pain and depression. The only thing I knew about gay sexuality in the late 1990s was from the kind of misleading, salacious exposés trading in the exact same homophobic stereotypes that news outlets across the Bay State have run in the past weeks. The idea of being in the public eye in any way and being subjected to what Morse is now experiencing — being shamed, forced to defend sexual feelings I was not yet fully comfortable with — was my greatest fear. It scared me into denial and self-loathing for nearly my entire adolescence, into thinking that who I am is something dark and scandalous that would hurt me if anyone ever knew.

I’m very glad not to be involved in electoral politics, but it infuriates me to know that this is happening to other young LGBTQ people. And it’s all because of the shameful behavior of media outlets across the state and the cowardice of supposedly gayfriendly politicians unwilling to make a stir.

My other interest in this is as an LGBTQ historian. In my work, I help others understand the immense damage done to members of our community by entrapment and blackmail schemes like the one run against Morse. This brutal form of homophobic violence relies on and promotes dangerous stereotypes of gay men as sexual predators and pedophiles. It promotes the idea that gay men are incapable of being sexual without exploiting others.

Maybe the Boston Globe is unaware that for decades it and other papers in the area ran articles validating these stereotypes with the exact same formula they are now applying: framing consensual sexual activity as exploitative or criminal, invoking the safety of young people in the abstract, and letting the audience fill in the rest with homophobic tropes of their choosing.

Maybe they don’t understand that this issue is not isolated to Massachusetts. Across the country, every anti-LGBTQ+ hate group and politician is learning how to run homophobic smear campaigns in a way that will receive support in some of the most ‘gay-friendly’ places in the country. We can’t be sure yet what the full implications of this are for LGBTQ+ people in public life, but I bet Mike Pence is dying to find out.

Maybe they don’t realize this. Or maybe they just don’t care.

Debate is a chance for confrontation over anti-LGBTQ record

Alex Morse a victim of homophobic media, politicians

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Washington Chorus forges ahead amid pandemic New livestream productions planned for fall

By PATRICK FOLLIARD

Unlike many arts organizations that have opted to sit out the pandemic, The Washington Chorus (TWC), the DMV’s only two-time Grammy Award-winning choral ensemble, is seizing the moment to create innovative work and remain connected to their audience.

From his home in Arlington, TWC’s executive director Stephen Marc Beaudoin explains how the upcoming season has unfolded: “After our new artistic director Dr. Eugene Rogers came on board in February, TWC quickly began developing a new season on the assumption of being able to produce live concerts. But then COVID-19 slapped us upside the head. By mid-March the concert at the Strathmore in Maryland was abruptly cancelled, and things changed dramatically.”

Together, Beaudoin and Rogers (TWC’s first African-American conductor) quickly concluded that closures would not be short lived. “We discussed whether we do something, or take a seat,” says Beaudoin, who is gay.

“Many choruses decided not to do much of anything during this time beyond sharing archival stuff. Following Dr. Rogers’ lead, we decided to continue making art and expand access to what we do.”

After innumerable calls and texts between Beaudoin and Rogers, who is based in Michigan where he is also director of choral activities at the University of Michigan, the pair moved forward implementing the upcoming season, TWC’s 60th. The first big event is “Cantata for a More Hopeful Tomorrow” (Saturday, Nov. 14, 7:30 p.m.), a live-streamed world premiere commissioned work by composer Damien Geter and filmmaker Bob Berg. It the tells the story of one individual’s journey as he grapples with recovery from COVID-19.

Following “Cantata” is TWC’s annual beloved “A Candlelight Christmas” (Friday, Dec. 18, 7:30 p.m.), a livestreamed online performance featuring about a dozen singers distanced on the Strathmore stage.

Comprised of 170 singers, the chorus presents many traditions, styles, and composers, ranging from Brahms’ Requiem to Carmina Burana to the holiday pops with the National Symphony to a concert of St. Patrick’s Day music to singing at the Kennedy Center honors for composer Philip Glass a year and a half ago.

As the chorus’ executive director, Beaudoin bears the responsibility of business. It’s up to Beaudoin to meet and exceed revenue for concerts, to collect individual contributions and grants, organize special events, and ensure that TWC grows and retains a talented staff. He’s also responsible to manage and motivate the board of directors. And because he’s a musician and trained singer, he likes to collaborate on the chorus’ artistic vision. Beaudoin says, “I’m a creative individual first, last, and always, and as such I like to be a supporter and partner to the artistic director and production and the artistic side of things at the end the day our job is to create art and foster community.”

TWC’s acclaimed conductor Dr. Rogers was a unanimous choice after a long search for a new artistic director.

While TWC didn’t set out specifically to find a person of color to fill the position, they wanted to open the opportunity to everyone who was qualified: “We didn’t begin with the idea to cast a particular color or gender in this role but we did set out very intentionally to center equity and inclusion in the search and in the process, we had a terrifically diverse candidate pool. Over 40% were women and/or folks of color. We wanted to talk to the best of the best, and we did.”

Prior to his role with TWC, Beaudoin served as executive director of the Maryland Symphony Orchestra in Hagerstown, Md. He describes his arrival at TWC as a bit of kismet. A talented singer, Beaudoin had stepped away from singing for a while, but after a vacation to Amsterdam where he experienced a thrilling musical festival along the canals, he wanted to reconnect with music. When he returned home, he successfully auditioned with The Washington Chorus. Soon after, while seated next to a fellow tenor at rehearsal, he learned that TWC was looking for an executive director. He subsequently applied and was hired.

Working at home with his partner of five years Joe, an employee at the Defense Department, he finds things very manageable. The couple enjoys cooking and spending time with their beloved Sheltie Tessa and watching some TV, especially “Love on the Spectrum,” a four-part documentary series following young adults on the autism spectrum as they explore the unpredictable world of love, dating and relationships. All things considered, it hasn’t been too bad, says Beaudoin.

Still, things are tough professionally. Looking forward, he thinks perhaps venues might reopen next summer. In the meantime, the show goes on.

“What’s most challenging is we have to think differently about production. It’s hard to continue to foster a sense of community when we’re all at home for the most part. It’s hard financially – we’re used to clearing a good amount of money from our big concerts. And how many of those people will come to see digital livestream and pay $10 or $15 online? If 10,000 people from around the world pay to watch online, that would be great, or maybe it will just be 100 people? We just don’t know.”

Even with support from D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and some funding from U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, it isn’t easy, he says. “Still, with whatever challenges we’re facing, we know it pales in comparison to the challenges faced by families who have lost loved ones or are suffering financial hardship.

And we acknowledge that the pandemic is disproportionately affecting people of color.

“Hopefully, through a lens of inclusive excellence and storytelling, we can help. We think brining new work to music lovers is the most important thing we can be doing this fall.”

The Washington Chorus ARTISTIC DIRECTOR DR. EUGENE ROGERS came on board in February, just before COVID restrictions began. (Photo courtesy Sundeep Studios)

‘We decided to continue making art and expand access to what we do,’ during the pandemic, said TWC’s executive director STEPHEN MARC BEAUDOIN. (Photo by Kenton Waltz courtesy Oh! Creative)

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CALENDAR

By PHILIP VAN SLOOTEN

TODAY

Labyrinth Virtual Senior Game Day hosted by the D.C. Center is today from 12-2 p.m. This Zoom event is for seniors to enjoy games with friends and enter a raffle for a chance to win a $25 gift card. For more information, email justin@thedccenter.org or visit thedccenter.org.

Friday Tea Time is a virtual social gathering at 2 p.m. for older LGBTQ adults via Zoom.

Participants are encouraged to bring their beverage of choice while socializing with new and old friends. Visit thedccenter.org for details.

Women in their Twenties and Thirties meets today at 8 p.m. via Zoom. This social discussion group for D.C.-area queer women meets the 2nd and 4th Friday of each month and is facilitated by the D.C. Center. For more information, visit thedccenter.org.

The Commitment March commemorates the 57th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.

(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Saturday, August 29

Brunch at Freddies hosted by National Landing BID, Go Gay D.C. and Freddie’s Beach Bar (555 23rd St., S, Arlington, Va.) is today from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Brunch is served on the patios and inside, or is available for curbside takeout. Call ahead to 703-685-0555 for more information or visit freddiesbeachbar.com.

LGBTQ People of Color Support Group holds its virtual meeting today at 1 p.m. via Zoom.

This support group is an outlet for the queer POC community to come together and talk about anything in a safe and judgement-free environment. More information is available at thedccenter.org/poc or facebook.com/centerpoc.

Sunday, August 30

The second annual Funk Parade Photo Gallery, sponsored by Humanities D.C., the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities and Funk Parade, is today from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Eaton D.C. (1201 K St.). COVID protocols will be strictly enforced at this event, which includes both an in-person photo exhibition and online discussions. For tickets and reservations, visit fpgallery.givesmart.com and the event’s Facebook page.

Monday, August 31

Center Aging Coffee Drop-In is today from 10 a.m. to noon via Zoom. LGBTQ older adults and friends join in friendly conversations during this virtual social event. For more information visit thedccenter.org and Center Aging on social media.

Tuesday, September 1

P&P Live!: Louise Penny with Hillary Rodham Clinton is an online discussion tonight at 5 p.m. and hosted by Politics and Prose. This event is a conversation with former first lady, U.S. Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is also most recently the co-author of “The Book of Gutsy Women” with her daughter Chelsea Clinton. The cost for admission and the book begin at $30 and are available at eventbrite.com/e/pp-live-louisepenny-all-the-devils-are-here-with-hillary-clinton-tickets-114977111636 KhushDC Virtual Happy Hour is today at 7 p.m. via Zoom. This event is an opportunity for queer and trans South Asians to build community and socialize virtually. For details on this group and this event, visit thedccenter.org.

Wednesday, September 2

Virtual Job Club meets today at 6 p.m. via Zoom. This weekly support program helps job seekers improve their self-confidence, resilience and motivation needed for effective job searching and networking. Discussions include strategies, techniques and goal plans needed to find meaningful and satisfying employment. For more information, visit thedccenter.org.

Thursday, September 3

First Thursdays Open Mic hosted by A League of Her Own (2319 18th St., N.W.) is tonight from 7-9 p.m. Participants can sign up at 7:30 and the show kicks off around 8 p.m. This event provides a welcoming space for the community to express musical, spoken word, comedic or other talents. Email the manager at dcalohojo@gmail.com for more information and for details on how to become a featured artist for a future show.

The Asian Pacific Islander Queer Support Group is today at 7 p.m. via Zoom. This group is co-sponsored by the Asian Pacific Islander Queer Society D.C. and AQUA, Asian Queers United for Action. More information is available at thedccenter.org.

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OUT&ABOUT

New March on Washington Aug. 28 The Commitment March: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks hosted by the National Action Network is Friday, Aug 28 from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m. on the National Mall.

This free event commemorates the 57th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Dr. King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech and addresses ongoing issues regarding systemic racism and racial violence.

Participants will gather at the Reflecting Pool near the Lincoln Memorial at 7 a.m. for a commemoration and rally followed by a march at 1 p.m. to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. memorial. The Rev. Al Sharpton helped facilitate this event and organizations from across the country are participating while maintaining COVID-related protocols.

As an intergenerational inclusive day of action, this event includes speakers advocating for comprehensive police accountability reform, Census 2020 concerns and voter mobilization ahead of the November elections.

For more information, visit nationalactionnetwork.net.

Online trans art sale until Aug. 31 A virtual Trans Art Sale sponsored by the D.C. Area Transmasculine Society runs until Monday, Aug. 31 at midnight. This online event features work by transgender artists and sales support the transgender community. The site allows artwork to be purchased during specific sale periods and participating artists have agreed to sell their work to buyers who pledge the highest donation to the event’s beneficiary organization, DCATS. But donations are not required to purchase selected art works. The site also provides links for trans artists to sell their work and for purchasers to browse art or learn more about participating artists.

For more information, visit transartsale.com.

Mirah performs via live stream Sept. 8 Indie pop musician Mirah performs songs from her first three records on Tuesday, Sept. 8 via live stream at 8 p.m. Tickets start at $15 for this all-ages event. The ticket price includes 48hour post show on-demand viewing, and 20 percent of the proceeds benefit the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Fund Trust. This event celebrates the 20-year anniversary reissue of her first album, “You Think It’s Like This, But It’s Like This!”

For tickets and information, visit noonchorus.com/mirah or dc9.club.

Green Lantern brings back Shirtless Thursdays Shirtless Thursdays returns to the Green Lantern (1335 Green Ct., N.W.) from 10-11 p.m.

Shirtless men drink free but are still encouraged to wear a mask and socially distance. While reservations are suggested but not required for regular nights, there is limited seating available for this event, so reservations are encouraged. Patrons should monitor the Green Lantern’s social media for information on possible COVID-related closures or event cancellations.

For more information, visit greenlanterndc.com

Spellbound by ‘A Saint from Texas’

Edmund White’s latest is welcome, powerful departure

By KATHI WOLFE

I’ve never been fooled by magicians. Even if I’m entranced by their magic, I’m still trying to figure out what tricks are involved. Yet, in his latest novel “A Saint from Texas,” queer writer Edmund White makes you believe that you can pull a rabbit out of a hat.

Readers, queer and non-queer, look forward to a new book from White as eagerly as movie fans wait for the Oscars.

White, now 80, has written more books than you can count from “The Joy of Gay Sex” to memoirs such as “My Lives” to biographies of Proust and Rimbaud to “A Boy’s Own Story” and other autobiographical novels. He taught at Princeton for 19 years. White, whose husband is writer Michael Carroll, has lived for

By Edmund White much of his life in New York and Paris.

Bloomsbury Publishing White is part of the first generation of $18.20/304 pages LGBTQ writers to write for a queer audience.

“Gay fiction before that, Gore Vidal and Truman Capote, was written for straight readers,” he told The New York Times.

It wasn’t surprising when the National Book Foundation presented White with the 2019 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

White, who’s lived with HIV since 1985, has been an LGBTQ activist. He was a co-founder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis.

“A Saint from Texas” is a departure from anything from what White has written before. Its main characters are women, twin sisters, not gay boys and men. Though much of the novel is set in Paris, the twins – Yvonne and Yvette, born in the 1930s, grow up in East Texas.

My heart sank as I first dipped into this book. The twins are teenagers in the 1950s. I have friends from Texas. There are lovely places in Texas. But who wants to read about girls stuck in Texas? True, they’re rich. Their father, born poor, has made millions from oil. And their stepmother is into clothes and society. But their father, who sexually abuses Yvette, insists that they remain “terrible Texas Baptists.”

Like Yvonne and Yvette (pronounced “Why-Von” and “Why-Vet” by their family and friends in Texas), I wanted to get as far away as I could from where they lived in Texas.

Mercifully, for the twins and readers, the sisters escape from Texas. “A Saint from Texas,” narrated by Yvonne, tells the story of their radically different journeys.

You’d find it hard to imagine people any more unlike each other than these sisters. Thank God, Yvonne is the narrator! Fortunately, we only hear from Yvette sporadically in her letters to her twin.

I don’t mean to dis Yvette. It’s just that Yvonne is the fun twin who has a sense of irony. As a teen in the 50s, she talks for hours with her friends on the phone, sneaks cigarettes (even though her father has promised to give her $1,000 on her birthday if she doesn’t smoke) and has a crush on one of her girlfriends.

Yvonne escapes to Paris. There, exchanging her fortune for his title (and entry to French society), Yvonne marries a French aristocrat. He’s a sexist, homophobic cad. Even so, Yvonne gets to hobnob with Audrey Hepburn while buying dresses at Givenchy, chat with actresses in Truffaut movies at parties and have male and female lovers.

Yvette is saintly! Early on, as Yvonne says, Yvette develops a “crush on God.” She wants to be virtuous – to help poor people – to find herself “in [God’s] immortal, loving arms.” To that end, she becomes a nun and missionary in Colombia. You almost think that Yvette is an insufferable saint until she says in a letter to Yvonne, “It occurred to me that the religious life was all hocus-pocus.”

In lesser hands, you might have given up after reading only a few pages of this novel. But, due to White’s magic touch you’ll find yourself spellbound by “A Saint from Texas.”

‘A Saint from Texas’

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The Blade Foundation was founded in 2010 to promote the accurate reporting of issues related to the LGBTQ community around the world.

Our mission: To support, train and encourage diversity in the next generation of LGBTQ journalists by investing in students and enterprise journalism projects focused on LGBTQ and other underrepresented communities.

In furtherance of that mission, the Blade Foundation in 2020 is offering a $3,000 scholarship to a student who has received their acceptance to a fouryear accredited university journalism program and will begin that program in the fall of 2020 or a student who is already enrolled in such a program.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE You may submit the following via email or postal mail: • • • •

A letter explaining why you should receive this scholarship and why LGBTQ issues are important to you; Proof of acceptance or current attendance in an accredited journalism program; A letter of support from either a professor if you are currently in a program or from a teacher or mentor if you are about to enter a program; A one-page resume and three published clips or links to published material.

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Send application by email to knaff@washblade.com (no phone calls) or mail to: Blade Foundation Attn: Kevin Naff, Executive Director 1712 14th St., NW Washington, D.C. 20009 Deadline for applications is

Sept. 15, 2020

and the recipient of the award will be announced by Oct. 1, 2020.

FROM THE VAULT: Restorations ‘Maurice,’ ‘Buddies’ and more classics revisited

Get Covered. Stay Covered.

By BRIAN T. CARNEY

This week’s curated collection of films to get you through quarantine focuses on the past of cinema itself and includes some historic films that have recently been rereleased in beautifully restored versions. These restorations feature greatly enhanced picture quality and are often released with a variety of fascinating special features.

As Vito Russo, Susan Stryker and other film and cultural historians have noted, queer filmmakers and LGBT subjects have been part of the industry since moving images were first captured on celluloid. Thanks to the staff at Kino Lorber (kinolorber.com), some of the earliest images from queer cinema have been preserved for future generations of cinephiles.

The “Pioneers of Queer Cinema” Collection includes three ground-breaking movies.

Directed by Leontine Sagan, “Mädchen in Uniform” (1931) is both a celebration of a lesbian romance at an all-girls boarding school and an important anti-fascist film. Directed by Reinhold Schünzel, “Victor and Victoria” (1933) is the inspiration for the gender-bending Julie Andrews musical about an out-of-work female performer who becomes famous working as a female impersonator. Directed by the famous Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer, “Michael” (1924) follows the ill-fated love triangle between a successful young artist (Walter Slezak), his aging mentor (Benjamin Christensen) and an unscrupulous princess (Nora Gregor).

Kino Lorber has also preserved another early film from the queer cinematic canon. Directed by gay filmmaker F.W. Murnau, the pioneering expressionistic German horror film “Nosferatu” (1922) is an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” The classic movie still offers some chills and established many of the visual motifs seen in contemporary vampire movies.

The Merchant Ivory Library at the Cohen Media Group (cohenfilmcollection.net) includes a restored version of the queer classic “Maurice” (1987) based on the novel by closeted English author E. M. Forster. Forster completed the gay love story in 1913 but given its controversial subject matter, the novel was not published until after his death in 1970.

Inspired by the real-life relationship between Forster’s friends Edward Carpenter and George Merrill, the novel centers on Maurice Hall (James Wilby) who falls in love with the aristocratic Clive Durham (Hugh Grant). Clive ultimately decides to marry a woman and pursue his political ambitions; Maurice instead finds love with Alec Scudder (Rupert Graves), a gamekeeper on the Durham estate.

The movie was written and directed by James Ivory (who later won the Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay for “Call Me by Your Name”) and was produced by Ismail Merchant.

Ivory and Merchant, who were both business and life partners, produced more than 40 films together, frequently in collaboration with writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

In addition to the queer classic “Maurice,” the wonderful Merchant Ivory Library includes “Howards End,” “Shakespeare Wallah” and “Heat and Dust.” Known for the phrase “only connect,” “Howards End,” also based on a Forster novel, was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won three (Best Adapted Screenplay for Jhabvala, Best Actress for Emma Thompson and Best Production Design).

Fans of the distinctive Merchant Ivory style will also enjoy their adaptation of Forster’s “A Room With A View” which featured a breakout performance by Helena Bonham Carter.

The Bressan Project (bressanproject.wixsite.com/website) is dedicated to preserving and promoting the ground-breaking work of queer filmmaker Arthur J. Bressan Jr. He is best known for the historic AIDS drama “Buddies,” the first feature film about the AIDS crisis. Initially released in September 1985 (days before President Ronald Reagan finally said the word “AIDS” in public), and now finally available in a beautifully restored print, “Buddies” is a timeless portrayal of a crucial period in modern LGBT history.

The film tracks the growing friendship between David Bennett (David Schachter) and Robert Willow (Geoff Edholm). David is a 25-year-old “guppie” (gay yuppie) who has volunteered to be a buddy to an AIDS patient. He is assigned to Robert (Geoff Edholm), a 32-year-old politically impassioned gardener transplanted from California to Manhattan. As the movie progresses, Bressan subtly captures David’s gradual awakening from bystander to activist. (It’s very depressing that David’s excuses for his inaction sound rather likes today’s declarations of “I’m not political.”)

Like all of the movies discussed above, “Buddies” is an important piece of LGBT history. Thanks to the amazing artists who are preserving these valuable pieces of film.

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Pepco employee talks diversity, inclusion, and COVID Meet Brad Harlacker, senior transmission system operator FROM STAFF REPORTS

Brad Harlacker is a Senior Electrical Transmission System Operator at Pepco. We spoke to him about his career, his experience as a member of the LGBTQ community, the importance of diversity and inclusion illustrated at a major energy company, and how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed his role.

WASHINGTON BLADE: What does a typical day look like for you as a Transmission System Operator, and how has it changed during the COVID-19 crisis?

BRAD HARLACKER: I normally drive from Frederick, Md., to our Operations Control Center in Montgomery County, but now I’m working from our back-up Control Center.

I get in around 2:30 a.m., and I usually have one other person with me. We monitor the electrical connections between substations and other operating companies to control the electrical grid throughout Prince George’s County, Montgomery County, and the District.

We also dispatch personnel to substations to assess and repair any issues that arise during the day, and utilize overhead and underground crews to assess and repair any issues. When interacting with these crews, I have to visualize what they are doing in the field to ensure their safety at all times.

Before COVID-19, I worked on a repeating rotation of four days, four nights, three days, and three nights. Now we’re working seven days on, seven days off, seven nights on, seven days off. This new rotation is used to reduce the possibility of contracting the virus by minimizing personnel overlap during shift changes and will continue until the pandemic ends.

BLADE: How long have you been with Pepco?

HARLACKER: Fifteen years in December. I was the first person to be hired from outside of the company to the Control Center.

BLADE: How have diversity and inclusion efforts changed for you over your career?

HARLACKER: I was in the Navy from 1988 to 2003 and during that time, I was out as a gay man – and there was never a problem. (I never let people feel that they had any control over me due to my sexuality.) When I started my career at Pepco, I wasn’t in the closet, I just didn’t say anything until recently. And now that I am out, everyone still treats me the same way. I am part of a team and we work together to keep things running smoothly. Pepco is a good company in that way!

BLADE: What was your job in the Navy?

HARLACKER: I was a Nuclear Reactor Operator, like Homer Simpson. I worked my way up from a paygrade E-3 to E-7. Prior to enlisting, I went to Penn State for Electrical Engineering.

The math and sciences were a breeze; however, I couldn’t seem to get past some of the degree requirements of Economics and the like. Then a Navy recruiter asked me to take a nuclear-based test – and I’m a really good test taker – so I passed and worked as a nuclear reactor operator on a few different aircraft carriers. I later went to New York for three years to train nuclear operators in Saratoga Springs.

BLADE: Do you feel even more pressure now to maintain the grid during this time?

HARLACKER: I have always felt that people rely on our service – but it’s more evident now compared to any other time in history because of the increased use of the internet, and the need for energy to go about our daily lives.

BLADE: Has there been a particular experience in your career that has influenced the way you address diversity and inclusion as a professional?

HARLACKER: The diversity at Pepco is even greater than it was in the Navy. Pepco allows everyone to be included in every aspect of the company, which is a good thing. It’s nice to hear from everyone and learn more about how they think. Having everyone the same forces a given paradigm that keeps us from thinking about alternatives, but the diversity at Pepco breaks this and allows for innovation.

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BLADE: Looking back on your career, what are some of the greatest accomplishments you’ve been a part of or championed related to LGBTQ diversity and inclusion in the workplace?

HARLACKER: When people see BRAD HARLACKER is a Senior Electrical Transmission System Operator at Pepco. people like themselves – like me, it’s a good thing. I’m sure the rest of the community feels the same way. I’m not a leader of the LGBTQ community in the workplace. I just go in and do my job. Sometimes just being a role model is enough.

BLADE: How has your work changed since the COVID-19 outbreak? How are you managing as a member of the LGBTQ community during this time?

HARLACKER: I know that many other people have their jobs on hold right now, so I’m sure it’s affecting the rest of the community a lot harder than it’s affecting me. Thankfully I still have a job to go to and get paid. Most of my friends are in the same industry that I am because most of them were in the Navy. The only way my life has really been affected is in the wearing of a mask everywhere and not being able to eat at my favorite restaurants, or not being able to get a haircut as easily as before.

BLADE: How are you staying resilient?

HARLACKER: Honestly, I stay resilient by maintaining a routine. It helps a lot. I walk 10,000 steps a day. On my off time, I go home to Pennsylvania and split staying with both sets of my parents, who are both getting older. I don’t want to be the person that says that they wished they would have spent more time with my parents before they died.

BLADE: In years ahead, what would you like to see for diversity and inclusion?

HARLACKER: Diversity efforts seem to be in a good place right now. I’m quite content with how things are going. If we keep moving in the right direction, we should be good.

BLADE: What support do you receive from leadership at Pepco?

HARLACKER: Pepco’s leadership immediately acts to remove obstacles from our work. They are constantly having anonymous surveys as a feedback loop to see what the workplace is thinking and how the process should be modified to ensure the safety and happiness their employees.

BLADE: How does Pepco leadership’s support for the LGBTQ community look to you?

HARLACKER: We have Pride Employee Resource Groups in our company, and it’s so refreshing to see the support for our community. It is nice to see groups that have the LGBTQ community represented within Pepco and Exelon. Our leadership is heavily involved at the top levels of these groups, which makes me feel that they do care and are not just checking a box.

BLADE: What advice would you give to the LGBTQ community to stay resilient during this time?

HARLACKER: If I didn’t have the job that I do now, I would have taken the “down time” to learn something new – there is so much information online for learning new skills and trades.

I am currently learning how to integrate secondhand video conferencing VOIP phones onto non-compatible platforms. It’s quite a task, since companies make everything proprietary to keep you buying from just them!

I suppose the advice that I would offer is to not sit around and wait for something to happen – make it happen. Life is short, be the best that you can be. You don’t have to go at it alone. You don’t have to feel like it is you against the world. There are many resources and people out there willing to help you. You have to just take the first step.

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