Washingtonblade.com, Volume 52, Issue 23, June 04, 2021

(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

40 years of harmony Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington celebrates milestone with virtual concert, PAGE 26

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VOLUME 52 ISSUE 23 ADDRESS PO Box 53352 Washington DC 20009 PHONE 202-747-2077 E-MAIL news@washblade.com INTERNET washingtonblade.com PUBLISHED BY Brown Naff Pitts Omnimedia, Inc. PUBLISHER LYNNE J. BROWN lbrown@washblade.com ext. 8075 EDITORIAL EDITOR KEVIN NAFF knaff@washblade.com ext. 8088 SR. NEWS REPORTER LOU CHIBBARO JR. lchibbaro@washblade.com ext. 8079 NEWS REPORTER CHRIS JOHNSON cjohnson@washblade.com ext. 8083 REPORTER & INTERNATIONAL NEWS EDITOR MICHAEL K. LAVERS mlavers@washblade.com POP CULTURE REPORTER JOHN PAUL KING PHOTO EDITOR MICHAEL KEY mkey@washblade.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS PRINCE CHINGARANDE, DUNIA ORELLANA, REPORTAR SIN MIEDO, PARKER PURIFOY, PETER ROSENSTEIN, MARK LEE, LATEEFAH WILLIAMS, KATE CLINTON, KATHI WOLFE, ERNESTO VALLE, YARIEL VALDÉS GONZÁLEZ, LYNARE ROBBINS, RACHAEL ESPINET, PHILIP VAN SLOOTEN, KATLEGO K. KOL-KES, VICTOR MAUNG, KAELA ROEDER, TREMENDA NOTA, ALBERTO J. VALENTÍN, ORGULLO LGBT. CO, MAYKEL GONZÁLEZ VIVERO CREATIVE DESIGN/PRODUCTION AZERCREATIVE.COM SALES & ADMINISTRATION DIRECTOR OF SALES & MARKETING STEPHEN RUTGERS srutgers@washblade.com ext. 8077 SR. ACCT. EXECUTIVE BRIAN PITTS bpitts@washblade.com ext. 8089 ACCT. EXECUTIVE JOE HICKLING jhickling@washblade.com ext. 8094 CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATION PHILLIP G. ROCKSTROH prockstroh@washblade.com ext. 8092 NATIONAL ADVERTISING RIVENDELL MEDIA 212-242-6863; sales@rivendellmedia.com For distribution, contact Lynne Brown ext. 8075. Distributed by MediaPoint, LLC

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Comings & Goings

Andronaco joins Dept. of Energy’s loan program office

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.

The Comings & Goings column also invites LGBTQ+ college students to share their successes with us. If you have been elected to a student government position, gotten an exciting internship, or are graduating and beginning your career with a great job, let us know so we can share your success.

Congratulations to Joseph L. Andronaco on his new position as Senior Advisor, Department of Energy’s Loan Program Office. Andronaco is an accomplished and experienced multi-industry (energy efficiency, sustainability, utilities, investment banking) and international leader (fully bilingual) with a proven talent for strategic thinking and operational excellence and capable of leveraging the expertise gained from engaging in more than $3B of financial and strategic transactions into impactful and transformational decision making. Upon taking the position Andronaco said, “I am thrilled to be working alongside such talented individuals to meet our climate and environmental justice imperatives.”

Andronaco’s background includes being CEO and Subject Matter Expert, Access Green; Corporate Development and Strategy, WGL Holdings; Corporate Development with NAPWA; Services and Investment Banker, Buenos Aires Capital Partners; and Banking Analyst, Lehman Brothers. He has served as a member Workforce Investment Council, District of Columbia; and on the Boards of DCBIA Community Services; DC Central Kitchen; and the DC Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of the Association of Builders and Contractors and the National Association of the Remodeling Industry.

Andronaco earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his master’s from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business.

Congratulations also to Waymon Hudson on his new position as Marketing Director, Communication Services for the Deaf (CSD). Hudson will be responsible for the global promotion of the CSD Contact Centers (CCC) brand and its portfolio of programs.

He will be supporting the CCC leadership team in the planning, coordination and

JOE ANDRONACO

WAYMON HUDSON

implementation of campaigns and other programmatic marketing efforts, building broad coalitions of community partners working together to overcome national community challenges. Upon taking the position Hudson said, “Communication Service for the Deaf creates opportunities for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community across a wide range of areas. As a Deaf person myself, I am beyond excited to be a part of that mission. I truly feel that Deaf identities and culture should be valued and celebrated as part of the diversity that makes our country stronger.”

Hudson has worked as a copywriter for the National Deaf Center on Postsecondary Outcomes and also has his own firm, Waymon Hudson Consulting, where he does marketing and communication and political consulting. His experience includes working as director of marketing and communications for the Golden Gate University School of Law; and president of Fight OUT Loud. Hudson has been a featured columnist with the Huffington Post and Chicago Tribune; and host and executive producer of Gay TV on The Go. He has worked with The Bilerico Project, the Trevor Project and was a JetBlue Airways, Inflight Crew Trainer and a performer at Walt Disney World.

Hudson earned his bachelor’s in business management with a concentration in marketing from Golden Gate University, San Francisco.

D.C. bill to ban LGBTQ panic defense becomes law

Congress found a “workaround” that enabled D.C. bills to clear the A bill approved by the D.C. Council last December to ban the sosecurity fence and reach Congress for the legislative review. called LGBTQ panic defense in criminal trials officially took effect as “So, the insurrectionists failed in their coup attempt, but a D.C. law on May 15, according to a May 28 posting on Council’s succeeded in delaying the clock starting on the 60-day legislative website page that tracks legislation. review period,” said gay D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner The Bella Evangelista and Tony Hunter Panic Defense Prohibition Mike Silverstein, who hailed the bill’s ultimate clearance of its and Hate Crimes Response Amendment Act of 2020 became stalled congressional review last week. in early February when the fence installed around the U.S. Capitol Silverstein and other LGBTQ rights advocates were among those following the Jan. 6 Capitol riots prevented the bill from being who called on the D.C. Council to pass the measure. They argued delivered to Congress for its mandatory legislative review period. that the so-called panic defense enabled criminals who committed “What happened was when the Capitol fence went up after the violent acts against LGBTQ people, including murder, to claim the January insurrection, it created an issue where we physically could D.C. Council member CHARLES victims’ sexual orientation or gender identity caused them to “panic” not deliver laws to Congress per the congressional review period,” ALLEN (D-Ward 6) was one of the lead sponsors of the panic defense bill. and commit the attacks as a means of perceived self defense. said Eric Salmi, a spokesperson for D.C. Council member Charles (Photo public domain) The Evangelista-Hunter law also strengthens D.C.’s existing hate Allen (D-Ward 6), one of the lead sponsors of the bill. crimes law by clarifying that hatred need not be the sole motivating Salmi noted that under the D.C. Home Rule Act approved by factor for an underlying crime such as assault, murder, or threats to be prosecuted as a Congress in the early 1970s, legislation passed by the Council must be hand-delivered hate crime. to Congress for the required congressional review. A congressional source who spoke LOU CHIBBARO JR. on condition of being identified only as a senior Democratic aide, said Democrats in

Alston Foundation to open first D.C. housing program for trans men of color

The D.C.-based Wanda Alston Foundation, which since 2008 has provided transitional housing for LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness, has announced it will open in June the first-ever D.C. housing program for transgender men of color.

In a May 25 statement, the Alston Foundation says the new facility, called Renita’s, will be a two-bed, two-year transitional housing program focused on serving trans men of color.

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in its statement.

“We know that transgender and gender-nonconforming folks face additional barriers to obtaining safe and supportive services and housing,” said Alston Foundation Executive Director June Crenshaw.

“We also know that trans men are often forgotten or neglected when services are being developed,” Crenshaw said in the group’s statement. “That is why we are thrilled to be able to focus one of our programs directly where it is needed the most.”

LOU CHIBBARO JR.

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One of the main events set for D.C.’s 2021 LGBTQ Pride month will be a caravan of cars decorated with colorful Pride signs and displays to be led by an official Pridemobile trolley that will travel throughout the city on June 12, according to D.C.’s Capital Pride Alliance.

In a statement on its website, Capital Pride Alliance says the parade of vehicles, called the Colorful Pridemobile Parade, will drive past houses and businesses in different parts of the city that will also be decorated with Pridethemed displays as part of the group’s month-long Paint the Town Colorful With Pride project.

The parade and the decorated buildings, the locations of which are displayed on a map on the Capital Pride website, are among at least 14 or more Pride events scheduled for June in D.C., some of which are in-person while others are virtual. Six of the events, including the parade and Paint the Town Colorful With Pride, are official Capital Pride Alliance events.

The Washington Blade, which, in partnership with Dupont Underground, is hosting an exhibition celebrating the tradition of drag performances in D.C. and other places highlighting the history and influence of drag. The exhibition, which includes photos and video footage and a drag brunch as well as drag performances, will take place June 4 through June 27 each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

The official opening of the drag exhibition will take place Friday, June 4 at 4 p.m.

Capital Price Alliance Executive Director Ryan Bos said D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s May 10 announcement that the city will be lifting all restrictions on large events such as parades and street festivals came too late for Capital Pride to put together a large Pride parade and street festival for June. He said Capital Pride is considering whether a parade and festival could be held in October.

This year marks the second year in a row in which the D.C. Pride Parade and festival had to be cancelled due to the COVID epidemic. The two events in past years have attracted more than 250,000 participants.

Bos and other Pride organizers say they were hopeful that the spirit and enthusiasm of Pride will be captured and carried out through this month’s events, especially the Pridemobile Parade and Paint the Town Colorful building displays.

“This unique mobile parade will feature the official Pridemobile trolly, followed by a colorful array of automobiles decorated by registered organizations and businesses, all on display for enthusiastic onlookers to enjoy,” a statement on the Capital Pride website says.

“The Pridemobile Parade route will be shared with the general public prior to the event and will pass through some of the city’s most lively areas for optimum visibility, including Dupont and Logan Circles, and iconic landmarks such as the Capitol Building,” the statement says.

The statement adds that Capital Pride Alliance has been urging members of the local LGBTQ community and its allies to be creative in displaying Pride decorations on their homes and businesses.

“Whether you’re a resident, business, or organization, we invite you to decorate your most public-facing spaces, such as building fronts, patios, balconies, and yards, to show your Pride!” the statement says. “Make it as colorful as you can!”

Capital Pride has called on community members and businesses to try to have their homes or other buildings decorated by June 1, but the decorations need to be completed by June 12, the day of the Pridemobile Parade, the Capital Pride website says. Capital Pride is inviting the public to visit the decorated homes and businesses any time during the month of June.

Capital Pride is charging a fee of $100 to enter a vehicle in the parade. The group says the proceeds from the fee will be used to support local LGBTQ organizations.

How D.C. is celebrating Pride this month Mix of in-person and virtual events to replace traditional parade and festival

Bos said D.C. police will not be escorting the parade and organizers expect it will end up becoming “several mini caravans” when participating vehicles have to stop at traffic lights and become separated from the participating vehicles ahead of them.

Following is a list of the June Pride events announced by the Capital Pride Alliance and other organizations.

Further details of official Capital Pride events can be found at capitalpride.org/celebration.

June 1: Paint the Town Colorful. The official start of the month-long display of Pride themed decorations on houses, yards, and businesses throughout the city. The location of the displays submitted to Capital Pride so far is on the Capital Pride website.

Pride Talks: We are Colorful. A YouTube live discussion among LGBTQ leaders reflecting their “personal LGBTQ+ journey of Pride” and what makes the LGBTQ community colorful. Speakers will include Alexis Blackmon, director of public affairs for Casa Ruby; Reggie Greer, White House senior adviser on LGBTQ+ Affairs; Tiffany Royster, Capital Pride Alliance Parade chair and performing artist; and Mary Paradise, past board member of Capital Pride Alliance.

June 4 – June 27 Washington Blade Pride Month Celebration of Drag.

A month-long exhibition at the Dupont Underground, the former trolley car station located under Dupont Circle, that showcases a mix of photographs and video footage honoring the roots of drag in America and D.C.’s drag scene. The exhibition as well as drag performances and a Sunday brunch will take place each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday during the month of June. Details available at washingtonblade.com/royals.

June 6 Queen City Kings Drag presents Flame: Rising from the Ashes of COVID A virtual event featuring 16 drag performers, including drag kings, scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. It’s organized

by Queen City Kings Drag, an LGBTQ drag performance group and can be accessed via the group’s website.

June 11 The Capital Pride Honors. An in-person event to be held at the Compass Coffee Factory in D.C.’s Ivy City neighborhood at 1401 Okie St., N.E., in which the Capital Pride Alliance will present its annual honors recognizing “outstanding individuals, leaders, and activists” in the D.C. area who have furthered the causes of the LGBTQ+ community.

June 12 Drag Family Story Time. A virtual Pride event organized by the D.C. Public Library featuring local drag performers Domingo, Arma Dura, and Katie Magician who will read children’s stories to “celebrate Pride as a family,” a statement on the library’s website says. It is scheduled to be broadcast on the public library system’s YouTube channel at 11 a.m.

Washington Blade Describe-a-thon. A virtual D.C. Public Library Pride event from 10 a.m.-12 p.m. to discuss

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By LOU CHIBBARO JR. | lchibbaro@washblade.com

Activists listen to CAROL LEE at a rally in front of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Oct. 10, 1988. The photo is part of a drag exhibition at Dupont Underground organized by the Blade. (Washington Blade archive photo by Doug Hinckle)

the library’s ongoing project of digitizing all past issues of the Washington Blade to its digital collections.

Colorful Pridemobile Parade. The Capital Pride Alliance’s caravan of Pride decorated cars led by its Pridemobile trolley will travel across D.C. to pass by homes and businesses also decorated with Pride displays. The starting time and route of the parade were to be posted the week of June 6 on the Capital Pride website.

June 13 Taste of Pride Brunch. Capital Pride Alliance has organized “an exclusive group of beloved local restaurants that have made a commitment to support Pride and local LGBTQ+ charities” to host special Pride month brunches. Special food items, Pride drink specials, and entertainment will be offered at some of the venues, the locations and names of which Capital Pride will publish on its website.

June 14 Rainbow Warriors: A Century of LGBTQ+ Womxn Activists. A virtual event the details of which were expected to be posted on the Capital Pride website.

June 15 Still We Gather! Center Faith embraces this year’s Capital Pride Theme, “Still We!” A Zoom interfaith service set to begin at 7 p.m. organized by local LGBTQ and LGBTQ supportive faith groups, including Metropolitan Community Church of D.C., Faith Temple, Bet Mishpachah, Unity Fellowship D.C., Westminster Presbyterian Church, and All Souls Unitarian Church.

June 17 Chamber Connect – MOXY DC-Play on Pride. A professional networking meeting with a focus on LGBTQ Pride themes to be held 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Moxy Washington, D.C. Hotel at 1011 K St., N.W.

June 24 Teen Pride Lounge. A virtual gathering of LGBTQ teens, including some from Prince George’s County, Md., on YouTube and Discord will feature a discussion with LGBTQ+ authors Leah Johnson and Tom Ryan as well as special community guests. Johnson and Ryan have published works of interest to young people.

June 30 Still We Lead – A Community and Professional Development Experience. A virtual seminar organized

by Capital Pride Alliance on the topic, “A Forgotten Generation.” The session will discuss ways in which LGBTQ people and their allies can “support and foster an intersectional and social justice movement.”

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Casa Ruby files complaint against D.C. gov’t agency Dept. of Human Services accused of ignoring anti-trans discrimination

By LOU CHIBBARO JR. | lchibbaro@washblade.com

Casa Ruby, the D.C. LGBTQ community services center, filed an administrative complaint on March 29 against the D.C. Department of Human Services, charging the agency with ignoring and failing to stop one of its high-level officials from allegedly engaging in anti-transgender discrimination and retaliation against Casa Ruby.

The six-page complaint, which was drafted by Casa Ruby’s attorneys and signed by Casa Ruby founder and CEO Ruby Corado, says the DHS official in question has acted in an abusive and discriminatory way toward Corado and other Casa Ruby employees while overseeing three DHS grants awarded to Casa Ruby that fund shelters to provide emergency housing for homeless LGBTQ people.

Corado provided a copy of the complaint to the Washington Blade on May 27 in which the name of the DHS official accused of discriminatory and abusive actions is redacted by being blacked out in dozens of places where it appears in the six-page document.

“Casa Ruby’s staff has repeatedly found [the unnamed official’s] demeanor and conduct toward them to be unprofessional, harassing, abusive, and discriminatory,” the complaint says.

“Further, [the unnamed official] has taken actions that are inconsistent with the DHS response to the outbreak of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) by failing to follow COVID-19 protocols and by failing to provide needed testing and other resources during this time, which has endangered the clients and staff of Casa Ruby,” the complaint alleges.

The complaint says the alleged COVID protocol violations occurred when the unnamed DHS official transferred clients from another shelter in which a COVID

RUBY CORADO filed a complaint against the D.C. Department of Human Services, alleging one of its high-level officials engaged in anti-transgender discrimination.

(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

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outbreak may have taken place to one of Casa Ruby’s shelters without having the clients tested for COVID. Corado told the Blade that as of this week, neither she nor her attorneys with the D.C. law firm Van Ness Feldman have received a response to the complaint from DHS in the three months since it was filed.

When contacted last week by the Blade, DHS spokesperson Lauren Kinard said DHS would have no immediate comment on the complaint while it is under investigation.

“The complaint is under investigation,” Kinard said. “So, we cannot comment on an investigation.”

However, Kinard said DHS could provide a response to a question by the Blade about DHS’s record of providing funding for other organizations that provide services to LGBTQ people in need.

Kinard said that among the organizations DHS has provided funding for transgender related services is Us Helping Us, People Into Living, a D.C. LGBTQ organization that provides health and social services to LGBTQ clients.

Kinard said she would also try to provide a response this week to a separate question by the Blade asking about another Casa Ruby concern that DHS is now proposing to reduce its grant funding for the current fiscal year by 50 percent or more.

In a May 20 letter to DHS Deputy Administrator Hilary Cairns, Casa Ruby attorneys Jacob Cunningham and Ani Esenyn dispute claims by DHS that the funding cut was due to Casa Ruby’s alleged failure to provide a sufficient number of beds at its homeless shelters funded by DHS grants.

“Casa Ruby rejects your modification of the Grant Award, which is in violation of the clear language of the Grant Agreement,” the attorneys state in their letter. “Therefore, this decision is arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with D.C. law,” the letter says.

Corado said she believes the proposed funding cut is based on retaliation for the Casa Ruby complaint filed in March. She said aside from the DHS proposed funding cut, the agency has withheld all of its scheduled grant payments to Casa Ruby for the past four months.

In its March 29 complaint against DHS, Casa Ruby makes these additional allegations and requests for DHS to respond to the complaint: • The DHS official who is the subject of the complaint has “unnecessarily inserted herself in the management of these grants,” creating tension and making it difficult for Casa Ruby employees to carry out the grant’s emergency housing program.

• The DHS official has failed to adequately screen clients from other shelters that the official transferred to Casa Ruby facilities, some of whom “used homophobic and transphobic slurs and assaulted two Casa Ruby clients.” The complaint says Casa Ruby welcomes all clients in need to its facilities, but it alleges that the DHS official’s “careless transfer of clients from Covenant House inflicted additional trauma and stress on some of the most vulnerable individuals in the LGBTQ community.”

• On several occasions during conference calls and meetings with representatives of other shelters hosted by the DHS official, individuals misgendered Corado, a transgender woman, and the DHS official did not correct the misgendering. The complaint says the DHS official’s decision not to correct the misgendering is a sign of the official’s own antitrans bias.

“Finally, these and other instances have made it clear to Casa Ruby staff that [the DHS official] harbors anti-transgender bias, in violation of D.C. and federal civil rights laws,” the complaint says.

Among other things, the complaint calls on DHS to consider terminating the DHS official from her position or at the very least, remove her from having any interaction with Casa Ruby. It also suggests the DHS official and other DHS employees be required to undergo bias and sensitivity training related to the LGBTQ community provided by transgender women of color.

Corado said that depending on the outcome of the complaint and DHS’s ultimate response, she will consider whether to file a lawsuit against DHS based on the allegations made in the complaint.

The proposed DHS funding cut for Casa Ruby comes at a time when Casa Ruby has been in negotiations with the landlord of its headquarters building at 7530 Georgia Ave., N.W. in a dispute over who should pay for needed building repairs, including repairs of the electrical wiring system found to be in violation of the city building code.

Corado said an agreement has been reached where the landlord and Casa Ruby will share the costs of the repairs based in part on the terms of the Casa Ruby lease for the building, which holds the tenant responsible for most infrastructure repairs. But Corado said the DHS withholding of its grant funds for Casa Ruby and its proposed cutting of the funds for the remainder of the fiscal year could make it difficult for Casa Ruby to pay its share of the building repairs.

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Biden seeks to ramp up money to beat HIV/AIDS in budget request $267 million increase sought to end domestic epidemic

By CHRIS JOHNSON | cjohnson@washblade.com

President Biden’s formal budget proposal for the U.S. government in the upcoming fiscal year has advocates in the fight against HIV/AIDS cheering over the commitment to increase funds to confront the domestic epidemic, although one group is criticizing the proposal for seeking to flat-fund international programs.

The fiscal year 2022 proposal, unveiled last Friday, would afford an additional $246 million for domestic HIV testing, prevention and treatment programs for the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative, which seeks to end HIV by 2030, and would also provide a general boost of $46 million to Ryan White HIV/AIDS programs and $20 million for HUD’s Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS (HOPWA).

Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV + Hepatitis Policy Institute, said in a statement Biden is “demonstrating his commitment to ending HIV in the United States” in the budget request to Congress.

“While it falls short of what is needed and the community has requested, if this funding is realized it will continue the momentum already created and make further progress in ending HIV in the U.S. Efforts to end HIV will help eradicate an infectious disease that we have been battling for the last 40 years and help correct racial and health inequities in our nation,” Schmid said.

The total $670 million requested by the White House for the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative breaks down as follows: • Centers for Disease Control & Prevention: $100 million in new money for a total of $275 million; • Ryan White: $85 million in new money for a total of $190 million; • Community Health Centers for PrEP: $50 million in new money for a total of $152 million; • National Institutes of Health: $10 million in new money for a total of $26 million; • Indian Health Services: $22 million in new money for a total of $27 million.

Counterintuitively, each of those numbers is actually below what the Trump White House proposed in the previous administration’s final budget request, with the exception of the proposed increase in money for Community Health Centers for PrEP and flat-lining for money for Indian Health Services.

The requested increase in funds for the Ending the HIV Epidemic was expected. Biden had signaled he’d seek the additional $267 million in funding in the “skinny budget” issued by the White House in February that preceded the more formal and detailed request to Congress last week.

Biden requests the increase in funds after he campaigned on ending the domestic HIV epidemic by 2025, an ambitious goal many advocates in the fight against HIV/AIDS were skeptical about achieving.

Nick Armstrong, the AIDS Institute’s manager of advocacy and government affairs and co-chair of the AIDS Budget & Appropriations Coalition, said in a statement the time to ramp up efforts against HIV has come as the nation emerges from the coronavirus pandemic.

“Public health departments have made herculean efforts to battle COVID over the past year,” Armstrong said. “But now it is time to reinvigorate neglected efforts to end the HIV, opioid, and viral hepatitis epidemics. Congress must go above and beyond what the president has proposed to bolster our critical public health infrastructure to protect Americans against infectious disease.”

The budget now goes on to Congress, which has authority on whether or not to appropriate funds consistent with the president’s request. Congress could either meet, short fund or even exceed in money the request by Biden as part of that process.

Schmid said via email to the Blade he’s optimistic about getting an agreement from Congress for an increase in funds to fight HIV/AIDS based on the “strong bipartisan support the proposal has enjoyed in the past.

“We still have work to do with the Congress due to so many demands on the budget but I am fairly confident Congress will support it, they have been anxious to see what the Biden administration does with the program in his budget and we have the answers now,” Schmid said. “The Biden-Harris administration firmly supports ending HIV.” Although Biden was lauded for the increase in funds in domestic HIV programs, international programs are a different matter. The White House has essentially flatfunded programs designed to fight the global HIV epidemic, including the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, or the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, 1 2 • WA SHIN GTO N BLADE.COM • JUNE 04, 202 1 • NAT I O NA L NE WS

PRESIDENT BIDEN released his first full federal budget proposal last week.

Tuberculosis & Malaria.

Matthew Rose, director of U.S. Policy and Advocacy at the New York-based Health GAP, said in a statement Biden’s budget proposal “displays a lack of bold leadership motivated to end the HIV pandemic.”

“If the U.S. had continued fully funding PEPFAR since 2003 instead of letting funding levels slip into a flat-line for more than a decade, the HIV pandemic would look remarkably different today,” Rose said. “This is not a budget to end AIDS – and it could have been. This is not a budget to end the COVID-19 pandemic – and it could have been. The unconscionable lack of political will in recent years has created a world in which people cannot get access to the life-saving services they need.”

Health GAP is calling on Congress to approve a budget with at least a $750 million increase for PEPFAR and $2.5 billion in increased funding over the next four years to scale up HIV prevention and treatment and mitigate harms to the HIV response done by the COVID-19 pandemic, the statement says.

Additionally, Health GAP is calling on Biden to name “a highly qualified nominee” to serve as the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, the statement says.

Biden issues Pride proclamation

President Biden issued the first formal proclamation of his administration recognizing Pride month on Tuesday, telling LGBTQ people both at home and abroad they should “accept nothing less than full equality.”

Biden’s proclamation kicks off Pride month by remembering the 1969 riots at the Stonewall Inn that started the modern LGBTQ movement, which he said was a “call to action that continues to inspire us to live up to our nation’s promise of equality, liberty, and justice for all.”

“Pride is a time to recall the trials the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) community has endured and to rejoice in the triumphs of trailblazing individuals who have bravely fought — and continue to fight — for full equality,” Biden writes. “Pride is both a jubilant communal celebration of visibility and a personal celebration of self-worth and dignity.”

Biden also name-checks the Equality Act, federal legislation that would expand the prohibition on discrimination against LGBTQ people under federal law, although the legislation is all but dead as it continues to languish in Congress.

“I will not rest until full equality for LGBTQ+ Americans is finally achieved and codified into law,” Biden writes. “That is why I continue to call on the Congress to pass the Equality Act, which will ensure civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ people and families across our country.”

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AIDS@40: Dr. Gottlieb on the beginning of the pandemic Media painted mysterious new disease as the ‘gay plague’

By KAREN OCAMB

(Editor’s note: This is part one of a four-part series on the 40th anniversary of AIDS. Part two looks at the panic, confusion and efforts to fight the mysterious disease in the face of intentional neglect; part three looks at Gottlieb, Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and founding of amfAR; and part four covers Clinton to COVID.) In the beginning, the deaths and disappearances were isolated, frightening but shorn of consequence, like short, scattered tremors before a massive earthquake. Gay San Francisco Chronicle reporter Randy Shilts suggests in his extraordinary AIDS history “And the Band Played On” that the mysterious contagious disease that would claim the lives of millions silently exploded when sailors in ships from 55 nations came to New York Harbor on July 4, 1976 to join thousands celebrating America’s bicentennial.

Then death came home. Hugh Rice, director of the STD Clinic at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center during the height of the disco era, recalled a very sick young, thin penniless gay man covered in purple lesions in 1979 who came in for his STD shot, disappeared, and died six weeks later in isolation at LA County Hospital.

Matt Redman, the interior designer and disco fan who co-founded AIDS Project Los Angeles, suspected he had been infected with HIV in the late 1970s.

But it wasn’t until L.A.-based Dr. Michael Gottlieb and colleagues authored a report published June 5, 1981 in the Centers for Disease Control’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly that identified the mysterious illnesses that would become known as AIDS. At the time, Gottlieb was a 33-year-old assistant professor at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical Center specializing in immunology who was fortuitously curious. He asked a postdoctoral fellow to go to the wards and ask interns and residents if there were any patients who had interesting immunologic conditions. He found medical intern Robert Wolf, whose patient Michael had been admitted to the UCLA emergency room in January with fevers, some fungal infections on his skin, a 25 pound weight loss, and a mouth full of thrush, or candidiasis. Additionally, Gottlieb obtained a still experimental blood test looking at Michael’s T-cells that revealed that his CD4 (“helper cells”) “had essentially gone missing.”

“This was a unique finding. We had never seen anything like this in any other immunologic or in any other medical condition,” Gottlieb tells the Blade.

Michael was discharged from the hospital but returned a week or two later with a lung infection.

“He came back to Robert Wolf. Ordinarily, you would not do a bronchoscopy for a community acquired pneumonia — ordinary bacterial pneumonia. But Robert astutely said, ‘you immunologists are telling us that this man is immune deficient. He is an immunecompromised host. We therefore should do a bronchoscopy (an invasive procedure) to be sure he might have an opportunistic infection. And indeed, he had pneumocystis pneumonia. So that’s the story of patient number one,” says Gottlieb.

“Michael was a model. He had bleached hair. He looked like a rock star. A few months later, he developed a large lesion of Kaposi’s sarcoma on his chest. And that was a mystery also. He died within the first six months of his first emergency room admission,” Gottlieb says. Michael also “happened to be gay.”

Sexual orientation wasn’t a specific consideration until Gottlieb got a call from Dr. Peng Fan, who was the acting chief of Rheumatology at the Wadsworth VA in Los Angeles. He had been moonlighting at Riverside Hospital where Dr. Joel Weisman and Dr. Eugene Rogolsky had been admitting patients from their gay practice, two of whom had similar symptoms to Michael. They were transferred to the respiratory care unit at UCLA. Pulmonary doctors immediately performed bronchoscopies “and low and behold, these two patients also had pneumocystis pneumonia. And now we had three gay men with pneumocystis pneumonia and absent CD four cells. That’s when we said, ‘oh, we have three gay men with pneumocystis pneumonia. That was the moment,” he said.

Gottlieb called the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and asked for his advice on how to publish their findings there. “And he said, ‘well, have you spoken to CDC?’ As an immunologist, my orientation was not toward the CDC — infectious disease doctors are oriented toward the CDC. But I wasn’t an infectious disease doctor. So I said, ‘no, I haven’t.’ And he said, ‘well, maybe you ought to.’ So I called Wayne Shandera, the CDC person in Los Angeles assigned to the LA County Health Department as an epidemic intelligence service officer. I knew him from my time at Stanford because he was there as well. And I said, ‘Wayne, are you aware of anything unusual going on among gay men in Los Angeles or anywhere in the country?’ And there was an eerie silence on the

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other end of the phone. And he said, ‘no, but I’ll look into it.’ I told him, we think it might have something to do with the virus called CMV cytomegalovirus.’”

Shandera found some CMV growing from a patient sample from Santa Monica. “He went down to Santa Monica hospital and spoke to the patient and indeed, it was a gay man with pneumocystis, pneumonia and CMV as well. And so he unearthed a fourth patient,” says Gottlieb.

It was after Gottlieb’s fifth patient, Randy, referred to him by a doctor at Brotman Hospital, that he decided it was time to write up a report for the CDC, with a more explanatory article published later in the New England Journal. He sat down at Shandera’s dining room table in the Fairfax district and typed up the report on an IBM Selectric typewriter, after which it was sent it off to CDC. The editor of the CDC’s MMWR returned it with some modifications and corrections. “Interestingly, we called it ‘Pneumocystis Pneumonia Among Homosexual Men in Los Angeles.’ The CDC changed the title to ‘Pneumocystis pneumonia, Los Angeles.’”

Gottlieb doesn’t see anything nefarious in the change since the MMWR was focused on disease outbreaks like the salmonella outbreak in Idaho. Additionally, “if CDC had called it Pneumocystis Pneumonia Among Homosexual Men in Los Angeles,’ it might’ve even worked against us,” says Gottlieb, “although, ultimately, it got characterized as a gay disease anyway.”

The focus on gays may have been prompted by the article in the New York Times one month later, on July 3, 1981. The small story, “Rare Dr. MICHAEL GOTTLIEB and Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals,” was colleagues authored a report published June 5, 1981 in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality published on page 20 and focused on Weekly that identified a mysterious illnesses Kaposi’s Sarcoma. that would become known as AIDS. “The cause of the outbreak is (Photo by Joshua Applegate) unknown, and there is as yet no evidence of contagion. But the doctors who have made the diagnoses, mostly in New York City and the San Francisco Bay area, are alerting other physicians who treat large numbers of homosexual men to the problem in an effort to help identify more cases and to reduce the delay in offering chemotherapy treatment,” Lawrence K. Altman reported. “The [violet-colored] spots generally do not itch or cause other symptoms, often can be mistaken for bruises, sometimes appear as lumps and can turn brown after a period of time. The cancer often causes swollen lymph glands, and then kills by spreading throughout the body.”

The next day, July 4, 1981, the CDC reported 36 more cases of KS and PCP in New York City and California, linking the two coasts. The following month, the CDC reported 70 more cases of KS and PCP that included the first heterosexuals and the first female. By December, when Gottlieb’s New England Journal article was finally published, the CDC reported the first cases of intravenous-drug users with PCP. But also, by then, the media had painted the mysterious new diseases as Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Disease (GRID) or as it was more commonly called: the “gay plague.”

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PETER ROSENSTEIN

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

Corey Johnson for New York City Comptroller A leader with vision and experience

+ Largest LGBT owned title company + Billions of dollars in transactions closed annually + 6 in house attorneys + Residential and commercial transactions + In home and in office refinance settlements + Licensed in DC, DE, MD, NJ, VA & WV

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Corey Johnson is an experienced, smart, courageous gay man who has already accomplished much in his career and life. He has served the people of New York City with intelligence, distinction and honor and they are fortunate to have the chance to vote for him for comptroller. Corey is an experienced fiscal manager and understands the details of the city’s budget better than anyone running for any office.

Corey’s experience is what the city needs in the office of comptroller. New York City has a budget of $90 billion, many times larger than most states. The comptroller’s office monitors the budget on a daily basis to ensure the fiscal health of the city. Corey’s experience will allow him to do that better than anyone else.

As speaker of the City Council, Corey delivered on-time and balanced budgets three years in a row managing a staff of nearly 900, including a team of financial analysts and economists.

During the COVID-19 crisis, Corey led the City Council through one of the worst budget crises in the city’s history and preserved millions in funding for critical city services ensuring support for the most vulnerable New Yorkers. It is this hands-on experience that will enable Corey to hit the ground running ensuring every dollar in the city’s budget is being used effectively.

The city, like the rest of the nation, continues to deal with the devastating impact of COVID-19 on its residents and its budget. Having an expert in the office of comptroller will ensure the services people need will continue to be protected. Corey understands the role of comptroller in today’s difficult times and has laid out his vision for the office.

He will act as a watchdog for COVID-19 relief, overseeing every dollar in COVID aid spent in New York City. He will ensure aggressive, impactful oversight and audits of key agencies, including affordable housing programs and policing misconduct. He will provide responsible stewardship of the city’s pension system, protecting benefits city workers spent a lifetime earning. He will support monetary policy ensuring affordable housing, good jobs, small business and green infrastructure through community investments, with a particular focus on minority and women-owned businesses. He will deliver greater accountability for New Yorkers when he creates new publicly searchable databases for citizens and journalists to use. He will work to promote fiscal policy that prioritizes racial and gender equity, both within municipal government and in the private sector supporting working people by increasing workplace protections and creating good-paying jobs.

Corey has committed to creating a COVID-19 Recovery and Rebuilding Unit headed by an Assistant Comptroller for Recovery and Rebuilding that will have a laser-like focus on the city’s response and recovery efforts making sure every dollar is spent efficiently and equitably. Using the data and recommendations from this new unit, Corey will make recommendations to the mayor and Council members on potential improvements to the city’s plans. He is committed to launching a COVID-19 Relief Dashboard to monitor the new funding the city will receive including $5.9 billion in direct aid and up to $4.5 billion for schools from the new federal stimulus package.

The city is also scheduled to receive $1 billion in FEMA reimbursement. Corey will work to see not a single dollar is wasted. The Dashboard will track how the city is spending A D V E R T this I S I federal N G P aid.

R O Corey O F believes armed with this knowledge, New Yorkers will be able to hold their government accountable and track opportunities for financial assistance and support. In addition Corey commits to auditing Emergency Procurement and Small Business Loans because he believes city government has a social responsibility and financial opportunity to invest in its hardest hit communities helping them rebound from the pandemic. Currently not all funds are being distributed equitably. Corey intends to use the Comptrollers auditing authority to hold a magnifying lens to the City’s ADVERTISER SIGNATURE emergency procurement and loans disbursed by the Department of Small Business By signing this proof you are agreeing to your contract obligations with the washington blade newspaper. This includes but is not limited to placement, payment and insertion schedule. Services to ensure no one is improperly profiting from the city during this time and that all New Yorkers have the opportunity to share and access recovery funds.

New York City is on the verge of rebounding from the pandemic. It is more important than ever to have elected leaders who both talk the talk and have walked the walk ensuring no one is left behind in this recovery. Corey is such a leader and will make a great city comptroller.

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BRIAN GAITHER

(@briangaither) is a gay activist and writer living in Maryland.

Sharon Brackett, an activist remembered

She has etched her mark in the laws and history of Maryland The quiet passing of a trans activist is seldom marked among the headlines. Where their work is most necessary, they are too much resented; and where their work is not resented, they are too often overlooked. But to the activists we owe our lives.

Without activists, we’d have none of the rights, legal protections, or social acceptance we now enjoy. When we say to each other “it gets better” we’re trusting that activists — donors, volunteers, organizers, marchers, and others — will make it better. Recognize it or not, we take from them bits of their lives (a free hour here and a day off there) to organize and agitate and fight on our behalf. So, as their mortal course finds its natural end, whether or not the fullness of their work is done, we must remember them. We must honor who they were and what they gave us.

On May 24, an activist, Sharon Brackett, died in Baltimore. She was 59, and because of her activism both Maryland and the wider world are a better place for LGBTQ people.

In 2011, a year after she launched TransParent Day, she co-founded Gender Rights Maryland. For years she worked to have gender identity included among the human rights ordinances of Howard County, Baltimore County, and ultimately all Maryland’s counties with passage of the Fairness for All Marylanders Act of 2014. For her efforts, Baltimore’s GLCCB (now the Pride Center of Maryland) honored her as its Activist of the Year during that year’s celebration of Baltimore Pride. But she didn’t stop there. From 2016 to 2018, Sharon was a member of the board of directors of OutServe-SLDN, a national organization supporting the military’s LGBTQ community. During her tenure she was involved in defending transgender service members from the attacks of the Trump administration as it sought to deprive them of their opportunities to openly serve the country.

She stood for election to the Baltimore City Democratic Central Committee in 2018, and her win at the ballot box against a crowded field of candidates became the first by an openly trans person in the history of the State of Maryland. She subsequently chaired the LGBTQ+ Diversity Leadership Council of the Maryland Democratic Party, another first for a trans Marylander.

Amid all that, she spent eight years on the national board of the Point Foundation, an organization that awards college scholarships to openly LGBTQ students. Everyday, as well, she was the proud parent of two children, a committed partner, an entrepreneur, and an engineer.

Sharon could have opted to do nothing. She could have spent her life waiting for things to “get better” for trans people and for the wider LGBTQ community. She chose, instead, to make them better. She reminded us that doing nothing was to concede defeat. She told us to lift our chins when things looked most bleak. And she gave all the pieces of herself to do what was necessary. Even when the world with its bigotry was singularly cruel to her, she refused to see it for anything less than its potential to be a place more rational, more equitable, and more accepting.

Sharon Brackett was a friend, a mentor, and a hero to the many people who knew her.

We will grieve her loss deeply. And though she is gone, she has etched her mark in the laws and history of Maryland, in the national discourse about the lives of trans people, A D V E R Tand I S IinNthe G future P R O of O all F LGBTQ folk — some of whom will continue her tradition of activism.

Through her legacy we will remember her, and by her legacy she will be forever with us.

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Dr. OYE I. OWOLEWA is the U.S. Representative of Washington, D.C. Dr. LAURA MEYERS is CEO and president of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, D.C. SULTAN SHAKIR is executive director of Supporting and Mentoring Youth Advocates and Leaders (SMYAL).

Anti-trans legislation has ripple effects in D.C.

All people deserve high-quality health care With the introduction of at least 117 bills targeting the transgender community, 2021 is shaping up to be the worst year in modern history for anti-LGBTQ state legislation.

Many of these bills target transgender and non-binary youth by making it illegal to access or provide gender affirming medical care and denying the best equipped healthcare providers the ability to provide appropriate care for the trans community. This will result in wasteful spending, increased healthcare costs and worse outcomes.

Gender affirming care is an essential component of inclusive, comprehensive transgender health care. According to the Trevor Project’s 2020 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth have seriously considered suicide. Conversely, affirming gender identity among transgender and nonbinary youth is consistently associated with lower rates of suicide attempts.

While we are fortunate to live in a jurisdiction that is not considering similar legislation, bills like this impact young people in our region. Trans youth are tuned in, and they hear these conversations questioning the very validity of their identities and existence.

We believe that all people deserve high-quality health care and compassionate, nonjudgmental health information, no matter what.

Following the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia (May 17th), we ask that you reach out to loved ones across the country and have a conversation to help move the issue out of a political debate and into a conversation about the lives of real people. Just one conversation can make a huge impact.

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Get Covered. Stay Covered.

BROCK THOMPSON

is a D.C.-based writer.

He contributes regularly to the Blade.

Speedos and hoodies: Rehoboth Memorial Day recap Chilly temperatures and rain couldn’t stop the revelry

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Well, that was something.

Rehoboth Beach can be just a perfect coming together of all things gay. From the District to New York, that charming little town of taffy and traffic will host us all. Yes, you have the New York gays, who I was told you can always tell by their penchant for vertical striped blouses.

Then you have that city caught in the middle, your Philly gays, who I can easily spot because they’re sort of like so many Europeans, stylish but still smoking. Then you have us. The D.C. gays. Not quite either of those two, or really any of the also-ran cities around us. Maybe a little more stuffy? But give us the chance to day drink and tea dance.

We can be a smart, slutty people. And we’d all been waiting for it.

Memorial Day Weekend — the unofficial kick-off of summer. We’ve got our new haircuts, our new bathing suits. But alas, a cold front from hell dashed our hopes somewhat. Temperatures hitting homophobic 20 to 30 degrees below average had Rehoboth on par with Reykjavík, with twinks chattering their teeth on Poodle Beach with folks desperately trying to make Speedos and hoodies work.

Despite all that, Friday was the last good day really before the Iceland spring came through and we found ourselves at Aqua. And this wasn’t your mother’s Aqua. Well, unless your mother was gay as hell, then it was pretty accurate. The energy was palpable, and gays moving to a tea dance that never ended. COVID was over, at least there. Boys you hadn’t seen in months, over a year really, were ecstatic to see each other. Then of course like any gay dance party, there’s that one gay that’s dancing three times faster than the music dictates. Gosh I think I’ve missed him most of all. But I caught myself complaining about the impending weather, and Diego from Charlotte overheard, leaning into me he said, “Just drink through it.”

And to remind you of the old days of gay Rehoboth, 60 Baltimore, that fable rental just a stone’s throw from Aqua is back in gay hands.

And being there was like the ‘before times’ - meaning I don’t think they’ve cleaned since then. Body shots were being had, but I think that just really out of necessity as they seemed to have just run out of cups.

Drinking through two nonstop rainy days saw my friend Beaumont’s Caftan Party on Saturday. And then on Sunday the Pines’s famous drag brunch, where apparently drag queens think you can scream COVID away. Sure there were raves around town. But at my age I’m a little past that now, I guess. I tried one once. I brought a bottle of rosé to share if that shows you where my thinking was.

But why did we all go? I mean, we all saw the weather forecast, right? We knew lines would form at every bar. Maybe it was that we’d already paid. Sure, fine. But maybe it is also just what we do. We sit in traffic, cross the Bay Bridge, wind through corn fields to go to a beach town where the water is still too cold to hear newbie waiters stumble through specials. We do it because it’s ours. And to be silly and ecstatic and sunburned or waterlogged or tipsy and dancing, if just for a long gay weekend.

In our little beach town, maybe next weekend will be sunnier. So, let’s just keep at it throughout summer. We deserve a hot, sweaty, ironic eyewear summer. So many of us do our bit for queen and country, or did before we moved on to real estate. So here’s to the next weekend.

I’ll be back. We’ll all be back. Over and over again.

“I love it here!

I couldn’t have made a better choice.”

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(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Discussion of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington quickly becomes emotional for its members both veteran and newbie(-ish). They’re the kind of strong feelings that only exist when one has sacrificed and invested in something.

“It’s an experience that touches our soul in a way that not that many LGBTQ+ people get to experience,” says tenor Javon Morris-Byam, a gay 28-year-old music teacher who joined three years ago. “We have music tying us together and in the end, we make a product that we can share with the public and that’s a humbling experience.”

Steve Herman, 79, is a founding member, though he doesn’t sing. One of a group of “non-singing members,” he joined in June 1981 and has helped over the decades painting scenery, designing ads, serving on the board and more. His partner at the time had joined the chorus as a singer.

Now retired after 47 years in the federal government, he says the Chorus “has been a major centerpiece of my life.”

“This may sound corny, but I couldn’t imagine my life without the chorus,” Herman says.

The chorus is celebrating its 40th anniversary this weekend with a streaming concert simply dubbed “GMCW turns 40” that can be streamed starting

By JOEY DiGUGLIELMO & PATRICK FOLLIARD Saturday, June 5 at 7 p.m. and can be viewed until June 20.

Selections will include “From Now On” (from “The Greatest Showman”), “Rise Up,” “Make Them Hear You” (from “Ragtime”), “Truly Brave” and a new song called “Harmony’s Never Too Late!” written for the occasion by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, composers of “Ragtime.” Video clips of past performances will also be included in a montage. Tickets are $25 at gmcw.org.

Thea Kano, the Chorus’s artistic director since 2014 (she was associate director for a decade prior), says “Make Them Hear You” has “kind of become our anthem over the last 10 years,” so contacting its composers for a commission made sense. They premiered it last summer virtually at the Chorus’s Summer Soiree, a COVID-induced postponement of its usual Spring Affair.

The Gay Men’s Chorus Kano, a straight ally, directs the Chorus with aid from Associate Conductor C. Paul performs the musical Heins, Assistant Conductor Joshua Sommerville and accompanist Teddy Guerrant.

‘Xanadu’ in 2013.

Justin Fyala has been the Chorus’s executive director since 2016. Staff also includes (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key) Craig Cipollini (director of marketing), Kirk Sobell (director of patron services) and Alex Tang (accompanist).

Under the main Chorus umbrella are five ensembles: 17th Street Dance, a 14-member performance troupe started in 2016; Rock Creek Singers, a 32-voice chamber ensemble; GenOUT Youth Chorus, a teen choir of about 25; Potomac Fever, a 14-member harmony pop ensemble; and Seasons of Love, a 24-voice gospel choir.

Musically, the Chorus’s repertoire is eclectic. “(We sing) everything from spiritual to glam rock to punk to traditional classical, and everything in between,” Morris-Byam says. “I love when the chorus is all together and able to produce a big powerful sound.”

Kano says working with Fyala is “a dream” and says under his leadership the Chorus is “in a very healthy financial place, which is wonderful and a very humble thing to be able to say right now particularly given that we’re in a pandemic — that’s not the case with a lot of arts organizations.”

40 years of harmony

Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington celebrates milestone with virtual weekend concert, retrospective

CONTINUES ON PAGE 28

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Members find validation in Chorus’s overall message CONTINUED FROM PAGE 26

The D.C. Chorus is a quasi-unofficial spin off of its San Francisco counterpart.

During an early ’80s national tour, the San Francisco group performed at Washington’s Kennedy Center and had a profound effect on local audiences.

Marsha Pearson, a straight woman who lived in Dupont Circle at the time and enjoyed hanging out The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington performs in 1985. with gay men, was one (Washington Blade photo by Doug Hinckle) such person.

“I couldn’t believe we didn’t have one of these,” she told the Blade 10 years ago for a story on the Chorus’s 30th anniversary. “I thought, ‘We’re the nation’s capital, how come we don’t have this?’”

She hand wrote fliers — four to a sheet — had her sister photocopy them at her office, cut them up by hand and passed them out at Capital Pride in 1981.

Accounts vary about how many showed up The Chorus performs at the popular gay nightclub Tracks in to the first practice at 1984. (Washington Blade photo by Doug Hinckle) the long-defunct gay community center (no connection to the D.C. Center) on Church Street. Pearson remembers about 30. Others say it was more like 15-ish. It was June 28, 1981 and, by all accounts, an innocuous beginning.

Pearson never sang with the group — it was exclusively a men’s chorus. She asked if anybody had any conducting experience. The late Jim Richardson did and became the first director.

“I still remember the first chord,” Pearson told the Blade in 2011.

“It was just a simple thing, you know, like do, mi, so, do, but I just got goosebumps. I was just elated that even one note came out, I was so excited. I got those same goosebumps at the anniversary concert last weekend. I put their CDs on and I get the same thing, especially on certain things they sing. You just can’t believe it sounds so great.”

Search for “Men, music and message” at washingtonblade. com for more in that piece about the history of the group. A bio/ history is also available at gmcw.org under “about us” at the bottom of the main site page.

COVID has, of course, wreaked havoc on the operation.

Thankfully, Kano says, no members have died from it, though a handful (she says fewer than 10 that she knows of), including Kano, have had it and recovered.

The Chorus continued its Sunday evening rehearsals via Zoom, which, because of the precision required for musical performance, was tougher to take online than, say, a business meeting. It never occurred to the Chorus leadership to take a hiatus.

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The Chorus celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in a performance at Lincoln Theatre in 2019. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

“I look back now like, ‘Why didn’t we take some time off,’ but I think off the top of my head at the time it was like, “We sing and we’re a social justice organization and community is such a big part of who we are,’” Kano says. “And so for suddenly, with no notice, to have something that we love so much and are so passionate about …. to suddenly just turn the lights off, that wasn’t even an option.”

With the Chorus and dancers and GenOUT, there are about 200 current volunteer performers. It’s been slightly higher at times. Some were deterred by the thought of rehearsing via Zoom although some former members no longer in the D.C. area — even a few overseas — rejoined when virtual participation became possible.

The murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement last summer and beyond was a galvanizing event. The Chorus responded with its “Let Freedom Sing” concert, which Kano says celebrated the intersection of Black and LGBTQ people.

“It was our way of saying we raise our voice in solidarity with those facing injustice,” Kano says.

But does that get messy at times? Surely not everyone in a choir of this size is on the same page politically, even in a progressive city like D.C., right?

As a nonprofit, the Chorus avoids anything ostensibly political. Kano says the issue did arise when they were invited to sing at a Virginia-based gun-reform event last year.

They participated, but carefully.

CONTINUES ON PAGE 30 The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington perform the show ‘Let Freedom Sing’ at the Lincoln Theatre in 2019.

(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

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The holiday shows for the Chorus often involve elaborate costumes, as in this scene in 2017.

A scene from ‘Let Freedom Sing.’

(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Featured soloists perform in ‘Let Freedom Sing.’

(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Chorus makes political statements without taking partisan stand CONTINUED FROM PAGE 28

“So anytime you mentioned guns, it becomes political,” Kano says. “It’s not about whether or not we support the Second Amendment. It’s us standing in solidarity with those who have been victims of gun violence.”

Kano says there’s “a very good chance had this been a non-pandemic year,” they would have been invited to sing at the Biden-Harris inauguration, which she says they “absolutely” would have agreed to.

“We did wonder, though, a few years ago what we would have said if 45 were to ask us,” she says. “We didn’t spend a lot of time on it because we knew that wasn’t gonna happen,” she says with a chuckle.

Herman says performing at big, pro-LGBTQ “statement”-type events is woven into the Chorus’s history and is understood.

“Every Christmas Eve, we’d sing for the patients at NIH,” he says. “We still do, only then it was primarily AIDS patients. We sang special concerts when the (AIDS) Quilt was first displayed and when there was a March on Washington. We did a lot of community

work and outreach at a time when it was really needed.”

Morris-Byam says even today, with so much progress having been made, the Chorus still is needed. He, by the way, calls Kano “one of the most brilliant musicians I’ve ever met.”

“I believe the Chorus is a strong political statement in itself,” he says. “When we’re making a strong, joyful noise, it’s celebrating everything we are, what we can be, and everyone who has gotten us where we are.

There have been challenges over the years — finding new office space, patching together individual vocal parts for virtual performances — but no warring factions. Kano is, by most accounts, extremely well liked.

The future, Kano says, is bright. She hopes to resume in-person rehearsals in the fall. She spent a big chunk of early lockdown transcribing a Puccini “Gloria Mass” for tenor/bass chorus. She plans to program it with works by Cole Porter eventually.

Ultimately, Kano says, her goals for the Chorus are about making great art.

“Art comes first,” she says. “Because that’s how we deliver our mission. And if we put great art first, it’s going to attract great people. It’s going to both as members and as audience members and patrons, and therefore it’s going to attract great funding, and then all that goes right back into the arts we can further our expansion and our ability to get the mission out.”

The Chorus performs the musical “Working” at the Sprenger Theatre of the Atlas Performing Arts Center. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

A Chorus rehearsal in 2008.

(Washington Blade photo by Henry Linser)

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THEA KANO, center, joins members of the Chorus at the United States Supreme Court on the day of the Obergefell v. Hodges marriage equality decision in June of 2015. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

presents

GMCW TURNS 40

Celebrating 40 Years of raising our voice with new musical performances, highlights and favorite moments from over the years, special guests, and much more!

STREAMING ON DEMAND JUNE 5 TO JUNE 20, 2021

OP EN

Tickets: $25 Visit GMCW.org to register Event will be ASL interpreted

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HIS

WE E

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!

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CALENDAR Friday, June 04 DC Public Library will host “DISdance Pride Edition — Still We Dance at 6:30 p.m. Show your Pride by dancing with the Library’s Freegal music collections. You can dance to one or all 30-minute playlists. Post a video or photo of you and your crew dancing or lip-syncing to Instagram and tag DC Public Library on Instagram (@dcpubliclibrary) using the tags #DCPLDanceParty and #StillWeDance. DC Public Library will share its favorite videos and crown the video with the most likes the virtual Queen of Pride. You can find all four Pride playlists on Freegal with the names Still We Lead, Still We Live, Still We Laugh, and Still We Love.

“Friday Tea Time,” a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults, begins at 2:00 p.m. on Zoom. For access to the Zoom link and more information, contact justin@thedccenter.org.

Saturday, June 05

Join Prince George’s County Memorial Library System for “Viewer’s Advisory: Rainbow Cartoons” virtually at 11 a.m. This event will dive into a discussion on positive and problematic LGBTQ+ representation in cartoons, anime, and graphic novels for teens and tweens.

Cheverly Pride will host a car parade at 3 p.m. The parade begins at Community Center for a flag raising, some words of welcome, and a remembrance for lives that have been lost. Cars will proceed from there in a parade (decorations encouraged and a prize will be awarded) to the Legion, with a quick stop at Legion park to raise another flag. At the Legion there will be food, music, and fun. For more information, visit Cheverly Village online.

Sunday, June 06

The DC Center for the LGBT Community, TERRIFIC, Inc., Capitol Hill Village, and the DC Department on Aging and Community Living (DACL) will host a virtual drag show and discussion panel moderated by Devon Trotter at 2 p.m. The event will begin with performances by Pussy Noir and Blaq Dynamite followed by a conversation with them moderated

by Devon Trotter. For more information, reach out to adamheller@thedccenter.org.

Virtual Travel Adventure Show has an LGBTQ travel segment at 5 p.m. The event will explore top vacation options from around the world catering specifically to the LGBTQ community at the Virtual Travel & Adventure Show. You’ll find thousands of vacation options from top destinations, cruise lines and tour operators, expert travel content, and thousands of dollars in travel savings all in one place. The event is free and tickets are available online on Eventbrite. For more information, visit virtual.travelshows.com.

Queen City Kings Drag will host “Flame: A Worldwide Pride Show” virtually at 9 p.m. This event will feature 16 performers who were selected from a worldwide pool of submissions to entertain and inspire. Be prepared to laugh, cry, party, and rejoice when drag artists Interrobang the Dragon, Dik Carrier, Lottie Flick, Semicolon, Rye, Fannie Fullenweider, Fox Squire, Black Battie, Mercury Divine, Just JP, Nick D’Cuple, Nitrix Oxide, Perka $exx, Shea Hazard, Camden Summers, and Fly-Guy Shawn hit the virtual stage with Myster E as your host. For more information, visit facebook.com/ events/3872765452851183.

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By PRINCE CHINGARANDE The Virginia Tourism Corporation has updated its Pride logo to be more inclusive.

Monday, June 07 The Center Aging Coffee Drop-In will still take place virtually at 10 a.m. via Zoom. LGBT Older Adults (and friends) are invited to have friendly conversations about current issues they might be dealing with. For more information, visit Center Aging’s Facebook page.

Join the DC Center for their virtual job club, a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking. The event begins on Zoom at 6 p.m.

For more information, email careercenters@thedccenter.org.

Tuesday, June 08

Meryl Wilsner on “Something to Talk About,” copresented with DC Public Library, will be hosted virtually at 7 p.m. Author Meryl Wilsner will discuss their work and hit debut novel, “Something to Talk About” (2020), with staff from PGCMLS and DC Public Library in commemoration of LGBTQ+ Pride Month. More information is available at: https://ww1.pgcmls.info/event/5177534.

The Trans Support Group will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. All who identify under the trans umbrella or are unsure, and seek to continually reinforce our principles of respect, acceptance and protection through ongoing input from our attendees are welcome to attend. Email supportdesk@dccenter.org to access the Zoom link.

Wednesday, June 09

Join Prince George’s County Memorial Library System for “Lenny Duncan ‘United States of Grace’ with Teddy Reeves” virtually at 7 p.m. United States of Grace is a love story about America, revealing the joy and resilience of those places in this country many call “the margins” but that Lenny Duncan has called home. The event will be livestreamed on Youtube and Facebook on the @PGCMLS account. For more information, visit: https://ww1.pgcmls.info/event/5160349.

Join the DC Center for their virtual job club, a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking. The event begins on Zoom at 6 p.m.

For more information, email careercenters@thedccenter.org.

Thursday, June 10

Join The Residences at Thomas Circle for “Let’s Flamingle!” at 4 p.m. on 1330 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. This event will celebrate silver pride with a rooftop barbecue.

Guests are encouraged to dress as flamboyantly as they can.

To RSVP, contact Denise by calling 202-628-3844 or send an email to dkasper@seniorlifestyle.com.

Free State Justice will host a storytelling night virtually at 6 p.m. The event will include LGBTQ storytellers who will provide personal takes on what Pride means to them. Tickets are available on Eventbrite. General admission to this event is free, however, you can donate $10 to the organization through the Eventbrite link as well. For more information, visit freestate-justice.org/.

OUT & ABOUT DCGBL hosts clothing, shoe drive June 5 The D.C. Gay Basketball League in partnership with Chesapeake & Potomac Softball will host a clothing and shoe drive on June 5 beginning at 10 a.m. The clothing drive will be in partnership with the Temple of Nyame Dua, which sends clothes and supplies to villages in Ghana.

Some of the temple’s work includes: school building and renovation; supporting girls and young women; providing children with shoes; and supporting school districts, among many things. For more information, visit DCGBL’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ groups/DCGBL.

‘Virginia is for Lovers’ updates Pride heart logo The Virginia Tourism Corporation (VTC) will be updating its current “Virginia is for Lovers” Pride Heart logo and adopt the Progress Pride Flag design that reflects the many different identities within the queer community. VTC initially introduced the Virginia is for Lovers Pride logo in 2016, with the traditional red heart being replaced with a rainbow heart.

The new design better acknowledges both the diversity of the people and cultures that make up Virginia’s tourism industry including business owners and communities, and vendors involved in the arts, food, beverages, music, and culture. The flag’s design will also more accurately represent the travelers that come to Virginia to explore the history, outdoors, restaurants, Pride festivals and events, and their favorite queer-centric attractions.

For more information, visit www.virginia.org.

Joy Ladin delivers 2021 OKC Pride lecture The LGBTQ Inclusion Task Force will host the OKC Pride Month Lecture, which will be delivered by Joy Ladin, Ph.D., on Sunday June 6 at 7:15 p.m. on Zoom.

Ladin is a teacher, essayist, poet, and literary scholar.

She holds the Gottesman Chair in English at Stern College for Women at Yeshiva University in New York City. She is also a nationally recognized speaker on transgender issues and on gender and Jewish identity. Ladin has been featured on the NPR program “On Being with Krista Tippet” and gave a TedX talk titled “Ain’t I a Woman?”

In addition, Ladin has authored the books: “The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God” and “Torah from a Transgender Perspective and Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey between Genders.”

To attend, register at the LGBTQ Inclusion Task Force website.

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Legendary dance troupe takes spotlight in ‘Ballerina Boys’ doc

Challenging rigid gender norms entrenched in the art form and society

By JOHN PAUL KING

it’s not your same old weekly email

Sign up at washingtonblade.com

When we think of LGBTQ activism in the 1970s, we tend to think of picket signs, protest marches, and people carrying megaphones – but it also took other forms.

Back in the heady postStonewall days of what was then called the “Gay A scene from Liberation” movement, a ‘Ballerina Boys.’

(Photo courtesy PBS) different approach to the struggle for acceptance was taking seed at a rundown performance space in Manhattan’s Meat Packing District, where a group of classically trained dancers – all men – were performing drag versions of the great ballets. They called themselves Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, and nearly five decades later they have become a world-renowned dance company, known as much for carrying a message of equality, inclusion and social justice as they are for delivering classical ballet both en pointe and in drag.

If you’ve never heard of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (lovingly known as “The Trocks” by their fans), it’s not a surprise.

After all, ballet is something of a “niche” interest these days, particularly in American culture, and only those with a natural affinity for the art form are drawn to it – so anyone unfamiliar with the company can certainly be forgiven.

That is, until now.

In honor of Pride Month, PBS’s venerable “American Masters” is debuting a new documentary about the Trocks. “Ballerina Boys,” directed and produced by Chana Gazit and Martie Barylick, presents a portrait of the company as they tour the Carolinas and culminates with their 2019 performance at the Stonewall 50th anniversary concert in NYC’s Central Park. Along the way, it goes for a deep dive into the history of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, offering up plentiful rehearsal and performance footage, both from the company’s archives and from the tour, and weaving everything together with in-depth interviews from past and present members of the troupe.

What gives the film its greatest appeal, of course, is the chance it affords to see this legendary performance troupe in action.

With generous amounts of screen time devoted to the dancers dancing, the audience is allowed to grasp something much closer to the full power of what they do than can be gleaned by a few brief snippets of footage. “Ballerina Boys” is as much about the art of dance itself, and the passion that drives its practitioners to devote their entire being to its service, as it is about the Trocks themselves; the troupe’s history may be the central focus of the film, but it’s their dancing that allows us to connect with them.

It also allows us to understand why this unique company has not only survived for 47 years, but established itself as an iconic presence in the world of dance, as well as helping us to grasp the importance of their use of that position in that world as a platform to promote acceptance. The Trocks have become beloved for their signature style, a blend of rigorous technique and satire that delights their audiences – while also challenging the rigid gender norms deeply entrenched not just in the art form, but in society itself.

In the words of Roy Fialkow, a former Trock interviewed extensively in the film, “We were pushing the limits of the definition of what men did. What Ballet Trockadero has done over the years has turned this notion of what is beautiful in ballet kind of on its head, and turned it

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upside down, so that there can be moments in this ballet, where you can just say, ‘Wow.’” There are plenty of “wow” moments in “Ballerina Boys” that treat us to better-than-front-row views of these gifted, athletic, disciplined young bodies in motion – something that is impressive for all the reasons you would imagine – and they reveal the secret of Ballet Trockadero’s formula by reminding us that something can make us laugh and still be beautiful, too.

Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the Trocks’ history – which unfolds largely through the reminiscences and comments of Fialkow, Company Founders Peter Anastos and Natch Taylor, and Artistic Director Tory Dobrin, supplemented with insights from LGBTQ historian Eric Marcus – has seen the troupe meet resistance from some who didn’t find its loving lampoon of the austerely traditional ballet form quite so beautiful.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, much of that resistance came from within the dance world itself, and had more to do with breaking those austere traditions than with the politics of LGBTQ activism.

Still, the film makes clear that it is the troupe’s devotion to the art form and its traditions that makes their work so effective – something it illustrates, time and time again, with breathtaking moments in which gifted dancers take us from the absurd to the profound to the transcendent within a few short seconds of movement. It also lets us get to know a few of the current company members – such as Philip Martin-Nielson, whose autism has proven an asset both in the performance and teaching of his craft, and Duane Gosa, who has found in Ballet Trockadero a perfect haven to be truly himself while following his passion.

“Being in a company like this where I can freely be Black and gay and a dancer on stage and be good at it, is a great thing for younger people to see,” Gosa tells us. “I am fortunate enough to be able to show that this is possible.”

That, of course, is the ultimate importance of the Trocks, and one that perhaps lies at the heart of their concept even in their earliest days. Though they may not have been activists, they freely admit being inspired by the Stonewall Riots (the legendary kickline performed by some of the queens at the bar as they were rushed by the police gets a prominent mention) and fueled by the spirit of defiance and creative exuberance that the gay rights movement fostered within the queer community of the time. At the peak of their success in the 1980s, they had become international ambassadors not just for acceptance; watching them ride a tour bus through the South, still an epicenter in the struggle for LGBTQ rights, it’s clear that’s a role they are still fulfilling – and one that still has its dangers.

Still, the Trocks have gotten away with it for so long because the humor and the beauty they personify are able to reach across the barriers of intellect and identity and strike a universal chord with their audiences. In their ballets, they invite us into a world where gender is just another part of the costume, ultimately irrelevant to the humanity that we experience there – and once there, it just might become possible to remember that we already live there.

“American Masters: Ballerina Boys” premieres nationwide Friday, June 4 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings), pbs.org/ americanmasters and the PBS Video app in honor of Pride month.

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JUSTIN WEAKS (foreground) and DJ NICK ‘THA 1DA’ HERNANDEZ in ‘Flow.’ (Photo courtesy of Studio Theatre)

‘Will Power’s Flow’

Studio Theatre Streaming through June 27 $37 | Studiotheatre.org

‘Will Power’s Flow’ a hip-hop tour de force

Justin Weaks on playing multiple parts, theater scene after COVID

By PATRICK FOLLIARD

Out actor Justin Weaks really digs hip-hop. So, when Studio Theatre asked him to take on the title role in a filmed remount of “Will Power’s Flow,” an early 2000s hip-hop theatrical piece about music and the storytelling of contemporary urban denizens in the West African griot tradition, it wasn’t an impossible stretch.

Growing up in Concord, N.C., a suburb outside of Charlotte, Weaks’ household was strictly into soul and R&B. But since living in D.C., he says, it feels like hip-hop music has deeply dug its claws into him.

In “Flow,” Weaks, 30, is backed by the hip-hop beats of DJ/composer/sound designer Nick “Tha 1da” Hernandez. “But you’ll hear me on some beats too. I have a good time with it.”

But the most challenging aspect of tackling “Flow” is playing multiple parts, he adds.

In addition to his lead role as performer Will Power (the 7th storyteller), he plays six other storytellers, and about another dozen characters. But this sort of tour de force isn’t entirely new to the actor who triumphantly played multiple roles in “Long Way Down” at the Kennedy Center as well as in “Gloria” at Woolly Mammoth, the work that garnered him a Helen Hayes Award nomination.

The D.C.-based actor who describes himself as “happily single,” ranks as one of Washington’s most gifted talents.

WASHINGTON BLADE: Was it challenging to assay Will Power, a part so associated with a real-life artist?

JUSTIN WEAKS: Actually, this production was my introduction to Will Power. My friend and director Psalmayene 24 reached out to me – he said Studio wanted to remount “Flow” with a new actor, and asked if I was interested. I was blown away by the script. It’s a behemoth of a piece. Any yes, any time you’re dealing with a piece that was originally performed by its writer, there is an extra responsibility to the work and the words.

BLADE: And how was returning to the stage after a long absence?

WEAKS: The return to Studio felt right. I love the programming at Studio. Like how intimate their spaces are. As a performer you’re held by the audience.

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BLADE: But because of COVID restrictions, this production was filmed over two days.

How was that?

WEAKS: I’ve had very little film experience. This was my first major rodeo in front of the camera. Everything about it was new. I learned so much while doing it. It’s something that’s foreign. You have to think of it as a great opportunity to learn, to grow, and see what you need to work on.

I’ll admit that I feel incredibly vulnerable with this filmed play being out there. That’s new for me. I’ve experienced vulnerability in real time when I’m on stage but to have the work be done a month ago, edited, and out there, it makes me feel exposed in a way I’ve never felt.

BLADE: I’m sure you’ll get used to that.

WEAKS: After I’ve done a few feature films, I’ll probably feel differently.

BLADE: Was it difficult returning to work after such an odd year?

WEAKS: Returning to work as an artist isn’t easy. I consider our return process to be like boot camp. We’re different people now. My body sits differently. My voice and breath are different. After isolation and not working much, I had to relearn my instrument again.

BLADE: Is it different?

WEAKS: There is so much that is changing in terms of the industry — theater and film industry. How they hire and pay artists. So many of us made more on unemployment than when we were busy working full-time pre-COVID. Theaters will be in for a surprise when they reopen doors and find that artists don’t want to go back to the way things were before the pandemic. We’re in a different time now and we’ll rise to the new time rather than shrinking back into what was. Clearly it wasn’t serving many of us.

BLADE: And is there anything about Flow that’s especially appealing to LGBTQ audiences?

WEAKS: Oh, yes. If you’re someone who has struggled at all this past year, then this piece will interest you. If you’re figuring out what the future looks like, how to move on, how to cope, how to have faith, or hang on to something real, then this play is for you.

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Author recalls beatings, discrimination in memoir ‘Punch Me Up to the Gods’ an emotional, rewarding journey

By TERRI SCHLICHENMEYER

‘Punch Me Up to the Gods: A Memoir’

By Brian Broome

c.2021, HMH Books $26/272 pages

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Little kids have it so easy.

Somebody feeds them when they’re hungry, does their laundry, buys them toys, and plays with them. Somebody escorts them everywhere and sometimes, they even get carried. Yep, life is good when you’re a little kid except, as in the new memoir, “Punch Me Up to the Gods” by Brian Broome, when it’s not.

He called Corey his “best friend,” but Corey was no friend to 10-year-old Brian Broome. Sure, things were simpatico at first but it didn’t take long for Corey to sense Broome’s insecurities, or to start pummeling Broome, or to humiliate him. Broome’s father hoped that Corey might act as “a form of therapy” for a boy who played with girls too much; Broome endured the abuse and didn’t complain to the adults because he was a little in love with Corey.

As if Corey’s thrashings weren’t harsh enough, Broome’s dad beat Broome for a multitude of reasons, from a pink shirt to frustration over unemployment to racism: he said he’d rather kill his children himself than to let a white person do it. Broome, in fact, often wished that he was white like the people on TV, so he’d have the benefits of it. White parents really seemed to love their kids.

Broome dreamed of moving far away from the tiny working-class Ohio town of his birth, to a larger city where he believed he could avoid the bullying and teasing, leave his life behind, and escape the embarrassment of his parents’ ramshackle existence. He did leave once, for college, but he was deeply humiliated by the racism and homophobia of his roommates.

He called his mother then, and she came to get him.

She was one of a handful of Black women who saved him.

Being a man isn’t easy. Being a Black man in America is harder. Being a gay Black man led Broome to drugs, alcohol, and away from his family – although, he says, “... yes, I was loved. Just not in ways that I could understand.”

Be prepared to be messed with here. Your emotions may never be the same.

There’s a tightly coiled, ready-to-strike fist wrapped in melancholy and a miles-long people-watching incident in this book, both giving aptness to its title. “Punch Me Up to the Gods” refers to author Brian Broome’s father’s second-favorite words before the beatings began, and they’ll hit you hard, too. You’re not embarrassed, in fact, to be seen carrying a book around, are you? Because you will, this one.

Happily, there are moments of humor, too, as Broome recalls things that occurred in his youth, or maybe just a few years ago. He surprises readers with similes that are sobering, in the middle of laughter. He steps back sometimes, to pick at something else, turns it over twice to examine it, and pulls it into his tale.

For this, you won’t regret picking this wonderfully companionable, startlingly gracious and compelling memoir. “Punch Me Up to the Gods” is a don’tmiss, devouring it is so easy.

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH TO EVERYONE! THE CHRISSY & LISA TEAM IS PROUD TO SUPPORT WASHINGTON DC’S LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY

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on upper level with a bonus space/office overlooking dining area.

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Multiple offers? Multiple headaches?

Here’s some medicine Tips for navigating our hot seller’s market

By JOSEPH HUDSON

As a seller’s agent, multiple offers can be great. Who doesn’t love options? Does my seller want to take offer A, B, or C? (Or even D, E, or F?).

As a buyer’s agent, multiple offers can mean more stress, headaches, nail biting, and taking on more risk. Lately it has been described as a seller’s market. With the combination of low interest rates and a global pandemic that led thousands of people to decide to look for a bigger house with more rooms, outdoor space, and a more desirable location than their last residence, the result has been multiple offer bidding wars on homes that buyers find desirable. So, what are some suggestions for handling this multiple offer laden market? Here are a few tactics I have learned over the years:

1. Do a pre-inspection so that the home purchase is not contingent on a home inspection. If you find too many red flags, you can just skip making the offer and keep looking.

2. Ask your lender to approve you beyond just a preapproval. This might take more energy on the front end so that you can have the bank give you a solid approval letter, but it might mean that you can close on the house in less time and seem like a more solid choice than the other offers.

3. Be willing to ask the sellers what they need. Some sellers want a high price, while other sellers are OK with a decent price, but with features such as a rent-back for a month or so while they coordinate closing on their new home, or even begin looking for their new home. Being flexible can be crucial to winning the offer.

4. If you are a seller, and need to sell before buying the new home, you might just want to move out, get a six-month or a oneyear rental and put the house up for sale. You might find that the profit you make in a multiple offer situation could be enough to cover the cost of the rental and make the search for the next house less frantic and stressful.

With low interest rates and lots of people on the move, many homes in our area are drawing multiple offers.

Joseph Hudson

is a Realtor with The Rutstein Group at Compass.

Reach him at 703-587-0597 or Joseph.hudson@compass.com

4 4 • WA SHIN GTO N BLADE.COM • JUNE 04, 202 1 • B US I NE S S

These are just a few ideas a good Realtor can help their clients to decide on. Find a trusted Realtor to help you. Oh, and happy Pride month everyone!

J UNE 0 4 , 2 0 2 1 • WA S H I N GTO N B L A D E.CO M • 4 5

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CARE FOR YOUR HOME CLEANING

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Job Requirements Ability to lift up to 75 lbs.

Completion of required trainings prior to hire, Completion of Trained Medication Certifications (TME) and/or CMT (Certified Medication Technician) within 6 months of hire, Cleared DOH background Check prior to hire, Valid Driver’s License, Valid CPR & FIrst Aid, Negative COVID-19 test results prior to start of work (taken within 3 days prior to date of hire). COVID-19 vaccination within 45 days of hire.

Contact the Human Resources Department @ 202-832-8787 for information.

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MEN FOR MEN

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You were a pharmacist in MD. Sometimes you came to see me at karaoke in DuPont Circle. Please contact Scott: drsjr58biz@gmail.com

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