Washingtonblade.com, Issue 49, Volume 50, December 14, 2018

DECEMBER 14,

2018

VOLUME 49

ISSUE 50

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50 YEARS AS AMERICA’S LGBTQ NEWS SOURCE

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WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

‘The road has been very hard’ Meet the LGBT migrants fleeing violence for a better life in U.S.

By YARIEL VALDÉS GONZÁLEZ TIJUANA, Mexico — Melani Sofía Rosales Quiñones, a transgender woman from Guatemala City, was on her way home one night in July 2017 when she saw a group of homophobes waiting for her. She said good evening to them and that alone provoked a vicious attack.

“They hit me with bats and sticks,” Melani now recalls. “They broke my jaw and left jaw bone. I was in a coma in the hospital for three days and 15 days later I had surgery to reconstruct my face. They put in plates and screws. It took me four months to recover.”

A year later the violent gangs took over her house and turned it into a stash house. Melani’s mother filed a harassment complaint against the so-called “gangs.”

“They called my mom and threatened her as she was leaving the

MELANI SOFÍA ROSALES QUIÑONES, QUIÑONES a transgender woman from Guatemala City, was beaten, threatened and discriminated against in her country because of her gender identity.

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WASHINGTON BLADE PHOTO BY YARIEL VALDÉS GONZÁLEZ

Court hears Trump trans military ban Injunction remains in effect; unclear how judges might rule

By CHRIS JOHNSON cjohnson@washblade.com A three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals gave no clear signal during oral arguments Monday on whether they’d keep in place one of four injunctions against President Trump’s transgender military ban, raising the real possibility the panel would reverse the order against the policy.

After one hour of arguments in which a dominant theme was hairsplitting over the difference between being transgender and having gender dysphoria, the questioning left no clear indication of the eventual PRESIDENT TRUMP’s administration continues to push for a ban on trans service members.

CONTINUES ON PAGE 16

GAY GUV

CRUNCH TIME

‘SANTA’ PROJECT

Catching up with Colorado’s new governor, Jared Polis.

Still shopping? Our gift guide has ideas for last-minute finds.

Chely Wright in town showcasing holiday tunes from new album.

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LO CA L N E W S

Comings & Goings Billups joins Sotheby’s; Shipley takes new role at EJF

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

Congratulations to Adam Ouanes on his position as a Transplant Social Work Intern at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Ouanes said, “As part of the Kidney Transplant’s multidisciplinary team, I conduct psychosocial assessments for potential patients and living donors and participate in the decision making process regarding patient candidacy for transplant or donation.”

Previously, he worked as a hospice volunteer with the Visiting Nurse Association of Philadelphia, and is still working as a peer counselor with the William Way LGBT Community ADAM OUANES Center in Philadelphia. Before deciding to go back to school and embark on his current career, Ouanes worked in retail for Bloomingdale’s, and as supervisor at Diesel in Washington, D.C. He has his BFA in acting from the Ira Blind School of Theater Arts, University of the Arts, in Philadelphia, and expects his master’s in social service in May of 2020 from Bryn Mawr College.

Congratulations also to Bo Billups who has joined TTR Sotheby’s International Realty Downtown D.C. brokerage. Billups is a veteran Realtor and long-time resident of Washington, D.C. He was named to Washingtonian Magazine’s 2017 list of the 100 Best Real Estate Agents and has experience as a residential loan BO BILLUPS officer and real estate investor. His insights into residential real estate have been the subject of appearances on HGTV and News Channel 8. As an advocate for stronger communities, Billups worked hand-in-hand with members of D.C.’s local government to help establish a free ID program for homeless residents.

He said, “I’m thrilled to have joined TTR Sotheby’s International Realty for this next chapter in my real estate career. The company’s sincere commitment to community service reflects my own passion for volunteerism and community building.” He remains an active volunteer with Toastmasters International and has served as its club president. He is also a member of the Shakespeare Theater Company’s LLOYD E. SHIPLEY Artistic Circle.

Previously, Billups worked with Coldwell Banker and APEX home loans. He has his bachelor’s in government and international relations from the University of Virginia.

Congratulations also to Lloyd E. Shipley on his new position as a resident manager with EJF Real Estate Services. “I am pleased to be continuing my career in this way and looking forward to managing multiple buildings for such a great company,” Shipley said.

Over the years, he has been active in real estate and worked for a number of companies including Tilton Bernstein Walsh Real Estate. His experience there included everything from coordinating property closings to assisting clients with staging their homes for sale. He also worked for them as a property manager. Shipley attended the University of Maryland University College studying business management and paralegal studies.

Baltimore’s Grand Central is getting new owners.

WASHINGTON BLADE PHOTO BY ED GUNTS

Baltimore’s Grand Central nightclub to change hands Longtime owner to retire after 27 years citing health concerns

By ED GUNTS The New Year will bring new owners to Grand Central, Baltimore’s largest LGBTQ-friendly nightclub.

Current owner Don Davis said in a message on Facebook that he has a buyer for the 27-year-old business in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood and expects to complete the sale by the end of February.

In his message, Davis said he has hired a management team that now works for him and “will be working for the new owners come the 28th of February.” He did not name the buyers or state a price.

Davis has been in poor health and said he plans to move from Baltimore later this month and retire in Texas. Although he has talked before about selling his property, this is the first time he has spelled out a timetable for the transition.

“It was a really hard decision but it’s time to pass the torch so I can take care of my health,” he wrote.

Davis said in a separate email message that he could not disclose the names of the new owners until after settlement. When asked if Grand Central would continue to be a gay-friendly club, he said “it will remain the same for at least a year or more.”

Located at 1001-1003 North Charles Street, Grand Central is well known as a gathering spot for members of the LGBTQ community and others in central Maryland.

If the sale moves ahead, this would be the second time in three years that a gayfriendly nightclub in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon area has changed its operation.

The Hippo nightclub on West Eager Street closed in 2015 and was replaced by a branch of CVS. Its liquor license was transferred to the Baltimore Eagle, which closed in July following a dispute between the landlord and its management team.

Davis started Grand Central in 1991, when he opened the Central Station Pub at 1001 N. Charles Street. In 2003, he purchased the Stagecoach country and western bar at 1003 N. Charles, combined the two buildings and renamed them Grand Central.

Davis said in late 2016 that his asking price was $2.6 million. The price dropped to $1.85 million the following year, according to the Baltimore Sun. The property has almost 15,000 square feet of space, including multiple bars and a large dance floor, and was being marketed with all fixtures and furnishings included.

Davis’s Facebook message prompted a string of comments about the club and what it has meant to Baltimore’s LGBT community.

“Thank you for all of your support to the community for so many years,” one commenter wrote. “I have so many great memories at Grand Central.”

“Baltimore will not be the same without you,” another wrote to Davis. “Central was the first bar I went to when I came out. You gave so many people a place they could be themselves and feel accepted.”

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LGB adults half as likely to have guns as heterosexuals: report Non-Hispanic whites more likely to keep firearms in home

By LOU CHIBBARO JR. lchibbaro@washblade.com An estimated 18.8 percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults in the United States say they have guns in their home compared to 35.1 percent of heterosexuals, according to a recently released study by the Williams Institute, an LGBT think tank associated with the UCLA School of Law. Among other things, the study found that LGB adults are more likely than their heterosexual peers to support gun control laws or regulations such as background checks. It also found that among both LGB and heterosexual adults, non-Hispanic whites were more likely to have a gun in their home than people of other races and nationalities.

And, in what may be viewed as an interesting gender role variation, among LGB respondents, 17.3 percent of males and 19.9 percent of females — a statistically insignificant difference — reported having guns in their home.

By contrast, 42.2 percent of heterosexual males reported having guns in their home compared to 30.8 percent of heterosexual females, a finding,

‘Gun violence is a major public concern, and violence against LGBT people is all too common,’ said ADAM ROMERO of the Williams Institute.

PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLIAMS INSTITUTE

according to the study, that shows an approximate 10 percent gender gap in guns in the home between straight men and women.

“Gun violence is a major public concern, and violence against LGBT people is all too common,” said the study’s coauthor Adam P. Romero, director of Legal Scholarship and Federal Policy at the Williams Institute.

“But we know little from a research perspective about how guns are used against and by LGBT people,” Romero said in a statement. “Given high rates of suicide attempts among LGBT people, comparable rates of intimate partner violence, and

elevated risk of other interpersonal violence, it is critical to gather more data about the extent to which guns are present at these moments.”

The Williams Institute says its study is based on an analysis of two U.S. national surveys of gun ownership and attitudes toward gun control policies conducted by two other organizations that asked respondents to identify their sexual orientation but not their gender identity.

“Data about gun ownership and attitudes toward gun control among transgender adults have not yet, to our knowledge, been collected,” the study says.

One of the two surveys from which it

based its findings is an annual nationally representative survey of adults known as the General Social Survey (GSS), which monitors social characteristics and attitudes of Americans. The Williams Institute says its study used data collected by the relatively small GSS survey sample each year from 2008 to 2016 to obtain a statistically significant sample of LGB respondents.

The Williams Institute says the other source of data for its study is the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey, an online attitudinal survey of U.S. adults weighted to reflect the larger U.S. adult population. That survey included results from a total of 55,121 respondents, 50,942 of whom self-identified as heterosexual and 4,179 self-identified as LGB. The Williams Institute study’s findings are outlined and analyzed with multiple tables of data in a 21-page reported entitled, “Gun Violence and LGBT Adults: Findings from the General Social Survey and the Cooperative Congressional Election Survey.”

Although the findings focus solely on LGB people, the study provides an overview of current research on gun violence that impacts the entire LGBT community, including the transgender community, which is why the study’s title includes the “T,” according to Williams Institute spokesperson Rachel Dowd.

■ CONTINUES AT WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

A modest Jared Polis prepares to govern Downplaying significance of his win, Colo. lawmaker focuses on work ahead

By CHRIS JOHNSON cjohnson@washblade.com Outgoing Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) claimed a significant victory for the LGBT community on Election Day by becoming the first openly gay person elected governor in the United States.

Today, he remains focused on the work ahead — and decidedly modest about his LGBT milestone.

In an interview with the Washington Blade at the 2018 International LGBTQ Leaders Conference just prior to his flight back to Colorado, the governor-elect said the distinction he earned doesn’t make a difference in his job or approach to governing.

“It doesn’t make a difference in the job in that I have to now hire or recruit our 19 Cabinet members,” Polis said. “I’m in the process of interviewing great people to help run the state of Colorado and make it even better. We’re getting ready to deliver

on our plans to save people money and extend kindergarten to full day and move toward more renewable energy.”

The national media, Polis said, are more interested in covering his achievement for the LGBT community than the local media in Colorado, which he said he was similar to when he was elected to the U.S. House in 2008 and was the first nonincumbent gay male elected to Congress.

Even though he said he’ll be a governor “for all Coloradans,” Polis said legislation that would advance LGBT rights is on his agenda once he becomes governor and a new legislature — this time with Democrats in control of both chambers — is seated.

“We, of course, have strong laws that prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in Colorado, we certainly want to make the step to make sure we’re inclusive for everybody regardless of their race, or gender, or orientation and where they come from,” Polis said.

Those advancements, Polis said, are “particularly important in the age of Trump with some of the divisive language that’s used against our community and other communities by the president.”

Two initiatives Polis identified were

Gov.-elect JARED POLIS of Colorado said a law barring ‘ex-gay’ conversion therapy is high on his list.

WASHINGTON BLADE PHOTO BY MICHAEL KEY

legislation that would ban widely discredited “ex-gay” conversion therapy for youth in Colorado and legislation that would ease the process by which transgender people can change the gender marker on their birth certificates.

Other states have made progress on those initiatives and enacted them into law, often on a bipartisan basis.

Polis said Colorado has already made progress on the birth certificate issue, but “yes we want to of course make that easier” and a new law would ensure “parents can’t force their children into unscientific,

torturous conversion therapy.”

“We have to get them through the legislature,” Polis said. “So again, our legislature starts in early January and they finish in May. All of these measures have strong support from members of the legislature. Hopefully, they’ll reach my desk soon.”

One key piece of unfinished business at the federal level for Polis was the Equality Act, legislation that would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to bar discrimination explicitly at the federal level on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Things have changed now that Democrats are poised to take control of the House and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) calling it a personal priority.

“I think the Equality Act will have more support than ever before,” Polis said. I was honored to have been there at the inception of the Equality Act, working with [Rep.] David Cicilline to incorporate much of our worker protection act, including other forms of protection. It’s bipartisan. It is bicameral. Hopefully, it’ll be among some of the first bills that Speaker Pelosi brings to the floor of the House of Representatives.”

■ CONTINUES AT WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

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NATIONAL NEWS

Trump’s HHS secretary recognizes gays in HIV/AIDS speech Azar names two gay men as PACHA co-chairs

By CHRIS JOHNSON cjohnson@washblade.com Secretary of Health & Human Services Alex Azar recognized on Tuesday the impact the HIV/AIDS epidemic has had on gay people and racial minorities in a speech in which he also named new cochairs to fill longtime vacancies on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. In remarks at the Ryan White Conference on HIV Care & Treatment in Oxon Hill, Md., Azar made the reference to the impact of HIV/AIDS on the gay community when he urged his audience to combat the disease “not just as a biomedical issue, but as a social challenge, too.”

“No one suffering from a disease should ever be made to feel that it is a moral failing — but choosing to stigmatize those who suffer certainly is,” Azar said.

“We also know stigma can be an even greater challenge when it intersects with the historic marginalization of particular populations, including African-Americans, Latinos and gay men.”

Azar added to win the battle against HIV/AIDS in minority communities “we need to listen to these communities, to engage with them more deeply and learn from their experiences.

The reference to the impact HIV/AIDS has had on gay people contrasts with Trump administration statements that omit its disproportionate impact on the LGBT community — a common source of criticism from LGBT rights advocates. No mention of the disease’s impact on the LGBT community was found in statements on National HIV Testing Day and World AIDS Day, nor in Vice President Mike Pence’s recent remarks on World AIDS Day. Nonetheless, HIV/AIDS continues to disproportionately affect gay people to this day. In 2016, gay and bisexual men accounted for 67 percent of the 40,324 new HIV diagnoses in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Azar also said during his remarks new HIV infections are disproportionately concentrated in certain areas in the United States, noting more than half occur in just 45 counties plus D.C. and remains high especially in the South.

To address prevention and treatment gaps, Azar announced during his speech the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases will “soon make new supplemental funding available for research collaborations across the southeast between public health departments, community organizations, and the Centers for AIDS Research that we already support.”

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary ALEX AZAR II recognized gays in a speech about HIV/AIDS this week.

“The focus will be on improving the implementation of the tools we already have for HIV prevention and care,” Azar said. “How, for instance, can we do a better job of ensuring that individuals receiving antiretrovirals from a Ryan White clinic are able to reliably connect their partners to a supply of PrEP?” Azar also announced during his remarks the appointment of two cochairs to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. The council has remained vacant during the Trump administration since President Trump in December 2017 terminated remaining members of the body via a letter, as first reported by the Washington Blade.

“Today, I am pleased to announce to all of you that we have chosen two excellent chairs for the advisory council: Carl Schmid and John Wiesman,” Azar said.

Both new co-chairs are gay men. Schmid has worked as deputy director of the AIDS Institute in the George W. Bush, Obama and Trump administrations and Wiesman is secretary of health for Washington State and credited with leading the End AIDS Washington campaign.

Schmid said in a statement he “look[s] forward to serving in this role in order to advance policies that support people living with or at risk of HIV, and work with the administration to advance their efforts to end AIDS.” “This administration is making decisions that will impact the future of HIV in our country and around the world,”

Schmid said. “I believe it is essential that we be at that table.”

Azar announced the new co-chairs days after HHS said PACHA would hold its first meeting during the Trump administration in March. At the time, the body still had no members nearly a year after Trump terminated members and six others resigned in protest over inaction from the administration on HIV/AIDS. Among the complaints of the six who resigned was Trump’s failure to appoint a White House AIDS czar.

Caitlin Oakley, spokesperson for the Department of Health & Human Services, said “information is forthcoming” in response to a Washington Blade inquiry on when additional members of PACHA will be announced.

Azar said in his remarks the PACHA members would inform the Trump administration in updating the National AIDS Strategy, which is due in 2020. In the interim, the Trump administration has adopted the Obama-era goals in combatting the disease, including the HIV/AIDS reduction goals in the LGBT community.

“Determining the best way to take advantage of these tools and close these gaps will be the focus of updating the National HIV/AIDS Strategy for 2020,” Azar said. “The new national strategy will be developed in conjunction with the National Viral Hepatitis Action Plan, which will also be updated in 2020.”

Azar also during his remarks praised the Ryan White Care Authorization

Act, a federal program that provides health coverage for low-income people with HIV/AIDS and initiated during the administration of George H.W. Bush. Azar said in 2017, 86 percent of Ryan White patients are now virally suppressed.

“At a local level, the mission of the Ryan White program, and the clinics and programs it supports, is clear: Connect Americans living with HIV to the treatment and support they need to live healthy, flourishing lives,” Azar said. “Today, we have more tools, and more effective ones, for doing so than ever before.”

It should be noted President Trump’s most recent budget request calls for a modest reduction in addition to drastic cuts for PEPFAR, a global AIDS program.

The budget request also sought a decrease of $2.26 billion in funds for the Ryan White Care Act, which is a 2 percent reduction compared to existing funding levels.

Despite that record, Azar closed his remarks by insisting the Trump administration is committed to fighting HIV/AIDS and “each new HIV infection is a public health failure.”

“Someday, however, in the not-toodistant future, we believe that we can begin treating it as a sentinel event — one where public health, social services and healthcare supports can be mobilized to understand how the virus is still spreading,” Azar said. “That vision is front of mind for this administration, and all of you in this room will be key players in making it a reality.”

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NATIONAL NEWS

Gay friend defends Trump pick for AG amid criticism ‘He has not only treated LGBT people fairly, but mentored them’

By CHRIS JOHNSON cjohnson@washblade.com A longtime gay friend of William Barr, President Trump’s pick as the next U.S. attorney general, has come to the defense of the nominee amid concerns from LGBT groups he’d continue the anti-LGBT legal positions of the Trump Justice Department.

Paul Cappuccio, a former general counsel for Time Warner who’s raising children in a same-sex marriage, told the Blade during an interview he worked for Barr when Barr served as attorney general during the George H.W. Bush administration and said “there’s been no one who has been more supportive of my same-sex family than Bill Barr has, not only with my partner, with my children, for whom he’s ‘Uncle Bill.’ I know several people who are openly gay — who he has mentored — front and center,” Cappuccio said. “I was not open the entire time I knew him, but I was open a lot of the time I knew him.”

Cappuccio, who said he’s “thrilled” Barr may come back as attorney general, said the Trump nominee “feels extremely passionate” that “justice is about fairness for an individual, and people are entitled to be treated as individuals no matter what their political views, their race, their religion, their sexual orientation.”

“About that, he’s always been passionate, and I’ve seen it with a firsthand seat, including sitting next to him in the attorney general’s office for a couple years, so I feel quite comfortable and happy that Bill could be attorney general again,” Cappuccio said.

Cappuccio said Barr is “a person who is about enforcing the laws, not undermining them, not trying to remake them” and that he “accepts precedent,” which Cappuccio said bodes well for preserving the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision in favor of marriage equality nationwide.

“Do I think Bill Bar would have, if he was on the Supreme Court, would have voted to make same-sex marriage a constitutional right?” Cappuccio said.

“I don’t know, but I know he would do nothing to undermine the decision, right? And that’s what matters because he’s going to be our nation’s chief law enforcement officer.”

Cappuccio added Barr is a “devout Catholic,” but is “a person who has never been one to judge anyone, and for whom — and this is how he measures himself — the equal fair treatment of an individual is the ultimate requirement and test and goal.”

“For what it’s worth, I have direct experience with him as a person and seen

WILLIAM BARR in the early 1990s as Attorney General under George H.W. Bush.

how he has not only treated LGBT people fairly, but mentored them,” Cappuccio said. “He’s been a huge force in my life. For example, I got to tell you, I wasn’t always open, and when he found out, he looked at me and said, ‘You feel like you couldn’t tell me? You couldn’t tell me you want to marry someone? I can’t believe that.’ And that was one of the sweetest things. ‘I want to meet this guy’ is what he said.”

Despite Cappuccio’s praise for Barr, who most recently served as a counsel for Kirkland & Ellis LLP, the Trump nominee once made anti-gay comments expressing concerns about greater tolerance for the “homosexual movement” in the United States than the religious community.

“It is no accident that the homosexual movement, at one or two percent of the population, gets treated with such solicitude while the Catholic population, which is over a quarter of the country, is given the back of the hand,” Barr once wrote. “How has that come to be?”

Barr expressed those views in a 1995 article for “The Catholic Lawyer,” a conservative Catholic publication for St. John’s University School of Law, in an article titled, “Legal Issues in a New Political Order.”

“We live in an increasingly militant, secular age,” Barr wrote. “We see an emerging philosophy that government is expected to play an ever greater role in addressing social problems in our society. It is also expected to override various private interests as it goes about this work. As part of this philosophy, we see a growing hostility toward religion, particularly Catholicism. This form of bigotry has always been fashionable in the United States.”

As evidence of the subordination of religious attitudes to the will of the government, Barr pointed to a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in 1987 requiring Georgetown University to give an LGBT student group equal rights to

the organizations on campus despite the school’s Catholic views. (Georgetown University has since embraced the school’s LGBT student body.)

“Another example was the effort to apply District of Columbia law to compel Georgetown University to treat homosexual activist groups like any other student group,” Barr wrote. “This kind of law dissolves any form of moral consensus in society. There can be no consensus based on moral views in the country, only enforced neutrality.”

(Other media outlets have reported the article is dated October 2017, but that publication is a reprint. The website for St. John’s University’s Law School indicates the article was first published in 1995.)

Barr’s views in that 23-year-old article suggest his tenure as attorney general will continue to uphold the precedence of “religious freedom” over LGBT rights.

Prior to his termination, former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued guidance outlining those views in a “religious freedom” memo as directed

by Trump in an executive order last year.

The Justice Department also participated in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case before the U.S. Supreme Court on the side of Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple over religious objections.

Jon Davidson, chief counsel for the LGBT group Freedom for All Americans, said he was concerned that Barr’s comments in the 1995 article demonstrate he’ll continue the Justice Department on the same path as Sessions.

“While I am not aware of anything William Barr has done recently that explicitly indicates where he stands on discrimination against LGBTQ people, he made a number of disparaging comments in the 1990s about ‘homosexual activist groups’ and the ‘homosexual movement’ that are troubling,” Davidson said. “Those comments suggest that the Department

of Justice under his stewardship is unlikely to alter course in any significantly positive way for LGBTQ people, as compared to the anti-LGBTQ positions advanced by the DOJ under Jeff Sessions.”

But Cappuccio dismissed concerns over views Barr expressed in the 1995 article, saying the underlying issue is “in truth a little more complicated than it gets portrayed, which is the right for religious people to hold their views versus the requirement that you can’t let them discriminate against people.”

“He’s not going to ever let people be discriminated against, OK?” Cappuccio said. “I think he was making in that article a broader point about that there’s a school of thought — and he identified like three schools of thought in that article — that taking a moral view, even by a religious institution, is kind of like illegitimate in a secular society, and he was raising that. I don’t think you can read that article and think he’s focusing on — I think he gave 100 examples of that issue.”

Cappuccio added he doesn’t “sweat” the views expressed in the article because of his long, first-hand friendship with Barr, which includes a close relationship with his family.

“When I heard he was thinking of going back to attorney general, my first reaction was ‘Does this mean he can’t babysit my daughter Mia anymore?” Cappuccio said.

“But I’m telling you…and this is important to me, he’s a good guy on this issue and… this is not in any way, shape or form anyone you need to be worried about.”

Cappuccio said “frankly, my constitutional views would probably be there’s not a right” to same-sex marriage under the U.S. Constitution as decided in the Obergefell decision, even though he thinks it’s good policy, but added in terms of enforcing the law, including that ruling, Barr will be “nothing but a good thing for every individual, including gay individuals.”

Subordination of LGBT rights to religious freedom is just one component of the anti-LGBT policy that has come from the Justice Department during the Trump administration. Just two days after Sessions came into the job as attorney general, the Justice Department withdrew its appeal of a court order barring enforcement of Obama-era guidance requiring schools to allow transgender kids to use the restroom consistent with their gender identity. Weeks afterward, Sessions along with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos revoked the guidance altogether.

Under Sessions, the Justice Department similarly withdrew a lawsuit against North Carolina’s House Bill 2 when it was replaced with a compromise law signed

by North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and let stand a court order against protections for transgender patients under Obamacare.

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I N T E RN A T I O N A L N E W S

Botswana court to hear decriminalization case in 2019

Canadian MP RANDY BOISSONNAULT speaks at the Canadian Embassy on Dec. 6, during the LGBTQ Victory Institute’s 2018 International LGBTQ Leaders Conference WASHINGTON BLADE PHOTO BY MICHAEL KEY

Trudeau LGBT adviser defends North American trade deal Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s adviser on LGBT issues last week defended an LGBT-inclusive trade agreement his country signed with the U.S. and Mexico.

“It’s important for us because it’s a Canadian agreement with the United States and Mexico to be able to reflect what we think makes important trade deals,” MP Randy Boissonnault told the Blade during an interview after he spoke at a reception at the Canadian Embassy in D.C. that coincided with the LGBT Victory Institute’s annual International LGBT Leaders Conference. “It’s why we made sure that there was a robust section on labor.”

“If women, and indigenous people and minorities and LGBT (people) are participating fully in our economies, we’re all going to do better and people will be able to lead their lives the way they see fit because they will have more of an economic base to grow from,” he added.

Trudeau, President Trump and then-Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) — which replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement — on Nov. 30 during the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires.

Section 23 of the USMCA contains a provision that encourages the signatories to adopt policies against discrimination based on sex in the workplace.

The provision’s definition of sex includes sexual orientation and gender identity. Section 23 also calls for cooperation between the U.S., Canada and Mexico “in promotion of equality and elimination of employment discrimination” based on sexual orientation, gender identity and other factors.

The Blade previously cited Canadian press reports that indicated the final version of the USMCA that Trump, Trudeau and Peña Nieto signed contains less stringent LGBT protections and does not require the U.S. to change its nondiscrimination policies based on sexual orientation and gender in order to adhere to it.

Boissonnault on Thursday did not specifically say whether he is confident the Trump administration will enforce the USMCA’s LGBT-specific provisions.

“That’s a matter for the U.S. administration,” said Boissonnault.

“We’re going to continue to work,” he added. “The United States is our largest and greatest trading partner. We know that and we value the relationship, we always have. It’s why we’re strong partners with the United States on security matters as well and we’re going to continue to develop our relationship.”

Boissonnault, 48, is a member of the governing Liberal Party who has represented portions of Edmonton, the capital of Alberta, in the Canadian House of Commons since 2015. Trudeau in 2016 appointed Boissonnault as his special advisor on LGBT, queer and two-spirit issues.

Trudeau in November 2017 formally apologized to Canadians who suffered persecution and discrimination under the country’s anti-LGBT laws and policies.

MICHAEL K. LAVERS

GABORONE, Botswana — Botswana, the economic jewel of southern Africa, is set to continue its trailblazing social justice track toward legal equality for LGBTQI+ people. While it has taken longer than expected, the High Court of Botswana has set a new date to hear a case that challenges sections of the penal Members of LEGABIBO on Jan. 15, 2016, gather code that criminalize same-sex outside the Botswana Court of Appeals, after their organization won legal recognition. sexual relations. While the clauses PHOTO COURTESY LEGABIBO — inherited from British colonial laws in 1885 — are not exclusively applicable to LGBTQ+ persons, their interpretation has caused grave apprehension to full self-expression among members of the population who identify as such.

According to human rights organization, LEGABIBO (Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual of Botswana), the hearing of the case challenging the constitutionality of sections 164(a), 164(c) and 167 of the Penal Code will be heard before a full bench of the Botswana High Court, comprising of the Honorable Judge A.B. Tafa, the Honorable Judge M. Leburu and the Honorable Judge J. Dube on March 15. The aforementioned sections criminalize “carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature” and “indecent practices between persons” (whether in private or public) respectively.

The organization won its registration case against the Botswana government, heard at the Court of Appeal on March 16, 2016, after 11 years of contestation. On this case LEGABIBO is represented by Tshiamo Rantao and supported by the Southern Africa Litigation Center and members and allies of the LGBTQIA+ community.

LEGABIBO Advocacy and Awareness Officer Caine Youngman said the case is “a massive rude awakening to those who are comfortable with the idea that homosexuality is illegal in Botswana.” He added this case “gives a positive image to LGBTQI+ people to know that when they are feeling trampled upon they can approach the court” and “the case is expected to clarify the laws of the land, so the government and ordinary Motswana understand that we are legitimate citizens as much as anyone else.”

There has, historically, been mixed reception of LGBTQI-favorable rulings passed by the courts by the general public as, it would appear, there is little communication and demystification of the necessity and impact of the rulings for people outside of the concerned population.

Speaking with internationally-acclaimed, Botswana-based fashion designer Aobakwe Molosiwa of Gilded Sands, he said that for him this case gives an “opportunity to get conversations going because the lack of that attention locally is worrying” adding that it is a chance “to maximize traction; and the consideration we — as the queer community — give this case will drive how the greater community understands who we are. Only through enlightenment can we grow as a nation.” Recently, at the launch of the national observance of 16 days against violence against women and children, the sitting president of Botswana, HE Dr. Mokgweetsi E.K. Masisi, explicitly mentioned people in same-sex relationships also experience violence and must be considered in the commemorations as well as in prevention initiatives. This made him the first occupant of the highest office to speak out on LGBTQIA+ rights while in office.

While Botswana is still lagging on ratifying and domesticating some international human rights related treaties — such as the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities — and has been flagged for its questionable press freedom, it appears that the highest courts are willing to address contentious matters when presented. The hope is the efforts of perceived societal minorities will lead to broad-ranging advocacy from many other facets of the community at large to build a socially just democracy.

Understanding this, Youngman stated that, “we don’t want backlash from the community once decriminalization has been achieved; we are meeting with dikgosi (royalty), parliamentarians, councilors and community members doing awareness raising.”

Looking at future steps in the advent of a victory favoring the plaintiff, Molosiwa said “it would be a step toward discussing familial issues we as a nation have experienced but never addressed” adding that “this brings forward issues of morality and we can use this as an opportunity to confront the politics which religious factions lean on to vilify us.”

Youngman said “it means that as a gay man I don’t have to think about what will happen tomorrow when there is no president who can openly call for respect of LGBTQIA+ persons.

As a Motswana gay man, I have other things which are afforded to my heterosexual peers such as marriage and adoption and I can start advocating for these. It means my family will get the peace and quiet they need as they never stop worrying about your safety.”

So, while people around the world celebrate Christmas, the arrival of the New Year, Valentine’s day, and anticipate Easter, LGBTQIA+ persons and their allies in Botswana will be anxiously gearing up for what is hoped to be the end of a leg of a long fought battle to recognize contemporary realities of Batswana against inherited colonial laws.

KATIEGO K KOL-KES

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NEWS

LGBT migrants in Tijuana ‘seek opportunity to live’ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 01

police station,” says Melani. “They said she can’t play with them and they will kill my younger brother who is 15.”

Melani shared part of her life with the Washington Blade from a guesthouse in downtown Tijuana where LGBTI members of the migrant caravan who arrived in this border city weeks earlier receive temporary refuge. Melani and other LGBTI migrants in Tijuana all hope to seek asylum in the U.S., a nation in which they think they can live without fear and with economic prosperity.

The LGBTI migrants, like other members of the caravan, are now scattered along Mexico’s northern border. They were a small group that faced abuse and mistreatment while traveling with the caravan itself before arriving in Mexico.

Today the LGBTI migrants are small and vulnerable groups scattered in Tijuana, Baja California state and Nogales, another border town in Sonora state.

It is not the first time that Melani has launched herself north in order to reach American soil. She “went up” to Tijuana in May of this year with another caravan, but another attack made her think twice. “I was very disappointed because Tijuana officials beat me when I went to the El Chaparral checkpoint,” she says. “I later went to the hospital and filed a complaint against the immigration officers.”

Melani returned to a small town between Guatemala and Mexico she says was “in no man’s land” with the hope that she could once again hit the road and seek the American dream. She was unable to return to Guatemala or Tijuana. She had almost become a hermit during that time.

Melani, an extroverted and sociable girl, was living far away from people.

“I worked in a bakery and from there I went to my house without saying a word, without saying hello to anyone,” she adds.

Melani fled from Guatemala, where violence is seen as a normal part of life and is worse for members of LGBTI communities. One report on the situation for LGBTI people in four Central American countries says they endure “insults, bribes, arbitrary detentions and physical attacks that often lead to murders, but they do not report them because of fear of reprisals.”

“LGBTI people live in fear and don’t depend on community support networks that help them deal with the violent scenarios in which they live,” reads the report.

The Observatory of Murdered Trans People notes 39 trans women were killed in Guatemala between January and July 2017. Guatemala has the sixth highest rate of trans murders out of any country in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Honduras’ National Commission for Human Rights says 40 LGBTI people have died between 2007 and May of this year.

Crossing this wall and safely entering U.S. territory is the dream of the thousands of migrants who are stuck in Tijuana.

WASHINGTON BLADE PHOTO BY YARIEL VALDÉS GONZÁLEZ

Cattrachas, a lesbian feminist network, indicates 288 LGBTI people have been killed in Honduras between 2009-2018.

Insecurity is not the only situation the Honduran LGBTI community faces.

Infobae, an Argentina-based news website, once reported “there is no record of any trans person who has been hired by a private company or a government agency in Honduras.”

Amelia Frank-Vitale, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan who has spent more than a year living in Honduras studying issues related to deportation, migration and violence, confirmed to the Blade “people from the LGBTI community are exposed to all forms of violence that exist against any person in Honduras, which is mainly urban, young and poor.”

“But they are nevertheless discriminated against and stigmatized because of their sexual orientation and in many cases the government is absent on justice-related issues,” she added. “It is always more critical for the LGBTI community.”

It is this situation from which Alexis Rápalos and Solanyi, two identities that live inside the same robust 38-year-old body, fled.

Alexis was wearing a knit hat that covered a nearly shaved head when he spoke with the Blade.

He comes from a family with few resources and he revealed he has suffered the scourge of discrimination in the streets of his city, San Pedro Sula, which for four years was recognized as the world’s most dangerous city, since

he was 10. He has lived alone since his mother died a year ago.

A tailor and a chef, he worked in a restaurant in his native country but he decided to join the caravan in search of a future with more security and a life without the harsh realities of rampant homophobia.

He left with nothing more than a pair of pants and a shirt in his backpack and joined the caravan at the GuatemalaMexico border. “I was discovering friends in the caravan,” says Alexis. “And then the gay community. We came fighting, fighting many things because we are discriminated against, insulted constantly.”

“The road has been very hard,” he adds. “Sometimes we slept in very cold places, with storms. I had the flu with a horrible cough, people gave us medicine, clothes, thank God.” They reached Tijuana by hitchhiking, and sometimes by bus while depending on charity groups to eat. “We arrived at the shelter that had been at the Benito Juárez Sports Complex, but we were in our own group. They treated us well with clothes, medicine and food,” he said, insisting he is thankful for the assistance he received while there.

Once at the shelter, where unsanitary conditions and overcrowding were a constant, they experienced homophobia that follows some of their fellow travelers and places them in an even worse situation than the rest of the migrants.

Alexis says they were booed in food lines and there were times when they were not allowed to eat. The situation repeated

itself in the cold outdoor showers where privacy was an unthinkable luxury.

He felt the harshness of the early morning cold while he and roughly 6,000 Central Americans were staying at the shelter that city officials set up. Alexis slept in the street because he didn’t have a tent to protect himself. The unusually heavy seasonal rains that soaked his meager belongings chilled him to the bone.

“In the (Benito Juárez) shelter we saw humiliations, criticisms and they even made us take down our gay flag,” says Bairon Paolo González Morena, a 27-year-old gay man from Guatemala.

“We were discriminated against a lot.

They told us we could not make the same line for food and they made us stand at the end of the line for the bathroom and here (at Enclave Caracol, a new shelter) they are treating us much better. They gave us our place. We have a separate bathroom and everything.”

Bairon was a cross-dresser known as Kaira Paola at night and was a sex worker, which left him with many scars on his body. “I worked to provide food for my twin brother and younger brother,” he says. “My family there found out that I was gay. My stepmother discriminated against me and my dad did not support me and until this day I am fighting for my well-being.”

He lived alone and decided to join the caravan because he was constantly extorted for money. He was already working in a restaurant in Tuxpan in Veracruz state when the migrants reached Mexico, and he didn’t think twice about joining the caravan that Frank-Vitale says is “a civil disobedience movement against a global regime.”

“The caravan is the form that has been recognized as the way one can cross Mexico without being as exposed to criminal groups, corrupt authorities and without paying a smuggler to seek an opportunity to live,” she says.

A long line has formed outside Enclave Caracol, a community center located on First Street in downtown Tijuana that has welcomed this portion of the LGBTI caravan that arrived weeks after the first.

Under tents, the migrants organize themselves to distribute food they prepared themselves inside the building in which a wedding for several gay couples took place weeks earlier.

Nacho, who asked the Blade only to use his first name, works for Enclave Caracol. He said (he and his colleagues) are supporting “the community with food and water, (allowing them to) use the bathroom, Internet access, use of telephones that allows them to call practically any part of the world and at some moments it has functioned as a shelter.”

■ CONTINUES AT WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

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No clear signal from court in arguments over trans military ban CONTINUED FROM PAGE 01

ruling. One judge seemed poised to reverse the injunction, another seemed inclined to keep it and the other gave mixed signals.

At issue is whether U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly should have lifted her preliminary injunction against Trump’s transgender military ban in the aftermath of the report of Defense Secretary James Mattis in March justifying Trump’s plan to exclude transgender people. Although the Mattis policy generally bars transgender people from service, it exempts those who’ve already come out during the period of open service that started under Defense Secretary Ashton Carter during the Obama years. The Mattis policy also allows transgender troops who enlist in the future or who have yet to come out to continue to serve as long as they don’t transition.

U.S. Circuit Judge Stephen Williams, a Reagan appointee, raised questions that were overtly in favor of allowing the ban to proceed. U.S. Circuit Judge Thomas Griffith, a George W. Bush appointee, had mixed questioning for both sides. U.S. Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee, seemed inclined to keep the injunction in place, asking questions about whether the Mattis policy has changed anything.

Even if the D.C. Circuit were to reverse Colleen Kollar-Kotelly’s injunction against the Trump policy, three other nationwide injunctions against the policy remain in effect and those court orders against the policy would remain in effect. The Trump administration would still be enjoined from implementing its ban on transgender service.

Much attention was placed on the distinction Mattis placed in his implementation on service members who are transgender and transition and those who continue serving in their biological sex. The Mattis policy would allow transgender people to serve as long as they serve in their biological sex and “do not require a change of gender and remain deployable within applicable retention standards.”

Representing the Trump administration before the court was Justice Department trial attorney Brinton Lucas, who argued that provision in the policy — as well as the part allowing the estimated 937 transgender troops who came out in the Obama years to stay in the military — demonstrates the Trump administration has changed its approach and lifting the injunction is warranted.

“Their entire argument is we haven’t changed,” Lucas said. “We believe that we have.”

In his closing remarks, Lucas called it “truly extraordinary” four separate courts have placed injunctions against the transgender military ban and said the U.S. government is calling for a “simple amount of deference,” much like the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately awarded the Trump administration on the

travel ban to Muslim countries.

Arguing on behalf of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and GLBTQ Advocates & Defenders in favor of keeping the court injunction in place was Jennifer Levi, who said the Mattis policy “bans only transgender people and all transgender people” and gender dysphoria is a “defining characteristic” of being transgender.

Williams — who told Levi “the record in the case is against you” — repeatedly referenced the portion of the Mattis recommendations allowing transgender people to serve in their biological sex, pointing to a RAND Corp. study finding 18 percent of transgender service members reported having no desire to undertake transition.

“There seem to be people who spend decades in their biological sex and then decide to transition,” Williams said.

When Levi responded those service members don’t wish to transition “because of discrimination,” Williams said the terms “do not wish” demonstrates a subsection of transgender people who are fine for the time being in their biological sex. Levi, however, said the distinction “doesn’t remedy the constitutional injury” against transgender and warrant lifting the injunction against the policy.

“Gender dysphoria here is being used as a proxy to exclude transgender individuals,” Levi said.

When Williams suggested the transgender ban could be justified because of the high suicide rates in the transgender population, Levi said the military doesn’t apply the standards, for example, to white people compared to black people, drawing on findings white people suffer a higher suicide rate than black individuals.

A couple of times issues became contentious between Williams and Levi.

When the judge asked the attorney to comment on the transgender experience in terms of the “world” as opposed to proposed policy, Levi commented on the “Carter world” of open service, Williams scoffed and said that wasn’t sufficient.

“The government is playing word games by arguing that transgender people can serve in their birth sex. That is a contradiction in terms,” Levi said in a statement after the arguments. “This is not a game. What’s at stake here is the lives of dedicated service members, who are willing and able to serve—and are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country.”

In contrast to Williams, Griffith repeatedly asked whether heightened scrutiny for laws against sex discrimination should apply to the transgender military ban, indicating he may be inclined to uphold the order against the policy.

Additionally, Griffith asked whether allowing transgender service members to stay in the military as long as they remain in their biological sex creates a “null set” that essentially bars all transgender

service members.

“You can be a transgender individual as long as you don’t act like one, as long as you suppress your gender identity,” Griffith said.

When Griffith asked Lucas whether there are transgender people who can serve in their biological sex, Lucas replied, “Yes,” referencing those who don’t wish to transition because, for example, they identify as nonbinary. But when Griffith posed the same question to Levi, she compared the situation to allowing gays to serve in the military while requiring them “to act heterosexually.”

Griffith also asked Lucas whether the grandfather clause in the Mattis policy allowing transgender people who came out during the Obama years undercuts the rationale for the policy. In response, Lucas said the military has different standards for accession than it does for retention, noting the military keeps service members with PTSD, high blood pressure and sleep apnea, but doesn’t have the same policy for their enlistment.

Despite those questions, Griffith also voiced concerns over judicial precedent requiring the judiciary to give deference to the military over combat readiness, pointing out the proposed ban used to be the policy of the military until the final year of the Obama administration.

“You are asking the court to make decisions we are not equipped to make: Who is combat ready and who is not” Griffith said.

Levi responded the courts must still apply the “same level of scrutiny” they would otherwise apply to discriminatory policy.

“Under any level of scrutiny the Mattis plan fails because it’s rooted in discrimination,” Levi said.

Wilkins was the hardest judge to read on the panel, but seemed inclined to allow the injunction against the ban to remain in place. Wilkins asked for a distinction between the transgender polices as they evolved during the Obama and Trump eras, asking whether anything has really changed with the new policy Mattis proposed.

Arguments took place before the D.C. Circuit shortly after the Justice Department filed petitions with the U.S. Supreme Court calling for review before appellate courts made their decisions on the policy. It would be highly unusual for the Supreme Court to take up the case at this stage in the litigation process. On Friday, KollarKotelly denied a request from the Justice Department to lift her injunction against the ban as the Supreme Court considers whether to take up the petitions.

Grindr exec resigns after president says he opposes marriage equality Landon Rafe Zumwalt, head of communications at Grindr, has resigned following company president Scott Chen’s comments that marriage is a “holy matrimony between a man and a woman.”

Chen posted a story about HTC president and CEO Cher Wang supporting groups that are against same-sex marriage on Facebook.

“There are people who believe that marriage is a holy matrimony between a man and a woman. I agree but that’s none of our business. There are also people who believe that the purpose of marriage is to create children that carry their DNA. That’s also none of our business. There are people that are simply different from you, who desperately want to get married. They have their own reasons,” Chen wrote in Chinese.

Chen later claimed that the comment, which was translated from Chinese to English, had been mistranslated and that he does support same-sex marriage.

“The reason I said marriage is a holy matrimony between a man and a woman is based on my own personal experience. I am a straight man married to a woman I love and I have two beautiful daughters I love from the marriage. This is how I feel about my marriage. Different people have their different feelings about their marriages. You can’t deny my feelings about my marriage,” Chen said in a statement. “I am a huge advocate for LGBTQ+ rights since I was young.

I support gay marriage and I am proud that I can work for Grindr.”

Despite the apology, Zumwalt announced in a post on Medium that he was stepping down from his position.

“As an out and proud gay man madly in love with a man I don’t deserve, I refused to compromise my own values or professional integrity to defend a statement that goes against everything I am and everything I believe. While that resulted in my time at Grindr being cut short, I have absolutely no regrets. And neither should you,” Zumwalt wrote.

He added: “For those who remain, those who will continue to fight for our community from within, know I will be cheering you on from the sidelines,” he wrote. “Persist. Make your voices heard. And never compromise who you are for someone else.”

MARIAH COOPER

WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

H E A L TH NEW S

DE C E M B E R 14, 2018 • 17

Keep your promise to protect each other.

Rival 2020 AIDS conference planned in Mexico MEXICO CITY — Mexico will have its own AIDS conference in 2020 to coincide with the International AIDS Conference in the U.S. “HIV2020: Community Reclaiming the Global Response” is slated for July 6-8, 2020 in Mexico City.

“The HIV2020 Alliance has decided to organize the community-led event to provide a safe alternative for individuals who cannot or will not attend AIDS2020 due to discriminatory U.S. immigration and travel policies directed to people from Muslim, African, Caribbean and Latin American countries, people who use drugs, sex workers and transgender people,” organizers said this week in a press release. “The announcement of the event comes on the advent of Human Rights Day, as the conference aims to offer new opportunities to reaffirm the leading role communities can and should play in the global fight for sexual health and human rights.”

The International AIDS Society’s decision to host its 2020 event in the San Francisco Bay Area sparked vocal protests and calls for an “AIDS2020 For All” and an “HIV Power Shift” at the 2018 International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam this July.

The society’s decision went against the recommendations of community advocates worldwide, including the national networks of people living with HIV in the U.S., creating a dilemma for many in the global HIV movement, organizers of the Mexico City conference said.

LGB U.K. youth more likely to be depressed LONDON — LGB and questioning youth in the U.K. are more likely to experience depressive symptoms as early as age 10 and the symptoms persist at least into their early 20s according to the findings of a new study reported on my MedicalXPress.

Depressive symptoms increase at a higher rate through adolescence among LGBQ youth than for their straight peers and they are more likely to have selfharmed recently, according to the findings published this week in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. Research was conducted at University College London.

LGBQ young people were found to be four times more likely to self-harm with suicidal intent than straight teens, MedicalXPress reports.

The study, which is the first of its kind in the U.K., included 4,828 young people from the Children of the ‘90s birth cohort, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, who had reported their sexual orientation at age 16, MedicalXPress reports.

To make for a robust sample of LGBQ youth, all participants who were not exclusively heterosexual were grouped into the same “sexual minority” category, including 625 people (13 percent) who had described themselves as homosexual, bisexual, mainly homosexual, mainly heterosexual, unsure or not attracted to either sex, MedicalXPress reports.

The participants responded to questions about depressive symptoms seven times from age 10-21, and at 16-21 were asked if they had attempted to hurt themselves in the past year.

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REVIEW AD FOR COPY AND DESIGN ACCURACY. Revisions must be submitted 24 hours of the Plz., date of SW PR #325 955within L’Enfant proof. Proof will be considered final and will be submitted for publication if revision is not submitted within 24 hours of The study’s primary author, Joseph R. Cimpian, became suspicious while the date of proof. Revisions will not be accepted after 12:01 pm wednesday, the week of publication.Brown naff pitts REVISIONS omnimedia llc (dba the washington blade) is not responsible for the content and/or design of your ad. Advertiser is looking at the results of one report showing correlations that made little sense. responsible for any legal liability arising out of or relating to the advertisement, and/or any material to which users REDESIGN can link through the advertisement. Advertiser represents that its advertisement will not violate any criminal laws or TEXT REVISIONS any rgihts of third parties, including, but not limited to, such violations as infringement or misapporpriation of any Restricting their study to the 2015 survey, they focused on responses from copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, music, image, or other proprietary or propety right, false advertising, unfair IMAGE/LOGO REVISIONS competition, defamation, invasion of privacy or rights of celebrity, violation of anti-discrimination law or regulation, states and districts that included questions on sexual identity and orientation. or any other right of any person or entity. Advertiser agrees to idemnify brown naff pitts omnimedia llc (dba the ADVERTISER SIGNATURE NO REVISIONS washington blade) and to hold brown naff pitts omnimedia llc (dba the washington blade) harmless from any and all By signing this proof you are agreeing to your contr liability, loss, damages, claims, or causes of action, including reasonable legal fees and expenses that may be incurred This gave them a data set of 72,641 males and 76,319 females to look at, The washington blade newspaper. This includes but is no by brown naff pitts omnimedia llc, arising out of or related to advertiser’s breach of any of the foregoing representations payment and insertion schedule. and warranties.

Daily Beast reports.

In examining the results from their test subjects, researchers looked at the relationship between those reporting as LGB — the study did not include transgender people — and other items on the survey that are otherwise unrelated.

The false responses were predominately from boys.

Reports of cocaine and ecstasy use alone fell 28 percent by removing the suspect responses.

In-Network with most PPOs Removing all mischievous reports did not significantly change the results when it came to suicidal ideation and bullying, The Daily Beast reports.

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VIEWPOINT

VOLUME

49

ISSUE

50

ADDRESS

GOP’s appointment in Samarra The party selling out democracy indicts itself

RICHARD J. ROSENDALL is a writer and activist.

Reach him at rrosendall@starpower.net.

There is an old Baghdad fable of a man who sees Death in the marketplace and flees to Samarra, where Death is expecting him. America feels like a death watch nowadays.

Last week, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote “Why We Miss the WASPs,” describing nostalgia for what he couldn’t quite bring himself to call white supremacy. Michael Harriot at The Root had the perfect riposte: “I must admit, this utopian Whitekanda sounds alluring in its dreamlike vanilla-ness.”

But as Harriot knows too well, this is deadly serious. Times commentator Charles M. Blow discusses post-election power grabs by Republicans after they lost statewide races in Michigan and Wisconsin. He writes, “Republicans across this country are doing everything they can to impede, alter and override the power of the personal vote.”

A new election may have to be called in North Carolina‘s ninth congressional district due to Republican election theft. Aggressive voter roll purges, gerrymander-

ing, and voter ID laws give the lie to Chief Justice John Roberts, who claimed in 2013 when voting to overturn Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act, “America has changed.”

In 2014, Mother Jones listed actions by GOP lawmakers in several states “running buck wild with new voting restrictions.”

The threat to democracy goes all the way to the top. We learned on Dec. 7, in sentencing memos from Special Counsel Robert Mueller and federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, that Individual-1 (that’s our president) directed felony violations of campaign finance laws. Trump tweeted in response, “Totally clears the President. Thank you!” He is mistaken, but the denial of reality runs deep in his party.

People have speculated that Trump will refuse to leave office when the time comes.

Recent GOP efforts show this is not an idle concern. But Democrats will take control of the House in the 116th Congress, and will be there to bring out the truth if he fires Mueller. Trump can whistle past the graveyard all he likes. A cold, remorseless hand will soon be at his throat, drawn ever closer by his own actions.

Our problems did not begin with Trump and will not end with him. The oligarchs, dirty tricksters, false narratives, and double standards defending power and privilege will still work their mischief.

A recent example was CNN’s rapid firing of Marc Lamont Hill for defending Palestinian rights at the UN on Nov. 28 to mark the seventieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the nakba, the displacement of Palestinians

by Israel.

I disagree with Hill’s support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions move-

ment because it holds Israel to a different standard than others. But Hill apologized for using the phrase “from the river to the sea,” historically used to reject compromise with Israel. His full remarks in context make clear that he was calling for a consistent recognition of rights. He rejects anti-Semitism.

Hill states, “I believe in a single secular democratic state for everyone. This is the only way that historic Palestine will be free.” I’m afraid he is right. No one has undermined the two-state solution more than Netanyahu and the annexationists.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman cultivated Jared Kushner for two years. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a Kushner family friend, and the Kushners are backers of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The Israelis and Saudis have a mutual enemy in Iran.

Israel authorized the sale to the Saudis of spyware implicated in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The Saudis’ mass starvation of Yemenis and blockade of Qatar mean little to Jared, who is ignorant of the region’s history. Given all this, and the instant wrath against anyone who criticizes Israel, it is sadly unsurprising that some are demanding that Temple University fire Prof. Hill. Academic freedom, anyone?

As long as America betrays its own values, we should desist from lecturing others. We sow terrible seeds when we overlook depredations by our allies and ignore the cries for justice of those they oppress. All human beings matter. Dissident voices like Prof. Hill’s, try as some might to silence them, keep the flame of freedom lit.

Copyright © 2018 by Richard J. Rosendall. All rights reserved.

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LGBT equality remains a distant dream in Asia Failed Taiwan marriage referendum underscores widespread intolerance

By VICTOR MAUNG The most LGBT-friendly country in Asia has rejected marriage equality. Amnesty International says the Nov. 24 referendum results are a bitter blow to the Taiwanese LGBT community that wishes their island nation would be the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. What’s more, for the rest of the dreamers in Asia it’s a painful reminder that realizing genuine marriage equality at home could take another generation.

Even though Taiwan is deemed the most progressive country and a haven for LGBT activism in Asia, two initiatives to add same-sex marriage in the Civil Code and gender equality education in schools were both rejected. A pre-election survey that suggested as many as 77 percent of Taiwanese opposed legalizing same-sex marriage is a clear indication that acceptance on LGBT rights is not nationwide, even in Taiwan.

A referendum on whether to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples in Taiwan failed on Nov. 24.

PHOTO COURTESY OF TAIWAN TONGZHI HOTLINE ASSOCIATION

As I grew up in one of the most conservative countries in Asia, I am not surprised to see these results because I know acceptance on LGBT rights in Asian countries is always limited to certain niches. Often, media-distorted views of seemingly widespread acceptance are giving false hopes.

Asian countries present a broad spectrum of LGBT rights conditions, from harsh punishments to discrimination to growing acceptances. As of today, samesex relationships are illegal in at least 20 Asian countries and are punishable by death in seven of them. For the rest of

Asia, LGBT individuals find themselves lucky to struggle with relatively mild miseries, such as family acceptance or workplace discrimination.

As I have traveled as a reporter across Asia, I found a common unspoken consensus among the non-LGBT populace in Asia. Since we are “abnormal” or “deviant” of norms, we shall be allowed to grow only within certain niches. In other words, either as an individual or as a community, if we have grown to the point that the majority feels intimidated, it has the right to say, “too much.” More or less, this reflects the attitudes of the majority in Asian countries. You won’t see them in the media but people act on it when they cast their votes.

On the other hand, the irony is samesex marriage has become the ultimate symbol of accepting secularism and diversity, so support for LGBT rights has been politicized. From the late-Cambodian King Sihanouk to Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, it’s not hard to see why these Asian leaders showed support for LGBT rights but never actually acted to risk public support.

Support of gay rights is a symbolic gesture to show their Western counterparts how secular and liberal they have become. In

Taiwan, the motives to show the world how it is different from the authoritarian mainland in the era of the regime’s rising global power is behind the push for becoming a paragon of freedom and tolerance in Asia.

This kind of “acceptance with an agenda” might fool the international media, but the message of acceptance is never passed down to the grassroots level.

When I attended the ILGA Asia conference in 2013, I came to the conclusion shared by many other activists: Marriage equality is too far-fetched for us, at least in our lifetime.

Demands for LGBT rights are not just fighting the repressive laws and homophobic groups. We are fighting the beliefs, traditions and systems backed by patriarchy, collectivism and fundamentalism, which have been institutionalized and cherished by the society. If you are from one of the bottom Asian countries, you have additional fights against corruption, ignorance and misconceptions against the minorities. This is the reality of being an LGBT person in Asia.

VICTOR MAUNG is a journalist and LGBT rights activist who was born in Myanmar. He lives and works in Washington, D.C.

I N S I DE LGB T W A S HING TON

Another Victory Fund success Leadership conference brings together pioneering public officials

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

There was a celebratory feeling at this year’s Victory Institute International LGBTQ Leaders Conference as a result of the U.S. midterm elections.

Anise Parker, former mayor of Houston and current president and CEO of the Victory Fund gave the welcome address to the conference saying with pride: “We are the only organization dedicated to building the bench of LGBTQ+ candidates ensuring there is a pipeline for the future.”

Parker introduced a community “she-ro,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), who just had an astounding nearly 11-point margin of victory in her reelection campaign. Baldwin

rightfully bragged she had shirt-tails which helped bring in the Democratic statewide ticket including the governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. She spoke about the campaign and how it was activists across the state who made the difference. She also reminded everyone that in 1982 Wisconsin had the first statewide equality act, which was signed by a Republican governor. She then presented the Victory Fund award named in her honor, the Tammy Baldwin Breakthrough Award to Danica Roem, the delegate from Virginia; the first transgender person in the nation seated in a state legislature. This year she was joined by three more transgender women elected to state legislatures, including Brianna Titone, a Democrat in Colorado’s House District 27. Titone was introduced by Jared Polis the gay governorelect of Colorado who also spoke. Polis is always great but was upstaged by his son who stood with him at the podium and was clearly fascinated by the large screen where he saw his image displayed. He danced and waved his arms and made some faces at the screen.

We now know how Jared won by nearly 11 percentage points. Not only is he a brilliant guy but he has a secret weapon in his son.

Between Baldwin and Polis, the crowd heard from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (DMass.) who came to collect her Best Ally Award. She gave a great short speech say-

ing how proud she is to stand shoulder to shoulder with the LGBTQ community in the fight for equality. Then she added, “I am going to carry the fight up the Hill and I hope you will all be with me.” Some figured that was her way of saying she is running for president. Guess we will find out soon enough if she is one of apparently dozens who will announce they are running for the Democratic nomination.

The lunch plenary on Friday was another blockbuster session with too little time for all the great speakers. It began with a compelling speech by lesbian dynamo Sharice Davids, the congresswoman-elect from Kansas’s 3rd District. Davids is a former MMA fighter, which clearly intrigued Parker who kept mentioning it. Then came a panel discussion with all ‘firsts’ in their careers. The first panelist introduced was former Congressman Barney Frank, always worth listening to. I had the opportunity to chat with Frank prior to the panel and found he is recovering from successful spinal fusion surgery. That hasn’t kept him down and he told me at a Wider Bridge event the previous evening he got to introduce his amazing sister, Ann Lewis, who was being honored. The other speakers were Michael Guest the first out ambassador confirmed by the Senate when he served our country in Romania; Eric Fanning for his service as Secretary of the Army, Christine Quinn first

lesbian and woman speaker of the New York City Council and Danica Roem.

There were many young members of the community attending the conference who are either elected, running or planning to run for office. On Saturday there was a panel of millennials in office and they made everyone proud. One young man I met who is running to be the first gay man on the Denver City Council, Tony Smith, had the chance to meet Barney Frank who told him “Go for it, you have nothing to lose and whatever happens you win.” Considering his state now has a gay governor-elect and a transgender member of the state legislature he can feel confident his sexual orientation shouldn’t be an impediment to election. Following the millennial panel was one titled: Returning the favor; fighting for those who sparked the fight. It was moderated by a hero to many, Diego Sanchez, now at PFLAG. The panel included Dr. Imani Woody and the current speaker of the New York City Council, Corey Johnson. Many in the room felt confident one day we would be able to address him as Mayor Johnson.

More than 500 people attended from around the world. While the conference has many great educational sessions, the ability to network and learn from each other one-on-one makes this annual conference one of the movement’s best.

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BRO CK P A P E R SCI SSO RS

What do gay friends want for Christmas? To be seen An effort to be more present in the lives of loved ones

BROCK THOMPSON is a D.C.-based freelance writer. He writes regularly for the Blade.

I’m a real estate agent by trade. And ask any real estate agent how business is or how the market is doing, and you’ll likely get the same answer — it’s great — or some variation on that. This, despite whatever the truth really is. We’re just trained to be optimistic, upbeat. I guess people are more or less like that. Asking anyone, how are you, and you’ll likely get the rote answer — fine. It’s just what we’re trained to say.

Also, why do real estate agents also just automatically tell you that the mar-

No more, ‘How are you’s?’ I’m trying instead for something deeper. ket and their business is going great?

Well, they, as human beings, don’t want to be seen as vulnerable, weak, or, God forbid, bad at what they do. I think gay men are a lot like real estate agents. No wonder most real estate agents seem to be gay men.

But why is this really? It seems gay men, especially here in D.C., have a lot of walls. And I’ve certainly remarked on this here before. And in many ways, it comes from a simple force of habit. From an early age we were taught to defuse and deflect and redirect any questions about ourselves we might find too personal. It’s just what we were trained to do in a lot of ways. But at the same time, gay men also seem to rely heavily on their friends, as we carve out urban families and support networks.

Also, our queer community is just so

small, and in many ways, getting smaller.

News travels fast and everyone seems to love a bit of gossip here and there. I certainly include myself there. And everyone seems to be one degree removed from someone else. Social media has also made our gay worlds a little tighter, so to speak, and it certainly doesn’t take a degree in forensic science to track down someone to put a face with a story. All this makes it difficult to really share it seems.

Beyond that, people seem reluctant to talk about their lives because they may never really be asked. When a friend revealed to me that he was diagnosed with depression earlier this year, I asked him what I could do to help. “Just ask me how I’m doing from time to time.” Such a simple request that was almost jarring to hear.

I mean, do I not do this already? We’re friends after all. It occurred to me that

what he was asking was to really ask and to keep asking. And not to settle for cursory answers. When talking to my friend James about this column, he suggested ditching the old standby questions and going in for a deeper connection. Targeted questions could yield connections between friends.

No more, ‘How are you’s?’ But trying instead for something deeper.

But back to real estate. Yes, our automatic reaction to anyone asking how things are going is to tell you how fantastic it all is. And truth be told, wouldn’t you rather work with someone upbeat and optimistic? When it comes to friends, would you want to be around someone sad or troubled? That’s difficult, right? We tend not to want to be around sorrow; we just want the highlight reels. But really asking is also the hallmark of a good friend. So, for at least two friends I know, I will try to be more present, more available, more of an active player in how they’re doing.

Going forward into 2019, it’s really the least I can do.

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GIFT GUIDE

Fun, fast & easy

Eliminate stress from your holiday to do list with these last-minute gift ideas

By MARIAH COOPER mcooper@washblade.com Peruse the records at Songbyrd Record Cafe and Music House (2475 18th St., N.W.) to help expand someone’s collection. The space, which serves as part bar/restaurant and part coffee house/record store, offers both new releases and old classics.

Pick up Troye Sivan’s latest record “Bloom” ($22) or Aretha Franklin’s “The Atlantic Singles Collection 1967-1970” ($32).

WASHINGTON BLADE PHOTOS BY MICHAEL KEY

For the person who loves to entertain at home, give the gift of a DIY Bloody Mary gift set from Salt & Sundry (1625 14th St., N.W.). Combine Gordy’s Pickle Jar Bloody Mary Mix ($12), Bloody Mary salt ($14) and stirrers ($6) for everything a Bloody Mary kit needs. Add the recipe book “The Bloody Mary: The Lore and Legend of a Cocktail Classic, with Recipes for Brunch and Beyond” ($18.99) by Bryan Bartels to give them drink inspiration or simply a guide.

WASHINGTON BLADE PHOTOS BY MICHAEL KEY

For more at-home entertainment gift ideas, head over to Cork Wine Bar and Market (1805 14th WASHINGTON BLADE PHOTOS BY MICHAEL KEY St., N.W.) to pick up a bottle of wine ($16$42) or a Boero chocolate cherry ($25).

Gifts for literature lovers can be found at the Politics and Prose bookstores in Busboys and Poets (various locations). Give Michelle Obama’s memoir “Becoming” ($32.40), Andy Warhol Philosophy Greeting Assortment Notecards ($16.99) or “The Feminist Activity Book” ($12).

CONTINUES ON PAGE 24

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GIFT GUIDE

Upshur pop-up, Lou Lou great quickie gift stops CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22

For the Ruth Bader Ginsburg fanboys or girls in your life, drop by Urban Dwell (1837 Columbia Rd., N.W.). Give “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg”

by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik ($25.99), “Ruth Bader Ginsburg: In Her Own Words” edited by Helena Hunt ($11.95), “The Unstoppable Ruth Bader Ginsburg: American Icon” by Antonia Felix ($29.95) or a RBG action figure ($16). Keeping with the theme of strong women, you can also gift a Frida Kahlo card case ($18).

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Stop by Upshur Street Books’s pop-up shop Loyalty Bookstore (931 Ellsworth Dr., Silver Spring, Md.) to also grab books such as “Is Gender Fluid?: A Primer for the 21st Century” by Sally Hines ($18.95) or “The Gay Essay” by Anthony Friedkin, a black-and-white photo book of LGBT life before the AIDS crisis. ($15.60).

WASHINGTON BLADE PHOTO BY MICHAEL KEY

A last-minute gift for a fashionista can easily be found at Lou Lou boutiques (various locations in D.C., Maryland and Virginia). Their jewelry section offers a variety of colors with items such as a black necklace ($32) or a jewel necklace ($45) with earrings ($18).

You can also help your loved one relax with a bath bomb ($8) with scents like blond orange amber, calming lavender or watercress mint. Throw in Harper+Ari’s exfoliating sugar cubes ($22) in lemon or rosé.

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GIFT GUIDE

Losardo unisex scarves on sale at Urban Dwell CONTINUED FROM PAGE 24

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Indulge the new-age curious friend of yours with a Tarot Basics deck ($14.95), a beginner’s guide to tarot with “A Little Bit of Tarot: An Introduction to Reading Tarot Book” by Cassandra Eason $9.95) and “A Little Bit of Dreams: An Introduction to Dream Interpretation” by Stase Michaels. All can be purchased at Urban Dwell.

Support minority communities and shop local with keychains (starting at $15) designed by local artist Chris Bergman and sold at Shop Made in D.C. (1330 19th St., N.W.). The keychains are sold in a variety of colors and feature phrases like “Trans is Beautiful,” “Black Lives Matters, “Keep Families Together” and more. You can also rep your D.C. neighborhood with keychains for Anacostia, Capitol Hill, Columbia Heights, U Street Corridor and more.

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Naked Decor has a D.C. tea towel collection. Choose from 10 designs of these hand-silkscreened, 100 percent cotton, 20x28” towels featuring D.C. designs. They’re $14 each at nakeddecor.com.

Lately, co-created by former D.C. resident and member of the LGBT community Joe Losardo, has created a line of colorful, unisex knit scarves ($68-88) made from 100 percent extra fine merino wool. The scarfs can be purchased online at laetly.com or in store at Urban Dwell.

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PHOTO COURTESY LAETLY

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Sunday, Dec.16th at 2pm Meet at Doggy Style and follow Santa down 17th to Q St. and then back to Dupont Italian Kitchen for

Pictures with Santa

Prizes for Ugliest Doggy Sweater & Most Spirited Human/Dog Combo

ors:

2018 Doggie Style LLC

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W A SH I N G T O N BLA D E . CO M

ARTS

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ENTERTAINMENT

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CHELY WRIGHT says she didn’t want to record holiday standards unless she could improve them.

PHOTO BY MATTHEW RODGERS

Chely’s ‘Santa’ project Out country singer/songwriter touring behind new holiday EP

By BRIAN WALMER For 25 years, Chely Wright has been in the country music spotlight and in 2010, became the first openly gay country singer. Since coming out, Wright has become an LGBT advocate while also recording, touring and embracing life as a mom and wife.

On Thursday, Dec. 20, Wright will be at City Winery promoting her new Christmas EP “Santa Will Find You.” Although she

released her first album in 1994, it wasn’t until 1997 that she had her first big hit with “Shut Up and Drive.” In 1999, she rose to superstardom with the success of “Single White Female,” which has become her signature song. Her comments have been slightly edited for length.

WASHINGTON BLADE: What can fans expect from your Christmas show?

CHELY WRIGHT: Well they can expect

new holiday music. Whenever you have new music out, one of the tricky things when doing shows is you wanna give people a taste of the new music but they also wanna hear the hits and the things they know you for. As a live performer, you kinda wanna do everything that’s new but you also want your audience to feel engaged and hold onto things that feel known to them during the show.

So we’ll be doing the entire new EP and what I’ve been doing over the past couple years is what I call the “Story and Song Tour,” which is basically me running my mouth for almost two hours telling stories about how songs were written, recorded or certain memories about the road or a particular time in my career.

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Q U E E RY : 2 0 Q U E ST I O N S F O R J E RE MY LE MA ST E R

PHOTO COURTESY LEMASTER

By JOEY DiGUGLIELMO joeyd@washblade.com When Jeremy LeMaster moved to Baltimore a year and a half ago, he sought out gay life on day one. His husband, Santiago Alvarez, was starting a postdoc fellowship in allergy and immunology at Johns Hopkins and LeMaster was able to find work soon thereafter.

He works as a research program manager for an HIV cohort study at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and volunteers with LGBTQ Life at JHU, headed by Demere Woolway.

On Saturday, the student group will hold a “Queer Takeover” at the John Waters exhibit “Indecent Exposure” at the Baltimore Museum of Art (10 Art Museum Dr., Baltimore) from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Tickets for Johns Hopkins students will be distributed on a first-come-first-served basis in the lobby at 10:45 a.m. Look up the event on Facebook for full details or visit studentaffairs.jhu/edu/lgbtq.

At one of the group’s recent events, there was discussion of the limits of meeting other queer folks and networking outside the bar scene. The idea for a museum trip was brought up.

“Since the BMA is currently running a John Waters exhibit, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to create an event that allows LGBTQ youth to socialize … while also engaging with a bit of local Baltimore queer history,” the 30-yearold Louisville, Ky., native says.

LeMaster says the event has “taken on a life of its own” and more queer takeover events will be planned.

LeMaster is full-time on staff but is also enrolled in a part-time MBA program at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. He’s studying organizational leadership and wants to explore different opportunities after seven years in academia. He would like to eventually do management and consulting work in the public and non-profit sectors.

LeMaster and Alvarez live in Baltimore’s Canton neighborhood. LeMaster enjoys video games, spending time with friends and napping in his free time.

Q

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

Nine years and the hardest person to tell was myself. I grew up very devoted to Catholicism and it was very challenging to get to the place I am now.

Who’s your LGBT hero?

Audre Lorde. As someone who identified as capital “B” black and capital “L” lesbian, her book “Sister Outsider” was my first introduction to LGBTQ identity as an intersectional and socio-political identity.

What’s Baltimore’s best nightspot, past or present?

When I first moved here, the Baltimore Eagle was one of my favorite spots; it sort of was a sampling of different styles of gay bars rolled into one.

Unfortunately it has since closed.

Describe your dream wedding.

Just five people: me, my partner, two witnesses and an officiator on some seaside cliffs somewhere.

What non-LGBT issue are you most passionate about?

Anti-black racism, even though I would argue it is an LGBT issue.

What historical outcome would you change?

The genocide of Native Americans — such a devastating loss of culture due to white settler colonialism.

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

Beyonce’s first surprise visual album.

On what do you insist?

A seat at the table for all stakeholders.

What was your last Facebook post or Tweet?

A meme about Tumblr’s new antinudity policy.

If your life were a book, what would the title be?

“Screw(ed): an Odyssey” If science discovered a way to change sexual orientation, what would you do?

Encourage and advocate for straight people to be LGBTQ. What do you believe in beyond the physical world?

Pantheism — that everything is somehow connected.

What’s your advice for LGBT movement leaders?

Focus on inter-generational work; educate and learn from our LGBTQ youth.

What would you walk across hot coals for?

I am a very food-motivated person.

What LGBT stereotype annoys you most?

That we’re immature.

What’s your favorite LGBT movie?

“Ma Vie En Rose” What’s the most overrated social custom?

Asking “what do you do?” when you first meet someone.

What trophy or prize do you most covet?

A Pulitzer Prize in writing (even though I don’t write).

What do you wish you’d known at 18?

That I was queer. I feel like I missed a lot by trying to be straight.

Why Baltimore?

Work! Johns Hopkins is what brought us.

W A SH I N GTO NB LAD E.C OM

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A RT S & CU LT U RE

This Week in the Arts provided by CultureCapital.com Messe. Dec 15. Folger Theatre. folger.edu.

Free Range Humans. Thru Dec 22.

BlackRock. blackrockcenter.org.

Talley’s Folly. Thru Dec 30. Theater J at GALA Hispanic Theatre. theaterj.org.

The Second City’s She the People.

Thru Dec 30. Woolly Mammoth. woollymammoth.net.

A Christmas Carol. Dec 15. Beautiful – The Carole King Musical. Thru Dec 30. National Theatre. thenationaldc.org.

Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis Dec 14-Dec 15. Strathmore. strathmore.org.

Jazz up your holiday celebration with the legendary Marsalis! This magical evening of festive music blends classical, jazz, and holiday favorites, featuring 15 of the finest jazz soloists and ensemble players today, including spectacular young vocalists Sotashe and Swift.

Songs of the Season Dec 16-Dec 24. Choral Arts Society at Kennedy Center. choralarts.org.

Glad tidings we bring with a selection of our favorite holiday carols and seasonal classics performed by the Choral Arts Chorus and Youth Choir.

We’ll combine traditional favorites and choral jewels of the season with masterpieces performed by soprano soloist Esther Heideman.

The Second City’s Love Factually Thru Dec 31. Kennedy Center. kennedy-center.org.

Love, Factually is a holiday satire from the twisted minds at The Second City, which gets to the truth of December life, love, and romance. Whether you love or hate the movie Love, Actually, you’re going to fall in love with this mashup of parody, original comedy, music, improv, and audience participation.

Jim Sanborn Without Provenance: The Making of Contemporary Antiquity Thru Dec 16. AU Museum at the Katzen. american.edu.

In Without Provenance Jim Sanborn has given us all a rare gift of artistic provocation. Certainly there is an abundance of beauty in this exhibition, but it is beauty that provokes thought and reflection. The takeaway from this extraordinary show is a vision for an art collecting world very different from our own.

PHOTO COURTESY OF STRATHMORE

THEATRE A Christmas Carol. Thru Dec 30.

Ford’s Theatre. fords.org.

A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas. Thru Dec 30. Elf: The Musical. Thru Jan 6. Olney Theatre. olneytheatre.org.

An Irish Carol. Thru Dec 31. Keegan Theatre. keegantheatre.com.

AnyStage Theater: Watergate…With Puppets!. Dec 14-Dec 15. In Your Ear. Dec 16. Three’s Comedy. Dec 19-May 16. DC Arts Center (DCAC). dcartscenter.org.

August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean. Thru Dec 23. Round House.

roundhousetheatre.org.

Billy Elliot the Musical. Thru Jan 5.

Signature Theatre. sigtheatre.org.

Cry It Out. Thru Dec 16. Kings. Thru Jan 6. Studio Theatre. studiotheatre.org.

How to Catch a Star. Thru Dec 16.

WNO: Holiday Family Opera: The Lion, the Unicorn, and Me. Dec 14Dec 16. The Play That Goes Wrong.

Dec 18-Jan 6. Miss Saigon. Thru Jan 13.

Kennedy Center. kennedy-center.org.

Oh, God. Thru Jan 13. Mosaic Theater Company at Atlas. mosaictheater.org.

Pre-performance Discussion: A Christmas Messe. Dec 14. Talk and Pop-Up Exhibition: A Christmas

DANCE Ballet West: The Nutcracker. Thru Dec 8. Kennedy Center. kennedycenter.org.

Kwanzaa Celebration. Dec 15-Dec 16.

Dance Place. danceplace.org.

Magical Musical Holiday Step Show.

Dec 14-Dec 30. Step Afrika! at Atlas. stepafrika.org.

The Hip Hop Nutcracker. Dec 18-Dec 19. Strathmore. strathmore.org.

The Nutcracker. Thru Dec 28. The Washington Ballet at Warner Theatre. washingtonballet.org.

We Choose to Go to the Moon Performance. Thru Dec 18. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian at Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium. npg.si.edu.

MUSIC A Candlelight Christmas. Dec 16-Dec 22. The Washington Chorus at Kennedy Center. thewashingtonchorus.org.

A Candlelight Christmas. Dec 20Dec 21. The Washington Chorus at Strathmore. thewashingtonchorus.org.

A Christmas Messe. Dec 15-Dec 23.

Folger Consort at Folger Theatre. folger.edu.

Brentano Quartet With Hsin-Yun Huang, viola. Dec 18. Library of Congress. loc.gov.

Canadian Brass. Dec 15. Mason’s Center for the Arts. cfa.gmu.edu.

Children of the Gospel Choir.

Dec 15. Washington Performing Arts at Community Praise Church. washingtonperformingarts.org.

Respighi’s Laud to the Nativity. Dec 15-Dec 16. Voce Chamber Singers at Church of The Holy Comforter. voce.org.

U.S. Army Chorus Caroling in the Rotunda. Dec 18. National Gallery of Art. nga.gov.

Westminster Presbyterian Choir and Ringers. Dec 15. Saint John Paul the Great Catholic High School Choir. Dec 16. The Hot Club of San Francisco Hot Club Cool Yule. Dec 16.

National Gallery of Art. nga.gov.

Cool Yule with Lena Seikaly. Dec

15. Arts on the Green at Arts Barn. gaithersburgmd.gov.

Wonderlands. Dec 16. DC Concert Orchestra Society at Church of the Epiphany. dcconcertorchestra.org.

DC Strings presents Handel’s Messiah and Holiday Hymns. Dec 20.

Hill Center. hillcenterdc.org.

Discovery Artist in the KC Jazz Club: Quiana Lynell. Dec 14. NSO Pops: A Holiday Pops! Under the Mistletoe with Ashley Brown. Dec 14-Dec 15.

NSO: Handel’s Messiah. Dec 20-Dec 23. Kennedy Center. kennedy-center.org.

Bandana Splits. Dec 16. Strathmore. strathmore.org.

A Bohemian Christmas w/DC’s Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra.

Dec 17. Atlas. atlasarts.org.

Joy of Christmas. Dec 15-Dec 16. Cathedral Choral Society at Washington National Cathedral. cathedralchoralsociety.org.

Holiday Time Warp. Dec 15. National Chamber Ensemble at Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington. nationalchamberensemble.org.

Holiday Concert. Dec 15. National Philharmonic at Christ Episcopal Church. nationalphilharmonic.org.

An Elizabethan Winter Celebration.

Thru Dec 16. Washington Revels at GW Lisner Auditorium. revelsdc.org.

MUSEUMS Anderson House. A Revolution in Arms: Weapons in the War for Independence. Thru Mar 24. societyofthecincinnati.org.

College Park Aviation Museum.

Holiday Trains & Planes. Dec 15-Dec 22. collegeparkaviationmuseum.com.

District Architecture Center. The 2018 Awards Show. Thru Jan 4. aiadac.com.

Dumbarton Oaks. Juggling the Middle Ages. Thru Feb 28. doaks.org.

Folger Shakespeare Library.

Churchill’s Shakespeare. Thru Jan 6. folger.edu.

Library of Congress. Mapping a Growing Nation: From Independence to Statehood. Thru Jan 1. Herblock Gallery. loc.gov.

National Archives. Remembering Vietnam. Thru Jan 6. archivesfoundation.org.

National Gallery of Art. Corot: Women. Thru Dec 31. nga.gov.

National Geographic. Tomb of Christ.

Thru Jan 2. Titanic: The Untold Story.

Thru Jan 6. nglive.org.

National Museum of Women in the Arts. Rodarte. Thru Feb 10. Ambreen Butt—Mark My Words. Thru Apr 14. nmwa.org.

WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

S P O RTI N ’ I N DC

DE C E M B E R 14, 2018 • 33

SEPTEMBER 23, 2018 — MARCH 3, 2019 AT THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART

PHOTO BY KEVIN MAJOROS

D.C. athletes at last year’s Sin City Classic.

Sin City returns in Jan. Annual LGBT sports fest evolves and expands

By KEVIN MAJOROS The 12th annual Sin City Classic sports festival will return on Jan. 17-20 in Las Vegas with about 6,500 LGBT athletes expected to compete in 21 sports.

Originally run as a softball tournament hosted by the Greater Los Angeles Softball Association, the event began receiving requests for more sports to be added to the lineup which has led to steady, successful growth.

The festival provides a competitive, fun and safe environment for amateur LGBT athletes from around the world to come together, compete and connect. This year they have adopted a new initiative, “Play You,” which promotes an open environment for everyone to play sports in a safe space.

Formerly known as the Sin City Shootout, the tournament rebranded two years ago as a show of respect for the shootings in Orlando and Las Vegas.

Several new features have been added to this year’s festival.

“We have been experiencing a positive energy and vibe over the last 12 months and are excited to add on new aspects of the festival,” says Ken Scearce, tournament director for Sin City Classic.

“Everything we do outside of the sports venues is an attempt to appeal to both the millennials and the older crowd. Food and alcohol are a good place to start, music is a little more difficult.”

Four more sports were added this year to their lineup including competitive cheer and esports. A Sunday Funday has been added for athletes who are knocked out of tournament play early.

Also new is a Cornhole for Charity event and returning is the Sports Diversity Leadership Conference.

“We are excited to add the new

cornhole event,” Scearce says. “The final four teams will get to battle in public at the Friday night registration party.”

Scearce competes as a softball player in L.A. but will not be playing on one of the expected 240 softball teams in Las Vegas.

The event is run entirely by volunteers and as tournament director, he will be stretched to the limit.

His excitement is palpable though and he points to Sin City Classic’s 12 sponsors including Toyota, who is returning as the presenting sponsor.

“I am really excited about the opportunity for so many of our sponsors to get to know our athletes,” Scearce says. “It’s incredible that the Los Angeles Dodgers are investing in us and that we are getting these brands in front of everyone and introducing LGBT sports to these brands.”

Stonewall Sports is a national organization based in D.C. that promotes sports and safe inclusive spaces that go beyond sports.

Their sports leagues are now in 16 cities across the United States with Salt Lake City being their most recent addition.

The upcoming Sin City Classic will be the sixth year that Stonewall Sports has sent member cities to the tournament. They are expecting close to 300 of their athletes to be competing in multiple sports.

“Sin City Classic is a great event and an opportunity to kick off the new year and compete with other Stonewall teams,” says Martin Espinoza, co-founder and President of Stonewall Sports. “Our own national tournament hosted every July and our regional tournaments were created from our great experiences at Sin City.”

To enhance the experience for their member cities, Stonewall Sports provides shuttle bus service to venues in Las Vegas and chips in for team apparel.

“We are proud to host a meet and greet table again this year at the registration party,” Espinoza says. “It’s great to see everyone from all the cities.”

“A loose journey of self-discovery that can be read in mythological or biographical terms or, often, both at once.”

— New York Times, April 27, 2017

Mark Bradford: Tomorrow Is Another Day, presented at The Baltimore Museum of Art, is made possible by the Henry Luce Foundation, Maryland State Arts Council – Department of Commerce, Nancy L. Dorman and Stanley Mazaroff, Gabriel and Deborah Brener, Katherine and Joseph Hardiman, John Meyerhoff, M.D. and Lenel Srochi-Meyerhoff, Mafia Papers Studio, and Hauser & Wirth. The project is also supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

For more information, visit www.arts.gov.

Mark Bradford, 2017. © Mark Bradford. Photo: Carlos Avendaño

PFLAG promotes the equality and well-being of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons, their families and friends through: • Support to cope with an adverse society.

• Education to enlighten an ill-informed public.

• Advocacy to end discrimination and secure equal civil rights.

Trained facilitators lead the Arlington Support Group and confidentiality is maintained. For further information about the Arlington Support Group, contact us at arl.pflag@gmail.com.

Our groups meet on the second Sunday of each month, from 3 – 4:30pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Arlington, at George Mason Drive & Route 50.

A.L.Y. is a group for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, and Questioning Youth and Allies in grades 7-12. Our goal is to give LGBTQ youth a safe place to gather. Trained facilitators lead the youth group. Confidentiality maintained. For more info, contact: aly.pflagdc@gmail.com.

Our Washington DC Chapter of PFLAG may be reached at 202-638-3852.

E: 181214

WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

34 • D E C E M B E R 14, 2018

O U T & A BO U T

PHOTO COURTESY NATIONAL ZOO

OPEN CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY! CALL FOR RESERVATIONS TODAY! M-TH 11:30AM-10PM • F-SAT 11:30AM-11PM SUN. BRUNCH 11AM-3PM / DINNER 3-10PM

322 MASS. AVE. NE • 202.543.7656

CAFEBERLIN-DC.COM

Zoo unveils lights, new features ZooLights is at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo (3001 Connecticut Ave., N.W.) through Jan. 1 from 5-9 p.m. each night.

Half-a-million LED lights will illuminate the zoo. Indoor animal exhibits will be closed so animals can sleep. Guests are welcome to visit the Zoo’s Visitor Center, Panda Plaza Gift Shop, Mane Grill and Great Cats Gift Shop.

This year two new areas have been added. The Gingerbread Village features cookies, lollipops, giant gingerbread people cut-outs and a gingerbread throne for attendees to snap photos. There will be a laser-light show outside the Elephant Community Center where visitors can also hop on board the Smithsonian’s National Zoo Choo-Choo which will transport guests around the Kids’ Farm.

This year also features the Reindeer Games Fun Zone which includes a holiday-themed obstacle course and illuminated rides. Live music or a dance performance will take place every night in the Great Meadow. Guests can also snack on winter treats and sip on coffee or a selection of seasonal spirits. The Conservation Pavilion Patio will also have six fire pits for attendees to roast s’mores or pick up cotton candy on a glowing stick.

Admission is free. For more details, visit nationalzoo.si.edu/events/zoolights.

By MARIAH COOPER

WASHINGTON BLADE PHOTO BY JOEY DIGUGLIELMO

Shabbat dinner aimed at young adults

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EVIEW AD FOR COPY AND DESIGN ACCURACY. Revisions must be submitted within 24 hours of the date of roof. Proof will be considered final and will be submitted for publication if revision is not submitted within 24 hours of e date of proof. Revisions will not be accepted after 12:01 pm wednesday, the week of publication.Brown naff pitts mnimedia llc (dba the washington blade) is not responsible for the content and/or design of your ad. Advertiser is sponsible for any legal liability arising out of or relating to the advertisement, and/or any material to which users an link through the advertisement. Advertiser represents that its advertisement will not violate any criminal laws or ny rgihts of third parties, including, but not limited to, such violations as infringement or misapporpriation of any opyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, music, image, or other proprietary or propety right, false advertising, unfair ompetition, defamation, invasion of privacy or rights of celebrity, violation of anti-discrimination law or regulation, any other right of any person or entity. Advertiser agrees to idemnify brown naff pitts omnimedia llc (dba the ashington blade) and to hold brown naff pitts omnimedia llc (dba the washington blade) harmless from any and all ability, loss, damages, claims, or causes of action, including reasonable legal fees and expenses that may be incurred y brown naff pitts omnimedia llc, arising out of or related to advertiser’s breach of any of the foregoing representations nd warranties.

PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS; COURTESY NATIONAL THEATRE

ADVERTISER SIGNATURE Carole King musical runs through Dec. 30 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.

“Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” runs at the National Theatre (1321 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.) through Sunday, Dec. 30 The musical tells the true story of King, the iconic songwriter behind hits such as “One Fine Day,” “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” and more, as she rises from being part of a songwriting team with her husband Gerry Goffin to becoming a famous solo act. It also explores her friendships with songwriters Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann. Sarah Bockel, Dylan S. Wallach, Alison Whitehurst, Jacob Heimer, James Clow and Suzanne Grodner star. Tickets range from $64-104.

For more details, visit thenationaldc.org.

The group 2239 hosts Shabbat Squared at Sixth & I (600 I St., N.W.) on Friday, Dec. 14 from 6-8:15 p.m.

Happy hour kicks off at 6 p.m. followed by a “Shot of Torah” at 6:15 p.m. The service begins at 7 p.m. and the evening finishes off with dinner at 8:15 p.m. Rabbi Aaron Miller of Washington Hebrew Congregation and Rabbi Shira will lead the service. Musician Aaron Shneyer will play music. The event was created for people in their 20s and 30s. Tickets for a subsidized Shabbat meal are $15. Tickets for an actual Shabbat meal are $30.

For more information, visit sixthandi.org.

Robyn vs. Gaga dance party Black Cat (1811 14th St., N.W.) hosts a Robyn vs. Gaga Dance party on Saturday, Dec. 22 at 9:30 p.m.

The night will only feature music from pop stars Robyn and Lady Gaga. The set list will be a mix of the singers’ biggest hits, remixes, collaborations and deep tracks. Tickets are $10.

For more information, visit blackcatdc.com.

WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

FI L M

DE C E M B E R 14, 2018 • 35

琀栀攀

There’s something about Mary …

‘Poppins Returns’ and ‘Queen of Scots’ celebrate eclectic ladies

一䄀䬀䔀䐀 夀伀䜀䄀 䴀漀渀搀愀礀猀 ☀ 眀攀搀渀攀猀搀愀礀猀

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By BRIAN T. CARNEY The race to the Oscars heats up this week with two highly anticipated releases.

The period drama “Mary Queen of Scots” (opening in D.C. theaters today) stars two actresses who competed for the Best Actress Oscar earlier this year as two rivals for the English throne.

“Mary Poppins Returns” (opening everywhere Dec. 19) has already earned four Golden Globe nominations for Best Musical or Comedy, Best Score, Best Actress (Emily Blunt) and Best Actor (LinManuel Miranda).

For anyone who needs a quick refresher for “Mary Queen of Scots,” England’s Queen Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie) has a shaky claim on the crown (after all, her father King Henry VIII had her mother Anne Boleyn beheaded). Elizabeth is worried that her cousin, Scotland’s Queen Mary (Saoirse Ronan), has her eye on the English throne, although Mary denies any such ambitions and is having enough trouble keeping her own crown on her head.

Like so many directors before her, Josie Rourke finds cinematic gold in this rich material, effectively focusing on the specific challenges of being a woman and a leader.

Visually, the movie is stunning. Working with costume designer Alexandra Bryne, cinematographer John Mathieson and a very talented design team, Rourke creates a lively visual contrast between the two queens. Elizabeth’s court is all formal pomp and pageantry; Mary’s court is full of music and dance and frolicking.

Rourke’s work with her stellar cast, especially her two leads, is flawless.

Both queens are suitably regal and imperious, but they wield their power in very different ways. Robbie’s Elizabeth is all icy restraint where Ronan’s fiery passion often overrules her fierce intellect. The supporting cast is excellent, most notably David Tennant (“Doctor Who”) as Protestant cleric John Knox, Brandon Coyle (“Downton Abbey”) as Mary’s treacherous father-in-law and Guy Pearce (“Priscilla Queen of the Desert) as Elizabeth’s chief councilor William Cecil.

Where Rourke is less successful is her collaboration with screenwriter Beau Willimon (“House of Cards”) who based his script on the work of historian John Guy. Willimon and Rourke focus on issues of

琀甀攀猀搀愀 礀猀 ㄀⼀㈀ 瀀爀椀挀攀 氀漀挀欀攀爀猀 ☀ 爀漀漀洀猀 㠀 愀洀 ⴀ 洀椀搀渀椀最栀琀 PHOTO BY LIAM DANIEL; COURTESY FOCUS FEATURES

GUY PEARCE and MARGOT ROBBIE in ‘Mary Queen of Scots.’

gender and sexuality in fascinating ways, although it is sometimes jarring to see Mary as a paragon of contemporary tolerance.

They effectively highlight Elizabeth’s role as the Virgin Queen; Elizabeth says that holding onto the crown has turned her into a man. Mary follows her passions, but her disastrous marriage to the gay Henry Darnley (Jack Lowden) leads to her downfall as the Scottish rebels yoke the toxic powers of sexism and homophobia to take her down.

Where they are less successful is the overall balance and pacing of the picture.

The final act of the movie is lethargic as Willimon suddenly turns his full attention to Elizabeth and her increasing isolation.

“Mary Poppins Returns,” on the other hand, is a sweet escapist holiday confection, although it starts out in an unexpectedly dark place.

It is two decades since everyone’s favorite nanny has flown away. England is mired in “The Great Slump” (aka “The Great Depression”) and the Banks family is in serious trouble. Michael is a recent widower with three small children and the bank is ready to foreclose on the family home. Luckily Mary Poppins flies in with her talking parrot-head umbrella and fixes everything (again).

Emily Blunt (“Into the Woods” and “The Devil Wears Prada”) is quite charming as Mary Poppins, happily embracing the character’s delightful quirks and mercurial moods. She handles the musical numbers effortlessly and is especially delightful in the surprisingly saucy music hall number “A Cover is Not the Book.” Her fine performance may not erase memories of Julie Andrews, but she definitely makes the part her own.

■ CONTINUES AT WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

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3 6 • DE CE MB ER 1 4, 2018

CA LE N D A R

SUNDAY, DEC. 16

E-mail calendar items to calendars@washblade. com two weeks prior to your event. Space is limited so priority is given to LGBT-specific events or those with LGBT participants. Recurring events must be re-submitted each time.

The D.C. Concert Orchestra presents a free concert at the Church of the Epiphany (1317 G St., N.W.) today at 3 p.m. The program includes pieces by Leroy Anderson, Maurice Ravel, Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky and more. For more information, visit dcconcertorchestra.org.

The D.C. Eagle (3701 Benning Rd., N.E.) hosts Sunday Cruise today from noon2 a.m. Drink specials include $3 off all whiskey and bourbon drinks, $5 Chivas Regal, $10 bottomless Bud and Bud Lights, $12 bottomless premium drafts and $2 off any drink until 9 p.m. For details, visit dceagle.com.

Singer-songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello performs her show “No More Water|The Fire Next Time: The Gospel According to James Baldwin,” a tribute to Baldwin, at the Kennedy Center (2700 F St., N.W.) tonight at 8 p.m. The performance will merge church service, a concert, celebration, testimonial and a call to action. Tickets range from $49-89. For more information, visit kennedy-center.org.

TODAY Nellie’s Sports Bar (900 U St., N.W.) hosts a “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 4” premiere viewing party with special guest Jasmine Masters tonight from 8-10 p.m. Brooklyn Heights and Iyana Deschanel will host the kick-off party and every viewing party for the rest of the season. There will be a meet and greet with Masters at 7:30 p.m. Meet-and-greet tickets are $10. Stoli cocktails will be sold during the show for $5. For more details, visit facebook.com/nelliesdc.

Georgetown Glow D.C.: Light Arts Festival is today from 5-10 p.m. The outdoor public light art installations are set up throughout the neighborhood. The festival runs through Jan. 6. Attendees can explore on their own or take a tour. D.C.

By Foot hosts nightly Glow+Georgetown History tours from 4-6 p.m. which will connect the light show with the history of Georgetown. Tickets are name your own price. Other nightly tours include Glow Walking Touring with Washington Walks from 4-6 p.m. which explores the light artworks and historic sites. Tickets are $20. Glow Photo Safari with Washington Photo Safari is tonight from 7-9:30 p.m.

Washington Photo Safari Director E. David Luria will guide the group to each stop and teach you how to take the best photos.

Tickets are $79. For a complete list of events, visit georgetownglowdc.com.

18th & U Duplex Diner (2004 18th St., N.W.) hosts its annual Janky Sweater Party tonight from 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Guests are invited to wear their ugliest holiday sweater. Goldie Grigio hosts the party. DJ Wes Della Volla will play music. There is no cover but a $10 donation to the Trevor Project is encouraged. For more details, visit facebook.com/duplexdiner.

Gamma D.C., a support group for men in mixed-orientation relationships, meets at Luther Place Memorial Church (1226 Vermont Ave., N.W.) tonight from 7:309:30 p.m. The group is for men who are attracted to men but are currently, or were at one point, in relationships with women. For more information about the group, visit gammaindc.org.

SATURDAY, DEC. 15 The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington presents “The Holiday Show” at the Lincoln Theatre (1215 U St., N.W.) today at 5 p.m. and tonight at 8 p.m. The chorus will perform holiday songs such as “Jingle Bells,” “Puttin’ on the Holiday Drag” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and more.Tickets range from $25-65. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit gmcw.org.

Mischief D.C. hosts Naughty Snowball 10: Rated X-mas at the D.C. Eagle (3701 Benning Rd., N.E.) tonight

MONDAY, DEC. 17 The D.C. Center (2000 14th St., N.W.) hosts coffee drop-in hours this morning from 10 a.m.-noon for the senior LGBT community. Older LGBT adults can come and enjoy complimentary coffee and conversation with other community members. For more information, visit thedccenter.org.

TUESDAY, DEC. 18 The D.C. Center (2000 14th St., N.W.) hosts its Packing Party from 7-9 p.m. tonight. Volunteers will assemble safer sex kits to distribute to the LGBT community.

For more details, visit thedccenter.org.

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 19 PHOTO COURTESY WORLD OF WONDER

JASMINE MASTERS, one of the returning contestants on ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars’ season four, hosts a viewing party tonight at Nellie’s.

from 8 p.m.-5 a.m. The party will include DJs in four rooms, live artists, musicians, interactive art and a secret contest for Best Costume. Featured DJs include EZ Almighty, Dustin, Wade Hammes, Maestro and more. Tickets range from $40-45. For more details, visit facebook. com/mischiefdc.

Christ Church on Capitol Hill (620 G St., S.E.) hosts Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, an Advent service, tonight from 7-9 p.m. The service will include Christmas carols, musical performances, new stories, old poetry and other artistic expressions inspired by the Nativity story.

A light reception will follow the program.

Admission is free. For more information, search “Festival of Nine Lessons and

Carols” on Eventbrite.

Lure D.C. hosts Bare: How the Grinch Stole Bare, a holiday party, tonight from 10 p.m.-3 a.m. DJ Eletr()x, DJ Rosie and DJ Keenan will spin tracks. The DystRucXion Dancers will perform. The Grinch will also be handing out goodies to guests.

Cover is $7 before midnight and $10 after. For more details, visit facebook. com/lurewdc.

Trade (1410 14th St., N.W.) hosts Gay/ Bash: XXMAS tonight from 10 p.m.-3 a.m.

Drag performers Kunj, Jane Saw, Jaxknife Complex, Donna Slash and Geneva Confection will give a show at 11:30 a.m. and 1 a.m. Candi Cane will play music for the night. No cover. For more information, visit facebook.com/gaybashdc.

Bookmen D.C., an informal gay men’s literature group, discusses “The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle” by Lillian Faderman at the D.C. Center (2000 14th St., N.W.) tonight at 7:30 p.m. All are welcome. For more information, visit bookmendc.blogspot.com.

The Tom Davoren Social Bridge Club meets tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Dignity Center (721 8th St., S.E.) for social bridge. No partner needed. For more information, call 301-345-1571.

THURSDAY, DEC. 20 The D.C. Center (2000 14th St., N.W.) hosts its monthly poly discussion group tonight at 7 p.m. People of all different stages are invited to discuss polyamory and other consensual non-monogamous relationships. This event is for new comers, established polyamorous relationships and open to all sexual orientations. For details, visit thedccenter.org.

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T HE ATE R

DE C E M B E R 14, 2018 • 37

Cherry’s jubilee Out actor relishes role in gritty ‘Indecent’

—The London Times

By PATRICK FOLLIARD When famed Yiddish language writer Sholem Asch first read his startling new play “The God of Vengeance” to Warsaw’s Jewish theatrical establishment in 1906, the results weren’t good. These would-be producers believed the young playwright’s drama about a Jewish pimp who seeks to gain respectability by promising his virgin daughter to an upright guy but fails because said daughter is having an affair with one of dad’s prostitutes, would play directly into the hands of anti-Semites. Asch, on the other hand, believed wholeheartedly in honest portrayals, good and bad.

So, Asch took his script to Berlin where — despite or because of sordid subject matter and a sensual woman-on-woman kiss — it was a hit. The play successfully toured for years before hitting a blip in New York. After doing well downtown, a reworked version moved to Broadway in 1923. Despite changes, obscenity charges ensued and the show was shutdown.

With “Indecent,” now playing at Arena Stage, celebrated out playwright Paula Vogel explores the making and subsequent runs and scandal of “The God of Vengeance.” Her compelling play within a play examination hits on issues like censorship, anti-Semitism, homophobia and timely anti-immigration policy without didacticism. It’s also a celebration of period music, same-sex love and the now greatly diminished Yiddish language culture.

Many of the characters are based on real people, but some are created by Vogel, perhaps most importantly, Lemml (out actor Ben Cherry), a humble Polishtailor-turned stage manager who serves as protector of the play from its first reading through decades of performances.

“For Lemml, this piece of art opens his eyes to an entirely different way of existing and loving. It changes his life,” Cherry says.

“Even when his idol Asch betrays him, Lemml remains faithful to play. The work is ultimately more important than his relationship with the artist who created it.”

Cherry’s connection with “Indecent” runs deep. The show opened offBroadway in 2016. When the affable actor heard the production was moving to Broadway a year later, he auditioned.

“I audition a lot and never put my eggs in one basket,” he says. “I tend to think I won’t get the part. But they kept calling him back for me people to see me. Eventually I was cast as the understudy for all of the men.

They got a good deal with me.”

Soon after, he was cast as Lemml in another production of “Indecent” at the prestigious Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

During this time, Cherry forged a friendship

PHOTO COURTESY ARENA

Actor BEN CHERRY credits his beard with helping him land parts.

with Vogel whom he describes as “gracious and brilliant. Nurturing, but also knows what she wants and is able to convey her intentions to actors in a supportive way.”

He says with the piece, “Vogel offers an opportunity to see our queer roots.

The women’s kissing-in-the rain scene is earnest and beautiful. And Vogel has written a lesbian couple cast in Asch’s play whose relationship feels natural and real; it mirrors real life.”

As a kid in Flushing, Mich.,, a small town outside of Flint, Cherry loved to dance.

Even a traumatic collision with a coffee table while dancing to “Evita” couldn’t deter him. After majoring in Musical Theatre at the University of Michigan for two years, he didn’t find what he wanted, so he switched gears and went to University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem to study classical acting.

Lately, Cherry has been portraying the early 20th century Eastern European Jewish experience. “Yep. It’s the beard,” he says. “I grew a beard for ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ on Broadway. I think that’s what cinched the part for me. And I’ve have had the beard since. I give all credit to it.”

But his resume is wide-ranging. He has appeared in the musical “Goldstein” off-Broadway, the national tour of “Mary Poppins,” the regional premiere of “Oslo” at the Pioneer Theatre Company in Salt Lake City, and numerous classics at the Utah Shakespeare Festival.

Cherry is based in New York. He has a boyfriend (also in showbiz), but gives no further details. After closing at Arena, “Indecent,” a co-production with Kansas City Repertory and Baltimore Center Stage, will move on to those cities, respectively, through the end of March.

■ CONTINUES AT WASHINGTONBLADE.COM ‘INDECENT’ Through Dec. 30 Arena Stage 1101 6th St., S.W. $40-105 202-488-3300 arenastage.org

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E N T E RT A I N ME N T

PHOTOS COURTESY CIRQUE PRODUCTIONS

MICHAEL BROWN says he’s used to being away from home during the holidays.

PHOTOS COURTESY CIRQUE PRODUCTIONS

MICHAEL BROWN, third from left, in ‘Cirque Dreams: Holidaze.’

Out ‘Holidaze’ performer excels in varied roles Circus-inspired seasonal production at National Harbor Dec. 20-23

By MARIAH COOPER mcooper@washblade.com As the holidays approach, plenty of shows begin to crop up in theaters like “The Nutcracker” and “A Christmas Carol.”

These classics are always on stand-by for audiences to revisit old favorites but it’s rare that a show comes along with a different approach to the holiday genre.

Cirque Productions attempted to bring some extra spice to the season with its show “Cirque Dreams Holidaze.”

Broadway Director Neil Goldberg crafted the show with the idea of merging cirque artists and theatrical talent together to celebrate the holidays. The two-hour show cycles through the major end-of-the-year holidays of Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year’s with the combined flare of a three-ring circus and Broadway show.

Flying gingerbread men, tight-rope walking toy soldiers, spinning penguins and caroling puppets are just some of the acts audiences can experience during the show. Expect the unexpected is a theme for this show which prides itself on always

being different.

Michael Brown should know. He’s been a part of the touring cast for the past three years.

Brown, one of an international cast of 30, knows a lot about the unconventional.

The 31-year-old out actor/vocalist grew up in a military family where he moved frequently to places around the world including Germany. Always on the move, there was one constant in Brown’s life.

“I started singing before I was even speaking,” Brown says. “It’s been a lifelong journey for me. It was actually Whitney Houston who was my love as a child and got me into it.”

Brown eventually settled in New York City, where’s he’s lived for the past 10 years, and kickstarted his career by performing on cruise ships. His close friend is YouTube star and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” contributor Todrick Hall, who Brown works with on projects. Brown says he’s also performed in other national tours and regional theater gigs around the country.

When Cirque Productions came to New York City to audition talent, Brown decided to audition and earned a spot in the cast.

For the past three years, Brown has portrayed three characters in the show.

First is Dickens whom Brown describes as a “Scrooge” character.

“He’s stealing presents, he’s going around being naughty on stage,” Brown says.

Then, Brown transforms into an elf, along with a couple female singers, for a large portion of the show.

“We’re just bopping around filling the stage and helping out the cirque acts,” he says.

Brown also appears in a brief cameo as Elvis Presley for a rendition of “Jingle Bell Rock” before transforming back into Dickens who is a changed man.

“Now he’s very refined, he’s fallen in love with the holidays and he’s very elegant,” Brown says.

Out of all the characters, Brown has one favorite that stands out from the rest.

“I love being the elf. The three of us singers on stage we really get to ham it up and enjoy being part of the acts that are going on stage so its definitely the most fun,” Brown says.

Despite portraying the same characters for years, Brown praises Goldberg for switching up the show each year with new songs and costumes to make the characters feel fresh.

This will be Brown’s eighth year away from his family during the holiday season as he says he’s usually touring with one production or another during this time of year. However, being with his international cast members makes it easier to be away from home.

“My roommate is from Ukraine. We’re

in the northeast and showing him Boston, Chicago, New York City and D.C., the first time he’s seeing these cities, has been really exciting,” Brown says.

Another added bonus is the joy of the audience during each performance.

Brown says performing is always fresh because he gets to experience the “wow” look on people’s faces during the show.

According to Brown, the audience has plenty of reason to be amazed. He notes that the 20-act show that combines Broadway performances with the circus acts makes for a production that appeals to everyone’s tastes.

“It’s really a show for everybody,” Brown says.

The show also isn’t short on glitz and glamour with 300 costumes worn throughout the show.

It’s the type of show that’s better to just see than to describe, Brown says.

“There’s a lot of sequins, there’s a lot of glitter,” Brown says. “So many things happen that you can’t even really explain in just a couple of words. You can expect anything.”

‘CIRQUE DREAMS: HOLIDAZE’ Dec. 20-23 Theater at MGM National Harbor 101 MGM National Ave. Oxon Hill, Md. $29-90 mgmnationalharbor.com

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A R T S & EN TE RTA I NMENT

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Wright celebrates Hanukkah, Christmas with 5-year-old twins CON TINUED FROM PAGE 29

I hope the audiences enjoy it because I enjoy it. I’ve been doing this job for 25 years putting records out and longer before I had records out. For me if I can get an audience that wants to go with me on the journey with me for 90 minutes or two hours of how I ended up here today doing what I’m doing, that’s a thrill for me and so far fans have been amenable to it.

BLADE: What inspired you to release a Christmas project?

WRIGHT: I think it’s kind of an understood that any country artist that has a career that spans a decade or two kinda has to make a holiday record. It’s kind of a prerequisite and I’ve been asked about it years ago when I was on major labels and I considered it and kinda wanted to but didn’t want to do it just to do it. I wanted to have a reason to it. Over the years I’ve written a couple of Christmas songs that were recorded by other artists but I just never had done a recording on them aside from the work tape the day I did the songs. It just seemed like this was time.

I had a couple of songs, one that the Indigo Girls recorded, Mindy Smith recorded and Mindy and I had written one for her holiday record which was a great holiday record years ago. So it just felt right. I knew I had a couple of songs under my belt and my goal was if I could write three good original holiday tunes to add to that canon, that I’d be good to go. I talked it over with Jeremy Lister and Dustin Ransom the guys I worked with to produce this record and we just thought it was the best idea to make Christmas music so we did.

BLADE: Why did you chose to do an EP instead of a full album? Any reasons for not doing any traditional songs?

WRIGHT: What we decided to do was make a record together and then we wanted to do kind of an artist record, regular studio stuff. I don’t know which one of us brought it up, but the idea got tossed out there “Let’s do an EP of both!”

Let’s do Christmas music and studio music and the reason I chose not to do covers is because unless you can record something better than it’s ever been done, it’s really hard for me to wrap my mind around that. No one is gonna call me the greatest singer of all time — we save those monikers for the Alison Krausses, the Lee Ann Womacks, the Trisha Yearwoods, the Martina McBrides —but what I do think I bring to the table that is unique is I write songs. So to me, if I can’t record “Oh Holy Night” better than anyone else has ever done it, well you can’t get me to touch it with a 10-foot pole. I love Christmas standards, it makes sense to me why people record Christmas covers. It’s warm, it’s fuzzy. No one is ever going to pan your record for not having good material. For me as a songwriter, I can’t imagine why I wouldn’t do that.

BLADE: “It Really Is a Wonderful Life” has already become a bit of a Christmas

classic, It’s been recorded by The Indigo Girls and Mindy Smith as well. What inspired you to write it and why didn’t you release it first?

WRIGHT: I had gone through a breakup in 2005 and I had moved. I was closeted at the time. It’s not like I could go out to dinner with friends and pour my heart out that I was going through a break up. But my best friend Chuck knew and I was there in my house in East Nashville and Chuck said, I think it was on Christmas Eve day, “Why don’t you write something and send it out to your fans tonight. A little work tape or something. Why don’t you write them a new song?” and I did and I sent it out and I was glad I did my little bit of homework. I always feel better with what I’m struggling with when I write a new song. I sent it out and that was it. Then Mindy Smith was making her holiday record the next year and heard the work tape and said “I’m gonna cut that” then a couple years later The Indigo Girls cut it and so it just didn’t seem like something I should record until now.

BLADE: How did Richard Marx become a part of this project?

WRIGHT: Richard and I have been very close friends for 20-plus years.

He and I have collaborated together, we’ve recorded together, we’ve written together, we’ve been important in each others lives for along time. I knew I was making a holiday record and only had three songs to write. I had two titles that I, specifically for sentimental reasons, I wanted to write them with Richard.

I wanted him to be on this record for personal reasons. I texted him and said “I got 2 song titles, “Happy New Years Old Friend” and “Christmas Isn’t Christmas Time” do you want to write them with me for this record” and he wrote back “Duh” and that’s how it came about. We enjoy singing together. You know, I take a little offense when any man I’m singing with sings higher than I do and that’s what you get with Richard and Vince Gill (laughs).

BLADE: How did you come to choose the vintage family photo for the cover?

WRIGHT: I was thinking about cover art, you know it’s important, especially for a holiday record because it’s forever.

Hopefully people latch onto the music 10 years after I’ve made this record, hopefully someone will come to it and discover it as new. I wanted something was representative of what holidays have always meant for me. I knew pretty well I wanted to call the EP “Santa Will Find You” and for me, because when I was a kid, I really did have a worry that Santa wouldn’t know where I’d be Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. It was a genuine real concern. I found oddly enough my boys have the same concern.

It’s like a universal right of passage to wonder if Santa can find you. I started going through family photos and found one my Aunt Char had written Christmas

’73 on top and that was so perfect. It’s my brother and sister and I and our two cousins. My cousin David sadly passed when we were kids, I was 11 when he died. I asked my Aunt Char if she cared if I used the photo and she said “I’d love it!

David was a star!” Then I had my friend, world-renowned picture book illustrator, Marla Frazee hand draw the title. So if you wonder what font or text, it’s a piece of artwork and I’m so happy she took the time to do it.

BLADE: Now that you’re a wife and mother, does Christmas take on a whole new meaning?

WRIGHT: You know I was telling my wife the other day that my mom always got Christmas right for us kids. It was always so special and what Lauren said back to me was, “That must be why you work so hard at Christmas for our boys.”

I really try to make it magical because you know, you really don’t have a lot of time … to make it magical with kids. Right now they’re 5, so we have the biggest Christmas tree we’ve ever had and my boys are Jewish by the way, did I mention that? We’re raising them as Jewish so we celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas.

I feel like it’s one of the magical parts of childhood and I just want to get it right and want them to remember the wonder of the season and of course we talk what it means to be Jewish during the holidays and Christian during the holidays but mostly it’s just Santa and magic and candy and presents. Heck, why not? I remember one Christmas Eve we were driving home from our aunt’s house and I looked up in the sky and saw a red light trailing through the sky. I said “Dad get home fast! It’s Rudolph, they came early!” I remember listening for Santa and sneaking downstairs and trying to see if I could see Santa leaving presents. I also have really great memories of my siblings too. We would somehow put aside our wresting, fighting and bickering and it was us trying to stay up and see if we could see Santa or hear reindeer on the roof.

BLADE: Next year, your debut album, “Woman In The Moon,” turns 25. Any plans to celebrate 25 years in the music business?

WRIGHT: Really good question. I think new music is a great way to celebrate it.

A new holiday record and in early 2019 we’ll release another EP that is just studio music. When we went into make the holiday music we also made another EP of regular studio music so that’ll be out.

BLADE: Will it be similar to your last album, “I Am The Rain”?

WRIGHT: It’s hard for me because it’s all me so it all feels like me. I do think it is different. The people who have heard it and who know my body of work say “It’s kind of a tip of the hat to your commercial music,” so that’s kind of exciting. The EP is going to be called “Revival.”

BLADE: You used PledgeMusic to help

fund this EP and your next EP as well.

You’ve had great success with going the fundraising route. Do you feel this is the way the music business is going for independent artists?

WRIGHT: You know it’s ever changing the business model of putting music out.

Had you asked me five years ago that I’d be doing an EP I would probably have said no way. I think it’s important as an artist to continue to be creative and have my voice be heard as a songwriter and as an artist.

You have to be nimble and pay attention to the way consumers are consuming music and the way artists are introducing work into the market place. Crowd funding is a thing now. When I did my Kickstarter, I think I was one of the first commercial artists, former major label artists, to have done a Kickstarter and a lot of people are doing it now. Pay attention to the young people, they know what they’re doing. I tend to see what they’re doing and try to do it my own way. Years ago I thought it was just asking for money, but it’s not. It’s preselling your record, that’s it. It reengages your fan base. I’ve always been known to have a real supportive, loyal fan base and it seems like a smart way to stay engaged with them. In two years you and I will be talking about the new way people are doing things and hopefully I’ll have enough smarts or foresight to keep changing and as I said earlier, be nimble on how to push music out into the market place.

BLADE: What’s the key to your staying power?

WRIGHT: I think the key is you have to be technologically open minded and creatively opened minded. I think the key to my staying power is, I’ve often said this — if you want to be a writer, you gotta write. I think the key is what I’m about to do after I hang up this phone — change my guitar strings and sit down and play my guitar and make stuff up. It’s hard to keep making records if you’re not creating new work and you gotta do that. Saddle time is what I call that so I’m about to get back on the saddle.

BLADE: Since coming out in 2010 and releasing your book and documentary, do you still get people coming up to you saying your story has helped or inspired them?

WRIGHT: Every day. I either get a DM or a Facebook message or somebody stops me in an airport. It still shocks me how many people heard my story or saw my story or read my story. It’s always pretty humbling to hear how it impacted their journey or their child’s journey. It’s been the biggest blessing of my life to come out the way I did and still causing ripples.

Again, it’s humbling and I’m grateful for it.

CHELY WRIGHT City Winery 1350 Okie St., N.E. $24 in advance; $28 at the door Doors: 7 p.m.; show 8:30 citywinery.com chely.com

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Marketing and PR trends for 2019 Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn still reign in social media

By LAURA VAN EPEREN & JEFFREY DAVIS This year revealed several new trends to the ever-changing landscape of marketing and communications – the rise of live video and distinctions between different levels of influencers to name a few.

As the marketing world changes, trends come and go, but social media, traditional PR and corporate communications are here to stay. Keeping up with the latest craze can be difficult, but in today’s marketing world, being one step ahead is critical, so here’s a guide to the most anticipated trends for 2019.

A Mixed Bag with Social Media – Facebook, one of the most widely used of the social media networks, has some serious competition. With more than one billion users, to many it may seem like the best way to reach consumers, but due to lack of trust and other issues, other channels such as Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn may rise above Facebook to achieve marketing goals. Facebook should not be forgotten, as many users remain active in groups such as neighborhood groups or common interest groups. On all social media networks, paid advertisements

LAURA VAN EPEREN (laura@vaneperen.com) and JEFFREY DAVIS (jeff@vaneperen.com).

PHOTO COURTESY VAN EPEREN

continue to dominate newsfeeds.

“Stories,” which are a way to share moments for 24 hours only, will be introduced to LinkedIn, and watching how marketers navigate, optimize and integrate this new opportunity, will be interesting. Twitter, oftentimes a primary source for journalists, will address editing and algorithm issues, but remain an important business tool. As the media’s preferred social platform, use of photos, videos, creative, and compelling content is a necessity. Video – especially live video

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– continues to grow in importance.

Importance of Credible Publicity Rises – A leading tactic in strategic communications is media relations, and we’re betting that this area of expertise will become exponentially important as a source of trusted and validated information seems scarce to consumers. In business, the importance of relationships cannot be stressed enough, and companies that recognize the strength of their communications team to help drive editorial story telling for their organization,

should be rewarded. Stories written by true journalists carry weight and help drive organic traffic to websites. It is still a gold standard for driving awareness of a product, service, issue or organization.

Consumers want good information that will help them lead better lives, and good stories written by fair journalists, will help fill this need.

CEOs in the Spotlight — Together with media relations, organizations must have executives who possess the skills to present themselves well in-person, or across digital platforms. Whether it’s presenting the opening message at an annual conference or being interviewed on camera, or for a recorded podcast, polishing speaking/presentation skills, is a must in 2019. Executives should participate in training workshops offered by organizations like VanEperen.com that teach and hone executive presentation skills. While many assume high-level executives already possess these skills, the digital world does not lie. Practice and polish make delivery of messaging more fluid and help avoid missteps.

Although no marketer can predict exactly what trends will come to fruition in 2019, observing past years’ wins and losses, and trusting the experts in the field will leave communications professionals well equipped for whatever happens.

From Here to Eternity: A young man braves the journey north on I-395 during morning rush hour.

VALERIE M. BLAKE, Associate Broker, GRI, Director of Education & Mentorship Dupont Circle Office • 202-518-8781 (o) • 202.246.8602 (c) Valerie@DCHomeQuest.com • www.DCHomeQuest.com

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We believe that to create an exceptional community of culture it takes all kinds.

The Ingleside communities are proud. We are proud to be advocates for an entire new generation of diversity. We are proud of our great history and heritage of serving Washington DC area seniors for generations. We are proud of our legacy of promoting a culture of inclusion that provides extraordinary service and exceptional care.

We’re Ingleside proud! Visit us today and discover what Engaged Living can mean to you.

An Ingleside Community

An Ingleside Community

For more information call 202-470-3413

For more information call 240-380-2678

3050 Military Road NW • Washington, DC www.ircdc.org

701 King Farm Blvd. • Rockville, MD www.inglesidekingfarm.org

Ingleside at Rock Creek and Ingleside at King Farm are CARF accredited, not-for-profit, Life Plan communities.

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LEGAL NOTICES

MASSAGE

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES PETITION FOR CUSTODY AND SUPPORT OF MINOR CHILD, CASE #18PDFL01076 MAI THI THU TRAN V. TUNG QUANG NGUYEN PASADENA COURTHOUSE, 300 EAST WALNUT STREET, PASADENA, CA 91101

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Notice of Summons, Petition for Custody and Support of Minor Child, Family Law Case Cover Sheet, UCCJEA, Request for Order Custody, Visitation, and Child Support, and Notice of Hearing filed against Respondent Tung Quang Nguyen.

The Summons, Petition for Custody and Support of Minor Child, Family Law Case Cover Sheet, UCCJEA, Request for Order Custody, Visitation, and Child Support for the parties’ minor child Justin Nguyen (DOB: July 27, 2010) were initially filed on June 7, 2018. Petitioner Mai Thi Thu Tran has attempted to serve Respondent Tung Quang Nguyen at his last known address at 1320 Fairmont St. NW Apt. 201, Washington D.C. 20009 by personal service and mail.

The parties were ordered to attend mediation for the child custody and visitation issues of Petitioner’s Request for Order at above address for the Pasadena Courthouse on July 17, 2018 at 1:30pm in Room 100. The initial hearing date for the Request for Order re: Custody, Visitation, and Child Support of the parties’ minor child Justin Nguyen was on August 7, 2018 at 8:30 am in Department K the above address for the Pasadena Courthouse. In her Request for Order, Petitioner seeks sole legal custody and sole primary physical custody of Justin as well as guideline child support be ordered.

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The hearing was continued to October 15, 2018 at 8:30 am in Department K to allow additional time for service. Petitioner hired an investigator to attempt to locate Respondent for service of the case and motion. As mentioned above, Petitioner was unable to serve Respondent. The October 15, 2018 hearing was subsequently continued to allow for Petitioner to file an Application for Order for Publication of the above filed documents and to serve via publication. The hearing was continued to January 14, 2019 at 8:30 am in Department K at the above address for the Pasadena Courthouse.

On October 17, 2018, Petitioner filed an Application for Order for Publication of the Family Law Case Cover Sheet, Petition for Custody and Support (FL-260), UCCJEA, Request for Order Custody, Visitation, and Child Support, and Notice of Continuance. On October 25, 2018, the Order for Publication of the notice in the Washington Blade was granted. The publication is to run in the Washington Blade at least once per week for four successive weeks. On November 8, 2018, the Court issued a minute order continuing the hearing on Petitioner’s Request for Order from January 14, 2019 to February 4, 2019 at 8:30 am in Department K at the Pasadena Courthouse.

The next hearing date for Petitioner’s Request for Order for Custody, Visitation and Child Support of the parties’ minor child is on February 4, 2019 at 8:30 am in Department K at the Pasadena Courthouse located at 300 East Walnut Street, Pasadena, CA 91101.

If Respondent Tung Quang Nguyen wishes to file a response to Petitioner’s motion, he must do so 9 court days prior to the hearing date on February 4, 2019 and serve a copy of the response to Petitioner’s attorneys 9 court days at the same time.

Petitioner is represented by the H Bui Law Firm, 3452 E. Foothill Blvd., Suite #1160, Pasadena, CA 91107, telephone number (626) 683-7574. Respondent may contact Petitioner’s attorney for a copy of the filed documents or may seek copies of the filed documents directly from the Pasadena Courthouse.

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EMPLOYMENT WHOLISTIC SERVICES, INC. seeking Full Time Direct Support Professionals to assist intellectually disabled adults with behavioral health complexities in group homes & day services throughout DC. Requirements 1 year exp., valid drivers license, able to lift 50-75 lbs, complete training program, become DDS Med Certified within 4 months of hire, ability to pass security background check. Associates degree preferred. For more information, please contact the Human Resources (HR) Department at 202-832-8787.

ENHANCE YOUR AD WITH OUR UPGRADES PICTURES BOLD TEXT LARGE TEXT COLOR AND MORE CONTACT US AT 202-747-2077 LOCKER ROOM ATTENDANTS NEEDED! The Crew Club, a gay men’s naturist gym & sauna, is now hiring Locker Room Attendants. We all scrub toilets & do heavy cleaning. You must be physically able to handle the work & have a great attitude doing it. No drunks/druggies need apply.

Please call David at (202) 319-1333. from 9-5pm, to schedule an interview.

LEGAL SERVICES ADOPTION, DONOR, SURROGACY legal services.

Jennifer represents LGBTQ clients in DC, MD & VA interested in adoption or ART matters. 240863- 2441, JFairfax@ jenniferfairfax.com.

DEADLINES

SHARE ADS ARE FREE. Place your HOUSING TO SHARE ad online at washingtonblade.com and the ad prints free in the paper and online.* *25 words or less prints free - anything more is $1/word.

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All Classified Ads - Including Regular & Adult Must Be Received

By Mondays at 5PM So They Can Be Included in That Week’s Edition of Washington Blade and washingtonblade.com

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Playmates and soul mates...

Washington:

202-448-0824 TELL ‘EM YOU SAW THEIR AD IN THE FULL SERVICE LAW FIRM

Blade classifieds!

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LIMOUSINES KASPER’S LIVERY SERVICE Since 1987.

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Phone 202-554-2471.

PHOTOGRAPHY STEVE O’TOOLE PHOTOGRAPHY Fine Art Photographer for Portraits & Weddings & more! Check out my website - www. steveotoolephotography. com. Specializing in Bears & Big men.

Steve 703-861-4422.

CLEANING FERNANDO’S CLEANING: Residential & Commercial Cleaning, Reasonable Rates, Free Estimates, Routine, 1-Time, Move-In/ Move-Out. (202) 234-7050, 202-486-6183.

PLUMBERS DIAL A PLUMBER, LLC - FULL SERVICE PLUMBER JUST SAY: I NEED A PLUMBER! Bathroom Sinks, Tubs, Vanities, Kitchen Sinks, Disposals, Boilers & Furnaces, Hot Water Heaters, Drain Service!

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DC Plumbers License #707. Visa, MasterCard, American Express accepted.

MOVERS AROUND TOWN MOVERS. Professional Moving & Storage. Let Our Movers Do The Heavy Lifting. Mention the ‘Blade’ for 5% off of our regular rates. Call today 202.734.3080. www. aroundtownmovers.com

BODYWORK THE MAGIC TOUCH: Swedish, Massage or Deep Tissue. Appts 202486-6183, Low Rates, 24/7, In-Calls.

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The Blade is celebrating 50 years as the LGBT newspaper of record. Consider a gift to preserve this critical voice for the next 50 years.

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There’s No Place Like Home (at the Beach!) for the Holidays!

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Tidings of comfort and joy from all of us at The Lee Ann Wilkinson Group!

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Shop “The Twelve Homes of Christmas” from Lewes Beach to Rehoboth Beach and in-between!

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16698 Kings Highway Ste. A, Lewes , DE 19958 • (302) 645-66 6 4 • LeeA nnGro up. co m

Tidings of comfort and joy from all of us at The Lee Ann Wilkinson Group!