Washingtonblade.com, Volume 51, Issue 6, February 7, 2020

F EBRUA RY 07, 2020 • VOLUME 51 • I S S UE 06 • WA S HI N GTONB LAD E.CO M PHOTO BY GAGE SKIDMORE VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

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F EB R UARY 07, 2020 • WA SHINGTONBLA D E.CO M • 03

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Comings & Goings

Houdart joins Out Leadership in key role

By PETER ROSENSTEIN The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community.

We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at: comingsandgoings@ washblade.com.

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

Congratulations to Fabrice Houdart on his new position as Managing Director, Global Equality Initiatives with Out Leadership.

According to its website, “Out Leadership is a global LGBT+ business advisory organization that partners with the world’s most influential companies to build business opportunities, cultivate talent, and drive LGBT equality forward. We believe that LGBT+ inclusion positively FABRICE HOUDART impacts business results, and that including LGBT+ people at the most senior level of executive leadership builds business.”

Out Leadership CEO & Founder Todd Sears said, “We could not be more excited to have Fabrice joining as Managing Director, Global Equality Initiatives. 2020 is a big year for us as we celebrate 10 years in business. When I started Out Leadership in 2010, we were the first organization to focus on driving LGBT+ equality in business. We’ve seen this grow from a summit in New York to become a global movement. As we’ve evolved it has become apparent that businesses are now at the forefront in driving LGBT+ equality. “ Upon accepting the position Houdart said, “Joining Out Leadership is the next logical step for me after spending the past decade building the economic and business case for LGBTI inclusion at the World Bank and the United Nations. In a global context of populism and nationalism, the private sector will be a key ally in keeping the momentum on LGBTI equality we have known since Stonewall. I look forward to contributing to build a global coalition of companies steered by Out Leadership to push for positive social change.”

Most recently, Houdart served as the Human Rights Officer at the United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Before that he worked at the World Bank in a number of roles.

Houdart has received a host of awards, including being named second on Yahoo Finance’s Top 30 LGBT+ Public Sector Leaders 2019.

Houdart earned his bachelor’s of business administration in Business and Economics from the University of Paris, Dauphine, Paris, France, and his MBA in International Business/Information Technology from American University in D.C. Congratulations also to Tommy Wrenn, new Associate Director of Individual Giving at Resources for the Future (RFF), which works to improve environmental, energy, and natural resource decisions through impartial economic research and policy engagement. He is leaving his current position with the Public Justice Foundation where he was Development Program Assistant. Upon accepting the position with RFF, Wrenn said, “Fundraising for Public Justice has been an incredible opportunity, especially over the last three years, and such a supportive environment of my professional development. I am looking forward to this next chapter, joining an incredible team that is growing and strengthening RFF’s nearly 70 years of independent, impartial research.”

Wrenn has held positions as Program Assistant with The Nexus TOMMY WRENN Fund, Washington, D.C. and as a Young Fellow for Young Adult Outreach with Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) in D.C. He began his career in Washington as an intern in the White House.

He is a board member and trustee of the Pickett Endowment for Quaker Leadership and a board member of the Friends Committee on National Legislation. He is receiving the 2020 Outstanding Young Professional in Fundraising award from the Association of Fundraising Professionals International organization.

Tommy earned his bachelor’s in political science with minors in communication and music from Appalachian State University, Boone, N.C. Congratulations also to Kevin McDuffie, Tyler Townsend and Bob Suppies the new owners of Aqua Grill in Rehoboth Beach, Del., and to Rick Hardy and David Lyons who bought Grub Market on Rehoboth Avenue in Rehoboth Beach and will reopen it in the spring as Coho’s Market and Grill.

LOCA L NE WS • FE BRUA RY 07, 2020 • WA SHINGTONB L A DE . COM • 07

Pamala Stanley leaves Blue Moon for The Pines A new home for singer’s longtime residency

By KEVIN NAFF It turns out Pamala Stanley’s last dance at the Blue Moon has already happened.

Stanley, the ‘80s disco star who has enjoyed a long and wildly popular residency at the Blue Moon in Rehoboth Beach, Del., told the Blade that she’s moving her show to newcomer The Pines down the block.

“This was a difficult decision,” she said, “I really think that everything has a season.

Something inside me said it was time. I’ve been there for 14 years and had an amazing time at the Moon.”

She’ll be performing at the Top of the Pines lounge starting in early March, according to a statement from the venue. To start, Stanley is slated to perform three nights a week in March and April, then four nights a week May through October.

And what about that Sunday night T-dance?

“I don’t know exactly the schedule but I can promise you we’re not giving up on Pamala Stanley is leaving her nearly 15-year dancing and the party … the Sunday night residency at the Blue Moon and heading to dance will stay,” she said. “It’s probably going to The Pines. be more of a party, I get a lot of creative leeway Washington Blade photo by Daniel Truitt and I’ll be there more often and on weekends.”

Stanley praised the Moon and reflected on her time there and what she’ll miss most.

“I love the Moon, I love the people who came into the Moon. Change is hard for me and not something I do lightly … this is really a hard thing,” she said. “I will miss the silly things that Tim and I did on stage. I’ll miss the roof opening, the staff, Magnolia and Charles and Randy and Meg and Tim, everyone.”

Blue Moon co-owner Tim Ragan praised Stanley in a statement to the Blade.

“Pamala was an important part of the Blue Moon for 15 years and we are happy that we were able to share her awesome talent with Rehoboth,” Ragan said. “We look forward to the new decade as we continue to set the gold standard for entertainment in Rehoboth and showcase more extraordinary talent. She will always be a treasured part of the Blue Moon family.”

The Pines opened in late 2018 at 56 Baltimore Avenue, just down the street from the Blue Moon, offering two bars, an upstairs lounge with live entertainment and a full-service restaurant.

In late 2019, The Pines announced it had acquired Aqua Grill, the popular gay bar and restaurant across the street.

Chris Kettner, Stanley’s husband, said that fans may see her perform at Aqua as well.

“There are all kinds of creative opportunities and surprises that people in Rehoboth will get a chance to be part of,” said Kettner. “Aqua is in the mix.”

Stanley charted a string of dance hits starting with 1979’s “This is Hot,” which peaked at No. 16 on Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Play chart. Her 1984 hit “Coming Out of Hiding” reached No. 4 on that chart. She subsequently enjoyed a successful recording and touring career. Since 2005, she’s held court at the Moon, Rehoboth’s nearly 40-year-old iconic gay bar and club. There she hosted a packed Sunday night dance party, performed Broadway hits at the piano several nights of the week and even played Sunday brunches. She has a devoted LGBTQ following, playing many same-sex weddings and performing on gay cruises.

High scores for D.C., Md., Del. in LGBTQ Equality Index The District of Columbia and 17 states, including Maryland and Delaware, received the top ranking for having multiple laws and policies highly supportive of their LGBTQ residents for 2019 in the 5th Annual State Equality Index released on Jan. 30.

The SEI, which is prepared jointly by the LGBT groups Human Rights Campaign Foundation and Equality Federation Institute, treats D.C. as a state. Its rankings place states into four categories in the order of the degree of LGBT supportive policies and laws in place, the lack of such laws and policies, and laws and policies hostile to LGBTQ people.

Under the leadership of Mayor Muriel The 2019 SEI places Virginia Bowser, D.C. scored at the top of the latest Equality Index. among 28 states in the lowestPhoto by Elvert Barnes via Wikimedia Commons ranked category that it calls “High Priority to Achieve Basic Equality.” However, a statement accompanying the SEI report says Virginia is also among a few of the lowerranking states in which LGBTQ supportive bills have been introduced in their 2020 legislative sessions.

Among the proposed legislation, the statement says, is the Virginia Values Act, a bill that would amend the state’s existing human rights laws and provide non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people in employment and housing.

The report says the SEI assesses states by looking at whether they have adopted LGBTQ-related laws and policies “in the areas of parenting laws and policies, religious refusal and relationship recognition law, non-discrimination laws and policies, hate crime and criminal justice laws, youth-related laws and policies and health and safety laws and policies.”

In addition to D.C., Maryland, and Delaware, the other states placed in the top ranked category – called “Working Toward Innovative Equality” — include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

Among the states in the lowest-ranking category along with Virginia are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Florida, and Georgia.

The full State Equality Index for 2019 can be accessed via hrc.org.

LOU CHIBBARO JR.

Diaper changing tables in D.C. gay bars?

A proposed bill that could require restaurants, bars, and nightclubs, including gay bars, to install diaper changing tables in women’s and men’s bathrooms, was the subject of a D.C. Council hearing on Jan. 28.

But only two witnesses showed up to testify on the Equal Access to Changing Tables Amendment Act of 2020, and both strongly urged the Council to make a number of changes to the bill, including the addition of an exemption for establishments such as bars and nightclubs that restrict admission to people 18 or 21 years of age or older.

The witnesses were gay nightlife advocate Mark Lee, who serves as coordinator of the D.C. Nightlife Council; and Andrew Kline, general counsel for the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington.

D.C. Council members Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1), Robert White (D-At-Large), and Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) co-introduced the bill last June. Nadeau said the bill was aimed in part at addressing concerns raised by men with children, including gay male couples, that very few men’s bathrooms in public places have diaper changing tables.

The bill would require that diaperchanging accommodations be available for use by all genders in a D.C.-owned or occupied building that includes at least one toilet facility that’s open to the public.

It would also require diaper changing accommodations be available for use by all genders in newly constructed or “substantially renovated” business establishments that include at least one toilet facility open to the public.

Lee and Kline pointed out at the hearing that nightlife establishments such as bars and nightclubs that restrict admission to anyone under 18 or 21 would be bound by the proposed bill if they are newly opened – existing establishments are exempted – or if they make renovations that cost $10,000 or more.

The two noted that diaper changing tables would obviously not be needed in a bar or club open to adults only. They urged Nadeau and D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson, who presides over the Council’s Committee of the Whole, which held the hearing, to take steps to exempt such establishments from the bill’s diaper table requirements.

Lee noted that a large number of hospitality industry establishments in the city that are open to and welcome children already provide diaper changing accommodations.

Nadeau and Mendelson said they would take Lee and Kline’s recommendations under consideration.

LOU CHIBBARO JR.

Rehoboth theater in ‘design development phase’ The leader of the Clear Space Theatre in the Delaware resort town of Rehoboth Beach says the theater company will move ahead with its plans to build a larger facility at a new location to house the popular theater.

But Executive Director Wesley Paulson hasn’t disclosed how the Clear Space Theatre Company will accomplish that goal after Rehoboth Beach officials declined to back a proposed change in the zoning law to waive a 128-space parking requirement that Paulson initially said was needed to allow the beloved performing arts theater to build its new theater at 415 Rehoboth Ave. near the entrance to the town.

The Clear Space Theatre Company, founded in 2004, has produced highly acclaimed Broadway-style plays and musicals and operates an arts institute that teaches theater to students of all ages in a former church building it rents on Baltimore Avenue near the boardwalk.

In September 2018, the theater announced plans to build its own larger building that would include a 300-seat theater on Rehoboth Avenue. Theater officials said they made adjustments to the architectural plans for the new 25,600-square-foot building, including lowering its height, so it meets all city codes except a requirement that it include 128 on-site parking spaces.

Paulson said the theater company didn’t have the funds to include more than 28 parking spaces onsite, and urged Rehoboth officials to consider an exemption to the parking requirement. Rehoboth Mayor Paul Kuhns and the City Commission, which is Rehoboth’s legislative body, declined to make any immediate zoning changes and sent the matter to the Rehoboth Planning Commission.

In April 2019, the commission issued a recommendation of no new zoning designations for Clear Space. However, it further recommended an amendment to the city code allowing satellite parking spaces to be leased under a long-term contract to be counted toward the parking requirements, according to the Cape Gazette newspaper.

The Rehoboth City Commission has so far not taken further action on the commission’s recommendation.

“After more than three years of study, the Company has selected this site to construct a new theatre and rehearsal space,” the theater company said in a Jan. 1 press release.

LOU CHIBBARO JR.

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F EB R UARY 07, 2020 • WA SHINGTONBLA DE.COM • 09

1/16/20 5:39 PM

‘# Still We’ to mark Capital Pride 2020 theme The Capital Pride Alliance, which organizes D.C.’s annual LGBTQ Pride Parade, Festival and related events, launched the start of the city’s Pride season on Feb. 6, by revealing its 2020 Pride theme – “#StillWe.” The group disclosed the 2020 theme and plans for this year’s Pride events at its annual “Reveal” party held at the City Winery restaurant and nightclub at 1350 Okie St., N.E. in the city’s up and coming Northeast entertainment district.

“This year’s theme, #StillWe, is a powerful statement about the resilience, struggles, celebrations, and pride that exist within our community, Capital Pride said in a statement.

“It honors the battles that have paved the way for the progress we now enjoy, while acknowledging the tremendous work that is still left for us to do,” the statement says.

“In spite of extreme adversity facing members of the LGBTQ+ community, we

Town nightclub wins license approval The D.C. Alcoholic Beverage Control Board last week issued a decision approving a liquor license allowing the LGBTQ nightclub Town Danceboutique to reopen in a former church on North Capitol Street, rejecting arguments by nearby residents that the club would have an adverse impact on them.

In a 13-page written decision, the ABC Board cleared the way for what its owners are

must come together to support, love, resist, and thrive,” the statement says.

The Capital Pride statement notes that the multi-color backdrop to the “#StillWe” theme was selected to highlight the community’s diversity.

“The use of the colors that are part of the traditional Pride rainbow flag, in addition to the trans pride flag, and inclusion of the black and brown, represents the intersectionality that exist within the LGBTQ+ community,” the statement says. “This includes sexual orientation, gender identity, and race.”

This year’s Capital Pride Parade is scheduled for June 13, one day prior to the Capital Pride Festival and Concert set to take place June 14 on Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. near the U.S. Capitol. Earlier Capital Pride events are scheduled to begin on June 5.

LOU CHIBBARO JR. calling Town 2.0 to move into the former St. Philips Baptist Church at 1001 North Capitol St., N.E. about a half mile north of the U.S. Capitol.

The decision came nearly two months after 17 witnesses testified either in support or opposition to the license application at an ABC Board hearing on Dec. 4. Most of the opposition came from residents, the management and others associated with an adjacent apartment building, the John and Jill Ker Conway Residence apartments.

Also testifying against the application was a member of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission that has jurisdiction over the area where the church building is located.

An attorney representing the residents

and management of the apartment building told ABC Board members that noise, traffic congestion, and potential crime generated by a large nightclub like Town would be disruptive for the building’s residents. He and some of the opposing witnesses said many of the building’s residents were formerly homeless U.S. military veterans, some of whom were recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse and alcoholism related problems.

The attorney, Lyle Blanchard, said some residents facing these problems were concerned that having a nightclub located next door could create temptations for them in their struggle to overcome alcohol abuse.

Among the witnesses supporting the Town license application were an architect and an acoustical consultant who testified that soundproofing techniques that Town and the company that owns the church building plan to put in place would prevent any noise generated from inside the building from reaching the apartment building and its residents.

In its decision, the ABC Board imposed four conditions on its approval of the license, three of which Town’s co-owner John Guggenmos said at the hearing that Town has agreed to put into effect. They include hiring at least two off-duty D.C. police offers to be present outside the club on Fridays and Saturdays from at least midnight to the club’s closing.

The second condition requires the club to ensure that a line of people waiting to enter the club’s front door entrance on North Capitol Street run in a southward direction away from the adjacent apartment building. The third condition, according to the board’s decision, requires that “no recorded or amplified sounds may be heard in a residence with its windows and doors closed or heard from public space.”

The fourth condition, which Town had not agreed to at the time of the hearing, requires that all exterior seating at its planned outdoor café located on the K Street side of the church building cease operating at 2 a.m.

LOU CHIBBARO JR.

Pro-LGBT priest speaks at Catholic college presidents’ meeting Rev. James Martin, a U.S. Catholic priest who is internationally known for his outspoken advocacy for LGBTQ inclusion and support in the Catholic Church, spoke as an invited guest on Feb. 2 at the annual meeting in D.C. of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.

Among those attending the meeting held at D.C.’s Ritz Carlton Hotel were more than 150 of the association’s nearly 200 Catholic college and university presidents, according to a report by the Washington Post.

The Post reported that some of the longtime attendees of the association’s annual meeting said its decision to invite Martin “was striking and reflects a new generation of Catholic college presidents as well as the influence of Pope Francis,” who has made LGBT supportive public statements in recent years.

“It’s great that the ACCU invited Fr. Martin to speak at their annual meeting,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Mount Rainier, Md. based LGBT advocacy group on Catholic Church issues.

“Catholic colleges and universities have been in the forefront of the church in terms of developing programs and policies that are affirmative of LGBTQ people, both students and staff,” DeBernardo told the Washington Blade.

“New Ways Ministry has worked with dozens of campuses across the nation, and we maintain a list of LGBTQ-Friendly Catholic Colleges and Universities that has over 130 schools on it, more than two thirds of all Catholic campuses,” he said.

LOU CHIBBARO JR.

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Failure to mandate treatment for Alice Carter was ‘death sentence’ Expert in homeless programs notes ‘collective failure’ of safety net

By LOU CHIBBARO JR.

ALICE CARTER died in December after a long struggle with mental illness and addiction.

Brian Carome is one of the many people who knew and admired Alice Carter, the 35-yearold D.C. transgender woman who was homeless for most of the last 12 years of her life.

He’s the executive director of Street Sense Media, a local nonprofit group that provides assistance to the homeless and offers them a voice of their own in its newspaper by the same name, for which he said Carter published poems that reflected the pain and joys of her life.

After surviving many close calls from alcohol and drug abuse related to mental health issues, Carter didn’t make it through her last episode of what Carome believes was an opioid related drug overdose. It happened on the sidewalk in front of the McDonald’s restaurant on 17th Street, N.W., near Dupont Circle where Carter lived off and on in a makeshift tent for at least a dozen years.

For the last several months of her life, Carter had a place to live through arrangements made

by Street Sense Media and the local homeless assistance group M Street Village, according to Carome. But sadly, he said, having a permanent home wasn’t enough to stabilize her due to her ongoing addiction and mental health problems.

On Tuesday, Dec. 17, passersby saw her lying unconscious on the sidewalk near the McDonald’s and flagged down D.C. police officers, who administered CPR and helped resuscitate her as Fire Department rescue workers arrived. She was taken to Howard University Hospital where she died the next day.

A memorial service was held in her honor on Feb. 1 at D.C.’s Foundry United Methodist Church.

Carome reflected on Carter’s life and his own frustrations over his and his organization’s interaction with Carter during the last 19 months of her life in a Jan. 12 guest column in the Washington Post and in an interview with the Washington Blade on Jan. 21.

“We’ve got to get better at engaging people in the treatment that they need and not simply walking away when someone doesn’t accept the treatment when it’s initially offered,” he told the Blade.

He was referring to multiple incidents in which Carter got into trouble with the law, resulting in numerous arrests for nonviolent, misdemeanor offenses such as public intoxication or “illegal entry” into public places, including the McDonald’s, that barred her from entering due to alleged misbehavior.

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Nearly all of these incidents, according to Carome, were due to Carter’s struggle with addiction and serious mental health problems that he says D.C. government agencies that deal with the homeless and the federally run D.C. Superior Court’s special Mental Health Community Court did not give Carter the help she needed.

And that help, Carome said in a pained voice, should have been action by the city or the court system to place Carter involuntarily into a mental health treatment program that she for years declined to submit to, even when it was available free of charge and in a nonjudgmental setting.

Carome said that around March of 2019 a judge with the Mental Health Community Court grew impatient with Carter’s repeated failure to enter into a mental health treatment program that the court arranged for her. The judge discharged her from the Mental Health Court, which by policy sentences offenders to treatment rather than to jail, and placed her back in the regular court system.

“When she was discharged from the Mental Health Court back to the mainstream court, that turned out to be a death sentence since they had the power to force her into treatment,” Carome told the Blade.

“And again, I’m not a fan of taking people’s rights away,” he said. “But when it comes to losing your life or getting treatment I side with getting the treatment,” he continued. “And I have seen in a few instances where involuntary treatment radically turned someone’s life around for the better. And Alice could have lived a long life where she contributed to our community in various ways, including as a taxpayer.”

Carome said that a judge in the regular D.C. Superior Court issued an order requiring Carter to enter into a mental health and substance abuse treatment program as a condition for her release. As she had in past cases, she missed the deadline for entering into the program, prompting the judge to issue a warrant for her arrest.

At the time of her arrest, according to Carome, a D.C. police officer insulted her by addressing her by her former male name. She responded by spitting in the officer’s face, resulting in a new charge of resisting arrest. This landed her in the D.C. Jail for the next two months.

“In jail, Carter was subjected to an array of dehumanizing treatment, including being housed in the male general population,” Carome wrote in his Washington Post column. “Not surprisingly, on her first night out of jail Carter almost died of alcohol poisoning,” he wrote.

“I was among those who were convinced that she was suicidal and in need of civil commitment for both mental health and substance abuse treatment,” he continued, adding, “We have to look at our laws for civil, involuntary commitment to protect people who are so impaired by mental illness and substance abuse that they present a danger to themselves.”

The Blade contacted the three D.C. government agencies that provide programs to assist the homeless and people suffering mental health issues to ask if they provided assistance to Alice Carter – the Department of Housing and Community Development, the Department of Human Services, and the Department of Behavioral Health. The latter two agencies did not respond.

Richard Livingstone, Interim Deputy Chief of Staff and Special Assistant to the Director at the Department of Housing said he was “unable to speak of the specifics of Alice Carter’s housing.”

He provided detailed background information on how his department provides different types of housing assistance to homeless people, including its Permanent Supportive Housing program.

He did not say whether Alice Carter was eligible for his department’s programs or received specific assistance from the DHCD. A spokesperson for the D.C. Department of Corrections said she would look into whether the department has changed its policy put in place in the past at the request of LGBT rights advocates that trans prisoners be assigned to the living quarters consistent with their gender identity.

The spokesperson, Keena Blackmon, said all prisoners at the D.C. Jail are segregated in separate male and female sections.

Bloomberg ramping up after Iowa debacle Billionaire wins Bowser endorsement; campaigning hard for LGBTQ support

By KAREN OCAMB The word got out early. President Donald Trump wanted Republicans to acquit him in his Senate impeachment trial before his big Super Bowl Sunday interview, certainly before Tuesday’s State of the Union address. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who took an oath to fairly consider the articles of impeachment charging Trump with abusing the power of his office and obstructing Congress, was forced to make a deal – for which he got defendant Trump’s permission, to set the assured acquittal for Wednesday.

The nation’s attention shifted quickly to the developing spat between Trump and fellow New Yorker, former three-time New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who entered the Democratic primary race too late to qualify for the first four contests.

The two billionaires spent $11 million on political Super Bowl ads. Bloomberg teed up the fight on Friday with an ad mocking Trump’s infamous cheating at golf.

As mayor, Bloomberg hired Trump to build a golf course. “That’s true,” Bloomberg says in the ad. “But he was the only bidder and running a golf course is the only job I would hire him for.”

Trump countered by spending the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, golfing at his nearby course and shirking a visit with Venezuelan leader Juan Guaido to attend a Super Bowl party with paying guests at his for-profit club in Palm Beach. That cost the taxpayers $3.4 million, according to a Huffington Post analysis, bringing “the taxpayer-funded total for his golfing hobby to $130.4 million.”

The only snippet released as a teaser to Trump’s petty eight-minute pre-Super Bowl interview with Fox friend Sean Hannity was his take on Bloomberg. He criticized the Democratic National Committee for its rule change enabling Bloomberg to participate in the Feb. 19 debate in Las Vegas then snarked on Bloomberg’s height (the former mayor is about 5-foot-8 inches tall.)

“He wants a box for the debates, why should he be entitled to that?” Trump said to Hannity. “Does that mean everyone else gets a box?”

Bloomberg’s campaign spokesperson Julie Wood responded: “The president is lying. He is a pathological liar who lies about everything: his fake hair, his obesity, and his spray-on tan.”

Trump “lies about everything,” Bloomberg said at an East LA campaign stop

MIKE BLOOMBERG says he will double his ad buys after the fiasco in Iowa this week.

Sunday with supporter former LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. “I stand twice as tall as he does on the stage — the stage that matters,” Bloomberg said.

The stage that “matters” no doubt refers to Bloomberg’s real wealth as a billionaire, not just marketing pronouncements without evidence. Axios’ Jonathan Swan notes “the eye-popping FEC data about Mike Bloomberg’s Q4 spending, as well as Bloomberg already running a national campaign. “Iowa and New Hampshire have 65 delegates,” said Bloomberg’s national spokesperson Galia Slayen. “California, Michigan and Pennsylvania have 726.”

Swan reports that Trump takes Bloomberg more seriously than his campaign advisers.

“A senior administration official, who told the president that Bloomberg has no hope of winning the Democratic nomination, said Trump replied: ‘You’re underestimating him,’” believing in the power of Bloomberg’s money.

“Mike got into this race with the singular goal of defeating Donald Trump and a strategy of contrasting his record of accomplishment with Trump’s lies and broken promises,” Bloomberg adviser Howard Wolfson said.

“Clearly it’s working.”

“Bloomberg’s fortune dwarfs Trump’s wealth and has played into a number of insecurities Trump has long held about the former mayor, according to two presidential confidants who spoke on condition of

anonymity to discuss private conversations,” AP’s Jonathan Lemire reported Jan. 24.

That contrast was supposed to play out in the head-to-head of expensive Super Bowl ads. Trump’s first 30-second ad featured Alice Johnson, a nonviolent drug offender championed by Kim Kardashian West, whose sentence was commuted by Trump in 2018. The second 30-second ad featured images of rallies, military might and industrial workers touting his economy. “And ladies and gentleman, the best is yet to come,” Trump says.

Bloomberg’s one-minute ad was narrated

by Calandrian Simpson Kemp whose young football-loving son, George H. Kemp, was shot to death in Texas in 2013, highlighting Bloomberg’s long and strong support for gun control.

And if Sanders ultimately finishes strong in Iowa and wins in New Hampshire, even if he doesn’t do well in South Carolina, he’s doing well in Nevada and extremely well in California. That momentum heading into Super Tuesday might make Bloomberg the most likely moderate candidate left to combat Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The University of California, Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll shows Sanders leading by 26 percent of likely primary voters, with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren second with 20 percent; former Vice President Joe Biden with 15

percent; former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 7 percent and Bloomberg at 6 percent after blanketing the state with ads since he announced his candidacy on Nov. 24, 2019.

Bloomberg – who has been a Democrat, a Republican, an independent and now a Democrat again – spent more than $30 million in ads in December alone and is expected to spend $300 million on TV spots by March, in ads now running nationally targeting Trump rather than his Democratic primary rivals whom he says he will financially support if he’s not the nominee.

Thanks to his ubiquitous ads, Bloomberg is now surging in some national polls. A Reuters/ Ipsos poll conducted Jan. 29-30 has him third behind Biden (23% of registered voters) and Sanders (18%). The survey “found that 12% of registered Democrats and independents said they would vote for Bloomberg in the state nominating contests,” up from 5% in a similar poll in of December. He’s third in the latest HillHarrisX poll, too.

He has a seven-point lead over Trump in Michigan and is flooding the country with TV ads, including plenty in Wisconsin, which holds its primary on April 7.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg is also racking up a slew of endorsements. In addition to Villaraigosa, he’s backed by San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo and San Francisco Mayor London Breed. Like Warren who famously has “a plan for that,” Bloomberg also has a spate of plans targeting issues and demographics, including a plan on immigration, a Path Forward for Latinos and an economic justice plan for Black America.

Apparently, a number of black mayors have accepted his apology for his damaging “stop and frisk” policy as mayor. “I was wrong,” Bloomberg told the congregation at a black megachurch in Brooklyn last November. “And I am sorry.”

The latest endorsement comes from Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser who stood next to Bloomberg at a news conference last week at the Atlas Performing Arts Center on H Street and declared the former mayor “the only candidate who will unify the country and defeat Donald Trump.”

“What’s most important to me is we have a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump,” Bowser said.

CONTINUES AT WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

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Buttigieg clings to victory after fiasco in Iowa ‘We are on a journey to elect the first openly gay president’

By CHRIS JOHNSON cjohnson@washblade.com

DES MOINES, Iowa — It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

In the aftermath of the Iowa caucuses, Pete Buttigieg wanted to be able to declare he was the first openly gay person to win a state primary contest for a major party nomination — or at least definitively declare he did well.

Instead, amid reports of technical difficulties during the Iowa caucuses — including reports of precinct captains not following the rules for counting votes, an iPhone app that failed in its job to collect votes from those who couldn’t attend the caucuses and assurances from the Iowa Democratic Party the delay was the result of a “quality check” — Buttigieg is left clinging to a dubious victory based on an estimated 71 percent of results that keep trickling in.

Although precisely no results of the Democratic Iowa caucuses were known on Monday night, that didn’t stop the former South Bend mayor from declaring victory in his speech that night.

“So, we don’t know all the results, but we know by the time it’s all said and done, Iowa, you have shocked the nation because by all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious,” Buttigieg said.

Ignoring the fiasco, Buttigieg proceeded with an uplifting speech that energized his supporters cheering him on and maintained the upcoming election is a battle for the soul of America.

“We have a belief that in the face of exhaustion and cynicism and division, in spite of every trampled norm and every poisonous tweet, that a rising majority of Americans is hungry for action and ready for doing,” Buttigieg said.

Annise Parker, CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which has endorsed Buttigieg, echoed the sense that Buttigieg pulled off a victory in the caucuses despite issues in recording the votes.

“The messy Iowa reporting process should not distract anyone from the historic moment that played out last night,” Parker said. “Pete – running against 10 opponents including some of the best-known names in American politics – overcame the obstacles and the odds to land in one of the top spots, if not the top spot, in the Iowa caucuses. It is an incredible achievement for an openly gay candidate and speaks to his ability to build a broad coalition among voters in cities, suburbs and rural areas. It forever changes how the media, pundits and voters view the

PETE BUTTIGIEG claimed victory in Iowa with 71 percent of precincts reporting two days after the caucuses.

electability of openly LGBTQ candidates.”

Parker also expressed disappointment the results took away from Buttigieg’s speech on Tuesday night, which she called “the most powerful speech I’ve heard during this campaign season.”

“It was a speech that would have captured the minds of Americans and secured days of headlines, but instead we are talking apps and ‘quality control,’” Parker said. “Fortunately, the results will come, Pete will get the postIowa bump he deserves, and he will head into New Hampshire a favorite. There is now no question we are on a journey to elect the first openly gay president of the United States – and that is astounding.”

But the nature of the Monday speech was arguably tone-deaf amid anger over the botched Iowa caucuses. Buttigieg also faced a backlash on Twitter for declaring victory when none of the results were known, prompting #MayorCheat to trend on Twitter.

Here’s what we know as of Wednesday afternoon based on the limited numbers the Iowa Democratic Party has provided so far two days after the caucuses.

With more than 70 percent of precincts reporting, Buttigieg has won a plurality of 26.8 percent of the delegates, followed by 25.2 percent for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), 18.4 percent for Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), 15.4 percent for former Vice President Joseph Biden and 12.6 percent for Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).

The popular vote in the Iowa thus far

tells slightly a different story. Iowa recorded the sheer vote tallies among caucus-goers at precincts both at the start of the caucuses, then after realignment. In both cases, Sanders has a slight lead, with 24.4 percent for the initial vote an 26.2 percent for the vote after realignment. The next down is Buttigieg, then Warren and Biden.

In a later speech in New Hampshire on Tuesday, Buttigieg was visibly choked up as the results came pouring in and showed an openly gay candidate had won the plurality of delegates.

“It validates for a kid somewhere in a community wondering if he belongs or she belongs or they belong in their own family, that if you believe in yourself and your country, there is a lot backing up the belief,” Buttigieg said.

A win in Iowa for Buttigieg was all but necessary for him to go forward in pursuing the Democratic nomination. After all, if Buttigieg couldn’t pull off a win in the Midwest near his home state of Indiana, making the case for his nomination would be a lot harder in the rest of the country.

Spencer Kimball, a professor in political and sports communication at the Bostonbased Emerson College, told the Blade before the initial results, “if Pete goes on to a top-two finish it might make him the alternative to Bernie.”

“But if Joe drops to fifth that keeps Elizabeth and Amy in the race,” Kimball added. “If Amy falls behind Joe that would

be a problem for her. However, because of the issues with the caucus I think all five are still in for New Hampshire which will make the debate a decisive event like it did in 2016 in the GOP nomination.”

Asked whether a Buttigieg victory in Iowa would even be seen as legitimate given the fiasco in reporting the results, Kimball replied, “Not by everyone.”

The full results for the Iowa caucuses remain to be seen. Despite assurances all votes cast in Iowa will be counted, it’s possible many of the outstanding 29 percent votes not yet counted will never be recorded.

Other lingering questions are whether the Iowa delegation at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee will be fully seated and the fate of Iowa Democratic Party Chair Troy Prices, who was charged with overseeing the Iowa caucuses.

Although the Iowa caucuses have traditionally been the first gateway in the nation selecting its presidential nominees, it seems highly likely change is forthcoming, such as the abolition of the Iowa caucuses altogether, or at least allowing another state to go first in the process.

Tom Perez, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement Wednesday “what happened last night should never happen again.”

“We have staff working around the clock to assist the Iowa Democratic Party to ensure that all votes are counted,” Perez said. “It is clear that the app in question did not function adequately. It will not be used in Nevada or anywhere else during the primary election process. The technology vendor must provide absolute transparent accounting of what went wrong.”

The Washington Blade has a placed a request with the Democratic National Committee seeking comment about any additional fallout after the Iowa caucus, including whether it will allow the Iowa caucuses to go first during the nomination process in future years.

For his part, Buttigieg during his victory night speech told his supporters he’ll take the fight “to New Hampshire, which has a way of making up its own mind, to Nevada, to South Carolina and beyond.”

“And as we do, we will be building a movement that not only will win the election against Donald Trump, but win the era for our shared values,” Buttigieg said.

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Trans Salvadoran woman mourns best friend murdered last year 3 police officers charged with homicide

By MICHAEL K. LAVERS & ERNESTO VALLE

Camila Díaz Córdova, a transgender Salvadoran woman, left the house in which she lived with relatives of her best friend, Virginia Gómez, on the afternoon of Jan. 30, 2019.

Gómez, who is also a trans woman, on Jan. 25 told the Blade during an exclusive interview in El Salvador that her aunt the next morning realized Díaz had not returned home. Gómez said she was not initially worried, but she became increasingly concerned throughout the day because Díaz had not called or texted her.

Gómez told the Blade she called hospitals and even the morgue over the next few days in an attempt to locate Díaz. Gómez said on Feb. 7, 2019, eight days after Díaz disappeared, she learned an ambulance brought her friend to a public hospital in the Salvadoran capital of San Salvador.

Two trans rights activists were with Gómez when a doctor at the hospital told her she was critically injured when she arrived at around 5 a.m. on Jan. 31, 2019.

Gómez said the doctor told her that Díaz had serious injuries to her liver and other internal organs. Gómez told the Blade the doctor also said Díaz had likely been hit by a car.

“She had to have several surgeries not because she came in with internal bleeding, but because her vital organs were in very bad shape,” said Gómez, recalling what she said the doctor told her. “She told me they operated on her.”

Gómez began to cry when she said the doctor told her Díaz died on Feb. 3, 2019.

“It was very difficult for me when she told me that she had died,” said Gómez as she used a napkin to wipe the tears from her eyes.

“I didn’t even want to believe it.”

Friday marks a year since Díaz was found on the side of a highway in Soyapango, a municipality that is just east of San Salvador.

Three Salvadoran police officers have been charged with aggravated homicide as a hate crime and depravation of liberty by an agent of authority in connection with Díaz’s murder. They are expected to go on trial next month.

Díaz is originally from a small town in rural El Salvador.

CAMILA DIAZ CORDOVA was murdered near the Salvadoran capital of San Salvador on Jan. 31, 2019.

Photo courtesy of Virginia Gómez

Gómez said Díaz’s deeply religious family disowned her because of her gender identity.

Gómez also told the Blade that Díaz was attacked several times because she was trans.

Gómez said Díaz in 2014 fled to Guatemala after she barely survived a brutal attack. Gómez told the Blade that Díaz also sought refuge in Mexico several times, but returned to El Salvador after a few months.

Gómez said Díaz and another trans Salvadoran woman in early 2017 decided to travel to the U.S. Gómez said they spent several months in Mexico City, working in restaurants, before they arrived in the Mexican border city of Tijuana in June of that year, roughly five months after President Trump took office.

Gómez said Díaz on Aug. 8, 2017, asked for asylum in the U.S. Gómez told the Blade that U.S. Customs and Border Protection immediately took her into custody and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained her at a facility in California.

A judge subsequently denied Díaz’s asylum claim and the U.S. on Nov. 7, 2017, deported her to El Salvador.

Gómez said the U.S. deported Díaz two days before her birthday. Gómez told the

Blade she found out about Díaz’s deportation when she called her from El Salvador’s international airport after her flight landed.

“They deported me,” said Díaz, according to Gómez as she recounted the phone call.

“She told me that yet another killer avalanche has come.”

Gómez said Díaz arrived in El Salvador wearing the same clothes she wore when she asked for asylum in the U.S. Gómez also told the Blade that Díaz said the staff at the ICE detention center where she was detained discriminated against her and other trans women.

“They told us that we were not women, that we were men,” said Díaz, according to Gómez.

Díaz on Jan. 29, 2019, met with Mónica Linares, executive director of Asociación Aspidh Arcoiris Trans, a trans Salvadoran advocacy group in San Salvador, and asked for help to leave sex work. Linares told Díaz to return to her office the next day but Gómez said she “disappeared.”

“We are already at one year after her death, and it is outrageous to see how the courts have still not prosecuted her death,” Linares on Thursday told the Blade in a statement.

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Ambar Alfaro, an independent trans activist who was with Gómez at the hospital when she learned Díaz had died, echoed Linares.

“A year from the date on which they attacked and practically kidnapped Camila, the only thing that I can really say is that it is clear that our country’s judicial system remains obsolete,” Alfaro told the Blade. “Beyond that there is also the feeling of impunity surrounding hate crimes, as well as with Camila’s murder.”

The State Department’s 2018 human rights report notes “public officials, including police,engaged in violence and discrimination against sexual minorities.” It also indicates LGBTQ Salvadorans have stated the National Civil Police and the Attorney General’s Office “harassed transgender and gay individuals when they reported cases of violence against LGBTI persons, including by conducting strip searches.”

Karla Aguilar, a trans Salvadoran activist, in 2017 fled to Europe because of threats she and her family received.

Johana “Joa” Medina León, another trans Salvadoran woman who worked as a private nurse, fled El Salvador because she had also been threatened and attacked because she was trans. Medina died at a hospital in El Paso, Texas, on June 1, 2019, three days after ICE released her from their custody.

Briyit Michelle Alas is one of several trans women who have been reported killed in El Salvador in recent months. President Nayib Bukele, who was elected on the same day Díaz died, has yet to publicly condemn these murders or violence based on gender identity that remains rampant in the country.

Gómez herself is in the process of seeking asylum in Canada. She asked the Blade not to publicly disclose the city in which she is currently living because she is afraid for her life.

“It is very dangerous,” said Gómez.

In the meantime, she continues to remember Díaz as “a happy and sincere” person.

“She was noble,” said Gómez. “She wasn’t a bad-hearted person.”

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Lube ban, anal exams spark outrage NAIROBI — Banning lube and forcing men suspected of being gay of having anal exams for evidence of penetration are among common practices in Tanzania that have outraged international rights groups.

Human Rights Watch this week issued a report that calls on government officials to reverse these policies, end arbitrary arrests of LGBT people and ban forced anal exams used as “spurious” evidence of gay activity.

The 112-page report, “‘If We Don’t Get Services We Will Die’: Tanzania’s Anti-LGBT Crackdown and the Right to Health,” documents how since 2016 the government of Tanzania has cracked down on LGBT people and the community-based organizations that serve them.

The Health Ministry in mainland Tanzania has prohibited community-based organizations from conducting outreach on HIV prevention to men who have sex with men and other key populations vulnerable to HIV. It closed drop-in centers that provided HIV testing and other targeted and inclusive services and banned the distribution of lubricant, essential for effective condom use for HIV prevention among key populations and much of the wider public.

The Health Ministry claims that the specialized services and provision of lubricant promote homosexuality. It says that public health centers provide discrimination-free services so that there is no need for specialized services run by civil society organizations.

Human Rights Watch research found, however, that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in government health centers is common.

The report is based largely on interviews conducted with 35 self-identified LGBT Tanzanians between May 2018-June 2019.

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Anti-trans bill dies in Florida MIAMI — A bill that would have made it a felony for doctors to provide transgender minors with hormone therapy or to perform gender reassignment surgery died in committee this week, the Miami Herald reports.

The bill would have carried a maximum penalty of a $10,000 fine or 15 years in prison.

The House Health Quality Subcommittee on Monday held a workshop filled with hours of testimony both for and against the bill. Chair Colleen Burton (R-Lakeland) announced at the end that it would be the last time the committee meets.

Lawmakers in Colorado, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma and South Carolina have filed similar bills that would penalize doctors who take part in treating transgender youth.

In South Dakota’s Republican-dominated House, lawmakers passed a bill last week that makes it a misdemeanor for doctors to provide hormones and sex reassignment surgery for children under 16. It carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a fine of up to $2,000.

AIDS vaccine trial fails in South Africa NEW YORK — An HIV trial in South Africa has been shut down because an experimental vaccine was not working, federal health officials announced on Monday, the New York Times reports.

The trial, which began in 2016, followed one in Thailand that ended in 2009. That vaccine offered only modest protection against infection. Experts argued over how much, but the vaccine was no more than 30 percent protective, the Times reports.

Nonetheless, it was the only vaccine that had appeared to work at all.

The trial — known as HVTN 702 but nicknamed Uhambo, which means “journey” in Zulu — included 5,407 young adult men and women in South Africa.

Last month, a safety-monitoring panel looked at early results and found that there were 123 infections among participants who got a placebo injection and 129 among those who got the vaccine, the Times reports.

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CANNABIS CULTURE Austin won’t prosecute low-level pot offenses AUSTIN, Texas — Members of the Austin City Council have unanimously approved a resolution that forbids city officials from spending funds for the purpose of prosecuting low-level marijuana possession offenses.

The sponsor of the resolution called the measure necessary in order to reprioritize limited police resources and to arrest the racial disproportionality in marijuana arrests.

Texas NORML Executive Director Jax Finkel praised the change in municipal policy. “Austin officials should be doing the absolute most they can within their discretion to prevent these arrests,” she said. “This resolution prevents taxpayers’ funds from being wasted on enforcing this failed policy and refocuses monies where they belong, protecting our city from violent and property crimes.”

The local ordinance also applies to activities involving the personal possession of cannabis concentrates, edibles, or vapor cartridges.

Under state law, low-level marijuana possession offenses are classified as criminal misdemeanors, punishable by up to 180 days in jail, a $2,000 fine, and a criminal record. Annually, Texas police make over 60,000 marijuana possession arrests – one of the highest totals in the nation.

Cleveland Council moves to decriminalize pot possession CLEVELAND — Members of the Cleveland City Council have approved municipal legislation de-penalizing marijuana possession offenses. The measure now awaits final approval from the city’s mayor.

Under the proposal, activities involving the possession of up to 200 grams of cannabis will no longer be punishable by an arrest, a fine, or a criminal record. Marijuana will still be defined as contraband and will be confiscated by local law enforcement.

The measure is similar to those approved in several other Ohio cities, including Athens and Columbus, which also reduce or eliminate municipal penalties for the possession of up to 200 grams of marijuana.

Under state law, the possession of marijuana in amounts above 100 grams but below 200 grams is punishable by up to 30 days in jail.

Missouri awards medical cannabis dispensary licenses JEFFERSON CITY, MO — State regulators last week began issuing the first licenses for medical cannabis providers.

Under the provisions enacted by a 2018 voter-approved ballot initiative, officials with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services must license a minimum of 24 dispensaries in each of the state’s eight congressional districts.

Regulators have already registered 27,000 patients to participate in the cannabis access program. Licensed dispensaries are expected to be operational by this spring.

Marijuana not associated with low infant birth weight: study LONDON — Cannabis smoking during pregnancy, absent concurrent tobacco smoking, is not associated with lower birth weight outcomes, according to data published in the Journal of Perinatal Medicine.

A team of investigators from Kings College in London assessed the association between the maternal use of tobacco and cannabis on infant birth weight and head circumference.

Researchers reported that self-reported tobacco smoking during pregnancy, as well as the combined use of tobacco and cannabis, was associated with reductions in birth weight and head circumference. By contrast, “cannabis use alone was not associated with a significant reduction in birth weight or head circumference.”

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VI E W PO I NT • FE BR UA RY 07, 2020 • WA SHINGTON BL A DE . COM • 23

KATHI WOLFE

is a regular contributor to the Blade and winner of the 2014 Stonewall Chapbook competition.

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Iconic ‘Little Women’ resonates today, deserved director’s nom

In the iconic movie “All About Eve,” theater critic Addison DeWitt confronted Eve about the lies she told. “I know nothing about Lloyd [her illicit lover] and his loves,” he tells her dismissively, “I leave those to Louisa May Alcott [author of ‘Little Women’].”

“Little Women,” a novel embedded in the DNA of generations of hetero and queer women, was published in 1868.

Greta Gerwig’s 2019 movie of “Little Women” received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. The Oscar ceremony will be held on Feb. 9.

In case you’ve lived under a rock: The novel, set during the Civil War and its aftermath, tells the story of The March family, who live in Massachusetts in gentile poverty.

The father’s away – serving as a Union Army chaplain. The mother raises their daughters – Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. Unlike, as is the case, with most American fiction, women are center stage in the book. Meg, though she marries for love, is an actress.

Tomboy and writer Jo is a crush for every lesbian and author I know. Amy marries, but doesn’t give up her art. Beth gets sick and dies. But she plays the piano beautifully!

“Little Women” has been made into movies, Japanese anime, opera and more than one TV mini-series.

Today, I’d like to believe that after seeing Greta Gerwig’s stunning adaptation of “Little Women,” DeWitt would change A D V E R T Ihis S Itune.

N G That P Rhe’d O Oadmire F gender-bending Alcott.

“Little Women,” the book and Gerwig’s movie of the novel, have garnered critical acclaim. The film received a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 95 percent. Yet, “Little Women” continues to be dismissed. Usually ADVERTISER SIGNATURE By signing this proof you are agreeing to your contract obligations with the men. washington blade newspaper. Thisby includes but is not limited to placement, payment and insertion schedule.

“Little Women!” a straight male friend snorted recently when I mentioned the Alcott novel, “I never could get through it!”

Seeing the Gerwig movie appealed to him as much as going for a root canal.

His dismissal of “Little Women” reflects

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our cultural misogyny. Art featuring male characters should be respected by everyone; works like “Little Women,” featuring mostly female characters aren’t worth pursuing. They’re just “for girls.”

Despite this sexism, this year, Gerwig’s “Little Women” received several Oscar nominations: not only for Best Picture but, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Costume Design. Yet, Gerwig, wasn’t nominated for Best Director.

“All this goodness must somehow have assembled itself without any guiding hand at the helm,” the film critic Dana Stevens wrote in Slate.

Only five women have been nominated for Best Director since the Oscars began 92 years ago. Kathryn Bigelow is the only woman who’s won the Best Director Academy Award, highlighting the Academy’s sexism.

Why do I care so much about “Little Women?” Because, though written 151 years ago, it resonates today: to genderbending LGBTQ folk, feminists, families, writers and seekers of justice. (Alcott often signed her letters “Yours for reforms of all kinds.”)

Gerwig’s film brings “Little Women” and Alcott vividly to life. It maintains the spirit of the book by going gloriously meta.

We see Jo, Alcott’s avatar, become a writer. Jo, the author, tells the story of the March sisters. Laurie, the dashing boy next door, is hetero but he loves being around the March girls. He loves hanging with them and even swapping clothes with Jo, while Jo wears boys clothes and walks like a guy.

At the end of the movie, you wonder: Does Jo marry? Or did Jo write a marriage scene because her publisher believed female characters must either marry or die?

“I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man’s soul put by some freak of nature into a woman’s body,” Alcott, who never married said in an 1883 interview, “because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man.”

We’ll never know for certain if Alcott, who died in 1888, was queer. But Jo March will be a queer icon forever.

24 • WA S HI NGTON BL A D E.CO M • FEB R UARY 0 7 , 2 0 2 0 • V IEWP O IN T

RICHARD J. ROSENDALL

is a writer and activist. Reach him at rrosendall@starpower. net.

Bernie would lose.

Bloomberg would win.

Leftist purity will not beat Trump I clicked on cable news Saturday morning to find left-wing propagandist Michael Moore at a podium with a Bernie logo, screaming in outrage over the DNC’s removal of the donor threshold for participation in the Feb. 19 presidential debate.

Moore and others treat this as a dastardly move to allow Michael Bloomberg into the debates, even though Mayor Mike, as of Jan. 31, had only met the polling threshold in one of the four designated polls.

I am writing this before the Iowa caucuses but after D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s endorsement of Bloomberg. I am a proreform liberal, not an anti-capitalist. I have criticized the three-term former New York mayor for his stop-and-frisk policy (which he tardily recanted) and his penchant for nanny government. I am bothered by his secretiveness regarding his finances and by the nondisclosure agreements that prevent employees at his company from discussing any discrimination complaints they filed.

The painful truth is that every candidate is flawed and our options are dwindling. Those of us who prioritize defeating Trump and his band of vandals should recognize the danger of nominating a left-wing demagogue against the right-wing incumbent, and the reality that Sanders is to the left of most voters. If Sanders wins or finishes strong in Iowa and New Hampshire and Biden falters (along with Buttigieg and Klobuchar), the self-funded Bloomberg stands to draw fresh support as the moderate alternative to Sanders.

The destructiveness of Trumpism, which has overtaken the Republican Party like a shape-shifter replacing a child, gives Democrats an extraordinary opportunity for a wave election. The greatest threat to such a victory is posed by the left’s “our way or else” fanaticism.

The abusiveness of some of Bernie’s social media warriors is bad enough that he himself had to scold them publicly. Many of their targets have been women. Sometimes I wonder if I have wandered into the middle of GamerGate or a testosterone-dominated scifi convention.

Left-wing bullying is like right-wing bullying only less popular. I think Bernie Sanders is basically decent, which is not the case with Trump. But a key part of what needs restoring after Trump is the vital center. Most of the voters we need to win in November want neither to abolish capitalism nor to give up their private health insurance.

The Republicans are massive hypocrites on deficits, which they run up like spoiled college students on their parents’ credit cards and then indignantly condemn when Democrats take over. Does that make it smart for Democrats to refuse to do the math on their own ambitious proposals? No. Vital social programs deserve a plan to pay for them.

The Democratic coalition is more diverse than the Republican one. That brings greater challenges. Those of us who will vote for Bernie if he is the nominee but are not enamored of him will not be hostages to his socialism as Republican senators are to Trump’s nihilism.

It is notable that Bloomberg apologized for his stop-and-frisk policy, whereas Trump never apologized for demanding the death penalty for the Exonerated Five. A black friend points out that many in that community, including the Congressional Black Caucus, supported tough-on-crime policies in past decades. We all have feet of clay, but a smart, industrious, big-city politician willing to change his mind is vastly better than an indolent, know-nothing bully who wants to be emperor.

And I remember the fine day when Mayor Bloomberg defended the right of Muslims to build a mosque in lower Manhattan.

For executive experience, Bloomberg’s record as an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and mayor of America’s largest city far outstrips the mayoralties of Burlington and South Bend.

And am I the only one who is unmoved by the spectacle of millionaires like Sanders and Warren attacking billionaires?

After three decades in Washington, Bernie Sanders shows a greater penchant for delivering satisfying rants than for governing. I would choose him over Twitler in a heartbeat, but Democrats’ task at present is to choose our best standard-bearer. Bloomberg, at least, notwithstanding the “Republican” characterization by millionaire Michael Moore, changed his party registration to Democratic.

VI E W PO I NT • FE BR UA RY 07, 2020 • WA SHINGTONB L A DE . COM • 25

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Electing Sanders would stop progress toward equality

By BRIAN GAITHER Bernie Sanders doesn’t care that comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan is transphobic, homophobic, and racist. When Rogan offered an informal, unsolicited endorsement of Sanders’s presidential candidacy, the senator’s campaign seized the opportunity to highlight it for his 10.4 million Twitter followers.

Prominent members of the Democratic electorate pushed back, but the Vermonter was unmoved. He has no problem with The Joe Rogan Experience offering a platform to conservative gay provocateur Milo Yiannapoulos, Proud Boys founder Gavin McIness, Alex Jones of Info Wars, or allaround bias-monger Ben Shapiro because his “movement” can’t get him elected without Rogan’s audience. And the campaign insists that welcoming Rogan’s listeners into the Sanders coalition will reform their beliefs (ultimately, somehow) as we begin to stand together in “solidarity.”

So dubious was the endorsement, and so odious its promotion, that the president of the Human Rights Campaign, Alphonso David, issued a statement that, in part, rebuked the Sanders camp. David wrote, “We should always be willing to educate individuals who operate from a place of bias but we should not directly or indirectly validate or celebrate them.”

For members of marginalized communities, especially LGBTQ people, the philosophy that touts Rogan’s endorsement of Sanders as a “good thing” is inherently dangerous in practice.

Sanders’s supporters contend that socialism, properly deployed, will shift the anger of the white working class onto corporations and those at the top of the economic heap, moving their animus away from immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ folks, women, and other marginalized groups.

For that to happen, though, they have to get Sanders into the White House where he alone can enact an agenda leading to true

economic justice. Elect Sanders first; the rest will follow.

According to David Frum, who responded in the Atlantic to Rogan’s endorsement, “Sanders is a Marxist of the old school of dialectical materialism. Class relations are foundational; everything else is epiphenomenal.” As Frum sees it, “He is not necessarily hostile to transgender claims.

He has co-sponsored the current version of the Equality Act, which includes transgender people in the classes to be provided equal public accommodation and to be protected from job discrimination. But Sanders certainly does seem to think that such concerns are secondary.”

The socialist magazine Jacobin confirmed Frum’s analysis as it explained the importance of Rogan’s support to its readers. The authors write, “Despite the ideological flaws Rogan has on these questions, the material meaning of his announced intention to vote for Sanders is that he plans to help empower a candidate who wants medical transitions to be paid for by the only insurance program that will continue to exist after the enactment of Medicare for All.” In other words, Rogan’s bigotry is useful in its capacity to elect Sanders, an event that will increase the likelihood of affordable healthcare specific to trans individuals becoming more accessible to them.

Under a Sanders presidency, LGBTQ equality will only exist as a derivative of the economic equality socialism affords. Our material well-being will be dependent on our ability to withstand the solidarity defined by bigots until their own material conditions have improved sufficiently for them to quit their bigotry. Any of our political goals distinct from solidarity in the class struggle will be subordinated.

If we’re forced to join a “movement” where vocally anti-LGBTQ influencers are welcomed and celebrated, then we won’t survive as a distinct community. A Sanders nomination powered by a “Rogan Coalition” will strip us of our distinct identity and objectives in favor of the class-based needs of the Bigots in Bernie’s Big Tent. If they insist that universal healthcare should exclude trans-related medical services, who will tell them “no”? And if Sanders says “no” whom will they blame? Take a guess.

26 • WA S HI NGTON BL A D E.CO M • FEB R UARY 0 7 , 2 0 2 0 • V IEWP O IN T

PETER ROSENSTEIN

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

The big loser is Iowa Five contenders likely to keep fighting after debacle The biggest loser of the Iowa caucus is the Iowa Democratic Party and the second biggest loser is the Democratic Party. One year of preparation and they still couldn’t get it right? It’s an embarrassment to all.

The collateral losers, even though they seem to have done well appear to be Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren who apparently will come in either second or third but won’t have the chance to bask in that glow because it is now onto New Hampshire for all the candidates and the next contest.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, who it seems came in first, of course will complain anyway that this was rigged against him even though it seems it was his campaign who asked for the changes in reporting that resulted in this epic failure of the party. The candidate who may have lucked out the most is Joe Biden who didn’t meet his expectations in Iowa but that will be glossed over as now it’s New Hampshire’s turn to shine.

The polling as reported by Real Clear Politics shows it is all over the place with Sanders up anywhere from 1 to 19 percent but in reality in 2016 he secured 60 percent of the vote in New Hampshire against Hillary Clinton and even at the top of this polling he is only getting about 30 percent.

So it will be really interesting how the media handle the results that eventually come out of Iowa.

Will they say the big surge is over for Sanders because huge numbers of new voters didn’t come out? The total participation in the Democratic caucus in Iowa this year was about the same as in 2016, which is about 170,000 voters.

So as I wrote in a previous column, if there is no clear winner — if Warren, Sanders, Buttigieg and Biden all come out of Iowa still alive, and if Klobuchar does better than predicted — then the game moves on pretty much unchanged. It is clear each of the top five candidates will have enough money to go on for the time being.

I began this column suggesting the biggest loser in all this is Iowa. It should be the end of Iowa as a first state to go and it should also be an end to caucuses anywhere. The problems with caucuses are clear.

When you have to be at a specific spot for two hours it eliminates everyone who has to work those hours, it makes it impossible for many persons with a disability since they can’t access some of the sites, and it has been shown the number of people who actually vote in a caucus is way below those who would vote in a primary. For the Democratic National Committee to allow Iowa to continue to go first would be the definition of insanity. The state is not representative of the diversity of the nation or even of Democratic primary voters. They are clearly not representative of the Democrats who vote in the general election. For years we allowed Iowa to make or break a candidate. Candidates would spend a year campaigning there, spend millions of dollars, and if the media declare them a loser after the vote of only a few people their campaigns could end. Again, the definition of insanity.

One of the winners this week is Mike Bloomberg who skipped Iowa altogether. After all, Iowa has only 56 delegates from more than 4,000. So the Democratic Party will have much to think about over the next few years no matter what happens in November 2020. I still believe Democrats will unite and defeat Donald Trump in November. The backers of all the candidates will come to realize whoever the final nominee is it will be crucial to support them.

V I EW PO I NT • FE BR UA RY 07, 2020 • WA SHINGTON BL A DE . COM • 27

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CUPID’S TASTE BUDS

Many D.C. restaurants offering pre-fixe specials for romantic weekend

By EVAN CAPLAN

That alluring aroma in the air: it isn’t just primary voting that’s getting us all hot and bothered. Valentine’s Day is next weekend, and we want to ensure you celebrate exactly how you’d like. Get a meal for two (or more), some drinks or whatever else your heart desires as bars, restaurants and hotels around town break out their best for you and boo.

Beloved Logan Circle neighborhood mainstays and part of gay restauranteur David Winer’s EatWell restaurant group, Commissary (1443 P St., N.W.) and Logan Tavern (1423 P St., N.W.) are celebrating Valentine’s Day with pre-fixe dinners. At Commissary, it’s three courses for $47 per person ($63 with wine), which includes the sultry Trio of Chocolates dessert (chocolate pot de crème, chocolate truffles and crispy brûléed chocolate marshmallows). A few doors down, Logan Tavern’s Valentine’s Day meal ($58 per person for three courses, or four courses and wine for $74) includes the meaty Chateaubriand for Two, a filet mignon with bacon-wrapped asparagus. The restaurants are also hosting mixology classes. Logan Tavern’s event, on Valentine’s Day, includes four cocktails paired with complementing bites.

Commissary’s Galentine’s Day mixology class takes place Thursday, Feb. 13 and includes sparkling rosé and chocolates.

Also available to get your hands dirty with classes are vegan Fare Well (406 H St., N.E.) on Tuesday, Feb. 11 and Michelin-starred Gravitas (406 H St., N.E.) on Saturday, Feb. 15 or Sunday, Feb. 16.

Fare Well is offering a cookie demo with owner Doron Petersan alongside a “build your own adventure” prosecco bar ($48 per person). Gravitas, helmed by chef Matt Baker, has a cooking class focused on seasonal ingredients, plus a threecourse lunch with wine pairings ($120 per person).

Urbana (2121 P St., N.W.) is also in on the Galentine’s Day game on Thursday, Feb. 13. There are food specials and “femalethemed cocktails” using spirits from Republic Restoratives (1369 New York

The ‘I Wanna Piece of You!’ cake from Buttercream Bakeshop.

Photo courtesy Buttercream

Ave., N.E.), a lesbian-owned distillery and craft cocktail bar, and also the first womenowned distillery in D.C. There will be a DJ playing a “female-empowered” playlist; a portion of proceeds will benefit No Kid Hungry. On Feb. 14 and 15, the Italian restaurant is also offering a four-course tasting menu ($55 per person, $30 extra per person for the sparkling wine pairing for $30).

On Valentine’s Day itself, it’s a multicourse dinner date at Plume (1200 16th

F EB R UARY 0 7 , 2 0 20 • WA SHINGTONBLA DE.COM • 29

St., N.W.), the Michelin one-star restaurant snug inside the Jefferson Hotel, which is set to serve a love-focused tasting menu.

Among such romantic options: brilliant red Spanish Carabinero prawns with dill and blossoms, steak in a cassis reduction with rutabaga, and the of Saint-Valentine dessert, a Meyer lemon Genoa sponge bathed in pomegranate and raspberry rose marmalade. The tasting menu is $175 per person ($285 with wine pairings).

Never to back down from a good

holiday, Ashok Bajaj’s restaurants are all getting dressed up for the holiday.

His Rasika (633 D St., N.W.), Rasika West End (1190 New Hampshire Ave., N.W.) are serving multi-course feasts ($85 per person) featuring amuse bouches, fine seafood, vibrant plating and an atmosphere that’s sure to spice up the night.

Fiery and more casual Indian restaurant Pappe (1317 14th St., N.W.) gets lit with a five-course, “party for two” dinner for $95. The meal kicks off with chocolate strawberries and champagne, followed by everything from Goan crab cakes to the popular Chilean sea bass curry.

Newly opened Brasserie Liberté in Georgetown (3251 Prospect St., N.W.) is offering seasonal specials grounded in French tradition, from escargot to Boeuf Bourguignon and Steak Frites. French bubbles — Domaine Chandon and Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label among others — will be on special.

Mixing love with music and art is Lapop, the new bookshelf-lined belowground coffeebar underneath Lapis (1847 Columbia Rd., N.W.). A DJ will toss out tunes Feb. 14-15 all evening while a Valentine’s Day-inspired art show featuring local artists is on display; come Feb. 14 for a special anti-Valentine’s Day punch.

Need something sweet and sassy?

Buttercream Bakeshop (1250 9th St., N.W.) is offering a “100 percent That Rich Lizzo Brownie Box” (each brownie is topped by a quote of hers like “I’m like a Chardonnay — I get better with time”) as well as “You Melt My Heart” caksicles. On Sunday (Feb. 9), the bakery will host a Valentine’s Day Cake Baking class (aprons, coffee and treats included; $100 per person).

To end, gay-owned-andoperated Mikko (1636 R St., N.W.) is again hosting a prix-fixe V-Day dinner ($75 per person; $100 with wine). The dinner features four hearty courses and is inspired

by Chef Mikko’s decades cooking from the Nordic heart.

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LOVE WINS: A VALENTINE’S GIFT GUIDE Cupcakes, wine, cologne, candy and more with a queer twist

By MIKEY ROX

Spread the love any which you want this Valentine’s Day with one of these gifts from your swole queer heart.

Guy Fox Cologne His pheromone will jolt your testosterone when he splashes on one of the musky-crisp colognes from Guy Fox California. It’s customizable to create a signature scent that’ll have him smelling good enough to eat. $54.50, guyfox.com

‘Lasting Love At Last’ Book If you have trouble keeping a man (who doesn’t?), blast open a copy of “Lasting Love at Last: The Gay Guide to Attracting the Relationship of Your Dreams” by matchmaker and relationship expert Amari Ice. It’s aimed at providing gay men with a proven method to initiate and navigate romantic interactions. Yeah, that probably means logging off Grindr, ho. $9.99 on Kindle, amazon.com

31 • WA SHINGTONBLA D E . COM • F E BR UA RY 07, 2020

Nanopresso Put the perky power of espresso (among other things) in the palm of your paramour’s hand with the portable Nanopresso, which provides 18 bars of pressure for café-quality shots in every pour. Perfectly packable for a weekend gaycation. $64.90, amazon.com

Big Heart Tea Co. Valentine’s breakfast in bed requires a Cup of Love — a mild, naturally sweet rose tea with organic tulsi — featuring biodegradable bags made from woven Soilon mesh (derived from cornstarch) to please your eco-conscious snuggle bunny. $8.99, bighearttea.com

Continues on page 32

FOR LGBTQ-TIES

The Self-Care Bucket List There’s no love like self love and you can shower yourself with affection throughout February and beyond with this collection of cards that suggest healthy, good-for-you actions like unplugging devices for a day, taking a family member out for a meal to show appreciation, decluttering your social media accounts and relaxing to an album from beginning to end. $39.99, flowjo.com

Red, White and Bubbles Curate an at-home wine list for your budget V-Day dinner with selections like the Mionetto Prestige Brut or Rosé Extra Dry, 2016 Gundlach Bundschu Cabernet Sauvignon and Weed Cellars’ Pride Edition Chenin Blanc Viognier. $14-55

Festive Fiesta Dinnerware Wicked Good Cupcakes Dessert’s done and delivered to your door in three decadent cupcake-in-a-jar flavors including dark chocolate/white chocolate raspberry, Cupid’s Vanilla Confetti, and Valentine Red Velvet Heart. From successful “Shark Tank” alum Wicked Good Cupcakes.

Special holiday two- to six-packs include a 3-D Lovepop greeting card. $30.45-69.45, wickedgoodcupcakes.com

Loud-and-Proud Statement Clutches Left-of-center clutches from Good Vibrations lets bae be even bolder with word designs that include Queen, Slut, Cunt and Feminist. The pronoun “They” mini-clutch serves a worth-more-than-its-price purpose. $29, goodvibes.com

Continued from page 31

Iconic heart-shaped Fiesta Dinnerware — available in an assortment of rainbow-plus colors — serves up a bellyful of appreciation from the oven or microwave. The five-year chip-replacement warranty doesn’t mind if you’re a little rough around the kitchen. $24.99, fiestafactorydirect.com

2(X)IST Skincare

Slip off your 2(X)IST underwear and slip into its new line of face care, including a charcoal wash and exfoliating scrub, shave cream and moisturizing gel, for softer, smoother skin slappin’. $22-35, 2xist.com

Mikey Rox is an award-winning journalist and LGBT lifestyle expert whose work has been published in more than 100 outlets across the world.

He currently lives in his van, saving money and traveling the country. Connect with Mikey on Instagram @mikeyroxtravels.

F E BR UA RY 07, 2020 • WAS H IN GTO N B LAD E.CO M • 3 2

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F EB R UARY 07, 2020 • WA SHINGTONBLA DE.COM • 33

Dishing with Ross

‘Drag Race’ judge shares ‘rossipes,’ cocktails, celebrity gossip and more

By JOEY DiGUGLIELMO

it come about?

MATHEWS: The idea came to me in the shower. I was just like, “Oh my gosh, I wish I could tell everybody the stories I tell my friends at happy hour,” but then I thought, “But that’s so name-droppy.” Then I thought, “Screw it, just lean in — those are the stories people want to hear.” So “Name Drop” really is filled with celeb stories I usually only tell at happy hour and since it’s all about happy hour and I do cook every day, I thought why don’t I include some of my original rossipes in there so people can actually have happy hour while they’re reading the book, ‘cause that’s what the book feels like. It feels like you’re sitting down with me, ordering a drink and a bite and we’re just gushing over celebrities.

BLADE: So it’s cocktail and food recipes?

MATHEWS: Yes, there’s cocktails and rossipes for every single one and I pair them up with a chapter so for instance, I give Celine Dion “My Artichoke Heart Will Go On.” For Faye Dunaway, I give you my rossipe for “Endamame Dearest,” and it goes on from there.

ROSS MATHEWS brings his book tour to Washington Sunday night.

Photo by Ricky Middlesworth

Ross Mathews got his start on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” where he was known as “Ross the intern.”

The fabulously out gay guru has since been seen on many shows such as “Celebrity Fit Club,” “The Insider,” “Celebrity Big Brother” and, of course, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” where he’s been a staple at the judge’s table since season seven in 2015.

He launched his book tour for “Name Drop: the Really Good Celebrity Stories I Usually Only Tell at Happy Hour” (out Feb. 4) this week in New York and plays Washington Sunday night. Mathews, 40, dished on all that and more while driving to his second home (he lives mostly in Los Angeles) in Palm Springs last week.

WASHINGTON BLADE: How are things?

ROSS MATHEWS: Good. I feel like everyone has this sense of optimism this year that has been lacking the last couple years.

People were like, “Ugh, God — this year can’t end soon enough,” but now, I don’t know, everyone I’ve talked to feels great about 2020 and so far so good. Also I’m driving to my place in Palm Springs, so I’m like in heaven.

BLADE: How were your holidays?

MATHEWS: It was really nice. I got to be with my family in Washington state and it was super nice, then I got to be back here in California and I went to Puerto Vallarta, which is another one of my happy places.

BLADE: Tell us about your book. How did

BLADE: You had an encounter with Faye?

Is she as scary as I fear she might be?

MATHEWS: I was too scared to ask her what I really wanted to ask her, but I thought it was so fascinating that I got to meet her, so I included it in the book. You know, some of these stories are when I had my dreams come true from people I’d loved forever, and some of these stories are about people who really disappointed me when I met them but I always say no celebrities were harmed in the making of this book. I tell the reader exactly what happened but I’m not out to hurt anybody.

BLADE: And these are all your own creations?

MATHEWS: Yes BLADE: How did you get into that?

MATHEWS: So the cocktails are all sort of like my spin on cocktails that already exist and I make them original to me. The rossipes are all things I actually make. I’ve always lovd cooking. I learned from my mom and I loved watching her. I love going to a restaurant and trying something and thinking, “Oh, I’d do it this way,” and then going home and cooking.

I do that with Food Network too. I watch and go, “Huh — I would make it with this,” then I try it. Cooking is art — just another way to create.

BLADE: Do you have a favorite?

MATHEWS: Oh my gosh, I love them all. I make “Baked Ziti with a Z” for the Liza Minnelli

story and that one’s really delicious.

BLADE: Please tell me there’s a chapter on Omarosa (she and Mathews were on “Celebrity Big Brother” together in 2018).

MATHEWS: Absolutely! We do an Omarosa Mimosa and then just a TV dinner because that chapter’s all about reality TV. Which by the way, an Omarosa Mimosa is made with blood orange juice.

BLADE: What was going through your head in real time when she was telling you all that stuff during your little tete-a-tete on “Big Brother”?

MATHEWS: Listen, I write all about that in the book. It was so surreal being locked away from the outside world for 30 days with cameras following us 24-7 and then Omarosa walks in and this was right after she had left the White House. I was fascinated by her and knew we had to talk about it or people wouldn’t think we were being real in that house. It’s impossible not to be real when they’re filming you 24 hours a day. So that conversation, to sit there and ask her those questions and what I was thinking and also what happened afterwards, which nobody knows about, that’s all in the book.

BLADE: Do you get a clothing allowance on “Drag Race”?

MATHEWS? No. I have to get my own wardrobe and of course, you have to step it up because you’re sitting next to RuPaul. I partner with Mr. Turk and I’m sucking up to friends who are designers. I’ve worked with Mr. Turk and Trina Turk for a long time and I’ve worn Tallia Orange before, so I try to find people who can partner with me so I’m not spending mazillions of dollars on these clothes.

BLADE: Is the stuff you wear on “Drag Race” the kind of stuff you wear in your private life or do you glam it up for the show?

MATHEWS: Well you have to wear something noticeable on that set. What am I going to do? Show up in corduroy or khakis?

In real life, I love clothes but I’m not always in a suit. Usually I’m in like a jacket with a leopard scarf and a Gucci slide. When I go to Palm Springs, it’s elastic head to toe (laughs).

BLADE: Do you do your own shopping?

MATHEWS: I’ve had stylists in the past. May partner all those years, Salvador (Camerna), was my stylist but lately I’m not using a stylist. It’s just me partnering with various designers and trying to express myself however I feel that day. The other day I had on ripped jeans and boots and I was feeling all butch, like green Army Surplus jacket and

34 • WA S H IN GTO N B LAD E.CO M • FEB R UARY 0 7 , 2 0 2 0

right now I’m wearing Gucci fur slides and a leopard scarf, so I’m feeling more Nellie today.

It’s fun to express fashion, always a joy.

BLADE: Was there ever a “Drag Race” contestant you thought went home too early?

MATHEWS: Yes. I’ve never disagreed with the winner, but I have opinions on who should say and who should go. That’s part of my job, I get to argue my point to Ru who makes the ultimate decision. So I have of course thought somebody should have stayed who went home at a certain point, but the cream always rises to the top and I agree with every winner who’s been chosen.

BLADE: Did you ever feel somebody who sashayed away should have won the lip sync?

MATHEWS: (long pause) Yes (laughs).

But I don’t want to give specific cases. Ru is the Supreme Court and I defer to Ru all the time. But there’ve been a couple times when someone won and I go, “Huh — I didn’t see that one coming.” But that’s not my job to decide that. I’m just there to give my two cents.

BLADE: Do you hang out with Michelle (Visage) and Carson (Kressley) outside the show?

MATHEWS: Absolutely. Michelle and I just went to lunch in Calabasas the other day.

She got gluten-free grilled cheese. She’s like a sister to me and Carson’s like a brother. I love them all. And we really just make each other laugh all day long.

BLADE: Who would be your dream judges?

MATHEWS: Liza, Cher, Bette, Madonna — you know, the icons.

BLADE: Do you guys write all your own puns for the runway commentary or do you have help?

MATHEWS: No, we come up with it as it’s happening. As we see it, we say it.

BLADE: They’re pretty clever most of the time. I’ve always thought, “They must get some help with this.”

MATHEWS: No, we just try to make each other laugh. There’s no better feeling than making really funny people laugh. There are some stinkers from time to time and the editors help us out.

BLADE: About how long does it take to tape a full “Drag Race” season?

MATHEWS: Well, there’s a lot going on. I don’t want to ruin it for people but of course, it takes longer than just what you see. There are outfit changes and you have to stop for production and sometimes there’s a lighting cue that goes wrong you have to redo. There’s

a lot that goes into a production of this size but as someone who loves showmanship, I don’t want to give too much away.

to be put in any box. You think you know what Ru can do, then Ru goes, “Oh, I can also do this.”

BLADE: What’s the biggest thing being behind the scenes on these kinds of shows that stands out to you that you’d never have thought about as a viewer at home?

MATHEWS: Well, like the first time I went to the Oscars, I was staring at all the stars on the red carpet then you turn to the left and see 12 portapotties. I was like, “Wow, I didn’t know those were there,” they cut those out of the shots for TV. Or being in the “Big Brother” house and hearing the camera operators in the wall saying, “I’ve got a close up on Ross’s face, he’s going to bed.” I was like, “Oh my god, I didn’t think about that.” Or there’s a microphone hanging over the toilet, the one toilet you share with 11 other celebrities. It’s not all glamorous but it’s all a piece of the puzzle.

BLADE: When Ru was on the cover of Vanity Fair in December, the article suggested he’s only knowable to a point, down to earth and candid in some ways — I’m paraphrasing — but also with a bit of aloofness, like he only lets you get so close or never totally lets his hair down. Is that your impression?

MATHEWS: Um, I can’t really speak for other people’s impressions of Ru, but I can tell you what Ru has been for me. Ru has been so kind and so supportive and so welcoming and you know, there’s one quote on the cover of my book and it’s a quote from Ru and that’s on purpose because for this phase of my career, Ru’s been the one who has sort of given me a platform and said, “Hey, look at this guy, he’s really funny.” ‘Cause Ru could have picked anybody for that seat next to him and so for me, he’s a mentor and a friend.

BLADE: Have you seen Ru’s new Netflix show?

MATHEWS: I have! Michelle and I went to the premiere. We were basically wearing the same red suit, it’s on my Instagram. It’s so great, I’m so proud of Ru. You know, Ru refuses

BLADE: You’re all so chummy now but Michelle had a rather prickly relationship with (former judge) Santino (Rice). Does a little tension there help the show?

MATHEWS: Well, I can’t really speak to her relationship with Santino, but Michelle and I are like brother and sister. If we disagree, we’re not gonna keep it in. I’ll tell her she’s nuts, but we laugh about it later. We have absolutely had strong disagreements where we each draw a line in the sand and we’ll never agree on something but then we go to lunch afterwards. I’m not afraid of her.

BLADE: Who’s been your all-time favorite “Drag Race” guest judge?

MATHEWS: Oh my gosh, there are so many. I can’t believe the people we get to sit next to. I’ll come home and say, “I just sat next to Lady Gaga for like 12 hours,” or Miley Cyrus. I have to be careful not to say some of the names coming up ‘cause they’ll blow you away, but I’ll get in so much trouble. It’s one of the greatest gifts of the show the artists that Ru and World of Wonder allow me access to. It blows me away.

BLADE: You’ve made self-deprecating cracks about your sex life on “Drag Race.” You gettin’ any these days? Or dating anyone?

MATHEWS: (laughs) I am dating a lot actually. I never did this before. I didn’t really date in my 20s because I was figuring out how to be a famous person and I felt like a clown a little bit, so I felt like I had to choose between being funny or sexual. Then I got in a relationship and we were together for 10 years and now I found myself out dating again and I’m really confident now in who I am and I’ve never been single and confident at the same time, so I’m having a really good time dating. I find people fascinating. I like meeting people and I like learning from people and I think if you’re inquisitive and confident, you’re a really good dater.

BLADE: Reality TV and media can be rather soul sapping. And Ru is always spouting great spiritual wisdom. How do you refuel spiritually yourself?

MATHEWS: Not to sound cheesy, but I’m really fueled by living my dream. I don’t need anything else.

BLADE: Good luck with your book and tour.

MATHEWS: Thanks! Please come out. It’s just an hour and a half where we shut the door on the world, ‘cause everything’s fucked right now …

ROSS MATHEWS combines his love of cooking, cocktails and Hollywood in new tome ‘Name Drop.’

Photo by Ricky Middlesworth

F EB R UARY 07, 2020 • WA SHINGTONBLA DE.COM • 35

BLADE: Yeah, especially in Washington!

MATHEWS: I know, right? We just shut all that out and have some laughs.

QUEERY Shae Agee Washington Blade photo by Michael Key

QUEERY: Shae Agee

The Lutheran Volunteer Corps director answers 20 queer questions

By JOEY DIGUGLIELMO joeyd@washblade.com

Lutheran Volunteer Corps, now in its 40th year, started as an organization targeting five cities (Washington, Baltimore, Wilmington, Del., Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Omaha, Neb.) with the goal of “building intentional community, working for social justice and living simply and sustainably.”

Unintentionally, however, the group became surprisingly queer over the years with about half of its 100 or so annual volunteers identifying as queer and seven as trans or nonbinary.

Shae Agee, national director of partnerships and programs for the Corps, became program director (one

of seven staff members) last May. They says the queer component “grew out of the initial work.”

“I’m passionate about LVC because it’s the most progressive service year program that’s out there,” Agee says.

“We celebrate diversity while fighting for justice and against oppression.”

The Corps is a “community of faith that united people to work for peace and justice,” according to its mission statement. “We pursue (this) by placing volunteers in full-time service positions at social justice organizations for a year or semester.”

The Corps was founded in 1979 at Luther Place Memorial Church, an LGBT-affirming church in Washington.

Since its inception, the Corps has placed about 2,700 volunteers in social service organizations in 13 cities. Any non-profit that does social justice work qualifies. Groups that focus on LGBT issues are especially desired. Volunteers live on a stipend provided by the Corps that covers their rent and transportation costs. Find out more at lutheranvolunteercorps.org.

Agee is a Woodbridge, Va., native and has been in the D.C. area for 27 years after a stint in Atlanta in the ’90s.

They and spouse Jordan EzzellAgee live in Fairfax. Agee enjoys singing, tennis and basketball in their spare time.

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

Thirty-five years, parents Who’s your LGBTQ hero?

Rev. Candice Shultis of MCC. She was such an integral person in helping men with HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. She was also my pastor for many years at MCC-D.C. What LGBTQ stereotype annoys you?

That we are not Christians.

most

What’s your proudest professional achievement?

Helping establish 18 locations that address health disparities in D.C. What terrifies you?

Having someone I love die.

What’s something trashy or vapid you love?

“Keeping Up With the Kardashians” What’s your greatest domestic skill?

Cooking What’s your favorite LGBTQ movie or show?

“Queer as Folk”

36 • WA SH IN GTO N B LAD E.CO M • FEB R UARY 0 7 , 2 0 2 0

photography by Geoffrey Hodgdon

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What’s your social media pet peeve?

When people don’t like your post but share it as their own.

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

Our president is a transgender person.

What’s the most overrated social custom?

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

Southern Baptist as a child; Metropolitan Community Church has been the denomination of my adulthood.

What’s D.C.’s best hidden gem?

Shirli Hughes and Ovation, gospel group What’s been the most memorable pop culture moment of your lifetime?

Whitney Houston singing the National Anthem.

What celebrity hardest?

Prince

death

hit

you

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

I would have majored in music.

What are your obsessions?

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, fighting for justice and animals.

Finish this sentence — It’s about damn time: … we have a woman president of the United States.

What do you wish you’d known at 18?

That I should have spent more time with my parents.

Why Washington?

It’s the most progressive city in the U.S.

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F EB R UARY 07, 2020 • WA SHINGTONBLA DE.COM • 37

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The DC Queer Theatre Festival Staged Reading Series Presents We All Fall Down

by Esther Rodriguez Six months ago, Amanda Lewis-Ramirez attempted suicide. Now, she and her family must redefine their relationships with each other in light of the secrets they’ve been keeping.

Esther Rodriguez graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2018 with a major in creative writing and a minor in theater. Previously, she served as props mistress for the JHU Barnstormers from 2015-2018, working on eight shows including Legally Blonde, Spring Awakening, and Pippin. She was also the stage manager for the premier of Black Dog in the 2018 Baltimore Fringe Festival. We All Fall Down is her first full length play.

FEBRUARY 22ND AT 7PM THE DC CENTER 2000 14TH STREET NW, SUITE 105

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Ladies bring your favorite woman and enjoy a specially created creat coq-tail and Happy Hour all night in the bar ~ café

Love is in there air tonight!

Featuring a 4 4-course course Valentines menu $95 per person *See details on our website

– Enjoy fabulous specials for the weekend!

606 N. Fayette St Alexandria, VA 22314 (703) 519 519-3776 3776 www.bastillerestaurant.com

F EB R UARY 07, 2020 • WA SHINGTONBLA DE.COM • 39

CHEYENNE JACKSON will be at the Kennedy Center with Megan Hilty Feb. 13-17.

Photo courtesy Kennedy Center

Deviants unite Feb. 15 Deviant, the new circuit-party experience for queer people of color, returns Saturday, Feb. 15 at 10 p.m. to Deviant Events (1348 H St., N.E.). Pre-sale general admission tickets are $30.

This party encourages body positivity with a dress code of meshtees, crop tops and harnesses strongly encouraged. VIP tickets are $50 and include drink specials and coat check as well as access to an exclusive bar and and all three entertainment floors. For more information, visit Deviant Events on Facebook.

Whole lotta red

Romance and drag

The Red Party presented by Flashy Sundays (645 Florida Ave., N.W.) is Sunday, Feb. 16 at 10 p.m. Cover is $20.

Guests are encouraged to wear red to this President’s Day weekend event.

Doors open at 10 p.m. with an extended bar until 4 a.m. TWiN and DJ Sean Morris will keep the party going on the main floor until 5 a.m. DJ Steve Sidewalk will spin beats on the rooftop for literal dancing with the stars.

Visit facebook.com/flashydc for more information.

Drag Show Extravaganza hosted

by Red Bear Brewing (209 M St., N.E.) is Saturday, Feb. 15 at 9 p.m.

Desiree Dik plays matchmaker with her cast of drag performers in a Valentine’s-themed show fit for Mr., Ms., Mx. and everyone in between.

Bombalicious Eklaver, India Larelle Houston, Ricky Rose, Sirius Prism and Tippa Buckley are among the artists scheduled to perform at this holiday event.

For more information on this and other events, visit redbear.beer.

Hilty, Jackson prep K.C. engagement “Broadway and Beyond” with Megan Hilty and Cheyenne Jackson runs Feb. 13-15 at the Kennedy Center (2700 F St., N.W.). Tickets start at $29.

Hilty and Jackson, stars of stage, screen and music, perform songs from Broadway, film and the American Songbook accompanied by the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by actor Damon Gupton. This special Valentine’s Day weekend date-night event features songs such as “Popular” from “Wicked” and Sinatra’s “That’s Life.” Jackson is an unabashed gay dad of twins he features regularly on Instagram. Starts at 7 p.m. on Feb. 13 and 8 p.m. Feb. 14-15.

For tickets and information, visit kennedy-center.org.

40 • WA S H IN GTO N B LAD E.CO M • FEB R UARY 0 7 , 2 0 2 0

CALENDAR

TODAY Tonight is District 1st Friday: 80’s and 90’s Bash hosted by Davon Hamilton Events and the Green Lantern (1335 Green Ct., N.W.) at 10 p.m. This underwear dance party features music by DJ Honey, GoGo dancers and more. The $10 entry includes clothes check. For more information, visit greenlanterndc.com.

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performs tonight at 7 p.m. at the Kennedy Center (2700 F St., N.W.). Tickets start at $49 for this show which is layered in African-American cultural history. The show runs until Feb. 9. For dates and other details, visit kennedy-center.org.

Go Gay D.C. hosts a First Friday Happy Hour Social tonight at 7 p.m. at The Commentary in Westin Arlington Gateway (801 N. Glebe Rd., Arlington, Va.). Everyone is welcome. For more information, visit meetup.com/gogaydc.

D.C. Center Womxn, a free monthly peer drop-in group to share, connect and build community among black lesbians, is tonight at 7 p.m. at the D.C. Center (2000 14th St., N.W., Suite 105). For more information, visit thedccenter.org.

Saturday, Feb. 8 “More than Friends: The Queer Chesapeak in the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries,” a presentation by Dr. Christopher Mielke, is today at 10 a.m. at the Historic London Town Visitor Center in Edgewater (839 Londontown Rd., Edgewater, Md.). Visit rainbowhistory.org for more information.

Night of 100 Elviras is tonight at 7 p.m. at Ottobar (2549 N. Howard St., Baltimore).

Halloween comes early to the home of the Ravens as guests are invited to don their little black dresses and big black wigs. The evening features music by cover bands A Date with Elvira and the Universal Donors.

Tickets start at $10 on Eventbrite.

Freeballers hosted by DJ Back2back and the Green Lantern (1335 Green Ct., N.W.) is tonight at 10 p.m. Everyone is invited to wear their sweats, athletic shorts, jeans and other comfies to dance the night away. There is no cover and drink specials run all night. For more information, visit greenlanterndc.com.

Lights out, Barks out D.C. is tonight at 9 p.m. at The D.C. Eagle (3701 Benning Rd., N.E.). Cover is $5 in advance and $10 at the door. The event is hosted by LOBO D.C., an inclusive group encompassing the spectrum of gender, sexuality, race, age and kink communities. Tickets are available on Eventbrite.

Avalon Saturdays and D.C. Takeover present KINETIC with DJ Dan Slater tonight at 10 p.m. at Soundcheck (1420 K St., N.W.).

Tickets are $25 on Eventbrite. This event features an opening set by TWiN and $4

Wednesday, Feb. 12

The cast of ‘Kinky Boots’ at Toby’s Dinner Theatre in Columbia, Md. The show runs nightly through March 22. Details at tobysdinnertheatre.com.

Photo courtesy Toby’s

Absolut drinks until midnight. A portion of door proceeds will be donated to The Cherry Fund which provides financial support for nonprofits serving the LGBTQ community. For details, visit soundcheckdc. com.

Sunday, Feb. 9 The 24th Annual Iranian Film Fest: An Abbas Kiarostami Retrospective is today at 1:30 p.m. at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art (1050 Independence Ave., S.W.). This traveling retrospective was organized by Janus Films and is co-presented with AFI Silver Theatre an dCultural Center and the National Gallery of Art. For more information, visit asia.si.edu.

Nonbinary Experiences, a discussion for transmasculine and nonbinary folks assigned female at birth hosted by the D.C.-area Transmasculine Society, is today at 5 p.m. at Whitman-Walker Health (1525 14th St., N.W.). A meeting for partners of nonbinary and transmasculine folks will be held at the same time and location, but in a neighboring room. Visit dcats.org and Facebook events for more information.

Queer/Trans Fusion Dance: Queer Artist and Anniversary Night is tonight at 6 p.m. at A League of Her Own (2319 18th St., N.W.). QT Fusion Dance celebrates their three-year anniversary with music by queer artists and lessions in Blues and West Coast Swing with queer instructor Jo-Nicole Pollard. Lessons are $10 or free to event volunteers. Visit Facebook events for details.

F EB R UARY 07, 2020 • WA SHINGTONBLA DE.COM • 41

Monday, Feb. 10 “Gay Like Me” author Richie Jackson will be at Politics and Prose at The Wharf (70 District Square S.W.) tonight at 7 p.m.

Jackson’s book about the LGBTQ struggle is framed as a letter to his son who came out to him at 15. This event is free and seating is available on a first come, first served basis.

For more information, visit politics-prose. com/wharf.

Songs for SMYAL: Broadway Karaoke for a Cause is tonight at 8 p.m. at Mr. Henry’s (601 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E.). Proceeds from this event, hosted by That’s Our Cue, benefit SMYAL which empowers D.C.-area LGBTQ youth. To make a donation, visit that-s-ourcue.secured.atpay.com.

Tuesday, Feb. 11 Beyond Gatsby: The Fabled Gardens of Long Island’s Gold Coast is today at 5:30 p.m. at the Hillwood Museum (4155 Linnean Ave., N.W.). Landscape architect CeCe Hadock delves into the history and landscape design of a spot that was once a favorite retreat of the rich and famous. For more information, visit hillwoodmuseum. org.

Valentine Drag Bingo is tonight at 7 p.m. at Red Bear Brewing (209 M St., N.E.). Desiree Dik hosts an evening of holiday drag entertainment and free bingo.

Scheduled are four games in two hours with prizes each round and a drag performance.

Visit Facebook Events and redbear.beer for more information.

The Fallout Shelter Tour is today at 2:30 and 3:15 p.m. at Hillwood Museum (4155 Linnean Ave., N.W.). Built in the 1960s, Marjorie Post’s fallout shelters are on display for a public tour. For more information, visit hillwoodmuseum.org.

The D.C. Boys of Leather February Happy Hour is tonight at 6 p.m. at the Green Lantern (1335 Green Ct., N.W.). The D.C. Boys are getting friendly in a casual, lowpressure environment with an opportunity for newbies to meet members in a safe, inclusive and diverse environment. More information is available at greenlanterndc. com.

The Big Gay Book Group meets tonight at 7 p.m. at Trios Bistro (1537 17th St., N.W.) to discuss “The Fourth Courier”

by Timothy Jay Smith. A straight, white FBI agent and a gay black CIA officer team up to solve a murder in this 1992 international thriller set in Poland. All are welcome. Email biggaybookgroup@hotmail.com to RSVP. The Lambda Bridge Club meets tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Dignity Center (721 8th St., S.E.) for duplicate bridge. No reservations are needed and newcomers are welcome. Phone 202-841-0279 if you need a partner.

Thursday, Feb. 13 Preschool Series: Treasure Quest is today at 10:30 a.m. at the Hillwood Museum (4155 Linnean Ave., N.W.). Preschoolers and parents are invited to explore a new mansion room each week and discover hidden gems and treasures that glitter and sparkle. For more information, visit hillwoodmuseum.org.

Single Tingle: A Singles Happy Hour for LGBTQ Womxn hosted by LezLink Social Club is tonight at 6 p.m. at A League of Her Own (2319 18th St., N.W.). This event is a happy hour space dedicated to local LGBTQ womxn looking to mix and mingle.

Visit Facebook events for free tickets and more information.

Migrant Justice Movie Night: United in Anger is tonight at 7 p.m. and is hosted by the Metro D.C. Democratic Socialists of America (2309 18th St., N.W.). The film is a history of activism during the height of the AIDS epidemic and was made by the people on the front lines. For more information, visit mdcdsa.org.

D.C. Lambda Squares holds its club night tonight (and every Thursday) at 7:30 p.m. at National City Christian Church (5 Thomas Circle). Details at dclambdasquares.org.

This Week in the Arts provided by CultureCapital.com DANCE

Gun & Powder Thru Feb 23. Signature Theatre. sigtheatre.org.

Based on a true story, make way for the sisters Clarke in a dynamic, moving and inspiring world premiere musical of two light-skinned African-American women who passed themselves as White to become notorious outlaws in the Wild West.

NSO Pops: Megan Hilty and Cheyenne Jackson Feb 13-Feb 15. Kennedy Center. kennedy-center.org.

The two multi-talented stars of the stage, screen, and music charts join forces with conductor and notable actor Damon Gupton and the NSO over Valentine’s Day weekend to celebrate songs from Broadway, film, and the American Songbook.

Kinan Azmeh CityBand Feb 8. Washington Performing Arts at Sixth & I. washingtonperformingarts.org.

Perhaps best-known to audiences as a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, Kinan Azmeh is equally astounding for his virtuosity on clarinet and his versatility as composer, improviser, and band leader. His polished and pulse-quickening CityBand lives and breathes its musical roots—spanning jazz, contemporary, folk, and classical music—alongside the deeply resonant musical influences of Azmeh’s own Syrian homeland.

The King’s Speech Feb 11-16. National Theatre. thenationaldc.com

THE KING’S SPEECH is based on the true story of King George VI’s struggle with a speech impediment and the friendship he formed with his unconventional speech therapist, Lionel Logue. With the Nazi threat looming and civil unrest at home, royal secrets explode around the King as he’s thrust onto the world stage.

Photo Courtesy of Signature Theatre

THEATRE Boy. Feb 7-Mar 7. Keegan Theatre. keegantheatre.com.

Exquisita Agonía (Exquisite Agony).

Thru Mar 1. GALA Hispanic Theatre. galatheatre.org.

Love and Marriage and Murder. Feb 13.

AMP. ampbystrathmore.com.

Miss You Like Hell. Thru Mar 1. Olney Theatre. olneytheatre.org.

Phantom of the Opera. Thru Feb 29.

Synetic Theater. synetictheater.org.

Pilgrims Musa & Sheri in The New World. Thru Feb 16. Mosaic Theater Company at Atlas. mosaictheater.org.

Recent Tragic Events. Thru Feb 16.

Prologue Theatre at Atlas. prologuetheatre. org.

Spring Awakening. Thru Feb 23. Round House. roundhousetheatre.org.

The Merry Wives of Windsor. Thru Mar 1. Folger Theatre. folger.edu.

Heroine: one female soldier’s story.

Feb 12-Feb 14. Huff: featuring Cliff Cardinal.

Thru Feb 8. Kennedy Center. kennedy-center. org.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Thru Feb 9. American Ballet Theatre: Giselle. Feb 11-Feb 16.

Working Rehearsal: American Ballet Theatre. Feb 11. Kennedy Center. kennedy-center.org.

Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company A Tribute to Marian Anderson.

Thru Feb 24. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian. npg.si.edu.

Drum TAO 2020. Feb 7. Strathmore. strathmore.org.

Flamenco Vivo/Carlota Santana.

Feb 8. The Alden at McLean Community Center. mcleancenter.org.

Global Perspectives Festival performance. Feb 8-Feb 9. Dance Place. danceplace.org.

MUSIC Ahmad Jamal. Feb 8. NSO Pops: Megan Hilty and Cheyenne Jackson.

Feb 13-Feb 15. The Clemency of Titus. Feb 13-Feb 15. Kennedy Center. kennedy-center.org.

Art Garfunkel. Feb 7-Feb 9. Wolf Trap at The Barns. wolftrap.org.

Bilal: Valentine’s Day Residency.

Feb 13-Feb 14. ill Camille. Feb 7.

Kennedy Center at The Reach @The Kennedy Center. kennedy-center.org.

Cris Jacobs Band. Feb 8. AMP. ampbystrathmore.com.

Dvořák’s Cello Concerto. Thru Feb 9. NSO at Kennedy Center. kennedycenter.org.

Jake Shimabukuro.

Feb 13.

Strathmore. strathmore.org.

Mark G. Meadows Motown. Feb 8.

MacMillan Pipe Band. Feb 8. BlackRock. blackrockcenter.org.

Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra. Feb 8.

Hylton Center. hyltoncenter.org.

Niccolo Seligmann. Feb 12-Feb 26.

Strathmore at The Mansion. strathmore. org.

Nordic Voices. Feb 9. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian. npg.si.edu.

Palestrina’s Perfect Art. Feb 7-Feb 8.

Folger Consort at Washington National Cathedral. folger.edu.

Phaeton Trio. Feb 7. Library of Congress. loc.gov.

MUSEUMS AU Museum at the Katzen. Volkmar Wentzel. Feb 8. Communicating Vessels: Ed Bisese, Elyse Harrison, Wayne Paige.

Thru Mar 15. Good Form, Decorum,

and in the Manner: Portraits from the Collections of Washington Print Club Members. Thru Mar 15. Heroes & Losers: The Edification of Luis Lorenzana. Thru Mar 15. Landscape in an Eroded Field - Carol Barsha, Heather Theresa Clark, Artemis Herber. Thru Mar 15. Robert Franklin Gates: Paint What You See. Thru May 24. Volkmar Wentzel. Thru May 24. american.edu.

Anacostia Neighborhood Library. Right to the City @Anacostia Neighborhood Library. Thru Apr 20. anacostia.si.edu.

Dumbarton Oaks. Asian Art from the Bliss Collection. Thru Jun 1. A Nobility of Matter: Asian Art from the Bliss Collection. Thru Jun 1. doaks.org.

Library of Congress. Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote. Thru Sep 1. Comic Art: 120 Years of Panels and Pages. Thru Sep 12. loc.gov.

National Archives. Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote. Thru Jan 3. archivesfoundation.org.

National Geographic. WOMEN: A Century of Change. Thru May 1. Becoming Jane. Thru Jun 1. nationalgeographic. org.

National Museum of Women in the Arts. Delita Martin: Calling Down The Spirits. Thru Apr 19. Graciela Iturbide’s Mexico. Feb 8-May 25. New York Ave Sculpture Project. Thru Sep 20. nmwa. org.

Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian. The Great Inka Road.

Thru Jun 1. Our Universes. Thru Sep 30.

Nation to Nation. Thru Dec 31. Return to a Native Place. Thru Jan 1. Americans.

Thru Dec 31. americanindian.si.edu.

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian. In Mid-Sentence. Thru Mar 29. One Life: Marian Anderson. Thru May 17. Women of Progress: Early Camera Portraits. Thru May 31. Storied Women of the Civil War Era. Thru May 8. npg.si.edu

GALLERIES Arlington Artists Alliance.

Kaleidoscope National Juried Show. Thru Feb 8. New Landscapes Group Show.

Thru Feb 28. arlingtonartistsalliance.org.

Arlington Arts Center. Winter 2020 Exhibitions. Thru Mar 28. arlingtonartscenter.org.

CHAW. Gallery Resident Artist MK Bailey. Thru Feb 10. chaw.org.

DC Arts Center (DCAC). Out of Joint - Small Drawing by Karen Schiff. Thru Feb 23. dcartscenter.org.

Del Ray Artisans. Kondo vs. Chaos Art Exhibit. Feb 7-Mar 1. delrayartisans. org.

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F EB R UARY 07, 2020 • WA SHINGTONBLA DE.COM • 43

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Game Changers: Amini Fonua

Not-so-queer Oscars this year

By KEVIN MAJOROS

By DAN ALLEN

An elite athlete who represents his or her country on the international stage generally receives living expenses and medical insurance funded from a variety of sources.

The athlete may also receive paid travel and accommodation for competitions, high quality racing gear, training equipment, coaching, post-workout recovery treatment and nutritional supplementation.

This week in the Blade’s Game Changers series, we meet an openly gay, two-time Olympic swimmer from Tonga who is funding his own training to qualify for his third Olympics this summer in Tokyo.

Amini Fonua represents a country where homosexuality is illegal and elite athletes do not receive financial support.

To cover his expenses, Fonua works as a barista along with side jobs teaching private swimming lessons and mentoring high school athletes hoping to swim in college.

In an effort to minimize his expenses and commit to the training needed to qualify for the Olympics, Fonua recently moved from California to New Jersey. His daily schedule consists of work and traveling to New York City where he trains with the New York Athletic Club.

Fonua grew up in Auckland, New Zealand in a sports-oriented family and was active in rugby, basketball and swimming.

By age 14, he turned his full attention to swimming.

“At that age toxic masculinity enters into the equation in most sports. In swimming, everyone is equal in the water,” Fonua says.

“I enjoyed the underwater silence of being in the pool.”

He qualified for the Junior Pan Pacs in Hawaii at age 17 and was inspired by the level of competition. Also on hand at the event were college recruiters from American universities.

Fonua was recruited by Texas A&M University and began his collegiate career there in 2009. As a gay man, it wasn’t an obvious choice to enter a conservative institution in a conservative state. He calls it a leap of faith for his sport.

“My freshman year I swam sore and I swam tired. The jump from high school swimming to college swimming was

After a career spanning nearly four decades and including numerous gay roles, Antonio Banderas will finally be in contention for his first Best Actor award at this Sunday’s Oscars, for his heart-wrenching performance as a lonely and drug-addicted gay director in Pedro Almodóvar’s semiautobiographical “Pain and Glory.”

The Spanish-born Banderas has embraced gay characters virtually from the start of his career, when he played a gay Islamic terrorist in Almodóvar’s 1982 film “Labyrinth of Passion.” He would go on to greater gay acclaim for his steamy performance in Almodóvar’s “Law of Desire” in 1987, and later appeared as Tom Hanks’ lover in “Philadelphia” in 1993, as well as the queer vampire Armand in 1994’s “Interview with the Vampire.”

Banderas faces stiff competition at the Oscars this year from Best Actor favorite Joaquin Phoenix in “Joker,” but he’s already taken several trophies for his heartwrenching “Pain and Glory” performance, including a Best Actor Dorian Award from GALECA, the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics. Banderas made a special surprise appearance to accept his prize at last Sunday’s Dorian Awards toast in Hancock Park. The Oscars will be handed out at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles Sunday night. ABC will air the hostless broadcast.

Banderas’s well-deserved nomination is the shining exception among 2020’s Academy Award selections, which are undeniably less queer this year than they’ve recently been. Oscar’s queer presence had flourished in the years since “Moonlight” won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2017, first with “Call Me By Your Name” and “A Fantastic Woman” receiving nominations in 2018 (not to mention “The Shape of Water,” which many saw as a queer love story, and “Lady Bird,” which featured a gay character). Last year was arguably the queerest Oscars ever, with both Best Actor and Best Actress awards going to thespians in gay roles (Rami Malek in “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Olivia Coleman in “The Favourite,” edging out Melissa McCarthy in another lesbian role in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”), as well as queer representations (and sensibilities) in “A Star

Tongan swimmer hoping to qualify for third Olymipcs

AMINI FONUA is hoping to qualify for his third Olympics this summer in Tokyo.

Photo courtesy Fonua

intense and physically demanding,” Fonua says. “Over the long term, my swimming benefitted from the extra muscle I added from two-a-day practices, weight training and dryland.”

While he was at Texas A&M, New Zealand began passing him over for national teams and international travel. His Tongan heritage had been an important part of his upbringing and a family trip to Tonga in 2009 brought a new direction.

“My father had been whispering in my ear, ‘Swim for Tonga,’” Fonua says. “There were no water safety programs or swim lessons being offered at the time in Tonga.

The Tonga Swimming Association was established in 2010 and I was cleared to swim for them internationally.”

He became the first Tongan swimmer to win a gold medal in international competition when he won the 50 meter breaststroke at the 2010 Oceania Swimming Championships in Samoa.

Fonua served as Tonga’s flag-bearer in the 2012 Summer Olympics Parade of Nations in London and competed in the 100 meter breaststroke. He was not out publicly at the time.

“It was a very memorable experience as my mom is from England,” Fonua says. “I was so well versed in my Tongan heritage —

F EB R UARY 07, 2020 • WA SHINGTONBLA D E.COM • 45

Unlike recent competitions, little gay content among this year’s nominees

ANTONIO BANDERAS wins a Dorian Award last weekend. He’s up for an Oscar as well but faces stiff competition.

Photo by Brandon Riley Miller/Karel Media

Is Born” and “Mary Queen of Scots.”

This year’s Oscar nominations, then, came as somewhat of a queer letdown, completely overlooking several LGBTQthemed films that should (or at least could) have made the cut, including the gorgeous French lesbian romance “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” and the acclaimed coming-ofage (and lesbian-charactered) comedy “Booksmart,” both also Dorian Award winners last weekend. A few bright lights did shine through. Despite the Oscar snub of Taron Egerton for his acclaimed and Golden Globe-winning performance in the Elton John biopic “Rocketman,” “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again” from that film, written by John and longtime collaborator Bernie Taupin, is nominated for Best Original Song.

Many see “Little Women” and its rebellion against the trappings of heteronormativity as a queer movie, and it’s nominated for six Oscars this year, including Best Picture, though shamefully, Greta Gerwig was snubbed for Best Director. And while it’s not an LGBTQ role per se, Renée Zellweger is the heavy favorite to pick up the Best Actress Oscar for her titular role in “Judy,” the biography of beloved queer icon Judy Garland.

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Pop’s ‘High Road’

By THOM MURPHY

New albums out Jan. 31: ‘High Road’ from Kesha and ‘Treat Myself’ by Meghan Trainor.

Photos courtesy RCA and Epic respectively

Strong releases from Kesha, Trainor ignite airwaves, streaming platforms We’re off to what’s shaping up to be a deliciously big year for women in pop.

Selena Gomez and Halsey released new albums in January and Meghan Trainor and Kesha (stylized as Ke$ha until the release of her 2017 “Rainbow”) have new albums out last week.

It’s hard to believe that “TiK ToK,” Kesha’s first single as a solo artist, reached the no. 1 spot on Billboard exactly one decade ago. Her 2010 debut album “Animal” was followed by the platinum EP “Cannibal” in the same year. Singles like “We R Who We R,” “Die Young,” “Timber” and “Blow” still dominate club play. If pop music continues to be remembered by decades, the 2010s may well be the decade of Kesha — certainly the first half. Bawdy, dancey, unapologetically electronic, masterfully produced — these

are all defining features of Kesha’s artist output. Vocal virtuosity is sidelined in favor of her distinctive party girl persona.

Kesha’s 2017 comeback “Rainbow” was something of an anomaly. With singles like “Praying,” she was clearly trying to revise her previously successful formula and add some depth to her artist production. “High Road” is the brilliant culmination of her previous work, seamlessly incorporating a variety of genres, yet it remains fiercely distinct. It is both a return to the Kesha of “TiK ToK” and marked evolution from that Kesha — a perfect balance of playful and serious, innovative and mature.

Take, for instance, lead single “Raising Hell,” which features Big Freedia.

It’s a bouncy anthem that manages a thumping pop bassline and churchy, gospel feel at the same time. There is even a fabulous breakdown with bluesy organ. It’s refreshing to see the effects of gospel beyond Kanye West. Like “Praying,” Kesha cleverly appropriates religious language for her un-religious party anthem: “I’m all fucked up in my Sunday best/no walk of shame ‘cause I love this dress/hungover, heart of gold, holy mess/doin’ my best, bitch, I’m blessed.” Kesha has always been lyrically strong, if not vocally, but “High

F EB R UARY 07, 2020 • WA SHINGTONBLA DE.COM • 47

Road” takes it to a new level. In lieu of the empty monotony of overdone, feel-good tropes, Kesha has a sense of humor.

The song “Honey” is different sort of song. The influence of rock groups like the Red Hot Chili Peppers is evident from the first guitar stroke. The stripped down instrumentation gives one of several opportunities on this album to appreciate Kesha’s soulful vocals. The song “Cowboy Blues” is another outlier, an unexpected hipster-girl tune with ukulele — think Zooey Deschanel’s band She & Him. But, as usual, Kesha puts her own spin on quirky.

Perhaps, the biggest surprise of the new album is “Resentment,” which features Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson, country artist Sturgill Simpson and the singer Wrabel. It is a beautiful country song and it could reasonably find its way onto the country charts. It’s a crossover into country from the other direction, a sort of reverse Faith Hill. It perhaps speaks to the vitality of country music in the past several years thanks to artists like Margo Price.

But in addition to the surprises, Kesha still leaves us with a healthy dose of raucous party music. “Kinky” is a delightful up-tempo dance track that celebrates sexual freedom and

polyamory: “Monogamy ain’t natural/ at least not for me and you/we’re in our own dimension/we’re making up our own rules.” It’s like the 2020 update to Katy Perry’s now classic (and now utterly uncontroversial) “I Kissed A Girl.” And as always, Kesha gives us a taste of the carnivalesque with “Potato Song (Cuz I Want To).”

“Treat Myself” is Meghan Trainor’s third studio album, and she’s come a long way since her emergence on the charts with the release of her no. 1 debut album “Title” in 2015. The singles “All About That Bass” and “Like I’m Going To Lose You,” which features John Legend, both from her debut, have over 500 million streams on Spotify. The new album has been in progress for some time, and is a slick, well-produced pop album.

The catchy lead single “No Excuses” was released in 2018 and has already had extensive radio play. But the album is fairly robust and offers several other excellent tracks. “Wave,” released as a single last fall, is a heavily electronic anthem that showcases Trainor’s wellharnessed vocal abilities. Of the singles, it’s hard not to be a partisan of “Nice to Meet Ya,” a collaboration with Nicki Minaj.

It has similar feel to hip-hop dance tracks from the early 2000s and the way Minaj’s punctuates the last word in each line of her verse is in some ways reminiscent of songs like J-Kwon’s 2000 “Tipsy.”

“Genetics,” a collaboration with the Pussycat Dolls (who knew they were still around?), is an impeccable dance track.

The bass line would make even the most resistant person in the friend group sway along. It makes me nostalgic for the Pussycat Dolls of “Don’t Cha” and “When I Grow Up.” And Trainor gives some needed vocal competence to the pulsing beat.

Perhaps the most delightful part of the new album is the song “Funk,” Trainor’s funky answer to Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ 2014 “Uptown Funk.” In fact, it feels like it might have started an improvised riff on it. But it strikes a groove all of its own, and the horns take on something of Michael Jackson feel, as the chorus cleverly hammers away: “I miss the way we used to funk.” It is an inspired new direction for Trainor’s music. But if there is one thing to reproach Trainor for, it’s that her lyrics peddle in endless strings of cliché. She could stand to learn a thing or two from Kesha on that front.

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WIG NIGHT OUT The Supreme Wig Council held its 10th annual Wig Night Out at Pitchers DC on Saturday. The charity event raised money for Whitman-Walker Health, Casa Ruby and the Point Foundation.

Washington Blade photos by Zach Brien

F EB R UARY 07, 2020 • WA SHINGTONBLA DE.COM • 49

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N Street Village works to empower women Offering housing, food, clothing and more to those in need

By JENN SMIRA Real estate is more than just a business, it’s about building a community. As someone that lives and works in the city, I have the privilege to be a catalyst for positive change in the city around me. Last Friday, my team and I had the incredible opportunity to spend our time at N Street Village.

N Street Village is an organization I truly believe in, a safe space that empowers homeless and low-income women to live their highest quality of life. Whether it be offering them housing, offering them housing and stability, helping them to find dependable employment, and beyond My team and I were given the opportunity to prepare and serve lunch for about 100 ladies who were staying at the shelter. We spent the morning prepping lunch as a team, then spent the afternoon serving all of the women. We also spent time helping in the on-site donation center organizing clothing and helping the ladies select new clothes and shoes.

As a team leader of a large real estate group, this is not how I spend my typical Friday. However, as a woman-run business

owner, I can’t think of a better way to allocate my time. N Street Village is next to the Flagship Compass Logan Circle office, so I see these women every day. I was so privileged to be a part of these women’s lives during this half-day opportunity. Afterwards we felt like we really made a difference. We were also able to work together as a team to give back to the community, especially to an organization that empowers women to be their best selves.

Prepping and serving lunch was an eye-opening experience that allowed us a glimpse into how extraordinary this organization is, and how many women

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the organization is able to touch each day.

They are able to utilize this organization to better their lives — financially, mentally, and physically. Chatting with the women was my biggest takeaway. Everyone was extremely grateful for our team, and it was amazing to see how positive their attitudes were.

Serving the D.C. community is a huge part of my life. This is the city where I help people find their homes, and I want to ensure I am doing my part to make it the best place it can be. Often, it is easy to get lost in our day to day, and take for granted what you have. I know as a team leader of a large real estate team in D.C., I have the responsibility to be

SHOULDN’T THE FINAL MEMORIES OF A LOVED ONE BE AMONG THE FINEST?

an advocate for the city I call home.

I want to ensure that I am doing everything I can to give back to the community that has given me so much joy. I can’t thank the N Street Village Team enough for allowing us to come in and be a part of their day. Every day the organization makes a difference in hundreds of women’s lives. We are grateful

SHOULDN’T THE FINAL MEMORIES OF A LOVED ONE BE AMONG THE FINEST? Jenn Smira

is executive vice president of the Jenn Smira Team at Compass Real Estate.

Reach her at 202-340-7675 or jsmira@ compass.com.

SHOULDN’T THE FINAL MEMORIES OF A LOVED ONE BE AMONG THE FINEST? times when nothing short ofshort the bestofwill do.best A memorial ThereThere areare times when nothing the will do. A service is service one of them. is a final expression, theaculmination of a lifetime the memorial isItone of them.

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