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DC Eagle to close for good

Owners won’t relocate after sale of building for use as possible prison halfway house

By LOU CHIBBARO JR. lchibbaro@washblade.com The DC Eagle, the District’s oldest continuously operating gay bar that first opened in 1971, informed its employees Monday night in an online meeting that it was going out of business after learning the building it rented was sold and it would have to move out by September, according to Eagle manager Miguel Ayala.

Ayala, who attended the staff meeting on Zoom, told the Washington Blade that D.C. attorney Glen Ackerman, who represents part owner Peter Lloyd, told meeting attendees that Lloyd and principal owner Ted Clements decided to dissolve the business rather than search for a new location.

The decision to close the business came three months after the Washington Informer reported that a company called CORE LLC was making arrangements with the owner of the DC Eagle building to use the building as a 300-bed prison halfway house under a contract with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons.

News of those plans startled nearby residents and D.C. Council member Vincent Gray (D-Ward 7), who expressed opposition to the plan. Reports have surfaced that plans for the use of the Eagle building as a halfway house were put on hold due to the coronavirus epidemic, but activists advocating for the city’s returning citizens from incarceration have said they want the project to move forward.

Meanwhile, news of the DC Eagle’s

permanent closing came six months before it was expected to celebrate its 49th anniversary as the city’s iconic bar and club catering to the leather and Levi crowd. In recent years the club expanded its outreach to others in the LGBT community by hosting popular drag shows and dance parties.

The announcement of its closing also came less than a week after the D.C. LGBTQ nightclub Ziegfeld’s-Secrets announced on Facebook that it would also be closing.

The club said the decision to close came after it too was informed by the owner of its building at 1824 Half Street, S.W. that it had to leave the building, which is to be demolished to make way for a high-rise apartment building. Manager Steve Delurba said the club would try to find a new location but its ability to do so was uncertain.

The DC Eagle’s current location at 3701 Benning Road, N.E. was its fourth location since it first opened on 9th Street, N.W. in downtown D.C. in 1971. After being displaced by downtown development, the DC Eagle subsequently moved to 7th Street, N.W. and later to New York Avenue, N.W., all within a few blocks of each other in the downtown area.

The Benning Road location, a four-story warehouse building, was by far its largest site. The club opened there in 2015 after being forced to close temporarily when it was displaced from the New York Avenue site, which it rented. The Eagle purchased

The Eagle is the District’s oldest continuously operating gay bar.

the Benning Road building, giving it what longtime customers and supporters thought would be protection from being displaced yet again by real estate development.

But Clements told the Blade last year that the owners decided to sell the building to generate needed revenue with the intent to lease it back from the new owner and to continue to operate the club at that location.

City property records show a company called Estervara LLC bought the building on June 4 for $1.5 million.

Clements and then part owner Herb Kaylor-Hawkins said they were hopeful that the revenue generated by the sale would help the DC Eagle overcome financial problems it was encountering at that time and lead to years of future operations.

Records from the D.C. Office of Tax

and Revenue, however, show that another company called Benning Rock LLC bought the building on April 3, 2020 for $3 million.

The Blade could not immediately reach representatives of either Benning Rock or Estervara for comment this week. Eagle manager Ayala said the building’s current owner informed the DC Eagle it would have to vacate the building by September.

Ackerman told the Blade in an email that part owner Lloyd doesn’t wish to make a comment at this time on the closing and dissolution of Eagle N Exile LLC, the official company that Lloyd and Clements set up as owner of the DC Eagle. Clements couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Among the many social media postings lamenting the DC Eagle’s closing that have surfaced since the Eagle’s online staff meeting Monday night were those from drag performers who have said the Eagle’s recent welcoming of both members of the leather and drag crowd has provided a unique gathering place for D.C.’s diverse LGBTQ community.

“I’m so devastated that we’re closing,” wrote drag performer Matt Enman in a Facebook post. “Thank you DC Eagle for everything. Thank you for taking such good care of us queens and giving so many entertainers a chance to have the spotlight,” Enman said. “And I thank you for providing so many people a space to be themselves, drink, and have a good time.”

Ziegfeld’s-Secrets closed at current site Ziegfeld’s-Secrets, the iconic institution of D.C. gay nightlife known for its drag shows and nude male dancers that was forced to temporarily close in March due to the coronavirus emergency, will not reopen at its current site but is weighing options for reopening at a new location, according to its part owner and General Manager Steven Delurba.

Delurba told the Washington Blade that in the midst of the current city shutdown of all non-essential businesses such as bars and nightclubs, MRP Realty, the real estate development company that owns the Ziegfeld’s-Secrets building, has informed the club that it plans to take possession of the building in the next few weeks and the club will have to vacate the premises “much sooner than we expected.”

Delurba said MRP Realty has already obtained a permit to demolish the building at 1824 Half

Street, S.W. and the four adjoining buildings. The company announced in 2016 that it planned to build a 300,000-square-foot multi-family apartment building with retail businesses on the ground floor at that site, which is in the rapidly redeveloping Buzzard Point section of the city.

A spokesperson for the company couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

“Ziegfeld/Secrets regrettably has been forced to close our doors,” the club states in a post on Friday afternoon on its Facebook page. “We all have been honored to bring you the best in entertainment for 40 years; regrettably the option to stay and even have a closing event has been taken from us during this crisis.”

“To the many dancers, drag queens, bartenders, DJs, support staff over the years, thank you for making us

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one of D.C.’s best venues. Stay safe and healthy. Til next time…,” the statement concludes.

Ziegfeld’s-Secrets principal owner Alan Carroll, who couldn’t immediately be reached for comment, said earlier this year he was hopeful the club would have two or three more years to stay at its current location before the developer planned to take possession of the property.

At least two people associated with the club have said they plan to work with Delurba and Carroll to take steps to help the club find a new location to reopen.

D.C. nightlife observers have said city regulations make it extremely difficult for nightclubs like Ziegfeld’s-Secrets that have a nude dance provision in their liquor license to find a location to open.

LOU CHIBBARO JR.

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Amazon enlists Freddie’s restaurant for COVID meal deliveries As it continues to move into its new second headquarters complex in the Crystal City section of Arlington, Va., the tech giant Amazon has hired Freddie’s Beach Bar and Restaurant, which is widely known as an LGBT establishment, to prepare and deliver 10,000 meals in the month of May for front line healthcare workers and first responders in Arlington and nearby Alexandria who are dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

In a statement released to the Washington Blade, Amazon said it was investing $200,000 to pay for the 10,000 meals. Last week, Freddie’s prepared and delivered over 400 of the meals to the Arlington County Police Department, the Arlington County Sheriff’s Office, and the Arlington Emergency Communications Center staff.

This week, according to the statement, meals from Freddie’s and possibly three other small restaurants located near Freddie’s on the 23rd Street ‘restaurant row’ in Crystal City, were being delivered to firefighters in Arlington and Alexandria and emergency medical services staff.

“During this unprecedented time, Amazon is working to not only support our frontline workers and first responders across the Arlington area, but also our most vulnerable neighbors in immediate need,” said Brian Huseman, vice president for Amazon Public Policy in a separate statement.

“We are proud to work alongside Freddie’s Beach Bar and Restaurant, a beloved local restaurant in our new neighborhood, to ensure that we’re thanking our neighbors who are keeping us safe, and caring for our neighbors who need extra support right now with hearty meals throughout May,” Huseman said.

The Amazon statement says that in the last two weeks of the month the meals prepared by Freddie’s would be sent to an organization called the Cooperative for a Hunger Free-Arlington to support “neighbors in immediate need.”

Freddie’s Beach Bar and Restaurant owner Freddie Lutz told the Blade he was “delighted” to accept Amazon’s offer to prepare and help deliver the meals to the front

FREDDIE LUTZ told the Blade he was ‘delighted’ to accept Amazon’s offer to prepare and help deliver the meals to the front line COVID workers.

line and first responder workers that he said he and his staff greatly admire.

Lutz said he was contacted last month by an Amazon official who told him “we love Freddie’s and we’d like to partner with you on delivering 10,000 meals in May.” According to Lutz, that initial contact led to a detailed operation that enabled him to bring back most of his employees who were temporarily laid off when Virginia joined nearby D.C. and Maryland in shutting down restaurants, bars, and nightclubs for in-house operations in the effort to curtail the spread of the coronavirus outbreak.

Lutz said that at his suggestion, Amazon agreed to invite at least three other smaller restaurants located near Freddie’s to provide some of the meals that Freddie’s may not be able to handle on a given day.

Freddie’s manager Tony Rivenbark said that since the massive meal project began last week Freddie’s kitchen staff with the help of other employees have been preparing more than 400 lunch or dinner meals per day.

“For lunch we’re doing things like turkey sandwiches, ham sandwiches,” Rivenbark told the Blade. “At dinner time we’re doing things like chicken pesto fettuccine, meat lasagna, and meatloaf,” he said. “And we’re doing a percentage of those meals that are vegetarian.”

Rivenbark said all of the meals are taken directly from Freddie’s regular menu.

Lutz, who serves on the Executive Committee of the board of the Crystal City Business Improvement District, or BID, said at his suggestion, the BID has agreed to donate environmentally friendly carry out containers for the meals being delivered. He said the BID is also donating “boxed water,” which is individual servings of water in milk type containers rather than plastic or glass bottles, to accompany the meals being delivered to the front line workers and first responders.

In announcing its 2018 decision to pick Arlington County as the site for its second global headquarters, which it refers to as HQ2, Amazon said it would bring in or hire a total of 25,000 employees to staff the headquarters facility. Most of the employees were expected to be located in office buildings in Crystal City and nearby Potomac Yards just across the Alexandria border that Amazon plans to build over the next several years.

Lutz, who describes Freddie’s as a “straight-friendly” gay/ LGBTQ bar and restaurant, has said before the coronavirus outbreak surfaced that Amazon employees would always be welcome at Freddie’s. Among some of his regular customers, Lutz said, are both LGBTQ and straight employees at the Pentagon, which is located less than a mile away.

LOU CHIBBARO JR.

CAMP Rehoboth boosts online programming during COVID

CAMP Rehoboth’s offices may be closed, but much of its programming continues online.

CAMP Rehoboth, the LGBT community services organization in Rehoboth Beach, Del., continues to run programming and services online during the COVID-19 crisis, including exercise classes, a book club, and grief support groups.

Among this programming are the LGBTQA+ Youth Circle Meetings that build on the connections made between young people at the March summit CAMP Rehoboth led for Gender and Sexuality Alliances at Sussex County schools.

Sal Seeley, director of CAMP Rehoboth’s health and wellness programming, explained the importance of continuing to provide services during the pandemic.

“One thing we said we really needed was a way to keep our community together instead of being isolated because we know with isolation comes a whole host of mental health issues, which lead to physical health problems,” said Seeley. “We really wanted to get our programs going to build a virtual community.”

Many CAMP Rehoboth services are more popular now than ever. Moving programming online has allowed CAMP Rehoboth to expand its reach to more

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Delawareans who may otherwise not have an LGBTQ community center near them.

Seeley says “it’s been amazing how all the programs have exploded, and it’s just been nonstop.”

With this increase in programming, CAMP Rehoboth’s biggest challenge now “is having funds to maintain them,” says Seeley Although many services can transition online, CAMP Rehoboth shut down its five HIV testing sites across the state. Despite this, people can get tested for HIV by making a direct appointment through Seeley or by calling CAMP Rehoboth.

“We want to make sure people are still being tested because HIV infections don’t stop because COVID-19 has started,” explains Seeley.

Seeley also hosts an online sexual health counseling session every other week.

People can sign up for this service and all programming by registering through the CAMP Rehoboth online calendar or by emailing Seeley.

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HRC endorses Biden for president News comes on anniversary of his 2012 marriage support announcement

By CHRIS JOHNSON cjohnson@washblade.com The nation’s leading LGBTQ group has officially thrown its support behind Joseph Biden in the presidential election, drawing on the anniversary of his famous words in support of same-sex marriage on “Meet the Press” to make the case the candidate should unseat President Trump.

Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said Tuesday night in an interview with the Washington Blade that the board of directors voted unanimously to endorse Biden after an extensive review, which concluded the candidate had a commitment to LGBTQ people and other minority communities.

“We reviewed his record on marginalized communities,” David said. “We reviewed his prior comments on LGBTQ issues as well as issues that affect people who bring intersectional identities to the table. As an example, I’m black, I’m gay, I’m an immigrant. All of those issues are for me and they happen to be for the Human Rights Campaign.”

The announcement of the endorsement was timed to coincide with the eighth anniversary of Biden coming out in favor of marriage equality on “Meet the Press,” which helped bring a once contentious idea into the mainstream and preceded former President Barack Obama’s own endorsement three days later.

The Human Rights Campaign, unlike in 2016, during this election cycle had stayed out of the Democratic presidential primary. Even before Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) dropped out, making Biden the presumptive Democratic nominee, David said the Human Rights Campaign had been reviewing Biden along with other candidates and had planned “a few days and weeks” to make the endorsement announcement on May 6.

“We thought it would be most appropriate — both from a symbolic perspective, but also substantively — to make the endorsement and we made the decision that May 6 was the right date,” David said. “It reminds us where we were several years ago, when same-sex couples could not marry in so many states in the country. And Joe Biden stood up, and was very vocal about his support of LGBTQ equality and that really changed the public discourse.”

As evidence of Biden’s commitment to LGBTQ rights, David pointed out the candidate’s promise to sign LGBTQ non-discrimination legislation known as the Equality Act, a plan to end HIV/AIDS by 2025 and a commitment to ensuring the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented.

In contrast, the Trump administration has established a transgender military ban, taken administrative actions in favor of religious freedom at the expense of LGBTQ rights and has refused to include LGBTQ people in the enforcement of civil rights law — going so far as to argue against it before the U.S. Supreme Court. (The Trump administration has, however, set up a plan aimed at ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030.)

As part of the endorsement, the Human Rights Campaign has unveiled a plan built on its successful strategies from 2016 and 2018 to get LGBTQ people and “equality voters” — voters who prioritize LGBTQ issues — to the polls.

There are an estimated 57 million “equality voters” across the nation and their demographics skew toward

The Human Rights Campaign endorsed JOE BIDEN for president on Wednesday.

(Blade file photo by Michael Key)

suburban women and more toward minority groups than the general population. According to the Human Rights Campaign, 60 percent are women, 48 percent are people of color and 30 percent are under the age of 35.

David said an estimated 3.4 million voters in that category are at risk of not turning out for the election and the Human Rights Campaign plans to work to make sure that doesn’t happen.

“We are going to be focused on those folks who may not be inclined to vote to make sure they understand the importance of the election, they’re engaged in the process,” David said.

To turn out those voters, the Human Rights Campaign is set to focus on seven states considered battlegrounds in the coming election. Six of the states — Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — were priorities in previous years, but the seventh is Texas and a new addition.

David said Texas was added because significant infrastructure was built in the state after years of beating back anti-LGBTQ legislation in the state legislature.

“We decided to make Texas one of our major priority states because there are half a dozen competitive U.S. House races on the ballot in 2020,” David said. “We also have the state houses in play in 2020, and we anticipate that the presidential campaigns will invest in the states more so than any other presidential election in recent memory because of the number of people in Texas. So for those three reasons we made a decision to include Texas.”

Polling shows Texas may be an attainable target for Biden. A University of Texas, Tyler/Dallas Morning News poll of registered voters out this week found Trump and Biden neck-and-neck at 43 percent in the state.

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) told the Blade help from the Human Rights Campaign would be a boon for Biden because the nation’s leading LGBTQ group was essential to her U.S. House win in 2016 and the U.S. Senate win in 2018.

“Candidate support for LGBTQ equality is a crucial, a determining factor for over 55 million people across the

1 0 • WAS H I NGTO NBLA DE.COM • MAY 08, 2020 • N ATI ONA L NE W S

country — and over 600,000 people in Nevada — they’re equality voters, so that’s why it matters,” Rosen said.

The upcoming election, Rosen said, is important not just for LGBTQ rights but other progressive issues because Biden is “in that fight as well.”

“You want somebody who’s going to stand up for equality, to stand up for human rights, try to stand up for all the things care about: health care, education, the environment…LGBTQ rights, but everyone has families so they care about all it,” Rozen said.

The endorsement also comes amid the emergence of sexual misconduct allegations against Biden from Tara Reade, a former staffer who worked for him when he was a senator in the 1990s.

The allegations have been picking up steam in the media and the public. A survey from Politico/Morning Consult— conducted in the days after Biden appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Friday to deny the charges personally for the first time — found 28 percent of Democrats “definitely” or “probably” favor replacing Biden with another nominee to take on Trump.

David struck a middle ground when asked if he believes Biden in his denial, underscoring the importance of listening to survivors who have made their voices heard in the “Me Too” movement.

“It is absolutely critical that we listen to survivors, who for a long time, had to have their voices dismissed,” David said.

“Survivors should be heard, survivors should be listened to, taken seriously, treated with respect and dignity. And when these allegations came forward and allegations like these come forward, we need to make sure that they’re fully evaluated — and I believe that is happening right now.”

At the same time, David emphasized the importance of electing a candidate to unseat Trump in the upcoming election.

“We cannot afford for LGBTQ voices to be marginalized in this election. We have six months, we cannot afford for Donald Trump to win this election in November, and every day his administration, as you know, rolls back our rights, and another queer kid contemplates suicide, another black trans woman is killed,” David said. “So this election is life or death for us in our community and we chose to fight for our lives.”

One distinction between the current presidential election and previous years is the contest is taking place amid the global pandemic of COVID-19, which makes grassroots organizing — traditionally a get-out-the-vote and door-knocking effort — difficult to say the least.

David, however, said the Human Rights Campaign will rise to the challenge with a focus on digital organizing as opposed to traditional methods.

Among other things, David said efforts will include use of the Team app to coordinate via text messages, Facebook Messenger, Instagram and Twitter, which he said is “nine times more effective than traditional doorto-door knocking where you’re engaging with strangers.”

Other efforts, David said, are phone banking and volunteer opportunities at virtual or remote events.

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Local gay student blocked from making blood donation FDA now requires 3 months of abstinence for MSM

By CHRIS JOHNSON cjohnson@washblade.com A gay D.C. native otherwise qualified to donate blood was denied that chance at a local hospital, demonstrating that obstacles remain after the FDA eased its ban on gay donations — even as the agency has set up a pilot study to assess lifting the blanket policy altogether.

Aubrey Lay, a 19-year-old student at the College of William & Mary, told the Washington Blade after the FDA eased its policy last month he registered with his family at Children’s National Hospital, a D.C.-based pediatrics center, in hopes of making a contribution under the belief he’d meet the new requirements.

“As a gay man, I was very excited that the FDA had relaxed its guideline restrictions on MSM donating blood, however imperfect this change may be,” Lay said.

“This meant that for the first time since graduating high school, I would be able to donate blood.”

Lay said he would have been ineligible to donate under the former rule requiring 12 months of abstinence for gay men, but believed he would have been eligible under the new rules requiring only three months. Although the hospital’s website had the old information online, Lay said he proceeded to his appointment on April 29 under the “wishful thinking” the hospital would accept him.

But Lay was ultimately blocked from making a donation.

“It turned out I was giving them the benefit of the doubt where I shouldn’t have,” Lay said. “I signed in and had my intake interview during which I explained my sexual history, and that I had last had sexual contact in early January, over the three-month limit. After answering all these questions, I got my finger pricked and iron levels checked, and height, weight, [blood pressure] taken. Only then was I told that I would not be able to donate because the hospital’s policy has not yet caught up to national standards.”

Lay said he was “shaken” by the experience, having wanted to make a blood donation to help out as the nation battles the coronavirus crisis.

As evidence going to the hospital was a risk he didn’t take lightly, Lay said it was the first time he’d left his house in a month because he and his family took the Virginia stay-at-home order “very seriously.”

“I certainly would not have risked my own health, and that of others, had I known I would be turned away,” Lay said.

Amid the blood shortage during the coronavirus pandemic, the FDA last month announced it would ease the ban on blood donations for various groups, including men who have sex with men.

The earlier ban, established in 2015, required gay men to be abstinent for 12 months before making a donation, but the new policy eased those restrictions, requiring a deferral period of three months.

Before 2015, the FDA had a lifetime ban on blood donations from men who have had sex with men. The policy was implemented in 1983 at the height of the AIDS

AUBREY LAY was barred from making a blood donation under the gay ban.

(Photo courtesy of Lay)

epidemic based on fears donations from gay men would allow HIV to enter the blood supply.

Lay, upon being denied the ability to donate blood, said he found the office of the hospital’s president next to the blood donation room and sought an audience.

The president, Lay said, apologized for the confusion and connected him with the doctor in charge of the blood bank. The doctor, Lay said, told him the hospital’s computer systems were interlaced with the new policy and — in normal times without coronavirus — it would take a month to disentangle them and make them consistent with the new policy.

The website for the Children’s National Hospital has been updated and no longer indicates it follows the earlier 12-month policy, but is in the process of making a transition to conform to the new guidance by June 2020.

A Children’s National Hospital spokesperson confirmed the center is still in the process of updating its policy for gay donors and expects resolution next month.

“We have the deepest appreciation for all our blood donors and see every day how their donation saves lives,” the spokesperson said. “We take every step to adhere to all regulations around blood donation and are working to update our policies, donor questionnaire and computer systems to align to the new FDA regulations. The FDA just approved the donor questionnaire for sites to use and we are hoping to have all policies in place in June. We encourage anyone who would like to donate to make an appointment and double check on the eligibility before coming in.”

Lay’s story isn’t unique as other gay men have reported being unable to donate blood after the FDA eased its ban. Whether or not each of these men expected to meet the requirements under the new

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deferral period of three months is unclear.

Gay TV personality Andy Cohen says he was denied the chance to donate, even though his plasma would be rich in the antibody for COVID-19. Lukus Estok, a young gay man who recovered from COVID-19, also told his story about being denied the opportunity to make a donation at the New York Blood Center. His Facebook post went viral on social media and was featured in a Good Morning America article.

Matthew Lasky, a spokesperson for the LGBTQ media watchdog GLAAD, which has been leading calls for a change in blood policy, said more and more stories are emerging of LGBTQ people being blocked from making donations despite the recent change.

“GLAAD is continuing to pressure the FDA to put science above stigma, and to remove any time-based deferral on gay and bisexual men, and others in the LGBTQ community, donating blood,” Lasky said. “In the meantime, it’s critical for individual blood centers to begin adhering to the new FDA guidelines as not to continue needlessly discriminating against LGBTQ people, and to address the critical blood supply shortages we’re seeing during COVID-19.”

The American Red Cross, which had called for the FDA to shorten its deferral period from the 12 months to three months before the new policy was implemented, cautioned via a spokesperson the implementation of updated rules “will take time.”

“As the largest blood provider in the country, we are working to implement the updated FDA eligibility changes and will provide an update on timeline in the near future,” the spokesperson said. “It’s important to note that the implementation process includes potentially thousands of individuals and involves complex system updates that do take time. We are working to develop a reinstatement process to share with potential donors in the near future.”

Even as blood centers work to update their system to conform to the new policy, LGBTQ advocates have said the change is insufficient and the FDA should scrap its deferral requirements entirely for men who have sex with men and instead implement a policy based on individual risk assessment. Such a policy could enable, for example, monogamous gay men or gay men with safe sex practices to make blood donations.

Among those calling for this change is California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who last month led a letter to the Department of Health & Human Services with 19 other attorneys general urging the Trump administration to abandon the deferral period, citing the success of other countries, such as Spain, Italy and Portugal, that have implemented gender-neutral policies.

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Stonewall riots historian, author David Carter dies at 67 Served as adviser to the National Park Service

By LOU CHIBBARO JR. lchibbaro@washblade.com David Carter, an author and historian on LGBTQ civil rights who is credited with writing the definitive book about the 1969 Stonewall riots that he said triggered a worldwide “mass movement” for LGBTQ rights, died May 1 at his Greenwich Village apartment in New York City. He was 67.

His brother, Bill Carter, said doctors believe the cause of death was a heart attack.

David Carter’s 2004 book “Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution” thrust Carter into the limelight as a leading expert on the June 1969 riots triggered by the now infamous police raid on the Stonewall gay bar in Greenwich Village in which the patrons fought back.

Carter’s book was the basis for the PBS American Experience film “Stonewall Uprising,” which won a Peabody Award. He also played a key role working with the U.S. National Park Service to have the site of the Stonewall bar and surrounding streets designated as a national monument and an historic landmark.

Shortly after his Stonewall book was published, Carter began work on what he considered his next major project – a definitive biography of gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny, the co-founder of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C. in the early 1960s. For more than 10 years, Carter conducted extensive research on Kameny’s role as one of the first known pre-Stonewall activists who declared homosexuals to be a minority group deserving of full civil rights.

It couldn’t immediately be determined whether others might assemble Carter’s findings and documentation on Kameny, including recorded interviews with dozens of people who knew Kameny, into the book Carter was unable to finish.

Carter was born and raised in the Southeast Georgia town of Jesup. He graduated from the town’s Wayne County High School before attending Emory University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in religion and French, according to information provided by his brother.

During his junior year in college he studied at the Paris-Sorbonne University in France. He later attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he earned a master’s degree in 1978 in South Asian Studies, a write-up prepared by his brother says.

Carter, who was gay, first became involved in the gay rights movement while a graduate student in Madison, his brother said in his write-up on Carter. Among other things, Carter organized a 1977 dance that raised more than $1,000 to support a Dade County, Fla., gay rights group that was fighting a campaign by anti-gay advocate Anita Bryant to overturn the Florida county’s gay rights law.

A short time later, Carter co-founded an organization in Madison that led a successful effort to prevent anti-gay advocates from overturning Madison’s gay rights law, making Madison one of the few places in the country in the late 1970s and early 1980s to stop an effort to repeal a pro-LGBTQ nondiscrimination law.

Carter later became involved in the successful lobbying effort that made Wisconsin the first state in the nation to pass a law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation.

He moved to New York City in 1985 shortly before starting work as an editor at Chelsea House Publishers, a publisher of young adult multicultural books, according to his brother Bill Carter. The brother said the company accepted a proposal by David Carter that it publish two separate book series for young adults, “Issues in Gay and Lesbian Life” and “Lives of Notable Gay Men and Lesbians.”

Last year, author DAVID CARTER spoke before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

(Blade photo by Lou Chibbaro, Jr.)

After leaving Chelsea House, Carter began work on the Stonewall book and a separate book consisting of a collection of interviews of famed gay poet Allen Ginsberg that was later published as “Spontaneous Mind: Selected Interviews 1958-1996.”

“Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution” was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2004 with many positive reviews, including from the New York Times. In 1998, six years before the book’s release, Carter received a grant to put together material from his research on Stonewall to support an effort to place the Stonewall riots site on the National Register of Historic Places, where it was placed in 1999. A year later the site was named a National Historic Landmark.

In 2014, Carter served as the historic adviser to the National Park Service in the successful effort to have the Stonewall site become a National Monument.

Beginning in 2006, Carter began work on his planned biography of Frank Kameny. Although he didn’t live to complete that project, Carter talked and wrote about Kameny’s groundbreaking work in the early homophile movement in writings in the gay press and in lectures and other speaking appearances.

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Carter talked about Kameny in D.C. in June 2019 before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which invited him to give a presentation on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. As members of the commission and a small audience listened intently, Carter provided detailed historical background on the discrimination and persecution LGBTQ people faced prior to the 1969 Stonewall rebellion.

He noted that contrary to the generally accepted belief that the Stonewall riots triggered the modern gay rights movement, Carter said Stonewall triggered a mass movement for LGBTQ rights that actually began as a civil rights phase of the “homophile” movement started by Kameny and his followers in the early 1960s.

The earlier phase started by Kameny, Carter said, made it possible for activists to convert the spontaneous street protests that followed the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village into a focused and effective political movement for LGBTQ rights.

“The Stonewall uprising is historic for one reason,” he said in his presentation to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.

“It inspired the creation of a new phase of the movement for the rights of gay men and lesbians and later for bisexuals and the transgendered, and this new phase, the gay liberation movement, created a mass movement, making most of the gains over the past five decades possible.”

Following publication of the Stonewall book, Carter appeared on national TV news programs, including on CNN and CBS and has written on LGBTQ issues for CNN, Time magazine, the BBC, the Washington Blade, and the Gay and Lesbian Review.

Carter has told the Blade in the past that one reason for the delay in completing the Kameny book was the need to work full time in a regular paying job. Eric Danzer, Carter’s longtime friend in New York, said at the time of his passing Carter was working as senior medical editor at Saatchi & Saatchi, a global communications firm.

“In his medical editing and his LGBT history work, he showed a passion for accuracy,” Danzer said. “In his LGBT history work, he was painstakingly methodical in assembling the facts, passionate about following them wherever they led to make sure that our history is recorded accurately.”

Added Danzer, “He had great respect for the subjects of his work and felt a great responsibility to preserve the legacy of subjects whose contributions were generally not well known, but should be, like Frank Kameny.”

Carter was preceded in death by his parents W. L. and Sarah Carter of Jesup, Ga. He is survived by longtime friend Eric Danzer; his brother William C. Carter and sister-in-law Lynn; three nieces, Josephine Monmaney, Sarah Davis, and Susanna Carter; and five great nieces and great nephews.

Arrangements were being made for David Carter’s burial in Jesup, Ga. A memorial service in Georgia and New York will be held at a later date.

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

Patrick Kennedy for Ward 2 Council member A strong record of working with every sector of the community As a Ward 2 resident for more than 35 years, I have had only two people represent me on the D.C. Council. The first, John A. Wilson, had the D.C. government building named after him. The second, Jack Evans, was forced out of office for improprieties. On June 2 in the Democratic primary and June 16 in the special election for Ward 2, voters have the opportunity to choose a third representative. We need to elect someone who will make us proud.

One person stands out among a group of qualified candidates. His relevant experience at the ward and community level, and his living by a set of steadfast progressive and honest principles, make Patrick Kennedy that candidate. He recently said: “In these difficult days I am committed to serving the residents of Ward 2 in an honest and transparent way to meet all their needs. I am committed to helping as we weave our way through tough times with a special focus on the economic and health inequities that have been highlighted due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Together we will not only survive we will thrive. The Council will be my full-time job and the only people I will owe anything to are the residents of Ward 2. As new issues arise you have my commitment to work on each one to the best of my ability and to meet and exceed your expectations.”

Ward 2 is a dynamic part of the District and includes a diverse group of stakeholders, including a large part of the District’s business community. Balancing the needs of business with the needs of individuals is not always easy but must be the goal of the Council member representing the ward. Patrick has community and ward experience, including eight years on the ANC, being chair for five terms. Relevant experience is based on what the job of a Ward Council member is. The job includes oversight of D.C. government agencies; approval of the D.C. budget; and just as important the ability to provide good constituent service to the residents of the ward. Being chair of an ANC gave Patrick a detailed understanding of D.C. government agencies and how they relate to both individuals and the community. A Council member must have knowledge of zoning, local education issues, transportation issues, and know how the programs of D.C. government from DDOT, to DOES, to DCRA, the bane of everyone’s existence, work. It means getting into the weeds on rat (the four legged kind) abatement and knowing how to help a constituent get a street lamp fixed. It is why experience on an ANC is so relevant to the job.

Another reason I am endorsing Kennedy is my belief it is crucial for our city that young people become involved and take leadership roles. When they do, we must support them. Kennedy represents the best of the young generation of the District. For 10 years he has spent countless hours as an ANC volunteer member and chair working for the people of the ward and the city. He sees himself as a bridgebuilder, someone who understands the needs and interests

PATRICK KENNEDY is running for Council in Ward 2.

of different communities and he has shown he is able to collaborate with a wide range of people with varied interests and forge consensus and come up with solutions to problems.

I found he has a nuanced understanding of public policy and has shown empathy and understanding of people from all different backgrounds and perspectives.

Ward 2 has the largest number of people who identify with the LGBTQ+ community in the District and while Patrick is not gay his work for — and vocal support of — the community has attracted many activists to his campaign. He has committed to have the city do a much better job of providing equitybased initiatives, which will impact the LGBTQ community.

He supports improving hiring practices for trans people in the D.C. government. He is committed to focusing on improving job training programs ensuring they include trans women of color whose unemployment rate was as high as 40 percent before COVID-19. He will fight for more investment in transitional housing for homeless LGBTQ youth and delivering housing resources specifically geared to the needs of LGBTQ seniors. He said, “It is crucial to not just see housing programs as services LGBTQ seniors can access, but rather to craft the services themselves around the needs of those who live alone and are at risk of social isolation. It is clear not all housing providers are culturally competent or welcoming.”

Kennedy has a history of success. He helped save the Francis-Stevens school, which is now thriving, and he worked on projects with George Washington University and with colleagues and DDOT laying the groundwork for consensus on a protected bike lane between Foggy Bottom and Dupont. His private sector experience includes working for a company helping Fortune 500 companies on their Corporate Social Responsibility budgets. His research had a focus on using SEC filings to evaluate a firm’s financial positions, market opportunities, and risks. In his current position with

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a small management consulting firm (he is on leave during the campaign) his work includes reviewing budgets and evaluating the competitive bid process including staffing and expense projections, all of which stand him in good stead when he becomes the next Ward 2 Council member.

Kennedy is committed to working with the Council, our delegate to Congress Eleanor Holmes Norton, and the mayor to press the Congress and the administration for D.C.’s full share of federal funding, including Coronavirus relief. He is a strong advocate for public education. Progress in the schools is nowhere more evident than in Ward 2 with an increasing demand for our public schools; not just from families staying and raising their children in the Ward, but from families across the city. He understands the momentum we’ve seen in the early grades hasn’t translated reliably to middle schools. He said, “In Ward 2 we must help families with children at Hyde-Addison stay in the system at Hardy and create a new Shaw Middle School with programming aligned to the thriving elementary schools that would feed it.”

Kennedy commits to working to reduce childcare costs and prioritizing funding for Birth-to-3 programs. He understands doing both will make a meaningful difference in reducing the achievement gap in education by providing high-quality early learning opportunities to every child during the most important stage of their cognitive development.

He has committed to focusing on the production of more affordable housing. He said, “I support the mayor’s plan to encourage the production of more residential units across the city, enhance rent control protections for long-term tenants by gradually enrolling buildings built after 1975 into rent stabilization, and reforming our property tax structure to ensure that assessments align more cleanly with people’s ability to pay.”

He is committed to creating new dedicated bus lanes to improve service and ensure stable, fast commute times and investing in more off-peak service. He is a proponent of more dynamic street design, including more dedicated pickup and drop-off areas on commercial corridors; expanding parking corrals for dockless bikes and scooters to get them off sidewalks; and enhancing the District’s network of protected bike lanes (coupled with enforcement of standards around sidewalk biking) so people have safe places to bike and pedestrians don’t feel unsafe on sidewalks.

In the aftermath of the recent Ward 2 Council member’s scandals we need a Council member who is a known commodity in the community, someone with a strong record of helping and working with every sector of the community.

Someone people already know and trust. Someone the Washington Post said is “qualified and has a good agenda” for moving us forward. That person is Patrick Kennedy and I urge you to cast your ballot for him in the June 2 Democratic primary and the June 16 special election.

MICHAEL K. LAVERS

KATHI WOLFE

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

New doc celebrates lesbian baseball players Couple was inspiration for ‘A League of Their Own’ “Sis, you love baseball like a poet,” my late brother teased me one evening, “don’t even try to get what a foul ball is!”

He was spot on. I couldn’t tell you what a foul ball is if my life depended on it. Yet, baseball is one of the things I miss most during the pandemic. What is spring without opening day? Is anything more isolating than not being able to cheer on your home team (go Nats!)?

Our country had baseball even during World War II. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt believed baseball was essential for the nation’s morale during the war. “I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going,” FDR said.

Thankfully, in our COVID-19 era, “A Secret Love,” a new documentary streaming on Netflix, provides hope for we who are baseball deprived.

The touching doc is a fab love story involving queer history, aging and baseball. Watching it would make even Attila the Hun choke up.

“A Secret Love” is the tale of a lesbian couple who were together for 72 years — Terry Donahue, a player in the 1940s with the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, and Pat Henschel.

Because of homophobia, they were in the closet for decades. They presented themselves as “good friends” or “cousins” to everyone (including their families) except a few queer friends.

The couple, native Canadians who lived for many years in Chicago, didn’t come out until they were in their 80s.

The league was created so women could play baseball while many of the male baseball players were away during World War II. Donahue played catcher for the Peoria Redwings for four seasons. After she and Herschel met in Canada, they moved to Chicago.

Donahue and other players in the league were the inspiration for the movie “A League of Their Own.”

“A Secret Love,” directed by Chris Bolan, Donahue’s great-nephew, isn’t about baseball statistics or recordsetting home runs. But it makes you feel the grit of the game – of baseball and of keeping your sexuality hidden from the grip of homophobia. During one game, Donahue recalls, her eyebrow got cut.

She refused to stop playing and have stitches put in it. Donahue put a BandAid on it and kept going.

The movie “A League of Their Own” presents as hetero. Yet, I couldn’t help wondering if some of the characters in the film were queer. Donahue and Herschel make it clear that there were lesbians in the league. The league officials, they say, wanted the players to be perceived as traditionally feminine and hetero. They had to wear skirts and go to charm school. “They wanted us to look like ladies and play ball like men,” Donahue says.

Even with marriage equality, it’s still not easy to be queer – especially, for people of color and folks who are trans. In more than half of the states in the United States according to the Human Rights Campaign, you can be fired from your job if you’re LGBTQ. The Trump administration is far from being an ally to the queer community.

Yet, it’s hard to imagine how much discrimination and prejudice LGBTQ people encountered until recently. In “A Secret Love,” Donahue and Herschel (and their queer friends who are interviewed) make the homophobia they experienced in the 1940s, 50s and 60s up close and personal. You could be arrested if you wore openfly pants, Herschel says. If you were arrested during a gay bar raid, your name could be put in the newspaper and you’d lose your job.

Despite the homophobia and the struggles of getting older (Donahue had Parkinson’s disease), the couple endured. They ran a design firm, formed a chosen family with their queer friends and got married late in their lives. In sickness and in health, for better and for worse, they were a league of their own.

is the Blade’s international news editor. Reach him at mlavers@washblade.com.

Don’t take a free press for granted My views changed after being detained in Cuba It is safe to say the vast majority of journalists do everything they can not to become the story. The Cuban government on May 8, 2019, took that choice away from me when I was detained at Havana’s José Martí International Airport for seven hours.

The Cuban government has not said why it decided not to allow me into the country, and any expectation that I will receive an official explanation is a laughable pipe dream. I do, however, have a couple of theories as to why Cuba decided to declare me persona non-grata.

One theory is the Cuban government did not want me to cover an unsanctioned LGBTQ rights march in Havana that activists announced would take place.

Reporters from the U.S. and other countries who are based in Cuba covered the event, which happened three days after I was not allowed into the country. These journalists and their Cuban colleagues also reported Cuban police arrested several people who participated in the march.

Many of the activists who organized the march have publicly criticized Mariela Castro, the daughter of former Cuban President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBTQ-specific issues as director of Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education. A second theory as to why I was not allowed into the country is Mariela Castro, who is a member of Cuba’s National Assembly, wanted me to be declared persona non-grata because she was unhappy with my coverage of her country’s independent LGBTQ rights movement from my previous trips to the Communist island.

The aforementioned theories are not mutually exclusive because there is no such thing as coincidence in Cuba.

What happened to me last May is most certainly part of a broader story about the treatment of journalists around the world.

The State Department’s 2019 human rights report, which notes

my detention in Havana, points out the Cuban government “does not recognize independent journalism, and independent journalists sometimes faced government harassment, including detention and physical abuse.”

Yariel Valdés González, a contributor to the Washington and Los Angeles Blades has won asylum in the U.S. because of the persecution he suffered in Cuba as a journalist. The Cuban government last December prohibited Maykel González Vivero, director of Tremenda Nota, the Blades’ media partner on the Communist island, from traveling outside the country.

Authorities on the same day I was not allowed into the country arrested Luz Escobar, a reporter for 14ymedio, an independent website founded by Yoani Sánchez, a prominent critic of the Cuban government, as she tried to interview victims of a freak tornado that devastated parts of Havana in January 2019.

Sunday was the 27th annual World Press Freedom Day, and President Trump acknowledged it with a tweet that once again proclaimed the media is “the enemy of the people.” This type of incendiary rhetoric has not only had very real consequences in the U.S., but empowers authoritarian regimes around the world to further target journalists.

The White House ought to defend a free press, which the First Amendment protects, but this wishful thinking seems more elusive than an official explanation from the Cuban government that confirms my theories as to why it declared me persona non-grata.

Journalists in the U.S. should be able to work without worrying about whether Trump’s inflammatory and politically motivated rhetoric will inspire someone to target them. Journalists in Cuba should be able to work without worrying about whether their government will sanction and/or arrest them. Journalists in the U.S., Cuba and around the world should be able to work without fear of retribution and retaliation.

A free press is something I no longer take for granted. It is incumbent upon all of us to defend it.

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Surviving COVID-19

Local LGBT residents share experiences with deadly coronavirus

By JOEY DiGUGLIELMO joeyd@washblade.com That was a Tuesday. By Friday, she had her positive results.

Runny nose, some sneezing, itchy eyes — when Ryan Bos started experiencing those “I knew there was a high possibility I could have caught COVID and by the time I symptoms the week of April 8, he figured it was his annual annoying allergy onset. went and got tested, I was already feeling a lot better,” Davis says. “In some ways it was By that weekend, though, a slight sore throat kicked in and he had some coughing, a relief knowing I had it because then I knew what I needed to do to stop the spread.” all typical of his usual allergies. By Sunday, April 11, he had a fever. A virtual doctor’s Tyler Townsend, a co-owner of gay bars The Pines and Aqua in Rehoboth Beach, appointment the next day helped him determine it was a sinus infection.

Del., had a typically busy During the next few and bustling party weekend days and with an antibiotic, just before St. Patrick’s Day his sore throat improved in March. They were allowed and his fever went down. to have 100 on site to hear But later in the week, Bos, singer Pamala Stanley who’s gay, lost all sense perform, which they did. He of smell, something he’d and friends went later that never experienced before. night to the Purple Parrot and Hearing from a friend that “a few other bars” and did was a common symptom of their usual socializing.

COVID-19, the coronavirus He started to feel sick on that has infected 3.2 million Friday, March 27. He’d known around the world and killed nobody else in his circle who’d 233,600, Bos, executive had it and says it seemed to director of Capital Pride, come “out of nowhere, just went to the emergency room kind of random.” at George Washington “It was scary,” the University Hospital and 31-year-old Rehoboth native got tested. Because of lab says. “At the highest, my backlogs, it took 10 days to fever got to 104.8. It kind of get the results. By that time came in waves. I’d feel OK his smell had returned but his for a while, then have chills, COVID-19 test was positive. then take Tylenol and get it The Blade this week down. There was about five spoke to three LGBT folks days of that cycle. Then after in the region — one in D.C., my fever broke, I had a little one in Annapolis, another bit of a cough. It was about in Rehoboth — about their a week or eight days total. experiences contracting and Then when the symptoms surviving the coronavirus. were gone, it was just being Mariah Davis is a busy tired and just trying to get woman. She’s a policy back to some kind of a and campaigns manager normal life in isolation.” for the National Wildlife MARIAH DAVIS says her experience with COVID-19 was ‘really, really awful.’

Townsend, who shares Federation, is working on (Photo courtesy Davis) a house with a roommate a master’s degree from the (although Townsend is University of Maryland in planning to move into his public management (she own place soon), says he “just locked myself in the upstairs of the house” and plans to finish in December) and she’s one of the founders of Annapolis Pride. She waited it out. rents a room in a three-bedroom house in Annapolis and has two roommates. Like There was one point his breathing got a bit shallow and he considered going Bos, her symptoms also kicked in about April 8. to the ER, but it went away.

At first, she thought she had the flu but began to think it was something more He got tested about two days after his symptoms started. He drove to Bethany serious despite not initially exhibiting many of the typical coronavirus symptoms Beach, Del., about a half-hour away, to get tested. The results took about a week she’d read about. She had extreme fatigue, body aches, persistent headache and to come in, by which time he was feeling better. congestion but no fever, no loss of taste or smell, no coughing and no sneezing.

Townsend, who says he’s never had the flu, didn’t know what to compare it to.

She went to an urgent care center in her area and got a slip to get a COVID-19 “It was not fun,” he says. “It was more than just an inconvenience. There was not test, which she had to drive about an hour away to Columbia, Md., to get through much beyond getting off the bed or the couch for a good four-five days. It’s the a drive-thru set up at a car emissions testing site. most sick I’ve ever been.”

“It was pretty freaky,” the 29-year-old lesbian says. “You drive through a garage, The three regions Bos, Davis and Townsend represent are somewhat middling you get your test, it only takes like 10-15 seconds but yeah, that was an experience.”

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RYAN BOS in a selfie he posted on social media while in the hospital last month.

(Photo courtesy Bos)

in overall number of coronavirus figures. Maryland is the 13th most affected U.S. state and Anne Arundel, with 2,054 infections and 107 deaths, is the fifth most infected county in the state. Rehoboth Beach is in Sussex County, Del., the most affected county in the state with 2,520 confirmed cases and 72 deaths. Delaware is the 33rd most affected state.

The District comes in at no. 36 in the nation (among states) with 5,322 confirmed cases and 264 deaths, but its figures are enough to put it pretty high among metro areas. It’s fourth behind New York, Chicago and Philadelphia but above Seattle, as of latest numbers according to the New York Times.

Of the three who shared their stories with the Blade, Bos fared worst.

About April 10, he started feeling “something in my stomach” that reminded him of the diverticulitis he’d had six years ago. He took himself to the ER about 4 a.m. on Saturday, April 11 and spent three days in the hospital. He went home, rested but got a fever again on Sunday, the 19th. By Friday, the 24th, his primary care physician advised him to go back to the hospital when it was discovered he had an abdominal abscess, a complication of the diverticulitis.

He says the COVID-19 and diverticulitis were related. The latter, he says, was more painful.

“For me, the COVID, the worst was when I had a temperature but the question was sort of mixed in with this sinus infection so not knowing how the symptoms overlapped — the worst part is just not knowing if you have the COVID, you begin to question everything you feel, every tightness, every cough, you wonder if you’re getting the next symptom and when it’s going to be over. That was one of the most challenging aspects,” Bos says.

He says he was fortunate not to experience shortness of breath or some of the more debilitating symptoms associated with the coronavirus. The diverticulitis, he says, was especially nasty.

“When you have a bad flare-up, it’s very debilitating,” Bos says. “I wasn’t able to stand up, it hurt to stand up, you have these shooting pains through the abdomen, you’re thinking, ‘Is this appendicitis, what is this?’ It definitely was not a fun experience at all.”

TYLER TOWNSEND says he isolated himself upstairs while he waited out the coronavirus and took extreme precautions to keep his roommate healthy when using common areas.

(Blade file photo)

The staff at George Washington, Bos says, were “amazing.” It was never chaotic and he says they were on top of the testing and protocol.

Bos, who lives with one roommate (who has remained asymptomatic) in Mt. Vernon Square, says he has “no idea” whom he might have contracted COVID-19 from. He and the Capital Pride team were having their usual meetings in early March.

Davis, too, had several days of misery. She tried doing some teleworking and grad school work but says at its peak, the coronavirus sapped her energy.

“I felt really, really, really awful,” Davis says. “It was hard even to get out of bed.

I’d start the day just taking a bath wth Tylenol, just trying to subside the pain. The fatigue definitely kept me on my butt for most of that week.”

Townsend, who’s gay, had a gradual road back to health, he says with the cough letting up after his fever broke, then a lot of fatigue.

“It was definitely a slow process but I’m finally back to normal now,” he says.

“It’s not just like bam, one morning you wake up and it’s over.”

Davis says now she “feels great.” She’s been told she’s free to come out of isolation and do normal activities provided she practices social distancing. She cites her overall good health with her fairly speedy recovery. The whole ordeal was about two weeks total for her.

Davis and Townsend’s roommates, so far, have not had symptoms.

While she was overall pleased with how her county — Anne Arundel — handled things, she says nationally there are disappointments.

“It’s pretty appalling that a lot of black and brown people are dying most of this,” she says. “I think that says a lot about who we prioritize in our country and that’s an issue that comes up across the board in other social issues.”

Bos said this week he’s “feeling pretty good” but “getting antsy.” He is still connected to a drain tube for his stomach infection and hopes to have it removed this week. “I miss running,” the 46-year-old Indiana native says.

Bos says he’s been pleased with how D.C. elected officials have handled the outbreak but says national leadership has been underwhelming.

“I expected more from our country in handling this crisis,” Bos says.

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Nonbinary physician fights COVID-19 without legal protections LGBTQ health care workers are stepping up, saving lives

By PHILIP VAN SLOOTEN Dr. Scott Nass and Dr. Ly Pham are LGBTQ physicians on the front lines of the pandemic fight, but only one is protected from workplace discrimination. While Nass is fortunate to be a gay cisgender man practicing in California, Pham is a queer nonbinary doctor working in Louisiana without legal protections.

“Shreveport is a level one trauma center similar to Baltimore,” said Pham who uses singular they pronouns.

“The hospital was fairly busy before COVID [but the pandemic] added another layer of stress and anxiety.”

Adding to Pham’s stress is the feeling that LGBTQ people are tolerated but not fully accepted into the larger Shreveport community. While HRC reports both Shreveport and New Orleans ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, Louisiana has had a tumultuous history with attempts to mandate a statewide ban.

“I get misgendered all the time,” Pham said before describing a usual day when they arrive at the hospital around 8 a.m. “Mostly by patients coming in and some coworkers. But I’m here to treat the patients and not educate them because they’re in a crisis right now and need to be treated and admitted to the hospital.”

Pham says they allow their patients to interact with them in a way that is emotionally damaging because they feel harms need to be triaged during a crisis. Louisiana governors have sought remedies to this preventable situation.

However, in 2018 the Louisiana Supreme Court struck down Gov. John Bel Edwards’ (D) executive order protecting LGBTQ state employees and contractors from workplace discrimination, according to a report by The Advocate.

The resulting tally from Freedom for All Americans shows Louisiana is one of 28 states where an LGBTQ worker, including essential medical personnel during a global health crisis, can legally be fired or face other negative action on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

“The case of healthcare workers helps illustrate why it is in everyone’s interest that people are able to work regardless of factors that have nothing to do with their ability to do the job,” said Jon Davidson, Freedom for All Americans Chief Counsel. He is also an LGBTQ attorney who attended the Supreme Court arguments on this issue.

“I hope the court sees this is not just important to the employees affected, but for society as a whole.”

But not every state will be equally impacted by the ruling.

Davidson explains a Supreme Court ruling on the Bostock v. Clayton County, Altitude Express v. Zarda and Harris Funeral Homes V. EEOC cases determining if Title VII protections “on the basis of sex” includes sexual orientation and gender identity won’t affect the 22 states that already have LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination protections.

In April, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam signed into law the Virginia Values Act, expanding nondiscrimination protections

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Dr. SCOTT NASS is a gay cisgender man practicing in California.

(Photo courtesy Nass)

Dr. LY PHAM is a queer nonbinary doctor working in Louisiana without legal protections.

(Photo courtesy Pham)

in his state to include sexual orientation and gender identity and making it the first state in the South with such inclusions.

“We need every healthcare worker possible saving lives,” Davidson emphasized. “So having protections is both important to keep qualified people in their jobs and it is also important that LGBTQ workers not be worried about who might learn they are LGBTQ. If you have to hide your partner [or who you are] because you’re afraid your employer might find out and you might be fired, that’s unacceptable.”

He added it was “just outrageous and cruel” for healthcare workers to endure such uncertainty during a crisis.

HRC, the Movement Advancement Project and other national policy trackers have noted California, where Dr. Nass encountered the initial waves of the deadly virus, has passed a series of increasingly inclusive statewide measures over the years. Their legislative efforts culminated in the recent Gender Nondiscrimination Act in 2011.

As a result, though Nass also finds the pressures of the pandemic to be “incredibly stressful,” he has not faced the added stress of having to conceal his orientation.

“When I’m not working, I am sheltering in place at home with my husband,” Nass said. “A police officer in Los Angeles who is also on the front lines of the pandemic.”

While their lives are at risk, their jobs and identities are not.

However, the situation is very different outside of California.

Pham currently shelters-in-place with their fiancee, who uses both female and nonbinary pronouns and identifies as queer in orientation. The couple bought a two-person hammock so they can lie together under the trees and daydream about a future when they can travel. They are also planning their wedding and an eventual move to Los Angeles.

“It’s spring,” Pham said. “And we are appreciating nature and the flowers blooming and a time to slow down.”

But the rest period doesn’t last long for the physician who graduated in the midst of a global crisis. Pham has been out as an LGBTQ person since attending medical school at the University of Texas in San Antonio. Although Texas is another state without LGBTQ-inclusive workplace protections, Pham was able to find mentors who helped them through their personal journey from self-described butch lesbian to nonbinary as well as through their professional journey from student to physician.

Pham details the rest of their current daily routine with almost machine-like precision.

“I park in a parking lot that is gated using my badge,” Pham said. “There I put on my surgical mask that I have in my car. Parking is in the back of the hospital. I walk to the front. There is only one entrance to the hospital. I try to keep six feet from anyone else and I try to see if anyone else is walking toward the entrance.”

CONTINUES ON PAGE 27

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become a full-time performance space.”

A video for “Six Feet Apart” is planned and there’s a call out for dancers, singers, actors, artists, crafters and more to get involved. Find out more at crysmatthews. com. For exclusive content, look for Matthews on Patreon as CrysMatthews.

Matthews moved to the area in 2010 for love and lived in Herndon, Va., for a decade before moving to Washington.

She’s divorced and lives in Deanwood. She enjoys PokemonGO in her free time.

QUEERY Crys Matthews

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

I’ve been out since 1998 (my senior year of high school). My mom, who is a preacher, was the hardest.

Who’s your LGBTQ hero?

Bayard Rustin What LGBTQ stereotype most annoys you?

Currently, it’s that we’re all queeridentified. I am a proud, butch-identified lesbian.

(Photo courtesy Suib)

QUEERY: Crys Matthews

The local singer-songwriter answers 20 queer questions

Crys Matthews got the idea for her new song “Six Feet Apart” from a fan who’d seen her and her musical partner Heather Mae perform in Vermont and wrote to tell Matthews how the COVID-19 crisis is keeping she and her partner apart.

“One of them works on the front lines and so in order to keep their kids safe, they are in separate spaces for the foreseeable future,” Matthews says.

She was also inspired by a Facebook post from a friend about Jews trapped in their homes, unable to make a sound during the Holocaust.

“They couldn’t sing or make any noise at all for fear of certain death, but we can,” Matthews says. “Even during this very scary ordeal. … (Those thoughts) are what planted the seeds for this song.”

She and Mae are in isolation together so “it seemed like a great time to try to write together.”

Matthews describes her sound as a blend of Americana, folk, jazz, blues,

What’s your proudest professional achievement?

Winning the NewSong Music and Performance Competition at Lincoln Center in 2017, which also afforded me the opportunity to perform twice at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018.

What terrifies you?

The current trajectory of our country while under the 45th president of the United States’ leadership.

By JOEY DiGUGLIELMO joeyd@washblade.com

What’s something trashy or vapid you love?

“Real Housewives of Atlanta”

bluegrass and funk. She plays guitar, piano, clarinet and “a little” harmonica and banjo.

She started singing and writing songs seriously in 2007 when a friend in a band needed a fill-in keyboard player.

“I played the gig and had the time of my life,” the 40-year-old Richlands, N.C., native says. “So I went home and wrote my first song. A little while later, I entered that song into the campus talent show and won first place. The rest is history.”

She met Mae in 2012 through a mutual area songwriter. They were paired together for a one-off and clicked.

Matthews has written about 100 songs and recorded half of them, she says. She’s a full-time musician and says the lockdown has put a severe crimp on her livelihood.

“Because the thing that is keeping us safe is not gathering, I’ve lost tens of thousands of dollars due to canceled gigs with no end to the hemorrhaging in sight,” she says. “I’m trying to hang in there and I’ve definitely had to be creative. Our dining room table has

What’s your greatest domestic skill?

I’m amazingly handy. I can lay tile, I can build things, etc. I’m also a REALLY good cook.

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What’s your favorite LGBTQ movie or show?

“The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love” What’s your social media pet peeve?

When folks use you’re and your incorrectly.

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

Because I’m black and am reminded daily that, even after 400 years, we are still in a movement for equality and justice, the thought of the LGBTQ movement ending any time soon seems utterly impossible to me. There will always be work to be done.

There will always be conversations that need to be had. Thankfully, in the words of Ella Baker, “We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.”

What’s the most overrated social custom?

I’m southern, so I can’t think of any that are overrated. I still stay, “bless you” to strangers when they sneeze; I still hold the door for the person coming out of the door behind me; I love telling people, “happy birthday,” etc. That conditioning runs deep.

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

I grew up in an AME-Christian household.

Mom is a preacher, my uncle is a preacher, my grandpa was a deacon, his father was a preacher and on and on. Everything I know about being a good person is because of growing up in my family and learning from them and their interpretation of what it means to be a follower of Christ and what it means to embody that kind of love daily. So, while I have some pieces of several other theologies that inform the way I walk through the world, the core of me is still and will always be AME. What’s D.C.’s best hidden gem?

I really love the FDR memorial. It’s so serene and, as a social-justice songwriter, I find a great deal of wisdom in his words.

He was also my grandmother’s favorite president, so I always kind of feel like she’s walking beside me when I’m there.

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

I would have to say as a black woman, seeing Barack Obama elected president was a moment that I’ll never forget. It was so much more than a political moment. It is one of the few “big things” that have happened during my lifetime where I can tell you exactly where I was and who I was with when it happened.

What celebrity death hit you hardest?

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

I probably would have skipped dating a couple of my last girlfriends before I met my (now ex-) wife.

What are your obsessions?

Ava DuVernay Finish this sentence — It’s about damn time: … we elected a woman as POTUS. What do you wish you’d known at 18?

How to write songs.

Why Washington?

After my divorce, this is just where the universe saw fit for me to land and I’m so grateful. This is a great city. I’ve been very fortunate to find a neighborhood that feels more like the suburbs and has a lovely sense of community.

CALENDAR OUT&ABOUT Name change fundraiser planned

‘Straight Up’ starts screening today as part of the Reel Affirmations ‘on demand’ programming.

(Photo courtesy DC Center)

TODAY

Monday, May 11

“Straight Up” presented by the Reel Affirmations LGBTQ Film Series on Demand is available for viewing today at 10 a.m. Todd, a 20-something whose fear of dying leads him to question his homosexuality, and Rory, a struggling actress with her own insecurities, forge a strange relationship of discovery in this unusual rom-com. Virtual tickets are $12 and grant unlimited access until May 14 at 11 p.m. Visit thedccenter.org for details.

The Baltimore City Mayoral Debate hosted by the Baltimore City Chapter of the NAACP is tonight at 7 p.m. online. Moderators will question leading candidates for the June 2 Democratic primary about their plan for Baltimore’s future. Register at eventbrite. com/e/baltimore-city-mayoral-debatetickets-103857386238 to receive a link to join the live online event.

Saturday, May 9

The Pandemic Players present Shakepeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” tonight at 7 p.m. via YouTube at youtube.com/channel/UCHlIucoid7qqXkdNSeLnkQ. The live feed begins one hour before curtain time. Each week’s free performance is to support a local partner theater company through the pandemic. For more information, visit their Facebook event page.

Sunday, May 10

“SAGE,” a short film about Baltimore Ceasefire 365, screens today at noon via Zoom and is accompanied by a Facebook discussion on the Baltimore Ceasefire group page. Tickets are $12 and the cost supports the Baltimore filmmakers and theater program. For more information, visit facebook.com/baltimoreceasefire.

Tuesday, May 12

The online edition of May is? All About Trans, a month-long series of events focused on the transgender community, begins today at 5 p.m. with the Trans Latinx Institute. This conversation with the Latinx community is free and available via Zoom. To register for this and other transgender community events, visit mayistransdc.com.

Drag Makeup Live hosted by Star Track Adolescent Health Program (12 Penn St., Baltimore) is tonight, and every Tuesday night, at 6 p.m. This online event features local drag and makeup artists spilling tea on their artistry. Star Track staff will be in the comments section of the stream and will direct message resources to participants. Visit the Star Track Health Facebook page for more information.

A Broadway Dance Class with award-winning choreographer Parker

Esse is tonight at 6 p.m. via Zoom.

The event is free but donations are encouraged to help support Arena Stage programs at arenastage.org/ donate and arenastage.org/paypal.

To register and for more information, visit the Facebook event page or email onlineevents@arenastage.org.

Wednesday, May 13 Before and After Roe v. Wade, an online discussion hosted by Profs and Pints, is tonight at 7 p.m. Sara Matthiesen, a professor of history and women’s, gender and sexuality studies at George Washington University leads a discussion of the pending Supreme Court decision on June Medical Services v. Gee, a case that will decide if individuals still have a right to abortion as envisioned by the 1973 Roe v.

Wade ruling. To register for $12 tickets, visit the event’s Facebook page.

Thursday, May 14

America’s Islamic Heritage Museum (2315 Martin Luther King Jr Ave., S.E.) offers Free Iftar Meals tonight, and every Tuesday and Thursday, at 7 p.m. These free meals for Muslims to break their Ramadan fasts after sunset are available for pick up from 7-8 p.m. For more information, visit the Facebook event page or aihmuseum. org/ramadan-iftars.html.

Trans Maryland, formerly Trans Healthcare MD, is holding an online fundraiser to help cover name change costs for binary and nonbinary transgender Marylanders seeking access to affirming identity documents.

Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, Trans Maryland hosted name change clinics for trans Marylanders seeking to petition the courts for name changes. Now the program has become digital via its Facebook and organizational web pages.

Trans Maryland Founder and Executive Director Lee Blinder organized the fundraising Facebook page through Tides Foundation. Funds raised will help defray the costs associated with petitioning the Maryland courts for name changes which include filing costs, publication requirement fees, securing new identifying documents and mailing forms.

Visit transhealthcaremd.org/updates for more information.

Redefining Soft event is next weekend Redefining Soft D.C. 2020 hosted

by Redefining Soft, a group supporting masculine of center/masculine-presenting lesbian partners, is a two-day event from Saturday, May 17 at 2 p.m. to Sunday, May 17 at 4 p.m. Tickets for both days are $30.

This event features workshops, discussions, panelists, volunteers and vendors all supportive of deconstructing the word “soft” and its negative use in modern culture. Those who were not assigned female at birth and who do not consider themselves to be masculine-of-center are encouraged to pass their tickets on to those who do so they can benefit from the support.

For tickets and information, visit the Redefining Soft event page on Facebook.

Organizers did not immediately respond to inquiries about whether the event is virtual or in-person.

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Streaming cinema No shortage of movie content as lockdown drags on

By BRIAN T. CARNEY Movie theaters remain closed but virtual cinemas and streaming services still continue to produce exciting new content to keep LGBT viewers entertained at a socially responsible distance.

“The Half Of It” is a thoroughly charming coming-of-age story written and directed by out filmmaker Alice Wu. Wu, who was recently awarded the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival, draws inspiration from a wide variety of sources, including her own coming out story, Aristophanes’ allegory about the search for love in Plato’s “Symposium” (which may also be familiar to LGBT viewers from “The Origins of Love” number in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”), and the legendary tale of the swashbuckling Cyrano de Bergerac.

In the original story, Cyrano helps his tongue-tied friend Christian woo the beautiful Roxanne, even though he is also secretly in love with her. Wu updates the story and gives it a delightful queer twist.

Cyrano become Ellie Chu (Leah Lewis), a shy, straight-A student who helps her widowed father pay the bills by ghost-writing papers for her classmates.

One of her clients is football player Paul Munsky who asks Ellie to help him with a different project: writing love letters to Aster Flores (Alexxis Lemire), daughter of a local pastor and girlfriend of the captain of the football team (a delightfully goofy Wolfgang Novogratz). Ellie reluctantly agrees, even though she is also secretly in love with Aster.

The acting is superb. The three leads are engaging and believable, offering robust, richly layered performances. There are great supporting performances by Collin Chou (“The Matrix” movies) as Ellie’s father and the wonderful Becky Ann Baker as Ellie’s madcap English teacher.

The script is strong and Wu’s direction is sensitive and well-paced. The camera work is rich and exciting; Wu and cinematographer Greta Zozula show how the harsh but beautiful environs of southeast Washington state have shaped the characters.

“The Half of It” is now streaming on Netflix.

Sometimes what makes a movie queer is not its content, but its context. That’s definitely the case with the classic movie “Mephisto.” (1981) which is now available in a magnificently restored version.

“Mephisto is based on the 1936 novel by Klaus Mann. One of the six children of renowned author Thomas Mann, Klaus was openly gay, Jewish and a vocal opponent of the Nazi regime. In 1924, he got engaged to Pamela Wedekind and his sister Erika, a lesbian, got engaged to actor Gustaf Gründgens, who was also openly gay. Mann was forced to flee Germany in 1933.

He urged his friend to remain in exile with him, but Gründgens returned to Germany and fervently embraced the Nazi regime. He became an influential film and theater director as well as a famous actor,

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CHIARA MASTROIANNI in ‘On a Magical Night.’

(Photo courtesy Strand Releasing)

best known for playing the devil Mephistopheles in Goethe’s “Faust.”

Feeling betrayed by his friend, Mann wrote a novel that was a thinly disguised version of Gründgens’ life. In the novel, the actor Hendrik Hőfgen sells his (metaphorical) soul to the Nazis for fame and fortune, just as Faust sold his soul to the devil in the famous play.

Mann did not mention his brother-in-law’s homosexuality in the novel but mentions other unorthodox sexual practices instead.

The 1981 film adaptation, directed and co-written

by Hungarian filmmaker István Szabó, won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The movie was hailed for its sumptuous cinematography, breathtaking design, sharp writing and Brandauer’s complex and passionate performance in the lead role.

In the movie, as in the novel, Hőfgen is straight, but knowing the queer backstory makes watching the film a richer experience.

“Mephisto” is available through Kino Marquee, a new program by Kino Lorber that allows viewers to stream current and classic art-house movies at home,

with a portion of the proceeds going to support local independent cinemas. Compete details, and a list of D.C.-area theaters participating in the program, are available at kinolorber.com.

“On A Magical Night,” the latest film from queer French auteur Christophe Honoré, is a whimsical adult fairy tale about love, sex and marriage. After a fight with her husband of 20 years, Maria (an award-winning performance by the amazing Chiara Mastroianni) takes refuge in the hotel across the street from their apartment. Over the course of an enchanted evening, they are visited by lovers past and present, including an ex-girlfriend who has become a lesbian.

Honoré navigates the complex emotional and chronological terrain with a feather-light touch, supported by a clever soundtrack which smoothly blends classical and pop music.

“On A Magical Night,” in French with English subtitles, is now available on a variety of streaming services. It’s a fantastic celebration of love in all its maddening possibilities.

Positive outlook It’s tough to deal wth trying times — that’s where resilience comes in

By MICHAEL RADKOWSKY

As the COVID-19 crisis goes on without our having any clarity about how or when this crazy situation will improve, most everyone I know is super-anxious about getting sick, fed up with being locked down or both. Is there a way for us to get through this any easier?

Here’s a start: Acknowledge that there are no guarantees in life.

When we accept that life is going to throw all sorts of challenges at us and that there is sometimes nothing we can do to stop these challenges from coming, that leaves us with one great option: Work on becoming more resilient so we can better deal with the hard stuff, including the very hard stuff.

This is called resilience. Being able to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and keep going forward. Cliché, yes, but it’s what we need to do if we don’t want life to beat us down.

Good news: resilience is a trait we are born with. As I’m writing these words, I’m watching my 4-month-old, who recently learned to turn from his back onto his belly, trying to turn from his belly onto his back. He’s been at this for days, and has succeeded just once. He keeps crying and trying. He won’t give up. That’s resilience.

Further good news: If you’re LGBT, you likely have already done some work in this area. All the difficulties that we experience as we grow up — struggling to accept an identity that’s stigmatized, teasing, rejection and worse — and here we are. How? All of us found a way to keep moving forward in our lives rather than letting circumstances defeat us.

Of course, this is pretty much true of anyone who has been through tough times and survived. Many of our elders who experienced the Depression, wartime, or worse tell us that they aren’t fazed by the virus or having to stay at home. Having endured previous struggles, they know they can do their best to endure this one.

That’s what all of us must keep in mind now. Knowing that we have had the resilience to get through past difficulties can support us in getting through this new hard time.

Another important point to keep in mind: When we give our suffering meaning, it helps us endure the suffering. Reminding ourselves that striving to endure this tough period will make us even more resilient can actually help us to more easily endure it.

Other ways we can strengthen our own capacity for resilience: Do our best to take care of ourselves, of course. When we eat well, find a way to exercise, get adequate sleep and take breaks from virus-worrying through meditation or just focusing on something pleasant or uplifting, we’re less anxious and better able to keep calm. The ability to soothe ourselves is key to being resilient.

Stay connected to people around us so that we don’t wind up feeling isolated and alone, which can deepen feelings of hopelessness. We all need supportive friends and family whom we can ask for assistance when we really need it to survive.

Knowing that they are there is part of feeling resilient. And if we’re able to help others in some way — dropping off groceries for an elderly relative or neighbor, or simply being willing to listen — we’re likely to feel stronger and more able to cope.

Appreciate what we have. This can include a roof over our head, food to eat, people and companion animals we love and simply being alive right now. Doing will serve us much better than lamenting.

While none of us will live forever, we all want to stay in the game as long as we can. Striving to be resilient can help us keep going forward through life with the belief that if it’s possible to survive, we have a good shot at doing so. And that belief can give us hope, determination and a positive outlook.

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M AY 0 8 , 2 0 2 0 • WAS H IN GTO N B LAD E.CO M • 2 5

‘Circus of Books,’ a straight couple’s back-up plan in porn L.A.’s iconic gay bookstore celebrated in new documentary

By LEONARD A. ROBINSON Karen and Barry Mason never planned to own a bookstore.

Karen came to Los Angeles from Ohio seeking a respite from her journalism career where she profiled Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and former U.S. Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart for the Cincinnati Enquirer. Stewart’s rise to prominence came during the court’s hearing in Jacobellis v. Ohio when he uttered the phrase, “I know it when I see it” regarding the legal definition of pornography.

However, her plans shifted when she fell in love with Barry Mason. Mason became a successful innovator in the kidney dialysis technology business until rising malpractice insurance costs drove them out of business.

The couple, desperate for income, responded to an ad for Hustler who was looking for a distributor in the Los Angeles area later taking over Circus of Books, a responsibility they envisioned as only being temporary.

“Circus of Books,” as directed by their daughter Rachel Mason, follows the store’s roughly 30-year history going from the Mason’s temporary gig to an epicenter for gay Los Angelenos seeking a safe place to express themselves.

From a production standpoint, the film is solid and compelling. The writing, however, could use some improvements. In some scenes, the storytelling seems rushed with certain events being given merely a cursory view.

Karen’s attitude, at certain points, leaves much to be desired and was among the greatest factors in the film’s shortcomings. In some instances, she comes off as dismissive and uncooperative, and at worse, hostile and condescending.

Josh Mason described his mother’s instructions during their childhood visits to the store as, “Don’t look around. Look at the floor.” Throughout the film, it was clear that Karen followed her advice leaving viewers to wonder if she ever truly overcame the shame surrounding her role in owning an adult bookstore geared toward gay men.

The family, after all, at Karen’s demand, passed for a white, traditional, suburban, synagogue attending family when their professional lives were quite the contrary. In reality, they were as one customer described them, “purveyors of gourmet sexual material for every pervert in America.”

Either way, it’s obvious to viewers that this has weighed tremendously on Karen.

This was best exemplified in her response to her son, Josh, coming out as gay. In a rather bizarre twist of events, Karen is led to believe that Josh’s sexuality is punishment for her involvement in Circus of Books.

2 6 • WAS H I NGTO NB LA DE.COM • MAY 08, 2020

Gradually, she comes to accept Josh and reconciles her acceptance with her religious beliefs and becomes a prominent advocate for other families with LGBTQ children through his work with their local PFLAG chapter.

KAREN and BARRY MASON inside Circus of Books, the queer porn shop they owned and operated for decades.

(Photo courtesy of Netflix)

Some of the most emotionally painful scenes are those in which Josh recounts his coming out experience, including fears of being abandoned by his parents and family. In scenes like this, viewers might question if the Masons were truly prepared to share this aspect of their story.

One of the film’s most compelling attributes, however, is how the store is presented in the midst of Los Angeles queer history. Viewers will see familiar faces like adult entertainer Jeff Stryker to present day drag celebrity Alaska Thunderfuck who worked in Circus of Books for years.

Interestingly enough, viewers will notice that while progress has been made in some areas, others have seen many of these same issues either resurface or take new form.

For instance, in 2006, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, the rabbinical authority for the movement of Judaism that the Masons belonged to, welcomed ordination of openly gay and lesbian rabbis and the blessing of same-sex unions. Six years later, in 2012, it crafted ritual blessings for same-sex unions.

Today, non-Orthodox observant Jews like Karen Mason wouldn’t begin to worry about congregation

sanctioned judgement or condemnation coming upon them for accepting their child for who they are.

On the other hand, scenes surrounding AIDS carry a certain poignancy as we watch amid a global pandemic. Many of the same players who guided Americans through the AIDS crisis, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, are among the same ones guiding us through the COVID-19 pandemic. Americans are reexamining the manner in which they live their day-to-day lives with the people they love amid the tragic loss of life of so many of their friends, family members, and neighbors. These scenes serve as crucial reminders of the many lost to the AIDS crisis and the impact that it had on the day-today life of countless Americans and their families.

This hits close to home considering the loss of my grandfather in 1993, a few short years before my birth, to AIDS-related illness.

Unfortunately, there is a call among social conservatives to bring back laws severely limiting the private consumption of pornography among adults. In the American Conservative, writer Charlie Peters writes about Only Fans pages, a subscription-based video platform gaining popularity among adult entertainers, “Every now and then, the modern world produces a trend so ghostly you can’t help but sit back and think, would a global Islamic Caliphate really be that bad?”

Let’s hope this is just bad humor.

The irony of those, like Peters and the American Conservative, is simply too much to be taken seriously.

They, after all, are coalescing their energy to push for a more sexually restrictive society around a president who paid six figures in hush money to a porn star.

One of the most powerful scenes in the film comes toward the end. Barry and Rachel Mason are leading the PFLAG section of the parade waving their flags as they walk past the soon-to-be-closed Circus of Books.

It’s painful to watch the scene of another casualty in the never ending war on queer spaces.

Circus of Books, like many other historical queer spaces, was a crucial chapter in the story of the evolving role in American life for gay and lesbian people. But it is now the responsibility of the next generation to create their own spaces whether physical, digital, or elsewhere.

It’s crucial, however, that these new spaces achieve the same as the retiring ones: accessible and welcoming of all with a continual nod toward the future.

It’s for this reason that anyone with a stake in the future or nostalgia for the past should give “Circus of Books” a watch.

Leonard A. Robinson writes from Baltimore. He has been published in the Washington Blade, New Voices, and Reason.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20

Some doctors face discrimination on front lines “Everyone feels a little more distant than usual,” agrees Nass in less constrained cadence when discussing his own routine, which begins at 6:30 a.m. “And I’ve worked on speaking more with my eyes now that no one can see me smile under the constant masks.”

Pham is a little more reserved beneath their mask as workplace interactions usually lead to misgendering without reasonable recourse, especially during the crisis.

They arrive at a screening station where they answer a hospital worker’s questions and get their temperature checked. When they pass the checkpoint, they get a sticker on their badge.

“Different colors for different days,” Pham explains. “Before I even get to my office, I usually swing by the ground floor and pick up my N95 mask and face shield, if I’m seeing COVID patients.”

But Pham admits it’s hard to know which patients are COVID positive, so they wear an N95 mask whenever they see patients. They also wipe down their keyboard, desk, chair, mouse, phone — everything in their work area.

Nass may be fortunate when it comes to workplace protections, but his personal equipment seems a little less protective

than Pham’s, who works in a larger hospital and more closely with COVID patients.

“I stop at the front desk of the hospital to get an ear-loop mask,” Nass explains.

“Not the most protective kind, but those are kept even more securely in particular patient areas.”

Nass notes “on administrative days” he doesn’t usually see much of anyone as access into the office space has been limited to reduce the risk of spreading the virus.

“I am not assigned to take care of confirmed COVID-19 patients in one of the two units we’ve designated for that,” he said. “But we have started to treat every patient, and each other, as though we may be carrying the virus.”

And this may be sound advice, though reminiscent of the early stages of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In March, when PPE distributions were no match for the steady influx of patients in New York City, Kious Kelly, a gay nurse working at Mount Sinai hospital, contracted COVID-19 and died from it.

Kelly’s sister, Marya Patrice Sherron, told BuzzFeed News of a homophobic comment posted to a GoFundMe page set up to help with funeral expenses.

“It was a very, very, very hateful and insensitive comment suggesting that [his death] didn’t matter because he was a gay male.”

Pham faces similar insensitivity from nonbinary erasure even as they struggle to save lives during the crisis.

Pham’s hospital has a dedicated COVID team where they work when they are on call.

Pham said in the beginning stages of the crisis it took a week to get test results back so they weren’t certain who was infected and who wasn’t. Now, with better testing, the turnaround has been 24 hours or less.

“We know definitively if they are positive or negative faster, instead of just suspecting that they are,” Pham said. “It helps us triage better.”

Pham also said this is safer for the medical staff since many of the infected are asymptomatic. As a result, everyone is tested regardless of symptoms.

“We stress the importance of social distancing because you don’t know who could test COVID positive and they could be spreading it around unknowingly,” Pham said.

At the end of their shift, Pham removes their gear by following the guidance of a hospital instructional video. They then wipe down their shield with hospital-grade wipes and they toss

the mask if it has been visibly soiled.

After cleaning themselves and their workstation again, they wear a surgical mask down to their car. They then clean themselves and the interior of their car with alcohol again. When they get home, they keep a six feet distance from their fiancee and toss their clothes into the washing machine before jumping into the shower.

When it is safe, the two of them can finally relax together and reconnect by cooking, watching Netflix or daydreaming in their shared hammock.

Nass similarly ends his day with a trip to the washing machine and shower before collapsing on the couch with his husband and Boston Terrier. In the hour or two before he falls asleep he catches up on “The Magicians” or “Schitt’s Creek.”

“Sometimes I eat dinner,” he said in a rare consideration of his own health.

“LGBTQ healthcare workers are stepping up to save lives in this crisis,” said Hector Vargas, the executive director of GLMA, an LGBTQ medical professionals advocacy organization. “It’s long past time we step up for them to make sure they’re protected under the eyes of the law.”

Blue Angels salute D.C. health care workers The U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels and the U.S. Air Force’s Thunderbirds performed a flyover of D.C. on Saturday, May 2 to honor essential workers and medical professionals.

(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

M AY 0 8 , 2 0 2 0 • WAS H IN GTO N B LAD E.CO M • 2 7

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Honoring Mom while quarantined Enjoy your time together however you can

By VALERIE M. BLAKE For some people, being quarantined with your mother is pure joy. She cooks for you, does laundry, helps with the house cleaning, and counsels you about your hopes and dreams. If you’re quarantined as a family, she might keep the kids occupied by playing a game of Candyland with them when you just can’t stand to play once more.

Many people still live at home into their 20s and beyond. While our current economic situation might silence choruses of “Why don’t you get a job and move out,” it could make one feel as if the freedom to come and go has been curtailed by Mom and Dad and not by the coronavirus.

Let’s face it: There are those of us who wouldn’t make it more than three days quarantined with Mom, but still want to honor her. Unless you’re currently living with your mom, celebrating Mother’s Day is going to be a lot more challenging this year.

Traditions like the Capitol Hill Home Tour have been postponed until after Labor Day. Restaurants where you would normally take Mom are temporarily closed. Siblings are less likely to come over for a family dinner at home and even if they want to, the home itself might not allow for proper social distancing.

So, what are some options if you are in one place and Mom is in another?

Send a card. If your mother is old-school, she will tell you that a card lasts longer and can be read and enjoyed over and over. Better still, write a note sharing a memory or words of love. If you’re running out of time, send it via overnight mail. If Mom is local, drop that card or letter in her mail slot.

Call her on the phone. Remember when we used to do that? Drive to her home, roll down the windows, and loudly play her favorite music in the car as you come down her street. With her inside the house, stand outside at a window and chat.

Have Mom download FaceTime or Google Hangouts on her cell phone so you can let her see the new baby, give her a tour of your new house, or let her see your condo listed on the web.

Walk the dog and show her your neighborhood. (See how I got a real estate reference in there?)

Flowers, the staple of Mother’s Day gifts, are still available from companies like 1800Flowers or Bouqs, although varieties may be limited, and same day delivery may not be available.

Don’t let coronavirus stop you from honoring Mom this weekend

Chocolate truffles from Harry and David, drizzled strawberries from Shari’s Berries, and fruit bouquets from Edible Arrangements are always a nice touch. Dinners may be ordered in advance for delivery from a number of local restaurants.

Having a computer-savvy mom offers a lot of choices for involving other family members in Mother’s Day activities. Zoom is a great program to include people no matter where they live and, if you’re estranged from your mother or other members of the family, you can put in a quick appearance and disconnect if things get awkward.

Whether your extended family is large or small, you can elect to have dinner together, even if you’re not eating the same thing. You can catch up on what everyone has been up to, offer a toast, share family secrets, and just have a good laugh, all while being responsible for washing only your own dishes.

After dinner you can look at home movies (a.k.a. family videos and your favorite YouTube offerings) and play games together. Have a family talent show or play “Sweet Caroline” on the Karaoke machine and invite everyone to sing along. Identify items for a household treasure hunt and give a point to the person who is first to bring each one back to the group. Play Charades, Pictionary, or my favorite childhood game of storytelling – Who Can Tell the Biggest Lie. (Hint: it’s not who you think.)

This year has taught us that we are all vulnerable. Maybe next year it will be time to buy the family compound in the mountains or at the beach, but for now, enjoy your time together however you can. You won’t regret it.

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