Washingtonblade.com, Volume 51, Issue 36, September 4, 2020

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VOLUME 51 ISSUE 36 ADDRESS PO Box 53352 Washington DC 20009 PHONE 202-747-2077 E-MAIL news@washblade.com INTERNET washingtonblade.com PUBLISHED BY Brown Naff Pitts Omnimedia, Inc. PUBLISHER LYNNE J. BROWN lbrown@washblade.com ext. 8075 EDITORIAL EDITOR KEVIN NAFF knaff@washblade.com ext. 8088 SR. NEWS REPORTER LOU CHIBBARO JR. lchibbaro@washblade.com ext. 8079 NEWS REPORTER CHRIS JOHNSON cjohnson@washblade.com ext. 8083 REPORTER & INTERNATIONAL NEWS EDITOR MICHAEL K. LAVERS mlavers@washblade.com POP CULTURE REPORTER JOHN PAUL KING PHOTO EDITOR MICHAEL KEY mkey@washblade.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS PETER ROSENSTEIN, MARK LEE, LATEEFAH WILLIAMS, KATE CLINTON, KATHI WOLFE, ERNESTO VALLE, NICOLÁS LEVY, FELIPE ALFACE, YARIEL VALDÉS GONZÁLEZ, LYNARE ROBBINS, RACHAEL ESPINET, PHILIP VAN SLOOTEN, ESTEBAN GUZMÁN, ALEX COOPER, KATLEGO K. KOL-KES, VICTOR MAUNG CREATIVE DESIGN/PRODUCTION AZERCREATIVE.COM SALES & ADMINISTRATION DIRECTOR OF SALES & MARKETING STEPHEN RUTGERS srutgers@washblade.com ext. 8077 SR. ACCT. EXECUTIVE BRIAN PITTS bpitts@washblade.com ext. 8089 ACCT. EXECUTIVE JOE HICKLING jhickling@washblade.com ext. 8094 CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATION PHILLIP G. ROCKSTROH prockstroh@washblade.com ext. 8092 NATIONAL ADVERTISING RIVENDELL MEDIA 212-242-6863; sales@rivendellmedia.com For distribution, contact Lynne Brown ext. 8075. Distributed by MediaPoint, LLC

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D.C. study documents ‘Life and Death’ of trans woman Alice Carter Findings show help from city couldn’t save beloved figure from self-inflicted harm

By LOU CHIBBARO JR. | lchibbaro@washblade.com

A case study commissioned by the Office of the D.C. Auditor released on Aug. 25 takes what observers consider an unprecedented in-depth look at a transgender woman’s struggle with drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, and homelessness and the valiant but unsuccessful attempt by dozens of social services experts from city agencies and community-based groups to help her over a period of at least a dozen years.

The study, “Lessons From the Life and Death of Alice Carter,” was prepared by the D.C.-based nonprofit organization Street Sense Media at the request of D.C. Auditor Kathleen Paterson.

Street Sense Media provides a wide range of services for homeless people, including a newspaper in which Carter and other homeless people told their own stories.

Street Sense Media was among several community groups, including the LGBTQ organizations Whitman-Walker Health and Casa Ruby that provided assistance to Alice Carter from shortly after she moved to D.C. around 2006 until the time of her death on Dec. 18, 2019.

Carter, 35, died at Howard University Hospital one day after she was found unconscious on the sidewalk on the 1600 block of 17th Street, N.W. outside a McDonald’s restaurant where she hung out on and off and often slept while homeless for at least 12 years, people who knew her said.

A D.C. police officer and, minutes later, paramedics from the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department performed CPR to resuscitate Carter after police reported she initially had no pulse. She was rushed to Howard University Hospital where she was pronounced dead the next day.

The D.C. Medical Examiner’s Office determined the cause of death to be alcohol intoxication with pneumonia and HIV complications listed as contributing factors.

The 38-page case study report prepared by Street Sense Media says Carter had struggled with what it calls substance use disorder over a period of a dozen or more years during which community-based groups and city agencies, including the police and the D.C. Superior Court’s mental health division, interacted with Carter.

The report says she had been arrested at least 33 times for mostly misdemeanor offenses since her first known arrest in D.C. in 2007 on a charge of sexual solicitation.

Patterson, the D.C. Auditor, said she decided to commission the case study of Carter’s interaction with the criminal justice system and local government and community services groups to determine what, if anything different, the city government could do to help people like Carter survive struggles with substance use disorder and mental health issues.

“We hope that by understanding how Carter came to drink herself to death on a freezing D.C. sidewalk just shy of her 36th birthday after hundreds of professionals tried to help her with housing, medical care, and legal support, we might help others who struggle as she did,” Patterson said in an Aug. 24 letter to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson announcing the release of the case study.

Patterson told the Washington Blade in a phone interview that she wanted the case study focusing on Carter to provide a “human face” on a separate, much broader audit she commissioned that examined the city’s record in providing services to District residents with substance use disorders who are incarcerated and subsequently are released into the community.

That study, which is 169 pages long, is called “Everything is Scattered…The Intersection of Substance Use Disorders and

ALICE CARTER died in December 2019 after a long struggle with mental illness and addiction.

Incarcerations in the District.” It was prepared for the Office of the D.C. Auditor by the Council for Court Excellence, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that has focused on criminal justice system related issues for more than 40 years.

The broader study, which doesn’t specifically mention Alice Carter, presents findings, among other things, that city agencies have provided “continuous care” to just over only 1 percent of cases where people released from incarceration in D.C. are believed to have had a substance use disorder.

The case study on Carter, which accompanied the broader study, includes among its recommendations a call for “increased capabilities for community providers to initiate involuntary commitment procedures” for people like Carter who demonstrate they are a danger to themselves or others.

Brian Carome, executive director of Street Sense Media who said he got to know Carter during her interaction with Street Sense Media, told the Blade he believes Carter would have benefited from and possibly could have been saved by additional involuntary commitment efforts to provide her with mental health and substance abuse treatment. The report points out that Carter repeatedly turned down offers by community groups to undergo mental health treatment.

It notes that Carter repeatedly violated probation orders issued by D.C. Superior Court judges that required she undergo mental health and substance abuse treatment programs as an alternative to incarceration. At least a dozen times, the report states, judges issued bench warrants for her arrest for violating the terms of her release requiring her to enter various treatment programs.

The case study report on Carter states that a communitybased organization called Community Connections played a leading role in helping Carter for a number of years, including providing her with case managers to assist Carter in obtaining housing services as well as help for her alcohol and drug use problems.

The Community Connections website says its mission is to “provide behavioral health, residential services, and primary health care coordination for marginalized and disenfranchised women, men, youth, and children living in the District of Columbia, many of whom are coping with challenges including mental illness, addiction, and the aftermath of trauma and abuse.”

According to the case study report, Community Connections arranged for Carter to be “assessed for involuntary commitment a final time” in November 2019.

“The psychiatrist at Community Connections who evaluated Alice did not believe she met the criteria for involuntary commitment at the time,” the study report says. “In early December [2019], a nurse at Community Connections

conducted a medical evaluation of Alice, who reported drinking four pints of alcohol a day and using cocaine, PCP, and K2,” which is known as synthetic marijuana.

“Alice said she did not want to engage in substance use treatment or start medication,” the report says. “During this appointment, Alice shared that her boyfriend at the time had beaten her up the night before. The nurse noted that Alice’s treatment team would continue to monitor Alice,” the case study report says.

“On December 17, 2019, a rehabilitation specialist from Community Connections found Alice sitting in front of the McDonald’s at 1619 17th Street, N.W.,” the report continues.

“The two spoke for 45 minutes during which Alice reported that the previous night, she was found passed out and was taken to GWU Hospital,” says the report.

“While Alice could not identify any problem with her drinking habit, the rehabilitation specialist told Alice that ending up in the hospital because of alcohol is not something Alice should take lightly,” the report says. “Alice said that she planned to come to Community Connections sober the next week,” the report notes.

It says an hour and a half later Carter was found unconscious at the same location where the Community Connections specialist had spoken to her. The report notes that “concerned individuals in the area” flagged down a D.C. police officer and within minutes paramedics arrived and temporarily resuscitated Carter before taking her to Howard University Hospital, where she died the next day.

A spokesperson for Community Connections couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on whether the group thinks its psychiatrist should have arranged for an involuntary commitment for Carter in late November or early December when Carter was assessed during visits to the group’s facility on Capitol Hill near the Eastern Market Metro station or when the rehabilitation specialist talked to Carter on the sidewalk outside the McDonald’s.

Carome, the executive director of Street Sense Media, told the Blade he is hopeful that public policy officials in the D.C. government will carefully consider the recommendation of the case study report that roadblocks for involuntary commitment for people in need such as Alice Carter be reassessed and possibly eliminated.

Earlier this year, Carome told the Blade that a decision by a judge to remove Carter from the Superior Court’s mental health division to the regular criminal division could have amounted to a “death sentence” for Carter because it made it more difficult for her to be directed to undergo mental health treatment.

But last week, following the release of the case study report, Carome said he could not assert definitively that involuntary commitment for Carter into a substance abuse or mental health treatment program would have saved her life.

“I cannot say if that happened that the trajectory of her life would have changed,” he said. “But given the early age of which she died and given that she clearly was in need of behavioral health treatment and then she exhibited an inability to voluntarily engage in that, it makes you wonder given the number of overdoses she had whether she was capable of making decisions for herself,” Carome told the Blade. “And perhaps there could have been a period of stabilization.”

The full text of the case study report on Alice Carter can be accessed here: http://dcauditor.org/report/lessons-learned-from-thelife-and-death-of-alice-carter/

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Sen. Coons to speak at Blade party in Rehoboth The Blade Foundation today announced a summer closing party set for 5 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 11 at the Blue Moon in Rehoboth Beach, Del., featuring remarks from U.S. Sen. Chris Coons.

U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester will address the event via video and renowned pianist Nate Buccieri will entertain the crowd.

There is limited capacity as all COVID restrictions and social distancing rules will be followed.

Tickets are $50 and available U.S. Sen. CHRIS COONS is slated to address the Blue at bladefoundation.org or on the Blade Facebook page. A Moon crowd on Sept. 11. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key) portion of the ticket price is tax deductible. Price includes drinks and appetizers.

“We are excited to host an in-person event after months of quarantine,” said Blade Editor Kevin Naff. “We’re following all of the state and CDC guidelines to keep attendees safe and look forward to seeing everyone soon.”

The event is a fundraiser benefitting the Blade Foundation, a 501(c)3 that raises money to fund scholarships and fellowships for LGBTQ students. Proceeds for the event will fund the 2021 Blade Foundation-Steve Elkins Memorial Fellowship for an LGBTQ journalist who will cover issues of concern to LGBTQ Delawareans.

Sponsors of the event include Delmarva Power and the Blue Moon.

The event replaces the Blade’s long-running summer kickoff party, normally held in May, which was cancelled due to COVID-19.

STAFF REPORTS

Police probe threats against Casa Ruby D.C. police are investigating an incident on Tuesday, Aug. 25, in which two unidentified suspects allegedly made threats to do bodily harm against Casa Ruby Executive Director Ruby Corado outside the Casa Ruby headquarters on Georgia Avenue, N.W. In a video posted on Facebook, Corado said one or both of two women made what she believes were death threats against her and another Casa Ruby employee after Corado approached the two women as they were hurling anti-transgender and homophobic slurs at the Casa Ruby employee, who is a transgender woman.

Casa Ruby is an LGBTQ community services center with a special outreach to the transgender community and the LGBTQ Latino/Latina community.

Corado told the Washington Blade one of the two women making the threats identified herself as the grandmother of a female teenage Casa Ruby client who identifies as a lesbian. Corado said the woman identifying herself as the client’s grandmother was asking about the client’s whereabouts.

When a Casa Ruby employee told her the building was temporarily closed and the woman would have to come back later in the day to inquire about her granddaughter the woman became irate and began making threats and shouting anti-LGBT insults at the employee, according to Corado.

Corado said she arrived on the scene and approached the two women shortly after the incident began. She said she called the police after the woman claiming to be the client’s grandmother and the other woman with her continued to make threats and refused Corado’s request that they leave the Casa Ruby parking lot, where the incident unfolded.

A police report obtained by the Blade says the incident occurred outside the Casa Ruby building at 7530 Georgia Ave., N.W. The report identifies the two individuals who allegedly made the threats only as Suspect 1 and Suspect 2 and does not disclose their gender.

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Third gay candidate running for D.C. school board seat

RAVI K. PERRY is seeking the at-large seat on the D.C. State Board of Education.

(Photo courtesy of the Perry Campaign)

Howard University Professor and Political Science Department Chair Ravi K. Perry is running as an openly gay candidate for the at-large seat on the D.C. State Board of Education in the city’s Nov. 3 election.

Perry, who contacted the Washington Blade about his candidacy last week, is the third out gay candidate running this year for a seat on the nonpartisan, nine-member elected D.C. State Board of Education.

Among the five other at-large candidates with whom Perry is competing for the atlarge seat is gay education advocate Mysiki Valentine, who has worked as a teacher, instructional coach, summer reading specialist, and tutor-mentor for students, parents, and other teachers across the East Coast, according to his campaign website.

Also running for the D.C. school board this year is Allister Chang, a gay education advocate who is one of six candidates running for the Ward 2 seat on Board of Education.

He has served as a visiting researcher for the United Nations Institute for Lifelong Learning and is about to begin a D.C.-based Halcyon Incubator Fellowship in social entrepreneurial endeavors. He holds a master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Perry received his doctorate in political science from Brown University in 2009. Prior to assuming his current position at Howard University in 2019, Perry served as chair of the Department of Political Science at Virginia Commonwealth University and was a member of the faculty at Mississippi State University and Clark University in Worchester, Mass.

His official biography at Howard says he is considered an expert on Black politics, minority representation, urban politics, American public policy, and LGBT candidates of color. He is the editor of a book focusing on urban politics and the author and co-author of two others on related topics. The biography says he is currently writing a book called, “Black Queer Electoral Politics: Introducing America’s Openly LGBTQ Black Politicians.”

Perry, Valentine and Chang have each said, if elected to the school board, they will address the needs of the city’s diverse public school population and would take steps to ensure that special concerns and needs of LGBTQ students are appropriately addressed.

Two other openly gay candidates are running this year for seats on the D.C. Council.

Gay Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Alexander Padro, who represents the city’s Shaw neighborhood in Ward 6, is running as an independent for one of two at-large seats up for election this year on the Council. Gay Dupont Circle Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Randy Downs is running as an independent candidate for the Ward 2 D.C. Council seat.

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Trump courts LGBTQ voters, as advocates push back HRC denounces attempts to ‘gaslight pro-equality voters’

By CHRIS JOHNSON | cjohnson@washblade.com

But who is actually the target of the Trump campaign’s Faced with the Trump campaign’s attempt at LGBTQ new LGBTQ outreach? Observers told the Blade they outreach — an unprecedented effort from a Republican think the audience is not LGBTQ voters, but suburban presidential nominee, especially from an incumbent who mothers who are fearful of discrimination against their has built an anti-LGBTQ record — LGBTQ advocacy groups children and friends. say they’re staying the course in their efforts to expose the Casey Pick, a lesbian D.C. attorney and former staffer real President Trump. with Log Cabin Republicans, expressed that sentiment in On the heels on the successful video of Richard an email to the Blade.

Grenell, who’s gay and former acting director of national “Instead of pro-equality policies, the Trump team intelligence, dubiously calling Trump the “most proand their allies are trying to reframe his abysmal record gay president” in history, the New York Times last week in a transparent attempt to win over LGBTQ Americans’ reported Trump, after years of anti-LGBTQ attacks in friends and family, particularly those suburban women his administration, would make LGBTQ outreach a polls consistently show they’re hurting with,” Pick said. component of his campaign.

“If they can neutralize the argument that Trump is hostile But LGBTQ advocates who spoke to the Washington to LGBTQ rights, at least among those folks, it may help Blade said Trump’s pivot to LGBTQ outreach hasn’t forced move the needle for them.” them to rethink strategy. In fact, they say they’re sticking LGBTQ advocates are sticking with the plan as President DONALD Acosta said the votes of those suburban moms will be with their plans as initially envisioned, confident the antiTRUMP attempts outreach. (Screen capture via C-SPAN) crucial in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Wisconsin, LGBTQ actions from the Trump administration would which are considered swing states in the upcoming election. speak for themselves.

“It’s actually an attempt to gaslight pro-equality voters like the Republican leaning suburban Lucas Acosta, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, said “we were always going mom outside of Detroit, Philadelphia, Phoenix, or Milwaukee who has an LGBTQ kid and to ramp up our communications to LGBTQ voters and pro-equality voters about LGBTQ issues: is hesitant about voting for Donald Trump,” Acosta said. “The Trump campaign is targeting this is what that strategy looks like.” conservative media, they’re going on Fox News and talking about this because they want to “Ric Grenell, like Donald Trump, is divorced from reality, and their attempts to gaslight proshore up and reassure those voters.” equality voters necessitates a response from HRC,” Acosta said. “It’s important that we highlight Regardless of the motive, the material from the Trump campaign is moving forward. On again for equality voters the reality of this administration’s record, that this is a horrifically antiMonday, the Trump campaign issued an e-blast to reporters titled, “Nothing To Be Proud Of: The LGBTQ administration.”

Biden LGBT Record,” which asserts Biden is “far from the champion for LGBT Americans that he Barbara Simon, a spokesperson for the media watchdog GLAAD, said highlighting Trump’s claims to be.” The e-blast was timed the same day Biden took part in an LGBTQ fundraiser with anti-LGBTQ record is consistent with its mission “to educate the public and the media about Cher that ended up raising $2 million.

LGBTQ people and issues, and to ensure accurate and respectful coverage.”

Among other things, the Trump e-blast cites a 1974 quote from Biden on gays being a “This strategy isn’t new or a response to the Trump administration’s seemingly late in the security risk as well as his votes for the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, a defense game outreach,” Simon said. “GLAAD has been holding the Trump administration accountable authorization bill in 1993 that made “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” the law of the land and an amendment since day one, when the administration wiped any mention of LGBTQ from the White House in 1993 that barred HIV-positive people from entering the United States. website. We have since tracked more than 172 attacks of rhetoric and policy coming from the The e-blast takes Biden’s comments coming out for same-sex marriage on “Meet the Press” administration in our Trump Accountability Project. We have been calling out these attacks as in 2012, which is still remembered for being a catalyst for the marriage equality movement, and they happen and pointing to the cumulative record as needed throughout the last three and a twists it around, pointing out his office issued a statement immediately after insisting Biden had half years.” made no news during the TV appearance.

Although they disavow they’re rethinking strategy, the response effort from LGBTQ Samantha Zager, a Trump campaign spokesperson, built on the message that Trump is proadvocates seeking to defend Biden and denounce Trump is apparent. The Human Rights LGBTQ, but Biden has little to show on his LGBTQ record, in response to a Blade inquiry on Campaign in response to the Grenell video launched an online video, titled, “Liar, Liar,” asking whether the Trump campaign thinks LGBTQ voters are persuadable. viewers why they should believe Trump is pro-LGBTQ when he’s lied on so many other issues.

“Joe Biden has spent nearly 50 years in politics offering nothing but lip service to the The Human Rights Campaign has also been blasting out to news outlets examples of American people, including the LGBT community,” Zager said. “Biden, like so many other Trump’s anti-LGBTQ actions in news statements, which culminated last week with a list of 50 Democrats, is content to take voters and certain voting blocs for granted but President Trump attacks against the LGBTQ community and 50 ways Biden will help LGBTQ people. ran to make America great for everyone – and he’s delivered for LGBT Americans in just his first In terms of Trump attacks, among the items name-checked are the transgender military ban, term. From protecting and empowering the LGBT community, to appointing the first openly arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court LGBTQ people shouldn’t be covered under federal civil gay Cabinet member, to his commitment to end the criminalization of homosexuality around rights law, opposing the Equality Act and siding with taxpayer-funded religious child welfare the globe, President Trump has given LGBT voters a multitude of reasons to support him this agencies seeking to refuse placement into LGBTQ homes.

November.”

Also noted is a recent high-profile development: the Trump administration is denying The next day after the e-blast, Outspoken, the newly launched media platform for Log Cabin gay couples citizenship for their children born overseas via surrogacy, citing language in the Republicans, posted a response to the Human Rights Campaign’s list of anti-LGBTQ actions Immigration & Nationality Act restricting U.S. citizenship to biological kids. Asked by the Blade from the Trump administration, seeking to debunk all of them. Log Cabin subsequently tweeted about the Trump administration’s litigation against these couples, White House Press Secretary it was the most highly viewed post on Outspoken since its launch.

Kayleigh McEnany said this week it was about surrogacy and had “nothing to do” with sexual “For HRC, GLAAD, and their associates, LGBT equality has been redefined to mean overreach, orientation. special treatment, and prioritizing one group’s rights over others,” says the post, which has no For its part, GLAAD bought ad time on Fox News for an ad titled, “The Conversation,” which byline. “For those organizations, gays cannot have equality without state-sponsored persecution depicts a Zoom call of a gay youth attempting to convince his Trump supporting mother to vote of other communities they deem hostile.” otherwise in the upcoming election.

Acosta called the Outspoken post “absurd,” taking particular issue with it minimizing the “He’s hurting me,” the youth pleads, saying Trump is blocking changes to the federal law that ongoing violence against Black transgender women, which he said isn’t consistent with the would protect him from discrimination like being evicted because he’s gay. (It should be noted “reality we’re seeing on the ground,” and Trump’s lack of response to the issue. the legal landscape has changed significantly after the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v.

The Outspoken post asserts based on data Black transgender women “experience violence Clayton County.) at a lower rate than biological women nationwide” and much of the violence against them is Simon, however, insisted GLAAD’s ad on Fox & Friends was planned well in advance of any because they “chose to put themselves in high-risk situations where the potential for violence is news Trump would attempt LGBTQ outreach. elevated, such as engaging in prostitution or drug-dealing.”

“The ad buy was placed for the week of the Republican National Convention, well before At least 26 transgender people have been murdered so far this year, including eight Black Richard Grenell and the Log Cabin Republicans began their push to pinkwash the Trump transgender women, according to a blog post from the Human Rights Campaign. administration’s record,” Simon said. “We responded to that as it happened, to loudly and The Biden campaign didn’t respond to the Blade’s request for a comment for this article. forcefully set the record straight about the administration’s attacks against LGBTQ people.”

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Cher helps raise $2 million for Biden “So ask yourself, do you believe in life after Trump?”

That was the question asked by Cher, paraphrasing the title of her iconic song, at the virtual LGBTQ fundraiser she headlined for Joe Biden on Monday evening, according to a pool report.

“Hi, it’s me,” Cher said at the end of the 30-minute fundraiser on screen wearing a black leather biker jacket. “Your poster girl since I was 9 years old. I walked into our living room and met two of the most adorable gay hairdressers ever.”

Also appearing at the event was Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), the most senior openly gay member of Congress, lesbian Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Pete Buttigieg, who made history in the Democratic primary as a gay presidential candidate.

Cicilline said at the beginning of the event that it had raised nearly $2 million, surpassing its original goal. The campaign said there were 500 attendees on the Zoom call.

Cher said she had known Biden since 2006 when she invited herself to his office: “He thinks he invited me but really I invited myself. I saw a speech Joe had given and it was love at first speech.”

Drawing a distinction between Biden and Trump, Cher said, “Joe is smart enough, he’s kind enough, he’s strong enough. I also know that the person, woman, man, camera, TV, in the White House is an idiot. I mean it. No, the guy is really an idiot.”

Biden joined the call and recommitted himself to signing the Equality Act into law within 100 days as president, lamenting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has refused to bring up the legislation for a vote.

“When I’m president, that changes. I’ll make signing the Equality Act one of the top priorities of my first 100 days,” Biden said, adding he’d seek to “build a nation where everybody, everybody is finally not only created equal, but treated equally as well.”

CHRIS JOHNSON

Kennedy, Morse lose in Massachusetts primary In the aftermath of the Massachusetts primary, Rep. Joseph Kennedy III (D-Mass.), who has made a name as a crusader for the transgender community, came up short in his challenge against Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in a result seen as a victory for the left wing of the Democratic Party.

The Associated Press called the primary Tuesday night in favor of Markey at 10:29 ET. According to early results, Markey claimed 53.9 percent of the vote, compared to the 46.11 percent won by Kennedy, who’s chair of the Congressional Transgender Task Force.

Kennedy, thanking supporters, said he called Markey to concede, telling him he’s a “good man” and asserting “you have never heard me say otherwise,” according to the New York Times.

“No matter the results tonight, I would do this again with all of you in a heartbeat,” Kennedy was quoted as saying.

In related news, Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) chair of the powerful House Ways & Means Committee, fended off a challenge from Alex Morse, the mayor of Holyoke who had the backing of the Justice Democrats. Morse, who’s gay, was also endorsed by the LGBTQ Victory Fund.

According to early results, Neal had 59.5 percent of the vote, compared to the 40.6 percent claimed by Morse to represent Massachusetts’ 1st congressional district.

The primary got ugly when College Democrats of Massachusetts published a letter asserting he used “his position of power for romantic or sexual gain” as an instructor at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, by using dating apps to contact and match with students. Morse said he never had sex with anyone younger than 18 and he broke no rule as an instructor.

Rep. JOSEPH KENNEDY III came up short in his primary bid.

(Blade file photo by Michael Key)

The letter, which his supporters criticized as a homophobic smear, cost him the endorsement of the Sunrise Movement, but the LGBTQ Victory Fund stood by him. Journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote that the allegations were “old homophobic tropes” and called the effort a “smear campaign.”

CHRIS JOHNSON

White House defends denying citizenship to kids born via surrogate White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, under questioning from the Blade, defended on Monday the Trump administration litigating against same-sex couples who were denied citizenships for their children born via surrogacy.

McEnany, asked how the administration can claim to support LGBTQ people — which she has previously said — when it takes this litigation position, said the position of the Trump administration is based on surrogacy, not the sexual orientation of the couples.

“That pertained to surrogacy; it had nothing to do with sexual orientation of the parents,” said McEnany, who then read through her list of items she has said demonstrates Trump is pro-LGBTQ.

“This administration and president will proudly stand on a record of achievements, like leading a global initiative to end the criminalization of homosexuality throughout the world, launching a plan to end the HIV epidemic by 2030 and easing a ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men,” McEnany said.

U.S. District Michael Brown in Georgia, a Trump appointee, became last week the latest in a series of judges to rule against the State Department in denying citizenship to the kids of these couples, determining the administration was incorrectly interpretation.

CHRIS JOHNSON

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Gay Games announces 2022 ‘contingency planning committee’ LGBTQ sports event expected to take place despite turmoil in Hong Kong

By LOU CHIBBARO JR. | lchibbaro@washblade.com

Officials with Gay Games Hong Kong 2022, the committee organizing the quadrennial international LGBTQ sports event scheduled to take place in Hong Kong in November 2022, announced at an online webinar on Aug. 27 that a “contingency planning committee” has been created to address potential “risks” associated with the event.

Although those risks include the potential impact of the coronavirus pandemic and ongoing “social unrest” in Hong Kong, organizers stated during the webinar that the Hong Kong government remains highly supportive of the Gay Games. They said a team of more than 100 volunteers is working diligently to safely accommodate the thousands of LGBTQ athletes and spectators expected to arrive in Hong Kong in November 2022.

The webinar took place less than two months after China enacted a highly controversial security law giving the Hong Kong government greater authority in cracking down on pro-democracy protesters who have been holding demonstrations, some of which have become violent, for more than a year.

The Federation of Gay Games, the international governing body that oversees the Gay Games, reaffirmed its decision to select Hong Kong as host for the 2022 Gay Games during its Annual General Assembly meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico last November.

One year earlier, the FGG selected Hong Kong over D.C. and Guadalajara, who were the two finalist cities competing with Hong Kong, to become the host city for the games.

FGG officials have predicted at least 12,000 athletes will participate in 36 sports in the 2022 Gay Games, with at least 75,000 spectators expected to turn out in Hong Kong to watch the games and participate in at least 20 accompanying arts and cultural events.

“As mentioned in the webinar, Gay Games Hong Kong 2022 has set up a contingency planning committee and has drawn up a contingency plan to cover specific risks, like the pandemic and social unrest,” said Federation of Gay Games spokesperson Shiv Paul in response to an inquiry from the Washington Blade.

“FGG with GGHK are closely monitoring the health, political, sporting, travel, and international events that could impact the delivery of Gay Games 11 in Hong Kong in November 2022,” Paul said. “Contingency plans are in development to mitigate the potential impact any unfortunate circumstances might cause,” he said.

“The team on the ground in Hong Kong are doing an excellent job in keeping the board up to date with concerns surrounding Hong Kong,” Paul quoted Joanie Evans, co-president of the FGG, as saying.

Paul added, “The GGHK team is composed of a team of 100 passionate LGBTQ+ volunteers and are looking forward to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Gay Games, first in Asia. They happily make Hong King their home, feeling safe in the ability to lead out, productive lives. The organization cannot speculate on sensationalized unconfirmed preconceptions.”

He was referring to a question from the Blade asking whether China might force local Hong Kong officials to arrest Gay Games spectators from Europe, North America or elsewhere if they make statements critical of China during the Gay Games cultural events.

Last year’s unrest in Hong Kong has some wondering about the viability of holding the Gay Games there in 2022. (Photo by Studio Incendo via Flickr)

Under the sweeping national security law enacted by China earlier this year, Hong Kong officials have made numerous arrests of dissidents denouncing China for infringing on what dissidents say was China’s 1997 agreement with the United Kingdom to allow Hong Kong to remain a semiautonomous region of China for 50 years after the British handed over its former colony to China.

Paul said the Hong Kong government has been involved in the Gay Games Hong Kong organizers’ application process for holding the Games in Hong Kong beginning in 2016.

“GGHK has been having ongoing and regular communications with multiple departments of the Hong Kong government to ensure that they are kept abreast of the process and support required from the government,” Paul told the Blade.

“In all the interactions GGHK is having with the Hong Kong government, support continues to grow within the Hong Kong government regarding GGHK,” he said. “New allies are offering support as it will be one of the biggest events to take place in Hong Kong during the next few years and stands to positively impact on the city,” said Paul.

State Dept. must recognize citizenship of gay couple’s daughter A federal judge in Georgia last week ruled the State Department must recognize the U.S. citizenship of the daughter of a gay couple who was born via surrogate.

U.S. District Judge Michael L. Brown — who President Trump nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia — on Aug. 27 ruled in favor Derek Mize and Jonathan Gregg.

The Atlanta couple’s daughter, Simone Mize-Gregg, was born in England in 2018.

Brown’s decision notes her birth certificate lists Mize and Gregg as her parents. The couple applied for a U.S. passport and “other proof of citizenship for their daughter,” but the State Department “denied” the applications, “concluding she was not a U.S. citizenship at birth because she shares a biological relationship with only one of her citizen parents (Gregg) who had not been physically present in the United States for long enough.”

“In doing so, the State Department treated S.M.-G. as if she had been born out of

wedlock,” wrote Brown, referring to the couple’s daughter.

Lambda Legal and Immigration Equality in 2019 filed a lawsuit on behalf of the couple.

“We are so relieved that the court has recognized our daughter, Simone, as the U.S. citizen she has been since the day she was born,” said Mize in a press release. “When we brought Simone into this world, as married, same-sex parents, we never anticipated our own government would disrespect our family and refuse to recognize our daughter as a U.S. citizen.”

A State Department spokesperson in an email to the Washington Blade acknowledged Brown’s ruling.

“The department is aware of the court’s ruling and is reviewing the decision with the Department of Justice,” said the spokesperson. “We have no further comment at this time.”

MICHAEL K. LAVERS

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Partner of Cuban man in ICE custody pleads for his release Claims anti-gay bullying by guards, solitary confinement

By YARIEL VALDES GONZALEZ

Juan Guerrero González eagerly awaits his partner’s call each day, although he is not sure if it will happen, much less at what time. And he won’t be able to call back if he misses it.

Guerrero, who lives in Tampa, Fla., and Dainier Pérez Peña have been together since they met in Havana more than eight years ago. Guerrero now only has one chance a day to speak with his partner because he is in an isolation cell at the Winn Correctional Center, a privately run U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana.

Pérez is allowed outside of his cell for a few minutes each day to take a shower, and it is only then when he is able to call his partner. Guerrero tells the Blade the calls leave him totally devastated because his partner “is in a very deteriorated physical and mental state.”

“It has been a very long process and has caused a very deep depression,” says Guerrero.

Pérez, 34, is originally from Niquero, a small town in Granma province in eastern Cuba.

He asked for asylum at a port of entry in Columbus, N.M., on June 28, 2019, based on persecution he claims to have suffered in Cuba because he is gay.

“Gay people are more marginalized without any rights,” Guerrero told the Blade, referring to Cuba. “Therefore he was harassed by the police and the revolutionary masses.”

An immigration judge on May 7 denied Pérez’s asylum request. His lawyer on July 31 appealed the ruling to the Virginia-based Board of Immigration Appeals, which the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, oversees.

Pérez was detained at the Jackson Correctional Center, another privately run detention center in Louisiana, before ICE transferred him to the Winn Detention Center on Aug. 13. He has been in solitary confinement there for more than 15 days.

His tiny cell only has room for a bed, a toilet and a sink. ICE says the facility’s air conditioning system works without problems, but Pérez tells Guerrero his cell is hot because it does not have proper ventilation, which exacerbates his despair and makes the days even more unbearable for him.

Guerrero says he always tries to cheer him up when they speak.

He pleads with him to remain calm and strong, that this country will save him. Pérez’s voice — muffled and colorless — nevertheless dictates that Guerrero’s efforts are in vain.

“My partner is a sick person,” says Guerrero. “He has problems with his blood pressure, with his kidneys and heart problems due to his current depressed state. Right now he has a fever and headaches and is not receiving any medical attention.”

Guerrero says he fears Pérez will contract the coronavirus.

ICE on its website notes as of Aug. 27 there were eight confirmed coronavirus cases at the Winn Correctional Center.

Guerrero sent the Blade a voice message from an official at the detention center who said Pérez did not have coronavirus systems, despite having a fever.

There is not a day that goes by when Guerrero doesn’t call the detention center to demand doctors examine his partner. Guerrero told the Blade authorities always say they “will attend to him,” but when he manages to talk to Pérez he discovers they have yet to see him.

“Any suggestion that anyone in ICE custody is denied necessary medical treatment is false,” said Bryan D. Cox, director of public affairs for ICE’s Southeast Region, in a statement to the Blade. “Pursuant to ICE’s commitment to the welfare of those in the agency’s custody ICE spends more than $260 million annually on the spectrum of health care services provided to those in our care.”

Cox further said all people who are in ICE custody receive comprehensive medical care at taxpayers’ expense, which includes 24-hour emergency care and access to private medical facilities if necessary.

ICE detainees, however, are placed into solitary cells when they are sick in order to stop the spread of contagious diseases. ICE also places detainees into solitary confinement when they engage in behavior that violates rules.

Guerrero said his partner was placed into an isolation cell because he had problems while at the Jackson Correctional Center upon which he did not expound. Guerrero told the Blade that ICE transferred him to the Winn Correctional Center for that reason.

Guerrero tells the Blade that officials have mistreated him because of his sexual

From left: JUAN GUERRERO GONZÁLEZ and his partner, DAINIER PÉREZ PEÑA. (Photo courtesy of González)

orientation.

“Apparently, the officers have commented on the statements he has made in their courts about the abuses he suffered in Cuba for being gay and now they discriminate against him, like some of his fellow detainees, mainly from Central America,” said Guerrero.

“One of the things that has happened to him is that they don’t let him shower with the others. They wouldn’t let him use the communal bathroom. They stole his toilet paper.

They stole his calling minutes and insulted him to provoke him,” he said, referring to the detainees. “He has had a lot of bullying problems.”

Cox said Pérez “has been housed in a special management unit on multiple occasions following repeated physical assaults, and threats of violence, toward fellow detainees and facility staff.”

“These housing placements were in full accordance with federal law and agency policy,” Cox told the Blade. “He remains in ICE custody pending the outcome of his legal appeal.”

Pérez remains under treatment and psychological observation because he has suicidal thoughts, which is one of his partner’s greatest concerns. Guerrero stated Pérez has been drowsy during some of their phone calls because of the medications he has previously been prescribed.

Immigration Equality on Aug. 19 made another parole request for Pérez to Winn Correctional Center Supervisory Detention and Deportation Officer Quincy Hodges.

“Previously, we submitted the same parole request on around July 27 to a deportation officer Dainier had in Jackson Parish,” Immigration Equality Legal Assistant Liza Doubossarskaia told the Blade. “However, Dainier was transferred to Winn before any decision on the request was made. As of right now, we have not received any response from Officer Hodges.”

Doubossarskaia confirms Pérez has several health issues that should qualify him for release.

“It is disturbing and highly concerning that ICE continues to detain Dainier, despite these considerations,” said Doubossarskaia. “By continuing to detain Dainier, ICE is putting his life at serious risk. Dainier is eligible for parole, so ICE’s actions are cruel and irrational, both toward Dainier and his partner, who is heartbroken over Dainier’s situation.”

Michael K. Lavers contributed to this article.

(Editor’s note: Yariel Valdés González was in ICE custody for nearly a year until ICE released him from the River Correctional Center, a privately run detention center in Louisiana, on March 4.)

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KEVIN NAFF

is editor of the Washington Blade.

Reach him at knaff@washblade.com

PETER ROSENSTEIN

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

The karmic deliciousness of Falwell’s downfall

Continued violence means Trump wins

Jerry Falwell Jr.’s downfall just may be the only good thing to come of 2020 so far.

Handsome pool boy Giancarlo Granda outlined the salacious details of his yearslong affair with the Falwells in a stunning ABC News interview last week, in which he hinted that Falwell masturbated while watching Granda have sex with his wife Becki.

Falwell, who served as president of Liberty University since 2007, resigned after pressure from the school’s board. This week, the board said it has hired a “leading forensic firm” to investigate Falwell’s tenure at the school, Politico reported. Just a reminder: Liberty University is among the most hostile to queer students. The school’s honor code reads: “Sexual relations outside of a biblically ordained marriage between a natural-born man and a natural-born woman are not permissible at Liberty University.”

Falwell’s interim replacement as president, Jerry Prevo, is an outspoken homophobe who has fought against LGBTQ rights in Alaska for decades.

As the Blade reported in 2013: “An Alaska church’s decision to no longer sponsor local Boy Scouts of America troops over its opposition to the inclusion of gay scouts has sparked controversy. … The Anchorage Baptist Temple’s decision has left Boy Scout Troop 1316 and Cub Scout Pack 316 without a place to meet. Rev. Jerry Prevo, who is the congregation’s chief pastor, referenced the Bible as he defended his decision to the newspaper. ‘No homosexual will enter the Kingdom of God.’” Liberty’s hostility to its LGBTQ students was codified by its founder, the evil Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr., one of the leading homophobes of the ‘80s whose cruel and constant attacks on gays undoubtedly led to the suicides of many young gay men demonized during the height of the AIDS epidemic and sent to conversion therapy. “AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals, it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals,” Falwell Sr. famously said. He’s also the one who labeled Ellen DeGeneres as “Ellen Degenerate” after she came out. His hate wasn’t limited to gays. Falwell Sr. was also a racist who questioned the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education: “The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line,” he said.

Fast forward to 2020 and that man’s son is now out of a job and disgraced after a sex scandal that not only continues to worsen and expand, but that is tinged with gay undertones.

Granda describes Falwell Jr. as a “predator” who was drunk and “giggling” wearing a Speedo at their first sexual encounter. “It’s his thing” to watch, Granda says Becki told him. The evangelical couple also visited a swingers club, Miami Velvet, according to Granda.

Granda later went into business with Falwell’s son, jointly owning a Miami youth hostel with him that is described as “gay friendly.”

“After the affair, the Falwells invested $1.8 million in a property deal to help Granda open a ‘gay-friendly youth hostel’ in Miami Beach, which Politico described as ‘a cesspool of vice,’” Vanity Fair wrote.

So, Rev. Falwell’s son, the head of Liberty University, where drinking alcohol is verboten, is drunk on a bed in a Speedo watching a hot young guy have sex with his wife. He later loans Granda money to invest in a hostel that caters to gay guests and is known as a “cesspool.”

It’s almost too good to be true. And proof that sometimes you really do outlive your oppressors and get a ringside seat to their delicious, karmic downfall.

Let’s celebrate now that one more hypocrite who uses religion to attack LGBTQ people while engaging in the same behaviors he publicly deplores is exposed and, yes, canceled. Maybe 2020 is turning a corner.

Donald Trump is fomenting violence and blaming it on peaceful #blacklivesmatter protesters. We must not take the bait. He is urging his supporters to do counter protests and they arrive with guns, even AK47s. They shoot paintballs into a crowd and a few among the peaceful protesters respond by setting fires and throwing things at police.

Trump loves this as it helps his election. Don’t take the bait.

Those who live in Trump’s world are in an alternate universe where alternative facts are the reality. They listened to Melania Trump, maybe on Fox News, deliver her convention speech speaking about her husband and his administration and actually believed she was talking about the Donald Trump we all know. With due credit to her very good speech writers it was a herculean effort to portray a world that doesn’t exist.

I was left to wonder if she had another husband hidden somewhere. Many speakers at the convention tried to do what Melania did and reality only occasionally slipped in.

One dose of that was Kimberly Guilfoyle’s speech. She went off message and seemed to be yelling at the audience spouting more of the garbage we hear from Trump himself.

Like Trump, who often doesn’t know simple facts, she didn’t seem to know those born in Puerto Rico and moving to the mainland aren’t immigrants but rather U.S. citizens.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who lies to the American people daily from her podium, continued the tradition with her convention speech discussing her mastectomy and breast cancer scare. She said, “This president stands with Americans who have pre-existing conditions.” This while it’s clear, “The president has actively sought to dismantle the Affordable Care Act of which a crucial component prevents health providers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. He has not offered a replacement, should the U.S. Supreme Court rule against the law, which has insured millions of people.”

It seems the president’s message of law and order is effective with Republicans.

According to polling, support for the BLM protests has gone down a little across the board. Will it make a difference to those who support Biden? We will learn more in a couple of weeks how effective the Trump people were in confusing voters when a broader section of new swing state polls comes out. Hopefully not based on the new ABC poll. The question for an undecided voter is: “What is it you are undecided about?”

After nearly four years of Trump we know exactly what he stands for, what he thinks is important and what he has done and said. Either you are for those things or not. It is clear he won’t change so what is it you are undecided about?

I understand a 2016 Trump voter may not be in love with Joe Biden. You may have bought into Trump’s being a great businessman who will bring back your manufacturing job. Who will build that wall Mexico will pay for; create new high-paying jobs; give you better healthcare. But now you know he has done none of that.

So look at Joe Biden, one of the most decent people you will ever meet. He is basically a moderate with a strong record of moving the country forward without the constant sturm and drang Trump creates. Without the racism, sexism and homophobia.

Biden believes Americans are tired of waking up each morning to another crisis, another set of disgusting tweets, another tirade from Trump against someone who didn’t kiss his ass the day before.

Biden has been clear: He believes Americans are ready for some peace and quiet and honest, rational leadership focusing on the issues we talk about around our kitchen table. He will ensure we have affordable healthcare covering pre-existing conditions; can send our kids to a good local school; afford to send them to college; and get back to work after the COVID-19 pandemic ends and make a decent wage for our hard work.

He has promised families won’t have to worry each day whether Social Security and Medicare will be there for them when they are ready to retire. He knows climate change is not a hoax.

So stay calm, continue to protest and speak out peacefully, and make sure you and everyone you know votes on Nov. 3 and we will win.

Homophobe and his father demonized gays for decades

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JENNIFER WEXTON

is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Virginia’s 10th District.

Follow her on Twitter: @RepWexton.

Trump administration targets homeless trans Americans

Cruel, dangerous move is latest attack on LGBTQ people

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In the midst of a worsening pandemic and with record numbers of Americans unemployed, the president and his administration have focused their attention on something else entirely — giving federally funded shelters a license to discriminate against transgender people.

Under the Obama administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) implemented and strengthened a policy known as the Equal Access Rule to guarantee that HUD-funded shelters are open to all Americans, specifically putting protections in place to ensure trans individuals can seek accommodations that correspond to their gender identity.

Now, at a time when access to safe housing is absolutely vital, HUD is advancing a rule change that would enshrine anti-trans discrimination in federal regulations. This senseless policy needlessly puts lives at risk, and it’s critical that the American people speak out about why this rule change is dangerous and contrary to our values.

On July 24, HUD published its proposed rule change and initiated a public comment period that will run through Sept. 22. In an announcement made on July 1, HUD claims, “the proposed rule modifications also better accommodate religious beliefs of shelter providers.” HUD cites no evidence that the existing rule is placing an undue burden on faith-based shelter providers. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request in 2017, HUD was unable to locate any requests for waivers or accommodations or complaints made while the Obama-era Equal Access Rule protections were in place.

HUD has indicated that it will not recognize the recent landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County which affirmed that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects the LGBTQ community from discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, and is pressing forward with this discriminatory rule.

HUD has also perpetuated the dangerous myth that protecting transgender people’s access to accommodations that reflect their gender identity puts others at risk without citing a shred of evidence. In the text of the proposed rule itself, HUD admits that it is not aware of any data suggesting that transgender individuals pose an inherent risk to biological women.

Nondiscrimination protections have been in place for years in more than 20 states and 300 localities with no increase in public safety issues. In fact, more than 300 sexual assault and domestic violence organizations agree this fictitious justification only puts transgender lives in danger and makes no one safer.

These are simply bad faith arguments by HUD Secretary Ben Carson, someone who has openly denigrated transgender women as “big, hairy men” in front of his own agency staff. The rule is more of the same, allowing shelter staff to judge the physical characteristics of those seeking services to decide who is sufficiently male or sufficiently female. His long history of vitriol toward the LGBTQ community and determination to press forward with this deeply anti-trans policy is a total departure from the mission of HUD, “to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all.”

The right to safe housing should never be obstructed by the political or social beliefs of others. But even worse, this anti-transgender proposal directly targets a group that has historically and disproportionately suffered from the hardships of homelessness. According to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, nearly one-third of transgender people experience homelessness at some point in their lives and 70 percent reported mistreatment in shelter due to their gender identity.

Removing these protections puts individuals living in states without protections at risk of being left on the streets. The consequences are often dire when a transgender individual is turned away from an emergency shelter.

While I have introduced legislation in the House to block this rule, the most immediate step we can all take is to speak out against this dangerous and discriminatory policy.

It is critical that the public submit comments —which you can do at housingsaveslives. org — urging the Trump-Pence White House and HUD to abandon this reckless proposed regulation. In August, I led 144 of my colleagues in the House and Senate in a public comment letter to Secretary Carson demanding that this rule be rescinded.

We need to fight this policy like trans lives depend on it — because they do.

MATT FOREMAN

is the former executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, the Empire State Pride Agenda, and the NYC Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project.

He resides in NYC and San Francisco.

Anti-maskers assaulted my husband

Get Covered. Stay Covered.

Lack of federal leadership on COVID leads to violence

Three weeks ago, I was looking down into my husband’s unblinking eyes, seeing blood spill from his nose and mouth, and feeling my hand trying to stop the bleeding from the back of his head. In the background someone kept yelling, “Apply pressure!

Apply pressure! Apply pressure!” For a fleeting moment, I was Jackie Kennedy sans the pink Chanel suit and matching pillbox hat.

Why? Because we had just said to a couple of men passing by us on the narrow sidewalk on our block, “Wear a mask!”

In less than a minute, my husband was hit in the face and the back of his head with some kind of weapon and laid unconscious on the sidewalk.

The NYPD and a NYFD ambulance arrived quickly. Francisco—still unable to talk— was taken to the ER at the old St. Vincent’s Hospital (so many also horrible memories).

I drove around with police officers to “canvass” the neighborhood and see if I could ID the perpetrator. Frankly, I was too hysterical to be of any use to them. Nonetheless, I will never forget the kindness the officers showed me.

Like most crime victims, I immediately blamed us. Why did we say anything? We deserved it.

Bullshit! If we had a president with one shred of decency, wearing a mask would have been established months ago as a moral norm, a way to show care for others.

And, if that wasn’t enough, not wearing a mask would be a federal offense carrying a hefty fine. It would not be up to store clerks, flight attendants, and average residents to enforce the law.

But no. The issue of wearing a mask has been weaponized quite literally, as witnessed by the blood stains on our sidewalk and all the other mask-related violent encounters we read about every single day.

Meanwhile, an entire sector of “Christian” leaders has not only stood silent, they have actively encouraged mass gathering without masks. As my mother would say, Dear Jesus!

I simply cannot believe how far down our nation has fallen in just a few years or that there is even a question about the need for profound and systemic change. In November, let’s start at the top.

Epilogue: Francisco is doing well—staples are out of his head (lovely scar), no teeth lost, and the symptoms of his severe concussion seem to be fading each day. The NYPD say that while they have been able to obtain a clear video of the incident, they haven’t been able to ID the attacker. If they can, it should be a felony charge—good! The ambulance and emergency room bills were just over $12,000. Because we are among the few Americans who have good insurance, our out-of-pocket will be under $1,000.

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Why do so many gay couples open up their relationships?

Many of us are on autopilot, but we can build more meaningful connections

By MICHAEL RADKOWSKY

As gay men, we’ve been through a lot.

For so many years we were deep in the closet, fearful of being arrested, and threatened with pseudo-medical cures.

Then came the Stonewall uprising, the declassification of homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder, and the defeat of sodomy laws. And finally, the legalization of gay marriage.

Now—at least in some parts of the world — we’re free to live our lives exactly like everyone else. No one gets to tell us how to live, whom to love, or what we can or can’t do in the bedroom. We alone call the shots.

Then again, maybe we’re not as free as we think. Ever wonder why so many of us open our relationships? Are we always really deciding for ourselves how we want to live?

Or are we sometimes on autopilot, blithely following expectations and norms of which we aren’t even aware, oblivious to the possible consequences?

Spring, 1987: Although I didn’t know it at the time, my own introduction to the world of gay relationships was following a script that countless gay men have lived.

Growing up in that era, there were no visible gay relationships, no role models. Astoundingly, a gay porn theater/bathhouse did advertise in the Washington Post, my hometown paper, when I was a kid. While this was titillating, I dreamed of something more traditional and soulful for my future than the anonymous encounters and orgies at which those ads hinted.

So when hunky, adorable Justin* asked me out after a meeting of the campus gay group and we started dating, I was over the moon. That is, until my friends Ben and Tom, an older gay couple, shot me right back down to earth when, one evening over dinner, they asked if Justin and I were “exclusive.”

Huh? What a question!

“Just wait,” Tom said knowingly, “Gay men never stay monogamous for long.”

More than 30 years have passed, and the world of gay male relationships remains pretty much the same. Working as a psychologist for the past 25 years, I’ve listened to hundreds of gay clients share their own versions of my long-ago dinner with Ben and Tom. “We just assumed we’d be monogamous, but then this older gay couple told us, ‘yeah, let’s see how long that lasts.’ So we decided to open up our relationship and start playing around.”

New generations have the possibility of proudly visible relationships and recently, marriage. And still, for many of us, open relationships are seen as the default choice in one form or another: “Monogamish.” Only when one partner is out-of-town. Never the same person twice. Only when both partners are present. No kissing. No intercourse. No falling in love. Never in the couple’s home. Never in the couple’s bed. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Disclose everything. Anything goes.

Examining our affinity for non-monogamy can be seen as judgmental or anti-gay, “sex-negative,” tantamount to suggesting that gay men should mimic a heterosexual model that is patriarchal, misogynist, oppressive — and maybe not even really workable for straight people. Questioning our penchant for casual sex while we are coupled is also seen as a challenge to the inspirational (to some) narrative that gay men, free of the constraints of history and tradition, are constructing a fresh, vibrant model of relationships that decouples the unnecessary, pesky, and troublesome bond between emotional fidelity and sexual exclusivity.

But we do not honor our diversity if we expect that any of us should choose (or not choose) any particular role or path.

While an open relationship may be the best relationship for some couples to have, successfully being in one requires capabilities that many of us do not possess.

(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

After all, gay men are just as multidimensional, complex, and unique as other men.

And while an open relationship may be the best relationship for some couples to have, successfully being in one requires capabilities that many of us do not possess. Simply being a gay man certainly does not automatically provide skills such as: • The solidity of self to be trusting and generous • The ability to sense how far boundaries can be pushed without doing too much damage • The capacity to transcend feelings of jealousy and pain • The strength of character not to objectify or idealize outside sex partners.

Yes, open relationships can be as close, loving, and committed as monogamous relationships, which of course have their own difficulties. But even when conducted with thought, caution, and care, they can easily result in hurt and feelings of betrayal.

Moreover, open relationships are often designed to keep important experiences secret or unspoken between partners.

Clients will tell me they do not want to know exactly what their partner is doing with other men, preferring to maintain a fantasy (or delusion) that certain lines will not be crossed. As a result, the ways in which we structure our open relationships can easily interfere with intimacy—knowing, and being known by our partners.

Consequently, we gay men often struggle to form solid, mutually respectful attachments that include both emotional and physical connection. Might any of these scenarios be familiar to you?

Jim and Rob came in to see me after a disastrous cruise with eight of their friends. Although it had not been their plan, between them they had ended up separately having sex with all eight. This had broken several of their “rules,” although as Jim pointed out, the rules were unclear because they often made them up to suit whatever they wanted to do, or not allow each other to do. Each partner’s ongoing anger over how his partner was hurting him by ignoring admittedly ad-hoc sexual boundaries meant that Jim and Rob hadn’t had sex with each other in two years.

Another couple I work with, Frank and Scott, have had an open relationship from the start. When they met, Frank felt strongly that monogamy had no relevance to him as a gay man. Though Scott wanted a sexually exclusive relationship, he somewhat reluctantly went along with Frank’s wishes because he wanted to be with Frank. In recent years the two have

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become near-constant users of hookup apps, and recently Scott met a younger man on Scruff with whom he has “great chemistry.” Now, to Frank’s dismay, Scott is dating Todd.

Carlos and Greg came to see me after Carlos discovered that Greg was hooking up numerous times a month. Although they had a “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” agreement and both assumed the other was occasionally having sex with other men, Greg’s behavior was far more frequent than Carlos had imagined or wanted to accept in his marriage. Greg was steadfast in his conviction that because he was following their rules, his hookups could not be negatively impacting his relationship with Carlos.

Beyond the hurt, enmity, reduced commitment, lack of connection, and distance they experience, men in these situations often tell me that their relationships and their lives have become overwhelmed by their pursuit of sex.

Another potential drawback to an open relationship: Yes, multiple partners are an easy (and fun) fix for sexual boredom.

But when hot times can be easily found with others, we may feel little incentive to put sustained energy into keeping sex with our partners interesting. My educated guess: This is why many gay couples in open relationships have little or no sex with each other, just as a twosome.

Finally, it is troubling how easily, in our open relationship/ hookup culture, we objectify those we have sex with and see other men as disposable, replaceable bodies. Treating others and being treated in this manner does not advance our respectfully relating to each other, nor does it benefit our selfesteem as men and as gay men.

What is influencing these behaviors?

Gay men lean toward non-monogamy for many interconnected reasons.

Men (stereotype acknowledged) often enjoy pursuing and having no-strings sex, so gay men readily find willing partners.

Open relationships, seemingly fun and unconstrained, offering a stream of new partners to reduce the monotony of an ongoing relationship, can be intrinsically alluring. Gay men’s sexual connections have historically not been governed by societal rules, so we’ve been able to do pretty much whatever we want, as long as we’ve flown way under the radar.

And, open relationships are what we predominantly see around us as the relationship model for gay men, for the reasons noted above and also in large part due to the influence of gay history and gay culture.

For a deeper understanding of this last point, let’s take a whirlwind tour though gay male history in the Western world (much of which overlaps with lesbian herstory). Ancient, recent, forgotten, familiar, all of it is impacting our lives today.

Since at least the fourth century C.E., as Christianity gained influence, homosexual behavior was illegal in Europe, often punishable by death, and European settlers brought these laws with them to what became the United States. Some periods were relatively more tolerant, others less so. France became the first Western nation to decriminalize homosexuality after the 1791 Revolution, but harsh laws remained and were enforced throughout the Western world well into the 20th century. (And at present, 78 countries still have laws prohibiting homosexual behavior; punishments in some include the death penalty.)

CONTINUES ON PAGE 26

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 24

Debating monogamy vs. open relationships

Following World War II, America’s McCarthy “Red Scare” of the 1950s was accompanied by a campaign against the “Lavender Menace,” resulting in hundreds of homosexual government employees being fired. The anti-gay environment in the United States, similar to that in other Western countries, included FBI tracking of suspected homosexuals; the postal service monitoring mail for “obscene” materials including mailings from early gay rights organizations; prison terms for homosexual acts between consenting adults; and nightmarish “treatments” for homosexuality including chemical castration.

Obviously, under conditions such as these, gay men had a difficult time congregating openly, meeting each other, or forming relationships. Many gay men lived fearful lives of isolation and furtive sexual encounters.

To get a chilling sense of what it was like to live as a gay man in this era, view William E. Jones’s “Tearoom” on the Internet. The film presents actual surveillance footage from a police sting operation of men meeting for sex in an Ohio restroom in 1962. The men’s fear is palpable, and the absence of affection or connection between them is heartbreaking.

While in 1967 parts of the United Kingdom decriminalized homosexuality, 1969 is known as the start of the modern gay rights movement because in June of that year, patrons of the Stonewall Bar in New York City fiercely fought back against a routine police raid. Following Stonewall, we began to congregate and organize openly, to throw off the cloak of shame, and to fight against third-class status. (In 29 of the United States it remained legal to fire someone simply for being gay until the June Supreme Court ruling in the Bostock case. The scope of that ruling is still being debated.)

During the 1970s, with sexual liberation coming on the heels of the civil rights era, the gay rights movement gained momentum. The American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973. We became more visible, and gay culture—bookstores, bars, political organizations, and sex clubs—flourished as gay men rejected living in fear and openly celebrated their sexuality.

But by the late 1970s, HIV was silently making its way into the gay community. As men began to fall sick and die in staggering numbers early in the 1980s, anti-gay sentiment again exploded, and we began to equate our own sexuality with death. Yet the AIDS epidemic ultimately led our community to coalesce and strengthen, organizing to care for our ill and to fight for effective treatment, leading to greater visibility and acceptance, and providing some of the organizational groundwork for the equal rights battles that continue today.

History influences culture, and both our history and culture influence who we become, and how we lead our erotic and intimate lives. Modern gay culture developed in an environment of justified fear.

Often, the only possibility for us to meet for any sort of intimate encounter was through hookups and anonymous encounters. When connecting, we had to keep one eye over our shoulders, scanning for danger (this can literally be seen in Tearoom). Can such connections really be termed intimate?

For most of us, the days of outright surveillance are over. But the patterns of interacting that developed over many years have been passed down through the generations and still influence us in the present, even those of us who don’t face losing our jobs, family support, freedom, or lives if our sexual orientation is discovered. The longstanding need to hide, scan, and be vigilant has helped shape a culture of gay male interaction that— even when we are partnered — often centers on brief encounters, putting greater emphasis on sexual connection than on knowing and being known as multidimensional physical and emotional beings.

At the opposite end of the spectrum: The era of exuberant sexual liberation that followed Stonewall. In part as a reaction to our identity having been badly stigmatized and gay sex having been literally forbidden, both pre-Stonewall and to some degree in the era of AIDS and safer-sex campaigns, gay male culture has leaned toward placing strong emphasis on sex and hooking up. As a result, we often get the message that to be a successful gay man, we should be sexually desirable, open to sex, and have frequent conquests.

Other related factors that can contribute to our so easily leaning away from monogamy and toward multiple partners include: The stigma around being gay denies many of us opportunities to date and romance early in life. Instead, the experiences of growing up gay, having to hide, and having difficulty discerning who might be a willing partner often lead us to have our first experiences in anonymity and shame, learning how to be sexual apart from and before we learn how to be close. As a result, we’re likely to have a hard time connecting sex and emotional intimacy. Moreover, our early experiences can set our arousal templates to be most aroused by secrecy, risk, anonymity, and being a sexual outlaw.

Internalized homo-negativity from growing up in a culture that has stigmatized homosexuality and gay relationships may lead us to absorb the idea that our relationships, and gay men generally, are “less than.” Consequently, we may think that we, our significant others, our relationships, and our sex partners are unworthy of honor and respect; and we may easily behave in ways that reflect these beliefs, pursuing pleasure without considering the possible costs to what we say we hold dear.

And we may not even realize we hold these beliefs.

As gay men, we are likely to have grown up feeling defective and hiding our true selves from our closest family and friends, fearing rejection. When children and young people don’t get a sense that they are loved for whom they really are, and instead grow up seeing themselves as damaged, it’s difficult to develop a positive sense of self-worth. Many of us are still seeking to heal this wound through our ongoing pursuit of sex and the companion feeling of being desired by another man, unaware of what is driving this pursuit.

Alcohol and other substance abuse are entrenched in gay culture, in great part as a means of soothing the isolation, distress, anxiety, and depression that many of us experience from living in an often-hostile world. Clients routinely tell me they are in a chemically altered state when they make decisions to engage in extracurricular sexual interactions that threaten or damage their primary relationships.

One more key factor, true for all relationships: While closeness can feel good, being close also means being vulnerable, which is scary. Open relationships can be a way for us to keep some distance from each other in an attempt to keep ourselves safer.

I became a psychologist at a time when gay relationships weren’t getting much societal support, with the goal of helping gay couples thrive despite a deck stacked heavily against us.

Over the years, I’ve learned that some of the most important work I can do with gay male clients is to help them be more thoughtful about their choices, so that they can better develop stronger, more nurturing, more loving relationships.

We gay men often keep our eyes closed to the ways that we may be damaging our relationships through some of our most commonplace, accepted, and ingrained behaviors.

Obviously, it can be painful to acknowledge that we may be harming ourselves through seemingly fun, innocuous choices, or to acknowledge the possible downsides of our ubiquitous open relationships.

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Nevertheless, there is great value for each of us in figuring out, as individuals, what it means to live in a way that we respect; in holding our behavior up to our own standards, and only our own standards; and in clarifying how we want to live life even when there is pressure, from the outside world and from other gay men, to live differently.

Pressure from other gay men? That’s right.

On first thought one might think that we gay men would have no trouble standing up to others’ expectations. Certainly it’s true that openly acknowledging we are gay despite societal judgment and pressure to “be” heterosexual demonstrates a strong ability to be true to ourselves, and to manage our anxiety in the face of tough challenges.

But beyond the expectations of society-at-large are the expectations of gay culture about what it means to be a successful gay man. Here is where many of us can get wobbly.

Not finding complete acceptance in the larger world, we have the hope that by coming out, we will finally feel a sense of really belonging somewhere. If this means behaving in the ways that peers do, taking on what we perceive to be the values of our community in order to fit in, many of us are willing to ignore our own feelings, and possibly our souls, so as to not feel excluded yet again.

Jim and Rob, the couple who had sex with all their friends on their cruise, are sitting in my office, with my dog Aviv snoozing at their feet. After some consideration, they had decided to stop having sex with other men for a while, to see if this would help them to feel closer and re-start their sex life with each other. The rancor had decreased and they reported enjoying having sex together again.

Their news: Jim has decided to enroll in a graduate program on the other side of the country, and they are discussing how this will affect their sex life.

“Of course we’re going to have to make some allowances for this,” Jim says.

I look at him quizzically.

“I mean, we might not see each other for a month or two at a time. So we need to have an agreement that we’ll have sex with other guys.”

Rob nods in agreement.

I ask them how they each anticipate the impact of both again having sex with others. They respond with shrugs.

“You know, our friends Bill and Dave—Bill has been working in Argentina for the last two years and they only see each other every three or four months. They’re definitely hooking up with other guys,” Jim notes.

“I mean, what else would we do?” adds Rob. “Not have sex for eight weeks?”

If I didn’t regularly have similar conversations with other coupled gay clients, I would be stunned that neither man is stopping to consider his own feelings about what it would mean to resume an open relationship. Both are focusing solely on their perceived need to have sex regularly, and on the notion that this is simply how gay couples should operate.

So much of gay history, culture, and relational development are shaping this moment.

When working with a couple like Jim and Rob, I do my best not to accept much as “simply a given.” Here are the questions that I wonder about with them: What have your hopes been for couplehood, and how is reality lining up with those hopes?

How have you made your choices? How is your relationship working for you? What is most important to you?

CONTINUES AT WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

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

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(Photo by Jessica Kourkounis)

QUEERY Kerry Hallett

Kerry Hallett

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

I was raised *sort of* Catholic. I had my first communion and everything. But then my mom got fed up with the church and we started going to a Unitarian church.

Currently I don’t subscribe to any religion, but consider myself a deeply spiritual person. I do a lot of reading on different spiritual and philosophical traditions. Some of my favorite thinkers include Krishnamurti, Pema Chodron, and S.N. Goenka.

QUEERY: Kerry Hallett

The CAMP Rehoboth operations administrator answers 20 queer questions FROM STAFF REPORTS

This weekend brings the culmination of Sundance, the annual CAMP Rehoboth fundraiser that normally features a packed dance floor. This year is different, of course, with Sundance going virtual. (See this week’s Blade Calendar page for details.)

Kerry Hallett, 36, is CAMP Rehoboth’s operations administrator.

Previously, she worked as a server at Rehoboth’s Chesapeake & Maine and as an “INNmate” (innkeeper) at the Dogfish Inn (105 Savannah Rd, Lewes, Del.).

“In my current position at CAMP Rehoboth, I still get to collaborate with my Dogfish fam,” she says. “To me, community is all about collaboration.”

Hallett is married to Millie Crotty and the two have lived in Rehoboth with their “fur babies,” Berlin, Indy, and Joey Macaroni, since 2019.

Hallett is also a musician and spends time writing, singing, and playing music.

“I also love chill time with my wife and the dogs, and heading out on the water for paddle board or kayaking adventures,” she says.

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

I’ve been out since I was about 13. I came out in 8th grade. I had a “boyfriend” who was also gay — we kind of realized it at the same time, and made a pact to tell our moms at the same time. My mom was definitely the hardest person to tell, though I know she wasn’t surprised. From an early age we fought about me wanting to wear boy’s

clothes and pull my hair back in a ponytail to hide it under my hat. I wanted her approval so badly, and I knew she would blame herself because she was a single mom. We fought a lot about it at first, but now I realize that it was because she had watched the LGBTQ folks of her own generation struggle so much, and she didn’t want me to have to live through that struggle.

Who’s your LGBTQ hero?

Audre Lorde. “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”

What LGBTQ stereotype most annoys you?

That I’m supposed to act a certain way based on the way I look. I identify with and present a more butch aesthetic, and some people assume that means I should act in ways that they would define as “tough.” That definition is subjective, of course. It took me a long time for me to realize that and to feel comfortable just being me. It took finding someone who loves me exactly the way I am (not just the way I look and the way they want me to act based on their assumptions) to realize that I don’t have to fit neatly into any category.

What’s your proudest professional achievement?

Releasing an album. You can find it on iTunes and Spotify under my previous band name, Heart Harbor. The EP is called The Tender Trap.

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What terrifies you?

Being stuck with 45 for another 4 years...

VOTE! What’s something trashy or vapid you love?

Trashy caesar dressing. I will eat (and enjoy) a caesar salad from ANYWHERE. Like, anywhere.

What’s your greatest domestic skill?

Definitely cooking. I’m obsessed with herbs and spices, and love making sauces and condiments. On heavy rotation in my kitchen are homemade harissa, chimichurri, and schug. I put them on everything!

What’s your favorite LGBTQ movie or show?

POSE! What’s your social media pet peeve?

Trolling and hate speech.

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

The movement is so tied to so many others. It’s intersectional. The end of it would be the end of all social justice movements, the end of oppression, the end of the whitecis-ableist-hetero-patriarchy.

What’s the most overrated social custom?

Saying “Bless You” after someone sneezes.

What’s Rehoboth’s best hidden gem?

Bella Luna Boutique. It’s a truly unique and beautifully curated home decor, jewelry, and gift shop. Bella Luna is locally owned and supports local artists. The store selection and staff are fabulous, and all summer long they’re donating a portion of sales to the Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice. Another hidden gem — though it’s technically in Lewes — is The Station on Kings. THE BEST pastries ever!

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

Pose! It’s redefining queer pop culture in the best way.

What celebrity death hit you hardest?

Dolores O’Riordan and John Lewis If you could redo one moment from your past, what would it be?

I’d ask my wife out sooner. We were just friends for 5 years before.

What are your obsessions?

Doggo memes, hot sauce, Aimee Mann songs Finish this sentence — It’s about damn time: people stopped fearing what they don’t know.

What do you wish you’d known at 18?

That it really doesn’t matter what others think of you. You have to radically love and accept yourself, and the rest will fall into place.

Why Rehoboth?

We moved from Philly to Rehoboth to escape the city grind. There’s so much nature here and tons of beaches our dog can run on (it’s her happy place).

Cheers, Queers!

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S E PT E M B E R 0 4 , 2 0 2 0 • WA S H I N GTO N B L A D E.CO M • 2 9

TODAY

Busboys and Friends! Zoom Dinner presents writer and political analyst Anand Giridharadas tonight at 6 p.m. This event is free but attendees must RSVP via Eventbrite to receive the Zoom link. Giridharadas’ works include “True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas” about a campaign to save Mark Stroman, a murderer of immigrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in revenge for the 9/11 terror attacks. Rais Bhuiyan survived one of Stroman’s shootings and the book explores his quest to forgive. To RSVP, visit this event’s Facebook and Eventbrite pages.

Off the Mall Tours (1455 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.) presents Madams of D.C. tonight from 7-9 p.m. Tickets are $15. Guests will learn how Pennsylvania Avenue became D.C.’s most notorious red light district during an unprecedented rise in prostitution during and after the Civil War. for tickets and information visit otmdc.com/bookings-checkout/madams-of-dc.

Saturday, September 5

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

Call ahead to (703) 685-0555 for more information or visit freddiesbeachbar.com.

Bohemian Rhapsody Movie Night is tonight at 7 p.m. at Hard Rock Cafe Washington D.C. (999 E St., N.W.). Tickets are $5 for this socially distanced event. Seating opens at 6:45 p.m. and the show starts at 7. Masks and temperature checks required. This event is part of “Freddie for a Weekend” in celebration of Freddie Mercury of Queen’s birthday and ticket price includes guaranteed seating, soda and popcorn. For tickets and information, visit ticketweb.com and hardrockcafe.com/location/washington-dc.

Sigma D.C.’s weekly Saturday Dungeon Party is tonight from 8 p.m. to midnight. Entry is $20 for members and $30 for everyone else. Sigma D.C. (1636 R St., N.W.) is D.C.’s only allmale BDSM space, but they have reduced the total number of people allowed in the space and made other adjustments due to pandemic concerns. For more information on reservations and other COVID precautions, email board@sigmadc.org.

Sunday, September 6

A Baltimore Drag Brunch hosted by Bookmakers Cocktail (31 E Cross St., Baltimore) is today. Doors open at 11:30 a.m. and the show starts at 12:30 p.m. This event features a $35 brunch buffet, $4 Mimosas and Bloody Marys, drag performances, twerk contests and more. Reservations are required and can be made through bookmakersbaltimore.com.

Monday, September 7

Showtunes in the Streets hosted by JR.’s bar (1519 17th St., N.W.) is tonight at 8 p.m. This event includes content both video-streamed online via @JRsBar_DC on Twitter and inperson on a giant projector. Guests are encouraged to arrive by 8 p.m. to grab a seat, order a drink and enjoy the full show.

Seating reservations are required through host.tablesready. com/p/book/add/jrs_bar_dc.

Tuesday, September 8

Second Tuesday Queer Trivia, hosted by A League of Her Own, is tonight from 7-9 p.m. This virtual event is an opportunity for queer participants to join in groups and share knowledge of women’s contributions to sports, literature and more. For more information, visit this event’s page on Facebook.

CALENDAR

By PHILIP VAN SLOOTEN

This year’s Sundance is virtual, so you won’t see scenes like this one from last year’s event.

Rainbow Families Annual Conference is an all-day virtual event to connect businesses and service providers who work with the LGBTQ community with queer families, parents-tobe and allies. To register, and for more information on the scheduled events, visit rainbowfamiliesconference.org.

Wednesday, September 9

Transmasculine and Nonbinary Social Hour is tonight from 6-9 p.m. at Red Bear Brewing (209 M St., N.E.). This event is for those who are 17-and-up and are masculine of center but assigned female at birth, including trans men, AFAB nonbinary, two-spirit and gender queer folks. Friends and partners are welcome when accompanied by someone transmasculine. For more information, visit dcats.org or the Facebook event page.

Get Empowered! A Self-Defense Happy Hour is tonight at 6:30 p.m. at the D.C. Center (2000 14th St., N.W., suite 105). This class is open to all genders. To register, visit defendyourself.org/find-a-class/ or thedccenter.org.

Defunding the Police virtual info session Sept. 8 On Defunding the Police presented by Profs and Pints Online is Tuesday, Sept. 8 from 7-9 p.m. via Zoom. Tickets are $12.

This virtual event features an introduction to the concepts of police defunding and police abolition and is moderated

by Alex S. Vitale, a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College and author of “The End of Policing.” This discussion centers on a key question raised by this summer’s wave of protests, but Vitale asks: Can the police be reformed?

Vitale has 30 years of experience studying policing and advising community-based movements for reform and will discuss the historical role police have played as well as their current role. Also addressed will be initiatives to reduce gun violence, education reforms and the substance abuse and mental health crises.

Tickets and information are available at crowdcast.io/e/ policereform and on the event’s Facebook page.

Thursday, September 10

Rainbow Families discuss adoption, foster care

Grupo LGBTQ en Centro Empoderate Washington, D.C. presented by La Clinica del Pueblo, Centro Empoderate is today from 5-7 p.m. via Facebook Live. Empoderate! Builds on La Clinica’s 20 year history of fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Latinx community by tackling underlying issues of isolation, depression and more. For more information, visit this event’s Facebook page or email empoderate@lcdp.org.

A Virtual Adoption / Fostering Information Night hosted by Rainbow Families and the DC Center is Thursday, Sept. 10 at 6:30 p.m.

This free event is for LGBTQ participants interested in fostering or adopting children but are not sure how to get started. This presentation will explain the ins and outs of the process as well as the need for older children who are looking for a home as well.

Also discussed will be issues concerning LGBTQ youth who are at higher risk for homelessness. This is a private conversation with experts and adoptive parents for a frank discussion about the process, needs and how their lives have changed by adopting.

To register for this Zoom event, visit thedccenter.org.

OUT&ABOUT

CAMP Rehoboth offers free tickets to Labor Day event CAMP Rehoboth’s annual Labor Day weekend Sundance event, which kicked off Aug. 29, culminates with “The Experience” Saturday, Sept. 5 at 6 p.m. Tickets are free to join the festivities.

This year Sundance, with its theme of “United in Love,” went virtual due to pandemic concerns. It still included an online auction, live-streamed events, and a bachelor auction among the adjusted activities. The party continues Saturday with DJs Robbie Lesie, Joe Gauthreaux and Stephen Strasser.

“We all need something to celebrate right now,” said Murray Archibald, CAMP Rehoboth and Sundance CoFounder and Sundance 2020 Chair. “United in Love will give us a chance to spend a week meeting, supporting and rejoicing in each other.”

For more information, visit camprehoboth.com/events/ sundance-2020.

3 0 • WA SHIN GTO N BLADE.COM • SEPTEMBER 0 4 , 2 0 2 0

Red Bear’s Drag-Livery is Sept. 12, 26 Drag-Livery with Desiree Dik and presented by Red Bear Brewing and D.C. Beer is Saturday, Sept. 12 and 26 from 4-8 p.m.

This event features socially distanced drag performances delivered to your doorstep along with craft beer, cocktails, food and more. Guest performers and drivers include Jazzmin St. James D’Monaco, Charlemage Chateau and Emerald Star.

Deliveries must be scheduled at least seven days in advance which means a Sept 5 deadline for a Sept 12 performance delivery and Sept 19 for a Sept 26 doorstep show.

For more information or to place an order, visit redbear.beer/store.

TRAVEL

The Indianapolis Culture Trail offers eight miles of attractions.

Escape to Indy for a weekend getaway Monon Trail, new street malls, Cole Porter exhibit, and more await

By BILL MALCOLM

The diverse and friendly Indianapolis scene makes for a perfect weekend getaway. It is a three-hour drive from Chicago. There is so much to do. The city features a compact, walkable downtown plus no less than three cute villages within the city: Mass Avenue, Broad Ripple, and Fountain Square. Bring your bike helmet and ride the Monon Trail, a 30-mile or so rail trail that runs from downtown to points north including Broad Ripple Village.

WHAT TO DO Take a walk along the downtown canal and enjoy the State Museum and History Center along the way. The Indianapolis History Center (450 W. Ohio) enables you to enjoy interactive Hoosier history featuring live actors singing the songs of Cole Porter as you request them off the song menu. Porter was an Indiana native and led a colorful life. My favorite Porter hit, “Anything Goes,” was performed live at my request.

Also at the center, learn about Madam C.J. Walker in The Empowering Women Exhibit. Details at www.indianahistory.org.

Rent a bike at the bike share station, ride around the Cultural Trail downtown, and then head north to Broad Ripple on the Monon Trail. Broad Ripple is a cute, walkable village just seven miles north of downtown with a pedestrian mall to enjoy your favorite restaurant or bar outdoors. Enjoy the farmer’s market Saturday mornings behind Glendale Mall just east of Broad Ripple. Have lunch on the patio at Bazbeaux Pizza. Pick up a gourmet bakery treat at Rene’s Bakery just across the trail. Try the vegan delights and fresh juices at Ezras. Enjoy great Mexican food at LaPiedad. Then grab an ice cream cone at BRICs and walk along Broad Ripple Avenue, which is currently closed to autos. Enjoy the Indianapolis Art Center and gardens. Plan your Broad Ripple outing at www.broadrippleindy.org. You can also reach Broad Ripple by the new Red Line rapid transit bus line. Details at www.indygo.net.

Head up to Newfields (formerly the Indianapolis Museum of Art) and enjoy the paintings and outdoor gardens. Do not miss the new exhibit, “Edward Hopper and the American Hotel.” Have a cocktail at the pop up Hotel Bar. Enjoy the outdoor gardens.

Also visit the Indianapolis Zoo, which is downtown in the White River State Park.

Just south of downtown is the urban hipster hangout, Fountain Square. Try the coffee at Fletcher Place Coffee.

NIGHTLIFE You will find several bars on Massachusetts Avenue, which is blocked off to cars for the summer to enhance outdoor dining and drinking. Metro (707 Mass Avenue) is a nightclub and restaurant. Next door is Tini, which has a great outdoor patio bar Forty Five has great food and drinks and is at 45 Mass Avenue (corner of College Avenue).

A bit farther from downtown, stop by Gregs, on 231 16th Street. The Sunday afternoon show tunes always draws a crowd. Downtown Olly’s (822 N. Illinois) features food and libations. Check out the piano bar on Tuesdays. There is always something going on at this neighborhood hangout. You will find them on Illinois

Street just west of downtown.

English Ivy’s is a gay friendly neighborhood pub, which features food and drinks. You will find them at 944 N. Alabama just north of Mass. Avenue and downtown. Enjoy a pork tenderloin sandwich, a Hoosier favorite.

WHERE TO STAY Downtown hotels include the Courtyard on the Canal as well as the Residence Inn on the Canal. The Sheraton is always an affordable option. The JW Marriott is also very nice. The Hotel Broad Ripple is a charmer and right on the Monon Trail. You can walk to the bars and restaurants of Broad Ripple.

CALL FOR RESERVATIONS M-TH 11:30AM-10PM • F-SAT 11:30AM-11PM SUN. BRUNCH 11AM-3PM / DINNER 3-10PM

GETTING TO INDY Indianapolis is a three-hour drive from Chicago. It is also serviced

by Amtrak three days a week (and with a Thruway Bus the other days) with a station just steps from downtown hotels. Book your ticket at www.Amtrak.com.

The award-winning Indianapolis International Airport (#1 in the nation for 2020 according to both Travel and Leisure as well as Conde Nast) is another option for travelers. Take the Green Line or #8 bus to downtown from IND. I recommend Southwest, which serves Indy from Midway and other airports around the nation.

SHOPPING Freshen your wardrobe at Heritage Clothier and Home (1134 E. 54th Street). Great deals and the latest styles including my favorite, Penguin. Ask for the cologne. Pick up some sexy underwear or supplies at Toolbox at 750 N. College.

COVID IMPACTS The city features outdoor dining and limited indoor dining due to COVID. Masks are required when indoors at all facilities including bars and restaurants. The museums are also now again open to the public.

Capacity restrictions are in effect. Check before you go to them as rules change frequently as does what is and what is not open. Bring your mask.

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(Bill Malcolm is the only nationwide syndicated LGBTQ value travel writer. He is based in Indianapolis. His column is or has been carried in LGBTQ publications around the country. His opinions are his own.

Thanks to Visit Indy for the help with this column. All or parts of this material may appear in other publications. ) S E PT E M B E R 0 4 , 2 0 2 0 • WA S H I N GTO N B L A D E.CO M • 3 1

oa reveals rot at core of our politics ew telter boo probes rump connection to o ews

By KATHI WOLFE

“People are blowing the coronavirus out of proportion!” my friend Matt told me in the spring.” is li e the u his wife ana added. love att and ana but m outra ed b such false claims. Most people I know are appalled by this misinformation. e re aware as write this that si million coronavirus infections have been confirmed in the nited tates and more than people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S. h do we hold such radicall con ictin views on everything from COVID-19 to race to social justice protests t s not for most of us because we ueer or non ueer don t care about our countr or our friends. hou h we disa ree att and ana have brou ht me tomatoes from their arden and shopped for me as ve

By Brian Stelter uarantined. left leanin pals have been e uall 368 pages caring.

Atria/One Signal Publishers oa onald rump o ews and the an erous rian telter s oa reveals outsi ed role of ean annit in rump s head. istortion of ruth b rian telter s chief media correspondent e plains wh people in the same countr have completel diver ent views. ne tribe consumes news from he ashin ton ost he ew or imes R other mainstream media or speciali ed media such as the lade. he other tribe ets its news from o or reitbart ews. t s not news that conservatives watch o while left leanin fol s watch . e re a polari ed countr and that is re ected in the media choices we ma e emocratic strate ist and political anal st avid elrod told he ew or imes. n2 ane a er reported e tensivel in he ew or er on the entan lement of o ews and the rump administration. ut until dived into oa didn t reali e how deepl enmeshed o and rump and his administration are. r how to ic this is to maintainin our democrac . f ou re eatin somethin ou mi ht want to put it down before readin oa . his isn t a comment a ainst the boo but a warnin that what telter anchor of s Reliable ources reports about o s relationship to rump and the power o wields is stomach turnin . hen it was launched in b Ro er iles o was conservative but still committed to reportin the news telter sa s. t titled ri ht politicall and was funded b conservative media mo ul Rupert urdoc but had some ournalistic standards. ut over the decades rump who d nown iles for ears was iven a role on o . rump started to call in wee l to o s o riends. his ave rump a platform to voice his racist birther attac s on arac bama. telter isn t bein h perbolic when he writes onda ornin s with rump chan ed the course of merican politics. ow thin s have one far be ond that. rump calls o opinion host ean annit ever ni ht before his show telter reports. is sources told him annit privatel called rump batshit cra Stelter writes. et ean annit is the most powerful person at o in the rump a e he adds. larmin l annit has more in uence over rump and his administrations policies than rumps abinet members and staffers telter reports. is power is so reat that annit is nown as the “shadow chief of staff.” n annit s radio show was halted when he made anti a remar s and claimed the media was coverin up the truth about telter writes. hear rump tal at rallies and hear ean a producer told telter. oa is about much more than annit . ver three ears telter spo e with more than current and former o staffers as well as other sources. hat emer es is a portrait of state supported . oa is about a rot at the core of our politics. t s an on oin attac on the ver idea of a free and fair press telter writes. t a time when o and other ri ht win media have unleashed racist homophobic and transphobic attac s and misinformation on attention must be paid. hec out oa .

‘Hoax’

3 2 • WA SHIN GTO N BLADE.COM • SEPTEMBER 0 4 , 2 0 2 0

CATE BLANCHETT leads an outstanding cast in ‘Mrs. America.’

FROM THE VAULTS:

The opposite of binge-watching

Take time to savor quality writing, acting in these shows

By BRIAN T. CARNEY

When you’re watching reruns as background noise or zooming through a new series to see how it ends, binge-watching is perfectly fine.

But with this week’s curated collection of queer television shows from the Blade’s vaults, binge-watching is not allowed. Take the time to savor the writing, the acting and the design and to discuss what you’re watching with family and friends.

“Gentleman Jack” (HBO) is a rollicking portrait of Anne Lister, an English landowner often descried as “the first modern lesbian.” Like any cash-poor landowner, Lister decides that she needs a rich wife and sets her sights on Ann Walker, a local heiress who’s been dazzled by Lister’s charisma for years.

The splendid eight-part series, set in Halifax in 1832, features an excellent script by creator Sally Wainwright that is crammed with authentic period details gleaned from Lister’s diaries. The delightfully swaggering Suranna Jones leads a superb cast.

“Gentleman Jack” has been renewed for a second season. It’s a rousing tale and a rich contribution to our understanding of how same-sex desire and gender nonconformity are expressed in different times and places.

A much less authentic but equally fascinating view of history is on display in Hulu’s “The Great.” Over the course of 10 episodes that wonderfully combine witty repartee, Enlightenment philosophy, court intrigue, physical comedy and brutal violence, Elle Fanning transforms from a naïve Austrian princess to the ruthless Empress Catherine the Great of Russia. Fanning is terrific and Nicholas Hoult gleefully portrays her imperial husband in all of his mercurial magnificence.

“The Great” has been renewed for a second season, but Catherine’s coup may require some cast changes.

Powerful women are at the center of “Mrs. America,” (FX on Hulu), a fascinating ninepart series that recreates the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment. The Amendment is supported by the leaders of the women’s movement and the leaders of both political parties.

The Amendment is opposed by frustrated housewife Phyllis Schlafly who mounts a grassroots movement that ultimately derails passage of the ERA and helps to usher in the Reagan Revolution.

Creator Dahvi Waller even-handedly captures the obstacles faced by both sides: the personal and professional sacrifices made by Schlafly and the challenges of working in coalition faced by the second-wave feminists. A superb Cate Blanchett leads an outstanding cast that includes Uzo Aduba (Shirley Chisholm), Rose Bryne (Gloria Steinem), Margo Martindale (Bella Abzug), Tracey Ullman (Betty Friedan), Niecy Nash (Flo Kennedy), and Elizabeth Banks (Jill Ruckelshaus).

With a phenomenal script by brilliant gay writer Russell T. Davies (famous for “Torchwood,” the original British version of “Queer as Folk” and several seasons of “Doctor Who”), “Years and Years” (HBO) is a visionary voyage into the near future.

The six-part series starts in Manchester, England in 2019 and follows the Deacon family over the next 15 years as Britain is rocked by a period of rapid technological, political and economic changes. On the political front, the wily Vivienne Rook (a stellar Emma Thompson), gradually seizes power. On the home front, matriarch Muriel Deacon (a fierce and feisty Anne Reid) fights to keep her sprawling family together.

Craftily extrapolating from current events, Davies creates a fascinating future that serves as a vibrant backdrop for the compelling family saga. The acting from the amazing ensemble cast is superb and Davies’ pitch-perfect casting displays a deep commitment to diversity.

Diversity was also a hallmark of “Vida,” which ran for three seasons on STARZ. The smart and sexy series centered on two estranged Mexican American sisters (Melissa Barrera and Mishel Prada) who return to their childhood home in Los Angeles following the unexpected death of their mother. They are surprised to discover that their mother was married to another woman (played by non-binary actor Ser Anzoategui) and that her business, a popular neighborhood bar, is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Created by award-winning playwright Tanya Saracho and scripted by an all Latinx writers room, the show pulsated with a gritty and truthful authenticity whether it was exploring the complex and fluid sexual lives of the central characters or the shifting economic tides of their rapidly gentrifying East Los Angeles neighborhood.

TO OUR LOYAL READERS & SPONSORS...

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SAFE HEALTHY

WE’LL BE TOGETHER AGAIN SOON. ...FROM

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S E PT E M B E R 0 4 , 2 0 2 0 • WA S H I N GTO N B L A D E.CO M • 3 5

What are the factors that make us move?

COVID driving changes in how we work, live

By JOSEPH HUDSON

What is going to happen to real estate as more people work from home and offices start allowing their workers to telecommute? Are people going to be moving out of large cities and going to places that meet their lifestyle needs and wants? I am hearing that many people are deciding to move to another area of the country where there are ample outdoor opportunities for recreation, where land and space might be cheaper than they are in a more crowded urban environment, where there are spaces for home offices and large yards for kids to play in.

And conversely, are there going to be people making their first moves in real estate in the more urban areas as more homes go up for sale from the people mentioned in the latest migration pattern? Will renters now be able to turn their rent check into an investment in themselves as some of the city dwellers decide to go out to the suburbs or to another region entirely?

What are the aspects of a neighborhood or a town that are important to you as you think about where you currently live and where you want to live? Do you want to live within a 30-minute drive from a major airport? Do you want to live near water or hiking and biking trails? Do you want some neighborhood restaurants in walking distance from you?

Some buyers may want to live near a major hospital center. Every buyer has their own list of wants, needs, and must not have’s in their head. I frequently ask my clients to actually write out this list, and especially if it is a couple buying a home, for each partner to write out their own list, and then share and compare it to their partner’s list. They might surprise each other.

If you are curious about buying or selling a home, I will be holding a virtual homebuyer seminar at the end of September. Don’t hesitate to reach out and I will get you the sign-up information.

Joseph Hudson is a Realtor with The Oakley Group at Compass. Reach him at 703-587-0597 or Joseph.hudson@compass.com.

3 6 • WA SHIN GTO N BLADE.COM • SEPTEMBER 0 4 , 2 0 2 0

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SCHEDULE YOUR VIRTUAL APPOINTMENT TODAY!

INGLESIDE AT ROCK CREEK 202-470-3413 // www.ircdc.org

INGLESIDE AT KING FARM

240-380-2678 // www.ikfmd.org

Ingleside at Rock Creek and Ingleside at King Farm are not-for-profit, CARF-accredited, SAGECare-certified, life plan communities.

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PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY

CALL TODAY TO PLACE YOUR AD

BULLETIN BOARD

SEXY 1970s MEN’S Black Fetish Leather Jacket, small. Search eBay for item ID#164339681072. A rare piece of Levi-&-Leather history. Great condition!

MOVING, MUST SELL COLLECTION OF DVD’S I have an extensive collection of DVD’s and some “collectible” vintage DVR’s. Also some great old Male Magazines.

Please contact me if interested.

Please call Chuck 703-684-8016.

COUNSELING

COUNSELING FOR LGBTQ People.

Individual/couple counseling with a volunteer peer counselor. GMCC, servicing since 1973. 202-5808661. gaymenscounseling.org.

No fees, donation requested.

Safe Space Our Place ® In a world full of judgment, you need to trust that your therapist is affirming and ready to hear your “deep, dark secrets.” The journey tends to be complex, layered and somewhat unpredictable. I focus on my clients’ regaining control and strive to help them actualize their goals through a supportive, positive, unconditional environment. W. “Allen” Pittinger-Dunham, MSW, LICSW, CAC-II, NCC AP-MAC 240-339-4196 / allen@ssop.lgbt / www.ssop.lgbt.

EMPLOYMENT

WHOLISTIC SERVICES, INC. Seeking Full Time Direct Support Professionals to assist intellectually disabled adults with behavioral health complexities in group homes & day services throughout D.C. Requirements: Valid Driver’s License, able to lift 50-75 lbs., complete training program, become Med Certified within 6 months of hire, pass security background check.

(Associates degree preferred) For more information please contact Human Resources @ 301-392-2500.

Place your HOUSING TO SHARE ad online at washingtonblade.com and the ad prints free in print & online! **25 words or less prints free

**Anything more is $1/word.

LEGAL SERVICES

ADOPTION, DONOR, SURROGACY legal services. Jennifer represents LGBTQ clients in DC, MD & VA interested in adoption or ART matters. 240-863- 2441, JFairfax@jenniferfairfax.com.

LIMOUSINES

202.747.2077 ext 8092

MOVERS

AROUND TOWN MOVERS. Professional Moving & Storage. Let Our Movers Do The Heavy Lifting.

Mention the ‘Blade’ for 5% off of our regular rates. Call today 202.734.3080. www.aroundtownmovers.com.

PLUMBING

KASPER’S LIVERY SERVICE Since 1987. Gay & Veteran Owner/ Operator. 2016 Luxury BMW 750Li Sedan. Properly Licensed & Livery Insured in DC. www.KasperLivery. com. Phone 202-554-2471.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Results-Oriented • Affordable

Larry Cohen, LICSW

32 years serving the LGBT community

202-244-0903 socialanxietyhelp.com

See website for NPR story on my work

RENT / DC

COLUMBIA HEIGHTS 5 BR. Victorian Brownstone 3,000+ SF, 5 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 3 levels and has parking for 2 cars in rear. Prime location in the heart of Columbia Heights off of 14th Street - 2 blocks south of the Columbia Heights Metro (yellow & green lines), DC USA (Target, Washington Sports Club, etc), short walk to Adams Morgan and all retail on 14th & U Street ! (202) 437-4320.

Email: beaupearce2003@yahoo.com.

CLEANING

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

CLEANING

BODYWORK

THE MAGIC TOUCH: Swedish, Massage or Deep Tissue.

Appts PROOF #2 ISSUE DATE202170414 486-6183, Low Rates, 24/7, In-Calls.

SHARE ADS ARE FREE.

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

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Top 1% Nationwide NVAR Life Member Top Producder

SALES REPRESENTATIVE PHIL ROCKSTROH prockstroh@ 703-593-3204 WWW.DAVELLOYD.NET

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

REVISIONS DEADLINES REDESIGN All Classified Ads TEXT REVISIONSRegular & Adult - Including IMAGE/LOGO MustREVISIONS Be Received NO REVISIONS

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

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ENHANCE YOUR AD WITH OUR UPGRADES PICTURES BOLD TEXT LARGE TEXT COLOR AND MORE CONTACT US AT 202-747-2077

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202.747.2077

THREE HISTORIC OFFERINGS FOR SALE: Historic 900 Park Avenue, Falls Church, VA 22046

Price reduced by $150,000! Situated on a picturesque 12,500 sqft fully fenced corner lot in the desirable Woodland Neighborhood of Falls Church, the historic home is a must-see! Listed at $1,599,900, this home features 4 bedrooms and 3 fully renovated bathrooms, and boasts over 4,100 square feet of living space on a gorgeous, spacious lot. Experience 3D Tour, video & more info: 900parkfallschurch.com

FOR SALE: 920 S Carolina Ave SE, Washington, DC 20003 Inspiring Italianate Row Home in the heart of Capitol Hill & Eastern Market sited on a stunning lot with rarely available large front and rear gardens. This gracious home retains the character of its century old design while providing every modern amenity and luxury you can ask for. Listed at $1,245,000, with 3 bedrooms and 1600 sq ft of living space. Experience 3D Tour, video & more info: 920southcarolinaave.com

FOR SALE: 716 13th St SE, Washington, DC 20003 Completely renovated 2BR/2BA end unit row home in exciting Hill East community! A perfect combination of classic and modern, this home is full of character and function. Highlights include an inviting front garden, exposed brick spanning the entire main level, modern renovations throughout, and a private & professionally landscaped rear yard. Visit Property Website & Experience the 3D tour: 71613thst.com

LIVE LOCAL Glass House Real Estate is proud to be apart of the Green Hedges School community.

A Modern and Affordable Way to Sell a Home.

Glass House started with a vision to create a modern, more affordable way to buy and a sell a home. With top-tiered professional service at a fraction of the cost, we believe that affordability doesn’t have to come at the expense of service or results.

Licensed in DC, MD, & VA.

Khalil Alexander El-Ghoul,

Principal Broker & Owner of Glass House Real Estate 571-235-4821 khalil@glasshousere.com

145 Church St NW #301, Vienna VA 22180 718 7th St NW, Washington, DC 20001 www.glasshousere.com

Khalil El-Ghoul Principal Broker & Owner

"Courtney and I, along with our twin daughters, Nahla and Ava, live in the town of Vienna and could not be happier with the friends, community, and fellowship we have experienced since joining the Green Hedges community."

-Khalil El-Ghoul

571-235-4821 Khalil@glasshousere.com glasshousere.com

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Licensed in DC, MD, & VA VA. If you are already working with an agent this is not meant to solicit your business.

145 Church St., NW Vienna, VA 22180

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