Washingtonblade.com, Volume 51, Issue 52, December 25, 2020

(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Alone for the holidays

Tips for coping with COVID Christmas

PAGE 16

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Mayor reinstates ‘pause’ in indoor dining at restaurants, bars Dirty Goose vandalized as ban on indoor service announced

By LOU CHIBBARO JR. | lchibbaro@washblade.com

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s announcement on Dec. 18 that indoor dining and indoor bar service for the city’s bars and restaurants would be banned beginning Dec. 23 until at least Jan. 15 came about one week after one or more unidentified vandals damaged the heaters used by the D.C. gay bar The Dirty Goose for its outdoor seating area.

The two developments were not related to each other. But Keaton Fedak, general manager of The Dirty Goose, told D.C.’s Channel 7 News last Friday that the two things appeared to be more signs of the trials and tribulations faced by his and other similar establishments this year in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

He told the TV news station the vandalism felt personal “because I work here every day and we put so much time and effort into creating this nice environment.”

Kristen Metzger, a spokesperson for D.C. police, told the Washington Blade police have no information “to suggest this incident is motivated by hate bias in relation to the LGBTQ community.”

Fedak and The Dirty Goose co-owner Justin Parker couldn’t immediately be reached for comment by the Blade. But the bar and eatery at 913 U St., N.W. in the heart of the U Street entertainment district posted a message about the vandalism incident on its Facebook page.

“Damnit, we are trying our HARDEST to create a fun, cozy, and comfortable atmosphere during the hardest year ever,” the posting says. “And, yet still, some people are just not having it. We will be closed this evening [Dec. 15] as we wait for replacement parts for our fire pits due to last night’s vandalism.” The posting said the bar would reopen on Thursday, Dec. 17.

In response to Mayor Bowser’s order banning indoor dining and bar service until Jan. 15, The Dirty Goose is among the D.C. gay bars that have said they will remain open for outdoor service and carryout and delivery service, according to a separate Dec. 19 posting on its Facebook page.

Douglas Schantz, owner of Nellie’s Sports Bar, another gay bar located on U Street across the street from The Dirty Goose, said he too plans to remain open for carryout and delivery service during the ban on indoor service.

David Perruzza, owner of the Adams Morgan gay sports bar Pitchers and its adjoining lesbian bar A League of Her Own, announced in a Facebook posting on Dec. 19 that he

will not stay open during the indoor dining ban.

“To all of our customers, we thank you for all of your loyalty and support,” his Facebook message says.

“We will be temporarily shut down until January 15th. We simply can’t survive without indoor dining,” his message says.

One day earlier, on Dec. 18, Perruzza posted another message urging customers to come to Pitchers and Some business owners are criticizing Mayor Bowser’s latest restrictions on indoor dining.

A League of Her Own last weekend, the last weekend before the indoor service ban would take effect.

“Please come out this weekend and support the staff who will basically be out of jobs for Christmas due to the mayor’s new restrictions,” the posting says. “Honestly, we don’t know where she is going that she thinks we are all packed, but we have been struggling,” Perruzza’s message continues. “Now this will definitely hurt us and the employees even more,” the message says. It asks customers and supporters to consider contributing to a GoFundMe site that the bar set up to support its employees.

Perruzza is among the city’s bar and restaurant owners who have raised strong objections to the mayor’s decision to reinstate a ban on indoor dining and bar service after lifting an earlier indoor service ban put in place earlier this year. Restaurant and bar representatives also raised strong objections to Bowser’s separate order earlier this month banning the sale of alcoholic beverages in bars and restaurants after 10 p.m.

CONTINUES AT WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

Comings & Goings

Parson forms new consulting firm

By PETER ROSENSTEIN

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

Congratulations to Brett A. Parson on the formation of his consulting firm, Brett A. Parson Consulting. Parson has more than 25 years’ experience in local, state, and federal law enforcement. He is an internationally recognized leader who has championed awardwinning innovations in multiple areas. During his time with the Metropolitan Police Department, in Washington, D.C., he created the Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit, which received Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, Innovations in Government Award, along with a $100,000 grant to help replicate the program. His roles have taken him across almost all aspects of MPD, working in vice, narcotics, gun recovery, alcohol-related crimes, bias-related (hate) crimes, domestic violence, violent crimes (sexual abuse and homicides), and supervising the city’s elite Narcotics Strike Force.

Currently he is working for The Georgetown University Law Center’s Innovative Policing Project ABLE. He said, “I am super excited about this project. ABLE seeks to change the culture of policing, by teaching officers when to intervene and how to effectively intervene when they see a fellow officer about to do something harmful or stop harm while it is occurring.” He added, “Imagine if the three officers who were present when Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd had this training and skills and confidence to save Mr. Floyd. The added benefit is that departments where this program has been implemented have seen a wholesale change in their culture.”

Parson is working with Out to Protect, a group of police officers who are creating a network of liaison officers around the world. He is a member of their board. He also works for the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Association (IACLEA). He is president of the local chapter of Concerns of Police Survivors and the Shomrim Society.

Parson was recognized by MPD many times including as Officer of the Year, and Supervisor of the Year and received awards from groups including U.S. Attorney’s Office 0 6 • WA SHIN GTO N BLADE.COM • DECEMBER 2 5 , 2 0 2 0 • LO CA L NE WS

BRETT PARSON

DEREK SMITH

Washington, D.C., the Human Rights Campaign, and Children’s National Medical Center.

Congratulations also to Derek Smith who is the new manager at HalfSmoke, in D.C. He said, “Come visit me as your resident manager for an amazing experience at HalfSmoke at Florida and 7th Streets NW! Especially for unlimited Happy Hour!” He reminds all COVID precautions are fully observed.

For the past eight years, he worked as a private chef in East Hampton, N.Y. and D.C. He has worked as catering sales specialist at Breadline (by La Madeleine); dining assistant manager at Hay-Adams Hotel; and catering manager at Marriott Food Service, Northfield, Vt. Smith served in the United States Air Force and received a number of medals including the Air Medal (twice), for combat missions flown in Afghanistan; the aerial Achievement Medal, for combat support missions flown in the Middle Eastern theater; and Air Force Commendation Medal for Quick Diagnosis and repair of C-130 aircraft while under attack.

White House says Grenell is first out gay Cabinet member But Dems say Buttigieg will be first to win Senate confirmation

By CHRIS JOHNSON

| cjohnson@washblade.com

Amid an ongoing dispute over whether the distinction of being the first openly LGBTQ Cabinet official belongs to Pete Buttigieg or Richard Grenell, the White House said that President Trump believes the distinction belongs to Grenell, even though the Trump appointee didn’t seek or obtain Senate confirmation for his Cabinet-level role.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Brian Morgenstern, gaggling with reporters, said in response to a question from the Washington Blade Trump “does agree” with the designation of Grenell as acting director of national intelligence makes him the first openly LGBTQ Cabinet official.

“Yes, the president does agree with that,” Morgenstern said. “He’s very proud of it. In fact he as a gift gave the ceremonial Cabinet room chair that Ambassador Grenell used during his time as acting ODNI to kind of signify how meaningful it was to him to break through that barrier.”

The dispute emerged after President-elect Joe Biden announced Tuesday he selected Buttigieg, who made history as a gay presidential candidate in the 2020 election, as secretary of transportation.

Sweeping under the rug the anti-LGBTQ record Trump has built over his administration, Morgenstern said Grenell’s appointment is a “good example of tolerance” and Trump believes “immutable traits” shouldn’t disqualify capable people from the roles for which they are qualified.

“And so, yeah, the president’s very proud of that — of sort of breaking through that barrier for our country setting a good example of tolerance and that people who are best suited to have a position to get that position then no matter what their immutable traits may be,” Morgenstern said.

Morgenstern concluded he would “leave it at that” before announcing to reporters in the gaggle he’d take just one more question.

Despite Morgenstern’s claims the Trump administration believes qualified people should be able to get a position “no matter what their immutable traits may be,” the White House under Trump just months ago signaled it would keep in place the transgender military ban, citing unfounded claims of “military readiness and unit cohesion.” Biden made reversing that policy a campaign pledge and is expected to undo the ban upon taking office.

The honor of being the first openly gay Cabinet official has ignited a firestorm of controversy on social media in the aftermath of Biden announcing Buttigieg’s appointment.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg Jim Hormel, who became the first openly gay U.S. ambassador in 1999 after President Bill Clinton gave him the job through a recess appointment, downplayed Grenell last week and said the real achievement “as the first openly LGBTQ member of the presidential Cabinet” goes to Buttigieg.

“Pete Buttigieg will be nominated as secretary of transportation, subject to confirmation by the Senate,” Hormel said. “Following his approval he will serve with full authority at the will of the president. He will be the first official openly LGBT member of the Cabinet. His appointment, if approved, will be a milestone.”

Hormel, now 87 and responding to an inquiry from the Blade via email, said the basis for rejecting Grenell’s appointment as a first for the LGBTQ community rests with the word “acting” in the Trump appointee’s title.

“The president may appoint an individual to be temporary ‘acting’ head of an agency, bureau or department,” Hormel said. “That appointee can serve in that capacity for a limited period of time without being confirmed by the Senate. Trump has used ‘acting’ appointments time and again, thus avoiding Senate inquiries and investigations.”

Like Grenell, Hormel never won Senate confirmation for his presidential appointment.

Conservative senators, including the late Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and former Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.), refused to allow the Senate to confirm Hormel explicitly on the basis of his being gay. Clinton had to short-circuit the process, using his presidential powers to grant Hormel a recess appointment.

But Hormel at least sought Senate approval for his role. Grenell neither sought nor obtained confirmation as acting director of national intelligence, although he had won confirmation for his concurrent role as U.S. ambassador to Germany.

Even though Hormel and Grenell had similarities in not obtaining Senate confirmation, Hormel said his “situation differed in two ways.”

“First, the hierarchy within the State Department is unique,” Hormel explained. “In the absence of an ambassador there is a charge‘ d’affaires who assumes the duties of ambassador. There is no ‘acting’ position per se. Secondly, in my case, I went through the process of confirmation, but the Senate was prevented from voting. The president then made a recess appointment, and I went to my post fully accredited.”

Grenell, who didn’t respond to a request for comment for this article, has largely stayed away from the fray on social media on who gets to be called the first openly gay Cabinet member.

However, Grenell upon leaving his post as acting DNI this year posted on Instagram that Trump gave him his chair from the Cabinet room and told him being the first openly gay Cabinet official was a “big deal.”

Grenell also said during the election in a video that he was the “first openly gay Cabinet member,” which he said demonstrates Trump is “the most pro-gay” president ever despite the anti-LGBTQ record the administration has built. (The Log Cabin video, though widely The White House says former acting Director of National Intelligence RICHARD GRENELL is the first openly gay Cabinet official, not former Mayor of South Bend, Ind. PETE BUTTIGIEG, whom Biden chose as transportation secretary.

(Photo of Grenell public domain; Blade photo of Buttigieg by Michael Key)

seen, was also criticized for inaccuracies and taking facts and quotes out of context.

During the Biden team’s announcement last week, Buttigieg was careful in his language about the milestone he was setting out to achieve and said his nomination marked “the first time an American president has ever sent an openly LGBTQ cabinet nominee to the Senate for confirmation.”

But Buttigieg also recognized he was following in the footsteps of LGBTQ pioneers, explicitly recognizing Hormel’s achievement.

“I can remember watching the news, 17 years old and seeing a story about an appointee of President Clinton, named to be an ambassador, attacked and ultimately denied a vote in the Senate, because he was gay — ultimately able to serve only by a recess appointment,” Buttigieg said.

Buttigieg, who made history as a gay Democratic candidate in the 2020 primary said at the time his career aspiration was to become an airline pilot and “was a long way from coming out, even to myself,” but gained knowledge from Hormel’s story.

“I learned about some of the limits that exist in this country when it comes to who is allowed to belong, and just as important, I saw how those limits could be challenged,” Buttigieg said.

“So, two decades later, I can’t help but think of a 17-year-old who might be watching right now, someone who wonders whether and where they belong in the world, or even in their own family, and I’m thinking about the message today’s announcement is sending to them.”

Hormel, in the email to the Blade the day after Buttigieg praised him, was able to return the favor by offering support.

“I enthusiastically support the nomination of Pete Buttigieg as secretary of transportation and will acknowledge him as the first openly LGBTQ member of the presidential Cabinet,” Hormel said.

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Congress falls short of funding goals in HIV fight Deal includes increase of $137 million for Trump plan to beat AIDS

By CHRIS JOHNSON | cjohnson@washblade.com

allocated by Congress represents a In the wake of extended deliberations, 48.8 percent increase, which he said Congress included in its deal to “far outpaces the overall increase in provide coronavirus relief and fund non-defense discretionary spending.” the government for fiscal year 2021 Taking a jab at the Trump an increase of $137 million for the administration, Hollander said the Trump administration’s plan to beat $678 million sought by the Trump HIV/AIDS, but stopped short of the full administration sounds better than it is request, much to the disappointment of because it was “predicated on cuts to advocates fighting the epidemic. other labor, health and human services, The $1.4 trillion deal, unveiled and education programs.”

Monday after days of negotiations No HIV money was included in amid fears of a potential government the coronavirus relief portion of the shutdown, notably includes $600 in package. That stands in contrast to stimulus checks to U.S. adults and new the CARES Act, which included $155 money for small businesses under the million for Ryan White programs as part Paycheck Protection Program. In mere of the earlier coronavirus package. hours after the deal became public, Hollander said House Democrats Congress voted to approve the measure included $100 million in the Heroes Act, Monday evening. the $4 trillion COVID-19 relief passed The deal, however, also contains in October, but Republicans “insisted funds for the Ending the HIV Epidemic on dramatic cuts to the emergency initiative, which seeks to beat the HIV appropriations that were included in epidemic by 2030. that bill.”

Announced by President Trump at The Senate Appropriations the State of the Union address in 2019, Committee didn’t respond to a request the PrEP-centric initiative under the to comment for this article. The White Department of Health & Human Services PRESIDENT TRUMP’s PrEP-centric initiative under the Department of Health & Human Services seeks to reduce new HIV infections by 75 percent in 2025, then 90 percent in 2030.

House referred the Blade to the Office seeks to reduce new HIV infections by 75 (Washington Blade by Michael Key) of Management & Budget, which didn’t percent in 2025, then 90 percent in 2030. respond to a request to comment. HHS It remains to be seen if President-elect also didn’t respond to a request to comment.

Joe Biden will adopt this plan and the infrastructure set up by the Trump administration to Jennifer Kates, director of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, eliminate HIV (which Biden said he could do by 2025, outdoing Trump’s goal by five yeas) was more bleak in her assessment and openly wondered if the amount Congress or adopt another plan to go his own way. appropriated would be enough to complete the HIV initiative by its 2030 goals.

The FY-21 deal appropriated $403 million for the initiative, increasing the FY-20 funding “The funding in the bill for the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative is below the president’s levels by $137 million. The $137 million increase breaks down as follows: request, and it’s unclear if this will be sufficient for reaching the initiative’s goals within the • $35 million for Centers for Disease Control’s HIV prevention efforts; timeline, particularly since the timeline itself has already been threatened by COVID-19,” • $35 million for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program; Kates said.

• $52 million for HRSA Community Health Centers to focus on PrEP to prevent HIV Meanwhile, Congress also agreed to reject the draconian cuts the Trump administration transmission; had sought for global AIDS programs as part of its FY-21 budget request.

• $5 million for Indian Health Service for HIV and hepatitis; and The deal allocated $5.9 billion for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or • $10 million for National Institute for Health’s Centers for AIDS Research.

PEPFAR, the same amount as FY-20 and $2.1 billion above Trump’s request. Congress also The final package also includes important funding increases for other domestic HIV allocated $1.56 billion for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which programs, including an increase of $20 million for HUD’s Housing Opportunities for is $903 million above Trump’s request.

People with AIDS, or HOPWA, $1.5 million for the Minority HIV/AIDS Fund and $1 million Jessica Bassett, a spokesperson for the New York-based grassroots group Health GAP, for the CDC’s School Health program. said via email to the Blade, however, the allocation for global programs is “another punt But the funding is a far cry from the $412 million increase sought by the Department of from Congress when what people with HIV need is urgent, decisive action.”

Health & Human Services, making a total appropriation of $678 million in FY-21, to ramp “The U.S. was already underfunding its share of the global AIDS response via PEPFAR up the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative in each designated high-incident jurisdiction and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria – and that was before COVID-19,” with testing, linkage to care and PrEP activities.

Bassett said, “The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated weaknesses in the Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, said in a statement HIV response, triggering life-threatening disruptions to HIV treatment, prevention, and the funds Congress appropriated aren’t what the Trump administration, or advocates care for adults and children, and undermining years of progress in the fight against HIV in against HIV/AIDS, were seeking, but he was hopeful they would be enough to keep the just a matter of months.” initiative going.

Bassett concluded she wants to see big changes when the Biden administration begins “We thank the president for initially proposing and now the Congress for including on Jan. 20, when she said Congress “won’t be able to use Trump’s perennial slash-andincreased funding for the second year of the Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative,” Schmid burn budget proposals as cover for flatlining global AIDS funding.” said. “While it is not as much as we anticipated, it is reassuring that both the House and “The Biden-Harris administration should work with Congress to deliver a bold global Senate, in a bipartisan fashion, support increases to our public health efforts so that we HIV catch-up plan to save lives, particularly the lives of those who have suffered the most can continue the momentum already created and make further progress in ending HIV in during the pandemics: LGBTQ+ people, children, pregnant people, sex workers, people the U.S.” who use drugs, and incarcerated people,” Bassett said. “Scaling up the U.S. investment to The deal appropriated money for the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative somewhere in put the global AIDS response back on track must be a priority for the new administration, between the amount proposed by both chambers of Congress. Counterintuitively, House first to mitigate the harms done by COVID-19, and then year after year to successfully Democrats under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) approved just $65 million in expand access to quality HIV treatment and evidence-based prevention services to all increases, while Senate appropriations had proposed $207 million. who need them.”

Evan Hollander, a House Appropriations Committee spokesperson, said the $403 million 0 8 • WA SHIN GTO N BLADE.COM • DECEMBER 2 5 , 2 0 2 0 • NAT I O NA L NE WS

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Lebanese singer on coming out, Middle East politics and activist’s suicide Mashrou’ Leila rocker says career ‘a constant battle for breath’

The out lead singer of the Lebanese rock band Mashrou’ Leila says their career has been “a constant battle for breath.”

“Singing is an act of intentional breathing,” Hamed Sinno told the Washington Blade on Dec. 11 during an exclusive interview after they spoke at OutRight Action International’s annual OutSummit that took place virtually this year. “We just haven’t been able to find space.”

“We’ve had these weird moments where there’s space by exception, where we got to play for a few years in one country before getting banned and then for a few years in another country before getting banned, yadda yadda yadda, but it’s always been a case of exception.”

Mashrou’ Leila formed at the American University in Beirut in 2008.

Sinno — who came out when they were a student at the university — in 2010 waived a rainbow flag during a concert at Lebanon’s Byblos Festival.

Lebanese Christian groups in 2019 successfully pressured festival organizers to cancel a Mashrou’ Leila concert that had been scheduled to take place. The Jordanian government has also prevented Mashrou’ Leila from performing in the country.

Egyptian authorities in September 2017 arrested Sara Hegazy, an LGBTQ activist, after she raised a rainbow flag during a Mashrou’ Leila concert in Cairo. Hegazy was tortured in prison before an Egyptian court in January 2018 ordered her release on bail.

“No one who grows up on our side of the world is under the illusion that things will be easy, but that level of injustice is really difficult to imagine,” Sinno told the Blade as they discussed Hegazy. “Obviously when we were on stage we saw the rainbow flags, but really it was a beautiful moment. I don’t think anyone was thinking that what happened would happen.”

Sinno noted Mashrou’ Leila publicized Hegazy’s case when she was in custody “because we were getting stories about the kind of abuse she was being subjected to.”

“There’s no need to go into details, but it was just brutal and it made it really difficult for me not to focus on her,” said Sinno.

Hegazy after her release asked for asylum in Canada.

Sinno said he “very briefly” met Hegazy backstage after a Mashrou’ Leila concert in Toronto.

Hegazy died by suicide in June. Sinno in a lengthy tribute to her on their Facebook page told their young LGBTQ fans that they are “God’s creation, as much as anyone else is. You are perfect. You are beautiful. You are loved. You deserve better.”

Sinno during the interview further reflected upon Hegazy’s death.

“It’s not about me,” Sinno told the Blade. “What happened to Sara is very much about her.”

“I guess part of it is this strange relationship that you imagine having with your audience … where even if these people aren’t part of your life you feel invested in their well-being because you know that they’ve been invested in ours,” they added. “I don’t know how to qualify the nature of that bond, to be honest, but it’s something.”

Sinno added “being part of that moment where that flag was raised, understanding the courage that it took for her to do that because of my own history, and being in that moment and sharing in that joy, and then seeing it dissolve and turn into misery over the course of the weeks that followed and for the three months after made it such a huge part of our lives as a band and made it a huge part of everyone’s life in the Middle East.”

“The majority of the LGBT community was implicated in that, but then for us the whole experience of that concert in Cairo, it’s sort of been downhill from there,” they said.

Sinno spoke with the Blade roughly four months after a massive explosion in Beirut’s port killed more than 200 people and devastated large swaths of the Lebanese capital.

The blast nearly destroyed the offices of Helem, the country’s oldest LGBTQ advocacy group, and left several staffers injured. OutRight Action International launched a fundraiser to help Helem and members of Lebanon’s LGBTQ community recover from the blast.

Sinno in their OutSummit speech said the explosion is the result of “the criminal negligence of the Lebanese state,” but they declined to comment further to the Blade.

Sinno did note, however, they continue to support Helem and its work in Lebanon.

“Helem was a big part of my coming out journey,” Sinno told the Blade, noting they

By MICHAEL K. LAVERS | mlavers@washblade.com

HAMED SINNO

(Photo courtesy of Hamed Sinno/OutRight Action International)

volunteered at Helem when they were 18.

“A lot of what I guess I’ve been trying to do over the last few months is just to amplify their fundraising campaigns through my own social media platforms,” they added.

Sinno told the Blade they are “very good friends with everyone at the center, those people in the center when I was 18 and those people that took over afterwards.”

Sinno has publicly discussed their struggles with anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder and their sobriety. Sinno during their interview with the Blade also spoke about the stigma around mental health in the Middle East.

“The stigma around people who are read as presenting masculine sharing their struggles with that is ridiculous and toxic and counterproductive,” they said.

“I know that a lot of my issues come from having to deal with shared problems that I know a lot of (my) audience will also have to face, so I think it matters to be transparent about sharing that with those people,” added Sinno.

The OutRight summit took place a month after President-elect Biden defeated President Trump in the U.S. election. The coronavirus pandemic and the continued fallout over George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis in May also overshadowed it.

“There’s always going to be a lot of reasons to be cynical and my default modus operandi is to just want to be that cynical,” Sinno told the Blade when asked about their experience living in the U.S. right now. “There are also a lot of reasons to be optimistic right now.”

“There is a fierceness in people who are much younger than I am that I have never experienced before and that’s just not in the U.S., but back in Lebanon as well and it really is cause for so much optimism,” they added. “Seeing the way people came together after the assassination of George Floyd is not something that we can dismiss.

Seeing prison abolition become a conversation that is not deemed too radical by a large segment of a population is not a little feat.”

Sinno also said “what we are witnessing in terms of the fruits of the labor of Black activists and Black trans activists who are in the history of this country is incredible.”

“We’re seeing it, hopefully, come to fruition,” they said. “If we manage to create more space for that community that inevitably means better things for everyone.”

Sinno admitted it is currently “exhausting being here” in the U.S. Sinno also has begun to examine how they have benefitted from systemic oppression.

“I’m not Black, I’m an Arab and I have to explore my own complicity in various systems of oppression, anti-Blackness, and examine how I benefit from those systems as well,” they said. “None of it is easy … it’s been an exhausting few months for everyone here, I think, but I’m inclined at this moment that maybe things are exhausting because we’re all growing, at least I really hope that’s the case.”

1 0 • WA SHIN GTO N BLADE.COM • DECEMBER 2 5 , 2 0 2 0 • I NT E R NAT I O NA L NE WS

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King, Rapinoe urge court to overturn Idaho anti-trans law

Lesbian athletes, including tennis legend Billie Jean King and World Cup champion Megan Rapinoe, were among the 176 women who signed a legal brief submitted to a federal appeals court Monday calling on judges to overturn an Idaho law barring transgender girls from participating in school sports.

The friend-of-the-court brief, coordinated by the LGBTQ group Lambda Legal, urges the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to rule against the law, HB 500, arguing school athletic participation “provides unparalleled opportunities to forge a sense of belonging, connectedness, and contribution.”

“The benefits of sports extend to all aspects of school and throughout life. But these benefits are diminished when some athletes are excluded because of who they are,” the brief says. “Amici’s experiences in sports and in life are a testament to the value of inclusion in building powerful teams and social, societal, and business institutions.”

The attention to the experiences of women athletes is key to the context of the 38-page brief, which is filed amid debate on whether transgender girls should be allowed in school sports.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), who had apologized for her anti-gay past during her presidential run, has introduced in her remaining days in Congress legislation that would amend Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 essentially to prohibit transgender girls from school athletics. In a subsequent video, Gabbard justified this legislation by saying biological males have inherent physical advantages over women and would compromise paths to victory and scholarships for non-trans girls.

King, who won the “Battle of the Sexes” match against Bobby Riggs in 1973 and was ranked the world’s No. 1 tennis player six times, said in a statement “there is no place in any sport for discrimination of any kind.” (King was ostracized after coming out as a lesbian in 1981 and lost an estimated $2 million in sponsorships.)

“I’m proud to support all transgender athletes who simply want the access and opportunity to compete in the sport they love,” King said. “The global athletic community grows stronger when we welcome and champion all athletes – including LGBTQI+ athletes.”

Other women athletes who signed the brief in the case, Hecox v. Little, are Candace Parker, who was a trailblazer in women’s basketball; Phaidra Knight; a former rugby player who was a member of the United States National Team from 1999 to 2017; and Esther Lofgren, an American rower and an Olympic gold medalist. Athlete Ally and the Women’s Sports Foundation also had roles in coordinating the brief.

Many of the same athletes also co-signed a letter to the National Collegiate Athletic Association in June urging the organization to nix all sporting events in Idaho in the wake of the anti-trans law. The NCAA, however, has yet to act in response publicly.

The case comes to the Ninth Circuit upon appeal after U.S. District Judge David Nye, appointed by President Trump in 2017, ruled in August against the Idaho law, conceding his order “is likely to be controversial.”

The Trump administration has participated in the case and filed its own friend-of-thecourt brief before the Ninth Circuit in November urging the court to uphold the law. The efforts got a boost from President Trump himself, who retweeted a Brietbart story on the U.S.

BILLIE JEAN KING (left) and MEGAN RAPINOE signed a friend-of-the-court brief urging judges to overturn an Idaho anti-trans sports law.

(King photo by Andrew Coppa Photography; Rapinoe photo by Erica McCaulley)

Justice Department filings.

Carl Charles, staff attorney for Lambda Legal said in a statement the dozens of athletes who signed the brief have “a deep understanding and appreciation of the life-long benefits that come from participation in sports.”

“They recognize the value of inclusive and welcoming sports environments and firmly believe laws like HB 500 that single out groups of women and girls from participation in sports harm the entire athletic community,” Charles said.

Prior to the enactment of HB 500, the Idaho High School Activities Association already had in its rules a requirement limiting transgender athletes access to sports, requiring boys who transition to girls “complete one year of hormone treatment related to the gender transition before competing on a girls team.”

According to the Idaho Statesman, IHSAA says as of March 2020 it had “received just a couple of inquiries about Idaho’s policy and has fielded occasional calls about potential transgender athletes over the past five or six years, but so far, Idaho has not had an athlete use the policy.”

CHRIS JOHNSON

Va. GOP committee censures official for officiating gay wedding

A Virginia county Republican committee on Dec. 12 voted unanimously to censure outgoing Rep. Denver Riggleman, saying he betrayed the party’s values after he officiated a same-sex wedding.

In their resolution, the Appomattox County Republican Committee included a list of reasons for censuring Riggleman, who lost his re-election bid during a Republican state convention over the summer. Prominent on the list was Riggleman officiating a same-sex wedding in July 2019 for two of his campaign aides. “[The wedding] goes against the values and principles of the Republican Party betraying and disregarding the concerns for the many Conservative and Christian voters in the 5th district who elected Denver Riggleman to the United States House of Representatives,” the resolution stated.

“My real belief is that government shouldn’t be involved in marriage at all, but if it is, everybody has to be treated equally before the law,” Riggleman told the Washington Post shortly after the wedding.

Riggleman has also been an outspoken critic of President Trump, and his claims of voter fraud, along with conspiracy theories like the QAnon conspiracy theory.

“This resolution was unanimously passed by the Appomattox County Republican Committee who are passionate about supporting our President Donald J. Trump,” the committee said in a statement to press on Facebook. “We will hold accountable all Republican elected officials to stand by the Virginia Republican Creed and National Republican Platform, and to support all our Republican nominees.”

Riggleman shot back on Twitter, accusing the Republican Party of rigging the primary election against him.

1 2 • WA SHIN GTO N BLADE.COM • DECEMBER 2 5 , 2 0 2 0 • NAT I O NA L NE WS

U.S. Rep. DENVER RIGGLEMAN (R-Va.) (Photo public domain)

“Glad the @VA_GOP finally admits they rig a convention because of the wedding. We already knew this, but here’s your sign,” he tweeted. “I believe in marriage equality and I despise conspiracy theories.”

Despite being a marriage equality advocate, Riggleman voted against the Equality Act, which would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to existing federal civil rights protections. He also voted against a resolution opposing a Trump policy that banned transgender people from serving in the military.

PARKER PURIFOY

DE C E M B E R 2 5 , 2 0 2 0 • WA S H I N GTO N B L A D E.CO M • 1 3

CHARLES FRANCIS

BROCK THOMPSON

is president of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C.

is a D.C.-based writer. He contributes regularly to the Blade.

Pete Buttigieg as Cabinet secretary is more than a ‘first’

Sultry, sexy Department of Transportation D.C. gays anxiously await arrival of Pete and Chasten

Well, we were all waiting for it. The question was swirling all over this gay town of ours ever since the election was called for Joe Biden. I mean, the first time it was called. Where would Pete Buttigieg be hanging that hat of his in the new administration? There were rumors of some high-profile ambassadorship like the United Nations? Or maybe even China. But the gay gossip was that husband Chasten quickly nixed that idea, preferring something more stateside. Then there was Veteran’s Affairs, but that’s the dead-end of Cabinet positions — a thankless and also impossible job.

And none of these was really speaking to the man who not only won the Iowa caucuses, but also more or less handed Biden the presidency when he realized it was over for him and his campaign, and deciding that letting Trump trounce Bernie Sanders in the general election was probably not a great idea for the country.

And then there was last week’s announcement — Buttigieg would be our next Secretary of the Department of Transportation! Exciting, right?

Honestly, at first I was left scratching my head. No offense to all my gay transportation nerds out there, but what a boring, un-sexy job, right?

And what little boy out there dreams of becoming the Secretary of the Department of Transportation?

Apparently Pete did. And who would be surprised by that? In his acceptance speech, Pete said that “travel in my mind is synonymous with growth, with adventure — even love. So much so that I proposed to my husband Chasten in an airport terminal,” he said. “Don’t let anybody tell you that O’Hare isn’t romantic.” And that’s all believable coming from him.

Once again Pete makes geek chic. And this thoughtfulness and careful use of words, isn’t that what we’ve been missing these last four years?

And let’s not forget that Biden is Amtrak Joe. And transportation as a key issue of his means that he thinks Pete is up to the job. And as older Cabinet members move on, Pete could do the shuffle among agencies, further building his federal qualifications. Let’s not forget, as erudite and likable as he is, he was just a mayor. And building those qualifications is hugely important. I think we can all agree that Pete running for president again is not a question of if, but when. And Joe Biden recognizes that.

Then there’s the history of it all. Pete gladly took up the title of the first openly gay Cabinet member, which is true. But I can’t help but to think a little of Janet Reno here, Bill Clinton’s rather boxy and effective attorney general. The team of trolls at the Trump White House was fighting hard last week for that title to go to chief troll Richard Grenell, former ambassador to Germany and former acting Director National Intelligence. But since he was never confirmed by the Senate, I can confirm for you now he does not deserve that title of first openly gay Cabinet member. Plus he was so hated in Germany that they openly asked for someone else, anyone else, to come and replace him.

Having Pete and Chasten in Washington will be very exciting on so many fronts. All the gay Episcopalians have been asking if they’ll be more St. Thomas, or St. John’s. All the gay brunchers out there are wondering if they’ll be more Floriana, or more Annie’s? All the gay Realtors are wondering how to get Pete’s cellphone number.

So hang onto those Pete buttons and T-shirts, gays. The best is about to come roaring down the tracks.

The culmination of a terrible history played out over decades It is so much more than another “first,” Pete Buttigieg nominated as Transportation secretary, the first openly gay person to be named to a Cabinet post requiring Senate confirmation. Far better to think of his nomination as a culmination of a terrible history played out over decades at the very door of the Cabinet Room itself.

LGBT Americans have been ruined and fired there. Gay Americans have entered there with their darkest secret of homosexuality. We have met there many times as some of the most powerful staff in the world, think of LBJ’s right-hand, the troubled Walter Jenkins. We have gathered there as hopeful advocates and confidants when “the boss” was elsewhere. Think of Special Assistant to the President Midge Costanza’s and Jean O’Leary’s first-ever gay and lesbian policy meeting held in the Roosevelt Room at the Carter White House, or John Berry, who became the highest-ranking official in gay history when President Obama named him director of the Office of Personnel Management.

But it has never been like this, an openly gay Cabinet Secretary to be confirmed by the United States Senate. Pete Buttigieg, doubtless, welcomes this “first,” but it will not define him. We have all come too far for that.

I will never forget interviewing one of the old-school Washington “power lobbyists,” my former boss Bob Gray (1921-2014), when he was 87. In the 1980s, Bob served as deputy director of the Reagan-Bush Presidential Campaign, co-chairman of the Reagan inaugural and founded the public affairs firm Gray & Company headquartered in a converted electricity generating plant in Georgetown appropriately named The Power House. In those days, Bob had it all. He also had a secret known to a relative few: he was gay. Somehow he managed to keep that secret for decades, all the way back to the Eisenhower administration when he served President Dwight Eisenhower as Secretary of the Cabinet — while totally in the closet!

How did you ever manage to pull that off, I asked him, with J. Edgar Hoover himself investigating every gay in town?

“You cannot conceive what it was like,” Gray said. “The sweeping totality of the ban (Eisenhower’s infamous Executive Order 10450) to not hire a single homosexual; it was a witch hunt invitation for the entire country. I knew I was different, and I knew what I’d do if I were going to be accused. I told myself, ‘I’ll march over to J. Edgar Hoover and tell him all about it. Of course, I didn’t know he was homosexual then.” Gray escaped detection by having zero private life. “If I had been sexually active, I would have been outed. I was an open book working 24-hour days,” he said about his crushing strategy of an era past.

“It’s so very hard to appreciate how far we’ve come. The younger generations do not realize this at all. In my hometown of Hastings, Neb., there were two known queers. The two ‘town queers’ is what people said.” Decades later, “Mayor Pete” would come from that American heartland. He understands the journey. But for Bob Gray, the White House Cabinet Room held other ghosts clanking their chains, the memory of what happened to Arthur Vandenberg, Jr. I asked him, “Looking back, do you think it is ironic that you, a closeted gay man, had been chosen

by Eisenhower’s chief of staff Sherman Adams to essentially follow another gay man — Arthur Vandenberg, Jr. — who had been fired from the exact same position of Secretary for being an accused homosexual? Vandenberg was the son of the Michigan Senate lion Arthur Vandenberg, Sr. Arthur, Jr., then 35, played an important role helping Ike secure the Republican nomination in 1952. No matter.

Hoover investigated Vandenberg, informed the President-elect and had Arthur, Jr. fired. This ruined Arthur Vandenberg, Jr. He left town.

When I pressed Gray about Vandenberg, he snapped, “Hey, I don’t want to be known as the ‘gay guy’ who worked at the White House! Being gay is a miniscule part of who I was and who I am! It is NOT my whole being, nor am I a standard bearer,” he looked me hard in the eye. Coming from Hastings, Neb., with his carefully crafted origin story as an Eisenhower and Reagan Republican, this is how he saved himself: It’s just not who I am! Miniscule. Not me.

For Buttigieg that battle has been well won, by his personal honesty and all of us American “town queers,” men and women who lifted each other up and educated the country throughout our searing history. This is who he is. But it’s not all he is by a thousand leagues of our experience and his accomplishments.

Now let’s get on with Pete Buttigieg’s and President-elect Joe Biden’s leadership rebuilding our infrastructure — and fractured country.

1 4 • WA SHIN GTO N BLADE.COM • DECEMBER 2 5 , 2 0 2 0 • V I E WP O I NT

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Merry Christmas and let’s end ‘alternative facts’ Undoing Trump damage will take some time

First, let me wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. It might just be a little different Christmas for many as most of us will be celebrating without family or friends. But the sacrifice this year will allow us all to be around next year to once again celebrate any way we like. It is that light at the end of the tunnel, the vaccine, that gives us hope for a better year. So this year enjoy a glass of cheer with each other over Zoom. If we are lucky, the Post Office will have gotten our cards to friends on time and Amazon will have delivered our gifts. So while Christmas may be celebrated differently it is still Christmas and contrary to Trump’s claim, an alternative fact, I am a liberal Democrat and have always been happy saying Merry Christmas to people. I also say Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Kwanza.

I also write ‘Wishing you and all your loved ones a Happy New Year and Peace on Earth’ when I send out my Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanza cards.

So contrary to another one of Trump’s lies when he told supporters “Christmas will be canceled if Joe Biden wins the presidency,” we have a great chance of celebrating Christmas even better next year when Joe and Jill Biden celebrate their first one in the White House. We liberals are not trying to end Christmas.

But seriously the bigger problem we will all face when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take office is once again getting people to believe in facts. We will have to explain to many the definition of the word fact being ‘a thing that is known or proved to be true.’

I remember very early in Trump’s term when Kellyanne Conway was speaking to Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” and first brought up the idea of ‘alternative facts’. She was unfortunately serious. Since that time we have seen Trump and his administration use ‘alternative facts’ over and over again throughout the last four years. Another way to refer to an alternative fact is to call it a lie. The Washington Post has kept a record of Trump’s lies and misleading statements (partial lies) for the past four years and as of July they have come up with the number 20,000.

What is worse than his lying is the number of people who believe him even when the truth is placed in front of them.

The new Democratic administration will have to face an electorate many of whom will not believe what they say. The over 74 million people who voted for Trump have accepted Trump’s view of the world and seemingly his belief that there can be ‘alternative facts.’ He has convinced them that anything Democrats say counter to what he has said is a lie. That is a very sad state of affairs and one that will be hard to change. Yet if we are to move forward in any united way as Biden has said he wants to do we will have to try to change it. That just might be a great New Year’s resolution for all of us; try to get one Trump voter to believe in facts.

While in some ways it has been a very difficult year and I have lost some very good friends who I miss dearly, there are many things to be thankful for this Christmas. I have my health and so far have avoided getting the coronavirus. I have a wonderful sister and sister-in-law who I love and so many good friends here in D.C., in Rehoboth Beach and literally around the world. I have a roof over my head, enough food to eat and even enough to share. I saw Joe Biden and Kamala Harris win the election and one thing I really want to do is stand in front of the White House on Jan. 20, 2021, and yell ‘good riddance’ at the top of my lungs as the Trump’s moving van drives through the gate.

I am thankful for my second family, my morning coffee group from Java House. They have been lifesavers for me over these past months and we have kept up a Zoom call every morning, seven days a week, since the beginning of the pandemic in March.

So my wish for all of you this Christmas is that you also have all you need and enough to share with others. Because it is in the sharing that we receive the most.

YARIEL VALDÉS GONZÁLEZ is a Blade contributor.

MICHAEL K. LAVERS is the Blade’s international news editor.

2021 is the year to dream big

Yariel proves immigrants really make America great It goes without saying that most of us are more than happy to see 2020 come to an end, but even this dumpster fire of a year could not extinguish the will to fight for a better life. The effort to secure Washington Blade contributor Yariel Valdés González’s release from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody is no better example of what is possible.

Valdés and International News Editor Michael K. Lavers share their thoughts about the past year.

BY YARIEL VALDÉS GONZÁLEZ Today I am thinking of the first day of the year and what I asked Santa for Christmas. I was at an immigrant jail in Louisiana, imprisoned for seeking political asylum. Judge Timothy Cole on Sept. 18, 2019, granted me asylum, but a government appeal kept me behind bars, and diminished my hopes of being truly free at every turn.

Resorting to Santa, a childish character in whom adults should not believe, shows how desperate I was. I simply wanted the freedom that I had earned and for which I had suffered so much in Cuba and, incredibly, in the United States. Santa three months later finally granted my wish. I guess immigrants are a low priority for such an honorable and busy character.

My true Santa was really Michael K. Lavers, my brother, my colleague and this publication’s international news editor. It would have been impossible to emerge victorious in this battle without his constant support. I can now dream of a future without persecution because of my profession or ideas thanks to him, my family, and many other people.

Instead, my Santa in 2020 came from the hand of love, which does not need desperate pleas, but tenderness and devotion. Receiving gifts on this date does not exactly fit into the traditions of my native country, whose Communist regime has crushed the Christmas spirit for decades.

I can proudly look back on 2020 without forgetting from where I come. While the whole world tries to erase it from memory, it has been my “Year Zero” when I began to build my new life in every way.

This year has put many challenges and new experiences in front of me: The first and most difficult one was to be released from ICE custody, which kept me in their jails for 11 months.

Then came learning how to drive (it wasn’t that difficult); perfecting my rustic English (a task that has not yet been completed); working in a restaurant (I had never done anything outside of media before); be independent (I moved to Wilton Manors with my boyfriend); support the new president as an activist; collaborate with

this newspaper that gives me the opportunity to support my community; stay healthy in the middle of this pandemic and endure the sadness that I feel each day for the family and friends I left behind, among other things.

The year that we begin today is going to be better. And I say this as an imposition because it is our positive spirit that will help us overcome all the bumps in the road and will allow us to look to the new year with hope.

Welcoming 2021 in the magical place of Walt Disney World has definitely contributed to that, but above all I am confident that I will not be alone on this journey of growth that has opened up in front of me. Conquering 2021 may seem like an overly pretentious plan, especially for an immigrant who is just beginning to take his own steps in this great country. But if I have learned anything in life, it is to dream big, and 2021 will not be the exception.

BY MICHAEL K. LAVERS Tears were welling up in my eyes on Aug. 8, 2019, when I promised Yariel’s mother in Cuba during a phone call from his aunt and uncle’s home in suburban Miami that I would do everything in my power to secure her beloved son’s release from ICE custody. It took far too long for that day to come, but on March 4 he was sitting in the passenger seat of my rental car as we drove away from the privately run River Correctional Center in rural Louisiana.

More than nine months later, I could choose to focus on the fact that Yariel spent nearly a year in the custody of an out-of-control agency that forces those who seek refuge in this country to endure abuse and dehumanization. I could choose to focus on politicians who use cheap rhetoric to advance a xenophobic agenda. I could choose to focus on the fact that I fractured my left arm hours before Yariel’s release and it took six months to heal. I will, however, avoid the chance to wallow in self-pity because that’s not what this op-ed is about.

Yariel is proof that immigrants truly make America great. He is now living with his boyfriend in Wilton Manors, and has become an active and productive member of the community. Yariel’s reporting continues to highlight the human rights abuses in Cuba that forced him to flee. His advocacy on behalf of other immigrants and ICE detainees continues to inspire me more than he will ever know.

This year has been horrible for so many reasons, but I am immensely thankful that Yariel in 2020 was finally able to begin living his best life in freedom without fear of persecution. He remains an inspiration to me and to countless others. ¡Te quiero mucho mi querido hermano!

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LGBTQ agencies support vulnerable youth this holiday season

Fighting disproportionate unemployment, housing instability

By PHILIP VAN SLOOTEN

KOREAN DAVIS, 18, lives in transitional housing because living at home with her mother ‘is not an option.’

(Photo courtesy Davis)

At-risk LGBTQ youth continue to face challenges, including homelessness, but colleges and local agencies work to make services available during a season exacerbated by the pandemic.

“During this holiday season, I’m thinking about how I’m going to have a roof over my head and how I’m going to pay my rent,” Devine Bey, an 18-year-old Black and Samoan transgender woman told the Washington Blade while turning in her name change paperwork to a Baltimore office.

Both Bey and her husband were laid off during the COVID-19 crisis and she said all they have is each other since her family isn’t close and her father wants nothing to do with her as a trans woman.

An October poll commissioned by the Trevor Project, a national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth, found one-third of all LGBTQ youth said they were unable to be themselves at home, and nearly one-third of transgender and nonbinary youth felt unsafe in their living situation since the start of of the pandemic.

“We know that LGBTQ youth may be particularly vulnerable because even prior to the pandemic they were at higher risk for homelessness,” said Rob Todaro, press secretary for the Trevor Project. “We know they face disproportionate unemployment and housing instability now exacerbated by the pandemic.”

D.C.-based agencies that support LGBTQ youth such as SMYAL and the Wanda Alston Foundation saw an increase in service requests as part of the pandemic’s economic fallout, as did agencies throughout the region.

“There definitely has been an increase in the demand for our services because of more young people staying at home in situations that are not affirming to their truth and identity,” Adalphie Johnson, the SMYAL programs director, said.

Wanda Alston Foundation Executive Director June Crenshaw said their mission is to improve the lives of LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness, and noted reduced public transportation routes due to the pandemic disproportionately impact minority youth trying to get to work.

Korean Davis, an 18-year-old Black trans woman living in transitional housing because living at home with her mother “is not an option,” struggles to maintain work at a make-up stand where “ignorant people,” including her supervisor, misgender her.

Her dream is to go to beauty school and work for herself.

“My holiday is a complete disaster,” she said. “No one has called to check on me. I feel like I don’t have anyone but the people at Baltimore Safe Haven, and they can only do so much. I feel like I am falling apart.”

Unfortunately, Davis is not alone and her experiences are felt by other LGBTQ youth.

According to the Trevor Project, one in three Black LGBTQ youth said the pandemic made their living situation more

stressful than before, and agencies in D.C., Maryland, Virginia and elsewhere have worked to meet the demand with limited funds.

“About halfway through the pandemic we had the COVID relief grant where we distributed over $45,000 for young people who were either homeless or at risk of homelessness,” Johnson said, speaking of social services funding SMYAL received through the CARES Act. “With those funds we assisted with phone bills, technology needs, rent, food, or utility bills, all which were needed directly as a result of the pandemic.”

Ted Lewis, the executive director of Side by Side, a Virginiabased LGBTQ youth assistance organization, said its number of homelessness assistance calls more than doubled around April and May, particularly from African-American, transgender and nonbinary youth.

“When a young person comes in, they work with a case manager to see what stability looks like for them,” Lewis explained, saying that some homeless 18-25 year olds may need financial assistance while others may need help with identity documents or access to affirming medical care.

Lewis said housing stability is a concern for those who are couch-surfing, living in transitional housing or back with family due to college dorm closures during the winter break. Each situation can add to holiday stress.

“When residence halls close for the winter break, some LGBTQ+ students face the prospect of returning home to families who may be either unsupportive of their LGBTQ+ identity, or actually hostile and unwelcoming,” said Brad Grimes, a program specialist with the West Virginia University LGBTQ+ Center and Women’s Resource Center.

In the late ‘80s Grimes was a closeted gay student struggling with his own identity over multiple winter breaks at Georgetown University, so to some extent he understands the pressures his LGBTQ students face today and seeks to address them.

“The WVU LGBTQ+ Center worked with the Director of Residence Life early in the semester to confirm that alternate housing would be made available to LGBTQ+ students who had no safe or supportive housing options with their families, in the event of an emergency COVID-related closure of the residence halls,” he said.

Their campus resources also continue to be accessible via email over the winter break.

Luke Jensen is the director of the LGBT Equity Center at the University of Maryland in College Park, which he helped found more than 20 years ago. The center has extensive programming for LGBTQ students, much of which went online during the pandemic.

Virtual meetings included yoga and wellness sessions before the holidays and after a brief break staff will return in the spring with a Black transgender discussion panel and preparation for their Lavender leadership graduation ceremony in May.

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He ended up going to New York University for graduate school where he met his first partner who later died of AIDS. While attending NYU, Jensen came out to his mother while at home for winter break, so he also understands the uncomfortable situation many of his LGBTQ students are in, especially those who are transgender “because you’re dealing with something as fundamental as identity.”

One piece of advice Jensen and others had for youth struggling with both the pandemic and holiday challenges was to find happiness where they could and treat it as the most important resource of all.

“Focus on things that bring you joy,” Todaro advised while Johnson encouraged youth to be gentle with themselves and “always find moments to celebrate who you are.”

“Even if that means looking into the mirror and telling yourself, ‘I look good,’” Johnson said. “Find a good song you like, close your door if you can, and dance the night away. And know SMYAL is always here to support you.”

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12/21/20 10:49 AM

CALENDAR

Foundry United Methodist Church holds a Christmas Eve worship on Thursday starting at 7 p.m.

(Blade file photo by Michael Key)

By Parker Purifoy

TODAY

Friday Tea Time is a virtual social gathering at 2 p.m. for older LGBTQ adults via Zoom. Participants are encouraged to bring their beverage of choice while socializing with friends. For more information, visit thedccenter.org/events.

Freddie’s Beach Bar in Arlington, Va. is hosting a traditional Christmas Day dinner starting at 4 p.m. On their website, the bar asked those experiencing COVID-19 symptoms to stay home and cautioned that they would be following all safety guidelines.

Saturday, December 26

The DC Center is encouraging members of the LGBTQ community to join them in volunteering at Food and Friends at 9 a.m. Food and Friends is located 219 Riggs Road, NE. If any volunteers need a ride from the Fort Totten Metro, call the Food and Friends shuttle at (202) 669-6437.

The Wharf is continuing its pop-up movie series on Transit Pier with holiday movies this weekend. Attendees will get a private firepit and 20-inch television to watch movies like “Home Alone,” “The Grinch,” “A Christmas Story,” and “Elf.” Show times are at either 2 p.m. or 6 p.m. Each firepit seats four people and parties should reserve their firepit in advance. More information can be found on The Wharf’s Facebook page.

Sunday, December 27

The Georgetown Presbyterian Church is hosting a virtual conversation on the relationship between the church and racism in America. Talks during the event will include Reverend John Molina-Moore, who will speak on efforts by the Presbyterian Church to combat racism, George Washington University Professor Erin Chapman on the Jim Crow Era, and Howard Theological Seminary Professor Renee Harrison on the church’s historical role in racism. The Zoom link to the event, starting at 9:45 a.m., is on the church’s Facebook page.

Monday, December 28

The DC Center is hosting its monthly support group for people who identify outside of the gender binary over Zoom at 7 p.m. Meetings are on the fourth Tuesday and third Mondays of each month. More information can be found at thedccenter.org/events.

Blue Victory War Room and DMV Grassroots is holding another organizing session today at 6 p.m. to focus on campaigning strategy for the two Senate runoff elections in Georgia. The event will be hosted by Jim McBride who served as a leader with President Joe Biden’s “Communities United” program which worked to mobilize grassroots networks

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on the east coast. The zoom link for the event can be found at Network For Progress’s Facebook page. The meeting’s agenda includes an update on both Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff who are running against incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. There will also be a presentation for volunteers and methods for grassroots organizing.

Thursday, December 31

Merriweather Post Pavilion is hosting a Symphony of Lights for New Year’s Eve, followed by fireworks at midnight. Guests are asked to bring their own chairs and tickets for the event are $15 per person or $50 for a family of 4. A portion of the evening’s proceeds will go to Howard County General Hospital. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, tickets must be purchased in advance and will be given for specific time slots. No food trucks or extra family activities will be available this year.

OUT&ABOUT Churches offer affirming ways to celebrate Christmas LGBTQ-friendly Christian and Catholic churches in D.C. are offering a variety of options for queer people of faith over the Christmas holiday season. Foundry United Methodist Church is holding a Christmas Eve worship on Thursday starting at 7 p.m.

Dignity Washington will be having a Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Mass in addition to their weekly Sunday Mass. Metropolitan Community Church in D.C. is holding an Intercessory Prayer Team Meeting on Christmas Eve beginning at 7 p.m. This is in addition to their normal prayer services starting at noon every day, including Christmas.

Those who would like to join can enter the conference call.

Stephen Mead brings Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ to life Street Art Museum Tours is broadcasting a live, virtual version of “A Christmas Carol”

by Charles Dickens every night from Dec. 24 to Dec. 27 at 5 p.m. The classic play will be performed by actor and storyteller Stephen Mead, who will act it out entirely from memory and by himself. Mead’s performance of the Dickens play has been presented at the Dickens Festival in England and at arts centers, schools, churches, and private events around the world. The live streamed show will be suitable for families and will last about an hour, including time for a question and answer segment. Tickets for the show cost $15.

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‘This Is Who I Am’ explores generational, physical distance Father, son connect and cook via Zoom in new play

By PATRICK FOLLIARD

EVREN ODCIKIN is associate artistic director at the prestigious Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

‘This Is Who I Am’

Through Jan. 3, 2021 Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company $15 | woollymammoth.net

“Queer, Middle Eastern, American, immigrant, and theater artist: Fortunately, all those identities live together and work for me,” says Evren Odcikin, associate artistic director at the prestigious Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF).

Best known for staging new works, Odcikin, 40, directs playwright Amir Nizar Zuabi’s “This Is Who I Am,” a world premiere two-hander newly commissioned by D.C.’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (streaming live at woollymammoth.net through Jan. 3).

Performed live in real time via Zoom, “This Is Who I Am” explores the generational and physical distance between an estranged father (Ramsey Faragallah) and son (Yousof Sultani). Connected by video chat from their respective kitchens in Ramallah, West Bank, and New York City, they discuss with equal parts humor, frustration, and sadness their past and present relationship while simultaneously baking (yes, actually) a beloved family recipe.

Born in Turkey, Odcikin came to the U.S. to attend Princeton University on full scholarship, majoring in computer science with a minor in theater. He then headed west to San Francisco where he became involved with Golden Thread Productions, a company dedicated to exploring Middle Eastern culture and identity worldwide. Founded by a queer Middle Eastern immigrant, it was a place where Odcikin could learn and grow comfortably. “I was welcomed and didn’t have to fight my identities to make a space for myself in the American theater,” he says.

He now lives close to OSF in Ashland, Ore., with his husband, an artmaker who does drag, and their “old man” cat.

WASHINGTON BLADE: How did you become a part of “This Is Who I Am”?

EVREN ODCIKIN: I’d met the playwright at Golden Thread, and I knew Woolly Mammoth’s artistic director Maria Manuela Goyanes. So, with this small, 70-minute-long play with two actors, we were going to figure out live theater making in a digital setting. It was a magic moment.

Ultimately, original producers PlayCo and Woolly Mammoth were joined by American Repertory Theater at Harvard University, the Guthrie Theater, and OSF. A beautiful play by a Palestinian writer got a national platform with some of the leading theaters in the country BLADE: Is that unusual for a play like this?

ODCIKIN: Typically, with Palestinian works in the U.S., a lot of politics is imposed on the plays. Here, the occupation is the context, and the play specifically speaks to what it means to live and grow up in an occupied state, but does it from a lived experience rather than rhetoric.

If we can give a sense of what it’s like for Palestinians to live under those conditions first hand, that’s what theater can do better than other mediums.

BLADE: How does being queer factor into your work?

ODCIKIN: I’d say that for me, it’s in the style. While you won’t see it in this play, I’m obsessed with camp and gender bending, and interested in queer aesthetic that uses comedy and surprise as a political tool.

Any work that shakes up our heteronormative, cisnormative expectation as an audience to wake us up to politics of our given moment – and to me, the best drag does that – that’s what I’m really interested in.

BLADE: And how was your experience with virtual directing?

ODCIKIN: Wasn’t too sure when I started. Said yes to it as an experiment. No one is really doing this truly live, every night performance. We were the first out of the gate.

I soon discovered Zoom fatigue is real. The actors never met in person. We met the stage manager only virtually. But as an artist, I felt like I was making a play.

And while I won’t say there’s been a silver lining – pandemic is too awful – there were some positive things. I’m a bit of an optimist — you have to be in the job I have. My theater community has expanded to D.C. and internationally. And it’s the first time in 20 years that my family in Turkey will see a play I’ve directed.

BLADE: And your thoughts on reopening?

ODCIKIN: At OSF, we’ve faced a lot head on- pandemic, environmental crisis fires that went through Ashland. And the racial reckoning that came to a head after George Floyd’s death.

Change making is a central tenant of how to survive and thrive and not just withstand crisis. It’s exciting to focus on questioning our structure and figuring out how we’ll make excellent work when we get to the other side of this. I feel lucky and honored to be one of the folks who gets play a part.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS to our readers and advertisers!

from the Washington Blade

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Queer fans’ love of Wonder Woman is bulletproof Anticipated sequel ‘1984’ bows on Christmas Day

By JOHN PAUL KING

With the release of “Wonder Woman 1984” on Christmas Day, a whole new generation of queer fans will be able to connect to the iconic DC superhero through a campy, nostalgic lens – something countless GenX-ers hold near and dear in their memory, thanks to the ‘70s TV show starring Lynda Carter.

The character herself, of course, predates that series by decades. Debuting in DC’s “All Star Comics #8” in 1941, she was quickly embraced by readers, and soon became a star in her own right. In “official” mythology, she was sculpted from clay by her mother, Queen Hippolyta of the island nation Themyscira, and given life as an Amazon princess before joining the outside world in its battle against the Axis powers of WWII. Those details have been retooled from time to time over the years, adapting it to the needs of an everevolving canon and the changing cultural tides of time; but her essence has remained the same – a strong, confident, and independent female character who can not only stand as an equal among men but outthink and outperform most of them without even breaking a sweat.

As such, she has been embraced as a feminist icon – though in the early years, many (mostly male) readers and critics dismissed her as a representation of the “angry, manhating lesbian,” an interpretation undoubtedly stoked both by her provenance as a member of an all-female society and a heavy dose of fragile masculine ego. As years have gone on, however, that view has been mostly eclipsed by an acceptance of Wonder Woman as a symbol of feminine empowerment and equality.

For women, regardless of sexual orientation, it’s not difficult to understand why; in a pop culture that still features a comparative dearth of such role models, she continues to loom large. What might be less apparent is the reason behind the character’s enduring popularity with gay men – which goes far deeper than the obvious camp associations arising from the ‘70s TV show.

Some of that appeal can surely be traced to her reallife origin story. Created by writer and psychologist William Moulton Marston (under the pen name Charles Moulton), she embodied his views around feminism, influenced by feminist thinkers of his day and his own observations about the impact on women of male-centric assumptions and expectations. More relevant, perhaps, is the inside story of the character’s development, which was influenced by not only his wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, but by their shared life partner, Olive Byrne; in an arrangement that would have been seen as beyond shocking during their era, the three of them were a polyamorous triad, and the involvement of

the two women on shaping the character surely went far beyond just a visual design, which was based on features of both.

While those undeniably queer roots might link directly to Wonder Woman’s status as an LGBTQ fan favorite, they still don’t explain why gay men find the character so compelling – particularly since that history was largely unknown (for reasons that should be obvious) for much Gal Gadot’s ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ debuts on Christmas Day. Photo courtesy of Warner Brothers Studios of her near-eight-decade existence.

Queer critics, theorists and scholars, of course, have provided volumes of their thoughts on the Lynda Carter was stunningly gorgeous, but she played it subject; but to get to the heart of the matter, there is no better straight, and she never traded on her looks or sexuality like so many other female action heroes. And she wasn’t an offshoot source than the fans themselves.

For example, Jake Charles, a 40-something gay man who of some male hero, like Supergirl or Batgirl. She was her own proudly sports a Wonder Woman tattoo on his arm and still woman.

“And of course, there was her transformation. Every heads to the bookstore as soon as every new issue of her comic hits the stands. He doesn’t remember, specifically, time she spun around to change into Wonder Woman, how he was introduced to Wonder Woman, but he knows it I would do the same in my family room. I think the idea of her metamorphosis, from someone mundane and looked happened when he was about 5 or 6.

“Here was someone who could be a hero,” he tells us, over to someone powerful and FABULOUS, was incredibly “even though they weren’t butch and manly – and I needed empowering for me. Even though I was years away from any real self-awareness of myself as a queer person, I clearly to see that. I couldn’t tell you why, at the time, but I did.”

He elaborates, “She’d give you a charming smile, she’d had some semi-conscious understanding of it, because I be nurturing to someone she just saved in a way that Batman dreamed of being able to make that transformation myself.”

Even within this sampling of three voices, one can wouldn’t be. There was something loving and maternal that was just kind of built into her. Even when they’ve decided she spot the common cord that binds them all together like needs to be more of a warrior, when they’ve tried to make her Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth, as well as the variations of tougher and more manly over the years, that maternal side of perspective that help to give this Amazon Warrior-turnedAll-American-Hero such a profound influence on so many her just keeps peeping through.”

That observation is echoed by another out-and-proud queer lives. What it comes down to, in the end, might be superfan, Keith Lamont, who says, “She was kind, loving and the reason she’s been embraced by members of almost nurturing, traits that many of us didn’t receive as kids. She every community that has been traditionally dismissed and offered me protection and fantasy – her fabulous beauty and sidelined by a dominant patriarchal culture – she inspires us to rise above the programming and carve our own space in costumes, her invisible jet, Paradise Island.”

He goes on to add an important point. “I wanted to BE the world.

Whether or not the new big screen blockbuster captures Wonder Woman, because that meant I could be adored by her love interest, Steve Trevor. She was really the only female the cultural imagination as strongly as the 2017 blockbuster superhero at that time, and I think it’s easier for a young gay that spawned it remains to be seen – but even if it doesn’t, you boy to identify with a woman who is longing for the love of a can be sure that Wonder Woman will continue to hold a place man – as opposed to liking Superman or Batman, which is a in the hearts of millions of fans for whom she represents that powerful, primal desire to define ourselves by our own truth, different thing.”

Possibly the most universal shared experience of gay and not the narratives foisted upon us by those who would men with the character is expressed by another gay GenX- keep us in the background.

“Wonder Woman 1984,” directed by Patty Jenkins and er, David Diaz, who tells us, “I loved her as a comic book superhero before the TV show, but once she came to life starring Gal Gadot and Kristen Wiig, premieres simultaneously so spectacularly on the screen I was thoroughly entranced. in theaters and on HBO Max on Christmas Day.

Happy Holidays

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A closer look at the houses in our fave holiday films The role of architecture in Christmas storytelling

By VALERIE M. BLAKE

We’re in the midst of the Hallmark season. Their movies are available 24/7 and they can serve as both light entertainment and as background noise.

The formula is simple: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl, and she moves to some rural place with plenty of snow rather than live in the city where she is harried, overworked, and financially successful. Thankfully, Hallmark is finally branching out to boy meets boy and girl meets girl like Dashing in December and The Happiest Season, but the formula remains pretty much the same except that someone is still in the closet.

As a real estate agent, I tend to focus on things like architecture and décor when I watch the original classics and those that have become traditional in more recent years.

There are extreme exteriors like the Griswold house in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Deck the Halls, where the Halls and the Finches argue over how many exterior lights are too many.

One of my favorite movies is The Holiday, where Iris and Amanda exchange homes for Christmas vacation. Iris’s house is the quintessential stone cottage in a quaint English village.

You can just feel how cold the house is until the fire is lit.

Amanda’s house, on the other hand, is a gorgeous Mediterranean built in the late 1920s, with a barrel tiled roof, located in San Marino, Calif. There are lots of contemporary touches inside, including automatic window shades and a kitchen to die for. While the house’s exterior is real, the interior was specifically constructed on a separate soundstage to transform it from traditional to contemporary.

The kitchen in A Christmas Story reminds me of my maternal grandparents’ home in Maine. It was a three-bedroom, one-bath upstairs apartment over my grandfather’s general store. We would sit around the table chatting while my Nana uncovered the dough that she would use to bake bread.

She would peel off little bits of dough to deep fry and we would eat them with locally made butter for breakfast (think hush puppies with dough instead of cornmeal). The whistle from the nearby, malodorous paper mill called us to lunch at that same table. At one, the whistle would blow again to call the townsmen back to work.

The incredibly large Georgian Colonial home in Home Alone, also from the 1920s, always made me wonder what Mr. McCallister did for a living that he could afford the mortgage.

Today, that house in the Chicago suburban village of Winnetka, Ill., would command roughly $3 million.

The Victorian Four Square showcased in The Family Stone reminds me of the homes in 16th Street Heights, with large wrap-around porches, wide moldings, wainscotting and what looks to be William Morris wallpaper. And who could forget the Smith’s family home in Meet Me in St. Louis, an impressive Victorian Second Empire, where the songbird, Judy Garland, wooed us with her rendition of Merry Little Christmas.

The Columbia Inn with its adjacent ski lodge became the set for White Christmas. Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye sang and danced their way into our hearts. The lodge had floor to ceiling atrium windows and held about three dozen tables for dinner. It was beautifully decorated for the holiday, with the red of poinsettias and the green of World War II uniforms.

Also lovely were the Christmas tree and arched doorways in the 1947 Cary Grant film, The Bishop’s Wife (not to be confused with Denzel Washington’s 1996 remake, The Preacher’s Wife, which seems to take place as much outdoors as indoors).

How can we possibly talk about Christmas movies without mentioning the drafty, old house of It’s a Wonderful Life? The Old Granville House is another example of Second Empire Victorian (1860s to 1880s). In the beginning of the movie, it’s what we would call a fixer upper, without the shiplap and open floorplan favored by Chip and Joanna Gaines.

Mary Bailey, wife of George, does an excellent job of cleaning and wallpapering (and, we hope, replacing windows) to transform an ugly duckling into the swan that is the family home.

Finally, Miracle on 34th Street is still one of my favorite Christmas movies, as much for the independence of the single mother and trial of Santa Claus as for the yellow Cape Cod that a young Natalie Wood is presented with once she learns to believe in Santa. Perhaps if you believe in Santa again, someone will bring you a house next year too.

Wishing you happiness and good health this holiday season.

Valerie M. Blake

a licensed Associate Broker in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia with RLAH Real Estate. Call or text her at 202-246-8602, email her via DCHomeQuest.com, or follow her on Facebook at TheRealst8ofAffairs.

Ralphie’s house in ‘A Christmas Story’ is available for special events and even weddings. (Photo courtesy AChristmasStoryHouse.com)

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