Washington Blade, Volume 54, Issue 03, January 20, 2023

UNDER ATTACK

New year brings more than 100 state bills targeting LGBTQ rights, page 11

Here, the arts are everywhere. Join us for music, dance, and more!

VOICES OF MISSISSIPPI

Sat, Feb 4

A multimedia concert featuring legendary blues and gospel musicians.

ALLISON MILLER PRESENTS RIVERS IN OUR VEINS

Fri, Feb 10

Jazz homage to American rivers, incorporating video and tap dance.

AFRO-CUBAN ALL STARS

Fri, Feb 24

Ambassadors of Cuban music.

BEST

OF GORAN BREGOVIĆ

Thu, March 9

Boisterous showcase of Balkan sounds.

THE MANHATTAN TRANSFER

50TH ANNIVERSARY & FINAL WORLD TOUR with Special Guest The Diva Jazz Orchestra Fri, March 24

AROOJ AFTAB, VIJAY IYER, SHAHZAD ISMAILY

STRATHMORE & WASHINGTON PERFORMING ARTS PRESENTS MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVAL ON TOUR FEATURING

Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kurt Elling, Lakecia Benjamin, Christian Sands, Yasushi Nakamura & Clarence Penn Thu, April 20

DJAVAN

THE D TOUR USA 2023

Co-presented by EducArte Fri, April 21

GRAVITY & OTHER MYTHS

THE

SIMON & GARFUNKEL STORY

Tue, March 7

Live theatrical performance paying tribute to the iconic folk-rock duo.

LOVE IN EXILE

Fri, April 14

Lush, haunting soundscapes of meditation and yearning.

A SIMPLE SPACE

Wed & Thu, April 26 & 27

Acrobats pushed to their physical limits.

New shows just announced!

Preview a selection of shows here, and check out the full season at Strathmore.org/AMP

KAKI KING

Everybody Loves You Boundless, experimental guitar

Thu, Feb 2

LOSTON HARRIS TRIO

Loston Harris, piano & vocals

Gianluca Renzi, acoustic bass Mike Lee, tenorsaxophone Piano virtuoso performs the Great American Songbook.

Thu, Feb 16

HALIE LOREN

Jazz singer-songwriter

Fri, Feb 24

MARK LETTIERI GROUP

Versatile jazz quartet Fri, March 3

ANA EGGE

Soulful folk with heart Thu, March 2— rescheduled date!

DARLINGSIDE

Acoustic folk-pop Sat, March 11— limited tickets remain!

SFJAZZ COLLECTIVE: NEW WORKS & REIMAGINED CLASSICS

Sun, March 26— two shows!

AYNUR

Kurdish folk music Sun, April 30— two shows!

THE STRING QUEENS

Soulful string trio Fri, May 12—two shows!

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Slain D.C. trans woman honored at vigil Family, friends gather on street where fatal stabbing occurred

By LOU CHIBBARO JR. | lchibbaro@washblade.com

Nearly 100 people turned out on Jan. 16 to honor the life of D.C. transgender woman Jasmine Star Parker at a vigil held on the 2000 block of Gallaudet St., N.E. where D.C. police say she was found stabbed to death at 3 a.m. on Jan. 7.

Among those participating in the vigil were Parker’s mother, brother, and sister, who have expressed their love and admiration for their deceased loved one.

Earline Budd, executive director of the D.C. group Empowering the Transgender Community (ETC), which organized the vigil along with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, told the gathering she knew Parker for many years and observed first-hand how Parker did her best to overcome discrimination and bias as a trans woman of color.

“We’re here today to remember a life taken away from us on Jan. 7, the life of Star Jasmine Parker,” Budd said. “Star was 36 years old. And Star deserved to live. So, today I want to take an opportunity to first of all let there be blessings in this place.”

Budd pointed out that the table where she and others who spoke at the vigil was set up on the sidewalk in front of a tall chain link fence were Parker’s body was found, with her blood still visible on the pavement.

D.C. police said that as of this time, they have no suspects and no known motive for the Jan. 7 homicide. A police spokesperson said the case was not listed as a suspected hate crime, but that could change if new information is obtained. Police are urging anyone with information about the case to call police at 202-727-9099.

A $25,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the murder.

Police initially identified Parker as Jasmine Star Mack. But family members and Earline Budd have since said that the beloved trans woman was known to the family as Jasmine Star Parker and preferred to be called Star. Parker was her birth surname.

Among those attending the vigil were members of the D.C. police LGBT Liaison Unit, including Lt. Livio Rodriguez, director of the police Special Liaison Division, which oversees the LGBT Liaison Unit. Budd praised the LGBT Liaison members, saying they have been longtime supporters of the transgender community.

Parker ’s mother, Arlene Witherspoon and her brother,

Andre Tinsley, told those attending the vigil that Parker was raised in a religious family and she embraced God during many of her times facing hardship.

Parker ’s sister, Pamela Witherspoon, was scheduled to speak at the vigil but told Budd she was too emotionally distraught to speak. In earlier interviews with WUSA 9 and the Washington Post, Pamela Witherspoon told how her sister faced hardship from discrimination in spite of her upbeat personality as someone who was “always singing and dancing — just trying to make you laugh,” she told WUSA 9.

“She wasn’t the type of person that did things to people,” WUSA 9 quoted Witherspoon as saying. “I don’t understand why. What did she do to deserve this? I’ll never understand that.”

Members of the community who spoke at the vigil during an open mic session, including longtime D.C. transgender activist Taylor Chandler and Center for Black Equity Deputy Director Kenya Hutton, said the city was not doing enough to address the problems of discrimination and threats of violence faced by members of the trans community, especially trans women of color.

“ We have the ability to do more,” Chandler said. “ There is no reason why we should be having this vigil for Star. We need to be giving more money to organizations that

value Black trans lives.”

Bowles, director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, said he agreed that the city should be doing more to address problems faced by the transgender community.

“Circumstances have put Star and many members of the community of D.C. in the danger that they’re in,” Bowles told the gathering. “And that is a failure from where I’m at, my job,” he said. “And it’s something that we are working on with the community.”

Added Bowles, “And this is D.C., the nation’s capital, where we have done more. And we have a record of doing more. And we need to do more,” he continued. “So, I promise we will do more.”

Sebrena Rhodes, the D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner representing the area where Parker was killed in the Ivy City neighborhood, said although the area is faced with crime, this was the first known homicide to take place in the neighborhood in a long time.

“I’m sure everyone loved her for who she is,” Roads said of Parker in her remarks at the vigil. “I’m deeply sorry. I live here in Ivy City. We all have to work together.”

Budd told the Washington Blade that the area is known as a place where some transgender sex workers congregate for what Budd and others who spoke at the vigil called survival sex work made necessary when discrimination and transphobia prevent trans women from finding other means of employment.

“ Well, we talk about survival sex,” Budd said. “It’s not a secret. And you know, when people ask, what was she doing here, I say what does it matter? What does it matter? The fact that her life was taken, that’s what matters, whether she was here doing survival sex work or whatever.”

Rev. D. Amina B. Butts, pastor at D.C.’s LGBTQ-friendly New Hope Baptist United Church of Christ, appeared to sum up the sentiment of most of those attending the vigil by calling for an end to the hostility and violence faced by transgender people in D.C. and across the nation.

“It’s hard to find words of comfort,” she said. “ There are no words to describe what has happened. It is a travesty of injustice. It needs to stop,” she continued. “Right now, in the name of the Divine, it needs to stop. We command that it stops.”

Equality Va. holds first lobby day of 2023 session

More than 30 LGBTQ activists from across Virginia on Monday participated in Equality Virginia’s first lobby day of this year’s legislative session.

An Equality Virginia press release notes the activists traveled to Richmond “to mobilize against legislative attacks targeting the LGBTQ+ community” and specifically focused “on defeating anti-equality bills.” These measures include those that would ban gender-affirming health care, prohibit transgender athletes from joining school sports teams that correspond with their gender identity and force school personnel to out trans students.

“Instead of focusing on real issues impacting Virginians, some lawmakers in our commonwealth choose to target transgender and nonbinary youth in hopes of gaining cheap political points ahead of the November election,” said Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman in the press release. “From the attacks on the right to receive age-appropriate gender-affirming care, to attempting to ban transgender athletes from participating in sports, these bills are nothing more than solutions in search of a problem. There is no question about it — trans youth belong in Virginia and deserve the safety to thrive, no matter what corner of the common-

wealth they call home. With the help of advocates and partners, Equality Virginia is prepared to defeat these bills and send a message that Virginia is a welcoming and inclusive place for all.”

Republicans currently control the Virginia House of Delegates by a 51-47 margin, while Democrats have a 22-18 majority in the state Senate. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposed revisions of guidelines for trans and nonbinary students have yet to take effect.

Equality Virginia is scheduled to hold additional lobby days in Richmond on Jan. 23, Jan. 30, Feb. 6 and Feb. 20.

FROM STAFF REPORTS

EARLINE BUDD, executive director of Empowering the Transgender Community, speaks at a vigil for Jasmine Star Parker on Monday. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Trial set for D.C. gay murder case four years after arrest of suspect

Police say victim stabbed 47 times by man he invited to his apartment

By LOU CHIBBARO JR. | lchibbaro@washblade.com

A then 26-year-old U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman charged in the Jan. 6, 2019, murder of gay retail manager Vongell Lugo inside Lugo’s D.C. apartment is scheduled to go on trial for first-degree murder and other charges on April 18, 2023, according to D.C. Superior Court records.

A spokesperson for the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, which is prosecuting the case, has confirmed the trial date but declined to say why or whether it is unusual that it has taken more than four years to schedule a trial for a suspect arrested at the scene of the murder and on the day it took place.

Court records and a D.C. police arrest affidavit filed in court state that then U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Collin J. Potter allegedly stabbed Lugo at least 47 times in the upper body and genital area shortly after Lugo, 36, invited him into his apartment at 2844 Wisconsin Ave., N.W. near the Washington National Cathedral.

The arrest affidavit says police arrived at the apartment building when a neighbor called 911 after hearing screams coming from Lugo’s apartment. Upon their arrival, the affidavit says, officers saw Potter fully nude standing over Lugo’s nude body, which was lying on the floor in the hall outside Lugo’s apartment door.

“Defendant Potter had blood visible on various areas of his body, to include his arms and feet, however he did not have any apparent injuries,” the arrest affidavit says.

During an April 26, 2019 preliminary hearing in D.C. Superior Court, D.C. Police Homicide Det. Tony Covington testified that police believe Potter dragged Lugo outside the apartment door after allegedly fatally stabbing him inside the apartment.

Covington in his testimony reiterated the arrest affidavit’s assertion that Potter referred to Lugo as his “girlfriend” and as “she” when officers first approached him outside the apartment. NBC News reported that police sources said Potter told police his “girlfriend” had died by suicide and he asked police to kill him.

The detective also testified that a police investigation found that Potter and Lugo met on the night of the murder at the Black Whisky bar at 1410 14th St., N.W. in D.C. Covington said the investigation at that time had not determined whether Potter and Lugo knew each other prior to the time they met up at the Black Whiskey on the night of the murder.

A friend of Lugo’s told the Washington Blade that Lugo, who was openly gay, liked to hang out at straight bars and

the Black Whiskey was one of the bars he patronized.

In his court testimony, Det. Covington said police had no known motive for why Potter allegedly stabbed Lugo to death in the apartment.

Court records show police initially charged Potter with second-degree murder and prosecutors extended a plea bargain offer calling for him to plead guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for prosecutors not seeking a first-degree murder charge before a grand jury. The court records show Potter through a court-appointed attorney rejected the offer.

The records show a D.C. Superior Court Grand Jury on Aug. 20, 2019, handed down a five-count indictment against Potter, charging him with two counts of First-Degree Felony Murder While Armed, Felony Murder While Armed Aggravating Circumstances, First-Degree Sexual Abuse While Armed, and Kidnapping.

Potter has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Under D.C.’s criminal code, First Degree Sexual Abuse replaced what used to be the charge of rape under D.C. law.

“On or about January 6, within the District of Columbia, Collin Potter, while armed with and having readily available a dangerous weapon, that is a knife or other sharp object, engaged in a sexual act with Vongell Lugo, that is, the penetration of Vongell Lugo’s anus by Collin Potter’s penis, by using force against Vongell Lugo (First Degree Sexual Abuse While Armed),” the indictment states.

The indictment states that on the same day and location, while armed with a knife, Potter “seized, confined, kidnapped, abducted, physically assaulted and carried away Vongell Lugo, with the intent to hold and detain Vongell Lugo, for the purpose of sexually assaulting him (Kidnapping While Armed).”

During the April 2019 preliminary hearing, in which Judge Juliet McKenna found probable cause that Potter committed the offense, defense attorney Matthew Davies argued that police and prosecutors provided insufficient evidence that Potter committed the murder. He said the evidence cannot rule out the assertion by the defense that the murder was committed by someone else who had access to Lugo’s apartment.

“We don’t know who else was in that apartment and who else was in there and left,” he said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nebiyu Feleke, one of the prosecutors in the case, argued that prosecutors presented “am-

ple evidence” to show Potter and Lugo were the only two in the apartment at the time of the murder. He noted that Potter himself told police at the time they arrived on the scene that he and Lugo were the only two in the apartment that night.

Court observers have said the COVID-19 pandemic has caused delays in many cases, especially civil cases, pending before the D.C. Superior Court, and that could have played a role in the delay in scheduling the trial for Potter.

Court records show that Davies, Potter’s attorney, introduced an emergency motion in March 2020 requesting that Potter be released into a halfway house while awaiting trial because of the high risk of contracting and dying from COVID in the D.C. Jail. The records show that, at the request of prosecutors, the judge denied the motion on grounds that Potter would pose a risk to the community if released.

Potter has been held without bond since the time of his arrest. The next court hearing, prior to the start of the April 18 trial, is a trial readiness hearing scheduled for Feb. 18 before Judge Marisa J. Demeo.

More than 80 friends, co-workers, and family members turned out for a candlelight vigil to honor the life of Lugo, which was held Jan. 11, 2019 in a small park across the street from where Lugo lived. Among those participating were employees of TransPerfect, an international company that provides foreign language translation, interpretation and business services where Lugo worked as an associate manager.

Lierman sworn in as Md. attorney general

Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman was sworn into office on Monday.

Lierman, who previously represented portions of Baltimore City in the Maryland House of Delegates, last November defeated then-Harford County Executive Barry Glassman in the race to succeed Peter Franchot. Lierman is Maryland’s first female state comptroller.

Lierman told the Washington Blade before her election that ensuring LGBTQ Marylanders and other underrepresented groups in the state have access to economic opportunities is one of her top priorities once she enters office.

“It means making sure that, if you’re an LGBTQ Black

woman from Cheverly, from Prince George’s County who’s a great architect, we want you to be able to compete and win on contracts because we want to build a space where we have more competition, where more people are competing,” she said. “And we want to make sure we’re meeting and exceeding our minority business enterprise goals because it means that we’re building an economy that is growing the entire state and we’re using our contract dollars to build a larger state economy overall.”

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown took office on Jan. 3. Democratic Gov. Wes Moore’s inauguration was held on Wednesday.

VONGELL LUGO was stabbed to death in 2019.

LGBTQ-inclusive social studies standards for D.C. schools up for public comment Gay school board member urges community to submit supportive remarks

By LOU CHIBBARO JR.

In a little-noticed development, D.C. public schools officials on Dec. 16 released for public comment a proposed revision to the standards for teaching social studies from kindergarten through the 12th grade in the city’s public schools that include LGBTQ-related topics.

The proposed LGBTQ-inclusive social studies standards were released a little over a year after the D.C. State Board of Education voted unanimously to approve a resolution introduced by gay education board member Allister Chang calling for inclusive education standards that “reflect on the political, economic, social, cultural, and scientific contributions and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.”

Chang, who played a role in drafting the proposed social studies standards, has called on members of the LGBTQ community and its allies to submit comments in support of what he calls an important advancement in opening up the teaching of LGBTQ-related topics in social studies classes in the city’s public schools. He said the LGBTQ-related topics would be for social studies classes taught at high schools.

At the time the D.C. State Board of Education approved Chang’s resolution in October 2021, supporters pointed out that while D.C. public schools have been supportive of LGBTQ students, the city’s public school system was far behind school systems in several states in the inclusion of LGBTQ topics in school curricula.

In observing developments in states across the country in which a wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation has been introduced related to public schools, with much of it focused

GLAAD, the leading LGBTQ media advocacy organization, announced on Wednesday that it is presenting its prestigious Barbara Gittings Award for Excellence in LGBTQ Media to the Washington Blade and Los Angeles Blade. “Together, representing 50 years, the Los Angeles Blade and Washington Blade’s relentless reporting reflects bestin-class journalism, reminding us all that LGBTQ issues and people have a stake in every news story and headline,”

on transgender students, Chang said he was concerned that conservative advocates from outside D.C. might attempt to push for blocking the proposed social studies standards from being adopted.

The public comment period of 45 days for the proposed standards is scheduled to end on Jan. 30. At the conclusion of the comment period, the D.C. State Board of Education will make the final decision on whether to approve the revised social studies standards.

“These draft social studies standards were developed by a group of social studies educators, administrators, and academics,” a statement released by the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) says. “They were guided by a set of guiding principles that were approved by the D.C. State Board of Education,” the statement says.

Chang provided the Blade with these excerpts of the draft standards’ LGBTQ provisions from a document that is 160 pages long:

• Explain the causes of World War II and the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany, and understand how bias and prejudice led to the scapegoating of marginalized groups in Europe, including Jewish, Romani, Slavic, disabled, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and LGBTQ+ communities.

• Evaluate the reasons for the rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe and the scapegoating of historically marginalized peoples (including Jewish, Romani, Slavic, disabled, and LGBTQ+ communities) by Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco.

• Identify different kinds of families and caregivers within a community (e.g. single parent, blended, grandparent-headed, conditionally separated, foster, LGBTQ+, multiracial, etc.) and discuss the importance of demonstrating respect for all people.

• …Engage students in an analysis of the political development of Washington, D.C. and the ways in which local Washingtonians fought for economic, political, and social equality…Students should understand this time period through the study of the perspectives of different segments of the Washington, D.C. population, including but not limited to immigrants, indigenous people, freed people, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

• Analyze the rise in Black art, music, literature, businesses and queer culture in the Black Renaissance period including but not limited to Harlem and D.C. (e.g. Black Broadway).

• Analyze the impact of the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Renaissance in Washington, D.C. on American culture, including analysis of literature, music, dance, theater, queer culture and scholarship from the period.

• Analyze the ways that young people, including but not limited to Native Americans, Black Peoples, Indigenous Peoples, People(s) of Color (BIPOC) and queer youth are impacting change.

The full text of the proposed LGBTQ inclusive D.C. public schools social studies standards and a link for submitting public comments on the standards can be accessed here:

D.C. Draft Social Studies Standards (qualtrics.com): https://opportunityconsult.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_ ewIdKVxd8l2CZ9Q

GLAAD said in a statement.

Previous recipients of the award have included The Advocate, Windy City Times, and Curve.

“Everyone at the Washington Blade and Los Angeles Blade is immensely proud of this prestigious award from GLAAD,” said Washington Blade co-owner and editor Kevin Naff. “It is a testament to our hard-working team’s dedication to professionalism and community service and we’re especially proud of our team’s resilience during the pandemic.”

Since 1990, the GLAAD Media Awards have honored media for fair, accurate, and inclusive representations of LGBTQ people and issues. The GLAAD Media Awards cer-

emonies, which fund GLAAD’s work to accelerate LGBTQ acceptance, will be held in Los Angeles at the Beverly Hilton on Thursday, March 30, 2023 and in New York City at the Hilton Midtown on Saturday, May 13, 2023.

Among this year’s nominees is “Bros” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” for outstanding film wide release; “A League of Their Own” and “Queer as Folk” for outstanding new TV series; and “Bargain Block” and “Generation Drag” for outstanding reality program.

For a full list of nominees, visit GLAAD, here: https://www. glaad.org/mediaawards/33/nominees

FROM STAFF REPORTS

Madonna announced a new world tour on Tuesday via video parody of her 1991 “Truth or Dare” in which friend Amy Schumer dares the pop superstar to go on tour and perform her greatest hits. Madonna accepts the challenge.

The NSFW video features Judd Apatow, Jack Black, Diplo, Lil Wayne, Bob the Drag Queen, and Schumer, among others.

The 35-city tour kicks off on July 15 in Vancouver, BC with stops around the country, including Sept. 2 in D.C. The tour also heads to Europe, starting with the O2 Arena in London on Oct. 14 and ending in Amsterdam on Dec. 1. The tour is produced by Live Nation. Bob the Drag Queen was an-

nounced as special guest on all dates.

“I am excited to explore as many songs as possible in hopes to give my fans the show they have been waiting for,” Madonna said in a statement. She said the tour will feature 40 years of her greatest hits, something she has resisted in the past, while also paying tribute to the role New York City played in launching her career.

Madonna is the latest in a string of ‘80s icons to hit the road in 2023 after three years of COVID cancellations. Janet Jackson announced her “Together Again Tour,” which kicks off in April and stops in Baltimore on May 13 and Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, Va., on May 6; Bruce Springsteen’s tour kicks

FROM STAFF REPORTS

off next month with a March 27 stop in D.C.; and Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks last week announced a joint tour stop in Baltimore on Oct. 7.

honors Washington Blade, LA Blade with prestigious award

Gay D.C. State Board of Education member ALLISTER CHANG is calling for inclusive education standards. (Photo via Twitter)

Verdi’s final masterpiece, Falstaff is more than just the composer’s successful “comic” opera, but it is also a profound meditation on humanity from an artist reflecting back on his life and career. Shakespeare’s iconic characters come to vivid life as Verdi’s sublime music reminds us that “tutto nel mondo è burla”—all the world’s a joke!

Ruses rule in this bawdy comedy of seduction and sly revenge... but he who laughs last laughs best!

D.C. drag performer Ba’Naka dies at 36

Dustin Michael Schaad, who has performed as a drag entertainer by the name of Ba’Naka at D.C.’s LGBTQ bars and Capital Pride events for at least a decade, died on Wednesday, Jan. 11, at George Washington University Hospital from complications associated with a longstanding illness at the age of 36, according to friends.

David Perruzza, owner of the D.C. gay bars Pitchers and League of Her Own, said Schaad had been performing most recently at Pitchers while overseeing a popular drag bingo event held at the Adams Morgan bar.

Perruzza said Schaad talked about having performed in drag since the age of 18 and continued to perform as Ba’Naka in later years while working as a graphic designer.

People who knew him said he had performed in drag shows at other D.C. gay bars, including the former LGBTQ nightclub Town.

Ryan Bos, executive director of the Capital Pride Alliance, the group that organizes D.C.’s LGBTQ Pride events, said Schaad has performed as Ba’Naka at Capital Pride events over the years and called him “a supportive and valued member of our LGBTQ+ community.”

In keeping with his positive outlook despite a long-

standing illness, people who knew him pointed out that Schaad posted a humorous message on Facebook on

Feb. 28 announcing he was in the hospital emergency room.

“Sorry Kittens,” he wrote. “I won’t be out tonight at Pitchers DC/A League of Her Own #Drag Bingo. Mama is in the ER. But please go out and support my bartender, Martin! While I’m out! XOOX!”

Tributes to Schaad in his role as Ba’Naka began appearing on Facebook on Wednesday as news surfaced that he had passed away.

“You were so kind, so caring, and so funny,” said Bobby Mainville in a Facebook post. “You were always ready to learn and fight for your DC community. I love you so much and will always remember our chats…Rest in power you sweet soul. DC lost an amazing Angel!”

In another Facebook post, Nina Bae wrote, “Ba’Naka was one of a kind! She was a beautiful soul with a tremendously wicked sense of humor. DC has lost an icon.”

Perruzza said members of Schaad’s family, including his parents, who were in Schaad’s hospital room on Wednesday shortly before he passed away, told Perruzza they were planning a memorial service for Schaad within the next few weeks.

LOU CHIBBARO JR.

Protesters disrupt Drag Queen Story Hour in Baltimore

About two dozen people protested a drag queen story hour hosted by the Enoch Pratt Free Library’s Canton branch at The Church on The Square on Saturday.

They were met by 70 supporters of the event who showed up with umbrellas, flags, and sheets to shield the families coming to the reading with a “rainbow wall.”

Meghan McCorkell, a spokesperson for the library system, said the event has not had issues in the past.

“We’ve been organizing a drag queen story hour for the past three years and never had protesters,” she said. “I have no idea what caused this.”

About 80 people showed up to hear one of Baltimore’s local drag queens read to families, McCorkell said.

“We book all of our [readers] through the National Drag Queen Story Hour, who vets and trains the readers,” she said.

Outside, across from the church, protesters chanted “leave our children alone” and “let our kids be kids.” They carried signs that said “Cancel Drag Queen Story Hour,” “Drag Queens Belong In Clubs — Not Libraries” and “You Call It Storytime — We Call It Grooming.”

Supporters countered their chants with a mix of pop music and Disney and Broadway songs.

Iya Dammons, founder and executive director of Balti-

more Safe Haven, a support center for at-risk LGBTQ residents, was pleased with the turnout of support.

“Today in Baltimore we showed them that hatred and discrimination have no place here,” she said. Dammons, along with colleagues, marched through the protest carrying a large rainbow flag.

Londyn Smith de Richelieu, director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, attended the event and said it was nothing more than a reading for children.

“It’s a parent’s autonomy to raise their children as they see fit as long as it’s not abuse,” she said.

Smith de Richelieu was inside the church during the reading and showed photos to the protesters outside.

“I told them the drag queen story time wasn’t about rearing a child to become a drag queen. It was a person in character reading and doing exercises with the children,” she said. “The children loved it. Around that room there were Black parents, Asian parents, white parents, it was an inclusive atmosphere. This is not a political issue, it’s a human issue.”

Supporters walked with attendees of the reading as they made their way to their cars after the event, and the protesters disbanded.

McCorkell said the library system will continue to host

readings with drag queens.

“People who came to the Canton library were interested and we brought it to them,” she said. “It’s not going anywhere.”

J.M. GIORDANO/BALTIMORE BANNER

DUSTIN MICHAEL SCHAAD performed as BA’NAKA for many years in D.C. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

BA’NAKA was voted “Best Drag Queen” in the Washington Blade’s 2011 Best of Gay D.C. Awards. Ba’naka took the title several times in the Blade’s readers poll. (Washington Blade file photo by Pete Exis)

BA’NAKA performs at the 2010 Capital Pride Festival. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

BA’NAKA emcees the AIDS Walk Auction at Nellie’s Sports Bar on Sept. 16, 2010. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Drag protesters and counter protesters clashed at The Church on the Square where a drag reading hour was being held. (Photo by J.M. Giordano/Baltimore Banner)

Quantity, cruelty of anti-LGBTQ state bills raise alarm bells

Lawmakers have already proposed nearly as many hostile measures as in all of 2022

By CHRISTOPHER KANE | ckane@washblade.com

When the Washington Blade connected with activist and legislative researcher Erin Reed on Tuesday to discuss the new anti-LGBTQ bills that have been introduced in statehouses across the country, it was just as the news of an especially hateful proposal came across her desk.

Senators in West Virginia had teed up an anti-trans law that would criminalize “displays” that “shall include, but not be limited to, any transvestite and/or transgender exposure, performances, or display to any minor.”

The move recalled anti-LGBTQ laws from the 1960s that criminalized the very existence of transgender and gender non-conforming persons as well as drag performers, while providing pretexts for police raids of LGBTQ establishments like the Stonewall Inn, Reed said.

For example, she said, many states once enforced dress codes that required people to wear at least three articles of clothing consistent with their sex assigned at birth.

Likewise, the West Virginia bill raises alarming questions about whether transgender parents and teachers in the state might be prosecuted, with a potential five-year prison sentence, said Reed, who is herself a transgender parent.

Additionally, the proposed legislation is “unconstitutionally vague,” written so broadly that it would presumably become illegal to screen the film “Mrs. Doubtfire” or perform certain Shakespearen plays for an audience of minors if the measure were to pass, Reed said.

Less than three weeks into 2023, state legislatures have introduced nearly as many anti-LGBTQ bills as were introduced in the entirety of last year – and qualitatively, many of these new bills are more hateful than anything we have seen in decades, Reed said.

“I see an increase in both the number and in the cruelty towards transgender people,” she said.

There are “new pieces of proposed legislation that go further than bills in 2021 and 2022,” such as by “banning gender affirming care through age 26 in Oklahoma,” and others that “target the drag community in ways that haven’t happened in 30 to 40 years.”

Fear and hate mongering over all-ages drag performances has been ratcheted up in the right-wing ecosystem, fueled by conservative media figures like Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson, as well as social media accounts like Libs of TikTok and extremist militias, Reed said.

According to the ACLU, “As drag reality competitions and drag brunches become increasingly popular, backlash in the form of armed protests and intimidation of drag performers has followed.”

Consequently, Reed said, this year for the first time anti-LGBTQ legislation has included measures targeting drag performances – with, so far, a dozen new bills. And the concern is not just that many of these proposed laws are draconian, like Nebraska’s bill that would prohibit patrons younger than 21 from attending a drag show.

“Whenever I see those [laws] being proposed, I also see militant organizations storming in” to LGBTQ bars, schools, hospitals, and venues that host drag queen story hours, Reed said. “I see people trying to break into drag events and successfully doing so,” disrupting them with violence and intimidation, she said.

“What I read into [the impetus behind these laws] is

these legislators want to change the uniform of the people doing the storming,” from militias comprised of farright citizens to “people wearing badges.”

Making matters worse, Reed said, there are “lots of cases where drag events have asked for local protection and not received any protection whatsoever.”

Last month, organizers of a drag queen story hour-style event in Columbus, Ohio, had to cancel after they said police failed to work with them to protect participants from demonstrators affiliated with far-right groups like the violent neo-fascist Proud Boys. (Police dispute the organizers’ account of events.)

The ACLU notes that, “Amidst this wave of anti-drag legislation and violence, drag performers and host venues across the country are moving to higher security or cancel performances altogether.”

Looking at the slate of new statewide legislative proposals, many are a continuation of similar anti-trans themes that have emerged in recent years, but “we’re seeing scary attempts to escalate things,” Reed said.

Across the board, Reed noted, there is an increasing reliance on executive authority. This was previewed toward the end of last year, she said, pointing to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s weaponization of the state medical board and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s weaponization of the Department of Family and Protective Services to, respectively, ban gender affirming care and prosecute parents for child abuse for facilitating their trans children’s access to gender affirming care.

‘The fight is on the state level right now‘

Amid the onslaught of anti-LGBTQ legislation, Reed emphasized the need for coordinated action by the U.S. Congress, the Biden-Harris White House, progressive and pro-equality legal actors, and state legislatures, as well as local and national LGBTQ groups.

She noted that pro-equality interests have focused significant time, attention, and money urging Congress to pass the Equality Act, which is commendable and necessary, while the courts can provide (and, often, have provided) a path toward effectuating pro-equality policy.

At the same time, Reed said, for the foreseeable future federal legislators are unlikely to find a path forward for any major bills impacting LGBTQ people, while relying on the judiciary – particularly with the U.S. Supreme Court as it is currently construed – is far from a safe bet.

By contrast, “at the state level, we’ve seen the GOP focus time and attention and money and efforts on changing state laws,” she said, adding, “it’s important that we do the same.”

Likewise, Reed said, “I also think we really need to support our local LGBT organizations and help lift them up as much as possible,” particularly those located in more conservative and rural states, which largely do not earn commensurate resources and support.

For instance, bills that restrict or prohibit guideline-directed healthcare for transgender and gender non-conforming youth were introduced and passed in several states in 2021 and 2022, but new measures proposed this year would target adults as old as 26.

“It makes me wonder what their ultimate goal is,” Reed said. “To ban transitions entirely?”

Every mainstream medical organization with relevant clinical expertise recommends age-directed gender affirming care according to clinical practice guidelines that are supported by a bevy of research and updated regularly to ensure best practices.

Still, right-wing figures have demagogued the issue and characterized responsible medical care as “experimentation” and child abuse.

Reed noted there are some “new wrinkles” in anti-trans healthcare bans that have been proposed this year.

For instance, she said, Indiana proposed folding gender affirming care into practices that would be outlawed under a conversion therapy ban – thereby conflating supportive and medically necessary healthcare with an abusive, ineffective practice that has been rejected by mainstream science and medicine.

“In places like North Dakota and Oklahoma, South Dakota, and West Virginia, we need to help the people who live there,” Reed said, but also in blue states where significant progress toward LGBTQ equality has been made but there is still room for improvement. “Don’t neglect your own backyard.”

For instance, she said, the gay and trans panic defense is still legal in some progressive states.

“One of the biggest problems for people in some of these states criminalizing [healthcare for trans people] is they don’t have resources to travel out of state,” Reed said, noting that POLITICO has reported on the plights of people who have been forced to flee states with anti-trans laws.

And while “We have to take care of those people,” Reed said, people should not be in a position where they must flee their home states. “We need federal action and federal protections,” she said.

Thankfully, there is some movement on pro-LGBTQ state bills. Reed said she has seen more this year compared to last year, which is “a bit promising.” She highlighted bills such as the proposal to protect gender affirming care in Maryland, access to bathrooms for trans youth in Minnesota, the ability to change information on birth certificates in West Virginia, and adoption by trans parents in Montana.

Florida Gov. RON DESANTIS has led the state charge against LGBTQ rights in recent years. (Washington Blade file screenshot/WFLA)

BRANDIE BLAND

is a journalism student at the University of

and

Blade Foundation fellow.

“Old Glory Only Act,” one of the Republican majority’s first legislative priorities in the U.S. House of Representatives would prohibit flags other than the American flag from being flown over U.S. diplomatic and consular posts.

“Old Glory Only Act,” sponsored by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), is nothing but a tired reminder that the GOP has no real plan for improving American lives and instead is doubling down on exclusionary, racist, and homophobic rhetoric.

The GOP claims the Old Glory Only Act remedies (what they call) the politicization of U.S. embassies during the Biden administration, which has allowed Pride and Black Lives Matter flags to be flown from U.S. embassies.

“Our beautiful flag, Old Glory, should be the only flag flying and representing our country over our diplomatic and consular posts worldwide,” Duncan said in a press release. “ The American flag is a beacon of liberty, and no other flag or symbol better portrays our shared values than the Stars and Stripes.”

“It is important to ensure that Old Glory only is flown at American embassies to represent our ideals abroad,” Duncan said.

My question for Duncan and his colleagues that support this legislation is: Which ideals? Have we reached a level of openly embracing discrimination in the U.S. to the point that we are going to pretend that Americans, U.S. citizens and residents aren’t Black? Queer? SGL?

At the heart of it, the bill seeks to permanently ground the Pride flag and Black Lives Matter flag for the very same reason that these two flags were first approved to be flown at U.S. embassies during the Obama administration — the U.S. flag is not automatically seen as inclusive of those communities. Old Glory’ s “shared values” could represent all Americans at some point in the future, sure, but this is not the Old Glory we fly today.The flying of the Pride flag and Black Lives Matter flag sends a critical message when those communities of people aren’t represented by the American flag and should be.

The GOP is intentionally hailing a flag whose 50 stars and 13 stripes represent states that are actively waging violent, exclusionary campaigns to strip non-white and LGBTQ residents of their rights and safety. In some states, the question of representation has become regressive to the point that state legislatures have passed dress codes so restrictive that some state representatives can easily be prevented from performing their duties to constituents because of the representative’s gender identity and attire.

And the argument that any flag other than the American flag is politicization of American embassies clearly missed the history lesson on the establishment of this country, whose beginnings are rooted in genocide, enslavement, theft, and lies.

The GOP was the first to dehumanize Black and LGBTQ people by attempting to politicize their right to exist. And the Old Glory Only Act joins the same dehumanizing discourse as Republicans’ unsubstantiated claims about bathrooms and drag queen story hours as the GOP continues to shove Christian nationalism down the throats of all who refuse to swallow their poison.

For politicians like Duncan, the only liberty in this country is for those whose complexion, gender identity, and sexual orientation passes the GOP’s litmus test of humanity.

How can LGBTQ people have the right to liberty in a country that threatens healthcare providers for providing trans affirming healthcare or the right for two same-gender people to marry?

How can Black people have the right to liberty in a country where white murderers go free for unjustly taking Black lives and 33 out of 50 states still allow for Black people to lose their livelihoods for their hair texture and styles?

Let ’s be clear: There is nothing glorious about Old Glory or its representation of the failed experiment that is America.

GOP doubles down on racism, homophobia with ‘Old Glory Only Act’ Pride, BLM flags should be allowed at U.S. embassies

Maryland

a

I believe President Joe Biden is an honest man. There is no real comparison between his dealing with classified documents and Donald Trump dealing with the ones he had. Yet Merrick Garland clearly did the right thing by appointing a special counsel in the Biden case. The Justice Department must both look and be impartial; follow the facts where they lead when we like it, and when we don’t. We will find out why there were classified documents in Biden’s office, home library, and garage next to his Corvette. Surely it will be an honest mistake, though one that shouldn’t have happened, and it creates problems for him. Let’s hope they are not insurmountable.

From initial reports much of the classified materials found in the closet of his office were from his daily briefings — the sort that can be read in the office and don’t need to be read in a secure room. They were of the kind aides had access to. So, it may simply be they were on his desk when an aide packed up his office, put them in a box with other papers and sent them on their way. Not what should have been done, or an excuse, but not venal.

One thing that should come from both the Biden and Trump experiences is the government should look at what is considered classified, and how and where those papers can be read and dealt with. If some are the lowest level, not top secret, what should be done with a classified document once a copy has been shared? Should it be shredded and burned, or what? The second issue to look at is determining what files presidents and vice presidents are allowed to walk away with before the documents are reviewed. Perhaps all of their papers should be sent to the national archives and then aides can go there and retrieve what is determined to be personal. There might need to be additional funds provided to pay the aides needed to do this. If this is done and classified documents are still discovered in their possession, it can be determined they were intentionally taken.

Again, the Biden and Trump cases are totally different but that won’t stop Republicans, or for that matter the news media, from making them seem the same. Already the media are making a huge issue of when President Biden told the nation about this, only adding at the end of their stories that all the documents were handed over to the archives the moment they were found. They have now begun reporting the Justice Department has already done an initial investigation interviewing a number of people from the Biden office and his VP office, who may have done the packing. President Biden has said everyone will be made available for interviews and all will willingly testify about what they know. Very different from the Trump case. Chuck Todd is already on TV talking about how this could end Biden’s desire for a second term.

Meanwhile, Trump is still trying to stonewall the Justice Department on the hundreds of documents he took and went to court to try to block giving them back. Trump had to be subpoenaed for the documents and his lawyers swore everything had been turned over when it wasn’t. There are clearly a myriad of differences between the two cases.

Again, Biden is in the wrong and there should have never been any classified documents taken. Some of the documents were in areas where plenty of people could go. That was clearly wrong. It just gives Republicans something to add to their list of grievances and to investigate. I guess Democrats must be thankful the boxes and papers weren’t found in Hunter Biden’s home.

Despite this distraction, Democrats need to continue to mount their 2024 congressional campaigns. They need to focus on the positive things they accomplished in the first two years of the Biden presidency. Democratic candidates need to be prepared to answer voters and the news media on this issue saying, “This is being appropriately investigated by a special counsel and I look forward to the matter being cleared up quickly,” and then go on to tout all the great things they have done. This includes efforts to ameliorate climate change, reduce healthcare costs and to highlight the major bills they passed on infrastructure and inflation reduction. They can tout the millions of new jobs created, the restoration of manufacturing in the United States, and other issues germane to their own individual voters.

This distraction should not stop Democrats from winning, or the DOJ from prosecuting Trump.

SARAH KATE ELLIS

is president and CEO of GLAAD.

NY Times hires anti-LGBTQ columnist in appalling move Newspaper continues to platform harmful voices

GLAAD, the world’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) media advocacy organization, is responding to the New York Times’ recent announcement of their hiring of anti-LGBTQ attorney and writer David French as a columnist.

“It is appalling that the New York Times hired and is now boasting about bringing on David French, a writer and attorney with a deep history of anti-LGBTQ activism. After more than a year of inaccurate, misleading LGBTQ coverage in the Times opinion and news pages, the Times started 2023 by announcing a second anti-transgender opinion columnist, without a single known trans voice represented on staff,” responded GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis.

“A cursory search for French turns up numerous anti-LGBTQ articles and his record as an attorney for the Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center designated an anti-LGBTQ hate group that actively spreads misinformation about LGBTQ people and pushes baseless legislation and lawsuits to legalize discrimination, including  just last month at the Supreme Court. The Times left out these facts in its glowing announcement of French’s hiring, and also forgot to mention his work as a co-signer on the 2017 Nashville Statement, which erased LGBTQ voices of faith and falsely stated ‘that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism.’ The Times had the gall to claim French as a ‘faith’ expert despite this known history.

The Times’ opinion section continues to platform nonLGBTQ voices speaking up inaccurately and harmfully about LGBTQ people and issues. This is damaging to the paper’s credibility. The Times opinion section editors’ love letter to French yesterday shows a willful disregard of LGBTQ community voices and the concerns so many have shared about their inaccurate, exclusionary, often ridiculous pieces. Last year, the Times ended popular trans writer Jenny Boylan’s column, leaving the opinion section with no trans columnists and a known lack of transgender representation on its overall staff. Who was brought on after Boylan? Pamela Paul, who has devoted columns to anti-transgender and anti-LGBTQ disinformation, and David French. This reflects a growing trend on the news and opinion pages of misguided, inaccurate, and disingenuous ‘both sides’ fearmongering and bad faith ‘just asking questions’ coverage. The Times started 2023 by bragging about hiring another anti-trans writer, so LGBTQ leaders, organizations, and allies should make a 2023 resolution not to stay silent as the Times platforms lies, bias, fringe theories and dangerous inaccuracies.”

Examples of French’s anti-LGBTQ activism:

French served as attorney for SPLC-designated hate group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), best known for attacking the rights of transgender students, fighting in court to discriminate against LGBTQ people, and working internationally to criminalize being LGBTQ. French has a history of expressing his outward disdain for transgender people. In the past, he lamented “transgender entitlement” and once de-

scribed a young transgender woman as a “man” who is “on the verge of mutilating himself.” (from Media Matters.)

French was a co-signer on the “Nashville Statement.”

Column written by French attempting to refute existence of transgender people.

French was called out for saying that lifting the ban on trans military service will result in “thought control.”

French recently made news for his late-in-life change of heart to support marriage equality, explaining it about a month ago. He has not disavowed his legal activism for ADF, and in fact has defended the group, which continues to attack and spread disinformation about LGBTQ people around the globe.

Examples of NYT columnist Pamela Paul’s anti-LGBTQ work: Pamela Paul, who is not LGBTQ, has devoted her first columns to inaccurately opining about LGBTQ issues, including falsely and incredulously claiming erasure of the word and identity, “gay” in the LGBTQ movement.

Paul was New York Times Books Editor when writer Jesse Singal, who is not transgender or LGBTQ but who has built a career inaccurately writing about trans issues and targeting trans people, reviewed and supported his friend’s inaccurate anti-transgender book.

Paul repeated Singal’s false and harmful exclusionary innuendo about transgender women and safety in one of her first opinion columns.

While leading the Books section, Paul has been accused of silencing voices supportive of transgender youth.

Recent examples of inaccurate news coverage of LGBTQ people and youth, and their consequences:

In court documents, the state of Texas quoted Emily Bazelon’s June 15 report in the New York Times Magazine to further target families of trans youth over their private, evidence-based healthcare decisions. Every major medical association supports gender affirming care as best practices care that is safe and lifesaving and has widespread consensus of the medical and scientific communities.

The World Professional Association of Transgender Healthcare (WPATH), the world’s leading medical and research authority on transgender healthcare, criticized the Times’ November 2022 article “They Paused Puberty, But Is There a Cost?” as “furthering the atmosphere of misinformation” about healthcare for trans youth, noting its inaccurate narratives, interpretations and non-expert voices. WPATH noted the Times elevated false and inflammatory notions about medications that have been used safely in non-LGBTQ populations for decades without an explicit statement about how the benefits of the treatment far outweigh potential risks.

Writer Michael Powell elevated anti-transgender voices to falsely assert, in a piece about one successful transgender athlete, that transgender athletes are a threat to women’s sports. Powell’s other pieces have been used to support Pamela Paul’s inaccurate opinion essays falsely claiming “women” are being erased by the inclusion of trans people in discussions about abortion access.

Talking’

everyone

By JOHN PAUL KING

With the Hollywood awards season well underway, the public conversation around movies these days is mostly around the movies that have begun to emerge as early champions.

That makes this the perfect time to bring up “Women Talking,” a movie not many people have seen – yet – but that more people should be talking about.

Adapted for the screen and directed by Canadian filmmaker Sarah Polley, it’s based on a 2018 novel of the same name by Miriam Toews (which itself was loosely based on real-life events in Bolivia), and set in an ultraconservative Mennonite colony, isolated from the wider world by both distance and strict religious tradition, in which dozens of girls and women have been drugged with animal tranquilizers and sexually assaulted in the night by a group of men over the course of several years – only to be accused of lying or told that their attacks and injuries were perpetrated by “ghosts or demons.” Now, they’ve now been offered a choice – either forgive their attackers and continue living in fear or leave the community and be expelled from the church; with only a few short hours to decide, a group of townswomen convene in a barn to weigh the dilemma, and to make the impossible choice of what to do.

In Toews’s book, and therefore Polley’s film, the shocking circumstances of the story are reimagined in an American setting, and the scenario is framed – in the spirit, perhaps, of an increasing sense of public conscience that favors commemorating the victims of violence over elevating the victimizers’ names in the cultural record – through the eyes of the women; we never see the faces of their attackers, nor hear their names. Their identities, in fact, are irrelevant; for these women, what matters is making an impossible choice whether to brave the unknown evils of a world outside their experience or resign themselves to endure the all-too-familiar evils to which they are accustomed, forced upon them by male elders who seemingly think of them as little more than human livestock.

That’s a position that feels unsettlingly relevant in the climate of today’s America, and though both book and movie were conceived and executed before the devastating Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v. Wade, the timing of “Women Talking” couldn’t be more powerful or relevant. In watching these onscreen women attempt to find justification within their faith to defy the strictures that leave them powerless and without protection, it’s impossible not to notice the reflected significance; though the arguments they rehash – obedience to the teachings of their church, accepted gender roles within their culture, the “rightful place” of women in society, and all the other well-rehearsed topics inextricably tied to the ideals of feminism and basic human rights – often feel to us like the antiquated rhetoric of a bygone era, we cannot help but be aware that the principles they struggle to define, considered by many of us to be long-settled and self-evident, are currently anything but.

That’s entirely the point, of course. Polley’s film derives considerable power from the juxtaposition of an old-fashioned lifestyle into a contemporary setting; most of what we see on the screen – clothing, mores and manners, the quaint routine of a daily life lived without technology and off the grid – belies any connection to the 21st century, and when we are occasionally reminded that we’re watching a story that takes place in modern times, it’s jarring.

Indeed, there’s an unabashedly “meta” effect that permeates throughout, height-

ened by a theatrical approach to the narrative that spends more of its time on dialogue than on action – after all, the title is “Women Talking” – and takes place mostly in a single location. The movie’s studied mix of emotion and intellect, its prominent agenda and its progressive political leanings, all land with us as if we were watching a play, rather than a movie. Yet Polley ingeniously expands into the cinematic realm to connect with us though our eyes as well as our ears, particularly with the use of rapid-paced flashback collages that cut away from a character to wordlessly convey crucial details of their backstory, deepening both our insight and our empathy in the process.

She also takes pains to illuminate the emotional triggers – fear, rage, even guilt over perceived culpability – that bubble to the surface as her traumatized characters try to form a unified front; by tracking the way these lingering psychic scars affect the dynamic among this group of survivors, determining the positions they take and setting them at odds against each other, her movie helps open us up to empathy for those whose psychic scars sometimes drive them to act against their own self-interest. Yet things aren’t unrelentingly grim, nor are they always somber; there are frequent interspersions of humor, appreciations of beauty, and expressions of love. It’s this focus on lived inner experience that keeps “Women Talking” grounded in the human and enables it to indulge in lengthy theoretical discourse about justice, ethics, and theology without feeling like an exercise in aloof didacticism.

To that end, a gifted ensemble of players, each obviously relishing the chance to do work of such substance, turns in a remarkably gripping collection of performances. Standing out in the showiest roles, Claire Foy and Jessie Buckley offer up unforgettable moments throughout the film, while a softer Rooney Mara serves as a warm and intelligent heart; screen veterans Judith Ivey and Sheila McCarthy bring depth and dignity to their roles as elders in this female contingent, with multi-Oscar-winner Frances McDormand leaving her stamp in a brief but indelible supporting turn; out gay actor Ben Whishaw shines as a gentle schoolteacher enlisted by the women to take the minutes of their meeting, a sole reminder that men can be allies, too; and nonbinary performer August Winter, cast as a transmasculine colony member, adds an affirming thread of queer inclusion to the mix, opening the door for one of the film’s most unexpected – and powerful – moments.

It’s not surprising, given the talents of Polley and her cast (not to mention the expert cinematography of Luc Montpellier and a stirring score by Hildur Guðnadóttir) “Women Talking” has quietly gained momentum as an awards contender – even though it doesn’t go into wide release until Jan. 20. Whether it can pick up more prizes than the more widely seen titles currently leading the race remains to be seen. Even in a post-#MeToo Hollywood, female-led films are often overlooked for the big awards, and the industry’s supposed progressive leanings rarely prevent it from shying away from polarizing subject matter.

Incredibly, in 2023, the subject of women seeking freedom to have agency over their own bodies feels more polarizing than ever, and women are fighting for it under oppressive regimes from Iraq to Indonesia, let alone in parts of the USA.

That’s why, whether it wins any awards or not, “Women Talking” is still one of the most culturally significant movies on the shortlist.

BEN WHISHAW, ROONEY MARA, and CLAIRE FOY in ‘Women Talking.’ (Image courtesy United Artists Releasing)

‘Women

is the timely film

should be talking about

Filmmaker Sarah Polley explores shocking abuse in culturally significant effort

CALENDAR |

Friday, January 20

Center Aging: Friday Tea Time will be at 2 p.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests can bring their beverage of choice. For more information, email adamheller@thedccenter.org.

GoGay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Speed Friending” at 7 p.m. at Puro Gusto. This event is ideal for meeting new people and making new friends in a casual, facilitated environment. For more details, visit Eventbrite.

Saturday, January 21

Virtual Yoga Class with Jesse Z. will be at 12 p.m. online. This is a weekly class focusing on yoga, breath work, and meditation. Guests are encouraged to RSVP on the DC Center’s website, providing your name, email address, and zip code, along with any questions you may have. A link to the event will be sent at 6 p.m. the day before.

LGBTQ People of Color Support Group will be at 1 p.m. on Zoom and in person at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. This peer support group is an outlet for LGBTQ People of Color to come together and talk about anything affecting them in a space the strives to be safe and judgement free. For more details, visit thedccenter. org/poc or facebook.com/centerpoc.

South Asian LGBTQ Support Group will be at 1:30 p.m. on Zoom. The peer support group is an outlet for South Asian-identified LGBTQ individuals to come and talk about anything affecting them. For more information, email board.khushdc@gmail.com.

Sunday, January 22

GoGay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Coffee + Conversation” at 12 p.m. at As You Are. This event is for those looking to make more friends in the LGBTQ+ community and trying to meet some new faces after two years of the pandemic. This event is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.

Monday, January 23

Center Aging Monday Coffee and Conversation will be at 10 a.m. on Zoom. LGBT Older Adults — and friends — are invited to enjoy friendly conversations and to discuss any issues you might be dealing with. For more information, visit the Center Aging’s Facebook or Twitter.

Queer Book Club will be at 6:30 p.m. on Zoom. This meeting’s book discussion will be based on “This is How You Lose a Time War” by Max Gladstone. You can pick up a copy here and for more information, email supportdesk@thedccenter.org.

By TINASHE CHINGARANDE

Tuesday, January 24

Genderqueer DC will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This support group is for people who identify outside of the gender binary, whether bigender, agender, genderfluid, or just aren’t 100% cisgender. For more information, visit Genderqueer’s website at www.genderqueerdc.org or check it out on Facebook.

“Talking Trans History” Panel will be at 6:30 p.m. at Southwest Library. This will be Rainbow History Project’s first event as part of its Trans History Initiative. The event is free and open to the public. The panel will be recorded by Small Wonder Media and later posted to the RHP YouTube channel. More details are available on Eventbrite.

Wednesday, January 25

Job Club will be at 6 p.m. on Zoom. This is a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking — allowing participants to move away from being merely “applicants” toward being “candidates.” For more information, email centercareers@thedccenter.org or visit www.thedccenter.org/careers.

Asexual & Aromantic Group will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a space where people who are questioning this aspect of their identity or those who identify as asexual and/ or aromantic can come together, share stories and experiences, and discuss various topics. For more information, email supportdesk@thedccenter.org.

Thursday, January 26

The DC Center’s Fresh ProduceProgram will be held all day at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. To be fair with who is receiving boxes, the program is moving to a lottery system. People will be informed on Wednesday at 5 p.m. if they are picked to receive a produce box. No proof of residency or income is required. For more information, email supportdesk@thedccenter.org or call 202682-2245.

DC Anti-Violence Project Open Meeting will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. The primary mission of the DC Anti-Violence Project is to reduce violence against LGBT individuals, and those perceived as LGBT, through community outreach, education, and monitoring cases to ensure that the rights and dignity of LGBT victims are respected and protected. For more information, check out Facebook and Twitter.

Queer Book Club reviews ‘This is How You Lose a Time War’ by Max Gladstone.

OUT & ABOUT

Queer art exhibit opens in D.C.

Culture House will host the opening reception for “A Sky of Shattered Glass Reflected by the Shining Sun” by Stephanie Mercedes on Friday, Jan. 27 at 6 p.m.

Guests will get to meet Mercedes and explore the exhibition, which through sound, drawings, motors, and metal casting, has a series of installations that reflect on the vulnerability of the queer body.

Materials used in the show include melted bullets, destroyed weapons, soap, wax, and seeds. Sonic landscapes embody the material transformations to which the sculptures allude.

For more details about the reception, visit Culture House’s website.

Climbing events for LGBTQ youth are back

Unmatched Athlete will host “LGBTQ+ Youth Climbing Days” on Saturday, Jan. 28 at 12:30 p.m. at Movement Columbia.

Youths aged 13-18 are welcome to attend for a fun day of ‘Intro to Ropes’ climbing course and a teen leadership activity. The climbing course and leadership activity may be limited to the first 20 participants who sign up.

Tickets start at $5 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.

NICK MARTINEZ in ‘Ride the Cyclone.’ (Photo by T Charles Erickson Photography)

for second chances

By PATRICK FOLLIARD

What better way to bond than landing in the afterlife together? In “Ride the Cyclone,” a quirky musical now at Arena Stage, six high school choir members perish in a freak roller coaster crash. After croaking, the sextet passes into a sort of limbo where they each have the chance to argue — in song — why they deserve to live again. While vying for the top spot, they learn a lot about each other.

Out actor Nick Martinez plays Noel Gruber, one of the young choristers. He’s the only gay kid in a rural town who works at Taco Bell. But in his torchy song “Noel’s Lament,” he sings of his dream to be a cold-hearted Parisian hooker.

Martinez says, “It’s gritty, sexy, and hilarious — not at all Disney. My character is acting out his complete fantasy and taking you along for the ride. It’s especially relatable to anyone who grew up queer.”

And the New York-based Hispanic actor who grew up queer in Coral Springs, South Florida, understands the material: “I know Noel. So many people in the queer community know him too. Not being able to authentically be ourselves hurts. And when we finally are ourselves and know the rewards that come with that, there’s a lot of release and ecstasy.”

Fortunately, Martinez was raised in a supportive atmosphere. Still, he was reluctant to be entirely himself, but theater proved a healthy outlet. He says, “Performing was a way to express myself and go balls to the wall with whatever feelings I was having, put it in a spotlight, and share that with an entire audience.”

As a third grader Martinez found his way into theater via his older sister whom he adored. When she starred as Cinderella in the gym of their elementary school, he was there to witness her backstage quick-change into a ballgown. It was the coolest thing he’d ever seen.

The following year, he played the Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz.” An old video shows his opening night reaction to enthusiastic applause — first delightedly astonished and then beaming. It’s then, Martinez says, that he became hooked.

After graduating from Elon University with a BFA in Music Theatre in 2015, he moved to New York City where he almost seamlessly transitioned into a working actor. He’s played parts in terrific shows in admirable places including Moody in “Anne of Green Gables” at Goodspeed Opera House; Doody in “Grease” at The REV; Twink (covered) in “Bat Out of Hell” at New York City Center; Crutchie in “Newsies” at John W. Engeman Theater on Long Island; and Pinball Lad, a small but memorable role in “The Who’s Tommy” at The Kennedy Center – part of Broadway Center Stage.

With music, lyrics and book by Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell, “Ride the Cyclone” premiered off-Broadway in 2008 and soon developed a sort of cultish following. “There’s nothing quite like it,” Martinez says. “It’s a silly, quirky, weird little show that tugs at your heartstrings. You need to see it to get the full impact.”

Several years ago, he was up for a different part in the show but it didn’t pan out, so when he was cast as Noel, a part he wanted badly, he was elated. Before opening at Arena in January, the Sarah Rasmussen-directed production played at Princeton’s McCarter Theatre last spring.

When the Arena run ends, Martinez is unsure what’s next for him – the actor’s eternal lament, but he seems more than OK with that. In fact, Martinez embraces the situation.

“There’s something grounding in letting the universe take you where it takes you and trusting in that.”

A Black, queer woman’s story of healing told through dance

‘Rock Paper Scissors’ coming to Atlas Performing Arts Center later this year

By BRANDIE BLAND

We have all at some point questioned our identity. For some, particularly those at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities, the exploration of who you are or want to be can send you into a tailspin of exploration.

Local playwright, choreographer, and producer, Sisi Reid is choosing to use dance to tell a story of innate joy, love, healing and remembering while questioning and exploring her identity as a Black queer woman.

“Dance is my freedom, my freeing,” Reid said.

Reid will debut her solo dance-theater performance titled “Rock Paper Scissors” at the Atlas Performing Arts Center as part of her local theatre residency at The REACH at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts.

The performance will be presented by Reid’s theater company, Soul Shine Theater Garden, and produced by The Welders, a D.C. theater organization and playwrights collective co-led by Reid, Cat Frost, Teshonne Nicole Powell and Jared Shamberger.

According to The Kennedy Center’s website, the local theater residency is a curated developmental residency program for local DMV theater companies and playwrights, that seeks those who leverage their artistry to amplify stories that are often overlooked.

Reid, who has spent most of her life in dance and the creative arts, was first intrigued by the idea of identity exploration through games after watching a spoken word performance that used the popular nursery rhyme “Miss Mary Mack” to talk about bisexuality.

“I was like oh, a game to think about identity, that’s cool. I just kind of thought about it,”Reid said.

At the time, Reid was on the path to figuring out how to co-exist with all the ways in which

she identified. Then Reid’s alma mater, the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD), invited her to write and perform a 10-minute play for the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s Alumni Commissioning Project.

While brainstorming topics for her play, Reid thought of “Miss Mary Mack” and began to ponder what game she would choose to play as a way to discover and understand herself.

“I was still deeply conflicted about can I be Black? Woman? Bisexual?” Reid says. “I don’t even know if queer was in my world yet. I felt very conflicted.”

Reid ultimately chose “Rock Paper Scissors” as the game that best reflects her story.

“I asked myself which identity would be which element and how I would play this game if I were playing my identities against each other,” Reid said.

Reid first workshopped her “Rock Paper Scissors” play in Brazil in 2018 during a three-week exchange program with the University of Michigan’s Prison Creative Arts Program, Santa Catarina State University in Florianópolis, Brazil and The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

After returning to the U.S. from Brazil, Reid didn’t spend any time working on the play, which she says basically was writing itself.

“I was doing more healing and living and existing. The story was writing itself because the play is about my healing journey. So, I was healing and I was growing and I was expanding so I got ideas directly from what I was going through,” Reid said.

“Rock Paper Scissors” will debut from June 22-25. Tickets can be purchased at the Atlas website starting Feb.13.

SISI REID is a local playwright, choreographer, and producer. (Photo courtesy of Sisi Reid)

Hoover is a conflicted, flawed human in new biography ‘G-Man’ explores how he created an unrivaled personal fiefdom

By KATHI WOLFE

“We’re sorry we can’t be in the front row to hiss — no kiss you,” two fans wrote in a telegram to Ethel Merman in the 1930s when they couldn’t make the opening of one of her shows.

The Merman friends were J. Edgar Hoover and his “right-hand man” Clyde Tolson.

“G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century” by Yale historian Beverly Gage is the first biography of Hoover to appear in 30 years.

Gage has done the unimaginable. She makes you want to read about J. Edgar Hoover. “G-Man” won’t make you wish you were one of Hoover’s BFFs. It’ll compel you to see Hoover, not as a villainous caricature, but as a conflicted, flawed human being.

“G-Man” is not only a fascinating bio of Hoover, who directed the FBI from 1924 until the day he died on May 2, 1972 at age 77. It’s a page-turning history of the United States in the 20th century.

Hoover, who played a key role in the “lavender scare” of the 1950s, hated and harassed Martin Luther King, Jr. and engaged in an anti-Communist crusade, has “emerged,” Gage writes, “as one of history’s great villains, perhaps the most universally reviled American political figure of the twentieth century.”

In “G-Man,” Gates, drawing on recently released files, tells the story of how Hoover came to power and used the tools of the “administrative state,” to, as Gage writes, “create a personal fiefdom unrivaled in U.S. history.”

But, Gage makes clear, it’s a misreading of American history to think that Hoover was a lone, evil rouge.

During his time as FBI director, Hoover had the support of eight presidents (four Democrats and four Republicans) and of Congress. Gage documents how much of the American public, for most of Hoover’s 48 years as FBI director, shared his racist, homophobic and rabidly anti-Communist views.

Hoover, a life-long D.C. resident, “embodied conservative values ranging from anti-Communism to white supremacy to a crusading and politicized interpretation of Christianity,” Gage writes.

“Far from making him a public scourge,” she adds, “these two aspects of his life garnered him the admiration of millions of Americans, including many of the country’s leading politicians, for most of his career.”

Hoover never openly identified as gay. He sent FBI agents out to warn anyone gossiping that he was gay to stop spreading rumors. Once, Hoover learned a D.C. bakery employee had said he’d “heard the director is a queer,’” Gage reports. Hoover dispatched FBI agents, Gage writes, “to threaten and intimidate him into silence.”

There’s no evidence of Hoover having sex with another man. A story (told in an earlier bio) of Hoover wearing a dress at a gathering lacks credibility, Gage says. Because the woman who told the anecdote had been arrested for perjury.

But, using sources that weren’t available to previous biographers, Gage argues persuasively that Hoover and Tolson were for decades what we would call, today, a same-sex couple.

Beginning in 1935, Hoover and Tolson plunged into a whirl of nightlife – going to nightclubs and hanging with celebrities, Gage reports.

Hoover kept some things about his relationship with Tolson private, Gage writes, “yet what is most striking about their budding relationship is not its furtive quality but its openness, vitality, and broad social acceptance.”

Hoover and Tolson vacationed together yearly in Florida and California.

Officially, their friends and colleagues, said the couple was “too masculine” to be queer, Gage writes, “reflecting a mid-century view of male homosexuality as something for ‘sissies’ and

By Beverly Gage

c.2022, Viking | $45 | 837 pages

outliers.”

But, “Everybody knew about J. Edgar Hoover,” Gage reports Ethel Merman recalled decades later of Hoover in the 1930s. “A lot of people have always been homosexual. To each his own.”

Neither Tolson or Hoover married or thought about marrying a woman. When Hoover died, he left most of his estate to Tolson. We don’t know what they did in the bedroom, Gage says, but Hoover and Tolson behaved like spouses.

Unfortunately, Hoover’s feelings for Tolson didn’t stop him from playing a crucial part in the “lavender scare” or from having the FBI monitor the D.C. chapter of the Mattachine Society.

“G-Man” documents Hoover’s racism in sobering detail. Gates doesn’t downplay Hoover’s racism, role in the 1919 or 1950s red scare; lavender scare; or harassment of Vietnam war protesters.

In “G-Man,” Gage helps us understand how Hoover’s views were formed: from his shame at having a mentally ill father to the “muscular, masculine” Christianity of his childhood to his life-long connection to Kappa Alpha, a racist George Washington University fraternity that believed in the “Lost Cause” of the South.

“G-Man”is an illuminating and engrossing read – with movie stars, history, gangsters and a humanized villain.

‘G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century’

Balanced hormones are essential to health and well-being, as imbalances can lead to problems. The good news is that proper treatment can correct them. Millennium Wellness is proud to set the standard for bio-identical hormone replacement in Chevy Chase, Rockville, Silver Spring, MD & Washington, DC area, for both men and women. Our professionals can help get you started on therapy designed to deal with the discomforts that hormone deficiencies or imbalances cause. These can include:

Mod makeovers: Kia Niro EV, Nissan Z

Carmakers add pizzazz without compromising function

By JOE PHILLIPS

I love New Year’s resolutions. There’s that anticipation of a fresh start — just like a first date, where everything is possible. Same for vehicle makeovers, where automakers must strike a tricky balance: Add plenty of pizzazz to an existing model, yet don’t alienate diehard purists who love their cars just the way they are. For 2023, two rides receive some spicy updates but without losing any of their old-school cool.

KIA NIRO EV

$40,000

MPGe: 126 city/101 highway

Range: up to 253 miles on a full charge

0 to 60 mph: 7.1 seconds

For some time, Kia has been all charged up about electric vehicles. There’s the EV6 crossover, cousin of the award-winning Hyundai Ioniq 5. Both of these mid-priced, midsize rides debuted last year, and they look, whir, and pretty much drive like earthbound spaceships. Coming later this year is the EV9, based on the popular Telluride full-size SUV but with a boxy-yet-bold design straight out of “Transformers.”

By 2027, Kia plans to offer a whopping 14 electric vehicles. Yet I still remember the thrill of driving a Niro EV— Kia’s first all-electric contender—three years ago when it arrived in showrooms. This compact four-door hatchback was fun, feature-laden and affordable. For 2023, the Niro EV gets a full redesign, with sassier styling and the same spunky performance that initially was so impressive. Battery range, which already was better than the competition, is now 14 miles more than the previous model. Using a DC fast charger, the updated Niro EV takes about 25% less time —or some 60 minutes — to charge up to 80 percent. Inside, the cockpit-like interior has been smartly revamped, with a sculpted center console, angled digital display panels and two-tone color scheme that’s vintage chic. Another plus: a slightly longer wheelbase means more cargo space and rear legroom. The original Niro EV offered an insanely long list of standard amenities, but this redo boasts even more goodies: smartphone integration, wireless charging, voice command functionality, forward-collision warning, automated emergency braking, adaptive cruise control and other creature comforts. Choice of two groovy-sounding trim levels: base-model Wind and more upscale Wave, which adds a sunroof, ventilated seats and power take-off. There’s also Kia’s impressive 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain warranty. “Niro” means “to rise” in Korean, and with so many splendid upgrades here, this latest EV does just that.

NISSAN Z

$42,000

Mpg: 19 city/28 highway 0 to 60 mph: 4.5 seconds

For just $28 million, you can own the most expensive car in production today. That would be the Rolls-Royce Boat Tail coupe, with a tapered rear that looks like, well, the back end of a 1930s yacht. This two-door beauty can be ordered with a pair of bespoke Bovet wristwatches, which can be used as pocket watches, desk clocks, or even the car’s dashboard clock — as well as a chic Montblanc pen in a hand-crafted case for the glovebox. Or you could ignore such extravagance and opt for a reasonably priced coupe that oozes sex appeal. That would be the redesigned Nissan Z, resurrected this year with a retro vibe that harkens back to the 1970s. Few cars stir your loins each time you slip behind the wheel (well, it certainly stirred mine aplenty). Perhaps the Jaguar E-Type—built from 1961 to 1975—is the only other two-door classic to evoke such nostalgic passion. With the latest Z, the dramatic design carries through to the interior, with its swooping dashboard, thickly padded steering wheel and bolstered sport seats. There’s a nice blend of old and new here, with conventional knobs mixed with a high-tech digital instrument cluster. And yes, for all you gearheads out there, the Z is available in a six-speed manual transmission. Alas, the nine-speed automatic actually shifts faster than any human being. Either way, stomp on the accelerator and this sports car thunders down the road. The suspension is extremely taut, as my keister can attest. Yet handling and cornering are so smooth it’s easy to be zipping along much faster than you realize. Standard features include keyless entry, 8-inch touchscreen, smartphone integration, Bluetooth and voice recognition. There also are some nice options, such as eight-speaker Bose stereo, user-friendly nav system and Wi-Fi hot spot. But if you’re expecting to find swanky wristwatches or a pricey writing pen, I’m afraid you’ll have to bring your own.

KIA NIRO EV

Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather 2023

Dan Bear of Pittsburgh takes home title

The 2023 Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather competition was held on Sunday, Jan. 15 at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill. Dan Bear of Pittsburgh won the title.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

Affordable home renovations for successful selling

From paint to floors, a few simple fixes

By JEFF HAMMERBERG

to boost value

Without question, the 2023 housing market is off to a slow start, particularly in comparison to the red-hot market that existed during the pandemic. This can understandably be discouraging for those who need to sell their home and hope to obtain a favorable offer. The good news is that one constant truth about the housing market is that it will change – eventually. In the meantime, there are steps that hopeful sellers can take to increase the value of their homes and their chances of obtaining the offer that they want.

One step that some sellers consider is making minor upgrades or renovations that will increase the sale value of their home. This leads to the question – what are some fairly easy upgrades a homeowner can make without breaking the bank that may be appealing to potential buyers? Let’s take a look at a few options together.

REFRESH THE PAINT:

garding some steps you can take to increase your home’s appeal from the outside. Often these options can be very simple – things like removing debris, planting a few shrubs here and there, pruning trees, and other similar tasks. After all, the first step to getting a buyer to appreciate the inside of your home is to draw them in from the outside.

REFINISH HARDWOOD FLOORS:

Refreshing your home’s paint job can add instant value.

This is a simple and very cost-effective option for giving your home a new, fresh look. A quick coat of paint can truly work wonders. It helps the home look brighter, cleaner, and newer, and can be appealing to the eye of many potential buyers. When considering which colors to choose, it’s important to keep in mind that selecting more traditional, neutral colors is often advisable. After all, you don’t know what a potential buyer may like, so choosing colors that appeal to many and are more subdued may be a wise choice. You may want to also consider repainting the trim and the ceilings to complete the fresh new look.

MAKE SOME EASY KITCHEN UPGRADES:

Many have heard that upgrading the kitchen is one of the most popular renovations to a home and one with the best return on investment. As the kitchen is often the hub of the house, this is certainly true. The good news is that homeowners often need not do a complete and expensive kitchen renovation to get some bang for their buck. Some more simple tasks like upgrading older appliances to newer ones, changing out light fixtures, or repainting cabinets and adding new hardware may go a long way toward increasing your kitchen’s appeal to potential buyers.

LANDSCAPING:

Landscaping is the literal “curb appeal” that many homeowners need to give their house that extra sparkle to attract potential buyers. Upgrading your landscaping may sound intimidating at first, but it can truly be a cost-effective option for increasing the value of your home. It may be worthwhile to pay for a consultation with a landscaper re-

While replacing your flooring entirely is an expensive and time-consuming process, the good news is that refinishing your floors is a fairly simple and cost-effective option for increasing your home’s appeal. It can add extra shine and a little bit of wow factor, without breaking the bank.

These are only a few options of many for cost-effectively updating your home. Regardless of the market conditions, there are always steps that potential sellers can take to add to the appeal of their home and hopefully catch the eye of potentially interested buyers. Another important step that sellers can always take is consulting with a knowledgeable and experienced real estate agent who knows their particular community and what attracts buyers in that community.  At www.GayRealEstate.com, we are here to help you find the perfect agent to achieve your real estate goals.

At www.GayRealEstate.com We’re Here for You

The current real estate market may seem intimidating to those hoping to sell their home for the best possible price – and that’s understandable. While it may be intimidating, however, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. By marketing your home well, investing wisely in renovations and staging, and finding the right real estate agent, you can greatly increase your chances of obtaining a favorable offer, even in a difficult market.

At www.GayRealEstate.com, we’re here to help you find that real estate agent. You need and deserve an agent who understands the unique needs of LGBTQ home buyers and sellers, and who understands the market in your local community. If you’re ready to get started, get in touch with us today. We look forward to learning how we can help.

JEFF HAMMERBERG

is founding CEO of Hammerberg & Associates, Inc. Reach him at 303-378-5526 or jeffhammerberg@gmail.com.

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