Washington Blade, Volume 56, Issue 10, March 07, 2025
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Transgender Unity Rally draws hundreds Speakers decry attacks on community, call for resistance
By MICHAEL KEY
Several hundred people took to the streets of D.C. on Saturday to protest the Trump-Vance administration’s policy proposals and executive orders targeting the transgender community.
The Transgender Unity Rally, organized by the Transgender Unity Coalition, began outside of the U.S. Capitol with speeches and continued with a march to the White House.
Speakers at the rally included activists and organizers as well as Georgetown University professor Chloe Schwenke. Schwenke served as a political appointee
in the Obama administration working for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“ USAID has been destroyed,” Schwenke stated. “And with it, the aid that goes out to LGBTQIA people around the world. Some of that aid is literally there to keep them alive. The women, the children, the men who have AIDS: They will not get their medication. They will die. And this administration is okay with that policy. “
“ They are now deciding how to deny visas to people who want to come to World Pride here in Washington, D.C.,” Schwenke continued. “They do not want transgender people coming to Washington. And they do not want transgender people coming to Los Angeles as athletes or even as spectators for the Olympics in 2028. They are working on that now. How to keep trans people out of America, even as visitors.”
Other speakers at the event included Hope Giselle-Godsey.
“ Too many of us have come here today in an effort to protest for things that we should not have to beg for,” Giselle-Godsey said. “ Our civil rights, our children, our medical care, access and resources and the ability to fight for a country that doesn’t give a damn about us.”
“ We have been here, we will always be here,” Giselle-Godsey continued. “And there is no legislation, there is no piece of paper, document or thing that ‘that Orange’ can sign that is going to make us disappear.”
D.C. resident Emmett Livingstone spoke about the
Comings & Goings
David Park named president of Learning Heroes
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 David Park on becoming president of Learning Heroes, an organization that according to its website “partners with states, districts, and organizations to engage families as a strategy for advancing school and student success goals. Working closely with national and local partners, we lift up experiences of families and educators in communities throughout the country to catalyze the scale of research-based practices nationally.”
Park is a firm believer in the power of community to support a child’s learning and development. A proud public school alum, he is passionate about working with communities to prioritize education and opportunities for children and youth. For 10 years, he has played a pivotal role in Learning Heroes’ growth, with a specific focus on strategic partnerships and communications. Upon assuming the role of president, Park said, “Education happens everywhere - in schools, at home, and throughout the community. And yet too many children and youth,
especially those from low-income families, don’t have that critical web of support they need to help discover and explore their passion and purpose. When families, schools, and communities come together on behalf of children, doors of opportunity open, allowing kids to succeed, thrive, and contribute to society. To me, there’s nothing more important.”
In his continued work with Learning Heroes, Park will focus on organizational impact, overseeing operations, programming, and strategic direction. He has helped develop and lead Learning Heroes’ major public awareness and collective action initiatives, including the Go Beyond Grades campaign, which has reached 30 million people nationwide, and the Collective Action Coalition for Families.
Prior to joining Learning Heroes, Park served as Vice President of Mission Advancement for America’s Promise Alliance, where he launched the GradNation campaign, which drove historic gains in high school graduation rates. He also held senior roles at global communications firms, including Ogilvy Public Relations, and Porter Novelli. He taught communications at Georgetown University, and has been featured on MSNBC, in the Huffington Post, and quoted in many local dailies and education trade outlets. Throughout his career, Park has also
need for resistance and non-compliance.
“As individuals in our various communities and workplaces, I encourage you all to be as irritating and hard to remove as a pebble in their shoe, a grain of sand in their eye, or even better . . . be glitter,” Livingstone said.
“ Everyone,” Livingstone continued. “ let’s race to support each other and grind their efforts to deny us to a halt. Do not go quietly. Correct misinformation when you hear it. Even a simple, ‘Hey man, that’s not okay.’”
“ Trump is not a king, Elon is not our president,” Livingstone declared. “ I call on all of you to resist in any way you can, big or small. Be the glitter they cannot get rid of and never let anyone dull your shine.”
“ President Trump is set on fulfilling all of the promises of Project 2025, but I have a promise for him and his cronies. I promise that we are not going away. I promise that we will not be silent. Today we show the world that we are Americans too and we will not be denied. We’re here, we’re queer. They will get used to it.” Livingstone concluded to applause.
Following the speakers, participants began marching down Constitution Avenue chanting, “out of the closets and into the streets.”
The group of several hundred protesters peacefully marched on Constitution Avenue holding handmade signs and carrying trans and rainbow flags. The march ended on the Ellipse on the south side of the White House.
worked closely with the LGBTQ+ community, including with GLSEN, PFLAG, LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, Matthew Shepard Foundation, and Whitman-Walker. Park earned his bachelor’s degree in communications from American University. He lives with his husband Clarence Pineda (a Realtor with Compass Real Estate) and their rescue dog Violet in D.C. and Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Activists march in the Transgender Unity Rally on March 1.
(Blade photo by Michael Key)
DAVID PARK
Evan Low named next Victory Fund president
The LGBTQ+ Victory Fund and LGBTQ+ Victory Institute have named gay former California state Rep. Evan Low to serve as its next president and CEO, the groups announced on Tuesday.
“Today, we face an existential crisis,” he said. “The LGBTQ+ community, along with other historically excluded communities, are being systematically legislated out of existence.”
He added, “I am committed to ensuring our voices are not just included, but impossible to ignore—and represented at the highest levels of office.”
Low will succeed former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who announced in February 2024 that she would step down after leading the organizations since 2017.
The Victory Fund works to increase the number of LGBTQ elected officials serving in all levels of government and “has helped thousands of LGBTQ+ candidates win local, state, and federal elections.” The Victory Institute works to ensure “the success of our LGBTQ+ elected and appointed officials at all levels of government.”
Before his election to the California State Assembly, where he served from 2014-2024, Low was the first Asian American to serve on the Campbell City Council, going on to lead the city as the country’s youngest openly LGBTQ mayor.
In the state legislature, Low “led groundbreaking efforts in marriage equality, LGBTQ+ rights, and economic opportunity,” the Victory Fund said in a press release.
“His leadership and service have been widely recognized, earning him multiple ‘Legislator of the Year’ honors and a proclamation of ‘Evan Low Day’ from then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.”
CHRISTOPHER KANE
Pride Liberation Project to protest Va. school board meetings
Virginia’s largest student-led LGBTQ rights group announced it would protest school board meetings across the state in response to the rise in anti-LGBTQ rhetoric from the Trump-Vance administration
“Since taking office, the Trump-Musk administration has unleashed a barrage of attacks against LGBTQIA+ students,” said Conifer Selintung of the Pride Liberation Project in a statement. “They have attacked discrimination protections in Title IX, targeted transgender athletes, attempted to strip funding for life-saving gender affirming care, and tried to whitewash history. The TrumpMusk administration’s obsession with queer young people is already impacting our lives. Defying medical consensus, multiple hospitals suspended gender affirming care last month.”
The Pride Liberation Project press release included statements from students across Virginia.
“These executive orders are attacking our communities instead of focusing on the real issues in our schools,” said Red O’Brien, a Virginia Beach junior who is planning to rally at their school board meeting.
“I’m an adult–it’s crazy and invasive that legislators can stop me from getting lifesaving healthcare,” said Everest Clauberg, a Virginia Commonwealth University student who receives gender-affirming care from VCU Endocrinology.
VCU Children’s Hospital of Richmond on Feb. 25 announced it would resume gender-affirming care for existing patients as deemed appropriate.
The Pride Liberation Project in recent years has organized more than 90 student-led protests across Virginia.
JAYLON CURRY-HAGLER
Project 2025 author cancels talk at University of Maryland
Hours before it was scheduled to take place, Project 2025 author Kevin Roberts canceled his controversial speaking event at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law in Baltimore.
The visit, organized by the Republican Law Society, was the subject of student outcry, counter-events and even a scheduled protest outside the law school building downtown. Though some students and university officials said the event would reinforce freedom of speech, it drew criticism from those who oppose Roberts’ stances on marriage equality and abortion access.
Roberts canceled his talk due to an illness, according to a spokesperson for the law school, and it’s unclear whether it’ll be rescheduled.
The Republican figure is the president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and widely considered the mastermind of Project 2025. The 900-page plan pushes for the firing of federal employees, placing limits on the National Institutes of Health and cracking down on immigration.
But those views are important to have on campus, said the law school’s dean, Renée Hutchins Laurent.
“I am proud that our student groups are planning programs that promote diversity of thought and interrogate current legal and policy issues,” Hutchins Laurent wrote in a statement before Roberts canceled. “It is crucial that we uphold the right to free speech, even when faced with speech we find deeply offensive.”
The dean added that “now more than ever, we must do all we can to maintain the guardrails of democracy, in-
cluding free expression,” and noted that the law school is “steadfastly committed to fostering an inclusive community in which all members feel a sense of belonging unhampered by historic vestiges of discrimination.”
Third-year law student Britany Askin, on the other hand, said the decision to host Roberts goes against what she thought were the school’s values.
even knowing that someone with those views are in my proximity.” Her group is also helping to organize a counter-event with OutLaw, a student group at the law school that supports LGBTQIA+ students.
“It doesn’t really embody the spirit of what our law school tries to advocate for and embrace in the spirit of bipartisanship,” said Askin, co-president of the University of Maryland Law Democrats. “This is a far extreme that doesn’t align with any value that we share or that we think our law school shares.”
Askin said she was reluctant to be on campus while the event was occurring because of her “personal discomfort
Angel Vergona, a third-year law student and co-president of OutLaw, said that she was initially shocked when she found out that Roberts was going to be on campus. Then, after a few minutes, she pivoted: “I thought, ‘What are we going to do about it?’”
The counter-event, which features lawyers from the National Women’s Law Center and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, will discuss Project 2025 and “critical resistance to fascism and authoritarianism.”
Vergona said OutLaw’s event was still taking place despite the cancellation.
“Our event, and the space it’s creating for conversation that’s critical of Project 2025, is just as important as the canceled event,” Vergona said, noting that the group received 50 ticket registrations in the first 24 hours after the event was announced.
Despite the controversy, the Republican Law Society said in a statement that its members were “proud” to host Roberts and thanked the law school’s administration and faculty for supporting the event.
“This is not an endorsement of any speaker or any views, but rather an attempt to bring interesting and prominent speakers from across the political spectrum to campus,” the group wrote. “We hope this gives our student body, future lawyers, an opportunity to hear a range of perspectives.”
ELLIE WOLFE/BALTIMORE BANNER
Activists protest outside of the Heritage Foundation in downtown Washington on Jan. 1, 2024. (Blade photo by Michael Key)
Members of the Pride Liberation Project hold signs supporting transgender rights during a Loudoun County School Board meeting on Aug. 19, 2022. (Blade photo by Michael Key)
EVAN LOW (Screen capture: YouTube)
Trump assails DEI as companies grapple with uncertainty
Speech to Congress includes more anti-trans attacks
By CHRISTOPHER KANE | ckane@washblade.com
President Donald Trump delivered a divisive and partisan address before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday that also included multiple references to his administration’s anti-trans executive actions.
“We’ve ended the tyranny of so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion policies all across the entire federal government and indeed the private sector and our military,” Trump said, promising, “our country will be woke no longer.”
Later, he said “We have removed the poison of critical race theory from our public schools, and they signed an order making it the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.”
“I also signed an executive order to ban men from playing in women’s sports,” Trump said.
At that point, the president introduced one of his special guests, Payton McNabb — who, he said, was seriously injured three years ago when her girls’ volleyball game was “invaded by a male” who spiked the ball “so hard in Peyton’s face, causing traumatic brain injury.”
GLAAD, in a press release before Trump’s speech, noted that “McNabb has since been hired by opponents of transgender people to use her injury to argue that all trans youth should be denied the chance to play sports as their authentic selves.”
She is “a paid spokesperson for an anti-transgender group that also advocates to ban health care and to force schools to dangerously out LGBTQ youth without their consent,” the group wrote.
Trump continued, “Take a look at what happened in the women’s boxing, weight lifting, track and field, swimming, or cycling, where a male recently finished a long distance race five hours and 14 minutes ahead of a woman for a new record by five hours.”
“It’s demeaning for women, and it’s very bad for our country. We’re not going to put up with it any longer.”
During this section of the speech, news cameras turned to Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer turned anti-trans activist, who was a guest of Republican U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (Iowa) and has worked with the same group as McNabb.
GLAAD wrote that Gaines “parlayed her fifth place finish into a career of testifying in states she does not live in to support full bans on transgender youth as young as kindergarten from playing sports.”
Later, when decrying government spending, Trump noted $8 million was used “to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of” and $8 million “for making mice transgender.”
About an hour into his speech, the president said, “My administration is also working to protect our children from toxic ideologies in our schools. A few years ago, January Littlejohn and her husband discovered that their daughter’s school had secretly socially transitioned their 13-year-old little girl.”
“Teachers and administrators conspired to deceive January and her husband while encouraging their daughter to use a new name and pronouns,” he said. “‘They-them’ pronoun, actually, all without telling January, who is here tonight and is now a courageous advocate against this form of child abuse.”
GLAAD notes that, “Records show January Littlejohn of Tallahassee, Florida, worked with the school district to support her nonbinary child, before Littlejohn sued the district with lawyers from a national anti-LGBTQ group.”
According to GLAAD, the family’s complaint accused school of discussing “restrooms and name change requests with their child without their consent” but “a public records request showed that the family had ongoing communications with the school and gave approval to let their child and their teachers lead on appropriate school protocols.”
“The Trump White House is using the address to Congress to continue its baseless and unhinged disinformation campaign against transgender Americans,” GLAAD said. “The invited guests being deployed to smear transgender people are paid spokespeople for anti-LGBTQ groups that demand schools dangerously out LGBTQ students without their consent, who go against every major medical association supporting medically-necessary health care, and do nothing to promote women and girls in sports or protect everyone’s safety and wellbeing.”
Private sector caves to Trump
Trump’s attacks on DEI in the federal government have trickled into the private sector. Powerful companies and well-known organizations have made headlines in the weeks since Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the private sector, whether by announcing changes or rollbacks to their DEI programs, by defending their policies and practices, or by declining to wade into the debate at this stage.
Danielle Conley, a partner at Latham & Watkins who leads the law firm’s anti-discrimination and civil rights practice, spoke with the Blade last week about how companies and organizations are navigating an uncertain and rapidly evolving landscape.
“So much of this is it just comes down to what is the risk tolerance of the leadership of your company or your organization,” she said, noting that some firms have taken steps to avoid scrutiny from the federal government while others are standing firm in their policies and practices concerning DEI with the expectation that they would be ruled lawful if challenged. “We’ve seen organizations and institutions on both ends of the spectrum.”
Conley said private sector companies and the types of organizations specified in Trump’s order are working on “making sure that they’re on the right side of the legal lines, in the way that the civil rights laws exist right now, and also reviewing their practices and policies for political risks, and seeing whether there are potential changes that they need to make in order to not come under federal scrutiny.”
She stressed, however, that this type of audit is “very difficult to do in light of all of the uncertainty” about how to interpret the orders and how the lawsuits challenging them will ultimately be decided.
“Folks expected that there would be a domestic policy priority around diversity, equity and inclusion issues,” as Trump promised during his campaign, “but at the same time, the language of those executive orders sweep very broadly, and so there were certainly aspects of the executive orders that clients are still very much grappling with and
trying to understand the implications of,” she said.
Issued on the first day of Trump’s second term, the first order stipulates that “the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), assisted by the attorney general and the director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), shall coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the federal government, under whatever name they appear.”
The directive issued on the following day includes a section titled “Encouraging the Private Sector to End Illegal DEI Discrimination and Preferences,” which mandates that the attorney general takes “appropriate measures to encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI,” “deter” such “programs or principles” and “identify … potential civil compliance investigations” to accomplish such “deter[rence.]”
Conley noted that DEI is not well defined, nor has the administration given “any specifics about what amounts to illegal DEI,” let alone an indication of “how the federal government is going to read the civil rights laws and interpret the civil rights laws to preclude certain DEI programs, and where they’re going to draw those particular lines.”
Risks and how to mitigate them
On one end of the spectrum are the “things that we’ve always known that you couldn’t do under the law, like using race based and gender based preferences in hiring programs,” she said—conduct covered by longstanding federal anti-discrimination laws like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits “employers from considering race or gender in employment based decisions outside very narrow circumstances.”
On the other hand, “In light of the failure to really define DEI or to really set out any specific guidance of the kinds of programs that the government believes, under their interpretation of the civil rights laws, run afoul of those particular laws, that’s where the questions are coming from,” Conley said.
Companies, their lawyers, and the broader public are likely to soon find out, though, how and in which circumstances the Trump administration will bring an enforcement action or file a lawsuit against a company over “illegal” DEI.
The second executive action directs Attorney General Pam Bondi “to within 120 days of this order, in consultation with the heads of relevant agencies and in coordination with the Director of OMB, shall submit a report to the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy containing recommendations for enforcing federal civil-rights laws and taking other appropriate measures to encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.”
CONTINUES ON PAGE 12
PRESIDENT TRUMP used his speech before a joint session of Congress to again attack DEI and trans Americans. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Private companies grappling with DEI amid Trump attacks
Along with other types of information and recommendations, the report must include “a plan of specific steps or measures to deter DEI programs or principles (whether specifically denominated “DEI” or otherwise) that constitute illegal discrimination or preferences. As a part of this plan, each agency shall identify up to nine potential civil compliance investigations of publicly traded corporations, large non-profit corporations or associations, foundations with assets of 500 million dollars or more, state and local bar and medical associations, and institutions of higher education with endowments over one billion dollars.”
Broadly, the sectors targeted by each agency will correspond with its remit, Conley said. “HHS has an office for civil rights, and they enforce both Title VI, which prohibits race discrimination in federally funded programming, and also section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits race and gender-based discrimination and other forms of discrimination in health care programming.”
She continued, “So, based on their authority, you can imagine the Office for Civil Rights at HHS, would open up investigations, potentially, into health care companies, medical schools, other health care providers.”
Meanwhile, “the Department of Education has an Office for Civil Rights. Obviously, their enforcement authority is over institutions of higher education that receive federal funds. They enforce VI, that same statute that prohibits race based discrimination in federally funded programming. And so you can imagine the Department of Education opening up investigations into colleges and universities over these issues.”
With the DOJ’s authority under Title VI, the department would be able to investigate and bring enforcement actions or litigation against healthcare companies or institutes of higher education or “any company that receives any sort of federal funding,” Conley said.
In the meantime, as companies look for clarity as evaluate the extent to which their policies and practices may draw legal or political scrutiny, Conley said there has been an “uptick in private litigation” over DEI, which means recent cases have been brought before federal courts—and, in some cases, have been decided by their judges.
These lawsuits have tended to focus on “scholarship, internship, or fellowship programs” or “grant programs” that “are restrictive on the basis of race,” or “supplier diversity initiatives” that might “have very prescriptive guidance” like requirements that a certain percentage of a company’s
vendors are Black or brown or women-owned businesses, Conley explained.
Still, she cautioned, “It’s super hard to speculate, because some of this stuff just hasn’t made its way through the courts,” she said.
While firms can expect these policies and practices targeted by private litigants are likely to be a focus for the Trump administration, the question, she said, will will be how far “beyond the kind of race based restrictions that we’ve already seen come under significant challenge in the context of private litigation, how far beyond those kinds of programs will they go, as potentially being violative of the civil rights laws?”
Conley added that these firms should focus not on programs and policies that present negligible or no legal risk, like dedicating a private room in an office space for nursing mothers. Rather, she said, they should consider questions like, “What do we do in the hiring and promotion space? What are we doing with respect to scholarship programs, internship programs and our outside partnerships? What are we doing with respect to any grants that we give? Where do we have risk? Do we have any programs that are explicitly race conscious? Because we know that if we do, the legal risk there is significantly elevated.”
The process is about “really assessing each of those buckets,” she said, adding “It’s that careful analysis—it’s really all you can do in this environment, again, as things are sort of constantly shifting.”
At the same time, Conley said, “we have to remember that the vast majority of DEI programs really do remain completely lawful under any interpretation of the civil rights laws.”
“A lot of these programs were put into place to ensure and to protect against discrimination in organizations,” she said. A consequence of “the executive orders and the uncertainty around how the federal government will be interpreting the civil rights laws and the kinds of programs that may violate them could cause a lot of organizations to overcorrect.”
“Big picture,” Conley said:
• “Anytime something restricted on the basis of race, we’ve talked about how that really heightens legal risk. But I would also say [there tends to be risk] anytime that there’s a benefit being given that can be traced to race, or a burden that’s being imposed that can be traced to race.”
• “So, for example, employee resource groups at companies have been completely lawful, and plenty of companies and organizations have them. You can imagine that there could be a legal argument that if there’s an employee resource group where those members are getting certain benefits that would help them in the promotion process, that’s something that could potentially be attacked as being potentially violative of Title VII.”
• “There’s actually danger in in saying this program violates the law and this program doesn’t, because it’s super nuanced, and really does depend on the facts and circumstances of these programs and how they’re designed.”
• “Because, again, I just want to make sure that I’m not on the record [saying] that, like, employee resource groups are illegal. They’re not.”
• “But I do think that if there could be arguments made that those employee resource groups, when they’re not open to all (most are) and those employ-
ee members are getting certain benefits that could potentially help them in, let’s say, a promotion process—that could be something that, I would say, as their counsel, that could elevate your legal risk.”
Responding to a question about whether pro-transgender DEI programs will face heightened risk amid the administration’s broader attacks against trans and gender diverse communities, Conley pointed to provisions of Trump’s executive order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
“That sort of set out this notion that it was the policy of the United States that there were only two sexes, male and female, and that federal funds shouldn’t be used to promote unlawful gender ideology, which seems specifically aimed at transgender individuals,” she said.
In practice, Conley said, “to the extent that an organization is receiving a federal grant, and that federal grant is being used in a way that the government [claims] is promoting unlawful gender ideology, then there’s a very real threat that that grant money will stop.”
Asked whether the administration may target a company for its financial, charitable support for trans people and causes, she noted that “some challenges that we’ve seen have been not to corporate giving, but to grants that were racially restrictive.”
“In the context of corporate giving,” though, “where you’re just talking about a gift—again, this is very fact specific, but if you’re just talking about a gift, then it’s hard to see how just a straight gift violates any federal civil rights laws,” Conley said.
She added, “An internship, a scholarship, something that’s reciprocal, something that is a contract, that’s a different analysis, right? But it is not, to my mind, nor have I ever seen a case suggesting that it’s illegal for organization X to write a $20,000 check to X civil rights organization.”
LGBTQ-focused nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations and charities are grappling with the loss of federal grant funding, particularly for overseas work. If the business community’s move away from DEI means declined corporate giving, these groups would struggle to continue their work, which includes efforts to push back against the administration’s attacks against LGBTQ and especially trans communities.
Courts will soon step in
Importantly, “all of these EOS are caught up in litigation right now,” Conley said, noting that parts of the DEI executive actions were struck down on Feb. 21 by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.
Earlier this month, a federal judge struck down Trump’s executive orders restricting access to transgender medicine for patients younger than 19 and requiring trans women to be housed with cisgender men in prisons.
“I am watching closely to see what happens in the challenges to the DEI executive orders,” Conley said, noting that the Trump administration has already appealed the case, which “will go to the 4th Circuit pretty quickly.”
If the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in, “especially around the arguments that the executive order was unconstitutional because of the lack of clarity and guidance it gave to organizations about what violates the law in a way that wouldn’t allow them to comply, I’m watching that one, because it’ll be interesting to see how the 4th Circuit and maybe even the Supreme Court addresses that particular argument,” she said.
President Trump’s attacks on the trans community have triggered numerous protests around the country, including this one in D.C. in February. (Washington Blade photo by Linus Berggren)
Hungary moves to ban Pride march in Budapest
The Hungarian government last week said it will ban a public Pride march in the country’s capital.
“There will be no Pride in the public form in which we have known it in recent decades,” Gergely Gulyás, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s chief of staff, said on Feb. 27 during the government’s weekly press conference in Budapest, according to Politico. “We believe that the country should not tolerate Pride marching through the city center.”
The Budapest Pride march is scheduled to take place on June 28.
Politico reported that Gulyás during the press conference referenced a proposed constitutional amendment that states “the right of children to physical, mental, and moral development is irrevocable.” Politico also noted Gulyás did not tell reporters how the march would violate it.
“This should be decided by the court or the police, if necessary,” said Gulyás. “I don’t know if only a constitutional amendment is needed or if other laws should be changed as well, but as we said, Pride in its current form will not take place.”
Orbán and members of his ruling Fidesz party over the last decade have moved to curtail LGBTQ and intersex rights in Hungary.
A law that bans legal recognition of transgender and intersex people took effect in 2020. Hungarian MPs that year also effectively banned same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the constitution as between a man and a woman.
An anti-LGBTQ propaganda law took effect in 2021. The European Commission sued Hungary, which is a member of the European Union, over it.
MPs in 2023 approved the “snitch on your gay neighbor” bill that would have allowed Hungarians to anon-
ymously report same-sex couples who are raising children. The Budapest Metropolitan Government Office in 2023 fined Lira Konyv, the country’s second-largest bookstore chain, 12 million forints ($31,482.31), for selling copies of British author Alice Oseman’s “Heartstopper.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who is gay, participated in the Budapest Pride march in 2024 and 2023. Pressman was also a vocal critic of Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
“It is impossible not to see echoes of this in your Parliament’s vote earlier this year to encourage neighbors to report to the authorities their gay neighbors raising children,” said Pressman during a 2023 Budapest Pride
reception, referring to Nazi Germany’s occupation of Hungary and the post-World War II Communist governments that ruled the country until 1989. “Turning neighbor on neighbor conjures a dark past of covert agents and informants, of fear and betrayal, in this country and this region that I do not need to recount.”
Budapest Pride spokesperson Johanna Majercsik on Monday noted to the Washington Blade in an email that Orbán “openly threatened Budapest Pride in his annual speech (on Feb. 22), and since then several government members have joined in this communication.”
“It is expected that they will try to make it impossible to organize the Pride march with some kind of legal amendment—all this by referring to the so-called child protection law from 2021, which is actually a Putin-style propaganda law,” said Majercsik. We have no further information at this point and are waiting for the amendment(s).”
Majercsik said the Hungarian government will “be admitting that there is no longer democracy” in the country if it “tries to actually ban the Pride march.”
“It is important to know that the Pride march is a demonstration that falls under the scope of the right of assembly, a right that is strictly protected by the constitution of Hungary,” said Majercsik. “ Therefore, we will do everything we can to fight for the right of assembly of all Hungarians. We strongly believe that this case could also set a precedent, as if the government succeeds in banning the Pride march, after they could ban any other assembly (e.g. farmers, teachers, judges, etc.).”
Majercsik noted the Hungarian Helsinki Committee is offering Budapest Pride legal advice.
Elections are scheduled to take place in Hungary in 2026.
MICHAEL K. LAVERS
U.S. withdraws from UN LGBTI Core Group
The U.S. has withdrawn from a group of U.N. member states that have pledged to support LGBTQ and intersex rights.
The U.N. LGBTI Core Group formed in 2008. Chile and the Netherlands are the current co-chairs. Albania, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Honduras, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Montenegro, Nepal, Peru, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Timor Leste, the U.K., and Uruguay are members.
The EU, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch and Outright International are observers.
“The overarching goal of the UN LGBTI Core Group in New York is to work within the United Nations framework on ensuring universal respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, specifically lesbian, gay bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons, with a particular focus on protection from violence and discrimination,” states the Core Group’s website.
The Core Group also has three specific objectives:
•Raising awareness about LGBTI issues
• Contributing to multilateral work and negotiations at the United Nations
• Seeking common ground and engaging in a spirit of open, respectful and constructive dialogue and cooperation with UN member states and other stakeholders outside the Core Group.
The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights were a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s foreign policy.
Former first lady Jill Biden last September spoke at a Core Group event that took place on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. Former President Joe Biden was vice president in 2016 when he spoke at a Core Group event that coincided with that year’s U.N. General Assembly.
President Donald Trump since he took office on Jan. 20 has signed a number of executive orders that have
targeted the LGBTQ and intersex community. These include the “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” directive that, among other things, bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.
A directive that Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued bans embassies and other U.S. diplomatic institutions from flying the Pride flag. (Joe Biden in March 2024 signed a government spending bill with a provision that banned Pride flags from flying over U.S. embassies.)
The Associated Press last week reported the TrumpVance administration has terminated 90 percent of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s foreign aid contracts. Activists with whom the Washington Blade has spoken in previous weeks say the White House’s decision to freeze nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending has been “catastrophic” for the global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement.
A source told the Blade the U.S. withdrew from the Core Group on Feb. 14. A State Department spokesperson on Saturday confirmed the withdrawal, but did not specify the specific date.
“In line with the president’s recent executive orders, we have withdrawn from the U.N. LGBTI Core Group,” said the spokesperson.
MICHAEL K. LAVERS
Then-U.S. Ambassador to Hungary DAVID PRESSMAN, who is gay, marches in the Budapest Pride parade on June 22, 2024. The Hungarian government has announced it will ban this year’s Budapest Pride march from taking place in public. (Photo courtesy of Pressman’s X account)
(Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
VINCENT SLATT
is the senior curator for the Rainbow History Project.
The evolution of visibility: D.C. Pride 1990-1997
Efforts
to include trans, bi identities intensify
In conjunction with WorldPride 2025, the Rainbow History Project is creating an exhibit on the evolution of Pride: “Pickets, Protests, and Parades: The History of Gay Pride in Washington.” It will be on Freedom Plaza from May 17 through July 7. This is the seventh in a series of 10 articles that will share the research themes and invite public participation. In “The Evolution of Visibility” we discuss how by the 1990s victories from Gay Pride grew into more groups calling for more types of events to celebrate more identities under the rainbow.
In 1988, due to a lack of inclusiveness and financial problems, the P Street Festival Committee dissolved itself and Gay and Lesbian Pride of Washington took up the mantle of organizing Pride. Gay women solidified their distinct identity as lesbians and oftentimes “lesbian” began to appear in front of the word gay at events. However, the conservative politics of Reagan’s 1980s and the AIDS pandemic had presented a public perception of the homosexual community as largely white and male despite the way AIDS ravaged Black and Brown communities and the role of lesbian leadership in responding to the crisis.
According to her Rainbow History Project oral history, Carlene Cheatam was aware that “most of the people in the Black gay and lesbian community [were] in the closet” and knowing that a Pride organized by the P Street Festival without her would be overwhelmingly white, she sought to make space for African Americans in the gay community. Several efforts grew out of The Clubhouse, a popular Black-owned after-hours dance club in regards to the need for funds to support care of Black people suffering from AIDS. Those efforts led to the first Black Lesbian and Gay Pride Day on Memorial Day Weekend, 1991. Under Cheatam, and co-founders Welmore Cook, Theodore Kirkland, and Ernest Hopkins, Black Pride made space for African American gays and lesbians, and raised money to help AIDS service organizations.
Despite the turnout of nearly 1,000 people, and that D.C. was a majority Black city, “initial criticisms surfaced [in 1991] that we were being separatists,” one of the organizers told Gay Community News. The 1990s were characterized by an increasing diversity within the gay community, there was an ever growing number of people with a multiplicity of sexual and racial identities, all of whom wanted visibility and celebration.
ENLACE, the first Latino/a gay and lesbian association was created to make space for and represent the Latin American and Caribbean gay community. In addition to sponsoring social events and the only Spanish-language hotline for gays and lesbians, ENLACE also educated the gay community about AIDS and worked within the Latino communities on issues of homophobia. ENLACE marched not only in the gay Pride parades, but also in the Latino community events. Support for ENLACE grew after the murder of Ana Maria Rosales, who was shot and killed on Jan. 7, 1993, in what many believed was a crime driven by racism and homophobia.
The Lesbian Avengers organized the world’s first Dyke March on the eve of the April 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. About 20,000 women marched against anti-gay bills, and for grassroots organizing, and awareness of women’s issues.
Transgender and bisexual people also lobbied to be included in Pride, more than just in name only. Transgender support groups and activist organizations were created in tandem during the 1990s. The Bisexual Centrist Alliance and Jeffrey Pendleton, a gay and transgender man, joined forces to create a separate Pride Festival to protest bi and trans exclusion from the Pride title and literature. The Transsexual Menaces demonstrated at Judiciary Square during the Stonewall 25 anniversary. Robin Margolis and other bi and trans coalition activists, assisted by members of various gay and lesbian organizations, held a Diversity Pride picnic in Rock Creek Park on June 10, 1996.
Rainbow History Project’s exhibit centers the voices of the event organizers, includes dissenting opinions on Pride, and highlights the intersections with other movements for equal rights and liberation. We need your help to tell our story! If you have any images and input contact us and get involved!
is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.
Trump kisses Putin’s ass, GOP senators kiss his Republican lawmakers have no moral compass
In some ways we are living in an alternate universe when Republican senators like John Kennedy (R-La.) who says “Putin is a gangster” and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who called for Putin’s assassination, and were so opposed to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, have now gone down on bended knee in front of Trump and all he is doing. It’s disgusting to see these people with seemingly no moral compass, and no principles. Graham is the worst.
Trump clearly has no compunction about lying directly to the American public saying repeatedly Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a dictator, and Ukraine started the war. Trump dreams up things to lie about like saying the United States spent $50 million on condoms for Hamas; that China controls the Panama Canal; and that DEI caused the plane crash in the Potomac. His doing this has made us the laughing stock of the world, and a country no one any longer trusts. We have gone from a nation asking foreign governments to stay out of our elections, to a nation where our vice president, and the Nazi sympathizing best friend of Trump, openly interfere in foreign elections speaking to, and supporting, far right-wing opponents of our allies’ governments.
History will not treat senators like Graham kindly. But we need to get to a time where that history can be written. Currently, MAGA Republicans, acolytes of Trump, sitting in the U.S. Senate, even those who once claimed to be part of a rational Republican Party, are all fi ne with screwing the American people every day. They pass bills adding money to the American military machine, and then seem to be perfectly fi ne with Trump and his co-president Musk, fi ring veterans — patriots who fought valiantly for our country. These ass-kissing senators without any morals are fi ne screwing Americans and our allies. These are men and women making the world less safe by their actions, or lack of action. So sad. So disgusting.
People are dying because of what Trump and Musk are doing. People are starving because of what they are doing. Veterans are being thrown out of their homes because of what they are doing. Family farms are being lost because of what they are doing. People are going without healthcare because of what they are doing. And yet through all this, some people seem to stick with Trump and his Nazi sympathizer best friend and continue to stay silent, allowing Trump and his billionaire friends to keep feeding at the public trough. Members of Congress keep getting their salaries, while they turn a blind eye, and are complicit, seeing everyday Americans losing their livelihoods, and even lives.
It is my hope every American who voted for Trump, and those who stayed home and didn’t vote, will take a long look in the mirror, and realize, “I did this.” Some will be happy they did. Others may fi nally recognize they were lied to. Those are the people who now need to speak out. Those who thought Trump would lower infl ation, cut gas, egg, and rent prices and are now seeing just the opposite. Those who grew up understanding Russia, and their leaders like the dictator Putin, are the enemy, and are now seeing Trump cozy up to him. Those who have a friend or relative being thrown out of their job, or losing their healthcare. They must speak out.
Every Democratic elected offi cial must speak out. What they say may depend on the district they represent. But they will all want to focus on what they can do to stop the madness, and bring rationality back. They need to speak the truth about their concerns, and what they will fi ght for if they are elected, or reelected. In every instance they must include talking about actually lowering prices, ensuring people have good jobs with decent wages, ensure each American will be judged on their abilities. That they will fi ght to lower taxes for the middle class, and raise them for the wealthy, not the other way around like this administration is doing.
Let us face reality: Most Americans care above all about themselves, their families, and their friends. They want to live decent and safe lives. So, Democrats need to talk to them about what will allow them to do that. In simple language, not in generalities. Pointing out where they have been lied to, but saying what they as Democrats will do to make their lives better. Not in the future, but today, if given the chance.
is editor of the Washington Blade. Reach him at knaff@washblade.com KEVIN NAFF
I stopped watching
MSNBC
and you should too Network betrayed its viewers and failed to do its job
In the two years leading up to the disastrous 2024 election, I became addicted to MSNBC. As an early riser, I watched Jonathan Lemire on “Way Too Early,” then the first hour of “Morning Joe.” In the afternoon, I often took a coffee break with Nicolle Wallace. At night, there was Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid, along with former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
The hosts and their “experts” seemed to have a deep understanding of the polls and the electorate. They seized on every Donald Trump outrage to remind viewers of the potential dangers of a second Trump presidency. They were so confident that Trump couldn’t win that I wasn’t too concerned, despite the tight polls. When a late poll emerged showing Kamala Harris with a nine-point edge in the reliably red state of Iowa, I thought it was over.
But the day before the election, one of the “Morning Joe” regulars, John Heilemann, predicted that either Trump or Harris would win all seven of the swing states. Huh? Well that’s a bold prediction. Someone is going to win big but it could go either way? What kind of prognosticating is this? It would be like the meteorologist telling us that tomorrow it’s either going to snow a foot or it’s going to be 100 degrees.
Then election night arrived with giddy scenes on MSNBC of a crowded polling place in Philadelphia where young people thronged and expressed enthusiasm for electing the first woman president. Many of the MSNBC talking heads, led by Mika Brzezinski, predicted that the abortion issue would propel Harris to victory and women would take charge and rule the day.
Instead, Harris lost seven points among women compared to President Biden in 2020, while Trump gained support among men by four points compared to 2020.
The other key issue of the 2024 election, according to the MSNBC “experts,” was immigration, which was expected to fuel an overwhelming Latino turnout for Harris given Trump’s promises of concentration camp-like detentions for immigrants.
Instead, Latino men broke for Trump. “Biden won their support by 23 points in 2020 and Trump won them in 2024. Latina women still favored Harris, but by smaller margins than they supported either Clinton or Biden,” CNN reported from its exit polls.
Even among college-educated voters of color, one of the Democrats’ most reliable constituencies, Harris led Trump by 33 percent. But Biden won that group by 43 points and Hillary Clinton won it by 50 points.
How could all of these so-called experts, bloviating for nearly 24 hours a day on MSNBC, get it all so wrong? The results demonstrated just how painfully out of touch the network has become, existing in a fantasy land where progressives are infallible and Trump is a racist found liable for sexual assault with no shot at winning. Reporting selective polls and focusing on “blue” bubbles while reassuring the audience that Americans would never elect a twice-impeached felon as president amounted to a dereliction of duty. Instead of reporting the hard news and scrutinizing unfavorable polls, MSNBC looked for empty seats at Trump rallies and then reported breathlessly that his support was waning.
But it gets worse. After the election, marquee hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski flew to Mar-a-Lago to meet privately with Trump. What did they discuss? We don’t know because cameras weren’t allowed and the conversation was off the record. Really? After spending two years calling Trump every name in the book, they jetted off to Palm Beach to kiss the ring. This was the antithesis of journalism. Joe and Mika are not journalists but they certainly masquerade as such. These sorts of meetings between reporters and sources are common but they should be fully disclosed and on the record.
Years ago during the Maryland marriage fight, I was writing columns critical of thenGov. Martin O’Malley. His staff reached out and said the governor wanted to meet with me privately. I accepted on one condition: that the meeting was on the record and I could record it. I went to the meeting and then wrote about it so Blade readers knew what was said.
Meet the people giving a voice to LGBTQ truck drivers
‘Like therapy,’ finding solace in each other and the road
By CLINTON ENGELBERGER
Before embarking on his weekly 2,000-mile trip as a truck driver, Derric Schmid sets up his smart TV and preps meals in bulk like ham and potatoes.
To some, long hours on the road away from family and friends sounds grueling. But for Schmid, it’s his way of life.
“I love the freedom,” Schmid said. “I get paid to go see the country. I’ve spent New Year’s Eve in New Orleans, I’ve spent it in St. Louis and this year I spent Christmas out in California exploring.”
Schmid is the vice president and senior diversity officer of LGBTQ+ Truck Driver Network (TDN), a nonprofit he runs with founder Bobby Coffey-Loy. TDN aims to foster inclusivity and safety in the truck driving industry by building a supportive network of allies and queer truckers.
The organization vets companies (Schmid says he calls 50-100 per week) to understand which are committed to creating safe spaces for drivers of all backgrounds. Schmid and Coffey-Loy also host the Big Gay Trucker Podcast, where they interview people who need advice or want to discuss taboo topics.
Coffey-Loy said meeting people from different walks of life, including trans people recovering from surgeries while on the road, inspired him to create TDN.
“It just opened me up to a whole group of people that just needed representation,” Coffey-Loy said. “There are groups out there on [social media] pages, but nobody actually took it as far as a nonprofit organization.”
Coffey-Loy drives with his partner of 17 years, Ricky, for a company called Luna Lines. Together they drive about 6,000 miles a week, taking turns sleeping or keeping one another company. On Monday, they typically start a load in Jacksonville and then drive to New Mexico, Chicago, Baltimore, Tennessee and end up back home in Palm Coast, Fla., by Friday. They even pay for all their gas and food while on the road.
Doing a weekly cross-country road trip in tight quarters with your partner can be trying, and Coffey-Loy will be the first to admit that: “Your partner is someone that knows how to push your buttons faster than anybody else,” he laughed.
But he also said starting truck driving together eight years ago is what made him and his husband closer. Before driving, he said it felt like life and jobs sometimes got in the way of their relationship. Going to trucking school together and being able to support each other on the road over the years has sparked a different kind of connection in their lives.
“We didn’t want to be apart from each other, so that’s what made trucking work for us,” he said.
For both Schmid and Coffey-Loy, truck driving runs in the family. Schmid, who’s been driving trucks for almost 24 years and with TDN for more than two, calls Jonestown, Pa., home –– a borough with a 2023 population of 1,645. He had three uncles and a grandfather who were truck drivers.
Coffey-Loy, born and raised in West Virginia, said his father and grandfather were truck drivers.
Continuing family tradition is respectable enough, but Coffey-Loy’s mission of creating a safe and supportive space for those in the industry was unique; it was difficult for his parents to accept his identity when he first came out.
Coffey-Loy’s parents passed away 11 months apart last year. He said they learned to grow to love him for who he was. When TDN started up, they became “mom and dad to everyone,” and even invited people with no familial structure to move in with them.
At get-togethers, his dad called everyone “sweetie” or “honey” to be respectful since he didn’t know how everyone identified.
“What they’ve taught me is, if they can change their mind and they can accept everybody, anybody can,” Coffey-Loy said. “I will cherish it forever. I miss them every day.”
And the impact of this lesson has been tried and true. TDN attended the Mid-America Trucking Show despite receiving death threats and facing extra security measures –– yet they ran through dozens of handouts before their station even opened. Another year, they handed out condoms to promote safe sex on the road and were met with backlash –– yet they went through a whole box on the first day.
The team behind TDN may be small –– about eight people –– but Schmid said their reach is wide. Thousands of people visit their social media pages from around the world and connect with each other, including a vocal German bus driver and a man from Africa trying to create more queer visibility in his area.
Coffey-Loy said many people contact him directly for support. There was a straight man who called who had trouble balancing his home life and truck driving hours and expressed suicidal thoughts. The man said he saw Coffey-Loy’s number and needed someone to talk to.
Moments like those are why Coffey-Loy emphasizes that the organization is there to support everyone, not solely the LGBTQ community. He recalled a bonfire gathering where people of different backgrounds and identities laughed and talked as friends.
“It’s why you do what you do,” Coffey-Loy said.
Although TDN has given many people a family away from home, it doesn’t make losing time with family and friends any easier. Coffey-Loy missed a family member’s funeral in West Virginia because he was in New Mexico and couldn’t abandon his load.
“He had already been buried before I could get back,” he said.
It’s a different way of life, but it’s not an impossible one. Schmid calls his mom and stepfather every morning and his mom again in the evenings. He gets on group calls with friends and TDN members. On weekends, Schmid sees some friends in person for dinners, and is able to visit with his family.
Truck driving may mean frequently saying goodbye to close people in his life, but it also opens the door to new connections around the country: “I got friends in every state,” Schmid said.
Although he’s constantly traveling, Coffey-Loy always feels at home. It’s those nights driving, with nothing but the roaring hum of the road filling the silence while his husband sleeps behind him, that fulfill him.
“Even though you miss so much of your everyday life, there’s something about trucking that is so freeing,” Coffey-Loy said. “The road can be so loud in your life, and it has a way to really sort out things. It’s like therapy for me.”
RICKEY COFFEY-LOY (left) drives with his partner of 17 years, BOBBY COFFEY-LOY, for a company called Luna Lines. (Photos courtesy the subjects)
Get ready for a night of flavor, music, and more at DC’s ultimate spring bash — the iconic Pink Tie Party!
Feel the flair of Rio and Venice blended with the beauty of DC’s iconic National Cherry Blossom Festival.
Indulge in creative cocktails, mocktails, and gourmet bites from top DC-area restaurants.
Experience the pulse and energy of Batala DC, be enchanted by the Washington National Opera, and enjoy surprise performances all night long.
Bid on exclusive dining packages, luxury hotel stays, and other must-have experiences in the benefit auction.
Dress to impress in pink and florals with a Carnival twist.
Friday, March 07
CALENDAR |
“Center Aging Friday Tea Time” will be at 2 p.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more details, email adam@thedccenter.org.
GoGayDC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Social” at 7 p.m. at PF Chang’s. This event is ideal for making new friends, professional networking, idea-sharing, and community building. This event is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Saturday, March 08
GoGay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Brunch” at 11 a.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant. This fun weekly event brings the DMV area LGBTQ community, including allies, together for delicious food and conversation. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Sunday, March 09
GoGay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Coffee and Conversation” at 1:30 p.m. at As You Are. This event is for someone looking to make more friends and meaningful connections in the LGBTQ+ community. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Monday, March 10
“Center Aging Monday Coffee & Conversation” will be at 10 a.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more details, email adam@thedccenter.org.
Genderqueer DC will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a support group for people who identify outside of the gender binary, whether you’re bigender, agender, genderfluid, or just know that you’re not 100% cis. For more details, visit www.genderqueerdc.org or Facebook.
OUT & ABOUT
Trans Journalists to host ‘Coping with Stress’ event
The Trans Journalists Association will host “Coping with Stress, Trauma, and Burnout” on Wednesday, March 12 at 12 p.m. on Zoom.
This 75-minute training will focus on how to cope with stress, trauma, and burnout in turbulent times. It includes basic awareness of the impact of direct trauma exposure, vicarious trauma exposure and related stresses on individual journalists and news teams, as well as evidence-based practices in self-care and collegial support.
The session will be led by Dr. Katherine Porterfield, a senior Dart Center trainer and a founding member of the Journalist Trauma Support Network, an initiative of the Dart Center.
For more details, visit the Trans Journalists Association’s website.
By TINASHE CHINGARANDE
Tuesday, March 11
Trans Discussion Group will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This group is intended to provide an emotionally and physically safe space for trans* people and those who may be questioning their gender identity/expression to join together in community and learn from one another. For more details, email info@thedccenter.org.
Coming Out Discussion Group will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a peer-facilitated discussion group and a safe space to share experiences about coming out and discuss topics as it relates to doing so. For more details, visit the group’s Facebook.
Wednesday, March 12
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.
Thursday, March 13
The DC Center’s Fresh Produce Program will be held all day at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. 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 202-682-2245.
Virtual Yoga with Charles M. will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a free weekly class focusing on yoga, breath work, and meditation. For more details, visit the DC Center for the LGBT Community’s website.
The Trans Journalists Association will host ‘Coping with Stress, Trauma, and Burnout.’
Saldaña triumphs amid ‘Emilia Pérez’ collapse at Oscars
Karla Sofía Gascón loses top award to Mikey Madison after scandal
By SUSAN HORNIK
It’s no wonder the camera caught actress Michele Yeoh crying after watching queer singer Cynthia Erivo (nominated for best actress) and Ariana Grande (nominated for best supporting actress) perform one of the much-loved songs from “Wicked,” as they were simply magnificent.
Grande opened with Judy Garland’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and Erivo sang “Home” from “The Wiz.” That was one of the many bright spots in the 97th annual Academy Awards, which took place Sunday night at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
While the duo sadly didn’t take away any awards, the magical film did — gay costume designer Paul Tazewell won the Oscar for Best Costume Design.
“This is absolutely astounding,” Tazewell enthused onstage, in his acceptance speech. “Thank you Academy for this very significant honor. I’m the first Black man to receive a costume design award for my work on ‘Wicked.’ I’m so proud of this.”
In the pressroom, Tazewell elaborated on his well deserved win.
“This is the pinnacle of my career. I’ve been designing costumes for over 35 years,” he said. “Much has been on Broadway and now into film, and the whole way through there was never a Black male designer that I saw that I could follow, that I could see as inspiration. And to realize that that’s actually me, it becomes a ‘Wizard of Oz’ moment, you know, it’s like no place like home. So to come back to the inspiration being inside of me was — is really remarkable.”
I do costume design, why I am a costume designer.”
“Wicked” also won the Oscar for Best Production Design.
“Emilia Pérez,” Netflix’s mesmerizing Spanish language, trans crime musical, had a whopping 13 nominations, with first-time nominee Karla Sofia Gascón making history as the first trans woman to be nominated for best actress. This would have been the most nominated foreign film in the history of the Academy Awards.
Unfortunately, after the controversy surrounding her past tweets, the film only won two awards: for best supporting actress (Zoe Saldana) and best original song (“El Mal”).
While the U.S. is in an era of anti-trans political maneuvering, Sunday night’s broadcast included no mention of trans people.
In the pressroom, during an interview with “Emilia” composers Clément Ducol, Camille, and director Jacques Audiard, a journalist asked if anyone wanted to address what was happening.
Speaking in French via a translator, Audiard said, “Since I didn’t win Best Film or Best Director, I didn’t have the opportunity to speak, but had I had that opportunity, I would have spoken up.”
Saldaña, who starred as Rita, a lawyer who gets enmeshed with the trans cartel leader’s transition, was thrilled to win.
Tazewell said he achieved the award with the help of a lot of really amazing and talented costume artisans of all types and an amazing staff and assistants and crew.
“Because, you know, there’s no way for me to do it alone! And that also is my greatest joy — to be collaborating with other very talented artists, so I respect what that artistry is, and I share this with them because I value what their input is.”
The veteran costume designer knew the movie was going to be pretty spectacular, but he was “absolutely blown away,” because of their approach.
“We were working on two films at the same time. It wasn’t until I actually saw a pretty complete cut that I actually experienced the journey that we have created for audiences. And so, to experience that –I was beside myself. And it defined why
“I am floored by this honor. Thank you to the Academy for recognizing the quiet heroism and the power in a woman like Rita. And talking about powerful women, my fellow nominees, the love and community that you have offered me is a true gift, and I will pay it forward. Thank you so much Jacques Audiard, you are forever a beloved character in my life. Thank you for taking the interest, thank you for being so curious about these women to tell this story to my cast and my crew of ‘Emilia Pérez.’”
Saldaña’s nephew is trans; a few weeks ago, while winning the best supporting actress at the BAFTAs, she told journalists that she was dedicating the award to him.
“I’m dedicating all of these awards and the film ‘Emilia Pérez’ to my nephew, Eli. He is the reason — they are the reason — I signed up to do this film in the first place,” she said. “So as the proud aunt of a trans life, I will always stand with my community of trans people.”
ZOE SALDAÑA, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and KARLA SOFÍA GASCÓN in ‘Emilia Pérez.’ (Photo courtesy of Netflix)
In LaBruce’s ‘The Visitor,’ the revolution will be sexualized
Exploring
the treatment of ‘otherness’ in a society governed by xenophobia
By JOHN PAUL KING
If any form of artistic expression can be called the “front line” in the seemingly eternal war between free speech and censorship, it’s pornography.
In the U.S., ever since a 1957 Supreme Court ruling (Roth v. U.S.) made the legal distinction between “pornography” (protected speech) and “obscenity” (not protected speech), the debate has continued to stymie judicial efforts to find a standard to define where that line is drawn in a way that doesn’t arguably encroach on First Amendment rights – but legality aside, it’s clearly a matter of personal interpretation. If something an artist creates features material that depicts sexual behavior in a way that offends us (or doesn’t, for that matter), no law is going to change our mind.
That’s OK, of course, everyone has a right to their own tastes, even when it comes to sex. But in an age when the conservative urge to censor has been weaponized against anything that runs counter to their repressive social agenda, it’s easy to see how labeling something as too “indecent” to be lawfully expressed can be used as a political tactic. History is full of authoritarian power structures for whom censorship was used to silence – or even eliminate – anyone who dares to oppose them. That’s why history is also full of radical artists who make it a point to push the boundaries of what is “acceptable” creative expression and what is not.
Indeed, some of these artists see such cultural boundaries as just another way for a ruling power to enforce social conformity on its citizens, and consider the breaking of them not just a shock tactic but a revolutionary act – and if you’re a fan of pioneering “queercore” filmmaker Bruce LaBruce, then you know that’s a description that fits him well.
LaBruce, a Canadian who rose to underground prominence as a writer and editor of queer punk zines in the ‘80s before establishing himself as a photographer and filmmaker in the “Queercore” movement, has never been deterred by cultural boundaries. His movies – from the grit of his gay trick-turning comedy “Hustler White,” through the slick pornographic horror of “LA Zombie,” to the taboo-skewering sophistication of his twin-cest romance “St. Narcisse” – have unapologetically featured explicit depictions of what some might call “deviant” sex. Other films, like the radical queer terrorist saga “The Raspberry Reich” and the radical feminist terrorist saga “The Misandrists,” have been more overtly political, offering savagely ludicrous observations about extremist ideologies and the volatile power dynamics of sex and gender that operate without regard for ideologies at all. Through all of his work, a cinematic milieu has emerged
that exists somewhere between the surreal iconoclasm of queer Italian provocateur Pier Paolo Pasolini and the monstrous camp sensibility of John Waters, tied together with an eye for arresting pop art visuals and a flair for showmanship that makes it all feel like a really trashy – and therefore really good – exploitation film.
In his latest work, he brings all those elements together for a reworking of Pasolini’s 1968 “Teorema,” in which an otherworldly stranger enters the life of an upper class Milanese family and seduces them, one by one. In “The Visitor,” Pasolini’s Milan becomes LaBruce’s London, and the stranger becomes an impressively beautiful, sexually fluid alien refugee (burlesque performer Bishop Black) who arrives in a suitcase floating on the Thames. Insinuating himself into the home of a wealthy family with the help of the maid (Luca Federici), who passes him off as her nephew, he exerts an electrifying magnetism that quickly fascinates everyone who lives there. Honing in on their repressed appetites, he has clandestine sex with each in turn – Maid, Mother (Amy Kingsmill), Daughter (Ray Filar), Son (Kurtis Lincoln), and Father (Macklin Kowal) – before engaging in a incestuous pansexual orgy with them all. When the houseguest departs as abruptly as he arrived, the household is left with its bourgeois pretensions shattered and its carnal desires exposed, each of them forced to deal with the consequences for themselves.
Marked perhaps more directly than LaBruce’s other work with direct nods to his influences, the film is dedicated to Pasolini himself, in addition to numerous visual references throughout which further underscore the “meta-ness” of paying homage to the director in a remake of one of his own films; there are just as many call-backs to Waters, most visibly in some of the costume choices and the gender-queered depiction of some of its characters, but just as obviously through the movie’s “guerilla filmmaking” style and its gleefully transgressive shock tactics – particularly a dinner banquet sequence early on which leisurely rubs our noses in a few particularly dank taboos. There are also glimpses and echoes of Hitchcock, Kubrick, Lynch, and other less controversial (but no less challenging) filmmakers whose works have pushed many of the same boundaries from behind the veneer of mainstream respectability.
Despite all of these tributes, however, “The Visitor” is pure LaBruce. Celebratory in its depravity and unflinching in its fully pornographic (and unsimulated) depictions of sex, from the blissfully erotic to grotesquely bestial, it seems determined to fight stigma with saturation – or at least, to push the buttons of any prudes who happen to wander into the theater by mistake – while mocking the fears and judgments that feed the stigmas in the first place.
That doesn’t mean it’s all fluid-drenched sex and unfettered perversion; like Pasolini and his other idols, LaBruce is a deeply intellectual filmmaker, and there’s a deeper thread that runs throughout to deliver an always-relevant message which feels especially relevant right now: the treatment of “otherness” in a society governed by homogeny, conformity, and xenophobia. “The Visitor” even opens with a voiceover radio announcer lamenting the influx of “brutes” into the country, as suitcases bearing identical immigrants (all played by Black) appear across London, and it is by connecting to the hidden “other” in each of his conquests that our de facto protagonist draws them in.
LaBruce doesn’t just make these observations, however; he also offers a solution (of sorts) that matches his fervor for revolution – one in which the corruption of the ruling class serves as an equalizing force. In each of the Visitor’s extended sexual episodes with the various family members, the director busts out yet another signature move by flashing propaganda-style slogans – “Give Peace of Ass a Chance,” “Go Homo,” and “Join the New Sexual World Order” are just a few colorful examples – that are as heartfelt as they are hilarious. In LaBruce’s revolution, the path to freedom is laid one fuck at a time, and it’s somehow beautiful – despite the inevitable existential gloom that hovers over it all.
Obviously, “The Visitor” is not for all tastes. But if you’re a Blade reader, chances are your interest will be piqued – and if that’s the case, then welcome to the revolution. We need all the soldiers we can get.
“The Visitor” is now playing in New York and debuts in Los Angeles March 14, and will screen at roadshow engagements in cities across the U.S. Information on dates, cities, and venues (along with tickets) is available at thevisitor.film/.
A family has sex with an alluring stranger in ‘The Visitor.’ (Image courtesy of a_Political)
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A taste for the macabre with a side order of sympathy
New book ‘The Lamb’ is for fans of horror stories
By TERRI SCHLICHENMEYER
What’s for lunch?
You probably know at breakfast what you’re having a few hours later. Maybe breast of chicken in tomato sauce. Barbecued ribs, perhaps? Leg of lamb, beef tongue, pickled pigs’ feet, liver and onions, the possibilities are just menus away. Or maybe, as in the new book, “The Lamb” by Lucy Rose, you’ll settle for a rump roast and a few lady fingers. Margot was just four years old when she noticed the mold on the shower walls, and wondered what it might taste like. She also found fingers in the shower drain from the last “stray,” the nails painted purple, and she wondered why they hadn’t been nibbled, too.
Cooked right, fingers and rumps were the best parts. Later, once Margot started school, Mama depended on her to bring strays from the woods to their cottage, and Mama would give them wine and warm them up. She didn’t often leave the house unless it was to bury clothing and bones, but she sometimes welcomed a gardener who was allowed to leave. There was a difference, you see, between strays and others.
But Eden? Margot couldn’t quite figure her out.
She actually liked Eden, who seemed like a stray but obviously wasn’t. Eden was pretty; she never yelled at Margot, although she did take Margot’s sleeping spot near Mama. Eden made Mama happy; Margot could hear them in the bedroom sometimes, making noises like Mama did when the gardener visited. Eden was a very good cook. She made Mama softer, and she made promises for better times.
And yet, things never got better. Margot was not supposed to call attention to herself, but she wanted friends and a real life. If she was honest, she didn’t want to eat strays anymore, either, she was tired of the pressure to bring home dinner, and things began to unravel. Maybe Mama didn’t love Margot anymore. Maybe she loved Eden better or maybe Mama just ached from hunger.
Because you know what they say: two’s company, three’s a meal.
Not a book to read at lunch? No, probably not – although once you become immersed in “The Lamb,” it’ll be easy to swallow and hard to put down.
For sure, author Lucy Rose presents a somewhat coming-of-age chiller with a gender-twisty plot line here, and while it’s occasionally a bit slow and definitely cringey, it’s also really quite compelling. Rose actually makes readers feel good about a character who indulges in something so entirely, repulsively taboo, which is a very surprising – but oddly satisfying – aspect of this unique tale. Readers, in fact, will be drawn to the character Margo’s innocence-turned-eyes-wide-open and it could make you grow a little protective of her as she matures over the pages. That feeling plays well inside the story and it makes the will-they-won’t-they ending positively shivery.
Bottom line, if you have a taste for the macabre with a side order of sympathy, then “The Lamb” is your book and don’t miss it. Fans of horror stories, this is a novel you’ll eat right up.
Harper | $27.99 | 329 pages
‘The Lamb: A Novel’ By Lucy Rose c.2025,
Cosplay
JR.’s holds Nintendo theme night
(Washington
JR.’s Bar held ‘Cosplay,’ a Nintendo character theme night, on Saturday. Drag performers included Sirene Noir Jackson, Tiffany D. Carter, Labianna, Citrine and Baphomette.
Blade photos by Michael Key)
10 tiles for 2025
Modern trends offer unique blend of functionality, artistry
By VALERIE M. BLAKE
In 2025, tile is emerging as a pivotal element in interior design. No longer just traditional ceramic or porcelain, today’s tiles offer a unique blend of functionality and artistry, making them a favorite among homeowners and designers alike. This year, several tile trends are making significant waves, each bringing a distinct character to modern homes.
1. Textured Tiles. Texture plays a crucial role in adding depth and tactile beauty to spaces. In 2025, there’s a noticeable shift toward tiles that celebrate imperfection and handcrafted beauty. These tiles often feature organic finishes, subtle color variations, and unique patterns that make each piece distinct.
2. Warm Minimalist Colors. While minimalism is still popular, 2025 brings a warmer palette to this aesthetic. Neutral tones like beige, taupe, soft terracotta, and Pantone’s mocha mousse are replacing the cooler grays and whites of previous years. These colors impart a sense of coziness and serenity, making spaces feel more inviting while maintaining the clean lines and simplicity of minimalism.
3. Tile Drenching. Tile drenching involves extending the same tile from the floor up the walls, creating a seamless, cohesive look. This technique is particularly effective in smaller spaces like bathrooms or as backsplashes in kitchens with open shelving instead of upper cabinets, where it can make the area appear larger and more unified.
4. Sustainable and Eco-Friendly Tiles. Environmental consciousness is increasingly influencing consumer choices, leading to a rise in sustainable tile options. Manufacturers are now offering tiles made from recycled materials using low-impact production processes and eco-friendly substances, such as glass and plastic. These tiles not only decrease environmental footprints but also align with reducing waste and conserving resources.
5. Large-Format Tiles. Large-format tiles (think 24” x 48”) are gaining traction due to their ability to create a seamless and expansive look. Fewer grout lines result in a cleaner appearance and easier maintenance, making spaces feel more open and less cluttered. These tiles are particularly favored in showers, where simplicity and continuity are desired, and yesterday’s plastic surrounds are rejected. Available in various materials and finishes, large-format tiles offer versatility, a sleek look, and faster installation.
6. Cement Tiles. Cement tiles are celebrated for their bold patterns, vibrant colors, and artisanal charm. Although they require sealing, they are known for their durability and handcrafted look. Unlike ceramic tiles, cement tiles are not fired; instead, they are cured at room temperature, which makes them more environmentally friendly. Their unique patterns can make a statement in any room, serving as a focal point that brings a touch of vintage elegance or contemporary flair, depending on the chosen motif.
7. Terracotta Tiles. Terracotta tiles are making a stylish comeback, bringing warmth, a rustic look, and a touch of Mediterranean elegance to modern interiors. Made from clay and fired at low temperatures, these tiles boast an earthy, organic appeal that supports the ongoing trend of incorporating natural elements in the home. When properly sealed, they are resistant to stains and moisture, and their ability to age gracefully and develop a patina over time adds character and depth, giving spaces a cozy feel.
8. Peel and Stick Tiles. Peel and stick tiles are gaining popularity as a versatile and budget-friendly option for quick home makeovers. Perfect for renters and DIY enthusiasts, these tiles offer a hassle-free installation process that requires no grout, mortar, or professional help. You simply peel off the adhesive backing and stick them onto a clean, smooth surface—rendering them ideal for backsplashes,
accent walls, and even flooring. They are low-maintenance, easy to clean, and a practical choice for kitchens and bathrooms.
9. Tile Stickers. Tile stickers are a fun and cost-effective trend, offering an easy way to update your tiles without the need for a complete renovation. Meant to be applied directly over existing tiles, these often removable, adhesive decals are perfect for renters or homeowners looking for a temporary method of personalization. Heat-resistant, waterproof, and easy to clean, tile stickers are available in a wide variety of colors, patterns, and finishes, allowing for endless customization.
10. Smart Tiles. As smart home technology advances, Smart Tiles are now incorporating technological features seamlessly. Innovations include pressure-sensitive LED lighting, temperature control of heated floors, and interaction with home automation systems. Look for future advancements that will allow for both convenience and comfort, enabling homeowners to integrate modern technology without compromising on style.
So, whether you’re renovating a single room, designing an entire home, or decorating with your landlord in mind, these 2025 trends offer many options to create spaces that resonate with your personal style and reflect a harmonious blend of aesthetics, functionality, and sustainability.
VALERIE M. BLAKE
is a licensed Associate Broker in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia with RLAH @properties. Call or text her at 202-246-8602, email her at www.DCHomeQuest.com, or follow her on Facebook at TheRealst8ofAffairs.
From texture to drenching, these 10 tile trends will transform your home.
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