Local
Obituaries
Dori Ann Steele, 53, Michael Baker, 64, and Everett Waldo, 77
Dori Ann Steele, 53
Dori Anne Steele, an author and massage therapist in Silver Spring, Md., died March 4 following a four-year struggle with a debilitating spinal nerve condition known as arachnoiditis. She was 53.
Her partner, University of Maryland Family Studies Professor Robyn Zeiger, said Steele took her own life when the pain from the incurable illness, which eventually would lead to partial paralysis, became unbearable.
Zeiger, who was Steele’s partner for more than 26 years, said she and the couple’s friends and family members remember Steele as a “healer” through her expertise as a certified massage therapist.
Friends and family members will celebrate Steele’s life at a memorial service scheduled for May 23 at the University of Maryland’s Memorial Chapel, Zeiger said.
Steele began her career as a Silver Spring massage therapist in 1994 after graduating from the Potomac Massage Training Institute of D.C. with a certification in Swedish and deep tissue massage. An Institute biography says she obtained advanced, post-graduate training in specialized massage techniques.
It also says that in 1999, she became a Reiki Master, a term used to describe people trained to perform and teach a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation through massage and meditation.
Zeiger, who wed Steele in Canada in 2006 and again in California in 2008, said that prior to working as a massage therapist, Steele worked as an editor and technical writer for consulting firms that specialized in the fields of health and science. She received a bachelor’s degree in English and creative writing from Goddard College in Vermont.
Steele was a creative writer and poet, Zeiger said. Her book, “Drawing Back the Curtains: A Collection of Lesbian Erotica,” was published in 1990.
Zeiger, a licensed clinical counselor and senior lecturer at the University of Maryland, said Steele joined her in advocating for same-sex partner rights and benefits at the university and elsewhere. In 2007, the two focused on a campaign to persuade the University of Maryland to adopt such benefits.
“She went from a very vibrant, very alive person to another person due to the pain,” said Zeiger.
Zeiger told the Blade that Steele drove to a rustic location on Damascus Road in Gaithersburg where Steele and Zeiger enjoyed the scenery together in past years. Steele parked the car in a church lot and consumed a large quantity of pain medication, Zeiger said.
A Montgomery County medical examiner determined the death was caused by an overdose of oxycodone and alcohol.
“Dori made a rational and brave decision to end her life, given the dire circumstances of her severely painful physical condition,” Zeiger told the Gazette, a Maryland newspaper. “It was based not on depression, but on the fact that she could no longer tolerate the pain.”
The Gazette reported that in a note she left, Steele wrote, “I just cannot see any more doctors, have any more procedures, MRIs, pills.”
In addition to Zeiger, Steele is survived by her sister, Donna Flynn; her brother, Paul Satterfield; her brother-in-law, Harvey Zeiger; her sister-in-law, Susan Zeiger; two nieces; one nephew; and other relatives.
The memorial service in celebration of her life is scheduled to take place at noon May 23 at the University of Maryland’s Memorial Chapel.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Food & Friends, 219 Riggs Rd., N.E., Washington, D.C. 20011, or Best Friends Animal Society, 5001 Angel Canyon Rd., Kanab, Utah 84741.
Michael Baker, 64
Charles Michael Baker, a founding member of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington and a federal government employee for 30 years, died March 1 at Sibley Memorial Hospital of complications associated with acute pancreatitis. He was 64.
Originally from Key West, Fla., Baker attended La Grange College in Georgia before moving to Washington, D.C. He worked at the Office of Management & Budget and later served as director of environmental education for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
During his time at the EPA, Baker founded the federal government agency’s staff diversity group, which organized annual LGBT Pride-related events associated with Federal GLOBE, an LGBT organization of federal employees. He retired from government service in 2008.
The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington honored him in 2009 with its Harmony Lifetime Achievement Award, recognizing his involvement with the chorus in a variety of roles for 29 years.
Jeff Buhrman, the chorus artistic director, said Baker was one of the group’s founding members in 1981 and served as its first president elected by Chorus members in 2001 after the group reorganized its governing structure. Baker sang for the chorus for the entire 29 years of his involvement with the group.
“It was the love of his family and friends and his involvement in music and theater that gave him his greatest joys,” says a tribute to Baker prepared by friends.
He is survived by his partner, Trieu Tran of Washington, D.C.; his sister, Sylvia Knight; his son, Matthew; one daughter-in-law; and two granddaughters. Memorial services celebrating his life were held in April in Key West and Washington, D.C.
Everett Waldo, 77
Everett Waldo, a founding president of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington and a federal government employee in the 1980s, died April 3 of natural causes in San Diego. He was 77.
Waldo has been credited with playing a key leadership role for the Gay Men’s Chorus in its formative years, working with others to put the group on its path toward becoming a highly acclaimed choral group in the nation’s capital, Chorus officials said.
He was born in Waterbury, Vt., and attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and Miami University in Ohio, where he received a bachelor’s degree in music.
He served in the Army in Frankfurt, Germany, during the Korean War and later attended Wesley Seminary in Washington, D.C., where he received a master’s of divinity degree. He served as a minister at Methodist churches in Bucksport, Maine, and Accokeek, Md. He later worked for the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in Washington.
A biography prepared by family members says he moved to San Diego in 1990, where he became involved with the First Unitarian Universalist Church. Kathleen Owens, the church’s associate minister, said Waldo served as an active lay leader and fundraiser for the church.
In a separate tribute to his long association with the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, present and former Chorus members said Waldo returned to Washington several times in the 20 years following his move to San Diego to attend and participate in Chorus events. They said he remained a singing member of the Chorus up until his move to the West Coast.
“Given that his achievements throughout his career with [the Chorus] were primarily in the administrative area, it must have pleased him immensely to be a soloist in one of his final concerts, singing the role of one of the ‘Three Little Girls from School’ in ‘The Mikado,’” says the tribute.
“The Chorus next year will mark its 30th anniversary, thanks to Everett and his fellow pioneers and the countless others who followed Everett’s early and crucial example,” it says.
Waldo is survived by his sons, Jonathan and Matthew; four grandchildren; his former wife, Liz; and his sister, Joanne Bixby.
A memorial service honoring his life was held in San Diego in May. Family members requested that donations, in lieu of flowers, be made in his honor to First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego, 4190 Front St., San Diego, CA 92103.
District of Columbia
Faith programming remains key part of Creating Change Conference
‘Faith work is not an easy pill to swallow in LGBTQ spaces’
The National LGBTQ Task Force kicked off the 38th annual Creating Change conference in D.C. this week. This year, as with years past, faith and interfaith programming remains a key part of the conference’s mission and practice.
For some, the presence of faith work at an LGBTQ+ conference may seem antithetical, and Creating Change does not deny the history of harm caused by religious institutions. “We have to be clear that faith work is not an easy pill to swallow in LGBTQ spaces, and they’re no qualms about saying that we acknowledge the pain, trauma, and violence that’s been purported in the name of religion,” Tahil Sharma, Faith Work Director for the National LGBTQ Task Force, said.
In fact, several panels at the conference openly discuss acknowledging, healing from, and resisting religious harm as well as religious nationalism, including one scheduled today titled “Defending Democracy Through Religious Activism: A panel of experts on effective strategies for faith and multi-faith organizing” that features local queer faith activists like Ebony C. Peace, Rob Keithan, and Eric Eldritch who are also involved in the annual DC Pride Interfaith Service.
Another session will hold space for survivors of religious violence, creating “a drop-in space for loving on each other in healing ways, held by Rev. Alba Onofrio and Teo Drake.”
But Sharma and others who organized the Creating Change Conference explained that “a state of antipathy” towards religious communities, especially those that align with queer liberation and solidarity, is counterproductive and denies the rich history of queer religious activism. “It’s time for us to make a call for an approach to LGBTQ+ liberation that uses interfaith literacy as a tool rather than as a weapon against us,” Sharma explained.
Recognizing a local queer faith icon
Along with the panels, fighting religious nationalism and fostering communion with aligned faith activists and communities is at heart of this year’s faith work. As Sharma shared, “the person that we’re honoring this year for the faith award is Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt, and Dr. Betancourt is an amazing leader and someone who really stands out in representing UUs but also representing herself unapologetically.”
Based in the Washington, D.C. area, Dr. Betancourt has more than 20 years of experience working as a public minister, seminary professor, scholar, and environment ethicist, and public theologian. Her activism is rooted in her lived identities as a queer, multiracial, AfroLatine first-generation daughter of immigrants from Chile and Panama, and has been a critical voice in advancing the United Universalism towards anti-racist and pluralistic faith work.
Creating a faith-based gathering space
Sharma also said that faith fosters a unique space and practice to encounter grief and joy. For this reason, Sharma wants to “create a space for folks to engage in curiosity, to engage in spiritual fulfillment and grounding but also I think with the times that we’re in to lean into some space to mourn, some space to find hope.” The Many Paths Gathering Space serves this purpose, where visitors can stop for spiritual practice, speak with a Spiritual Care Team member, or just take a sensory break from the bustle of the conference.
This also means uplifting and foregrounding queer religious ephemera with an ofrenda to honor those who have passed, a display of nonbinary Korean American photographer Salgu Wissmath’s exhibition Divine Identity, and the Shower of Stoles, a collection of about 1,500 liturgical stoles and other sacred regalia representing the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people of faith.
The Shower of Stoles
The collection was first started in 1995 by Martha Juillerat and Tammy Lindahl who received eighty stoles that accompanied them and lent them solace as they set aside their ordinations from the Presbyterian Church. The whole collection was first displayed at the 1996 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in New Mexico. The stoles, according to the Task Force, “quickly became a powerful symbol of the huge loss to the church of gifted leadership.”
Each stole represents the story of a queer person who is active in the life and leadership of their faith community, often sent in by the people themselves but sometimes by a loved one in their honor. About one third of all the stoles are donated anonymously, and over three-quarters of the stoles donated by clergy and full-time church professionals are contributed anonymously.
The collection shows “not just the deep harm that has been caused that does not allow people to meet their vocation when they’re faith leaders, but it also speaks to how there have been queer and trans people in our [faith] communities since the beginning of our traditions, and they continue to serve in forms of leadership,” Sharma explained.
Explicit interfaith work
Along with creating a sacred space for attendees, hosting workshops focused on faith-based action, and recognizing DC’s rich queer religious history, Creating Change is also hosting explicitly faith services, like a Buddhist Meditation, Catholic Mass, Shabbat service, Jummah Prayer Service, and an ecumenical Christian service on Sunday. Creating Change is also welcoming events at the heart of queer religious affirmation, including a Name/Gender/Pronoun/Identity Blessing Ritual and a reading and discussion around queer bibles stories with Rev. Sex (aka Rev. Alba Onofrio).
But along with specific faith-based programs, Sharma explained, “we’re looking to build on something that I helped to introduce, which was the separation of the interfaith ceremony that’s happening this year which is a vigil versus the ecumenical Christian service which is now the only thing that takes place on Sunday morning.”
This includes an Interfaith Empowerment Service this evening and an Interfaith Institute tomorrow, along with “Sing In the Revolution,” an event where folks are invited “to actually engage in the joy and rhythm of resolution and what that looks like,” Sharma said. One of the key activators behind this work is Rev. Eric Eldritch, an ordained Pagan clergy person with Circle Sanctuary and a member of the Pride Interfaith Service planning committee.
Affirming that queer faith work is part of liberation
The goal for this year, Sharma noted, alongside holding space and discussions about faith-based practice and liberation and intentional interfaith work–is to move from thinking about why faith matters in queer liberation spaces to “how is interfaith work the tool for how we’re engaging in our understanding of de-escalation work, digital strategies, navigating a deeper visioning that we need for a better world that requires us to think that we’re not alone in the struggle for mutual abundance and liberation,” Sharma explained.
It may surprise people to learn that faith work has intentionally been part of the National LGBTQ+ Task Force since its beginning in the 1980s. “We can really credit that to some of the former leadership like Urvashi Vaid who actually had a sense of understanding of what role faith plays in the work of liberation and justice,” Sharma said.
“For being someone who wasn’t necessarily religious, she certainly did have a clear understanding of the relationship between those folks who are allies, those folks who stand against us, and then those folks who sit in between–those folks who profess to be of religious and spiritual background and also are unapologetically LGBTQ+,” he continued.
This year’s faith programming builds on this rich history, thinking about “a way to kind of open doors, to not just invite people in but our people to go out into the general scene of the conference” to share how faith-based work is a tool, rather than a hindrance, to queer liberation work.
Virginia
McPike prevails in ‘firehouse’ Dem primary for Va. House of Delegates
Gay Alexandria Council member expected to win 5th District seat
Gay Alexandria City Council member Kirk McPike emerged as the clearcut winner in a hastily called Jan. 20 “firehouse” Democratic primary for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Alexandria.
McPike, who was one of two gay candidates running in the four-candidate primary, received 1,279 votes or 60.5 percent, far ahead of gay public school teacher Gregory Darrall, a political newcomer who received 60 votes or 3 percent.
Former Alexandria City School Board member Eileen Cassidy Rivera came in second place with 508 votes or 24 percent and Northern Virginia criminal law defense attorney Chris Leibig finished in third place with 265 votes or 12.5 percent.
Each of the candidates expressed strong support for LGBTQ-related issues.
With less than a week’s notice, Democratic Party officials in Alexandria called the primary to select a Democratic nominee to run in the Feb. 10 special election to fill the 5th District House of Delegates seat being vacated by state Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker (D-Alexandria).
Bennett-Parker won the Democratic nomination for the Virginia State Senate seat being vacated by gay state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria), who is resigning from his seat to take a position in the administration of Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who took office on Jan. 17.
Bennett-Parker won the nomination for Ebbin’s state Senate seat in yet another firehouse primary on Jan. 13 in which she defeated three other candidates, including gay former state Del. Mark Levine.
McPike, a longtime LGBTQ rights advocate, first won election to the Alexandria City Council in 2021. He has served for 13 years as chief of staff for gay U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and has remained in that position during his tenure on the Alexandria Council. He told the Washington Blade he will continue as chief of staff until next month, when he will resign from that position before taking office in the House of Delegates.
He received the endorsement of Ebbin, U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), and the LGBTQ Victory Fund in his race for the 5th District Va. House seat. Being an overwhelmingly Democratic district, virtually all political observers expect McPike to win the Feb. 10 special election.
He will be running against Republican nominee Mason Butler, a local business executive who emerged as the only GOP candidate running for the delegate seat.
“Thank you to the voters of Alexandria for choosing me as the Democratic nominee in the House of Delegates District 5,” McPike said in a statement released shortly after the vote count was completed. “It is an incredible honor to have the opportunity to fight for our community and its values in Richmond,” he said.
“I look forward to continuing to work to address our housing crisis, the challenge of climate change, and the damaging impacts of the Trump administration on the immigrant families, LGBTQ+ Virginians, and federal employees who call Alexandria home,” he stated.
He praised Ebbin for his longstanding support for the LGBTQ community in the Virginia Legislature and added, “If elected to the House of Delegates in the Feb. 10 general election, I will continue to fight to protect the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ+ Virginians from my new position in Richmond.”
Gay candidate Darrall’s campaign website said he is a “proud progressive, lifelong educator, and labor leader running to put people first.” It says he is a political newcomer “with more than 20 years in the classroom” as a teacher who played a key role in the successful unionization of Fairfax Public Schools.
“He is a proud member and staunch supporter of the LGBTQIA+ community,” his website statement said.
District of Columbia
Sold-out crowd turns out for 10th annual Caps Pride night
Gay Men’s Chorus soloist sings National Anthem, draws cheers
A sold-out crowd of 18,347 turned out on Jan. 17 for the 10th annual Pride Night at the Washington Capitals hockey game held at D.C.’s Capital One Arena.
Although LGBTQ Capitals fans were disappointed that the Capitals lost the game to the visiting Florida Panthers, they were treated to a night of celebration with Pride-related videos showing supportive Capitals players and fans projected on the arena’s giant video screen throughout the game.
The game began when Dana Nearing, a member of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, sang the National Anthem, drawing applause from all attendees.
The event also served as a fundraiser for the LGBTQ groups Wanda Alston Foundation, which provides housing services to homeless LGBTQ youth, and You Can Play, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing LGBTQ inclusion in sports.
“Amid the queer community’s growing love affair with hockey, I’m incredibly honored and proud to see our hometown Capitals continue to celebrate queer joy in such a visible and meaningful way,” said Alston Foundation Executive Director Cesar Toledo.
Capitals spokesperson Nick Grossman said a fundraising raffle held during the game raised $14,760 for You Can Play. He said a fundraising auction for the Alston Foundation organized by the Capitals and its related Monumental Sports and Entertainment Foundation would continue until Thursday, Jan. 22
A statement on the Capitals website says among the items being sold in the auction were autographed Capitals player hockey sticks with rainbow-colored Pride tape wrapped around them, which Capitals players used in their pre-game practice on the ice.
Although several hundred people turned out for a pre-game Pride “block party” at the District E restaurant and bar located next to the Capital One Arena, it couldn’t immediately be determined how many Pride night special tickets for the game were sold.
“While we don’t disclose specific figures related to special ticket offers, we were proud to host our 10th Pride night and celebrate the LGBTQ+ community,” Capitals spokesperson Grossman told the Washington Blade.
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