Local

Marriage in Maryland?

Supporters optimistic, but 2012 referendum expected

Published

15 years ago

December 16, 2010

Advocates for same-sex marriage in Maryland, including the seven gay and lesbian members of the state legislature, are optimistic that the legislature will pass a marriage equality bill in 2011 but they are less certain about the prospects for a transgender rights bill.

The gains in the number of supporters of a same-sex marriage bill in the November election and commitments by top leaders of the legislature to name marriage equality supporters to the committees that must clear them appear to have tipped the balance in favor of the bill passing, according to advocates and lawmakers.

“We remain cautiously optimistic that we’ve got the votes to push this bill through in this session, and that’s what we intend to do,” said Del. Heather Mizeur (D-Montgomery County), a lesbian.

News surfaced last week that the main bottleneck in preventing the bill’s passage during the past few years – its blockage in the state Senate’s Judicial Proceedings Committee – would be lifted when the legislature convenes in January. Changes in the committee’s makeup due to the election and a decision by one marriage equality opponent to move to another committee make it nearly certain that the committee will vote to send the bill to the Senate floor.

Meanwhile, the Judiciary Committee in the House of Delegates, which has been supportive of a marriage equality bill in the past, is also undergoing a major change in membership, and its composition won’t be disclosed until January.

But Mizeur told the Blade this week that Del. Mike Busch (D-Annapolis), who serves as Speaker of the House, has indicated to her and other gay and lesbian caucus members that he will make sure the committee’s pro-gay marriage majority is maintained.

“We didn’t meet with him as a full caucus,” Mizeur said. “But many of us individually have reached out to him. We kind of said it’s important that the Judiciary Committee’s open positions get assigned to people who are pro-marriage equality. And it’s been a very positive conversation.”

Morgan Meneses-Sheets, executive director of the statewide LGBT advocacy group Equality Maryland, said the now expanded LGBT caucus in the legislature, which climbed from four to seven following the November election, will also play a key role in helping to pass a marriage bill in 2011.

“They will do much of the heavy lifting,” she said.

Meneses-Sheets noted that everything must come together in just 90 days, beginning in January, during the three-month-long 2011 session of the Maryland General Assembly.

“I do think we can make this happen,” she said.

With head counts showing that the bill should clear the House of Delegates, both in committee and on the floor, and general consensus that it will clear the Senate committee, Meneses-Sheets said the next hurdle would be to overcome a filibuster on the floor of the Senate.

She said Equality Maryland and other advocates for the bill believe they have the 29 votes needed to stop a filibuster in the 47-member Senate. Once that hurdle is cleared, just 24 votes are needed to pass the bill in a direct floor vote.

Gov. Martin O’Malley told the Blade in an exclusive 2007 interview that he would sign a marriage equality bill; he reiterated that pledge during his successful campaign for re-election last month.

Meneses-Sheets said advocates for a pending transgender rights bill believe they have the votes to pass that measure in the House of Delegate if not the Senate, too. But similar to the gay marriage bill in past years, the main hurdle for the transgender measure is getting it out of committee in both the House and Senate, she said.

The bill would add the terms gender identity and expression to the categories included in an existing state civil rights law.

The General Assembly added sexual orientation protection to the state’s civil rights statute in 2001 under the administration of former Gov. Parris Glendenning.

“[The transgender bill] is where the committee assignments are even more important because it goes to the [House] Committee on Health and Government Operations,” she said. “It’s typically been a tough committee for us. They don’t deal with a lot of social policy bills like this one. So in the past, we’ve been short a good number of votes in order to get it out.”

Montgomery County transgender advocate Dana Beyer, who ran unsuccessfully in November for a seat in the House of Delegates, said she is more optimistic over the transgender bill, saying she believes LGBT allies in the General Assembly’s two bodies will help move the bill out of the two committees.

“I feel whatever has happened with the marriage bill should happen with the gender identity and expression bill,” Beyer said. “Mike Miller [president of the Senate] said he wants a floor vote on marriage. I feel that will apply to gender identity, too.”

Beyer said she’s confident that both the marriage and transgender bills will pass in the General Assembly in 2011, leading to yet another big hurdle for both measures: She’s certain that opponents will gather the required number of signatures to bring both bills before the voters in 2012 in separate referendums.

“I think we’re going to find ourselves with two Proposition 8s,” she said, referring to the California ballot measure that overturned that state’s same-sex marriage law.

Under Maryland law, bills passed by the General Assembly and signed by the governor are placed on hold if sufficient signatures are obtained to call a referendum on a measure.

A recent Washington Post poll showed that 46 percent of Maryland residents favor legalizing same-sex marriage, 44 percent oppose it and 10 percent had no opinion. Opponents of same-sex marriage, led by the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage, point out that voters have banned or overturned same-sex marriage laws in every state that such laws have come up on the ballot, even in cases where public opinion polls showed support for gay marriage.

Mizeur and Meneses-Sheets said the four out gay or lesbian incumbents in the General Assembly have lobbied their fellow lawmakers for the marriage bill in a low-key way in colleague-to-colleague discussions.

Two sources familiar with the caucus, who spoke on condition that they not be identified, said some LGBT activists have expressed concern that the caucus has not been aggressive enough in lining up more co-sponsors for the marriage bill. In particular, they expressed concern that Del. Maggie McIntosh (D-Baltimore City), the most senior LGBT caucus member and one of three delegates representing District 43 in Baltimore, has shied away from LGBT issues in her public statements and constituent mailings, including the same-sex marriage debate.

Noting that McIntosh is widely recognized as vying for the position of Speaker of the House when the post becomes vacant, one of the sources wondered whether she was backing away from speaking out publicly on the marriage bill to avoid generating opponents in a future quest for the speaker’s position.

“I absolutely disagree with that,” said Mizeur. “Maggie is as visible and vocal and supportive on our issues as any other member of the caucus.”

Mizeur added, “I do think that Maggie will make a great Speaker of the House and I would put money on the fact that she will be the next Speaker of the House. And she doesn’t play politics with the gay and lesbian community on changing who she is or how visible she would be on an issue in order to attain that goal.”

Voters in District 43, while re-electing McIntosh in November, also elected Mary Washington, the nation’s second black lesbian to win election to a state legislature and, like McIntosh, a supporter of the marriage equality bill.

But the district’s voters also have continued to elect same-sex marriage opponent Joan Carter Conway, also a Democrat, as their state senator. McIntosh has not stated publicly whether she has approached Conway to change her mind on the bill.

McIntosh and two other incumbent LGBT caucus members – Sen. Richard Madeleno and Del. Anne Kaiser, both Democrats from Montgomery County – did not return calls by press time.

The newly elected LGBT caucus members – Washington, and delegates-elect Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore) and Bonnie Cullison (D-Montgomery County) – have each said they would work hard to secure the votes needed to pass the marriage bill.

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Virginia

DOJ seeks to join lawsuit against Loudoun County over trans student in locker room

Three male high school students suspended after complaining about classmate

Published

13 hours ago

December 12, 2025

Staff reports

Loudoun County Public Schools building. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The Justice Department has asked to join a federal lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools over the way it handled the case of three male high school students who complained about a transgender student in a boys’ locker room.

The Washington Blade earlier this year reported Loudoun County public schools suspended the three boys and launched a Title IX investigation into whether they sexually harassed the student after they said they felt uncomfortable with their classmate in the locker room at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn.

The parents of two of the boys filed a lawsuit against Loudoun County public schools in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. The Richmond-based Founding Freedoms Law Center and America First Legal, which White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller co-founded, represent them.

The Justice Department in a Dec. 8 press release announced that “it filed legal action against the Loudoun County (Va.) School Board (Loudoun County) for its denial of equal protection based on religion.”

“The suit alleges that Loudoun County applied Policy 8040, which requires students and faculty to accept and promote gender ideology, to two Christian, male students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” reads the press release.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the press release said “students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate.”

“Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality,” said Dhillon.

Outgoing Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and outgoing Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares in May announced an investigation into the case.

The Virginia Department of Education in 2023 announced the new guidelines for trans and nonbinary students for which Youngkin asked. Equality Virginia and other advocacy groups claim they, among other things, forcibly out trans and nonbinary students.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in February launched an investigation into whether Loudoun County and four other Northern Virginia school districts’ policies in support of trans and nonbinary students violate Title IX and President Donald Trump’s executive order that prohibits federally funded educational institutions from promoting “gender ideology.”

District of Columbia

Capital Pride announces change in date for 2026 D.C. Pride parade and festival

Events related to U.S. 250th anniversary and Trump birthday cited as reasons for change

Published

19 hours ago

December 12, 2025

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

A scene from the 2024 Capital Pride Festival. (Washington Blade file photo by Emily Hanna)

The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C. based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, has announced it is changing the dates for the 2026 Capital Pride Parade and Festival from the second weekend in June to the third weekend.

“For over a decade, Capital Pride has taken place during the second weekend in June, but in 2026, we are shifting our dates in response to the city’s capacity due to major events and preparations for the 250^th anniversary of the United States,” according to a Dec. 9 statement released by Capital Pride Alliance.

The statement says the parade will take place on Saturday, June 20, 2026, with the festival and related concert taking place on June 21.

“This change ensures our community can gather safely and without unnecessary barriers,” the statement says. “By moving the celebration, we are protecting our space and preserving Pride as a powerful act of visibility, solidarity, and resistance,” it says.

Ryan Bos, the Capital Pride Alliance CEO and President, told the Washington Blade the change in dates came after the group conferred with D.C. government officials regarding plans for a number of events in the city on the second weekend in June. Among them, he noted, is a planned White House celebration of President Donald Trump’s 80^th birthday and other events related to the U.S. 250^th anniversary, which are expected to take place from early June through Independence Day on July 4.

The White House has announced plans for a large June 14, 2026 celebration on the White House south lawn of Trump’s 80th birthday that will include a large-scale Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event involving boxing and wrestling competition.

Bos said the Capital Pride Parade will take place along the same route it has in the past number of years, starting at 14^th and T Streets, N.W. and traveling along 14^th Street to Pennsylvania Ave., where it will end. He said the festival set for the following day will also take place at its usual location on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., between 2^nd Street near the U.S. Capitol, to around 7^th Street, N.W.

“Our Pride events thrive because of the passion and support of the community,” Capital Pride Board Chair Anna Jinkerson said in the statement. “In 2026, your involvement is more important than ever,” she said.

District of Columbia

Three women elected leaders of Capital Pride Alliance board

Restructured body includes chair rather than president as top leader

Published

4 days ago

December 9, 2025

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Capital Pride Alliance announced three women will lead its board. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, announced it has restructured its board of directors and elected for the first time three women to serve as leaders of the board’s Executive Committee.

“Congratulations to our newly elected Executive Officers, making history as Capital Pride Alliance’s first all-women Board leadership,” the group said in a statement.

“As we head into 2026 with a bold new leadership structure, we’re proud to welcome Anna Jinkerson as Board Chair, Kim Baker as Board Treasurer, and Taylor Lianne Chandler as Board Secretary,” the statement says.

In a separate statement released on Nov. 20, Capital Pride Alliance says the restructured Board now includes the top leadership posts of Chair, Treasurer, and Secretary, replacing the previous structure of President and Vice President as the top board leaders.

It says an additional update to the leadership structure includes a change in title for longtime Capital Pride official Ryan Bos from executive director to chief executive officer and president.

According to the statement, June Crenshaw, who served as acting deputy director during the time the group organized WorldPride 2025 in D.C., will now continue in that role as permanent deputy director.

The statement provides background information on the three newly elected women Board leaders.

• Anna Jinkerson (chair), who joined the Capital Pride Alliance board in 2022, previously served as the group’s vice president for operations and acting president. “A seasoned non-profit executive, she currently serves as Assistant to the President and CEO and Chief of Staff at Living Cities, a national member collaborative of leading philanthropic foundations and financial institutions committed to closing income and wealth gaps in the United States and building an economy that works for everyone.”

• Kim Baker (treasurer) is a “biracial Filipino American and queer leader,” a “retired, disabled U.S. Army veteran with more than 20 years of service and extensive experience in finance, security, and risk management.” She has served on the Capital Pride Board since 2018, “bringing a proven track record of steady, principled leadership and unwavering dedication to the LGBTQ+ community.”

• Taylor Lianne Chandler (Secretary) is a former sign language interpreter and crisis management consultant. She “takes office as the first intersex and trans-identifying member of the Executive Committee.” She joined the Capital Pride Board in 2019 and previously served as executive producer from 2016 to 2018.

Bos told the Washington Blade in a Dec. 2 interview that the Capital Pride board currently has 12 members, and is in the process of interviewing additional potential board members.

“In January we will be announcing in another likely press release the full board,” Bos said. “We are finishing the interview process of new board members this month,” he said. “And they will take office to join the board in January.”

Bos said the organization’s rules set a cap of 25 total board members, but the board, which elects its members, has not yet decided how many additional members it will select and a full 25-member board is not required.

The Nov. 20 Capital Pride statement says the new board executive members will succeed the organization’s previous leadership team, which included Ashley Smith, who served as president for eight years before he resigned earlier this year; Anthony Musa, who served for seven years as vice president of board engagement; Natalie Thompson, who served eight years on the executive committee; and Vince Micone, who served for eight years as vice president of operations.

“I am grateful for the leadership, dedication, and commitment shown by our former executive officers — Ashley, Natalie, Anthony, and Vince — who have been instrumental in CPA’s growth and the exceptional success of WorldPride 2025,” Bos said in the statement.

“I look forward to collaborating with Anna in her new role, as well as Kim and Taylor in theirs, as we take on the important work ahead, prepare for Capital Pride 2026, and expand our platform and voice through Pride365,” Bos said.