I think perhaps, though, we need to distinguish between likability / good intentions and actual, measurable progress.

I suspect that if the long overdue citywide annual report on Hate Crimes (required by law but not yet released) is ever publicly released, it will show that their has been little to know ACTUAL improvement in the safety of LGBT residents or reduction in anti-LGBT hate crimes under this administration.

I suspect that if the long overdue citywide annual report on LGBT Health is ever publicly released, it will show that there has been little measurable improvement in addressing health disparities LGBT people face under this administration.

And I know that if you compare the 2012 YRBS data to previous years, it is pretty clear that there has been no measurable improvement in the health, wellbeing, or safety of LGBT Youth in DC Public Schools.

There has also been no progress in implementing the Human Rights law as it pertains to transgender folks and gender-neutral restrooms. This is particularly frustrating to me.

And finally, we still only have 8 SAFE beds where we can refer homeless LGBT Youth, and on most nights there is a 20 person waiting list. We need 20 more beds for homeless LGBT Youth in DC.

Things to take into consideration.

The LGBT community and many LGBT activists in DC have wisely lost TRUST in Mayor Gray’s police department (MPD) to protect LGBT residents and visitors from hate crimes. Many believe MPD is simply lying to them when it comes to the hate crimes MPD is not accurately reporting. See Blade story…
http://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/05/30/anti-violence-activists-to-launch-independent-hate-crime-reporting-project/

In multiple public appearances last February, Mayor Gray’s Chief of Police, Cathy Lanier, took openly hostile stances to DC’s transgender victims of hate crimes. At one of those appearances (before CM Mendelson’s Judiciary Committee) Lanier also expressed her contempt for DC’s LGBT community complaints regarding MPD’s lack of enforcement of DC’s hate crimes law and its increasingly unbelievable hate crimes reporting stats. Gray’s Chief of Police revealed her apparent exasperation with LGBT policing needs, strongly implying MPD was spending too much of its resources on LGBT-related crimes and public safety.

Just last week Lanier’s PR machine peddled a fantasy response, to the Blade apparently, that MPD “continues” to protect DC for LGBT residents and LGBT visitors from hate crimes because it closed the IHOP shooting case.

However, the IHOP case was a case that even casual observers could see was EASY for MPD to close. It occurred at a well-known, public restaurant location. It had multiple witnesses, including a MPD police officer– on the scene trying to break up the fracas. Its participants were easily ID’d. Yet MPD’s chiefs tout their closure of this case as a piece of exceptional MPD policing?

What about the many hate crimes MPD has NOT solved? Lanier’s MPD PR team is just grasping at straws again. I euphemistically refer to this kind of MPD response as ‘MPD SPIN’. But others recognize it as LYING– from the highest levels of Mayor Gray’s Metropolitan Police Department.

REAL LGBT residents have been violently killed, shot, stabbed and violently assaulted in violation of DC’s hate crimes law. The victims and/or their loved ones– and DC’s LGBT community– await justice from MPD. But MPD’s chiefs and PR/ SPINNERS peddle these lies, instead.

A seat at the table and/or high appointive offices doesn’t do anything for the LGBT crime victims and LGBT community awaiting justice and public safety from MPD. Richardson and Corado ought to remember that.

However, the buck stops with the mayor of the city. Mayor Gray is ultimately responsible for MPD’s lies– and the growing lack of trust by LGBT residents in their Metropolitan Police Department .