Local
African-American LGBT charity group debuts
D.C.’s Kindred: An African American LGBT Giving Circle is scheduled to award its first grant
Aisha Moodie-Mills told the Blade that Kindred is scheduled to award its first grant or “gift” of $13,000 to D.C.’s Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League (SMYAL). (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
A newly launched LGBT charitable organization in D.C. called Kindred: An African American LGBT Giving Circle is scheduled to award its first grant on Monday, opening the way for what organizers say will be a unique new venue for philanthropy in the city.
“Kindred utilizes the power of collective giving to uplift the African American LGBT community in Washington, D.C.,” a statement announcing the group’s mission says.
“By pooling our time, talent, and treasure we empower our community from within, nurture ourselves as philanthropists, and honor organizations working to enhance the lives of black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the District,” the statement says.
Lesbian activist Aisha Moodie-Mills, who was among the lead organizers of the campaign to pass D.C.’s same-sex marriage law in 2009, is the spokesperson and member of the new group’s five-member “Guiding Circle” leadership team.
Moodie-Mills told the Blade that Kindred is scheduled to award its first grant or “gift” of $13,000 on Monday to D.C.’s Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League (SMYAL). She said Kindred selected SMYAL for the first award, among other things, because of SMYAL’s longstanding work in support of African-American LGBT youth.
According to Moodie-Mills, the Washington Area Women’s Foundation, a tax-exempt charitable group, is serving as Kindred’s fiscal sponsor, allowing all donations to Kindred to be tax deductible.
The group’s mission statement says organizers modeled Kindred on the African-American tradition of community giving and support.
“Our African American history is rich with individual philanthropists – people who provided warm meals for families in the community in need, and books and resources for young people trying to make it through school,” the statement says.
The statement says the group is recruiting inaugural members to what it calls its “giving circle,” which initially will consist of 12 to 25 people who each commit to donating $420 or more each year to Kindred.
Members of the giving circle are also asked to participate in the organization’s “collaborative grant-making process” to decide on the recipients of future grants, the statement says. It says the Gill Foundation, a Colorado based LGBT philanthropic organization, gave Kindred a $10,000 seed grant to help the group begin its work.
In addition to Aisha Moodie-Mills, the other founders of Kindred are Danielle Moodie-Mills, Aisha’s wife; who, along with Aisha, was a spokesperson and organizer for D.C.’s marriage equality campaign in 2009. Both also serve as advisers for LGBT Policy and Racial Justice at the at the D.C. based Center for American Progress.
Other founders include Anna Bavier, an event planner who assists with programs associated with the Moutner Project for Lesbian Health and D.C. LGBT Community Center; Nicole Cozier, a 13-year D.C. area resident who “has been professionally involved on issues affecting women and girls,” according to Kindred statement, and who is immediate past chair of the board for Funders for LGBTQ Issues; and Earl-Rodney Holman.
Kindred can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at 202-421-5755.
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
District of Columbia
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
Kevin Naff marks 24 years with publication this year
Longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff will be inducted into D.C.’s Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame in June, the group announced this week.
Hall of Fame honorees are chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter. Naff and two other inductees — Seth Borenstein, a Washington-based national science writer for the AP and Cheryl W. Thompson, an award-winning correspondent for National Public Radio — will be celebrated at the chapter’s Dateline Awards dinner on Tuesday, June 9, at the National Press Club. The dinner’s emcee will be Kojo Nnamdi, host of WAMU radio’s weekly “Politics Hour.”
“I am tremendously honored by this recognition,” Naff said. “I have spent a lifetime in the D.C. area learning from so many talented journalists and am humbled to be considered in their company. Thank you to SPJ and to all the LGBTQ pioneers who came before me who made this possible.”
Naff joined the Blade in 2002 after years in print and digital journalism. He worked as a financial reporter for Reuters in New York before moving to Baltimore in 1996 to launch the Baltimore Sun’s website. He spent four years at the Sun before leaving for an internet startup and later joining the mobile data group at Verizon Wireless working on the first generation of mobile apps.
He then moved to the Blade and has served as the publication’s longest-tenured editor. In 2023, Naff published his first book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include luminaries in journalism like Wolf Blitzer, Benjamin Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and Edgar Allen Poe. The Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. was inducted in 2015.
Maryland
Supreme Court ruling against conversion therapy bans could affect Md. law
Then-Gov. Larry Hogan signed statute in 2018
By PAMELA WOOD, JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV, and MADELEINE O’NEILL | The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ kids in Colorado, a ruling that also could apply to Maryland’s ban on the discredited practice.
An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide whether it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s majority, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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