Local
D.C.’s gay-friendly election
Supportive candidates lead field in host of November races
Nearly all candidates supportive on LGBT issues are expected to win their races in the Nov. 6 election for seven seats on the D.C. City Council, the city’s non-voting seat in Congress and five seats on the D.C. school board.
But LGBT activists say they are joining fellow citizens across the city in watching with concern the unfolding campaign investigation and past driving infractions surrounding D.C. Council member Michael Brown (I-At-Large), a long-time friend and supporter of the LGBT community.
Revelations this month that more than $113,000 have gone missing from Brown’s 2012 campaign coffers and a Washington Post report that Brown had his driver’s license suspended five times over the past eight years due to traffic violations have fueled speculation that Brown’s re-election bid could be in jeopardy
Brown said his former campaign treasurer, who he fired in late June, stole the campaign funds and the U.S. Attorney’s office is investigating the reported theft. Through his attorney, the former treasurer has denied he stole the money. Brown, meanwhile, has declined to comment on the driving infractions, which the Post obtained through public records.
“I have no legal and ethical issues at all,” he told the Blade.”I’m the victim of a crime and the other stuff is personal.”
The fact that his main opponent, David Grosso, is also supportive on LGBT issues prompted Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance Vice President Rick Rosendall to note that D.C.’s LGBT community has been blessed with highly supportive political candidates and elected officials for the past 20 years or longer.
“It’s a luxury to be choosing between LGBT-friendly candidates,” he said. “It’s a luxury to have to choose among friends. Here in D.C., most candidates are gay friendly. We should remember how lucky we are.”
Two openly gay candidates are running for seats this year on the D.C. State Board of Education. One of them, Dupont Circle Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Jack Jacobson, is running unopposed for the Ward 2 Board of Education seat.
Longtime Ward 8 gay rights and community activist Phil Pannell is making a second try at capturing the Ward 8 school board seat. Pannell ran and lost his bid for the seat last year in a special election after the incumbent died. Pannell is running against his former opponent and now incumbent Trayon “Tray” White, who has received the backing of Ward 8 Council member Marion Barry (D).
A third openly gay candidate, D.C. libertarian activist and Realtor Bruce Majors, is running as a Libertarian candidate against incumbent D.C. Congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.). Norton, who is running for her twelfth term, is considered among the most LGBT supportive members of Congress and is highly popular in the LGBT community.
She is considered the strong favorite to win re-election. Majors has acknowledged that his chances of defeating Norton are slim. He said his main objective is to promote the Libertarian Party cause and to capture at least 7,500 votes, which would give the Libertarian Party an automatic place on the ballot in future D.C. elections.
Leaders of the city’s three main LGBT political organizations – GLAA, the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, and D.C. Log Cabin Republicans – said this week they would not be taking an official position on an investigation into the Brown campaign’s missing funds.
Stein Club President Lateefah Williams, D.C. Log Cabin President Robert Turner, and GLAA Vice President Rick Rosendall said their respective groups also would not be taking an official position on three proposed D.C. City Charter amendments that will be on the ballot in the November election. The amendments were placed on the ballot as part of a sweeping city ethics reform bill approved by the Council last December.
The Charter amendments, if approved by the voters and later cleared by Congress, will give the D.C. Council authority to vote by a 5/6 majority to remove from office a fellow Council member or a sitting mayor if the mayor or Council member is convicted of or pleads guilty to a felony charge. One of the amendments would also give the Council authority to remove from office a Council member that demonstrates a “gross failure to meet the highest standards of conduct” expected of an elected official.
“This is something we will leave to our individual members to decide,” said Williams, who added that the club might consider taking a position on the charter amendments if members raise the issue at upcoming club meetings.
Of the seven incumbent Council members on the ballot in November, political observers say Brown could become the only one in jeopardy of losing his seat, although most political insiders say they expect him to win unless more damaging revelations surface.
Brown is running in a contest in which two at-large Council seats are at play, with one of them earmarked only for a non-majority party candidate. With Democrats being the majority party in the city, the seat Brown holds and is seeking to retake must go to a non-Democrat.
Council member Vincent Orange (D-At-Large), the incumbent in the so-called “Democratic” seat, is considered the favorite to win re-election in November. Orange, a former Ward 5 Council member, came out against same-sex marriage in past years but has since said he changed his mind and fully supports the city’s same-sex marriage law.
Grosso worked on the staff of pro-LGBT former Council member Sharon Ambrose (D-Ward 6) and is a former staffer to Norton. He has expressed support for LGBT issues during his campaign for Council this year.
Others running for one of the two at-large seats are Republican Mary Brooks Beatty, who has been endorsed by D.C. Log Cabin Republicans; and Statehood Green Party candidate Ann Wilcox, an attorney who has represented gay activist and former Army Lt. Dan Choi after Choi was arrested in one of his White House protests against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Independent candidates A.J. Cooper and Leon Swain Jr. are also running for the at-large seat. Under the city’s election law all seven candidates compete on the same ballot and the highest two vote getters will be declared the winner.
Transgender activist Jeri Hughes appeared to reflect the views of many in the LGBT community in expressing her support for Brown on grounds that his commitment to equal rights for LGBT people and his “good work on the Council” far outweigh any of the media reports about his campaign problem or driving record.
“I’m going to support the people who support us,” Hughes said. “Michael Brown supports us. I have no problem with him.”
In other Council races, acting Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large) is considered the strong favorite to win election as permanent Council chair in a Nov. 6 special election to fill the unexpired term of Council Chair Kwame Brown (D-At-Large), who resigned earlier this year after being indicted on corruption related charges.
Mendelson is being challenged by Democrat Calvin Gurley, who expressed mixed views on LGBT issues during a bid for a Council seat two years ago.
Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), another longtime supporter of LGBT rights, is running unopposed as is Council member Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4), another strong supporter of LGBT equality.
Former D.C. Mayor and Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) and Council member Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7) – both considered strong supporters of the LGBT community in past years – lost support from many of their LGBT allies in 2009 when the two voted against the same-sex marriage law.
The law passed by a vote of 11 to 2, with Barry and Alexander emerging as the only ones to vote no. Both said their constituents were strongly opposed to same-sex marriage. Both also told LGBT activists they remain strong supporters of LGBT equality on nearly all other issues. At an endorsement meeting for the Stein Club earlier this year, Barry pointed out that he was among the nation’s strongest politicians backing gay rights during his years as D.C. mayor in the 1980s and 1990s.
Although the Stein Club had endorsed Barry and Alexander four years ago, Stein members chose not to endorse the two Council members this year. Most political observers, however, consider Barry and Alexander the odds on favorites to win re-election.
The two are being challenged by the two co-founders of Peaceoholics, a city anti-gang youth organization that has received millions of dollars in city funding. Co-founder Ron Moten is running as a Republican against Alexander. The other co-founder, Jauhar Abraham, is running as an independent against Barry. Mouten has pointed out that Peaceoholics has provided support services to LGBT youths affiliated with Checkit, a group with mostly gay and transgender members.
In the race for the city’s so-called “shadow”seat for the U.S. House of Representatives, the Stein Club has endorsed Democrat Nate Bennett-Fleming, who has expressed strong support for LGBT issues. He is being challenged by Statehood Green Party candidate G. Lee Aikin.
In the contest for the shadow U.S. Senate seat, D.C. Log Cabin-endorsed Nelson Rimensnyder is running as a Republican against Democratic incumbent Michael D. Brown, who is unrelated to Council member Michael A. Brown. Statehood Green Party candidate David Schwartzman is also competing for the seat. The city created the shadow congressional seats as unpaid advocacy positions to push for D.C. statehood and D.C. congressional voting rights. The positions have no voting rights or other privileges in Congress.
At least 20 out gays, and possibly far more, are running for seats to the city’s Advisory Neighborhood Commissions, which were created as citizen advisory bodies to assist D.C. agencies on neighborhood issues such as trash collection, crime, and liquor licenses for bars and restaurants. There are 296 total seats.
The Washington Blade will provide a full report of the LGBT ANC candidates as they become fully identified in the next few weeks.
West Virginia
Appeals court strikes down W.Va. transgender athlete ban
Ruling finds law violates students’ constitutional rights, Title IX
BY LORI KERSEY | The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down West Virginia’s ban on transgender athletes, finding the law violates trans students’ rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the constitution and Title IX, a federal civil rights law prohibiting discrimination based on sex in education programs.
The case, B.P.J. vs. the West Virginia Board of Education, was filed in May 2021 on behalf of Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 13-year-old trans middle school student and track athlete who would be barred from participating if the ban is upheld. Pepper-Jackson is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia and Lambda Legal.
In April 2021, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice signed into law a bill prohibiting trans women and girls in the state from participating in sports that align with their gender identity. The U.S. Court of Appeals in February 2023 blocked the state from removing Pepper-Jackson from her school’s track and field team as legal advocates appealed a lower court’s ruling upholding the ban.
In Tuesday’s ruling, Judge Toby Heytens wrote that offering Pepper-Jackson the “choice” between not participating in sports and participating only on boys teams is not a real choice.
“The defendants cannot expect that B.P.J. will countermand her social transition, her medical treatment, and all the work she has done with her schools, teachers and coaches for nearly half her life by introducing herself to teammates, coaches and even opponents as a boy,” the judge wrote.
“By participating on boys teams, B.P.J. would be sharing the field with boys who are larger, stronger, and faster than her because of the elevated levels of circulating testosterone she lacks,” he wrote. “The Act thus exposes B.P.J. to the very harms Title IX is meant to prevent by effectively ‘exclud[ing]’ her from ‘participation in’ all non-coed sports entirely.”
In a statement Tuesday, Joshua Block, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Project, called the court’s ruling “a tremendous victory for our client, transgender West Virginians and the freedom of all youth to play as who they are.”
“It also continues a string of federal courts ruling against bans on the participation of transgender athletes and in favor of their equal participation as the gender they know themselves to be,” Block wrote. “This case is fundamentally about the equality of transgender youth in our schools and our communities and we’re thankful the 4th Circuit agreed.”
“We hope today’s ruling sends a message of hope to the trans youth of West Virginia,” Aubrey Sparks, legal director of the ACLU of West Virginia, said in the statement. “And a message of warning to politicians who continue to dehumanize this vulnerable population.”
West Virginia is one of 21 states that have banned trans student-athletes over the last three years, according to the ACLU.
In a statement Tuesday, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey vowed to defend the ban and said he is “deeply disappointed” in the decision.
“The Save Women’s Sports Act is ‘constitutionally permissible’ and the law complies with Title IX,” Morrisey said. “I will keep fighting to safeguard Title IX. We must keep working to protect women’s sports so that women’s safety is secured and girls have a truly fair playing field. We know the law is correct and will use every available tool to defend it.”
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Lori Kersey is a reporter with a decade of experience reporting in West Virginia. She covers state government for West Virginia Watch.
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The preceding article was previously published by the West Virginia Watch and is republished with permission.
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West Virginia Watch is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
District of Columbia
Reenactment of first gay rights picket at White House set for April 17
Event marks 59th anniversary of historic push for gay rights in nation’s capital
D.C.’s Rainbow History Project announced it will hold a reenactment on Wednesday, April 17, of the historic first protest for gay rights in the form of a picket line in front of the White House that took place on that same day in 1965.
In a statement released last week, Rainbow History Project says the reenactment will mark the 59th anniversary of an event that is credited with bringing attention for the first time to the federal government’s longstanding discrimination against a minority group referred to then as homosexuals or gays and lesbians.
The statement notes that the 1965 event was organized by the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., the first politically active LGBT organization in the nation’s capital founded by local gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny.
“The picket took place on the White House sidewalk, Lafayette Park, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., on April 17, 1965,” the statement says. “For exactly one hour, from 4:20 p.m. to 5:20 p.m., members of the Mattachine Society of Washington walked in a circle, non-stop, in silence, carrying posters of their demands,” the statement continues.
“The White House picket is the origin story for public demonstrations for gay rights in the U.S., and the origin story for Pride Marches and the annual LGBTQ Pride celebrations which occur across the globe,” according to the statement.
It says those picketing in the April 1965 event, which included Kameny and longtime local D.C.-area lesbian activist Lilli Vincenz, both of whom held doctorate degrees, called on the government to adopt the Mattachine Society of Washington’s four major demands: an end to the exclusion of homosexuals from federal government employment; an end to the ban on gays and lesbians from serving in the U.S. military; an end to the “blanket denial” of security clearances for gay people; and an end to the “government refusal to meet with the LGBTQ community.’
Among those who chose not to respond to the request for a meeting was President Lyndon B. Johnson, who occupied the White House at the time of the 1965 picketing.
Vincent Slatt, the Rainbow History Project’s director of archiving and one of the lead organizers of the April 17 reenactment event, said the event is aimed, among other things, at drawing attention to how far the LGBTQ community has come since 1965. He said the event is not in any way a protest of the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who Slatt called staunch supporters of the LGBTQ community.
“We are just reenacting this historical event and pointing out how far we’ve come,” Slatt told the Washington Blade. “If you think about what it means in 1965 when these people were protesting and LBJ would not even respond to them. And now, we are at a place where Vice President Harris speaks on a stage at Capital Pride.”
The Rainbow History Project statement notes that the reenactment event will also be held in honor of Kameny, who died in 2011, and Vincenz, who passed away in 2023, both of whom participated in a similar reenactment event in 2008.
Among those who will be participating in this week’s reenactment on April 17 will be longtime local LGBTQ rights activist Paul Kuntzler, who is the only known surviving person who was among the White House picketers at the April 1965 event. Kuntzler will be carrying a replica of his own picket sign he held at the 1965 event, the statement says.
It says Rainbow History Project volunteers will also carry replicas of the original protest signs and hand out literature explaining the picket to passersby and tourists.
Similar to the 1965 event, the reenactment picketing at the White House will begin on April 17 at about 4:15 p.m., according to Slatt of the Rainbow History Project.
District of Columbia
Four LGBTQ candidates running for delegate to Democratic National Convention from D.C.
Thirty-two candidates competing for 13 elected delegate positions in April 20 party caucus
Four LGBTQ Democratic Party activists are running for election as delegates from D.C. to the Democratic National Convention at an April 20 local Democratic Party caucus election in which all D.C. voters who are registered as Democrats will be eligible to vote.
The four LGBTQ candidates are among 32 candidates competing for just 13 elected delegate positions. D.C. will have a total of 51 delegates to the Democratic Convention, but the other 38 include elected officials and party leaders who are considered “automatic” or appointed delegates. The convention will be held in Chicago Aug. 19-23,
Under the delegate selection process put in place by the D.C. Democratic Party, six of the thirteen elected delegate positions will be elected by voters in a section of the city designated as District 1, which includes Wards 1,2, 6, and 8. The other seven elected delegates will be chosen by voters in District 2, which includes Wards 3, 4, 5, and 7.
The LGBTQ candidates include longtime gay Democratic activists David Meadows of Ward 6 and John Fanning of Ward 2 who are running in District 1. Transgender rights advocate and Democratic Party activist Monika Nemeth of Ward 3 and gay Democratic activist Jimmie Williams of Ward 7 are running in District 2.
All four of the LGBTQ candidates have been active members of the Capital Stonewall Democrats, one of D.C.’s largest LGBTQ political organizations. Nemeth and Meadows are past presidents of the organization. Williams has served as chair of the Ward 7 Democratic Committee and is a current member of the committee. Fanning has served as an elected member of the D.C. Democratic State Committee from Ward 2 and served as a delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
A total of 12 candidates are running in each of the two districts. Under party rules the highest six vote getters in District 1 and the highest 7 vote getters in District 2 will be declared the winners.
The Saturday, April 20 caucus election for the delegate candidates will take place at the Walter E. Washington D.C. Convention Center. An announcement by party officials says two voting sessions will take place, one from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and the other from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Aside from the elected delegates, two prominent D.C. LGBTQ Democratic leaders will be appointed as delegates to the 2024 Democratic National Convention in their role as members of the Democratic National Committee from D.C.
They are Claire Lucas, a highly acclaimed Democratic Party and LGBTQ rights advocate and party fundraiser; and Earl Fowlkes, one of the lead organizers of D.C.’s annual Black LGBTQ Pride celebration and former president of Capital Stonewall Democrats.
Lucas and Fowlkes and the four LGBTQ candidates running in the April 20 caucus election are committed to backing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee for re-election.
Statements from each of the candidates running for delegate in the April 20 caucus election, including the four LGBTQ candidates, can be accessed here: Candidates for Delegate | DC Democratic Party
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