Arts & Entertainment

Best of Gay D.C. XIII: Lifetime Achievement Award

The Washington Blade honors D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray

Published

10 years ago

October 23, 2014

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

To see the winners of the Washington Blade’s Best of Gay D.C. readers poll in other categories, click here.

Vince Gray, Vincent Gray, Mayor of the District of Columbia, Washington Blade, gay news, Marylanders for Marriage Equality

D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The LGBT community was divided in the city’s hotly contested Democratic primary in April when Council member Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) finished ahead of Mayor Vincent Gray to capture the Democratic Party nomination for mayor for the Nov. 4 general election.

But virtually all of the city’s prominent LGBT activists agree — regardless of whom they supported in the primary — Mayor Gray’s record and accomplishments on LGBT issues in his more than three-and-a-half years in office are unprecedented and even historic in their breadth and scope.

“For those of us working in the trenches, it is all too easy to focus on the latest flap and forget that Vince is, by the evidence, the best mayor on LGBT issues our city has ever had,” said Rick Rosendall, president of the non-partisan Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance.

Rosendall made that comment when he presented Gray with GLAA’s Distinguished Service Award on April 30.

Gray’s LGBT-related initiatives and actions as mayor are so numerous that his supporters lamented during the primary campaign that people were having a hard time keeping track of them. Among the highlights:

• He directed his Office of GLBT Affairs to embark on a first-of-its-kind LGBT cultural competency or “sensitivity” training program that called for every D.C. government employee to undergo such training to better familiarize them with LGBT-related issues that could surface in their city agency.

• He made numerous appointments of LGBT people to important city government jobs and commissions, including the appointment of transgender advocates Earline Budd and Alexandra Beninda to the D.C. Commission on Human Rights.

• In response to concerns raised by transgender rights advocates, Gray directed the city’s Department of Employment Services to launch another first — a transgender employment initiative called Project Empowerment that reaches out to transgender residents in need of job training and related skills.

• The Office of Human Rights, in keeping with Gray’s interest in addressing discrimination faced by the transgender community, put in place a public relations and advertising campaign to promote respect and understanding for trans residents. It’s called the Transgender and Gender Identity Respect Campaign.

• In yet another first for the city, Gray directed the city’s Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking to require that health insurance companies doing business in the city, including companies providing health coverage for D.C. government employees, cover medical treatment such as hormone therapy for transgender people transitioning from one gender to the other.

• Gray also initiated an LGBTQ Youth Task Force and Bullying Prevention Task Force aimed, among other things, at curtailing bullying targeting LGBT youth. He convened and presided over the first city government sponsored LGBTQ Youth Summit.

• He became the first D.C. mayor to perform a City Hall wedding ceremony for a gay male couple shortly after legislation approved by the City Council giving the mayor and Council members authority to perform marriages took effect.

• In an action that angered some of the city’s conservative clergy, Gray disinvited controversial gospel singer Donnie McClurkin as a performer in a city-sponsored concert in August 2013 at the Martin Luther King Memorial. McClurkin, an outspoken “ex-gay,” has denounced homosexuality as a sin and a sickness. Gray said he was unaware that the city’s Commission on the Arts and Humanities had invited McClurkin to perform and directed the commission to cancel the invitation.

Prior to becoming mayor, Gray was an outspoken supporter of the city’s marriage equality law in his role as City Council Chair when the law came before Council for a vote.

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Best of Gay D.C. XIII: Community

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Best of Gay D.C. XIII: Nightlife

FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM

Nightlife

Ed Bailey brings Secret Garden to Project GLOW festival

An LGBTQ-inclusive dance space at RFK this weekend

Published

2 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Evan Caplan

Ed Bailey's set at last year's Project Glow. (Photo courtesy Bailey)

When does a garden GLOW? When it’s run by famed local gay DJ Ed Bailey.

This weekend, music festival Project GLOW at RFK Festival Grounds will feature Bailey’s brainchild the Secret Garden, a unique space just for the LGBTQ community that he launched in 2023.

While Project GLOW, running April 27-28, is a stage for massive electronic DJ sets in a large outdoor space, Secret Garden is more intimate, though no less adrenaline-forward. He’s bringing the nightclub to the festival. The garden is a dance area that complements the larger stages, but also stands on its own as a draw for festival-goers. Its focus is on DJs that have a presence and following in the LGBTQ audience world.

“The Secret Garden is a showcase for what LGBTQ nightlife, and nightclubs in general, are all about,” he says. “True club DJs playing club music for people that want to dance in a fun environment that is high energy and low stress. It’s the cool party inside the bigger party.”

Project GLOW launched in 2022. Bailey connected with the operators after the first event, and they discussed Bailey curating his own space for 2023. “They were very clear that they wanted me to lean into the vibrant LGBTQ nightlife of D.C. and allow that community to be very visibly a part of this area.”

Last year, club icon Kevin Aviance headlined the Secret Garden. The GLOW festival organizers loved the its energy from last year, and so asked Bailey to bring it back again, with an entire year to plan.

This year, Bailey says, he is “bringing in more D.C. nightlife legends.” Among those are DJ Sedrick, “a DJ and entertainer legend. He was a pivotal part of Tracks nightclub and is such a dynamic force of entertainment,” says Bailey. “I am excited for a whole new audience to be able to experience his very special brand of DJing!”

Also, this year brings in Illustrious Blacks, a worldwide DJ duo with roots in D.C.; and “house music legends” DJs Derrick Carter and DJ Spen.

Bailey is focusing on D.C.’s local talent, with a lineup including Diyanna Monet, Strikestone!, Dvonne, Baronhawk Poitier, THABLACKGOD, Get Face, Franxx, Baby Weight, and Flower Factory DJs KS, Joann Fabrixx, and PWRPUFF.

Secret Garden also brings in performers who meld music with dance, theater, and audience interactions for a multi-sensory experience.

Bailey is an owner of Trade and Number Nine, and was previously an owner of Town Danceboutique. Over the last 35 years, Bailey owned and operated more than 10 bars and clubs in D.C. He has an impressive resume, too. Since starting in 1987, he’s DJ’d across the world for parties and nightclubs large and intimate. He says that he opened “in concert for Kylie Minogue, DJed with Junior Vasquez, played giant 10,000-person events, and small underground parties.” He’s also held residencies at clubs in Atlanta, Miami, and here in D.C. at Tracks, Nation, and Town.

With Secret Garden, Bailey and GLOW aim to bring queer performers into the space not just for LGBTQ audiences, but for the entire music community to meet, learn about, and enjoy. While they might enjoy fandom among queer nightlife, this Garden is a platform for them to meet the entirety of GLOW festival goers.

Weekend-long Project GLOW brings in headliners and artists from EDM and electronic music, with big names like ILLENIUM, Zedd, and Rezz. In all, more than 50 artists will take the three stages at the third edition of Project GLOW, presented by Insomniac (Electric Daisy Carnival) and Club Glow (Echostage, Soundcheck).

Out & About

Washington Improv Theatre hosts ‘The Queeries’

Event to celebrate queer DMV talent and pop culture camp

Published

3 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Tinashe Chingarande

The Washington Improv Theatre, along with the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington DC, will team up to host “The Queeries!” on Friday, April 26 at 9:30 p.m. at Studio Theatre.

The event will celebrate Queer DMV talent and pop culture camp. With a mixture of audience-submitted nominations and blatantly undemocratically declared winners, “The Queeries!” mimics LGBTQ life itself: unfair, but far more fun than the alternative.

The event will be co-hosted by Birdie and Butchie, who have invited some of their favorite bent winos, D.C. “D-listers,” former Senate staffers, and other stars to sashay down the lavender carpet for the selfie-strewn party of the year.

Tickets are just $15 and can be purchased on WITV’s website.