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Getting our stories told
PR expert Cathy Renna among business chamber honorees
Cathy McElrath Renna, founder of Renna Communications, an LGBT media strategy firm, says she laughed when told she was this year’s recipient of the Business Leadership Award from the Capital Area Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.
“I just laughed, because I would have never imagined my activism as a business,” she says.
Renna will receive her award tonight at CAGLCC’s 20th anniversary awards dinner.
Longtime New Yorker and current Mount Pleasant resident Renna is quick to share credit for the success of Renna Communications with her wife.
“I wouldn’t have this business if it weren’t for my wife,” she says. “Don’t ask me to even balance a checkbook,” she added, pointing out that her wife Leah McElrath Renna has experience as a financial planner and “I trust her more than anyone in the world.”
The firm was founded in March 2006, when their daughter Rosemary — now 4 — was just 6 months old. “On Friday I’m not going to step from that podium until Leah joins me on the platform,” Renna said, “because she so deserves to do so.”
They’re not legally married yet. “But we’re working on it … we’ve just been too busy working on D.C. marriage equality.”
Helping to spearhead the media coalition work of the D.C. Campaign for All Families, D.C. for Marriage and D.C. Clergy for Marriage Equality has ironically been getting in the way of planning their own wedding. But the couple made time to take Rosemary to the White House Easter Egg Roll this week. Renna Communications got a big boost from the White House Easter Egg Roll event in April 2006 — just a month after the firm opened.
“It was the first big thing the firm did,” she says. “In 2006 there were about 150 LGBT families, about 400 people. We understood it was not a political issue, but for us I like to say that just like breathing, our existence is political.
“So we wore rainbow leis, so festive and appropriate, and lots of straight families had them on also, they knew who we were, and they were supportive. In some ways it was a political statement,” she concedes, “to highlight that families can come in all shapes and sizes, and we’ve gone every year since.”
She calls that kind of direct messaging “the goal of the work we do as a firm — and the tagline for our firm is ‘we’ll get your story told.'” She says the LGBT community has come of age in the last 20 years.
“We are no longer abstract — we exist. … Change won’t come until people understand the stories behind that need for marriage equality or for employment rights. We’re doing a better job now, but we still have a long way to go, but we’re getting there because now we’re a whole lot smarter.”
Also being honored at the awards dinner on April 9 are:
• David von Storch, owner of Capitol City Brewing Company and Vida Fitness among other businesses, for Excellence in Business;
• Jonathan Blumenthal, co-founder and president of Burgundy Crescent Volunteers, as Volunteer of the Year;
• Thomas Sanchez, principal of Wamwaw LCC, a web development and strategy firm, as Emerging Entrepreneur;
• Bob Summersgill, longtime LGBT activist instrumental in passing the marriage equality law in D.C., for Community Advocacy;
• and Wachovia, a Wells Fargo Company, as Corporate Partner of the Year.
The awards dinner is at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, 1330 Maryland Ave., S.W. It begins with a silent auction and networking at 6:30 p.m. Individual tickets are $180 for CAGLCC members and $195 for nonmembers.
Baltimore
The fight to save one of Baltimore’s last gay bars
Leon’s closed in July after its owner’s death
By JULIE SCHARPER and WESLEY CASE | Soon after Jim Becker came out as gay in 1967, he ducked into a Mount Vernon bar called Leon’s.
In the dark, smoky bar, men used pseudonyms for fear of being outed, as homosexual acts were illegal in Maryland. Bartenders, wary of vice squad raids, would blow a whistle if couples leaned in for a kiss.
But to Becker, arriving at Leon’s was a kind of homecoming. He could explore his identity, connect with other gay men and build community in the anxious years before the 1969 Stonewall uprising, a pivotal moment in the LGBTQ rights movement.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
District of Columbia
Gay-owned pizzeria in Dupont Circle burglarized
Protest Pizza owners say community has expressed support
Gay activist Randy Downs said he and his business and life partner Ricky Bennett are grateful for the support they have received from the Dupont Circle community after they released a video showing a suspect breaking into their recently opened pizza shop and taking money from a cash register shortly before 3 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 21.
The surveillance video shows a man wearing black clothing with his face covered, smashing the glass front door of Protest Pizza, located at 1633 ½ P St., N.W. The video, which Downs and Bennett provided to D.C. police, also shows the suspect climbing over the bar to get to a cash register, which he opened to take out cash.
A D.C. police report obtained by the Washington Blade lists the incident as a Burglary in the Second Degree and says the owners reported “approximately $78 in cash” was taken from the cash register. The report says the incident is not listed as a suspected hate crime.
Downs told the Washington Blade that after he and Bennett reported the break-in and theft on social media, they received an overwhelming showing of support from neighbors and others, including business owners, from across the nation.
“The break-in was upsetting, but it is not what will define Protest Pizza,” Downs said. “What defines us is how quickly people showed up,” he told the Blade. “One person came looking for a cash register; our community saw a gathering place worth protecting. The response reminded us that Protest’s real value was never in the register.”
Downs said he and Bennett, who live around the corner on the section of 17th Street, N.W., near several other bars and restaurants, including the gay bar JRs are located, opened Protest Pizza in November 2025.
“Ricky and I built Protest Pizza as a positive, welcoming, queer owned neighborhood restaurant and bar — a space for protest and joy,” he said.
A D.C. police spokesperson said police offer a reward of up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction of a suspect responsible for the type of burglary and theft that occurred at Protest Pizza. Police say anyone with information to help solve this type of crime should call the police tipline at 202-727-9099.
District of Columbia
Advocates honored at Engendered Spirit Awards
Annual ceremony held at conclusion of Trans Pride DC
The 2026 SaVanna Wanzer Engendered Spirit Awards ceremony took place at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library in D.C. on Saturday. The ceremony was held at the conclusion of the day-long Trans Pride DC: Encore.
Honorees included D.C. Mayor’s Office of Community Affairs Deputy Director Vida Rangel; the LGBT+ Counseling Collaborative, Inc.; and Connor Keuntje, CLP, CLPC.
Trans Pride DC: Encore was held throughout Saturday with several workshop sessions and a virtual conversation with actress and advocate Dominique Jackson.
The annual Engendered Spirit Awards were renamed the “SaVanna Wanzer Engendered Spirit Awards” in honor of SaVanna Wanzer, founder of D.C. Trans Pride. Wanzer died on April 24 of this year.
Speakers at the ceremony included Japer Bowles, director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and Bianca Sprague, executive director of D.C. Trans Pride.
“The intent behind this award and honoring members of our communities, organizations, and allies, is to really elevate all of the work that they’re doing to provide resources, tools, learning opportunities and connections: centering trans folks, gender non-conforming, and gender diverse individuals,” Sprague said.
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