Local
D.C. officer accused of anti-trans assault
Police chief says incident under investigation
D.C. police last week arrested a transgender woman for spraying a chemical repellent into the face of a man who she says called her names and assaulted her before identifying himself as an off-duty District police officer.
Chloe Alexander Moore, 25, was charged with simple assault following a 2 a.m. incident on Dec. 1 along the 1500 block of K St., N.W. According to court records, Officer Raphael Radon alleges that Moore squirted him with pepper spray in an unprovoked action following a brief exchange of words.
But two police sources said a sergeant and detective who responded to the scene determined through interviews with witnesses that Officer Radon initiated the altercation and may have committed a bias-related assault against Moore.
The police sources, who spoke on condition that they were not identified, said a night supervisor apprised of the incident by phone while at her office at the First District D.C. Police station overrode the recommendations of the sergeant and detective and ordered that Moore be charged with simple assault.
Officer Radon was not charged in the incident.
A police report filed in court identifies the supervisor as Capt. Michelle Williams, who was acting as the First District watch commander. The police sources said Williams gave the order to charge Moore in the case while speaking to officers on the scene by phone.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said this week that the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau was investigating the incident.
“Both the officer and the arrestee received medical treatment in relation to the occurrence,” Lanier told the Blade in an e-mail. “Additionally, this matter was properly reported as per our protocols and is already under investigation. Rest assured we will also address these allegations in our investigation.”
Moore, whose legal name is Alexander Moore, was taken to the First District at 101 M St., S.W., for booking and later to George Washington University Hospital before being transferred to the police Central Cellblock at 300 Indiana Ave., N.W., where she remained until being taken to court.
Court records show she pleaded not guilty before a D.C. Superior Court magistrate and was released on her own recognizance. She was scheduled to return to court on Dec. 13 for a status hearing.
Moore told the Blade the incident began when she and a female transgender friend were walking along the 1500 block of K St., N.W., and crossed paths with the man later identified as Officer Radon. Moore said Radon was with two friends, a man and a woman.
“We didn’t have a lighter and we see a gentleman who had a cigarette lit,” Moore said. “My friend goes and asks for a light and he said, ‘Hey ladies, how you doing?’ And we said we’re doing fine.”
According to Moore, as Radon got closer to the two he realized they were transgender.
“He was like, ‘I’m not going to give you a light because you’re a man,’” said Moore, who added that Radon suddenly became hostile and began making disparaging comments about her appearance, especially the dress she was wearing.
“He said he could see my dick and my balls. And he was very hostile and angry and I was afraid of what he would do and then he pushed me,” Moore said. “Not knowing if he was going to really hurt me I got real scared and in self-defense I pepper sprayed him.”
Moore said she immediately ran from the scene, with Radon chasing after her for nearly two blocks.
“He grabbed the back of my neck and he throws me on the ground,” Moore said. “My midsection was on the curb and he puts his knee in my back real hard, and it caused a lot of pain.”
It was at that time, according to Moore, that Radon pulled out his badge and identified himself to her as a police officer. Within seconds, she said, uniformed, on-duty police officers appeared on the scene. Minutes later she said she was placed in handcuffs and a short time later placed inside a police car.
“We stayed out there about three hours after it occurred, waiting to see what was going to happen,” said Moore. “The police were talking among themselves and trying to make up their minds what they were going to do.”
She said the officers initially ignored her request that they call an ambulance to examine her because she was in pain from being knocked down by Radon.
Eventually an ambulance arrived, but she observed Radon getting inside and being taken away.
“He was saying his eyes were burning,” she said.
A police report filed in court says the incident began about 2:05 a.m. and that Moore was placed under arrest at 4:26 a.m.
“At approximately 0426 the undersigned officer was ordered to place D1 [Defendant 1] under arrest for simple assault,” says the report prepared by an officer identified only as B. Dass.
“The order was given by the 1D Watch Commander (Capt. Williams) through Lt. Dykes. “Then D1 was transported to 1D for further processing,” the report says.
The report gives Officer Radon’s account of what happened, saying he told an officer responding to the scene that he was approached by “two transgenders who engaged him and [Witness 1] and [Witness 2] in conversation.”
According to the report, Radon said the two transgender women asked him for a cigarette light and then asked him where he was going.
“It’s unclear which witness pointed across the street to a club,” the report says. “[Moore] then stated, ‘We have everything better than where you’re going for $10,” the report said Radon told officers at the scene.
“Officer Radon then told [Moore], ‘No thank you, I am not into guys.” “And told [Moore] ‘You don’t know who you’re talking to,’” the report says. “[Moore] then pulled out a can of pepper spray and sprayed Officer Radon in the face. Officer Radon then pulled out his MPDC credentials at which time [Moore] ran [eastbound] on K Street,” the report says.
“Officer Radon gave foot pursuit and then an apprehension was made in the 1400 block of K Street. Both Witness 1 and Witness 2 collaborated [Radon’s] statements,” the report says.
But the report says two other witnesses backed up Moore’s version of what happened. One of the two apparently is the transgender woman who was with Moore. The report, which does not identify any of the witnesses by name, suggests that Witness 3 may have been standing nearby and was not with any of the others involved in the incident.
“Witness 3 recounted the same story as D1 [Defendant 1—Moore],” the police report says.
Local attorney Dale Edwin Saunders, who practices criminal law in the District, described as “highly unusual” the decision by police and the United States Attorney’s office to charge Moore in the case.
“This person would have never been arrested or papered if the complaining witness had been a civilian,” Saunders said. “The defendant had two witnesses corroborating her version of the events.”
The U.S. Attorney’s office, which prosecutes most criminal cases in D.C., could not comment because it’s a pending case, according to spokesperson William Miller.
Moore, who said she’s unemployed, acknowledged that she had been arrested on an unrelated solicitation for prostitution charge on Nov. 20 along the 300 block of K St., N.W., in an area known to be frequented by transgender prostitutes. She called the arrest unjustified and said she is challenging it in court.
She said she’s also planning to file a police abuse complaint against Officer Radon and was in the process of seeking assistance from Transgender Health Empowerment, a transgender advocacy group.
Transgender activist Jeri Hughes, who is on the T.H.E. staff, said transgender women who can’t find work, often due to anti-transgender bias, sometimes turn to prostitution “to survive.” Hughes said the facts surrounding Moore’s interaction with Officer Radon strongly suggest her arrest was a “miscarriage of justice” and called on police to thoroughly investigate the incident.
Radon could not be immediately reached for comment.
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.
District of Columbia
As mayor’s race takes shape, candidates endorse LGBTQ equality
Like nearly all recent D.C. elections, LGBTQ voters will be choosing a candidate for mayor in 2026 from a list of mostly strong LGBTQ rights supporters in the city’s June 16 primary.
As of March 30, the D.C. Board of Elections’ list of candidates who submitted the required number of petition signatures for the June 16 primary ballot included 10 mayoral candidates: nine Democrats and one Statehood Green Party candidate.
Among those candidates, six, all Democrats, have issued statements expressing strong support for LGBTQ rights, including the two leading Democratic contenders, former D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie and current Council member Janeese Lewis George, who represents Ward 4.
One of the lesser-known Democratic candidates who released an LGBTQ supportive statement, Rini Sampath, a cyber security consultant, told the Washington Blade she identifies as queer, becoming one of the first known LGBTQ D.C. mayoral candidates to gain access to a major party primary ballot.
“We’re living in an extremely diverse community, an extremely unique community,” she told the Blade. “And being able to self-label, self-identify as queer is something that I just want to take pride in.”
Similar to McDuffie and Lewis George, Sampath released statements to the Blade and the Capital Stonewall Democrats, the city’s largest LGBTQ local political group, expressing support for LGBTQ rights and outlining plans for LGBTQ supportive policies if elected mayor.
Although many D.C. LGBTQ activists have said they have yet to decide whom to support for mayor, those who have decided appear to be divided between McDuffie and Lewis George. Most D.C. political observers consider McDuffie and Lewis George to be the two leading candidates in the mayoral race.
The other Democratic mayoral contenders who have released statements expressing support on LGBTQ issues include Gary Goodweather, a local real estate manager and developer who has been actively campaigning at LGBTQ events; Vincent Orange, a former At-Large and Ward 5 D.C. Council member; and Kathy Henderson, a longtime Ward 5 community activist and elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner.
The remaining two Democratic mayoral candidates, Hope Solomon, a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security contractor and Dupont Circle civic activist; and Ernest Johnson, a real estate broker and Ward 1 community activist, did not respond to inquiries from the Blade and Capital Stonewall Democrats seeking information about their position on LGBTQ related issues.
Robert Gross, the Statehood Green Party candidate who is running unopposed in the June 16 primary, also didn’t respond to inquires from the Blade about his position on LGBTQ issues.
D.C. Board of Elections records show that at least five Republican candidates filed papers to run for mayor in the June 16 GOP primary, but none of them remained as candidates as of March 30, when the election board issued its updated candidate list.
Just one of the five Republican candidates replied to an email message from the Washington Blade sent to all mayoral candidates in early March seeking their position on LGBTQ issues. That candidate, Esa Muhammad, whose website identifies him as an engineer, consultant, and local business owner, sent a reply expressing opposition to LGBTQ rights.
“Unfortunately, I do not support LGBTQ because The God only created 2 genders (Adam/Eve),” he wrote. “Anyway, I will be fair to you all despite your sick way of looking at life,” he stated.
Capital Stonewall Democrats President Stevie McCarty said his group sent questionnaires to all the Democratic mayoral candidates as well as to Democrats running for other offices such as D.C. Council. Information posted on the group’s website shows only four of the mayoral candidates returned a complete questionnaire: McDuffie, Lewis George, Goodweather, and Sampath.
Each of them provides detailed information of their plans for supporting LGBTQ policies if elected and their record of support on LGBTQ issues. McCarty said the questionnaire responses for all candidates that submitted them can be accessed at outvotedc.org.
He said Capital Stonewall Democrats will hold virtual LGBTQ forums in April, including a mayoral forum on April 8. He said the group’s members will vote on the candidate endorsements online from April 20 through May 11, and the group expects to announce its endorsements May 14.
GLAA DC, formerly known as the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, has issued candidate ratings for most D.C. elections since the 1970s, and the nonpartisan LGBTQ group was expected to issue ratings for mayoral candidates this year. But like in recent years, the group is expected to base its ratings on mostly non-LGBTQ issues, with a progressive, left-leaning perspective, according to a nine-page “Back to Basics GLAA Policy Brief 2026” that the group released in March.
The LGBTQ activists who are backing McDuffie or Lewis George appear to be gravitating to the two based on their political leanings separate from LGBTQ issues, just like voters in general. Lewis George, who identifies as a democratic socialist, is popular among LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ “progressives.”
McDuffie, who is seen as a more moderate candidate along the lines of current D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, is being supported by LGBTQ activists who hold those views, some of whom currently work in the Bowser administration.
Among Lewis George’s LGBTQ supporters are longtime Ward 8 community leader Philip Pannell and former Capital Stonewall Democrats president Howard Garrett. Among the LGBTQ McDuffie backers are longtime D.C. Democratic activists John Fanning and David Meadows.
Longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic Party activist Peter Rosenstein, who is supporting McDuffie, has raised concerns about Lewis George’s backing by the national group Democratic Socialists of America. In Facebook postings, Rosenstein points to the Democratic Socialists of America’s opposition to Israel as a country and said it is viewed by many in the Jewish community as promoting antisemitism. He has criticized Lewis George for not speaking out against that and for accepting the DSA’s endorsement.
In an interview with the Blade, Lewis George strongly disputed that assessment, saying she has been a strong ally and supporter of the Jewish community.
“I’m a member of the Metro DSA here in D.C. that I work with to fight for labor and for tenant rights,” she said. “I’m also a member of the Democratic Party,” she added, saying, “There are things that the Democratic Party does that I don’t agree with. There are things that the national DSA does that I don’t agree with. That’s a group that I work with.”
“But I want to be clear that I am running for mayor to represent all of our community, and that includes our amazing and historical Jewish community here in D.C.,” she said. “I have had the amazing opportunity to spend time at synagogues and talking to Jewish leaders and groups and institutions. And so, there should be no worry here.”
Following are short excerpts from the detailed statements five of the nine Democratic mayoral candidates submitted to the Capital Stonewall Democrats or the Washington Blade.
Kenyan McDuffie: “As mayor, every piece of legislation I sign, craft, or endorse should also encompass the interest and input of the LGBTQ community members and advocates…From housing to health care and everything in between… We have a dire crisis regarding the rise in homelessness especially among the youth in our LGBTQ communities. In my administration that simply cannot be the status quo and will not be…I have been a consistent champion for our LGBTQ community and will remain so as Mayor of D.C.’
Janeese Lewis George: “As mayor, I will protect our LGBTQ+ neighbors against federal attacks on their identity, including their health care…On the Council I have been a strong supporter of pro-LGBTQ+ bills, including making D.C. a sanctuary for people seeking gender-affirming health care as well as addressing discrimination and harassment in nightlife and hospitality…And as mayor, I am prepared to move up and win those fights – a fight for D.C. statehood, a fight for our true economy, and a real opportunity to uplift our Black queer and trans youth.”
Gary Goodweather: “A Goodweather administration will defend every D.C. law protecting LGBTQ residents. I will establish a Defend DC office to coordinate the District’s legal and public response to federal overreach, with LGBTQ+ protections explicitly within its mandate…My affordable D.C. plan will produce 50,000 new homes with 36,000 affordable units, and I will ensure LGBTQ+ youth housing programs are funded as a budget priority.”
Rini Sampath: “I am an immigrant, proud queer woman, and a 10-year resident of Washington, D.C…For me, LGBTQ+ voters including transgender and nonbinary residents, are not a separate or symbolic constituency; they are a core part of a broader, multiracial, cross-ward coalition rooted in in equity and opportunity.”
Vincent Orange: “I have a long and consistent record of supporting LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion in the District of Columbia, grounded in both policy and personal commitment. As the District’s Democratic Committeeman from 2006 to 2015, I publicly supported marriage equality and voted accordingly … During my time on the D.C. Council, I worked to advance protections for LGBTQ+ residents, including authoring and passing legislation to prohibit discrimination against transgender individuals in the workplace.”
Kathy Henderson: Kathy Henderson has maintained a consistent record of treating all members of the community with dignity, compassion, and respect, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, identity, political party, national origin, or ideology. Kathy Henderson embraced the late Wanda Alston as a colleague and good friend…Alston was the first director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and Henderson helped to organize and facilitate the first LGBTQ citizens summit.”
Local
D.C.’s affirming congregations to mark Holy Week, Easter
Dignity Washington among groups holding events
LGBTQ-friendly congregations in the D.C. area this week are marking Easter and Holy Week.
The Metropolitan Community Church of Washington, D.C., located in Mount Vernon Square, holds both online and in-person services.
An online-only Good Friday service will take place on April 3 at 7 p.m. In person or online Resurrection Sunday services will take place on April 5 at 10:30 a.m.
Dignity Washington, an LGBTQ Catholic group, is also holding Holy Week and Easter events.
The group on March 29 held a Palm Sunday prayer event. Dignity Washington on April 5 will hold a Mass at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church at 6 p.m. It will be livestreamed on Facebook.
Foundry United Methodist Church holds two Easter Sunday services at 9 and 11:15 a.m.
Riverside Baptist Church, located in Southwest Washington, is an “Inclusive, Multicultural, Christ-Centered” congregation that also offers Holy Week and Easter activities.
The church on Good Friday at 3 p.m. is holding an outreach period in which they will clean up the neighborhood. Easter Sunday services will be held at 9:45 a.m., starting with a musical prelude, followed by services.
The church offers weekly “Wednesday Witness,” a youth and safety zone drop-in, serving as a safe space for the students of Jefferson Middle School and the community. It takes place from 3-5 p.m.
The DC LGBTQ+ Community Center offers a comprehensive list of inclusive faith communities on its website. The Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists offers a list of churches partnered with their organization that are inclusive and mainly Baptist, but the group does feature churches of other denominations.
The 18th National Rainbow Seder took place at the Human Rights Campaign on March 29. The sold out event is the country’s largest Passover Seder for the Jewish LGBTQ community.
Organizations behind the event included Bet Mishpachah, a local D.C. LGBTQ synagogue that Rabbi Jake Singer-Beilin leads, and GLOE, an Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center program that sponsors events for the queer Jewish community. The theme for this year’s Seder was “Liberation for All Who Journey: Remembering, Resisting, Rebuilding.” Rabbis Atara Cohen, Koach Frazier, and Avigayil Halpern led it.
The Seder honored the late GLOE co-chair Michael Singer. Singer also served on the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center’s board.
“This Seder is both a celebration of how far we have come and a call to continue building a more just and inclusive world.” Bet Mishpachah Executive Director Joshua Maxey told the Washington Blade.
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