Local
‘Strategic blunder of monstrous proportions’
Insiders rip HRC, Gill decision to cancel Maryland vote on marriage
(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
The decision to cancel a March 11 vote on a same-sex marriage bill in the Maryland House of Delegates was a mistake that could hurt rather than help the chances for passing the bill within the next several years, according to Maryland-based advocates who lobbied for the bill.
The advocates who expressed this view, some of whom spoke on condition that they not be identified, said at least four national LGBT groups put pressure on lawmakers through Equality Maryland, the statewide LGBT group, to withdraw the bill rather than risk a losing vote.
One of the advocates called the national groups and their political operatives who came to Maryland to lobby for the bill well intentioned but unfamiliar with the nuances and “rhythms” of the Maryland Legislature.
“I think this was a strategic blunder of monstrous proportions,” said Mark McLaurin, political director of Maryland’s Local 500 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which lobbied for the bill.
McLaurin, a gay man who has lobbied the Maryland Legislature for progressive causes for more than 15 years, said many insiders familiar with the legislature don’t think a losing vote by a close margin would hurt the bill’s chances in the future.
On the other hand, McLaurin and others who favored taking a vote on the marriage bill said the legislature has a history of not taking up highly controversial bills two years in a row. McLaurin said he fears that the bill won’t come back for a vote until 2015, even though Speaker of the House Michael Busch (D-Anne Arundel County) said he would try to bring the measure back in 2012.
Busch said supporters appeared to fall just a few votes shy of the 71 votes needed to pass the bill in the 141-member House. However, he said wavering delegates might have chosen to vote “yes,” raising the possibility that the bill could have passed.
Several knowledgeable sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, agreed with McLaurin’s assessment.
“Gill and HRC decided it was detrimental to the larger movement to have the vote go down,” one source said. “Gays and lesbians in Maryland deserved a debate and a vote on legislation that we waited years for.”
Another source criticized Busch’s handling of the bill.
Maryland House of Delegates Majority Leader Kumar Barve and Maryland House Speaker Michael Busch (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
“[Speaker Michael] Busch could have squeezed harder but didn’t. This is a new House of Delegates and this man didn’t bother to take the temperature of the new House of Delegates. I was shocked. I thought House leadership was more strategic, intelligent and powerful than this and it all evaporated.
“God forbid we put our swing vote Democrats on the line to take a vote for our families. Or maybe the Speaker has lost control of his chamber.”
There was also criticism of Gov. Martin O’Malley, who the sources faulted for not taking a more public stand in support of the bill.
“O’Malley stopped by Friday for a photo op with marriage supporters,” one source said. “What a vacant gesture at the 11th hour. You couldn’t write an op-ed the week before?”
The Civil Marriage Protection Act won approval in the Maryland Senate earlier this month. It died last Friday for at least this year when the House of Delegates approved by voice vote a motion to send it back to committee.
All of the bill’s sponsors, including seven openly gay members of the House of Delegates, appeared to support the motion, a development that stunned LGBT activists watching the proceedings from the visitors’ gallery.
The motion to recommit the bill to committee came after supporters and opponents engaged in an emotional, two-and-a-half hour debate over the bill. Most of the activists for and against the bill watching from the galleries didn’t know that the bill’s sponsors had decided beforehand to cancel the vote.
McLaurin said he learned from those attending strategy meetings that the eight-member LGBT Caucus of the legislature was divided over whether to postpone the House vote.
The caucus includes Sen. Richard Madaleno (D-Montgomery County), and House of Delegates members Maggie McIntosh, Mary Washington, and Luke Clippinger, each Democrats from Baltimore; Heather Mizeur, Bonnie Cullison, and Anne Kaiser, each Democrats from Montgomery County; and Peter Murphy, a Democrat from Charles County.
Spokespersons for Equality Maryland, the statewide LGBT group that led the lobbying effort for the bill, and officials with the national groups Freedom to Marry and Human Rights Campaign defended the decision to withdraw the bill.
They said the decision was made jointly by the bill’s lead sponsors, including the one gay male and six lesbian delegates, who determined it was better to postpone the vote than to risk a losing vote, which they said would be perceived as a defeat.
“This is a strategic effort to give ourselves more time to make the case and win,” said Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry. “And all of us believe we can win. It’s just a matter of nailing down the votes and getting there.”
HRC spokesperson Fred Sainz said the decision to cancel the vote came after it became clear that supporters didn’t have the votes to pass it.
“This was a shared decision by all the stakeholders – Equality Maryland, the state’s LGBT Caucus, Gill Action, Freedom to Marry, and HRC,” he said. “It was the consensus belief that the best way to win marriage in Maryland was by a delay and not by losing a vote.”
Officials with Gill Action, a philanthropic group founded by gay businessman Tim Gill in Colorado that funds LGBT rights causes, did not return a call seeking comment.
An official with the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, Robin Brand, also pushed for postponing the vote, activists familiar with the legislature said. Brand told the Blade she discussed the issue with the gay delegates in the Victory Fund’s role of working with openly gay elected officials. She said she left it up to them to decide on whether or not a vote should be taken.
McLaurin, a former member of the Equality Maryland board, said the advocates who wanted the vote to go forward believe it would have been worth “a roll of the dice” to determine if supporters had the 71 votes needed to pass the bill.
“In the worst case scenario we would have come up two or three votes short,” he said. “And I think that a loss by two or three votes would be much more galvanizing to the community of supporters that we’re going to need to rally and accomplish this goal.”
McLaurin added, “Either way it was going to get billed as a failure. I’d rather have on record who’s with us and who’s against us.”
Another former Equality Maryland board member, David Toth, wrote in a Facebook posting that the group was deleting messages left on its own Facebook page that were posted by a large number of supporters who expressed outrage over the decision not to have a vote on the bill.
“Anyone who is asking questions of EqMD or its staff is having their posts deleted like crazy,” he wrote. “After donating thousands of dollars and working on the board for over six years I simply find this appalling.”
Evan Wolfson of Freedom to Marry (Blade photo by Michael Key)
Wolfson of Freedom to Marry cautioned that a public fight over the decision not to have a vote could hurt efforts to bring the bill back next year.
“This is a temporary pause in the voting and it’s not a pause in the work,” he said. “So we don’t need finger pointing and recriminations, we need redoubling the effort to win.”
Although Equality Maryland, led by executive director, Morgan Meneses-Sheets, was billed as the lead organization calling the shots, insiders say field workers from the national groups like Freedom to Marry, HRC and Gill Action Fund far outnumbered Equality Maryland’s staffers working the halls of the legislature in Annapolis.
It was the national groups, rather than Equality Maryland, that had the ear of supportive lawmakers, including the LGBT Caucus members, during the days leading up to the scheduled vote on the bill in the House, McLaurin and other insiders said.
In a March 10 e-mail sent to LGBT Caucus members and other lawmakers supporting the bill, representatives of Freedom to Marry, Gill Action and HRC urged the lawmakers to postpone the vote.
“With the rights of so many Marylanders on the line, we wanted to flag our serious concern about going to a floor vote tomorrow when it’s not been confirmed we have 71 votes,” the e-mail says. “Various counts have us at 69 or 70 but not 71 or beyond.”
The e-mail adds, “The decision on whether to ask the leadership to move forward or postpone the vote rests with our openly LGBT legislators and other sponsors (in consultation with EQMD) who know their colleagues far better than we do, and who have so courageously led the way.”
The e-mail was signed by Bill Smith and Sarah Vaughn, national political director and deputy political director of Gill Action; Marty Rouse and Sultan Shakir, the lead officials at HRC’s field office; and Marc Solomon, national campaign director for Freedom to Marry.
In a separate e-mail sent the next day to most of the same people, HRC’s Rouse warned of serious political consequences if a vote on the marriage bill were to be taken.
“I plead with you to please delay this vote,” he said. “It would be devastating to suffer a huge loss. There will be vitriol and pain that may take years to soothe.”
Rouse said he also feared that a losing vote would damage relationships between the LGBT community and lawmakers who voted against the bill.
“I am sure that relationships are already frayed, but, if there are impassioned speeches on the floor, and tears shed, and we still lose, those relationships will be damaged even more. The air in the chamber will be toxic for months if not years,” he said.
McLaurin said at least some of the strained relations that Rouse mentioned have already come about, in part, because of the impassioned debate on the House floor that took place on March 11. He said he was puzzled over why those making the decision chose to have the debate and not go one step further to allow a vote to take place.
According to McLaurin, Speaker Busch left it up to the bill’s supporters and Equality Maryland to make the final call on whether to have a vote.
“From what I’ve been told by people in the know, he said, ‘What’s your pleasure? I’ll defer to you.’”
“And so from my understanding, there was a lot of pressure from the national organizations not to pull the trigger on a vote unless you are certain you had 71 votes because apparently it would demoralize our [same-sex marriage] efforts in Rhode Island and New York,” said McLaurin.
“I say poppycock. Pulling the bill from the floor is a defeat every bit as much as a losing vote is,” he said.
McLaurin said he thinks some of the national LGBT officials pushing for a delay in the Maryland vote had a fundamental misunderstanding that the Maryland House of Delegates would act like the New York State Senate acted in 2008, when it defeated a same-same marriage bill by a 38-24 vote.
Most supporters of the New York bill thought the vote would be much closer. Gay State Sen. Tom Duane (D-Manhattan) said he believed he had lined up enough votes to pass the measure. But when a roll-call vote started, a few wavering senators voted no, causing what observers called a cascading or “avalanche” effect, prompting others whose support was shaky to vote no.
McLaurin said such a development could not happen in the Maryland House of Delegates because all votes are cast electronically at the same time. No one knows who votes which way until the final tally is released seconds after the votes are cast. Pages on the floor then distribute a printout showing how the delegates voted.
“That’s why one of my underlying themes is you’ve got to know the Maryland Legislature,” he said. “We can’t have national groups fly in from L.A. and New York and train in from D.C. and conduct this campaign because we’re fundamentally different. We’re a different body.”
If some of the national group representatives had been in Annapolis at the time the legislature debated a highly contentious bill to repeal the state’s death penalty in 2007 or during several abortion related debates in the 1990s they would have seen a great reluctance to revisit these issues a second time, McLaurin said.
“What I fear is next year there’s just not going to be the stomach to do this again,” he said in discussing the marriage bill. “If you listened to the debate on the floor, everyone spoke of how deeply divided the House was, how deeply emotional this was, how it frayed relationships, how people weren’t speaking to each other.
“Do you think they will have the stomach to do that again next year without any reasonable expectation of a different outcome because they’re still pitching the same ideas to the same audience?”
“No one would be happier to be wrong about this than me,” he said. “But I just don’t think that I am. And I know I’m not alone. Some of the chief strategists behind this bill feel the same way I do.”
Wolfson of Freedom to Marry disputes that assessment.
“Anyone who is making comments to you or to anyone else suggesting that somehow this is over and it’s now a cause for finger pointing has failed to understand that it’s not over,” he said. “We’re in the midst of the work and we all should keep our eye on the prize of doing what we can to round up the last few votes and win.”
District of Columbia
D.C.’s Mary’s House For Older Adults names new executive director
Charlene Leach to succeed Imani Woody as leader of LGBTQ-supportive seniors home
The board of directors of Mary’s House for Older Adults, the D.C.-based home dedicated to providing affordable housing for LGBTQ seniors, has announced it has named longtime nonprofit organization leader A. Charlene Leach as its new executive director.
Leach, who is now serving in the executive director’s position, is succeeding Dr. Imani Woody, the Mary’s House founding president and CEO, who announced her retirement from her official leadership role at Mary’s House on July 7.
Woody, who holds a PhD in Human Services, is credited with playing the lead role over many years in arranging both city and private funding needed to construct and operate the Mary’s House three-story building located at 401 Anacostia Road, S.E., in the city’s Fort DuPont neighborhood.
“With over three decades of nonprofit experience and 15 years serving as an executive director, Charlene brings a wealth of knowledge in organizational leadership, program development, and community engagement,” the Mary’s House board says in a statement.
“Her proven track record of building impactful programs and leading mission-driven organizations makes her uniquely suited to guide Mary’s House into its next phase of growth,” the statement continues. “Charlene is deeply aligned with the mission of Mary’s House and is committed to advancing its work to provide safe, inclusive housing and supportive services for LGBTQ+ older adults,” it says. “Under her leadership, the organization will continue to expand its impact while remaining grounded in the values that define our community.”
Leach’s LinkedIn page shows she has most recently served since 2022 as executive director of the African American AIDS Task Force in Minneapolis. Prior to that, it shows she served as executive director of the Fredericksburg Area Health and Support Services organization in Fredericksburg, Va., and before that as director of development for the D.C.-Baltimore area Women’s Collective.
Her LinkedIn page says she has been involved with Mary’s House as a volunteer and grant writer since 2016.
The newly built and enlarged Mary’s House, which opened in March 2025, with a grand opening ceremony held in May 2025 attended by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, includes 15 single-occupancy residential apartments and more than 5,000 square feet of shared communal living space.
An earlier statement released by the Mary’s House board announcing Woody’s retirement said Woody would continue to be involved with the organization as a member of the board. The earlier statement and board’s more recent statement on July 29 announcing Leach’s appointment as executive director did not say whether the board plans to name someone else as president and CEO, the title that Woody held before her retirement. But the latest statement says Leach will be running Mary’s House’s day-to-day operations as Woody did.
Virginia
Doug Ollivant to face Eugene Vindman in Va. 7th Congressional District
Republican defeated challengers in Tuesday’s primary
Republican Doug Ollivant will face off against incumbent U.S. Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-Va.) in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District.
Ollivant defeated his Republican opponents in Tuesday’s primary. Vindman ran unopposed.
Vindman in 2024 ran to succeed then-Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger in the U.S. House of Representatives after she ran for governor. Spanberger succeeded Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin in 2025.
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) on Tuesday easily won his primary. All other Democratic incumbent members of Congress from Northern Virginia also won their respective primaries.
District of Columbia
LGBTQ advocates optimistic about D.C.’s expected new mayor
Janeese Lewis George cites strong record of support as Council member
Several prominent D.C. LGBTQ community advocates said they are optimistic that Democratic mayoral nominee Janeese Lewis George, who is expected to easily win election as mayor in the city’s Nov. 3 general election, will continue her strong record of support on LGBTQ issues from her current role as a Ward 4 D.C. Council member.
But most of the seven LGBTQ advocates who responded to an informal Washington Blade survey of community leaders and activists said they would be observing Lewis George’s transition plans for her expected mayoral administration to determine if she will follow through with her campaign promises to put in place policies and funding to strongly support the LGBTQ community.
Lewis George emerged as the decisive winner in the city’s June 16 Democratic primary with 54 percent of the vote in a six-candidate race, with her lead opponent, former D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie (D-At-Large) receiving around 37 percent and four lesser-known candidates receiving 4 percent or less.
In a city with an overwhelmingly Democratic electorate, virtually all political observers believe Lewis George will win the November general election to become the city’s next mayor.
In the primary, she received the endorsement of the Capital Stonewall Democrats, the city’s largest local LGBTQ political organization, and received the highest possible candidate rating of +10 from GLAA DC, formerly known as the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington.
With Lewis George, McDuffie, and the four lesser-known candidates in the Democratic primary, including one who identified as bisexual, expressing strong support on LGBTQ issues, LGBTQ advocates acknowledged that most queer voters chose a candidate to support based on non-LGBTQ issues.
And Lewis George’s LGBTQ supporters have said they believe Lewis George received the largest share of the LGBTQ vote based on her outspoken support for social justice related issues, including policies to address the need for affordable housing, which she said impacts LGBTQ people in need, especially queer people of color and transgender residents.
“I think she understands a theory of community and economic development that is both inclusive of LGBTQ people but not exclusive about us,” said Benjamin Brooks, president of GLAA D.C. Brooks also currently serves as interim director of policy for one of the divisions of Whitman-Walker Health, D.C.’s LGBTQ supportive medical clinic and health services organization.
“I think that she represents a change in administration that will see more dollars to public programs that are more pro social,” Brooks said. “We’re going to be looking at who she appoints to the different agencies that we’re interested in and making sure that LGBTQ people are centered in that conversation,” he said.
Brooks added, “We know LGBTQ people were featured heavily in her campaign as organizers and as her staff members. So, I think we should expect to see us included, and she has put out a platform that lifts up all Washingtonians.”
Longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist John Klenert said he, too, will be watching to see if and how Lewis George follows up her campaign promises on LGBTQ issues.
“My number one concern will be with the budgets being what they are in the city, will she continue to fiscally support the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs?” he told the Blade. “Number two, will she continue to support the HIV type places like Whitman-Walker,” he said.
Acknowledging that Lewis George has expressed support for these types of programs during the election campaign, Klenert added, “Words are cheap. Let’s see on paper her proposals.”
D.C. gay Democratic activist Peter Rosenstein is among the few LGBTQ activists who publicly raised concern over Lewis George’s status as a Democratic Socialist and member of the controversial Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) national organization.
“I congratulate Ms. George on winning the primary and hope she will do a great job as our next mayor,” Rosenstein told the Blade in a statement. “But the issues I promulgated in the primary still go unanswered,” he said, noting that he is unaware of Lewis George saying whether she disagrees with the DSA’s platform opposing the existence of the state of Israel, not talking to any pro-Israel Zionist organizations, and, among other things, defunding U.S. police departments.
Rosenstein also noted that Lewis Geroge, as far as he knows, has not publicly rebuked one of her supporters who endorsed her for mayor, Ward 8 community activist Jauhar Abraham, who has publicly referred to gay people as “sissies” and “fags” who should not be allowed to teach in the city’s public schools.
“Will she really stand up for the LGBTQ community, or does she agree with those like Jauhar Abraham,” Rosenstein said in his statement. “These are issues she owes the voters answers to.”
Ward 8 gay longtime Democratic and community activist Phillip Pannell, who just won election in the Democratic primary as the city’s Democratic National Committeeman, is among the LGBTQ activists who supports Lewis George’s candidacy for mayor. He told the Blade that Lewis George, while not saying so directly, has made it clear she does not support what he describes as Jauhar Abraham’s anti-gay slurs.
When asked if the Abraham issue as raised by Rosenstein was a concern for him, Pannell said, “No, because I know that Jauhar Abraham’s homophobic statements are in no way in alignment with Janeese Lewis George’s support for our community.”
He added, “You can’t always judge a candidate or basically indict a candidate because of the support of some individuals. There is no way Janeese supports the type of stuff Jauhar spews.”
Like some of the other LGBTQ advocates who spoke to the Blade about Lewis George’s potential impact on the LGBTQ community, Pannell said he is optimistic about her actions as mayor.
“I expect that she will at least maintain the type of support that we are getting under Mayor Bowser if not more so,” he said. “And a good indication of her level of support would be the votes that she has cast in support of our community while she has been a member of the Council,” Pannell said.
Also, like other LGBTQ supporters of Lewis George, Pannell said he is not troubled over her role as a Democratic Socialist. “There are many people who are associated with the Democratic Party who would be very much aligned with Democratic Socialist organizations,” he said. “So that doesn’t bother me at all.”
Ashley Gibbs, who serves as board co-chair of the D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center, is among the activists who said they are uncertain about Lewis George’s expected impact on the community.
“Certainly, I expect her to win in November given the demographics of D.C.,” she said. “I have to admit I live in Maryland now, so I am less clued into D.C. politics than I used to be,” she added. “So, I think it’s a big unknown. I think we’re just going to have to wait and see what happens and how well Janeese can make things given the federal government.”
David Perruzza, owner of the D.C. LGBTQ bars Pitchers and A League of Her Own, located in the Adams Morgan neighborhood, like other LGBTQ bar owners, said he preferred not to comment on the ins and outs of the race for mayor
But similar to other nightlife related small businesses in the city, including bars and restaurants, Perruzza said he was deeply troubled over what he believed to be Lewis George’s support for ending the so-called tip wage system for bars and restaurants. He said most LGBTQ bar owners believe doing that could force them to go out of business due to excessive labor costs.
Under the tip wage system, which has been in place in D.C. and other cities and states for many years, businesses that employ servers who receive tips can pay them a significantly lower minimum wage called the tip wage compared to the regular minimum wage, which is now $18.40 per hour in D.C. At the initiative of local labor groups, D.C. voters in 2022 approved for the second time Initiative 82, which called for raising the minimum wage for tipped workers to the full minimum wage over a phase-in period of 10 years or more.
Organizations representing local restaurants and bars said most tipped workers make close to if not more than the full minimum wage in tips, and that under the current D.C. law, businesses are required to pay tipped workers the difference if they don’t make the equivalent of the full minimum wage in tips.
They argued that the initial raising of the tip wage from just over $5 per hour to several dollars more an hour created a financial hardship that was forcing many of them to go out of business. The mayor and D.C. Council responded by repealing Initiative 82 and later putting in place in 2025 a compromise law supported by the business owners that brought the tip minimum wage to $10.30 per hour as of July 1, 2026.
The new law calls for the tip minimum wage to increase to 60 percent of the full minimum wage by 2028 and increase incrementally by 5 percent until it reaches 75 percent of the full minimum wage in 2034.
D.C. Council records show that Lewis George voted against the compromise bill when the Council approved it in July of 2025 as an amendment to the city’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget.
Local nightlife advocate and small business owner Salah Czapary, who served as Mayor Bowser’s director of the D.C. Office of Nightlife and Culture from 2022 to 2024, said Lewis George told a group of nightlife business operators and owners during a meeting in May that she opposes yet another ballot measure proposed by the labor advocacy group One Fair Wage that calls for raising the city’s minimum wage for all workers to $25 per hour and for eliminating the subminimum wage for tipped workers.
“I was in the room when she explained to a room full of nightlife small business, arts, and cultural operators that she has spoken with experts in the field,” Czapary told the Blade. He said Lewis George told the gathering that she did not support the latest wage initiative that was attempting to get on the ballot, which was a concern to business owners at the time.
“And I think that’s actually quite impressive for a lawmaker to do when everyone assumes you would support a certain initiative,” he said in referring to Lewis George. “To have one view and then assess the reality that might have changed. And then say that while I agree with the idea of raising the wages — I think most people do — we also don’t live in a vacuum. We have to deal with the realities of the economy,” Czapary said.
“I think D.C., as we know, has been a safe haven for LGBTQ individuals from across the country and has been very progressive on its treatment of LGBTQ people,” he said. “I think we will not expect that to change under our new mayor,” he added. “She was endorsed by many LGBTQ individuals and organizations, and she will continue to build on that progress we’ve made as a city, and we will continue to be that safe haven for people.”
Edmund Morris, president of the D.C. Equality Chamber of Commerce, which he said represents more than 100 LGBTQ+ and allied businesses serving the D.C. Metro area, released a short statement in response to the Blade’s request for comment on the impact his group expects Lewis George to have on the LGBTQ community.
“Janeese Lewis George has emphasized inclusive policies and support for local small businesses, priorities that align with our mission,” the statement says. “We look forward to productively engaging a future administration on how best to support aspiring and active entrepreneurs to flourish in the city that they serve,” it says.
Nick Tsusaki, founder and owner of the D.C. LGBTQ bar Spark Social, said he preferred not to comment on the impact Lewis George will have on policy related to LGBTQ issues. But he said he was impressed by Lewis George’s visits to several LGBTQ bars during the primary campaign.
“I’m really excited for her” he said, “I think she made a point in her last week of campaigning to do like an LGBTQ bar crawl. She came to Spark, to Trade and Bunker,” he said referring to two other D.C. LGBTQ bars. “And really showing dedication to the community in a way that went above and beyond what I had expected –really meeting the community where we’re at.”
He added, “And so, for her to drop in on a Friday night and just talk to – get on the microphone and talk about why she’s excited to fight for our community was really cool to see in an authentic way.”
In response to requests by the Blade and Capital Stonewall Democrats seeking statements from each of the mayoral candidates during the primary campaign, Lewis George submitted these comments, which are excerpted from a longer statement.
“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.”
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