Local
Md. trans bill on ‘hold’ in committee
Supporters hopeful Judiciary panel will approve measure Saturday
A committee of the Maryland State Senate voted 6-5 to place a temporary hold on a transgender non-discrimination bill on Friday, adding yet another roadblock to a measure that survived a procedural attempt to kill it one week ago.
The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee approved a request by Sen. Nancy Jacobs (R-Cecil and Harford Counties) to place the hold on the Gender Identity Non-Discrimination Act. Jacobs is one of the bill’s most outspoken opponents.
Sen. Brian Frosh (D-Montgomery County), the committee chair, voted against the hold, but three other committee Democrats joined the three Republican members of the 11-member committee to vote for the hold.
The action prevented the committee from voting to release the bill to the full Senate, which must pass the legislation before the end of the day on Monday, when the Maryland Legislature adjourns for the year.
Frosh’s office said Frosh was expected to allow the committee to vote on the bill on Saturday morning. Supporters said they were hopeful the legislation might reach the Senate floor for a debate and vote on the same day, as originally expected.
The Maryland House of Delegates has already passed the bill, and Gov. Martin O’Malley has said he would sign it.
Sen. Jamie Raskin (D-Montgomery County), a member of the Judicial Proceedings Committee and a lead supporter of the bill, told the Blade late Friday that he and others supporting the bill were hopeful that at least two of the Democrats who voted for the hold would vote for the bill on Saturday morning when the committee was expected to meet between 10 and 11 a.m..
“The way I’m reading it now is we have five hard votes ‘yes’ and then there are at least two senators who supported the hold who could still vote for the bill tomorrow,” he said. “So I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll be headed to the floor tomorrow,” he said.
Others familiar with the committee action identified the two Democrats who voted for the hold and who could vote for the bill as James Brochin and Bobby Zirkin, both Democrats from Baltimore County.
The Judicial Proceedings Committee was originally expected to vote on the measure Friday, one day after it held a two-hour hearing in Annapolis on Thursday in which about 40 witnesses testified for and against the bill.
Among those testifying against it were four transgender activists, including one from New York, who said the bill did not go far enough because it lacks a provision banning discrimination against transgender Marylanders in the area of public accommodations.
The bill’s author and chief sponsor, House of Delegates member Joseline Pina-Melnyk (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel Counties), testified that she reluctantly removed the public accommodations provision from the bill in order to line up enough votes to pass it in a House committee.
Pina-Melnyk has said the bill would have died in committee, as it has for the past four years, if the public accommodations provision remained a part of the legislation.
As currently written, the bill would ban discrimination against transgender people in the area of employment, housing, and credit – including bank loans.
Most transgender activists in Maryland along with the National Center for Transgender Equality and the transgender rights project of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force are supporting the bill. They say they plan to push for the addition of a public accommodations provision as early as next year.
The bill received a further boost Friday morning from the Washington Post, which published an editorial calling on the State Senate to quickly pass the measure as a first step in rectifying longstanding discrimination against transgender people.
“The legislation is a modest, fair and reasonable step in the direction of equal rights for a minority that continues to suffer widespread bias,” the Post said.
Among those testifying in favor of the bill on Thursday was attorney Lisa Mottet, director of the NGLTF transgender rights project.
Longtime transgender rights opponent Ruth Jacobs, head of Citizens for a Responsible Government, emerged as the lead witness against the bill on its merits, saying she opposes any form of anti-discrimination protection based on gender identity.
In a development that surprised some attending the hearing, Zirkin criticized Jacobs’ organization for unleashing a barrage of computer generated “robo-calls” to state residents in the late evening hours over the past few days.
Zirkin — speaking to Jacobs after the hearing recessed — said his family received one of the calls around 3 a.m. on Thursday, which he said disturbed one of his children, according to people who listened to his conversation with Jacobs.
Zirkin was one of the committee members said to be undecided on whether to vote for the gender identity bill.
The bill reached the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee a little more than a week after Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller (D-Calvert and Prince George’s County) diverted it to the Senate Rules Committee, which supporters and opponents viewed as a clear move to kill the bill.
The Rules Committee is widely recognized as a “graveyard” for bills unpopular with the Senate leadership, especially its president.
But Miller relinquished his “hold” on the bill about a week later following what observers viewed as an extraordinary lobbying campaign led by the state LGBT group Equality Maryland and many of its LGBT and straight allies.
The campaign generated a barrage of phone calls and e-mails to Miller’s office complaining that his action went against the democratic principles of allowing legislation to be decided by an up or down vote rather than being killed in committee without a vote.
Supporters were hopeful the bill was back on track when the Judicial Proceedings Committee held its hearing on the measure on Thursday and indicated through Frosh that it would vote on the bill on Friday afternoon.
“This is not good because another day is lost,” said Dana Beyer, a Maryland transgender activist and former House of Delegates candidate from Montgomery County.
But Morgan Meneses-Sheets, Equality Maryland’s executive director, said she was optimistic that the Judicial Proceedings panel would approve the bill Saturday morning, placing it back on track for a full Senate vote over the weekend.
Virginia
Prominent activists join ‘Living History’ panel at Freddie’s Beach Bar
Event organized by owner of new Friends of Dorothy Café in Alexandria
Six prominent LGBTQ community leaders and elders, including a beloved drag performer, talked about their role in advancing the rights of LGBTQ people and their thoughts on how the upcoming generation of LGBTQ youth should get ready to join the movement participated in an April 23 “Living History” panel discussion at Freddie’s Beach Bar.
The event was organized by Dorothy Edwards, who plans to open Friends of Dorothy Café in Alexandria. She said the café will be an LGBTQ community “intergenerational space” that will host events like the one she organized at Freddie’s Beach Bar.
“It will be a space for connection, storytelling, and belonging, especially for LGBTQ+ youth and community members who don’t always have places like that,” she said in a statement announcing the event at Freddie’s.
The six panelists at the Freddie’s event included Kierra Johnson, president of the D.C.-based National LGBTQ Task Force; Freddie Lutz, owner of Freddie’s Beach Bar located in the Crystal City section of Arlington, Va.; Donnell Robinson, who for many years performed in drag as the icon Ella Fitzgerald; Taylor Chandler Walker, a local transgender rights advocate, author and public speaker; Heidi Ellis, coordinator of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; and Leti Gomez, an LGBTQ Latino community advocate and chair of the board of the American LGBTQ+ Museum.
Dr. Ashley Elliott, an LGBTQ community advocate and clinician who also goes by the name Dr. Vivid, served as moderator of the panel discussion, asking each of the panelists a serious of questions before opening the event to questions from the audience.
Among the issues discussed by the panelists was who was “centered” and who was excluded in the earlier years of LGBTQ organizing. Elliot also asked the panelists to address topics such as racism within queer spaces, gender dynamics, and strategies for coalition building between the LGBTQ community and other movements, including civil rights, feminism, and immigrant rights.
Each of the panelists expressed various thoughts on how the LGBTQ rights movement can make changes in response to the questions: “What can we do better?” and “Who is being left out?”
“I’m overwhelmed and so thankful that everyone on this panel said yes and agreed to come,” Edwards told the Washington Blade at the conclusion of the event. “I think every one of those people, including the moderator, was so brilliant and has done such good work for this community,” she said.
Edwards noted that each of the panelists, who have been involved in LGBTQ advocacy work for many years, talked about how they interact with younger LGBTQ people who are just beginning to become involved in activism.
“Truly, it’s an intergenerational conversation, and their wisdom and their words and their experiences can be disseminated to younger generations and people who want to do this work, people who want to fight for our community,” Edwards said.
“I was pleasantly surprised,” Lutz said. “I thought it was a good turnout, and everybody was very enthusiastic and engaged,” he said. “And I think it was great and fabulous.”
Lutz has operated Freddie’s Beach Bar for more than 25 years and has hosted numerous LGBTQ events. A sign above the front entrance door to the popular LGBTQ bar and restaurant says, “Straight Friendly Gay Bar.”
Edwards said the April 23 event was recorded and she will make arrangements for the recording to be released for others to view it. The Blade will post the link in this story when it becomes available.
District of Columbia
Second trans member announces plans to resign from Capital Pride board
Zion Peters cites ‘lack of interest in the Black trans community’
Zion Peters, a member of the Capital Pride Alliance Board of Directors who identifies as transgender, told the Washington Blade he plans to resign from the board “due to the lack of interest in the trans community, specifically the Black trans community.”
Peters continued, “Nobody has checked on me in the last two months so that shows their level of unprofessionalism towards their board members and the community as a whole.”
If he resigns, Peters would be the second known trans person to resign from the Capital Pride board since February, when longtime trans activist Taylor Lianne Chandler informed the board of her resignation in a detailed letter that was sent to the Blade by an anonymous source.
Chandler, who served as chair of the Capital Pride Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, and Intersex Committee, stated in her Feb. 24 letter that she resigned from the board out of frustration that the board had failed to address instances of “sexual misconduct” within the Capital Pride organization. The organization’s and the board’s transgender-related policies were not cited in her letter as a reason for her resignation.
The Blade learned of Peters’s plans to resign from an anonymous source who thought Peters had already resigned along with four other board members identified by the anonymous source. The others, who Capital Pride confirmed this week had resigned, include Anthony Musa, Bob Gilchrist, Kaniya Walker, and Dai Nguyen.
Musa and Gilchrist told the Blade they resigned for personal reasons related to their jobs and that they fully support Capital Pride’s work as an organization that coordinates the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events.
The Blade has been unable to reach Walker and Nguyen to determine their reasons for resigning.
Capital Pride CEO Ryan Bos and Board Chair Anna Jinkerson didn’t respond to a Blade question asking if they knew why Walker or Nguyen resigned.
In response to a request by the Blade for comment on the resignations and the concern raised by Zion Peters about trans-related issues, Bos and Jinkerson sent separate statements elaborating on the organization and the board’s position on various issues.
“We can confirm that the individuals you referenced, except for Zion, no longer serve on the Capital Pride Alliance Board of Directors,” Jinkerson said in her statement.
She added that following the WorldPride festival hosted by D.C. last May and June that was organized by Capital Pride Alliance, the group anticipated a “significant level of board transition,” with many board members reaching the end of their terms. But she said many board members chose to extend their service or apply for an additional term, showing a “powerful reflection of commitment.”
Without commenting on the specific reasons for the resignations of Peterson, Walker, and Nygun, Jinkerson noted, “As with all volunteer leadership roles, transitions occur for a range of personal and professional reasons, and we appreciate those transitions with both understanding and gratitude.”
In his own statement, Bos addressed Capital Pride’s record on transgender issues.
“The Capital Pride Alliance is committed to supporting and uplifting the Trans community through our work with the Trans Coalition under the Diversity of Prides Initiative, our partnership with Earline Budd on the LGBTQ+ Burial Fund with a focus on our Trans siblings, our collaboration with the National Trans Visibility March, and our ongoing investment in programming for Transgender Day of Visibility and Transgender Day of Remembrance,” Bos said in his statement.
“We also recognize there is always continued work to be done, and we always welcome feedback from our community to ensure our commitment remains unwavering,” he said.
At the time of her resignation in February, Chandler said she could not provide specific details of the instances of sexual misconduct to which she referred in her resignation letter, or who allegedly engaged in sexual misconduct, saying she and all other board members had signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement preventing them from disclosing further details.
Board Chair Jinkerson in a statement released at that time said she and the board were aware of Chandler’s concerns but did not specifically address allegations of sexual misconduct.
“When concerns are brought to CPA, we act quickly and appropriately to address them,” she said. “As we continue to grow as an organization, we’re proactively strengthening the policies and procedures that shape our systems, our infrastructure, and the support we provide to our team and partners,” she said.
Rehoboth Beach
Rehoboth Summer Kickoff Party set for May 15 with Ashley Biden
The Washington Blade’s 19th annual Summer Kickoff Party is scheduled for Friday, May 15 in Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Ashley Biden, daughter of President Joe Biden, has joined the list of speakers, the Blade announced. She will accept an award on behalf of her brother Beau Biden for his LGBTQ advocacy work as Delaware attorney general. (Her appearance was rescheduled from last year.)
The event, to be held this year at Diego’s (37298 Rehoboth Ave. Ext.) from 5-7 p.m., is a fundraiser for the Blade Foundation’s Steve Elkins Memorial Fellowship in Journalism, which funds a summer position reporting on LGBTQ news in Delaware. This year’s recipient will be introduced at the event.
The event will also feature remarks from state Rep. Claire Snyder-Hall. New CAMP Rehoboth Executive Director Dr. Robin Brennan and Blade editor Kevin Naff will also speak. The event is generously sponsored by Realtor Justin Noble, The Avenue Inn & Spa, and Diego’s.
A suggested donation of $25 is partially tax deductible and includes a drink ticket and light appetizers. Tickets are available in advance at bladefoundation.org/rehoboth or at the door.
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