Local
Trans woman escapes D.C. shooting attack
Police issue alert of ‘emerging pattern’
An unidentified suspect fired a semi-automatic handgun at a transgender woman at 2:45 a.m. on Sunday, July 31, just one block from the site where a transgender woman was shot to death less than two weeks earlier, D.C. police announced on Tuesday.
Police said the suspect missed hitting the victim in the latest case. But they said that since transgender women were the target in both incidents, “the cases are being investigated as a potential emerging pattern” of crimes against the transgender community.
“The victim was in the 6200 block of Dix Street, N.E., when a suspect approached on foot,” a police statement says in describing the shooting on Sunday. “The suspect asked for change and without waiting for a reply pulled a semi-automatic handgun and shot at the victim, without hitting the victim.”
The statement describes the suspect as a black male, 17 to 19 years of age, about 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighing about 180 pounds, with a dark complexion. It says detectives from the Sixth District are investigating the case.
The latest incident follows the July 20 shooting death of transgender woman Lashai Mclean, 23, who was attacked on the 6100 block of Dix Street, N.E. at about 4:30 a.m.
Police say they have yet to identify a suspect or motive in that case. However, in the statement released Tuesday about the shooting of the second transgender woman, police for the first time provided a description of two unidentified suspects in the Mclean case.
“The suspects are described as two black males in their late teens to early 20s,” the police statement says. “The first suspect is described as being 6-feet-tall with a thin build and light complexion,” it says. “The shooter is described as being shorter and having a darker complexion than the other suspect.”
The statement adds that the shooter “started asking a question, and without provocation” pulled out a handgun and fired, killing Mclean.
Officials with the D.C. group Transgender Health Empowerment, which had provided assistance to Mclean, said a transgender woman was with Mclean at the time of the shooting. The T.H.E. officials have said the woman, whose identity is being withheld, was cooperating with police in the investigation.
Police and residents living near the 6100 block of Dix Street, N.E., have said the area is a well-known night time meeting place for male-to-female transgender prostitutes and the male clients who seek their services. Transgender activists have said transgender women also socialize in that area and not all trans woman hanging out there are prostitutes.
The 6100 block of Dix Street is located less than two blocks from Eastern Avenue, which serves as the border line between D.C. and Prince George’s County, Md. Authorities have said that section of Eastern Avenue is also known as a night time gathering place for transgender sex workers.
“The Metropolitan Police Department’s Sixth District, the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit (GLLU), and Prince George’s County Police Department have teamed together to enhance patrol efforts in the area where the crimes have occurred,” the police statement says. “The GLLU is focusing on making contact with people in the area. We will ensure that flyers are distributed on both crimes.”
The statement says D.C. police are also enlisting the support of community groups such as T.H.E. and other members of the transgender community to distribute safety messages to those who hang out in that location.
“Do not walk alone,” says one of the messages. The other says, “Report suspicious persons and activities immediately to us.”
Anyone with information about the Mclean murder or the latest shooting attack along the 6200 block of Dix Street, N.E., is asked to call D.C. police at 202-727-9099 or 1-888-919-CRIME.
The department offers a reward of $25,000 to anyone who provides information leading to the arrest and conviction of a person or persons wanted for any homicide committed in D.C.
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
District of Columbia
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
Kevin Naff marks 24 years with publication this year
Longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff will be inducted into D.C.’s Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame in June, the group announced this week.
Hall of Fame honorees are chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter. Naff and two other inductees — Seth Borenstein, a Washington-based national science writer for the AP and Cheryl W. Thompson, an award-winning correspondent for National Public Radio — will be celebrated at the chapter’s Dateline Awards dinner on Tuesday, June 9, at the National Press Club. The dinner’s emcee will be Kojo Nnamdi, host of WAMU radio’s weekly “Politics Hour.”
“I am tremendously honored by this recognition,” Naff said. “I have spent a lifetime in the D.C. area learning from so many talented journalists and am humbled to be considered in their company. Thank you to SPJ and to all the LGBTQ pioneers who came before me who made this possible.”
Naff joined the Blade in 2002 after years in print and digital journalism. He worked as a financial reporter for Reuters in New York before moving to Baltimore in 1996 to launch the Baltimore Sun’s website. He spent four years at the Sun before leaving for an internet startup and later joining the mobile data group at Verizon Wireless working on the first generation of mobile apps.
He then moved to the Blade and has served as the publication’s longest-tenured editor. In 2023, Naff published his first book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include luminaries in journalism like Wolf Blitzer, Benjamin Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and Edgar Allen Poe. The Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. was inducted in 2015.
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.
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