Local

Covering Frank Kameny

A reporter’s 35-year journey chronicling the nation’s preeminent gay activist

Published

15 years ago

October 20, 2011

Frank Kameny served as a colorful, reliable source for the Blade and other news outlets during his decades of activism. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

I met Frank Kameny for the first time in the summer of 1974 at a meeting in Washington of the Gay Activists Alliance, now the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance.

At 24 years old, I had just landed my first job as a reporter covering the energy and environment beat for a company that published newsletters specializing in reporting on government regulations.

With an undergraduate degree in political science and a year’s worth of graduate studies in journalism under my belt, I walked into that GAA meeting at D.C.’s Quaker Meeting House near Dupont Circle knowing next to nothing about gay rights, gay politics or the gay community.

In the process we know as coming out, I had come to terms with myself as a gay man just months earlier.

So with that as a backdrop, I listened intently to the main topic of the meeting — reports of arrests of gay men at cruising areas by undercover officers assigned to the D.C. police vice squad.

Most of the arrests were not linked to sex in public places, one of the members reported. The men, whom the GAA member described as consenting adults, were merely seeking to meet one another for a sexual tryst or perhaps a lasting friendship that was to take place in the privacy of their homes, not in the public areas where they met.

But in an action I learned later was a routine practice throughout the country at that time, the undercover officers reportedly posed as willing participants and enticed the gay men into “soliciting” them to engage in sodomy, which was a criminal offense that led to an arrest. In some cases the undercover officers used body language suggesting they were inviting the men to touch them in a sexually suggestive way.

If the men took the bait and touched the officers, they were charged with committing a lewd act, a development that could ruin their careers, especially if they worked for the government.

After listening to these reports, a man appearing in his late 40s or early 50s with a booming voice and an obvious thorough knowledge of the issue at hand mapped out a strategy for GAA’s and the gay community’s response: The entrapment arrests of gay men would be portrayed as an “utter” waste of taxpayer’s money and police resources at a time when “real” crime was running rampant in the city.

This self-assured man, who I quickly learned was gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny, raised his voice to emphasize each of his points, attracting the attention of a maintenance worker in the hallway outside the room. He said police officials were unresponsive to earlier requests to stop the entrapment arrests and it was time to take another course of action.

Kameny said GAA should enlist community allies to help it lobby the City Council to eliminate city funding for the vice squad, which was known at the time as the Prostitution, Perversion, and Obscenity (PPO) Branch.

“It’s an outrage and an injustice,” I recall him saying. “We’re citizens of this city. The police, like all government officials, are public servants. And public servants answer to us.”

Much to my amazement, within a year or two, the City Council, voted to eliminate from the police budget funding for the PPO Branch. Although some of its work in the area of prostitution continued, the police practice of entrapment of gay men soon came to an end.

I was naïve and uninformed on the nuances of the gay rights movement when I attended that meeting in 1974. But I knew a good news source when I saw one.

Frank Kameny become known for his sense of humor during his long activist career and feared his tactics would get him disbarred if he had decided to pursue a law degree. (Washington Blade photo by Doug Hinckle)

Frank Kameny over the next 25 years or more was to become my preeminent news source in my coverage of the LGBT community as a reporter for the Washington Blade.

From the start, I had the good fortune of getting to know Frank Kameny and getting a crash course from him on the history of the gay movement and its current struggles and aspirations.

Since Kameny’s death last week, much has been written about his vast contribution to the LGBT movement over a 50-year period, especially in the decade before the Stonewall rebellion of 1969, which is viewed as the starting point of the modern gay movement.

What hasn’t been reported as widely is Kameny’s impact on the lives of individual lesbians, gay men, and transgender people whom he helped and with whom he interacted. His self-confident and assertive demeanor on behalf of the rights of all LGBT people and his unyielding spirit for fighting injustice – no matter how great the odds appeared to be – came across to those around him.

I’ll never forget the story told to me by a gay man I met at a GAA meeting about six months after that first meeting I attended in the summer of 1974. Appearing in his 40s, the man told me he was born and raised in a conservative, fundamentalist Christian household in southern Virginia and had struggled to accept his homosexuality. He said five years of psychotherapy upon moving to the D.C. area had little effect in helping shake his inner struggles over his sexual orientation.

He said his meeting Kameny and other activists at GAA meetings, and subsequent weekly phone conversations with Kameny on a wide range of issues over a period of months, boosted his self-confidence to a degree that he could never attain in years of therapy.

“I fired my therapist,” he told me while smiling broadly “Frank and the other folks here gave me the insight to understand that the external forces of discrimination and oppression and homophobia are what got me down,” I recall him saying.

Kameny’s assistance to individual LGBT people blossomed in his role as a paralegal counsel representing gays encountering problems with security clearances in the late 1960s through the 1980s. When his clients were comfortable going public with their case, Kameny provided me with copies of his legal briefs challenging actions by various U.S. government agencies, often the Defense Department, seeking to deny or revoke a gay person’s security clearance.

Those targeted for loss of a clearance usually worked for the government or for a private company doing contract work for the government. The main argument used for revoking a clearance was that gay people were susceptible to blackmail and were thus a threat to the safeguarding of government secrets.

Kameny often argued that the government had yet to disclose a single case where a gay person breached government secrets due to blackmail or coercion related to his or her sexual orientation.

He noted that government security officials appeared to be obsessed with the private sex lives of gays holding security clearances. In the course of investigating a gay person over a clearance, security officials demanded to know the identities of all of their sex partners over a period of years and insisted they reveal the specific types of sexual acts the gay person performed with his or her partners.

Kameny’s characteristic response to these inquires surfaced in a 1969 case in which he represented a New York gay man named Benning Wentworth, whose application for a clearance was opposed by the government solely on grounds of his status as a “sexually active” homosexual.

“We state to the world, as we have stated for the public, we state for the record and, if the [Defense] Department forces us to carry the case that far, we state for the courts that Mr. Wentworth, being a healthy, unmarried, homosexual male, 35 years old, has lived, and does live a suitable homosexual life, in parallel with the suitable active heterosexual sexual life lived by 75 percent of our healthy, unmarried, heterosexual males holding security clearances,” Kameny stated in a government hearing to adjudicate Wentworth’s clearance application.

Added Kameny, “Mr. Wentworth will get his clearance as the sexually active homosexual that he is and that he will continue to be…just as heterosexuals get their clearances as sexually active heterosexuals.”

He won many of his cases when, at his suggestion, his clients submitted letters disclosing their sexual orientation to co-workers and family members, eliminating, in Kameny’s assessment, any chance of blackmail threats to reveal the client’s homosexuality.

Some of his clients and fellow activists urged Kameny to get his law degree and become a lawyer, noting that he already knew more about the field of security clearance law than most lawyers. He told me his becoming a lawyer would tie his hands, saying the sometimes outlandish tactics he used would get him disbarred.

“They can’t disbar me if I’m not a member of the bar,” he often said.

In cases where he represented members of the military under investigation for being gay in the years prior to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Kameny was blunt about the only means of preventing a discharge: “Lie through your teeth,” he told his clients, or refuse to answer any questions about your sexual orientation.

In one of his military cases in the 1980s, Kameny was scheduled to attend a hearing to discuss planned action by the Army to discharge a service member who was identified as being gay by an acquaintance who was pressured into “snitching” on his fellow service member, as Kameny put it.

For some reason, Army officials insisted on meeting with the service member in private, saying Kameny couldn’t attend that particular session, in which the service member was to be “interviewed,” Kameny said.

As a gesture of protest, Kameny placed his foot in the doorway of the meeting room, preventing one of the officials from closing the door. He backed down after being threatened with arrest, saying the gesture was intended to emphasize his strong opposition to the closed meeting.

His use of fiery language as well as humor often surfaced in his testimony before public hearings held by governmental bodies, including the D.C. City Council.

In the early 1990s, Kameny testified before a D.C. Council committee deliberating over a proposed alley closing sought by Georgetown University to clear the way for construction of a new law school building located near the U.S. Capitol.

Gay activists, led by Kameny and GAA, called on the Council to withhold approval of the alley closing and thus prevent construction of the building until the university ended its policy of refusing to recognize gay student groups on campus.

Shortly after beginning his testimony, Kameny opened his briefcase and pulled out a spray can that he identified as a room deodorizer. He pressed down on the nozzle, spraying a mist in the direction of the Council members seated about 10 feet in front of him.

The “stench of discrimination” being carried out by Georgetown University against gay student groups cannot continue, he said, drawing laughter from the Council members and the audience in the hearing room.

Kameny also directed his sense of humor toward anti-gay organizations, which he closely monitored. On several occasions during the 1980s and 1990s he rushed to the city’s office of corporations and created his own corporation under the exact name of an anti-gay group, preventing the group from setting up its own corporation to do business in D.C.

Although he’s known mostly for his work in the LGBT rights movement, Kameny contributed his talents to other progressive causes. He became the first open gay to be appointed to a prominent city post in the 1970s, when Walter Washington, the city’s first mayor under D.C.’s newly acquired home rule government, named Kameny to the D.C. Commission on Human Rights.

In the early 1980s, Kameny won election to the D.C. Statehood Constitutional Convention and played a lead role in drafting a constitution for the proposed State of New Columbia.

During all of his years as an activist and movement leader in which I had the privilege to cover him, Kameny excelled as a news source in more stories than I can count. Thank you, Frank. You’ll be sorely missed.

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Local

Comings & Goings

Whitman-Walker announces leadership appointments

Published

1 day ago

September 26, 2026

Peter Rosenstein

From left, Leigh Miles Jackson, PhD., and Angel Earle, PhD.

The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected].

Congratulations to Leigh Miles Jackson, Ph.D., named executive director of The Institute for Health Research & Policy at Whitman-Walker, and Angel Earle, Ph.D. named as chief operating officer, Whitman-Walker Health System.

Upon her appointment Dr. Jackson said, “Under my leadership, I would love for The Institute for Health Research & Policy at Whitman-Walker to be known as a trusted, forward-looking research organization that shapes policies, strengthens practices and creates measurable change for the community.” Dr. Jackson spent 12 years with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, leading national initiatives on minority-serving institutions and economic evidence for investments in children, youth and families. Dr. Jackson holds an extensive educational background, including postdoctoral fellowships in developmental Psychology and Neurogenomics from Vanderbilt University, a Ph.D. in molecular and systems pharmacology from Emory University and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Wake Forest University.

Upon her appointment Dr. Earle said, “When we talk about parity and inequities and research, it’s never just about the dollars that are out there. It’s about making sure that we’re cultivating a change that embraces equity at the heart of everything that it does. As the COO for Whitman-Walker Health System I will be working closely to support The Institute for Health Research & Policy at Whitman-Walker and the Whitman-Walker Foundation to drive advancement in research and support the strategic goals of all of the Whitman-Walker Heath System entities.”

Dr. Earle is a genetic epidemiologist and senior executive. She brings a background from the London School of Economics and the University of South Carolina, with expertise in global health, corporate strategy and socioeconomic policy. She has co-authored peer-reviewed research on cancer genetics, nephrology biomarkers and reproductive genomes.

Dr. Heather Aaron, CEO of Whitman-Walker Health System said, “both leaders bring research-driven expertise and operational strength to the organization as it continues expanding research, health care access, and health outcomes for residents across the Washington, D.C., region, including the LGBTQ+ community, people living with and at risk for HIV, and communities experiencing persistent health disparities.”

The Institute for Health Research & Policy at Whitman-Walker is also expanding its research agenda beyond HIV to address the complex health conditions affecting people living with and at risk for HIV, as well as the broader communities The Institute for Health Research & Policy at Whitman-Walker serves.

District of Columbia

Former Capital Pride board member reiterates sexual harassment allegation

Trans activist says resignation of board chair won’t change org’s culture

Published

2 days ago

September 25, 2026

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Taylor Lianne Chandler resigned earlier this year from the Capital Pride Alliance board. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Taylor Lianne Chandler, who earlier this year resigned from the Capital Pride Alliance Board of Directors after expressing concern that the board failed to address instances of “sexual misconduct” within the Capital Pride organization, said this week she doesn’t believe her concerns will be addressed following the resignation of the board’s current chairperson.

Capital Pride Alliance serves as the lead organizer of D.C.’s annual LGBTQ Pride events.

Anna Jinkerson, who has served as chair of the Capital Pride board for only 10 months and has served on the board for the past four years, confirmed she is resigning from the board effective Sept. 30.

In a statement to the Washington Blade commenting on the possible impact of Jinkerson’s resignation, Chandler said Capital Pride board member Natalie Thompson would be replacing Jinkerson as board chair, and she didn’t expect that change to impact what she called Capital Pride’s problematic “culture.”

But Ryan Bos, the Capital Pride president and CEO, told the Blade that Thompson had not been selected as the new board chair and that a new chair would not be selected until the board holds an election scheduled for October.

Chandler, who identifies as transgender, said it was a Capital Pride board member who told her that Natalie Thompson had been or would be selected as the new Capital Pride board chair. She didn’t identify the board member.

“My concerns about how Capital Pride has handled serious allegations of sexual misconduct have not disappeared with a change in leadership,” she told the Blade in her statement. “When leadership continues to socialize, smile for photographs, and share spaces with someone facing serious allegations, what message does that send to the people who say they were harmed,” she said.

Chandler has told the Blade a Capital Pride investigation identified an individual implicated in a “pattern” of sexual harassment-related behavior but said she was bound by a Non-Disclosure Agreement that applied to all board members and she could not provide further details.

When asked by the Blade to comment on Chandler’s allegations at the time she resigned from the board in February of this year, board chair Jinkerson said Capital Pride acts “quickly and appropriately” to address concerns such as those raised by Chandler. But she and other Capital Pride officials did not at that time or since then specifically acknowledge whether someone associated with the organization engaged in sexual harassment.

“The community deserves transparency, accountability, and leadership willing to make difficult decisions,” Chandler said in her statement to the Blade this week. “Changing the chair doesn’t change the culture,” she added. “Actions do.”

In response to a request from the Blade for an update on its response to Chandler’s allegations about alleged sexual misconduct within the Capital Pride organization, Bos sent the Blade a statement on behalf of Capital Pride.

“The Capital Pride Alliance takes allegations of harassment, misconduct, and unsafe behavior seriously,” the statement says. “The organization follows standard procedures and engages appropriate resources to support a thorough, confidential, and impartial review, when information is reported.”

The statement adds, ”Because these matters require maintaining confidentiality and protecting the privacy of personnel, volunteers, and governance processes, we will not comment on specific individuals, allegations, investigative findings or communications involving law enforcement.”

It concludes by stating, “We remain committed to fostering a safe, respectful, and inclusive environment, appropriately addressing concerns raised, and continuing to strengthen our policies, governance practices, and organizational culture.”

Although the statement refers to “communications involving law enforcement,” Capital Pride has not disclosed whether instances of alleged sexual harassment or, as stated by Chandler, a possible instance of sexual assault, have been reported to D.C. police.

A D.C. police spokesperson, in response to a Blade inquiry, said they have no record of a sexual harassment or sexual assault complaint surfacing from the Capital Pride office, which is located in the D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center building at 1827 Wiltberger Street, N.W.

But the Blade has obtained a D.C. police incident report that appears to confirm Capital Pride COO June Crenshaw’s claim in a recent Facebook post that she reported at least one incident of sexual harassment related to Capital Pride to D.C. police.

The report, which was filed on Oct. 11, 2025, states that Crenshaw told a police officer who prepared the report that another person told her “that a board member of Capital Pride Alliance groped his genitals at a Capital Pride event.” The report says Crenshaw told the officer the person who reported being groped “did not want to speak to the police at this time.”

The incident report, which is a public document, says the groping reportedly happened on Oct. 8, 2025. It concludes by saying Crenshaw was given “resource information” to provide to the person who said he was groped. It does not identify that person or the board member who allegedly committed the groping.

Officials at Capital Pride recently exchanged testy public Facebook posts with Chandler. Crenshaw criticized Chandler for her social media posts on the matter.

“It is remarkable to watch people publicly accuse others of failing to create safe spaces when, during the time they themselves held positions of leadership and significant volunteer responsibility, they claim to have witnessed deeply troubling behavior, yet never reported what they allegedly witnessed to fellow leaders, law enforcement, the Office of the Attorney General, legal counsel, or staff responsible for addressing such concerns,” Crenshaw wrote. “When I became aware of allegations or personally witnessed conduct that required intervention, I reported what I knew through the appropriate channels, including to law enforcement and other relevant authorities. Investigations were conducted. Those processes created records, documentation, correspondence, timelines, and conclusions.”

Chandler responded, “I was NOT in organizational leadership or fully informed about the scope of these allegations when much of what you reference occurred. I was read into the situation after becoming an executive officer. By that point, the investigation had already concluded, and we were awaiting the final report. … Once that report became available to me, and once I understood the seriousness and scope of what was being alleged, my position was anything but ambiguous: I did not believe this individual should be welcomed at, participate in, or have access to official Pride events.”

Capital Pride’s attorney Nick Harrison then joined the exchange, accusing Chandler of violating confidentiality rules.

“You served on the Board for years. You cannot now present yourself as an outsider with no responsibility for what occurred during your tenure,” Harrison wrote. “When the situation became difficult, you resigned, provided your resignation letter to the media, disclosed confidential organizational matters, and recast yourself as the victim.”

Again, no one has publicly identified the person Chandler references as being welcome at Pride events and photographed with Capital Pride leadership.

District of Columbia

Center for Black Equity’s annual gala to take place Oct. 3

Advocacy group to honor Black LGBTQ community champions

Published

3 days ago

September 25, 2026

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

A scene from last year's BE Gala. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The Center for Black Equity, the D.C.-based international network of LGBTQ activists and organizations that advocate for Black LGBTQ communities and organize Black Pride events worldwide, will hold its annual 2026 BE Gala in D.C. on Oct. 3.

The event, to be held at the Conrad Washington Hotel at 950 New York Ave., N.W., among other things, will honor at least a dozen “distinguished Black individuals” and organizations that champion Black LGBTQ communities, according to a statement released by the Center for Black Equity.

“The honorees will receive awards recognizing extraordinary leadership, advocacy, and service across civil rights, public health, the arts, media, entrepreneurship, and community life,” the statement says.

“With an elegant atmosphere and a bold mission, this unforgettable evening brings together advocates, allies, and change makers committed to equity and joy,” the statement says in referring to the Oct. 3 BE Gala.

The statement notes that tickets for the event, which serves as a fundraiser for the Center of Black Equity, begin at $250 for individuals and include dinner and two drinks. It says reserved tables for eight were being offered for $2,000, and “Premier” tables for eight were selling for $2,500 and include seating near the stage.

“The BE Gala is more than an evening of celebration,” according to the statement. “It is an opportunity to honor Black LGBTQ+ leadership while investing in the work of the Center for Black Equity.”

Kenya Hutton, the Center for Black Equity’s CEO, told the Washington Blade the name “BE” for the gala is not an acronym. “The name is rooted in the idea of being: being seen, being celebrated and being fully and authentically yourself,” he said.

“BE Gala creates a space to celebrate Black LGGTQ+ people for who they are, the lives they lead and the impact they make,” he added.

The Center for Black Equity until 2012 was called the International Federation of Black Prides and was founded by organizers of D.C.’s Black Pride celebration.

Its current website includes a statement saying it’s mission is to “promote a multinational LGBTQ+ network dedicated to improving health and wellness opportunities, economic empowerment, and equal rights while promoting individua and collective work, responsibilities, and self-empowerment.”

The 2026 Center for Black Equity award honorees as announced in its statement released this week are:

Courtney Snowden: Welmore Cook Advocacy & Service Award

Clover Barnes: Ernest Hopkins Public Health Leadership Award

Nikki Alexander: Unsung Hero Award

Darryl G. Moore: Center for Black Equity Leadership Award

The Freelux Project: Center for Black Equity Small Business Award

Tori Cooper: Earline Budd Transgender Leadership Award

Bishop Steven R. Sawyer: Bishop Kwabena Rainey Cheeks Spiritual & Community Leadership Award

Rev. Carmarion D. Anderson-Harvey: Bishop Kwabena Rainey Cheeks Spiritual & Community Leadership Award

Monroe Alise: Trans Power in Media Award

Justin N. Stewart: National Black Pride Image Award

Marlene McNeese: Curtis L. Etherly Jr. Ally Award