Local
Kameny honored in memorial service on Capitol Hill
Members of Congress join LGBT community in remembering pioneer activist
Director of the Office of Personnel Management, John Berry, addresses the attendees at the memorial service for Frank Kameny. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
In a memorial service on Capitol Hill Tuesday night, three members of Congress, an Obama administration official, and a Yale Law School professor described the late gay rights leader Frank Kameny as a major figure in the U.S. civil rights movement who changed the course of history for LGBT Americans and the nation.
More than 200 people turned out for the service, which was held in the historic caucus room at the Cannon House Office Building across the street from the U.S. Capitol.
“His life cleared the path that I and countless others followed into public service,” said John Berry, the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, who in 2009 became the Obama administration’s highest-level gay appointment.
“His unrelenting and unceasing fight for gay rights enabled other Americans to step out of the closet and into the full light of equality,” Berry told the gathering. “But most importantly, his long battle and eventual triumphs show the miracles that one person wrought upon the world.”
Berry’s sentiment was echoed by gay U.S. Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), and Yale Law School Professor William Eskridge Jr. Each told of how Kameny’s 50-year tenure as the nation’s preeminent gay rights strategist and advocate changed the course of the nation’s history and improved the lives of LGBT people and other Americans.
Rep. Barney Frank also made remarks at the service. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Gay rights advocate and Kameny friend Charles Francis said he and others who organized the memorial service chose to hold it on Nov. 15 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Kameny’s co-founding of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C. Gay historians consider Mattachine of Washington to be D.C’s and the nation’s first homosexual civil rights organization.
Francis noted that Kameny and fellow activist Jack Nichols started the organization in 1961 not long after the Cannon Caucus Room, where Kameny’s memorial service was being held, was the site of the House Un-American Activities Committee’s widely publicized hearings in which communists and homosexuals were said to be a threat to the nation.
Eskridge praised Kameny’s role as a legal strategist and noted that Kameny waged one of the first effective efforts to repeal state sodomy laws, which classified gay sex as a crime. Eskridge and Norton, who called Kameny a civil rights champion, each compared the gay rights leader to American civil rights heroes in the black civil rights movement such as Rosa Parks and Thurgood Marshall.
Norton said that Kameny’s decision to become the first known gay person to fight his dismissal on grounds of homosexuality from his federal government job as an astronomer in 1957 was similar to Rosa Parks’ refusal to sit in the back of the bus as an act of defiance of the South’s segregation laws.
“He wore that dismissal as a badge of honor,” Norton said. “It is Frank’s lonely act of defiance that sets him apart” at a time when it was unthinkable for gays to stand up for their rights, she said.
Eskridge said Kameny’s work to advance legal rights for LGBT people in the early years of his activism in the 1960s was especially remarkable because he wasn’t a lawyer.
He said that in 1961 Kameny became the first in the U.S. civil rights movement to argue that sexual orientation should be treated the same as race in connection with laws and policies that ban discrimination.
“Those were remarkably good arguments,” said Eskridge. “Today they can get you tenure at a university. But back then they could land you in jail.”
Rep. Frank said Frank Kameny was an inspiration and role model for him at a time when he grappled with how his own status as a gay man would impact his plans to enter the realm of politics and run for public office in Massachusetts.
Frank said one of Kameny’s many accomplishments in the gay rights movement was his self-confidence and aggressive and assertive demeanor in informing the world that his cause was just and right.
“He was certainly the opposite of the stereotype of a gay person as a shrinking violet,” Frank said.
Baldwin said she, too, considered Kameny a role model in her own coming out as a lesbian interested in becoming involved in public affairs and politics.
“My own introduction to Frank came when I was in college,” she said. “I was just coming out. I sought everything I could find to read about our LGBT leaders… And what I learned about Frank Kameny, the Mattachine Society and so many other pioneers made me incredibly proud,” she said.
Attendees of Frank Kameny's memorial. (Blade photo by Michael Key)
Berry, who delivered the main eulogy for Kameny at the memorial service, said he had the honor as head of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to extend to Kameny a formal apology on behalf of the government for Kameny’s dismissal from government service in 1957.
“The apology closed an important cycle in his life’s work,” said Berry, who noted that it came more than 50 years after Kameny has been credited with initiating and living to see a long list of changes that have improved the lives of LGBT people.
An end to a government ban on granting security clearances to gays, the end of the ban on gays from serving in the military, the elimination of anti-gay sodomy laws, and the removal of the psychiatric profession’s classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder are all actions that Kameny played a key role in bringing about, Berry said.
“We have lost one of the great champions of truth. His life was long and full, his victories many and great. He has left his mark upon the world, and its stewardship falls to us now,” Berry told the gathering.
“The end of Frank’s avenue must not be the end of ours. We must continue on the journey forward. It is up to us to carry on the battles yet un-won, to write history and guard the future and to morn this great soul.”
Among those attending the Kameny memorial service were gay U.S. Reps. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and David Cicilline (D-R.I.), who, along with Norton, Frank, and Baldwin, served as official congressional hosts for the event. Also attending were Gautam Raghavan, associate director of public engagement at the White House, who serves as White House liaison to the LGBT community; White House press spokesperson Shin Inouye; and D.C. Council members David Catania, Jim Graham, and Mary Cheh.
District of Columbia
Imperial Court of Washington drag group has ‘dissolved’
Board president cites declining support since pandemic
The Imperial Court of Washington, a D.C.-based organization of drag performers that has raised at least $250,000 or more for local LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ charitable groups since its founding in 2010, announced on Jan. 5 that it has ended its operations by dissolving its corporate status.
In a Jan. 5 statement posted on Facebook, Robert Amos, president of the group’s board of directors, said the board voted that day to formally dissolve the organization in accordance with its bylaws.
“This decision was made after careful consideration and was based on several factors, including ongoing challenges in adhering to the bylaws, maintaining compliance with 501(c)(3) requirements, continued lack of member interest and attendance, and a lack of community involvement and support as well,” Amos said in his statement.
He told the Washington Blade in a Jan. 6 telephone interview that the group was no longer in compliance with its bylaws, which require at least six board members, when the number of board members declined to just four. He noted that the lack of compliance with its bylaws also violated the requirements of its IRS status as a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c) (3) organization.
According to Amos, the inability to recruit additional board members came at a time when the organization was continuing to encounter a sharp drop in support from the community since the start of the COVID pandemic around 2020 and 2021.
Amos and longtime Imperial Court of Washington member and organizer Richard Legg, who uses the drag name Destiny B. Childs, said in the years since its founding, the group’s drag show fundraising events have often been attended by 150 or more people. They said the events have been held in LGBTQ bars, including Freddie’s Beach Bar in Arlington, as well as in other venues such as theaters and ballrooms.
Among the organizations receiving financial support from Imperial Court of Washington have been SMYAL, PFLAG, Whitman-Walker Health’s Walk to End HIV, Capital Pride Alliance, the DC LGBT Community Center, and the LGBTQ Fallen Heroes Fund. Other groups receiving support included Pets with Disabilities, the Epilepsy Foundation of Washington, and Grandma’s House.
The Imperial Court of Washington’s website, which was still online as of Jan. 6, says the D.C. group has been a proud member of the International Court System, which was founded in San Francisco in 1965 as a drag performance organization that evolved into a charitable fundraising operation with dozens of affiliated “Imperial Court” groups like the one in D.C.
Amos, who uses the drag name Veronica Blake, said he has heard that Imperial Court groups in other cities including Richmond and New York City, have experienced similar drops in support and attendance in the past year or two. He said the D.C. group’s events in the latter part of 2025 attracted 12 or fewer people, a development that has prevented it from sustaining its operations financially.
He said the membership, which helped support it financially through membership dues, has declined in recent years from close to 100 to its current membership of 21.
“There’s a lot of good we have done for the groups we supported, for the charities, and the gay community here,” Amos said. “It is just sad that we’ve had to do this, mainly because of the lack of interest and everything going on in the world and the national scene.”
Virginia
LGBTQ groups to join Spanberger inaugural parade
Virginia Pride among more than 25 orgs to march in Jan.17 event
Virginia Gov.-Elect Abigail Spanberger’s inaugural committee announced on Jan. 2 that at least two LGBTQ organizations will be among more than 25 state-based organizations, including marching bands, that will participate in her inaugural parade on Jan. 17.
A statement released by the inaugural committee says the parade will take place immediately after Spanberger is sworn in as Virginia’s 75th governor and delivers her inaugural address in Richmond.
The statement lists the LGBTQ groups Virginia Pride and Diversity Richmond as two groups participating in the parade, although the two groups merged in 2021, with Virginia Pride becoming a project of Diversity Richmond. Among other things, Virginia Pride organizes Richmond’s annual LGBTQ Pride events.
“A display of the impressive talent and beauty of every corner of Virginia, our inaugural parade will be a celebration of all that makes our Commonwealth strong,” Spanberger said in the Jan. 2 statement. “I’m excited for attendees in the stands on Capitol Square and families watching together at home to see this incredible showing of Virginia pride,” she said.
James Millner, who serves as director of Virginia Pride, told the Washington Blade about 75 people are expected to join the Virginia Pride-Diversity Richmond contingent in the parade. He said among them will be members of other Virginia LGBTQ organizations.
“We’re going to invite our staff, our board, our volunteers, and our community partners to join us,” Millner said.
“We are thrilled and honored to have been invited to participate in Abigail Spanberger’s inauguration festivities,” he added. “I think this represents a marked change from the previous administration and demonstrates what she campaigned on – which is she sees the diversity of the Commonwealth as a strength that needs to be celebrated,” he said. “And we are very happy that she has invited us to represent the diversity of the commonwealth.”
Millner appeared to reflect on the sentiment of the large majority of Virginia’s LGBTQ community in its support for Democrat Spanberger over Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears in the November 2025 Virginia election and the end of incumbent GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s term in office on Jan. 17.
“After what we’ve been through with the Younkin administration, especially in its treatment of LGBTQ folks, especially transgender and nonconforming folks, I think we are all breathing easy and excited about what opportunities will exist in working with Abigail Spanberger,” he told the Blade.
District of Columbia
Two pioneering gay journalists to speak at Thursday event
Blade’s Chibbaro, Falls Church News-Press’s Benton talk long careers
Two local gay journalists will speak on a panel this week about their long, pioneering careers.
A celebration of the Falls Church News-Press’s Nicholas Benton and the Washington Blade’s Lou Chibbaro Jr., two trailblazing LGBTQ journalists who have spent decades reporting on the front lines of social, cultural, legal, and political change in America, will be held this Thursday, Jan. 8, at the Women’s National Democratic Club of Washington. D.C., 1526 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W., at 6 p.m., according to a statement from organizers.
The program will explore their journeys, the evolution of LGBTQ journalism, and the ongoing fight for equality and justice. Benton and Chibbaro will also examine the various factors causing many news outlets to cease print publication and their energetic efforts to continue publishing their work both in print and online.
EVENT DETAILS:
- Remarks and Q&A, in-person and via Zoom.
- 6 p.m. complimentary hors d’oeuvres and cash bar; 6:30–7:30 p.m. program followed by book signing.
- Zoom only: $10. In-person: members: $20, nonmembers: $30 plus tax.
Benton’s latest book, “Please Don’t Eat Your Children, Cult Century, and Other Essays,” will be available for purchase at the event.
Benton is a longtime local journalist and LGBTQ rights activist whose work has had a lasting impact on both community journalism and social justice. Author of the first-ever editorial in the pioneering Gay Sunshine newspaper in 1970, he is best known as the founder, owner, and editor of the Falls Church News-Press, an independent weekly newspaper he launched in 1991 and is the paper of record for the City of Falls Church, Virginia.
Chibbaro is the senior news reporter for the Washington Blade and a pioneering journalist in LGBTQ news coverage. He has reported on the LGBTQ rights movement and community continuously since 1976, first as a freelance writer and later as a staff reporter, joining the Blade in 1984.
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