Local
Activists skeptical about Hunter’s marriage views
Rival candidate in Ward 5 race embraces LGBT rights
Gay activists in Ward 5 have expressed skepticism over a candidate for the ward’s Council seat who says he no longer opposes the city’s same-sex marriage law.
Council candidate Delano Hunter, a Democrat, told the Blade last week that he no longer believes the marriage equality law should be subjected to a voter referendum, reversing his position from 2010 when he unsuccessfully ran for the Ward 5 seat against incumbent Harry Thomas (D).
The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics officially declared the Ward 5 seat vacant on Tuesday, nearly two weeks after Thomas resigned shortly before pleading guilty to embezzling more than $300,000 in city funds. The board scheduled a special election on May 15 to fill the seat.
Meanwhile, since Hunter told the Blade he’s changed his position on the marriage bill, rival Ward 5 candidate Kenyan McDuffie, also a Democrat, joined gay activists in the ward to question Hunter’s sincerity, noting that Hunter stressed strong support for “traditional marriage” during his campaign for the Council seat in 2010.
McDuffie sent a statement to the Blade pointing out that he declared his full support for same-sex marriage when he, too, ran for the Ward 5 Council seat against Hunter and Thomas in the September 2010 Democratic primary.
“Undeniably, Mr. Hunter’s position on gay marriage today runs counter to the views he espoused on the campaign trail merely 15 months ago,” McDuffie said in his statement. “This is a classic case of a candidate analyzing voter returns and making a calculated decision to appeal to a constituency that he previously had written off.”
McDuffie added, “On the other hand, my record demonstrates my unwavering support for the LGBT community as well as my firm belief that tolerance and open-mindedness must pervade even where differing opinions collide.”
Political observers say both candidates have impressive credentials that could make them attractive to Ward 5 voters. Hunter, a native D.C. resident, worked as a company diversity specialist with the Nike Corporation in Oregon before returning to D.C. to become a Ward 5 community organizer. McDuffie, an attorney, worked in the Justice Department’s civil rights division as a trial lawyer.
In its candidate ratings for the 2010 Democratic primary, the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance gave Hunter a score of -2 on a scale of +10 to -10. GLAA gave McDuffie a score of “0.” The group said the two were given low ratings because neither of them returned a GLAA questionnaire that asks candidates about their positions on a wide range of LGBT-related issues.
Failure to return the questionnaire results in an automatic “0” rating unless the group has information about a candidate’s record on LGBT issues, GLAA officials have said. In this case, the group only knew of Hunter’s call for a referendum to overturn the marriage bill and of support he received from anti-gay groups, information considered hostile to LGBT rights.
Hunter told the Blade his campaign’s failure to return the GLAA questionnaire was an “oversight.” A McDuffie campaign spokesperson noted that McDuffie returned a questionnaire to the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the city’s largest LGBT political group, and expressed strong support for LGBT rights in his answers. He sent a copy of his answers to the Blade.
In an interview with the Blade last week, Hunter disputed claims by critics that his call for a referendum on the gay marriage bill was the focus of his 2010 campaign. He acknowledged that anti-gay groups opposed to the marriage equality bill endorsed him and spent large sums of money attacking incumbent Thomas, who voted for the same-sex marriage bill.
But Hunter noted that the anti-gay groups released ads attacking Thomas through an independent expenditure campaign over which he had no control.
He declined to say whether he would have voted for or against the marriage equality bill if he had been on the Council in 2009 when the Council approved the measure.
“I would like him to not only say he won’t overturn it but to say he supports it,” said gay Democratic activist Peter Rosenstein. “He should also state that he will not seek or take support from homophobic groups like the National Organization for Marriage if we are truly to believe this conversion in his beliefs.”
Ward 5 gay Democratic activist Barrie Daneker said Hunter would have to put forward specific proposals for supporting and advancing LGBT rights in the city before he can count on support from the LGBT community.
“Taking a new position at the 11th hour in order to appeal to a wider base of Ward 5 voters will do nothing for his campaign,” Daneker said. “We need concrete accomplishments and plans prior to giving support to a so-called ‘reformed anti-gay’ candidate,” he said.
Ward 5 political observers have said as many as seven or eight other candidates were considering entering the Ward 5 special election contest. Among them are Anita Bonds, the LGBT supportive chair of the D.C. Democratic State Committee, and Tim Day, the gay Republican who ran and lost against Thomas in the November 2010 general election.
According to Washington Post political analyst Mike DeBonis, Day made a comment likely to startle the city’s gay Republican leaders when responding to DeBonis’s question of whether he planned to run for the Ward 5 seat as a Republican in the May special election. “That’s an interesting question,” DeBonis quoted him as saying.
Many political observers have praised Day, an accountant, as a highly qualified candidate who would have little or no chance of winning election as a Republican in a Ward with an overwhelming majority of Democratic voters. Day lost to Thomas by a lopsided margin in 2010. But should Day change party affiliation to become a Democrat or an independent, his chances of becoming the Council’s third out gay member would increase in the eyes of some political observers.
Delaware
Delaware fines Rehoboth bar $15,000 for discriminating against trans woman
Hideout told patron she had to use men’s room due to gender marker on driver’s license
The Delaware Human and Civil Rights Commission voted to fine Hideout Arcade Bar & Grille $15,000 last month due to a discrimination complaint filed by a trans woman over her use of the bathroom.
Katie Sorber, a transgender woman, said that on April 5, 2023, she was stopped by employees and told she could only use the men’s bathroom due to the “male” gender marker on her driver’s license. This occurred after Sorber presented her ID upon entering the bar and ordering a drink.
Sorber took to Facebook to complain about her experience at the bar after she was told to use the men’s bathroom.
On April 12, 2023, Sorber returned to the Hideout but was barred from entering due to her post on social media.
Following Sorber’s post, Bryan Derrickson, the owner of Hideout Arcade Bar & Grille, allegedly began enforcing a policy in which patrons had to use the bathroom that corresponded to the gender marker on their ID.
Derrickson was ordered to pay $10,000 to Sorber, $5,000 to the Special Administration Fund, as well as conduct anti-discrimination training with employees, remove the ban on Sorber from the establishment, and revise the bar’s bathroom policy.
The commission ruled that the bar and Derrickson had wrongfully discriminated against Sorber on the basis of her gender.
Derrickson’s explanations for the denial included safety concerns, a third-party patron complaint, and a reference to the health code. The panel found this to be inconsistent and lacking factual support upon cross-examination.
The case was evaluated under the Delaware Equal Accommodations Law, which explicitly prohibits discrimination and retaliation in places of public accommodation based on gender identity.
This was the second time that the bar has been fined for discriminating against a transgender woman. The bar received a $2,000 penalty in September of last year for denying a transgender woman entry in 2023.
Half of the fine went to Kathy Carpenter Brown, the trans woman who experienced the discrimination. Brown is the founder of TransLiance, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group in Delaware.
District of Columbia
Push to elect more LGBTQ ANC members yields results
31 of 43 known LGBTQ ANC members elected in 2024 seeking re-election
A 2026 list of candidates released by the D.C. Board of Elections shows that 31 of the 43 known LGBTQ candidates who won election in 2024 as Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners have filed the required petition signatures to be placed on the ballot this year to run for re-election.
The Washington Blade reported in 2024 that 43 known LGBTQ candidates won election to ANC seats that year in the November election
In a related development, the president of Capital Stonewall Democrats, D.C.’s largest local LGBTQ political group, said the group this year has recruited at least 39 LGBTQ candidates to run for Advisory Neighborhood Commission seats in the city’s Nov. 3 general election.
The group’s president, Stevie McCarty, an incumbent ANC member in the city’s Shaw neighborhood who is running for re-election, said the 39 candidates and possibly more responded to the group’s Queering ANCs campaign launched on July 7 that includes a website with detailed instructions for how best to run for an ANC seat.
“Since launching in early July, the site has drawn more than 20,000 views, and 39 candidates have used it to actually run,” McCarty said in a statement. He said he wasn’t sure if all the 39 candidates wanted to be identified as LGBTQ, and he was reviewing the list of incumbent LGBTQ ANC members who won election in 2024 to determine if any of the 39 candidates recruited were among those incumbents. He said he was not ready to release the names of the 39 candidates he said his group recruited to run for an ANC seat.
If none of the 39 candidates recruited by Capital Stonewall Democrats are among the 31 known LGBTQ ANC incumbents running for re-election, it would mean at least 70 LGBTQ ANC candidates will be on the city’s November election ballot.
McCarty said Capital Stonewall Democrats will send candidate questionnaires to the known LGBTQ ANC candidates as part of its process for endorsing candidates in the November election. He said he expects the group to help campaign for and provide financial support for the ANC candidates it endorses.
The D.C. local government is believed to be unique among U.S. cities in currently having 46 Advisory Neighborhood Commissions consisting of 345 single member districts in neighborhoods throughout the city in which unpaid Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners are elected for two-year terms.
The commissions are charged with considering a wide range of policies and programs impacting their neighborhoods, including traffic, parking, recreation, street improvements, zoning, liquor licenses, and economic development. Although ANCs do not have authority to set or reject policies or actions by city agencies, the agencies are required to give “great weight” to ANC recommendations, according to the law creating the ANCs.
“As an ANC member, I know firsthand how these seats shape our neighborhoods, from housing and public safety to sanitation,” McCarty said in the Capital Stonewall Democrats statement announcing the launch of the Queering ANCs campaign in July. “I’m proud to lead this effort to ensure more LGBTQ+ Washingtonians see themselves as leaders in their communities,” he said.
Some local LGBTQ activists, who asked not to be identified, said they were not aware of a significant boost in new LGBTQ ANC candidates from the Queering ANCs campaign. However, they praised the effort to recruit more LGBTQ ANC candidates and said the campaign could have yielded more candidates if it had started sooner than less than a month before the deadline for becoming a candidate.
McCarty said Capital Stonewall Democrats will continue to recruit LGBTQ D.C. residents to run as write-in candidates for ANC seats, especially in the 45 single member districts in which no candidate will be on the ballot. The Board of Elections candidate list shows many ANC single member districts that have just one candidate running without an opponent.
Following is a list of 33 known LGBTQ ANC candidates running in D.C.’s November 2026 election and the single member districts and neighborhoods in which they are running. All but two – Vita Rangel and J. Swiderski – are incumbents running for re-election. The Washington Blade will update this list if and when more LGBTQ ANC candidates become known.
1A04 – (Columbia Heights) Jeremy Sherman, he/him
1A10 – (Columbia Heights) Vita Rangel, she/ her [non-incumbent candidate]
1B03 – (Columbia Heights/U Street) J. Swiderski, they/he [non-incumbent candidate]
Jamie S. Sycamore, he/him
1B06 – (Columbia Heights/Meridian Hill) Miguel Trindade Deramo, he/him
1B07 – (U Street) Matthew Holden, he/him
1E01 – (Park View) Brad Howard, he/him
2B02 – (Dupont Circle) Jeffrey Rueckgauer, he/him
2B03 – (Dupont Circle) Vincent Slatt, he/him
2C01 – (Penn Quarter) Michael D. Shankle, he/him
2F05 – (Logan Circle) Christopher Dyer, he/him
2F07 – (Logan Circle) Kevin Cataldo, he/him
2G01 – (Shaw)Parker Griffin, he/him Howard Garrett, he/him
2G02 – (Shaw) Alexander ‘Alex’ Padro, he/him
2G04 – (Shaw) Steven McCarty, he/him
3B06 – (Wesley Heights) S. Robert Rodriquez, he/him
3F05 – (Van Ness/Cleveland Park) Adrian Jesus Iglesias, he/him
4B01 – (Takoma) Doug Payton, he/him
4B10 – (Lamond Riggs) Jinin Berry, she/her
4C06 – (Petworth) Christen Boss Hayes, they/them
4E02 – (16th Street Heights) Vince Micone, he/him
5B04 – (Brookland) Ra Amin, he/him
5B05 – (Brookland) Mónica Martínez López, she/her
5D05 – (Trinidad) Salvador Sauceda-Guzman, he/him
5F06 – (Eckington) Joe Bishop-Henchman, he/him
6B03 – (Capitol Hill) David Sobelsohn, he/him
6B09 – (Capitol Hill/Barney Circle) Karen Hughes, she/her
7C01 – (Deanwood) Brian Glover, he/him
7C03 – (Lincoln Heights) Carlos Richardson, he/him
7C04 (Deanwood) Anthony Lorenzo Green
7C08 – (Capitol View) Brandon M. Scott, he/him
8A01 – (Fairlawn) Tom Donohue, he, him
8B06 – (Garfield Heights) Marcus Thomas Hickman, he/him
Congress
Chris Van Hollen says the Democratic Party needs change. Is he the one to lead it?
Senator is backing anti-establishment Democrats across the country
By LEE O. SANDERLIN | The Democratic Party is having something of an identity crisis — losing to President Donald Trump twice in three elections will do that.
Should the party embrace anti-establishment figures who espouse progressive policy ideas like Medicare for all and rhetoric about unrigging the economy for the 1 percent? Or should Democrats try to appeal to moderates who want to return to semi-normalcy in a time of political upheaval?
Although he’s been in Congress since 2002, with key leadership roles throughout his tenure, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, 67, counts himself firmly in the anti-establishment camp.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Delaware fines Rehoboth bar $15,000 for discriminating against trans woman
Music icon and dear LGBTQ friend Dolly Parton remembered
Push to elect more LGBTQ ANC members yields results
Chris Van Hollen says the Democratic Party needs change. Is he the one to lead it?
New data shows record-high LGBTQ population amid Trump attacks
Exploring Renée Richards’s life through lens of a trans author
Why we need to protect ‘sacrilegious’ art
New GALA show about WWII spy full of conflict, intrigue
Proposed Indian foreign funding law overhaul could further pressure LGBTQ groups
Two awesome, affordable rides
-
Books4 days agoExploring Renée Richards’s life through lens of a trans author
-
Opinions3 days ago
Why we need to protect ‘sacrilegious’ art
-
Theater3 days ago
New GALA show about WWII spy full of conflict, intrigue
-
India2 days ago
Proposed Indian foreign funding law overhaul could further pressure LGBTQ groups
