Local
Maryland high school distributes ‘ex-gay’ flier
Montgomery County parent objects after son brings home anti-gay literature
Flier On Gay Choice Stirs Controversy: MyFoxDC.com
Students at a Montgomery County high school have received materials from an “ex-gay” organization that promotes the widely discredited theory that sexual orientation is changeable, according to a local D.C. Fox television affiliate.
Fox 5 TV reported students at Einstein High School in Rockville, Md., received the materials along with their report cards during homeroom last week.
The flier publicizes the work of the “ex-gay” organization, known as PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays), which claims it “promotes diversity for the ex-gay community.” According to their mission statement, the organization asserts “ex-gays demonstrate that those with unwanted same-sex attraction can seek help and information,” in order to “transition out of a homosexual identity.”
According to district policy, any organization that can prove that it is a non-profit “community entity” can send materials home with students quarterly when report cards are distributed.
According to Fox 5, licensed clinical social worker and Einstein High School parent Karen Yount-Merrell complained to the Montgomery County school district administration after she found the flier among others when her son brought home his quarterly report card.
“I don’t like it,” Yount-Merrell told Fox 5. “Everything in this flier make it sound like the goal is to be [an] EX-gay, [or an EX]-lesbian. It is not embracing of a different orientation. It reiterates a societal view that there’s something ‘wrong’ with you, if you’re not in the norm. If you aren’t heterosexual. And teenagers have a hard enough time dealing with who they are and feeling good about themselves.”
After Yount-Merrell’s complaint, Montgomery County public schools issued a response saying, “the board of education policy allows materials and announcements from non-profit community organizations to be distributed at four designated times during the school year.”
PFOX’s principles are enumerated at a third-party website called Positive Alternatives To Homosexuality, or PATH, which PFOX’s website links to prominently. On the site, PATH declares it has worked with thousands of “ex-gays” who are now living as heterosexuals, concluding, “[w]hatever their individual circumstances and life goals, they have found from personal experience that there are, indeed, positive alternatives that are right for them rather than living a homosexual life.”
Wayne Besen, founding executive director of “ex-gay” watchdog group Truth Wins Out, said he’s appalled that a school district would allow the PFOX materials to be distributed.
“I follow a lot of these groups, and PFOX is by far the most extreme of all of them,” Besen told the Blade. “They’re pretending that they’re experts when they’re just extremists.”
He continued, “I think it’s always dangerous when you have a group with no credentials to do so handing out junk science to young people telling them there is something wrong with them. I think they’re begging for a lawsuit by even allowing this organization near them.”
Besen says PFOX was established by a collective of anti-gay groups as a foil to the pro-gay PFLAG, but that the group is inappropriate for the school setting.
“The school district is grossly irresponsible, derelict in its duty to protect students from harm by allowing this organization to distribute these materials,” Besen told the Blade. “It’s dangerous, reckless and unprofessional and a threat to the students they’re supposed to be protecting. These are the people they’re going to allow talk to kids?”
PFOX, however, was on the defensive after the controversy erupted, telling Fox 5 that the flier calls for “tolerance.”
“If people were to actually read the content of the flier that we’re distributing, they will see there is nothing in here that is insulting or even critical of homosexuals,” PFOX board member Peter Sprigg told Fox 5. “All it is telling kids [is] that you don’t have to be gay if you don’t want to be.”
Besen says the group may be attempting to sound reasonable, but in his opinion, PFOX is anything but.
“They were started with an $80,000 grant by the Family Research Council as a front group in 1998 …as part of that million dollar ‘Truth and Love’ campaign by 15 anti-gay organizations,” Besen said. “[Their mission is] to try to bully schools into accepting ex-gay literature or even so called ex-gay speakers. They want to portray ex-gays as an official minority that are being persecuted by activists.”
Besen said the school district need look no further than one of PFOX’s preferred speakers, Richard Cohen, who runs the International Healing Foundation, and promotes ‘touch therapy’ and therapy that includes beating a pillow with a tennis racket, according to Wayne Besen.
Richard Cohen showcasing some of his techniques on CNN
“What does the school district say about a group whose guru and current main speaker was kicked out of the American Counselors Association, for malpractice — he was expelled for life,” Besen said. “I can’t imagine any school district official could see a video of Richard Cohen for three seconds and would still distribute that flier. Unfathomable. I challenge any of them to take a look at him and tell me that children are safe in his clutches.”
According to Right Wing Watch, PFOX “tells gay youth to “transition out of a homosexual identity” even though the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association of Social Workers and the American Psychiatric Association all deny the effectiveness, safety and ethics of reparative therapy.”
The full flier by the organization has been obtained by Fox 5 and can be found below:
Parents And Friends Of Ex-Gays Flyer to Einstein High School Students
Virginia
DOJ seeks to join lawsuit against Loudoun County over trans student in locker room
Three male high school students suspended after complaining about classmate
The Justice Department has asked to join a federal lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools over the way it handled the case of three male high school students who complained about a transgender student in a boys’ locker room.
The Washington Blade earlier this year reported Loudoun County public schools suspended the three boys and launched a Title IX investigation into whether they sexually harassed the student after they said they felt uncomfortable with their classmate in the locker room at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn.
The parents of two of the boys filed a lawsuit against Loudoun County public schools in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. The Richmond-based Founding Freedoms Law Center and America First Legal, which White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller co-founded, represent them.
The Justice Department in a Dec. 8 press release announced that “it filed legal action against the Loudoun County (Va.) School Board (Loudoun County) for its denial of equal protection based on religion.”
“The suit alleges that Loudoun County applied Policy 8040, which requires students and faculty to accept and promote gender ideology, to two Christian, male students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” reads the press release.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the press release said “students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate.”
“Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality,” said Dhillon.
Outgoing Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and outgoing Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares in May announced an investigation into the case.
The Virginia Department of Education in 2023 announced the new guidelines for trans and nonbinary students for which Youngkin asked. Equality Virginia and other advocacy groups claim they, among other things, forcibly out trans and nonbinary students.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in February launched an investigation into whether Loudoun County and four other Northern Virginia school districts’ policies in support of trans and nonbinary students violate Title IX and President Donald Trump’s executive order that prohibits federally funded educational institutions from promoting “gender ideology.”
District of Columbia
Capital Pride announces change in date for 2026 D.C. Pride parade and festival
Events related to U.S. 250th anniversary and Trump birthday cited as reasons for change
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C. based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, has announced it is changing the dates for the 2026 Capital Pride Parade and Festival from the second weekend in June to the third weekend.
“For over a decade, Capital Pride has taken place during the second weekend in June, but in 2026, we are shifting our dates in response to the city’s capacity due to major events and preparations for the 250th anniversary of the United States,” according to a Dec. 9 statement released by Capital Pride Alliance.
The statement says the parade will take place on Saturday, June 20, 2026, with the festival and related concert taking place on June 21.
“This change ensures our community can gather safely and without unnecessary barriers,” the statement says. “By moving the celebration, we are protecting our space and preserving Pride as a powerful act of visibility, solidarity, and resistance,” it says.
Ryan Bos, the Capital Pride Alliance CEO and President, told the Washington Blade the change in dates came after the group conferred with D.C. government officials regarding plans for a number of events in the city on the second weekend in June. Among them, he noted, is a planned White House celebration of President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and other events related to the U.S. 250th anniversary, which are expected to take place from early June through Independence Day on July 4.
The White House has announced plans for a large June 14, 2026 celebration on the White House south lawn of Trump’s 80th birthday that will include a large-scale Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event involving boxing and wrestling competition.
Bos said the Capital Pride Parade will take place along the same route it has in the past number of years, starting at 14th and T Streets, N.W. and traveling along 14th Street to Pennsylvania Ave., where it will end. He said the festival set for the following day will also take place at its usual location on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., between 2nd Street near the U.S. Capitol, to around 7th Street, N.W.
“Our Pride events thrive because of the passion and support of the community,” Capital Pride Board Chair Anna Jinkerson said in the statement. “In 2026, your involvement is more important than ever,” she said.
District of Columbia
Three women elected leaders of Capital Pride Alliance board
Restructured body includes chair rather than president as top leader
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, announced it has restructured its board of directors and elected for the first time three women to serve as leaders of the board’s Executive Committee.
“Congratulations to our newly elected Executive Officers, making history as Capital Pride Alliance’s first all-women Board leadership,” the group said in a statement.
“As we head into 2026 with a bold new leadership structure, we’re proud to welcome Anna Jinkerson as Board Chair, Kim Baker as Board Treasurer, and Taylor Lianne Chandler as Board Secretary,” the statement says.
In a separate statement released on Nov. 20, Capital Pride Alliance says the restructured Board now includes the top leadership posts of Chair, Treasurer, and Secretary, replacing the previous structure of President and Vice President as the top board leaders.
It says an additional update to the leadership structure includes a change in title for longtime Capital Pride official Ryan Bos from executive director to chief executive officer and president.
According to the statement, June Crenshaw, who served as acting deputy director during the time the group organized WorldPride 2025 in D.C., will now continue in that role as permanent deputy director.
The statement provides background information on the three newly elected women Board leaders.
• Anna Jinkerson (chair), who joined the Capital Pride Alliance board in 2022, previously served as the group’s vice president for operations and acting president. “A seasoned non-profit executive, she currently serves as Assistant to the President and CEO and Chief of Staff at Living Cities, a national member collaborative of leading philanthropic foundations and financial institutions committed to closing income and wealth gaps in the United States and building an economy that works for everyone.”
• Kim Baker (treasurer) is a “biracial Filipino American and queer leader,” a “retired, disabled U.S. Army veteran with more than 20 years of service and extensive experience in finance, security, and risk management.” She has served on the Capital Pride Board since 2018, “bringing a proven track record of steady, principled leadership and unwavering dedication to the LGBTQ+ community.”
• Taylor Lianne Chandler (Secretary) is a former sign language interpreter and crisis management consultant. She “takes office as the first intersex and trans-identifying member of the Executive Committee.” She joined the Capital Pride Board in 2019 and previously served as executive producer from 2016 to 2018.
Bos told the Washington Blade in a Dec. 2 interview that the Capital Pride board currently has 12 members, and is in the process of interviewing additional potential board members.
“In January we will be announcing in another likely press release the full board,” Bos said. “We are finishing the interview process of new board members this month,” he said. “And they will take office to join the board in January.”
Bos said the organization’s rules set a cap of 25 total board members, but the board, which elects its members, has not yet decided how many additional members it will select and a full 25-member board is not required.
The Nov. 20 Capital Pride statement says the new board executive members will succeed the organization’s previous leadership team, which included Ashley Smith, who served as president for eight years before he resigned earlier this year; Anthony Musa, who served for seven years as vice president of board engagement; Natalie Thompson, who served eight years on the executive committee; and Vince Micone, who served for eight years as vice president of operations.
“I am grateful for the leadership, dedication, and commitment shown by our former executive officers — Ashley, Natalie, Anthony, and Vince — who have been instrumental in CPA’s growth and the exceptional success of WorldPride 2025,” Bos said in the statement.
“I look forward to collaborating with Anna in her new role, as well as Kim and Taylor in theirs, as we take on the important work ahead, prepare for Capital Pride 2026, and expand our platform and voice through Pride365,” Bos said.
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