Local
Kameny gravesite ceremony set for March 3
Plot next to Air Force veteran, LGBT activist Matlovich; formal military veteran headstone provided by Dept. of Veterans Affairs
Frank Kameny will be buried next to Leonard Matlovich, the first active duty service member to come out publicly in 1975.
A grave site ceremony for the late gay rights leader Franklin E. Kameny will be held March 3 at D.C.’s Congressional Cemetery, organizers of the event announced on Wednesday.
“All friends, family and the public are welcome to observe the interment for Dr. Kameny at historic Congressional Cemetery,” the announcement says. The ceremony is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m.
“The informal observance will include brief remarks as well as recognition by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network of Dr. Kameny’s honorable military service during World War II,” it says.
Charles Francis, co-founder of the Kameny Papers Project, said Kameny’s friends and associates organizing the ceremony applied for and received a formal military veteran’s headstone provided by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs identical to the ones used for burials at Arlington National Cemetery.
The inscription on the headstone will identify Kameny’s rank, military service, World War engagement in Germany, where Kameny served in combat, along with his date of birth and death – May 25, 1925 – Oct. 11, 2011.
Francis said a separate pink granite grave marker will include the inscription, “Gay is Good,” the slogan Kameny coined in the 1960s that he has said symbolized his nearly 50-year campaign to bring about equal rights for LGBT people.
Congressional Cemetery, located near Capitol Hill, was founded in 1807 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2011.
Among the 55,000 people interred there is one U.S. vice president, one Supreme Court justice, six cabinet members, 19 U.S. senators, and 71 U.S. representatives, according to literature released by the cemetery.
Francis and Kameny Papers Project co-founder Bob Witeck said the Kameny grave site will be next to that of U.S. Air Force veteran Leonard Matlovich, who became the first active duty member of the military to publicly declare he was gay in 1975. Kameny played a key role in advising Matlovich in his effort to end the military’s ban on gay service members.
The Kameny gravesite is also near the gravesite of the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Hoover’s longtime companion Clyde Tolson.
As part of a longstanding tradition by U.S. presidents, all U.S. military veterans receiving Department of Veterans Affairs’ headstones for their interment also receive an official certificate of recognition signed by the president.
Kameny’s certificate states, “The United States of America honors the memory of Franklin E. Kameny. This certificate is awarded by a grateful nation in recognition of devoted and selfless consecration to the service of our country in the Armed Forces of the United States. Barack Obama, President of the United States.”
Photos
PHOTOS: Helen Hayes Awards
Gay Men’s Chorus, local drag artists have featured performance at ceremony
The 41st Helen Hayes Awards were held at The Anthem on Monday, May 19. Felicia Curry and Mike Millan served as the hosts.
A performance featuring members of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington and local drag artists was held at the end of the first act of the program to celebrate WorldPride 2025.
The annual awards ceremony honors achievement in D.C.-area theater productions and is produced by Theatre Washington.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
District of Columbia
Laverne Cox, Reneé Rapp, Deacon Maccubbin named WorldPride grand marshals
Three LGBTQ icons to lead parade
WorldPride organizers announced Thursday that actress and trans activist Laverne Cox, powerhouse performer Reneé Rapp, and LGBTQ trailblazer Deacon Maccubbin will serve as grand marshals for this year’s WorldPride parade.
The Capital Pride Alliance, which is organizing WorldPride 2025 in Washington, D.C., revealed the honorees in a press release, noting that each has made a unique contribution to the fabric of the LGBTQ community.
Cox made history in 2014 as the first openly transgender person nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in an acting category for her role in Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black.” She went on to win a Daytime Emmy in 2015 for her documentary “Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word,” which followed seven young trans people as they navigated coming out.
Rapp, a singer and actress who identifies as a lesbian, rose to prominence as Regina George in the Broadway musical “Mean Girls.” She reprised the role in the 2024 film adaptation and also stars in Max’s “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” portraying a character coming to terms with her sexuality. Rapp has released an EP, “Everything to Everyone,” and an album, “Snow Angel.” She announced her sophomore album, “Bite Me,” on May 21 and is slated to perform at the WorldPride Music Festival at the RFK Festival Grounds.
Deacon Maccubbin, widely regarded as a cornerstone of Washington’s LGBTQ+ history, helped organize D.C.’s first Gay Pride Party in 1975. The event took place outside Lambda Rising, one of the first LGBTQ bookstores in the nation, which Maccubbin founded. For his decades of advocacy and activism, he is often referred to as “the patriarch of D.C. Pride.”
“I am so honored to serve as one of the grand marshals for WorldPride this year. This has been one of the most difficult times in recent history for queer and trans people globally,” Cox said. “But in the face of all the rhetorical, legislative and physical attacks, we continue to have the courage to embrace who we truly are, to celebrate our beauty, resilience and bravery as a community. We refuse to allow fear to keep us from ourselves and each other. We remain out loud and proud.”
“Pride is everything. It is protection, it is visibility, it is intersectional. But most importantly, it is a celebration of existence and protest,” Rapp said.
The three will march down 14th Street for the WorldPride Parade in Washington on June 7.
2025 D.C. Trans Pride was held at Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library on Saturday, May 17. The day was filled with panel discussions, art, social events, speakers, a resource fair and the Engendered Spirit Awards. Awardees included Lyra McMillan, Pip Baitinger, Steph Niaupari and Hayden Gise. The keynote address was delivered by athlete and advocate Schuyler Bailar.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
PHOTOS: Helen Hayes Awards
Laverne Cox, Reneé Rapp, Deacon Maccubbin named WorldPride grand marshals
House passes reconciliation with gender-affirming care funding ban
PHOTOS: D.C. Trans Pride
Men convicted of murdering two men in NYC gay bar drugging scheme sentenced
Looking back at 50 years of Pride in D.C
WorldPride events round-up
Pope Leo XIV: Family based on ‘stable union between a man and a woman’
Wes Moore signs HIV decriminalization bill
