Local
Trans activists sworn in as D.C. human rights commissioners
Mayor administers oath of office to Budd, Beninda, 11 others
The Director of the Mayor’s Office of GLBT Affairs, Jeffrey Richardson (center) looks on as Mayor Vincent Gray makes history swearing in Alexandra Beninda (second from right) and Earline Budd at the Wilson building on Wednesday.
In what LGBT activists considered an historic development, Mayor Vincent Gray on Wednesday administered the oath of office to transgender advocates Earline Budd and Alexandra Beninda as members of the D.C. Commission on Human Rights.
Budd and Beninda, who were nominated for the position by Gray and confirmed last month by the City Council, were among 13 newly appointed members to the commission to be sworn in by Gray at a ceremony at the John A. Wilson Building steps away from the mayor’s office.
Also sworn in at the ceremony was Michael Ward, who was nominated by Gray and approved by the City Council for a second term as commissioner. Ward is gay.
The appointments of Budd and Beninda represent the first time a transgender person has been named to the city’s Commission on Human Rights, which acts as an adjudicatory body that enforces the city’s Human Rights Act. The act, among other things, bans discrimination in employment, housing, education, and public accommodations based on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, race, religion, and ethnicity.
“I’m very pleased and I’m looking forward to the challenge and I’m always honored to be a representative of my community,” Budd said after the ceremony. ‘I’m going to do the best I can in this position and make sure that discrimination comes to an end.”
Beninda said she, too, was looking forward to joining Budd on the commission.
“I’m definitely very excited about getting started, and tonight we have our first meeting,” she said. “I look forward, myself and Earline, to be able to represent our LGBT community overall and especially our transgender community in terms of making sure our voices are heard.”
Thursday’s swearing-in ceremony came one day after a top official with Gray’s 2010 election campaign pleaded guilty in federal court to helping disburse and conceal $653,000 in illegal campaign funds.
U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen, the lead prosecutor in the case, said the funds allegedly came from businessman Jeffrey Thompson, whose company receives millions of dollars a year from a city contract to operate the District’s Medicaid program.
Gray has denied playing any role in illegal campaign activities, but the latest revelations raised concern among political observers and community activists that the continuing federal investigation could force Gray to resign. The mayor said on Thursday, in response to a flurry of questions by reporters, that he has no intention of resigning, even after three City Council members, including gay Council member David Catania (I-At-Large), called for his resignation.
LGBT activists attending Budd and Beninda’s swearing-in ceremony declined to discuss the campaign finance allegations, saying it was not an appropriate topic for the occasion. Gray received strong support in the LGBT community in the 2010 election and LGBT activists have said over the past several weeks that they remain supportive of the mayor.
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
District of Columbia
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
Kevin Naff marks 24 years with publication this year
Longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff will be inducted into D.C.’s Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame in June, the group announced this week.
Hall of Fame honorees are chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter. Naff and two other inductees — Seth Borenstein, a Washington-based national science writer for the AP and Cheryl W. Thompson, an award-winning correspondent for National Public Radio — will be celebrated at the chapter’s Dateline Awards dinner on Tuesday, June 9, at the National Press Club. The dinner’s emcee will be Kojo Nnamdi, host of WAMU radio’s weekly “Politics Hour.”
“I am tremendously honored by this recognition,” Naff said. “I have spent a lifetime in the D.C. area learning from so many talented journalists and am humbled to be considered in their company. Thank you to SPJ and to all the LGBTQ pioneers who came before me who made this possible.”
Naff joined the Blade in 2002 after years in print and digital journalism. He worked as a financial reporter for Reuters in New York before moving to Baltimore in 1996 to launch the Baltimore Sun’s website. He spent four years at the Sun before leaving for an internet startup and later joining the mobile data group at Verizon Wireless working on the first generation of mobile apps.
He then moved to the Blade and has served as the publication’s longest-tenured editor. In 2023, Naff published his first book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include luminaries in journalism like Wolf Blitzer, Benjamin Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and Edgar Allen Poe. The Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. was inducted in 2015.
Maryland
Supreme Court ruling against conversion therapy bans could affect Md. law
Then-Gov. Larry Hogan signed statute in 2018
By PAMELA WOOD, JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV, and MADELEINE O’NEILL | The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ kids in Colorado, a ruling that also could apply to Maryland’s ban on the discredited practice.
An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide whether it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s majority, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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