Local
Equality Maryland board chair resigns
Polyak and her partner Gita Deane, who have been together for 30 years, were the lead plaintiffs in the marriage equality lawsuit (Deane and Polyak v. Conaway) filed in 2004 by Equality Maryland and the ACLU of Maryland.
Lisa Polyak, a mainstay on the board of directors of Equality Maryland for many years, has resigned from her position.
āThis was a planned transition,ā Polyak told the Blade. āTruthfully I am so happy and grateful for the new board members, and I am exhausted from the last few years, so this is a healthy transition for both me and the organization.ā
Polyak and her partner Gita Deane, who have been together for 30 years, were the lead plaintiffs in the marriage equality lawsuit (Deane and Polyak v. Conaway) filed in 2004 by Equality Maryland and the ACLU of Maryland. A lower court ruled for the plaintiffs but the ruling was stayed pending appeal. In 2007, the Maryland Court of Appeals by a margin of 4-3 ruled that the stateās ban on same-sex marriage did not violate the Maryland Constitution.
Polyak and Deane married in D.C. last year and live in Baltimore raising their two daughters.
Los Angeles
Los Angeles Blade publisher Troy Masters dies at 63
Longtime advocate for LGBTQ equality, queer journalism
Troy Masters, publisher of the Los Angeles Blade, died unexpectedly on Wednesday Dec. 11, according to a family member. He was 63. The cause of death was not immediately released.
Masters is a well-respected and award-winning journalist and publisher with decades of experience, mostly in LGBTQ media. He founded Gay City News in New York City in 2002 and relocated to Los Angeles in 2015. In 2017, he became the founding publisher of the Los Angeles Blade, a sister publication of the Washington Blade, the nationās oldest LGBTQ newspaper.
His family released a statement to the Blade on Thursday.
āWe are shocked and devastated by the loss of Troy,ā the statement says. āHe was a tireless advocate for the LGBTQ community and leaves a tremendous legacy of fighting for social justice and equality. We ask for your prayers and for privacy as we mourn this unthinkable loss. We will announce details of a celebration of life in the near future.ā
The Blade management team released the following statement on Thursday:
āAll of us at the Los Angeles Blade and Washington Blade are heartbroken by the loss of our colleague. Troy Masters is a pioneer who championed LGBTQ rights as well as best-in-class journalism for our community. We will miss his passion and his tireless dedication to the Los Angeles queer community.
āWe would like to thank the readers, advertisers, and supporters of the Los Angeles Blade, which will continue under the leadership of our local editor Gisselle Palomera, the entire Blade family in D.C. and L.A., and eventually under a new publisher.ā
Troy Masters was born April 13, 1961 and is survived by his mother Josie Kirkland and his sister Tammy Masters, along with many friends and colleagues across the country. This is a developing story and will be updated as more details emerge.
District of Columbia
D.C. gay bar Uproar issues GoFundMe appeal
Message says business struggling to pay rent, utilities
The D.C. gay bar Uproar located in the cityās Shaw neighborhood at 639 Florida Ave., N.W., has issued a GoFundMe appeal seeking financial support as it struggles to pay rent and utilities.
The GoFundMe appeal, which was posted by Uproarās owner Tammy Truong, says its goal is to raise $100,000. As of Dec. 10, the posting says $4,995 had been raised.
āFor over nine years Uproar has been an integral part of the D.C. LGBTQIA+ community,ā the GoFundMe message says. āIt has been a place of refuge for many people and has been a space where people have been allowed to express themselves freely.ā
The message adds, āWe have recently faced unexpected challenges and are asking for help from the community that weāve given so much to. We want to be able to continue to pay and support our staff and our community. All donations will be used to pay for these unexpected costs and will be used to improve the space for staff and patrons.ā
On its website, Uproar provides further details of the unexpected costs it says it is now faced with.
āDue to significant increases in insurance costs for 2025, weāve had to deplete our reserves from our summer sales,ā the website message says. āAs a result, we are now struggling to cover rent and utility costs through the winter.ā
The message adds, āOur top priority is to ensure that our amazing staff, who are the heart and soul of Uproar, are fully supported. We are committed to keeping them fully employed and scheduled during this difficult time so they can continue to provide for themselves and their families.ā
Uproar, which caters to a clientele of the cityās leather and bear communities, has faced challenges in the past when the local D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commission voted to oppose the routine renewal of its liquor license.
In November 2019, ANC 1B voted unanimously to oppose the license renewal of Uproar and 22 other liquor serving establishments in the U Street-Florida Avenue area on grounds that they have a negative impact on āpeace, order, and quietā in the surrounding neighborhoods. The cityās liquor board nevertheless approved the license renewals for Uproar and most of the other establishments.
Local nightlife advocates criticized the ANCās action, saying it was based on an anti-business and anti-nightlife bias that requires bars such as Uproar to expend large sums of money on retaining lawyers to help them overcome the license opposition.
The Uproar GoFundMe page can be accessed here:
District of Columbia
Mayor, police chief highlight āsignificantā drop in D.C. crime
Officials cite arrests in two LGBTQ-related cases
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser joined District Police Chief Pamela Smith and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Lindsey Appiah in crediting a series of stepped-up crime fighting and crime reduction programs put in place over the past year with bringing about a 35 percent reduction in violent crime in the city over the past year.
Bowser, Smith, and Appiah highlighted what they called a significant drop in overall crime in the nationās capital at a Dec. 9 news conference held at the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department headquartersā Joint Operations Command Center.
Among other things, the city officials presented slides on a large video screen showing that in addition to the 35 percent drop in overall violent crime during the past year, the number of carjackings dropped by 48 percent, homicides declined by 29 percent, robberies declined by 39 percent, and assaults with a dangerous weapon also dropped by 29 percent.
āI want to start by thanking MPD and I want to thank all of our public safety teams, local and federal, and the agencies that support their work,ā Bowser said in noting that the improved crime data this year was due to a combined effort in adopting several new programs to fight crime.
Bowser also thanked D.C. Council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) who introduced legislation backed by the mayor and approved by the Council in March of this year called the Secure D.C. bill, which includes a wide range of new crime fighting and crime prevention initiatives.
In response to a question from the Washington Blade, Chief Smith said she believes the stepped-up crime fighting efforts played some role in D.C. police making arrests in two recent cases involving D.C. gay men who were victims of a crime of violence.
In one of the cases, 22-year-old Sebastian Thomas Robles Lascarro, a gay man, was attacked and beaten on Oct. 27 of this year by as many as 15 men and women at the D.C. McDonaldās restaurant at 14th and U Street, N.W., with some of them shouting anti-gay slurs. D.C. police, who listed the incident as a suspected hate crime, arrested a 16-year-old male in connection with the case on a charge of Assault with Significant Bodily Injury.
The other case involved a robbery and assault that same day of gay DJ and hairstylist Bryan Smith, 41, who died 11 days later on Nov. 7 from head injuries that police have yet to link to the robbery. Police have since arrested two teenage boys, ages 14 and 16, who have been charged with robbery.
Smith said the police departmentās Special Liaison Branch, which includes the LGBT Liaison Unit, will continue to investigate hate crimes targeting the LGBTQ community.
āAnd so, I think that what we will do is what we have been doing, which is really making sure that the reports are coming in or the incident reports are coming in and weāre ensuring that the Special Liaison Branch is getting out to the communities to ensure that those types of hate crimes are not increasing across our city,ā she said.
Smith added, āWe will continue to work with the community, work with our members, our LGBTQ, our other groups and organizations to ensure that we are getting the right information out and making sure that people, when they see something, they say something to share that information with us.ā
Data posted on the D.C. police website show from Jan. 1-Oct. 31, 2024, a total of 132 hate crimes were reported in the District. Among those, 22 were based on the victimās sexual orientation, and 18 were based on the victimās gender identity or expression.
During that same period, 47 hate crimes based on the victimās ethnicity or national origin were reported, 33 were reported based on the victimās race, and six were based on the victimās religion.
The data show that for the same period in 2023, 36 sexual orientation related hate crimes were reported, and 13 gender identity or expression cases were reported.
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