Local
A home for Norman
D.C. couple finalizes family in ‘Adoption Day’ program


Chad Copeland, Scooter Ward and their son, Norman Moore with Judge Noel Johnson at an adoption day proceeding last weekend in D.C. Superior Court. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Norman Moore loves “Dora the Explorer,” playing Legos and macaroni and cheese.
“Give him those, and he’d be just fine,” his dad, Chad Copeland, says.
His other dad, Scooter Ward, calls Norman, 5, “quite an actor” and “a big ham.”
He also, “likes to be a teacher,” Ward says. “Loves to show you how to do something.”
The three of them, together since Norman was placed with them as a foster son in January 2011, became a permanent family unit last weekend when Judge Lee Satterfield of D.C. Superior Court signed their adoption decree. Of the 34 children adopted last weekend in D.C., five were to gay male couples.
“It’s ceremonial but also a legal proceeding,” Copeland, 36, a D.C. assistant attorney general, says. “Each family and child is called up and you go up with any close friends or family you have with you and a small speech is made.”
Ward says it was an emotional end to a very long process.
“I was kind of thinking beforehand, ‘Oh, it’s no big deal, he’s been with us almost two years, blah blah blah, but then about an hour into it, I started to get pretty emotional,” he says. “I started to really think about how long the journey has been and even though it’s been relatively smooth in a lot of ways, it’s also been very hard in some ways as well. There were many points along the way where things came up that could have changed the outcome, so knowing we’ve overcome all that was really amazing.”
For his part, Norman, who calls Copeland “Dad” and Ward “Pops,” says he was “happy when the lady called my name.” He also says he “got lots of goodies.”
Copeland and Ward have a D.C. domestic partnership. They met at a Human Rights Campaign fundraiser in Dallas, where they formerly lived (though neither are from Texas). They’ve been together almost seven years and have lived together about five years. After starting their relationship in Texas, Ward moved to Washington for a job in 2006. Copeland followed in 2007. Copeland is adopted himself, so they talked fairly early in their relationship about the possibility of adopting.
Working with D.C.’s Child and Family Services Agency, the couple took a licensing course and within about four months, Norman came to live with them. He had been born in D.C. but the couple declines to go into details about his biological family or situation.
“He was just a pretty normal kid who was in a situation where he could not be cared for the way he needed to be,” Copeland says.
Although there were some long nights and an inevitable adjustment period for everyone, the couple says for the most part, it “just clicked.”
“We were extremely tired,” Ward says. “We’d both been kind of extreme night owls before and we’d suddenly have family and friends calling us at, like, 10 at night and we’d be ready for bed … but in many ways it was a very organic change.”
Ward, 35, took a few weeks off from his job as a project manager for a D.C.-based software company, but Norman had already been in preschool, so neither parent had to give up his career.
Both say their being gay was never an issue in the adoption.
Copeland says he knew from his legal work — he’d worked on cases involving anti-gay Maryland minister Rev. Harry Jackson who’d sued the District — that D.C.’s Human Rights Act of 1977 is solid.
“I fully understood the breadth of protection that exists within the law,” he says. “I didn’t anticipate a problem and we never once had a single problem.”
Ward says he was bracing himself just in case.
“As a bi-racial gay couple, I kind of expected there to be a different layer there or something, some level of strife, but we never had any problems at all. It was almost a bit of a let down — I wanted to be advocate for something, but that says a lot of great things about where we live that it wasn’t.”
There was a chance early on, that Norman may have returned to his biological family.
“That’s usually the initial goal in a foster care situation,” Copeland says. “It would have been very hard because he really is just the sweetest little boy and it was very easy to just get so attached to him. There were certainly moments where we may never have made it to adoption, but our social workers were always there to help us understand the next steps.”
The couple praises the D.C. staff they worked with throughout — social workers LaTasha McKinley and Sarah McDonald and also Mallory Martin of the Children’s Law Center who acted on Norman’s behalf.
It all sounds so perfect — surely there were some struggles for the new family, right?
The couple says the hardest part was the element of so much being unknown at the outset.
“We were just foster parents for a long time,” Ward says. “We had no idea what the next court hearing could bring. There was a lot of pandering and stress and emotion and I don’t want to discount that. There’s a lot of emotion tied to it.”
But it did all work out. The family is in Dallas this week for Thanksgiving with Ward’s family. Copeland is in his native Louisiana and both say their respective parents were quick to welcome Norman as a grandchild.
“He does everything here he’s not allowed to do at home, which is just how it should be at your grandparents’ house,” Ward says with a chuckle.
On Tuesday this week, Norman spent the day hanging out with “Nana,” Ward’s mother. This wasn’t his first plane ride, Copeland has to remind him. His favorite time in Texas so far has been playing with his cousin, Erica. They’ll have Thanksgiving dinner Thursday at Uncle Tim’s.
Since same-sex marriage is legal in Washington, the couple may eventually wed. They have no immediate plans to, though, and say that wasn’t an issue in the process nor would it have been had they been a straight couple.
Norman is in kindergarten and attends a charter school in D.C.
The couple says he’s doing great overall and they’re often amused by, as Ward puts it, his “amazing level of innocence.”
“He’s very happy to have a home,” Copeland says. “He loves us and is a very sweet and happy boy. Happy is the right word in some ways, but it’s also an insufficient word because there are so many more emotions attached to it. You realize you’ve contributed to something bigger. This little boy had so many obstacles in his path. It’s all just sort of humbling and overwhelming at the same time.”
Virginia
Virginia High School League reverses policy on transgender athletes
Trans athletes previously allowed to compete on teams that corresponded with gender identity

The Virginia High School League on Monday announced it will no longer allow transgender athletes to compete on teams that correspond with their gender identity following another executive order signed by President Donald Trump targeting trans people.
The VHSL announced their policy change on their X account. It undoes a 2023 announcement that said it would not change their policy that allowed trans athletes to compete on teams that affirmed their identities.
Following a Jan. 28 executive order signed that stopped hospitals and other medical institutions from providing gender-affirming care to minors under that age of 19, Trump on Feb. 5 signed another executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
The ban seeks “to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls.” The NCAA and many other educational institutions agreed to implement the ban in fear of losing federal funding.
“The VHSL is an association comprising 318 member schools with more than 177,000 students participating yearly in sports and academic activities. The VHSL is the governing body, and our member schools look to and rely on the VHSL for policy and guidance. To that end, the VHSL will comply with the executive order,” said VHSL Executive Director John W. “Billy” Haun. “The compliance will provide membership clear and consistent direction.”
The VHSL also said staff will be making changes to their handbook and policy manual in the coming days, reminiscent of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scrubbing all of the papers in its database of any now-banned language regarding LGBTQ people and attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The VHSL’s own data indicates only 29 of the student athletes it oversees have been reported as trans since 2022.
District of Columbia
Booz Allen withdraws as WorldPride corporate sponsor
Company updated programs to comply with Trump executive orders

The U.S. technology company Booz Allen Hamilton has confirmed it has withdrawn as a corporate sponsor for the international LGBTQ WorldPride events scheduled to take place in D.C. from May 17-June 8, according to a report by the Washington Business Journal.
In an exclusive story published Feb.10, the business publication reports that Booz Allen Hamilton disclosed in a statement that its decision to withdraw as a WorldPride sponsor was based on its need to comply with “recently issued presidential executive orders.”
Although the statement did not say so directly, it is referring to executive orders issued since Jan. 20 by President Donald Trump that, among other things, ban government agencies and companies doing business with the government through contracts from promoting or carrying out diversity, equity, and inclusion or “DEI” programs.
On its website, Booz Allen Hamilton describes itself as an “advanced technology company delivering outcomes with speed for America’s most critical defense, civil, and national securities priorities.” Among the government agencies it does business with, the website statement says, are the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Navy, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
“We take this responsibility to our nation seriously,” Washington Business Journal quoted the Booz Allen Hamilton statement regarding WorldPride as saying. “It demands from us commitment to their best principle to flawless execution and to full compliance with all laws and regulations, including executive orders,” Washington Business Journal quotes the statement as saying.
The Washington Business Journal article includes a photo of more than a dozen of Booz Allen Hamilton employees marching in D.C.’s Capital Pride parade in 2017.
The company did not immediately respond to a request from Washington Blade seeking comment on its WorldPride decision.
Capital Pride Alliance, the group that organizes most D.C. LGBTQ Pride events and is the lead organizer of WorldPride 2025, in response to a request by the Blade released a statement responding to Booz Allen Hamilton’s sponsorship withdrawal.
“Booz Allen Hamilton is the only organization that has withdrawn its committed financial support for WorldPride,” the statement says. “CPA is proud of its many longstanding legacy sponsors, many of whom have already reaffirmed their commitments to participate in WorldPride this summer,” the statement continues.
“Just like many American companies and LGBTQ+ organizations, we are navigating current challenges and many unknowns,” the statement says. “We are confident, however, that we will have the support necessary to have a successful and safe WorldPride that meets this moment,” it says.
“That support includes families, organizations, and businesses from across our community and corporations that truly celebrate diversity and value equity and inclusion for all,” the statement concludes.
The Capital Pride Alliance website last year listed Booz Allen Hamilton as a corporate sponsor for the 2024 Capital Pride events in the category of a “True Colors” sponsor, which it said represented a donation of $75,000. But the Capital Pride Alliance statement to the Blade this week says, “We are not going to share they’re previously planned commitment for 2025.”
The statement adds, “Many in our community are extremely vulnerable right now, and standing up for them, standing with them, standing with us, in this movement is what we all need.”
District of Columbia
Trump executive order prompts local hospitals to stop gender-affirming care for youth
Activists marched outside Children’s National on Feb. 2

Hospitals in the D.C. area are putting a prompt stop to aiding transgender youth and their families continue their transition after President Donald Trump signed an executive order that bans all gender-affirming care nationwide for minors under 19.
On Jan. 28, days after Trump took office, signed the executive order, “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” which immediately halted the prescription and medical treatment of gender-affirming care for all minors under the age of 19 across the country. The order use of “chemical and surgical mutilation” is in reference to the various kinds of gender-affirming care that youth may receive when in the care of a medical practice.
“Today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions.” says the executive order. “This dangerous trend will be a stain on our nation’s history, and it must end.”
The executive order laid out various guidelines for medical practices to follow that must be implemented within the coming months. These include “ending reliance on junk science,” in referring to following the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s guidelines for youth, and “defunding chemical and surgical mutilation,” which seeks to ban hospitals and medical schools to use federal funding for gender-affirming care.
Hospitals, medical schools, and clinics across the country have begun to abide by the executive order and drop trans and gender diverse youth as they dismantled programs that provided care of any kind that treated a child’s gender dysphoria. Children’s National Hospital in Northwest Washington is one of those institutions.
“Children’s National is committed to providing compassionate and comprehensive care in accordance with the law,” said Children’s National in a Jan. 30 press release. “As a result, we are currently pausing all puberty blockers and hormone therapy prescriptions for transgender youth patients, per the guidelines in the executive order issued by the White House this week. Children’s National already does not perform gender affirming surgery for minors.”
“We recognize the impact this change will have, and our commitment to creating a better future for children and families remains at the forefront of our mission,” it added. “We will do everything we can to ensure the same uninterrupted access to mental health counseling, social support, and holistic and respectful care for every patient at Children’s National. We are working directly with patients and providers to ensure every patient has access to the information and support services they need, and we appreciate their continued trust and understanding as we work through these changes.”
The hospital did not provide the Washington Blade with additional comment.
Activists in response to the decision organized a march that took place outside Children’s Hospital. on Feb. 2. D.C. Safe Haven, a group founded to “provide TLGBQ people in the DMV area with opportunities to transform their lives,” helped organize the march.
Similar protests have taken place across the country.
The Gender Liberation Movement organized the “Rise Up for Trans Youth” march in New York’s Union Square on Saturday. The group was one of the organizers of a march that took place in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 4 when the justices heard oral arguments in the U.S. v. Skrmetti case, which challenges a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for minors under 18.
“VCU Health and Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU have suspended gender-affirming medications and gender-affirming surgical procedures for patients under 19-years-old in response to an executive order issued by the White House on Jan. 28, 2025, and related state guidance received by VCU on Jan. 30, 2025,” the hospital said in a statement. “Our doors remain open to all patients and their families for screening, counseling, mental health care, and all other health care needs.”
Equality Virginia, a queer advocacy group that works across the state, in a statement to the Blade criticized the executive order and response to it.
“Executive orders are not legislation, they are not law, and they do not supersede state laws,” said Narissa Rahaman, the group’s executive director. “The General Assembly has taken up bills on both transgender athletes and gender-affirming care, and in both cases, the general assembly has declined to pursue bans on either. State law is clear; what is unclear is why the Youngkin administration is spending its final year cozying up to the Trump administration and repeatedly singling out transgender Virginians for discrimination.”
“To the transgender and nonbinary athletes and youth seeking healthcare in Virginia who are feeling scared: Equality Virginia will not stop fighting for you, no matter who occupies the Governor’s Mansion or the White House,” added Rahaman.
Petitions are urging D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, Health and Human Services, and Children’s National to use D.C.’s human rights law to challenge the executive orders. Lambda Legal, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and the law firms Jenner & Block and Hogan Lovells have filed lawsuits against Trump’s mandate on behalf of families of trans youth.
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