Local
Same-sex couples seek Va. marriage licenses
Campaign for Southern Equality’s “We Do” campaign ended with march to D.C.
From left; D.C. residents Alyssa Weaver and Mike McVicker, who are from South Carolina, apply for a marriage license outside the Arlington County Courthouse on Jan. 17. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
More than a dozen same-sex couples from across the South gathered outside the Arlington County Courthouse on Thursday to apply for marriage licenses.
Gays and lesbians from Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and North and South Carolina submitted applications to Arlington Circuit Court Clerk Paul Ferguson in the complex’s plaza. A constitutional amendment that Virginia voters approved in 2006 defines marriage as between a man and a woman in the commonwealth, but those who participated in the action described their decision to take part as symbolic.
“We’re here to resist the unjust laws that label us as second class citizens and to call for full equality on the federal level,” Ivy Hill of Piedmont, S.C., told the Washington Blade after she filled out a marriage license in the complex plaza.
She and her partner of more than two years, Misha Gibson, recently became engaged.
“I’m here today to request a marriage license and knowingly being denied, but doing that to make sure that people know that we’re equal,” Gibson said. “I’m doing it to fight for my civil rights.”
Beth Schissel and Sally White of Atlanta joined four other same-sex couples who tried to apply for marriage licenses in Decatur, Ga., earlier this month.
White, who lived in Richmond for 30 years, joked with the Blade after Ferguson declined to issue them a marriage license she traveled to Virginia with her partner as a way to celebrate her birthday on Saturday.
“I’m a pediatric ER doctor,” Schissel said with tears in her eyes. “I take care of your children and take care of the sick and injured and I served my country. I went to the Air Force Academy and I served my country on active duty and yet I can’t have all the rights that are afforded me under that word marriage under federal law. So it’s a slap in the face type of feeling and it hits you deep in your core.”
The Arlington protest was the last in a series of actions organized by the Campaign for Southern Equality to highlight a lack of marriage rights for same-sex couples in the South and to urge the federal government to extend full equality to LGBT Americans.
The “We Do” campaign kicked-off in Hattiesburg, Miss., on Jan. 2 when five gay and lesbian couples applied for marriage licenses. Others followed suit in Mobile, Ala., Morristown, Tenn., Greenville, S.C., and three North Carolina cities before traveling to Virginia.
“We all live here in the South and we’re Southern folks,” Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, executive director of the Campaign for Southern Equality, who is also an ordained minister with the United Church of Christ in Asheville, N.C., told the Blade in an interview earlier this month. “This is where we live and we’re working with LGBT folks in small towns and cities across the region who are ready to stand up for equality — federal equality in new ways.”
She stressed her group’s approach to highlight the lack of marriage rights for same-sex couples below the Mason-Dixon Line reflects a broader strategy.
“We do feel like because this is the region where discriminatory laws are most deeply enshrined in state law, it creates a really powerful and unique opportunity to revisit those laws by using peaceful, direct action,” Beach-Ferrara said. “What we’re doing with the ‘We Do’ campaign is folks are taking action in their local communities to resist these state laws, to show what happens when they’re actually enforced. They’re typically invisible because they’re so rarely enforced, if at all. And so the general public is sort of insulated from the reality that we live with day in and day out as LGBT folks in the South, which is these laws exist, but when they’re actually enacted and enforced there’s an opportunity to talk about what that actually means and how that hurts real people and real families.”
Matt Griffin and Raymie Wolfe of Morristown, Tenn., who have been together for more than seven years, sought a marriage license in their hometown on Jan. 9.
Wolfe told the Blade before he and his partner tried to obtain a Virginia marriage license that they were “met with good humor” when they tried to do the same in Tennessee. He noted the clerk said it was the first time a gay couple had ever applied for a marriage license in the town — she did reaffirm the Tennessee does not recognize nuptials for gays and lesbians.
“What we wanted to do was kind of illustrate for people and ourselves what happens when we do that,” Wolfe said. “That’s kind of unprecedented. That was my hometown. It’s where I grew up and as a gay kid there, I kind never imagined that i would be going to a courthouse with a partner and applying for a marriage license.”
Same-sex couples gathered in Arlington three days after a Virginia House of Delegates subcommittee voted against a proposal that would have repealed the state’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Neighboring Maryland is among the nine states and D.C. that allow gays and lesbians to tie the knot. North Carolina voters last May approved a constitutional amendment that defined marriage as between a man and a woman by a 61-39 percent margin, while Minnesota voters on Election Day rejected a similar proposal.
The upcoming oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in cases challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8 also weighed on the minds of the same-sex couples who applied for marriage licenses and those who witnessed them do so.
“I’m very sympathetic to what the people who came before me today are trying to do and I am happy that there’s other jurisdictions where they can go to have their marriage licenses processed,” Ferguson, who is a former member of the Arlington Board of Supervisors, told the Blade. “There’s a Supreme Court decision coming up and so that will add some clarity to a lot of these peoples’ marriages, which is what they were looking for.”
Tim Young and Mark Maxwell of Winston-Salem, N.C., legally married at the Jefferson Memorial after they and other same-sex couples who had sought Virginia marriage licenses marched from Arlington to the nation’s capital.
“We live our lives in a way where we are not denied anything and we are open to being prosperous and successful,” Young, who has been with Maxwell for 20 years and raised four boys with him, said. “We’ve educated ourselves. We run a business so we pay taxes in that state and we give our money to that state, but we don’t have the same rights as other people and we believe in equity and equality.”
Beach-Ferrara noted her group made a deliberate decision to end their latest campaign in D.C.
“It’s in a lot of ways a small, intimate group, but of folks who traveled on a journey that’s symbolic in a lot of ways in the sense that if you live in the South, you need to travel to Washington, D.C., before you can be recognized as an equal citizen,” she said. “The journey folks have taken sort of helps to illustrate the legal realities that LGBT folks live with, which is you are a second class citizen until you reach the Washington border.”
Ivy Hill of Piedmont, S.C., fills out a marriage license outside the Arlington County Courthouse on Jan. 17. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
District of Columbia
Over 2,000 turn out for Hands Around the Kennedy Center protest
Drag performer Tara Hoot serves as MC, Gay Men’s Chorus of DC performs, attendees shout for Trump to keep ‘hands off’ Kennedy Center
More than 2,000 supporters of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts turned out on Sept. 18, for a rally in support of the performing arts center and a vocal protest against President Donald Trump’s threats to permanently close the center and possibly demolish it.
The event was organized by a group called Hands Off the Arts, which initially called for participants to form a “human chain” around the Kennedy Center’s main building following a rally on the plaza in front of the building.
However, due to a decision by the Trump-controlled Kennedy Center’s board of trustees to close the center earlier in the week and install fencing around part of the building, participants could only form the chain around part of the building, according to organizers.
Drag performer Tara Hoot, who co-organized the event and served as master of ceremonies for the rally preceding the “human chain,” said the large turnout could have fully surrounded the building at least twice had the fencing not prevented a full encirclement.
Among the musicians and singing groups that performed at the rally was the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, which, like other rally performers, had performed at the Kennedy Center in past years. They drew loud applause after singing one of their favorite songs from the Broadway musical show Ragtime, which includes the lyrics, “Will justice be demanded by 10 million men? Make them hear you. When they hear you, I’ll be near you again.”
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Prior to their performance, Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington’s artistic director, Thea Kano, spoke at the rally, reminding participants that shortly after the Trump takeover of the center last year, Kennedy Center officials cancelled a concert the chorus was scheduled to perform there for World Pride 2025.
A Kennedy Center spokesperson said the cancellation was due to a scheduling conflict, but chorus members and LGBTQ activists believe it resulted from policies put in place by Trump and his leadership team at the Kennedy Center following Trump’s statements that he would end controversial “woke” performances that he claimed the majority of Americans disapprove of.
“Now this building sits empty in silence,” Kano told the crowd at the rally. “Let us raise our voices together and bring back the Kennedy Center as it was intended, a place where American culture could be celebrated and elevated, embracing the vibrancy with the spectrum of identify without censure and without politics,” she said.
Among the others who spoke at the rally were U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.), and D.C. Councilmember Robert White (D-At-Large).
Most speakers, along with LGBTQ participants in the hands-around-the-building event expressed strong opposition to Trump’s demand that the Kennedy Center name be changed from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
At Trump’s request, his appointed board initially made that name change and placed Trump’s name on the front wall of the building along with the Kennedy name. But following legal action taken by opponents who pointed out that Congress must approve such a name change, a judge ordered the removal of Trump’s name from the building. Trump has said he will take steps to reverse that order and has said he will stop plans to renovate the Kennedy Center building and possibly demolish it if his name is not restored in the Kennedy’s Center’s official name.
Throughout the Sept. 18 rally, LGBTQ participants repeatedly responded to the Trump threats by shouting, “Hands Off!”
Chris Raleigh, one of the founders of Hands Off the Arts and a lead organizer of the Sept. 18 event at the Kennedy Center who spoke at the event told the Washington Blade that more similar events are being planned and he welcomes the support the event has received from the LGBTQ community.
“The LGBTQ community was here first, and we’re following them,” he said. “They’ve been the spearhead; they’ve been the vanguard. And I’m so thankful for heroes like Tara Hoot,” he said, adding, “It’s because they know what it means and how this is a safe place – the theater – for many LGBTQ people.”
The DMV’s own furry group was on full display on the Metro on Sept. 12.
Shutterpaws is a volunteer-led 501(c)(3) non-profit organization located in Maryland.
The furry group has been doing the FurRide event since 2024 and has blown up in popularity for furries around DMV. They showcased themselves on the Silver and Blue Lines near the Smithsonian on Sept. 12.
“A lot of careful planning goes into running these events, with the goal being a seamless and enjoyable experience for everyone who attends,” says Zayre, a Shutterpaws staff member. “There’s a lot that you learn just by trial and error, and as Shutterpaws hosts more and more events, our team of event organizers continues to learn and refine our approach to keep things running smoothly and finding new ways to engage with our community.”
With a larger growth of participation in the community comes many challenges with the group, especially when it comes to the Metro rides and organizing.
“The biggest challenge that we face as organizers is keeping things fresh and finding new and engaging venues to host events,” says Zayre. “Recently we saw a lot of success hosting a meet at On Target Battlezone, an indoor NERF gun battle arena where our crew was welcome to show up and play both with and without a fur suit.”
Nevertheless, Shutterpaws receive overwhelming support from the community and partners.
“Across the DMV there are so many amazing places to host a Shutterpaws event so we can pursue our mission of helping connect fur suiters and photographers, and we’re blown away with the amount of support we’ve received from our community partners,” says Zayre.
Shutterpaws plans to do more events for anyone in the DMV who is interested.
Their next event in collaboration with DC Fur Meet will take place at Pitchers (2317 18th St., N.W.) on Saturday. Visit Shutterpaws’ website for more information.
Delaware
Republican challenger misgenders McBride during forum, forced to leave
Jewish Federation of Delaware hosted event on Thursday
Republican “Dr. Joe” Arminio, the Republican nominee for the First State’s at-large U.S. House of Representatives seat, attempted to misgender the the country’s first and only transgender member of Congress while at a forum on Thursday.
This story was first broken by WDEL out of Wilmington, Del.
Arminio used the terms “his” and later “gentleman” when referring to U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) during his time on the mic before he was asked to leave the forum, hosted by the Jewish Federation of Delaware at the Siegel Jewish Community Center in Talleyville on Thursday night.
At that point, the crowd of about 100 people largely started booing Arminio, who then finished, “I would like to show respect to the speaker, that would be nice.”
The first time Republican US House candidate “Dr. Joe” Arminio referred to Rep. Sarah McBride (D) as a man during Thursday’s debate at the Siegel Jewish Community Center in Talleyville. He was warned for his comment. #netde https://t.co/j4EaMOL84W
— Sean Greene (@SeanGreeneWDEL) September 18, 2026
Moderator Ken Grant waited until Arminio was finished, then said, “this is your final warning, if you fail to show respect to anyone else on this stage, you’ll be asked to leave.”
During the answer to his next question at the forum, Arminio responded to what he called an “error.”
“I committed an error before, and I do acknowledge it,” Arminio said. “It’s not the first error I’ve made in this campaign, or at any point in my future life.”
Despite the apology and acknowledgement that he had committed what was, at the very least, a social taboo, he did it again 12 minutes later.
While talking about rising healthcare costs being a “catastrophe,” Arminio pointed to U.S. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and McBride.
“The reason it is is because gentlemen like the two up here with me in the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party … ” Arminio said.
Despite his direct attacks on McBride’s gender identity, she responded to the situation with grace, attempting to intervene to allow Arminio to still have a chance to speak despite not heeding the moderator’s warnings.
“I don’t want this gentleman to not have the ability … ,” McBride began.
However, Republican Senate candidate Michael Katz interrupted her shortly before Arminio was removed from the forum, which was meant to inform the Delaware electorate on the candidates’ issues.
Katz had his opening statement next and directly condemned Arminio’s comments.
“I would like to apologize to everybody here and everybody else on this stage. As a physician, I believe in our common humanity and respect for each other. I feel that pain over those comments, and my apologies.”
Following the forum, Katz called for Arminio to exit the race via social media.
“Those who seek to represent Delaware must demonstrate integrity, judgment, decency, and respect — even toward people with whom they profoundly disagree,” Katz’s post read on Facebook. “For these reasons, I am calling on Joseph Arminio to withdraw his candidacy for the United States House of Representatives.”
This is not the first time McBride has been the victim of misgendering.
In 2025, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) introduced the sole representative from Delaware as “Mr. McBride” during a meeting.
This is also not the first time McBride has faced vitriol from the other side of the aisle — both in terms of personal and legislative attacks on her trans identity.
In 2025, the House voted to ban trans girls and women from playing school sports with other girls, while U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) pushed for legislation barring trans women from using women’s bathrooms.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) instituted a similar rule barring McBride — and all other trans women — from women’s restrooms on Capitol Hill.
McBride has also been a vocal opponent of Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office. The directive prohibits the federal government from recognizing the gender identity of trans people.
She has criticized Executive Order 14183, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” which would ban trans service members from serving in the Armed Forces. The directive is still being challenged in the courts to determine its constitutional legitimacy, but it has been allowed to remain in effect as the judicial system considers its legality.
The Washington Blade sat down with McBride in May to reflect on a tense year for LGBTQ politics, where she, in typical McBride fashion, answered questions about the hate she has received.
“Our politics are too often defined by hate,” McBride told the Blade. “I’m glad Delaware and Delawareans are showing that a different kind of politics is possible.”
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