Local
Trans group: D.C. hate crimes review biased toward police
Emails from police chief ‘raise questions’ about independence task force
D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier
More than 1,500 pages of private email correspondence from D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier related to the work of the city’s Hate Crimes Review Task Force show that the Task Force may be biased in favor of the police and may not present an impartial assessment of police handling of hate crimes, according to the D.C. Trans Coalition.
In written testimony submitted on Wednesday to the D.C. Council’s Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, DCTC disclosed it obtained the Lanier email correspondence through a Freedom of Information Act request earlier this year.
DCTC’s testimony says much of the email correspondence is between Lanier and David Friedman, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Washington regional office, who serves as chair of the Hate Crimes Review Task Force.
“Our concern is that the ADL-led task force is a publicity stunt rather than a good-faith effort at making progress,” the DCTC statement says.
Lanier and Friedman dispute the DCTC’s assessment, saying they expect the task force to provide an independent review of the department’s response to anti-LGBT hate crimes and to make recommendations on how the response can be improved.
“It is a shame that the D.C. Trans Coalition is attacking the work of this group before they even issue their report and recommendations,” Lanier told the Washington Blade in a statement.
Lanier’s office announced last June that she enlisted the ADL, a nationally recognized group that fights prejudice and discrimination, to help the department assess how it investigates and reports hate crimes. The announcement came at a time when LGBT activists raised concerns over the police handling of hate crimes targeting the LGBT community, especially the transgender community.
The police announcement said that at ADL’s invitation, the Human Rights Campaign, the National Center for Transgender Equality, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and two university professors considered experts on hate violence agreed to join ADL as members of the task force.
DCTC says in its testimony submitted to the D.C. Council that the email correspondence between Lanier and Friedman suggests a bias exists that the task force may not be impartial.
“We received the [FOIA] results last month, five month late, only to discover evidence that the independent review isn’t really independent at all,” DCTC says in its testimony.
Freedman “appears to be a close personal friend of Chief Lanier,” the testimony says. “Further, Lanier personally approved the membership of the review task force,” a development DCTC says raises questions about its ability to make an impartial assessment of the police department’s handling of hate crimes targeting the LGBT community.
The DCTC testimony says the group learned last week at a private task force meeting held at offices of Casa Ruby, a D.C. LGBT community center with an outreach to the Latino community, that the task force will submit its findings to Chief Lanier to give her a chance to respond.
DCTC member Jason Terry told the Blade on Wednesday that a task force representative told activists attending the Casa Ruby meeting that it would be up to Lanier to decide when or if the report should be released to the public and the community.
One of the email exchanges DCTC included in its testimony, which is dated Nov. 3, 2011, shows Friedman mentioning in a lighthearted way that Lanier’s high performance ratings in a public opinion poll of 80 percent may be equivalent to a “B” on a report card.
“Actually the last Clarus poll was 84 percent. Am I slipping?” Lanier said in her response.
“Wouldn’t worry,” Friedman said in his response. “The only people who don’t like you have outstanding warrants.”
Replied Lanier: “That David is one of the many reasons I love you…So quick.”
In a phone interview on Wednesday afternoon, Friedman told the Blade his remark about outstanding warrants was a joke. He also noted that his Nov. 3 email exchange with Lanier that DCTC quoted took place at least a month before Lanier informed him of her plans for the task force and asked him to create it.
“Yes, I am lucky to call David a friend, as are many law enforcement leaders in the country,” Lanier said in her statement to the Blade. “He is a highly respected professional dedicated to making communities throughout the country safe from crime motivated by hate.”
LGBT activists who know Friedman have said he and the ADL’s D.C. regional office have been strong and outspoken advocates for LGBT rights for many years.
“We’re very proud of that,” Friedman said. “We’re proud of our leadership on hate crimes on the local and national level. And I hope that people will feel when this process is done that the task force contributed significantly to protecting the LGBT community from hate crimes and to strengthening the relationship between the LGBT community and the MPD.”
One task force member, who spoke on condition of not being identified, said the DCTC appears to have made a “premature judgment” in assessing whether the task force is biased or whether the outcome of the task force’s work would be biased.
HRC spokesperson Paul Guequierre said in a statement that ADL asked HRC to join the task force because of HRC’s “extensive work on hate crimes prevention legislation at both the state and federal levels.” He said HRC saw its participation in the task force as an opportunity to make sure “there was a fair process” in assessing the police handling of hate crimes in D.C.
“HRC is committed to ensuring that law enforcement respond swiftly and appropriately to incidents of bias crimes without further victimizing the LGBT community,” he said.
Friedman acknowledged that it was he who told people attending the task force community meeting at Casa Ruby’s that the task force’s findings and recommendations would be delivered to Lanier.
“What I said at that meeting was that the chief asked us to review the MPD handling of hate crimes and its relationship with the LGBT community was to be reviewed,” he said. “So obviously we’re going to give her first the report and our findings. She asked for this. And I have every reason to expect – I think all of us would want – these findings to be made public.”
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.
District of Columbia
As mayor’s race takes shape, candidates endorse LGBTQ equality
Like nearly all recent D.C. elections, LGBTQ voters will be choosing a candidate for mayor in 2026 from a list of mostly strong LGBTQ rights supporters in the city’s June 16 primary.
As of March 30, the D.C. Board of Elections’ list of candidates who submitted the required number of petition signatures for the June 16 primary ballot included 10 mayoral candidates: nine Democrats and one Statehood Green Party candidate.
Among those candidates, six, all Democrats, have issued statements expressing strong support for LGBTQ rights, including the two leading Democratic contenders, former D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie and current Council member Janeese Lewis George, who represents Ward 4.
One of the lesser-known Democratic candidates who released an LGBTQ supportive statement, Rini Sampath, a cyber security consultant, told the Washington Blade she identifies as queer, becoming one of the first known LGBTQ D.C. mayoral candidates to gain access to a major party primary ballot.
“We’re living in an extremely diverse community, an extremely unique community,” she told the Blade. “And being able to self-label, self-identify as queer is something that I just want to take pride in.”
Similar to McDuffie and Lewis George, Sampath released statements to the Blade and the Capital Stonewall Democrats, the city’s largest LGBTQ local political group, expressing support for LGBTQ rights and outlining plans for LGBTQ supportive policies if elected mayor.
Although many D.C. LGBTQ activists have said they have yet to decide whom to support for mayor, those who have decided appear to be divided between McDuffie and Lewis George. Most D.C. political observers consider McDuffie and Lewis George to be the two leading candidates in the mayoral race.
The other Democratic mayoral contenders who have released statements expressing support on LGBTQ issues include Gary Goodweather, a local real estate manager and developer who has been actively campaigning at LGBTQ events; Vincent Orange, a former At-Large and Ward 5 D.C. Council member; and Kathy Henderson, a longtime Ward 5 community activist and elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner.
The remaining two Democratic mayoral candidates, Hope Solomon, a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security contractor and Dupont Circle civic activist; and Ernest Johnson, a real estate broker and Ward 1 community activist, did not respond to inquiries from the Blade and Capital Stonewall Democrats seeking information about their position on LGBTQ related issues.
Robert Gross, the Statehood Green Party candidate who is running unopposed in the June 16 primary, also didn’t respond to inquires from the Blade about his position on LGBTQ issues.
D.C. Board of Elections records show that at least five Republican candidates filed papers to run for mayor in the June 16 GOP primary, but none of them remained as candidates as of March 30, when the election board issued its updated candidate list.
Just one of the five Republican candidates replied to an email message from the Washington Blade sent to all mayoral candidates in early March seeking their position on LGBTQ issues. That candidate, Esa Muhammad, whose website identifies him as an engineer, consultant, and local business owner, sent a reply expressing opposition to LGBTQ rights.
“Unfortunately, I do not support LGBTQ because The God only created 2 genders (Adam/Eve),” he wrote. “Anyway, I will be fair to you all despite your sick way of looking at life,” he stated.
Capital Stonewall Democrats President Stevie McCarty said his group sent questionnaires to all the Democratic mayoral candidates as well as to Democrats running for other offices such as D.C. Council. Information posted on the group’s website shows only four of the mayoral candidates returned a complete questionnaire: McDuffie, Lewis George, Goodweather, and Sampath.
Each of them provides detailed information of their plans for supporting LGBTQ policies if elected and their record of support on LGBTQ issues. McCarty said the questionnaire responses for all candidates that submitted them can be accessed at outvotedc.org.
He said Capital Stonewall Democrats will hold virtual LGBTQ forums in April, including a mayoral forum on April 8. He said the group’s members will vote on the candidate endorsements online from April 20 through May 11, and the group expects to announce its endorsements May 14.
GLAA DC, formerly known as the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, has issued candidate ratings for most D.C. elections since the 1970s, and the nonpartisan LGBTQ group was expected to issue ratings for mayoral candidates this year. But like in recent years, the group is expected to base its ratings on mostly non-LGBTQ issues, with a progressive, left-leaning perspective, according to a nine-page “Back to Basics GLAA Policy Brief 2026” that the group released in March.
The LGBTQ activists who are backing McDuffie or Lewis George appear to be gravitating to the two based on their political leanings separate from LGBTQ issues, just like voters in general. Lewis George, who identifies as a democratic socialist, is popular among LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ “progressives.”
McDuffie, who is seen as a more moderate candidate along the lines of current D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, is being supported by LGBTQ activists who hold those views, some of whom currently work in the Bowser administration.
Among Lewis George’s LGBTQ supporters are longtime Ward 8 community leader Philip Pannell and former Capital Stonewall Democrats president Howard Garrett. Among the LGBTQ McDuffie backers are longtime D.C. Democratic activists John Fanning and David Meadows.
Longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic Party activist Peter Rosenstein, who is supporting McDuffie, has raised concerns about Lewis George’s backing by the national group Democratic Socialists of America. In Facebook postings, Rosenstein points to the Democratic Socialists of America’s opposition to Israel as a country and said it is viewed by many in the Jewish community as promoting antisemitism. He has criticized Lewis George for not speaking out against that and for accepting the DSA’s endorsement.
In an interview with the Blade, Lewis George strongly disputed that assessment, saying she has been a strong ally and supporter of the Jewish community.
“I’m a member of the Metro DSA here in D.C. that I work with to fight for labor and for tenant rights,” she said. “I’m also a member of the Democratic Party,” she added, saying, “There are things that the Democratic Party does that I don’t agree with. There are things that the national DSA does that I don’t agree with. That’s a group that I work with.”
“But I want to be clear that I am running for mayor to represent all of our community, and that includes our amazing and historical Jewish community here in D.C.,” she said. “I have had the amazing opportunity to spend time at synagogues and talking to Jewish leaders and groups and institutions. And so, there should be no worry here.”
Following are short excerpts from the detailed statements five of the nine Democratic mayoral candidates submitted to the Capital Stonewall Democrats or the Washington Blade.
Kenyan McDuffie: “As mayor, every piece of legislation I sign, craft, or endorse should also encompass the interest and input of the LGBTQ community members and advocates…From housing to health care and everything in between… We have a dire crisis regarding the rise in homelessness especially among the youth in our LGBTQ communities. In my administration that simply cannot be the status quo and will not be…I have been a consistent champion for our LGBTQ community and will remain so as Mayor of D.C.’
Janeese Lewis George: “As mayor, I will protect our LGBTQ+ neighbors against federal attacks on their identity, including their health care…On the Council I have been a strong supporter of pro-LGBTQ+ bills, including making D.C. a sanctuary for people seeking gender-affirming health care as well as addressing discrimination and harassment in nightlife and hospitality…And as mayor, I am prepared to move up and win those fights – a fight for D.C. statehood, a fight for our true economy, and a real opportunity to uplift our Black queer and trans youth.”
Gary Goodweather: “A Goodweather administration will defend every D.C. law protecting LGBTQ residents. I will establish a Defend DC office to coordinate the District’s legal and public response to federal overreach, with LGBTQ+ protections explicitly within its mandate…My affordable D.C. plan will produce 50,000 new homes with 36,000 affordable units, and I will ensure LGBTQ+ youth housing programs are funded as a budget priority.”
Rini Sampath: “I am an immigrant, proud queer woman, and a 10-year resident of Washington, D.C…For me, LGBTQ+ voters including transgender and nonbinary residents, are not a separate or symbolic constituency; they are a core part of a broader, multiracial, cross-ward coalition rooted in in equity and opportunity.”
Vincent Orange: “I have a long and consistent record of supporting LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion in the District of Columbia, grounded in both policy and personal commitment. As the District’s Democratic Committeeman from 2006 to 2015, I publicly supported marriage equality and voted accordingly … During my time on the D.C. Council, I worked to advance protections for LGBTQ+ residents, including authoring and passing legislation to prohibit discrimination against transgender individuals in the workplace.”
Kathy Henderson: Kathy Henderson has maintained a consistent record of treating all members of the community with dignity, compassion, and respect, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, identity, political party, national origin, or ideology. Kathy Henderson embraced the late Wanda Alston as a colleague and good friend…Alston was the first director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and Henderson helped to organize and facilitate the first LGBTQ citizens summit.”
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
LGBTQ community plays integral role in autism advocacy
Kristi Noem ‘devastated’ as husband’s alleged fetish spending surfaces
Colo. activists condemn SCOTUS conversion therapy ruling
Is Ghana’s selective justice a human rights contradiction?
‘Out for McDuffie’ event held at D.C. gay bar
‘Jonah’ an undeniably compelling but unusual memory play
The Oscar-losing performance that’s too good to miss
Thousands attend ‘No Kings’ protests in D.C.
