Local
D.C. marriage officiant, surrogacy bills advance
Controversial provision would allow couples to marry each other
D.C. Council Member Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) has expressed concern with a provision in the temporary officiant bill that would allow couples to act as their own officiant. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
LGBT activists watched with interest last week as the D.C. City Council took steps to advance one bill that would allow more people to perform marriage ceremonies and another that would repeal a little-known city law that prohibits surrogacy parenting.
On Tuesday, June 18, the Council’s Committee of the Whole, which includes all Council members, voted to schedule a first-reading vote on June 26 for the Marriage Officiant Amendment Act of 2013.
The bill, among other things, would authorize same-sex and opposite-sex couples applying for a marriage license to designate a friend, parent, sibling or any other adult as a one-time “temporary officiant” empowered to perform the marriage. The current law limits the selection of the person who can perform a marriage ceremony to licensed clergy members, judges and court employees designated as officiants.
Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) wrote the bill and co-introduced it with five colleagues, including gay Council members David Catania (I-At-Large) and Jim Graham (D-Ward 1).
In an unexpected development, Council member Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4), who is a candidate for mayor, exercised her authority to take the bill off the Council’s consent calendar, which would have enabled the Council to approve the bill on June 26 by unanimous consent without a roll call vote.
Bowser expressed concern about a provision in the bill that would allow couples that obtain a marriage license to act as their own officiant and to perform the marriage ceremony themselves. Bowser’s action prompted Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance President Rick Rosendall and National Capital Area ACLU Legal Director Arthur Spitzer to send email messages to each Council member expressing support for the “self-officiation” provision. The two urged the Council to retain the provision and to oppose a possible amendment introduced by Bowser to take the provision out of the bill.
Bowser told the Blade she supports the bill and expects to vote for it. But she said she took the bill off the consent agenda to enable her to ask some questions about the self-officiation provision.
“That one provision, as you know, was not in the introduced version of the bill,” she said. “And it is a departure from our witnessed and officiated ceremony for marriage in the District. And it’s a very new concept and I wanted to make sure it works…and that it gives due weight to entering into a marriage.”
Bowser said as of early this week she doesn’t plan to introduce an amendment on the Council floor to delete the provision. “Personally I favor that,” she said, referring to marriages performed by a third party officiant. “But I’m willing to listen to what people want.”
Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8), who supports the bill, has suggested adding members of the City Council to the list of people authorized to perform a marriage ceremony. Rosendall and Spitzer said they have no objections to Barry’s suggestion.
In a separate action, the Council’s Judiciary and Public Safety Committee held a public hearing on June 20 on a revised version of the Surrogacy Parenting Agreement Act of 2013, which was introduced earlier this year by Catania. All 12 of Catania’s fellow Council members signed on as co-sponsors of the original bill.
The measure, renamed the Collaborative Reproduction Act of 2013, would make it legal for same-sex or opposite-sex couples — or a single intended parent — to arrange for a woman to carry a fertilized egg to term on behalf of the couple or single person. The revised bill includes language that would make the intended couple or single person the legal parents of the child. Current D.C. law prohibits surrogacy arrangements.
The 15-page draft bill discussed at the hearing includes detailed legal provisions that would help potential surrogates and couples seeking a child work out a complex arrangement to compensate the surrogate for direct and indirect costs associated with a pregnancy and the delivery of a baby in a hospital.
Gay rights attorney Nancy Polikoff, an American University law professor, called on the committee to change the bill to include in all its provisions regulations for both a “gestational” and “traditional” surrogacy. Polikoff noted that the revised bill is mostly limited to addressing gestational surrogacy.
Gestational surrogacy allows the prospective parent or parents to provide a fertilized egg to be implanted in the surrogate. The process for doing this, Polikoff said, involves a medical procedure that could cost more than $100,000, making it difficult or impossible for many prospective parents to afford.
Traditional surrogacy involves the insemination of semen from one of the members of the couple or single person into the surrogate, in which case the surrogate becomes the biological mother of the child.
Polikoff said the draft bill would legalize traditional surrogacy but it lacks the detailed procedural language in the form of a regulation that it includes for gestational surrogacy, which she said is needed to help the “traditional” surrogate and prospective parents work out a legal agreement.
“With no such regulation in place, every time a gay male couple wants to conceive and raise a child, and that couple cannot afford gestational surrogacy, they are on their own, as is the woman who agrees to help them become parents,” Polikoff said in her testimony. “I don’t think the City Council should leave to their own devices that portion of this city’s population.”
Polikoff also called for a new provision in the bill to give a surrogate a short period of time after giving birth to back out of the deal and become the legal parent of and gain custody of the child.
Phillip L. Husband, general counsel for the D.C. Department of Health, who testified on behalf of the administration of Mayor Vincent Gray, said the administration supports the legislation but offered more than two-dozen suggested changes in the bill’s wording that he said would strengthen the measure and improve the city’s ability to implement it.
The Judiciary and Public Safety Committee must next draft a final version of the bill before the measure goes to the full Council for a vote.
Virginia
DOJ seeks to join lawsuit against Loudoun County over trans student in locker room
Three male high school students suspended after complaining about classmate
The Justice Department has asked to join a federal lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools over the way it handled the case of three male high school students who complained about a transgender student in a boys’ locker room.
The Washington Blade earlier this year reported Loudoun County public schools suspended the three boys and launched a Title IX investigation into whether they sexually harassed the student after they said they felt uncomfortable with their classmate in the locker room at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn.
The parents of two of the boys filed a lawsuit against Loudoun County public schools in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. The Richmond-based Founding Freedoms Law Center and America First Legal, which White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller co-founded, represent them.
The Justice Department in a Dec. 8 press release announced that “it filed legal action against the Loudoun County (Va.) School Board (Loudoun County) for its denial of equal protection based on religion.”
“The suit alleges that Loudoun County applied Policy 8040, which requires students and faculty to accept and promote gender ideology, to two Christian, male students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” reads the press release.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the press release said “students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate.”
“Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality,” said Dhillon.
Outgoing Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and outgoing Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares in May announced an investigation into the case.
The Virginia Department of Education in 2023 announced the new guidelines for trans and nonbinary students for which Youngkin asked. Equality Virginia and other advocacy groups claim they, among other things, forcibly out trans and nonbinary students.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in February launched an investigation into whether Loudoun County and four other Northern Virginia school districts’ policies in support of trans and nonbinary students violate Title IX and President Donald Trump’s executive order that prohibits federally funded educational institutions from promoting “gender ideology.”
District of Columbia
Capital Pride announces change in date for 2026 D.C. Pride parade and festival
Events related to U.S. 250th anniversary and Trump birthday cited as reasons for change
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C. based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, has announced it is changing the dates for the 2026 Capital Pride Parade and Festival from the second weekend in June to the third weekend.
“For over a decade, Capital Pride has taken place during the second weekend in June, but in 2026, we are shifting our dates in response to the city’s capacity due to major events and preparations for the 250th anniversary of the United States,” according to a Dec. 9 statement released by Capital Pride Alliance.
The statement says the parade will take place on Saturday, June 20, 2026, with the festival and related concert taking place on June 21.
“This change ensures our community can gather safely and without unnecessary barriers,” the statement says. “By moving the celebration, we are protecting our space and preserving Pride as a powerful act of visibility, solidarity, and resistance,” it says.
Ryan Bos, the Capital Pride Alliance CEO and President, told the Washington Blade the change in dates came after the group conferred with D.C. government officials regarding plans for a number of events in the city on the second weekend in June. Among them, he noted, is a planned White House celebration of President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and other events related to the U.S. 250th anniversary, which are expected to take place from early June through Independence Day on July 4.
The White House has announced plans for a large June 14, 2026 celebration on the White House south lawn of Trump’s 80th birthday that will include a large-scale Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event involving boxing and wrestling competition.
Bos said the Capital Pride Parade will take place along the same route it has in the past number of years, starting at 14th and T Streets, N.W. and traveling along 14th Street to Pennsylvania Ave., where it will end. He said the festival set for the following day will also take place at its usual location on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., between 2nd Street near the U.S. Capitol, to around 7th Street, N.W.
“Our Pride events thrive because of the passion and support of the community,” Capital Pride Board Chair Anna Jinkerson said in the statement. “In 2026, your involvement is more important than ever,” she said.
District of Columbia
Three women elected leaders of Capital Pride Alliance board
Restructured body includes chair rather than president as top leader
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, announced it has restructured its board of directors and elected for the first time three women to serve as leaders of the board’s Executive Committee.
“Congratulations to our newly elected Executive Officers, making history as Capital Pride Alliance’s first all-women Board leadership,” the group said in a statement.
“As we head into 2026 with a bold new leadership structure, we’re proud to welcome Anna Jinkerson as Board Chair, Kim Baker as Board Treasurer, and Taylor Lianne Chandler as Board Secretary,” the statement says.
In a separate statement released on Nov. 20, Capital Pride Alliance says the restructured Board now includes the top leadership posts of Chair, Treasurer, and Secretary, replacing the previous structure of President and Vice President as the top board leaders.
It says an additional update to the leadership structure includes a change in title for longtime Capital Pride official Ryan Bos from executive director to chief executive officer and president.
According to the statement, June Crenshaw, who served as acting deputy director during the time the group organized WorldPride 2025 in D.C., will now continue in that role as permanent deputy director.
The statement provides background information on the three newly elected women Board leaders.
• Anna Jinkerson (chair), who joined the Capital Pride Alliance board in 2022, previously served as the group’s vice president for operations and acting president. “A seasoned non-profit executive, she currently serves as Assistant to the President and CEO and Chief of Staff at Living Cities, a national member collaborative of leading philanthropic foundations and financial institutions committed to closing income and wealth gaps in the United States and building an economy that works for everyone.”
• Kim Baker (treasurer) is a “biracial Filipino American and queer leader,” a “retired, disabled U.S. Army veteran with more than 20 years of service and extensive experience in finance, security, and risk management.” She has served on the Capital Pride Board since 2018, “bringing a proven track record of steady, principled leadership and unwavering dedication to the LGBTQ+ community.”
• Taylor Lianne Chandler (Secretary) is a former sign language interpreter and crisis management consultant. She “takes office as the first intersex and trans-identifying member of the Executive Committee.” She joined the Capital Pride Board in 2019 and previously served as executive producer from 2016 to 2018.
Bos told the Washington Blade in a Dec. 2 interview that the Capital Pride board currently has 12 members, and is in the process of interviewing additional potential board members.
“In January we will be announcing in another likely press release the full board,” Bos said. “We are finishing the interview process of new board members this month,” he said. “And they will take office to join the board in January.”
Bos said the organization’s rules set a cap of 25 total board members, but the board, which elects its members, has not yet decided how many additional members it will select and a full 25-member board is not required.
The Nov. 20 Capital Pride statement says the new board executive members will succeed the organization’s previous leadership team, which included Ashley Smith, who served as president for eight years before he resigned earlier this year; Anthony Musa, who served for seven years as vice president of board engagement; Natalie Thompson, who served eight years on the executive committee; and Vince Micone, who served for eight years as vice president of operations.
“I am grateful for the leadership, dedication, and commitment shown by our former executive officers — Ashley, Natalie, Anthony, and Vince — who have been instrumental in CPA’s growth and the exceptional success of WorldPride 2025,” Bos said in the statement.
“I look forward to collaborating with Anna in her new role, as well as Kim and Taylor in theirs, as we take on the important work ahead, prepare for Capital Pride 2026, and expand our platform and voice through Pride365,” Bos said.
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