Arts & Entertainment
Best of Gay D.C.: Lifetime Achievement Award
This honor is being awarded to Rev. Dean Snyder of Foundry United Methodist Church
Rev. Dean Snyder (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
For the first time in the 12-year history of the Washington Blade’s annual Best of Gay D.C. readers poll awards, the Blade has selected a “lifetime achievement award.” This honor is being awarded to Rev. Dean Snyder, an LGBT ally and senior pastor of Foundry United Methodist Church (1500 16th St., N.W.).
Snyder, in his 12th year at Foundry in a ministry that began in 1968, says he became sympathetic to the plight and struggle of gay Christians during his years as a campus minister in Pennsylvania.
“I spent a lot of time listening to my gay students tell me of their struggles,” Snyder says. “This includes people who desperately did not want to be gay. I’ll never forget one student who was in aversion therapy and it just broke my heart to see the pain he was going through. … He was so convinced his parents would never accept him and that he could not be a Christian if he was gay.”
By the time Snyder came to Foundry, he was known within the United Methodist congregation for being an LGBT-affirming minister. The church had become “reconciling” (its term for open to gays) five years before he arrived, but he found a simple way to make them feel more included.
“They were saying that while the church was reconciling, they didn’t hear that much acknowledgement of it during the service,” Snyder says. “I decided I would mention it in some way — even if it was as simple as so-and-so is in the hospital, we remember he and his partner George today — … in each service. I just made it a repetitive thing. I used to think being a minister was about being creative but often it’s just about saying the same things over and over.”
Foundry, no doubt in large part for its location between Dupont and Logan Circles, has always had a large LGBT core among its parishioners. Snyder says about a third of its 1,200 members (about 650 attend its two weekly services) are LGBT.
He says the denomination’s General Conference has never punished the church for being LGBT friendly, although the United Methodist denomination as a whole is not totally on board. He says he regularly gets e-mail from around the country “from people who chastise us.”
Snyder says LGBT issues are just one part of the church’s mission. It also works on homelessness, high rates of incarceration among minority youth and other areas in which it advocates for change.
Snyder has announced his retirement. He will end his ministry there next June.
The 2026 World Pride March was held on Saturday, Aug. 8 in Amsterdam. Tens of thousands of participants marched from Martin Luther Kingpark to the grounds of the Pride Village at Museumplein.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
View on Threads
View on Threads
View on Threads
The weekly drag show “Daddy Issues” was held at Kiki on Wednesday, Aug. 5. Performers included Evry Pleasure, Indiana Bones and Tiara Missou-Sidora.
(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)
Books
Something’s off about Dad. When is it time to step in?
‘When Memory Fades’ can help when families face dementia
‘When Memory Fades’
By Nathaniel Chin, MD
c.2026, St. Martin’s Essentials
$30/422 pages
Mom called you in a panic the other day.
She’d lost her keys and by the time you arrived to help, she’d found them. In the refrigerator.
These kinds of things keep happening, not often but often enough, and you don’t know quite what to worry about. But in the new book “When Memory Fades” by Nathaniel Chin, MD, you’ll learn about the journey ahead, for both of you.
You can’t remember why you walked into a room. You got lost last week, going to the bank. Popular wisdom says that things like that are normal as we age, but Chin says that’s not true – although the answer may not be a worst-case scenario, either. Yes, memory problems could just be signs of stress, dehydration, or lack of sleep – or is it time to see a doctor?
Chin says maybe, yes.
He was working his way through medical residency when his father, a geriatrician in Madison, Wisc., was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Chin, now a geriatrician, was blindsided, but that diagnosis also changed his life.
Here, he writes about the brain, and how Alzheimer’s and dementia are diagnosed, explaining that dementia has many faces and, depending on a doctor’s evaluation, memory problems might be slowed or improved. He shares his father’s illness with readers, but he also writes about his mother, a steadfast, steady caretaker.
Her story reminds reader-guardians to care for themselves, too.
Know how to talk the talk, so that you can have “a more productive” conversation with your doctor. Understand that there’s nothing “normal” about dementia or Alzheimer’s. Know the statistics – African Americans are affected with dementia twice as much as whites – and know how to lower your risks. Learn here what questions to ask, how to break the news to everyone, and any legal matters that will be important soon. And know how to tend to you.
Says Chin, “The best action you can take is to educate yourself… The more you understand, the better equipped you are to make sound judgments.”
Something’s off about Dad, just a lot of little things that don’t add up. When is it time to step in? “When Memory Fades” can help you decide.
Wise, wide-spread, comprehensive, and compassionately helpful, this is a book you can read and then take it to the doctor with your loved one. It’s a book that makes sense when nothing else does, and its biggest feature is that it smoothly transitions from easy-to-grasp science and charts, to gentle coaching for caregivers. Author Nathaniel Chin, MD writes with storytelling, humility, grace, and experience from both sides of the Alzheimer’s/dementia issue, and his words are reassuring but also urgent. Learn, but don’t wait, he says. Know how to safeguard yourself. See your doctor, and don’t fear testing. Watch for signs of depression. And never, ever stop asking for help.
Read those last seven words, and find “When Memory Fades” now. It’s a book to have on your shelf, whether you’re 45 or 95 because, as you’ll see, dementia happens and knowledge is key.
PHOTOS: World Pride March
Tens of thousands take part in World Pride March
PHOTOS: Daddy Issues at Kiki
Something’s off about Dad. When is it time to step in?
New book chronicles gay man’s life in hippie commune
Continue to engage in community after Pride month
D.C.’s Mary’s House For Older Adults names new executive director
Suzanne Goode is not good for Rehoboth Beach
Calendar: August 7-13
