News
Members of Russian HIV/AIDS group attacked
Activist alleges police said they did not see any evidence that a crime took place.
Two masked men on Nov. 3 attacked members of a Russian HIV/AIDS group at its St. Petersburg office. (By David Crawshaw via Wikimedia Commons.)
Anastasia Smirnova of the Russian LGBT Network said in an e-mail to LGBT rights advocates that two masked men with air guns and baseball bats attacked those who were attending a social gathering at the St. Petersburg office of LaSky, a Russian HIV/AIDS group that serves men who have sex with men. The advocate noted two people were injured during the attack.
Smirnova said police arrived, but they “left right away” because “they did not see any evidence of the crime.”
Fontanka, a Russian news website, cited an official with the Russian Interior Ministry who confirmed the incident took place.
“Pograms are becoming a reality,” Smirnova said. “Now it is not migrants, but the St. Petersburg office of LaSky.”
The attack took place against the backdrop of ongoing outrage over Russia’s LGBT rights record ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics that will take place in Sochi, Russia, in February.
President Vladimir Putin in June signed a broadly worded law that bans gay propaganda to minors. A second statute that bans foreign same-sex couples and any couple from a country in which gays and lesbians can legally marry from adopting Russian children took effect in July.
A 2012 law requires LGBT groups and other non-governmental organizations that receive funding from outside Russia to register as a “foreign agent.”
Activists maintain the deaths of two men in Volgograd and on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East earlier this year underscore the fact that anti-LGBT violence remains a pervasive problem in the country.
Police in St. Petersburg on Saturday arrested 40 LGBT advocates and a group of nationalists who challenged them during a gay rights rally. Authorities in May arrested 30 gay rights activists who tried to stage a Pride celebration outside Moscow City Hall.
Officials in Murmansk in July arrested Kris van der Veen and three other Dutch LGBT rights advocates for violating the country’s gay propaganda law while they were filming a documentary on Russian gay life. Authorities fined the activists 3,000 rubles or roughly $93 and banned them from entering Russia for three years.
The two men who attacked Dutch diplomat Onno Elderenbosch inside his Moscow apartment last month drew a heart with an arrow through it and the LGBT acronym in lipstick on a mirror in his home.
Putin said during an Oct. 28 press conference in Sochi that gays and lesbians will not suffer discrimination during the Winter Olympics, even though Russian authorities have previously indicated they plan to enforce the gay propaganda law during the games.
“It is hard to imagine how people can be welcomed equally regardless of sexual orientation when such a law… is in place,” Smirnova told reporters during an Oct. 29 conference call the LGBT advocacy group All Out hosted.
Virginia
Black transgender woman murdered in Va.
Shyyell Diamond Sanchez-McCray killed in Petersburg on March 13
A Black transgender woman was murdered in Petersburg, Va., on March 13.
Shyyell Diamond Sanchez-McCray, who was also known as Mable, was a drag queen who won the Miss Mayflower EOY pageant in 2015. Reports also indicate she was a well-known community activist in Virginia and in North Carolina.
Local media reports indicate police officers found Sanchez-McCray, 42, shot to death inside a home in Petersburg. These initial media reports also misgendered her.
“My heart is shattered and heavy with grief at the news of Shyyell Diamond Sanchez-McCray’s murder — the first trans life stolen from us this year,” said Victoria Kirby York, director of public policy and programs for the National Black Justice Coalition, in a statement.
Kirby York in her statement also criticized the media coverage of Sanchez-McCray’s murder.
“The early reports of Shyyell’s death stripped her of her identity by misgendering her, a deeply damaging and persistent failure by law enforcement and media that haunts these cases again and again,” she said. “Misgendering doesn’t just erase a person’s truth — it can derail justice entirely, or worse, bury a case in silence as investigators chase the wrong identity, the wrong face, the wrong name.”
Authorities have not made any arrests.
The Petersburg Bureau of Police has asked anyone with information about Sanchez-McCray’s murder to call Petersburg-Dinwiddie Crime Solvers at 804-861-1212.
District of Columbia
Trans Day of Visibility events planned
Rally on the National Mall scheduled for Saturday
The Christopher Street Project has a number of events planned for the 2026 Trans Day of Visibility, including a rally on the Mall and an “Empowerment Ball” at the Eaton Hotel. Plenaries, panel discussions and meetings with members of Congress are scheduled in the three days of programming.
Announced speakers include N.H. state Rep. Alice Wade; Commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago Precious Brady-Davis; activist and performer Miss Peppermint (“RuPaul’s Drag Race”); Lexington, Ky. Councilwoman Emma Curtis; Rabbi Abby Stein; D.C. activist and host Rayceen Pendarvis; Air Force Master Sgt. Logan Ireland; among other leaders, advocates and performers.
Conference programming on Thursday and Friday includes an educational forum and a Capitol Hill policy education day. Registration for the two-day conference has closed.
The “Trans Day of Visibility PAC Reception” is scheduled for Thursday, March 26 from 7:30-9 p.m. at As You Are (500 8th St., S.E.). Special guests include Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nevada) and Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.). Tickets are available at christopherstreetproject.org starting at $25.
The National Council of Jewish Women and the Christopher Street Project host a “Trans Day of Visibility Shabbat” on Friday, March 27 from 7-8 p.m. at Sixth & I (600 I St., N.W.). The service is to be led by Rabbi Jenna Shaw and Rabbi Abby Stein.
The “Now You See Me: Trans Empowerment Social & Ball” is scheduled for Friday, March 27 from 6-11 p.m. at the Eaton Hotel (1201 K. St., N.W.). The trans-themed drag ball is hosted by the Marsha P. Johnson Institute with support from the D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs, the Capital Ballroom Council, the Christopher Street Project, the Center for Black Equity, Generation for Common Good, and Parenting is Political. RSVP online at christopherstreetproject.org.
The National Transgender Day of Visibility Rally is scheduled for Saturday, March 28 on the National Mall at 11 a.m. The rally will include speakers and performances. Following the rally, attendees are encouraged to participate in the “No Kings” rally being held at Anacostia Park.
Virginia
Virginia General Assembly’s 2026 legislative session ends
Voters in November will consider repealing marriage amendment
The Virginia General Assembly’s 2026 legislative session ended on March 14.
Lawmakers have yet to approve a budget, but they did pass a resolution that paves the way for a referendum on whether to repeal the state’s constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Lawmakers also advanced House Bill 60, which would protect PrEP users from insurance discrimination.
Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger has until April 13 to decide to pass, amend, or veto legislation before it goes back to the House of Delegates on April 22.
Spanberger on Feb. 6 signed the bill that sets the stage for the marriage amendment referendum. Voters will consider whether to “remove the ban on same-sex marriage; (ii) affirm that two adults may marry regardless of sex, gender, or race; and (iii) require all legally valid marriages to be treated equally under the law?”
Equality Virginia has been working during this legislative cycle to urge lawmakers to allocate funding towards LGBTQ rights. The budget would expand funding for schools, competency training for the 988 suicide hotline, and funding to provide gender affirming care to LGBTQ youth.
“As the budget moves through conference and the Reconvene Session approaches on April 22, Equality Virginia remains focused on ensuring our victories this session translate into durable protections,” Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman told the Washington Blade in a statement. “Progress on marriage equality, nondiscrimination protections, and HIV care funding was essential, but Virginia must do more.”
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