Local
‘I want to really remember what happened’
Mayor, officials honor World AIDS Day, promise continued fight


D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and three members of the City Council participated in a candlelight vigil to honor World AIDS Day on Sunday. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
About 75 people, including D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and three members of the City Council, raised candles outside a former Whitman-Walker Clinic building at 14th and S streets, N.W., on Sunday night as part of the city’s 26th Annual World AIDS Day commemoration.
“This day has been a day to remember all those who have been affected by the epidemic and to rededicate ourselves not only to continue the fight against HIV but actually finding a cure,” said Whitman-Walker Health Executive Director Don Blanchon, who served as host of the event.
“On this World AIDS Day we have great hope and optimism that we may see the end of this epidemic in the not too distant future,” Blanchon said. “In this year we have seen tremendous advances in the fight. We’ve seen dramatic improved statistics on HIV/AIDS in our city.”
Gray, who pointed to a significant drop in the HIV infection rate in D.C. over the past several years, said he too is optimistic that a cure for AIDS could come sooner rather than later.
“It’s hard to believe that it wasn’t many years ago that we talked about AIDS being a death sentence,” Gray said. “It is not a death sentence anymore. With the advancement of pharmacology, even those who have full-blown AIDS can live a rich life. As long as the people take their medicine and stay on their regimen they can live a full and rich life,” he said.
Blanchon said Whitman-Walker chose to hold this year’s World AIDS Day vigil at the 14th and S Street site because the building at 1407 S St., N.W., was the home of the then Whitman-Walker Clinic during the peak of the AIDS epidemic during the 1980s and early 1990s.
He noted that Whitman-Walker Clinic, which has since been renamed Whitman-Walker Health, moved most of its patient care programs out of the 1407 S St. building in 1993, when it opened its Elizabeth Taylor Building one block away at 14th and U streets, N.W. Whitman-Walker continued to operate other programs in the S Street building until 2007, according to Whitman-Walker spokesperson Chip Lewis.
The JBC Companies real estate development firm, which purchased the 1407 S St. building along with adjacent properties, last month, installed a sculptured vertical column called the Pillar of Fire on the sidewalk outside the building. A plaque at the base of the sculpture says it’s dedicated to the “Whitman-Walker Clinic and the many health care workers who served the LGBT community in this building from 1987 to 2008, the early years of the pandemic.”
D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who served as executive director of Whitman-Walker during its years at the 1407 S St. building, called on those attending the World AIDS Day gathering to remember the dedicated people who worked on AIDS-related causes in the early years of the epidemic.
“Like everybody else who is here, I want to remember. I don’t want to forget. I want to really remember what happened,” Graham said. “And when I was committing to think of the people that I wanted to mention, there became too many names. People who ought to have been with us today are not.”
Among the names Graham mentioned were Gene Frey, a Whitman-Walker official who died in the mid-1980s of AIDS and for whom Whitman-Walker’s Gene Frey Award has been named. Others named were longtime Whitman-Walker supporters and local AIDS advocates Hank Card and Dusty Cunningham, both of whom also died of AIDS.
Others attending the vigil were D.C. Council members David Grosso (I-At-Large) and Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6). Also attending the event was Dr. Joxel Garcia, director of the D.C. Department of Health; and Michael Kharfen, acting director of the DOH’s HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Administration (HAHSTA).
Rev. Courtenay Miller, pastor of Norbeck Community Church of Silver Spring, Md.; and Rabbi Laurie Green of Bet Mishpachah, the D.C.-based synagogue that caters to the LGBT community, led prayers at the vigil.
Blanchon praised Graham for taking the lead in guiding Whitman-Walker through some of the most difficult times when not many other clinics and health facilities were focusing on AIDS
“In this building a small group of dedicated men and women provided care and compassion when many others would not in our community,” Blanchon told the gathering. “In the epidemic’s darkest hours these individuals gave without question what is the best of humanity – compassion, respect and love in one’s hour of needed.”
He added, “So many of those individuals are no longer with us and yet they live on in our hearts and minds. They were our partners, our family members, our friends, and our work colleagues. And today they are the light and hope that we carry forward in the quest to find a cure for AIDS.”

The 2013 D.C. World AIDS Day vigil drew about 75 participants. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Maryland
Silver Spring holds annual Pride In The Plaza
‘Today means inclusion. It means to build resilience’

Silver Spring’s annual Pride in the Plaza event took place on Sunday to celebrate the LGBTQ community and emphasize inclusion and resilience.
“Today means inclusion. It means to build resilience, love,” Robyn Woods, program and outreach director for Live In Your Truth, which organized the event, said. “I mean, just being surrounded by the community and so many great entrepreneurs, business owners, and just being a part of this whole rainbow coalition that we call the LGBTQIA to be about.”
With the event being her first time organizing for Live In Your Truth, Woods said she felt emotional to see the support and love at the event.
“Some people (are) bringing out their children, their babies, their grandparents,” Woods said. “It’s a lot more allies here than anything else. That type of support to me means so much more than just support from my community; just outside support, inside support, so much support around it, so much love. Everyone’s smiling outside, helping each other.”
Attendees of the event were able to head over to the Family Fun Zone, an air-conditioned Pride Cool Down Lounge, or watch live drag performances in the main stage area.
Along with entertainment and a shaved-ice stand, rows of information tables stood along the plaza, including FreeState Justice, the Washington Spirit, Trans Maryland, Moco Pride Center, and the Heartwood Program, an organization that offers support, therapy, education, and resources to the LGBTQ community.
“I want people to know about our services, and I love what we have to offer,” Jessica Simon, psychotherapist for Heartwood Program’s Gender Wellness Clinic, said. “I (also) want to be part of a celebration with the community, and so it feels good to be here with other people who have something they want to give to the community.”
She added that within today’s political climate, to which she called an “antidote to shame,” it’s important to be celebrating Pride.
“There’s a lot of demonization of LGBTQI people,” Siena Iacuvazzi, facilitator for Maryland Trans Unity, said. “(Pride) is part of the healing process.”
Iacuvazzi said she was taught to be ashamed of who she was growing up, but being a part of a community helped her flourish in the future.
“I was taught how to hate myself. I was taught that I was an abomination to God,” she said. “But being a community is like understanding that there are people who have experienced the same thing, and they’re flourishing. They’re flourishing because they’re willing to stand up for themselves as human beings and discover themselves and understand what’s true for themselves.”
She added that Pride allows for a mutual understanding to take place.
“It’s more of a sense of belonging … and just taking that home and understanding you’re not alone,” Iacuvazzi said. “We’re each taking our own journey — we’re not putting that on each other. It’s just walking away with a sense of belonging and humanity.”
Similar to Iacuvazzi, Woods said she hopes attendees’ biggest takeaways would be family, fun, resilience, and pride.
“Being proud of yourself, being happy for who you are, and representation and how much it matters,” she continued. “And I think all these young people that are walking around here get to see versions of themselves, but older. They get to see so many different lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual people that are successful, that are showing love, that care, and it’s not how we’re portrayed in the media. It’s lovely to see it out here. (It’s) like we’re one big old, happy family.”
Virginia
Spanberger touts equality, reproductive rights in Arlington
Democratic Va. gubernatorial nominee made campaign stop at Freddie’s Beach Bar

With the general election heating up and LGBTQ rights under increasing threat nationwide, Virginia gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger brought her “Span Virginia Bus Tour” to Arlington’s Freddie’s Beach Bar for a campaign stop filled with cheers, policy pledges, and community spirit.
Spanberger, who served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2019 through early 2025 for Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, also served as a federal law enforcement officer specializing in narcotics and money laundering cases, and as a CIA case officer working on counterterrorism and nuclear counterproliferation.
Spanberger is running against Republican nominee Winsome Earle-Sears, the current lieutenant governor of Virginia, who said she was “morally opposed” to a bill protecting marriage equality in the commonwealth.
She was joined by other Democratic candidates and supporters: lieutenant gubernatorial candidate Ghazala Hashmi, attorney general candidate Jay Jones, Virginia state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria), and Congressman Don Beyer.

Freddie’s was packed wall-to-wall with supporters, many of whom wore “Spanberger for Virginia” shirts in the progressive Pride flag colors. In her speech, she made it clear that LGBTQ Virginians’ rights are on the ballot this year.
“I’m so excited to be here, and I am so grateful to the entire staff of Freddy’s for letting us overtake this incredible venue that is not just an awesome place to come together in community, but is a symbol to so many people of joy, of happiness, of community and of celebrating our friends and our neighbors,” Spanberger told the packed restaurant. “It is exciting to be here, and particularly during this Pride month, and particularly as we reflect on the 10-year anniversary of Obergefell and the reality that we still have so much work to do.”
“The reality is there are so many people who still would be inclined to take us backwards,” she said. “In this moment when we see attacks on people’s rights, on people’s humanity, on Virginia, on our economy, on research, on public education, on food security, on health care, on Virginians, on their jobs, on public service and on people — it can get heavy.”
“What it does for me is it makes me want to double down, because once upon a time, when I was talking to my mother about some horror show or sequence of activities coming out of a particular administration, she did not really have the patience to listen to me and said ‘Abigail, let your rage fuel you’ — and the conversation was over. And so I reflect on that, because, in fact, every day there is so much fuel to be had in this world and in this moment.”
One of the points Spanberger continued to emphasize was the importance of steadfast state government officials following the election of President Donald Trump, which has led to rollbacks of LGBTQ and bodily autonomy rights as a result of the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court.
“What the past few years have shown us is that a Supreme Court decision, no matter how many years we have celebrated its existence, does not protect us in the long term. And so as governor, I will work to make sure that every protection we can put in place for the dignity, the value, and the equal rights of all Virginians is a priority.”
During her speech, Spanberger highlighted several of the key values driving her campaign — protecting reproductive freedom and human rights, lowering healthcare costs, safeguarding Virginia’s environment, and ensuring that public education is affordable, accessible, and rooted in truth, not politics.
Spanberger went as far as to say that she wants to amend the state’s constitution to remove Section 15-A. “The reality is that in Virginia, we still have a ban in our state constitution on marriage equality. It is of the utmost urgency that we move forward with our constitutional amendment.”
“We will work to ensure that that terrible constitutional amendment, that was put in years ago, is taken out and updated and ensuring that Virginia is reflective in our most essential documents of who we are as a commonwealth, which is an accepting place that celebrates the vibrancy of every single person and recognizes that all Virginians have a place, both in that constitution and in law,” she added.
Following the event, two supporters spoke to the Washington Blade about why they had come out to support Spanberger.
“I came out because I needed to show support for this ticket, because it has been a particularly rough week, but a long few years for our rights in this country, in this state, with this governor, and it’s — we need to flip it around, because queer people need protection,” said Samantha Perez, who lives in Ballston. “Trans people need protection. Trans kids need protection. And it’s not gonna happen with who’s in Richmond right now, and we just need to get it turned around.”

“The whole neighborhood’s here. All our friends are here,” said Annie Styles of Pentagon City. “It means the world to me to take care of each other. That’s what a good community does. That’s not what we’ve had with the Republicans here or across the nation for a really long time. It’s time to show that care. It’s time to make sure that good people are in a position to do good things.”
District of Columbia
Activists protest outside Hungarian Embassy in DC
Budapest Pride scheduled to take place Saturday, despite ban

More than two dozen activists gathered in front of the Hungarian Embassy in D.C. on Friday to protest the country’s ban on Budapest Pride and other LGBTQ-specific events.
Amnesty International USA Executive Director Paul O’Brien read a letter that Dávid Vig, executive director of Amnesty International Hungary, wrote.
“For 30 years Budapest Pride has been a celebration of hope, courage, and love,” said Vig in the letter that O’Brien read. “Each march through the streets of Budapest has been a powerful testament to the resilience of those who dare to demand equality, but a new law threatens to erase Pride and silence everyone who demands equal rights for LGBTI people.”
“The Hungarian government’s relentless campaign against LGBTI rights represents a worrying trend that can spread normalizing division and hatred,” added Vig. “Thank you for standing with us when we refuse to be intimidated.”
Council for Global Equality Chair Mark Bromley and two of his colleagues — Stephen Leonelli and Keifer Buckingham — also spoke. Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell and Chloe Schwenke, a political appointee in the Obama-Biden administration who worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development, and Planned Parenthood staffers are among those who attended the protest.
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
Hungarian lawmakers in March passed a bill that bans Pride events and allow authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs in April amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
Budapest Pride is scheduled to take place on Saturday, despite the ban. Hundreds of European lawmakers are expected to participate.
“Sending strength to the patriotic Hungarians marching tomorrow to advance human dignity and fundamental rights in a country they love,” said David Pressman, the gay former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary, on Friday on social media.
Sending strength to the patriotic Hungarians marching tomorrow to advance human dignity and fundamental rights in a country they love. Szabadság és szerelem. My past remarks on Budapest Pride: https://t.co/y1QhA9QouA
— David Pressman (@AmbPressman) June 27, 2025
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