It’s September 1998, and I’m at lunch with several other journalists and a grandmother. As I sip my Coke, I hear a friendly male voice. You can tell he’s smiling. “Time to shake hands now,” he says.

We’re at the Carter Center in Atlanta for a few days. The other reporters and I have received Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism. The grandma sitting with us is former first lady Rosalynn Carter, and the man with the warm smile is former President Jimmy Carter. “As soon as we get on a plane,” Mrs. Carter says, “Jimmy walks down the aisles and shakes hands with everybody. He knows they want to say hi to him.”

Jimmy Carter died Dec. 29 in hospice care in Georgia. President Biden declared Thursday a National Day of Mourning and Carter’s funeral will take place at Washington National Cathedral that day. After the funeral, Carter and his family will return to Plains, Ga. to Maranatha Baptist Church for a private funeral and then to Carter’s private residence for interment.

Twenty-five years ago, we journos were at the Carter Center to meet with experts in mental health so we could report accurately on the issue.  

The fellowship program was founded in 1996 by Rosalynn Carter. Mrs. Carter, who died in 2023 at age 96, was no mere figurehead. She knew every detail about our fellowship projects. Heaven help us, if she’d caught us asleep at the switch.

It takes nothing away from Mrs. Carter to note how essential her personal and professional partnership with her husband Jimmy Carter was to her and her work.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were married in 1946. The first thing that hit you when you saw them together was how deeply they loved each other. There was nothing sappy about how they were with each other.

One morning, President Carter ambled into the conference room before our session on stigma and mental health was about to begin. Kenneth W. Starr had just delivered his report on (then) President Bill Clinton’s alleged abuses and affair with Monica Lewinsky. Naturally, we, the reporters in the room, asked Jimmy Carter how he felt about Bill Clinton. We were committed to mental health journalism. But, a former president was there – standing by the wall.

President Carter didn’t seem to want to hold back. He said he didn’t think that highly of Bill Clinton. But, before he could go on to say more, Mrs. Carter gave him a look. The look you give your spouse after decades of loving togetherness. Especially, if you’re a political couple and your mate’s being grilled by scribes eager to make news. “I know,” Jimmy Carter said, smiling, to Rosalynn Carter, his most ardent supporter and astute critic, “I’m talking too much, darlin’. I’m leaving now.”

You could tell how proud President Carter was of Mrs. Carter. At lunch or dinner, you’d see him nodding approvingly at her when she spoke of her work. You could see it in how he teased her. “Rosalynn talks about mental health all the time,” Jimmy Carter said, with a laugh, one night, as he saw Mrs. Carter chatting with us about how the media reported on mental health.

What I most recall about Jimmy Carter is his generosity of spirit. “I beat Jerry Ford,” President Carter said, “but Rosalyn and I are good friends with the Fords now.”

He wasn’t using the word “friends” in the way politicos often do. The Carters and the Fords were friends who worked together on mental health and other issues.

I hadn’t yet come out as a lesbian when I was at the Carter Center. But I didn’t feel I had to remain closeted or silent about my (then) partner. Carter was, what today likely would be an oxymoron: a born-again Christian, who welcomed everyone.

The Carter Center, which the Carters founded after his presidency, is like a theme park, where, instead of standing in line for attractions, people work to resolve conflicts and eradicate diseases.

Thank you, President Carter for your work, humanity and being an LGBTQ ally. R.I.P., Jimmy Carter.

Kathi Wolfe, a writer and poet, was a regular contributor to the Blade. She wrote this tribute just before she passed away in June 2024.

In recent weeks, the D.C. Council passed the Fairness in Human Rights Administration Amendment Act. Provided that this bill is signed by Mayor Bowser and not objected to by Congress, it will correct some of the loopholes in the District’s sexual harassment laws that were overlooked when the Council passed the latest iteration of the D.C. Human Rights Act in 2022.

In this dangerous moment for women, transgender, and non-binary people, when it appears that incoming federal leaders are hostile to protecting the rights of these vulnerable groups, more robust local protection is a needed step in the right direction. This new D.C. law, when it goes into effect, means that more people who have been harassed because of their gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression will be able to escape unfair arbitration clauses and file, publicly, in court. Historically, mandatory arbitration operates as a tool for companies to keep sexual harassment and assault accusations a secret. 

While the D.C. Human Rights Act is, in my view, one of the better human rights acts in the country, it is encouraging to see that the D.C. Council is also willing to expand it to make sure more folks can make use of it to protect themselves. This legislation provides a series of fixes that significantly change the landscape of sexual harassment claims in D.C.  First – the act provides a more expansive definition of sexual harassment. This may appear insignificant—but it’s not! Right now, the narrow definition under D.C. law says that sexual harassment is limited to “conduct of a sexual nature.”  This covers the most egregious and brazen types of sexual harassment, the kind of behavior that often leads to news articles, like sending a colleague unsolicited sexual messages or photographs; using sexually degrading language or slurs; or asking intrusive questions about someone’s sexual preferences.  It doesn’t include, however, the wide spectrum of sexual harassment that I see in working with clients every day: harassment based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression.

This can take a lot of forms, like calling someone sex-based, but not sexual, slurs in the workplace; penalizing someone if they do not dress feminine or masculine “enough”; or spreading rumors about someone because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation. Mind you, the D.C. Human Rights Act already banned harassment based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression before this new act; but this new act now includes all of those forms of harassment as under the umbrella of sexual harassment.  

Why is it important? Federal law prohibits forced arbitration of sexual assault and sexual harassment cases nationwide, because it is an unfair forum for survivors of sexual harassment and sexual assault. Under federal law, courts have recognized that sex-based conduct may create a hostile work environment constituting sexual harassment, whether or not the conduct is “sexual in nature.” But the D.C. Human Rights Act, until this latest expansion, limited sexual harassment to conduct that is sexual in nature. As a result, harassment based on gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity could be forced to go to unfair arbitration in D.C. – which this new law fixes.  Provided this is signed into law and Congress does not object, those who have been harassed on these bases will be able to publicly pursue these claims against their employers in court.

In addition to this meaningful expansion of the definition of sexual harassment, this new law also increases the statute of limitations of when claims can be brought from one year to two years. This extends the time a person who experiences harassment has to file a claim.

Many of these changes demonstrate the District’s commitment to leading the nation in enacting robust protections for workers and in resisting sexual harassment in all of its forms. I’m grateful to the D.C. Council for their work to make these changes a reality.

Mx. Rachel Green is a plaintiffs’ sexual harassment attorney at Katz Banks Kumin LLP and advocated before the D.C. Council for many of these changes to the law.

Jimmy Carter is venerated for his many notable accomplishments including support for African-American civil rights, Nobel Prize recipient, energy security, conservation, transportation deregulation, and remarkable post-presidency accomplishments, among others. As to LGBTQ rights, Carter’s less than admirable White House legacy reflects societal prejudices during his 1977 to 1981 presidency.

At the 1972 Democratic National Convention, the Platform Committee rejected by a vote of 54 to 34 a plank to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. At that convention, Jim Foster and Madeline Davis became the first openly gay delegates to address a national political convention’s plenary session. Foster and Davis’s addresses on July 12 were scheduled at 5 a.m. for Minority Report #8, which Walter Cronkite called “the Gay Lib plank.”

As a 1976 presidential candidate, Carter courageously endorsed the Equality Act, which would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation. Carter appointed Midge Constanza, a closeted lesbian to head his Office of Public Liaison. Constanza, a former Rochester City Council member, had served as Carter’s New York State campaign coordinator. Constanza was the only woman in a senior position on Carter’s White House staff. 

On March 26, 1977, Constanza hosted the first meeting of gay representatives at the White House. The group of 12 included gay pioneer Frank Kameny, Rev. Troy Perry, and Jenn O’Leary and Bruce Voeller, co-chairs of the National Gay Task Force. After being alerted by a National Gay Task Force press release, major news organizations covered the story. The following day, Anita Bryant, who started a Christian crusade against homosexual rights stated that the Office of the President had been duped into blessing an abnormal lifestyle and vowed to “lead such a crusade to stop homosexuals as this country has not seen before.”

By 1978, Constanza was demoted; her office moved from adjoining the Oval Office to the basement; and her staff of more than a dozen cut to one. In August 1978, she resigned.

In November 1977, Harvey Milk became a San Francisco Supervisor. He was one of the first openly gay Americans to be elected to public office. In 1978, Milk was assassinated. That year 70% of Americans opposed discrimination protections based on sexual orientation. In 1979, Carter launched his campaign for reelection. 

At the 1980 Democratic National Convention, 77 of the seated delegates were openly gay and lesbian up from the handful at the 1976 convention. Melvin Boozer, an African-American Ph.D. from Yale and head of the DC Gay Activists Alliance was nominated for vice president of the United States. In Boozer’s remarks, he stated he wouldn’t accept the nomination, but called on delegates to adopt the gay rights plank.

Twelve years later, at the 1992 Democratic National Convention and with the support of party presidential candidate Bill Clinton that Bob Hattoy, a gay man with AIDS and Roberta Achtenberg, cofounder of the National Center for Lesbian Rights became the first openly gay delegates to address the convention in prime time. There were rainbow flags and signs for “Lesbian and Gay Rights Now!” 

Carter did not embrace homophobia. He was one of the nation’s most decent and foresighted leaders. While he disappointingly broke his campaign promise to support the Equality Act, like other historic figures Carter’s record should be assessed within the context of society’s then social constructs and political realities. 

Based on the totality of his legacy, Jimmy Carter left the world a better place. His memory is a blessing.

Malcolm Lazin is executive director of LGBT History Month. Learn more at lgbtHistoryMonth.com.