Local
Catania to run for mayor
Aide says gay Council member to announce candidacy this week
Gay Council member David Catania plans to file papers this week to run for mayor.
D.C. Council member David Catania (I-At-Large) plans to file papers this week to become a candidate for mayor in the November general election, according to Ben Young, an official with Catania’s mayoral exploratory committee.
Catania, a 16-year veteran on the Council, would become the city’s first serious openly gay contender for D.C. mayor based, among other things, on a Washington Post poll in January showing him to be in a statistical tie with Mayor Vincent Gray if the two were to run against each other.
Young declined to comment on the timing of Catania’s expected announcement, which would come just days after U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen alleged in court documents that Gray knew about an illegal “shadow campaign” that Machen said helped Gray win his race for mayor in 2010. Gray has denied the allegations.
Some had speculated that Catania would wait to see who wins the Democratic nomination in the hotly contested April 1 primary before deciding whether to enter the race as an independent. Gray is being challenged by seven candidates, including four incumbent Council members.
The most recent poll, which was conducted before this week’s allegations by the U.S. Attorney, showed Gray in the lead, with Council member Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) as his closest rival. The poll conducted by NBC4, WAMU Radio, the Washington Informer and Marist College Institute for Public Opinion showed Gray ahead of Bowser by 28 percent to 20 percent.
Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) had 13 percent, Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) had 12 percent, businessman Andy Shallal had 6 percent, and Council member Vincent Orange (D-At-Large) had 4 percent. Former State Department official Reta Jo Lewis had 3 percent and civic activist Carlos Allen had less than 1 percent.
Veteran gay activist Bob Summersgill, former president of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, said the campaign finance allegations hanging over Gray’s head and the division among Democrats between the four Council candidates could help Catania in the November election.
“Yesterday’s news on the shadow campaign I think is not going to deter Gray’s supporters, so I still think he’s going to get the 25 to 30 percent of the vote that he needs” to win the primary, Summersgill said.
“But I don’t think the Democrats are going to line up behind him after the primary because of the scandal,” he said. “So I think that people are much more likely to look at David Catania.”
Summersgill and others watching the election believe current supporters of Wells, Evans and Bowser – including LGBT supporters of those candidates – could break from their party by voting for Catania rather than Democrat Gray.
No non-Democrat has won election as mayor in D.C. since the city received its home rule government from Congress and the first modern era mayoral election was held in 1974.
Others, however, say Gray could falter between now and the April 1 primary and another candidate, such as Bowser, could emerge as the Democratic nominee. If that were the case the D.C. electorate’s longstanding inclination to elect a Democratic mayor could once again prevail, according to some political observers.
Catania told the Blade in January when he formed his mayoral exploratory committee that he believes his long record of accomplishments as a Council member has benefited residents in all parts of the city and would make him a strong candidate.
“I think it underestimates the independence of our voters to suggest that they will vote for someone simply by virtue of their sexual orientation, or their gender or their color or geography,” he said. “I think we are entering an era where people no longer feel that they have to or are inclined to support a person who may be demographically similar to them.”
District of Columbia
Wanda Alston Foundation announces passing of founding executive director Brian Watson
D.C. activist praised as “passionate advocate” for homeless LGBTQ youth
The Wanda Alston Foundation, which provides housing and support services for homeless LGBTQ youth in the D.C. metro area, announced on July 20 that its founding executive director, Brian Watson, has passed away.
In a statement the Alston Foundation called Watson “one of Washington, D.C.,’s most passionate advocates for LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness.”
Neither the statement nor others who knew Watson have disclosed the cause of death or his age. Longtime LGBTQ community activist Rayceen Pendarvis said she heard only that Watson’s passing followed “a long time illness.”
“The origins of the Wanda Alston Foundation can be traced to a meeting convened by then-Mayor Anthony Williams at the request of Wanda Alston, the Mayor’s Director of LGBTQ Affairs,” the statement says.
“During that meeting, Brian spoke powerfully about the growing crisis of homelessness among LGBTQ+ youth in the District of Columbia and the urgent need for dedicated housing and support services,” it says. “His advocacy helped crystalize a vision that every young person deserves a safe place to call home.”
The statement points out that following Alston’s untimely death, Watson joined other community leaders “to transform that vision into reality by establishing the Wanda Alston Foundation in her memory.”
It says that today the Alston Foundation “proudly carries forward the mission Brian helped create by providing emergency and transitional housing, counseling, workforce development, life-skills training, and other supportive services that empower LGBTQ+ youth to achieve stability, independence, and hope for the future.”
Watson’s LinkedIn page says he served as executive director of the Alston Foundation from July 2013 to March 2014. The Washington Blade reported in April 2014 that the Alston Foundation announced in a March 11, 2014, statement that Watson had resigned to “pursue other opportunities.”
His LinkedIn page shows he worked for or with in a supporting role three local nonprofit organizations since leaving the Alston Foundation, including serving from February 2019 to November 2019 as a Methamphetamine Services Specialist for the D.C. group HIPS, which provides services for drug users and sex workers.
According to his LinkedIn page, from October 2014 to “present,” he also served as Chief Innovation Officer for the Propel Foundation, Inc., which he described as a “501c3 nonprofit organization founded in D.C. that works to strengthen nonprofit organizations through fiscal sponsorship and capacity building.”
A Facebook posting by his brother, Vidale Watson, says his family will be making arrangements for a memorial service and will share the date, time, and location once the details have been finalized.
“There are no words to describe the heartbreak our family is feeling,” Vidale Watson wrote. “While we are grateful for every prayer, kind word, and act of support we’ve received over the past week, this loss is still incredibly fresh.”
Baltimore
The government pressured USA Rugby to ban transgender women. A Baltimore team refused to comply.
Ferals is a women’s-plus team within the Flamingos
By KYLE GOON | It was midmorning, and the March winds lashed against the faces of the players on the Ferals rugby team as they suited up at a park in Frederick. The turf was frozen.
Harper Ockert, 24, wrapped her left knee with tape, stabilizing her joint for the jarring hits to come. She had struggled to sleep the night before, but her anxiety was not strictly about the game.
She and her teammates were preparing to defy newly enacted rules set by the sport’s governing body. A nervous energy thrummed in her chest as she considered what her defiance meant.
Ockert is a transgender woman who plays for the Ferals — the women’s-plus team within the Baltimore Flamingos rugby club. Three of her teammates are trans women, too. They had played games for the Ferals before, but this match at Walnut Ridge Park was the team’s first since USA Rugby had shifted its policy to allow only people assigned female at birth to play women’s rugby.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Virginia
LGBTQ community center opens in Leesburg, Va.
Equality Loudoun holds ribbon-cutting ceremony at new space
A group of supporters crowded inside of the new Equality Loudoun Community Center in Leesburg, Va. on Saturday for an open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony. Air quality issues stemming from the wildfires in Canada required the ceremony to be held indoors. Local elected officials were joined by LGBTQ community organizers and supporters to mark the occasion.
The Virginia LGBTQ organization Equality Loudoun was founded in 2003 and organized the first Loudoun Pride Festival in 2022. The Equality Loudoun Community Center, located in the Village at Leesburg shopping area (1507 Dodona Terrace SE, Suite 105, Leesburg, Va.), will now house the organization’s community and youth programming.
“This is a day that we have anticipated for some time,” said Sean Murphy, Equality Loudoun vice president. “Equality Loudoun was founded in 2003 and has been migrating from place to place to wherever will have us to host our meetings, to host our gatherings. We are so grateful to our many, many allies that have provided space for us.”
Murphy continued, “We really have believed for a long time that it’s important for us to have a home, a place to anchor the community, a place for people to feel belonging, and a place for people to find one another, and find people who are like them and have something in common.”
Attendees of the ceremony included Leesburg Mayor Kelly Burk, Leesburg Vice Mayor Todd Cimino-Johnson, Leesburg District Supervisor Kristen C. Umstattd of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, and U.S. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.).
“I wish that there was a place like this when I was teaching,” Mayor Burk, a retired Loudoun County Public Schools special education teacher, told the crowd. “So often, I’d have a student, and there was nowhere to send them. They were looking around, trying to see: ‘who’s like me, where can I go, where can I relate, what is happening?’ Middle school is terrible for everybody. But it’s especially terrible if you’re different. And so, I congratulate you on the fact that you had the initiative to do this, the guts to continue it, and the tenacity to make it happen.”
Programming at the LGBTQ community center will include youth programming, game nights and support groups, according to Equality Loudoun Executive Director Katie Cash.
Cash told the Blade, “That’s actually a new thing that we’re branching into that we received a grant this year for: to focus on youth activities. So we’ll have youth support groups that we’re going to work with the Ryan Bartell organization on. Additionally, we’ll have other peer support groups that are run by organizations that are in the space. We’ll have craft nights, we’ll have activity nights, so it’ll be open for drop-in hours on different days as well. On top of normal programming that we’ve been doing as an organization, which can be a series of different craft [activities], social activities, game nights, movie nights, that we’ve been doing for years. Instead of hunting for locations.”
Equality Loudoun is primarily funded through donations, according to Cash. Those interested in supporting the work of the organization and community center can visit eqloco.org for more information.
When asked about future programming at the center, Cash told the Blade that they are seeking feedback from the community.
“We have all the dreams that we have for the space,” Cash said. “But everything’s built off of what kind of resources, what kind of events does the community want hosted? What will they come out for? What do they care about coming out for, and making sure that happens for them.”
Rep. Subramanyam told the Blade, “I’m just so excited about this community center. Equality Loudoun has been so instrumental to so many people in our community. And for them to finally have this center — and it’s been part of their vision for a long time — just is an incredible experience. So I’m so proud to be a supporter of them and I look forward to the center being a sanctuary and a place for people to turn to for many years to come.”
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