Local
Record number of LGBT candidates on primary ballot
Most running for D.C. Democratic Party posts
Alexandra Beninda is the first known transgender person to run for a citywide office in the District. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Gay D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) will be one of 17 openly LGBT candidates to appear on the ballot in the city’s April 1 primary election, representing an all-time high for the number of out candidates running in a single D.C. election.
Among those running is Alexandra Beninda, a transgender activist and member of the city’s Human Rights Commission, who is seeking an at-large seat on the D.C. Democratic State Committee. She becomes the first known transgender person to run for a citywide office in the District.
Beninda is one of 11 LGBT candidates running for at-large or ward seats on the Democratic State Committee, which serves as the governing body of the city’s Democratic Party.
Graham is the only out gay person running this year in the city’s Democratic primary. He’s running for a fifth term in a hotly contested race against Democratic challenger Brianne Nadeau for the Ward 1 Council seat.
In other races, gay Libertarian Party activist Bruce Majors is running unopposed for his party’s nomination for mayor, ensuring that he will be among the mayoral candidates on the ballot in the November general election.
Gay Libertarian Party candidate Martin Moulton is running unopposed for his party’s nomination for the city’s shadow U.S. House seat, one of three unpaid elected “shadow” positions created to lobby Congress for D.C. statehood and congressional voting rights.
Moulton will face Democratic Party and Statehood-Green Party challengers in the general election in November.
In a race expected to draw widespread attention, gay Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Marc Morgan of Ward 1 is running unopposed for the Republican nomination for an at-large D.C. Council seat being vacated by gay incumbent David Catania (I-At-Large), who’s running for mayor.
Under the city’s home rule charter, the seat currently held by Catania is reserved for a non-majority party candidate, which prevents a Democrat from holding the seat. Morgan’s supporters, including Robert Turner, the gay executive director of the D.C. Republican Party, have said Morgan could have a shot at winning Catania’s seat depending on who else enters the race between now and the June cut-off date for an independent candidate.
In recent years, Democrats with widespread name recognition have switched their party registration from Democrat to independent to run for one of the two at-large Council seats reserved for a non-Democrat. As of this week, no independent candidate has filed papers to run for the seat in November.
Unlike other parts of the country, the D.C. Republican Party has embraced LGBT rights and supports the city’s same-sex marriage law.
In the D.C. primary races for Democratic Party positions, veteran gay rights advocate and Ward 8 civic leader Phil Pannell is running for the post of Alternate National Committeeman as part of a slate of candidates called D.C. Ready for Hillary. Lesbian activist Courtney Snowden is running on the same slate for the position of Alternate National Committee Woman.
Pannell and Snowden joined forces with former D.C. Council Chair Arrington Dixon and longtime Democratic Party activist Mary Eva Candon, who are running for National Committeeman and National Committee Woman respectively. All four positions are linked to the Democratic National Committee.
According to Pannell, the slate’s primary mission is to build support for a run for president by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
In other races, seven out LGBT candidates, including Beninda, are running for Democratic State Committee seats on an insurgent slate called The Rent is Too Darn High.
In a statement released earlier this month, leaders of the 30-candidate slate made it clear that the candidates are dissatisfied with the current State Committee leadership team headed by D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large), who serves as chair of the State Committee.
“The Committee’s recent history is riddled with mismanagement of elections, lack of transparency, and now wrestles with the perception of being complicit with scandal and corruption,” the statement says.
Gregory Cendana (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
The LGBT candidates on the slate and the seats they are running for are Gregory Cendana (At-Large seat); Edgardo Ed Guerrero (At-Large seat); Beninda (At-Large seat); Nikisha Carpenter (At-Large seat); Jessica ‘Jess’ Pierce (Ward 4 seat); Tamara Angela Ferrell (Ward 4 seat); and Andy Litsky (Ward 6 seat).
Cendana is among the leaders of the slate.
Gay Democratic activist Bill O’Field, who serves as treasurer of the State Committee, is running for re-election to a Ward 1 State Committee seat. O’Field is not running on a slate but he is widely known to be part of the State Committee faction supportive of Bonds.
Also running as Bonds supporters are gay Democratic activists Ron Collins and David Meadows. Collins, an incumbent, is running for re-election to a Ward 6 seat on the committee. Meadows is also running for a Ward 6 seat on the State Committee.
O’Field and Meadows, who works as communications director for Bond’s City Council office, have praised her leadership on the State Committee and on the Council, saying she is a strong supporter of LGBT equality and has a long record of support for city residents facing economic hardship.
Local
Local LGBTQ groups, activists to commemorate Black History Month
Rayceen Pendarvis to moderate Dupont Underground panel on Sunday
LGBTQ groups in D.C. and elsewhere plan to use Black History Month as an opportunity to commemorate and celebrate Black lives and experiences.
Team Rayceen Productions has no specific events planned, but co-founder Rayceen Pendarvis will attend many functions around D.C. this month.
Pendarvis, a longtime voice in the LGBTQ community in D.C. will be moderating a panel at Dupont Underground on Sunday. The event, “Every (Body) Wants to Be a Showgirl,” will feature art from Black burlesque artists from around the country. Pendarvis on Feb. 23 will attend the showing of multimedia play at the Lincoln Theatre that commemorates the life of James Baldwin.
Equality Virginia plans to prioritize Black voices through a weekly online series, and community-based story telling. The online digital series will center Black LGBTQ voices, specifically trailblazers and activists, and contemporary Black queer and transgender people.
Narissa Rahaman, Equality Virginia’s executive director, stressed the importance of the Black queer community to the overall Pride movement, and said “Equality Virginia is proud to center those voices in our work this month and beyond.”
The Capital Pride Alliance, which hosts Pride events in D.C., has an alliance with the Center for Black Equity, which brings Black Pride to D.C. over Memorial Day weekend. The National LGBTQ Task Force has no specific Black History Month events planned, but plans to participate in online collaborations.
Cathy Renna, the Task Force’s director of communications, told the Washington Blade the organization remains committed to uplifting Black voices. “Our priority is keeping this at the forefront everyday,” she said.
The D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center is also hosting a series of Black History Month events.
The D.C. Public Library earlier this year launched “Freedom and Resistance,” an exhibition that celebrates Black History Month and Martin Luther King Jr. It will remain on display until the middle of March at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library at 901 G St., N.W.
District of Columbia
U.S. Attorney’s Office drops hate crime charge in anti-gay assault
Case remains under investigation and ‘further charges’ could come
D.C. police announced on Feb. 9 that they had arrested two days earlier on Feb. 7 a Germantown, Md., man on a charge of simple assault with a hate crime designation after the man allegedly assaulted a gay man at 14th and Q Streets, N.W., while using “homophobic slurs.”
But D.C. Superior Court records show that prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., which prosecutes D.C. violent crime cases, charged the arrested man only with simple assault without a hate crime designation.
In response to a request by the Washington Blade for the reason why the hate crime designation was dropped, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office provided this response: “We continue to investigate this matter and make no mistake: should the evidence call for further charges, we will not hesitate to charge them.”
In a statement announcing the arrest in this case, D.C. police stated, “On Saturday, February 7, 2026, at approximately 7:45 p.m. the victim and suspect were in the 1500 block of 14th Street, Northwest. The suspect requested a ‘high five’ from the victim. The victim declined and continued walking,” the statement says.
“The suspect assaulted the victim and used homophobic slurs,” the police statement continues. “The suspect was apprehended by responding officers.”
It adds that 26-year-old Dean Edmundson of Germantown, Md. “was arrested and charged with Simple Assault (Hate/Bias).” The statement also adds, “A designation as a hate crime by MPD does not mean that prosecutors will prosecute it as a hate crime.”
Under D.C.’s Bias Related Crime Act of 1989, penalties for crimes motivated by prejudice against individuals based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and homelessness can be enhanced by a court upon conviction by one and a half times greater than the penalty of the underlying crime.
Prosecutors in the past both in D.C. and other states have said they sometimes decide not to include a hate crime designation in assault cases if they don’t think the evidence is sufficient to obtain a conviction by a jury. In some instances, prosecutors have said they were concerned that a skeptical jury might decide to find a defendant not guilty of the underlying assault charge if they did not believe a motive of hate was involved.
A more detailed arrest affidavit filed by D.C. police in Superior Court appears to support the charge of a hate crime designation.
“The victim stated that they refused to High-Five Defendant Edmondson, which, upon that happening, Defendant Edmondson started walking behind both the victim and witness, calling the victim, “bald, ugly, and gay,” the arrest affidavit states.
“The victim stated that upon being called that, Defendant Edmundson pushed the victim with both hands, shoving them, causing the victim to feel the force of the push,” the affidavit continues. “The victim stated that they felt offended and that they were also gay,” it says.
District of Columbia
Capital Pride wins anti-stalking order against local activist
Darren Pasha claims action is linked to his criticism of Pride organizers
A D.C. Superior Court judge on Feb. 6 partially approved an anti-stalking order against a local LGBTQ activist requested last October by the Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based LGBTQ group that organizes the city’s annual Pride events.
The ruling by Judge Robert D. Okun requires former Capital Pride volunteer Darren Pasha to stay at least 100 feet away from Capital Pride’s staff, board members, and volunteers until the time of a follow up court hearing he scheduled for April 17.
In his ruling at the Feb. 6 hearing, which was virtual rather than held in-person at the courthouse, Okun said he had changed the distance that Capital Pride had requested for the stay-away, anti-stalking order from 200 yards to 100 feet. The court records show that the judge also denied a motion filed earlier by Pasha, who did not attend the hearing, to “quash” the Capital Pride civil case against him.
Pasha told the Washington Blade he suffered an injury and damaged his mobile phone by falling off his scooter on the city’s snow-covered streets that prevented him from calling in to join the Feb. 6 court hearing.
In his own court filings without retaining an attorney, Pasha has strongly denied the stalking related allegations against him by Capital Pride, saying “no credible or admissible evidence has been provided” to show he engaged in any wrongdoing.
The Capital Pride complaint initially filed in court on Oct. 27, 2025, includes an 18-page legal brief outlining its allegations against Pasha and an additional 167-page addendum of “supporting exhibits” that includes multiple statements by witnesses whose names are blacked out.
“Over the past year, Defendant Darren Pasha (“DSP”) has engaged in a sustained, and escalating course of conduct directed at CPA, including repeated and unwanted contact, harassment, intimidation, threats, manipulation, and coercive behavior targeting CPA staff, board members, volunteers, and affiliates,” the Capital Pride complaint states.
In his initial 16-page response to the complaint, Pasha says the Capital Pride complaint appears to be a form of retaliation against him for a dispute he has had with the organization and its then president, Ashley Smith, last year.
“It is evident that the document is replete with false, misleading, and unsubstantiated assertions,” he said of the complaint.
Smith, who has since resigned from his role as board president, did not respond to a request by the Blade for comment at the time the Capital Pride court complaint was filed against Pasha.
Capital Pride Executive Director Ryan Bos and the attorney representing the group in its legal action against Pasha, Nick Harrison, did not immediately respond to a Blade request for comment on the judge’s Feb. 6 ruling.
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Local LGBTQ groups, activists to commemorate Black History Month
