My strawberry muumuu was about the ugliest thing I could have picked for our muumuu-themed movie night. 

Really, it’s just an excuse to cross-dress while the sun’s still up; these themed movie nights are concocted by a teammate of mine on the Washington Scandals, D.C.’s LGBT and mens-plus rugby club. 

The team is hosting an informational event on Saturday, March 21^st, for those interested in testing the waters on inclusive rugby. We have a lot of fun with a lot of balls, and then we head out for a drink at Kiki. 

Events like these Rugby “101s” are a blast because the joys of queer camaraderie are on full display – no experience is necessary. If you’re interested in learning more, check out our socials for more info in our bio. Back to the muumuu night, because someone will make a good point that bears repeating. 

After settling in with some pizza and homemade cream puffs, I asked my friend and teammate, Theo, on my left, what it’s been like in a rugby club. 

“Flooded with love,” he told me, him wearing a thin-striped but soft cotton muumuu.  Theo often prioritizes comfort in clothing, always dressed for the weather. Eyes as soft and fuzzy as a warm bunny, he recounted his journey here to LGBT rugby as the life of the party shifted from food to entertainment. 

Theo and I both prefer the quiet to the crowd, which is odd, given our shared passion for rugby — famously loud, infamously tough on the body.

The details are irrelevant, here; it’s Theo’s passion that caught my eye. Passion, I thought; it wasn’t particularly familiar to me, especially in sport. Profession, yes, but social pursuits?  Passion seemed so foreign to me there. 

That’s because it’s nurtured through culture, not inherited as a personality trait. This is a familiar place for much of D.C.’s LGBT culture and community; ‘chosen’ or ‘found’ family is the common phrase, but this is too simplistic, is it not?  It makes it sound like you washed ashore and stumbled effortlessly into family. It’s not like that, not in real life. 

It’s work and work requires passion to keep showing up. 

Adult friendships are hard, Mary. It’s not light and airy, like when we were kids. It’s hard enough in adulthood, and to carve a space out for men’s-plus LGBT rugby in a city literally built on compromise is an act of defiance in itself. 

Taking a chance on LGBT rugby is not for the casual observer – it’s a tough sport (but safer than football) with some big personalities. But as Theo pointed out, when I asked him about the magnetic draw between the LGBT community and rugby, that all body types are welcome in the sport; anyone can imagine themselves wearing a jersey and still fit in. 

If you are to take anything from this, dear reader, it’s that when you show up for rugby, you belong. 

The team’s hosting an informational Rugby 101 on Saturday, March 21, at Harry Thomas Rec Center, at 2 p.m. Our home match the next Saturday, March 28, is also at Harry Thomas, at 1 p.m. 

For generations, LGBTQ+ people have come to DC searching for something simple: the freedom to love who they love. I was one of them.

Washington, D.C., is the gayest city in the world. This didn’t happen by accident; It’s the result of generations of organizing, advocacy, and leadership from elected officials who championed the movement for equality, a movement that drew people like me to this city in search of safety and acceptance.

Now, as we approach the June 16 mayoral primary, the LGBTQ+ community will play a decisive role in shaping the city’s future. I believe the candidate our community should rally behind is Kenyan McDuffie, a longtime ally with a proven track record.

Kenyan’s relationship with the LGBTQ+ community began long before it was politically fashionable. In 2012, when he ran for the Ward 5 D.C. Council seat, he sought and earned the support of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the city’s largest LGBTQ+ political organization. At a time before marriage equality was the law of the land, Kenyan stood with us and went on to support the banning of conversion therapy.

But what has always stood out to me about Kenyan’s leadership is his willingness to tackle issues head-on that deeply impact queer families and young people. 

As someone who was recently engaged and is currently navigating pathways to parenthood, I was moved by Kenyan’s leadership to modernize D.C.’s outdated surrogacy laws. For more than two decades, the District criminalized surrogacy agreements, threatening families with fines of up to $10,000 and even jail time. Kenyan helped lead the effort to repeal that law, opening a legal pathway for LGBTQ+ couples and others to build families through surrogacy. Thanks to advances in medicine and policy changes like this one, more LGBTQ+ families are now able to pursue parenthood.

Kenyan has also been a champion for some of the most vulnerable members of our community: LGBTQ+ young people experiencing homelessness. In DC, LGBTQ+ youth represent nearly 40 percent of the city’s homeless youth population. Early in his time on the Council, Kenyan worked with fellow members to dedicate housing beds for LGBTQ+ youth and to strengthen the capacity of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs to support community programs. Those investments helped ensure that young people facing rejection or instability had a safer place to turn.

Leadership like this matters, especially as our city faces unprecedented challenges. In addition to being a champion for our community, the next mayor will need to navigate threats from the federal government, a massive reduction of the federal workforce of over 20,000 jobs, an unprecedented wave of restaurant closures, and year-after-year billion-dollar budget shortfalls. 

Today, our city needs a leader whose values never waver and who has delivered real results for all our neighbors. Kenyan McDuffie has shown that kind of leadership throughout his public service career.

D.C. has always been a safe haven for the queer and trans community seeking opportunity, safety, and belonging. That promise is worth protecting and ensuring the next generation can find the same refuge and opportunity we have.

As voters prepare to make an important choice about the city’s future, I believe Kenyan McDuffie is the leader best prepared to carry that promise forward.

That’s why I’m proud to join him and countless others in launching the Out for Kenyan coalition this Thursday, March 26, at Number Nine.

Cesar Toledo is a first-generation queer Latino and an Out Magazine Out100 honoree who has spent over a decade advancing LGBTQ+ equality, equity, and social justice.

There is no question that Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. had a significant impact on the civil rights movement, Democratic Party politics and D.C.’s struggle for statehood. After I heard of his death, I took some time to reflect on how our lives had intersected although I met him only once in person.

During the 1970s, sickle cell disease was a celebrated cause in the African-American community. Rev. Jackson was in the vanguard of that advocacy because he had the sickle cell trait. My mother had sickle cell disease and I have the trait. I responded to Rev. Jackson’s exhortation to be involved with fighting the disease and was blessed to have worked for seven years at the Howard University Center for Sickle Disease in its community outreach program.

In 1983, the March on Washington for Jobs, Peace & Freedom was held to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. Local organizing committees called Coalitions of Conscience were formed to get people involved with the march. I attended the first meeting in D.C. and introduced a resolution that the 20th anniversary program held on the National Mall include a speaker representing the LGBT community. The resolution passed unanimously but the response from the chief organizer of the march, Rev. Walter Fauntroy, was that no such speaker would be permitted. Fauntroy was also the District of Columbia delegate to Congress. Three days before the march, four gay men – all D.C. residents, three of whom were Black – went to meet with Del. Fauntroy to discuss his opposition to having a LGBT speaker on the day of the march. He refused to meet with them and had them arrested. I was one of those arrested.

Our arrests made local and national news. While we were in jail, a conference call was held consisting of representatives of most of the major national civil rights leaders in the nation to discuss having an LGBT speaker at the march. Among those on that call were Coretta Scott King, Ralph Abernathy, Mayor Marion Barry, Dorothy Height; Reverends Joseph Lowery, Walter Fauntroy and Jesse Jackson. The decision was made to give three minutes to a speaker representing the LGBT community. The speaker was Audre Lorde, the African-American lesbian writer, poet, professor and civil rights activist. Jesse Jackson’s presence on that call was critical to her being chosen as a speaker.

In 1984, I was a volunteer in the Jesse Jackson for president campaign in his quest for the Democratic Party nomination. I, along with dozens of volunteers, boarded the bus that left from Union Temple Baptist Church to journey to Alabama to campaign for Rev. Jackson in that state’s primary. My involvement with Jackson’s D.C. campaign led me to visit the Players Lounge for the first time in order to get signatures for Jackson’s D.C. presidential delegate slate and to do voter registration.

Jackson did not win the Democratic presidential nomination in either his 1984 or 1988 campaigns. But his efforts along with Congresswoman Shirley Chisolm’s and Rev. Al Sharpton’s presidential campaigns paved the way for Barack Obama’s historic nomination and victory for president in 2008.

In 1990, Jesse Jackson was elected to be one of D.C.’s United States Senators or what is known as a “shadow senator.” He made it clear that D.C.’s struggle for statehood is not just a political issue but a salient civil and human rights issue. His involvement helped make D.C. statehood a national issue.

I cannot remember the exact year that I finally met Jesse Jackson in person but it was around the turn of the millennium. There was an event taking place in the Panorama Room at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church. Rev. Jackson was standing alone on the hill taking in the breathtaking view of D.C. I walked over, introduced myself and  thanked him for what he had done for the D.C. statehood, LGBT rights, and the Democratic Party. Even though he was a major celebrity he gave me a hug as if we were longtime friends. It was a brief conversation but we both agreed to keep praying for a cure for sickle cell disease. That hope is still being kept alive.

Philip Pannell is a longtime Ward 8 community activist. Reach him at [email protected].