Local
LGBT Affairs Office moves to Reeves Center
Third staffer to be hired for LGBT youth housing issues
‘The mayor wants to raise our profile and give us more access to our own community,’ said Sheila Alexander-Reid. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
In a little-noticed development, the Mayor’s LGBT Affairs Office has moved out of the John A. Wilson Building, which serves as the District’s city hall, and moved into the Reeves Center Municipal Building at 14th and U Streets, N.W.
Although the office is no longer in the same building where Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office is located, the new location “absolutely” does not represent a downgrading of the office, according to Sheila Alexander-Reid, the LGBT Affairs Office director.
“The reason for the move is that the mayor wants to raise our profile and give us more access to our own community,” Alexander-Reid told the Blade. She noted that the LGBT Affairs Office is now located one floor above the DC Center for the LGBT Community, which moved into the Reeves Center two years ago.
“It’s actually a huge upgrade because we were relegated to an office and a cubicle in the Wilson Building and now we have a suite with a sofa and a conference room table,” said Alexander-Reid. “So it’s an incredible upgrade.”
Alexander-Reid also confirmed that Mayor Bowser has given the go-ahead for the hiring of a third staff member for the office, who will serve as a specialist in LGBT housing and LGBT youth homelessness issues.
The office currently has just two staff members, Alexander-Reid and Deputy Director Terrence Laney.
The need for the new staff member became apparent last year after the D.C. Council passed and then-Mayor Vincent Gray signed the LGBTQ Homeless Youth Reform Amendment Act of 2014. Council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) and then-Council member Bowser (D-Ward 4) co-introduced the bill, which calls for addressing specific needs of homeless LGBT youth.
Among other things, the legislation amended the 2006 law that established the LGBT Affairs Office as a permanent entity in the Office of the Mayor to authorize the hiring of additional staff members for the office. The LGBTQ Homeless Youth Reform Act also mandates that the LGBT Affairs Office administer a grants fund that the legislation created called the LGBTQ Homeless Youth Training Grant Fund.
“The Fund shall be continually available to the Office for the purpose of providing grants to fund trainings on cultural competency for providing services to LGBTQ homeless youth for providers throughout the District,” the legislation says. “The Office shall establish criteria for eligibility to receive a grant,” says the legislation, which became law about a year ago.
Sterling Washington, the LGBT Affairs Office director under Mayor Vincent Gray, said Gray determined that a third staff member would be needed to carry out the new duties required to administer the grant program. Washington said Gray was about to hire someone to fill the new position but decided to leave that task to the new mayor after he lost his re-election bid in the Democratic primary to Bowser.
“We’re interviewing as we speak,” Alexander-Reid said when asked what the target date would be for hiring the new staff member. “The target date is ASAP,” she said.
She said the funds for the salary for the new staff member will come from funds appropriated for the Department of Human Services, which monitors most of the city’s homelessness-related programs, including shelters and residential facilities.
Alexander-Reid said her office will host an open house on April 21 to introduce the community to the office’s new space. She said the move from the Wilson Building took place about three weeks ago, but she and Laney wanted to wait until they had settled in before formally announcing the move and scheduling an open house.
“Of all the government buildings this is the closest to sort of the nexus of the LGBT community,” Alexander-Reid said. “It’s two or three blocks from the Blade. It’s right above the LGBT Community Center…This is the one that’s most convenient and the closest to the nexus of where the community can be found.”
The Reeves Center initially had been slated to be given to a private developer as part of a land deal to build a new soccer stadium in the Buzzard’s Point section of Southwest D.C. Those plans were later changed, but city officials say it’s still possible that the Reeves Center could be demolished to make way for a new residential and retail complex.
Alexander-Reid said she has been told that the building will remain as it is for at least the next four or five years.
Virginia
Norfolk transgender resource center vandalized
Anti-trans graffiti spraypainted onto Southeastern Transgender Resource Center’s windows
The Norfolk Police Department is investigating the vandalism of a transgender resource center’s building.
Tarena Williams, founder of the Southeastern Transgender Resource Center, told WAVY that someone spraypainted anti-trans graffiti on the windows of her organization’s offices on Sunday or Monday morning. Williams told the Hampton Roads television station that seeing the messages was like “walking into hell.”
“I opened up STRC, even the Lamina House,” she told WAVY. “I opened up that to get away from those types of words. This is a place you can come to get away from that, but to see that sprayed over the window. It’s kind of like you are walking into hell. … To be honest, I was like in shock.”
Authorities are investigating the vandalism.
West Virginia
Appeals court strikes down W.Va. transgender athlete ban
Ruling finds law violates students’ constitutional rights, Title IX
BY LORI KERSEY | The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down West Virginia’s ban on transgender athletes, finding the law violates trans students’ rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the constitution and Title IX, a federal civil rights law prohibiting discrimination based on sex in education programs.
The case, B.P.J. vs. the West Virginia Board of Education, was filed in May 2021 on behalf of Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 13-year-old trans middle school student and track athlete who would be barred from participating if the ban is upheld. Pepper-Jackson is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia and Lambda Legal.
In April 2021, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice signed into law a bill prohibiting trans women and girls in the state from participating in sports that align with their gender identity. The U.S. Court of Appeals in February 2023 blocked the state from removing Pepper-Jackson from her school’s track and field team as legal advocates appealed a lower court’s ruling upholding the ban.
In Tuesday’s ruling, Judge Toby Heytens wrote that offering Pepper-Jackson the “choice” between not participating in sports and participating only on boys teams is not a real choice.
“The defendants cannot expect that B.P.J. will countermand her social transition, her medical treatment, and all the work she has done with her schools, teachers and coaches for nearly half her life by introducing herself to teammates, coaches and even opponents as a boy,” the judge wrote.
“By participating on boys teams, B.P.J. would be sharing the field with boys who are larger, stronger, and faster than her because of the elevated levels of circulating testosterone she lacks,” he wrote. “The Act thus exposes B.P.J. to the very harms Title IX is meant to prevent by effectively ‘exclud[ing]’ her from ‘participation in’ all non-coed sports entirely.”
In a statement Tuesday, Joshua Block, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Project, called the court’s ruling “a tremendous victory for our client, transgender West Virginians and the freedom of all youth to play as who they are.”
“It also continues a string of federal courts ruling against bans on the participation of transgender athletes and in favor of their equal participation as the gender they know themselves to be,” Block wrote. “This case is fundamentally about the equality of transgender youth in our schools and our communities and we’re thankful the 4th Circuit agreed.”
“We hope today’s ruling sends a message of hope to the trans youth of West Virginia,” Aubrey Sparks, legal director of the ACLU of West Virginia, said in the statement. “And a message of warning to politicians who continue to dehumanize this vulnerable population.”
West Virginia is one of 21 states that have banned trans student-athletes over the last three years, according to the ACLU.
In a statement Tuesday, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey vowed to defend the ban and said he is “deeply disappointed” in the decision.
“The Save Women’s Sports Act is ‘constitutionally permissible’ and the law complies with Title IX,” Morrisey said. “I will keep fighting to safeguard Title IX. We must keep working to protect women’s sports so that women’s safety is secured and girls have a truly fair playing field. We know the law is correct and will use every available tool to defend it.”
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Lori Kersey is a reporter with a decade of experience reporting in West Virginia. She covers state government for West Virginia Watch.
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The preceding article was previously published by the West Virginia Watch and is republished with permission.
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West Virginia Watch is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
District of Columbia
Reenactment of first gay rights picket at White House set for April 17
Event marks 59th anniversary of historic push for gay rights in nation’s capital
D.C.’s Rainbow History Project announced it will hold a reenactment on Wednesday, April 17, of the historic first protest for gay rights in the form of a picket line in front of the White House that took place on that same day in 1965.
In a statement released last week, Rainbow History Project says the reenactment will mark the 59th anniversary of an event that is credited with bringing attention for the first time to the federal government’s longstanding discrimination against a minority group referred to then as homosexuals or gays and lesbians.
The statement notes that the 1965 event was organized by the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., the first politically active LGBT organization in the nation’s capital founded by local gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny.
“The picket took place on the White House sidewalk, Lafayette Park, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., on April 17, 1965,” the statement says. “For exactly one hour, from 4:20 p.m. to 5:20 p.m., members of the Mattachine Society of Washington walked in a circle, non-stop, in silence, carrying posters of their demands,” the statement continues.
“The White House picket is the origin story for public demonstrations for gay rights in the U.S., and the origin story for Pride Marches and the annual LGBTQ Pride celebrations which occur across the globe,” according to the statement.
It says those picketing in the April 1965 event, which included Kameny and longtime local D.C.-area lesbian activist Lilli Vincenz, both of whom held doctorate degrees, called on the government to adopt the Mattachine Society of Washington’s four major demands: an end to the exclusion of homosexuals from federal government employment; an end to the ban on gays and lesbians from serving in the U.S. military; an end to the “blanket denial” of security clearances for gay people; and an end to the “government refusal to meet with the LGBTQ community.’
Among those who chose not to respond to the request for a meeting was President Lyndon B. Johnson, who occupied the White House at the time of the 1965 picketing.
Vincent Slatt, the Rainbow History Project’s director of archiving and one of the lead organizers of the April 17 reenactment event, said the event is aimed, among other things, at drawing attention to how far the LGBTQ community has come since 1965. He said the event is not in any way a protest of the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who Slatt called staunch supporters of the LGBTQ community.
“We are just reenacting this historical event and pointing out how far we’ve come,” Slatt told the Washington Blade. “If you think about what it means in 1965 when these people were protesting and LBJ would not even respond to them. And now, we are at a place where Vice President Harris speaks on a stage at Capital Pride.”
The Rainbow History Project statement notes that the reenactment event will also be held in honor of Kameny, who died in 2011, and Vincenz, who passed away in 2023, both of whom participated in a similar reenactment event in 2008.
Among those who will be participating in this week’s reenactment on April 17 will be longtime local LGBTQ rights activist Paul Kuntzler, who is the only known surviving person who was among the White House picketers at the April 1965 event. Kuntzler will be carrying a replica of his own picket sign he held at the 1965 event, the statement says.
It says Rainbow History Project volunteers will also carry replicas of the original protest signs and hand out literature explaining the picket to passersby and tourists.
Similar to the 1965 event, the reenactment picketing at the White House will begin on April 17 at about 4:15 p.m., according to Slatt of the Rainbow History Project.
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