Local

Gay former ANC commissioner seeks Council seat

Garber to challenge Orange in at-large race

Published

11 years ago

August 11, 2015

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

David Garber, gay news, Washington Blade

David Garber (Photo courtesy Twitter)

Gay former advisory neighborhood commissioner David Garber last week announced his candidacy for the at-large D.C. Council seat currently held by Council member Vincent Orange (D-At-Large), saying he will challenge Orange in the city’s 2016 Democratic primary.

In an online video linked to his campaign website, Garber raised eyebrows by going on the attack against Orange. Calling on supporters to join him in the “movement for communities over corruption,” he raised the issue of the city’s ethics board reprimanding Orange for allegedly pressuring a city agency to call off regulatory action against a grocery store.

“While I applaud the incumbent for his long tenure in D.C. government, we simply deserve better,” Garber said in his campaign video. “Council member Orange was the first Council member to ever be publicly reprimanded by the D.C. Board of Ethics and Accountability for using his influence to – get this – to stop a health inspection of an insect and rat infested grocery store owned by one of his largest campaign contributors,” Garber said in the video.

James D. Brown, who serves as chief of staff at Orange’s Council office, released a statement to the Washington Blade taking exception to Garber’s criticism.

“Councilmember Orange has a ‘clean record’ with the D.C. Board of Ethics and Government Accountability (which you may verify),” Brown said. “CM Orange’s actions, that Mr. Garber speaks of, resulted in the health code violations being abated in less than 24 hours, the entity in question passing the D.C. Health Department inspection in less than 24 hours, and the avoidance of forty employees being laid off without pay during the Christmas holiday.”

Brown added in his statement that Orange “looks forward to addressing his insurmountable record of achievement” on a wide range of issues, including transgender rights, during his upcoming re-election campaign.

In his successful 2012 re-election campaign for his Council seat, Orange received support from a number of prominent LGBT activists, including Ward 8 civic activist Phil Pannell and Ward 3 gay ANC commissioner Lee Brian Reba.

If successful in his race for the at-large seat, Garber would become the first gay person to serve on the Council since the Council’s two long-time gay members — David Catania (I-At-Large) and Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) — left the Council in January. Catania gave up his seat in his unsuccessful race for mayor. Graham lost his re-election bid in the city’s 2014 Democratic primary.

Garber, who has named former Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance President Bob Summersgill as his campaign treasurer, surprised some of his former ANC colleagues when he made it known at the time of his campaign announcement last week that he’s gay.

Andy Litsky, one of three out gay members of ANC 6D, where Garber served as a member between 2011 and November 2014, said Garber never self-identified as gay during his tenure on the ANC. Litsky also noted that Garber first won election to ANC 6D when he defeated another gay commissioner, D.C. businessman Bob Siegel, in the November 2010 election.

“Not that it makes any difference,” said Litsky. “Everybody comes out in their own way at their own time. I wish him well as a gay man.”

Pannell, who said he plans to remain neutral in the 2016 Council elections, said running as a gay candidate could be helpful to Garber in the Democratic primary, where voter turnout tends to be low and where a large turnout of LGBT voters could work in his favor.

Summersgill pointed to a statement that Garber posted on his Facebook page in April acknowledging his sexual orientation wasn’t widely known.

“In my public roles around the city, I haven’t typically felt the need or been forced to use a bullhorn to announce all that much about my personal life,” Garber said in his posting, noting that he has preferred to highlight his numerous civic activities.

“I’m gay,” he said. “It’s one thing that defines me and the way I see others and the world. But it becomes an especially important thing for me to be proud of, to fight more personally for, and to raise a flag for when the conversation turns away from more straightforward city matters, to something like equality.”

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Cameroon

Gay Cameroonian immigrant will be freed from ICE detention — for now

Ludovic Mbock’s homeland criminalizes homosexuality

Published

6 hours ago

March 13, 2026

Baltimore Banner

Competitive gamer Ludovic Mbock, left, with his sister, Diane Sohna. (Photo courtesy of Diane Sohna)

By ANTONIO PLANAS | An immigration judge on Friday issued a $4,000 bond for a Cameroonian immigrant and regional gaming champion held in federal immigration detention for the past three weeks.

The ruling will allow Ludovic Mbock, of Oxon Hill, to return to Maryland from a Georgia facility this weekend, his family and attorney said.

“Realistically, by tomorrow. Hopefully, by today,” said Mbock’s attorney, Edward Neufville. “We are one step closer to getting Ludovic justice.”

The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.

District of Columbia

Bowser appoints first nonbinary person to Cabinet-level position

Peter Stephan named Office of Disability Rights interim director

Published

1 day ago

March 12, 2026

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

The Wilson Building (Bigstock photo by Leonid Andronov)

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bower has named longtime disability rights advocate Peter L. Stephan, who identifies as nonbinary, as interim director of the D.C. Office of Disability Rights.

The local transgender and nonbinary advocacy group Our Trans Capital and the LGBTQ group Capital Stonewall Democrats issued a joint statement calling Stephan’s appointment an historic development as the first-ever appointment of a nonbinary person to a Cabinet-level D.C. government position.

“This milestone appointment recognizes Stephan’s extensive expertise in disability rights advocacy and marks a historic advancement for transgender and nonbinary representation in District government leadership,” the statement says.

The statement notes that Stephan, an attorney, held the position of general counsel at the Office of Disability Rights immediately prior to the mayor’s decision to name him interim director.

The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a question from the Washington Blade asking if Bowser plans to name Stephan as the permanent director of the Office of Disability Rights. John Fanning, a spokesperson for D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large), said the office’s director position requires confirmation by the Council.

Stephan couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

“At a time when trans and nonbinary people ae under attack across the country, D.C. continues to lead by example,” said Stevie McCarty, president of Capital Stonewall Democrats. “This appointment reflects what we have always believed that our community is always strongest when every voice is represented in government,” he said.

“This is a historic step forward,” said Vida Rengel, founder of Our Trans Capital. “Interim Director Stephan’s career and accomplishments are a shining example of the positive impact that trans and nonbinary public servants can have on our communities,” according to Rangel.

District of Columbia

Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary

Mayor Bowser expected to attend March 20 event

Published

2 days ago

March 11, 2026

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Mayor Bowser is expected to attend the Capital Stonewall Democrats 50th gala. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, members of the D.C. Council, and local and national Democratic Party officials are expected to join more than 150 LGBTQ advocates and supporters on March 20 for the 50^th anniversary celebration of the city’s Capital Stonewall Democrats.

A statement released by the organization says the event is scheduled to be held at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery building at 702 8^th St., N.W. in D.C.

“The evening will honor the people who built Capital Stonewall Democrats across five decades – activists who fought for rights when the odds were against them, public servants who opened doors and refused to let them close, and a new generation of leaders ready to carry the work forward,” the statement says.

Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to the Capital Stonewall Democrats.

Among those planning to attend the anniversary event is longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Paul Kuntzler, 84, who is one of the two co-founders of the then-Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. Kuntzler told the Washington Blade that he and co-founder Richard Maulsby were joined by about a dozen others in the living room of his Southwest D.C. home at the group’s founding meeting in January 1976.

He said that among the reasons for forming a local LGBTQ Democratic group at the time was to arrange for a then “gay” presence at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, at which Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for U.S. president and later won election as president.

Maulsby, who served as the Stein Club president for its first three years and who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., said he would not be attending the March 20 anniversary event, but he fully supports the organization’s continuing work as an LGBTQ organization associated with the Democratic Party.

Steven McCarty, Capital Stonewall Democrats’ current president, said in the statement that the anniversary celebration will highlight the organization’s work since the time of its founding.

“Capital Stonewall Democrats has been fighting for LGBTQ+ political power in this city for 50 years, electing people, training organizers, holding this community together through some really hard moments,” he said. “And right now, with everything going on, that work has never mattered more. This gala is the first moment of our next chapter, and I want the community to be a part of it.”

The statement says among the special guests attending the event will be Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, who became the first openly gay LGBTQ person of color to win election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2018.

Other guests of honor, according to the statement, include Mayor Bowser; D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5, the Council’s only gay member; D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large); Earl Fowlkes, founder of the International Federation of Black Prides; Vita Rangel, a transgender woman who serves as Deputy Director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments; Heidi Ellis, director of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; Rayceen Pendarvis, longtime D.C. LGBTQ civic activist; and Phillip Pannell, longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic activist and Ward 8 civic activist.

Information about ticket availability for the Capital Stonewall Democrats anniversary gala can be accessed here: capitalstonewalldemocrats.com/50th