When Wendy was on stage, every eye was on her.

Wendy Rieger emceed 11 SMYAL Fall Brunches, and for more than a decade, she brought joy, humor, and light to the room. What began as a favor for her friend, former SMYAL Board Chair Mike Schwartz, became a personal passion. 

Her first year as emcee, in 2008, there were only 80 or so people in attendance in a small room at the Omni Shoreham. By the time Wendy took her final bow on the SMYAL stage in 2018, more than 600 supporters of LGBTQ youth packed the room. Wendy made SMYAL’s annual brunch something people wanted to come to, and she helped put our event, and organization, on the map.

People loved Wendy. Her wit was unmatched and her passion for and loyalty to our community radiated every time she took command of the microphone. Mike Schwartz recalled a story of one brunch when a technical glitch caused a delay in the speaking program. Someone pulled Wendy aside and asked her to stretch her remarks and stall until a video was ready to play. She turned back to the audience and declared, “I’ve just been told to stretch if anyone wants to join me.” Immediately, Wendy began stretching in every direction on stage. The room broke out in laughter, and soon enough, everyone was on their feet stretching with her. That’s how much she commanded a room.

Working with SMYAL wasn’t just a job or another speaking engagement for Wendy; it was something she was genuinely passionate about. SMYAL’s brunches were typically hosted on Sundays, a day Wendy would set aside for herself to rest after a long week on-air. But she always made time for SMYAL. She brought an emotional authenticity to her role as brunch emcee. Just as much as she knew how to make a room laugh, she would choke up when talking with a youth about their experiences in SMYAL’s programs. She put her own time, energy, and money into supporting LGBTQ youth – whether it was purchasing a table at the brunch or donating a home-cooked dinner and an evening at her apartment with her and Tom Sherwood to the auction. 

When Wendy finally made the decision to take a step back from hosting the brunch after more than a decade, she left big shoes to fill. She had been with SMYAL from a time when our future looked uncertain, and her involvement with the brunch helped make it one of the premier LGBTQ events in the region. Wendy used her platform to bring people in, to elevate the issues of the LGBTQ community, to help SMYAL provide critical services to LGBTQ youth by raising needed resources – and she did it all with sincerity. 

Wendy’s passing is not only a huge loss for the D.C. community she loved so much, but for the LGBTQ community, which lost a true ally. She was a force of nature. We are grateful to have been in her orbit and to have worked closely with her for so many years. We talk a lot about pride in the LGBTQ community, and we are truly proud that we not only got to call the incomparable Wendy Rieger a friend, but a true part of the SMYAL family.

Daniel Penchina is president of Penchina Partners and interim executive director of SMYAL.

When I read Presidential polls I often wonder if the people who respond to them actually understand how government works. Do they understand what actual power a president has on his/her own to make change? Do they understand when Joe Biden ran, committing to work for climate change, voting rights, and equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community, in nearly every instance to turn his commitment into reality he needs Congress to pass legislation? So while I understand some being unhappy with these things not happening, and laying some blame on the president, I wonder what their next actions will be. 

According to an average of recent polling by Five Thirty-Eight Joe Biden now has an approval rating of only 41.6%. By way of comparison, former President Trump’s polling average shows as of April 13 his favorable rating is 43.7%.  

Clearly this is a problem not only for the president but for the Democratic Party. Those answering the pollster’s questions are blaming the president for all the ills they are facing. He is being viewed negatively on how he is dealing with the war in Ukraine, handling COVID and for inflation. More people blame him for rising gas prices than they do Putin. I think inflation overrides all their other considerations. They blame Biden for prices at the gas pump, grocery store, their rent going up, and nothing else matters. 

I know my view is skewed. As a single retired man with a decent nest-egg, I am not overly impacted by inflation. Yet a quick trip to the grocery store shows why a family would be. Three weeks ago, at my Safeway, a dozen jumbo eggs were $2.49, yesterday they were $3.99; a container of sliced strawberries and blueberries was $7.99 two months ago and is now $9.99. Everything has gone up and quite drastically. Gas and rent are up dramatically as well. So it is difficult to convince a mom/dad who is shopping they should really be looking at the unemployment rate, the lowest it’s been in years, the creation of millions of jobs, and bringing the national debt down by $1.5 trillion, is what they should be judging the president on. 

In one recent CBS News/YouGov poll “just 42% of Americans approve of Biden’s performance while 58 percent disapprove.” This poll looked at his numbers across different demographic and age groups.  

Some of my younger friends complain about what Biden has not done. They talk about not getting free college, not eliminating all student debt, not keeping his commitment on voting rights and climate change. According to the poll people under age 30 gave Biden a resounding thumbs-down, with 57 percent saying they disapprove and just 43 percent saying they approve of the president’s performance.

So once again my question to them would be: “What will you do in the upcoming elections?” Will you stay home, or will you vote against Democrats to indicate your disappointment with the president? If either of those scenarios happens they will be as the saying goes, ‘cutting off their nose to spite their face.’ 

To win, Democrats must convince their voters to vote in larger numbers. Democratic candidates must explain if additional Democrats are elected to the Senate, the president will no longer be held hostage by one or two who don’t like his programs. The power of those like Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) who have held up some of the president’s major initiatives will be diluted. Unfortunately, history doesn’t bode well for Democrats. 

The same poll shows “A 54 percent majority of Hispanics and 33 percent of African Americans said they disapprove of Biden — and 22 percent of people who voted for Biden in 2020 also disapprove.” Those numbers alone are really scary for Democrats heading into the mid-term elections. 

It is clear the messaging Democrats are using isn’t working. So one must question who is doing the messaging at the White House these days? What changes are they looking to make and will it make a difference? The results of these early April polls reflect a sour national mood. Republicans who have zero answers to any problem are making inflation, illegal immigration and parental control of schools the issues, and are winning. 

So with higher inflation forecast, COVID restrictions dragging on, and high crime rates, can Democrats turn this around? I don’t know. Clearly the media and 24-hour news cycles don’t help. Good things get reported once while the bad things seem to be on a continuous loop. 

So please, if you are a Democrat and have a good answer or idea, speak up. Our country needs you.

Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.

Dumbarton has, and will always be, a church for the people who need it. As a trans kid, I will always be glad that it was there for me.

Religion has always been a familiar subject, a comfortable mainstay of my childhood. While my mother and father have different faith backgrounds, they agreed to expose me to faith, allow me to experience weekly church attendance and activities, but decided not to baptize me until I could make the decision for myself.

My mom was raised as a Methodist, so I went with her to various Methodist churches in the area. But every few years, it seemed, we’d tire of the current church, and move on to someplace new. It was the church politics, maybe, or the changing of pastors, or even simply a feeling as though something was missing. That even though we went to church, would sing the hymns and read the scripture, it felt more like going through the motions. So, after trying a few different churches, when I was about seven years old, we were invited to Dumbarton UMC to attend the baptism for the daughter of a family friend. My mother felt that something about Dumbarton was special, and it warranted another visit. So we went back. It was one of the better choices we’d ever make.

Sometimes, with certain things, you just know. There’s a sense of belonging, a little click, somewhere in the back of your mind, and everything feels as though it’s fallen into place. For the past nine years, we’ve been attending Dumbarton, and we’ve never looked back. From the very beginning, it was clear that this was the church for us. Because the one thing that has always been found wanting from our various churches has been a community.

Community will always be important. No matter who you are, you will always seek connection and support from the people around you. And religion is a place to nurture that connection, to feel as though you are cared for and loved by something greater than yourself, and that the act of loving is inherently holy. Churches, by virtue of creation, preserve the space for divinity to exist in the context of kindness. But many churches fall short of this ideal, much as they may not see it (or may wish not to). Through one way or another, one group or another finds themselves left out of a community, barred from the simple act of loving and being loved. Any person, any collective, will always find themselves imperfect, but Dumbarton will always do its best to grow, and to learn, and to accept all people, with all the fierceness and warmth that they have.

This is a congregation that takes on the responsibilities of being Methodists in the fullest and most whole sense of the word. There is an active desire, an active choice, to care for every single person who steps through the heavy lavender-colored doors, to the fullest of their ability. It is not conditional, it does not waver, and it certainly is not shy. Dumbarton chooses, every day, to be a community, and to keep that community there, for all who need it. It’s a small church, but the members do all that they can to learn, to understand, to be better and do better, and most certainly, to love.

As a child who has grown up in this church, Dumbarton has loved me from the ages of seven to 16. They have loved me as I was baptized, promised to support me and to nurture me. When, at the age of 10, I decided that Christianity was not for me, I was continually welcomed with wide-open arms. Through the years, I have explored my own identity, and what better a space to do so in a space that was not just accepting, but delighted that I was asking questions, that I was learning more about myself. As an agnostic nonbinary lesbian, the place where I have always been so wholly accepted has been the one that most people would not guess.

Navigating Christianity as a gay or trans person will always be difficult, and it can leave many people struggling to find a church that truly feels like home to them. But Dumbarton UMC feels like a church that loves me for all that I am, and I think that’s all that anyone could ask for.

Adam Michelman is a high school sophomore from Alexandria, Va., and this is their first contribution to the Blade.