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Hillary’s historic moment
Long-time feminists say gender is a factor in this year’s race
Hillary Clinton enjoys strong support among lesbian feminists. (Photo by Gino Santa Maria; courtesy Bigstock)
Benghazi! Hillary’s e-mails! Trump! At danger of getting lost in the overheated discourse of this year’s U.S. presidential election is the historic fact that Hillary Clinton is now the first woman to capture a major-party nomination for president.
There was Shirley Chisholm (who ran for the Democratic nomination in 1972), Geraldine Ferraro (Walter Mondale’s running mate in 1984), even Sarah Palin (John McCain’s running mate in 2008), but no woman has ever come as close to the presidency as Hillary Clinton.
In the wake of this achievement, what does it mean for the lesbian community, a group that has always been one of her strongest supporters? And why has the historic nature of her candidacy felt like little more than a footnote this year?
Hillary fatigue?
Out political comedian Kate Clinton thinks it’s because Hillary has been around so long — since 1978. Still, she says, it’s exciting to see Hillary win the nomination.
“I think it’s absolutely very, very exciting,” Kate Clinton says. “And add to the fact that she is the first woman nominee for a major party, is astounding.”
As the first out lesbian and African-American mayor in the United States, Denise Simmons of Cambridge, Mass., is used to her gender, race and sexual orientation making headlines.
Simmons expected Hillary’s nomination to get much more attention than it’s received. She agrees with Kate Clinton’s assessment.
“I do wonder if perhaps part of this is simply because she has been a national figure for such a long time,” Simmons says. “And therefore the sense of novelty just isn’t there.”
Elizabeth Birch, who served as executive director of the Human Rights Campaign from 1995-2004 and is also a friend of Clinton’s, says Clinton does not want the fact that she’s a woman to be the sole reason for anyone to vote for her.
“I think that’s why she’s been painstaking about amassing her credentials over the last two decades,” Birch says. “She absolutely wants [her election] to be on her merit, but nevertheless, none of us should forget what an extraordinary breakthrough this will be.”
Clinton’s gender, Birch says, is treated like a distraction from the “political theater” going on.
Blues singer and LGBT and black rights activist Gaye Adegbalola agrees with Birch. She thinks Clinton’s nomination isn’t headline news because Trump has “hijacked” the headlines.
“He’s the story,” Adegbalola says.
Kate Clinton says that any time some excitement is generated for Clinton, Trump will say something controversial, Benghazi and the email scandal are brought up and Americans become fixated on her purported failures.
“The Koch brothers, who, I like to call the cock brotherhood, have targeted money to just make her unfavorable, untrustworthy,” Kate Clinton says.
Kate Clinton says accusations that Hillary Clinton is untrustworthy are ‘absurd.’ (Blade file photo)
Trust issues
Kate Clinton says the fact that Hillary Clinton is painted as untrustworthy in the news media is absurd.
But, in many recent polls, conducted by the Huffington Post, pollingreport.com and CNN, many Americans say they do not trust Hillary Clinton.
Is the lack of trust in Hillary because of her politics, or could it be attributed to sexism?
Birch doesn’t think so.
“My diagnosis is that Hillary Clinton is extremely private for someone in the public sphere,” she says. “And she has, throughout her life, had unrealistic expectations for privacy.”
Birch says that in trying to protect her privacy and keep her life and decisions under wraps, Clinton has been misread.
“The level of transparency that’s required when you are in a position like the various positions she’s been in … all those steps she took to preserve privacy only lead to more problems,” she says. “You know, it’s never the actual crime, it’s always the cover-up.”
This, according to Birch, has always been Clinton’s downfall.
“The Clintons, as political figures, have certainly been guarded at many points throughout the past three decades, often with good reason,” Birch says. “And unfortunately this has opened Hillary Clinton to charges of having something to hide.”
Simmons disagrees with Birch. She says the lack of trust among voters has a lot to do with gender.
“Any time a female candidate is painted as untrustworthy, or shrill or calculating, one does wonder whether there is some sexism at play,” Simmons says.
Rev. Elder Darlene Garner, minister and LGBT activist and co-founder of the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays, makes a different assessment. She blames populism for Clinton’s perceived untrustworthiness.
“I think it is blatant populism that masks sexism, that masks homophobia and transphobia, that masks racism and nationalism,” Garner says.
Adegbalola says that anyone who’s been in Washington as long as the Clintons will undoubtedly amass some “dirt,” but she says this is just how politics works.
“There has to be some bargaining and there has to be some, ‘I’ll kiss your ass, you kiss mine,’ kind of stuff that goes on,” she says.
When Hillary Clinton ran against Barack Obama in 2008, Adegbalola donated $25 to her campaign.
“I was all, you know, ‘Yay, a woman can do this,’ and then Barack started running and I was so in favor of him,” Adegbalola says. “Not necessarily because he was a black man, but because he hadn’t been in D.C. [for long].”
She also liked that he had worked for social justice in Chicago and that he had not been in the U.S. Senate for long.
“My excitement with him was that he was an outsider,” she says. “So now, here you got Trump, who comes along and he’s really an outsider and an asshole, but I think a lot of people take to him for that very reason, that he’s an outsider.”
Adegbalola thinks it’s hypocritical, however, for people to distrust Clinton but not Trump.
“Anybody who makes all that money,” Adegbalola says, “they’ve got to be doing some shady stuff, too.”
She’s astonished by how successful Trump has been.
Garner is surprised too and thinks that Trump’s success reveals the continued work for justice and equality that needs to be done.
“As a movement we have focused on legislative gains and have not given much attention to the quality of our relationships with one another,” Garner says.
Kate Clinton, on the other hand, does not think it’s surprising that Trump has been so successful. She is tired of people, especially Republicans, acting as if he is not representative of certain American beliefs.
She views Trump as a joke who desperately wants to be taken seriously.
“That’s where the danger is,” she says.
Kate Clinton believes that Trump’s desire to be taken seriously boiled over at the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2011. Obama referred to Trump’s threat to run for president at that dinner as a “joke.” Kate Clinton theorizes that Obama’s barrage of jokes at Trump’s expense is what propelled him to run.
“I really think that was the moment he decided, ‘I am not going to have a black man making fun of me,’” Clinton says.
Birch describes Trump as “dangerous.”
“I think the way that human society stays in equilibrium is to have extremely predictable institutions and leaders,” Birch says. “[If leaders] innovate somewhat in the structure of the institutions, I think humans don’t want jarring abrupt moves and they don’t want emotions stirred, played on and exploited.”
Trouble ahead?
Birch says unpredictable leaders bring problems.
“I think that waves move through every community and I think that his rhetoric has given license to some of this more acute tension in our country right now,” she says.
Simmons agrees.
“I find it incredibly disappointing that one of our major parties would see fit to nominate him to potentially lead the country,” she says. “He could do tremendous damage to our nation on a number of fronts.”
Adegbalola says a Trump presidency could be cataclysmic.
“I think it’s going to be even more divisive for America,” she says. “I think it’s going to widen the gaps between people of color and whites and marginalized people and the white establishment. I’m sure he has a lot of confederate flags in that audience, I’m sure.”
Kate Clinton cites Trump’s nomination of Mike Pence for vice president as representative of his disregard for the rights of marginalized people.
“Pence is hideous toward women,” she says.
Pence came to national attention in 2006 when he said that LGBT couples represented a “societal collapse” in the United States. He has often referred to being gay as a choice and same-sex partnerships as a violation of “God’s idea.”
He made national news again in 2011 when, as a member of Congress, he pushed for a bill to defund Planned Parenthood. In May, Pence rejected the Obama administration’s directive for school districts to allow students to use the bathroom for the gender they identify with saying the Obama administration had no business getting involved in “issues of this nature.”
Adegbalola also points out what could happen to the Supreme Court if Trump is elected.
Despite all this, there are still many people who look at Hillary Clinton’s past and are disturbed by her voting patterns.
In 1996, she supported the Defense of Marriage Act that defined marriage for federal purposes as the union between one man and one woman, and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed under the laws of other states. Her support for the bill haunted her for two decades.
Kate Clinton says that the LGBT community needs to remember that she was not president when the act was passed.
“That was her husband,” Clinton says. “I think she was pretty representative of very political people weighing everything, trying to figure out and trying to say the right thing at the right time and that killed her career.”
In a campaign that many say is structured around humiliation and elitism, Garner says that voting for Hillary Clinton is important.
“I believe that she is a champion for human dignity and justice and I would expect that as president she would continue to do the same,” she says.
She cites Clinton’s attitudes toward children as proof that her presidency would benefit LGBT families.
“Her support of health care and even continued health care reform, will benefit all of us, including women,” Garner says. “And her economic policies will also benefit women, who are still underpaid in the American work force, and her presidency will be a direct benefit to lesbians as well as to all women.”
Adegbalola cites her own experiences as a self-employed musician and cancer survivor as one of the main reasons she plans to vote for Clinton. She says that in 2008 she was paying more than $700 a month for cancer treatment.
The Affordable Care Act, she says, is of paramount importance to her and she knows that under Clinton, Obama’s work will continue.
Birch says that growing up in Canada and seeing Queen Elizabeth’s picture hanging on the wall in all of her elementary school classrooms and having a female principal, made her think that women were in charge.
“I just thought, ‘Oh yeah my name is Elizabeth, the queen is Elizabeth, I guess I can go far,’” she says. “The psychological impact it will have on inspiring and lighting fires in young women … we can never underestimate it.”
Adegbalola, however, says at this point she is over Clinton’s gender.
“I’m simply looking at who would I vote for between the two,” she says. “[It’s] Hillary, there’s no question. And she’s smart and she’s been there, she’s paid her dues.”
Adegbalola doesn’t feel that anyone in the Republican Party, including Trump, would do anything to look out for marginalized people.
“I’m black, I’m poor, I’m a woman, I’m a lesbian, I’m a single parent, I’m old,” she says. “[That’s] like six kinds of oppression, so they might lock me up in a concentration camp.”
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The queer Asian comics building collective joy in D.C.
Spotlighting chaotic ways family, romance, identity take shape in their lives
Kevin Chen’s family tombstone has room for four: him, his parents and his boyfriend. The arrangement might prove to be a little awkward.
“My boyfriend is 100% white, and my parents are 100% disappointed,” Chen confessed.
Jokes about family traditions and the untraditional ways they’re practiced earned a burst of laughs at the bar where Chen was opening for the Pride Comedy Special. The D.C. stand-up event, produced by Comedy Bonfyre last month, spotlighted queer Asian comics who shared the chaotic ways family, romance and identity take shape in their lives.
From candid oral sex takes to top surgery hypotheticals like “Where do the boobs go?”, the night highlighted the loud camaraderie of the queer Asian experience — one that sounds like a cacophony of snorts, cackles and belly laughs. While the comics say they are not quite a community, there’s more than enough shared material to bring them together.
“It was such a magical experience. I loved performing in a queer API lineup. It feels so validating,” Chen said after the show. “I’m wondering, ‘Is this how white men feel all the time?’”
Each performance evoked queer Asian joy through a medium that could use more of its presence.
According to Chen, who is based in D.C., it’s hard to say whether there is a true queer Asian comedy presence in his city. There are only a scattered “handful” of Asian comics, and people of color are underrepresented in queer comic circles, he said.
When Tarunika Anand, a nonbinary lesbian comic, first entered the mainstream D.C. comedy scene, they mostly encountered straight white men, describing the experience as “a culture shock.”
“I feel like sometimes a lot of queer spaces are really white, and then a lot of Asian spaces are really straight,” Anand said. “I don’t feel like I fit into either.”
But feeling marginalized didn’t stop these comics from honing their craft and creating spaces for others like them. Alex Kim, who headlined the special and is based in Brooklyn, runs the queer Asian comedy group Boba Gays, which began on WhatsApp and has since made its way to Lincoln Center.
Every Wednesday, Anand co-produces a free comedy show called Funny Side Up. The queer-led group focuses on inclusivity and showcasing new talent.
“It’s really beautiful to speak about your experience and your existence in a way that’s uplifting,” Anand said.
Family is a major throughline of their comedic repertoires.
Chen, for instance, shared that he identifies with jokes about having Asian immigrant parents and the expectations they pass down.
“You see me, you know this part about me, you know this experience intimately, and I can see the truth that you’re trying to wrap a joke around,” he said. “That hits even harder because that’s my truth too. I think that’s what makes good comedy.”
Anand had the audience at the special howling when they explained that their parents’ be-more-like-them comparisons didn’t end when they came out. Instead, the expectations took on a new form.
“Now, my parents want me to be the best gay,” Anand said. “They’re like, ‘Do you know Ellen DeGeneres?’”
Kim said he’s been trying to unlearn things from his Christian Korean mom. Yet he described a moment when he was getting ready for the club and realized he looked just like his mother getting ready for church.
“I’ve been finding it hard to escape her,” Kim said.
Mutual recognition also radiates through the different ways queer love can take shape. From singlehood to death-do-us-part commitments, the comics cover just about every corner.
Anand is holding out hope for settling down with “a nice, pretty, Indian girl.” They recently went through a breakup and said they felt they dodged a bullet.
“As a person of color, I just don’t think I should be with a Swiftie,” they said.
Chen, touching on what it’s like to be in a queer interracial relationship, said that meeting his white boyfriend’s baby nephew for the first time felt like he was forced to participate in a diversity, equity and inclusion training.
“The dad was like, ‘Please welcome Kevin. Be curious about his culture, his history, his foods,’” Chen joked.
Laughter is not the only reward for the comics.
To Anand, comedy is a space where they can say whatever they want. “It gives me a voice,” they said.
Nik Narain, a North Carolina-based trans and nonbinary South Asian comic who performed at the special, said meeting older trans comedians and taking the stage helped him feel reassured in his identity during his transition.
“Stand-up was a really cool way to process that onstage,” he said. “[It] became a way for me to repackage my thoughts.”
Queer Asians are still figuring out their place in the greater D.C. comedy scene. The group is small in numbers and many are still working toward a full-time comedy career. But Narain feels he’s already made it.
Narain is reluctant to pin it all on one moment. He feels that success is already peeking through in milestones — opening for celebrities, traveling to performances and self-producing shows.
“As long as I can keep doing this, I’m super happy,” he said.
This story was produced as part of the AAJA VOICES fellowship program, a student journalism project of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA).
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Mr. Henry’s celebrates 60 years of proud inclusivity
Capitol Hill staple remains ‘a caring community’
America’s 250th isn’t the only milestone birthday D.C. is celebrating this year.
Beloved D.C. restaurant Mr. Henry’s, that Capitol Hill staple, celebrates its Diamond Jubilee all year long. Named for its original owner Henry Yaffe, the restaurant opened on a warm day 60 years ago in the summer of 1966 and has never looked back.
Yaffe took over what was then a country western restaurant, renovated the interior to his liking, and created an institution. Yet Yaffe had another goal. As a gay man, “he created Mr. Henry’s to be a place where everyone felt welcome — not easy in 1966 — and he succeeded,” says current owner Mary Quillian.
“Mr. Henry’s has long been a place the LGBTQ community has supported because they felt and still feel welcomed,” says Quillian. Even in the current administration, “the gay community and the diversity-minded community continue to come.”
Since then, Mr. Henry’s has changed hands, opened and closed its second floor, welcomed famed musical acts, and played host to politicians, date nights, breakups, and birthdays. But it still feels like home (and has a note in the National Trust for Historic Preservation) at 601 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E.
Its wood-paneled, Victorian-inspired art-filled décor in the downstairs dining room and bar serves American pub fare for lunch and dinner daily, with brunch on weekends (and a dog-friendly patio). Upstairs, Mr. Henry’s hosts live jazz performances and special events most nights, continuing a musical tradition that has defined the venue for decades. That upstairs bar has played host to names like Roberta Flack and Woody Allen.
Musician Kevin Cordt said that, “Mr. Henry’s has been a part of my life for more than 30 years. I started as a customer, then became a bartender and server, and now I have the good fortune to play trumpet at one of the best live music venues in Washington, D.C.”
Aaron Myers, executive director of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, is also a supporter. “Not many cities can sport venues that have consistently served the community in the space of culture for more than 50 years, let alone can brag as the birthplace of culture defining talent.”
From the start, Yaffe promoted a rare yet celebrated combination of locals’ bar and soulful nightlife venue. Mr. Henry’s has attracted a diverse crowd at a time when such spaces were – and perhaps still are – uncommon, a diversity that is credited with helping protect the pub during the 1968 D.C. riots.
Longtime customer Evelyn Branic said, “Mr. Henry’s has been my ‘Cheers’ hangout since my wife and I moved to the Hill in 1987. I’ve experienced many iconic moments meeting politicians, reporters, civic activists, and neighbors engaging in spirited conversations. Whether political, LGBTQ, historians, neighbors, or out-of-towners, everyone could find a special place to be greeted as a friend.”
Its welcoming tables come dabbed with a bit of tea: In 1971, in a moment that has since become part of Capitol Hill lore, Yaffe lost the pub in a poker game to Larry Quillian. The Quillian family, recognizing the special role Mr. Henry’s played in the neighborhood, took over ownership, and committed to preserving its spirit. Today, Larry’s daughter Mary owns the bar, having given it a bit of a facelift for the bar’s 50th birthday, bringing in new tables and some fresh menu items.
For example, the menu has some of those dishes that regulars would riot if they disappeared. The Reuben and the hamburgers, the chili and in-house roasted turkey have never departed the menu. Dishes do evolve, says Quillen: they added wings about two decades ago.
In 2026, the restaurant is hosting monthly ticketed “decades” parties, celebrating each of the 10-year periods the restaurant’s been open, plus there were specials in June for Pride. The official 60th anniversary gala takes place Aug. 29, featuring performers, beverages, timeless favorite foods, swag – and the unveiling of a new cocktail.
Inclusive, eccentric, eclectic, Mr. Henry’s is looking forward to maintaining its centrality to diverse crowds in Capitol Hill. Battling inflation, rising menu prices, changing tastes, and thin margins, Quillian says that Mr. Henry’s has — and will always be — “a caring community for so many different folks. And THAT is why I am committed to keeping us going. Society needs places like Mr. Henry’s, now more than ever.”
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Television loses a legend, longtime ‘Will & Grace’ director James Burrows
Iconic hitmaker leaves behind a legacy of telling LGBTQ stories
You don’t have to be a pretentious film major to name 10 movie directors. But naming television directors is not that simple. They’re the unsung heroes of your favorite shows, and the late James Burrows was the television director. He passed on June 19, but his DNA runs through television history.
He directed over 1200 episodes of television and over 50 pilots. He co-created “Cheers” and directed many episodes of long-running series like “Friends,” “Taxi,” “Frasier,” “The Big Bang Theory,” and “Two and a Half Men.” You also may remember him from playing a heightened version of himself on the Lisa Kudrow comedy “The Comeback.”
He has left an indelible mark on the LGBTQ community. As recently as last year, he directed the series run of “Mid-Century Modern” starring Nathan Lane, Matt Bomer, and Linda Lavin. He was also a longtime director of “Will & Grace” and directed every episode of the series revival. He even directed the unaired “Absolutely Fabulous” pilot with Kathryn Hahn, Kristen Johnston, and Zosia Mamet.
Not to mention he’s worked with queer icons throughout history, including Betty White and Stockard Channing on their single-season series, and Jennifer Coolidge in “2 Broke Girls.”
He started his career on shows like “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Rhoda,” “Laverne & Shirley,” and the first four seasons of “Taxi.”
He continued to work steadily and directed successful pilots that went to series for “Roc,” “3rd Rock From the Sun,” “Dharma & Greg,” and “Wings.” He directed multiple episodes of “Friends,” “Caroline in the City,” and “Frasier.”
This magic continued into the 2000s with him directing the pilots for “Two and a Half Men,” “The Big Bang Theory,” and multiple episodes of “Mike & Molly,” and the entire return series of “Will & Grace.”
What was the secret to his success? He’d enact the “fun clause” in his contract. In his words, “Life is too short to deal with obnoxious leads,” he shared. “So as long as the writing is good and the cast is fun, I’m going to enjoy the experience.”
He had the magic touch, having multiple pilots turned into long-running series. He was nominated for an Emmy 24 times in 26 years and worked consistently until a year before his death.
The secret was the way he brought the cast together. He describes, “it was my job to mold them into an ensemble, and they did round into a group of people who loved each other.”
This earned him 11 Emmy Awards and five Directors Guild of America Awards, including being awarded the inaugural DGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Television Direction.
In a 2003 interview by the Television Academy, he was asked how he wants to be remembered, and he said, “That every night forever you can tune in somewhere, and there’ll be a show I did.”
He’s survived by his wife, Debbie, four daughters, seven grandchildren, and the countless people whose careers he launched and the countless viewers he inspired with his television legacy.
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