a&e features
Kelly Osbourne discusses life and passions in new memoir
Reality vet is all grown up in ‘There is No F*cking Secret’
Kelly Osbourne says growing up in one-of-a-kind circumstances with hard-working parents gave her a distinct outlook on life. (Photo by Darren Tieste)
Kelly Osbourne
In Conversation with Kelly Cutrone
Wednesday, April 26
7:30 p.m.
Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
600 I St., N.W.
$17-42
The daughter of business mogul and talk show host Sharon Osbourne and heavy metal music legend Ozzy Osbourne, Kelly Osbourne was not only born into a family of success but into the spotlight. Osbourne appeared with the rest of her family on MTV’s “The Osbournes,” from 2002-2005, arguably kicking off the modern reality show genre that is popular today.
Known as the mouthy teenage girl on the show, Osbourne is now a 32-year-old who has evolved into former “The View” talk show host and has appeared on “Fashion Police” alongside Joan Rivers. Osbourne prides herself on being an LGBT ally and has contributed to numerous LGBT organizations including the Trevor Project. She has now written a book, “There is No F*cking Secret,” a series of letters that focus on personal topics such as her mother’s cancer diagnosis, her father’s battle with addiction and her own struggle with body image.
Osbourne spoke with the Washington Blade on everything from growing up with Joan Rivers to being the child of famous parents and more.
WASHINGTON BLADE: What made you decide now was the time to write a book about your life?
KELLY OSBOURNE: I’ve wasted so much time of my life. Whenever anyone asks me, “What do you regret most?,” I always said, “I regret nothing.” Until I started writing this book and I realized there was one thing I truly fucking regret. And it’s that I wasted so much time in my life trying to be anyone but who I really am. It’s such a miserable fucking journey. It’s so deflating and you get lost. I let the media and public perception tell me who I really was and I fed into it. That is my responsibility and my fault because I did do that. But I was so young, I didn’t know any better. It’s my chance now to be like, “Fuck that, cut the crap, this is who I am. I am telling you who I am.” And hopefully by me telling you who I am and sharing my stories with you, you will know even though I’m famous, I was born famous. I didn’t really get a choice in the matter. I have problems too and any of the problems I’ve had I’ll share with you that way you won’t feel alone. And that way you’ll know someone else out there has been through it too. And I hope that people get something out of the mistakes I’ve made. And the fact that love in our family is what kept us together and kept us going. People stop caring about other people and people stop remembering that love is what’s most important.
BLADE: Did you write the book in the format of letters because you wanted it to be more personal?
OSBOURNE: No. We live in a world of millennials now. People like instant gratification. They’ll read a headline and a few sentences and you’re an instant genius. When it comes to reading a book I even realized, I don’t want to read it from start to finish. I like to pick it up, put it down and you can start from all different places. Like a book of short stories. I like books like that because you don’t have to commit to finishing it all at the same time. You can look at the chapters and see if there’s anything that relates to you and go to that chapter. I’m praying my parents don’t read the vagina one.
BLADE: Was there anything else you were worried about your family reading?
OSBOURNE: Yes. Every member of my family has written a book. What I realized is we can all be in the same room and see the same thing, but we all have a different perception of what happened. We see it differently because we’re different people. I made sure that I sent the book to everybody in my family with a note saying, “Guys this is the book. Anything you want taken out let me know, no questions asked.” Because they are my family, I do talk about them so I had to give them that respect. Especially with my brother (Jack Osbourne) who has two children. I would never want to say anything that could affect them because you never know what the media is going to pick up on.
I’m noticing right now from the press they’re really focusing on the drug aspect of everything. I haven’t done drugs, weed excluded because I don’t consider that a drug, since I was 24 years old. I’m 33 this year. I got so much more shit being fat than I ever did being a druggie. And I think because I pointed it out so much now they’re focusing back on the fact that I was a druggie. But now I’m looking at what’s going on in the media right now and I’m seeing how many deaths from opioid abuse, and so it is a prevalent topic, but I don’t want that message to get lost. Because it’s not just what the book is about. It’s about my experience looking after my mom when she had cancer, my Lyme’s disease, relationships, body image, fitting in, having no inner filter, discovering who you are.
BLADE: Did you find the writing process difficult?
OSBOURNE: This is the second time, but (the first time) I honestly feel like sabotaged it halfway through. When I first started writing (the first book) I was in a really good place, but by the end of it I wasn’t and everything I was advising in the book I wasn’t even listening to. I wasn’t doing it myself so I felt like I was a hypocrite. This book is not just redemption on that book, me finally not only writing this but I’m doing what I’m writing. Everybody feels like they have to be perfect and they have to look a certain way. It’s not even about being famous anymore, which is called being an “influencer.” The pressure that young people are under just over the simplest things. The selfie that goes on Instagram, that isn’t a part of my level of understanding. I have such a love/hate relationship with social media but it makes me really happy that it wasn’t around when I was younger because I would have probably been arrested. And that I didn’t have to deal with that added pressure as well. It’s unbelievable.
BLADE: Being the child of famous parents, what’s the biggest misconception people have?
OSBOURNE: My parents were very smart with how they raised me. Back in the days before cell phones, we had beepers. I wanted one and my mom said, “You want one, you go get a job and you pay for it yourself.” So I’ve had a job and been self-sufficient outside of my parents. I’ve had a job since I was 13. I’ve been self sufficient outside of my parents since I was 15. My parents taught us, “You want something, you work for it.” When you’re a celebrity’s kid you have to prove yourself 10 times over. Because you have to prove it’s not just handed to you and you have to gain the respect to prove that you are hardworking and don’t think you’re better than everyone else. But then you do have to be better. It’s a very weird contradiction. People think, “Oh you’re someone’s kid you don’t do anything.” I’m like, “I’ve been working since I was 15. I don’t know how I’m going to pay my mortgage this month.” People think they get to do all of these fabulous things and yes, we do, but anywhere there is fabulousness, it attracts shit. And there’s a lot more shit in this industry than there is fabulousness.
BLADE: Your mother is a co-host on “The Talk.” Do you ever hear her say anything on the show and think “Mom, I didn’t need to know that”?
OSBOURNE: Oh my god. If I ever have to hear about my mom and dad’s sex life I’m like, “Mom!” I guess everybody gets that in their own home, I just get it on national TV. But it’s my mom. She’s earned the right to say whatever the fuck she wants. She has worked her ass off. There are very few women in this industry who can get to that level. Joan Rivers is one of them and so is my mom. They paid their dues. My mom would never say anything to hurt me. Even though sometimes I want to crawl into a hole and die that she told people things about me on national TV. That’s just what it is. I probably would have told everyone anyway. She birthed me so she has the right. And of course, I was the only kid out of my siblings that my mom didn’t have an epidural for. I’m the, “Do you know the pain and suffering?” That’s what I get.
BLADE: You’ve also been a big supporter of the LGBT community. Why has that type of advocacy been important to you?
OSBOURNE: The LGBT community is a community that never gave up on me and that has supported me through thick and thin. (The community) taught me to believe in myself and taught me how to do my makeup and to love yourself no matter what anyone else thinks. Be who makes you happy. Stand against the odds and dare to be different and unique. Everybody has a unique individual inside of them. It’s whether they’re brave enough or not to show it to the world. They can find it within themselves to be brave and show the world who they really are which is a scary thing to do. It’s easier said than done. And within the gay community there is so much creativity and love and acceptance because they’ve been the outcasts of society or at home their whole life. They know what that feels like. I was the outcast too growing up with a satanic, as they said, father in this country village.
Everybody thought that we were satanists. I didn’t really fit in with everybody because we were different. My mom was dressed differently to pick us up from school so the parents didn’t judge us. I’ve been locked in bathrooms at school with the lights off and made to pray for my sins because my father is a satanist. And I’m like, ‘What is this?” It’s not like my parents were the equivalent of the Beckhams. My mom is known as the most badass business woman to ever be in the music industry, in fact the world. And my father is the creator of heavy metal music. It’s a lot to live up to being their kids. They’re icons in their own right. They came from a time where things weren’t instantaneous and you had to work hard. I get that from my mom. If I don’t wake up and start working, my day is shit.
BLADE: You seem like an open person and the title of your book is “There is No F*cking Secret.” But is there anything people might not know about you?
OSBOURNE: I am so empathic and loyal to my own detriment. When I feel like somebody is sad I can feel it when they hug me. I want to do everything I can to make them not feel sad. Because feeling sad, lonely and not good enough are the worst feelings in the world. I know what that feels like to feel like that every day. And I wish I could take that from people. I’m surprisingly really shy at times when someone puts a camera in front of me. I did a quick photo shoot for someone recently and I like shut down. My body language, my shoulders went in. I will never be used to being in front of a camera and my face shows it because I always look like I’m holding in a fart. When I see the red carpets in the magazines I see the girls doing the poses over the shoulder and I’m like I would look like I have jaundice if I tried that. It just isn’t in me.
BLADE: Being on “Fashion Police” with Joan Rivers, what was the best advice she gave you?
OSBOURNE: It’s in the book. You’ve got to find the humor in absolutely everything because laughter is not only the best medicine, but it’s the best survival skill too. Outside of my family and “Dancing with the Stars,” Joan was one of the only people who truly just believed in me for me. Nothing to do with my past or my present or my future. Nothing to do with my family. She just wanted to work with me. And being bestowed with that honor with somebody … I knew Joan for 25 years. I was 6 years old the first time she interviewed me. It’s the most embarrassing interview ever. I’m scratching my vagina, yawned and stuck my tongue out on the entire Father’s Day (on “The Joan Rivers Show”) special. I’m like, “Oh God.” But to have that honor to be an apprentice to Joan Rivers for as many years. We worked 52 weeks a year for over five-and-a-half years together. We did everything together. It’s still and I think it always will be a huge loss in my life that threw me in a way I didn’t think possible. Three and a half years ago I promised Joan the very first copy of my book that I got. I got it so I called Melissa (Rivers) I was like, “I got the first copy and I promised it to her.” So I’d written a little message to Joan and given it to Melissa.
BLADE: You and Melissa still keep in contact?
OSBOURNE: Fifty-two weeks a year, every year, five and a half years? She’s family. We’re family. All the crew, I miss them so much. Whenever I go into a meeting at Universal, I pop in and go in and say hi. We’re all still really close.
BLADE: You’re coming to D.C. to promote your book.
OSBOURNE: I’m so excited because I’m going to Joan’s favorite place, the Sixth & I Synagogue.
BLADE: What’s your favorite thing about D.C.?
OSBOURNE: I spent at least two to three days a year in D.C. my whole life because of being on tour with my father. You know the Jolly Green Giant on television where’s he’s like walking through fields of grass? You’re on the tour bus and all of sudden there are the monuments and so much green and the White House. You’re walking through history which is rare for me in America to feel that way because everything is so new. The house I grew up in is over a 100-and-something years old. I can’t tell you one building near me in L.A. that’s over a 100 years old. So to walk through and see this is where all the stuff I learned in school happened, I love the history of it. But it’s also very interesting that you go one mile in the other direction and it’s a completely different world. People are left and forgotten. I was a little bit shocked about that.
BLADE: They don’t show you that on TV.
OSBOURNE: At all, you don’t even know that’s there. They always say that charity starts at home, why don’t they clean up Washington and look after the people who live there and then you’ll be in a more powerful situation? It’s very confusing. But I don’t know why but I always pretend like I’m Jackie O when I’m there. Totally going to do a bouffant with my hair at my book signing for a Jackie O look. That would be so sick.
a&e features
New book celebrates 1970s dance music icons
‘A Night at the Disco’ features interviews with Donna Summer, Debbie Harry, more
If you’re a fan of 1970s-era dance music, don’t miss the irresistible new book by Christian John Wikane and Alice Harris, “A Night at the Disco,” which revisits more than 90 interviews conducted with some of the biggest names in pop culture.
“A Night at the Disco” (ACC Art Books) was published on March 24, and distributed by Simon & Schuster. It celebrates more than 100 artists who sparked a phenomenon in dance music from 1970-1979 and features excerpts from interviews with everyone from Donna Summer to Debbie Harry.
Lost City Books (2467 18th St., N.W.) will welcome author Christian John Wikane for a book signing and conversation about “A Night at the Disco” on Thursday, April 16 at 6 p.m. Details at lostcitybookstore.com. Bird in Hand Coffee & Books in Baltimore (11 E. 33rd St.) )will also host a Q&A with the author on Wednesday, April 15 at 6 p.m. Details at theivybookshop.com.
Below is an excerpt from “A Night at the Disco.”
“I’ll let in anyone who looks like they’ll make things fun.” Steve Rubell is guiding a New York Times reporter through Studio 54 as resident DJ Richie Kaczor dazzles the crowd with records by CHIC, Odyssey, and T-Connection. “Disco, that’s where the happy people go,” The Trammps sing as dancers spin and twirl underneath tubes of flashing lights. Seven months since Rubell and co-owner Ian Schrager opened Studio 54 in April 1977, it’s welcomed untold numbers of “happy people” … at least those lucky enough to pass through the doors.
“We were part of the chosen few,” says André De Shields, who immortalized the title role in The Wiz on Broadway at the time. “We could show up at Studio 54 and the doorman at the velvet stanchion would look over everyone and point to us from The Wiz to come in, that kind of thing.” As the lead vocalist in the GRAMMY-nominated Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band, whose debut modernized big band sophistication for the discothèques, Cory Daye had carte blanche in the club. “The energy was like a New Year’s Eve party every night,” she says. “I would go up to the mezzanine and watch the mechanical light pillars go up and down, metallic confetti falling from the ceiling, the spoon and the moon. I was so fascinated and enamored by it.
“When a certain song came on, the people would just rush to the dance floor. There was no contact dancing — the hustle was pretty much on its way out — but it was just an amazing experience to see all the cultures together. It was a fusion of cultures, which described my life and my band, so I was right at home there.”
“Studio 54 was the place,” adds Linda Clifford. “Crazy parties. If you could think it, you would see it. It was like a circus. Just an amazing place to be. I worked 54 so many times. It was like a second home to me. The people there treated me so well. The crowd always seemed to enjoy my show. I always had a good time with them. That was the most important thing: making sure that they had fun.”
Well before Studio 54 opened, disco had become a business juggernaut. “A four billion dollar market and still growing,” Billboard announced in February 1977, with dance music offering more variety than ever. “There is no longer a single, readily identifiable disco beat, but a kaleidoscope of sounds that are melodic and danceable,” Tom Moulton told the magazine. In the clubs, records by veteran artists like Stevie Wonder and the Bee Gees were mixed in with a range of new acts like Grace Jones, Boney M., and The Ritchie Family, while everyone from ABBA to Marvin Gaye scored number one pop hits with songs that had club-centric storylines.
Beyond the charts, disco itself remained as idiosyncratic as ever, especially on several productions by Laurin Rinder and W. Michael Lewis, whose studio creations, El Coco (“Let’s Get It Together,” “Cocomotion”) and Le Pamplemousse (“Le Spank”), joined their own “Lust” from Seven Deadly Sins (1977) among the most tantalizing releases on AVI Records. Rinder & Lewis also produced acts for the newly hatched Butterfly Records in Los Angeles, where Saint Tropez (“On a Rien à Perdre”) and Tuxedo Junction (“Moonlight Serenade”) reflected the duo’s high gloss sound, spanning everything from European sophistication to a more literal translation of the ’40s sensibilities popularized by Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band.
12-inch singles had also grown as the preferred format to approximate the club music experience at home. Nearly a year after Atlantic Records introduced its series of promotional 12-inch singles for DJs, New York-based Salsoul Records released the industry’s first commercially available 12-inch single, “Ten Percent” by Double Exposure, in May 1976. A year later, T.K. Records was the first label to certify a gold record for a 12-inch single when Peter Brown’s “Do You Wanna Get Funky With Me” tallied one million sales.— Christian John Wikane
(From “A Night at the Disco” by Alice Harris & Christian John Wikane. Published by ACC Art Books.)
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
a&e features
Award-winning D.C. chef reaching new culinary heights
Anthony Jones of Marcus DC competing on ‘Top Chef’
In Anthony Jones’s kitchen, all sorts of flags fly, including his own. Executive chef at award-winning restaurant Marcus DC, Jones has reached culinary heights (James Beard Award semifinalist for Emerging Chef, anyone?), yet he’s just getting started.
Briefly stepping away from his award-winning station, Jones took a moment under a different set of lights. Recently, he temporarily gave up his post at the restaurant for a starring small-screen slot on the latest season of “Top Chef,” which debuted in March. (The show airs weekly on Bravo and Peacock).
Before his strategic slice-and-dice competition, however, Jones, who identifies as gay, draws from his deep DMV roots. In the years before “Top Chef” and the top chef spot at Marcus, he was born and raised in Sunderland, Md., in southern Maryland, near the Chesapeake.
Early memories were steeped in afternoons on boats with his dad bonding over fishing, and wandering the garden of his great-grandparents spread with fresh vegetables and a few hogs. “It was Southern, old-school ethics and upbringing,” he said. “Family and food went hand in hand.” Weekends meant grabbing bushels of crabs, dad and grandma would cook and crack them. Family members would host fish fries for extra cash. In this seafood-heavy youth, Jones managed time to sneak in episodes of the “OG” Japanese “Iron Chef” show, which helped inspire him to pursue a career in the kitchen.
Jones moved to D.C. after graduating from college, ending up at lauded Restaurant Eve, and met famed chef Marcus Samuelson, who brought him to Miami to be part of the opening team for Red Rooster Overtown. After three years, Jones moved back to D.C., where he ran Dirty Habit, reinventing and reimagining the menu, integrating West African flavors and ingredients.
Samuelson, however, wouldn’t let a talent like Jones stay away for too long. Pulling Jones back into his orbit, Samuelson elevated Jones to help him open his namesake restaurant Marcus DC, which has been named a top-five restaurant by the Washington Post. Since then, Jones has been nominated as a semifinalist for the RAMMYs Rising Culinary Star in 2026 and won the Eater DC’s Rising Chef award in 2025.
Samuelson’s Marcus is a tour de force interpreting the Black Diaspora on the plate, from the American South to West Africa, along with his signature “Swedopian” touches. Yet it’s Jones who has deeply informed the plate, elevating his own story to date. Marcus DC is primarily a seafood restaurant, which serves Jones well.
“Where I’m from is seafood heavy, and as I’ve progressed in my career, I’ve moved away from meat.” Veggies and fish are hero dishes. His own dish, Mel’s Crab Rice, was not only lauded by the Washington Post, but is framed by his youth carrying home the crustaceans from Mel’s crab truck. It’s a bowl of Carolina rice, layered with pickled okra, uni béarnaise, and crab. Jones also points to a dish on the opening menu, rockfish and brassica, paying respect to a landmark D.C. institution, Ben’s Chili Bowl. Jones reverse engineered a favorite bowl of chili that’s seafood instead of meat forward, leveraging octopus and rockfish along with different riffs of cauliflower: showing his intellectual, creative, and cultural sides.
While “Top Chef” is showing Jones’s spotlight side, he also lets his identity show at work. “In the kitchen, I make sure we’re inclusive. We don’t tolerate discrimination. Everyone that’s here should feel confident to express themselves. There are so many different flags in the kitchen.”
Jones says that he didn’t fully express his gay identity until fairly recently. He felt reluctant coming out to certain family members, “you’re scared to tell them about being different,” he says, and while that anxiety ate at him, “I’m lucky and fortunate to have unconditional love and that weight off my shoulders.”
Today, “I’m me all the time, Monday to Sunday. I’m honest with people, and my staff is honest with me.”
“Being a chef is hard,” he says, “and being a chef of color is even more difficult.”
Yet his LGBTQ identity is a juggling act, he says. “I need to keep that balance, because once someone finds out something about you, their opinion can change, whether you want it or not.”
Being on a whole season of TV cooking competition, however, might mean millions more might have an opinion of him (Jones has appeared on TV already, on an episode of “Chopped”). To prepare, he says, “I’ve just kept a level head. It’s just an honor to be on top chef with amazing people happy to be there.”
Plus, this season is set in the Carolinas, and Jones attended Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, N.C. “It’s a full story of my life, now a monumental moment for me.”
Jones also recently was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award. “JBF has been a north star, a dream for so long. I always had this goal on my wall.”
Being at the top spot at Marcus DC, making waves through his accolades, and cooking on Bravo means that Jones is highly visible. “I think that if someone has a similar background to me, and can see our story, trajectory, and success, they can have more ability to be themselves. This is my goal.”
Back at Marcus, Jones has plenty up his chef’s white’s sleeves. A new spring menu is in the works. He’ll be launching a new tasting menu “dining experience,” he says, and has plans to work on more events and collaborations with chefs and friends to bring in new talent and share the culinary wealth.
a&e features
Introducing the Torchbearers Awards honoring queer, trans women and nonbinary people
Meet the Legends and Illuminators lighting new paths
The Torchbearers Awards are more than recognition—they are a continuation of legacy. They honor the quiet architects of progress in our community: those who organize, advocate, build, and protect, often without fanfare but always with purpose. Rooted in a belief in intentional recognition, this honor names those who carry our movements forward—those who make room for others, who remind us that change is both generational and generative. In a time marked by uncertainty and challenge, these leaders push forward with courage, clarity, and an unwavering commitment to expanding opportunity and equity.
This year’s honorees reflect the full breadth of our community, spanning generations, backgrounds, identities, and industries. From Legends, with decades of leadership and having created pathways for others, to Illuminators, who are lighting new paths with creativity and innovation, each Torchbearer represents the power of intergenerational leadership and the strength found in our diversity. They are organizers, advocates, artists, policy leaders, healers, and changemakers whose lived experiences shape a shared vision for equity and liberation.
This award is our love letter to queer and trans women and nonbinary people who carry the flame when it would be easier to let it dim. To those who consistently show up, who use their voice and visibility and stand firm, often without recognition, so that others may live more freely and fully. The Torchbearers Awards celebrates not just what has been done, but the enduring spirit, responsibility, and collective care that ensure the work continues, and that the flame is always passed forward.
Co-Creators of the Torchbearers Awards: Shannon Alston, June Crenshaw, Heidi Ellis
Torchbearers Awards Advisory Board: Aditi Hardikar, Lesley Bryant, Jasmine Wilson-Bryant, Stephen Rutgers
ILLUMINATOR AWARDEES
- Representative Sharice Davids (she/her), (D, KS-03)
— U.S. House of Representatives - Greisa Martinez Rosas (she/her/ella)
— Executive Director, United We Dream - Paola Ramos (she/her)
— Journalist & Correspondent - Meagan A. Fitzgerald (she/her)
— Journalist & Correspondent - Jessica L. Lewis (she/her)
— Founder / Producer, Play Play DC - Savannah Wade (she/her)
— Founder, OAR Agency - Suhad Babaa (she/her)
— Filmmaker/ Former Executive Director of Just Vision - Ashlee Davis (she/her)
— Global Head of Inclusive Outcomes, Ancestry - Jazmine Hughes (she/her)
— Journalist and Former Editor at New York Times Magazine - Queen Adesuyi (they/she)
— Policy Advisor & Organizer, ReFrame Health & Justice - Michele Rayner, Esq. (she/her)
— Civil Rights Attorney, State Representative (Florida House of Representatives) - Gaby Vincent (she/her)
— Sports/Cultural Commentator and Community Leader - Jenny Nguyen (she/her)
— Founder & Owner, The Sports Bra - Denice Frohman (she/her)
— Independent Artist, Poet / Performer - Vida Rangel (she/her)
— Founder, Our Trans Capital - Roxanne Anderson (they/them)
— Executive Director, Our Space - Ann Marie Gothard (she/her)
— Co-Founder & President, Pride Live (Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center) - Diana Rodriquez (she/her)
— Co-Founder & CEO, Pride Live (Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center) - Wendi Cooper (she/her)
— Founder / Executive Director, Transcending Women - Toya Matthews (she/her)
— City of San Antonio, Texas - Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones (she/her)
— Sports/Cultural Commentator and Community Leader - Charity Blackwell (she/her)
— Poet, LGBTQ Advocate & Community Leader - Wilhelmina Indermaur (she/her)
— Director of Communications, Tyler Clementi Foundation - Em Chadwick (she/her)
— CMO, For Them & Autostraddle - Kylo Freeman (they/he)
— CEO, For Them & Autostraddle
LEGEND AWARDEES
- Sheila Alexander-Reid (she/her)
— Executive Director, PHL Diversity, Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau - Cassandra Cantave Burton (she/her)
— Interim Director of Thought Leadership & Senior Research Advisor, AARP - leigh h. mosley (she/her)
— Photographer / Educator, PhotoFlo Photography - Jenn M. Jackson, PhD (they/them)
— Assistant Professor of Political Science; Author & Columnist, Syracuse University - Jordyn White (she/her)
— COO, Washington Prodigy / VP of Leadership Development & Research, HRC Foundation - AJ Hikes (they/them)
— Deputy Executive Director, ACLU - RaeShanda Lias (she/her)
— Digital Creator, RL Lockhart - Donna Payne-Hardy (she/her)
— Educator, EEO Specialist, Founder of NBJC, Former Leader at the Human Rights Campaign - Courtney R. Snowden (she/her)
— Principal, Blueprint Strategy Group - Gaye Adegbalola (she/her)
— Musician & Activist, Musician / Inductee of the Blues Hall of Fame - Cheryl A. Head (she/her)
— Independent Author, Novelist (Crime Fiction) - Letitia Gomez (she/her)
— The American LGBTQ+ Museum, Board Chair - Lynne Brown (she/her)
— Publisher, Washington Blade - Shay Franco-Clausen (She/Her/Ella/Queen)
— Political Strategist and Organizer - Melissa L. Bradley (she/her)
— Founder & Managing Partner, New Majority Ventures - Meghann Burke (she/her)
— Executive Director, NWSL Players Association - Victoria Kirby York, MPA (she/they)
— Director of Public Policy & Programs, National Black Justice Collective - Joli Angel Robinson (she/her)
— CEO, Center on Halsted - Jeannine Frisby LaRue (she/her)
— CEO, Moxie Strategies - Alice Wu (she/her)
— Film Director (Saving Face, The Half of It) / Screenwriter - Storme Webber (she/her)
— Interdisciplinary Artist / Educator, University of Washington - Kim Stone
— CEO of the Washington Spirit, Washington Spirit - Mickalene Thomas
— American Visual Artist, Mickalene Thomas Studio - Erika Lorshbough (any/they/she)
— Executive Director, interACT - J. Gia Loving (she/ella)
— Co-Executive Director, GSA Network
Calendar: April 10-16
BLUF leather social set for April 10 in Rehoboth
Celebrations of life planned for Sean Bartel
The ‘X’ returns to court
LGBTQ community explores arming up during heated political times
D.C. is the place for the Democratic Socialists of America
Key lifestyle changes can help patients cope with diabetes
Trump budget would codify expanded global gag rule
Man faces first S.C. ‘hate intimidation’ charge
Police mental health struggles gain growing attention
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Opinions5 days agoD.C. is the place for the Democratic Socialists of America
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District of Columbia5 days ago
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The White House4 days ago
Trump budget would codify expanded global gag rule
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South Carolina4 days ago
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