Arts & Entertainment
Bowser, city ‘committed’ to meeting needs of LGBT homeless
Shelter operators required to undergo competency training
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has made it known that addressing the city’s homeless problem remains a top priority. (Photo by Elvert Barnes via Wikimedia Commons)
(Editor’s note: The Washington Blade is one of many local media outlets partnering with Street Sense Media, a local news outlet that publishes a biweekly newspaper and other content in a mission to end homelessness in Washington, on its third annual media day.
Inspired by an 88-outlet collaboration in San Francisco in 2016, Washington had its first installment that same year with three outlets. Six outlets joined in 2017. This is the Blade’s first year participating.
Look for Street Sense on your favorite social media outlet (streetsensedc on Facebook or @streetsensedc on Twitter) for links to complementary coverage in other regional publications.
Street Sense’s mission is to end homelessness in Washington by empowering people in need with skills, tools and confidence to succeed. The Blade’s coverage spotlights how homelessness acutely affects Washington’s LGBT community. Find out more at streetsensemedia.org.)
The D.C. Department of Human Services, which oversees the city’s homeless programs, has put in place policies and procedures to ensure that LGBT homeless people, both adults and youth, are treated with respect and receive the services they need, according to two department officials.
DHS spokesperson Dora Taylor said that since taking office in 2015, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has made it known that aggressively addressing the city’s homeless problem, including specific issues pertaining to LGBT homeless people, are among her administration’s highest priority.
Taylor noted that among DHS’s actions since Bowser became mayor has been its implementation of the LGBTQ Homeless Youth Reform Amendment Act, which the D.C. Council passed unanimously in 2014. Council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) and then-Council member Bowser (D-Ward 4) were the co-introducers of the legislation.
Among other things, the measure allocates city funds for expanding existing homeless facilities, including shelters, to include additional beds for “youth who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning.”
The legislation also requires service providers, including operators of homeless shelters, to put in place “best practices for the culturally competent care of homeless youth” that identify as LGBT or questioning.
Taylor and DHS Senior Advisor Carter Hewgley said implementation of the law included a policy change adopted by DHS that requires all homeless shelters operated by the city or by city contractors to allow transgender people – youth or adults — seeking to enter a shelter to choose the one that is consistent with their gender identity.
The two noted that under the city’s shelter system, shelters are segregated by gender except for those designated for families with children.
Hewgley said DHS has an ongoing program for training shelter employees, including case managers, on how to appropriately deal with LGBT homeless people.
“The expectation is that you are meeting every person where they are and treating them with dignity and respect,” he said.
According to Hewgley, the shelter system has a comprehensive grievance process for situations where a shelter resident believes he or she has been treated improperly by a staff member or a fellow shelter resident.
He said DHS’s training programs are aimed at greatly minimizing if not completely eliminating reports from LGBT activists in the past about how LGBT shelter clients were bullied or harassed by other shelter residents because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Hewgley told the Blade that DHS and the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs in September organized a joint “listening session” to obtain suggestions from LGBT activists familiar with the city’s homeless programs, along with other experts, on how to improve homeless services for LGBT people in need.
Sheila Alexander-Reid, director of the Office of LGBTQ Affairs, who described the listening sessions as focus groups, said her office has been involved in providing competency training for employees of all city agencies and is especially interested in assisting with trainings for shelter workers.
Hewgley said the listening sessions or focus groups were divided into four subgroups that discussed the needs and concerns of four categories of LGBT people using the city’s homeless shelter system – unaccompanied women, unaccompanied men, couples and families, and transgender and non-binary individuals.
He said the sessions resulted in a decision by DHS to prepare a 10-page report summarizing the findings and recommendations of the participants in the four groups called “LGBTQ+ Homeless Services: Identifying Service Gaps for LGBTQ+ Adults and Youth Experiencing Homelessness and Creating a Vision and Strategy for Improving Support to this Community.”
Among those who participated in the listening sessions were officials with LGBT and other organizations that provide services for homeless clients, including Casa Ruby, Whitman-Walker Health, SMYAL, the Wanda Alston House, Catholic Charities, HIPS, and the Fiscal Policy Institute.
Some of the recommendations of the participants include anecdotal reports by LGBT clients of shelters about instances of less than adequate treatment by staff and other shelter clients showing that improvement is still needed.
Italy
Olympics Pride House ‘really important for the community’
Italy lags behind other European countries in terms of LGBTQ rights
The four Italian advocacy groups behind the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics’ Pride House hope to use the games to highlight the lack of LGBTQ rights in their country.
Arcigay, CIG Arcigay Milano, Milano Pride, and Pride Sport Milano organized the Pride House that is located in Milan’s MEET Digital Culture Center. The Washington Blade on Feb. 5 interviewed Pride House Project Manager Joseph Naklé.
Naklé in 2020 founded Peacox Basket Milano, Italy’s only LGBTQ basketball team. He also carried the Olympic torch through Milan shortly before he spoke with the Blade. (“Heated Rivalry” stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie last month participated in the torch relay in Feltre, a town in Italy’s Veneto region.)
Naklé said the promotion of LGBTQ rights in Italy is “actually our main objective.”
ILGA-Europe in its Rainbow Map 2025 notes same-sex couples lack full marriage rights in Italy, and the country’s hate crimes law does not include sexual orientation or gender identity. Italy does ban discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, but the country’s nondiscrimination laws do not include gender identity.
ILGA-Europe has made the following recommendations “in order to improve the legal and policy situation of LGBTI people in Italy.”
• Marriage equality for same-sex couples
• Depathologization of trans identities
• Automatic co-parent recognition available for all couples
“We are not really known to be the most openly LGBT-friendly country,” Naklé told the Blade. “That’s why it (Pride House) was really important for the community.”
“We want to use the Olympic games — because there is a big media attention — and we want to use this media attention to raise the voice,” he added.
Naklé noted Pride House will host “talks and roundtables every night” during the games that will focus on a variety of topics that include transgender and nonbinary people in sports and AI. Another will focus on what Naklé described to the Blade as “the importance of political movements now to fight for our rights, especially in places such as Italy or the U.S. where we are going backwards, and not forwards.”
Seven LGBTQ Olympians — Italian swimmer Alex Di Giorgio, Canadian ice dancers Paul Poirier and Kaitlyn Weaver, Canadian figure skater Eric Radford, Spanish figure skater Javier Raya, Scottish ice dancer Lewis Gibson, and Irish field hockey and cricket player Nikki Symmons — are scheduled to participate in Pride House’s Out and Proud event on Feb. 14.
Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood representatives are expected to speak at Pride House on Feb. 21.
The event will include a screening of Mariano Furlani’s documentary about Pride House and LGBTQ inclusion in sports. The MiX International LGBTQ+ Film and Queer Culture Festival will screen later this year in Milan. Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood is also planning to show the film during the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Naklé also noted Pride House has launched an initiative that allows LGBTQ sports teams to partner with teams whose members are either migrants from African and Islamic countries or people with disabilities.
“The objective is to show that sports is the bridge between these communities,” he said.
Bisexual US skier wins gold
Naklé spoke with the Blade a day before the games opened. The Milan Cortina Winter Olympics will close on Feb. 22.
More than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes are competing in the games.
Breezy Johnson, an American alpine skier who identifies as bisexual, on Sunday won a gold medal in the women’s downhill. Amber Glenn, who identifies as bisexual and pansexual, on the same day helped the U.S. win a gold medal in team figure skating.
Glenn said she received threats on social media after she told reporters during a pre-Olympics press conference that LGBTQ Americans are having a “hard time” with the Trump-Vance administration in the White House. The Associated Press notes Glenn wore a Pride pin on her jacket during Sunday’s medal ceremony.
“I was disappointed because I’ve never had so many people wish me harm before, just for being me and speaking about being decent — human rights and decency,” said Glenn, according to the AP. “So that was really disappointing, and I do think it kind of lowered that excitement for this.”
Puerto Rico
Bad Bunny shares Super Bowl stage with Ricky Martin, Lady Gaga
Puerto Rican activist celebrates half time show
Bad Bunny on Sunday shared the stage with Ricky Martin and Lady Gaga at the Super Bowl halftime show in Santa Clara, Calif.
Martin came out as gay in 2010. Gaga, who headlined the 2017 Super Bowl halftime show, is bisexual. Bad Bunny has championed LGBTQ rights in his native Puerto Rico and elsewhere.
“Not only was a sophisticated political statement, but it was a celebration of who we are as Puerto Ricans,” Pedro Julio Serrano, president of the LGBTQ+ Federation of Puerto Rico, told the Washington Blade on Monday. “That includes us as LGBTQ+ people by including a ground-breaking superstar and legend, Ricky Martin singing an anti-colonial anthem and showcasing Young Miko, an up-and-coming star at La Casita. And, of course, having queer icon Lady Gaga sing salsa was the cherry on the top.”
La Casita is a house that Bad Bunny included in his residency in San Juan, the Puerto Rican capital, last year. He recreated it during the halftime show.
“His performance brought us together as Puerto Ricans, as Latin Americans, as Americans (from the Americas) and as human beings,” said Serrano. “He embraced his own words by showcasing, through his performance, that the ‘only thing more powerful than hate is love.’”
Drag artists perform for crowds in towns across Virginia. The photographer follows Gerryatrick, Shenandoah, Climaxx, Emerald Envy among others over eight months as they perform at venues in the Virginia towns of Staunton, Harrisonburg and Fredericksburg.
(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)
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