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Strang elected president of GLAA

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Bobbi Strang, gay news, Washington Blade

The ‘Comings & Goings’ column chronicles important life changes of Blade readers.

The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected].

Bobbi Strang, gay news, Washington Blade

Bobbi Strang (Photo courtesy of Strang)

Congratulations to Bobbi Elaine Strang on her election as President of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance. Founded in 1971, GLAA is an all-volunteer, non-partisan, non-profit political organization that defends the civil rights of LGBT people in the nation’s capital.

GLAA lobbies the D.C. Council; monitors government agencies; educates and rates local candidates; and works in coalitions to defend the safety, health and equal rights of LGBT families. GLAA remains the nation’s oldest continuously active gay and lesbian civil rights organization.

Strang previously served on the boards of GLOV (Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence) and the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. Currently she co-facilitates the DC Center’s Job Club and sits on both the boards of the Office of Police Complaints and Metropolitan Community Church. She was awarded the Engendered Spirit Award in 2015 by Capital Trans Pride for her advocacy on transgender issues in D.C.

She holds a master’s degree from Salisbury University and has worked at the D.C. Department of Employment Services since 2012 as the first openly transgender employee of the agency. In her spare time, she composes and performs music with a local punk rock band as a guitarist and vocalist.

Congratulations also to Sarah Lawson, the new staff social worker and therapist at the DC Center. There she works with individuals and groups to provide behavioral health support under the OVSJG grant. This position also oversees the D.C. Anti-Violence Project and engages in community outreach.

Lawson has a wealth of experience, including working as a Health Clinical Intern at Whitman-Walker Health and at Synergy Family Services of Langley Park, Md., as a social work intern. Prior to that she was the manager of grants and social media/contract communications consultant at Safe Shores, The DC Children’s Advocacy Center and as a Development Associate at the New Israel Fund.

She earned her bachelor’s in Journalism from Indiana University in Bloomington, and her master’s of Social Work, Clinical Behavioral Health, at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. She has her license as a LGSW.

Sarah Lawson (Photo courtesy of Lawson)

Congratulations also to Renée Rosenfeld who was recently awarded the 2018 Marc A. Levey Award for Distinguished Service to the Producers Guild of America New Media Council during the PGA’s Produced By Conference at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles.

She has more than two decades of experience in entertainment and strategic communications. She guided the strategic creative development and implementation for the first national broadcast PSA campaign for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, receiving more than 500 million media impressions in less than one year. A native of the District, Rosenfeld returned home to lead the strategy to create and build the AMW Safety Center for America’s Most Wanted, the television show’s brand extension into consumer and family safety. She has developed innovative media, content and communications strategies for the Kellogg Foundation, Phillips Sonicare, Boeing, Justice for Vets, and the Bill Gates led, American Energy Innovation Council, among others.

Prior to creating strategic content, Rosenfeld was a member of the production team for “The West Wing,” “Felicity” and many other theatrical movies and episodic series and worked with JJ Abrams, Aaron Sorkin and Steven Bochco. Having worked with some of the television and movie industry’s most celebrated filmmakers, she brings instinctive perspective and sensibilities to building story and character to create maximum impact.

She has served as Human Services Commissioner for the City of West Hollywood; on the Victory Fund board of directors and co-chair of the Victory Campaign Board; and as National Media adviser for Freedom to Work. She received her bachelor’s in history from Carnegie-Mellon University.

Renée Rosenfeld (Photo courtesy of Rosenfeld)

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PHOTOS: Helen Hayes Awards

Gay Men’s Chorus, local drag artists have featured performance at ceremony

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Members of the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington as well as local drag artists joined hosts Mike Millan and Felicia Curry with other performers for a WorldPride dance number at the Helen Hayes Awards on Monday. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The 41st Helen Hayes Awards were held at The Anthem on Monday, May 19. Felicia Curry and Mike Millan served as the hosts.

A performance featuring members of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington and local drag artists was held at the end of the first act of the program to celebrate WorldPride 2025.

The annual awards ceremony honors achievement in D.C.-area theater productions and is produced by Theatre Washington.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

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Laverne Cox, Reneé Rapp, Deacon Maccubbin named WorldPride grand marshals

Three LGBTQ icons to lead parade

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Deacon Maccubbin attends the 2024 Capital Pride Parade. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

WorldPride organizers announced Thursday that actress and trans activist Laverne Cox, powerhouse performer Reneé Rapp, and LGBTQ trailblazer Deacon Maccubbin will serve as grand marshals for this year’s WorldPride parade.

The Capital Pride Alliance, which is organizing WorldPride 2025 in Washington, D.C., revealed the honorees in a press release, noting that each has made a unique contribution to the fabric of the LGBTQ community.

Laverne Cox (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Cox made history in 2014 as the first openly transgender person nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in an acting category for her role in Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black.” She went on to win a Daytime Emmy in 2015 for her documentary “Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word,” which followed seven young trans people as they navigated coming out.

Rapp, a singer and actress who identifies as a lesbian, rose to prominence as Regina George in the Broadway musical “Mean Girls.” She reprised the role in the 2024 film adaptation and also stars in Max’s “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” portraying a character coming to terms with her sexuality. Rapp has released an EP, “Everything to Everyone,” and an album, “Snow Angel.” She announced her sophomore album, “Bite Me,” on May 21 and is slated to perform at the WorldPride Music Festival at the RFK Festival Grounds.

Deacon Maccubbin, widely regarded as a cornerstone of Washington’s LGBTQ+ history, helped organize D.C.’s first Gay Pride Party in 1975. The event took place outside Lambda Rising, one of the first LGBTQ bookstores in the nation, which Maccubbin founded. For his decades of advocacy and activism, he is often referred to as “the patriarch of D.C. Pride.”

“I am so honored to serve as one of the grand marshals for WorldPride this year. This has been one of the most difficult times in recent history for queer and trans people globally,” Cox said. “But in the face of all the rhetorical, legislative and physical attacks, we continue to have the courage to embrace who we truly are, to celebrate our beauty, resilience and bravery as a community. We refuse to allow fear to keep us from ourselves and each other. We remain out loud and proud.”

“Pride is everything. It is protection, it is visibility, it is intersectional. But most importantly, it is a celebration of existence and protest,” Rapp said.

The three will march down 14th Street for the WorldPride Parade in Washington on June 7.

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PHOTOS: D.C. Trans Pride

Schuyler Bailar gives keynote address

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D.C. Trans Pride 2025 was held at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library on May 17. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

2025 D.C. Trans Pride was held at Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library on Saturday, May 17. The day was filled with panel discussions, art, social events, speakers, a resource fair and the Engendered Spirit Awards. Awardees included Lyra McMillan, Pip Baitinger, Steph Niaupari and Hayden Gise. The keynote address was delivered by athlete and advocate Schuyler Bailar.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

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