Local
SMYAL forms new area youth Pride committee
D.C.’s Youth Pride Alliance postpones 2018 event
Youth Pride (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
WASHINGTON — SMYAL has formed a new Regional Youth Pride Committee comprised of D.C., Maryland and Virginia LGBT youth 13-21 to “come together and plan a youth-driven, youth-focused Pride celebration.”
The group will meet monthly to plan smaller events culminating with a youth Pride-type event. Applications are currently being accepted. SMYAL is reaching out to area youth through D.C. public schools, area charter and private schools and other avenues through which SMYAL gets in touch with teens for its various activities such as Activist Camp, its Youth Leadership Award Scholarships and more. SMYAL is working with Capital Pride on the committee.
“As youth come out younger and younger and use technology to connect with peers across the region, there are more opportunities for LGBTQ youth to develop programming that crosses traditional boundaries,” SMYAL Executive Director Sultan Shakir said in an e-mail. “Regional Youth Pride is equipping young people with the resources to develop and roll out new youth-led programming.”
He also said the committee is “an outgrowth” of the kind of work SMYAL already does both on its own and with other agencies in the region such as Arena Stage, The Trevor Project and more.
So why is this agency forming when D.C. already has a Youth Pride? Shakir didn’t say exactly but The Youth Pride Alliance — the agency behind D.C. Youth Pride — has been difficult to reach in recent years and hasn’t updated its website (youthpridealliance.org) in more than a year. Its homepage has no 2018 information available and is still plugging its last event, held in Dupont Circle on Oct. 7, 2017.
For years, the volunteer-run Alliance (founded in 1996) held Youth Pride annually every May. It was bumped to October in 2017. Sarah Blazucki, board secretary, said a fall 2018 event was tentatively planned but the board is now hoping to move it back to spring 2019 instead.
“We’re looking at April or May,” Blazucki said in an e-mail. “We are trying to reserve the date in the next month.”
Youth Pride Alliance board President Nikisha Carpenter sent a brief statement by e-mail.
“Youth Pride Alliance and SMYAL have partnered in the past and hope to continue,” she said.
Shakir said he hopes to have the Committee in place by mid-November with 10 youth and three adult, non-SMYAL staff members. They hope to have three-four events planned by January, one each in D.C., Maryland and Virginia. They plan a Pride-type event with the Capital Pride Alliance in late spring/early summer 2019.
Photos
PHOTOS: Helen Hayes Awards
Gay Men’s Chorus, local drag artists have featured performance at ceremony
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)
District of Columbia
Laverne Cox, Reneé Rapp, Deacon Maccubbin named WorldPride grand marshals
Three LGBTQ icons to lead parade
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.
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.
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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