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Comings & Goings
Freedman-Gurspan joins effort to overturn gerrymandering
The Comings and 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].
Congratulations to Rob Marus, new Senior Director of Communications and Speechwriting at the Association of American Universities. AAU comprises 62 research universities that transform lives through education, research, and innovation. Their member universities earn the majority of competitively awarded federal funding for research that improves public health, seeks to address national challenges, and contributes significantly to our economic strength, while educating and training tomorrow’s visionary leaders and innovators. Upon accepting the position Marus said, “I am excited about the opportunity to tell the story of America’s leading research universities which advance medicine and the sciences, innovate and stimulate our economy, and enrich our culture.”
He has served in the public sector for eight years. He was recently Senior Advisor for Communications for the District of Columbia’s Attorney General, Karl Racine. Prior to that he was Deputy Director/Senior Communications Officer in the Office of Communications, Executive Office of the Mayor, government of the District of Columbia. Before entering government Marus was managing editor and Washington bureau chief with the Associated Baptist Press. Before moving to D.C., he was a coordinator with the Mainstream Missouri Baptists, Jefferson City, Mo. and a news writer with Word & Way in Jefferson City, Mo. He has won numerous awards including a first-place award in news series competition for coverage of the Roy Moore/Ten Commandments controversy in 2004, Baptist Communicators Association, Wilmer C. Fields Awards Contest and a first-place award in interpretive reporting competition for a magazine article debunking Internet rumors commonly spread by evangelical Christians in 2002, Baptist Communicators Association, Wilmer C. Fields Awards Contest. Marcus is a member of the board of directors of the First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C; and a volunteer with Food and Friends.
Congratulations also to Raffi Freedman-Gurspan on her new job as Deputy Campaign Director for the All on the Line Campaign. AOTL is a project of the National Redistricting Action Fund, an affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, chaired by former Attorney General Eric Holder. Its mission is to end gerrymandering and restore fairness to our elections and democracy. She is leaving her position as director of external relations at the National Center for Transgender Equality. Mara Keisling, executive director of NCTE said, “Raffi remains an invaluable asset to the fight for transgender equality and we have always felt so privileged to have her work alongside us. While we certainly wish her well in the next exciting stage of her career, we will always miss her strength, courage, and energy.”
Freedman-Gurspan said, “After two years working at the NCTE and the National Center for Transgender Equality Action Fund with an amazing team of individuals I will be moving on to another opportunity to serve the community. To my LGBTQ community, know that this decision was not easy. Although the organization I am joining is not specific to trans/LGBTQ advocacy, the impact is tied. Ending rigged elections and gerrymandering matters to the work of securing equal rights and opportunities, especially for the most vulnerable.”
Prior to NCTE, she served the Obama administration as a senior associate director for public engagement, and primary liaison to the LGBT community, and outreach and recruitment director for presidential personnel at the White House. She was the first openly transgender staffer to work at the White House. She currently sits on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council as an appointee named by President Obama.
Maryland
Parents sue Anne Arundel schools, allege officials hid child’s gender transition
America First legal Foundation filed lawsuit on July 8
By CODY BOTELER | Two parents, backed by a conservative nonprofit group, are suing Anne Arundel County Public Schools over the school system’s policies related to transgender children.
The suit, filed Wednesday in Maryland’s U.S. District Court, accuses staff at an unidentified county high school of lying to the parents, identified as John Doe and Jane Doe, about their child, identified as Mary Doe.
The Does allege the school “socially transitioned” their child without notice or their consent by using a masculine name and masculine pronouns for Mary Doe.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
District of Columbia
Campaign launched to elect more LGBTQ candidates to ANC seats
Capital Stonewall Democrats behind Queering ANCs effort
The Capital Stonewall Democrats, D.C.’s largest local LGBTQ political group, announced on July 7 it has launched a campaign to help elect large numbers of LGBTQ candidates to the city’s Advisory Neighborhood Commissions.
The D.C. local government is believed to be unique among U.S. cities in currently having 46 Advisory Neighborhood Commissions consisting of 345 single-member districts in neighborhoods throughout the city in which unpaid Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners are elected for two-year terms.
The commissions are charged with considering a wide range of policies and programs impacting their neighborhoods, including traffic, parking, recreation, street improvements, liquor licenses, zoning, economic development, police protection, sanitation and trash collection, and D.C.’s annual budget, according to the ANC website.
Although the ANCs do not have authority to set or reject policies or proposals, such as applications for liquor licenses, city agencies are required to give “great weight” to ANC recommendations, according to the law creating the ANCs.
Kent Boese, a gay former ANC commissioner, currently serves as executive director of the D.C. Office of ANCs.
“We are launching the most ambitious hyperlocal LGBTQ+ candidate pipeline initiative in the country,” said Stevie McCarty, the Capital Stonewall Democrats president, in a July 7 statement that announced the Queering ANCs campaign.
“As an ANC member, I know firsthand how these seats shape our neighborhoods, from housing and public safety to sanitation,” McCarty says in the statement. “I’m proud to lead this effort to ensure more LGBTQ+ Washingtonians see themselves as leaders in their communities,” he said.
The ANC Rainbow Caucus, which was created by LGBTQ ANC members, shows on its website that there are currently 38 caucus members consisting of elected LGBTQ ANC commissioners serving in the current 2025-2026 two-year term.
The website shows there are LGBTQ commissioners who are caucus members in each of the city’s eight wards, with six in Ward 1, eight in Ward 2, one in Ward 3, six in Ward 4, five in Ward 5, three in Ward 6, eight in Ward 7, and one in Ward 8.
The Washington Blade couldn’t immediately determine how many of them will be running for re-election in D.C.’s general election in November. But McCarty said Capital Stonewall Democrats hopes to recruit many more LGBTQ candidates to run for ANC seats.
The D.C. Board of Elections website shows the deadline for filing 25 required petition signatures to be placed on the ballot is Aug. 5.
A Queering ANCs website launched this week by Capital Stonewall Democrats provides details on how to run for an ANC seat and offers help for those interested in running.
“Think of someone in your building, neighborhood, friend group, community organization, or professional network who cares deeply about D.C. and would make a strong leader,” McCarty says in his statement. “Send them QueeringANCs.org and personally ask them to consider running,” he said.
The website can be accessed at QueeringANCs.org.
Baltimore
Ron Singer, owner of popular Mount Vernon gay bar Leon’s, dies
66-year-old’s funeral to take place Friday
By CAYLA HARRIS | Ron Singer, the owner of Baltimore’s popular gay bar Leon’s Backroom, died Tuesday, the venue announced in a social media post. He was 66.
“For more than 20 years, Ron made Leon’s a place so many people were proud to call home,” the post reads. “He will be deeply missed.”
The Mount Vernon bar, typically open from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. daily, is still open Thursday, but doors will close at midnight so staff can attend his funeral Friday morning. Services are scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. at Sol Levinson’s Chapel.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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