Local
Comings & Goings
David Brown named legal director for TLDEF
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].
Congratulations to David Brown on his appointment as Legal Director for the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund. TLDEF is committed to ending discrimination based on gender identity and expression and to achieving equality for transgender people through public education, test-case litigation, direct legal services, public policy, and community organizing efforts. In his role, Brown will design and spearhead TLDEF’s legal strategies with a focus on the most vulnerable in our communities. He will build, lead, and mentor an in-house legal team and represent TLDEF in a variety of activist, legal, and public spaces in service of the organization’s goals and priorities. He originally joined TLDEF as a member of its first class of law clerks in 2007 and served on TLDEF’s Board of Directors from 2009 to 2017.
Executive Director Andy Marra said, “We are excited to welcome David as our Legal Director at this critical time in the movement for transgender equality. David has spent his career working on behalf of those most vulnerable to discrimination and often in hostile places. David brings a wealth of insight and skills to TLDEF at a time when transgender and non-binary people face an increasing barrage of attacks on multiple fronts.”
Brown said, “I am honored to take on this new role with TLDEF, an organization I love and with which I have a long history. I believe legal advocacy achieves the best results when it is part of a social movement, and lawsuits have the greatest impact when they are intersectional. In my new role, I will work to bring high-impact cases that, while focusing on discrimination because of gender identity, also acknowledge that transgender and non-binary people face multiple sources of oppression because of their race, class, citizenship status, and disability. Bringing an intersectional perspective to movement lawyering allows us to represent and amplify the voices of the greatest possible range of stakeholders in the transgender community.”
Prior to joining TLDEF, Brown was Director and Senior Counsel for the Lawyering Project an organization dedicated to advancing reproductive health care access and challenging state-imposed restrictions on abortion and other forms of reproductive healthcare, which he helped found in 2017. He has worked for the Center for Reproductive Rights as a senior staff attorney; Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton; and American Jewish World Service as a Program Officer for Mexico & Central America. His publications include “Making Room for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in International Human Rights Law: An Introduction to the Yogyakarta Principles,” Michigan Journal of International Law. Brown earned his bachelor’s in International Relations and Latin American Studies from Pomona College, Claremont, Calif., and his J.D. cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School.
Congratulations also to Brian Harris who had been appointed office manager of Central Properties, LLC in Washington, D.C. In that role, he will oversee and support 40 real estate agents in tandem with the president of the firm. Harris said, “I am excited about this position and feel it will use my talents.”
Prior to working with Central Properties, he spent many years as director of Active Physical Therapy, LLC, in Clinton, Md. He has been an active volunteer in the community with the Human Rights Campaign and Toys for Tots.
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].
The Comings & Goings column also invites LGBTQ college students to share their successes with us. If you have been elected to a student government position, gotten an exciting internship, or are graduating and beginning your career with a great job, let us know so we can share your success.
Congratulations to Yadiel Meléndez, on their new role as Community Associate, with the Wanda Alston Foundation. Meléndez is piloting a new role as a Community Associate at the Wanda Alston Foundation, where they support queer and trans young people in finding their footing, building independence, and experiencing a housing community where they are seen, valued, and affirmed. They are coming into this role with more than a decade of experience as a community organizer and operations specialist, supporting diverse communities through service, advocacy, and program coordination.
Previously they worked for Right Proper Brewing Shaw as a server and bartender and at Sephora, Washington, DC, and at FreshFarm, DC, in bilingual food access. They also worked freelance to build foundational structures for local queer BIPOC performance art coalitions, producing variety shows to curate space for marginalized performance artists in the community. They were a production manager for Haus of Hart Productions, a BIPOC centric performance art production. They also worked as field staff with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in Stafford, Va.
Meléndez is bilingual, Spanish and English. Their work is guided by a commitment to dignity, safety, and trauma-informed engagement, particularly within LGBTQ and BIPOC communities.
Congratulations also to Ben Rosen LICSW, on his new role as program director, with the Wanda Alston Foundation. Rosen previously worked with Fountain House’s OnRamps program, helping to build a new, innovative outreach program for individuals considered chronically homeless, and living with serious mental illness, in the Times Square area of New York. Rosen is a Psychotherapist, having worked with SG Psychotherapy, and as the psychotherapist with the Nest Community Health Center (URAM).
Rosen has a B.F.A. in Theatre Arts: Musical Theatre, Minor in Psychology (Cum Laude) from Malloy University Conservatory; and his M.S.W. in Clinical Practice with Individuals, Families, and Groups, from The Silberman School of Social Work, Hunter College, N.Y. He is independently licensed in New York and Washington, D.C.
Rehoboth Beach
BLUF leather social set for April 10 in Rehoboth
Attendees encouraged to wear appropriate gear
Diego’s in Rehoboth Beach hosts a monthly leather happy hour. April’s edition is scheduled for Friday, April 10, 5-7 p.m. Attendees are encouraged to wear appropriate gear. The event is billed as an official event of BLUF, the free community group for men interested in leather. After happy hour, the attendees are encouraged to reconvene at Local Bootlegging Company for dinner, which allows cigar smoking. There’s no cover charge for either event.
District of Columbia
Celebrations of life planned for Sean Bartel
Two memorial events scheduled in D.C.
Two celebrations of life are planned for Sean Christopher Bartel, 48, who was found deceased on a hiking trail in Argentina on or around March 15. Bartel began his career as a television news reporter and news anchor at stations in Louisville, Ky., and Evansville, Ind., before serving as Senior Video Producer for the D.C.-based International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union from 2013 to 2024.
A memorial gathering is planned for Friday, April 10, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. at the IBEW International Office (900 7th St., N.W.), according to a statement by the DC Gay Flag Football League, where Bartel was a longtime member. A celebration of life is planned that same evening, 6-8 p.m. at Trade (1410 14th St., N.W.).
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