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Comings & Goings
Schulman joins Dupont Circle Physicians Group
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].
Join me in welcoming Dr. Marc Schulman to the Dupont Circle Physicians Group otherwise known as Dupontdocs. The Dupont Circle Physicians Group has served the community for more than 25 years with professional care.
Upon joining the group Marc said, “As a young gay man — not yet out to friends and family — I struggled with the idea of coming out to my physician. Though I recognized the importance of being open and honest with my provider, it was easier said than done. After visiting multiple physicians, I finally found a doctor I could trust. He asked questions without passing judgment and offered the appropriate tests and treatment. In caring for patients throughout my post-graduate training, I aspired to provide the same compassionate care. I look forward to building lasting relationships with patients at Dupont Circle Physicians Group. My interests include primary care, mental health, and HIV treatment and prevention.”
Schulman is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and licensed in the District of Columbia.
He is from the area and grew up in Columbia, Md. Prior to joining Dupontdocs Schulman was with Northwestern Medical Group as a moonlighting hospitalist and attending physician at Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital. Before that he was with the University of Illinois at Chicago Global Medicine and doing an elective exposure to Tropical Medicine and Clinical Practice in the Dominican Republic. He also served as a research assistant in Enteric Diseases at the Naval Medical Research Institute.
Schulman earned his bachelor’s in Human Biology with high distinction from the University of Virginia; his doctorate in medicine from the Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, Va. He did his residency in Internal Medicine at University of Illinois Hospital and Jesse Brown VA Medical Center and a fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Rush University Medical Center and Cook County Health, Chicago. He is a member of the American College of Physicians Infectious Diseases Society of America.
Congratulations also to Tatiana Kolina on the first anniversary of sPACYcLOUd: a one-of-a-kind plant-based restaurant, skateshop, kava bar, art gallery, coffee shop and entertainment venue in the heart of Adams Morgan. Tatiana’s slogan for her business is “Cut Loose. Hang Tight. Recycle.” As she says, “In other words, be bold, follow your heart, believe in magic, use your intuition, and take care of planet Earth.”
She was born in the Soviet Union and raised by her grandmother. As a teenager, she joined a number of tusovkas (street groups) to survive. The group that affected her life the most was “farsovshiki.” It was a new wave group of kids who ran around big cities like Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Tallinn, etc., using trade as a way to interact and learn about the wild, wild (and very taboo) West. Tatiana was adopted by an American family and moved to California in 1991.
After earning her degree in MIS (Masters in Information Systems) from the University of Notre Dame, she moved to D.C. where she started the non-profit Skate Girls Tribe (SGT). The organization invites girls of all ages and abilities to come together and skate with other girls in a group empowering young women through action sports. SGT holds monthly events to celebrate life, art, culture, education, and fun via skateboarding and longboarding. They also organize surfing and snowboarding camps.
“Skate Girls Tribe promotes confidence and assertiveness, individuality and creativity, strength and dignity, all gathered together with a love for action sports,” Kolina said. “With a vigorous setting of play and sociality, SGT nurtures and sustains these values and goals.” She added, “With such virtues in place that healthy and responsible choices will be made later in the girls’ lives.”
Local
Local LGBTQ groups, activists to commemorate Black History Month
Rayceen Pendarvis to moderate Dupont Underground panel on Sunday
LGBTQ groups in D.C. and elsewhere plan to use Black History Month as an opportunity to commemorate and celebrate Black lives and experiences.
Team Rayceen Productions has no specific events planned, but co-founder Rayceen Pendarvis will attend many functions around D.C. this month.
Pendarvis, a longtime voice in the LGBTQ community in D.C. will be moderating a panel at Dupont Underground on Sunday. The event, “Every (Body) Wants to Be a Showgirl,” will feature art from Black burlesque artists from around the country. Pendarvis on Feb. 23 will attend the showing of multimedia play at the Lincoln Theatre that commemorates the life of James Baldwin.
Equality Virginia plans to prioritize Black voices through a weekly online series, and community-based story telling. The online digital series will center Black LGBTQ voices, specifically trailblazers and activists, and contemporary Black queer and transgender people.
Narissa Rahaman, Equality Virginia’s executive director, stressed the importance of the Black queer community to the overall Pride movement, and said “Equality Virginia is proud to center those voices in our work this month and beyond.”
The Capital Pride Alliance, which hosts Pride events in D.C., has an alliance with the Center for Black Equity, which brings Black Pride to D.C. over Memorial Day weekend. The National LGBTQ Task Force has no specific Black History Month events planned, but plans to participate in online collaborations.
Cathy Renna, the Task Force’s director of communications, told the Washington Blade the organization remains committed to uplifting Black voices. “Our priority is keeping this at the forefront everyday,” she said.
The D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center is also hosting a series of Black History Month events.
The D.C. Public Library earlier this year launched “Freedom and Resistance,” an exhibition that celebrates Black History Month and Martin Luther King Jr. It will remain on display until the middle of March at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library at 901 G St., N.W.
District of Columbia
U.S. Attorney’s Office drops hate crime charge in anti-gay assault
Case remains under investigation and ‘further charges’ could come
D.C. police announced on Feb. 9 that they had arrested two days earlier on Feb. 7 a Germantown, Md., man on a charge of simple assault with a hate crime designation after the man allegedly assaulted a gay man at 14th and Q Streets, N.W., while using “homophobic slurs.”
But D.C. Superior Court records show that prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., which prosecutes D.C. violent crime cases, charged the arrested man only with simple assault without a hate crime designation.
In response to a request by the Washington Blade for the reason why the hate crime designation was dropped, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office provided this response: “We continue to investigate this matter and make no mistake: should the evidence call for further charges, we will not hesitate to charge them.”
In a statement announcing the arrest in this case, D.C. police stated, “On Saturday, February 7, 2026, at approximately 7:45 p.m. the victim and suspect were in the 1500 block of 14th Street, Northwest. The suspect requested a ‘high five’ from the victim. The victim declined and continued walking,” the statement says.
“The suspect assaulted the victim and used homophobic slurs,” the police statement continues. “The suspect was apprehended by responding officers.”
It adds that 26-year-old Dean Edmundson of Germantown, Md. “was arrested and charged with Simple Assault (Hate/Bias).” The statement also adds, “A designation as a hate crime by MPD does not mean that prosecutors will prosecute it as a hate crime.”
Under D.C.’s Bias Related Crime Act of 1989, penalties for crimes motivated by prejudice against individuals based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and homelessness can be enhanced by a court upon conviction by one and a half times greater than the penalty of the underlying crime.
Prosecutors in the past both in D.C. and other states have said they sometimes decide not to include a hate crime designation in assault cases if they don’t think the evidence is sufficient to obtain a conviction by a jury. In some instances, prosecutors have said they were concerned that a skeptical jury might decide to find a defendant not guilty of the underlying assault charge if they did not believe a motive of hate was involved.
A more detailed arrest affidavit filed by D.C. police in Superior Court appears to support the charge of a hate crime designation.
“The victim stated that they refused to High-Five Defendant Edmondson, which, upon that happening, Defendant Edmondson started walking behind both the victim and witness, calling the victim, “bald, ugly, and gay,” the arrest affidavit states.
“The victim stated that upon being called that, Defendant Edmundson pushed the victim with both hands, shoving them, causing the victim to feel the force of the push,” the affidavit continues. “The victim stated that they felt offended and that they were also gay,” it says.
District of Columbia
Capital Pride wins anti-stalking order against local activist
Darren Pasha claims action is linked to his criticism of Pride organizers
A D.C. Superior Court judge on Feb. 6 partially approved an anti-stalking order against a local LGBTQ activist requested last October by the Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based LGBTQ group that organizes the city’s annual Pride events.
The ruling by Judge Robert D. Okun requires former Capital Pride volunteer Darren Pasha to stay at least 100 feet away from Capital Pride’s staff, board members, and volunteers until the time of a follow up court hearing he scheduled for April 17.
In his ruling at the Feb. 6 hearing, which was virtual rather than held in-person at the courthouse, Okun said he had changed the distance that Capital Pride had requested for the stay-away, anti-stalking order from 200 yards to 100 feet. The court records show that the judge also denied a motion filed earlier by Pasha, who did not attend the hearing, to “quash” the Capital Pride civil case against him.
Pasha told the Washington Blade he suffered an injury and damaged his mobile phone by falling off his scooter on the city’s snow-covered streets that prevented him from calling in to join the Feb. 6 court hearing.
In his own court filings without retaining an attorney, Pasha has strongly denied the stalking related allegations against him by Capital Pride, saying “no credible or admissible evidence has been provided” to show he engaged in any wrongdoing.
The Capital Pride complaint initially filed in court on Oct. 27, 2025, includes an 18-page legal brief outlining its allegations against Pasha and an additional 167-page addendum of “supporting exhibits” that includes multiple statements by witnesses whose names are blacked out.
“Over the past year, Defendant Darren Pasha (“DSP”) has engaged in a sustained, and escalating course of conduct directed at CPA, including repeated and unwanted contact, harassment, intimidation, threats, manipulation, and coercive behavior targeting CPA staff, board members, volunteers, and affiliates,” the Capital Pride complaint states.
In his initial 16-page response to the complaint, Pasha says the Capital Pride complaint appears to be a form of retaliation against him for a dispute he has had with the organization and its then president, Ashley Smith, last year.
“It is evident that the document is replete with false, misleading, and unsubstantiated assertions,” he said of the complaint.
Smith, who has since resigned from his role as board president, did not respond to a request by the Blade for comment at the time the Capital Pride court complaint was filed against Pasha.
Capital Pride Executive Director Ryan Bos and the attorney representing the group in its legal action against Pasha, Nick Harrison, did not immediately respond to a Blade request for comment on the judge’s Feb. 6 ruling.
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