Local
Sexual health group partners with PG County police on transgender issues
Largo-based Heart to Hand works with department’s LGBTQ Outreach Team
An organization that promotes sexual health is working with the Prince George’s County Police Department to help it rebuild trust with the county’s transgender community.
Representatives from Heart to Hand and the newly formed Prince Georgeās County Police Department LGBTQ Outreach Team spoke about the killings of two trans women earlier this year in Fairmount Heights during a Transgender Day of Remembrance event in Seat Pleasant.
Ashanti Carmon, 27, and Zoe Spears, 23, were killed near the firehouse where the Transgender Day of Remembrance event took place. Bailey Reeves, 17, was a trans teenager killed in September in Baltimore.
The presence of Heart to Hand, the police LGBTQ Outreach Team and Prince Georgeās County Council member Jolene Ivey (D-District 5), among others, underscored the continuing impact that Carmon and Spears’ murders have had in the area.
āThere was mention of the murders,ā recalled Capt. James Mitchell, one of seven outreach team officers who all also identify as LGBTQ. āAnd one of the most important issues to the trans community is their safety and for young women not to end up dead.ā
Mitchell explained the LGBTQ Outreach Team had been in development for a while, but the two murders pushed the urgency of its formation.
āIt was eye opening for me,ā said Capt. Cindy A. Thompson, another out member of the LGBTQ Outreach Team. āOne of the first events that I attended was a Fairmount Heights town hall meeting over the summer and that was mainly for the trans community to come out and talk about their safety and their fears.ā
āTheir fears are real,ā added Mitchell, stating the LGBTQ Outreach Team has attended other trans community events that include a Prince Georgeās County Human Relations Committee panel discussion in October and a November event at Casa Ruby in D.C. āThey want to be heard and they want to be taken seriously when they report things.ā
Mitchell and his colleagues said they realize trust and safety are still two serious concerns for the county’s LGBTQ residents, so they work with Heart to Hand and other local organizations as much as possible.
Kaniya Walker, a Heart to Hand employee, is a trans woman who helped set up the Transgender Day of Remembrance event that honored Spears, Carmon and others like them. Walker also facilitates the organizationās trans support group and is working with D.C.ās HIPS to provide additional services to vulnerable trans sex workers in the area.
āOne of our main focuses is working with the trans community more,ā said Walker.
Walker told the Washington Blade that two “black cisgender women, best friends, started” Heart to Hand because of rising HIV/AIDS rates, particularly among black women.
HIV.gov statistics indicate 1 in 7 Americans currently living with HIV are unaware of their status.
Heart to Hand, which is based in Largo, provides free HIV testing, education and contraceptives at college campuses and various locations on both sides of the D.C.-Maryland border. Walker said she wants to do more outreach to the cisgender, heterosexual population to help reduce the spread of HIV.
āBlack cisgender women are important to us because they donāt have the education and knowledge about getting tested,ā she said. āThey think being married or in a long-term relationship will protect them from this disease, but we have heterosexual men who are willing and open about getting tested.ā
Walker said she found that strange because growing up in an African-American household her mother was more willing to go see the doctor while her ādaddy would have to be down and out to go.ā She added this reluctance to get tested among cisgender black women is due to a mistaken perception of HIV/AIDS as a āgay manās disease,ā and as a consequence more black cis women will become unknowingly infected and spread the disease.
College Park Mayor Patrick Wojahn says stigma also keeps trans people vulnerable as well in terms of health, housing and other issues.
āPolice stings on transgender sex workers in Prince Georgeās County have shown a lack of understanding and sensitivity toward transgender people and an inadequate response to violence against transgender people,ā said Wojahn.
Mitchell agreed, stating one of the missions of the LGBTQ Outreach Team is to be an internal liaison and source of information and training for police officers as well.
āWeāve asked groups that provide services to LGBTQ people to provide us with that information so we can push that out to our officers,ā he said. āSo, as they encounter people at 3 a.m. who may be in crisis, instead of saying they canāt help, they can say, āhere is Casa Rubyās information,ā or āhere is Whitman Walkerās informationā or, ‘here is a local clinic in the county.’ā
Maryland
Rockville teen charged with plotting school shooting after FBI finds āmanifestoā
Alex Ye charged with threats of mass violence
BY BRETT BARROUQUERE | A Montgomery County high school student is charged with what police describe as plans to commit a school shooting.
Andrea Ye, 18, of Rockville, whose preferred name is Alex Ye, is charged with threats of mass violence. Montgomery County Police and the FBI arrested Ye Wednesday.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
District of Columbia
New D.C. LGBTQ+ bar Crush set to open April 19
An āall-inclusive entertainment haven,ā with dance floor, roof deck
D.C.ās newest LGBTQ+ bar called Crush is scheduled to open for business at 4 p.m. on Friday, April 19, in a spacious, two-story building with a dance floor and roof deck at 2007 14th St., N.W. in one of the cityās bustling nightlife areas.
A statement released by co-owners Stephen Rutgers and Mark Rutstein earlier this year says the new bar will provide an atmosphere that blends ānostalgia with contemporary nightlifeā in a building that was home to a popular music store and radio supply shop.
Rutgers said the opening comes one day after Crush received final approval of its liquor license that was transferred from the Owl Room, a bar that operated in the same building before closing Dec. 31 of last year. The official opening also comes three days after Crush hosted a pre-opening reception for family, friends, and community members on Tuesday, April 16.
Among those attending, Rutgers said, were officials with several prominent local LGBTQ organizations, including officials with the DC Center for the LGBTQ Community, which is located across the street from Crush in the cityās Reeves Center municipal building. Also attending were Japer Bowles, director of the Mayorās Office of LGBTQ Affairs, and Salah Czapary, director of the Mayorās Office of Nightlife and Culture.
Rutgers said Crush plans to hold a grand opening event in a few weeks after he, Rutstein and the barās employees become settled into their newly opened operations.
āStep into a venue where inclusivity isnāt just a promise but a vibrant reality,ā a statement posted on the Crush website says. āImagine an all-inclusive entertainment haven where diversity isnāt just celebrated, itās embraced as the very heartbeat of our venue,ā the statement says. āWelcome to a place where love knows no bounds, and the only color or preference that matters is the vibrant tapestry of humanity itself. Welcome to Crush.ā
The website says Crush will be open Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 4 p.m. to 12 a.m., Thursdays from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., Fridays from 4 p.m. to 3 a.m., Saturdays from 2 p.m. to 3 a.m., and Sundays from 2 p.m. to 12 a.m. It will be closed on Mondays.
Crush is located less than two blocks from the U Street Metro station.
District of Columbia
Reenactment of first gay rights picket at White House draws interest of tourists
LGBTQ activists carry signs from historic 1965 protest
About 30 LGBTQ activists formed a circular picket line in front of the White House Wednesday afternoon, April 17, carrying signs calling for an end to discrimination against āhomosexualsā in a reenactment of the first gay rights protest at the White House that took place 59 years earlier on April 17, 1965.
Crowds of tourists looked on with interest as the activists walked back and forth in silence in front of the White House fence on Pennsylvania Avenue. Like the 1965 event, several of the men were dressed in suits and ties and the women in dresses in keeping with a 1960s era dress code policy for protests of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., the cityās first gay rights group that organized the 1965 event.
Wednesdayās reenactment was organized by D.C.ās Rainbow History Project, which made it clear that the event was not intended as a protest against President Joe Biden and his administration, which the group praised as a strong supporter of LGBTQ rights.
āI think this was an amazing event,ā said Vincent Slatt, the Rainbow History Project official who led efforts to put on the event. āWe had twice as many that we had hoped for that came today,ā he said.
“It was so great to see a reenactment and so great to see how far we’ve come,” Slatt said. “And also, the acknowledgement of what else we still need to do.”
Slatt said participants in the event who were not carrying picket signs handed out literature explaining the purpose of the event.
A flier handed out by participants noted that among the demands of the protesters at the 1965 event were to end the ban on homosexuals from working in the federal government, an end to the ban on gays serving in the military, an end to the denial of security clearances for gays, and an end of the government’s refusal to meet with the LGBTQ community.
āThe other thing that I think is really, really moving is some of the gay staff inside the White House found out this was happening and came out to greet us,ā Slatt said. He noted that this highlighted how much has changed since 1965, when then President Lyndon Johnsonās White House refused to respond to a letter sent to Johnson from the Mattachine Society explaining its grievances.
āSo now to have gay people in the White House coming out to give us their respects and to say hello was especially meaningful to us,ā Slatt said. āThat was not expected today.ā
Among those walking the picket line was longtime D.C. LGBTQ rights advocate Paul Kuntzler, who is the only known surviving person who was among the White House picketers at the April 1965 event. Kuntzler said he proudly carried a newly printed version of the sign at Wednesdayās reenactment event that he carried during the 1965 protest. It stated, āFifteen Million Homosexuals Protest Federal Treatment.ā
Also participating in the event was Japer Bowles, director of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowserās Office of LGBTQ Affairs. Bowles presented Slatt with a proclamation issued by Bowser declaring April 17, 2024, Mattachine Society Day in Washington, D.C.
āWhereas, on April 17, 1965, the Mattachine Society of Washington courageously held the nationās inaugural picket for gay rights, a seminal moment in the ongoing struggle for LGBTQIA+ equality in the United States, marking the genesis of public demonstrations advocating for those rights and paving the way for Pride Marches and Pride celebrations worldwide,ā the proclamation states.
About 30 minutes after the reenactment event began, uniformed Secret Service agents informed Slatt that due to a security issue the picketers would have to move off the sidewalk in front of the White House and resume the picketing across the street on the sidewalk in front of Lafayette Park. When asked by the Washington Blade what the security issue was about, one of the Secret Service officers said he did not have any further details other than that his superiors informed him that the White House sidewalk would have to be temporarily cleared of all people.
Participants in the event quickly resumed their picket line on the sidewalk in front of Lafayette Park for another 30 minutes or so in keeping with the 1965 picketing event, which lasted for one hour, from 4:20 p.m. to 5:20 p.m., according to Rainbow History Projectās research into the 1965 event.
Although the LGBTQ picketers continued their procession in silence, a separate protest in Lafayette Park a short distance from the LGBTQ picketers included speakers shouting through amplified speakers. The protest was against the government of Saudi Arabia and organized by a Muslim group called Al Baqee Organization.
A statement released by the Rainbow History Project says the reenactment event, among other things, was a tribute to D.C.-area lesbian rights advocate Lilli Vincenz, who participated in the 1965 White House picketing, and D.C. gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny, who founded the Mattachine Society of Washington in the early 1960s and was the lead organizer of the 1965 White House protest. Kameny died in 2011 and Vincenz died in 2023.
The picket signs carried by participants in the reenactment event, which were reproduced from the 1965 event, had these messages:
ā¢ āDISCRIMINATION Against Homosexuals is as immoral as Discrimination Against Negroes and Jews;ā
ā¢ āGovernment Should Combat Prejudice NOT PROMOTE ITā
ā¢ āWhite House Refuses Replies to Our Letters, AFRAID OF US?
ā¢ āHOMOSEXUALS Died for their Country, Tooā
ā¢ āFirst Class Citizenship for HOMOSEXUALSā
ā¢Ā āSexual Preference is Irrelevant to Employmentā
ā¢Ā āFifteen Million U.S. Homosexuals Protest Federal Treatmentā
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