Dumbarton has, and will always be, a church for the people who need it. As a trans kid, I will always be glad that it was there for me.

Religion has always been a familiar subject, a comfortable mainstay of my childhood. While my mother and father have different faith backgrounds, they agreed to expose me to faith, allow me to experience weekly church attendance and activities, but decided not to baptize me until I could make the decision for myself.

My mom was raised as a Methodist, so I went with her to various Methodist churches in the area. But every few years, it seemed, we’d tire of the current church, and move on to someplace new. It was the church politics, maybe, or the changing of pastors, or even simply a feeling as though something was missing. That even though we went to church, would sing the hymns and read the scripture, it felt more like going through the motions. So, after trying a few different churches, when I was about seven years old, we were invited to Dumbarton UMC to attend the baptism for the daughter of a family friend. My mother felt that something about Dumbarton was special, and it warranted another visit. So we went back. It was one of the better choices we’d ever make.

Sometimes, with certain things, you just know. There’s a sense of belonging, a little click, somewhere in the back of your mind, and everything feels as though it’s fallen into place. For the past nine years, we’ve been attending Dumbarton, and we’ve never looked back. From the very beginning, it was clear that this was the church for us. Because the one thing that has always been found wanting from our various churches has been a community.

Community will always be important. No matter who you are, you will always seek connection and support from the people around you. And religion is a place to nurture that connection, to feel as though you are cared for and loved by something greater than yourself, and that the act of loving is inherently holy. Churches, by virtue of creation, preserve the space for divinity to exist in the context of kindness. But many churches fall short of this ideal, much as they may not see it (or may wish not to). Through one way or another, one group or another finds themselves left out of a community, barred from the simple act of loving and being loved. Any person, any collective, will always find themselves imperfect, but Dumbarton will always do its best to grow, and to learn, and to accept all people, with all the fierceness and warmth that they have.

This is a congregation that takes on the responsibilities of being Methodists in the fullest and most whole sense of the word. There is an active desire, an active choice, to care for every single person who steps through the heavy lavender-colored doors, to the fullest of their ability. It is not conditional, it does not waver, and it certainly is not shy. Dumbarton chooses, every day, to be a community, and to keep that community there, for all who need it. It’s a small church, but the members do all that they can to learn, to understand, to be better and do better, and most certainly, to love.

As a child who has grown up in this church, Dumbarton has loved me from the ages of seven to 16. They have loved me as I was baptized, promised to support me and to nurture me. When, at the age of 10, I decided that Christianity was not for me, I was continually welcomed with wide-open arms. Through the years, I have explored my own identity, and what better a space to do so in a space that was not just accepting, but delighted that I was asking questions, that I was learning more about myself. As an agnostic nonbinary lesbian, the place where I have always been so wholly accepted has been the one that most people would not guess.

Navigating Christianity as a gay or trans person will always be difficult, and it can leave many people struggling to find a church that truly feels like home to them. But Dumbarton UMC feels like a church that loves me for all that I am, and I think that’s all that anyone could ask for.

Adam Michelman is a high school sophomore from Alexandria, Va., and this is their first contribution to the Blade.

Here in the USA, we’ve just witnessed history as the first Black woman was confirmed to the Supreme Court. Along with this nomination, we watched her be humiliated, disrespected, and undermined. In this time, where we know marginalized people are under attack, it’s necessary to understand that this type of violence is connected to the many systems of violence that are attacking Black women and gender-expansive people all across the world. This calls for reflection about the ways Africa and African Diaspora movements have been central and key to our political struggles for liberation. 

In an effort to decentralize the focus on only a U.S. discourse and/or experience, Jaimee Swift of Black Women Radicals and I decided to co-chair the second annual Defend Black Women March, here in Washington D.C. from July 29-31, 2022. The goal of the march is to disrupt the siloing that happens because of the ways history has been erased and gatekeeped, by celebrating the power of Black feminisms in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is a global call to action to protect Black women and gender-expansive people across borders, everywhere.

As a Black queer migrant woman living and working here in D.C., my hope is that we all develop a curiosity for interrogating systems of violence globally, especially given D.C.’s historic and ever-growing migrant community of Carribean and Latin-American residents. This curiosity can help us lean into being in community together. Solidarity is a word we’ve all been hearing thrown around for the last few years. “We’re in solidarity with LGBTQ people” or “Black Lives Matter.” But what does that actually mean? What is the responsibility of solidarity? What are the ways you can take action? The first for me is education and awareness. Without this, it can be difficult to make the connections or even acknowledge patriarchal violence, much less across borders. This same violence continues to erase, harm, and violate marginalized people. Yet, the impact on Black women and gender-expansive people all across the world, just like here in the U.S., have led them into a defiance: a defiance that in even harsher and vulnerable conditions, across time, and place, has been crucial and essential to liberation everywhere, and has even cost some Black women their lives. 

Black women like Marielle Franco, an Afro-Brazilian bisexual feminist, politician, activist, and human rights defender. She was a vocal critic of injustice like racial, police, and gender-based violence. After delivering a speech in March 2018, she and her driver were assasinated. Two former police officers were arrested in 2019,  but have not been tried and still no investigation has revealed who is truly responsible for her murder. Here in the U.S., we’ve seen chronicles like this too often. Breonna Taylor, Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco, Eleanor Bumpurs, and Korryn Gaines (only a few Black women killed by state-violence). These murders are deeply related to the same patriarchal violence that killed Carlotta Lukumi and Escrava Anastacia, historical figures who were enslaved African women brought to Cuba and Brazil, and died brutally fighting for the freedom of their people. 

As a proud co-chair of the Defend Black Women march, I ask all of you in solidarity with oppressed people to get curious and serious about how you can be in support of Black women and gender expansive people. Don’t just repost and express your outrage about the injustice you observed during Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s hearings or when another Black Trans* Woman is murdered. Start with researching, making the connections and learning their stories. Education is the first step to creating change before you can take action. There’s no justice or equality if it doesn’t center the most marginalized. Defending Black women is not a slogan, it’s a political priority and I challenge all of you to move toward contributing to what it means to answer this call. To learn more about the march, visit defendblackwomen.net.

Trinice McNally is founding director of the UDC Center for Diversity, Inclusion & Multicultural Affairs.

When you study the field of politics, it is represented as “the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status.” An accepted definition of a politician is “a person who is professionally involved in politics, especially as a holder of or a candidate for an elected office.”

Politics, if done well and honestly, should not be thought of as dirty and neither should the politician who practices politics. One can be an activist and practice politics without being a politician. But I find it amusing when a candidate running for office says they are not a politician. They may not have been one before they announced their candidacy, but once they have, they are a politician. I believe the majority of politicians in office, or running for office, are doing it for the right reasons.

It is because the term politician has become a dirty word that people are running for office declaring they are not really politicians. An example is the new Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The headline in the New York Times is “Alvin Bragg Says He’s Not a Politician, Is That the Root of His Trouble?” In fairness Bragg says he shouldn’t act like a politician, which indicates he thinks being a politician is a bad thing. 

Bragg, who ran in a primary and then in a general election and now holds office, is by any definition a politician and there is nothing wrong with that. Decisions he makes will be both political in nature and have political ramifications. Whether it is to prosecute, or not prosecute, Donald Trump; or whether his office will cease to seek jail and prison time for all but the most serious crimes, those are in many ways political decisions. They can be political even if based on the facts as he sees them at the time. The reality is on what appeared to be his initial views on both of these issues, he is now vacillating based on the political winds he is facing. He is entitled to change his mind, as can any politician, as long as they don’t give up their principles. 

I keep hearing U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland say he will decide what to do about Trump and his acolytes involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection without regard to any politics. Anyone who actually believes that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn you can buy. 

We often only hear about sleazy politics or sleazy politicians. They make for great click-bait journalism. But in reality, they are in the minority. 

Just consider the politics of fighting for equal justice and economic equality, and the politicians fighting to make them both a reality. We have moved far from what the framers of our constitution wrote to make our country more equal for all. That was accomplished through war in one case, but it was also done through politics and by politicians. Do we have a long way to go? Of course. But we must take heart when we hear Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, now the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, talk about her family and saying, “My family went from segregation to the Supreme Court in one generation.” That, of course is a tribute to her family, but also to politics and politicians.  

There have been many times I disagreed with the politics of some groups and the politicians who seem to represent them. But I must accept some people have legitimate views, in their own eyes, different from mine. While I nearly always disagree with Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Ala.) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) it must be recognized they not only voted for Judge Jackson but made strong and resonating statements in support of her. 

So it will be important, if we are to move our country back on the track many want to see it on, not to ascribe a negative implication to all politics and politicians we disagree with. We will never agree with all that is done in the name of politics or by every politician. However, we must accept decent people can disagree and the other side is not always being sleazy. We need to learn to respect each other and try to treat each other with dignity.

Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.