Local
Comings & Goings
Timely new book tackles healing after hard times
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 the Rev. Earl E. Johnson on the publication of his new book, “Finding Comfort during Hard Times: A Guide to Healing after Disease, Violence and other Community Trauma.”
Johnson is a Disaster Spiritual Care Manager and chaplain. For 10 years he was the national spiritual care manager for the American Red Cross. He recruited, screened, trained, and deployed highly credentialed healthcare chaplains to mass fatality events. Johnson was also part of a team that assessed and planned emotional and spiritual support for the victims and loved ones of such horrific unanticipated events. He coordinated professional spiritual care support after fatal domestic aviation incidents, massive Gulf hurricanes including Katrina, Rita, and Gus, the Virginia Tech shootings, and Orlando. He has made numerous TV appearances and lectured at universities including Michigan State, Michigan, and Radford/Virginia Tech at disaster preparedness conferences.
Johnson is an ordained Disciples minister, Yale Divinity graduate, and Board Certified Chaplain through the Association of Professional Chaplains. He served Disciples and UCC parishes in Missouri and New York before his chaplaincy training at Memorial Sloan Kettering/New York Presbyterian (Cornell), and New York Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn. He was the Protestant Staff Chaplain at Cabrini Medical Center when he moved from lower Manhattan to Arlington, Va., in 2001 to work as a chaplain educator at Washington Hospital Center. For 10 years he was an adjunct instructor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (CUNY).
His book has received rave reviews including one from Tom Viola, executive director, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS who said, “‘Finding Comfort during Hard Times’ is an encyclopedic handbook on how to give care and offer comfort. An incredibly wise, gentle and thoughtful road map on how to survive the trauma, both anticipated and unexpected, of the deep emotional challenges of loss we face as individuals, a family or community so that we, in turn, can provide assistance, solace and hope either as a professional or volunteer. Oscar Wilde wrote, ‘The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.’ Earl Johnson successfully and gracefully provides us with both.”
Congratulations also to Samuel Brinton the Trevor Project’s new vice president of Advocacy and Government Affairs. Brinton said, “In a time when The Trevor Project is needed more than ever and serving more LGBTQ youth than ever before, it’s exciting to be able to fight for LGBTQ youth in Congress, the courtroom, and in state capitals across the country. I am grateful to be named vice president and ready for the next great advocacy adventure.” They has worked for The Trevor Project since 2017 as head of Advocacy and Government Affairs.
Prior to that, Brinton created a consulting firm specializing in government affairs contracts on advanced nuclear legislative proposal drafting, nuclear waste disposal regulatory research, and stakeholder communication engagement. They was a senior policy analyst for the Bipartisan Policy Center; and managed a million dollar think tank research project on the subject of nuclear waste with responsibilities for coordination of experts as well as press, policy research and Congress advising Third Way as a Clean Energy Fellow.
Virginia
McPike wins special election for Va. House of Delegates
Gay Alexandria City Council member becomes 8th LGBTQ member of legislature
Gay Alexandria City Council member Kirk McPike emerged as the decisive winner in a Feb. 10 special election for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Alexandria.
McPike, a Democrat, received 81.5 percent of the vote in his race against Republican Mason Butler, according to the local publication ALX Now.
He first won election to the Alexandria Council in 2021. He will be filling the House of Delegates seat being vacated by Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker (D-Alexandria), who won in another Feb. 10 special election for the Virginia State Senate seat being vacated by gay Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria).
Ebbin is resigning from his Senate this week to take a position with Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s administration.
Upon taking his 5th District seat in the House of Delegate, McPike will become the eighth out LGBTQ member of the Virginia General Assembly. Among those he will be joining is Sen. Danica Roem (D-Manassas), who became the Virginia Legislature’s first transgender member when she won election to the House of Delegates in 2017 before being elected to the Senate in 2023.
“I look forward to continuing to work to address our housing crisis, the challenge of climate change, and the damaging impacts of the Trump administration on the immigrant families, LGBTQ+ Virginians, and federal employees who call Alexandria home,” McPike said in a statement after winning the Democratic nomination for the seat in a special primary held on Jan. 20.
McPike, a longtime LGBTQ rights advocate, has served for the past 13 years as chief of staff for gay U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and has remained in that position during his tenure on the Alexandria Council. He said he will resign from that position before taking office in the House of Delegates.
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.
McPike wins special election for Va. House of Delegates
As Oscars approach, it’s time to embrace ‘KPop Demon Hunters’
Just when you think Trump can’t sink any lower, he does
Top Democrats re-introduce trans bill of rights
A dozen Senegalese men arrested for ‘unnatural acts’
‘Octet’ explores the depths of digital addiction
Why trans suffering is more palatable than trans ambition
PHOTOS: Drag in rural Virginia
New book explores homosexuality in ancient cultures
