Local
McBride confident in Delaware state Senate race
COVID forces changes to campaign
Since announcing her candidacy for state senator in Delaware’s First District, located in Wilmington, Sarah McBride has broken fundraising records and earned endorsements from local officials, including current First District Sen. Harris McDowell, and national figures, such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
All was going smoothly until the COVID-19 pandemic changed the ability of political candidates to reach voters face-to-face, forcing McBride’s campaign to adjust to the new reality.
“These are certainly unprecedented times for so many of us in so many ways and for those of us who are candidates for office it requires getting creative about how we are connecting with voters,” explains McBride. “Particularly here in Delaware door knocking has been at the center of our campaigns and it was at the center of my campaign prior to the stay-at-home order. While we are no longer able to connect with voters face-to-face at the doors, we know that it is just as important to continue to reach out to people. More than anything else to check in with how they’re doing, express our well wishes, and share information or resources that people don’t know are necessarily available.”
Looking ahead to the rest of the campaign McBride is “eager to be able to interact with voters and [her] future constituents,” but says that “public health has to come first.” She supports HB175, which would create universal vote-by-mail in Delaware.
McBride also sees this pandemic as highlighting the importance of issues she emphasizes in her campaign, including access to healthcare and paid family leave. Even before the pandemic, McBride saw the Delaware economy as being at an “inflection point.”
Now she says that “the economic ramifications of this pandemic — the businesses that are suffering, the workers who lost their jobs — reinforces that we have our work cut out for us to attract new jobs, particularly green jobs, to Delaware so that we can repair our economy and reimagine our economy to better work for everyone.”
While McBride focuses her campaign on local issues, her candidacy also has a historic component: if elected, she would be the first openly transgender state senator in the country.
Mara Kiesling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality Action Fund, believes that focusing on policy questions allows McBride to shine as someone who is “smart, progressive, has a great heart, and understands that public service isn’t about her.”
“The people of Wilmington haven’t been sitting around for 10 years saying, ‘gee whiz, I wish we had a transgender senator,’” said Kiesling. “They are worried about healthcare, roads, and the economy. Sarah is worried about those things too and has a vision and has the skills.”
McBride sees herself not as a “transgender candidate,” but as a “candidate who happens to be transgender.”
“I’m not running to be a transgender state senator, I’m certainly not running away from my identity either. I’m proud of who I am and it’s something many people in Delaware and elsewhere know about me,” said McBride. “I also want people to understand that I’m running to work on all of the issues that matter to the First Senate District and my background and experience go beyond my identity.
In an interview with the Delaware News Journal, former Democrat and executive secretary of the Wilmington Housing Authority Board of Commissioners Steve Washington, who decided to run for the First State Senate District as a Republican because he felt he was “being taken as a joke” by Democrats indicated that he may seek to make “family values” — a term with homophobic and transphobic connotations — an issue in the campaign.
“I get a very good response about family, about values,” said Washington. “The structure of the family has been broken down, and we need to fix it.”
But many LGBTQ political leaders doubt the effectiveness of using a candidate’s gender identity or sexual orientation against them.
“You have to stay on your message of what you are doing for the community,” said Sean Meloy, political director of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, where McBride once worked as an intern. “We have advanced to a point where that disrespect usually will not play well.”
“Just like the people of Wilmington aren’t sitting around saying ‘I wish I had a trans Senator,’ they also aren’t saying ‘I hope I don’t have a trans senator,’” said Kiesling. “If someone wants to run on Sarah being trans, they are not running on health care, the economy, and roads.”
Before the November election, McBride will face Joseph McCole in the September primary. McCole received less than 30 percent of the vote in the 2016 Democratic primary against McDowell and has no active campaign.
Although McBride is taking nothing for granted in her reliably Democratic district, she feels good about her chances in the election.
“From the start of this campaign we have run with the knowledge that we can have both a primary and a general. We’re ready for whatever comes our way,” says McBride. “I’m confident that voters are responding positively to our message. I’m confident that we’ll win in September and win in November.”
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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Local LGBTQ groups, activists to commemorate Black History Month
