Local
Finance director, beloved soccer player Dan White dies at 57
Longtime Washingtonian once worked for Whitman-Walker
Arlington, Va., resident Dan White, an award-winning amateur soccer player and longtime supporter of the Federal Triangles Soccer Club, D.C.’s LGBTQ soccer league, who worked as a finance director for domestic and international nonprofit organizations for more than 30 years, died at his home on Dec. 22 of a heart attack. He was 57.
Friends and associates said White displayed a unique dedication, commitment, and affection for both the multitude of soccer tournaments and LGBTQ amateur participants he played with as well as for the nonprofit organizations for which he worked.
“Dan’s professional work was rooted in nonprofit finance,” said Nick Napolitano, a friend and associate with the Federal Triangles Soccer Club. “He worked at the Whitman-Walker Clinic’s Office of Finance for 15 years, rising from staff accountant to the level of finance director,” Napolitano said. According to White’s LinkedIn page, he worked at Whitman-Walker, now known as Whitman-Walker Health, from 1987 to 2002.
Cornelius Baker, who served as Whitman-Walker’s executive director from January 2000 to December 2004, said White worked closely with Whitman-Walker’s longtime executive director Jim Graham from the time White began working at Whitman-Walker in 1987. Graham left Whitman-Walker at the end of 1998 after winning election to the D.C. Council.
Baker said White’s skills in financial management were especially helpful in 2001, at the time of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when major fundraising events, including Whitman-Walker’s annual AIDS Walk, were severely curtailed.
Following his 15-year tenure at Whitman-Walker, White served as finance director or finance manager for at least five other nonprofit organizations, including his most recent stint as finance and administration director for the Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Program for International Education in Gynecology and Obstetrics, known as Jhpiego.
The program, which is affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, provides global health experts who live and work in more than 40 developing countries who help improve the quality of health services for women and families, a write-up on its website says. White, among other things, oversaw the financial planning, management and reporting activities for the organization’s global health projects.
Prior to joining Jhpiego, White served as director of finance and administration for Mothers2Mothers, an international nonprofit group based in Cape Town, South Africa. Its website says it is dedicated to preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV by providing education and support for pregnant women and new mothers living with HIV.
White’s friend and soccer teammate Leslie Engleking said White worked out of the organization’s Cape Town and London offices from June 2018 to December 2019 to oversee its $28 million budget.
In earlier years, White served from 2004 to 2018 as associate director of finance and later as finance manager for the D.C. office of FHI 360, a human development organization that provides family planning and reproductive health services in 70 countries and all U.S. states.
In 2004, White served for 10 months as finance manager for U.S. Action, a D.C.-based social justice advocacy group, shortly after serving a year and a half as director of finance for the D.C.-based international group Center for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), which advocates for the rights of women and children.
White was born and raised in Arlington, Va., where he graduated from Bishop O’Connell High School in 1980. He later received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Columbia Union College in Takoma Park, Md.
“He was proud to be a lifelong Washingtonian,” said Napolitano, who noted that White as an adult had lived in the D.C. neighborhoods of Dupont Circle, Logan Circle, and Columbia Heights before moving back to Arlington’s Crystal City neighborhood about two years ago.
Napolitano and Engleking, both former soccer teammates of White, and his longtime friend Laila Hirschfeld said White’s role as an amateur soccer player and his involvement with the Federal Triangles Soccer Club, for which he was the founding treasurer in 1990, were among the most important aspects of his life.
“Dan was one of the most talented players to ever step on the pitch for Federal Triangles Soccer Club,” Napolitano said. “He won the Golden Boot at the 2001 International Gay and Lesbian Football Association World Championships in London, and more often than not he was the goal leader on the many teams he played on, which included FTSC squads that traveled to Barcelona, Copenhagen, Buenos Aires, Montreal, Toronto, Boston, San Francisco, and Philadelphia,” according to Napolitano. The Golden Boot is an award given to a player who scores the most goals in a game or tournament.
White was also among the first inductees into the FTSC’s Hall of Fame in 2006, said Napolitano, who noted that White continued playing in various local soccer leagues until 2016, when a foot injury ended his playing endeavors.
“Dan managed to pack a tremendous amount of life into a short amount of time, and had traveled to almost every continent,” Hirschfeld said. “He loved good food and savored good wine,” she said, adding, “his favorite place was on the beach, especially the Outer Banks, drink in hand, surrounded by a small group of laughing friends. Which is how we, his chosen family, the family that loved and cherished him just as he was – a kind, loving, smart, funny, flirty, generous, successful, thoughtful, talented soul – will think of him always.”
Hirschfeld and other close friends said White is survived by his soccer fans and former team members and a long list of friends and chosen family members. They said that due to COVID-19 restrictions, a memorial celebration of White’s life will be postponed until later this year.
Per his request, he was to be cremated and his ashes will be scattered later this year in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Hirschfeld said. She said condolences in White’s name can be expressed with donations to Whitman-Walker Health, the local LGBTQ youth advocacy group SMYAL, and Team D.C., the LGBTQ sports organization of which the Federal Triangles Soccer Club is a part.
a&e features
Looking back at 50 years of Pride in D.C
Washington Blade’s unique archives chronicle highs, lows of our movement
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of LGBTQ Pride in Washington, D.C., the Washington Blade team combed our archives and put together a glossy magazine showcasing five decades of celebrations in the city. Below is a sampling of images from the magazine but be sure to find a print copy starting this week.
The magazine is being distributed now and is complimentary. You can find copies at LGBTQ bars and restaurants across the city. Or visit the Blade booth at the Pride festival on June 7 and 8 where we will distribute copies.
Thank you to our advertisers and sponsors, whose support has enabled us to distribute the magazine free of charge. And thanks to our dedicated team at the Blade, especially Photo Editor Michael Key, who spent many hours searching the archives for the best images, many of which are unique to the Blade and cannot be found elsewhere. And thanks to our dynamic production team of Meaghan Juba, who designed the magazine, and Phil Rockstroh who managed the process. Stephen Rutgers and Brian Pitts handled sales and marketing and staff writers Lou Chibbaro Jr., Christopher Kane, Michael K. Lavers, Joe Reberkenny along with freelancer and former Blade staffer Joey DiGuglielmo wrote the essays.
The magazine represents more than 50 years of hard work by countless reporters, editors, advertising sales reps, photographers, and other media professionals who have brought you the Washington Blade since 1969.
We hope you enjoy the magazine and keep it as a reminder of all the many ups and downs our local LGBTQ community has experienced over the past 50 years.
I hope you will consider supporting our vital mission by becoming a Blade member today. At a time when reliable, accurate LGBTQ news is more essential than ever, your contribution helps make it possible. With a monthly gift starting at just $7, you’ll ensure that the Blade remains a trusted, free resource for the community — now and for years to come. Click here to help fund LGBTQ journalism.
District of Columbia
LGBTQ leaders celebrate Frank Kameny’s 100th birthday at Supreme Court
Advocates march, deliver speeches to remember activist’s many contributions
More than 100 people joined the leaders of a dozen prominent national LGBTQ rights organizations on May 21 to celebrate the 100th birthday of iconic D.C. gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court building in the nation’s capital.
Kameny, who passed away on Oct. 11, 2011, on National Coming Out Day, has been hailed as one of the founding leaders of the modern LGBTQ rights movement.
Among other things, he became the first openly gay man to file an appeal about gay rights to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was among the reasons organizers of his birthday celebration chose to hold it at the Supreme Court.
“Today is the 100th birthday of Frank Kameny, the founder of the LGBTQ civil rights movement,” said Malcolm Lazin, who served as national chair of the committee that organized the Kameny 100th birthday event. Frank is one of the nation’s most consequential civil rights leaders,” Lazin told the gathering in opening remarks.
“We are in front of the Supreme Court because Frank believed in the Constitution’s promise of equality for all Americans,” he said. “He based his liberation strategy against systemic homophobia on that promise.”
Participants in the event, many of whom were young LGBTQ activists from New York City, carried 100 candles to commemorate Kameny’s birthday.
They were joined by the national LGBTQ organization leaders who formed a ceremonial picket line carrying replicas of the “homosexual rights” signs used in the 1965 historic first gay protest outside the White House organized by Kameny and his supporters from the Mattachine Society of Washington, a gay rights group that Kameny helped to form.
Among speakers at the event was Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the same-sex marriage lawsuit that resulted in the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. Obergefell noted that the Kameny birthday celebration marks the 10th anniversary of the high court’s marriage decision and recalls for him Kameny’s role as a strong supporter of legalizing same-sex marriage.
Obergefell and U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), the Senate’s first openly lesbian member, served as national honorary co-chairs of the Kameny 100th birthday celebration.
Ross Murray, a vice president of GLAAD, told how Kameny used an effective strategy to fight homophobia both for the public and to many in the LGBTQ community who experienced internalized homophobia due to societal pressure.
“So, using the model of ‘Black is Beautiful,’ Frank turned perceptions upside down when he coined ‘Gay is Good,’” Murray said. “And he carried that on a picket sign in 1970 at the first New York Pride Parade.”
Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff told the gathering that the early 1960s era newsletter of the Mattachine Society of Washington, that Kameny helped to start, evolved into the early version of the Washington Blade in 1969.
“Frank recognized the importance of community building and engagement by having a reliable community news source,” Naff said. “We are honored to join in the 100th birthday tribute to one of our founders, Frank Kameny.”
Japer Bowles, director of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, said the mayor’s office is proud that the city hosted Kameny’s 100th birthday celebration. Bowles announced that Bowser issued an official mayoral proclamation declaring May 21, 2025, Frank Kameny Centennial Day.
In her proclamation Bowser recites many of Kameny’s accomplishments in advancing LGBTQ rights in D.C. and across the nation and concludes by stating she commends “this observance to all Washingtonians with a reminder to always remember, as Frank Kameny often said, ‘Gay is Good.’”
Others who spoke included Keith Joseph of the LGBTQ group Equality Forum, Ben Garcia of the American LGBTQ+ Museum, Saul Levin of the American Psychiatric Association, Kevin Jennings of LGBTQ attorneys’ group Lambda Legal, Elliot Imse of the LGBTQ Victory Institute, Jay Brown of the Human Rights Campaign, Philadelphia City Council member Rue Landau, D.C. Capital Pride Alliance and WorldPride organizer June Crenshaw, Anya Marino of Advocates for Transgender Rights, Sultan Shakir of PFLAG, and Aaron Tax of SAGE.
U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), who is gay, was scheduled to speak at the event but had to cancel due to a House committee vote scheduled around the same time, Lazin told the Blade. Rep. Mark Takano, who’s gay, spoke at a lunch after the event to the LGBTQ leaders and praised Kameny’s many contributions to the LGBTQ movement.
District of Columbia
Blade’s Lou Chibbaro subject of new film premiering May 29
‘Lou’s Legacy’ looks back at 50-year career
Longtime Washington Blade reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. is the subject of a new documentary film premiering on May 29 in D.C.
The world premiere of the film by Emmy-nominated director Patrick Sammon will take place at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library auditorium in D.C. on May 29 at 6:30 p.m.
“Lou’s Legacy: A Reporter’s Life at the Washington Blade”(29 minutes) tells the story of D.C.’s tumultuous and inspiring LGBTQ history through the lens of veteran reporter Lou Chibbaro’s reporting during nearly five decades at the Blade. The film features renowned D.C. drag performer Donnell Robinson who has been entertaining Washington’s LGBTQ community since 1975 as “Ella Fitzgerald.” Chibbaro and Robinson reflect on their careers and discuss the rising backlash against the LGBTQ community, including laws targeting drag performers.
As a reporter, Chibbaro made a point of focusing on the people and issues that were regularly ignored or distorted by mainstream outlets: the HIV/AIDS epidemic, hate crimes, and the fight for LGBTQ civil rights.
“Lou and Donnell are cornerstones of D.C.’s LGBTQ community,” said Sammon, the film’s director and producer. “I have great respect for both of them and hope this film celebrates in some small way their contribution to our city. It’s especially appropriate to premiere this documentary during WorldPride as people from all over the world gather in D.C. to celebrate our community and find inspiration to continue fighting for LGBTQ equality.”
Sammon and his production team were given unprecedented access to more than 300 archival boxes of meticulously kept reporter’s files, documents, and audio tapes that Chibbaro saved and donated to George Washington University’s Gelman Special Collections Library. In addition, the Washington Blade granted Sammon access to its photo archive of compelling and emotional images, most of which have not been seen for decades.
Charles Francis, president of Mattachine Society said, “The Mattachine Society is so proud to have played a role in making this film happen, especially in this time of total erasure and efforts across the country to rewrite our history. With our work and support, Lou was able to preserve, donate, and help curate his thousands of pages of papers at George Washington University. That history cannot be erased. This film tells the story.”
Pate Felts, co-founder of the Mattachine Society, said, ”Lou’s archive, including more than 300 cartons of reporter’s files, holds thousands of stories of the men and women who suffered and fought for LGBTQ dignity and equality, at great professional and personal cost. Patrick’s film focuses on some of the most powerful ones to help educate all of us, especially younger generations, about the dues paid, the courage displayed and the hope that we all carry forward today.”
A panel discussion will follow the premiere screening of “Lou’s Legacy.” Aside from Chibbaro, Robinson, and Sammon, the conversation will feature Bladepublisher and co-owner Lynne Brown. D.C. journalist Rebekah Robinson will moderate the conversation.
“Lou’s Legacy: A Reporter’s Life at the Washington Blade” will broadcast in late June on MPT and WETA, the region’s leading PBS stations. The WETA broadcasts are set for Saturday, June 21 at 8 p.m. and Monday, June 23 at 9:30 p.m. The film will also stream on PBS.org starting June 21.
“Lou has had a front-row seat to 50 years of historic events; from covering the trial of Matthew Shepard’s murderers to observing the inauguration of President Obama from the Capitol Steps, Lou has seen it all,” said Blade editor Kevin Naff who has worked with Chibbaro for more than 20 years. “The film captures Lou’s dedication and tenacity and reminds us how far we’ve come as a community.”
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