Local
D.C. LGBTQ community reckons with anti-Blackness, gentrification after Nellie’s incident
Preston Mitchum among those calling for boycott of U Street bar
A video posted to Twitter earlier this month showed a member of Nellie’s Sports Bar’s security detail dragging Keisha Young, a 22-year-old Black woman, down the stairs by her hair after confusing her with a different customer who had reportedly tried to sneak liquor into the bar.
The video went viral, attracting massive online attention, including from Mayor Muriel Bowser and many others. A second video that appears to show an altercation between Young and other patrons seconds before security dragged her down the stairs has also emerged.
“Obviously, entrepreneurs enforce rules in their restaurants, but they’re not allowed to assault anybody,” Bowser told the Washington Post. “If that’s a matter for the Metropolitan Police Department, we’ll take it up.”
In a Facebook post that has since been deleted, Nellie’s responded to the surfacing of the video.
“We were incredibly upset and disturbed to see the unfortunate event that took place at Nellie’s last night,” referring to the June 12 incident. “We are undergoing a full investigation of the situation. At Nellie’s, we foster an inclusive and safe environment, so events like this are completely unacceptable to us.”
The statement garnered negative reactions online, forcing Nellie’s to issue a follow-up statement, part of which read, “We offer a heartfelt apology to all who witnessed the horrific events of the past weekend … Nellie’s will be closed this week as we evaluate this regrettable situation.”
Since Nellie’s closed and a protest in solidarity with Young was staged outside the bar on June 13, the queer community has been forced to reckon with what some describe as Nellie’s history of racist practices, as well as D.C.’s increasing gentrification.
Accusations of racism at Nellie’s are not new. Whitman-Walker Health in a June 15 tweet noted the incident that involved Young “is not the first time we have heard calls for respect for Black patrons of Nellie’s Sports Bar.” The Capital Pride Alliance in its statement about what happened to Young said Nellie’s response “will impact the CPA’s relationship with Nellie’s.”
“Over the years, the culture [at Nellie’s] became one that seemed hell-bent on pushing Black patrons out and making it a bar more for straight people and white gay men. In fact, [owner] Doug Schantz has gone on record calling his bar ‘straight-friendly’,” said Preston Mitchum, director of policy for Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity (URGE) and a former avid Nellie’s patron.
Mitchum moved to D.C. in 2011 and started frequenting Nellie’s because of its reasonably priced drinks, which “sounded good” to him as a then-25-year-old professional.
On the alleged racial profiling at Nellie’s, Mitchum added, “I noticed that when more Black people went, particularly on Sundays, security increased. That always felt peculiar because Friday and Saturday nights were packed and had less security, based on observation. Staff also paid minimal attention to the interactions [between] white patrons. In short, there were many racist interactions and drunken behavior, and no one moved a muscle.”
Mitchum also claims that Black patrons were treated poorly compared to white customers in similar situations. He recalls incidents in which police officers were called on Black patrons and they were kicked out whereas many white patrons received warnings or “had fights broken up.”
Nellie’s in 2018 was embroiled in controversy over its display of a Blue Lives Matter flag on social media.
FOX 5 reported Nellie’s claimed to display the flag in support of LGBTQ officers who were “attending a meeting in a welcoming space.” However, many on social media were enraged by the display of the flag, which is viewed as opposing the Black Lives Matter movement, which hinges on advocating for victims of police brutality, and more importantly, reforming or abolishing the police and replacing it with community security efforts to reduce instances of racial profiling and Black deaths.
As a Black customer invested in making Nellie’s safer for him and the rest of the POC queer community, Mitchum said he participated in a number of measures to help change the culture at Nellie’s.
In a Facebook post published on his page, Mitchum wrote, “Myself and others have written letters, did interviews, conducted ‘sensitivity’ trainings, met with the owner, and even planted ourselves as observers to document our experiences.”
The efforts, however, were in vain, as according to Mitchum, Schantz did not take the efforts seriously.
For instance, Mitchum in June 2017 met with Schantz and his manager to discuss the issues at Nellie’s and to draft solutions moving forward. The meeting proved futile as Mitchum notes in a letter to Schantz, made public on social media, that among others things, asserts that Mitchum experienced rudeness from Schantz’s manager and that Schantz uttered statements with racist undertones.
“I have revisited our conversation many times and I’m still unsure of the purpose of your manager at our May 30 meeting. Not only did it create an attacking atmosphere of two-on-one, she was your ‘yes woman’ thus another person to shut down my opinion because it didn’t jive with both of yours,” penned Mitchum.
Mitchum added, “I hope you can genuinely realize that you equated hip-hop music (that uses “fuck” and the N-word) to violence … there is no valid statistical proof that creates a casual relationship between rap music and violence. Even as I pressed this fact, your response (as well as your manager’s) was ‘it’s his/my bar’ so you can play any music you like.”
Given the lack of change in culture at Nellie’s and the recent incident involving Young, Mitchum and others have called for a boycott of the bar.
A protest was staged outside Nellie’s on June 13.
The Georgetown Voice reports that Nee-Nee Taylor, co-conductor of Harriet’s Dreams (a Black-led community defense organization) said, “we ask the people to protest and boycott Nellie’s because the owner, who is a white man, don’t care about Black women.”
The Georgetown Voice also reports that Mitchum, who was present at the protest, “accused Nellie’s of relying on the business of Black patrons and gentrifying the local community while failing to care for its Black employees and patrons.”
As Mitchum reflects on how venues safe for Black LGBTQ people are disappearing, he mentions, “What was once ‘Chocolate City,’ we now see a city hovering around 50 percent Black. That’s intentional. I live a few blocks from U Street and anyone need not to be in the area to understand just how much the landscape has shifted.”
Regarding places to frequent now, Mitchum recommends Mr. Braxton’s Bar and Restaurant; Hook Hall; BIN 1301; and Fireplace.
The Washington Blade has reached out to Schantz for a response to Mitchum’s allegations but did not receive a response.
Michael K. Lavers contributed to this story.
District of Columbia
Judge denies D.C. request to dismiss gay police captain’s anti-bias lawsuit
MPD accused of illegally demoting officer for taking family leave to care for newborn child
A U.S. District Court judge on Jan. 21 denied a request by attorneys representing the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a gay captain accusing police officials of illegally demoting him for taking parental leave to join his husband in caring for their newborn son.
The lawsuit filed by Capt. Paul Hrebenak charges that police officials violated the U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act, a similar D.C. family leave law, and the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause by refusing to allow him to return to his position as director of the department’s School Safety Division upon his return from parental leave.
It says police officials transferred Hrebenak to another police division against his wishes, which was a far less desirable job and was the equivalent of a demotion, even though it had the same pay grade as his earlier job.
In response to a motion filed by attorneys with the Office of the D.C. Attorney General, which represents and defends D.C. government agencies against lawsuits, Judge Randolph D. Moss agreed to dismiss seven of the lawsuit’s 14 counts or claims but left in place six counts.
Scott Lempert, the attorney representing Hrebenak, said he and Hrebenak agreed to drop one of the 14 counts prior to the Jan. 21 court hearing.
“He did not dismiss the essential claims in this case,” Lempert told the Washington Blade. “So, we won is the short answer. We defeated the motion to dismiss the case.”
Gabriel Shoglow, a spokesperson for the Office of the D.C. Attorney General, said the office has a policy of not commenting on pending litigation and it would not comment on the judge’s ruling upholding six of the lawsuit’s initial 14 counts.
In issuing his ruling from the bench, Moss gave Lempert the option of filing an amended complaint by March 6 to seek the reinstatement of the counts he dismissed. He gave attorneys for the D.C. attorney general’s office a deadline of March 20 to file a response to an amended complaint.
Lempert told the Blade he and Hrebenak have yet to decide whether to file an amended complaint or whether to ask the judge to move the case ahead to a jury trial, which they initially requested.
In its 26-page motion calling for dismissal of the case, filed on May 30, 2025, D.C. Office of the Attorney General attorneys argue that the police department has legal authority to transfer its officers, including captains, to a different job. It says that Hrebenak’s transfer to a position of watch commander at the department’s First District was fully equivalent in status to his job as director of the School Safety Division.
“The Watch Commander position is not alleged to have changed plaintiff’s rank of captain or his benefits or pay, and thus plaintiff has not plausibly alleged that he was put in a non-equivalent position,” the motion to dismiss states.
“Thus, his reassignment is not a demotion,” it says. “And the fact that his shift changed does not mean that the position is not equivalent to his prior position. The law does not require that every single aspect of the positions be the same.”
Hrebenak’s lawsuit states that “straight” police officers have routinely taken similar family and parental leave to care for a newborn child and have not been transferred to a different job. According to the lawsuit, the School Safety Division assignment allowed him to work a day shift, a needed shift for his recognized disability of Crohn’s Disease, which the lawsuit says is exacerbated by working late hours at night.
The lawsuit points out that Hrebenak disclosed he had Crohn’s Disease at the time he applied for his police job, and it was determined he could carry out his duties as an officer despite this ailment, which was listed as a disability.
Among other things, the lawsuit notes that Hrebenak had a designated reserved parking space for his earlier job and lost the parking space for the job to which he was transferred.
“Plaintiff’s removal as director at MPD’s School Safety Division was a targeted, premeditated punishment for his taking statutorily protected leave as a gay man,” the lawsuit states. “There was no operational need by MPD to remove plaintiff as director of MPD’s School Safety Division, a position in which plaintiff very successfully served for years,” it says.
In another action to strengthen Hrebenak’s opposition to the city’s motion to dismiss the case, Lempert filed with the court on Jan. 15 a “Notice of Supplemental Authority” that included two controversial reports that Lempert said showed that former D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith put in place a policy of involuntary police transfers “to effectively demote and end careers of personnel who had displeased Chief Smith and or others in MPD leadership.”
One of the reports was prepared by the Republican members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the other was prepared by the office of Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for D.C. appointed by President Donald Trump.
Both reports allege that Smith, who resigned from her position as chief effective Dec. 31, pressured police officials to change crime reporting data to make it appear that the number of violent crimes was significantly lower than it actually was by threatening to transfer them to undesirable positions in the department. Smith has denied those claims.
“These findings support plaintiff’s arguments that it was the policy or custom of MPD to inflect involuntary transfers on MPD personnel as retaliation for doing or saying something in which leadership disapproved,” Lempert says in his court filing submitting the two reports.
“As shown, many officers suffered under this pervasive custom, including Capt. Hrebenak,” he stated. “Accordingly, by definition, transferred positions were not equivalent to officers’ previous positions,” he added.
Virginia
LGBTQ rights at forefront of 2026 legislative session in Va.
Repeal of state’s marriage amendment a top priority
With 2026 ramping up, LGBTQ rights are at the forefront of Virginia politics.
The repeal of Virginia’s constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman is a top legislative priority for activists and advocacy groups.
The Virginia Senate on Jan. 17 by a 26-13 vote margin approved outgoing state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria)’s resolution that would repeal the Marshall-Newman Amendment. The Virginia House of Delegates earlier this month passed it.
Two successive legislatures must approve the resolution before it can go to the ballot.
The resolution passed in 2025. Voters are expected to consider repealing the amendment on Nov. 3.
The Virginia General Assembly opened with an introduction of a two-year budget — Virginia’s budget runs biannually.
In 2024 some funding was allocated to LGBTQ causes, and others were passed over. This year’s proposed budget leaves room for funding for a host of LGBTQ opportunities. One specific priority that Equality Virginia is promoting would ensure the state budget expands healthcare for LGBTQ individuals and extending gender affirming care.
Equality Virginia Communications Director Reed Williams told the Washington Blade the organization is also focused on passing three main budget amendments, and ensuring “LGBTQ+ students and their teachers have resources to navigate and address mental health challenges in K-12 schools.”
Along with ensuring school training, the organization wants funding in hopes of “establishing enhanced competency training for Virginia’s 988 Lifeline counselors and support staff to provide affirming care for LGBTQ+ youth.” This comes after the Trump-Vance administration shut down the specific hotline for LGBTQ young people that callers could previously reach if they called 988.
On a federal level, protections and health care access for LGBTQ people has taken a hit, as the Trump-Vance administration has continued to issue executive orders affecting the health care system. LGBTQ people no longer have federal legal health care protections, so local and state politics has become even more important for LGBTQ rights groups.
Equality Virginia has urged its supporters to call their local senators and stress the importance of voting to expand health care protections for LGBTQ people. The organization also plans to hold information sessions and a lobby day on Feb. 2.
Equality Virginia is tracking bills on its website.
District of Columbia
Faith programming remains key part of Creating Change Conference
‘Faith work is not an easy pill to swallow in LGBTQ spaces’
The National LGBTQ Task Force kicked off the 38th annual Creating Change conference in D.C. this week. This year, as with years past, faith and interfaith programming remains a key part of the conference’s mission and practice.
For some, the presence of faith work at an LGBTQ+ conference may seem antithetical, and Creating Change does not deny the history of harm caused by religious institutions. “We have to be clear that faith work is not an easy pill to swallow in LGBTQ spaces, and they’re no qualms about saying that we acknowledge the pain, trauma, and violence that’s been purported in the name of religion,” Tahil Sharma, Faith Work Director for the National LGBTQ Task Force, said.
In fact, several panels at the conference openly discuss acknowledging, healing from, and resisting religious harm as well as religious nationalism, including one scheduled today titled “Defending Democracy Through Religious Activism: A panel of experts on effective strategies for faith and multi-faith organizing” that features local queer faith activists like Ebony C. Peace, Rob Keithan, and Eric Eldritch who are also involved in the annual DC Pride Interfaith Service.
Another session will hold space for survivors of religious violence, creating “a drop-in space for loving on each other in healing ways, held by Rev. Alba Onofrio and Teo Drake.”
But Sharma and others who organized the Creating Change Conference explained that “a state of antipathy” towards religious communities, especially those that align with queer liberation and solidarity, is counterproductive and denies the rich history of queer religious activism. “It’s time for us to make a call for an approach to LGBTQ+ liberation that uses interfaith literacy as a tool rather than as a weapon against us,” Sharma explained.
Recognizing a local queer faith icon
Along with the panels, fighting religious nationalism and fostering communion with aligned faith activists and communities is at heart of this year’s faith work. As Sharma shared, “the person that we’re honoring this year for the faith award is Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt, and Dr. Betancourt is an amazing leader and someone who really stands out in representing UUs but also representing herself unapologetically.”
Based in the Washington, D.C. area, Dr. Betancourt has more than 20 years of experience working as a public minister, seminary professor, scholar, and environment ethicist, and public theologian. Her activism is rooted in her lived identities as a queer, multiracial, AfroLatine first-generation daughter of immigrants from Chile and Panama, and has been a critical voice in advancing the United Universalism towards anti-racist and pluralistic faith work.
Creating a faith-based gathering space
Sharma also said that faith fosters a unique space and practice to encounter grief and joy. For this reason, Sharma wants to “create a space for folks to engage in curiosity, to engage in spiritual fulfillment and grounding but also I think with the times that we’re in to lean into some space to mourn, some space to find hope.” The Many Paths Gathering Space serves this purpose, where visitors can stop for spiritual practice, speak with a Spiritual Care Team member, or just take a sensory break from the bustle of the conference.
This also means uplifting and foregrounding queer religious ephemera with an ofrenda to honor those who have passed, a display of nonbinary Korean American photographer Salgu Wissmath’s exhibition Divine Identity, and the Shower of Stoles, a collection of about 1,500 liturgical stoles and other sacred regalia representing the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people of faith.
The Shower of Stoles
The collection was first started in 1995 by Martha Juillerat and Tammy Lindahl who received eighty stoles that accompanied them and lent them solace as they set aside their ordinations from the Presbyterian Church. The whole collection was first displayed at the 1996 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in New Mexico. The stoles, according to the Task Force, “quickly became a powerful symbol of the huge loss to the church of gifted leadership.”
Each stole represents the story of a queer person who is active in the life and leadership of their faith community, often sent in by the people themselves but sometimes by a loved one in their honor. About one third of all the stoles are donated anonymously, and over three-quarters of the stoles donated by clergy and full-time church professionals are contributed anonymously.
The collection shows “not just the deep harm that has been caused that does not allow people to meet their vocation when they’re faith leaders, but it also speaks to how there have been queer and trans people in our [faith] communities since the beginning of our traditions, and they continue to serve in forms of leadership,” Sharma explained.
Explicit interfaith work
Along with creating a sacred space for attendees, hosting workshops focused on faith-based action, and recognizing DC’s rich queer religious history, Creating Change is also hosting explicitly faith services, like a Buddhist Meditation, Catholic Mass, Shabbat service, Jummah Prayer Service, and an ecumenical Christian service on Sunday. Creating Change is also welcoming events at the heart of queer religious affirmation, including a Name/Gender/Pronoun/Identity Blessing Ritual and a reading and discussion around queer bibles stories with Rev. Sex (aka Rev. Alba Onofrio).
But along with specific faith-based programs, Sharma explained, “we’re looking to build on something that I helped to introduce, which was the separation of the interfaith ceremony that’s happening this year which is a vigil versus the ecumenical Christian service which is now the only thing that takes place on Sunday morning.”
This includes an Interfaith Empowerment Service this evening and an Interfaith Institute tomorrow, along with “Sing In the Revolution,” an event where folks are invited “to actually engage in the joy and rhythm of resolution and what that looks like,” Sharma said. One of the key activators behind this work is Rev. Eric Eldritch, an ordained Pagan clergy person with Circle Sanctuary and a member of the Pride Interfaith Service planning committee.
Affirming that queer faith work is part of liberation
The goal for this year, Sharma noted, alongside holding space and discussions about faith-based practice and liberation and intentional interfaith work–is to move from thinking about why faith matters in queer liberation spaces to “how is interfaith work the tool for how we’re engaging in our understanding of de-escalation work, digital strategies, navigating a deeper visioning that we need for a better world that requires us to think that we’re not alone in the struggle for mutual abundance and liberation,” Sharma explained.
It may surprise people to learn that faith work has intentionally been part of the National LGBTQ+ Task Force since its beginning in the 1980s. “We can really credit that to some of the former leadership like Urvashi Vaid who actually had a sense of understanding of what role faith plays in the work of liberation and justice,” Sharma said.
“For being someone who wasn’t necessarily religious, she certainly did have a clear understanding of the relationship between those folks who are allies, those folks who stand against us, and then those folks who sit in between–those folks who profess to be of religious and spiritual background and also are unapologetically LGBTQ+,” he continued.
This year’s faith programming builds on this rich history, thinking about “a way to kind of open doors, to not just invite people in but our people to go out into the general scene of the conference” to share how faith-based work is a tool, rather than a hindrance, to queer liberation work.
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