Local
Comings & Goings
Alexander-Reid headed to LA-based tech startup
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].
The Comings & Goings column also invites LGBTQ college students to share their successes with us. If you have been elected to a student government position, gotten an exciting internship, or are graduating and beginning your career with a great job, let us know so we can share your success.
Congratulations to Sheila Alexander-Reid the new senior vice president of tech startup
BiasSync based in Los Angeles. Michele Ruiz, CEO of Bias Sync, said, “We started BiasSync to help businesses create more fair and respectful work environments. And we believe that assisting individuals to learn more about themselves helps make us all better humans.”
Most recently, Alexander-Reid served as director of the D.C. Office of LGBTQ Affairs in the Office of Mayor Muriel Bowser. In that role she advised the mayor on the implementation of discrimination protections and diversity and inclusion policies that support D.C.’s LGBTQ residents.
Prior to that, she served as vice president of Strategic Branding and Digital Initiatives for the Washington Blade; director of Strategic Engagement and business development manager for the Washington City Paper; and is founder/principal of Branding4Change.
She was selected by Stanford University to conduct a groundbreaking “Privilege and Power” workshop at its Graduate School of Business Executive LGBTQ Leadership Program. In addition, she was a radio show host and programmer for “Inside Out” and founder of Women in the Life Inc./ Women in the Life Magazine/Women in the Life Association.
She earned her bachelor’s degree from Spelman College in Atlanta.
Congratulations also to Lee Westgate, MBA, on his new position as manager of Policy and Advocacy with the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). When accepting the position, Westgate said, “Being a social worker has been one of the great gifts of my lifetime. It is an honor and privilege to serve at NASW in this capacity and to engage in work that is both important and humbling. The broad portfolio of this work is absolutely essential in order to recognize the countless and routinely unseen contributions of social workers and to affect meaningful social change.”
NASW is headquartered in D.C. and has 55 state/territorial chapters. Westgate will work in collaboration with numerous coalitions and other policy stakeholders to advance NASW’s advocacy agenda. He is an out transgender advocate with more than 15 years of professional experience in social work policy, practice, research, and education. He has held numerous leadership roles and has served as an educational consultant to a variety of associations and organizational clientele. Westgate will continue to serve as a graduate faculty member and Clinical Instructor at the University of Maryland, School of Social Work.
Westgate has contributed to many publications, including Population Health Management – The Social Work Connection, Social Work Today, 2017; Poised to Take the New Payment Leap, Provider Magazine, 2016 and The Limitations of Traditional EAP Metrics, Journal of Employee Assistance, 2008. He participated in the design of inter-professional curriculum through the University of Maryland focused on “Bridging Curriculum Gaps in Pediatric and Adolescent Transgender Care.” He received a Superstar Award, Sinai Hospital in 2014.
Westgate earned a bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in Philosophy from Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa., and two master’s degrees — in social work from the University of Maryland, the other in business administration from Towson University/University of Baltimore.
Baltimore
The fight to save one of Baltimore’s last gay bars
Leon’s closed in July after its owner’s death
By JULIE SCHARPER and WESLEY CASE | Soon after Jim Becker came out as gay in 1967, he ducked into a Mount Vernon bar called Leon’s.
In the dark, smoky bar, men used pseudonyms for fear of being outed, as homosexual acts were illegal in Maryland. Bartenders, wary of vice squad raids, would blow a whistle if couples leaned in for a kiss.
But to Becker, arriving at Leon’s was a kind of homecoming. He could explore his identity, connect with other gay men and build community in the anxious years before the 1969 Stonewall uprising, a pivotal moment in the LGBTQ rights movement.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
District of Columbia
Gay-owned pizzeria in Dupont Circle burglarized
Protest Pizza owners say community has expressed support
Gay activist Randy Downs said he and his business and life partner Ricky Bennett are grateful for the support they have received from the Dupont Circle community after they released a video showing a suspect breaking into their recently opened pizza shop and taking money from a cash register shortly before 3 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 21.
The surveillance video shows a man wearing black clothing with his face covered, smashing the glass front door of Protest Pizza, located at 1633 ½ P St., N.W. The video, which Downs and Bennett provided to D.C. police, also shows the suspect climbing over the bar to get to a cash register, which he opened to take out cash.
A D.C. police report obtained by the Washington Blade lists the incident as a Burglary in the Second Degree and says the owners reported “approximately $78 in cash” was taken from the cash register. The report says the incident is not listed as a suspected hate crime.
Downs told the Washington Blade that after he and Bennett reported the break-in and theft on social media, they received an overwhelming showing of support from neighbors and others, including business owners, from across the nation.
“The break-in was upsetting, but it is not what will define Protest Pizza,” Downs said. “What defines us is how quickly people showed up,” he told the Blade. “One person came looking for a cash register; our community saw a gathering place worth protecting. The response reminded us that Protest’s real value was never in the register.”
Downs said he and Bennett, who live around the corner on the section of 17th Street, N.W., near several other bars and restaurants, including the gay bar JRs are located, opened Protest Pizza in November 2025.
“Ricky and I built Protest Pizza as a positive, welcoming, queer owned neighborhood restaurant and bar — a space for protest and joy,” he said.
A D.C. police spokesperson said police offer a reward of up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction of a suspect responsible for the type of burglary and theft that occurred at Protest Pizza. Police say anyone with information to help solve this type of crime should call the police tipline at 202-727-9099.
District of Columbia
Advocates honored at Engendered Spirit Awards
Annual ceremony held at conclusion of Trans Pride DC
The 2026 SaVanna Wanzer Engendered Spirit Awards ceremony took place at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library in D.C. on Saturday. The ceremony was held at the conclusion of the day-long Trans Pride DC: Encore.
Honorees included D.C. Mayor’s Office of Community Affairs Deputy Director Vida Rangel; the LGBT+ Counseling Collaborative, Inc.; and Connor Keuntje, CLP, CLPC.
Trans Pride DC: Encore was held throughout Saturday with several workshop sessions and a virtual conversation with actress and advocate Dominique Jackson.
The annual Engendered Spirit Awards were renamed the “SaVanna Wanzer Engendered Spirit Awards” in honor of SaVanna Wanzer, founder of D.C. Trans Pride. Wanzer died on April 24 of this year.
Speakers at the ceremony included Japer Bowles, director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and Bianca Sprague, executive director of D.C. Trans Pride.
“The intent behind this award and honoring members of our communities, organizations, and allies, is to really elevate all of the work that they’re doing to provide resources, tools, learning opportunities and connections: centering trans folks, gender non-conforming, and gender diverse individuals,” Sprague said.
Monument to LGBTQ Canadians officially unveiled
The fight to save one of Baltimore’s last gay bars
When home becomes a journey: migration, memory, and the African diaspora
Gay-owned pizzeria in Dupont Circle burglarized
Advocates honored at Engendered Spirit Awards
Trump-Vance administration’s LGBTQ brain drain: what you need to know
UPDATE: Impulse Group’s ‘PrEP Pool Party’ cancelled
Not all trans people are the same
NYC lawmakers seek to repeal bathhouse ban
