Local
Activists end Nellie’s protests, but continue boycott
Concerns over ‘anti-Black’ practices of bars voiced at community listening session
LGBTQ activists who have organized weekly Friday night protests outside D.C.’s Nellie’s Sports Bar since June announced at an Aug. 26 Community Listening Session that they would discontinue the protests after 11 consecutive weeks, but they are continuing to ask the community to boycott Nellie’s.
Nellie’s, a gay bar located at 9th and U Streets, N.W., became embroiled in controversy when one of its security guards pulled a Black woman by her hair down a flight of stairs during a June 13 brawl between customers and security officers that broke out during the night of the city’s LGBTQ Pride celebration.
The action by the security guard, which was captured on video taken by one of the customers on their phone, went viral on social media, prompting LGBTQ activists and others to demand that Nellie’s take appropriate action to review its security procedures
Nellie’s issued an apology for the incident the following day and announced it had fired the private security company whose employee, who is Black, dragged Keisha Young, 22, down the stairs. Nellie’s also announced it would temporarily close for business to assess what had happened and develop plans for reopening as a safe space for all members of the community.
It has since reopened and has been operating despite the weekly Friday night protests, although protest organizers say fewer customers have been showing up at the bar than prior to the start of the protests.
The activists that organized the protests said they have learned from longtime customers of the bar that Nellie’s staff and management allegedly have a long history of racial bias toward the bar’s Black customers.
Andrew Kline, an attorney representing Nellie’s, told the Washington Blade on Tuesday that he and Nellie’s owner Doug Schantz would have no comment on the Community Listening Session or the allegations by the protesters at this time. In July, following requests by the protesters, Schantz issued an apology to Young, which he had not done earlier, and said he had arranged for his employees to undergo training aimed at addressing the concerns raised by protesters.
He has since hired Ruby Corado, founder and CEO of D.C.’s LGBTQ community services center Casa Ruby, to arrange for the staff training and advise him on community outreach efforts.
But several of the protesters, including Makia Green, who serves as co-conductor of the Black-led community defense group Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, said Schantz last week appeared to display a disrespect for the protesters and for Young by declining to show up in person for the Aug. 26 Community Listening event to which he was invited. The official name of the event released by organizers was the Boycott Nellie’s Community Listening Session.
The session was held at D.C.’s Eaton Hotel at 1201 K St., N.W. and was live-streamed on Facebook. Schantz informed the organizers that he was attending the event online. But under the Facebook Live format, he and others viewing the event online could only submit written messages and could not speak or be seen on video like other online meeting platforms such as Zoom.
Organizers of the Listening Session, in which about 35 people showed up in person at one of the Eaton Hotel’s meeting rooms, said Schantz did not submit any comments other than to say he was watching the event live on Facebook.
The Listening Session, which lasted a little over two hours, included a panel of speakers including moderator Iris Jacob, a trained facilitator with the local group Social Justice Synergy; Preston Mitchum, an attorney and board co-chair of the local group Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS); and Makia Green and NeeNee Taylor, local activists who are both affiliated with Harriet’s Wildest Dreams.
Green recounted at the Listening Session what activists and others who witnessed the June 13 incident in which Young was dragged down a flight of stairs at Nellie’s that security guards appeared to have incorrectly believed Young was among a group of customers that brought their own bottle of liquor into the bar in violation of the bar’s longstanding policy. Green said Young, a college student, was not part of the group that brought in the liquor bottle and had arrived at Nellie’s minutes before the incident began.
Witnesses have said the altercation broke out after a Nellie’s employee arranged for security guards to order those believed to have brought in the liquor to leave the bar. Minutes before the security guard is seen on the video dragging Young down the stairs, Young is seen on the video punching one or more men at the top of the stairs.
Green told the Listening Session that Young was attempting to help her male cousin, who Green said was being attacked and beaten by others during the fight that broke out.
Green and the other panelists who spoke at the Listening Session noted that organizers arranged for the weekly Friday night protests outside Nellie’s to be carried out as block parties, with DJ’s playing music and some participants dancing in the street in front of the bar. They said their aim was to create a “safe space” for Black LGBTQ people to celebrate who they are that they have not been able to do in Nellie’s and other D.C. gay bars, which the panelists said have displayed a bias toward “Black queer” customers.
The city’s Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration, which issues liquor licenses to bars and restaurants announced shortly after the Nellie’s incident that it had opened an investigation into the incident and found Nellie’s may have violated the D.C. liquor law in its handling of the fight. The city’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board referred the case to the Office of the D.C. Attorney General to further investigate whether Nellie’s violated city laws in its response to the fight on its premises.
Spokespersons for the liquor board and the Attorney General’s office didn’t immediately respond to a Blade inquiry about whether the investigations were completed and reached a determination on who was at fault in the Nellie’s incident.
Mitchum, one of the panelists at the Listening Session last week, said organizers have decided not to schedule another such session at this time.
“Overall, the event went well,” Mitchum told the Blade in a statement. “It was a safe space curated by Black queer and nonbinary organizers and activists to speak about the history of anti-Black racism at Nellie’s and other queer bars in D.C. and across the country,” he said.
“Attendees also shared their personal experiences navigating majority-white queer spaces, namely bars and clubs,” he said, adding, “Though I am disappointed that Doug did not show up in-person to meet the activists, organizers, and attendees, we hope he listens to us clearly and takes action to crate safe spaces for all, not just the acceptable few.”
The Community Listening Session can be viewed here.
Delaware
Gay man sues Delaware AG for not prosecuting partner in domestic violence case
Also accuses Univ. of Delaware of failing to discipline Ph.D. student named as attacker
Tymothy ‘Ty’ Moyer, a gay former resident of Wilmington, Del., earlier this year filed a lawsuit in federal court charging Delaware Attorney General Kathleen ‘Kathy’ Jennings, one of her deputies, and a state-employed victims advocate with conspiring to deny him “equal protection” under the law because he is African American by declining to prosecute his then domestic partner after the partner’s arrest on Feb. 3, 2024, for assaulting and seriously injuring him, causing a “permanent traumatic brain injury.”
The lawsuit also names as defendants the University of Delaware and one of its officials for allegedly failing to sufficiently discipline Michael Uzu, Moyer’s former partner and alleged attacker, who at the time was a graduate student seeking a Ph.D. in chemistry.
According to the lawsuit, following his arrest on an assault charge, the university conducted an investigation of Uzu and found he violated the university’s policy of student conduct by engaging in domestic violence, but issued a deferred suspension until December 2025, allowing him to continue his studies. Moyer has said the university acted improperly by not expelling Uzu from its Ph.D. program because of the seriousness of the assault.
The lawsuit identifies Uzu, 33, as a citizen of Nigeria with a U.S. student visa. Uzu identifies himself on his LinkedIn page as a chemist who was conducting research for the Delaware-based chemical company Chemours while studying advanced chemistry at the University of Delaware. His LinkedIn page says he received his Ph.D. in 2026.
Moyer, 30, who identifies himself in his lawsuit as African American and a lifelong U.S. citizen, provided the Washington Blade with a statement describing the details of his allegations against Uzu.
“On the late evening of February 2 through the morning of the 3rd, in 2024, I ended the relationship and asked Michel ‘Mike’ Uzu to leave my apartment in Wilmington, Delaware,” his statement says. “I was ending the relationship after months of escalating mistreatment,” the statement says, adding that Uzu refused to leave his apartment and started a confrontation.
“Uzu attacked me,” the statement continues. “He struck me repeatedly with his fists, with my own cell phone, and with a titanium lacrosse stick that he picked up from inside the apartment and used to strike me on the head. I suffered severe facial trauma, swelling, bodily bruising, and required surgical staples to close the lacerations on the top of my skull.”
The statement adds, “During the assault, Uzu told me he would kill me if I told anyone. Outside the apartment building, Uzu picked up a large rock and positioned himself to strike me with it before a bystander intervened.” It says Moyer was then transported to the emergency room of a nearby hospital.
Moyer’s lawsuit says Uzu was arrested by Wilmington police, indicted by a grand jury, and arraigned on felony and misdemeanor assault charges.
In response to an email request from the Blade for comment, Uzu emailed a statement on Sept. 15 denying all of Moyer’s allegations, saying it was he who told Moyer he wanted to end their relationship and it was Moyer who assaulted him.
“He would get drunk and use drugs and pick up fights with me and apologize when he became normal,” Uzu says in his statement. “So, I packed up my things and decided to depart from him,” he said, adding, “The night preceding the day I was moving out he attacked me while I was sleeping, kicked me in the stomach and injured me in my arms, jaw and neck while I was sleeping, that turned into a fight as I was defending myself.”
He said he called the police and before the police arrived Moyer “self-inflicted injury on himself and framed it on me.”
Moyer couldn’t immediately be reached for a response to Uzu’s allegations. But his friend, journalist Scott Davis, who has followed the case and examined the police report and court documents, said none of Uzu’s allegations could be confirmed by police, who arrived on the scene and prepared a report. Among other things, Davis said the investigation conducted by the University of Delaware found Uzu never provided any documentation that he was injured.
Davis said Moyer, who is about 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighs about 160 pounds compared to Uzu, who is over six feet tall and weighed over 200 pounds, was the one found to be suffering serious injuries, with no injuries reported for Uzu.
Moyer’s earlier statement to the Blade says that In September 2024, on the day of his birthday, the lead prosecutor in the case, Deputy Attorney General Claudia Debonte, called him to inform him she was dropping the case. The lawsuit states that the reason given for dropping the case was insufficient evidence based on Uzu’s claim that he acted in self-defense.
“The University’s hearing officer explicitly rejected Uzu’s self-defense claims as ‘inconsistent and unreliable’ and found that Uzu’s account contained ‘multiple irreconcilable inconsistencies’ and ‘material omissions,’” Moyer’s lawsuit states.
Moyer’s lawsuit says the university’s investigative findings and the police report at the time Uzu was arrested, along with a partial video Moyer took with his phone showing Uzu attacking him with the lacrosse stick, clearly provide sufficient evidence for a full prosecution.
Moyer has said the assault left him with permanent brain damage that impaired his vision, forcing him to resign from his career as a financial compliance associate with the BlackRock asset management company.
In response to a request by the Blade for comment on why the Delaware Attorney General’s office, with the approval of Attorney General Jennings, declined to prosecute Uzu for assault, Matt Marshall, a spokesperson for Jennings, sent the Blade a statement.
“While I can’t characterize specific evidence or statements made to police, the State’s analysis included, but was not limited to, the investigation’s finding that the Defendant had a credible claim of self-defense,” according to Marshall’s statement.
“This kind of dynamic is fairly common in domestic violence cases, no less so in same-sex cases,” he said. “A case being unviable at trial does not mean a victim has not been harmed, that we don’t believe them, or even necessarily that a Defendant is innocent,” Marshall’s statement says. “It only means that criminal guilt could not be proven at trial.”
Among other things, he noted that prosecutors must be able to convince a jury that a defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In this case, he said, his office did not believe they could overcome “every reasonable doubt, which would include a Defendant’s argument that they acted in self-defense.”
Jennings, a Democrat, who easily won her primary race for re-election to a third four-year term on Tuesday, has a longstanding record of support on LGBTQ rights and progressive causes. She was challenged by two opponents in the Sept. 15, 2026, Delaware Democratic primary. One of the opponents, civil rights attorney Dwayne Bensing, is gay and would have become the nation’s first openly gay state attorney general had he prevailed in the race.
In response to a request from the Blade for comment on Moyer’s lawsuit allegations, Bensing said in a statement that when the Attorney General’s office declines to prosecute a case where an arrest was made it should maintain the public trust by being “transparent” about its decision-making process.
“As Attorney General, I will commit to reviewing how domestic partner violence cases are handled across the state to ensure that prosecutorial decisions are made consistently, transparently, and free from administrative oversight failures,” he said.
Moyer’s lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware on April 16, 2026, calls for a jury trial and requests that the court issue a judgment against each of the defendants, “jointly and severally” finding that they “conspired to deprive Plaintiff of the equal protection of the laws in violation of 42 U.S. Code 1985 (3).”
It calls for compensatory damages and punitive damages against each defendant “in an amount to be determined at trial, including damages for lost wages, medical expenses, legal fees, emotional distress, and pain and suffering.”
Moyer said he is currently representing himself without an attorney.
In an Aug. 28, 2026, “Report and Recommendation,” Magistrate Judge Laura D. Hatcher, who was presiding over the lawsuit case, issued a recommendation that the case be dismissed without prejudice on grounds that Moyer’s complaint “fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted” based on existing federal law.
Hatcher also recommended that Moyer be “granted leave to amend his complaint within thirty (30) days of the District Court’s adoption of this Report and Recommendation.”
Moyer told the Blade District Judge Gregory B. Williams accepted the recommendation and granted him permission to amend and revise his complaint.
“An amended complaint addressing the Court’s guidance will be filed within the timeframe the Court has provided,” Moyer said. “The Court identified areas where the complaint needed further development, and that development is underway,” he said.
Moyer’s friend, journalist and commentator Davis, said he has conducted research into domestic violence cases in Delaware and reported in articles and commentaries that Delaware is one of the states with the highest rates of domestic violence cases that are not prosecuted.
“In fiscal year 2024, Delaware law enforcement made 5,064 domestic violence arrests,” Davis wrote in a November 2025 commentary entitled, “Was Ty Moyer Too Black and Gay for Delaware AG Kathy Jennings to Prosecute His Attacker?” He added, “Yet Jennings’ office prosecuted only 1,184 cases – a mere 23 percent,” Davis wrote, adding that, “More than three-quarters of domestic violence perpetrators faced no prosecution despite being arrested.”
Davis told the Blade that Jennings’s decision not to prosecute Uzu has raised concerns that she based that decision on political bias. He points out that Jennings has publicly aligned herself with national immigration advocacy efforts, including joining lawsuits against the Trump administration’s immigration policies and its funding freezes against universities, including the University of Delaware.
Davis said Uzu’s academic ties to the University of Delaware and the chemical company Chemours, which Davis says is “politically influential” with its headquarters in Wilmington, has led some to believe that Jennings’s refusal to prosecute Uzu was politically motivated, aimed at preserving her image as a defender of immigrants rather than pursuing justice for a domestic violence victim.
Jennings’s supporters dispute those claims, saying she bases her decisions on whom to prosecute on the available evidence.
As if all that were not enough, Davis said he contacted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in September 2025 to find out if their strict policy of investigating and deporting immigrants found to have violated U.S. laws, including engaging in violent behavior, might apply to Michael Uzu, who was charged with assault and is in the U.S. on a visa status. Davis said the DHS did not respond to his inquiry.
Virginia
Virginia Anti-Violence Project struggles to fill federal funding gaps
Group has lost 54 percent of funding since 2020
A loss of federal funding has threatened to adversely impact the Virginia Anti-Violence Project’s work in the state.
The group’s mission is to assist LGBTQ and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) victims of domestic, sexual, interpersonal, and state violence with direct support, education, and advocacy. The VAVP seeks to build a future where LGBTQ and BIPOC individuals can live freely without a sense for worry about violence.
“Virginia Anti-Violence Project helps to close the distance between services existing and LGBTQIA+ survivors actually being able to reach safety, stable housing, and support that they can trust,” VAVP Executive Director Ebony Clark told the Washington Blade on Tuesday. “Our mission is to provide direct services and advocacy to LGBTQ+ survivors across Virginia.”
Clark said obtaining state and federal funds has become increasingly difficult.
“One of the reasons that we can talk about is politics and how you know queer diverse, queer communities are targets when it comes to politics, and so that may be a reason why the funding is decreasing in in very niche areas, but overall, state funding, federal funding has been lost or significantly reduced when it comes to culturally specific marginalized populations,” Clark said. “The bigger picture is that funding that was purposed for diversity, equity, inclusion, marginalized populations, or you know culturally competent programming, those funds have been strategically reduced or eliminated on state and federal levels overall.”
Even more so with the current Trump-Vance administration.
VAVP’s federal funding has dropped 54 percent over the last six years: from $25.1 million in fiscal year 2020 to $11.6 million in fiscal year 2026.
Clark noted some federal funding has been denied due to VAVP’s DEI policies — it has had to “water down” their language. These cuts have forced VAVP to limit housing and economic support, which has resulted in fewer resources for its clients.
The organization has set up a goal for receiving between $250,000-$300,000 a year that would allow it to operate — and focus on client housing.
“Housing is fundamental to safety,” Clark told the Blade. “If you know leaving violence puts someone on the street or forces them back to the person harming them, that means the crisis isn’t over. So there needs to be other prevention strategies and reactive strategies in place to be able to prevent further violence from folks.”
VAVP has set up a link for anyone who is interested in making a donation. It is here.
The VAVP website is also accepting donations.
District of Columbia
Hands Off the Arts to form ‘human chain’ around Kennedy Center
Drag performer Tara Hoot among event organizers
An organization called Hands Off the Arts has announced it is holding a protest on Friday, Sept. 18, in which between 400 and 800 participants are expected to create a “human chain” around the Kennedy Center to voice their strong objection to President Donald Trump’s call for possibly demolishing the Kennedy Center.
“Hands Off the Arts is organizing a rally Sept. 18 against the president’s defacing of JFK’s memorial, his removal and censorship of art, and the threat to demolish the center if he can’t remake the site in his image,” a statement released by the group says.
The statement says the event will start with a rally at 6:30 p.m. on the Kennedy Center steps and culminate with a “human chain” around the building. “There will be musical performances, testimonials from current and former employees, along with other special guest speakers,” it says
A separate announcement by the group says longtime D.C. drag performer Tara Hoot, who has performed at the Kennedy Center in past years, was among the organizers of the Sept. 18 protest.
The planned protest follows Trump’s decision last year to use his authority to replace the existing members of the Kennedy Center’s board of directors with new members loyal to him. Over the objection of longtime Kennedy Center supporters, the Trump-appointed board changed the name of the center, at Trump’s request, from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
But following the threat of legal action by opponents who pointed out that the name change could not be legally made unless approved by Congress, the name change was cancelled, with Trump saying he would take steps to restore it later.
The Washington Post, meanwhile, reports in a Sept. 13 news story that because of negative publicity related to Trump’s actions, the Kennedy Center was facing “fiscal collapse” and possible bankruptcy and could be forced to shut down as early as this week.
According to the Post report, a 57-page document presented to the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees says the center was facing a financial and structural building crisis, with the recent collapse of part of the building’s inside ceiling, indicating the building was unsafe for employees and the public. Among other things, the document says the Kennedy Center may not be able to make payroll or pay for routine maintenance “within a matter of weeks,” the Post reports.
Some LGBTQ advocates were among those who joined others in boycotting the Kennedy Center to express their objections to Trump’s actions, including a statement by Trump that he objected to the Kennedy Center’s practice of hosting drag performances.
The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington has been among the LGBTQ performing arts groups and artists that have performed at the Kennedy Center.
“With the future still very much uncertain, now more than ever, the Center needs you to stand up for freedom of expression and against authoritarian overreach into arts and culture institutions,” the Hands Off the Arts group says in its announcement of the Hands Around the Kennedy Center protest.
“You have the opportunity to make a difference — show up with Hands Off the Arts and show your power as part of Hands Around the Kennedy Center,” it says.
A spokesperson for the Kennedy Center couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
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