Local
D.C. loses bid for 2025 World Pride to Taiwan
Event will be held in Asia for first time
InterPride, the coalition of LGBTQ Pride organizations from throughout the world, announced early Saturday that it has selected the group Kaohsiung Pride in Taiwan over D.C.’s Capital Pride Alliance to host World Pride 2025.
Kaohsiung Pride and Capital Pride Alliance represented the only two cities that submitted bids to host the international Pride event, which draws thousands of worldwide visitors to the host city.
“With this monumental vote by InterPride members, a World Pride will be held in East Asia for the first time,” according to a statement released by InterPride. “The members of InterPride voted on the host of World Pride 2025 over four days during the 2021 General Meeting and World Conference,” the statement says.
“More than 300 member organizations worldwide participated in the voting process, workshops, plenary sessions, regional and board meetings during the 8-day virtual event,” the statement notes.
In an announcement on Sept. 21 that it had submitted a bid to host World Pride 2025, Capital Pride Alliance said the event, among other things, would commemorate the 50th anniversary of D.C.’s first LGBTQ Pride event in 1975, which began as a block party near Dupont Circle.
“The Capital Pride Alliance congratulates Kaohsiung Pride on being awarded the opportunity to produce World Pride 2025,” said Capital Pride Alliance Executive Director Ryan Bos in a statement released by InterPride.
“We extend to them our heartfelt best wishes for a successful event,” Bos said. “Capital Pride will use the next three years to continue with our long-standing plans to commemorate the 50th anniversary of pride in Washington, D.C., in June 2025,” he said in the statement.
The decision to select Taiwan over D.C. for World Pride 2025 comes five years after D.C. and Guadalajara, Mexico, lost their respective bids to host the 2022 Gay Games, the quadrennial international LGBTQ sports event. Like InterPride, the Federation of Gay Games, the U.S.-based group that organizes the Gay Games, said in its 2017 announcement that the selection of Hong Kong represented the first time that event would be held in Asia.
Gay Games organizers in Hong Kong have since announced they have postponed the event for one year, to November 2023, due to concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Hong Kong organizers last week said plans for the event were moving forward with support from corporate sponsors and LGBTQ groups despite a crackdown by China against human rights activists in Hong Kong over the past two years that has drawn international condemnation by human rights advocates.
China has long claimed that Taiwan is part of its territory and has suggested it might take military action to “reunite” the island with China, a development that has led to tension between China and the U.S., a committed Taiwan ally.
“From Rome to Jerusalem to London to Toronto to Madrid to New York City to Copenhagen, World Pride has been a worldwide event since 1997,” InterPride said in its statement announcing the event would take place in Taiwan in 2025. The statement says Sydney, Australia, will be hosting the next World Pride set for 2023.
“Bringing World Pride to this region [Taiwan] for the first time will create a significant impact to the much-needed visibility and awareness of human rights for the LGBTQIA+ community there while providing the ability for millions more to participate from surrounding countries and territories, including China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia,” Julian Sanjivan, InterPride’s co-president, said in the statement.
Maryland
Hate crime charges dropped against most Salisbury students in off-campus attack
Suspects allegedly used Grindr to target victim
BY MIKE HELLGRIN, CHRISTIAN OLANIRAN, AND ELLIE WOLFE | Prosecutors in Wicomico County are dropping felony assault and hate crime charges against at least 12 of the 15 Salisbury University students charged in an off-campus attack in October.
Misdemeanor false imprisonment and second-degree assault charges remain for most of the defendants, and many trials are set for late January.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
District of Columbia
D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs moving to new location
LGBTQ community center also set to leave Reeves Center
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, which is currently located at the city’s Reeves Center municipal building at 14th and U Street, N.W., was scheduled to move during the week of Dec. 9 to a new location at 899 North Capitol St., N.E., according to Japer Bowles, the office’s director.
Bowles said the LGBTQ Affairs office will be located on the seventh floor of the privately owned office building in which the city has rented space for several other city agencies, including the D.C. Department of Health.
The move comes about amid longstanding plans to demolish the Reeves Center and replace it with a redevelopment project that will include a mix of housing, office space, a hotel, and retail stores along with a public plaza and a 200-seat amphitheater.
The D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center, which has been located in the Reeves Center for about 10 years, also expects to be moving out of the building in the spring of 2025, said Kimberley Bush, the LGBTQ center’s executive director.
Bush said the LGBTQ center looks forward to moving into its new, larger space in a building at 1827 Wiltberger St., N.W. in the city’s Shaw neighborhood, which is located one block away from the Shaw-Howard University Metro station.
The LGBTQ center entered a joint lease to rent space in the Wiltberger Street building with the Capital Pride Alliance, the group that organizes most of D.C.’s LGBTQ Pride events, including the upcoming World Pride 2025 events set to take place in D.C. May 17-June 8.
In response to a request by Bowser, the D.C. Council earlier this year approved $1 million in funding for fiscal year 2025 to support the build-out and construction of the LGBTQ Center’s space in the Wiltberger Street’s converted warehouse building.
But shortly after the Council approved that funding, the D.C. Center and Capital Pride Alliance announced the launch of a fundraising campaign called “Welcome Home – Building Together, Thriving Together” to raise an additional $1.5 million needed to complete the renovation of the new building.
“This endeavor is more than just the construction of a building; it represents a commitment to carve out a generous 7,000 square feet of space devoted to nurturing unity, empowerment, and support across the LGBTQ+ spectrum,” a statement announcing the fundraising campaign says.
District of Columbia
D.C. LGBTQ community to gather for post-election dialogue
Dec. 12 event to address federal workers’ rights, immigration, more
Several leading LGBTQ organizations in D.C. are coming together to make sense of the recent election and to discuss the future of advocacy and resilience as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office.
With Republicans in firm control of the federal government after winning majorities in the House and Senate, many are concerned about attacks on the LGBTQ community, including Trump’s pledge to ban trans people from serving in the military. In addition, many LGBTQ federal workers have expressed concerns about being targeted for reassignment or termination, as outlined in Project 2025, a right-wing blueprint for Trump’s second term.
In response, D.C.’s LGBTQ community is coming together for an event on Thursday, Dec. 12, 6:30-8 p.m. at the Eaton Hotel (1201 K. St., N.W.) featuring an array of speakers who will address issues, including: anticipated policy shifts; community resilience strategies; legal rights; immigration advocacy; and federal workers’ rights.
The event, titled, “Charting Our Future: LGBTQ+ Advocacy & Resilience in a Changing Landscape” is free; visit washingtonblade.com/future to RSVP.
The event is being hosted by the Washington Blade and includes community partners: the DC LGBTQ+ Budget Coalition, HME Consulting & Advocacy, Eaton DC, DC LGBTQ+ Community Center, Capital Pride Alliance, and the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs. Heidi Ellis of the DC LGBTQ+ Budget Coalition will moderate. A list of speakers will be released later this week.
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