District of Columbia
Blade event to celebrate 50th anniversary of historic APA speech
Gay psychiatrist John Fryer credited with changing LGBTQ history
The Washington Blade, in partnership with the American Psychiatric Association, is holding an event on May 12 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the historic speech by then closeted gay psychiatrist John Fryer before the APA’s 1972 national convention calling on the group to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.
Fryer, who had a psychiatric practice in Philadelphia and served as a professor of psychiatry at Temple University, disguised his identity when speaking at the APA convention in Dallas by wearing a rubber mask, a wig and speaking through a microphone that distorted his voice.
His compelling argument that scientific research showed homosexuality was not a mental illness, and that gays and lesbians were upstanding members of their communities, including practicing psychiatrists, is credited with playing a leading role in the APA’s decision one year later to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in its official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.
The Blade event will take place at Whitman-Walker’s The Corner community exhibition center at 1701 14th St., N.W. beginning with a panel discussion at 6 p.m. followed by a cocktail reception at 7 p.m.
The panel will feature four experts on the topic of John Fryer’s role in changing the thinking on homosexuality and LGBTQ people: Dr. Saul Levin, CEO and Medical Director of the APA; Dr. Karen Kelly, a friend and mentee of John Fryer; Katherine Ott, Ph.D. and curator in the history of medicine at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, where she documents LGBTQ history; and Dr. Amir Ahuja, president of the Association of LGBTQ Psychiatrists (AGLP).
The panel will be moderated by award-winning filmmaker Patrick Sammon, who co-directed “Cured,” a documentary film about the LGBTQ activists who successfully fought to convince the APA to remove the “diagnosis” of homosexuality from its manual of mental illnesses.
The APA’s partnership with the Blade in celebrating the significance of Fryer’s 1972 speech is viewed as a development symbolizing the APA’s dramatic change from an institution that stigmatized homosexuality to a strong supporter of LGBTQ rights, with its current CEO and Medical Director, Saul Levin, being an out gay psychiatrist.
“I feel it’s really fantastic that John Fryer and what he did is being remembered by our community,” Sammon told the Blade. “It’s too easy to forget our history and forget where we came from,” Sammon said. “So, it’s wonderful that we’re pausing and reflecting on what he did and how it impacted where we are today in the fight for equality.”
Experts on LGBTQ history have said among the changes brought about by the APA’s removal of homosexuality from its classification as a mental disorder were efforts around the country to repeal state sodomy laws, which made it illegal and in some places a felony for consenting adults to engage in sexual activity with a same-sex partner.
The APA’s action is also credited with boosting efforts to pass laws banning discrimination against gays and lesbians, which were later expanded to include nondiscrimination protections for transgender people.
Out gay psychiatrist Amir Ahuja, who serves as president of the Association of LGBTQ Psychiatrists, said the positive outcome from Fryer’s efforts has had a direct impact on his own career.
“I would say I think John Fryer opened the door for me to have a career and many of my colleagues who are LGBTQ+ psychiatrists in order to work in a field where we’re not stigmatized as having an illness,” Ahuja said. “Because we could have lost our job. That’s what happened to John Fryer multiple times,” according to Ahuja. “Before he gave that speech, he had lost two residencies at least. Because of his sexuality, people were discouraging him from continuing in the profession.”
Sammon and Ahuja said it’s also important to remember that Fryer’s groundbreaking speech came at a time when others in the pre-Stonewall early gay rights movement — sometimes called the homophile movement — played a pivotal role in the APA’s decision to change its position on homosexuality.
“It’s wonderful to put John Fryer in the spotlight, but it’s also important to think about all the other people who were involved in this fight,” Sammon said. He noted among those credited with starting the effort to change the APA going back to around 1965 was D.C. gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny, who had a doctorate degree in astronomy from Harvard University.
As a scientist, Kameny was among the first in the political area to point out that claims by the psychiatric profession that homosexuality was an illness were based entirely on studies of homosexuals who were psychiatric patients undergoing treatment for stress, stigma, and other mental health problems related to society’s condemnation of homosexuality.
Kameny, who referred to the then prevailing thinking on homosexuality as “junk science,” also pointed to a groundbreaking but little noticed study of homosexual men who were not suffering from any mental health problems conducted by Dr. Evelyn Hooker, a psychologist who had gay friends who helped her recruit subjects for her study, which was published in 1956.
The study, which was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, included administering three longstanding tests to assess the mental health of individuals, including the Rorscharch ink blot test, on 30 exclusively gay men and 30 exclusively heterosexual men with no histories of mental illness, according to an American Psychological Association write-up on the study.
The results of the tests were reviewed by mental health experts who were not told which of the test results were from the gay or straight participants. Their conclusion was there were no differences in the state of the mental health of the homosexual and heterosexual participants.
District of Columbia
D.C. Council approves increased funding for Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs
Increase attached to 2027 budget bill
The D.C. Council on July 14 gave final approval for the city’s fiscal year 2027 budget that includes an amendment calling for increasing the number and size of funding grants that the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs provides for local organizations providing services for the LGBTQ community.
The amendment, called the “LGBTQ Community Grant Amendment Act of 2026,” was introduced earlier this year by D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), the Council’s only gay member.
The D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition called the Parker amendment “a historic measure that establishes the District’s most sustainable model for a vehicle for investing in LGBTQ communities.”
The Council approved the version of the FY 2027 budget bill with the attached Parker amendment in its first of two required votes on June 9. Shortly after voting unanimously to give final approval of an earlier version of the two-part budget measure on July 7 that includes the Parker amendment, the Council sent the bill to Mayor Muriel Bowser for her signature.
Bowser has expressed strong opposition to several provisions in the $22 billion budget measure passed by the Council that are unrelated to the Parker amendment regarding the Office of LGBTQ Affairs. The mayor has yet to say whether she will sign, veto, or choose not to sign the bill.
The latter option would allow the bill to become law if Congress does not choose to overturn it during its required 30-day legislative review period for all D.C. bills. Political observers believe the Council will vote to override a veto if Bowser chooses to veto the bill.
When contacted by the Washington Blade on July 22 to determine where the mayor stands on the budget bill, mayoral spokesperson Daniel Gleick said only, there was “no update on the budget just yet.”
Among other things, the Parker amendment calls for the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs to issue a $980,000 grant in FY 2027 to a private, nonprofit organization in partnership with the office “for the purpose of supporting programs that promote the welfare of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning community.”
It would allocate $680,000 of that funding total from existing funds from the city’s community affairs grants program and calls for $200,000 in newly appropriated funds.
It says the organization selected would also initiate its own fundraising effort to expand the amount of funds beyond the amount the office would provide, enabling it to provide larger grants to a greater number of local LGBTQ organizations.
“The legislation arrives at a critical moment, as LGBTQ-serving organizations face unprecedented uncertainty,” the D.C. Budget Coalition said in its comment on the Parker amendment. “Growing demand for services is colliding with shrinking resources, federal attacks on LGBTQ programs, and ongoing threats to local funding streams,” the coalition’s statement says.
In what some observers have called a highly controversial action; the budget bill approved by the Council reverses and restores millions of dollars in budget cuts proposed by Bowser in the budget she submitted to the Council earlier this year.
Among other things, the Council’s budget preserves the current level of funding for housing vouchers, childcare, paid family leave, and other programs slated to be cut in the mayor’s proposed budget, according to a report by the Washington Post.
Bowser points out that the Council approved budget bill calls for using $150 million from the city’s reserve fund, which she and others have said could put the city in jeopardy in future years. The mayor has said the cuts were needed to prevent a major funding shortfall brought about by the action by Republicans in Congress to cut the city’s budget by over a billion dollars.
District of Columbia
Is the Metro safe for riders?
WMATA says crime dropped 37 percent on system in 2025
I was inside Benning Road train station in April waiting for my train with two friends on the way to school. It usually took me 25-30 minutes to get from Benning Road Station to school at Congress Heights. As I waited for the train, I kept noticing that every train that got to five minutes away would disappear from the Metro screen before it got to my stop.
I found out from one of my friends that a Metro work vehicle had crashed into a train at Metro Center and that all trains were now delayed. While my friends were able to call their family to pick them up, I had no such luxury. The train was my only option. It took me more than an hour to get to school. I missed my first period because of it and had to make up my work later in the day. I was marked absent because when a student misses one class, they’re marked absent for the day and an email is sent to their parents. I felt irritated knowing that I had to deal with all of these problems that weren’t even my fault due to an incident that happened on a different side of town.
The incident at Metro Center isn’t the only incident that I have experienced on the subway. I have experienced kids fighting and almost pushing me on the tracks, massive delays because a woman was passed out on the train and Metro police pulling out their assault rifles and arresting someone in the station, which caused people to panic and start running.
I later learned the crash that led to me being late to school caused 11 injuries to people who were on the train, according to media reports. And the Metro has experienced other dangerous incidents this year. A man was beaten so badly on Cinco de Mayo that he needed staples in his head and another man was beaten to death by a stranger at the Addison Road station.
However, I’ve never experienced any incident that has led to me getting hurt, nor actually seen anyone get hurt.
So, is the Metro safe?
Metro experienced the lowest crime rate in its history in 2025, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority said. The crime rate decreased by 37 percent in 2025 compared to 2024.
Last year, the Metro Transit Police Department increased enforcement efforts department-wide by more than 25 percent, Metro said. WMATA said it is in the process of installing upgraded video systems on our 6000 and 7000-series rail cars, which make up most of the cars in the system. This new camera system allows for live video access to rail cars from Metro’s Integrated Command and Communications Center.
Asked if he felt unsafe using the Metro, Dr. Aruna Rajam, a teacher at Bard High School Early College DC and George Washington University, recalled being on the train with a man who was smoking weed and yelling.
“It didn’t turn physically violent, but it was alarming and made me feel like the situation could go sideways quickly,” said Rajam, who takes the train to both of his jobs, traveling day and night.
Incidents like these are what make Rajam feel unsafe occasionally when he is riding the subway at night: “Late at night — like my 8:45 ride from Foggy Bottom to Springfield — it’s a different atmosphere.”
Jayden Payne, a rising sophomore at Bard, worries even more.
“There was a man who seemed intoxicated, moving around his phone, pretending it was a gun-all up in ladies’ faces,” he said in an interview.
When asked if he would recommend the subway to others, he gave a firm “no” due to all of the incidents that he has heard about that have happened on the Metro.
Erin Bray, who graduated from Bard in June, recalled an incident when a man brought a gun on the train when she was on it. Asked if she felt safe on the subway, Bray said: “No, because there’s not enough security and people keep bringing [weapons] on there.”
Metro said it launched a Safety Risk Reduction Plan to improve riders’ safety and employs several other safety tactics, including Safe Passage patrols to help students in D.C. get to and from school safely.
While all of the people interviewed said that they saw or experienced an uncomfortable incident, Metro said it is increasing its security and safety protocols.
WMATA data coincides with what one of my interviewees said about his experience on Metro.
“I feel safer now than I felt riding the Metro today than I did 10 years ago,” Dr. Samuel Slattery, a social science teacher at Bard High School Early College, said.
He spoke of his experience with the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority subway in Philadelphia in comparison: “… That’s what an unsafe train system feels like,” Slattery said.
The week before he was interviewed in May, Slattery said he was on SEPTA and there was a woman “eating beans off the floor of the train,” a homeless man “passed out in the middle of the train,” and a mentally ill woman yelling in his and other passengers’ faces that, “‘Jesus was watching her’ and the rest of us were in contact with demons.” This incident agitated Slattery so much that he said, “Screw this” to his friend and decided to pay extra for an Uber.
Metro riders who want to report an incident or safety concern can call Metro Transit Police (MTPD) at 202-961-2121 or text MYMTPD (696783). Metro also posts a daily Crime Blotter on its website where the public can see the calls MTPD responded to on a given day. The Crime Blotter can be found here: https://www.wmata.com/about/transit-police/crime-stats.cfm
Christian Jennings, a 2026 graduate of Bard High School Early College DC, is a rising freshman at North Carolina State University, where he plans to major in nuclear engineering. He worked with journalist-instructors at Youthcast Media Group on this article.
District of Columbia
Wanda Alston Foundation announces passing of founding executive director Brian Watson
D.C. activist praised as “passionate advocate” for homeless LGBTQ youth
The Wanda Alston Foundation, which provides housing and support services for homeless LGBTQ youth in the D.C. metro area, announced on July 20 that its founding executive director, Brian Watson, has passed away.
In a statement the Alston Foundation called Watson “one of Washington, D.C.,’s most passionate advocates for LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness.”
Neither the statement nor others who knew Watson have disclosed the cause of death or his age. Longtime LGBTQ community activist Rayceen Pendarvis said she heard only that Watson’s passing followed “a long time illness.”
“The origins of the Wanda Alston Foundation can be traced to a meeting convened by then-Mayor Anthony Williams at the request of Wanda Alston, the Mayor’s Director of LGBTQ Affairs,” the statement says.
“During that meeting, Brian spoke powerfully about the growing crisis of homelessness among LGBTQ+ youth in the District of Columbia and the urgent need for dedicated housing and support services,” it says. “His advocacy helped crystalize a vision that every young person deserves a safe place to call home.”
The statement points out that following Alston’s untimely death, Watson joined other community leaders “to transform that vision into reality by establishing the Wanda Alston Foundation in her memory.”
It says that today the Alston Foundation “proudly carries forward the mission Brian helped create by providing emergency and transitional housing, counseling, workforce development, life-skills training, and other supportive services that empower LGBTQ+ youth to achieve stability, independence, and hope for the future.”
Watson’s LinkedIn page says he served as executive director of the Alston Foundation from July 2013 to March 2014. The Washington Blade reported in April 2014 that the Alston Foundation announced in a March 11, 2014, statement that Watson had resigned to “pursue other opportunities.”
His LinkedIn page shows he worked for or with in a supporting role three local nonprofit organizations since leaving the Alston Foundation, including serving from February 2019 to November 2019 as a Methamphetamine Services Specialist for the D.C. group HIPS, which provides services for drug users and sex workers.
According to his LinkedIn page, from October 2014 to “present,” he also served as Chief Innovation Officer for the Propel Foundation, Inc., which he described as a “501c3 nonprofit organization founded in D.C. that works to strengthen nonprofit organizations through fiscal sponsorship and capacity building.”
A Facebook posting by his brother, Vidale Watson, says his family will be making arrangements for a memorial service and will share the date, time, and location once the details have been finalized.
“There are no words to describe the heartbreak our family is feeling,” Vidale Watson wrote. “While we are grateful for every prayer, kind word, and act of support we’ve received over the past week, this loss is still incredibly fresh.”
PHOTOS: Petal Release Party
Madonna headlines World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam
Reggie White relishing first season as artistic director of Woolly Mammoth
PHOTOS: Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade
Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade draws hundreds of thousands
Madonna to perform at World Pride in Amsterdam
BLADE ENDORSEMENT: Susan Stewart for mayor of Rehoboth Beach
PHOTOS: Lambda Legal in the Pines
Calendar: July 31-August 6
