District of Columbia
LGBTQ voters to choose among friends in D.C. elections
Out gay candidates considered viable in Ward 1, 5 Council races
In what LGBTQ activists consider a highly positive development, all serious candidates running for mayor, D.C. Council, Attorney General, and the city’s congressional delegate seat and “shadow” U.S. House seat in the city’s June 21 Democratic primary have either expressed strong support for LGBTQ issues or have long records of support on those issues.
Activists following the election say they expect LGBTQ voters — like all D.C. voters — to decide who to vote for based on a number of other issues, including public safety, affordable housing, and whether the city’s public schools should remain under mayoral control or return to the previous system of an independent school board, among other issues.
“We are fortunate to live in a city where all candidates support the LGBTQ community, so it is other issues our community is focused on,” said gay Democratic activist Peter Rosenstein, who is supporting Mayor Muriel Bowser’s re-election bid for a third term in office.
Other LGBTQ activists, including former Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance President Rick Rosendall, are backing D.C. Council member Robert White (D-At-Large) for mayor. Like Bowser, Robert White has a long record of support on LGBTQ issues.
Ward 8 Council member Trayon White (D-Ward 8) and community activist and former Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner James Butler are also running for mayor in the Democratic primary. Trayon White has supported LGBTQ issues on the Council and Butler has expressed support for those issues.
The other races on the primary ballot on June 21 include D.C. Council Chair; At-Large D.C. Council member, Council members for Wards 1, 3, 5, and 6; D.C. Attorney General; D.C. Congressional Delegate; and U.S. Representative, also known as the city’s “shadow” House member with no voting powers in Congress.
In an action that surprised some in the LGBTQ community, the Capital Stonewall Democrats, the city’s largest LGBTQ political group, has endorsed Robert White over Bowser in the mayor’s race and Democratic challenger Erin Palmer over incumbent longtime LGBTQ rights supporter Phil Mendelson for the D.C. Council Chair position.
Capital Stonewall Democrats has also endorsed incumbent Ward 1 Council member Brianne Nadeau over her out gay challenger, former D.C. police officer Salah Czapary, who has been endorsed by the Washington Post and by former D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams.
The LGBTQ Democratic group has endorsed the second out gay D.C. Council candidate running this year, D.C. Board of Education President Zachary Parker, who is among seven candidates competing for the open Ward 5 D.C. Council seat. Incumbent Ward 5 Council member Kenyan McDuffie is not running for re-election.
Parker has been endorsed by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, the Washington Teacher’s Union, and the Sierra Club among other local political groups. Both Czapary and Parker were endorsed by the LGBTQ Victory Fund, the national group that raises money to help elect LGBTQ candidates for public office.
The other candidates competing with Parker for the Ward 5 Council seat include former At-Large and Ward 5 Council member Vincent Orange and community activists Faith Gibson Hubbard, Gary Johnson, Art Lloyd, Gordon Fletcher, and Kathy Henderson.
In other races, Capital Stonewall Democrats voted to endorse D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who is running unopposed in the primary; D.C. Congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is favored to win re-election against two lesser-known challengers; and D.C. shadow U.S. Rep. Oye Owolewa, who’s also favored to win over a lesser-known opponent.
The LGBTQ group did not make an endorsement in the Ward 3 and At-Large D.C. Council races and in the D.C. Attorney General’s race because no candidate received a required 60 percent of the vote from group’s members under its longstanding rules for endorsements.
Eight candidates are running for the Ward 3 Council seat for which incumbent Council member Mary Cheh is not seeking re-election. A ninth candidate, Tricia Duncan, dropped out of the race earlier this week and endorsed candidate Matthew Frumin. Some political observers say Frumin and former city budget director Eric Goulet are the two frontrunners in the race. The other candidates include Henry Cohen, Ben Bergman, Beau Finley, Monte Monash, Deirdre Brown, and Phil Thomas. All have expressed strong support for LGBTQ equality.
Also expressing support for the LGBTQ community are the three candidates running for Attorney General — Brian Schwalb, Ryan Jones, and Bruce Spiva. Each is a practicing attorney at separate D.C. law firms.
In the At-Large Council race, three candidates are challenging incumbent and longtime LGBTQ rights supporter Anita Bonds – Lisa Gore, Nate Fleming, and Dexter Williams, each of whom also expressed support for the LGBTQ community.
In the D.C. Congressional Delegate race challenger Rev. Wendy Hamilton served as minister for the LGBTQ supportive Metropolitan Community Church in suburban Maryland and describes herself as a strong LGBTQ ally. The second challenger to incumbent Eleanor Holmes Norton is community activist Kelly Mikel Williams, who also expressed support for the LGBTQ community.
Jatarious Frazier, the Capital Stonewall Democrats president, said Norton’s years of acting as a champion for LGBTQ rights on Capitol Hill made her an easy choice for the group’s endorsement for re-election.
Political observers have said the current “dividing line” between the city’s Democratic candidates who run against each other in the primaries historically has been whether they position themselves as moderates or left-leaning progressives. Democratic voters, including LGBTQ voters, also fall into those two ideological camps, according to observers.
But some political observers say the Ward 1 and Ward 5 D.C. Council races, where openly gay candidates are running, have raised the question of whether LGBTQ voters should vote “gay” rather than follow their ideological leanings, to bring back LGBTQ representation on the Council for the first time in eight years.
The late gay D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) left the Council in January 2015 after losing his 2014 re-election bid to incumbent Ward 1 Council member Nadeau. Gay former D.C. Council member David Catania (I-At-Large) left office in 2015 after an unsuccessful run for mayor in 2014.
Supporters of Czapary and Parker have said a member of the LGBTQ community on the D.C. Council would offer important representation for the LGBTQ community that a straight ally cannot necessarily provide on issues such as homeless LGBTQ youth and persistent hate violence to which the LGBTQ community, especially transgender women, are faced with.
In addition to being endorsed by AG Racine, the Teacher’s Union, and the Sierra Club, Parker received the endorsement of Ward 4 D.C. Council member Janeese Lewis George, who’s considered one of the Council’s left-leaning progressives, as well as the endorsement of the left-leaning groups Democratic Socialists of America and the Working Families Party.
Parker told the Washington Post he doesn’t view his race for the Ward 5 Council seat as being one of moderate versus liberal left.
“You will see a range of people that span ideology [supporting me],” the Post quoted him as saying. “And that is what we need more of in our political system,” he told the Post.
Czapary, who states on his campaign website that he supports progressive values, says he holds positions on key issues as a moderate Democrat, including issues related to public safety. He has supported Bowser’s call for the Council to increase the police budget to restore funds the Council cut from the police budget two years ago. He points out that Nadeau was among the Council members that voted to cut the police budget.
Nadeau has said she has taken strong action in support of public safety policies, including violence interruption programs that Czapary also supports.
Czapary’s supporters, including the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which endorsed him, say he too would transcend ideology to work for solutions to the problems facing Ward 1 and the city. As the son of a Palestinian refugee and a Hungarian immigrant, he would become the first Arab American to serve on the D.C. Council, his supporters point out.
“D.C. boasts the highest percentage of LGBTQ+ individuals per capita of any large U.S. city,” Czapary told the Blade. “Our city’s policies must respond to the needs of these communities and support the most vulnerable within them,” he said.
Less than a week before the June 21 primary, it couldn’t be determined whether “progressive” LGBTQ voters in Ward 1 would back Czapary or whether “moderate” LGBTQ voters in Ward 5 would back Parker.
With many political observers saying both Parker and Czapary have a shot at winning, supporters of their opponents have stepped up their opposition campaigns against the two, with Czapary being singled out as a “closet” Republican, an allegation he strongly denies.
Nadeau has pointed out that he did not become a registered Democrat until he filed for his candidacy for the Ward 1 Council seat earlier this year. Czapary says he has been a Democratic leaning independent based on his and his parents’ adherence to the Bahai faith, which shuns political parties.
He told the Blade his parents were far more accepting of him when he came out as gay than when he came out to them as a Democrat. But he said they understood his political beliefs were fully aligned with the Democratic Party.
Nadeau has also cited a Washington City Paper report in May that Czapary earlier this year named as his honorary campaign chairperson the son of a Trump supporter who was associated with a right-wing group that supported Trump’s claim that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, and that Trump was the true winner.
Czapary told the Blade he immediately dismissed Will Pack as his campaign chair after learning that Pack played a brief role with the ultra-conservative Claremont Institute. He said he met Pack when Pack was a volunteer firefighter and volunteer police officer at the time Czapary worked as a special assistant to D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee.
“My team is very much rooted in the Democratic Party,” said Czapary. “My campaign manager is Steve Schwab who Speaker Pelosi has called an ‘incredible leader,’ who has run a dozen Democratic campaigns,” Czapary told the Blade. “My field director worked for Bernie Sanders and my committee leader worked on both the Obama and Clinton campaigns.”
Observers of the Ward 1 race say Czapary has a shot at winning but his campaign is facing the dilemma that a third candidate running for the Ward 1 seat, ANC Commissioner Sabel Harris, could take away just enough votes from Czapary to enable Nadeau to win with less than 50 percent of the vote, which is what happened when she won her re-election race in 2018.
Nadeau has said LGBTQ issues have been among her highest priorities since taking office in 2015. She told members of Capital Stonewall Democrats at an event for the group’s endorsed candidates last week that she would continue her role as a committed LGBTQ ally.
The D.C. Board of Elections’ candidates list shows there are just six Republican candidates running in the city’s Republican primary, each of whom is running unopposed. There are no candidates running under the city’s two other political parties – the Statehood Green and Libertarian Party.
Following are the Republican Party candidates:
• DC Congressional Delegate – Nelson Rimensnyder
• DC Mayor – Stacia Hall
• DC Council Chair – Nate Derenge
• DC Council At-Large – Giuseppe Niosi
• DC Council Ward 3 – David Krucoff
• DC Council Ward 5 – Clarence Lee, Jr.
Rimensnyder, who has run for the congressional delegate seat in the past, has expressed support for LGBTQ rights. A spokesperson for Hall noted that Hall appeared as guest speaker at a recent meeting of D.C.’s LGBTQ Log Cabin Republicans group but did not provide information about Hall’s positions on specific LGBTQ issues.
Niosi and Krucoff and a small contingent of their supporters marched in the D.C. Capital Pride Parade on June 11. Lee couldn’t immediately be reached to determine his position on LGBTQ issues. Derenge, who ran as a GOP candidate for the Ward 8 D.C. Council seat in 2020, received a GLAA rating of -2 at that time.
Adam Savit, the D.C. Log Cabin Republicans president, said the group decided not to endorse any of the unopposed Republican candidates at this time. He said Log Cabin plans to hold a GOP candidate forum in the fall ahead of the November general election.
Longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Earl Fowlkes, who serves as chair of the Democratic National Committee’s LGBTQ Caucus, predicts there will be a low voter turnout and far fewer votes cast in the June 21 primary because this year is an “off year,” non-presidential election.
“With all the other things going on – the high gasoline prices and people trying to survive with the inflation, I don’t know if there is a lot of interest in this election,” he said. “And the people I talk to are not really focusing on the election very much because there are other issues they’re dealing with.”
If the voter turnout is low, Fowlkes said, it nearly always gives an advantage to the incumbents, prompting him to predict Mayor Bower, Council Chair Mendelson, and At-Large Council member Bonds will win their respective races.
Mark Lee, coordinator of the D.C. Nightlife Council, a nonprofit trade association representing the city’s restaurants, bars, and nightclubs, including gay bars, said the operators of those establishments have not officially endorsed any candidates running in the June 21 primary. But Lee said many of them are individually backing candidates they feel understand the needs and concerns of their mostly small, neighborhood-based businesses.
“That’s why there is broad small business support across the District for the re-election of Mayor Muriel Bowser, D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson, and At-Large Council member Anita Bonds,” Lee said. He said many nightlife business operators are also supporting Eric Goulet for the Ward 3 Council seat, Faith Gibson Hubbard for Ward 5 Council, and Salah Czapary for the Ward 1 Council seat.
GLAA ratings trigger controversy
The Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA), one of the city’s oldest LGBTQ organizations, last month issued candidate ratings that some critics say favor candidates with left-leaning progressive views unrelated to LGBTQ issues.
GLAA released a statement disputing those claims, saying the issues on which it based its ratings, such as decriminalization of sex work, reallocating funds from the police budget for violence prevention programs, and increased funding for programs for the homeless, will favorably impact LGBTQ people who are experiencing problems that some candidates have not adequately addressed. LGBTQ activists disagree over the impact the GLAA ratings will have on LGBTQ voters.
In the mayoral race, GLAA gave Robert White a rating of +9 out of the highest possible rating of +10. The group gave Bowser a rating of +6 and mayoral candidate Butler a +3 rating. Mayoral contender Trayon White received a “0” rating for failing to return a GLAA candidate questionnaire that the group requires of all candidates it rates. Under its rules, candidates that do not return a completed questionnaire receive an automatic “0” rating.
The group issues its ratings on a scale of +10, the highest rating, to -10, the lowest possible rating. GLAA did not issue ratings for the Congressional Delegate or shadow House seats or for any of the Republican candidates.
Following are GLAA’s candidate ratings:
D.C. Mayor
Robert White — +9
Muriel Bowser — +6
James Butler — +3
Trayon White – 0
D.C. Council Chair
Erin Palmer — +8
Phil Mendelson — +6
D.C. Council At-Large
Lisa Gore – +8.5
Anita Bonds — +6
Nate Fleming – +5.5
Dexter Williams – +4.5
D.C. Council Ward 1
Brianne Nadeau – +9.5
Sabel Harris – +6
Salah Czapary – +4
D.C. Council Ward 3
Beau Finley – +7
Deirdre Brown – +6.5
Phil Thomas – +5
Ben Bergmann – +4.5
Tricia Duncan – +4
Matt Frumin – +4
Henry Cohen – 0
Eric Goulet – 0
Monte Monash – 0
DC Council – Ward 5
Faith Gibson Hubbard – +7.5
Zachary Parker – +6.5
Gordon Fletcher – 0
Gary To-To Johnson – 0
Kathy Henderson – 0
Art Lloyd – 0
Vincent Orange [No rating given on ethics grounds]
D.C. Council Ward 6
Charles Allen — +8.5
Attorney General
Bruce Spiva — +6.5
Brian Schwalb — +6
Ryan Jones — +2.5
A breakdown of GLAA’s rating scores for each of the candidates and the candidates’ responses to the GLAA questionnaire can be accessed at glaa.org.
District of Columbia
Bowser budget proposal calls for $5.25 million for 2025 World Pride
AIDS office among agencies facing cuts due to revenue shortfall
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s proposed fiscal year 2025 budget includes a request for $5.25 million in funding to support the June 2025 World Pride celebration, which D.C. will host, and which is expected to bring three million or more visitors to the city.
The mayor’s proposed budget, which she presented to the D.C. Council for approval earlier this month, also calls for a 7.6 percent increase in funding for the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, which amounts to an increase of $132,000 and would bring the office’s total funding to $1.7 million. The office, among other things, provides grants to local organizations that provide services to the LGBTQ community.
Among the other LGBTQ-related funding requests in the mayor’s proposed budget is a call to continue the annual funding of $600,000 to provide workforce development services for transgender and gender non-conforming city residents “experiencing homelessness and housing instability.” The budget proposal also calls for a separate allocation of $600,000 in new funding to support a new Advanced Technical Center at the Whitman-Walker Health’s Max Robinson Center in Ward 8.
Among the city agencies facing funding cuts under the mayor’s proposed budget is the HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, Sexually Transmitted Disease, and Tuberculosis Administration, known as HAHSTA, which is an arm of the D.C. Department of Health. LGBTQ and AIDS activists have said HAHSTA plays an important role in the city’s HIV prevention and support services. Observers familiar with the agency have said it recently lost federal funding, which the city would have to decide whether to replace.
“We weren’t able to cover the loss of federal funds for HAHSTA with local funds,” Japer Bowles, director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, told the Washington Blade. “But we are working with partners to identify resources to fill those funding gaps,” Bowles said.
The total proposed budget of $21 billion that Bowser submitted to the D.C. Council includes about $500 million in proposed cuts in various city programs that the mayor said was needed to offset a projected $700 million loss in revenue due, among other things, to an end in pandemic era federal funding and commercial office vacancies also brought about by the post pandemic commercial property and office changes.
Bowser’s budget proposal also includes some tax increases limited to sales and business-related taxes, including an additional fee on hotel bookings to offset the expected revenue losses. The mayor said she chose not to propose an increase in income tax or property taxes.
Earlier this year, the D.C. LGBTQ+ Budget Coalition, which consists of several local LGBTQ advocacy organizations, submitted its own fiscal year 2025 budget proposal to both Bowser and the D.C. Council. In a 14-page letter the coalition outlined in detail a wide range of funding proposals, including housing support for LGBTQ youth and LGBTQ seniors; support for LGBTQ youth homeless services; workforce and employment services for transgender and gender non-conforming residents; and harm reduction centers to address the rise in drug overdose deaths.
Another one of the coalition’s proposals is $1.5 million in city funding for the completion of the D.C. Center for the LGBTQ Community’s new building, a former warehouse building in the city’s Shaw neighborhood that is undergoing a build out and renovation to accommodate the LGBTQ Center’s plans to move in later this year. The coalition’s budget proposal also calls for an additional $300,000 in “recurring” city funding for the LGBTQ Center in subsequent years “to support ongoing operational costs and programmatic initiatives.”
Bowles noted that Bowser authorized and approved a $1 million grant for the LGBTQ Center’s new building last year but was unable to provide additional funding requested by the budget coalition for the LGBTQ Center for fiscal year 2025.
“We’re still in this with them,” Bowles said. “We’re still looking and working with them to identify funding.”
The total amount of funding that the LGBTQ+ Budget Coalition listed in its letter to the mayor and Council associated with its requests for specific LGBTQ programs comes to $43.1 million.
Heidi Ellis, who serves as coordinator of the coalition, said the coalition succeeded in getting some of its proposals included in the mayor’s budget but couldn’t immediately provide specific amounts.
“There are a couple of areas I would argue we had wins,” Ellis told the Blade. “We were able to maintain funding across different housing services, specifically around youth services that affect folks like SMYAL and Wanda Alston.” She was referring to the LGBTQ youth services group SMYAL and the LGBTQ organization Wanda Alston Foundation, which provides housing for homeless LGBTQ youth.
“We were also able to secure funding for the transgender, gender non-conforming workforce program,” she said. “We also had funding for migrant services that we’ve been advocating for and some wins on language access,” said Ellis, referring to programs assisting LGBTQ people and others who are immigrants and aren’t fluent in speaking English.
Ellis said that although the coalition’s letter sent to the mayor and Council had funding proposals that totaled $43.1 million, she said the coalition used those numbers as examples for programs and policies that it believes would be highly beneficial to those in the LGBTQ community in need.
“I would say to distill it down to just we ask for $43 million or whatever, that’s not an accurate picture of what we’re asking for,” she said. “We’re asking for major investments around a few areas – housing, healthcare, language access. And for capital investments to make sure the D.C. Center can open,” she said. “It’s not like a narrative about the dollar amounts. It’s more like where we’re trying to go.”
The Blade couldn’t’ immediately determine how much of the coalition’s funding proposals are included in the Bowser budget. The mayor’s press secretary, Daniel Gleick, told the Blade in an email that those funding levels may not have been determined by city agencies.
“As for specific funding levels for programs that may impact the LGBTQ community, such as individual health programs through the Department of Health, it is too soon in the budget process to determine potential adjustments on individual programs run though city agencies,” Gleick said.
But Bowles said several of the programs funded in the mayor’s budget proposal that are not LGBTQ specific will be supportive of LGBTQ programs. Among them, he said, is the budget’s proposal for an increase of $350,000 in funding for senior villages operated by local nonprofit organizations that help support seniors. Asked if that type of program could help LGBTQ seniors, Bowles said, “Absolutely – that’s definitely a vehicle for LGBTQ senior services.”
He said among the programs the increased funding for the mayor’s LGBTQ Affairs office will support is its ongoing cultural competency training for D.C. government employees. He said he and other office staff members conduct the trainings about LGBTQ-related issues at city departments and agencies.
Bowser herself suggested during an April 19 press conference that local businesses, including LGBTQ businesses and organizations, could benefit from a newly launched city “Pop-Up Permit Program” that greatly shortens the time it takes to open a business in vacant storefront buildings in the downtown area.
Bowser and Nina Albert, D.C. Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, suggested the new expedited city program for approving permits to open shops and small businesses in vacant storefront spaces could come into play next year when D.C. hosts World Pride, one of the word’s largest LGBTQ events.
“While we know that all special events are important, there is an especially big one coming to Washington, D.C. next year,” Bowser said at the press conference. “And to that point, we proposed a $5.25 million investment to support World Pride 2025,” she said, adding, “It’s going to be pretty great. And so, we’re already thinking about how we can include D.C. entrepreneurs, how we’re going to include artists, how we’re going to celebrate across all eight wards of our city as well,” she said.
Among those attending the press conference were officials of D.C.’s Capital Pride Alliance, which will play a lead role in organizing World Pride 2025 events.
District of Columbia
Taste of Point returns at critical time for queer students
BIPOC scholar to speak at Room & Board event on May 2
The Point Foundation will kick off May with its annual Taste of Point DC event. The event will be hosted at Room & Board on 14th Street and feature a silent auction, food tastings, a speech from a scholar, and more.
Point’s chief of staff, Kevin Wright, said that at Taste of Point, the scholars are the star of the show.
“People never come to an event to hear Point staff speak, they come to hear from the people most impacted by the program,” he said. “At its core Taste of Point is designed to center and highlight our scholars’ voices and experiences.”
This year, a Point BIPOC Scholar, Katherine Guerrero Rivera will speak at the event.
“It is a great opportunity to highlight the scholars out there on the front lines making impacts in almost every sector and job field,” Wright said.
Wright pointed out that this year especially is a pivotal time for LGBTQ students.
“In 2023, there were 20 states that passed anti-LGBTQ legislation,” he said. “By this point in [2024] we already have more.”
Wright said the impacts of those legislative attacks are far reaching and that Point is continuously monitoring the impact they have on students on the ground.
Last month, The Washington Post reported that states with anti-LGBTQ laws in place saw school hate crimes quadruple. This report came a month after a non-binary student, Nex Bennedict, died after being attacked at school.
“So, we see this as a critical moment to really step up and help students who are facing these challenges on their campus,” Wright said. “Our mission is to continue to empower our scholars to achieve their full academic and leadership potential.”
This year Point awarded nearly 600 LGBTQ students with scholarships. These include the flagship scholarship, community college scholarship and the BIPOC scholarship. When the foundation started in 2002, there were only eight scholarships awarded.
Dr. Harjant Gill is one of those scholars who said the scholarship was pivotal for him. Gill said he spent his undergraduate years creating films and doing activism for the LGBTQ community.
As a result, his academic record wasn’t stellar and although he was admitted into American University’s graduate program he had no clue how he would fund it.
Upon arrival to American he was told to apply for a Point scholarship and the rest was history.
“It ended up being the one thing that kept me going otherwise I would have dropped out,” he said. “Point was incredibly instrumental in my journey to becoming an academic and a professor.”
More than a decade later, Gill serves on the host committee for Taste of Point and is a mentor to young Point scholars. He said that he donates money yearly to Point and that when he is asked what he wants for a gift he will often tell his friends to donate too.
To attend the event on Wednesday, May 2, purchase tickets at the Point website. If you can’t attend this year’s Taste of Point DC event but would like to get involved, you can also donate online.
District of Columbia
Three of five LGBTQ candidates win race for DNC delegate from D.C.
32 candidates competed for 13 elected seats in party caucus
Three out of five known LGBTQ candidates running for election as delegates from D.C. to the Democratic National Convention won their races at an April 20 Democratic Party caucus election held at D.C.’s Walter Washington Convention Center.
Ward 2 gay Democratic activist John Fanning finished in first place with 140 votes and Ward 8 gay Democratic activist David Meadows finished in second place with 127 votes in a race in which six male candidates committed to supporting President Biden were competing for three male seats in a section of the city designated as Congressional District 1, which included registered Democratic voters in Wards 1, 2, 6, and 8.
Ward 7 gay Democratic activist Jimmie Williams won his race, finishing in third place with 200 votes in a race in which eight male candidates committed to President Biden competed for four male seats in the Congressional District 2 section of the city that included Wards 3, 4, 5, and 7.
Gay Democratic activist Felipe Afanador lost his race, finishing in sixth place with 47 votes in the Congressional District 2 election for male candidates backing Biden. It couldn’t immediately be determined which of the four wards in District 2 he is from.
The Washington Blade didn’t learn about Afanador’s status as an LGBTQ candidate until the Capital Stonewall Democrats announced it one day before the April 20 party election in an email statement.
In the Congressional District 2 race among female candidates, in which eight candidates competed for three female seats, transgender rights advocate and Ward 3 Democratic Party activist Monika Nemeth lost her race, finishing in sixth place with 49 votes.
The five LGBTQ candidates were among 32 candidates competing for just 13 elected delegate positions in D.C. D.C. will have a total of 51 delegates to the Democratic Convention, but the other 38 include elected officials and party leaders who are considered “automatic” or appointed delegates. The Democratic Convention will be held in Chicago Aug. 19-23.
Observers familiar with the April 20 party caucus election said Fanning, Meadows, and Williams had participated in local D.C. Democratic Party events and activities for a longer period than Nemeth and Afanador and appear to have been better known among Democratic voters in their respective wards as well as other wards. Those factors contributed to their receiving significantly more votes than most other candidates, observers have said.
In his candidacy statement posted on the D.C. Democratic Party website, Afanador said he worked on the 2020 Biden presidential election campaign in Pennsylvania. His LinkedIn page says in 2022 he began work in Washington for the Biden administration as an official in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Nemeth is a past president of D.C.’s Capital Stonewall Democrats, the city’s largest LGBTQ local political group, and has been an active member of the D.C. Democratic State Committee, the local party governing body. She served as a Biden delegate at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
“It is important for our D.C. delegation to have strong LGBTQ representation,” Capital Stonewall Democrats said in its April 19 statement. “There are five LGBQ candidates running to be delegate, and Capital Stonewall Democrats asks that our members support each one,” the statement says.
“Unfortunately, they fell short, but they and all queer Democrats are welcome to attend and participate in convention events and activities sponsored by the national and local party,” Meadows told the Blade in referring to Nemeth and Afanador. “Our shared goal is to unite behind the Biden-Harris ticket to protect our LGBTQ rights from being dismantled by Donald Trump and the GOP,” Meadows said.
“Running for District Delegate is one of the most grassroots efforts,” Fanning told the Blade. “It’s very beneficial to align yourself on a slate with community leaders that have either previously run for District Delegate or have developed a constituency in their community from other civic engagements,” he said, referring to possible reasons for his, Meadows, and Williams’s election victory.
Aside from the D.C. elected LGBTQ delegates, two prominent D.C. LGBTQ Democratic leaders will be appointed as delegates to the 2024 Democratic National Convention in their role as members of the Democratic National Committee from D.C. They are Claire Lucas, a highly acclaimed Democratic Party and LGBTQ rights advocate and party fundraiser; and Earl Fowlkes, one of the lead organizers of D.C.’s annual Black LGBTQ Pride celebration and former president of the Capital Stonewall Democrats. Both are committed to supporting President Biden as the Democratic nominee for re-election.
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