District of Columbia
Kaiser Permanente opens D.C. LGBTQ medical center
Pride Medical facility is located on Capitol Hill
The importance of providing specialized health care services for the LGBTQ community was the lead topic at a reception, panel discussion and ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday at the site of Kaiser Permanente’s LGBTQ Pride Medical Center on Capitol Hill.
Officials with the LGBTQ facility, which is referred to as Pride Medical, said they invited guests and supporters to join the facility’s physicians, staff, and community members to talk about its importance and celebrate its opening in June 2021 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony that had been postponed due to COVID-related restrictions.
“Research shows that LGBTQ+ patients often have health concerns that they prefer to share with a doctor who has experience treating patients who identify as LGBTQ+,” a statement released by the event’s organizers says. “That’s why Kaiser Permanente launched Pride Medical at Capitol Hill, which offers access to physicians who have extensive expertise in LGBTQ+ care, as well as pharmacy, lab, gynecological and case management services,” the statement says.
“Pride Medical is an optional, additional site of care for LGBTQ+ patients,” the statement adds.
The Pride Medical offices are located in Kaiser Permanente’s Capitol Hill Medical Center at 700 Second St., N.E., near Union Station, which is sometimes referred to as Capitol Hill North.
Among those participating in the panel discussion, called Taking Pride in Your Health: A Conversation about LGBTQ+ Health Care, was Dr. Ashlee Williams, a board-certified Kaiser Permanente adult and family medicine physician practicing at the Capitol Hill Medical Center, who served as the panel moderator.
Also participating on the panel was Dr. Keith Egan, one of the primary care physicians at Pride Medical who also serves as Associate Director of Gender Pathways, a transgender supportive program located at the Kaiser Capitol Hill Medical Center. Another panel speaker was Dr. Michael Horberg, who along with Egan, was one of the founders of Pride Medical.
Horberg serves, among other roles, as Associate Medical Director for Kaiser Permanente’s Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group and director of the medical group’s HIV/STI (Sexually Transmitted Infections) program.
Both Egan and Horberg self-identified as gay in their panel presentations. They emphasized that LGBTQ physicians and staff as well as allied physicians and staff who are highly trained in LGBTQ medical related issues play an important role in providing support and expert care for Pride Medical’s patients.
“I think that trust and comfort are the big benefits of Pride Medical,” Egan told the gathering. “But we also have providers with an amazing amount of experience in doing things like providing pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV, post-exposure prophylaxis, talking about sexual health, and with transgender health,” he said.
Egan told the Washington Blade that Pride Medical provides care for patients who are members of the Kaiser Permanente health insurance and healthcare system who live in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs as well as D.C. patients. He said many of the patients living in the suburban areas schedule virtual visits with their physicians through video sessions while also coming in for in-person visits.
Egan said the Pride Medical physicians see LGBTQ patients from all walks of life and ages, starting from age 18 through seniors who are members of Kaiser through their Medicare plans.
Other speakers on the panel included Japer Bowles, director of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs; Dr. Cabell Jonas, research scientist and Director of Research Programs for Kaiser’s Mid-Atlantic Permanente Research Institute; gay health care expert Charles DeSantis, who serves as Chief Benefits Officer and Associate Vice President for Benefits at Georgetown University; and Bianca Rey, a trans woman who provides support for Pride Medical in her role as an Equity Inclusion and Diversity Specialist at Kaiser Permanente’s Mid-Atlantic States Region.
Rey told of how she has benefited both as a patient and staff member of Kaiser’s longstanding trans, nonbinary and gender expansive supportive programs currently being coordinated at Pride Medical.
“I appreciate the fact that care is individualized,” she said. “Trans people and nonbinary people do not transition the same,” she continued. “And I appreciated that the conversation with myself and Pride Medical and that the people that are engaging in that conversation really listen and they give you the proper care that you need in order for you to continue to live as your authentic self.”
At the conclusion of the panel discussion, Dr. Shital Desai, who serves as Physician-In-Chief for Kaiser Permanente’s Mid-Atlantic Region, invited the panelists and other guests to join her in an official ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the opening and continued operation of Pride Medical.
“Our deepest gratitude to this incredible teem who was tireless in creating Pride Medical, which opened its doors to our patients in June of 2021,” Desai told the gathering.
“So, at this time, with such a wonderful audience here in place, we wanted to take the opportunity to engage and commemorate Pride Medical with a ribbing-cutting ceremony, which we were not able to do last June related to the pandemic at that time,” she said.
District of Columbia
D.C. police arrest man for burglary at gay bar Spark Social House
Suspect ID’d from images captured by Spark Social House security cameras
D.C. police on Feb. 18 arrested a 63-year-old man “of no fixed address” for allegedly stealing cash from the registers at the gay bar Spark Social House after unlawfully entering the bar at 2009 14th St., N.W., around 12:04 a.m. after it had closed for business, according to a police incident report.
“Later that day officers canvassing for the suspect located him nearby,” a separate police statement says. “63-year-old Tony Jones of no fixed address was arrested and charged with Burglary II,” the statement says.
The police incident report states that the bar’s owner, Nick Tsusaki, told police investigators that the bar’s security cameras captured the image of a man who has frequently visited the bar and was believed to be homeless.
“Once inside, the defendant was observed via the establishment’s security cameras opening the cash register, removing U.S. currency, and placing the currency into the left front pocket of his jacket,” the report says.
Tsusaki told the Washington Blade that he and Spark’s employees have allowed Jones to enter the bar many times since it opened last year to use the bathroom in a gesture of compassion knowing he was homeless. Tsusaki said he is not aware of Jones ever having purchased anything during his visits.
According to Tsusaki, Spark closed for business at around 10:30 p.m. on the night of the incident at which time an employee did not properly lock the front entrance door. He said no employees or customers were present when the security cameras show Jones entering Spark through the front door around 12:04 a.m.
Tsusaki said the security camera images show Jones had been inside Spark for about three hours on the night of the burglary and show him taking cash out of two cash registers. He took a total of $300, Tsusaki said.
When Tsusaki and Spark employees arrived at the bar later in the day and discovered the cash was missing from the registers they immediately called police, Tsusaki told the Blade. Knowing that Jones often hung out along the 2000 block of 14th Street where Spark is located, Tsusaki said he went outside to look for him and saw him across the street and pointed Jones out to police, who then placed him under arrest.
A police arrest affidavit filed in court states that at the time they arrested him police found the stolen cash inside the pocket of the jacket Jones was wearing. It says after taking him into police custody officers found a powdered substance in a Ziploc bag also in Jones’s possession that tested positive for cocaine, resulting in him being charged with cocaine possession in addition to the burglary charge.
D.C. Superior Court records show a judge ordered Jones held in preventive detention at a Feb. 19 presentment hearing. The judge then scheduled a preliminary hearing for the case on Feb. 20, the outcome of which couldn’t immediately be obtained.
District of Columbia
Judge rescinds order against activist in Capital Pride lawsuit
Darren Pasha accused of stalking organization staff, board members, volunteers
A D.C. Superior Court judge on Feb.18 agreed to rescind his earlier ruling declaring local gay activist Darren Pasha in default for failing to attend a virtual court hearing regarding an anti-stalking lawsuit brought against him by the Capital Pride Alliance, the group that organizes D.C.’s annual Pride events.
The Capital Pride lawsuit, initially filed on Oct. 27, 2025, accuses Pasha of engaging in a year-long “course of conduct” of “harassment, intimidation, threats, manipulation, and coercive behavior” targeting Capital Pride staff, board members, and volunteers.
In his own court filings without retaining an attorney, Pasha has strongly denied the stalking related allegations against him, saying “no credible or admissible evidence has been provided” to show he engaged in any wrongdoing.
Judge Robert D. Okum nevertheless on Feb. 6 approved a temporary stay-away order requiring Pasha to stay at least 100 feet away from Capital Pride’s staff, volunteers, and board members until the time of a follow-up court hearing scheduled for April 17. He reduced the stay-away distance from 200 yards as requested by Capital Pride.
In his two-page order issued on Feb. 18, Okun stated that Pasha explained that he was involved in a scooter accident in which he was injured and his phone was damaged, preventing him from joining the Feb. 6 court hearing.
“Therefore, the court finds there is a good cause for vacating the default,” Okun states in his order.
At the time he initially approved the default order at the Feb. 6 hearing that Pasha didn’t attend, Okun scheduled an April 17 ex parte proof hearing in which Capital Pride could have requested a ruling in its favor seeking a permanent anti-stalking order against Pasha.
In his Feb. 18 ruling rescinding the default order Okun changed the April 17 ex parte proof hearing to an initial scheduling conference hearing in which a decision on the outcome of the case is not likely to happen.
In addition, he agreed to consider Pasha’s call for a jury trial and gave Capital Pride 14 days to contest that request. The Capital Pride lawsuit initially called for a non-jury trial by judge.
One request by Pasha that Okum denied was a call for him to order Capital Pride to stop its staff or volunteers from posting information about the lawsuit on social media. Pasha has said the D.C.-based online blog called DC Homos, which Pasha claims is operated by someone associated with Capital Pride, has been posting articles portraying him in a negative light and subjecting him to highly negative publicity.
“The defendant has not set forth a sufficient basis for the court to restrict the plaintiff’s social media postings, and the court therefore will deny the defendant’s request in his social media praecipe,” Okun states in his order.
A praecipe is a formal written document requesting action by a court.
Pasha called the order a positive development in his favor. He said he plans to file another motion with more information about what he calls the unfair and defamatory reports about him related to the lawsuit by DC Homos, with a call for the judge to reverse his decision not to order Capital Pride to stop social media postings about the lawsuit.
Pasha points to a video interview on the LGBTQ Team Rayceen broadcast, a link to which he sent to the Washington Blade, in which DC Homos operator Jose Romero acknowledged his association with Capital Pride Alliance.
Capital Pride Executive Director Ryan Bos didn’t immediately respond to a message from the Blade asking whether Romero was a volunteer or employee with Capital Pride.
Pasha also said he believes the latest order has the effect of rescinding the temporary stay away order against him approved by Okun in his earlier ruling, even though Okun makes no mention of the stay away order in his latest ruling. Capital Pride attorney Nick Harrison told the Blade the stay away order “remains in full force and effect.”
Harrison said Capital Pride has no further comment on the lawsuit.
District of Columbia
Trans activists arrested outside HHS headquarters in D.C.
Protesters demonstrated directive against gender-affirming care
Authorities on Tuesday arrested 24 activists outside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services headquarters in D.C.
The Gender Liberation Movement, a national organization that uses direct action, media engagement, and policy advocacy to defend bodily autonomy and self-determination, organized the protest in which more than 50 activists participated. Organizers said the action was a response to changes in federal policy mandated by Executive Order 14187, titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.”
The order directs federal agencies and programs to work toward “significantly limiting youth access to gender-affirming care nationwide,” according to KFF, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that provides independent, fact-based information on national health issues. The executive order also includes claims about gender-affirming care and transgender youth that critics have described as misinformation.
Members of ACT UP NY and ACT UP Pittsburgh also participated in the demonstration, which took place on the final day of the public comment period for proposed federal rules that would restrict access to gender-affirming care.
Demonstrators blocked the building’s main entrance, holding a banner reading “HANDS OFF OUR ‘MONES,” while chanting, “HHS—RFK—TRANS YOUTH ARE NO DEBATE” and “NO HATE—NO FEAR—TRANS YOUTH ARE WELCOME HERE.”
“We want trans youth and their loving families to know that we see them, we cherish them, and we won’t let these attacks go on without a fight,” said GLM co-founder Raquel Willis. “We also want all Americans to understand that Trump, RFK, and their HHS won’t stop at trying to block care for trans youth — they’re coming for trans adults, for those who need treatment from insulin to SSRIs, and all those already failed by a broken health insurance system.”
“It is shameful and intentional that this administration is pitting communities against one another by weaponizing Medicaid funding to strip care from trans youth. This has nothing to do with protecting health and everything to do with political distraction,” added GLM co-founder Eliel Cruz. “They are targeting young people to deflect from their failure to deliver for working families across the country. Instead of restricting care, we should be expanding it. Healthcare is a human right, and it must be accessible to every person — without cost or exception.”
Despite HHS’s efforts to restrict gender-affirming care for trans youth, major medical associations — including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Endocrine Society — continue to regard such care as evidence-based treatment. Gender-affirming care can include psychotherapy, social support, and, when clinically appropriate, puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
The protest comes amid broader shifts in access to care nationwide.
NYU Langone Health recently announced it will stop providing transition-related medical care to minors and will no longer accept new patients into its Transgender Youth Health Program following President Donald Trump’s January 2025 executive order targeting trans healthcare.
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