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
Push to elect more LGBTQ ANC members yields results
31 of 43 known LGBTQ ANC members elected in 2024 seeking re-election
A 2026 list of candidates released by the D.C. Board of Elections shows that 31 of the 43 known LGBTQ candidates who won election in 2024 as Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners have filed the required petition signatures to be placed on the ballot this year to run for re-election.
The Washington Blade reported in 2024 that 43 known LGBTQ candidates won election to ANC seats that year in the November election
In a related development, the president of Capital Stonewall Democrats, D.C.’s largest local LGBTQ political group, said the group this year has recruited at least 39 LGBTQ candidates to run for Advisory Neighborhood Commission seats in the city’s Nov. 3 general election.
The group’s president, Stevie McCarty, an incumbent ANC member in the city’s Shaw neighborhood who is running for re-election, said the 39 candidates and possibly more responded to the group’s Queering ANCs campaign launched on July 7 that includes a website with detailed instructions for how best to run for an ANC seat.
“Since launching in early July, the site has drawn more than 20,000 views, and 39 candidates have used it to actually run,” McCarty said in a statement. He said he wasn’t sure if all the 39 candidates wanted to be identified as LGBTQ, and he was reviewing the list of incumbent LGBTQ ANC members who won election in 2024 to determine if any of the 39 candidates recruited were among those incumbents. He said he was not ready to release the names of the 39 candidates he said his group recruited to run for an ANC seat.
If none of the 39 candidates recruited by Capital Stonewall Democrats are among the 31 known LGBTQ ANC incumbents running for re-election, it would mean at least 70 LGBTQ ANC candidates will be on the city’s November election ballot.
McCarty said Capital Stonewall Democrats will send candidate questionnaires to the known LGBTQ ANC candidates as part of its process for endorsing candidates in the November election. He said he expects the group to help campaign for and provide financial support for the ANC candidates it endorses.
The D.C. local government is believed to be unique among U.S. cities in currently having 46 Advisory Neighborhood Commissions consisting of 345 single member districts in neighborhoods throughout the city in which unpaid Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners are elected for two-year terms.
The commissions are charged with considering a wide range of policies and programs impacting their neighborhoods, including traffic, parking, recreation, street improvements, zoning, liquor licenses, and economic development. Although ANCs do not have authority to set or reject policies or actions by city agencies, the agencies are required to give “great weight” to ANC recommendations, according to the law creating the ANCs.
“As an ANC member, I know firsthand how these seats shape our neighborhoods, from housing and public safety to sanitation,” McCarty said in the Capital Stonewall Democrats statement announcing the launch of the Queering ANCs campaign in July. “I’m proud to lead this effort to ensure more LGBTQ+ Washingtonians see themselves as leaders in their communities,” he said.
Some local LGBTQ activists, who asked not to be identified, said they were not aware of a significant boost in new LGBTQ ANC candidates from the Queering ANCs campaign. However, they praised the effort to recruit more LGBTQ ANC candidates and said the campaign could have yielded more candidates if it had started sooner than less than a month before the deadline for becoming a candidate.
McCarty said Capital Stonewall Democrats will continue to recruit LGBTQ D.C. residents to run as write-in candidates for ANC seats, especially in the 45 single member districts in which no candidate will be on the ballot. The Board of Elections candidate list shows many ANC single member districts that have just one candidate running without an opponent.
Following is a list of 33 known LGBTQ ANC candidates running in D.C.’s November 2026 election and the single member districts and neighborhoods in which they are running. All but two – Vida Rangel and J. Swiderski – are incumbents running for re-election. The Washington Blade will update this list if and when more LGBTQ ANC candidates become known.
1A04 – (Columbia Heights) Jeremy Sherman, he/him
1A10 – (Columbia Heights) Vida Rangel, she/they [non-incumbent candidate]
1B03 – (Columbia Heights/U Street) J. Swiderski, they/he [non-incumbent candidate]
Jamie S. Sycamore, he/him
1B06 – (Columbia Heights/Meridian Hill) Miguel Trindade Deramo, he/him
1B07 – (U Street) Matthew Holden, he/him
1E01 – (Park View) Brad Howard, he/him
2B02 – (Dupont Circle) Jeffrey Rueckgauer, he/him
2B03 – (Dupont Circle) Vincent Slatt, he/him
2C01 – (Penn Quarter) Michael D. Shankle, he/him
2F05 – (Logan Circle) Christopher Dyer, he/him
2F07 – (Logan Circle) Kevin Cataldo, he/him
2G01 – (Shaw)Parker Griffin, he/him Howard Garrett, he/him
2G02 – (Shaw) Alexander ‘Alex’ Padro, he/him
2G04 – (Shaw) Steven McCarty, he/him
3B06 – (Wesley Heights) S. Robert Rodriquez, he/him
3F05 – (Van Ness/Cleveland Park) Adrian Jesus Iglesias, he/him
4B01 – (Takoma) Doug Payton, he/him
4B10 – (Lamond Riggs) Jinin Berry, she/her
4C06 – (Petworth) Christen Boss Hayes, they/them
4E02 – (16th Street Heights) Vince Micone, he/him
5B04 – (Brookland) Ra Amin, he/him
5B05 – (Brookland) Mónica Martínez López, she/her
5D05 – (Trinidad) Salvador Sauceda-Guzman, he/him
5F06 – (Eckington) Joe Bishop-Henchman, he/him
6B03 – (Capitol Hill) David Sobelsohn, he/him
6B09 – (Capitol Hill/Barney Circle) Karen Hughes, she/her
7C01 – (Deanwood) Brian Glover, he/him
7C03 – (Lincoln Heights) Carlos Richardson, he/him
7C04 (Deanwood) Anthony Lorenzo Green
7C08 – (Capitol View) Brandon M. Scott, he/him
8A01 – (Fairlawn) Tom Donohue, he, him
8B06 – (Garfield Heights) Marcus Thomas Hickman, he/him
District of Columbia
Gay-owned pizzeria in Dupont Circle burglarized
Protest Pizza owners say community has expressed support
Gay activist Randy Downs said he and his business and life partner Ricky Bennett are grateful for the support they have received from the Dupont Circle community after they released a video showing a suspect breaking into their recently opened pizza shop and taking money from a cash register shortly before 3 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 21.
The surveillance video shows a man wearing black clothing with his face covered, smashing the glass front door of Protest Pizza, located at 1633 ½ P St., N.W. The video, which Downs and Bennett provided to D.C. police, also shows the suspect climbing over the bar to get to a cash register, which he opened to take out cash.
A D.C. police report obtained by the Washington Blade lists the incident as a Burglary in the Second Degree and says the owners reported “approximately $78 in cash” was taken from the cash register. The report says the incident is not listed as a suspected hate crime.
Downs told the Washington Blade that after he and Bennett reported the break-in and theft on social media, they received an overwhelming showing of support from neighbors and others, including business owners, from across the nation.
“The break-in was upsetting, but it is not what will define Protest Pizza,” Downs said. “What defines us is how quickly people showed up,” he told the Blade. “One person came looking for a cash register; our community saw a gathering place worth protecting. The response reminded us that Protest’s real value was never in the register.”
Downs said he and Bennett, who live around the corner on the section of 17th Street, N.W., near several other bars and restaurants, including the gay bar JRs are located, opened Protest Pizza in November 2025.
“Ricky and I built Protest Pizza as a positive, welcoming, queer owned neighborhood restaurant and bar — a space for protest and joy,” he said.
A D.C. police spokesperson said police offer a reward of up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction of a suspect responsible for the type of burglary and theft that occurred at Protest Pizza. Police say anyone with information to help solve this type of crime should call the police tipline at 202-727-9099.
District of Columbia
Advocates honored at Engendered Spirit Awards
Annual ceremony held at conclusion of Trans Pride DC
The 2026 SaVanna Wanzer Engendered Spirit Awards ceremony took place at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library in D.C. on Saturday. The ceremony was held at the conclusion of the day-long Trans Pride DC: Encore.
Honorees included D.C. Mayor’s Office of Community Affairs Deputy Director Vida Rangel; the LGBT+ Counseling Collaborative, Inc.; and Connor Keuntje, CLP, CLPC.
Trans Pride DC: Encore was held throughout Saturday with several workshop sessions and a virtual conversation with actress and advocate Dominique Jackson.
The annual Engendered Spirit Awards were renamed the “SaVanna Wanzer Engendered Spirit Awards” in honor of SaVanna Wanzer, founder of D.C. Trans Pride. Wanzer died on April 24 of this year.
Speakers at the ceremony included Japer Bowles, director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and Bianca Sprague, executive director of D.C. Trans Pride.
“The intent behind this award and honoring members of our communities, organizations, and allies, is to really elevate all of the work that they’re doing to provide resources, tools, learning opportunities and connections: centering trans folks, gender non-conforming, and gender diverse individuals,” Sprague said.
New book examines Trump cuts to LGBTQ healthcare
E-INFOSOL leaders encourage youth to pursue tech careers
Milo Yiannopoulos deported to UK
San Francisco, long a queer safe haven, remains competitive for homebuyers
For LGBTQ youth starting with nothing, Pride House in Florida offers help
Monument to LGBTQ Canadians officially unveiled
Dolly Parton dies at 80
The fight to save one of Baltimore’s last gay bars
Music icon and dear LGBTQ friend Dolly Parton remembered
