District of Columbia
D.C. trans group suspends operation of LGBTQ crime victim housing facility
Says court officials failed to provide promised number of residents
The D.C.-based LGBTQ organization Empowering the Transgender Community, known as ETC, was forced to suspend its operation of a temporary emergency housing facility for LGBTQ victims of violent crime because the D.C. Superior Court did not provide enough tenants to financially sustain the facility, according to ETC founder and executive director Earline Budd.
Budd and Benita Nero, ETC’s director of programs, told the Washington Blade an official in charge of the Superior Court’s Crime Victims Compensation Program informed ETC in March of 2022 that she expected the court program to provide tenants needing emergency housing to fill the ETC facility to its capacity of 26 individuals or families.
“That never happened,” Nero said. She and Budd said the overhead expenses for renting the small apartment building and hiring staff to oversee its 14 apartments and a capacity of accommodating about 26 to 28 people caused ETC to go into debt because the reimbursement they received from the court for far fewer people than initially promised did not cover the expenses.
“We have had to suspend the program during the last four weeks because we couldn’t keep having staff work and not get paid and not being able to pay the landlord,” Budd said.
“We weren’t even getting 15 people a month,” Nero said. “Fifteen a month would have kept the doors open. They were giving us three people, six people” per month, she said, during most of the time the facility was operating from May through November.
Nero said on a few occasions, the court sent over families with five or six children but provided insufficient reimbursement for the cost of feeding the children and their adult parent, further adding to the debt ETC incurred under the program. The court also was sometimes a month or two late in making its payments for ETC’s housing services, according to Nero.
A description of the crime victims housing program on the Superior Court website in March 2022 said the program establishes arrangements with housing providers for crime victims who could be subjected to danger if they remain in the residence where they had been living at the time they became victims, usually of a crime of violence.
Many of the individuals admitted to the program are victims of domestic violence and need emergency housing, Budd said. She said some of the victims may also be victims of a hate crime.
Budd said ETC was hopeful that it could reopen the emergency housing facility under a revised memorandum of understanding with the Superior Court.
Douglas Buchanan, a spokesperson for the D.C. Superior Court, declined a request by the Blade for an official comment by the court system in response to the concerns raised by Budd and Nero that the court did not fulfill its original commitment to provide a larger number of residents for the ETC housing facility.
Patricia Hawkins, vice chair of the ETC Board of Directors, told the Blade a key factor that caused fewer people than initially promised to be sent to the ETC housing facility was a decision by court officials to reverse an earlier decision to stop sending crime victims needing emergency housing to local hotels. Hawkins said court officials informed ETC in early 2022 that they were discontinuing the hotel option for crime victims and expected to send far larger numbers of crime victim residents to the ETC facility.
Budd and Nero said staffing problems at ETC surfaced from what they say was a severe financial shortfall brought about when the court program did not provide sufficient tenants to pull in funds needed to keep up with the overhead expenses of renting the apartment building and paying the staff.
“I have the data to prove it,” said Nero, referring to the number of people the court program sent in as emergency tenants during the six months or so that the facility was open. “And I felt like if you open an entity, that means you needed it,” she said. “So, evidently you didn’t need it because we weren’t sent enough people to stay open. So, why would you approve an entity to open if you didn’t have the people to support it?”
Budd said an official with the D.C. Department of Human Services (DHS) has reached out to ETC about the possibility of using the ETC apartment building as a low barrier homeless shelter. She said the facility would not likely be able to be used as both a homeless shelter and a housing facility for the courts at the same time, requiring ETC to decide which of the two programs to pursue.
According to Nero, the financial shortfall caused by overhead costs far exceeding the reimbursement funds ETC received from the Superior Court’s Crime Victims Compensation Program resulted in a debt, including back rent, of close to $80,000. This has prompted Budd to launch a GoFundMe fundraising site seeking financial support from the community.
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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