Virginia
Gay GenZer wants to be youngest Va. state delegate
Zach Coltrain is running in 98th House district
Zach Coltrain lives in two worlds. In one, he traverses the serene landscapes of Appalachian State University in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains — studying the use of music as a therapeutic intervention. In the other, he navigates the thorny world of politics in the neighboring state of Virginia, which saw a conservative shift after the election of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin in 2021.
Coltrain, a 20-year-old gay Democrat, said those two worlds have coexisted for him since high school — where he split time between the debate team and musicals, campaigning and band practice, politics and music.
“It’s really important to me, solidifying my education with mental health, especially when I let it exist with government, where it appears most people don’t have a strong grasp on how mental health works,” he told the Washington Blade.
The balance will certainly be harder to steer as Coltrain announced his campaign for Virginia’s 98th House of Delegates district in August 2021 — becoming the youngest candidate to run for a seat in Virginia’s lower body. In fact, Coltrain, who grew up in the district, won’t meet the minimum age requirement of 21 until his birthday in September, two months before the election.
Coltrain is joining an ever-growing list of political candidates from Generation Z — defined as those born between 1997 and 2012 — whose older members are just reaching the age where they can legally run for office, 2022 being the first year Gen Z could run in federal elections. And it didn’t take long for Gen Z to get on the board.
On Saturday, Florida Congressman Maxwell Frost, 25, was officially sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first Gen Z congressperson in history.
“The people of Orlando sent me to Washington, D.C., to fight for them and enact the kind of change they want to see in our communities. Gun reform, universal healthcare, housing affordability, tackling the climate crisis and more,” Frost said in a statement. “We have so much work to do, but I’m honored to represent my people.”
In addition, according to campaign finance tracker Open Secrets, Gen Z candidates for federal offices raised millions of dollars during the 2022 campaign season. The nonprofit identified at least seven Gen Z candidates — four Democrats and three Republicans — vying for congressional seats in 2022.
Gen Z is also partially responsible for thwarting the so-called “red wave” that many political analysts predicted for last year’s midterms. In 2022, Democrats overperformed, gaining one seat in the Senate and not losing nearly as many seats in the House as predicted.
Ashley Aylward, a senior researcher at the Washington-based public opinion research firm HIT Strategies, wrote in Time that an “earthquake of young voters shook up the political world” in 2022.
“When young people’s rights are on the ballot and championed by the candidate, they show up,” she wrote.
The numbers seemed to back up her claims. About 1 in 8 voters overall were under 30, according to early exit polling and AP VoteCast, and more than half supported Democratic candidates in the midterm elections. It came during the same year that the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, stripping pregnant people of the Constitutional right to an abortion; 74 percent of 18-29-year-olds believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to recent data from the Pew Research Center.
In an interview with the Blade, Aylward couldn’t say definitively whether we could expect a similar turnout of young voters in statewide and local races. Coltrain’s race will be decided later this year — Nov. 7, 2023 — with no headline-grabbing national or gubernatorial elections to help boost turnout.
But Aylward — speaking broadly and making clear she didn’t have enough data to make any clear conclusions — speculated that Dobbs v. Jackson, the case that gave the state’s the power to decide abortion rights, could lead to increased turnout in often overlooked statewide elections.
“I have noticed a shift in attention being turned towards state and local politics, because we know that is where the most impact happens on our day-to-day lives,” she said. “But a lot of it was sparked from the Dobbs v. Jackson case, because people now realize that these decisions about our bodies are going to be made in our state legislatures.”
Aylward added that she hopes to do more research on the topic in the future.
Furthermore, Aylward said she has found that Gen Z voters are “way more motivated to vote when they see young people like them run for office.”
“Most often of what we hear in focus groups is that young people are usually feeling more jaded, because they don’t see people like them in elections, particularly young,” she said.
This begs the question: Can a man not yet able to legally consume alcohol convince the people of Virginia’s 98th House district to vote for him?
In general, Aylward said, she has found that age does matter to some folks. “But most of the time, it boils down to the issues. [Voters] go on and on about the issues that people are championing,” she said.
Coltrain is the only Democrat in the race, clearing his path to the general election. However, his journey to the Virginia House becomes murkier after the primaries. According to the Virginia Public Access Project, Coltrain’s Republican opponent will either be Glenn Davis or Barry Knight — both of whom are current Virginia delegates.
Davis has represented District 84 since 2014, and Knight has represented District 81 since 2010.
The district, which encompasses the southeast corner of the state, did change after redistricting, but it still favors Republicans. The new 98th District is made up of parts of the old 84th, 81st and 21st Districts — all of which favored former President Donald Trump in the 2016 election. In 2021, the 98th District overwhelmingly voted for Youngkin, who captured 63.06 percent of the vote. VPAP categorizes the district as “strong Republican.”
Coltrain admitted that competing in the district worried him, saying there are no guarantees that the district will be flipped. But he believes his campaign is unique and will make him tough competition for his Republican opponent.
Zeroing on Knight, Coltrain criticized the incumbent’s past challengers. “The past few candidates we put up against Barry Knight, my opponent, have been other rich white guys,” he said. “Nobody’s really eating that up.”
“I think that’s not our case, here,” Coltrain added. “I’m a student on a Pell Grant with student aid and a music scholarship, literally barely hanging on financially at points.”
Furthermore, Coltrain touted his campaign issues — which focus on environmental protection, education and healthcare — as a “reflection of both [his] district and also Gen Z in general.”
“I think I found a way to find this niche intersection, where a rural district with farmers in it have the same common interests as Gen Z advocates,” he said. “And I think a big part of that can be the environment.”
As for his opponent using his age against him, Coltrain said, “Honestly, I hope they do.”
“My age is something that I’m going to flip as a good thing, and I have been campaigning with it,” he said. “I started right off the jump telling people that I’m here, and I’m young, and I’m not even old enough to hold the office that I’m running for. I am aware that this is unique, and I’m aware that being the youngest person to run is something that will make people uncomfortable.”
But Coltrain, who has worked on campaigns since he was a teenager, thinks that the “argument that there’s not room for [young people] at the table is not true and won’t be true.”
“I know how to have a real impact in our district,” he said. “I know that specifically, when we’re looking at young activists and organizers, our district is looking for them, tirelessly. I think that this could be a wake up call for us, it can be a way for people my age and people of my generation to realize that this is something that they can do and realize this is the space that they are supposed to exist in.”
Coltrain has no lack of people who believe he could very well be the person to flip the district. In fact, Dr. William “Fergie” Reid, the founder of 90 for 90, an initiative that aims to supply a Democratic challenger in all Republican-controlled districts, reached out to Coltrain directly and encouraged him to run.
Reid — named after his father, William Reid, the first African American elected to the General Assembly in the 20th century — said he was looking for a candidate who was “in college, politically inclined and not scared.” Eventually, he said, “I got his name, and I tracked him down. When I talked to him, he couldn’t have been cooler, and [he] understood what I was talking about.”
In 2021, Republicans swept all three statewide positions — governor, Youngkin, lieutenant governor, Winsome Sears, and attorney general, Jason Miyares — and took control of the House of Delegates in an upset. Youngkin became the first Republican to win a statewide election in Virginia in more than a decade.
Reid said Democrats’ losses in the state were narrow in 2021 and came down to Democrats “not playing hard enough.” To Reid, “if Democrats just play a little bit harder, they’ll take back the majority. And this is what Zach is doing; he’s helping Democrats play just a little bit harder.”
Youngkin has since signed an executive order to root out critical race theory in Virginia’s education system. He has also supported anti-LGBTQ policies, including forcing teachers to out queer students and restricting the rights of transgender students.
Coltrain, who came out as gay when he was 11 years old, said he “was comfortable in telling everybody that I was gay from a really early age.” But “looking at the way things are now, I don’t know that even right now, people could still have that story in the area that I grew up in. And it’s been super, super scary.”
“He’s got the right stuff, and I couldn’t be more proud of him,” he said of Coltrain.
Coltrain is staring down a busy semester, one sure to be full of aching feet and headaches as he’s committed to his campaign, coursework, part-time food truck job and Application State’s debate team, where he is one of two captains.
“It’s a lot for sure,” he said with uncertainty in his voice. “We’re trying to balance it.”
But the brief moment was drowned out by his overwhelming enthusiasm.
“Schoolwork all day and campaigning all afternoon is just normal now,” he said, calling the opportunity “life changing.”
Maryland
Va., Md., advocates brace for next fight after Supreme Court sports ruling
Neither state has statewide ban on trans student athletes
On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for states to enforce laws barring transgender students from participating on school sports teams consistent with their gender identity, a decision LGBTQ advocates say could encourage additional restrictions across the country.
While neither Maryland nor Virginia currently has a statewide ban on trans student athletes, advocates say the decision could reshape future legislative battles and school policies throughout the region.
Directly following the case, attorneys for trans student athletes spoke out about the case and how detrimental it could be to students.
“This ruling is deeply harmful for transgender women and girls who only asked for the ability to participate in sports with their peers,” said Sasha Buchert, senior attorney and director of the Nonbinary and Transgender Rights Project for Lambda Legal, in a press release from the American Civil Liberties Union.
The next step is figuring out how states will move forward, specifically in Maryland and Virginia.
As of right now, neither state has bans on trans athletes in schools. The new Supreme Court decision also does not require states to enact bans, only that bans are allowed if states or school districts choose to enforce them.
According to the ACLU, 27 states have banned trans youth from participating in school sports since 2020. Most of these states also require sex testing, which the organization says is invasive for all female athletes.
Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman said that while she has heard a lot of frustration following the decision, people are ready to take action.
“Families, parents and youth have lived through disappointing changes to the Virginia Department of Education’s model policies for the treatment of transgender students, and the Virginia High School League’s decades-old policy that allowed transgender students an opportunity to play sports with their friends,” Rahaman said in a statement to the Washington Blade.
She believes they are not ready to give up this fight quite yet.
As of now, trans and nonbinary students are protected under Virginia law, and Rahaman wants that to continue.
“This ruling will likely embolden right-wing members of the General Assembly to pursue trans athlete bans, and we will continue to defeat every bill like we have the past five legislative sessions. Now is our time to be proactive,” Rahaman said.
She also calls upon Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger to defend trans youth in Virginia from what she describes as bullies and to continue to stand up to federal attacks on the trans community in general.
For trans students, Rahaman wants to ensure that they continue to know that they belong and have a place in school sports.
“To the transgender young people watching this decision unfold: you belong on your team, in your school, in your community, and here in Virginia. This ruling does not change that. A single Supreme Court decision cannot define your worth or your future,” Rahaman said.
For people who may be outside the community but want to help, she encourages them to speak with trans and nonbinary people in their community, befriend the families of youth to show their support, and continue to speak up on these issues when needed.
According to ACLU of Virginia, high schooler Eliza Munshi was told she could not compete on the girls’ track team because she was trans. To prove a point, she decided to compete with the boys.
She had previously competed on the girls’s track team before her Virginia school decided to enforce the ban demanded by President Donald Trump. With pink hair and pink makeup, she decided to continue her love for the sport alongside boys. According to Munshi, her entire community rallied for her.
“I did it to prove a point. I knew I could do it. I knew it wouldn’t phase me. My gender itself and that label has been the least important part of my transition: I want to look how I want to look. I want to dress how I want to dress. If you don’t like that, then that’s not my business,” Munshi said.
DOE has launched Title IX probe against Md. school districts
In the weeks leading up to the ruling, multiple Maryland school districts were included in a Title IX probe stating that not enforcing sex-based protections guaranteed by federal law. Currently, there have been no updates on the lawsuit or the district’s decisions.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, the federal probe is based on parent complaints that the school districts were violating a specific Trump-Vance administration addition to Title IX, stating it aligned the sex-based protections “with biological reality, not ideological fantasy.”
According to FreeState Justice, an LGBTQ advocacy group in Maryland, while this is a disappointing ruling to see, they will continue to fight for trans student-athletes in Maryland and want trans youth to know that they belong.
“Every young person deserves the opportunity to participate in school and community life without being singled out because of who they are. These decisions send a harmful message to transgender youth that they are somehow less deserving of that opportunity,” said Phillip Westry, the group’s executive director.
Westry wants to make sure the community knows that their commitment to the organization has not changed and will continue to provide the same legal services they have prior and to advance policy solutions, to ensure “every LGBTQ+ Marylander can live with dignity, safety, and equal opportunity.”
Another issue brought up by trans advocates is the issue of testing women to determine whether they are biologically female or not.
According to Human Rights Watch, as of 2023, World Athletics required cis women with increased testosterone levels to undergo medical procedures to have it reduced to avoid advantages. Other forms of “sex verification” may include genetic testing, screenings of an athlete’s anatomy or chromosomes.
However, this can become detrimental because not all women have ovaries, a uterus, or XX chromosomes, meaning cisgender women could potentially be included in these bans, depending on how the specific state plans to enforce them.
Virginia
Gay teacher, LGBTQ-supportive parent win $1 million in Fairfax County defamation lawsuits
Separate claims allege teacher and parent falsely called ‘notorious child sex perverts’
Juries in two separate civil trials in Fairfax County, Va., last month awarded a gay teacher and an LGBTQ-supportive parent a combined total of just over $1 million in damages from a conservative group and its leader accused in their lawsuits of falsely and maliciously linking the two to a “child abduction ring” and other illegal actions involving children.
The teacher, Robert Rigby Jr., and the parent, Vanessa Hall, have been active members for many years of Fairfax County Public Schools Pride, an organization of teachers, school administrators and parents that advocates for LGBTQ-supportive school policies.
Their respective lawsuits were filed last year against what they describe as a Republican-supportive political action committee or PAC called the Virginia Project and its founder and chairperson, David Gordon. The lawsuits say Gordon “is responsible for curating and managing TVP’s social media content, including its posts and comments on Twitter,” which has renamed itself as X.
“Beginning in early 2025, defendants amplified an ongoing harassment and intimidation campaign they previously launched against Mr. Rigby by and through TVP’s Twitter handle, @ProjectVirginia,” Rigby’s lawsuit states.
It adds that on Jan. 3, 2025, “defendants retweeted a post by Bill Ackman stating that ‘hundreds of thousands of young British girls have been gang raped by members of principally one ethnic group.’” According to the lawsuit, “preceding” that post, the defendants tweeted, “in NoVA they call it Rigbyhalling.”
In response to a question that someone else posted asking what was “Rigbyhalling,” the defendants responded that it corresponded to “a pair of notorious child sex perverts with free run of FCPS (Fairfax County Public Schools) that for some reason aren’t yet in prison,” Rigby’s lawsuit states. The lawsuit states that the defendants, referring to the Virginia Project PAC and Gordon, used the word “pair” to refer to Rigby and Hall.”
It says the defendants tweeted that the FCPS Pride group, which Rigby co-founded, is a “grooming gang” and included a photo of Rigby in that post. In a Feb. 6, 2025, tweet, according to the lawsuit, the defendants stated, “[w]e need to talk about this child abduction scheme that we caught running out of Fairfax County Public Schools.”
Hall’s lawsuit also mentions the “Rigbyhalling” allegation. In addition, it states that Hall was subjected to “numerous false and defamatory statements,” among other things claiming she is an “unemployed crazy person” who has been given access to children “to ask them about sex.” Her lawsuit quotes one of the Virginia Project PAC’s postings as saying her actions were an “obscene scandal that for some reason is allowed to continue.”
It adds, “defendants’ false and defamatory statements were published with actual malice, as defendants knew the statements were false and acted with reckless disregard for the truth.”
Hall’s lawsuit describes her as a longtime community, school and church volunteer who has provided public input at Fairfax County School Board meetings “to support the safety, education, and civil rights of public school students, staff, and their families, primarily focusing on LGBTQIA+ and disability rights.”
The jury trials for both cases were held in the Fairfax County Circuit Court.
Jason Zellman, the Virginia attorney who represented both Rigby and Hall, said the trial for Rigby’s case took place June 8 through June 10. He said the trial for Hall’s case was held June 15 through June 17.
D. Hayden Fisher, the attorney listed in court records as representing the Virginia Project and Gordon, did not respond to a request from the Washington Blade for comment on the jury verdicts against his client.
In his initial “answer” to the Rigby lawsuit filed in court on July 23, 2025, Fisher’s court filing says his client denies the allegations that “it engages in intimidation, publishes disinformation, or engages in any of the other tactics and untoward conduct alleged herein.” It says that any statements made by the defendants that express opinions are protected under the First Amendment as free speech.
NBC Washington reported that the attorney for Gordon and the Virginia Project PAC sent it a statement saying his client will appeal the two jury verdicts, which he said were “improper as a matter of law.” Without identifying the lawyer by name, NBC Washington said the lawyer’s statement added, “The verdicts will be tossed, and a new trial ordered.”
Zellman, the attorney representing Rigby and Hall, told the Blade he believes both cases are strong and would prevail if the defendants appeal. He said any appeal would likely argue that the Twitter posts about Rigby and Hall were opinions protected by free speech.
“I don’t think that’s going to be a very good legal argument for them,” he said. “Maybe there could have been some qualifying language like in my opinion or ‘I think.’” Zelman said. “There was no language like that with these statements. It was all very declarative, actual assertions,” he added. “So, I think we’re in good shape.”
The juries awarded Rigby $350,000 in compensation for damages from the Virginia Project and Gordon and awarded $750,000 for Hall. It couldn’t immediately be determined if Gordon and his PAC have the financial resources to pay that money.
Rigby said he retired as a teacher after more than 20 years of teaching in 2022 but has since returned to continue teaching part time.
“I can tell you if I don’t see any money out of this, that’s ok,” he told the Blade. “Because I stood up for myself. I stood up for teachers who get accused of things all the time,” he said. “I stood up for people in the LGBTQ community and for parents who have terrible things said about them – I stood up for them.”
Virginia
Gay 1920s-era Hollywood star to be honored in Staunton, Va.
Billy Haines became acclaimed designer after anti-gay policies ended his acting career
A project is underway in Staunton, Va., to honor William ‘Billy’ Haines, who was born and raised in Staunton before becoming an out gay 1920s and early 1930s-era Hollywood movie star whose acting career ended around 1934 when he refused demands that he conceal his sexual orientation and end his relationship with his male partner.
Haines left the movie business around that time to start what became a highly successful interior design and furniture business in Los Angeles that he led until his death in 1972 at age 72, and which remains in business today, according to the Arcadia Project, a Staunton-based nonprofit initiative.
In a statement released last month, Arcadia Project announced it is working to revitalize a long-vacant movie theater in downtown Staunton that it plans to rename after Haines. It says a fundraising campaign is under way to support efforts to reopen the theater and the larger building in which it is housed as a “dynamic mixed-use cultural center.”
The statement notes that Haines left Staunton at age 14 and resided in Hopewell, Va., and Greenwich Village in New York City until 1922, when he was “discovered” by a talent scout and sent to Hollywood.
“Between 1922 and 1934, Haines appeared in 54 movies during his meteoric and highly successful career,” the Arcadia Project statement continues, noting he transitioned from silent movies to talkies and was fully open about being gay. “But when Hollywood’s moral crackdown of the 1930s demanded that he end his relationship with his longtime partner Jimmie Shields, Haines refused,” it says.
“For LGBTQ people – then and now – Haines’s choice resonates deeply. Rather than deny who he was, he reinvented himself as an interior designer to the stars,” according to the statement.
It says he helped invent the so-called Hollywood Regency style home and designed homes for Hollywood legends such as Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson, Carole Lombard, George Cukor, and Jack Warner as well as for political figures like Ronald Reagan when he was governor of California.
“As there is no monument, marker or public recognition for Haines in his hometown of Staunton, Va., Arcadia Project, in collaboration with the LGBTQ+ community in Staunton seeks to commemorate him inside a new cultural center,” the statement says.
It quotes Arcadia Project Executive Director Pamela Mason Wagner as saying, “Naming the movie theater in Haines’ honor is more than an act of historical recognition – it is a powerful statement about visibility, belonging, and whose stories are valued in our community.”
The statement says project leaders hope to open the cultural center in early 2027, with a fundraising campaign seeking to raise $250,000 to renovate the theater.
“If the full goal is not reached, a smaller space within the building will be named for Haines, scaled to the amount of funds raised,” it says. “We truly hope friends and admirers of Billy Haines everywhere will want to participate.”
Donations for the project can be made through this site: www.thearcadiaproject.org
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