Maryland
Ashanti Martínez poised to represent District 22 in Md. House of Delegates
Howard University alum is Afro-Latino and openly gay

Ashanti Martínez is set to become the first man of Latino descent to represent District 22 and the first openly gay member of the Maryland House of Delegates to represent Prince George’s County.
Following his unanimous selection from the Prince George’s County Democratic Central Committee to fill a vacant House seat on Feb. 9, his nomination now goes Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, who has 15 days to make the appointment official.
Martínez, 26, is a Howard University alum. He would succeed now-state Sen. Alonzo Washington (D-Prince George’s County), who the committee nominated to finish Maryland Energy Administration Director Paul Pinsky’s term in the House after he joined Moore’s administration.
Martínez, 26, felt honored by the nomination.
“For me, titles and positions are important, but they’re not all it is — it’s about doing the work,” Martínez told the Washington Blade on Monday during a telephone interview. “And so being able to be in a position where I have a larger platform to continue the work that I’ve been doing … it’s an honor of a lifetime.”
Likewise, he believes his selection shows how Prince George’s County is “embracing diverse voices of leadership.”
Martínez, who ran for the House seat twice before and didn’t win, finds the opportunity to serve a “little bit of a delay, but not a denial,” he said.
“Also, I think I give a different lived experience than a lot of the other members,” he added. “I think there’s a lot of great aspects of our county that oftentimes don’t get highlighted because folks don’t live through those experiences. So, encompassing all of the things that I bring to the table, is going make people feel more seen and involved in government.”
Recognizing the period to introduce a bill has passed, Martínez said he will look for other ways to create legislative work on the House floor and co-sponsoring other lawmakers’ measures. Martínez added he will let the public know that his office is open to them.
“I will serve for as long as my community wants to have me,” he said. “I don’t necessarily have a goal about, ‘I want to be in this position, or in this place,’ I just want do the most that I can, for as many people as I can, for as long as I can.”
Maryland
A Baltimore theater educator lost jobs at Johns Hopkins and the Kennedy Center
Tavish Forsyth concluded they could not work for Trump

BY WESLEY CASE | Tavish Forsyth had come to a conclusion: They could not work for President Donald Trump.
So the 32-year-old Baltimore resident stripped down, turned on their camera, and lit their career on fire.
“F—— Donald Trump and f—— the Kennedy Center,” a naked Forsyth, an associate artistic lead at the Washington National Opera’s Opera Institute, which is run by the Kennedy Center, said in a video that went viral. The board of the nation’s leading cultural institution had elected Trump just weeks prior as its chairman after he gutted the board of members appointed by his predecessor, President Joe Biden.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Maryland
Md. schools plan to comply with federal DEI demands
Superintendents opt for cooperation over confrontation

By LIZ BOWIE | Deciding not to pick a fight with the Trump administration, Maryland school leaders plan to sign a letter to the U.S. Department of Education that says their school districts are complying with all civil rights laws.
The two-paragraph letter could deflect a confrontation over whether the state’s public schools run diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that the Trump administration has called illegal. The Baltimore Banner reviewed the letter, which was shared by a school administrator who declined to be identified because the letter has not yet been sent.
Maryland school leaders are taking a more conciliatory approach than those in some other states. Education leaders in Minnesota, New York, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, and Wisconsin said they will not comply with the federal education department’s order, the demands of which, they say, are based on a warped interpretation of civil rights law.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Maryland
FreeState Justice: Transgender activist ‘hijacked’ Moore’s Transgender Day of Visibility event
Maryland Commission on LGBTQIA+ Affairs describes Lee Blinder’s comments as ‘call to action’

FreeState Justice on April 11 released a statement criticizing the way that Trans Maryland Executive Director Lee Blinder treated Gov. Wes Moore during a Transgender Day of Visibility event.
FreeState Justice was extremely disappointed with the criticisms of Moore on the Transgender Day of Visibility, saying it was “hijacked by public hostility” by Blinder. The Baltimore Banner reported how Blinder “laid out how the Democratic governor has let down transgender Marylanders by not putting money in the budget and not backing needed policy changes.”
The Washington Blade interviewed Blinder after the March 31 event.
“The intention of what I shared is to show to the governor that this is a community in distress. You know, we are in a real state of emergency for the trans community and there are very few opportunities that the community has to share this directly with the governor.” Blinder told the Blade. “We’re really grateful to the governor for everything that he’s done in the past for this community, but the circumstances have changed and we really need to see very specific actions taken in order to ensure this community has the ability to exist in public space.”
FreeState Justice said Moore did not deserve such criticisms during the event and added in a Blade oped it is “time for new leadership on the Maryland LGBTQIA+ Commission. Leadership that values and prioritizes coalition over conflict. Leadership that invites feedback and shares power. Leadership that understands how Annapolis operates, how budgets are constructed, and how community victories are won.”
“We’re not saying don’t challenge power. We’re saying do it with purpose. Do it with facts. Do it with a strategy. If you’re going to call yourself a leader in this movement, show us the policy platform. Show us the data. Show us the budget line. Show us the work,” wrote FreeState Justice.
The Maryland Commission on LGBTQIA+ Affairs has met to address FreeState Justice’s statements.
“During the Transgender Day of Visibility ceremony at the State House, the commission’s chair offered remarks reflecting the real fears, concerns, and hopes of the trans community. These remarks were not a call-out, but a call to action,” the commission said in their call to action statement it sent to the Blade. “The chair’s words echoed the thousands of voices we’ve heard across the state through phone calls, emails, and messages on social media to our staff, commissioners, and their affiliated organizations.”
The statement outlines what the call to action entails, addressing what the commission found to be the most pressing issues for transgender Marylanders. They include a lack of dedicated funding, barriers to affirming healthcare, housing insecurity and homelessness, discrimination in education and employment, and escalating violence, harassment, and hate.
“We remain deeply committed to working in partnership with the Moore-Miller administration, the General Assembly, state agencies, nonprofit organizations, and community partners to ensure LGBTQIA+ Marylanders are seen, protected, and supported in policy, budget, and in practice,” reads the statement.
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