District of Columbia
D.C.’s first LGBTQ bookstore since 2009 opened last June
Little District Books located in Barracks Row
LGBTQ book lovers have said they were thrilled when Little District Books opened its doors last June in the Barracks Row section of Capitol Hill to become the first D.C. LGBTQ bookstore since 2009, when D.C.’s famed Lambda Rising LGBTQ bookstore closed its doors.
Located at 737 8th St., S.E., across the street from the U.S. Marine Barracks, Little District Books describes itself on its website as a “queer-owned Washington, D.C.-based independent bookstore that celebrates LGBTQ+ authors and stories.”
The store’s website statement adds, “We are a proud part of a neighborhood that has been a haven for the LGBTQ+ community over the last 50+ years.”
The statement refers to the fact that the 5-block stretch of 8th Street, S.E., where Little District Books is now located has been the home to nearly a dozen gay bars and clubs since the early 1970s. Only one is currently operating — As You Are — the LGBTQ café and dance bar located two blocks from the new bookstore at 500 8th St., S.E.
D.C. attorney Patrick Kern, the owner of Little District Books, said he decided to open the bookstore after working as a federal government lawyer for the past 10 years or so. He said his family has long operated a retail tea business in Cincinnati, a short distance from where he was born and raised in Fort Wright, Ky., which is a Cincinnati suburb.
“I had been looking to do a thing that was my own,” Kern said. “I kind of narrowed it down to a bookstore and ended up narrowing it down even more to a queer bookstore,” Kern told the Washington Blade. He added, “I spent probably a year trying to learn enough about the book industry to feel comfortable doing this.”
At the time he opened the store he began with about 1,200 mostly hardcover and paperback books and currently has about 2,600 books with the goal of carrying about 3,000 different titles, Kern said.
“We have books by LGBT authors about LGBT topics,” he said. “We have books by LGBT authors about non-LGBT topics. And then I have LGBT stories that are written by non-LGBT people as well,” he said.
The titles cover a wide variety of topics and stories, both fiction and nonfiction, according to Kern. Among the titles available at the store is the current bestseller “Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington” by gay journalist and author James Kirchick.
Kern said his store has and will continue to also host events that include talks by authors and book signings. The next such event is scheduled for March 9, when author W. Jake Newsome will talk about his book, “Pink Triangle Legacies: Coming Out in The Shadow of the Holocaust.”
The store is also the organizer of four book clubs that meet at the store to discuss a wide variety of mostly LGBTQ related books, both fiction and nonfiction, Kern said.
Deacon Maccubbin, owner of D.C.’s Lambda Rising LGBTQ bookstore from the time of its opening in 1974 until he closed it in 2009 to retire, said he has stopped by to visit Little District Books.
“The store is about the same size as the original Lambda Rising when we opened in 1974,” Maccubbin told the Blade. “It’s well-stocked, hosts book clubs and deserves strong support from the community,” he said. “It’s a great resource.”
Information about the store and the books it carries can be accessed at www.LittleDistrictBooks.com
Little District Books is open Tuesdays through Sundays and is closed on Mondays. Its hours are from 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. each day it is open except on Saturdays, when it’s open from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
District of Columbia
Hands Off the Arts to form ‘human chain’ around Kennedy Center
Drag performer Tara Hoot among event organizers
An organization called Hands Off the Arts has announced it is holding a protest on Friday, Sept. 18, in which between 400 and 800 participants are expected to create a “human chain” around the Kennedy Center to voice their strong objection to President Donald Trump’s call for possibly demolishing the Kennedy Center.
“Hands Off the Arts is organizing a rally Sept. 18 against the president’s defacing of JFK’s memorial, his removal and censorship of art, and the threat to demolish the center if he can’t remake the site in his image,” a statement released by the group says.
The statement says the event will start with a rally at 6:30 p.m. on the Kennedy Center steps and culminate with a “human chain” around the building. “There will be musical performances, testimonials from current and former employees, along with other special guest speakers,” it says
A separate announcement by the group says longtime D.C. drag performer Tara Hoot, who has performed at the Kennedy Center in past years, was among the organizers of the Sept. 18 protest.
The planned protest follows Trump’s decision last year to use his authority to replace the existing members of the Kennedy Center’s board of directors with new members loyal to him. Over the objection of longtime Kennedy Center supporters, the Trump-appointed board changed the name of the center, at Trump’s request, from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
But following the threat of legal action by opponents who pointed out that the name change could not be legally made unless approved by Congress, the name change was cancelled, with Trump saying he would take steps to restore it later.
The Washington Post, meanwhile, reports in a Sept. 13 news story that because of negative publicity related to Trump’s actions, the Kennedy Center was facing “fiscal collapse” and possible bankruptcy and could be forced to shut down as early as this week.
According to the Post report, a 57-page document presented to the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees says the center was facing a financial and structural building crisis, with the recent collapse of part of the building’s inside ceiling, indicating the building was unsafe for employees and the public. Among other things, the document says the Kennedy Center may not be able to make payroll or pay for routine maintenance “within a matter of weeks,” the Post reports.
Some LGBTQ advocates were among those who joined others in boycotting the Kennedy Center to express their objections to Trump’s actions, including a statement by Trump that he objected to the Kennedy Center’s practice of hosting drag performances.
The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington has been among the LGBTQ performing arts groups and artists that have performed at the Kennedy Center.
“With the future still very much uncertain, now more than ever, the Center needs you to stand up for freedom of expression and against authoritarian overreach into arts and culture institutions,” the Hands Off the Arts group says in its announcement of the Hands Around the Kennedy Center protest.
“You have the opportunity to make a difference — show up with Hands Off the Arts and show your power as part of Hands Around the Kennedy Center,” it says.
A spokesperson for the Kennedy Center couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
District of Columbia
Blade welcomes fall intern
Alexis McLean is student at University of North Florida
The Washington Blade this week welcomed Alexis McLean as its fall intern.
Alexis is studying political science at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Fla. She is interning with the Blade as part of a continued partnership with the Washington Center.
“I am looking forward to spending my time in the fall with the Washington Blade, as this is a new experience for me,” said Alexis. “I have not experienced any journalist jobs in the past so this would be my first time, and I am excited to better my writing and communications skills with this internship.”
Alexis’s internship with the Blade ends in early December.
District of Columbia
‘People don’t see me. They see a trend’
New popularity of all things Asian warps view of multiple cultures
As I was growing up, my parents often shared stories about how they were bullied when they were my age, just for being Asian. My mom is Cambodian and my dad is “Wasian,” Chinese and white. Students teased them for their looks, their homemade lunches, and treated their traditional holidays as jokes.
I once asked my mom when I was little if she could pack me dumpling leftovers for lunch. “Yes,” she said with a surprised look, adding, “I would have never wanted to bring dumplings to school when I was your age because I would always get bullied for them. I’m glad times have changed.”
At the time, I was confused. Whenever I brought a homemade Asian dish to school for lunch, I was happy to hear intriguing and curious questions from the other kids. It felt good to have my meal be popular and different from the Lunchables everyone else had.
Though times have changed, racism still continues. It just has a new face. Today, social media pretends to flatter our cultures in an insincere way trying to gain popularity just for clicks. Think anything from K-pop to Japan’s surge in international tourism. Even Starbucks has added drinks with the flavor of ube yam, native to the Philippines, onto its menu.
I feel that now when people see me, they don’t see me, they see a trend.
For years, Asian people have been portrayed as foreign or exotic. The new embrace of foods and fashion at first felt good. Asians have never been represented as much as they’ve deserved.
But this new popularity warps what non-Asians see. Instead of the blunt and direct racism my parents faced, everything now is a gray area, more discreetly hidden behind some TikTok video. It actually normalizes racism and stereotypes.
Whitewashing my culture
As a 15-year-old Asian American who lives in D.C., I’ve always been one of the few Asian kids in school; my high school today counts less than 2 percent of students as being of Asian descent. I remember always being called “that one Asian girl” or some slur a kid learned from their parents. Every time I search for something related to Asian culture, such as a recipe or maybe a holiday, it’s always the same thing: some white person whitewashing my culture.
Social media is the main culprit, of course. I realized this when I entered high school and got a phone and was introduced to the internet. That is when I realized how messed up the new stereotypes around Asians are.
One pattern I started to notice was people wanting to be Asian just because it was popular. It was hurtful, patronizing, and annoying. They made assumptions about our race and then only found us “cool” because we were trending. How can people go from hating us or finding us weird, to then only liking us because we’re popular?
There was a trend going around on TikTok called “race change to another” or RCTA. It is this trend of people manifesting certain physical traits to change their appearance in order to change races. According to journalist Emi Tran, writing then as an intern for NBC Digital, the trend started when a white woman wanted to be Japanese. The woman began posting TikTok videos of herself wishing for different features such as monolids. Tran wrote in that 2023 article that “the overwhelming majority of the RCTA community wants to be East Asian.”
People also look up to K-pop culture, idolizing the pop groups pulled together by big entertainment companies. Most people expect all Koreans to be K-pop fans. Korean friends are asked about K-pop all the time even though they are not into the South Korean music genre.
Although I am not South Korean — I am half Cambodian and Chinese — I still get asked, almost like I’m expected, “You’re really into this group, right?” or “Can you tell me how to pronounce this member’s name?”
I was asked even worse questions during COVID-19. Suddenly, discrimination and violence were increasing specifically toward Asians everywhere. Suddenly, almost everyone was blaming Chinese people for spreading and causing COVID-19.
I remember going to school for one of the last times before quarantine had started and hearing kids whisper, “Oh, she’s going to give us the Coronavirus.” President Donald Trump had publicly posted his opinions about the situation on social media, blaming China for the pandemic, even calling it the “Chinese Virus” or the “Wuhan Virus.” According to NPR, anti-Asian hate crimes in U.S. cities surged 149 percent that year.
The topic of Asians in the media has always been complicated. One moment people can hate us for being weird and different and the next we’re suddenly popular and cool for the same reasons.
I feel conflicted on whether I should feel happy that we’re being represented or angry that it’s all for the wrong reason and has the wrong effects.
Lily Brugman is a sophomore at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, one of Youthcast Media Group’s journalism class partners. She worked with YMG volunteer and Professor Emerita in journalism at American University Amy Eisman on this piece.
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