Are you excited about WorldPride DC? Really? Then you must know more — or much less — than I do. 

As displayed on the WorldPride DC website, festivities begin a little more than three months from now. Click on the “Events” tab and that page lists multiple events, with several of them including information such as the venue and/or a vague synopsis of what will happen. 

Who will perform? There is Shakira, whose current world tour was originally going to bring her to D.C. last November, but that was cancelled and her new date is now designated as the Welcome Ceremony for WorldPride DC. I commend her for being an ally to the LGBTQ community, but I’m curious what modifications will be made to her tour set list and if any LGBTQ people will be on stage. Who else will perform during the (recently moved up to) May 17 to June 8 dates? Capital Pride Alliance announced a call for performers on Jan 13.

To be clear, that announcement was made on Jan. 13 of THIS year, slightly four months ahead of festivities beginning. I share that with astonishment. I state everything above and below with varying degrees of annoyance, consternation, frustration, and alarm. 

Back in 2021, CPA was eagerly competing to win its bid to host WorldPride 2025. All of the excitement led to the announcement, in November 2021, that it was going to Taiwan. However, in August 2022, it was announced that Taiwan and WorldPride consciously uncoupled, and, in November 2022, it was announced that the proposal of jilted runner-up D.C. had been accepted. 

Even with my low expectations, I did not think that timeline would lead to a purportedly international event happening in less than 20 weeks having merely one announced performer, events with TBA venues, and little happening that wouldn’t be unusual for a typical annual Capital Pride celebration. 

Perhaps I don’t know enough. Maybe this rollout is typical for festivals and other major events. What is the appropriate comparison? Is it Coachella or Comic-Con? Or is it Carnival or the Olympics? Maybe they are on track with what New York or Sydney did in 2019 and 2023, respectively. Maybe they are waiting, for some reason, to make announcements that may come too late to entice people to attend and participate in WorldPride DC. 

Or perhaps I know too much. I know who isn’t booked for WorldPride DC. I know what things could have happened. I know what I’ve heard in meetings and conversations, including Capital Pride’s reluctance to share substantial information or bring in outside experts. I know countless bits of miscellaneous information that cause me trepidation. I have had contact with numerous people, including performers, leaders of organizations, and subcommittee members, and not once has anyone said anything that assuaged my concerns.

Unlike the opening of D.C.’s new LGBTQ community center, WorldPride DC won’t be delayed and is definitely happening this year. What we don’t know is what exactly is happening. 

Presumably, Capital Pride had plans when the bid was made in 2021. But maybe they didn’t start planning until the announcement in ’22. Or perhaps they waited until some time in March 2023, after recovering from traveling to Australia for WorldPride.

When did bookings begin? Perhaps they started with A-list stars and are still working their way through the latter part of the alphabet. Who is likely not available are the activists in other countries who, in addition to planning for travel and lodging, have to contend with passports, visas, and other bureaucratic concerns. Not everyone has the luxury to be spontaneous. 

In my former role as Creative Director of Team Rayceen Productions, I was willing to be of service. TRP was ready to partner. We had ideas, but since Capital Pride didn’t express interest, I assumed they had big plans. 

Perhaps you know just enough: the infrequency of announcements; the lack of information; the late call for performers; the truncated Capital Pride Heroes nomination process. 

Ultimately, the fact that you know so little may be all you need to know. 

Zar is the monomynous founder and former Creative Director of Team Rayceen Productions. Zar led TRP for more than 10 years and has lived in the Capital region all of his life. The impetus for his recent resignation and the indefinite hiatus of TRP is the new presidential administration.

We are seeing the hand of Elon Musk, yes, the same Musk who gives the Nazi salute, and tells the Germans to move on and forget about their Nazi past, in every area of our government. He claims to be proud of sleeping in the office President Felon has given him as part of his DOGE work, in the Eisenhower Federal Office Building, and is interfering in every agency, apparently at will. We were told a top Treasury official left the agency after Musk demanded access to the Social Security payment system. He and his lackeys, not government employees, now have access to that, and the entire Treasury Department’s payment system. Guess the Trump coup is nearly complete.

It is said Musk is behind all the confusing memos to federal employees about resigning, and taking private sector jobs. He is interfering in the FAA and now it is reported that he is behind telling FAA employees to retire. President Felon is not just silently going along with all this, he is enabling it. He is doing his own damage by threatening to fire any FBI employee who was involved, in any way, in the cases against him, or his friends. He is clearly creating havoc. His Secretary of Defense just removed NBC, NPR, New York Times, and Politico from offices – replacing them with Breitbart and One America News.

Trump took the occasion of the horrific plane crash over the Potomac, in which 67 perished, to make political hay and blame Obama, Biden, and DEI policies at the FAA. Trump slapped tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China, and says those countries will pay. He lies! He says everyone will accept higher grocery, oil, and automobile, prices. Calling Trump a moron is polite, he is actually an evil SOB with no respect for the truth. 

He is targeting the transgender community in every area of their lives. From receiving appropriate healthcare, to trying to kick them out of the military, where they have served as patriots, with honor, defending our country. He is making them the focal point of his efforts to hurt the LGBTQ community because they are the easy target. If we don’t stand up for them, and stand with them, as members of the LGBTQ community, then we are next. Let us not be fooled by his naming a few gay and lesbian people to his administration. Let us not be fooled because he has the support of the clearly self-loathing Log Cabin Republicans, who support him for their jobs. Why is his gay Treasury Secretary not speaking up for the transgender community? Why is his lesbian spokesperson at the Department of State, not speaking up? We know it’s because they want their jobs, and that is likely the nicest thing I can say about their silence.

Then we have what we once called the free press. Why was it only Kaitlin Collins of CNN who questioned Trump on his outrageous remarks at the press conference after the crash over the Potomac? And where was the free press when Karoline Leavitt, his press secretary, used the terms transgenderism and woke, at her first press conference? Why didn’t they ask her what the term “woke” means to the Trump administration, what it means to President Felon, and acting President Musk? Why is the press not camped out at the door of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, asking them what they think of the Nazi sympathies of their father’s best friend Musk. Asking them if they vaccinated their children, and do they suggest other parents do the same? 

Do I sound angry? You bet I am. I am watching all this insanity as an openly gay, Jewish, man. I wrote in my recently published memoir, and actually thought, when I came out at the age of  34 in 1981, that it would all get easier for future generations. Now we are back to a time when young people could again be afraid to come out, because those they thought would speak out for them, are silent. Was I lying to them? We are again reminded of all those signs, SILENCE = DEATH, that were at the early LGBTQ marches. It is still true. The silence of so many who I know, who don’t like what is happening, is deafening. Is the Trevor Project slogan, “It Gets Better,” a lie? 

We can still overcome. We must all speak out and not go quietly into the night. If we speak out, defend ourselves, our neighbors, our families, we will save our democracy. 

Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.

In 2022, on an oppressively hot and humid day in June, I stood in line with others outside a White House security entrance, sweating but excited to attend former President Joe Biden’s Pride celebration. It was my first time, and I was thrilled to receive an invitation as an intersex activist. 

President Biden, with First Lady Dr. Jill Biden at his side, took the small stage in the East Room of the White House. He welcomed the group of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) activists assembled to hear his words and celebrate Pride. What happened next was a moment I will never forget. To my surprise, in his speech, the President said the word “intersex.” I looked at my intersex friends, who were tightly huddled next to me in the crowd as we stretched our necks to see over the people standing in front of us to catch a view of the president, and we shared a look that implied, “Did he really just say it?!” Here was arguably the most powerful person in the world, acknowledging our existence and right to a life free from discrimination and harm. The president went on to announce his Executive Order on Advancing Equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Individuals, mandating, among other things, the creation of a report on good practices for advancing health equity for intersex individuals by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“Intersex” refers to the more than five million Americans with innate physical variations of sex anatomy that don’t align with typical notions of either a female or male body. Whether we choose to use the intersex label or not, as individuals with atypical physical sex characteristics, we have grown accustomed to being ignored or erased despite our public calls to decision-makers that we not be left behind. 

Two and a half years after Biden recognized intersex people’s existence in that packed White House room, on Jan. 16, 2025, the last Thursday of Biden’s mandate, the administration released the long-awaited HHS report titled Advancing Health Equity for Intersex Individuals. The report is the product of many months of listening sessions with intersex people, advocates, and healthcare providers about their expertise and lived experiences. It aims to increase awareness about the harms of some current medical practices and to bring together policymakers, healthcare providers, intersex advocates, families, and community leaders to work in partnership to improve healthcare for intersex people across their lifespan. While nonbinding, it is truly a historic acknowledgment of the many long-standing intersex health disparities supported by evidence. 

The groundbreaking report represents the first-ever U.S. government publication that fully acknowledges intersex people’s existence and the specific discrimination and harm we suffer and provides recommendations for change. On the same day, the U.S. Administration for Children and Families (ACF) issued an official Information Memorandum guiding on Improving Services and Outcomes for Intersex Children and Adolescents and their Families to make family and social services intersex-affirming. The recommendations aim to reduce distress and stigma for intersex youth and families and facilitate access to much-needed support. 

These two documents released by HHS gave me a rare sense of validation and hope for the future.

Then, just four days later, on a Monday, his first day in office, newly sworn-in President Trump signed an executive order that officially erased my existence. The misleadingly titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” states that it is U.S. policy to define “sex” as “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female.”  It further defines “female” as someone who produces eggs and “male” as someone who produces sperm. However, my intersex body, like the bodies of many intersex people, does not produce either gametes, arguably leaving us in legal limbo. 

The stark contrast between administrations in relation to intersex rights is both mind-blowing and devastating. The probable purpose of Trump’s executive order is to whip up moral panic around the existence of trans people, but its blow no less impacts intersex people. 

The majority of intersex individuals identify with either the male or female sex and may have a range of gender identities. I consider myself an “intersex woman” assigned female at birth despite my XY chromosomes and lack of internal female reproductive organs. I was actually born with internal testes that, despite being healthy hormone-producing gonads, were removed as a child without my knowledge or even my parents’ informed consent. Unfortunately, my experience is not unique, and this attempt to erase our intersex traits causes much physical and emotional harm over a lifetime. It is an example of the harmful practices and health inequities that the new HHS report evidences. 

Under Trump’s executive order, things will get even worse for intersex people. My government documents currently reflect my female gender identity, but under this executive order, I could presumably be forcibly categorized as “male”: “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell. The Trump administration has already taken down the groundbreaking HHS report. 

Today, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) people the world over are struggling with the many devastating statements and orders given by President Trump, and I stand in solidarity with the entire rainbow community. We all experience discrimination and harm based on other’s misconceptions, fears, and biases. Intersex people, like trans and nonbinary people, and like queer women and men, specifically share the everyday fight for bodily autonomy. At moments like this, when we are under attack, it is all the more important that the rainbow community also stands in solidarity with us. So far, though, that hasn’t been my experience. On Monday, the same day President Trump ordered the erasure of my existence, a prominent publication published an article highlighting a long list of former President Biden’s “top pro-LGBTQ+ actions,” yet neglected to include the groundbreaking HHS Report on Advancing Intersex Health Equity. It seemed like the intersex community was erased yet again that day.  

As our broader rainbow community faces new hurdles, we must do better. The “I” should not stand for “invisible.” Now, more than ever, our communities need to stand together in resistance — and it starts with acknowledging our existence. 

Kimberly M. Zieselman, JD, is an intersex woman and the Senior Advisor for Global Intersex Rights at Outright International. She is also the former executive director of interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth and a former U.S. State Department Senior Advisor to the Special Envoy to Advance the Human Rights of LGBTQI+ Persons. Her award-winning memoir, “XOXY”, was published in 2020.