District of Columbia
‘Behind-the-scenes’ activist Paul Kuntzler marks 62 years in D.C.
Inspired by Kennedy, Michigan native played key role in early LGBTQ movement
In reflecting on his many years of involvement in U.S. politics and the LGBTQ rights movement, Paul Kuntzler points out that Dec. 28 of this year will mark his 62nd year as a resident of Washington, D.C. And he also points out that two days before that, on Dec. 26, he will celebrate his 82nd birthday.
Those who have known Paul Kuntzler over the years say that while his is not a household name in politics and the LGBTQ rights movement, he has played a critical role as an everyday hero and behind-the-scenes organizer for the Democratic Party and the local and national LGBTQ rights movement.
Among other things, Kuntzler served as campaign manager for D.C. gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny’s 1971 role as the first openly gay candidate for the U.S. Congress when Kameny ran for the newly created position of non-voting Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives for D.C.
In his role as campaign manager, Kuntzler is also credited with arranging for more than a dozen volunteers from the then-Gay Activists Alliance and Gay Youth group of New York City to come to D.C. on a bus that the Kameny campaign paid for to help gather the needed 5,000 signatures to get Kameny’s name on the ballot.
“I knew how difficult that was going to be,” Kuntzler said. “And I recognized we were not going to do this all on our own,” adding that the gay volunteers from New York, who joined forces with local D.C. volunteers, obtained a total of 7,800 signatures of registered D.C. voters to get Kameny’s name on the ballot.
Although Kameny finished in fourth place in a six-candidate race, his run as the first openly gay candidate for the U.S. Congress drew national publicity, including support from actor Paul Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward, who made a $500 contribution to the Kameny campaign while they were performing at the time at D.C.’s National Theater.
Observers of the LGBTQ rights movement at that time considered Kameny’s candidacy an important development in the effort to advance LGBTQ rights both in D.C. and nationwide.
“Looking back, that probably was one of the most significant things I did in my life,” Kuntzler said in recalling his role as Kameny’s campaign manager.
He says his involvement in politics began in the summer of 1960 in his hometown of Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., a Detroit suburb, when he co-founded the Grosse Pointe Young Democrats and served as a volunteer on the presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy.
“I met JFK at the Detroit airport and shook his hand,” Kuntzler recalls while he joined a crowd of supporters welcoming Kennedy on his arrival for a campaign tour in Michigan. “It was Labor Day weekend – Sunday, Sept. 4, 1960,” Kuntzler said in demonstrating an amazing recall of dates and events.
Kuntzler, who traveled to D.C. to attend the Kennedy inauguration on Jan. 20, 1961, said the idealism of the Kennedy administration prompted him to move to D.C. one year later to become involved in politics and the fledgling gay rights movement.
“I met Frank Kameny at Lafayette Chicken Hut on Sunday, Feb. 25, 1962,” Kuntzler says in referring to the then-popular D.C. gay bar. “And he was then president of the Mattachine Society of Washington,” Kuntzler noted, which was the first significant gay rights group in D.C. that Kameny co-founded.
“He invited me to attend the next Mattachine Society meeting,” Kuntzler recalls. “So, on Tuesday, March 6, 1962, at Earl Aiken’s apartment on Harvard Street, I became the 17th member of the D.C. Mattachine Society.,” Kuntzler continued. “And at the age of 20, I was the only minor involved in the gay rights movement consisting of about 150 people in five American cities,” he said. “I’m the only one still living of the original 17.”
His membership in the Mattachine Society of D.C. was the start of Kuntzler’s 50-plus years of involvement in the local and national LGBTQ rights movement. He recalls that he helped make history when he joined Kameny and other members of the Mattachine Society in April of 1965 for the nation’s first gay rights protest in front of the White House.
Kuntzler said he brought with him a large poster-size sign he made reading, “15 Million Homosexuals Protest Federal Treatment.” He said Mattachine Society of D.C. co-founder Jack Nichols asked permission to carry that sign on the picket line in front of the White House. Kuntzler gave him permission to do so.
To this day, Kuntzler says, he has a large United Press International photo of Nichols carrying the sign with Kameny, lesbian activist Lilli Vincenz, and Kuntzler standing beside him with the White House as a backdrop.
In the following three decades or more, Kuntzler served as an organizer and founder of several LGBTQ organizations and projects while pursuing a work career as a manager for several organizations. He served from 1973 to 2007 as assistant executive director for advertising, exhibits and workshop sales for the D.C.-based National Science Teachers Association.
His many behind-the-scenes involvements included serving in 1975 as the first treasurer for the Gay Rights National Lobby, one of the first national LGBTQ rights organizations based in D.C. that later evolved into the Human Rights Campaign in 1980, for which he also served for a short time as treasurer. In 1979, Kuntzler became a co-founder of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, D.C.’s first LGBTQ Democratic organization.
Also in 1979, Kuntzler helped found the National Convention Project, an effort to elect openly gay delegates and secure a “gay rights” plank in the platform at the 1980 Democratic National Convention. The effort resulted in the election of about 100 openly LGBT delegates to the 1980 convention from states across the country, including D.C. and the adoption of an LGBT supportive plank in the Democratic Party’s platform at that time.
Kuntzler said he and the others working on the project, which he called a success, were deeply disappointed when then-Democratic President Jimmy Carter lost the November 1980 presidential election to Republican Ronald Reagan. But he said he was inspired to continue his work on behalf of the Democratic Party and LGBTQ rights issues over the next several decades.
The person most important in his life, Kuntzler said, was his domestic partner Stephen Brent Miller of 42 years who died in July 2004.
“Stephen and I met on Friday, March 30, 1962, at Lafayette Chicken Hut,” Kuntzler said. “I was sitting on the side and Stephen was sitting in the middle, and I think he sent me a beer and then came over and sat down and we talked,” Kuntzler recalls. “We had our first date on the second Sunday in April of 1962.”
The two went to brunch before going to see a movie and then took a bus to get to Frank Kameny’s house. It was a housewarming party of the house that Kameny had just secured a lease to rent for his residence and his gay rights endeavors. Miller, a professional stenographer who later started his own court reporting business, Miller Reporting, quickly took on the role of being the loving spouse to a committed activist, people who knew the couple have said.
Kuntzler said his attendance at the Human Right Campaign’s annual Washington dinner last month, which is one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ events, in which President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden spoke, was a further sign of progress for the LGBTQ rights movement as he sees it.
Asked if he has any advice for the LGBTQ community at this time, Kuntzler said, “I think we need to continue to be vigilant … We need to continue to be vigilant.”
District of Columbia
D.C. Council gives first approval to amended PrEP insurance bill
Removes weakening language after concerns raised by AIDS group
The D.C. Council voted unanimously on Feb. 3 to approve a bill on its first of two required votes that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
The vote to approve the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act came immediately after the 13-member Council voted unanimously again to approve an amendment that removed language in the bill added last month by the Council’s Committee on Health that would require insurers to fully cover only one PrEP drug.
The amendment, introduced jointly by Council members Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), who first introduced the bill in February 2025, and Christina Henderson (I-At-Large), who serves as chair of the Health Committee, requires insurers to cover all U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved PrEP drugs.
Under its rules, the D.C. Council must vote twice to approve all legislation, which must be signed by the D.C. mayor and undergo a 30-day review by Congress before it takes effect as a D.C. law.
Given its unanimous “first reading” vote of approval on Feb. 3, Parker told the Washington Blade he was certain the Council would approve the bill on its second and final vote expected in about two weeks.
Among those who raised concerns about the earlier version of the bill was Carl Schmid, executive director of the D.C.-based HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, who sent messages to all 13 Council members urging them to remove the language added by the Committee on Health requiring insurers to cover just one PrEP drug.
The change made by the committee, Schmid told Council members, “would actually reduce PrEP options for D.C. residents that are required by current federal law, limit patient choice, and place D.C. behind states that have enacted HIV prevention policies designed to remain in effect regardless of any federal changes.”
Schmid told the Washington Blade that although coverage requirements for insurers are currently provided through coverage standards recommended in the U.S. Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, AIDS advocacy organizations have called on D.C. and states to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP in the event that the federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced or ended federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
“The sticking point was the language in the markup that insurers only had to cover one regimen of PrEP,” Parker told the Blade in a phone interview the night before the Council vote. “And advocates thought that moved the needle back in terms of coverage access, and I agree with them,” he said.
In anticipation that the Council would vote to approve the amendment and the underlying bill, Parker, the Council’s only gay member, added, “I think this is a win for our community. And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
During the Feb. 3 Council session, Henderson called on her fellow Council members to approve both the amendment she and Parker had introduced and the bill itself. But she did not say why her committee approved the changes that advocates say weakened the bill and that her and Parker’s amendment would undo. Schmid speculated that pressure from insurance companies may have played a role in the committee change requiring coverage of only one PrEP drug.
“My goal for advancing the ‘PrEP DC Amendment Act’ is to ensure that the District is building on the progress made in reducing new HIV infections every year,” Henderson said in a statement released after the Council vote. “On Friday, my office received concerns from advocates and community leaders about language regarding PrEP coverage,” she said.
“My team and I worked with Council member Parker, community leaders, including the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute and Whitman-Walker, and the Department of Insurance, Securities, and Banking, to craft a solution that clarifies our intent and provides greater access to these life-saving drugs for District residents by reducing consumer costs for any PrEP drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,” her statement concludes.
In his own statement following the Council vote, Schmid thanked Henderson and Parker for initiating the amendment to improve the bill. “This will provide PrEP users with the opportunity to choose the best drug that meets their needs,” he said. “We look forward to the bill’s final reading and implementation.”
District of Columbia
Norton hailed as champion of LGBTQ rights
D.C. congressional delegate to retire after 36 years in U.S. House
LGBTQ rights advocates reflected on D.C. Congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s longstanding advocacy and support for LGBTQ rights in Congress following her decision last month not to run for re-election this year.
Upon completing her current term in office in January 2027, Norton, a Democrat, will have served 18 two-year terms and 36 years in her role as the city’s non-voting delegate to the U.S. House.
LGBTQ advocates have joined city officials and community leaders in describing Norton as a highly effective advocate for D.C. under the city’s limited representation in Congress where she could not vote on the House floor but stood out in her work on House committees and moving, powerful speeches on the House floor.
“During her more than three decades in Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton has been a champion for the District of Columbia and the LGBTQ+ community,” said David Stacy, vice president of government affairs for the Human Rights Campaign, the D.C.-based national LGBTQ advocacy organization.
“When Congress blocked implementation of D.C.’s domestic partnership registry, Norton led the fight to allow it to go into effect,” Stacey said. “When President Bush tried to ban marriage equality in every state and the District, Norton again stood up in opposition. And when Congress blocked HIV prevention efforts, Norton worked to end that interference in local control,” he said.
In reflecting the sentiment of many local and national LGBTQ advocates familiar with Norton’s work, Stacy added, “We have been lucky to have such an incredible champion. As her time in Congress comes to an end, we honor her extraordinary impact in the nation’s capital and beyond by standing together in pride and gratitude.”
Norton has been among the lead co-sponsors and outspoken supporters of LGBTQ rights legislation introduced in Congress since first taking office, including the currently pending Equality Act, which would ban employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Activists familiar with Norton’s work also point out that she has played a lead role in opposing and helping to defeat anti-LGBTQ legislation. In 2018, Norton helped lead an effort to defeat a bill called the First Amendment Defense Act introduced by U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), which Norton said included language that could “gut” D.C.’s Human Rights Act’s provisions banning LGBTQ discrimination.
Norton pointed to a provision in the bill not immediately noticed by LGBTQ rights organizations that would define D.C.’s local government as a federal government entity and allow potential discrimination against LGBTQ people based on a “sincerely held religious belief.”
“This bill is the latest outrageous Republican attack on the District, focusing particularly on our LGBT community and the District’s right to self-government,” Norton said shortly after the bill was introduced. “We will not allow Republicans to discriminate against the LGBT community under the guise of religious liberty,” she said. Records show supporters have not secured the votes to pass it in several congressional sessions.
In 2011, Norton was credited with lining up sufficient opposition to plans by some Republican lawmakers to attempt to overturn D.C.’s same-sex marriage law, that the Council passed and the mayor signed in 2010.
In 2015, Norton also played a lead role opposing attempts by GOP members of Congress to overturn another D.C. law protecting LGBTQ students at religious schools, including the city’s Catholic University, from discrimination such as the denial of providing meeting space for an LGBTQ organization.
More recently, in 2024 Norton again led efforts to defeat an attempt by Republican House members to amend the D.C. budget bill that Congress must pass to eliminate funding for the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and to prohibit the city from using its funds to enforce the D.C. Human Rights Act in cases of discrimination against transgender people.
“The Republican amendment that would prohibit funds from being used to enforce anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination regulations and the amendment to defund the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs are disgraceful attempts, in themselves, to discriminate against D.C.’s LGBTQ+ community while denying D.C. residents the limited governance over their local affairs to which they are entitled,” Norton told the Washington Blade.
In addition to pushing for LGBTQ supportive laws and opposing anti-LGBTQ measures Norton has spoken out against anti-LGBTQ hate crimes and called on the office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C. in 2020 to more aggressively prosecute anti-LGBTQ hate crimes.
“There is so much to be thankful for Eleanor Holmes Norton’s many years of service to all the citizens and residents of the District of Columbia,” said John Klenert, a member of the board of the LGBTQ Victory Fund. “Whether it was supporting its LGBTQ+ people for equal rights, HIV health issues, home rule protection, statehood for all 700,000 people, we could depend on her,” he said.
Ryan Bos, executive director of Capital Pride Alliance, the group that organizes D.C.’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, called Norton a “staunch” LGBTQ community ally and champion for LGBTQ supportive legislation in Congress.
“For decades, Congresswoman Norton has marched in the annual Capital Pride Parade, showing her pride and using her platform to bring voice and visibility in our fight to advance civil rights, end discrimination, and affirm the dignity of all LGBTQ+ people” Bos said. “We will be forever grateful for her ongoing advocacy and contributions to the LGBTQ+ movement.”
Howard Garrett, president of D.C.’s Capital Stonewall Democrats, called Norton a “consistent and principled advocate” for equality throughout her career. “She supported LGBTQ rights long before it was politically popular, advancing nondiscrimination protections and equal protection under the law,” he said.
“Eleanor was smart, tough, and did not suffer fools gladly,” said Rick Rosendall, former president of the D.C. Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance. “But unlike many Democratic politicians a few decades ago who were not reliable on LGBTQ issues, she was always right there with us,” he said. “We didn’t have to explain our cause to her.”
Longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Peter Rosenstein said he first met Norton when she served as chair of the New York City Human Rights Commission. “She got her start in the civil rights movement and has always been a brilliant advocate for equality,” Rosenstein said.
“She fought for women and for the LGBTQ community,” he said. “She always stood strong with us in all the battles the LGBTQ community had to fight in Congress. I have been honored to know her, thank her for her lifetime of service, and wish her only the best in a hard-earned retirement.”
District of Columbia
D.C. Council urged to improve ‘weakened’ PrEP insurance bill
AIDS group calls for changes before full vote on Feb. 3
The D.C.-based HIV + Hepatitis Policy Institute is calling on the D.C. Council to reverse what it says was the “unfortunate” action by a Council committee to weaken a bill aimed at requiring health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
HIV + HEP Policy Institute Executive Director Carl Schmid points out in a Jan. 30 email message to all 13 D.C. Council members that the Council’s Committee on Health on Dec. 8, 2025, voted to change the PrEP DC Act of 2025, Bill 26-0159, to require insurers to fully cover only one PrEP drug regimen.
Schmid noted the bill as originally written and introduced Feb. 28, 2025, by Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), the Council’s only gay member, required insurers to cover all PrEP drugs, including the newest PrEP medication taken by injection once every six months.
Schmid’s message to the Council members was sent on Friday, Jan. 30, just days before the Council was scheduled to vote on the bill on Feb. 3. He contacted the Washington Blade about his concerns about the bill as changed by committee that same day.
Spokespersons for Parker and the Committee on Health and its chairperson, Council member Christina Henderson (I-At-Large) didn’t immediately respond to the Blade’s request for comment on the issue, saying they were looking into the matter and would try to provide a response on Monday, Jan. 2.
In his message to Council members, Schmid also noted that he and other AIDS advocacy groups strongly supported the committee’s decision to incorporate into the bill a separate measure introduced by Council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) that would prohibit insurers, including life insurance companies, from denying coverage to people who are on PrEP.
“We appreciate the Committee’s revisions to the bill that incorporates Bill 26-0101, which prohibits discrimination by insurance carriers based on PrEP use,” Schmid said in his statement to all Council members.
“However, the revised PrEP coverage provision would actually reduce PrEP options for D.C. residents that are required by current federal law, limit patient choice, and place D.C. behind states that have enacted HIV prevention policies designed to remain in effect regardless of any federal changes,” Schmid added.
He told the Washington Blade that although these protections are currently provided through coverage standards recommended in the U.S. Affordable Care Act, AIDS advocacy organizations have called for D.C. and states to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP in the event that the federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced or ended federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
“The District of Columbia has always been a leader in the fight against HIV,” Schmid said in a statement to Council members. But in a separate statement he sent to the Blade, Schmid said the positive version of the bill as introduced by Parker and the committee’s incorporation of the Pinto bill were in stark contrast to the “bad side — the bill would only require insurers to cover one PrEP drug.”
He added, “That is far worse than current federal requirements. Obviously, the insurers got to them.”
The Committee on Health’s official report on the bill summarizes testimony in support of the bill by health-related organizations, including Whitman-Walker Health, and two D.C. government officials before the committee at an Oct. 30, 2025, public hearing.
Among them were Clover Barnes, Senior Deputy Director of the D.C. HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, STD, and TB Administration, and Philip Barlow, Associate Commissioner for the D.C. Department of Insurance, Securities, and Banking.
Although both Barnes and Barlow expressed overall support for the bill, Barlow suggested several changes, one of which could be related to the committee’s change of the bill described by Schmid, according to the committee report.
“First, he recommended changing the language that required PrEP and PEP coverage by insurers to instead require that insurers who already cover PrEP and PEP do not impose cost sharing or coverage more restrictive than other treatments,” the committee report states. “He pointed out that D.C. insurers already cover PrEP and PEP as preventive services, and this language would avoid unintended costs for the District,” the report adds.
PEP refers to Post-Exposure Prophylaxis medication, while PrEP stands for Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis medication.
In response to a request from the Blade for comment, Daniel Gleick, Mayor Muriel Bowser’s press secretary, said he would inquire about the issue in the mayor’s office.
Naseema Shafi, Whitman-Walker Health’s CEO, meanwhile, in response to a request by the Blade for comment, released a statement sharing Schmid’s concerns about the current version of the PrEP DC Act of 2025, which the Committee on Health renamed as the PrEP DC Amendment Act of 2025.
“Whitman-Walker Health believes that all residents of the District of Columbia should have access to whatever PrEP method is best for them based on their conversations with their providers,” Shafi said. “We would not want to see limitations on what insurers would cover,” she added. “Those kinds of limitations lead to significantly reduced access and will be a major step backwards, not to mention undermining the critical progress that the Affordable Care Act enabled for HIV prevention,” she said.
The Blade will update this story as soon as additional information is obtained from the D.C. Council members involved with the bill, especially Parker. The Blade will report on whether the full Council makes the changes to the bill requested by Schmid and others before it votes on whether to approve it at its Feb. 3 legislative session.
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