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
Community mourns passing of D.C. trans rights advocate SaVanna Wanzer
Acclaimed activist credited with founding D.C. Trans Pride
Three D.C.-based LGBTQ advocacy organizations released statements on April 24 announcing that highly acclaimed D.C. transgender rights advocate SaVanna Wanzer has passed away.
A family member told the Blade that Wanzer died on Friday, April 24 of natural causes. She was 63.
Among other things, the advocacy groups noted that Wanzer is credited with being the lead founder of the D.C. Trans Pride and D.C. Black Trans Pride celebrations and events.
“As a trailblazing transgender activist, educator, and founder of D.C. Trans Pride, D.C. Black Trans Pride, and May Is All About Trans, SaVanna created and led transformative transgender programming during D.C. Black Pride that ensured trans voices, stories, leadership, and lived experiences were centered, celebrated, and protected,” according to the statement from the Center for Black Equity, an LGBTQ organization.
“Her work was not just about representation, it was about liberation, community, and making sure Black Trans lives were honored in rooms, stages, policies, and movements that too often overlooked them,” the statement says.
In its own statement, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, called Wanzer an icon of D.C.’s Black trans community and longtime leader in many LGBTQ organizations.
“SaVanna Wanzer was a D.C. legend,” Tori Cooper, HRC’s Director of Strategic Outreach and Training, said in the statement. “She advocated for many years for the trans community and for people living with HIV, and served with many organizations, including D.C. Black Pride, Capital Pride, and NMAC [National Minority AIDS Council],” the statement adds.
“I can say firsthand that SaVanna will not just be missed for her work, but for her sisterly wisdom and her sense of humor,” Cooper said in the HRC statement.
In its own statement, Capital Pride Alliance, which organizes D.C.’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, called Wanzer a “trailblazer” in her role as founder of Capital Trans Pride, D.C. Black Trans Pride, and the May Is All About Trans events. It says she served on the Capital Pride Board of Directors
“SaVanna was not just an advocate and community organizer but also a knowledge holder and elder voice in our movement,” the statement adds
In an undated statement on its website released before Wanzer’s passing, the D.C. group Food and Friends, which provides home-delivered meals to people in need, including people with HIV and cancer, says Wanzer had been one of its clients in the past. It says she had been living with heart problems since she was 16 and learned she had HIV in 1985 when she went to donate blood while working at the time for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. It also says she had diabetes, which was under control.
Among her many involvements, Wanzer also served as a volunteer for D.C.’s Whitman-Walker Health, which provides medical services for the LGBTQ community along with other communities. In 2015, Whitman-Walker selected Wanzer as the first recipient of its Robert Fenner Urquhart Award for her volunteer services at Whitman-Walker for more than 20 years.
The Center for Black Equity appeared to capture the sentiment of those in the LGBTQ community who knew Wanzer in the concluding part of its statement on her passing.
“Her vision continues to guide us,” it says. “Her courage continues to inspire us. Her impact will continue to live through every person, every Pride, and every space made more possible because she dared to lead,” it says. “Rest in power, SaVanna Wanzer. Your light remains with us.”
The family member said funeral arrangements are expected to be announced early next week. This story will be updated.
District of Columbia
Second trans member announces plans to resign from Capital Pride board
Zion Peters cites ‘lack of interest in the Black trans community’
Zion Peters, a member of the Capital Pride Alliance Board of Directors who identifies as transgender, told the Washington Blade he plans to resign from the board “due to the lack of interest in the trans community, specifically the Black trans community.”
Peters continued, “Nobody has checked on me in the last two months so that shows their level of unprofessionalism towards their board members and the community as a whole.”
If he resigns, Peters would be the second known trans person to resign from the Capital Pride board since February, when longtime trans activist Taylor Lianne Chandler informed the board of her resignation in a detailed letter that was sent to the Blade by an anonymous source.
Chandler, who served as chair of the Capital Pride Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, and Intersex Committee, stated in her Feb. 24 letter that she resigned from the board out of frustration that the board had failed to address instances of “sexual misconduct” within the Capital Pride organization. The organization’s and the board’s transgender-related policies were not cited in her letter as a reason for her resignation.
The Blade learned of Peters’s plans to resign from an anonymous source who thought Peters had already resigned along with four other board members identified by the anonymous source. The others, who Capital Pride confirmed this week had resigned, include Anthony Musa, Bob Gilchrist, Kaniya Walker, and Dai Nguyen.
Musa and Gilchrist told the Blade they resigned for personal reasons related to their jobs and that they fully support Capital Pride’s work as an organization that coordinates the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events.
The Blade has been unable to reach Walker and Nguyen to determine their reasons for resigning.
Capital Pride CEO Ryan Bos and Board Chair Anna Jinkerson didn’t respond to a Blade question asking if they knew why Walker or Nguyen resigned.
In response to a request by the Blade for comment on the resignations and the concern raised by Zion Peters about trans-related issues, Bos and Jinkerson sent separate statements elaborating on the organization and the board’s position on various issues.
“We can confirm that the individuals you referenced, except for Zion, no longer serve on the Capital Pride Alliance Board of Directors,” Jinkerson said in her statement.
She added that following the WorldPride festival hosted by D.C. last May and June that was organized by Capital Pride Alliance, the group anticipated a “significant level of board transition,” with many board members reaching the end of their terms. But she said many board members chose to extend their service or apply for an additional term, showing a “powerful reflection of commitment.”
Without commenting on the specific reasons for the resignations of Peterson, Walker, and Nygun, Jinkerson noted, “As with all volunteer leadership roles, transitions occur for a range of personal and professional reasons, and we appreciate those transitions with both understanding and gratitude.”
In his own statement, Bos addressed Capital Pride’s record on transgender issues.
“The Capital Pride Alliance is committed to supporting and uplifting the Trans community through our work with the Trans Coalition under the Diversity of Prides Initiative, our partnership with Earline Budd on the LGBTQ+ Burial Fund with a focus on our Trans siblings, our collaboration with the National Trans Visibility March, and our ongoing investment in programming for Transgender Day of Visibility and Transgender Day of Remembrance,” Bos said in his statement.
“We also recognize there is always continued work to be done, and we always welcome feedback from our community to ensure our commitment remains unwavering,” he said.
At the time of her resignation in February, Chandler said she could not provide specific details of the instances of sexual misconduct to which she referred in her resignation letter, or who allegedly engaged in sexual misconduct, saying she and all other board members had signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement preventing them from disclosing further details.
Board Chair Jinkerson in a statement released at that time said she and the board were aware of Chandler’s concerns but did not specifically address allegations of sexual misconduct.
“When concerns are brought to CPA, we act quickly and appropriately to address them,” she said. “As we continue to grow as an organization, we’re proactively strengthening the policies and procedures that shape our systems, our infrastructure, and the support we provide to our team and partners,” she said.
District of Columbia
Curve magazine honors Washington Blade publisher
Lynne Brown named to 2026 Power List
Washington Blade Publisher Lynne Brown has been named to the 2026 Curve Power List celebrating LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary individuals in North America who are blazing trails in their chosen fields.
“From sports and entertainment icons to corporate leaders and lawmakers, these individuals are breaking barriers, challenging norms, and shaping the future,” Curve Foundation/Curve magazine said in announcing this year’s list, which includes ABC newscaster Robin Roberts, comedian/actress Hannah Einbinder, and singer/actress Renee Rapp, among others.
Brown has worked for the Washington Blade for nearly 40 years. She was named publisher in 2007 before becoming a co-owner in 2010.
“I am honored to be recognized by Curve magazine during Lesbian Visibility Week,” Brown said. “Receiving this Curve honor is twofold. I was an early subscriber to Curve. I enjoy the product and know its history. Its journalism, layout and humorous features have inspired me.
“As an owner/publisher, receiving recognition from a similar source acknowledges my work and efforts, with a sincerity I truly appreciate. Franco Stevens, the publisher of Curve, is a business person of duration, experience, and purpose. The fact that they are in the media business, and honoring me and my publication makes it a tiny bit sweeter.”
Nominations for the Curve Power List come from the community: peers, mentors, fans, and employers.
Curve explained the significance of the list in its announcement: “An annual, publicly nominated list of impactful LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary changemakers is crucial in current times to counter discrimination, legislative rollbacks, hostility, and the invisibility of queer women within mainstream and marginal spaces and endeavors. Such a list also fosters encouragement and solidarity, and elevates voices and achievements—from high-profile roles to under appreciated areas of life.”
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