National
A remembrance of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor by the gay couple she married
Late legal legend made LGBTQ history when she officiated wedding of Trammell, Serkin
It’s been a little over a decade, but the memory of their wedding day in 2013 is fresh in the minds of Jeffrey Trammell and his love of 46 years, Stuart Serkin. The setting was the lawyer’s lounge of the U.S. Supreme Court. Their officiant was retired Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who died earlier this month.
“She couldn’t have been more delightful,” recalled Trammell in an interview with the Washington Blade about that very special Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013, when these lawyer lobbyists from Florida tied the knot and made LGBTQ history.
Of all days, the couple got stuck in a funeral procession amid the typically notorious D.C. traffic, as they made their way from Logan Circle to the iconic white marble building. They arrived 20 minutes late. Trammell wore a wingtip on one foot, and a black sneaker on his other, broken foot.
“She gave me a hard time about being a little late and wearing a shoe that was not appropriate for a wedding,” he said. “That was quite common for her, a sort of disarming sense of humor.”
The Arizona native was the epitome of “down-to-earth,” Trammell said.
“Her style was such that you were completely at ease, she had the capacity to connect with people,” he said. “I think it’s one reason she was very popular in Washington and internationally, very sought after as a speaker and a member of the boards because she was anything but aloof. She was very common-sense, down-to-earth and had a good sense of humor. So, you enjoyed being around her.”
Trammell had met O’Connor before. In 2011, he was elected rector at his alma mater, William & Mary, as the first out gay board chair of a major university in the United States. O’Connor was serving as the university’s chancellor, while also maintaining an office she kept at the high court, even after retiring in 2005.
“So, I went to see her at the Supreme Court,” said Trammell. “I thanked her for her vote on Lawrence v Texas, and I told her that she made my partner and me no longer felons in our own country.”
O’Connor argued in that 6-3 ruling by the Supreme Court on June 26, 2003, that a Texas statute banning consenting gay adults from engaging in sexual acts violated the 14th Amendment. Exactly 12 years later, same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide by the Supreme Court, on June 26, 2015, in the landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. The vote was 5-4 in favor, with O’Connor’s successor, far right conservative Justice Samuel Alito, voting in dissent.
Of course, by then, Washington, D.C. had long embraced marriage equality, ever since March 3, 2010. And in 2013, after being partners for more than three decades, the two lawyers decided it was finally time to get hitched.
“Stuart and I wanted to get married, so I asked her. And she said, ‘Sure,’” said Trammell.
If that seems like it was too easy, it’s important to note these guys were well known in the District.
In addition to Trammell & Company, the lobbying firm he and Serkin managed, Trammell had been a staff member at the House of Representatives and the Senate, served on the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund Board of Directors, Human Rights Campaign Board of Advisors, on the LGBT Victims Remembrance Project for the U.S. Holocaust Museum and was Senior Advisor for LGBT Outreach and for Business Outreach on Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign. He also worked on John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004 and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 bid for the White House.
Both retired now, Serkin was a prominent legislative attorney in Washington. He met Trammell in 1977 in a bar exam class in Florida. Trammell grew up in Blountstown, Fla., where he led his basketball team to the state championship, was named High School All-American and won a basketball scholarship to William & Mary, where he served as the captain of the men’s basketball team.
Even with their illustrious resumes, they did not expect that their wedding would become front-page news.
“There was an AP reporter around who saw what was going on and wrote an AP piece. And by the time we got home, I went online to see there were stories all over the country,” he said. “It was interesting to see some of the backlash from the very conservative religious folks who opined that she had violated God’s will. I’m sure she never bothered to read things like that because she never minded controversial subjects. There was a lot of positive coverage, but it’s a reminder that there are detractors out there.”
Their wedding even made The New York Times. But as it turns out, Trammell, Serkin and O’Connor were upstaged by none other than RBG.
“’Keep it quiet’,” Trammell said a journalist friend had advised him, after they had set the date, booked the officiant and the historic venue. “’Maybe you will be the first one married in the building!’” But their wedding wasn’t the first in that landmark, nor the first officiated by a justice. “[Ruth Bader] Ginsburg, RBG, beat us by a few days when she married one of her former clerks.” That was the first same-sex wedding inside the Supreme Court building. “So, we were number two,” said Trammell.
As The Washington Blade reported in September 2013, Ginsburg was the first Supreme Court justice to officiate at a same-sex wedding, when Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser married his partner, economist John Roberts. Trammell and Serkin can at least claim they are the first same-sex couple to be married by a retired Supreme Court justice, a conservative one at that.
O’Connor was a life-long Republican from Arizona, appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1981. Following her death at age 93 on Dec. 1 from complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness, Trammell reflected on this famous person he got to know, whose opinions over the years showed she had evolved.
“She grew and learned, and she was a great listener,” he said. “A lot of people think to have been a member of the court means they listen to people. You know, politicians don’t survive if they don’t have their ear to the ground and learn from what’s going on in society. I would venture that that was a factor in her growth in support of our community during those years. And I think it’s a logical extension that she eventually grew on other issues, too, on abortion and affirmative action.”
Of all the memories of O’Connor, Trammell said it was her personal touches on their wedding day that stand out.
“She had vows that she had used before when she married people and those were slightly modified to reflect we were a same-sex couple. It was just terrific,” said Trammell. “She was sharp as a tack. She was 83 at that point and had a cane she used to walk. But there was no indication of any future challenges with dementia.”
He said after officiating what turned out to be the first gay wedding inside the Supreme Court, O’Connor spent some quality time with the newlyweds.
“She signed our marriage license and spent time with us. And she just couldn’t have been nicer. I mean, you couldn’t ask for anything and anyone in that sort of position to be more down-to-earth and warm and friendly.”
U.S. Supreme Court
Activists rally for Andry Hernández Romero in front of Supreme Court
Gay asylum seeker ‘forcibly deported’ to El Salvador, described as political prisoner
More than 200 people gathered in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday and demanded the Trump-Vance administration return to the U.S. a gay Venezuelan asylum seeker who it “forcibly disappeared” to El Salvador.
Lindsay Toczylowski, president of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a Los Angeles-based organization that represents Andry Hernández Romero, is among those who spoke alongside U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and Human Rights Campaign Campaigns and Communications Vice President Jonathan Lovitz. Sarah Longwell of the Bulwark, Pod Save America’s Jon Lovett, and Tim Miller are among those who also participated in the rally.
“Andry is a son, a brother. He’s an actor, a makeup artist,” said Toczylowski. “He is a gay man who fled Venezuela because it was not safe for him to live there as his authentic self.”
(Video by Michael K. Lavers)
The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.”
President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.” The Trump-Vance administration subsequently “forcibly removed” Hernández and hundreds of other Venezuelans to El Salvador.
Toczylowski said she believes Hernández remains at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT. Toczylowski also disputed claims that Hernández is a Tren de Aragua member.
“Andry fled persecution in Venezuela and came to the U.S. to seek protection. He has no criminal history. He is not a member of the Tren de Aragua gang. Yet because of his crown tattoos, we believe at this moment that he sits in a torture prison, a gulag, in El Salvador,” said Toczylowski. “I say we believe because we have not had any proof of life for him since the day he was put on a U.S. government-funded plane and forcibly disappeared to El Salvador.”
“Andry is not alone,” she added.
Takano noted the federal government sent his parents, grandparents, and other Japanese Americans to internment camps during World War II under the Alien Enemies Act. The gay California Democrat also described Hernández as “a political prisoner, denied basic rights under a law that should have stayed in the past.”
“He is not a case number,” said Takano. “He is a person.”
Hernández had been pursuing his asylum case while at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.
A hearing had been scheduled to take place on May 30, but an immigration judge the day before dismissed his case. Immigrant Defenders Law Center has said it will appeal the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which the Justice Department oversees.
“We will not stop fighting for Andry, and I know neither will you,” said Toczylowski.
Friday’s rally took place hours after Attorney General Pam Bondi said Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who the Trump-Vance administration wrongfully deported to El Salvador, had returned to the U.S. Abrego will face federal human trafficking charges in Tennessee.
National
A husband’s story: Michael Carroll reflects on life with Edmund White
Iconic author died this week; ‘no sunnier human in the world’
Unlike most gay men of my generation, I’ve only been to Fire Island twice. Even so, the memory of my first visit has never left me. The scenery was lovely, and the boys were sublime — but what stood out wasn’t the beach or the parties. It was a quiet afternoon spent sipping gin and tonics in a mid-century modern cottage tucked away from the sand and sun.
Despite Fire Island’s reputation for hedonism, our meeting was more accident than escapade. Michael Carroll — a Facebook friend I’d chatted with but never met — mentioned that he and his husband, Ed, would be there that weekend, too. We agreed to meet for a drink. On a whim, I checked his profile and froze. Ed was author Edmund White.
I packed a signed copy of Carroll’s “Little Reef” and a dog-eared hardback of “A Boy’s Own Story,” its spine nearly broken from rereads. I was excited to meet both men and talk about writing, even briefly.
Yesterday, I woke to the news that Ed had passed away. Ironically, my first thought was of Michael.
This week, tributes to Edmund White are everywhere — rightly celebrating his towering legacy as a novelist, essayist, and cultural icon. I’ve read all of his books, and I could never do justice to the scope of a career that defined and chronicled queer life for more than half a century. I’ll leave that to better-prepared journalists.
But in those many memorials, I’ve noticed something missing. When Michael Carroll is mentioned, it’s usually just a passing reference: “White’s partner of thirty years, twenty-five years his junior.” And yet, in the brief time I spent with this couple on Fire Island, it was clear to me that Michael was more than a footnote — he was Ed’s anchor, editor, companion, and champion. He was the one who knew his husband best.
They met in 1995 after Michael wrote Ed a fan letter to tell him he was coming to Paris. “He’d lost the great love of his life a year before,” Michael told me. “In one way, I filled a space. Understand, I worshiped this man and still do.”
When I asked whether there was a version of Ed only he knew, Michael answered without hesitation: “No sunnier human in the world, obvious to us and to people who’ve only just or never met him. No dark side. Psychology had helped erase that, I think, or buffed it smooth.”
Despite the age difference and divergent career arcs, their relationship was intellectually and emotionally symbiotic. “He made me want to be elegant and brainy; I didn’t quite reach that, so it led me to a slightly pastel minimalism,” Michael said. “He made me question my received ideas. He set me free to have sex with whoever I wanted. He vouchsafed my moods when they didn’t wobble off axis. Ultimately, I encouraged him to write more minimalistically, keep up the emotional complexity, and sleep with anyone he wanted to — partly because I wanted to do that too.”
Fully open, it was a committed relationship that defied conventional categories. Ed once described it as “probably like an 18th-century marriage in France.” Michael elaborated: “It means marriage with strong emotion — or at least a tolerance for one another — but no sex; sex with others. I think.”
That freedom, though, was always anchored in deep devotion and care — and a mutual understanding that went far beyond art, philosophy, or sex. “He believed in freedom and desire,” Michael said, “and the two’s relationship.”
When I asked what all the essays and articles hadn’t yet captured, Michael paused. “Maybe that his writing was tightly knotted, but that his true personality was vulnerable, and that he had the defense mechanisms of cheer and optimism to conceal that vulnerability. But it was in his eyes.”
The moment that captured who Ed was to him came at the end. “When he was dying, his second-to-last sentence (garbled then repeated) was, ‘Don’t forget to pay Merci,’ the cleaning lady coming the next day. We had had a rough day, and I was popping off like a coach or dad about getting angry at his weakness and pushing through it. He took it almost like a pack mule.”
Edmund White’s work shaped generations — it gave us language for desire, shame, wit, and liberation. But what lingers just as powerfully is the extraordinary life Ed lived with a man who saw him not only as a literary giant but as a real person: sunny, complex, vulnerable, generous.
In the end, Ed’s final words to his husband weren’t about his books or his legacy. They were about care, decency, and love. “You’re good,” he told Michael—a benediction, a farewell, maybe even a thank-you.
And now, as the world celebrates the prolific writer and cultural icon Edmund White, it feels just as important to remember the man and the person who knew him best. Not just the story but the characters who stayed to see it through to the end.
District of Columbia
In town for WorldPride? Take a D.C. LGBTQ walking tour
Scenes of protest, celebration, and mourning
As Washington welcomes the world for WorldPride, it’s essential to honor the city’s deep-rooted LGBTQ history—an integral part of the broader story of the nation’s capital. The following locations have served as cornerstones of queer life and activism in D.C., shaping both local and national movements for LGBTQ rights. So take a walk around “the gayest city in America” and check out these sites.
DUPONT CIRCLE AREA
Dupont Circle
Central hub of LGBTQ life since the early 20th century, hosting Pride parades, Dyke Marches, and cruising culture. A long-standing site of protests and celebrations.
Washington Hilton – 1919 Connecticut Ave NW
Hosted D.C.’s first major hotel drag event in 1968 and the iconic Miss Adams Morgan Pageant. Protested in 1978 during Anita Bryant’s appearance.
Lesbian Avengers – 1426 21st St NW
Formed in 1992, the group empowered lesbians through bold direct actions. They met in Dupont Circle and launched the city’s first Dyke March.
Lambda Rising Bookstore (former) – 1724 20th Street NW
D.C.’s first LGBTQ bookstore and the birthplace of the city’s inaugural Pride celebration in 1975.
Women In The Life (former office) – 1623 Connecticut Ave NW
Founded in 1993 by Sheila Alexander-Reid as a safe space and support network for lesbians of color.
17th Street NW Corridor – Between P & R Streets NW
Core of the LGBTQ business district, home to the annual High Heel Race in October and the June Block Party celebrating the origins of D.C. Pride.
CAPITOL HILL / SOUTHEAST
Tracks (former) – 80 M St SE
Once D.C.’s largest gay club, famous for inclusive parties, RuPaul shows, and foam nights from 1984 to 2000.
Ziegfeld’s / The Other Side – 1345 Half Street SE
Legendary drag venue since 1978, hosting famed performers like Ella Fitzgerald.
Club 55 / Waaay Off Broadway – 55 K Street SE
Converted theater central to D.C.’s early drag and Academy pageant scenes.
Congressional Cemetery – 1801 E Street SE
Resting place of LGBTQ figures like Sgt. Leonard Matlovich and Peter Doyle. Offers queer history tours.
Mr. Henry’s – 601 Pennsylvania Ave SE
LGBTQ-friendly bar since 1966 and the launching stage for Roberta Flack’s career.
The Furies Collective House – 219 11th Street SE
Home to a 1970s lesbian feminist collective that published “The Furies.” Members included Rita Mae Brown.
ARCHIVES / PENN QUARTER
Archives Metro & Center Market Site – 7th St & Pennsylvania Ave NW
Where Walt Whitman met Peter Doyle in 1865, commemorated by a sculpture linking Whitman and poet Fernando Pessoa.
COLUMBIA HEIGHTS / PETWORTH
Palm Ballroom (former) – 4211 9th Street NW
Mid-20th century venue for Black drag balls and LGBTQ events during segregation.
NATIONAL MALL AREA
National Mall / Washington Monument Grounds
Historic site of LGBTQ activism and remembrance, including the 1987 display of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and a mass same-sex wedding. Hosted major civil rights marches in 1979, 1987, and 1993.
NORTHWEST DC
Dr. Franklin E. Kameny House – 5020 Cathedral Ave NW
Home of gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny and the Mattachine Society of Washington; now a national landmark.
LAFAYETTE SQUARE / WHITE HOUSE
Lafayette Park – Pennsylvania Ave & 16th St NW
Historic gay cruising area and epicenter of government surveillance during the Lavender Scare.
Data from: SSecret City by James Kirchick, The Deviant’s War by Frank Kameny, Brett Beemyn, The Rainbow History Project, NPS Archives, Washington Blade Archives.
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