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Mayor of Salisbury, Md. cancels Pride flag display

Decision ends five years of support for LGBTQ community

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Mayor Randolph Taylor has yanked the display of Pride flags in Salisbury, Md. (Screen capture via PAC 14 YouTube)

The City of Salisbury, Md., will not fly the Pride flag outside the city office building in downtown Salisbury. This will mark the first time in five years that a Pride flag will not fly at the city’s office for Pride month. 

Randolph J. Taylor, the mayor of Salisbury, told the Blade that the choice not to raise the flag was based on being “fair” and “transparent.”

“The administration’s position on the PFLAG kick-off is very simple,” Taylor said to the Blade in an email. “That is, to be neutral. Neutrality is not to be interpreted as anything else but simply that — being neutral.“

Taylor explained that the decision to appear more neutral was not to single out one particular group. “This is an approach the City has and will take with any other event held in the City of Salisbury as we entertain more than 100 events a year from a variety of groups and causes.”

Taylor concluded his statement with good wishes for PFLAG, the LGBTQ human rights organization that previously collaborated with the mayor on the flag raising and recently relocated within Salisbury.

“I am glad PFLAG has a new location on Carroll St. for its kick-off,” Taylor said. “The City of Salisbury wishes the event good luck!”

Nicole Hollywood, legislative chair for PFLAG Salisbury, said the decision not to promote cultural events using “city assets,” which includes the city’s flagpoles and street lamps, could impact longstanding celebrations of cultural heritage in the city. 

“We simply got an email saying that ‘we’re evaluating the use of city assets for cultural events,’ and ‘we don’t feel it’s appropriate moving forward to hang flags that represent special interest groups,’” Hollywood told the Blade regarding the denied request for flying the flag. “We were disheartened and made a statement saying that the planned event, which has occurred for a number of years always on the same day in the same location, is temporarily postponed until we could find an alternative.”

Hollywood continued, explaining that she, and other supporters of the LGBTQ community, have plans to bring the issue to the city council’s attention. She hopes to get a more standardized approach to the vetting of cultural events, like the Pride flag raising, in Salisbury. 

“We do have a request that we’ll be making in front of the city council, which is simply that a structure be put in place that’s uniform and equitable, that’s used to vet applications for flag raisings and other civic and cultural events,” she explained. “It isn’t clear, at this time, who exactly holds authority over city assets.”

In addition to her concerns regarding the current “murky” methods of approval for cultural events, Hollywood also highlighted her fears for the future of the Pride crosswalk in Salisbury. 

The crosswalk, which includes the classic rainbow Pride flag, the updated progressive Pride flag (that comprises the colors of the classic Pride flag, transgender pride flag, and stripes of black and brown to recognize people of color in the LGBTQ community), as well as a transgender flag, was the first to be installed in Maryland. 

Hollywood fears that if the city re-evaluates the crosswalks, it could be the beginning of the end of outward support for the LGBTQ community on any public land. 

“We think that it’s been a beacon of hope to people in the community having this rainbow, the trans, and progress Pride crosswalks,” Hollywood said. “We really want to protect and steward their existence because we know that if they’re painted over, or erased, that it won’t be as easy to get them back.”

Despite the shift in attitude from the city, some in the community have pledged to show their support in full force. The downtown business alliance in Salisbury, which works to foster growth for business in Salisbury, has encouraged its members to fly rainbow flags on private property in solidarity with PFLAG. 

“We’re trying to get as many people as possible to feel that they have a voice,” Hollywood said. “To feel that they’re included and to find other ways that we could celebrate queer joy.”

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Maryland

A Baltimore theater educator lost jobs at Johns Hopkins and the Kennedy Center

Tavish Forsyth concluded they could not work for Trump

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Tavish Forsyth, a queer artist and educator, posted a nude video on YouTube in protest of the Trump administration’s takeover of the Kennedy Center earlier this year. (Photo by Jessica Gallagher for the Baltimore Banner)

BY WESLEY CASE | Tavish Forsyth had come to a conclusion: They could not work for President Donald Trump.

So the 32-year-old Baltimore resident stripped down, turned on their camera, and lit their career on fire.

“F—— Donald Trump and f—— the Kennedy Center,” a naked Forsyth, an associate artistic lead at the Washington National Opera’s Opera Institute, which is run by the Kennedy Center, said in a video that went viral. The board of the nation’s leading cultural institution had elected Trump just weeks prior as its chairman after he gutted the board of members appointed by his predecessor, President Joe Biden.

The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.

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Maryland

Md. schools plan to comply with federal DEI demands

Superintendents opt for cooperation over confrontation

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(Bigstock photo)

By LIZ BOWIE | Deciding not to pick a fight with the Trump administration, Maryland school leaders plan to sign a letter to the U.S. Department of Education that says their school districts are complying with all civil rights laws.

The two-paragraph letter could deflect a confrontation over whether the state’s public schools run diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that the Trump administration has called illegal. The Baltimore Banner reviewed the letter, which was shared by a school administrator who declined to be identified because the letter has not yet been sent.

Maryland school leaders are taking a more conciliatory approach than those in some other states. Education leaders in Minnesota, New YorkColoradoOregon, Vermont, and Wisconsin said they will not comply with the federal education department’s order, the demands of which, they say, are based on a warped interpretation of civil rights law.

The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.

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Maryland

FreeState Justice: Transgender activist ‘hijacked’ Moore’s Transgender Day of Visibility event

Maryland Commission on LGBTQIA+ Affairs describes Lee Blinder’s comments as ‘call to action’

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Lee Blinder, founding executive director of Trans Maryland, speaks to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore during a ceremony for the International Day for Transgender Visibility. Blinder called out the governor for not backing up his words with action. (Photo by Jessica Gallagher for the Baltimore Banner)

FreeState Justice on April 11 released a statement criticizing the way that Trans Maryland Executive Director Lee Blinder treated Gov. Wes Moore during a Transgender Day of Visibility event.

FreeState Justice was extremely disappointed with the criticisms of Moore on the Transgender Day of Visibility, saying it was “hijacked by public hostility” by Blinder. The Baltimore Banner reported how Blinder “laid out how the Democratic governor has let down transgender Marylanders by not putting money in the budget and not backing needed policy changes.”

The Washington Blade interviewed Blinder after the March 31 event.

“The intention of what I shared is to show to the governor that this is a community in distress. You know, we are in a real state of emergency for the trans community and there are very few opportunities that the community has to share this directly with the governor.” Blinder told the Blade. “We’re really grateful to the governor for everything that he’s done in the past for this community, but the circumstances have changed and we really need to see very specific actions taken in order to ensure this community has the ability to exist in public space.”

FreeState Justice said Moore did not deserve such criticisms during the event and added in a Blade oped it is “time for new leadership on the Maryland LGBTQIA+ Commission. Leadership that values and prioritizes coalition over conflict. Leadership that invites feedback and shares power. Leadership that understands how Annapolis operates, how budgets are constructed, and how community victories are won.”

“We’re not saying don’t challenge power. We’re saying do it with purpose. Do it with facts. Do it with a strategy. If you’re going to call yourself a leader in this movement, show us the policy platform. Show us the data. Show us the budget line. Show us the work,” wrote FreeState Justice.

The Maryland Commission on LGBTQIA+ Affairs has met to address FreeState Justice’s statements. 

“During the Transgender Day of Visibility ceremony at the State House, the commission’s chair offered remarks reflecting the real fears, concerns, and hopes of the trans community. These remarks were not a call-out, but a call to action,” the commission said in their call to action statement it sent to the Blade. “The chair’s words echoed the thousands of voices we’ve heard across the state through phone calls, emails, and messages on social media to our staff, commissioners, and their affiliated organizations.”

The statement outlines what the call to action entails, addressing what the commission found to be the most pressing issues for transgender Marylanders. They include a lack of dedicated funding, barriers to affirming healthcare, housing insecurity and homelessness, discrimination in education and employment, and escalating violence, harassment, and hate.

“We remain deeply committed to working in partnership with the Moore-Miller administration, the General Assembly, state agencies, nonprofit organizations, and community partners to ensure LGBTQIA+ Marylanders are seen, protected, and supported in policy, budget, and in practice,” reads the statement.

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