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Biden’s acknowledgment of LGBTQ History Month ‘consequential’

Equality Forum honors 31 new ‘icons’ as annual commemoration kicks off

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Rep. Mark Pocan was honored with Equality Forum’s International Role Model Award. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

President Joe Biden signed a letter acknowledging Equality Forum’s LGBTQ History Month launch event held on Sunday, writing that, “by celebrating stories of bravery, resilience and joy, your example inspires hope in all people seeking a life true to who they are.”

Malcolm Lazin, Equality Forum executive director, said Biden’s letter is “consequential.” He noted that one year before the White House delivered a proclamation for Black History Month, it issued a letter signed by the president.

“It’s our hope that next year, our nation’s 47th president will issue that proclamation for LGBT History Month,” Lazin said.

Equality Forum is an LGBTQ civil rights organization with an educational focus based in Philadelphia. The group’s work includes coordinating LGBTQ History Month, producing documentary films and overseeing the application for and installation of government-approved queer historic markers.

When spearheading LGBTQ History Month for the first time back in 2006, Lazin said many pushed back against the idea. Some media outlets claimed it was trying to turn straight people gay or promote pedophilia. 

But Lazin said the homophobic reactions died down when people were educated on topics that typically weren’t taught in a widespread way.

“We were demonized, marginalized, and vilified,” Lazin said. “One of the certain principal ways you’re going to make headway is if you humanize who we are, and also educate people about the important contributions we make to our common society.”

Education has always been Equality Forum’s solution to societal backlash or controversy since its inception, Lazin said.

The organization got its start in 1993 under the name PrideFest Philadelphia. Lazin, who was the founder, said it was created during a time when Pride parades were the main focus of the LGBTQ community. 

In an effort to shift focus onto civil rights issues, PrideFest hosted its first LGBTQ summit that eventually transformed into an event featuring national and international organizations. Lazin said it was an effort to educate people on LGBTQ history as well as inform the community on queer rights around the world.

Though that event was terminated in 2020, Lazin is still focused on educating both queer and straight people on LGBTQ civil rights. Equality Forum honors 31 “LGBTQ icons” each year for every day in October.

This initiative began when Equality Forum started coordinating LGBTQ History Month back in 2006, but Lazin didn’t notice their efforts taking off until about five years in.

“In year one, people thought, ‘Oh yeah, those are like all the important names of the gay community,’” he said. “People paid a little bit more attention the following years, and all of a sudden they’re recognizing, ‘Oh, in a certain sense I was clueless about the role models that the gay community has.’”

This year’s icons being recognized include names like singers George Michael, Luther Vandross, and Sam Smith; pioneering drag queen William Dorsey Swann; “The Bachelor” star Colton Underwood; Wisconsin Congressman Mark Pocan; and longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff.

Pocan received the International Role Model Award during Sunday’s LGBTQ History Month launch event. It’s the longest-standing LGBTQ award in the nation, and has been presented to prominent figures like former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

He said accepting the award allowed him to reflect on the progress that’s been made in a relatively short time.

“I was preparing to make some remarks for the event, and I realized that I’ve been kind of in the front row of a lot of the history making in the country, because more of our history is in the last several decades,” Pocan told the Washington Blade. “There are significant moments in the past, but where the real improvements have happened have been more recent.”

In 1995, former President Bill Clinton invited Pocan, who is gay, and other LGBTQ elected officials to The White House for the first time. When they arrived and were going through security, Pocan said they noticed everyone was wearing blue gloves.

Initially assuming it was due to enhanced security following the aftermath of the Oklahoma City Bombing, Pocan said they later discovered the Secret Service agents thought they could contract AIDS from out elected officials.

He said the Secret Service issued an apology letter and the Clinton administration made it clear that wasn’t their policy. Even more memorable for Pocan was when then-Vice President Al Gore made it a point to shake everyone’s hands at the event.

Comparing that memory to Biden’s recent letter puts the advancements of LGBTQ rights into perspective for Pocan. He said that’s the reason recognizing and remembering queer history is vital.

“If you don’t know the history, it’s too easy to repeat it,” he said.

The fight to recognize the global work done toward advancing LGBTQ civil rights, however, isn’t over, Lazin said.

Many states are working to restrict LGBTQ topics from being taught in schools. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 1069 last year, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics, to prohibit lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The New College of Florida faced backlash when photos of hundreds of library books, many containing LGBTQ topics, overflowing a dumpster were shared online. A New College spokesperson said the books were “taken after discovering that the library did not follow all of the state administrative requirements while conducting the routine disposition of materials.”

Despite what the future may hold for LGBTQ content in schools, Lazin said the resources Equality Forum promotes, including the website featuring 31 queer icons in October, are always available.

“At least on this site, students, teachers, and guidance counselors have resources,” he said. “So if you’re an English teacher and you want to be celebrating LGBT History Month, click on poets, or click on authors. You’ve got a whole rich range of people to be able to bring into your curriculum.”

The reality of what LGBTQ History Month has become today is more than the work of one organization; Lazin said it’s the combined effort of local communities that are curious about their own history.

“While we could not possibly take on doing the history of all the cities around the country or in North America or around the world, it really has helped to encourage people to appreciate that history and to make sure that it is well documented,” Lazin said.

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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

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Immigrant Defenders Law Center President Lindsay Toczylowski, on right, speaks in support of her client, Andry Hernández Romero, in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on June 6, 2025. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

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.

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National

A husband’s story: Michael Carroll reflects on life with Edmund White

Iconic author died this week; ‘no sunnier human in the world’

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Michael Carroll spoke to the Blade after the death his husband Edmund White this week. (Photo by Michael Carroll)

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.

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District of Columbia

In town for WorldPride? Take a D.C. LGBTQ walking tour

Scenes of protest, celebration, and mourning

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Frank Kameny's house at 5020 Cathedral Ave., N.W. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

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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