District of Columbia
BENT party bids farewell with Halloween bash
DJ Lemz reflects on hosting quarterly event at 9:30 Club
When Town Danceboutique closed its doors more than six years ago, D.C.’s LGBTQ community lost its largest dance venue. In response, DJ and event organizer Steve Lemmerman launched BENT, a quarterly queer dance party at the 9:30 Club. Its immediate success underscored the need for LGBTQ events like it, following the closures of Town and other establishments.
Now, more than a dozen BENTs later, Lemmerman is gearing up for the party’s final edition this Saturday. BENT is ending –– but it’s a joyful conclusion, as new venues such as Crush Bar and Kiki have emerged to expand the landscape of queer spaces in D.C. in recent years.
“The city has done its job,” Lemmerman, who also goes by his stage name, DJ Lemz, explained. “The city has filled the need for somewhere to commune as a whole. There are all these different gay bars and queer spaces now, and we don’t need to fill that void anymore.”
BENT’s last hurrah will be a spirited send-off. Its annual Halloween extravaganza, “HellBENT,” will feature a handpicked lineup of acts that have graced the party’s stage over the years.
“This is like a perfect ending. HellBENT is the one that we always look forward to the most every year, and we can just go out on a high note being our spooky, weird selves.”
Among those returning for the grand finale is Ana Latour, a drag performer who left a memorable mark at last year’s HellBENT by having blood dumped on her in a recreation of the “Carrie” character. Latour is coming out of retirement just to perform again on Saturday.
The art group Haus of Bambi, drag artist Pussy Noir, and go-go dancer Samson are also making a comeback, and party goers can expect a hefty dose of spooky tracks in Lemmerman’s DJ set, including songs from Kim Petras’s “Turn Off the Light” album.
“It is just a love letter to everything we’ve done. It’s going to be a really fun night of just showing off our favorite parts of this party,” Lemmerman said.
From its inception in 2019, BENT was created to bridge different facets of D.C.’s queer nightlife scene. Lemmerman wanted to “put people together that normally wouldn’t interact, both in the crowd and on stage.” The party has always featured a diverse lineup, with go-go dancers, drag performers, pole dancers, burlesque performers, and DJs all sharing the spotlight.
Rather than catering the event to a particular group, Lemmerman’s vision was to make BENT a “special melting pot” for the entire queer community. It seemed to strike a chord with people, as the first edition in January 2019 sold out.
“I think it was something fresh and new,” Lemmerman reflected. “It was a lot of reaching across the different facets of nightlife and putting everyone together. I think that just really resonated with people that they get to see like a highlight reel of what’s going on in the city.”
The iconic 9:30 Club, home to many LGBTQ staff members, proved to be the ideal venue for an event dedicated to celebrating inclusivity and self-expression.
“There’s just so much that they do that really just shows how much they actually care about our community and our safety,” Lemmerman said. “It’s a place where I’ve always felt safe to just be myself.”
Audrey Fix Schaefer, communications director for 9:30 Club, said part of the fun of BENT is seeing the excitement before the event even begins.
“I’m really happy just standing in the lobby and watching people come in. It’s just so much fun when nobody’s got to worry about what they’re wearing, but they’re really there to show off,” she said.
Organizing BENT hasn’t been without its challenges. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the party had to transition online. Lemmerman would prerecord performers at an empty 9:30 Club and splice the footage together with his DJ sets, which he would then live stream on Twitch.
But his fondest memories are from the moments he shared with performers on stage, like the time he surprised his friend, go-go dancer Ricky Rosé, by sneaking their favorite song into the set.
“I watched him just turn around, jaw dropped, like, ‘No, you did not.’ And it was just like, such a happy moment that we still look back on every once in a while, this nudge of ‘I got you,’” he said.
Schaefer praised Lemmerman’s work, reflecting on how he grew BENT into a must-attend event and how proud the 9:30 Club staff was to be part of something so special.
“It’s been thrilling to watch Steve grow with this and the sense of pride that our employees have about being a place that welcomes everybody and has fun while doing it,” she said.
District of Columbia
U.S. Attorney’s Office drops hate crime charge in anti-gay assault
Case remains under investigation and ‘further charges’ could come
D.C. police announced on Feb. 9 that they had arrested two days earlier on Feb. 7 a Germantown, Md., man on a charge of simple assault with a hate crime designation after the man allegedly assaulted a gay man at 14th and Q Streets, N.W., while using “homophobic slurs.”
But D.C. Superior Court records show that prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., which prosecutes D.C. violent crime cases, charged the arrested man only with simple assault without a hate crime designation.
In response to a request by the Washington Blade for the reason why the hate crime designation was dropped, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office provided this response: “We continue to investigate this matter and make no mistake: should the evidence call for further charges, we will not hesitate to charge them.”
In a statement announcing the arrest in this case, D.C. police stated, “On Saturday, February 7, 2026, at approximately 7:45 p.m. the victim and suspect were in the 1500 block of 14th Street, Northwest. The suspect requested a ‘high five’ from the victim. The victim declined and continued walking,” the statement says.
“The suspect assaulted the victim and used homophobic slurs,” the police statement continues. “The suspect was apprehended by responding officers.”
It adds that 26-year-old Dean Edmundson of Germantown, Md. “was arrested and charged with Simple Assault (Hate/Bias).” The statement also adds, “A designation as a hate crime by MPD does not mean that prosecutors will prosecute it as a hate crime.”
Under D.C.’s Bias Related Crime Act of 1989, penalties for crimes motivated by prejudice against individuals based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and homelessness can be enhanced by a court upon conviction by one and a half times greater than the penalty of the underlying crime.
Prosecutors in the past both in D.C. and other states have said they sometimes decide not to include a hate crime designation in assault cases if they don’t think the evidence is sufficient to obtain a conviction by a jury. In some instances, prosecutors have said they were concerned that a skeptical jury might decide to find a defendant not guilty of the underlying assault charge if they did not believe a motive of hate was involved.
A more detailed arrest affidavit filed by D.C. police in Superior Court appears to support the charge of a hate crime designation.
“The victim stated that they refused to High-Five Defendant Edmondson, which, upon that happening, Defendant Edmondson started walking behind both the victim and witness, calling the victim, “bald, ugly, and gay,” the arrest affidavit states.
“The victim stated that upon being called that, Defendant Edmundson pushed the victim with both hands, shoving them, causing the victim to feel the force of the push,” the affidavit continues. “The victim stated that they felt offended and that they were also gay,” it says.
District of Columbia
Capital Pride wins anti-stalking order against local activist
Darren Pasha claims action is linked to his criticism of Pride organizers
A D.C. Superior Court judge on Feb. 6 partially approved an anti-stalking order against a local LGBTQ activist requested last October by the Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based LGBTQ group that organizes the city’s annual Pride events.
The ruling by Judge Robert D. Okun requires former Capital Pride volunteer Darren Pasha to stay at least 100 feet away from Capital Pride’s staff, board members, and volunteers until the time of a follow up court hearing he scheduled for April 17.
In his ruling at the Feb. 6 hearing, which was virtual rather than held in-person at the courthouse, Okun said he had changed the distance that Capital Pride had requested for the stay-away, anti-stalking order from 200 yards to 100 feet. The court records show that the judge also denied a motion filed earlier by Pasha, who did not attend the hearing, to “quash” the Capital Pride civil case against him.
Pasha told the Washington Blade he suffered an injury and damaged his mobile phone by falling off his scooter on the city’s snow-covered streets that prevented him from calling in to join the Feb. 6 court hearing.
In his own court filings without retaining an attorney, Pasha has strongly denied the stalking related allegations against him by Capital Pride, saying “no credible or admissible evidence has been provided” to show he engaged in any wrongdoing.
The Capital Pride complaint initially filed in court on Oct. 27, 2025, includes an 18-page legal brief outlining its allegations against Pasha and an additional 167-page addendum of “supporting exhibits” that includes multiple statements by witnesses whose names are blacked out.
“Over the past year, Defendant Darren Pasha (“DSP”) has engaged in a sustained, and escalating course of conduct directed at CPA, including repeated and unwanted contact, harassment, intimidation, threats, manipulation, and coercive behavior targeting CPA staff, board members, volunteers, and affiliates,” the Capital Pride complaint states.
In his initial 16-page response to the complaint, Pasha says the Capital Pride complaint appears to be a form of retaliation against him for a dispute he has had with the organization and its then president, Ashley Smith, last year.
“It is evident that the document is replete with false, misleading, and unsubstantiated assertions,” he said of the complaint.
Smith, who has since resigned from his role as board president, did not respond to a request by the Blade for comment at the time the Capital Pride court complaint was filed against Pasha.
Capital Pride Executive Director Ryan Bos and the attorney representing the group in its legal action against Pasha, Nick Harrison, did not immediately respond to a Blade request for comment on the judge’s Feb. 6 ruling.
District of Columbia
D.C. pays $500,000 to settle lawsuit brought by gay Corrections Dept. employee
Alleged years of verbal harassment, slurs, intimidation
The D.C. government on Feb. 5 agreed to pay $500,000 to a gay D.C. Department of Corrections officer as a settlement to a lawsuit the officer filed in 2021 alleging he was subjected to years of discrimination at his job because of his sexual orientation, according to a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C.
The statement says the lawsuit, filed on behalf of Sgt. Deon Jones by the ACLU of D.C. and the law firm WilmerHale, alleged that the Department of Corrections, including supervisors and co-workers, “subjected Sgt. Jones to discrimination, retaliation, and a hostile work environment because of his identity as a gay man, in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act.”
Daniel Gleick, a spokesperson for D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, said the mayor’s office would have no comment on the lawsuit settlement. A spokesperson for the Office of the D.C. Attorney General, which represents the city against lawsuits, said the office has a longstanding policy of not commenting on litigation like the Deon Jones lawsuit.
Bowser and her high-level D.C. government appointees, including Japer Bowles, director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, have spoken out against LGBTQ-related discrimination.
“Jones, now a 28-year veteran of the Department and nearing retirement, faced years of verbal abuse and harassment from coworkers and incarcerated people alike, including anti-gay slurs, threats, and degrading treatment,” the ACLU’s statement says.
“The prolonged mistreatment took a severe toll on Jones’s mental health, and he experienced depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and 15 anxiety attacks in 2021 alone,” it says.
“For years, I showed up to do my job with professionalism and pride, only to be targeted because of who I am,” Jones says in the ACLU statement. “This settlement affirms that my pain mattered – and that creating hostile workplaces has real consequences,” he said.
He added, “For anyone who is LGBTQ or living with a disability and facing workplace discrimination or retaliation, know this: you are not powerless. You have rights. And when you stand up, you can achieve justice.”
The settlement agreement, a link to which the ACLU provided in its statement announcing the settlement, states that plaintiff Jones agrees, among other things, that “neither the Parties’ agreement, nor the District’s offer to settle the case, shall in any way be construed as an admission by the District that it or any of its current or former employees, acted wrongfully with respect to Plaintiff or any other person, or that Plaintiff has any rights.”
Scott Michelman, the D.C. ACLU’s legal director said that type of disclaimer is typical for parties that agree to settle a lawsuit like this.
“But actions speak louder than words,” he told the Blade. “The fact that they are paying our client a half million dollars for the pervasive and really brutal harassment that he suffered on the basis of his identity for years is much more telling than their disclaimer itself,” he said.
The settlement agreement also says Jones would be required, as a condition for accepting the agreement, to resign permanently from his job at the Department of Corrections. ACLU spokesperson Andy Hoover said Jones has been on administrative leave since March 2022. Jones couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
“This is really something that makes sense on both sides,” Michelman said of the resignation requirements. “The environment had become so toxic the way he had been treated on multiple levels made it difficult to see how he could return to work there.”
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