Local

Iya Dammons on the need to fight Trump’s anti-trans attacks

Head of Safe Haven insists ‘we will not be erased’

Published

12 months ago

March 26, 2025

Iya Dammons (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

This year’s Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31 comes amid numerous attacks on the community from President Trump and his congressional allies advancing sports bans, restricting affirming healthcare, and gutting federal funding of nonprofits that provide life-saving resources for the trans community.

One such organization operating in Baltimore and D.C. is Safe Haven, which runs shelters in both cities for trans people experiencing homelessness along with a variety of other services for the broader LGBTQ community, including HIV prevention.

Iya Dammons, who serves as executive director of both Safe Haven groups and operates the shelters, spoke to the Blade about the challenges of doing this work in the current political environment.

Dammons said federal funding for Safe Haven Baltimore and D.C. has been frozen by the Trump administration as part of its sweeping policy of opposing government support for transgender-related programs. But she said the mayor’s offices in Baltimore and D.C., including D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, have provided local funding to make up for the loss of federal funds.

“Things are looking dire, but we have to continue our services,” she said. “So, we’re continuing to do the services in Washington, D.C. In Baltimore City we’re also being told that at the end of the day we can keep doing services and the city of Baltimore stands with us,” she said by providing financial support.

In addition to providing transitional housing for transgender people and others in the LGBTQ community experiencing homelessness, under Dammons’s leadership, Safe Haven provides a wide range of supportive services for LGBTQ people in need, with a special outreach to Black trans women “navigating survival mode” living, according to its website.

“Through compassionate harm reduction and upward mobility services, advocacy support, and community engagement, we foster a respectful, non-judgmental environment that empowers individuals,” a website statement says. “Our programs encompass community outreach, a drop-in center providing HIV testing, harm reduction, PrEP, medical linkage, case management, and assistance in accessing housing services,” it says.

Dammons says she and her associates at Safe Haven are responding to the hostile environment brought about by the Trump administration, among other things, by promoting a theme of “We Will Not Be Erased,” which will be highlighted in a Baltimore street mural.

As a follow-up to another street mural initiated by Dammons on Charles Street in Baltimore in July 2020 called “Black Trans Lives Matter,” the new “We Will Not Be Erased” mural is scheduled to be painted on a two-block section of Charles Street on March 29.

“So, this year, because of what is happening with the Trump administration, that he is trying to erase our population, this is going to say we won’t be erased,” Dammons told the Blade. “And it’s going to reflect our Black Trans Lives Matter mural,” she said.

Dammons said she is disappointed by Mayor Bowser’s seeming acquiescence to the Trump administration’s demand that she remove the D.C. Black Lives Matter street mural located on 16th Street, N.W. opposite the White House that Bowser had installed during Trump’s first term as president.

“She was likely to lose funding, so I understand,” Dammons said, referring to threats by Trump and Republican members of Congress to cut millions of dollars from the D.C. budget if the mayor did not remove the Black Lives Matter mural.

But Dammons said she does not think Bowser has spoken out forcefully enough about Trump’s actions toward the trans community.

Dammons, who founded Safe Haven Baltimore, which is also known as Safe Haven Maryland, in 2018, is credited with playing the lead role in its growth with a current budget of $3.8 million. She founded Safe Haven D.C. in 2023 at the time the trans supportive D.C. LGBTQ community services center Casa Ruby shut down. The D.C. Safe Haven is located at 331 H St., N.E.

In recognition of her work and contribution to the community, the Baltimore mayor and City Council in June of 2024 named a Baltimore street where the Safe Haven offices are located as Iya Dammons Way in her honor.

Dammons said she was highly honored by the street name designation and has pointed out that with the purchase of a second building to house its offices and services scheduled to open in Baltimore in June, Safe Haven has emerged as one of the nation’s largest trans-led LGBTQ nonprofit service organizations.

“It may be the largest trans-led organization by a Black trans woman of color,” she said. “It’s the largest one on the East Coast led by a Black trans woman of color.”

Regarding Trump and the anti-transgender actions by his administration, Dammons said that as a Black trans woman, “Everything that they have removed from my clients and the people I serve, he has removed from me.”

“And we have no other choice at the end of the day than to stand up and fight back and know that we won’t be erased,” she said. “There is no other choice than to stand up and fight back because, for them, this is a lifestyle. But to us, this is us. So, it’s a whole different ballgame when you look at the people we serve.”

Trans Day of Visibility events

• Trans Day of Vision picnic and rally, March 30, 1-5 p.m., Malcolm X Park. For more information, visit the DC Center’s website.

• Trans Day of Visibility rally and reception in Montgomery County, March 31, 4-7 p.m., 4805 Edgemoor Lane, Bethesda, Md. RSVP at liveinyourtruth.org.

• ‘Building Power and Solidarity Across Generations’ webinar featuring trans leaders, March 31, 7 p.m. EST, RSVP via GLAAD’s website.

• Rally featuring members of Congress, March 31, 4 p.m., National Mall between 3^rd Street and 4^th Street, D.C.

Up Next

Comings & Goings

Don't Miss

D.C. LGBTQ rights advocate Jeri Hughes dies at 73

FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM

Cameroon

Gay Cameroonian immigrant will be freed from ICE detention — for now

Ludovic Mbock’s homeland criminalizes homosexuality

Published

56 minutes ago

March 13, 2026

Baltimore Banner

Competitive gamer Ludovic Mbock, left, with his sister, Diane Sohna. (Photo courtesy of Diane Sohna)

By ANTONIO PLANAS | An immigration judge on Friday issued a $4,000 bond for a Cameroonian immigrant and regional gaming champion held in federal immigration detention for the past three weeks.

The ruling will allow Ludovic Mbock, of Oxon Hill, to return to Maryland from a Georgia facility this weekend, his family and attorney said.

“Realistically, by tomorrow. Hopefully, by today,” said Mbock’s attorney, Edward Neufville. “We are one step closer to getting Ludovic justice.”

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

District of Columbia

Bowser appoints first nonbinary person to Cabinet-level position

Peter Stephan named Office of Disability Rights interim director

Published

22 hours ago

March 12, 2026

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

The Wilson Building (Bigstock photo by Leonid Andronov)

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bower has named longtime disability rights advocate Peter L. Stephan, who identifies as nonbinary, as interim director of the D.C. Office of Disability Rights.

The local transgender and nonbinary advocacy group Our Trans Capital and the LGBTQ group Capital Stonewall Democrats issued a joint statement calling Stephan’s appointment an historic development as the first-ever appointment of a nonbinary person to a Cabinet-level D.C. government position.

“This milestone appointment recognizes Stephan’s extensive expertise in disability rights advocacy and marks a historic advancement for transgender and nonbinary representation in District government leadership,” the statement says.

The statement notes that Stephan, an attorney, held the position of general counsel at the Office of Disability Rights immediately prior to the mayor’s decision to name him interim director.

The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a question from the Washington Blade asking if Bowser plans to name Stephan as the permanent director of the Office of Disability Rights. John Fanning, a spokesperson for D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large), said the office’s director position requires confirmation by the Council.

Stephan couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

“At a time when trans and nonbinary people ae under attack across the country, D.C. continues to lead by example,” said Stevie McCarty, president of Capital Stonewall Democrats. “This appointment reflects what we have always believed that our community is always strongest when every voice is represented in government,” he said.

“This is a historic step forward,” said Vida Rengel, founder of Our Trans Capital. “Interim Director Stephan’s career and accomplishments are a shining example of the positive impact that trans and nonbinary public servants can have on our communities,” according to Rangel.

District of Columbia

Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary

Mayor Bowser expected to attend March 20 event

Published

2 days ago

March 11, 2026

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Mayor Bowser is expected to attend the Capital Stonewall Democrats 50th gala. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, members of the D.C. Council, and local and national Democratic Party officials are expected to join more than 150 LGBTQ advocates and supporters on March 20 for the 50^th anniversary celebration of the city’s Capital Stonewall Democrats.

A statement released by the organization says the event is scheduled to be held at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery building at 702 8^th St., N.W. in D.C.

“The evening will honor the people who built Capital Stonewall Democrats across five decades – activists who fought for rights when the odds were against them, public servants who opened doors and refused to let them close, and a new generation of leaders ready to carry the work forward,” the statement says.

Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to the Capital Stonewall Democrats.

Among those planning to attend the anniversary event is longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Paul Kuntzler, 84, who is one of the two co-founders of the then-Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. Kuntzler told the Washington Blade that he and co-founder Richard Maulsby were joined by about a dozen others in the living room of his Southwest D.C. home at the group’s founding meeting in January 1976.

He said that among the reasons for forming a local LGBTQ Democratic group at the time was to arrange for a then “gay” presence at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, at which Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for U.S. president and later won election as president.

Maulsby, who served as the Stein Club president for its first three years and who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., said he would not be attending the March 20 anniversary event, but he fully supports the organization’s continuing work as an LGBTQ organization associated with the Democratic Party.

Steven McCarty, Capital Stonewall Democrats’ current president, said in the statement that the anniversary celebration will highlight the organization’s work since the time of its founding.

“Capital Stonewall Democrats has been fighting for LGBTQ+ political power in this city for 50 years, electing people, training organizers, holding this community together through some really hard moments,” he said. “And right now, with everything going on, that work has never mattered more. This gala is the first moment of our next chapter, and I want the community to be a part of it.”

The statement says among the special guests attending the event will be Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, who became the first openly gay LGBTQ person of color to win election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2018.

Other guests of honor, according to the statement, include Mayor Bowser; D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5, the Council’s only gay member; D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large); Earl Fowlkes, founder of the International Federation of Black Prides; Vita Rangel, a transgender woman who serves as Deputy Director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments; Heidi Ellis, director of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; Rayceen Pendarvis, longtime D.C. LGBTQ civic activist; and Phillip Pannell, longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic activist and Ward 8 civic activist.

Information about ticket availability for the Capital Stonewall Democrats anniversary gala can be accessed here: capitalstonewalldemocrats.com/50th