District of Columbia
D.C. committee documenting Black LGBTQ history in nation’s capital
Effort created by ‘Black LGBTQIA+ History Preservation’ law passed in 2024
In a little-noticed development, the D.C. City Council voted unanimously in June 2024 to pass a law creating a six-member committee to work with the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs “to produce a report on Black LGBTQIA+ history in the District.”
The Black LGBTQIA+ History Preservation Establishment Act of 2024 was signed by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and cleared a required review by Congress while generating little public attention.
Council records show that Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), the Council’s only openly gay member, was the lead sponsor of the bill that has now become law and that 11 members of the 13-member Council joined Parker as primary sponsors. The records show that Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large) signed on as a co-sponsor.
Parker couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
The law includes a provision that provides funding for grants that have been issued to three LGBTQ organizations and a local public relations company to take the lead in preparing the report and promoting it in the community.
Among the grant recipients is the Center for Black Equity, a D.C.-based LGBTQ organization that, among other things, organizes Black Pride events in D.C. and other locations.
The other grant recipients working on the report include D.C.’s Rainbow History Project, which documents local LGBTQ events and developments considered historic; the D.C.-based Modern Military Association of America, which advocates on behalf of LGBTQ people serving in the U.S. military; and the local firm Octane Public Relations.
The law approved by the Council calls for the production of a Black LGBTQ+ History Report that it says should include five specific components:
• “The history of the Black Pride Movement in the District and the notable people, places, and events that contribute to the rich history of the national and global queer culture.”
• “An analysis of the unique history of Black Trans people in the District and the contributions they have made to culture, activism, education, and other important spheres of life.”
• “The historical context of the AIDS Crisis, its effects on the Black LGBTQIA+ community in the District, and how policy choices impact the community to 6the present day.”
• “Curriculum recommendations for teaching Black LGBTQIA+ history in public schools in line with the Social Studies Standards or District of Columbia students.’
• “Recommendations on how to promote the report to the public.”
The law also states that the Office of LGBTQ Affairs and the Black LGBTQIA+ History Committee “shall submit the final report to the Mayor, the Council, the District of Columbia Archives, and the D.C. Public Library’s People’s Archives by May 1, 2025.”
Kenya Hutton, President and CEO of the Center for Black Equity, told the Washington Blade that deadline was not met, for the most part, because most of those involved in the project had to devote much of their time to World Pride 2025, which took place ion D.C. from May through early June of this year. Hutton said organizers expect the report to be completed by September of this year.
“Once everything got approved and we started having meetings, the initial meetings, it was just coming up on Pride season,” Hutton said. “So, we kind of just put things on hold until we got through the Pride madness,” he said.
According to Hutton, the Center for Black Equity and the other organizations and individuals working on the project are committed to completing the report soon and fully appreciate its importance.
“Washington, D.C. has always been a heartbeat of Black LGBTQ+ culture, resilience and leadership, yet too often our stories have been overlooked, undocumented, or erased,” he told the Blade.
“The Black LGBTQ+ History Preservation Project is not just about history, it’s about justice,” he said. “It’s about ensuring that our legacy is honored, our impact is seen, and our communities are remembered with the dignity they deserve.”
He added, “As President and CEO of the Center for Black Equity, I am proud to be part of this transformative effort to preserve the fullness of who we are, not just for today, but for generations to come.”
Sloane Betz, Social Media Specialist for Octane Public Relations, said her firm is working on creating a website for the project, among other things, to enable the community to respond to surveys and provide information on what they would like the final report to include.
“It is a place that will serve as a resting place in a hub of all things in Black LGBTQ history,” she said. “So, we’re very excited about the work that we’re doing.”
Gaby Vincent, Public Information Officer for the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, said the Black LGBTQIA+ History Preservation Committee’s mission is to “preserve, honor, and uplift the contributions and experiences of Black LGBTQIA+ individuals throughout D.C.’s history.”
Vincent said the committee’s plans for carrying out that mission, among other things, will include “hosting panel discussions and storytelling events that uplift the voices of Black LGBTQ+ pioneers and community members, curating physical exhibits, collecting historical artifacts to be featured on a forthcoming public website, and ensuring community voices continue to shape the work thorough open forums, interviews, and collaborative planning with grantee partners.”
Members of the six-member LGBTQIA+ History Committee include:
• Ernest Hopkins, longtime LGBTQ rights advocate and lead organizer of D.C.’s first Black Pride celebration
• Rayceen Pendarvis, organizer of Team Rayceen D.C. entertainment and advocacy online broadcast.
• Valerie Papaya Mann, organizer of Sapphire Sapphos, one of D.C.’s first Black lesbian social political groups.
• A.J. King, director of Intercultural Affairs and the LGBTQ+ Resource Center at Howard University.
• Rev. Brandon Miles Brock, Diversity, Inclusion, and Multicultural Affairs Specialist at the University of the District of Columbia.
• Aaron Myers, executive director of the D.C. Commission On The Arts and Humanities.
District of Columbia
Gay priest credited with boosting church support for LGBTQ Catholics
Fr. Tom Oddo’s biographer speaks at Dignity Washington event
The author of a biography of a U.S. Catholic priest said to have advocated for support by the Catholic Church of gay Catholics in the early 1970s has called Father Thomas ‘Tom’ Oddo a little known but important figure in the LGBTQ rights movement.
Tyler Bieber, author of the recently published book “Against The Current: Father Tom Oddo And the New American Catholic,” told of Oddo’s life and work on behalf of LGBTQ rights at a March 22 talk before the local LGBTQ Catholic group Dignity Washington.
Among Oddo’s important accomplishments, Bieber said, was his role as a co-founder of the national LGBTQ Catholic group Dignity U.S.A. in 1973 at the age of 29.
But as reported in the prologue of his book, Bieber presented details of the sad news that Oddo died in a fatal car crash in 1989 at the age of 45 in Portland, Ore., where he was serving as the highly acclaimed president of the University of Portland, a Catholic institution.
“He was a major figure in the gay rights movement in the 1970s, an unsung hero of that movement,” Bieber told Dignity Washington members, who assembled for his talk in a meeting room at St. Margaret Episcopal Church near Dupont Circle, where they attend their weekly Catholic mass on Sundays.
“And Dignity U.S.A. saw intense growth in membership and visibility” during its early years under Oddo’s leadership, Bieber said. “The story of Father Tom and his contemporaries is a story largely untold in the history of the gay rights movement, but one worth knowing and considering,” he said.
As stated in his book, Bieber told the Dignity Washington gathering Oddo was born and raised in a Catholic family on Long Island, N.Y., and attended a Catholic high school in Flushing Queens. It was at that time when he developed an interest in becoming a priest, according to Bieber.
After studying at the University of Notre Dame and completing his religious studies he was ordained as a priest in 1970 and began his work as a priest in the Boston area, Bieber said. It was around that time, Bieber told the Dignity Washington audience, that gay Catholics approached Oddo to seek advice on how they should interact with the Catholic Church. It was also around that time that Oddo became involved in a group supportive of then gay Catholics that later became a Dignity chapter in Boston.
In a development considered unusual for a Catholic priest, Bieber said Oddo in 1973 testified in support of gay rights bill before a committee of the Massachusetts Legislature and collaborated with then Massachusetts gay and lesbian rights advocate Elaine Noble.
In 1982, at the age of 39, Oddo was selected as president of the University of Portland following several years as a college teacher in the Boston area, Bieber’s book states. It says he was seen as a “vibrant and capable administrator who delivered real results to his campus,” adding, “His magnetism was obvious. One student described him as ‘John Kennedyesque’ to the university’s student newspaper.”
Bieber said that although Oddo was less active with Dignity U.S.A. during his tenure as UP president, he continued his support for gay Catholics and what is now referred to as LGBTQ rights.
“For those that knew him prior to his term at UP, though, he represented something greater than an accomplished university administrator and educator,” Bieber’s book states. “He was a new kind of priest, a gay man living and ministering in a world set loose from tradition by the Second Vatican Council,” the book says.
It was referring to the Vatican gathering of worldwide Catholic leaders from 1962 to 1965 concluding under Pope Paul VI that church observers say modernized church practices to allow far greater participation by the laity and opened the way for sympathetic consideration of gay Catholics.
District of Columbia
HRC to host National Rainbow Seder
Bet Mishpachah among annual event’s organizers
The 18th National Rainbow Seder will take place at the Human Rights Campaign on Sunday.
The sold out event is the country’s largest Passover Seder for the Jewish LGBTQ community.
Organizations behind the event include Bet Mishpachah, a local D.C. LGBTQ synagogue that Rabbi Jake Singer-Beilin leads, and GLOE, an Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center program that sponsors events for the queer Jewish community. The theme for this year’s Seder is “Liberation For All Who Journey: Remembering, Resisting, Rebuilding.” Rabbis Atara Cohen, Koach Frazier, and Avigayil Halpern will lead it.
The Seder will honor the late GLOE co-chair Michael Singer. Singer also served on the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center’s board.
“This Seder is both a celebration of how far we have come and a call to continue building a more just and inclusive world.” Bet Mishpachah Executive Director Joshua Maxey told the Washington Blade.
District of Columbia
Trans Day of Visibility events planned
Rally on the National Mall scheduled for Saturday
The Christopher Street Project has a number of events planned for the 2026 Trans Day of Visibility, including a rally on the Mall and an “Empowerment Ball” at the Eaton Hotel. Plenaries, panel discussions and meetings with members of Congress are scheduled in the three days of programming.
Announced speakers include N.H. state Rep. Alice Wade; Commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago Precious Brady-Davis; activist and performer Miss Peppermint (“RuPaul’s Drag Race”); Lexington, Ky. Councilwoman Emma Curtis; Rabbi Abby Stein; D.C. activist and host Rayceen Pendarvis; Air Force Master Sgt. Logan Ireland; among other leaders, advocates and performers.
Conference programming on Thursday and Friday includes an educational forum and a Capitol Hill policy education day. Registration for the two-day conference has closed.
The “Trans Day of Visibility PAC Reception” is scheduled for Thursday, March 26 from 7:30-9 p.m. at As You Are (500 8th St., S.E.). Special guests include Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nevada) and Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.). Tickets are available at christopherstreetproject.org starting at $25.
The National Council of Jewish Women and the Christopher Street Project host a “Trans Day of Visibility Shabbat” on Friday, March 27 from 7-8 p.m. at Sixth & I (600 I St., N.W.). The service is to be led by Rabbi Jenna Shaw and Rabbi Abby Stein.
The “Now You See Me: Trans Empowerment Social & Ball” is scheduled for Friday, March 27 from 6-11 p.m. at the Eaton Hotel (1201 K. St., N.W.). The trans-themed drag ball is hosted by the Marsha P. Johnson Institute with support from the D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs, the Capital Ballroom Council, the Christopher Street Project, the Center for Black Equity, Generation for Common Good, and Parenting is Political. RSVP online at christopherstreetproject.org.
The National Transgender Day of Visibility Rally is scheduled for Saturday, March 28 on the National Mall at 11 a.m. The rally will include speakers and performances. Following the rally, attendees are encouraged to participate in the “No Kings” rally being held at Anacostia Park.
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