District of Columbia
Protesters rally in D.C. one week after federal takeover
Hundreds of residents and community leaders gathered on U Street to condemn the Trump administration’s deployment of out-of-state National Guard troops and federal agents in D.C.
More than 200 people gathered in front of the old Frank Reeves Municipal Center on Monday to protest the Trump administration’s federal takeover of the District of Columbia and MPD.
Free D.C. — a nonprofit whose mission is securing self-determination for the District — hosted the event at 14th and U streets, N.W. Speakers from several community organizations addressed the crowd, arguing that the takeover harms the city more than it helps.
Keya Chatterjee, executive director of Free D.C., was among the first to speak. She said the administration’s actions represent a blatant overreach of federal power, motivated by partisanship rather than public safety.
“Since last week, Trump has sent federal law enforcement agents into our neighborhoods, made our police start turning people over to ICE, sent in our local National Guard and attempted to put our local police department under federal control,” Chatterjee told reporters and protesters. “Today, he has sent in armed National Guard from three additional states.”
By Tuesday morning, six states had pledged to send troops. All are governed by Republicans, contributing anywhere from 150 to 400 National Guard members each. Together, more than 1,000 out-of-state troops are now expected to patrol the District.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry pledged 150 troops; West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey said he would send between 300 and 400; South Carolina Gov. Henry Dargan McMaster pledged 200; Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said his state would send 150; Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee committed about 160; and Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves pledged 200.
Chatterjee was not alone in criticizing the presence of non-D.C. officers. Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Center said the money spent deploying troops could instead be used to house people experiencing homelessness — many of whom, he argued, the administration is targeting for removal.
“According to estimates, it costs over $420,000 a day to deploy the D.C. Guard,” Rabinowitz said. “That number does not factor in the Guard troops now invading from West Virginia, Ohio and South Carolina. But just using this D.C. cost — $420,000 a day — tells an important story. It costs $47,000 a year to get somebody off the street and into housing for one year. For one day of D.C. Guard activation, we could solve homelessness for nine people.”
He added that the clearances are designed for optics, not solutions.
“On Thursday night, over 30 federal police officers from the FBI, Secret Service and Homeland Security gathered near a few tents in Foggy Bottom. They didn’t come offering housing or support. They came with their guns and lights flashing.”
“The solution to homelessness is housing,” he continued. “The solution to authoritarianism is solidarity.”
Kelsye Adams, director of D.C. Vote and Long Live Go-Go, also condemned the use of the U Street corridor as a staging ground for federal forces.
“For the first time in history, a president seized control of our local government,” Adams told the crowd, which booed loudly in response. “He stripped away local authority unlawfully as our AG got out there and filled our streets with over 800 National Guard troops from other states, federal agents, including ICE, FBI … And where did they land? Right here on U Street, on Black Broadway in the middle of our door.”
“They call it public safety, but here’s the truth: crime is down in D.C.,” she continued, citing Department of Justice data ignored by the administration. “This is the lowest that violent crime has been in D.C. in the past 30 years … If crime is down, why all the troops? Why ICE? Why remove the unhoused? Why checkpoints and why say this is about safety? Let’s be real. This is a fascist takeover.”
Adams stressed that Black and brown children living around U Street are bearing the brunt of the militarization.
“Children should not feel like suspects for simply living; our young people deserve joy, safety and dignity, not militarization.”
Nee Nee Taylor, organizing director of Free D.C., echoed that message, pointing to the long history of police targeting youth of color.
“Black and brown people, we are not safe,” Taylor said. “We are in a state of emergency right now. We are being watched. We are being targeted, and it’s not safe to walk alone.”
“They want to drag us back to the days of Emmett Till and Jim Crow, but hear me clearly — we’re going to resist. We’re going to show up. We’re going to take up space, we’re not going to comply, and we’re going to send joy while we’re doing it.”
“Safety cannot be manufactured through fear. Let me say that again: safety cannot be manufactured.”
A representative from Colectivo Familias Migrantes, a civil society group focused on human rights and democratic rule of law in the Americas, told the crowd that incidents of undocumented people being scooped up in unmarked cars by masked agents are part of a broader plan to continue policing Black and brown people in D.C. — regardless of their immigration status.
“These are not coincidences. These are strategically placed and targeted to bring fear and panic, all while building a disgusting narrative that continues to criminalize our bodies every single day.”
“We demand that all federal forces leave now,” she added.
Rach “Coach” Pike, co-owner of the queer bar As You Are in Southeast D.C., told the Blade they attended the event to show solidarity and to stress the importance of LGBTQ awareness.
“I think it has more to do with location and who they’re targeting, which are Black and brown communities, communities that are unhoused. So I think it’s more about that than queer people — at least for now. Queers aren’t the focus yet.”
As a business owner, Pike said their priority is supporting those being directly targeted by the administration — and encouraging other businesses to do the same.
“I just encourage business owners, mostly to be on the street, help with the resources they can communicate and get information out to people, and push people toward our amazing D.C. organizers, because they’re the ones we need to follow right now.”
“Being out here with our people and amongst like-mindedness is really important to kind of get your energy up,” Pike added. “I wouldn’t say I feel any better — it’s all bullshit — but I feel surrounded, wrapped up, covered. Like I’m getting more information to help cover other people. You know, we got to keep us safe.”
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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