District of Columbia
U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS opens in D.C. this week
Magic Johnson to highlight theme of ‘Aging with HIV’
The 29th annual United States Conference on HIV/AIDS, considered the nation’s largest and most comprehensive gathering of experts involved in addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic, is scheduled to take place in D.C. Sept. 4-7 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel.
Among the keynote speakers at the conference will be “basketball legend, renowned entrepreneur, and advocate of people living with HIV Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson,” according to a statement released by NMAC, the D.C.-based national HIV/AIDS organization and lead organizer of the conference.
“Mr. Johnson’s celebrity stature and his lived experience underscore the U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS’s theme of ‘Aging with HIV,’” the statement says.
It adds, the conference will “center and celebrate the lives of people living with HIV as a testament to the biomedical progress in HIV antiretroviral treatment, highlight racial and health disparities that drive up HIV rates in communities of color, and defy stigma that deters people from accessing effective prevention and treatment options.”
The statement notes that the conference is being organized jointly by NMAC, formerly known as the National Minority AIDS Council, and Alchemy, a company that “builds and operates in-house pharmacies for safety net clinics” that serve people with HIV and Hepatitis C among other services.
Harold Phillips, NMAC’s Deputy Director of Programs, elaborates in the statement the importance of the issues to be raised at the conference.
“HIV may not be making headlines the way it once did, but it remains a pressing crisis – especially for communities of color and LGBTQ individuals who continue to face systemic barriers in health care,” he says in the statement. “The lack of mainstream coverage can make it seem like the epidemic is behind us, but it is far different.”
He adds, “And now, with unprecedented funding cuts and the erosion of bipartisan support for the programs that have held our HIV infrastructure together, we find ourselves at a critical crossroads.” Phillips said he was hopeful that with the support of important players like Alchemy and Magic Johnson, and the dozens of experts expected to participate in the conference, the HIV community will remain united and resilient, and it will be a “powerful reminder that this fight is far from over.”
Among others scheduled to speak at the conference are Dr. Anthony Fauci, former top official at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.).
In a separate statement, NMAC announced that the conference will mark the last major project for NMAC’s longtime executive director, Paul Kawata, who is retiring on Oct. 7.
“Paul Kawata has led NMAC – and the HIV movement – as a fearless advocate for communities of color since 1989, when he took the helm during the earliest, most devastating days of the AIDS crisis,” the statement says. “Over 36 years, he shaped NMAC into one of the most influential voices in public health equity, pioneering programs and forging enduring coalitions across sectors,” it says.
“I took this role at a time when leading an HIV/AIDS organization was not a career builder. But it was necessary,” Kawata says in the statement. “The communities I care about were being erased,” he said.
“Since then, science has advanced, but the fight for equity remains as urgent as ever. There have been highs and lows, and I’ll carry all of it with me into the final U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS this September,” Kawata said.
For more information, visit nmac.org/uscha.
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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