District of Columbia
Strong turnout for D.C. LGBTQ Town Hall meeting
Trump attacks prompt gathering dubbed ‘Preparing for An Uncertain Future’
Representatives of more than a dozen local and national LGBTQ advocacy organizations were among the 83 people who turned out for an Oct. 21 Town Hall Discussion for D.C.’s LGBTQ Community.
The event, which was organized by the local LGBTQ event planning organization Team Rayceen Productions, was held in a conference room in the building at 899 North Capitol St., N.E., where D.C. Mayor Muriel Bower’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs is located.
Much of the discussion at the event focused on topics related to the organizers’ subtitle for the town hall event, “Protest, Liberation & Pride: Preparing for An Uncertain Future.”
Among the six panelists led by Team Rayceen leader Rayceen Pendarvis who led the discussion at the event was Japer Bowles, director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, which arranged for the meeting location.
The other panelists included June Crenshaw, deputy director of D.C.’s Capital Pride Alliance, which played the lead role in organizing WorldPride 2025 in D.C.; Cesar Toledo, executive director of the Wanda Alston Foundation, which provides housing services for homeless LGBTQ youth in D.C.; Heidi Ellis, director of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; and Patrick Algyer, executive director of Equality Chamber, a group that represents local LGBTQ-owned and supportive businesses.
Ashley Elliott, a Team Rayceen Productions official and inclusivity adviser for the D.C. LGBTQ bar Spark Social House, served as co-moderator at the town hall event and presented a series of questions to the panelists and audience members.
At the start of the event, Elliot asked audience members to raise their hands if they thought 2025 so far has been an overall “good year” for the LGBTQ community under the Trump administration. Only a few people raised their hands. When she asked if people thought 2025 was a “bad year” for LGBTQ people under the same overall circumstances, many people raised their hands.
During the discussion between panelists and audience members, many said among the reasons they were pessimistic about conditions facing the LGBTQ community in 2025 was the Trump administration’s drastic budget cuts that adversely impacted LGBTQ programs and organizations providing services for LGBTQ people.
Bowles said the mayor’s office, including his Office of LGBTQ Affairs were doing all they could to secure funds for programs that support the LGBTQ community in response to the Trump budget cuts.
Many of the audience members along with most panelists, including Pendarvis, called on the LGBTQ community and its advocacy organizations to support candidates in the 2026 congressional midterm elections who will be supportive on LGBTQ issues and who will oppose Trump’s anti-LGBTQ actions, especially the actions they said have been harmful to transgender people.
“I was overjoyed that so many amazing community members joined us for our town hall,” Pendarvis told the Washington Blade after the event. “I hope our gathering is just the beginning of many conversations our community has in the near future and that it all leads to people being motivated and activated,” Pendarvis said.
“Last night we channeled the spirit of many trailblazers and movement leaders who came before us,” Toledo told the Blade in providing his thoughts on the town hall event. “It served as a reminder that by working together, we can overcome today’s challenges,” he said, adding, “Organizing is how we confront today’s attacks, economic uncertainty, and rising queer youth homelessness.”
Algyer, who heads the Equality Chamber, said an important theme that emerged from the event was the need to continue to bring the diverse members of the LGBTQ community together to become involved in a wide range of activities.
“A big focus was on getting involved,” he told the Blade. “Now’s the time to join a board, volunteer, or support the organizations and LGBTQIA+ owned businesses that keep our community vibrant,” he said. “Spend what you can, but don’t overextend yourself because every dollar and every hour we reinvest into our community helps strengthen our shared economic foundation.”
Team Rayceen Productions official Zar, who also played a lead role in organizing the town hall event, said he was hopeful that attendees will continue or increase their involvement with LGBTQ organizations, including joining organizational boards that he said currently have vacant positions that need to be filled.
“Making this town hall happen was more challenging than I expected, but I’m glad we did it,” he said. “I tried to reach out to every LGBTQ organization and group that I could in an effort to be as inclusive as possible.”
Crenshaw said the discussion around leadership, accountability, and engagement within the LGBTQ community was especially impactful for those who attended the event.
“My key takeaways include the need to strengthen communication and transparency, to engage with the community in more intentional and responsive ways, and to apply the lessons learned from WorldPride to enhance future Pride celebrations,” she told the Blade.
“I was particularly encouraged that the discussion also centered on our most vulnerable community members – those who are unhoused, experiencing food insecurity, or navigating mental health challenges,” she said.
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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