Local

GLAA grades Council hopefuls

Candidates get mid-range to low grades; special D.C. election set for April 26

Published

15 years ago

March 25, 2011

GLAA (Blade file photo)

D.C. City Council candidates Sekou Biddle and Bryan Weaver, both Democrats, each received a rating of +5.5 this week from the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, the highest score given by the group for the nine Council candidates running in the city’s April 26 special election.

GLAA, a non-partisan political group, rates candidates on LGBT and some non-LGBT issues on a scale of -10 to +10. The group says it bases its ratings on responses given by candidates to a GLAA questionnaire and on their past record on LGBT and AIDS issues.

“No candidates in the April 26 special election for At-Large D.C. Council member approached the ‘perfect tens’ from the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance that were earned in recent elections by Council members Jack Evans, David Catania, Jim Graham, and Phil Mendelson,” the group said in a statement. Catania and Graham are openly gay.

Republican candidate Patrick Mara and Statehood-Green Party candidate Alan Page each received a +4 rating. Democrat Vincent Orange, a former Ward 5 Council member, received a 3.5 rating; and Democrat Joshua Lopez, an aide to former Mayor Adrian Fenty, received a +2.5.

Democratic candidates Tom Brown and Dorothy Douglas and independent candidate Arkan Haile each received a rating of “0.” GLAA said the three failed to return the questionnaire and the group automatically assigns a 0 rating to such candidates unless it can verify a past record on LGBT related issues.

Each of the candidates that returned the questionnaire expressed support for LGBT rights, including support for the city’s same-sex marriage law.

In a statement accompanying the release of its ratings, GLAA acknowledged that the candidates indicated in their questionnaire responses that they support GLAA’s positions on nearly each of the 14 issues the group raised in its questions. It said most of the candidates lost points by not providing sufficient substance to their responses, which, according to the group, would demonstrate a better grasp and understanding of the issues.

“We just don’t want yes or no answers,” said GLAA Vice President Rick Rosendall. “We want the substance behind the answers.”

Rosendall said the substantive issues surrounding each of the questions asked of the candidates are included in a 24-page GLAA “agenda” briefing paper for the D.C. LGBT community published on the group’s website. He said the group sent each candidate a copy of the paper along with the questionnaire.

The subjects covered in the questionnaire, among other things, include marriage and family, public health, public safety, human rights, youth, and protection for LGBT consumers and businesses – all in connection to how they pertain to the LGBT community, according GLAA.

One question asks what steps the candidates would take to improve the performance of the city’s AIDS office. Another asks, “Do you support the right of adults in the District to choose adult-oriented entertainment for themselves, and the right of appropriately licensed and zoned businesses to provide it?”

All of the candidates answering the questionnaire responded with a “yes” answer to the latter question, although they gave differing explanations of their views on the subject of adult businesses.

Each of the candidates except one — Statehood-Green Party candidate Page — gave a “no” answer to a question asking if they would consider supporting decriminalizing, zoning, taxing, and regulating prostitution in the District. GLAA noted in its questionnaire that marginalized groups such as low-income LGBT and transgender youth sometimes turn to prostitution as a means of economic survival and often are subjected to further difficulties if arrested for engaging in the sex trade.

Page and the other candidates said their favored solution to the problems of LGBT and trans youth is city sponsored job training , substance abuse counseling, and enforcement of non-discrimination laws that would eliminate the need for marginalized groups to turn to prostitution for survival.

GLAA said Biddle’s questionnaire was “generally positive but offered limited substance and was often vague.” The Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the city’s largest LGBT political group, endorsed Biddle.

Mara, who is currently a member of the city’s board of education from Ward 1, has expressed strong support for LGBT rights, including same-sex marriage. GLAA said he lost points on his rating, among other things, because he lobbied Congress for a federal school voucher program. The program pays D.C. students’ tuition in private, religious elementary and secondary schools that are exempt from the city’s human rights law, which bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

In his questionnaire response, Mara said he backs the program because it allows students from low-income familiar to attend schools considered better academically than city public schools.

Mara this week received the endorsement of the GLBT group Log Cabin Republicans of Washington.

Copies of the candidates’ responses to the GLAA questionnaire and a breakdown of their ratings by points can be viewed at www.glaa.org.

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Virginia

DOJ seeks to join lawsuit against Loudoun County over trans student in locker room

Three male high school students suspended after complaining about classmate

Published

41 minutes ago

December 12, 2025

Staff reports

(Bigstock photo)

The Justice Department has asked to join a federal lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools over the way it handled the case of three male high school students who complained about a transgender student in a boys’ locker room.

The Washington Blade earlier this year reported Loudoun County public schools suspended the three boys and launched a Title IX investigation into whether they sexually harassed the student after they said they felt uncomfortable with their classmate in the locker room at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn.

The parents of two of the boys filed a lawsuit against Loudoun County public schools in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. The Richmond-based Founding Freedoms Law Center and America First Legal, which White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller co-founded, represent them.

The Justice Department in a Dec. 8 press release announced that “it filed legal action against the Loudoun County (Va.) School Board (Loudoun County) for its denial of equal protection based on religion.”

“The suit alleges that Loudoun County applied Policy 8040, which requires students and faculty to accept and promote gender ideology, to two Christian, male students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” reads the press release.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the press release said “students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate.”

“Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality,” said Dhillon.

Outgoing Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and outgoing Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares in May announced an investigation into the case.

The Virginia Department of Education in 2023 announced the new guidelines for trans and nonbinary students for which Youngkin asked. Equality Virginia and other advocacy groups claim they, among other things, forcibly out trans and nonbinary students.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in February launched an investigation into whether Loudoun County and four other Northern Virginia school districts’ policies in support of trans and nonbinary students violate Title IX and President Donald Trump’s executive order that prohibits federally funded educational institutions from promoting “gender ideology.”

District of Columbia

Capital Pride announces change in date for 2026 D.C. Pride parade and festival

Events related to U.S. 250th anniversary and Trump birthday cited as reasons for change

Published

7 hours ago

December 12, 2025

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

A scene from the 2024 Capital Pride Festival. (Washington Blade file photo by Emily Hanna)

The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C. based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, has announced it is changing the dates for the 2026 Capital Pride Parade and Festival from the second weekend in June to the third weekend.

“For over a decade, Capital Pride has taken place during the second weekend in June, but in 2026, we are shifting our dates in response to the city’s capacity due to major events and preparations for the 250^th anniversary of the United States,” according to a Dec. 9 statement released by Capital Pride Alliance.

The statement says the parade will take place on Saturday, June 20, 2026, with the festival and related concert taking place on June 21.

“This change ensures our community can gather safely and without unnecessary barriers,” the statement says. “By moving the celebration, we are protecting our space and preserving Pride as a powerful act of visibility, solidarity, and resistance,” it says.

Ryan Bos, the Capital Pride Alliance CEO and President, told the Washington Blade the change in dates came after the group conferred with D.C. government officials regarding plans for a number of events in the city on the second weekend in June. Among them, he noted, is a planned White House celebration of President Donald Trump’s 80^th birthday and other events related to the U.S. 250^th anniversary, which are expected to take place from early June through Independence Day on July 4.

The White House has announced plans for a large June 14, 2026 celebration on the White House south lawn of Trump’s 80th birthday that will include a large-scale Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event involving boxing and wrestling competition.

Bos said the Capital Pride Parade will take place along the same route it has in the past number of years, starting at 14^th and T Streets, N.W. and traveling along 14^th Street to Pennsylvania Ave., where it will end. He said the festival set for the following day will also take place at its usual location on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., between 2^nd Street near the U.S. Capitol, to around 7^th Street, N.W.

“Our Pride events thrive because of the passion and support of the community,” Capital Pride Board Chair Anna Jinkerson said in the statement. “In 2026, your involvement is more important than ever,” she said.

District of Columbia

Three women elected leaders of Capital Pride Alliance board

Restructured body includes chair rather than president as top leader

Published

3 days ago

December 9, 2025

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Capital Pride Alliance announced three women will lead its board. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, announced it has restructured its board of directors and elected for the first time three women to serve as leaders of the board’s Executive Committee.

“Congratulations to our newly elected Executive Officers, making history as Capital Pride Alliance’s first all-women Board leadership,” the group said in a statement.

“As we head into 2026 with a bold new leadership structure, we’re proud to welcome Anna Jinkerson as Board Chair, Kim Baker as Board Treasurer, and Taylor Lianne Chandler as Board Secretary,” the statement says.

In a separate statement released on Nov. 20, Capital Pride Alliance says the restructured Board now includes the top leadership posts of Chair, Treasurer, and Secretary, replacing the previous structure of President and Vice President as the top board leaders.

It says an additional update to the leadership structure includes a change in title for longtime Capital Pride official Ryan Bos from executive director to chief executive officer and president.

According to the statement, June Crenshaw, who served as acting deputy director during the time the group organized WorldPride 2025 in D.C., will now continue in that role as permanent deputy director.

The statement provides background information on the three newly elected women Board leaders.

• Anna Jinkerson (chair), who joined the Capital Pride Alliance board in 2022, previously served as the group’s vice president for operations and acting president. “A seasoned non-profit executive, she currently serves as Assistant to the President and CEO and Chief of Staff at Living Cities, a national member collaborative of leading philanthropic foundations and financial institutions committed to closing income and wealth gaps in the United States and building an economy that works for everyone.”

• Kim Baker (treasurer) is a “biracial Filipino American and queer leader,” a “retired, disabled U.S. Army veteran with more than 20 years of service and extensive experience in finance, security, and risk management.” She has served on the Capital Pride Board since 2018, “bringing a proven track record of steady, principled leadership and unwavering dedication to the LGBTQ+ community.”

• Taylor Lianne Chandler (Secretary) is a former sign language interpreter and crisis management consultant. She “takes office as the first intersex and trans-identifying member of the Executive Committee.” She joined the Capital Pride Board in 2019 and previously served as executive producer from 2016 to 2018.

Bos told the Washington Blade in a Dec. 2 interview that the Capital Pride board currently has 12 members, and is in the process of interviewing additional potential board members.

“In January we will be announcing in another likely press release the full board,” Bos said. “We are finishing the interview process of new board members this month,” he said. “And they will take office to join the board in January.”

Bos said the organization’s rules set a cap of 25 total board members, but the board, which elects its members, has not yet decided how many additional members it will select and a full 25-member board is not required.

The Nov. 20 Capital Pride statement says the new board executive members will succeed the organization’s previous leadership team, which included Ashley Smith, who served as president for eight years before he resigned earlier this year; Anthony Musa, who served for seven years as vice president of board engagement; Natalie Thompson, who served eight years on the executive committee; and Vince Micone, who served for eight years as vice president of operations.

“I am grateful for the leadership, dedication, and commitment shown by our former executive officers — Ashley, Natalie, Anthony, and Vince — who have been instrumental in CPA’s growth and the exceptional success of WorldPride 2025,” Bos said in the statement.

“I look forward to collaborating with Anna in her new role, as well as Kim and Taylor in theirs, as we take on the important work ahead, prepare for Capital Pride 2026, and expand our platform and voice through Pride365,” Bos said.