Local
Security guard says company suspended him for being gay
DNC investigating allegation against contractor
Robert Miller claims that CSI Corporation discriminated against him because he’s gay while working as a security guard at the DNC headquarters. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Robert Miller, 32, a D.C. resident, says he’s filing a discrimination complaint with the D.C. Office of Human Rights against CSI Corporation of D.C., a private contracting firm that provides security guards for many prominent buildings in the city, including the DNC headquarters and the Washington Convention Center.
“I’m a gay man and he says he’s uncomfortable working with me,” Miller said of fellow security guard Julius Crumlin.
Crumlin declined to comment when contacted by the Blade. Officials with the Silver Spring, Md., based CSI Corporation did not return repeated calls.
City records show that CSI Corporation of D.C. listed a D.C. address to obtain certification in 2009 as a small, local business enterprise eligible for special preference for D.C. government contracts.
But the management company for the office building that CSI listed for its address at 7600 Georgia Ave., N.W., told the Blade CSI moved out of the first floor office it rented in that building last month.
A spokesperson for the D.C. Department of Small and Local Business Development couldn’t be immediately reached to determine whether CSI was in violation of its contract preference status by moving out of the city. The DSLBD regulates the city’s small and minority business contracting preference program, which is restricted to companies whose “principal” location is in D.C.
Miller said he and Crumlin had a cordial working relationship for nearly a year and sometimes had dinner together while on break at the DNC building. He said Crumlin became hostile after discovering in a desk drawer at the DNC building a personal letter that Miller said he wrote to his cousin about his romantic feelings toward another man.
Miller says he thinks Crumlin thought the flowery language he used to describe his feelings in the letter were directed at Crumlin.
“He had no business going through my personal things in that desk drawer,” said Miller. “That letter had nothing to do with him, but he took it the wrong way.”
Crumlin responded by writing his own letter to a CSI Corporation supervisor accusing Miller of sexually harassing him on the job, Miller told the Blade. On Aug. 30, the supervisor called Miller to a meeting at CSI’s office in Silver Spring and confronted him with Crumlin’s complaint.
Miller said he tried his best to explain that Crumlin was not the subject of the letter in question. But he said the supervisor and at least one other CSI official told him the company wanted to investigate the matter. Miller said the supervisor, whom he knows only as Mr. Covington, told him to go home that day and to not return to work until contacted by the company.
“They never called,” Miller said. “I kept calling them but they didn’t answer. They didn’t return my calls.”
After three weeks of not knowing his job status and not being paid, Miller said a company official called him and informed him that he was being transferred to another building on an interim basis while the company continued its investigation into the matter.
Miller’s reinstatement came a short time after the Blade began making calls to the company and to the DNC to inquire about Miller’s status and the circumstances that led to his suspension.
DNC spokesperson Melanie Roussell said the DNC didn’t learn about Miller’s suspension until contacted by the Blade.
“The DNC does not exercise authority over or make hiring, firing or suspension decisions regarding any of the security guards working at DNC facilities, as they are employed by an independent contractor,” Roussell said in a statement.
“Nevertheless, we are taking these allegations very seriously and will do everything within our power to investigate this matter to the fullest extent possible, and resolve it accordingly,” she said. “The DNC has an absolutely resolute policy of commitment to diversity among its staff, and recognizes that our continued success requires the highest commitment to obtaining and retaining a diverse staff that provides the best services to supporters and constituents.”
Roussell added that the DNC is an equal opportunity employer that hires a diverse staff without regard to a wide range factors such as race, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity.
Miller said he quickly learned that the pay scale at the building to which he was transferred is lower than what it was at the DNC building. According to Miller, he’s now being paid $11 per hour at the Fairchild Building located across South Capitol Street from the DNC headquarters. He had been paid $16 per hour at the DNC building.
Miller gave the Blade a copy of his hand-written responses on an intake questionnaire he obtained from the D.C. Office of Human Rights, which serves as the first step for filing a discrimination complaint against an employer.
A spokesperson for the OHR said the office uses the questionnaire responses — along with an interview with the person making the complaint — as the basis for determining whether grounds exist for a formal complaint, which the office would then investigate.
The spokesperson, Tonya Gonzalez, said the OHR doesn’t publicly disclose or comment on a complaint unless and until the investigation results in a finding of probable cause that discrimination occurred. She said it could take several months before such a determination is made.
Gonzalez said anyone filing a discrimination complaint is free to publicly disclose the fact that they have filed such a complaint, even though the OHR cannot comment on it or acknowledge that it has been filed.
CSI describes itself on its website as “a minority owned firm, certified as a Local Small Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (LSDBE)” with a pending certification from the U.S. Small Business Administration.
City records show that the company listed its headquarters in D.C. in an office at a building at 7600 Georgia Ave., N.W. However, a reporter visiting the office building last week found a vacant office suite with the CSI Corporation name on a locked door. A staff member with Capitol Realty Management Group, which manages the office building, said CSI Corporation had just moved out of the building and the office suite was being listed as being available for rent at $2,100 per month.
Miller said he and other security guards he worked with only had dealings with the company’s Silver Spring office, located on the seventh floor of a building at 1320 Fenwick Lane.
District of Columbia
Bowser appoints first nonbinary person to Cabinet-level position
Peter Stephan named Office of Disability Rights interim director
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bower has named longtime disability rights advocate Peter L. Stephan, who identifies as nonbinary, as interim director of the D.C. Office of Disability Rights.
The local transgender and nonbinary advocacy group Our Trans Capital and the LGBTQ group Capital Stonewall Democrats issued a joint statement calling Stephan’s appointment an historic development as the first-ever appointment of a nonbinary person to a Cabinet-level D.C. government position.
“This milestone appointment recognizes Stephan’s extensive expertise in disability rights advocacy and marks a historic advancement for transgender and nonbinary representation in District government leadership,” the statement says.
The statement notes that Stephan, an attorney, held the position of general counsel at the Office of Disability Rights immediately prior to the mayor’s decision to name him interim director.
The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a question from the Washington Blade asking if Bowser plans to name Stephan as the permanent director of the Office of Disability Rights. John Fanning, a spokesperson for D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large), said the office’s director position requires confirmation by the Council.
Stephan couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
“At a time when trans and nonbinary people ae under attack across the country, D.C. continues to lead by example,” said Stevie McCarty, president of Capital Stonewall Democrats. “This appointment reflects what we have always believed that our community is always strongest when every voice is represented in government,” he said.
“This is a historic step forward,” said Vida Rengel, founder of Our Trans Capital. “Interim Director Stephan’s career and accomplishments are a shining example of the positive impact that trans and nonbinary public servants can have on our communities,” according to Rangel.
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary
Mayor Bowser expected to attend March 20 event
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, members of the D.C. Council, and local and national Democratic Party officials are expected to join more than 150 LGBTQ advocates and supporters on March 20 for the 50th anniversary celebration of the city’s Capital Stonewall Democrats.
A statement released by the organization says the event is scheduled to be held at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery building at 702 8th St., N.W. in D.C.
“The evening will honor the people who built Capital Stonewall Democrats across five decades – activists who fought for rights when the odds were against them, public servants who opened doors and refused to let them close, and a new generation of leaders ready to carry the work forward,” the statement says.
Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to the Capital Stonewall Democrats.
Among those planning to attend the anniversary event is longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Paul Kuntzler, 84, who is one of the two co-founders of the then-Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. Kuntzler told the Washington Blade that he and co-founder Richard Maulsby were joined by about a dozen others in the living room of his Southwest D.C. home at the group’s founding meeting in January 1976.
He said that among the reasons for forming a local LGBTQ Democratic group at the time was to arrange for a then “gay” presence at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, at which Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for U.S. president and later won election as president.
Maulsby, who served as the Stein Club president for its first three years and who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., said he would not be attending the March 20 anniversary event, but he fully supports the organization’s continuing work as an LGBTQ organization associated with the Democratic Party.
Steven McCarty, Capital Stonewall Democrats’ current president, said in the statement that the anniversary celebration will highlight the organization’s work since the time of its founding.
“Capital Stonewall Democrats has been fighting for LGBTQ+ political power in this city for 50 years, electing people, training organizers, holding this community together through some really hard moments,” he said. “And right now, with everything going on, that work has never mattered more. This gala is the first moment of our next chapter, and I want the community to be a part of it.”
The statement says among the special guests attending the event will be Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, who became the first openly gay LGBTQ person of color to win election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2018.
Other guests of honor, according to the statement, include Mayor Bowser; D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5, the Council’s only gay member; D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large); Earl Fowlkes, founder of the International Federation of Black Prides; Vita Rangel, a transgender woman who serves as Deputy Director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments; Heidi Ellis, director of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; Rayceen Pendarvis, longtime D.C. LGBTQ civic activist; and Phillip Pannell, longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic activist and Ward 8 civic activist.
Information about ticket availability for the Capital Stonewall Democrats anniversary gala can be accessed here: capitalstonewalldemocrats.com/50th
Maryland
Md. Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlines 2026 priorities
Expanded PrEP access among objectives
Maryland’s Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlined legislative priorities for the remainder of the General Assembly’s 2026 term during a press conference on March 5.
State Del. Kris Fair (D-Fredrick County) led the press conference. State Del. Ashanti Martinez (D-Prince George’s County) and other caucus members also spoke.
Caucus members are sponsoring 12 bills and supporting four others.
Martinez is sponsoring House Bill 1114, which would expand PrEP access in Maryland.
“PrEP is 99 percent effective in preventing HIV transmission,” he explained, noting PrEP’s cost often turns away potential users.
The bill aims to extend insurance coverage and expand pharmacists’ ability to prescribe PrEP along with other HIV treatments and testing. Martinez is working with state Sen. Clarence Lam (D-Anne Arundel and Howard Counties) and FreeState Justice on the bill.
The House Health Committee had a hearing last week that included HB1114.
“Ending the HIV epidemic is about expanding access and providing these life-saving tools to all persons in Maryland,” Martinez said.
Several other pieces of legislation were highlighted during the press conferences. They included measures focused on youth and education, birth certificate markers, so-called conversion therapy, and hormone medications.
State Sen. Cheryl Kagan (D-Montgomery County) is cosponsoring Senate Bill 950, which would update and strengthen conversion therapy laws. State Del. Bonnie Cullison (D-Montgomery County) has introduced an identical bill that would extend the statute of limitations on individuals who facilitate conversion therapy.
Kagan explained the bill would allow conversion therapy victims to come to terms with their experience undergoing the widely discredited practice that “creates shame and it silences survivors.”
When questioned, Fair explained the press conference happened late into the legislative session because “we [the caucus] are constantly having to respond in real time to what’s happening in Washington” while drafting and considering pieces of legislation.
The Frederick County Democrat described this session’s bills as the “most ambitious list of priorities to date.” Fair also described the caucus’s goals.
“It’s decency, it’s dignity, and its humanity,” he said.
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