Local
Trans activists hold protest outside police, U.S. Attorney offices
Protesters call for immediate steps to curtail anti-trans violence and ‘police bias’
Transgender Day of Action protests. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
About 35 transgender activists and their supporters walked in picket lines on Thursday outside the headquarters of the D.C. Police Department and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to draw attention to what they say is an unacceptably high rate of violence against transgender people in the city.
Participants in the two protests, which organizers called a Transgender Day of Action, presented a list of demands to District Police Chief Cathy Lanier and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ronald Mechan calling for immediate steps to address the problem.
“This past summer we were able to report 20 incidents where [transgender] people were beaten, stabbed, shot — and this is something that really concerns us,” said Ruby Corado of the D.C. Trans Coalition, who spoke to the gathering through a bull horn.
“The call that we want to make is that people remember that this is happening in your own back yard,” she said. “There’s no way that people in this city can ignore that this is happening to their own brothers and sisters, and we need to take action.”
Corado and others who spoke at the protests have said existing city laws and police department policies that prohibit discrimination against transgender people are among the strongest in the in the nation. But the activists say the city in general and police in particular haven’t adequately implemented those laws and policies.
“This is coming after the terrible outbreak of anti-trans violence in this city this past summer,” said Dana Beyer, executive director of the transgender advocacy group Gender Rights Maryland.
Day of Action supporters marching. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Beyer, who participated in the D.C. protest on Thursday, said some of the recent violent attacks against transgender women, including the July shooting murder of trans woman Lashay Mclean, 23, have taken place in a section of Northeast D.C. next to the D.C.-Prince George’s County, Md., border. She said the developments have had an impact on the trans community in Maryland.
“The leadership in this city is committed to our community but for some reason they simply have not been able to implement that commitment,” Beyer said. “And we’re just here to remind them that they need to take that next step.”
Activists have expressed concern in recent months that the U.S. Attorney’s office, which serves as the city’s prosecutor in criminal cases, has reduced the charges against men arrested for violent crimes, including murders, against transgender people in an effort to persuade the men to plead guilty and avoid the need for a trial.
In meetings with LGBT activists, representatives of the U.S. Attorney’s office have said they only lower charges in cases where they believe the available evidence and circumstances surrounding the cases would prevent the office from obtaining a conviction from a jury if the case goes to trial.
LGBT advocacy groups, including the D.C. Trans Coalition and Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV) dispute that explanation. They argue that the U.S. Attorney’s office has been too quick to reduce charges against violence criminals who target the LGBT community, and the office should bring more cases to trial.
Xion Lopez. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Xion Lopez, 20, a transgender woman, told the gathering outside the U.S. Attorney’s office on 4th Street, N.W., less than two blocks from police headquarters, she was speaking on behalf of transgender crime victims who lost their lives to violence.
“I stand here today with the hope and knowing that the crime will stop, something will be done we’ll be able to move forward,” she said.
Janelle Mungo, an official with the D.C. chapter of the national direct action group Get Equal and an organizer of Thursday’s protest, said details of the demands and background on the issues surrounding anti-trans violence in the city can be viewed at www.TLGBpolicewatch.tumblr.com.
In statement responding to the protest, Lanier said, “MPD is committed to protecting and working with all members of our communities. I have demonstrated my personal commitment to this community from the beginning of my tenure, when I issued the department’s first directive on handling interactions with transgender individuals, to now, when I have been meeting with the GLBT community at least monthly since this summer.”
Lanier said she has just organized a series of town hall meetings to allow members of the police Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit to meet LGBT community members. She said she was disappointed that no one from the LGBT community showed up at one of those meetings on Wednesday night of this week.
Jason Terry, a member of the D.C. Trans Coalition who participated in the protest, called Lanier’s statement “insulting,” saying police failed to adequately publicize the police meetings with GLLU members. He said many transgender community members also are reluctant to attend an event at a police station, where the GLLU meetings are being held, following two recent incidents in which a police officer has assaulted transgender people. In one of the incidents, an off duty police officer was arrested for firing his gun into a car in which three trans women were sitting.
“MPD’s failure to attract people to their events is their failure, not the community’s,” Terry said.
Cameroon
Gay Cameroonian immigrant will be freed from ICE detention — for now
Ludovic Mbock’s homeland criminalizes homosexuality
By ANTONIO PLANAS | An immigration judge on Friday issued a $4,000 bond for a Cameroonian immigrant and regional gaming champion held in federal immigration detention for the past three weeks.
The ruling will allow Ludovic Mbock, of Oxon Hill, to return to Maryland from a Georgia facility this weekend, his family and attorney said.
“Realistically, by tomorrow. Hopefully, by today,” said Mbock’s attorney, Edward Neufville. “We are one step closer to getting Ludovic justice.”
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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
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