Local
Polyak discusses marriage referendum, future activism
Former Equality Maryland board chair spoke to the Blade less than a month after she stepped down
Polyak was lead plaintiff in the Maryland marriage equality lawsuit (Deane and Polyak v. Conaway). (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
The former chair of Equality Maryland’s Board of Directors stressed on Monday she remains optimistic that voters will uphold the state’s same-sex marriage law in November.
“The polling trend is definitely way more positive than it has been in the last couple of years, but we continue to see evidence of people feeling strongly in another way,” said Lisa Polyak, referring to the controversy over Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy’s comments against marriage rights for gays and lesbians. She also described Josh Levin of Marylanders for Marriage Equality as a “very effective campaign manager” who has begun to receive the resources she said he needs to defend the same-sex marriage law at the ballot. Polyak added she feels that both President Obama’s support of nuptials for gays and lesbians and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s resolution in support of the issue provided the campaign with additional momentum.
“If we win in November, it will be in large measure because of those two events,” she said. “The campaign, rightly, is coming in under that and doing their job efficiently and well.”
Polyak and her partner of more than 30 years, Gita Deane, have remained two of the most prominent figures in the fight for nuptials for gays and lesbians in Maryland since they became the lead plaintiffs in the same-sex marriage lawsuit that Equality Maryland and the American Civil Liberties Union filed in 2004. The Maryland Court of Appeals in 2007 ultimately upheld the constitutionality of the state’s ban on nuptials for gays and lesbians, but Polyak stressed to the Blade that she and Deane simply wanted to protect their children.
“The reason we got involved in the first place was because we’ve had all of these sorts of unexpected experiences trying to take care of our kids,” she said, pointing to obtaining health care and passports for the couple’s two daughters and entering the country with them were among the difficulties they faced. “Starry eyed, we thought well we’ll get involved with the marriage litigation because you know if we were married we wouldn’t have these problems, although of course we had no idea what was ahead.”
Polyak said that the children of she and her wife Deane, Maya, who is 16, and Devi, who is 13, “were fairly renascent” about their decision to challenge Maryland’s same-sex marriage ban.
“For the older one, we told her that we were going to be in the litigation and we told her why in terms that we thought were appropriate for her… [what] it boiled down to is that we wanted to be married and that we couldn’t be married right now because of the way that the law was and just that she was shocked. And she told us so,” she recalled. “She goes; what do you mean you’re not married? I thought you were my parents and why aren’t you married? So it began sort of not just being the public face, but also like having this conversation in an ongoing way with our kids every year of their growth about what they could understand.”
Court of Appeals decision was “awful”
“Ultimately, for me especially it was important for them to see that even when things don’t go the way you want the first time, you don’t give up,” said Polyak as she stressed the need for her and Deane to “hold ourselves together for our girls so that they didn’t think bad things were going to happen to them or to our family.”
More than four years after Maryland’s highest court ruled against them in Deane and Polyak v. Conway, state lawmakers approved a same-sex marriage bill. Governor Martin O’Malley signed it into law in March. “Of course happiness,” said Polyak when asked about her reaction. “More than that just relief at not having to visit it again next year, hopefully, with the referendum not withstanding because I think everybody who has worked on this, truthfully, is exhausted.”
The looming likelihood of a referendum on the same-sex marriage law once the governor signed it factored heavily into their decision to marry in D.C. last year. Attorney General Douglas Gansler said in Feb. 2010 that the state could recognize same-sex marriages that were legally performed in other jurisdictions. O’Malley subsequently ordered state agencies to recognize such unions.
“My partner Gita felt very strongly about us getting older, about our kids getting older and you know what would happen if we could’ve got married and we didn’t get married, what might that bring if something happened to one of us, and that has to do with our family situation basically,” said Polyak. “Again, looking again through the eyes of our girls, they knew that marriage was available in D.C. and of course Gita and I wanted to be married. For them it didn’t make sense about why weren’t we getting married, so we were very aware of our personal needs and then also the fact that we didn’t want people in Maryland to think that we were giving up. We weren’t telegraphing of course any kind of negativity about the ongoing legislation. We literally went down to D.C. on the down low and we got married with a very small group of people — like eight people who were close to us.”
Polyak spoke to the Blade less than a month after she stepped down.
She was appointed acting chair of Equality Maryland’s Board of Directors in June 2011 after attorney Chuck Butler resigned in the wake of former executive director Morgan Meneses-Sheets’ April 2011 departure from the organization. The board voted to appoint Polyak chair during Equality Maryland’s annual meeting in January.
“I don’t know about lessons learned, but I know for Patrick Wojahn, who was the other board chair, and myself, both he and I were plaintiffs in the marriage litigation, and then just through serendipity found ourselves as the board chairs of the respective boards at the time when Equality Maryland went through all those difficulties,” she said. “I think somehow for both of us we weren’t going to let it to fall apart. What Equality Maryland aspires to, which is the legal and the policy health of LGBT citizens I think is something both Patrick and I feel strongly in. And without really having a road map about how we were going to sort of keep things from falling completely apart, we just decided that we weren’t going to let it happen and we had three of the residual board members who worked with us all last summer. In retrospect I can’t believe that we did it, but i think it’s just like anything — if you really believe in something, you find a way.”
In spite of her departure from Equality Maryland, Polyak said she plans to continue to advocate on behalf of LGBT families and children. She remains the online moderator of Families with Pride, a group for LGBT parents in Baltimore. And it plans to hold a reunion in the coming weeks.
“Both my girls are getting ready to think about college. And so that’s always time consuming and lots of planning and I want to share in that time with them,” said Polyak. “I have to say both for Gita and for myself, our focus has always been about what is the lack of law, what the lack of protections do to children and so I’m fairly certain that ending Equality Maryland won’t be the end of my sort of advocacy for equality for our community.”
District of Columbia
GenOUT Chorus offers solace, strength to LGBTQ teens
Summer camp held from June 23-27
As Pride month draws to a close and Washington begins to take down its rainbow flags and WorldPride decorations, it can be easy to confine the ideas of LGBTQ liberation to June. One historic organization in Washington has been speaking out — or singing out if you will — to ensure that LGBTQ youth are allowed to explore and be themselves every month of the year.
The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington is one of the oldest and largest LGBTQ choruses in the world. With more than 300 members and more than 40 years in the D.C. LGBTQ community, to say it is an institution would be an understatement.
Beginning in 1981, following an inspiring performance by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus at the Kennedy Center, a group of 18 gay men — led by a “straight” woman and friend of Washington’s gay community, Marsha Pearson — created the GMCW. Since its establishment the organization has only grown in number and relevance within the city. From hosting multiple concerts a year, international equality trips, and creating a dedicated space to “inspire equality and inclusion with musical performances and education,” the GMCW is one of the cornerstone organizations in the Washington LGBTQ community.
One of the most remarkable parts of the GMCW is its youth outreach program and choir: GenOUT. The outreach ensemble specializes in providing a space for Washington’s LGBTQ and allied youth, ages 13-18, to find their voice through song and connect that voice to community. The GenOUT program has been around since 2001, and since 2015 has provided a platform for their voices to be heard — literally — making it the first LGBTQ youth chorus in the Washington area.
The Washington Blade sat down with GenOUT Director C. Paul Heins and member Ailsa Ostovitz to discuss why GenOUT, and more specifically the GenOUT summer camp, which was held from June 23-27, has become an essential space for LGBTQ youth in the D.C. area to find their voice amid less-than-supportive administration and rising anti-LGBTQ rhetoric in the nation.
“This is my 11th season with GenOUT, and also the 11th season with Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington,” Heins said when explaining how he ended up in the director role for the self-selected, no audition required youth outreach ensemble. “I was hired in August of 2014 to start GenOUT. I spent that first fall researching other choruses, figuring out the infrastructure, promoting the chorus, and building relationships with schools, organizations, and faith communities. And then we started in January of 2015 with nine brave singers and since then, we’ve had 150+ singers from 80 or more schools in the DMV participate.”
Ailsa Ostovitz, on the other hand, being in high school had not had as much experience with choirs — yet her commitment and unwavering passion for the work she — and the other performers within GenOUT provide to each other was unmistakable.
“I’ve been a part of the course since April of 2022, and that was like seventh grade— which is wild to think about,” Ostovitz said when reflecting on how long she had been a part of GenOUT. She explained how she had begun to develop a drive for filling leadership roles within GenOUT after gaining valuable experiences and education from the organization.
“This is my first year in leadership,” she added. “The rest of the years, I kind of hung back. I really wanted to — especially last season — kind of put myself in the position of a peer and think ‘What would I want from people that are supposed to represent me to the adults? What would I want out of that?’”
And with those questions in mind, Ostovitz explained she buckled down and worked hard to get to where she is now as a member of the leadership team within the GenOUT choir.
“I spent a lot of time working with my section leader, and, looking up at him and being like, ‘What are you doing now that I can do in the future?’ And so this year, I ran for leadership,” Ostovitz said. “I got section leader, and that was cool. I’ve just spent a lot of time — most of my time in this course — learning leadership skills to kind of help me in all sorts of things in life, because I like to take control of things, and I like doing stuff.”
These leadership skills are just a handful of the things that students like Ostovitz learn while participating in the program. This year’s theme was “Make Them Hear Us!: Empowering LGBTQ+ and Allied Youth Through Music, Media, and Community,” and provided multiple opportunities for GenOUT’s members to engage with new concepts, ideas, and experiences.
From field trips to mentoring opportunities to an end-of-camp performance, it becomes clear when speaking to those familiar with the GenOUT experience: it is not your traditional summer day camp.
“The title of the camp references the anthem that GMCW has sung for many years,” Heins said. “‘Make Them Hear You’ from the musical ‘Ragtime’ encourages us to share important stories — stories that honor the fights that we’ve been fighting, the rights that we have won, affirmations that we seek for every human being, and the focus on media — specifically developing young people’s understandings of the kinds of media that they can access and use to share their voice.”
The camp offers singing and dancing lessons, creative writing exercises, LGBTQ+ history lessons, and open discussions about identity — providing an outlet for students to figure out who they want to be and find their voice.
“What this camp does, I believe, is it helps foster young people’s voices and not only encourages them to speak, but to give them the skills to speak in a way that will be heard meaningfully,” Heins added. “I have noted that youth in queer choruses like GenOUT have said that singing in a chorus allows young people to express themselves more honestly and with greater passion than other forms of expression. They’ve also said that singing with others that understand you on a very deep, profound level, makes the expression much easier and more beautiful. I think that experience is what really makes this a special opportunity for young, LGBTQ and allied people.”
Ostovitz echoed Heins’s sentiment, emphasizing that the space GenOUT provides allows her to feel empowered in ways more than by creating leadership skills that will help her later in life. GenOUT has allowed for her to see the humanity and similarities LGBTQ youth all face in a straight world.
“Joining the chorus and being in this camp, it really gives people a chance to see that every person is going through the same experience you are, on a level of finding your own identity and being confident in that,” Ostovitz said. “It really, really serves a purpose by showing there are still queer people. They’re not fizzling out — young people are queer. We want to use our voices to express what we feel and how things are affecting us, and I think that using music to do that is probably one of the most powerful ways to do that.”
In addition to allowing for internal growth and honing their singing abilities, both Ostovitz and Heins pointed out the other valuable skills students learn while in the GenOUT program. Ostovitz explicitly highlighted the mentorship program GenOUT has with GMCW, and how it has helped students like her figure out their future.
“Because we are so connected with GMCW, we run a mentorship program where, if you want to explore career, identity, whatever, we can connect you with somebody from GMCW,” Ostovitz said. “You get to spend a whole semester with a person working on your voice or your career or your what you want to do in higher education. It’s not only for things related to your queer identity, but it’s also just for life. It’s really cool.”
This year’s theme, centering around media and the many ways people can share their voice, was highlighted through the camp’s field trips to two legacy media organizations — WAMU and NBC Washington — and a discussion with staff from the Washington Blade, including Publisher Lynne Brown and International News Editor Michael K. Lavers.
“GenOUT provides a chance to get to know people from all around this area, but it also connects you to older folks, It connects you to people from the past, as well as we learn about LGBTQ history,” Heins said. “I think a camp specific thing is we want young people to understand how they can share their stories beyond just talking to their friends. There are these forms of media that are out there to share your stories, to have your voices heard, and to have a sense that these media are there for everyone. It’s not just a thing for people aged 21 and over. That was something that Lynne and Michael from the Blade were sharing with; that anyone can write in a letter to the editor. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be published, but that anyone has that opportunity. And I think that’s a great way for them to say the Blade is open to you to share your voice.”
The concept that there are people who want to, or may need to hear queer voices represented is one that is not lost on Ostovitz.
“There is something Thea says that has kind of integrated into our chorus — that someone out there needed to hear you, needed to hear your voice, needed to hear your story,” Ostovitz said. “That’s something that I kind of live by in this chorus, where I’m like, ‘I believe that there is someone out there that needed to hear this song for whatever reason, whatever it did for them. And I’m hoping to learn how much more can this chorus do for not just our little community, but how much more can it do around the world or the country — especially now.”
Living in the political center of the U.S., Ostovitz explained, has impacted how she approaches her identity, her education, and the urgency of using her voice — both as a student and as a young queer person navigating an increasingly hostile national climate.
“Being so close to the political center of the country and also a student at the same time has not been the easiest thing in the world as of late,” she said. “You’re thinking a lot about ‘Oh, I wonder if this program in my school will still exist next year,’ because a lot of the funding for physics and science programs in general has been cut. So I’m fortunate enough that Maryland has been pretty good about going against this administration. And so being in this chorus gives me a second to step back from my academics and just go somewhere for the two hours of rehearsal.”
For Ostovitz, just having those two short hours a week to focus on music — without thinking about the political climate that paints her and her choir peers as nefarious for being LGBTQ — provides solace.
“Everybody else is going through the same thing as I am, but we’re all also working towards the same goal, which is acceptance and uplifting of everybody and everyone — no matter who they are,” she said. “It kind of settles you down and grounds you. And then you just make music with people, and it’s really like a stress reducer for me.”
“Is it too trite to say that that would make people feel less alone, knowing that it’s not just a DMV thing, but that there are queer people all over?” Heins asked Ostovitz.
“No, it’s not — for sure,” Ostovitz responded. “It was a bit eye-opening.”
“A lot of us are fortunate enough to have families that support us enough to trust us and help us be passionate and mean what we do with the work that we do in this chorus — because it is optional,” Ostovitz added. “It is optional to have the courage that we have to practice and commit as much as we do, and the fact that we have a whole organization backing us on that is pretty cool.”
“We often say that we sing for those who can’t sing in a chorus like ours,” Heins said. “We sing for people who don’t have the freedom or the option to live their authentic lives. I think that’s very powerful.”
“It’s a very unique experience to be surrounded by so many people that get it,” Ostovitz said. “It’s a very joyful experience when we perform our big shows at the Lincoln Theater, being part of that production is also a very unique experience. So I think everything about this chorus is very joyfully unique.”
“I feel very proud, and I feel very inspired,” Heins said. “I feel inspired by the young voices. I feel a sense of inspiration in my own music-making, when I am able to take a piece from its very beginning all the way to the stage in a polished form. And I feel that sense of pride in knowing that I’ve helped this group of young people develop their confidence to do really amazing things.”
“GenOUT sang 22 times last year, which for any chorus is a big deal, but for a youth chorus coming from thither and yon, it is really a big deal,” Heins added. “I’m just really inspired and proud, and know that when I am in a nursing home somewhere and these folks are still out working and I know the country will be in good hands.”
Virginia
Walkinshaw wins Democratic primary in Va. 11th Congressional District
Special election winner will succeed Gerry Connolly
On Saturday, Fairfax County Supervisor James Walkinshaw won the Democratic primary for the special election that will determine who will represent Virginia’s 11th Congressional District.
The special election is being held following the death of the late Congressman Gerry Connolly, who represented the district from 2008 until 2024, when he announced his retirement, and subsequently passed away from cancer in May.
Walkinshaw is not unknown to Virginia’s 11th District — he has served on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors since 2020 and had served as Connolly’s chief of staff from 2009 to 2019. Before he passed away, Connolly had endorsed Walkinshaw to take his place, claiming that choosing Walkinshaw to be his chief of staff was “one of the best decisions I ever made.”
The Democratic nominee has run his campaign on mitigating Trump’s “dangerous” agenda of dismantling the federal bureaucracy, which in the district is a major issue as many of the district’s residents are federal employees and contractors.
“I’m honored and humbled to have earned the Democratic nomination for the district I’ve spent my career serving,” Walkinshaw said on X. “This victory was powered by neighbors, volunteers, and supporters who believe in protecting our democracy, defending our freedoms, and delivering for working families.”
In addition to protecting federal workers, Walkinshaw has a long list of progressive priorities — some of which include creating affordable housing, reducing gun violence, expanding immigrant protections, and “advancing equality for all” by adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the Fair Housing Act.
Various democratic PACs contributed more than $2 million to Walkinshaw’s ad campaigns, much of which touted his connection to Connolly.
Walkinshaw will face Republican Stewart Whitson in the special election in September, where he is the likely favorite to win.
Maryland
LGBTQ suicide prevention hotline option is going away. Here’s where else to go in Md.
Changes will take effect July 17
By ANNA RUBENSTEIN | The national suicide prevention hotline will no longer offer specialized support to LGBTQ people, starting July 17, the Trump administration announced last week.
Dialing the hotline at 988 will still be available for crisis support. But callers will no longer be able to reach specific LGBTQ services by pressing Option 3. The change worries advocates because their data shows the LGBTQ community has a disproportionally high suicide rate.
Even after the option ends, here’s how to receive tailored support if you’re in Maryland.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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