Local
Mayor confirms D.C. withholding funds from trans group
Health Department mum on help for displaced clients
‘We’ll work with them to try to get this resolved,’ said Mayor Vince Gray about T.H.E. ‘But they’re going to have to pay the taxes.’ (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray acknowledged that tax liens filed against Transgender Health Empowerment by the IRS has forced the city to discontinue its funding for the organization, even though it has provided important services for the transgender community.
In an interview with the Washington Blade on Saturday, Gray said he was aware of ongoing financial problems at THE, the city’s oldest and most prominent transgender advocacy and services organization.
Among other things, the group has provided HIV and housing-related services for transgender clients through funding from city grants.
“I don’t know the details of how much and that sort of thing,” Gray said in referring to how much money THE owes the IRS.
“But any organization that has a grant from the government is going to have to comply with the basic rules of conformance with the requirements of the government, including paying your taxes,” he said.
“So while they certainly have been helpful and I have a lot of admiration for that organization, they are going to have to straighten this out,” Gray said. “It wouldn’t be fair if organization X is absolved of responsibility and organization Y would be held accountable for this.”
Added Gray, “So we’ll work with them to try to get this resolved. But they’re going to have to pay the taxes. There’s no question about that….It’s a basic, fundamental rule that any organization that has a grant or contract with the government – they have to take care of these basic administrative responsibilities.”
Gray’s comments came at a time when transgender activists have expressed concern that the D.C. Department of Health, which is responsible for monitoring THE grants, has not said whether it’s taking steps to redirect the group’s clients to other service providers.
“Transgender Health Empowerment (THE) has had to dramatically curtail their services due to financial difficulties,” said the D.C. Trans Coalition in a statement on May 9.
“This reduction happened very suddenly, and services trans community members depend on have been abruptly cut off,” the statement says. “Immediate action must be taken to ensure THE clients get services they need to ensure continuity of care.”
The statement says D.C. Trans Coalition “stands with THE’s clients and calls on the D.C. government, as THE’s primary funder, to act quickly to make sure that necessary services continue.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Health, as well as its gay interim director, Dr. Saul Levin, and the gay head of the department’s HIV/AIDS office, Dr. Gregory Pappas, have not responded to requests for comment and requests for information on the THE situation from the Blade.
THE’s executive director, Anthony Hall, has also declined to comment. Brian Devine, THE’s finance manager, told the Blade the group’s board of directors, which met recently, decided the organization would not issue a statement at the present time.
Transgender activist Ruby Corado, director of Casa Ruby, an LGBT community center in Columbia Heights that reaches out to the Latino and transgender communities, said THE clients have approached Casa Ruby for assistance after discovering that services at THE were no longer available to them.
She said officials with the Department of Health had not responded to her request for information about who, if anyone, would provide help for the THE clients displaced by THE’s reduction in services.
“I have an issue with the government doing that,” Corado said. “You just don’t drop people like that. If you are withholding money from an agency that is providing services you need to make sure that in the meantime you are able to transition the clients,” she said. “And I don’t think that has happened.”
Public records at the D.C. Office of the Recorder of Deeds show that the IRS filed at least 10 liens against THE since early 2010. Most are due to THE’s failure to pay employee payroll taxes, the records show.
As a non-profit organization, THE is not required to pay taxes on income from private donations, government grants or other income sources.
Another sign of THE’s financial problems surfaced last week when its web hosting company suspended the group’s website. “This site has stepped out for a bit,” a note on the only remaining page of the site says. A phone number on the page directed to the “site owner” takes callers to the billing department of the web hosting company Go Daddy.
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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