Local
DOMA ruling to have ‘huge’ impact on D.C. region
Attorneys tell same-sex couples: Talk to your employer about benefits
‘The state’s hands are tied until we change the constitution,’ said Virginia Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) of efforts to extend marriage rights to couples in the commonwealth, following a momentous ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court striking down DOMA. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael K. Lavers)
The large number of federal government employees in the D.C. metropolitan area will ensure that many same-sex married couples living in the region, including those living in Virginia, will soon receive full federal benefits and rights that come with marriage in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision last week to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act.
According to local attorneys familiar with family law, the Obama administration has taken immediate steps to direct the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to provide all federal marriage benefits to government workers and their same-sex spouses.
“Certainly for federal civil servants there will be a clear effort from the administration to allow people who marry anywhere to take advantage of their federal civil service benefits regardless of where they currently live,” said Takoma Park, Md., attorney Susan Silber, whose law firm has represented lesbian and gay couples on matters pertaining to family law.
“So that’s huge for our metropolitan area,” she said. “And it will be huge for people who live in places like Virginia and West Virginia and Pennsylvania” where many federal workers live.
Silber and local attorney Michelle Zavos, who, like Silber, represents LGBT clients in the D.C. metro area, said following the DOMA decision, same-sex couples can expect support in their quest to obtain both state and federal marriage benefits from state officials in D.C., Maryland and Delaware, where same-sex marriage is legal.
But the two attorneys said most of those benefits won’t come automatically and same-sex married couples in the three jurisdictions must come forward to apply for the benefits.
“This is something they have to do proactively,” Zavos told the Blade. “And what I would say is federal workers, especially, need to contact their Human Resources Department immediately to find out what they need to do. They cannot sit on this.”
Zavos noted that similar to any married employee, both federal and private sector employees need to inform their employer through the personnel or human resources department that they are married and will qualify for benefits such as health insurance for their spouse.
In the case of the federal government, enrollment in such benefits often becomes available only during an “open enrollment” period once a year. However, OPM officials have said the federal personnel agency was expected to schedule another open enrollment period in the coming weeks in light of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning DOMA.
Silber, Zavos and other attorneys familiar with Virginia said they were watching closely as Obama administration officials assess ways to extend federal marriage benefits to same-sex couples who legally marry in a state that recognizes same-sex marriage but live in states that do not recognize such marriages.
In the week since the Supreme Court ruling on DOMA, legal experts have said some federal benefits linked to marriage, such as Social Security survivor benefits, are tied to the state where a couple lives rather than the state where the couple married.
Claire Gastanaga, an attorney who serves as general legislative counsel for the statewide LGBT group Equality Virginia, said the question of whether a federal marriage benefit is available to same-sex married couples living in Virginia must be decided by the federal government, not by Virginia state officials.
“It’s really a question of how they choose to interpret the federal law,” Gastanaga said. “There are a thousand different federal laws. Some of them refer to the place of celebration [of the marriage] and some refer to the domicile of the couple,” she said.
“Some of those requirements are statutory, some are regulatory and some are policy,” she added. “So there’s lots to be ironed out at the federal level before we know the answer to that question.”
Adam Ebbin, the gay Virginia state senator representing a district in the Alexandria area, said that while Virginia’s current governor and attorney general are unsympathetic to LGBT issues and oppose marriage equality, any state elected official would be restricted in taking steps to extend benefits to married same-sex couples under an anti-gay marriage amendment passed by voters in 2006, despite the DOMA decision.
“The Virginia marriage amendment, which is part of our state constitution, says the state can’t recognize or grant benefits of marriage for same-sex couples,” Ebbin said. “So the state’s hands are tied until we change the constitution.”
Ebbin said the momentum in support of marriage equality generated by the Supreme Court decision overturning DOMA would have a “major” impact on efforts in Virginia to repeal the same-sex marriage ban.
District of Columbia
Wanda Alston Foundation announces passing of founding executive director Brian Watson
D.C. activist praised as “passionate advocate” for homeless LGBTQ youth
The Wanda Alston Foundation, which provides housing and support services for homeless LGBTQ youth in the D.C. metro area, announced on July 20 that its founding executive director, Brian Watson, has passed away.
In a statement the Alston Foundation called Watson “one of Washington, D.C.,’s most passionate advocates for LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness.”
Neither the statement nor others who knew Watson have disclosed the cause of death or his age. Longtime LGBTQ community activist Rayceen Pendarvis said she heard only that Watson’s passing followed “a long time illness.”
“The origins of the Wanda Alston Foundation can be traced to a meeting convened by then-Mayor Anthony Williams at the request of Wanda Alston, the Mayor’s Director of LGBTQ Affairs,” the statement says.
“During that meeting, Brian spoke powerfully about the growing crisis of homelessness among LGBTQ+ youth in the District of Columbia and the urgent need for dedicated housing and support services,” it says. “His advocacy helped crystalize a vision that every young person deserves a safe place to call home.”
The statement points out that following Alston’s untimely death, Watson joined other community leaders “to transform that vision into reality by establishing the Wanda Alston Foundation in her memory.”
It says that today the Alston Foundation “proudly carries forward the mission Brian helped create by providing emergency and transitional housing, counseling, workforce development, life-skills training, and other supportive services that empower LGBTQ+ youth to achieve stability, independence, and hope for the future.”
Watson’s LinkedIn page says he served as executive director of the Alston Foundation from July 2013 to March 2014. The Washington Blade reported in April 2014 that the Alston Foundation announced in a March 11, 2014, statement that Watson had resigned to “pursue other opportunities.”
His LinkedIn page shows he worked for or with in a supporting role three local nonprofit organizations since leaving the Alston Foundation, including serving from February 2019 to November 2019 as a Methamphetamine Services Specialist for the D.C. group HIPS, which provides services for drug users and sex workers.
According to his LinkedIn page, from October 2014 to “present,” he also served as Chief Innovation Officer for the Propel Foundation, Inc., which he described as a “501c3 nonprofit organization founded in D.C. that works to strengthen nonprofit organizations through fiscal sponsorship and capacity building.”
A Facebook posting by his brother, Vidale Watson, says his family will be making arrangements for a memorial service and will share the date, time, and location once the details have been finalized.
“There are no words to describe the heartbreak our family is feeling,” Vidale Watson wrote. “While we are grateful for every prayer, kind word, and act of support we’ve received over the past week, this loss is still incredibly fresh.”
Baltimore
The government pressured USA Rugby to ban transgender women. A Baltimore team refused to comply.
Ferals is a women’s-plus team within the Flamingos
By KYLE GOON | It was midmorning, and the March winds lashed against the faces of the players on the Ferals rugby team as they suited up at a park in Frederick. The turf was frozen.
Harper Ockert, 24, wrapped her left knee with tape, stabilizing her joint for the jarring hits to come. She had struggled to sleep the night before, but her anxiety was not strictly about the game.
She and her teammates were preparing to defy newly enacted rules set by the sport’s governing body. A nervous energy thrummed in her chest as she considered what her defiance meant.
Ockert is a transgender woman who plays for the Ferals — the women’s-plus team within the Baltimore Flamingos rugby club. Three of her teammates are trans women, too. They had played games for the Ferals before, but this match at Walnut Ridge Park was the team’s first since USA Rugby had shifted its policy to allow only people assigned female at birth to play women’s rugby.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Virginia
LGBTQ community center opens in Leesburg, Va.
Equality Loudoun holds ribbon-cutting ceremony at new space
A group of supporters crowded inside of the new Equality Loudoun Community Center in Leesburg, Va. on Saturday for an open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony. Air quality issues stemming from the wildfires in Canada required the ceremony to be held indoors. Local elected officials were joined by LGBTQ community organizers and supporters to mark the occasion.
The Virginia LGBTQ organization Equality Loudoun was founded in 2003 and organized the first Loudoun Pride Festival in 2022. The Equality Loudoun Community Center, located in the Village at Leesburg shopping area (1507 Dodona Terrace SE, Suite 105, Leesburg, Va.), will now house the organization’s community and youth programming.
“This is a day that we have anticipated for some time,” said Sean Murphy, Equality Loudoun vice president. “Equality Loudoun was founded in 2003 and has been migrating from place to place to wherever will have us to host our meetings, to host our gatherings. We are so grateful to our many, many allies that have provided space for us.”
Murphy continued, “We really have believed for a long time that it’s important for us to have a home, a place to anchor the community, a place for people to feel belonging, and a place for people to find one another, and find people who are like them and have something in common.”
Attendees of the ceremony included Leesburg Mayor Kelly Burk, Leesburg Vice Mayor Todd Cimino-Johnson, Leesburg District Supervisor Kristen C. Umstattd of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, and U.S. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.).
“I wish that there was a place like this when I was teaching,” Mayor Burk, a retired Loudoun County Public Schools special education teacher, told the crowd. “So often, I’d have a student, and there was nowhere to send them. They were looking around, trying to see: ‘who’s like me, where can I go, where can I relate, what is happening?’ Middle school is terrible for everybody. But it’s especially terrible if you’re different. And so, I congratulate you on the fact that you had the initiative to do this, the guts to continue it, and the tenacity to make it happen.”
Programming at the LGBTQ community center will include youth programming, game nights and support groups, according to Equality Loudoun Executive Director Katie Cash.
Cash told the Blade, “That’s actually a new thing that we’re branching into that we received a grant this year for: to focus on youth activities. So we’ll have youth support groups that we’re going to work with the Ryan Bartell organization on. Additionally, we’ll have other peer support groups that are run by organizations that are in the space. We’ll have craft nights, we’ll have activity nights, so it’ll be open for drop-in hours on different days as well. On top of normal programming that we’ve been doing as an organization, which can be a series of different craft [activities], social activities, game nights, movie nights, that we’ve been doing for years. Instead of hunting for locations.”
Equality Loudoun is primarily funded through donations, according to Cash. Those interested in supporting the work of the organization and community center can visit eqloco.org for more information.
When asked about future programming at the center, Cash told the Blade that they are seeking feedback from the community.
“We have all the dreams that we have for the space,” Cash said. “But everything’s built off of what kind of resources, what kind of events does the community want hosted? What will they come out for? What do they care about coming out for, and making sure that happens for them.”
Rep. Subramanyam told the Blade, “I’m just so excited about this community center. Equality Loudoun has been so instrumental to so many people in our community. And for them to finally have this center — and it’s been part of their vision for a long time — just is an incredible experience. So I’m so proud to be a supporter of them and I look forward to the center being a sanctuary and a place for people to turn to for many years to come.”
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Comings & Goings
