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AIDS Action Baltimore to honor John Waters at 35th anniversary commemoration

Honorees to include John Waters and Pat Moran

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John Waters (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

AIDS Action Baltimore will mark 35 years of service next month by paying tribute to six people who have helped keep it in operation, including filmmaker John Waters and his friend and movie industry colleague Pat Moran.

AIDS Action Baltimore’s 35th Anniversary Commemoration, planned for Sept.18, is a cocktail reception and brunch that’s also a fundraiser for the non-profit organization, which was started in 1987 to fight HIV/AIDS and provide a safety net for people living with HIV/AIDS and experiencing a financial emergency.

“John has supported us from the beginning,” said Lynda Dee, co-founder and executive director of the organization. “All of his movie premieres benefitted AIDS Action Baltimore. Without his help, we wouldn’t be here today.”

Waters has directed 16 movies and written 10 books, and he was named in June to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Based in Baltimore, he has two museum exhibits coming up, “Coming Attractions: The John Waters Collection,” an exhibit of art from his personal collection that he’s donating to the Baltimore Museum of Art, at the museum from Nov. 20, 2022, to April 16, 2023, and “Pope of Trash,” a career retrospective at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles next summer.

Moran is a three-time Emmy Award-winning casting director who has worked closely with Waters and others on films and television shows made in Baltimore. She is one of three co-founders of AIDS Action Baltimore, along with Dee and Garey Lambert, who passed away in 1987.

Waters said he’s pleased to support AIDS Action Baltimore. 

“I’m really happy to be involved,” he said. “Pat was one of the first people that started it. I’ve been a supporter always just because I believe I’m lucky I didn’t die of it. Plain and simple. I give money as a superstition that I won’t ever get it. And Lynda Dee is a tireless AIDS warrior. The gay community owes her great, great credit … It’s an organization in Baltimore that has kept many, many people alive … I’m just honored to help them in any way I can.”

Other honorees include:

Richard Chaisson, professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and principal investigator of the Hopkins Center for AIDS Research;

Carla Alexander, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, a fellow of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Care, and an internationally recognized expert for those living with HIV disease;

Debbie Rock, a disco singer-turned-HIV activist who is the founding CEO of LIGHT Health and Wellness, a non-profit that provides a range of services for children, families and individuals in Baltimore affected by poverty, addiction, mental illness, HIV/AIDS and other chronic illnesses, including day care and respite care for children with HIV/AIDS; and

Carlton Smith, a community health worker with the state of Maryland, founder of the Center for Black Equity, and chair of the Ryan White Planning Council, which provides medical care and support services for people with HIV in Baltimore. 

Since 1987, AIDS Action Baltimore has helped more than 8,750 people, distributing $3.145 million in assistance for items such as rent and utilities. It also has a number of programs to fight HIV, from town hall meetings to testing assistance to prevention campaigns, including outreach efforts to at-risk populations.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 31,676 people aged 13 and older were living in Maryland with diagnosed HIV at the end of 2020, and an estimated 3,559 people in Maryland were living with undiagnosed HIV at the end of 2019.

Dee wrote in June that the COVID-19 pandemic has made it more difficult for AIDS Action Baltimore to provide the services it does.

“COVID-19 is eating a large percentage of U. S. Health and Human Services funding,” she wrote she in an open letter to friends of the organization. “We are in danger of losing all our hard-won treatment and prevention gains. Because of COVID-19, it is much harder to obtain the money we need to fight HIV.” 

That’s why AIDS Action Baltimore holds events such as the one next month, she added: “We are still doing our best to help ourselves.” 

AIDS Action Baltimore’s 35th Anniversary Commemoration will be held at the Belvedere (1 E. Chase St.) in Baltimore, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sept. 18. Tickets cost $175 per person or $1,750 for a table of 10. They’re available at aidsactionbaltimore.org or by calling 410-437-AIDS. 

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Maryland

A Baltimore theater educator lost jobs at Johns Hopkins and the Kennedy Center

Tavish Forsyth concluded they could not work for Trump

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Tavish Forsyth, a queer artist and educator, posted a nude video on YouTube in protest of the Trump administration’s takeover of the Kennedy Center earlier this year. (Photo by Jessica Gallagher for the Baltimore Banner)

BY WESLEY CASE | Tavish Forsyth had come to a conclusion: They could not work for President Donald Trump.

So the 32-year-old Baltimore resident stripped down, turned on their camera, and lit their career on fire.

“F—— Donald Trump and f—— the Kennedy Center,” a naked Forsyth, an associate artistic lead at the Washington National Opera’s Opera Institute, which is run by the Kennedy Center, said in a video that went viral. The board of the nation’s leading cultural institution had elected Trump just weeks prior as its chairman after he gutted the board of members appointed by his predecessor, President Joe Biden.

The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.

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Md. schools plan to comply with federal DEI demands

Superintendents opt for cooperation over confrontation

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(Bigstock photo)

By LIZ BOWIE | Deciding not to pick a fight with the Trump administration, Maryland school leaders plan to sign a letter to the U.S. Department of Education that says their school districts are complying with all civil rights laws.

The two-paragraph letter could deflect a confrontation over whether the state’s public schools run diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that the Trump administration has called illegal. The Baltimore Banner reviewed the letter, which was shared by a school administrator who declined to be identified because the letter has not yet been sent.

Maryland school leaders are taking a more conciliatory approach than those in some other states. Education leaders in Minnesota, New YorkColoradoOregon, Vermont, and Wisconsin said they will not comply with the federal education department’s order, the demands of which, they say, are based on a warped interpretation of civil rights law.

The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.

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Maryland

FreeState Justice: Transgender activist ‘hijacked’ Moore’s Transgender Day of Visibility event

Maryland Commission on LGBTQIA+ Affairs describes Lee Blinder’s comments as ‘call to action’

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Lee Blinder, founding executive director of Trans Maryland, speaks to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore during a ceremony for the International Day for Transgender Visibility. Blinder called out the governor for not backing up his words with action. (Photo by Jessica Gallagher for the Baltimore Banner)

FreeState Justice on April 11 released a statement criticizing the way that Trans Maryland Executive Director Lee Blinder treated Gov. Wes Moore during a Transgender Day of Visibility event.

FreeState Justice was extremely disappointed with the criticisms of Moore on the Transgender Day of Visibility, saying it was “hijacked by public hostility” by Blinder. The Baltimore Banner reported how Blinder “laid out how the Democratic governor has let down transgender Marylanders by not putting money in the budget and not backing needed policy changes.”

The Washington Blade interviewed Blinder after the March 31 event.

“The intention of what I shared is to show to the governor that this is a community in distress. You know, we are in a real state of emergency for the trans community and there are very few opportunities that the community has to share this directly with the governor.” Blinder told the Blade. “We’re really grateful to the governor for everything that he’s done in the past for this community, but the circumstances have changed and we really need to see very specific actions taken in order to ensure this community has the ability to exist in public space.”

FreeState Justice said Moore did not deserve such criticisms during the event and added in a Blade oped it is “time for new leadership on the Maryland LGBTQIA+ Commission. Leadership that values and prioritizes coalition over conflict. Leadership that invites feedback and shares power. Leadership that understands how Annapolis operates, how budgets are constructed, and how community victories are won.”

“We’re not saying don’t challenge power. We’re saying do it with purpose. Do it with facts. Do it with a strategy. If you’re going to call yourself a leader in this movement, show us the policy platform. Show us the data. Show us the budget line. Show us the work,” wrote FreeState Justice.

The Maryland Commission on LGBTQIA+ Affairs has met to address FreeState Justice’s statements. 

“During the Transgender Day of Visibility ceremony at the State House, the commission’s chair offered remarks reflecting the real fears, concerns, and hopes of the trans community. These remarks were not a call-out, but a call to action,” the commission said in their call to action statement it sent to the Blade. “The chair’s words echoed the thousands of voices we’ve heard across the state through phone calls, emails, and messages on social media to our staff, commissioners, and their affiliated organizations.”

The statement outlines what the call to action entails, addressing what the commission found to be the most pressing issues for transgender Marylanders. They include a lack of dedicated funding, barriers to affirming healthcare, housing insecurity and homelessness, discrimination in education and employment, and escalating violence, harassment, and hate.

“We remain deeply committed to working in partnership with the Moore-Miller administration, the General Assembly, state agencies, nonprofit organizations, and community partners to ensure LGBTQIA+ Marylanders are seen, protected, and supported in policy, budget, and in practice,” reads the statement.

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