District of Columbia
HIV-positive D.C. attorney commissioned as officer with U.S. Army National Guard
Longtime National Guard member successfully challenged military HIV policy
Gay D.C. attorney Nicholas Harrison, a longtime member of the U.S. Army National Guard, was officially commissioned as a First Lieutenant in the D.C. Army National Guard at an Aug. 5 ceremony.
The ceremony at the D.C. National Guard Armory located next to RFK Stadium took place a little over a year after Harrison, who was diagnosed with HIV in 2012, successfully challenged the military’s longstanding policy of banning soldiers with HIV from becoming commissioned officers in a lawsuit initially filed in 2018.
In what LGBTQ and AIDS activists consider a landmark ruling, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia handed down a decision in April 2022 declaring the military’s HIV restrictions unconstitutional. The decision ordered the U.S. Department of Defense to discontinue its policy of refusing to deploy and commission as officers members of the military with HIV if they are asymptomatic and otherwise physically capable of serving.
Two months after that ruling, the Biden administration announced it would not contest the court ruling in an appeal, and a short time later U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a memorandum announcing changes in the military policy that would allow members of the military with HIV to be deployed and become officers in accordance with the court ruling.
The memorandum states that individuals “who have been identified as HIV positive, are asymptomatic, and who have clinically confirmed undetectable viral load will have no restrictions applied to their deployability or to their ability to commission while a service member solely on the basis of their HIV-positive status.”
Kevin Jennings, CEO of Lambda Legal, the LGBTQ litigation organization that represented Harrison in his lawsuit and who attended Harrison’s commissioning ceremony, called the court ruling and the Biden administration’s decision not to appeal the ruling an important advancement in efforts to remove barriers to people with HIV who wish to serve in the military.
“Today is a historic day in Washington, D.C., as we witness the commissioning of Nick Harrison,” Jennings and Lambda Legal Senior Attorney Kara Ingelhart said in a statement. “Although the journey to wearing his officer’s bars took several years, Nick’s perseverance, along with his legal team and other involved service members, helped to realize his dream of becoming an officer in the District of Columbia Army National Guard,” Jennings and Ingelhart said.
Among the more than 50 people who attended Harrison’s commissioning ceremony were family members, friends, LGBTQ rights advocates, and fellow service members.
Serving as master of ceremonies at the event was Dr. Joshua Fontanez, chair of the board for the Modern Military Association of America, the nation’s largest organization representing LGBTQ military service members, their spouses, family members, and veterans. The association joined Lambda Legal in supporting Harrison’s lawsuit to overturn the military’s HIV policy.
Donald Cravins Jr., the U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Minority Business Development, administered the oath of office commissioning Harrison to the rank of First Lieutenant.
And Jennings of Lambda Legal and Baraq Stein, Harrison’s partner, performed the ceremonial “Pinning of Rank” by attaching the lieutenant’s rank insignia on each side of the shoulder of the Army uniform that Harrison was wearing at the ceremony.
“This commissioning ceremony, steeped in long-standing military tradition, is intentionally focused on honoring the network of support and inspiration that brought me to this juncture,” Harrison said in remarks following his official commissioning.
“My own path has been far from conventional, leading me into the heart of a storm that allowed me to become part of a larger narrative – challenging the military’s discriminatory HIV policies through a landmark court case brought by Lambda Legal and the Modern Military Association of America,” he said.
A native of Oklahoma, Harrison joined the U.S. Army in September 2000 at the age of 23, at the time he was about to enter his third year as a student at the University of Central Oklahoma. He said he served for three years as an airborne paratrooper with a Parachute Infantry Regiment in Anchorage, Alaska.
After completing his initial enlistment in the Army, he resumed his university studies while joining the Oklahoma National Guard. He graduated in May 2005 with a bachelor’s degree and “proceeded to Oklahoma City University’s law school,” he told the Blade in a statement.
In March 2006, while enrolled in law school, he was deployed to Afghanistan with the Oklahoma National Guard’s 45th Infantry Division, he recounted in his statement. Upon his return, he said he had to restart his law school studies at the University of Oklahoma in August 2007.
After receiving a law degree and Master of Business Administration degree he was deployed once again, this time to Kuwait and Iraq. “On my return, I passed the bar and began job hunting, which led me to Washington, D.C. in July 2013,” he says in his statement.
In October of 2013, he transferred his National Guard membership from Oklahoma to D.C. by joining the D.C. National Guard, where he was assigned to a military police company with the rank of sergeant, he said. During that same year, he was selected for a Judge Advocate General position, which involves duties similar to a civilian judge.
Having been diagnosed with HIV the previous year, he requested a waiver from the military’s HIV policy that would have allowed him to take on his new JAG position. But his request was turned down, prompting him to initiate a campaign to challenge what he and many others believed to be an outdated policy denying fully capable people with HIV from serving in positions as military officers.
A short time later, through support from Lambda Legal and an organization that later became the Modern Military Association of America, he filed his lawsuit challenging the military’s HIV policy that has led to what his supporters are calling the landmark event on Aug. 5 during which he became a commissioned officer.
Harrison, however, said the Army has interpreted the changed HIV rules in a way that has forced him to take his case once again to court to challenge a decision by Army officials to have him reapply to join the National Guard under the new policy rather than commission him as an officer retroactively based on his 23 years of military service.
Having to reapply, Harrison told the Washington Blade, would require him to serve in the National Guard for another eight years, even though he became eligible to retire in 2020. He has contested the decision to require him to reapply before the same court that overturned the military’s discriminatory HIV policy and before the Army Board for the Correction of Military Records, which he says has the authority to “rectify” the Army’s position on reenlistment.
Jennings of Lambda Legal said at Harrison’s commissioning ceremony that Harrison’s ongoing dispute with military officials indicates that some details related to Harrison’s case must still be worked out.
“But today we really should just celebrate Nick’s perseverance,” Jennings told the Blade. “His determination, and the fact that he has made history has paved the way for thousands of people.”
In his remarks following his commissioning, Harrison said among the lessons he has learned in his many years in the military is the need to be respectful of the military as an institution and to engage in “respectful disagreement” when at odds with others.
“When I chose to don the uniform, to become part of an institution that has had its share of failures, it was not a decision made lightly,” he said. “I embarked on this journey because I believe in the potential for change from within, in the power of standing up from within a marginalized community to serve, protect, and defend a nation that doesn’t always reciprocate in kind,” he told the gathering.
Harrison currently serves as managing partner for the downtown D.C. law firm Harrison-Stein.
District of Columbia
Billy Porter, Keke Palmer, Ava Max to perform at Capital Pride
Concert to be held at annual festival on June 9
The Capital Pride Alliance, the group that organizes D.C.’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, announced this week the lineup of performers for the Sunday, June 9, Capital Pride Concert to be held during the Capital Pride Festival on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. near the U.S. Capitol.
Among the performers will be nationally acclaimed singers and recording artists Billy Porter and Keke Palmer, who will also serve as grand marshals for the Capital Pride Parade set to take place one day earlier on Saturday, June 8.
The Capital Price announcement says the other lead performers will be Ava Max, Sapphira Cristal, and the pop female trio Exposé.
“The beloved pop icons will captivate audiences with upbeat performances coupled with their fierce advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights, echoing the vibrant spirit of this year’s theme, ‘Totally Radical,’” according to a statement released by Capital Pride Alliance.
“With Billy Porter and Keke Palmer leading the parade as Grand Marshals, we’re not only honoring their incredible contributions to the LGBTQ+ community but also amplifying their voices as fierce advocates for equality and acceptance,” Capital Pride Alliance Executive Director Ryan Bos said in the statement.
“The concert and festival serve as a platform to showcase the diverse array of LGBTQ+ talent, from the chart-topping hits of Ava Max to the iconic sounds of Exposé and the electrifying performances of Sapphira Cristal,” Bos said in the statement. “Capital Pride 2024 promises to be a celebration like no other.”
The concert will take place from 12-10 p.m. on the main stage and other stages across the four-block long festival site on Pennsylvania Avenue.
District of Columbia
200 turn out for ’Love Fest’ Drag Story Hour at Freddie’s
Performer reads stories to kids and parents as three protest outside
Between 200 and 250 people, including parents and their children, turned out on Saturday, May 4, for a “Love Fest” Drag Story Hour brunch hosted by the Arlington, Va., LGBTQ establishment Freddie’s Beach Bar and Restaurant.
Local drag performer Tara Hoot, who read children’s stories and handed out coloring books to the kids attending the event, was joined by members of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, which sang several songs before Hoot began reading from children’s books in keeping with the tradition of drag queens conducting Drag Story Hour events across the country.
The May 4 event at Freddie’s in the Crystal City section of Arlington took place four weeks after the start of a similar event hosted by Freddie’s was delayed by a bomb threat, forcing those who had arrived to exit through a rear door and wait in a parking lot as Arlington police conducted a search of the premises with a bomb sniffing dog. No trace of a bomb was found.
All the customers, including parents and their kids, were invited back inside and the show took place as planned.
No similar threat occurred at the May 4 event. But three male protesters assembled on the sidewalk next to the parking lot behind the Freddie’s building, with one of them shouting from a bullhorn passages from his Bible that he said indicated the Drag Story Hour event was an “abomination.”
The three protesters were outnumbered by nearly a dozen counter protesters who were members of the Rainbow Defense Coalition, an LGBTQ organization. They carried bright, rainbow-colored umbrellas while chanting messages of support for the Drag Story Hour event.
Freddie Lutz, Freddie’s Beach Bar owner, called the event a “smashing success” that brought an “outpouring of love from the community.” Lutz released a flier on social media promoting the Love Fest event shortly after the earlier event interrupted by the bomb threat as a showing of love “to stop the hate.”
“Join us for the next story time brunch dressed in your favorite rainbow/hippie outfit” and “carry your favorite homemade signs of support,” Lutz said in his promotional flier. He came to the event dressed in what he called his hippie protest outfit.
Lutz said while the protesters did not interrupt the event, he was concerned that their shouting was scaring some of the kids as they and their parents walked by the protesters to enter Freddie’s.
“I went out back and tried to talk to one of them and it was kind of like talking to a brick wall,” Lutz told the Washington Blade. “He was screaming at the parents that were crossing their kids on the crosswalk,” Lutz said. “And I said, you’re screaming at those kids, you’re scaring them.”
Lutz said the man told him he was yelling at the parents, not the kids. “And I said, no you’re not. The kids are hearing you. You’re scaring them.”
Added Lutz, “And to have such a fun-loving, happy show and then walk out on the sidewalk to that is very disheartening. It’s really sad. I told him my God is a forgiving and loving God.”
One of the protesters, who declined to disclose his name, said he and his two fellow protesters came to talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“We want them to know this is an abomination to the Lord,” he told the Blade. “We want them to know those children don’t have a voice and they’re being brainwashed in there. We’re here to call out their sin.”
Stephanie Krenrich, who brought her two-year-old daughter to the event, said she strongly disputes the claims of the protesters.
“I brought my daughter here because I think that it was a beautiful and wonderful show, and it was great for her,” she said. “And I think it’s pretty offensive when people come to Arlington and tell parents what to do, especially for something so beautiful and so fun and so wholesome,” she told the Blade.
“So that’s why I brought her,” Krenrich said. “I think that it’s really important that we stand up for our values and people just being themselves, being happy and being them.”
Among those who attended the event were four elected officials from Arlington – Virginia State Sen. Barbara Favola, Virginia State Del. Adele McClure, Arlington County Board member Maureen Coffee, and Arlington and Falls Church State’s Attorney Parisa Dehgani-Tafti.
Also attending was Nick Benton, editor and publisher of the LGBTQ supportive Falls Church, Va., News Press; and Kellen McBeth, president of the LGBTQ group Equality Arlington.
“It was fantastic to see so many people come out to support Freddie’s, to support the LGBTQ+ community,” McBeth said. “It was a great event and we’re happy to be a part of it.”
District of Columbia
Another successful Taste of Point fundraiser
Scholars praise financial, networking support
The Point Foundation hosted its annual Taste of Point DC fundraising event on Thursday with nine participating restaurants, a drag performance, and a silent auction.
The event was hosted on the rooftop of the Room & Board on 14th Street, with an afterparty at Shakers. Point donors, scholars, and alumni circled the rooftop eating chips and guacamole from Mi Vida and drinking Pinot Grigio from Barkada.
After about an hour of mingling the events began with event committee member, Kelly Horton and Kevin Kim Wright, chief of staff welcoming the crowd and speaking about the importance of their presence during this pivotal time in queer youth history. Then, Wright welcomed BIPOC Scholar Katherine Guerrero Rivera, saying she was a model of a Point scholar.
“We’re always impressed with all of our scholars and Katherine is another example of a student who is deeply engaged in their campus life and a myriad of projects, everything from creating her own podcast to being a part of a number of student organizations.” Wright said.
Rivera said that the Point Foundation scholarship helps her resist the pressure to drop out. She pointed out that just over 50 percent of Latina students who attend college graduate.
“The Point BIPOC Scholarship is not just financial support, Point has connected me with hundreds of people like me studying on campuses across the country.” she said.
Rivera is a criminology major and poetics minor at University of Maryland and said she hopes to use her degree to bring knowledge to her community through art and advocacy. She said it is important for her to take academic jargon and make it accessible to her community.
“Too often, the history of LGBTQ and people are ignored and silenced during our education,” she said. “I want to use my access to higher education and the chance to develop my creative skills to bring light to societal issues.”
She finished her speech with applause for the audience, then Horton came back with drag queen Tara Hoot to discuss ways donors could continue to support the Point Foundation.
After the lineup of events Wright said he felt great about the event, because it was a celebration of Point’s scholars.
“Some are interning for United States senators, some are volunteering for leading national non-profits, so to be able to celebrate all that’s being done here is truly amazing,”
Wright continued, thanking the D.C. restaurant community for consistently showing up in force to support Point.
“This really helps to paint the picture that this movement is growing,” he said. “People believe in this mission to provide LGBTQ young people with the opportunity to pursue their higher education goals, to improve their leadership abilities and then go on to make a significant impact on society.”
CLICK HERE to see more photos from Taste of Point.
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