District of Columbia
Trans woman found dead in D.C.’s Marvin Gaye Park
Police cite possible drug overdose, but victim’s aunt says it was a hate crime
D.C. police are investigating the unexplained death of a 30-year-old transgender woman, Skylar Harrison Reeves, whose partially naked body was found on a park bench in a secluded section of Marvin Gaye Park on Oct. 2.
A Metropolitan Police Department spokesperson told the Washington Blade detectives from the department’s natural death squad are investigating the case as detectives await a determination by the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of the cause and manner of death, which could take up to 60 days or more.
“This case remains under investigation, and at this time there is no additional information to provide,” said police spokesperson Elizabeth Grannis.
But Rhonda Hailes, Skylar’s aunt, told the Blade that a homicide detective came to her house in Capitol Heights, Md., where Skylar was living, to inform her that her niece was found deceased in a D.C. park with her belongings missing and the dress she was wearing pulled up over her head, with her breasts exposed.
Hailes said the detective, whose last name she recalls is McWilliams, came to her home on Monday, Oct. 2, shortly after he said her niece’s body was found in a secluded section of Marvin Gaye Park.
The park, which a Blade reporter visited on Oct. 16, consists of a long, narrow wooded area with a creek running in the middle with trees and bushes, park benches, a nature trail, and fitness equipment located throughout the park.
According to Hailes, Det. McWilliams said police think Skylar may have died from a drug overdose, but he didn’t say how police came to that possible conclusion. Hailes said the detective’s graphic description of what he saw after park employees initially found the body and called police leads her to believe her niece did not die from a drug overdose, even though she may have occasionally used drugs.
“Her dress was up over her head off her body, her hand was over her genitals, her breasts were exposed,” Hailes said the detective told her. “I have a history with drugs myself,’ Hailes said. “I’m not bragging about it, but I’ve ODed myself,” she told the Blade, adding that the circumstances surrounding the body of her niece made it unlikely if not impossible that the cause of death was a drug overdose.
“How was she outside partially naked?” said Hailes. “How was she there with her dress over her head and her tits exposed and her hand over her genital area? That does not happen when you OD,” she said, adding that someone experiencing an overdose loses consciousness and could not take off their clothes.
“And the way my niece was found, it was a hate crime,” Hailes said, pointing to additional details she said the police detective told her. “Her purse, her phone, her credit cards, all of that stuff was gone.”
And, according to Hailes, the detective also told her investigators could not find any footprints from the tennis shoes Skylar was wearing on the muddy ground along the path leading to where she was found.
As if that were not enough, Hailes said Skylar, who was gainfully employed at the time of her death, never hung out at Marvin Gaye Park, which has a reputation of being a place where transgender sex workers sometimes congregate. She said she went to the park a short time after her niece’s death and showed photos of Skylar to the people who were hanging out in the park. None of them said they recognized Skylar as among those who hang out at Marvin Gaye Park.
“So how did she get there?” Hailes continued, saying she asked the detective if someone might have carried her niece into the park to the site where her body was found. She said the detective would only say the investigation was continuing.
“I’m not saying my niece is perfect,” Hailes said. “Nobody is. But I will stake my life and tell you I know my niece. My niece never hung out on Division Avenue,” which runs along the border of part of Marvin Gaye Park and is an area where trans sex workers sometimes congregate.
Under longstanding D.C. police protocol, homicide detectives are almost always called to the scene of an unexplained death. But the homicide detectives usually turn over the case to the natural death squad detectives, who continue the investigation until the medical examiner makes a determination of the cause and manner of death. If the medical examiner rules the death a homicide, then the homicide unit takes over the investigation.
“She has been shunned and persecuted all her life for being who she is,” Hailes said of her niece Skylar. “Yet my niece, she was a beautiful beacon of life. She could have been in the darkest room and shined it bright.”
Transgender activist Iya Dammons, who heads the recently opened D.C. Safe Haven, which provides services to the local trans community as well as to the LGBTQ community, said Safe Haven helped to organize a candlelight vigil in honor of Skylar on Oct. 9 at the entrance to Marvin Gaye Park at the intersection of Division Avenue and Foote Street, N.E.
Dammons noted that Skylar’s death is among many deaths of transgender women of color in the D.C. area in recent years, some of which are related to a drug overdose, but others involve anti-trans violence.
“And my thought here is there is an outcry that this is happening, and I don’t think D.C. is actually paying attention to the crisis,” Dammons said.
Like all possible crimes that have yet to be solved, D.C. police ask anyone who has information that may help in their investigation to contact police at 202-727-9099. An anonymous tip can also be sent by text message to the police TEXT TIP LINE at 50411.
District of Columbia
HIV Vaccine Awareness Day set for May 18
Whitman-Walker joins nationwide recognition of efforts to develop vaccine
Whitman-Walker Health, the D.C.-based community healthcare center that specializes in HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ-related health services, will join health care advocates from across the country to support efforts to develop an HIV vaccine on HIV Vaccine Awareness Day on May 18.
“HIV Awareness Day, observed annually on May 18, was established to recognize and thank the volunteers, scientists, health professionals, and community members working toward a safe and effective prevention HIV vaccine,” Whitman-Walker said in a statement.
“Led by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the day is also an opportunity to educate communities about the critical importance of preventive HIV vaccine research,” the statement says.
It adds, “The reality is that any new vaccine discovery must be built community by community, institution by institution, and then it must reach everyone – especially the communities who have carried the heaviest burden of this epidemic.”
On its own website, the National Institutes of Health says HIV Vaccine Awareness Day also highlights its longstanding efforts, coordinated by its Office of AIDS Research, to support researchers’ efforts to develop an HIV vaccine.
“Researchers are making promising headway in efforts to develop a safe, effective HIV vaccine,” it says in a statement on its website.
A Whitman-Walker spokesperson said Whitman-Walker was not holding a specific event to observe HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, but it will recognize the day as a way of encouragement for its ongoing work to address the AIDS epidemic and support for vaccine research.
“Today, no one has to die from HIV,” said Whitman-Walker’s Health System division’s CEO, Dr. Heather Aaron in the Whitman-Walker statement. “We have the treatments, the technology, and the research to change outcomes, and yet people in our community are still dying from HIV//AIDS,” she said in the statement.
“That is unacceptable, and it is exactly why our work continues,” she added. “Here in D.C. with more focus on Southeast D.C., the Whitman-Walker Health System remains committed to making a difference through cutting-edge research, policy advocacy, and philanthropy, because fair access to life-saving treatment is not a privilege. It is a right.”
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats endorses Janeese Lewis George for D.C. mayor
Group also backed D.C. Council, Congressional delegate, AG candidates
The Capital Stonewall Democrats, D.C.’s largest local LGBTQ political organization, announced on May 14 that it has endorsed D.C. Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) for mayor in the city’s June 16 Democratic primary.
Lewis George along with former D.C. Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie (D-At-Large) are considered by political observers to be the two leading candidates among the seven candidates competing in the Democratic primary election for mayor.
Both have strong, long-standing records of support on LGBTQ issues, indicating Capital Stonewall Democrats members, like LGBTQ voters across the city, are likely choosing a candidate based on non-LGBTQ related issues.
In a May 14 statement, the group announced its endorsements in seven other Democratic primary races, including D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson, who is running unopposed in the primary. Also endorsed is D.C. Councilmember Robert White (D-At-Large), who is one of five Democratic candidates competing for the position of D.C. delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives.
D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) is among the four candidates competing with White for that post, and who like White has a strong record of support on LGBTQ issues.
In the At-Large D.C. Council race for which incumbent Anita Bonds is not running for re-election, Capital Stonewall Democrats has endorsed community activist and LGBTQ ally Oye Owolewa in a nine candidate race.
For the Ward 1 D.C. Council election, in which five LGBTQ supportive candidates are competing, the group did not make an endorsement because none of the candidate received a required 60 percent of the endorsement vote cast by Capital Stonewall Democrats members, according to the group’s former president, Howard Garrett.
The statement announcing its endorsements shows that it decided to list its “Preferred Ranking” of each of the Ward 1 Democratic candidates as part of the city’s newly implemented ranked choice voting system. It lists gay candidate Miguel Trindade Deramo as first, bisexual candidate Aparna Raj second, Jackie Reyes Yanes third, Rashida Brown fourth, and Terry Lynch fifth.
In the remaining ward Council races, Capital Stonewall Democrats endorsed Councilmember Matt Fruman (D-Ward 3), who is running unopposed for re-election; Councilmember Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), the Council’s only gay member who is being challenged by two opponents; and Councilmember Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who is running unopposed for re-election.
The group also chose not to make an endorsement in the special election for another At-Large D.C. Council seat that became vacant when then-Independent Councilmember McDuffie resigned to enable him to run for mayor as a Democrat. Under the city’s Home Rule Charter adopted by Congress, that at large sweat is restricted to a “non-majority party” candidate, meaning a non-Democrat.
The three candidates running for the seat, all Independents, include incumbent Doni Crawford, who was appointed to the seat earlier this year; former D.C. Councilmember Elissa Silverman; and Jacque Patterson. All three have expressed support on LGBTQ related issues.
“The organization’s endorsement process included candidate questionnaires, public forums, and direct voting by active CSD members,” the statement announcing its endorsements says. “Each endorsement reflects the collective voice of 173 LGBTQ+ Democrats who voted in the process and are committed to building lasting political power in the District,” according to the statement. “Candidates that reached 60 percent support received the endorsement.”
Garrett, the group’s former president, acknowledged that with nearly all candidates running in D.C. elections expressing strong support for the LGBTQ community, many if not most of the group’s members most likely chose a candidate based on issues other than LGBTQ related issues.
He said he believes Lewis George, who he is supporting and is viewed as a progressive candidate who self-identifies as a Democratic Socialist, compared to McDuffie, who is viewed as a moderate Democrat, captured the group’s endorsement based on the view that she is the best person to lead the city going forward.
“I believe that Capital Stonewall members voted for Janeese Lewis George because we’re tired of the status quo and we need a new, bold leader to not only move our city forward but also to stand up to Donald Trump and his administration,” Garrett told the Washington Blade.
McDuffie’s LGBTQ supporters, including former Capital Stonewall Democrats presidents David Meadows and Kurt Vorndran, have argued that McDuffie’s positions on a wide range of issues, including LGBTQ issues, show him to be the best candidates to lead the city at this time and In future years.
The group’s endorsement of Lewis George comes one week after GLAA DC, a nonpartisan LGBTQ advocacy group, awarded her its highest candidate rating of +10.
District of Columbia
Pride faith services in Washington, D.C.
Almost half of all LGBTQ adults in the U.S. are religious
Are you an LGBTQ person of faith or someone exploring spirituality? It is more common than people realize. According to a Williams Institute study published in October 2020, almost half of all LGBTQ adults in the United States are religious. This may seem counterintuitive as any LGBTQ people have complicated relationships with faith because of very real histories of abuse, trauma, and violence.
This violence still continues in the United States, especially following the Supreme Court’s March 2026 decision in Chiles v. Salazar, who ruled Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors violates the First Amendment, but not everyone has encountered this violence, nor do people who have faced it, separate themselves completely from religion. Many people may seek out affirming faith traditions which are prevalent in the DMV area.
For individuals seeking out faith services during Pride 2026, please check out the list below, which will be updated as more events are publicized.
Memorial Service for SaVanna Wanzer
May 17th at 1 pm
Westminster Presbyterian Church (400 I St SW, Washington, DC 20024)
Westminster Presbyterian will host a celebration of life for legendary DC trans rights activist and founder of DC Trans Pride and Black Trans Pride SaVanna Wanzer who was a long-time member of the church. Live music will begin at 12:15 pm before the start of the memorial service. The service will be livestreamed on the Westminster DC Facebook page. A meal will follow the Sunday service.
There will also be a celebratory vigil held on Saturday, May 16th from 6:30-8 pm for friends and family at the church led by LGBTQ organizer Rayceen Pendarvis.
May 23th at 11 am
Downtown Westin (999 9th Street NW, Washington, DC 20001)
This intimate conversation is hosted by Janeé Lee, founder of Queer Ministry, between Black trans and queer people who are surviving religious trauma and navigating their relationship with the church. The workshop, hosted as part of Trans Pride DC, is a chance for people to share their stories at the intersection of queerness and spirituality and to walk away with a spiritual healing guide with affirming scriptures and inclusive theology.
DC Black Pride Worship Service
May 24th at 10 am
Remnant Christian Center (120 West Hampton Avenue, Capitol Heights, MD)
Hosted by The Community Church of Washington DC-UCC, this service will feature speakers and sessions on Black queer faith and unity, including host and speaker Robert D. Wise Jr. for a powerful Pentecost Unity Service. Attendees are encouraged to come dressed in and white.
June 5th at 7 pm
Sixth & I (600 I Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001)
Join Rabbi Jenna will be leading an inclusive, musical service celebrating the diversity of Jewish life in Washington, DC. Happy Hour, which is limited to people 21 and older, will start at 6 pm. The service will start at 7 pm, with dinner at 8:15 pm. The service is free but registration is required, and the kosher-style pescatarian meal does cost money. Register online here.
June 14th at 5 pm
Black Cat (1811 14th St NW, Washington, DC 20009)
Muslim Pride is a community-led and funded grassroots performance series centering queer and trans Muslim artists through music, drag and dance. The series was originally founded in 2020 as a way to create affirming spaces where faith, culture, and queerness can coexist. This year’s series features Mercedes Iman Diamond. This year, Muslim Pride expands to Washington, DC, New York City, and Los Angeles. Buy tickets here.
Pride Celebrations and Sunday Worship Service
June 14th all day
Riverside Baptist Church (699 Maine Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20024)
Join Riverside Baptist Church for a day-long Pride celebration beginning with Pride Weekend/Musical Theater Sunday worship service at 10 am. Later that morning and early afternoon, from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm, the church will be hosting a Pride Pageant, a technicolor celebration featuring a runway showcase, line dancing, food, and refreshments.
June 22nd at 7 pm
St. Mark’s Episocpal Church (301 A Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003)
Join this interfaith service celebrating affirming faith traditions and intertradition dialogue hosted by queer and trans faith leaders. The interfaith service has been hosted annually for over 40 years, and first began back in the 1980s with faith leaders and queer people of faith coming together to mourn and pray at the site of the AIDS Memorial Quilt on the National Mall. Learn more about the history of the interfaith service here.
June 23rd at 6 pm
Holy Trinity Catholic Church (3513 N St NW, Washington, DC 20007)
Holy Trinity will be hosting its 6th annual Pride Mass. After its debut this past summer, the Pride Mass choir will be singing at the Pride Mass in June, and following the Mass, there will be an annual reception with ice cream and other goodies. Learn more about attending the reception and Holy Trinity’s LGBTQ+ Ministry.
‘The Inheritance’ is most-nominated at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards
HIV Vaccine Awareness Day set for May 18
DC Black Pride is around the corner
United Night Out set for Saturday
Calendar: May 15-21
America’s broken pipeline of mental healthcare for trans youth
Senate Democrats press DOJ over anti-trans prison directives
Anti-LGBTQ violence prevention efforts highlighted at D.C. community fair
Celebrated performer Rose Levine plays Rehoboth on May 15
Washington Blade’s Pride on the Pier returns June 13 to kick off D.C. Pride week
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National4 days agoAmerica’s broken pipeline of mental healthcare for trans youth
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Federal Government5 days ago
Senate Democrats press DOJ over anti-trans prison directives
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District of Columbia5 days ago
Anti-LGBTQ violence prevention efforts highlighted at D.C. community fair
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Rehoboth Beach5 days ago
Celebrated performer Rose Levine plays Rehoboth on May 15
