FEBRUARY 03, 2017 VOLUME 48 ISSUE 05 AMERICAS LGBT NEWS SOURCE WASHINGTONBLADE.

COM

Swift opposition genius of the late justice was in my mind

to Gorsuch over
religious freedom rulings
By CHRIS JOHNSON
cjohnson@washblade.com
President Trump ended speculation
Tuesday night on whom hed select to replace
the late U.S. Associate Justice Antonin Scalia
with the nomination of Neil Gorsuch and
LGBT advocates wasted no time in quickly
condemning the choice.
Announcing his choice of Gorsuch who
has served for a decade as a George W. Bush-
appointed judge on the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court
of Appeals Trump in the East Room of the
White House said his choice makes good on
his campaign promise to limit his U.S. Supreme
Court judicial picks to a list of pre-selected names
and to appoint judges in the mold of Scalia.
Praising Scalias widow, who was
seated in the audience at the time of the
announcement, Trump said the image and
throughout the decision-making process.
The comparison of Gorsuch to Scalia,
who wrote scathing dissents in major U.S.
Supreme Court decisions in favor of gay
rights wasnt lost on LGBT advocates
opposing his nomination.
Shannon Minter, legal director ofthe National
Center for Lesbian Rights, came out swinging
against Gorsuch, calling him an extreme
candidate based on his judicial rulings.
We strongly oppose this nomination,
Minter said. Gorsuch has embraced extreme
positions far outside the mainstream of most
jurists, including a dangerously radical view of
religious liberty that would undermine anti-
discrimination protections for LGBT people
and others. We are deeply disappointed by
President Trumps choice of such an extreme
candidate, whose views pose a real threat to
our nations core principles of equality and
freedom for all, and urge the Senate to reject
his nomination.
NEIL GORSUCHs ruling in the Hobby Lobby case has been called troubling
CONTINUES ON PAGE 15 by LGBT advocates.

Funds at risk in attack
on sanctuary cities
By LOU CHIBBARO JR.
lchibbaro@washblade.com
LGBT community service organizations like
Whitman-Walker Health, Casa Ruby, and SMYAL could
face a sharp cutback or loss of D.C. government funds
under an executive order issued on Jan. 25 by President
Donald Trump aimed at so-called sanctuary cities.
In remarks delivered at the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security on the day he issued his order,
Trump said sanctuary cities like D.C., Los Angeles,
New York, and Chicago, among others, were causing
immeasurable harm to the American people and to
the very fabric of our Republic by refusing to help the
federal government identify and deport undocumented
residents, according to the Washington Post.
The executive order, which some observers say is
vaguely worded, calls on the Department of Homeland
Security to cut back on federal funds, except as
mandated by law to sanctuary cities that refuse to
cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
D.C. budget ocials told the Washington Post that
Trumps use of the word funds in his executive order
could be interpreted to include a wide range of federal
funding to the city, possibly including $2.5 billion in
annual federal funds for Medicaid. The total cutback
in funds possibly could amount to about 20 percent of
the citys total annual spending, the Post reported.
When asked by the Washington Blade at a Jan. 28
event hosted by the LGBT charitable group Brother
CONTINUES ON PAGE 16
0 2 F E B RUA RY 0 3, 2017 W A SH I N G T O N BLA D E . CO M

50th Anniversary
Season
JOSHUA BELL, violin
Sam Haywood, piano
John Lithgow, reading
Fri, Feb 10, 8pm Kennedy Center
Violin virtuoso plays Beethoven, Brahms, and moreincluding JFK
centennial tribute with reading by famed actor John Lithgow.
This Washington Performing Arts recital is part of Joshua Bells residency with the Kennedy Center and National Symphony
Orchestra from Feb 7-12

CAMERON CARPENTER, organ

Fri, Mar 3, 8pm Strathmore
Extravagantly talentedfantastical and memorableNew York Times
Special thanks: Drs. Irene Roth and Vicken Poochikian

BRAD MEHLDAU
Three Pieces After Bach Carpenter
Inspired pairing of classical and jazz from renowned piano master
Thu, Mar 16, 8pm Sixth & I
Special thanks: Abramson Family Foundation

NUFONIA MUST FALL

Composed and performed by DJ Kid Koala with the Afiara Quartet
Turntables and string quartet plus puppetry, live video, and more!
Sat, Mar 18, 8pm GW Lisner Auditorium
Special thanks: Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation; The National Endowment for the Arts; The Embassy of Canada and
The Quebec Government Office Bell Mehldau

Avital Meets Avital

AVI AVITAL & OMER AVITAL
Jazz meets the Middle East
Sat, Mar 25, 8pm Sixth & I
Special thanks: Abramson Family Foundation

ANOUSHKA SHANKAR, sitar

Sat, Apr 8, 7pm & 9:30pm Sixth & I Nufonia Must Fall A. Avital & O. Avital
Special thanks: The Abramson Family Foundation

ARIODANTE
JOYCE DiDONATO, mezzo-soprano &
THE ENGLISH CONCERT
Tue, May 2, 8pm Kennedy Center
The magnificent mezzo joins the English Concert for a concert performance of
Handels tale of obsession and betrayal.
Co-presented with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Vocal Arts DC. Special thanks: Northern Trust Shankar DiDonato
50th Anniversary Season Sponsors: Dr. Gary Mather and Ms. Christina Co Mather

WashingtonPerformingArts.org (202) 785-9727

W A SH I N GTO NB LAD E.C OM F E BRU A RY 0 3 , 2 0 1 7 0 3

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0 4 F E B RUA RY 0 3, 2017
Comings & Goings
Quintero to Healthsperien;
Pullen lands at Georgetown
By PETER ROSENSTEIN
The Comings & Goings column is about sharing
the professional successes of our community.
We want to recognize those landing new jobs,
new clients for their business, joining boards of
organizations and other achievements. Please
share your successes with us at comingsandgo-
ings@washblade.com.
Congratulations
to Ray Quintero,
now a principal
at Healthsperien,
LLC, a D.C.-based
consulting and
legal services rm
focused on strategic
issues operating
at the intersection
of public policy,
business strategy
RAY QUINTERO and government
aairs.The company
helps organizations
navigate the complexities of health care
policy, politics and regulation.
Quintero has a wide range of expertise
New study suggests
widespread underreporting
By LOU CHIBBARO JR.
lchibbaro@washblade.com
A report released last week by the D.C.
Oce of Human Rights says the citys
public middle schools and high schools
submitted records showing that less than
1 percent of their students reported being
bullied during the 2015-2016 school year.
The report points out that those
numbers are at odds with the citys Youth
Risk Behavior Survey, which consists of
a condential questionnaire given to all
students in public middle schools and
public high schools, including public
charter schools.
The latter survey, which is designed
by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, found that 31 percent of
middle school students and 12 percent
of high school students reported being
subjected to bullying during the same
school year.
That survey also found that 29 percent
of lesbian, gay, and bisexual middle
school students and 40 percent of LGB
in health care, spanning the care and
management spectrum including
patients, providers, educators, payers
and pharmaceutical manufacturers. Prior
to joining Healthsperien, he served as
senior vice president of Public Policy at the
American Osteopathic Association (AOA)
in D.C. and Chicago. As part of the senior
leadership team, he led and executed the
overall strategic vision of the AOA, a national
membership organization comprised of
nearly 130,000 osteopathic physicians
and medical students nationwide. He
oversaw the AOAs diverse Federal & State
government relations program. During
his tenure at the AOA, Quintero led the
associations eorts on many issues,
including Medicare physician payment,
medical liability reform and graduate
medical education. He also represented
the American College of Osteopathic Family
Physicians as its director of government
relations.
Quintero has also held government
relations positions at Merck
Pharmaceuticals, Blue Cross Blue Shield
Association and served as vice president
of Strategic Alliances at SevenTwenty
Strategies, where he provided grassroots
and public aairs counsel to a range of
high school students reported being
subjected to bullying. The survey did not
include information about transgender
students.
The Oce of Human Rights Report,
Youth Bullying Prevention in the District
of Columbia: School Year 2015-2016
Report, says the bullying data collected
by the public schools do not break down
their data for LGBT students.
Although the District has one o the
lowest rates of bullying as self-reported
by middle and high school students on
the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, these
numbers are still extraordinarily high,
the report says. Thirty one percent of
middle school students and 12 percent
of high school students mean that over
6,000 of D.C.s 6th through 12th graders
feel as though they have been bullied in
the past year, it says.
Bullying is linked to several detrimental
outcomes ranging from decreased
academic achievement and increased
school absenteeism to increased risk
for suicidality, the report continues.
Eectively addressing and preventing
bullying remains a critical priority for the
District.
Suzanne Greeneld, director of
health care clients.
Quintero is a native of Arizona. He received
his bachelors degree in political science from
the University of Arizona, where he served as
student body president and on the Arizona
Alumni Association Board.
Congratulations
also to Bill Pullen on
his new position at
Georgetown University
as program co-
director, Georgetown
University Leadership
Coaching Program. The
coaching program is
housed in the Institute
of Transformational
Leadership. Pullen will
also continue to run his
BILL PULLEN own company.
Pullen is president
of BPA Coaching and
Consulting. He is an executive coach and
organizational development consultant who
provides executive coaching, team coaching
and leadership development services to
both public and private organizations. His
work focuses on developing current and
emerging leaders, building leadership
capacity within organizations and aligning
the Oce of Human Rights Citywide
Bullying Prevention Program, said the
bullying report represents the second
such annual report mandated under
regulations associated with the Youth
Bullying Prevention Act of 2012.
That act, which was passed by the D.C.
Council and signed by then Mayor Vincent
Gray, requires all of the citys public
schools and public charter schools to put
in place approved bullying prevention
policies and practices.
Local LGBT advocacy organizations
were part of a coalition of groups that
pushed hard for the passage of the Youth
Bullying Prevention Act. The LGBT groups
pointed to national studies showing that
LGBT students and youth are subjected
to bullying at a signicantly higher rate
than straight students.
Greeneld said her oce is working
with school ocials to take steps to
improve the reporting of bullying for the
2017-2018 school year. She said the nal
implementation regulations associated
with the Youth Bullying Prevention Act
were not completed until around the
spring of 2016, which made it dicult for
many of the individual schools to develop
policies for reporting incidents of bullying
WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
LO CA L N E W S
leader behavior with organizational strategy
and mission needs. He has delivered
individual and team coaching to a wide
range of organizations.
Pullen is known for his straightforward,
insightful approach to helping people
and organizations identify behaviors
that promote or detract from leader
eectiveness. Taking a systematic approach,
he uses a cycle of assessment, challenge and
support to accelerate development, enhance
performance and build leadership identity,
presence, behaviors and skills. Through the
use of various assessment instruments, he
is able to give targeted feedback and create
development plans that align with the needs
of both the individual and the organization.
His approach reinforces coaching and
feedback, by creating a cycle of action and
learning that leads to sustained, eective
improvement in performance.
Pullen has a bachelors degree from
Thomas Jeerson University in Philadelphia
and a masters in Organizational Development
from Johns Hopkins University. He is a Master
Certied Coach through the International
Coach Federation. He has done advanced
coach training in adult development,
neuroscience and consciousness and
systems and team coaching.
in time for the OHR report released last
week.
According to Greeneld, she and school
ocials are also looking at another school
bullying survey that tested the use of two
dierent denitions of bullying. One was
identical to the denition used in the
Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The other
rened the denition to reect what
Greeneld said is a power imbalance
believed by experts to be a key factor in
how bullying is carried out.
Similar to the Youth Risk Behavior
Survey, the new survey, conducted by the
National Center for Education Statistics,
dened bullying in the rst of two test
versions as an incident when one or
more students tease, threaten, spread
rumors about, hit, shove or hurt another
student.
But the second version added new
language saying, It is not bullying
when students of about the same
strength or power argue or ght or
tease each other in a friendly way.
Bullies are usually stronger, or have
more friends or money, or some other
power over the student being bullied.
CONTINUES AT WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
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 WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

0 6 F EB RUA RY 0 3 , 2017 I N T E RN A T I O N A L N E W S

LGBT voices join protest of immigration ban

community could be seen at the
demonstration at the White House on
Sunday. Many refugees coming to the
United States are eeing persecution
based on their sexual orientation or
gender identity. One perpetuator of anti-
LGBT violence is the Islamic State of Iraq
& Syria, which has a reputation for killing
men perceived as gay by throwing them
from the rooftops of buildings.
Joe Sudbay, a gay D.C.-based progressive
activist and blogger, was among those
at the demonstration and said it was
important to make your voice heard in
front of the White House against Trump.
Donald Trump needs to know, the
American people, the people of D.C., do
not stand for hate, do not stand for the
Muslim ban, do not stand for his wall,
Sudbay said. Were vehemently opposed
to his policies. Hes out of touch, and we
need to tell him, and we need to tell him
all the time.
Amid continuing fallout, President
Trump defended his executive order in a
statement Sunday, blaming the media for
falsely reporting the action as a Muslim
ban.

Demonstrators lled Lafayette Park for a White House protest to denounce Trumps latest
immigration order.
Trump says policy about
keeping our country safe
By CHRIS JOHNSON
cjohnson@washblade.com
Waving signs reading Why Do We
Fear Those Most Needing Help? and
We Are All Immigrants, demonstrators
who oppose President Trumps latest
executive order against refugees and
immigrants from Muslim-majority
Middle Eastern countries lled Lafayette
Park Sunday to denounce the policy as
contrary to Americas values.
The protest, organized by Peace for Iran,
comes the day after widespreadoutrage
as travelers were detained at U.S. airports
as the result of Trumps directive. Decried
as a Muslim ban, LGBT advocates were
among those who condemned the policy.
Kent Fogg, a gay 31-year-old D.C.
resident, said he came to protest the
executive order because he opposed
it based on his experience working for
human rights overseas in Kosovo, a
Muslim-majority country.
I just spent the last two years living
as a guest in a majority Muslim country
in Kosovo, Fogg said. Everyone was
not only incredibly open and welcoming
to me, but they look to America as a
model of a place thats welcoming. And
as a country in the Balkans that recently
had its own refugee crisis, you heard the
personal stories of what people went
through, why people become refugees,
and its just inhumane and against
everything we stand for for us not to
have the compassion thats required to
respond to the situations that are going
WASHINGTON BLADE PHOTO BY CHRIS JOHNSON
on, and to let people in regardless of their
religious or ethnic backgrounds.
The order bans from the United States
all Syrian refugees; blocks all refugees
from entering the United States for 120
days pending review; reduces the total of
number of refugees allowed for scal year
2017 from 110,000 to 50,000; institutes
a religious test favoring Christians
from Muslim-majority countries; and for
at least 90 days bans immigration from
seven countries Iraq, Iran, Sudan,
Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia even
by legal permanent residents of the
United States. (Senior administration
ocials said legal permanent residents
from those countries can obtain a waiver
to enter the United States.)
After Trump signed the order,
immigrants coming from those nations
were detained at airports, prompting
demonstrations at airports throughout
the country. One traveller, Hameed
Khalid Darweesh, an Iraqi translator
who assisted the U.S. government, was
detained at JFK Airport until Reps. Nydia
Velzquez (D-N.Y.) and Jerrold Nadler
(D-N.Y.) came to assist.
As a result of litigation led by the
American Civil Liberties Union, U.S.
District Judge Ann Donnelly issued an
order requiring the release of individuals
detained at airports, which includes
immigrants with approved refugee
applications, valid immigrant and non-
immigrant visas and immigrants from the
seven countries where all immigration
was halted who are otherwise authorized
to enter the United States. The order
doesnt enjoin the federal government
from enforcing Trumps directive in its
entirety.
A strong presence from D.C.s LGBT
Gay Iranian detained,
released on U.S. cruise ship
A gay Iranian man who has a green card and works in the San Francisco
Bay area as a chemical engineer was detained by U.S. Customs agents Sunday
morning while disembarking from a cruise ship in Fort Lauderdale at the
conclusion of a seven-day gay cruise.
Maysam Sodagari, 32, who has lived in the U.S. for the past nine years, is
believed to be the rst known case of a cruise ship passenger getting caught
up in President Donald Trumps controversial executive order on immigration
issued Jan. 27.
The order temporarily banned refugees and immigrants, including visa and
green card holders, from entering the U.S. from seven mostly Muslim countries,
including Iran.
White House Chief of Sta Reince Priebus sought to quell confusion over the
order during an interview Sunday morning on NBCs Meet the Press, when he
said the order doesnt include green card holders going forward.
Sodagari received a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of
Akron in Ohio in 2013, according to his LinkedIn page, which says he received
his bachelors degree also in chemical engineering at the University of Tehran
in 2007.
Wayne Sobon, one of his friends from San Francisco, told the Washington
Blade that Sodagari obtained U.S. political asylum at some point after rst
entering the U.S.
Sodagari gave a rst-hand account of his concern over being confronted with
the Trump executive order in several Facebook postings beginning Saturday,
expressing concern that he might be forced to return to Iran.
Human rights activists have reported that Iranian authorities are known to
have executed people accused of committing homosexual acts.
I left the port with a legal status for a Gay Cruise, he wrote in one of his
postings on the day before the cruise ship Allure of the Seas was scheduled
to arrive at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale after touring several Caribbean
islands.
Now I may not be able to enter the U.S. tomorrow, he wrote in that posting.
My future is all unclear just by a sudden change in the law. If I get detained and
sent back to Iran, at least I lived the life to the fullest as a gay man in the U.S., and
I want to thank you all [for] being part of the experience.
Upon the ships arrival in port Sunday morning, Sodagari posted a series of
short reports saying he was told he had to undergo an interview with customs
ocials and was waiting for about two hours. Finally, about three hours after
saying he had been detained, he stated in a post, I am free to go back home.
Later in the day he told the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel the customs ocials
who questioned him were very nice, friendly and professional.
LOU CHIBBARO JR.
W A SH I N GTO NB LAD E.C OM F E BRU A RY 0 3 , 2 0 1 7 0 7

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0 8 F EB RUA RY 0 3 , 2017
Despite pledge, fears persist of anti-LGBT action from Trump
Gay lawyer says everyone
should take a deep breath
By CHRIS JOHNSON
cjohnson@washblade.com
Despite White House assurances
that President Trump will keep in
place Obamas order against anti-LGBT
workplace discrimination and that he
continues to be respectful and supportive
of LGBTQ rights, advocacy leaders insist
those words arent good enough and still
anticipate executive action that would
harm LGBT people.
James Esseks, director of the LGBT
project at the American Civil Liberties
Union, was among those saying the
pledge isnt good enough, citing the anti-
LGBT nominees Trump chose for his
Cabinet and his other actions against
minority groups.
Actions speak louder than words,
Esseks said. President Trump has
surrounded himself with a vice
president and cabinet members who
have repeatedly sought to sanction
discrimination against LGBT people in
the name of religion, and nothing in the
White Houses statement makes clear
that these eorts are behind us. LGBT
immigrants, refugees, Muslims, and
women have already come under attack
by this administration. If Donald Trump is
serious about being an ally to the LGBT
community, it starts with abandoning an
agenda driven by fear and prejudice.
Following a Washington Post report
that the Trump administration was
considering rolling back an executive
order former President Obama signed
in 2014 barring anti-LGBT workplace
discrimination among federal contractors,
the White House issued a statement
saying Trump continues to be respectful
and supportive of LGBTQ rights and the
order will remain intact at the direction
of President Donald J. Trump.
But Trump found no love from LGBT
advocacy groups, who continue to raise
fears about possible discriminatory
eorts at a later time.
Rea Carey, executive director of the
National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund,
said Trump has already demonstrated
hes no friend to LGBT people with his
executive orders on immigration, which
include a green light to build a wall on
the U.S.-Mexico border, a prohibition
on refugees and a ban on immigration
from seven Muslim-majority countries
considered high risk for terrorism.
The truth is he has been playing
deeply harmful games with LGBTQ
peoples lives throughout his campaign
and every single day of his days-old
presidency, Carey said. The problem
Anti-LGBT action is still feared from President DONALD TRUMP.
for him is we are everywhere so when
he signs executive orders designed to
demonize and dehumanize anyone
Muslims, women, refugees, people
of color, immigrants he is attacking
us all. President Trump does not get
bonus points for discriminating a little.
Discrimination is discrimination. Racism
is racism. Islamophobia is Islamophobia.
Mara Keisling, executive director of the
National Center for Transgender Equality,
said LGBT people arent out of the woods
yet and for even considering a reversal
of the executive order, as reported by
the Washington Post, Trump deserves
condemnation.
The fact that proactively discriminating
against transgender and other LGBT
people was even being discussed in the
White House is shameful, as is the fact
that there are other options still on the
table to target LGBT Americans, Keisling
said. This limited retreat certainly does
not make President Trump an ally to
transgender Americans. He is certainly
not an ally to transgender refugees,
transgender Muslims, or transgender
people who depend on the Aordable
Care Act or Planned Parenthood.
Kate Kendell, executive director of the
National Center for Lesbian Rights, also
said in a statement she remains concerned
despite the White House pledge to protect
the Obama-era executive order.
Todays statement says only that
President Trump does not intend to take
the extreme step of abolishing existing
anti-discrimination protections for
WASHINGTON BLADE FILE PHOTO BY MICHAEL KEY
federal employees and contractors, some
of which have been in place for nearly
20years, Kendell said. That is not a step
forward. We remain concerned by reports
that the president intends to issue an
order creating new religious exemptions
that will permit discrimination against
LGBT people and others.
Kendell said the statement on
preserving the executive order may be an
attempt by the White House to distract
LGBT people from Trumps upcoming
pick for the U.S. Supreme Court, which
she called the most important issue for
our community.
The Senate must reject any nominee
who will turn back the clock on our
nations commitment to the equality and
freedom of LGBT people, including the
fundamental right to marry and to be
treated equally to other married couples,
Kendell said.
Trump could keep his pledge to
maintain Obamas order and enable
discrimination with a new religious
freedom executive order providing a
carve-out for religious-aliated federal
contractors. But the phrase in the White
House statement saying the workplace
executive order will remain intact
suggests Trump would not only keep it in
place, but also not take other action that
would inhibit the directive.
In terms of evidence that further anti-
LGBT executive actions might unfold,
LGBT advocates cite unattributed rumors
in Washington and point to media
reports suggesting a religious freedom
WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
NATIONAL NEWS
order against LGBT rights is under
consideration. Bloomberg News reported
over the weekend possible executive
actions under Trump include allowing
contractors to discriminate in hiring,
allowing taxpayer-funded workers to
refuse to serve LGBT people or enabling
discrimination where contractors could
refuse service to LGBT people.
On Monday, Washington Post columnist
Josh Rogin issued a series of tweets
saying a senior administration ocial has
armed the existence of a draft executive
order that could aect federal employee
benets and protections as well as
adoption agencies that receive federal
funding. The potential order, Rogin
tweeted, could allow federal employees
to refuse to serve LGBT people out of a
belief marriage is one man, one woman
and gender is immutable at birth.
Dale Carpenter, a conservative law
professor at the SMU Dedman School of
Law whos written about LGBT rights, said
everyone should take a deep breath and
actually read the statement the White
House produced.
All sorts of terrible things are possible,
but so far, at least on this one issue,
this is the one bright spot in the Trump
administration as far as I can tell,
Carpenter said. And obviously, we have
to remain vigilant, but I really would
not give in at this point to a whole lot of
unsubstantiated rumors. My God! Did any
of these people actually read what he said
yesterday? Its remarkable. If George W.
[Bush] had said that, there would be a gay
Pride parade in front of the White House.
If Trump were to follow up on the statement
with an executive order taking away spousal
benets from federal employees, Carpenter
said, it would defy the U.S. Supreme Courts
rulings against the Defense of Marriage Act
and in favor of same-sex marriage and be
struck down in court.
I think the idea the federal
government would try to take away
marital benets from same-sex couples is
pretty far-fetched and it would be clearly
unconstitutional under the Windsor
and also, I think, under the Obergefell
decision, which applied to the states, but
the principles apply equally to the federal
government, Carpenter said.
Carpenter said Trump could sign an
executive order enabling contractors and
adoption agencies to deny services to
LGBT people, but that wouldnt change
theexisting obligation at the federal level
for these entities to serve LGBT people.
If he signed an executive order, that
would just put it in place a little more
strongly, but it wouldnt eectively
change anything thats going on right
now, Carpenter said.
CONTINUES AT WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
W A SH I N GTO NB LAD E.C OM F E BRU A RY 0 3 , 2 0 1 7 0 9

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1 0 F EB RUA RY 0 3 , 2017
The Boy Scouts will now accept trans boys.
WASHINGTON BLADE FILE PHOTO BY MICHAEL KEY
Boy Scouts to admit trans youth
The Boy Scouts of America has changed its policy to admit transgender youth
who identify as male, marking the latest change in LGBT inclusion for the nearly
106-year-old institution.
Ee Delimarkos, director of communications for the Boy Scouts of America,
conrmed the change to the Washington Blade in a statement amid widespread
media reports of the new policy.
Starting today, we will accept and register youth in the Cub and Boy Scout
programs based on the gender identity indicated on the application, Delimarkos
said. Our organizations local councils will help nd units that can provide for
the best interest of the child.
Delimarkos said the old policy of the Boy Scouts which relied on childrens
birth certicates to determine their gender identity wasnt working as
communities and state laws are interpreting gender identity dierently, and
these laws vary widely from state to state. In addition to new transgender
inclusive non-discrimination laws, courts are now interpreting federal laws
prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex to apply to transgender people.
The BSA is committed to identifying program options that will help us truly
serve the whole family, and this is an area that we will continue to thoughtfully
evaluate to bring the benets of scouting to the greatest number of youth
possible all while remaining true to our core values, outlined in the Scout Oath
and Law, Delimarkos said.
The news comes one-and-a-half years after the Boy Scouts changed its policy
to begin admitting openly gay troop leaders for the rst time and almost four
years after it lifted its ban on gay youth.
As president of the United States, President Trump is honorary president of
the Boy Scouts of America. The Washington Blade has placed a request with
the White House to see if he supports the new trans-inclusive policy ofthe Boy
Scouts.
During his tenure in the White House, President Obama called on the Boy
Scouts to lift its gay bans and applauded when the organization lifted its ban on
children who identify as gay and the ban on adult leaders.
CHRIS JOHNSON
Religious freedom bill advances in Va.
Virginia lawmakers in recent days have approved three LGBT-specic bills.
The Virginia Senate on Jan. 27 approved state Sen. Jennifer Wexton (D-Loudoun
County)s Senate Bill 822, which would add LGBT-specic protections to the Virginia Fair
Housing Law, by a 25-14 vote margin. Senators on the same day approved state Sen.
Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria)s Senate Bill 783, which would ban discrimination against state
employees based on sexual orientation and gender identity, by a 25-14 vote margin.
WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
NATIONAL NEWS
The Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus congratulated Ebbin for getting SB783
passed.
Both SB 783 and SB 822 have been referred to the Virginia House of Delegates
General Laws Committee.
The committee on Jan. 26 approved a vaguely worded religious freedom bill by a 14-8
vote margin.
House Bill 2025, which state Del. Nick Freitas (R-Culpeper) introduced, would prohibit
the state from punishing anyone who refuses to ociate a same-sex marriage if it
violates their religious beliefs. Equality Virginia is among the LGBT advocacy groups that
oppose the Culpeper Republicans measure.
The right to practice ones own religion is already rmly protected in the U.S.
Constitution, said Human Rights Campaign Legal Director Sarah Warbelow in a
statement after the committee approved HB 2025. In truth, this legislation has nothing
to do with religious freedom and everything to do with taxpayer-funded discrimination
against LGBTQ people.
Virginia lawmakers should look closely at the fallout in North Carolina and the states
deeply discriminatory HB2 law before plowing down a similarly destructive path, she
added.
Gov. Terry McAulie vetoed a similar bill in 2016. The Senate failed to override the
governors veto.
MICHAEL K. LAVERS
SBA deletes LGBT content from website
The Small Business Administration is the latest government agency to delete LGBT-
related content from its website in the aftermath ofDonald Trumps inauguration.
The LGBT content on the SBA website was formerly found at sba.gov/content/
lgbt-outreach and sba.gov/about-sba-navigation-structure/lgbt-outreach. It wasnt
immediately clear when it was removed. The LGBT content is also missing from a cached
version of the webpage dated Jan. 25 found using Googles search engine.
The changes to the SBA site are consistent with similar changes to the White House
website as well as the website for the State Department, which deleted a recent
apology from former Secretary of State John Kerry over the 1950s era lavender scare
rings of gay people in the federal government. Initially, a report on LGBT workplace
discrimination was removed from the Labor Department, but that has since been
restored.
With regard to the White House website, a White House ocial said the Obama
administration agreed to remove its content before handing over the website to the
Trump administration. The ocial said the new material on the website is forthcoming,
but didnt respond to a follow-up inquiry on whether LGBT content would be restored.
Terry Sutherland, an SBA spokesperson, oered a similar explanation in response to
a Washington Blade inquiry about the missing LGBT content on the SBA website under
the Trump administration.
As you would expect with any new administration coming in, websites throughout
the federal government are currently under construction and review, Sutherland said.
As more policies are developed the websites will be populated with more information.
The webpage for LGBT outreach previously contained quotes and photos from Obama
administration ocials, which would be unusual for the Small Business Administration
to maintain in the Trump administration.
Pressed on whether the LGBT content would return, Sutherland said the entire
website is under review and construction and at this time he cannot tell you what
pages will be restored or not.
Under the Obama administration, the SBA undertook signicant eorts to engage
with LGBT-owned businesses. In 2012, the SBA signed a memorandum of understanding
to work with the the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and in 2015, the
SBA and NGLCC jointly launched an LGBT Business Builder campaign, which included
day-long training sessions and networking to obtain federal contracts. That program
won an award from Harvard University. Last year, the SBA named Brooke McDonnell
and Helen Russell two lesbians who own and operate Equator Coees & Teas in San
Rafael, Calif. as small business person of the year.
Justin Nelson, co-founder and president of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of
Commerce, said he expects restoration of the LGBT material and SBAs partnerships
with LGBT-owned businesses to continue.
The NGLCC and SBA have a long history creating business opportunities for the LGBT
community, starting with the multiyear Strategic Alliance Memorandum we signed in
2012, and we expect to continue being strong partners, Nelson said. We look forward
to resources and information that benet LGBT business owners returning to the SBA
website after the traditional transition edits are made.
CHRIS JOHNSON
WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
I N T E RNA TI O N A L NEWS
Blade announces 2017 Latin America reporting project
Special focus on progress,
challenges facing region
By MICHAEL K. LAVERS
mlavers@washblade.com
Washington Blade International
News Editor Michael K. Lavers will travel
throughout Latin America in 2017 as part
of the newspapers ongoing commitment
to coveringLGBT issues around the world.
Lavers will report from Guatemala, El
Salvador and Honduras from Jan. 28-Feb.
13. The Blade is also planning to report
from Cuba, Colombia and Chile and attend
LGBT and intersex conferences throughout
Latin America in the coming months.
Lavers will interview LGBT activists,
politicians and candidates while in Central
America. He will also report on anti-LGBT
violence and discrimination that remains
rampant throughout Guatemala, El
Salvador and Honduras.
President Trump last week signed
two executive orders that spur the
construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico
border and expedite the deportation of
undocumented immigrants. Activists with
whom the Blade has spoken say these
mandates will have a sweeping impact
throughout Central America.
This new project will shine a light on
the challenges and progress in Latin
America related to LGBT rights, said
Blade editor Kevin Na. We will work to
hold elected ocials accountable, report
on hate crimes, expose the cruelty of HIV
UK pardons thousands convicted under anti-gay laws
Bill named after
mathematician Alan Turing
By MAXIMILIAN SYCAMORE
A law that contains a posthumous
pardon for the thousands of gay and
bisexual men convicted under anti-gay
laws in the U.K. between 1885-2003
received royal assent on Tuesday.
This is an important milestone, and
will help draw a line under the damage
caused to many thousands of lives, said
Stonewall, a British LGBT advocacy group,
in a statement on the Policing and Crime
Act 2017.
The law only applies to England and
Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland
have their own legislative bodies.
Stonewall had originally called for all
gay and bisexual men, alive or dead, to be
pardoned, though the British government
refused. Instead, those still living can
LGBT rights advocates gather outside the
oce of the Chilean Civil Registry and
Identication Service in Santiago, Chile, on
Oct. 22, 2015, to celebrate their countrys
civil unions law taking eect.
WASHINGTON BLADE FILE PHOTO BY MICHAEL K. LAVERS
criminalization laws and much more.
LGBT rights vary in Guatemala, El
Salvador, Honduras, Cuba, Colombia and
Chile. Here is an overview of the situation
in each country.
Guatemala
Same-sex couples are not legally
recognized.
Anti-discrimination and hate crimes
laws do not include sexual orientation or
gender identity.
Consensual same-sex sexual relations
are legal.
Transgender people can legally
change their name without surgery. They
cannot legally change their gender.
request their convictions for crimes
based on behavior that is no longer illegal
are physically deleted from records.
Though this process has been available
since 2012, it didnt consider many of the
laws used to persecute gay men.
Peter Tatchell, a human rights
campaigner, in a statement explains
the problems faced after the 1967
decriminalization of same-sex sexual acts.
The four main crimes that penalized
gay and bisexual men were: Buggery (anal
sex), gross indecency (all non-anal sex acts
between men, including mere touching
and kissing), procuring (facilitating, aiding
and abetting) and importuning (chatting
up, cruising), he said. These crimes were
not repealed until 2003.
Though these were not included in the bill
back in October 2016, since then the Alan
Turing Law has gone through many changes.
Turing was a mathematician who
helped break Germanys secret Enigma
code during World War II.
Sandra Morn in 2016 became the
rst openly LGBT person elected to the
Guatemalan Congress.
El Salvador
The Salvadoran constitution denes
marriage as between a man and a woman.
Anti-discrimination law includes sexual
orientation, but not gender identity.
Penal code includes enhanced
penalties for anti-LGBT hate crimes, but
activists say prosecutors rarely apply
them.
Consensual same-sex sexual relations
are legal.
Honduras
The Honduran constitution denes
marriage as between a man and a
woman.
Discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity is
banned, but activists say these provisions
have little impact.
Consensual same-sex sexual relations
are legal.
Erick Martnez, a gay activist from
Tegucigalpa, is a candidate for the
Honduran Congress.
Cuba
The Cuban constitution denes
marriage as between a man and a woman.
Lawmakers in 2013 approved a bill
that banned discrimination based on
sexual orientation in the workplace.
Consensual same-sex sexual relations
are legal.
The countrys national healthcare Providencia section of the Chilean capital
system has oered free sex-reassignment
surgeries since 2008. Independent LGBT
He was charged with gross indecency
in 1952 for having a relationship with
another man. He committed suicide
two years later at the age of 41 after
undergoing chemical castration as an
alternative to serving a prison sentence.
Queen Elizabeth II in 2013
posthumously pardoned Turing.
Thanks to amendments made by Lord
[Michael] Cashman in December [2016],
which were supported by the government,
the law passed today also paves the
way for ensuring that everyone unfairly
prosecuted for being gay and bi will soon
be able to have these crimes deleted from
their record, explained Stonewall.
Tatchell points out, however, that for
many, getting a pardon for a crime not
directly pardoned by the bill is still far
from easy.
Many convicted men were rejected
and disowned by their families, he said.
The government should make it clear
that any concerned person, including
F E BRU A RY 0 3 , 2 0 1 7 1 1
activists insist only a few dozen trans people
have been able to undergo the procedure.
Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban
President Ral Castro, publicly champions
LGBT and intersex issues.
Colombia
Same-sex couples can legally marry
and adopt children.
Discrimination based on sexual
orientation is illegal.
Trans people have been able to legally
change their gender without surgery
since 2015.
A peace agreement between the
government and leftist FARC rebels that the
Colombian Congress approved in November
2016 specically includes LGBT Colombians.
Anglica Lozano in 2014 became the
rst openly lesbian woman elected to the
Colombian Congress.
Chile
Same-sex couples can enter into civil
unions, but not marriage.
Discrimination and hate crimes based
on sexual orientation and gender identity
are illegal.
A bill that would allow trans people
to legally change their name and gender
without surgery has been introduced in
the Chilean Congress.
The Chilean Ministry of Health in
2015 urged doctors to no longer perform
surgeries that normalize the sex of
intersex children.
Jaime Parada, a councilman in the
of Santiago, is among the growing number
of high-prole LGBT and intersex activists.
personal friends, can apply for a pardon
for a deceased person.
Though he believes a pardon is an
important, valuable advance, Tatchell,
who is director of the Peter Tatchell
Foundation, is quick to remind people
what it means.
A pardon has connotations of
forgiveness for a wrong done, he
said. These men and the wider LGBT
community believe they did no wrong.
This is a truly momentous day,
said Justice Minister Sam Gyimah in a
statement. We can never undo the hurt
caused, but we have apologized and
taken action to right these wrongs.
Brandon Lewis, minister of state
at the Ministry of Justice, released a
formal apology on behalf of the British
government on Jan. 11.
I want to take the opportunity to
apologize unreservedly, on behalf of the
government, to all those men who will
receive a pardon, he said.
1 2 F E B RUA RY 0 3, 2017 W A SH I N G T O N BLA D E . CO M

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WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
N A T IO NA L NEW S
Swift LGBT opposition to Gorsuch over religious freedom rulings
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 01
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), an LGBT
rights supporter, expressed frustration
the Republican-controlled Senate never
allowed a vote on Obamas choice
of Merrick Garland and declared his
opposition to Gorsuch until it is clear that
he will protect the constitutional rights of
women, of the LGBT community, and the
rights of every American.
Judge Gorsuch is Justice Scalia on
steroids, Nadler said. His record
demonstrates that, if conrmed, he
would rely on his conservative, originalist
philosophy to overturn critical precedents
and to disregard the rights of everyday
Americans while bolstering protections
for corporations and special interests.
Prominent in Gorsuchs rulings on the
10th Circuit is a lower court decision in
the Hobby Lobby case, in which the U.S.
Supreme Court in 2014 ultimately ruled
the chain could deny contraception
coverage to its employees based on
religious reasons despite being a for-
prot corporation.
The law we address today compels
the corporations to act contrary to their
religious beliefs, Gorsuch wrote. They
therefore suer a substantial burden. I
see no need to examine how damaging
the sanctions for noncompliance would
be or how dicult it would be for the
corporations to rearrange their present
manner of operating their businesses to
avoid violating the law.
The Supreme Court limited the Hobby
Lobby ruling to contraception, explicitly
denying the decision was precedent in
cases pertaining to civil rights laws, but
critics say the decision could open the
door to rulings in the name of religious
freedom against laws prohibiting LGBT
non-discrimination. (That has occurred. A
federal judge in Michigan cited the Hobby
Lobby decision when ruling against a
transgender employee at a funeral home
who was terminated for transitioning.)
Gorsuch also sided with religious
freedom arguments over the Aordable
Care Acts mandate that employers provide
contraception coverage in the 10th Circuit
ruling in the case of Little Sisters of the
Poor Home for the Aged v. Burwell.
Rachel Tiven, CEO of Lambda Legal,
declared opposition to the nominee based
on Gorsuchs religious freedom rulings,
which she said marks the rst time her
organization opposed a Supreme Court
nominee without any conrmation hearing.
Judge Gorsuchs opinion in the
10th Circuit Hobby Lobby decision is
disqualifying, Tiven said. The Hobby
Lobby decision set a terrible and
destructive standard for bosses being
allowed to meddle in our sex lives and
decide whether or not birth control is
covered by the employers insurance plan.
Immediately at the time Trump
HRCs CHAD GRIFFIN denounced the selection of Neil Gorsuch for the
U.S. Supreme Court.
WASHINGTON BLADE FILE PHOTO BY MICHAEL KEY
announced Gorsuch as his choice for the
Supreme Court, Lambda Legal unveiled
a compilation of decisions and writings
from the nominee demonstrating anti-
LGBT views.
Among the writings was a piece for
the conservative National Review titled
Liberals & Lawsuits, which condemned
the progressive movement for seeking
advancements in the courts as opposed
to seeking change elsewhere. Two years
after the Massachusetts Supreme Court
made the Bay State the rst in the country
to legalize same-sex marriage, the article
explicitly identies same-sex marriage as
an issue that doesnt belong in the courts.
American liberals have become
addicted to the courtroom, relying on
judges and lawyers rather than elected
leaders and the ballot box, as the primary
means of eecting their social agenda on
everything from gay marriage to assisted
suicide to the use of vouchers for private-
school education, Gorsuch said. This
overweening addiction to the courtroom
as the place to debate social policy is bad
for the country and bad for the judiciary.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year
in favor of marriage equality nationwide.
Given that Gorsuch would replace Scalia,
a justice who dissented fromthe decision,
his conrmation might be step toward an
unlikely ruling overturning the decision
down the road, but not suciently enough
to change the makeup of the court.
Gregory Angelo, president of Log Cabin
Republicans, said the marriage issue was
settled regardless of whos appointed to
the bench, refusing to join other LGBT
advocates in opposingGorsuch.
Marriage equality is here to stay, and
the conrmation of Judge Gorsuch
or any conservative justice will not
change that, Angelo said. Log Cabin
Republicans continues to review the case
history of Judge Gorsuch and welcomes
Judge Gorsuchs record over the last 14 years, especially on religious
liberty, gives Americans every reason to believe he will make a ne
Supreme Court justice, said TONY PERKINS, president of the anti-
LGBT Family Research Council.
conrmation hearings in the United
States Senate to explore his perspective
on the relevant issues facing LGBT
Americans today.
On the 10th Circuit, Gorsuch also
joined a ruling against transgender rights
in 2015 in the case of Druley v. Patton,
which rejected arguments the Oklahoma
Department of Corrections violated a
transgender inmates constitutional rights
by denying her hormone treatment and
her request to wear feminine clothing. The
ruling explicitly denies transgender people
belong to a protected suspect class for
purposes of Equal Protection claims.
Ms. Druley did not allege any facts
suggesting the ODOC defendants
decisions concerning her clothing or
housing do not bear a rational relation to
a legitimate state purpose, the decision
adds. Thus, she has not demonstrated
a likelihood of success on her Equal
Protection claims.
Chad Grin, president of the Human
Rights Campaign, came out in opposition
to Gorsuch after insisting the choice is
Trumps latest eort since the moment
he stepped foot in the Oval Oce
toundermine LGBT rights.
The Supreme Court has played a
central role in advancing the promise of
equality for LGBTQ Americans, and Judge
Gorsuchs anti-equality record from
opposing crucial medical treatment for a
transgender person to supporting a license
to discriminate for private corporations
make him unt to sit on the nations
highest court, Grin said. We cannot
aord a justice who will roll back our
rights, or who will be a rubber stamp for
Donald Trumps unconstitutional actions.
And America cannot aord to have Judge
Gorsuch on the Supreme Court. We
oppose this nomination.
Daniel Ramos, executive director of
One Colorado and an LGBT advocate
F E BRU A RY 0 3 , 2 0 1 7 1 5
WASHINGTON BLADE FILE PHOTO BY MICHAEL KEY
from the state where Gorsuch has served
as a judge, cited Gorsuchs religious
freedom rulings as a source of concern
and called on U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet
(D-Colo.) and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) to
reject the nominee.
A Supreme Court that would rule in
support of religious exemptions would
certainly open LGBTQ Americans up
to discrimination and open up a can of
worms that could allow individuals to
ignore child welfare, domestic violence, or
other laws that someone could contend
is contrary to their religion, Ramos said.
The Supreme Court has the potential
to shape the future of our nation for
generations to come and Supreme
Court Justices should be committed to
upholding Americas promise of fairness
and freedom for all.
Expressing support for the nomination,
on the other hand, and present during
the White House announcement for the
choice was Tony Perkins, president of
the anti-LGBT Family Research Council,
who cited Gorsuchs ruling for religious
freedom as a reason to support him.
Judge Gorsuchs record over the last
14 years, especially on religious liberty,
gives Americans every reason to believe
he will make a ne Supreme Court
justice, Perkins said. His reputation as a
judge with integrity and dedication to the
Constitution should be an encouragement
to all Americans.
The makeup of the Supreme Court will
be important as it considers the case of
G.G. v. Gloucester County Schools, which
will determine whether a transgender
student, Gavin Grimm, can use the
restroom at school consistent with his
gender identity. However, the odds are
against the Senate completing what
will likely be a contentious conrmation
process in time for Gorsuch to join
arguments in the case.
 WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

1 6 F E B RUA RY 0 3, 2017 LO CA L N E W S

Trump order targeting sanctuary cities threatens D.C. charities

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 01

Help Thyself how Trumps threats to cut

funds for sanctuary cities might impact
D.C.s LGBT community, Mayor Muriel
Bowser said she wasnt sure.
We know that a lot of polices aect all
D.C. communities, she said. We dont
really know and I cant say a lot about
what the executive order means around
sanctuary cities. But we follow our values
and the law and I think that we are going
to have to see how that plays out.
Bowser and members of the D.C. City
Council responded to the Trump order by
vowing to defy the presidents attempts
at what they called a violation of the
human rights of immigrants.
In a Jan. 25 news conference, Bowser
said that in its role as a sanctuary
city D.C. isnt an agent of the federal
government. She said D.C. police would
continue to devote their resources to
protecting all city residents regardless of
their immigration status.
One day earlier, in apparent
anticipation of the Trump order, the D.C.
Council voted unanimously to approve
a Sense of the Council Resolution
denouncing Trumps immigration policies One thing we can do is support organizations that are eective in our communities because we may need to do more privately if the federal
and arming the citys longstanding government steps back, said Mayor MURIEL BOWSER.
support for human rights and diversity. WASHINGTON BLADE PHOTO BY DAVID TRUITT
The resolution was introduced by Council
members David Grosso (I-At-Large) and
Robert White (D-At-Large). Whitman-Walker spokesperson Abby jeopardized if the Trump administration values, Bowser told about 100 people
As a Council, we resolved to reject Fenton said ocials were assessing cracks down on D.C.s status as a who turned out at the D.C. Eagle for the
xenophobia, racism, Islamophobia, how a funding cut related to the Trump sanctuary city. Brother Help Thyself event. During the
homophobia, transphobia, disparagement executive order could impact Whitman- Other LGBT community organizations event the group gave away $75,000 in
of people with disabilities, misogyny, and Walker but they preferred not to discuss that receive various amounts of D.C. grants to 30 LGBT supportive charitable
bigotry in any form, Grosso said in a how much the organization received from government funds and that could be groups in the D.C. and Baltimore areas.
statement. government grants at this time. impacted by the Trump executive order And its even more important than
The resolution says the Council would According to Fenton, Whitman-Walkers include Casa Ruby, a bilingual LGBT ever that our leaders be as inclusive and
remain committed to our status as a legal services department regularly provides community services center that assists loving and caring and empathetic and
sanctuary city and not participate in any free legal services to people seeking LGBT Latino immigrants among other stay focused on how we can ght back
federal immigration enforcement strategies immigration or asylum help. She said the LGBT clients; SMYAL, which provides and continue to be leaders, Bowser said.
that endanger those within our city. group had 143 cases of people seeking services for LGBT youth; and the Wanda So what Brother Help Thyself is doing
Whitman-Walker Health, the citys immigration and asylum related help in Alston Foundation, which provides housing couldnt be more important because what
largest private organization providing 2015 and 207 such cases in 2016. She services for homeless LGBT youth. we dont know is if these executive orders
services to the LGBT community said all funding used by the legal services During her appearance at the Brother will be backed by Congress, will we have
and people with HIV/AIDS, received department comes from private sources. Help Thyself reception, Bowser told the very important programs that the federal
a combined total of $6.6 million in The Trump executive order doesnt gathering she had deep concerns about government partners with us go away?
government grants in 2014, according appear to target private organizations how the city would be impacted by the she said.
to its IRS 990 nance report for that year, located in sanctuary cities that receive Trump administration and Congress over Although Bowser didnt mention
which is the groups most recent publicly federal funds. the next four years. Trump by name she made it clear she was
released 990 report. But many federally funded programs Republican members of a House concerned that the presidents policies
The report doesnt break down the to community-based health care committee that oversees D.C. aairs and recent executive orders could hurt
portion of that amount that came directly organizations like Whitman-Walker, approved a proposal on Tuesday calling D.C. and its ability to continue to fund
from the federal government, which especially federal Ryan White Act AIDS on Congress to intervene in and possibly community-based organizations.
regularly provides funding to Whitman- funds, are allocated to cities and states, overturn several D.C. laws such as the citys One thing we can do is support
Walker, and from the D.C. government, which are charged with dispensing the gun control statute, assisted suicide law, organizations that are eective in our
which also provides grants and contracts funds to community-based groups. and its law legalizing marijuana possession. communities because we may need to do
to the LGBT health care organization for The Trump executive order doesnt GOP house members have also more privately if the federal government
various HIV related services. make it clear whether funds given to expressed strong opposition to a steps back, she said. And so lets all hope
The report shows that Whitman- sanctuary cities that are earmarked for policy that Bowser put in place in early and pray that it doesnt come to that. But if it
Walkers total revenue for that year organizations like Whitman-Walker would January allocating city funds to pay for does well be ready. And well also be ready
was $24.3 million and that most of its be cut o under the Trump order. legal services to help undocumented to support any vulnerable population.
revenue came from private contributions, A spokesperson for the Trump immigrants challenge deportation action Added Bowser: Its not the LGBTQ
fundraising events, and from administration couldnt immediately be by federal immigration authorities. community right now, not yet. But we
reimbursements for medical services by reached to determine whether Whitman- Its proving to be a very challenging know if they come for one its only a matter
private insurers and Medicaid. Walkers federal funds would be time for our city, our nation, and our of time before they come for all of us.
W A SH I N GTO NB LAD E.C OM F E BRU A RY 0 3 , 2 0 1 7 1 7
 Keep your promise to protect each other. WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

18 FE B R U A R Y 03, 2017 BA LT I MO RE N E W S

Baltimore organizations win grants

Several Baltimore-area organizations were among the 30 that received grants
from Washington, D.C.-based Brother, Help Thyself during its annual grants
reception that took place on Jan. 28 at the D.C. Eagle. BHT is a community-
based organization that provides nancial and other support to non-prot
organizations serving the LGBT and HIV/AIDS communities in the Baltimore/D.C.
metro area.
Among those Baltimore-area organizations receiving grants were: AIDS
Action Baltimore ($2,760); Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre, Inc. ($1,000);
FreeState Justice ($1,450); Baltimore-based Hope Springs, an HIV/AIDS advocacy
organization ($3,880); New Ways Ministry Inc. a Mount Rainier-based LGBT
Catholic organization ($1,960); and PFLAG Westminster/Carroll County ($1,420).
In addition, the Presidents Award was presented to Jerey Grabelle of AIDS
Wills & Trusts Action Baltimore for 25-plus years of loving, dedicated, and inspirational service
to Baltimores HIV/AIDS community.
Powers of Attorney Living Wills Its important to acknowledge the good work being done in and for our
Partnership & Prenuptial Agreements community, said BHT President Jim Slattery, in a statement. While none of
us are in this for the glory, it sure is nice to have the opportunity to formally
(240) 778-2330 (703) 536-0220 recognize folks and groups we think of as legendary and worthy of praise.
Since its incorporation in 1978, BHT has now awarded nearly $3.1 million in grants.
www.PartnerPlanning.com
Prime Timers to discuss domestic violence
Serving the LGBT Community
in DC/MD/VA since 1983 Author, journalist and radio show host Wyatt OBrian Evans will be the featured
speaker at an upcoming meeting of Prime Timers of Baltimore, a social group
consisting of older gay and bisexual men as well as younger men who admire

Lawrence S. Jacobs/McMillan Metro, PC mature men. The meeting will be held on Feb. 12 at 6 p.m. at St. Marks Lutheran
Church at St. Paul & 20th Streets.
Evans will explore the topic of domestic violence among gay couples by
sharing insights from his latest novel, Nothing Can Tear Us Apart-Frenzy.
Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse (IPV/A), the overarching theme of Frenzy!,
is such a taboo in our community, Evans, himself an IPV/A survivor, told the
Blade. It is my mission to continue to shine a bright light on this critical issue.
For more information about Prime Timers of Baltimore, call 410-252-7239 or

Fairlington United Methodist ChUrCh email info@ptbalto.org. For more information about Wyatt OBrian Evans, visit
wyattevans.com.
3900 King Street, Alexandria, VA fairlingtonumc.org
LGBT Safe Space workshops offered
Join Us for Reconciling Ministry Sunday
Guest Preacher: David McAllister-Wilson More than 50 people crammed into a meeting room at the Miller Branch
President, Wesley Theological Seminary Library in Ellicott City last week to participate in a three-hour workshop on
creating safe spaces within their businesses, schools and organizations. Given
the rise in anti-LGBT activity since the election, its crucial that all people, and
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2017 in particular LGBT people, have places where they can feel safe, said trainer Dr.
9:30 a.m. and 11:00a.m. Diane S. Illig, a member of the faculty and Safe Space coordinator at Salisbury
Celebrating Four Years as a Reconciling Congregation University.
Welcoming Everyone No Exceptions! The other trainers were Tara B. Taylor and Keith Merkey both of the Maryland
Commission on Civil Rights, which have partnered with Salisbury University on
the workshops.
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variety of settings. The workshop aims to reduce the often unwelcoming and
EVISIONS can link through the advertisement. Advertiser represents that its advertisement will not violate any criminal laws or
any rgihts of third parties, including, but not limited to, such violations as infringement or misapporpriation of any even hostile environments from the classroom bully to the unintentional
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washington blade newspaper. This includes but lives.
By signing this proof you are agreeing to your contract obligations with the
is not limited to placement,
Using the themes of respect, acceptance and support, the workshop provides
by brown naff pitts omnimedia llc, arising out of or related to advertisers breach of any of the foregoing representations payment and insertion schedule.
and warranties.

an understanding of the lived experiences of LGBT people through current

statistics and examples; identies sources of unwelcoming behaviors in a
FamiLY | eState PLaNNiNG | emPLoYmeNt | immiGratioN variety of settings; explains how participants will become more familiar with
ComPLeX LitiGatioN | CiviL riGHtS | LGBt | adoPtioN | BuSiNeSS and comfortable in using LGBT-inclusive terminology; and shows how to dispel

Silber, Perlman, Sigman & Tilev, P.A.

negative stereotypes and develop strategies to create more welcoming and
inclusive environments.
at tor N e YS at L aw d C | m d | va If interested in scheduling a workshop, email tara.taylor@maryland.gov or
call 410-767-6459.
3 0 1 . 8 9 1 . 2 2 0 0 S P - L aw. C o m STEVE CHARING
6 9 3 0 C a r r o L L av e , S u i t e 6 1 0 ta k o m a Pa r k m d
W A SH I N GTO NB LAD E.C OM F E BRU A RY 0 3 , 2 0 1 7 1 9

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20 FE B R U A R Y 03, 2017 H E A LT H N E W S

LGBT youth summit canceled

WASHINGTON The Centers for Disease Control has nixed an LGBT youth
summit it privately planned before Election Day as a result of Trumps win,
although an agency spokesperson said the decision is the result on internal
concern about a legal issue, not the new president.
News the LGBT youth summit would be indenitely postponed rst
reported by Talking Points Memo comes after media outlets reported a CDC
climate change and health conference would be cancelled amid fears it would be
poorly received in the Trump administration.
An anonymous source is quoted in TPM as saying event planners under the
expectation Hillary Clinton would win the White House had assembled a list of
potential partner organizations for the LGBT youth summit, such as the YMCA,
Human Rights Campaign and the Matthew Shepard Foundation. Organizers planned
to wait until after Nov. 8 to extend formal invitations, but they were never sent out.
From TPM:
Preparations continued through Friday after the election, but the following
weeks planning meeting was canceled without notice and replaced with a next
steps conference call, according to the source. Organizers were thanked for
their work and informed that the summit was postponed indenitely on that
call, while a new internal workgroup on LGBT youth health also was proposed,
according to the source.
An email to staers working on the event, dated Nov. 18 and reviewed by
TPM, also stated that the summit was postponed.
It was never actually explicitly said by anyone that were canceling this
because Donald Trump won the election, the source said.
The source reportedly said the event was supposed to be a big deal, would have
been broadcast on Facebook live and would have announced a ve-year agenda.
Although the event was initially planned for mid-December, planning documents
indicate the date for the summit was delayed in late October to January.
Lola Russell, a spokesperson for the CDC, told the Washington Blade the
cancellation was the result of legal concerns, not the incoming administration.
After release of the rst data on the health of lesbian, gay and bisexual
youth in August 2016, CDC explored a variety of ways to address the identied
disparities, including hosting a meeting, Russell said. On November 4, we
determined that a CDC-hosted meeting and engagement of participants in
follow-up activities would violate the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).

Ark. university suspends trans health benets

NEW YORK Trans-inclusive health benets oered to spouses under a
Speak with our preplanning adviSor,
Jamie arthurS at (202) 966-6400 or email system oered at the University of Arkansas have been suspended, the Daily
Jamie.arthurS@dignitymemorial.com Beast reports.
Teri Wright, a trans Arkansas resident, told the Daily Beast she got an e-mail
on Jan. 24 notifying her that the university will suspend gender dysphoria
coverage pending the outcome of a Dec. 31 preliminary injunction against an
Aordable Care Act regulation that prohibits discrimination in health care for
being transgender, the Beast reports.
Wright was planning to have surgery but told the Daily Beast she wont be able
5130 Wisconsin Ave. NW DC (202) 966-6400 www.JosephGawlers.com to have it before the coverage ends on March 6.
It really sucks for them to say theyre gonna cover it and then pull the rug
ADVERTISIN out G from P R Ounderneath
OF my feet like this after Ive already made plans to move
ISSUE DATE: SPEC SALES REPRESENTATIVE: JERYL PARADE (JPARADE@WASHBLADE.COM) forward, the Daily Beast quoted her as having said.
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proof. Proof will be considered final and will be submitted for publication if revision is not submitted within 24 hours of
the date of proof. Revisions will not be accepted after 12:01 pm wednesday, the week of publication.Brown naff pitts University of Arkansas System Communications Director Nate Hinkel sent the
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omnimedia llc (dba the washington blade) is not responsible for the content and/or design of your ad. Advertiser is
responsible for any legal liability arising out of or relating to the advertisement, and/or any material to which users Daily Beast the text of the email that was sent to employees last week. He did
EVISIONS can link through the advertisement. Advertiser represents that its advertisement will not violate any criminal laws or
any rgihts of third parties, including, but not limited to, such violations as infringement or misapporpriation of any not immediately respond to follow-up questions but made it clear that this
/LOGO REVISIONS copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, music, image, or other proprietary or propety right, false advertising, unfair

ADVERTISER SIGNATURE decision was not made on a campus level, but here at the UA system oce.
competition, defamation, invasion of privacy or rights of celebrity, violation of anti-discrimination law or regulation,
SIONS or any other right of any person or entity. Advertiser agrees to idemnify brown naff pitts omnimedia llc (dba the

washington blade newspaper. This includes but isThe preliminary

to placement, injunction issued by a federal judge in Texas on the last day of 2016
washington blade) and to hold brown naff pitts omnimedia llc (dba the washington blade) harmless from any and all By signing this proof you are agreeing to your contract obligations with the
liability, loss, damages, claims, or causes of action, including reasonable legal fees and expenses that may be incurred not limited
by brown naff pitts omnimedia llc, arising out of or related to advertisers breach of any of the foregoing representations payment and insertion schedule.
and warranties. does not prohibit the University of Arkansas System from continuing to oer transgender-
inclusive health benets of its own accord. As the UA System email to employees stated,
the preliminary injunction prohibits (the U.S. Department of) Health and Human Services
from enforcing regulations addressing gender identity and the coverage of treatment for
gender dysphoria. In other words, the injunction simply gives the UA System more legal
leeway to justify suspending the coverage, the Beast article notes.
Justine Turnage, vice president for the Fayetteville, Ark.-based organization
Transgender Equality Network, thinks its telling that the UA System would back
out of oering the coverage so quickly after the preliminary injunction was
issued against the ACA regulation.
202.319.8541 www.lgbtc.com Se habla espanol
~
WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

F I T NES S FE B R U A R Y 03, 2017 21

Triumph in the triathlon

Cross-training is essential to
prevent injury when fatigue sets in
For many athletes, completing a
triathlon is the pinnacle of success
in regard to endurance race Educated at Brown, Harvard,
competitions. It encompasses the
big three of running, cycling and
and Johns Hopkins
swimming back to back to back. Washingtonian Magazine Top Doc
Though training in each area is
GERARD BURLEY is a D.C.-based personal trainer. important for preparation, many US News & World Report
Reach him via @CoachGFit or coachg@coachgt- athletes forget about the importance
ness.com.
of cross training, specically strength
Top 1% of Doctors in USA
training, to peak their performance Dual Board Certified:
during the event. Even when some add strength training, theyre confused of
which type of strength training should be the focus. Facial Plastic Surgery
Cross training is training in dierent disciplines with the goal to improve yourself Body Plastic Surgery
in your main discipline or sport, such as when football Hall of Fame running back Bo
Jackson used to take many ballet classes to help with his foot speed and agility. This
was a crazy idea, especially in the 80s and 90s, because ballet, seen as the complete
opposite of football, was helping a Pro Bowl running back to be his best. However
this led lots of other running backs and other football players to start exploring how
training in other areas could help them be their best in their main sport. Now we
know that any pro athlete spends lots of time working outside of their main sport.
It starts with core. The core is everything yes, everything. If you take one
thing away from this article, it should be that the stronger your core is, the better
you will be at everything, including your upcoming triathlon. When we speak
about the core, we dont just mean the six pack aesthetic ab muscles, but really
all the muscles in the trunk that help to move and stabilize the spine and hips.
Some even consider any muscle that transfers energy from the mid-section
into the legs or vice versa as part of your core muscles. The core muscles are
especially important to major endurance athletes because the major cause of
people not nishing a triathlon is not lack of conditioning, but injury and a strong
core has been proven to help prevent injury. In any endurance race its inevitable
that your body is going to get tired causing your form to change and diminish,
but the stronger your core is, the longer you can maintain proper form.
Most injuries occur when people are moving in improper form for a long
time. The stronger your core, the better your form, the better your form the
less susceptible you are to injury, the less susceptible you are to injury the more Laser Liposuction
likely you are to nish your race. I recommend starting your core training by
Pec and Ab Etching
adding three sets of one-minute planks to your training day warm ups and
slowly increase to plan leg lift and reach variations. Facial Rejuvenation
You have to stabilize. Stabilization training is another forgotten training Gynecomastia
space that is so important for endurance athletes injury prevention. Stabilization
training is any normal exercise that you put on a unstable surface to make it Laser Hair Removal
more dicult to balance and control. Botox & Skin Care
The most common example is doing an exercise on one leg versus two. This
Transgender Surgeries
cross-training technique is important for many reasons, but most directly aects
triathletes because it can help prevent falls. The run is the nal portion of the Ultherapy
triathlon, because its the easiest for most endurance athletes, but its also where

CALL TO ASK
the most injuries due to falling happens.
You may be a killer runner, but no matter how hard you train, those legs are going

ABOUT OUR
to be a little wobbly after swimming and biking. Fatigued legs make for unstable
legs which can easily lose balance, trip and fall. This is where stabilization strength

LASER LIPO SPECIALS

training can help. Cross training with single leg exercises, using devices like BOSU
balls, Swiss balls and Dyna discs can help improve your balance strength so you
are less likely to take a spill. Besides improving balance, it also helps with our friend
the core, so youre getting a two-for-one exercise deal. I recommend incorporating
three sets of 12-15 body weight lunges and squats on a BOSU ball or any uneven
surface, two times a week for six-eight weeks before your race.
Cross training is shown to help prevent injury and increase performance for
anyone preparing for a triathlon or any endurance race. Endurance athletes have
to put in countless hours of training to maximize their cardiovascular systems, but
its also very important to have a strong core and stable muscles to prevent injury.
As we enter triathlon training season and you begin mapping out your program, be
sure to include cross training days. Your performance and body will love you for it.

2 2 F E B RUA RY 0 3, 2017
I was once a refugee
Trumps Muslim ban
immoral, un-American
By BILAL ASKARYAR
As citizens of a republic, our elected
leaders reect our morality. I dont mean
morality in a holier-than-thou sense, I
mean basic human decency. Even the
actions of leaders that we may not have
personally voted for reect on what we,
as citizens, are willing to condone.
The United States announced that it
will ban the entry of refugees and not is-
sue visas for anyone from Syria, Iraq, Iran,
Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Make
no mistake this policy is based on nothing
but naked prejudice against Muslims.
This has happened before. In 1939, the
United States refused entry to another
group of refugees based on religious en-
mity: Jews eeing Nazi Germany.
Refugees are by denition the most
vulnerable people among us. Families
dont choose to sacrice everything they
have and leave their homes unless their
homes become like the mouth of a shark.
Scapegoating people who are eeing for
their lives because of our own economic
anxieties is an especially heinous kind of
inhumanity that no person with a heart
should be able to defend.
Do you think you dont know any refugees?
This is how Afghanistan, my familys
thousand-year-old home, became like the
mouth of a shark.
The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in
1979. They twice imprisoned my grand-
father for months at a time and tortured
him with electroshock therapy. He refused
their oer to make him king if he publicly
supported the occupation of Afghanistan.
As we continued to resist and their
occupation began to fall apart, the Sovi-
ets heightened their intimidation of my
family. My uncles had to go into hiding.
My mother and aunts couldnt leave the
house. I remember riding in my fathers
Volkswagen that was the same color as
that special blue Ive only seen in Kabul
skies when a rocket, perhaps aimed at
him because he was a diplomat, ew past
my head. My father was imprisoned.
When the occupation nally fell apart,
we heard the whispers of a group that
called themselves The Students coming
to ll the vacuum the Soviets left. It was
WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
VIEWPOINT
the Taliban, and they were bringing with
them a way of life no one in my family rec-
ognized as Islam.
So nally, we were forced to leave. I
cant properly explain the connection my
family has to that land. Home isnt the
right word. Whats the word for a land
that has your blood in its soil and whose
soil is the esh that makes up your body?
Whatever that word is, that is what we
were forced to leave.
After eeing to India, Pakistan, China,
and Hong Kong, we were lucky to be
granted asylum in San Francisco.
Todays refugees will not. Why? Be-
cause we allow our elected leaders to
willfully conate the people that that are
running from the horrors of war with the
people responsible for them. Because we
have the audacity to be afraid that a Syr-
ian eeing Aleppo is actually coming to
take our job.
As an American, that is not my morality,
and I hope it isnt yours either. Do every-
thing you can to oppose this ban. History
will judge us.
BILAL ASKARYAR is a gay D.C. resident who
came to the U.S. in 1990.
E DIT OR IA L CA RT O O N
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V I E W PO I N T
Trumps ban means I cant attend HRC conference
America is not great if
you repress LGBT people
By AYAZ SHALAL HASSAN
I still cannot call Donald Trump the
president of the United States. I have
been dreaming of him lately. It is so scary
how this guy has the ability to enter your
dreams too. This man is a danger to hu-
mans and all humanity. He is making the
most irrational decisions in United States
history. I still do not understand barring
people from entering the country when
the United States itself is the country of
immigrants. Syrians cannot enter the
country when Steve Jobs was the son of a
Syrian immigrant. Albert Einstein was an
immigrant, and his own wife too! Almost
the whole nation is immigrants.
Trump prevents Iraqis from entering
the country because he thinks they might
be terrorists, but he does not prevent
anyone from all of the Gulf countries in-
cluding Saudi Arabia even though Sept.
11 was done by Saudi citizens. Osama bin
Laden himself was a Saudi. These kinds of
decisions will really hurt the U.S.
There is absolutely no reason to pre-
V I E W PO I NT
Witness to a gender revolution in Obamas America
Once controversial book
now registers a yawn
among my students
By SAVERIO GIOVENCHINI
My story is that of a teacher who has
witnessed a revolution. I saw no blood; no
barricades; but a radical change nonethe-
less and one that largely bubbled from
the ground up. The revolution manifest-
ed itself in a graduate course, and this
little story of mine hinges on big books.
I routinely teach a graduate seminar on
historical methodology and contemporary
theory at the University of Maryland in Col-
lege Park. It is a dicult course, but well at-
tended. I possibly delude myself by deeming
it quite popular among our students. They
and I tackle dicult ideas and we argue about
everything. Intellectually, I usually come out
of our 150-minute sessions exhausted, both
elated and bruised. The books I assign fare
similarly. From year to year, I have varied the
syllabus, but I have included some repeats.
Teaching the same book across time, I am
able to gauge how some ideas become ac-
AYAZ SHALAL, on right, a human rights
activist from Kurdistan who advocates for
LGBT and womens rights, visited the U.S. in
August 2016.
PHOTO COURTESY OF AYAZ SHALAL
vent me from entering the U.S. I have
been there more than seven times before
and each time was a great success for me
cepted, or not, and how fast.
Everybody seems to agree that class
struggle exists, but Michel Foucaults no-
tion of biopower has not become transpar-
ent. Yet, another of these big ideas went
from crazy to banal in the eight years of
Obamas presidency. The rst time I taught
this seminar in September 2008, I assigned
Judith Butlers Gender Trouble. Published
in 1990, Butlers prophetic book was still
cutting edge 18 years later, an activist as-
sault against the creation of a sexual binary
based on the supposedly a-historical no-
tion of biology. Sexual organs, Butler notes,
are only one of the many physiological
traits humanity can use to divide itself into
groups. Our obsession about this sexually
dened binary world needs to be interro-
gated. It is not just the notion of male and
female that is subject to the wearing and
tearing of history.
Biology is no destiny either. Historical
process and power relations may also mo-
tivate dividing humans into men and wom-
en. Butler writes powerfully and cogently,
but her prose does not suer lazy readers.
When I rst discussed the book with a
bakers dozen of doctoral students, the
seminar attendees were puzzled. It was the
personally and was very benecial for the
organizations I was visiting. I have given
speeches at the White House, Congress,
the World Bank, the U.N. and many other
international and local organizations and
companies in the U.S. Those speeches
changed my life and contributed to my
personal and professional growth. They
made me the powerful person I am to-
day. They helped me achieve what I have
always dreamed of.
I am in touch with more than 300
young leaders who have similar stories
like mine. Now, I cannot come to a Hu-
man Rights Campaign conference in April
that I was invited to attend because of
Trumps decisions.
The United States is powerful because
of its relationship and connection with
the rest of the world. We are not in the
Middle Ages and should not be building
walls around our cities and countries. We
are in 2017. If Mexicans want to come
to America, they will do it even if Trump
builds 10 walls.
You cannot make America great if you
repress LGBTQI people. If there is no fair-
ness, no respect and no freedom, there
will be no development and no prosper-
ity. The LGBTQI community around the
world is very powerful and it is not some-
fall of 2008, and the students were a rep-
resentative sample of graduate students
in the humanities at that time. Mostly on
the liberal side of the political barricade,
the group comprised gays and straights.
We understood gender itself a category
fully accepted as useful by historians only
in the 1980s as historically determined,
but we took for granted the stability of a
biologically determined sexual binary that
produced subjectivities encapsulated in
words like men and women. Butler was
not so sure, and my students were puzzled:
admiring, yes, but still puzzled.
Now jump to eight years later to the fall
2016. I again assign Butlers book: I want to
see whether it is still a challenging read. Dur-
ing Obamas presidency, American public
discourse changed and the pace of change
accelerated: marriage equality is farther on
its journey into federal law, and millions of
people have populated the notion of sexual
dierence with their own desires, loving
themselves and others as gay, bisexual, non
sexual, transgender, gender-neutral, etc.
New words have been created to express the
articulation of the many ways we can be.
Butlers prophetic, intellectual activism
seems no longer conned to the margins
F E BRU A RY 0 3 , 2 0 1 7 2 3
thing you can forget because of your per-
sonal problems and preferences. If you
think LGBTQI community members do
not deserve to be respected because of
who they are, then you really have edu-
cational problems and need to do more
research. I can volunteer to help you with
that.
You also cannot prosper as a country
if you disrespect women. Very simply,
women in the United States are more
than half of the population. Do you know
what you are you losing?
Dear Mr. Trump, you are not a man
living with his beautiful wife in his fancy
house anymore. You are the man respon-
sible for the lives and futures of millions
and millions of people. Please, please,
please think twice or even more before
making your decisions and take into con-
sideration those who are dierent than
you and those who you are aecting.
There might come a day when you will be
in their place.
AYAZ SHALAL HASSAN is the deputy director
of programs for the Rasan Organization, which
advocates on behalf of women and other
minority groups in Iraqi Kurdistan. He is based
in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq.
of academic discourse. My seminars date
with her book arrives. By then, I have had
time to know my audience. It is as repre-
sentative of 2016 graduate students in the
humanities as my older, 2008, cohort was.
But it is dierent, more varied. We have had
heated arguments about Marxs notion of
class and commodity, about the silence of
oppression, and the clamor of empire. But
Gender Trouble does not make a splash.
Eyebrows are not raised. It is almost a big,
polite, yawn, a silent so what?
The pulsating and prophetic core of this
profoundly forward-looking book has nal-
ly arrived in its moment: it can be retired
as a venerable landmark in American intel-
lectual history. I go back to my oce and
consider that I have witnessed a revolution:
America has changed, and it has done so
largely from below, by the simple act of
people having the courage to be who they
felt they were, in a society that nally rec-
ognized their freedom to do that. It was an
overdue change that also came out of de-
cades of political and intellectual struggle
and that, I hope, cannot be reversed.
SAVERIO GIOVENCHINI is a professor of history
at the University of Maryland College Park.

2 4 F E B RUA RY 0 3, 2017
Thank you, Mary Tyler Moore
TV icon inspired many
women, queer fans
KATHI WOLFE, a writer and poet, is a regular
contributor to the Blade.
Have you heard? my friend Jeremy
sadly asked when I picked up the phone.
Condolence calls pored in as if a fam-
ily member had died. Millions of us lost
a part of our family when Mary Tyler
Moore, 80, died on Jan. 25 in Greenwich,
Conn. from cardiopulmonary arrest, a
complication of pneumonia.
Moore, who received an Oscar nomi-
nation for her performance in the 1980
movie Ordinary People and in the same
year, a special Tony Award for her work
on Broadway in Whose Life Is It, Any-
way? is beloved for her Emmy-winning
No bigotry in our name, including against Muslims
LGBT people have much to
lose by demonizing Islam
By HARPER JEAN TOBIN
Too many times in our history, we have
been told that some group of people is
dangerous and must be controlled. Talk
of a threat to societyfrom African-
Americans, from Jews, from Catholics,
from LGBT people, from immigrants
has led our nation and others down many
dark and shameful paths. Anytime some-
one wants to tell you that a whole com-
munity (with a few exceptions, perhaps) is
dangerous, you should worry much more
about the rhetoric itself than the people
being slandered.
So it is with Muslim Americans and our
Muslim neighbors around the world. I
was raised Episcopalian in Kentucky, but
Muslims are my neighbors, my cowork-
ers, my friends, and my family members.
They are as diverse as any community
in this country. And so I was deeply sad-
dened and disturbed to read Shannon Gil-
reaths fearmongering piece in last weeks
Blade, which repeated the timeworn
techniques of painting any group as a
menace: Quote scripture out of context
work as Laura Petrie on The Dick Van
Dyke Show (1961-1966) and Mary Rich-
ards on The Mary Tyler Moore Show
(1970-1977).
These groundbreaking TV sitcoms
changed cultural perceptions of women,
the workplace and family. Her portrayal of
Mary Richards inspired many women in
the workforce from actors to journalists.
As a writer and single woman in my
30s in New York, I watched The Mary Ty-
ler Moore Show in reruns. Mentors and
some family members told me they didnt
think Id be successful as a writer. They
worried about my being on my own in a
big city. I worried about being alone and
whether my dream of being a writer was
worth pursuing. Mary Richards, with her
persistence, good manners and journal-
istic integrity, encouraged me to cultivate
the stick-to-itiveness and skill needed to
be a scribe.
I wondered whether The Mary Tyler
Moore Show still was relevant. Until my
40-something friend Amy phoned me.
You wouldnt believe how great the MTM
show is! she said, Its so spot-on feminist!
Moore inuenced actors, comedians
and television personalities from Debra
like countless extreme Levitical laws and
bloody biblical tales that most Jews and
Christians today ignore (if theyve even
read them). Recast a diverse religious
tradition as a threatening ideologylike
those throughout American history who
stoked fears of popery. Recite a litany of
crimes committed by individual members
of the grouplike those who have always
seized on stories of sex crimes by LGBT
people. Conjure up an existential threat
to society.
As Americansand especially, I would
hope, as LGBT Americans who know so
well what it is to be turned into a boogey-
manwe should know better. We should
know better whether it is now-President
Trump telling us Mexicans are rapists and
murderers, or Breitbart News telling us
transgender people are predators, or Da-
vid Duke telling us about the Jewish threat,
or a pundit in our own community telling
us Muslims want to kill us. We should un-
derstand that behind these lies, there are
over three million Muslim Americans get-
ting up every day and going to work and
to school and paying taxes and helping
their neighbors, even though others are
constantly suspicious of them. We should
know that just as we know that when a ter-
rorist bombs a clinic or shoots a doctor in
Messing to Ellen DeGeneres to Geri Jew-
ell. She turned the world on with a smile.
And she was magical to me, Messing of
Will and Grace wrote of Mary Tyler
Moore on Instagram.
You were a role model in so many
ways, tweeted gay actor of Star Trek
George Takei.
Mary Tyler Moore changed the world
for all women, DeGeneres tweeted.
Geri Jewell, an actress and author of
Im Walking as Straight as I Can: Tran-
scending Disability in Hollywood and Be-
yond, worked with Moore on the TV spe-
cial I Love Liberty. I had walked o the
stage after my performance, Jewell wrote
on Facebook. She grabbed my hand and
said: Not one standing ovation, but two
standing ovations...now thats quite an
accomplishment!
The Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler
Moore shows altered our perceptions
while making us laugh. Laura, unlike oth-
er TV housewives then, had skills of her
own. In one episode, a drunk man at a bar
harasses Rob. Laura stops the creep with
a karate chop.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show revolves
around associate producer Mary Rich-
the name of Jesus Christ, or when we read
about a Christian parent who beat or killed
their gay child because they found them
ungodly, the problem is not Christians, it is
prejudice and extremism.
We should understand, too, that perse-
cuting Muslims and banning them from
the country isnt going to protect LGBT
people any more than banning Evangeli-
cal Christians would. LGBT Muslims are
not an exception to be saved by perse-
cuting and banning their co-religionists.
In 2015, the National Center for Trans-
gender Equality surveyed nearly 28,000
people. Like Americans in general, about
1 percent of our respondents said they
were Muslim. Just like respondents of oth-
er faiths, transgender Muslims reported
being rejected by some family and friends
and supported by others. Like some LGBT
people raised Christian or Jewish, some
LGBT Muslims have lost their faith due
to rejection from their faith community,
while others have found a home among
members of their faith who accept them.
The LGBT movement has responded
to often virulent faith-based hostility
among some Christian communities by
supporting dialogue within families and
communities that is beginning to turn
the tide even within some of Americas
WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
VIEWPOINT
ards and her newsroom colleagues in
Minneapolis TV station WJM. Mary, single
and 30, has moved to the city after break-
ing up with a boyfriend. The show was
transformative not only for hetero
women but for the queer community.
Though Marys parents appear occasion-
ally on the show, her WJM co-workers and
her friends are her family. This helped to
reassure LGBT people that our communi-
ty was our family even if our biological
families were estranged from us. Queer
friendly shows from Sex and The City to
Girls are descendants of the MTM show.
The program was one of the rst on TV
to portray being gay in a non-homopho-
bic, yet laugh-out-loud funny manner. In
one episode, Phylliss visiting brother Ben,
pals around with her frenemie Rhoda.
Phyllis exclaims Im so relieved on learn-
ing that Ben isnt going to marry Rhoda
because hes gay.
Richards, though not a rebrand, de-
manded to be paid as much as a man
with her job, told arrogant anchorman
Ted Baxter to shut up! and went to jail
rather than reveal a source.
Thank you, Mary, for your work and for
inspiring us to pursue our dreams. R.I.P.
VIEWPOINT
most conservative denominations. What
we have not done is call for Christians
as a whole or even a whole denomina-
tion to be treated as pariahs, surveilled,
made to register with the government,
or banned from the country. We should
see homophobia and transphobia in any
religion the same way. LGBT people have
nothing to gain and much to lose by join-
ing in the demonization of Muslims and
immigrants. Muslims and immigrants
who are LGBT will lose most of all.
I was proud to join millions of Ameri-
cans in the Womens March. I was proud
to join so many people, of all genders but
overwhelmingly women, standing up for
one another: white, black, brown and
Native women, immigrant and U.S.-born
women, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and
secular women, lesbian, bisexual, and
transgender women. The marchers re-
jected, as should we all, attempts to turn
communities against one another. One
of the core themes of the marches was
captured by the popular chant, No hate,
no fear, diversity is welcome here. In the
Trump era, that must be the LGBT com-
munitys rallying cry.
HARPER JEAN TOBIN is director of policy at the
National Center for Transgender Equality.
WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
V I E W PO I NT
At the intersection of Muslim, LGBT communities
We must unite and
protect the oppressed
By PALMER SHEPHERD
I believe hate is hate. In Shannon Gil-
reaths Islamophobic opinion piece, Eu-
ropes Islam problem and U.S. immigration
policy, instead of focusing on challenges
with immigration policy, Gilreath instead
attacks an entire religion and infers that
all Muslims are instructed by the Quran to
engage in conquest and murder. Gilreath,
a professor of law promoting an anti-
Muslim bias, inaccurately infers through
an uneducated understanding of Islam
and events from dierent geographic
situations, painting in broad-brush fash-
ion, that all Muslims are mass murderers
and terrorists. As a member of the LGBTQ
Muslim community, I have seen this type
of attack become common during the
most recent election cycle among many of
the Republican candidates, including our
new president. Being at the intersection
of the Muslim and LGBTQ communities
can be challenging where we face biases
I N S I DE LGB T W A S HING TON
My protest days are not over
Focus must shift to
retaking Senate in 2018
PETER ROSENSTEIN is a longtime Democratic
Party and LGBT rights activist. He is a regular
contributor to the Blade.
My sincere wish was my protest days
were over. Had Hillary Clinton won the
presidency they would have been. In recent
days, I have often thought if all the young
people who have marched and demon-
strated since the election had understood
how dangerous Trump would be she would
now be president having won not only the
popular vote by millions but the Electoral
College as well.
Instead, since Donald Trumps elec-
tion and inauguration protests have again
become a way of life for those of us who
care about our country and democracy. In
my youth I met Martin Luther King, Jr. and
fought for civil rights. I marched with Bella
and assumptions from both communities.
However, I am disappointed that it is com-
ing from within the LGBTQ community,
who should recognize when an attack in
based in bias and hate.
I understand that the actions of a few
extremist groups creates a great amount
of fear. However, Gilreath neglects to
mention that the biggest victims of the
extremist attacks around the world are
Muslims. Not only are Muslims dying, but
our faith, the very thing many of us turn
to during dicult times, is being perverted
into something we are unable to even rec-
ognize through these heinous acts of ter-
ror. The author attacks liberals for having
a rather unreective commitment to the
defense of religion at all costs. Islam has
been around for hundreds of years and
is practiced by over 1.6 billion individuals.
Both President George W. Bush and Presi-
dent Barack Obama, upon reection, have
voiced defense for Islam, they realized that
it is a small portion of the population that
is trying to use a version of the religion as a
tool for their destructive and violent ends.
Gilreath says he has read the Quran
cover to cover, but has he understood
it? Did he ask any scholars the meaning
Abzug and Gloria Steinem for womens
rights. Got tear gassed in front of the De-
partment of Justice protesting the Vietnam
War and picketed the White House for
disability rights. Joined Hands-around-the-
White House, among other demonstra-
tions, to bring attention to the ght against
HIV/AIDS and marched with Elizabeth Tay-
lor in a candlelight procession demand-
ing Ronald Reagan stand up to ght the
scourge of AIDS. I was on the Mall march-
ing to ght for LGBT rights. Guess it was too
much to hope that at my age I could stop
marching and protesting and enjoy the
fruits of what we accomplished.
In just the last week I have participated
in the Womens March on Washington
and demonstrated in front of the White
House to protest Trumps executive order
that tries to ban Muslims from entering
the country. I am on the planning commit-
tee for the June 11th LGBT Pride March in
Washington. Once again there are com-
pelling reasons demanding us to stand up
and be heard. Along with millions of other
Americans who are clearly feeling the same
need we will stand together and speak out
because we know Silence = Death.
In just one week the Trump White House
is turning the world upside down. He is
ghting with Mexico, debating climate
behind the words? Did he consider talk-
ing to any of the LGBTQ Muslim scholars
who have written on both the challenges
and joys of our faith? Did the author know
that the word homosexual does not occur
in the Quran? Does the author know how
many times the word love occurs in the
Quran? In my experience, Ive seen all of
the holy texts from Abrahamic religions in-
terpreted for both good and bad depend-
ing on who is doing the reading. The Bible,
The Torah and The Quran oer their read-
ers places to nd peace if they are looking
for peace, or can be twisted to be a justi-
cation for violence and oppression. Did
Gilreath read ayat (verse) 13 from Surah
Al-Hujarat? This verse says O humankind,
We have created you a single male and fe-
male (Adam and Eve) and made you into
nations and tribes and communities, that
you may know one another. Really, the
most honored of you in the sight of God
is the most righteous of you, and God has
all knowledge. This verse is important to
Muslims because it tells us to reject divi-
sions based on race, politics, tribes, geog-
raphy, culture, society and for some peo-
ple our understanding includes divisions
based on sexuality and gender.
change with Prince Charles, leaving out any
mention of Jews in his statement on Ho-
locaust Remembrance Day, and banning
residents from seven Muslim countries
from entering the United States. He has re-
organized the National Security Council re-
moving the director of National Intelligence
and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Sta
from the principals committee, which is the
meeting for the most senior national secu-
rity ocials and instead adding his chief
strategist, Steve Bannon, who was formerly
executive chair of Breitbart News, a far-
right news, opinion and commentary web-
site that Bannon himself described as the
platform of the Internet-based alt-right
including Nazis and the KKK. Protesters at
the White House correctly chanted End the
immigration ban, instead ban Bannon.
Hundreds of thousands across the na-
tion and the world took to the streets and
airports to tell Trump he is wrong and make
him understand in reality his ban makes
things more dangerous for Americans. The
people are speaking and they will continue
to do so being joined by business leaders
and members of Congress who will not go
quietly into the night while Donald Trump
and his Rasputin, Steve Bannon, trample on
our Constitution.
We must continue to march, protest and
F E BRU A RY 0 3 , 2 0 1 7 2 5
I have been blessed to be connected to my
community in many ways, including as a co-
chair of the LGBTQ Muslim Retreat. A yearly
event where my community comes together
to learn, connect, network and pray. We are
a beautiful group of LGBTQ+ people that in-
clude Sunni, Shia, Su, practicing, non-prac-
ticing, those focused on the spiritual, those
focused on the ritual, those focused on using
our faith to be better people.
It is disappointing that in the current
political climate it was deemed appropri-
ate to run an opinion piece that continues
to fuel the ames of Islamophobia. This
president and his cabinet have a history
of both anti-LGBTQ and anti-Muslim ef-
forts and we should be bringing our com-
munities together and protect those that
are being oppressed. In this time of great
political challenges we need to not suc-
cumb to those who would drive a wedge
between our diverse communities and
recognize our common humanity.
PALMER SHEPHERD is former co-chair of the
LGBTQ Muslim Retreat and a fellow with the
American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute.
The LGBTQ Muslim Retreat is a program of
the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender
Diversity.
organize. Join and support organizations
that will defend us and serve us such as the
ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Southern Pov-
erty Law Center, and the Council on Ameri-
can-Islamic Relations.
Then Democrats need to stop ghting
each other and stop demanding perfec-
tion in our candidates because that is what
elected Trump. The Susan Sarandons and
Ralph Naders of the world now have the
gall to tell us not to stop protesting when it
was they, by their stupidity and short-sight-
edness, who said there was no dierence
between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump
and therefore voting for Clinton wasnt im-
portant.
We must elect a Democratic Congress in
2018. Even the most imperfect Democrat
will vote for a Democratic Speaker of the
House and Majority Leader in the Senate
and Democrats will control the agenda and
can stop Trump. That has to be the goal in
2018 and we need to stop the internecine
ghts in order to do that. Blowhards like
Michael Moore think it is ne to threaten
Democrats who dont agree with him on
everything with primary challenges. All that
will do is make it easier for Republicans to
win. Let us work together for at least the
next two years and focus on taking Con-
gress and our country back.
 WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

2 6 F E B RUA RY 0 3, 2017 O U R BU SI N E SS MA T T E RS

Small businesses cheer White House regulatory order

New policy restricting
federal regulations
welcomed by enterprise
MARK LEE is a long-time entrepreneur
and community business advocate. Follow
on Twitter: @MarkLeeDC. Reach him at
OurBusinessMatters@gmail.com.
President Trump fullled a signicant
campaign pledge on Monday when he
signed an executive order referred to as
a one in, two out policy on new federal
regulations.
Requiring that for every new federal
regulation proposed, two must be re-
voked, this directive is not as simplistic
as summarized. The order targets regu-
latory costs and not merely the number
of individual regulations, and would ad-
ditionally establish a cost cap on new
regulatory mandates. Under the order,
any new regulation must be oset by the
elimination of existing costs associated
with at least two prior regulations.
The business community, and smaller
enterprise in particular, widely cheered
this reform measure and welcomed the
priority Trump conveyed to it by acting
expeditiously. He had promised only to
do so within the rst 100 days of his ad-
ministration.
D.C. was represented at the White
House ceremony by Casey Patten of Tay-
lor Gourmet, co-founder of the popular
local hoagie eatery with multiple locations
Requiring that for every new federal regulation
proposed, two must be revoked, this directive is
not as simplistic as summarized.
open in, or planned for, D.C.s most prom-
inent and newly developing areas. Patten
also attended a meeting with Trump and
his executive sta detailing the presiden-
tial directive prior to its signing.
The Obama administration was notori-
ous for promulgating a bevy of extensive
new rulemaking, including a big batch
while headed out the door, which busi-
nesses decried as costly burdens hin-
dering growth and employment. Trump,
however, was quick to point out, This is
a knock on many presidents preceding
me. It got particularly bad in the last eight
years, but its a knock on many.
The presidents initiative mirrors regu-
latory restrictions in both the U.K. and
Canada. Canadas One-for-One Rule
applies to the direct costs of the admin-
istrative burden for businesses, while the
U.K.s One-in, Three-Out requirement
assesses all new net regulatory cost im-
plications. Australia has also instituted
similar cost-weighing accountability.
Implementation will prove complex
and complicated. Imposing a required as-
sessment balancing business costs, how-
ever, will inject much-needed discipline
in government rulemaking. Forcing an
evaluation among bureaucrats followed
by public analysis of the nancial impact
of new rules and administrative require-
ments will lead to more cost-eective
policies.
A pay as you go philosophy and com-
monsense attitude factoring for econom-
ic eects of the constant churn of red
tape will demand guidelines for creating
regulatory balance. Benet-versus-cost
review standards and creating specic
regulatory reduction targets across mul-
tiple agencies will be imperative.
An applicability threshold determina-
tion, such as any regulation with an eco-
nomic impact of $100 million or more,
is essential. Capturing an overly broad
range of regulations could overwhelm any
evaluation system, but tackling too small a
range of regulations could produce insuf-
cient business burden reduction.
Any oset requirement will itself tend
to curtail the current gusher of new regu-
lations to a reasonable and responsible
level. To get there, a conscientious true-
cost assessment will be required, inevita-
bly prompting reluctance and resistance
by anti-enterprise extremists.
Big government types, of course, will
conjure up images of planes falling from
the sky and gangrenous slabs of meat
littering grocery shelves. What they in-
tentionally overlook, and likely dont un-
derstand, is that most government mar-
ketplace interventions have little to do
with actual public health and safety, and
appropriate limited exceptions in those
areas are easily accommodated.
The no-regulation-is-ever-too-onerous
adherents possess little ability or, worse,
willingness to assess the negative business
operating implications and deleterious eco-
nomic eects of over-regulation. Ensuring
accurate and independent assessment of
regulatory costs, perhaps by non-govern-
mental sources, may become requisite.
As one Washington small business
owner operating several long-popular
and highly successful neighborhood res-
taurants recently proered in retort to a
D.C. Council member pushing for more
local business restrictions and legislative
rules at a community meeting, the only
new job Ive been able to create is for
an oce administrator to cope with the
mounting pile of reporting requirements
for all the new regulations you keep send-
ing our way.
Its a lot to hope, but D.C. should like-
wise adopt this new sensible national
standard.

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2 8 F EB RUA RY 0 3, 2017
ONE-STOP ROMANCE AT
AMERICAN PLANT
What better gift to give for Valentines
Day than a luxurious perfectly named
sexy candle, throw in some hand
cream, bubble bath and perfume
and you will score! Tokyo Milk is
one of our favorite lines and Dead
Sexy is one of our favorite scents, a
decadently different collection of
brilliantly paired fragrance notes
housed in an alluring glass bottle
decorated with an image of the
iconic skull and crossbones. Honey
& the Moon, French Kiss, Gin &
Rosewater and more are available at
American Plant. Their two Bethesda
stores (at 7405 and 5258 River Road)
are great stops for gift ideas year
round. Details at americanplant.net.
DESIGNER SEX TOYS
Sex toys get the designer treatment
from Luvoqa, which offers naughty
sets of sensual playthings for men
and women. Guys will shiver in
ecstasy while wearing the Lelo
Pino, a powerful vibrating ring,
and lady-loving ladies will delight
in the dual-vibrator We-Vibe
Dreamy Desire Set. For even more
convenience when doing the
deed, check out nightstand-ready
Pulse, an automatic dispenser that
delivers warm lube with the wave
of a hand.
MAKE THIS YEARS CUPID VISIT SEXY AND SURPRISING!
Theres a growing sect of society raining on everybodys Valentines Day parade by crying foul
on consumerism. Its a Hallmark holiday, they shout. The candy companies just want your money,
they howl. You know what we say? So what? Embrace it.
Candy is frickin delicious and who doesnt like a thoughtful card every now and then? So go full
in this Valentines Day and throw up a nger to its critics with this list of fab gifts from your gay
BIG SPOON+LITTLE SPOON
BRACELETS
Wear your sleeping proclivities on
your sleeve with the impossibly cute
Big Spoon/Little Spoon leather-
wrap bracelets by Article 22. Made
in Laos, the most heavily bombed
country per capita in history, the
bracelets feature detonated metal
bomb scraps leftover from the
Vietnam War in order to help clear
the remaining 80 million active
bombs that remain scattered
around the country.
SEXY SKIVVIES
The best way to a mans heart is
through his skivvies at least thats
how we see it, anyway. Elevate his
Valentines underwear game in
striking red pique boxer briefs from
Lacoste or get down and dirty from
the get-go with Andrew Christians
lip-print Kiss Me jockstrap,
available at the Jockstrap Shop.
To set the bedroom mood, light
the six-wick, handmade soy Saxon
candle (the sea salt and hibiscus
scent is legit) by Flashpoint Candle.
By MIKEY ROX
heart to theirs.
CUSTOM-PRINTED COMIC BOOK
If youre planning to pop the
question this Valentines Day, skip
all that knee jazz; ask your partner
in crime to tie the knot with you
by creating a custom comic book.
YourComicStory.com will design
a story from scratch using your
memories and other personal
details, the last page of which will
reveal the big ask. The book also
serves as a conversation piece and
keepsake so you can relive the
proposal over and over again.
ORIGINAL GRAIN WATCHES
M&Ms, caramel creams, and
More than anything else, your
better half would prefer the gift
of time. Give it this Valentines
both guratively and literally with
help from Original Grain watches.
Available in mens and womens
styles, these handsome pieces
feature reclaimed wood and steel
for a chic urban-meets-outdoors
prole. In addition, each watch
sold plants 10 trees.
WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
GIFT GUIDE
SAME-DAY SURPRISES
Even the most committed
procrastinators can aim Cupids arrow
for the bulls-eye. App-based Spoil
(iOS) aims to save the day for those
who forgot to pick up a gift with same-
day delivery of owers; balloons;
booze; and tasty treats, like donuts,
macaroons, cupcakes and cookies.
WHISK EM AWAY
If you and bae are sweet on
adventure, plan a getaway of fun
and friskiness. Eat your weight
in favorite foods with culinary
tours from Avital Tours, available
in select cities, or kick back
and relax in the comfort of the
quaint bed and breakfasts on
BandBFinder.com, which provides
a comprehensive list of LGBT-
friendly accommodations across
the country.
MESSAGES WITH MEANING
SUGARWISH CANDYGRAMS
Cards and owers are old V-Day
Your sugars sweet tooth will be standbys, but you can add more
sufciently satised with a gift air to the tradition with mail from
from Sugarwish, an experiential Punkpost, an app-based service
choose-your-own candygram that (iOS and Android) that sends
allows recipients to customize left-of-center greetings featuring
their selections. A wide variety of wink-and-a-nod wishes; the (new)
popular and novelty candies are Captain Kirk and (original) Spock I
available like mini Swedish sh, love you/I know Star Trek print;
Bit-O-Honeys, candy necklaces, full-on fruit trees from PlantOGram
that can be planted outside for
gummies galore, that you can gift years of enjoyment; or a lusty little
in four-ounce bags of two-16 or note written on a spud (yep, that
opt for a candy dish, complete kind), delivered to your beaus
with four full lls of their favorite door courtesy of MysteryPotato.
candies. Half-baked? Absolutely.
MIKEY ROX is an award-winning journalist and LGBT lifestyle expert whose work
has been published in more than 100 outlets across the world, including CNN.com,
The Hufngton Post, NewNowNext, Queerty, the Advocate, Instinct magazine, and
Out.com, among many others. He splits his time between homes in New York City
and the Jersey Shore with his dog Jaxon. Connect with Mikey on Twitter @mikeyrox.
WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
D I N IN G
Love is love is love, but we all know that
even the deepest, most profound love is
vastly improved when accompanied by a
candlelit dinner on Valentines Day. And
maybe a dessert or two.
With Valentines Day falling mid-week
this year, it also affords us the opportunity
to stretch out the celebrations for a few
days on either side, just in case you need
a little extra time to make the perfect love
connection. Plenty of restaurants across
the area have all the right ingredients.
The Bombay Club (815 Connecticut
Ave., N.W.): One of Washingtons long-
established restaurants, the Bombay Club
offers an elegant experience and a twist
on traditional Valentines Day meals with a
ve-course $85 prix xe menu. Start with
the Asparagus Shorba, laced in pistachio
and rose, then progress through Zafrani
Shrimp, delicately spiced with saffron and
cardamom, Banana Galouti served with a
sweet preserve of plantain and pineapple,
and wild boar with mustard, cumin and
coriander. End it on a sweet note with dark
chocolate fondant with pistachio kul.
Taste of romance
D.C.S TRENDIEST RESTAURANTS OFFER CREATIVE VALENTINES DAY SPECIALS
By KRISTEN HARTKE
City Tap Penn Quarter (901 9th St.,
N.W.): Offering a playful Cupid is Stupid
menu that features food we might not
order on a rst date because were too
concerned with impressing our companion
just throw those rules out of the window
this year. Go ahead and ll up on wafes
topped with fried chicken or short rib
poutine, fried banana split and plenty of
interesting draft beers, such as Lizard of
Koz and Founders Fruitwood.
Moishe House D.C. (1453 Harvard St.,
N.W.): OK, so this one will seem a little
odd, but for those of us who are gripped
by activism these days, consider checking
out the Syrian Sweets Soire, when
Moishe House D.C. (a kind of cultural
club for Jewish 20-somethings) will open
its doors on Sunday, Feb. 16 to celebrate
the sweet foods of Syria, raising both
awareness about the Syrian refugee crisis
and funds for the Syrian American Council.
Its a good way to combine your social
conscience with your social life.
nopa Kitchen+Bar (800 F St., N.W.): Start
off the $75 three-course special menu with
WASHINGTON BLADE PHOTO BY MICHAEL KEY
a complimentary glass of sparkling ros,
then move on to an array of chef Matt Kuhns
starters, from Chiogga beet and blood
orange salad with citrus yogurt to braised
Wagyu beef cheek with trufed polenta.
Main course choices include a rather
decadent ribeye served with ngerling
potatoes, quails egg, butter poached
lobster and a red wine lobster jus, as well
as pan-roasted salmon, farro and quinoa
risotto, and black spaghetti with Calabrian
chili, stone crab, uni and tarragon. Desserts
include sticky toffee pudding with candied
bacon and a chocolate hazelnut dacquoise.
The Oval Room (800 Connecticut
Ave., N.W.): Make an impression on your
date at one of D.C.s classic restaurants,
where chef John Mels $85 three-course
Valentines Day menu ($125 with wine
pairings) starts off with oysters and caviar
with a champagne sabayon, followed by
choices such as butter poached lobster,
braised lamb shank and oxtail ravioli.
End the meal with the dessert sampler,
featuring pomegranate and rose hip
sorbet, ourless chocolate cake and
F E BRU A RY 0 3 , 2 0 1 7 2 9
buttermilk panna cotta.
Ripple (3417 Connecticut Ave., N.W.):
Now a mainstay of Cleveland Park, Ripple
made its mark under the direction of chef
Marjorie Meek-Bradley and is now being
guided by new executive chef Ryan Ratino,
who is already making the menu his own.
The $90 per person prix xe offerings
include oysters served with a sea bean
mignonette, aged pheasant for two, and a
refreshing citrus ambrosia for a light nish.
Le Grenier: the French on H (502 H
St., N.E.) offers a space to enjoy French
cuisine with a great wine selection and
craft cocktails in a vintage attic decor and
cosy atmosphere on the vibrant H Street
corridor. Details at legrenierdc.com.
Le Chat Noir Restaurant & Wine
Bar (4907 Wisconsin Ave., N.W.) offers
a special Valentines Day three-course
dinner with rose and chocolate. Details at
lechatnoirrestaurant.com.
KRISTEN HARTKE is a D.C.-based food and
beverage writer and editor; follow her kitchen
adventures on Twitter at @khartke.
3 0 F E B RUA RY 0 3, 2017 W A SH I N G T O N BLA D E . CO M
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT WASHINGTONBLADE.COM VOLUME 48 ISSUE 05 FEBRUARY 03, 2017 PAGE 31

A scene from Cincinnati Operas world premiere production of Fellow Travelers by Gregory
Spears and Greg Pierce. From left are TIMOTHY LAUGHLIN as Aaron and HAWKINS FULLER as
Joseph.
PHOTO BY PHILIP GROSHONG; COURTESY OF THE CINCINNATI OPERA

The arts in peril?

SLASHING NEA FUNDING COULD LEAVE LGBT ARTISTS SCRAMBLING
By JOEY DiGUGLIELMO
joeyd@washblade.com

Artists and art advocates are on pins
and needles since the Hill newspaper
reported Jan. 19 that President Donald
Trump is considering privatizing the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting and
eliminating the National Endowment for
the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment
for the Humanities as part of a wider
program of federal budget cuts.
While things are status quo for now
like most federal agencies, the NEA is
operating under a continuing resolution
for scal year 2017 that goes through April
many in the arts world are concerned.
The grants and programs that the NEA
administers are powerful examples of
how the arts are a vital and valuable part
of our everyday lives, Victoria Hutter,
assistant director for press/public aairs
for the NEA, wrote in an e-mail to the
Blade. In communities across the nation,
NEA-supported projects ensure that
the arts are accessible to all Americans
through arts education, healing arts and
arts-based community development,
as well as through projects that feature
dance, music, visual arts, literature, folk
and traditional arts and more.
Established by Congress in 1965,
the NEA is the independent federal
agency that works to give Americans
the opportunity to participate in and
experience the arts. Its funding is project-
based and goes to thousands of nonprots
each year, along with partnerships and
special arts initiatives, research and other
support that contribute to the vitality
of our neighborhoods, students and
schools, workplace and culture. The NEA
is the only funder, public or private, that
provides equal access to the arts in all 50
states, the District of Columbia and U.S.
territories, supporting artistic endeavors
of all kinds.
For scal year 2016, the NEAs $147.9
million budget was about .004 percent
of the federal budget. About 80 percent
of that appropriation is distributed as
grants and awards to organizations and
individuals across the country. About 40
percent is awarded directly to states while
about 60 percent goes to organizations
and individuals directly. About 40 percent
of NEA-supported activities occurred
CONTINUES ON PAGE 41

3 2 F EB RUA RY 0 3, 2017 Q U E E RY : 2 0 Q U E ST I O N S F O R BE CCA SCH A E F E R
How long have you been out and who
was the hardest person to tell?
Ive been out for about three years and
I have been very lucky to come from a
really supportive family, so I wasnt too
nervous telling anyone. Of course theres
always that anxiety before you tell
somebody you love, but Ive never been
faced with anything but a continuation
of that love.
Whos your LGBT hero?
Denitely Alan Turing. As someone who
is in the community and also a scientist,
hes my idol.
Whats Washingtons best nightspot,
WASHINGTON BLADE PHOTO BY MICHAEL KEY past or present?
The Potomac River, right next to the Key
Bridge. That view of the water and all of
the lights of the city is unbeatable.
Describe your dream wedding.
BECCA SCHAEFER Somewhere up in the mountains, with
plenty of forest around, surrounded by
the people I love.
By JOEY DiGULIELMO What non-LGBT issue are you most
joeyd@washblade.com passionate about?
Womens rights. I rmly believe
Next weekend will be huge for the GenOUT Chorus as the local LGBT teen that Planned Parenthood should be
chorale, which operates under the Gay Mens Chorus of Washington umbrella, protected, and that a woman should
will have its rst full-length concert on Saturday, Feb. 11. have the right to choose what happens
Youth Invasion will be held at 8 p.m. (one performance only) at the Atlas to her future. I once stood in front of
Performing Arts Center (1333 H St., N.E.) in a program featuring songs such a sign with gory images that pro-life
as I Was Here, Beautiful City, Be Like the Bird and Over the Rainbow. protesters were holding in front of my
Tickets are $20-35. Full details at gmcw.org. school for an hour until they nally left.
GenOUT, formed in 2015, is the regions rst choir for LGBT youth and allies
and is open to singers age 13-18. Paul Heins directs. What historical outcome would you
Becca Schaefer, a 16-year-old Arlington, Va., resident, learned about the change?
chorus at a Leading With Pride conference she attended hoping to nd more Oh boy. How about the election and
opportunities for her schools GSA (Gender Sexuality Alliance), an LGBT- subsequent presidency of our current
arming club of which shes co-president. She sings alto in the 15-member president? Thats denitely a historic
choir and will be performing Paramores The Only Exception as a solo with moment I wish I didnt have to live
her ukulele in next weekends concert. through.
A lot of times, it can feel like its you against the world, Schaefer says. Like
no ones ever felt the way you do. But when we all get together and get to talk, Whats been the most memorable pop
you can actually see that youre not the only LGBT kid out there. GenOUT has culture moment of your lifetime?
been a really good space for me where I can talk about my experiences and Probably the launch of Orange Is
attractions without feeling judged by the outside world. The New Black! Its a cast like no
Schaefer lives with her parents in Arlington and enjoys music and her other Id ever seen and the writing is
favorite shows like Star Trek Voyager and Scrubs in her free time. phenomenal. What trophy or prize do you most
On what do you insist?
The person Im talking to needs to be
open minded enough to see another
point of view and to not shut down a
dierent opinion because it diers from
theirs. And pineapple can never touch
my pizza. Dont even try.
What was your last Facebook post or
Tweet?
I have neither of those things, but my
most recent tumblr post says, I just ate
four macadamia nut cookies and I regret
nothing.
If your life were a book, what would
the title be?
A Little Bit Too Peppy, which was what a
202.747.2077 girl used to describe me when asked why
she didnt want to hang out with me.
WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
If science discovered a way to change
sexual orientation, what would you
do?
Id urge people to understand that they
should love themselves for who they are
and to not try so hard to t into what
societys idea of a normal person is.
What do you believe in beyond the
physical world?
I dont really believe in much beyond
the physical world, but Magic 8-balls are
pretty freaky. Somethings gotta be going
on there.
Whats your advice for LGBT
movement leaders?
Keep ghting the good ght! If you ever
think its hopeless, just think of the
millions of people who will rally behind
you to ensure that our community is
treated equally.
What would you walk across hot coals
for?
Id do it for all of the homeless LGBT
youth. So many kids are just kicked onto
the street by their parents when they
nd out their kid is LGBT.
What LGBT stereotype annoys you
most?
The idea that bisexual people are
just faking it for attention. Not just
from straight people, but even in the
community! How ridiculous to see
somebody struggle through the same
thing you do/did and still choose to
exclude them.
Whats your favorite LGBT movie?
I cant say Ive watched many LGBT
movies, but I really like the show Grace
and Frankie.
Whats the most overrated social
custom?
Not being allowed to double text. I have
a lot to say and I cannot be conned to
one text!
covet?
Last year I placed in a very selective
science fair for high school students in
Virginia. I worked really, really hard to
get there and Im pretty proud of myself!
What do you wish youd known at 18?
Well Im not 18 yet, but in 10 years Im
sure Ill tell myself that I should try to
stress a little less, because all of my life
is not decided by which classes I take or
which college I get into. Im still trying to
chill out.
Why Washington?
There are so many opportunities here!
Where else could I be a part of a youth
LGBT chorus like GenOUT?
WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
T HE ATER
From left are ANNA ODONOGHUE, MORGAN GOULD, TOMMY HELENRINGER and NICOLE SPIEZIO, the creative team behind I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart.
Playwright says the fat girl/gay
man trope is alive and well
By PATRICK FOLLIARD
As both titular and practical leader of
Morgan Gould & Friends, a New York-
based theater company, Morgan Could
writes and directs pop culture satires.
Its 13 members Goulds friends are
mostly longtime collaborators she met at
Fordham University where she majored
in directing.
Its really not hard to get in the
company, she says. All you have to do
is ask, really.
With her new play I Wanna Fucking
Tear You Apart, a funny and dark play
about friendship and the politics of
niceness and beauty, Gould steps away
from her satiric comfort zone.
Its a straightforward and hopefully
well-made play, says Gould whos also
directing the dramedy. For the plays D.C.
premier at Studio Theatre, she brings
along company members out actor
Tommy Heleringer and Anna ODonoghue
who play Leo and Chloe, and a new
friend, Nicole Spiezio, who leads the cast
as Samantha.
Loquacious, energetic and refreshingly
brash, Gould is delighted that her work is
in production at legitimate regional theater.
So much so, she was even willing to change
the plays provocative title (proudly lifted
from the song Tear You Apart by She
Wants Revenge that Gould rst heard sung
by Lady Gaga on TVs American Horror
Story) if Studios hierarchy thought it was
too much. They didnt.
Last week at Studios second-oor
lobby, Gould, Heleringer and Spiezio (all
30-ish) sat down before rehearsal to chat
with the Blade.
GOULD: There is a famous Morgan
Gould. Its not me. Hes a hot, black South
African soccer star. But I got on Twitter
before him so my Twitter handle is @
morgangould so I get tweeted all the time.
Stu like, Sorry about your injury. And
I reply, Its OK man. Sometimes it gets
contentious. Little do they know theyve
tweeted some fat playwright who looks
like actress Lori Beth Denberg.
WASHINGTON BLADE: So whats this
violently titled play about?
NICOLE SPIEZIO: Tommy and I play
best friends Leo and Samantha. Hes a
gay man and Im a fat woman but were
more than that. Were also writers and
roommates. So we spend a lot of time
together.
GOULD: Co-dependent has been
bandied about, which Im not so crazy
about because its in part based on me
and my gay friend.
SPIEZIO: Its about that critical juncture
in your life when college ends but you
dont want it to end because the friends
you made at college have become your
family so you keep it going. Over that
year after college, Leo and Samantha
are guring out whats next for them. My
character has a boyfriend and her career
is taking o. Leo is still trying to nd his
path.
BLADE: Have you been in a relationship
like this in real life?
PHOTO COURTESY OF MUSIC BOX FILMS
TOMMY HELERINGER: Of course. Its
scarily relatable. During rehearsal Ive
been pulling things from what Ive had
with them.
SPIEZIO: Yes, all fat girls have gay male
friends. The fat girl/gay man trope is alive
and well.
GOULD: Unless youre fat and dumb.
But if youre fat and slightly smart, you will
have gay male friends. The fat woman/
gay male friendship is an intoxicating
relationship. When I was writing the
play I thought about the most important
relationships of my life and those are with
my best gay guy friends. We know what
hate looks like. When I walk in a room, I
know immediately which person hates fat
people. They dont have to say a word. You
learn that early. And gay men learn who
hates them really early too. We nd each
other like a safe haven, a place where we
can be mean and funny together. Its us
against the world. But as you age, you can
shed that because you dont need that
protection. This doesnt mean that these
friendships end necessarily. They just
change. Our characters are arriving at
that place. Growth is good but its painful.
I hate terms like fruit y or fag hag. Smart
fat women love gay men. Were both
traumatized. Its complicated. Its not like
shopping and watching Project Runway
all the time, though thats part of it.
BLADE: Back to the play. What else
happens?
SPIEZIO: So another woman intrudes
on Leo and Samanthas close friendship.
Chloe is Leos co-worker and theyre
becoming friends outside of work. Shes a
threat on several levels: shes thin, a little
F E BRU A RY 0 3 , 2 0 1 7 3 3
younger and she doesnt read as special.
Shes basic. Samantha cant understand
how her friend Leo who has the best taste
in the world could like this not-terribly
smart of funny woman. Samantha cant
fathom why hed bring her into our space.
Her instinct is to say no rather than yes.
As a fat woman, she feels people see
her as one thing and if its negative, its
their worst nightmare. Any young, thin,
ighty girl really needs to prove herself.
Samantha is a really great part for a fat
woman. There arent a lot.
GOULD: This play is from our lives. It
turns out one of my rst gay best friend
from high school was one of Nicoles gay
best friends in college.
BLADE: Tommy, do you and Nicole
hang out like best friends ostage? Is life
imitating art?
HELERINGER: We tried but it didnt
really work. But seriously, Im not nuts
about that stu. We didnt say, Lets go
home and do improv, or anything. But
yes, we are friends outside of rehearsal
and are spending time together. Were
the only people we really know in the city.
BLADE: Tommy is gay. What about you
women?
GOULD: I feel fatness queerizes you.
But yes, we like men.
BLADE: And why should LGBT
theatergoers come?
GOULD: This play is a gift. Its so gay
and fat. Starts as a comedy and evolves
as conicts arise. Theres a drag number
and a dance number. If I could take out
a billboard it would read, This is a play
for you. Not a pretend play for you, but
a real play.
 WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

LIVE
UPCOMING PERFORMANCES
34 FEB R U A R Y 03, 2017 O U T & A BO U T

RHETT
MILLER
OF THE OLD 97S
AND JOE
PURDY
FRIDAY FEB 3

DR DREAD PRESENTS
EVERY LITTLE THING IS
GONNA BE ALRIGHT
a celebration of
BOB featuring
MARLEY
ANTHONY B
W/ ZEDICUS AND ABYSSINIA ROOTS
SATURDAY FEB 4 WASHINGTON BLADE FILE PHOTO BY DAMIEN SALAS

MON, FEB 6
SLATE PRESENTS Blade singles ready to mingle
TRUMPCAST LIVE IN D.C.
The Washington Blade hosts its annual Most Eligible LGBT Singles Party at
TUES, FEB 7
Town (2009 8th St., N.W.) on Saturday, Feb. 11 from 11 p.m.-3 a.m.
DAN LAYUS (OF AUGUSTANA) Come meet the 20 most eligible LGBT singles and have the opportunity to
W/ RYAN BEAVER send messages to them through the Town Valentines message board. The top
20 will be announced on Monday, Feb. 6. Doors open at 10 p.m. Drag show
starts at 10:30 p.m. Cover is $12. The event is sponsored by Whitman-Walker
Health, Town and Bite the Fruit. By MARIAH COOPER
For more information, visit facebook.com/washingtonblade.
THEHAMILTONDC.COM

WASHINGTON BLADE FILE PHOTO BY PETE EXIS

Scarlets Bake Sale is Feb. 12

Scarlets Foundation hosts its annual

CALL FOR
RESERVATIONS
M-TH 11:30AM-10PM F-SAT 11:30AM-11PM
SUN. BRUNCH 11AM-3PM / DINNER 3-10PM
322 MASS. AVE. NE 202.543.7656
CAFEBERLIN-DC.COM
Scarlets Bake Sale at the D.C. Eagle (3701
Benning Rd., N.E.) on Sunday, Feb. 12
from 1-6:30 p.m.
PHOTO BY GERT KRAUBAUER; COURTESY OF THE KENNEDY CENTER The bake sale will auction o cakes,
pies, cupcakes, cookies and other items.
Proceeds will benet the Rainbow History
Ailey Dance returns to Kennedy Center project. At the event, the Rainbow History
Project personnel will conduct oral
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performs at the Kennedy Center (2700 F history interviews for attendees with
St., N.W.) Feb. 7-12. knowledge of leather, Levi, bear, drag and
The company will perform new works such as Hope Boykins r-Evolution, other community history. There will also
Dream and Kyle Abrahams Untitled America. They will also include classic be a baking contest with judges giving
performances such as Revelations. Performance works vary by night. Tickets awards for several categories. All entries
range from $39-125. will be auctioned o to raise money for
For more details, visit kennedy-center-.org. local LGBT charities.
For more information, visit facebook.
com/scarletsbakesale.
WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

O UT & A B O UT F E BRU A RY 0 3 , 2 0 1 7 3 5

PHOTO BY DENIS LARGERON; COURTESY OF DISTRKT C

Promoter Bruce Yelk says he purposefully sought a seedy feel for the popular Dstrkt C monthly parties at the Eagle.

Distrkt C celebrates anniversary

Late-night gay dance party
inspires spin-o event
By MARIAH COOPER
mcooper@washblade.com
While most gay bars in D.C. start
shutting down around 3 a.m., on the
second Saturday of each month the D.C.
Eagle is keeping the party going until 8
a.m.
Distrkt C was the brainchild of
Philadelphia-based party promoter Bruce
Yelk. For Yelk, it was a goal to create a
large dance party event for gay men
but he found the market in Philadelphia
dicult due to nightlife venues shutting
down at 2 a.m. He began look to D.C.
and New York City to see if there was
potential for a party elsewhere. Yelk says
he was pointed in the direction of the
D.C. Eagle and found it was exactly the
vibe he wanted.
Its an amazing warehouse, really raw
space that lends a very sort of sexual
undertone, stripped down, old-school
party to Distrkt C, Yelk says. I sort of
wanted that seedy feel. I often describe
the party as a 1970s adult bookstore,
porn video combination. The feel of an
adult bookstore with red lights as you
walk in and its very dark in corners. The
club looks like that. The Eagle has that
image to begin with. I just matched them
all up and it all just jelled.
For the past year, Distrkt C has oered
late-night parties at the D.C. Eagle and
will celebrate its success with its one-year
anniversary party on Saturday, Feb. 11
from 10 p.m.-8 a.m. Adult entertainment
stars Rikk York and Dylan Knight will make
appearances and DJs Mark DeMarko and
Manny Lehman, who opened the rst
Distrkt C party, will be back to bring the
event full circle. Guests can also partake
in an open bar from 10-11 p.m. Tickets
are $25.
Yelk says partygoers can expect some
of the original dancers to perform at
the party as well as an enhanced light
show to give the party some amped-up
visual eects.
Ed Grandis and his husband JD Rondon
have been huge fans of circuit parties
and have traveled all over the country to
attend dierent events. When they heard
Yelk was creating a monthly circuit party
in D.C., they knew they had to check it out
and have been avid partygoers ever since.
We have found each event awesome
fun because the promoter creates a
theme for each and brings in top U.S.
and international DJs that we have had to
travel to enjoy, Grandis says. The Eagle
has created a unique dance environment
with outstanding sound and lighting.
The guys who attend are looking for
a great time and bring a lot of energy
and hot looks.
Yelk is now expanding his party
promotion expertise to include another
party at the D.C. Eagle, DC2. Yelk
describes the new party as the same as
Distrkt C but held on Sunday nights of
holiday weekends.
The rst DC2 party will be over
Presidents Day Weekend on Sunday, Feb.
19. DJs X Gonzalez and Morabito will spin.
Tickets are $20 and $10 from each ticket
sold will benet the Cherry Fund.
Yelk says the reason he believes
his parties have been such a success
is because Distrkt C parties cant be
narrowed down into one category.
Dierent types of ethnicities and ages
can be found in the crowd and thats
something Yelk is proud of as a party
promoter and what he thinks his guests
enjoy seeing.
Its so welcoming in its diversity and
you see it on peoples faces when youre
walking around. Its a very happy party
because there are no expectations
other than great music and a great
atmosphere, Yelk says.

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 WASHINGTONBLADE.COM

3 6 F EB RUA RY 0 3, 2017 A RT S & CU LT U RE

This Week in the Arts provided by CultureCapital.com

Last Train to Nibroc. Thru Feb 19.
Washington Stage Guild. Undercroft
Theatre. stageguild.org.
DANCE
Mariinsky Ballet: Alexei Ratmanskys
The Little Humpbacked Horse. Thru
Feb 5. Alvin Ailey American Dance
Theater. Feb 7-Feb 12. Kennedy
Center. kennedy-center.org.
34th Annual Choreographers
Showcase. Feb 4. The Clarice.
theclarice.umd.edu.
MUSIC
The Hard Problem Marcus Johnson. Feb 4. AMP.
Thru Feb 19. Studio Theatre. ampbystrathmore.com.
studiotheatre.org. NSO: Beethovens Eighth Symphony/
Bristling with intellectual energy and searing wit, The Hard Problem explores the Tchaikovskys Serenade for Strings.
dierence between our brains and our minds, the nature of belief, and how to Thru Feb 4. Rene Fleming VOICES:
reconcile hard science with lived experience. Rinde Eckert. Feb 3. Jason +: Jason
and Joan: Reanimation. Feb 4.
Carlos Henriquez Sextet Kennedy Center. kennedy-center.org.
Feb 4. Washington Performing Arts at Sixth & I. National Philharmonic: Pokmon -
washingtonperformingarts.org. Symphonic Evolutions. Feb 4. Katie
Well known as the veteran bassist of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Mahan, piano. Feb 9. Joey Antico. Feb
Carlos Henriquez headlines with this sure-to-be-hot outing. Henriquez gigged 8-Feb 22. Strathmore. strathmore.org.
in his teens with the likes of Tito Puente and Eddie Palmieri before joining Music of Soviet Composers from
JLCO in the 90s. His playing and his compositions are culturally rich, melding WWII Period. Feb 5. Washington Jewish
inuences from 60s-era hard bop, Afro-Cuban salsa, classical music, and more. Music Festival. EDCJCC. wjmf.org.
Jordi Savall and Hesprion XXI. Feb
LaneCoArts 4. Library of Congress. loc.gov.
Feb 4-Feb 5. Dance Place. Mendelssohn Piano Trio. Feb 5.
danceplace.org.
Artistic Director Lane Giord explores the manifestation of physical, verbal and
Edvinas Minkstimas. Feb 8. National
Gallery of Art. nga.gov.
psychological communication in anevening of three works: Striptease, Ana Deco Shenson Chamber Music Concert:
and Dash. Catherine Manoukian. Feb 8.
National Museum of Women in the
Ben Tolman: Weltschmerz Arts. nmwa.org.
Thru Feb 25. gallery Neptune & Brown. Leonidas Kavakos, violin & Yuja
galleryneptunebrown.com. Wang, piano. Feb 7. Washington
The exhibition showcases Tolmans most recent drawings in ink and gouache Performing Arts at Strathmore.
on paper. In the tradition of Hieronymus Bosch and M.C. Escher, Tolman washingtonperformingarts.org.
delves in to the fantastic imagery of impossible chaos. JACK Quartet. Feb 8-9. The Clarice.
theclarice.umd.edu.
PHOTO COURTESY OF STUDIO THEATRE Debut Artists from SUNY Stony
Brook With Eugene Drucker,
Lawrence Dutton, and Paul Watkins.
Feb 3. The Barns. wolftrap.org.
THEATRE Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber
Ups by Colette Fu. Thru Feb 26. Bold
Broadsides and Bitsy Books.
Thru Mar 17.
National Portrait Gallery. In the
Groove: Jazz Portraits by Herman
Leonard. Thru Feb 20. Double Take:
Daguerreian Portrait Pairs. Thru Jun 4.
npg.si.edu.
GALLERIES
Strathmore. Crossfade. Thru Feb
19. La Vie en Bleu. Thru Feb 19.
strathmore.org.
The Art League Gallery. Habits.
Thru Feb 5. Member 25. Thru Feb 5.
theartleague.org.
Torpedo Factory. Ipseity. Thru
Mar 5. Jay Hendrick. Thru Mar 31.
torpedofactory.org.
Waverly Street Gallery. Kate
Stillwell & Wil Scott. Thru Feb 4.
Process and Inspiration. Feb 7-Mar 4.
waverlystreetgallery.com.
Zenith Gallery. Creatively We Unite.
Feb 3-Mar 4. zenithgallery.com.
Glen Echo Park. Patti Francis. Thru
Feb 4. Dalya Luttwak. Thru Feb 5.
Barbara Liotta. Feb 9-Mar 5. Artful
Attire. Thru Feb 5. glenechopark.org.
Goethe-Institut. Privacy on Display.
Thru Mar 7. goethe.de.
Hill Center. Hill Center Galleries
Exhibits. Thru Feb 26. hillcenterdc.org.
AND MORE...
The Blood of Emmett Till.
Feb 8. National Archives.
archivesfoundation.org.
Aidas Secrets. Feb 5. My Shortest Love
Aair. Feb 7. Washington Jewish Film
Festival. EDCJCC. wj.org.
Pre-Show Talk: As You Like It. Feb 8.
Folger Theatre. folger.edu.
Novels into Film: Like Apples and
Oranges. Feb 6. Conversations with
Ron Charles Brenda Shaughnessy.
Feb 7. Hill Center. hillcenterdc.org.
Film: Princess Mononoke. Feb 3.
Library of Congress. loc.gov.
Building Community Through

As You Like It. Thru Mar 5. Folger

Theatre. folger.edu.
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.
Thru Feb 4. Reston Community Players.
CenterStage at RCC. restonplayers.org.
Virginia Opera: Der Freischtz. Feb
4-Feb 5. GMU Center for the Arts.
cfa.gmu.edu.
Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Thru
Feb 19. Fords Theatre. fords.org.
Yo tambin hablo de la rosa (I Too
Speak of the Rose). Thru Feb 26. GALA
Hispanic Theatre. galatheatre.org.
Mack, Beth. Thru Feb 11. Keegan
Theatre. keegantheatre.com.
of Fleet Street. Thru Mar 5. Olney
Theatre. olneytheatre.org.
Shear Madness. Thru Apr 15. Kennedy
Center. shearmadness.com.
King Charles III. Feb 7-Mar 12.
Shakespeare Theatre Company. Sidney
Harman Hall. shakespearetheatre.org.
I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart.
Thru Feb 19. Studio Theatre.
studiotheatre.org.
Silencio Blanco: Chin, el silencio
del carbon. Thru Feb 3. The Clarice.
theclarice.umd.edu.
Baby Screams Miracle. Thru Feb 26.
Woolly Mammoth.
woollymammoth.net.
MUSEUMS
National Archives. Amending America.
Thru Sep 4. archivesfoundation.org.
Library of Congress. World War I:
American Artists View the Great War.
Thru May 5. Mapping a Growing
Nation: From Independence to
Statehood. Thru Sep 1. loc.gov.
National Gallery of Art. Stuart Davis:
In Full Swing. Thru Mar 5. nga.gov.
National Geographic. @NatGeo: The
Most Popular Instagram Photos. Thru
Apr 30. nglive.org.
National Museum of Women in
the Arts. Wanderer/Wonderer: Pop-
Workshops & Readings. Feb 6. The
Writers Center. writer.org.
Jazz and Film: Duke Ellington. Feb 3.
I Called Him Morgan. Feb 4. Radio
Dreams. Feb 4. The Salesman. Feb 5.
National Gallery of Art. nga.gov.
A Day at Viennas Kunsthistorisches
Museum. Feb 4. How We Eat: A
Uniquely Human Dilemma. Feb 4. The
Physics of Everyday Life. Feb 8. In the
Indian Kitchen. Feb 9. Smithsonian
Associates. Ripley Center.
smithsonianassociates.org.
Gallery Talk: Bold Broadsides and Bitsy
Books. Feb 8. National Museum of
Women in the Arts. nmwa.org.
WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
FI L M
RAOUL PECK, director of I Am Not Your Negro, says James Baldwin was ahead of his time.
Director Raoul Peck gets
Oscar nod for searing new
documentary
By BRIAN T. CARNEY
Later this month, Haitian-born director
Raoul Peck will be sitting in the Dolby
Theatre in Los Angeles waiting to see
if his searing new documentary I Am
Not Your Negro is awarded the Oscar
for Best Documentary. But no matter
what happens that evening, Peck has a
simple goal for his movie. He hopes the
lm reintroduces James Baldwin, the
man at the center of the movie, to high
school and college classrooms across
the country and to the national dialogue
about race, civil rights and social change.
Baldwin was a star, Peck says.
James Baldwin (1924-1987) was prolic
author and social critic. His works include
novels (Another Country and Giovannis
Room), poems, plays (The Amen
Corner) and essays (The Fire Next Time,
The Devil Finds Work and Notes of a
Native Son). He was also a passionate
and eloquent public speaker, appearing
frequently on televised debates and on
talk shows like The Dick Cavett Show.
He was probably one of the biggest
authors of his generation, black or white
Peck says. He was an important witness
to the Civil Rights movement. He was
gay. He was an intellectual. He had an
immense celebrity. He was friends with
people like Marlon Brando, Sidney Poitier,
Lena Horne and Nina Simone.
Pecks movie is inspired a book that
Baldwin never nished, Remember This
House. In 1979, Baldwin write a letter
to his literary agent describing his next
project, a revolutionary account of the lives
and deaths of three of his close friends
Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin
Luther King. When Baldwin died in 1987, he
left behind only 30 pages of the manuscript.
Pecks documentary envisions the
book that Baldwin never nished. Using
only Baldwins words, as spoken by actor
Samuel L. Jackson, the lm is a radical
examination of race in America from the
past of the Civil Rights era to the present
of #BlackLivesMatter. Using music and a
T H E U.S. A I R F O R C E BA N D
FE B R U A R Y 03, 2017 37
PHOTO BY LYDIE SIPA; COURTESY MAGNOLIA PICTURES
wide variety of archival materials, Baldwin
and Peck examine black representation
FREE CONCERTS
in Hollywood and the broader media
landscape and draw deep connections
between the three slain leaders. Ultimately,
Peck says, the lm challenges audiences to
reconsider what it is to be American. schlesinger concert hall
Baldwin has always been a touchstone
for Peck. When he was a teen, Pecks parents nova community college
introduced him to Baldwins writing. alexandria, virginia
I was shocked, Peck says. Suddenly he
was putting in words things that I felt and
with the intensity I felt. I was mesmerized
by his words and by his language. I was
discovering that the world was not the way world-renown singer
I had been taught and I was discovering
that you could express that in a very
forceful, eloquent, radical way. nnenna freelon
Peck highly recommends Baldwin
as a guide for everyone during these
challenging political times. He suggests
thursday, february 9
starting with The Fire Next Time.
Its a short book, he says. In the rst
essay, a letter to his nephew, Baldwin
is telling his nephew there is a bigger
story and you are part of that story and
you need to see all the dimensions, and
you are not alone. There are not a lot of
award-winning drummer
authors who can do that kind of work.
For LGBT readers, Peck
recommends Giovannis Room (1956),
also peter erskine
Baldwins ground-breaking novel about
gay and bisexual men in Paris.
To write about a gay couple in the
thursday, march 23
1950s? He was way ahead of his time. And
he paid the price for it, Peck says. He had
the capacity to be extremely personal,
extremely intimate, and yet at the same
time pit everything in historical context, a
political context, to make you feel like you
are part of this history. That you are not
legendary saxophonist
just a victim or a witness, but that you are
an actor. The rest of the story depends on
you. He asks you to give a response, to be
jimmy heath
a part of that history. I hope thats what
this lm can do. thursday, april 20
Before he ies to Los Angeles, Peck will
appear at the Berlin Film Festival for the
premiere of his latest lm, The Young
Karl Marx. for FREE tickets, please visit:
Its the rst movie about Marx and it will
speak to our current political situation.
www.usafband.eventbrite.com
Its set in Paris in 1844. Marx and his all concerts begin at 8 p.m.
wife Jenny meet Friedrich Engels, and the
www.usafband.af.mil
passionate trio decide to change the world.
Thats the story Im telling, Peck says.

3 8 F EB RUA RY 0 3, 2017
E-mail calendar items to calendars@washblade.
com two weeks prior to your event. Space is lim-
ited so priority is given to LGBT-specic events
or those with LGBT participants. Recurring
events must be re-submitted each time.
TODAY
A new NoVa LGBT happy hour social
will be at Pinzimini lounge in Westin
Arlington Gateway (801 N Glebe Rd.,
Arlington, Va.) today from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
For more details, visit gogaydc.org.
The QREW, an inclusive queer
community, will be at Songbyrd Music
House (2477 18th St., N.W.) tonight from
10 p.m.-3 a.m. DJ Geena Marie will play
music and there will be a performance by
Pretty Boi Drag at 11 p.m. Cover is $5. For
more information, visit facebook.com/
qrewdc.
Green Lantern (1335 Green Ct., N.W.)
hosts Otter Crossing tonight from 10
p.m.-2:30 a.m. DJ Shea Van Horn and DJ
StrikeStone will spin tracks. There will be
$5 Smirnos all night. For more details,
visit greenlnterndc.com.
The Dirty Goose (913 U St., N.W.) hosts
Britney Spears night tonight from 9
p.m.-2 a.m. They will be playing all eight
of her albums and serving drink specials
all night. For more information, visit
facebook.com/thedirtygoosedc.
SATURDAY, FEB. 4
The Imperial Court of Washington D.C.
hosts its Mardi Gras Masquerade at
Cobalt (1630 R St., N.W.) tonight from 7-10
p.m. Cocktails begin at 7 p.m. and the
show starts at 8 p.m. There is a suggested
$5 donation at the door. Prcoeeds benet
CrossOver Healthcare Ministries, Pets
with Disablities and Rainbow Families.
For more details, visit facebook.com/
imperialcourtdc.
Queer dance collective Honey
Soundsystem will be at Flash (645 Florida
Ave., N.W.) tonight from 8 p.m.-4 a.m. DJ
Jackie House and DJ Jason Kendig will
spin tracks. The bar opens at 8 p.m., roof
opens at 9 p.m. and the club opens at 10
p.m. Tickets range from $8-12. For more
information, visit ashdc.com.
Kennedy Center (2700 F St., N.W.)
hosts Family Day: Lunar New Year
Celebration today from 10:30 a.m.-4
p.m. There will be paper cutting, Beijing-
style applique, calligraphy, sugar and
bottle painting. Guests can also play
dress up with the Chinese costume
trunk and take pictures. There will be
Beijing acrobats and Chinese musicians.
The event is free. For more details, visit
kennedy-center.org.
Hamiltunes, a Hamilon sing-along,
will be at Calvary Baptist Church (755 8th
St., N.W.) today from 5:30-10 p.m. Guests
can go on stage and perform the musical
with the audience as backup singers. Pre-
show refreshments are at 5:30 p.m.. The
performances start at 6:15 p.m. A portion
Honey Soundsystem, a queer, San Francisco-based DJ collective, will be at the Flash on Saturday night.
of proceeds will benet a music education
non-prot organization. Tickets range from
$15.97-17.76. For more information, visit
hamiltunesdcnumber6.eventbrite.com.
The NeedlExchange hosts Butch
Queen, a gay dance party, at DC9 (1940
9th St., N.W.) tonight from 10 p.m.-3 a.m.
DJ Kris Sutton and DJ Bil Todd will spin
tracks. They will play a mix of hip hop,
house, 90s and more. Cover is $5. For
more details, visit dcnine.com.
The Music Center at Strathmore
(5301 Tuckerman Ln., North Bethesda,
Md.) hosts Pokemon: Symphonic
Evolutions tonight at 7:30 p.m. This
video game concert combines orchestral
arrangements with Pokemon game
visuals. Tickets range from $49-89. For
more information, visit Strathmore.org.
SUNDAY, FEB. 5
Smithsonians Freer and Sackler
Galleries (1050 Independence Ave., S.W.)
hosts a Chinese New Year Celebration
today from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. There will be
Chinese acrobats, excerpts from the
Beijing Opera and Chinese food. Learn
how to paint with sugar and make your
own colorful mask. This event is free.
For more details, visit facebook.com/
freersackler.
Number Nine (1435 P St., N.W.) hosts
a Super Bowl watch party at 6:30 p.m.
There will be free pizza served throughout
the night and an extended happy hour
until 10 p.m. For more information, visit
numberninedc.com.
will be a poetry reading in response to the
MONDAY, FEB. 6
Book Reading Uplifts His Spirit
(B.R.U.H.S), a literary gathering for same
gender loving men of color, meets at
Martin Luther King Library (901 G St.,
N.W.) in Room A5 tonight from 6-9 p.m.
for a Black History Month celebration
for a night of music. Local vocalists and
musicians will perform. All are welcome
to attend. For more information, email
darscorpius@gmail.com.
The Imperial Court of Washington
D.C. hosts its February general
membership meeting at Dignity
Washington (721 8th St., N.W.) tonight
from 7:30-9 p.m. For those who are
unable to attend, participants may dial
in. For more information, visit facebook.
com/imperialcourtdc.
TUESDAY, FEB. 7
Team D.C. hosts LGBT Night Out at the
Capitals game at the Verizon Center (601
F St., N.W.) tonight at 7 p.m. Tickets are
$50 and include a free Caps collectors
T-shirt. There will be a pre-game gather at
the Green Turtle at Verizon Center at 5:30
p.m. For more details, visit teamdc.org.
D.C. Gaymers, a group for gay video
gamers, hosts video Gayme and Dranks
at Cobalt (1639 R St., N.W.) tonight from
7-10 p.m. There will be games such
as Super Smash Brothers, Town Fall
Ascension, Mario Kart and more. For
more information, visit facebook.com/
dcgaymes.
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 8
Split This Rock hosts the Queer Kiss
Poetry Reading at Busboys and Poets (2021
14th St., N.W.) tonight from 8-9:30 p.m. This
Pulse Nightclub shooting. The poems will
celebrate all the ways the LGBT community
brings love. Featured readers include Cam
Awkard-Rich, Lauren May, Ruben Quesada
and Kathi Wolfe. For more details, visit
facebook.com/splitthisrock.
WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
CA LE N D A R
PHOTO COURTESY HONEY SOUNDSYSTEM
Gay Mens Chorus of Washington hosts
an anti-Valentines Day open mic night at
Cobalt (1639 R St., N.W.) tonight from 8-11
p.m. Drink specials will be available. For
more information, visit facebook.com/
gaymenschorusofwashington.
The Lambda Bridge Club meets
tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Dignity Center
(721 8th St., S.E.) for duplicate bridge. No
reservations required and new comers
welcome. If you need a partner, call 703-
407-6540.
The Big Gay Book Group meets at
Trio Restaurant (1537 17th St., N.W.)
tonight at 7 p.m. to discuss February
House: the Story of W.H. Auden, Carson
McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles,
Benjamin Britten and Gypsy Rose Lee,
Under One Roof in Brooklyn by Sherill
Tippins. The book explores the story of
communal living for these writers and
one burlesque performer. For more
details, visit biggaybookgroup.com or
email biggaybookgroup@hotmail.com.
THURSDAY, FEB. 9
Transgender musician Venus DeMars
performs an intimate set at the GallAerie
(1644 Newton St., N.W.) tonight at 8
p.m. DeMars will be joined by Lynette
Reini-Grandell, Rachel M. Simon and
Jane Ormerod. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are free but required due to
limited space. For more information, visit
facebook.com/thegallaerie.
Black Cat (1811 14th St., N.W.)
hosts Spill: A Queer Reading and
Performance tonight from 8-10:30
p.m. Performers include Fatimah Asghar,
Wo Chan, Franny Choi, Michelle Tea and
more. D.C. writers Danielle Evennou,
Temin Fruchter and Gowri Koneswaran
organized the event. Admission is free.
For more details, visit blackcatdc.com.
WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
BO OK S
Challenges of parenting trans
kids explored in new book
TERRI SCHLICHENMEYER has been reading
since she was 3 years old.She lives in Wisconsin
with two dogs and 12,000 books. Reach her at
bookwormsez@yahoo.com.
Few parents will ever face the
challenging task of raising a transgender
child, but for those who will, solid
resources will be invaluable.
Imagine, for a moment, being in that
situation as a parent. Your preschooler has
always had an active imagination. Flights
of fancy and dress-up ll his days. Shes
rough-and-tumble, a scrapper in her mind.
Make-believe has always been a big
part in your childs life, but now youre
hearing something you know in your
heart is not pretend, and in the new book
Raising the Transgender Child by Dr.
Michele Angello and Alisa Bowman, youll
nd guidance.
In retrospect, you mightve seen it
coming: your son told you once that he
was really a girl. Or your daughter cried
when you wouldnt let her get a buzz-cut.
Youve suddenly realized, or your child
has told you, that theyre gender diverse.
Either way, Angello and Bowman point
out that few parents are immediately
prepared for raising a child like yours.
And so, youre not alone: others have
raised transgender children before you and
have blazed trails already. Your feelings
are normal, so is worry, and confusion
about gender dysphoria will burn o.
Dysphoria. Now, theres a word you
might have seen while doing research in
print or online. There are, in fact, many
terms youll want to know when raising
a gender-diverse child, starting with the
dierence between sex and gender.
FE B R U A R Y 03, 2017 39
PHOTO COURTESY SEAL PRESS
And by the way, as for shaky studies
and internet myths, set them aside. There
are many theories on what leads to gender
diversity and a lot of unknowns. Again, put
arguments away and ignore negativity; all
kids are dierent, and so are their gender
experiences. Is it worth obsessing over?
Probably not; you love your child
regardless, so prepare yourself for a
toe-dip into social transition. Talk with
teachers, neighbors and take steps to
make relatives aware of new pronouns
and appearance. Educate yourself on
public bathrooms, team sports and other
legalities. Know when to ask for help,
both nancial and emotional. Remember
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4 0 F E B RUA RY 0 3, 2017 P H O T O S BY D A N I E L T RU I T T

Brother, Help Thyself held its annual grant awards ceremony at the D.C. Eagle on Saturday, Jan. 28. More than $75,000 was awarded to a number of community organizations. Awardees included
Marys House for Older Adults, HIPS D.C., Casa Ruby, Charlies Place as well as Black, Gifted and Whole.
WASHINGTONBLADE.COM
A R T S & EN TE RTA I NMENT
Gay-themed works have beneted from NEA
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 31
in high-poverty neighborhoods and
33 percent went to serve low-income
audiences, the NEA says.
Republican administrations have
previously been suspicious of the NEA.
According to the New York Times, Ronald
Regan planned to eliminate the NEA
when he came into oce in 1981 but
changed his mind. Controversies such
as Immersion (Piss Christ), a photo by
Andres Serrano that shows a crucix
photographed in a cup of urine (it was a
winner in an NEA-funded art competition)
have resulted in NEA funding being down
from where it was in the 1990s, the New
York Times reports and todays funding
for the NEA and NEH combined are less
than one-tenth of 1 percent of the annual
federal budget.
But to some arts organizations, NEA
money can be a huge boost. Theres no
gay- or LGBT-specic category of NEA
grant, but LGBT artists and artists who
make art with LGBT themes have long
beneted from the funding.
Last year, Cincinnati Opera received
The Birch scarf is 100% lambs wool, Handwoven in Ireland.
its a flawlessly simple and luxurious accessory, 75x 10.
a $35,000 NEA grant to support the
world premiere of Fellow Travelers, an
opera by composer Gregory Spears and
librettist Greg Pierce that depicts 1950s
life for gays in the federal government
who were forced to stay in the closet or
lose their jobs. It enjoyed 10 nearly sold-
out performances last June and garnered
strong critical reviews. The NEA money
was used early in the production cycle to
help fund a 10-day intensive workshop
in which personnel got to see the opera
somewhat on its feet before the full-
edged production was underway. Its a
common practice for Broadway shows,
but is often too cost prohibitive for opera
companies to manage.
We were planning to do this whether
or not we had the NEA grant, but it
denitely helped, says Ashley Tongret,
director of public relations for Cincinnati
Opera. It wasnt the largest source of
funding or even the tipping point, but it
was a wonderful piece of the elaborate
puzzle of fundraising that we did.
She says the work wasnt chosen
because of its gay theme, nor does the
company have any initiative dedicated to
LGBT themes.
It was the art that called to us, Tongret
says. Gregs music is just beautiful and
touching and Greg Pierce did a wonderful
job at tearing down a huge novel and
telling the story in a really concise way.
It really was the work itself. The subject
matter was not the main reason, but it
was part of the tapestry.
She says the entire production cost
in the neighborhood of about $455,000.
Cincinnati Opera also benets from
grants channeled through the state of
Ohio, which for the last ve years has
come out on top in terms of NEA grants
among states. Tongret guesses NEA
money is maybe ve percent of the
budget or less for Cincinnati Opera.
Other recent NEA grants that have
gone to LGBT-themed work include:
$60,000 in 2017 to Washington
National Opera, part of which will be used
to support performances of Champion by
Terence Blanchard and Michael Cristofer,
a two-act, jazz opera about welterweight
boxer Emile Grith, who was bisexual.
$10,000 in 2017 to the Chicago
Sinfonietta to support a concert program
F E BRU A RY 0 3 , 2 0 1 7 4 1
featuring works that explore issues of
gender, sexuality and identity. Under
the direction of Michael Morgan, David
Contes work Elegy for Matthew, written
in memory of hate crime victim Matthew
Shepard, will be performed.
$15,000 in 2016-2017 to Fresh Meat
Productions, a San Francisco-based
outt, that plans a national tour of The
Missing Generation, a dance work by
choreographer Sean Dorsey that will give
voice to the early survivors of the AIDS
epidemic.
John Moletress, a multi-disciplinary
D.C.-based gay actor/artist and founder
of force/collision, has beneted from
NEA grants indirectly. Organizations such
as the D.C. Commission on the Arts and
Humanities fund local artists with help
from the NEA in a trickle-down way. He
says even if Trump closes the NEA spigot,
queer artists will always continue.
Queer art making has a history of
marginalization which in turn has sparked
a revolution of do-it-yourself rigor, he
says. Ignite us, piss us o, turn us away
and we only become individually and
communally stronger.
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REALESTATE

Recession recovery
defies predictions
Instead of glut of houses,
theres a shortage

By DONNA EVERS

The trend in the D.C. metro area real

estate market from the peak of the boom
in 2005 to this past year of 2016, shows
a pattern of behavior that was simply
never anticipated. When the market
crashed in 2007 with an overload of fore-
closures that occurred in 2008 and 2009,
the pundits forecasted a glut of housing
on the market that would go on maybe
for decades and drive prices down na-
tionwide. Instead, the opposite has hap-
pened; there is a shortage of houses for
sale throughout the country with prices
nearly all the way back to what they were
in 2005 and in some cases higher.
Heres the scoop on our close-in Met-
ro marketplace. The biggest decrease
in sales from 2005 to 2016 occurred in
Instead of a glut of homes for sale following the 2008 recession, theres a shortage.
Fairfax County, which saw a 31.4 percent
decrease in dollar volume of sales. Next
in line, Montgomery County showed a This is a trend we have been witnessing trend continue? The desire of so many tan Regional Information System for the
24 percent decrease in sales. These two since the beginning of the recovery: the people to live in the District, with all its District of Columbia, Montgomery County,
areas also had less than a one percent city is hot and the suburbs are not. amenities proximity to Metro, enter- Maryland and Fairfax County, Virginia.)
increase in average price since 2005. On Supply is scarce everywhere, but espe- tainment, cultural attractions, and more
the other hand, the District of Columbia cially in the city, where there appears to the continuing low inventory will very
Donna Evers is the owner and broker of the
showed a 14.5 percent increase in dollar be an endless supply of eager buyers for likely keep this trend going for at least the largest woman-owned and run real estate firm
volume of sales and a 22.3 percent in- the short supply of properties that trickle next couple of years. in the Washington Metro area, Evers & Co. Real
crease in price. onto the market each month. Will this (Statistics are taken from the Metropoli- Estate Inc. Reach her at devers@eversco.com.

Mention you saw this ad and receive a 5% discount off your total bill! EST. 1981
4 4 F E B RUA RY 0 3, 2017 W A SH I N G T O N BLA D E . CO M

920 I ST R E E T, NW # 6 1 1
Beautiful apartment at CityCenter! Stunning corner unit 2BR/2BA
apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows, wide-plank white oak floors,
Molteni closet systems, and caesarstone countertops throughout. 2
private terraces and 2-car reserved parking plus storage. The building
features 24-hr concierge, 2 rooftop areas, large fitness room, yoga
room, and party room with wine bar. Offered at $1,532,000

1177 22N D ST, N W # 1 E

Gorgeous 2BR+Den/2.5BA 2-level apartment at 22West w/ private
garden patio on the New Hampshire Ave side of the building. Features a
gourmet kitchen w/ granite counters, a LR with soaring 2-story ceiling,
floor to ceiling windows, 2BR suites, and a separate den. Reserved
2-car parking. The building offers 24-hr concierge, rooftop pool, and
fitness room. Offered at $1,349,900

1177 22N D ST, N W # 3 H

Beautiful 1BR/1.5BA apartment at 22West renovated in 2013 with new
marble kitchen countertops, marble baths, and refinished hardwood
floors. Floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room and bedroom face
the preferred New Hampshire Ave side of the building. 1-car reserved
garage parking. Building has 24-hr concierge, rooftop pool, fitness
room, and party room. Offered at $995,000

1155 23R D S T, NW # 3 M
Beautiful 1BR+Den (or second bedroom)/2BA Ritz apartment featuring
floor-to-ceiling windows, Brazilian cherry wood fl oors, kitchen with
granite counters and top-of-the-line appliances, closets with custom
built-ins, custom moldings, and marble baths. Building offers 24-hr
concierge, doormen, and valet parking. Offered at $929,000

Compass is a licensed real estate brokerage that abides by Equal Housing Opportunity laws.
Pat r i c k c h a u v i n
All material presented herein is intended for informational purposes only. Information is
Brad house compiled from sources deemed reliable but is subject to errors, omissions, changes in
MoBile: 202.256.9595 price, condition, sale, or withdraw without notice. All measurements and square footages
office: 202.448.9002
are approximate. This is not intended to solicit property already listed. Compass is licensed
Pat r i c k @ c h a u v i n h o u s e . c o M
as Compass Real Estate in DC and as Compass in Virginia and Maryland.
202.386.6330 | 301.298.1001 | 202.545.6900 | 202.448.9002
 DEADLINES
All Classified Ads
- Including Regular & Adult - SHARE ADS ARE FREE.
Must Be Received Place your housing to share
By Mondays at 5PM ad online at washingtonblade.com
So They Can Be Included and the ad prints free in the paper and online.*
in That Weeks Edition of *25 words or less prints free - anything more is $1/word.
Washington Blade and
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MASSAGE / CERTIFIED PLACE YOUR CLASSIFIEDS ONLINE

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ANNOUNCEMENTS
Walsh Construction is
holding a Job Fair on
Thursday February 16th,
2017 from 2 4 pm at
the Mellow Mushroom
Adams Morgan located
at 2436 18th St, NW,
Washington, DC 20009.
Seeking ALL Tradesmen
/ Bring your resume!!
Walsh Construction
senior staff will be
available to discuss
current and future job
openings in all trades.
If interested come with
your resume. If you are
unable to attend, you
may also submit your
resume to AdamsMorgan
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com or call 202-560-5639.
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 DEADLINES
All Classified Ads
SHARE ADS ARE FREE. - Including Regular & Adult -
Place your housing to share Must Be Received
ad online at washingtonblade.com By Mondays at 5PM
and the ad prints free in the paper and online.* So They Can Be Included
*25 words or less prints free - anything more is $1/word. in That Weeks Edition of
Washington Blade and
washingtonblade.com

4 6 F E B RUA RY 0 3, 2017 W A SH I N G T O N BLA D E . CO M

PLACE YOUR CLASSIFIEDS ONLINE

WASHINGTONBLADE.COM SHARE / VA Always FREE to listen and reply to ads!

LINDEN, VA GWM, Prefer mature,

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W A SH I N GTO NB LAD E.C OM F E BRU A RY 0 3 , 2 0 1 7 2 7

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