Local
Activists hail Gray’s stunning win over Fenty
But mayor carries precincts with high concentrations of LGBT voters
Mayoral candidate, Vince Gray (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
The large contingent of LGBT activists that backed City Council Chair Vincent Gray’s candidacy for mayor called his victory in Tuesday’s Democratic primary a highly positive development and predicted Gray would emerge as one the city’s most gay-supportive mayors.
But early election returns showed that Mayor Adrian Fenty won in most of the voter precincts with a high concentration of LGBT residents.
Final-but-unofficial returns released early today by the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics showed Gray defeating Fenty by a margin of 54 to 45 percent.
Lesser known Democratic mayoral candidate Leo Alexander, who made his support for a ballot measure to overturn the city’s same-sex marriage law an important part of his campaign, received less than 1 percent of the vote. Democratic mayoral contenders Sulaimon Brown and Ernest Johnson, who received a 0 rating from the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance on LGBT issues, also received less than 1 percent of the vote.
Jeffrey Richardson, president of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the city’s largest LGBT political group that endorsed Gray, said many activists favored Gray because he demonstrated a stronger commitment to work with and listen to the problems and concerns of the LGBT community.
“What I believe happened is Vince Gray resonated with and connected with the idea that we not only need a mayor who is going to bring us results but who has a heart for the community and has shown that heart and is willing to be connected to the community and to hear from the citizenry,” Richardson said.
Both Gray and Fenty have strong records of support on LGBT issues. Gray voted for and Fenty signed the city’s historic same-sex marriage law.
Gay Democratic activist Peter Rosenstein was among a number of LGBT advocates who backed Fenty in his landslide victory in the 2006 election and switched their allegiance to Gray this year.
Rosenstein said he believes the gay vote split between Fenty and Gray, with a “large majority” of black gays joining the black community as a whole in voting for Gray. Stein Club Vice President Tim Mahoney is among a number of activists who believe most gay voters based their decision on who to back in the mayor’s race on non-LGBT issues.
In other city races, gay former parks and recreation director Clark Ray was trounced in his uphill challenge to LGBT supportive at-large Council member Phil Mendelson. Mendelson won his bid for the Democratic nomination with 63 percent of the vote, with D.C. shadow senator Michael D. Brown coming in second, with 27 percent and Ray finishing third with just under 9 percent of the vote.
The Stein Club endorsed Mendelson over Ray, calling Mendelson a “champion” on LGBT issues and noting that he led the City Council’s effort to pass the same-sex marriage law in his role as chair of the committee with jurisdiction over the measure.
Election returns also show that Mendelson, who won in all eight wards, beat Ray and Brown with overwhelming margins in the gay identified precincts, including those in Dupont Circle, Logan Circle, Adams Morgan, Capitol Hill, the Southwest Waterfront, and Anacostia.
Gay City Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) won his primary race with 57 percent of the vote. Democratic challengers Jeff Smith and Bryan Weaver each received 21 percent of the vote, according to the latest Board of Elections returns.
LGBT-supportive Council member Kwame Brown (D-At-Large) won the Democratic nomination to replace Gray as City Council chair with 55 percent of the vote. Challenger Vincent Orange, a former Ward 5 Council member who opposed same-sex marriage four years ago before coming out in support of the marriage equality bill this year, received 39 percent of the vote.
Many of the city’s LGBT leaders were especially pleased with Ward 5 Council member Harry Thomas Jr.’s primary victory Tuesday. Same-sex marriage opponents, including the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage, targeted Thomas for defeat in his conservative ward. Many political observers said Thomas’s decision to vote for the same-sex marriage law put his re-election bid in jeopardy due to strong opposition to the law among many of his constituents.
Thomas won the primary with 62 percent of the vote. His lead opponent, Delano Hunter, who spoke out against the marriage equality law and backed a voter initiative to overturn it, received 19 percent of the vote.
The LGBT-supportive group People for the American Way, which keeps track of anti-LGBT groups, pointed to city election finance records showing that the group spent well over $100,000 to support Hunter in Ward 5 and general efforts to oppose Council candidate supportive of same-sex marriage.
“They spent a lot of money and completely failed,” said gay activist Bob Summersgill. “I think NOM has completely misunderstood the attitudes and feelings of the voters in D.C. This is not a place where people are anxious to take away others’ rights.”
LGBT supportive Council members Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) and Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) easily won re-nomination for their respective seats. Cheh ran unopposed and Wells captured 75 percent of the vote against challenger Kelvin Robinson, who said he would have voted against the same-sex marriage law “as written.” He said he now supports the measure as the “law of the land.”
D.C. congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) also won by a lopsided margin. Norton is considered one of the most LGBT-supportive members of Congress.
The only Stein Club-endorsed candidate who lost in Tuesday’s primary was Nate Bennett-Fleming, a 26-year-old law school student and Ward 8 community activist who challenged incumbent D.C. shadow representative Mike Panetta. Bennett-Fleming campaigned aggressively for LGBT support, expressing strong support on virtually all LGBT related issues.
Panetta, who also supports LGBT equality, including same-sex marriage, won the race by a margin of 57 to 41 percent.
In the primary for the city’s tiny Statehood-Green Party, gay minister Darryl Moch lost his bid for the nomination for the at-large Council seat currently held by Mendelson. Statehood-Green Party activist David Schwartzman, a strong supporter of LGBT rights, beat Moch by a margin of 63 percent to 27 percent.
Two gay Republican Party candidates won nomination to City Council seats in unopposed races. Marc Morgan will challenge Graham for the Ward 1 Council seat in the November general election. Gay GOP candidate Tim Day will challenge Thomas for the Ward 5 Council seat in November.
Richardson and other LGBT activists who supported Gray said that similar to their straight counterparts, they believe Fenty — while supportive on LGBT issues — appeared to ignore the concerns they expressed over a number a newly developing issues, including the growing number of anti-LGBT hate crimes.
The local group Gays & Lesbians Opposing Violence joined other groups, including the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance and the D.C. Trans Coalition, in criticizing Fenty for refusing to meet with them or attend LGBT events to discuss pressing issues.
Transgender activists also expressed concern that Fenty was not taking their issues seriously, especially when the mayor’s office startled LGBT activists by proposing to exclude transgender inmates in the city’s correctional system from the D.C. Human Rights Act. Corrections department officials said the exclusion was needed for security reasons and was related to whether trans inmates should be allowed to dress in accordance with their biological gender or the gender to which they were transitioning.
The mayor’s office dropped that proposal following a groundswell of opposition.
Sources familiar with the demographics of the so-called “gay” precincts said they have large numbers of non-gay residents and it is impossible to determine what portion of the gay vote went to Fenty or Gray. The gay-identified precincts are also located in the predominately white sections of the city in Wards 1, 2 and 6, which Fenty won.
Nearly all LGBT activists familiar with voter demographics agreed that black LGBT residents, who are dispersed throughout the city and not concentrated in individual precincts, voted overwhelmingly for Gray.
“Anecdotally, I can’t name five black gays who voted for Fenty,” said gay Democratic activist Phil Pannell, who is active in the city’s predominantly black Ward 8.
Pannell said that the gay vote — like the citywide vote as a whole — appears to have divided along racial lines, with most white voters going for Fenty and most blacks voting for Gray.
“I definitely think Vince Gray is going to bring us all together,” Pannell said. “But it’s still sad to see we are racially divided at the ballot box.”
A number of political observers have said Clark Ray’s loss to Mendelson in Tuesday primary may not be the end of his quest to be the Council’s third out gay member. With Kwame Brown winning the Democratic nomination for the Council chairman’s seat, Brown’s at-large seat is expected to become vacant in January if he wins in the November general election, as expected.
The Board of Elections is expected to call a special election to fill the vacant seat early next year, and Ray has said he would consider running for the vacant seat if he lost to Mendelson. A number of LGBT activists who backed Mendelson have said they would look favorably toward a Ray candidacy for the vacant seat.
District of Columbia
Pride faith services in Washington, D.C.
Almost half of all LGBTQ adults in the U.S. are religious
Are you an LGBTQ person of faith or someone exploring spirituality? It is more common than people realize. According to a Williams Institute study published in October 2020, almost half of all LGBTQ adults in the United States are religious. This may seem counterintuitive as any LGBTQ people have complicated relationships with faith because of very real histories of abuse, trauma, and violence.
This violence still continues in the United States, especially following the Supreme Court’s March 2026 decision in Chiles v. Salazar, who ruled Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors violates the First Amendment, but not everyone has encountered this violence, nor do people who have faced it, separate themselves completely from religion. Many people may seek out affirming faith traditions which are prevalent in the DMV area.
For individuals seeking out faith services during Pride 2026, please check out the list below, which will be updated as more events are publicized.
Memorial Service for SaVanna Wanzer
May 17th at 1 pm
Westminster Presbyterian Church (400 I St SW, Washington, DC 20024)
Westminster Presbyterian will host a celebration of life for legendary DC trans rights activist and founder of DC Trans Pride and Black Trans Pride SaVanna Wanzer who was a long-time member of the church. Live music will begin at 12:15 pm before the start of the memorial service. The service will be livestreamed on the Westminster DC Facebook page. A meal will follow the Sunday service.
There will also be a celebratory vigil held on Saturday, May 16th from 6:30-8 pm for friends and family at the church led by LGBTQ organizer Raycee Pendarvis.
May 23th at 11 am
Downtown Westin (999 9th Street NW, Washington, DC 20001)
This intimate conversation is hosted by Janeé Lee, founder of Queer Ministry, between Black trans and queer people who are surviving religious trauma and navigating their relationship with the church. The workshop, hosted as part of Trans Pride DC, is a chance for people to share their stories at the intersection of queerness and spirituality and to walk away with a spiritual healing guide with affirming scriptures and inclusive theology.
DC Black Pride Worship Service
May 24th at 10 am
Remnant Christian Center (120 West Hampton Avenue, Capitol Heights, MD)
Hosted by The Community Church of Washington DC-UCC, this service will feature speakers and sessions on Black queer faith and unity, including host and speaker Robert D. Wise Jr. for a powerful Pentecost Unity Service. Attendees are encouraged to come dressed in and white.
June 5th at 7 pm
Sixth & I (600 I Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001)
Join Rabbi Jenna will be leading an inclusive, musical service celebrating the diversity of Jewish life in Washington, DC. Happy Hour, which is limited to people 21 and older, will start at 6 pm. The service will start at 7 pm, with dinner at 8:15 pm. The service is free but registration is required, and the kosher-style pescatarian meal does cost money. Register online here.
June 14th at 5 pm
Black Cat (1811 14th St NW, Washington, DC 20009)
Muslim Pride is a community-led and funded grassroots performance series centering queer and trans Muslim artists through music, drag and dance. The series was originally founded in 2020 as a way to create affirming spaces where faith, culture, and queerness can coexist. This year’s series features Mercedes Iman Diamond. This year, Muslim Pride expands to Washington, DC, New York City, and Los Angeles. Buy tickets here.
Pride Celebrations and Sunday Worship Service
June 14th all day
Riverside Baptist Church (699 Maine Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20024)
Join Riverside Baptist Church for a day-long Pride celebration beginning with Pride Weekend/Musical Theater Sunday worship service at 10 am. Later that morning and early afternoon, from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm, the church will be hosting a Pride Pageant, a technicolor celebration featuring a runway showcase, line dancing, food, and refreshments.
June 22nd at 7 pm
St. Mark’s Episocpal Church (301 A Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003)
Join this interfaith service celebrating affirming faith traditions and intertradition dialogue hosted by queer and trans faith leaders. The interfaith service has been hosted annually for over 40 years, and first began back in the 1980s with faith leaders and queer people of faith coming together to mourn and pray at the site of the AIDS Memorial Quilt on the National Mall. Learn more about the history of the interfaith service here.
June 23rd at 6 pm
Holy Trinity Catholic Church (3513 N St NW, Washington, DC 20007)
Holy Trinity will be hosting its 6th annual Pride Mass. After its debut this past summer, the Pride Mass choir will be singing at the Pride Mass in June, and following the Mass, there will be an annual reception with ice cream and other goodies. Learn more about attending the reception and Holy Trinity’s LGBTQ+ Ministry.
Delaware
Blade Foundation awards 9th journalism fellowship to AU student
Thomas Weaverling will cover LGBTQ issues in Delaware this summer
The Blade Foundation this week announced the recipient of its 2026 Steve Elkins Memorial Fellowship in Journalism is Thomas Weaverling, who is scheduled to graduate from American University with a degree in communication, language, and culture this month.
He will cover issues of interest to Delaware’s LGBTQ community for 12 weeks this summer. The fellowship is named in honor of Steve Elkins, a journalist and co-founder of the CAMP Rehoboth LGBTQ community center. Elkins served as editor of Letters from CAMP Rehoboth for many years as well as executive director of the center before his death in March of 2018.
Kevin Naff, editor of the Blade, welcomed Weaverling and will introduce him to the Rehoboth Beach community at an event this week.
“If the applicants to our fellowship program are any indication, the future of American journalism is very bright,” Naff said. “Thomas stood out for his broad skillset and strong writing and reporting skills and we’re all excited to work with him this summer.”
Weaverling is the ninth recipient of the Elkins fellowship, which is funded by community donations at the Blade Foundation’s annual fundraiser in Rehoboth Beach. This year’s event is scheduled for May 15 at Diego’s and includes a generous sponsorship from Realtor Justin Noble and remarks from Ashley Biden accepting an award on behalf of her brother Beau Biden for his LGBTQ advocacy while serving as Delaware’s attorney general.
“I am incredibly honored and excited to receive the Steve Elkins Memorial Fellowship in Journalism,” Weaverling said. “Writing for the Washington Blade has been a goal of mine since I began my freshman year of college and I could not be more thrilled to have this opportunity. I am looking forward to getting to know the LGBTQ+ community in Rehoboth Beach and throughout Delaware.”
Weaverling is graduating cum laude with a concentration in journalism and Spanish. He studied in Spain in 2025 and worked in the office of Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) as a policy intern.
For more information on the fellowship program or to donate, visit bladefoundation.org.
District of Columbia
GLAA releases ratings for 18 candidates running for D.C. mayor, Council, AG
Mayoral contender Janeese Lewis Geroge among those receiving highest score
D.C. mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George, a Democrat, is among just four candidates to receive the highest rating score of +10 from GLAA D.C. who are competing in the city’s June 16 primary election.
GLAA, formally known as the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, has rated candidates for public office in D.C. since the 1970s. It rated 18 of the 36 candidates on this year’s primary ballot for mayor, D.C. Council, and D.C. attorney general based on its policy of only rating candidates who return a GLAA questionnaire asking for their positions on a wide range of issues, most of which are not LGBTQ-specific.
Among the candidates who did not return the questionnaire and thus did not receive a rating, according to GLAA, was Democratic mayoral contender Kenyan McDuffie, who along with Lewis George, is considered by political observers to be one of the two leading mayoral candidates running in the Democratic primary.
GLAA President Benjamin Brooks said that when the McDuffie campaign learned that GLAA announced it had released its candidate ratings and McDuffie was not rated because a questionnaire from him was not received a McDuffie campaign worker contacted GLAA. Brooks said the campaign worker told him they didn’t initially believe they received the questionnaire but they discovered this week that it landed in the spam folder of the campaign’s email account.
Brooks told the Washington Blade he informed the campaign worker it was too late for GLAA to issue a rating for McDuffie since the submission deadline for all candidates had passed. But he said GLAA will allow McDuffie to submit a completed questionnaire that it will post on its website along with the questionnaire responses of the other candidates who submitted them to GLAA.
McDuffie’s campaign in a statement to the Blade said the GLAA questionnaire “had gone to a spam folder tied to a campaign email address and was never seen by the campaign.”
“Kenyan McDuffie has long been proud of his record of standing with DC’s LGBTQ+ community,” reads the statement. “He has completed the GLAA questionnaire in every election since his first campaign and, in 2022, earned one of the top two ratings among candidates for the two at-large Council seats that election cycle.”
“Kenyan remains committed to fighting for equality, dignity, safety, and opportunity for LGBTQ+ residents across all eight wards, and our campaign welcomes the opportunity to continue engaging with GLAA and the LGBTQ+ community throughout this race,” it continues.
Lewis George and McDuffie, who each have long records of support for the LGBTQ community, are among a total of eight candidates running for mayor on the June 16 primary ballot: seven Democrats and one Statehood Green Party candidate. In addition to Lewis George, GLAA rated just two other mayoral candidates. Rini Sampath, a Democrat who self identifies as queer, received a +6.5 rating, and Ernest E. Johnson, also a Democrat, received a +4.5 rating
Under the GLAA rating system, candidate ratings range from a +10, the highest score, to a -10, the lowest possible score. In its ratings for the June 16 primary, the lowest score issued was +4.5. GLAA said in a statement that each of the 18 candidates it rated expressed strong support for LGBTQ-related issues in their questionnaire responses, indicating that the overall rating scores reflect the candidates’ positions on mostly non-LGBTQ-specific issues.
The three other candidates who received a +10 GLAA rating are each running as Democrats for the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat. They include gay candidate Miguel Trindade Deramo; Aparna Raj, who identifies as bisexual; and LGBTQ ally Rashida Brown. The only other Ward 1 candidate rated by GLAA is LGBTQ ally Terry Lynch, who received a +5.5 rating.
Ward 5 D.C. Councilmember Zachary Parker, the Council’s only gay member who is facing two opponents in the Democratic primary, received a +7 GLAA rating. The two challengers did not return the questionnaire and were not rated.
“In seven out of 10 of our priorities, every candidate indicated agreement,” GLAA said in its statement to the Washington Blade in referring to the candidates it rated. “Total consensus on core issues signals that whomever is elected to Council and mayor, we should expect to hold our elected officials accountable to our goals of protecting home rule, resisting federal overreach, advancing transgender healthcare rights, and eliminating chronic homelessness in the District,” the statement says.
“While candidates agree on the basics, they distinguish themselves in the depth and creativity in their responses, and their record on the issues,” according to the statement, which adds that candidates’ full questionnaire responses and ratings can be accessed on the GLAA website, glaa.org.
Like past election years, GLAA does not rate candidates running for the D.C. Congressional Delegate seat or the so-called “shadow” U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate seats.
With the exception of one question asking about transgender rights, none of the other nine of the 10 questionnaire questions are LGBTQ-specific. But most of the questions mention that LGBTQ people are impacted by the issues being raised, such as affordable housing, federal government intrusion into D.C. home rule, and access to healthcare and public benefits for low-income residents.
One of the questions asks candidates if they support decriminalization of sex work in D.C. among consenting adults, which GLAA supports. Lewis George is among the candidates who said they do not support sex work decriminalization at this time. The other two mayoral candidates that GLAA rated, Sampath and Johnson, said they support sex work decriminalization.
In the race for D.C. attorney general, GLAA issued a rating for just one of the three candidates running: Republican challenger Manuel Rivera, who received a +4.5 rating. Incumbent Democrat Brian Schwalb and Democratic challenger J.P. Szymkowicz were not rated because they didn’t return the questionnaire.
D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D), who is running unopposed in the primary, received a +6.5 rating. Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who is facing three Democratic challengers in the primary and who is a longtime LGBTQ ally, received a +6.5 rating.
In the special election to fill the at-large D.C. Council seat vacated by the resignation of then-Independent Councilmember McDuffie to enable him to run for mayor as a Democrat, GLAA has rated two of the three Independent candidates competing for the seat. Elissa Silverman received a +5.75 rating, and Doni Crawford received a +6.5 rating.
Finally, in the At-Large D.C. Council race GLAA issued ratings for five of the 11 candidates running in the primary, each of whom are Democrats. Oye Owolewa received a +9; Lisa Raymond, +7.5; Dwight Davis, +6.5; Dyana N.M. Forester, +6; and Fred Hill, +6.6.
The full list of GLAA-rated candidates and their detailed questionnaire responses can be accessed at glaa.org.
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