Local
Covering Frank Kameny
A reporter’s 35-year journey chronicling the nation’s preeminent gay activist
Frank Kameny served as a colorful, reliable source for the Blade and other news outlets during his decades of activism. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
I met Frank Kameny for the first time in the summer of 1974 at a meeting in Washington of the Gay Activists Alliance, now the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance.
At 24 years old, I had just landed my first job as a reporter covering the energy and environment beat for a company that published newsletters specializing in reporting on government regulations.
With an undergraduate degree in political science and a year’s worth of graduate studies in journalism under my belt, I walked into that GAA meeting at D.C.’s Quaker Meeting House near Dupont Circle knowing next to nothing about gay rights, gay politics or the gay community.
In the process we know as coming out, I had come to terms with myself as a gay man just months earlier.
So with that as a backdrop, I listened intently to the main topic of the meeting — reports of arrests of gay men at cruising areas by undercover officers assigned to the D.C. police vice squad.
Most of the arrests were not linked to sex in public places, one of the members reported. The men, whom the GAA member described as consenting adults, were merely seeking to meet one another for a sexual tryst or perhaps a lasting friendship that was to take place in the privacy of their homes, not in the public areas where they met.
But in an action I learned later was a routine practice throughout the country at that time, the undercover officers reportedly posed as willing participants and enticed the gay men into “soliciting” them to engage in sodomy, which was a criminal offense that led to an arrest. In some cases the undercover officers used body language suggesting they were inviting the men to touch them in a sexually suggestive way.
If the men took the bait and touched the officers, they were charged with committing a lewd act, a development that could ruin their careers, especially if they worked for the government.
After listening to these reports, a man appearing in his late 40s or early 50s with a booming voice and an obvious thorough knowledge of the issue at hand mapped out a strategy for GAA’s and the gay community’s response: The entrapment arrests of gay men would be portrayed as an “utter” waste of taxpayer’s money and police resources at a time when “real” crime was running rampant in the city.
This self-assured man, who I quickly learned was gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny, raised his voice to emphasize each of his points, attracting the attention of a maintenance worker in the hallway outside the room. He said police officials were unresponsive to earlier requests to stop the entrapment arrests and it was time to take another course of action.
Kameny said GAA should enlist community allies to help it lobby the City Council to eliminate city funding for the vice squad, which was known at the time as the Prostitution, Perversion, and Obscenity (PPO) Branch.
“It’s an outrage and an injustice,” I recall him saying. “We’re citizens of this city. The police, like all government officials, are public servants. And public servants answer to us.”
Much to my amazement, within a year or two, the City Council, voted to eliminate from the police budget funding for the PPO Branch. Although some of its work in the area of prostitution continued, the police practice of entrapment of gay men soon came to an end.
I was naïve and uninformed on the nuances of the gay rights movement when I attended that meeting in 1974. But I knew a good news source when I saw one.
Frank Kameny become known for his sense of humor during his long activist career and feared his tactics would get him disbarred if he had decided to pursue a law degree. (Washington Blade photo by Doug Hinckle)
Frank Kameny over the next 25 years or more was to become my preeminent news source in my coverage of the LGBT community as a reporter for the Washington Blade.
From the start, I had the good fortune of getting to know Frank Kameny and getting a crash course from him on the history of the gay movement and its current struggles and aspirations.
Since Kameny’s death last week, much has been written about his vast contribution to the LGBT movement over a 50-year period, especially in the decade before the Stonewall rebellion of 1969, which is viewed as the starting point of the modern gay movement.
What hasn’t been reported as widely is Kameny’s impact on the lives of individual lesbians, gay men, and transgender people whom he helped and with whom he interacted. His self-confident and assertive demeanor on behalf of the rights of all LGBT people and his unyielding spirit for fighting injustice – no matter how great the odds appeared to be – came across to those around him.
I’ll never forget the story told to me by a gay man I met at a GAA meeting about six months after that first meeting I attended in the summer of 1974. Appearing in his 40s, the man told me he was born and raised in a conservative, fundamentalist Christian household in southern Virginia and had struggled to accept his homosexuality. He said five years of psychotherapy upon moving to the D.C. area had little effect in helping shake his inner struggles over his sexual orientation.
He said his meeting Kameny and other activists at GAA meetings, and subsequent weekly phone conversations with Kameny on a wide range of issues over a period of months, boosted his self-confidence to a degree that he could never attain in years of therapy.
“I fired my therapist,” he told me while smiling broadly “Frank and the other folks here gave me the insight to understand that the external forces of discrimination and oppression and homophobia are what got me down,” I recall him saying.
Kameny’s assistance to individual LGBT people blossomed in his role as a paralegal counsel representing gays encountering problems with security clearances in the late 1960s through the 1980s. When his clients were comfortable going public with their case, Kameny provided me with copies of his legal briefs challenging actions by various U.S. government agencies, often the Defense Department, seeking to deny or revoke a gay person’s security clearance.
Those targeted for loss of a clearance usually worked for the government or for a private company doing contract work for the government. The main argument used for revoking a clearance was that gay people were susceptible to blackmail and were thus a threat to the safeguarding of government secrets.
Kameny often argued that the government had yet to disclose a single case where a gay person breached government secrets due to blackmail or coercion related to his or her sexual orientation.
He noted that government security officials appeared to be obsessed with the private sex lives of gays holding security clearances. In the course of investigating a gay person over a clearance, security officials demanded to know the identities of all of their sex partners over a period of years and insisted they reveal the specific types of sexual acts the gay person performed with his or her partners.
Kameny’s characteristic response to these inquires surfaced in a 1969 case in which he represented a New York gay man named Benning Wentworth, whose application for a clearance was opposed by the government solely on grounds of his status as a “sexually active” homosexual.
“We state to the world, as we have stated for the public, we state for the record and, if the [Defense] Department forces us to carry the case that far, we state for the courts that Mr. Wentworth, being a healthy, unmarried, homosexual male, 35 years old, has lived, and does live a suitable homosexual life, in parallel with the suitable active heterosexual sexual life lived by 75 percent of our healthy, unmarried, heterosexual males holding security clearances,” Kameny stated in a government hearing to adjudicate Wentworth’s clearance application.
Added Kameny, “Mr. Wentworth will get his clearance as the sexually active homosexual that he is and that he will continue to be…just as heterosexuals get their clearances as sexually active heterosexuals.”
He won many of his cases when, at his suggestion, his clients submitted letters disclosing their sexual orientation to co-workers and family members, eliminating, in Kameny’s assessment, any chance of blackmail threats to reveal the client’s homosexuality.
Some of his clients and fellow activists urged Kameny to get his law degree and become a lawyer, noting that he already knew more about the field of security clearance law than most lawyers. He told me his becoming a lawyer would tie his hands, saying the sometimes outlandish tactics he used would get him disbarred.
“They can’t disbar me if I’m not a member of the bar,” he often said.
In cases where he represented members of the military under investigation for being gay in the years prior to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Kameny was blunt about the only means of preventing a discharge: “Lie through your teeth,” he told his clients, or refuse to answer any questions about your sexual orientation.
In one of his military cases in the 1980s, Kameny was scheduled to attend a hearing to discuss planned action by the Army to discharge a service member who was identified as being gay by an acquaintance who was pressured into “snitching” on his fellow service member, as Kameny put it.
For some reason, Army officials insisted on meeting with the service member in private, saying Kameny couldn’t attend that particular session, in which the service member was to be “interviewed,” Kameny said.
As a gesture of protest, Kameny placed his foot in the doorway of the meeting room, preventing one of the officials from closing the door. He backed down after being threatened with arrest, saying the gesture was intended to emphasize his strong opposition to the closed meeting.
His use of fiery language as well as humor often surfaced in his testimony before public hearings held by governmental bodies, including the D.C. City Council.
In the early 1990s, Kameny testified before a D.C. Council committee deliberating over a proposed alley closing sought by Georgetown University to clear the way for construction of a new law school building located near the U.S. Capitol.
Gay activists, led by Kameny and GAA, called on the Council to withhold approval of the alley closing and thus prevent construction of the building until the university ended its policy of refusing to recognize gay student groups on campus.
Shortly after beginning his testimony, Kameny opened his briefcase and pulled out a spray can that he identified as a room deodorizer. He pressed down on the nozzle, spraying a mist in the direction of the Council members seated about 10 feet in front of him.
The “stench of discrimination” being carried out by Georgetown University against gay student groups cannot continue, he said, drawing laughter from the Council members and the audience in the hearing room.
Kameny also directed his sense of humor toward anti-gay organizations, which he closely monitored. On several occasions during the 1980s and 1990s he rushed to the city’s office of corporations and created his own corporation under the exact name of an anti-gay group, preventing the group from setting up its own corporation to do business in D.C.
Although he’s known mostly for his work in the LGBT rights movement, Kameny contributed his talents to other progressive causes. He became the first open gay to be appointed to a prominent city post in the 1970s, when Walter Washington, the city’s first mayor under D.C.’s newly acquired home rule government, named Kameny to the D.C. Commission on Human Rights.
In the early 1980s, Kameny won election to the D.C. Statehood Constitutional Convention and played a lead role in drafting a constitution for the proposed State of New Columbia.
During all of his years as an activist and movement leader in which I had the privilege to cover him, Kameny excelled as a news source in more stories than I can count. Thank you, Frank. You’ll be sorely missed.
District of Columbia
Two charged with assaulting, robbing gay man at D.C. CVS store
Incident occurred after suspects, victim ‘exchanged words’ at bar
D.C. police just after 1 a.m. on April 10 arrested two men for allegedly assaulting and robbing a gay man inside a CVS store at 1418 P St., N.W., according to a police report and charging documents filed in D.C. Superior Court.
The charging documents state that the alleged assault and robbery occurred a short time after the three men “exchanged words” at the gay bar Number 9, which is located across the street from the CVS.
The arrested men are identified in the charging documents as Marquel Jose Diaz, 27, of Northwest D.C., and Lorenzo Jesse Scafidi, 21, of Elizabeth City, N.C. An affidavit in support of the arrest for Diaz says Diaz and the victim “were previously in a relationship for a year.”
Court records show Diaz was charged with Simple Assault, Theft Second Degree, and Possession of a Controlled Substance. The court records show the controlled substance charge was filed by police after Diaz was found to be in possession of a powdered substance that tested positive for cocaine.
Scafidi was charged with Simple Assault and Theft Second Degree, the court records show.
The D.C. police report for the incident does not list it as a suspected hate crime.
The court records show both men pleaded not guilty to the charges against them at a Superior Court arraignment on the day of their arrest on April 10. The records show they were released by a judge while awaiting trial with an order that they “stay away” from the victim. They are scheduled to return to court for a status hearing on May 21.
The separate police-filed affidavits in support of the arrests of both Diaz and Scafidi each state that the two men and the victim “exchanged words” inside the Number 9 bar. The two documents state that both men then entered the CVS store after the victim went to the store a short time earlier.
Scafidi “came into the CVS shortly after and entered the candy aisle and slammed Complainant 1 [the victim] to the ground causing Complainant 1’s phone to fall out of CP-1’s pocket,” one of the two affidavits says. It says Scafidi “again picked up CP-1 and slammed him to the ground.”
The affidavit in support of Diaz’s arrest says Diaz also followed the victim to the CVS store after words were exchanged at the bar. It says that after Scafidi allegedly knocked the victim down in the candy aisle Diaz picked up the victim’s phone, “swung on” the victim “while he was still on the ground,” and picked up the victim’s watch before he and Scafidi fled the scene.
Without saying why, the two arrest affidavits say Diaz and Scafidi returned to the scene and were arrested by police after the victim and at least one witness identified them as having assaulted and robbed the victim.
Attorneys representing the two arrested men did not respond to phone messages from the Washington Blade seeking comment and asking whether their clients dispute the allegations against them.
The victim also did not respond to attempts by the Blade to obtain a comment from him. The police report says the victim is a resident of Fairfax, Va.
District of Columbia
Bowser calls for ‘extraordinary’ response to reduction in D.C. budget
Impact on city funding for LGBTQ programs and grants unclear
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on April 15 issued an executive order calling for “extraordinary actions,” including “significant cuts in District Government services,” to address a decision by Congress to cut the city’s current budget by $1.1 billion.
The nine-page executive order points out that these actions became necessary after the U.S. House of Representatives has so far declined to vote on a free-standing bill approved by the U.S. Senate last month that would restore the $1.1 billion D.C. budget cut initially approved by the House.
In addition to large-scale cuts in city services, the mayoral order says the congressionally imposed city budget cut will bring about city “hiring freezes, financial impacts to employees, reductions and terminations in contracts and grants, and closures of District Government facilities.”
The order adds, “These are unprecedented actions given that the District itself adopted and is able to implement a fully balanced budget, but they are necessary due to the Congressional cut to the District’s budget and its inaction in timely fixing its legislative error.”
The House adjourned this week on a recess until the end of April, and congressional observers say it is unclear whether the majority Republican House will take up the Senate bill to undo the D.C. budget cut when the House returns from its recess. President Donald Trump has called on the House to approve the bill to restore the full D.C. budget.
Among the D.C. LGBTQ organizations and those providing services to the LGBTQ community that receive D.C. government funding and that could be impacted by the budget cuts are Capital Pride Alliance, which is organizing WorldPride 2025 set to take place in D.C. next month; and Whitman-Walker Health, one of the city’s largest private healthcare organizations that provides medical services for LGBTQ clients.
Also receiving city funding are the Wanda Alston Foundation, which provides housing services for LGBTQ people; and the LGBTQ youth advocacy and services organization SMYAL.
Spokespersons for the four organizations couldn’t immediately be reached to determine if they knew whether the soon-to-be implemented budget cuts would have an impact on the city funding they currently receive.
In response to questions from news reporters during an April 15 press conference call to discuss the Bowser executive order, Jenny Reed, director of the D.C. Office of Budget and Performance Management, said details on specific programs or funding allocations set to be cut would not be known until the mayor submits to the D.C. Council her Supplemental FY 2025 budget along with her proposed FY 2026 budget.
Reed was joined at the press briefing by Lindsey Parker, Mayor Bowser’s chief of staff; and Tomas Talamante, director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.
They and other city officials have said the impact of the congressionally imposed city budget cut was expected to be lessened but remain highly problematic by Bowser’s decision to invoke a 2009 law that allows the city to increase its own spending without approval by Congress under certain circumstances.
The mayor has said under that law, the city would need to cut its FY 2025 budget by $410 million rather than by $1.1 billion. It couldn’t immediately be determined whether House Republicans, who initiated the requirement that the D.C. budget be cut by $1.1 billion, would challenge the mayor’s plan to invoke the 2009 law to reduce the size of the budget cut.
“Without the ability to fully execute the Fiscal Year 2025 budget as adopted and approved by the District, this gap will force reductions in critical services provided by our largest agencies, including the Metropolitan Police Department and the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department,” the mayor’s executive order states.
“The District will continue to work with members of the House of Representatives to urge them to vote to fully restore the District’s Fiscal year 2025 budget and will continue to work with President Trump to strongly encourage the House of Representatives to take that action,” the order says.
District of Columbia
LGBTQ budget advocates fight for D.C. resources in a tough fiscal year
‘Trying to preserve life-saving services’ amid $1 billion cut
The months and days leading up to June are especially busy for LGBTQ Washingtonians. For one group, the DC LGBT Budget Coalition, which works year-round to ensure LGBTQ residents are represented and financially supported by the D.C. government, this time of year is their Super Bowl. Beginning in April, the D.C. Council and Mayor’s Office hold budget hearings for the next fiscal year.
With D.C.’s budget now under review, the Washington Blade spoke with Heidi Ellis, coordinator of the DC LGBT Budget Coalition, about the group’s top priorities and their push to ensure continued support for queer communities.
“The LGBTQ Budget Coalition was founded in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, as a way for the community to work together to advocate for key funding and policy changes,” Ellis said. “We recognized we were stronger together. A lot of groups are often pitted against each other for resources and dollars. This coalition was founded out of a need for unity. Since then, we’ve successfully advocated for more than $20 million in dedicated LGBTQ investments.”
In addition to coordinating the coalition, Ellis is the founder and CEO of HME Consulting & Advocacy, a firm that helps build coalitions and advance policy initiatives that address intersectional issues in the LGBTQ community. One of its most powerful tools, she explained, is direct outreach through community surveys.
“We actually do community surveys to see what people need and what’s top of mind,” Ellis said. “Of course, we also pay attention to the broader political landscape — like the current threats to HIV funding. That helps us prioritize.”
Because the coalition is comprised of more than 20 organizations across various sectors —healthcare, housing, community organizing — Ellis said its diversity enables it to connect grassroots needs to potential policy solutions.
“Our coalition includes service providers, community groups, health and housing advocates-folks who are deeply plugged into what’s happening on the ground,” she said. “They help determine our direction. We know we don’t represent every queer person in D.C., but our coalition reflects a wide range of identities and experiences.”
The insights gathered through those surveys ultimately inform the coalition’s annual budget proposal, which is submitted to the Council and mayor.
“That’s how we got to our FY26 priorities,” she said. “This year, more than ever, we’re fighting to protect what we’ve already secured — funding and policies we’ve had to fight for in the past. We know there’s concern around this budget.”
One of the challenges this year is that the D.C. government’s operating budget and some of its legislation must be approved by Congress. With a projected decline in tax revenue and a Republican-controlled Congress that has historically opposed LGBTQ funding, the Coalition has had to think strategically.
“Even before the situation on the Hill, the CFO projected lower revenue,” Ellis said. “That meant cuts to social programs were already coming. And now, with the $1 billion slashed from D.C.’s budget due to the continuing resolution, we’re not only fighting for D.C.’s budget and autonomy, but also trying to preserve life-saving services. Our message is simple: Don’t forget about queer people.”
This year’s proposal doesn’t include specific dollar figures. Instead, the Coalition outlines five funding priority areas: Healthcare, Employment & Economic Equity, Housing, Safety & Community Support, and Civil Rights.
Why no exact amounts? Ellis said it’s because not all solutions are financial.
“Some of our asks don’t require new funding. Others build on existing programs-we’re asking whether the current use of funds is the most effective. We’re also proposing policy changes that wouldn’t cost extra but could make a real difference. It’s about using what we have better,” she said.
When drafting the proposal, the Coalition tries to prioritize those with the most pressing and intersecting needs.
“Our perspective is: If we advocate for the most vulnerable, others benefit too,” Ellis said. “Take LGBTQ seniors. Some may have done well in life but now face housing insecurity or struggle to access affordable healthcare. Many in our coalition are elders who fought on the frontlines during the AIDS epidemic. They bring critical historical context and remind us that Black and brown communities bore the brunt of that crisis.”
“I love our coalition because it keeps us accountable to the moment,” she added. “If we center those most marginalized, we can make an impact that lifts everyone.”
In addition to healthcare and housing, safety remains a top concern. The Coalition has fought to maintain funding for the Violence Prevention and Response Team (VPART), a city-supported group that includes MPD, community-based organizations, and the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs. VPART responds to crimes affecting the LGBTQ community and connects victims to legal, healthcare, and housing services.
“We’ve pushed to make VPART more proactive, not just reactive,” Ellis said. “The funding we’ve secured has helped survivors get the support they need. Cutting that funding now would undo progress we’re just beginning to see.”
At the end of the day, Ellis emphasized that this process is about far more than spreadsheets.
“A budget is a moral document,” she said. “If we’re not represented, you’re telling us our lives don’t matter at a time when we need protection the most. When people can’t get food, medicine, housing — that has a devastating impact. These are vital services.”
The DC LGBT Budget Coalition is urging residents to support a letter-writing campaign to D.C. Council members and the mayor. You can send a letter here: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/fully-fund-dcs-lgbtq-communities
Read the full FY26 budget proposal here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bTrENnc4ZazJTO6LPrQ3lZkF02QNIIf1/view
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The White House5 days agoWhite House does not ‘respond’ to reporters’ requests with pronouns included
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