Local
Third activist released from Kameny lawsuit
Attorneys for estate say picket signs, other property still missing
Gay activist, Richard Rosendall, has been released from the Kameny estate lawsuit. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Gay activist Richard Rosendall, a longtime friend of the late gay rights leader Frank Kameny, testified in court on May 11 that he has returned several items he “borrowed” from Kameny’s house shortly after Kameny died last October.
Rosendall appeared in a courtroom at the D.C. Superior Court’s Probate Division in response to a show cause order obtained by attorneys representing Timothy Clark, the personal representative and main heir of Kameny’s estate.
Through his attorneys, Clark has charged in a lawsuit that Rosendall and three other Kameny friends and associates removed without permission documents and other property belonging to the Kameny estate from Kameny’s house in Northwest Washington shortly after Kameny died last Oct. 11.
“After the death of Franklin Edward Kameny, I borrowed, and held in my possession and control, certain personal properly lawfully belonging to the Estate of Franklin Edward Kameny,” Rosendall stated in a sworn affidavit submitted to the court two days prior to the hearing.
He identified in the affidavit and on the witness stand the items borrowed as “a copy of Dr. Kameny’s 1961 brief for the Supreme Court of the United States; a letter to or from [U.S. Supreme Court] Justice [Lewis] Powell; several letters between Dr. Kameny and an Army official concerning [the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance’s] wreath-laying ceremonies at Arlington Cemetery; a box of business cards; and three or four books.”
Two of the other three named in the lawsuit, Charles Francis and Bob Witeck, have returned items they acknowledged belonging to the estate. Rosendall testified at the May 11 hearing that he helped Francis carry 17 boxes filled with papers and other items from Kameny’s house, which he said Francis placed in a storage facility for safekeeping. Rosendall has said Clark, who lived in the house with Kameny for 19 years, gave them permission to enter the house.
Upon their return of the property last month, attorneys for the estate dismissed Francis and Witeck from the lawsuit.
Similar to Rosendall, Francis and Witeck have said they took possession of the items to ensure they remain safe and properly preserved during a period of confusion following Kameny’s death. Each has said they planned all along to return the items to the estate. Witeck has said the only items he took were several photographs.
Rosendall testified that he returned the items he borrowed to Francis, who returned them to the Kameny estate last month.
“The Estate of Dr. Franklin E. Kameny is satisfied that Richard J. Rosendall has returned the items that Mr. Rosendall removed from Dr. Kameny’s home shortly after Dr. Kameny’s death,” said Glen Ackerman, one of the attorneys representing Clark and the Kameny estate, in a statement to the Blade on Monday.
“However, there are still a number of important historical items still missing from the Estate, including Dr. Kameny’s collection of buttons, handmade picket signs and posters,” Ackerman said in the statement. “The Estate is attempting to recover these missing historically significant assets as a part of the probate process and to make certain that Dr. Kameny’s wishes as recorded in his Last Will and Testament are carried out fully.”
In his will, Kameny bequeathed his papers to the Library of Congress while leaving all other possessions, including his house and car, to Clark.
In response to questions at the May 11 court hearing by Kameny estate attorney J. Max Barger, Rosendall disputed claims by the estate that Clark believes as many as 100 picket signs were taken from the house after Kameny’s death. Rosendall told Barger he doubted that many picket signs had been in the house.
Kameny and his fellow gay activists used the picket signs in their historic gay rights demonstrations outside the White House and other government buildings in the early 1960s, the first such demonstrations ever held.
Barger and Ackerman told Judge John Campbell, who presided over the hearing, that the picket signs and buttons, which are inscribed with gay rights messages, have an important historic value and must be accounted for during the probate process for the estate.
Rosendall testified that he has possession of one of the picket signs, which he said Kameny gave permission for him to take several years prior to his death. He said Kameny also gave him a signed copy of The Homosexual Citizen, a publication of the Mattachine Society of Washington, which Kameny co-founded in 1961.
Mindy Daniels, Rosendall’s attorney, expressed concern during the hearing that the estate was confusing items that Kameny gave to Rosendall and others with items belonging to the estate. She noted items given away by someone prior to their death are not part of their estate after the person dies.
Ackerman told Campbell that Francis, Witeck, Rosendall and Marvin Carter, another Kameny friend, had not responded to earlier efforts by the estate to obtain from them an inventory of the items they allegedly took from Kameny’s house following Kameny’s death.
Daniels said the estate never contacted Rosendall about these items until it filed suit against him in March. Ackerman said the estate did make attempts to reach Rosendall and the other three men.
The estate named Carter as a defendant in one of the lawsuits seeking the return of items taken from Kameny’s house and petitioned the court to order him to appear at the May 11 show cause hearing, but Carter did not show up for the hearing. Barger told the court the estate wasn’t able to locate him to serve him a summons to appear at the hearing.
Carter hasn’t returned calls from the Blade seeking comment on the case. As head of the local LGBT charitable group Helping Our Brothers and Sisters (HOBS), Carter arranged for the group to provide financial assistance and support for Kameny in the last years of his life.
“I don’t know where we are going with this,” the judge told the attorneys at the hearing. “You can say to these folks give the items back,” Campbell said to Ackerman and Barger. “They can say we did. You can say they didn’t…But we’re not sitting in a criminal court. I can’t convict someone of theft.”
Campbell called on all parties in the case to cooperate and do their best to come up with an inventory of all property that belongs to the state.
He ruled that Rosendall fulfilled the requirements of the show cause order and ordered that he be released from the order. He denied a request from Ackerman and Barger that he issue a “non-disparagement” order prohibiting Rosendall from saying disparaging things about Clark or the Kameny estate. Ackerman told Campbell that an attorney representing Francis made derogatory remarks and false accusations against Clark earlier this year.
Campbell said that as a probate judge he did not have authority to issue such an order.
“I always hope that people will be civil,” he said.
The judge said he could not issue a ruling for Carter because the attorneys for the estate had not been able to serve him with a summons calling on him to appear in court.
Ackerman said the estate would file a motion to dismiss its lawsuit against Rosendall, leaving Carter as the only one of the four with the lawsuit still pending against him. The lawsuit calls on the court to require that Carter disclose what, if any, items he may have that belong to the estate and that he return any such items. Carter has yet to file a response to the lawsuit.
In his affidavit filed with the court, Rosendall, vice president for political affairs of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, made these additional assertions:
“I hereby affirm that I have destroyed or returned any and all copied, digitized, or otherwise electronically or physically duplicated property belonging to the Estate, including but not limited to: personal papers, photographs, documents, memorabilia and other miscellaneous items of tangible personal property. I further affirm that I have not caused the duplication and/or digitization, whether electronic or physical, of said property of the Estate to third parties.”
District of Columbia
Over 2,000 turn out for Hands Around the Kennedy Center protest
Drag performer Tara Hoot serves as MC, Gay Men’s Chorus of DC performs, attendees shout for Trump to keep ‘hands off’ Kennedy Center
More than 2,000 supporters of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts turned out on Sept. 18, for a rally in support of the performing arts center and a vocal protest against President Donald Trump’s threats to permanently close the center and possibly demolish it.
The event was organized by a group called Hands Off the Arts, which initially called for participants to form a “human chain” around the Kennedy Center’s main building following a rally on the plaza in front of the building.
However, due to a decision by the Trump-controlled Kennedy Center’s board of trustees to close the center earlier in the week and install fencing around part of the building, participants could only form the chain around part of the building, according to organizers.
Drag performer Tara Hoot, who co-organized the event and served as master of ceremonies for the rally preceding the “human chain,” said the large turnout could have fully surrounded the building at least twice had the fencing not prevented a full encirclement.
Among the musicians and singing groups that performed at the rally was the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, which, like other rally performers, had performed at the Kennedy Center in past years. They drew loud applause after singing one of their favorite songs from the Broadway musical show Ragtime, which includes the lyrics, “Will justice be demanded by 10 million men? Make them hear you. When they hear you, I’ll be near you again.”
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Prior to their performance, Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington’s artistic director, Thea Kano, spoke at the rally, reminding participants that shortly after the Trump takeover of the center last year, Kennedy Center officials cancelled a concert the chorus was scheduled to perform there for World Pride 2025.
A Kennedy Center spokesperson said the cancellation was due to a scheduling conflict, but chorus members and LGBTQ activists believe it resulted from policies put in place by Trump and his leadership team at the Kennedy Center following Trump’s statements that he would end controversial “woke” performances that he claimed the majority of Americans disapprove of.
“Now this building sits empty in silence,” Kano told the crowd at the rally. “Let us raise our voices together and bring back the Kennedy Center as it was intended, a place where American culture could be celebrated and elevated, embracing the vibrancy with the spectrum of identify without censure and without politics,” she said.
Among the others who spoke at the rally were U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.), and D.C. Councilmember Robert White (D-At-Large).
Most speakers, along with LGBTQ participants in the hands-around-the-building event expressed strong opposition to Trump’s demand that the Kennedy Center name be changed from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
At Trump’s request, his appointed board initially made that name change and placed Trump’s name on the front wall of the building along with the Kennedy name. But following legal action taken by opponents who pointed out that Congress must approve such a name change, a judge ordered the removal of Trump’s name from the building. Trump has said he will take steps to reverse that order and has said he will stop plans to renovate the Kennedy Center building and possibly demolish it if his name is not restored in the Kennedy’s Center’s official name.
Throughout the Sept. 18 rally, LGBTQ participants repeatedly responded to the Trump threats by shouting, “Hands Off!”
Chris Raleigh, one of the founders of Hands Off the Arts and a lead organizer of the Sept. 18 event at the Kennedy Center who spoke at the event told the Washington Blade that more similar events are being planned and he welcomes the support the event has received from the LGBTQ community.
“The LGBTQ community was here first, and we’re following them,” he said. “They’ve been the spearhead; they’ve been the vanguard. And I’m so thankful for heroes like Tara Hoot,” he said, adding, “It’s because they know what it means and how this is a safe place – the theater – for many LGBTQ people.”
The DMV’s own furry group was on full display on the Metro on Sept. 12.
Shutterpaws is a volunteer-led 501(c)(3) non-profit organization located in Maryland.
The furry group has been doing the FurRide event since 2024 and has blown up in popularity for furries around DMV. They showcased themselves on the Silver and Blue Lines near the Smithsonian on Sept. 12.
“A lot of careful planning goes into running these events, with the goal being a seamless and enjoyable experience for everyone who attends,” says Zayre, a Shutterpaws staff member. “There’s a lot that you learn just by trial and error, and as Shutterpaws hosts more and more events, our team of event organizers continues to learn and refine our approach to keep things running smoothly and finding new ways to engage with our community.”
With a larger growth of participation in the community comes many challenges with the group, especially when it comes to the Metro rides and organizing.
“The biggest challenge that we face as organizers is keeping things fresh and finding new and engaging venues to host events,” says Zayre. “Recently we saw a lot of success hosting a meet at On Target Battlezone, an indoor NERF gun battle arena where our crew was welcome to show up and play both with and without a fur suit.”
Nevertheless, Shutterpaws receive overwhelming support from the community and partners.
“Across the DMV there are so many amazing places to host a Shutterpaws event so we can pursue our mission of helping connect fur suiters and photographers, and we’re blown away with the amount of support we’ve received from our community partners,” says Zayre.
Shutterpaws plans to do more events for anyone in the DMV who is interested.
Their next event in collaboration with DC Fur Meet will take place at Pitchers (2317 18th St., N.W.) on Saturday. Visit Shutterpaws’ website for more information.
Delaware
Republican challenger misgenders McBride during forum, forced to leave
Jewish Federation of Delaware hosted event on Thursday
Republican “Dr. Joe” Arminio, the Republican nominee for the First State’s at-large U.S. House of Representatives seat, attempted to misgender the the country’s first and only transgender member of Congress while at a forum on Thursday.
This story was first broken by WDEL out of Wilmington, Del.
Arminio used the terms “his” and later “gentleman” when referring to U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) during his time on the mic before he was asked to leave the forum, hosted by the Jewish Federation of Delaware at the Siegel Jewish Community Center in Talleyville on Thursday night.
At that point, the crowd of about 100 people largely started booing Arminio, who then finished, “I would like to show respect to the speaker, that would be nice.”
The first time Republican US House candidate “Dr. Joe” Arminio referred to Rep. Sarah McBride (D) as a man during Thursday’s debate at the Siegel Jewish Community Center in Talleyville. He was warned for his comment. #netde https://t.co/j4EaMOL84W
— Sean Greene (@SeanGreeneWDEL) September 18, 2026
Moderator Ken Grant waited until Arminio was finished, then said, “this is your final warning, if you fail to show respect to anyone else on this stage, you’ll be asked to leave.”
During the answer to his next question at the forum, Arminio responded to what he called an “error.”
“I committed an error before, and I do acknowledge it,” Arminio said. “It’s not the first error I’ve made in this campaign, or at any point in my future life.”
Despite the apology and acknowledgement that he had committed what was, at the very least, a social taboo, he did it again 12 minutes later.
While talking about rising healthcare costs being a “catastrophe,” Arminio pointed to U.S. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and McBride.
“The reason it is is because gentlemen like the two up here with me in the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party … ” Arminio said.
Despite his direct attacks on McBride’s gender identity, she responded to the situation with grace, attempting to intervene to allow Arminio to still have a chance to speak despite not heeding the moderator’s warnings.
“I don’t want this gentleman to not have the ability … ,” McBride began.
However, Republican Senate candidate Michael Katz interrupted her shortly before Arminio was removed from the forum, which was meant to inform the Delaware electorate on the candidates’ issues.
Katz had his opening statement next and directly condemned Arminio’s comments.
“I would like to apologize to everybody here and everybody else on this stage. As a physician, I believe in our common humanity and respect for each other. I feel that pain over those comments, and my apologies.”
Following the forum, Katz called for Arminio to exit the race via social media.
“Those who seek to represent Delaware must demonstrate integrity, judgment, decency, and respect — even toward people with whom they profoundly disagree,” Katz’s post read on Facebook. “For these reasons, I am calling on Joseph Arminio to withdraw his candidacy for the United States House of Representatives.”
This is not the first time McBride has been the victim of misgendering.
In 2025, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) introduced the sole representative from Delaware as “Mr. McBride” during a meeting.
This is also not the first time McBride has faced vitriol from the other side of the aisle — both in terms of personal and legislative attacks on her trans identity.
In 2025, the House voted to ban trans girls and women from playing school sports with other girls, while U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) pushed for legislation barring trans women from using women’s bathrooms.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) instituted a similar rule barring McBride — and all other trans women — from women’s restrooms on Capitol Hill.
McBride has also been a vocal opponent of Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office. The directive prohibits the federal government from recognizing the gender identity of trans people.
She has criticized Executive Order 14183, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” which would ban trans service members from serving in the Armed Forces. The directive is still being challenged in the courts to determine its constitutional legitimacy, but it has been allowed to remain in effect as the judicial system considers its legality.
The Washington Blade sat down with McBride in May to reflect on a tense year for LGBTQ politics, where she, in typical McBride fashion, answered questions about the hate she has received.
“Our politics are too often defined by hate,” McBride told the Blade. “I’m glad Delaware and Delawareans are showing that a different kind of politics is possible.”
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