A couple weeks ago, I was walking into my school’s cafeteria, about to get lunch. As I navigated around groups of students, I heard a student shouting “ fa**ot!” over and over again at one of his friends, as some kind of joke or playful insult. How do I know it was a joke? Because I’ve seen countless amounts of people at my school call each other this slur, or other homophobic language while bantering with their friends. The prevalence of homophobia in my school, even if it’s not directed at queer people, is troubling.

As an openly queer student, I’ve experienced homophobia in school since middle school. During middle school, I was teased, bullied, and ostracized just because I tried to live as my authentic self. My classmates knowingly asked me uncomfortable and invasive questions about my sexuality, and I was called all types of dehumanizing names. The bullying was so bad that I would frequently isolate myself during school, just so I could get a break from all of the harassment I went through. I felt like I was an outcast, so I’d constantly hide myself behind books or my computer. I started to develop depressive and suicidal thoughts, and every day I had to go to school was a nightmare for me. 

When I eventually graduated middle school and started high school, I was elated to discover that there were many more queer students at my school, some of whom I’d eventually get to know and become friends with. However, the homophobia I faced did not go away, but instead took a new form. Instead of hearing homophobic slurs directed at me, they’re now used as if they were another insult, like “stupid” or “idiot,” despite the fact that they carry much more weight. I still have to face the effects of the normalization of homophobia and homophobic language in schools, and it isn’t just my school that has this problem.

According to the District of Columbia Public Schools Panorama Survey, only 45 percent of gay and lesbian students, 37 percent of bisexual students, and 39 percent of transgender or nonbinary students in DCPS schools say that students in their school show them respect. Across the entire district, over half of LGBTQ students feel as if they are not respected in school which is both heartbreaking, yet not surprising to see as a queer student myself. And this is a consistent trend across all of America. According to Glisten’s 2025 National School Climate Survey, which polls LGBTQ youth about their school climate, two-thirds of LGBTQ students said they felt unsafe at school due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. In addition, 63 percent of students reported hearing homophobic remarks from peers, and 62 percent and 68 percent of participants experienced harassment or assault based on sexual orientation or gender identity respectively. 

School should be a place where queer students should feel comfortable and safe, a place where they can learn and prosper. Instead, so many are mistreated and abused, and feel as if they’re an outsider in their own community. Teachers and administrators should be striving to create a LGBTQ+ friendly space where all kinds of students can work toward their goals in an environment where they feel accepted and loved. 

(This work is part of a partnership between the Washington Blade Foundation and Youthcast Media Group, funded through the FY26 Community Development Grant from the Office of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. Quinn McPherson is a rising sophomore at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, one of Youthcast Media Group’s journalism class partners. YMG founder, former USA Today health policy reporter Jayne O’Donnell, contributed to this report.)

“There Is No Pride in Detention” is the name of a campaign led by Rainbow Migration, the British organization to which I contribute as part of an advisory panel.

The campaign, launched during Pride Month, highlights the fact that an unknown number of LGBTQ people are held in immigration detention in the UK. They are detained without courts or judges, in prison-like conditions, often for an unlimited amount of time.

Although detention is officially meant to be used only when someone is about to be removed from the UK, in practice most detainees are eventually released. Their detention serves no meaningful purpose other than isolation and trauma.

The campaign made me think about LGBTQ refugees in other Western countries, especially the U.S. Immigration enforcement there, particularly under Trump-era and broader MAGA-aligned politics, has become increasingly brutal toward LGBTQ refugees. The UK has its own problems, but still a very different and less problematic system in tone and practice from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

British policing, for all its flaws, is generally far more restrained than many other systems I have encountered. UK police tend to be procedural, British policemen are generally polite, and reluctant to use force compared to what is common elsewhere. Most British policemen don’t even carry weapons if they are not dealing with a specific danger case. ICE, by contrast, has a well-documented record of brutality, aggressive attacks in detention settings and immigration facilities.

ICE does not meaningfully distinguish between queer refugees, asylum seekers, or people labelled in official rhetoric as “illegal aliens,” “drug dealers,” or “gang members.” In practice, they are all treated as deportable and faced the same level of brutality. Human rights organisations have documented widespread abuse, medical neglect, and high levels of physical and sexual violence in detention facilities, as well as verbal and physical abuse that was homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, or racist in nature. Transgender detainees are especially vulnerable due to systemic transphobia and lack of protection.

There is a real risk that people like me — trans refugees — could end up in these systems. I am a refugee in the UK, having arrived in 2018, but the U.S. was originally the country I most wanted to reach. I have idealized the U.S. since I was a child. I was obsessed with American mass culture as a kid, followed American politics closely as a teen, and as a young adult had more American friends than local ones, and tried to understand post-Soviet politics through American diplomatic literature, including Henry Kissinger.

In 2018, I was invited to speak at a disability rights conference in the U.S. about queer autistic people in the post-USSR. At the time, I was under pressure from Russian authorities, and my hometown of Donetsk in Ukraine was already under occupation. So, of course, I intended to apply for asylum in the U.S.

Ironically, I am now grateful my visa was denied and I never made it to that conference. I was devastated at the time, but in hindsight it may have saved me from something far worse. There is an old joke: if you are late for a trip, don’t worry, you might just be late for the Titanic.

I don’t doubt I would have been able to adapt socially in the U.S. more than I adapt to Ukraine and Russia. But it doesn’t matter, because it doesn’t protect people from ICE. No one deserves the brutality reported in detention facilities, no matter how governments choose to frame them.

One example is Andry José Hernández Romero, a 31-year-old gay makeup artist who fled persecution in Venezuela. He was detained by ICE in March 2025 and deported to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador under allegations of gang affiliation. These claims were based largely on his nationality and the fact that he had tattoos, despite experts — from a criminology professor to a Venezuelan journalist who wrote a book about the gang — noting there is no reliable evidence that the Tren de Aragua gang uses identifiable tattoos. Hernández’s case seemed like something from a dark campy movie, because his “gang” tattoos were just ordinary tattoos on his hands that read “mom” and “dad.”

There’re too many other documented cases of abuse in U.S. immigration detention centers, including forced labor. 

At the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, La., detainees reported being recruited into work programs where they were paid as little as 1$ per day. Others describe harassment, sexual violence, physical abuse, and separation of same-sex families. In some cases, people attending legal asylum appointments were detained and placed into deportation proceedings.

While the UK remains comparatively more protective in some respects, recent political shifts that became obvious after the local elections in May, are deeply worrying. The rise of far-right politics, combined with increasingly restrictive immigration policies, suggests a broader global trend.

The UK Home Office has also introduced visa restrictions affecting certain countries, including Afghanistan. This has had a severe impact on Afghan women, including lesbians and bisexual women, for whom study or work visas were often the only realistic escape from Taliban rule.

This creates a situation where some of the most vulnerable people are blocked from safety pathways before they can even reach asylum systems.

Meanwhile, in both the UK and the U.S., Pride Month is increasingly marked by symbolic gestures: councils scaling back support for events, corporations quietly stepping away from visible engagement. But for LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers, the reality is far darker.

For those in detention — or at risk of detention — Pride is not a celebration even if all corporate support and all pride parades were in place. For them, this month would be just another month to survive anyway, with or without rainbow flags on a street. And maybe we need to concentrate on their problems more than we’re concentrating on the lack of rainbow corporation logos.

Because there is no Pride in detention.

Hey fellow LGBTQ+ Democrats, this is worth reading! Especially if you’re a voter in Washington, D.C. who’s planning to cast a ballot for the nomination of local candidates in the District of Columbia in 2026.

Because next Tuesday June 16 is a really Big Deal for D.C. Democrats. It’s the first time in two decades that the doors to filling the crucially important job of mayor are wide open because no incumbent is on the ballot. 

That is, Mayor Muriel Bowser is not running for election. Instead she will — at last, and after three terms in office — symbolically ride off into the political sunset. And to considerable and well deserved applause. Because she’s been rightly lauded for many important accomplishments, including her well documented record of supporting the many diverse issues concerning the LGBTQ+ community. 

But she’s been equally derided for her far too spineless a record recently, of (not) effectively opposing President Donald Trump and his outrageous stationing of outsider National Guard armed troops all across D.C. This despicably sad state of affairs has been a grim statement that Washington, D.C. (not being a state) is subject to the Donald’s feral instincts for nastily mean-spirited retributions. But she’s been meek and mild, and even actively complicit with Trump, when other mayors have told Trump to buzz off. And they succeeded.

But enough about Mayor Bowser. Her “sell by date” fast approaches. The old order changes. And a new day dawns. 

Next Tuesday, two candidates of this old (and by now seriously outmoded) order seek to win the coveted Democratic nomination for mayor on June 16.  First, there’s Janeese Lewis George, who’s a great first or second choice by any measure. And (ahem) then there’s Kenyan McDuffie.

But this is Ranked Choice Voting and it’s brand new. It’s not “either/or” binary, just like we now appreciate that sexual orientation and identity are also non-binary.  

My first choice is clear because I know him. His name is Gary Goodweather. But so, who is this outsider candidate for mayor anyway?

It goes like this. First, together with his remarkable wife, successful D.C. Realtor Meredith Margolis, Gary and their two college age kids are all 20-year residents of Dupont Circle.  I actually first met Gary and Meredith a year ago at a BBQ event, when he was a speaker at the historic, progressive, feminist Woman’s National Democratic Club. 

So once again, who’s this Gary Goodweather? And why should you seriously consider him for your personal first or second or even third choice?

Here’s why.  He’s new to politics in the conventional old paradigm of “politics.” But he knows Washington, D.C. forwards and backwards and inside and out. Because he’s been involved for many years in successful local private sector business investments, including the development of neighborhood-based BIDs, or Business Improvement Districts including the one in NoMa.

And his thinking is typically “out-of-the box.” For example, he’s currently an actual active advocate for establishing agriculture in our densely populated urban environment —  through so-called “tiered gardens.” Yes, D.C., trust me, this is an actual thing. And yes, it requires street smarts to deal with challenging zoning issues; but it’s a real example of what fresh blood and new thinking and real imagination can bring to our hogtied and often over-regulated city.

Gary was in the U.S. Army and the National Guard for four years as a captain in the armored command.  He earned his MBA in finance from Johns Hopkins University in night school. 

If elected, Gary would be D.C.’s first Jewish mayor. (His is Reform Judaism. Repair the breach!)

He’s become my friend and I admire his intelligence and diligence and imagination and in a word his character. 

Here’s what he said to me about what he calls his political North Star: “All D.C. residents should be protected, regardless of who they love. Love is love. Love who you want. Identify how you choose to be.”

Look, it’s always time for good weather in our city. Maybe it’s time for Gary Goodweather as mayor too. First choice or second choice. Then let’s all see what happens next.

David Hoffman is a freelance writer and retired federal government civil servant. He is a longtime resident of the H Street Northeast corridor. He is a member of both the Woman’s National Democratic Club and DSA, Democratic Socialists of America Metro DC chapter.