Opinions
Del. Norton: Introduce a bill to get the RFK site for D.C. now!
Mendelson should stop fighting over details that can be addressed later

The time has come — it’s actually past time — for Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton to introduce a bill in this Congress to get the RFK site for the District. The bill needs to be introduced without any restrictions for its use.
It is time for Council Chair Phil Mendelson, and some other Council members, to get over themselves and stop asking for restrictions on the use of the site before we have it. The use of the site should be decided by the people of the District once we have control of it. The current fight between Mendelson and some Council members, and the mayor, is whether to add a restriction to the bill to ensure the site can’t be used for the Commanders’ football team. Mendelson objects to Dan Snyder as owner. But that fight is simply a distraction at this time and of no value. Whether we want the Commanders or not, or we end up with another stadium or not, should be debated after we control the land. No one knows who will even own the Commanders by the time the deal between the District and the federal government for the RFK site could be complete.
The bottom line is nothing will go on that site after we have it without the Council’s approval. They would have to pass any budget for whatever will go on the site. So having a fight over that now is ridiculous and Mendelson knows it. His demands are standing in the way of the District gaining control of an incredibly important piece of land.
It was reported in 2019 “The District’s non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives, Eleanor Holmes Norton, has formally proposed legislation that would have the federal government sell the 190-acre Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium site to D.C., which could then redevelop the land as it sees fit. Under Norton’s bill, the land would be sold exclusively to D.C. at “fair market value.” Local leaders have for years eyed the site. It is located along the Anacostia River and is one of the last large, undeveloped areas in the city, with no current concrete plans for its future use besides some new recreational fields, an indoor sports facility, a market hall, a few pedestrian bridges, and a memorial to Kennedy. These uses would far from fill the entire 190 acres, and many residents say they support transforming that tract into new housing, retail, and parks.” Time for Norton to propose that legislation again in this Congress.
There are other issues impacting D.C. that the upcoming mid-term elections, and who controls Congress, could impact. The Washington Post did a piece on some of those, including whether D.C. could create a legal recreational marijuana industry, take back control of the parole system, and control the D.C. National Guard. Clearly there is even more at stake in the long run should Republicans take back Congress and then the presidency in 2024. Many people forget D.C. doesn’t have full control of its budget or legislation. Congress has the right to review any law the D.C. Council passes and to review our budget. They could easily impact whether abortion stays legal and safe in D.C.
So if we can’t get the tough stuff settled, then let’s at least work now to get the easier stuff like the ability to purchase the RFK site done. I understand Mendelson didn’t want to deal with this during his primary as he thought people might misconstrue his approval of an open-ended Norton bill as his approving of the Commanders. Well Phil, you won your primary, and we all know your position, so stop standing in the way of progress. Just think, no matter what we use that site for it will provide thousands of jobs, and the chance for huge tracts of parkland, affordable housing, and recreational facilities. More retail in an area of the city that needs it.
Phil, this is what you are obstructing. You don’t want that as part of your legacy. So Phil, move off your high horse and tell Del. Norton to go ahead and introduce the same bill she did in 2019. Leave the fights for use of the site to the right time and that isn’t now. You and the mayor can debate this later and if you have the votes on the Council your view will win out. If you don’t, then maybe you are on the wrong side of this.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.
Opinions
Cory Booker’s missed moral moment
Imagine if trans stories had been part of historic speech

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker sounded joyous, energetic, and heartfelt during his historic 25-hour, five-minute Senate floor speech.
Like millions of others watching the April 1 conclusion of his marathon homily for everyday people, I spontaneously burst into applause when he crossed the threshold and broke segregationist Strom Thurmond’s racist filibuster record against the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Booker called Thurmond’s 68-year record a “strange shadow” hanging over the Senate.
Booker’s surprise anti-Trump fest, perhaps a predicate for another presidential bid, was a Democratic demonstration of “doing something” in homage to his late mentor, civil rights hero John Lewis’s call to create “good trouble.”
“I rise tonight with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able,” Booker said in his opening remarks. “These are not normal times in our nation. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate. The threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent and we all must do more to stand against them.”
Unlike others who offer up the usual stale talking points, Booker said, “I rise tonight because to be silent at this moment of national crisis would be a betrayal, and because at stake in this moment is nothing less than everything that makes us who we are,” including “that everyone’s rights will be equally protected and everyone will be held equally accountable under the law.”
Booker’s message was clear: “This is a moral moment in America. What are we going to do?”
It’s a question poking at the conscience of people who believe in fairness. For instance, podcaster Joe Rogan questioned the deportation of a gay hairdresser to a prison camp in El Salvador.
“The thing is, like, you got to get scared that people who are not criminals are getting, like, lassoed up and deported and sent to, like, El Salvador prisons,” Rogan said on Saturday. “This is kind of crazy that that could be possible. That’s horrific. And that’s, again, that’s bad for the cause. The cause is: Let’s get the gang members out. Everybody agrees. But let’s not, innocent gay hairdressers, get lumped up with the gangs.”
In Wisconsin, voters were so angry at unelected DOGE head billionaire Elon Musk blatantly handing out money to generate interest in a state Supreme Court race, they elected liberal Dane County Judge Susan Crawford over Trump-endorsed Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel in the $100 million contest, the most expensive court race in U.S. history.
“As a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never imagined I’d be taking on the richest man in the world for justice in Wisconsin — and we won,” Crawford told supporters after her 55 percent to 45 percent victory early Wednesday.
Crawford won despite a last minute anti-trans attack ad. “Let transitioning male teachers use my girls’ bathrooms at school? Allow boys to compete against them in sports? Giving puberty-blocking drugs to children without parents’ consent?,” a woman says in the ad. “That’s who Susan Crawford sides with, and I’m not OK with any of it.”
Apparently Trump’s endorsement and Musk’s millions were not enough to push Schimel to victory; they needed to play the anti-trans card. Crawford’s campaign responded with her own hard-hitting ad that ends with: “I’m Judge Susan Crawford, and I’ll always follow the law and use common sense to decide what’s right.”
Was the last minute play with identity politics helpful or a moot distraction? Many old Democratic politicos want to get rid of identity politics and focus on the issues – as if the two aren’t intertwined.
Indeed, Cory Booker’s symbolism-caked epic discourse illustrated how identity is the beating heart of politics for anyone who’s not a white straight Christian man.
“We have to redeem the dream,” Booker said. “We have to excite people again. He, in the highest office of our land, wants to divide us against ourselves, wants to make us afraid, wants to make us fear so much that we’re willing to violate people’s fundamental rights.”
And yet, other than a quick reference to Stonewall, Booker forgot us during his 25 hours telling stories of regular people. He forgot Harleigh Walker who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about being a trans 16-year-old needing gender-affirming care in Auburn, Ala.
At the June 21, 2023 hearing Protecting Pride: Defending the Civil Rights of LGBTQ+ Americans, Booker talked about being a leader on the Equality Act with John Lewis leading in the House.
Lewis, a “Christian, Southern, Black, elder man,” would say that “these [discrimination] issues are so similar to what he was dealing with…Is there a line that goes through about the basic right to be an American and have equal rights?” Booker asked Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson.
“A lot of Americans don’t understand how widespread the bullying and the threats and the violence are,” Booker said. “Something’s happened in the last decade, of this rise of threats and bullying and violence and murder of LGBTQ Americans at levels that are frightening to me.”
Addressing Harleigh Walker, Booker said: “I don’t think most Americans understand what it’s like to try to just live your truth for the average American that is LGBTQ or trans. Could you just tell…how it feels just to be a teenager, living your life as you do?”
“It definitely is a struggle, day to day,” Walker said. “Growing up in a conservative state where there is a lot of misinformation spread about what trans people are, what we do, and how we’re just like everybody else, it’s definitely been hard for me. Like I said in my testimony, I was severely bullied in middle school to the point where I had to drop out of public school because there was so much hate every day in the hallways, being misgendered, being deadnamed, and it got to physical violence at a certain point. And so I had to drop out of public school for that year, and the school wasn’t doing anything about it.”
Booker closed with: “If this is about protecting our children, the stories of Ms. Walker and other trans children — it just needs to be heard about what you’re enduring.”
Imagine if trans stories had been heard as part of Booker’s incredible “Moral Moment” speech. Maybe millions more would have awakened to the idea of fairness and equality for ALL.
Karen Ocamb is the former news editor for the Los Angeles Blade and Frontiers. She is currently working on a new LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters project.
Opinions
Trump nat’l security team auditions to be next Marx Brothers
Signal scandal is just the beginning

We know Trump’s Cabinet members have no real experience in the jobs for which they have been confirmed. But we couldn’t have anticipated the royal fuck-up that occurred when the national security team put our national security, and our troops, in danger with their very casual chat, basically public, about classified plans to bomb Yemen. They could be the new Marx Brothers. For those who don’t know, the Marx Brothers, were a slapstick comedy act of Chico, Harpo, and Groucho. Their most famous movies are Duck Soup and Night at the Opera.
Instead of using a sanctioned high-level email for classified material, they used Signal, a public messaging app. While known for its security and privacy, it has also been known to have been hacked. To top that off, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz inadvertently added a journalist to the chat. To make things more bizarre, it now appears one of the people on the chat, Steve Witkoff, a Trump negotiator, was in the Kremlin when he took the call, and Tulsi Gabbard, the DNI, was also out of the country, and apparently took the call on her private phone. Again, the Marx Brothers on steroids.
I can imagine Trump’s bosom buddy, Vladimir Putin, calling him and saying; “Donald, my good friend, спаси́бо (thank you), for making my job so easy. I can now just listen in on your national security calls without any problem at all, again thanks!” Our idiot Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth talked about the classified plans giving dates, times, aircraft, etc. These clowns are guilty of a massive breach of national security. Even if they didn’t do it on purpose, to help Putin, they are guilty of being morons of the first degree. All of them once castigated Hillary saying, “but her emails!”
Unless Trump and Musk are stopped, this will happen again, until we totally lose our democracy, unless the courts step in, and Republicans in the Senate take their lips off of Trump’s ass long enough to stand up for the Constitution. Knowing some, like Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is permanently on his knees before Trump, I won’t hold my breath for the Senate as a whole, but in reality, we only need four of them to join with Democrats to stop some of what Trump and his Nazi sympathizing co-president are doing.
Now Trump wants to take over the post office to control mailing of ballots, and has signed an Executive Order to make voting harder for millions of Americans. One bill in Congress, introduced by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, could disenfranchise millions of women who have taken their husband’s name after marriage and their birth certificates won’t match the name they are using to vote. This is unconstitutional, but we will see if the courts, all the way to the Supreme Court, will stop this outrage. Then, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.), says he can eliminate the federal courts he doesn’t like, by simply defunding them. We are truly in uncharted territory.
While this is both crazy and frightening, I still have some faith things in the long run will work out. That our democracy, which survived a civil war, will survive. Clearly it will take time to rebuild our credibility around the world, and our allies may never again have the same trust in us. I haven’t been to Europe since Trump began his rampage and created havoc in the world, but will be going in June. I may just wear a T-shirt saying “Don’t blame me, I hate him as much as you do.” I will tell people half of our population thinks as they do, Trump has to go. It isn’t like he has the support of a majority of Americans, but had just enough support, from people who believed his bluster and lies, to get elected. The rest of us will continue to try to stop him, and try to reclaim our country.
Even if we do, it will take time to rebuild the government, the trust of our allies, and even longer to rebuild our culture. To reclaim our belief in equality. Back to a time when white nationalists couldn’t stand in the town square proclaiming their hate, and a Nazi sympathizer couldn’t stand openly at the arm of our president. A time when racism, homophobia, and misogyny couldn’t be spouted openly in the public square. They have always existed, but once again we will not let people speak hate, without recrimination. Some think this is a pipe dream. But we have to try. I still believe if those of us who care act together, we will prevail.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.
Commentary
On this Transgender Day of Visibility, we can’t allow this administration to erase us
All people deserve to have our experiences included in the story of this country

By KELLAN BAKER | Since 2009, the world has observed Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV) each March 31. The importance of ‘visibility’ feels especially significant this year, not only as a trans person but for me as a researcher whose career has been centered on equity and inclusion for transgender people. My work over the past 16 years, which has focused on advancing fairness, access, and transparency in health care for gender diverse populations, could not have prepared me for the speed and cruelty at which the Trump administration has worked to literally erase transgender people from public life.
From banning transgender people from serving openly in the military, blocking access to best practice medical care, and making it all but impossible for us to obtain accurate identification documents that match our gender, the impact of these attacks will be felt for years to come. As a scientist dedicated to fostering the health and wellbeing of diverse communities, I am particularly devastated by the intentional destruction of the federal research infrastructure and statistical systems that are intended to ensure the accurate and comprehensive collection of data on the full diversity of the U.S. population.
The importance of data cannot be understated. This makes the efforts by the federal government to remove survey questions, erase variables from key data sets, and stifle research even more alarming. By simultaneously removing access to existing datasets, removing gender (and other key measures, such as sexual orientation, race, and disability) from key surveys, terminating federal funding for research projects that include trans people, and censoring research projects at federal data centers, this administration’s goal is to erase the lived experiences of trans people – with the idea that if we don’t exist in data and in research, the federal government can claim that we don’t exist at all.
Just in the past two months, we’ve seen a rapid decimation of the inclusion of transgender people in federal research and their visibility in the federal statistical system.
Data sets that included gender measures have disappeared from federal websites. Critical data sets used by federal and state policymakers, public health staff, and researchers, such as the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS), were removed from the CDC website in response to a Trump executive order that made it the policy of the administration to recognize only two sexes, male and female. Although some datasets have been put back up, gender variables have been removed.
Surveys that had asked about gender identity no longer do. Claiming that the removal of gender identity measures from key national surveys such as the American Housing Survey, Household Pulse Survey, and National Health Interview Survey were “non-substantial,” the Trump administration has essentially skipped the extensive notice and public comment process that is required to make these types of changes—the same process that were used to add gender identity (and sexual orientation) measures.
In addition, attempts to exclude trans people and other communities facing disparities from surveys will result in a lack of large enough sample sizes to conduct quality data analysis, while reducing any chance of analyzing racial and ethnic differences among trans people.
Hundreds of grants supporting inclusive research have been terminated. The unprecedented move of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to terminate research grants that include transgender people is just one example of this administration’s rush to eliminate funding from active scientific projects. In many cases, similar agencies are also now required to remove gender identity measures from federally supported surveys. Prominent trans health researchers have watched as their research portfolios are halted, work stopped, staff laid off, and participants left without care.
At the Institute for Health Research & Policy at Whitman-Walker, for example, we have already had seven studies terminated, with a financial impact that exceeds $3 million. One of these cancelled grants was a multi-year, longitudinal study in partnership with the George Washington University to explore the impact of structural racism and anti-LGBTQ bias on HIV risk among young queer and trans people of color nationwide. The notices of termination for this and other awards clearly spell out the administration’s disdain for groundbreaking research that seeks to understand and address health disparities related to LGBTQ populations, particularly trans people.
Censoring research. As seen with recent changes implemented by the CDC, the censorship of gender-related terms on federal websites and scientific publications is intended to further the erasure of evidence detailing the disparities faced by LGBTQ people.
On a day dedicated to honoring the lives and contributions of trans people, the impact that these egregious actions will ultimately have on the health and wellbeing of trans and nonbinary people is chilling. Without access to this knowledge, researchers will not be able to examine the repercussions of the harmful policies put forth by this administration and many states across the country, including bans and restrictions that negatively impact trans people’s physical and mental health, economic security, and educational outcomes.
Although there has been an effort by non-government entities to collect and store previously collected data prior to the Trump administration’s purges, state surveys, private research firms, and academics cannot fill the void left by the federal government’s decision to halt data inclusion. Ensuring that public entities and researchers can continue to use these datasets is only one piece of the puzzle being taken on by groups such as the Data Rescue Project and repositories like Data Lumos. Work also continues thanks to the efforts of the U.S. Trans Survey, the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), and the important research and analysis of both Gallup and The Pew Research Center. Yet, gaps still exist due to threats of federal funding cuts to organizations committed to safeguarding inclusive data assets in the wake of the administration’s continued assault on trans rights.
This administration suggests that removing one of the only tools available for identifying an entire population of people is a “non-substantial” action. This not only questions the intelligence of the American people but is a direct insult to trans folks everywhere. All people deserve to be counted and to have our experiences included in the story of this country. Transgender people have always been a part of this country, and even if our nation’s surveys choose to exclude us, we continue to exist—authentically, unapologetically, and forever visible.
Kellan Baker, Ph.D., M.P.H, M.A., is executive director of the Institute for Health Research & Policy at Whitman-Walker.
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