Pennsylvania
Pa. state trooper in altercation with prominent LGBTQ leader
Celena Morrison pulled over on Philadelphia expressway, detained
The Philadelphia Gay News originally published this article and the Washington Blade republished it with permission.
BY LAUREN ROWELLO | Video footage uploaded to Facebook shows an altercation between a state trooper and two prominent Philadelphia LGBTQ+ leaders. Celena Morrison, executive director of Philadelphia’s Office of LGBT Affairs, was pulled over by a state trooper on the Vine Street Expressway on the morning of March 2 and later detained by police.
Morrison’s sister told PGN that Morrison was pulled over “for not having their lights on while tailgating,” which a video of the encounter that Morrison recorded confirms. Darius McClean, Morrison’s husband and acting COO of William Way LGBT Community Center, was present during the incident and was also detained.
“My sister started recording when the officer became aggressive,” said Morrison’s sister, who uploaded the video to her Facebook. It shows a portion of the traffic stop encounter. It is unclear what occurred before Morrison started recording. Morrison’s sister said that McLean was following his wife’s car in a separate vehicle at the time of the stop and pulled over behind her during the traffic stop.
Morrison told her sister the officer “pulled him out of the car” then Morrison got out of her own vehicle to explain that McLean is her husband.
“She started recording when the officer pulled his taser,” Morrison’s sister explained.
In the video, which is described in greater detail below, Morrison accuses the officer of punching her and drawing his gun on her. In the video, the officer says that both McLean and Morrison are “under arrest for resisting.”
Philadelphia Police confirmed that Morrison and McLean were taken to Philadelphia Police Headquarters at 400 N. Broad St. Morrison’s sister says the pair was processed, charged with disorderly conduct, and detained until approximately 9 p.m. on March 2.
“My concern is over her safety since she is transgender,” Morrison’s sister told PGN. She is especially concerned with “the way the police officer charged at her for recording,” which can be seen on the footage. One commenter replied to the video on Facebook, “This is OUTRAGEOUS. This has to go straight to the governor’s office.”
What the video shows
The video begins with Morrison repeatedly stating, “That’s my husband,” to the officer who is seen kneeling on McLean’s back as McLean lays on the asphalt in fetal position in the rain. The officer tells him to put his hands behind his back. McLean says, “I don’t know why you’re doing this,” then frantically attempts to reassure Morrison by telling her, “It’s OK. It’s OK.”
Morrison repeatedly states to the officer, “I work for the mayor!” McLean appears to attempt to shield his face with one arm in fear as the officer cuffs his other hand. The officer hits McLean’s hand with a closed fist before pointing to Morrison. The officer yells, “Stay the fuck back!” while moving McLean’s hands to his back to finish cuffing.
McLean pleads for the officer to stop then says, “It’s because I’m Black.” The officer appears to respond, saying, “It’s not because you’re Black. It’s because you rolled up on me.”
The officer then lets go of McLean and approaches Morrison, saying, “Turn around,” before lunging toward Morrison with a grabbing motion. The camera is jostled at this time and points at the sky for the remainder of the footage. The officer yells, “Give me your hands or you’re getting tased!” while Morrison and McLean can be heard calling out in distress.
The officer says, “Stay right there!” to which McLean replies, “I am! I can’t go anywhere!” before trying to reassure Morrison again by saying, “Celena, it’s OK baby.” Morrison says she doesn’t know why this is happening and repeatedly states that they’ve done nothing wrong.
She then says, “He just punched me. He just punched me.” The officer appears to stand over McLean and Morrison as Morrison asks what’s going on and McLean cries out for help. The officer calls to dispatch that he has two people detained.
McLean says to the officer calmly, “I’m just getting my glasses.” The officer screams in reply, “Leave that right there!”
McLean says more frantically, “I just need my glasses,” and the officer shouts, “Don’t reach for anything!” Morrison reassures McLean, “Just be still.”
The officer says, “Stay right there! You move, you’re getting taken down.”
McLean is prompted to stand but says he can’t. Morrison says she’ll call the mayor’s office once this is over. When she stands, she asks the officer to pick up her phone. The officer says loudly, “This was a simple traffic stop because you didn’t have your lights on — you didn’t have your lights on and you were tailgating.”
McLean attempts to defend himself, “I wasn’t tailgating!” and the officer repeats, “Simple traffic stop,” to Morrison. The officer appears to tell McLean, “And I don’t know who you are, so I don’t need you rolling up on me.”
“You were about to tase me. You pulled your gun on me,” Morrison says. “Because you were fighting with me,” says the officer, which Morrison is heard denying. The officer says that both McLean and Morrison are “under arrest for resisting.”
A response from Philadelphia and national leaders
Mayor Cherelle Parker released a statement on X, formerly Twitter, that reads:
“Earlier today, a Pennsylvania State Police Trooper executed a car stop on the Vine Street Expressway in Philadelphia, reportedly for a Motor Vehicle Code violation. Celena Morrison, the City’s executive director of the Office of LGBT Affairs, was in the vehicle that was stopped.
A video circulating on social media that depicts a portion of the incident is very concerning to me, and I will have no further comment until the investigation has been completed.”
State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta addressed the incident in his speech at the Human Rights Campaign Greater Philadelphia dinner on Saturday evening. He emphasized the need for a thorough investigation.
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign — a national organization that advocates on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community — also underlined the need for a thorough investigation, underlining to PGN that important details often get missed in these kinds of situations. She retweeted the mayor, calling the incident “disturbing.”
In her speech, she said, “When Philadelphia’s very own executive director of the Office of LGBTQ Affairs, Celena Morrison, cannot even ride around the streets of Philadelphia without being harassed by law enforcement, we are in a state of emergency.”
Tyrell Brown, executive director of galaei, accepted an award on behalf of the organization they lead and informed the crowd during their speech that Morrison and McLean had just been released from police custody.
Brown told PGN that leaders from across the LGBTQ+ community and allies were working to “ensure that there is transparency and safety for these two very valued community members.”
They said that this situation demonstrates that an official title will not protect people from mistreatment — but that all people within the queer community need and deserve access to safety and support mechanisms without any barriers.
“The seconds that we miss could be the determination between life and death,” they said, highlighting the importance of working together to ensure that all members of the queer community can access resources that help promote safety and equity — “the same kind of decency and the same kind of reverence and respect that any other community deserves and has afforded to them.”
The Pennsylvania State Police did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Philadelphia Police Department directed PGN to their public affairs office, which did not appear to be open on March 2. An officer told PGN, “I have no comment at this time.”
This is a developing story.
Pennsylvania
White House freezes $175 million in funding for UPenn over trans athletes
Decision centers on decision to ‘allow’ Lia Thomas to compete on women’s swim team
The University of Pennsylvania learned Wednesday from Fox News and social media that the Trump-Vance administration is pausing $175 million in federal funding because of its nondiscrimination policy that allows transgender student athletes to compete as their authentic selves.
A reporter from Fox Business was first to break the news, describing the decision as a “pro-active punishment” for UPenn’s policy which she said violated Trump’s executive order, signed last month, banning “men from competing in women’s sports.”
BREAKING: The Trump Administration has “paused $175 million in federal funding from the University of Pennsylvania” over its policies forcing women to compete with men in sports.
Promises made, promises kept. pic.twitter.com/o4yiiqtH9d
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 19, 2025
The reporter went on to say an ongoing Title IX investigation puts the university “at risk of losing all its federal funding” because Lia Thomas, a former UPenn student athlete, made history three years ago this week by competing with other women.
That investigation, according to Fox, centers on the school’s decision to “allow transgender and biological male Lia Thomas to compete on the women’s swim team, use women’s locker rooms while exposing his male genitalia to his fellow female athletes.”
A spokesperson for the university told Fox it had not received any “official notification” of the decision on funding by the Trump administration. UPenn said the university was and is in “full compliance” with NCAA and Ivy League policies:
“We are aware of media reports suggesting a suspension of $175 million in federal funding to Penn, but have not yet received any official notification or any details. It is important to note, however, that Penn has always followed NCAA and Ivy League policies regarding student participation on athletic teams. We have been in the past, and remain today, in full compliance with the regulations that apply to not only Penn, but all of our NCAA and Ivy League peer institutions.”
As the Washington Blade reported on March 17, 2022, Thomas was a UPenn senior when she became the NCAA’s first openly trans Division 1 national champion at the Women’s Swimming and Diving Championship held in Atlanta that day. She won the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:33:24, one second faster than her closest competitor.
Thomas graduated in 2022 and started her pursuit of a law degree and the chance to compete in last summer’s Olympic Games in Paris. The Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld a worldwide ban on trans women athletes in June 2024, ending her dream of swimming at the Olympics or any other women’s competition, as the Blade reported.
Thomas did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday evening. Last summer, the aspiring attorney commented on the decision that smashed her hopes of competing again.
“Blanket bans preventing trans women from competing are discriminatory and deprive us of valuable athletic opportunities that are central to our identities,” said Thomas.
Openly trans athlete and activist Chris Mosier noted in a video posted on Instagram that Thomas and the university were in total compliance with rules of that time, and that the funding is being frozen despite the fact Trump was not even in office when Thomas competed.
View this post on Instagram
Also speaking out Wednesday was Riley Gaines, who tied with Thomas for fifth place at the 2022 championships and has gone to become a paid spokesperson for anti-inclusion women’s sports organizations.
“The Trump administration has yet again taken swift action to uphold common sense and preserve women’s opportunities by pausing $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania,” Gaines told Fox News.
UPenn’s policy appears online, stating: “The Policy of Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action and Nondiscrimination at the University of Pennsylvania states “the University of Pennsylvania prohibits unlawful discrimination based on race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, creed, national or ethnic origin, citizenship status, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected class.”
“The federal Title IX Policy extends to trans students; it states “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
Pennsylvania
Transgender Honduran woman canvasses for Harris in Pa.
Monserrath Aleman is CASA in Action volunteer
A transgender woman from Honduras has traveled to Pennsylvania several times in recent weeks to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democratic candidates.
Monserrath Aleman traveled to York on Aug. 31 and Lancaster on Sept. 21 with a group of other volunteers from CASA in Action.
They door-knocked in areas where large numbers of African Americans, Black, and Latino voters live. Aleman and the other CASA in Action volunteers urged them to support Harris, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), and other down ballot Democratic candidates.
Aleman will be in Harrisburg on Nov. 2, and in York on Election Day.
“We achieved the goal that we had in mind and that we wanted to achieve,” she told the Washington Blade on Oct. 22 during a Zoom interview from Baltimore. “We knocked on doors, passed out flyers.”
Aleman cited Project 2025 — which the Congressional Equality Caucus on Thursday sharply criticized — when she spoke with the Blade.
“We know that there is a Project 2025 plan that would affect us: The entire immigrant Latino community, the LGBTI community, everyone,” said Aleman. “So that’s why I’m more motivated to go knocking on doors, to ask for help, for support from everyone who can vote, who can exercise their vote.”
She told the Blade that she and her fellow volunteers “did not have any bad response.”
Aleman grew up in Yoro, a city that is roughly 130 miles north of the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa.
She left Honduras on Nov. 25, 2021.
Aleman entered Mexico in Palenque, a city in the country’s Chiapas state that is close to the border with Guatemala. The Mexican government granted her a humanitarian visa that allowed her to legally travel through the country.
Aleman told the Blade she walked and took buses to Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican border city that is across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.
She scheduled her appointment with U.S. Customs and Border Protection while living at a shelter in Ciudad Juárez. Aleman now lives in Baltimore.
“Discrimination against the LGBTI community exists everywhere, but in Honduras it is more critical,” said Aleman.
Aleman added she feels “more free to express herself, to speak with someone” in the U.S. She also said she remains optimistic that Harris will defeat former President Donald Trump on Election Day.
“There is no other option,” said Aleman.
Pennsylvania
Pa. House passes bill to repeal state’s same-sex marriage ban
Measure now goes to Republican-controlled state Senate
The Democratic-controlled Pennsylvania House of Representatives on July 2 passed a bill that would repeal the state’s same-sex marriage ban.
The marriage bill passed by a 133-68 vote margin, with all but one Democrat voting for it. Thirty-two Republicans backed the measure.
The bill’s next hurdle is to pass in the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania Senate.
State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Philadelphia), a gay man who is running for state auditor, noted to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review the bill would eliminate a clause in Pennsylvania’s marriage law that defines marriage as “between one man and one woman.” The measure would also change the legal definition of marriage in the state to “a civil contract between two individuals.”
Kenyatta did not return the Washington Blade’s requests for comment.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 in Obergefell v. Hodges extended marriage rights to same-sex couples across the country.
Justice Clarence Thomas in the 2022 decision that struck down Roe v. Wade said the Supreme Court should reconsider the Obergefell decision and the Lawrence v. Texas ruling that said laws that criminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations are unconstitutional. President Joe Biden at the end of that year signed the Respect for Marriage Act, which requires the federal government and all U.S. states and territories to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages.
Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin earlier this year signed a bill that codified marriage rights for same-sex couples in state law. Pennsylvania lawmakers say the marriage codification bill is necessary in case the Supreme Court overturns marriage rights for same-sex couples in their state and across the country.
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