Arts & Entertainment
Best of Gay D.C. 2016: PEOPLE
Blade readers voted for their favorite people
Local Hero
Eric Fanning, U.S. Army Secretary
President Obama has appointed a record number of openly LGBT people to his administration, but over the course of the last year none has received as much attention as Army Secretary Eric Fanning.
His approval by the U.S. Senate in May after a nearly yearlong process in which his confirmation was in question made him the first openly gay person confirmed to head a military service branch.
Since that time, Fanning has become a hero in the LGBT community and a favorite interview subject for the media.
In an interview with the Blade in August, Fanning said heās aware of his fan base, which he said has grown with each advancement of his career at the Pentagon.
āI always think Iām prepared and then the wave comes when youāre nominated, when youāre confirmed, when youāre sworn in,ā Fanning said. āThereās always something thatās a hook that gets a little bit of attention.ā
Over the course of the Obama administration, Fanning has occupied a position in each of the military services. Before his confirmation as Army secretary, Fanning held the posts of Air Force under secretary and deputy secretary at the Navy. Fanning was also chief of staff to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and served as acting Army secretary, but had to relinquish the job briefly to win confirmation.
No stranger to LGBT advocacy, Fanning was once a board member for the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund. He began his tenure in the Obama administration at the time Congress repealed āDonāt Ask, Donāt Tell.ā
In 2013, Fanning became the first senior defense official to endorse a non-discrimination rule for sexual orientation in the military and openly transgender service in the armed forces. The U.S. military has since adopted both ideas.
Fanning said in August the changes have been great for him to witness personally, but āfar more important, I think, itās been great for the U.S. military.ā
āOpening up service to people who havenāt had the opportunities, but meet the requirements, means we can recruit from a broader pool of talent and get the best our country has to offer,ā Fanning said. (Chris Johnson)
Best Amateur Athlete/Best Fitness Instructor
Grace Thompson, D.C. Front Runners
Runner-up: Mark Hofberg, D.C. Gay Flag Football
Runner-up (fitness instructor): Kyle Suib
Grace Thompson calls the D.C. Front Runners āwelcoming, supportive and friendly.ā
The D.C. native joined the group seven years ago and is one of between 15-20 women in the league.
āOur group is dynamic with a full spectrum of runners, from the sub three-hour marathon to walkers and every pace in between.ā
Thompson, a lesbian, started running consistently about 10 years ago. Since then, sheās run five full marathons and four half marathons. On Oct. 30, sheāll add another to the list ā the Marine Corps Marathon.
āIām honored, surprised and thankful to win,ā Thompson, who works by day as the owner of Embody Pure Fitness, says. āI honestly didnāt campaign at all. It was a surprise to me that I was even nominated.ā (Joey DiGuglielmo)
Best Artist
John Jack Gallagher
Runner-up: Denis Largeron
John Jack Gallagher has been taking photos since his first boyfriend gave him a 35-millimeter camera for his birthday more than 30 years ago. In 2012, he started shooting professionally after members of the Stonewall Kickball team heād been photographing insisted he shoot their wedding.
āI created a Facebook page and started getting a lot of likes and even some clients,ā Gallagher, 57, says. āMy friends ended up eloping so I did not get to photograph their wedding, but by then, John Jack Photography was started down the road to being a permanent thing.ā
Gallagher shoots fundraisers, weddings and sports and says heās working more hours than he ever has before. āBut I love it,ā he says. He aims for ācolorful, candid and emotionalā photos.
āI like my photos to be vibrant and tell a story, even when they capture a single moment,ā he says.
Gallagher is single and has been traveling all over the East Coast to build his business.
Heās also learned to be more careful after getting banned from Facebook five years ago for accidentally posting a photo of a woman whose bathing suit had slipped during a Jello wrestling match. (Joey DiGuglielmo)
Best Businessperson
Jim āChachiā Boyle
Town, Trade and Number Nine
Runner-up: Dr. Gregory Jones, Capital Center for Psychotherapy & Wellness
Jim āChachiā Boyle has been involved in various nightlife ventures for 20 years. A decade ago he became business partners with John Guggenmos and Ed Bailey, the visionaries behind Town Danceboutique, Trade and Number Nine.
āItās an honor to be recognized,ā Boyle says. āMy partners and I are fortunate to have amazing managers, awesome staffs and great customers.ā
Boyle lives in Shaw. Town Danceboutique has won dozens of Washington Blade Best of Gay D.C. awards since it opened in 2007.Ā (Joey DiGuglielmo)
Best Clergy
Rayceen Pendarvis
Runner-up: Bishop Allyson Abrams
Most Committed Activist
Earl Fowlkes
Runner-up: Sarah McBride
Those who know Earl Fowlkes know the path he has taken over the past 30 years from an AIDS and gay rights activist in New York City and D.C. to his current role as leader of three prominent LGBT-related organizations and chair of the D.C. Commission on Human Rights.Ā He epitomizes the term ācommitted activist.ā
Fowlkes served as a volunteer with various AIDS organizations in New York City and New Jersey during the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1996, he moved to D.C. to take a job as executive director of Damien Ministries, a faith-based group that provides services to people with HIV/AIDS.
In 1999, he became one of the founders of the organization that expanded D.C.ās Black Pride celebration into a national federation that quickly evolved into the International Federation of Black Prides, which helped coordinate black LGBT Pride events worldwide.
While serving as its CEO and president, Fowlkes played a key role in 2012 in expanding the organizationās mission to take on black LGBT-related economic, social and health issues along with a change of its name to the Center for Black Equity.
In keeping with his interest in politics as a means of achieving social change, Fowlkes was elected chair of the Democratic National Committeeās LGBT Caucus in August 2013 shortly after being appointed as a member of the DNC. In November 2014, Fowlkes won election as president of D.C.ās Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the cityās largest local LGBT political organization.
As if this were not enough, the D.C. City Council in July 2015 confirmed Fowlkesā nomination by Mayor Muriel Bowser to become chair of the D.C. Commission on Human Rights. The independent commission is charged with adjudicating discrimination cases under the cityās Human Rights Act, which bans discrimination, among other categories, based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
āOne thing led to another,ā said Fowlkes in discussing his activist endeavors. āItās the most humbling thing thatās ever happened to me and Iām so immensely proud to have this honor.ā (Lou Chibbaro Jr.)
Best Council Member
David Grosso
Runner-up: Jack Evans
Most LGBT activists who know Council member David Grosso (I-At-Large) say he began with a running start in his support for LGBT issues during his first year on the Council in 2013 and hasnāt stopped since then.
āHe has an extensive record of supporting LGBT concerns, including introduction and passage of bills to prevent youth suicide and to require LGBT cultural competency for medical professionals,ā according to the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, which gave Grosso its highest rating of +10 for D.C. Council candidates running in the Nov. 8 election.
During his first term in office, Grosso has introduced, co-introduced or co-sponsored at least a dozen bills that directly or indirectly benefit LGBT people.
Among them is the Youth Suicide Prevention and School Climate Survey Amendment Act of 2015, a first of its kind measure that specifically lists āLGBTQ youthā as an at-risk subgroup requiring careful attention in school suicide prevention programs.
Other bills that Grosso introduced or co-introduced include the LGBTQ Cultural Competency Continuing Education Amendment Act of 2015, which requires all medical professionals to take LGBTQ cultural competency training to maintain their licenses; a bill banning co-called āconversion therapyā for minors; and a measure requiring the city to provide new birth certificates to transgender people to reflect their correct name and gender.
Grosso has attended meetings of LGBT organizations has appeared at numerous LGBT events, including the Capital Pride Parade, AIDS Walk Washington, D.C. Black Pride and the D.C. LGBT Center annual reception.
āAs an at-large Council member I work every day to ensure that our city welcomes, embraces and respects the human rights of every person,ā he wrote in his response to GLAAās candidate questionnaire. āThis commitment to inclusion is reflected in my staff that includes several individuals who live openly as members of the LGBTQ community.ā (Lou Chibbaro, Jr.)
Best Hill Staffer
John Assini
Runner-up: Evan Dorner
For John Assini, public service has been a calling he has felt since his youth and one he now answers as legislative correspondent to Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.).
āWhen I was young, it was instilled in me to fight for my beliefs,ā Assini said. āWorking on the Hill allows me to do that every day. Working for passionate members of Congress over the last five years has allowed me to contribute in a small way to the national conversation, which has been a humbling experience.ā
Assini, 27, has already built a substantial resume since he began his career on Capitol Hill in 2011. Before working for Baldwin, he was a legislative aide for the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources and an intern for now-Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.). Between 2012 and 2014, Assini was also a board member for GLASS, the affinity group for LGBT Senate staffers.
But Assini feels especially honored to work for Baldwin, whom he calls a ādedicated and thoughtful member who continues to work tirelessly on behalf of her state and its residents, and who shares my values of a fair, more equitable America.ā The only out lesbian in Congress is up for re-election in 2018.
āThat I also am part of the first openly gay U.S. senator’s team does not escape me,ā Assini said. āShe will always be a part of our shared LGBT history and I’m very lucky to work for her. Knowing that I play a role executing Sen. Baldwinās vision of cleaner energy, better water quality and a brighter future for Wisconsin helps me stay focused every day.ā (Chris Johnson)
Best Local Pro Athlete
Katie Ledecky
Five-time Olympic Gold medalist in swimming
Runner-up: Bryce Harper
Best Massage
Gary Brennan
Arlington, Va.
301-704-1158
Runner-up: Jacob Gough
Best LGBT Bureaucrat
Sheila Alexander-Reid
Director of LGBTQ Affairs for D.C. government
Runner-up: Jack Jacobson
Best Real Estate Agent
Michael Fowler, Compass
Runner-up: Jeff Taylor, Sothebyās
Best Real Estate Group
The Evan and Mark Team, Compass
Runner-up: Ray Gernhart and Associates Re/Max
Best Rehoboth Real Estate Agent
Chris Beagle
Berkshire Hathaway Gallo Realty
gotogallo.com
(Also won this category last year)
Runner-up: Jack Lingo
Best Straight Ally
Hillary Clinton
Runner-up: Leigh Ann Hendricks
Best Trans Advocate
Sarah McBride
Runner-up: Ruby Corado
Sarah McBride in July became the first openly transgender person to speak at a major party convention, but her advocacy efforts began long before she took to the podium at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
McBride came out as trans in 2012 when she was the student body president of American University.
The Wilmington, Del., native had been involved with Equality Delaware, a statewide LGBT advocacy group, for several years. She joined the organizationās board of directors after she came out.
McBride testified three times in support of the bill that added gender identity to Delawareās anti-discrimination and hate crimes law. Gov. Jack Markell said after he signed the measure in 2013 that his former intern ācourageously stood before the General Assembly.ā
McBride made national headlines in April when she posted a picture of herself on Instagram inside a womenās bathroom in North Carolina. The stateās governor, Pat McCrory, had just signed House Bill 2, which prohibits trans people from using public restrooms that are consistent with their gender identity and bans local municipalities from enacting LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination measures.
āTrying to pee in peace,ā wrote McBride in her post. āTrying to live our lives as fully and authentically as possible. Barring me from this restroom doesn’t help anyone. And allowing me to continue to use this bathroom ā just without fear of discrimination and harassment ā doesn’t hurt anyone. Stop this. We are good people.ā
McBride, who supports Hillary Clinton, worked at the Center for American Progress until she became a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign in June. She remains humble about her advocacy efforts.
ā I feel incredibly privileged to be a part of this community and this movement, especially at such an important time,ā McBride says. āThere are so many amazing trans advocates doing lifesaving work across the country.ā
āThis has been a tough year for transgender people, particularly in states like Mississippi, Texas and North Carolina, but I hope they know that there are so many people who see them, who care for them, and who are fighting to make this world a little kinder and safer for all of us.ā (Michael K. Lavers)
Best Stylist
Quency Valencia
Salon Quency
1534 U St., N.W.
202-930-7008
Runner-up: Ryan Payne, Bang Salon
To see winners in other categories in the Washington Blade’s Best of Gay D.C. 2016 Awards, click here.
The new LGBTQ venue Crush held a party for friends, family and close supporters on Tuesday.Ā For more information on future events at Crush, go to their Instagram page @crushbardc.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
a&e features
What to expect at the 2024 National Cannabis Festival
Wu-Tang Clan to perform; policy discussions also planned
(Editor’s note: Tickets are still available for the National Cannabis Festival, with prices starting at $55 for one-day general admission on Friday through $190 for a two-day pass with early-entry access. The Washington Blade, one of the event’s sponsors, will host a LGBTQIA+ Lounge and moderate a panel discussion on Saturday with the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs.)
With two full days of events and programs along with performances by Wu-Tang Clan, Redman, and Thundercat, the 2024 National Cannabis Festival will be bigger than ever this year.
Leading up to the festivities on Friday and Saturday at Washington, D.C.’s RFK Stadium are plenty of can’t-miss experiences planned for 420 Week, including the National Cannabis Policy Summit and an LGBTQ happy hour hosted by the District’s Black-owned queer bar, Thurst Lounge (both happening on Wednesday).
On Tuesday, the Blade caught up with NCF Founder and Executive Producer Caroline Phillips, principal at The High Street PR & Events, for a discussion about the event’s history and the pivotal political moment for cannabis legalization and drug policy reform both locally and nationally. Phillips also shared her thoughts about the role of LGBTQ activists in these movements and the through-line connecting issues of freedom and bodily autonomy.
After D.C. residents voted to approve Initiative 71 in the fall of 2014, she said, adults were permitted to share cannabis and grow the plant at home, while possession was decriminalized with the hope and expectation that fewer people would be incarcerated.
“When that happened, there was also an influx of really high-priced conferences that promised to connect people to big business opportunities so they could make millions in what they were calling the ‘green rush,'” Phillips said.
“At the time, I was working for Human Rights First,” a nonprofit that was, and is, engaged in “a lot of issues to do with world refugees and immigration in the United States” ā so, “it was really interesting to me to see the overlap between drug policy reform and some of these other issues that I was working on,” Phillips said.
“And then it rubbed me a little bit the wrong way to hear about the ‘green rush’ before we’d heard about criminal justice reform around cannabis and before we’d heard about people being let out of jail for cannabis offenses.”
“As my interests grew, I realized that there was really a need for this conversation to happen in a larger way that allowed the larger community, the broader community, to learn about not just cannabis legalization, but to understand how it connects to our criminal justice system, to understand how it can really stimulate and benefit our economy, and to understand how it can become a wellness tool for so many people,” Phillips said.
“On top of all of that, as a minority in the cannabis space, it was important to me that this event and my work in the cannabis industry really amplified how we could create space for Black and Brown people to be stakeholders in this economy in a meaningful way.”
“Since I was already working in event production, I decided to use those skills and apply them to creating a cannabis event,” she said. “And in order to create an event that I thought could really give back to our community with ticket prices low enough for people to actually be able to attend, I thought a large-scale event would be good ā and thus was born the cannabis festival.”
D.C. to see more regulated cannabis businesses ‘very soon’
Phillips said she believes decriminalization in D.C. has decreased the number of cannabis-related arrests in the city, but she noted arrests have, nevertheless, continued to disproportionately impact Black and Brown people.
“We’re at a really interesting crossroads for our city and for our cannabis community,” she said. In the eight years since Initiative 71 was passed, “We’ve had our licensed regulated cannabis dispensaries and cultivators who’ve been existing in a very red tape-heavy environment, a very tax heavy environment, and then we have the unregulated cannabis cultivators and cannabis dispensaries in the city” who operate via a “loophole” in the law “that allows the sharing of cannabis between adults who are over the age of 21.”
Many of the purveyors in the latter group, Phillips said, “are looking at trying to get into the legal space; so they’re trying to become regulated businesses in Washington, D.C.”
She noted the city will be “releasing 30 or so licenses in the next couple of weeks, and those stores should be coming online very soon” which will mean “you’ll be seeing a lot more of the regulated stores popping up in neighborhoods and hopefully a lot more opportunity for folks that are interested in leaving the unregulated space to be able to join the regulated marketplace.”
National push for de-scheduling cannabis
Signaling the political momentum for reforming cannabis and criminal justice laws, Wednesday’s Policy Summit will feature U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Senate majority leader.
Also representing Capitol Hill at the Summit will be U.S. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and U.S. Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) — who will be receiving the Supernova Women Cannabis Champion Lifetime Achievement Award — along with an aide to U.S. Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio).
Nationally, Phillips said much of the conversation around cannabis concerns de-scheduling. Even though 40 states and D.C. have legalized the drug for recreational and/or medical use, marijuana has been classified as a Schedule I substance since the Controlled Substances Act was passed in 1971, which means it carries the heftiest restrictions on, and penalties for, its possession, sale, distribution, and cultivation.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services formally requested the drug be reclassified as a Schedule III substance in August, which inaugurated an ongoing review, and in January a group of 12 Senate Democrats sent a letter to the Biden-Harris administration’s Drug Enforcement Administration urging the agency to de-schedule cannabis altogether.
Along with the Summit, Phillips noted that “a large contingent of advocates will be coming to Washington, D.C. this week to host a vigil at the White House and to be at the festival educating people” about these issues. She said NCF is working with the 420 Unity Coalition to push Congress and the Biden-Harris administration to “move straight to de-scheduling cannabis.”
“This would allow folks who have been locked up for cannabis offenses the chance to be released,” she said. “It would also allow medical patients greater access. It would also allow business owners the chance to exist without the specter of the federal government coming in and telling them what they’re doing is wrong and that they’re criminals.”
Phillips added, however, that de-scheduling cannabis will not “suddenly erase” the “generations and generations of systemic racism” in America’s financial institutions, business marketplace, and criminal justice system, nor the consequences that has wrought on Black and Brown communities.
An example of the work that remains, she said, is making sure “that all people are treated fairly by financial institutions so that they can get the funding for their businesses” to, hopefully, create not just another industry, but “really a better industry” that from the outset is focused on “equity” and “access.”
Policy wonks should be sure to visit the festival, too. “We have a really terrific lineup in our policy pavilion,” Phillips said. “A lot of our heavy hitters from our advocacy committee will be presenting programming.”
“On Saturday there is a really strong federal marijuana reform panel that is being led by Maritza Perez Medina from the Drug Policy Alliance,” she said. “So that’s going to be a terrific discussion” that will also feature “representation from the Veterans Cannabis Coalition.”
“We also have a really interesting talk being led by the Law Enforcement Action Partnership about conservatives, cops, and cannabis,” Phillips added.
Cannabis and the LGBTQ community
“I think what’s so interesting about LGBTQIA+ culture and the cannabis community are the parallels that we’ve seen in the movements towards legalization,” Phillips said.
The fight for LGBTQ rights over the years has often involved centering personal stories and personal experiences, she said. “And that really, I think, began to resonate, the more that we talked about it openly in society; the more it was something that we started to see on television; the more it became a topic in youth development and making sure that we’re raising healthy children.”
Likewise, Phillips said, “we’ve seen cannabis become more of a conversation in mainstream culture. We’ve heard the stories of people who’ve had veterans in their families that have used cannabis instead of pharmaceuticals, the friends or family members who’ve had cancer that have turned to CBD or THC so they could sleep, so they could eat so they could get some level of relief.”
Stories about cannabis have also included accounts of folks who were “arrested when they were young” or “the family member who’s still locked up,” she said, just as stories about LGBTQ people have often involved unjust and unnecessary suffering.
Not only are there similarities in the socio-political struggles, Phillips said, but LGBTQ people have played a central role pushing for cannabis legalization and, in fact, in ushering in the movement by “advocating for HIV patients in California to be able to access cannabis’s medicine.”
As a result of the queer community’s involvement, she said, “the foundation of cannabis legalization is truly patient access and criminal justice reform.”
“LGBTQIA+ advocates and cannabis advocates have managed to rein in support of the majority of Americans for the issues that they find important,” Phillips said, even if, unfortunately, other movements for bodily autonomy like those concerning issues of reproductive justice “don’t see that same support.”
Sports
Brittney Griner, wife expecting first child
WNBA star released from Russian gulag in December 2022
One year after returning to the WNBA after her release from a Russian gulag and declaring, āIām never playing overseas again,ā Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner and her wife announced they have something even bigger coming up this summer.
Cherelle, 31, and Brittney, 33, are expecting their first child in July. The couple shared the news with their 715,000 followers on Instagram.
āCanāt believe weāre less than three months away from meeting our favorite human being,ā the caption read, with the hashtag, #BabyGrinerComingSoon and #July2024.
Griner returned to the U.S. in December 2022 in a prisoner swap, more than nine months after being arrested in Moscow for possession of vape cartridges containing prescription cannabis.
In April 2023, at her first news conference following her release, the two-time Olympic gold medalist made only one exception to her vow to never play overseas again: To return to the Summer Olympic Games, which will be played in Paris starting in July, the same month āBaby Grinerā is due. āThe only time I would want to would be to represent the USA,ā she said last year.
Given that the unrestricted free agent is on the roster of both Team USA and her WNBA team, itās not immediately clear where Griner will be when their first child arrives.
The Griners purchased their āforever homeā in Phoenix just last year.
āPhoenix is home,ā Griner said at the Mercuryās end-of-season media day, according toĀ ESPN. āMe and my wife literally just got a place. This is it.ā
As the Los Angeles Blade reported last December, Griner is working with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts ā like Griner, a married lesbian ā on an ESPN television documentary as well as a television series for ABC about her life story. Cherelle is executive producer of these projects.
Next month, Grinerās tell-all memoir of her Russian incarceration will be published by Penguin Random House. Itās titled “Coming Home” and the hardcover hits bookstores on May 7.