LGBTQ seniors honored at D.C. Silver Pride event

District of Columbia LGBTQ seniors honored at D.C. Silver Pride event City officials, activists credit them with playing lead role in movement About 250 people turned out on Friday, June 12, for D.C.’s annual Silver Pride celebration, which honors and recognizes LGBTQ seniors and their role in advancing LGBTQ rights. The event was held in a large conference hall in the building of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, which was among the event’s sponsors According to local event organizer and longtime LGBTQ rights advocate Rayceen Pendarvis, who served as host of the event, the D.C. Department of Aging and Community Living and the D.C.-based Seabury Resources for Aging, a nonprofit group that provides services and support for seniors, were the two lead organizers of this year’s Silver Pride. In addition to presentations by several speakers, a DJ played music for dancing and two popular local drag performers — Shi-Queeta Lee and Capri Bloomingdale — performed at the event drawing loud applause. Among the speakers were Japer Bowles, director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs; Jody Wright, a member of the board of the Capital Pride Alliance, which organizes D.C.’s annual Pride events; Craig McCullough, board chair of Seabury Resources for Aging; Jermaine Dillon, an official with the D.C. Department of Aging and Community Living; and Bianca Ward, an official with the ViiV Healthcare company, which was one of the sponsors of the event. “It is a joy to be a senior in this community,” Pendarvis told the crowd in opening remarks at the event. “And every part of every Pride movement is built on the backs and the foundations of the elders,” she said. “We have to have a day when we’re celebrated and we are honored and we are represented in our fullness,” Pendarvis told the Washington Blade. “Because sometimes unfortunately, various Prides forget about our elders. And we have to let them know that we’re here, we’re queer, and we ain’t going anywhere,” Pendarvis said. “It is my distinct honor and privilege to be here among the elders,” Wright, the Capital Pride board member, told the gathering. “Because what we do at Capital Pride is because of what you’ve done and you continue to do, because we are standing on the shoulders of giants,” he said, in referring to LGBTQ seniors. District of Columbia D.C. Council approves expanded grant funding for Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs Measure introduced by Zachary Parker faces second vote The D.C. Council on June 9 gave its first round of approval to an amendment to the city’s fiscal year 2027 budget that calls for increasing the number and size of funding grants that the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs provides for local organizations providing services for the LGBTQ community. The amendment, titled the “LGBTQ Community Grant Amendment Act of 2026,” was introduced by D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), the Council’s only gay member. The amendment calls for the LGBTQ Affairs office to issue a $980,000 grant in fiscal year 2027 to a private, nonprofit organization in partnership with the office “for the purpose of supporting programs that promote the welfare of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning community.” The organization would also initiate its own fundraising effort to expand the amount of funds beyond the amount the office would provide, enabling it to provide larger grants to a greater number of local LGBTQ organizations. Among other things, the amendment says the organization chosen for this new role should have a “proven track record of success in grant making and fundraising” and agree to undergo an annual audit and submit quarterly reports to the office on its use of the funds it receives. Under its rules for approving legislation, the Council must hold the second vote on the budget bill with the Parker amendment before it is sent to Mayor Muriel Bowser for her signature. It must then go to Congress for a congressional review that does not require approval, but could result in a vote to disapprove the measure, an action Congress usually does not take. In a June 12 statement, the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition called the D.C. Council’s initial approval of the Parker amendment, “a historic measure that establishes the District’s most sustainable model for a vehicle for investing in LGBTQ communities.” The statement adds, “The legislation arrives at a critical moment, as LGBTQ-serving organizations face unprecedented uncertainty. Growing demand for services is colliding with shrinking resources, federal attacks on LGBTQ programs, and ongoing threats to local funding streams.” It says the new program that the Parker amendment would create, if it reaches final approval, “creates a durable mechanism to protect and expand investments in the organizations that thousands of District residents rely upon every day.” A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said he was looking into the mayor’s position on the Parker amendment but didn’t immediately get back with a response. District of Columbia Your queer D.C. voting guide June 16 primary nears; Lewis George, McDuffie lead in polling for mayor LGBTQ voters in the nation’s capital are choosing among a long list of LGBTQ supportive candidates running for mayor, D.C. City Council, and the position of D.C. Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives in the city’s June 16 primary election. LGBTQ activists who have spoken to the Washington Blade appear to be divided in their support for the two leading Democratic candidates for mayor – D.C. Council member Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) and former D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie (I-At-Large) in a seven-candidate race. Among the other five Democratic mayoral candidates is Rini Sampath, a cyber security consultant who told the Blade she identifies as queer. “We’re living in an extremely diverse community, an extremely unique community,” she told the Blade. “And being able to self-label, self-identify as queer is something that I just want to take pride in.” But a poll conducted by the Washington Post and George Mason University’s School of Policy and Government released on June 5 shows Sampath receiving just 3 percent in a sample of likely voters in the D.C. Democratic primary. The poll, conducted from May 27-June 1, shows Lewis George leading in the mayoral primary with 36 percent compared to McDuffie, who had 25 percent. However, 25 percent of those polled were undecided in the mayoral race, according to the Post, indicating at least some of the undecided voters could go to McDuffie. “Undecided voters are concentrated among groups that lean toward McDuffie, including moderates, Black voters and those ages 65 and older,” the Post story reporting on the poll states. Another factor making it more difficult to predict the election outcome is the start in this year’s D.C. primary of ranked choice voting, which enables voters to select as many as five candidates on their ballot as their first through fifth choice depending on how many candidates are running for a specific office, including the office of mayor. The ranked choice process takes effect if no candidate receives at least 50 percent of the vote in a race with three or more candidates and serves as an instant run-off using voters’ second-choice or third or more choice votes until one candidate receives 50 percent of the vote. In what appears to support the belief of many local political observers that Lewis George and McDuffie are the two leading mayoral candidates, the poll shows the remaining candidates receiving less than 5 percent. They include former D.C. Council member Vincent Orange with 4 percent, local real estate manager and developer Gary Goodweather with 3 percent, and former U.S. Department of Homeland Security contractor Hope Solomon and real estate broker and Ward 1 community activist Ernest Johnson each receiving 1 percent. Goodweather, a political newcomer, has attended LGBTQ ev