Come kick off the Pride season with FreeState Justice at the Sunset Soirée, a night of dinner and dancing on Friday, May 12th, from 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. The Sunset Soirée will be hosted at the museum’s Jim Rouse Visionary Center on the third floor and consists of two events: a dinner and cocktail hour at 6:00 p.m., and a soirée starting at 8:00 p.m. Purchase of a dinner ticket comes with access to the soirée; however, soirée tickets can be purchased separately. The night is sure to be an amazing […]
Priorities for Maryland’s Commission on LGBT Affairs
Thanks to the efforts of Delegate Qi and several co-sponsors, the General Assembly passed HB 130 in 2021, establishing a long overdue Commission on LGBT Affairs. The bill finally passed, becoming law without the Governor’s signature, after a similar bill succeeded in the House but languished in the Senate in 2020. The law establishing the Commission takes effect on October 1, just in time for National Coming Out Day on October 11. After a director and 15 commissioners are appointed, the Commission should be operational by early 2022. Given Maryland’s deep blue hue on the electoral map, and the […]
Honoring Our LGBTQ Elders
Tell us a little about yourself… I am a 64 year young lesbian. I have been with the person of my life Leitner for 31 years. We have two 4 footed children Onyx and Paulie and one amazing adult daughter an amazing artist. I grew up with my familiarity of the LGBTQ community in Mt. Vernon and PRIDE at the Dell. I am a therapist by profession and advocate by nature. My role in the community today is to advocate for all with an emphasis on our Elders which we will all become eventually become hopefully with grace and nature. […]
Pandemic Pride
Baltimore Pride coordinator Lakesha Davis has led Baltimore Pride through two of its most unusual and difficult years. After a second somewhat muted, mostly virtualized Pride season, what’s in store for the fall? Richard Finger sat down with Davis to find out . How long have you been involved with planning Pride festivities for Baltimore? I started in 2017 as part of my internship for my Master’s program. I was trusted into the position of chairing the entertainment committee. The following year, I was the Pride chair running the entire festival. I have been blessed with an awesome team to help […]
The Pride Center of Maryland (PCOM) Launches First Billboard Campaign
Baltimore- The Pride Center of Maryland (PCOM), the state’s oldest and largest sexual and gender minority (SGM) serving organization has released its first ever series of billboard campaigns. Despite the pandemic the organization, now in its 45th year, remains active, serving a still growing number of same-gender-loving (SGL), gay, lesbian, bisexual trans and gender nuanced cultures, ethnicities, individuals and families. Merrick Moses, chairman of PCOM’s board, expressed, “Like most organizations that have been around as long as we have, challenges have emerged. However, I am proud to report that PCOM has never been in better hands, never stronger. Our very diverse […]
The 22nd Annual 12 Days of Christmas
Hooker & Boys celebrated 22 years of their annual fundraising event. “The 22nd Annual 12 Days of Christmas: a COVID Kinda Christmas, a Virtual Holiday” was held on Saturday, December 12, 2020. 2020 has been an extraordinary year, and no less for H&B’s 12 Days event, as we took the event to cyberspace to keep everyone as safe as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shawnna Alexander and Rik Newton-Treadway were our hosts as we broadcast live from the Clifton Pleasure Club in Baltimore, MD, with the help of a skeleton crew on-site, and ASL interpreters Debbie Jones, Susan Weinstein, and […]
Biden Wins! Our Long National Nightmare Is Ending
Former vice president Joe Biden has been elected president of the United States and, by the vote of the people, to paraphrase our 38th president Gerald Ford, our long national nightmare has ended. Ford said these words to an exhausted nation on August 9, 1974 during his inauguration following Richard Nixon’s resignation in disgrace due to the Watergate scandal. How naïve of us to believe that the Nixon presidency would be the nadir for presidential misdeeds. Little did we know what was coming our way in 2016. Leading into Election Day on November 3, the polls predicted a national […]
DuClaw Brewing Wins Top Marketing Honor for Creatively Inclusive Campaign
The American Marketing Association Baltimore Chapter (AMA Baltimore) announced the winners of its 2020 MX Awards on Thursday, June 25th at a virtual event attended by over 130 people. DuClaw Brewing took home the honor of winning the top Grand MX Award. Their “Sour Me Unicorn Farts” beer was the official beer of the 2019 inaugural Annapolis Pride, and DuClaw had an amazing photo shoot with the owner of Diablo doughnuts as part of the campaign. He was lying in a bathtub full of Fruity Pebbles inspired by Lizzo’s photo in a bathtub full of Skittles. “DuClaw has gone through […]
Baltimore Protests in the Midst of George Floyds Death
From small rallies on Harford Road to much larger much-larger youth-led marches that traveled from the Convention Center, past the city jail and on to City Hall, hundreds of Baltimore City residents have joined together to peacefully protest and mourn the violent death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25 as well as the countless other black lives taken by the hands of police brutality and misconduct. This incident was all to reminiscent of events in 2015 when Baltimore was roiled by weeks of tense protests after the April 19 death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who […]
Open Letter from the BHT Foundation
As we enter into PRIDE month, we find ourselves torn between a desire to celebrate the history, freedom, and the beauty of our LGBTQ+ communities; and tears of pain and sorrow as we see our country systematically oppress and murder our black and brown communities. 2020 is, by no means, a “normal” year. Yet, if there is one small piece of hope, it may be that this country’s systemic, institutional, pervasive racism is on display for the world to see. It cannot be ignored, and more white people are beginning to learn about their own participation in this racist system. It is not […]