WTOP is marking Pride Month by showcasing the people, places and important issues in the LGBTQ+ communities in the D.C. area. Check back all throughout June as we share these stories, on air and online.
An event in downtown D.C. honored and celebrated the senior members of the LGBTQ+ community on Thursday, with a tea dance, lecture, free food and music.
The idea for the event, according to Dwight Venson, community engagement manager with the Whitman-Walker Health nonprofit, was to celebrate “silver pride.”
“We essentially saw a need to provide a space where seniors of the LGBTQ+ community felt seen, heard and valued, and that’s exactly what this is,” Venson said. “And we’re so proud to continue this tradition for years to come.”
Rayceen Pendarvis, who also goes by “The Empress of Pride,” hosted the event and spoke about how senior members of the community, who struggled before certain rights were available to them, paved the way for younger generations to live their lives as authentically as possible.
“I feel so honored to be among all my wonderful elders of this amazing tribe,” said Pendarvis.
Pendarvis is a native Washingtonian and has been a longtime activist for the community.
“You see (queer people) on television, you see us holding offices, raising children — all that is possible because of the elders in this community,” Pendarvis said.
Donald Burch, of Northwest, said he appreciates the opportunity to not only have some fun but also celebrate being a part of the LGBTQ+ community. Burch moved to D.C. in his 20s and said it was easy to be out of the closet here.
He said he, like many others, experienced struggles along the way, including living in a world where there was a stigma around HIV and AIDS. He said he found acceptance in the nation’s capital.
“Because when I came here to Washington in the 1980s, as an HIV positive man, that wasn’t something that people celebrated or really acknowledged. And D.C. is a very supportive environment for all in the community, particularly those of us who are living with HIV, whether we’re transgender or cisgender, or Black or white, young or old,” he said.
Jason Donaldson, of Landover, Maryland, said watching the community grow from the 1990s to the present was an important lesson for younger generations.
“It’s such a draw, and it’s educational for others to be here to just learn about the history of our rainbow community in D.C.,” said Donaldson.
He noted how Pride events in the city have also grown — both in size and in popularity.
“We have floats, banners and the buses and everybody, it’s just really ballooned. It just shows how much love the community has ascertained throughout the years,” Donaldson said of his first Capital Pride Parade in 1996.
He said that, unlike the difficulties he experienced when coming out, he’s happy to see the support available today not only from the LGBTQ+ community, but allies of the community as well.
“People who are now coming out, how they can really see that they have something to latch on to and folks that are there and ready for them. It was a little more different when I was coming out, although I was ready to come out anyway,” Donaldson said.
WTOP’s Ciara Wells contributed to this report.
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