On June 9, 2024, the Humanities Truck parked on 7th and G Street for Pride Festival 2024. We had an interactive exhibit on the side of the Truck sharing the life and activism of Ms. Earline Budd, a DC born-and-raised advocate who has worked to support trans and unhoused people, as well as incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, sex workers, and former and active drug users. Considering how confidently herself Ms. Budd is and always has been, and her decades of service to the community and mutual aid, we encouraged passersby not only to look at the exhibit and have a portrait taken, but to also share how they show pride themselves, and how they have been supported by or themselves support the queer community. With the exponential increase in bills and laws targeting LGBTQ+ people, attempting to force us back into the closet, we wanted to encourage reflection on how we can be ourselves individually, and how we can look out for ourselves as a community.
Along with the exhibit panels about Ms. Budd that were printed and hung on the side of the Truck, we had several videos of and about her playing on the outward-facing TV. From the beginning, I knew that I would include the short doc The Advocate that was created about and with Ms. Budd by Nico Lovejoy, in collaboration with the Community Voice Lab. We also included several clips from an oral history that was recorded for and is available on The Outwords Archive. This oral history was recorded by Nix Mendy and Astra Price in November 2022, and was greatly informative to the text and photo exhibit that we displayed. Because of er involvement in Trans Day of Remembrance in DC, we also showed this foundation’s video that features her discussing the importance of the day. To try and make sure we had videos of not just her telling her story, but also of her speaking and performing for a crowd and showing how positive and fun of a person she is, we displayed a video of her at a fundraiser after Hurricane Katrina, lip-synching for the audience like she had earlier in life. Other news stories showed her at work, explaining how her advocacy fits into larger efforts to address anti-trans violence and to support incarcerated people and those who are HIV-positive.
Ms. Earline Budd, assigned male when she was born on August 14, 1958, grew up in Washington, DC knowing she was different. She would put on her sister’s clothes instead of her own in the mornings, and every time she was in a school play she played women rather than men. When her father caught her in women’s clothes, she’d say it was for a school play. She was able to sneak out and, because of her size, get into clubs while in her teens. One night, her father caught her coming home from a club in women’s clothes and beat her. Despite being beaten at home and harassed at school, she always held onto the memories of freedom and joy she felt being herself in public (Budd 2022).
When her father refused to take care of her anymore, Ms. Budd was placed in the Person in Need of Supervision (PINS) program, where she was held for four years (Najafi 2009). They released her at 17, and her father refused to let her return home, attacking her with a hammer when she first arrived. She found support and shelter at a Gay Lesbian Activist Alliance (GLAA) meeting. Frank Kameny, a seasoned activist, helped put her up in a room and took her under his wing. Although she saw Kameny like a father, the mostly white male makeup of GLAA didn’t make her feel seen, so she sought out trans communities elsewhere (Budd 2022).
Ms. Budd found her community of trans women at the National Arena Skating Rink, where they would often go together. According to Ms. Budd, “that was the one place we felt like we could come and just kind of enjoy ourselves skating” (Budd 2022). One day, the director Charles Hawkins kicked her out and refused to let her return in women’s clothes. She went to the Human Rights Campaign and asked for help to be allowed back in as herself. They represented her legally, and although she didn’t care about the money, she was issued an official apology and given $400 in compensation (Budd 2022, Najafi 2009).
After her father kicked her out of her childhood home, Ms. Earline Budd was officially unhoused. Trans women and drag queens who worked as sex workers took care of her and helped her take care of herself. She began doing survival sex work along with other jobs like working as a dishwasher at restaurants. She was in this position as the HIV/AIDS epidemic was sweeping through the United States, and she began her HIV/AIDS work with ICAN. In 1991 Ms. Budd was sentenced to five years in prison, and as she was being processed she was informed she was HIV-positive. It was then that she decided to dedicate the rest of her life to helping other trans people, sex workers, and incarcerated people (Budd 2022, Najafi 2009).
After her 1996 release from prison, Ms. Budd went to the Hope Village halfway house. In what she calls her “tour of duty,” she worked two jobs and used that money to get her hair and nails done, and get new clothes. When she returned to Hope Village, they turned her away thinking she was a visitor. They eventually allowed her in, but the director said she would be sent back to prison if she didn’t dress like a man. She went to Dee Curry at HIV Community Coalition (HCC), and she pointed Ms. Budd to the Office of Human Rights to file an official complaint. When Hope Village found out, they were quite open to allowing Ms. Budd to present as she liked in the house. Ms. Budd eventually left the house after getting a job at HCC as a transgender coordinator (Budd 2022, Lovejoy 2023).
Before her 1991 arrest, Ms. Budd completed a six-week certification program with the Inner City AIDS Network (ICAN) to become an HIV peer specialist. Before and after her incarceration, she worked with them to do outreach at clubs, hand out condoms, and help fundraise to help people access treatment. After her 1996 release, she was also a member of a support group at the HIV Community Coalition, where she got a job as the transgender coordinator. Her time spent at these organizations in the 1980s and 1990s informed her work and helped her start her own nonprofits in the following decades (Budd 2022, Hill 1993, Najafi 2009, Wright 1999).
In 1996, Earline Budd formed Transgendered Health Empowerment, a nonprofit with support from DC Health and Human Services that provided different types of direct aid to assist trans people in the DMV. This brought together both her trans and HIV/AIDS activism, with the organization providing various harm reduction services from a public health perspective. This included advocating for people in and out of prison. Ms. Budd helped lead this organization until it closed in 2013. This organization and her previous decades of service led to the National Center for Transgender Equality honoring Ms. Budd with the 2019 Community Builder Award (Najafi 2009, “TEN Awards Spotlight: Earline Budd | A4TE” 2019).
Between 2009 and 2012, violence against trans women in DC spiked, and Ms. Budd was at the forefront of efforts to force the DC police and mayor’s office to confront the growing problem. Again, this work intersected with her work in harm reduction for drug users, as she also often spoke out on the increasing death rate among trans people to overdose. She was one of the first trans women to serve on the DC Human Rights Commission, and continues her harm reduction work as a Non-Medical Case Manager at HIPS, which includes assisting formerly incarcerated people getting their feet under them upon release. She also founded Empowering the Transgender Community (ETC) in 2016 to provide “mental health, substance abuse, workforce development and case management all in one building” (Chibarro Jr 2022, Riley 2016, “TEN Awards Spotlight: Earline Budd | A4TE” 2019).
Over the last decade, Ms. Earline Budd has also been a staple in DC on the Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. She has coordinated and spoken at events around the city, and met with DC mayor several times to witness the signing of the annual Proclamation of the Transgender Day of Remembrance in the city. As someone who has experienced transphobic violence and survived to live a life helping people facing homelessness, addiction, sex work, and the battle with HIV like she has, Ms. Budd feels “blessed to be here to be able to help folks.” This thankfulness and care is what her work has always been about (Juhl 2014).
At the end of 2022, a mural honoring Ms. Earline Budd was unveiled next to the Atlas Performing Arts Center on H Street, near the HIPS office where she works. In 2023, she was the first recipient of the Toast to LGBTQIA+ Elder award from the mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and received the Wisdom Award from the National Black Justice Coalition. She is still as active in harm reduction and transgender healthcare work as she was over 35 years ago, both officially with the city and nonprofits, and with grassroots efforts and advocacy. Signing everything as “Advocate,” Ms. Earline Budd is proud and honored to “get her flowers while she can smell them,” and doesn’t plan to slow down any time soon (Chibarro Jr 2022, Chibarro Jr 2023a, Lovejoy 2023, Riley 2021).
Around the exhibit that was printed and displayed on the side of the Truck, we had prompt cards and portraits of people who were kind enough to stop by and help build a collective exhibit that were contributed throughout the day. We got over 60 contributions from individuals, couples, friend groups who came together, and groups who had only just met. While they had their portraits printed, they came over to our tables and wrote out a response to one of 6 prompts about the meaning of Pride and the queer community in their own lives. These prompts were all informed by the life and practices of Ms. Earline Budd, from her confidence in her own identity to her collaboration with and service to the community. Responses we got ranged in length and seriousness, but all of them showed the joy and optimism that comes with Pride as a specific event and, more generally, with being out and proud in community with other queer people and in the world at large.
Many responses to the personal prompts, “I show Pride by…”, “I feel most like myself when…”, and “I hope my gay future holds…” emphasized showing and accepting love, and by confidently being their queer selves in public without paying attention to what others think. They all point to the fact that, even as Pride becomes more corporate and mainstream of an event, it’s fundamentally about helping LGBTQ+ people feel safe, secure, and loved being themselves. The community-based prompts, “my queer community has helped me…”, “I have helped my queer community…”, and “I want to help my queer community…”, resulted in responses focused on giving and receiving support to others on the community. This ranges from learning from each other and feeling able to be ourselves, to trying to provide support of all kinds to other LGBTQ+ people. This included teachers being themselves to help students, helping queer elders support themselves, and providing social spaces that are safe for queer people of all ages. All these responses made clear that, at the heart of it, Pride is about helping others feel as safe or safer than we have ourselves.
We got so many amazing responses from participants, and we encourage you to check them all out here! If you want a deeper dive into a selection of responses and how they reflect the goals of and challenges facing the LGBTQ+ communities today, from Don’t Say Gay Bills to transphobic violence and exclusion, check out project lead and exhibit creator Corinne Davenport’s blog post: How We Show Pride!
Immediate Support
The DC LGBTQ+ Community Center: Crisis Resources | (202) 682-2245 | 2000 14th Street NW, Suite 105
Andromeda Transcultural Health: (202) 291-4707 | 1400 Decatur St NW Washington, DC 20011
LGBTQ Shelter “Living Life” Alternative: (202) 560-5457 | 400 50th St SE
The Triangle Club (LGBTQ+ Recovery Support): (202) 659-8641 | 1638 R St NW Suite 120, 20009
HIPS (Honoring Individual Power & Strength): (202) 232-8150 | 906 H Street NE | mailing address – PO Box 90738, Washington, DC 20090
How to Support Others
Help HIPS keep their drop-in center! Check out the GoFundMe here
#DecrimPovertyDC: an organization that advocates for dug decriminalization, improved health services for drug users, and mutual aid efforts in DC.
They/Them Collective: a trans lead BIPOC group that provides mutual aid to queer and unhoused folks in DC, with clothing swaps and a weekly free dinner event called Hot Din that can always use support!
The DC LGBTQ+ Community Center: an organization with tons of different support systems for LGBTQ+ people in Washington, DC, including behavioral health support; support groups based around different identities, including ethnic and racial identity, gender, sexuality, age, and disability; testing services; direct mutual aid; and support for LGBTQ+ folks in the arts.
Casa Ruby: (202) 355-5155 | This bilingual and multicultural organization, started by trans Salvadoran immigrant Ruby Jade Corado over 25 years ago, provides social services and programs for LGBTQ+ and especially trans and genderqueer people, with several youth-oriented programs. These services include preventative healthcare, housing assistance, social services, immigration services, and support for victims of sexual, physical, and emotional violence.
Further DMV Queer History
Rainbow History Project: an entirely volunteer-run organization that archives and shares LGBTQ+ history of the DMV. They have walking tours, digital and physical archives, a Places and Spaces database, and an upcoming exhibit exploring how queer protests evolved into modern Pride celebrations and parades. Check out their different collections and resources here, join the mailing list and sign up to volunteer here! If you’re interested in their oral history trainings, digital archiving trainings, public forums, screenings, and more public events, check them out on Eventbrite!
The People’s Archive: Maintained by the DC public library and held in the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library (901 G St NW), this archive contains many special collections of materials important to DC history. These collections include a go-go collection, DC punk collection, and several collections focused on different aspects of African American and Asian communities in the city. Most important for Pride is the entirely-digitized Blacklight collection, which has every published copy of the magazine Blacklight, which was published by and for the black gay community of Washington, DC. For publications, they also have digitized editions of The Washington Blade, a gay newspaper that is still in publication, and Women in the Life, a newspaper for the lesbian community. They also have a collection of oral histories from trans people in DC, some of which are shared with Rainbow History Project.
Chibarro Jr, Lou. “Earline Budd Honored with Historic D.C. Mural.” Washington Blade, December 20, 2022. https://www.washingtonblade.com/2022/12/20/earline-budd-honored-with-historic-d-c-mural/.