In the run-up to the May 16 primary election, Liberty City LGBTQ Democratic Club hosted its annual candidate forums for mayoral, city council, judicial, and row office candidates. Over the course of two evenings at William Way LGBT Community Center, over 50 candidates made their case why they deserve the organization’s endorsement and, subsequently, the LGBTQ vote.
“It’s important to hold these forums because you really get to hear the candidates’ voices,” said Liberty City board co-chair Tariem Burroughs. “You get to hear the passion behind their beliefs, [some of the] issues that really plague our city and how to improve our city. It also gives the community an opportunity to ask questions to our candidates but also allows our community to hear what other members of the community are thinking.”
Many candidates focused their pitches on the need to mitigate gun violence in Philadelphia, especially violence against trans communities of color, the need for affordable housing and rent control in Philadelphia, as well as LGBTQ civil rights including queer and trans youth protections.
“One of my public safety plans is to increase protections against violence [based on] race, gender identity, sexual orientation — everyone,” said mayoral candidate and former City Council member Allan Domb. “One of the biggest issues I see is the violence that’s going on with the transgender population, especially what happened in Germantown.”
A Liberty City member asked both Domb about his vision for and thoughts about the Office of LGBT Affairs. Domb said he thinks that the department should be included in every decision that executive leadership makes and questioned whether or not it should be expanded.
Like Domb, other candidates discussed the need for ample LGBTQ representation in government offices. When a Liberty City member asked mayoral candidate and former city controller Rebecca Rhynhart what kind of diversity she would bring to her cabinet, she said that she prioritizes a diverse team in terms of race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation and gender identity.
“As City Controller I always put forth my senior leadership team based on having the most diverse viewpoints in the room with me to be able to present views that I might not think of,” Rhynhart said. “Appointing members of the LGBTQ community to senior posts is incredibly important, and I would seek your input in getting the best people from your community to be part of this.”
Most of the questions directed toward mayoral candidate Helen Gym were centered on protections for LGBTQ youth. One audience member asked Gym how she would reform the City’s youth training programs, including summer job programs and other employment-related opportunities, to make them less discriminatory. Some of the city’s youth job programs require applicants to apply using the name and gender on their birth certificate, regardless of how they identify, the member said.
“We were very clear when I established a trans youth bill that required entities to have [informative] policies when working with trans youth, that there would be a whole host of things including policies around use of names and vital docs,” Gym responded. “It will be my mission to ensure that we establish clear, thorough policies to make sure that trans and LGBTQ youth are clearly protected.”
Other candidates talked about their work related to adding sexual orientation and gender identity to local and state nondiscrimination laws.
When mayoral candidate and former City Councilmember Cherelle Parker addressed the group, she talked about her LGBTQ allyship as related to her experiences “at the intersection of race and gender.”
When she served as a Pennsylvania state representative from 2005 to 2015, she brought up her support for House Bill 300, otherwise known as the Fairness Act. “That was the bill to ensure that sexual orientation should be allowable as it relates to discrimination in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as it relates to public spaces,” Parker said at the forum. “All of the protected classes that we have in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, that should be a part of it as well.”
The Fairness Act, which would include gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation as protected classes, was introduced in the Pa. House on April 14. Locally, Philadelphia has a fair practices ordinance that includes sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes, thanks in part to the work of Rue Landau, former executive director of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations (PCHR) and current at-large City Council candidate.
When Landau led the PCHR, she played a big role in a bill that dictated that any agency that got a city contract had to provide benefits to same-sex partners. She worked on other bills that strengthened LGBTQ rights in Philadelphia, including making sure that all Philadelphia institutions that served youth had policies that made trans and nonbinary youth feel safe and welcome. At the candidate forum, Landau said that she would bring all of that experience, including her legal background, to City Hall.
“I know how important it is,” Landau said, “to have people inside City Hall that understand our issues, that take our issues and make them priorities, that bring them to the forefront, that some other bill being passed about something that other people might not realize would have an effect on our community––it is important to be there at the table to point that out, to ensure that our rights our protected.”
Landau is one of a handful of out LGBTQ candidates vying for one of Philly’s seven at-large City Council seats. Lawyer and activist Sherrie Cohen is another. At the forum, Cohen described herself as a bold progressive who prioritizes tenants’ rights, affordable housing, fully funded Philadelphia libraries and recreational centers, and establishing greener spaces in Philadelphia.
In the 1970s Cohen was part of the Philly lesbian activist group Dyketactics!, which organized a protest at City Hall in 1975 when bill 1275, which would have added sexual orientation to Philadelphia’s Fair Practices ordinance, was up for a vote. Dyketactics members held signs, chanted “free bill 1275,” and were ultimately ejected by the police.
“This is why I’m running for City Council,” Cohen said at the forum. “I am running to see the day that Philly’s radical lesbians will take on and be inside City Hall.”
Amanda McIllmurray, another out candidate running for an at-large City Council seat, also made her case at the forum. She plans to prioritize fighting for well-paying jobs, safe schools, affordable housing and “holistic approaches to community safety in every neighborhood.”
“I know what it’s like to grow up as a young queer person in our city,” McIllmurray said at the forum. “For me, representation matters but representation needs to be in addition to fighting for our issues. Queer people and the LGBTQ community more broadly are impacted disproportionately by every single issue that is on my platform. The issues that we experience are disproportionate and also the same. When you layer on other identities, that impact is even more disproportionate.”
Chesley Lightsey, candidate for judge on the Court of Common Pleas, highlighted her experience as an openly LGBTQ assistant district attorney and pledged to hire a diverse courtroom staff if elected. Lightsey was also asked about the case of Nizah Morris, and she said that the case needs to be solved and that Morris’ killer needs to be brought to justice.
Wade Albert, also running for the Court of Common Pleas, spoke about his work in the LGBTQ community as an attorney who helped companies update their policies and best practices to be more LGBTQ-inclusive, as well as his time working with the Trans Wellness Conference.
Other candidates who spoke at the forum include mayoral candidates Rev. Warren Bloom and former municipal court judge James DeLeon; incumbent at large City Council candidates Isaiah Thomas, Katherine Gilmore Richardson and Jim Harrity; City Council at large candidates Melissa Robbins, Job Itzkowitz, Erika Almirón, Nina Ahmad, John B. Kelly, Luz Colon, Eryn Santamoor and Jalon Alexander; incumbent Dist. 7 City Council candidate Quetcy Lozada and challenger Andres Celin; incumbent Dist. 8 City Council candidate Cindy Bass and challenger Seth Anderson Oberman; incumbent Dist. 9 City Council candidate Anthony Phillips; incumbent Dist. 3 City Council candidate Jamie Gauthier; City Commissioner candidates Lisa Deeley, Jarrett Smith and Seth Bluestein; City Controller candidates John Thomas, Alexandra Hunt and Chris Brady; Judicial candidates Kay Yu, Tamika Washington, Natasha Taylor Smith, Kenneth Joel, Jessica Brown, Brian McLaughlin, Will Braverman, Damaris Garcia, Samantha Williams, John Padova, Rania Major, Colleen Osborn, Barbara Thomson and Melissa Francis; Pa. Supreme Court candidates Debbie Kunselman and Dan McCaffery; Pa. Superior Court candidate Timika Lane; Sheriff candidates Michael Untermeyer and Jackie Miles; and Register of Wills candidates John Sabatina, Elizabeth Hall Lowe and Rae Hall.
