Anthony Le | Photo by Darrow Montgomery
Stronger Together: On Pride, Resilience, and Working Toward a Better Future | Washington City Paper
This Washington City Paper article has been reformatted and a portion relevant to me is posted below.
June 5th, 2025 by Sarah Marloff, Stephanie Rudig, Tanya Paperny, Taylor Ruckle, Amelia Roth-Dishy and Douglas Corzine
It’s Pride Month and the queer and trans communities are not OK. We’re scared. We’re tired. We’re hoarding prescriptions and contemplating if we can leave the country. We’re packing go bags. We’re working long hours, and we’re losing our jobs. But we also keep going. We’re hosting fundraisers, creating art, protesting, and putting on Pride celebrations—not just in D.C. and other big cities, but in small towns across the country. And we’re doing it all in the face of every single person and politician who would tell us we’re not worthy of celebrating—or worse, that we don’t exist.
Because those are things you can count on this community to do: We show up and we fight like hell and we keep the party going. As any queer or trans person will tell you, queer and trans joy is an act of resistance.
As Pride Weekend nears, and D.C. celebrates the 50th anniversary of the city’s first ever Pride celebration, many local outlets have laid out a feast of the District’s queer history; they’ve reported on the hardships facing the WorldPride celebration in the shadow of the Trump administration, and compiled lists of must-attend events. But what about the people making our history right now?
Below, you’ll hear from an artist canceled by the Kennedy Center, the executive director of the Whitman-Walker Institute who fell in love with research while living in Russia, the creator of QueerTalkDC, a local Jewish organizer, the director of Lambda Legal’s Nonbinary and Transgender Rights Project, and the president of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
In editing this package, I was delighted by the recurring themes. Woven throughout these stories are acts of resilience and demonstrations of our deep love for our communities. It wasn’t intentional, it’s just the truth. So on the eve of D.C.’s 50th Pride, remember that it started not just with a protest, but an uprising. May we carry that energy forward. —Sarah Marloff
The Artist: Anthony Le
Anthony Le doesn’t operate within strict confines—the multi-hyphenate artist works across genres and media and takes pleasure in busting boundaries and expanding definitions. They keep busy with painting, sculpting, researching, writing, and curating exhibits and zines. In February, Le was slated to take part in a Vietnamese artist showcase at the Kennedy Center, where leadership demanded their drag performance be removed from the lineup due to new anti-drag and anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives passed down from the Trump administration. The organizer refused, and the show was subsequently canceled. For Pride month, they’re participating in a Queer Art Salon in the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Galleries. —Stephanie Rudig
A lot of work you do is very collaborative. What role does community play in your art?
I’ve really centered community projects in the last couple years. I’m so happy that my art practice has evolved like this, from being in the studio by myself to collaborating with other people and incorporating other people’s visions to build something we couldn’t do solo. I’m very much inspired by Philippa Hughes, who I’m also lucky to call a friend and a collaborator. We created Vagabond together, which is a collective of local Vietnamese artists. 2025 is an important year for the Vietnamese diaspora. It’s 50 years since the end of the war in Vietnam. Our communal goal was to create a space where people could feel welcomed and share in community without any kind of preconceived notions of one way to be Vietnamese or one way to be anything.
I also have The Model Mutiny art collective with my partner Ashley Jaye Williams. Our practice, our finding our queerness together, that has also boosted me and given me so much confidence to take risks. Right now I’m really focusing on sharing queer joy. I think it welcomes everyone, is healing for everyone, and it adds a lens to my work that is very specific to me. It’s kind of like queer joy is my superpower.
You were scheduled to be part of a performance at the Kennedy Center that was canceled because the organizers refused to remove your drag performance from the lineup. How have you been navigating what has become an increasingly hostile arts environment?
It was, of course, very disappointing when the Kennedy Center canceled our show [Saigon by Night, a Vagabond project]. I feel a lot of anger about it. I think that queer erasure is sometimes easy to overlook, and it’s something we need to stand up against. The comments about drag from the administration are illogical in my mind because drag welcomes all, drag invites us to imagine and dream what we could be in this very flourishing way, and in this very silly way. I’m more motivated than ever to work on my drag performance, to support drag artists.
Do you have any plans to do your drag performance in a different venue?
We’re going to have it on Sept. 20 at Pearl Street Warehouse. The performance is part of Saigon by Night, which is a variety show, and it’ll have comedy, music, and theater—including my drag performance. I’ve received so much support from other drag artists. I can tell the city does support drag; the city supports queer art.
How do you like to celebrate and observe Pride?
I really love the Dyke March. It has this very DIY energy that I love. It’s not corporate sponsor[ed], it’s just people gathering, celebrating together. I like to go to as many of the art events that are happening. Sometimes the parade feels a little too corporate for my taste.
This will be an interesting year with pressure from the administration. I’m curious to see if people are really willing to support the community. [If so,] I’m going to approach them with an open heart and hope that we can celebrate together.