the lgbtq community news source America’s local social bard news agenda Legendary gay playwright Transgender bias Spring’s arrival means Tennessee Williams is bill clears hurdle it’s time for the annual honored with local festival in Maryland House as Cherry Fund parties. marking his 100th birthday. session winds down. The fun kicks off next week. PAGE 21 PAGE 2 PAGE 25 washingtonblade.com • vol. 42, issue 12 • march 25, 2011 • Still sharp after 40 years Liz Taylor hailed for LGBT and AIDS activism Legacy lives on at D.C. medical center bearing her name By LOU CHIBBARO JR.
[email protected] The death of Elizabeth Taylor on Wednesday drew expressions of sadness and admiration from AIDS and LGBT activists in D.C., who said they were honored that the city’s Whitman-Walker Clinic build- ing that bears her name would serve as a local legacy to the famous actress. Taylor, a two-time Academy Award-winning actress who starred in more than 50 fi lms over a period of nearly 70 years, died at a hospital in Los Angeles of congestive heart failure. She was 79. “She was an extraordinary personality and it’s a wonderful feeling that we have a little part of her legacy right here on 14th Street, said gay D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1). Graham served as executive director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic in November 1993, when Taylor came to D.C. for a ceremony to dedi- cate the Clinic’s main building for patient services as the Elizabeth Taylor Medical Center.