For almost a decade, Dariel Peay was afraid to hug people. Assigned the male sex at birth, Peay began presenting as a woman once she started working in the dermatology department at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2007, spending two-and-a-half hours every morning positioning pads onto her hips and pushing cotton-ball-stuffed stockings into her bra. Although filling out her dresses made her feel more feminine, she worried about someone going in for a hug and feeling the “rocks” on her chest.

“One morning, I couldn’t find the pads, and I thought I was going to lose my mind,” says Peay. “I tore up the house because I felt so uncomfortable going anywhere without them.”

She spent the next nine years trying to convince plastic surgeons and her health insurance company that her need for breast augmentation surgery was not simply cosmetic. But despite dozens of disappointing appointments, she was determined to create an outward figure that matched her true inner self.

So when she heard that Hopkins was planning to launch the Center for Transgender Health in 2017, Peay ran to the department of plastic and reconstructive surgery to get an appointment. After a months-long intake and consultation process, the day finally came. Peay woke up from surgery that October and, after calling for her mother, cautiously looked down at her chest. Two years later, she still remembers that moment as one of the first times she felt like a person.

“As reality kicked in, I couldn’t believe it really happened,” she says. “If I could’ve, I would’ve run to my doctor and thanked him so many times. He changed my life.”

While the gender-affirming surgeries and care made available by the Center for Transgender Health have created transformative opportunities for patients like Peay, many still question why these resources were missing from local health care for so many decades prior.

“Where has this been?” says Peay, reflecting on the years before her surgery. “Johns Hopkins is one of the top hospitals in America and globally—why were we not making sure that all patients were being taken care of?”

“If I could’ve, I would’ve run to my doctor and thanked him so many times. He changed my life.”

It turns out, Hopkins has a long and complicated history with what were once called “sex change” operations, now referred to as gender-affirming surgery. During the early 1960s, patients who had travelled abroad to receive gender-affirming surgeries started checking into the Baltimore hospital. Many had experienced serious side effects following the overseas procedures and turned to Hopkins to repair the damage and, in some cases, provide further reconstruction. Although a few U.S. surgeons had performed less than a dozen gender-affirming surgeries by 1965, many hospital boards refused to permit it.

But when faced with questions of how to evaluate and care for transgender patients, a small group of Hopkins professionals decided to address their own lack of knowledge. Milton Edgerton, then the hospital’s chairman of plastic surgery, asked assistant professor John Hoopes to develop a research protocol to resolve questions about the appropriate treatment of gender dysphoria—the feeling that one’s gender identity and given sex don’t match. Hoopes gave the green light for further study into how surgical procedures could play a role, and the two men began assembling an interdisciplinary committee—including psychologist John Money and endocrinologist Claude Migeon. They wanted to not only provide gender-affirming care, but also establish factors that could predict positive medical outcomes.

The Gender Identity Clinic was officially established on June 20, 1966, making Hopkins the first academic institution in the U.S. to perform gender-affirming surgeries. “I created the team and established the clinic only after much study and soul-searching and with the realization that current methods of therapy were not solving the problem,” says Hoopes, who received emeritus status and retired from the hospital in 1990.

Although the clinic began accepting patient applications almost right away, the news of the opening didn’t go public until later that year. On November 21, the front page of The New York Times read, “A Changing of Sex by Surgery Begun at Johns Hopkins.”

“In a period of two weeks [following the article], we got about 3,000 letters from all over America from transsexual patients,” said Edgerton, now deceased, during an interview with the American Association of Plastic Surgeons in 2016. “[The letters] were eight to 10 pages long; people begging for surgery.”

With the world watching, the Gender Identity Clinic spent the next few years operating on trans patients from across the country. Although thousands applied, only a small percentage met the requirements for surgery, which included living as their identified gender for at least six months while undergoing hormonal therapy, as well as extensive psychological, genetic, and physical examinations. It was also difficult to find patients who could afford the cost—about $4,325 for male surgeries in 1970 (equivalent to roughly $28,190 today)—especially since most insurance companies would not pay for it.

By the beginning of 1972, the team had completed gender-affirming surgeries on seven trans women, 16 trans men, and nine others who received revisions of procedures performed elsewhere. The limited number of patients prevented them from making any definitive conclusions, but the clinic did demonstrate the importance of taking an interdisciplinary approach to transgender health care, with input from specialists in medicine, mental health, and surgery. And as word of its initial successes spread, the clinic became a template for other national institutions.

But despite its progress, many still disapproved of the Gender Identity Clinic’s work. Most prominently, Paul McHugh, the hospital’s then chair of the department of psychiatry, had a self-proclaimed anti-transgender bias, even publicly stating, “It was part of my intention, when I arrived in Baltimore in 1975, to help end [gender-affirming surgery].” McHugh’s view on what he called “guilt-ridden homosexual men” seeking such procedures was that being transgender was a psychological problem that should be treated with psychiatry.

Meanwhile, the clinic was facing new challenges at every turn: it lacked a stable funding source, several original team members (including Hoopes and Edgerton) left Hopkins, and new department staffers were not supportive of the surgery program. In 1979, Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit (SBCU) chair Jon Meyer conducted a study to evaluate the difference in quality of life between trans patients who did and did not undergo surgery. Later that year, he announced that, after studying 50 subjects, he could not conclude that those who had surgery were any more adjusted to society than those who had not.

Meyer’s results starkly contradicted the findings of other researchers at the clinic, including Money, who previously reported that all but one of 24 surgery recipients said they were sure they made the right decision. The conflict between Meyer’s and Money’s scientific findings played out in national newspapers and professional journals, stirring a public debate about the role and morality of these procedures.

But with the study in hand, McHugh asserted that Hopkins was “fundamentally cooperating with mental illness” and shut down the Gender Identity Clinic within two months. Many other university-based academic programs that had followed Hopkins’ lead, such as Stanford University, also closed their doors over the next few years.

“One of my big disappointments,” said Edgerton, “is that although some American surgeons took up treatment of the transsexual patient, very few did.”

“Part of the legacy of the center is helping people who are better off for having come through it.”

Without the Gender Identity Clinic, Maryland’s transgender community was at a loss. For the next three decades, those seeking gender-affirming care in the region could access hormone therapy and other health services at centers such as the SBCU or Chase Brexton Health Care, but surgery was limited to plastic surgeons and specialists willing to perform select procedures. Peay remembers being excited to start her transition process in 2008, but she was discouraged by not only the lack of coverage for trans services, but also the dearth of knowledge among local physicians.

“I remember going to one hormone appointment and the resident said, ‘Well, I don’t really know anything about that,’” she recalls. “That experience made me realize that these people didn’t have a clue about trans health.”

But by 2015, the societal shift that increased public acceptance of LGBTQ individuals had taken hold within the halls of Hopkins. Hospital leaders recognized the growing need to provide gender-affirming operations to its patients, and they pledged to resume the surgical program. They quickly assembled committees to plan the structure of what would become the Center for Transgender Health while the hospital’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion worked to educate staff about transgender care.

Paula Neira, now the center’s clinical program director, co-chaired a task force that spent months examining the strengths and weaknesses of how Hopkins treated transgender patients. As a transgender woman who previously worked as a naval officer and a lawyer on the legal team that fought to repeal the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, she is well-versed in such challenges.

“How a transgender person interacts with the health system—from being in the cafeteria and not being misgendered to interacting with security personnel to ask for directions—plays into their overall experience,” says Neira. “That means everybody in the organization has to at least have a basic understanding of how to talk to people with dignity and respect. Everyone wants to do that, but they don’t always know how.”

Hopkins leaders also recognized the need to rebuild trust within the LGBTQ community. After a 38-year hiatus in its surgical program, there was a built-up skepticism about the hospital’s commitment to its transgender patients. They conducted third-party surveys and held focus groups to learn the expectations of potential patients, such as alerting the trans community to job openings at the center.

“It was a cautious optimism [from the LGBTQ community],” says Neira. “They were happy to see Hopkins providing gender-affirming care again, but they wanted to see if we were going to put our money where our mouth is.”

But even as plans for the center came together in the fall of 2016, the 85-year-old McHugh, now a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Hopkins, co-authored a special report called “Sexuality and Gender” for the New Atlantis, a magazine published by a conservative Christian think tank. The study contended that sex and identity are innately tied and biologically determined. While it was met with alarm from many in the medical community, conservative media groups cited the paper as a reason to support legislation against transgender people.

That October, seemingly in reaction to the article, Hopkins released a statement that reiterated its “strong and unambiguous” commitment to the LGBTQ community amidst “the varied individual opinions expressed publicly by members of the Hopkins medicine community.”

As proof of the life-altering work done at the center, O’Brien-Coon points to its first-ever vaginoplasty patient—the first at the hospital in 40 years—who declared that her birthday is now the day she received her surgery. “Part of the legacy of the center is helping people who are better off for having come through it,” he says. “People can doubt it or think whatever they want, but the proof speaks for itself.”

The center involves about 30 Hopkins professionals across eight departments who work with patients to provide services such as hormone therapy, hair removal, and a host of gender-affirming surgeries. Neira says they underestimated the pent-up demand for care among the LGBTQ community and, although they only planned to serve 200 patients during the first year, they interacted with more than four times that within 14 months. As of April, the center had seen 1,400 patients and performed more than 300 surgical procedures.

Along with day-to-day care, O’Brien-Coon and a team of Hopkins researchers have spent the past two years conducting a review of transgender health care literature to determine how the center’s patient experiences can contribute to modern medical study. Because, for some questions related to gender-affirming care—such as surgery recovery times—there are still no definite answers.

One topic they aren’t running research on, though, is whether gender-affirming surgery is an effective treatment for gender dysphoria. “There is no legitimate debate for those who argue that gender affirmation is still experimental,” says Neira. “There are people who discount four decades of research because it doesn’t match their worldview. And that’s not going to change.”

With the history of the clinic behind them, the center’s team keeps Neira’s credo—“ever forward”—in mind, which serves as a reminder that it’s the only direction they can go. “Today, victory is connecting one patient to the care they need,” says Neira. “We’ll do it one person at a time until we have a change in the system and the resources to do it on a larger scale.”

Looking ahead, they’ll continue to work through the center’s ongoing challenges, such as the need for more staff and resources, while carrying out the philosophy of the clinic’s founding members from all of those years ago: treating patients with the recognition that gender-affirming care can improve their quality of life.

For Peay, that means taking hours off of her getting-ready routine and feeling like her body is one step closer to matching her true self. “I see Dr. O’Brien-Coon all the time at work, and when I do, I want to hug him and thank him,” she says. “And all he did was give me the opportunity to have the body that I’ve always wanted.”

“I’m a hugger now,” she says, beaming. “I finally feel free.”

A bill requiring that all single-use bathrooms be made gender-neutral unanimously passed a City Council hearing Friday, putting the legislation on a path to be signed next month during Baltimore’s Pride Weekend.

Supported by transgender activists and the mayor’s LGBTQ Commission, the bill—if approved by the full council and signed into law by Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young as expected—would place Baltimore alongside cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., which have passed similar laws in recent years.

Earlier this year, the City Council passed a resolution calling on the Baltimore City Public Schools board to create a policy allowing transgender students to access bathrooms that align with their gender, use preferred pronouns, and update school records to reflect their gender. The school board passed those polices in April.

First District City Councilman Zeke Cohen, who is co-sponsoring the new legislation, said the gender-neutral, single-stall bathroom bill is an effort to extend the same bathroom accessibility now a part of the school system to all of Baltimore. “This is about creating a more welcoming, inclusive city in our public accommodations, particularly for our transgender community and our gender non-binary community,” Cohen said.

All five of the City Council’s Youth and Education Committee—John Bullock, Kristefer Burnett, Mary Pat Clarke, Ryan Dorsey, and Cohen—where the legislation is being brought forth, voted to pass the measure out of committee. New City Council President Brandon Scott was also on hand and voiced support for the measure.

The Fairness for All Marylanders Act, a state law that went into effect in 2014, prohibits gender-based discrimination in public accommodations, as well as employment, housing, and credit.

This new City Council proposal goes a step further and would mandate clear, gender-inclusive signage for all publicly accessible, single-occupancy restrooms in Baltimore. Several local business leaders in attendance announced support for the legislation. A representative from a local retailer’s association asked for an amendment that would allow businesses more time to put signs in place before facing any fines.

Ava Pipitone, with the Baltimore Transgender Alliance, testified in favor of the legislation, comparing the effort to make bathrooms and public spaces more welcoming and inclusive to historical civil rights efforts. “We’ve been here before with racially segregated bathrooms,” Pipitone told the Council’s Youth and Education Committee, where the legislation is being brought forth.

Jamie Grace Alexander, also with the Baltimore Transgender Alliance, noted the legislation would help not just transgender and non-binary individuals, but nursing mothers and wheelchair users as well.

Sharon Brackett, an entrepreneur and activist who became the first trans woman elected to public office in Maryland when she was voted to the Baltimore City Democratic State Central Committee in 2018, noted in testimony that the black transgender community today, in particular, faces unwanted scrutiny in accessing public restrooms.

“Public spaces, including bathrooms, have always been battlegrounds for civil rights,” Jabari Lyles, the Mayor’s Office LGBTQ liaison, told Baltimore magazine. “I’m hesitant to draw direct parallels to the segregated bathrooms of the past. But there are similarities in that bathrooms, water fountains, schools, restaurants, and hotels have been battlegrounds in the past.”

With the news of Grand Central closing, not long after we said goodbye to The Hippo across the street, the fate of Baltimore’s gay bars has been in jeopardy. But, this Easter weekend, the LGBTQ community will have something to celebrate as the Baltimore Eagle will reopen under new operators.

After closing last July due to a dispute between the landlord and former tenant, the Baltimore Eagle LLC is owned by Beth Cooper. The Station North building is still owned by Lorraine’s husband, Ian Parrish, and his father, Charles Parrish. Known around town as a leather bar, the new iteration aims to be more inclusive to the community at large.

And what better time to celebrate a resurrection than Easter weekend?

“When the bar closed, some of the former patrons had a full funeral for the bar at the Windup Space,” says photographer Chris Jennings, who is heading up events and marketing for the Eagle. “They put the logo in a casket and everything. When we were coming up with the date to reopen, I was like we have to do it on Easter. We are bringing a bar back that people deemed dead.”

The Eagle has had a long and storied past within the Baltimore LGBTQ community, originally open in 1991 until it closed for the first time in 2012. Charles Parrish says he was one of the first patrons of the Eagle when it debuted, and his mother, Emma, was a well-known burlesque performer who used to sing with Billie Holiday at the Gaiety. Over the years, the bar has hosted many parties and benefits for HIV/AIDS awareness and other charities.

This legacy and lineage are why many people are happy to see it once again open its doors on North Charles Street.

The three-part reopening weekend will start off with a massive drag show on Friday, April 19, featuring Tatianna from RuPaul’s Drag Race and hosted by Baltimore’s own Brooklyn Heights. On Saturday, the bar will host a 4:20-themed party where speakers from local dispensaries will come in to provide information and advocacy related to the medical marijuana industry. On Easter, there will be five DJs from a vast spectrum of the community, including DJ Tezrah, DJ Sidekick, DJ Swank, and one of the Eagle’s bar backs, Brandon Michaels.

“I want people to walk in the door and know this space is for them,” Jennings says. “Everyone should come in this door and feel affirmed in their body. Every type of person you can think of works here. I’m a black, non-binary person. Our owner is a queer, white woman. We want people to take a deep breath and know there’s somewhere for them to go to feel free from judgement.”

After Easter weekend, the Eagle will operate in Station North seven days a week from 4 p.m.-2 a.m. with regular drink specials, performances, and DJ nights. A renovated bar and stage is complemented by new photography, taken by Jennings, that displays a vast spectrum of people in the community. The more inclusive direction for the bar makes reopening during a religious weekend all the more apropos.

“Our spaces are like our churches—it’s where we find community and learn about ourselves,” Jennings says. “Baltimore really needs a progressive space, especially in Station North. This is the place to be kooky and artsy. I think that, as a city, we’re craving it.”

The Real Wallis Simpson

Anna Pasternak (Atria Books)

This colorful biography peels away the layers of one of the most talked-about—and misunderstood—figures in modern history: Wallis Simpson, the twice-divorced Baltimore native who stole the heart of the Prince of Wales and, so it’s been said, ultimately caused his abdication of the throne after he became King of England. Pasternak sets the record straight. What people call a fairytale love story between WE (Wallis and Edward’s shorthand for themselves) was, in many ways, a tragedy, as it becomes evident that Wallis did everything in her power to stop him from abdicating. Details about Wallis—her impeccable sense of style, her nervous temperament behind a cool and confident exterior—bring us closer to the reality of who she was.

Sketchtasy

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (Arsenal Pulp Press)

Buckle up. From the first sentence of this addictive novel, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore throws you into the ride of your life with late-night clubbing and parties dripping with drugs and debauchery in 1995 Boston. Your brain may need to recalibrate to ride this sexually fluid frenzy that moves from one disjointed thought and situation to the next. Alexa, our free-spirited narrator, celebrates, and critiques queer culture in all its complexities. Her story takes you straight to the inside of both heaven and hell. Expect to ride the chaotic waves with Alexa and her friends as they navigate their world and walk the line between fun and fatal.

Brewers have drawn inspiration from a ton of things about Baltimore—its history, its landmarks, its sports teams. And this spring, two local breweries will be debuting progressive pours that shed light on Baltimore’s LGBTQ community.

Adding to its year-round, core lineup for the first time in two years, Union Craft Brewing is releasing Divine IPA in March, a “perversely hoppy ale” with notes of orange, guava, and tropical fruit hops. That same month, DuClaw Brewing is debuting Sour Me Unicorn Farts, a collaboration between the Rosedale brewery and Diablo Doughnuts that tastes like a familiar fruity cereal.

“Yeah, I mean we sat around the bar and ate cereal. We had to start there,” says brewer Mike Kulha of DuClaw. “We then did research on what the flavors actually were, and this took a fair amount of trial and error. Drinking a beer is also very different than eating a doughnut. We used real fruit puree, which adds a fuller mouthfeel so the texture is more like a doughnut. It was an interesting process for sure.”

Unicorn Farts is the latest iteration of DuClaw’s “Sour Me” series and its most unique yet, drawing inspiration from the dessert of the same name at Diablo Doughnuts. The pilsner and wheat grain base includes Fruity Pebbles notes and edible glitter mixed in for a colorful, slightly tart sour with a bouquet of fruits and hint of biscuit. Similarly, for Union, it was about doing something special and standing out from the crowded IPA pack.

“When adding a beer to our core lineup, there are a lot of boxes to check,” says Union co-founder and creative director Jon Zerivitz. “It has to draw from Baltimore culture and have a unique story. We really wanted this brand to stand out amongst all the competition, especially in the IPA category. Divine checks those boxes and more.”

He notes that the pink and purple color palette and more “feminine” look of the beer sets it apart and avoids some played-out branding cliches in the beer world. This idea is also echoed in the flavor profile of Divine IPA, which is described as a “bright, juicy, hop-forward beer with a soft pillowy malt background.” Kegs of the beer will be tapped in the DMV area in March, followed by cans in April. DuClaw will be releasing its unicorn-themed beer at a party on March 16 at the brewery with hopes of additional events during Baltimore Pride.

“We are hoping this beer can do even more for Baltimore once it’s released this spring, specifically in support of our LGBTQ community,” says DuClaw’s director of marketing Madeline Caldwell. “We’re talking with GLCCB/Pride about a potential partnership, and are sponsoring TechniQ, the monthly queer dance party on the third Friday of every month at The Crown. I think we’re just scratching the surface here, though.”

While Union says this beer wasn’t made specifically for any demographic, they like that the ethos of Divine—both in name and spirit—is a fitting symbol for more inclusivity in the beer world and beyond.

“We didn’t set out to market to women on the LGBTQ community, but wanted to recognize their place in the consumer market,” Zerivitz says. “Divine, the actor and character, represents an open-minded, free to let your freak flag fly, more progressive and tolerant Baltimore.”

When Charles Bowers opened Club Hippo in 1972, his goal was to create a space that was welcoming to everyone—a “home,” he once told us, “for every man, woman, white, African-American, whatever, to come here, feel safe, feel wanted, have a great time, and come back another day.”

Fast forward a few years, and Bowers did exactly that, not just in turning his gay nightclub into a Baltimore institution on North Charles Street, but also transforming the surrounding neighborhood into the LGBTQ community hub. Before long, the “gayborhood,” anchored the most popular gay bars, housed the headquarters for the GLCCB community center, and hosted the city’s first Pride rally in 1975.

“Mt. Vernon was the gay mecca—a safe zone to meet people before the internet and dating apps,” says Don Davis, owner of Grand Central. “But through the years, crime and taxes have forced a lot of the neighborhood out. And the scene has changed.”

Within the last few years, that shift has accelerated as touchstones like the Hippo and the Baltimore Eagle leather bar have closed, and Grand Central is now for sale. But as gay culture has gone more mainstream, a new generation has found their footing elsewhere, with LGBTQ-owned and friendly establishments and events popping up across the city.

And as the community has spread out, it has also diversified (the “gayborhood” had largely been a haven for white men). Dance parties with a fresh focus on queer people of color, like DJ Trillnatured’s Version and GRL PWR’s Sweat!, have become new mainstays, while arts venues like The Crown, Metro Gallery, and Creative Alliance continue to offer more inclusive programming.

Drag has played a role, as well, with brunches and bingos from Fells Point to South Baltimore (see below). “We go where our community needs us to be,” says Lynora Lawless, spokesperson for the GLCCB, now located in Old Goucher. “I just see it as us expanding, and not just in Mt. Vernon. There is no longer one particular place that is the queer central. Eventually you will be able to find a queer space in every neighborhood. . . . Baltimore’s charm relies in that unique blend, that there is a place here for everyone.”

Editor’s Note: This story was updated to reflect the results of the November 13 Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation hearing.

Jesse Salazar and Tom Williams approached acclaimed street artist Gaia about a year ago to ask if he would be interested in painting the side of their Mount Vernon rowhome. But the couple couldn’t have planned a better week to finally get their three-story portrait of Baltimore-bred drag icon Divine.

An unplanned break freed up Gaia’s schedule this month, and he called Salazar and Williams to see if they wanted to pull the trigger on the ambitious private commission before he headed off to the Netherlands on October 24. They did.

The stars seemed to have aligned. The project began October 15 and, four days later, the day Divine (born Harris Glenn Milstead) would have been 73 years old, Gaia was painting. Just two miles straight north, a John Waters retrospective graces one of the Baltimore Museum of Art‘s special exhibition galleries.

“The timing is perfect and it’s strange,” Gaia says. “It’s sort of surreal that there isn’t already a monument to her in the city.”

The image chosen for the mural is from the cover of Divine’s 1984 single, “I’m So Beautiful,” and photographer Greg Gorman’s graphic style fit right in with Gaia’s aesthetic. But Salazar says the message is for those both familiar and unfamiliar with that particular track.

“We asked Gaia to create this mural as a tribute to Divine and the city’s queer history,” he says. “Our feeling was that, at a time when LGBT rights are being threatened, we hoped that beauty would inspire others to know that they, too, are beautiful, and the message that she’s sending to Baltimore I think is timely and important. For those who know Divine, it’s a celebration of her strength. And for those who don’t know her, I loved the image of this bold woman saying ‘I am beautiful.'”

The piece feels even more timely in the wake of this week’s news that the Trump administration is considering defining gender in a way that would threaten the rights of transgender and gender nonconforming people across the country.

As members of the LGBTQ community and its allies proclaim “we will not be erased,” this image has emerged in one of Baltimore’s historic “gayborhoods” to celebrate queer history, identity, and acceptance.

While Salazar says support for the mural in the neighborhood has been strong, the work has run into some trouble with the city. During the final day of painting, Gaia was approached by a city inspector who said there had been complaints about the mural. The piece was never authorized by the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation, which head of CHAP Eric Holcomb says must approve all exterior changes in local historic districts. Salazar is now working with the city to submit an application to keep the mural in place.

“There’s probably no other person you could paint and have it be this important, that I can think of, for that location,” Gaia says. “Whether or not the city wants to fight a monument that should exist is like, just don’t. The kind of compliments I’ve been getting, you can tell it’s really touching people.”

As it stands, the mural on East Preston Street is the only such work dedicated to Divine in the city. (Though there are constant unofficial tributes to Milstead at his gravesite in Towson.) Previous public efforts to create a monument made it through the bureaucratic hurdles only to be derailed by a lack of funding. As news of the mural has spread, support has poured in from Divine’s fans and public art supporters from Baltimore and beyond.

The image was shared multiple times by the official Divine Instagram account, and John Waters visited to pose with the mural Tuesday afternoon. Noah Brodie, CEO of Divine’s estate, sent a letter to CHAP in support of the new piece. In it he says, “It’s an inspiring message for counter-culture types, the LGBTQ community, and those affirming body positive representation. In many ways, she represents the strength of Baltimore’s character, and serves as a reminder of the city’s perseverance and authenticity. Divine is brassy, bold, and beautiful; just like Baltimore.”

The statement was echoed by Christian Larsen, associate curator of modern and contemporary art at The Met in his own letter of support. “The message your city sends of diversity, difference, acceptance and even celebration of one of your most daring and bold personalities is exactly what these dark times call for,” he wrote. “We are every day more at risk of falling prey to fear, prejudice, and discrimination against any and all communities that don’t conform to an increasingly narrow definition of normal. Baltimore is anything but normal. It dares to be different. Out of respect for all your citizens, please keep it that way.”

On November 13, CHAP met for its monthly hearing. Last on the agenda was a request from Salazar for retroactive approval of the “I’m So Beautiful” mural. In addition to the multiple letters of support and 4,200-plus Change.org petition signatures Salazar provided as evidence for why the mural should stay, Holcomb had requested two questions be answered in Salazar’s testimony: First, whether the mural could cause damage to the existing masonry, and second, whether the mural would detract from the historic Mt. Vernon streetscape.

Testimony from Sherwin-Williams scientists was read, and community members came out both in support of and in opposition to the mural. A statement from John Waters was presented by an assistant. It read, in part: “I’m kind of mystified as to the controversy and hope today’s hearing is merely a technicality…I had read in the press that the neighborhood association is concerned that this well-intentioned mural would overwhelm the historic character of the neighborhood. It seems to me that the negative national news about the crime rate in Baltimore is much more apt to overwhelm our streets than Divine, and I know it’s a crazy world out there, but like it or not, Divine is historical now, and I think most of Mount Vernon is proud of Divine’s history here. What better development in neighborhood crime watch than Divine? Looking down beautifully over the passers by on Preston Street and keeping them safe.”

The committee found itself in a catch-22 of sorts in deciding whether the mural should stay or go. On one hand it was in violation of a rule stating that historic unpainted masonry should not be painted over. On the other, a second rule states that well-adhered paint should not be removed from historic walls to avoid the risk of damage to the structure. While the mural probably would not have been approved had it been brought in front of CHAP to begin with (a situation Salazar acknowledged and apologized for in his testimony), its existence on the wall means that CHAP would now have to break another rule to take it down.

While that may seem like a major loophole, city residents shouldn’t get any bright ideas about painting their own tributes on their historic homes. Salazar testified that he did not realize that works of art were in the same category as painting the exterior of a home only to change its color, and during the course of deliberation, Commissioner Larry Gibson presented the plan that would end the nearly hour-long discussion of what to do about Divine’s vivid visage.

“I think we should keep the mural, but for none of the reasons that I’ve heard up until now,” said Gibson. “I think the fundamental reason is, and this is a one-time thing, I accept the owner’s statement that they did not know—that somehow our rules with respect for murals are ambiguous or uncertain. There’s some distinction between just painting and changing color and an artistic work of art. But going forward, there should no longer be that ambiguity.”

Those looking to put up enormous works of art in their neighborhoods won’t get as lucky as Salazar and Williams have, it seems. “The press is here. Nobody in the future can tell us they didn’t know,” Gibson said, eliciting laughs from both the commission and those gathered to testify. “This is a one off.”

After several testimonies, much deliberation, and a few moments of confusion during the vote, the retroactive approval of the “I’m So Beautiful” mural on East Preston Street was unanimously passed, to applause and a couple of whoops from the crowd.

For the next couple of decades, at least until the paint begins to fade (“a topic for future commissions,” quipped CHAP chair Thomas Liebel), Divine’s arched eyebrows will continue to peek out from the alleyway overlooking a pair of dumpsters. It would be an odd location for nearly anyone else, but for the Queen of Filth, it feels just right.

On a humid Thursday evening in early August, Lutheran pastor Emily Scott welcomed 22 attendees to the first meeting of her new church in the room of a local bookstore. Scott led the congregation in a short song and introduced herself by mentioning her preferred pronouns: she, her, hers.

The pioneer congregants followed suit. Specifying pronouns is an unusual thing to see at church, but learning the basic nuances of each individual’s gender identity set the progressive tone for Scott’s nascent LGBTQ-focused church in Baltimore.

“There’s an awareness within the mainstream Protestant world that many churches have been places of exclusion, and that’s something we really need to break out of,” says Scott, a 37-year-old graduate of Yale Divinity School. “I wanted to first make my identity as a queer woman very clear.”

She explains that inclusion, informality, and community were top priorities for her church’s dynamic, and she wants its development to be a community effort. She even delayed choosing a name until she and a more established congregation can collaborate to do so. For now, she calls it “Imagine a Church Baltimore.”

This is not her first foray into church establishment. She is a church planter, according to her website, meaning she creates new spiritual communities from scratch. For the past decade, Scott worked as the primary pastor at St. Lydia’s Dinner Church in Brooklyn, New York, the first church she founded.

Like Imagine a Church Baltimore, St. Lydia’s was dedicated to social justice and paid specific attention to the needs of LGBTQ Christians that she said typically go unaddressed within mainstream ministries. Scott said she loved working at St. Lydia’s but, as it grew into a more stable institution and a national news story (covered by The Atlantic and The Wall Street Journal), she wanted to bring her expertise and enthusiasm to a new community, and she quickly settled on Baltimore.

“Before I moved, I’d been really drawn to Baltimore for a number of years,” says Scott. “Baltimore is filled with people who are invested in the city. I’m really moved by all the community-based activism and grassroots movements.”

Scott’s first service integrated classic elements of church—a sermon, a biblical recitation, and a few more songs—with practices that are seldom found inside typical places of worship, including the discussion of pronouns and queer identities. Imagine a Church Baltimore also has no brick-and-mortar space, so in lieu an official location, Scott borrowed a room from Red Canoe in Lauraville.

This past March, Scott left New York and purposely settled near Lauraville, a neighborhood she said has a notably large LGBTQ community. In order to spread the word about her church, Scott set up shop at Baltimore Pride in June with a photo booth where people could pose against a halo under the words “The Divine Shines in You.” She also regularly runs a booth at the Hamilton-Lauraville farmers’ market on Tuesday evenings, and is active on Imagine a Church Baltimore’s Facebook page, which currently has 136 followers.

“Part of my job is to listen to the community and build something in response to what I hear, so I’m trying to engage with the people here in any way that I can,” says Scott, who credits a large portion of her decision to move here to Bishop Bill Gohl of the Delaware-Maryland Synod. “He is incredibly affirming of LGBTQ folks. It’s rare to find this level of support for a church like mine.”

Scott said Gohl has also encouraged her to use her church for social justice as well as religious refuge for marginalized people, and she said several potential congregants have suggested social justice work within church services as well. Following the first meeting, Scott asked the attendees what sort of church they are imagining: “a place of acceptance,” “a place to welcome new faces and celebrate new friends,” “a place that sounds like shared laughter,” and “music—not only hymns” were some ideas.

The second meeting, tentatively set for September, will focus on names in both a symbolic, identity-focused sense as well as a tangible discussion of what to call the church going forward. However, Scott stresses that Imagine a Church Baltimore is not just a stand-in title or a concise phrase for its congregants to hashtag on social media. It’s a call to action for Baltimoreans who have felt rejected or ostracized by organized Christianity before.

“I’m dreaming about a place that feels free and reflects the broad diversity of Baltimore,” says Scott. “I want to create a place that doesn’t feel defined by respectability but instead by the big, wild, messy way that God made us. Ultimately, it’s the people that come to this ministry who are going to create what it becomes.”