The trouble at the McLean Community Center started last summer, after the Northern Virginia cultural facility co-sponsored “Drag StoryBook Hour” for children during Pride Month.
Some in the affluent D.C. suburb of nearly 50,000 were outraged, accusing the center’s leaders of imposing their liberal ideology on the preschoolers who listened as drag queens in makeup and brightly patterned outfits read aloud books about gender fluidity.
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Now, in an example of how nothing is safe from the nation’s raging culture wars, there is a power struggle underway at the 47-year-old Fairfax County community center whose board is usually occupied with such matters as whether to purchase a ping-pong table for the building or how plans are going for the annual McLean Day family festival, where the board’s elections take place.
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Although the volunteer board with no taxing authority is hardly a steppingstone to higher office, this May’s election for three open seats — a contest that usually turns out about 300 voters — has attracted nine candidates. Among them: Katharine Gorka, a former Trump administration official who — along with her husband, Sebastian Gorka, an ex-aide to President Donald Trump — has railed against social equity and inclusion policies such as the one the community center used as a guide in selecting the drag event.
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The local Democratic Party committee is backing three other candidates who support that equity policy, called One Fairfax.
Another three are running as a slate seeking to strike a middle ground, while a retired criminal defense attorney on a crusade to stop the center from using its funds to install electric vehicle charging stations in the parking lot calls the entire organization dysfunctional. Then there’s the former 1980s actress who says she works for the CIA.
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Several in the race lamented how the brick-and-glass building that typically hosts concerts or plays among towering oak trees has become its own spectacle.
The facility that boasts of being at “the center of it all” has found itself at the center of something else: the national clamor over culture-war issues such as transgender people’s bathroom use, equity initiatives, “critical race theory” and mask mandates that, in Virginia, swept Republicans into power during the fall.
“I don’t need another school board screaming match,” Lauren Kahn, the retired attorney, said about the community center. “Normally, these elections are uncontroversial. Why do they want to politicize it?”
Backlash spills into the boardroom
Just a few children were at the Dolley Madison Library in June with their parents when a group hired by the community center showed up in dresses to read books like “Neither” by Airlie Anderson, the story of a part-bunny, part-bird creature seeking acceptance, according to local news reports.
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But the event for interested families that was sponsored by the library and the community center also attracted opponents, about 10 of whom showed up to pray with rosary beads. The scene became tense, with some name-calling and harassment on both sides, the news reports said.
The backlash soon spilled into the McLean Community Center building, where the 11-member governing board of the facility, which is largely funded through a special residential tax district, holds its regular meetings.
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The event’s critics argued that programming has veered too far away from the classic music concerts or small theater productions that have long defined the community center, though several of those residents couldn’t name another example beyond the drag event of how that is so.
“Other people can come in and use the center, but I’m paying for it,” said Alice Middleton, 71, who estimates that $400 of her annual residential taxes goes toward the center. “I should have input on the kinds of performances they put on, the kinds of performances that this community supports.”
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Barbara Zamora-Appel, the board chair, said in a statement that the center strives to create “a welcoming and supportive space for all community members” in McLean — in line with the county’s One Fairfax policy.
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While “a few community members” have disapproved of the drag event, the statement said, “we also receive numerous messages of thanks from participants and those who support what we’re doing.”
Critics become riled
The board mostly ignored complaints about the drag event that were made during the public comments portion of its meetings for several months, according to meeting minutes and recordings posted to the center’s website, until, at its Dec. 8 meeting, frustrations peaked.
There, several audience members clapped when one speaker accused the board members of being indifferent toward their concerns. Zamora-Appel asked them to refrain from disrupting the meeting with their applause, prompting a man in the audience to repeatedly yell: “The Nazis didn’t stop you from applauding!”
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Daniel Singh, the center’s executive director, tried to get the man to leave, but he refused, verbally attacking him, a center spokeswoman said. Singh called the county police, who escorted the man out of the building.
No charges were filed, the spokeswoman said. But the involvement of the police further riled the critics, and more complaints came the following month — this time in response to a quote from Singh in an article about a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday event, in which he described the center as a stabilizing force for McLean amid “strong crosswinds” over the coronavirus pandemic, “racial tension, and dog whistles of white supremacy.”
“What is an example?” Jeffrey Shapiro, a resident since 2008, demanded of Singh, arguing that the white supremacy remark made McLean — which is nearly three-quarters White and has a Black population of just over 2 percent — look like a community of racists. Singh, who declined an interview request from The Washington Post, remained quiet.
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To the board, Shapiro said: “The vibe I’m getting is you feel you’re morally superior and you know the way and it’s your job to teach us how to live.”
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Shivani Saboo, a board member who is South Asian, shared moments of her upbringing in McLean that supported Singh’s remarks and the rationale for the One Fairfax policy.
“I have been told to go back to my own country,” she said in a steady voice through a video link, as the rest of the room fell silent. “‘You guys are gross; you’re dirty.’ I’ve been told all of those things while living in McLean all of my life.”
A push for control
Following the dust-up, Gorka, 61, an adviser under Trump who is now a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, was among the first to enter the race, promising in a campaign flier to “ensure that programming represents all members of the McLean community and that it responsibly stewards the funds and other resources that are entrusted to it by the members of our community.” Gorka did not respond to requests for comment from The Post.
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Then, candidates worried about a conservative push to take over the center jumped in, including those who said they would support the center hosting another drag-related event involving children if it were done responsibly.
“We have autonomy over our choices and the types of events that we participate in and that we take our children to,” said Anna Bartosiewicz, 39, one of a trio of candidates being supported by local Democratic Party committee members.
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Kristina Groennings — who with Democratic Party organizer Ari Ghasemian, 23, also has support from local party committee members — said the center should be a place of healing for the community as people start to go to live events again.
“It’s important, in order to remain an open and free democracy — I mean, look at what’s happening in the world — that we keep the community center as a center for free expression,” said Groennings, 45, an entertainment attorney.
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Meanwhile, Kahn — who entered the race to end the use of local tax dollars for electric vehicle charging stations — claims she was pressured to drop out by the local Democratic Party chair.
“We don’t want to have more than 3 of those candidates running against the right-wingers, so we don’t split the sensible vote,” read the first of several emails to Kahn from Julie Waters, the committee chair.
Kahn, who provided the emails and is a Democrat, replied: “Find another person to demand that he/she withdraw.”
In an interview, Waters confirmed the emails came from her but denied pressuring Kahn, saying Kahn had initially suggested she was willing to drop out. But, Waters said, members of her committee are helping the “more progressive-minded” candidates they favor spread the word about their candidacy.
For Maire Shine, Debra Butler and James Lawless, who are running as their own slate, the controversy over the “Drag StoryBook Hour” event reflected a disconnect between the center’s leaders and the people they serve.
The event “didn’t seem like something that matched” the community, said Lawless, 79, who worked as a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration attorney before he retired.
Although most McLean residents are “probably pretty accommodating,” he said, “there is a limit to what they feel is appropriate for the community center because it’s where they come with their families.”
The board’s defensive posture about the backlash allowed the controversy to fester and for sides to be taken over what is meant to be a facility that brings everyone together, the group said.
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“We cannot draw a line down the middle of the community center,” said Butler, 59, a marketing executive.
Shine, 25, a financial analyst, said it was disheartening to learn that the place that produced fond memories of chocolate festivals while she was growing up has been shrouded by political overtones.
“We were like: What have we got ourselves into?” she said.