Capital Metro Rainbow Alliance

Members of the Capital Metro Rainbow Alliance tabling at DC’s Gay Pride Day in 1979.

One of the most influential organizations for Deaf LGBTQ+ Washingtonians has its origins in a rather unusual place: a basketball tournament of the American Athletic Association of the Deaf. In April 1976, deaf queer friends Frank Del Russo, Betty G. Miller, and Gigi Doran gathered at the Omni Shoreham Hotel following the tournament for a covert party for deaf gays and lesbians. They called the event an “Eye” party, invoking the wink-and-a-nod code by which attendees recognized each other as part of the LGBTQ+ community. Betty, a prominent deaf artist, guarded the door of the hotel room where the party took place, shooing away curious deaf straights. All told, nearly three hundred people attended.

Members of the CMRA and friends at the 1979 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, signing "I love you."

The Eye party was such a success that the organizers threw another one the following year, this time at Roundup, a bar at 8th and E St. Southeast (formerly the popular lesbian bar JoAnna’s). Party-goers dropped donations into a jar dubbed the “Kitty Jar” to support the party. The Eye party drew enough of a profit that the hosts decided to use the funds to establish an official organization for deaf gays in DC. They dubbed the organization the Metro Rainbow Alliance, adding Capital to the name the next year to create what became known as the Capital Metro Rainbow Alliance (CMRA). CMRA became a chapter of the national Rainbow Alliance of the Deaf and would go on to host RAD’s annual conference in DC in 1985 and 2005.

A flyer for Tracks' opening in 1984.

Over the following years, CMRA held coffeehouses at St. James Episcopal Church at 222 8th St NE, hosted holiday parties, showed captioned screenings of LGBTQ+ films, held fundraisers, and threw many more Eye parties. During the 1980s, popular gay bar Tracks was the home of the Eye parties, as well as regular deaf social nights.