Much like Greater Greater Washington and DC YIMBYs, the Capital Stonewall Democrats have a questionnaire for ANC candidates. Here’s what they asked and what I told them.

Much like the others, the first section is for your name, website, and donation and social links. Section 2 asks about orientation, gender, and racial identity. Section 3 is where it gets interesting.

Section 3. Where you stand

Sixteen statements, about four minutes. Neutral is a real answer. Published in OutVote DC beside every other candidate’s.

Block A · Decisions your commission actually makes

3.1. When an LGBTQ+ owned or LGBTQ+ serving business applies for a liquor license, entertainment endorsement, or extended hours, my ANC should weigh its value as community space alongside neighbors’ concerns rather than defaulting to a settlement agreement that restricts it.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

3.2. My ANC should support new housing in our SMD, including affordable and supportive housing, even when nearby residents object.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

3.3. When neighbors raise concerns about street-based sex work in our district, the ANC should push for housing, health care, and outreach services rather than for increased police presence.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

3.4. My ANC should protest or oppose District actions that harm LGBTQ+ residents even when the matter is outside the commission’s formal authority and the resolution is symbolic.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

3.5. ANC meetings should be scheduled, publicized, and run in ways that specifically make it easier for people who rarely attend — renters, young people, shift workers, seniors — to participate, even when that inconveniences the regulars.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

3.6. More police presence in our SMD would make LGBTQ+ residents, including trans residents and LGBTQ+ people of color, safer.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

3.7. My ANC should use its formal budget recommendations — the request letters that go to the Mayor and the Council each year — to push for funding that serves LGBTQ+ residents.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

3.8. I will hold at least one ANC meeting, committee meeting, or social gathering at an LGBTQ+ owned business during my term — or join one held elsewhere in the District if my ward has none.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

3.9. I will work with LGBTQ+ commissioners and community members across the District as a caucus — meeting regularly, coordinating priorities, and backing each other’s work — not only within my own ANC.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

Block B · District policy beyond the ANC

Nine items. Not the ANC’s call. We ask because your voice carries.

3.10. Transgender and nonbinary students in DC should be able to play on the school sports teams that match their gender identity.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

3.11. DC should protect access to gender-affirming care for both adults and minors, including by refusing to cooperate with other states’ attempts to investigate families who come here for care.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

3.12. DC should expand dedicated services for LGBTQ+ young people experiencing homelessness, including beds reserved for them, rather than folding them into general youth services.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

3.13. Every DC public and public charter school should be required to teach an LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum and to maintain a policy protecting LGBTQ+ students.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

3.14. Consensual adult sex work should be decriminalized in the District, with enforcement focused on trafficking, coercion, and violence rather than on people selling or buying sex.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

3.15. DC should fund LGBTQ+ affirming senior housing and elder services, and require LGBTQ+ competency training at facilities that receive District funds.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

3.16. All Washingtonians, including transgender Washingtonians, should have access to the full range of reproductive health care and family planning services.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

3.17. Young people in DC’s juvenile justice and foster care systems should be protected from discrimination and bias-based harassment because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, including placement consistent with their gender identity.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

3.18. DC should maintain and fund its own LGBTQ+ data collection and civil rights enforcement even when federal agencies stop doing so.

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

3.19. Anything you want to explain about an answer above? Optional

Re 3.1 (liquor licenses and extended hours) — Broadly speaking, I think ANCs should default to being open to licenses, endorsements, and extended hours, especially for communities that have traditionally been shut out of community spaces or had trouble maintaining them. However, 1B is one of the densest parts of the city, and operators must be open to adjusting to avoid unduly impacting neighbors who may be only feet from their doors and walls.

As a queer person who myself was once driven out of an apartment because a new bar moved into the building next door with booming speakers nearly under my pillow, I am sensitive to both the need for community space and the need for peace and quiet at night. I will bring to the ANC a spirit of collaboration to find solutions that serve both prospective operators and their neighbors as much as reasonably possible.

Re 3.6 (police and safety): We already have a District police station in our ANC and an enormous police presence with local and multiple varieties of Federal police, not to mention soldiers with automatic rifles throughout our neighborhoods. If we still aren’t safe, more of the same can’t be the answer.

Section 4. In your words

Four questions. A paragraph each is plenty.

4.1. Why are you running?

ANCs have a reputation of being toxic places full of toxic people. We need fewer egos looking out for themselves and their friends and more community-minded commissioners working together with their fellow commissioners, with their Council representatives and other wings of District government, and with ANCs across the District, to move our community forward.

I have heard from many neighbors that they have found it difficult or impossible to get through to our current Commissioner and to get responses from District staff. I look forward to working with fellow Commissioners and our colleagues across the Ward and around the District to push agencies to be more responsive to our constituents, and — mindful that we will also have several new Councilmembers and a new Mayor next year — to working with our Councilmembers to hold agency leaders responsible, find the systemic issues causing these problems, and create solutions and the oversight to ensure they are implemented, both during Performance Oversight/Budget in the spring and throughout the year.

4.2. What is your relationship with this neighborhood beyond politics, and who are the neighbors you already show up for?

Why we ask: No right length of residency.

I work across ANC 1B, Ward 1, the District, and the region to make life better for our neighbors: I am a member of the ANC’s transportation committee, a precinct representative to the Ward 1 Democrats, and the Ward 1 Member of DC’s Pedestrian Advisory Council, and I work as a transportation planner, working on projects across the DMV and throughout the Mid-Atlantic—GGWash said I am “a consistent presence in Ward 1 who has tangibly made its streets safer in both their personal and professional capacity.”

I’ve held board positions both in professional and community organizations, have organized DC’s edition of the Ride of Silence memorial bike ride for victims of traffic violence since 2019, and am a Member at Large of the board of Ex Lapide, Virginia Tech’s Alumni Society for queer alumni and allies.

4.3. How will you work with your fellow commissioners, in your ANC and across the District, to accomplish your goals?

Why we ask: Budget request letters, Council testimony, the Mayor’s office. Name the tools you would actually use.

I am deeply curious and collaborative, so I have both knowledge of and connections throughout the District and its agencies, and look forward to working with my colleagues on 1B, our Councilmembers, and across the District, rather than against them.

I’ve provided live and written testimony to Council on various transportation issues, on redistricting in 2022, and in support of more abundant housing. Some (though not all) of these testimonies are available at https://jski.net/testimonies.html

Citation

BibTeX citation:

@online{swiderski2026,
  author = {Swiderski, J. I.},
  title = {Capital {Stonewall} {ANC} {Candidate} {Questionnaire}},
  date = {2026-09-26},
  url = {https://jski.net/posts/csd.html},
  langid = {en}
}

For attribution, please cite this work as:

Swiderski, J. I. 2026. “Capital Stonewall ANC Candidate Questionnaire.” September 26, 2026. https://jski.net/posts/csd.html.