The Queen of Ward 8
What’s a gay man doing at the center of Ward 8 politics? Just about everything.
Cover Story
Phil Pannell tumbled out of Player’s Lounge one summer night in 1987. He’d gone to the Southeast Washington bar after a party and ended up being shooed out at closing. It was 3:30 a.m., and he had 10 muggy blocks to walk home.
As he walked, a man called to him from a stoop. The guy, who seemed to know him, asked Pannell for a voter registration form. Most people who’ve lived in Anacostia a while have seen Pannell passing out voter registration forms from the sidebag he always carries. Pannell obliged and prepared to make his way home.
But the man also wanted help filling out the form, and umpteen beers and screwdrivers got the better of Pannell’s judgment. He agreed to go into the laundry room of a nearby apartment building. There was light there, the man said.
Once inside, the man locked the door. “I want some head,” he announced.
“Well, don’t we all,” Pannell said.
A knife flashed, and Pannell dropped to his knees as ordered. “He came in my mouth,” Pannell recalls matter-of-factly. Then the man told Pannell to pull his pants down and lie face-down on the floor. As he lay there, half naked, the man left.
Reporting the rape to the cops was nearly as degrading as the rape itself. A woman officer was kind, but the man who took his statement at Anacostia’s 7th District was icy. Pannell remembers the officer’s sneering tone— he remembers feeling embarrassed and doubly victimized.... Continued 
Issue of Mar. 29 - Apr. 4, 1996
News and Features
- The Queen of Ward 8
Cover Story - For Those About to Rock
Feature - The Needle
The City - It Was Fun to Swim at the YWCA But It’s Not Anymore
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