M Pease ’22 Appointed to Maryland Commission on LGBTQIA+ Affairs

Pease is an alum of the Maryland General Assembly Program in the Department of English.

By Chloe Kim

Three years after completing an internship through the Maryland General Assembly (MGA) Program in the Department of English, M Pease ’22 has recently been confirmed as one of the 21 new members of the Maryland Commission on LGBTQIA+ Affairs, appointed by Governor Wes Moore. 

As a member of the commission, Pease will connect with members of the Maryland LGBTQ community to understand their most pressing needs and then work to develop “multi-dimensional” recommendations to help improve conditions for LGBTQ people across Maryland. That could include advocating for economic equity, employment opportunities, food security or harm reduction in substance use.

Pease credits their experience in the MGA Program, which places up to 15 UMD students per year in an internship with legislators in Annapolis during the 90-day spring legislative session, with helping them develop the skills, knowledge and connections needed to land the position. The program introduced them to the power of state advocacy as a psychology student who originally did not pursue a traditional law- or government-oriented path, they said.

“Regardless of the discipline that one comes from, the program is a really exciting and accessible way to get started and see if it’s something you’re interested in. And it can open doors for you in the future,” Pease said.

Students prepare for the internship in the fall semester through a writing seminar, where they practice by crafting policy memos, constituent letters, bill analyses and more.

English Principal Lecturer Thomas Lowderbaugh, who teaches the seminar, ENGL 381, said it teaches students how to write effectively and concisely for a professional environment, which differs significantly from writing academic papers for a typical college course.

“The advantage for our students arriving in Annapolis is that they’re prepared,” Lowderbaugh said. “When the supervisor asks them if they can write a constituent letter, our students can say, ‘Yes, we practiced that last semester.’”

As an intern in Delegate Julie Palakovich Carr’s office, Pease assisted with a number of social justice-oriented bills, including banning the “gay/trans panic” defense, a legal strategy to reduce charges of murder to manslaughter by blaming the defendant’s violence on discovering the victim’s gender or sexual orientation.

Pease’s internship was so successful that Palakovich Carr asked them to stay on through the summer working to prepare for future sessions. Pease was also an undergraduate teaching assistant for Lowderbaugh’s next ENGL 381 seminar. In May 2022, Pease was the student commencement speaker and from 2019–23 was on the staff of the UMD Prevention Research Center, which is dedicated to research, service and training around issues of mental and behavioral health among LGBTQ+ communities.

Pease, who is currently a second-year doctoral student in counseling psychology, said their career goal is to combine their skills in public advocacy with their training as a therapist to help increase equity for marginalized communities.

“I remain connected to state policy work in a meaningful way and find that my doctoral training continues to benefit,” Pease said. “Recognizing how different forms of oppression are interconnected was a really profound experience for me, being able to see what could be accomplished at that level of advocacy.”