Local
D.C. youth report being forced into prostitution
Civil rights panel holds hearing on LGBT sex trafficking
Ruby Corado (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Dany, who asked the Washington Blade not to use his last name, came to Virginia from Mexico in 2009 to escape the discrimination and abuse he said he suffered from his classmates and family members because he is gay. Those whom he said kidnapped him after he ran away from the school to which his parents had sent him as a child threatened to kill him because of his sexual orientation.
Dany moved to D.C. last year, but the woman with whom he was living soon told him the money he gave her to live in her home was not enough to pay for food and rent. He said that his landlord forced him to prostitute himself. He made the revelation during a District of Columbia State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights hearing on trafficking of LGBT youth in Northwest Washington on Tuesday. Dany told the Blade in a follow-up interview she threatened to report him as an undocumented immigrant if he refused.
“I had no guidance because I was very fearful,” he told the commissioners. “I had no direction on what to do.”
A report the State Department issued in June said up to 27 million people around the world are currently victims of labor and sex trafficking. Up to an estimated 300,000 people in the United States are currently involved with human trafficking.
The Polaris Project, an organization that combats human trafficking, estimates 100,000 children are currently in the sex trade in the U.S. The group’s National Human Trafficking Hotline has also received more than 80,000 calls from people who want to report cases as well as victims seeking support.
Those who testified at the hearing said homophobia and transphobia only exacerbate the problem of human trafficking among LGBT youth.
Andrea Powell, executive director of FAIR Girls, an organization that advocates on behalf of exploited girls and young women in the D.C. metropolitan area and elsewhere, highlighted the case of a 17-year-old transgender teenager from Maryland she said had recently been arrested for solicitation.
Powell said the teen has run away 62 times because of the abuse she said she suffered in the foster care system in which she has lived since birth. She said the teen’s boyfriend who is in his early 40s sometimes allows her to live with him in “exchange for sex.” Powell said he has also asked his girlfriend to have sex with others to help him pay the rent.
“The situation was pretty normal to her,” Powell said. “She would prefer not to have sex for money. She really preferred not to have sex with her boyfriend, but she did not want to be sent back to foster care and saw this as the best case scenario.”
A report the Williams Institute published last year indicates 40 percent of homeless youth are LGBT. Nearly 70 percent of service providers who responded to the survey cited family rejection as a major contributing factor to homelessness among this population.
Statistics from the National Coalition for the Homeless in 2009 indicate LGBT youth are more susceptible to victimization and mental health problems once they become homeless. The group said nearly 60 percent of homeless LGBT youth have been sexually assaulted, compared to roughly a third of their heterosexual counterparts. The National Coalition for the Homeless also found homeless LGBT youth are 7.4 times more likely to become a victim of sexual violence than those who are straight.
One person who requested anonymity told the committee a man who lived with his family in Honduras when he was a child began to abuse him because he is gay. He said his family kicked him out of the house after he told local authorities the man impregnated his 13-year-old sister.
The witness told the committee he began selling drugs to make money, but subsequently turned to prostitution. He said the person with whom he currently lives threatens to tell his family about what he is doing.
“This person is kind of a bad person to me,” he told the committee. “He has made me do stuff that I don’t want to do.”
The Polaris Project, the Metropolitan Police Department and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are among the members of the D.C. Human Trafficking Task Force that formed in 2004 to increase the amount of trafficker prosecutions while identifying and expanding services to victims. It also receives grants from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Bureau of Justice Assistance to combat the issue.
Casa Ruby CEO Ruby Corado, who told commissioners during the hearing she had to work four jobs to pay the family with whom she lived after she moved to the U.S. from her native El Salvador in 1986, said homophobic and transphobic attitudes among some older D.C. police officers remain a barrier to LGBT trafficking victims. She said the situation has begun to improve through the Metropolitan Police Department’s Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit.
“There are open-minded law enforcement out there,” D.C. Police Det. Steven Schwalm told commissioners during his testimony. “If you’re being exploited, by all means give us a call. We’re here to help.”
Powell said another potential solution is to work with law enforcement officials to refer trafficking victims to services under so-called safe harbor laws as opposed to placing them under arrest for solicitation and other crimes.
“Incarceration and detention are not safety planning options,” she said. “They’re not our best case scenarios.”
As for Dany, he began volunteering at Casa Ruby after he said four men beat him up because he is gay last December as he left his apartment to see his psychologist. He has a new place to live and has applied for a U visa that allows crime victims to live in the U.S.
Dany, now 23, told the Blade he no longer prostitutes himself.
“If my story is going to help someone, I’m going to tell it,” he said.
The National Human Trafficking Resource Center’s hotline is (888) 373-7888 or 233733 via text message.
Local
Local LGBTQ groups, activists to commemorate Black History Month
Rayceen Pendarvis to moderate Dupont Underground panel on Sunday
LGBTQ groups in D.C. and elsewhere plan to use Black History Month as an opportunity to commemorate and celebrate Black lives and experiences.
Team Rayceen Productions has no specific events planned, but co-founder Rayceen Pendarvis will attend many functions around D.C. this month.
Pendarvis, a longtime voice in the LGBTQ community in D.C. will be moderating a panel at Dupont Underground on Sunday. The event, “Every (Body) Wants to Be a Showgirl,” will feature art from Black burlesque artists from around the country. Pendarvis on Feb. 23 will attend the showing of multimedia play at the Lincoln Theatre that commemorates the life of James Baldwin.
Equality Virginia plans to prioritize Black voices through a weekly online series, and community-based story telling. The online digital series will center Black LGBTQ voices, specifically trailblazers and activists, and contemporary Black queer and transgender people.
Narissa Rahaman, Equality Virginia’s executive director, stressed the importance of the Black queer community to the overall Pride movement, and said “Equality Virginia is proud to center those voices in our work this month and beyond.”
The Capital Pride Alliance, which hosts Pride events in D.C., has an alliance with the Center for Black Equity, which brings Black Pride to D.C. over Memorial Day weekend. The National LGBTQ Task Force has no specific Black History Month events planned, but plans to participate in online collaborations.
Cathy Renna, the Task Force’s director of communications, told the Washington Blade the organization remains committed to uplifting Black voices. “Our priority is keeping this at the forefront everyday,” she said.
The D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center is also hosting a series of Black History Month events.
The D.C. Public Library earlier this year launched “Freedom and Resistance,” an exhibition that celebrates Black History Month and Martin Luther King Jr. It will remain on display until the middle of March at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library at 901 G St., N.W.
District of Columbia
U.S. Attorney’s Office drops hate crime charge in anti-gay assault
Case remains under investigation and ‘further charges’ could come
D.C. police announced on Feb. 9 that they had arrested two days earlier on Feb. 7 a Germantown, Md., man on a charge of simple assault with a hate crime designation after the man allegedly assaulted a gay man at 14th and Q Streets, N.W., while using “homophobic slurs.”
But D.C. Superior Court records show that prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., which prosecutes D.C. violent crime cases, charged the arrested man only with simple assault without a hate crime designation.
In response to a request by the Washington Blade for the reason why the hate crime designation was dropped, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office provided this response: “We continue to investigate this matter and make no mistake: should the evidence call for further charges, we will not hesitate to charge them.”
In a statement announcing the arrest in this case, D.C. police stated, “On Saturday, February 7, 2026, at approximately 7:45 p.m. the victim and suspect were in the 1500 block of 14th Street, Northwest. The suspect requested a ‘high five’ from the victim. The victim declined and continued walking,” the statement says.
“The suspect assaulted the victim and used homophobic slurs,” the police statement continues. “The suspect was apprehended by responding officers.”
It adds that 26-year-old Dean Edmundson of Germantown, Md. “was arrested and charged with Simple Assault (Hate/Bias).” The statement also adds, “A designation as a hate crime by MPD does not mean that prosecutors will prosecute it as a hate crime.”
Under D.C.’s Bias Related Crime Act of 1989, penalties for crimes motivated by prejudice against individuals based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and homelessness can be enhanced by a court upon conviction by one and a half times greater than the penalty of the underlying crime.
Prosecutors in the past both in D.C. and other states have said they sometimes decide not to include a hate crime designation in assault cases if they don’t think the evidence is sufficient to obtain a conviction by a jury. In some instances, prosecutors have said they were concerned that a skeptical jury might decide to find a defendant not guilty of the underlying assault charge if they did not believe a motive of hate was involved.
A more detailed arrest affidavit filed by D.C. police in Superior Court appears to support the charge of a hate crime designation.
“The victim stated that they refused to High-Five Defendant Edmondson, which, upon that happening, Defendant Edmondson started walking behind both the victim and witness, calling the victim, “bald, ugly, and gay,” the arrest affidavit states.
“The victim stated that upon being called that, Defendant Edmundson pushed the victim with both hands, shoving them, causing the victim to feel the force of the push,” the affidavit continues. “The victim stated that they felt offended and that they were also gay,” it says.
District of Columbia
Capital Pride wins anti-stalking order against local activist
Darren Pasha claims action is linked to his criticism of Pride organizers
A D.C. Superior Court judge on Feb. 6 partially approved an anti-stalking order against a local LGBTQ activist requested last October by the Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based LGBTQ group that organizes the city’s annual Pride events.
The ruling by Judge Robert D. Okun requires former Capital Pride volunteer Darren Pasha to stay at least 100 feet away from Capital Pride’s staff, board members, and volunteers until the time of a follow up court hearing he scheduled for April 17.
In his ruling at the Feb. 6 hearing, which was virtual rather than held in-person at the courthouse, Okun said he had changed the distance that Capital Pride had requested for the stay-away, anti-stalking order from 200 yards to 100 feet. The court records show that the judge also denied a motion filed earlier by Pasha, who did not attend the hearing, to “quash” the Capital Pride civil case against him.
Pasha told the Washington Blade he suffered an injury and damaged his mobile phone by falling off his scooter on the city’s snow-covered streets that prevented him from calling in to join the Feb. 6 court hearing.
In his own court filings without retaining an attorney, Pasha has strongly denied the stalking related allegations against him by Capital Pride, saying “no credible or admissible evidence has been provided” to show he engaged in any wrongdoing.
The Capital Pride complaint initially filed in court on Oct. 27, 2025, includes an 18-page legal brief outlining its allegations against Pasha and an additional 167-page addendum of “supporting exhibits” that includes multiple statements by witnesses whose names are blacked out.
“Over the past year, Defendant Darren Pasha (“DSP”) has engaged in a sustained, and escalating course of conduct directed at CPA, including repeated and unwanted contact, harassment, intimidation, threats, manipulation, and coercive behavior targeting CPA staff, board members, volunteers, and affiliates,” the Capital Pride complaint states.
In his initial 16-page response to the complaint, Pasha says the Capital Pride complaint appears to be a form of retaliation against him for a dispute he has had with the organization and its then president, Ashley Smith, last year.
“It is evident that the document is replete with false, misleading, and unsubstantiated assertions,” he said of the complaint.
Smith, who has since resigned from his role as board president, did not respond to a request by the Blade for comment at the time the Capital Pride court complaint was filed against Pasha.
Capital Pride Executive Director Ryan Bos and the attorney representing the group in its legal action against Pasha, Nick Harrison, did not immediately respond to a Blade request for comment on the judge’s Feb. 6 ruling.
Top Democrats re-introduce trans bill of rights
A dozen Senegalese men arrested for ‘unnatural acts’
Meet D.C.’s Most Eligible Queer Singles
Local LGBTQ groups, activists to commemorate Black History Month
