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Local gay couple among first to donate blood under new FDA policy

Revised rules ease restrictions for gay, bi men

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Doug Anderson, 51, and Dan Bennett, 56, were among the first gay people to donate blood after the FDA changed the rules earlier this year.

A gay couple from Reston, Va., became one of the first gay or bisexual men in the D.C. area to donate blood on Aug. 7, on the first day that the American Red Cross implemented the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s new guidelines for blood donor eligibility.

The new guidelines, approved by the FDA on May 11, ease longstanding restrictions on blood donations by gay and bisexual men that had effectively prevented people from donating blood based on their sexual orientation.

The two men, Doug Anderson, 51, a longtime Red Cross employee, and Dan Bennett, 56, a senior director for the Medallia personnel management and software company, said they were delighted to finally become eligible to donate blood.

“There’s so much of a need for blood,” Anderson told the Washington Blade. “So, it’s really nice to be included so we can also give back to this life-saving mission,” he said.

“I was able to give blood previously and it’s been many, many years since I’ve been able to give,” Bennett said. “This is something that I feel very proud to be able to do and to represent our community.”

The previous FDA policy that has just been replaced required men who have sex with men [MSM] to abstain from sex for three months before they would be eligible to donate blood.

The new policy, according to a statement released by the FDA in May, eliminates time-based deferrals for donating blood and screening questions specific to men who have sex with men and women who have sex with MSM.

The FDA statement says the new policy puts in place a screening process that asks all prospective donors regardless of their sexual orientation to answer a series of individual, risk-based questions to determine their eligibility for blood donation.

“The implementation of these recommendations will represent a significant milestone for the agency and the LGBTQI+ community,” the statement quotes Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, as saying.

But the FDA’s blood donor policy change also puts in place restrictions based on certain sexual activity that applies to everyone, not just gay or bisexual men.

“All prospective donors who report having a new sexual partner, or more than one sexual partner in the past three months, and anal sex in the past three months, would be deferred to reduce the likelihood of donations by individuals with new or recent HIV infection,” the statement says.

“Additionally, under these final recommendations, those taking medication to treat or prevent HIV infection (e.g., antiretroviral therapy (ART), pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), will be deferred” from donating blood, the statement continues.

“Though these antiretroviral drugs are safe, effective, and an important public health tool, the available data demonstrate that their use may delay detection of HIV by currently licensed screening tests for blood donations, which may potentially give false negative results,” it says.

An FDA spokesperson said the deferral will be for three months after someone discontinues the PrEP and PEP medications and three months after someone who had engaged in anal sex with a new or more than one sex partner. All donors must also have a negative test result for HIV infection.   

Anderson and Bennett said a diverse group of people joined them in turning out to donate blood on Aug. 7 at the Red Cross headquarters building at 430 17th St., N.W., near the White House.

“When the Red Cross announced it would be the first to implement that new policy, I talked to my husband Dan about it,” Anderson said. “And I kind of teased him. I said I think it’s ‘bring your husband to work day.”

Anderson noted that he works at the D.C. Red Cross headquarters building where blood donation drives are often held and where the building was host to the blood donations of Aug. 7.

“And I wondered if he would come with me on the very first day of eligibility to donate blood together, because it was something I didn’t think we would ever see in our lifetime,” he said.

Bennett enthusiastically agreed to join his husband in donating blood on that day. He noted that Red Cross officials arranged for a crew to capture some of those, including he and his husband, on video as they donated blood. The video is part of an effort to inform the public that people who were ineligible to give blood can now do so.

 “So, to be part of this, to be able to get that message out there and awareness – it’s really important,” he told the Blade. “So, I believe this will educate people more and drive them out to want to give blood and to participate.”

A New Era in Blood Donation from American Red Cross on Vimeo.

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District of Columbia

Ruby Corado sentencing postponed for third time

Attorneys say former Casa Ruby director has ‘significant medical issues’

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Ruby Corado has pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

A federal judge on April 8 approved a request by defense attorneys to postpone the sentencing of Ruby Corado, the founder and executive director of the now closed D.C. LGBTQ community services organization Casa Ruby on a charge of wire fraud, from April 29 to July 29. 

Court records show that Judge Trevor N. McFadden of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia approved a motion filed by Corado’s two defense attorneys on that same day calling for the sentencing postponement on grounds of health issues.

“Ms. Corado has significant medical issues,” the April 8 motion states. “She has an important medical appointment related to one of her diagnoses scheduled in June 2025 and will need time to recover from that appointment,” it says.

The motion gives no further details on Colorado’s medical issues. A.J. Kramer, director of the D.C. Office of the Federal Public Defender, whose attorneys are representing Corado, said the office has a policy of never disclosing specific medical related information regarding its clients.

Court records show that prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C. did not object to the defense motion seeking the third sentencing postponement. 

The records show that an earlier postponement of the sentencing, from March 28 to April 29, was initiated by the judge due to a scheduling conflict. The first postponement from Jan. 10 to March 28 came at the request of Corado’s attorneys, court records show.

Corado pleaded guilty on July 17, 2024, to a single charge of wire fraud as part of a plea bargain deal offered by prosecutors. The charge to which she pleaded guilty says she allegedly diverted at least $150,000 “in taxpayer backed emergency COVID relief funds to private offshore bank accounts for her personal use,” according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Prosecutors have said funds that Corado allegedly diverted for her own use were intended to be used by Casa Ruby in support of its various programs, including housing services for homeless LGBTQ youth and support for LGBTQ immigrants.

The U.S. Attorney’s statement also notes that in 2022, when “financial irregularities at Casa Ruby became public,” Corado sold her home in Prince George’s County, Md. and “fled to El Salvador.” It was at that time that Casa Ruby ceased its operations.

Court records show that FBI agents arrested Corado on March 5, 2024, at a hotel in Laurel, Md., shortly after she returned to the U.S. At the request of her attorney and against the wishes of prosecutors, another judge at that time agreed to release Corado into custody of her niece in Rockville, Md., under a home detention order.

The release order came seven days after Corado had been held in jail at the time of her arrest by the FBI.

Under the federal wire fraud law Corado could be sentenced to a possible maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s statement. However, court observers have said that due to Corado’s decision to waive her right to a trial and plead guilty, prosecutors will likely ask the judge to hand down a lesser sentence than the maximum sentence.  

The statement by prosecutors points out that Corado’s decision to plead guilty to the one charge came after she had been charged in a criminal complaint filed on March 1, 2024, with bank fraud, wire fraud, laundering of monetary instruments, monetary transactions in criminally derived proceeds, and failure to file a report of foreign bank accounts. 

All those charges except for the wire fraud charge were dropped at the time of her guilty plea.

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District of Columbia

A room with Pride: D.C.’s LGBTQ history finds a new home at the Eaton

New suites highlight city’s queer community

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(Washington Blade photo by Joe Reberkenny)

Blocks away from where Frank Kameny once organized the first pickets for gay rights in Washington, a new hotel suite invites guests to relax, recharge, and revel in the LGBTQ history of the city with the capital’s first-ever Pride-themed room at the Eaton Hotel.

From the walls covered in Washington Blade archival photos from the past 50 years, to a vinyl library that spans decades and genres of music celebrated by LGBTQ fans, and little affirmations written on the mirrors, it becomes clear as soon as you open the door that this room is one of a kind.

The Blade sat down with Nina Ligon, the director of culture for the Eaton, in the suite to discuss why the boutique hotel has chosen to debut a Pride-themed room and how their unique mission-driven hospitality is at the center of it all.

Starting with how the relationship between the Blade and Eaton came to be, Ligon explained that the collaboration with D.C.’s principal LGBTQ newspaper has been around longer than she has been with the hotel.

“The Blade has always been present,” Ligon said. “It’s one of the entities here in the city that’s just always been around. When I came into my position here at Eaton, Sheldon Scott — our original director of culture who helped open the hotel — already had a relationship with Stephen [Rutgers] and other members of the Washington Blade. Through that we have been able to establish a really strong relationship in the city.”

That relationship flourished after the boutique hotel, which sees itself as more than a hotel — but a cultural hub for those wishing to explore Washington — was nominated for the Best of LGBTQ DC Awards, given out and published by the Blade.

(Washington Blade photo by Joe Reberkenny)

“Beginning in 2022 we were first voted for best LGBTQ hotel in the city by the Best of LGBTQ DC Awards,” she said. “In 2023 we fell off, but that’s all right. We did get Editor’s Choice in 2024, and we’re gonna make a comeback.”

That comeback, Ligon hopes, is aided by the addition of the new Capital Pride-themed hotel suite, which used feedback from LGBTQ hotel staff to determine what went in the room.

“It’s community. We have a really great team here at Eaton, so we were able to put together a committee with anyone who wanted to be involved and have some say. And that’s not just the pride suite specifically, but World Pride in general — in our pride efforts, 365, right throughout the year. A lot of these,” she said, pointing to the walls covered in framed photos taken from the Blade archive, “are ideas that came up during those early meetings just a few months ago. There were discussions of inflatable chairs and disco balls, and I was for it. I’m here to support their creative vision. And you know, we have to involve the corporate folks, and they’re a little more traditional than some of us. But the team really came together with some of the pieces and the timeline wall art that we’re working on.”

Ligon continued, explaining that special attention was given to ensure diverse LGBTQ experiences are represented in the room. From the pictures of LGBTQ icons like Marsha P. Johnson and RuPaul, to the music on their sound system (including Chappell Roan’s “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” and Troye Sivan’s “Bloom”), and the quotes on the walls, their goal was to uplift the whole LGBTQ community rather than one particular identity.

“My colleague, Eduardo [Romero], who’s been just a beam of light in my life, brought this to my attention. As a Black woman, I was reading through the Blade’s archive links and was sifting through some of those and he was like, ‘Okay, yeah, these look good, but there’s some people who are missing.’ Capital Pride has been traditionally cis, white male led. He helped me, as a Black woman, to step back and say. ‘Say, oh, wait, there’s more that we can be representing here. There are more people we could be representing.’ And so I reached out to DC Black Pride to see what image imagery they may have had and what input they had. And we were able to come up with a little something.”

As the tour of the room came to a close, Ligon told the Blade what she hopes people get from staying in this suite.

“When it comes to Pride, Pride is resistance,” she said. “Pride is more than just a party. Pride is an opportunity. It started with people who were fighting for their rights and their mere existence. And so I really want people, whether they come here to party or to take a load off, I really want them to take some time to reflect and see Pride for what it is, and that first being a form of resistance as we chart the course forward into a brighter future for the LGBTQ community and for all. None of us are free until we are all free. And I hope that this will be a reflection of that.”

The Eaton Hotel is at 1201 K St., N.W.

The first issue of the Washington Blade (upper left) as well as two archival Blade images (center) are on display at the Eaton. (Photo courtesy of the Eaton)
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District of Columbia

Little Gay Pub to host April 25 celebration of life for Patrick Shaw

School teacher, D.C. resident praised for ‘warmth, humor, kindness’

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Patrick Shaw (Photo via GoFundMe)

Co-workers and friends will hold a celebration of life for highly acclaimed schoolteacher and D.C. resident Patrick Shaw beginning at 5:30 p.m. Friday, April 25 at The Little Gay Pub 1100 P St., N.W.

Little Gay Pub co-owner and Shaw’s friend, Dusty Martinez, said Shaw passed away unexpectedly on April 19 from a heart related ailment at the age of 60.

“Patrick touched so many lives with his warmth, humor, kindness, and unmistakable spark,” Martinez said. “He was a truly special soul – funny, vibrant, sassy, and full of life and we are heartbroken by his loss.”

In an Instagram posting, Shaw’s colleagues said Shaw was a second-grade special education teacher at the J.F. Cook campus of D.C.’s Mundo Verde Bilingual Public Charter School.

“Patrick brought warmth, joy, and deep commitment to Mundo Verde,” his colleagues said in their posting. “His daily Broadway sing-alongs, vibrant outfits, and genuine love for his students filled our community with energy and laughter.”

The posted message adds, “Patrick was more than a teacher; he was a light in our school, inspiring us all to show up with heart, humor, and kindness every day. His spirit will be deeply missed.”

The Washington Blade is preparing a full obituary on Patrick Shaw to be published soon. 

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