District of Columbia
Catching up with the asexuals and aromantics of D.C.
Exploring identity and finding community
There was enough commotion in the sky at the Blossom Kite Festival that bees might have been pollinating the Washington Monument. I despaired of quickly finding the Asexuals and Aromantics of the Mid-Atlantic—I couldn’t make out a single asexual flag among the kites up above. I thought to myself that if it had been the Homosexuals of the Mid-Atlantic I would’ve had my gaydar to rely on. Was there even such a thing as ace-dar?
As it turned out, the asexual kite the group had meant to fly was a little too pesky to pilot. “Have you ever used a stunt kite?” Bonnie, the event organizer asked me. “I bought one. It looked really cool. But I can’t make it work.” She sighed. “I can’t get the thing six feet off the ground.” The group hardly seemed to care. There was caramel popcorn and cookies, board games and head massages, a game of charades with more than its fair share of Pokémon. The kites up above might as well have been a coincidental sideshow. Nearly two dozen folks filtered in and out of the picnic throughout the course of the day.
But I counted myself lucky that Bonnie picked me out of the crowd. If there’s such a thing as ace-dar, it eludes asexuals too. The online forum for all matters asexual, AVEN, or the Asexual Visibility and Education Network, is filled with laments: “I don’t think it’s possible.” “Dude, I wish I had an ace-dar.” “If it exists, I don’t have it.” “I think this is just like a broken clock is right twice a day type thing.” What seems to be a more common experience is meeting someone you just click with—only to find out later that they’re asexual. A few of the folks I met described how close childhood friends of theirs likewise came out in adulthood, a phenomenon that will be familiar to many queer people. But it is all the more astounding for asexuals to find each other this way, given that asexual people constitute 1.7% of sexual minorities in America, and so merely .1% of the population at large.
To help other asexuals identify you out in the world, some folks wear a black ring on their middle finger, much as an earring on the right ear used to signify homosexuality in a less welcoming era. The only problem? The swinger community—with its definite non-asexuality—has also adopted the signal. “It’s still a thing,” said Emily Karp. “So some people wear their ace rings just to the ace meet-ups.” Karp has been the primary coordinator for the Asexuals and Aromantics of the Mid-Atlantic (AAMA) since 2021, and a member of the meet-up for a decade. She clicked with the group immediately. After showing up for a Fourth of July potluck in the mid-afternoon, she ended up staying past midnight. “We played Cards against Humanity, which was a very, very fun thing to do. It’s funny in a way that’s different than if we were playing with people that weren’t ace. Some of the cards are implying, like, the person would be motivated by sex in a way that’s absurd, because we know they aren’t.”
Where so many social organizations withered during the pandemic, the AAMA flourished. Today, it boasts almost 2,000 members on meetup.com. Karp hypothesized that all the social isolation gave people copious time to reflect on themselves, and that the ease of meeting up online made it convenient as a way for people to explore their sexual identity and find community. Online events continue to make up about a third of the group’s meet-ups. The format allows people to participate who live farther out from D.C. And it allows people to participate at their preferred level of comfort: while many people participate much as they would at an in-person event, some prefer to watch anonymously, video feed off. Others prefer to participate in the chat box, though not in spoken conversation.
A recent online event was organized for a discussion of Rhaina Cohen’s book, “The Other Significant Others,” published in February. Cohen’s book discusses friendship as an alternative model for “significant others,” apart from the romantic model that is presupposed to be both the center and goal of people’s lives. The AAMA group received the book with enthusiasm. “It literally re-wired my brain,” as one person put it. People discussed the importance of friendship to their lives, and their difficulties in a world that de-prioritized friendship. “I can break up with a friend over text, and we don’t owe each other a conversation,” one said. But there was some disagreement when it came to the book’s discussion of romantic relationships. “It relegates ace relationships to the ‘friend’ or ‘platonic’ category, to the normie-reader,” one person wrote in the chat. “Our whole ace point is that we can have equivalent life relationships to allo people, simply without sex.” (“Allo” is shorthand for allosexual or alloromantic, people who do experience sexual or romantic attraction.)
The folks of the AAMA do not share a consensus on the importance of romantic relationships to their lives. Some asexuals identify as aromantic, some don’t. And some aromantics don’t identify as asexual, either. The “Aromantic” in the title of the group is a relatively recent addition. In 2017, the group underwent a number of big changes. The group was marching for the first time in D.C. Pride, participating in the LGBTQ Creating Change conference, and developing a separate advocacy and activism arm. Moreover, the group had become large enough that discussions were opened up into forming separate chapters for D.C., Central Virginia, and Baltimore. During those discussions, the group leadership realized that aromantic people who also identified as allosexual didn’t really have a space to call their own. “We were thinking it would be good to probably change the name of the Meetup group,” Emily said. “But we were not 100% sure. Because [there were] like 1,000 people in the group, and they’re all aces, and it’s like, ‘Do you really want to add a non-ace person?’” The group leadership decided to err on the side of inclusion. “You know, being less gatekeep-y was better. It gave them a place to go — because there was nowhere else to go.”
The DC LGBT Center now sponsors a support group for both asexuals and aromantics, but it was formed just a short while ago, in 2022. The founder of the group originally sought out the center’s bisexual support group, since they didn’t have any resources for ace folks. “The organizer said, you know what, why don’t we just start an ace/aro group? Like, why don’t we just do it?” He laughed. “I was impressed with the turnout, the first call. It’s almost like we tapped into, like, a dam. You poke a hole in the dam, and the water just rushes out.” The group has a great deal of overlap with the AAMA, but it is often a person’s first point of contact with the asexual and aromantic community in D.C., especially since the group focuses on exploring what it means to be asexual. Someone new shows up at almost every meeting. “And I’m so grateful that I did,” one member said. “I kind of showed up and just trauma dumped, and everyone was really supportive.”
Since the ace and aro community is so small, even within the broader queer community, ace and aro folks often go unrecognized. To the chagrin of many, the White House will write up fact sheets about the LGBTQI+ community, which is odd, given that when the “I” is added to the acronym, the “A” is usually added too. OKCupid has 22 genders and 12 orientations on its dating website, but “aromantic” is not one of them — presumably because aromantic people don’t want anything out of dating. And since asexuality and aromanticism are defined by the absence of things, it can seem to others like ace and aro people are ‘missing something.’ One member of the LGBT center support group had an interesting response. “The space is filled by… whatever else!” they said. “We’re not doing a relationship ‘without that thing.’ We’re doing a full scale relationship — as it makes sense to us.”
CJ Higgins is a postdoctoral fellow with the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute at Johns Hopkins University.
District of Columbia
Ruby Corado sentenced to 33 months in prison
Former Casa Ruby director pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 2024
A federal judge on Jan. 13 sentenced Ruby Corado, the founder and former executive director of the now closed D.C. LGBTQ community services organization Casa Ruby, to 33 months of incarceration for a charge of wire fraud to which she pleaded guilty in July 2024.
U.S. District Court Judge Trevor M. McFadden handed down the sentence that had been requested by prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia after Corado’s sentencing had been postponed six times for various reasons.
The judge also sentenced her to 24 months of supervised release upon her completion of incarceration.
In addition to the sentence of incarceration, McFadden agreed to a request by prosecutors to hold Corado responsible for “restitution” and “forfeiture” in the amount of $956,215 that prosecutors have said she illegally misappropriated from federal loans obtained by Casa Ruby.
The charge to which she pleaded guilty is based on allegations that she diverted at least $180,000 “in taxpayer backed emergency COVID relief funds to private offshore bank accounts,” according to court documents.
Court records show FBI agents arrested Corado on March 5, 2024, at a hotel in Laurel, Md., shortly after she returned to the U.S. from El Salvador, where authorities say she moved in 2022. Prosecutors have said in charging documents that she allegedly fled to El Salvador, where she was born, after “financial irregularities at Casa Ruby became public,” and the LGBTQ organization ceased operating.
Shortly after her arrest, another judge agreed to release Corado into the custody of her niece in Rockville, Md., under a home detention order. But at an Oct. 14, 2025, court hearing at which the sentencing was postponed after Corado’s court appointed attorney withdrew from the case, McFadden ordered Corado to be held in jail until the time of her once again rescheduled sentencing.
Her attorney at the time, Elizabeth Mullin, stated in a court motion that her reason for withdrawing from the case was an “irreconcilable breakdown in the attorney-client relationship.”
Corado’s newly retained attorney, Pleasant Brodnax, filed a 25-page defense Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing on Jan. 6, calling for the judge to sentence Corado only to the time she had already served in detention since October.
Among other things, Brodnax’s defense memorandum disputes the claim by prosecutors that Corado improperly diverted as much as $956,215 from federally backed loans to Casa Ruby, saying the total amount Corado diverted was $200,000. Her memo also states that Corado diverted the funds to a bank account in El Salvador for the purpose of opening a Casa Ruby facility there, not to be used for her personally.
“Ms. Corado has accepted responsibility for transferring a portion of the loan disbursements into another account she operated and ultimately transferring a portion of the loan disbursements to an account in El Salvador,” the memo continues.
“Her purpose in transferring funds to El Salvador was to fund Casa Ruby programs in El Salvador,” it says, adding, “Of course, she acknowledges that the terms of the loan agreement did not permit her to transfer the funds to El Salvador for any purpose.”
In his own 16-page sentencing recommendation memo, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Borchert, the lead prosecutor in the case, said Corado’s action amounted at the least to fraud.
“The defendant and Casa Ruby received no less than $1.2 million in taxpayer backed funds during the COVID-19 global health crisis,” he memo states. “But rather than use those funds to support Casa Ruby’s mission as the defendant promised, the defendant further contributed to its demise by unlawfully transferring no less than $180,000 of these federal emergency relief funds into her own private offshore bank accounts,” it says.
“Then, when media reports suggested the defendant would be prosecuted for squandering Casa Ruby’s government funding, she sold her home and fled the country,” the memo states. “Meanwhile, the people who she had promised to pay with taxpayer-backed funds – her employees, landlord, and vendors – were left behind flat broke.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office and Corado’s attorney didn’t immediately respond to a request from the Washington Blade for comment on the judge’s sentence.
“Ms. Corado accepts full responsibility for her actions in this case,” defense attorney Brodnax says in her sentencing memo. “She acknowledges the false statements made in the loan applications and that she used some of the money outside the United States,” it says.
“However, the money was still utilized for the same purpose and intention as the funds used in the United States, to assist the LGBTQ community,” it states. “Ms. Corado did not use the money to buy lavish goods or fund a lavish lifestyle.”
Brodnax also states in her memo that as a transgender woman, Corado could face abuse and danger in a correctional facility where she may be sent if sentenced to incarceration.
“Ruby Corado committed a crime, she is now paying the price,” said D.C. LGBTQ rights advocate Peter Rosenstein. “While it is sad in many ways, we must remember she hurt the transgender community with what she did, and in many ways they all paid for her crime.”
District of Columbia
Kennedy Center renaming triggers backlash
Artists who cancel shows threatened; calls for funding boycott grow
Efforts to rename the Kennedy Center to add President Trump’s name to the D.C. arts institution continue to spark backlash.
A new petition from Qommittee , a national network of drag artists and allies led by survivors of hate crimes, calls on Kennedy Center donors to suspend funding to the center until “artistic independence is restored, and to redirect support to banned or censored artists.”
“While Trump won’t back down, the donors who contribute nearly $100 million annually to the Kennedy Center can afford to take a stand,” the petition reads. “Money talks. When donors fund censorship, they don’t just harm one institution – they tell marginalized communities their stories don’t deserve to be told.”
The petition can be found here.
Meanwhile, a decision by several prominent musicians and jazz performers to cancel their shows at the recently renamed Trump-Kennedy Center in D.C. planned for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve has drawn the ire of the Center’s president, Richard Grenell.
Grenell, a gay supporter of President Donald Trump who served as U.S. ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term as president, was named Kennedy Center president last year by its board of directors that had been appointed by Trump.
Last month the board voted to change the official name of the center from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump And The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts. The revised name has been installed on the outside wall of the center’s building but is not official because any name change would require congressional action.
According to a report by the New York Times, Grenell informed jazz musician Chuck Redd, who cancelled a 2025 Christmas Eve concert that he has hosted at the Kennedy Center for nearly 20 years in response to the name change, that Grenell planned to arrange for the center to file a lawsuit against him for the cancellation.
“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit arts institution,” the Times quoted Grenell as saying in a letter to Redd.
“This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt,” the Times quoted Grenell’s letter as saying.
A spokesperson for the Trump-Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the Washington Blade asking if the center still planned to file that lawsuit and whether it planned to file suits against some of the other musicians who recently cancelled their performances following the name change.
In a follow-up story published on Dec. 29, the New York Times reported that a prominent jazz ensemble and a New York dance company had canceled performances scheduled to take place on New Year’s Eve at the Kennedy Center.
The Times reported the jazz ensemble called The Cookers did not give a reason for the cancellation in a statement it released, but its drummer, Billy Hart, told the Times the center’s name change “evidently” played a role in the decision to cancel the performance.
Grenell released a statement on Dec. 29 calling these and other performers who cancelled their shows “far left political activists” who he said had been booked by the Kennedy Center’s previous leadership.
“Boycotting the arts to show you support the arts is a form of derangement syndrome,” the Times quoted him as saying in his statement.
District of Columbia
New interim D.C. police chief played lead role in security for WorldPride
Capital Pride says Jeffery Carroll had ‘good working relationship’ with organizers
Jeffery Carroll, who was named by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on Dec. 17 as the city’s Interim Chief of Police, played a lead role in working with local LGBTQ community leaders in addressing public safety issues related to WorldPride 2025, which took place in D.C. last May and June
“We had a good working relationship with him, and he did his job in relation to how best the events would go around safety and security,” said Ryan Bos, executive director of Capital Pride Alliance.
Bos said Carroll has met with Capital Pride officials in past years to address security issues related to the city’s annual Capital Pride parade and festival and has been supportive of those events.
At the time Bowser named him Interim Chief, Carroll had been serving since 2023 as Executive Assistant Chief of Specialized Operations, overseeing the day-to-day operation of four of the department’s bureaus. He first joined the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department in 2002 and advanced to multiple leadership positions across various divisions and bureaus, according to a statement released by the mayor’s office.
“I know Chief Carroll is the right person to build on the momentum of the past two years so that we can continue driving down crime across the city,” Bowser said in a statement released on the day she announced his appointment as Interim Chief.
“He has led through some of our city’s most significant public safety challenges of the past decade, he is familiar with D.C. residents and well respected and trusted by members of the Metropolitan Police Department as well as our federal and regional public safety partners,” Bowser said.
“We have the best police department in the nation, and I am confident that Chief Carroll will meet this moment for the department and the city,” Bowser added.
But Bowser has so far declined to say if she plans to nominate Carroll to become the permanent police chief, which requires the approval of the D.C. City Council. Bowser, who announced she is not running for re-election, will remain in office as mayor until January 2027.
Carroll is replacing outgoing Chief Pamela Smith, who announced she was resigning after two years of service as chief to spend more time with her family. She has been credited with overseeing the department at a time when violent crime and homicides declined to an eight-year low.
She has also expressed support for the LGBTQ community and joined LGBTQ officers in marching in the WorldPride parade last year.
But Smith has also come under criticism by members of Congress, who have accused the department of manipulating crime data allegedly showing lower reported crime numbers than actually occurred. The allegations came from the Republican-controlled U.S. House Oversight Committee and the U.S. Justice Department
Bowser has questioned the accuracy of the allegations and said she has asked the city’s Inspector General to look into the allegations.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the D.C. police Office of Public Affairs did not immediately respond to a question from the Washington Blade about the status of the department’s LGBT Liaison Unit. Sources familiar with the department have said a decline in the number of officers currently working at the department, said to be at a 50-year low, has resulted in a decline in the number of officers assigned to all of the liaison units, including the LGBT unit.
Among other things, the LGBT Liaison Unit has played a role in helping to investigate hate crimes targeting the LGBTQ community. As of early Wednesday an MPD spokesperson did not respond to a question by the Blade asking how many officers are currently assigned to the LGBT Liaison Unit.
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