Local
Top 10 local LGBTQ news stories of 2024
World Pride preparations, notable deaths, hate crimes, and more
It was another busy year in local queer news, with everything from a string of brutal hate crimes to the impending sentencing of one-time local advocate Ruby Corado making news. Here then are the Blade’s picks for the top 10 local stories of 2024.
#10 Gay Episcopal minister reinstated 40 years after being defrocked
In a development he calls a miracle, the Rev. Harry Stock, who was defrocked from his position as an Episcopal priest 40 years ago by church officials in West Virginia after they learned he was gay and entered a holy union with his male partner, was officially reinstated as an Episcopal priest at an Oct. 26 ceremony at an Episcopal church in Alexandria, Va.
In an invitation to the ceremony that Stock sent to friends and associates, he said the ceremony would take place 43 years after he was ordained as an Episcopal priest by a bishop in Charleston, W.Va., and 40 years after the same bishop defrocked him from the priesthood because he “declared his love for another man at the altar” in a holy union ceremony.
#9 D.C. Council approves budget with $8.5 million in LGBTQ provisions
The D.C. Council on June 12 gave final approval for a $21 billion fiscal year 2025 budget for the District of Columbia that includes more than $8.5 million in funding for LGBTQ-related programs, including $5.25 million in support of the June 2025 World Pride celebration that D.C. will host.
Also included in the budget is $1.7 million in funds for the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, which includes an increase of $132,000 over the office’s funding for the current fiscal year, and a one-time funding of $1 million for the completion of the renovation of the D.C. Center for the LGBTQ Community’s new building in the city’s Shaw neighborhood.
#8 Judge seals case of gay D.C. gym owner charged with distributing child porn
In a surprise development, a judge with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Oct. 23 agreed to a request by a defense attorney to close and seal all court records from that date forward in the case of gay D.C. gym owner Michael Everts, who was arrested Nov. 29, 2023, on a charge of distribution of child pornography.
Before the case was sealed, court records showed that prosecutors offered Everts the option of pleading guilty, possibly to a lesser charge, and his decision on whether to accept that offer was expected to be disclosed at the Oct. 23, 2024, court hearing in which the judge sealed the case.
Neither the defense nor the prosecutors disclosed the reason for sealing the case. Court observers say one possible reason for sealing a case like this is the defendant is cooperating with police and prosecutors in another investigation into other people believed to have engaged in similar criminal conduct.
#7 Trans employee awarded $930,000 in lawsuit against D.C. McDonald’s
A D.C. Superior Court jury on Aug. 15 ordered a company that owned and operated a McDonald’s restaurant franchise in Northwest Washington to pay $930,000 in damages to a transgender employee who charged in a lawsuit that she was subjected to discrimination, harassment, and retaliation because of her gender identity in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act.
The lawsuit, which was filed in January 2021 by attorneys representing Diana Portillo Medrano, says Medrano was first hired to work at the McDonald’s at 5948 Georgia Ave., N.W. in 2011 as a customer service representative and was recognized and promoted for good work until she began to transition as a trans woman two years later.
It says from that point forward her supervisors and co-workers “subjected her to a barrage of taunts, laughter, ridicule, and harassment because she is a transgender woman.” The lawsuit alleges she was illegally fired after filing a complaint with the D.C. Office of Human Rights.
#6 In D.C., 28 percent of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ
The annual 2024 count of homeless people in the District of Columbia conducted in January shows that 12 percent of the homeless adults and 28 percent of homeless youth between the ages of 18 and 24 identify as LGBTQ.
The Point In Time or PIT count shows an overall 14 percent increase in homelessness in the city compared to 2023. And this year’s count of a total of 527 LGBTQ homeless people marks an increase over the 349 LGBTQ homeless people counted in 2023 in D.C. and 347 LGBTQ homeless counted in 2022.
#5 Notable local deaths: Bernie Delia, Kathi Wolfe, Cornelius Baker
The local LGBTQ community in 2024 mourned the loss of several prominent community members while celebrating their lives and accomplishments.
Bernie Delia, a founding member of the Capital Pride Alliance, the group that organizes most D.C. LGBTQ Pride events, and who served most recently as co-chair of World Pride 2025, while working for many years as one of the first openly gay attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice, died unexpectedly of natural causes on June 21. He was 68.
Longtime Washington Blade contributor Kathi Wolfe, an award-winning journalist and nationally recognized poet, died June 22 after a short battle with cancer. She was 71. Wolfe was also legally blind, and her disability motivated her to use her platforms to highlight the important contributions of disabled LGBTQ people.
A. Cornelius Baker, whose extensive career in public health included service as special adviser to the Office of AIDS Research at the National Institutes of Health and as executive director of D.C.’s Whitman-Walker Health and the National Association of People With AIDS, died unexpectedly at his home of natural causes on Nov. 9. He was 63.
#4 Ruby Corado pleads guilty to wire fraud
Ruby Corado, the founder and executive director of the now-defunct D.C. LGBTQ community services organization Casa Ruby, pleaded guilty July 17, to a single charge of wire fraud as part of a plea bargain deal offered by prosecutors.
The charge to which she pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for D.C. says she 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. A statement by prosecutors says that in 2022, “when financial irregularities at Casa Ruby became public, Corado sold her home in Prince George’s County and fled to El Salvador.”
It says FBI agents arrested her at a hotel in Laurel, Md. on March 5, 2024, “after she unexpectedly returned to the United States.” Court records show she is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 10, 2025.
#3 Accidental deaths of two beloved D.C. gay men triggers ‘powerful response’
The unexpected deaths of Brandon Roman, 38, and Robert ‘Robbie’ Barletta, 28, two widely known and beloved D.C. gay men, on Dec. 27, 2023, from an accidental drug overdose triggered an outcry for the city and the community to become more aggressive in addressing the opioid overdose problem and how it is impacting the LGBTQ community.
Following the completion of an autopsy and toxicology tests, the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed in April 2024, that the cause of death of the two men was an accidental consumption of several drugs that created a fatal “toxic” effect. Among the drugs found in the two men’s bodies was fentanyl, which D.C. public health officials have said is the leading cause of accidental drug overdose deaths in the city.
In June, two months after the Medical Examiner’s report, federal prosecutors obtained an indictment against an alleged drug dealer on a charge of “distributing cocaine and fentanyl” on Dec. 26, 2023, that resulted in the deaths of Roman and Barletta.
#2 String of anti-gay attacks rattles community
D.C. police continue to investigate separate incidents in which two gay men were attacked and assaulted on Oct. 27 in the U Street, N.W. entertainment section of D.C, one of whom died from his injuries. Police announced in November that they have arrested two juvenile males charged with robbing gay DJ and hairstylist Bryan Smith, 39, who was found unconscious on the 500 block of T St., N.W. suffering from a head injury. He died 11 days later, but police so far have only charged the two juveniles with robbery.
The assault and robbery of Smith took place about four hours after a 22-year-old gay man, Sebastian Thomas Robles Lascarro, was assaulted by as many as 15 men and women while some of them shouted anti-gay slurs at the McDonald’s restaurant at 14th and U Streets, N.W., according to a police report. D.C. police announced they have arrested a 16-year-old male in connection with that case, which remains under investigation.
In that same month of October, 15 students at Maryland’s Salisbury University were charged with a hate crime related assault against a 40-year-old gay man who police say they lured into an off-campus apartment by placing a message on Grindr posing as a 16-year-old male seeking a sexual encounter. According to police, when the man arrived at the apartment the students assaulted him while he was sitting in a chair.
Two months after the arrests, prosecutors in Wicomico County disclosed they were dropping felony assault and hate crime charges against at least 12 of the 15 charged in the attack due to a lack of sufficient evidence to retain those charges. The prosecutors left in place false imprisonment and second-degree assault charges against most of the arrested students, with trials expected to take place in late January.
#1 City prepares for World Pride 2025
Well over 600,000 people, many from across the country, turned out for D.C.’s annual Capital Pride weekend events, including the Pride Parade on Saturday, June 8, and the Pride Festival and Concert on Sunday, June 9. Officials with the Capital Pride Alliance, the group that organizes most D.C. Pride events, said the June 2024 events were planned to some degree as preparation for World Pride 2025, which D.C. will host May 17-June 8, 2025.
As in past years, dozens of contingents from a wide range of organizations and local and federal government agencies marched in the June 8 parade or rode in vehicles or floats. Among those who joined the parade were D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and members of the D.C. City Council. Also taking place on the day of the parade was the annual Pride On The Pier party organized by the Washington Blade and held at The Wharf section of the city’s Southwest waterfront.
District of Columbia
Pride faith services in Washington, D.C.
Almost half of all LGBTQ adults in the U.S. are religious
Are you an LGBTQ person of faith or someone exploring spirituality? It is more common than people realize. According to a Williams Institute study published in October 2020, almost half of all LGBTQ adults in the United States are religious. This may seem counterintuitive as any LGBTQ people have complicated relationships with faith because of very real histories of abuse, trauma, and violence.
This violence still continues in the United States, especially following the Supreme Court’s March 2026 decision in Chiles v. Salazar, who ruled Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors violates the First Amendment, but not everyone has encountered this violence, nor do people who have faced it, separate themselves completely from religion. Many people may seek out affirming faith traditions which are prevalent in the DMV area.
For individuals seeking out faith services during Pride 2026, please check out the list below, which will be updated as more events are publicized.
Memorial Service for SaVanna Wanzer
May 17th at 1 pm
Westminster Presbyterian Church (400 I St SW, Washington, DC 20024)
Westminster Presbyterian will host a celebration of life for legendary DC trans rights activist and founder of DC Trans Pride and Black Trans Pride SaVanna Wanzer who was a long-time member of the church. Live music will begin at 12:15 pm before the start of the memorial service. The service will be livestreamed on the Westminster DC Facebook page. A meal will follow the Sunday service.
There will also be a celebratory vigil held on Saturday, May 16th from 6:30-8 pm for friends and family at the church led by LGBTQ organizer Raycee Pendarvis.
May 23th at 11 am
Downtown Westin (999 9th Street NW, Washington, DC 20001)
This intimate conversation is hosted by Janeé Lee, founder of Queer Ministry, between Black trans and queer people who are surviving religious trauma and navigating their relationship with the church. The workshop, hosted as part of Trans Pride DC, is a chance for people to share their stories at the intersection of queerness and spirituality and to walk away with a spiritual healing guide with affirming scriptures and inclusive theology.
DC Black Pride Worship Service
May 24th at 10 am
Remnant Christian Center (120 West Hampton Avenue, Capitol Heights, MD)
Hosted by The Community Church of Washington DC-UCC, this service will feature speakers and sessions on Black queer faith and unity, including host and speaker Robert D. Wise Jr. for a powerful Pentecost Unity Service. Attendees are encouraged to come dressed in and white.
June 5th at 7 pm
Sixth & I (600 I Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001)
Join Rabbi Jenna will be leading an inclusive, musical service celebrating the diversity of Jewish life in Washington, DC. Happy Hour, which is limited to people 21 and older, will start at 6 pm. The service will start at 7 pm, with dinner at 8:15 pm. The service is free but registration is required, and the kosher-style pescatarian meal does cost money. Register online here.
June 14th at 5 pm
Black Cat (1811 14th St NW, Washington, DC 20009)
Muslim Pride is a community-led and funded grassroots performance series centering queer and trans Muslim artists through music, drag and dance. The series was originally founded in 2020 as a way to create affirming spaces where faith, culture, and queerness can coexist. This year’s series features Mercedes Iman Diamond. This year, Muslim Pride expands to Washington, DC, New York City, and Los Angeles. Buy tickets here.
Pride Celebrations and Sunday Worship Service
June 14th all day
Riverside Baptist Church (699 Maine Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20024)
Join Riverside Baptist Church for a day-long Pride celebration beginning with Pride Weekend/Musical Theater Sunday worship service at 10 am. Later that morning and early afternoon, from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm, the church will be hosting a Pride Pageant, a technicolor celebration featuring a runway showcase, line dancing, food, and refreshments.
June 22nd at 7 pm
St. Mark’s Episocpal Church (301 A Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003)
Join this interfaith service celebrating affirming faith traditions and intertradition dialogue hosted by queer and trans faith leaders. The interfaith service has been hosted annually for over 40 years, and first began back in the 1980s with faith leaders and queer people of faith coming together to mourn and pray at the site of the AIDS Memorial Quilt on the National Mall. Learn more about the history of the interfaith service here.
June 23rd at 6 pm
Holy Trinity Catholic Church (3513 N St NW, Washington, DC 20007)
Holy Trinity will be hosting its 6th annual Pride Mass. After its debut this past summer, the Pride Mass choir will be singing at the Pride Mass in June, and following the Mass, there will be an annual reception with ice cream and other goodies. Learn more about attending the reception and Holy Trinity’s LGBTQ+ Ministry.
Delaware
Blade Foundation awards 9th journalism fellowship to AU student
Thomas Weaverling will cover LGBTQ issues in Delaware this summer
The Blade Foundation this week announced the recipient of its 2026 Steve Elkins Memorial Fellowship in Journalism is Thomas Weaverling, who is scheduled to graduate from American University with a degree in communication, language, and culture this month.
He will cover issues of interest to Delaware’s LGBTQ community for 12 weeks this summer. The fellowship is named in honor of Steve Elkins, a journalist and co-founder of the CAMP Rehoboth LGBTQ community center. Elkins served as editor of Letters from CAMP Rehoboth for many years as well as executive director of the center before his death in March of 2018.
Kevin Naff, editor of the Blade, welcomed Weaverling and will introduce him to the Rehoboth Beach community at an event this week.
“If the applicants to our fellowship program are any indication, the future of American journalism is very bright,” Naff said. “Thomas stood out for his broad skillset and strong writing and reporting skills and we’re all excited to work with him this summer.”
Weaverling is the ninth recipient of the Elkins fellowship, which is funded by community donations at the Blade Foundation’s annual fundraiser in Rehoboth Beach. This year’s event is scheduled for May 15 at Diego’s and includes a generous sponsorship from Realtor Justin Noble and remarks from Ashley Biden accepting an award on behalf of her brother Beau Biden for his LGBTQ advocacy while serving as Delaware’s attorney general.
“I am incredibly honored and excited to receive the Steve Elkins Memorial Fellowship in Journalism,” Weaverling said. “Writing for the Washington Blade has been a goal of mine since I began my freshman year of college and I could not be more thrilled to have this opportunity. I am looking forward to getting to know the LGBTQ+ community in Rehoboth Beach and throughout Delaware.”
Weaverling is graduating cum laude with a concentration in journalism and Spanish. He studied in Spain in 2025 and worked in the office of Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) as a policy intern.
For more information on the fellowship program or to donate, visit bladefoundation.org.
District of Columbia
GLAA releases ratings for 18 candidates running for D.C. mayor, Council, AG
Mayoral contender Janeese Lewis Geroge among those receiving highest score
D.C. mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George, a Democrat, is among just four candidates to receive the highest rating score of +10 from GLAA D.C. who are competing in the city’s June 16 primary election.
GLAA, formally known as the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, has rated candidates for public office in D.C. since the 1970s. It rated 18 of the 36 candidates on this year’s primary ballot for mayor, D.C. Council, and D.C. attorney general based on its policy of only rating candidates who return a GLAA questionnaire asking for their positions on a wide range of issues, most of which are not LGBTQ-specific.
Among the candidates who did not return the questionnaire and thus did not receive a rating, according to GLAA, was Democratic mayoral contender Kenyan McDuffie, who along with Lewis George, is considered by political observers to be one of the two leading mayoral candidates running in the Democratic primary.
GLAA President Benjamin Brooks said that when the McDuffie campaign learned that GLAA announced it had released its candidate ratings and McDuffie was not rated because a questionnaire from him was not received a McDuffie campaign worker contacted GLAA. Brooks said the campaign worker told him they didn’t initially believe they received the questionnaire but they discovered this week that it landed in the spam folder of the campaign’s email account.
Brooks told the Washington Blade he informed the campaign worker it was too late for GLAA to issue a rating for McDuffie since the submission deadline for all candidates had passed. But he said GLAA will allow McDuffie to submit a completed questionnaire that it will post on its website along with the questionnaire responses of the other candidates who submitted them to GLAA.
McDuffie’s campaign in a statement to the Blade said the GLAA questionnaire “had gone to a spam folder tied to a campaign email address and was never seen by the campaign.”
“Kenyan McDuffie has long been proud of his record of standing with DC’s LGBTQ+ community,” reads the statement. “He has completed the GLAA questionnaire in every election since his first campaign and, in 2022, earned one of the top two ratings among candidates for the two at-large Council seats that election cycle.”
“Kenyan remains committed to fighting for equality, dignity, safety, and opportunity for LGBTQ+ residents across all eight wards, and our campaign welcomes the opportunity to continue engaging with GLAA and the LGBTQ+ community throughout this race,” it continues.
Lewis George and McDuffie, who each have long records of support for the LGBTQ community, are among a total of eight candidates running for mayor on the June 16 primary ballot: seven Democrats and one Statehood Green Party candidate. In addition to Lewis George, GLAA rated just two other mayoral candidates. Rini Sampath, a Democrat who self identifies as queer, received a +6.5 rating, and Ernest E. Johnson, also a Democrat, received a +4.5 rating
Under the GLAA rating system, candidate ratings range from a +10, the highest score, to a -10, the lowest possible score. In its ratings for the June 16 primary, the lowest score issued was +4.5. GLAA said in a statement that each of the 18 candidates it rated expressed strong support for LGBTQ-related issues in their questionnaire responses, indicating that the overall rating scores reflect the candidates’ positions on mostly non-LGBTQ-specific issues.
The three other candidates who received a +10 GLAA rating are each running as Democrats for the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat. They include gay candidate Miguel Trindade Deramo; Aparna Raj, who identifies as bisexual; and LGBTQ ally Rashida Brown. The only other Ward 1 candidate rated by GLAA is LGBTQ ally Terry Lynch, who received a +5.5 rating.
Ward 5 D.C. Councilmember Zachary Parker, the Council’s only gay member who is facing two opponents in the Democratic primary, received a +7 GLAA rating. The two challengers did not return the questionnaire and were not rated.
“In seven out of 10 of our priorities, every candidate indicated agreement,” GLAA said in its statement to the Washington Blade in referring to the candidates it rated. “Total consensus on core issues signals that whomever is elected to Council and mayor, we should expect to hold our elected officials accountable to our goals of protecting home rule, resisting federal overreach, advancing transgender healthcare rights, and eliminating chronic homelessness in the District,” the statement says.
“While candidates agree on the basics, they distinguish themselves in the depth and creativity in their responses, and their record on the issues,” according to the statement, which adds that candidates’ full questionnaire responses and ratings can be accessed on the GLAA website, glaa.org.
Like past election years, GLAA does not rate candidates running for the D.C. Congressional Delegate seat or the so-called “shadow” U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate seats.
With the exception of one question asking about transgender rights, none of the other nine of the 10 questionnaire questions are LGBTQ-specific. But most of the questions mention that LGBTQ people are impacted by the issues being raised, such as affordable housing, federal government intrusion into D.C. home rule, and access to healthcare and public benefits for low-income residents.
One of the questions asks candidates if they support decriminalization of sex work in D.C. among consenting adults, which GLAA supports. Lewis George is among the candidates who said they do not support sex work decriminalization at this time. The other two mayoral candidates that GLAA rated, Sampath and Johnson, said they support sex work decriminalization.
In the race for D.C. attorney general, GLAA issued a rating for just one of the three candidates running: Republican challenger Manuel Rivera, who received a +4.5 rating. Incumbent Democrat Brian Schwalb and Democratic challenger J.P. Szymkowicz were not rated because they didn’t return the questionnaire.
D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D), who is running unopposed in the primary, received a +6.5 rating. Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who is facing three Democratic challengers in the primary and who is a longtime LGBTQ ally, received a +6.5 rating.
In the special election to fill the at-large D.C. Council seat vacated by the resignation of then-Independent Councilmember McDuffie to enable him to run for mayor as a Democrat, GLAA has rated two of the three Independent candidates competing for the seat. Elissa Silverman received a +5.75 rating, and Doni Crawford received a +6.5 rating.
Finally, in the At-Large D.C. Council race GLAA issued ratings for five of the 11 candidates running in the primary, each of whom are Democrats. Oye Owolewa received a +9; Lisa Raymond, +7.5; Dwight Davis, +6.5; Dyana N.M. Forester, +6; and Fred Hill, +6.6.
The full list of GLAA-rated candidates and their detailed questionnaire responses can be accessed at glaa.org.
Pride faith services in Washington, D.C.
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