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.
Virginia
Va. Senate committee approves resolution to repeal marriage amendment
Outgoing state Sen. Adam Ebbin introduced SJ3
The Virginia Senate Privileges and Elections Committee on Wednesday by a 10-4 vote margin approved a resolution that seeks to repeal a state constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Outgoing state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) introduced SJ3.
Same-sex couples have been able to legally marry in Virginia since 2014. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin in 2024 signed a bill that codified marriage equality in state law.
A resolution that seeks to repeal the Marshall-Newman Amendment passed in the General Assembly in 2021. The resolution passed again in 2025.
Two successive legislatures must approve the resolution before it can go to the ballot. Democrats in the Virginia House of Delegates have said the resolution’s passage is among their 2026 legislative priorities.
Virginia
Mark Levine loses race to succeed Adam Ebbin in ‘firehouse’ Democratic primary
State Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker won with 70.6 percent of vote
Gay former Virginia House of Delegates member Mark Levine (D-Alexandria) lost his race to become the Democratic nominee to replace gay state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) in a Jan. 13 “firehouse” Democratic primary.
Levine finished in second place in the hastily called primary, receiving 807 votes or 17.4 percent. The winner in the four-candidate race, state Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, who was endorsed by both Ebbin and Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger received 3,281 votes or 70.6 percent.
Ebbin, whose 39th Senate District includes Alexandria and parts of Arlington and Fairfax Counties, announced on Jan. 7 that he was resigning effective Feb. 18, to take a job in the Spanberger administration as senior advisor at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.
Results of the Jan. 13 primary, which was called by Democratic Party leaders in Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax, show that candidates Charles Sumpter, a World Wildlife Fund director, finished in third place with 321 voters or 6.9 percent; and Amy Jackson, the former Alexandria vice mayor, finished in fourth place with 238 votes or 5.1 percent.
Bennett-Parker, who LGBTQ community advocates consider a committed LGBTQ ally, will now compete as the Democratic nominee in a Feb. 10 special election in which registered voters in the 39th District of all political parties and independents will select Ebbin’s replacement in the state senate.
The Alexandria publication ALX Now reports that local realtor Julie Robben Linebery has been selected by the Alexandria Republican City Committee to be the GOP candidate to compete in the Jan. 10 special election. According to ALX Now, Lineberry was the only application to run in a now cancelled special party caucus type event initially called to select the GOP nominees.
It couldn’t immediately be determined if an independent or other party candidate planned to run in the special election.
Bennett-Parker is considered the strong favorite to win the Feb. 10 special election in the heavily Democratic 39th District, where Democrat Ebbin has served as senator since 2012.
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.”
Va. Senate committee approves resolution to repeal marriage amendment
Rise of Chalamet continues in ‘Marty Supreme’
Zach Wahls stood up for us, now let’s stand with him
Grenell: ‘Real hope’ for gay rights in Iran as result of nationwide protests
Rollback of health IT standards will harm LGBTQ patients
PHOTOS: ‘ICE Out For Good’
Ford’s ‘First Look’ festival showcases three new productions
Mid-Atlantic Leather kicks off this week
Mark Levine running in ‘firehouse’ Democratic primary to succeed Adam Ebbin
