District of Columbia
Reenactment of first gay rights picket at White House draws interest of tourists
LGBTQ activists carry signs from historic 1965 protest
About 30 LGBTQ activists formed a circular picket line in front of the White House Wednesday afternoon, April 17, carrying signs calling for an end to discrimination against “homosexuals” in a reenactment of the first gay rights protest at the White House that took place 59 years earlier on April 17, 1965.
Crowds of tourists looked on with interest as the activists walked back and forth in silence in front of the White House fence on Pennsylvania Avenue. Like the 1965 event, several of the men were dressed in suits and ties and the women in dresses in keeping with a 1960s era dress code policy for protests of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., the city’s first gay rights group that organized the 1965 event.
Wednesday’s reenactment was organized by D.C.’s Rainbow History Project, which made it clear that the event was not intended as a protest against President Joe Biden and his administration, which the group praised as a strong supporter of LGBTQ rights.
“I think this was an amazing event,” said Vincent Slatt, the Rainbow History Project official who led efforts to put on the event. “We had twice as many that we had hoped for that came today,” he said.
“It was so great to see a reenactment and so great to see how far we’ve come,” Slatt said. “And also, the acknowledgement of what else we still need to do.”
Slatt said participants in the event who were not carrying picket signs handed out literature explaining the purpose of the event.
A flier handed out by participants noted that among the demands of the protesters at the 1965 event were to end the ban on homosexuals from working in the federal government, an end to the ban on gays serving in the military, an end to the denial of security clearances for gays, and an end of the government’s refusal to meet with the LGBTQ community.
“The other thing that I think is really, really moving is some of the gay staff inside the White House found out this was happening and came out to greet us,” Slatt said. He noted that this highlighted how much has changed since 1965, when then President Lyndon Johnson’s White House refused to respond to a letter sent to Johnson from the Mattachine Society explaining its grievances.
“So now to have gay people in the White House coming out to give us their respects and to say hello was especially meaningful to us,” Slatt said. “That was not expected today.”
Among those walking the picket line was longtime D.C. LGBTQ rights advocate Paul Kuntzler, who is the only known surviving person who was among the White House picketers at the April 1965 event. Kuntzler said he proudly carried a newly printed version of the sign at Wednesday’s reenactment event that he carried during the 1965 protest. It stated, “Fifteen Million Homosexuals Protest Federal Treatment.”
Also participating in the event was Japer Bowles, director of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs. Bowles presented Slatt with a proclamation issued by Bowser declaring April 17, 2024, Mattachine Society Day in Washington, D.C.
“Whereas, on April 17, 1965, the Mattachine Society of Washington courageously held the nation’s inaugural picket for gay rights, a seminal moment in the ongoing struggle for LGBTQIA+ equality in the United States, marking the genesis of public demonstrations advocating for those rights and paving the way for Pride Marches and Pride celebrations worldwide,” the proclamation states.
About 30 minutes after the reenactment event began, uniformed Secret Service agents informed Slatt that due to a security issue the picketers would have to move off the sidewalk in front of the White House and resume the picketing across the street on the sidewalk in front of Lafayette Park. When asked by the Washington Blade what the security issue was about, one of the Secret Service officers said he did not have any further details other than that his superiors informed him that the White House sidewalk would have to be temporarily cleared of all people.
Participants in the event quickly resumed their picket line on the sidewalk in front of Lafayette Park for another 30 minutes or so in keeping with the 1965 picketing event, which lasted for one hour, from 4:20 p.m. to 5:20 p.m., according to Rainbow History Project’s research into the 1965 event.
Although the LGBTQ picketers continued their procession in silence, a separate protest in Lafayette Park a short distance from the LGBTQ picketers included speakers shouting through amplified speakers. The protest was against the government of Saudi Arabia and organized by a Muslim group called Al Baqee Organization.
A statement released by the Rainbow History Project says the reenactment event, among other things, was a tribute to D.C.-area lesbian rights advocate Lilli Vincenz, who participated in the 1965 White House picketing, and D.C. gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny, who founded the Mattachine Society of Washington in the early 1960s and was the lead organizer of the 1965 White House protest. Kameny died in 2011 and Vincenz died in 2023.
The picket signs carried by participants in the reenactment event, which were reproduced from the 1965 event, had these messages:
• “DISCRIMINATION Against Homosexuals is as immoral as Discrimination Against Negroes and Jews;”
• “Government Should Combat Prejudice NOT PROMOTE IT”
• “White House Refuses Replies to Our Letters, AFRAID OF US?
• “HOMOSEXUALS Died for their Country, Too”
• “First Class Citizenship for HOMOSEXUALS”
• “Sexual Preference is Irrelevant to Employment”
• “Fifteen Million U.S. Homosexuals Protest Federal Treatment”
District of Columbia
Layoffs and confusion at Pride Center of Maryland after federal grants cut, reinstated
Trump administration move panicked addiction and mental health programs
By ALISSA ZHU | After learning it had abruptly lost $2 million in federal funding, the Pride Center of Maryland moved to lay off a dozen employees, or about a third of its workforce, the Baltimore nonprofit’s leader said Thursday.
The group is one of thousands nationwide that reportedly received letters late Tuesday from the Trump administration. Their mental health and addiction grants had been terminated, effective immediately, the letters said.
By Wednesday night, federal officials moved to reverse the funding cuts by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, estimated to total $2 billion, according to national media reports. But the Pride Center of Maryland’s CEO Cleo Manago said as of Thursday morning he had not heard anything from the federal government confirming those reports.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
District of Columbia
D.C.’s annual MLK Peace Walk and Parade set for Jan. 19
LGBTQ participants expected to join mayor’s contingent
Similar to past years, members of the LGBTQ community were expected to participate in D.C.’s 21st annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Peace Walk and Parade scheduled to take place Monday, Jan. 19.
Organizers announced this year’s Peace Walk, which takes place ahead of the parade, was scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. at the site of a Peace Rally set to begin at 9:30 a.m. at the intersection of Firth Sterling Avenue and Sumner Road, S.E., a short distance from Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.
The Peace Walk and the parade, which is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. at the same location, will each travel along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue a little over a half mile to Marion Barry Avenue near the 11th Street Bridge where they will end.
Japer Bowles, director of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, said he and members of his staff would be marching in the parade as part of the mayor’s parade contingent. In past years, LGBTQ community members have also joined the mayor’s parade contingent.
Stuart Anderson, one of the MLK Day parade organizers, said he was not aware of any specific LGBTQ organizations that had signed up as a parade contingent for this year’s parade. LGBTQ group contingents have joined the parade in past years.
Denise Rolark Barnes, one of the lead D.C. MLK Day event organizers, said LGBTQ participants often join parade contingents associated with other organizations.
Barnes said a Health and Wellness Fair was scheduled to take place on the day of the parade along the parade route in a PNC Bank parking lot at 2031 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., S.E.
A statement on the D.C. MLK Day website describes the parade’s history and impact on the community.
“Established to honor the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the parade united residents of Ward 8, the District, and the entire region in the national movement to make Dr. King’s birthday a federal holiday,” the statement says. “Today, the parade not only celebrates its historic roots but also promotes peace and non-violence, spotlights organizations that serve the community, and showcases the talent and pride of school-aged children performing for family, friends, and community members.”
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.”
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