Ruby Corado Arrested in D.C.
On Tuesday, Ruby Corady was arrested by F.B.I. agents at a hotel in Laurel, MD. In 2012 Corado founded Casa Ruby, a D.C. nonprofit that served homeless LGBTQ+ youth, with a focus on the Trans community. Corado resigned as executive director in 2021 after the shelter lost an $850,000 grant from the DHS that supported a 50-bed emergency shelter that was housing at least ten people, as well as a center for homeless LGBTQ+ youth and adults. Her replacement, Alexis Blackmon, resigned in February 2022, complaining she was unable to access bank accounts for the organization that were still under Corado’s control. Casa Ruby shut down in July 2022, unable to pay rent or its employees.
During the pandemic, Casa Ruby received more than $1.3 million in funding from the paycheck protection and other pandemic relief programs. An investigation was opened in 2021 by the D.C. Attorney General’s office, who in 2022 filed a complaint to the D.C. Department of Human Services alleging Corado had stolen over $400,000 of Casa Ruby funds, transferring them to her personal bank accounts in El Salvador, between April and September 2021.
When the investigation became in late 2022, Corado sold her home and fled to El Salvador.
Corado faces charges of bank fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering — each of which carry a maximum sentence of up to 20 years.
Corado has denied the allegations, claiming that they are retaliation against her for criticizing Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration.
Loudoun Co. School Board Disappoints All
On August 11, 2021, the school board for Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) approved Policy 8040: Rights of Transgender and Gender Expansive Students, by a vote of 7-2.
The policy was developed after then Governor Northam (D) signed a bill passed by the Virginia Legislature requiring the Department of Education to develop model policies for school boards regarding the treatment of Trans students, including maintaining a safe and supportive learning environment free from discrimination and harassment for all students, prevention of and response to bullying and harassment, student records and identification, protection of student privacy, enforcement of sex-based dress codes, and participation in sex-specific school activities and events and use of school facilities.
The law states that “each school board shall adopt policies that are consistent with but may be more comprehensive than the model policies developed by the Department of Education.” Read the corresponding section of the Code of Virginia at tinyurl.com/FCNP0324tr.
In response, Policy 8040 was written, and it was considered a huge win for LGBTQ+ equality. The policy includes language that school staff will not disclose a student’s LGBTQ+ status with parents, or even internally among school personnel, that their preferred names and pronouns would be respected, and that Trans students should be allowed to participate in sports according to their consistent gender identities. Bathrooms would remain gender segregated, however Trans students would be allowed to use the restroom consistent with their gender identity, and single-occupancy gender-neutral bathrooms would be installed.
In a document released at the time explaining the policy, LCPS said “Policy 8040 affirms LCPS’ commitment to providing an equitable, safe and inclusive learning environment for all students regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, transgender status, gender identity or gender expression… some other policies may need to be developed or expanded to be more gender-inclusive or to emphasize specific protections for transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive students.”
When Governor Youngkin (R) came into office, his administration took over the Virginia Department of Education, and in July 2023 they released new model policies on the treatment of Trans students that reversed most of these protections. Under the new model policies, parents may be notified if school staff discover a child is LGBTQ+; students would only be allowed to use bathrooms or locker rooms (or other school activities/facilities) based on their sex assigned at birth, and students would only be addressed by legal name or pronouns corresponding to their sex assigned at birth.
Falls Church, Arlington, and Fairfax schools have rejected these model policies, retaining their existing ones and restating their commitment to protecting Trans youth. In Loudoun, however, spines are seemingly in short supply.
On Tuesday the LCPS school board declined to take the issue up, after once again allowing the sharing of disinformation and hate speech against Trans youth and the LGBTQ+ community.
Despite this seeming like a win for the community — the previous policy is, at least for now, still in place — repeatedly allowing hate speech targeting the LGBTQ+ community to be proclaimed with impunity during a school board meeting is, in and of itself, a win for the extremists seeking to harm a vulnerable minority within the student body they are responsible for protecting.
“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
