Casa Ruby Founder to Plead Guilty

Casa Ruby founder Ruby Corado will plead guilty to diverting $150,000 in federal pandemic relief from the nonprofit to her own accounts before fleeing to El Salvador in 2022, The Washington Post reported earlier this week.

Capital Pride is This Weekend

With the big Capital Pride Parade and Festival coming this weekend, I’ve been doing what thousands of others are doing in preparation: fretting over my outfit. This will be my first pride festival since the pandemic, and I imagine I’m not the only one managing a bit of pre-crowd anxiety in advance of the massive celebration.

Capital Pride is D.C.’s largest annual event. Though estimates vary between police and organizers, total participation between the Parade and Festival is roughly 500,000 — with the population of D.C. under 700,000, this means the city will be near double-capacity this weekend.

It’s been just under nine years since the U.S. Supreme Court made marriage equality the law of the land in the United States. Since then some individuals, both within and outside the LGBTQ+ community and from all sides of the political spectrum, have begun to question whether Pride is still necessary.

Notably, in 2017 a new organization was launched — No Justice, No Pride (NJNP) — a coalition of counter-demonstrating LGBTQ+ activists united in opposition to Capital Pride. The organizers called the organization “corporatized” and “white washed,” and provided a list of demands. This included barring “corporate entities that inflict harm on historically marginalized LGBTQ2S people” from participating in Capital Pride festivities, barring police contingents from marching, reducing or eliminating armed security. They announced a plan to block the routes of the parade in protest if their demands were not met.

Though I’m sure there was plenty of disruption behind the scenes, the response from Capital Pride ought to be in textbooks. The antagonism of Capital Pride from NJNP leaders, primarily for allowing some of the region’s largest employers to participate as sponsors, got so intense that NJNP seemed to find Capital Pride guilty by association for any negative behavior by participating corporate sponsors. This included Lockheed Martin’s development of military aircraft, Wells Fargo providing business accounts for private prisons, and police brutality against Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Trans individuals.

Capital Pride took extreme measures to accommodate NJNP — including preparing in advance for the parade to pause, preparing security to allow NJNP demonstrators to protest without interference, and re-routing the procession through alternate routes. Instead of the highest-paying sponsors, many of whom dedicate hundreds of thousands of dollars toward the event, a diverse group led by Trans people of color began the parade. Security — though necessary for such a large event — was toned down, and visibility of law enforcement was reduced.

Unmoved, NJNP continued to attack Capital Pride as dismissive of their concerns. “For years, Capital Pride has ignored concerns of queer, trans and two-spirit communities in DC regarding its collusion with entities that harm LGBTQ2S people,” claimed a flyer distributed widely around the festivities in 2017. The flyer continued to claim that Capital Pride was insistent on “continuing business as usual, ignoring the most marginalized members of our community…. [and refusing] to make systematic changes” to return “the power of Pride back to the people whose voice and experience are most crucial to the fight for our rights today.”

When the parade began, NJNP protesters blocked the route as planned. When it rerouted, they blocked it again — and again — and again.

I was in charge of a NOVA Pride contingent in the 2017 Capital Pride Parade — just over 100 people marching with us behind a volunteer vehicle loaded up with several hundred mini water bottles, throwing beads, and literature to hand out to attendees. As a nonprofit, we were used to being late in the parade, but this year we were the second-to-last contingent. Instead of a few hours, the parade took nearly six before we moved an inch. It was nearly 100 degrees outside, without a cloud in the sky. While we waited to begin, the parade was disrupted even further — this time not by protesters, but by ambulances, rushing to assist individuals who were fainting from heat exhaustion during the wait. When we finished our march, it was well after dark — and we had finished every single water bottle.

Yes, We Still Need Pride

Whether Pride is still necessary is still pretty obvious in 2024. Even here in progressive Falls Church, Drag performances are still being met with protests. Last year in Virginia, the single seat advantage Democrats held in the state Senate is the only thing that narrowly prevented the 12 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced by Republicans in the legislature from passing — and this year a slightly expanded, but still razor-thin advantage in the legislature prevented 11 GOP-led bills targeting LGBTQ+ individuals from passing. Just ten years ago, gay marriage was illegal in Virginia and nationwide.

So far 515 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in legislatures across 40 states in 2024, five more than the 510 introduced across 47 states last year. And Pride month just started; we’re not even halfway through the year.

Pride Will Always Be Necessary

The LGBTQ+ Community is uniquely diverse. Those with LGBTQ+ identities are born across all ethnicities, religions, and socio-economic demographics — independent of heredity (though studies have shown that, for example, with every male child a woman gives birth to, the likelihood of them being LGBTQ+ increases). We are a natural minority.

The Bottom Line

Because we exist across demographics, the LGBTQ+ community is by far society’s most intersectional. This is often our superpower, but we must resist the temptation to antagonize others with utmost discipline, especially those volunteering their time for good.