Distinguished Service Award to Ruby Corado

Presented by GLAA Secretary Alison Gardner

GLAA 41st Anniversary Reception
Washington Plaza Hotel
Thursday, April 26, 2012

San Salvador, El Salvador, gave us all Ruby Jade Corado. Thank you, El Salvador!

Ruby has lived in Washington DC for 23 years, the last 15 devoted to advocating for Latino LGBT communities' inclusion in the areas of health care, human rights, and immigration ... working for Whitman Walker Health and Transgender Health Empowerment, and Latinas En Accion, a group she leads.

Ruby also works closely with national organizations such as Unidos, Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, National Center for Transgender Equality, Human Rights Campaign, and National Latino, where she helped to create the First Leadership Congress for Transgender Latinas in Washington.

Ruby is a nationally recognized sensitivity trainer focused on HIV issues facing Latino LGBT immigrants and transgender people of color. And, she continues to collaborate in important transgender needs assessments in DC and Virginia, including the new survey that begins this week by DC Trans Coalition under the aegis of American University and funded by the Williams Institute and private donations.

On April 15, she participated in a panel at American University called "Don't Forget the T," which explored the dynamics surrounding anti-trans violence.

And on June 2 at the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference, she will join other DC trans activists in presenting to a national audience, "Ending Police Bias and Anti-Trans Violence: A Grassroots Approach."

Ruby has been central to the success of DC's Project Empowerment program that provides job training, coaching, and financial support and continues to place trans folk--many of whom can now leave the horror of survival sex behind--in new careers in the private and public sector.

To say Ruby has been tireless and outspoken in defending transgender people is an understatement, just words. Ruby brings so much more, always speaking for the voiceless, demanding justice for those who have been brutalized and murdered after being driven by discrimination into survival sex work.

At victims' hospital bedsides, at meetings with police officials, and at crime scenes, and in organizing vigils, it is Ruby's boundless heart (as well as her experience) that is brought to bear in advancing the interests of this at-risk community in our city.

Last but not least, many of you may already know that our award-winner is again going that second mile of unselfish service in proposing to DC's Office of Latino Affairs the creation of a new risk-reduction, counseling, and job training program, designed exclusively for trans Latina survival sex workers, at her soon-to-open Columbia Heights LGBTQ drop-in and resource center, "Casa Ruby."

It is my honor and privilege tonight to present GLAA's Distinguished Service Award to my friend and colleague, Ruby Jade Corado.