Thanks for publishing my photo @Washingtonian, in Nearly Half of DC’s Homeless Youth are LGBTQ,  Not Getting the Support They Need

Community Pioneers Awards and Reception 2015 Rainbow History Project 55252
Community Pioneers Awards and Reception 2015 Rainbow History Project 55252 (View on Flickr.com)

The city’s made strides in assisting the most vulnerable members of its gay community, but there are still big shortfalls.

Source: Nearly Half of DC’s Homeless Youth are LGBTQ, and They’re Not Getting the Support They Need | Washingtonian

Thanks for publishing my photo, Washingtonian Magazine (@Washingtonian), and for the insightful piece, Julie Strupp (@struppj). The photograph is of Washington, DC’s Ruby Corado (@CasaRubyDC), one of the most important community leaders of our time. Every time I get to interact with Ruby I feel gratitude that I exist in the community that she helps make better.

The photograph was taken at the 2015 Community Pioneer Awards, in a most historic place, the Thurgood Marshall Center in Washington, DC. I wrote a post about this evening, and it gives a hint as to why communities with so little can and do drive so much change.

Photo Friday: Leading in a world that doesn’t want you to – Thurgood Marshall Center, Washington, DC USA

The article is important. Washington, DC has the highest proportion of LGBTQ humans in the United States (10%, vs 4.1% nationally) and specifically transgender humans (2.77% vs 0.6% nationally), due in part to its stature as the most inclusive city in the world. What this brings with it is a greater expectation that every resident have what they need to achieve their life goals.

We’re here to help the world learn to love better. I’m glad to be in a place to watch Ruby do it as well as she does.

I’m posting a photo below of a leader from a generation before Ruby. Sometimes it’s acts like this that define the future, which is born here, in Washington, DC, every day.

Community Pioneers Awards and Reception 2015 Rainbow History Project 55263
Community Pioneers Awards and Reception 2015 Rainbow History Project 55263 (View on Flickr.com)
Ted Eytan, MD