Ruby Corado: Courageous Visionary

If you're transgender in America, you're far more likely than other people to be unemployed, homeless and poor. And there's a 4 in 10 chance you've tried to kill yourself.

It can be a confusing and lonely life.

One woman who's been through it all is Ruby Corado. She's a 45-year-old transgender woman in Washington, D.C., who is now trying to help others along the difficult path.

Forty-year-old Kiera Atkins says she'd probably be dead without Corado. Atkins says after she came out as a woman last year, she went from being a software engineer earning a six-figure salary to being homeless and suicidal.

"First off, I was fired from my job for being transgender. Then after that, I was evicted. And then it just kind of went downhill from there," says Atkins.

She says today she's found hope at Casa Ruby, a nonprofit agency located in a yellow brick rowhouse in the nation's capital.

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