Inside Grindr’s first-ever White House Correspondents’ Dinner party. Photograph courtesy of Tristan Espinoza.
It’s 9 PM on a Friday in late April, and black SUVs are clogging the streets of Georgetown, ferrying guests between White House Correspondent Dinner parties.
Among them: Grindr’s first-ever WHCD party, an event so widely publicized that even a friend’s mom in New Jersey texted me the day before to ask if I was going.
The only problem: hundreds of people could not get in.
By 9:30 PM, it’s clear the line—more than 200 people deep, something resembling a New York club—isn’t moving. From down the block, a lighted entrance flickers as well-known guests slip inside, skipping the line and setting off a flurry of onlookers. Among them: journalists Don Lemon and Kaitlan Collins, and the entire TMZ DC team.
The venue—a house once owned by former Congresswoman and activist Ruth Hanna McCormick—has been transformed with red LED strobes and paparazzi flashes leaking out of its windows.
Whispers ripple through the crowd: the event is at capacity. A few groans, then a pattern—gay men peel off from the line, circle back minutes later, and try to talk their way to the front. It doesn’t work.
By 10 PM, the mood starts to shift. “I’m literally yawning already,” someone behind me says—one of a group of college girls who’ve been waiting nearly an hour. Neighbors settle onto their stoops to watch, letting their dogs out to join the spectacle. One offers $50 to anyone willing to hop the fence through their backyard. Another sells $15 shots. (There is, notably, a buyer.)
Now there are about 50 people ahead of me. A woman working the event, in a yellow floral dress the color of lemons, announces it’s “one in, one out.” Two graduate students in front of me curse—they wish they’d listened to their friends already inside, who lined up at 7:30 PM, a full half-hour before doors opened.
A couple ahead of me, occasionally resting their heads on each other’s shoulders, turns around to complain to anyone who will listen. They flew in from New York just for this. His company, he tells me, would never treat guests like this. “We’re much more quiet,” one of them says.
Later, I learn he works for another dating app.
Close to 11 PM, I finally make it to the front, where employees are apologizing for the “delay.” I break away from the Politico reporters I’d been flirting with and race through the door—just as a hoard of men in SHEIN tank tops and leather harnesses streams out past me.
Inside, black goodie bags line every table, each with a hat reading “0 Feet Away,” a nod to Grindr’s proximity-based hookups. Of course, there are lines everywhere: for the bar, the bathroom, the couches, even the servers weaving through the crowd.
Nearby, a few influencers toggle between their phones—Grindr’s grid of shirtless torsos, then over to Sniffies’ crowded map—seemingly scouting their next move before the night is even over.
Outside, the backyard stretches to nearly three times the size of the house, with sprawling lawns, multiple bars, and glowing Grindr logos mounted along the walls. There’s even an ice sculpture.
I trade social media tips with Tracy E. Gilchrist, best known for “holding space” during the Wicked press tour, as the sound of a shattering glass cuts through the night.
I finally make it to an outdoor bar near an empty pool, where men smoke cigarettes along its perimeter, only to find out they’ve run out of alcohol. The bartenders, frat guys who look about my age, seem stunned as a chorus of gay men responds in unison: “At least give us coke!”
Another line has formed for the only open restroom—inside a sauna-like structure that also houses hot tubs. A few people pose for photos, but most of the men waiting to use it, some slipping into stalls with as many as five people at once, look visibly embarrassed as reporters hover nearby with cameras. I spot a Washington Post reporter interviewing a woman soaking her feet in the hot tub, scribbling notes in an oversized pad.
By 11:45 PM, someone who appears to work for the house—confirmed only when he asks me on a date and tells me he “loves twinks”—starts telling everyone to leave immediately.
The crowd shifts into chaos. Gays begin to play telephone, passing along rumors of after-parties. Groups around me debate whether to head to Crush Dance Bar or Trade.
By 11:58 PM, I’m back out front. The line is gone, replaced by small groups of men lingering on the curb, waiting for the next thing—party favors, rides, hookups, new plans. Many trade phones.
For all the buildup, the night ends like any other gay party: people arriving to be seen, only to leave in search of something else—another man, another room, another version of the same night. The party came and went as quickly as a Grindr hookup.
Editorial Fellow
Tristan Espinoza joined Washingtonian as an Editorial Fellow in 2026. A proud Osage Native from Dallas, Texas, he is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Nonfiction) at American University. He is a graduate of Columbia University and the London School of Economics. He lives in Mount Pleasant.
