National
Gay diplomat presses LGBT issues at int’l conference
Guest focuses on hate crimes, Pride celebrations in remarks
Michael Guest, former U.S. ambassador to Romania, headed a delegation during the human rights portion of an annual conference for the Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe. (Blade photo by Michael Key)
A gay diplomat led a U.S. delegation at an international conference earlier this month that touched on the importance of LGBT rights as a human rights issue.
Michael Guest, former U.S. ambassador to Romania, headed a delegation of about 25 U.S. diplomats during the human rights portion of an annual review conference for the Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe. The review conference took place between Sept. 30 and Oct. 8 in Warsaw, Poland.
The Warsaw Review Conference was a primer engagement for trans-Atlantic countries to discuss human rights principles — including hate crimes against LGBT people and the freedom to association to have Pride celebrations across the globe — in anticipation of a later OSCE summit that this year is set to take place in December in Astana, Kazakhstan.
In an interview with the Washington Blade, Guest said that his sexual orientation made his designation as head of the delegation representational of the Obama administration’s stated principle that international LGBT rights are human rights.
“I also think that it made an impact with other delegations,” Guest added. “It was clearly a prominent feature of my biography, so there were a number of delegation members that come and it’s representative in their eyes as a sense of progress that an openly gay man would be appointed.”
Still, Guest said he thinks his 26-year service as a diplomat was the primary reason he was selected for the position and noted that during much of his career he focused on OSCE policy.
“I dealt with it at the time when all these changes were happening in Europe in 1989, 1990 and 1991 and when most of the commitments on fundamental freedoms and human rights were signed by the newly independent countries of the former Soviet Union and the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe,” he said.
Guest attained notoriety in 2007 when he retired from the State Department in protest because it didn’t offer certain benefits — such as security training and free medical care — to the same-sex partners of Foreign Service officers. The situation has since been rectified by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Mark Bromley, chair of the Council for Global Equality, which took part in the review conference as an non-governmental organization, said the selection of an out gay man to lead the U.S. delegation was significant because previous administrations have been reluctant to incorporate LGBT issues in foreign policy.
“The United States in the past has been reluctant to address LGBT concerns within this forum,” Bromley said. “I think the fact that they selected Michael Guest as someone who is openly gay and works with organizations that promote issues on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity was an important statement.”
The OSCE was established in 1975 after 35 trans-Atlantic countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union, signed the Helsinki Accords and agreed to take part in annual meetings. During the Cold War, the OSCE served as a forum where the United States could raise human rights and security issues with Warsaw Pact countries.
But Guest said the tone of the conference has changed since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 to become less of an East-West dialogue and more of a pan-Atlantic conversation.
“It’s an opportunity to look at what has been done and is being done on human rights issues ranging from migration to freedoms of assembly and freedom of religion, to human trafficking, to capital punishment, to gender balance to hate crimes and intolerance — the whole range of human rights related issues,” Guest said.
During the course of the discussion on human rights, Guest impressed upon the 56 participating states in the conference the importance of inclusion of LGBT rights as human rights issues.
The former ambassador mentioned LGBT issues during his opening statement at the conference’s plenary session, including bias-motivated violence against LGBT people and the right to freedom of association at Pride celebrations. Such activities in Eastern Europe, where the conference took place, are often the targets of hostility and violence.
Guest lamented human rights abuses such as “when civil society assemblies are denied permits on spurious grounds, or police allow bigots to attack Gay Pride parades.” The former ambassador also acknowledged the United States has more to accomplish on human rights issues because “equality under the law continues to elude those of us who are gay or transgender.”
During a later discussion, Guest also appealed to governments in attendance to implement hate crimes protections measures and recalled his own personal experience as the victim of bias-motivated violence.
After a hostile non-governmental organization equated homosexuality to pedophilia and necrophilia at the end of the meeting, Guest responded that the connection was offensive and such inflammatory allegations can be responsible for hate crimes.
Guest told the Blade he raised LGBT issues during the conference because he believes they should be brought up in any comprehensive discussion of human rights.
“We raised it in questions of freedom to assembly, freedom of association and in the course of the discussions on hate crimes and tolerance,” he said. “We had some good news stories to tell from the standpoint of the United States, such as the passage of the Matthew Shepard Act and the overall trend in hate crimes going down, but the negative, of course, being that the reported number of LGBT hate crimes and hate crimes against immigrants has, in fact, gone up.”
LGBT issues were also raised by non-governmental institutions at the conference, including the Council for Global Equality.
Bromley delivered a statement at the conference on behalf of his organization — as well as two European international LGBT right groups — that called for passage of hate crimes protections in other countries as well as the decriminalization of sodomy.
Emphasizing the importance of accurate documentation and effective prosecution of bias-motivated violence against LGBT people, Bromley said hate crimes won’t go away as long as countries have anti-gay statutes on the books.
“As a first step, we call on all participating states in the OSCE region to remove any laws that continue to criminalize homosexual conduct or identity or the public dissemination of scientifically supported information on homosexuality and sexual health,” Bromley said.
Bromley told the Blade that discussion of LGBT rights at the conference was significant because the U.S. delegation had only begun to bring up such issues last year after the start of the Obama administration.
“We’re very pleased to see that level of emphasis from the head of the delegation, but a number of other governments also spoke to the issue, so it’s certainly gaining ground and giving additional attention to LGBT hate crimes,” Bromley said.
The delegations from other countries and other non-governmental organizations at the conference responded to the U.S. delegation’s promotion of LGBT rights in varied ways. Guest said the session in which he spoke personally about hate crimes issues caused delegations from other countries to take note.
“It was a very quiet session,” Guest said. “People were listening very quietly, and a lot of people did respond specifically to what I said including non-governmental organizations. A number of delegations told us afterwards — either to me directly or others on the team — how that more personal approach really had resonated with them.”
Guest said a representative from the Catholic Church in Vatican City was among those that approached him afterward and mentioned that talking about hate crimes in a personal manner was “a way that we could build bridges.”
But Guest said the outcome was different for discussions of freedom of association and the right to hold Pride celebrations. The former ambassador speculated these talks made less of an impact on the delegation because they had already come up at last year’s conference.
“I think it’s just that because Gay Pride issues have come up before, there were some delegations that maybe expected it and maybe didn’t really reflect as much as might otherwise be the case,” Guest said.
So-called “ex-gay” groups and other organizations hostile to LGBT rights were also present.
Bromley said Redeemed Lives, a Christian ministry, spoke out at the conference about bias-motivated violence against “ex-gay” people for giving up what the ministry called a “homosexual lifestyle.”
“That was somewhat alarming to see a strong showing of ex-gay activists who were waving issues that were, as far as I know, not legitimate concerns,” Bromley said. “I don’t doubt that there could be violence directed at ex-gay individuals, but I never heard of any reports to that effect.”
Reparative therapy programs that seek to change sexual orientation have been widely discredited by major medical and psychiatric associations around the world.
A spokesperson for Redeemed Lives deferred comment to a statement the organization made at the conference, which was published on the OSCE website. In the statement, Mario Bergner, director of Redeemed Lives, stresses the importance passing legislation to protect the free speech of Christian academics and clerics to “teach the sexual morality of their faith traditions” so that they can help those with “unwanted sexual desires.”
“Such people include Christians with sexual addictions for whom freedom means living free of internet pornography, Christians with compulsive sexual behaviours for whom freedom is fidelity in marriage, and Christians, like myself, with unwanted same sex attractions for whom freedom is the self emancipation that comes through effective pastoral care or psychological treatment for homosexuality,” Berger said.
Bromley said the organization’s concern about hate crimes against people who identify as “ex-gay” is ironic because the Matthew Shepard Act already protects them.
“It would actually be covered under our current hate crime law because it would still be violence on the basis of sexual orientation,” Bromley said.
But the conference nonetheless provided a forum to discuss international LGBT rights as a human rights issue.
Guest noted progress was made at the conference, although he said more work is needed.
“I think there are moments like that where you feel that you are making headway in getting people to understand that these are issues that governments have to take seriously,” Guest said. “And then, there are other times where it seems to go right past — certainly on some the freedom of association things.”
National
Blade reporters reflect on covering Pulse massacre 10 years ago
Orlando stepped up to comfort and support its LGBTQ community
Friday marks 10 years since a gunman killed 49 people inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla.
The massacre, which, at the time was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, left the LGBTQ community in this country and around the world reeling. It also prompted renewed calls for gun control.
The OnePulse Foundation, which Pulse owner Barbara Poma founded after the massacre, raised upwards of $20 million for a memorial that never materialized.
The city of Orlando in 2023 purchased the Pulse property for $2 million. Crews earlier this year demolished the former nightclub. The city of Orlando has pledged $12 million for a permanent memorial that is scheduled to open in 2027.
Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff and International News Editor Michael K. Lavers reported from Orlando in the days after the massacre. Here are their reflections a decade later.
Describe the scene when you arrived in Orlando. Where did you go first?
NAFF: Most mainstream reporters headed for the Pulse nightclub, but it was already roped off with police keeping bystanders at least a full city block away. Instead, I hurried to The Center, Orlando’s LGBTQ community center, downtown. I expected to find it locked down with tight security but instead the doors were flung open and everyone inside was busy at work. No tears, just dedicated staff and volunteers working the phones to secure visas and free plane tickets for relatives of the victims. The director gave me a tour and in the back storage room were pallets and pallets of bottled water stacked to the ceiling. When I asked what all the water was for, he said the city had issued a call for blood donations and the lines to donate were 1,500 deep in 100-degree heat. So The Center drove around to all the sites to deliver water to all those standing in line.
That scene was so inspiring and a testament to the strength and resiliency of the LGBTQ community. We’d seen tragedy before and knew how to respond.
LAVERS: I arrived in Orlando about 14 hours after the massacre took place. The city was shellshocked.
Equality Florida, the state’s LGBTQ advocacy group, and other organizations held a press conference at The Center shortly after my flight from D.C. landed. I drove there from the airport. Terry DeCarlo, who was The Center’s executive director at the time, along with then-Equality Florida Executive Director Nadine Smith and others spoke on behalf of a community that was reeling. The Center at the press conference handed out business cards that read, “You matter.” I had it in my wallet when I drove to a makeshift memorial that was a block from Pulse — the police had cordoned off the area immediately around the nightclub. A local resident who I interviewed told me that she did not know if her friends who were at Pulse when the gunman opened fire survived. Another person with whom I spoke shared a similar story.
A torrential downpour began shortly after I arrived. The storm was an apt metaphor for the raw emotion of that horrific day.
What’s your most prominent memory of covering the Pulse massacre?
NAFF: I was covering a vigil in downtown Orlando when then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s motorcade arrived unannounced. To that point, he had not addressed the LGBTQ angle and seemed to be downplaying the fact that this was an attack on our community. I hurried to the front row as he held an impromptu news conference. To my dismay, he took only three short questions from TV reporters then rushed away. I grabbed his communications director and insisted that Scott take a question from the LGBTQ media. She agreed and told me to wait next to the SUV. When Scott approached, I asked him, “What is your message to LGBTQ Floridians?”
To my surprise, he sputtered, stammered, and broke into tears before telling me, “This was an attack, what else can you say? This was an attack against the gays, an attack against Hispanics, an attack against our country, our nation and it’s disgusting. The biggest thing we do now is ask how to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
It was his first public acknowledgment that the LGBTQ community was the target of the attack.
LAVERS: Two moments stand out for me.
The first moment is when then-President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Orlando on June 16, four days after the massacre. I was one of the reporters who the White House asked to be part of the local press pool. I was about 50 feet away from Obama and Biden when they placed bouquets with 49 flowers — one for each of the victims — at a makeshift memorial between City Hall and the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Orlando. Obama in remarks he made to the press pool mentioned one of the gay victims who had once said, “We cannot be afraid.” The emotions of the last four days simply became too much, and I broke down. Another reporter who was part of the press pool who was standing next to me realized I had broken down. She put her hand on my back to console me.
The second moment came a few weeks later when I was in Puerto Rico to cover the community’s response to the massacre and to interview victims’ relatives. Orlando has a very large Puerto Rican community, and nearly half of those who died at Pulse were of Puerto Rican descent.
I drove to Caguas, a city that is roughly 20 miles south of San Juan, the island’s capital, on July 7, and interviewed Aida Velázquez in her small apartment. Her son, Frankie “Jimmy” de Jesús, died at Pulse. Aida talked about her son, and she showed me pictures of him. Jimmy also danced Jíbaro, a Puerto Rican folk dance. The interview took place less than a month after the massacre — Jimmy’s funeral took place in Caguas less than two weeks earlier.
I sat in my car after the interview and sobbed uncontrollably for nearly five minutes. Nothing can possibly prepare you for interviewing a mother who had just lost her child in the most horrific way possible.
How did the local community respond and what about their response gave you hope or inspiration?
NAFF: In addition to the staff at The Center working to assist victims and their families, everyday Orlando residents stepped up to help however they could. At the downtown vigils, straight mothers and fathers carried signs offering hugs to anyone who needed them. I encountered a group of young teenage males who approached a group of law enforcement officers and appeared to perform for them. When they finished, I asked what they were doing and they told me that they were straight friends who lived in Orlando and wanted to do something to help so they composed an uplifting rap song and walked around performing it for anyone who needed cheering up.
LAVERS: The way that Orlando rallied around the LGBTQ community was simply inspiring.
Imam Muhammad Musri, president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, at a memorial service that took place at the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center on June 13 said his organization was “united as Americans when it comes to standing with the LGBT community and their rights to live freely and to practice their lives here.” This comment underscored the outpouring of support that Orlando showed its LGBTQ community after Pulse. It was also a call for the better angels among us to reject hate in all of its forms.
What surprised you most about the experience?
NAFF: I was most surprised — and moved — after talking to Rev. Debreita Taylor of Oasis Fellowship Ministries, an LGBTQ-affirming ministry.
“My message is love. Period. Love. Period. There’s nothing in the word of God that faith leaders can go to that teaches hate,” she told me. “Have faith and believe that evil and hate can be eradicated one person at a time. How do you treat someone? How do you embrace someone who treats you wrong? We all bleed, laugh, hope and have great victories and major defeats. And so, you know me, even if you don’t know my name — I’m you.”
LAVERS: It admittedly took me quite a while to fully process what I experienced in Orlando — I was focused on doing my job as a reporter, which was to cover the story, and, most importantly, show the human impact of what had happened. I suppose one surprising aspect of the time I spent in Orlando was that I found myself feeling more defiant against those who seek to destroy our community. They want us to live in fear, and I refuse to give them that satisfaction.
What, if anything, changed as a result of Pulse?
NAFF: In the immediate aftermath of the attack, queer spaces began rethinking their approach to security, which has served us well in the years since. Sadly, just a year later, Pulse was bumped to the No. 2 deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history when a gunman opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas, killing 60 people. Americans and their politicians never learn from these largely preventable tragedies. The carnage continues.
LAVERS: Gun violence remains a shameful scourge in this country. Our community remains vulnerable to violence and discrimination. President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other politicians here in Washington, around the country, and overseas continue to use our community to advance an anti-equality agenda. The carnage continues, as my colleague correctly notes, but our community remains strong and defiant. That gives me hope.
National
Queen Jean is Tony’s first transgender winner
Designer/activist wins for work on ‘Cats: The Jellicle Ball’
It was a historic night at the 79th annual Tony Awards on Sunday as Queen Jean won the award for Best Costume Design of a Musical, making her the first out transgender person to win a Tony.
“This experience has been monumental. We are here for the legacy of queer people, trans people,” she said. “We are taking up space in ways we have to take up space. We have to shift the paradigm. So I just want to say, thank you all so much for this incredible honor. The world right now is deeply, deeply combating so many ailments, and we know as a society that when we come together, we can make real, permanent change.”
She won the award for her work on “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” and was also nominated for best costume design of a play for “Liberation.”
In addition to her stage work, Queen Jean is the founder of Black Trans Liberation, an organization that supports trans and gender-nonconforming people in New York City.
National
Madonna turns Times Square into massive dance floor
Pop icon celebrates Pride month with surprise performance
Pop icon Madonna celebrated Pride month with a pop-up performance in New York City’s Times Square on Thursday to the delight of 50,000 fans.
She performed for about 15 minutes high above street level, including several songs from her new album “Confessions II” due on July 3, along with a trio of songs from the first “Confessions on a Dance Floor.”
In addition to the brand new “Love Sensation,” she performed “I Feel So Free” and “Bring Your Love,” plus “Hung Up,” “Get Together” and “I Love New York.” She wished the crowd a happy Pride season; the event was shared with audiences through Grindr’s first-ever livestream.
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