National
New GOP chair backs ban on same-sex marriage
Log Cabin is hopeful Priebus will support ‘big tent’ policy
Reince Priebus of Wisconsin was elected the new RNC chair. He has supported the GOP platform language opposing same-sex marriage and also supported a ban on civil unions. (Photo courtesy of Wisconsin GOP)
The head of Log Cabin Republicans said he is hopeful that the newly elected chair of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus of Wisconsin, would maintain cordial relations with LGBT Republicans, even though Priebus supports a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Priebus, 38, chair of the Wisconsin Republican Party, defeated controversial RNC Chair Michael Steele and four other candidates in a hotly contested race for the RNC leadership post at an RNC meeting in suburban Maryland on Jan. 14.
In a Jan. 3 debate at the National Press Club in Washington, Priebus, Steele and the three other candidates for the RNC chair position each said they believe marriage should be restricted to a union between a man and a woman.
“I don’t believe that judges can rewrite the Constitution and redraft what marriage is,” Priebus said during the debate. “I think…there’s a sanctity of marriage…I believe my kids and believe children should grow up with one father and a mother if possible,” he said.
He then added, “I don’t believe anybody should be denied dignity in this discussion, everyone should be loved. But at the end of the day, I believe that marriage, through the sanctity of marriage, should be between one man and one woman.”
In an earlier interview broadcast on YouTube with Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, the leading group opposing same-sex marriage, Priebus said he supports the Republican Party platform position on marriage, which calls for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
He also noted in his interview with Gallagher, which took place shortly after he entered the race for RNC chair, that he was a strong advocate for the Wisconsin state constitutional amendment banning both same-sex marriage and civil unions. Voters in the state approved that amendment in 2006.
“I was a part of that,” he said. “I was helpful to make sure that that happened…It’s an important issue because I believe marriage is a gift from God and the sanctity of marriage ought to be protected,” he told Gallagher.
“I believe the Defense of Marriage Act is important,” he continued in the interview. And it’s something that certainly as chairman of the Republican National Committee that we ought to be committed to.”
In marked contrast, the Democratic Party platform expresses opposition to both a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which it calls for repealing.
DOMA, which Congress passed in 1996, defines marriage under federal law as a union only between a man and a woman. The law prevents same-sex couples married in states that have legalized such unions from receiving any federal benefits or rights related to marriage.
The GOP platform also recognizes “the incompatibility of homosexuality with military service” while the Democratic platform called for the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law barring gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military.
The subject of gays in the military did not come up in the debate among RNC chair candidates or in Gallagher’s interview with Priebus. But in discussing the GOP platform, Priebus told Gallagher, “I have no beef with any part of that platform that’s set forth within the Republican National Committee.”
R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, joined other GOP leaders in releasing a statement on the day Priebus was elected RNC chair calling for party unity and inclusion.
“As Chairman Priebus stated, ‘we must come together over common interests. We must unite,’” Cooper said in his statement.
“I look forward to continuing our successful partnership with the Republican National Committee, and urge Chairman Priebus to continue the Committee’s strong record of coalition-building, which was an important part of GOP success in 2010,” he said.
Cooper said Log Cabin did not take sides in the RNC chair race. He said he personally supported one of the candidates but declined to say which one.
GOProud, a national organization representing “gay conservatives and their allies,” called Priebus’ election as party chair “a good day for conservatives and for the Republican Party.”
Christopher Barron, chair of GOProud’s board, said the group worked hard for Steele’s defeat but did not say if it backed another candidate. GOProud was among a number of conservative groups that criticized Steele for making a statement last year saying the U.S. could not achieve its objectives in the war in Afghanistan.
“Michael Steel’s tenure as chairman can only fairly be characterized as an unmitigated disaster,” Barron said “Were it not for the hard work of outside groups, who were forced to step in to fill the void left by an ineffective RNC, success at the ballot box in November would not have happened.
Robert Kabel, the gay chair of the D.C. Republican Committee, had a far different view on Steele, saying the now ex-GOP chair did an overall good job.
Kabel said he backed Steele’s re-election bid, saying Steele was “highly supportive” of the D.C. Republican Party and of Kabel’s role as the nation’s only out gay leader of a state or local Republican Party committee.
Kabel, who is a member of the RNC, said he voted for former RNC official Maria Cino, another of the candidates competing for the chair post, when Steele dropped out of the race after trailing Priebus in the fourth round of voting.
Cooper noted that Steele had welcomed Log Cabin and gay Republicans in general into the RNC’s fold during his two-year tenure as RNC chair and hired at least one out gay staffer to work at the RNC’s Coalitions Department, which reached out to Republican constituency groups like College Republicans, Young Republicans, and Log Cabin.
Kabel, who like Cooper, declined to identify the gay staffer, said the staffer is among nearly a dozen RNC staff members that Priebus fired or who resigned during his first week in office.
Both said the firings and resignations were part of the normal personnel changes that take place whenever a new party chair takes office.
The Hill newspaper reported that Priebus dismissed most of the staff that had been hired by Steele to work on the 2012 Republican National Convention.
“They recognized the gay community, they were very open to Log Cabin and they were really delighted when Clarke Cooper was finally selected as the new Log Cabin director,” Kabel said of the RNC Coalitions Department under Steele’s tenure.
Cooper said he could not say for sure but he expected Priebus to keep the Coalitions Department in place, although he said the new party chair might rename it or change its place within the RNC structure.
A staff member with the RNC’s press office, who identified himself only as Michael, said he would seek to obtain a response to a Blade inquiry about Priebus’ plans for the Coalitions Department and its interaction with Log Cabin. The staffer did not get back by press time.
Priebus led in the balloting in a protracted election in which the 168-member RNC was unable to deliver the 85 votes needed to elect a chair until Priebus finally obtained 97 votes on the seventh round of voting.
In addition to Steele, the other candidates in the race were Cino, a former Bush administration official who had been friendly to Log Cabin; Ann Wagner of Missouri; and Saul Anuzis of Michigan.
In a related development, on the same day Priebus won his race for RNC chair, the RNC elected D.C. resident and longtime Republican activist Tony Parker as RNC treasurer, which is considered the second most important post at the RNC. Parker has held the position of Republican National Committeeman from D.C. His views on LGBT issues could not be immediately determined.
On Jan. 6, the D.C. Republican Committee voted unanimously to re-elect Kabel as chair for another two-year term.
State Department
State Department implements anti-trans bathroom policy
Memo notes directive corresponds with White House executive order
The State Department on April 20 announced employees cannot use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
The Daily Signal, a conservative news website, reported the State Department announced the new policy in a memo titled “Updates Regarding Biological Sex and Intimate Spaces, Including Restrooms.”
The State Department has not responded to the Washington Blade’s request for comment on the directive.
“The administration affirms that there are two sexes — male and female — and that federal facilities should operate on this objective and longstanding basis to ensure consistency, privacy, and safety in shared spaces,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Piggot told the Daily Signal. “In line with President Trump’s executive order this provides clear, uniform guidance to the department by grounding policy in biological sex as determined at birth.”
President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in January 2025 issued an executive order that directed the federal government to only recognize two genders: male and female. The sweeping directive also ordered federal government agencies to “effectuate this policy by taking appropriate action to ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by sex and not identity.”
The Daily Signal notes the new State Department policy “does not prohibit single-occupancy restrooms.”
National
I’m telling the scared little girl I once was it’s okay to feel free
This week is Lesbian Visibility Week
Uncloseted Media published this article on April 23.
By SOPHIE HOLLAND | At 13 years old, I remember looking in the mirror in my Toronto bathroom and thinking, “Yeah, I’m a lesbian.” At the time, I thought it was a dirty word. Thinking back, it could be because the first time I heard it was when a family member said, “I don’t know what a lesbian is, they are like aliens.”
And although I walked around in camouflage Crocs with a rainbow My Little Pony charm, plaid knee-length shorts and a shark tooth necklace (yes, these are all, in my opinion, stereotypically lesbian apparel!), I didn’t feel like I fit the mold. The longer I thought about it, the worse I felt, so I buried my feelings deep inside.
Now I am 25, and I have been out since I was 22. Three years ago, I never could have imagined that I’d be working for a queer news publication and celebrating Lesbian Visibility Week, an annual event meant to honor and uplift lesbian perspectives and highlight the hardships our community faces. To me, LVW is so important because, frankly, it has been an absolute shit show getting here, to a place where I feel love and joy most days.
I think back to the frustration of constantly being asked, “Do you have a boyfriend?” Of watching princess movies and seeing a broken girl only find herself when her prince charming arrives. I remember listening to music that was always about heterosexual relationships. I remember feeling left out in high school when, one by one, my friends got boyfriends.
I tried the boyfriend, and I tried really hard for it to work at a large detriment to my wellbeing. I brainwashed myself into thinking I was probably bisexual, which I told my closest friends around 16 and unsuccessfully told my parents at the same age. I was probably subconsciously using this as a litmus test of their acceptance and to soothe the anxiety I felt around my sexuality.
Learning to love who I am did not only come from me unraveling my internalized lesbophobia and dissecting the oppressive societal messages of heteronormativity. It came from meeting an awesome community of lesbians and queers. I found people who understood my worldview and who showed me the ropes. I no longer had to stutter over concepts like lesbian loneliness or my frustration with misogynistic straight men.
They all just got it.
Without this community, I am not sure if I could be as warm and confident in myself as I am today.
And while I still experience homophobia, like being spat on while walking with an ex in downtown Toronto or having a stranger yell in my face “Are you fucking lesbians?” in Kensington Market, the joy and love still outweighs the nasty.
So, as the sentimental dyke that I have become, I decided to ask a set of lesbians in my orbit — including my friends as well as Uncloseted staffers, board members and followers — if they would share a little bit about what makes them love being a lesbian. And now, I can share it with all of you. Here they are. Happy LVW!
Timi Sotire
Falling in love with her was a reset. I felt like a kid again, hopeful about the future. We’ve had to overcome many obstacles to be together, but I’d choose her in every lifetime. I was sick with a long-term health condition when we met, and hanging out with Sophia really helped me with my recovery after my surgery.
Bella Sayegh
Being a lesbian is one of the most beautiful things in the world. To be authentically yourself in resistance and joy is so special within the lesbian community.
Parker Wales
When I met Liv, I finally understood why almost every song is about love.
Gillian Kilgour
There is no connection quite as perfect as between lesbians, no one sees me like my lesbians do.
Chyna Price
There’s many things I love about being a lesbian. But here are my top three:
- There’s just a deeper understanding when it comes to being loved by another woman.
- The next one would be the sense of community, especially being a POC masculine-presenting lesbian. I don’t feel like I’m cosplaying as someone else like I felt like I was doing before I came out.
- There’s so much history going back to the 1800s on how we found and fought for our love. That fight makes me proud because it shows me … that we’ve [found] ways to express our love even when it was misunderstood, illegal and deemed as madness.
Hope Pisoni
Before I knew I was a lesbian, romantic relationships seemed suffocating — it felt like everyone would expect me to act my part in the meticulous performance that is heterosexuality. But meeting my spouse and discovering our identities together showed me just how freeing it could be to love without a script to follow.
Leital Molad
It was the joy of watching the New York Sirens defeat the Toronto Sceptres at our first professional women’s hockey game — surrounded by hundreds (maybe thousands?) of cheering lesbians.
Angela Earl
I spent years building a life that looked right. But I never felt settled, and eventually I started asking what would actually make me happy. Coming out was about more than who I love, it was letting go of everything I was told to be. The last few years have felt like coming home to a life that had been waiting for me.
Tali Bray
What I love about being a lesbian is what I love about being in love … the wonder and joy of “oh, this is what it’s supposed to feel like.” I love moving through the world with women.
Izzy Stokes
I didn’t fall in love until I realized that queerness was an option. My queer friends have helped me see so much more than I grew up seeing. I’m so proud of us, and I’m so grateful for my lesbian community.
Nandika Chatterjee
When I met my fiancée is when I started to feel most like myself. That meant loving myself for who I am and embracing my identity as a lesbian. I felt free in a way I have never before. That’s the long and short of it.
Liz Lucking
The love and joy of being a lesbian is getting to live the life I dreamed of but never thought I would get to have!
Reflections
As I read these beautiful entries, it’s not lost on me that we’re still living in a world where lesbians are more likely to struggle with maternity problems, fetishization, and compulsory heterosexuality — not to mention the intersectional pressures of racism from both inside and outside the queer community. That’s part of why, according to a 2024 survey, 22 percent of LGBTQ women have attempted suicide, and 66 percent have sought treatment for trauma.
So if you are a lesbian who isn’t out or doesn’t feel safe, I hope you read this and can glean some hope from these messages. So when you look in the mirror, you know that it’s okay to release the weight — which can feel so heavy — of a heteronormative world.
We still have a long fight until all lesbians can feel safe to be themselves, but this is a community that does not back away from the tough, from the joy, from being loud and from all the other things that it takes to start a small revolution.
Hell yeah, lesbians! Here’s to you.
*I am signing off with my cat on my lap and a pride flag over my head <3.
Cuba
Trans parent charged with kidnapping, allegedly fled to Cuba with child
Cuban authorities helped locate Rose Inessa-Ethington
Federal authorities have charged a transgender woman with kidnapping after she allegedly fled to Cuba with her 10-year-old child.
An affidavit that Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Jennifer Waterfield filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Utah on April 16 notes the child is a “biological male who identifies as a female” and “splits time living with divorced parents who share custody” in Cache County, Utah.
Waterfield notes the child on March 28 “was supposed to be traveling by car to” Calgary, Alberta, “for a planned camping trip with his transgender mother, Rose Inessa-Ethington, Rose’s partner, Blue Inessa-Ethington, and Blue’s 3-year-old child.”
The affidavit notes the group instead flew from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Mexico City on March 29. Waterfield writes the Inessa-Ethingtons and the two children then flew from Mérida, Mexico, to Havana on April 1.
The 10-year-old child called her biological mother on March 28 after they arrived in Canada. The custody agreement, according to the affidavit, required Rose Inessa-Ethington to return the child to her former spouse on April 3.
“Interviews of MV [Minor Victim] 1’s family members provided significant concerns for MV 1’s well-being, as MV 1 was born a male, however, identifies as a female child, which is largely believed to be due to manipulation by Rose Inessa-Ethington,” reads the affidavit. “Concerns exist that MV 1 was transported to Cuba for gender reassignment surgery prior to puberty.”
The affidavit indicates authorities found a note in the Inessa-Ethingtons’ home with “instruction from a mental health therapist located in Washington, D.C., including instruction to send the therapist the $10,000.00 and instructions on gender-affirming medical care for children.”
The affidavit does not identify the specific “mental health therapist” in D.C.
A Utah judge on April 13 ordered Rose Inessa-Ethington to “immediately” return the child to her former spouse. The former spouse also received sole custody.
“Your affiant believes that due to the extensive planning and preparation exhibited by both Rose Inessa-Ethington and Blue Inessa-Ethington to isolate MV 1 and take MV 1 to Havana, Cuba, without notifying or requesting permission from MV 1’s mother indicates they are likely not planning to return to the United States,” wrote Waterfield.
The affidavit notes Cuban authorities found the Inessa-Ethingtons and the child.
A press release the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah issued notes the Inessa-Ethingtons “were deported from Cuba” on Monday “with the assistance of the FBI.”
The couple has been charged with International Parental Kidnapping. The Inessa-Ethingtons were arraigned in Richmond, Va., on Monday. The press release notes a federal court in Salt Lake City will soon handle the case.
The New York Times reported the child is now back with their biological mother.
“We are grateful to law enforcement for working swiftly to return the child to the biological mother,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Holyoak of the District of Utah in the press release.
The case is unfolding against the backdrop of increased tensions between Washington and Havana after U.S. forces on Jan. 3 seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in January 2025 issued an executive order that directed the federal government to only recognize two genders: male and female. A second White House directive banned federally-funded gender-affirming care for anyone under 19.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year in the Skrmetti decision upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for minors.
Cuba’s national health care system has offered free sex-reassignment surgeries since 2008.
Activists who are critical of Mariela Castro, the daughter of former President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBTQ issues as director of Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education, have previously told the Washington Blade that access to these procedures is limited. The Blade on Wednesday asked a contact in Havana to clarify whether Cuban law currently allows minors to undergo sex-reassignment surgery.
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