News
Trans wedding in Cuba highlights growing tolerance
Raul Castro’s daughter leads campaign against homophobia
In a development considered unthinkable just a few years ago, a transgender woman and a man identifying himself as gay were married in a public wedding in Havana on Aug. 13, with family members, friends and newly emerging gay activists attending the ceremony.
“This is the first wedding between a transsexual woman and a gay man,” the 31-year-old groom, Ignacio Estrada, told the Associated Press. “We celebrate it at the top of our voices and affirm that this is a step forward for the gay community in Cuba,” the AP quoted Estrada as saying.
Although same-sex marriage remains illegal in Cuba, Estrada and his new wife, Wendy Iriepa, 37, told members of a large international media contingent covering the ceremony that their relationship and wedding symbolized some of the positive changes taking place in Cuba for the LGBT community.
But the two said their relationship and wedding also represented a protest of sorts against the government’s continuing crackdown against dissent and free speech. Estrada is a member of an independent gay rights organization that formed in defiance of a strict government rule barring political organizations that are not approved by the government. Fellow gay dissidents were among those attending his wedding, he told the media.
Iriepa told the Miami Herald that her relationship with Estrada prompted officials at Cuba’s National Sex Education Center in Havana, where she worked, to warn her about her association with a dissident. She later resigned from her job in protest over what she said were accusations of disloyalty to the government for her relationship with the man she chose to marry.
Iriepa has disclosed publicly that she had gender reassignment surgery in 2007 under a new government policy that now includes such procedures as part of Cuba’s universal health care system.
One of the leading advocates of the policy change, according to reports from government officials, was Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuba’s current president, Raul Castro, and niece of Fidel Castro.
In yet another development considered remarkable by LGBT activists in the U.S. and Canada who are familiar with Cuba, Mariela Castro has emerged as a champion of LGBT equality in Cuba in her role as director of CENESEX. She has organized a Gay Pride parade and is coordinating a CENESEX-sponsored campaign to discourage prejudice and discrimination against LGBT people.
Yet some U.S. gay activists with ties to LGBT people in Cuba say the pro-LGBT policies promoted by Mariela Castro are taking place within a political system that prohibits freedom of expression and any criticism of the Communist Party-led government that runs Cuba.
While they see the changes that Mariela Castro has brought about as positive for LGBT people, these activists say LGBT people, like all other Cubans, remain under the control of a repressive government that denies its people freedoms taken for granted in other countries, including access to the Internet.
“Yes there is a trickling, if you will, of some freedoms here and there,” said Heriberto “Herb” Sosa, president of the Unity Coalition, a Miami-based LGBT Latino advocacy organization.
Sosa said his organization has developed a network of LGBT correspondents inside Cuba who communicate clandestinely with his group. He said some of them write articles for a Spanish language LGBT online magazine, Ambiente, which Sosa publishes.
“Unfortunately the regime really hasn’t changed much in the way they offer this relaxation,” he said. “It’s always if you play by the rules, if you’re part of the Communist Party, if you’re in favor of the government – those are the people that are getting a little bit more freedoms, including those within the LGBT community.”
According to Sosa, while Mariela Castro has promoted LGBT-friendly programs, “many dissidents are being thrown in jail or are being harassed and beaten – as recently as last week.”
Other LGBT activists more supportive of Cuba argue that Miami-based Cuban Americans, such as Sosa, have a longstanding bias against the Cuban government, in part, because their parents or grandparents lost financial assets when they fled Cuba for the U.S. in the 1960s following the Fidel Castro-led Cuban revolution of 1959.
The politically influential Cuban American community in South Florida has been credited with persuading Congress and at least eight U.S. presidents to continue the U.S. economic and trade boycott of Cuba, which critics say hurts the Cuban people more than the government.
Cuban American organizations argue that the U.S. trade boycott is needed to set the stage for the eventual replacement of the current Cuban regime with a new democratic government.
“This is not our personal feelings or opinions,” said Sosa. “This is based on what we know is happening inside the island from actual LGBT leaders and dissidents and writers from within the island and every single day send us factual information as to what is going on.”
The international human rights advocacy organization, Human Rights Watch, has called on the U.S. to end the trade embargo against Cuba. But the group has also been highly critical of Cuba’s human rights record, saying little has changed since Raul Castro replaced his brother Fidel as the country’s top leader.
“Cuba’s laws empower the state to criminalize virtually all forms of dissent, and grant officials extraordinary authority to penalize people who try to exercise their basic rights,” the group said in a June 1, 2011, statement.
The European-based human rights group Amnesty International issued a statement in March saying that, in response to international pressure, Cuba released about 50 political prisoners who had been jailed since 2003. However, Amnesty International said the government was detaining a new crop of political dissidents.
“Hundreds of pro-democracy activists have suffered harassment, intimidation and arbitrary arrest in recent weeks as the Cuban government employs new tactics to stamp out dissent,” the statement says.
The Obama administration has relaxed some restrictions that, in the past, have barred most U.S. citizens from traveling to Cuba and prevented Americans, including Cuban Americans, from sending money to assist Cuban relatives.
But the administration earlier this year joined members of Congress in condemning the Cuban government for sentencing an American citizen, Alan Gross, to 15 years in prison for bringing satellite and other communications equipment into Cuba under a U.S. government sponsored program to promote democracy.
Gross said he brought in the equipment to assist the island’s small Jewish community obtain access to the Internet. Cuban authorities accused Gross of engaging in espionage activities on behalf of the U.S. government.
With that as a backdrop, the U.S. State Department surprised some political observers in June when it included an LGBT-related project in an official request for proposals from independent contractors to promote democracy in Cuba.
The request for proposals was issued by the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.
The bureau “seeks proposals to strengthen grassroots organizations to create the conditions that allow meaningful and unhindered participation by members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community in all aspects of Cuban society,” a State Department document announcing the RFP says.
One of the goals of the project, the RFP says, is “strengthening the capacity of grassroots LGBT organizations to register in Cuba as recognized non-governmental organizations.”
The document says the State Department has designated approximately $300,000 to fund the project.
State Department spokesperson Evan Owen said that as of late last week a contractor had not been selected to carry out the project.
Gay Episcopalian activist Charles Briody of D.C., who recently visited Cuba as part of a group called Pastors for Peace, said he’s troubled that the Obama administration hasn’t pushed harder to end the U.S. economic boycott of Cuba.
Briody said he has experienced firsthand Cuba’s evolving attitudes on LGBT equality when family members of his Cuban boyfriend helped organize a commitment ceremony for the couple in his boyfriend’s hometown outside Havana.
“It was really wonderful,” he said. “Everybody was there, including the kids. It was recognition of our relationship for what it is.”
Briody, however, declined to disclose his partner Samuel’s last name, saying he was worried about possible consequences for Samuel from the U.S. government, not the Cuban government.
“I hope to bring him to Washington so we can get married,” he said, adding that he’s worried that U.S. immigration or visa restrictions could prevent Samuel from entering the country. Briody said that upon his retirement as a schoolteacher in Maryland in the near future he hopes to live part of each year in Cuba with Samuel.
He said that during his recent visit to Cuba, he attended a briefing that a CENESEX official held for about 100 members of the Pastors for Peace contingent. According to Briody, the official said the Cuban National Assembly was considering a proposed law that would ban workplace discrimination in Cuba based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
“My first thought was, wow, Cuba might beat the United States in passing a national law protecting LGBT people from employment discrimination,” he said.
Repeated attempts to reach a Cuban government spokesperson for comment through the Cuban Interest Section office in Washington or through the Cuban Mission at the United Nations in New York were unsuccessful. The phones at both offices were not answered.
A staff member with the Swiss Embassy in Washington, which facilitates the Cuban interest section, said she receives frequent reports by callers who can’t reach anyone at the interest section.
District of Columbia
Gay D.C. police lieutenant arrested on child porn charges
Matthew Mahl once served as head of LGBT Liaison Unit
D.C. police announced on April 14 that they have placed one of their lieutenants, Matthew Mahl, on administrative leave and revoked his police powers after receiving information that he was arrested in Maryland one day earlier.
Although the initial D.C. police announcement doesn’t disclose the reason for the arrest it refers to a statement by the Harford County, Md. Sheriff’s Office that discloses Mahl has been charged with sexual solicitation of a minor and child porn solicitation.
“On Tuesday, the Harford County Sheriff’s Office contacted MPD’s Internal Affairs Division shortly after arresting Lieutenant Matthew Mahl,” the D.C. police statement says.
“The allegations in this case are extremely disturbing, and in direct contrast to the values of the Metropolitan Police Department,” the statement continues. “MPD’s Internal Affairs Division will investigate violations of MPD policy once the criminal investigation concludes,” it says.
“MPD is not involved in the criminal investigation and was not aware of the investigation until yesterday,” the statement adds.
Mahl served as acting supervisor of the MPD’s then Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit in 2013 when he held the rank of sergeant. D.C. police officials placed him on administrative leave and suspended his police powers that same year while investigating an undisclosed allegation.
A source familiar with the investigation said Mahl was cleared of any wrongdoing a short time later and resumed his police duties. Around the time he was promoted to lieutenant several years later Mahl took on the role as chairman of the D.C. Police Union, becoming the first known openly gay officer to hold that position.
NBC 4 reports that Mahl, 47, has served on the police force for 23 years and most recently was assigned to the department’s Special Operations Division.
Records related to Mahl’s arrest filed in Harford County District Court, show Sheriff’s Department investigators state in charging documents that he allegedly committed the offenses of Sexual Solicitation of a Minor and Child Porn Solicitation on Monday, April 13, one day before he was arrested on April 14.
The court records show he was held without bond during his first appearance in court on April 14. A decision on whether he would be released while awaiting trial or continue to be held without bond was scheduled to be determined during an April 15 bond hearing. The outcome of that hearing could not be immediately determined.
National
Demonstrators disrupt OMB director hearing over PEPFAR
Capitol Police arrested five protesters
A group of protesters interrupted Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought during his testimony before Congress on Wednesday.
Vought was at the Cannon House Office Building to give testimony to the House Budget Committee.
Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) began the hearing by touting what he described as economic accomplishments of the Trump-Vance administration’s economic accomplishments. Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) disputed those claims in his opening statement.
Boyle went on to admonish Vought for not attending a committee hearing in the previous year.
Vought, the “Project 2025” architect, was invited to speak after Arrington and Boyle made their statements.
Shortly after Vought began reading his statement, Housing Works CEO Charles King stood up in the gallery and began shouting, “PEPFAR saves lives: spend the money!”
The U.S. Capitol Police moved quickly to escort King from the room. Other activists began chanting with King as they unfolded signs bearing a picture of Vought’s face and statements such as, “Vought’s cuts kill people with AIDS,” and “Protect PEPFAR from Vought.”
The group of HIV/AIDS activists included independent activists, former U.S. Agency for International Development and PEPFAR staff, members of Health GAP, Housing Works, and the Treatment Action Group. Six activists were escorted from the hearing and the U.S. Capitol Police detained five of them.
The HIV/AIDS treatment activists protested at the hearing in response to the dismantling of global health programs, including PEPFAR, a federally-funded program credited with saving millions of lives from HIV/AIDS, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.
“Russell Vought is directly responsible for illegally withholding Congressionally appropriated funds for PEPFAR and related global health initiative,” King said in a statement provided to the Washington Blade. “These funding disruptions have already contributed to preventable deaths and threaten to reverse decades of progress in the fight against HIV worldwide. Enough is enough. Congress must ensure Vought stops this deadly sabotage.”
National
HIV/AIDS group NMAC is ‘destabilized’ and in financial crisis: sources
Organization disputes allegations of mismanagement by new CEO
A statement sent to the Washington Blade by an anonymous source claiming to be a current staff member at NMAC, formerly known as the National Minority AIDS Council, alleges that the prominent HIV/AIDS advocacy organization is facing “a rapid and systemic collapse of leadership, governance, and ethical standards.”
The three-page detailed statement sent on April 4 by someone identifying himself only as “John Doe” includes multiple specific allegations that NMAC CEO Harold Phillips, who began his position in October 2025, “has destabilized the organization at every level,” including hiring nine new high-level appointees with salaries of $220,000 each who are performing “duplicative and unjustifiable roles.”
The Blade was able to corroborate some of the allegations by talking to two other knowledgable sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. Those sources said they had received the John Doe statement and believed many, if not most, of its allegations were accurate.
With a total staff of about 30 to 35 employees, the John Doe statement claims the high salaries of the nine new staff members have added to financial problems NMAC has been facing in recent years. It says that at least two NMAC staffers who raised concerns about Phillips’s actions were terminated on grounds of insubordination.
One of the two anonymous sources who spoke to the Blade said one of the dismissed staff members was considering filing a lawsuit against NMAC in response to the firing.
“An external firm was recently brought in to assess the organizational health,” the John Doe statement to the Blade says. “The findings were staggering — more than 50% of staff reported they are actively seeking employment elsewhere,” it says.
The Blade sent the John Doe statement to NMAC this week and asked for a response to the allegations.
NMAC spokesperson Jennifer Moore Phillips, who serves as chief strategy officer and who is not related to Harold Phillips, sent the Blade a short statement calling the John Doe allegations “false and purposefully misleading,” but which did not comment on each of the specific allegations.
“A recent anonymous letter containing unfounded allegations about NMAC makes claims that are simply false and purposefully misleading,” the NMAC statement says. “Evidenced by our new strategic plan and recent successful Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit in Chicago, NMAC’s new leadership is laser focused on delivering on our mission serving the HIV community with renewed energy and vision,” the statement concludes.
The Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit referred to in the statement, which took place in Chicago April 8-10 of this year, is one of the two largest HIV/AIDS related conferences that NMAC organizes each year. Jennifer Phillips said more than 1,400 people attended the event.
The largest NMAC event, the United States Conference on HIV/AIDS, the most recent of which was held in D.C. Sept. 4-7, drew more than 2,400 participants and was hailed by AIDS activists as a highly successful gathering of a diverse group of experts seeking to push for the end to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
One of the keynote speakers at that conference was Paul Kawata, who served as executive director and CEO of NMAC for 36 years and who delivered his farewell address at the conference following the announcement that he would retire on Oct. 7, 2025.
Many of the conference speakers praised Kawata, who became NMAC’s leader two years after its founding in 1987, as the leading force behind its growth and evolution into one of the nation’s leading HIV/AIDS advocacy organizations with a special outreach to people of color.
It was at that time that Harold Phillips, who served as director of the White House Office of AIDS Policy under then-President Joe Biden and who later joined NMAC as deputy director before the NMAC board named him Kawata’s successor as CEO, emerged as NMAC’s next leader.
“The Board has exuberantly elected Harold Phillips as our new CEO,” said Lance Toma, chair of the NMAC Board of Directors at the time Phillips’s appointment was announced. “In this unprecedented moment, there is no one more strategically positioned and experienced to lead our movement through what we know will be some of the most tumultuous and complicated times ahead,” the statement said.
The John Doe statement raising questions about Phillips’s actions and leadership says NMAC staff members formally appealed to the board of directors to intervene.
“The Board has remained silent, while Harold arrogantly told the staff that ‘the board has my back,’” the statement says.
The Blade has also attempted to reach out to Kawata by email for comment on how he feels NMAC is doing six months after his retirement. As of April 14, Kawata had not responded to the Blade’s inquiry.
According to the John Doe statement, NMAC officials have recently “sought external financial rescue,” including a visit by an NMAC official to California to request assistance from the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences. “Without such intervention, layoffs seem imminent,” the statement says.
“This is not a functioning nonprofit,” the John Doe statement concludes. “It is an organization in crisis – bleeding resources, hemorrhaging staff, and operating without transparency, accountability, or governance,” it says, adding, “The communities NMAC serves, the donors who fund its mission, and the public at large deserve to know what is happening behind closed doors.”
By contrast, the NMAC website describes the organization as a highly functioning nonprofit continuing to lead the fight against HIV/AIDS.
“Launched in 1987 during the early years of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the United States, NMAC is a national HIV organization that offers capacity building, leadership development, policy education, and public engagement to end the HIV epidemic among communities most impacted in the United States,” a statement on the NMAC website says.
“In 2026, we mark 45 years of the HIV movement,” the statement adds. “NMAC continues to pivot to center the needs of people of color impacted by HIV by responding to political challenges that threaten federal funding and programs that have provided an essential survival safety net,” it says. “Simultaneously, as HIV treatment allows people to age with HIV, our whole-person approach extends to achieving optimal quality of life beyond attaining viral suppression.”
In its most recent action, NMAC issued a detailed press release on April 14 criticizing President Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal year 2027 budget provisions that call for cutting more than $1.5 billion in HIV prevention, substance use, housing and other programs. The release provides details on how the cuts would negatively impact important HIV prevention programs and urges Congress to reject the proposed cuts.
Gay D.C. police lieutenant arrested on child porn charges
Demonstrators disrupt OMB director hearing over PEPFAR
HIV/AIDS group NMAC is ‘destabilized’ and in financial crisis: sources
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Comings & Goings
Minimal version of ‘Streetcar Named Desire’ heading to Dupont Underground
