News
Cuban LGBT activists cite progress, ongoing harassment
Authorities detained Leannes Imbert Acosta in Havanafor 12 hours on Sept. 11
Leannes Imbert Acosta (Photo courtesy of Cuba Archive)
NEW YORK– A leading Cuban LGBT rights advocate says that the country’s activists continue to suffer harassment and discrimination in spite of high profile pro-LGBT campaigns on the island.
“We are starting to understand how to organize in a more effective manner,” said Leannes Imbert Acosta, national coordinator of the Cuban LGBT Platform, an umbrella organization she co-founded in June of 12 of the island’s independent LGBT rights groups. She spoke during a panel on LGBT rights in Cuba at the Schomberg Center for Research and Black Culture in Manhattan on Saturday. “There is more societal tolerance, but discrimination still exists.”
The website Cubanet reported that two Cuban security officials detained Imbert Acosta on Sept. 11 as she left her Havana home to deliver to Mariela Castro, director of the country’s National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX.) materials for a planned exhibit on forced labor camps to which the government sent more than 25,000 gay men and others deemed unfit for military service during the 1960s. Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro, has said CENESEX would conduct an investigation into these camps, known as Military Units to Aid Production or by their Spanish acronym UMAPs, but Imbert and other activists maintain that Castro has refused to work with them on this issue.
Cuba Archive, a New Jersey-based organization that documents the Cuban government’s human rights abuses, said that authorities confiscated Imbert’s materials and pressured her to cancel the planned exhibit before releasing her 12 hours later.
Castro becomes public face of Cuba’s gay rights movement
Mariela Castro has spearheaded a number of campaigns designed to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and promote the acceptance of LGBT people on the island over the last decade.
Castro successfully lobbied the Cuban government to begin offering free sex-reassignment surgery under the country’s national health care system in 2010. She has also spoken out in support of marriage rights for same-sex couples.
Castro appeared at the New York Public Library with Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, in May while she and other Cuban scholars visited the United States. She also met with other LGBT activists in San Francisco during the trip.
“I honestly think that the activities of Mariela Castro and the CENESEX have been positive regarding the rights of LGBT people in Cuba,” said Emilio Bejel, a Cuban-born poet who immigrated to the United States in the 1960s. The government frequently imprisoned gays and lesbians until it repealed the country’s sodomy law in 1979, but activists and others maintain that authorities continue to use public decency and assembly laws to harass them. “The difference between the situation today and just a few years ago is considerable, but there is still a refusal from the Cuban government to give full rights afforded to LGBT people.”
Achy Obejas, a lesbian Cuban American writer and journalist from Chicago who immigrated to the United States from Cuba with her family when she was six, agreed.
“Mariela’s work has been, actually I think, very good in terms of getting non-queers to talk about queers,” she said. “We never needed Mariela for us to talk about us. What she’s done is sort of made the topic more accessible, more common in places where this conversation wouldn’t be happening unless there was a queer person present or a queer problem to contend with.”
Mabel Cuesta, a lesbian Cuban-born writer who is an assistant professor in the University of Houston’s Department of Hispanic Studies, noted that police continue to raid private gay parties — Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar and French fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier were among the hundreds of people detained at a popular gay nightclub in Havana in 1997.
Independent LGBT rights groups and publications remain banned in Cuba, while the government requires officially sanctioned clubs to be heterosexual. Authorities arrested members of the Cuban Association of Gays and Lesbians, an independent LGBT rights group, after the government shut it down in 1997.
Ignacio Estrada Cepero (Photo courtesy of Cuba Archive)
Ignacio Estrada Cepero, a gay HIV/AIDS activist who founded the Cuban League Against AIDS in 2003, said from Havana that those with the virus in the country continue to face discrimination. Until 1993, the Cuban government forcibly quarantined people with HIV/AIDS in state-run sanitaria. Estrada, who is positive, noted that 577 Cubans with the virus remain in prison for what he described as the crime of “pre-criminal social dangerousness.”
Observers credit the country’s condom distribution campaign and sexual education curriculum for producing one of the world’s lowest HIV infection rates. Cubans with the virus have access to free anti-retroviral drugs through the country’s health care system, but Estrada complained that these medications do not always reach those who need them.
“What we’re confronting in Cuba is a situation where people with HIV/AIDS… are living without,” he said. “We don’t have access to medication and our rights are violated.”
Jafari Allen, assistant professor of anthropology and African American studies at Yale University who has conducted research in Cuba, was also on the panel.
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.
Rehoboth Beach
Rehoboth Summer Kickoff Party set for May 15 with Ashley Biden
The Washington Blade’s 19th annual Summer Kickoff Party is scheduled for Friday, May 15 in Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Ashley Biden, daughter of President Joe Biden, has joined the list of speakers, the Blade announced. She will accept an award on behalf of her brother Beau Biden for his LGBTQ advocacy work as Delaware attorney general. (Her appearance was rescheduled from last year.)
The event, to be held this year at Diego’s (37298 Rehoboth Ave. Ext.) from 5-7 p.m., is a fundraiser for the Blade Foundation’s Steve Elkins Memorial Fellowship in Journalism, which funds a summer position reporting on LGBTQ news in Delaware. This year’s recipient will be introduced at the event.
The event will also feature remarks from state Rep. Claire Snyder-Hall. New CAMP Rehoboth Executive Director Dr. Robin Brennan and Blade editor Kevin Naff will also speak. The event is generously sponsored by Realtor Justin Noble, The Avenue Inn & Spa, and Diego’s.
A suggested donation of $25 is partially tax deductible and includes a drink ticket and light appetizers. Tickets are available in advance at bladefoundation.org/rehoboth or at the door.
District of Columbia
Curve magazine honors Washington Blade publisher
Lynne Brown named to 2026 Power List
Washington Blade Publisher Lynne Brown has been named to the 2026 Curve Power List celebrating LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary individuals in North America who are blazing trails in their chosen fields.
“From sports and entertainment icons to corporate leaders and lawmakers, these individuals are breaking barriers, challenging norms, and shaping the future,” Curve Foundation/Curve magazine said in announcing this year’s list, which includes ABC newscaster Robin Roberts, comedian/actress Hannah Einbinder, and singer/actress Renee Rapp, among others.
Brown has worked for the Washington Blade for nearly 40 years. She was named publisher in 2007 before becoming a co-owner in 2010.
“I am honored to be recognized by Curve magazine during Lesbian Visibility Week,” Brown said. “Receiving this Curve honor is twofold. I was an early subscriber to Curve. I enjoy the product and know its history. Its journalism, layout and humorous features have inspired me.
“As an owner/publisher, receiving recognition from a similar source acknowledges my work and efforts, with a sincerity I truly appreciate. Franco Stevens, the publisher of Curve, is a business person of duration, experience, and purpose. The fact that they are in the media business, and honoring me and my publication makes it a tiny bit sweeter.”
Nominations for the Curve Power List come from the community: peers, mentors, fans, and employers.
Curve explained the significance of the list in its announcement: “An annual, publicly nominated list of impactful LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary changemakers is crucial in current times to counter discrimination, legislative rollbacks, hostility, and the invisibility of queer women within mainstream and marginal spaces and endeavors. Such a list also fosters encouragement and solidarity, and elevates voices and achievements—from high-profile roles to under appreciated areas of life.”
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