News
Cuban LGBT activists cite progress, ongoing harassment
Authorities detained Leannes Imbert Acosta in Havanafor 12 hours on Sept. 11

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, 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.
District of Columbia
D.C. police investigating threat of shooting at WorldPride festival
Police chief says weekend was ‘success without incident’

D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith said at a June 9 press conference that police investigators are looking for a man who reportedly threatened to “shoot up” the WordPride festival on Sunday, June 8, inside the fence-enclosed festival grounds.
Smith, who joined D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser at the press conference to discuss public safety issues, said aside from the shooting threat, WorldPride events took place “without an incident’ and called WorldPride 2025 D.C. a success.
“I think last evening at the festival footprint there was an individual inside the festival who said there was an individual who was there and that they were going to shoot up the place in some terminology they used,” Smith told news media reporters.
“As you know, the event went off without incident,” she said. “We did have appropriate resources down there to address it. We did put out a photo of the individual – white male. That’s all we have right now. But our team is working very diligently to find out who that individual is.”
Smith added that D.C. police made 15 arrests during the WorldPride weekend with at least 23 violent crimes that occurred across the city but which she said were not related to WorldPride.
“There was a lot going on,” she said. “But I’m so grateful we were able to have a WorldPride 2025 in this city that was very successful.”
In response to reporters’ questions, Bowser said she regretted that an incident of violence took place in Dupont Circle Park shortly after she persuaded the U.S. Park Service to reverse its earlier decision to close Dupont Circle Park during WorldPride weekend.
The mayor was referring to an incident early Saturday evening, June 7, in which two juveniles were stabbed inside the park following a fight, according to D.C. police. Police said the injuries were nonfatal.
Bowser noted that she agreed with community activists and nearby residents that Dupont Circle Park, which has been associated with LGBTQ events for many years, should not be closed during WorldPride.
Park Service officials have said their reason for closing the park was that acts of vandalism and violence had occurred there during past LGBTQ Pride weekends, even though LGBTQ Pride organizers have said the vandalism and violent acts were not associated with Pride events.
“I think if I were standing here this morning and we hadn’t opened up the park you would be asking me were there any requests for not pushing hard to have a D.C. park opened that’s important to the LGBT community during Pride,” Bowser told reporters.
“So, any time that there is harm to someone, and our responsibility, we regard it as our number one responsibility to keep the city safe and keep from harm’s way, certainly I have some regrets,” she said. “But I know I was working very hard to balance what our community was calling for with our preparations. And that was the decision I made,” she said, referring to her call to reopen Dupont Circle Park.
Bowser also noted that the National Park Service would not likely have agreed to reverse its decision to reopen Dupont Circle Park if an event had not been planned to take place there over the WorldPride weekend.
She was referring to a Saturday, June 7, D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation “DISCO” party in Dupont Circle Park, which took place after the decision to reopen the park.
“Step Outside, Feel The Beat, And Shine With Pride,” a flyer announcing the event states.
District of Columbia
WorldPride wraps up after epic weekend of events
Historic LGBTQ celebration brings color, music, activism to nation’s capital

After more than two years of preparation, thousands of volunteers, countless LGBTQ community members and allies, queer celebrities, and hundreds of events across the District, WorldPride in Washington has come to a close.
“It has been an extremely powerful three weeks,” Ryan Bos, executive director of the Capital Pride Alliance, told the Blade on Sunday at the International March on Washington for Freedom. “This weekend has been well above expectations in relation to the energy and the crowds.”
WorldPride celebrations were set to kick off on May 31 with Shakira’s “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour,” but following reports of stage issues, the Colombian superstar canceled her D.C. show — and her Boston stop the day prior.
The festivities got into full swing on June 4 with the 2025 Human Rights Conference. Held at the J.W. Marriott, the three-day gathering brought together more than 800 attendees, including Jessica Stern, Spanish Sen. Carla Antonelli, Peruvian Congresswoman Susel Paredes, and Mariann Edgar Budde of the Washington National Cathedral.

Following the conference, Capital Pride hosted the annual Capital Pride Honors and Gala, recognizing outstanding figures in LGBTQ advocacy. Honorees included Cathy Renna, Jerry St. Louis, Ernest Hopkins, Lamar Braithwaite, Rev. Dr. Donna Claycomb Sokol, Kriston Pumphrey, Gia Martinez, Kraig Williams, and SMYAL.
As the week went on, the tone shifted from formal to festive. Venues across the city filled with partygoers draped in glitter and rainbows, dancing and celebrating love in all forms. From the 17th Street Block Party and Full Bloom celebration to Kinetic’s dance events and the Pride on the Pier boat parade and fireworks (presented by the Washington Blade), nearly every corner of D.C. turned into a dancefloor. The Wharf was transformed into a Pride dance party on both Friday and Saturday nights for the Blade’s annual Pride on the Pier and culminated in the city’s only Pride fireworks display.

The annual Pride Parade was a standout. The nearly six-hour-long march drew hundreds of thousands to 14th Street, stretching toward the Capitol. A 1,000-foot rainbow flag led the way as parade grand marshals Renée Rapp and Laverne Cox waved to cheering crowds. Confetti, beads, condoms, and joy poured from elaborate floats.

The parade fed into the WorldPride Street Festival and Concert, which for the first time spanned two days. The festival featured hundreds of booths — from queer merch and leather vendors to nonprofit fundraisers — and drew thousands of LGBTQ attendees under sunny skies.
Evenings wrapped with free concerts headlined by LGBTQ talent and allies, including Cynthia Erivo and Doechii. Other crowd favorites included Khalid , David Archuleta, and Kristine W.
At the RFK Stadium grounds, the WorldPride Music Festival drew thousands for powerhouse performances by Troye Sivan, RuPaul, Kim Petras, and Renée Rapp. Under glowing rainbow lights, fans danced and sang through the night.
Despite security concerns, no major issues were reported, though a few minor incidents occurred.
One of the biggest pre-event concerns was safety for LGBTQ attendees amid rising anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and anti-trans policies from the Trump administration. Multiple countries issued travel warnings for trans and gender-nonconforming individuals visiting the U.S., but turnout — including trans folks and their allies — remained strong and visible throughout.

Another flashpoint was the temporary closure of Dupont Circle, a cornerstone of D.C.’s — and the nation’s — LGBTQ rights movement. The U.S. Park Service initially closed the park, citing the need to “secure the park, deter potential violence, reduce the risk of destructive acts and decrease the need for extensive law enforcement presence” — despite the MPD chief’s request to keep it open. Strong public backlash led to a reversal, and soon the park was full of rainbow-clad LGBTQ people celebrating freely.
On Saturday night following the parade, two juveniles were stabbed in Dupont Circle. However, MPD later confirmed the incident was unrelated to WorldPride celebrations.
The weekend ended with the International Rally and March on Washington for Freedom. Hundreds of LGBTQ people and allies gathered at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to hear prominent activists speak on why Pride is still essential in 2025. Speakers called out rising hate and violence — and named Trump directly. As rain began to fall, the crowd only grew, marching from the Memorial to the Capitol, signs raised high, ending WorldPride as the first Pride began — as a protest.

Congress
51 lawmakers sign letter to Rubio about Andry Hernández Romero
U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) spoke about gay Venezuelan asylum seeker

Forty nine members of Congress and two U.S. senators, all Democrats, signed a letter Monday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding information about Andry Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan national who was deported to El Salvador and imprisoned in the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT
“We are deeply concerned about the health and wellbeing of Mr. Hernández Romero, who left
Venezuela after experiencing discriminatory treatment because of his sexual orientation and
opposition to Venezuela’s authoritarian government,” the lawmakers wrote. They urged the State Department to facilitate his access to legal counsel and take steps to return him.
After passing a credible fear interview and while awaiting a court hearing in March, agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reportedly transported Hernández out of the U.S. without due process or providing evidence that he had committed any crime.
In the months since, pressure has been mounting. This past WorldPride weekend in Washington was kicked off with a rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and a fundraiser, both supporting Hernández and attended by high profile figures including members of Congress, like U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.)
U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) was among the four members who wrote to Rubio about Hernández in April. On Friday, he spoke with the Washington Blade before he and his colleagues, many more of them this time, sent the second letter to Rubio.
“There’s a lot of obviously horrible things that are happening with the asylum process and visas and international students and just the whole of our value system as it relates to immigration,” he said, which “obviously, is under attack.”
“Andry’s case, I think, is very unique and different,” the congressman continued. “There is, right now, public support that is building. I think he has captured people’s attention. And it’s growing — this is a movement that is not slowing down. He’s going to be a focal point for Pride this year. I mean, I think people around the world are interested in the story.”
Garcia said he hopes the momentum will translate to progress on requests for proof of life, adding that he was optimistic after meeting with Hernández’s legal team earlier on Friday.
“I mean, the president, Kristi Noem, Marco Rubio — any of these folks could could ask to see if just he’s alive,” the congressman said, referring to the secretary of Homeland Security, whom he grilled during a hearing last month. ICE is housed under the DHS.
“People need to remember, the most important part of this that people need to remember, this isn’t just an immigration issue,” Garcia noted. “This is a due process issue. This is an asylum case. We gave him this appointment. The United States government told him to come to his appointment, and then we sent him to another country, not his own, and locked him up with no due process. That’s the issue.”
Garcia said that so far neither he nor his colleagues nor Hernández’s legal team were able to get “any answers from the administration, which is why we’re continuing to advocate, which is why we’re continuing to reach out to Secretary Rubio.”
“A lot more Democrats are now engaged on this issue,” he said. U.S. Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, both from California, joined Monday’s letter. “The more that we can get folks to understand how critical this is, the better. The momentum matters here. And I think Pride does provide an opportunity to share his story.”
Asked what the next steps might be, Garcia said “we’re letting his legal team really take the lead on strategy,” noting that Hernández’s attorneys have “already engaged with the ACLU” and adding, “It’s very possible that the Supreme Court could take this on.”
In the meantime, the congressman said “part of our job is to make sure that that people don’t forget Andry and that there is awareness about him, and I think there’s a responsibility, particularly during WorldPride, and during Pride, all throughout the month — like, this is a story that people should know. People should know his name and and people should be aware of what’s going on.”
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