News
Chile’s first openly gay elected official takes office
Jaime Parada Hoyl won a seat on the Providencia municipal council on Oct. 28
Jaime Parada Hoyl on Oct. 28 became Chile’s first openly gay candidate elected to office. (Photo courtesy of Jaime Parada Hoyl)
A Chilean LGBT rights activist who became the first openly gay political candidate elected in the South American country officially took office on Thursday.
Jaime Parada Hoyl, spokesperson for the Movement of Homosexual Integration and Liberation (MOVILH,) is one of five candidates who won seats on the municipal council in Providencia, a wealthy enclave in Santiago, the country’s capital, on Oct. 28. He wore a gay Pride flag on his lapel during the inauguration ceremony.
“It is further proof that Chile is a country that is changing,” he told the Washington Blade hours after he took office, noting he remains thankful to those who voted for him. “Providencia, the third wealthiest commune in the country, was believed to be a conservative stronghold. Today, without question, I was elected with a strong vote, precisely because I ran a campaign focused on the demands of the LGBTI population and the effects it had on local life in [Providencia.]”
Parada, who is among the nine LGBT Latin American activists who met with their American counterparts in September during a State Department-organized trip, conceded he was surprised by how some Providencia residents responded to his campaign.
“Many people, including older people, told me on the street, ‘I voted for you because you are brave,’” he said. “I never thought that my platform would resonate with generations that are usually seen as more conservative.”
Parada’s election is the latest in a series of events over the last year that have highlighted the South American country’s increasingly visible LGBT rights movement.
President Sebastián Piñera in July signed a hate crimes and anti-discrimination bill with sexual orientation and gender identity and expression roughly four months after a group of self-described neo-Nazis allegedly beat Daniel Zamurio to death in a Santiago park because he was gay.
Thousands of Santiaguïnos marched in the streets of the capital in the days and weeks after the March 3 attack that had left him in a coma. An estimated 80,000 people also took part in an LGBT rights march in Santiago in June.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights in February ruled in favor of lesbian Judge Karen Atala who lost custody of her three daughters to her ex-husband in 2005 because of her sexual orientation. Three gay Chilean couples who had been denied marriage licenses filed a lawsuit with the same tribunal in September after the country’s Supreme Court ruled against them.
In addition to Parada; voters in Lampa outside Santiago re-elected transgender Councilwoman Alejandra González during the country’s Oct. 28 municipal elections. Trans activist Zuliana Araya also won a seat on the Municipal Council in the coastal city of Valparaíso.
Josefa Errázuriz, who backed Parada’s campaign, defeated long-time Providencia Mayor Cristián Labbé, a retired colonel who was a member of the secret police force that operated in years after Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship began in 1973. She stressed the need to promote diversity and equality during her inaugural speech.
“To our neighbors in Providencia, the new Providencia does not exist without you,” said Errázuriz. “We play an active role in it. I pledge to all of Providencia’s inhabitants that in order to incorporate our projects I will be the mayor for everyone because in Providencia there will be no space for discrimination.”
Parada said bringing diversity education to local schools, implementing anti-discrimination campaigns and helping “those neighbors who feel vulnerable” are among his priorities.
“We have a big task ahead of us,” he said.
State Department
Democracy Forward files FOIA request for State Department bathroom policy records
April 20 memo outlined anti-transgender rule
Democracy Forward on Tuesday filed a Freedom of Information Act request for records on the State Department’s new bathroom policy.
A memo titled “Updates Regarding Biological Sex and Intimate Spaces, Including Restrooms” that the State Department issued on April 20 notes employees can no longer use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
“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, a conservative news website that first reported on the memo. “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.”
Democracy Forward’s FOIA request that the Washington Blade exclusively obtained on Tuesday is specifically seeking a copy of the memo that details the State Department’s new bathroom policy. Democracy Forward has also requested “all” memo-specific communications between the State Department’s Bureau of Global Public Affairs and the Daily Signal from April 1-21.
Federal Government
House Republicans push nationwide ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill
Measures would restrict federal funding for LGBTQ-affirming schools
Republicans have been gaining ground in reshaping education policy to be less inclusive toward LGBTQ students at the state level, and now they are turning their focus to Capitol Hill.
Some GOP lawmakers are pushing for a nationwide “Don’t Say Gay” bill, doubling down on their commitment to being the party of “traditional family values” by excluding anyone who does not identify with their sex at birth.
The largest anti-LGBTQ education legislation to reach the House chamber is House Bill 2616 — the Parental Rights Over the Education and Care of Their Kids Act, or the PROTECT Kids Act. The PROTECT Kids Act, proposed by U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), and co-sponsored by U.S. Reps. Burgess Owens (R-Utah), Mary Miller (R-Ill.), Robert Onder (R-Mo.), and Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.), would require any public elementary and middle schools that receive federal funding to require parental consent to change a child’s gender expression in school.
The bill, which was discussed during Tuesday’s House Rules Committee hearing, would specifically require any schools that get federal money from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 — which was created to minimize financial discrepancies in education for low-income students — to get parental approval before identifying any child’s gender identity as anything other than what was provided to the school initially. This includes getting approval before allowing children to use their preferred locker room or bathroom.
It reads that any school receiving this funding “shall obtain parental consent before changing a covered student’s (1) gender markers, pronouns, or preferred name on any school form; or (2) sex-based accommodations, including locker rooms or bathrooms.”
LGBTQ rights advocates have criticized both national and state efforts to require parental permission to use a child’s preferred gender identity, as it raises issues of at-home safety — especially if the home is not LGBTQ-affirming — and could lead to the outing of transgender or gender-curious students.
A follow-up bill, HB 2617, proposed by Owens, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, prevents the use of federal funding to “advance concepts related to gender ideology,” using the definition from President Donald Trump’s 2025 Executive Order 14168, making that an enshrined definition in law of sex rather than just by executive order. There is also a bill making its way through the senate with the same text— Senate Bill 2251.
Advocates have also criticized this follow-up legislation, as it would restrict school staff — including teachers and counselors — from acknowledging trans students’ identities or providing any support. They have said that this kind of isolation can worsen mental health outcomes for LGBTQ youth and allows for education to be politicized rather than being based in reality.
David Stacy, the Human Rights Campaign’s vice president of government affairs, called this legislation out for using LGBTQ children as political pawns in an ideology fight — one that could greatly harm the safety of these children if passed.
“Trans kids are not a political agenda — they are students who deserve safety and affirmation at school like anyone else,” Stacy said in a statement. “Despite the many pressing issues facing our nation, House Republicans continue their bizarre obsession with trans people. H.R. 2616 does not protect children. It targets them. This bill is cruel, and we’re prepared to fight it.”
This is similar to Florida House Bills 1557 and 1069, referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and “Don’t Say They” bill, respectively, restricting classroom discussions on sexual orientation and gender identity, prohibiting the use of pronouns consistent with one’s gender identity, expanding book banning procedures, and censoring health curriculum.
The American Civil Liberties Union is tracking 233 bills related to restricting student and educator rights in the U.S.
Botswana’s government has repealed a provision of its colonial-era penal code that criminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations.
The country’s High Court in 2019 struck down the provision. The Batswana government in 2022 said it would abide by the ruling after country’s Court of Appeals upheld it.
The government on March 26 announced the repeal of the penal code’s “unnatural offenses” section that specifically referenced any person who “has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature” and “permits any other person to have carnal knowledge of him or her against the order of nature.”
Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana, a Batswana advocacy group known by the acronym LEGABIBO, challenged the criminalization law with the support of the Southern Africa Litigation Center. LEGABIBO in a statement it posted to its Facebook on April 25 welcomed the repeal.
“For many, these provisions were not just words on paper — they were lived realities,” said LEGABIBO. “They affected access to healthcare, safety, employment, and the freedom to love and exist openly.”
“LEGABIBO believes that the deletion of these sections is a necessary and long-overdue step toward restoring dignity and aligning our legal framework with constitutional values of equality and human rights,” it added. “It is a clear message that LGBTIQ+ persons are not criminals, and that their lives and relationships deserve protection, not punishment.”
LEGABIBO further stressed that “while this does not erase the harm of the past, it creates space for healing, inclusion, and continued progress toward full equality.”
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