National
Gay Fla. lawmaker seeks to advance LGBT issues
Joe Saunders represents portions of Orange County in Tallahassee
Florida state Rep. Joe Saunders (D-Orlando). (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
ORLANDO, Fla.—Gay Florida state Rep. Joe Saunders (D-Orlando) was a sophomore at the University of Central Florida in 2003 when two friends with whom he attended an off-campus party were attacked because of their sexual orientation. The police arrested the assailants, but Saunders said the immediate response at UCF “wasn’t as reactive as I felt like it needed to be.”
He wrote his first press release on the day after the attack, and later stood on a box outside the UCF student union with a sign in support of LGBT rights. The university eventually added LGBT-specific language to its non-discrimination policy. It also began offering domestic partner benefits to its employees.
“It was an outrageous moment,” Saunders, who was Equality Florida’s state field director before his election, told the Washington Blade during an interview at his Orlando office. “The police came. The triage moment happened, but the educational moment, the advocacy moment wasn’t generated. I just felt like I wanted to do something and help the broader UCF community understand that this thing had even happened, that in 2003 people were still being attacked because they were gay. I just thought that was crazy and that kind of anchored me and kind of set me on a path of advocacy that eventually got me to work with Equality Florida and turned me into kind of a political creature.”
Saunders and state Rep. Dave Richardson (D-Miami Beach) made history last year as the first openly gay candidates elected to the state legislature.
His partner Donald Rupe, who teaches in nearby Kissimmee in Osceola County, joined him on the floor of the state House of Representatives in Tallahassee on Nov. 20 during his official swearing in.
“Before that moment, nobody like me had stood on the floor of the House with a partner like mine and taken that oath, and i think that was really powerful,” Saunders, 29, said. “Certainly folks within the LGBT community understood how important that was.”
Saunders represents a large swath of northeast Orange County that includes UCF, Valencia College and Naval Support Activity Orlando. More than 30 percent of House District 49’s population is Latino, with a large Puerto Rican community in the city’s Union Park neighborhood.
He told the Blade he plans to sponsor a bill — the Competitive Workforce Act — that would add sexual orientation and gender identity and expression to Florida’s non-discrimination and civil rights laws. Saunders also described a measure that would create a statewide domestic partnership registry as “a big deal” during the 2013 legislative session that will begin next month.
“We will find support for both of those bills,” he said. “How much support I think is certainly a question that kind of depends on how hard we all work, but there’s something different. It’s a different time to be doing work around LGBT equality.”
Saunders spoke with the Blade the day after Gov. Rick Scott unveiled his proposed $73.4 billion state budget that includes a projected surplus.
The governor hopes to earmark some of those additional funds to public education and health and human services projects, but his proposed 2013-2014 budget would cut funding to county health clinics. It would also not provide additional funding for mental health and substance abuse programs.
The Florida AIDS Drug Assistance Program in 2010 instituted a waiting list for those with HIV seeking access to anti-retrovirals because of statewide budget cuts during the recession.
The National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors noted nobody with the virus was on the waiting list as of Dec. 12, but Saunders stressed an online sales tax is one way to raise revenue to avoid future cuts.
“The HIV/AIDS community needs to be really vigilant about watching where those surplus funds go,” he said. “We obviously need to be thoughtful about the impact that health and human services will have on the HIV/AIDS community.”
Saunders conceded that the GOP-controlled legislature in Tallahassee “is a problem” when it comes to advancing LGBT-specific issues, but he said he remains optimistic.
“The Democrats really are a minority of voices and one of the things we have to break through is the stranglehold that the far right has on social policy anchored in the Republican Party, but there are a lot of young legislators this year,” he said. “I’ve already started talking with a bunch of them from the Republican Party who are just sort of — they don’t understand why we are even making a big deal about these issues anymore. To them, they’re almost there on marriage equality. When one-on-one with the door closed, there are some legislators who are ready to say privately I’d be with you on marriage. So when we start talking about a basic non-discrimination law or we talk about a domestic partnership policy, there’s work to do to even get those people into the process, but I don’t think it’s going to be as hard as some of us think it might be.”
He also spoke of the impact President Obama’s re-election – and his second inaugural address – would have on pro-LGBT efforts in Tallahassee. Saunders further recalled then-President George W. Bush’s support of a proposed federal constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman during his 2004 re-election campaign.
“The leader of the Republican Party of this country was going around, basically saying that there was something so wrong with LGBT relationships that we needed a federal constitutional amendment to protect ourselves from it,” he said. “A week ago the president of the country talked about Stonewall — and maybe more importantly he equated the movement to protect LGBT people and give our families every opportunity that everybody else does. He equated it to the same struggle that African Americans have gone through and women did when they were fighting for the right to vote at Seneca Falls, he talked about Selma, he talked about immigrant communities and the fight to make sure that those communities have access to opportunity. I think that the conversation is changing because people are understanding that while the struggle is different, the experience is different to be LGBT, at its core it’s a community that’s been denied opportunity and I think fundamentally Americans and Floridians sort of get that shouldn’t happen.”
Saunders further acknowledged there is “a culture shift” occurring “even within the Republican Party” on LGBT-specific issues.
“There are some members in this legislature that are sort of done with the wedge issues that come from this,” he said. “They’re losing votes every year because they won’t let go of this idea that gay people shouldn’t be recognized in non-discrimination policies. So hopefully that takes us somewhere.”
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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