News
Honduran gay leader appeals to U.S. for help
Palacios on U.S. tour raising awareness of 89 anti-LGBT murders
Jose Pepe Palacios is scheduled to meet with members of Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s staff. (Photo courtesy Gay Liberation Network)
Jose Pepe Palacios says his mission is to inform the U.S. government and LGBT Americans that at least 89 LGBT people in Honduras, including gay rights advocates, have been murdered since military leaders ousted his country’s elected president in a 2009 coup.
Palacios, a resident of the capital city of Tegucigalpa, began a seven-city U.S. tour in Chicago on Jan. 30. He was scheduled to arrive in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, where, among other appearances, he was to speak on Friday at noon at a public gathering at the offices of the National Council of Churches at 110 Maryland Ave., N.E., on Capitol Hill.
He told the Washington Blade that he hopes to build support in the U.S. for a coalition of LGBT and progressive groups in his country that seek to peacefully challenge anti-democratic forces they believe are responsible for many of the murders.
“The Obama administration has said they will promote human rights and LGBT rights,” Palacios said. “And Hillary Clinton said that human rights are gay rights. So one of the reasons I’m doing this is to ask for support to pressure the Honduran government to investigate these cases and also to create awareness of the number of these cases.”
Palacios was scheduled to meet this week with members of the staff of U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) and U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.).
Andy Thayer, co-founder of the Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network, which is one of the sponsors of Palacios’ U.S. tour, said human rights activists in Honduras believe many if not most of the LGBT murders following the 2009 coup were motivated by political retribution. According to Thayer, a majority of the LGBT community in Honduras has been supportive of a resistance movement that has opposed the post-coup government and participates in demonstrations against government leaders.
Palacios said that among the LGBT people murdered since the coup were gay activist Walter Torchez and gay candidate for the Honduran Congress, Eric Martinez Alvia, an organizer for the Liberty and Refoundation Party, or LIBRE, which represents many of the resistance groups protesting against the current government.
Palacios is a founding member of Diversity Movement in Resistance (MDR), an LGBT advocacy organization. He is also a member of the National Steering Committee of the Honduras National Front of Popular Resistance (NRP), which has staged protest demonstrations against the government.
Thayer called the LGBT murders “a systematic campaign of targeted hate crimes and political assassination.” He said that as the country gears up for its first contested election since the coup, set to take place in November, “many fear that the violence will get even worse.”
The LGBT murders come at a time when Honduras has the distinction of having the highest murder rate of any country in the world. The U.S. State Department’s country report on Honduras says many of the murders are related to warring drug cartels and abject poverty that forces desperate people to commit armed robberies often resulting in killings.
The report acknowledges that some of the murders are due to political rivalries. Human rights observers have said corrupt police officers or law enforcement officials allied with entrenched political factions are also believed to be responsible for some of the murders, including the slayings of LGBT activists.
Palacios said that of the 89 LGBT murders since 2009, 52 of the victims were transgender women.
“The United States is focused on helping the Honduran government combat impunity, resolve murder cases, reform the Honduran police, and strengthen human rights institutions,” said Evan Owen, press officer for the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.
The 2009 coup, which resulted in the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya, took place amid a constitutional dispute over whether Zelaya had authority to call a non-binding referendum to determine whether public support existed to hold a constitutional convention and make significant changes in the nation’s political system.
As an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Zelaya’s move toward constitutional changes alarmed the conservative factions in the country, who feared he would put in place a Chavez-style socialist government. Supporters, including many LGBT activists, believed Zelaya was seeking to make needed reforms to lift the majority of the country’s population from conditions of poverty and despair.
The Obama administration denounced the coup and called for an immediate restoration of the country’s democratic institutions. But activists in the U.S. and Honduras have said the U.S. appeared to have been privately supportive of the coup. Palacios said it is widely known in the country that Honduran military leaders, who took Zelaya into custody, flew him to a U.S. military base in Honduras before flying him to Costa Rica, where he remained in exile for several years.
Further suspicions of U.S. motives surfaced a few months later, when the U.S. gave its backing to elections called and arranged by coup leaders under supervision of international observers. The country’s current president, Porfirio Lobo of the conservative National Party, won that election.
Owen of the State Department declined to comment on allegations by activists that the U.S. support for the current government was giving tacit support for violence against gays and others by corrupt elements, including police, associated with the government.
“We strongly support the rule of law and respect for the constitutional separation of powers as well as a fair and transparent democratic process,” Owen said of the U.S. policy toward Honduras. He said the U.S., among other things, is providing assistance to the Honduran government to “strengthen its investigative capacity” to combat possible human rights abuses.
With that as a backdrop, the left-leaning LIBRE Party last year nominated through a primary election Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro, as its candidate for president in the November 2013 election. In a development that has thrilled LGBT activists, including Palacios, the LGBT supportive Castro (who’s not related to Cuba’s Fidel Castro) has emerged as the leading candidate in a Gallup Poll conducted in January.
Her husband, who can’t run for president under the constitution’s term limit provision, is running for a seat in the Congress.
In what LGBT advocates consider a historic development, a transgender woman and an openly gay man ran in last year’s primary for congressional seats as LIBRE candidates. Both lost their races, but Palacios called their candidacies and the LIBRE party’s support for LGBT equality a major advance for his country.
With the candidates from the two longstanding “establishment” parties — the right-wing National Party and the center-right Liberal Party — trailing Castro in the polls, Palacios said he fears conservative forces will manufacture a “crisis” in an attempt to postpone or cancel the election. None of the other candidates have expressed support for LGBT rights, Palacios said.
“That’s why we are asking a number of organizations from the international community to go in delegations in November to observe the electoral process and make sure it’s a just process.”
Florida
Key West Pride’s state funding pulled
Republican Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed anti-DEI bill
Following the passage of anti-DEI legislation in Florida, Key West will no longer receive any state funding for its future Pride events.
In a letter provided to the Key West Business Guild, the LGBTQ visitor and tourism center for the string of islands, a senior assistant county attorney for Monroe County officially said that the organization would no longer receive funding for its ongoing projects as a result of Senate Bill 1134 and House Bill 1001, starting in 2027.
The popular Key West Pride, gay men–leaning Tropical Heat weekend, and Womenfest will no longer receive any state money. This is something that Gay Key West Visitor Center Executive Director Rob Dougherty highlighted will shift how all the largest LGBTQ events in the Keys will be held after this year.
He said that the explanation is solely a result of SB 1134 and HB 1001, which limits the official actions of local governments by “prohibiting counties and municipalities, respectively, from funding or promoting or taking official action as it relates to diversity, equity, and inclusion …”
The legislation is being used to impose restrictions on funding events that exclude — whereas the events’ true purpose is to uplift already marginalized groups.
“Womenfest lost it [funding] because it’s a women’s-only event. Tropical Heat lost it because it’s a men’s-only event … that’s how this is being applied.”
This will not impact anything this year, Dougherty assured the Washington Blade; however, the future is not as certain.
“The law that (Republican Florida) Gov. DeSantis signed does not go into effect until Jan. 1, so for 2026 we’re okay,” Dougherty told the Blade. “But it impacts Key West Pride 2027, it impacts Tropical Heat 2027 and Womenfest — so we have lost all funding for those three events.”
He said that this will amount to a large chunk of the expected funding for the LGBTQ celebrations, which the Key West tourism board says is “internationally known as a gay mecca.”
“We’re due to lose about $200,000. Not all of that is direct, but the way that the Tourist Development Council (TDC) distributes their money, about $75,000 of it is for Key West Pride, and that helps to pay for things like marketing, swag, and other things that promote the event.”
He went on to explain that marketing to many major metropolitan areas with large LGBTQ populations may not see the same Key West advertisements and push as in years past — and that is the point.
“Our digital marketing, our print marketing, our SEO marketing — all of that is paid for through there, and it targets places with direct flights like Washington, D.C., New York, Philly, Atlanta, Dallas. So it’s definitely going to impact that.”
The money that will stop coming is not just to run events and celebrations, he explained. Money that goes back directly into the community is going to be hardest hit.
“An estimated 250,000 LGBTQ+ travelers make it to Key West on an annual basis, and on a very conservative basis, for every LGBTQ+ person there are two to four allies traveling with the same values.”
“The TDC also estimates that $1,500+ is spent per person per visit … so if you take those figures and multiply those all together, it comes up to about $1.2 billion … that is potentially going to be lost.”
He says that this will intrinsically change how Key West’s tourism — especially the large LGBTQ side of it — will run, especially since gay vacations need a foundation and expectation of safety and support to blossom.
“We travel based upon where we feel most welcome,” Dougherty said. “Key West has always been its own little place … the LGBTQ+ history of Key West and everything about Key West has always been a little bit weird for people, and that’s why they come here.”
The Guild was formed in 1978 to encourage summer tourism and support Key West’s gay community — becoming the nation’s first LGBTQ destination marketing organization. It has grown tremendously from its original membership to now include more than 475 enterprises representing virtually every facet of the island’s business community.
He also went on to say that this should be eye-opening for anywhere considered an LGBTQ destination, regardless of whether it is in a blue state or a red one.
“I think it can be a wake-up call across the country, because if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.”
Federal Government
DOE investigates Smith College’s trans-inclusive policy
Mass. college accused of violating Title IX
The U.S. Department of Education announced on Monday that it opened an investigation into Smith College for admitting transgender women.
Smith College, a private and famously all-women’s college in Northampton, Mass., established in 1871 and opened in 1875, has a long list of women who make up its historic alumni — including first ladies, influential political figures, and cultural leaders.
The DOE released a statement about the investigation into the institution through the Department’s Office for Civil Rights, saying it was looking into the possibility that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was violated by allowing trans women, referred to in the statement as “biological males,” into women’s intimate spaces protected by IX.
The statement explicitly highlighted that this stems from trans women being granted “access to women-only spaces, including dormitories, bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletic teams” while also allowing their audience into the school itself.
This is the first time the Trump-Vance administration has taken a step into admissions processes, a stark jump past investigating policies that allowed trans women to participate in women’s sports and use women’s bathrooms, and allows for the administration to go more after trans acceptance policy as a whole.
Smith’s admission policy allows for “any applicants who self-identify as women,” including “cis, trans, and nonbinary women,” according to the college’s website, and has since 2015, when it updated its policy.
“The college is fully committed to its institutional values, including compliance with civil rights laws,” Smith’s statement in response to the DOE’s investigation said. “The college does not comment on pending government investigations.”
“An all-women’s college loses all meaning if it is admitting biological males,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey. “Allowing biological males into spaces designed for women raises serious concerns about privacy, fairness, and compliance under federal law. The Trump administration will continue to uphold the law and fight to restore common sense.”
This move continues to align with actions the Trump-Vance administration has taken to curtail LGBTQ — and specifically trans — rights in America, as members of the administration attempt to break down safeguards and protections that have long been used to protect marginalized communities.
Since Trump took office in his second term, there have been significant legal challenges. According to the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association, there are over 35 court cases that have emerged since his second swearing-in that directly relate to the administration’s attempts to minimize the rights and protections of trans Americans — from medical care and educational protections to military policy.
Much of this anti-trans policy direction was outlined beginning in 2022 with the Project 2025 playbook, which Trump officials have used as a guide to scale back protections for LGBTQ people, Black Americans, poor and Indigenous communities, while also increasing costs for lower-income Americans and providing tax cuts to the wealthy and ultra-wealthy. The plans also “erode” Americans’ freedoms and remove crucial checks and balances that have allowed the executive branch to remain in line with the Constitution without becoming too powerful over either the courts or the legislative branch.
Ukraine
Ukrainian MPs advance new Civil Code without protections for same-sex couples
Advocacy groups say proposal would ‘contradict European standards’
Ukrainian lawmakers have advanced a proposed new Civil Code that does not contain legal protections for same-sex couples.
The Kyiv Independent reported the proposal passed on its first reading on April 28 by a 254-2 vote margin.
The newspaper notes more than two dozen advocacy groups in a statement said some of the proposed Civil Code’s provisions “contradict European standards” and “violate Ukraine’s commitments under its EU accession process.”
“The most worrying provisions are those that make it impossible for a court to recognize the existence of a family relationship between people of the same sex,” the statement reads. “This overturns the already established case law on this issue, and closes the only legal avenue that allows partners to somehow protect their rights in individual cases.”
“Moreover, the draft completely ignores the obligations that Ukraine should have already fulfilled as part of its accession to the EU, as it lacks provisions that would allow people of the same sex to register their relationships,” it adds.
“The provisions also stipulate that all marriages concluded by people who have changed their gender automatically become invalid,” the statement further notes. “This is not just stagnation in the field of human rights or lack of progress on the path to European integration, but an actual setback in the legal sphere.”
Olena Shevchenko, chair of Insight, a Ukrainian LGBTQ advocacy group, in an April 28 Facebook post said the new Civil Code “is a step back on upholding the rights of women and the LGBT+ community in Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian constitution defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2022 publicly backed civil partnerships for same-sex couples.
The Ukrainian Supreme Court on Feb. 25 recognized Zoryan Kis and Tymur Levchuk — a gay couple who has lived together since 2013 and married in the U.S. in 2021 — as a family. Ukraine the day before marked four years since Russia began its war against the country.
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The university that refuses to let go
