World
State Department meets with LGBT travel representatives
Agency last week added gay-specific information to web site
Janice Jacobs, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, speaks at the Smart Traveler Day roundtable at the State Department on Feb. 20. (Photo courtesy of Esperanza Tilghman/State Department)
“We want all of our citizens to be informed about their destinations abroad and any particular challenges that they may face,” Janice Jacobs, assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Consular Affairs, said. “We want them to know about the services that are available to them at our embassies and consulates if problems should happen, despite their precautions.”
Jacobs’ comments come five days after the Bureau of Consular Affairs added LGBT-specific information to its website that includes travel warnings, alerts and other country-specific advisories. These include references to “widespread” anti-gay discrimination in Ukraine, efforts to curb “the promotion of homosexuality” in Russian cities and an advisory that urges LGBT travelers to “consider exercising caution when visiting Estonia” because of harassment and violence those who have publicly shown affection have experienced.
The country-specific profiles also include information about HIV/AIDS travel restrictions.
“It’s important that our LGBT audiences know about the resources that we provide to help U.S. citizens travel safe and travel smart,” Jacobs said.
Michelle Bernier-Toth, managing director of Overseas Citizens Services at the Bureau of Consular Affairs, further stressed the protection of Americans “is really the department’s top priority.” She and other officials sought recommendations and other feedback on the Smart Traveler Day initiative from the roughly 50 people who attended the meeting.
“It’s a start,” Bernier-Toth said. “It’s a recognition that this is a community that is on the move, is traveling. It’s an important community, an important stakeholder for us. And we are going to make it as robust and as useful as we can possibly make it.”
White House LGBT liaison Gautam Raghavan also spoke at the gathering.
He pointed out the initiative typifies the Obama administration’s commitment to equality for LGBT people. Raghavan specifically pointed out the extension of benefits to same-sex partners of foreign service officers, new regulations that make it easier to change gender markers on passports and the Global Equality Fund.
“It really shows that this is how this administration does business,” he said. “We are all about advancing equality in every place that we can find.”
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed in 2011 a during a speech she delivered in Geneva that “gay rights are human rights.” President Obama on the same day directed government agencies to consider a country’s LGBT rights record in the allocation of foreign aid.
The State Department in recent years has spoken out against anti-LGBT violence in Honduras, Jamaica, Uganda, Zimbabwe and other countries.
Clinton and Obama urged the Ugandan government to protect the rights of its LGBT residents following the Jan. 2011 murder of gay activist David Kato amid the debate over the so-called Anti-Homosexuality Bill that would impose the death penalty against anyone found guilty of repeated same-sex sexual acts. The former first lady last August honored Ugandan LGBT rights advocate Frank Mugisha and other human rights advocates at the U.S. embassy in Kampala, the country’s capital.
“Don’t ever lose context of what has been accomplished by this White House, by this secretary of State that will continue for four more years,” Charlie Rounds of the Forward Motion Group, who also chairs the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association Foundation, said. “It’s huge.”
Uganda is among the countries that continue to criminalize homosexuality. Saudi Arabia and Iran are among the seven nations that impose the death penalty upon those found guilty of same-sex sexual acts.
UNAIDS notes Australia, Israel and Singapore are among the 45 countries with travel restrictions against people with HIV/AIDS. Obama in 2009 completed the process former President George W. Bush began that lifted the ban on those with the virus from entering the country.
Bernier-Toth told the Washington Blade during the meeting the State Department rarely urges an LGBT traveler not to travel to a specific country that criminalizes homosexuality.
“The decision whether to travel is always up to the individual,” she said. “Our purpose in life is to put out that information as accurately and in a timely fashion so that people can make those smart decisions.”
IGLTA President John Tanzella added his organization tries to work with a particular destination through affiliated hotels and other travel-related businesses as opposed to boycotting them.
“There’s also gay and lesbian citizens everywhere that we eventually hurt,” he said.
Lisa Peterson of the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and Ken Kero-Mentz, president of Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies, also attended the roundtable.
Dominican Republic
Dominican court strikes down police, military sodomy ban
Nov. 18 ruling ‘a decisive step’ against discrimination
The Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Court on Nov. 18 ruled the country’s National Police and Armed Forces cannot criminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations among its members.
Human Rights Watch in a press release notes the landmark decision struck down Article 210 of the National Police’s Code of Justice and Article 260 of the Armed Forces’ Code of Justice.
Police officers and servicemembers who engaged in same sex “sodomy” faced up to two years or one year in prison respectively. Human Rights Watch in its press release said the provisions violated “constitutional guarantees to nondiscrimination, privacy, free development of personality, and the right to work” in the Dominican Republic.
“For decades, these provisions forced LGBT officers to live in fear of punishment simply for who they are,” said Cristian González Cabrera, a senior Human Rights Watch researcher. “This ruling is a resounding affirmation that a more inclusive future is both possible and required under Dominican law.”
Consensual same-sex sexual relations have been legal in the Dominican Republic since 1822, more than two decades before it declared independence from neighboring Haiti.
The Armed Forces Code of Justice had been in place since 1953. The National Police Code of Justice took effect in 1966.
Anderson Javiel Dirocie de León and Patricia M. Santana Nina challenged the policies in court.
“This decision marks a decisive step toward ensuring that these institutions, as well as any public or private body, adapt their rules and practices to guarantee that no person is discriminated against or sanctioned for their sexual orientation,” said Santana in the press release.
Dominican law does not ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in employment, education, housing, and other areas. The country’s constitution defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
James “Wally” Brewster, who was the U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic from 2013-2017, is openly gay. Religious leaders frequently criticized him and his husband, Bob Satawake.
Brewster in a text message to the Washington Blade said the Constitutional Court ruling is “important.”
Brazil
Black transgender singer from Brazil wins three Latin Grammy Awards
Liniker performed at Las Vegas ceremony
A Black transgender singer and songwriter from Brazil on Nov. 13 won three Latin Grammy Awards.
Liniker, who is from Araraquara, a city in São Paulo State, won for Best Portuguese Language Song for her song “Veludo Marrom,” Best Portuguese-Language Urban Performance for her song “Caju” from her sophomore album of the same title, and Best Portuguese Language Contemporary Pop Album for “Caju.”
She accepted the awards during the Latin Grammy Awards ceremony that took place in Las Vegas. Liniker also performed.
“I’ve been writing since I was 16. And writing, and poetry, have been my greatest form of existence. It’s where I find myself; where I celebrate so many things I experience,” said Liniker as she accepted her first Latin Grammy on Nov. 13. “And being a composer … Being a trans composer in Brazil — a country that kills us — is extremely difficult.”
Liniker in 2022 became the first openly trans woman to win a Latin Grammy.
Eswatini
PEPFAR delivers first doses of groundbreaking HIV prevention drug to two African countries
Lenacapavir now available in Eswatini and Zambia.
The State Department on Tuesday announced PEPFAR has delivered the first doses of a groundbreaking HIV prevention drug to two African countries.
The lenacapavir doses arrived in Eswatini and Zambia.
The State Department in September unveiled an initiative with Gilead Sciences to bring lenacapavir “to market in high-burden HIV countries.”
Lenacapavir users inject the drug twice a year.
The State Department in its September announcement noted everyone who participated in Gilead’s clinical trials remained HIV negative. It also said lenacapavir “has the potential to be particularly helpful for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, as it safely protects them during and after pregnancy to prevent mother-to-child transmission.”
“In our new America First Global Health Strategy, the Department of State is establishing a first-of-its-kind innovation fund to support American-led research, market-shaping, and other dynamic advancements in global health,” said PEPFAR on Tuesday in a press release.
“The arrivals of the first doses of lenacapavir in Eswatini and Zambia mark an important milestone in HIV prevention and reflect our commitment to supporting communities with the greatest need,” added Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day. “For the first time, a new HIV medicine is reaching communities in sub-Saharan Africa in the same year as its U.S. approval.”
The September announcement came against the backdrop of widespread criticism over the Trump-Vance administration’s reported plans to not fully fund PEPFAR and to cut domestic HIV/AIDS funding. The Washington Blade has previously reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to curtail services or even close because of U.S. funding cuts.
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