Local
Cuban LGBT rights advocates arrive in D.C.
Ignacio Estrada Cepero and Wendy Iriepa Díaz remain critical of island’s government
Cuban LGBT activists Ignacio Estrada Cepero and Wendy Iriepa Diaz visit Casa Ruby on Monday, July 29, 2013 in Washington, D.C. (Washington Blade photo by Damien Salas)
Two Cuban LGBT rights advocates who are visiting the United States for three months on Monday arrived in D.C.
Ignacio Estrada Cepero and Wendy Iriepa Díaz on Monday met with staffers of Us Helping Us, an HIV/AIDS service organization, and Casa Ruby, a multicultural LGBT community center. Estrada and Iriepa are also scheduled to meet with Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on Capitol hill on Wednesday before they return to Miami.
Estrada, who founded the Cuban League Against AIDS in 2005, told the Blade while at Casa Ruby that he and Iriepa, a transgender woman who used to work for Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX) — which is directed by Mariela Castro Espín, daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro — want to “show how we live, how we work” in Cuba while they are in the U.S.
The couple, who married in a high-profile wedding in Havana, the Cuban capital, in 2011, said Mariela Castro presents what they described as a distorted reality of the island’s LGBT community to the world.
“Mariela totally manipulates the LGBT community,” Iriepa said.
Estrada and Iriepa arrived in D.C. less than three months after Mariela Castro traveled to the U.S. to accept an award from Equality Forum, a Philadelphia-based LGBT advocacy group.
Mariela Castro’s supporters note she successfully lobbied the Cuban government to begin offering free sex-reassignment surgery under the country’s national health care system in 2010. Iriepa herself had SRS in 2007 while she worked at CENESEX.
Observers have credited Cuba’s condom distribution campaign and sexual education curriculum with producing one of the world’s lowest HIV infection rates. Cubans with the virus also have access to free anti-retroviral drugs.
CENESEX in May scheduled a series of events across Cuba to commemorate the annual International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. Mariela Castro has also spoken out in support of marriage rights for same-sex couples in the country.
“I am very proud of how we have advanced [LGBT rights in Cuba,]” she said during an Equality Forum panel in Philadelphia.
Estrada and Iriepa and other Cuban LGBT rights advocates remain critical of Mariela Castro and her father’s government.
Leannes Imbert Acosta of the Cuban LGBT Platform claimed authorities last September detained her as she left her Havana home to bring materials to CENESEX on a planned exhibit on forced labor camps to which the government sent more than 25,000 gay men and others deemed unfit for military services during the 1960s. Estrada said that las fall during a New York City panel organized by Cuba Archive – a group that documents human rights abuses on the island – more than 500 people with HIV/AIDS remain in prison for what he described as the crime of “pre-criminal social dangerousness.”
When the Blade attempted to address criticisms from Estrada and other LGBT rights with Mariela Castro during a press conference before she accepted the Equality Forum award, the group’s Executive Director Malcolm Lazin interrupted, preventing the questions from being asked.
“You work for the community but you aren’t really from this community without rights,” Estrada told the Blade. “And without rights nothing can be achieved.”
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Congratulations to Yadiel Meléndez, on their new role as Community Associate, with the Wanda Alston Foundation. Meléndez is piloting a new role as a Community Associate at the Wanda Alston Foundation, where they support queer and trans young people in finding their footing, building independence, and experiencing a housing community where they are seen, valued, and affirmed. They are coming into this role with more than a decade of experience as a community organizer and operations specialist, supporting diverse communities through service, advocacy, and program coordination.
Previously they worked for Right Proper Brewing Shaw as a server and bartender and at Sephora, Washington, DC, and at FreshFarm, DC, in bilingual food access. They also worked freelance to build foundational structures for local queer BIPOC performance art coalitions, producing variety shows to curate space for marginalized performance artists in the community. They were a production manager for Haus of Hart Productions, a BIPOC centric performance art production. They also worked as field staff with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in Stafford, Va.
Meléndez is bilingual, Spanish and English. Their work is guided by a commitment to dignity, safety, and trauma-informed engagement, particularly within LGBTQ and BIPOC communities.
Congratulations also to Ben Rosen LICSW, on his new role as program director, with the Wanda Alston Foundation. Rosen previously worked with Fountain House’s OnRamps program, helping to build a new, innovative outreach program for individuals considered chronically homeless, and living with serious mental illness, in the Times Square area of New York. Rosen is a Psychotherapist, having worked with SG Psychotherapy, and as the psychotherapist with the Nest Community Health Center (URAM).
Rosen has a B.F.A. in Theatre Arts: Musical Theatre, Minor in Psychology (Cum Laude) from Malloy University Conservatory; and his M.S.W. in Clinical Practice with Individuals, Families, and Groups, from The Silberman School of Social Work, Hunter College, N.Y. He is independently licensed in New York and Washington, D.C.
Rehoboth Beach
BLUF leather social set for April 10 in Rehoboth
Attendees encouraged to wear appropriate gear
Diego’s in Rehoboth Beach hosts a monthly leather happy hour. April’s edition is scheduled for Friday, April 10, 5-7 p.m. Attendees are encouraged to wear appropriate gear. The event is billed as an official event of BLUF, the free community group for men interested in leather. After happy hour, the attendees are encouraged to reconvene at Local Bootlegging Company for dinner, which allows cigar smoking. There’s no cover charge for either event.
District of Columbia
Celebrations of life planned for Sean Bartel
Two memorial events scheduled in D.C.
Two celebrations of life are planned for Sean Christopher Bartel, 48, who was found deceased on a hiking trail in Argentina on or around March 15. Bartel began his career as a television news reporter and news anchor at stations in Louisville, Ky., and Evansville, Ind., before serving as Senior Video Producer for the D.C.-based International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union from 2013 to 2024.
A memorial gathering is planned for Friday, April 10, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. at the IBEW International Office (900 7th St., N.W.), according to a statement by the DC Gay Flag Football League, where Bartel was a longtime member. A celebration of life is planned that same evening, 6-8 p.m. at Trade (1410 14th St., N.W.).
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