News
Russia boycott calls divide LGBT activists
Group protested country’s gay rights record outside Russian embassy in D.C.


Protesters gathered outside of the Russian Embassy on Wednesday, July 31, 2013. (Washington Blade photo by Damien Salas)
LGBT rights advocates remain divided over calls to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia and Russian vodka in response to the country’s gay rights record.
Author Dan Savage, LGBT rights advocate Cleve Jones and the group Queer Nation last week launched the “Dump Russian Vodka” campaign that calls for a boycott of Stoli, Russian Standard and other Russian vodka brands. The campaign also urges the U.S. and other countries to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics that will take place in Sochi, Russia, in February.
“Do not drink Russian vodka,” Savage said in an op-ed in the Stranger, a weekly newspaper in Seattle, published on July 24. “Do not buy Russian vodka. Ask your bartender at your favorite bar — gay or otherwise — to DUMP STOLI and DUMP RUSSIAN VODKA.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent weeks signed a broadly worded law that bans the promotion of so-called gay propaganda to minors and a statute that bans foreign same-sex couples and any couple from a country in which gays and lesbians can legally marry from adopting Russian children. LGBT rights groups are among those that face fines under a law that requires non-governmental organizations that receive funding from outside Russia to register as a “foreign agent.”
About a dozen LGBT rights advocates gathered in front of the Russian embassy in Northwest D.C. to protest the country’s anti-LGBT rights record on Wednesday.
Larry Poltavtsev of Spectrum Human Rights was among those who attended.
“We’re here today to protest LGBT human rights violations in Russia,” he said.
The anti-gay laws have come into effect against the backdrop of increasing anti-LGBT discrimination and violence in Russia.
Two men in the southern Russia city of Volgograd and on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the country’s Far East have been killed in recent months during what local authorities have described as anti-gay attacks.
Police in St. Petersburg on June 29 arrested 40 LGBT activists and a handful of nationalists who confronted them during a gay rights rally. Authorities in the Russian capital in May arrested 30 LGBT rights advocates who tried to stage a Pride celebration outside Moscow City Hall.
Authorities in the city of Murmansk on July 21 took into custody four Dutch LGBT rights advocates who were filming a documentary about gay life in Russia. A St. Petersburg appellate court on July 25 overturned a lower court’s ruling that fined Coming Out, a local LGBT advocacy group, 500,000 rubles or slightly more than $15,202 for violating the “foreign agent” law.
Russian advocate: Boycott will have no effect
Gay bars in Seattle, Chicago, London and other cities have already begun to remove Stoli and other Russian products from their shelves. Gay City News reported a handful of ACT UP members protested a Stoli event at a gay bar in New York City on Tuesday night.
Gay bars in D.C. have thus far not indicated they will participate in the boycott.
Cobalt had been scheduled to host a Stoli-sponsored event for the website GayCities on Thursday, but the company postponed it.
The company did not return the Blade’s request for comment.
Val Mendeleev, CEO of SPI Group, Stoli’s parent company, said in a July 25 statement from Luxembourg the Russian government does not own the brand. He acknowledged the vodka contains Russian ingredients, but it is distilled in a factory in neighboring Latvia.
Mendeleev further pointed out SPI Group has supported a number of pro-LGBT groups and initiatives. These include Pride celebrations in South Africa and Austria and its “Most Original Stoli Guy” partnership with Gaycities.com.
“Stoli firmly opposes such attitude and actions,” Mendeleev said in response to growing concerns over Russia’s gay rights record. “As a company that encourages transparency and fairness, we are upset and angry.”
Nikolai Alekseev of Gay Russia, an LGBT advocacy group, told the Washington Blade from Moscow on Tuesday he feels a boycott of Russian vodka will “not have an effect.”
“The real target of this protest should be the politicians who are behind these initiatives,” he said.
Actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein called for a Sochi boycott in an op-ed the New York Times published on July 21.
Gay Olympic diver Greg Louganis, who was unable to compete in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow because then-President Jimmy Carter boycotted them over the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan the year before, told Frank Bruni of the New York Times on July 28 that he feels athletes should have the opportunity to compete in Sochi in spite of Russia’s LGBT rights record. Retired tennis champion Martina Navratilova; the LGBT advocacy groups All Out and Athlete Ally and Cyd Zeigler, Jr., co-founder of OutSports, are among those who also oppose a boycott of the Sochi games.
“We want to encourage and support athletics, particularly the Olympics, and feel that a boycott would only hurt the athletes,” Hudson Taylor, executive director of Athlete Ally, told the Blade on Tuesday. “We understand the rationale behind a boycott, but are also cognizant that our call for a boycott could result in negative ramifications and backlash for regional LGBT and ally organizations in Russia.”
State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki on July 26 said the U.S. does not support calls to boycott the Sochi Olympics.
“That’s certainly not what we’re calling for,” she told reporters during her daily briefing in response to the Blade’s question about Russia’s LGBT rights record.
Gay athlete to wear rainbow pin in Sochi
Blake Skjellerup, a gay short track speed skater from New Zealand who plans to compete in Sochi in spite of the calls to boycott the games, last week announced he will wear a gay Pride pin during the Olympics.
He stressed to the Blade his decision is “not about defiance.”
“Wearing a Pride pin is about humanity and unity,” Skjellerup said. “It’s about representing something that is very important to me, and standing up for those who cannot stand up or help themselves.”
The Human Rights Campaign said in a July 24 letter to NBC Universal that the network has “a unique opportunity — and a responsibility — to expose” what it described as the “inhumane and unjust” anti-gay propaganda law during its coverage of the Sochi games. Mark Lazarus, chair of NBC’s sports group, deflected questions about his network’s potential coverage of Russia’s LGBT rights record during a presentation at the Television Critics Association gathering in New York City over the weekend.
The International Olympic Committee has assured gay athletes and others who travel to Sochi that authorities will not arrest them under the Russia’s anti-gay propaganda law. Vitaly Milonov, a St. Petersburg lawmaker behind the city’s gay propaganda to minors ban that took effect in 2012, told the Interfax news agency on Tuesday he has not heard of any plans to suspend the national statute during the games.
“If a law has been approved by the federal legislature and signed by the president, then the government has no right to suspend it,” Milonov said, according to Gay Star News. “It doesn’t have the authority.”
Officials urged to ban Russian lawmakers from U.S.
Alekseev and other Russian LGBT rights advocates have launched a petition on the White House’s website that urges the U.S. to ban Milonov and Elena Mizulina, a Russian Parliamentarian who co-sponsored the national gay propaganda ban, from entering the country. It has received 4,775 signatures as of late on July 30.
“This is the way forward because these people are the real people behind the homophobic legislation,” Alekseev told the Blade.
District of Columbia
Protests against Trump executive orders to take place in D.C. on Thursday
Demonstrations will happen outside attorney general’s office, Kennedy Center

The Trump-Vance administration has taken an aggressive stance against the LGBTQ community by passing executive order after executive order that restricts the ability of transgender people to exist. In response, LGBTQ activists in Washington will take to the streets on Thursday to protest the slew of actions the White House has undertaken.
In back-to-back protests, demonstrators will rally against a federal ban on gender-affirming care for minors, followed by a protest at the Kennedy Center condemning a newly imposed ban on drag performances at the venue.
The first protest of the day will take place outside the D.C. Attorney General’s Office (400 6th St., N.W.) to oppose Trump’s executive order banning gender-affirming care for minors. Originally scheduled for the previous day but postponed due to snow, the protest will run from 12-2 p.m. Organizers aim to pressure D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb and Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Wayne Turnage to join 15 other states in issuing official public guidance against the order and declaring it unlawful.
Under the D.C. Human Rights Act, passed by the D.C. City Council in 1977, discrimination based on gender identity and expression is explicitly prohibited. The law defines gender identity and expression as “a gender-related identity, appearance, expression, or behavior of an individual, regardless of the individual’s assigned sex at birth.” Trump’s executive order, officially titled the “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” order, directly violates this act by banning all forms of gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth, effectively preventing them from accessing medical care necessary for their transition.
The 15 other states’ that objected to the order include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
This protest was organized by the Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America Bodily Autonomy Working Group, which focuses on “the fight for queer, trans, and feminist liberation and against systems of patriarchal capitalist oppression that devalue women and LGBTQIA+ people, under the guidance of reproductive justice.”
Organizers encourage protesters to bring friends and signs to get their voices heard.
The second protest of the day will take place in Washington Circle in between the Foggy Bottom and West End neighborhoods to protest Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center. Trump removed all 18 members that former President Joe Biden appointed to the Kennedy Center board and has started installing Trump loyalists into their roles.
The sudden board shake-up was first announced on Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform, as a response to what he called the board’s lack of “vision for a Golden Age in arts and culture.” Many found this statement puzzling, given that Trump has openly admitted he has never attended a performance at the nonpartisan arts center.
The “Trans & Queer Dance Party and Protest,” which will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the circle only a few blocks from the Kennedy Center, is an attempt by six DC based organizations to show the Trump administration that “as D.C. residents, we say the Kennedy Center is our house, and we’re not going to let fascists tell us what to do or censor our artists.” The collaborating organizations encourage supporters of art, drag, the Kennedy Center, and the LGBTQ community to show up in “our best (warm) looks” to let the administration know that D.C. will not be silenced.
Richard Grenell, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Germany in his first term, was given the title of “interim executive director” of the Kennedy Center, tasked with realigning the arts center to better fit Trump’s agenda. The announcement initially caused confusion because before this announcement, there had never been an acting director, but a president elected by the board.
His agenda so far includes banning any performances in the famous performing arts center, including “Dancing Queens Drag Brunch,” “A Drag Salute to Divas,” and “Dixie’s Tupperware Party,” which were put on at the Kennedy Center and aimed at adults.
This protest was organized through a collaboration of six local left-leaning organizations. They include the DC Dyke March, Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, Occupation Free DC, Good Trouble Cooperative, and Claudia Jones School.
For more information on the trans gender-affirming care protest, visit https://actionnetwork.org/events/schwalb-trans-rally or https://mdcdsa.org/. For more information on the Kennedy Center dance party protest, visit any of the organizers’ Instagram pages.
World
Suspension of US aid is ‘catastrophe’ for global LGBTQ rights movement
Washington funds third of international advocacy

The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to freeze nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for at least 90 days has had a devastating impact on the global LGBTQ rights movement.
The Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights, a Washington-based group that championed LGBTQ and intersex rights in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America, on Feb. 1 announced it has suspended programming because it lost nearly 80 percent of its funding.
“Despite some limitations we are facing at the moment, we want to share that our commitment is unwavering,” said the organization in an email it sent to supporters on Wednesday. The message also asked them to make a donation.
Outright International, a global LGBTQ and intersex advocacy group, in a statement to the Washington Blade said it has “had to halt direct funding and capacity-building support to LGBTIQ groups in more than 32 countries” in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America.
“The community-based groups we support with USAID (the U.S. Agency for International Development) funding carry out critical human rights, humanitarian and development work,” said Outright International. “This includes protecting community members from violence, providing skills training that allows LGBTIQ people to access employment and entrepreneurial opportunities, and essential services, including healthcare services.”
The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute works with Caribe Afirmativo in Colombia, Promsex in Peru, VoteLGBT in Brazil, and a number of other advocacy groups outside the U.S. LGBTQ+ Victory Institute President Elliot Imse told the Blade his organization has lost around $600,000, which is two-thirds of its entire global program budget.
“We’re scrambling to secure new funding to restore half of the amount we lost, which would allow us to make a similar impact on LGBTQ inclusion worldwide,” he said.
Equal Namibia and Namibia Pride received a $30,000 grant from USAID. Omar van Reenen, co-founder of Equal Namibia, told the Washington Blade it “was the largest grant and biggest grant on such a scale we have received.
“When we received this grant it was the first time we had substantial funding for our organization,” they said.
Van Reenen said the organizations have lost $10,000 of the original $30,000 they received from USAID.
“This means we do are back to zero funds for the organization and will need to continue our campaigns on a voluntary basis,” they told the Blade. “This comes at the worst time as we will need to challenge the new anti-same-sex marriage act passed by the president in October and the upcoming decriminalization case which the Supreme Court will hear soon.”
The Center for Integrated Training and Research, a group known by the Spanish acronym COIN that fights the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Dominican Republic and in other countries in the Caribbean, on Feb. 6 said the funding freeze “directly affects the continuity of the free services that COIN provides to more than 2,300 patients who receive antiretroviral treatment” in the Dominican Republic.
COIN said its patients will continue to receive free antiretroviral drugs because the Dominican government provides them; but the funding freeze has forced it to suspend urology, internal medicine, and pediatric services. COIN said it will continue to provide vaccines and general medicine, gynecological, and family planning services, but “with limitations.” COIN also noted its PrEP service will continue, “but with reduced capacity.”
“In light of this situation, we urgently call upon the national and international community, strategic allies, and sectors sensitive to our cause to find solutions that allow us to continue offering these vital services,” said COIN. “The health and well-being of thousands of people depends on the solidarity and commitment of everyone.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Jan. 24 directed State Department personnel to stop nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for 90 days in response to an executive order that President Donald Trump signed after his inauguration. Rubio later issued a waiver that allows the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze. (The Blade last week reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of a lack of U.S. funding. Dozens of HIV/AIDS activists on Feb. 6 protested outside the State Department and demanded U.S. officials fully restore PEPFAR funding.)
The Trump-Vance administration is also trying to dismantle USAID.
A statement the White House issued on Feb. 3 said the organization “has been unaccountable to taxpayers as it funnels massive sums of money to the ridiculous — and, in many cases, malicious — pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats, with next-to-no oversight.” The statement also contains examples of what it described as “the waste and abuse” that include:
• $1.5 million to “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities”
• $47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Colombia
• $32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru
• $2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala
The statement links to an article the Daily Mail published on Jan. 31 that President Donald Trump “strips millions from DEI foreign aid programs funding Irish musicals, LGBTQ programs in Serbia and more.” The claim that USAID paid for “sex changes and ‘LGBT activism’ in Guatemala” appears to come from an article the Daily Caller published on Sept. 19, 2024.
Sources with whom the Blade has spoken say the White House’s claims are incorrect.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Feb. 2 welcomed efforts to dismantle USAID.
“Most governments don’t want USAID funds flowing into their countries because they understand where much of that money actually ends up,” he wrote on X. “While marketed as support for development, democracy, and human rights, the majority of these funds are funneled into opposition groups, NGOs with political agendas, and destabilizing movements.”
Most governments don’t want USAID funds flowing into their countries because they understand where much of that money actually ends up.
While marketed as support for development, democracy, and human rights, the majority of these funds are funneled into opposition groups, NGOs… pic.twitter.com/bXpdK29zH5
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) February 2, 2025
Mónica Hernández, executive director of ASPIDH Arcoíris Trans, a transgender rights group in El Salvador, spoke with the Blade last week in San Salvador, the country’s capital. Posters with USAID’s logo were on the wall inside the organization’s office.
Hernández said she learned on Jan. 27 the U.S. had suspended funding that ASPIDH Arcoíris Trans received through Freedom House and other groups that partnered with the State Department. She told the Blade that Washington cancelled the grants the following day.
“The (challenge) is to look for other funds from another institution that is not USAID, or that is not from the United States that has to go through the State Department,” she said.

Outright International told the Blade that USAID is not it’s “only source of funding,” but noted “USAID, and the U.S. government more broadly, have in recent years become an extremely important source of funding for LGBTIQ rights around the world, allowing us and our partners to expand our efforts to promote inclusive development and combat pervasive human rights violations.”
Council for Global Equality Chair Mark Bromley told the Blade the U.S. funds roughly a third of the global LGBTQ rights movement. Imse said the global LGBTQ rights movement is set to lose more than $50 million.
“It is a catastrophe,” he told the Blade.
Bromley added it will be “challenging, if not impossible” to fill the funding gap.
“There isn’t a short term way to fill the current funding gap,” he said. “It sets the movement back at least 10 years.”
District of Columbia
Bill to repeal D.C. home rule would jeopardize LGBTQ rights: activists
Measure introduced by homophobic lawmakers

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn) on Feb. 6 introduced legislation in the Senate and House calling for repealing the D.C. Home Rule Act, which would eliminate the city’s limited home rule government with a mayor and city council.
The two lawmakers named the bill the “Bringing Oversight to Washington and Safety to Every Resident Act” or the “BOWSER Act,” saying in a statement that D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser was responsible, in part, for leaving “our nation’s Capital in crime-ridden shambles.”
Lee and Robles each received a “0” rating, the lowest possible rating, on the Human Rights Campaign’s Congressional Scorecard, which assesses the record of members of Congress on LGBTQ related issues.
Most political observers point out that far-right Republican lawmakers have introduced similar bills in the past, including one in 2024, which have died in committee with little support.
Both Democratic and some Republican lawmakers expressing opposition to the previous bills noted that under the existing D.C. Home Rule Act, Congress retains full authority to reject any legislation passed by the D.C. Council and signed by the mayor. They note that Congress also retains authority to impose any law it wishes on D.C.
But some observers, including LGBTQ rights advocates, say the prospects of the current bill could go further with the current GOP-controlled Congress and at a time when President Donald Trump raised the issue of alleged “out of control” crime in D.C. during his presidential campaign. Trump has said he plans to issue one or more executive orders targeting D.C. home rule.
The bill introduced by Lee and Ogles does not address or propose who or what federal entity would operate D.C.’s local government after the Home Rule Act of 1973 is repealed. The two-page-long bill states, “Effective on the date that is 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the District of Columbia Home Rule Act (Public Law 93-198) is repealed.”
Prior to the passage of the Home Rule Act of 1973, which Congress approved under the administration of then-President Richard Nixon, the city was governed by a commission whose members were appointed by the U.S. president and approved by Congress. A “commissioner-mayor” appointed by the president served as the head of the commission.
LGBTQ rights activists believe a similar type of governing body under the current Republican Congress and the Trump administration could pose a threat to the LGBTQ rights laws currently on the books in D.C., including the city’s Human Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
“Repeal of Home Rule at this time can only be a negative for the LGBTQ community, especially the transgender community, because of the virulent antagonism toward that community of the MAGA Republicans in control of Congress,” according to D.C. gay Democratic activist Peter Rosenstein.
Howard Garrett, president of the Capital Stonewall Democrats, D.C.’s largest local LGBTQ political organization, also expressed concern that repeal of D.C. home rule would pose a threat to the local LGBTQ community.
“Repealing D.C. home rule would be a direct attack on our city’s ability to govern itself and protect the rights of all residents, especially the LGBTQ+ community,” Garrett told the Washington Blade. “Washington, D.C. has been a leader in advancing LGBTQ+ rights, from nondiscrimination protections to access to affirming healthcare,” he said. “If Congress were to strip away our autonomy, it would leave us vulnerable to reactionary policies that do not reflect the values of our residents.”
Garrett added, “This latest attempt to revoke home rule is nothing more than political interference that undermines democracy.”
In a joint statement released on the day they introduced their D.C. home rule repeal bills, Lee and Ogles denounced what they called a “radically progressive regime” of Bowser and the City Council.
“Washington is now known for its homicides, rapes, drug overdoses, violence, theft, and homelessness,” Ogles said n the statement. “Bowser and her corrupt Washington City Council are incapable of managing the city,” he said.
Lee stated, “The corruption, crime, and incompetence of the D.C. government has been an embarrassment to our nation’s capital for decades. It is long past time that Congress restored the honor of George Washington to the beautiful city which bears his name.”
Daniel Solomon, co-founder of D.C. Vote, a local nonpartisan group that advocates for D.C. statehood, said in a statement that supporters of the home rule repeal bill were putting out misleading information about crime in D.C.
“Make no mistake: This bill is a thinly veiled attempt to punish D.C. for political differences under the guise of public safety,” he said. “We all agree that public safety is paramount, but dismantling home rule will do nothing to make our communities safer,” his statement continues.
“Instead, it will silence the voices of D.C. residents and threaten the progress we’ve made on criminal justice reform, economic growth, and local accountability,” he said.
Bowser, who has declined to comment specifically on the current bill to repeal D.C. home rule, has pointed out that violent crime in D.C. dropped by 35 percent from 2023 to 2024 and property related crime declined by 11 percent during that same period.
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