Local
Cuban LGBT activists visit D.C.
Ignacio Estrada Cepero and Wendy Iriepa Díaz met with Fla. congresswoman
Ignacio Estrada Cepero and Wendy Iriepa Diaz visit Casa Ruby on Monday, July 29, 2013 in Washington, D.C. (Washington Blade by Damien Salas)
Ignacio Estrada Cepero and Wendy Iriepa Díaz on Monday visited Casa Ruby and Us Helping Us in Northwest Washington. They also met with Cuban-born Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) at her office on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
Estrada, who founded the Cuban League against AIDS in 2005, said while he and Iriepa were at Casa Ruby that they wanted to “show how we live, how we work” in Cuba while they are in the U.S. The activists also criticized Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro who is the director of Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX) that supports LGBT rights while in the U.S.
“Mariela totally manipulates the LGBT community,” Iriepa said.
Estrada and Iriepa, a transgender woman who once worked for CENESEX, married in a high-profile wedding in Havana, the Cuban capital, in 2011.
They will remain in the U.S. for three months after arriving in Miami on June 26.
Estrada and Iriepa traveled to 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.
“She does not recognize the work that is done on the part of the independent gay community,” Estrada told the Washington Blade during an hour-long interview on Tuesday. “She only recognizes the official part.”
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 2008. Iriepa herself underwent the procedure in 2007.
Observers have credited Cuba’s condom distribution campaign and sexual education curriculum with producing one of the world’s lowest HIV infection rates. They also note that 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 gay nuptials, even though Cuban lawmakers have rejected efforts to legally recognize same-sex couples.
“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 reject any effort to portray Mariela Castro and her father’s government in a positive light.
Estrada noted to the Blade the Cuban government forcibly quarantined people with HIV/AIDS in state-run sanitaria until 1993. Three of these facilities remain open, but Estrada said those who receive care in them are unable to leave without an escort.
“You cannot do anything if you if these people don’t accompany you,” he said.
Estrada, who is positive, said more than 600 prisoners with HIV/AIDS live in six prisons he said the Cuban government specifically built to house them.
Official statistics indicate 18,261 Cubans were living with HIV/AIDS as of December 2012, but Estrada estimates the epidemic’s impact on the island is much greater. He also dismissed claims that those who are positive on the island have unlimited access to anti-retroviral drugs.
“It is a grave situation and it will become even worse when the government totally manipulates the statistics of the epidemic [in Cuba,]” Estrada told the Blade.
The regime’s critics continue to maintain authorities continue to harass LGBT rights advocates in spite of Mariela Castro’s advocacy against homophobia and transphobia and other issues.
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 told the Blade a Cuban counter-intelligence officer approached him, Iriepa and other LGBT rights advocates during a Pride walk in Havana they held last year.
“There was no sort of opinion against Mariela, nor for Mariela, nor against Fidel,” Estrada said. “It was for LGBT rights.”
CENESEX dismissed Iriepa shortly before she married Estrada during a ceremony in which Yoani Sánchez, a prominent blogger and regime critic who visited the U.S. and other countries earlier this year during a three-month trip around the world, served as her maid of honor. Other government critics, independent journalists and human rights advocates attended the couple’s wedding.
“It was a triumph because this wedding was able to bring together in a very big way the Cuban civil society of the opposition, dissidents, bloggers, independent journalists and human rights activists,” Estrada said. “It is a success because never in the life of Cuba during the 53 years of what they call revolution has anything like this been known.”
Ros-Lehtinen applauded Estrada and Iriepa’s advocacy efforts during her meeting with them to which the Blade had exclusive access. She also blasted Mariela Castro and her father’s government for what she described as ongoing human rights abuses in Cuba.
“She [Mariela Castro] gets feted and awarded and yet these folks who are so valiant, so brave and telling the truth about what is going on in the LGBT community in Cuba are marginalized,” Ros-Lehtinen told the Blade after she met with Estrada and Iriepa. “I wanted to make sure that I had an opportunity to meet with them and let them know that their work is valued.”
A Cuban government representative did not return the Blade’s request for comment on Estrada and Iriepa’s trip and their criticisms.
As for Estrada and Iriepa, they remain upbeat about their future prospects once they return to Cuba.
Estrada told the Blade he hopes to maintain what he described as an open space that respects all “the colors of the diversity of our flag.” Iriepa added she hopes to one day open an organization similar to Casa Ruby in Havana.
“I will return (to Cuba) energized to do many positive things,” she said.
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary
Mayor Bowser expected to attend March 20 event
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, members of the D.C. Council, and local and national Democratic Party officials are expected to join more than 150 LGBTQ advocates and supporters on March 20 for the 50th anniversary celebration of the city’s Capital Stonewall Democrats.
A statement released by the organization says the event is scheduled to be held at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery building at 702 8th St., N.W. in D.C.
“The evening will honor the people who built Capital Stonewall Democrats across five decades – activists who fought for rights when the odds were against them, public servants who opened doors and refused to let them close, and a new generation of leaders ready to carry the work forward,” the statement says.
Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to the Capital Stonewall Democrats.
Among those planning to attend the anniversary event is longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Paul Kuntzler, 84, who is one of the two co-founders of the then-Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. Kuntzler told the Washington Blade that he and co-founder Richard Maulsby were joined by about a dozen others in the living room of his Southwest D.C. home at the group’s founding meeting in January 1976.
He said that among the reasons for forming a local LGBTQ Democratic group at the time was to arrange for a then “gay” presence at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, at which Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for U.S. president and later won election as president.
Maulsby, who served as the Stein Club president for its first three years and who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., said he would not be attending the March 20 anniversary event, but he fully supports the organization’s continuing work as an LGBTQ organization associated with the Democratic Party.
Steven McCarty, Capital Stonewall Democrats’ current president, said in the statement that the anniversary celebration will highlight the organization’s work since the time of its founding.
“Capital Stonewall Democrats has been fighting for LGBTQ+ political power in this city for 50 years, electing people, training organizers, holding this community together through some really hard moments,” he said. “And right now, with everything going on, that work has never mattered more. This gala is the first moment of our next chapter, and I want the community to be a part of it.”
The statement says among the special guests attending the event will be Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, who became the first openly gay LGBTQ person of color to win election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2018.
Other guests of honor, according to the statement, include Mayor Bowser; D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5, the Council’s only gay member; D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large); Earl Fowlkes, founder of the International Federation of Black Prides; Vita Rangel, a transgender woman who serves as Deputy Director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments; Heidi Ellis, director of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; Rayceen Pendarvis, longtime D.C. LGBTQ civic activist; and Phillip Pannell, longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic activist and Ward 8 civic activist.
Information about ticket availability for the Capital Stonewall Democrats anniversary gala can be accessed here: capitalstonewalldemocrats.com/50th
Maryland
Md. Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlines 2026 priorities
Expanded PrEP access among objectives
Maryland’s Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlined legislative priorities for the remainder of the General Assembly’s 2026 term during a press conference on March 5.
State Del. Kris Fair (D-Fredrick County) led the press conference. State Del. Ashanti Martinez (D-Prince George’s County) and other caucus members also spoke.
Caucus members are sponsoring 12 bills and supporting four others.
Martinez is sponsoring House Bill 1114, which would expand PrEP access in Maryland.
“PrEP is 99 percent effective in preventing HIV transmission,” he explained, noting PrEP’s cost often turns away potential users.
The bill aims to extend insurance coverage and expand pharmacists’ ability to prescribe PrEP along with other HIV treatments and testing. Martinez is working with state Sen. Clarence Lam (D-Anne Arundel and Howard Counties) and FreeState Justice on the bill.
The House Health Committee had a hearing last week that included HB1114.
“Ending the HIV epidemic is about expanding access and providing these life-saving tools to all persons in Maryland,” Martinez said.
Several other pieces of legislation were highlighted during the press conferences. They included measures focused on youth and education, birth certificate markers, so-called conversion therapy, and hormone medications.
State Sen. Cheryl Kagan (D-Montgomery County) is cosponsoring Senate Bill 950, which would update and strengthen conversion therapy laws. State Del. Bonnie Cullison (D-Montgomery County) has introduced an identical bill that would extend the statute of limitations on individuals who facilitate conversion therapy.
Kagan explained the bill would allow conversion therapy victims to come to terms with their experience undergoing the widely discredited practice that “creates shame and it silences survivors.”
When questioned, Fair explained the press conference happened late into the legislative session because “we [the caucus] are constantly having to respond in real time to what’s happening in Washington” while drafting and considering pieces of legislation.
The Frederick County Democrat described this session’s bills as the “most ambitious list of priorities to date.” Fair also described the caucus’s goals.
“It’s decency, it’s dignity, and its humanity,” he said.
District of Columbia
Owner of D.C. gay bar Green Lantern John Colameco dies at 79
Beloved businessman preferred to stay ‘behind the scenes’
John Colameco, owner of the popular D.C. gay bar Green Lantern, has died, according to a March 7 announcement posted on the bar’s website and Instagram account. The announcement didn’t provide a date of his passing or a cause of death.
Green Lantern manager Howard Hicks said Colameco was 79 at the time of his passing.
“It is with great sadness that Green Lantern announces the death of our beloved owner, John Colameco,” the announcement says. “Most of our patrons might have heard John’s name, but might not have known his face,” it says.
“He was a ‘behind-the-scenes’ kind of guy who avoided the limelight,” the announcement continues. “He preferred to stay in the back of the house with staff and team ensuring everything was running smoothly so that everyone out front was having a good time.”
The announcement adds, “As a veteran and businessman, John wasn’t a member of the LGBTQ + community, but he was one of the best damn allies our community has ever had.”
It says he “long provided spaces for the queer community to come together” since the 1990s when he owned and operated a popular restaurant on 17th Street, N.W. called Peppers.
According to the announcement, Colameco and his then business partner Greg Zehnacker opened the Green Lantern in 2001 in an alley off of 14th Street, N.W., between Thomas Circle and L Street, N.W.
The announcement points out that the Green Lantern first opened in the same location in the early 1990s before it later closed when the original owners decided to purchase and open other bars, one of which was the gay bar Fireplace near Dupont Circle. Colameco and Zehnacker were able to reopen the bar with the Green Lantern name.
“When Greg died unexpectedly in February 2014, John remained steadfastly committed to carrying on their vision and ensuring that Green Lantern remained part of the fabric of D.C.’s queer community,” the announcement says.
“Over the years, through Green Lantern, John has provided support to many community organizations, most notably Stonewall Sports, the Gay Men’s chorus of Washington, and ONYX Mid-Atlantic with Green Lantern serving as a gathering hub for their activities,” it states.
The announcement adds that Colameco’s family was planning a memorial for him in his hometown of Philadelphia.
“His Green Lantern family will celebrate his life by operating the bar as usual and we encourage you to stop by and join us,” it says. “Community coming together and having a good time – it’s exactly what John would want.”
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