News
Russia LGBT rights record threatens to overshadow Olympics
Gay propaganda to minors ban took effect in June; anti-gay violence persists
Major League Soccer last year launched an anti-discrimination campaign. The league highlighted it during the MLS All-Star game in Kansas City, Kan., on July 31. (Photo courtesy of Major League Soccer)
Growing outrage over Russia’s LGBT rights record threatens to overshadow the 2014 Winter Olympics that will take place in the country in February.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in June signed a broadly worded law that bans gay propaganda to minors under which individuals will face fines of between 4,000 and 5,000 rubles ($124-$155.) Government officials would face fines of between 40,000 and 50,000 rubles ($1,241-$1,551,) while organizations could face penalties of up to 1 million rubles ($31,000) or suspension of their activities for up to 90 days.
Foreigners who violate the law would face up to 15 days in jail and deportation from the country.
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A second law that Putin signed in July bans same-sex couples and anyone from a country in which gays and lesbians can marry from adopting Russian children. A 2012 statute requires LGBT advocacy organizations and other groups that receive funding from outside Russia to register as “foreign agents.”
These laws have come into effect against the backdrop of increased anti-LGBT violence and discrimination in the country.
Two men near Volgograd in May allegedly sodomized a man with beer bottles before killing him after he reportedly came out to them. Authorities on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East said three men stabbed and trampled a gay man to death a few weeks later before they set his car on fire with his body inside.
Police in May arrested 30 LGBT rights activists who tried to stage a Pride celebration outside Moscow City Hall. Authorities in June detained dozens of LGBT advocates who sought to hold a similar gathering in St. Petersburg
Officials in Murmansk in July arrested four Dutch LGBT rights activists who were filming a documentary about gay life in Russia.
Reports of ultra-nationalists torturing gay Russian teenagers whom they met though fake accounts they created on a Russian social media network continue to emerge.
Gay crackdown prompts calls to boycott Olympics
Actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein in July called for a boycott of the Sochi games.
Author Dan Savage and LGBT rights advocates Cleve Jones are among those who have called for a boycott of Russian vodka. Gay bars in Chicago, New York and Seattle stopped serving Stoli and other brands, but D.C. establishments have not backed the boycott.
Andy Cohen on Aug. 14 told E! News he turned down a request to co-host the 2013 Miss Universe pageant that will take place in Moscow in November, in part, because “he didn’t feel right as a gay man stepping foot into Russia.”
Donald Trump, who co-owns the pageant along with NBC Universal, did not respond to the Washington Blade’s request for comment on Cohen’s decision. The Miss Universe Organization said in an Aug. 20 statement it is “deeply concerned” over the gay propaganda ban and anti-LGBT violence in Russia.
“Both the law, as well as the violence experienced by the LGBT community in Russia are diametrically opposed to the core values of our company,” the statement read.
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, is among those who feel the U.S. should compete in the Sochi games. President Obama, retired tennis champion Martina Navratilova and a coalition of LGBT advocacy groups that include Outsports.com and Athlete Ally also oppose an Olympic boycott.
Retired tennis champion Billie Jean King, who came out in 1981, told the Blade on Monday she feels individual athletes themselves should decide whether to compete in Sochi.
“They should get the vote,” she said. “This is the Olympics. This is about the athletes and the fans, so it’s a really hard call.”
Gay New Zealand speed skater Blake Skjellerup in July announced he will wear a Pride pin in Sochi if he qualifies for the Olympics.
“It’s been a positive reaction so far,” he told the Blade on Monday during an interview from Calgary, Alberta, where he continues to train. Outsports.com and other LGBT sports groups and others have backed a fund that seeks to raise at least $15,000 to help Skjellerup qualify for the games. “Everybody is behind the idea and are excited to see that I am proud of who I am and that I’m going to show that in Sochi.”
American runner Nick Symmonds earlier this month criticized the gay propaganda ban during an interview with the Russian news agency RIA Novosti after he competed in the men’s 800 meter final at the World Athletic Championship in Moscow. High jumper Emma Green Tregaro and sprinter Mao Hjelmer, who are from Sweden, painted their fingernails in rainbow colors as they competed in the same event.
Figure skater Johnny Weir, whose husband is of Russian descent, told CBS News he is “not afraid of being arrested” while at the Sochi games.
“If it takes me getting arrested for people to pay attention and for people to lobby against this law, then I’m willing to take it,” Weir told the network.
Russia to enforce anti-gay law during Olympics
Russian authorities have repeatedly said authorities will enforce the gay propaganda ban during the Sochi games, in spite of repeated assurances the International Olympic Committee said it has received from the Kremlin that the law would not impact athletes who plan to compete in the Olympics. The IOC told the Blade those who participate in the games could face disqualification or loss of their credentials if they publicly criticize Russia’s gay propaganda ban while in Sochi.
Green Tregaro wore red fingernail polish during a high jump competition at the World Athletic Championship on Aug. 17 because Swedish athletic officials reportedly asked her to change their color.
“The athletes are always going into countries with laws different than his or her own country,” U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun told RIA Novosti during an Aug. 14 interview. “They’re going to agree with those laws in some ways, they’re going to disagree with those laws in other ways. It’s our strong desire that our athletes comply with the laws of every nation that we visit. This law is no different.”
USOC spokesperson Patrick Sandusky later sought to clarify Blackmun’s position on the gay propaganda law, saying on his Twitter account on Aug. 16 that it is “inconsistent with fundamental Olympic principles.” He said the organization has also “shared our view with the IOC.”
Skjellerup applauded the Canadian Olympic Committee’s response to the gay propaganda law and Russia’s LGBT rights record. He also plans to march with COC members during this weekend’s Calgary Pride.
“Canada is probably one of the countries that is actually leading the growth of support for their athletes and [against] the atrocity that is going on in Russia at the moment,” Skjellerup told the Blade.
Yelena Isinbayeva, an Olympic pole vault champion, criticized Green Tregaro and Hjelmer during an Aug. 15 press conference after she won her third world title at the World Athletic Championships. Isinbayeva also defended the gay propaganda ban.
“We are Russians. Maybe we are different than European people, than other people from different lands,” she said during the press conference. “We have our law that everyone has to respect.”
Pavel Datsyuk of the Detroit Red Wings defended Isinbayeva’s comments.
“I’m an Orthodox and that says it all,” he said, according to Russian journalist Igor Eronko.
Russian sprinter Kseniya Ryzhova on Aug. 20 dismissed suggestions she and teammate Tatyana Firova challenged the law when they kissed on the medal podium after they won the women’s 4 x 400 meter rally at the World Athletic Championships.
Protests banned in Sochi ahead of Olympics
Putin on Aug. 19 issued a decree that bans demonstrations, protests and other meetings in Sochi “not connected with” the Olympics between Jan. 7 and March 21.
Polina Andrianova of Coming Out, an LGBT advocacy group in St. Petersburg whom authorities fined under the “foreign agents” law, told the Blade she feels the order seeks to stop protests of the gay propaganda ban during the Sochi games.
“It is designed to prevent demonstrations around the propaganda against homosexuality law and other violations of civil freedoms,” Andrianova said.
As for Skjellerup, he told the Blade he is not concerned about any potential repercussions he could face in Sochi over his decision to wear his rainbow pin.
“I’m wearing a pin as an Olympian and it’s an Olympic pin,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any, I guess, illegal activity taking place.”
Colombia
Colombians protest against Trump after he threatened country’s president
Tens of thousands protested the US president in Bogotá
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Tens of thousands of people on Wednesday gathered in the Colombian capital to protest against President Donald Trump after he threatened Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
The protesters who gathered in Plaza Bolívar in Bogotá held signs that read, among other things, “Yankees go home” and “Petro is not alone.” Petro is among those who spoke.
The Bogotá protest took place four days after American forces seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, during an overnight operation.
The Venezuelan National Assembly on Sunday swore in Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, as the country’s acting president. Maduro and Flores on Monday pleaded not guilty to federal drug charges in New York.
Trump on Sunday suggested the U.S. will target Petro, a former Bogotá mayor and senator who was once a member of the M-19 guerrilla movement that disbanded in the 1990s. Claudia López, a former senator who would become the country’s first female and first lesbian president if she wins Colombia’s presidential election that will take place later this year, is among those who criticized Trump’s comments.
The Bogotá protest is among hundreds against Trump that took place across Colombia on Wednesday.
Petro on Wednesday night said he and Trump spoke on the phone. Trump in a Truth Social post confirmed he and his Colombian counterpart had spoken.
“It was a great honor to speak with the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, who called to explain the situation of drugs and other disagreements that we have had,” wrote Trump. “I appreciated his call and tone, and look forward to meeting him in the near future. Arrangements are being made between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the foreign minister of Colombia. The meeting will take place in the White House in Washington, D.C.”
District of Columbia
Kennedy Center renaming triggers backlash
Artists who cancel shows threatened; calls for funding boycott grow
Efforts to rename the Kennedy Center to add President Trump’s name to the D.C. arts institution continue to spark backlash.
A new petition from Qommittee , a national network of drag artists and allies led by survivors of hate crimes, calls on Kennedy Center donors to suspend funding to the center until “artistic independence is restored, and to redirect support to banned or censored artists.”
“While Trump won’t back down, the donors who contribute nearly $100 million annually to the Kennedy Center can afford to take a stand,” the petition reads. “Money talks. When donors fund censorship, they don’t just harm one institution – they tell marginalized communities their stories don’t deserve to be told.”
The petition can be found here.
Meanwhile, a decision by several prominent musicians and jazz performers to cancel their shows at the recently renamed Trump-Kennedy Center in D.C. planned for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve has drawn the ire of the Center’s president, Richard Grenell.
Grenell, a gay supporter of President Donald Trump who served as U.S. ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term as president, was named Kennedy Center president last year by its board of directors that had been appointed by Trump.
Last month the board voted to change the official name of the center from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump And The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts. The revised name has been installed on the outside wall of the center’s building but is not official because any name change would require congressional action.
According to a report by the New York Times, Grenell informed jazz musician Chuck Redd, who cancelled a 2025 Christmas Eve concert that he has hosted at the Kennedy Center for nearly 20 years in response to the name change, that Grenell planned to arrange for the center to file a lawsuit against him for the cancellation.
“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit arts institution,” the Times quoted Grenell as saying in a letter to Redd.
“This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt,” the Times quoted Grenell’s letter as saying.
A spokesperson for the Trump-Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the Washington Blade asking if the center still planned to file that lawsuit and whether it planned to file suits against some of the other musicians who recently cancelled their performances following the name change.
In a follow-up story published on Dec. 29, the New York Times reported that a prominent jazz ensemble and a New York dance company had canceled performances scheduled to take place on New Year’s Eve at the Kennedy Center.
The Times reported the jazz ensemble called The Cookers did not give a reason for the cancellation in a statement it released, but its drummer, Billy Hart, told the Times the center’s name change “evidently” played a role in the decision to cancel the performance.
Grenell released a statement on Dec. 29 calling these and other performers who cancelled their shows “far left political activists” who he said had been booked by the Kennedy Center’s previous leadership.
“Boycotting the arts to show you support the arts is a form of derangement syndrome,” the Times quoted him as saying in his statement.
District of Columbia
New interim D.C. police chief played lead role in security for WorldPride
Capital Pride says Jeffery Carroll had ‘good working relationship’ with organizers
Jeffery Carroll, who was named by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on Dec. 17 as the city’s Interim Chief of Police, played a lead role in working with local LGBTQ community leaders in addressing public safety issues related to WorldPride 2025, which took place in D.C. last May and June
“We had a good working relationship with him, and he did his job in relation to how best the events would go around safety and security,” said Ryan Bos, executive director of Capital Pride Alliance.
Bos said Carroll has met with Capital Pride officials in past years to address security issues related to the city’s annual Capital Pride parade and festival and has been supportive of those events.
At the time Bowser named him Interim Chief, Carroll had been serving since 2023 as Executive Assistant Chief of Specialized Operations, overseeing the day-to-day operation of four of the department’s bureaus. He first joined the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department in 2002 and advanced to multiple leadership positions across various divisions and bureaus, according to a statement released by the mayor’s office.
“I know Chief Carroll is the right person to build on the momentum of the past two years so that we can continue driving down crime across the city,” Bowser said in a statement released on the day she announced his appointment as Interim Chief.
“He has led through some of our city’s most significant public safety challenges of the past decade, he is familiar with D.C. residents and well respected and trusted by members of the Metropolitan Police Department as well as our federal and regional public safety partners,” Bowser said.
“We have the best police department in the nation, and I am confident that Chief Carroll will meet this moment for the department and the city,” Bowser added.
But Bowser has so far declined to say if she plans to nominate Carroll to become the permanent police chief, which requires the approval of the D.C. City Council. Bowser, who announced she is not running for re-election, will remain in office as mayor until January 2027.
Carroll is replacing outgoing Chief Pamela Smith, who announced she was resigning after two years of service as chief to spend more time with her family. She has been credited with overseeing the department at a time when violent crime and homicides declined to an eight-year low.
She has also expressed support for the LGBTQ community and joined LGBTQ officers in marching in the WorldPride parade last year.
But Smith has also come under criticism by members of Congress, who have accused the department of manipulating crime data allegedly showing lower reported crime numbers than actually occurred. The allegations came from the Republican-controlled U.S. House Oversight Committee and the U.S. Justice Department
Bowser has questioned the accuracy of the allegations and said she has asked the city’s Inspector General to look into the allegations.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the D.C. police Office of Public Affairs did not immediately respond to a question from the Washington Blade about the status of the department’s LGBT Liaison Unit. Sources familiar with the department have said a decline in the number of officers currently working at the department, said to be at a 50-year low, has resulted in a decline in the number of officers assigned to all of the liaison units, including the LGBT unit.
Among other things, the LGBT Liaison Unit has played a role in helping to investigate hate crimes targeting the LGBTQ community. As of early Wednesday an MPD spokesperson did not respond to a question by the Blade asking how many officers are currently assigned to the LGBT Liaison Unit.
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