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.
FIND MORE OF THE WASHINGTON BLADE SPORTS ISSUE HERE.
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.”
District of Columbia
HIV Vaccine Awareness Day set for May 18
Whitman-Walker joins nationwide recognition of efforts to develop vaccine
Whitman-Walker Health, the D.C.-based community healthcare center that specializes in HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ-related health services, will join health care advocates from across the country to support efforts to develop an HIV vaccine on HIV Vaccine Awareness Day on May 18.
“HIV Awareness Day, observed annually on May 18, was established to recognize and thank the volunteers, scientists, health professionals, and community members working toward a safe and effective prevention HIV vaccine,” Whitman-Walker said in a statement.
“Led by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the day is also an opportunity to educate communities about the critical importance of preventive HIV vaccine research,” the statement says.
It adds, “The reality is that any new vaccine discovery must be built community by community, institution by institution, and then it must reach everyone – especially the communities who have carried the heaviest burden of this epidemic.”
On its own website, the National Institutes of Health says HIV Vaccine Awareness Day also highlights its longstanding efforts, coordinated by its Office of AIDS Research, to support researchers’ efforts to develop an HIV vaccine.
“Researchers are making promising headway in efforts to develop a safe, effective HIV vaccine,” it says in a statement on its website.
A Whitman-Walker spokesperson said Whitman-Walker was not holding a specific event to observe HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, but it will recognize the day as a way of encouragement for its ongoing work to address the AIDS epidemic and support for vaccine research.
“Today, no one has to die from HIV,” said Whitman-Walker’s Health System division’s CEO, Dr. Heather Aaron in the Whitman-Walker statement. “We have the treatments, the technology, and the research to change outcomes, and yet people in our community are still dying from HIV//AIDS,” she said in the statement.
“That is unacceptable, and it is exactly why our work continues,” she added. “Here in D.C. with more focus on Southeast D.C., the Whitman-Walker Health System remains committed to making a difference through cutting-edge research, policy advocacy, and philanthropy, because fair access to life-saving treatment is not a privilege. It is a right.”
World
This year’s IDAHOBiT to highlight democracy
Criminalization laws, US funding cuts among global movement’s challenges
Activists around the world on Sunday will mark the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia.
The IDAHOBiT Advisory Group — which includes 18 LGBTQ and intersex rights organizations around the world — in a press release notes IDAHOBiT events are expected to take place in more than 60 countries. Advocacy groups are also using IDAHOBiT to highlight discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity and other LGBTQ-specific issues.
Caribe Afirmativo, a Colombian advocacy group, on May 8 released a report that notes one LGBTQ person was reported murdered in the country every 32 hours in 2025. Caribe Afirmativo also said the Colombian government has not done enough to address anti-LGBTQ violence.
“The evidence is clear: violence against LGBTIQ+ persons in Colombia does not begin with homicide, but with tolerated prejudice and ignored threats,” reads Caribe Afirmativo’s report. “In 2025, the State not only failed to protect — it also failed to count, investigate, and sanction. The crisis is not invisible. It is structural. And it requires an urgent, comprehensive, and sustained response.”
The Initiative for Equality and Discrimination, a Kenyan group known by the acronym INEND, issued a report that details how the country’s law enforcement treats LGBTQ and intersex people. “A widespread pattern of arbitrary arrests, extortion, and both physical and sexual violence” are among the abuses the INEND report notes.
“These abuses not only inflict severe physical and psychological trauma but also foster a widespread distrust of the law enforcement, further marginalizing the community and hindering its ability to seek justice, access essential services such as healthcare, and fully enjoy fundamental freedoms,” it reads.
IDAHOBiT commemorates the World Health Organization’s declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder on May 17, 1990. This year’s IDAHOBiT theme is “At the Heart of Democracy.”
This year’s IDAHOBiT will take place against the continued impact that the lack of U.S. funding is having on the global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement.
The IDAHOBiT Advisory Group notes consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in 65 U.N. member states, and the number of countries with criminalization laws increased in 2025. The IDAHOBiT Advisory Group also indicates more than 60 countries have laws that restrict “freedom of expression related to sexual and gender diversity issues.”
“No matter where we live, who we are, or the faiths that drive us, most people want to nurture neighborhoods and communities where every life can bloom,” said the IDAHOBiT Advisory Group. “But today, reactionary governments worldwide are poisoning our gardens with the invasive weeds of their authoritarian policies and exclusionary legislations.”
‘Progress is still happening’
Activists around the world since last year’s IDAHOBiT have seen several legal and political victories.
New Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar on April 12 defeated his predecessor, Viktor Orbán, whose government faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court last July struck down St. Lucia’s colonial-era laws. The Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Court a few months later ruled the country’s National Police and Armed Forces cannot criminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations among its members. Botswana late last month repealed a provision of its colonial-era penal code that criminalized homosexuality.
A Hong Kong judge last September ruled in favor of a lesbian couple who sought parental recognition for their son. The European Union Court of Justice over the last year issued two landmark decisions: one said EU countries must recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other member states and another directed member states to allow transgender people to legally change their name and gender on ID documents.
“Time and again, LGBTQIA+ people have resisted, rolled up their sleeves together with all the good people caring about their communities, and sowed the seeds of change,” said the IDAHOBiT Advisory Group in its press release.
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats endorses Janeese Lewis George for D.C. mayor
Group also backed D.C. Council, Congressional delegate, AG candidates
The Capital Stonewall Democrats, D.C.’s largest local LGBTQ political organization, announced on May 14 that it has endorsed D.C. Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) for mayor in the city’s June 16 Democratic primary.
Lewis George along with former D.C. Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie (D-At-Large) are considered by political observers to be the two leading candidates among the seven candidates competing in the Democratic primary election for mayor.
Both have strong, long-standing records of support on LGBTQ issues, indicating Capital Stonewall Democrats members, like LGBTQ voters across the city, are likely choosing a candidate based on non-LGBTQ related issues.
In a May 14 statement, the group announced its endorsements in seven other Democratic primary races, including D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson, who is running unopposed in the primary. Also endorsed is D.C. Councilmember Robert White (D-At-Large), who is one of five Democratic candidates competing for the position of D.C. delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives.
D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) is among the four candidates competing with White for that post, and who like White has a strong record of support on LGBTQ issues.
In the At-Large D.C. Council race for which incumbent Anita Bonds is not running for re-election, Capital Stonewall Democrats has endorsed community activist and LGBTQ ally Oye Owolewa in a nine candidate race.
For the Ward 1 D.C. Council election, in which five LGBTQ supportive candidates are competing, the group did not make an endorsement because none of the candidate received a required 60 percent of the endorsement vote cast by Capital Stonewall Democrats members, according to the group’s former president, Howard Garrett.
The statement announcing its endorsements shows that it decided to list its “Preferred Ranking” of each of the Ward 1 Democratic candidates as part of the city’s newly implemented ranked choice voting system. It lists gay candidate Miguel Trindade Deramo as first, bisexual candidate Aparna Raj second, Jackie Reyes Yanes third, Rashida Brown fourth, and Terry Lynch fifth.
In the remaining ward Council races, Capital Stonewall Democrats endorsed Councilmember Matt Fruman (D-Ward 3), who is running unopposed for re-election; Councilmember Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), the Council’s only gay member who is being challenged by two opponents; and Councilmember Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who is running unopposed for re-election.
The group also chose not to make an endorsement in the special election for another At-Large D.C. Council seat that became vacant when then-Independent Councilmember McDuffie resigned to enable him to run for mayor as a Democrat. Under the city’s Home Rule Charter adopted by Congress, that at large sweat is restricted to a “non-majority party” candidate, meaning a non-Democrat.
The three candidates running for the seat, all Independents, include incumbent Doni Crawford, who was appointed to the seat earlier this year; former D.C. Councilmember Elissa Silverman; and Jacque Patterson. All three have expressed support on LGBTQ related issues.
“The organization’s endorsement process included candidate questionnaires, public forums, and direct voting by active CSD members,” the statement announcing its endorsements says. “Each endorsement reflects the collective voice of 173 LGBTQ+ Democrats who voted in the process and are committed to building lasting political power in the District,” according to the statement. “Candidates that reached 60 percent support received the endorsement.”
Garrett, the group’s former president, acknowledged that with nearly all candidates running in D.C. elections expressing strong support for the LGBTQ community, many if not most of the group’s members most likely chose a candidate based on issues other than LGBTQ related issues.
He said he believes Lewis George, who he is supporting and is viewed as a progressive candidate who self-identifies as a Democratic Socialist, compared to McDuffie, who is viewed as a moderate Democrat, captured the group’s endorsement based on the view that she is the best person to lead the city going forward.
“I believe that Capital Stonewall members voted for Janeese Lewis George because we’re tired of the status quo and we need a new, bold leader to not only move our city forward but also to stand up to Donald Trump and his administration,” Garrett told the Washington Blade.
McDuffie’s LGBTQ supporters, including former Capital Stonewall Democrats presidents David Meadows and Kurt Vorndran, have argued that McDuffie’s positions on a wide range of issues, including LGBTQ issues, show him to be the best candidates to lead the city at this time and In future years.
The group’s endorsement of Lewis George comes one week after GLAA DC, a nonpartisan LGBTQ advocacy group, awarded her its highest candidate rating of +10.
‘The Inheritance’ is most-nominated at this year’s Helen Hayes Awards
HIV Vaccine Awareness Day set for May 18
DC Black Pride is around the corner
United Night Out set for Saturday
Calendar: May 15-21
America’s broken pipeline of mental healthcare for trans youth
PHOTOS: ‘Studio 69’
Blade finalist for D.C. Society of Professional Journalists awards
He is 16 and sitting in a Cuban prison
