National
Iraq war vet who fought ‘Don’t Ask’ dies in car accident
Manzella discharged under military’s gay ban after coming out on ’60 Minutes’
Darren Manzella, shown here in 2008, came out as gay while serving in the Army under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” He died at age 36. (Washington Blade file photo by Henry Linser).
A gay veteran of the Iraq war who fought against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has died in a car accident in Pittsford, N.Y.
Darren Manzella, who came out as gay in 2007 while serving in the Army during an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” died on Thursday at the scene of the crash. He had just turned 36 on Aug. 8.
Steve Ralls, the former spokesperson for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network who handled his public relations at the time, said openly gay troops currently serving around the world today are able to do so, in part, because of Darren’s sacrifice.
“Darren knew he would be discharged for speaking out, but he volunteered to do it because he wanted the men and women who followed him to be able to serve openly without fear of discharge or discrimination,” Ralls said. “That’s the kind of guy, and the kind of soldier, Darren was. I know how deeply proud his family was of him, and that pride was shared by all of us who had the privilege of working with him, too.”
Manzella served as an Army medic in Kuwait and Iraq and earned a Combat Medical Badge for treating his fellow soldiers. His “60 Minutes” interview was filmed, in secret, in Kuwait City while he was still a Staff Sergeant in the Army.
He was the first openly gay service member on active duty to speak to the press from a war zone. Months after coming out publicly, Manzella was given an honorable discharge under the military’s gay ban in 2008.
Since August 2011, Manzella had been working as a health science specialist for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Rochester. According to his Facebook page, he very recently married his spouse, Javier Lapeira, on July 5.
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, who also faced discharge under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” for being gay, knew Manzella and said he was an inspiration.
“Darren Manzella wasn’t just a hero and an inspiration to me personally, he was an American hero and a civil rights leader,” Fehrenbach said. “When my ordeal started in May 2008, I saw Darren’s interview on 60 minutes. He inspired me to speak out and tell my story. He had such a great impact in the repeal of DADT.”
Fehrenbach, who was ultimately able to stay in the Air Force before he retired on his own volition, said his friend will leave a lasting legacy.
“The only blessing is that Darren died as a soldier and a husband,” Fehrenbach said. “He was able to fulfill his dreams to serve his country openly and marry the man he loved. I will miss him dearly, and I will never forget him. He made the world a better place and he made me better and stronger for knowing him.”
The Rochester-based Democrat and Chronicle quotes Michael Manzella, Darren’s father, as identifying his son as a person who was killed in the accident Thursday night.
Michael Manzella reportedly said Darren was struck by a sport utility vehicle while pushing his car that was already damaged in an accident that happened immediately beforehand on Interstate 490. Michael Manzella is quoted as saying as of Friday afternoon, his calls to police so far haven’t been returned.
In the same report, Cpl. John Helfer of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office reportedly confirmed an accident involving two collisions took place on Thursday that caused someone’s death. However, Helfer reportedly wouldn’t name the person.
Helfer reportedly said the incident began as a two-car crash on the westbound lanes of the highway in Pittsford, when one car sideswiped another car about 8:30 p.m. The man in the struck car stopped in the middle lane of I-490, got out and started pushing it from behind, Helfer was quoted as saying.
But a sport utility vehicle rear-ended the car, pinning the man between the two vehicles. The man was pronounced dead at the scene, Helfer reportedly said. The other two involved drivers were reportedly taken to Strong Memorial Hospital with minor injuries.
Lapeira told the Blade the police came to his apartment to notify him that they had found Manzella’s car and his body, which remained at the Medical Examiner in Rochester until Saturday.
“Needless to say, Darren was a hero in every sense of the word,” Lapeira said. “Even at the moment of his death, his first instinct was to push his car off the freeway to avoid any injuries to others.”
After coming out on “60 Minutes,” Manzella was discharged months later under the military’s gay ban known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” President Obama signed legislation to repeal that law in December 2010 and lifted the ban the following year.
In January 2008, the Washington Blade published an article — the first byline in the paper for this reporter — on Manzella’s appearance on “60 Minutes” during a period of uncertainty on whether he’d be expelled from the military. After he was subsequently kicked out of the Army under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the Blade followed up in July 2008 with an article on his experience.
At the time, the former soldier told the Blade during his discharge proceedings he had the opportunity to request a board to rebut statements that he made to the press. But Manzella waved this option.
“I said I wouldn’t take back anything,” he said. “It would defeat the purpose of why I participated in the [“60 Minutes”] segment. It would defeat the purpose of working with SLDN.”
The former soldier told the Blade experience of being out in the military, making media appearances and ultimately being discharged from service has made him “much more aware” of his identity.
“My belief that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ needs to be repealed has magnified significantly because I’m personally affected by it now,” he said.
Darren Manzella in 2008. (Washington Blade file photo by Henry Linser)
State Department
State Department implements anti-trans bathroom policy
Memo notes directive corresponds with White House executive order
The State Department on April 20 announced employees cannot use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
The Daily Signal, a conservative news website, reported the State Department announced the new policy in a memo titled “Updates Regarding Biological Sex and Intimate Spaces, Including Restrooms.”
The State Department has not responded to the Washington Blade’s request for comment on the directive.
“The administration affirms that there are two sexes — male and female — and that federal facilities should operate on this objective and longstanding basis to ensure consistency, privacy, and safety in shared spaces,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Piggot told the Daily Signal. “In line with President Trump’s executive order this provides clear, uniform guidance to the department by grounding policy in biological sex as determined at birth.”
President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in January 2025 issued an executive order that directed the federal government to only recognize two genders: male and female. The sweeping directive also ordered federal government agencies to “effectuate this policy by taking appropriate action to ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by sex and not identity.”
The Daily Signal notes the new State Department policy “does not prohibit single-occupancy restrooms.”
National
I’m telling the scared little girl I once was it’s okay to feel free
This week is Lesbian Visibility Week
Uncloseted Media published this article on April 23.
By SOPHIE HOLLAND | At 13 years old, I remember looking in the mirror in my Toronto bathroom and thinking, “Yeah, I’m a lesbian.” At the time, I thought it was a dirty word. Thinking back, it could be because the first time I heard it was when a family member said, “I don’t know what a lesbian is, they are like aliens.”
And although I walked around in camouflage Crocs with a rainbow My Little Pony charm, plaid knee-length shorts and a shark tooth necklace (yes, these are all, in my opinion, stereotypically lesbian apparel!), I didn’t feel like I fit the mold. The longer I thought about it, the worse I felt, so I buried my feelings deep inside.
Now I am 25, and I have been out since I was 22. Three years ago, I never could have imagined that I’d be working for a queer news publication and celebrating Lesbian Visibility Week, an annual event meant to honor and uplift lesbian perspectives and highlight the hardships our community faces. To me, LVW is so important because, frankly, it has been an absolute shit show getting here, to a place where I feel love and joy most days.
I think back to the frustration of constantly being asked, “Do you have a boyfriend?” Of watching princess movies and seeing a broken girl only find herself when her prince charming arrives. I remember listening to music that was always about heterosexual relationships. I remember feeling left out in high school when, one by one, my friends got boyfriends.
I tried the boyfriend, and I tried really hard for it to work at a large detriment to my wellbeing. I brainwashed myself into thinking I was probably bisexual, which I told my closest friends around 16 and unsuccessfully told my parents at the same age. I was probably subconsciously using this as a litmus test of their acceptance and to soothe the anxiety I felt around my sexuality.
Learning to love who I am did not only come from me unraveling my internalized lesbophobia and dissecting the oppressive societal messages of heteronormativity. It came from meeting an awesome community of lesbians and queers. I found people who understood my worldview and who showed me the ropes. I no longer had to stutter over concepts like lesbian loneliness or my frustration with misogynistic straight men.
They all just got it.
Without this community, I am not sure if I could be as warm and confident in myself as I am today.
And while I still experience homophobia, like being spat on while walking with an ex in downtown Toronto or having a stranger yell in my face “Are you fucking lesbians?” in Kensington Market, the joy and love still outweighs the nasty.
So, as the sentimental dyke that I have become, I decided to ask a set of lesbians in my orbit — including my friends as well as Uncloseted staffers, board members and followers — if they would share a little bit about what makes them love being a lesbian. And now, I can share it with all of you. Here they are. Happy LVW!
Timi Sotire
Falling in love with her was a reset. I felt like a kid again, hopeful about the future. We’ve had to overcome many obstacles to be together, but I’d choose her in every lifetime. I was sick with a long-term health condition when we met, and hanging out with Sophia really helped me with my recovery after my surgery.
Bella Sayegh
Being a lesbian is one of the most beautiful things in the world. To be authentically yourself in resistance and joy is so special within the lesbian community.
Parker Wales
When I met Liv, I finally understood why almost every song is about love.
Gillian Kilgour
There is no connection quite as perfect as between lesbians, no one sees me like my lesbians do.
Chyna Price
There’s many things I love about being a lesbian. But here are my top three:
- There’s just a deeper understanding when it comes to being loved by another woman.
- The next one would be the sense of community, especially being a POC masculine-presenting lesbian. I don’t feel like I’m cosplaying as someone else like I felt like I was doing before I came out.
- There’s so much history going back to the 1800s on how we found and fought for our love. That fight makes me proud because it shows me … that we’ve [found] ways to express our love even when it was misunderstood, illegal and deemed as madness.
Hope Pisoni
Before I knew I was a lesbian, romantic relationships seemed suffocating — it felt like everyone would expect me to act my part in the meticulous performance that is heterosexuality. But meeting my spouse and discovering our identities together showed me just how freeing it could be to love without a script to follow.
Leital Molad
It was the joy of watching the New York Sirens defeat the Toronto Sceptres at our first professional women’s hockey game — surrounded by hundreds (maybe thousands?) of cheering lesbians.
Angela Earl
I spent years building a life that looked right. But I never felt settled, and eventually I started asking what would actually make me happy. Coming out was about more than who I love, it was letting go of everything I was told to be. The last few years have felt like coming home to a life that had been waiting for me.
Tali Bray
What I love about being a lesbian is what I love about being in love … the wonder and joy of “oh, this is what it’s supposed to feel like.” I love moving through the world with women.
Izzy Stokes
I didn’t fall in love until I realized that queerness was an option. My queer friends have helped me see so much more than I grew up seeing. I’m so proud of us, and I’m so grateful for my lesbian community.
Nandika Chatterjee
When I met my fiancée is when I started to feel most like myself. That meant loving myself for who I am and embracing my identity as a lesbian. I felt free in a way I have never before. That’s the long and short of it.
Liz Lucking
The love and joy of being a lesbian is getting to live the life I dreamed of but never thought I would get to have!
Reflections
As I read these beautiful entries, it’s not lost on me that we’re still living in a world where lesbians are more likely to struggle with maternity problems, fetishization, and compulsory heterosexuality — not to mention the intersectional pressures of racism from both inside and outside the queer community. That’s part of why, according to a 2024 survey, 22 percent of LGBTQ women have attempted suicide, and 66 percent have sought treatment for trauma.
So if you are a lesbian who isn’t out or doesn’t feel safe, I hope you read this and can glean some hope from these messages. So when you look in the mirror, you know that it’s okay to release the weight — which can feel so heavy — of a heteronormative world.
We still have a long fight until all lesbians can feel safe to be themselves, but this is a community that does not back away from the tough, from the joy, from being loud and from all the other things that it takes to start a small revolution.
Hell yeah, lesbians! Here’s to you.
*I am signing off with my cat on my lap and a pride flag over my head <3.
Cuba
Trans parent charged with kidnapping, allegedly fled to Cuba with child
Cuban authorities helped locate Rose Inessa-Ethington
Federal authorities have charged a transgender woman with kidnapping after she allegedly fled to Cuba with her 10-year-old child.
An affidavit that Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Jennifer Waterfield filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Utah on April 16 notes the child is a “biological male who identifies as a female” and “splits time living with divorced parents who share custody” in Cache County, Utah.
Waterfield notes the child on March 28 “was supposed to be traveling by car to” Calgary, Alberta, “for a planned camping trip with his transgender mother, Rose Inessa-Ethington, Rose’s partner, Blue Inessa-Ethington, and Blue’s 3-year-old child.”
The affidavit notes the group instead flew from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Mexico City on March 29. Waterfield writes the Inessa-Ethingtons and the two children then flew from Mérida, Mexico, to Havana on April 1.
The 10-year-old child called her biological mother on March 28 after they arrived in Canada. The custody agreement, according to the affidavit, required Rose Inessa-Ethington to return the child to her former spouse on April 3.
“Interviews of MV [Minor Victim] 1’s family members provided significant concerns for MV 1’s well-being, as MV 1 was born a male, however, identifies as a female child, which is largely believed to be due to manipulation by Rose Inessa-Ethington,” reads the affidavit. “Concerns exist that MV 1 was transported to Cuba for gender reassignment surgery prior to puberty.”
The affidavit indicates authorities found a note in the Inessa-Ethingtons’ home with “instruction from a mental health therapist located in Washington, D.C., including instruction to send the therapist the $10,000.00 and instructions on gender-affirming medical care for children.”
The affidavit does not identify the specific “mental health therapist” in D.C.
A Utah judge on April 13 ordered Rose Inessa-Ethington to “immediately” return the child to her former spouse. The former spouse also received sole custody.
“Your affiant believes that due to the extensive planning and preparation exhibited by both Rose Inessa-Ethington and Blue Inessa-Ethington to isolate MV 1 and take MV 1 to Havana, Cuba, without notifying or requesting permission from MV 1’s mother indicates they are likely not planning to return to the United States,” wrote Waterfield.
The affidavit notes Cuban authorities found the Inessa-Ethingtons and the child.
A press release the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah issued notes the Inessa-Ethingtons “were deported from Cuba” on Monday “with the assistance of the FBI.”
The couple has been charged with International Parental Kidnapping. The Inessa-Ethingtons were arraigned in Richmond, Va., on Monday. The press release notes a federal court in Salt Lake City will soon handle the case.
The New York Times reported the child is now back with their biological mother.
“We are grateful to law enforcement for working swiftly to return the child to the biological mother,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Holyoak of the District of Utah in the press release.
The case is unfolding against the backdrop of increased tensions between Washington and Havana after U.S. forces on Jan. 3 seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in January 2025 issued an executive order that directed the federal government to only recognize two genders: male and female. A second White House directive banned federally-funded gender-affirming care for anyone under 19.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year in the Skrmetti decision upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for minors.
Cuba’s national health care system has offered free sex-reassignment surgeries since 2008.
Activists who are critical of Mariela Castro, the daughter of former President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBTQ issues as director of Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education, have previously told the Washington Blade that access to these procedures is limited. The Blade on Wednesday asked a contact in Havana to clarify whether Cuban law currently allows minors to undergo sex-reassignment surgery.
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