World
Russian lesbian athlete: ‘We are visible to our gov’t’
State Dept. brings leader of Moscow LGBT sports group to U.S.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is under fire for his anti-gay policies, but lesbian Russian athlete Elvina Yuvakaeva says the government recognizes her LGBT group, which is planning a first-ever LGBT sports competition in Moscow next year. (Photo of Putin courtesy of www.kremlin.ru; Photo of Yuvakaeva courtesy of Yuvakaeva)
In a little noticed development, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow last month selected one of the leaders of a Russian LGBT sports group to participate in a sports exchange program in the U.S. organized by the State Department.
Lesbian athlete Elvina Yuvakaeva, co-president of the Russian LGBT Sport Federation, arrived in Washington last week with a five-member delegation of Russians working on the 2014 Winter Olympics set to take place in Sochi, Russia Feb. 7-23.
Under the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program, Yuvakaeva and the Russian delegation will visit several cities to meet with professional U.S. sports teams and organizers of past Olympics games in Atlanta and Salt Lake City. The meetings are aimed at providing information helpful to the Russians’ effort to promote and carry out the Olympic Games in Sochi.
Yuvakaeva said she will also be meeting with U.S. organizers of the 2014 Gay Games, the quadrennial international LGBT sports competition scheduled to take place next summer in Cleveland. In addition, she said she will make use of her U.S. visit to promote a first-ever LGBT sports competition her organization is planning to hold in Moscow next March called the Open Games.
“Two years ago our organization was registered as an NGO [non-governmental organization] by our government,” Yuvakaeva told the Blade in a Sept. 15 interview. “And our small victory was in the papers,” she said, noting that the registration of organizations in Russia is considered a form of government recognition.
“In our papers the government saw that L means lesbian, G means gay, B means bisexual, and T means transgender,” she said. “So we understood that the government saw us and we are visible to our government and society.”
A State Department spokesperson on Tuesday declined to comment on the potential political significance of the selection of a lesbian sports activist for the U.S. exchange program.
Observers of the controversy surrounding calls by some LGBT activists in the U.S. and Europe for a boycott of the Sochi Olympics in response to a recently passed Russian law that critics say subjects gays to persecution are likely to view Yuvakaeva’s selection as a signal of U.S. opposition to Russia’s policies on gays.
President Obama, who has expressed concern about Russia’s so-called “gay propaganda” law, included Russian LGBT activists as part of a contingent of representatives of Russian civic organizations with whom he met during his recent participation in the G-20 international economic summit in St. Petersburg.
“Quite frankly, I’m not going to get into a political thing like that,” said Susan Pittman, director of media relations for the State Department’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs.
“I would merely reiterate that these people are selected after their applications are in and they’re reviewed by the embassy and the consulates,” she told the Blade.
“These particular programs – we have a number of them throughout the year,” Pittman said. “They include emerging leaders in a variety of fields – in professions, in sports, in the arts, in culture. The whole idea is to bring these people here in order to be able to establish relationships with their American counterparts.”
Yuvakaeva said a U.S. Embassy official approached her and invited her to apply for the exchange program in August while she attended an embassy reception. The reception, to which she had been invited, was held at the embassy in honor of U.S. athletes participating in the 2013 International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) track and field competition that took place Aug. 10-18 in Moscow.
Among those attending the reception, Yuvakaeva said, was American runner Nick Symmonds, who created a stir when he spoke out against the Russian law against gay propaganda after receiving a silver medal in the competition. Sports writers said Symmonds, who is gay, became the first international athlete to criticize the gay propaganda law while on Russian soil.
Yuvakaeva said the Russian LGBT Sport Federation was founded in 2010 as a non-political organization with the purpose of promoting and facilitating sports among Russia’s LGBT community. Among other things, it serves as a representative of the Russian LGBT community on the board of the International Federation of Gay Games.
She said Russian authorities have not sought to revoke the group’s registration following the approval earlier this year by the Russian parliament of the gay propaganda law, which Russian officials have said is aimed at protecting minors from homosexuality.
According to Yuvakaeva, authorities consider the Russia LGBT Sport Federation to be in compliance with both the propaganda law and a separate law banning certain organizations from receiving money from foreign groups or governments on grounds that the Russian sports group is non-political.
“The only thing is we couldn’t invite minors to our events and we wouldn’t spread some information among minors about our events because it’s outlawed,” she said in discussing the impact of the gay propaganda law on her group.
Members of All Out and Athlete Ally last month presented a petition to the IOC that urges it to pressure Russia to end its anti-gay laws. (Photo courtesy of All Out)
Concerning the Sochi Olympics, Yuvakaeva said the Russian LGBT Sport Federation opposes calls for a boycott on grounds that it would have a negative impact on the athletes and the LGBT community.
“My position and our official position is that a boycott of Sochi is a bad idea because the Olympics is a big event which is held every four years,” she said. “So Olympic athletes are preparing for this event a minimum of four years and it means Olympic athletes cannot compete and don’t have an opportunity to win medals.”
She said her organization also believes a boycott would have a negative impact on public opinion of the LGBT community in Russia and elsewhere.
“Our suggestion is to ask athletes, for example, at the opening ceremony to hold hands,” she said. “Same-sex people can hold hands during the opening ceremony to support LGBT people in Russia and all people.”
Although she won’t use her U.S. visit to campaign against a boycott, she said she will make her views known on the subject when she meets with LGBT sports representatives in the various U.S. cities to which she will travel through this month.
Among her priorities during her U.S. visit will be to promote and possibly raise money for the upcoming Open Games next year in Moscow, Yuvakaeva said. In what could be another first, she said she will ask officials of the Coca-Cola Company to consider contributing money for the Open Games when she and the Russian delegation meet company officials during their visit this week to Atlanta.
The delegation was scheduled to meet the Coca-Cola officials in connection with the company’s role as a sponsor of the Sochi Olympics.
“I want to ask Coca-Cola about these funds because they can make a PR campaign that says, OK guys, we’re sponsors of the Sochi Olympics. And in the same situation we support LGBT athletes in Russia because we gave some money for the Russian Open Games,” she said.
“So I think it might be interesting for them,” Yuvakaeva said. “We’ll see.”
While Yuvakaeva visits various U.S. cities in her participation in the State Department’s exchange program, Konstantin Yablotski, the other co-chair of the Russian LGBT Sport Federation, is in Los Angeles promoting the Open Games on the West Coast.
Yablotski, a figure skater who competed in the 2010 Gay Games in Germany, and Yuvakaeva, an avid snowboarder and badminton player, are each committed to advancing LGBT equality in Russia through sports, Yuvakaeva told the Blade.
She said the sports planned for the Open Games, for which both LGBT people and heterosexual athletes are invited, are track and field, basketball, volleyball, badminton, soccer, tennis, table tennis, swimming and cross-country skiing.
Yuvakaeva said that while foreign athletes would be welcome to participate in the Open Games, her organization was still deliberating over the extent to which foreign participation may be possible due to logistical limitations and security and safety issues.
“Our main goal is propaganda for a healthy sports lifestyle among the LGBT and society,” she said.
Greenland
The Greenland lesson for LGBTQ people
Playbook is the same for our community and Europeans
I understand my own geopolitical limits and don’t pretend to know how Europeans should respond to U.S. threats to seize Greenland or retaliate against anyone who opposes them. However, as I mentioned in March, it’s clear that for Europeans and LGBTQ+ people alike, hug-and-kiss diplomacy is over.
In practice, that means responding to the U.S. administration’s provocations with dialogue, human‑rights rhetoric, and reasoning may now be counterproductive. It looks weak. At some point, Europeans will have to draw a line and show how bullying allies and breaking international agreements carry a cost — and that the cost is unpredictable. On the surface, they have few options; like LGBTQ+ communities, they are very behind in raw power and took too long to wake up. But they still have leverage, and they can still inflict harm.
Maybe it is time for them to call the bluff. America has a great deal to lose, not least its reputation and credibility on the world stage. Stephen Miller and Pete Hegseth, with all their bravado, obviously underestimate both the short‑ and long‑term geopolitical price of ridicule. Force the United States to contemplate sending troops into an ally’s territory, and let the consequences play out in international opinion, institutions, and markets.
In the United States, LGBTQ+ communities have already endured a cascade of humiliations and live under constant threat of more. In 2025 our symbols and heroes were systematically erased or defaced: the USNS Harvey Milk was quietly renamed after a straight war hero, Admiral Rachel Levine’s title and image were scrubbed from official materials, Pride flags were banned from public buildings, World AIDS Day events were defunded or stripped of queer content, the Orlando memorial and other sites of mourning were targeted, the U.S. lead a campaign against LGBTQ+ language at the U.N., and rainbow crosswalks were literally ripped up or painted over. We cannot simply register our distress; we must articulate a response.
In practice, that means being intentional and focused. We should select a few unmistakable examples: a company that visibly broke faith with us, a vulnerable political figure whose actions demand consequences, and an institution that depends on constituencies that still need us. The tools matter less than the concentration of force — boycotts, shaming, targeted campaigning all qualify — so long as crossing certain lines produces visible, memorable costs.
A friend suggested we create what he called a “c***t committee.” I liked the discipline it implies: a deliberate, collective decision to carefully select a few targets and follow through. We need a win badly in 2026.
These thoughts are part of a broader reflection on the character of our movement I’d like to explore in the coming months. My friends know that anger and sarcasm carried me for a long time, but eventually delivered diminishing returns. I am incrementally changing these aspects of my character that stand in the way of my goals. The movement is in a similar place: the tactics that served us best are losing effectiveness because the terrain has shifted. The Greenland moment clarifies that we must have a two-pronged approach: building long-term power and, in the short term, punching a few people in the nose.
Congress
McBride, other US lawmakers travel to Denmark
Trump’s demand for Greenland’s annexation overshadowed trip
Delaware Congresswoman Sarah McBride is among the 11 members of Congress who traveled to Denmark over the past weekend amid President Donald Trump’s continued calls for the U.S. to take control of Greenland.
McBride, the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, traveled to Copenhagen, the Danish capital, with U.S. Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and U.S. Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), Don Bacon (R-Neb.), and Sarah Jacobs (D-Calif.). The lawmakers met with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenlandic MP Pipaluk Lynge, among others.
“I’m grateful to Sen. Coons for his leadership in bringing together a bipartisan, bicameral delegation to reaffirm our support in Congress for our NATO ally, Denmark,” said McBride in a press release that detailed the trip. “Delaware understands that our security and prosperity depend on strong partnerships rooted in mutual respect, sovereignty, and self-determination. At a time of growing global instability, this trip could not be more poignant.”
Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark with a population of less than 60,000 people. Trump maintains the U.S. needs to control the mineral-rich island in the Arctic Ocean between Europe and North America because of national security.
The Associated Press notes thousands of people on Saturday in Nuuk, the Greenlandic capital, protested against Trump. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is among those who have criticized Trump over his suggestion the U.S. would impose tariffs against countries that do not support U.S. annexation of Greenland.
A poll that Sermitsiaq, a Greenlandic newspaper, and Berlingske, a Danish newspaper, commissioned last January indicates 85 percent do not want Greenland to become part of the U.S. The pro-independence Demokraatit party won parliamentary elections that took place on March 12, 2025.
“At this critical juncture for our countries, our message was clear as members of Congress: we value the U.S.-Denmark partnership, the NATO alliance, and the right of Greenlanders to self-determination,” said McBride on Sunday in a Facebook post that contained pictures of her and her fellow lawmakers meeting with their Danish and Greenlandic counterparts.
Colombia
Gay Venezuelan opposition leader: Country’s future uncertain after Maduro ouster
Yendri Velásquez fled to Colombia in 2024 after authorities ‘arbitrarily detained’ him
A gay Venezuelan opposition leader who currently lives in Colombia says his country’s future is uncertain in the wake of now former President Nicolás Maduro’s ouster.
The Washington Blade spoke with Yendri Velásquez on Thursday, 12 days after American forces seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, during an overnight operation.
Maduro and Flores on Jan. 5 pleaded not guilty to federal drug charges in New York. The Venezuelan National Assembly the day before swore in Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, as the country’s acting president.
Velásquez, who lives in the Colombian capital of Bogotá, described the events surrounding Maduro’s ouster as “very confusing.”
“It was a very surprising thing that left me in shock,” Velásquez told the Blade. “We also thought, at least from the perspective of human rights, that the United States was going to respect international law and not go to the extreme of bombing and extracting Maduro.”
“Other questions also arise,” he added. “What could have been done? What else could have been done to avoid reaching this point? That is the biggest question posed to the international community, to other countries, to the human rights mechanisms we established before Trump violated international law, precisely to preserve these mechanisms and protect the human rights of Venezuelan people and those of us who have been forced to flee.”
Velásquez three years ago founded the Venezuelan Observatory of LGBTIQ+ Violence. He also worked with Tamara Adrián, a lawyer who in 2015 became the first openly transgender woman elected to the Venezuelan National Assembly, for more than a decade.
Members of Venezuela’s military counterintelligence agency, known by the Spanish acronym DGCIM, on Aug. 3, 2024, “arbitrarily detained” Velásquez as he was trying to leave the country to attend a U.N. human rights event in Geneva.
Velásquez told the Blade he was “forcibly disappeared” for nearly nine hours and suffered “psychological torture.” He fled to Colombia upon his release.
Two men on Oct. 14, 2025, shot Velásquez and Luis Peche Arteaga, a Venezuelan political consultant, as they left a Bogotá building.
The assailants shot Velásquez eight times, leaving him with a fractured arm and hip. Velásquez told the Blade he has undergone multiple surgeries and has had to learn how to walk again.
“This recovery has been quite fast, better than we expected, but I still need to finish the healing process for a fractured arm and complete the physical therapy for the hip replacement I had to undergo as a result of these gunshots,” he said.
María Corina Machado, who won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, and other Venezuelan opposition leaders said Maduro’s government targeted Velásquez and Peche. Colombian President Gustavo Petro and his government also condemned the attack.
Colombian authorities have yet to arrest anyone in connection with the attack.
Velásquez noted to the Blade he couldn’t sleep on Jan. 3 because “of the aches and pains” from the shooting. He said a friend who is “helping me out and looking after my things” was the one who told him about the operation the U.S. carried out to seize Maduro and Flores.
“He said, ‘Look at this! They’re bombing Caracas! And I was like, ‘What is this?'” recalled Velásquez.
White House ‘not necessarily’ promoting human rights agenda
Velásquez noted Rodríguez “is and forms part of the mechanisms of repression” that includes DGCIM and other “repressive state forces that have not only repressed, but also tortured, imprisoned, and disappeared people simply for defending the right to vote in (the) 2024 (election), simply for protesting, simply for accompanying family members.” Velásquez told the Blade that “there isn’t much hope that things will change” in Venezuela with Rodríguez as president.
“Let’s hope that countries and the international community can establish the necessary dialogues, with the necessary intervention and pressure, diplomatically, with this interim government,” said Velásquez, who noted hundreds of political prisoners remain in custody.
He told the Blade the Trump-Vance administration does not “not necessarily” have “an agenda committed to human rights. And we’ve seen this in their actions domestically, but also in their dealings with other countries.”
“Our hope is that the rest of the international community, more than the U.S. government, will take action,” said Velásquez. “This is a crucial moment to preserve democratic institutions worldwide, to preserve human rights.”
Velásquez specifically urged the European Union, Colombia, Brazil, and other Latin American countries “to stop turning a blind eye to what is happening and to establish bridges and channels of communication that guarantee a human rights agenda” and to try “to curb the military advances that the United States may still be considering.”
Velásquez told the Blade he also plans to return to Venezuela when it is safe for him to do so.
“My plan will always be to return to Venezuela, at least when it’s no longer a risk,” he said. “The conditions aren’t right for me to return because this interim government is a continuation of Maduro’s government.”
Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers was on assignment in Bogotá, Colombia, from Jan. 5-10.
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Comings & Goings
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Capitals to host 10th annual Pride night
