News
Nelson Mandela dies at 95
LGBT activists mourn former South African president
“Our nation has lost its greatest son,” said South African President Jacob Zuma as he announced on South African television that Mandela had passed away at his Johannesburg home. “Nelson Mandela brought us together. And it is together that we will bid him farewell.”
Born in Cape Province on July 18, 1918, Mandela spent 27 years in jail for opposing South Africa’s apartheid-era government until his release in 1990. Mandela was the country’s president from 1994-1999.
South Africa in 1994 became the first country in the world to add a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation into its constitution.
Mandela in 1994 nominated Edwin Cameron, a gay man with HIV, alongside four others to sit on South Africa’s highest court.
“I became the first openly gay judge in South Africa’s history and, at that time, one of the very few openly gay judges anywhere in the world,” wrote Cameron in an op-ed for the South African website Mambaonline in July that he provided to the Washington Blade. “Mr. Mandela was not only happy to appoint me — he did so with emphatic personal warmth, which he personally expressed to me and to others.”
South African LGBT rights advocate Phumzile Mtetwa also recalled Mandela’s LGBT legacy in an op-ed the South African newspaper Mail and Guardian published in July while the former South African president was in critical condition in a Pretoria hospital for what his doctors described as a recurring lung infection.
Mtetwa noted Mandela was president of the African National Congress in 1993 when it added the extension of rights to LGBT South Africans to its platform. The ANC in 1997 adopted a resolution opposing discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Mtetwa wrote Mandela “became an important icon of the movement” in contrast to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and other anti-LGBT African heads of state.
“As a queer activist I will remember uTatu Dalibhunga for the dreams of freedom he symbolized,” Mtetwa said.
Gavin Hayward, editor of Exit, a South African LGBT newspaper, told the Blade from Johannesburg on Friday that LGBT South Africans continue to acknowledge Mandela’s pro-gay legacy. He noted his own interracial relationship would have been banned under Apartheid.
“He was such a great man, with such compassion and selflessness to devote his life to a cause really for the benefit of others,” Hayward told the Blade. “That’s huge and of course I admire him immensely. God knows where the country would have been if we hadn’t had a great man like that around.”
Obama described Mandela as one of the “most influential, courageous and profoundly good human beings that any of us will share time with on this Earth.”
“Through his fierce dignity and unbending will to sacrifice his own freedom for the freedom of others, Madiba transformed South Africa — and moved all of us,” the president said. “His journey from a prisoner to a President embodied the promise that human beings — and countries — can change for the better.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray are among those who also mourned Mandela’s death.
“Nelson Mandela tore down oppression, united a rainbow nation and always walked arm-in-arm with his LGBT brothers and sisters — and with all people — toward freedom,” said Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin in a statement. “Though every man, woman and child who seeks justice around the world mourns this loss, his vision of an equal future lives on undimmed.”
Rev. Nancy Wilson, moderator of the Metropolitan Community Churches, described Mandela as “one of the greatest leaders in history.”
“Because of Nelson Mandela, South Africa became the first country in the world to include constitutional protection for same-gender loving persons,” she said. “As the head of a church with many gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer members in 40 countries, including South Africa, I honor the liberator, Mandela.”
World Pride 2025
Episcopal bishop to speak at WorldPride human rights conference
Trump demanded apology from Mariann Edgar Budde over post-Inauguration sermon

The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde is among those who are scheduled to speak at the WorldPride 2025 Human Rights Conference that will take place from June 4-6.
Budde, who is the bishop of the Diocese of Washington, in January urged President Donald Trump “to have mercy” on LGBTQ people, immigrants, and others “who are scared right now” during a post-Inauguration service that he and Vice President JD Vance attended at the Washington National Cathedral. Trump criticized Budde’s comments and demanded an apology.
The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde speaks at the Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 21, 2025. (PBS NewsHour clip)
A press release the Washington Blade received notes Icelandic Industries Minister Hanna Katrín Friðriksson, UK Black Pride founder Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, and Bob the Drag Queen are among those who are also expected to participate in the conference.
The conference will take place at the JW Marriott (1331 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.) and registration is open here.
World Pride 2025
Pabllo Vittar to perform at WorldPride
Brazilian drag queen, singer, joined Madonna on stage in 2024 Rio concert

A Brazilian drag queen and singer who performed with Madonna at her 2024 concert on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach will perform at WorldPride.
The Capital Pride Alliance on Thursday announced Pabllo Vittar will perform on the Main Stage of the main party that will take place on June 7 at DCBX (1235 W St., N.E.) in Northeast D.C.
Vittar and Anitta, a Brazilian pop star who is bisexual, on May 4, 2024, joined Madonna on stage at her free concert, which was the last one of her Celebration Tour. Authorities estimated 1.6 million people attended.
Federal Government
RFK Jr.’s HHS report pushes therapy, not medical interventions, for trans youth
‘Discredited junk science’ — GLAAD

A 409-page report released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services challenges the ethics of medical interventions for youth experiencing gender dysphoria, the treatments that are often collectively called gender-affirming care, instead advocating for psychotherapy alone.
The document comes in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order barring the federal government from supporting gender transitions for anyone younger than 19.
“Our duty is to protect our nation’s children — not expose them to unproven and irreversible medical interventions,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement. “We must follow the gold standard of science, not activist agendas.”
While the report does not constitute clinical guidance, its findings nevertheless conflict with not just the recommendations of LGBTQ advocacy groups but also those issued by organizations with relevant expertise in science and medicine.
The American Medical Association, for instance, notes that “empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression.”
Gender-affirming care for transgender youth under standards widely used in the U.S. includes supportive talk therapy along with — in some but not all cases — puberty blockers or hormone treatment.
“The suggestion that someone’s authentic self and who they are can be ‘changed’ is discredited junk science,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “This so-called guidance is grossly misleading and in direct contrast to the recommendation of every leading health authority in the world. This report amounts to nothing more than forcing the same discredited idea of conversion therapy that ripped families apart and harmed gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people for decades.”
GLAAD further notes that the “government has not released the names of those involved in consulting or authoring this report.”
Janelle Perez, executive director of LPAC, said, “For decades, every major medical association–including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics–have affirmed that medical care is the only safe and effective treatment for transgender youth experiencing gender dysphoria.
“This report is simply promoting conversion therapy by a different name – and the American people know better. We know that conversion therapy isn’t actually therapy – it isolates and harms kids, scapegoats parents, and divides families through blame and rejection. These tactics have been used against gay kids for decades, and now the same people want to use them against transgender youth and their families.
“The end result here will be a devastating denial of essential health care for transgender youth, replaced by a dangerous practice that every major U.S. medical and mental health association agree promotes anxiety, depression, and increased risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts.
“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice, and no amount of pressure can force someone to change who they are. We also know that 98% of people who receive transition-related health care continue to receive that health care throughout their lifetime. Trans health care is health care.”
“Today’s report seeks to erase decades of research and learning, replacing it with propaganda. The claims in today’s report would rip health care away from kids and take decision-making out of the hands of parents,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of NCLR. “It promotes the same kind of conversion therapy long used to shame LGBTQ+ people into hating themselves for being unable to change something they can’t change.”
“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice—it’s rooted in biology and genetics,” Minter said. “No amount or talk or pressure will change that.”
Human Rights Campaign Chief of Staff Jay Brown released a statement: “Trans people are who we are. We’re born this way. And we deserve to live our best lives and have a fair shot and equal opportunity at living a good life.
“This report misrepresents the science that has led all mainstream American medical and mental health professionals to declare healthcare for transgender youth to be best practice and instead follows a script predetermined not by experts but by Sec. Kennedy and anti-equality politicians.”
-
Books5 days ago
Chronicling disastrous effects of ‘conversion therapy’
-
U.S. Federal Courts4 days ago
Second federal lawsuit filed against White House passport policy
-
Opinions4 days ago
We must show up to WorldPride 2025 in D.C.
-
District of Columbia4 days ago
Ruby Corado sentencing postponed for third time