News
African LGBT activists seek international support
Advocates call for gov’t accountability during New York briefing
Liesel Theron, co-founder of Gender DynamiX in South Africa (Photo courtesy of IGLHRC)
NEW YORK — African LGBT activists on Monday called upon the international community to do more to support the continent’s gay rights movement.
Friedel Dausab, a Namibian HIV/AIDS advocate, said during a briefing in lower Manhattan that the U.S. and other governments can create spaces where LGBT rights activists “can actually come and speak to our own governments.” Gift Trapence, executive director of the Centre for the Development of People in Malawi, added embassies should engage with local advocates on the ground.
“They need to get the information from the people on the ground so they’re informed,” said Trapence.
Activists from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Cameroon and Zambia also took part in the briefing the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission held a day before the 65th anniversary of the U.N. General Assembly’s ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
They urged the U.S. and other countries to hold African governments more accountable for ongoing LGBT rights abuses.
British Prime Minister David Cameron in 2011 said his government would consider withholding foreign aid to commonwealth countries that ban homosexuality. President Obama in the same year announced the administration would consider a country’s LGBT rights record in the allocation of foreign aid.
“We’re not asking the U.K. or foreign governments to cut aid to Africa,” said Juliet Mphande, executive director of Rainka Zambia, during the IGLHRC briefing. “LGBTI individuals are also Africans, so ultimately we all benefit from that aid.”
Mphande said the U.K. and other European nations should instead begin to address the lingering effects of colonialism that brought anti-sodomy laws into African countries. These include Namibia’s law against homosexuality that has been on the books since 1927.
“What the conversation we need to start having is how the U.K. and foreign governments can start cleaning up their own mess,” said Mphande. “These penal codes that we inherited in most of the African countries are their laws.”
Rev. Kapya Kaoma of Christ Church in Hyde Park, Mass., who is from Zambia, questioned whether it was effective for President Obama to criticize the criminalization of homosexuality during a June press conference with Senegalese President Macky Sall in his country’s capital. Obama’s comments came a day after the U.S. Supreme Court found a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and struck down California’s Proposition 8.
Kaoma said the strategy of western LGBT rights advocates to pressure government officials to publicly speak out against “what they perceive to be homophobia” does not necessarily work in Africa.
“President Obama would have achieved a lot of good if he had called the president of Senegal, brought him into a room and had spoken to him,” he said. “In the Africa context it just reinforces the myth the western world is the one which is exporting homosexuality into Africa.”
Senegal is among the more than 70 countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain illegal. Homosexuality remains punishable by death in Mauritania, Sudan and portions of northern Nigeria.
Obama and the State Department have repeatedly spoken out against a Ugandan bill that sought to impose the death penalty upon anyone convicted of repeated same-sex sexual acts. The administration has also criticized Cameroon, Zimbabwe and Nigeria over their government’s LGBT rights records.
South Africa in 1994 became the first country in the world to add sexual orientation discrimination protections to its constitution. It is also among the 15 nations in which same-sex couples can legally marry.
A 2003 South African law allows trans people to change the gender marker on their identity documents without undergoing sex-reassignment surgery.
Liesl Theron, co-founder of Gender DynamiX, a South African trans advocacy group, said during the IGLHRC briefing the statute has not actually been applied. She further noted the one public hospital in the country that provides sex-reassignment surgery has a 36-year waiting list for those who want to undergo the procedure.
“As much as we have the best constitution and we have every other type of law and thing that is on the side of the citizens of South Africa to have an equal life and a better life, it’s just not the same reality for transgender people,” said Theron.
Rehoboth Beach
BLUF leather social set for April 10 in Rehoboth
Attendees encouraged to wear appropriate gear
Diego’s in Rehoboth Beach hosts a monthly leather happy hour. April’s edition is scheduled for Friday, April 10, 5-7 p.m. Attendees are encouraged to wear appropriate gear. The event is billed as an official event of BLUF, the free community group for men interested in leather. After happy hour, the attendees are encouraged to reconvene at Local Bootlegging Company for dinner, which allows cigar smoking. There’s no cover charge for either event.
District of Columbia
Celebrations of life planned for Sean Bartel
Two memorial events scheduled in D.C.
Two celebrations of life are planned for Sean Christopher Bartel, 48, who was found deceased on a hiking trail in Argentina on or around March 15. Bartel began his career as a television news reporter and news anchor at stations in Louisville, Ky., and Evansville, Ind., before serving as Senior Video Producer for the D.C.-based International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union from 2013 to 2024.
A memorial gathering is planned for Friday, April 10, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. at the IBEW International Office (900 7th St., N.W.), according to a statement by the DC Gay Flag Football League, where Bartel was a longtime member. A celebration of life is planned that same evening, 6-8 p.m. at Trade (1410 14th St., N.W.).
Puerto Rico
The ‘X’ returns to court
1st Circuit hears case over legal recognition of nonbinary Puerto Ricans
Eight months ago, I wrote about this issue at a time when it had not yet reached the judicial level it faces today. Back then, the conversation moved through administrative decisions, public debate, and political resistance. It was unresolved, but it had not yet reached this point.
That has now changed.
Lambda Legal appeared before the 1st U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston, urging the court to uphold a lower court ruling that requires the government of Puerto Rico to issue birth certificates that accurately reflect the identities of nonbinary individuals. The appeal follows a district court decision that found the denial of such recognition to be a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
This marks a turning point. The issue is no longer theoretical. A court has already determined that unequal treatment exists.
The argument presented by the plaintiffs is grounded in Puerto Rico’s own legal framework. Identity birth certificates are not static historical records. They are functional documents used in everyday life. They are required to access employment, education, and essential services. Their purpose is practical, not symbolic.
Within that framework, the exclusion of nonbinary individuals does not stem from a legal limitation. Puerto Rico already allows gender marker corrections on birth certificates for transgender individuals under the precedent established in Arroyo Gonzalez v. Rosselló Nevares. In addition, the current Civil Code recognizes the existence of identity documents that reflect a person’s lived identity beyond the original birth record.
The issue lies in how the law is applied.
Recognition is granted within specific categories, while those who do not identify within that binary structure remain excluded. That exclusion is now at the center of this case.
Lambda Legal’s position is straightforward. Requiring individuals to carry documents that do not reflect who they are forces them into misrepresentation in essential aspects of daily life. This creates practical barriers, exposes them to scrutiny, and places them in a constant state of vulnerability.
The plaintiffs, who were born in Puerto Rico, have made clear that access to accurate identification is not symbolic. It is a basic condition for moving through the world without contradiction imposed by the state.
The fact that this case is now being addressed in the federal court system adds another layer of significance. This is not a pending policy discussion or a legislative proposal. It is a constitutional question. The analysis is not about political preference, but about rights and equal protection under the law.
This case does not exist in isolation.
It unfolds within a broader context in which debates over identity and rights have increasingly been shaped by the growing influence of conservative perspectives in public policy, both in the United States and in Puerto Rico. At the local level, this influence has been reflected in legislative discussions where religious arguments have begun to intersect with decisions that should be grounded in constitutional principles. That intersection creates tension around the separation of church and state and has direct consequences for access to rights.
Recognizing this context is not an attack on faith or religious practice. It is an acknowledgment that when certain perspectives move into the realm of public authority, they can shape outcomes that affect specific communities.
From within Puerto Rico, this is not a distant debate. It is a lived reality. It is present in the difficulty of presenting identification that does not match one’s identity, and in the consequences that follow in workplaces, schools, and government spaces.
The progression of this case introduces the possibility of change within the applicable legal framework. Not because it resolves every tension surrounding the issue, but because it establishes a legal examination of a practice that has long operated under exclusion.
Eight months ago, the conversation centered on ongoing developments. Today, there is already a judicial finding that identifies a violation of rights. What remains is whether that finding will be upheld on appeal.
That process does not guarantee an immediate outcome, but it shifts the ground.
The debate is no longer theoretical.
It is now before the courts.
Calendar: April 10-16
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