National
Ugandan president signs anti-gay bill into law
Yoweri Museveni was in an ‘upbeat mood’
Uganda President Yoweri Museveni (Photo by the U.K. Department for International Development; courtesy Wikimedia Commons).
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Monday signed a bill into law that imposes a life sentence upon anyone found guilty of repeated same-sex sexual acts.
“I have failed to understand that you can fail to be attracted to all these beautiful women and be attracted to a man,” Museveni told reporters as he signed the so-called Anti-Homosexuality Bill at his official residence in Entebbe, according to Agence France-Presse. “That is a really serious matter. There is something really wrong with you.”
The news agency reported Museveni described gays and lesbians as “mercenaries” who are actually “heterosexual people but because of money they say they are homosexuals.”
Museveni also said oral sex can cause worms, Hepatitis B and other sexually transmitted diseases.
“The mouth is for picking food, not for sex,” he said, according to Agence France-Presse. “We know the address for sex. That address (the mouth) is not for sex. The mouth is for eating not for sex. The mouth is engineered for kissing.”
Museveni signed the controversial measure less than a week after he rebuked President Obama’s criticism of him over the issue.
“Africans do not seek to impose their views on anybody,” said Museveni in a Feb. 18 statement. “We do not want anybody to impose their views on us. This very debate was provoked by Western groups who come to our schools and try to recruit children into homosexuality. It is better to limit the damage rather than exacerbate it.”
Museveni said he sought “scientific opinions” on whether people were “born homosexual.”
The Ugandan president in his statement specifically cited Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights President Kerry Kennedy – with whom he met last month – for sending him information from U.S. scientists who said “there could be some indications that homosexuality could be congenital.” Museveni said scientists from the Ugandan Ministry of Health and two other agencies came to a “unanimous conclusion” that “homosexuality, contrary to my earlier thinking, was behavioral and not genetic.”
“What I want them to clarify is whether a combination of genes can cause anybody to be homosexual,” added the Ugandan president in his Feb. 18 statement. “Then my task will be finished and I will sign the bill.”
Ofwondo Opondo, a spokesperson for the Ugandan government, noted on Twitter that Arizona lawmakers last week approved a bill that would allow businesses to deny services to gays and lesbians based on their religious beliefs.
“What is [President] Obama saying to Arizona state law just passed to deny gays services on religious grounds,” said Opondo.
Frank Mugisha, executive director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a Ugandan LGBT advocacy group, blasted Museveni.
“President Museveni’s scientific inquiry is a smokescreen for what is truly going on: political homophobia at its worst,” Mugisha told the Washington Blade. “Last month the President said he would not sign this fascist bill. But now, it seems he has sold us out for the votes of his party. It is politics – plain and simple – all at the expense of LGBTI Ugandans.”
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay is among those who also criticized the Ugandan president for signing the bill.
“This law violates a host of fundamental human rights, including the right to freedom from discrimination, to privacy, freedom of association, peaceful assembly, opinion and expression and equality before the law – all of which are enshrined in Uganda’s own constitution and in the international treaties it has ratified,” said Pillay.
Uganda is among the 70 countries in which homosexuality remains criminalized.
U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who met with Museveni last month during a trip to Uganda with four other American lawmakers, is among those who have urged the Ugandan president not to sign the Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law.
“I certainly disagree with the controversial legislation that Uganda may enact in the coming days,” the Oklahoma Republican told the Washington Blade last week. “As I’ve said before, it is my hope that the country will abandon this unjust and harsh legislation.”
The Center for Constitutional Rights in March 2012 filed a federal lawsuit against Scott Lively on behalf of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a Ugandan LGBT rights group, that accuses the evangelical Christian of exploiting homophobic attitudes in the East African country and encouraging lawmakers to approve the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Judge Michael A. Posner of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts last August ruled the lawsuit can proceed.
Anti-gay activist Scott Lively spoke at the Coalition for Family Values press conference at the National Press Club on Feb. 21. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Lively described the Center for Constitutional Rights as a “Marxist law firm from New York City” during a Feb. 21 press conference at the National Press Club in downtown Washington where he and other anti-gay advocates announced the creation of a new organization designed to combat the global LGBT rights movement.
“The purpose of the lawsuit is to shut me up because I speak very articulately about the homosexual issue from a pro-family perspective,” said Lively in response to the Blade’s question about the lawsuit and whether his new group will encourage additional anti-LGBT violence and discrimination in Uganda and other countries.
Lively categorized the Anti-Homosexuality Bill to the Blade as “overly harsh on its face, but this is typical of African criminal law across the continent.”
“Poor countries with limited criminal justice systems tend to rely on the harshness of the letter of the law to be a deterrent to criminals,” he said on Monday. “In practice, the sentencing is usually pretty lenient. Kenya, for example, has the death penalty for burglary, but burglars are definitely not being executed there.”
Lively added he has “explained this phenomenon” to more than two dozen journalists at “top media outlets that have interviewed me over the past couple of years, but none have included this perspective in their stories.”
“I guess it would undermine their efforts to bolster the ‘gay’ cause,” he told the Blade.
The Washington Blade will have more information on this story as it becomes available.
The White House
Report: Grenell wants Russian ambassadorship
Country’s anti-LGBTQ record a reported barrier
Richard Grenell, President Donald Trump’s special envoy for “special missions,” is making it known that he is interested in the Russian ambassadorship.
According to reporting by the Daily Mail, Grenell has “floated” his interest in the role to coworkers, but issues surrounding the former German ambassador’s sexuality have made securing the position more difficult.
“He had an interest in the job — or at least he floated the idea to select colleagues. But Putin’s regime is extremely anti–LGBTQ, so I’m sure they didn’t take that thought too seriously,” one source close to Grenell told the Daily Mail. “That would never happen anyway.”
Grenell has long been one of Trump’s closest allies and was the first openly gay person to hold a Cabinet-level position. He was ousted last month as acting director of the Kennedy Center, a position he had held since Trump reestablished the board to be composed of his political supporters in 2025.
In addition to leading the nation’s cultural arts center, Grenell previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Germany from 2018 to 2020, and as the special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations from 2019 to 2021. He was also a State Department spokesperson to the U.N. under the George W. Bush administration and a Fox News contributor.
Russia has a longstanding history of being anti-LGBTQ.
In 2013, the country passed a law banning any public endorsement of “nontraditional sexual relations” among minors. In December 2022, Putin signed legislation expanding the ban, making it illegal to promote same-sex relationships or suggest that non-heterosexual orientations are “normal” for people of any age, widening censorship across media and public life.
The Russian courts have also supported the restriction of LGBTQ identity in the country. In November 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court granted a request from the Justice Ministry to outlaw the “international LGBT movement” as “extremist,” allowing authorities to criminalize advocacy and potentially prosecute individuals for expressions of LGBTQ+ identity or support.
In addition to LGBTQ rights issues, the war between Russia and Ukraine has become a global concern. Ukraine, which was part of the former Soviet Union, includes the territory known as Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. The annexation remains a major point of international dispute over sovereignty. Since 2022, Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine has escalated the conflict, drawing global attention and sanctions while straining U.S.-Russia relations.
The U.S. has spent $188 billion in total related to the war in Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Russian ambassadorship seems to be a difficult role to fill, according to additional information presented by the Daily Mail. With Trump already being seen as relatively positive by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and with close ties to members of his Cabinet and family — like son-in-law Jared Kushner — the ambassadorship is complicated and viewed as less critical than in previous administrations.
“There is no rush to fill that role because it has now been deemed unnecessary,” another source told the U.K.-based publication.
Bob Foresman, a seasoned businessman with decades-long ties to the Kremlin, was reportedly once the frontrunner, according to the Daily Mail. Foresman served as vice chair of UBS Investment Bank and Deputy Chairman of Renaissance Capital between 2006 and 2009, and earlier led investment banking for Russia at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein from 1997 to 2000.
“This is a pattern, especially in the Trump administration — special envoys big–footing the ambassadors,” a source told the Daily Mail. “It is shocking that we are already in April and we don’t have an ambassador to one of the most important countries in the world.”
Tennessee
Tenn. lawmakers pass transgender “watch list” bill
State Senate to consider measure on Wednesday
The Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill last week to create a transgender “watch list” that also pushes detransition medical treatment. The state Senate will consider it on Wednesday.
House Bill 754/State Bill 676 has been deemed “ugly” by LGBTQ advocates and criticized by healthcare information litigators as a major privacy concern.
The bill would require “gender clinics accepting funds from this state to perform gender transition procedures to also perform detransition procedures; requires insurance entities providing coverage of gender transition procedures to also cover detransition procedures; requires certain gender clinics and insurance entities to report information regarding detransition procedures to the department of health.”
It would require that any gender-affirming care-providing clinics share the date, age, and sex of patients; any drugs prescribed (dosage, frequency, duration, and method administered); the state and county; the name, contact information, and medical specialty of the healthcare professional who prescribed the treatment; and any past medical history related to “neurological, behavioral, or mental health conditions.” It would also mandate additional information if surgical intervention is prescribed, including details on which healthcare professional made a referral and when.
HB 0754 would also require the state to produce a “comprehensive annual statistical report,” with all collected data shared with the heads of the legislature and the legislative librarian, and eventually published online for public access.
The bill also reframes detransitioning as a major focus of gender-affirming healthcare — despite studies showing that the number of trans people who detransition is statistically quite low, around 13 percent, and is often the result of external pressures (such as discrimination or family) rather than an issue with their gender identity.
This legislation stands in sharp contrast to federal protections restricting what healthcare information can be shared. In 1996, Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, requiring protections for all “individually identifiable health information,” including medical records, conversations, billing information, and other patient data.
Margaret Riley, professor of law, public health sciences, and public policy at the University of Virginia, has written about similar efforts at the federal level, noting the Trump-Vance administration’s push to subpoena multiple hospitals’ records of gender-affirming care for trans patients despite no claims — or proof — that a crime was committed.
It has “sown fear and concern, both among people whose information is sought and among the doctors and other providers who offer such care. Some health providers have reportedly decided to no longer provide gender-affirming care to minors as a result of the inquiries, even in states where that care is legal.” She wrote in an article on the Conversation, where she goes further, pointing out that the push, mostly from conservative members of the government, are pushing extracting this private information “while giving no inkling of any alleged crimes that may have been committed.”
State Rep. Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby), the bill’s sponsor, said in a press conference two weeks ago that he has met dozens of individuals who sought to transition genders and ultimately detransitioned. In committee, an individual testified in support of the bill, claiming that while insurance paid for gender-affirming care, detransition care was not covered.
“I believe that we as a society are going to look back on this time that really burst out in 2014 and think, ‘Dear God, What were we thinking? This was as dumb as frontal lobotomies,’” Faison said of gender-affirming care. “I think we’re going to look back on society one day and think that.”
Jennifer Levi, GLAD Law’s senior director of Transgender and Queer Rights, shared with PBS last year that legislation like this changes the entire concept of HIPAA rights for trans Americans in ways that are invasive and unnecessary.
“It turns doctor-patient confidentiality into government surveillance,” Levi said, later emphasizing this will cause fewer people to seek out the care that they need. “It’s chilling.”
The Washington Blade reached out to the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, which shared this statement from Executive Director Miriam Nemeth:
“HB 754/SB 676 continues the ugly legacy of Tennessee legislators’ attacks on the lives of transgender Tennesseans. Most Tennesseans, regardless of political views, oppose government databases tracking medical decisions made between patients and their doctors. The same should be true here. The state does not threaten to end the livelihood of doctors and fine them $150,000 for safeguarding the sensitive information of people with diabetes, depression, cancer, or other conditions. Trans people and intersex people deserve the same safety, privacy, and equal treatment under the law as everyone else.”
Iran
LGBTQ groups condemn Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization
Ceasefire announced less than two hours before Tuesday deadline
The Council for Global Equality is among the groups that condemned President Donald Trump on Tuesday over his latest threats against Iran.
Trump in a Truth Social post said “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran did not reach an agreement with the U.S. by 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
Iran is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
Israel and the U.S. on Feb. 28 launched airstrikes against Iran.
One of them killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran in response launched missiles and drones against Israel and other countries that include Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, and Cyprus.
Gas prices in the U.S. and around the world continue to increase because the war has essentially closed the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway that connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s crude oil passes.
Trump less than 90 minutes before his deadline announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran that Pakistan helped broker.
“We the undersigned human rights, humanitarian, civil liberties, faith-based and environmental organizations, think tanks and experts are deeply alarmed by President Trump’s threat regarding Iran that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ if his demands are not met. Such language describes a grave atrocity if carried out,” reads the statement that the Council for Global Equality more than 200 other organizations and human rights experts signed. “A threat to wipe out ‘a whole civilization’ may amount to a threat of genocide. Genocide is a crime defined by the Genocide Convention and by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as committing one or more of several acts ‘with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, racial or religious groups as such.'”
The statement states “the law is clear that civilians must not be targeted, and they must also be protected from indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.”
“Strikes on civilian infrastructure — such as the recent attack on a bridge and the attacks President Trump is repeatedly threatening to carry out to destroy power plants — have devastating consequences for the civilian population and environment,” it reads.
“We urge all parties to respect international law,” adds the statement. “Those responsible for atrocities, including crimes against humanity and war crimes, can and must be held accountable.”
The Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice, Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, MADRE, and the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center are among the other groups that signed the letter.
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