News
Zimbabwe president describes homosexuality as ‘inhuman’
Robert Mugabe made comments during International Women’s Day event
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe. (Photo public domain)
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Thursday described homosexuality as “inhuman.”
“The West says we must accept there is change in the world, that gays have human rights,” he said during an event at a hotel in Harare, the country’s capital, that commemorated International Women’s Day as the Herald, a Zimbabwean newspaper, reported. “Gays have no human rights. They have human rights – human rights for doing an inhuman thing.”
Mugabe has repeatedly faced criticism from Zimbabwean LGBT rights advocates and others over his homophobic rhetoric.
He told supporters during a rally last July ahead of the African country’s presidential election that authorities should arrest gays and lesbians who don’t conceive children. Mugabe during the same event criticized the Anglican Church for blessing same-sex marriage and President Obama over his support of nuptials for gays and lesbians.
The Zimbabwean president described gays and lesbians who took part in a Harare book fair in 1995 as “dogs and pigs.” Mugabe reportedly said in a speech at a teacher’s college in the city of Masvingo last June that gay men and lesbians “should rot in jail.”
“President Mugabe’s hateful and wholly irresponsible comments about LGBT people in Zimbabwe are highly unfortunate, though not altogether surprising,” Jeffrey Smith of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights told the Washington Blade on Friday, referring to the Zimbabwean president’s latest comments against gays and lesbians. “These comments are consistent with Mugabe’s past statements, describing gays as worse than ‘pigs and dogs.’ For Mugabe to declare gays and lesbians as somehow inhuman, on a day meant to celebrate equality, is horribly ironic and reprehensible.”
The Zimbabwean government has also frequently targeted members of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ), a local LGBT advocacy group.
Police in August 2012 arrested more than 40 members of the organization inside their Harare office. GALZ members said authorities confiscated computers and pamphlets from the same office a few days before the arrests.
“We are deeply concerned when security forces become an instrument of political violence used against citizens exercising their democratic rights,” said then-State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland after the incidents. “We call upon the government of Zimbabwe to end this pattern of abuse and to eradicate the culture of impunity that allows members of the security sector to continue to violate the rights of the Zimbabwean people.”
Smith told the Blade that officials stopped a GALZ workshop two weeks ago.
A Zimbabwean LGBT rights advocate with whom the Blade spoke in D.C. in February 2013 said Mugabe and his political party, Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front or ZANU-PF, use homosexuality as “one of their campaign tools.”
Mugabe last July defeated former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in his country’s disputed presidential election.
“They will use this issue to threaten the LGBT people in Zimbabwe,” said the activist who asked the Blade not to publish his name because of potential reprisals against him. “They will do everything in their power to make sure that LGBT people are punished.”
Smith further categorized Mugabe’s crackdown on LGBT rights and homophobic rhetoric as “unacceptable.”
“Mugabe’s brazen disregard for human rights and the principles enshrined in his country’s own constitution is indicative of the wider crisis in Zimbabwe,” Smith told the Blade.”[It] has been exacerbated by his re-election last July, of which many observers – including the U.S. and other world leaders – declared fraudulent and by no means representing the will of the Zimbabwean people.”
The Zimbabwean Embassy near Dupont Circle in Northwest D.C. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
State Department
Democracy Forward files FOIA request for State Department bathroom policy records
April 20 memo outlined anti-transgender rule
Democracy Forward on Tuesday filed a Freedom of Information Act request for records on the State Department’s new bathroom policy.
A memo titled “Updates Regarding Biological Sex and Intimate Spaces, Including Restrooms” that the State Department issued on April 20 notes employees can no longer use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
“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, a conservative news website that first reported on the memo. “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.”
Democracy Forward’s FOIA request that the Washington Blade exclusively obtained on Tuesday is specifically seeking a copy of the memo that details the State Department’s new bathroom policy. Democracy Forward has also requested “all” memo-specific communications between the State Department’s Bureau of Global Public Affairs and the Daily Signal from April 1-21.
Federal Government
House Republicans push nationwide ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill
Measures would restrict federal funding for LGBTQ-affirming schools
Republicans have been gaining ground in reshaping education policy to be less inclusive toward LGBTQ students at the state level, and now they are turning their focus to Capitol Hill.
Some GOP lawmakers are pushing for a nationwide “Don’t Say Gay” bill, doubling down on their commitment to being the party of “traditional family values” by excluding anyone who does not identify with their sex at birth.
The largest anti-LGBTQ education legislation to reach the House chamber is House Bill 2616 — the Parental Rights Over the Education and Care of Their Kids Act, or the PROTECT Kids Act. The PROTECT Kids Act, proposed by U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), and co-sponsored by U.S. Reps. Burgess Owens (R-Utah), Mary Miller (R-Ill.), Robert Onder (R-Mo.), and Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.), would require any public elementary and middle schools that receive federal funding to require parental consent to change a child’s gender expression in school.
The bill, which was discussed during Tuesday’s House Rules Committee hearing, would specifically require any schools that get federal money from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 — which was created to minimize financial discrepancies in education for low-income students — to get parental approval before identifying any child’s gender identity as anything other than what was provided to the school initially. This includes getting approval before allowing children to use their preferred locker room or bathroom.
It reads that any school receiving this funding “shall obtain parental consent before changing a covered student’s (1) gender markers, pronouns, or preferred name on any school form; or (2) sex-based accommodations, including locker rooms or bathrooms.”
LGBTQ rights advocates have criticized both national and state efforts to require parental permission to use a child’s preferred gender identity, as it raises issues of at-home safety — especially if the home is not LGBTQ-affirming — and could lead to the outing of transgender or gender-curious students.
A follow-up bill, HB 2617, proposed by Owens, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, prevents the use of federal funding to “advance concepts related to gender ideology,” using the definition from President Donald Trump’s 2025 Executive Order 14168, making that an enshrined definition in law of sex rather than just by executive order. There is also a bill making its way through the senate with the same text— Senate Bill 2251.
Advocates have also criticized this follow-up legislation, as it would restrict school staff — including teachers and counselors — from acknowledging trans students’ identities or providing any support. They have said that this kind of isolation can worsen mental health outcomes for LGBTQ youth and allows for education to be politicized rather than being based in reality.
David Stacy, the Human Rights Campaign’s vice president of government affairs, called this legislation out for using LGBTQ children as political pawns in an ideology fight — one that could greatly harm the safety of these children if passed.
“Trans kids are not a political agenda — they are students who deserve safety and affirmation at school like anyone else,” Stacy said in a statement. “Despite the many pressing issues facing our nation, House Republicans continue their bizarre obsession with trans people. H.R. 2616 does not protect children. It targets them. This bill is cruel, and we’re prepared to fight it.”
This is similar to Florida House Bills 1557 and 1069, referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and “Don’t Say They” bill, respectively, restricting classroom discussions on sexual orientation and gender identity, prohibiting the use of pronouns consistent with one’s gender identity, expanding book banning procedures, and censoring health curriculum.
The American Civil Liberties Union is tracking 233 bills related to restricting student and educator rights in the U.S.
Botswana’s government has repealed a provision of its colonial-era penal code that criminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations.
The country’s High Court in 2019 struck down the provision. The Batswana government in 2022 said it would abide by the ruling after country’s Court of Appeals upheld it.
The government on March 26 announced the repeal of the penal code’s “unnatural offenses” section that specifically referenced any person who “has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature” and “permits any other person to have carnal knowledge of him or her against the order of nature.”
Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana, a Batswana advocacy group known by the acronym LEGABIBO, challenged the criminalization law with the support of the Southern Africa Litigation Center. LEGABIBO in a statement it posted to its Facebook on April 25 welcomed the repeal.
“For many, these provisions were not just words on paper — they were lived realities,” said LEGABIBO. “They affected access to healthcare, safety, employment, and the freedom to love and exist openly.”
“LEGABIBO believes that the deletion of these sections is a necessary and long-overdue step toward restoring dignity and aligning our legal framework with constitutional values of equality and human rights,” it added. “It is a clear message that LGBTIQ+ persons are not criminals, and that their lives and relationships deserve protection, not punishment.”
LEGABIBO further stressed that “while this does not erase the harm of the past, it creates space for healing, inclusion, and continued progress toward full equality.”
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