News
Paraguayan police clash with LGBT advocates
At least 10 injured during protest ahead of OAS meeting
Paraguayan police on Monday clashed with LGBT rights advocates who protested in the South American country’s capital. (Photo by Felipe Mendez; courtesy Creative Commons)
Officers with the Paraguayan National Police clashed with members of Somosgay and Lesvos — two LGBT advocacy organizations in the landlocked South American country — in Asunción as they protested President Horacio Cartés’ decision to oppose a proposed OAS declaration that would have indicated support of “diverse families.”
A video that Somosgay posted to YouTube shows protesters waiving rainbow flags before police in riot gear approached and struck some of them with batons. The clip also shows two journalists who appear to have been injured during the confrontation.
Sergio López of Somosgay told the Washington Blade during a Skype interview from Asunción on Monday that a pregnant woman was among those injured.
“We suffered repression by the national police,” said López.
The clashes took place as a much larger group of anti-gay protesters gathered outside the hotel where the three-day OAS meeting began on Tuesday under the banner “development through social inclusion.”
A police spokesperson acknowledged to a Paraguayan radio station that clashes took place between the officers who were protecting the anti-gay protesters and the LGBT rights advocates. He said members of Somosgay and Lesvos provoked the officers to respond.
“Some 60 gay people appeared out of nowhere,” said the spokesperson as Hoy, a Paraguayan newspaper, reported. “We spoke with them, they understood, they passed and we again asked them to disperse but they did not want to do so. We insisted a lot, spoke with them a lot, we then sent in a platoon to divide them, but they became aggressive when the blue helmets (riot police) came.”
López described the protest to the Blade as “peaceful.”
Caribe Afirmativo, a Colombian LGBT advocacy group whose members are attending the OAS meeting in the Paraguayan capital, was quick to condemn the police.
“Caribe Afirmativo rejects the attacks by the police who victimized our colleagues with the organization Somosgay of Paraguay a few hours ago,” said the group on its Facebook page. “They were protesting in a peaceful way in front of the venue where we are meeting.”
Esteban Paulón, president of the LGBT Federation of Argentina, told the Blade that a member of his organization is attending the OAS meeting in Asunción. It remains unclear whether she attended the protest.
“We emphatically reject these acts of homophobic violence in Paraguay,” Paulón told the Blade.
LGBT Paraguayans lack basic legal protections found in neighboring Argentina and other South American countries.
López and Somosgay CEO Simón Cazal petitioned a Paraguayan judge to register their Argentina marriage, but she denied their request last year.
Somosgay in 2013 opened Paraguay’s first men’s health clinic in Asunción, but Cazal told the Blade the landlocked South American country has limited resources to combat HIV/AIDS among at-risk groups. Discrimination and violence against trans Paraguayans remains pervasive.
An OAS spokesperson declined to comment on the clashes.
A member of an anti-LGBT group earlier on Tuesday posted a picture to Facebook from a forum that said “groups from the gay and abortion lobby attack and offend while our life and family delegation presents our document.” López told the Blade that he and other advocates had planned to meet with officials to discuss the protest.
The OAS adopted an anti-discrimination resolution that includes sexual orientation and gender identity and expression during its 2013 meeting that took place in Guatemala.
Caribe Afirmativo called upon the OAS to condemn the clashes between police and protesters. The group also urged the Paraguayan government to punish the officers who were involved.
“Unfortunately the Paraguay of President Cartés casts a negative light over a continent that wants to advance towards more equality,” said Paulón. “We clearly support the organizations Somosgay and Lesvos and we commit our resources to built together with them an egalitarian Latin America.”
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Congratulations to Jamie Leeds, chef extraordinaire, and owner of Hank’s Oyster Bars, as she ventures into some new areas. Leeds is an award-winning Washington, D.C.–area chef, restaurateur, and entrepreneur with more than three decades of experience shaping the region’s dining scene.
Her first new venture is a restaurant opening in Alexandria this week. It will be called Hank’s Pasta Bar, bringing a personalized twist to classic Italian dining with a hiddenrestaurant-inside-a-restaurant in Old Town, Alexandria. The new trattoria is above Hank’s Oyster Bar, and will feature a build-your-own menu, marking a new direction for Leeds in partnership with chef Darren Norris. Norris brings more than three decades of experience to Hank’s Pasta Bar, with a foundation grounded in Italian cooking. The grand opening was scheduled for May 14. The elevated casual eatery blends an inventive chef-driven menu with an easy-going, sit-down dining experience that puts guests in charge. Hank’s Pasta Bar bridges the gap between elevated fast casual, like Norris’s Shibuya, and full-service dining, like Leeds’s Hank’s Oyster Bar. Diners order electronically at the table, but unlike fast casuals, food and beverages are delivered on plate ware, and a server is on site at all times.
The restaurant-inside-a-restaurant, welcomes guests to dine in with a full bar, including Italian wines and craft cocktails, maintaining its focus on traditional Italian fare with contemporary touches, including a build-your-own pasta bowl experience starting at $16. Create your own pasta bowl from seven artisanal pastas (including gluten-free), nine made-in-house sauces, proteins, vegetables, and toppings. Leeds said, “It’s the kind of place you’d find down a side street in a Tuscan hill town, after being tipped off by a friend who says, ‘trust me.’ If you know, you know.”
The restaurant will continue Hank’s community partnerships, including with Real Food for Kids, supporting programs that improve school food and nutrition equity.
In addition to this you should try Jaimie’s other new venture. Back Door Taco at Hank’s in Dupont Circle. You walk down the alley from 17th Street to the back door of Hank’s, and enter a small patio to partake of great tacos and interesting cocktails.
District of Columbia
HIV Vaccine Awareness Day set for May 18
Whitman-Walker joins nationwide recognition of efforts to develop vaccine
Whitman-Walker Health, the D.C.-based community healthcare center that specializes in HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ-related health services, will join health care advocates from across the country to support efforts to develop an HIV vaccine on HIV Vaccine Awareness Day on May 18.
“HIV Awareness Day, observed annually on May 18, was established to recognize and thank the volunteers, scientists, health professionals, and community members working toward a safe and effective prevention HIV vaccine,” Whitman-Walker said in a statement.
“Led by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the day is also an opportunity to educate communities about the critical importance of preventive HIV vaccine research,” the statement says.
It adds, “The reality is that any new vaccine discovery must be built community by community, institution by institution, and then it must reach everyone – especially the communities who have carried the heaviest burden of this epidemic.”
On its own website, the National Institutes of Health says HIV Vaccine Awareness Day also highlights its longstanding efforts, coordinated by its Office of AIDS Research, to support researchers’ efforts to develop an HIV vaccine.
“Researchers are making promising headway in efforts to develop a safe, effective HIV vaccine,” it says in a statement on its website.
A Whitman-Walker spokesperson said Whitman-Walker was not holding a specific event to observe HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, but it will recognize the day as a way of encouragement for its ongoing work to address the AIDS epidemic and support for vaccine research.
“Today, no one has to die from HIV,” said Whitman-Walker’s Health System division’s CEO, Dr. Heather Aaron in the Whitman-Walker statement. “We have the treatments, the technology, and the research to change outcomes, and yet people in our community are still dying from HIV//AIDS,” she said in the statement.
“That is unacceptable, and it is exactly why our work continues,” she added. “Here in D.C. with more focus on Southeast D.C., the Whitman-Walker Health System remains committed to making a difference through cutting-edge research, policy advocacy, and philanthropy, because fair access to life-saving treatment is not a privilege. It is a right.”
World
This year’s IDAHOBiT to highlight democracy
Criminalization laws, US funding cuts among global movement’s challenges
Activists around the world on Sunday will mark the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia.
The IDAHOBiT Advisory Group — which includes 18 LGBTQ and intersex rights organizations around the world — in a press release notes IDAHOBiT events are expected to take place in more than 60 countries. Advocacy groups are also using IDAHOBiT to highlight discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity and other LGBTQ-specific issues.
Caribe Afirmativo, a Colombian advocacy group, on May 8 released a report that notes one LGBTQ person was reported murdered in the country every 32 hours in 2025. Caribe Afirmativo also said the Colombian government has not done enough to address anti-LGBTQ violence.
“The evidence is clear: violence against LGBTIQ+ persons in Colombia does not begin with homicide, but with tolerated prejudice and ignored threats,” reads Caribe Afirmativo’s report. “In 2025, the State not only failed to protect — it also failed to count, investigate, and sanction. The crisis is not invisible. It is structural. And it requires an urgent, comprehensive, and sustained response.”
The Initiative for Equality and Discrimination, a Kenyan group known by the acronym INEND, issued a report that details how the country’s law enforcement treats LGBTQ and intersex people. “A widespread pattern of arbitrary arrests, extortion, and both physical and sexual violence” are among the abuses the INEND report notes.
“These abuses not only inflict severe physical and psychological trauma but also foster a widespread distrust of the law enforcement, further marginalizing the community and hindering its ability to seek justice, access essential services such as healthcare, and fully enjoy fundamental freedoms,” it reads.
IDAHOBiT commemorates the World Health Organization’s declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder on May 17, 1990. This year’s IDAHOBiT theme is “At the Heart of Democracy.”
This year’s IDAHOBiT will take place against the continued impact that the lack of U.S. funding is having on the global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement.
The IDAHOBiT Advisory Group notes consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in 65 U.N. member states, and the number of countries with criminalization laws increased in 2025. The IDAHOBiT Advisory Group also indicates more than 60 countries have laws that restrict “freedom of expression related to sexual and gender diversity issues.”
“No matter where we live, who we are, or the faiths that drive us, most people want to nurture neighborhoods and communities where every life can bloom,” said the IDAHOBiT Advisory Group. “But today, reactionary governments worldwide are poisoning our gardens with the invasive weeds of their authoritarian policies and exclusionary legislations.”
‘Progress is still happening’
Activists around the world since last year’s IDAHOBiT have seen several legal and political victories.
New Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar on April 12 defeated his predecessor, Viktor Orbán, whose government faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court last July struck down St. Lucia’s colonial-era laws. The Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Court a few months later ruled the country’s National Police and Armed Forces cannot criminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations among its members. Botswana late last month repealed a provision of its colonial-era penal code that criminalized homosexuality.
A Hong Kong judge last September ruled in favor of a lesbian couple who sought parental recognition for their son. The European Union Court of Justice over the last year issued two landmark decisions: one said EU countries must recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other member states and another directed member states to allow transgender people to legally change their name and gender on ID documents.
“Time and again, LGBTQIA+ people have resisted, rolled up their sleeves together with all the good people caring about their communities, and sowed the seeds of change,” said the IDAHOBiT Advisory Group in its press release.
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