News
LGBT advocates from Caribbean, South America visit U.S.
‘We’re facing some serious issues back home’
Anti-LGBT violence remains a serious concern for advocates in Jamaica and in other countries in the Caribbean and South America. (Photo courtesy of Ellen Sturtz)
Advocates from Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago arrived in D.C. on June 7 to take part in a trip organized through the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program.
They attended Capital Pride events and met with Casa Ruby CEO Ruby Corado, members of the D.C. Center for the LGBT Community and other advocates while in the nation’s capital. The activists also met with officials at the State Department and the White House.
The group traveled to Memphis on June 14 where they met with what their itinerary described as “small NGOs (non-governmental organizations) serving the LGBT population.” They also discussed “being LGBT within another minority community.”
The advocates on Monday traveled to Little Rock, Ark., and are scheduled to arrive in Iowa City, Iowa, on Thursday. The trip is slated to end on June 23.
“It’s a very intense program,” Donovan Banel, legal advisor of Suriname Men United, a Surinamese LGBT advocacy group, told the Washington Blade on June 12 during a mixer at Number Nine with National Center for Transgender Equality Executive Director Mara Keisling and other advocates. “I can take a lot of what I learned back to my home country and then apply it and help support the LGBT community that is in Suriname.”
Mellissa Johnson of the Caribbean HIV/AIDS Alliance noted anti-LGBT discrimination and stigma remain prevalent in Antigua and Barbuda. The islands are among the 11 nations throughout the Caribbean and South America in which homosexuality remains criminalized.
“I’m happy for the opportunity to see how far and what progress has been made with the LGBT community here,” Johnson told the Blade. “We are facing some serious issues back home, so we wanted to see how you dealt with it here to see if we can incorporate it back here.”
The Jamaican Supreme Court in November is expected to hear a case challenging the country’s sodomy law filed by a man who claims his landlord kicked him out of his home because of his sexual orientation. The Supreme Court of the Judicature of Belize last year heard a challenge to the Central American nation’s sodomy law that a local LGBT advocacy group filed in 2010.
LGBT issues gain traction, visibility
Same-sex couples can legally marry on the Dutch island of Saba, Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guiana. Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro, has spoken out in support of marriage rights for gays and lesbians.
Nearly three dozen countries earlier this month approved a resolution in support of LGBT rights during the Organization of American States’ annual meeting in Paraguay. Belize, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados are among the nations that backed it “with reservations.”
Belizean first lady Kim Simplis-Barrow has publicly spoken out against anti-LGBT discrimination and violence in her country. A so-called conscience vote that would allow Jamaican parliamentarians to consult with their constituents on the country’s anti-sodomy law has yet to take place, even though Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller during her 2011 campaign pledged to call for one.
Gay U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic James “Wally” Brewster and his husband, Bob Satawake, last week released a video that commemorated Pride month.
Anti-LGBT discrimination, violence persist
Jamaican police on June 15 reportedly rescued a gay man who had been attacked by a mob after he was seen putting on lipstick. This latest incident of anti-LGBT violence in the country took place nearly a year after a group of partygoers killed Dwayne Jones, a cross-dressing teenager, near the resort city of Montego Bay.
Media reports indicate several people in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince were injured last August after a mob attacked a British man and his partner as they celebrated their engagement.
Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús Rodríguez of the Archdiocese of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic last June sparked outrage among local LGBT rights advocates after he described Brewster as a “maricón” or “faggot” in Spanish during a press conference.
A diplomatic reception with Dominican President Danilo Medina and his wife that had been scheduled to take place in January was postponed after several ambassadors said they would not attend because Archbishop Jude Thaddeus Okolo, the Vatican’s envoy to Santo Domingo who organized it, did not invite Brewster’s husband. It took place on March 24 with the gay U.S. ambassador and Satawake in attendance.
David Bustamante Rodríguez, a Cuban LGBT rights advocate with HIV, remains in jail after he staged a “peaceful protest” against the country’s government on the roof of his home near the city of Santa Clara last month.
Luke Sinnette of Friends for Life, a Trinidadian LGBT rights organization, noted to the Blade while in D.C. that Caribbean countries are often connected by culture, colonial-era laws and other factors. He said what happens in a particular nation can reverberate throughout the region.
“If something happens in Belize or happens in Jamaica, you can then use that in Trinidad, or the other way around,” said Sinnette.
District of Columbia
Laverne Cox, Reneé Rapp, Deacon Maccubbin named WorldPride grand marshals
Three LGBTQ icons to lead parade
WorldPride organizers announced Thursday that actress and trans activist Laverne Cox, powerhouse performer Reneé Rapp, and LGBTQ trailblazer Deacon Maccubbin will serve as grand marshals for this year’s WorldPride parade.
The Capital Pride Alliance, which is organizing WorldPride 2025 in Washington, D.C., revealed the honorees in a press release, noting that each has made a unique contribution to the fabric of the LGBTQ community.
Cox made history in 2014 as the first openly transgender person nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in an acting category for her role in Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black.” She went on to win a Daytime Emmy in 2015 for her documentary “Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word,” which followed seven young trans people as they navigated coming out.
Rapp, a singer and actress who identifies as a lesbian, rose to prominence as Regina George in the Broadway musical “Mean Girls.” She reprised the role in the 2024 film adaptation and also stars in Max’s “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” portraying a character coming to terms with her sexuality. Rapp has released an EP, “Everything to Everyone,” and an album, “Snow Angel.” She announced her sophomore album, “Bite Me,” on May 21 and is slated to perform at the WorldPride Music Festival at the RFK Festival Grounds.
Deacon Maccubbin, widely regarded as a cornerstone of Washington’s LGBTQ+ history, helped organize D.C.’s first Gay Pride Party in 1975. The event took place outside Lambda Rising, one of the first LGBTQ bookstores in the nation, which Maccubbin founded. For his decades of advocacy and activism, he is often referred to as “the patriarch of D.C. Pride.”
“I am so honored to serve as one of the grand marshals for WorldPride this year. This has been one of the most difficult times in recent history for queer and trans people globally,” Cox said. “But in the face of all the rhetorical, legislative and physical attacks, we continue to have the courage to embrace who we truly are, to celebrate our beauty, resilience and bravery as a community. We refuse to allow fear to keep us from ourselves and each other. We remain out loud and proud.”
“Pride is everything. It is protection, it is visibility, it is intersectional. But most importantly, it is a celebration of existence and protest,” Rapp said.
The three will march down 14th Street for the WorldPride Parade in Washington on June 7.
Congress
House passes reconciliation with gender-affirming care funding ban
‘Big Beautiful Bill’ now heads to the Senate
The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday voted 215-214 for passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” reconciliation package, which includes provisions that would prohibit the use of federal funds to support gender-affirming care.
But for an 11th hour revision of the bill late Wednesday night by conservative lawmakers, Medicaid and CHIP would have been restricted only from covering treatments and interventions administered to patients younger than 18.
The legislation would also drop requirements that some health insurers must cover gender-affirming care as an “essential health benefit” and force states that currently mandate such coverage to find it independently. Plans could still offer coverage for transgender care but without the EHB classification patients will likely pay higher out of pocket costs.
To offset the cost of extending tax cuts from 2017 that disproportionately benefited the wealthiest Americans, the reconciliation bill contains significant cuts to spending for federal programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The Human Rights Campaign criticized House Republicans in a press release and statement by the group’s president, Kelley Robinson:
“People in this country want policies and solutions that make life better and expand access to the American Dream. Instead, anti-equality lawmakers voted to give handouts to billionaires built on the backs of hardworking people — with devastating consequences for the LGBTQ+ community.
“If the cuts to programs like Medicaid and SNAP or resources like Planned Parenthood clinics weren’t devastating enough, House Republicans added a last minute provision that expands its attacks on access to best practice health care to transgender adults.
“This cruel addition shows their priorities have never been about lowering costs or expanding health care access–but in targeting people simply for who they are. These lawmakers have abandoned their constituents, and as they head back to their districts, know this: they will hear from us.”
Senate Republicans are expected to pass the bill with the budget reconciliation process, which would allow them to bypass the filibuster and clear the spending package with a simple majority vote.
Changes are expected as the bill will be reviewed and amended by committees, particularly the Finance Committee, and then brought to the floor for debate — though modifications are expected to focus on Medicaid reductions and debate over state and local tax deductions.
2025 D.C. Trans Pride was held at Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library on Saturday, May 17. The day was filled with panel discussions, art, social events, speakers, a resource fair and the Engendered Spirit Awards. Awardees included Lyra McMillan, Pip Baitinger, Steph Niaupari and Hayden Gise. The keynote address was delivered by athlete and advocate Schuyler Bailar.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
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