News
Guatemala human rights groups oppose anti-LGBTI bill
Initiative 5272 is currently before the country’s Congress
Human rights groups in Guatemala have criticized an anti-LGBTI bill that is currently before the country’s Congress. (Photo by Ted Eytan; courtesy Flickr)
GUATEMALA CITY — Human Rights organizations express our opposition to Initiative 5272, “For the protection of life and the family,” which was proposed on April 26, 2017, and is now being discussed in the Guatemalan Congress.
According to its preamble, the law seeks to introduce norms and reforms designed to “protect the right to life, the family, the institution of marriage between a man and a woman, freedom of conscience and expression and the right of parents to guide their children in the area of sexuality.”
Nevertheless, if the bill is approved, we will be on the brink of a serious setback in terms of the protection and guarantee of human rights for women, for children and adolescents and LGBTIQ people in Guatemala.
The proposal specifically extends the punishment for abortion, including for situations of spontaneous abortion or natural death of the fetus during any stage of pregnancy that even occurs during involuntary, emergency obstetric situations. This scenario would mean that Guatemala would approve a regressive regulation similar to that of countries like El Salvador, where abortion is completely prohibited and has resulted in the criminalization of women who are victims.
With that said, we remember that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the CEDAW Committee have already spoken about the negative impact of laws criminalizing all forms of abortion have on the right to life, personal integrity, health and the rights of women to live free of violence and discrimination.
At the same time, Initiative 5272 contains regulations that prohibit private and public educational institutions from implementing inclusive sexual education policies and programs in the name of parents’ rights to decide what type of education their children can receive. These regulations perpetuate discriminatory and violent practices against girls and adolescents in a country where the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has documented that 24,258 of the 52,288 registered births from January to September 2017 were to mothers under 18-years-old.
In this regard, the IACHR in 2017 urged the government to “implement public education policies with a comprehensive focus on children and adolescents, including sex and reproductive education for different age groups.”
The initiative also seeks to reform the Civil Code by expressly banning of marriage and civil unions between people of the same sex and limiting adoption to families that are only comprised of a man and a woman. At the same time, it also seeks to guarantee that “people are not obliged to accept as normal non-heterosexual conduct and practices,” increasing the risk of acts of violence, discrimination and hate crimes.
With that in mind, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has determined the aforementioned provision would violate the American Convention on Human Rights, which states “an inalienable right cannot be negated or restricted by anyone, and under no circumstances, because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.”
In this sense, the norms contained within text are openly discriminatory, attempt to go against the full exercise of rights of LGBTIQ people and constitute incitement of discrimination and violence.
Initiative 5272 is only a flagrant attempt under the sovereignty of the Guatemalan government to go against agreed upon obligations and its approval would carry international responsibility. The undersigned organizations urge the Guatemalan government to abstain from approving this regulation and immediately adopt ways to dismantle practices and norms that continue perpetuating underlying discrimination against women, adolescents and the LGBTIQ community.
https://www.washingtonblade.com/content/files/2018/08/Comunicado-5272-30-Ago.pdf
Congress
10 HIV/AIDS activists arrested on Capitol Hill
Protesters interrupted Secretary of State Marco Rubio during hearing
U.S. Capitol Police on Tuesday arrested 10 HIV/AIDS activists who protested Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
The activists from Housing Works, Health GAP, the Treatment Action Group, and ACT UP held signs and chanted “Rubio’s Cuts Kill People with AIDS, PEPFAR Saves Lives!” before officers removed them from Dirksen Senate Office Building room where the hearing took place.
A media advisory the Washington Blade received before the protest noted “mounting evidence of Rubio’s attempts to sabotage PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, U.S. bilateral AIDS program) and vital global health programs.” The press release specifically highlighted three specific points:
• Eliminating Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) lifesaving PEPFAR programs, which currently support approximately 12 million people on HIV treatment across 51 countries. Instead, Rubio intends to dismantle CDC’s current PEPFAR role and stamp out their global footprint in disease outbreak and surveillance for pandemics beyond HIV. Experts including eight former CDC Directors under Republican and Democratic administrations have spoken out against this effort to dismantle PEPFAR. Recent PEPFAR data showed sharp decreases in the numbers of people newly tested, diagnosed, and treated for HIV, but these data would have been even worse if not for CDC’s PEPFAR programs.
• Withholding $2 billion in Congressionally appropriated FY25 funding, including $330 million to combat HIV, $250 million to fight malaria, $320 million for maternal and child health programs, and nearly $650 million in global health security programs.
• Negotiating secret bilateral deals blackmailing African governments by demanding access to critical mineral wealth as a condition of access to HIV treatment and prevention funding.
The groups have staged several protests against the Trump-Vance administration’s HIV/AIDS policies since it took office.
Rubio on Jan. 28, 2025, issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during a freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, 2025, has severely impacted their work.
The State Department last September announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir in countries with high prevalence rates.
The New York Times last summer reported Vought “apportioned” only $2.9 billion of $6 billion that Congress set aside for PEPFAR for fiscal year 2025. (PEPFAR in the coming fiscal year will use funds allocated in fiscal year 2024.)
Bipartisan opposition in the U.S. Senate prompted the Trump-Vance administration last July withdraw a proposal to cut $400 million from PEPFAR’s budget. Vought a few weeks later said he would use a “pocket rescission” to cancel $4.9 billion for HIV/AIDS prevention and global health programs and other foreign aid assistance initiatives that Congress had already approved.
The White House in January expanded the global gag rule to ban U.S. foreign aid for groups that promote “gender ideology.” President Ronald Reagan in 1985 implemented the original regulation, also known as the “Mexico City” policy, which bans U.S. foreign aid for groups that support abortion and/or offer abortion-related services. Advocacy groups insist the expanded rule will adversely impact HIV prevention efforts around the world.
“Congress must stop Secretary Rubio before he dismantles PEPFAR,” said Treatment Action Group’s Kendall Martinez-Wright. “Rubio continues to defy the will of Congress and the American people who want this program restored and repaired. Under his leadership he is diverting funding and trying to eliminate the essential role of technical experts in global HIV and global health, while program performance is flailing.”
District of Columbia
JR.’s hosts meet & greet for mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George
Event organized by Capital Stonewall Democrats, Queers for Janeese
D.C. mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George spoke to a crowd of LGBTQ supporters on June 1 at a meet & greet event held at JR.’s on 17th Street in the Dupont Circle neighborhood.
The event, organized by Capital Stonewall Democrats, which has endorsed Lewis George for mayor, with support from a group called Queers for Janeese, was followed by a “get out the vote” canvassing endeavor in which several of those attending the meet & greet visited the homes of nearby residents known to be Lewis George supporters.
The purpose of the canvassing was to remind Lewis George supporters to return their mail-in ballots or go to the polls on June 16 to elect Lewis George as the city’s next mayor, according to Matthew Kavanagh, one of the leaders of Queers for Janeese who attended the meet & greet event at JR.’s.
Local political observers consider Lewis George, a Ward 4 D.C. Council member, and former At-Large D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie, to be the two leading candidates in this year’s race for mayor. The two are among seven mayoral candidates competing in the city’s June 16 Democratic primary.
Lewis George told those attending the meet & greet, which was held on the JR.’s outdoor patio, that she has a long record of advocating for and initiating city polices and laws in support of the LGBTQ community. She said large corporate donors were backing her opponents and urged her LGBTQ supporters to help raise funds for her in the remaining days of the campaign.
Among those attending the meet & greet was gay longtime Dupont Circle civic activist Randy Downs who last November opened a nearby eatery called Protest Pizza. “I am queer and I am a Janeese supporter,” Downs told the Blade.
Stevie McCarty, president of Capital Stonewall Democrats, who also spoke at the meet & greet event, said his group would organize events in support of Lewis George in the remaining days of the campaign. Among them, he said, was an LGBTQ bar crawl in which supporters of Lewis George, including the candidate herself, would visit LGBTQ bars to promote her candidacy.
Virginians for Marriage Equality on Monday launched a campaign in support of repealing Virginia’s constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman, former state Sen. Adam Ebbin, former state Del. Mark Sickles, and American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia Executive Director Mary Bauer are among those who spoke at the launch that took place in Richmond. State Del. Kirk McPike (D-Alexandria), who co-chairs the campaign, also participated.
“This amendment is about making clear that the government has no business deciding which marriages or which families are worthy of recognition,” said Bauer. “The ACLU of Virginia has been fighting for Virginians’ right to marry who they love since the landmark case, Loving v. Virginia, which struck down the ban on interracial marriage. Now we are proud to carry that legacy forward by standing with our coalition partners in the fight to pass this amendment and finally enshrine the right to marriage equality in the commonwealth’s constitution.”
Voters in 2006 approved the Marshall-Newman Amendment.
Same-sex couples have been able to legally marry in Virginia since 2014. Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is a Republican, in 2024 signed a bill that codified marriage equality in state law.
Two successive legislatures must approve a proposed constitutional amendment before it can go to the ballot.
Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger in February signed a bill that finalized the referendum’s language.
The referendum will take place on Nov. 3.
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