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Trump rechaza número de muertes de María en Puerto Rico

Los comentarios provocan indignación entre activistas LGBTI

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El presidente Trump el 13 de septiembre provocó indignación cuando rechazó el número de muertes del huracán María en Puerto Rico (Foto de Washington Blade por Michael Key)

El presidente Trump fue ampliamente condenado el jueves cuando rechazó el número de muertes oficial del huracán María en Puerto Rico sin ninguna evidencia creíble para apoyar sus reclamos.

“3,000 personas no murieron en los dos huracanes que golpearon Puerto Rico,” dijo Trump en uno de sus dos tweets, refiriéndose a María, que tocó tierra en la costa sureste de Puerto Rico el 20 de septiembre de 2017, y el huracán Irma, que rozó el estado libre asociado estadounidense menos de dos semanas antes. “Cuando salí de la isla, después de que la tormenta había golpeado, tenían entre seis y 18 muertos. No subió demasiado con el paso del tiempo. Luego, mucho tiempo después comenzaron a reportar números realmente grandes, como 3,000.”

Trump en otro tweet acusó a los demócratas de inflar el número de muertes “para hacer que mirase lo peor posible cuando estaba recaudando miles de millones de dólares para ayudar a reconstruir Puerto Rico.”

“Si una persona murió por cualquier motivo, como la vejez, simplemente agréguela a la lista,” dijo Trump. “Malas políticas. Amo a Puerto Rico.”

Trump hizo sus comentarios menos de tres semanas después del gobernador de Puerto Rico Ricardo Rosselló aceptó los hallazgos de un estudio de la Universidad George Washington que atribuyó 2,975 muertos a María. Trump estaba twitteando mientras el huracán Florence comenzaba a azotar la costa de Carolina del Norte.

“Las declaraciones del presidente que cuestionan el número de muertes de los huracanes Irma y María son deplorables,” Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, un abogado para Lambda Legal que es puertorriqueño, dijo al Washington Blade el jueves desde la capital puertorriqueña de San Juan. “Demuestran que el presidente no solo está divorciado de la realidad, sino también su absoluta indiferencia por el sufrimiento de la gente y, francamente, su crueldad.”

“Casi 3,000 puertorriqueños murieron como resultado de los huracanes María e Irma,” añadió. “Sus vidas cuentan.”

Wilfred Labiosa, cofundador de Waves Ahead, un grupo que ayuda a los puertorriqueños LGBTI y otros grupos vulnerables recuperarse de María, estuvo de acuerdo con Gonzalez-Pagan cuando habló al Blade el jueves desde Puerto Rico. Labiosa añadió que los tweets de Trump “reflectan la falta de aceptación de puertorriqueños como ciudadanos estadounidenses.”

“Refleja que Puerto Rico no es un estado libre asociado, sino una colonia de los EEUU que podemos ser prescindibles para los EEUU,” Labiosa dijo al Blade.

La alcaldesa de San Juan Carmen Yulín Cruz es entre aquellos que siguen ser críticas vocales de la respuesta de Trump a María, que incluyó tirando papel toallas en una multitud de personas en una iglesia en las afueras de San Juan menos de dos semanas después del huracán tocó tierra. Cruz el jueves en una larga declaración dijo que las declaraciones de Trump muestran “una falta de respeto por nuestra realidad y nuestro dolor.”

“El simplemente no puede comprender el sufrimiento humano que su negligencia y falta de sensibilidad nos han causado,” dijo Cruz. “3,000 personas murieron en su vigilancia y su incapacidad de captarlo (es lo que) lo vuelven peligroso.”

Rosselló, que han sido reacio a criticar a Trump, también rechazó los tweets.

“Ni la gente de Puerto Rico ni las víctimas merecen que su dolor sea cuestionado,” Rosselló dijo a CBS News.

Un poste dañado en un barrio de Vieques, Puerto Rico, el 31 de enero de 2018. (Foto de Washington Blade por Michael K. Lavers)

Trump ‘dándole la espalda a todos los que sufren’

María tuvo vientos de 155 mph cuando tocó tierra.

Cientos de miles de puertorriqueños no tenían electricidad o acceso a agua potable durante meses.

Labiosa y otros activistas en Puerto Rico han dicho al Blade que personas con VIH/SIDA no tenían acceso a medicamentos antiretrovirales durante los días y semanas después de María tocó tierra. También han dicho que los puertorriqueños confrontaron discriminación en albergues de emergencia por toda la isla.

Casas con toldos azules como techos temporales todavía eran comunes en la zona metropolitana de San Juan y en el sureste de Puerto Rico en mayo cuando este reportero estuvo en la isla.

David Begnaud, un reportero de CBS News, el jueves reportó FEMA dijo que se mudó millones de botellas de agua a una vieja pista en Ceiba, un municipio en la costa noreste de Puerto Rico, que fueron fotografiadas esta semana con toldos azules resistidos sobre ellas.

BuzzFeed el martes reportó que FEMA solo aprovechó 75 de las 2,431 solicitudes de asistencia funeraria que recibió de puertorriqueños después de María. Trump en el mismo día defendió de nuevo la respuesta de su administración a María mientras hablaba sobre Florence con reporteros a la Casa Blanca.

“Mientras está ocupado tratando de ‘salvar la cara,’ continuará dándole la espalda a todos los que sufren,” dijo Cruz el jueves en su declaración. “En pocas palabras: Está completamente desquiciado de la realidad. Una cosa es segura, nuestras vidas importan y no necesitamos un tweet de Trump para recordarnos eso.”

Labiosa estaba de acuerdo, notando que su organización y otras todavía están ayudando a los puertorriqueños recuperarse de María e Irma. Labiosa también dijo al Blade que Waves Ahead, SAGE Puerto Rico y otros grupos que dan la asistencia a puertorriqueños LGBTI también están trabajando de responder a la creciente crisis de salud mental de la isla.

“La comunidad, la diáspora y las entidades no gubernamentales están haciendo la diferencia por trabajar duras para dar los servicios necesarios a aquellos devastados por los huracanes,” dijo al Blade.

Un poste y árboles dañados en Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, el 2 de febrero de 2018. (Foto de Washington Blade de Michael K. Lavers)

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U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court declines to hear case over drag show at Texas university

Students argue First Amendment protects performance

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The U.S. Supreme Court justices on June 30, 2022. ((Photo by Fred Schilling of the U.S. Supreme Court)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday declined to hear a First Amendment case over a public university president’s refusal to allow an LGBTQ student group to host a drag show on campus.

The group’s application was denied without the justices providing their reasoning or issuing dissenting opinions, as is custom for such requests for emergency review.

When plaintiffs sought to organize the drag performance to raise money for suicide prevention in March 2023, West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler cancelled the event, citing the Bible and other religious texts.

The students sued, arguing the move constituted prior restraint and viewpoint-based discrimination, in violation of the First Amendment. Wendler had called drag shows “derisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny,” adding that “a harmless drag show” was “not possible.”

The notoriously conservative Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who former President Donald Trump appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, ruled against the plaintiffs in September, writing that “it is not clearly established that all drag shows are inherently expressive.”

Kacsmaryk further argued that the High Court’s precedent-setting opinions protecting stage performances and establishing that “speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend” was inconsistent with constitutional interpretation based on “text, history and tradition.”

Plaintiffs appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is by far the most conservative of the nation’s 12 appellate circuit courts. They sought emergency review by the Supreme Court because the 5th Circuit refused to fast-track their case, so arguments were scheduled to begin after the date of their drag show.

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Federal Government

EXCLUSIVE: USAID LGBTQ coordinator visits Uganda

Jay Gilliam met with activists, community members from Feb. 19-27

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U.S. Agency for International Development Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator Jay Gilliam (Photo courtesy of USAID)

U.S. Agency for International Development Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator Jay Gilliam last month traveled to Uganda.

Gilliam was in the country from Feb. 19-27. He visited Kampala, the Ugandan capital, and the nearby city of Jinja.

Gilliam met with LGBTQ activists who discussed the impact of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, a law with a death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality” that President Yoweri Museveni signed last May. Gilliam also sat down with USAID staffers.

Gilliam on Wednesday during an exclusive interview with the Washington Blade did not identify the specific activists and organizations with whom he met “out of protection.” 

“I really wanted to meet with community members and understand the impacts on them,” he said.

Consensual same-sex sexual relations in Uganda were already criminalized before Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act. Gilliam told the Blade he spoke with a person who said authorities arrested them at a community meeting for mental health and psychosocial support “under false pretenses of engaging in same-sex relations and caught in a video that purportedly showed him.” 

The person, according to Gilliam, said authorities outed them and drove them around the town in which they were arrested in order to humiliate them. Gilliam told the Blade that prisoners and guards beat them, subjected them to so-called anal exams and denied them access to antiretroviral drugs.

“They were told that you are not even a human being. From here on you are no longer living, just dead,” recalled Gilliam.

“I just can’t imagine how difficult it is for someone to be able to live through something like that and being released and having ongoing needs for personal security, having to be relocated and getting support for that and lots of other personal issues and trauma,” added Gilliam.

Gilliam said activists shared stories of landlords and hotel owners evicting LGBTQ people and advocacy groups from their properties. Gilliam told the Blade they “purport that they don’t want to run afoul of” the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

“These evictions really exacerbate the needs from the community in terms of relocation and temporary shelter and just the trauma of being kicked out of your home, being kicked out of your village and having to find a place to stay at a moment’s notice, knowing that you’re also trying to escape harm and harassment from neighbors and community members,” he said.

Gilliam also noted the Anti-Homosexuality Act has impacted community members in different ways.

Reported cases of violence and eviction, for example, are higher among gay men and transgender women. Gilliam noted lesbian, bisexual and queer women and trans men face intimate partner violence, are forced into marriages, endure corrective rape and lose custody of their children when they are outed. He said these community members are also unable to inherit land, cannot control their own finances and face employment discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.  

US sanctioned Ugandan officials over Anti-Homosexuality Act

The U.S imposed visa restrictions on Ugandan officials shortly after Museveni signed the law. The World Bank Group later announced the suspension of new loans to Uganda.

The Biden-Harris administration last October issued a business advisory that said the Anti-Homosexuality Act “further increases restrictions on human rights, to include restrictions on freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly and exacerbates issues regarding the respect for leases and employment contracts.” The White House has also removed Uganda from a program that allows sub-Saharan African countries to trade duty-free with the U.S. and has issued a business advisory for the country over the Anti-Homosexuality Act. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Dec. 4, 2023, announced sanctions against current and former Ugandan officials who committed human rights abuses against LGBTQ people and other groups. Media reports this week indicate the U.S. denied MP Sarah Achieng Opendi a visa that would have allowed her to travel to New York in order to attend the annual U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.

Museveni, for his part, has criticized the U.S. and other Western countries’ response to the Anti-Homosexuality Act. 

Gilliam noted authorities have arrested and charged Ugandans under the law. 

Two men on motorcycles on Jan. 3 stabbed Steven Kabuye, co-executive director of Coloured Voice Truth to LGBTQ Uganda, outside his home while he was going to work. The incident took place months after Museveni attended Uganda’s National Prayer Breakfast at which U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) spoke and defended the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

The State Department condemned the attack that Kabuye blamed on politicians and religious leaders who are stoking anti-LGBTQ sentiments in Uganda. Gilliam did not meet with Ugandan government officials while he was in the country.

“We in the U.S. government have already made it clear our stance with government officials on how we feel about the AHA, as well as broader human rights concerns in country,” said Gilliam. “That’s been communicated from the very highest levels.”

The Uganda’s Constitutional Court last Dec. 18 heard arguments in a lawsuit that challenges the Anti-Homosexuality Act. It is unclear when a ruling in the case will take place, but Gilliam said LGBTQ Ugandans with whom he met described the law “as just one moment.” 

“Obviously there is lots of work that has been done, that continues to be done to respond to this moment,” he told the Blade. “They know that there’s going to be a lot of work that needs to continue to really address a lot of the root causes and to really back humanity to the community.” 

Gilliam further noted it will “take some years to recover from the damage of 2023 and the AHA (Anti-Homosexuality Act) there.” He added activists are “already laying down the groundwork for what that work looks like” in terms of finding MPs, religious leaders, human rights activists and family members who may become allies.

“Those types of allyships are going to be key to building back the community and to continue the resiliency of the movement,” said Gilliam.

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Texas

Pornhub blocks Texas accessing site over age verification law

Court battle forced statute to take effect

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Washingtonporn Blade graphic

Aylo (formerly MindGeek) the largest global adult online entertainment conglomerate, owned by Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners, has restricted access to its platforms including its flagship Pornhub in Texas after a court battle forces the state’s age verification law to take effect.

Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton had appealed a U.S. District Court decision that enjoined him from enforcing House Bill 1181. Paxton and others argued that purveyors of obscene materials online needed to institute reasonable age-verification measures to safeguard children from pornography. 

A week ago the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partially vacated the original injunction, ruling that the age verification requirements are constitutional. 

“Applying rational-basis review, the age-verification requirement is rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in preventing minors’ access to pornography,” the three judge panel of the 5th Circuit explained. “Therefore, the age-verification requirement does not violate the First Amendment.”

While the court vacated the injunction against the age-verification requirement of the statute, it upheld the lower court’s injunction against a separate section of the law that would require pornography websites to display a health warning on their landing page and all advertisements. 

Texas users are greeted with this notice.

The Houston Chronicle reported people who go to the site are now greeted with a long message from the company railing against the legal change as “ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous.” The company calls for age verification by the makers of devices that let people on the internet, instead of individual websites.

Age verification legislation was enacted in several states in 2023 in addition to Texas, including North Carolina, Montana, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Utah and Virginia.

The new laws require users to provide digital confirmation via a certified approved third party vendor like London-based digital identity company Yoti. The other possibility would be a state approved digital ID such as the California DMV’s Wallet app, which contains a mobile driver’s license.

Users accessing Pornhub from within Louisiana are presented with a different webpage that directs them to verify their age with the state’s digital ID system, known as LA Wallet. The law passed in 2022 subjects adult websites to damage lawsuits and state civil penalties as high as $5,000 a day if they fail to verify that users are at least 18 years old by requiring the use of digitized, state-issued driver’s licenses or other methods.

The Associated Press reported this past October that an adult entertainment group’s lawsuit against a Louisiana law requiring sexually explicit websites to verify the ages of their viewers was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan in New Orleans.

Texas users are greeted with this notice.

Potential or existing Pornhub users in North Carolina and Montana are directed to a video that features adult film star Cherie DeVille, who recites a message also written under the video.

“As you may know, your elected officials in your state are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website. While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.”

“Mandating age verification without proper enforcement gives platforms the opportunity to choose whether or not to comply,” the statement continues. “As we’ve seen in other states, this just drives traffic to sites with far fewer safety measures in place.”

“Until a real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in [the aforementioned locales]” the message ends with.

The company previously blocked Utah on May 7, 2023. CNN reported at the time:

Affected users are shown a message expressing opposition to Senate Bill 287, the Utah law signed by Gov. Spencer Cox in March that creates liability for porn sites that make their content available to people below the age of 18.

“As you may know, your elected officials in Utah are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website,” the message said. “While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.”

Courthouse News reported that after Virginia’s bill was passed in June, state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, a Democrat, criticized the state for not creating a system for age verification, and instead leaving it up to websites to manage the process, citing security risks.  

“We passed a bill during this session to protect children from online porn. However the executive branch had an obligation to create a system for age verification,” Lucas said on X, formerly Twitter. “We will continue our work to keep pornography out of the hands of minors … but we will also work to ensure that this Governor’s error does not put the privacy of Virginians at further risk.”

Beyond the U.S. in the European Union, Pornhub and two more of the world’s biggest porn websites face new requirements in the European Union that include verifying the ages of users, under the EU’s Digital Services Act.

According to a December 20 report from the Associated Press, Pornhub, XVideos and Stripchat have now been classed as “very large online platforms” subject to more stringent controls under the Digital Services Act because they each have 45 million average monthly users, according to the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch.

They are the first porn sites to be targeted by the sweeping Digital Services Act, which imposes tough obligations to keep users safe from illegal content and dodgy products, the Associated Press reported last month.

In addition to the adult entertainment websites, any violations are punishable by fines of up to 6% of global revenue or even a ban on operating in the EU. Some 19 online platforms and search engines have already been identified for stricter scrutiny under the DSA, including TikTok, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Google and more.

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