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BOGOTÁ, Colombia — A gay Venezuelan man who has lived in Colombia since 2018 says he feels uncertain about his country’s future after the U.S. seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

“On one hand I can feel content, but on the other hand I feel very concerned,” Heberth Aguirre told the Washington Blade on Tuesday during an interview at a shopping mall in Bogotá, the Colombian capital.

Aguirre, 35, is from Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second-largest city that is the heart of the country’s oil industry.

He developed cultural and art initiatives for the Zulia State government.

“Little by little, I suddenly became involved in politics because, in a way, you had to be involved,” recalled Aguirre. “It was necessary to be involved because the regime often said so.”

“I basically felt like I was working for the citizens, but with this deeply ingrained rule we had to be on their side, on the side of the Maduro and (former President Hugo) Chávez regime,” he added.

Maduro in 2013 became Venezuela’s president after Chávez died.

“There are things I don’t support about the regime,” Aguirre told the Blade. “There are other things that were nice in theory, but it turned out that they didn’t work when we put them into practice.”

Aguirre noted the Maduro government implemented “a lot of laws.” He also said he and other LGBTQ Venezuelans didn’t “have any kind of guarantee for our lives in general.”

“That also exposed you in a way,” said Aguirre. “You felt somewhat protected by working with them (the government), but it wasn’t entirely true.”

Aguirre, 35, studied graphic design at the University of Zulia in Maracaibo. He said he eventually withdrew after soldiers, members of Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Guard, and police officers opened fire on students.

“That happened many times, to the point where I said I couldn’t keep risking my life,” Aguirre told the Blade. “It hurt me to see what was happening, and it hurt me to have lost my place at the university.”

Venezuela’s economic crisis and increased insecurity prompted Aguirre to leave the country in 2018. He entered Colombia at the Simón Bolívar Bridge near the city of Cúcuta in the country’s Norte de Santander Province.

“If you thought differently, they (the Venezuelan government) would come after you or make you disappear, and nobody would do anything about it,” said Aguirre in response to the Blade’s question about why he left Venezuela.

The Simón Bolívar Bridge on the Colombia-Venezuela border on May 14, 2019. (Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)

Aguirre spoke with the Blade three days after American forces seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, during an overnight operation.

The Venezuelan National Assembly on Sunday swore in Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, as the country’s acting president. Maduro and Flores on Monday pleaded not guilty to federal drug charges in New York.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday in a Truth Social post said Venezuela’s interim authorities “will be turning over between 30 and 50 million barrels of high quality, sanctioned oil, to the United States of America.”

“This oil will be sold at its market price, and that money will be controlled by me, as president of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States,” wrote Trump.

Trump on Sunday suggested the U.S. will target Colombian President Gustavo, a former Bogotá mayor and senator who was once a member of the M-19 guerrilla movement that disbanded in the 1990s.

Petro has urged Colombians to take to the streets on Wednesday and “defend national sovereignty.” Claudia López, a former senator who would become the country’s first female and first lesbian president if she wins Colombia’s presidential election that will take place later this year, is among those who criticized Trump’s comments.

“Let’s be clear: Trump doesn’t care about the humanitarian aspect,” said Aguirre when the Blade asked him about Trump. “We can’t portray him as Venezuela’s savior.”

Meanwhile, Aguirre said his relatives in Maracaibo remain afraid of what will happen in the wake of Maduro’s ouster.

“My family is honestly keeping quiet,” he said. “They don’t post anything online. They don’t go out to participate in marches or celebrations.”

“Imagine them being at the epicenter, in the eye of the hurricane,” added Aguirre. “They are right in the middle of all the problems, so it’s perfectly understandable that they don’t want to say anything.”

‘I never in my life thought I would have to emigrate’

Aguirre has built a new life in Bogotá.

He founded Mesa Distrital LGBTIQ+ de Jóvenes y Estudiantes, a group that works with migrants from Venezuela and other countries and internally placed Colombians, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Aguirre told the Blade he launched the group “with the need to contribute to the general population, not just in Colombia.”

Aguirre met his husband, an American from California, at a Bogotá church in December 2020 during a Christmas event that SDA Kinship Colombia, an LGBTQ group, organized. A Utah judge virtually officiated their wedding on July 12, 2024.

“I love Colombia, I love Bogotá,” said Aguirre. “I love everything I’ve experienced because I feel it has helped me grow.”

He once again stressed he does not know what a post-Maduro Venezuela will look like.

“As a Venezuelan, I experienced the wonders of that country,” said Aguirre. “I never in my life thought I would have to emigrate.”

The Colombian government’s Permiso por Protección Temporal program allows Aguirre and other Venezuelans who have sought refuge in Colombia to live in the country for up to 10 years. Aguirre reiterated his love for Colombia, but he told the Blade that he would like to return to Venezuela and help rebuild the country.

“I wish this would be over in five years, that we could return to our country, that we could go back and even return with more skills acquired abroad,” Aguirre told the Blade. “Many of us received training. Many of us studied a lot. We connected with organizations that formed networks, which enriched us as individuals and as professionals.”

“Returning would be wonderful,” he added. “What we’ve built abroad will almost certainly serve to enrich the country.”

The Imperial Court of Washington, a D.C.-based organization of drag performers that has raised at least $250,000 or more for local LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ charitable groups since its founding in 2010, announced on Jan. 5 that it has ended its operations by dissolving its corporate status.

In a Jan. 5 statement posted on Facebook, Robert Amos, president of the group’s board of directors, said the board voted that day to formally dissolve the organization in accordance with its bylaws.

“This decision was made after careful consideration and was based on several factors, including ongoing challenges in adhering to the bylaws, maintaining compliance with 501(c)(3) requirements, continued lack of member interest and attendance, and a lack of community involvement and support as well,” Amos said in his statement.

He told the Washington Blade in a Jan. 6 telephone interview that the group was no longer in compliance with its bylaws, which require at least six board members, when the number of board members declined to just four. He noted that the lack of compliance with its bylaws also violated the requirements of its IRS status as a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c) (3) organization.

According to Amos, the inability to recruit additional board members came at a time when the organization was continuing to encounter a sharp drop in support from the community since the start of the COVID pandemic around 2020 and 2021.

Amos and longtime Imperial Court of Washington member and organizer Richard Legg, who uses the drag name Destiny B. Childs, said in the years since its founding, the group’s drag show fundraising events have often been attended by 150 or more people. They said the events have been held in LGBTQ bars, including Freddie’s Beach Bar in Arlington, as well as in other venues such as theaters and ballrooms.

Among the organizations receiving financial support from Imperial Court of Washington have been SMYAL, PFLAG, Whitman-Walker Health’s Walk to End HIV, Capital Pride Alliance, the DC LGBT Community Center, and the LGBTQ Fallen Heroes Fund. Other groups receiving support included Pets with Disabilities, the Epilepsy Foundation of Washington, and Grandma’s House.

The Imperial Court of Washington’s website, which was still online as of Jan. 6, says the D.C. group has been a proud member of the International Court System, which was founded in San Francisco in 1965 as a drag performance organization that evolved into a charitable fundraising operation with dozens of affiliated “Imperial Court” groups like the one in D.C.  

Amos, who uses the drag name Veronica Blake, said he has heard that Imperial Court groups in other cities including Richmond and New York City, have experienced similar drops in support and attendance in the past year or two. He said the D.C. group’s events in the latter part of 2025 attracted 12 or fewer people, a development that has prevented it from sustaining its operations financially. 

He said the membership, which helped support it financially through membership dues, has declined in recent years from close to 100 to its current membership of 21.

“There’s a lot of good we have done for the groups we supported, for the charities, and the gay community here,” Amos said. “It is just sad that we’ve had to do this, mainly because of the lack of interest and everything going on in the world and the national scene.”