World
US urges Central America governments to protect LGBTQ rights
Effort part of strategy to address migration ‘root causes’
Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers was on assignment for the Washington Blade in El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico from July 11-25.
A State Department spokesperson says the U.S. will continue to urge the governments of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to protect LGBTQ rights as part of its efforts to address the “root causes” of migration from the three countries.
“Human rights, including those of LGBTQI+ persons, is one of the central pillars of our engagement with leaders from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador,” said the spokesperson in response to a series of written questions from the Washington Blade.
“The United States raises concerns about violence, discrimination, abuse, harassment and stigma targeting LGBTQI+ (people) across northern Central America with various stakeholders,” added the spokesperson. “We work to engage on these issues across multilateral fora, such as the United Nations, the Equal Rights Coalition and the Organization of American States.”
Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras form what is known as Central America’s Northern Triangle.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who met with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei last month during her trip to Guatemala City, has said on numerous occasions that violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity is one of the factors behind migration from the region. Harris and other administration officials have also told migrants not to travel to the U.S.-Mexico border because it remains closed to them due to the pandemic.
LGBTQ Hondurans with whom the Blade recently spoke acknowledged violence has forced them to flee their homes.
Leonela Barralaga and Jerlín Martel are a same-sex couple who are raising an 11-year-old daughter in La Ceiba, Honduras.
They told the Blade on July 20 during an interview at the offices of Organización Pro Unión Ceibeña, a local human rights group, that they have fled Honduras twice. Barralaga and Martel said they returned to the country once because they did not want their daughter to further endure the squalid conditions in which they were living in Tapachula, Mexico, a city in the country’s Chiapas state that borders Guatemala.
Marvin, a gay man from Honduras who plans to ask for asylum in the U.S., currently lives at Jardín de las Mariposas, a shelter for LGBTQ asylum seekers in the Mexican border city of Tijuana.
Marvin during a July 12 interview with the Blade at Jardín de las Mariposas spoke about his brother, who was murdered earlier this year in Honduras. Marvin was sobbing when Jaime Marín, who runs the shelter with his mother, Yolanda Rocha, showed this reporter a picture of his brother’s mutilated body in the morgue in San Pedro Sula, Honduras’ second-largest city.
A court in the Salvadoran capital of San Salvador last August sentenced three police officers to 20 years in prison for the 2017 murder of Camila Díaz Córdova, a trans woman who the U.S. deported. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights last month found Honduras responsible for the murder of Vicky Hernández, a trans woman who was killed hours after the 2009 coup that ousted then-President Manuel Zelaya.
Alexa, a trans woman who receives services at Organización Pro Unión Ceibeña, told the Blade during an emotional interview that she was raped in prison while serving a sentence for a stabbing she claims was an act of self-defense. Alexa also said guards forcibly cut her hair.
The Blade the day before witnessed a man stop his car on a street in San Pedro Sula, which is about three hours west of La Ceiba, and solicit for sex work two trans women with Colectivo Unidad Color Rosa, a local LGBTQ rights group. The U.S. granted asylum to Claudia Spellman, a trans woman who co-founded Colectivo Unidad Color Rosa, after death threats forced her to flee Honduras.
“The United States is committed to fighting for the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons at home and abroad,” the State Department spokesperson told the Blade. “LGBTQI+ persons are among the most vulnerable to forced displacement in and from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.”
“Promoting and advancing these human rights is a foreign policy priority,” added the spokesperson. “As such, we endeavor to combat the violence and abuse, criminalization, discrimination and stigma targeting LGBTQI+ persons around the world, including in these three countries.”
Two members of Guatemalan civil society who work with LGBTQ people and people with HIV/AIDS — Visibles Executive Director Daniel Villatoro and Ingrid Gamboa of the Association of Garifuna Women Living with HIV/AIDS — are among those who participated in a round table with Harris in Guatemala City.
Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala William Popp on June 17 visited the Guatemala City headquarters of Organización Trans Reina de las Noche, a trans advocacy group. The visit took place less than a week after Andrea González, the organization’s executive director who previously participated in the State Department’s International Visitors Leadership Program, was murdered near her Guatemala City home.
Sasha Rodríguez, a trans woman who works for Organización Pro Unión Ceibeña, is also an IVLP alum.
Bianka Rodríguez, executive director of COMCAVIS TRANS, a trans Salvadoran rights group, is among those who participated in what a USAID spokesperson described to the Blade as a “youth leaders lunch roundtable that we organized” with Power in San Salvador last month. The USAID spokesperson noted “they exchanged important points of view regarding USAID support (past and present) and the challenges of the LGBTIQ+ community in the country.”
“USAID human rights projects based in El Salvador support anti-discrimination efforts against the LGBTQI+ community,” said the State Department spokesperson. “They also support a regional effort that engages private sector companies in inclusive strategies to open labor opportunities for the LGBTQI+ community.”
“Projects also do research on hate crimes against the LGTBQI+ community and provides to the justice sector to investigate such crimes,” they added. “The majority of activities are led by local or regional LGBTQI+ groups.”
The State Department spokesperson noted “discussions between civil society leaders” and the U.S. Embassy in Honduras, “as well as USAID-led forums on LGBTQI+ migration push factors, help us learn more about the root causes and ways we can better support this community.” They also pointed out that USAID’s Unidos por la Justicia project “has supported the LGBTQI+ community to develop an anti-discrimination law and the law of gender identity” in the country.
USAID and Unidos por la Justicia in 2019 officially recognized Unidad Colectivo Color Rosa for its work. The Blade on July 19 saw a plaque with the two organizations’ logos on it hanging inside their San Pedro Sula office.
“USAID in Honduras has done extensive work with the LGBTQI+ population who lack access to formal education and workforce development services by supporting training that included self-esteem and human rights to prevent stigma and discrimination, and promote respect for diversity,” said the State Department spokesperson. “Through private sector engagement, businesses have agreed to interview members of the LGBTQI+ community, which is the foundation to valuing diversity in the workplace.”
USAID also works with Asociación PASMO, an organization that conducts HIV testing in San Pedro Sula.
The State Department spokesperson told the Blade that Honduran LGBTQ activists have attended workshops that focused on their participation in the country’s political process. They said USAID for the project’s next phase “will work with local higher education institutions to certify community members to participate as candidates in elections.”
Honduras’ national elections are scheduled to take place on Nov. 28.
A federal judge in New York in March sentenced Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández’s brother, former Honduran Congressman Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, to life in prison after a jury convicted him of trafficking tons of cocaine into the U.S.
The Biden administration on July 20 banned former Honduran President Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo Sosa, his wife and their children from traveling to the U.S. because of “their involvement in significant corruption.” Salvadoran prosecutors last week charged former President Salvador Sánchez Cerén and nine other members of former President Mauricio Funes’ administration with the misuse of more than $300 million in government funds.
Juan Francisco Sandoval, a leading anti-corruption prosecutor in Guatemala, fled to El Salvador on July 24 after Guatemalan Attorney General Consuelo Porras fired him. The Biden administration this week announced it has stopped working with Porras’ office.
Corruption is one of the myriad issues that activists in the region have raised with the Blade. They also remain highly critical of their respective governments over the lack of LGBTQ rights.
“The United States is concerned with the protection governments extend to LGBTQI+ persons throughout the region,” said the State Department spokesperson. “While we have seen some positive developments; we will continue to raise the importance of protections for LGBTQI+ persons whenever appropriate, as well as the importance of holding accountable perpetrators of discrimination and violence.”
The State Department spokesperson also responded to the Blade’s question about what the Biden administration can do to ensure the Guatemalan, Honduran and Salvadoran governments adequately address anti-LGBTQ discrimination and violence in their respective countries.
“The U.S. government monitors and reports on the state of human rights across the world, including protections for the LGBTQI+ community,” said the State Department spokesperson. “Our efforts to draw attention to abuses of the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons create transparency and promote accountability for such abuses. The U.S. government also has sanctions and visa restriction authorities it can apply to perpetrators to promote accountability for human rights violations and abuses.”
Abdiel Echevarría-Caban and Dunia Orellana of Reportar sin Miedo contributed to this story.
Books
New book profiles LGBTQ Ukrainians, documents war experiences
Tuesday marks four years since Russia attacked Ukraine
Journalist J. Lester Feder’s new book profiles LGBTQ Ukrainians and their experiences during Russia’s war against their country.
Feder for “The Queer Face of War: Portraits and Stories from Ukraine” interviewed and photographed LGBTQ Ukrainians in Kyiv, the country’s capital, and in other cities. They include Olena Hloba, the co-founder of Tergo, a support group for parents and friends of LGBTQ Ukrainians, who fled her home in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha shortly after Russia launched its war on Feb. 24, 2022.
Russian soldiers killed civilians as they withdrew from Bucha. Videos and photographs that emerged from the Kyiv suburb showed dead bodies with their hands tied behind their back and other signs of torture.
Olena Shevchenko, chair of Insight, a Ukrainian LGBTQ rights group, wrote the book’s forward.
The book also profiles Viktor Pylypenko, a gay man who the Ukrainian military assigned to the 72nd Mechanized Black Cossack Brigade after the war began. Feder writes Pylypenko’s unit “was deployed to some of the fiercest and most important battles of the war.”
“The brigade was pivotal to beating Russian forces back from Kyiv in their initial attempt to take the capital, helping them liberate territory near Kharkiv and defending the front lines in Donbas,” wrote Feder.
Pylypenko spent two years fighting “on Ukraine’s most dangerous battlefields, serving primarily as a medic.”
“At times he felt he was living in a horror movie, watching tank shells tear his fellow soldiers apart before his eyes,” wrote Feder. “He held many men as they took their final breaths. Of the roughly one hundred who entered the unit with him, only six remained when he was discharged in 2024. He didn’t leave by choice: he went home to take care of his father, who had suffered a stroke.”
Feder notes one of Pylypenko’s former commanders attacked him online when he came out. Pylypenko said another commander defended him.
Feder also profiled Diana and Oleksii Polukhin, two residents of Kherson, a port city in southern Ukraine that is near the mouth of the Dnieper River.
Ukrainian forces regained control of Kherson in November 2022, nine months after Russia occupied it.
Diana, a cigarette vender, and Polukhin told Feder that Russian forces demanded they disclose the names of other LGBTQ Ukrainians in Kherson. Russian forces also tortured Diana and Polukhin while in their custody.
Polukhim is the first LGBTQ victim of Russian persecution to report their case to Ukrainian prosecutors.
Feder, who is of Ukrainian descent, first visited Ukraine in 2013 when he wrote for BuzzFeed.
He was Outright International’s Senior Fellow for Emergency Research from 2021-2023. Feder last traveled to Ukraine in December 2024.
Feder spoke about his book at Politics and Prose at the Wharf in Southwest D.C. on Feb. 6. The Washington Blade spoke with Feder on Feb. 20.
Feder told the Blade he began to work on the book when he was at Outright International and working with humanitarian groups on how to better serve LGBTQ Ukrainians. Feder said military service requirements, a lack of access to hormone therapy and documents that accurately reflect a person’s gender identity and LGBTQ-friendly shelters are among the myriad challenges that LGBTQ Ukrainians have faced since the war began.
“All of these were components of a queer experience of war that was not well documented, and we had never seen in one place, especially with photos,” he told the Blade. “I felt really called to do that, not only because of what was happening in Ukraine, but also as a way to bring to the surface issues that we’d had seen in Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan.”
Feder also spoke with the Blade about the war’s geopolitical implications.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2013 signed a law that bans the “promotion of homosexuality” to minors.
The 2014 Winter Olympics took place in Sochi, a Russian resort city on the Black Sea. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine a few weeks after the games ended.
Russia’s anti-LGBTQ crackdown has continued over the last decade.
The Russian Supreme Court in 2023 ruled the “international LGBT movement” is an extremist organization and banned it. The Russian Justice Ministry last month designated ILGA World, a global LGBTQ and intersex rights group, as an “undesirable” organization.
Ukraine, meanwhile, has sought to align itself with Europe.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after a 2021 meeting with then-President Joe Biden at the White House said his country would continue to fight discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. (Zelenskyy’s relationship with the U.S. has grown more tense since the Trump-Vance administration took office.) Zelenskyy in 2022 publicly backed civil partnerships for same-sex couples.
Then-Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova in 2023 applauded Kyiv Pride and other LGBTQ and intersex rights groups in her country when she spoke at a photo exhibit at Ukraine House in D.C. that highlighted LGBTQ and intersex soldiers. Then-Kyiv Pride Executive Director Lenny Emson, who Feder profiles in his book, was among those who attended the event.
“Thank you for everything you do in Kyiv, and thank you for everything that you do in order to fight the discrimination that still is somewhere in Ukraine,” said Markarova. “Not everything is perfect yet, but you know, I think we are moving in the right direction. And we together will not only fight the external enemy, but also will see equality.”
Feder in response to the Blade’s question about why he decided to write his book said he “didn’t feel” the “significance of Russia’s war against Ukraine” for LGBTQ people around the world “was fully understood.”
“This was an opportunity to tell that big story,” he said.
“The crackdown on LGBT rights inside Russia was essentially a laboratory for a strategy of attacking democratic values by attacking queer rights and it was one as Ukraine was getting closet to Europe back in 2013, 2014,” he added. “It was a strategy they were using as part of their foreign policy, and it was one they were using not only in Ukraine over the past decade, but around the world.”
Feder said Republicans are using “that same strategy to attack queer people, to attack democracy itself.”
“I felt like it was important that Americans understand that history,” he said.
Netherlands
Rob Jetten becomes first gay Dutch prime minister
38-year-old head of government sworn in on Monday
Rob Jetten on Monday became the Netherland’s first openly gay prime minister.
Jetten’s centrist D66 party won the country’s elections last October, narrowly defeating Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom.
King Willem-Alexander on Monday swore in Jetten, who is also the country’s youngest-ever prime minister. The Associated Press notes Jetten’s coalition government includes the center-right Christian Democrats and the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy.
“Proud to be able to do this together,” said Jetten in an X post before Willem-Alexander swore him in.
COC Nederland, a Dutch LGBTQ advocacy group, in a statement said Jetten “becoming prime minister shows that your sexual orientation doesn’t have to matter.”
“You can become a construction worker, a doctor, a lawyer, and even prime minister,” said COC Nederland.
The advocacy group noted Jetten has said his government will implement its “Rainbow Agreement” that include calls for strengthening nondiscrimination laws “to better protect transgender and intersex people,” appointing more “discrimination investigators … to address violence against LGBTQ+ people and other minorities,” and introducing measures “to promote acceptance in schools.”
“COC will hold the Cabinet to that promise,” said COC Nederland.
Jetten’s fiancé is Nicolás Keenen, an Argentine field hockey player who competed in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
Jetten is one of two openly gay heads of government: Andorran Prime Minister Xavier Espot Zamora came out in 2023. Gay Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs, who is the country’s head of state, took office in 2023.
Leo Varadkar, who was Ireland’s prime minister from 2017-2020 and from 2022-2024, and Xavier Bettel, who was Luxembourg’s prime minister from 2013-2023, are gay. Ana Brnabić, who was Serbia’s prime minister from 2017-2024, is a lesbian.
Former Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir in 2009 became the world’s first openly lesbian head of government. Former Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo, former San Marino Captain Regent Paolo Rondelli, and former French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal are also openly gay.
Colombian presidential candidate Claudia López, who is the former mayor of Bogotá, the Colombian capital, would become her country’s first female and first lesbian president if she wins the country’s presidential election that is taking place later this year.
Ecuador
Justicia reconoce delito de odio en caso de bullying en Instituto Nacional Mejía de Ecuador
Johana B se suicidó el 11 de abril de 2023
A casi tres años del suicidio de Johana B., quien estudió en el Instituto Nacional Mejía, colegio emblemático de Quito, el Tribunal de la Corte Nacional de Justicia ratificó la condena para el alumno responsable del acoso escolar que la llevó a quitarse la vida.
Según información de la Fiscalía, el fallo de última instancia deja en firme la condena de cuatro años de internamiento en un centro para adolescentes infractores, en una audiencia de casación pedida por la defensa del agresor, tres meses antes de que prescriba el caso.
Con la sentencia, este caso es uno de los primeros en el país en reconocer actos de odio por violencia de género, delito tipificado en el artículo 177 del Código Orgánico Penal Integral (COIP).
El suicidio de Johana B. ocurrió el 11 abril de 2023 y fue consecuencia del acoso escolar por estereotipos de género que enfrentó la estudiante por parte de su agresor, quien constantemente la insultaba y agredía por su forma de vestir, llevar el cabello corto o practicar actividades que hace años se consideraban exclusivamente para hombres, como ser mando de la Banda de Paz en el Instituto Nacional Mejía.
Desde la muerte de Johana, su familia buscaba justicia. Su padre, José, en una entrevista concedida a edición cientonce para la investigación periodística Los suicidios que quedan en el clóset a causa de la omisión estatal afirmó que su hija era acosada por su compañero y otres estudiantes con apodos como “marimacha”, lo que también fue corroborado en los testimonios recogidos por la Unidad de Justicia Juvenil No. 4 de la Fiscalía.
Los resultados de la autopsia psicológica y del examen antropológico realizados tras la muerte de Johana confirmaron las versiones de sus compañeras y docentes: que su agresor la acosó de manera sistemática durante dos años. Los empujones, jalones de cabello o burlas, incluso por su situación económica, eran constantes en el aula de clase.
La violencia que recibió Johana escaló cuando su compañero le dio un codazo en la espalda ocasionándole una lesión que le imposibilitó caminar y asistir a clases.
Días después del hecho, la adolescente se quitó la vida en su casa, tras escuchar que la madre del agresor se negó a pagar la mitad del valor de una tomografía para determinar la lesión en su espalda, tal como lo había acordado previamente con sus padres y frente al personal del DECE (Departamento de Consejería Estudiantil del colegio), según versiones de su familia y la Fiscalía.
#AFONDO | Johana se suicidó el 11 de abril de 2023, tras ser víctima de acoso escolar por no cumplir con estereotipos femeninos 😢.
Dos semanas antes, uno de sus compañeros le dio un codazo en la espalda, ocasionándole una lesión que le imposibilitó caminar 🧵 pic.twitter.com/bXKUs9YYOm
— EdicionCientonce (@EdCientonce) September 3, 2025
“Era una chica linda, fuerte, alegre. Siempre nos llevamos muy bien, hemos compartido todo. Nos dejó muchos recuerdos y todos nos sentimos tristes; siempre estamos pensando en ella. Es un vacío tan grande aquí, en este lugar”, expresó José a Edición Cientonce el año pasado.
Para la fiscal del caso y de la Unidad de Justicia Juvenil de la Fiscalía, Martha Reino, el suicidio de la adolescente fue un agravante que se contempló durante la audiencia de juzgamiento de marzo de 2024, según explicó a este medio el año pasado. Desde entonces, la familia del agresor presentó un recurso de casación en la Corte Nacional de Justicia, que provocó la dilatación del proceso.
En el fallo de última instancia, el Tribunal también dispuso que el agresor pague $3.000 a la familia de Johana B. como reparación integral. Además, el adolescente deberá recibir medidas socioeducativas, de acuerdo al artículo 385 del Código Orgánico de la Niñez y Adolescencia, señala la Fiscalía.
El caso de Johana también destapó las omisiones y negligencias del personal del DECE y docentes del Instituto Nacional Mejía. En la etapa de instrucción fiscal se comprobó que no se aplicaron los protocolos respectivos para proteger a la víctima.
De hecho, la Fiscalía conoció el caso a raíz de la denuncia que presentó su padre, José, y no por el DECE, aseguró la fiscal el año pasado a Edición Cientonce.
Pese a estas omisiones presentadas en el proceso, el fallo de última instancia sólo ratificó la condena para el estudiante.
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Judge rescinds order against activist in Capital Pride lawsuit
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Calendar: February 20-26
