World
LGBTQ Venezuelan migrants in Colombia struggle to survive
People with HIV again suffering from Kaposi’s sarcoma
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Edgar García and his partner, Dannys Torres, on Oct. 3, 2018, used a canoe to cross the Arauca River that marks the Venezuela-Colombia border.
García was a member of the board of directors of Alianza Lambda de Venezuela, a Venezuelan LGBTQ rights group, before he fled Venezuela. Torres worked as a hairdresser in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.
The couple now lives in Rafael Uribe Uribe, a working-class neighborhood in Bogotá, the Colombian capital.
Torres continues to work as a hairdresser. García most recently worked for a telecommunications company.
“We are settled here in Bogotá,” García told the Washington Blade on Sept. 21 during an interview with him and Torres that took place at a shopping mall near their home. “You have your life here.”
García and Torres are two of the more than 5.4 million Venezuelans who the Coordination Platform for Migrants and Refugees from Venezuela say have left their country as of November 2020 because of its ongoing economic and political crises.
Statistics from the Colombian government indicate there are currently more than 1.7 million Venezuelans in the country. More than 50 percent of them live in Bogotá and the departments of Norte de Santander, Atlántico and Antioquia.
Colombian President Iván Duque in February announced the country would legally recognize Venezuelan migrants who are registered with the government.
Sources in Colombia with whom the Blade has spoken say there are likely many more Venezuelan migrants in the country than official statistics indicate. Venezuelan migrants who are LGBTQ and/or living with HIV remain disproportionately vulnerable to discrimination and violence and often lack access to health care and formal employment.
A report the Red de Movilidad Humana LGBTI+—a network of advocacy groups in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Guatemala and Mexico—published with the support of the U.N. Refugee Agency notes sex trafficking and even death are among the myriad threats that LGBTQ migrants from Venezuela face once they enter Colombia. The report indicates they also face discrimination in shelters because of their sexual orientation and gender identity, sexual violence and a lack of access to the Colombian judicial system.
Trans woman left Venezuela ‘in search of a better quality of life’
Vanesa, a 25-year-old transgender woman from the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo, came to Colombia eight years ago “in search of a better quality of life.”
She told the Blade on Sept. 14 during an interview at Fundación de Atención Inclusiva, Social y Humana (FUVADIS)—an organization in Barranquilla, a city in Atlántico department that is near the mouth of the Magdalena River in northern Colombia, that serves Venezuelan migrants—she entered Colombia near Maicao, a city in La Guajira department via an informal border crossing known as a “trocha.” Vanesa said she was nearly kidnapped.
“The people who were standing on the sides (of the “trocha”) who ask you for money were supposedly security,” she said. “There was no security. They left me there because I was trans. They said a lot of ugly things. They assaulted me, including one (man) who was not going to let me go. They wanted me to kidnap me or have me there to do whatever they wanted to me.”
Vanesa said a woman helped her escape.
“The experience was horrible,” she said.
Vanesa traveled to Cartagena, a popular tourist destination that is less than two hours southwest of Barranquilla, and began to work at her friend’s hair salon. Vanesa told the Blade that her friend’s mother “never liked me because … she is a Christian.”
Vanesa now lives in Barranquilla and supports herself through video chats. Vanesa also competes in local beauty pageants and is able to send money to her mother in Venezuela.
“I work here,” she said. “I am relatively well off.”
Andy, a trans man from Venezuela’s Maracay state, left Venezuela four years ago with his partner and their daughter. Andy, like Vanesa, entered Colombia via a “trocha” near Maicao.
“I migrated because the situation was becoming worse and worse each day,” Andy told the Blade on Sept. 14 as he attended a workshop that Caribe Afirmativo, an LGBTQ group in northern Colombia, organized at a Barranquilla hotel.
Caribe Afirmativo has opened three “Casas Afirmativos” in Barranquilla, Maicao and Medellín that provide access to health care and other services to Venezuelan migrants who are LGBTQ and/or living with HIV/AIDS. Caribe Afirmativo also operates several “Casas de Paz” throughout northern Colombia that support the implementation of an LGBTQ-inclusive peace agreement between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that came into force in 2016.
Andy said his work in Venezuela allowed him to learn how “to sell whatever product,” but he told the Blade he struggled to find a job once he arrived in Colombia.
Andy told the Blade that he, his partner and their daughter now have stable housing in Barranquilla. Andy said he also has received a job offer in Medellín, the country’s second-largest city that is the capital of Antioquia department.
Jesús Gómez is a 33-year-old gay man from Venezuela’s Trujillo state in the Venezuelan Andes that are close to the country’s border with Colombia.
He previously worked with Venezuela Diversa, a Venezuelan LGBTQ advocacy group, and accepted a position with the municipality of Chacao that is part of Caracas. Gómez, whose mother was born in Colombia, also joined a student protest movement against the government.
Gómez fled to Colombia and is pursuing his asylum case with the help of UNHCR.
“I feel bad emotionally, but I am well-off compared to other people,” he told the Blade on Sept. 16 during an interview at a hotel in Cúcuta, a city in Norte de Santander department that is a few miles from the country’s border with Venezuela. “I am working to help other people who are in the same situation.”
Gómez in December is scheduled to graduate from nursing school. He also works with Fundación Censurados, a Cúcuta-based HIV/AIDS service organization that works with Venezuelan migrants, and has supported other organizations in the area that serve them.
FUVADIS Executive Director Luis Meneses, like Gómez, was an LGBTQ activist in Venezuela.
Meneses, who is from Venezuela’s Zulia state, in 2010 unsuccessfully ran for Venezuela’s National Assembly. Meneses in February 2018 fled to Colombia because of the “political persecution” he said he suffered.
“Discrimination and prejudice against me began when I came out to defend LGBTI rights,” Meneses told the Blade on Sept. 14 during an interview at his office.
Meneses in August 2018 launched FUVADIS, which receives support from groups that includes UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration. FUVADIS provides health care, antiretroviral drugs and a host of other services to Venezuelan migrants with HIV/AIDS and other populations that include sex workers. Vanessa and nearly 900 other FUVADIS clients are LGBTQ.
“We cannot work for the migrant population by only giving them humanitarian assistance,” said Meneses. “It’s also about guaranteeing access to their rights.”
Venezuelans with HIV/AIDS die because of lack of medications
The New York-based Aid for AIDS International estimates more than 10,000 Venezuelans with HIV have left the country in recent years. Activists and health care service providers in Venezuela with whom the Blade has spoken in recent years have said people with HIV/AIDS in the country have died because of a lack of antiretroviral drugs.
The Venezuelan government has also targeted HIV/AIDS service organizations.
Members of Venezuela’s General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence in January raided the offices of Azul Positivo, an HIV/AIDS service organization and arrested President Johan León Reyes and five other staff members. Venezuelan police on Feb. 15, 2019, raided the offices of Fundación Mavid, another HIV/AIDS service organization in Valencia, a city in Carabobo state, and arrested three staffers after they confiscated donated infant formula and medications for people with HIV/AIDS
Deyvi Galvis Vásquez, a doctor who is the manager of prevention and testing for AIDS Healthcare Foundation Colombia on Sept. 17 during an interview at AHF’s Cúcuta clinic showed the Blade pictures of Venezuelans with HIV/AIDS in Colombia who had cases of Kaposi’s sarcoma.
“The conditions are of extreme vulnerability,” said Galvis.
Andrés Cardona, director of Fundación Ancla, a Medellín-based group that works with migrants and other vulnerable groups, during a Sept. 13 interview with the Blade in his office echoed Galvis. Cardona added stigma specifically against Venezuelans with HIV/AIDS is one of the myriad issues he and his colleagues confront.
“The issue of the elimination of HIV also implies not only an issue of communication and prevention, but also an issue of effective attention,” said Cardona. “We have our conservative culture, an idea that the Venezuelans who are coming are going to give us HIV.”
“This is totally discriminatory,” he added.
Cardona, like those inside Venezuela with whom the Blade has spoken, said there are no services in the country for people with HIV/AIDS.
“There are many Venezuelan migrants with HIV who enter Colombia, because they are going to die if they don’t,” he said.
AHF operates clinics throughout Colombia
AHF operates other facilities in Bogotá and in the cities of Bucaramanga, Yopal, Valledupar and Ríohacha. The organization, along with the Colombian Red Cross and the government of Santander department, in March began to distribute condoms, food and water and offer rapid HIV tests to Venezuelan migrants who travel through Páramo de Berlín, a high plateau in the Colombian Andes through which a highway between Cúcuta and Bucaramanga passes.
AHF, among other things, offers migrants rapid HIV and syphilis tests and counseling for people who test positive. AHF also provides lab tests, formula for children of mothers with HIV and health care with an “interdisciplinary health care team.”
AHF Colombia Country Program Manager Liliana Andrade Forero and AHF Colombia Data Manager Sandra Avila Mira on Sept. 20 noted to the Blade during an interview at AHF’s Bogotá clinic that upwards of 2,000 migrants currently receive care from the organization. They also pointed out that 1,952 of them are taking antiretroviral drugs the Brazilian government donates.
Galvis noted to the Blade that many of AHF’s patients also have access to mental health care and social workers.
“AHF’s policy is to reach out to everyone,” he said.
Pandemic has made migrants even more vulnerable
Galvis, Fundación Censurados Director Juan Carlos Archila and other Colombian HIV/AIDS service providers with whom the Blade spoke say the pandemic has made Venezuelan migrants with HIV/AIDS in the country even more vulnerable.
Lockdowns prevented sex workers and others who work in the informal economy from earning money. A “pico y género” rule implemented by Bogotá Mayor Claudia López that allowed women to leave their homes on even days and men to leave their homes on odd days sparked criticism among trans activists.
Archila, who is a nurse, on Sept. 16 told the Blade during an interview at a Cúcuta hotel the pandemic has also left Censurados in a precarious situation.
“We endured practically two years with the doors closed, with expenses increasing,” he said. “The need of people who come to us for the issue of HIV remains, and yet we are all trying to cope with the situation.”
Andrade noted AHF’s Bogotá was closed for several months at the beginning of the pandemic because of the city’s strict lockdown.
The pandemic also forced FUVADIS to close its offices in March 2020, but Meneses told the Blade the organization was able to see a handful of patients at a time. He said “basic humanitarian assistance” that included hygiene kits and food were among the things that FUVADIS was able to provide its patients during the pandemic.
“Understanding how the situation for the LGBTI community, people with HIV, the migrant population and the refugee population is, we could not allow (our services) to shut down,” Meneses told the Blade.
Turkey
House Democrats urge White House to confront Turkish government over anti-LGBTQ crackdown
More than 60 lawmakers signed letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio
More than 60 House Democrats on Thursday called upon the Trump-Vance administration to confront the Turkish government over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
Turkish authorities last month detained dozens of people during raids that targeted the country’s LGBTQ community, advocacy groups, and HIV/AIDS service organizations. Journalists were among those taken into custody outside an Istanbul courthouse on Sept. 15 during a protest against the raids that are part of the government’s “My Family Is Safe” campaign.
Council for Global Equality is among the groups that organized a protest outside the Turkish Embassy in D.C. on Sept. 18.
View on Threads
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Sept. 21 during a U.N. LGBTI Core Group event that took place on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly specifically referenced Turkey.
The Core Group is a group of U.N. member states that have pledged to support LGBTQ and intersex rights.
The U.S. withdrew from the Core Group after the Trump-Vance administration took office. The White House has not publicly commented on Turkey’s anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
“These developments warrant an urgent diplomatic response from the United States to protect the rights of freedom of expression, association, and assembly for all Turkish citizens, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” reads the letter the lawmakers sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “We therefore urge you to use all available channels to raise these concerns directly with the Turkish government; press for the immediate release of those arrested and detained for their legitimate human rights activities; and ensure that the U.S. Embassy in Ankara closely monitors related judicial proceedings.”
“We further urge the Department to press Turkish authorities to cease efforts to criminalize LGBTQI+ organizations and advocacy and to affirm the right of all people to peacefully assemble,” it adds.
Arizona Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari and U.S. Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) spearheaded the letter. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.); House Foreign Affairs Ranking Member Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.); Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.); Delaware Congresswoman Sarah McBride, and U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), who chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, are among the 65 House Democrats who signed the letter.
“The United States must be a leader in defending human rights and what is happening in Turkey demands an urgent diplomatic response. It’s absolutely appalling to see LGBTQI+ people and the organizations that stand up for their rights be targeted by the (President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan regime,” said Ansari in a press release. “I stand proudly with the LGBTQI+ community here and abroad and will continue to fight for their right to live openly, freely, and without fear, anywhere and everywhere.”
The press release notes the Human Rights Campaign, the Council for Global Equality, and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America support the letter.
“Turkey’s attacks on its LGBTQI+ community are a disturbing reminder that the fight for equality and human rights does not stop at our borders. No one should be silenced or detained for simply being who they are or peacefully demanding dignity and freedom,” said HRC Government Affairs Senior Director Jennifer Pike Bailey. “We are grateful to Representatives Ansari and Titus for recognizing that the fight for LGBTQI+ equality is global and that, even amid the many challenges facing our community here at home, we cannot turn our backs on LGBTQI+ people facing persecution abroad.”
A State Department spokesperson on Friday told the Washington Blade that “as a matter of policy, we do not comment on congressional correspondence.”
Serbia
Ana Brnabić becomes world’s first openly lesbian head of state
Former Serbian prime minister succeeded President Aleksandar Vučić on Monday
Ana Brnabić on Monday became the world’s first openly lesbian head of state after Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić resigned.
Brnabić was the country’s prime minister from 2017-2024. She was most recently the president of the Serbian National Assembly.
Vučić resigned ahead of parliamentary elections that will take place on Oct. 25. Media reports indicate Vučić could become Serbia’s next prime minister if his Serbian Progressive Party can successfully form a new government. Brnabić until then will be the country’s acting president.
Former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who became his country’s first openly gay head of government in 2017, praised Brnabić.
“Congratulations to Ana Brnabić on becoming the world’s first lesbian head of state (president of Serbia),” said Varadkar on social media. “She visited while in her previous office and is a friend of Ireland.”
Congratulations to Ana Brnabic on becoming the world's first lesbian head of state (President of Serbia). She visited while in her previous office and is a friend of Ireland. 12 countries have now had gay or lesbian head of state/government. So far, all in Europe – the… https://t.co/TBpmeeEs9I
— Leo Varadkar (@LeoVaradkar) September 29, 2026
Former Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir in 2009 became the world’s first openly lesbian head of government. Former San Marino Captain Regent Paolo Rondelli in 2022 became the world’s first openly gay head of state.
Andorran Prime Minister Xavier Espot Zamora, Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten, and Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs are openly gay. Former Luxembourgish Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, former French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, and former Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo are also gay.
Varadkar was Ireland’s prime minister from 2017-2020 and again from 2022-2024.
Brazil
529 openly LGBTQ candidates running in Brazilian election
Lula running against Jair Bolsonaro’s son in presidential contest
Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers will be on assignment in Brazil through Oct. 6.
SÃO PAULO — 529 openly LGBTQ candidates are running for in the Brazilian election that will take place on Sunday.
VoteLGBT, an organization that seeks to increase LGBTQ representation in Brazilian politics, notes 109 of these candidates are either transgender or travesti. They include Congresswomen Erika Hilton and Duda Salabert, who made history in 2022 as the first travesti and first trans women respectively to win seats in the Brazilian Congress.
Hilton, a member of the leftist Socialism and Liberty Party, known by the acronym PSOL, is a former sex worker who was a member of the São Paulo Municipal Council before her election to Congress. She currently chairs the Chamber of Deputies’ Women’s Rights Commission.
The Chamber of Deputies is Congress’s lower house.
Salabert, who is also a member of PSOL, represents Minas Gerais state in the Chamber of Deputies. Both she and Hilton in 2025 sharply criticized the Trump-Vance administration after it listed their gender as “male” on American visas that would have allowed them to travel to the U.S.
Benny Briolly is a travesti woman and member of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party who is running to represent Rio de Janeiro state in the Chamber of Deputies. Thabatta Pimenta is a trans woman of mixed ethnicity who is running to represent Rio Grande do Norte state in the Chamber of Deputies as a member of the Green Party.
Nicolas is a trans masculine bisexual man from Pará state who is part of the Banca Transformer, a “collective candidature” for the Chamber of Deputies that VoteLGBT notes is “100 percent trans and lead by a trans masculine person.” Mãe Kaká Garcia is a gay travesti woman of African descent who is running to represent Mato Grosso state in the Chamber of Deputies as a member of PSOL.
“My bid for Congress stems from my life story and the need to bring voices that have historically been marginalized into the political arena,” Garcia told the Washington Blade.
“I am a Black travesti woman and a leader within the African-derived religious community, with a background in work, entrepreneurship, and community activism in Mato Grosso,” she added. “I am intimately familiar with the challenges faced by the LGBTQIA+ community, the Black population, women, and terreiro communities.”
Garcia added she is running because she believes “these spaces must also be occupied by people who live these realities.”
“I want issues such as combating violence against trans people, racism, religious intolerance, protections for women, LGBTQIA+ rights, and social policies to be treated as permanent public policies,” she said.
Associaçao Nacional de Travestis e Transexuais (National Association of Travestis and Transsexuals) President Bruna Benavides in a statement to the Blade praised all of the trans and travesti candidates.
“For ANTRA, the strength of trans and travesti candidacies lies in what our representatives already demonstrate through their work in office — acting beyond the LGBTQIA+ agenda in areas such as education, health, labor, human rights, culture, the environment, public safety, and the fight against inequality,” she said. “The presence of trans people is already a reality, and democracy needs them in politics — not merely as representatives of an identity, but as agents capable of shaping initiatives that benefit society as a whole.”
“Politics will only be truly transformed when it incorporates the perspectives and experiences of those historically excluded from centers of power — people who have nonetheless envisioned a nation where everyone can be free and live with dignity and security,” she added.
The Blade also spoke with other openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual candidates.
Uédem Lima is a bisexual, Makuxi Indigenous man who is running to represent Roraima state in the Chamber of Deputies as a member of the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement.
“I am 23-years-old, a Makuxi Indigenous man, and bisexual,” he told the Blade. “I come from a reality where young people, Indigenous people, and LGBTQ+ individuals often still face difficulties in occupying spaces where decisions are made.”
“My candidacy is also a way to show that these spaces can — and must — be occupied by people who know these realities firsthand,” added Lima.
He told the Blade that education, health, climate justice, and Indigenous rights are among the top issues on which he will work in Congress if elected. Lima added his life in Roraima state, which borders Venezuela and Guyana in northern Brazil, and his identity will further shape his tenure.
“I know what it is like to grow up in Roraima, experience the shifts between the interior and the capital, and forge my path while carrying multiple identities,” he said. “I do not want to separate these parts of who I am. They are part of my story and also help explain why I chose to enter politics.”
Former Congressman Jean de Wyllys, who is the first openly gay man elected to the Brazilian Congress, resigned in 2019 and fled the country after he received death threats that he claimed came from supporters of then-President Jair Bolsonaro. De Wyllys at the time of his resignation represented Rio de Janeiro state and had just been elected for a third term.
De Wyllys has returned to Brazil and is running to represent São Paulo state in the Chamber of Deputies as a member of the Workers’ Party.
“My decision to return to present myself as a candidate is linked to the public responsibility with respect to this year’s elections, the most important for the future of Latin America in the last two decades,” he told the Blade. “Everyone knows that not just our region, but the whole world is a stage for a clash between two projects: one led by Donald Trump and his far-right (supporters) internationally that is neofascist, neocolonial, and neofeudalistic, and the other spearheaded by China that advocates for multipolarity, nations’ sovereignty, and global cooperation to overcome challenges, such as the climate crisis and possible pandemics.”
“As someone who enjoys national popularity and international connections, and having served two highly productive terms regarding human rights and cultural diversity, I could not ignore the electorate’s calls to participate in this global contest — and not merely as an intellectual and artist,” added de Wyllys.
Mônica Benício is a Rio de Janeiro Municipal Councilwoman who is running for the Brazilian Senate as a PSOL member.
Her widow, Rio de Janeiro Municipal Councilwoman Marielle Franco, and her driver, Anderson Gomes, were murdered on March 14, 2018. One of the two former police officers later convicted lived in the same condominium complex in the city’s exclusive Barra da Tijuca neighborhood in which Bolsonaro lived at the time. (Bolsonaro was not president when the murders took place, and strongly denied media reports that suggested one of the suspects visited his home before Franco and Gomes were killed.)
Franco was also friends with De Wyllys and a political ally.
“After Marielle’s assassination, the LGBTQIAPN+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/transsexual/travesti/, queer, intersex, asexual, pansexual, nonbinary) community was one of the networks that embraced me and gave me the strength to carry on,” Benício told the Blade on Tuesday. “My Senate candidacy stems from this very commitment: to transform that affection and collective strength into a voice, protection, and rights within Congress.”
Benício stressed the LGBTQ and intersex community “needs to occupy more decision-making spaces.”
“I want to reach the Senate so that our rights, families, and lives are represented where laws are made,” she said.
Lula is running for a second consecutive term.
He defeated Bolsonaro in the second round of the 2022 presidential election.
The Brazilian Supreme Court last year sentenced Bolsonaro — who repeatedly targeted LGBTQ Brazilians and other groups while in office — to more than 27 years in prison for his role in an attempted coup that saw thousands of his supporters storm the Congress, presidential palace, and the Supreme Court itself on Jan. 8, 2023. Bolsonaro is currently serving his sentence at his home in Brasília, the country’s capital, because of his poor health.
Lula main challenger in this year’s presidential election is Bolsonaro’s son, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro.
A second round will take place on Oct. 25 if no candidate receives at least 50 percent of the vote.
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