National
Venezuelan man with AIDS dies in ICE custody
Pablo Sánchez Gotopo passed away at Miss. hospital on Oct. 1
A Venezuelan man with AIDS died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody on Oct. 1.
An ICE press release notes Pablo Sánchez Gotopo, 40, died at Merit Health River Oaks in Flowood, Miss., which is a suburb of Jackson, the state capital. The press release notes the “preliminary cause of death was from complications with acute respiratory failure, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), pneumonia, acute kidney failure, anemia and COVID-19.”
ICE said U.S. Border Patrol took Sánchez into custody near Del Rio, Texas, on May 17. He arrived at the Adams County Detention Center in Natchez, Miss., four days later.
“Upon arrival to an ICE facility, all detainees are medically screened and administered a COVID-19 test by ICE Health Service Corps (IHSC) personnel,” said ICE in its press release. “Sánchez’s test results came back negative.”
The press release notes Sánchez on July 28 received another COVID-19 test after he “began showing symptoms of COVID-19.” ICE said he tested negative, but Adams County Detention Center personnel transferred him to a Natchez hospital “for additional advanced medical care.”
ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations staff in its New Orleans Field Office, according to the press release, “coordinated with hospital staff to arrange family visitation” after Sánchez’s “health condition deteriorated.” Sánchez was transferred to Merit Health River Oaks on Sept. 25.
“ICE is firmly committed to the health and welfare of all those in its custody and is undertaking a comprehensive agency-wide review of this incident, as it does in all such cases,” says the press release.
Venezuela’s political and economic crises have prompted more than 10,000 people with HIV to leave the country, according to the New York-based Aid for AIDS International.
Activists and health care service providers in Venezuela with whom the Washington Blade has spoken in recent years have said people with HIV/AIDS in the country have died because of a lack of antiretroviral drugs. Andrés Cardona, director of Fundación Ancla, a group in the Colombian city of Medellín that works with migrants and other vulnerable groups, told the Blade last month that many Venezuelans with HIV would have died if they hadn’t come to Colombia.
The Blade has not been able to verify a Venezuelan activist’s claim that Sánchez was gay. It is also not known why Sánchez decided to leave Venezuela and travel to the U.S.
ICE detainee with HIV described Miss. detention center as ‘not safe’
Activists and members of Congress continue to demand ICE release people with HIV/AIDS in their custody amid reports they don’t have adequate access to medications and other necessary medical treatment.
Two trans women with HIV—Victoria Arellano from Mexico and Roxsana Hernández from Honduras—died in ICE custody in 2007 and 2018 respectively. Johana “Joa” Medina Leon, a trans woman with HIV who fled El Salvador, died in 2019, three days after ICE released her from a privately-run detention center.
The Blade in July 2020 interviewed a person with HIV who was in ICE custody at the Adams County Detention Center. The detainee said there was no social distancing at the privately-run facility and personnel were not doing enough to prevent COVID-19 from spreading.
“It’s not safe,” they told the Blade.
Elisabeth Grant-Gibson, a Natchez resident who supports ICE detainees and their families, on Wednesday told the Blade that she was able to visit the Adams County Detention Center and other ICE facilities in the Miss Lou Region of Mississippi and Louisiana from November 2019 until the suspension of in-person visitation in March 2020 because of the pandemic.
“Medical neglect and refusal of medical care has always been an issue in the detention center at Adams County,” said Grant-Gibson. “After the facilities were closed to public visitation, those problems increased.”
Grant-Gibson told the Blade she “worked with a number of families and received phone calls from a number of detainees, and I was told again and again that detainees were being refused the opportunity to visit the infirmary.”
“When they did visit the infirmary, they were given virtually no treatment for the issues they were presenting with,” said Grant-Gibson.
ICE in its press release that announced Sánchez’s death said fatalities among its detainees, “statistically, are exceedingly rare and occur at a fraction of the national average for the U.S. detained population.” ICE also noted it spends more than $315 million a year “on the spectrum of healthcare services provided to detainees.”
“ICE’s Health Service Corps (IHSC) ensures the provision of necessary medical care services as required by ICE Performance-Based National Detention Standards and based on the medical needs of the detainee,” notes the ICE press release. “Comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment detainees arrive and throughout the entirety of their stay. All ICE detainees receive medical, dental, and mental health intake screening within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility, a full health assessment within 14 days of entering ICE custody or arrival at a facility, and access to daily sick call and 24-hour emergency care.”
An ICE spokesperson on Wednesday pointed the Blade to its Performance-Based Detention Standards from 2011, which includes policies for the treatment of detainees with HIV/AIDS.
A detainee “may request HIV testing at any time during detention” and ICE detention centers “shall develop a written plan to ensure the highest degree of confidentiality regarding HIV status and medical condition.” The policy also states that “staff training must emphasize the need for confidentiality, and procedures must be in place to limit access to health records to only authorized individuals and only when necessary.”
“The accurate diagnosis and medical management of HIV infection among detainees shall be promoted,” reads the policy. “An HIV diagnosis may be made only by a licensed health care provider, based on a medical history, current clinical evaluation of signs and symptoms and laboratory studies.”
Federal Government
Holiday week brings setbacks for Trump-Vance trans agenda
Federal courts begin to deliver end-of-year responses to lawsuits involving federal transgender healthcare policy.
While many Americans took the week of Christmas to rest and relax, LGBTQ politics in the U.S. continued to shift. This week’s short recap of federal updates highlights two major blows to the Trump-Vance administration’s efforts to restrict gender-affirming care for minors.
19 states sue RFK Jr. to end gender-affirming care ban
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced on Tuesday that the NYAG’s office, along with 18 other states (and the District of Columbia), filed a lawsuit to stop U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from restricting gender-affirming care for minors.
In the press release, Attorney General James stressed that the push by the Trump-Vance administration’s crusade against the transgender community — specifically transgender youth — is a “clear overreach by the federal government” and relies on conservative and medically unvalidated practices to “punish providers who adhere to well-established, evidence-based care” that support gender-affirming care.
“At the core of this so-called declaration are real people: young people who need care, parents trying to support their children, and doctors who are simply following the best medical evidence available,” said Attorney General James. “Secretary Kennedy cannot unilaterally change medical standards by posting a document online, and no one should lose access to medically necessary health care because their federal government tried to interfere in decisions that belong in doctors’ offices. My office will always stand up for New Yorkers’ health, dignity, and right to make medical decisions free from intimidation.”
The lawsuit is a direct response to HHS’ Dec. 18 announcement that it will pursue regulatory changes that would make gender-affirming health care for transgender children more difficult, if not impossible, to access. It would also restrict federal funding for any hospital that does not comply with the directive. KFF, an independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism, found that in 2023 federal funding covered nearly 45% of total spending on hospital care in the U.S.
The HHS directive stems directly from President Donald Trump’s Jan. 28 Executive Order, Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation, which formally establishes U.S. opposition to gender-affirming care and pledges to end federal funding for such treatments.
The American Medical Association, the nation’s largest and most influential physician organization, has repeatedly opposed measures like the one pushed by President Trump’s administration that restrict access to trans health care.
“The AMA supports public and private health insurance coverage for treatment of gender dysphoria and opposes the denial of health insurance based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” a statement on the AMA’s website reads. “Improving access to gender-affirming care is an important means of improving health outcomes for the transgender population.”
The lawsuit also names Oregon, Washington, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin as having joined New York in the push against restricting gender-affirming care.
At the HHS news conference last Thursday, Jim O’Neill, deputy secretary of the department, asserted, “Men are men. Men can never become women. Women are women. Women can never become men.”
DOJ stopped from gaining health care records of trans youth
U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon blocked an attempt by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to gain “personally identifiable information about those minor transgender patients” from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), saying the DOJ’s efforts “fly in the face of the Supreme Court.”
Journalist Chris Geidner originally reported the news on Dec. 25, highlighting that the Western District of Pennsylvania judge’s decision is a major blow to the Trump-Vance administration’s agenda to curtail transgender rights.
“[T]his Court joins the others in finding that the government’s demand for deeply private and personal patient information carries more than a whiff of ill intent,” Bissoon wrote in her ruling. “This is apparent from its rhetoric.”
Bissoon cited the DOJ’s “incendiary characterization” of trans youth care on the DOJ website as proof, which calls the practice politically motivated rather than medically sound and seeks to “…mutilate children in the service of a warped ideology.” This is despite the fact that a majority of gender-affirming care has nothing to do with surgery.
In United States v. Skrmetti, the Supreme Court ruled along party lines that states — namely Tennessee — have the right to pass legislation that can prohibit certain medical treatments for transgender minors, saying the law is not subject to heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it does not involve suspect categories like race, national origin, alienage, and religion, which would require the government to show the law serves a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored, sending decision-making power back to the states.
“The government cannot pick and choose the aspects of Skrmetti to honor, and which to ignore,” Judge Bissoon added.
The government argued unsuccessfully that the parents of the children whose records would have been made available to the DOJ “lacked standing” because the subpoena was directed at UPMC and that they did not respond in a timely manner. Bissoon rejected the timeliness argument in particular as “disingenuous.”
Bissoon, who was nominated to the bench by then-President Obama, is at least the fourth judge to reject the DOJ’s attempted intrusion into the health care of trans youth according to Geidner.
A Wider Bridge on Friday announced it will shut down at the end of the month.
The group that “mobilizes the LGBTQ community to fight antisemitism and support Israel and its LGBTQ community” in a letter to supporters said financial challenges prompted the decision.
“After 15 years of building bridges between LGBTQ communities in North America and Israel, A Wider Bridge has made the difficult decision to wind down operations as of Dec. 31, 2025,” it reads.
“This decision comes after challenging financial realities despite our best efforts to secure sustainable funding. We deeply appreciate our supporters and partners who made this work possible.”
Arthur Slepian founded A Wider Bridge in 2010.
The organization in 2016 organized a reception at the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change Conference in Chicago that was to have featured to Israeli activists. More than 200 people who protested against A Wider Bridge forced the event’s cancellation.
A Wider Bridge in 2024 urged the Capital Pride Alliance and other Pride organizers to ensure Jewish people can safely participate in their events in response to an increase in antisemitic attacks after Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported authorities in Vermont late last year charged Ethan Felson, who was A Wider Bridge’s then-executive director, with lewd and lascivious conduct after alleged sexual misconduct against a museum employee. Rabbi Denise Eger succeeded Felson as A Wider Bridge’s interim executive director.
A Wider Bridge in June honored U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) at its Pride event that took place at the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C. The event took place 15 days after a gunman killed two Israeli Embassy employees — Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim — as they were leaving an event at the museum.
“Though we are winding down, this is not a time to back down. We recognize the deep importance of our mission and work amid attacks on Jewish people and LGBTQ people – and LGBTQ Jews at the intersection,” said A Wider Bridge in its letter. “Our board members remain committed to showing up in their individual capacities to represent queer Jews across diverse spaces — and we know our partners and supporters will continue to do the same.”
Editor’s note: Washington Blade International News Editor Michael K. Lavers traveled to Israel and Palestine with A Wider Bridge in 2016.
The White House
‘Trump Rx’ plan includes sharp cuts to HIV drug prices
President made announcement on Friday
President Donald Trump met with leaders from some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies at the White House on Friday to announce his new “Trump Rx” plan and outline efforts to reduce medication costs for Americans.
During the roughly 47-minute meeting in the Roosevelt Room, Trump detailed his administration’s efforts to cut prescription drug prices and make medications more affordable for U.S. patients.
“Starting next year, American drug prices will come down fast, furious, and will soon be among the lowest in the developed world,” Trump said during the meeting. “For decades, Americans have been forced to pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs by far … We will get the lowest price of anyone in the world.”
Trump signed an executive order in May directing his administration “to do everything in its power to slash prescription drug prices for Americans while getting other countries to pay more.”
“This represents the greatest victory for patient affordability in the history of American health care, by far, and every single American will benefit,” he added.
Several pharmaceutical executives stood behind the president during the announcement, including Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson, Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan, Genentech CEO Ashley Magargee, Boehringer Ingelheim (USA) CEO Jean-Michel Boers, Gilead Sciences CEO Dan O’Day, Bristol Myers Squibb General Counsel Cari Gallman, GSK CEO Emma Walmsley, Merck CEO Robert Davis, and Amgen Executive Vice President Peter Griffith.
Also in attendance were Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary.
Under the Trump Rx plan, the administration outlined a series of proposed drug price changes across multiple companies and therapeutic areas. Among them were reductions for Amgen’s cholesterol-lowering drug repatha from $573 to $239; Bristol Myers Squibb’s HIV medication reyataz from $1,449 to $217; Boehringer Ingelheim’s type 2 diabetes medication jentadueto from $525 to $55; Genentech’s flu medication xofluza from $168 to $50; and Gilead Sciences’ hepatitis C medication epclusa from $24,920 to $2,425.
Additional reductions included several GSK inhalers — such as the asthma inhaler advair diskus 500/50, from $265 to $89 — Merck’s diabetes medication januvia from $330 to $100, Novartis’ multiple sclerosis medication mayzent from $9,987 to $1,137, and Sanofi’s blood thinner plavix from $756 to $16. Sanofi insulin products would also be capped at $35 per month’s supply.
These prices, however, would only be available to patients who purchase medications directly through TrumpRx. According to the program’s website, TrumpRx “connects patients directly with the best prices, increasing transparency, and cutting out costly third-party markups.”
Kennedy spoke after Trump, thanking the president for efforts to lower pharmaceutical costs in the U.S., where evidence has shown that drug prices — including both brand-name and generic medications — are nearly 2.78 times higher than prices in comparable countries. According to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, roughly half of every dollar spent on brand-name drugs goes to entities that play no role in their research, development, or manufacturing.
“This is affordability in action,” Kennedy said. “We are reversing that trend and making sure that Americans can afford to get the life-saving solutions.”
Gilead CEO Dan O’Day also spoke about how the restructuring of drug costs under TrumpRx, combined with emerging technologies, could help reduce HIV transmission — a virus that, if untreated, can progress to AIDS. The LGBTQ community remains disproportionately affected by HIV.
“Thank you, Mr. President — you and the administration,” O’Day said. “I think this objective of achieving the commitment to affordability and future innovation is extraordinary … We just recently launched a new medicine that’s only given twice a year to prevent HIV, and we’re working with Secretary Kennedy and his entire team, as well as the State Department, as a part of your strategy to support ending the epidemic during your term.
“I’ve never been more optimistic about the innovation that exists across these companies and the impact this could have on America’s health and economy,” he added.
Trump interjected, asking, “And that’s working well with HIV?”
“Yes,” O’Day replied.
“It’s a big event,” Trump said.
“It literally prevents HIV almost 100 percent given twice a year,” O’Day responded.
A similar anti-HIV medication is currently prescribed more than injectable form mentioned by O’Day. PrEP, is a medication regimen proven to significantly reduce HIV infection rates for people at high risk. Without insurance, brand-name Truvada can cost roughly $2,000 per month, while a generic version costs about $60 per month.
Even when medication prices are reduced, PrEP access carries additional costs, including clinic and laboratory fees, office visits, required HIV and sexually transmitted infection testing, adherence services and counseling, and outreach to potentially eligible patients and providers.
According to a 2022 study, the annual total cost per person for PrEP — including medication and required clinical and laboratory monitoring — is approximately $12,000 to $13,000 per year.
The TrumpRx federal platform website is now live at TrumpRx.gov, but the program is not slated to begin offering reduced drug prices until January.
Kazakh president signs anti-LGBTQ propaganda bill
Top 10 LGBTQ local news stories of 2025
The 25 greatest queer movies of the 21st century so far
How to cope when a partner gives you the silent treatment
Out actor talks lead role in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’
Your guide to D.C.’s queer New Year’s Eve parties
Holiday week brings setbacks for Trump-Vance trans agenda
Out actor talks lead role in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’
This gay author sees dead people
