World
UNHCR highlights work with LGBTQ asylum seekers in Central America
Agency adopted LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination policy in 2018
Officials with the U.N. Refugee Agency in Central America and Mexico say they remain committed to helping LGBTQ asylum seekers and migrants in the region.
UNHCR Guatemala Representative Besem Obenson told the Washington Blade during an interview at her Guatemala City office last September that she and her colleagues work with Asociación Lambda and other Guatemalan NGOs to provide LGBTQ asylum seekers with access to LGBTQ-friendly shelters, psychosocial care and other programs once they identify themselves as LGBTQ. Obenson said UNHCR also works with the Guatemalan government to improve the way it responds to an asylum seeker with an ID document that does not correspond to their gender presentation.
“Our role … is to strengthen the government’s response to refugees and asylum seekers,” said Obenson.
Rafael Zavala, a senior UNHCR official in El Salvador, echoed Obenson when he spoke with the Blade at UNHCR’s office in San Salvador, the Salvadoran capital, last July.
Zavala noted UNHCR has a formal partnership with COMCAVIS Trans, a Salvadoran transgender rights group. Zavala said UNHCR also works with two other LGBTQ groups — Aspidh Arcoíris Trans and Diké LGBTI+ — in a less official capacity.
“What we do is work at the community level to strengthen their role in communities,” Zavala told the Blade. “We also build for them safe spaces (to accept internally displaced people, migrants and deportees who are LGBTQ) and also find spaces where they can receive services, attention and legal assistance.”
Anti-LGBTQ violence among migration ‘root causes’
Vice President Kamala Harris and others have acknowledged anti-LGBTQ violence is one of the “root causes” of migration from Central America’s Northern Triangle that includes El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
The Mexican Commission on Refugee Aid (COMAR) on Monday reported 27.7 percent of the 131,448 people who asked for asylum in Mexico in 2021 were Honduran.
The Justice Department notes 85,391 people asked for asylum in the U.S. in the 2021 fiscal year from Oct. 1, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2021. More than twice as many people asked for asylum in the U.S. during the 2020 fiscal year, which began before the pandemic.
The Justice Department statistics indicate 10 percent of the 8,679 Guatemalans, 11 percent of the 5,464 Hondurans and 14 percent of the 8,030 Salvadorans who applied for asylum in the U.S. during the 2021 fiscal year won their cases. Neither the Justice Department nor COMAR specify the asylum seekers’ sexual orientation or gender identity.
The Biden administration last February began to allow into the U.S. asylum seekers who the previous White House forced to pursue their cases in Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocols program. The Biden administration has sought to end MPP, but a federal appeals court last month blocked this effort.
Title 42, a Center for Disease Control and Prevention rule that closed the Southern border to most asylum seekers and migrants because of the pandemic, remains in place.
UNHCR non-discrimination policy includes sexual orientation, gender identity
UNHCR Senior Protection Officer Sofia Cardona last summer during an interview at UNHCR’s Mexico City office acknowledged that identifying asylum seekers who are LGBTQ is a challenge. Cardona and other UNHCR representatives with whom the Blade spoke for this story referred to the agency’s 2018 non-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation and gender identity and specifically recognizes LGBTQ asylum seekers.
“Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) persons face complex challenges, threats and barriers and are often exposed to discrimination, abuse, prejudice and violence due to their sex, sexual orientation and/or gender identity,” notes the policy. “This is often severely compounded in situations of displacement, where the nature of the discrimination they encounter can be particularly virulent, their isolation from family and community profound and the harm inflicted on them severe.”
The policy states “diversity refers to different values, attitudes, cultural perspectives, beliefs, ethnicities, nationalities, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, health, social and economic status, skills and other specific personal characteristics.”
“Diversity characteristics vary from person to person and intersect, making each person unique,” it reads. “These differences must be recognized, understood, respected and valued by UNHCR in each context and operation in order to address effectively the needs of all persons of concern. Respecting diversity means recognizing and valuing those differences and creating a protective, inclusive and non-discriminatory environment where everyone’s rights are upheld.”
Cardona noted UNHCR staff and representatives of NGOs and governments with which it works regularly attend LGBTQ sensitivity trainings. Topics include ways to determine whether an asylum seeker is LGBTQ without forcing them to out themselves.
“You can’t force a disclosure,” said Cardona. “You can neve directly ask somebody, so, are you gay? Are you transgender? It’s incorrect because you may put people at risk, so it’s a very thin line of you can never force a disclosure of someone’s gender identity or sexual orientation, but you must signify to somebody that you are a safe space to receive that disclosure.”
Cardona said UNHCR representatives can ask an asylum seeker what their name is or disclose to them that they are “de la diversidad” or “from a diverse background.”
“You never begin an interview assuming anything by the way a person looks because in forced displacement gender expression is unlikely to match up to gender identity,” Cardona told the Blade. “So you need to understand that you may very well have conversations with a trans man who is wearing makeup and a dress, and you may very well be having a conversation with a trans woman who has a beard because that is how they are protecting themselves in a sphere of forced displacement.”
Cardona also noted UNHCR staff wear buttons with slogans that include “en seguridad” or “espacio libre de discriminación,” which translates into “in safety” or “discrimination-free space” respectively. Both Cardona and Zavala were wearing such buttons when they spoke with the Blade.
“We try very, very, very hard to work with our staff and also our partners … so they have their capacity strengthened in LGBTI rights,” Dagmara Mejia, the director of UNHCR’s field office in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, told the Blade last summer during an interview at her office.
Mejia noted the trainings she and her colleagues conduct focuses on topics that include the use pronouns that correspond to an asylum seeker’s gender identity and shelter standards for LGBTQ asylum seekers.
UNHCR works with Jardín de las Mariposas, a shelter for LGBTQ asylum seekers in Tijuana that is less than two miles from El Chaparral, the main port of entry between the city and San Diego. UNHCR also maintains contact with Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration Executive Director Steve Roth and the California-based Transgender Law Center.
“If there is no disclosure, no trust, then we cannot meet their needs and respond,” said Mejia.
“We also create these environments that allow the community to feel safe and to know that it is a place where they can come without the risk of discrimination,” said Zavala.
Obenson told the Blade that UNHCR has worked with the Foundation for Ecodevelopment and Conservation (FUNDAECO), a Guatemalan NGO, to hire asylum seekers who have chosen to stay in Guatemala as park rangers. Trans women are among those who FUNDAECO has hired.
“People need to feel safe,” said Obenson. “People need to be able to live their authentic selves without fear of violence or fear of retribution.”
“That for me, as a rep, is what I strive for,” added Obenson. “Everything that we do here at UNHCR is to encourage that.”
Ernesto Valle contributed to this story from San Salvador, El Salvador.
Venezuela
AHF client in Venezuela welcomes Maduro’s ouster
‘This is truly something we’ve been waiting for’ for decades
An AIDS Healthcare Foundation client who lives in Venezuela told the Washington Blade he welcomes the ouster of his country’s former president.
The client, who asked the Blade to remain anonymous, on Thursday said he felt “joy” when he heard the news that American forces seized Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, during an overnight operation on Jan. 3.
“This is truly something we’ve been waiting for for 26 or 27 years,” the AHF client told the Blade.
Hugo Chávez became Venezuela’s president in 1999. Maduro succeeded him in 2013 after he died.
“I’ve always been in opposition,” said the AHF client, who stressed he was speaking to the Blade in his personal capacity and not as an AHF representative. “I’ve never agreed with the government. When I heard the news, well, you can imagine.”
He added he has “high hopes that this country will truly change, which is what it needed.”
“This means getting rid of this regime, so that American and foreign companies can invest here and Venezuela can become what it used to be, the Venezuela of the past,” he said.
The AHF client lives near the Colombia-Venezuela border. He is among the hundreds of Venezuelans who receive care at AHF’s clinic in Cúcuta, a Colombian city near the Táchira River that marks the border between the two countries.
The Simón Bolívar Bridge on the Colombia-Venezuela border on May 14, 2019. (Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
The AHF client praised U.S. President Donald Trump and reiterated his support for the Jan. 3 operation.
“It was the only way that they could go,” he said.
The Venezuelan National Assembly on Jan. 4 swore in Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, as the country’s acting president. The AHF client with whom the Blade spoke said he is “very optimistic” about Venezuela’s future, even though the regime remains in power.
“With Maduro leaving, the regime has a certain air about it,” he said. “I think this will be a huge improvement for everyone.”
“We’re watching,” he added. “The actions that the United States government is going to implement regarding Venezuela give us hope that things will change.”
Colombia
Colombians protest against Trump after he threatened country’s president
Tens of thousands protested the US president in Bogotá
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Tens of thousands of people on Wednesday gathered in the Colombian capital to protest against President Donald Trump after he threatened Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
The protesters who gathered in Plaza Bolívar in Bogotá held signs that read, among other things, “Yankees go home” and “Petro is not alone.” Petro is among those who spoke.
The Bogotá protest took place four days after American forces seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás 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.
Trump on Sunday suggested the U.S. will target Petro, a former Bogotá mayor and senator who was once a member of the M-19 guerrilla movement that disbanded in the 1990s. 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.
The Bogotá protest is among hundreds against Trump that took place across Colombia on Wednesday.
Petro on Wednesday night said he and Trump spoke on the phone. Trump in a Truth Social post confirmed he and his Colombian counterpart had spoken.
“It was a great honor to speak with the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, who called to explain the situation of drugs and other disagreements that we have had,” wrote Trump. “I appreciated his call and tone, and look forward to meeting him in the near future. Arrangements are being made between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the foreign minister of Colombia. The meeting will take place in the White House in Washington, D.C.”
Colombia
Gay Venezuelan man who fled to Colombia uncertain about homeland’s future
Heberth Aguirre left Maracaibo in 2018
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — A gay Venezuelan man who has lived in Colombia since 2018 says he feels uncertain about his homeland’s future after the U.S. seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
“On one hand I can feel happy, 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 Petro, 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.”
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