World
Transgender man flees Honduras, seeks protection in U.S.
Washington Blade interviewed Jerlín last summer
A transgender man who the Washington Blade interviewed in Honduras last summer is now seeking refuge in the U.S.
Jerlín in a video message he sent to the Blade on Thursday from Piedras Negras, a Mexican border city that is across the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass, Texas, said he and a small group of migrants left Honduras on Jan. 14.
Jerlín said police at the Guatemala-Honduras border “assaulted us, robbed us and took everything that we had brought with us.” Jerlín told the Blade that people in Guatemala did not help him and the other migrants with whom he was traveling because they were afraid of gangs and corrupt police officers.
“Passing through Guatemala was like passing through hell,” said Jerlín.
Jerlín said some of the migrants in the group who were from his community in Honduras later disappeared. Jerlín also told the Blade that people who he encountered demanded sex for food and water.
“It was also very hard crossing Mexico,” he said.
Jerlín said he arrived in Piedras Negras on Jan. 24.
He told the Blade that he had been sleeping along the riverbank and outside Mexico’s National Institute of Immigration office in Piedras Negras in the cold and the rain in the hopes he will receive a humanitarian visa. (The temperature in the city on Thursday was near freezing and Jerlín was wearing a coat, thick gloves and a hat in the video he sent to the Blade.)
“You cannot walk here because the drug cartels will kidnap you,” he said.
Jerlín on Wednesday sought to enter the U.S., but U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials sent him back to Mexico under Title 42, a Center for Disease Control and Prevention rule that has closed the Southern border to most asylum seekers and migrants because of the pandemic. Jerlín is now living in a temporary migrant shelter the Transgender Law Center and Abdiel Echevarría-Cabán, a South Texas-based attorney who is also a human rights law and policy expert, helped him find, but it is unclear how long he can stay there.
The State Department currently urges American citizens to reconsider traveling to Coahuila state in which Piedras Negras is located because of “crime and kidnapping.”
Anti-LGBTQ violence commonplace in Honduras
Jerlín was a bus driver in San Pedro Sula, Honduras’ commercial capital, until gang members shot him three times in 2012 because he couldn’t pay the extortion money from which they demanded from him each month. Jerlín, his partner and their daughter subsequently fled to La Ceiba, a city on Honduras’ Caribbean coast that is about three hours east of San Pedro Sula.
Jerlín migrated to Mexico in January 2019, but returned to Honduras less than a month later because his partner was hospitalized. The couple and their daughter migrated to Mexico a year later and applied for a Mexican humanitarian visa.
Jerlín last July during an interview at the offices of Organización Pro Unión Ceibeña (Oprouce), a La Ceiba-based advocacy group, said he and his family were living in a migrant detention center in Tapachula, a city in southern Mexico that is roughly 20 miles from the country’s border with Guatemala. Jerlín said they decided to return to Honduras in May 2020 because they did not want their daughter to further endure the “inhumane” conditions in which they were living.
Someone shot at their house on July 10, 2020.
“Sometimes I think that it’s better that they kill you in your home country and not here where nobody knows you or feels compassion for anyone,” Jerlín told the Blade from Piedras Negras.
Jerlín fled Honduras four days after Thalía Rodríguez, a prominent trans activist, was murdered outside her home in Tegucigalpa, the country’s capital. Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power are among the dignitaries who attended Honduran President Xiomara Castro’s inauguration on Jan. 27.
Harris and other White House officials have acknowledged anti-LGBTQ violence is among the “root causes” of migration from Honduras and surrounding countries. The Biden administration has also told migrants not to travel to the U.S.
Germany
German group slams White House’s LGBTQ rights record ahead of World Cup
LSVD says trans, nonbinary soccer fans safety ‘not guaranteed’ in US
A German advocacy group on the eve of the 2026 World Cup sharply criticized the Trump-Vance administration over its anti-LGBTQ policies.
The World Cup will take place in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico through July 19. The tournament began on Thursday in Mexico City with Mexico beating South Africa 2-0.
“In the USA, democracy is being gradually dismantled,” said Julia Monro of Federation Queer Diversity, a German LGBTQ and intersex rights group known by the acronym LSVD, in a statement released on Wednesday. “In particular, the human rights of trans, intersex, and nonbinary individuals, as well as other queer people, are facing massive attacks and political instrumentalization by the Trump administration.”
The LSVD statement notes sports “has a special responsibility in this situation because it conveys values worldwide that extend beyond the playing field: fairness, respect, and inclusion.”
“This must apply to everyone, including trans* and nonbinary people,” says LSVD. “Those who love sport must also protect those who can only experience it under difficult circumstances.”
“The public visibility of queer people is being pushed back, companies and organizations with diversity strategies are being pressured, and laws for trans*, intersex, and nonbinary people are being tightened,” added the group. “This is not a fringe issue, but directly affects everyday life, mobility, and safety. The way minority rights are treated is a measure of the state of a democratic society. Inhumane measures must not be normalized. The international community must not remain silent as attention on the host country, the USA, increases. The Trump administration could exploit this media platform for further inhumane purposes, in order to transfer its homophobic agenda to other countries.”
LSVD also stressed the “safety of trans* and nonbinary soccer fans is currently not guaranteed in the USA.”
“We advise all queer fans to inform themselves carefully beforehand and to take precautions for their safety,” it said.
The Council for Global Equality is one of the more than 100 organizations that issued a travel advisory for the U.S. ahead of the World Cup.
LSVD in its statement pointed out the German government in 2025 issued a travel advisory for trans and nonbinary people who are planning to visit the U.S. The warning specifically noted President Donald Trump’s executive order that banned the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.
InterPride, the organization that coordinates WorldPride events, issued a travel advisory for trans and nonbinary people who planned to travel to the U.S. for WorldPride that took place last summer in D.C.
“Due to an executive order issued by the U.S. president on Jan. 20, all travelers must select either ‘male’ or ‘female’ when applying for entry or visas. The gender listed at birth will be considered valid,” read the InterPride advisory. “If your passport has ‘X’ as a gender marker or differs from your birth-assigned gender, we strongly recommend contacting the U.S. diplomatic mission before traveling to confirm entry requirements.”
LSVD notes the German government reiterated its 2025 travel advisory ahead of the World Cup.
“Anyone traveling with a different gender entry, with an ‘X’ marker in their passport, or who does not conform to the state’s expectations during checks, must expect problems in the USA,” said LSVD.
Hungary
Charges against Budapest mayor for organizing Pride march dropped
Country’s new government took office last month
Hungarian authorities on Thursday dropped charges against Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony over his role in organizing the city’s 2025 Pride march.
Karácsony spoke at the event, even though then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government banned it.
More than 100,000 people defied the ban and participated in the march that took place on June 28, 2025. The Associated Press notes the Budapest Chief Prosecutor’s Office in January charged Karácsony with “organizing the unlawful assembly despite a prohibition order.”
Karácsony, who has been Budapest’s mayor since 2019, described himself as a “proud defendant” after his indictment.
“It seems that in this country, this is the price you pay if you stand up for your own freedom and the freedom of others,” he said in a statement, according to the AP. “If anyone thinks they can ban me, deter me, or prevent me and my city from doing so, they are gravely mistaken.”
Budapest is Hungary’s capital and largest city.
Prime Minister Péter Magyar took office last month after his center-right Tisza party ousted Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP coalition in elections that took place on April 12.
Hungarian police on May 29 announced they will allow the Budapest Pride march to take place this year.
The European Union’s top court, the EU Court of Justice, days after Orbán’s ouster struck down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law that MPs approved in 2021. The BBC notes Hungarian authorities cited the decision in their decision to drop the charges against Karácsony.
Authorities in Pécs, a city near Hungary’s border with Croatia, have also dropped charges against Géza Buzás-Hábel, who organized a 2025 Pride event.
Hungary
Hungarian authorities lift Budapest Pride ban
Country’s new government took office last month
Hungarian police on May 29 announced they will allow the annual Budapest Pride march to take place.
“The Budapest Metropolitan Police has approved the 2026 Budapest Pride Parade and also has issued restrictive orders in relation to three counter-demonstrations,” a Budapest Metropolitan Police spokesperson told Politico.
Budapest is Hungary’s capital and largest city.
Hungarian lawmakers last year passed a bill that banned Pride events and allowed authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify participants. MPs later amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
More than 100,000 people defied the ban and participated in last year’s Budapest Pride parade. The event became one of the largest protests against then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government since he took office in 2010.
Prime Minister Péter Magyar took office last month after his center-right Tisza party ousted Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP coalition in elections that took place on April 12. The European Union’s top court, the EU Court of Justice, days after Orbán’s ouster struck down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law that MPs approved in 2021.
The EU on May 29 announced it will release more than €16 billion ($18.59 billion) in funds to Hungary that it withheld while Orbán was in office.
The Budapest Pride march will take place on June 27.
“We will march freely in fresh air for our rights, for the democratic Hungary,” said Budapest Pride on its Facebook page.
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