World
First openly gay Honduras congressman reflects on historic election
Victor Grajeda hopes to expand opportunities for LGBTQ Hondurans
SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras — The first openly gay man elected to the Honduran Congress on Monday described his election as a “very important” milestone for the country’s LGBTQ community.
“It is something that has marked a before and an after; a great responsibility fell on my shoulders,” Victor Grajeda told the Washington Blade during an interview in San Pedro Sula, the country’s second largest city.
Grajeda, 31, is from San Pedro Sula and works at a beauty supply store. He lives with his partner of 13 years and their two cats.
Congresswoman Silvia Ayala of the leftist Free Party ahead of Honduras’ congressional elections that took place on Nov. 28 tapped Grajeda to be her “suplente,” which is alternate in Honduran Spanish and within the structure of the country’s political system. He will represent Ayala in Congress if she cannot attend sessions in person.
Grajeda, who is one of five openly LGBTQ candidates who ran for Congress, received more than 100,000 votes. He and Ayala represent Cortés department in which San Pedro Sula is located.
Grajeda spoke with the Blade less than two weeks after President Xiomara Castro, who is also a member of the Free Party, took office.
Castro defeated Nasry Asfura, a member of former President Juan Orlando Hernández’s National Party who is the former mayor of Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, in the presidential election’s first round that also took place on Nov. 28. A 2009 coup toppled Castro’s husband, former President Manuel Zelaya.
Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power are among the dignitaries who attended Castro’s inauguration that took place at Honduras’ national stadium in Tegucigalpa on Jan. 27.
The inauguration took place amid a bitter dispute among Free Party members over who would become the Congress’ next president. Grajeda, who attended Castro’s inauguration, nevertheless described the event as “a return of hope.”
“It will be a bit difficult for things to change overnight and for (Honduras) to be another country tomorrow where everything is happiness,” Grajeda told the Blade. “But (Castro’s inauguration) marks a change, a new hope, a new opportunity, fresh air.”
Grajeda described Hernández, whose brother, former Congressman Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, is serving a life sentence in the U.S. after a federal jury convicted him of trafficking tons of cocaine into the country, as a “narco president.” The Blade spoke with Grajeda hours after Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the U.S. had officially sanctioned the former Honduran president for corruption.
“It was only a matter of time,” said Grajeda.
‘We had three murders in less than 24 hours’
Discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity remain commonplace in Honduras.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights in a landmark ruling it issued last June said the Honduran state was responsible for the murder of Vicky Hernández, a transgender activist who was killed in San Pedro Sula hours after the 2009 coup.
Cattrachas, a lesbian feminist human rights group in Tegucigalpa, notes Vicky Hernández and more than 400 other LGBTQ people have been killed in Honduras since 2009.
Thalía Rodríguez, a prominent trans activist, was killed outside her Tegucigalpa home on Jan. 11. Three LGBTQ people, including a gay couple in San Pedro Sula, were reported murdered in Honduras on Feb. 2.
Castro has not publicly commented on the Vicky Hernández ruling, but she has expressed support for marriage rights for same-sex couples. Grajeda noted to the Blade that Castro has also called for the legal recognition of trans Hondurans and supports “safe spaces” for LGBTQ people.
“The issue of violence, the issue of spaces is serious,” said Grajeda. “We had three murders in less than 24 hours.”
Harris and other Biden administration officials have acknowledged anti-LGBTQ violence is one of the “root causes” of migration from Honduras and neighboring countries.
Grajeda told the Blade that expanding access to education is a “key issue with respect to opportunities for the LGBT community.” Grajeda also said trans Hondurans in particular need more access to formal employment.
“The only opportunities available to trans people are to work as prostitutes, as sex workers,” he said.
“The same stigma that discriminates against them leaves them without access to education,” added Grajeda. “There are people (in the trans community) who are very intelligent, very capable.”
Harris comments about migrants ‘understandable’
Many of the migrant caravans that hope to reach the U.S. leave from San Pedro Sula’s main bus station.
Immigrant rights groups in the U.S. last June criticized Harris when she told migrants from Central America not to travel to the U.S.-Mexico border. Grajeda described Harris’ comments as “understandable.”
“It is a position that she has because it is her country,” said Grajeda. “We cannot close our eyes to the fact that a really large number of people who go (to the border) are not all that legal, and that creates a burden.”
Iran
Grenell: ‘Real hope’ for gay rights in Iran as result of nationwide protests
Former ambassador to Germany claimed he has sneaked ‘gays and lesbians out of’ country
Richard Grenell, the presidential envoy for special missions of the United States, said on X on Tuesday that he has helped “sneak gays and lesbians out of Iran” and is seeing a change in attitudes in the country.
The post, which now has more than 25,000 likes since its uploading, claims that attitudes toward gays and lesbians are shifting amid massive economic protests across the country.
“For the first time EVER, someone has said ‘I want to wait just a bit,” the former U.S. ambassador to Germany wrote. “There is real hope coming from the inside. I don’t think you can stop this now.”
Grenell has been a longtime supporter of the president.
“Richard Grenell is a fabulous person, A STAR,” Trump posted on Truth Social days before his official appointment to the ambassador role. “He will be someplace, high up! DJT”
Iran, which is experiencing demonstrations across all 31 provinces of the country — including in Tehran, the capital — started as a result of a financial crisis causing the collapse of its national currency. Time magazine credits this uprising after the U.N. re-imposed sanctions in September over the country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
As basic necessities like bread, rice, meat, and medical supplies become increasingly unaffordable to the majority of the more than 90 million people living there, citizens took to the streets to push back against Iran’s theocratic regime.
Grenell, who was made president and executive director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts last year by Trump, believes that people in the majority Shiite Muslim country are also beginning to protest human rights abuses.
Iran is among only a handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
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.”
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