World
Marielle Franco’s widow keeps her legacy alive
Mônica Benício elected to Rio de Janeiro Municipal Council in 2020
Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers was on assignment in Brazil from March 12-21.
RIO DE JANEIRO — March 14 marked four years since the murders of Rio de Janeiro Municipal Councilwoman Marielle Franco and her driver, Anderson Gomes, after they attended an event for Black women in the Brazilian city’s Lapa neighborhood. It remains very difficult for Franco’s widow, Mônica Benício, to discuss that day without becoming emotional.
“Before I start crying, I’ll just ask you to imagine what it is like to lose the love of your life,” said Benício on Saturday, speaking through her assistant who interpreted for her during an interview with the Washington Blade.
A tattoo of Franco’s face on Benício’s left forearm was visible throughout the interview that took place at a coffee shop near Largo de Machado in downtown Rio. A picture of Franco at a beach was also the screensaver on Benício’s smartphone.
Franco, a bisexual woman and single mother of African descent, grew up in Maré, a favela in the northern part of Rio that is close to its international airport.
Franco in 2003 began to work for now Congressman Marcelo Freixa, who is currently a member of the Brazilian Socialist Party, when he was a member of the Rio de Janeiro (State) Legislative Assembly. She coordinated its Defense of Human Rights and Citizenship Commission and worked for a number of local human rights organizations before she won a seat on the Rio Municipal Council in 2016 as a member of the leftist Socialism and Liberty Party.
Benício noted Franco received the fifth highest number of votes among the 51 candidates who ran for the Municipal Council in 2016. Only one other female candidate received more votes than Franco.
Franco, among other things, was an outspoken critic of police raids in Rio’s favelas that have left hundreds of people dead. She was a member of a Rio Municipal Council commission that sought to investigate them.
Franco four days before her murder described the Rio de Janeiro State Military Police’s 41st Battalion as “the death battalion” in response to the killings of three young men in two of the city’s favelas.
Authorities in 2019 arrested two former police officers in connection with Franco’s murder.
Benício noted the men remain in jail, but their trial has not begun.
“The struggle for justice to find out who ordered the murder and how high up they were indicates we are still far from knowing,” she said.
Ronnie Lessa, one of the main suspects, lived in the same large condominium complex in Rio’s exclusive Barra da Tijuca neighborhood in which President Jair Bolsonaro lives.
Bolsonaro, a former Brazilian Army captain who represented Rio in Congress for decades, was not president when Franco and Gomes were murdered.
Bolsonaro has strongly denied media reports that indicate Lessa visited his home before the killings. Benício referred to investigators’ claim the fact that Lessa and Bolsonaro were neighbors is “just a coincidence.”
Bolsonaro election ‘worst thing’ in Brazil for decades
Bolsonaro took office on Jan. 1, 2019. He defeated former São Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party in the second round of the country’s presidential election that took place on Oct. 28, 2018.
“It’s the worst thing that’s happened in the history of this country for decades,” said Benício.
Bolsonaro’s comments against LGBTQ Brazilians, women, indigenous people and other underrepresented groups have sparked widespread outrage. Sources in Rio, São Paulo and Salvador with whom the Blade spoke also noted Bolsonaro, who is a member of the Liberal Party, has sought to link COVID-19 vaccines to AIDS.
“It is important for us to understand that Jair Bolsonaro has been in Congress for 30 years and has made no contribution to society,” said Benício.
Benício noted Bolsonaro’s homophobic, transphobic, racist and misogynist rhetoric was “known” before he became president. Benício said it resonates with a segment of Brazilian society and has caused incidents of discrimination, harassment and violence based on race, sexual orientation, gender identity, class and other factors to increase.
“It is an absolutely despicable posture and incompatible with a posture of the president of the republic,” she said. “It does, however, resonates with sectors of society.”
Brazil’s presidential, vice presidential, congressional and state gubernatorial and legislative elections will take place on Oct. 2.
Early polls indicate da Silva is ahead of the highly unpopular Bolsonaro, although a run-off will take place if no presidential candidate receives a majority of the vote. Eduardo Leite, the governor of Rio Grande do Sul State and member of the center-left Brazilian Social Democratic Party who came out as gay last summer, is among those who are running for vice president.
Benício told the Blade that she is hopeful the election “will not be a favorable result” for Bolsonaro. Benício also acknowledged growing concerns that Bolsonaro may not accept the election results if he loses.
“Whether we can complete this electoral period within (the framework of) our democracy or if we have someone who has finally shown that he has no scruples is a real concern,” said Benício. “It doesn’t matter if he hands over that presidential sash.”
Benício elected to Rio Municipal Council in 2020
Franco’s family has created the Marielle Franco Institute that seeks to “inspire, connect and empower Black women, LGBTQIA+ people and others on the margins in order to continue moving the structures of society towards a fairer and more egalitarian world.”
Benício, who also grew up in Maré, was an architect before Franco and Gomes were killed. Benício in 2020 ran for the Rio Municipal Council as a member of the Socialism and Liberty Party, and won with nearly 23,000 votes.
Benício’s first term would have been Franco’s second.
“It was never in my personal life plan,” Benício told the Blade. “I was the partner of a lawmaker and my life was dedicated to architecture.”
Benício said the majority of her colleagues on the Municipal Council have treated her well, although some of them strongly disagree with her positions on LGBTQ rights and other issues that include support for efforts to address social and economic disparities in the city. Benício stressed she champions the same issues that Franco did.
“They already knew me as a defender of human rights,” said Benício, referring to her colleagues on the Municipal Council. “They already knew me as a feminist, a lesbian.”
Benício further stressed she remains committed to keeping Franco’s legacy alive.
“Seeing Marielle turn into a broad representative symbol of resistance, of hope, for me is the legacy,” said Benício. “Marielle’s life will not be in vain. Society will also not allow it.”
More than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes are expected to compete in the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics that open on Friday.
Outsports.com notes eight Americans — including speedskater Conor McDermott-Mostowy and figure skater Amber Glenn — are among the 44 openly LGBTQ athletes who will compete in the games. The LGBTQ sports website also reports Ellis Lundholm, a mogul skier from Sweden, is the first openly transgender athlete to compete in any Winter Olympics.
“I’ve always been physically capable. That was never a question,” Glenn told Outsports.com. “It was always a mental and competence problem. It was internal battles for so long: when to lean into my strengths and when to work on my weaknesses, when to finally let myself portray the way I am off the ice on the ice. That really started when I came out publicly.”
McDermott-Mostowy is among the six athletes who have benefitted from the Out Athlete Fund, a group that has paid for their Olympics-related training and travel. The other beneficiaries are freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy, speed skater Brittany Bowe, snowboarder Maddy Schaffrick, alpine skier Breezy Johnson, and Paralympic Nordic skier Jake Adicoff.
Out Athlete Fund and Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood on Friday will host a free watch party for the opening ceremony.
“When athletes feel seen and accepted, they’re free to focus on their performance, not on hiding who they are,” Haley Caruso, vice president of the Out Athlete Fund’s board of directors, told the Los Angeles Blade.
Four Italian LGBTQ advocacy groups — Arcigay, CIG Arcigay Milano, Milano Pride, and Pride Sport Milano — have organized the games’ Pride House that will be located at the MEET Digital Culture Center in Milan.
Pride House on its website notes it will “host a diverse calendar of events and activities curated by associations, activists, and cultural organizations that share the values of Pride” during the games. These include an opening ceremony party at which Checcoro, Milan’s first LGBTQ chorus, will perform.
ILGA World, which is partnering with Pride House, is the co-sponsor of a Feb. 21 event that will focus on LGBTQ-inclusion in sports. Valentina Petrillo, a trans Paralympian, is among those will participate in a discussion that Simone Alliva, a journalist who writes for the Italian newspaper Domani, will moderate.
“The event explores inclusivity in sport — including amateur levels — with a focus on transgender people, highlighting the role of civil society, lived experiences, and the voices of athletes,” says Milano Pride on its website.
The games will take place against the backdrop of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s decision to ban trans women from competing in women’s sporting events.
President Donald Trump last February issued an executive order that bans trans women and girls from female sports teams in the U.S. A group of Republican lawmakers in response to the directive demanded the International Olympics Committee ban trans athletes from women’s athletic competitions.
The IOC in 2021 adopted its “Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations” that includes the following provisions:
• 3.1 Eligibility criteria should be established and implemented fairly and in a manner that does not systematically exclude athletes from competition based upon their gender identity, physical appearance and/or sex variations.
• 3.2 Provided they meet eligibility criteria that are consistent with principle 4 (“Fairness”, athletes should be allowed to compete in the category that best aligns with their self-determined gender identity.
• 3.3 Criteria to determine disproportionate competitive advantage may, at times, require testing of an athlete’s performance and physical capacity. However, no athlete should be subject to targeted testing because of, or aimed at determining, their sex, gender identity and/or sex variations.
The 2034 Winter Olympics are scheduled to take place in Salt Lake City. The 2028 Summer Olympics will occur in Los Angeles.
China
Two Chinese men detained over AI-generated picture of pandas engaging in same-sex behavior
Arrests part of increased online surveillance, LGBTQ rights crackdown
Chinese authorities have detained two men after they shared an artificially altered image that linked queer identity with a specific city.
The Washington Post on Jan. 21 reported the men — who are 29 and 33 — circulated an AI-generated picture depicting pandas engaging in same-sex behavior in Chengdu, a major city in southwestern China often referred to as the “panda capital” due to its association with giant panda conservation. Local officials described the sharing of the image as “malicious,” and police in Chengdu took the men into custody.
Authorities also suspended the two men’s social media accounts, accusing them of spreading misinformation presented as legitimate news. According to the Post, the artificially generated image was posted alongside a fabricated headline, giving the appearance of an authentic news report. The image depicted two male pandas mating.
According to an official police report, police said the fabricated image was presented in the format of a legitimate news article and accompanied by a false headline. The caption read, “Chengdu: Two male Sichuan giant pandas successfully mate for the first time without human intervention,” authorities said.
Chinese regulators have in recent years tightened oversight of AI and online content.
Under the Interim Measures for the Administration of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services, issued in 2023, providers and users of generative AI systems are required to comply with existing laws, adhere to social and ethical standards, and refrain from producing or disseminating false or misleading information. Additional rules that took effect on Sept. 1, 2025, require online platforms to clearly label AI-generated content, a measure authorities have said is intended to curb misinformation and maintain order in digital spaces.
Police under Chinese law are permitted to impose administrative detention of up to 15 days for offenses deemed to disrupt public order, a category that includes the fabrication or dissemination of false information online. Such cases are handled outside the criminal court system and do not require formal prosecution.
According to a statement the Chengdu Public Security Bureau’s Chenghua branch released, police opened an investigation after receiving public reports that online accounts were spreading false information about the city. Authorities said officers collected evidence shortly afterward and placed the two individuals under administrative detention.
The detentions are not an isolated case.
The Washington Blade in July 2025 reported a Chinese female writer was arrested and subjected to a strip search after publishing gay erotic fiction online. At least 30 other writers — most of them women in their 20s — in the months that followed publicly described similar encounters with law enforcement, including home raids and questioning related to their online writing.
ShanghaiPRIDE, a Chinese LGBTQ advocacy group that organized annual Pride events in the city, has remained indefinitely suspended since 2021. In the same period, dozens of LGBTQ-focused accounts have been removed from WeChat, China’s largest social media platform, as authorities intensified oversight of online content related to sexual orientation and gender identity.
Authorities in 2021 detained the founder of LGBT Rights Advocacy China. They later released them on the condition that he shut down the organization, which ceased operations shortly afterward.
China decriminalized homosexuality in 1997 when it removed consensual same-sex sexual relations from the country’s criminal code. The Chinese Society of Psychiatry in 2001 formally removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. Despite those changes, same-sex relationships remain unrecognized under Chinese law, and there are no legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Public advocacy for LGBTQ rights remains tightly restricted, with authorities continuing to limit community organizing, public events and online expression related to sexual minority issues.
Within China’s LGBTQ community, transgender and gender non-conforming people remain among the most vulnerable. Under current regulations, access to gender-affirming surgery is subject to strict requirements, including being at least 18 years old, unmarried, obtaining parental consent and having no criminal record — procedures that are required in order to legally change one’s gender on official documents.
China’s system of online governance places responsibility on both users and platforms to prevent the spread of prohibited content. Social media companies are required to conduct real-name verification, monitor user activity and remove posts that violate regulations, while individuals can be punished for content authorities determine to have caused public misunderstanding or social disruption.
“Actually, at least three similar incidents have occurred in Chengdu recently, all involving netizens posting on social media linking Chengdu with homosexuality, resulting in legal repercussions. This isn’t just about giant pandas. I think the local police’s reaction was somewhat excessive,” said Renn Hao, a Chinese queer activist. “The content was actually praising Chengdu’s inclusivity, and there was no need to punish them with regulations like ‘maliciously spreading false information.’”
“This situation reflects the strict censorship of LGBT related content in the area,” they added. “This censorship makes LGBT-related content increasingly invisible, and people are even more afraid to post or mention it. This not only impacts the LGBTQ+ community in China but also hinders public understanding and awareness of this group.”
Advocacy groups are demanding the Trump-Vance administration not to deport two gay men to Iran.
MS Now on Jan. 23 reported the two men are among the 40 Iranian nationals who the White House plans to deport.
Iran is among the countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
The Washington Blade earlier this month reported LGBTQ Iranians have joined anti-government protests that broke out across the country on Dec. 28. Human rights groups say the Iranian government has killed thousands of people since the demonstrations began.
Rebekah Wolf of the American Immigration Council, which represents the two men, told MS Now her clients were scheduled to be on a deportation flight on Jan. 25. A Human Rights Campaign spokesperson on Tuesday told the Blade that one of the men “was able to obtain a temporary stay of removal from the” 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the other “is facing delayed deportation as the result of a measles outbreak at the facility where they’re being held.”
“My (organization, the American Immigration Council) represents those two gay men,” said American Immigration Council Senior Fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick in a Jan. 23 post on his Bluesky account. “They had been arrested on charges of sodomy by Iranian moral police, and fled the country seeking asylum. They face the death penalty if returned, yet the Trump (administration) denied their asylum claims in a kangaroo court process.”
“They are terrified,” added Reichlin-Melnick.
My org @immcouncil.org represents those two gay men. They had been arrested on charges of sodomy by Iranian moral police, and fled the country seeking asylum. They face the death penalty if returned, yet the Trump admin denied their asylum claims in a kangaroo court process.
They are terrified.
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 8:26 AM
Reichlin-Melnick in a second Bluesky post said “deporting people to Iran right now, as body bags line the street, is an immoral, inhumane, and unjust act.”
“That ICE is still considering carrying out the flight this weekend is a sign of an agency and an administration totally divorced from basic human rights,” he added.
Deporting people to Iran right now, as body bags line the street, is an immoral, inhumane, and unjust act. That ICE is still considering carrying out the flight this weekend is a sign of an agency and an administration totally divorced from basic human rights. www.ms.now/news/trump-d…
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 8:27 AM
HRC Vice President of Government Affairs David Stacy in a statement to the Blade noted Iran “is one of 12 nations that still execute queer people, and we continue to fear for their safety.” Stacy also referenced Renee Good, a 37-year-old lesbian woman who a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, and Andry Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan asylum seeker who the Trump-Vance administration “forcibly disappeared” to El Salvador last year.
“This out-of-control administration continues to target immigrants and terrorize our communities,” said Stacy. “That same cruelty murdered Renee Nicole Good and imprisoned Andry Hernández Romero. We stand with the American Immigration Council and demand that these men receive the due process they deserve. Congress must refuse to fund this outrage and stand against the administration’s shameless dismissal of our constitutional rights.”
Human Rights Watch sharply criticizes US in annual report
LGBTQ Victory Fund looks beyond Washington for change in 2026
New Equality Caucus vice chair endorses Equality Act, federal trans bill of rights
D.C. Council gives first approval to amended PrEP insurance bill
44 openly LGBTQ athletes to compete in Milan Cortina Winter Olympics
This queer comedy show will warm you up
Out dancer on Alvin Ailey’s stint at Warner Theatre
Unconventional homes becoming more popular
D.C. Council urged to improve ‘weakened’ PrEP insurance bill
