South America
Uruguay’s LGBTQ activists continue fight for equality
Country seen as one of the world’s most LGBTQ-friendly nations
In a country that has historically been considered a vanguard in terms of human rights and recognition of sexual diversity in South America, Uruguay’s activists continue to emphasize the importance of continuing to fight for the effective implementation of policies that will improve LGBTQ people’s lives.
Various marches took place across the country last month, 30 years after Uruguay’s first queer rights demonstration. The march in Montevideo, the country’s capital, was the last of these protests that took place.
Nicolás Pizarro and Daniela Buquet of Coordinadora de la Marcha por la Diversidad and Diego Sempol, a political scientist and supporter of various organizations, in a series of exclusive interviews with the Washington Blade offered an in-depth look at Uruguay’s LGBTQ community’s current situation and the challenges it faces.
Progressive laws, incomplete implementation
Uruguay has been a pioneer in the region in terms of the implementation of laws that protect the rights of LGBTQ people. They include the Comprehensive Law for Trans Persons; the Law on the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy; the Law Against Racism, Xenophobia and all forms of Discrimination, and the Law on Gender-Based Violence. Uruguay’s marriage equality law took effect in 2013.
These laws have been the result of the hard work of social movements and activists who have fought tirelessly for equality and justice. Their effective implementation, however, remains a challenge.
Pizarro points out a lack of budget and political will has hindered the full realization of these public policies.
“Uruguay is in a difficult political context today, where the right-wing government is cutting budgets and pursuing a regressive agenda in (terms of) human rights legislation,” Pizarro told the Blade.
He said this situation has led to LGBTQ people having to lobby and take to the streets to demand that existing laws be enforced and the necessary resources be allocated to do so.
Sempol, meanwhile, indicated “the movement’s current demands are linked to the effective enforcement of the laws in all their terms and that economic resources are actually allocated to strengthen public policies.”
Pride march participants denounce impunity
Montevideo’s Pride march is an emblematic event that brings together thousands of people every year to celebrate diversity and demand equal rights.
Buquet explained this year’s demonstration happened under the slogan “Basta de impunidad y saqueo de derechos” or “Enough impunity and plundering of rights.” It reflects the LGBTQ community’s concerns over the obstacles they face in the search for equality and justice.
One of this year’s march highlights was the denunciation of the lack of governmental will to advance investigations into those who disappeared during Uruguay’s military dictatorship from 1973-1985. The LGBTQ community has joined this struggle, demanding justice for victims and accountability on the part of the State.
The march also sought to address a number of fundamental demands: Access to health care, education, work and housing without discrimination. The lack of budget to implement the gender-based violence and trans rights laws was an additional concern.
“We believe it is essential to denounce the cuts in public policies that leave the most vulnerable populations adrift,” Buquet told the Blade, specifically referring to the transgender rights law that has yet to be fully implemented. “They (trans people) continue to be one of the populations in the worst socioeconomic situations, they do not have access to jobs, they do not have access to education and health professionals still do not have the necessary training, which means that access to health care continues to be violated.”
Pizarro pointed out “the sex-identity dissidences continue without access to health, culture, education, work and housing without being discriminated against.”
Initiatives seek to help LGBTQ Uruguayans
LGBTQ organizations and activists in Uruguay continue to carry out a series of initiatives and projects designed to help the community, despite the challenges and obstacles.
Pizarro noted Colectivo Diverso Las Piedras works in the Public Policy Council for Sexual Diversity to ensure the comprehensive implementation of existing laws that include the creation of assistance plans for LGBTQ people with a special focus on trans people who are in vulnerable situations. The group is also committed to training and raising awareness in places that include educational and institutional centers.
Colectivo Diverso Las Piedras works closely with other social movements in Canelones department and across the country to promote inclusive and equitable public policies.
One outstanding project on which it is working is “Trans Memories and Authoritarianisms” in collaboration with Diego Sempol, who is a professor and researcher at the Faculty of Social Services, and other organizations. project seeks to make visible the experiences of trans women detained and tortured during the Uruguayan dictatorship, shedding light on a dark period in the country’s history and highlighting the importance of an intersectional perspective when analyzing the recent past.
Pizarro told the Blade “the most important thing is to show the state that our rights are systematically violated.”
“Fifty years after the coup d’état in Uruguay we denounce the government’s unwillingness to move forward in the investigations of disappeared detainees, wanting to take human rights violators to serve their sentences at home and installing a false story of the two demons about this period, wanting to remove the responsibility of the State in crimes against humanity,” he said.
Sempol explained this reconstruction milestone “has a lot to do with the emergence of a memory, of a memory, of the gender dissidence that is trying to bet on reconstructing the past and somehow, to give this temporality to the struggles and to the identity of LGBTQ+ people in Uruguay. So there is a process of reconstruction, of a memory.”
Colombia
Gay Venezuelan opposition leader: Country’s future uncertain after Maduro ouster
Yendri Velásquez fled to Colombia in 2024 after authorities ‘arbitrarily detained’ him
A gay Venezuelan opposition leader who currently lives in Colombia says his country’s future is uncertain in the wake of now former President Nicolás Maduro’s ouster.
The Washington Blade spoke with Yendri Velásquez on Thursday, 12 days after American forces seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, during an overnight operation.
Maduro and Flores on Jan. 5 pleaded not guilty to federal drug charges in New York. The Venezuelan National Assembly the day before swore in Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, as the country’s acting president.
Velásquez, who lives in the Colombian capital of Bogotá, described the events surrounding Maduro’s ouster as “very confusing.”
“It was a very surprising thing that left me in shock,” Velásquez told the Blade. “We also thought, at least from the perspective of human rights, that the United States was going to respect international law and not go to the extreme of bombing and extracting Maduro.”
“Other questions also arise,” he added. “What could have been done? What else could have been done to avoid reaching this point? That is the biggest question posed to the international community, to other countries, to the human rights mechanisms we established before Trump violated international law, precisely to preserve these mechanisms and protect the human rights of Venezuelan people and those of us who have been forced to flee.”
Velásquez three years ago founded the Venezuelan Observatory of LGBTIQ+ Violence. He also worked with Tamara Adrián, a lawyer who in 2015 became the first openly transgender woman elected to the Venezuelan National Assembly, for more than a decade.
Members of Venezuela’s military counterintelligence agency, known by the Spanish acronym DGCIM, on Aug. 3, 2024, “arbitrarily detained” Velásquez as he was trying to leave the country to attend a U.N. human rights event in Geneva.
Velásquez told the Blade he was “forcibly disappeared” for nearly nine hours and suffered “psychological torture.” He fled to Colombia upon his release.
Two men on Oct. 14, 2025, shot Velásquez and Luis Peche Arteaga, a Venezuelan political consultant, as they left a Bogotá building.
The assailants shot Velásquez eight times, leaving him with a fractured arm and hip. Velásquez told the Blade he has undergone multiple surgeries and has had to learn how to walk again.
“This recovery has been quite fast, better than we expected, but I still need to finish the healing process for a fractured arm and complete the physical therapy for the hip replacement I had to undergo as a result of these gunshots,” he said.
María Corina Machado, who won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, and other Venezuelan opposition leaders said Maduro’s government targeted Velásquez and Peche. Colombian President Gustavo Petro and his government also condemned the attack.
Colombian authorities have yet to arrest anyone in connection with the attack.
Velásquez noted to the Blade he couldn’t sleep on Jan. 3 because “of the aches and pains” from the shooting. He said a friend who is “helping me out and looking after my things” was the one who told him about the operation the U.S. carried out to seize Maduro and Flores.
“He said, ‘Look at this! They’re bombing Caracas! And I was like, ‘What is this?'” recalled Velásquez.
White House ‘not necessarily’ promoting human rights agenda
Velásquez noted Rodríguez “is and forms part of the mechanisms of repression” that includes DGCIM and other “repressive state forces that have not only repressed, but also tortured, imprisoned, and disappeared people simply for defending the right to vote in (the) 2024 (election), simply for protesting, simply for accompanying family members.” Velásquez told the Blade that “there isn’t much hope that things will change” in Venezuela with Rodríguez as president.
“Let’s hope that countries and the international community can establish the necessary dialogues, with the necessary intervention and pressure, diplomatically, with this interim government,” said Velásquez, who noted hundreds of political prisoners remain in custody.
He told the Blade the Trump-Vance administration does not “not necessarily” have “an agenda committed to human rights. And we’ve seen this in their actions domestically, but also in their dealings with other countries.”
“Our hope is that the rest of the international community, more than the U.S. government, will take action,” said Velásquez. “This is a crucial moment to preserve democratic institutions worldwide, to preserve human rights.”
Velásquez specifically urged the European Union, Colombia, Brazil, and other Latin American countries “to stop turning a blind eye to what is happening and to establish bridges and channels of communication that guarantee a human rights agenda” and to try “to curb the military advances that the United States may still be considering.”
Velásquez told the Blade he also plans to return to Venezuela when it is safe for him to do so.
“My plan will always be to return to Venezuela, at least when it’s no longer a risk,” he said. “The conditions aren’t right for me to return because this interim government is a continuation of Maduro’s government.”
Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers was on assignment in Bogotá, Colombia, from Jan. 5-10.
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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Comings & Goings
