World
Out in the World: LGBTQ news from Europe and Asia
The UK’s general election will take place on July 4
UNITED KINGDOM
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a long-anticipated election this week, sending UK voters to the polls July 4 and potentially spelling the end of 13 tumultuous years of Conservative Party rule in the UK.
Polls have long indicated that the UK Tories are deeply unpopular, putting them more than twenty points behind the left-leaning UK Labour Party, who are favored to win the election with a sweeping majority.
The last several years of UK politics under a succession of Tory prime ministers — five since 2011 — have been rocky, as the government has tried to manage pulling the UK out of the EU, a growing migrant crisis, and a succession of worsening domestic issues, not least of which has been the government’s handling of LGBTQ and particularly transgender issues.
The Tories have failed to bring in a long-promised conversion therapy ban, amid a growing moral panic around the existence of trans people, driven as much by British celebrities like JK Rowling as by a Tory caucus that’s grown increasingly hostile to LGBTQ issues over its time in power.
In fact, it was Tory Prime Minister David Cameron who introduced same-sex marriage legislation for England and Wales in 2013 — although it only passed parliament with the support of Labour, as the issue split the Conservatives.
Just a few years later, Tory politicians would be racing to declare themselves opposed to even recognizing the existence of trans people. The government has shelved a long-promised conversion therapy ban, and vetoed a law passed by the Scottish government that would have allowed trans people to self-determine their legal gender, as is the emerging norm in many countries.
The UK has even slipped from first to 15th place on ILGA-Europe’s ranking of European countries’ legislated LGBTQ rights during this time.
The Labour Party has not yet released a specific party manifesto as it relates to LGBTQ issues. However, leader Keir Starmer has pledged to introduce a “no loopholes” trans-inclusive ban on conversion therapy and has discussed reforming the UK’s gender recognition system to make it easier for trans people to update their legal gender — although the party no longer supports self-identification.
Starmer’s more recent statements on trans issues have caused concern for some activists. He recently came out in support of the findings of the National Health Service’s Cass Review on gender care for minors, which recommended a more cautious approach to prescribing care for trans youth.
He also recently voiced support for bans on trans women participating in women’s sports or accessing women’s medical centers, and for regulations requiring schools to out trans children to their parents.
“It’s[a] betrayal, a Judas move by Keir Starmer,” trans journalist India Willoughby told PinkNews. They have thrown us under the bus purely because they don’t have the stomach to fight.”
Sunak was required to call the election by the end of the year, but calling it early has put some of the opposition parties in a tight situation — most have not yet recruited a full slate of candidates to stand in all 650 electoral districts or drafted a complete party manifesto.
GERMANY
The Lesbian and Gay Association in Germany has launched a new campaign to amend Germany’s Basic Law to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or identity.
The German Basic Law was enacted 75 years ago, in the shadow of World War II and was intended to protect freedoms from the evils that had been inflicted by the Nazi regime. Accordingly, Article 3.1 declares that “all persons shall be equal before the law,” while Article 3.3 expands that to list specific criteria that cannot be used to discriminate between individuals.
“No person shall be favored or disfavored because of sex, parentage, race, language, homeland and origin, faith or religious or political opinions. No person shall be disfavored because of disability,” the article says.
LSVD says that the exclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity from that list exposes queer people to discrimination. As an example, they point to Paragraph 175 of the Criminal Code, a Nazi-era law that criminalized same-sex intimacy that remained on the books until 1994.
“In 1949, homosexuals and bisexuals were the only group of victims of the National Socialists who were deliberately not included in Article 3.3. This is because men who loved people of the same sex were also subjected to the often life-destroying persecution under Paragraph 175 of the Criminal Code in democratic post-war Germany,” LSVD says in a press release.
In recent years, the Federal Constitutional Court has begun to read LGBTQ rights into the Basic Law, ruling that “sex” includes “gender identity” and that “sexual orientation” is akin to the other traits listed in Article 3.3. But LSVD says that without explicit inclusion in the Basic Law, discrimination has persisted.
“Many people from the queer community say that they experience discrimination by the police and authorities,” LSVD’s statement says. “Because the Basic Law also applies to state bodies, the extension of Article 3.3 could finally make discrimination against LGBTIQ* by state bodies and their employees legally punishable. Anyone who is not explicitly mentioned there runs the risk of being ignored in political and social reality.”
The LSVD says there are already plenty of examples of constitutions that protect LGBTQ+ rights, including in the German states of Berlin, Brandenberg, Bremen, Saarland, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia, as well as the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
LGBTQ activists in Germany have become particularly concerned to secure their rights as the far-right Alternative for Germany party has climbed in the polls and could become part of a future government.
“Making our constitution storm-proof is more urgent than ever. If right-wing extremists in Germany return to a position of power in future elections, we LGBTIQ* people face gradual disenfranchisement, social marginalization and, with it, a massive increase in hate violence and state discrimination,” LSVD says. “Without explicit protection against discrimination in the constitution, we would be largely defenseless against an authoritarian or post-fascist government such as those we are currently experiencing in Hungary or Italy.”
To pass into law, the constitutional amendment would require a 2/3 majority vote in both houses of the German parliament. While the current government has expressed support for the amendment, it would need the support of the Christian Democrats to reach the required majority.
SWITZERLAND
The Swiss canton of Valais passed a law banning conversion therapy by a vote of 106-21 in the cantonal parliament on May 16.
The discredited practice, which seeks to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity by exposing them to aversion methods that have been called torture by experts, has also been banned in the canton of Neuchatel since 2023.
The conversion therapy ban was included in a new Health Act that was supported by all parties in the Valais parliament except for the right-wing Swiss People’s Party.
“We are sending out a clear signal that these conversion therapies are unacceptable and have no place in Valais,” says Matthias Reynard, head of the Valais Department of Health.
A nationwide ban on conversion therapy has been under consideration by the federal parliament for several years. The lower house passed a resolution calling for a ban in December 2022, but the motion has stalled in the upper house.
Last month, the federal parliament voted to wait for the government to present its own conversion therapy bill, rather than push ahead with bills that had been submitted by two cantons to ban the practice.
But Switzerland’s cantons aren’t waiting for federal lawmakers. Local bills to ban conversion therapy are also under consideration in the cantons of Geneva, Zurich, Bern, and Vaud.
“Conversion therapy affects a significant part of our community. The latest figures from the Swiss LGBTIQ panel show that 9.5 percent of people who belong to a sexual minority and 15.5 percent of people who belong to a gender minority are affected,” Sandro Niederer, managing director of TGNS, told the news site Mannschaft. “The psychological consequences of such practices are undisputed — the ban is a positive signal for all LGBTIQ people!”
Many of Switzerland’s European neighbors already ban the practice. France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Malta, Greece, Iceland, Norway, and Cyprus all ban conversion therapy, while neighboring Austria has had a ban under consideration for several years.
ALBANIA
A lesbian couple held a symbolic wedding ceremony at on the roof of city hall overlooking the heart of the Albanian capital city of Tirana on May 19 in a protest against the country’s lack of legal recognition for same-sex couples.
The couple, Alba Ahmetaj and Edlira Mara, applied for a legal marriage at the municipal office on May 17, asserting their right under Article 53 of the Albanian constitution, which states that “everyone has the right to marry and have a family.” However, the current Family Code restricts marriage to opposite-sex couples only.
Mara posted on her Facebook account that the restriction violates the constitution.
“Our request for a declaration of marriage symbolizes the first link in a long and difficult, but above all just, struggle. We are determined to follow the legal path and respect the procedures and institutions of our country, challenging the discriminatory content of the Family Code, to seek the recognition of our right to marry, equally with every other couple in Albania,” she wrote.
The ceremony has caused outrage in Albanian society. The couple have reported receiving death threats for appearing in public both before and after their public wedding.
Mara and Ahmetaj wanted to hold a religious ceremony but could not a find a religious official willing to bless the union in Albania. Instead, they flew in two priests from the U.K. to perform the ceremony.
The Albanian Catholic Church criticized the ceremony and distanced itself from the priests involved.
“Even though he appears as a Catholic clergyman, [he] has no connection with the Catholic Church and represents nothing of us,” Mark Pashkia, a spokesperson for the church, told Balkan Insight.
The couple involved in the suit are also raising twin daughters born through IVF three years ago. They have struggled to legally register the girls as their daughters because Albanian law only recognizes opposite-sex parents. They were forced to register Mara as the girls’ single mother, meaning Ahmetaj would have no rights over the girls if Mara dies or becomes seriously ill.
They sued the government for the right to be recognized as equal parents, but lost at the High Court. The couple are appealing the decision, and say they will fight all the way to the European Court of Human Rights if they have to.
Local LGBTQ activists have filed cases against the government seeking same-sex relationship recognition, but the cases have not progressed in local courts.
Years ago, the government had floated the idea of legalizing same-sex marriage, but the proposal was scrapped amid pushback from religious leaders in the Muslim-majority country.
In neighboring Kosovo, which is also an Albanian-speaking country, Prime Minister Albin Kurti has pledged to reintroduce a new draft Civil Code that would legalize civil unions and open the door to same-sex marriage, but he has faced pushback from Muslim lawmakers in his own party, who voted down the draft code in 2022.
Neighboring Greece legalized same-sex marriage earlier this year.
SOUTH KOREA
(Human Rights Watch) South Korea’s National Health Insurance Service should extend benefits to same-sex partners, Human Rights Watch said in an amicus brief filed before the country’s Supreme Court on May 16, 2024. The agency extends dependent benefits to heterosexual couples who are deemed to be in a de facto marriage, but has refused to extend those benefits to same-sex couples in a similar position.
The Supreme Court is currently considering whether the agency has impermissibly discriminated against a same-sex couple that was refused dependent benefits. In 2023, the Seoul High Court ruled in favor of the couple, concluding that the refusal to extend benefits constituted discrimination based on sexual orientation. The health agency appealed to the Supreme Court.
“The Seoul High Court correctly observed that the health agency’s refusal to recognize same-sex couples is discrimination,” said Lina Yoon, senior Korea researcher at Human Rights Watch. “We hope the Supreme Court will affirm the principle that nobody should be denied benefits solely because of their sexual orientation.”
The couple who brought the case had held a symbolic wedding ceremony in 2019, and one of the men registered his partner with the National Health Insurance Service as his spouse in 2020. The agency later revoked the partner’s dependent benefits following media attention to its effective recognition of a same-sex couple.
Human Rights Watch’s brief examines international and regional precedents for state recognition of same-sex partnerships, the status of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in South Korea, and the growing recognition of same-sex partnerships elsewhere in Asia.
South Korea has not created any framework for recognizing and supporting same-sex couples. The absence of any legal framework or protections for same-sex partners leaves LGBT people with few avenues to protect their relationships with partners and children, to safeguard their shared finances and property, and to access state benefits designed to support couples and families.
The government’s failure to recognize same-sex partnerships falls short of its human rights obligations, Human Rights Watch said. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has concluded that UN member states “have a positive obligation to provide legal recognition to couples, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics, as well as to their children,” and to extend those benefits offered to heterosexual couples without discrimination.
Among regional human rights bodies, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has said that states must extend the right to marry to same-sex couples, while the European Court of Human Rights has said that states must create some form of legal recognition and protection for same-sex relationships.
As Human Rights Watch and others have noted, South Korea also lacks comprehensive protections from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Despite strong public support for a comprehensive anti-discrimination law, lawmakers have repeatedly failed to enact basic protections that would prohibit discrimination in employment, education, and other areas.
In failing to protect LGBT rights, South Korea is out of step with trends elsewhere in the region. In 2019, Taiwan became the first jurisdiction in Asia to extend the right to marry to same-sex couples, and Australia and New Zealand have subsequently recognized the right to marry as well.
Courts in Japan and Thailand have expressed concern about the lack of partnership recognition in those contexts, and Nepal’s supreme court has extended interim recognition of the right to marry while it considers a marriage equality case.
A growing number of states in the region also prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Australia, Fiji, Macao, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Thailand, and Tuvalu have prohibited sexual orientation discrimination in employment and other fields.
“South Korea’s lawmakers have failed to provide basic protection for same-sex couples by dragging their feet on nondiscrimination and partnership bills,” Yoon said. “South Korea’s courts now have the chance to uphold the state’s human rights obligations by ensuring that the state does not discriminate in the material benefits it does offer to committed couples.”
Hungary
Vance speaks at Orbán rally in Hungary
Anti-LGBTQ prime minister trailing ahead of April 12 vote
Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday urged Hungarians to support Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the country’s April 12 elections.
“We have got to get Viktor Orbán re-elected as prime minister of Hungary,” Vance told Orbán supporters who gathered at Budapest’s MTK Sportpark.
Vance and Orbán on Tuesday met before they held a press conference in Budapest. Orbán also spoke at the rally.
The U.S. vice president after he took to the stage called President Donald Trump, who told the crowd he is “a big fan of Viktor” and is “with him all the way.” Vance, as he did during Tuesday’s press conference with Orbán, criticized the European Union.
“We want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do. I’m not telling you exactly who to vote for, but what I am telling you is that the bureaucrats in Brussels, those people should not be listened to,” said Vance. “Listen to your hearts, listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people.”
Vance in his speech noted “across the West, we’ve got a small band of radicals” who, among other things, “condemn children to mutilization and sterilization in the name of gender care.” Vance also criticized a “far-left ideology given quarter in university circles, in the media, and in our entertainment industry, and increasingly among bureaucrats on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Vice President JD Vance speaks at MTK Sportpark in Budapest, Hungary, on April 7, 2026
Orbán has been in office since 2010. He and his Fidesz-KDNP coalition government have faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
A Hungarian activist with whom the Washington Blade previously spoke said it is “impossible to change your gender legally in Hungary” because of a 2020 law that “banned legal gender recognition of transgender and intersex people.” Hungarian MPs the same year effectively prohibited same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the country’s constitution as between a man and a woman.
The European Commission in 2022 sued Hungary, which is a member of the EU, over the country’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law.
Hungarian lawmakers in March 2025 passed a bill that banned Pride events and allowed authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs later amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
Upwards of 100,000 people last June defied the ban and marched in Budapest’s annual Pride parade.
Polls indicate Orbán is trailing Péter Magyar and his center-right Tisza party ahead of the April 12 election. Vance at Tuesday’s rally told Orbán supporters that he and Trump “want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do.”
“I’m not telling you exactly who to vote for, but what I am telling you is that the bureaucrats in Brussels, those people should not be listened to,” said Vance. “Listen to your hearts, listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people.”
“Unlike some of the leadership of Brussels, I’m not threatening you or telling you that we’re going to withhold funds to which you’re legally entitled,” he added. “You will make the decision about Hungary’s future.”
Magyar on Tuesday appeared to dismiss Vance’s comments.
“No foreign country may interfere in Hungarian elections. This is our country. Hungarian history is not written in Washington, Moscow, or Brussels — it is written in Hungary’s streets and squares,” said Magyar on his X account.
A spokesperson for the Háttér Society, a Hungarian LGBTQ rights group, told the Blade that neither Magyar, nor his party have reached out to the organization.
The spokesperson said the group does not “campaign directly for them or for any other political party.” The Háttér Society, however, is encouraging LGBTQ Hungarians to vote.
“Ahead of election day, we will encourage everyone on our social media channels to go out and vote, as this is the only way we can act against a system that has been working against the LGBTQI community for many years,” said the spokesperson.
India
Amendments to India’s transgender rights law criticized
Lawmakers approved changes that narrow definition of trans person
India has enacted the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, that will reshape the country’s legal approach to gender identity.
Both houses of parliament approved the legislation last month, and it received presidential approval on March 28.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, narrows the definition of a trans person, removes the provision for self-perceived gender identity, and requires medical certification for legal recognition. These changes mark a shift from the framework established under a 2019 law.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, replaces the earlier definition of a trans person — previously framed as someone whose gender does not align with the gender assigned at birth — with a set of specified categories. It further provides that the term does not include, and is deemed never to have included, people defined solely by their sexual orientation or by self-perceived gender identity.
The bill retains certain categories within its definition, including people with socio-cultural identities such as kinner, hijra, aravani, or jogta. It also includes people with variations in sex characteristics at birth, such as differences in primary sexual characteristics, external genitalia, chromosomes or hormones from the normative standards of male or female bodies.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, removes certain categories from the definition, including a trans man or trans woman, irrespective of whether such a person has undergone sex reassignment surgery, hormone therapy, laser procedures, or other forms of medical intervention. It also excludes genderqueer people — a category that had been recognized under the earlier framework. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, however, includes eunuchs, as well as people compelled to assume a trans identity through mutilation, emasculation, castration, or other surgical, chemical or hormonal interventions.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, also revises the process for legal recognition, requiring a trans person to apply to a district magistrate for a certificate of identity, which can now be issued only after the recommendation of a designated medical board. The law specifies that the board will be headed by a senior medical officer and may include other experts. It further provides that individuals issued such a certificate will be entitled to change their first name in official documents, including birth records and other government-issued identification.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, also introduces stricter penalties for certain offences, including cases in which a person is forced to assume a trans identity through kidnapping, coercion or physical harm. Such offenses may attract imprisonment ranging from 10 years to life in prison, along with fines, depending on the severity and whether the victim is an adult or a child. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, further requires medical institutions to report gender-affirming surgeries to the district magistrate, and mandates that individuals obtain a revised certificate of identity following such procedures.
India’s 2011 Census recorded 487,803 trans persons, yet only 5.6 percent had applied for a trans identity card, according to the Washington Blade’s previous reporting. These identity cards, required to access government welfare programs, have remained difficult to obtain, with delays and administrative barriers limiting uptake.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, revised the certification process, which introduces additional requirements for legal recognition. This change is against this backdrop of uneven access to identity documentation.
India’s Election Commission in 2009 directed states to modify voter registration forms to include an “other” category, allowing individuals who did not identify as male or female to register accordingly. The Supreme Court in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India in 2014 recognized trans persons as a “third gender” and affirmed their right to self-identification.
Justice Kalavamkodath Sivasankara Radhakrishna Panicker said that “recognition of transgenders as a third gender is not a social or medical issue, but a human rights issue.” Parliament in 2019 approved the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019.
An advisory committee the Supreme Court created that former Delhi High Court Justice Asha Menon has urged the government to withdraw the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026. The panel said the proposal to deny self-identification of gender is inconsistent with theNational Legal Services Authority v. Union of India ruling.
Menon on March 25 wrote to Social Justice Minister Virendra Kumar conveying the panel’s resolution. According to the Hindu newspaper, the committee described the amendment as a “great shock” and a “tremendous setback” to efforts to mainstream trans communities.
The Queer Hindu Alliance, an advocacy group that seeks to uphold the dignity of LGBTQ people within India’s cultural and constitutional framework, expressed concern over the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026.
“We write not in the spirit of opposition, but in the spirit of samvad — dialogue — and with a sincere call for community consultation before this legislation proceeds further,” the group said in a statement. “The Supreme Court of India recognized the concerns of the transgender community in 2014. The National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India judgment affirmed that a person knows who they are. This bill seeks to reverse that. The Queer Hindu Alliance finds this troubling as a question of basic human dignity.”
The Queer Hindu Alliance added that India “is not a young civilization fumbling for answers on how to understand human identity.”
“This culture has contemplated the nature of the self more deeply, and for longer, than any legal system that has existed. This is not a foreign conversation imported from the West. It is a conversation Bharat (India) has always been capable of having, on its own terms,” the Queer Hindu Alliance said.
Harish Iyer, an LGBTQ rights activist who was among those who fought for marriage equality in the Supreme Court, told the Blade that the amendment is “not just a rollback, but a blatant, arrogant insult” to the Supreme Court.
“The NALSA judgment gave us the fundamental dignity of self-determination — the right to look in the mirror and say, ‘This is who I am.’ This amendment drags us right back into the dark ages, handing over our bodily autonomy to a bunch of sarkari babus (government officers) and medical boards,” said Iyer. “But here is the most absurd part: you simply cannot define if someone is trans through any physical test. How exactly are you going to diagnose a human mind? Are they only going to regard those who have had gender affirmation surgery as trans? Because that is fundamentally not the definition of being transgender; transition is a choice and a privilege, not a prerequisite for identity. Or are they going to look at someone born with ambiguous genitalia and label them trans? Because that is intersex, which is a completely different reality.”
“Forcing a trans person to undergo degrading physical scrutiny based on the government’s spectacular ignorance of basic gender science isn’t a legal process; it’s state-sponsored trauma,” he added. “We fought too hard for our dignity to let a bureaucratic tribunal demand that we strip down to prove our humanity.”
Iyer said the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, goes beyond protection and instead imposes control.
“You don’t ‘protect’ a community by criminalizing the chosen families and allies who offer safe haven to trans youth fleeing abusive homes,” he said, referring to provisions in the law. “This bill is about regulation, policing and control. By gatekeeping who gets to be trans and punishing those who support us, the government isn’t acting as a guardian — it’s acting as a warden. It is a calculated attack on our existence.”
Iyer said the revised definition could exclude individuals who do not fall within the listed categories.
“It effectively writes them out of existence,” he said.
Iyer added the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, could create an administrative “black hole” for gender-fluid individuals and nonbinary people who do not fit into the government’s rigid categories.
“If you are legally invisible, you don’t get access to gender-affirming healthcare, you don’t get legal protection, and you are entirely cut off from participating in society,” said Iyer. “They are trying to legislate us into non-existence because they are too lazy to understand us.”
Tensions between the U.S. and Cuba are rising again. This is not new, but the current moment feels different. Recent measures from Washington aim to further restrict the Cuban government’s financial channels, limit its sources of revenue, and apply pressure to key sectors of the economy. This is not symbolic. It is a deliberate policy.
From the U.S. perspective, the message is clear. The goal is to force change that has not happened in more than six decades. There is also a domestic political dimension, shaped by sectors of the Cuban exile community that have long demanded a tougher stance. All of this is part of the landscape.
But that is only one side.
On the Cuban side, the response follows a familiar script. The government speaks of external aggression, economic warfare, and a tightening embargo. Each new measure becomes an opportunity to reinforce that narrative and close ranks. There is no room for public self-criticism. The blame always points outward.
Meanwhile, life on the island follows a different logic.
The energy crisis Cuba is facing today did not begin with these recent measures. It has been building for years. The electrical system is deteriorated, poorly maintained, and increasingly unreliable. Blackouts are not new. What has changed is how severe and how constant they have become.
For years, oil entered Cuba, especially from Venezuela. There were supply agreements. There were resources. And yet, the daily life of ordinary Cubans did not improve. Electricity remained unstable. Fuel was rationed. Transportation was still a daily struggle.
So the question is not new.
If the oil was there, why didn’t anything change?
Where did those resources go?
Where is the money that was generated?
Today, restrictions on oil are often presented as the main cause of the current crisis. They are not. They make an already fragile situation worse, but they do not fully explain it.
There is a deeper, longer story that cannot be ignored.
The same applies to Cuba’s international medical missions.
For years, they were presented as acts of solidarity. And in many cases, they were. Cuban doctors worked in difficult conditions, saving lives and supporting health systems abroad. That is real.
But they also functioned as one of the Cuban state’s main sources of income.
Many of these professionals did not receive the full salary for their work. A significant portion was retained by the government. In some cases, they had little or no control over the money they generated.
And there is a harsher reality.
If a doctor chose not to return to Cuba, that income often did not reach their family. It was withheld.
Today, several countries are reevaluating or canceling these agreements. Once again, the official response is to point outward. But the same question remains.
Is this the loss of international cooperation, or the collapse of a system built on control over its own professionals?
Inside Cuba, the conversation sounds very different.
People are not speaking in geopolitical terms. They are talking about survival. About getting through the day. About blackouts, food shortages, transportation problems, and a life that keeps getting harder.
Some see the new U.S. measures as a form of pressure that could lead to change. Not because they want more hardship, but because they feel the system does not change on its own. There is a deep sense of stagnation.
But that sense of expectation exists alongside a harsh reality.
Sanctions do not hit decision-makers first. They hit ordinary people. The ones standing in line. The ones losing food during power outages. The ones who cannot move because there is no fuel.
That is the contradiction.
The Cuban government calls for international solidarity. And it receives it. Countries send aid. Organizations mobilize. Public voices defend the island.
But another question is also present.
Does that aid actually reach the people?
The lack of transparency in how resources are distributed is part of the problem. Because this is not only about what enters the country, but about what actually reaches those who need it.
Reducing Cuba’s reality to a dispute between two governments avoids the core issue.
There are shared responsibilities, but they are not equal.
The U.S. exerts external pressure with real economic consequences. That cannot be denied. But inside Cuba, there is a system that has had decades to reform, to respond, to open, and it has not done so.
That part cannot continue to be ignored.
I write this as a Cuban. From what I lived. From what I know. From the people who are still there trying to make it through each day.
Because at the end of the day, beyond what governments say or decide, the reality is something else.
Cuba today is under more pressure, yes. But it has also spent years carrying problems that no one has seriously confronted.
And as long as that remains the case, it does not matter what comes from outside. The problem is still inside.
Glisten’s 30th annual Day of Silence to take place April 10
D.C. Council member honored by LGBTQ homeless youth group
Vance speaks at Orbán rally in Hungary
White House ends protections for trans students in multiple school districts
Amendments to India’s transgender rights law criticized
Belarusian lawmakers approve bill to crackdown on LGBTQ rights
How new barriers to health care coverage are hitting D.C.
Calendar: April 3-9
Women’s FEST returns to Rehoboth Beach next week
