World
Out in the World: LGBTQ news from Europe and Australia
Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of France’s National Rally party, died on Jan. 7
FRANCE
Clips and memes of the song “Nobody Mourns the Wicked,” from the hit movie musical “Wicked” went viral in France this week after the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of France’s far-right National Rally party. Le Pen was 96 when he passed away on Jan. 7 and was the father of current National Rally leader Marine Le Pen.
Le Pen rose to prominence in the 1970s and 80s as a politician with his frequent tirades against immigrants, Muslims, and queer people. He ran for president of France five times, making it to the second round in the 2002 election, where he was defeated in an historic landslide.
In 2018, a court found Le Pen guilty of spreading hate toward homosexuals on three separate incidents and ordered him to pay fines. He had claimed that pedophilia was linked to homosexuality in a 2016 blog video, had told a reporter that having gays in his party was like having too much salt in soup, and then said the husband of a gay police officer who had been killed in a terrorist attack should not have been allowed to speak at the officer’s state funeral.
In the 1980s, he also advocated for the forced isolation of anyone living with HIV.
But his controversial statements don’t end there. He frequently voiced support for those who collaborated with the Nazi regime in World War II and downplayed the Holocaust, suggesting it was a mere “detail” of history and that mass murders never took place. Those remarks saw him fined by multiple courts over the years.
His daughter Marine took over the National Rally in 2011, and in 2015, the party expelled him over his refusal to attend a disciplinary hearing over his repeated Holocaust denial.
Shortly after news of LePen’s death broke, hundreds of people gathered at Paris’s Place de la République to celebrate, with many waving Pride flags and tossing confetti in celebration. The hashtag “NoOneMournsTheWicked” started trending on French X.
In a fun bit of transatlantic synchronicity, the same hashtag trended in the U.S. three days later, when news broke of the death of notorious 80s homophobe Anita Bryant.
AUSTRALIA
Melbourne’s major Pride festival Midsumma has become the focus of controversy this week, with the lobby group Transgender Victoria announcing it won’t participate in this year’s parade and a group of masked vandals defacing businesses that were showing support for the festival.
Overnight on Jan. 8, businesses along the parade route that supported the festival were vandalized with posters and spray paint calling for a boycott of Midsumma. The vandals were caught on video surveillance but have not been identified.
The posters variously decry the commercialization of Pride and the participation of police in the festival.
“We will not be satisfied with a commercialized gay identity, that denies the intrinsic links between queer struggle and challenging power,” says one poster. “We are dedicated to fighting the assimilationist monster with a devastating mobilization of queer brilliance.”
“Queer liberation not rainbow capitalism,” says another, which lists Midsumma’s sponsors as Amazon, Woolworth’s, AGL, and L’Oreal.
“No Pride on stolen land,” says another poster.
Businesses were able to clean up most of the damage before the start of business Thursday.
On Sunday, Transgender Victoria,, the state’s leading trans advocacy group, posted on its Instagram account that it was suspending its participation in the festival, citing concerns over police involvement.
“A recent community forum and survey conducted by TGV have confirmed a deep and pervasive discontent among TGD [trans and gender diverse] people regarding their interactions with and treatment by Victoria Police,” the statement says. “In light of these concerns, TGV’s Committee has approved a one-year suspension of participation in the Midsumma Pride March. Our future participation is contingent on Victoria Police accepting accountability for measurable change.”
TGV’s statement says it will participate in other Midsumma events and will schedule a Trans Pride Picnic as an alternative to the Pride march.
Last year’s Pride march was a site of conflict, when a group of about 50 protesters doused a contingent of police officers marching in the parade with pink paint. Officers were seen on video pushing protesters out of the way. The police officers had agreed to join the parade out of uniform and without weapons.
This year’s Midsumma Festival runs from Jan. 19 to Feb. 9 in Melbourne, with the Midsumma Pride March on Feb. 2 and Victoria’s Pride Street Party on Feb 9.
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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