National
Faith leaders denounce anti-transgender attacks
‘You are holy. You are sacred. We love you.’
This past Trans Awareness Week, 10 heads of diverse religious traditions issued a statement proclaiming that transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people are worthy of love, support, and protection. Led by Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, representatives from the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Presbyterian Church, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), The Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, and Reconstructing Judaism called out the violent and systemic persecution of trans, nonbinary, intersex, and queer people–proclaiming that their faith and their humanity urged them to affirm that trans, intersex, and quere people are “sacred” and “holy.”
Their statement comes at a critical time. Over the past three months, Trump and his Cabinet’s anti-trans rhetoric has only intensified, with a report released late September by journalist Ken Klippenstein in which national security officers leaked that the FBI is planning to classify trans people as “extremists.” By classifying trans people as “Nihilistic Violent Extremists,” far-right groups would have more “political (and media) cover,” as Abby Monteil reports for them, for anti-trans violence and legislation.
While the news is terrifying, it’s not unprecedented – the fight against trans rights and classification of trans people as violent extremists was included in Project 2025, and in the past several weeks, far-right leaders’ transphobic campaign has expanded: boycotting Netflix to pressure the platform to remove trans characters, leveraging anti-trans attack ads in the Virginia governor’s race and banning professors from acknowledging that trans people exist. In fact last month, two Republican members of Congress called for the institutionalization of trans people.
It seems that the government shutdown was predicated, at least partially, on Trump’s own anti-trans policies that were attached as riders in the appropriations bill.
It’s a dangerous escalation of transphobic violence that the Human Rights Campaign has classified as an epidemic. According to an Everytown for Gun Safety report published in 2020, the number of trans people murdered in the U.S. almost doubled between 2017 and 2021. According to data released by the Gun Safety report from February 2024, 34 percent of gun homicides of trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive people remain unsolved.
As Tori Cooper, Director of Community Engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative for the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, this violence serves a purpose. “The hate towards transgender and gender expansive community members is fueled by disinformation, rhetoric and ideology that treats our community as political pawns ignoring the fact that we reserve the opportunity to live our lives full without fear of harm or death,” Cooper said.
The faith leaders came out in this statement to affirm that it is their spiritual and human imperative to call out this escalating violence and protect trans, nonbinary, intersex, and queer people. The leaders acknowledge that historically and today, religion is used as a weapon of hate to degrade and deny the human dignity of LGBTQ+ peoples. The Supreme Court is hearing Chiles v. Salazar, a case about the constitutionality of a Colorado ban of conversion therapy for minors, with the majority of conversion therapy practices being faith based. And despite the Supreme Court declining to hear a case challenging the constitutionality of same-sex marriage conferred in Obergefell v. Hodges, efforts to end marriage equality remain ongoing with Katy Faust’s End Obergefell movement.
“During a time when our country is placing their lives under increasingly serious threat,” the statement reads, “there is a disgraceful misconception that all people of faith do not affirm the full spectrum of gender – a great many of us do. Let it be known instead that our beloveds are created in the image of God – Holy and whole.”
The faith leaders argue that commendation of LGBTQ peoples and religiously motivated efforts to deny their dignity and rights is not the belief of all faith communities, and far-right Christian nationalist communities and others who uphold homophobia and seek to exact it writ large in the United States do not speak for all faith leaders.
This is a critical piece of the statement and builds on historical precedence. During the 1980s AIDS crisis, when far-right Christian leaders like Jerry Falwell, one of the founders of the Moral Majority, stated that HIV was “God’s punishment” for LGBTQ+ people and indicative of a broader moral decline in America, affirming faith communities came out to affirm the dignity and divinity of queer people. As funeral homes and churches refused to prepare the dead and bury them, some faith communities stepped up to say that these homophobic leaders do not speak on behalf of all people of faith.
In 1985, the United Church of Christ General Synod urged its member congregations to claim and declare themselves “Open and Affirming,” in order to express their welcome and support for LGBTQ+ people, and two years later, the Church of the Brethren issued a statement titled “A Call to Compassion” where conference members urged member congregations to speak out boldly against discrimination, provide direct care to people with HIV/AIDS, and actively educate themselves and others to stop the spread of fear and prejudice surrounding the disease.
Just one year later, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Church Council issued a statement, “AIDS and Church’s Ministry of Caring,” which outlined the ways in which welcoming, ministering to and advocating on behalf of people with HIV/AIDS is critical to their mission. Even the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which earlier this month banned gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals, issued a statement in 1987 calling discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS “unjust and immoral,” and denouncing the label of “innocent” or “guilty” patients.
Thus, the faith leaders’ statement this past week builds on a rich history of faith communities fighting the stigma that far-right faith groups perpetuate about LGBTQ+ people and committing to action. What sets this latest statement apart is its decidedly interfaith heart, which speaks to the history of the Pride Interfaith Service in Washington, DC that was first started by a group of faith leaders and lay people who gathered at the AIDS Memorial quilt.
As the statement reads, “Our scriptures vary, but they share a common conviction. As we make justice our aim we must give voice to those who are silenced. Our shared values, held across many faiths, teach us that we are all children of God and that we must cultivate a discipline of hope, especially in difficult times. As such, we raise our voices in solidarity to unequivocally proclaim the holiness of transgener, nonbinary, and intersex people, as well as the recognition of the entire spectrum of gender identity and expression.”
The statement ended by arguing that they need to call out the violence they are witnessing. Their silence, they argue, would be in compliance and reinforce the idea that homophobic religious leaders and lay people speak on behalf of all people of faith. Their statement is not only words, however, it is a written promise affirming the dignity and holiness of queer people but also to protect them in the face of increasing violence and persecution.
“When people of faith and conscience stay silent in the face of oppression, we are all made less whole. When people of faith and conscience speak out against that which violates the sacred in its own name, we have the power to stay the hand of sin. Transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people are vulnerable today,” the statement concluded.
“Our faiths, our theologies, and our practices of prophetic witness call on us to say with one voice to transgender people among us: ‘You are holy. You are sacred. We love you. We support you, and we will protect you.’”
State Department
State Department implements anti-trans bathroom policy
Memo notes directive corresponds with White House executive order
The State Department on April 20 announced employees cannot use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
The Daily Signal, a conservative news website, reported the State Department announced the new policy in a memo titled “Updates Regarding Biological Sex and Intimate Spaces, Including Restrooms.”
The State Department has not responded to the Washington Blade’s request for comment on the directive.
“The administration affirms that there are two sexes — male and female — and that federal facilities should operate on this objective and longstanding basis to ensure consistency, privacy, and safety in shared spaces,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Piggot told the Daily Signal. “In line with President Trump’s executive order this provides clear, uniform guidance to the department by grounding policy in biological sex as determined at birth.”
President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in January 2025 issued an executive order that directed the federal government to only recognize two genders: male and female. The sweeping directive also ordered federal government agencies to “effectuate this policy by taking appropriate action to ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by sex and not identity.”
The Daily Signal notes the new State Department policy “does not prohibit single-occupancy restrooms.”
National
I’m telling the scared little girl I once was it’s okay to feel free
This week is Lesbian Visibility Week
Uncloseted Media published this article on April 23.
By SOPHIE HOLLAND | At 13 years old, I remember looking in the mirror in my Toronto bathroom and thinking, “Yeah, I’m a lesbian.” At the time, I thought it was a dirty word. Thinking back, it could be because the first time I heard it was when a family member said, “I don’t know what a lesbian is, they are like aliens.”
And although I walked around in camouflage Crocs with a rainbow My Little Pony charm, plaid knee-length shorts and a shark tooth necklace (yes, these are all, in my opinion, stereotypically lesbian apparel!), I didn’t feel like I fit the mold. The longer I thought about it, the worse I felt, so I buried my feelings deep inside.
Now I am 25, and I have been out since I was 22. Three years ago, I never could have imagined that I’d be working for a queer news publication and celebrating Lesbian Visibility Week, an annual event meant to honor and uplift lesbian perspectives and highlight the hardships our community faces. To me, LVW is so important because, frankly, it has been an absolute shit show getting here, to a place where I feel love and joy most days.
I think back to the frustration of constantly being asked, “Do you have a boyfriend?” Of watching princess movies and seeing a broken girl only find herself when her prince charming arrives. I remember listening to music that was always about heterosexual relationships. I remember feeling left out in high school when, one by one, my friends got boyfriends.
I tried the boyfriend, and I tried really hard for it to work at a large detriment to my wellbeing. I brainwashed myself into thinking I was probably bisexual, which I told my closest friends around 16 and unsuccessfully told my parents at the same age. I was probably subconsciously using this as a litmus test of their acceptance and to soothe the anxiety I felt around my sexuality.
Learning to love who I am did not only come from me unraveling my internalized lesbophobia and dissecting the oppressive societal messages of heteronormativity. It came from meeting an awesome community of lesbians and queers. I found people who understood my worldview and who showed me the ropes. I no longer had to stutter over concepts like lesbian loneliness or my frustration with misogynistic straight men.
They all just got it.
Without this community, I am not sure if I could be as warm and confident in myself as I am today.
And while I still experience homophobia, like being spat on while walking with an ex in downtown Toronto or having a stranger yell in my face “Are you fucking lesbians?” in Kensington Market, the joy and love still outweighs the nasty.
So, as the sentimental dyke that I have become, I decided to ask a set of lesbians in my orbit — including my friends as well as Uncloseted staffers, board members and followers — if they would share a little bit about what makes them love being a lesbian. And now, I can share it with all of you. Here they are. Happy LVW!
Timi Sotire
Falling in love with her was a reset. I felt like a kid again, hopeful about the future. We’ve had to overcome many obstacles to be together, but I’d choose her in every lifetime. I was sick with a long-term health condition when we met, and hanging out with Sophia really helped me with my recovery after my surgery.
Bella Sayegh
Being a lesbian is one of the most beautiful things in the world. To be authentically yourself in resistance and joy is so special within the lesbian community.
Parker Wales
When I met Liv, I finally understood why almost every song is about love.
Gillian Kilgour
There is no connection quite as perfect as between lesbians, no one sees me like my lesbians do.
Chyna Price
There’s many things I love about being a lesbian. But here are my top three:
- There’s just a deeper understanding when it comes to being loved by another woman.
- The next one would be the sense of community, especially being a POC masculine-presenting lesbian. I don’t feel like I’m cosplaying as someone else like I felt like I was doing before I came out.
- There’s so much history going back to the 1800s on how we found and fought for our love. That fight makes me proud because it shows me … that we’ve [found] ways to express our love even when it was misunderstood, illegal and deemed as madness.
Hope Pisoni
Before I knew I was a lesbian, romantic relationships seemed suffocating — it felt like everyone would expect me to act my part in the meticulous performance that is heterosexuality. But meeting my spouse and discovering our identities together showed me just how freeing it could be to love without a script to follow.
Leital Molad
It was the joy of watching the New York Sirens defeat the Toronto Sceptres at our first professional women’s hockey game — surrounded by hundreds (maybe thousands?) of cheering lesbians.
Angela Earl
I spent years building a life that looked right. But I never felt settled, and eventually I started asking what would actually make me happy. Coming out was about more than who I love, it was letting go of everything I was told to be. The last few years have felt like coming home to a life that had been waiting for me.
Tali Bray
What I love about being a lesbian is what I love about being in love … the wonder and joy of “oh, this is what it’s supposed to feel like.” I love moving through the world with women.
Izzy Stokes
I didn’t fall in love until I realized that queerness was an option. My queer friends have helped me see so much more than I grew up seeing. I’m so proud of us, and I’m so grateful for my lesbian community.
Nandika Chatterjee
When I met my fiancée is when I started to feel most like myself. That meant loving myself for who I am and embracing my identity as a lesbian. I felt free in a way I have never before. That’s the long and short of it.
Liz Lucking
The love and joy of being a lesbian is getting to live the life I dreamed of but never thought I would get to have!
Reflections
As I read these beautiful entries, it’s not lost on me that we’re still living in a world where lesbians are more likely to struggle with maternity problems, fetishization, and compulsory heterosexuality — not to mention the intersectional pressures of racism from both inside and outside the queer community. That’s part of why, according to a 2024 survey, 22 percent of LGBTQ women have attempted suicide, and 66 percent have sought treatment for trauma.
So if you are a lesbian who isn’t out or doesn’t feel safe, I hope you read this and can glean some hope from these messages. So when you look in the mirror, you know that it’s okay to release the weight — which can feel so heavy — of a heteronormative world.
We still have a long fight until all lesbians can feel safe to be themselves, but this is a community that does not back away from the tough, from the joy, from being loud and from all the other things that it takes to start a small revolution.
Hell yeah, lesbians! Here’s to you.
*I am signing off with my cat on my lap and a pride flag over my head <3.
Cuba
Trans parent charged with kidnapping, allegedly fled to Cuba with child
Cuban authorities helped locate Rose Inessa-Ethington
Federal authorities have charged a transgender woman with kidnapping after she allegedly fled to Cuba with her 10-year-old child.
An affidavit that Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Jennifer Waterfield filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Utah on April 16 notes the child is a “biological male who identifies as a female” and “splits time living with divorced parents who share custody” in Cache County, Utah.
Waterfield notes the child on March 28 “was supposed to be traveling by car to” Calgary, Alberta, “for a planned camping trip with his transgender mother, Rose Inessa-Ethington, Rose’s partner, Blue Inessa-Ethington, and Blue’s 3-year-old child.”
The affidavit notes the group instead flew from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Mexico City on March 29. Waterfield writes the Inessa-Ethingtons and the two children then flew from Mérida, Mexico, to Havana on April 1.
The 10-year-old child called her biological mother on March 28 after they arrived in Canada. The custody agreement, according to the affidavit, required Rose Inessa-Ethington to return the child to her former spouse on April 3.
“Interviews of MV [Minor Victim] 1’s family members provided significant concerns for MV 1’s well-being, as MV 1 was born a male, however, identifies as a female child, which is largely believed to be due to manipulation by Rose Inessa-Ethington,” reads the affidavit. “Concerns exist that MV 1 was transported to Cuba for gender reassignment surgery prior to puberty.”
The affidavit indicates authorities found a note in the Inessa-Ethingtons’ home with “instruction from a mental health therapist located in Washington, D.C., including instruction to send the therapist the $10,000.00 and instructions on gender-affirming medical care for children.”
The affidavit does not identify the specific “mental health therapist” in D.C.
A Utah judge on April 13 ordered Rose Inessa-Ethington to “immediately” return the child to her former spouse. The former spouse also received sole custody.
“Your affiant believes that due to the extensive planning and preparation exhibited by both Rose Inessa-Ethington and Blue Inessa-Ethington to isolate MV 1 and take MV 1 to Havana, Cuba, without notifying or requesting permission from MV 1’s mother indicates they are likely not planning to return to the United States,” wrote Waterfield.
The affidavit notes Cuban authorities found the Inessa-Ethingtons and the child.
A press release the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah issued notes the Inessa-Ethingtons “were deported from Cuba” on Monday “with the assistance of the FBI.”
The couple has been charged with International Parental Kidnapping. The Inessa-Ethingtons were arraigned in Richmond, Va., on Monday. The press release notes a federal court in Salt Lake City will soon handle the case.
The New York Times reported the child is now back with their biological mother.
“We are grateful to law enforcement for working swiftly to return the child to the biological mother,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Holyoak of the District of Utah in the press release.
The case is unfolding against the backdrop of increased tensions between Washington and Havana after U.S. forces on Jan. 3 seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in January 2025 issued an executive order that directed the federal government to only recognize two genders: male and female. A second White House directive banned federally-funded gender-affirming care for anyone under 19.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year in the Skrmetti decision upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for minors.
Cuba’s national health care system has offered free sex-reassignment surgeries since 2008.
Activists who are critical of Mariela Castro, the daughter of former President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBTQ issues as director of Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education, have previously told the Washington Blade that access to these procedures is limited. The Blade on Wednesday asked a contact in Havana to clarify whether Cuban law currently allows minors to undergo sex-reassignment surgery.
Second trans member announces plans to resign from Capital Pride board
State Department implements anti-trans bathroom policy
I’m telling the scared little girl I once was it’s okay to feel free
Memorial for groundbreaking bisexual activist set for May 2
ROSENSTEIN: Chavous for Democratic D.C. Council-at-Large
Inside the lonely world of MAGA gay men
PHOTOS: Night of Champions
PHOTOS: National Champagne Brunch
‘Big Mistakes’ an uneven – but worthy – comedic showcase
