National
Ugandan official says ‘kill the gays’ bill ‘not being reconsidered’
Fires back at UNCF leader; compares country’s anti-gay policies to U.S. sodomy laws
Uganda’s ambassador to the United States blasted the head of the United Negro College Fund for sending him an “incendiary” letter last week asking him to discuss an anti-homosexuality bill introduced in the Uganda Parliament in his scheduled speech at a Martin Luther King Day event sponsored by the Fund.
Ambassador Perezi K. Kamunanwire responded to that letter by withdrawing as keynote speaker at the King Day event, held Monday morning in Greenbelt, Md. In his own letter, he said United Negro College Fund president and CEO, Michael L. Lomax, “blindsided and startled” him with Lomax’s Jan. 12 letter raising the issue of the anti-homosexuality bill.
In addition, Kamunanwire claims in the letter that the Ugandan Parliament is not planning to reconsider a bill that would impose the death penalty for homosexual acts.
The ambassador, a former college professor who has taught at U.S. universities, said in his letter that he had been invited to speak on education-related issues at the King Day event.
Lomax said in his letter to Kamunanwire that he raised the issue of reports of anti-gay persecution in Uganda after receiving an inquiry from the Washington Blade and others asking why his organization invited a Ugandan official to speak at a King Day commemoration.
“Following a brief telephone conversation with Dr. Lomax in which I expressed concern that changing the topic would distract from our shared commitment to honor Dr. King’s legacy and advance the discussion of education equality, it was clear from his discourteous and insulting tone that I was no longer welcome,” Kamunanwire said in a Jan. 15 letter to William F. Stasior, chairman of the board of directors of the United Negro College Fund.
Kamunanwire sent a copy of his letter to Stasior to the Blade along with an email message expressing concern about the Blade’s story reporting he had withdrawn abruptly as a speaker for the King Day event. The Blade story cited a press release from the United Negro College Fund announcing Kamunanwire’s withdrawal as speaker.
“My staff at the Embassy of the Republic of Uganda, and members of the Ugandan American community, brought your article to my attention,” he said in his email to the Blade. “In an effort to clarify my decision to withdraw as keynote speaker from the UNCF’s 29th Anniversary Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast fundraiser, I am sharing a letter which was sent to the chair of the UNCF board,” he said.
“This will be my only statement on the matter, as I withdrew my name so as not to distract from the importance of the King holiday and education equality,” he said. “It is my hope that the Washington Blade will report this matter fairly.”
Lomax and a spokesperson for the United Negro College Fund didn’t immediately respond to calls from the Blade seeking their response to Kamunanwire’s criticism of Lomax.
In his Jan. 12 letter to Kamunanwire, Lomax said, “We are dismayed at present polices in Uganda (and in many other African nations) criminalizing sexual orientation, and we view with alarm the draconian penalties, including the death penalty, that the Ugandan anti-homosexuality bill would impose if passed.”
Kamunanwire replied in his letter to UNCF board chair Stasior that Lomax’s assumptions that Uganda’s existing laws and policies result in anti-gay persecution were false.
“It is important to note that Uganda does not have such policies,” he said, adding that the bill in question was introduced by a single member of the Uganda Parliament and was never officially debated or passed.
“[A]nd contrary to popular belief, it is not being reconsidered,” Kamunanwire said in his letter. “This has been explained to the U.S. government, Department of State, and several other concerned parties to their satisfaction,” he said.
The New York Times and international human rights activists reported in October that the Uganda Parliament voted to reopen a debate on the anti-homosexuality bill, which was first introduced in 2009. Some of the activists cited a report by Uganda’s Daily Mail newspaper as saying that Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga confirmed that the bill had been sent to several committees for consideration last October and could be brought to a vote.
A spokesperson for the State Department couldn’t be reached for comment early Monday to verify Kamunanwire’s assertion that U.S. officials were satisfied that the anti-homosexuality bill was not being taken up again. President Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton expressed concern last year over reports of anti-gay persecution in Uganda following the murder of a prominent Ugandan gay rights activist in the activist’s home.
“As is the case with several members of the British Commonwealth, the outdated anti-sodomy laws in the Ugandan penal code were inherited from our British colonizers,” Kamunanwire said in his letter, in referring to existing law in Uganda.
“Quite similarly, there are dormant anti-sodomy laws on the books in fourteen U.S. states, including Virginia where the UNCF makes its home,” he said.
Kamunanwire was referring to a decision by legislatures in some states to leave their sodomy laws on the books following the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Lawrence vs. Texas, which overturned state sodomy laws that criminalized sodomy between consenting adults in private. Legal experts have said the state sodomy laws remaining on the books cannot be enforced under the Supreme Court ruling.
National
213 House members ask Speaker Johnson to condemn anti-trans rhetoric
Letter cites ‘demonizing and dehumanizing’ language
The Congressional Equality Caucus has sent a letter urging Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to condemn the surge in anti-trans rhetoric coming from members of Congress.
The letter, signed by 213 members, criticizes Johnson for permitting some lawmakers to use “demonizing and dehumanizing” language directed at the transgender community.
The first signature on the letter is Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, the only transgender member of Congress.
It also includes signatures from Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (MA-05), House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (CA-33), every member of the Congressional Equality Caucus, and members of every major House Democratic ideological caucus.
Some House Republicans have used slurs to address members of the transgender community during official business, including in committee hearings and on the House floor.
The House has strict rules governing proper language—rules the letter directly cites—while noting that no corrective action was taken by the Chair or Speaker Pro Tempore when these violations occurred.
The letter also calls out members of Congress—though none by name—for inappropriate comments, including calls to institutionalize all transgender people, references to transgender people as mentally ill, and false claims portraying them as inherently violent or as a national security threat.
Citing FBI data, the letter notes that 463 hate crime incidents were reported due to gender identity bias. It also references a 2023 Williams Institute report showing that transgender people are more than four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization, despite making up less than 2% of the U.S. population.
The letter ends with a renewed plea for Speaker Johnson to take appropriate measures to protect not only the trans member of Congress from harassment, but also transgender people across the country.
“We urge you to condemn the rise in dehumanizing rhetoric targeting the transgender community and to ensure members of your conference are abiding by rules of decorum and not using their platforms to demonize and scapegoat the transgender community, including by ensuring members are not using slurs to refer to the transgender community.”
The full letter, including the complete list of signatories, can be found at equality.house.gov. (https://equality.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/equality.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/letter-to-speaker-johnson-on-anti-transgender-rhetoric-enforcing-rules-of-decorum.pdf)
The White House
EXCLUSIVE: Garcia, Markey reintroduce bill to require US promotes LGBTQ rights abroad
International Human Rights Defense Act also calls for permanent special envoy
Two lawmakers on Monday have reintroduced a bill that would require the State Department to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.
A press release notes the International Human Rights Defense Act that U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced would “direct” the State Department “to monitor and respond to violence against LGBTQ+ people worldwide, while creating a comprehensive plan to combat discrimination, criminalization, and hate-motivated attacks against LGBTQ+ communities” and “formally establish a special envoy to coordinate LGBTQ+ policies across the State Department.”
“LGBTQ+ people here at home and around the world continue to face escalating violence, discrimination, and rollbacks of their rights, and we must act now,” said Garcia in the press release. “This bill will stand up for LGBTQ+ communities at home and abroad, and show the world that our nation can be a leader when it comes to protecting dignity and human rights once again.”
Markey, Garcia, and U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) in 2023 introduced the International Human Rights Defense Act. Markey and former California Congressman Alan Lowenthal in 2019 sponsored the same bill.
The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.
The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement since the Trump-Vance administration froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded dozens of advocacy groups around the world, officially shut down on July 1. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year said the State Department would administer the remaining 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled.
Then-President Joe Biden in 2021 named Jessica Stern — the former executive director of Outright International — as his administration’s special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights.
The Trump-Vance White House has not named anyone to the position.
Stern, who co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice after she left the government, is among those who sharply criticized the removal of LGBTQ- and intersex-specific references from the State Department’s 2024 human rights report.
“It is deliberate erasure,” said Stern in August after the State Department released the report.
The Congressional Equality Caucus in a Sept. 9 letter to Rubio urged the State Department to once again include LGBTQ and intersex people in their annual human rights reports. Garcia, U.S. Reps. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who chair the group’s International LGBTQI+ Rights Task Force, spearheaded the letter.
“We must recommit the United States to the defense of human rights and the promotion of equality and justice around the world,” said Markey in response to the International Human Rights Defense Act that he and Garcia introduced. “It is as important as ever that we stand up and protect LGBTQ+ individuals from the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to further marginalize this community. I will continue to fight alongside LGBTQ+ individuals for a world that recognizes that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”
National
US bishops ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals
Directive adopted during meeting in Baltimore.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week adopted a directive that bans Catholic hospitals from offering gender-affirming care to their patients.
Since ‘creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift,’ we have a duty ‘to protect our humanity,’ which means first of all, ‘accepting it and respecting it as it was created,’” reads the directive the USCCB adopted during their meeting that is taking place this week in Baltimore.
The Washington Blade obtained a copy of it on Thursday.
“In order to respect the nature of the human person as a unity of body and soul, Catholic health care services must not provide or permit medical interventions, whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim not to restore but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function,” reads the directive. “This includes, for example, some forms of genetic engineering whose purpose is not medical treatment, as well as interventions that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics of a human body.)”
“In accord with the mission of Catholic health care, which includes serving those who are vulnerable, Catholic health care services and providers ‘must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who experience gender incongruence or gender dysphoria’ and to provide for the full range of their health care needs, employing only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body,” it adds.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2024 condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.” The USCCB directive comes against the backdrop of the Trump-Vance administration’s continued attacks against the trans community.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical interventions for minors.
Media reports earlier this month indicated the Trump-Vance administration will seek to prohibit Medicaid reimbursement for medical care to trans minors, and ban reimbursement through the Children’s Health Insurance Program for patients under 19. NPR also reported the White House is considering blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors.
“The directives adopted by the USCCB will harm, not benefit transgender persons,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a statement. “In a church called to synodal listening and dialogue, it is embarrassing, even shameful, that the bishops failed to consult transgender people, who have found that gender-affirming medical care has enhanced their lives and their relationship with God.”
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