News

Honduran gay leader appeals to U.S. for help

Palacios on U.S. tour raising awareness of 89 anti-LGBT murders

Published

13 years ago

February 13, 2013

Jose Pepe Palacios is scheduled to meet with members of Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s staff. (Photo courtesy Gay Liberation Network)

Jose Pepe Palacios says his mission is to inform the U.S. government and LGBT Americans that at least 89 LGBT people in Honduras, including gay rights advocates, have been murdered since military leaders ousted his country’s elected president in a 2009 coup.

Palacios, a resident of the capital city of Tegucigalpa, began a seven-city U.S. tour in Chicago on Jan. 30. He was scheduled to arrive in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, where, among other appearances, he was to speak on Friday at noon at a public gathering at the offices of the National Council of Churches at 110 Maryland Ave., N.E., on Capitol Hill.

He told the Washington Blade that he hopes to build support in the U.S. for a coalition of LGBT and progressive groups in his country that seek to peacefully challenge anti-democratic forces they believe are responsible for many of the murders.

“The Obama administration has said they will promote human rights and LGBT rights,” Palacios said. “And Hillary Clinton said that human rights are gay rights. So one of the reasons I’m doing this is to ask for support to pressure the Honduran government to investigate these cases and also to create awareness of the number of these cases.”

Palacios was scheduled to meet this week with members of the staff of U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) and U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.).

Andy Thayer, co-founder of the Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network, which is one of the sponsors of Palacios’ U.S. tour, said human rights activists in Honduras believe many if not most of the LGBT murders following the 2009 coup were motivated by political retribution. According to Thayer, a majority of the LGBT community in Honduras has been supportive of a resistance movement that has opposed the post-coup government and participates in demonstrations against government leaders.

Palacios said that among the LGBT people murdered since the coup were gay activist Walter Torchez and gay candidate for the Honduran Congress, Eric Martinez Alvia, an organizer for the Liberty and Refoundation Party, or LIBRE, which represents many of the resistance groups protesting against the current government.

Palacios is a founding member of Diversity Movement in Resistance (MDR), an LGBT advocacy organization. He is also a member of the National Steering Committee of the Honduras National Front of Popular Resistance (NRP), which has staged protest demonstrations against the government.

Thayer called the LGBT murders “a systematic campaign of targeted hate crimes and political assassination.” He said that as the country gears up for its first contested election since the coup, set to take place in November, “many fear that the violence will get even worse.”

The LGBT murders come at a time when Honduras has the distinction of having the highest murder rate of any country in the world. The U.S. State Department’s country report on Honduras says many of the murders are related to warring drug cartels and abject poverty that forces desperate people to commit armed robberies often resulting in killings.

The report acknowledges that some of the murders are due to political rivalries. Human rights observers have said corrupt police officers or law enforcement officials allied with entrenched political factions are also believed to be responsible for some of the murders, including the slayings of LGBT activists.

Palacios said that of the 89 LGBT murders since 2009, 52 of the victims were transgender women.

“The United States is focused on helping the Honduran government combat impunity, resolve murder cases, reform the Honduran police, and strengthen human rights institutions,” said Evan Owen, press officer for the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

The 2009 coup, which resulted in the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya, took place amid a constitutional dispute over whether Zelaya had authority to call a non-binding referendum to determine whether public support existed to hold a constitutional convention and make significant changes in the nation’s political system.

As an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Zelaya’s move toward constitutional changes alarmed the conservative factions in the country, who feared he would put in place a Chavez-style socialist government. Supporters, including many LGBT activists, believed Zelaya was seeking to make needed reforms to lift the majority of the country’s population from conditions of poverty and despair.

The Obama administration denounced the coup and called for an immediate restoration of the country’s democratic institutions. But activists in the U.S. and Honduras have said the U.S. appeared to have been privately supportive of the coup. Palacios said it is widely known in the country that Honduran military leaders, who took Zelaya into custody, flew him to a U.S. military base in Honduras before flying him to Costa Rica, where he remained in exile for several years.

Further suspicions of U.S. motives surfaced a few months later, when the U.S. gave its backing to elections called and arranged by coup leaders under supervision of international observers. The country’s current president, Porfirio Lobo of the conservative National Party, won that election.

Owen of the State Department declined to comment on allegations by activists that the U.S. support for the current government was giving tacit support for violence against gays and others by corrupt elements, including police, associated with the government.

“We strongly support the rule of law and respect for the constitutional separation of powers as well as a fair and transparent democratic process,” Owen said of the U.S. policy toward Honduras. He said the U.S., among other things, is providing assistance to the Honduran government to “strengthen its investigative capacity” to combat possible human rights abuses.

With that as a backdrop, the left-leaning LIBRE Party last year nominated through a primary election Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro, as its candidate for president in the November 2013 election. In a development that has thrilled LGBT activists, including Palacios, the LGBT supportive Castro (who’s not related to Cuba’s Fidel Castro) has emerged as the leading candidate in a Gallup Poll conducted in January.

Her husband, who can’t run for president under the constitution’s term limit provision, is running for a seat in the Congress.

In what LGBT advocates consider a historic development, a transgender woman and an openly gay man ran in last year’s primary for congressional seats as LIBRE candidates. Both lost their races, but Palacios called their candidacies and the LIBRE party’s support for LGBT equality a major advance for his country.

With the candidates from the two longstanding “establishment” parties — the right-wing National Party and the center-right Liberal Party — trailing Castro in the polls, Palacios said he fears conservative forces will manufacture a “crisis” in an attempt to postpone or cancel the election. None of the other candidates have expressed support for LGBT rights, Palacios said.

“That’s why we are asking a number of organizations from the international community to go in delegations in November to observe the electoral process and make sure it’s a just process.”

Up Next

Petition targets ‘Superman’ anti-gay writer

Don't Miss

NOM president’s 80-hour workweek?

FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM

Florida

Fla. Senate passes ‘Anti-Diversity’ bill that could repeal local LGBTQ protections

Bipartisan coalition urges Florida House to reject ‘extremism’ measure

Published

2 hours ago

March 6, 2026

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

The Florida Capitol (Washington Blade photo by Yariel Valdés González)

The Florida Senate on March 4 voted 25-11 to approve an “Anti-Diversity in Local Government” bill that critics have called a sweeping and extreme measure that, among other things, could repeal local LGBTQ rights protections.

According to Equality Florida, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization, if approved by the Florida House of Representatives and signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the bill “would ban, repeal, and defund any local government programming, policy, or activity that provides ‘preferential treatment or special benefits’ or is designed or implemented’ with respect to race, color, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”

In a March 4 statement, Equality Florda added that the bill would also threaten city and county officials with removal from office “for activities vaguely labeled as DEI,” with only limited exceptions.

The Florida House was scheduled to vote on the bill on Monday, March 9, with opponents hopeful that a broad coalition of both Democratic and Republican lawmakers would secure enough votes to defeat the bill.

“Once again, Gov. DeSantis and Florida lawmakers are advancing one of the most sweeping and extreme bills in the country — this time threatening decades of local progress supporting diverse communities, including the LGBTQ community,” said Equality Florida Senior Political Director Joe Saunders. “This legislation is a sledgehammer aimed at cities and counties that recognize and address the diversity of the people they serve,” he said.

Among the LGBTQ organizations that could be adversely impacted by the bill is the highly acclaimed Stonewall National Museum, Archives and Library located in Fort Lauderdale.

Robert Kesten, the Stonewall organization’s president and CEO, told the Washington Blade the organization receives some funding from Broward County, in which Fort Lauderdale is located, and the city of Fort Lauderdale has provided support by purchasing tables at some of the museum’s fundraising events.

“Based on this legislation, hose things would be gone,” he said. “We also are based in a government building. So, we don’t know what potential side effects that could have.” He noted that the building in question is owned by Broward County and leased by Fort Lauderdale, with the bill’s vaguely worded provision making it unclear whether Stonewall would be forced to leave its building.

“It’s unknown, and we’re really in unchartered waters,” he said.

Uganda

Ugandan activist named Charles F. Kettering Foundation fellow

Clare Byarugaba founded PFLAG-Uganda

Published

11 hours ago

March 6, 2026

Michael K. Lavers

Clare Byarugaba (Photo via X)

The Charles F. Kettering Foundation has named a prominent Ugandan LGBTQ activist as one of its 2026 fellows.

Clare Byarugaba, founder of PFLAG-Uganda, is one of the foundation’s five 2026 Global Fellows.

Byarugaba, among other things, has been a vocal critic of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act. Byarugaba in 2024 met with Pope Francis — who criticized criminalization laws during his papacy — at the Vatican.

The foundation on its website says it “is dedicated to bringing research and people together to make the promise of democracy real for everyone, everywhere.”

“Clare is the kind of hero who rushes toward the emergency to help,” said PFLAG CEO Brian K. Bond in a Feb. 27 statement to the Washington Blade. “She founded PFLAG-Uganda as the country pushed to criminalize homosexuality and those who support LGBTQ+ people. Yet, she never hesitated in her courage, telling us that families wanted to organize to keep their LGBTQ+ loved ones safe, and PFLAG was the way to do it. Clare Byarugaba not only deserves this honor, but she will use her compassion and experience to teach the world about LGBTQ+ advocacy as a Kettering Global Fellow.”

National

13 HIV/AIDS activists arrested on Capitol Hill

Protesters demanded full PEPFAR funding

Published

1 day ago

March 5, 2026

Michael K. Lavers

(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

U.S. Capitol Police on Thursday arrested 13 HIV/AIDS activists in the Cannon House Office Building Rotunda.

The activists — members of Housing Works, Health GAP, and the Treatment Action Group — joined former PEPFAR staffers in demanding full funding of the program that President George W. Bush created in 2003. They chanted “AIDS cuts kill, PEPFAR now!” and unfurled banners from the Rotunda’s second floor that read “Trump and (Office of Management and Budget Director Russell) Vought kill people with AIDS worldwide,” “Over 200,000 deaths since January 2025,” and “Hands off PEPFAR” before their arrest.

(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)

This protest is the latest against the Trump-Vance administration’s HIV/AIDS policies since it took office.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Jan. 28, 2025, issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during a freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Washington Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, 2025, has severely impacted their work.

The State Department last September announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir in countries with high prevalence rates. Zambia is among the nations in which the breakthrough HIV prevention drug has arrived.

The New York Times last summer reported Vought “apportioned” only $2.9 billion of $6 billion that Congress set aside for PEPFAR for fiscal year 2025. (PEPFAR in the coming fiscal year will use funds allocated in fiscal year 2024.)

Bipartisan opposition in the U.S. Senate prompted the Trump-Vance administration last July withdraw a proposal to cut $400 million from PEPFAR’s budget. Vought on Aug. 29, 2025, said he would use a “pocket rescission” to cancel $4.9 billion for HIV/AIDS prevention and global health programs and other foreign aid assistance initiatives that Congress had already approved.

The White House in January announced an expansion of the global gag rule to ban U.S. foreign aid for groups that promote “gender ideology.” President Ronald Reagan in 1985 implemented the original regulation, also known as the “Mexico City” policy, which bans U.S. foreign aid for groups that support abortion and/or offer abortion-related services. The Council for Global Equality and other groups say the expanded rule will adversely impact HIV prevention efforts around the world.

A press release that Housing Works and Health GAP issued on Thursday notes more than $977 million “in appropriated PEPFAR funding for HIV prevention and treatment was unspent by the end of fiscal year (FY) 2025 — triple amount unspent at the end of FY 2024.”

“Activists predict this backlog will worsen rapidly in FY 2026 unless Congress immediately reasserts its Constitutionally-mandated oversight authority,” notes the press release.

The press release also indicates funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s PEPFAR programs “will run out” by April 1 because “only 45 percent of their FY26 funding has been transferred from the State Department.

“Unless funding is transferred immediately, CDC’s global HIV programs across sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Caribbean will grind to a halt,” notes the press release.

The activists demanded Trump, Vought, Rubio, and Congress do the following:

Activists are calling for full obligation of appropriated PEPFAR funds and rejection of growing political interference in global and domestic HIV programs
Immediately release already-appropriated, unobligated PEPFAR funds
Break the blackout on PEPFAR data, so Congress and people with HIV know how funding is being spent and can program based on data
Activists are calling for full obligation of appropriated PEPFAR funds and rejection of growing political interference in global and domestic HIV programs.

“PEPFAR has saved more than 26 million lives and changed the trajectory of an epidemic,” said Housing Works CEO Charles King. “However, the Trump administration’s decision, over the objection of Republicans in Congress, to freeze PEPFAR funding has caused decades of progress to come undone and has been a death sentence for people with HIV relying on life-saving treatment. The U.S. must immediately restore PEPFAR funding and regain our standing in the global fight against HIV.”

King is among the activists who were arrested.