World
USAID-supported gay training to take place in Colombia
Bogotá gathering is LGBT Global Development Partnership’s first
El Capitolio Nacional in Bogotá, Colombia (Photo by Rikimedia via Wikimedia Commons)
The first training as part of a USAID-backed public-private partnership designed to promote LGBT rights around the world will take place in the Colombian capital from May 30-June 2.
Advocates from across Colombia are expected to attend the Bogotá training that is designed to teach participants how to become involved in the country’s political process. The Gay and Lesbian Victory Institute and the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice will conduct the four-day seminar with Colombia Diversa, a nationwide LGBT advocacy group, as part of the LGBT Global Development Partnership that will contribute $11 million over the next four years to activist groups in neighboring Ecuador and other developing countries.
Colombia Diversa Executive Director Marcela Sánchez on Thursday will also moderate a panel on the role out public officials play in the advancement of LGBT rights in Colombia and the United States. Bogotá City Council member Angélica Lozano; Tatiana Piñeros, a transgender woman whom Bogotá Mayor Gustavo Petro appointed last year to run the Colombian capital’s social welfare agency; Gay and Lesbian Victory Institute President Chuck Wolfe and Francisco Herrero, director of the Democratic National Institute, a group that encourages underrepresented groups to become involved in the South American country’s political process, are scheduled to take part.
“I hope there will be an opportunity to have a conversation about opportunities for LGBT people to be involved in their government,” Wolfe told the Washington Blade before he traveled to Bogotá.
Victory Institute President Chuck Wolfe is among those who will travel to Colombia. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
The training will take place less than a week after Vice President Biden met with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in Bogotá during a six-day trip that also brought him to Trinidad and Tobago and Brazil.
Biden’s office did not return the Blade’s request for comment on whether the vice president discussed LGBT-specific issues with Santos. A senior administration official who briefed reporters before the trip said the Obama administration’s objective “is to work with our partners across the hemisphere to promote a hemisphere that’s middle class, secure and democratic.”
“They each have a government that share our democratic values, that are focused on delivering for their citizens and on working as partners to advance common interests across the region and around the world,” the official said.
Marriage debate provides training backdrop
The Colombian Senate in April struck down a bill that would have extended marriage rights to same-sex couples.
The same chamber in 2007 defeated a measure that would have allowed gays and lesbians to enter into civil unions; but the country’s Constitutional Court in three separate rulings later that year and in 2008 extended property, social security and other rights to same-sex couples. The tribunal in 2009 ruled gays and lesbians who live together must receive the same rights that unmarried heterosexual couples receive under Colombian law.
The Constitutional Court in 2011 ruled the country’s Congress must pass legislation within two years that extends the same benefits heterosexuals receive through marriage to same-sex couples. They can legally register their relationships on June 20 if lawmakers fail to act on this judicial mandate.
Lawmakers in the South American country in 2011 also passed a new anti-discrimination law that includes sexual orientation.
Colombia was also among the countries that helped secure passage of the United Nations’ first-ever resolution in support of LGBT rights earlier in the same year.
Anti-LGBT violence remains pervasive
Colombia Diversa estimates 58 of the reported 280 LGBT Colombians who were murdered between 2010-2011 were killed because of their sexual orientation or gender identity and expression. A report from the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Transgender Women (REDLACTRANS) notes 61 trans women in Colombia have been reported killed between 2005-2011.
Federico Ruíz Mora of the Santamaría Fundación, a group based in Cali that advocates on behalf of trans women, told the Blade last month while he and other Colombian LGBT rights activists and officials visited the United States that local police often exacerbate the problem.
USAID in 2009 began to work with the Colombian National Police on how to more effectively engage the country’s LGBT advocacy organizations. Law enforcement personnel from Colombia, Sweden and the United Kingdom took part in a 2010 seminar the agency and the Swedish Embassy co-sponsored on how police can better interact with LGBT Colombians.
Colombia Diversa and the Santamaría Fundación has also received USAID grants and other support to expand their efforts to document anti-LGBT violence and work with authorities to better prosecute the perpetrators.
Dan Baer, deputy assistant secretary of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at the U.S. State Department, acknowledged to the Blade during an interview on Tuesday that trans Colombians in particular face “very serious violence.” He added the Colombian government’s protection of freedom of association that allows LGBT advocacy groups and other non-governmental organizations to operate freely allows it to adequately respond to the problem.
“That makes a huge difference because you have the facts out in the open,” Baer said. “The challenge is just implementing policies that deliver full protections.”
While applauding the Colombian government’s efforts to address anti-LGBT violence, he conceded “there are more steps that they could take.”
“That’s a conversation that’s happening principally between domestic NGOs and the government,” Baer said. “There are very committed people I’ve met with in the Colombian government for whom this is a priority issue.”
Santos’ spokesperson Pedro Ignacio Camacho Ramírez told the Blade in an e-mail on Tuesday his country remains committed to protecting the rights of LGBT people.
“Colombia is a nation founded upon the inherent dignity of every human being,” he said. “In this sense, we understand that it is a priority for the country to move forward with the construction of politics and spaces that contribute to the development of the right to equality without discrimination in support of groups like the LGBTI community with special constitutional protection.”
Editor’s note: Blade reporter Michael K. Lavers will speak to training participants in Bogotá on Saturday.
Celebrity News
My evening with Madonna
Gay icon headlined the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam
Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key will be on assignment in the Netherlands through Aug. 10. They will be covering World Pride in Amsterdam.
AMSTERDAM — Madonna and 6,000 of her closest friends celebrated World Pride at Amsterdam’s AFAS Live concert hall early Sunday morning. I was fortunate enough to be one of them.
Madonna last Wednesday nearly broke the internet when she said on social media in Dutch that “I got somethin’ I wanna talk about,” referring to an opening line in “Danceteria,” one of the tracks on her “Confessions II” album that has received rave reviews since its July 2 release. The track has been on near constant replay on my playlist since I first heard it.
— Madonna (@Madonna) July 28, 2026
MISTR — a telehealth platform that offers free access to PrEP, Doxy PEP, STI testing, and long-term care that has organized Madonna’s Club Confessions shows in the U.S. and the U.K. — later confirmed the rampant speculation. I woke up on July 30 to an email in my inbox from MISTR and the World Pride Music Festival PR team that said I was on the press list.
Madonna was indeed going to headline the World Pride Music Festival that Jake Resnicow and Insomniac produced, and I was going to be there. OMFG!!!!
The gay icon had one more surprise in store.
The Dutch internet on Saturday once again broke over speculation that Kylie Minogue was going to appear alongside Madonna. I was getting ready to leave our hotel in Amsterdam on Saturday night when I saw a video of the two of them together.
“Madonna is now teasing Kylie Minogue on her social media … she may be one of her ‘special guests’ tonight,” I wrote in a text to Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff at 8:46 p.m.
“Have fun! This is turning into the gayest concert ever,” he responded.
I arrived at AFAS Live shortly before 11 p.m. My press contact walked me and two other Dutch journalists into the venue’s cavernous main room known as the Black Box. We made small talk for a few minutes before I started to walk around and listen to Josh Harrison who was on the decks.
Madonna was scheduled to take the stage at 1:30 a.m., but she is known for being late — she is Madonna and she does what she wants. Hayla, a British singer, and Bebe Rexha are among those who performed ahead of Madonna. Thousands of sweaty men — including a group of Australians next to me who were eagerly awaiting Kylie’s anticipated appearance — packed the Black Box and were dancing, anticipating what was to come.
MISTR CEO Tristan Schukraft at one point came on stage and declared Madonna was indeed in the building. The moment for which we were all eagerly waiting finally came shortly before 2:30 a.m.
“Mother is here and this is gay heaven,” said Madonna when she took the stage.
Stuart Price, who produced her “Confessions on a Dance Floor” album in 2005, manned the decks during Madonna’s set.
She opened it with “I Feel So Free” from “Confessions II.” Madonna then sang “Bring Your Love” and “Danceteria” to which this reporter — and everyone else — sang along.
Madonna then teased a surprise before she began to perform “Love Sensation.” Kylie soon appeared on stage. It was nearly too much for my fellow partygoers from Australia. It was indeed the gayest concert ever!
Madonna and Kylie performed “Love Sensation” together. They then sang “Hung Up” and “Sorry” from “Confessions on a Dance Floor” to round out the set that ended shortly after 3 a.m.
Madonna and I share the same birthday — Aug. 16 — and I would like to think she and Kylie gave me an early birthday present. In all seriousness though, it was an amazing night for me and for everyone else who was fortunate enough to be there.
“On the dance floor I feel so free,” says Madonna in the opening of “I Feel So Free.”
For those few precious hours at AFAS Live I did not think about the Trump-Vance administration and the myriad ways it is destroying the U.S. I did not think about the National Guard troops deployed to D.C. I did not think about the pointless wars that continue to ravage Ukraine and other countries around the world. I simply lost myself on the dance floor and celebrated an icon who has always stood with my community.
Thank you, Madonna.
Netherlands
Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade draws hundreds of thousands
Gay Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten among participants
Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key are on assignment in the Netherlands through Aug. 10.
AMSTERDAM — Hundreds of thousands of people lined Amsterdam’s canals on Saturday for the city’s annual Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade.
Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten, who is openly gay, is among those who participated in the parade that featured more than 80 boats. Participants held signs and posters that, among other things, read “proud to be intersex” and “lesbians love you and a free Palestine.”
The Washington Blade saw at least two attendees holding fans that read “fuck Trump.” One of the boats also compared President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin as “the kissing couple.”
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
The parade took place a week after a terrorist attack at Berlin’s Christopher Street Day left one person dead and more than two dozen others injured.
It passed the Homomonument, a memorial to gays and lesbians who have suffered persecution. The Homomonument has been transformed into a makeshift memorial to the victims of the July 25 terrorist attack in the German capital.
View on Threads
The Canal Parade took place during World Pride, which will end in Amsterdam on Aug. 9.
European Union
Poland’s top court rejects recognition of same-sex marriages from other EU countries
Ruling sets up potential clash with bloc
Poland’s top court this week rejected the recognition of same-sex marriages legally performed in other EU countries.
The EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg last November ruled in favor of a same-sex couple who challenged Poland’s refusal to recognize their German marriage. Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court in March reaffirmed the decision.
The couple, who lives in Poland, brought their case to Polish courts in 2019. The Supreme Administrative Court referred it to the EU Court of Justice.
The Polish government in May announced it will recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other EU countries. Polish President Karol Nawrocki on July 17 vetoed bills that would have extended rights to same-sex couples.
The Constitutional Tribunal ruling, which it issued on July 28, was unanimous and final. It also sets up a potential clash between it and the EU Court of Justice.
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