News
Russia boycott calls divide LGBT activists
Group protested country’s gay rights record outside Russian embassy in D.C.
Protesters gathered outside of the Russian Embassy on Wednesday, July 31, 2013. (Washington Blade photo by Damien Salas)
LGBT rights advocates remain divided over calls to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia and Russian vodka in response to the country’s gay rights record.
Author Dan Savage, LGBT rights advocate Cleve Jones and the group Queer Nation last week launched the “Dump Russian Vodka” campaign that calls for a boycott of Stoli, Russian Standard and other Russian vodka brands. The campaign also urges the U.S. and other countries to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics that will take place in Sochi, Russia, in February.
“Do not drink Russian vodka,” Savage said in an op-ed in the Stranger, a weekly newspaper in Seattle, published on July 24. “Do not buy Russian vodka. Ask your bartender at your favorite bar — gay or otherwise — to DUMP STOLI and DUMP RUSSIAN VODKA.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent weeks signed a broadly worded law that bans the promotion of so-called gay propaganda to minors and a statute that bans foreign same-sex couples and any couple from a country in which gays and lesbians can legally marry from adopting Russian children. LGBT rights groups are among those that face fines under a law that requires non-governmental organizations that receive funding from outside Russia to register as a “foreign agent.”
About a dozen LGBT rights advocates gathered in front of the Russian embassy in Northwest D.C. to protest the country’s anti-LGBT rights record on Wednesday.
Larry Poltavtsev of Spectrum Human Rights was among those who attended.
“We’re here today to protest LGBT human rights violations in Russia,” he said.
The anti-gay laws have come into effect against the backdrop of increasing anti-LGBT discrimination and violence in Russia.
Two men in the southern Russia city of Volgograd and on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the country’s Far East have been killed in recent months during what local authorities have described as anti-gay attacks.
Police in St. Petersburg on June 29 arrested 40 LGBT activists and a handful of nationalists who confronted them during a gay rights rally. Authorities in the Russian capital in May arrested 30 LGBT rights advocates who tried to stage a Pride celebration outside Moscow City Hall.
Authorities in the city of Murmansk on July 21 took into custody four Dutch LGBT rights advocates who were filming a documentary about gay life in Russia. A St. Petersburg appellate court on July 25 overturned a lower court’s ruling that fined Coming Out, a local LGBT advocacy group, 500,000 rubles or slightly more than $15,202 for violating the “foreign agent” law.
Russian advocate: Boycott will have no effect
Gay bars in Seattle, Chicago, London and other cities have already begun to remove Stoli and other Russian products from their shelves. Gay City News reported a handful of ACT UP members protested a Stoli event at a gay bar in New York City on Tuesday night.
Gay bars in D.C. have thus far not indicated they will participate in the boycott.
Cobalt had been scheduled to host a Stoli-sponsored event for the website GayCities on Thursday, but the company postponed it.
The company did not return the Blade’s request for comment.
Val Mendeleev, CEO of SPI Group, Stoli’s parent company, said in a July 25 statement from Luxembourg the Russian government does not own the brand. He acknowledged the vodka contains Russian ingredients, but it is distilled in a factory in neighboring Latvia.
Mendeleev further pointed out SPI Group has supported a number of pro-LGBT groups and initiatives. These include Pride celebrations in South Africa and Austria and its “Most Original Stoli Guy” partnership with Gaycities.com.
“Stoli firmly opposes such attitude and actions,” Mendeleev said in response to growing concerns over Russia’s gay rights record. “As a company that encourages transparency and fairness, we are upset and angry.”
Nikolai Alekseev of Gay Russia, an LGBT advocacy group, told the Washington Blade from Moscow on Tuesday he feels a boycott of Russian vodka will “not have an effect.”
“The real target of this protest should be the politicians who are behind these initiatives,” he said.
Actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein called for a Sochi boycott in an op-ed the New York Times published on July 21.
Gay Olympic diver Greg Louganis, who was unable to compete in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow because then-President Jimmy Carter boycotted them over the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan the year before, told Frank Bruni of the New York Times on July 28 that he feels athletes should have the opportunity to compete in Sochi in spite of Russia’s LGBT rights record. Retired tennis champion Martina Navratilova; the LGBT advocacy groups All Out and Athlete Ally and Cyd Zeigler, Jr., co-founder of OutSports, are among those who also oppose a boycott of the Sochi games.
“We want to encourage and support athletics, particularly the Olympics, and feel that a boycott would only hurt the athletes,” Hudson Taylor, executive director of Athlete Ally, told the Blade on Tuesday. “We understand the rationale behind a boycott, but are also cognizant that our call for a boycott could result in negative ramifications and backlash for regional LGBT and ally organizations in Russia.”
State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki on July 26 said the U.S. does not support calls to boycott the Sochi Olympics.
“That’s certainly not what we’re calling for,” she told reporters during her daily briefing in response to the Blade’s question about Russia’s LGBT rights record.
Gay athlete to wear rainbow pin in Sochi
Blake Skjellerup, a gay short track speed skater from New Zealand who plans to compete in Sochi in spite of the calls to boycott the games, last week announced he will wear a gay Pride pin during the Olympics.
He stressed to the Blade his decision is “not about defiance.”
“Wearing a Pride pin is about humanity and unity,” Skjellerup said. “It’s about representing something that is very important to me, and standing up for those who cannot stand up or help themselves.”
The Human Rights Campaign said in a July 24 letter to NBC Universal that the network has “a unique opportunity — and a responsibility — to expose” what it described as the “inhumane and unjust” anti-gay propaganda law during its coverage of the Sochi games. Mark Lazarus, chair of NBC’s sports group, deflected questions about his network’s potential coverage of Russia’s LGBT rights record during a presentation at the Television Critics Association gathering in New York City over the weekend.
The International Olympic Committee has assured gay athletes and others who travel to Sochi that authorities will not arrest them under the Russia’s anti-gay propaganda law. Vitaly Milonov, a St. Petersburg lawmaker behind the city’s gay propaganda to minors ban that took effect in 2012, told the Interfax news agency on Tuesday he has not heard of any plans to suspend the national statute during the games.
“If a law has been approved by the federal legislature and signed by the president, then the government has no right to suspend it,” Milonov said, according to Gay Star News. “It doesn’t have the authority.”
Officials urged to ban Russian lawmakers from U.S.
Alekseev and other Russian LGBT rights advocates have launched a petition on the White House’s website that urges the U.S. to ban Milonov and Elena Mizulina, a Russian Parliamentarian who co-sponsored the national gay propaganda ban, from entering the country. It has received 4,775 signatures as of late on July 30.
“This is the way forward because these people are the real people behind the homophobic legislation,” Alekseev told the Blade.
Former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) died on Tuesday. He was 86.
The Massachusetts Democrat served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1981-2013. Frank in 1987 became the first member of Congress to voluntarily come out as gay.
The Washington Blade earlier this month interviewed Frank after he entered hospice care at his Ogunquit, Maine, home where he lived with his husband, Jim Ready, since 2013. The former congressman, among other things, talked about his new book, “The Hard Path to Unity: Why We Must Reform the Left to Rescue Democracy.”
The book is scheduled for release on Sept. 15.
NBC Boston reported Frank’s sister, Ann Lewis, and a close family friend confirmed his death.
The Blade will update this article.
Ghana
Intersex lives, constitutional freedom, and the dangerous future of Ghana’s Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill
Lawmakers continue to consider draconian measure
There is a dangerous silence surrounding intersex lives in Ghana — a silence shaped by fear, misinformation, cultural misunderstanding, and institutional neglect. Today, amid discussions around the possible passage of the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025, that silence risks becoming law, reinforcing exclusion and deepening the marginalization of already invisible lives.
Much of the national debate surrounding the bill has focused on LGBTQ+ identities. Yet buried within it are implications for intersex persons that many Ghanaians do not fully understand because intersex realities remain largely invisible.
Intersex persons are born with natural variations in chromosomes, hormones, reproductive anatomy, and/or genital characteristics that do not fit typical definitions of male or female bodies. Intersex is not a sexual orientation or gender identity. It is a biological reality. Ghana’s Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has clearly acknowledged this distinction.
Despite this distinction, the bill mistakenly collapses intersex realities into a legal framework linked to LGBTQ+ criminalization.
Although the bill contains only limited references to intersex persons, under certain medical exceptions, these references do not amount to recognition or protection. Instead, they frame intersex bodies as abnormalities requiring regulation, correction, and institutional management. This approach is inconsistent not only with Ghana’s constitutional guarantees of dignity, equality, privacy, and liberty, but also with emerging African and international human rights standards. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Resolution on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Intersex Persons in Africa – ACHPR/Res.552 (LXXIV) 2023 affirms protections relating to bodily integrity, dignity, freedom from discrimination, and against harmful medical practices. Additionally, the United Nations has repeatedly condemned medically unnecessary and non-consensual interventions on intersex children. Rather than affirming the humanity and autonomy of intersex persons, the bill risks legitimizing systems of surveillance, coercion, violence, and institutional erasure.
This is not protection.
It is managed erasure.
A child born intersex in Ghana already enters a society shaped by secrecy and stigma. Families are often pressured to hide intersex children or seek “correction” to make their bodies conform to social expectations.
The bill risks intensifying this pressure.
Clause 17 creates space for “approved service providers” to support interventions relating to intersex persons, yet offers little protection around informed consent, bodily autonomy, confidentiality, or coercive treatment. Under the language of “correction” or “support,” harmful interventions may become normalized.
The intersex community has documented painful lived experiences of intersex Ghanaians that reveal the devastating consequences of stigma and invisibility.
One heartbreaking case involved intersex twins born in Ghana’s Eastern Region in 1993, who were repeatedly forced to move from village to village because of rejection and ridicule. After losing their father, their main source of protection and support, they became even more vulnerable and reportedly experienced severe emotional distress, including suicidal thoughts linked to years of stigma and exclusion. This is what invisibility looks like in practice.
Another painful example is the story of Ativor Holali, whose lived experience exposed the cruel realities intersex persons face in sports and public life. Ativor Holali endured invasive scrutiny, public humiliation, and social suspicion because her body did not conform to rigid expectations of femininity. Rather than being protected as a Ghanaian athlete deserving dignity and privacy, she became the subject of speculation, gossip, and institutional discomfort.
Her experience reflects a broader social crisis: when society insists that every body must fit a narrow binary definition, intersex people are forced to defend their humanity in spaces where dignity should already be guaranteed.
Intersex Persons Society Of Ghana (IPSOG)’s Ŋusẽdodo research further revealed that approximately 70 percent of intersex respondents reported depression, anxiety, trauma, or severe emotional distress linked to medical mistreatment, family rejection, bullying, and social exclusion.
The bill risks transforming these existing prejudices into institutional policy. Several provisions risk deepening surveillance, restricting advocacy, weakening confidentiality, and discouraging public education around intersex realities. Intersex-led organizations providing healthcare guidance, legal referrals, psychosocial support, and community services may face serious challenges.
This places IPSOG and other intersex-led organizations in Ghana at serious risk.
For many intersex Ghanaians, these spaces are not political luxuries.
They are survival mechanisms.
Governments derive legitimacy by protecting the natural rights of all persons, including dignity, liberty, bodily autonomy, and freedom from arbitrary interference. The bill raises concerns because it risks weakening these protections for intersex persons through surveillance, coercive interventions, and restrictions on advocacy.
Ghana’s Constitution declares that “the dignity of all persons shall be inviolable.” Articles 15, 17, 18, and 21 specifically protect dignity, equality, privacy, expression, and freedom of association. These protections should apply equally to intersex persons.
Intersex persons are not threats to Ghanaian culture.
Intersex children are not moral dangers.
Intersex bodies are not political weapons.
They are human beings deserving dignity, healthcare, safety, and constitutional protection.
The true measure of a democracy is how it protects those most vulnerable to exclusion. At this moment, Ghana faces a choice: deepen fear and silence, or uphold dignity, bodily autonomy, and constitutional freedom for intersex persons.
History will remember the choice we make.
Fafali Delight Akortsu is the founder and president of the Intersex Persons Society of Ghana (IPSOG).
District of Columbia
Doc on Blade reporter Chibbaro scores Emmy nomination
‘Lou’s Legacy’ chronicles 50-year career
“Lou’s Legacy: A Reporter’s Life at the Washington Blade” has been nominated for a Capital Emmy in the “Documentary – Historical” category by the National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
“Our members include all of the video content producers who serve our local audiences in Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia—from the Atlantic to the Appalachians, from Bristol to Baltimore,” said Capitol Emmys President Adam Longo in a press release.
Broadcast last June by WETA PBS in Washington, D.C. and MPT in Maryland, the documentary was directed and produced by Emmy-nominated filmmaker Patrick Sammon in association with the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C. Additional nominees who worked on the film include producer Julianne Donofrio and editor Amir Jaffer.
“Lou’s Legacy” tells the story of two D.C. icons — legendary Washington Blade reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. and beloved drag performer Donnell Robinson, known to generations of Washington audiences as “Ella Fitzgerald.” Through Chibbaro’s nearly five-decade career at the Blade and Ella’s return to the stage after a three-year hiatus following COVID, the 29-minute documentary explores the history of Washington’s LGBTQ community and today’s rising backlash against LGBTQ rights, including laws targeting drag performers.
“We’re honored that Lou’s Legacy has been recognized alongside such an impressive group of historical documentaries,” said Sammon. “This nomination is especially meaningful because the film preserves and celebrates the stories of people who helped shape queer history in Washington, DC — often without recognition from mainstream institutions. We’re deeply grateful to the Mattachine Society, Lou Chibbaro Jr., Donnell Robinson, WETA PBS, and everyone who helped bring this project to life.”
“Lou’s Legacy” premiered on WETA PBS in June 2025 during Pride month. The documentary also broadcast on Maryland Public Television and is streaming nationally on PBS.org. WETA will rebroadcast “Lou’s Legacy” several times during Pride month, including June 15 th at 9 p.m. Winners of the Capital Emmy Awards will be announced at the Capital Emmy Gala on June 20 at the Bethesda Marriott Hotel.
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