News
African LGBT activists seek international support
Advocates call for gov’t accountability during New York briefing

NEW YORK — African LGBT activists on Monday called upon the international community to do more to support the continent’s gay rights movement.
Friedel Dausab, a Namibian HIV/AIDS advocate, said during a briefing in lower Manhattan that the U.S. and other governments can create spaces where LGBT rights activists “can actually come and speak to our own governments.” Gift Trapence, executive director of the Centre for the Development of People in Malawi, added embassies should engage with local advocates on the ground.
“They need to get the information from the people on the ground so they’re informed,” said Trapence.
Activists from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Cameroon and Zambia also took part in the briefing the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission held a day before the 65th anniversary of the U.N. General Assembly’s ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
They urged the U.S. and other countries to hold African governments more accountable for ongoing LGBT rights abuses.
British Prime Minister David Cameron in 2011 said his government would consider withholding foreign aid to commonwealth countries that ban homosexuality. President Obama in the same year announced the administration would consider a country’s LGBT rights record in the allocation of foreign aid.
“We’re not asking the U.K. or foreign governments to cut aid to Africa,” said Juliet Mphande, executive director of Rainka Zambia, during the IGLHRC briefing. “LGBTI individuals are also Africans, so ultimately we all benefit from that aid.”
Mphande said the U.K. and other European nations should instead begin to address the lingering effects of colonialism that brought anti-sodomy laws into African countries. These include Namibia’s law against homosexuality that has been on the books since 1927.
“What the conversation we need to start having is how the U.K. and foreign governments can start cleaning up their own mess,” said Mphande. “These penal codes that we inherited in most of the African countries are their laws.”
Rev. Kapya Kaoma of Christ Church in Hyde Park, Mass., who is from Zambia, questioned whether it was effective for President Obama to criticize the criminalization of homosexuality during a June press conference with Senegalese President Macky Sall in his country’s capital. Obama’s comments came a day after the U.S. Supreme Court found a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and struck down California’s Proposition 8.
Kaoma said the strategy of western LGBT rights advocates to pressure government officials to publicly speak out against “what they perceive to be homophobia” does not necessarily work in Africa.
“President Obama would have achieved a lot of good if he had called the president of Senegal, brought him into a room and had spoken to him,” he said. “In the Africa context it just reinforces the myth the western world is the one which is exporting homosexuality into Africa.”
Senegal is among the more than 70 countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain illegal. Homosexuality remains punishable by death in Mauritania, Sudan and portions of northern Nigeria.
Obama and the State Department have repeatedly spoken out against a Ugandan bill that sought to impose the death penalty upon anyone convicted of repeated same-sex sexual acts. The administration has also criticized Cameroon, Zimbabwe and Nigeria over their government’s LGBT rights records.
South Africa in 1994 became the first country in the world to add sexual orientation discrimination protections to its constitution. It is also among the 15 nations in which same-sex couples can legally marry.
A 2003 South African law allows trans people to change the gender marker on their identity documents without undergoing sex-reassignment surgery.
Liesl Theron, co-founder of Gender DynamiX, a South African trans advocacy group, said during the IGLHRC briefing the statute has not actually been applied. She further noted the one public hospital in the country that provides sex-reassignment surgery has a 36-year waiting list for those who want to undergo the procedure.
“As much as we have the best constitution and we have every other type of law and thing that is on the side of the citizens of South Africa to have an equal life and a better life, it’s just not the same reality for transgender people,” said Theron.
District of Columbia
Gay ANC member announces candidacy for Ward 1 D.C. Council seat
Community leader Brian Footer seeking seat held by Brianne Nadeau

Gay Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Brian Footer, a community activist who has been involved for many years in local and national government affairs, has announced his candidacy for the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat up for election in 2026.
Footer, a Democrat, will be running in the city’s June 2, 2026, Democratic primary for the Ward 1 Council seat, but it is uncertain whether he will be running against incumbent Ward 1 Council member Brianne Nadeau (D). Nadeau has not yet announced if she plans to run for re-election for a fourth term following her 12 years on the Council.
Nadeau has been a longtime vocal supporter of the LGBTQ community.
If Footer were to win the primary and the November 2026 general election, he would become the Council’s second openly gay member. Ward 5 Council member Zachary Parker (D) is currently the 13-member Council’s only gay member.
Footer is a three-term ANC commissioner who currently serves as Chair of ANC 1E, which represents the city’s Adams Morgan neighborhood.
“Brian has worked at every level of government — federal, state, and local — building a career rooted in public service, aging policy, and inclusive urban planning,” a statement on his campaign website says.
“I’m running for Council because too many people in Ward 1 are doing everything right and still feel ignored by the city they call home,” Footer states on his website.
“I’m running because we can do better,” his statement continues. “That means making housing more affordable, addressing homelessness with real solutions, and keeping our neighborhoods safe with smart, community focused strategies.”
When contacted by the Washington Blade for comment, Nadeau said she was not ready at this time to discuss her plans about running again or about Footer’s candidacy.
“The primary is a ways away, and I’m very focused right now on the budget and the stadium deal and all the work that we’re doing at the Council,” she told the Blade. “So, I really haven’t had time to turn to my plans. So, as a result, I’m also not going to be commenting on anybody else who is determined that they’re running at this time.”
She first won election to the Council in 2014 after she defeated four-term gay Ward 1 Council member Jim Graham in the Democratic primary after Graham became embroiled in an ethics controversy.
In the 2022 Democratic primary Nadeau defeated gay challenger Salah Czapary in a three-candidate race, by a margin of 48.5% of the vote compared to Czapary’s 30.9%.
With the third candidate, Sabel Harris, receiving 20.4%, the outcome showed that the two challengers had a combined total vote count higher than Nadeau.
Further details of Footer’s candidacy can be accessed from his campaign website, brianfooterdc.com.
Spain
Spanish women detail abuses suffered in Franco-era institutions
Barcelona-based photographer Luca Gaetano Pira created ‘Las Descarriadas’ exhibit

A Barcelona-based photographer, audiovisual artist, and activist has created an exhibit that profiles Spanish women who suffered abuse in institutions that Gen. Francisco Franco’s dictatorship established.
Luca Gaetano Pira, who is originally from Italy, spoke with women who the regime, which governed Spain from 1936-1975, sent to Women’s Protection Board institutions.
The regime in 1941 created the board the country’s Justice Ministry oversaw.
Franco named his wife, Carmen Polo, as the board’s honorary president. Then-Prime Minister Felipe González fully dissolved the board in 1985, a decade after Franco’s death.
Gaetano’s exhibit is called “Las Descarriadas” or “The Misguided Women” in English.
“These are women who were detained between 1941 and 1985 for reasons that are unthinkable today: being lesbian, poor, pregnant out of wedlock, rebellious, politically active … or simply considered ‘morally suspect,'” Gaetano noted to the Washington Blade.
Groups affiliated with the Spanish Catholic Church ran these institutions. Gaetano pointed out they were “presented as social assistance centers.”
“In reality, they were spaces of punishment and forced reeducation, where isolation, unpaid work, and psychological violence were the norm,” he said. “Many of the survivors are still alive. Their testimonies are powerful, urgent, and of extraordinary current relevance.”
The regime sent more than 40,000 women to Women’s Protection Board institutions.
“Despite its seemingly benevolent name, it was in fact one of the most powerful instruments of moral and social control over women during and after the dictatorship,” notes the exhibit. “Under the guise of care and re-education, this institution functioned as a repressive apparatus that punished women who deviated from the ideal feminine model imposed by Franco’s regime: submissive, obedient, married, and dedicated to motherhood within the Catholic family structure.”
The Spanish Catholic Church last month issued a public apology, but Gaetano described it as “very soft” and noted “the women did not accept it.” Gaetano also compared the Women’s Protection Board institutions to Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries.
The Associated Press notes tens of thousands of “fallen” women were sent to the laundries that Catholic nuns operated in Ireland from the 18th century until the mid-1990s. Then-Irish Prime Minister Edna Kenny in 2013 issued a formal apology for the abuses that women suffered in the laundries and announced the government would compensate them.
The Spanish government has yet to offer compensation to the women abused in Women’s Protection Board institutions.
“My work focuses on recovering the historical memory of marginalized communities, particularly through the portrayal of survivors of institutional violence and the use of archival materials,” Gaetano told the Blade, noting he has also sought to highlight the repression that LGBTQ people suffered during dictatorships in Portugal and Latin America.
Gaetano’s exhibit can be found here:
District of Columbia
Gay GOP group hosts Ernst, 3 House members — all of whom oppose Equality Act
Log Cabin, congressional guest speakers mum on June 25 event

U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and three women Republican members of the U.S. House appeared as guest speakers at the June 25 meeting of Log Cabin Republicans of D.C., the local chapter of the national LGBTQ Republican group with that same name.
The U.S. House members who joined Ernst as guest speakers at the Log Cabin meeting were Celeste Maloy (R-Utah), Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), and Julia Letlow (R-La.).
Neither D.C. Log Cabin Republicans President Andrew Minik nor spokespersons for Ernst or the three congresswomen immediately responded to a request by the Washington Blade for comment on the GOP lawmakers’ appearance at an LGBTQ GOP group’s meeting.
“Please join us for an inspiring evening as we celebrate and recognize the bold leadership and accomplishments of Republican women in Congress,” a D.C Log Cabin announcement sent to its members states.
“This month’s meeting will highlight the efforts of the Republican Women’s Caucus and explore key issues such as the Protection of Women and Girls In Sports Act and the broader fight to preserve women’s spaces in society,” the message says.
It was referring to legislation pending in Congress calling for banning transgender women from participating in women’s sports events.
According to media reports, Ernst and the three congresswomen have expressed opposition to the Equality Act, the longstanding bill pending in Congress calling for prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the areas of employment, housing, and public accommodations.
The Log Cabin announcement says the meeting was scheduled to take place at the Royal Sands Social Club, which is a restaurant and bar at 26 N St., S.E. in the city’s Navy Yard area.
D.C. Log Cabin member Stuart West, who attended the meeting, confirmed that Ernst and the three congresswomen showed up and spoke at the event.
“It was a good turnout,” he said. “I would definitely say probably 30 or 40 people attended.” West added, “Four women came to talk to a group of mostly gay men. That’s something you don’t see very often.”
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