World
Advocacy groups renew calls for U.S. to help LGBTQ Afghans
New report details Taliban abuses
Advocacy groups on Wednesday renewed calls for the U.S. and other countries to do more to help LGBTQ Afghans who remain inside Afghanistan after the Taliban regained control of it.
A report from OutRight Action International and Human Rights Watch that details the plight of LGBTQ Afghans includes a series of recommendations for the U.S. and other “concerned governments.”
– Use any diplomatic leverage to press the Taliban to recognize the rights of everyone in Afghanistan, including LGBT people.
– Recognize that LGBT Afghans face a special risk of persecution in Afghanistan and neighboring countries and expedite their applications for evacuation and resettlement.
– Support and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Afghans in need, and support organizations providing humanitarian assistance, including programs specifically designed to assist LGBT Afghans.
– Ensure that support to organizations working in Afghanistan is directed to organizations that commit to gender-sensitive programming, nondiscrimination, and inclusion of LGBT beneficiaries.
– In engagements with formal and informal civil society groups in Afghanistan, including human rights organizations, women’s rights and feminist organizations, and organizations focused on health, education, or youth, raise concerns about abuses against LGBT Afghans and urge such groups to be inclusive of LGBT Afghans.
– Engage with civil society organizations directly or indirectly addressing LGBT issues in Afghanistan, informal groupings of LGBT people, and community leaders who are well networked within LGBT communities to best help them protect their rights.
The report also includes recommendations for countries from which LGBTQ Afghans have asked for asylum.
– Fully respect the rights of Afghan people who are or are perceived to be LGBT to claim asylum where they can demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution.
– When considering asylum claims and other requests for protection from LGBT Afghans, fully consider all evidence regarding violations of the rights of LGBT people in Afghanistan, who faced severe discrimination previously and especially since the Taliban takeover.
– When considering asylum claims for LGBT Afghans, take into consideration that LGBT individuals often conform to societal norms, such as entering into different sex marriage, in order to survive. Married status should not be taken as an indication of someone not being LGBT.
The report’s other recommendations include calls for international aid organizations inside Afghanistan to “provide targeted and specialized assistance to LGBT people” and for the Taliban to “urgently end any and all forms of discrimination or violence against anyone based on a person’s perceived or actual sexual orientation or gender identity.”
OutRight Action International and Human Rights Watch released their report less than six months after the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan.
A Taliban judge last July said the group would once again execute gay people if it were to return to power in the country. The report notes a Taliban official later said the group “will not respect the rights of LGBT people.”
The report includes interviews with 60 LGBTQ Afghans inside Afghanistan and in five other countries that OutRight Action International and Human Rights Watch conducted between October and December 2021.
A 20-year-old man with whom the groups spoke said Taliban members “loaded him into a car” at a checkpoint and “took him to another location where four men whipped and then gang raped him over the course of eight hours.” The report notes the man went into hiding, but the Taliban continued to target him and his family.
A lesbian woman with whom OutRight Action International and Human Rights Watch spoke said her parents “arranged for a speedy wedding” with a man before the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan. The report notes her parents beat her when she “tried to refuse to go through with it.”
The woman’s parents, according to the report, paid her husband to take her out of Afghanistan. They now live in another country, and he “beats her nearly every day and will not allow her to leave the house.”
The report also details an incident in which the Taliban beat a transgender woman and “shaved her eyebrows with a razor” before they “dumped her on the street in men’s clothes and without a cellphone.” She had been living with other trans women in an abandoned youth hostel in Kabul, the Afghan capital, when the Taliban regained control of the country.
“Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Afghanistan, and others who do not conform to rigid gender norms, have faced an increasingly desperate situation and grave threats to their safety and lives since the Taliban took full control of the country on Aug. 15, 2021,” reads the report’s summary.
‘More needs to be done’
Two groups of LGBTQ Afghans that three advocacy groups — Stonewall, Rainbow Railroad and Micro Rainbow — evacuated from Afghanistan with the help of the British government arrived in the U.K. last fall. Some of the dozens of Afghan human rights activists who Taylor Hirschberg, a researcher at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health who is also a Hearst Foundation scholar, has been able to help leave the country since the Taliban regained control of it are LGBTQ.
Rainbow Railroad; the Council for Global Equality; the Human Rights Campaign; Immigration Equality; the International Refugee Assistance Project; the Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration in a letter they sent to President Biden last September called for his administration to “prioritize the evacuation and resettlement of vulnerable refugee populations, including LGBTQI people, and ensure that any transitory stay in a third country is indeed temporary by expediting refugee processing.”
Rainbow Railroad Executive Director Kimahli Powell on Wednesday during a webinar on the report noted his organization has “had really encouraging conversations with” Jessica Stern, the special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ rights who was previously OutRight Action International’s executive director, and “her team and with the U.S. government and the Canadian government as well” about the evacuation of LGBTQ Afghans.
“More needs to be done,” said Powell.
Powell added there “are concrete things that we’ve asked to be done within the context of Afghanistan that can be done.”
“It’s encouraging that governments signaled early on that they want to help out Afghans at risk,” he said. “That signaling has led to many folks in Afghanistan who have enough social media to read those messages to ask how (sic) does that look like, including reaching out to us at Rainbow Railroad. And what we’re asking governments to do now is to help us answer that question, help us answer the question as to what we can do to protect people who are still stuck in Afghanistan, help people who are displaced outside of Afghanistan awaiting resettlement and partner with us to do it.”
OutRight Action International Senior Fellow J. Lester Feder echoed Powell.
“Regardless of the identity of the vulnerable people involved, not enough has been done to help vulnerable people,” said Feder during the webinar.
Feder also urged the U.S. government to do more to help LGBTQ Afghans and other vulnerable groups who remain inside the country.
“We know with the amount of support — either with people who had direct connections to the U.S. government or the U.S. military when they left — have been left stranded in Afghanistan,” said Feder.
“People who are supporting and support vulnerable Afghans in the United States need to speak up and show support for the government processing (asylum) cases faster and for more spaces being made available,” he added.
The College of Cardinals on Thursday elected Cardinal Robert Prevost from Chicago as the Catholic Church’s next pope.
Leo XIV’s election took place less than three weeks after Pope Francis died at Casa Santa Marta, his official residence at the Vatican. The conclave to choose his successor began on Wednesday.
Leo XIV, who was born in Chicago in 1955, is the first American pope.
Leo XIV was bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo in Peru from 2015-2023. Francis made him a cardinal in 2023
“We salute the appointment of the new Pope Leo XVI,” said the U.S. Embassy in Peru on X.
“A celebration for the world’s Catholics, and a joy especially shared between the American people and the Peruvian people. From Chicago to Chiclayo.”
U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), a gay man of Peruvian descent, also congratulated Leo XIV.
“As a Catholic and Peruvian American, I wish Pope Leo XIV strength as he steps into his role as a global and spiritual leader,” said the California Democrat on X. “He has demonstrated that he believes in justice for the poor and immigrants. May his leadership reflect these ideals as he spreads peace across the world.”
As a Catholic and Peruvian American, I wish Pope Leo XIV strength as he steps into his role as a global and spiritual leader. He has demonstrated that he believes in justice for the poor and immigrants. May his leadership reflect these ideals as he spreads peace across the world.
— Congressman Robert Garcia (@RepRobertGarcia) May 8, 2025
Francis died on April 21 at Casa Santa Marta, his official residence at the Vatican. The conclave to choose the Argentine pontiff’s successor began on Wednesday.
The Vatican’s tone on LGBTQ and intersex issues softened under Francis’s papacy, even though church teachings on homosexuality did not change.
Francis, among other things, described laws that criminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations as “unjust” and supported civil unions for gays and lesbians. Transgender people were among those who greeted Francis’s coffin at Rome’s St. Mary Major Basilica before his burial on April 26.
The New York Times reported Leo XIV in a 2012 speech to bishops specifically cited “homosexual lifestyle” and “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children” when he said Western media and popular culture has promoted “sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the gospel”
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, a group that represents LGBTQ Catholics, traveled to Rome for the conclave.
She told the Washington Blade in a text message from St. Peter’s Square shortly after Leo XIV’s election that she “heard him speak” last October and “found him thoughtful and gently challenging.”
“[He] hasn’t said a lot since early 2010s. [I] hope he has evolved,” said Duddy-Burke. “His commitment to synodality is a hopeful sign.”
Her group later issued a statement.
“This election appears to signal a willingness to continue building on Pope Francis’s commitment to synodality and social justice,” said DignityUSA. “We pray that the needs of those whom our church has historically marginalized, including LGBTQ+ people and their families, will continue to be heard and addressed by the Vatican and other church leaders.”
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a statement said there is “a special pride in having the first pope from the United States, his longtime ministry in Latin America most likely had an equally formative influence on his spirituality and approach to church issues.” DeBernardo, however, criticized Leo XIV’s 2012 comments.
“We pray that in the 13 years that have passed, 12 of which were under the papacy of Pope Francis, that his heart and mind have developed more progressively on LGBTQ+ issues, and we will take a wait-and-see attitude to see if that has happened,” he said.
“We pray that as our church transitions from 12 years of an historic papacy, Pope Leo XIV will continue the welcome and outreach to LGBTQ+ people which Pope Francis inaugurated,” added DeBernardo. “The healing that began with ‘Who am I to judge?’ needs to continue and grow to ‘Who am I, if not a friend to LGBTQ+ people?'”
DignityUSA agreed.
“We express concern with the former Cardinal’s statements — as reported in the New York Times — in a 2012 address to bishops, where he stated that Western news media and popular culture fostered ‘sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the gospel’ including the ‘homosexual lifestyle’ and ‘alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children.'” We note that this statement was made during the papacy of Benedict XVI, when doctrinal adherence appeared to be expected,” said the organization in its statement. “In addition, the voices of LGBTQ people were rarely heard at that level of church leadership. We pray that Pope Leo XIV will demonstrate a willingness to listen and grow as he begins his new role as the leader of the global church.”
Vanuatu
Vanuatu lawmakers consider constitutional amendment to recognize two genders
Country decriminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations in 2007
Lawmakers in Vanuatu are considering an amendment to the country’s constitution that would recognize only two sexes: Male and female.
The Vanuatu Daily Post in an April 23 article quoted Vanuatu Christian Council Chair Collin Keleb, a pastor with the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu, said the country “cannot allow someone from outside to influence or empower them (the LGBTQ community), which will cause them to go astray instead of maintaining and uniting ourselves as children of God.”
The country’s Council of Ministers has approved the proposed amendment. The Vanuatu Daily Post notes the government has said the measure would “align the country’s laws with the preambles of ‘Melanesian values and Christian principles’ upon which Vanuatu was founded.”
Vanuatu is an island country in the South Pacific that is located roughly 1,100 miles northeast of Australia’s Queensland state.
Consensual same-sex sexual relations have been decriminalized in Vanuatu since 2007.
It remains unclear when the proposed amendment will receive final approval.
El Salvador
Artistas drag marchan por derechos laborales, visibilidad LGBTQ en El Salvador
Lady Drag y Wila la Icónica participaron en el desfile del 1 de mayo
Dos artistas drag desfilaron este 1 de mayo por las principales calles de San Salvador como parte del recorrido de la marcha del Día Internacional del Trabajo, visibilizando realidades en la vulneración de los derechos humanos. La presencia de Lady Drag y Wila la Icónica destacó en medio de una movilización que, si bien contó con diversos sectores sindicales y sociales, registró escasa participación de organizaciones LGBTQ.
Con vestuarios llamativos y maquillaje escénico, las artistas se integraron a la marcha junto a otras expresiones ciudadanas. Durante todo el recorrido, desde el Parque Cuscatlán hasta el Monumento al Divino Salvador del Mundo, ambas realizaron un performance que buscó denunciar el desempleo, la precarización laboral y la exclusión de las diversidades sexuales y de género en el ámbito laboral.
“El Salvador necesita reformas no solamente en el código de trabajo, sino que también reformas en el sistema educativo”, expresó Lady Drag. “O sea, que nuestras autoridades también velen porque se nos respeten”, agregó refiriéndose a la población LGBTQ.
El performance incluyó desplazamientos performativos en donde el artista Wila la Icónica, rompió una constitución de la República de El Salvador. La representación culminó en El Salvador del Mundo, donde las artistas realizaron una pose simbólica frente al monumento, emulando una escena inspirada en “La Piedad”, como acto de denuncia y resistencia.
La participación de ambas artistas se produjo en un contexto de creciente precarización laboral para las personas LGBTQ en El Salvador, también en memoria de los detenidos injustamente por el régimen de excepción y como sus madres sufren por las negligencias del sistema. También mencionaron ser una pronunciación por los aumentos a las AFP y a la canasta básica ya que se avecina el aumento al salario mínimo.
De acuerdo con informes de organizaciones de derechos humanos, el sector LGBTQ enfrenta barreras estructurales para el acceso a empleos dignos, así como altos niveles de discriminación y violencia.
“Siempre hay ataques de intimidación, yo he sido víctima de ataques de intimidación de este gobierno, ataques de amenaza por hacer lo que hago y, sin embargo, no me han logrado doblegar y no me van a lograr doblegar”, concluyó Lady Drag.
Pocas propuestas, mucha propaganda: críticas al gobierno marcan la jornada
La marcha del 1 de mayo no solo fue escenario de demandas laborales, sino también de fuertes críticas al gobierno del presidente Nayib Bukele.
Diversos sectores denunciaron la falta de propuestas efectivas para atender el desempleo, la informalidad y la precarización del trabajo en El Salvador, especialmente en sectores vulnerables. Al igual que los despidos masivos que se han realizado en entidades gubernamentales.
Aunque el país ha registrado una aparente estabilidad macroeconómica, organizaciones sociales aseguran que esta no se traduce en mejoras reales para la mayoría de la población.
“El gobierno presume crecimiento, pero en las comunidades la gente sigue sin empleo, sin acceso a salud y sin garantías laborales. Lo que hay es más propaganda que soluciones”, manifestó activista de Resistencia Popular.
Según datos del Banco Central de Reserva, más del 60 por ciento de la población económicamente activa se encuentra en el sector informal, una cifra que ha variado poco en los últimos años. Activistas señalan que, en vez de generar políticas de empleo inclusivo, el Ejecutivo ha priorizado megaproyectos como Bitcoin City o la promoción del turismo, sin garantizar condiciones laborales dignas en esos sectores.
La ausencia de una propuesta concreta para atender las desigualdades laborales fue uno de los puntos más señalados durante la marcha.
“El gobierno habla de seguridad, pero guarda silencio ante el hambre, la migración forzada por falta de empleo y la discriminación laboral”, reclamó un representante sindical del sector docente.
Asimismo, existieron muchas críticas sobre las medidas estatales que continúan ignorando las violencias estructurales que enfrentan las mujeres y las personas de la diversidad sexual, muchas de las cuales sobreviven en economías informales, trabajos de cuidado no remunerados o el arte callejero como último recurso.
Visibilidad fragmentada: la diversidad sexual marchó sin acompañamiento colectivo
A diferencia de años anteriores, la presencia organizada de personas LGBTQ fue escasa en la marcha del Día del Trabajo de 2025. Aunque la representación artística de “La Piedad” logró captar la atención de centenares de personas durante el recorrido, no hubo una participación masiva de colectivos LGBTQ como bloque articulado.
Nicola Chávez, parte del equipo de AMATE El Salvador, mencionó que participar en esta marcha para AMATE implica poner temas de la población LGBTQ sobre la palestra de discusiones sobre condiciones laborales en El Salvador.
“Nuestra población generalmente tiene trabajos sumamente precarizados, sufren de bajos niveles de escolaridad”, comentó.
Chávez también asegura que para las personas que tienen expresiones de género diferentes a la norma u orientaciones sexuales diferente a la norma, es urgente que existan leyes de protección laboral y así las pocas personas que puedan entrar a un empleo más formal, no tengan que pasar por estas experiencias de no ser contratadas por su expresión de género o ser despedidas por lo mismo.
El decreto 56, fue un decreto emblemático que es mencionado siempre por activistas LGBTQ, ya que fue la primera vez que se tuvo la oportunidad de tener algún respaldo jurídico contra la discriminación en el ámbito laboral que lastimosamente solo tenía cobertura en el sector público, con empleados de gobierno.
Por su parte, una activista independiente de la diversidad sexual, que prefirió no revelar su nombre por razones de seguridad, lamentó la fragmentación actual del movimiento LGBTQ en El Salvador.
“Estamos en un contexto político donde las organizaciones tienen miedo o están cooptadas. Hay silencio, no hay propuestas, no hay diálogo. La comunidad diversa está siendo relegada también desde dentro”, señaló.
Ambas voces coinciden en que, hay mucho trabajo pendiente por hacer en favor de una población históricamente excluida, preocupa la situación en un país donde los discursos oficialistas y religiosos aún promueven la discriminación y la invisibilidad de las realidades LGBTQ en las agendas públicas.
La marcha del 1 de mayo volvió a ser un espacio donde convergieron múltiples voces, cuerpos y luchas. Desde sindicatos históricos hasta organizaciones estudiantiles, pasando por expresiones artísticas y personas independientes, la movilización dejó claro que las calles siguen siendo un escenario vital para demandar justicia social.
Aunque marcada por ausencias, como la escasa participación visible de colectivos LGBTQ, la marcha demostró que existen ganas de seguir alzando la voz, aunque sea desde distintas formas de expresión. Ya sea a través de pancartas, consignas o performances, las y los participantes coincidieron en una demanda central: respeto a los derechos laborales, condiciones dignas de trabajo y una vida libre de explotación.
En un contexto donde se criminaliza la protesta, se debilita la negociación colectiva y se precariza el empleo, el Día Internacional de las y los Trabajadores no fue solo una conmemoración, sino una reafirmación de que la lucha continúa. Una lucha plural, creativa y persistente que no se detendrá hasta que cada persona trabajadora, sin importar su identidad o condición, pueda vivir con dignidad.
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