World
Meet America’s first out lesbian ambassador
Chantale Wong on groundbreaking role as U.S. director of Asian Development Bank
The first openly lesbian U.S. ambassador on Wednesday discussed her historic ambassadorship with the Washington Blade during an exclusive interview in D.C.
“It is a milestone for the United States,” said Chantale Wong, the U.S. director of the Asian Development Bank. “I’m hoping that it’s not too soon that I will be joined by others.”
Wong, whom the U.S. Senate confirmed in February by a bipartisan 66-31 vote margin, represents the U.S. at the Asian Development Bank, which seeks to promote economic and social development throughout the Asia-Pacific Region. Wong is also the first openly LGBTQ person of color to serve as a U.S. ambassador.
Interim Human Rights Campaign President Joni Madison said Wong’s confirmation “is one step closer to achieving a future where all members of the LGBTQ+ community can see themselves reflected at the highest levels of government.” Wong told the Blade that she feels “a huge weight of responsibility.”
“It’s a huge responsibility I carry with me because it is the hopes and dreams of those that want to be in my position, but also the issues that I will carry forward in terms of providing inclusive growth for our community in many of these countries where the community is really criminalized and targeted, and so that is going to be my burden and my responsibility to bring forth a better livelihood for these communities.”
Brunei and Singapore are among the bank’s member countries that continue to criminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations. The bank itself is based in the Philippines, a country in which dozens of LGBTQ rights groups operate.
Wong between 1999-2002 was the acting U.S. executive director of the bank’s board of directors. Wong noted the Philippines’ Foreign Affairs Department granted her wife a diplomatic visa after the bank recognized their Vermont marriage.
“For me 20 years ago, it was really precedent setting,” said Wong. “I was there with my partner.”
Wong spoke with the Blade less than two weeks after a group of Democratic lawmakers in a letter they sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged the State Department to do more to ensure countries recognize the same-sex partners of American diplomats. The interview also took place against the backdrop of efforts to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the Asian Development Bank’s safeguards.
“In all the institutions, we come up with ensuring that any of our projects and our policies do no harm and maybe even improve the lives of the beneficiaries we try to serve,” said Wong. “Ultimately, it’s about economic development for these countries … we’ve always had labor standards, environmental standards, other social standards, social safeguards. You don’t go in and harm the people you’re trying to help.”
Wong further noted LGBTQ people “are the vulnerable of the vulnerable because of many of the laws in these countries are specifically targeting LGBTQ people.”
“We want to really advance that issue, that you’re also looking at that community to ensure that we do no harm, but also we talk about inclusive growth, that the economies of these countries cannot fully grow if you leave out any segments of the community. So that’s the push on the SOGIE (sexual orientation and gender identity and gender expression) safeguards.”
Wong said she expects the bank’s board in 2023 will decide whether to accept the proposed LGBTQ-specific safeguard. Wong told the Blade she expects the U.S. government will endorse it, noting the Biden administration’s executive order that bans discrimination against federal employees based on sexual orientation and gender identity and its commitment to promote LGBTQ rights abroad as part of U.S. foreign policy.
“The president is very clear,” said Wong. “The question how to go about making sure that this safeguard is protective of the community. That’s the discussion that’s going on.”
Ambassador fled China as a child
Wong was born in Shanghai in 1954. Mao Tse-tung in 1958 launched the Great Leap Forward that sought to transform China into an industrial economy. Wong said the famine that resulted from the campaign killed upwards of 55 million people.
Wong told the Blade her parents in 1960 “made the ultimate sacrifice to allow me to escape” China in the bottom of a boat that brought her and her grandmother to Hong Kong, which at the time was a British colony. Wong lived in Hong Kong with her aunt and uncle. They enrolled her in a Catholic boarding school in Macau, which at the time was a Portuguese territory.
She was baptized and given the name Chantale after St. Jane Frances de Chantal, who Wong noted is the patron saint of “forgotten people.” Wong said the first English word she learned to say and write was her name, which she practiced while taking the ferry between Hong Kong and Macau.
Wong, her aunt and uncle moved to the Japanese island of Okinawa in the mid-1960s.
President Nixon in 1972 traveled to China, and Japan the same year established diplomatic relations with the country. Wong, her aunt and uncle received Taiwanese passports that allowed them to travel to Guam, a U.S. territory in the western Pacific Ocean.
Wong attended an all-girls Catholic high school in Guam. The island’s governor later endorsed her for a scholarship that allowed her to enroll at the University of Hawaii. Wong later studied at the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Wong in 1982 returned to Shanghai, where she reunited with her parents who she had not seen in 21 years. Wong also met her brother whom she had never met.
Wong’s brother left China five years later and now lives in the U.S. with his family. Their parents arrived in the U.S. in 1990, a year after the Chinese government massacred pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Wong pointed out her parents were in their 60s when they left China.
“Those are the models I adhere to,” she said.
Wong further added her “journey is not unlike many of the people that we’re trying to help and nurture and economically develop.”
“I’m very mindful of my journey and what we’re trying to help,” she said.
Trump ‘fueled the fire of anti-Asian hate’
Wong throughout her career has worked to expand opportunities for people of Asian and Pacific Islander descent.
She founded the Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership, a group that seeks to “empower” members of those communities to enter public service, in 1990. New York Congresswoman Grace Meng is among the organization’s alumni.
Wong also documented the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) during the final years of his life.
Wong during the interview wore a gray hoodie with the hashtag #StopAsianHate.
She noted the Chinese Exclusion Act, an 1882 law that prohibited Chinese people from entering the U.S., and Japanese internment camps during World War II. Wong also referenced Vincent Chin, a Chinese American man who two white autoworkers in Detroit murdered in 1982.
Wong added “the rhetoric of the last administration fueled the fire of anti-Asian hate” during the pandemic.
“It’s a huge issue for the community,” she said. “There’s also hate against gays and lesbians.”
Cuba
Trans parent charged with kidnapping, allegedly fled to Cuba with child
Cuban authorities helped locate Rose Inessa-Ethington
Federal authorities have charged a transgender woman with kidnapping after she allegedly fled to Cuba with her 10-year-old child.
An affidavit that Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Jennifer Waterfield filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Utah on April 16 notes the child is a “biological male who identifies as a female” and “splits time living with divorced parents who share custody” in Cache County, Utah.
Waterfield notes the child on March 28 “was supposed to be traveling by car to” Calgary, Alberta, “for a planned camping trip with his transgender mother, Rose Inessa-Ethington, Rose’s partner, Blue Inessa-Ethington, and Blue’s 3-year-old child.”
The affidavit notes the group instead flew from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Mexico City on March 29. Waterfield writes the Inessa-Ethingtons and the two children then flew from Mérida, Mexico, to Havana on April 1.
The 10-year-old child called her biological mother on March 28 after they arrived in Canada. The custody agreement, according to the affidavit, required Rose Inessa-Ethington to return the child to her former spouse on April 3.
“Interviews of MV [Minor Victim] 1’s family members provided significant concerns for MV 1’s well-being, as MV 1 was born a male, however, identifies as a female child, which is largely believed to be due to manipulation by Rose Inessa-Ethington,” reads the affidavit. “Concerns exist that MV 1 was transported to Cuba for gender reassignment surgery prior to puberty.”
The affidavit indicates authorities found a note in the Inessa-Ethingtons’ home with “instruction from a mental health therapist located in Washington, D.C., including instruction to send the therapist the $10,000.00 and instructions on gender-affirming medical care for children.”
The affidavit does not identify the specific “mental health therapist” in D.C.
A Utah judge on April 13 ordered Rose Inessa-Ethington to “immediately” return the child to her former spouse. The former spouse also received sole custody.
“Your affiant believes that due to the extensive planning and preparation exhibited by both Rose Inessa-Ethington and Blue Inessa-Ethington to isolate MV 1 and take MV 1 to Havana, Cuba, without notifying or requesting permission from MV 1’s mother indicates they are likely not planning to return to the United States,” wrote Waterfield.
The affidavit notes Cuban authorities found the Inessa-Ethingtons and the child.
A press release the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah issued notes the Inessa-Ethingtons “were deported from Cuba” on Monday “with the assistance of the FBI.”
The couple has been charged with International Parental Kidnapping. The Inessa-Ethingtons were arraigned in Richmond, Va., on Monday. The press release notes a federal court in Salt Lake City will soon handle the case.
The New York Times reported the child is now back with their biological mother.
“We are grateful to law enforcement for working swiftly to return the child to the biological mother,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Holyoak of the District of Utah in the press release.
The case is unfolding against the backdrop of increased tensions between Washington and Havana after U.S. forces on Jan. 3 seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in January 2025 issued an executive order that directed the federal government to only recognize two genders: male and female. A second White House directive banned federally-funded gender-affirming care for anyone under 19.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year in the Skrmetti decision upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for minors.
Cuba’s national health care system has offered free sex-reassignment surgeries since 2008.
Activists who are critical of Mariela Castro, the daughter of former President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBTQ issues as director of Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education, have previously told the Washington Blade that access to these procedures is limited. The Blade on Wednesday asked a contact in Havana to clarify whether Cuban law currently allows minors to undergo sex-reassignment surgery.
Australia
Australia lifts additional restrictions on LGBTQ blood donors
Gay, bisexual men, trans people in long-term monogamous relationships can now donate
The Australian Red Cross Blood Service (Lifeblood) has lifted additional restrictions on LGBTQ people who want to donate blood.
The Star-Observer, an Australian LGBTQ newspaper, reported new Lifeblood rules that took effect on Monday will allow “gay and bisexual men and transgender people in long-term monogamous relationships to donate blood and platelets for the first time.”
The new policy defines “long-term monogamous relationships” as those that are at least six months.
All potential donors — regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity — will answer the same questions about recent sexual activity.
“Previous donor rules prevented many people from the LGBTQIA+ community from donating blood or platelets if they’d had sex within the past three months,” said Lifeblood CEO Stephen Cornelissen in a press release that announced the new policy. “These latest changes mean many gay and bisexual men and transgender people in long-term, monogamous relationships will become eligible to donate blood or platelets for the first time.”
Lifeblood in 2025 ended its blanket ban on sexually active LGBTQ people from donating blood.
Rodney Croome, an Australian LGBTQ activist who is the spokesperson for Let Us Give, a campaign that has championed the changes, donated blood on Monday.
“After three decades of advocacy, and for the first time in my life, I was able to donate blood today,” said Croome in a Facebook post that showed him donating blood. “From today, gay men, and bisexual men and transgender women who have sex with men, are able to give blood without the traditional three month abstinence period. All donors are now asked the same questions about sex regardless of the gender of our sexual partners.”
Croome in the post said “there are still problems with the new donor regime,” but said Let Us Give will continue to work with Lifeblood.
“Those who may have not been monogamous in the recent past should not be subject to a six month wait time,” he wrote. “Three months is considered more than enough in the UK, US and Canada. It should be here too. People on PrEP and trans people also face continued barriers. Let Us Give will continue to work towards greater equity in donation.”
European Union
Top EU court strikes down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law
Ruling issued days after voters outed Prime Minister Viktor Orbán
The European Union’s top court on Tuesday struck down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law.
Hungarian MPs in 2021 approved Act LXXIX of 2021.
“It shall be forbidden to make accessible to persons who have not attained the age of 18 years advertisement that depicts sexuality in a gratuitous manner or that propagates or portrays divergence from self-identity corresponding to sex at birth, sex change or homosexuality,” it reads.
The European Commission in 2022 challenged the law. Sixteen EU countries — Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden — joined the lawsuit. The European Parliament also supported it. Outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, for his part, said his government would defend the law.
The EU Court of Justice heard the case in 2024.
A press release that announced the ruling on Tuesday said Hungary “acted in breach of EU law.”
“The court finds, for the first time, a separate infringement of Article 2 TEU (Treaty on European Union), which lists the values on which the (European) Union is founded and which are common to all the Member States,” it reads. “The aspects of the amending law targeting content which portrays or promotes deviation from the self-identity corresponding to the sex assigned at birth, gender reassignment, or homosexuality constitute a coordinated series of discriminatory measures which are in breach, in a way that is both manifest and particularly serious, of the rights of non-cisgender persons — including transgender persons — or non-heterosexual persons, as well as the values of respect for human dignity, equality and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.”
“Consequently, that law is contrary to the very identity of the (European) Union as a common legal order in a society in which pluralism prevails,” notes the press release. “Hungary cannot validly rely on its national identity as justification for adopting a law which is in breach of the values referred to above.”
The Háttér Society, a Hungarian LGBTQ rights group, said the ruling “is a milestone for the protection of human rights in the European Union, and it is also a historic victory for LGBTQI people in Hungary.”
The court issued its ruling nine days after Péter Magyar ousted Orbán in Hungary’s elections.
Orbán took office in 2010.
He and his government faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown that included laws that banned Pride events and other public LGBTQ events. (Upwards of 100,000 people last June denied the prohibition and marched in Budapest’s annual Pride parade.)
“Those amendments constitute a particularly serious interference with several fundamental rights protected by the (EU) Charter (of Fundamental Rights), namely the prohibition on discrimination based on sex,” notes the court’s press release.
The EU since Orbán took office has withheld upwards of €35 billion ($41.2 billion) in funds to Hungary in response to concerns over corruption, rule of law, and other issues. Magyar has said he will work with Brussels to unfreeze the money.
ILGA-Europe Deputy Director Katrin Hugendubel urged Maygar’s government to repeal the law.
“With this ruling, the CJEU (The EU Court of Justice) is confirming what we have been saying for six years,” said Hugendubel. “There is now no excuse for the Commission not to require Hungary to quickly withdraw the law. Hungary cannot enter a post-Orbán era without repealing this legislation, including the Pride ban.”
“If Péter Magyar truly aims to be pro-EU, he must place this at the top of his agenda for his first 100 days in office, as an essential part of his EU facing reforms,” added Hugendubel.
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