Category Archives: Hillary Clinton

Honduran gay leader appeals to U.S. for help

Jose Pepe Palacios, gay news, Washington Blade

Jose Pepe Palacios is scheduled to meet with members of Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s staff. (Photo courtesy Gay Liberation Network)

Jose Pepe Palacios says his mission is to inform the U.S. government and LGBT Americans that at least 89 LGBT people in Honduras, including gay rights advocates, have been murdered since military leaders ousted his country’s elected president in a 2009 coup.

Palacios, a resident of the capital city of Tegucigalpa, began a seven-city U.S. tour in Chicago on Jan. 30. He was scheduled to arrive in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, where, among other appearances, he was to speak on Friday at noon at a public gathering at the offices of the National Council of Churches at 110 Maryland Ave., N.E., on Capitol Hill.

He told the Washington Blade that he hopes to build support in the U.S. for a coalition of LGBT and progressive groups in his country that seek to peacefully challenge anti-democratic forces they believe are responsible for many of the murders.

“The Obama administration has said they will promote human rights and LGBT rights,” Palacios said. “And Hillary Clinton said that human rights are gay rights. So one of the reasons I’m doing this is to ask for support to pressure the Honduran government to investigate these cases and also to create awareness of the number of these cases.”

Palacios was scheduled to meet this week with members of the staff of U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) and U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.).

Andy Thayer, co-founder of the Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network, which is one of the sponsors of Palacios’ U.S. tour, said human rights activists in Honduras believe many if not most of the LGBT murders following the 2009 coup were motivated by political retribution. According to Thayer, a majority of the LGBT community in Honduras has been supportive of a resistance movement that has opposed the post-coup government and participates in demonstrations against government leaders.

Palacios said that among the LGBT people murdered since the coup were gay activist Walter Torchez and gay candidate for the Honduran Congress, Eric Martinez Alvia, an organizer for the Liberty and Refoundation Party, or LIBRE, which represents many of the resistance groups protesting against the current government.

Palacios is a founding member of Diversity Movement in Resistance (MDR), an LGBT advocacy organization. He is also a member of the National Steering Committee of the Honduras National Front of Popular Resistance (NRP), which has staged protest demonstrations against the government.

Thayer called the LGBT murders “a systematic campaign of targeted hate crimes and political assassination.” He said that as the country gears up for its first contested election since the coup, set to take place in November, “many fear that the violence will get even worse.”

The LGBT murders come at a time when Honduras has the distinction of having the highest murder rate of any country in the world. The U.S. State Department’s country report on Honduras says many of the murders are related to warring drug cartels and abject poverty that forces desperate people to commit armed robberies often resulting in killings.

The report acknowledges that some of the murders are due to political rivalries. Human rights observers have said corrupt police officers or law enforcement officials allied with entrenched political factions are also believed to be responsible for some of the murders, including the slayings of LGBT activists.

Palacios said that of the 89 LGBT murders since 2009, 52 of the victims were transgender women.

“The United States is focused on helping the Honduran government combat impunity, resolve murder cases, reform the Honduran police, and strengthen human rights institutions,” said Evan Owen, press officer for the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

The 2009 coup, which resulted in the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya, took place amid a constitutional dispute over whether Zelaya had authority to call a non-binding referendum to determine whether public support existed to hold a constitutional convention and make significant changes in the nation’s political system.

As an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Zelaya’s move toward constitutional changes alarmed the conservative factions in the country, who feared he would put in place a Chavez-style socialist government. Supporters, including many LGBT activists, believed Zelaya was seeking to make needed reforms to lift the majority of the country’s population from conditions of poverty and despair.

The Obama administration denounced the coup and called for an immediate restoration of the country’s democratic institutions. But activists in the U.S. and Honduras have said the U.S. appeared to have been privately supportive of the coup. Palacios said it is widely known in the country that Honduran military leaders, who took Zelaya into custody, flew him to a U.S. military base in Honduras before flying him to Costa Rica, where he remained in exile for several years.

Further suspicions of U.S. motives surfaced a few months later, when the U.S. gave its backing to elections called and arranged by coup leaders under supervision of international observers. The country’s current president, Porfirio Lobo of the conservative National Party, won that election.

Owen of the State Department declined to comment on allegations by activists that the U.S. support for the current government was giving tacit support for violence against gays and others by corrupt elements, including police, associated with the government.

“We strongly support the rule of law and respect for the constitutional separation of powers as well as a fair and transparent democratic process,” Owen said of the U.S. policy toward Honduras. He said the U.S., among other things, is providing assistance to the Honduran government to “strengthen its investigative capacity” to combat possible human rights abuses.

With that as a backdrop, the left-leaning LIBRE Party last year nominated through a primary election Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro, as its candidate for president in the November 2013 election. In a development that has thrilled LGBT activists, including Palacios, the LGBT supportive Castro (who’s not related to Cuba’s Fidel Castro) has emerged as the leading candidate in a Gallup Poll conducted in January.

Her husband, who can’t run for president under the constitution’s term limit provision, is running for a seat in the Congress.

In what LGBT advocates consider a historic development, a transgender woman and an openly gay man ran in last year’s primary for congressional seats as LIBRE candidates. Both lost their races, but Palacios called their candidacies and the LIBRE party’s support for LGBT equality a major advance for his country.

With the candidates from the two longstanding “establishment” parties — the right-wing National Party and the center-right Liberal Party — trailing Castro in the polls, Palacios said he fears conservative forces will manufacture a “crisis” in an attempt to postpone or cancel the election. None of the other candidates have expressed support for LGBT rights, Palacios said.

“That’s why we are asking a number of organizations from the international community to go in delegations in November to observe the electoral process and make sure it’s a just process.”

State Department meets with LGBT travel representatives

Janice Jacobs, State Department, gay news, Washington Blade

Janice Jacobs, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, speaks at the Smart Traveler Day roundtable at the State Department on Feb. 20. (Photo courtesy of Esperanza Tilghman/State Department)

The State Department on Wednesday hosted a roundtable to discuss its efforts to provide LGBT-specific information to Americans who plan to travel overseas.

“We want all of our citizens to be informed about their destinations abroad and any particular challenges that they may face,” Janice Jacobs, assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Consular Affairs, said. “We want them to know about the services that are available to them at our embassies and consulates if problems should happen, despite their precautions.”

Jacobs’ comments come five days after the Bureau of Consular Affairs added LGBT-specific information to its website that includes travel warnings, alerts and other country-specific advisories. These include references to “widespread” anti-gay discrimination in Ukraine, efforts to curb “the promotion of homosexuality” in Russian cities and an advisory that urges LGBT travelers to “consider exercising caution when visiting Estonia” because of harassment and violence those who have publicly shown affection have experienced.

The country-specific profiles also include information about HIV/AIDS travel restrictions.

“It’s important that our LGBT audiences know about the resources that we provide to help U.S. citizens travel safe and travel smart,” Jacobs said.

Michelle Bernier-Toth, managing director of Overseas Citizens Services at the Bureau of Consular Affairs, further stressed the protection of Americans “is really the department’s top priority.” She and other officials sought recommendations and other feedback on the Smart Traveler Day initiative from the roughly 50 people who attended the meeting.

“It’s a start,” Bernier-Toth said. “It’s a recognition that this is a community that is on the move, is traveling. It’s an important community, an important stakeholder for us. And we are going to make it as robust and as useful as we can possibly make it.”

White House LGBT liaison Gautam Raghavan also spoke at the gathering.

He pointed out the initiative typifies the Obama administration’s commitment to equality for LGBT people. Raghavan specifically pointed out the extension of benefits to same-sex partners of foreign service officers, new regulations that make it easier to change gender markers on passports and the Global Equality Fund.

“It really shows that this is how this administration does business,” he said. “We are all about advancing equality in every place that we can find.”

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed in 2011 a during a speech she delivered in Geneva that “gay rights are human rights.” President Obama on the same day directed government agencies to consider a country’s LGBT rights record in the allocation of foreign aid.

The State Department in recent years has spoken out against anti-LGBT violence in Honduras, Jamaica, Uganda, Zimbabwe and other countries.

Clinton and Obama urged the Ugandan government to protect the rights of its LGBT residents following the Jan. 2011 murder of gay activist David Kato amid the debate over the so-called Anti-Homosexuality Bill that would impose the death penalty against anyone found guilty of repeated same-sex sexual acts. The former first lady last August honored Ugandan LGBT rights advocate Frank Mugisha and other human rights advocates at the U.S. embassy in Kampala, the country’s capital.

“Don’t ever lose context of what has been accomplished by this White House, by this secretary of State that will continue for four more years,” Charlie Rounds of the Forward Motion Group, who also chairs the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association Foundation, said. “It’s huge.”

Uganda is among the countries that continue to criminalize homosexuality. Saudi Arabia and Iran are among the seven nations that impose the death penalty upon those found guilty of same-sex sexual acts.

UNAIDS notes Australia, Israel and Singapore are among the 45 countries with travel restrictions against people with HIV/AIDS. Obama in 2009 completed the process former President George W. Bush began that lifted the ban on those with the virus from entering the country.

Bernier-Toth told the Washington Blade during the meeting the State Department rarely urges an LGBT traveler not to travel to a specific country that criminalizes homosexuality.

“The decision whether to travel is always up to the individual,” she said. “Our purpose in life is to put out that information as accurately and in a timely fashion so that people can make those smart decisions.”

IGLTA President John Tanzella added his organization tries to work with a particular destination through affiliated hotels and other travel-related businesses as opposed to boycotting them.

“There’s also gay and lesbian citizens everywhere that we eventually hurt,” he said.

Lisa Peterson of the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and Ken Kero-Mentz, president of Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies, also attended the roundtable.

Books: Right place, right time?

‘They Call Me a Hero: A Memoir of My Youth’
By Daniel Hernandez with Susan Goldman Rubin
Simon & Schuster
$17.99
224 pages

They Call Me a Hero, books, gay news, Washington Blade

(Image courtesy of Simon & Schuster)

The event on January 8, 2011 was supposed to be fun and informative.

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who loved interacting with her constituents, had planned a meet-and-greet that Saturday afternoon in Tucson. Daniel Hernandez, then 20 and an intern with Giffords’ office, was there to help register attendees and to do light crowd control.

Everything was going well until he heard explosions and one word: “Gun!”

Almost automatically, Hernandez headed for the stage, with Giffords first on his mind. With barely a pause, he pressed his hand against her wound to slow the bleeding, an action that may have saved her life. He comforted her and rode with her in the ambulance to the hospital.

In his new book “They Call Me a Hero” (with Susan Goldman Rubin), Hernandez says there’s nothing heroic about his actions.

Years before, as a child, Hernandez had wanted to be a doctor. He was a good student in school and was teased for his bookishness and for being gay. Undaunted, he stayed true to himself and sought classes and training for a future medical career.

He blames his “obsession” with politics on Hillary Clinton. He became fascinated by her run for the White House and volunteered to work for her campaign, a love that extended to his college years, the friends he sought and, later, to a desire to serve others in a political career that also allowed him to do motivational speaking.

On that January day in 2011, though, Hernandez was just an intern. His future, he hoped, would be spent serving others through volunteering.

But he was destined to become a hero first.

There are a lot of bumps in “They Call Me a Hero,” starting with the subtitle (“A Memoir of My Youth”).

Authors Hernandez and Susan Goldman Rubin don’t include a whole lot about Hernandez’s youth; instead, the vast majority of this memoir is about that one day in Tucson, the whirlwind of media attention afterward and Hernandez’s subsequent political activities.

There’s also an awful lot of back-patting here.

To the good, however, this book may loudly urge teens to give of themselves to better their worlds. With an overwhelming record of achievements, Hernandez is a tornado of service to others and he makes volunteerism seem fun, almost like a community in itself. That may spur young readers to mobilize.

Indeed, the intended audience for this book is 12-to-18-year-olds but there’s certainly no reason adults can’t enjoy it as well. If you can look beyond the bumps and boasting in “They Call Me a Hero,” you may find a hunk of inspiration, too.

EXCLUSIVE: Zimbabwean LGBT activist visits D.C.

Gay News, Washington Blade, Gay Zimbabwe

Photo courtesy of GALZ

A Zimbabwean LGBT rights advocate told the Washington Blade during an exclusive interview in D.C. earlier this month he expects his country’s government to once again crack down on gay rights groups ahead of July’s presidential elections.

“I am told President Robert Mugabe’s party, ZANU-PF, is going to use the issue of homosexuality as one of their campaign tools,” the activist, who asked the Blade not to publish his name because he remains afraid of potential reprisals against him, said. He added his brother and most other Zimbabweans who oppose Mugabe will ultimately vote for him because of his strong opposition to homosexuality. “I strongly believe that they will use this issue to threaten the LGBT people in Zimbabwe. And they will do everything in their power to make sure that LGBT people are punished.”

The activist, who is a member of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe, which a group of gay white Zimbabweans founded in 1990 as a support organization, spoke to the Blade ahead of a scheduled March 16 referendum on a new constitution that includes an amendment that specifically bans same-sex marriage.

The State Department last August criticized the Zimbabwean government’s crackdown on LGBT rights activists after police arrested 44 GALZ members inside the group’s office in Harare, the country’s capital. The organization said authorities confiscated computers and pamphlets from the same office a few days earlier.

The activist said he received death threats after the Blade published a story on the State Department’s response to the raid. He fled to neighboring South Africa where he remained for more than a month.

“It was difficult because I was not doing what I was supposed to do when I was home,” he said. “So I went back.”

Mugabe in 1995 described gay men and lesbians who showcased at the annual International Book Festival in Harare as “dogs and pigs.” Former President Canaan Banana three years later received a 10 year prison sentence after his conviction on 11 charges of sodomy, attempted sodomy and indecent assault against his former male employees.

The activist said Zimbabweans had been reluctant to publicly discuss homosexuality until Mugabe’s 1995 speech.

“President Mugabe was the first person in Zimbabwe to castigate the gay people and the lesbians,” he said.

Aside from the State Department, Amnesty International and other international human rights organizations have criticized the Zimbabwean government for cracking down on LGBT advocacy groups.

Peter Tatchell and two other British gay activists in 1999 tried to arrest Mugabe as his car drove through the streets of London during a personal shopping trip. He once again tried to detain the Zimbabwean president inside a Brussels hotel in 2001, but his security guards beat him.

Mugabe routinely criticizes the British government and Prime Minister David Cameron, who has previously suggested the allocation of international aid should hinge upon a country’s LGBT rights record. The activist stressed he has not heard Mugabe “state anything against” President Obama.

He also applauded former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for urging the Zimbabwean government to end its crackdown on GALZ.

“To us that was a very powerful statement coming from this country,” he said, noting he feels Mugabe heeded the warning. “That was the time when our members were arrested. That was the time when our members were being followed to their homes. It just stopped miraculously because soon after that no one was arrested.”

As for GALZ, its mission continues.

The organization’s Harare office reopened to staff last month.

GALZ, which has close to 2,000 members across the country, also continues to host HIV/AIDS workshops in Bulawayo.

“When they raid our offices they think they are going to find pornographic materials,” the activist said. “When they come in there, they find it is a resource center. People are busy working.”

Hillary Clinton comes out for marriage equality

Hillary Clinton, Department of State, GLIFAA, Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies, gay news, Washington Blade

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came out for marriage equality on Monday in an HRC video (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Bringing an end to her previous silence on the issue, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made public her support for marriage equality in an online video posted on Monday.

“LGBT Americans are our colleagues, our teachers, our soldiers our friends, our loved ones — and they are full and equal citizens and deserve the rights of citizenship,” Clinton says in the video. “That includes marriage. That’s why I support for marriage for lesbian and gay couples. I support it personally and as a matter of policy and law embedded in a broader effort to advance equality and opportunity for LGBT Americans and all Americans.”

In the video made for the Human Rights Campaign as part of its “Americans for Marriage Equality” Series, Clinton says her views have been “shaped over time” by conversations and by her faith — a process similar to what President Obama articulated when he came for marriage equality last year.

“Marriage, after all, is a fundamental building block of our society, a great joy, and, yes, a great responsibility,” Clinton says.

Clinton, who’s seen as contender for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, was one the last remaining prominent members of her party who hadn’t yet articulated support for marriage equality. Others who came before her include her husband former President Bill Clinton, as well as Republicans such as former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio).

Her last public statement on same-sex marriage as a policy matter was in November 2010 during a forum with students in Australia. At the time, Clinton said on the issue, “I have not supported same-sex marriage. I’ve supported civil partnerships and contractual relationships.”

Later, at a Pride celebration at the State Department in June 2011, Clinton talked about the excitement of the recent passed same-sex marriage law in New York without officially endorsing marriage equality.

Both those events took place before her boss at the time, Obama, had himself come out in favor of same-sex marriage.

LGBT rights supporters had high praise for Clinton’s announcement, which comes on the heels of a term as secretary of state in which she was renowned for speaking in out in favor of LGBT rights overseas.

Among them was HRC President Chad Griffin, who said Clinton’s support for marriage equality represents the evolution of many Americans on the issue.

“Secretary Clinton is like millions of everyday Americans who have reflected on the issue of marriage equality and come to the conclusion that we must treat others as we would like to be treated,” Griffin said. “It is the golden rule that is moving our country inexorably toward marriage for gay and lesbian couples.”

Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, expressed a similar sentiment.

“Freedom to Marry welcomes Sec. Clinton’s support alongside so many Americans who, like her, have made a journey of opening hearts and changing minds to stand up for American values of fairness, inclusion, and dignity for loving and committed couples,” Wolfson said.

On Monday under questioning from the Associated Press, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said he was unaware if the Obama administration had any prior knowledge that Clinton would make the announcement.

“I can tell you that the president believes that anytime a public official of stature steps forward to embrace a commitment that he shares to equality for LGBT Americans, he thinks it’s a good thing,” Carney said. “I haven’t spoken to him about Secretary Clinton’s announcement, but I know that that’s what he feels in general when major figures in our society make their views known, and it’s a testimony to how far this country and how quickly this country has traveled, as he has said.

Watch the video here:

Poll: 58 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage

Supreme Court, gay news, Washington Blade

The U.S. Supreme Court next week will hear oral arguments in two gay marriage cases. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows 58 percent of Americans now support marriage rights for same-sex couples.

Eighty-one percent of respondents under 30 said they support nuptials for gays and lesbians, compared to only 44 percent of seniors. The survey also found 72 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of independents back nuptials for gays and lesbians.

Thirty-four percent of Republican respondents support same-sex marriage, but this figure jumps to 52 percent among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents who are between 18-49.

The latest survey notes nearly three-quarters of liberals and moderates said they back nuptials for same-sex couples. Only 33 percent of conservative respondents said they support marriage rights for gays and lesbians, but this figure is 23 points higher than in 2004.

The poll further notes same-sex marriage support among all demographics has dramatically increased over the last nine years.

“There can be no doubt that this country is on a one-way road to marriage for loving and committed gay and lesbian couples,” Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin said. “This new poll reflects the continued evolution of people’s attitudes through thoughtful conversations over dinner tables and water coolers.”

ABC News and the Washington Post released the poll on the same day HRC unveiled a video in which former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endorses same-sex marriage.

The U.S. Supreme Court next week will hear oral arguments in two cases that challenge the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act.

The survey noted 64 percent of respondents said the issue of marriage rights for same-sex couples “should be decided for all states on the basis of the U.S. Constitution.” More than two-thirds of Democrats, independents, liberals and moderates said the Constitution should determine the outcome of the cases.

Fifty-six percent of conservatives and 54 percent of Republicans support the aforementioned position.

“This latest poll underscores America’s dramatic and stunning embrace of the freedom to marry, and says to decision-makers—lawmakers, judges, and even justices—that it is time to end marriage discrimination,” Freedom to Marry President Evan Wolfson said. “With a super-majority of Americans now supporting the freedom to marry, and majority support in nearly every segment of the public, the freedom to marry’s time has, indeed, come.”

Video: Hillary Clinton backs gay marriage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RP9pbKMJ7c

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton finally steps into the gay marriage fray explains why she supports marriage equality for lesbian and gay couples.

Cartoon: Hillary 2016?

Hillary 2016 comic

“I’ve got a few thousand of these to recycle!”

A look ahead at an intriguing 2013

As we welcome the New Year we can be sure that there will be a Supreme Court decision on our right to marry. We know the justices agreed to hear two cases: one on DOMA Section 3 and the other on California’s Proposition 8. Everyone and their uncle will be dissecting these cases and trying to predict an outcome. Lawyers will be giving us every possible scenario on each of them until the day the decision is rendered, which will most likely be the last possible day in June.

As a layman I see the court upholding the right to marry in California and overturning Section 3 of DOMA, with both decisions based on states’ rights. This seems to be the simplest thing for them to do if they are not prepared to take the final step and decide that under the 14th Amendment, same-sex marriages are protected by the Constitution. Of course, hope springs eternal that they will agree to invalidate all those obscene state constitutional amendments claiming that marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

Setting aside the jokes made after Colorado and Washington State legalized marijuana and people said they now understood the Bible where it says, “if man lies down with man they must be stoned,” the reality is that these anti-marriage equality amendments were passed because people wouldn’t acknowledge the fact that marriage in the United States is a civil right, not a religious one. It is granted in a license by the state and the decision to follow that up with a religious ceremony is a personal one. I am not convinced the court is willing to tell all those people they are wrong just yet. That feeling is heightened when listening to Ruth Bader Ginsburg say she thinks the court may have ruled on Roe v. Wade before the country was ready for it. But then it is nearly impossible to predict what the court will do, as we saw in the decision on the Affordable Care Act.

Congress should be able to move on some social legislation in 2013 — possibly a fair and equitable immigration bill and maybe with Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) in the Senate even ENDA can move if we put enough pressure on the Congress. Surely in the first quarter of 2013 we can put enough pressure on the president to sign an executive order banning discrimination in federal contracting.

There will be more than enough happening in 2013 to keep us all talking and debating. Anyone in Dupont Circle should feel free to stop by the Java House coffee shop on 17th and ‘Q’ Street any morning to partake in a conversation/debate. Patrons there have fun anticipating the possible Hillary Clinton run in 2016 and analyze everything she does or says from a new haircut to talk of buying a new house to where she will accept speaking engagements to see how it might play into a candidacy. Speculation on what President Obama will do after his second term began even before the term has begun. Topics of conversation will surely include continued fascination with Michelle Obama’s wardrobe and guessing games over new Cabinet members, ambassadors and high-level appointments in the White House. Since your opinion is as valid as anyone else’s sitting at the table, feel free to join in the fun.

The more serious issues that will play out in 2013 include what happens in Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Israel and to the Palestinian people. How many more people will lose their lives as these fights continue? Most agree that 2013 will not see the end of the turmoil in any of those places but we can and must pray that our leaders will find equitable solutions that will allow people to live in peace.

As we rejoice at the swearing in of the new Congress, especially members like Sen. Baldwin, and bid adieu to others like Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) we must all remain vigilant and active if we are to advance the causes we believe in. As the president is sworn in to his second term we must continue to pressure him to stay strong in moving a progressive agenda forward as we stand strong at his side and pressure the members of Congress to do the same.

2013 could become one of the most exciting political years in a long time. We will surely be able to claim some victories if each and every one of us remains involved and continues to speak out for what we believe.

USAID launches partnership to promote LGBT rights

Chuck Wolfe, gay news, gay politics dc, Victory Fund

Victory Institute President Chuck Wolfe is among those who attended Monday’s announcement. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The U.S. Agency for International Development on Monday unveiled a public-private partnership designed to promote LGBT rights around the world.

USAID will work with the Swedish International Development Corporation Agency, the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, the Gay and Lesbian Victory Institute, the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law and Olivia Companies on the LGBT Global Development Partnership that will contribute $11 million over the next four years to advocacy groups in Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala and other developing countries. The Gill Foundation and the Levi Strauss Foundation will also participate in the initiative that seeks to expand the capacity of local LGBT rights organizations, further engage out people in their respective countries’ political processes and gather information on the impact of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.

“This partnership leverages the financial resources and skills of each partner to further inclusive development and increase respect for the human rights of LGBT people around the world,” Claire Lucas, senior advisor of the USAID Office of Innovation and Development Alliances during a panel at the Ronald Reagan Building in D.C. “It can be a real game-changer in the advancement of LGBT human rights.”

Anne-Charlotte Malm of the Swedish International Development Corporation Agency echoed Lucas.

“We all, by being here today, share the common vision of a society without discrimination or harassment and equal rights and opportunities for everybody regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression,” she said. “This partnership is a step towards this tradition.”

More than 80 countries and territories continue to criminalize homosexuality — and seven of them impose the death penalty upon anyone found guilty of same-sex sexual relations.

Only 19 countries ban anti-transgender discrimination — the State Department has spoken out against anti-LGBT violence in Honduras, Jamaica, Uganda, Zimbabwe and other nations in recent years.

Argentina, Canada, Spain and South Africa are among the dozen countries that currently allow same-sex marriage.

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2011 proclaimed in a speech she delivered in Geneva to commemorate International Human Rights Day that “gay rights are human rights.” President Obama on the same day directed government agencies that implement American foreign policy to promote LGBT rights in the countries in which they work.

The planning for the partnership was already underway when the White House issued its directive, but Lucas said it “really helped us push this over the finish line.”

“I’m humbled by the challenges that you have faced and the sorrows and traumas you’re still sorting out,” Maura O’Neill, director of USAID’s Office of Innovation and Development Alliances, told the LGBT rights advocates and others who attended the panel. “I’m awed by the amazing lives that each and every one of you have created and the path you have called your own. This partnership will help millions of others walk in your proud shoes.”

Victory Institute, Astraea to train out Colombian officials

The partnership’s first training will take place in Bogotá, Colombia, from May 30-June 2.

The Victory Institute and Astraea will work with Colombia Diversa, a countrywide advocacy group, to encourage LGBT Colombians to become involved in the political process. Bogotá City Councilor Angelica Lozano; Blanca Durán, mayor of the Colombian capital’s Chapinero district and Tatiana Piñeros, a trans woman whom Bogotá Mayor Gustavo Petro appointed last year to run the city’s social welfare agency are among those expected to attend.

“We’re pretty excited about this and thrilled that we get to be out there helping LGBT leaders in other countries,” Victory Institute CEO Chuck Wolfe said.

He further cited U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) as an example of the impact he said an out elected official can have among their constituents and their country’s political discourse.

“That civic engagement we know changes the discussion,” Wolfe said as he further discussed what he described as the trainings’ long-lasting impact. “It changes everybody’s understanding of who we are as people and it changes the nature of the debate.”