World
USAID seeks to bolster LGBTQ rights efforts in Colombia
LGBTQ-inclusive peace agreement took effect in 2016
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — The director of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Colombia mission says he and his colleagues remain committed to the implementation of the country’s LGBTQ-inclusive peace agreement.
“The entire portfolio that we have and all of our work here in Colombia is really to support a durable and an inclusive piece,” Larry Sacks told the Washington Blade on Sept. 21 during an interview in Bogotá, the Colombian capital. “The core principles of what we do are based on equality, inclusion, rights and justice.”
The agreement then-President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Commander Rodrigo “Timochenko” Londoño signed in Cartagena on Sept. 26, 2016, specifically acknowledged LGBTQ Colombians as victims of the decades-long conflict that killed more than 200,000 people. The accord also called for their participation in the country’s political process.
Wilson Castañeda, director of Caribe Afirmativo, an LGBTQ group in northern Colombia with which USAID works, is one of three activists who participated in the peace talks that took place in Havana.
Colombian voters on Oct. 2, 2016, narrowly rejected the agreement in a referendum that took place against the backdrop of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric from religious and conservative groups. Santos and Londoño less than two months later signed a second peace agreement — which also contains LGBTQ-specific references — in Bogotá.
“That was a very progressive move,” said Sacks in describing the inclusion of LGBTQ Colombians in the agreement.
President Iván Duque, who campaigned against the agreement ahead of his 2018 election, spoke to the U.N. General Assembly hours before the Blade interviewed Sacks. Duque described it as “fragile.”
“Peace accords worldwide tend to be made or broken within the first five years of implementation, and Colombia is right at that point,” Sacks told the Blade when asked about Duque’s comments. “There are certain people deep in the territories and others and high governments who are really helping and making sure that it’s successful, and that there’s continuity, and that the gains that have been made are irreversible. And there’s others who may question, but at the end of the day, I think that from our analysis, it’s on pace with what we’ve seen of the implementation of other peace accords worldwide.”
“At least from USAID’s perspective, we’re doing everything that we can to help support the implementation on multiple chapters of the peace accord,” he added.
USAID specifically supports the implementation of rural development programs through the agreement, efforts to reintegrate former child soldiers into Colombian society and expand the government’s presence into “violence-affected areas.” USAID also works with the Truth Commission, the Unit for the Search of Disappeared Persons, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, the government’s Victims’ Unit and NGOs that support the conflict’s victims.
USAID’s fiscal year 2021 budget for Colombia is $212.9 million. Upwards of $50 million of this money is earmarked for human rights work that specifically focuses on indigenous Colombians and Colombians of African descent, security, access to the country’s justice system and victims of the conflict.
More than 200 LGBTQ Colombians reported murdered in 2020
Sacks said USAID’s LGBTQ-specific work in Colombia focuses on four specific areas.
“The first is really to kind of shine a light on, raise the visibility, raise the profile on issues of discrimination and violence and stigma and all the issues that this population is facing,” he said.
Colombia Diversa, a Colombian LGBTQ rights group, on Sept. 15 issued a report that notes 226 LGBTQ people were reported murdered in the country in 2020. This figure is more than twice the number of LGBTQ Colombians — 107 — who Colombia Diversa said were known to have been killed in 2019.
Sacks acknowledged anti-LGBTQ violence is increasing in Colombia.
He said the mission works with Ombudsman’s Office of Colombia, an independent agency within the Colombian government that oversees human rights protections in the country, to provide additional support to LGBTQ rights groups. Sacks noted USAID also works with the Interior Ministry to “support the development of their LGBTQI-plus policies” and the country’s attorney general “to hold those accountable.”
Sacks told the Blade that USAID also works to provide “technical and legal support to help” LGBTQ Colombians and other vulnerable groups “access public goods, services and justice.”
USAID-supported groups assist Venezuelan migrants
The Colombian government earlier this year said there were more than 1.7 million Venezuelan migrants in the country, although activists and HIV/AIDS service providers with whom the Blade has spoken say this figure is likely much higher. Duque in February announced it would legally recognize Venezuelan migrants who are registered with the country’s government.
The Coordination Platform for Migrants and Refugees from Venezuela notes upwards of 5.4 million Venezuelans have left the country as of November 2020 as its economic and political crisis grows worse. The majority of them have sought refuge in Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Chile.
Venezuelan migrants are among the upwards of 570,000 people who have benefitted from a USAID program that provides direct cash assistance — between $49-$95 per family — for six months in order to purchase food and other basic needs. USAID also supports Americares, a Connecticut-based NGO that operates several clinics along the Colombia-Venezuelan border and in northern Colombia that specifically serve Venezuelan migrants with the support of the Colombian Health Ministry.
Sacks noted USAID has an “agreement with” Aid for AIDS International, a New York-based group that serves Venezuelans with HIV/AIDS. Aid for AIDS International has used this support to conduct a survey of 300 sex workers in Maicao, Medellín and Cali.
USAID is also working with the Health Ministry to provide health care to Venezuelan migrants with HIV/AIDS, among others, who are now legally recognized in Colombia.
Caribe Afirmativo has opened three “Casas Afirmativos” in Maicao, Barranquilla and Medellín that provide access to health care and other services to Venezuelan migrants who are LGBTQ and/or living with HIV/AIDS. Medellín officials have also invited Caribe Afirmativo staffers to speak with LGBTQ migrants in the city’s public schools.
“Colombia has shown a generosity that you don’t see in many other countries with regard to migrant populations,” Sacks told the Blade. “They really open their borders, their homes, their hearts, to migrants, including the LGBTI community.”
Biden global LGBTQ rights memo is ‘tremendous benefit’
The White House earlier this year released a memorandum that committed the U.S. to promoting LGBTQ rights abroad. State Department spokesperson Ned Price in May told the Blade the protection of LGBTQ migrants and asylum seekers is one of the Biden administration’s priorities on this front.
Sacks said the memo “gives us the political framework with which to operate and obviously sends a message from the highest levels of the U.S. government about LGBTQI-plus rights and equality and inclusion.”
“So for us, it’s a tremendous benefit,” he told the Blade.
USAID Administrator Samantha Power — a vocal champion of LGBTQ rights — has yet to visit Colombia, but Sacks said she has spoken with Vice President Marta Lucía Ramírez.
“We hope to get her down,” said Sacks.
Editor’s note: Michael K. Lavers was on assignment in Colombia from Sept. 11-22.
India
Iran war causes condom shortage in India
Trade disruptions have strained petrochemicals, lubricant supplies
About 80 days into the U.S.-Iran war, while much of the world struggles with oil supplies, India is confronting a different crisis: a widening condom shortage. Health activists warn the supply disruption could worsen HIV/AIDS risks in the world’s most populous country.
Disruptions in maritime trade through the Strait of Hormuz have strained supplies of petrochemicals and industrial lubricants used in condom manufacturing. The crisis has increased production costs across the sector and pushed retail prices sharply higher.
India’s condom manufacturing industry is valued at nearly $1 billion.
Production depends heavily on silicone oil and ammonia. Silicone oil, a key lubricant used in manufacturing, is in short supply. Ammonia, which stabilizes raw latex, is expected to see price increases of 40-50 percent. Rising packaging costs have added further pressure. Some manufacturers and retailers have reported condom prices increasing by as much as 50 percent.
India is home to an estimated 2.5 million people living with HIV, the world’s second-largest population of HIV-positive people, according to a 2024 report. The Health Ministry’s India HIV Estimation 2025 technical report said 5.4 percent of HIV cases in 2024-2025 were linked to transmission between men who have sex with men.
In 2024, India recorded an estimated 64,470 new HIV infections and 32,160 AIDS-related deaths nationwide. The figures marked declines of 48.69 percent and 81.42 percent, respectively, compared with 2010.
Ankit Bhuptani, an LGBTQ activist in India, told the Washington Blade that the country has made significant progress in reducing HIV infections over the past two decades. But, he said, that progress depended heavily on affordable condoms, targeted outreach programs and on-the-ground work by NGOs serving MSM and transgender people.
“Pull one thread and the whole thing loosens. What worries me about this particular shortage is that it arrives at exactly the moment when India’s LGBTQ community was beginning to access healthcare more openly after the Section 377 reading down,” said Bhuptani. “Young queer Indians in tier-two cities were just starting to trust government health systems enough to engage with them. A price spike that prices them out, or a shortage that sends them to substandard alternatives, could set that trust back by years.”
The Indian Supreme Court in 2018 struck down Section 377, a colonial-era law that criminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations.
In March, the Commerce and Industry Ministry acknowledged the difficulties faced by Indian exporters due to disruptions caused by the war in West Asia and launched a roughly $51.5 million Resilience and Logistics Intervention for Export Facilitation, or RELIEF, program. It provides credit insurance support for exporters whose shipments have been stranded because of the conflict.
“Price elasticity in sexual health products is brutal. When a condom pack goes from 20 rupees to 40, usage drops. It’s that simple,” said Bhuptani. “And when usage drops in populations with higher baseline HIV exposure, you don’t see the consequences for two or three years. Then the numbers arrive and everyone acts surprised.”
The situation has been further aggravated by the structure of India’s condom market, which operates on a high-volume, low-margin model designed to keep products affordable for a population of more than 1.4 billion people. Industry analysts say that model is now under growing pressure from rising raw material and shipping costs.
Reports in Indian media said supply constraints and price volatility involving PVC foil, aluminium foil, and packaging materials have disrupted production and complicated order fulfilment across parts of the condom manufacturing sector.
“Supply chain vulnerability assessments almost never include sexual health commodities. They should. India imports roughly 86 percent of its anhydrous ammonia from West Asian countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman, with that ammonia being essential for stabilizing the natural rubber latex used in domestic condom production,” said Bhuptani. “That is a documented strategic dependency that was never flagged as a risk. The Iran war converted it from a latent vulnerability into an active supply shock in a matter of weeks.”
The National AIDS Control Organization, or NACO, which oversees India’s HIV/AIDS programs, during the 2026-2027 fiscal year received an allocation of about $249 million, up from roughly $238 million the previous year. By comparison, the U.S. approved a $6 billion funding package in 2026 for global HIV/AIDS programs, according to the United Nations.
“The gay and trans community in India report high perceived HIV risk and adopted PrEP through non-profit and private channels, with cost and access remaining consistent concerns,” said Bhuptani. “The community organizations managing that risk perception are now operating in a tighter supply environment while simultaneously absorbing the downstream effects of USAID funding cuts. Health workers seeing increased anxiety among community members are observing the predictable consequence of removing redundancy from a system that had very little to begin with.”
The Washington Blade reached out to Indian condom manufacturer Manforce several times, but the company declined to comment.
Harish Iyer, an LGBTQ and equal rights activist in India, told the Blade that this is the time when the government needs to step in. Condoms, Iyer said, are not about pleasure, but about life.
“Not just in terms of HIV, it is also a source of contraception in a nation which is heavily populated. So, if there is a crisis in the condom industry, it has an adverse effect on the LGBTQ community,” said Iyer. “And eventually it has a compounding effect on the economy as well. Because if the cases of HIV wrecks to rise, if the population was to explode, it is going to have a straining effect on the economy as well. So, I think it is time that the government steps in, and condoms should be recorded as a necessity commodity rather than making it feel like any kind of commodity that some (privileged people) can afford.”
Iyer told the Blade that the government should provide condoms free of cost.
He pointed to the Nirodh Scheme, India’s long-running family planning and safe sex program launched by the government in 1968. Condoms, Iyer said, are a necessity, not a luxury product. He urged the government to classify them as essential items and either remove the Goods and Services Tax or reduce it to a minimum.
The Nirodh Scheme was launched by the Health and Family Welfare Ministry to promote contraception and prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, through the nationwide distribution of subsidized and free condoms.
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).
Cuba
Cuba marks IDAHOBiT amid heightened tensions with U.S.
Energy crisis, fears of military intervention overshadow events
International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia commemorations took place in Cuba against the backdrop of increased tensions between the country and the U.S.
Mariela Castro, the daughter of former Cuban President Raúl Castro who is the director of the country’s National Center for Sexual Education, spoke at a Havana press conference on May 13. Mariela Castro, who is a member of Cuba’s National Assembly, also participated in an IDAHOBiT gala that took place in the Cuban capital on May 14.
CENESEX organized an IDAHOBiT event in Havana on Sunday. The group this month also put together panels and other gatherings.
‘Love is law’
IDAHOBiT commemorates the World Health Organization’s declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder on May 17, 1990.
This year’s IDAHOBiT theme was “At the Heart of Democracy.” CENESEX-organized IDAHOBiT events took place under the “Love is Law” banner.
“On this day we remember diversity is wealth and equality is a right that does not allow exceptions,” said Cuba’s National Office of Statistics and Information on Sunday. “To say ‘no’ to homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia is to affirm Cuba is being built around the inclusion, the dignity, and the recognition of all people.”
Mariela Castro’s uncle, Fidel Castro, in the years after the 1959 Cuban revolution sent thousands of gay men and others deemed unfit for military service to labor camps known as Military Units to Aid Production.
His government forcibly quarantined people living with HIV/AIDS in state-run sanitaria until 1993. Fidel Castro in 2010 formally apologized for the labor camps, which are known by the Spanish acronym UMAP.
His brother, Raúl Castro, succeeded him as Cuba’s president in 2008. Fidel Castro died in 2016.
The Cuban constitution bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, among other factors. Authorities, however, routinely harass and detain activists who publicly criticize the government. (The Cuban government in 2019 detained this reporter for several hours at Havana’s José Martí International Airport after he tried to enter the country to cover IDAHOBIT events. Officials then allowed him to board a flight back to the U.S.)
Same-sex couples have been able to marry on the island since 2022.
Cuba’s national health care system has offered free sex-reassignment surgeries since 2008. Activists who are critical of Mariela Castro and/or CENESEX have previously told the Washington Blade that access to these procedures is limited.
Lawmakers in 2025 amended Cuba’s Civil Registry Law to allow transgender people to legally change the gender marker on their ID documents without surgery.
Federal prosecutors to reportedly indict former Cuban president
American forces on Jan. 3 seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, during an overnight operation.
Venezuela after Maduro’s ouster stopped oil shipments to Cuba. That, combined with a U.S. energy blockade, has caused widespread blackouts and a severe fuel shortage that has paralyzed the country.
Federal prosecutors are reportedly planning to indict Raúl Castro over his alleged role in the 1996 shooting down of four planes that Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based Cuban exile group, operated over the Florida Straits that separate Cuba and the Florida Keys. The Associated Press notes Raúl Castro, who is 94, was Cuba’s defense minister when the incident took place.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe on May 14 met with Raúl Castro’s grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, and other Cuban officials in Havana.
Axios on Sunday reported Cuba “has acquired” more than 300 drones and is preparing to use them to attack Guantánamo Bay, a U.S. naval base on the island’s southern coast, and other targets that include Key West, Fla., which is less than 100 miles north of the Communist country. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said Cuba is “not a threat, nor does it have aggressive plans or intentions against any country.”
“Cuba, which is already suffering from a multidimensional aggression by the U.S., does indeed have the absolute and legitimate right to defend itself against a military onslaught. This cannot, however, be logically or honestly be wielded as an excuse to wage war against the noble Cuban people.”
Las amenazas de agresión militar contra #Cuba de la mayor potencia del planeta son conocidas.
Ya la amenaza constituye un crimen internacional. De materializarse, provocará un baño de sangre de consecuencias incalculables, más el impacto destructivo para la paz y la estabilidad…
— Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (@DiazCanelB) May 18, 2026
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