Michael K. Lavers

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Harris meets with LGBTQ activists in Vietnam

Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday met with two LGBTQ rights activists in Vietnam. Harris’ office said Chu Thanh Hà Ngoc, a transgender activist, and Đoàn Thanh Tùng, an LGBTQ advocate, participated in a “roundtable discussion with the vice president and Vietnamese social advocacy organizations” that took place at the U.S. Chief of Mission’s home in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital. “It is critical that if we are to take on the challenges we face that we do it in a way that is collaborative, that we must empower leaders in every sector, including of course government but community leaders, business […]

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Harris meets with Guatemala LGBTQ, HIV/AIDS activists

Two members of Guatemalan civil society who work with the LGBTQ community and people with HIV/AIDS participated in a roundtable with Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday. Visibles Executive Director Daniel Villatoro and Ingrid Gamboa of the Association of Garifuna Women Living with HIV/AIDS are among the 18 members of Guatemalan civil society who participated in the roundtable that took place at a Guatemala City university. Rigoberta Menchú, an indigenous human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, is among those who also took part. Villatoro is among those who attended a virtual roundtable with Harris on April 27. “When we […]

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Family of Transgender Woman who Died in ICE Custody Files Federal Lawsuit

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The family of a transgender woman with HIV who died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in 2018 has filed a federal lawsuit against five private companies that were responsible for her care. The Transgender Law Center and two immigration lawyers — Daniel Yohalem in Santa Fe., N.M., and R. Andrew Free in Nashville — filed the lawsuit on Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico. Management and Training Corporation, LaSalle Corrections, Global Precision Systems, TransCor America and CoreCivic are named as defendants. Hernández, who was from Honduras, entered U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody on May […]

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International AIDS Conference to Happen Virtually because of Coronavirus

Organizers of the 2020 International AIDS Conference on Friday announced the event will be held virtually because of the coronavirus. The conference was scheduled to take place in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., from July 6-10. International AIDS Society President Anton Pozniak and the conference’s two U.S. co-chairs, Cynthia Carey-Grant and Monica Gandhi, in a statement said the virtual conference “will enable delegates to access and engage with the latest HIV science, advocacy and knowledge traditionally presented at the conference.” “It will be a compelling combination of virtual sessions and community networking, including exhibitions, workshops, the Global Village, satellites and […]

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Immigration Equality Demands ICE Release Detainees with HIV

Immigration Equality on Monday demanded U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement release detainees with HIV who are at increased risk for coronavirus. Immigration Equality in a complaint it sent to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties notes the six men who are named as complainants are at higher risk for coronavirus, in part, because of inadequate health care that includes inconsistent access to antiretroviral drugs and a failure to adequately treat opportunistic infections. The men are currently detained at the Winn and Richwood Correctional Centers in Louisiana, IAH Secure Adult Detention Facility in Texas and La Palma […]

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Coronavirus Leaves Migrants along Mexico-U.S. Border even more Vulnerable

Advocates along the Mexico-U.S. border say they are increasingly concerned about the coronavirus’ impact on migrants. Jaime Antonio Marin Rocha and his mother, Yolanda Rocha, run Jardín de las Mariposas, a shelter for LGBTQ migrants in the Mexican border city of Tijuana. Marin told the Washington Blade on Thursday during a telephone interview from Tijuana the shelter has implemented new personal hygiene procedures. Marin said the shelter currently has enough cleaning supplies, “but we don’t have anything that would be for long-term like four months or six months if we have to self-isolate ourselves.” Marin also said 90 percent of the shelter’s […]

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Nicaragua LGBTQ Activist Tortured after Arrest

A well-known LGBTQ activist in Nicaragua who was arrested last September says he was tortured while in custody. Ulises Rivas on Monday said members of Nicaragua’s National Police on Sept. 1, 2019, arrived at his niece’s volleyball game in Comalapa, a town in the country’s Chontales department that is roughly 75 miles east of the Nicaraguan capital of Managua, and arrested him because “they had an arrest warrant.”  A source with whom the Washington Blade spoke after Rivas’ arrest said he had been accused of robbing a woman. Rivas sent the Blade a screenshot of a message posted to a pro-government Facebook […]

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Bahamas LGBTI Activists Contribute to Hurricane Dorian Relief Efforts

LGBTI activists in the Bahamas have joined efforts to help victims of Hurricane Dorian in their country. Alexus D’Marco, executive director of the D’Marco Organization, on Friday told the Washington Blade her organization is providing support to people who are now living in shelters in the Bahamian capital of Nassau and assessing the specific needs they may have. D’Marco and her colleagues are also tracking missing people and reporting them to Bahamas’ National Emergency Management Agency. D’Marco, who is also the executive director of the Bahamas Organization of LGBTI Affairs, noted the Rustin Fund for Global Equality and the Caribbean […]

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Gay Chechen Man with HIV Seeks Asylum in US

A gay man from Chechnya with HIV who asked the Washington Blade not to reveal his identity was leaving a gay bar in Moscow on May 13, 2018, when a group of six men approached him and attacked him. A video from a nearby surveillance camera that he saved to his cell phone shows one of the men punching him in the face.  “He hit me right in the eye,” the man told the Blade on April 23 during an emotional interview in Dupont Circle. “People were standing right here.” The man, who spoke to the Blade through a gay […]

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House Judiciary Committee Passes Equality Act

The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday approved a bill that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to federal civil rights laws. The Equality Act, which U.S. Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in March, passed the committee by a 22-10 vote margin with all Republican committee members voting against it. The openly gay Rhode Island Democrat in a statement after the vote said “fairness and equality are core American values.” “This bill affirms those values and ensures members of the LGBTQ community can live their lives free from the fear of legal discrimination of any kind,” […]

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