Kenyan President William Ruto is facing backlash for backing U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order that recognizes only two genders: Male and female.

Ruto’s support for Trump’s decision to ban transgender people from serving in the U.S. military and competing on women’s sports teams has drawn criticism from human rights defenders, lawmakers, lawyers, and intersex activists.

Ruto’s critics cite Kenya’s 2022 landmark decision to officially recognize intersex people as the third gender with an “I” gender marker after years of court battles for recognition and their inclusion in a national Census for the first time in 2019.

“We are very proud that contrary to what has been happening in the past, this year we got some very welcoming developments in the United States that as a leading democracy, we have gotten to understand that the policy direction of the U.S. supports what we believe in,” Ruto stated during a Jan. 26 speech at the Global Cathedral Church’s annual convention in Nairobi. “Boys must remain boys, men must remain men, women must remain women and girls must remain girls.”

Ruto’s position to side with Trump on sex and gender identity contradicts his previous stance during the Biden-Harris administration when he was cautious about speaking about transgender and queer rights in order not to jeopardize his relationship with Washington.

Trump on Jan. 21 signed an executive order that directed the U.S. federal government to only recognize male and female genders. This directive revoked the Biden-era policy that recognized trans rights and allowed trans servicemembers.

Trump on Feb. 6 signed another executive order that bans trans athletes from competing on female sports teams

“The war on women’s sports is over,” he said.   

“We’re putting every school receiving taxpayer dollars on notice that if you let men take over women’s sports teams or invade your locker rooms, you will be investigated for violations of Title IX and risk your federal funding,” Trump warned. “From now on, women’s sports will be only for women.”

His executive order relies partly on the U.S. Justice Department’s authority to bring enforcement actions under Title IX, which bars sex discrimination in education and requires schools to offer girls an equal opportunity to play sports. The law, under Trump’s interpretation, forbids trans girls from playing in girls’ sports.

Trump in 2017 banned trans people from serving openly in the U.S. military.

“We thank God that this year the first very news from the U.S. in the new administration is to confirm what the Bible says, what our faith believes in, and what our tradition firmly is grounded on,” Ruto said in his speech.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), a government-funded body, described Ruto’s comments as “embarrassing and unfortunate.”

“In Kenya, the law is very clear and the Children’s Act recognizes the intersex because they are unique persons as they have no issues based on sex identity or gender orientation,” said an intersex rights activist who asked the Washington Blade to remain anonymous. “His sentiments are likely to increase stigma against the intersex persons and if they are discriminated against, anyone will just go to court because they are also protected by the law.”

Esther Passaris, an opposition MP who represents Nairobi County, maintained there are not two sexes in Kenya.

“Let’s face it, we have intersex children with two or incomplete sexes. These children require our love as a society,” she said. “Let God deal with the genders.”

Since the recognition of intersex people, several policy measures to tackle discrimination have been implemented to ensure their protection and equal treatment. 

Kenya last week officially recognized intersex people at birth, allowing them to receive birth certificates with an “I” gender marker. The KNCHR described this decision as “a historic milestone” that aligns with the Kenyan constitution and other existing policy measures that include the Children Act and the proposed Intersex Persons Bill, 2024.

“This is a major step towards securing rights, dignity, and equal opportunities for all intersex persons in Kenya,” KNCHR stated.

KNCHR asked Kenyans, state, and non-state institutions to support awareness, policy reforms, and the inclusion of intersex people for the latest reform to be implemented successfully.

The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to freeze nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for at least 90 days has had a devastating impact on the global LGBTQ+ rights movement.

The Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights, a Washington-based group that championed LGBTQ+ and intersex rights in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America, on Feb. 1 announced it has suspended programming because it lost nearly 80 percent of its funding.

“Despite some limitations we are facing at the moment, we want to share that our commitment is unwavering,” said the organization in an email it sent to supporters on Wednesday. The message also asked them to make a donation.

Outright International, a global LGBTQ+ and intersex advocacy group, in a statement to the Los Angeles Blade said it has “had to halt direct funding and capacity-building support to LGBTIQ groups in more than 32 countries” in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

“The community-based groups we support with USAID (the U.S. Agency for International Development) funding carry out critical human rights, humanitarian and development work,” said Outright International. “This includes protecting community members from violence, providing skills training that allows LGBTIQ people to access employment and entrepreneurial opportunities, and essential services, including healthcare services.”

The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute works with Caribe Afirmativo in Colombia, Promsex in Peru, VoteLGBT in Brazil, and a number of other advocacy groups outside the U.S. LGBTQ+ Victory Institute President Elliot Imse told the Blade his organization has lost around $600,000, which is two-thirds of its entire global program budget.

“We’re scrambling to secure new funding to restore half of the amount we lost, which would allow us to make a similar impact on LGBTQ inclusion worldwide,” he said.

Equal Namibia and Namibia Pride received a $30,000 grant from USAID. Omar van Reenen, co-founder of Equal Namibia, told the Washington Blade it “was the largest grant and biggest grant on such a scale we have received.

“When we received this grant it was the first time we had substantial funding for our organization,” they said.

Van Reenen said the organizations have lost $10,000 of the original $30,000 they received from USAID.

“This means we do are back to zero funds for the organization and will need to continue our campaigns on a voluntary basis,” they told the Blade. “This comes at the worst time as we will need to challenge the new anti-same-sex marriage act passed by the president in October and the upcoming decriminalization case which the Supreme Court will hear soon.” 

The Center for Integrated Training and Research, a group known by the Spanish acronym COIN that fights the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Dominican Republic and in other countries in the Caribbean, on Feb. 6 said the funding freeze “directly affects the continuity of the free services that COIN provides to more than 2,300 patients who receive antiretroviral treatment” in the Dominican Republic.

COIN said its patients will continue to receive free antiretroviral drugs because the Dominican government provides them; but the funding freeze has forced it to suspend urology, internal medicine, and pediatric services. COIN said it will continue to provide vaccines and general medicine, gynecological, and family planning services, but “with limitations.” COIN also noted its PrEP service will continue, “but with reduced capacity.”

“In light of this situation, we urgently call upon the national and international community, strategic allies, and sectors sensitive to our cause to find solutions that allow us to continue offering these vital services,” said COIN. “The health and well-being of thousands of people depends on the solidarity and commitment of everyone.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Jan. 24 directed State Department personnel to stop nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for 90 days in response to an executive order that President Donald Trump signed after his inauguration. Rubio later issued a waiver that allows the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze. (The Blade last week reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of a lack of U.S. funding. Dozens of HIV/AIDS activists on Feb. 6 protested outside the State Department and demanded U.S. officials fully restore PEPFAR funding.)

The Trump-Vance administration is also trying to dismantle USAID.

A statement the White House issued on Feb. 3 said the organization “has been unaccountable to taxpayers as it funnels massive sums of money to the ridiculous — and, in many cases, malicious — pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats, with next-to-no oversight.” The statement also contains examples of what it described as “the waste and abuse” that include:

• $1.5 million to “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities”

• $47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Colombia

• $32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru

• $2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala

The statement links to an article the Daily Mail published on Jan. 31 that President Donald Trump “strips millions from DEI foreign aid programs funding Irish musicals, LGBTQ programs in Serbia and more.” The claim that USAID paid for “sex changes and ‘LGBT activism’ in Guatemala” appears to come from an article the Daily Caller published on Sept. 19, 2024.

Sources with whom the Blade has spoken say the White House’s claims are incorrect.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Feb. 2 welcomed efforts to dismantle USAID.

“Most governments don’t want USAID funds flowing into their countries because they understand where much of that money actually ends up,” he wrote on X. “While marketed as support for development, democracy, and human rights, the majority of these funds are funneled into opposition groups, NGOs with political agendas, and destabilizing movements.”

Most governments don’t want USAID funds flowing into their countries because they understand where much of that money actually ends up.

While marketed as support for development, democracy, and human rights, the majority of these funds are funneled into opposition groups, NGOs… pic.twitter.com/bXpdK29zH5

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) February 2, 2025

Mónica Hernández, executive director of ASPIDH Arcoíris Trans, a transgender rights group in El Salvador, spoke with the Blade last week in San Salvador, the country’s capital. Posters with USAID’s logo were on the wall inside the organization’s office.

Hernández said she learned on Jan. 27 the U.S. had suspended funding that ASPIDH Arcoíris Trans received through Freedom House and other groups that partnered with the State Department. She told the Blade that Washington cancelled the grants the following day.

“The (challenge) is to look for other funds from another institution that is not USAID, or that is not from the United States that has to go through the State Department,” she said.

Outright International told the Blade that USAID is not it’s “only source of funding,” but noted “USAID, and the U.S. government more broadly, have in recent years become an extremely important source of funding for LGBTIQ rights around the world, allowing us and our partners to expand our efforts to promote inclusive development and combat pervasive human rights violations.”

Council for Global Equality Chair Mark Bromley told the Blade the U.S. funds roughly a third of the global LGBTQ+ rights movement. Imse said the global LGBTQ rights movement is set to lose more than $50 million.

“It is a catastrophe,” he told the Blade.

Bromley added it will be “challenging, if not impossible” to fill the funding gap.

“There isn’t a short term way to fill the current funding gap,” he said. “It sets the movement back at least 10 years.”

An email sent to employees at the U.S. Department of Education on Friday explains that “programs, contracts, policies, outward-facing media, regulations, and internal practices” will be reviewed and cut in cases where they “fail to affirm the reality of biological sex.”

The move, which is of a piece with President Donald Trump’s executive orders restricting transgender rights, jeopardizes the future of initiatives at the agency like mental health services and support for students experiencing homelessness.

Along with external-facing work at the agency, the directive targets employee programs such as those administered by LGBTQ+ resource groups, in keeping with the Trump-Vance administration’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the federal government.

In recent weeks, federal agencies had begun changing their documents, policies, and websites for purposes of compliance with the new administration’s first executive action targeting the trans community, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”

For instance, the Education Department had removed a webpage offering tips for schools to better support homeless LGBTQ+ youth, noted ProPublica, which broke the news of the “sweeping” changes announced in the email to DOE staff.

According to the news service, the directive further explains the administration’s position that “The deliberate subjugation of women and girls by means of gender ideology — whether in intimate spaces, weaponized language, or American classrooms — negated the civil rights of biological females and fostered distrust of our federal institutions.”

A U.S. Senate committee hearing will be held Thursday for Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for education secretary, who has been criticized by LGBTQ+ advocacy groups. GLAAD, for instance, notes that she helped to launch and currently chairs the board of a conservative think tank that “has campaigned against policies that support transgender rights in education.”

NBC News reported on Tuesday that Trump planned to issue an executive order this week to abolish the Education Department altogether.

While the president and his conservative allies in and outside the administration have repeatedly expressed plans to disband the agency, doing so would require approval from Congress.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued another executive order taking aim at the transgender community, this time focusing on eligibility for sports participation.

In a signing ceremony for “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” in the East Room of the White House, the president proclaimed “With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over.”

Despite the insistence by Trump and Republicans that trans women and girls have a biological advantage in sports over cisgender women and girls, the research has been inconclusive, at best.

A study in the peer reviewed Sports Medicine journal found “no direct or consistent research” pointing to this conclusion. A different review in 2023 found that post-pubertal differences are “reduced, if not erased, over time by gender affirming hormone therapy.”

Other critics of efforts to exclude trans student athletes have pointed to the small number of people who are impacted. Charlie Baker, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, testified last year that fewer than 10 of the NCAA’s 522,000+ student athletes identify as trans.

The Trump-Vance administration has reversed course from the Biden-Harris administration’s policy on Title IX rules barring sex-based discrimination.

“If you’re going to have women’s sports, if you’re going to provide opportunities for women, then they have to be equally safe, equally fair, and equally private opportunities, and so that means that you’re going to preserve women’s sports for women,” a White House official said prior to the issuance of the order.

Former President Joe Biden’s Title IX rules, which went into effect last year, clarified that pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), sex-based discrimination includes that which is based on the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The White House official indicated that the administration will consider additional guidance, regulations, and interpretations of Title IX, as well as exploring options to handle noncompliance by threatening federal funding for schools and education programs.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump “does expect the Olympic Committee and the NCAA to no longer allow men to compete in women’s sports.”

One of the first legislative moves by the new Congress last month was House Republicans’ passage of the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act,” which would ban trans women and girls from participating in competitive athletics.

The bill is now before the U.S. Senate, where Republicans have a three-seat majority but would need 60 votes to overcome the filibuster.

MEXICALI, Mexico — Marlon, a 35-year-old man from Guatemala, used the CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) One app to schedule an appointment that would have allowed him to enter the U.S. at a port of entry.

His CBP One appointment was at 1 p.m. PT (4 p.m. ET) on Jan. 21 in the Mexican city of Tijuana that borders San Diego. Marlon at around 11 a.m. PT (2 p.m. ET) on Jan. 20 learned his appointment had been cancelled.

President Donald Trump took office less than two hours earlier.

“We’re stuck,” Marlon told the Los Angeles Blade on Jan. 31 during an interview at Posada del Migrante, a migrant shelter in the Mexican border city of Mexicali that Centro Comunitario de Bienestar (COBINA), a group that serves LGBTQ+ people and other vulnerable groups, runs.

The Trump-Vance administration’s immigration policies have left Marlon and many other migrants and asylum seekers — LGBTQ+ and otherwise — in limbo.

Daniela is a 20-year-old transgender woman from Tijuana who has lived at Jardín de las Mariposas, a shelter for LGBTQ+ migrants and asylum seekers in the city’s Obrera neighborhood, for a month. Jardín de las Mariposas is roughly six miles south of the Mexico-U.S. border.

She told the Blade on Jan. 29 during an interview that she was raped in Hermosillo, the capital of Mexico’s Sonora state, four months ago. Daniela said her roommate and five other people later tried to kill her when they “were drunk and on drugs.”

Daniela, like Marlon, had a CBP One appointment, but it was cancelled once Trump took office.

“I am completely alone both in Tijuana and elsewhere,” said Daniela. “I think the United States is a better option to be able to start over.”

Stephanie, a 25-year-old from El Paraíso, Honduras who identifies as a lesbian, arrived in Tijuana last July and lives at Jardín de las Mariposas.

She told the Blade her family is “very religious,” and she is the “only one in my family who is a member of the (LGBTQ+) community.” Stephanie said a cousin in Louisiana agreed to allow her to live with her once she entered in the U.S., but she refused once she saw she had cut her hair.

“I felt a bit of freedom once I arrived here in Mexico … and I decided to cut my hair because it was very long,” recalled Stephanie. “One day she did a video call and she saw my short hair and she was like I cannot receive you; I cannot receive you because what example are you going to be to my son.”

Trump, in addition to shutting down the CBP One app on Jan. 20, issued several immigration-specific executive orders after his inauguration. They include:

• Declaring a national emergency on the Southern border

• Suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program

• Ending birthright citizenship under the 14th amendment. (U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, who Ronald Reagan appointed, in a Jan. 23 ruling that temporarily blocked the directive described it as “blatantly unconstitutional.”)

Trump has reinstated the Migrant Protection Protocols program, also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy that forced asylum seekers to pursue their cases in Mexico.

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce on Tuesday said Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele during his meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio “agreed to take back all Salvadoran MS-13 gang members who are in the United States unlawfully,” and “promised to accept and incarcerate violent illegal immigrants, including members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, but also criminal illegal migrants from any country.” The Department of Homeland Security in a press release notes Tren de Aragua members were on the first U.S. military “flight of criminal aliens” that arrived at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba on Tuesday.

Jardín de Las Mariposas Director Jamie Marín on Jan. 29 told the Blade that Trump’s policies have sparked “a lot of fear.”

She said some of the shelter’s residents who had their CBP One appointments cancelled have either returned to their countries of origin or have found another way to enter the U.S., including with the help of smugglers who are known as “coyotes” in Mexican Spanish. Marín said Jardín de las Mariposas is working with those who have decided to stay in Tijuana to help them secure identity documents and employment.

“Our goal was to be a temporary shelter to move to the United States,” she told the Blade. “Now it’s almost becoming like we’re going to become a permanent shelter until we find another solution for them.”

Susy Barrales is president of Casita de Unión Trans, a trans support group that she founded in Tijuana in 2019 after she was deported from the U.S.

She told the Blade during a Jan. 30 interview at her office, which is a few blocks from the border, that two migrants who the U.S. deported arrived at Casa de Unión Trans the day before without medications. Barrales, like Marín, said the Trump’s immigration policies have sparked concern in Tijuana.

“He is doing this political campaign,” said Barrales in response to the Blade’s question about Trump’s policies. “I think it is something political, a political strategy that he wants to do, as a way to slow down immigration. This is why he makes these types of racist comments against migrants and against the community.”

Situation along Mexico-US border is ‘tense’

The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to suspend nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for at least 90 days has had a direct impact on Mexican organizations that serve LGBTQ+ migrants and asylum seekers.

Casa Frida works with upwards of 300 LGBTQ+ asylum seekers and migrants in Mexico City and in the cities of Monterrey and Tapachula. Sixty percent of Casa Frida’s annual budget comes from U.S. government grants — specifically from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department, and its Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.     

Casa Frida Director Raúl Caporal on Monday told the Blade the U.S. on Jan. 24 suspended funding for five of his organization’s initiatives.

A poster inside COBINA’s offices on Jan. 31 contained a QR code that brought migrants to a WhatsApp page that had information about how they could “migrate informed and legally.” The State Department partnered with Partners of the Americas, a Washington-based NGO, on the initiative.

Maky Pollorena, a Mexicali-based activist who volunteers with COBINA, told the Blade the WhatsApp page stopped providing information on Jan. 24. Pollorena also said COBINA and the majority of migrant shelters in Mexico’s Baja California state of which Mexicali is the capital have lost between 50 and 70 percent of their funding.

“All of us who are in Baja California’s border strip are tense,” said COBINA President Altagracia Tamayo.

Marín noted Jardín de las Mariposas’ funding does not come from the U.S. government, but rather from the Transgender Law Center and other NGOs that include AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Baja California Gov. Marina del Pilar Ávila’s administration donated the building in which Jardín de las Mariposas is located. The International Organization for Migration, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and the Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration are also support Jardín de las Mariposas.

Despite this lack of dependence upon U.S. government funding, Marín said the Trump-Vance administration’s policies could prove deadly.

“These decisions from the Trump administration are going to cost a lot of lives for the LGBT community, not only here,” she said. “It’s also going to cost a lot of lives in the United States.”

Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers is on assignment in Mexico to cover the impact that President Donald Trump’s immigration policies are having on LGBTQ+ migrants and asylum seekers.

MEXICO CITY — The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to freeze nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for at least 90 days could force a Mexican organization that serves LGBTQ+ migrants and asylum seekers to close.

Casa Frida works with upwards of 300 LGBTQ+ asylum seekers and migrants in Mexico City and in the cities of Monterrey and Tapachula.

Casa Frida Director Raúl Caporal on Monday told the Los Angeles Blade during an interview at his Mexico City office that 60 percent of his organization’s annual budget comes from U.S. government grants — specifically from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department, and its Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

Caporal said the U.S. on Jan. 24 suspended funding for five Casa Frida initiatives that specifically focused on “organizational strengthening, humanitarian assistance, financial inclusion, digital security” and fighting human trafficking.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the same day directed State Department personnel to stop nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for 90 days in response to an executive order that Trump signed on Jan. 20. Rubio last week issued a waiver that allows the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the funding freeze.

“All of these (Casa Frida) services are now extremely limited and compromised because the suspension was immediate,” Caporal told the Blade.

He said Casa Frida has already laid off several staffers. Caporal also told the Blade the U.S. funds that remain in Casa Frida’s bank account may have to be returned to Washington.

“That implies many problems,” said Caporal. “It’s not only the continuity of our services, but it also puts the organization’s future at risk.”

Casa Frida has already laid off several staffers. Caporal told the Blade that he and his colleagues are working with the European Union, foreign governments, local officials, and private donors to find additional funding sources.

The waiver that Rubio issued notes it does not apply to “activities that involve abortions, family planning conferences” and “gender or DEI ideology programs, transgender surgeries, or other non-life saving assistance.”

Caporal said there is a chance the White House could extend the funding freeze in order to “review which international cooperation projects align or coincide with the current administration’s political interests.”

“We are quite certain that much of this aid is going to return,” he said. “But (Trump) since the campaign has made it very clear that nothing, not a single dollar for the LGBT community, or for sexual rights, reproductive rights, women, migrants.”

“It is therefore very possible that projects that have more to do with eliminating inequality gaps, poverty, urban development, etc., will return,” added Caporal. “But we are not waiting for these projects to be reactivated.”

Casa Frida is among the global LGBTQ+ organizations dependent upon U.S. support that have been left scrambling. The Blade is in touch with several of them that may have to curtail programming or even close if they cannot secure alternate funding sources.

The Blade will update this story.

The Los Angeles Blade, Southern California’s leading LGBTQ news outlet, today announced the appointment of a new publisher, Alexander Rodriguez. 

Rodriguez has a long background in queer media, business development, and a deep commitment to the Los Angeles community. He has worked as a lead writer and podcast host for Metrosource Magazine and for GED Magazine; content director for FleshBot Gay; and as host and producer for the “On the Rocks” podcast. On the business side, Rodriguez spent years working in business development in the banking industry throughout Los Angeles. He also has an extensive background in event planning and management and has served on the boards of many LGBTQ non-profits. As a TV and radio personality, he has served as emcee for LGBTQ events around the nation. 

“I’m excited to bring my diverse media and business experience to the Los Angeles Blade,” Rodriguez said. “We will continue the Blade’s mission of serving as our community’s news outlet of record during these challenging times and work toward building bridges within our community and beyond.”

 Rodriguez starts in his new role on Monday, Feb. 3.

“We are thrilled to welcome Alexander to the Blade team,” said Kevin Naff, one of the owners of the Los Angeles Blade. “His multimedia and business side experience will help us grow the Blade in L.A. and continue our commitment to best-in-class journalism serving the LGBTQ community in Southern California.”

Rodriguez becomes the Los Angeles Blade’s second publisher following the unexpected death of founding publisher Troy Masters in December. Masters served in the role for nearly eight years. The community will come together for a celebration of Masters’s life on Monday, Feb. 10, 7-9 p.m. at the Abbey. 

“Troy’s legacy is in good hands with Alexander at the helm alongside our new local news editor, Gisselle Palomera,” Naff added.

The Los Angeles Blade, launched in 2017, celebrates its eighth anniversary in March. It is the sister publication of the Washington Blade, founded in 1969, which offers unmatched coverage of queer political news and is the only LGBTQ outlet in the White House press pool and the White House Correspondents’ Association, and the only LGBTQ outlet with a dedicated seat in the White House briefing room.

Alexander Rodriguez can be reached at [email protected].

Millions of people in Buenos Aires and across Argentina participated in marches against President Javier Milei in response to his controversial comments at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The Buenos Aires march, led by LGBTQ+, women’s and human rights organizations in Argentina, shaped up to be one of the largest demonstrations against Milei since he became president in December 2023. The mobilization is a direct response to Milei’s disparaging comments about feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, and other progressive movements.

Milei called “wokism” and “gender ideology” harmful during his Jan. 23 speech at the World Economic Forum, even comparing them to pedophilia. These statements sparked outrage across Argentina with protesters demanding the defense of human rights and equality.

María Rachid, president of the Argentine LGBT+ Federation, told the Los Angeles Blade on Sunday “the march was massive, a strong message to President Milei putting a limit to hatred, discrimination and violence.”

“Argentine society built the values of respect for diversity, equality, and true freedom and yesterday it came out to defend them with massive demonstrations throughout the country and in many cities around the world,” said Rachid. “We are proud of what we were able to build because although they want to destroy it, it is already part of the heart of Argentine society.”

The Buenos Aires march began at the National Congress and ended at the Casa Rosada, the seat of the country’s presidency. Thousands of demonstrators, many with rainbow flags and banners that read “rights are not negotiable,” expressed their strong rejection of Milei’s policies.

Gay Congressman Esteban Paulón highlighted to the Blade “the call for the march was impressive.” 

“I think it exceeded any forecast, not only because of the massiveness in the City of Buenos Aires, where it is estimated more than a million people, but also because of the massiveness in the 150 cities in which it was held throughout the country,” he said. “The truth is that it was a very, very big march in Rosario, in Córdoba, in Santa Fe, in Mar del Plata, in Bariloche, in the north, in Salta.” 

“There was no expectation that it would be so, so massive, beyond the one in Buenos Aires, which had had an important call, an important visibility, which had added several actors,” added Paulón.

Sofía Díaz, a transgender woman who worked as a civil servant before Milei’s administration fired her, marched in Corrientes, a city in Chaco province.

“After President Milei’s speeches in Davos, the next day we started texting each other on WhatsApp,” she said, referring to public employees at the national level. “We were really afraid of what he had said.” 

Activists around the world expressed solidarity with their Argentine counterparts.

Marches took place in cities around the world — including in Santiago, Chile; Montevideo, Uruguay; Rio de Janeiro; São Paulo; Mexico City; London; Madrid; Amsterdam; Berlin; Geneva; Paris; New York; Lisbon, Portugal; and the Spanish cities of Barcelona and Granada.

The Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, a Chilean LGBTQ+ rights group, on Feb. 1 organized a march to the Argentine Embassy. Activists delivered a letter that expressed solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community and repudiated Milei’s policies against it.

TIJUANA, Mexico — The Los Angeles Blade on Jan. 29 visited the Mexico-U.S. border in the Mexican border city of Tijuana.

(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)

The Blade since Jan. 28 has been on assignment in Mexico to cover the impact that President Donald Trump’s immigration policies are having on LGBTQ+ migrants and asylum seekers. The Blade will remain on assignment in the country and in El Salvador through Feb. 8.

The State Department has eliminated references to transgender travelers from its travel advisories.

The International Travel tab that the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs maintains has a section for “LGB Travelers.”

“LGB travelers can face special challenges abroad,” reads the introduction. “Laws and attitudes in some countries may affect safety and ease of travel. Many countries do not recognize same-sex marriage. Many countries also only recognize the male and female sex markers in passports and do not have IT systems at ports of entry that can accept other sex markers. About 70 countries still consider consensual same-sex relations a crime. In some of these countries, individuals who engage in same-sex sexual relations may face severe punishment.”

Steven Romo of NBC News and other reporters have noted the same page before President Donald Trump took office used the LGBTQI+ acronym to describe the community. State Department officials with whom the Los Angeles Blade spoke during the Biden-Harris administration routinely used the LGBTQI+ acronym.

The State Department website is replacing LGBTQI+ with simply LGB

Last month vs today pic.twitter.com/U4U0DHMasR

— Steven Romo (@stevenromo) January 31, 2025

Trump since he took office on Jan. 20 has issued a number of executive orders that specifically target trans people.

One directive bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers, reversing a policy that took effect in 2022.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this week issued a waiver that allows the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. The waiver does not apply to “activities that involve abortions, family planning conferences” and “gender or DEl ideology programs, transgender surgeries, or other non-life saving assistance.”