(Image by Tindo/Bigstock)
BOGOTÁ, Colombia | LGBTQ Venezuelans who live in Colombia remain uncertain about their homeland’s future in the wake of now former-President Nicolás Maduro’s ouster.
José Guillén is from Mérida, a city in the Venezuelan Andes that is roughly 150 miles from the country’s border with Colombia. He founded an LGBTQ organization that largely focused on health care before he left Venezuela in 2015.
Guillén, whose mother is Colombian, spoke with the Washington Blade on Jan. 9 at a coffee shop in Bogotá, the Colombian capital. His husband, who left Venezuela in 2016, was with him.
“I would like to think that (Venezuela) will be a country working towards reconstruction in a democracy,” said Guillén, responding to the Blade’s question about what Venezuela will look like in five years.
American forces on Jan. 3 seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, during an overnight operation.
Maduro and Flores on Jan. 5 pleaded not guilty to federal drug charges in New York. The Venezuelan National Assembly the day before swore in Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, as the country’s acting president.
Hugo Chávez died in 2013, and Maduro succeeded him as Venezuela’s president. Subsequent economic and political crises prompted millions of Venezuelans to leave the country.
The Blade in 2021 reported Venezuelan authorities raided HIV/AIDS service organizations, arrested their staffers, and confiscated donated medications for people with HIV/AIDS. Tamara Adrián, a member of the Venezuelan opposition who in 2015 became the first openly transgender person elected to the National Assembly, told the Blade she had to take security precautions during her campaign because government supporters targeted her.
The Blade on Jan. 8 spoke with a Venezuelan AIDS Healthcare Foundation client who said Maduro’s ouster “is truly something we’ve been waiting for for 26 or 27 years.” Another Venezuelan AHF client — a sex worker from Margarita Island in the Caribbean Sea who now lives in Bogotá — echoed this sentiment when she spoke with the Blade two days later.
“I love the situation of what’s happening,” she said during a telephone interview.
Sources in Caracas and elsewhere in Venezuela with whom the Blade spoke after Jan. 3 said armed pro-government groups known as “colectivos” were patrolling the streets. Reports indicate they set up checkpoints, stopped motorists, and searched their cell phones for evidence that they supported Maduro’s ouster.
“In the last few days, it seems there are possibilities for change, but people are also very afraid of the government’s reactions and what might happen,” Guillén said.
“Looking at it from an LGBT perspective, there has never been any recognition of the LGBT community in Venezuela,” he noted. “At some point, when Chávez came to power, we thought that many things could happen because it was a progressive government, but no.”
Luis Gómez is a lawyer from Valencia, a city in Venezuela’s Carabobo state. He and his family since he was a child have worked with autistic children through Fundación Yo Estoy Aquí, a foundation they created.
Gómez was in high school in 2013 when Maduro succeeded Chávez. He graduated from law school in 2018. Gómez in November 2020 fled to Colombia after he became increasingly afraid after his mother’s death that authorities would arrest him because of his criticism of the government.
The Colombian government in December 2025 recognized him as a refugee.
Gómez during a Jan. 9 interview in Bogotá discussed his initial reaction to Maduro’s ouster.
“I’m 28 years old, and 27 of those years have been in dictatorship,” Gómez told the Blade. “I had never experienced anything like this, which is why it had such a strong impact on me.”
Gómez said he initially thought the operation to seize Maduro and Flores was similar to an attempted coup that Chávez led in 1992. Gómez added he quickly realized Jan. 3 was different.
“The last thing we thought would happen was that Maduro would be wearing an orange jumpsuit in prison in New York,” he told the Blade. “It’s also important that those of us outside (of Venezuela) knew about it before those inside, because that’s the level of the lack of communication to which they have subjected all our families inside Venezuela.”
Gómez said Maduro’s ouster left him feeling “a great sense of justice” for his family and for the millions of Venezuelans who he maintains suffered under his government.
“Many Venezuelans, and with every reason, around the world started celebrating euphorically, but given our background and our understanding, we already knew at that moment what was coming,” added Gómez. “Now a new stage is beginning. What will this new stage be like? This has also generated uncertainty in us, which the entire citizenry is now experiencing.”
Trump ‘puts us in a very complex position’
U.S. chargé d’affaires Laura Dogu on Jan. 31 arrived in Caracas to reopen the American embassy that closed in February 2019.
Tens of thousands of people on Jan. 7 gathered in Bogotá and elsewhere in Colombia to protest against President Donald Trump after he threatened Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who was once a member of the now disbanded M-19 guerrilla movement. The two men met at the White House on Feb. 6.
Both Gómez and Guillén pointed out Rodríguez remains in power. They also noted her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, is currently president of the National Assembly.
“Delcy has been a key figure in the regime for many years,” said Guillén. “In fact, she was one of the toughest people within the regime.”
Gómez and Guillén also spoke about Trump and his role in a post-Maduro Venezuela.
“Donald Trump, especially in this second term, has played a very particular role in the world, especially for those of us who, genuinely, not falsely or hypocritically, truly defend human rights,” said Gómez. “It puts us in a very complex position.”
Gómez told the Blade the operation to seize Maduro and Flores was “not an invasion for us.”
“It’s not a military intervention,” said Gómez. “It was the beginning, or I would even dare to say the end of the end.”
He acknowledged “there are interests at play, that the United States doesn’t do this for free.” Gómez added U.S. access to Venezuelan oil “for us, at this point, is not something that matters to us.”
“Venezuelans have received nothing, absolutely nothing from the resources generated by oil. We live without it,” he said. “The only ones getting rich from the oil are the top drug traffickers and criminals who remain in power.”
Guillén pointed out the U.S. “has always been one of the biggest buyers of oil from Venezuela, and perhaps we need that closeness to rebuild the country.”
“I also feel that there is a great opportunity with the millions of Venezuelans who left the country and who would like to be part of that reconstruction as well,” he said.
“Logically it’s sad to see the deterioration in the country, the institutions, even the universities in general,” added Guillén. “Those of us who are outside the country have continued to move forward and see other circumstances, and returning to the country with those ideas, with those new approaches, could provide an opportunity for change. That’s what I would like.”
Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers was on assignment in Colombia from Jan. 5-10. The National LGBT Media Association represents 13 legacy publications in major markets across the country with a collective readership of more than 400K in print and more than 1 million + online. Learn more here: NationalLGBTMediaAssociation.com.
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