Guest Opinion: Don’t forget about Andry this Pride

I’m writing this on Friday, June 20, the Summer Solstice, in a friend’s apartment a block from Castro and 18th streets. It is a beautiful morning, and the sunlight shines brilliantly on the rainbow flags that festoon the neighborhood. Shop windows and utility poles are crowded with colorful notices of the parties, fundraisers, drag shows, and film screenings of Pride Month. Castro is alive with the sounds of happy residents and visitors, music, and the smell of coffee and food. The big parade is just a week away, and Gilbert Baker’s giant rainbow flag snaps in the wind overhead. It’s a glorious morning.

Three thousand, five hundred miles southeast of San Francisco the sun is also shining between bursts of rain in Tecoluca, El Salvador. June is hot and muggy there and even hotter and more humid inside the massive prison known as CECOT – the Terrorist Confinement Center that houses some 40,000 hardened criminals and violent gang members. The prison is a hellscape, one of the most brutal on earth. This is the facility to which Andry José Hernández Romero was extrajudicially removed by the U.S. government. Hernández Romero, a gay hair stylist who fled persecution for his political beliefs and sexual orientation in Venezuela, entered the U.S. legally to apply for asylum. He was absurdly accused of being a member of Tren de Aragua, a notorious – and virulently homophobic – Venezuelan gang and flown to El Salvador.

No one has had contact with Hernández Romero since his arrival at CECOT. His attorneys can’t reach him. His family can’t reach him. Gay Congressmember Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) traveled to the prison and was not permitted to see him. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, under questioning from Garcia, could not confirm if Hernández Romero was still alive and refused to inquire about his welfare, despite the Trump administration’s payments of millions of dollars to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele to hold Hernández Romero and hundreds of other deportees from the U.S.

On April 7, I posted on Facebook: “Here's a suggestion for all organizers of US LGBTQ Pride events: make Andry José Hernández Romero an honorary Grand Marshal of your Pride celebrations and announce it immediately. We may be his only hope to survive.”

Nicole Murray Ramirez, an LGBTQ activist in San Diego with many decades of experience, reached out and agreed to push this call to shine a light on Hernández Romero’s case. We weren’t the first to call for action on his behalf and wouldn’t be the last. Visibility in the big Pride parades seemed like an obvious choice – effective, easy to do, and no cost to the organizers.

To our surprise and dismay, San Francisco Pride immediately rejected the suggestion.

Publicizing these cases can produce positive results. Kilmar Ábrego Garcia, a member of the Sheetmetal Workers union in Maryland, was also deported illegally to CECOT. His union took his case to the AFL-CIO and the entire labor movement rallied around him, dramatically raised his public profile, and demanded his return. Ábrego Garcia was released from CECOT and returned to the U.S., though he is now facing charges.

Others have stepped up to try to save Hernández Romero. Important reporting has come from BBC, CNN, and NBC. The Bay Area Reporter’s John Ferrannini, Los Angeles Blade’s Karen Ocamb, and Gay USA’s Andy Humm follow Hernández Romero’s case closely. A few Pride parades named him honorary grand marshal. The hospitality workers union, UNITE HERE, distributed hundreds of “Free Andry” posters for their members to carry in over 30 Pride parades. The anti-Trump conservatives of The Bulwark held a fundraiser. Michael Petrelis and Gays Without Borders organized rallies at the El Salvadoran Consulate in San Francisco. The Human Rights Campaign launched an online petition. There’s more but not nearly enough.

San Francisco Pride, New York Pride, and Los Angeles Pride are among the largest of the celebrations to decline to honor Hernández Romero. Their websites also all fail to mention the threat to our communities posed by the Trump administration, or the damage already inflicted. SF Pride’s theme, “Queer Joy is Resistance,” rings hollow when there’s not the slightest reference to who or what we are resisting. Every victory we’ve ever won is about to be undone, but you wouldn’t know it from reading SF Pride’s website.

The photos of Hernández Romero show a slightly built young man with delicate features and a shy smile, often pictured with balloons, rainbows, drag queens, and stuffed animals. He loved make-up and hair styling and Christmas pageants. He is adored and missed deeply by his friends and family in Venezuela who beg us to do everything we can to press for his return. We may never learn his fate, but whatever the outcome, we clearly could have done more. Ábrego Garcia’s community did everything they could and won his release. Hernández Romero’s community, thus far, has not.

That should be a source of shame, not pride, this last week of June in 2025.

Longtime gay activist Cleve Jones is a co-founder of the AIDS Memorial Quilt.