This weekend, Donald Trump announced that the U.S. had captured Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, during a military operation. Maduro has served as president since 2013.In 2023, Daniel Arzola, born in Maracay, Venezuela, created the artwork for Juanita MORE!s annual Pride party, which also serves as a fundraiser for local queer causes. Related Rep. Emily Randall is fighting the atrocious conditions in Trumps immigration facilities His work was visually striking, political, and colorful, all the things I look for in presenting my yearly event.Arzola is not just a creator. He is a Venezuelan-born visual artist, human rights advocate, and lecturer. He popularized the term Artivism as the creator of No Soy Tu Chiste (Im Not a Joke), a series of posters that became the first LGBTQ+ campaign to reach the media in Venezuela.Maduro al de la Muerte by Daniel Arzola | Daniel Arzola, used with permission Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Subscribe to our Newsletter today Im Not a Joke was also translated into twenty languages and retweeted by Madonna, among others. The Im Not a Joke project continues to be exhibited in cities worldwide, including a permanent installation at the Carlos Juregui subway station in Buenos Aires. (On June 5, 2026, Arzola will have an art exhibition at STRUT in San Francisco.)I talked to Daniel about the dramatic events of the last few days by phone to get the perspective of a Venezuelan queer person.Daniel Arzola | Daniel Arzola, used with permissionJuanita MORE!: I love your work. You have used both your voice and art in compelling political ways. Tell me about growing up and coming out in Venezuela.Daniel Arzola: Thanks. You represent San Francisco, and San Francisco is my favorite city in the United States because it offers healing and a sense of belonging, especially for those of us who have been persecuted for our gender or sexuality.That was my experience in Venezuela in the 1990s. I grew up in a homophobic society that made it clear from a young age that people like me were expected to be mocked and harmed. I saw my name written on walls alongside homophobic slurs, lost friends after coming out as gay, was physically attacked by neighbors, and was eventually forced out of my home by my family at the age of 16. Even so, I always knew they were the ones who were wrong. Through the internet and through art, I learned that gay people had civil rights in other parts of the world and that our contributions to society had changed the world more than once. Unfortunately, this homophobia is also reflected in state policy. Nicols Maduro, whose political background includes Soviet influences and alliances with evangelical leaders in Venezuela, has repeatedly used homosexuality as an insult to discredit his opponents.In 2014, as large-scale protests unfolded, human rights activism began to be criminalized in Venezuela. While denouncing state-sponsored homophobia through the I Am Not a Joke (No Soy Tu Chiste) campaign, I was forced to flee the country. Since then, I have not been able to return. This weekend, President Trump announced that the U.S. had captured Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, during a military operation. Maduro has served as president since 2013. What does this say to you as an immigrant in the United States?It is not easy to be Venezuelan in this century. The absence of justice has defined our history for the past three decades, and that same absence has brought us to this worst possible scenario. Even so, Venezuelans around the world, myself included, are celebrating the capture of Nicols Maduro, who has committed crimes against humanity since coming to power. Since 2014, he has used military, police, and paramilitary forces, known as colectivos, to repress and massacre the civilian population. Thousands of Venezuelans have been tortured and killed by state forces. Venezuela is home to the largest torture center in Latin America, El Helicoide, where the most cruel and systematic forms of torture are carried out. It is misleading to call Maduro president. What exists in Venezuela is a military and police dictatorship. In 2017, after the opposition won a majority in the National Assembly, Maduro dismantled all checks and balances by creating a parallel assembly loyal to him. He then escalated repression, killing, imprisoning, and kidnapping civilians again in 2017, 2019, and 2021.Finally, in July 2024, Maduro stole the elections by refusing to acknowledge his overwhelming defeat to Edmundo Gonzlez. When Venezuelans attempted to protest, the response was repression, prison, and torture. Venezuelas prisons are full of political prisoners.For more than 26 years, Venezuelans have warned about the dismantling of our democracy, yet much of the world chose not to believe us while looking the other way. It took nearly 20 years for parts of the Latin American left to acknowledge that Venezuela is a bloody dictatorship, mainly because it aligned with their ideological views. Even now, some still dismiss it by saying, Its too complex, an apologetic euphemism that ignores reality, despite prisons full of political prisoners and the most significant humanitarian and migration crisis in the Americas, with more than eight million Venezuelans forced to flee the country.We live in a time when critical thinking has been undermined and activism reduced to a social media performance. Within this performative activism, Maduro is portrayed as a good guy simply because he once said Free Palestine, as if slogans now grant moral superiority. This ignores the fact that he is the same leader who poses next to rainbow flags while denying civil rights to gay and trans people in Venezuela, and who repeatedly uses homophobic slurs to attack the opposition on national television. Now we see many of the same people who ignored our suffering expressing outrage over the capture of one of the worst dictators on the continent, a leader of a military dictatorship, without understanding Venezuelas history. No one wants to see their country invaded by the United States, and it is deeply troubling that this is happening under one of the least democratic leaders the U.S. has had. But Venezuelans are desperate. We exhausted every democratic path, and the response was fire and blood. If anyone believes that Venezuelans did not try to fight this through our own means, those opinions are at least ten years late to the conversation.This is, without question, the worst possible scenario. But the executioner has been captured, and only Venezuelans truly understand what that means. For the first time in 26 years, we are seeing the Chavista dictatorship tremble; for Venezuelans, it is simple. Someone finally stopped philosophizing while we were being massacred. Unfortunately, that someone was Trump.Cese a la Usurpacin by Daniel Arzola | Daniel Arzola, used with permissionHe also stated that the U.S. would temporarily oversee Venezuelas governance. He emphasized that U.S. oil companies would invest in Venezuelas infrastructure, aiming to revitalize its oil sector. Once again, all I hear is money. What do you hear?Venezuelan oil is suddenly on everyones lips, often without any fundamental understanding of the history of the Venezuelan oil industry. It is as if some people had only just discovered that the worlds largest oil reserves are located there. The reality is that the United States was not only Venezuelas main client but, from the very beginning of the oil industry around 1920, invested in oil infrastructure for obvious strategic reasons. This brought benefits to both countries. By the 1950s and 1960s, Venezuela was the wealthiest country in Latin America. Today, we face the highest inflation in the world, and the minimum wage in Venezuela is about $1.50.Some people mistakenly believe that Chvez nationalized the oil industry, but that actually happened in 1976 under Carlos Andrs Prez. Chvez expropriated the oil infrastructure, firing thousands of highly trained PDVSA experts and replacing them with loyalists. He applied the same approach across many sectors of the country, leading to a severe breakdown in resource distribution and a major humanitarian crisis. Many try to reduce Venezuelas entire modern history to oil, but the truth is that Venezuelans have not benefited from that oil for decades. Instead, countries like Russia, Iran, and China have benefited, while Venezuelas electrical grid and healthcare system have collapsed. Since 2013, shortages of cancer and HIV medications have created a deadly reality, where at least 5,000 people die from AIDS due to a lack of access to antiretroviral treatment.Some people conveniently ignore the fact that Maduro recently offered Trump all of Venezuelas oil in exchange for being allowed to remain in power, an offer that was rejected. The truth is that many seem more concerned about our oil than Venezuelans themselves, and they feel entitled to explain our own history to us. I believe Venezuelans should have the authority to decide who to negotiate with once democracy returns to the country.What is clear is that the transition to democracy in Venezuela should be led by the president elected in July 2024, Edmundo Gonzlez Urrutia, not by Donald Trump.How do we move forward? It is difficult to know what comes next. The actions taken by the United States in Venezuela will have consequences beyond the country itself. One can condemn Trumps actions while also acknowledging the suffering of Venezuelans and the way Maduro destroyed our future and the future of millions.This is a nightmarish scenario, but Venezuelans have endured worse. For years, it seemed there would never be justice. And although Maduro has been detained, the rest of the Chavista leadership remains in power.Delcy Rodrguez is not a moderate figure. She has been directly involved in maintaining El Helicoide, Venezuelas main torture center. Inside Venezuela, people are now forbidden from celebrating Maduros capture. State forces and pro-regime paramilitary groups are patrolling the streets, intimidating civilians, and checking phones and social media accounts. Delcy Rodrguez has announced that possessing any content that celebrates Maduros capture will be punished with up to 20 years in prison. Only Venezuelans living abroad have been able to speak freely.How can the LGBTQ+ community support you and our Venezuelan brothers and sisters?Ask your Venezuelan friends how they are doing, and listen before offering your opinion. Understand that the struggle in Venezuela is not about left versus right; it is democracy versus dictatorship.Remember that we are living in an era of post-truth and extremism, where some will try to turn the perpetrator into the victim. There is overwhelming evidence of crimes against humanity. More than eight million of us were forced to leave our country, roughly 30 percent of the population.Some of us may be able to return one day, but only when democracy is restored.Above all, remember that the Venezuelan struggle is humanitarian before it is partisan.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.