World
New Zealand parliamentarians reflect on passage of marriage bill
Same-sex marriage bill received final approval on April 17.
New Zealand Parliamentarian Louisa Wall (Photo courtesy of the office of Louisa Wall)
Editor’s note: This article will appear in the April 24 issue of Gay Express, a newspaper that covers LGBT issues in New Zealand.
By Sarah Murphy
Louisa Wall is a woman who holds a special place in our all of our hearts. A champion of GLBTI rights, she is a woman who has fought so very hard to proudly walk each and everyone of us down the isle.
Absolutely humbled by the aroha she received on the night of the third reading, Louisa says there was an overwhelming sense of pride that filled the air.
As the final vote was read aloud, the crowded public gallery stood en masse to sing Pokarekare Ana, an unheard-of gesture outside of treaty settlement legislation and a sign of utmost respect.
In a single moment we became equal under the eyes of the law, with marriage equality for all.
But the magnitude of this momentous occasion extends far beyond the issue of marriage. We not only gained recognition under the eyes of the law, we were offered hope.
The very next day Louisa received an email from a university lecturer who told her of the many students who felt empowered to come out after the bill passed.
“That inspires me; we have changed the environment for people to be able to be proud of who they are and actually to be embraced, valued, respected, for who they are, which is fundamental.”
Louisa wanted to take the opportunity to express her heartfelt appreciation and gratitude for the overwhelming support of the GLBTI community, saying: “I really want to congratulate us on our ability to stand up, to advocate for ourselves, for each other and also our ability to network with like-minded New Zealanders who believe in social justice, who believe in human rights, who believe in collectives working together. I just really want to thank everybody because this has been a team effort, not only in Parliament but outside of Parliament, we did it and so congratulations!”
As an equally important partner in the push for marriage equality, Kevin Hague says he felt sheer elation the moment the final vote was read out.
Softly spoken and humble in nature, Kevin’s passion has been eloquently conveyed throughout the course of the campaign. His heartfelt speeches have warmed our hearts and brought tears to our eyes. We cannot deny how lucky we are to have such a fierce advocate for the rights of our community.
Many of us have grown up knowing nothing other than the freedoms afforded by homosexual law reform and this was reflected by the position we took in the marriage equality campaign. Kevin says that the differing perspectives shone through in the submissions made to the Select Committee. GLBTI youth for example found it “utterly bizarre” that there would be law that treats people differently because of their sexual orientation.
“For us older ones that’s wonderful and refreshing and fantastic, but its just hard for us to hold that view without a sense of almost resentment or bitterness towards that historic injustice.”
As someone who remembers all too well the struggles of the past he says, “I think its fantastic that we have generations coming through who are not weighed down with that. I don’t wish the hurt that we’ve experienced to be superimposed on the experience of our young people.”
Just as Louisa has done, Kevin too gives credit to the honesty, passion and bravery displayed by our community and says, “while we will get the applause actually the honour and the credit needs to go to the community, so thank you.”
Of course, this campaign has only been strengthened by the support of our straight allies such as Tau Henare.
A staunch supporter of marriage equality and a proud member of the National Party, one would assume that Tau might have come up against some backlash from his colleagues on the right, but Tau says despite what you may think, he didn’t really find this to be the case apart from “a bit of well intentioned ribbing.”
He says he is so very proud of the work Louisa has put into the marriage equality campaign. “She’s not the dyed-in-the-wool Labour MP that a lot of us think she is; she’s hard core human rights. I look at her and think ‘maverick’ and this place needs a few of them, otherwise you just slip into the mould of a nobody, really. She’s got character and its cool; I love her for it.”
To us, his GLBTI friends, he extends his congratulations: “Welcome to the mainstream.”
From three different fronts they converged with a single vision. They did it because it was right. They did it for the health of every community, straight or gay. They did it for the future of New Zealand – for one and for all.
Netherlands
Tens of thousands take part in World Pride March
Event capped off two weeks of celebrations in Amsterdam.
AMSTERDAM — Tens of thousands of people on Saturday participated in the World Pride March in Amsterdam.
Outright International Executive Director Maria Sjödin and Paolo Rondelli, who in 2022 became the world’s first openly gay head of state when he became Captain Regent of San Marino, are among those who participated alongside Massachusetts state Rep. Jack Lewis and Olena Shevchenko, chair of Insight, an LGBTQ advocacy group in Ukraine, and others.
Members of D66, the centrist Dutch political party that Prime Minister Rob Jetten heads, also marched.
Jetten in February became the Netherlands’ first openly gay prime minister. He participated in the opening of the World Pride Human Rights Conference on Aug. 5 and spoke on a panel with Rondelli, former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, and other gay and lesbian current and former heads of government.
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
The march took place a week after hundreds of thousands of people lined Amsterdam’s canals for the city’s annual Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade.
A terrorist attack at Berlin’s Christopher Street Day on July 25 left one person dead and more than two dozen others injured.
The incident overshadowed World Pride, which began hours earlier and ended on Saturday.
Dutch authorities increased security measures in the aftermath of the July 25 attack. No incidents were reported during World Pride.
Netherlands
Dutch PM: More needs to be done to defend trans rights
Rob Jetten on Friday was on World Pride Human Rights Conference panel
Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key will be on assignment in Amsterdam until Aug. 10.
AMSTERDAM — Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten on Friday said more needs to be done to defend transgender people and their rights.
“Everywhere in the Western world, it’s definitely the group that’s the most vulnerable in the moment and it’s rather well-picked also by our advisories,” he said during a panel at the World Pride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam that Ying Xin and Diego García Blum of Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights Policy moderated. “They’ve chosen the smallest group within our broader community (trans people) to attack them, to ensure that we can strip their rights and if they’ve done with that, they’ll go after the next group within our community, so we shouldn’t be naïve about what’s behind it.”
“It’s very well-funded. It’s very well-organized and we have to organize as well to fight back and to win this fight,” added Jetten. “We also need to be more open in conversations that we are having within the community and also dive into it much deeper and maybe even have more difficult and annoying conversations.”
Jetten in February became the Netherlands’ first openly gay prime minister.
He appeared on the panel alongside former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who in 2017 became his country’s first openly gay head of government, and former San Marino Captain Regent Paolo Rondelli, who was his country’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2007-2016.
Several other current former heads of government who are gay or lesbian also participated in the panel. They include former Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, former Luxembourgish Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, and Andorran Prime Minister Xavier Espot Zamora. California Congressman Mark Takano, who chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, and LGBTQ+ Victory Fund CEO Evan Low were among those who attended.
Jetten in his remarks said he was “very surprised” to learn that “not only in the U.S. but also in some European countries that we’ve let them decide what the gay group looked like.” The Dutch prime minister further pointed out that conservatives began “to attack the debate on toilets or starting this debate about trans people in Olympic games.”
“That is, of course, a ridiculous debate to start, but we’ve got distracted because we were so busy having this debate on Olympians, and then we actually forgot the real fight was about access to healthcare, just being yourself, being able to enlist in the army, or being able to be a young trans boy or girl in school,” said Jetten. “We got distracted by some fresh meat that was thrown into the area by some very conservative people.”
“We have to open our eyes and have very in-depth conservations within our community, and come up with a much better strategy to win this fight and to protect all our trans brothers and sisters, dolls, whatever,” he added. “Because if we don’t win this fight for trans people, we’re going to lose the bigger fight for all LGBTQ people in the world.”
Varadkar noted Ireland in 2015 passed a law that allows people to legally change their gender without surgery or other medical interventions.
He conceded there was “a liberal wind blowing across the world at the time, and it was largely uncontested.”
“It would be harder now, quite frankly, to do that legislation,” said Varadkar.
Scottish lawmakers in 2022 passed the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which lowered the age for anyone to legally change their gender without medical intervention from 18 to 16. Then-British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government later blocked the measure from taking effect.
The U.K. Supreme Court in 2025 ruled the legal definition of a woman under the country’s Equality Act is limited to “biological women.” Author J.K. Rowling is among those who praised the decision that stemmed from a case that challenged the Scottish government’s decision to include trans women in its definition of women when it sought to increase the number of women on government boards.
The Trump-Vance administration on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day it was in office, issued a sweeping executive order that, among other things, declared the federal government would only recognize two genders: male and female. The White House earlier this year in its counterterrorism strategy said it “will also prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist.”
“We have to stay united,” said Rondelli. “The strategy was, since the beginning, was a Nazi strategy to create groups, target groups, and to create maximum distractions to avoid discussion about some sort of policies.”
“Trans people are the target at the moment,” he added. “But after them it will probably be some others, so we have to stay united.”
Boris Dittrich, the Dutch Senate’s First Vice President and a member of Jetten’s D66 party who was previously global advocacy director for Human Rights Watch’s LGBTQ Rights Program, at the end of the panel asked about protecting intersex babies from what advocates maintain are unnecessary surgeries.
Netherlands
Dutch prime minister opens World Pride Human Rights Conference
Rob Jetten is country’s first openly gay head of government
Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key are on assignment in Amsterdam through Aug. 10.
AMSTERDAM — Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten on Wednesday opened the World Pride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam.
Jetten — who in February became the country’s first openly gay prime minister — began his remarks with an acknowledgment that the July 25 terrorist attack at Berlin’s Christopher Street Day that left one person dead and more than two dozen others injured “filled me with anger and sorrow.”
He started to speak after a group of activists began to shout at him over his government’s position on Palestine — the International Criminal Court, which is based in The Hague, has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders in connection with crimes against humanity it says they committed in the Gaza Strip and Israel after Oct. 7.
Jetten stood silently and allowed them to protest before security personnel removed them from the room.
View on Threads
Jetten in his speech acknowledged this year marks 25 years since the Netherlands became the first country to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples. He also pointed out 2025 marks Amsterdam Pride’s Canal Parade‘s 30th year.
“More and more in recent years, we’ve seen hard won progress being eroded,” conceded Jetten. “We’ve seen countries backsliding in equal rights legislation. We’ve seen homophobic hate speech becoming more overt and aggressive, and not only out in the real world, but online as well.”
Jetten pointed out “online hatred is one of the biggest threats facing the LGBTQIA+ people today.”
“All around the world … misinformation and disinformation can be spread in the blink of an eye with a single mouse click, reaching much further and much faster than NGOs, youth workers and health organizations can,” he said. “This is always how hatred takes hold. First in the shadows, outside the spotlight of society, underestimated by everyone, until, having grown into a many headed monster, it crawls out of the darkness.”
Jetten said his government this fall will launch “a social dialog on online discrimination and offering specific guidance on action to take.” This will include “training courses for municipalities and civil society organizations to help them deal with online hate speech.”
His government over the next three years will invest €7.5 million each year “in improving the safety of the queer community in our cities with an alliance of organizations committed to safety, both in the public space and in the workspace for LGBTQI+ people, and with a public information campaign to combat discrimination and disinformation.” Jetten also said the government will promote a campaign in Dutch schools that encourages students and teachers to wear purple as a way to show their support for the LGBTQ community.
’Equal rights are not a Western agenda’
Jetten in his speech also singled out “conservative forces” in Uganda, Senegal, and in other countries who are framing LGBTQ rights “developments as a neocolonial Western agenda.”
“Under the pretense of resisting so-called Western moral decadence, horrendous laws are enacted and promoted, laws that put the rights of free people under severe pressure,” he said. “But in reality, many communities in these countries have a long history of diversity and freedom, and the laws that impose the restrictions were in fact put in place by the colonial powers.”
“No matter how hard those conservative forces try to pull the wool over people’s eyes, queer communities around the world know that equal rights are not a Western agenda,” added Jetten. “They are first and foremost a human agenda.”
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema and Nayyab Ali, co-chair of the Ending Violence Against Women and Girls Alliance Pakistan, are among those who also spoke on Wednesday. Lady Phyll, co-founder of UK Black Pride, and Camiel Welling, supervisor of the Amsterdam Trans Clinic, are co-hosting the conference that ends Friday.
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