World
Tucker Carlson praises anti-LGBTQ Hungary prime minister
Fox News host interviewed Viktor Orbán in Budapest

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson this week defended anti-LGBTQ Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán while in his country.
Carlson on Thursday at the opening of his show described Orbán as “an elected leader who publicly identifies as a Western-style conservative.”
“He thinks families are more important than banks. He believes countries need borders. For saying these things out loud Orbán has been vilified,” said Carlson from Budapest, the Hungarian capital, before his program aired his interview with Orbán. “Left-wing NGOs have denounced him as a fascist, a destroyer of democracy.”
Carlson referred to transgender athletes and critics of President Biden’s policies as he introduced his interview with Orbán. The Hungarian prime minister, for his part, defended his record.
“What is going on here is building up a society, which is very successful: Economically, politically, culturally and even in demography we have some success, family policy,” said Orbán. “So, what you can see here could be described as a success story, but the fundamentals of the success are totally different than it is envisioned and run and created by many other Western countries.”
“The Western liberals cannot accept that inside the Western civilization there’s a conservative national alternative, which is more successful at everyday life and the level of it than the liberal ones,” he added. “That’s the reason why they criticize us. They are fighting for themselves, not against us. But we are an example that somebody, or a country which is based on traditional values, on national identity, based on a tradition of Christianity, could be successful or sometimes even more successful than a leftist liberal government.”
Orbán told Carlson that “many Christian families and conservative families think that Western Europe is not secure enough, the future is not stable, the public security is not provided and the ideological direction of the countries, or the basic values of the countries built on, is changing not to their taste or to their intention.”
“They are looking for other places,” said Orbán, noting people from Western European countries are moving to Hungary.
Orbán did not specifically discuss his efforts to curtail LGBTQ rights in Hungary, but he did describe former President Trump as “a great friend of Hungary.”
“He was very much supportive to us, not just personally, but politically as well,” said Orbán.
Orbán also defended his government’s efforts to prevent migrants from traveling through Hungary in 2015.
“This is not a human right to come here; no way because it’s our land,” he said. “It’s our nation. It’s a community. Families. History. Tradition. Language.”
Brussels sues Hungary over anti-LGBTQ law
The European Commission last month announced it would take legal action against Hungary after a law that bans the promotion of homosexuality and sex-reassignment surgery to minors took effect. Orbán, who leads Hungary’s Fidesz party, has said he wants to hold a referendum on it.
Hungarian lawmakers in late 2020 amended the country’s constitution to define family as “based on marriage and the parent-child relation” with “the mother is a woman, the father a man” and effectively banned same-sex couples from adopting children. The Hungarian Parliament earlier in the year approved a bill that bans trans and intersex people from legally changing their gender.
“I’m treated like the black sheep of the European Union,” Orbán told Carlson.
Carlson repeatedly told Orbán that Biden has described him as a “totalitarian thug,” while noting the comment suggests “why wouldn’t the Biden State Department work to prevent you (Orbán) from being elected” in Hungary’s 2022 presidential election. Orbán, for his part, said he is prepared for “international interference.”
“That will happen … we are prepared for that,” said Orbán. “Obviously the international left will do everything that they can do and probably more to change the government here in Hungary.”
The BBC reported Carlson while in Hungary attended a festival the Matthias Corvinus Collegium, a conservative foundation with close ties to Orbán.
A Media Matters for America spokesperson on Friday pointed out to the Washington Blade that Carlson, among other things, has recently mocked Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine, who is the first openly trans person the U.S. Senate has confirmed. GLAAD has also documented Carlson’s other anti-LGBTQ comments that include his description of trans children as “grotesque” and bragging about him and a friend beating up a gay man when they were in high school.
A Fox News spokesperson has not responded to the Blade’s request for comment.
The network over the years has sponsored several NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists events, including its conventions and annual New York City fundraiser that former Fox News anchor Shepard Smith has attended. NLGJA did not respond to the Blade’s request for comment for this story.
Argentina
LGBTQ seniors in Argentina face uncertain future
President Javier Milei’s policies have disproportionately impacted retired pensioners

Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers will be on assignment in Argentina and Uruguay through April 12.
Argentina has undergone significant changes in its economic and social policies since President Javier Milei’s inauguration in December 2023. These changes have had a significant impact on various sectors of society, especially retirees and the LGBTQ community.
Mercedes Caracciolo, a 79-year-old sociologist and lesbian activist, shared her experience with the Washington Blade on how the new measures have affected her quality of life.
“Since Milei’s arrival in government, which began with a brutal devaluation, I am more careful in my spending than I was before,” she said.
Although Caracciolo has additional income from rental properties, she recognizes the situation is much more critical for those who exclusively depend on a pension.
With more than 7 million people receiving pensions, many find themselves “scratching the poverty line” due to the loss of purchasing power. The libertarian government’s economic policies have drastically affected their welfare, leading to a wave of protests across the country.
The reduction of social programs and the lack of LGBTQ-specific public policies have deepened the difficulties that seniors already face. The loss of economic stability particularly affects those who have historically lived on the margins, with fewer job opportunities and limited access to a decent retirement. Many older LGBTQ people, who have spent their lives unable to form traditional families, now find themselves without a support network and with an increasingly less present State.
The advance of conservative discourses has also generated a climate of insecurity and fear.
“There is no more sense of security and stability in old age,” Graciela Balestra, a psychologist who is the president of Puerta Abierta a la Diversidad, the first home for LGBTQ seniors in Argentina, explained. “Many LGBTQ+ retirees fear that there are fewer and fewer rights. They see what is happening in Argentina and globally with the advance of the right wing, and they feel that what they worked so hard to achieve is in jeopardy.”
In addition to economic difficulties, the LGBTQ community has faced additional challenges.
Caracciolo noted many supportive spaces have had their government subsidies reduced or eliminated, weakening community networks essential to the well-being of LGBTQ seniors.
“Community networks are also weakened because many of them require state support for certain types of expenses,” she noted.
Balestra warned about the psychological impact.
“Obviously it impacted mental health. There is much more anxiety, there is fear. People who say ‘I’m afraid they’ll kill me’ or ‘I’m afraid to show myself,'” she said. “Before, they used to walk down the street holding hands with their partner, and now they don’t do it anymore. A lot of hopelessness.”
For Balestra, the concern goes beyond the LGBTQ community.
“The economic issue, the rights issue, the fear that something similar to the dictatorship will return. All of this is very scary. And besides, the hopelessness of believing that this is going to continue, that it is not going to change even in the next elections,” she said.
Civil society organizations have denounced an “adjustment” in policies related to gender and diversity that Milei’s government has undertaken. Pride marches in Argentina have become a stage for protests against the president’s policies, especially over his speeches that activists consider hateful towards the LGBTQ community.
Balestra stresses the fear is not only individual, but collective.
“Human rights no longer exist anywhere, women no longer have the place they used to have, they are once again objectified, machismo is on the rise again,” she said. “This brings a lot of despair to older people.”
Despite the climate of uncertainty, Balestra emphasizes resistence forces are still in force.
“We continue working, as always,” she said. “For 25 years at Puerta Abierta we have been doing reflection groups, cultural workshops, social meetings, all with respect to being able to make LGBT people aware of their rights. We never stop meeting, but lately we are talking more and more about these things that we had already left a little behind. The issue of coming out, fear, visibility. Now we have to talk about it again.”
Africa
Report: Anti-LGBTQ discrimination has cost East African countries billions
Open for Business highlights Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda

The economies of four East African countries are losing more than $5 billion a year because of discrimination against LGBTQ people.
The 80-page report that Open for Business, a coalition of leading global organizations that champion LGBTQ inclusion, released in late March focuses on Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda. It attributes the losses to anti-homosexuality laws, and predicts more economic costs if lawmakers implement other harsh anti-LGBTQ measures.
The report notes Uganda is losing $2.4 billion, or 5.2 percent of its GDP, annually because of the Anti-Homosexuality Act that took effect in 2023. Open for Business last October revealed the country had already lost $1.6 billion in foreign direct investment, donor aid, trade, tourism, public health and productivity after President Yoweri Museveni signed the law.
Kenya is losing $1.5 billion, or 1.38 percent of its GDP.
The report warns that enacting the pending Family Protection Bill would cost the country an additional $6.3 billion, or 5.8 percent of its GDP, annually. Opposition MP Peter Kaluma, who has introduced the measure, in January claimed the Biden-Harris administration had blocked it and vowed to have fellow MPs pass it after U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Kaluma is a strong supporter of Trump and the Republican Party’s opposition to LGBTQ rights and other far-right conservative ideologies.
Tanzania is losing $1.1 billion, or 1.33 percent of its GDP, because of anti-LGBTQ discrimination. Rwanda is losing $45 million, or .32 percent of its GDP.
Homosexuality is not illegal in Rwanda unlike the other three countries, but consensual same-sex sexual relationships remain taboo. Queer Rwandans also face stigma, discrimination, social exclusion, and arbitrary detention.
“A series of private member bills in Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania have threatened to pull the region back in terms of progress and human rights for LGBTQ+ people, and damage both the ease of doing business and their international reputation,” states the Open for Business CEO Dominic Arnall.
Arnall notes his organization’s extensive engagement with businesses across East Africa over the last five years has always linked harmful anti-LGBTQ laws to impacts on a country’s investment prospects.
“The finding lays bare an uncomfortable truth: That laws that harm the LGBTQ+ community are standing in the way of prosperity and growth for all citizens in the region,” he said.
The report calls for LGBTQ inclusion as part of the region’s broader economic development agenda.
The Open for Business report notes anti-gay violence and discrimination in Tanzania has been on the rise since the late-President John Magufuli came to power in 2015. The country’s punitive anti-homosexuality law with a 30-year prison sentence for consensual same-sex sexual relations was already in place, but queer Tanzanians were generally not systematically targeted.
“Reporting of neighbors or community members for suspected homosexuality is frequent and law enforcement officers have been known to pose as members of the LGBTQ+ community to entrap and blackmail LGBTQ+ individuals,” states the report.
It also notes the Tanzanian government’s crackdown on websites and social media accounts that promote LGBTQ rights and threatening the arrests of administrators who allow such content. The report concludes this suppression has caused queer people to live in fear and isolation.
Religious organizations, particularly Christian churches in Tanzania, also champion anti-LGBTQ rhetoric by encouraging their followers against tolerating homosexuality and transgender people. Politicians, meanwhile, use anti-LGBTQ narratives to gain support during campaigns.
While Rwanda stands out as the only East African country in which homosexuality is not criminalized and has foreign donors implementing programs that target the queer community, discussing LGBTQ rights in public is rare and same-sex relationships are not legally recognized. The Open for Business report notes this situation creates legal ambiguity and a fragile social environment for queer Rwandans.
“Several LGBTQ+ rights organizations have emerged in recent years, mostly in Kigali, although they do not always identify themselves as LGBTQ+ associations and are rarely formally registered, making it difficult for them to receive funding,” reads the report.
The Rwandan government has rejected calls to criminalize homosexuality, which it considers a “private matter.” It has also been adamant against efforts to protect queer people for fear of domestic opposition and a desire not to politicize the issue like in neighboring countries.
Kenya, like Rwanda, has for a long time been considered more receptive of queer people, “as long as LGBTQ members are not ‘too loud.’”
Anyone convicted under Kenya’s colonial-era sodomy law could face up to 14 years in prison. Efforts to enact a harsh anti-homosexuality law and anti-LGBTQ protests that religious leaders, politicians, and activists have organized have increased homophobia in the country.
“LGBTQ individuals report significant difficulties in securing formal employment, which pushes many of them into more precarious livelihoods in the informal sector,” states the report.
Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago recriminalizes homosexuality
Court of Appeal on March 25 overturned 2018 ruling

An appeals court in Trinidad and Tobago has recriminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations in the country.
Jason Jones, an LGBTQ activist from Trinidad and Tobago who currently lives in the U.K., in 2017 challenged Sections 13 and 16 of the country’s Sexual Offenses Act. High Court Justice Devindra Rampersad the following year found them unconstitutional.
The country’s government appealed Rampersad’s ruling.
Court of Appeal Justices Nolan Bereaux and Charmaine Pemberton overturned it on March 25. The Daily Express newspaper reported Justice Vasheist Kokaram dissented.
“As an LGBTQ+ citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, this regressive judgement has ripped up my contract as a citizen of T&T and again makes me an unapprehended criminal in the eyes of the law,” said Jones in a statement he posted to social media. “The TT Court of Appeal has effectively put a target on the back of LGBTQIA+ people and made us lower class citizens in our own country.”
Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, Barbados, and Dominica are among the countries that have decriminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations in recent years.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2021 issued a decision that said Jamaica must repeal its colonial-era sodomy law. The Jamaican Supreme Court in 2023 ruled against a gay man who challenged it.
A judge on St. Vincent and the Grenadines’s top court last year dismissed two cases that challenged the country’s sodomy laws.
Jones in his statement said he “will be exercising my right of appeal and taking this matter to the” Privy Council, an appellate court for British territories that can also consider cases from Commonwealth countries.
King Charles III is not Trinidad and Tobago’s head of the state, but the country remains part of the Commonwealth.
“I hope justice will be done and these heinous discriminatory laws, a legacy of British colonialism, will be removed by the British courts,” said Jones.
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