World
HRC global workplace initiative expands to Argentina, Brazil
Program based on Corporate Equality Index
The Human Rights Campaign on Thursday announced its initiative to promote LGBTQ equality in workplaces around the world has expanded to two South American countries.
A press release notes the HRC Foundation has launched Equidad AR in Argentina with the country’s Instituto de Políticas Públicas LGBT+, and Equidad BR in Brazil with Instituto + Diversidade.
The initiatives, which are based on HRC’s Corporate Equality Index, have three specific objectives for the businesses that take part. They are the adoption of non-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation and gender identity, the creation of employee resource groups or “diversity and inclusion councils” and “engagement in public activities to support LGBTQ+ inclusion.”
“Argentina is one of the most advanced countries in terms of rights for the collective of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and non-binary people in the region,” said Instituto de Políticas Públicas LGBT+ President Esteban Paulón in the press release. “However, the formal equality achieved does not always transform into real equality of opportunities. We believe that in the corporate sphere there is a great opportunity to achieve the equality that we dream.”
HRC’s annual Corporate Equality Index is the blueprint for Equidad AR and Equidad BR. Similar indexes have been launched with LGBTQ rights groups in Chile and Mexico.
“An index that recognizes inclusive companies and practices is a must to push forward and accelerate LGBTI+ inclusion in Brazil,” said Instituto + Diversidade Executive President Joao Torres.
Thursday’s announcement comes less than two months after HRC fired then-President Alphonso David after his implication in the sexual harassment scandal around now former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Joni Madison is HRC’s interim president.
Hungary
Hungarian authorities lift Budapest Pride ban
Country’s new government took office last month
Hungarian police on May 29 announced they will allow the annual Budapest Pride march to take place.
“The Budapest Metropolitan Police has approved the 2026 Budapest Pride Parade and also has issued restrictive orders in relation to three counter-demonstrations,” a Budapest Metropolitan Police spokesperson told Politico.
Budapest is Hungary’s capital and largest city.
Hungarian lawmakers last year passed a bill that banned Pride events and allowed authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify participants. MPs later amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
More than 100,000 people defied the ban and participated in last year’s Budapest Pride parade. The event became one of the largest protests against then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government since he took office in 2010.
Prime Minister Péter Magyar took office last month after his center-right Tisza party ousted Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP coalition in elections that took place on April 12. The European Union’s top court, the EU Court of Justice, days after Orbán’s ouster struck down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law that MPs approved in 2021.
The EU on May 29 announced it will release more than €16 billion ($18.59 billion) in funds to Hungary that it withheld while Orbán was in office.
The Budapest Pride march will take place on June 27.
“We will march freely in fresh air for our rights, for the democratic Hungary,” said Budapest Pride on its Facebook page.
Colombia
Claudia López comes up short in Colombian presidential election
Former Bogotá mayor would have been country’s first lesbian head of government
Former Bogotá Mayor Claudia López on Sunday finished fifth in the first round of Colombia’s presidential election.
López, a centrist who ran as an independent, received 225,517 votes. This figure is .95 percent of the total votes cast.
López was the Colombian capital’s mayor from 2020-2023. She was a member of the Colombian Senate from 2014-2018. López, whose wife is outgoing Colombian Sen. Angélica Lozano, would have become the country’s first female and first lesbian president if she would have won the election.
The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute honored López in D.C. in 2024.
“We need to listen to each other again, we need to have a coffee with each other again, we need to touch each other’s skin,” she told the Washington Blade during an interview. She hadn’t yet declared her candidacy, and did not specifically discuss her plans to run.
Runoff to take place June 21
Abrelardo de la Espriella, a far-right lawyer who has praised U.S. President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, on Sunday finished first with 43.74 percent of the vote. Senator Iván Cepeda, a member of outgoing President Gustavo Petro’s Historic Pact party, came in second with 40.9 percent of the vote.
Neither men received a majority of votes. A runoff between them will take place on June 21.
Ghana
Ghanaian lawmakers approve anti-LGBTQ bill
Measure that would criminalize allyship awaits president’s signature
Ghanaian lawmakers on Friday approved a bill that would, among other things, criminalize LGBTQ allyship.
Reuters reported MPs approved the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025, in a voice vote after parliament’s Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee backed it.
MPs in 2024 approved a similar bill, but it faced legal challenges and then-President Nana Akufo-Addo didn’t sign it. Lawmakers last year reintroduced the measure after President John Dramani Mahama took office.
The bill awaits his signature.
Rightify Ghana, a Ghanaian LGBTQ advocacy group, in a series of social media posts notes MPs passed the bill days before the 4th African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty will take place in Accra, the country’s capital.
JR.’s hosts meet & greet for mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George
Campaign to support Va. marriage amendment repeal launched
Why Michelle Visage needs you to get ‘PrEP Wise’
White House Correspondents’ Dinner rescheduled after shooting
CAMP Rehoboth’s new director shares plans for busy summer
Nine Russian LGBTQ groups deemed ‘extremist’ banned
‘The Stranger’ queers an existentialist classic
Ghanaian lawmakers approve anti-LGBTQ bill
Time travelers from the AIDS era
