World
Transgender activist fights for change in Pakistan
Jannat Ali attended 2018 HRC summit in D.C.
A pioneering transgender activist in Pakistan continues her fight for change in her country.
Jannat Ali—who describes herself as an “artivist”— is the executive director of Track T, a trans rights organization that is based in Lahore, the country’s second largest city that is the capital of Punjab province.
Track T in December 2018 organized Pakistan’s first-ever trans Pride march that drew nearly 500 people. A law that permits trans people to legally change the gender on their national ID cards and other official documents, allows them to vote and bans discrimination based on gender identity in employment, health care, education and on public transportation took effect earlier that year.
“That was an opportunity (for people) to celebrate their real true identities,” Ali told the Washington Blade on Aug. 19 during a telephone interview from Copenhagen, Denmark, where she was attending WorldPride 2021. “People were shaking hands because we did it so beautifully.”
Ali in March launched “Journey with Jannat”, an “inclusive infotainment show” with episodes on Instagram and YouTube. She is the first openly trans person to host her own program in Pakistan.
Ali in 2018 traveled to D.C. to participate in the Human Rights Campaign’s annual Global Innovative Advocacy Summit. Track-T last year received a $5,000 HRC grant.
“They changed my life,” Ali told the Blade, referring to HRC. “They helped me to fulfill my dreams in my life and make me be able to share my work.”
Pakistan’s Supreme Court in 2009 ruled in favor of recognizing trans people as a third gender on identity cards. The Pakistani government in July opened the country’s first school for trans people.
Section 377 of Pakistan’s colonial-era penal code that criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual relations remains in place. Ali told the Blade that implementation of the 2018 trans rights law— especially in the country’s tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan and in rural Pakistan — remains a problem.
“The government doesn’t (make it a) priority,” she said. “It’s a responsibility of other provinces to adopt or to amend it and present their bill in their own provinces.”
Ali said violence based on gender identity remains prevalent in these areas.
Alisha, a trans activist who worked with Trans Action in Peshawar, a city in Khyber Pakhtunkwa province that borders Afghanistan, died in 2016 after a man who reportedly raped her shot her several times.
Activists said staff at a local hospital delayed treatment because she was trans. The province’s then-governor ordered personnel to place Alisha in a private room, but she died a short time later.
“We are thankful to the governor,” a local activist told the Blade after Alisha’s death. “This was the first time that a government executive showed support.”
Taliban regaining control of Afghanistan ‘really sad’
Ali spoke with the Blade four days after the Taliban entered Kabul, the Afghan capital, and regained control of the country.
A Taliban judge in July said the group would once again execute gay men if it were to return to power in Afghanistan.
Some of the 50 Afghan human rights activists who Taylor Hirschberg, a researcher at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health who is also a Hearst Foundation scholar, has been able to help leave the country are LGBTQ. The Toronto-based Rainbow Railroad and Immigration Equality are among the other groups that have continued their efforts to evacuate LGBTQ Afghans since American troops completed their withdrawal from the country on Aug. 30.
“I was really worried,” Ali told the Blade when asked about the plight of LGBTQ Afghans in Afghanistan after the Taliban regained control of the country. “I was really sad.”
Ali this week said she is now “in touch” with LGBTQ Afghans who have fled to northern Pakistan.
United Nations
UN human rights chief sounds alarm over ‘comprehensive onslaught’ against LGBTQ rights
Volker Türk on Monday spoke at UN LGBTI Core Group event
UNITED NATIONS — U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Monday said there is a “comprehensive onslaught” against LGBTQ and intersex rights around the world.
“We know that progress for human rights has never been linear … but today’s backlash is deep and it is coordinated and the persecution of LGBTIQ+ people around the world is escalating at an alarming rate,” he said during an U.N. LGBTI Core Group event that took place on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
The Core Group is a group of U.N. member states that have pledged to support LGBTQ and intersex rights.
Mexico and Norway are the current co-chairs. The U.S. withdrew from the Core Group shortly after the Trump-Vance administration took office in 2025.
“We know that across every region, LGBTIQ+ people continue to live and to love in the face of hostility and exclusion,” said Türk. “Their rights, safety, well-being are under attack … it’s a comprehensive onslaught.”
The event took place days after Turkish authorities carried out raids in Istanbul and in other cities across the country that targeted the country’s LGBTQ community.
Türk in his remarks specifically referenced Turkey and Senegal, which further criminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations earlier this year. He also noted some countries have deemed LGBTQ and intersex rights groups as “terrorists, extremists, or national security threats.”
The Trump-Vance administration’s anti-terrorism strategy that it released in May specifically references “radically pro-transgender” groups.
Türk noted “more and more candidates and political parties … use bigotry in order to promote anti-LGBTIQ+ sentiments” during election campaigns. He pointed out trans people and women are often targeted.
“These attacks are designed to confuse and to distract,” said Türk. “They cloak bigotry in the language of decency and morality. They evoke the protection of children against manufactured threats, while real and growing dangers to children’s lives and futures, including those linked to technology, to inequality and to the climate disaster remain unaddressed.”
“More broadly those who seek to erase difference and independent thought, expression, and voices from our societies often begin this by erasing LGBTIQ+ people from books and classrooms, from film and culture and from our streets,” he added. “So, this is always the beginning. It’s a wedge issue that unfortunately is used politically to erase other portions of society eventually.”
90 percent of LGBTQ, intersex groups have lost funding since 2025
The event took place less than two weeks after Outright International released a report that found 90 percent of LGBTQ and intersex rights groups around the world have lost funding since January 2025.
The Trump-Vance administration froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid shortly after it took office.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio in March 2025 announced 83 percent of U.S. Agency for International Development contacts had been cancelled, and the State Department would administer the remaining programs. USAID officially shut down on July 1, 2025.
Rubio issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the funding freeze. The Washington Blade has previously reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of gaps in U.S. funding.
Dutch Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma in his remarks at the Core Group event noted his government — openly gay Prime Minister Rob Jetten took office in February — will pledge €50 million ($57.29 million) to support LGBTQ groups around the world. British Under Secretary of State Chris Elmore pointed out his government has pledged £21 million ($28.05) from 2026-2029 to bolster LGBTQ and intersex rights around the world.
“Equality benefits everyone,” said Elmore.
Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretary Roberto Velasco Álvarez, Norwegian International Development Minister Åsmund Aukrust, Icelandic Foreign Affairs Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, Maltese Foreign and European Affairs Minister Chris Fearne, Brazil’s National Secretary for the Promotion and Defense of the Rights of LGBTQIA+ People Symmy Larrat, Irish State Minister for International Development and Diaspora Neale Richmond, South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation Director-General Zane Dangor, Uruguayan Multilateral Affairs Director María Noel Beretta, French Ambassador-at-Large for Human Rights Isabelle Rome, Cabo Verdean Permanent U.N. Representative Tania Romualdo, Estonian Department of International Organizations and Human Rights Director General Käthlin Saluveer, and Swedish International Development Cooperation Director-General Camilla Nevstad Bruzelius also spoke at the event that Outright International Executive Director Maria Sjödin moderated.
Other speakers included Jon Tilli of Deutsche Bank, UN Women Civil Society Division Director Lopa Banerjee and two activists: Gloria Quaye of Ghana and Nhuun Wannapong Yodmuang of Thailand.
Quaye was among the 21 people who Ghanaian authorities arrested in 2021 during a human rights workshop for LGBTQ activists. She was detained for three weeks until a court dropped the charges.
“In times of adversity, countries can often be tempted to turn inward at precisely the moment when international cooperation is needed the most,” said Sjödin. “The United Nations, of course, brings together sovereign states, but sovereignty cannot be used to decide whose rights count.”
Then-first lady Jill Biden in 2024 spoke at a Core Group event that took place on the sidelines of that year’s U.N. General Assembly. Then-Vice President Joe Biden in 2016 headlined the Core Group event that coincided with that year’s U.N. General Assembly.
The U.S. did not send any representatives to this year’s event.
Jessica Stern, the former special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights under the Biden-Harris administration, and former U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina Eric Nelson were among those from the U.S. who attended.
“The movement for the equal rights of LGBTIQ+ people has much to teach the world, particularly at this moment, but some seek to erase or reject those lessons,” said Türk. “The history of the movement for the equal rights is full of courage, dignity, and solidarity and it is an integral part of the human rights movement.”
“It’s not something separate; it’s an integral part of the full human rights movement,” he added. “In claiming their freedom, the LGBTIQ+ communities helped free our societies. We need to see it as a broader strive for freedom.”
Turkey
Activists protest outside Turkish Embassy in D.C.
Dozens detained during anti-LGBTQ ‘My Family Is Safe’ campaign raids
A group of activists on Friday gathered in front of the Turkish Embassy in D.C. to protest the country’s anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
The protest — which the Council for Global Equality, Amnesty International USA, Outright International, and Health GAP organized — took place less than a week after Turkish authorities detained dozens of people during raids that targeted the country’s LGBTQ community and advocacy groups and HIV/AIDS service organizations.
Authorities in Istanbul on Sept. 15 detained more than 150 people who gathered outside a courthouse to protest the raids that are part of the government’s “My Family Is Safe” campaign. Journalists are among those who were taken into custody.
“This crackdown is not making families safer,” said Amnesty International USA Executive Director Nadia Daar, speaking in front of the Turkish Embassy.
Council for Global Equality Managing Director Keifer Buckingham stressed that “homosexuality is not a crime in Turkey.” Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell and Outright International Senior Director of Law, Policy, and Research Neela Ghoshal also spoke.
View on Threads
Activists in Madrid and in other cities around the world held similar protests on Friday.
Turkey
More than 150 people detained outside Istanbul courthouse
Protesters gathered after raids targeted Turkey’s LGBTQ community
Turkish authorities on Tuesday detained more than 150 people who gathered outside an Istanbul courthouse to protest raids that targeted the country’s LGBTQ community.
CNN reported the protesters had planned to speak with reporters outside the city’s Caglayan courthouse, but authorities prevented them from doing so.
Turkish authorities over the weekend detained dozens of people in Istanbul and in other cities during raids that were part of the government’s “My Family is Safe” campaign.
A statement from a group of Turkish advocacy groups the Washington Blade received on Tuesday notes “at least 112 people have been detained in connection with the operations.” The organizations said 43 of those taken into custody are “LGBTI+ rights defenders,” and “at least” 62 of those detained “have been arrested, while judicial proceedings remain ongoing in Istanbul.”
“Among those arrested, at least 16 are LGBTI+ activists or individuals connected to LGBTI+ associations, including founders and members of association bodies,” reads the statement. “Per press statements by the prosecutor’s offices, dissolution cases will also be launched against associations.”
“The majority of those arrested are trans women who are charged with prostitution-related offences,” it adds. “While authorities have framed the operations as part of investigations into alleged crimes such as obscenity, prostitution and child exploitation, human rights defenders and civil society organizations have raised serious concerns regarding the use of criminal law mechanisms and public morality narratives to target legitimate LGBTI+ rights activities. Civil society views the ‘My Family is Safe’ narrative as a smokescreen to distract the public from deep economic crises and actual domestic violence, weaponizing moral panic to scapegoat LGBTI+ rights defenders, who have long been targeted by the government.”
The raids have sparked outrage among LGBTQ activists in Europe and elsewhere around the world.
The Congressional Equality Caucus and U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.) are among those who have publicly condemned them in the U.S. The Council for Global Equality on Friday is scheduled to hold a rally in support of Turkey’s LGBTQ community in front of the Turkish Embassy in Northwest D.C.
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