Europe
Poland LGBTQ ‘Free Zones’ tossed, UK ranking drops, Pussy Riot singer escapes
Maria Alyokhina fled Russia disguised as a food delivery driver
LGBTQ news from Europe this past week saw a major development in Poland after a court annulled actions taken previously to declare ‘LGBT Free Zones’ by provincial governments.
Large parts of Poland were labelled “LGBT-free zones,” where regional governments declared they were against LGBTQ ideology. Last fall the executive branch of the European Union, the European Commission, sent letters out last week to the governors of five of Poland’s voivodeships, (provinces) warning that pandemic relief funds totaling over 126 million euros ($150 million) will be withheld over anti-LGBTQ measures passed in their jurisdictions.
Poland has seen a resurgence in the past three years of rightwing religious ultra-conservative groups backed by nationalistic extremists in this heavily Catholic country of 38 million, which have led to passage of measures to restrict pride parades and other LGBTQ-friendly events from taking place.
Proponents of these measures claim the necessity of the provinces to be “free of LGBTQ ideology” saying this is mandated by average Poles as well as by the anti-LGBTQ views of the Catholic Church.
The majority of Polish people support LGBTQ rights surrounding marriage and family, according to research by Miłość Nie Wyklucza (Love Does Not Exclude.)
The survey found 56 percent of respondents believe same-sex marriage should be legal to ensure the safety of their children. Even more, 65 percent, said they felt “a biological parent raising a child with a same-sex partner” fits the definition of family. And 58 percent of people said a same-sex couple is a family even without children.
Lublin Regional Assembly passed a resolution in April 2019 declaring that LGBTQ rights aim to “annihilate” the “values shaped by the Catholic Church” PinkNewsUK reported.
In the same month, Ryki County, a district in Lublin, passed a resolution voting to protect “children, young people, families and Polish schools” from an apparent wave of “homoterror” being unleashed by “left-liberal groups.”
PinkNewsUK also reported that the Provincial Administrative Court in Lublin found the resolutions were “adopted without legal basis and in gross violation of the law” after a legal challenge by the Polish Ombudsman.
They become the eighth and ninth “LGBT-free zones” voided by the courts following interventions by the Polish Ombudsman. Municipal councils in Istebna, Klwów, Serniki, Osiek, Lipinki, Niebylec and the Tarnowski County Council all scrapped such measures in 2019.
This past June, the leaders of 17 European Union countries had signed a letter that urges the EU to fight anti-LGBTQ discrimination. The EU has also called out the anti-LGBTQ measures taken more recently in Hungary.
ILGA-Europe, a Brussels based advocacy group promoting the interests of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people, at the European level, in a statement it sent to the Blade in June after the EU letter was issued, notes that both Hungary and Poland, another EU country in which lawmakers have sought to restrict LGBTQ rights in recent years are at odds with the EU position on LGBTQ+ people.
“For quite some time now, we’ve been informing EU ministers about systematic breaches of EU law committed by Hungary and Poland, which impact on LGBTI rights and the lives of LGBTI people,” says ILGA-Europe.
The UK has dropped to 14th in the ILGA-Europe’s rankings for LGBTQ rights, scoring 53 out of a possible 100
ILGA-Europe, which produces a yearly “rainbow map” of 49 countries across Europe, revealed this past week that the United Kingdom had the most significant drop in ranking for LGBTQ equality rights this past year falling from 10th to 14th place.
Leading contributors to the loss in ranking and standing on the ILGA annual listing was due in part to the ongoing battles over transgender rights with a failure by the Tory-led government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson to set gender recognition policies especially in regard to a total ban on LGBTQ conversion therapy.
ILGA-Europe’s advocacy director, Katrin Hugendubel, described the UK’s plunging status to The Guardian newspaper as “a sad reminder that when governments don’t stand strong on their commitments to advance minority rights, a powerful opposition can use that space to spread hate and division”.
The chief executive of Stonewall UK, Nancy Kelley, warned that “years of progress on LGBTQ+ policy that was achieved under successive administrations has been rapidly eroded by a UK government that has taken its foot off the pedal”.
The ILGA highlighted the UK government’s failure to extend a ban on conversion practices to transgender people, as well as abandonment of promised reforms on gender recognition and its equality action plan. It added that the UK also lost points because the government’s equalities watchdog, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), was “not … effectively protecting on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity” the Guardian reported.
Kelley called on the prime minister to “step back into the game” as a leader in protecting and promoting LGBTQ rights.
“As we approach the 50th anniversary of the first Pride in the UK, we call for his active leadership to rebuild our human rights institutions and to deliver a strategic policy programme that enables all LGBTQ+ people in the UK to live their lives in freedom and safety.”
Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot escaped from Russia disguised as a food delivery worker
In what could be best described as a story worthy of a Cold-War era spy novel, the leader of the Russian activist band Pussy Riot fled Russia disguised as a food-delivery worker. Maria V. Alyokhina in an interview with the New York Times that she was able to get to her girlfriend’s home in Vilnius, Lithuania, after evading Russian Federal Security Services agents.
The queer singer-songwriter musician and human rights activist who was on house arrest at the time of her escape was set to be transferred to a penal colony in the Russian Far East after being arrested six times in the past year protesting the policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin and more recently his order for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
According to the account in the New York Times, Alyokhina left her apartment in the food-delivery worker disguise, and an unnamed friend drove her to the Belarusian border. The problem then became exiting from Belarus to Lithuania as she was turned away at the border twice by Lithuanian border agents.
The Times reported that Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson eventually helped Alyokhina acquire the necessary travel documents from an unnamed country that in turn assisted her entering into Lithuania, where many Pussy Riot members had already escaped to, including Alyokhina’s girlfriend, Lucy Shtein.
The band has now kicked off their European tour in Berlin.
Pussy Riot concert with activist after escape from Russia
The Vatican
Pope Leo XIV: Family based on ‘stable union between a man and a woman’
American-born pontiff met with Vatican diplomats on May 15
Pope Leo XIV on May 15 reaffirmed Vatican doctrine that says marriage is between a man and a woman.
The Associated Press reported Leo told Vatican diplomats the family is created upon the “stable union between a man and a woman.” Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and dozens of other world leaders on Sunday attended the American-born pontiff’s installation Mass that took place in St. Peter’s Square.
The College of Cardinals earlier this month elected Leo to succeed Pope Francis, who died on April 21.
Francis, who was from Argentina, was a vocal opponent of the country’s marriage equality law that took effect in 2010. He was the archbishop of Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital, when then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner signed it.
Francis in 2020 publicly backed civil unions for gays and lesbians. Francis in 2023 said priests can bless same-sex couples.
The College of Cardinals on Thursday elected Cardinal Robert Prevost from Chicago as the Catholic Church’s next pope.
Leo XIV’s election took place less than three weeks after Pope Francis died at Casa Santa Marta, his official residence at the Vatican. The conclave to choose his successor began on Wednesday.
Leo XIV, who was born in Chicago in 1955, is the first American pope.
Leo XIV was bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo in Peru from 2015-2023. Francis made him a cardinal in 2023
“We salute the appointment of the new Pope Leo XVI,” said the U.S. Embassy in Peru on X.
“A celebration for the world’s Catholics, and a joy especially shared between the American people and the Peruvian people. From Chicago to Chiclayo.”
U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), a gay man of Peruvian descent, also congratulated Leo XIV.
“As a Catholic and Peruvian American, I wish Pope Leo XIV strength as he steps into his role as a global and spiritual leader,” said the California Democrat on X. “He has demonstrated that he believes in justice for the poor and immigrants. May his leadership reflect these ideals as he spreads peace across the world.”
As a Catholic and Peruvian American, I wish Pope Leo XIV strength as he steps into his role as a global and spiritual leader. He has demonstrated that he believes in justice for the poor and immigrants. May his leadership reflect these ideals as he spreads peace across the world.
— Congressman Robert Garcia (@RepRobertGarcia) May 8, 2025
Francis died on April 21 at Casa Santa Marta, his official residence at the Vatican. The conclave to choose the Argentine pontiff’s successor began on Wednesday.
The Vatican’s tone on LGBTQ and intersex issues softened under Francis’s papacy, even though church teachings on homosexuality did not change.
Francis, among other things, described laws that criminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations as “unjust” and supported civil unions for gays and lesbians. Transgender people were among those who greeted Francis’s coffin at Rome’s St. Mary Major Basilica before his burial on April 26.
The New York Times reported Leo XIV in a 2012 speech to bishops specifically cited “homosexual lifestyle” and “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children” when he said Western media and popular culture has promoted “sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the gospel”
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, a group that represents LGBTQ Catholics, traveled to Rome for the conclave.
She told the Washington Blade in a text message from St. Peter’s Square shortly after Leo XIV’s election that she “heard him speak” last October and “found him thoughtful and gently challenging.”
“[He] hasn’t said a lot since early 2010s. [I] hope he has evolved,” said Duddy-Burke. “His commitment to synodality is a hopeful sign.”
Her group later issued a statement.
“This election appears to signal a willingness to continue building on Pope Francis’s commitment to synodality and social justice,” said DignityUSA. “We pray that the needs of those whom our church has historically marginalized, including LGBTQ+ people and their families, will continue to be heard and addressed by the Vatican and other church leaders.”
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a statement said there is “a special pride in having the first pope from the United States, his longtime ministry in Latin America most likely had an equally formative influence on his spirituality and approach to church issues.” DeBernardo, however, criticized Leo XIV’s 2012 comments.
“We pray that in the 13 years that have passed, 12 of which were under the papacy of Pope Francis, that his heart and mind have developed more progressively on LGBTQ+ issues, and we will take a wait-and-see attitude to see if that has happened,” he said.
“We pray that as our church transitions from 12 years of an historic papacy, Pope Leo XIV will continue the welcome and outreach to LGBTQ+ people which Pope Francis inaugurated,” added DeBernardo. “The healing that began with ‘Who am I to judge?’ needs to continue and grow to ‘Who am I, if not a friend to LGBTQ+ people?'”
DignityUSA agreed.
“We express concern with the former Cardinal’s statements — as reported in the New York Times — in a 2012 address to bishops, where he stated that Western news media and popular culture fostered ‘sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the gospel’ including the ‘homosexual lifestyle’ and ‘alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children.'” We note that this statement was made during the papacy of Benedict XVI, when doctrinal adherence appeared to be expected,” said the organization in its statement. “In addition, the voices of LGBTQ people were rarely heard at that level of church leadership. We pray that Pope Leo XIV will demonstrate a willingness to listen and grow as he begins his new role as the leader of the global church.”
The Vatican
Executive director of LGBTQ Catholic group to travel to Rome for conclave
Marianne Duddy-Burke met Pope Francis in 2023
The executive director of a group that represents LGBTQ Catholics will travel to Rome next week for the papal conclave that starts on May 7.
DignityUSA Executive Director Marianne Duddy-Burke on Thursday told the Washington Blade she will arrive in Rome on May 6. Duddy-Burke said she plans to spend time in St. Peter’s Square “and have conversations with people.”
“I will wear Dignity insignia, have rainbow flags,” she said.
Pope Francis died on April 21. His funeral took place five days later.
The Vatican’s tone on LGBTQ and intersex issues softened under the Argentine-born pope’s papacy, even though church teachings on homosexuality did not change.
Francis, among other things, described laws that criminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations as “unjust” and supported civil unions for gays and lesbians. Transgender people were among those who greeted Francis’s coffin at Rome’s St. Mary Major Basilica before his burial on April 26.
Duddy-Burke and two others from the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics met with Francis in October 2023 during a meeting that focused on the Catholic Church’s future. Duddy-Burke noted Francis “invited” her and her colleagues as his “special guests for the audience and then had a conversation with him afterwards.”
“For me the sort of visibility that he (Francis) brought to our community and to our concerns feels irreversible,” said Duddy-Burke. “He empowered so many people and so many new ministries.”
Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu — the archbishop of Kinshasa in Congo who has described homosexuality as an “abomination” — is among the cardinals who are reportedly in the running to succeed Francis.
“I really don’t know,” said Duddy-Burke when the Blade asked her who the next pope will be. “Of course, I am hoping and praying hard that it will be someone who will continue to lead the church on responsiveness of human need and greater inclusivity.”
“What happens in that room is such a mystery,” she added.
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