The Dutch Senate on Tuesday approved a bill that would ban so-called conversion therapy in the Netherlands.

NL Times, an online Dutch newspaper, reported 57 of 75 senators backed the proposal. The Dutch House of Representatives, the lower house of the country’s parliament, approved the measure last September.

Conversion therapy practitioners could face up to two years in prison and a €25,000 ($28,980) fine under the bill once it becomes law after King Willem-Alexander gives his royal assent.

“We have been fighting for the ban with victims and colleague organizations for almost 15 years and are very happy with this result,” said COC Nederland, a Dutch LGBTQ and intersex rights group, in a statement after Tuesday’s vote. “We see it as a victory for the victims.”

Seven EU countries — Belgium, Cyprus, France, Malta, Norway, Portugal, and Spain — have banned conversion therapy outright.

Greece in 2022 banned the practice for minors. German lawmakers in 2020 passed a law that prohibits conversion therapy for minors and for adults who have not consented to undergoing the widely discredited practice.

The European Parliament in April voted in favor of prohibiting conversion therapy across the EU. The European Commission last month said all EU countries should ban it.

Rob Jetten, the country’s first openly gay prime minister, took office in February.

This year’s World Pride will take place in Amsterdam from July 25-Aug. 8.  

Activists around the world are marking Pride month this year against the backdrop of war and geopolitical tensions with the U.S.

KyivPride on June 21 will hold its annual Pride march in the Ukrainian capital. The group, which is raising funds for the country’s air defense, on June 14 hosted KyivPride Park, an event that highlighted LGBTQ service members and veterans.

Russia in 2022 launched its war against Ukraine.

Oleksandr Demenko is the head of Ukrainian LGBT Military for Equal Rights. He also fought to defend Azovstal, a sprawling steel mill in Mariupol, a city in eastern Ukraine that Russian forces occupied after a months-long siege that ended on May 20, 2022.

Demenko in a KyivPride press release said that “almost no one talked about LGBTIQ+ servicemembers” before the war.

“Today we have our own platform, and every year more and more people are ready to speak openly,” he noted. “This is the best proof of how the country is changing.”

“When we talk about rights and equality, we are talking about specific people — service members who defend Ukraine. We carry out the same duties as everyone else, yet we still do not have the same rights,” added Demenko. “That is why it is so important that the state finally recognizes our families. On June 21, we will remind everyone of this at the KyivPride March.”

More than 100,000 people participated in Tel Aviv’s 28th annual Pride parade on June 12.

“Each year, we share a joyful day in Tel Aviv-Yafo,” said Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai. “It is a day when we come to celebrate the society we strive to be: one where people are valued not for who they are, whom they love, where they fall on the spectrum, or the kind of family they choose to create.”

Tel Aviv authorities last year cancelled the parade, which was to have taken place hours after Israel launched airstrikes against Iran. Tehran, in turn, launched hundreds of missiles toward the Jewish State.

President Donald Trump on June 23, 2025, announced a ceasefire that ended the 12-day war.

Israel and the U.S. on Feb. 28 launched airstrikes against Iran. The Jewish State continues to carry out airstrikes against Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shia militant group the U.S. and Israel have designated a terrorist organization, in Lebanon.

Reports indicate the U.S. and Iran this week are poised to formally sign a ceasefire agreement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said his government would continue its efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, killed roughly 1,200 people, including upwards of 360 partygoers at the Nova Music Festival, when they launched a surprise attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip. The militants also kidnapped more than 200 people.

A case that South Africa filed with the International Court of Justice accuses Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Hamas-controlled enclave after Oct. 7.

Roma Pride organizers earlier this month banned two Jewish LGBTQ groups from having floats in their June 20 parade in the Italian capital because they refused to categorize the Israeli government’s post-Oct. 7 war in Gaza as a genocide. The decision has sparked outrage among Jewish organizations around the world.

“The participation of a float in Roma Pride therefore also assumes — regardless of the sexual orientation, identity, religion, ethnicity or nationality of the person you see — a clear and unequivocal position of condemnation of the genocide perpetrated by the Israeli government,” said Roma Pride in a May 26 statement. “The history of our republic is a history of resistance. The history of our movement is a history of resistance. Roma Pride, therefore, supports the right to exist and to resist (for) the Palestinian people oppressed by Israeli government’s criminal and genocidal conduct.”

Sipineq+, a Greenlandic LGBTQ rights group, organized its annual Pride parade that took place in Nuuk, the mineral-rich island’s capital, on June 13.

Trump since he took office for the second time has called for the U.S. to take control of Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory with a population of less than 60,000 people. Trump claims the U.S. needs to control the island in the Arctic Ocean between Europe and North America because of national security.

Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education, a group that Mariela Castro, the daughter of former Cuban President Raúl Castro directs, last month held a series of events that commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia.

The IDAHOBiT commemorations took place against the backdrop of widespread blackouts and a severe fuel shortage after Venezuela stopped oil shipments to Cuba after American forces seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on Jan. 3. Federal prosecutors last month also indicted Raúl Castro over his alleged role in the 1996 shooting down of four planes that Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based Cuban exile group, operated over the Florida Straits that separate Cuba and the Florida Keys.

Raúl Castro, 94, was Cuba’s defense minister when the incident took place.

New Hungarian government lifts Budapest Pride ban

The Budapest Pride march will take place in the Hungarian capital on June 27, less than two months after Prime Minister Péter Magyar took office.

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 that Magyar and his center-right Tisza party ousted on April 12.

Hungarian police on May 29 announced they will allow the Budapest Pride march to take place.

“We will march freely in fresh air for our rights, for the democratic Hungary,” said Budapest Pride on its Facebook page.

Erika Hilton, a Black travesti and former sex worker who has been in the Brazilian Congress since 2022, is among those who spoke at the annual São Paulo Pride Parade that took place on the city’s Paulista Avenue on June 7. Reports indicate more than 1 million people took part in the event.

Equal Namibia will hold several events in the country.

The Namibian High Court in 2024 struck down Apartheid-era statutes that criminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations — the country gained its independence from neighboring South Africa in 1990. The Namibian Supreme Court the year before ruled the country must recognize same-sex marriages legally performed elsewhere.

Patrick Reissner, co-founder of Equal Namibia, on Monday told the Washington Blade the organization is preparing to file a marriage equality case. Reissner said two Equal Namibia staffers are planning to participate in this year’s World Pride, which will take place in Amsterdam from July 25-Aug. 8.

“By staying visible, engaging with the international (business) community, and pushing for more research in queer spaces — Namibian, regional, and continental — we hope to prove to our government that the economic and social costs of discrimination cause more damage, affect productivity, limit innovation, and hold back our nation’s investment attractiveness,” Reissner told the Blade. “Diversity and inclusion — across the board — are not only social values, but increasingly vital arguments in shaping our local economies for future generations.”

On Oct. 30, 2025, a same-sex couple in South Korea filed a petition with the country’s human rights commission after a public institution denied marriage leave to one of the men and later reduced his pay and performance bonus for taking time off for their wedding ceremony. The commission last month completed its investigation and continues to consider the case.

The petition comes as South Korea’s same-sex couples have won a series of legal victories in recent years, even though the country does not extend marriage rights to them. Courts have increasingly been asked to decide whether existing laws and workplace policies can extend equal treatment to LGBTQ people, often in the absence of legislative change.

The employer’s policy granted marriage leave, but it did not define marriage or specify who could claim the benefit. After the employee submitted a wedding invitation and requested a brief leave for a ceremony with his same-sex partner, the institution denied the request and treated his absence as unauthorized.

The South Korean Supreme Court ruled on July 18, 2024, that denying dependent health insurance benefits to same-sex couples while extending them to opposite-sex couples amounted to discriminatory treatment. The court said the unequal treatment infringed on human dignity and the right to pursue happiness.

South Korea’s marriage equality movement has evolved gradually, moving from social taboo and legal nonrecognition toward greater public visibility and limited judicial victories. 

In 2004, a same-sex couple unsuccessfully sought a division of assets under a de facto marriage. Nearly a decade later, filmmaker Kim Jho Gwang-soo and his partner, Kim Seung-hwan, applied to register their marriage, but South Korean courts rejected their bid, as well as subsequent attempts by same-sex couples to gain legal recognition.

In February 2023, the Seoul High Court ruled that the National Health Insurance Service must extend dependent health insurance benefits to same-sex partners, marking a landmark legal victory for LGBTQ couples. The Supreme Court’s 2024 decision made it final.

Under South Korean law, a de facto marriage generally refers to a couple who live together and hold themselves out as married without formally registering their union. While such relationships may receive limited legal recognition in certain circumstances, a marriage is not legally recognized unless it satisfies legal requirements and is registered with the government.

In a ruling made public on June 5, a Seoul court found a same-sex couple had built a life partnership similar to a common-law marriage and deserved legal protection. The court ordered a third party whose affair led to the relationship’s breakdown to pay 10 million won ($6,611.59) in damages.

The court, however, said existing law did not allow it to recognize the relationship as a common-law marriage, underscoring the legal limits that same-sex couples continue to face.

“There is no evidence that the plaintiff and the former partner held a wedding ceremony or revealed their relationship to acquaintances outside their families,” said the court. “From September 2019, when they shared their finances, or at the latest from June 2023, when they lived with the plaintiff’s family and received engagement rings from the plaintiff’s parents and were recognized as a couple, they shared an emotional, physical and financial relationship with a mutual intent to marry, forming a life partnership similar to a common-law marriage.”

On May 31, 2024, South Korean lawmakers introduced the country’s first marriage equality bill. Former Justice Party member Jang Hye-yeong proposed the legislation that 12 lawmakers from across the political spectrum co-sponsored. and co-sponsored by 12 lawmakers from across the political spectrum. The legislation failed later. 

While consensual same-sex relations are not criminalized in South Korea, marriage equality remains unrecognized. Reports suggest many LGBTQ people continue to live with limited public visibility.

Recent opinion surveys suggest public support for marriage equality in South Korea has declined. 

A 2025 Hankook Research poll found that 31 percent of respondents supported extending marriage rights to same-sex couples, down from 36 percent in 2021. A separate Gallup Korea survey found that 34 percent backed marriage equality while 58 percent opposed it, reversing gains in public support and returning attitudes to levels seen nearly a decade ago.

The report attributed the decline in support to South Korea’s broader social and political climate. 

Activists told the publication that far-right mobilization, heightened political tensions, and growing online radicalization among some young men had likely contributed to the shift. They also argued politicians routinely cite a lack of public consensus to delay measures such as the Life Partnership Act and the Marriage Equality Act, describing the argument as an excuse for inaction.

Kiyong Shim, an activist with Chingusai, a Korean gay rights group, told the Washington Blade that the marriage leave dispute illustrates the challenges same-sex couples continue to face in South Korea. Shim said the country’s Civil Act contains no provision that explicitly prohibits same-sex marriage, but that marriage registrations by same-sex couples are refused as a matter of administrative practice.

“Because their relationships have no legal standing, exclusion arises in nearly every area of daily life: marriage leave, family allowances, medical decision-making, inheritance, housing, and more,” said Shim. 

He said the marriage equality movement is advancing along two tracks: one is public campaigning, lectures, workshops, and community networking centred on the Marriage for All Korea campaign and the second is through litigation. Fourteen same-sex couples are now plaintiffs in various lawsuits that have been before South Korean courts since 2024.

Shim told the Blade that change is also beginning to take root in South Korea’s judiciary, pointing to the Supreme Court’s July 2024 ruling that recognized dependent health insurance benefits for same-sex partners.

“Those holding political responsibility — in the legislature, the executive, and beyond — continue to turn away from the rights of LGBTQ+ people,” said Shim. “LGBTQ+ individuals remain exposed to discrimination and hatred in everyday life, and many live by painfully concealing who they are. This is precisely why the campaigning cannot stop, and why the work of organizing must continue.”

Shim told the Blade that public opinion is moving in a more favorable direction, albeit gradually. He said attitudes toward homosexuality, sexual minorities, and marriage equality have steadily become more accepting.

“The problem lies in politics,” said Shim. “In Korea, the forces driving anti-homosexuality sentiment are largely conservative Protestant church groups, and these church groups are deeply entangled with politicians in the ruling Democratic Party. As a result, even within the ruling party, this issue is difficult to address. So we are in an asymmetric situation: the judiciary and public opinion are moving forward, while the very political actors charged with legislation and administration remain stationary.”

Taiwan, Nepal, and Thailand have extended marriage rights to same-sex couples. Shim told the Blade there is a growing sense that South Korea is falling behind.

“Society’s perceptions shift most deeply when the fact that LGBTQ+ people are right beside us becomes a natural part of daily life, but this cannot be left to those individuals alone,” he said. “The conditions that make coming out possible must be built by allies together with the community — building workplaces, schools, families, and neighborhoods where discrimination and hatred need not be feared.” 

“What Korea needs right now is exactly this kind of broad, everyday solidarity,” added Shim. “Change in the law and change in daily life have to move together, and that is why the work of campaigning and organizing must not stop. There are already many same-sex couples in Korea living as families, caring for one another. The question is not whether they exist — it is when the state will finally recognize this reality in law.”