A group of activists from Barcelona traveled to D.C. earlier this month to promote their city’s bid to host WorldPride in 2030.

Pride Barcelona Vice President Maria Giralt, WorldPride Barcelona 2030 Project Manager Andoni Ibáñez, and Pride Barcelona’s Roger Presseguer on June 4 presented the city’s bid at a José Andrés-catered event at the Spanish Cultural Center in Northwest Washington.

Catalonia LGBTI+ Public Policies General Director Alberto Lacasta, Barcelona City Commissioner Javier Rodríguez, and Barcelona Turisme Director Rosa Bada traveled to D.C. with the activists. Giralt, Ibáñez, and Presseguer visited the Washington Blade’s office on June 6.

“We intended to transmit the spirit of our candidacy,” said Giralt.

Giralt noted 39 LGBTQ groups in Barcelona and throughout Catalonia support the bid. The Catalonian government and Spain’s Tourism Institute, known as Turespaña, have also backed it.

“Spain and the ministry have helped us a lot,” said Giralt.

Madrid, the Spanish capital, hosted WorldPride in 2017. The activists’ trip to D.C. coincided with WorldPride 2025 that took place in the nation’s capital.

Spanish Sen. Carla Antonelli, who is transgender, is among those who participated in the WorldPride 2025 Human Rights Conference. Turespaña also had a booth at the Capital Pride Festival.

Next year’s WorldPride will take place in Amsterdam, while Cape Town will host WorldPride 2028. Montreal, London, and Bangkok are the three other cities that have bid to host WorldPride 2030.

InterPride, the organization that coordinates WorldPride events, will announce the winning bid in 2026.

“What better occasion than to come to Washington to present (the bid) and to also connect with other countries around the world,” said Giralt. “This approval is very important, especially at this time when there is a wave, a drift, toward the extreme right, and we believe it is very important for all the world’s greats to be present, to be clear that the fight. The resistance must continue.”

Spain’s first LGBTQ rights march took place in Barcelona on June 26, 1977, less than two years after long-time dictator Gen. Francisco Franco died. Spain is now one of the world’s most LGBTQ-friendly countries.

“What we’re trying to do from Barcelona is to recover a little of this struggle’s origins,” Giralt told the Blade.

‘A historic moment to be in Washington’

WorldPride 2025 took place less than five months after the Trump-Vance administration took office.

Egale Canada, one of Canada’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organizations, in February announced its members would not participate in WorldPride or any other event in the U.S. because of the White House’s policies. Equality Australia in April issued a travel advisory for transgender and nonbinary people who plan to visit the U.S. in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order that directed the federal government to recognize only “two genders, male and female” and banned the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.

Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, the co-founder of UK Black Pride known as Lady Phyll, spoke at the WorldPride 2025 Human Rights Conference’s opening plenary virtually after the U.S. revoked her eligibility to enter the country without a visa because she had traveled to Cuba earlier this year.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection website notes the State Department on Jan. 12, 2021, designated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. The CBP website notes that with “limited exceptions, a traveler who is found to have visited Cuba on or after this date is not eligible for travel under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) using an Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) and must apply for a visa to travel to the United States.”

Ibáñez told the Blade that he, Giralt, and Presseguer felt it was important for them to travel to the U.S. for WorldPride.

“We feel that it was a historic moment to be in Washington celebrating and fighting for our rights within the context of Trump,” said Ibáñez.

“It was very important for us to come here and share our values and claim next to your (White House) and say, hey, we’re here and we’re never going to go away,” added Ibáñez.

The organizers of four of the largest Prides in the U.K. have banned political parties from their events.

A statement that Pride in London, Manchester Pride, Birmingham Pride, and Brighton Pride issued on Thursday specifically notes last month’s U.K. Supreme Court ruling that said the legal definition of a woman is limited to “biological women” and does not include transgender women.

“The recent ruling by the U.K. Supreme Court to exclude trans women from the definition of the term ‘woman’ underscores the urgent need for immediate action,” reads the statement. “In this moment, we choose to stand firmer, louder, and prouder in demanding change that protects and uplifts trans lives.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer after the ruling said “a woman is a biological woman” under the country’s 2010 Equality Act that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Pride organizations in their statement did not specifically reference Starmer and his comments. They did, however, announce they are “collectively suspending political party participation in our Pride events.”

“Know that this is not a symbolic gesture,” reads the statement. “It is a direct call for accountability and a refusal to platform those who have not protected our rights.”

The groups also made the following demands:

• Full and enforceable protections under the Equality Act

• Timely and dignified access to NHS (National Health Service) gender-affirming healthcare

• A reformed, accessible Gender Recognition Certificate process

• Sustainable funding for trans-led services and support organizations across the U.K.

“This is the minimum,” said the groups. “Anything less is not allyship, it is abandonment.”

“Our main parties have let us down and need to re-earn their place in our marches,” said Peter Tatchell, a long-time LGBTQ activist from the U.K. who is the director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation, in a newsletter that his organization publishes. “Pride is a protest.”

The governments of 20 European Union countries on Tuesday said they are “alarmed” over Hungary’s worsening anti-LGBTQ crackdown.

Hungarian lawmakers in March passed a bill that bans Pride events and allow authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs last month amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee on Tuesday said police in Budapest, the Hungarian capital, have banned an LGBTQ rights march that was scheduled to have taken place on June 1. The Budapest-based human rights NGO in a press release said authorities cited the law that bans Pride events and other demonstrations “displaying homosexuality.”

Budapest Pride is scheduled to take place on June 28. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee and other groups, including the Háttér Society, a Hungarian LGBTQ rights organization, said they will challenge the ban.

“We are deeply concerned by recent legislative and constitutional amendments infringing on the fundamental rights of LGBTIQ+ persons which were adopted by the Hungarian parliament on March 18 and April 14, 2025, following other anti-LGBTIQ+ legislation already introduced in previous years,” reads a declaration that the Austrian, Belgian, Cypriot, Czech, Danish, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Maltese, Dutch, Portuguese, Slovenian, Spanish, and Swedish governments issued.

“Under the pretext of child protection, these legislative amendments allow fines to be imposed on participants and organizers of events, such as the annual Pride celebrations,” it adds. “The amendments also allow for facial recognition software to be used at such events, and for banning such events. We are concerned by the implications of these measures on freedom of expression, the right to peaceful assembly, and the right to privacy.”

The governments stress they are “highly alarmed by these developments which run contrary to the fundamental values of human dignity, freedom, equality and respect for human rights, as laid down in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union.”

“Respecting and protecting the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all people, including LGBTIQ+ persons, is inherent in being part of the European family. This is our responsibility and shared commitment of the member states and the European institutions,” says the declaration.

“We therefore call upon Hungary to revise these measures, to ensure the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all its citizens are respected and protected, thus complying with its international obligations,” it adds.