World
Out in the World: LGBTQ news from Europe and Asia
Poland’s elections took place on Sunday, UK seeks to limit asylum seekers
Ireland
Ireland’s National Police Service is seeking information leading to the arrest of the unknown hit and run driver who struck and killed an openly queer 21-year-old University of Limerick journalism student on Oct 13.
Joe Drennan, a popular and respected student, was the editor-in-chief of Limerick Voice, the award-winning news platform and paper produced by journalism students at the University of Limerick. Drennan was also a contributing writer to Ireland’s LGBTQ media website and magazine GCN.
Dublin-based the Journal News reported that Drennan was standing waiting for a bus around 9.50 p.m., after he had finished a shift at a local restaurant at Dublin Road, Castletroy, Limerick, when a car that had, immediately beforehand, been involved in a collision with another car, as well as an alleged interaction with the police earlier on the night, struck and killed him.
The police said the driver of one of the cars “failed to remain at the scene” and that the driver of the second car, a male in his 40s and a female adult passenger, were taken to University Hospital Limerick for non life threatening injuries.
Drennan’s death has left his family, friends and fellow students and tutors at UL, shocked and distraught.
Paying tribute to Drennan on Sunday, Dr. Kathryn Hayes, course director of journalism and digital communication at the University of Limerick said: “We are absolutely devastated in the journalism department and in the wider UL community to learn of the tragic death of our student Joe Drennan. Our heartfelt sympathies are with Joe’s family at this terrible time and all of his classmates and many dear friends.”
Hayes said Drennan had been “an inspirational student and a hugely talented young journalist, who had a bright career ahead.”
Poland
The country’s right-wing populist Law and Justice party, known as PiS, appears to have lost their parliamentary majority in the critical elections held Sunday. The final tally has yet to be announced.
This would end eight years of rule that has seen the Polish government repeatedly clash with the European Union over the rule of law, media freedom, migration and LGBTQ rights since Law and Justice (PiS) came to power in 2015.
Opposition parties led by 66-year-old Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition have vowed to mend ties with Brussels and undo reforms critics say undermine democratic standards.
Tusk, a former European Council president, is aiming to the PiS rule under Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
“Poland won, democracy has won,” Tusk told a large crowd of jubilant supporters in what felt like a victory rally in Warsaw. “This is the end of the bad times, this is the end of the PiS government.”
Ipsos polling reported a larger proportion of 18-29 year-olds had turned out to vote than over-60s and election officials said that turnout was probably 72.9 percent, the highest since the fall of communism in 1989.
The BBC reported that President Andrzej Duda, an ally of the socially conservative PiS, would normally ask the biggest party to form a government. However with vote as close as it, if PiS fails to win a vote of confidence, then the Parliament would appoint a new prime minister who would then choose a government and also have to win a confidence vote in Parliament as well.
Leading Polish LGBTQ rights activist Bart Staszewski posted a statement on social media:
“I am gay, I am Polish and I am proud today. After eight years of hate against people like me, LGBT+ people, the creation of LGBT free zones, attacks on women and minorities, Poland is BACK on the path of democracy and the rule of law. This is also end of political trails of human rights activists. This is just the beginning of reclaiming of our country. The fight is ahead but we are breathing fresh air today. After eight years of government hatred, authoritarianism is over in Poland. I still can’t believe it … The nightmare ends …”
Switzerland
The U.N. Human Rights Council has named Graeme Reid, director of LGBT Rights for Human Rights Watch, as the next Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity for the UN organization.
Originally from South Africa, Reid is the third person ever to be appointed to hold the #UnitedNations mandate dedicated to addressing specific human rights violations against #LGBT and gender diverse persons, following Vitit Muntarbhorn from Thailand (2016-2017) and Victor Madrigal-Borloz from Costa Rica (2017-2023).
Reid is an expert on LGBTQ rights. He has conducted research, taught and published extensively on gender, sexuality, LGBTQ issues and HIV/AIDS.
Before joining Human Rights Watch in 2011, Reid was the founding director of the Gay and Lesbian Archives of South Africa, a researcher at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research and a lecturer in LGBTQ studies at Yale University, where he continues to teach as a visiting lecturer.
An anthropologist by training, Reid received a master’s from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and a PhD from the University of Amsterdam.
Turkey
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, speaking before the Congress gathering of his Islamist-rooted AK Party, which currently runs the nation’s government, said earlier this month that “he did not recognize LGBT and vowed to combat perverse trends he stated are aimed to destroy the institution of family.”
Erdoğan, who has held office since 2014, has a lengthy record of anti-LGBTQ statements who has frequently labeled members of the LGBTQ community as “deviants.” At the direction of his government, police agencies across the country have cracked down on Pride events and marches.
Last April, Erdoğan, who was campaigning for reelection, told a rally of supporters in the Aegean city of Izmir, “In this nation, the foundations of the family are stable. LGBT will not emerge in this country. Stand up straight, like a man: that is how our families are,” he added.
While being LGBTQ is not a crime in Turkey, hostility to it is widespread. Same-sex marriage, adoption, surrogacy and IVF are all illegal in the country, as is being openly gay or lesbian person serving in the military.
LGBTQ people are not protected against discrimination in employment, education, housing, healthcare, public accommodations or credit and police crackdowns often at the direction of the government have become tougher over the years.
France
Eric Zemmour, the far-right political leader and former presidential candidate was convicted and fined for for homophobic statements he uttered while being interview on the French national news network CNews program Face à l’info hosted by Christine Kelly four years ago in October 2019.
French online news magazine Têtu.com reported that The Stop Homophobia association had filed a complaint against comments made by Zemmour on the Oct. 15, 2019, show. Speaking about LGBTQ rights during a long debate with Nicolas Bouzou, Zemmour declared: “We have the whims of a small minority which has control over the State and which enslaves it for its own benefit and which will first disintegrate the society, because we are going to have children without a father and I have just told you that it is a catastrophe and, secondly, who is going to make all the other French people pay for his whims.”
The judge of the Cour de Cassation, the highest court of criminal and civil appeal in France, with the power to quash the decisions of lower courts, ruled that Zemmour had acted with“ Behavior contrary to the general interest.” In his decision the judge noted:
“The comments are contemptuous of the people they target, who see their desire for a child reduced to a selfish ‘whim’ and even take on an outrageous dimension when it is attributed to them, to satisfy it, to have recourse to the subjugation of the state apparatus.”
“In this, homosexual people find themselves disqualified in the eyes of the public for who they are, their sexual orientation necessarily inducing, according to the defendant, behavior contrary to the general interest,” he added.
Zemmour was sentenced to a fine of 4,000 euros ($4,223.42).
United Kingdom
The government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is receiving copious amounts of criticism and outrage among the nation’s LGBTQ community and its allies for the anti-LGBTQ refugee asylum seekers and transphobic stance that has been taken by various government ministers including Sunak himself.
In a recent speech delivered last month on Sept. 26 at the American Enterprise Institute in D.C., Home Secretary Suella Braverman addressing the government’s policies towards immigration told the audience:
“I think most members of the public would recognize those fleeing a real risk of death, torture, oppression or violence as being in need of protection. However, as case law has developed, what we have seen in practice is an interpretive shift away from persecution in favor of something more akin to a definition of discrimination. And there has been a similar shift away from a well-founded fear towards a credible or plausible fear, the practical consequence of which has been to expand the number of those who may qualify for asylum, and to lower the threshold for doing so.
“Let me be clear, there are vast swaths of the world where it is extremely difficult to be gay, or to be a woman, where individuals are being persecuted, it is right that we offer sanctuary, but we will not be able to sustain an asylum system, if in effect, simply being gay, or a woman, or fearful of discrimination in your country of origin is sufficient to qualify for protection.
Article 31 of the refugee convention makes clear that it is intended to apply to individuals coming directly, directly from a territory where their life was threatened. It also states where people are crossing borders without permission, they should present themselves without delay to the authorities, and must show good cause for any illegal entry. The U.K., along with many others, including America, interpret this to mean that people should seek refuge and claim asylum in the first safe country that they reach. But NGOs and others, including the U.N. Refugee Agency, contest this. The status quo where people are able to travel through multiple safe countries and even reside in safe countries for years, while they pick and choose their preferred destination to claim asylum is absurd and unsustainable.
Nobody entering the U.K. by boat from France is fleeing imminent peril. None of them has good cause for illegal entry. The vast majority have passed through multiple other safe countries, and in some instances have resided in safe countries for several years. There was a strong argument that they should cease to be treated as refugees during their onward movement. There are also many whose journeys originate from countries that the public would consider to be manifestly safe like Turkey, or Albania or India. In these instances, most are simply economic migrants gaming the asylum system to their advantage.”
Braverman’s specific remarks portraying Turkey as “manifestly” safe drew harsh critique from LGBTQ groups in Britain pointing out that Erdoğan has publicly labeled LGBTQ people “deviants.”
PinkNewsUK reported that 246 human rights groups banded together to demand that the UK government respect the lives of women and LGBTQ people after Braverman’s D.C. speech.
A joint letter produced by LGBTQ charity Stonewall, and signed by organizations like Amnesty, Oxfam, Refugee Council, Rainbow Migration, and End Violence Against Women Coalition, calls on Sunak to reaffirm the UK’s commitment to protecting LGBTQ people and women worldwide.
The letter also rejects Braverman’s suggestion that LGBTQ people and women are misusing their identities to claim asylum in the UK.
On Oct. 6, the UK government released its annual report that revealed there were 145,214 hate crimes recorded by police in England and Wales in 2022-2023, a slight 5 percent decrease compared to the previous year.
In a briefing outlining new hate crime figures for the UK, the Home Office said that transgender issues had been “heavily discussed by politicians, the media and on social media” over the last year, which it said “may have led to an increase in these offenses.”
It added that the government’s focus on transgender issues could also have led to “more awareness in the police in the identification and recording of these crimes.”
Stonewall, the UK’s largest LGBTQ charity organization, noted that this recent report’s data comes in a continuing surge in reports of anti-LGBTQ and anti-transgender hate in recent months across Britain, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The blame LGBTQ advocates in the UK say also lies with the Prime Minister’s transphobic public comments. At the Conservative Party conference on Oct. 4, the prime minister claimed that Brits are being “bullied” into believing that “people can be any sex they want to be.” He then said it was “common sense” that a “man is a man and a woman is a woman.”
Robbie de Santos, director of external affairs at Stonewall, told PinkNewsUK he is concerned that political figures are dehumanizing LGBTQ people, which “legitimizes violence” instead of acting “seriously or quickly enough” to tackle the rising tide of hate.
Philippines
A 33-year-old drag queen, who is currently incarcerated in a Manila jail, is facing up to 12 years in prison under the Catholic-majority country’s obscenity laws for his performance dressed as Jesus Christ, performing a rock version of the Lord’s Prayer in Tagalog.
Amadeus Fernando Pagente, who performs under the stage/drag name Pura Luka Vega, was arrested by Manila police earlier this month after the Philippines for Jesus Movement, comprising Protestant church leaders, registered the first criminal complaint with the Manila Prosecutor’s Office in July of this year followed in August by a second complaint was then filed in August by Nazarene Brotherhood, a Catholic group the BBC reported.
A video of the performance by Pagente had sparked criminal complaints by the Christian groups.
In interviews with AFP, supporters of Pagente are calling for his release with the #FreePuraLukaVega hash tag, arguing that “drag is not a crime.” Some compared the performer’s predicament with alleged murderers and sex crime offenders, whom they claimed remain free and have not been justly dealt with.
Pagente himself told AFP: “The arrest shows the degree of homophobia” in the Philippines. “I understand that people call my performance blasphemous, offensive or regrettable. However, they shouldn’t tell me how I practice my faith or how I do my drag.”
Ryan Thoreson, a specialist at the Human Rights Watch’s LGBT rights program, also called for the charges against Pagente to be dropped.
“Freedom of expression includes artistic expression that offends, satirizes, or challenges religious beliefs,” Thoreson told the BBC.
Additional reporting from GCN, The Journal, BBC, PinkNewsUK, and Têtu.com
The Washington Blade on Wednesday spoke with Max Polonsky, a queer American who lives in Israel, about the Iran war and its impact on the country.
“It’s been tiring,” Polonsky told the Blade during a telephone interview from his home in Jaffa, an ancient port city with a large Arab population that is now part of Tel Aviv.
Polonsky grew up in Cherry Hill, N.J. He lived in D.C. for eight years before he moved to Israel in March 2022.
Israel and the U.S. on Feb. 28 launched airstrikes against Iran.
One of them killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran in response launched missiles and drones against Israel and other countries that include Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, and Cyprus.
An Iranian missile on March 1 killed nine people and injured 27 others in Beit Shemesh, an Israeli town that is roughly 20 miles west of Jerusalem. Shrapnel from an Iranian missile that struck a hair salon in Beit Awa, a Palestinian town in the West Bank, on Wednesday killed four women and injured more than a dozen others.
An Iranian drone that hit a command center in Kuwait on March 1 killed six U.S. soldiers: Sgt. Declan Coady, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, Capt. Cody Khork, Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, and Maj. Jeffrey O’Brien. Another American servicemember, Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, died on March 8, a week after Iranian drones and missiles targeted the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
Iranian drones and missiles have damaged hotels, airports, oil refineries, and other civilian and energy infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and elsewhere. Israel on Wednesday attacked Iran’s South Pars natural gas field in the Persian Gulf.
The Associated Press notes roughly 20 percent of the world’s crude oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz that connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Gas prices in the U.S. and around the world continue to increase because the war has essentially closed the strategic waterway to ship traffic.
The war also left hundreds of thousands of people who were traveling in the Middle East stranded.
The Blade on March 6 spoke with Mario, who had stopped in his native Lebanon while traveling from the U.S. to India for work.
Mario was about to board a flight at Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on Feb. 28 when the war began and authorities closed the country’s airspace. Mario is now back in the U.S.
Polonsky told the Blade there were “alarms all day … sometimes multiple alarms an hour, sometimes every hour, every two hours” on Feb. 28.
Israel’s Home Front Command typically issues warnings about 10 minutes ahead of an anticipated Iranian missile attack. Sirens then sound 90 seconds before an expected strike.
People in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and in other cities in central Israel have 90 seconds to seek shelter if a rocket or missile is fired from Lebanon or the Gaza Strip. (Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shia militant group in Lebanon that Israel and the U.S. have designated a terrorist organization, launched rockets at the Jewish State after Khamenei’s death. Israel, in turn, continues to carry out airstrikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, killed upwards of 1,200 people when they launched a surprise attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip.) People who live close to Lebanon and Gaza have 15 seconds to seek shelter.
Polonsky has a safe room — known as a “mamad” — in his apartment. Polonsky also uses it as his home office and a second bedroom.
He told the Blade the alerts in recent days have become less frequent.
“We’ll get maybe a handful of alarms during the day, maybe some at night,” said Polonsky.
Israel on June 12, 2025, launched airstrikes against Iran that targeted the country’s nuclear and military facilities. The subsequent war, which lasted 12 days, prompted the cancellation of Tel Aviv’s annual Pride parade. An Iranian missile destroyed Mash Central, the city’s last gay bar.
Iran on Oct. 1, 2024, launched upwards of 200 ballistic missiles at Israel. This reporter arrived in Israel three days later to cover the first anniversary of Oct. 7 and the impact the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip had on LGBTQ Israelis and Palestinians.
‘Iranian regime was bad’
Polonsky admitted he doesn’t “know what to think” about the latest war against Iran.
“I don’t know what I think about the war,” he said. “Ultimately what happens is just not in my personal control: whatever Donald Trump, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, the ayatollah, whoever is running Iran are going to organize and launch attacks and reach any deals is not anything I personally have any control over, so I try to just kind of let that aspect of it go as I’m living my life.”
Polonsky told the Blade he understands “there are very serious questions about how” the war started, and Congress’s role in it.
“Those are serious and valid, important questions,” he said. “And at the same time, the Iranian regime was bad.”
Polonsky noted Iran has supported and funded Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and other groups “who were attacking Israel.” Polonsky added the Iranian government has “terribly oppressed their people.”
Iran is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
Reports indicate Iranian authorities killed upwards of 30,000 people during anti-government protests that began late last year. Sources with whom the Blade spoke said LGBTQ Iranians are among those who participated in the demonstrations.
“I’m not sad to see them pressured,” said Polonsky, referring to the Iranian regime.
He also described Khamenei as “a bad guy.”
“Him not being there is better,” said Polonsky.
State Department
Report: US to withhold HIV aid to Zambia unless mineral access expanded
New York Times obtained Secretary of State Marco Rubio memo
The State Department is reportedly considering withholding assistance for Zambians with HIV unless the country’s government allows the U.S. to access more of its minerals.
The New York Times on Monday reported Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a memo to State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs staffers wrote the U.S. “will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale.” The newspaper said it obtained a copy of the letter.
Zambia is a country in southern Africa that borders Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Times notes upwards of 1.3 million Zambians receive daily HIV medications through PEPFAR. The newspaper reported Rubio in his memo said the Trump-Vance administration could “significantly cut assistance” as soon as May.
“Reports of (the) State Department withholding lifesaving HIV treatment in return for mining concessions in Zambia does not make us safer, stronger, or more prosperous,” said U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Tuesday. “Monetizing innocent people’s lives further undermines U.S. global leadership and is just plain wrong.”
The Washington Blade has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Zambia received breakthrough HIV prevention drug through PEPFAR
Rubio on Jan. 28, 2025, issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during a freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, 2025, has severely impacted their work.
The State Department last September announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir in countries with high prevalence rates. Zambia two months later received the first doses of the breakthrough HIV prevention drug.
Kenya and Uganda are among the African countries have signed health agreements with the U.S. since the Trump-Vance administration took office.
The Times notes the countries that signed these agreements pledged to increase health spending. The Blade last month reported LGBTQ rights groups have questioned whether these agreements will lead to further exclusion and government-sanctioned discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Botswana
The rule of law, not the rule of religion
Bonolo Selelo and Tsholofelo Kumile are challenging the Botswana Marriage Act
Botswana was in a whole frenzy as religious and traditional fundamentalists kept mixing religion and constitutional law as if it were harmless. It is not. One is a private matter of belief between you and God, while the other is the framework that protects and governs us all. When these two systems get fused, the result is rarely justice. It results in discrimination.
The ongoing case brought by Bonolo Selelo and Tsholofelo Kumile challenging provisions of the Botswana Marriage Act has reignited a familiar debate in Botswana. Some commentators insist that marriage equality violates religious values and therefore should not be recognized by law. It is a predictable argument. It is also fundamentally incompatible with constitutional governance.
Botswana is not a Christian state. It is a constitutional democracy governed by the Constitution of Botswana. That distinction matters. In a constitutional democracy, laws are interpreted in accordance with constitutional principles such as equality, dignity, protection, inclusion and the rule of law, rather than the doctrinal beliefs of any particular religion.
Religion has no place in constitutional law and democracy
The central problem with religious arguments in constitutional disputes is simple in that they divide, they other, they contest equality and they are personal. Constitutional law by contrast, must apply equally to everyone.
Botswana’s Constitution guarantees fundamental rights and freedoms under Sections 3 and 15, including protection from discrimination and the right to equal protection of the law. These provisions are not conditional on religious approval. They exist precisely to protect minorities from the preferences or prejudices of the majority.
Legal experts, such as Anneke Meerkotter, in her policy brief in Defense of Constitutional Morality, point out that constitutional rights function as a safeguard against majoritarian morality. If rights depended on whether the majority approved of a minority’s identity or relationships, they would not be rights at all. They would merely be privileges.
This principle has already been affirmed in Botswana’s jurisprudence. In the landmark decision of Letsweletse Motshidiemang v Attorney General, the High Court held that criminalizing consensual same-sex relations violated constitutional protections of liberty, dignity, privacy, and equality. This judgment noted that constitutional interpretation must evolve with society and must be guided by human dignity and equality. The court emphasized that the Constitution protects all citizens, including those whose identities, expressions or relationships may be unpopular. That ruling was later upheld by the Court of Appeal of Botswana in 2021, reinforcing the principle that constitutional rights cannot be restricted on grounds of moral disapproval alone. These decisions were not theological pronouncements. They were legal determinations grounded in constitutional principles.
The danger of religious majoritarianism
When religion is used to justify legal restrictions, the result is what constitutional scholars call “majoritarian moralism.” It allows the dominant religious interpretation in society to dictate the rights of everyone else. That approach is fundamentally incompatible with constitutional democracy. Botswana is religiously diverse. While Christianity is the majority faith, there are also Muslims, Hindus, traditional spiritual communities, Sikh and people who practice no religion at all. If the law were to follow the doctrines of one religious group, which interpretation would it adopt? Christianity alone contains dozens of denominations with different views on love, equality, marriage, sexuality, and gender. The moment the state begins to legislate on the basis of religious doctrine, it implicitly privileges one belief system over others. That undermines both religious freedom and constitutional equality. Ironically, keeping religion separate from constitutional law is what protects religious freedom in the first place.
Judicial independence is the cornerstone of Botswana’s governance system
The current case involving Bonolo Selelo and Tsholofelo Kumile is before the judiciary, where it belongs. Courts exist to interpret the Constitution and determine whether legislation complies with constitutional rights. Political and religious lobbying, as well as public outrage, must not influence that process.
Judicial independence is the cornerstone of Botswana’s governance system. According to the International Commission of Jurists, judicial independence ensures that courts can make decisions based on law and evidence rather than political or social pressure.
When governments, political, religious, or traditional actors attempt to interfere in constitutional litigation, they weaken the rule of law. Botswana has historically prided itself on having one of the most stable constitutional systems in Africa. The judiciary has played a critical role in safeguarding rights and maintaining legal certainty. The decriminalization case demonstrated this. Despite strong public debate and political sensitivity, the courts assessed the law according to constitutional principles rather than moral panic. The same standard must apply in the current marriage equality case.
This article was first published in the Botswana Gazette, Midweek Sun, and Botswana Guardian newspapers and has been edited for the Washington Blade.
Bradley Fortuin is a consultant at the Southern Africa Litigation Center and a social justice activist.
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