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
Netherlands
Dutch PM: More needs to be done to defend trans rights
Rob Jetten on Friday was on World Pride Human Rights Conference panel
Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key will be on assignment in Amsterdam until Aug. 10.
AMSTERDAM — Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten on Friday said more needs to be done to defend transgender people and their rights.
“Everywhere in the Western world, it’s definitely the group that’s the most vulnerable in the moment and it’s rather well-picked also by our advisories,” he said during a panel at the World Pride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam that Ying Xin and Diego García Blum of Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ryan-Carr Center for Human Rights Policy moderated. “They’ve chosen the smallest group within our broader community (trans people) to attack them, to ensure that we can strip their rights and if they’ve done with that, they’ll go after the next group within our community, so we shouldn’t be naïve about what’s behind it.”
“It’s very well-funded. It’s very well-organized and we have to organize as well to fight back and to win this fight,” added Jetten. “We also need to be more open in conversations that we are having within the community and also dive into it much deeper and maybe even have more difficult and annoying conversations.”
Jetten in February became the Netherlands’ first openly gay prime minister.
He appeared on the panel alongside former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who in 2017 became his country’s first openly gay head of government, and former San Marino Captain Regent Paolo Rondelli, who was his country’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2007-2016.
Several other current former heads of government who are gay or lesbian also participated in the panel. They include former Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, former Luxembourgish Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, and Andorran Prime Minister Xavier Espot Zamora. California Congressman Mark Takano, who chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, and LGBTQ+ Victory Fund CEO Evan Low were among those who attended.
Jetten in his remarks said he was “very surprised” to learn that “not only in the U.S. but also in some European countries that we’ve let them decide what the gay group looked like.” The Dutch prime minister further pointed out that conservatives began “to attack the debate on toilets or starting this debate about trans people in Olympic games.”
“That is, of course, a ridiculous debate to start, but we’ve got distracted because we were so busy having this debate on Olympians, and then we actually forgot the real fight was about access to healthcare, just being yourself, being able to enlist in the army, or being able to be a young trans boy or girl in school,” said Jetten. “We got distracted by some fresh meat that was thrown into the area by some very conservative people.”
“We have to open our eyes and have very in-depth conservations within our community, and come up with a much better strategy to win this fight and to protect all our trans brothers and sisters, dolls, whatever,” he added. “Because if we don’t win this fight for trans people, we’re going to lose the bigger fight for all LGBTQ people in the world.”
Varadkar noted Ireland in 2015 passed a law that allows people to legally change their gender without surgery or other medical interventions.
He conceded there was “a liberal wind blowing across the world at the time, and it was largely uncontested.”
“It would be harder now, quite frankly, to do that legislation,” said Varadkar.
Scottish lawmakers in 2022 passed the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which lowered the age for anyone to legally change their gender without medical intervention from 18 to 16. Then-British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government later blocked the measure from taking effect.
The U.K. Supreme Court in 2025 ruled the legal definition of a woman under the country’s Equality Act is limited to “biological women.” Author J.K. Rowling is among those who praised the decision that stemmed from a case that challenged the Scottish government’s decision to include trans women in its definition of women when it sought to increase the number of women on government boards.
The Trump-Vance administration on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day it was in office, issued a sweeping executive order that, among other things, declared the federal government would only recognize two genders: male and female. The White House earlier this year in its counterterrorism strategy said it “will also prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist.”
“We have to stay united,” said Rondelli. “The strategy was, since the beginning, was a Nazi strategy to create groups, target groups, and to create maximum distractions to avoid discussion about some sort of policies.”
“Trans people are the target at the moment,” he added. “But after them it will probably be some others, so we have to stay united.”
Netherlands
Dutch prime minister opens World Pride Human Rights Conference
Rob Jetten is country’s first openly gay head of government
Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key are on assignment in Amsterdam through Aug. 10.
AMSTERDAM — Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten on Wednesday opened the World Pride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam.
Jetten — who in February became the country’s first openly gay prime minister — began his remarks with an acknowledgment that the July 25 terrorist attack at Berlin’s Christopher Street Day that left one person dead and more than two dozen others injured “filled me with anger and sorrow.”
He started to speak after a group of activists began to shout at him over his government’s position on Palestine — the International Criminal Court, which is based in The Hague, has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders in connection with crimes against humanity it says they committed in the Gaza Strip and Israel after Oct. 7.
Jetten stood silently and allowed them to protest before security personnel removed them from the room.
View on Threads
Jetten in his speech acknowledged this year marks 25 years since the Netherlands became the first country to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples. He also pointed out 2025 marks Amsterdam Pride’s Canal Parade‘s 30th year.
“More and more in recent years, we’ve seen hard won progress being eroded,” conceded Jetten. “We’ve seen countries backsliding in equal rights legislation. We’ve seen homophobic hate speech becoming more overt and aggressive, and not only out in the real world, but online as well.”
Jetten pointed out “online hatred is one of the biggest threats facing the LGBTQIA+ people today.”
“All around the world … misinformation and disinformation can be spread in the blink of an eye with a single mouse click, reaching much further and much faster than NGOs, youth workers and health organizations can,” he said. “This is always how hatred takes hold. First in the shadows, outside the spotlight of society, underestimated by everyone, until, having grown into a many headed monster, it crawls out of the darkness.”
Jetten said his government this fall will launch “a social dialog on online discrimination and offering specific guidance on action to take.” This will include “training courses for municipalities and civil society organizations to help them deal with online hate speech.”
His government over the next three years will invest €7.5 million each year “in improving the safety of the queer community in our cities with an alliance of organizations committed to safety, both in the public space and in the workspace for LGBTQI+ people, and with a public information campaign to combat discrimination and disinformation.” Jetten also said the government will promote a campaign in Dutch schools that encourages students and teachers to wear purple as a way to show their support for the LGBTQ community.
’Equal rights are not a Western agenda’
Jetten in his speech also singled out “conservative forces” in Uganda, Senegal, and in other countries who are framing LGBTQ rights “developments as a neocolonial Western agenda.”
“Under the pretense of resisting so-called Western moral decadence, horrendous laws are enacted and promoted, laws that put the rights of free people under severe pressure,” he said. “But in reality, many communities in these countries have a long history of diversity and freedom, and the laws that impose the restrictions were in fact put in place by the colonial powers.”
“No matter how hard those conservative forces try to pull the wool over people’s eyes, queer communities around the world know that equal rights are not a Western agenda,” added Jetten. “They are first and foremost a human agenda.”
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema and Nayyab Ali, co-chair of the Ending Violence Against Women and Girls Alliance Pakistan, are among those who also spoke on Wednesday. Lady Phyll, co-founder of UK Black Pride, and Camiel Welling, supervisor of the Amsterdam Trans Clinic, are co-hosting the conference that ends Friday.
Celebrity News
My evening with Madonna
Gay icon headlined the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam
Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key will be on assignment in the Netherlands through Aug. 10. They will be covering World Pride in Amsterdam.
AMSTERDAM — Madonna and 6,000 of her closest friends celebrated World Pride at Amsterdam’s AFAS Live concert hall early Sunday morning. I was fortunate enough to be one of them.
Madonna last Wednesday nearly broke the internet when she said on social media in Dutch that “I got somethin’ I wanna talk about,” referring to an opening line in “Danceteria,” one of the tracks on her “Confessions II” album that has received rave reviews since its July 2 release. The track has been on near constant replay on my playlist since I first heard it.
— Madonna (@Madonna) July 28, 2026
MISTR — a telehealth platform that offers free access to PrEP, Doxy PEP, STI testing, and long-term care that has organized Madonna’s Club Confessions shows in the U.S. and the U.K. — later confirmed the rampant speculation. I woke up on July 30 to an email in my inbox from MISTR and the World Pride Music Festival PR team that said I was on the press list.
Madonna was indeed going to headline the World Pride Music Festival that Jake Resnicow and Insomniac produced, and I was going to be there. OMFG!!!!
The gay icon had one more surprise in store.
The Dutch internet on Saturday once again broke over speculation that Kylie Minogue was going to appear alongside Madonna. I was getting ready to leave our hotel in Amsterdam on Saturday night when I saw a video of the two of them together.
“Madonna is now teasing Kylie Minogue on her social media … she may be one of her ‘special guests’ tonight,” I wrote in a text to Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff at 8:46 p.m.
“Have fun! This is turning into the gayest concert ever,” he responded.
I arrived at AFAS Live shortly before 11 p.m. My press contact walked me and two other Dutch journalists into the venue’s cavernous main room known as the Black Box. We made small talk for a few minutes before I started to walk around and listen to Josh Harrison who was on the decks.
Madonna was scheduled to take the stage at 1:30 a.m., but she is known for being late — she is Madonna and she does what she wants. Hayla, a British singer, and Bebe Rexha are among those who performed ahead of Madonna. Thousands of sweaty men — including a group of Australians next to me who were eagerly awaiting Kylie’s anticipated appearance — packed the Black Box and were dancing, anticipating what was to come.
MISTR CEO Tristan Schukraft at one point came on stage and declared Madonna was indeed in the building. The moment for which we were all eagerly waiting finally came shortly before 2:30 a.m.
“Mother is here and this is gay heaven,” said Madonna when she took the stage.
Stuart Price, who produced her “Confessions on a Dance Floor” album in 2005, manned the decks during Madonna’s set.
She opened it with “I Feel So Free” from “Confessions II.” Madonna then sang “Bring Your Love” and “Danceteria” to which this reporter — and everyone else — sang along.
Madonna then teased a surprise before she began to perform “Love Sensation.” Kylie soon appeared on stage. It was nearly too much for my fellow partygoers from Australia. It was indeed the gayest concert ever!
Madonna and Kylie performed “Love Sensation” together. They then sang “Hung Up” and “Sorry” from “Confessions on a Dance Floor” to round out the set that ended shortly after 3 a.m.
Madonna and I share the same birthday — Aug. 16 — and I would like to think she and Kylie gave me an early birthday present. In all seriousness though, it was an amazing night for me and for everyone else who was fortunate enough to be there.
“On the dance floor I feel so free,” says Madonna in the opening of “I Feel So Free.”
For those few precious hours at AFAS Live I did not think about the Trump-Vance administration and the myriad ways it is destroying the U.S. I did not think about the National Guard troops deployed to D.C. I did not think about the pointless wars that continue to ravage Ukraine and other countries around the world. I simply lost myself on the dance floor and celebrated an icon who has always stood with my community.
Thank you, Madonna.
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