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Out in the World: LGBTQ news from Europe and Asia

Tbilisi Pride in Georgia has cancelled all physical Pride events this year

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(Los Angeles Blade graphic)

GEORGIA

Tbilisi Pride Co-Director Anna Subeliani (Photo courtesy of Tbilisi Pride’s Facebook page)

The organization that holds Pride events in the Georgian capital Tbilisi has announced it is cancelling all physical Pride festivities this year, in light of an increasingly hostile environment promoted by the Georgian government ahead of elections this fall. 

Tbilisi Pride says in a statement posted to Facebook that they will focus their efforts instead on reaching hearts and minds, with a hope of defeating the government and ending restrictive legislation in the October election.

“We anticipated that the summer before the 2024 parliamentary elections would be filled with physical violence encouraged by the government and rhetoric filled with hate and hostility,” the statement says.

“Now, after ‘Georgian Dream’ adopted the Russian-style law on ‘foreign agents’ and announced a hate-based anti-LGBTQ legislative package alongside constitutional changes, we are even more confident in our decision. We are demonstrating the highest civic responsibility and recognize that the fight for queer rights today is inseparable from the broader people’s struggle against the Russian-style regime. This fight will inevitably end in favor of the people on Oct. 26!

We will use the coming months to bring the message of queer people to more hearts than ever before! We will explain to everyone that homophobia is a Russian political weapon against Georgian society, against the statehood of Georgia! We are patriots of this country and will always and everywhere be where our homeland calls us!”

The U.S. government slapped visa restrictions on members of the Georgian government in response to actions taken to undermine democracy in the post-Soviet nation, just as the government announced a sweeping package of anti-LGBTQ legislation it intends to pass ahead of fall elections.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told a June 6 press conference in Washington that the government had slapped sanctions on “between two and three dozen” individuals who were “responsible for or complicit in undermining democracy in Georgia, such as by undermining freedoms of peaceful assembly and association, violently attacking peaceful protestors, intimidating civil society representatives, and deliberately spreading disinformation at the direction of the Georgian government.”

Citing U.S. privacy law, Miller refused to name any individuals who had been sanctioned. He added that this was considered a “first tranche” of sanctions.

Georgia has been rocked with protests for weeks in response to the “foreign agents” law, which requires media and civil society groups to registers as agents of a foreign power if they receive funding from abroad. 

The law was passed by the ruling Georgian Dream Party, vetoed by the president who is a member of the opposition, and then passed with a veto override on May 28.

Modeled after a similar law in Russia, the law is meant to undermine the credibility and actions of bodies that are critical of the government and has drawn fierce criticism from Georgia’s allies in the U.S. and European Union.

Georgia was recognized as a candidate country from EU membership this year, but EU leaders have warned that the law undermines European values and threatens membership negotiations.

At the same time, the Georgian government has introduced a package of anti-LGBTQ legislation also modeled after Russian laws, which it is hoping will fire up its base and divide the opposition ahead of fall elections.

Under the package of laws, the state would be forbidden from recognizing any relationship other than heterosexual relationships, restrict adoption to married heterosexual couples and heterosexual individuals, ban any medical treatment to change a person’s gender and require that the government only recognize gender based on a person’s genetic information, and ban any expression or organization promoting same-sex relationships or gender change.

The bills are meant to be introduced in parliament before the end of the summer session in July, and the government plans to hold a vote on it ahead of elections scheduled for October.

POLAND AND LITHUANIA

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (Photo courtesy of the Polish government)

Bitter fights are emerging over civil union legislation in the governing coalitions that run Poland and Lithuania, with left-leaning parties insisting on improving the legal rights of LGBTQ couples and families, while more conservative parties want to maintain the status quo.

In Poland, that’s led to protracted negotiations to get a draft civil unions bill introduced, long after Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s original promise to have the law in place within his first hundred days in office. Tusk was sworn in as prime minister in December.

Tusk’s coalition includes his own centrist Civic Platform party, as well as the left-leaning Left party, and the more conservative Poland 2050 and Polish People’s Party (PSL), the latter of which mostly opposes recognizing same-sex couples. The coalition agreement left out any mention of civil unions.

The ambitious civil union bill aims to be an “all-but-marriage” type of union, complete with adoption rights, which has drawn the ire of the PSL. Negotiations within the coalition have focused on finding a way to get the PSL on board but have so far proved fruitless.

The opposition parties are even more hostile to LGBTQ rights and are not expected to support the bill in any form.

Regardless, Equalities Minister Katarzyna Kotula, who comes from the Left party and has been spearheading the bill, has given the coalition a deadline of the end of June to come to agreement. Failing that, she says she’ll introduce the bill without government support, although that will likely doom it to fail.

A last-ditch negotiation among the coalition partners is expected to take place June 17.

Tusk has struggled to introduce other promised social reforms since taking office. A promised hate crimes and hate speech bill has yet to be introduced. In March, the president, who comes from the conservative opposition Law and Justice Party, vetoed a bill to legalize the morning-after contraception pill.

Duda has not yet revealed if he will veto a civil union bill. The coalition does not have a three-fifths majority in parliament to override a veto. 

Lithuanian MP Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius. (Photo courtesy of Lithuanian MP Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius)

In neighboring Lithuania, tensions over a long-stalled civil union bill erupted into a dispute between coalition partners this week.

The left-leaning Freedom Party has threatened not to support the nomination of Foreign Affairs Minister Gabrielias Landsbergis to the post of European commissioner, given his party’s lack of support for the civil union bill that awaits a third a final vote in parliament.

The dispute has spilled a lot of ink in Lithuanian press, with the coalition partners debating whether or not the threat was appropriate in the circumstances.

Lithuania heads to the polls in October for parliamentary elections. 

GREECE

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis speaking to reporters at an EU press conference in early 2024. (Photo courtesy of the Greek prime minister’s office)

After his party took a drubbing in EU elections last weekend, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis says he is going to pause pushing forward new LGBTQ rights legislation, suggesting the new priority is changing minds rather than laws. 

Mitsotakis announced his surprise support for same-sex marriage and adoption rights last year after clinching reelection, and his government passed a marriage bill in February.

But in last week’s EU elections, his party’s support dropped nearly five percentage points, while the more radical far-right Greek Solution and the anti-LGBTQ conservative NIKI party collectively gained about 10 percentage points. 

Mitsotakis himself speculated to Bloomberg TV that the new same-sex marriage and adoption law passed this year alienated his party’s traditionally conservative base.

Greece is already one of the highest-scoring countries on ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Map Index, thanks in large part to reforms that Mitsotakis himself ushered in. In addition to same-sex marriage and adoption, his government has banned conversion therapy, banned unnecessary surgeries on intersex children, and set up a National Strategy for the Equality of LGBTQI+ People.

Queer activists in Greece were still calling on the government to facilitate legal surrogacy and automatic parental recognition for same-sex couples, and a simplified process for transgender people to update their legal gender.

FRANCE

Pope Francis meets with French President Emmanuel Macron (Photo courtesy of Macron’s office)

The far-right National Rally party is campaigning on restricting LGBTQ rights in snap parliamentary elections, with prime minister candidate Jordan Bardella supporting restrictions on surrogacy and IVF for same-sex couples.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced snap parliamentary elections after his party’s poor showing in the European Parliamentary elections last weekend. National Rally won the most votes in that election and is polling strongly ahead of the June 30 first-round vote. However, French elections are run in a two-round system, and National Rally often fails to win second-round votes as voters coalesce around a less unappealing compromise candidate to block them.

In the past, National Rally has campaigned strongly against LGBTQ rights, especially same-sex marriage, but they appear to have conceded that marriage equality is settled law.

While campaigning ahead of the EU elections, Bardella appeared on the French television show “Le Grand Oral”, where he reiterated his opposition to surrogacy. 

Bardella also bitterly opposed Macron’s 2019 law which finally allowed lesbians to have access to in-vitro fertilization. 

He told local television at the time, “There is no right to having children. Children have a right to have a father and a mother and this law creates children without fathers.”

National Rally’s opposition to same-sex parenting mirrors that of Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, under whose watch the Italian government has stripped parental recognition from same-sex couples and imposed criminal penalties on Italians who conceive children via surrogacy.

The first week of the truncated election has taken a number of surprising turns. The mainstream right-wing party, the Republicans, has been in turmoil since its president announced his party would consider a coalition with the National Rally, which led party members to oust him and an embarrassing schism where he barricaded himself in the party headquarters and took over the party’s social media.

And in a bit of news that may be a little on-the-nose, the National Rally has nominated a man named Guillaume Bigot as their candidate in Belfort in northeastern France.

PAKISTAN

(Atheist Republic/Los Angeles Blade graphic)

A Pakistani man was apparently committed to a mental hospital after he attempted to open a gay bar in Abbottabad, Pakistan, this month.

The man, whose identity has not been disclosed, had apparently hoped to open the country’s first gay bar in the city of 250,000 people, about 75 miles north of Islamabad. 

Abbottabad is best known in the west as the city where Osama bin Laden was found and killed by U.S. Forces in 2011.

According to the Telegraph newspaper, the man had applied to open “Lorenzo Gay Club,” which he described in his application to civic authorities for a “No Objection Certificate” as a “great convenience and resource for many homosexual, bisexual and even some heterosexual people residing in Abbottabad in particular, and in other parts of the country in general.”

The application, dated May 8, also insisted that “there would be no gay (or non-gay) sex (other than kissing)” and that a notice would be posted on the wall to warn against “sex on premises.” 

The applicant describes the club as “a matter of the basic human right of free association, as established in the constitution.”

Gay sex is illegal in Pakistan, which is an officially Islamic republic. A conviction would carry up to two years in prison, but the law is rarely applied as it is difficult for anyone to be openly gay in the strictly conservative country.

The application sparked considerable debate online, after a copy of the application was released to the local media. The application seen in the “Pakistan Observer” is signed by a Preetum Giani, but it is not clear if that is the applicant or a representative.

According to the Telegraph, the man was committed to the Sarhad Hospital for Psychiatric Diseases in Peshawar on May 9, and friends have been unable to reach him since. Friends who spoke to the newspaper say they are worried about his safety, but also worried for their own safety if they speak out.

The Telegraph also reports that far-right politicians in Pakistan had threatened violence and arson against the club if it had been allowed to open. 

The applicant had previously told the paper that he believed it was important to stand for human rights, and that he would defend the right to open the club in the courts, in hopes that Pakistan’s courts would follow neighboring India’s lead, where gay sex was decriminalized in 2018. 

SINGAPORE

Rev. Miak Siew, a Singaporean LGBTQ activist, with Judy and Dennis Shepard in Singapore in May 2024. (Photo courtesy of Miak Siew’s Facebook page)

A new Ipsos poll has revealed a slight majority of Singaporeans support laws banning anti-LGBTQ discrimination, and support legal recognition of same-sex couples and adoption. 

The poll found that 54 percent of respondents agreed that same-sex couples should have the right to marry, and 57 percent agree they should have the right to adopt, compared to only 25 percent who oppose same-sex marriage and 30 percent who oppose same-sex couple adoption rights.

On both questions, a large number of respondents were unsure or had no opinion. 

An even larger number of respondents supported anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people. Nearly three-quarters of respondents said that LGBTQ people should have discrimination protections in employment and housing, although only 40 percent supported legislation to that effect, while 20 percent opposed it, and another 40 percent were unsure. 

There are no specific anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBTQ people in Singapore.

The poll found strongest support for LGBTQ rights among younger respondents as compared to older generations.  

Two years ago, Singapore repealed a colonial-era law that criminalized gay sex. But at the same-time, parliament also amended the constitution to require parliamentary approval for same-sex marriage. 

These poll numbers may indicate that eventual legalization could be possible.

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Australia

Australia to end ban on LGBTQ blood donors

New rules to take effect July 14

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(Bigstock photo)

The Australian Red Cross Blood Service (Lifeblood) has announced it will lift its ban on sexually active LGBTQ people from donating blood.

The Star Observer, an Australian LGBTQ newspaper, on Wednesday reported “gay and bisexual men and transgender women” were previously not “able to donate plasma if they had been sexually active with men in the last three months.” The ban will end on July 14.

“Lifeblood has been working to make blood and plasma donation more inclusive and accessible to as many people as possible, whilst maintaining the safety of the blood supply,” said Lifeblood on Wednesday in a press release that announced the new policy.

“In the first of the rule changes, from Monday, July 14, 2025, Lifeblood will remove most sexual activity wait times for plasma donations,” it added. “Under this world-leading ‘plasma pathway,’ most people, including gay and bisexual men, and anyone who takes PrEP will be able to donate plasma without a wait period, providing they meet all other eligibility criteria. Extensive research and modeling show that there will be no impact to the safety of the plasma supply with this change.”

“Once implemented, all donors will be asked the same questions about their sexual activity, regardless of their gender or sexuality, and most people in a sexual relationship of six months or more with a single partner will be eligible to donate blood,” notes Lifeblood’s press release. “In addition, most people with new or multiple partners will also be able to donate blood if they have not had anal sex in the last three months. The change will bring an end to men being asked if they’ve had sex with another man.”

Lifeblood Chief Medical Officer Jo Pink said the new policy will allow 24,000 additional people to donate blood each year.

“We’re excited to be able to welcome more people from across the community into our donor centers from next month,” said Pink.

Let Us Give and other advocacy groups for years had urged Lifeblood to allow LGBTQ people to donate blood without restrictions.

“We thank the TGA (Therapeutic Goods Administration) and Lifeblood for removing a ban that limited the supply of safe whole blood and stigmatized gay men, and bisexual men and trans women who have sex with men, as a threat to public health,” said Let Us Give spokesperson Rodney Croome.

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Kenya

Queer Kenyans, Ugandans celebrate Pride month

Pan-African Conference on Family Values took place in Nairobi in May

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(Washington Blade photo by Ernesto Valle)

As queer people around the world celebrate Pride month, their Kenyan and Ugandan counterparts are also marking it with a strong message of defiance and resistance.

Their agitation for “dignity, safety, and liberation” in homophobic environments follows last month’s second Pan-African Conference on Family Values in Nairobi, whose delegates were concerned about the push to normalize so-called LGBTQ practices on the continent and resolved to resist.      

The Initiative for Equality and Non Discrimination, a Kenyan LGBTQ rights organization, for instance cites Pride’s founding spirit of protest to resist the attempt to “erase, silence and oppress” queer people.  

“In a world that tries to diminish our existence, choosing joy becomes a radical act. Queer joy is not just a celebration, it is resistance. It is healing. It is a bold declaration; we are here, we are whole, and we deserve to thrive,” INEND states

It affirms that queer people have space for rage, resistance, softness, and joy as they honor the roots of Pride packed with a variety of activities for the group throughout the month.    

“We demand inclusion, we bask for visibility and we dance through the fire. This, too, is revolution,” INEND says. 

During the Pan-African Conference on Family Values meeting, which delegates from national governments, anti-LGBTQ lobby groups, academic and religious institutions, and international partners attended, Kenyan National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula affirmed the country’s position on marriage between a man and a woman as the constitution states. Wetang’ula advocates for laws that protect the “traditional family” and cultural values against what he described as Western imports.

“I urge our legislators that they should shield the good provisions of our constitution on family from ideological redefinitions of marriage seeking to recognize outlawed same-sex relationships,” Wetang’ula said. 

He also asked lawmakers to enact laws to prohibit comprehensive sexuality education in schools and only permit a science-based curriculum that is appropriate to the age, development level, and cultural background of school children without normalizing same-sex sexual acts and relationships.

“In modern times, across all nations, there have emerged two forces: one fighting for, and the other pursuing ideologies, positions, and acts that are against the traditional family,” Wetang’ula said. 

The delegates during the conference, which sparked criticism from Kenyan queer groups committed to resist the imposition of LGBTQ rights and other so-called external values under the pretense of development aid, international agreements, or donor partnerships that conflict with national laws and cultural integrity. They also committed to establishing, strengthening, and coordinating “pro-family” advocacy platforms and multi-sector coalitions at national, regional, and continental levels to engage with policymakers, legislators, and public education players.  

This pledge was in response to the delegates’ concerns over external manipulation of national legislative processes through covert or overt efforts to influence or bypass national parliaments in adopting judicial decisions that redefine family, life, and gender. They were also concerned over the global push to normalize gender fluidity and “non-biological” sexual identities in law, education, and healthcare, contrary to established biological, African culture, and religious norms.  

The delegates asked the African governments, parliaments, the African Union, and regional economic blocs to urgently undertake legislative reviews and reforms to ensure all national laws align with constitutional protections for the family, life, and parental rights. The Initiative for Equality and Non Discrimination, however, argue that describing queerness as un-African is a lie and a tool of imperialism used as a weapon to justify violence, exclusion and erasure, which should be rejected as it was enacted by colonial powers. 

Kenya’s queer community has nevertheless lined up a month’s worth of Pride events in Nairobi, the country, and across the country. Some of the locations are not publicly disclosed because of security reasons.

The events calendar that Galck, a group of 16 LGBTQ rights organizations, released includes entertainment and socializing every Friday evening in various places for queer party lovers. The celebrations also include queer community networking events to empower each other, meet-ups in safe places for soft, acoustic jam sessions and reflection, queer community days where the group gather to connect and celebrate queer lives. 

The calendar also invites queer people to participate in an open conversation with Galck, a trivia and karaoke event with the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, a supportive healing circle termed ‘Healing out Loud’ for distressed queer people, and a queer community potluck for the group to enjoy food, fun and connection. 

Other Pride events include queer love edition for singles, an art exhibition that includes rainbow- themed painting, a healing-centred therapy workshop termed “Chosen Family, Chosen Self,” a literary forum for bookworms to celebrate queer African literature, and movie night for film lovers.

The Cosmopolitan Affirming Community, a Nairobi-based church for queer people, has organized Gospel Sunday. Trek Tribe Kenya, an outdoor activity organizer, is also organizing activities that include climbing Mount Kenya, Africa’s second-highest mountain, hiking the gorges of Hell’s Gate National Park, and enjoying a “Pastel in the Park” wellness treat. 

“Respect the spaces you attend as they are safe, affirming environments, and take care of oneself and each other during Pride fun fare celebration,” Galck urges.  

‘Pride is not just parades or celebrations’

Their queer counterparts in Uganda are also having an eventful Pride month, despite persistent challenges.

“Pride is not just parades or celebrations. It is solidarity for many who cannot celebrate or march. It means refusing to be erased and choosing to simply be who you are,” said Sexual Minorities Uganda, which LGBTQ activist Frank Mugisha leads.

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These eight autistic LGBTQ people are making a difference

June 18 is Autistic Pride Day

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(Image by Soodowoodo/Bigstock)

June 18 is Autistic Pride Day — a day for us, autistic people, to celebrate our existence despite a world that often tries to erase or change us. Most of us don’t see autism as a disorder to fight; it’s part of who we are — autism determines how we think, communicate, and see the world. That’s why rhetoric like RFK Jr.’s “War on Autism” feels so deeply offensive.

But today, in the face of growing attacks on both autistic and LGBTQI+ rights, it’s important to focus on something hopeful. There’s a strong overlap between the autistic and LGBTQI+ communities — and since Autistic Pride Day falls in the middle of Pride month, I want to celebrate that connection.

Here are eight incredible autistic LGBTQI+ people who have helped change how the world sees both communities, and who can inspire the next generation.

Jim Sinclair (activist)

Jim Sinclair is a founder of the modern neurodiversity movement; a movement based on the idea that the diversity of how the human brain works is a natural part of human variation, like skin color or sexual orientation. Jim Sinclair is a co-founder of the first autistic organization created by autistic people for autistic people: Autistic Network International. His essay “Don’t Mourn For Us” helped millions of parents worldwide to accept their autistic kids. Jim is also an asexual and intersex activist who was raised as a girl. Jim hadn’t spoken orally before the age of 12 but felt from early on that he was not a girl. He was almost institutionalized in a psychiatric facility for refusing to accept a female gender identity and role but was instead subjected to “conversion therapy.”

As an adult, Jim speaks for intersex rights in front of the Intersex Society of North America and refuses to accept the gender binary for himself.

Bella Ramsey (actress)

Bella is a world-famous British actress, best known for their roles as Lyanna Mormont in “Game of Thrones” and Ellie in “The Last of Us” TV series. They are also an openly nonbinary autistic person, and one of the most visible autistic queer people in the world.

Despite the hate Bella receives because of their political views and non-conventional appearance, they continue to openly support trans rights and refuse to accept the femininity assigned at birth.

Andrew Joseph White (writer)

Andrew is an American young adult author whose books “Hell Followed With Us,” “The Spirit Bares Its Teeth,” and “Compound Fracture” became bestsellers and received numerous awards. Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew is openly bi, autistic, and trans. He writes stories about autistic trans kids — stories he needed when he was younger — often with speculative horror elements that deal with transphobia, ableism, family alienation, and religious bigotry.

Andrew’s first adult horror novel, “You Weren’t Meant To Be Human” about an autistic trans man, will be published in September 2025 and is inspired by trans people’s struggle for abortion rights.

Matt Cain (writer, broadcaster)

Matthew Cain is an openly gay British writer and broadcaster, mostly famous for his novels “The Madonna of Bolton,” “The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle,” “Becoming Ted,” and “One Love.” He was also Channel 4’s first culture editor and editor-in-chief of Attitude magazine and has judged the Costa Prize. In 2025, Matt was awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire for his services to LGBTQI+ culture — a well-deserved recognition for someone who’s helped bring queer stories into the light.

In 2025, Matt announced that he had been diagnosed with autism, which was “eye-opening” for him and helped him to rethink his past. It also provided a new role model for autistic gay people around the globe.

Lý Xīnzhèn Zhāngsūn (activist, attorney)

Lý Xīnzhèn Zhāngsūn, formally and mostly known as Lydia X. Z. Brown, is a queer, nonbinary, East Asian American advocate, attorney, writer, educator, and community organizer whose work centers on disability justice — particularly for autistic and multiply marginalized people. Over the past 15 years, they’ve trained hundreds across academia, nonprofits, companies, and government on issues at the intersection of disability, race, gender, queerness, and migration. They are one of the most outspoken advocates for disabled people of color in the world, and their work has inspired autistic activists worldwide.

They co-founded the Autistic People of Color Fund and co-edited “All the Weight of Our Dreams: On Living Racialized Autism.” As an educator, they teach in the Disability Studies Program and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Georgetown University, as well as in the American Studies Program at American University’s Department of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies.

Jarry (social media influencer)

Jarry is an autistic transgender activist and social media influencer from Russia, who created the first Russian-language YouTube channel about the specific presentation of autism among the majority of women, girls, and other individuals assigned female at birth — a topic still unknown not just to general public, but to many psychiatrists and experts in the post-Soviet region. Because of the Soviet colonial legacy, Russian remains a dominant language in Eastern Europe, so Jarry has influence beyond Russia.

Jarry also led online support groups for autistic folks — an important step in a region where there are no such groups in most of the cities. After Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022, Jarry became an outspoken supporter of Ukraine, and had to ask for political asylum in Europe.

Hannah Gadsby (comedian)

Hannah is an Australian comedian, actor, and writer who won the final of the Raw Comedy competition for new comedians in 2006. In 2018, their show “Nanette” on Netflix won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special and a Peabody Award.

Hannah was assigned female at birth but identifies as genderqueer. Their wife is also their producer, and their queerness is an integral part of their professional life.

They found out they are autistic later in life, which helped them better understand their experiences. Hannah also made millions of people rethink the stereotype that autistic people don’t understand humor.

Akwaeke Emezi (writer)

Akwaeke Emezi is a Nigerian author, best known for their critically acclaimed novels “Freshwater,” “Pet,” and the New York Times bestselling “The Death of Vivek Oji. In their novels, Akwaeke explores topics such as immigration and displacement, trauma (queerness, Blackness, and alienation. For example, while writing “Pet,” Akwaeke focused on creating the book they needed while growing up as a trans Black disabled person.

Born in Umuahia, Nigeria, like many Nigerian people, Akwaeke faced a lot of stigma in the West. They have struggled with mental health like many non-white, neurodivergent queer people living at the intersection of multiple identities.

They are a powerful role model for non-white autistic people seeking recognition and acceptance despite widespread stigma.

There are many more amazing autistic LGBTQI+ people around the world who are changing both communities every day. This list is extremely subjective and based on my own experience with autistic community in different countries and the way I saw the influence of specific people worldwide. Despite that in making this list, I tried to include as many different autistic people from various backgrounds as possible, unfortunately, many incredible autistic LGBTQI+ folks remain unseen due to regional and linguistic barriers that prevent their stories from reaching a wider audience.

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