World
Out in the World: LGBTQ news from Europe and Asia
Latvia’s civil unions law took effect Monday
LATVIA
Latvia’s law allowing same-sex couples to form civil unions came into effect Monday, and the first queer couples have already registered their unions in the Baltic nation.
Maksims Ringo and Janis Locs were the first same-sex couple to register their civil union. They did so in a ceremony at a legal office in the capital, Riga, where they exchanged silver rings, stating that they were saving gold rings for a date when Latvia legalizes same-sex marriage.
“I feel excited, kind of emotional about it as well because it is a really big step and not only for us, for the country itself. And being first, it’s all the publicity that comes with it as well. It kind of is a bit, I would say, a bit stressful, but at the same time I feel happy that we can finally do it,” Locs told Reuters.
Latvia amended its constitution to ban same-sex marriage in 2005, but in 2020, the Constitutional Court ruled that the state must give same-sex couples the same benefits that straight married couples have. In 2022, a deadline imposed by the court lapsed, and couples began applying to the courts to have their relationships recognized.
Last year, the Latvian parliament finally passed a law formalizing same-sex civil unions, but the compromise legislation has frustrated some LGBTQ activists in the country as it leaves out key rights demanded by same-sex couples. Latvia’s civil unions do not allow couples to adopt children, nor do they get key inheritance rights, they’re concluded at a notary office instead of at the civil registry, and the government still will not recognize foreign same-sex marriages.
The bill was also bitterly opposed by conservative, anti-LGBTQ groups. They attempted to force a referendum to block the bill but were unable to come up with the required signatures before the legal deadline.
With legal civil unions in Latvia, all but five EU countries recognize some form of same-sex union: Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania.
In neighboring Lithuania, a civil union bill awaits a final vote in parliament but has stalled amid infighting between liberal and conservative factions of the coalition government. This week, the liberal faction threatened to block the appointment of a European commissioner unless the conservatives agreed to pass the bill.
In Poland, the governing coalition appears to have finally agreed to pass a civil union bill, albeit one that has been watered down significantly. The resulting bill will not allow any adoption rights, nor a common surname, and will be concluded by notaries and without a ceremony rather than civil registries. The government hopes to bring the bill forward this month.
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that all member states must provide some form of civil union to same-sex couples to be in compliance with the nondiscrimination and family rights guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.
FRANCE
Voters gave a big boost to the far-right National Rally party in Sunday’s first-round parliamentary elections, with the Rally taking 33 percent of the vote, while the left-wing New Popular Front took 28 percent, and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Together bloc took 21 percent.
Parties are now jockeying for voter support in the second round, and NPF and Together have begun discussions at mutual endorsements to block the National Rally.
In France’s system, if no candidate in a given district wins 50 percent of the vote, the top two vote-getters, and any candidate who gets at least 12.5 percent of registered voters advances to the second round, which is decided by plurality vote. Because of higher-than-usual turnout of 67 percent, there are a large number of three-way races in the second round — over 300 according to official results, when the previous record was 76.
The left-wing NPF has announced it will withdraw any candidates who advanced and placed third on the ballot, in order to create a “republican front” against the National Rally. While Macron has not made a formal statement on withdrawing third-place candidates, his prime minister, Gabriel Attal, has called on third-place candidates to step aside.
The National Rally has a long history of campaigning against LGBTQ rights but has not made that central to its program in this election, where it has focused on pocketbook issues and rejection of immigration. The National Rally has long opposed same-sex marriage, and its current leader has campaigned and voted against allowing lesbians to access IVF and supports a bill to ban gender care for minors.
Several reports have emerged of National Rally supporters committing homophobic attacks in France.
A group of National Rally supporters allegedly attacked a gay teenager in Paris after the results of last month’s European Parliament elections were announced and National Rally was shown to win the largest number of sets. They were reported to have shouted “You’ll see when Bardella is in power and Hitler comes back!” and “In three weeks, we will be able to smash up f*gs as much as we like. I can’t wait.” The attackers were arrested.
GEORGIA
A package of extreme anti-LGBTQ bills sailed through first reading in the Georgian parliament on a 78-0 vote that was boycotted by most of the country’s opposition parties.
Georgia has been rocked by protests since the governing Georgian Dream party introduced a passed a “foreign agents” law, which requires any organization that receives funding from out of the country to register with the government as a foreign agent. The law was inspired by a similar law in Russia and was designed to undermine opposition groups, media, and nongovernmental organizations that are often critical of the government.
The anti-LGBTQ bills are an extreme package of legislation that was also inspired by Russia. The bills ban recognition of any same-sex relationships, forbid recognition of gender other than birth sex, forbid any medical treatment for gender change, and criminalize any advocacy for LGBTQ rights. The government says it hopes to pass the legislation by the fall ahead of national elections in October.
The bills are also designed to undermine the opposition, by forcing them to defend LGBTQ rights, which remain deeply controversial in the conservative Christian country. Opposition leaders have also made it clear that their boycott of the bill does not mean they support LGBTQ rights.
Both the anti-LGBTQ bills and the foreign agents bill have put the country on a collision course with the EU, which it has expressed a desire to join, and which granted it candidate status last year.
EU accession is very popular among the Georgian public, but the Georgian Dream party is more closely aligned with Russia, and frequently demonizes the EU by equating its values with LGBTQ rights.
Last week, EU candidates Moldova and Ukraine opened formal negotiations to join the bloc, although it is expected that it will be many years before membership is granted.
INDIA
The high court of India’s Kerala state upheld the right of LGBTQ people to live autonomously, as it rejected a petition from the parents of a 23-year-old who sought to have their daughter committed to a mental institution to “treat her sexual orientation.”
The young woman had fled her family and was living with her partner, a transgender man. Her family members repeatedly attempted to violently abduct her from her new home.
The court ruled that the woman has a right to live her life on her own terms and that sexual orientation is an innate part of a person’s identity.
The court also directed the parents to hand over all of their daughter’s personal documents, which they had been withholding, in an attempt to force her to return to them, and the court warned the family against committing violence against her.
Same-sex relationships are not illegal in India, although last year the Indian Supreme Court ruled that the government does not have to recognize same-sex marriage, leaving that question to parliament.
HONG KONG
Ten same-sex couples from Hong Kong were legally married in the U.S. over the internet this week, in a mass ceremony to celebrate Pride week.
The 10 couples took advantage of a program available through the state of Utah, which allows people to get married via an internet ceremony.
Utah has become a go-to destination for same-sex couples seeking to get married even though they live in countries that don’t recognize same-sex marriage. Utah allows couples to get married even if they’re not physically present in the state, while most states require couples to at least be present, if not resident in the state.
Hong Kong does not currently allow same-sex marriage, although last year its Court of Final Appeal ruled that the local government should offer some form of relationship recognition to same-sex couples within two years. That deadline comes up next September.
“In Hong Kong, there’s not yet a way to go to a marriage registry to get married, but there’s still this way we can offer for them to realize their dreams of getting married,” wedding organizer Kurt Tung told the Associated Press.
World
Top 10 international LGBTQ news stories of 2025
Marriage progress in Europe; trans travel advisories depress WorldPride attendance
The Trump-Vance administration and its policies had a significant impact on the global LGBTQ rights movement in 2025. War, anti-LGBTQ crackdowns, protests, and legal advances are among the other issues that made headlines around the world over the past year.
Here are the top international stories of 2025.
10. Australia ends ban on LGBTQ blood donors
Australia on July 14 ended its ban on sexually active LGBTQ people from donating blood.
“Lifeblood (the Australian Red Cross Blood Service) 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 the Australian Red Cross Blood Service in a press release that announced the new policy.
Lifeblood Chief Medical Officer Jo Pink said the new policy will allow 24,000 additional people to donate blood each year.
9. Kenyan judge rules gov’t must legally recognize trans people
A Kenyan judge on Aug. 20 ruled his country’s government must legally recognize transgender people and ensure their constitutional rights are protected.
Justice Reuben Nyakundi of the Eldoret High Court in western Kenya ruled in favor of a trans athlete who was arrested in 2019 and forced to undergo a medical examination to determine her gender. The 34-year-old plaintiff who is a board member of Jinsiangu, a trans rights organization, said authorities arrested her at a health facility after they claimed she impersonated a woman.
“This is the first time a Kenyan court has explicitly ordered the state to create legislation on transgender rights, and a first in the African continent,” noted Jinsiangu in a statement. “If implemented, it could address decades of legal invisibility and discrimination faced by transgender persons by establishing clear legal recognition of gender identity, protection against discrimination in employment, housing, healthcare, and education, and access to public services without bias or harassment.”
8. U.S. withdraws from UN LGBTI Core Group
The U.S. in 2025 withdrew from the U.N. LGBTI Core Group, a group of U.N. member states that have pledged to support LGBTQ and intersex rights.
A source told the Washington Blade the U.S. withdrew from the Core Group on Feb. 14. A State Department spokesperson later confirmed the withdrawal.
“In line with the president’s recent executive orders, we have withdrawn from the U.N. LGBTI Core Group,” said the spokesperson.
7. Wars in Gaza, Ukraine continue to make headlines
Israeli airstrikes against Iran prompted authorities in Tel Aviv to cancel the city’s annual Pride parade that was scheduled to take place on June 13.
The airstrikes prompted Iran to attack Israel with drones and missiles. One of them destroyed Mash Central, a gay bar that was located a few blocks from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv. Marty Rouse, a longtime activist who lives in Maryland, was in Israel with the Jewish Federations of North America when the war began. He and his group left the country on June 15.
Bet Mishpachah, an LGBTQ synagogue in D.C., welcomed the tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that took effect on Oct. 10, roughly two years after Hamas militants killed upwards of 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 200 others when they launched a surprise attack on the country.
In Ukraine, meanwhile, the war that Russia launched in 2022 drags on.
6. Int’l Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Taliban leaders
The International Criminal Court on July 8 issued arrest warrants for two top Taliban officials accused of targeting LGBTQ people, women, and others who defy the group’s strict gender norms.
The warrants are for Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s supreme leader, and Afghanistan Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani.
Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, in January announced a request for warrants against Taliban officials over their treatment of women and other groups since they regained control of Afghanistan in 2021. The request marked the first time the court specifically named LGBTQ people as victims in a gender persecution case before it.
5. Hundreds of thousands defy Budapest Pride ban
More than 100,000 people on June 28 defied the Hungarian government’s ban on public LGBTQ events and participated in the 30th annual Budapest Pride parade.
Former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who is his country’s first openly gay head of government, and openly gay MEP Krzysztof Śmiszek, who was previously Poland’s deputy justice minister, are among those who participated in the march.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz-KDNP coalition government have faced widespread criticism over its 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 in April amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
4. LGBTQ delegation travels to Vatican to meet Pope Leo after Francis dies
Pope Francis died on April 21.
The Vatican’s tone on LGBTQ and intersex issues softened under the Argentine-born pope’s papacy, even though church teachings on homosexuality and gender identity did not change.
The College of Cardinals on May 8 chose Pope Leo XVI, an American cardinal from Chicago who was bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo in Peru from 2015-2023, to succeed Francis.
Leo on Sept. 1 met with the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest who founded Outreach, a ministry for LGBTQ Catholics. A gay couple from D.C. — Jim Sweeney and the Rev. Jason Carson Wilson — are among those who took part in an LGBTQ pilgrimage to the Vatican a few days later that coincided with the church’s year-long Jubilee that began last Christmas Eve when Francis opened the Holy Door.
3. EU’s top court rules states must recognize same-sex marriages
The European Union’s top court on Nov. 25 ruled member states must recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other member states.
The EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled in favor of a couple who challenged Poland’s refusal to recognize their German marriage.
The couple who lives in Poland brought their case to Polish courts. The Polish Supreme Administrative Court referred it to the EU Court of Justice.
“Today’s ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU is of key importance not only for the couple involved in the case, but also for the entire LGBT+ community in Poland,” said the Campaign Against Homophobia, a Polish LGBTQ and intersex rights group.
2. U.S. funding cuts devastate global LGBTQ community
The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to cut U.S. foreign aid spending in 2025 has had a devastating impact on the global LGBTQ rights movement.
Council for Global Equality Chair Mark Bromley noted to the Blade the U.S. historically funded roughly a third of the global LGBTQ rights movement.
Groups around the world — including those that worked with people with HIV/AIDS — that received U.S. funding had to curtail programming or close altogether. LGBTQ+ Victory Institute President Elliot Imse earlier this year noted the global LGBTQ rights movement in 2025 was set to lose more than $50 million.
“It is a catastrophe,” he said.
1. Countries boycott WorldPride amid travel advisories
Canada and a number of European countries in 2025 issued travel advisories for trans and nonbinary people who planned to visit the U.S.
The advisory the Danish government issued notes President Donald Trump’s executive order that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers. It also notes “two gender designations to choose from: male or female” when applying for an ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) or visa for the U.S.
Egale Canada, one of Canada’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organizations, in February announced its members would not attend WorldPride, which took place in D.C. from May 17-June 8, or other events in the U.S. because of the Trump-Vance administration’s policies. Other advocacy groups and activists also did not travel to the U.S. for WorldPride.
InterPride, which coordinates WorldPride, also issued its own travel advisory for trans and nonbinary people.
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Tuesday signed a bill that will ban so-called LGBTQ propaganda in the country.
Members of Kazakhstan’s lower house of parliament last month unanimously approved the measure that would ban “‘LGBT propaganda’ online or in the media” with “fines for violators and up to 10 days in jail for repeat offenders.” The Kazakh Senate on Dec. 18 approved the bill.
Kazakhstan is a predominantly Muslim former Soviet republic in Central Asia that borders Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and China. Russia, Georgia, and Hungary are among the other countries with anti-LGBTQ propaganda laws.
India
Few transgender people benefit from India’s low-income housing program
Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana launched in 2015
The Indian government on Dec. 15 informed parliament that only one transgender person in Jammu and Kashmir has been recorded as a beneficiary under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana since the housing program was launched a decade ago.
PMAY is a federal government program aimed at expanding access to affordable housing for low- and middle-income households, including through credit-linked subsidies. The parliamentary disclosure indicates that trans beneficiaries have been virtually absent from the program’s records in the union territory, despite official guidelines listing trans people as a priority category.
In a written reply to a question in the upper house of parliament, known as the Rajya Sabha, the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry said Jammu and Kashmir recorded zero trans beneficiaries under the program in each financial year from 2020–2021 through 2025–2026, with the cumulative total since inception remaining at one.
The Indian government launched the program on June 25, 2015, and the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry implemented it.
The parliamentary reply came in response to a question on whether trans people are being included under the housing scheme and what steps have been taken to address barriers to access. The ministry said both PMAY and its successor, PMAY 2.0, are demand-driven programs, with responsibility for identifying and selecting beneficiaries resting with state and regional governments.
The ministry said the program lists trans people as a priority group, alongside widows, single women, people with disabilities, senior citizens, and other socially disadvantaged categories. It added that actual implementation depends on housing proposals and beneficiary lists submitted by state and regional governments.
According to figures the Indian government cited, a total of 809 trans beneficiaries have been recorded under PMAY and its successor, PMAY 2.0, since the programs were launched, with the vast majority concentrated in a small number of states. The southern state of Tamil Nadu accounts for 222 beneficiaries, followed by Andhra Pradesh with 186, and Odisha with 101. By contrast, several other states and federally administered regions, including Jammu and Kashmir, have reported either negligible or no coverage. India is administratively divided into 28 states and eight federally governed territories.
According to India’s 2011 national Census, Jammu and Kashmir recorded 4,137 trans residents. The same census counted 487,803 trans people nationwide, providing the most recent official population baseline for the community in India.
The ministry also said it has not conducted a specific survey to assess barriers faced by trans communities in accessing the scheme’s benefits. Instead, it said lessons from earlier implementation phases informed the design of the second phase of the program, launched on Sept. 1, 2024, which aims to support an additional 10 million urban beneficiaries over the next five years.
The parliamentary reply reveals an even more severe gap in Ladakh, India’s northernmost federally governed territory bordering China and Pakistan-administered areas and considered strategically critical to national security.
Official records show that Ladakh has not reported a single trans beneficiary under the housing scheme, either in recent years or cumulatively since the program began, with zero coverage recorded across all financial years listed in the Annexure. By comparison, Ladakh’s trans population stands at six, according to a written submission made to the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir in 2024.
Despite trans people being listed as a priority group in the scheme’s guidelines, the federal government said that as of November 2025 it had sanctioned more than 12.2 million homes nationwide under both versions of the program, with over 9.6 million homes completed and delivered. At the same time, data from Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, and several other regions show little to no recorded housing uptake by trans beneficiaries.
Speaking with the Washington Blade, Meera Parida, a trans activist, former member of the National Council for Transgender Persons in India’s eastern zone, and a former state advisor under the housing and urban development department, said the 2011 Census does not reflect the full size of India’s trans population, noting that public recognition and self-identification were far more limited at the time. She pointed to later government data collection efforts, including the National Portal for Transgender Persons that the Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry launched in 2020, as evidence that official counts have expanded beyond what was captured in the last Census.
“I am surprised that around the country only over 800 people benefited from the scheme, because most of the transgender population is from socially backward classes,” said Parida. “So they do not have a house and no family. Five years have passed since the NALSA judgment and the Transgender Protection Act; even after all these, if only over 800 transgender persons got home, that is a sad situation.”
Parida said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has publicly positioned trans people’s welfare as a priority, but argued that the issue requires greater attention at the administrative level. She said the prime minister’s office should issue clear directions to all relevant departments to ensure trans people receive housing support and that implementation moves more quickly.
“There is still widespread discrimination and stigma against the community. Many transgender people are afraid to speak openly, which is why this issue continues to persist,” Parida said. “If stigma and discrimination are not addressed seriously, the marginalized community will remain invisible and reluctant to come forward. In that situation, the government will also be limited in what it can do. State governments should work with activists and community organizations to build accurate data. The government has decided to resume the Census in 2026, but the enumerators who go door to door must be sensitized to engage respectfully with the transgender community. The government should also improve awareness of housing schemes, because many people simply do not know they exist. A single-window system is needed.”
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