World
Out in the World: LGBTQ news from Europe and Asia
Grindr location services disabled in Olympic Village
FRANCE
The European Court of Human Rights upheld a French law that criminalizes aspects of sex work, in what advocates are calling a “missed opportunity” that will continue to put sex workers’ lives in danger.
In a July 25 ruling, the court found that France’s 2016 law, which criminalizes the purchase of sex and other organizational aspects of sex work, like keeping a brothel, does not violate Section 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees freedom of privacy. The court refused to consider whether the law violated other sections of the convention that guarantee the right to life and freedom from torture.
The French law was based on the so-called “Nordic model” of criminalizing sex work, which was pioneered in Sweden and Norway in 1999 and 2009, respectively. The model was meant to discourage prostitution and human trafficking without criminalizing sex workers themselves, who are seen as vulnerable or victims of exploitation.
Advocacy groups have criticized the Nordic model for exposing sex workers to danger and have tended to call for full decriminalization of sex work.
The case was brought by 261 sex workers identified as men and women of various nationalities. The applicants argued that the law made the conditions of being a sex worker more dangerous by making clients wary of being arrested and by preventing sex workers from working together or hiring security. This forced sex workers to meet clients alone and far from the public eye, exposing them to potential violence and clients who refuse to use condoms. It also drove down the prices they could charge for their services.
Still, the court found that France should be given a “margin of appreciation” for its approach to regulate and abolish sex work without actually prohibiting it.
Human rights groups were quick to denounce the ruling.
“This does not change the evidence that the 261 sex workers – the majority of them migrants, women of color, and LGBT people – presented to the European Court of Human Rights,” said Erin Kilbride, LGBT rights director of Human Rights Watch. “Criminalization increases physical attacks, sexual violence, and police abuse of people who sell sex, while having no demonstrable effect on the eradication of human trafficking. The movement for sex workers’ rights is a strong one that will continue the fight to protect the rights and lives of all sex workers.”
Amnesty International, which intervened in the case in support of sex workers, has said the global experience suggests that the French law will endanger sex workers’ lives.
“Our research has highlighted that laws supposedly intended to protect sex workers are in fact putting them at higher risk of abuse and violence, including rape and physical attacks,” said Anna Błuś, Amnesty International’s women’s rights researcher.
“Today’s judgment is a blow to the courageous sex workers who brought this case. We continue to stand alongside sex workers as they demand protection for their human rights and seek justice for rights violations perpetrated against their community.”
GERMANY
The annual Christopher Street Day parade in Cologne saw a record turnout of 1.2 million people on July 21, as Pride events in the country took on new urgency with the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Pride events in Germany are often called “Christopher Street Day” after the street in New York where the Stonewall Inn is found and where the 1969 Stonewall Riots are said to have kick-started the modern LGBTQ rights movement.
The Cologne Christopher Street Day Parade featured more than 60,000 participants and 90 floats, and was kicked off with speeches from prominent German politicians, including Bundestag President Bärbel Bas, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, and Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth. Members of the German pop-rock band Tokio Hotel, including openly gay frontman Bill Kaulitz, also participated on one of the floats.
Despite the celebratory atmosphere, a group of 13 men attempted to disrupt the festivities by shouting right-wing extremist and homophobic remarks and tearing down rainbow flags. Cologne police quickly intervened and detained the men, some of whom were described as between ages 18 and 30, wearing black clothing, bare-chested, and with shaven heads. Police also investigated a threat made against the parade that was posted on the internet the day before but dismissed it as unserious.
The Christopher Street Day Parade in Berlin took place on Saturday and was themed on the organizers’ call for Germany’s Basic Law — its constitution — to be amended to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Basic Law is already interpreted to ban discrimination based on gender identity.
The call for greater protections for LGBTQ rights comes as the AfD, which opposes LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage, is riding high in opinion polls.
CANADA
The city of Edmonton, Alberta, is honoring its LGBTQ history with a new exhibit at Fort Edmonton Park that runs all summer and spotlights significant people and moments that often go overlooked in official histories.
Fort Edmonton Park is a city-owned living history museum that presents the history of the Edmonton area from the earliest Indigenous communities through the 1920s. Entitled “Regulating Morality,” the new exhibit was constructed by the Edmonton Queer History Project and features key historic events like the AIDS pandemic and the legal and political fights for equal rights and same-sex marriage. The new installation is part of an effort to broaden the type of history being preserved in the park beyond that of the white colonial Christian community.
“We want every visitor that comes here to see themselves reflected in Edmonton’s history, and we can’t do that unless we are creating space to tell these narratives,” said Neil Cramer, public interpretation coordinator at Fort Edmonton Park.
Alberta has been at the center of many of the most important battles for LGBTQ rights in Canada.
Long heralded as the most conservative province of Canada, Alberta politicians bitterly resisted many advances in queer rights. In 1998, an Edmonton school teacher who was fired for being gay won a Supreme Court case that established that nondiscrimination laws must include protections for sexual orientation, after a legal struggle that spanned seven years.
More recently, the premier of Alberta has come under fire for transphobic policies that bar access to gender care for minors and require parental notification and consent if a student wishes to use an alternate name or pronoun in class.
“By knowing you have a past history, you can also imagine a future, and that’s really important in a time that is challenging and difficult right now,” said Kristopher Wells, founder of the Edmonton Queer History Project.
OLYMPICS
The gay cruising app Grindr has disabled location services and a host of other features in the Olympic Village in an effort to protect the privacy of athletes, the company announced in a blog post on July 24.
The move is a response to an incident at the 2016 Rio Olympics when the Daily Beast published an article by reporter Nico Hines about hookup culture among athletes, in which he described several athletes that he identified on Grindr, potentially outing them and exposing them to danger in their home countries where homosexuality is criminalized or not socially acceptable. Grindr took similar steps to protect athletes at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
“If an athlete is not out or comes from a country where being LGBTQ+ is dangerous or illegal, using Grindr can put them at risk of being outed by curious individuals who may try to identify and expose them on the app,” the company said in a blog post.
Grindr users will not be able to use the “Explore” and “Roam” features within the Olympic Village, where the “show distance” feature will also be turned off by default. The app is also allowing users in the Village to send unlimited disappearing messages and unsend messages, disabling screenshots of profile images and chats, and disabling private videos.
“Our goal is to help athletes connect without worrying about unintentionally revealing their whereabouts or being recognized,” the company said.
According to the website Outsports, 175 openly LGBTQ athletes are competing at the Olympics, although only 20 of them are cisgender men.
IRELAND
The Irish government says it may not uphold its pledge to introduce a ban on conversion therapy, saying that the issue has become too complicated to legislate before the end of the government’s term, the Irish Times reports.
A conversion therapy ban was promised as part of the coalition agreement formed between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and the Green Party after the 2020 election. But consultations on the ban dragged on for years, and no bill has yet been introduced, despite the government repeatedly saying the bill was a priority during that time.
The next Irish election must be held by March 2025.
Equality and Children Minister Roderic O’Gorman said that legislating on the issue was “extremely complex” at an event at Trinity College in Dublin on July 12, where three professional associations representing psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors committed their members not to engage in conversion therapy. The College of Psychiatrists of Ireland, the Irish Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy, and the Psychological Society of Ireland bans extend to both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K.
O’Gorman says crafting legislation that covers non-medical practices has proven difficult.
“I wanted to make sure it covered quasi-religious practices and quasi-therapeutic practices, and to ensure those very necessary conversations that take place when someone is exploring their gender identity or sexual orientation wouldn’t be impacted,” O’Gorman said.
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.”
