World
Out in the World: LGBTQ news from Europe and Asia
Malaysian music festival organizers suing English rock band over on stage kiss

MALAYSIA
Rock band The 1975 is being sued by organizers of a music festival kissed a man on stage as a protest against the country’s anti-LGBTQ laws last July. The festival is seeking $2.4 million in damages alleging breach of contract after the festival was shut down by authorities.
The English rock band was headlining the Good Vibes Festival in Kuala Lumpur on July 21, 2023, when Healy delivered a performance that festival organizers Future Vibes Asia allege included drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes on stage, appearing to “spit excessively including towards the audience” and giving a “profanity-laden speech,” all of which they say was in violation of their performance contract.
“Variety” reported at the time that Healy told the crowd “I don’t see the fucking point … of inviting The 1975 to a country and then telling us who we can have sex with … I’m sorry if that offends you, and you’re religious … but your government are a bunch of fucking r——. I don’t care anymore. If you push, I’m gonna push back. I’m not in the fucking mood.”
At that point, Healy kissed bassist Ross MacDonald on stage, resulting the band getting booted from the stage by government censors and banned from performing in Malaysia.
Authorities then shut down the entire festival, which still had two more days of performances by local and international acts, including American band The Strokes.
In filings in the UK High Court, Future Sound Asia is seeking $2.4 million in damages from the band, whom they say were paid $350,000 to perform.
The 1975 have not provided a response in court.
The band has also been sued separately by other artists who claim they lost opportunities and income because of the festival being shut down.
THAILAND
Thailand has become the 44th member state of the Equal Rights Coalition, an intergovernmental agency tasked with advancing the rights of LGBTQ and intersex people across the world.
Thailand is the first Asian country to join the international body, which also includes member states from Europe, the Americas, Africa, and the Middle East.
The Equal Rights Coalition was founded in 2016 under the leadership of Uruguay and the Netherlands to promote LGBTQ and intersex human rights, through forums and idea exchange with a particular focus on reducing violence and discrimination, ending criminalization of LGBTQ and intersex people, and including LGBTQ and intersex people in development projects.
Thailand has made great progress on LGBTQ rights in recent years, including legalizing same-sex marriage and adoption earlier this year, and introducing a government bill to facilitate legal gender change.
The ERC has worked to expand its own capacity this year, launching a secretariat hosted by ILGA-World in Geneva.
NEPAL
The Supreme Court of Nepal has for the first time ordered that the government recognize a transgender woman as a woman, without her having to submit to medical verification. The ruling applies only to this specific case but may set a precedent for future cases.
Human Rights Watch reported that Rukshana Kapali, a trans law student, was granted the order that she should be recognized as a woman on all government documents. Kapali has sued the government more than 50 times since 2021 in order to get her gender recognized, due to inconsistently applied rules across the country.
Although Kapali has been granted relief, other trans people will continue to have to sue to have their gender legally recognized, until the government creates a consistent regulation.
In 2007, the Supreme Court ordered the government to recognize a “third gender” or “other” option on the basis of self-identification. “Third gender” is a common way that many trans people in South Asian cultures self-identify.
However, because the government has failed to institute a clear nationwide policy around updating legal gender, many trans people face roadblocks. Some are forced to undergo surgery first, which requires travelling outside the country, and then to have invasive medical examinations in-country.
Human Rights Watch has called on the government to address this by creating a clear policy on updating legal gender based on self-determination.
“The government can and should make the system work for everyone by issuing a directive that allows people to self-identify their gender on official documents, without medical or other verification,” Human Rights Watch says in a press release.
UNITED KINGDOM
The British Medical Association has called for the government to pause implementation of the controversial Cass Review of gender care for trans youth, and a lifting of the government’s ban on the use of puberty blockers for under-18s.
The BMA, a trade union that represents nearly 200,000 doctors and medical students across the UK, has made the amid a growing anti-trans moral panic across the UK, fueled by far-right commentators, including “Harry Potter” creator J.K. Rowling, which captured the attention of the Conservative Party that governed the country for 14 years until last month.
But the new Labour government has been swift to uphold some of the previous government’s anti-trans policies, including announcing that it would move to make the ban on puberty blockers permanent.
The previous government had launched a review of trans youth care under Hilary Cass, who published her findings this spring. The Cass Review ultimately called for a move away from medical interventions for trans youth and instead proposed a model of better mental health support.
Trans activists and medical researchers criticized the report for its selective review of studies and lack of consultation with trans patients, which they have said give the impression that the review was designed to come to a conclusion that would effectively bar young people from transitioning or forcibly detransition them.
A government spokesperson has rebuffed the BMA’s call for a pause on implementation of the Cass Review while it completes its own research.
“NHS England will be implementing Dr. Cass’s recommendations so that children and young people get the safe, holistic care and support they need. We do not support a delay to vital improvements from the NHS to gender services,” a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson told the BBC.
The ban on puberty blockers had also been challenged in court by the advocacy group TransActual, but a judge ruled last week that the ban was lawful.
World
Global LGBTQ rights crackdown overshadows this year’s IDAHOBiT
WHO on May 17, 1990, declassified homosexuality as a mental illness

Activists around the world will mark the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia against the backdrop of efforts to curtail LGBTQ rights that are gaining traction in the U.S. and other countries.
The Trump-Vance administration since it took office in January has issued a number of executive orders that have specifically targeted transgender and nonbinary people. They include a declaration that the federal government will recognize “only two genders, male and female” and a directive that bans the State Department from issuing passports with an “X” gender marker.
ILGA-Europe on Wednesday released its annual update to its Rainbow Map, which documents LGBTQ rights in European countries.
The ILGA-Europe press release notes Hungary’s “prohibition of Pride events and criminalization of participants” and the U.K. Supreme Court ruling last month that restricts “the legal recognition of trans people.” The European advocacy group also highlighted a “sweeping ban on all forms of LGBTI representation and assembly” that Georgian lawmakers passed last fall.
“They are merely the most striking examples of a broader trend in which LGBTI human rights are being systematically dismantled under the guise of preserving public order,” said ILGA-Europe. “In reality, such measures pave the way for sweeping restrictions on fundamental freedoms, including the rights to protest and to political dissent.”
Argentine President Javier Milei in February issued a decree that restricts minors’ access to gender-affirming surgeries and hormone treatments. An appeals court in Trinidad and Tobago in March recriminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations in the Caribbean country.
The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to suspend most foreign aid has forced several LGBTQ rights groups and HIV/AIDS service organizations in South Africa, Kenya, and other African countries that received U.S. funding to curtail operations or shut down. Lawmakers in Vanuatu are considering an amendment to the country’s constitution that would recognize only two sexes: Male and female.
“This Pride season is different,” said Outright International, a global advocacy group, in an email it sent to supporters on Thursday. “From funding cuts and escalating violence to increases in anti-LGBTIQ legislation, the global backlash against our movement is growing.”
IDAHOBiT commemorates the World Health Organization’s declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder on May 17, 1990. This year’s IDAHOBiT theme is “the power of communities.”
“This year, and always, LGBTQIA+ people around the world are with feminist, sexual reproductive health rights, and broader social justice movements,” said ILGA World, a global LGBTQ rights group, earlier this week in an email to supporters.
The Namibian High Court last June ruled Apartheid-era laws that criminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations in the country are unconstitutional. A law that extended marriage rights to same-sex couples in Thailand took effect on Jan. 23.
Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education, an organization directed by Mariela Castro, the daughter of former Cuban President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBTQ issues on the island, this month has organized a series of LGBTQ-specific events across the country.
Activists in Manningham, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, on Tuesday marked IDAHOBiT. The first “Ringing the Bell for LGBTIQ+ Equality” ceremony that is part of a campaign to promote LGBTQ inclusion in the private sector took place at the Toronto Stock Exchange on the same day.
The U.N. LGBTI Core Group, a group of U.N. member states that have pledged to support LGBTQ and intersex rights, will hold an event on Friday at the U.N. in New York that will commemorate both IDAHOBiT and the International Day of Families. (The U.S. earlier this year withdrew from the Core Group after President Donald Trump took office.)
Fondation Émerge and Fierté Montréal will organize a march in Montréal on Saturday. Other IDAHOBiT events are scheduled to take place on that day in South Africa, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, the U.K., and elsewhere around the world on that day.

World
New stock exchange initiative promotes LGBTQ inclusion in private sector
‘Ringing the Bell for LGBTIQ+ Equality’ campaign kicked off in Toronto on Tuesday

More than a dozen stock exchanges around the world are participating in an initiative that seeks to promote LGBTQ inclusion in the private sector.
The first “Ringing the Bell for LGBTIQ+ Equality” ceremony took place on Tuesday at the Toronto Stock Exchange when members of the LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors Canada Association rang the closing bell.
(Video courtesy of the TMX Group)
Two “Ringing the Bell for LGBTIQ+ Equality” ceremonies took place on Wednesday at the London Stock Exchange and the Australia Stock Exchange. Similar events are scheduled to occur in Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Chicago, Mexico City, the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, the Namibian capital of Windhoek, and other cities throughout the month.
Koppa: The LGBTI+ Economic Power Lab and various U.N. agencies are behind the campaign that coincides with the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia.
IDAHOBiT commemorates the World Health Organization’s declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder on May 17, 1990.
“This is more than just a symbolic gesture – it’s a global call to action to focus on LGBTIQ+ economic equality inclusion,” said Fabrice Houdart, co-founder of Koppa, in a press release that announced the “Ringing the Bell for LGBTIQ+ Equality” campaign. “Economic inclusion remains among the unfinished business of the LGBTIQ+ equality movement of the LGBTIQ+ equality movement around the world, including in the U.S. We are ringing the bell to remind the world: Our journey is far from over.”
“With an increasing number of governments trying to force businesses around the world to retreat on their support for basic equality, companies must step in and defend their right to do business as they see fit, including their support for equality for all,” he added.
Peru
Peruvian activists react to Pope Leo XIV’s election
American-born pontiff was bishop of Chiclayo

Pope Leo XIV’s election has sparked global reactions, but his appointment has struck a deeper chord in Peru.
The now-pontiff served for years as bishop of Chiclayo, a city in northern Peru. For LGBTQ leaders and activists in the country, Leo represents a figure who, while unlikely to overhaul church doctrine, could signal a shift towards a less hostile and more open Catholic Church.
“The fact that the new pope lived and served pastorally in Peru is no small thing,” said George Hale, director of Promsex, an advocacy group that is based in Lima, the Peruvian capital. “Leo XIV is deeply familiar with inequality, abuses of power, popular religiosity, and the pain of a society scarred by classism and exclusion. His support for victims of the Sodalitium scandal showed a courageous figure willing to listen when others remained silent.”
The Sodalitium of Christian Life, a Peruvian Catholic lay group implicated in cases of sexual and psychological abuse against minors, became one of the church’s worst scandals in Latin America. Leo’s direct involvement in sanctioning those responsible — and his central role in the group’s eventual dissolution — was widely viewed as a sign of his commitment to reform from within.
Former Congressman Alberto de Belaunde, one of Peru’s few openly gay political figures, also welcomed Leo’s election, describing his trajectory as “good news within the Vatican.” De Belaunde emphasized Leo’s time at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, where he served on the university’s assembly as the church’s representative.
“Unlike other pontifical universities, the PUCP is progressive and diverse,” De Belaunde said. “Monsignor Prevost always demonstrated a remarkable ability to dialogue and showed respect for differing views. That speaks volumes about both his intellectual and pastoral approach.”
The question still remains: How much could the church change under Leo’s papacy when it comes to LGBTQ rights?
“Sometimes, even just a change in tone makes a difference,” De Belaunde noted. “I grew up under the influence of Pope John Paul II and Bishop Cipriani, both known for confrontational rhetoric. When the pope says things like ‘Who am I to judge?’ — it doesn’t change doctrine, but it humanizes the discourse. And that matters.”
De Belaunde specifically referred to Pope Francis’s 2013 comments about gay priests. (The Vatican’s tone on LGBTQ and intersex issues softened under Francis’s papacy, even though church teachings on homosexuality did not change.)
“There are very conservative factions within the church, outright enemies of our rights,” said Congresswoman Susel Paredes, who is a lesbian. “But there’s also space for love of neighbor, as Jesus taught. Even if Pope Leo XIV were to chart a path toward full inclusion of LGBTQ people, resistance would remain. These things don’t change overnight.”
Paredes also highlighted Francis’s legacy — especially his vision of a synodal church. The Argentine-born pontiff who died on April 21 was Leo’s direct mentor.
“Pope Francis spoke of a church where ‘everyone, everyone, everyone’ walks together without distinction,” she said. “Leo XIV was already part of that vision when he worked in some of Peru’s poorest areas. That gives us hope and reason to watch his papacy with expectation.”

Activists, however, are clear-eyed about the limits of symbolic change.
“He (Leo) doesn’t appear to be a hostile figure,” Hale said. “But he’s not pushing for radical reform either. He won’t lead the fight for same-sex marriage or trans rights. But his more humane tone — his closeness to those on the margins — can help de-escalate hate speech, especially in a country like ours.”
Hale also pointed to a recent gesture from the new Leo that raised concerns: His public support for the Peruvian bishops’ statement opposing a court ruling that granted Ana Estrada, a woman with a degenerative disease, the right to die with dignity through euthanasia.
“By endorsing that statement, he reaffirmed official doctrine. And while he may be compassionate, he’s still aligned with traditional positions on some key issues,” Hale said. “That’s why we insist: We’re not expecting a revolution, but a shift in tone matters.”
Peru does not recognize same-sex marriages, and transgender people lack legal protections. Expectations about Leo’s papacy remain measured because church rhetoric remains a roadblock to civil rights.
“Rights are granted by laws, and the separation of church and state must remain fundamental,” said Paredes. “That’s where progress happens, in secular legislation.”
“Yes — it’s a breath of fresh air to have a pope who doesn’t slam the door shut, who has walked with Peru’s most excluded,” she added. “That gives us encouragement to keep going.”
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