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Out in the World: LGBTQ news
Slovak National Party announces plans to introduce law banning ‘LGBT propaganda’ in schools
AUSTRALIA
CANBERRA, Australia – After a decision not to ask questions about LGBTQ status in the national census sparked widespread backlash, the Australian government has flipflopped and will ask a single question about “sexual preference” on the 2026 survey.
Australia’s governing Labor Party, which has been in power since 2022, had pledged to count LGBTIQ+ people in the national census in its 2023 party manifesto.
But last week, the Australian Bureau of Statistics announced that testing of the voluntary questions it was developing on sexual orientation, gender identity, and intersex status would not go forward, as the government had decided not to include.
That sparked criticism from prominent LGBTQ activists and rights organizations, as well as the country’s sex discrimination commissioner, and a Labor cabinet minister from Victoria state.
“Put simply — all LGBTIQA+ people deserve recognition. Equality means not leaving anyone behind, but if you don’t count us, we don’t count,” says Harriet Shing, Victoria’s minister for equality.
The government took another blow when six of its own MPs openly criticized the decision.
There were even calls to exclude the prime minister from the Sydney Mardi Gras festival over the census and a previous broken promise to close a legal loophole allowing religious schools to discriminate against LGBT teachers and students.
“[Prime Minister Anthony] Albanese says he wants to promote social cohesion and prevent division, but by pushing LGBTIQA+ Australians back into the statistical closet he is doing exactly the opposite,” says Rodney Croome, a spokesperson for Just.Equal Australia.
“Our communities will continue to feel invisible and demeaned because the federal government hasn’t taken this opportunity to finally reflect the diversity of Australia and gather crucial information about the kinds of services people need,” Equality Australia CEO Anna Brown says.
On Friday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that the government was working with ABS to include a single question on sexuality in the census and distanced himself from the decision-making process behind the original announcement.
“We want to make sure that everyone is valued regardless of their gender, their race, their faith, their sexual orientation. We value every Australian and we’ll work with the ABS,” Albanese says.
But some activists not that a single question on sexuality will still leave certain segments of the LGBTIQ+ community uncounted. The survey won’t ask about transgender or intersex status.
“Trans and gender diverse people and those with innate variations of sex characteristics deserve to be recognised as much as anyone else,” Brown said in a statement.
ABS is continuing to develop the survey, so final phrasing of the question, as well as its ultimate inclusion, remains to be seen. The draft question has not been released.
This isn’t the first time counting the LGBTQIA community has been controversial in Australia. In 2021, ABS issued a “statement of regret” for failing to consult with or count the community in its 2021 census. That led to the initial strategy to count the community on the 2026 census.
Other countries have begun asking questions about sexual orientation and gender identity in their national censuses. Canada updated its questions on sex and gender to better count transgender people for the 2021 census. Scotland first included questions about sexuality and trans identity on its 2022 census, while New Zealand did so on its 2023 census.
GREECE
CHANIA, Greece – Opposition SYRIZA Party leader Stefanos Kasselakis had a ceremonial marriage to his partner Tyler McBeth in a ceremony on Friday.
Kasselakis and McBeth, who is American, were legally married last October in a small ceremony at Brooklyn City Hall in New York, shortly after being elected leader of the left-wing SYRIZA party. At the time, same-sex marriage was not legal in Greece. Kasselakis had lived in Miami until 2023, when he returned to Greece to run for the SYRIZA leadership.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had pledged to introduce same-sex marriage during his term in office, and finally introduced and passed the law this February.
That allowed the planned celebration in Kasselakis’ hometown of Chania, on the island of Crete, to become a full-blown wedding celebration.
The couple held their wedding at the Chania Botanical Gardens, following a four-day-long celebration for guests who had travelled to the destination wedding, and a farewell party the following day.
Kasselakis has previously told the media that he and McBeth hope to have two children via surrogacy. But while gay couples are allowed to adopt in Greece, it is not currently legal for them to use surrogates to have children.
The SYRIZA party has been in disarray since Kasselakis won the party leadership, with several MPs abandoning the party to form the New Left Party, and the party recording its worst result in European Parliament elections in June. There have been several calls from party members to hold a second leadership contest to replace Kasselakis before the next election, scheduled for 2027.
SLOVAKIA
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia – The far-right Slovak National Party (SNS), which is part of the current governing coalition, has announced plans to introduce a law banning “LGBT propaganda” in schools, mirroring similar bills introduced in Russia, Hungary, and Bulgaria, and a significant escalation of the government’s crackdown on LGBT expression.
While a draft of the bill has not yet been released, SNS leader Andrej Danko says he intends to introduce it this month.
SNS has long been described as neo-fascist and deeply homophobic.
Although SNS is part of a government coalition that has long expressed antipathy to LGBT people, the bill faces an uncertain ride through parliament.
The current Education Minister Tomáš Drucker, who is part of the Hlas Party, says he will refuse to apply the proposed legislation in schools, noting that SNS is not in charge of the education portfolio.
“The educational content will be decided exclusively by experts and teachers during my tenure as a minister of education,” Drucker said at a press conference Wednesday, as reported by Politico. “I absolutely reject any politicization of education and impetuous interventionsin education.”
SNS has picked several fights with the queer community through the ministries it does control, particularly under culture minister Martina Šimkovičová, who has sacked the leaders of the National Gallery and National Theatre and shut down the public broadcaster over alleged political activism.
In August, deputy environment minister Štefan Kuffa, also of SNS, got into an altercation at a theatre production of the Irish play Little Gem. Kuffa interrupted the show to denounce its sexual themes as being inappropriate for children. Police are now investigating complaints he harassed the theatre company and a complaint from the minister that security assaulted him in trying to get him to leave.
And SNS has also proposed a Russian-style “foreign agents” law, which would require organizations and media that receive funding from outside the country to register as “foreign agents.” These laws are meant to silence and intimidate opposition groups, civil society, and the media. A similar bill was recently passed in Georgia.
TAIWAN
TAIPEI, Taiwan – A Taiwanese-Chinese same-sex couple is challenging a law that effectively prevents them from getting married, even though Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage in 2019.
Righ and Ryan met in 2016 when Righ was visiting Kaohsiung on Taiwan, and they began a long-distance relationship. They hoped to marry one day, and they thought their dreams would come true when Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage. But they soon learned that an obstacle remained in their path.
Taiwanese law that requires cross-strait couples to marry in mainland China before they can return and settle in Taiwan. Since China does not allow same-sex marriage, queer couples are out of luck.
Taiwan says the policy on cross-strait couples is necessary for national security. Spouses from mainland China are vetted for possible security issues.
While Taiwanese citizens are allowed to live and work in mainland China, Ryan and Righ’s relationship would still lack legal recognition, and they would lack other freedoms that LGBTQ people have in Taiwan.
Ryan and Righ got married in the United States and have sued the Taiwanese government for recognition of their marriage so that Righ can stay in Taiwan.
Last month, a court ruled that the Immigration Department should begin the interview process to recognize their marriage, but the department has yet to schedule an interview. Activists believe the government is stalling, nervous about addressing a controversial issue.
But there are some signals that the policy could soon change.
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party told The Guardian that a new law could address this legal lacuna.
“Taiwanese citizen’s freedom to marry shall be respected and protected by the law regardless [of] the nationality of their fiance. We believe the government will propose a draft of law balancing people’s right to marry and national security,” The DPP statement says.
There are an estimated 100 cross-strait same-sex couples affected by the government’s policy.
Taiwan’s same-sex marriage law was originally even more restrictive. As originally passed, Taiwanese citizens could only marry a same-sex foreigner if the marriage would be recognized in the foreigner’s home country, but that restriction was repealed in 2023. Restrictions barring same-sex couples from adopting were also repealed in 2023.
Iran
LGBTQ groups condemn Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization
Ceasefire announced less than two hours before Tuesday deadline
The Council for Global Equality is among the groups that condemned President Donald Trump on Tuesday over his latest threats against Iran.
Trump in a Truth Social post said “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran did not reach an agreement with the U.S. by 8 p.m. ET. on Tuesday.
Iran is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
Israel and the U.S. on Feb. 28 launched airstrikes against Iran.
One of them killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran in response launched missiles and drones against Israel and other countries that include Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, and Cyprus.
Gas prices in the U.S. and around the world continue to increase because the war has essentially closed the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway that connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s crude oil passes.
Trump less than 90 minutes before his deadline announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran that Pakistan helped broker.
“We the undersigned human rights, humanitarian, civil liberties, faith-based and environmental organizations, think tanks and experts are deeply alarmed by President Trump’s threat regarding Iran that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ if his demands are not met. Such language describes a grave atrocity if carried out,” reads the statement that the Council for Global Equality more than 200 other organizations and human rights experts signed. “A threat to wipe out ‘a whole civilization’ may amount to a threat of genocide. Genocide is a crime defined by the Genocide Convention and by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as committing one or more of several acts ‘with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, racial or religious groups as such.'”
The statement states “the law is clear that civilians must not be targeted, and they must also be protected from indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.”
“Strikes on civilian infrastructure — such as the recent attack on a bridge and the attacks President Trump is repeatedly threatening to carry out to destroy power plants — have devastating consequences for the civilian population and environment,” it reads.
“We urge all parties to respect international law,” adds the statement. “Those responsible for atrocities, including crimes against humanity and war crimes, can and must be held accountable.”
The Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice, Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, MADRE, and the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center are among the other groups that signed the letter.
Hungary
Vance speaks at Orbán rally in Hungary
Anti-LGBTQ prime minister trailing ahead of April 12 vote
Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday urged Hungarians to support Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the country’s April 12 elections.
“We have got to get Viktor Orbán re-elected as prime minister of Hungary,” Vance told Orbán supporters who gathered at Budapest’s MTK Sportpark.
Vance and Orbán on Tuesday met before they held a press conference in Budapest. Orbán also spoke at the rally.
The U.S. vice president after he took to the stage called President Donald Trump, who told the crowd he is “a big fan of Viktor” and is “with him all the way.” Vance, as he did during Tuesday’s press conference with Orbán, criticized the European Union.
“We want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do. I’m not telling you exactly who to vote for, but what I am telling you is that the bureaucrats in Brussels, those people should not be listened to,” said Vance. “Listen to your hearts, listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people.”
Vance in his speech noted “across the West, we’ve got a small band of radicals” who, among other things, “condemn children to mutilization and sterilization in the name of gender care.” Vance also criticized a “far-left ideology given quarter in university circles, in the media, and in our entertainment industry, and increasingly among bureaucrats on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Vice President JD Vance speaks at MTK Sportpark in Budapest, Hungary, on April 7, 2026
Orbán has been in office since 2010. He and his Fidesz-KDNP coalition government have faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
A Hungarian activist with whom the Washington Blade previously spoke said it is “impossible to change your gender legally in Hungary” because of a 2020 law that “banned legal gender recognition of transgender and intersex people.” Hungarian MPs the same year effectively prohibited same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the country’s constitution as between a man and a woman.
The European Commission in 2022 sued Hungary, which is a member of the EU, over the country’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law.
Hungarian lawmakers in March 2025 passed a bill that banned Pride events and allowed authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs later amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
Upwards of 100,000 people last June defied the ban and marched in Budapest’s annual Pride parade.
Polls indicate Orbán is trailing Péter Magyar and his center-right Tisza party ahead of the April 12 election. Vance at Tuesday’s rally told Orbán supporters that he and Trump “want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do.”
“I’m not telling you exactly who to vote for, but what I am telling you is that the bureaucrats in Brussels, those people should not be listened to,” said Vance. “Listen to your hearts, listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people.”
“Unlike some of the leadership of Brussels, I’m not threatening you or telling you that we’re going to withhold funds to which you’re legally entitled,” he added. “You will make the decision about Hungary’s future.”
Magyar on Tuesday appeared to dismiss Vance’s comments.
“No foreign country may interfere in Hungarian elections. This is our country. Hungarian history is not written in Washington, Moscow, or Brussels — it is written in Hungary’s streets and squares,” said Magyar on his X account.
A spokesperson for the Háttér Society, a Hungarian LGBTQ rights group, told the Blade that neither Magyar, nor his party have reached out to the organization.
The spokesperson said the group does not “campaign directly for them or for any other political party.” The Háttér Society, however, is encouraging LGBTQ Hungarians to vote.
“Ahead of election day, we will encourage everyone on our social media channels to go out and vote, as this is the only way we can act against a system that has been working against the LGBTQI community for many years,” said the spokesperson.
India
Amendments to India’s transgender rights law criticized
Lawmakers approved changes that narrow definition of trans person
India has enacted the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, that will reshape the country’s legal approach to gender identity.
Both houses of parliament approved the legislation last month, and it received presidential approval on March 28.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, narrows the definition of a trans person, removes the provision for self-perceived gender identity, and requires medical certification for legal recognition. These changes mark a shift from the framework established under a 2019 law.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, replaces the earlier definition of a trans person — previously framed as someone whose gender does not align with the gender assigned at birth — with a set of specified categories. It further provides that the term does not include, and is deemed never to have included, people defined solely by their sexual orientation or by self-perceived gender identity.
The bill retains certain categories within its definition, including people with socio-cultural identities such as kinner, hijra, aravani, or jogta. It also includes people with variations in sex characteristics at birth, such as differences in primary sexual characteristics, external genitalia, chromosomes or hormones from the normative standards of male or female bodies.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, removes certain categories from the definition, including a trans man or trans woman, irrespective of whether such a person has undergone sex reassignment surgery, hormone therapy, laser procedures, or other forms of medical intervention. It also excludes genderqueer people — a category that had been recognized under the earlier framework. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, however, includes eunuchs, as well as people compelled to assume a trans identity through mutilation, emasculation, castration, or other surgical, chemical or hormonal interventions.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, also revises the process for legal recognition, requiring a trans person to apply to a district magistrate for a certificate of identity, which can now be issued only after the recommendation of a designated medical board. The law specifies that the board will be headed by a senior medical officer and may include other experts. It further provides that individuals issued such a certificate will be entitled to change their first name in official documents, including birth records and other government-issued identification.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, also introduces stricter penalties for certain offences, including cases in which a person is forced to assume a trans identity through kidnapping, coercion or physical harm. Such offenses may attract imprisonment ranging from 10 years to life in prison, along with fines, depending on the severity and whether the victim is an adult or a child. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, further requires medical institutions to report gender-affirming surgeries to the district magistrate, and mandates that individuals obtain a revised certificate of identity following such procedures.
India’s 2011 Census recorded 487,803 trans persons, yet only 5.6 percent had applied for a trans identity card, according to the Washington Blade’s previous reporting. These identity cards, required to access government welfare programs, have remained difficult to obtain, with delays and administrative barriers limiting uptake.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, revised the certification process, which introduces additional requirements for legal recognition. This change is against this backdrop of uneven access to identity documentation.
India’s Election Commission in 2009 directed states to modify voter registration forms to include an “other” category, allowing individuals who did not identify as male or female to register accordingly. The Supreme Court in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India in 2014 recognized trans persons as a “third gender” and affirmed their right to self-identification.
Justice Kalavamkodath Sivasankara Radhakrishna Panicker said that “recognition of transgenders as a third gender is not a social or medical issue, but a human rights issue.” Parliament in 2019 approved the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019.
An advisory committee the Supreme Court created that former Delhi High Court Justice Asha Menon has urged the government to withdraw the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026. The panel said the proposal to deny self-identification of gender is inconsistent with theNational Legal Services Authority v. Union of India ruling.
Menon on March 25 wrote to Social Justice Minister Virendra Kumar conveying the panel’s resolution. According to the Hindu newspaper, the committee described the amendment as a “great shock” and a “tremendous setback” to efforts to mainstream trans communities.
The Queer Hindu Alliance, an advocacy group that seeks to uphold the dignity of LGBTQ people within India’s cultural and constitutional framework, expressed concern over the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026.
“We write not in the spirit of opposition, but in the spirit of samvad — dialogue — and with a sincere call for community consultation before this legislation proceeds further,” the group said in a statement. “The Supreme Court of India recognized the concerns of the transgender community in 2014. The National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India judgment affirmed that a person knows who they are. This bill seeks to reverse that. The Queer Hindu Alliance finds this troubling as a question of basic human dignity.”
The Queer Hindu Alliance added that India “is not a young civilization fumbling for answers on how to understand human identity.”
“This culture has contemplated the nature of the self more deeply, and for longer, than any legal system that has existed. This is not a foreign conversation imported from the West. It is a conversation Bharat (India) has always been capable of having, on its own terms,” the Queer Hindu Alliance said.
Harish Iyer, an LGBTQ rights activist who was among those who fought for marriage equality in the Supreme Court, told the Blade that the amendment is “not just a rollback, but a blatant, arrogant insult” to the Supreme Court.
“The NALSA judgment gave us the fundamental dignity of self-determination — the right to look in the mirror and say, ‘This is who I am.’ This amendment drags us right back into the dark ages, handing over our bodily autonomy to a bunch of sarkari babus (government officers) and medical boards,” said Iyer. “But here is the most absurd part: you simply cannot define if someone is trans through any physical test. How exactly are you going to diagnose a human mind? Are they only going to regard those who have had gender affirmation surgery as trans? Because that is fundamentally not the definition of being transgender; transition is a choice and a privilege, not a prerequisite for identity. Or are they going to look at someone born with ambiguous genitalia and label them trans? Because that is intersex, which is a completely different reality.”
“Forcing a trans person to undergo degrading physical scrutiny based on the government’s spectacular ignorance of basic gender science isn’t a legal process; it’s state-sponsored trauma,” he added. “We fought too hard for our dignity to let a bureaucratic tribunal demand that we strip down to prove our humanity.”
Iyer said the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, goes beyond protection and instead imposes control.
“You don’t ‘protect’ a community by criminalizing the chosen families and allies who offer safe haven to trans youth fleeing abusive homes,” he said, referring to provisions in the law. “This bill is about regulation, policing and control. By gatekeeping who gets to be trans and punishing those who support us, the government isn’t acting as a guardian — it’s acting as a warden. It is a calculated attack on our existence.”
Iyer said the revised definition could exclude individuals who do not fall within the listed categories.
“It effectively writes them out of existence,” he said.
Iyer added the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, could create an administrative “black hole” for gender-fluid individuals and nonbinary people who do not fit into the government’s rigid categories.
“If you are legally invisible, you don’t get access to gender-affirming healthcare, you don’t get legal protection, and you are entirely cut off from participating in society,” said Iyer. “They are trying to legislate us into non-existence because they are too lazy to understand us.”
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