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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.
Poland
Polish court rules country must recognize same-sex marriages from EU states
Poland ‘must comply with European Union law’
Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court on March 20 ruled the country must recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other European Union states.
The EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg last November ruled in favor of a same-sex couple who challenged Poland’s refusal to recognize their German marriage.
The couple, who lives in Poland, brought their case to Polish courts in 2019. The Supreme Administrative Court referred it to the EU Court of Justice.
“Today’s ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court clearly demonstrates that Poland, as a member state of the European Union, must comply with European Union law,” said Przemek Walas, advocacy manager for the Campaign Against Homophobia, a Polish LGBTQ advocacy group, in a statement. “The Supreme Administrative Court rightly upheld the interpretation of the Court in Luxembourg and indicated that the only way to implement this ruling is to allow the transcription of a foreign marriage certificate.”
“This ruling is a significant step towards marital equality, but certainly not sufficient,” added Walas.
Ireland, Portugal, Spain, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Slovenia, Malta, Greece, Sweden, Finland, and Estonia are the EU countries that have extended full marriage rights to same-sex couples. Poland — along with Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia — are the four EU countries with no legal recognition of same-sex couples.
The Washington Blade on Wednesday spoke with Max Polonsky, a queer American who lives in Israel, about the Iran war and its impact on the country.
“It’s been tiring,” Polonsky told the Blade during a telephone interview from his home in Jaffa, an ancient port city with a large Arab population that is now part of Tel Aviv.
Polonsky grew up in Cherry Hill, N.J. He lived in D.C. for eight years before he moved to Israel in March 2022.
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.
An Iranian missile on March 1 killed nine people and injured 27 others in Beit Shemesh, an Israeli town that is roughly 20 miles west of Jerusalem. Shrapnel from an Iranian missile that struck a hair salon in Beit Awa, a Palestinian town in the West Bank, on Wednesday killed four women and injured more than a dozen others.
An Iranian drone that hit a command center in Kuwait on March 1 killed six U.S. soldiers: Sgt. Declan Coady, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, Capt. Cody Khork, Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, and Maj. Jeffrey O’Brien. Another American servicemember, Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, died on March 8, a week after Iranian drones and missiles targeted the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
Iranian drones and missiles have damaged hotels, airports, oil refineries, and other civilian and energy infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and elsewhere. Israel on Wednesday attacked Iran’s South Pars natural gas field in the Persian Gulf.
The Associated Press notes roughly 20 percent of the world’s crude oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz that connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Gas prices in the U.S. and around the world continue to increase because the war has essentially closed the strategic waterway to ship traffic.
The war also left hundreds of thousands of people who were traveling in the Middle East stranded.
The Blade on March 6 spoke with Mario, who had stopped in his native Lebanon while traveling from the U.S. to India for work.
Mario was about to board a flight at Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on Feb. 28 when the war began and authorities closed the country’s airspace. Mario is now back in the U.S.
Polonsky told the Blade there were “alarms all day … sometimes multiple alarms an hour, sometimes every hour, every two hours” on Feb. 28.
Israel’s Home Front Command typically issues warnings about 10 minutes ahead of an anticipated Iranian missile attack. Sirens then sound 90 seconds before an expected strike.
People in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and in other cities in central Israel have 90 seconds to seek shelter if a rocket or missile is fired from Lebanon or the Gaza Strip. (Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shia militant group in Lebanon that Israel and the U.S. have designated a terrorist organization, launched rockets at the Jewish State after Khamenei’s death. Israel, in turn, continues to carry out airstrikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, killed upwards of 1,200 people when they launched a surprise attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip.) People who live close to Lebanon and Gaza have 15 seconds to seek shelter.
Polonsky has a safe room — known as a “mamad” — in his apartment. Polonsky also uses it as his home office and a second bedroom.
He told the Blade the alerts in recent days have become less frequent.
“We’ll get maybe a handful of alarms during the day, maybe some at night,” said Polonsky.
Israel on June 12, 2025, launched airstrikes against Iran that targeted the country’s nuclear and military facilities. The subsequent war, which lasted 12 days, prompted the cancellation of Tel Aviv’s annual Pride parade. An Iranian missile destroyed Mash Central, the city’s last gay bar.
Iran on Oct. 1, 2024, launched upwards of 200 ballistic missiles at Israel. This reporter arrived in Israel three days later to cover the first anniversary of Oct. 7 and the impact the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip had on LGBTQ Israelis and Palestinians.
‘Iranian regime was bad’
Polonsky admitted he doesn’t “know what to think” about the latest war against Iran.
“I don’t know what I think about the war,” he said. “Ultimately what happens is just not in my personal control: whatever Donald Trump, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, the ayatollah, whoever is running Iran are going to organize and launch attacks and reach any deals is not anything I personally have any control over, so I try to just kind of let that aspect of it go as I’m living my life.”
Polonsky told the Blade he understands “there are very serious questions about how” the war started, and Congress’s role in it.
“Those are serious and valid, important questions,” he said. “And at the same time, the Iranian regime was bad.”
Polonsky noted Iran has supported and funded Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and other groups “who were attacking Israel.” Polonsky added the Iranian government has “terribly oppressed their people.”
Iran is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
Reports indicate Iranian authorities killed upwards of 30,000 people during anti-government protests that began late last year. Sources with whom the Blade spoke said LGBTQ Iranians are among those who participated in the demonstrations.
“I’m not sad to see them pressured,” said Polonsky, referring to the Iranian regime.
He also described Khamenei as “a bad guy.”
“Him not being there is better,” said Polonsky.
State Department
Report: US to withhold HIV aid to Zambia unless mineral access expanded
New York Times obtained Secretary of State Marco Rubio memo
The State Department is reportedly considering withholding assistance for Zambians with HIV unless the country’s government allows the U.S. to access more of its minerals.
The New York Times on Monday reported Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a memo to State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs staffers wrote the U.S. “will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale.” The newspaper said it obtained a copy of the letter.
Zambia is a country in southern Africa that borders Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Times notes upwards of 1.3 million Zambians receive daily HIV medications through PEPFAR. The newspaper reported Rubio in his memo said the Trump-Vance administration could “significantly cut assistance” as soon as May.
“Reports of (the) State Department withholding lifesaving HIV treatment in return for mining concessions in Zambia does not make us safer, stronger, or more prosperous,” said U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Tuesday. “Monetizing innocent people’s lives further undermines U.S. global leadership and is just plain wrong.”
The Washington Blade has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Zambia received breakthrough HIV prevention drug through PEPFAR
Rubio on Jan. 28, 2025, issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during a freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, 2025, has severely impacted their work.
The State Department last September announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir in countries with high prevalence rates. Zambia two months later received the first doses of the breakthrough HIV prevention drug.
Kenya and Uganda are among the African countries have signed health agreements with the U.S. since the Trump-Vance administration took office.
The Times notes the countries that signed these agreements pledged to increase health spending. The Blade last month reported LGBTQ rights groups have questioned whether these agreements will lead to further exclusion and government-sanctioned discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
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