World
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.
Eswatini
The emperor has no clothes: how rhetoric fuels repression in Eswatini
King Mswati III’s anti-LGBTQ comments can have deadly consequences
In an absolute monarchy, the words spoken by the sovereign can swiftly become a baton striking a citizen. When King Mswati III speaks, his words do not simply drift into the air as political “opinion”; they often quickly turn into, sometimes violently, state policy. This reflects the reality of Eswatini, where the right to freedom of expression, including the right to hold dissenting political views, is increasingly being systematically eroded by the very voice that claims to uphold “traditional values.”
To understand the current crisis facing the LGBTIQ+ community in Eswatini, one must view it through the lens of a broader strategy: the weaponization of culture to justify the erosion of democratic institutions, the rule of law, and human rights protections. As observed across Africa, from the streets of Harare and Dar es Salaam to the parliamentary courtrooms of Dakar and Kampala, African leaders are increasingly using the marginalised as an entry point to dismantle civil society. In Eswatini, this strategy has manifest its most brutal expression in the king’s recent harmful rhetoric concerning sexual orientation and gender identity.
The danger of the king’s words lies in how the state apparatus interprets them as a divine mandate for persecution. Recently, we have seen this “Rhetoric-to-Policy Pipeline” operate with chilling efficiency. Shortly after the Minister of Education made public vitriol against the existence of LGBTIQ+ students, reports emerged of children being expelled from schools. In a country where the king is culturally and traditionally called the “ingwenyama” (the lion), the bureaucracy acts as his pride; when leadership suggests that a particular group is “un-African” or “deviant,” the machinery of the state, along with the emboldened segments of the public, moves to purge that group from society.
For an openly gay man who has dedicated most of his adulthood to advancing equality and dignity for all, especially marginalized communities, these are not merely policy changes; they pose existential threats. When a powerful leader speaks, they offer a moral shield for the dogmatist and a legal roadmap for the policeman. In Eswatini, where political parties are banned, and the “tinkhundla” system (constituency-based system) — a system that systematically silences dissent and favors those aligned with the sovereign — is celebrated as the sole “authentic” form of governance, any identity that falls outside the narrow, state-defined “tradition” is seen as treason. By branding LGBTIQ+ rights as “ungodly” and essentially unwelcome in Eswatini, the monarchy effectively views the mere existence of queer Swazis as a subversive act against the crown.
The most harrowing example of this pattern is the assassination of human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko in January 2023. Maseko’s murder did not happen in isolation. It followed a period of heated rhetoric directed at those calling for democratic reforms. The king had publicly warned those demanding change that they would face consequences. On the evening after the king had said, “[t]hese people started the violence first, but when the state institutes a crackdown on them for their actions, they make a lot of noise blaming King Mswati for bringing in mercenaries,” Maseko was shot dead at his home in front of his family.
The parallel here is unmistakable. When the king targets the LGBTIQ+ community with his words, he is aiming at the most vulnerable. If a world-renowned human rights lawyer can be silenced following royal condemnation, what chance does a queer youth in a rural area stand when the king’s words reach the local chief or school head? This is what I call “Chaos as Governance”: a state where the law is replaced by the monarch’s whims, leaving the population in a constant cycle of managed chaos that renders collective opposition nearly impossible. Despite strong condemnation from the organization I founded, Eswatini Sexual and Gender Minorities (ESGM), recent reports already suggest growing support for the rhetoric shared by the king, indicating treacherous weeks and months ahead for ordinary queer people in Eswatini.
The monarchy’s defense of these actions is almost always based on “African tradition.” As Mswati has shown, the ban on political parties and the suppression of minority rights are framed as a return to indigenous governance, the “tinkhundla” system. But we must ask: whose culture is being defended? Is it a culture that historically valued communal care and diverse social roles, or is it a modern, imported authoritarianism cloaked in the robes of the ancestors?
When he uses his platform at the “sibaya” (traditional gathering) to alienate a segment of his own people, he is not engaging in dialogue; he is delivering a monologue of exclusion. This weaponized version of culture serves a dual purpose. First, it offers a “neocolonial” defense against international criticism, portraying human rights as a foreign threat. Second, it creates an internal enemy, the “terrorist” political dissident or the “immoral” LGBTIQ+ person, to distract from the fact that nearly two-thirds of the population live below the poverty line. In contrast, the royal family resides in obscene luxury, acquiring fleets of expensive vehicles.
The silence of Eswatini’s neighbors worsens its situation. The Southern African Development Community (SADC), a regional organization ostensibly committed to democracy and human rights, has repeatedly allowed Mswati to evade accountability. By agreeing to remove Eswatini from the Organ Troika agenda at the king’s request in 2024, SADC sent a message to every authoritarian in the region. If you conceal your repression behind the guise of tradition, we will not intervene.
The call for freedom of expression, including LGBTIQ+ rights, is a fundamental human right vital for safety and dignity. It demands that a child should not be expelled from school because of who they are. It insists that a lawyer should not be murdered for expressing their beliefs. It states that a king’s word should not be a death sentence. We must resist the “politics of distraction” that portrays the fight for minority rights as separate from the fight for democratic reform. The dissolution of political parties in Burkina Faso, the attack on lawyers in Zimbabwe, and the criminalization of advocacy in Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda are all parts of the same pattern. They reflect a leadership class that fears its own people.
It is time for the African Union and SADC to decide whether to uphold the ideals of their lofty charters or to prioritize political convenience across Africa. For the people of Eswatini, improving livelihoods and human development can only occur when the king’s words are limited by a constitution that protects every citizen, regardless of whom they love or how they pray. Until then, the chaos is not a failure; it is the purpose. The monarch’s word may be law today, but the universal right to dignity is the only law that will endure. We must demand an Eswatini, and by extension, an Africa that seeks to improve the lives of its people, and where the “lion” protects all his people, rather than hunting those he deems “unworthy” of the shade.
Melusi Simelane is the founder and board chair of Eswatini Sexual and Gender Minorities. He is also the Civic Rights Program Manager for the Southern Africa Litigation Center.
Cuba
Cuba bajo presión y sin respuestas
Cubanos no hablan en términos geopolíticos. Hablan de sobrevivir
Las tensiones entre Estados Unidos y Cuba han vuelto a subir de tono. No es algo nuevo, pero este momento se siente distinto. Las medidas más recientes desde Washington buscan cerrar aún más los espacios financieros del gobierno cubano, limitar sus fuentes de ingreso y presionar sectores clave de la economía. No es simbólico. Es una política directa.
Desde Estados Unidos, el mensaje es claro. Se busca provocar cambios que no han ocurrido en más de seis décadas. También hay un componente interno, una presión política que responde a sectores del exilio que llevan años exigiendo una postura más dura. Todo eso forma parte del escenario.
Pero esa es solo una parte.
Del lado cubano, la respuesta sigue un patrón conocido. El gobierno habla de agresión externa, de guerra económica, de un embargo que se endurece. Cada medida se convierte en argumento para reforzar su narrativa y cerrar filas. No hay espacio para reconocer errores propios. Todo apunta hacia afuera.
Mientras tanto, la vida en la isla va por otro camino.
La crisis energética que hoy vive Cuba no empezó con estas medidas. Lleva años acumulándose. El sistema eléctrico está deteriorado, sin mantenimiento suficiente, con fallas constantes. Los apagones no son nuevos. Lo que ha cambiado es la frecuencia y la duración.
Durante años entró petróleo a Cuba, especialmente desde Venezuela. Hubo acuerdos. Hubo suministro. Y aun así, la vida del cubano no mejoró. La electricidad seguía fallando, el combustible seguía racionado, el transporte seguía siendo un problema diario.
Entonces la pregunta sigue siendo la misma.
Si el petróleo estaba entrando, ¿por qué nada cambiaba?
¿Dónde fue a parar ese recurso?
¿Dónde está el dinero que generó?
Hoy se habla de restricciones al petróleo como si fueran la causa principal de la crisis. No lo son. Empeoran una situación ya frágil, pero no la explican completamente.
Hay una historia más larga que no se puede ignorar.
Lo mismo ocurre con las brigadas médicas.
Durante años se presentaron como un gesto de solidaridad internacional. Y en muchos casos lo fueron. Médicos cubanos trabajaron en condiciones difíciles, salvaron vidas, sostuvieron sistemas de salud en otros países. Eso es real.
Pero también funcionaron como una de las principales fuentes de ingreso del Estado cubano.
Muchos de esos profesionales no recibían el salario completo por su trabajo. Una parte significativa quedaba en manos del gobierno. En algunos casos, ni siquiera tenían control sobre el dinero que generaban.
Y hay algo más duro.
Si uno de esos médicos decidía no regresar a Cuba, ese dinero no llegaba a su familia. Se quedaba retenido.
Hoy varios países están revisando o cancelando esos acuerdos. Y otra vez, la respuesta oficial es señalar hacia afuera. Pero la pregunta sigue siendo inevitable.
¿Se está perdiendo un modelo de cooperación o un sistema que dependía del control sobre sus propios profesionales?
Dentro de Cuba, la conversación suena diferente.
La gente no habla en términos geopolíticos. Habla de sobrevivir. De cómo llegar al final del día. De los apagones, de la comida que no alcanza, del transporte que no aparece, de una vida que cada vez se hace más difícil.
Hay quienes miran las medidas de Estados Unidos con cierta expectativa. No porque quieran más escasez, sino porque sienten que el sistema no cambia por sí solo. Hay una sensación de estancamiento que pesa.
Pero esa expectativa convive con una realidad concreta.
Las sanciones no golpean primero a quienes toman decisiones. Golpean al ciudadano común. Al que hace la fila. Al que pierde la comida por falta de electricidad. Al que no tiene cómo moverse.
Esa es la contradicción.
El gobierno cubano pide solidaridad internacional. Y la recibe. Países que envían ayuda, organizaciones que se movilizan, voces que defienden a la isla.
Pero hay otra pregunta que también está ahí.
¿Esa ayuda llega realmente al pueblo?
La falta de transparencia en la distribución de recursos es parte del problema. Porque no se trata solo de lo que entra, sino de lo que realmente llega a quienes lo necesitan.
Reducir lo que pasa en Cuba a un conflicto entre dos gobiernos es no querer ver el cuadro completo.
Aquí hay responsabilidades compartidas, pero no iguales.
Estados Unidos ejerce presión con efectos reales sobre la economía cubana. Eso no se puede negar. Pero dentro de la isla hay un sistema que ha tenido décadas para corregir, para abrir, para responder a su gente, y no lo ha hecho.
Esa parte no se puede seguir esquivando.
Yo escribo esto como cubano. Desde lo que vi, desde lo que viví y desde la gente que sigue allá tratando de resolver el día.
Porque al final, más allá de lo que se diga entre gobiernos, la realidad es otra.
Cuba hoy está más apretada, sí. Pero también lleva años arrastrando problemas que nadie ha querido enfrentar de verdad.
Y mientras eso siga así, da igual lo que venga de afuera. El problema sigue estando adentro.
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.
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