ITALY

The Italian Senate gave final passage to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s bill to ban criminalize the use of surrogacy overseas, in what LGBTQ activists are saying is a direct attack on same-sex parents.

Surrogacy is already illegal in Italy. The new law cracks down on parents who travel out of the country to obtain surrogacy services where it is legal, like the U.S. or Canada. Under the new law, such parents could be subject to fines of up to €1 million (approximately $1.1 million) or imprisonment for up to two years.

While the vast majority of Italians who engage in overseas surrogacy are heterosexual couples, activists fear the law will be used specifically to target male same-sex couples, who cannot simply pretend not to have used a surrogate.

That would fit with a pattern of attacking same-sex parents since Meloni took office in 2022. Last year, her government issued an order directing municipalities to delete non-biological same-sex parents from birth certificates that had already been issued to children. That decision was condemned by the European Parliament and other world leaders.

Protesters demonstrated in front of the Italian Senate during the debate, carrying signs that read “We are families, not crimes.”

Meloni has long argued for banning surrogacy as a women’s rights issue, claiming that surrogacy commodifies women’s bodies. 

She called the law “a common-sense rule against the commodification of the female body and children. Human life has no price and is not a commodity,” in a post on X.

“The alleged defense of women, the vaunted interest in children, are just fig leaves behind which the homophobic obsession of this majority is hidden,” says Laura Boldrini, an opposition lawmaker.

In many places where surrogacy is legal, it is only legal for altruistic, rather than commercial reasons. Surrogates can be reimbursed for legitimate expenses but cannot be otherwise compensated. That’s how surrogacy works in Canada and Australia.

POLAND

The Polish government introduced its long-awaiting civil union legislation last week, revealing that the government has dropped plans to allow couples in civil unions to adopt children in a compromise meant to get the bills through parliament.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk had pledged to introduce same-sex civil unions within his first 100 days of taking office last year, but that pledge faced numerous roadblocks as the outgoing government initially refused to cede power, and then more conservative parts of his three-party coalition balked at expanding LGBTQ rights.

The bills would allow same-sex and opposite-sex couples to register their partnerships, giving partners rights to inheritance and medical decision-making. 

But couples in civil unions would not be allowed to jointly adopt, nor would one partner be allowed to adopt the other’s biological children.

That was a key demand of the junior coalition partner, the Poland Peasants’ Party (PSL). The bills are unlikely to gain any support from the opposition Law and Justice Party or Confederation Party, both of which strongly oppose LGBTQ rights.

The bills may still face opposition from President Andrzej Duda, an ally of Law and Justice who has opposed LGBTQ rights in the past. He has not publicly commented on the bills. 

Duda’s term expires next year, and all parties are attempting to position themselves in the election for his replacement, expected in May 2025.

CANADA

Provincial elections in British Columbia remained too close to call a day after polls closed on Oct 19, with the incumbent New Democratic Party leading or elected in 46 seats, while the rival BC Conservatives, who had campaigned on scrapping an anti-bullying program that promoted awareness of LGBTQ people in schools, were leading or elected in 45 seats. The BC Greens were elected in two seats. 

Elections BC says it could be a week before results are finalized, due to a number of very close races and the number of mail-in and out-of-district ballots yet to be counted. 

If the BC Conservatives lose, it would be the second loss of a provincial election in 2024 for a conservative party that had run on a platform of restricting sex education, discussion of LGBTQ issues, and inclusion of trans kids in schools, after the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives were booted from office in June. 

Two more Canadian provinces are heading to the polls in the next week, and in both races, incumbent conservative parties are defending newly introduced policies that require schools to out trans students to their parents and require parental consent if a child wishes to use a different name or pronoun in school. 

In New Brunswick, voters head to the polls today, and the incumbent Progressive Conservatives are facing a strong challenge from the New Brunswick Liberals. Liberal leader Susan Holt has promised to scrap the parental-notification policy and put safeguards in place for LGBTQ students if elected.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has promised to double-down on anti-transgender policies if re-elected Oct 28. This week, he said his first order of business would be passing a policy restricting school change rooms based on sex assigned at birth. 

Saskatchewan NDP leader Carla Beck slammed the proposal.

“People see this for what it is,” Beck told a press conference. “It’s the ugliest gutter politics. I think people are tired of it.”

Canadian conservatives have been turning hard against trans people over the past couple of years, reflecting similar culture war divisions in the U.S. and the UK, despite a general consensus on equal rights for trans people that had developed over the previous decade. In fact, Scott Moe was a Cabinet minister in the Saskatchewan Party government that passed that province’s ban on gender identity discrimination. 

Meanwhile, in neighboring Alberta, Premier Danielle Smith has proposed a package of legislation that would require parental notification and opt-in for any discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms, as well as severely restricting access to gender care for trans youth. The bills are expected to be debated in the upcoming fall session of the legislature.

AUSTRALIA

The New South Wales state legislature passed a bill meant to promote LGBTQ equality on Thursday, but only after it had been watered down in order to gain support from the governing Labor Party. 

Independent lawmaker Alex Greenwich had originally proposed a comprehensive bill that would have addressed multiple areas of law that discriminate against queer people. 

A key provision would have repealed a loophole in state anti-discrimination law that allows religious schools to discriminate against LGBTQ students and teachers. That provision was dropped. 

Greenwich’s original bill also would have established an affirmative right to gender-affirming care and would have decriminalized sex work. Both provisions were also dropped. 

Greenwich says his bill faced concerted opposition from religious organizations and he removed the provisions in order to get the bulk of the bill’s reforms passed.

“It’s heartbreaking that I’m in a position where I’m having to remove a reform that I have fought for my entire political career,” Greenwich told ABC News Australia. “There has been a concerted campaign, particularly by some religious organizations, and I’m not wanting to hold up some urgent reforms while we’re still working this through.”

The parts of the bill that have been salvaged are still important reforms for LGBTQ rights.

The bill will update domestic violence laws to apply to same-sex couples and recognize parenting rights for children born through surrogacy overseas. It will also allow trans people to update their legal gender on birth certificates without undergoing surgery — an important reform that is already the norm in the rest of Australia. Nonbinary or non-specified will also be options.

The bill also repeals offenses related to living off the earnings of a sex worker, makes it a criminal offense to threaten to out a person, and adds hate crime protections for trans people. 

This year, New South Wales’s Labor government earned plaudits from LGBTQ activists for passing a bill banning conversion therapy, and issuing a historic apology to people persecuted under old anti-LGBTQ laws. 

Earlier this year, Australia’s governing Labor Party dropped its promised reform to federal anti-discrimination laws to repeal a loophole allowing anti-LGBTQ discrimination in schools, following backlash from religious groups.