World
Out in the World: LGBTQ news from Europe and Australia
Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of France’s National Rally party, died on Jan. 7

FRANCE
Clips and memes of the song “Nobody Mourns the Wicked,” from the hit movie musical “Wicked” went viral in France this week after the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of France’s far-right National Rally party. Le Pen was 96 when he passed away on Jan. 7 and was the father of current National Rally leader Marine Le Pen.
Le Pen rose to prominence in the 1970s and 80s as a politician with his frequent tirades against immigrants, Muslims, and queer people. He ran for president of France five times, making it to the second round in the 2002 election, where he was defeated in an historic landslide.
In 2018, a court found Le Pen guilty of spreading hate toward homosexuals on three separate incidents and ordered him to pay fines. He had claimed that pedophilia was linked to homosexuality in a 2016 blog video, had told a reporter that having gays in his party was like having too much salt in soup, and then said the husband of a gay police officer who had been killed in a terrorist attack should not have been allowed to speak at the officer’s state funeral.
In the 1980s, he also advocated for the forced isolation of anyone living with HIV.
But his controversial statements don’t end there. He frequently voiced support for those who collaborated with the Nazi regime in World War II and downplayed the Holocaust, suggesting it was a mere “detail” of history and that mass murders never took place. Those remarks saw him fined by multiple courts over the years.
His daughter Marine took over the National Rally in 2011, and in 2015, the party expelled him over his refusal to attend a disciplinary hearing over his repeated Holocaust denial.
Shortly after news of LePen’s death broke, hundreds of people gathered at Paris’s Place de la République to celebrate, with many waving Pride flags and tossing confetti in celebration. The hashtag “NoOneMournsTheWicked” started trending on French X.
In a fun bit of transatlantic synchronicity, the same hashtag trended in the U.S. three days later, when news broke of the death of notorious 80s homophobe Anita Bryant.
AUSTRALIA
Melbourne’s major Pride festival Midsumma has become the focus of controversy this week, with the lobby group Transgender Victoria announcing it won’t participate in this year’s parade and a group of masked vandals defacing businesses that were showing support for the festival.
Overnight on Jan. 8, businesses along the parade route that supported the festival were vandalized with posters and spray paint calling for a boycott of Midsumma. The vandals were caught on video surveillance but have not been identified.
The posters variously decry the commercialization of Pride and the participation of police in the festival.
“We will not be satisfied with a commercialized gay identity, that denies the intrinsic links between queer struggle and challenging power,” says one poster. “We are dedicated to fighting the assimilationist monster with a devastating mobilization of queer brilliance.”
“Queer liberation not rainbow capitalism,” says another, which lists Midsumma’s sponsors as Amazon, Woolworth’s, AGL, and L’Oreal.
“No Pride on stolen land,” says another poster.
Businesses were able to clean up most of the damage before the start of business Thursday.
On Sunday, Transgender Victoria,, the state’s leading trans advocacy group, posted on its Instagram account that it was suspending its participation in the festival, citing concerns over police involvement.
“A recent community forum and survey conducted by TGV have confirmed a deep and pervasive discontent among TGD [trans and gender diverse] people regarding their interactions with and treatment by Victoria Police,” the statement says. “In light of these concerns, TGV’s Committee has approved a one-year suspension of participation in the Midsumma Pride March. Our future participation is contingent on Victoria Police accepting accountability for measurable change.”
TGV’s statement says it will participate in other Midsumma events and will schedule a Trans Pride Picnic as an alternative to the Pride march.
Last year’s Pride march was a site of conflict, when a group of about 50 protesters doused a contingent of police officers marching in the parade with pink paint. Officers were seen on video pushing protesters out of the way. The police officers had agreed to join the parade out of uniform and without weapons.
This year’s Midsumma Festival runs from Jan. 19 to Feb. 9 in Melbourne, with the Midsumma Pride March on Feb. 2 and Victoria’s Pride Street Party on Feb 9.
Uganda
World Bank resumes lending to Uganda
New loans suspended in 2023 after Anti-Homosexuality Act signed

The World Bank Group has resumed lending to Uganda.
The bank in 2023 suspended new loans to the African country after President Yoweri Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which contains a death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality.” Reuters reported the bank decided to resume lending on June 5.
“We have now determined the mitigation measures rolled out over the last several months in all ongoing projects in Uganda to be satisfactory,” a bank spokesperson told Reuters in an email. “Consequently, the bank has prepared three new projects in sectors with significant development needs – social protection, education, and forced displacement/refugees – which have been approved by the board.”
Activists had urged the bank not to resume loans to Uganda.
Richard Lusimbo, director general of the Uganda Key Population Consortium, last September described the “so-called ‘mitigation measures’ are a façade, designed to provide the illusion of protection.”
“They rely on perpetrators of discrimination — the government of Uganda — to implement the measures fairly,” said Lusimbo. “How can they be taken seriously?”
South Africa
South African activists demand action to stop anti-LGBTQ violence
Country’s first gay imam murdered in February

Continued attacks of LGBTQ South Africans are raising serious concerns about the community’s safety and well-being.
President Cyril Ramaphosa in May 2024 signed the Preventing and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill into law that, among other things, has legal protections for LGBTQ South Africans who suffer physical, verbal, and emotional violence. Statistics from the first and second quarters of 2025 have painted a grim picture.
Muhsin Hendricks, the country’s first openly gay imam, in February was shot dead in Gqeberha, in a suspected homophobic attack. Authorities in April found the body of Linten Jutzen, a gay crossdresser, in an open field between an elementary school and a tennis court in Cape Town.
A World Economic Forum survey on attitudes towards homosexuality and gender non-conformity in South Africa that Marchant Van Der Schyf conducted earlier this year found that even though 51 percent of South Africans believe gay people should have the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts, 72 percent of them feel same-sex sexual activity is morally wrong. The survey also notes 44 percent of LGBTQ respondents said they experienced bullying, verbal and sexual discrimination, and physical violence in their everyday lives because of their sexual orientation.
Van Der Schyf said many attacks occur in the country’s metropolitan areas, particularly Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg.
“Victims are often lured to either the perpetrator’s indicated residence or an out-of-home area under the appearance of a meet-up,” said Van Der Schyf. “The nature of the attacks range from strangulation and beatings to kidnapping and blackmail with some victims being filmed naked or held for ransom.”
The Youth Policy Committee’s Gender Working Group notes South Africa is the first country to constitutionally protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation and the fifth nation in the world to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples. A disparity, however, still exists between legal protections and LGBTQ people’s lived experiences.
“After more than 20 years of democracy, our communities continue to wake up to the stench of grief, mutilation, violation, and oppression,” said the Youth Policy Committee. “Like all human beings, queer individuals are members of schooling communities, church groups, and society at large, therefore, anything that affects them should affect everyone else within those communities.”
The Youth Policy Committee also said religious and cultural leaders should do more to combat anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.
“Religious institutions seem to perpetuate the hate crimes experienced by queer individuals,” said the group. “In extreme cases, religious leaders have advocated for killings and hateful crimes to be committed against those in the queer community. South Africa’s highly respected spiritual guides, sangomas, are also joining the fight against queer killings and acts of transphobia and homophobia.”
“The LGBTQIA+ community is raising their voice and they need to be supported because they add a unique color to our rainbow nation,” it added.
Steve Letsike, the government’s deputy minister for women, youth, and persons with disabilities, in marking the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia on May 17 noted Ramaphosa’s administration has enacted legislative framework that protects the LGBTQ community. Letsike, however, stressed the government still needs to ensure its implementation.
“We have passed these policies and we need to make sure that they are implemented fully and with urgency, so that (LGBTQ) persons can self-determine and also have autonomy without any abusive requirements,” said Letsike. “We need families, faith leaders, traditional authorities, and communities to rise together against hate. Our constitution must remain respected.”
Siphokazi Dlamini, a social justice activist, said LGBTQ rights should be respected, as enshrined in the constitution.
“It is terrible to even imagine that they face discrimination despite the fact that this has been addressed numerous times,” said Dlamini. “How are they different from us? Is a question I frequently ask people or why should they live in fear just because we don’t like the way they are and their feelings? However, I would get no response.”
Dlamini added people still live in fear of being judged, raped, or killed simply because of who they are.
“What needs to be addressed to is what freedom means,” said Dlamini. “Freedom means to have the power to be able to do anything that you want but if it doesn’t hurt other people’s feelings while doing it. There is freedom of speech, freedom from discrimination, freedom of expression, of thought, of choice, of religion, of association, and these needs to be practiced. It is time to take such issues seriously in order to promote equality and peace among our people, and those who do not follow these rules should be taken into custody.”
Van Der Schyf also said LGBTQ South Africans should have a place, such as an inquiry commission, that allows them to talk about the trauma they have suffered and how it influences their distrust of the government.
Chile
Gay pharmacist’s murder sparks outrage in Chile
Francisco Albornoz’s body found in remote ravine on June 4

The latest revelations about the tragic death of Francisco Albornoz, a 21-year-old gay pharmacist whose body was found on June 4 in a remote ravine in the O’Higgins region 12 days after he disappeared, has left Chile’s LGBTQ community shocked.
The crime, which was initially surrounded by uncertainty and contradictory theories, has taken a darker and more shocking turn after prosecutors charged Christian González, an Ecuadorian doctor, and José Miguel Baeza, a Chilean chef, in connection with Albornoz’s murder. González and Baeza are in custody while authorities continue to investigate the case.
The Chilean Public Prosecutor’s Office has pointed to a premeditated “criminal plan” to murder Albornoz.
Rossana Folli, the prosecutor who is in charge of the case, says Albornoz died as a a result of traumatic encephalopathy after receiving multiple blows to the head inside an apartment in Ñuñoa, which is just outside of Santiago, the Chilean capital, early on May 24. The Prosecutor’s Office has categorically ruled out that Albornoz died of a drug overdose, as initial reports suggested.
“The fact that motivates and leads to the unfortunate death of Francisco is part of a criminal plan of the two defendants, aimed at ensuring his death and guaranteeing total impunity,” Folli told the court. “The seriousness of the facts led the judge to decree preventive detention for both defendants on the grounds that their freedom represents a danger to public safety.”
Prosecutors during a June 7 hearing that lasted almost eight hours presented conservations from the suspects’ cell phones that they say showed they planned the murder in advance.
“Here we already have one (for Albornoz.) If you bring chloroform, drugs, marijuana, etc.,” read one of the messages.
Security cameras captured the three men entering the apartment where the murder took place together.
Hours later, one of the suspects left with a suitcase and a shopping cart to transport Albornoz’s body, which had been wrapped in a sleeping bag. The route they followed to dispose of the body included a stop to buy drinks, potato chips, gloves, and a rope with which they finally descended a ravine to hide it.
Advocacy groups demand authorities investigate murder as hate crime
Although the Public Prosecutor’s Office has not yet officially classified the murder as a hate crime, LGBTQ organizations are already demanding authorities investigate this angle. Human rights groups have raised concerns over patterns of violence that affect queer people in Chile.
The Zamudio Law and other anti-discrimination laws exist. Activists, however, maintain crimes motivated by a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity are not properly prosecuted.
“This is not just a homicide, it is the cruelest expression of a society that still allows the dehumanization of LGBTQ+ people,” said a statement from Fundación Iguales, one of Chile’s main LGBTQ organizations. “We demand truth, justice, and guarantees of non-repetition.”
The Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (Movilh), meanwhile, indicated that “since the first day the family contacted us, we have been in conversations with the Prosecutor’s Office so that this fatal outcome is thoroughly investigated, including the possible existence of homophobic motivations or components.”
The investigation into Albornoz’s murder continues, and the court has imposed a 90-day deadline for authorities to complete it.