Europe
Poland LGBTQ ‘Free Zones’ tossed, UK ranking drops, Pussy Riot singer escapes
Maria Alyokhina fled Russia disguised as a food delivery driver
LGBTQ news from Europe this past week saw a major development in Poland after a court annulled actions taken previously to declare ‘LGBT Free Zones’ by provincial governments.
Large parts of Poland were labelled “LGBT-free zones,” where regional governments declared they were against LGBTQ ideology. Last fall the executive branch of the European Union, the European Commission, sent letters out last week to the governors of five of Poland’s voivodeships, (provinces) warning that pandemic relief funds totaling over 126 million euros ($150 million) will be withheld over anti-LGBTQ measures passed in their jurisdictions.
Poland has seen a resurgence in the past three years of rightwing religious ultra-conservative groups backed by nationalistic extremists in this heavily Catholic country of 38 million, which have led to passage of measures to restrict pride parades and other LGBTQ-friendly events from taking place.
Proponents of these measures claim the necessity of the provinces to be “free of LGBTQ ideology” saying this is mandated by average Poles as well as by the anti-LGBTQ views of the Catholic Church.
The majority of Polish people support LGBTQ rights surrounding marriage and family, according to research by Miłość Nie Wyklucza (Love Does Not Exclude.)
The survey found 56 percent of respondents believe same-sex marriage should be legal to ensure the safety of their children. Even more, 65 percent, said they felt “a biological parent raising a child with a same-sex partner” fits the definition of family. And 58 percent of people said a same-sex couple is a family even without children.
Lublin Regional Assembly passed a resolution in April 2019 declaring that LGBTQ rights aim to “annihilate” the “values shaped by the Catholic Church” PinkNewsUK reported.
In the same month, Ryki County, a district in Lublin, passed a resolution voting to protect “children, young people, families and Polish schools” from an apparent wave of “homoterror” being unleashed by “left-liberal groups.”
PinkNewsUK also reported that the Provincial Administrative Court in Lublin found the resolutions were “adopted without legal basis and in gross violation of the law” after a legal challenge by the Polish Ombudsman.
They become the eighth and ninth “LGBT-free zones” voided by the courts following interventions by the Polish Ombudsman. Municipal councils in Istebna, Klwów, Serniki, Osiek, Lipinki, Niebylec and the Tarnowski County Council all scrapped such measures in 2019.
This past June, the leaders of 17 European Union countries had signed a letter that urges the EU to fight anti-LGBTQ discrimination. The EU has also called out the anti-LGBTQ measures taken more recently in Hungary.
ILGA-Europe, a Brussels based advocacy group promoting the interests of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people, at the European level, in a statement it sent to the Blade in June after the EU letter was issued, notes that both Hungary and Poland, another EU country in which lawmakers have sought to restrict LGBTQ rights in recent years are at odds with the EU position on LGBTQ+ people.
“For quite some time now, we’ve been informing EU ministers about systematic breaches of EU law committed by Hungary and Poland, which impact on LGBTI rights and the lives of LGBTI people,” says ILGA-Europe.
The UK has dropped to 14th in the ILGA-Europe’s rankings for LGBTQ rights, scoring 53 out of a possible 100
ILGA-Europe, which produces a yearly “rainbow map” of 49 countries across Europe, revealed this past week that the United Kingdom had the most significant drop in ranking for LGBTQ equality rights this past year falling from 10th to 14th place.
Leading contributors to the loss in ranking and standing on the ILGA annual listing was due in part to the ongoing battles over transgender rights with a failure by the Tory-led government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson to set gender recognition policies especially in regard to a total ban on LGBTQ conversion therapy.
ILGA-Europe’s advocacy director, Katrin Hugendubel, described the UK’s plunging status to The Guardian newspaper as “a sad reminder that when governments don’t stand strong on their commitments to advance minority rights, a powerful opposition can use that space to spread hate and division”.
The chief executive of Stonewall UK, Nancy Kelley, warned that “years of progress on LGBTQ+ policy that was achieved under successive administrations has been rapidly eroded by a UK government that has taken its foot off the pedal”.
The ILGA highlighted the UK government’s failure to extend a ban on conversion practices to transgender people, as well as abandonment of promised reforms on gender recognition and its equality action plan. It added that the UK also lost points because the government’s equalities watchdog, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), was “not … effectively protecting on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity” the Guardian reported.
Kelley called on the prime minister to “step back into the game” as a leader in protecting and promoting LGBTQ rights.
“As we approach the 50th anniversary of the first Pride in the UK, we call for his active leadership to rebuild our human rights institutions and to deliver a strategic policy programme that enables all LGBTQ+ people in the UK to live their lives in freedom and safety.”
Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot escaped from Russia disguised as a food delivery worker
In what could be best described as a story worthy of a Cold-War era spy novel, the leader of the Russian activist band Pussy Riot fled Russia disguised as a food-delivery worker. Maria V. Alyokhina in an interview with the New York Times that she was able to get to her girlfriend’s home in Vilnius, Lithuania, after evading Russian Federal Security Services agents.
The queer singer-songwriter musician and human rights activist who was on house arrest at the time of her escape was set to be transferred to a penal colony in the Russian Far East after being arrested six times in the past year protesting the policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin and more recently his order for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
According to the account in the New York Times, Alyokhina left her apartment in the food-delivery worker disguise, and an unnamed friend drove her to the Belarusian border. The problem then became exiting from Belarus to Lithuania as she was turned away at the border twice by Lithuanian border agents.
The Times reported that Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson eventually helped Alyokhina acquire the necessary travel documents from an unnamed country that in turn assisted her entering into Lithuania, where many Pussy Riot members had already escaped to, including Alyokhina’s girlfriend, Lucy Shtein.
The band has now kicked off their European tour in Berlin.
Pussy Riot concert with activist after escape from Russia
Netherlands
Thailand’s first openly gay senator attends World Pride in Amsterdam
Blade sat down with Pornchai Witayalerdpan on Aug. 7
Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key were on assignment in the Netherlands from July 28-Aug. 10.
AMSTERDAM — The first openly gay man elected to the Thai Senate says the law that extended marriage rights to same-sex couples in Thailand has positively impacted his country’s global image.
“It totally changed how the world perceived Thailand,” Sen. Pornchai Witayalerdpan told the Washington Blade on Aug. 7 during an interview at the World Pride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam.
Thailand on Jan. 23, 2025, became the first country in Southeast Asia to allow same-sex couples to legally marry.
The marriage equality bill received final legislative approval in June 2024 when the Senate approved it by a 152-130 vote margin. King Maha Vajiralongkorn signed it a few months later. Then-Prime Minister Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra is among those who supported the law.
Witayalerdpan was a freelance interpreter before he took office in July 2024.
The independent senator noted Thailand’s marriage equality movement began to gain traction with a lawsuit that the Foundation for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Rights and Justice, a Thai advocacy group, filed.
The Constitutional Court in 2021 upheld a law that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. MP Tunyawaj Kamolwongwat of the Move Forward Party later introduced the marriage equality bill that became law.
“It was a coalition of efforts between the civil society organizations, the LGBTQ organizations, and also the Pride movement in Thailand,” Witayalerdpan told the Blade.
Taiwan in 2019 became the first country in Asia to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples.
The Nepalese Supreme Court in June issued a landmark ruling that ordered the country’s government to guarantee full marriage rights to same-sex couples.
The Japanese Supreme Court in March said it will consider six marriage equality lawsuits that have been filed in the country. The Indian Supreme Court in 2023 ruled against marriage rights for same-sex couples. South Korea is among the other Asian countries in which marriage equality efforts are gaining momentum.
Witayalerdpan said Thailand’s marriage equality law could have a direct impact in Japan, which is the only G7 country that does not legally recognize same-sex couples.
“It’s been nothing but a positive effect (in Thailand) after the same-sex marriage law (took effect),” he said.
InterPride, the organization that coordinates World Pride events, has announced Bangkok and Barcelona, Spain, are the two finalists to host the biennial event in 2030. (World Pride took place in D.C. in 2025.)
Witayalerdpan told the Blade that World Pride in Bangkok would further improve Thailand’s global image. He also said his fellow lawmakers, in turn, should pass LGBTQ rights bills — including proposals that would allow transgender people to legally change their name and gender and enable same-sex couples to have children via surrogates from in vitro fertilization. Witayalerdpan noted the most important bill to him is one that would strengthen Thailand’s LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination law that took effect in 2015.
Impact of US funding cuts has ‘been very hard’
Witayalerdpan also offered advice to activists in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world.
“Keep on pushing forward,” he told the Blade. “I know that it’s hard for activists in Thailand as well.”
Witayalerdpan acknowledged the loss of U.S. government funding since the Trump-Vance administration took office — which has forced advocacy groups in Asia and elsewhere around the world to close — has “been very hard.” Witayalerdpan noted the global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement in response to these cuts has turned to the European Union, the U.K., Canada, and the Netherlands to help fill the gap.
“It’s very good that these countries are providing more funds to the activists in Asia than before because of the Trump situation,” he told the Blade. “It can increase their soft power as well.”
Witayalerdpan said American activists should “wish for a positive result in the mid-term elections.”
“Then there is some resistance,” he added.
Witayalerdpan specifically highlighted efforts to fight against the Trump-Vance administration’s efforts to restrict gender-affirming healthcare.
A federal court in Massachusetts on Aug. 15 struck down a key provision of a U.S. Department of Health and Human Service rule that would have limited access to gender-affirming care under the Affordable Care Act. Maryland and California are two of the 21 states that sued the Trump-Vance administration over the issue.
“You have to show more resistance … to show that we are still here and we will push back when we can,” said Witayalerdpan.
Russia
Russian LGBTQ rights group to shut down
Russian LGBT Network in April declared ‘extremist’ organization
A Russian LGBTQ advocacy group on Monday announced it will shut down after a court declared it an “extremist” organization.
A St. Petersburg court in April in response to a Russian Justice Ministry lawsuit made the declaration against the Russian LGBT Network.
“For many years, Russian LGBT Network brought together initiatives and activists and supported queer people across the country,” said the advocacy group on its Facebook page. ” However, its ‘extremist’ status has made the previous public format of its work impossible: any connection to the organization may create additional risks for the people we seek to support and protect.”
The Russian LGBT Network formed in 2006.
The group on its Facebook page said it “made this decision” to close “after a thorough assessment of the risks.”
“Continuing our public activities could have put at risk those who took part in the organization’s work, supported it, or received assistance,” said the Russian LGBT Network. “We cannot control the repressive environment, but we can do everything possible to avoid creating additional risks for people. People’s safety comes first.”
The Kremlin over the last decade has faced global criticism over its crackdown on LGBTQ rights.
The Russian Supreme Court in 2023 ruled the “international LGBT movement” is an extremist organization and banned it.
Russia in January designated ILGA World, a global LGBTQ and intersex rights group, as an “undesirable” organization. ILGA World in response to the designation noted Russians who are found guilty of engaging with “undesirable” groups face up to six years in prison.
Human Rights Watch in May noted the Russian LGBT Network is one of nine LGBTQ groups that Russia this year has banned after authorities deemed them “extremist.”
“Russian LGBT Network may close; but dignity, solidarity, and people’s right to be themselves cannot be destroyed,” said the Russian LGBT Network in its statement. “Take care of yourselves.”
Netherlands
Tens of thousands take part in World Pride March
Event capped off two weeks of celebrations in Amsterdam.
AMSTERDAM — Tens of thousands of people on Saturday participated in the World Pride March in Amsterdam.
Outright International Executive Director Maria Sjödin and Paolo Rondelli, who in 2022 became the world’s first openly gay head of state when he became Captain Regent of San Marino, are among those who participated alongside Massachusetts state Rep. Jack Lewis and Olena Shevchenko, chair of Insight, an LGBTQ advocacy group in Ukraine, and others.
Members of D66, the centrist Dutch political party that Prime Minister Rob Jetten heads, also marched.
Jetten in February became the Netherlands’ first openly gay prime minister. He participated in the opening of the World Pride Human Rights Conference on Aug. 5 and spoke on a panel with Rondelli, former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, and other gay and lesbian current and former heads of government.
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
The march took place a week after hundreds of thousands of people lined Amsterdam’s canals for the city’s annual Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade.
A terrorist attack at Berlin’s Christopher Street Day on July 25 left one person dead and more than two dozen others injured.
The incident overshadowed World Pride, which began hours earlier and ended on Saturday.
Dutch authorities increased security measures in the aftermath of the July 25 attack. No incidents were reported during World Pride.
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