Asia
Gay man recounts escape from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan
Group regained control of country on Aug. 15, 2021
Imran Khan is a gay man from Afghanistan.
An American soldier who texted him on Aug. 26, 2021, 11 days after the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, told him to go to Kabul International Airport. Khan, along with a group of other LGBTQ and intersex Afghans and members of the country’s special forces, were able to pass through Taliban checkpoints after a mullah with whom they were traveling said they were going to their cousin’s house for a child’s funeral. The group of LGBTQ and intersex Afghans were able to enter the airport, but Khan and several soldiers who were members of the country’s special forces were outside the perimeter when a suicide bomber killed more than 180 people at a gate the U.S. Marines controlled. They returned after the attack, but were then forced to leave.
Khan was still in Kabul on Aug. 30, 2021, when the last American forces withdrew from the country.
Kabul Luftbrücke, a German group, on March 18, 2022, evacuated Khan from Kabul to Pakistan. Khan arrived in Germany less than a month later and now lives in Korbach, a city in the country’s Hesse state.
Khan’s partner and many other LGBTQ and intersex Afghans he knows remain in Afghanistan.
“I’m still hoping that an angel will come and will save their lives before the Taliban finds them,” Khan told the Washington Blade on Monday.
Khan is among the LGBTQ and intersex Afghans who have been able to leave Afghanistan since the Taliban regained control of the country.
Dane Bland, the director of development and communications for Rainbow Railroad, on Monday told the Blade the Toronto-based organization has been able to evacuate 247 LGBTQ and intersex Afghans to the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Ireland.
A group of 29 LGBTQ and intersex Afghans who Rainbow Railroad helped evacuate from Afghanistan with the help of the British government and two LGBTQ and intersex rights groups in the country — Stonewall and Micro Rainbow — arrived in the U.K. on Oct. 29, 2021. A second group of LGBTQ and intersex Afghans reached the country a few days later.
Taylor Hirschberg, a researcher at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health who is also the Hearst Foundation scholar, said he has helped upwards of 70 LGBTQ and intersex Afghans and their families leave the country.
“I know that there are some people who are still fighting to get people out, but now it has come down to a trickle,” Hirschberg told the Blade on Monday.
A Taliban judge in July 2021 said the group would once again execute gay people if it were to return to power in the country.
A report that OutRight Action International and Human Rights Watch released earlier this year notes a Taliban official said his group “will not respect the rights of LGBT people” in Afghanistan. The report also documents human rights abuses against LGBTQ and intersex Afghans, including an incident in which the Taliban beat a transgender woman and “shaved her eyebrows with a razor” before they “dumped her on the street in men’s clothes and without a cellphone.”
OutRight Action International on Monday told the Blade that it has had “at least one confirmed report of the killing of an LGBTQ activist, police searching for another and several more reports of extrajudicial killing and other forms of persecution that are difficult to confirm given the danger to political witnesses.”
“The U.S. and other governments that profess support for human rights need to do more to ensure the Afghan regime respects fundamental rights of all Afghans and help those in danger to reach safety,” said OutRight Action International.
Bland said Rainbow Railroad “absolutely” feels “governments, including the governments of the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, should be doing more to help LGBTQI+ Afghans fleeing the current crisis.”
Immigration Equality Legal Director Bridget Crawford on Monday noted her organization’s LGBTQ and intersex Afghan clients who “survived unspeakable trauma, both as a consequence of sharia law and existing brutal homophobic practices” are “now safely resettled in Canada.” Crawford nevertheless added that Immigration Equality recognizes that “many more queer people are still at grave risk in Afghanistan.”
“The Biden administration must prioritize these LGBTQ Afghans as refugees in the United States,” said Crawford. “President Biden himself has expressed that the U.S. has the good will and capacity to take in vulnerable refugees, but he must back up those words with action.”
State Department spokesperson Ned Price on Monday told reporters during a briefing that nearly 90,000 Afghans have been “evacuated or otherwise transported to the” U.S. since Aug. 15, 2021. Price also noted the U.S. has “facilitated the departure of some” 13,000 Afghans from Afghanistan since the last American troops withdrew from the country.
“There are a number of priorities, a number of enduring commitments we have to the people of Afghanistan,” said Price. “At the top of that list is to use every tool that we have appropriate to see to it that the Taliban lives up to the commitments that it has made publicly, that it has made privately, but most importantly, the commitments that the Taliban has made to its own people, to all of the Afghan people. And when we say all of the Afghan people, we mean all. We mean Afghanistan’s women, its girls, its religious minorities, its ethnic minorities. The Taliban has made these commitments; the Taliban, of course, has not lived up to these commitments.”
Price, who is openly gay, did not specifically refer to LGBTQ and intersex Afghans during Monday’s briefing.
Hirschberg said Canada, France, Germany and the U.K. have “come to bat” and “are really supporting getting LGBTQI Afghans out, along with others.” He told the Blade the U.S. has not done enough.
“We’re not seeing quite the eagerness from the United States, unfortunately,” said Hirschberg.
The Blade has reached out to the White House for comment on the first anniversary of the Taliban regaining control of Afghanistan and efforts to help LGBTQ and intersex Afghans leave the country.
Ukraine overshadows plight of LGBTQ and intersex Afghans
Russia on Feb. 24 invaded Ukraine.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees notes more than 6 million Ukrainians have registered as refugees in Europe.
The European Union allows Ukrainians to travel to member states without a visa.
Germany currently provides those who have registered for residency a “basic income” that helps them pay for housing and other basic needs. Ukrainian refugees can also receive access to German language classes, job training programs and childcare.
Dr. Ahmad Qais Munhazim, an assistant professor of global studies at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia who is originally from Afghanistan, has helped three groups of Afghans leave the country since the Taliban regained control of it.
Munhazim on Monday noted to the Blade his family has lived in a Toronto hotel room for three months. Munhazim also pointed out the treatment that Ukrainian refugees once they reach the EU, the U.K., Canada or the U.S.
“Countries of course would claim they were not prepared, but we can see that it was a very racialized response,” said Munhazim. “The way they responded to Ukraine, they weren’t prepared for that either, but we know that these borders immediately started opening up, assistance was offered in a very, very humanitarian way to Ukrainians just because they had blond hair and blue eyes, which was not offered to Afghans or Syrians earlier when they were fleeing Syria.”
Maydaa told the Blade that countries had “this huge concern about LGBT people coming from Afghanistan.”
“It was related to, I believe, terrorism and all this prejudgment of Afghan people,” said Maydaa. “I also think this is playing a huge role when it comes to resettlement and international action.”
Maydaa, like Munhazim, also noted the different reception that Ukrainian refugees have received once they reached the EU or the U.K.
“They, especially in Europe and the U.K., feel they have more responsibility towards Ukraine,” said Maydaa. “[There was] all this racism on the news. ‘They look like us. They are blonde, green eyes, white skin, Christians.'”
India
Amendments to India’s transgender rights law criticized
Lawmakers approved changes that narrow definition of trans person
India has enacted the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, that will reshape the country’s legal approach to gender identity.
Both houses of parliament approved the legislation last month, and it received presidential approval on March 28.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, narrows the definition of a trans person, removes the provision for self-perceived gender identity, and requires medical certification for legal recognition. These changes mark a shift from the framework established under a 2019 law.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, replaces the earlier definition of a trans person — previously framed as someone whose gender does not align with the gender assigned at birth — with a set of specified categories. It further provides that the term does not include, and is deemed never to have included, people defined solely by their sexual orientation or by self-perceived gender identity.
The bill retains certain categories within its definition, including people with socio-cultural identities such as kinner, hijra, aravani, or jogta. It also includes people with variations in sex characteristics at birth, such as differences in primary sexual characteristics, external genitalia, chromosomes or hormones from the normative standards of male or female bodies.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, removes certain categories from the definition, including a trans man or trans woman, irrespective of whether such a person has undergone sex reassignment surgery, hormone therapy, laser procedures, or other forms of medical intervention. It also excludes genderqueer people — a category that had been recognized under the earlier framework. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, however, includes eunuchs, as well as people compelled to assume a trans identity through mutilation, emasculation, castration, or other surgical, chemical or hormonal interventions.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, also revises the process for legal recognition, requiring a trans person to apply to a district magistrate for a certificate of identity, which can now be issued only after the recommendation of a designated medical board. The law specifies that the board will be headed by a senior medical officer and may include other experts. It further provides that individuals issued such a certificate will be entitled to change their first name in official documents, including birth records and other government-issued identification.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, also introduces stricter penalties for certain offences, including cases in which a person is forced to assume a trans identity through kidnapping, coercion or physical harm. Such offenses may attract imprisonment ranging from 10 years to life in prison, along with fines, depending on the severity and whether the victim is an adult or a child. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, further requires medical institutions to report gender-affirming surgeries to the district magistrate, and mandates that individuals obtain a revised certificate of identity following such procedures.
India’s 2011 Census recorded 487,803 trans persons, yet only 5.6 percent had applied for a trans identity card, according to the Washington Blade’s previous reporting. These identity cards, required to access government welfare programs, have remained difficult to obtain, with delays and administrative barriers limiting uptake.
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, revised the certification process, which introduces additional requirements for legal recognition. This change is against this backdrop of uneven access to identity documentation.
India’s Election Commission in 2009 directed states to modify voter registration forms to include an “other” category, allowing individuals who did not identify as male or female to register accordingly. The Supreme Court in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India in 2014 recognized trans persons as a “third gender” and affirmed their right to self-identification.
Justice Kalavamkodath Sivasankara Radhakrishna Panicker said that “recognition of transgenders as a third gender is not a social or medical issue, but a human rights issue.” Parliament in 2019 approved the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019.
An advisory committee the Supreme Court created that former Delhi High Court Justice Asha Menon has urged the government to withdraw the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026. The panel said the proposal to deny self-identification of gender is inconsistent with theNational Legal Services Authority v. Union of India ruling.
Menon on March 25 wrote to Social Justice Minister Virendra Kumar conveying the panel’s resolution. According to the Hindu newspaper, the committee described the amendment as a “great shock” and a “tremendous setback” to efforts to mainstream trans communities.
The Queer Hindu Alliance, an advocacy group that seeks to uphold the dignity of LGBTQ people within India’s cultural and constitutional framework, expressed concern over the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026.
“We write not in the spirit of opposition, but in the spirit of samvad — dialogue — and with a sincere call for community consultation before this legislation proceeds further,” the group said in a statement. “The Supreme Court of India recognized the concerns of the transgender community in 2014. The National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India judgment affirmed that a person knows who they are. This bill seeks to reverse that. The Queer Hindu Alliance finds this troubling as a question of basic human dignity.”
The Queer Hindu Alliance added that India “is not a young civilization fumbling for answers on how to understand human identity.”
“This culture has contemplated the nature of the self more deeply, and for longer, than any legal system that has existed. This is not a foreign conversation imported from the West. It is a conversation Bharat (India) has always been capable of having, on its own terms,” the Queer Hindu Alliance said.
Harish Iyer, an LGBTQ rights activist who was among those who fought for marriage equality in the Supreme Court, told the Blade that the amendment is “not just a rollback, but a blatant, arrogant insult” to the Supreme Court.
“The NALSA judgment gave us the fundamental dignity of self-determination — the right to look in the mirror and say, ‘This is who I am.’ This amendment drags us right back into the dark ages, handing over our bodily autonomy to a bunch of sarkari babus (government officers) and medical boards,” said Iyer. “But here is the most absurd part: you simply cannot define if someone is trans through any physical test. How exactly are you going to diagnose a human mind? Are they only going to regard those who have had gender affirmation surgery as trans? Because that is fundamentally not the definition of being transgender; transition is a choice and a privilege, not a prerequisite for identity. Or are they going to look at someone born with ambiguous genitalia and label them trans? Because that is intersex, which is a completely different reality.”
“Forcing a trans person to undergo degrading physical scrutiny based on the government’s spectacular ignorance of basic gender science isn’t a legal process; it’s state-sponsored trauma,” he added. “We fought too hard for our dignity to let a bureaucratic tribunal demand that we strip down to prove our humanity.”
Iyer said the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, goes beyond protection and instead imposes control.
“You don’t ‘protect’ a community by criminalizing the chosen families and allies who offer safe haven to trans youth fleeing abusive homes,” he said, referring to provisions in the law. “This bill is about regulation, policing and control. By gatekeeping who gets to be trans and punishing those who support us, the government isn’t acting as a guardian — it’s acting as a warden. It is a calculated attack on our existence.”
Iyer said the revised definition could exclude individuals who do not fall within the listed categories.
“It effectively writes them out of existence,” he said.
Iyer added the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026, could create an administrative “black hole” for gender-fluid individuals and nonbinary people who do not fit into the government’s rigid categories.
“If you are legally invisible, you don’t get access to gender-affirming healthcare, you don’t get legal protection, and you are entirely cut off from participating in society,” said Iyer. “They are trying to legislate us into non-existence because they are too lazy to understand us.”
Japan
Japanese Supreme Court to consider marriage equality
Japan only G7 country that does not legally recognize same-sex couples
The Japanese Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will consider six marriage equality lawsuits.
NHK, the country’s public broadcaster, noted all 15 of the court’s justices will consider the case.
Japan is the only G7 country that does not legally recognize same-sex couples, despite several court rulings in recent years that found the denial of marriage benefits to gays and lesbians unconstitutional.
Tokyo High Court Judge Ayumi Higashi last November upheld Japan’s legal definition of a family as a man and a woman and their children.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who became the country’s first female head of government last October, opposes marriage rights for same-sex couples. She has also reiterated the constitution’s assertion that the family is an institution based around “the equal rights of husband and wife.”
Same-sex couples can legally marry in Taiwan, Nepal, and Thailand.
NHK reported the Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling in early 2027.
India
Menaka Guruswamy celebrated as India’s first openly LGBTQ MP
Constitutional lawyer elected to Rajya Sabha on March 9
India’s LGBTQ community has found renewed hope in the election of Menaka Guruswamy, a lawyer who has argued before the Supreme Court, as the country’s first openly LGBTQ MP.
Guruswamy was declared elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament, on March 9, representing West Bengal. The All India Trinamool Congress, the regional party that governs the state, nominated her.
Guruswamy is a constitutional lawyer who studied at Oxford University, Harvard Law School, and the National Law School of India University. She has argued several significant cases before the Supreme Court and is widely known for her work on constitutional law, civil liberties, and LGBTQ rights.
Guruswamy was part of the legal team that successfully challenged Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, a colonial-era law that criminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations, which the Supreme Court struck down in 2018. She has also written and spoken extensively on issues of democracy, rights and institutional accountability.
Ankit Bhupatani, a global diversity, equity and inclusion leader and LGBTQ activist, welcomed Guruswamy’s election.
“This is significant not because Parliament needed a queer person, but because a queer person needed Parliament,” Bhupatani told the Washington Blade.
India has seen LGBTQ representation in elected office at the state and local levels, though it has remained limited.
In 1998, Shabnam Mausi was elected to the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly from the Sohagpur constituency, becoming one of the first openly transgender people to hold public office in India. Mausi’s election marked a rare moment of visibility for trans people in the country’s political system, where representation has historically been sparse. Since then, a small number of openly trans candidates have contested and, in some cases, won local and state elections, but no openly LGBTQ person had been elected to Parliament before Guruswamy.
Guruswamy and her partner, Arundhati Katju, who is also a lawyer, were part of the legal team that played a central role in the Section 377 decision.
Representing one of the plaintiffs, the two lawyers helped frame the case around constitutional guarantees of equality, dignity, and privacy. The Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India ruling marked a watershed moment for LGBTQ rights in India.
“For too long, we have fought our battles only in courtrooms and on streets. Now, there is a seat at the table where laws are written,” said Bhupatani. “Whether that seat produces change depends entirely on how it is used. Representation without substance is decoration. But as a beginning, yes. This matters.”
Guruswamy later represented the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court’s 2023 marriage equality case, Supriyo v. Union of India, which a 5-judge panel heard in the spring of 2023.
Along with other lawyers representing same-sex couples, she advanced arguments rooted in constitutional guarantees of equality, dignity, and personal liberty. The Supreme Court in a 3-2 decision on Oct. 17, 2023, declined to recognize same-sex marriage — holding that such a change falls within Parliament’s domain — but did acknowledge LGBTQ people face discrimination. The Blade previously reported the ruling underscored the court’s view that it could interpret the law, but could not create a new legal framework for marriage rights.
Bhupatani said Guruswamy’s election should not be seen as an immediate shift toward legislative action on LGBTQ rights, cautioning that such expectations may not align with political realities. He said her presence in Parliament could help sustain the issue in a way it has not been before, even as broader legal change is likely to take time.
“What she can do is keep the question alive inside Parliament in a way that it hasn’t been before,” Bhupatani said. “Legislative change in India on social questions usually takes longer than advocates want and shorter than skeptics predict. The 377 decriminalization seemed impossible until it wasn’t. Partnership rights will follow the same pattern eventually.”
Bhupatani added that while Guruswamy’s election may influence the pace of change, it does not, on its own, constitute a broader political movement.
“One person in Parliament, however extraordinary, is not a movement. She is an opening,” he said. “The 2023 ruling created a responsibility. Guruswamy’s election creates an opportunity to fulfill it from inside. Whether opportunity becomes outcome is entirely a question of human will.”
Guruswamy has served as a visiting faculty member at leading American institutions that include Yale Law School, Columbia Law School, and New York University School of Law. She has also worked with international organizations, advising the U.N. Development Fund for Women in New York and the U.N. Children’s Fund in both New York and South Sudan.
According to her professional profile, Guruswamy has been involved in a range of significant cases before the Indian Supreme Court that include matters related to bureaucratic reform and accountability.
One case is connected to the AgustaWestland helicopter deal, an investigation into alleged bribery in a multimillion-dollar defense procurement contract; litigation arising from the Salwa Judum case, in which the court examined the state-backed use of civilian militias in counterinsurgency operations in central India; and cases involving the implementation of the Right to Education Act, a law guaranteeing free and compulsory education for children between the ages of six and 14.
More recently, Guruswamy represented the All India Trinamool Congress in legal proceedings challenging searches conducted by India’s Enforcement Directorate, a federal agency responsible for investigating financial crimes, including money laundering and violations of foreign exchange laws. The searches were carried out at the offices of the Indian Political Action Committee, or I-PAC, a political consulting firm that provides data-driven campaign strategy and election management services to political parties. The case raised questions about the scope of investigative powers and the use of federal agencies in politically sensitive matters.
Guruswamy’s engagement with LGBTQ rights has extended beyond courtroom advocacy into public constitutional discourse.
On July 11, 2018, during hearings in the Section 377 case, she argued the criminalization law could not be justified on the basis of “social morality,” describing it as subjective and incompatible with constitutional guarantees, and framing the case as one fundamentally about “our humanity.” The Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Law at the University of Virginia in February 2023 recognized Guruswamy and Katju for their work on LGBTQ rights.
Guruswamy has not responded to the Blade’s multiple requests for comment about her election.
Trump’s war threats trigger rare 25th Amendment discussion
A Sondheim masterpiece ‘Merrily’ rolls onto Netflix
ROSENSTEIN: Vote McDuffie for mayor of D.C.
New book celebrates 1970s dance music icons
Report: Grenell wants Russian ambassadorship
Risking it all for love during World War II
PHOTOS: The Bonnet Ball
D.C. is the place for the Democratic Socialists of America
Key lifestyle changes can help patients cope with diabetes
