World
Out in the World: LGBTQ news from Europe and Asia
Qatar has detained a man with HIV who is a dual British and Mexican citizen
AUSTRALIA
As the 46th Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras ended its two week long celebrations with the annual massive Mardi Gras parade on Oxford Street this past weekend, this year’s celebration marred by the murder of a gay couple that jarred the country’s entire LGBTQ community, the parade came to a halt on Saturday in a powerful act of remembrance for the couple, Jesse Baird and Luke Davies.
In its annual float, Qantas Airways paid tribute to Davies who worked for the carrier as a flight attendant. A Qantas spokesperson confirmed that Davies’ name was added prominently on the side of the Qantas float, and Executive Manager Crew Leeanne Langridge in a statement said that Davies “was a much-loved member of the Qantas cabin crew community in Brisbane and Sydney.
“He had a passion for travel, life, his family and friends and the customers that he served. He will be deeply missed. The whole team at Qantas are thinking of Luke and Jesse’s loved ones,” Lanridge said.
The Star Observer, the country’s largest queer news media outlet, reported that a New South Wales police officer, Beaumont Lamarre-Condon, who reportedly once dated Baird, a Network 10 reporter and a sports official who umpired in AFL matches in the Northern Football and Netball League, has been charged with their murders.
Lamarre-Condon is accused of shooting them dead with his police-issued sidearm at Baird’s home in Paddington, Sydney. The couple’s remains were found at a property at Bungonia, near Goulburn, around 115 miles south of Sydney on Feb. 27, 2024.
The murder of the couple caused the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras organizers to uninvite police from the iconic Mardi Gras parade the BBC reported.
The parade’s board said the decision to exclude police, who have taken part in the annual march for over two decades, was “not taken lightly” but that it was essential to create a safe environment “to protest, celebrate” and “honor and grieve those we’ve lost.”
Sydney’s Mardi Gras parade has a complex history of both LGBTQ activism and police brutality, after the first march in 1978 resulted in dozens of people being beaten and arrested by local officers, the BBC noted.
CHINA
A Chinese transgender activist is facing deportation back to mainland China as she is scheduled for release on Sunday from Siu Lam Psychiatric Center, a psychiatric detention institution where Hong Kong authorities usually hold trans detainees.
Lai Ke, also known as Xiran, was convicted of using “forged” documents to attempt to travel from China to Toronto via Hong Kong last year. Lai was detained at Hong Kong International Airport on May 3, 2023, while transferring to a flight to Toronto having begun her journey in Shanghai.
Lai was convicted in a Hong Kong court on June 16, 2023, and sentenced to 15 months in prison, which she served at the Siu Lam Psychiatric Center. A release notice from the Siu Lam Psychiatric Center seen by Amnesty International states that Lai is due to be released early for good behavior on March 2. As Lai is not a resident of Hong Kong, she is subject to being deported to mainland China under Section 19 of the Hong Kong Immigration Ordinance.
“Time is of the essence to prevent Lai Ke from being unlawfully deported to mainland China, where she would be at grave risk of serious human rights violations — including arbitrary detention, unfair trial, and even torture and other ill-treatment — due to both her transgender identity and her activism,” Sarah Brooks, the deputy regional director for Asia for Amnesty International said.
“To return her given these risks would be an abandonment of Hong Kong’s obligations under international law.”
Lai had been a vocal advocate for trans rights in China alongside her partner. According to her friends, her partner was imprisoned in China in June 2023 on account of her own activism and her trans identity.
While serving her sentence, Lai has been denied access to the medication she was taking as a part of her hormone replacement therapy and held in solitary confinement for complaining about the denial of her medical treatment, her friends added.
“There is a very real risk that Lai Ke will face persecution — including further imprisonment — if she is returned to mainland China,” said Brooks.
PHILIPPINES
A 33-year-old drag queen who had been incarcerated in a Manila jail last fall for allegedly violating the Catholic-majority country’s obscenity laws for his performance dressed as Jesus Christ, performing a rock version of the Lord’s Prayer in Tagalog, was arrested again this past week.
Investigators from the Manila Police District, charged Amadeus Fernando Pagente, who performs under the stage/drag name Pura Luka Vega, for six counts of alleged violation of Article 201 including immoral doctrines, obscene publications and exhibitions and indecent shows. The arrest of the drag artist on Feb. 29 was due to a warrant issued by a court in Quezon City.
Supporters and fans raised the bail of 720,000 Philippine pesos, ($12,852.55) and Pagente was released on March 1. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the drag artist thanked his benefactors writing: “The fight still goes on, life still goes on. I am very grateful to those who helped me with my bail. To my drag sisters who tirelessly helped me and organized fund raising for legal fees, thank you very much. Thank you.”
These latest charges stem from a complaint issued by the Kapisanan ng Social Media Broadcasters ng Pilipinas, a broadcast media organization, on behalf of Philippines for Jesus Movement.
This is the second time the Philippines for Jesus Movement, comprising Protestant church leaders, has registered a criminal complaint with prosecutors against the drag performer. He was accused of violating obscenity laws for his performance dressed as Jesus Christ, performing a rock version of the Lord’s Prayer in Tagalog last August. He was incarcerated and then later released.
At the time Pagente told Agence France-Presse: “The arrest shows the degree of homophobia” in the Philippines. “I understand that people call my performance blasphemous, offensive or regrettable. However, they shouldn’t tell me how I practice my faith or how I do my drag.”
Ryan Thoreson, a specialist at the Human Rights Watch’s LGBT rights program, also called for the charges against Pagente to be dropped. “Freedom of expression includes artistic expression that offends, satirizes or challenges religious beliefs,” Thoreson told the BBC.
UKRAINE
A Ukrainian army combat medic was stripped of honors awarded to his unit by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church after the church leadership was informed that he was gay.
Viktor Pylypenko, a medic with 1st mechanized battalion, 72nd Black Zaporozhians Brigade medical corps, along with his fellow servicemembers were awarded medals for “sacrifice and love to Ukraine” by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate’s Patriarch Filaret for their actions and deeds serving in the Donbas region against the Russian invaders.
Pylypenko who serves as an openly gay soldier together with the commander of the medical corps, Yurii Lytvynenko, arrived from Donbas to receive the medals from Filaret. The patriarch personally thanked Pylypenko for his service.
According to the Ukrainian news website obozrevatel.com, that after receiving the award, the soldier published a post on his Facebook page thanking Filaret for the award, thinking that in this way the UOC changed its attitude towards the LGBTQ community.
“I am sincerely glad that Patriarch Filaret took such a step and thanked me, an openly gay man and human rights activist, for the protection. He gave me a medal with his signature and seal. He and the Kyiv Patriarchate headed by him have radically changed their position on LGBTQ+ people and no longer consider us ‘sinful’ or the cause of the coronavirus,” Pylypenko wrote.
On Feb. 25 the church responded in its own Facebook post calling Pylypenko’s post a falsehood:
“Among the distinguished military personnel of the medical point was Victor Pylypenko. Unfortunately, on his social media pages, he posted false information about Patriarch Filaret awarding him a distinction as openly gay for human rights and that Patriarch Filaret and the Kyiv Patriarchate radically changed their negative position on LGBT.
This is an outright lie and manipulation.
Taking into account the efforts of the dark forces to distort the consistent position of the upc of the Kyiv Patriarchate, we want to officially state:
1. Soldier Victor Pilipenko received a thank you from the church, exclusively as a defender of Ukraine, not as an LGBT activist, at the submission of his fellow soldiers from the combat unit of the heroic 72nd Brigade of the Black Zaporozhye. Patriarch Filaret did not personally award the Pilipenkoví medal and did not know about his sinful tendencies.
2. Holy Patriarch Filaret and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, based on the foundations of the Holy Scriptures, the thousand-year teaching of the Orthodox Church, invariably occupies a principled negative position on Sodom sin, condemns propaganda t. zv ‘same-sex marriages.’ Homosexual sex relationships are a false distortion of the God-given nature of man. As said in the Bible, the Lord Himself for the sins of people destroyed Sodom and Homorrah. The patriarch repeatedly stated it publicly and in court proved the legality of such his right.
3. We thank warrior Victor Pilipenko (as well as all our defenders for defending our liberty and territorial integrity) for his military service, but we do not divide his sinful likeness and LGBT agitation. We inform that due to open propaganda of sinful ideology and the denial of the existence of God, consider the church award to Victor Pilipenko from 08.02.2024 Order no. 27468 — revoked.
The Apostle Paul in the first letter to the Corinthians warned: ‘he deceive yourself: Neither prostitutes, nor idolosuluzeliji, nor adulterous, nor malakí̈, nor mužoložcí, nor thieves, nor lehvari, nor drunkards, nor lihoslovci, nor predators — the kingdom of God will not inherit. And such were some of you; but washed, but sanctified, but justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God’ (1 Cor. 6, 9-11).
Based on the foundations of Christian evangelical love for all, sinners in particular, desiring them salvation, we urge everyone to repent of their personal sins.
Then the church’s press service said: “We would like to inform you that in view of the open propaganda of a sinful ideology and the denial of the existence of God, the church award to Viktor Pylypenko is hereby revoked.”
Pilipenko then accused the Kyiv Patriarchate of awarding the medals as a PR campaign:
“I wrote words of gratitude to Filaret, naively imagining that he deliberately awarded me and showed his colleagues a Christian, undoubtedly noble gesture, a signpost to reconciliation and mutual respect for gays, atheists, and people of other faiths. But everything turned out to be more prosaic: Filaret was just handing out his awards as a PR campaign for his denomination.”
Outrage from his fellow soldiers and others has been building regarding the Kyiv Patriarchate’s actions.
Ilia Krotenko, a fighter with the 72nd Black Zaporozhians Brigade, emphasized that the “trinkets” handed out by the church are worthless.
“In connection with the absolutely disgusting act of the UOC-Kyiv Patriarchate and Patriarch Filaret, who took away the award from war veteran Viktor Pylypenko only because he is openly gay, I also refuse a similar award of my own,” he wrote.
SLOVENIA
Activists from across Europe, including Slovenia, Spain, France and Poland formed an alliance to launch a petition to collect over 300,000 signatures as a first step towards laying the groundwork to ensure that in Europe, reproductive rights are safeguarded and accessible for each and every woman.
This event marks a pivotal moment where voices from diverse European nations unite to advocate for reproductive rights, underscoring the collective resolve to ensure the safety and accessibility of abortion services across the continent.
Nika Kovac, founding director of the 8th of March Research Institute, part of the new alliance, said, “The need to kick off the petition is driven by a deep concern over the erosion of reproductive rights, as witnessed in various parts of the world, including the United States and Poland. We are dedicated to creating a network of friends united by shared values of empathy and solidarity. The key to change is international solidarity.”
“The freedom to choose our body is a common value in every single country of Europe. We are here to demand that it also becomes a right that everyone has in practice,” she added.
Though a large majority of Europeans support abortion, the values of women’s bodily autonomy and their freedom to choose are not shared by all governments and state laws. In a significant number of EU countries, legal and access restrictions prove to be a considerable hurdle for those who need it the most. Slovenia has proven to be a significant outlier, being the only European country to enshrine the right to abortion in its constitution with France currently trying to do the same.
“Ban on abortion kills women, ban on abortion ruins lives and the lack of access to abortion kills women and ruins lives,” said Marta Lempart, founder of Polish Women’s Strike, who has been the loudest advocate for reproductive rights in the country.
“In my country, women die in state hospitals because they are denied abortions. Each time it happens, we cry and protest and say ‘not one more’ but today I am not here to cry and shout but to say that we can get through it. You will never walk alone.”
“In many countries, abortions are legal but not free, so, it’s only for rich people; Also, in many countries abortions are legal, but women are intimidated, and humiliated for accessing a health service. This should not be happening. We need solidarity as we need to protect women not only in Poland but across Europe.”
Alice Coffin, who leads permanent action against patriarchal structures that harm French society and is a member of the alliance, said, “While Poland is infamous for severely restricted access to abortion, populist far-right parties with the same agenda are emerging across the continent. Their anti-abortion agenda is rarely in the forefront of their public communication but it becomes an important policy point if they achieve power. However, there is widespread public opposition to these measures.”
She added, “The French Senate is due to vote on including abortion in its constitution on Wednesday, Feb. 28. The president of the Senate is opposed. The Vatican has expressed its anger. But we have every hope that it will come to pass. So, abortion is an issue that will be very much on the political and media agenda in France over the next few days.”
The petition will actively be distributed among various individuals across multiple countries to ensure wide reach and engagement with the aim of gathering an initial 300,000 signatures. With this petition, the coalition hopes to build momentum and support for the substantive changes they aim to achieve.
The initiative represents a powerful, united front of committed individuals and organizations, and was attended by prominent feminist activists including Nika Kovač who has been one of the initiators of the #MeToo movement in Slovenia; Lempart, activist, and founder of the Polish Women’s Strike, who has been the loudest advocate for reproductive rights in a country with an almost total ban on abortions and has organized the biggest pro reproductive rights protests in the history of Poland; Alice Coffin, renowned feminist and author from France; Silvia Casalino, activist from France, along with Dr. Imma Clarà, director of the Spanish organization L’Associació; LGBTQ activist and researcher Kika Fumero; feminist activist and journalist Cristina Fallarás who launched the Spanish #MeToo movement. #Cuéntalo (Spain) participated in the petition launch.
The coalition’s political stance stems from a fundamental disagreement with the reality that women in Europe still face life-threatening risks due to lack of access to safe abortion services.
The coalition’s overall goal is to safeguard and advance abortion rights across Europe, ensuring that all women have access to the safe, respectful and legal healthcare services they deserve.
QATAR
An HIV positive openly gay dual British and Mexican citizen is being held because of his sexuality in this peninsular Arab country bordering the Persian Gulf. Manuel Guerrero Aviña, 44-year-old Qatar Airways employee, has been imprisoned since Feb. 4 after responding to a false Grindr text.
PinkNewsUK reported according to his brother Enrique Aviña, who is leading the campaign QatarFreeManuel, his brother is being imprisoned because of his sexuality, and has been denied access to antiretroviral medicines.
“Qatar police used a false Grindr profile to contact Manuel and invite him to participate in a meeting with other people from the LGBT community in the city of Doha,” Enrique Aviña told British newspaper the Mirror.
“Manuel was supposed to meet a person he thought he had arranged an appointment with on the night of Feb. 4 but instead encountered police officers who were waiting to arrest him.”
“He has been denied the right to a lawyer and has been forced to sign documents in Arabic without a translator to assist him. Even worse, he has been prevented access to antiretroviral medicines he needs to be able to live with HIV, which constitutes an act of torture and puts his life at risk,” Enrique Aviña said.
PinkNewsUk also reported because Aviña registered as a British national when he was hired by Qatar Airlines and moved there to work, the Mexican Embassy in Qatar said, the British Embassy is dealing with his case, but Mexican consular officers been in contact with his family.
“With regards to the case of Manuel Guerrero Aviña, who has Mexican and British nationality and is currently under arrest in Doha, the Mexican Embassy in Qatar confirms it has been following developments since it was informed about the detention,” an embassy statement read.
“It has been in constant contact with his relatives and has confirmed Manuel has legal representation.”
A spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office told PinkNewsUK: “We are providing consular assistance to a British man who is detained in Qatar and are supporting his family.”
Additional reporting from the Star Observer, ABC News Australia, the BBC, Agence France-Presse, Obozrevatel.com, Kyiv Post and PinkNewsUK.
Honduras
Realidad LGBTQ en Honduras: fuga o muerte
Observatorio KAI+: 35 asesinatos anti-LGBTQ en 2026
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Las cifras encienden todas las alarmas: 35 muertes violentas de personas LGBTQ, 195 casos de violencia generalizada y 11 personas asistidas para refugiarse en el extranjero. Las mujeres trans encabezan las víctimas mortales con 11 casos, seguidas de los hombres gay con 10.
Esa es la realidad de las poblaciones sexualmente diversas que pinta el boletín número 14 del Observatorio de Violencia hacia las Personas LGBTI+ de Honduras KAI+, correspondiente al período de enero al 8 de agosto de 2026.
Según el informe, los departamentos con mayor concentración de asesinatos son Francisco Morazán (12), Cortés (5) y Comayagua (4). Sin embargo, el dato más revelador de la impunidad es que los 35 casos permanecen en etapa de investigación preliminar, con apenas dos capturas reportadas.
«No queremos vivir con miedo»: defensores
Lucía Barrientos, de la Asociación Ixchel, resume el sentimiento colectivo. «Hoy las personas LGBTI en Honduras vivimos en estado de alerta. Muertes que, al hacer un análisis, tienen una conmoción de que muchas personas de nuestra población han sido torturadas, que han sido crímenes de odio», señala.
Barrientos subraya que en el país no hay una ley que tipifique el crimen de odio, lo que deja a la población en un limbo legal y expuesta a la violencia sin protección efectiva.
Entretanto, Jennifer Córdoba, de la Colectiva de Mujeres Trans Muñecas de Arcoíris, lamenta que las autoridades no estén haciendo nada para defender los derechos humanos.
«Ver ese tipo de violencias en el país que se incrementan, ver que las autoridades de nuestro país no están haciendo nada para la defensa de los derechos humanos, no crear una política pública que respete los derechos humanos de la población LGTBI», afirma Córdoba.
Violencia generalizada y discriminación sistemática
Los 195 casos de violencia generalizada incluyen amenazas (19), maltrato familiar (25), abuso de autoridad (14), discriminación por orientación sexual o identidad de género (14), lesiones (10) y agresiones sexuales. Las mujeres trans son nuevamente las más afectadas, con 32 casos registrados.
Dany Montesinos, de la Asociación LGBTI Kukulcán, advierte: «Esta es una violencia general, estructurada. No tenemos un patrón determinado. La alerta que estamos poniendo es que, en comparación con otros años, esto está siendo más creciente».
Un elemento crítico señalado por el boletín es que casi el 70 por ciento de los casos de violencia generalizada (137 de 195) carecen de categorización desagregada sobre la orientación sexual o identidad de género de la víctima, lo que evidencia la ausencia de protocolos adecuados por parte de las instituciones estatales y una invisibilización sistemática.
Migración forzada, huir para vivir
Entre los hallazgos más dolorosos está la asistencia a 11 personas LGBTQ que han buscado refugio en el extranjero. Ocho se han ido a Estados Unidos, dos a España y una al Reino Unido. Los motivos incluyen amenazas, discriminación, abuso de autoridad, agresiones sexuales y físicas.
Como señala un testimonio: «Tuvieron que irse, se vieron obligadas a huir por amenazas, por la discriminación, por el abuso de autoridad y agresiones sexuales. Estos datos nos muestran que la migración de las personas LGBTI no responde únicamente a razones económicas, sino a la necesidad urgente de proteger su vida y sus derechos».
Recomendaciones ante un Estado ausente
El boletín concluye con un llamado urgente al Estado hondureño. Exige fortalecer las investigaciones de muertes violentas e implementar políticas públicas de protección integral. Además, capacitar a funcionarios en diversidad sexual y derechos humanos y garantizar que los casos avancen más allá de la etapa preliminar.
Barrientos lo resume con claridad. «Exigimos al Estado respuestas inmediatas, justicia y protección real para nuestra población. No queremos retroceder, no queremos volver atrás, no queremos vivir con miedo, no queremos salir a la calle y saber que no puedo expresar mi amor hacia mi pareja o hacia otra persona porque puedo amar y ser muerta».
El Observatorio KAI+ recuerda que detrás de cada cifra hay seres humanos: madres, padres, hijos, hermanos y familias que dependen de ellos. La indiferencia institucional, advierten, no puede seguir siendo una puerta abierta a la impunidad.
Netherlands
Trans, nonbinary Americans find refuge in the Netherlands
DAFT visa offers fast-track to permanent residency, citizenship
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 — A transgender American couple who live in the Netherlands say President Donald Trump prompted them to leave the U.S.
Jack Reaves, who is a trans man, and his wife, Iskara McCoy, who is a trans woman of color, moved to the Netherlands from Reno, Nev., in 2024. The couple now lives outside Utrecht, a university city that is roughly 30 miles south-southeast of Amsterdam.
“We’d been keeping an eye on things during his (Trump’s) first term in 2016, which was pretty terrifying,” Reaves told the Washington Blade on Aug. 24 during a WhatsApp interview with him and McCoy. “We knew that there was a lot of anti-trans legislation and just anti-trans feelings from the Republican/MAGA party at the time.”
The Biden-Harris administration took office on Jan. 20, 2021, two weeks after thousands of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol — the insurrection took place shortly after Congress began to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election that Joe Biden won.
“Joe Biden was elected, and we were like, okay, well maybe things will turn around,” said Reaves. “But it was very clear very early on in the Biden presidency that that wasn’t going to happen.”
“There weren’t any meaningful changes, and then with Trump getting ready to win the next election and MAGA really looking like they were going to continue to gain more power, we were like, well time to get out.”
Reaves and McCoy are two of the four trans and nonbinary Americans who have moved to the Netherlands with whom the Blade recently spoke. The interviews took place during World Pride, which took place in Amsterdam from July 25-Aug. 8, or in the days after the biennial event ended.
The Dutch American Friendship Treaty, or DAFT, allows American citizens to live and work in the Netherlands as self-employed entrepreneurs.
DAFT visa recipients must keep at least €4,500 ($5,244.19) in a Dutch business bank account and need to register their business with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. DAFT visa recipients can apply for permanent residency in the Netherlands or the European Union seven years after they receive it.
Reaves and McCoy and the two other trans and nonbinary Americans with whom the Blade spoke for this story either received a DAFT visa or plan to apply for one.
Kai, who is nonbinary, and their husband, who is a trans man, moved from New England to the Netherlands in August 2021. They now live in Haarlem, a small city that is roughly 12 miles west of Amsterdam.
Kai told the Blade on Aug. 20 during an interview from their home that friends moved to the Netherlands in 2017 after they received a DAFT visa.
“The prompt was the 2016 election for them,” said Kai.
Kai and their husband were living in a collective household in August 2020 when they “decided we wanted to have some kind of change.”
“We suspected that politics was going to get worse, even if it got better soon, that it would probably get worse again later, and that the country politically was going downhill,” they said.
Kai told the Blade a lack of promised disability payments and poor health in the U.S. were also factors.
“When I had been to visit the Netherlands to visit the friends that were living here, I found that my body was healthier, even though I was only here for one or two weeks at a time,” they said. “I was able to do more things, eat more things that I couldn’t go or eat while living in the U.S.”
The fourth American with whom the Blade spoke identifies as a “disabled transgender queer” person. He asked to remain anonymous.
He and his daughter, who is also trans, arrived in the Netherlands in July. He referred to the Holocaust and its impact in the Netherlands when the Blade interviewed him in Amsterdam on Aug. 6.
“I’m the trans parent of a trans adolescent who knows our family history, which includes genocide from the Holocaust,” he said, pointing out 85 percent of Dutch Jews died in the Holocaust. “(My daughter) said my grandparents came to New York right before the occupation, and so my daughter said from our history that targeted communities have to get out early, so this was last summer, so how will we know we need to leave and where will we go?”
“I started looking into that, and we started planning our move,” he added.
He pointed out the “murder of opposition politicians” — specifically former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, who were shot to death inside their home in June 2025 — and “harassment and prosecution” of journalists in the U.S. — federal authorities in January arrested former CNN anchor Don Lemon less than two weeks after he entered a Minnesota church with a group of protesters who confronted its pastor who works with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — since the Trump-Vance administration took office as signs he and his daughter may need to leave the U.S.
Federal authorities charged Lemon, independent journalist Georgia Fort and two protesters with conspiracy and interfering with worshippers’ First Amendment rights during the protest.
An ICE agent on Jan. 7 shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis woman who left behind her wife and three children. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents on Jan. 24 shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who worked for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Minneapolis.
Pretti and Good were American citizens.
The shootings took place after the Trump-Vance administration deployed thousands of federal immigration agents to Minnesota during “Operation Metro Surge.”
“We were thinking, depending on what happens with the midterms,” said the trans person in Amsterdam with whom the Blade spoke. “But then you’re like, you know what, every day more people are coming and we should just do this thing.”
The Trump-Vance administration since it took office on Jan. 20, 2025, has implemented several anti-trans executive orders and policies.
Trump hours after his second inauguration signed the “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” that, among other things, declared the federal government will only recognize two genders: male and female. The directive also banned the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.
The Pentagon reinstated a ban on openly trans servicemembers. The Department of Education has rescinded agreements with school districts that were designed to protect trans students. The Trump-Vance administration’s anti-terrorism strategy specifically targets “radically pro-transgender” groups.
The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this summer upheld state laws banning athletes from school sports teams that correspond with their gender identity and block gender-affirming care for minors. The Trump-Vance administration since it took office has moved aggressively to curtail these treatments.
“On the one hand, it’s like as if people don’t recognize that that these things make it impossible to have a trans life,” said the trans person with whom the Blade spoke in Amsterdam. “But of course, that’s what Project 2025 is trying to do … make it be impossible to exist.”
McCoy said her and Reaves’s oldest child, who is also trans, has an “X” gender marker on their U.S. passport. McCoy’s grandmother with whom she was very close recently died, but her family attended her funeral virtually from the Netherlands “because we didn’t want to risk returning to the States at that point.”
Kai also noted trans and nonbinary Americans who are trying to leave the U.S., but don’t have passports and other documents with gender markers that match their gender identity.
“That’s terrifying, and it prevents you from doing things like leaving the country,” they said. “Even if it’s not a ban on leaving the country, it still prevents you from leaving the country if those things don’t match in the right way, depending on which immigrations person you get at the border.”
“On this end it wouldn’t matter as much,” added Kai. “But on the other end, it does matter and that is super frustrating and exhausting.”
Dutch ‘very into their bureaucracy’
Kai and the three other trans and nonbinary Americans with whom the Blade spoke said navigating the Dutch health care system upon their arrival in the Netherlands was one of their biggest challenges.
“They’re very into their bureaucracy and they’re very into following guidelines as if they’re laws, and they’re the only ways you do things,” said McCoy. “Once they start working for you. They work. Once you’re in the system, once you’re onboarded, once they’re caught up, then everything goes pretty smoothly.”
Reaves noted McCoy “had a little bit easier time as a trans woman who’s already passing.”
“They were just like, oh, well, it’s clear you’re a woman, so here’s your hormones, and here’s the fast path to diagnostics,” Reaves told the Blade.
Reaves, on the other hand, had been on testosterone for six years before he and McCoy moved to the Netherlands. Reaves said it took nearly a “full year of re-diagnostics before I could get back on testosterone and continue to determine care.”
“They were just like, ‘Well, you kind of look like a woman, so we’re gonna make you do the full diagnostic phase again,’” recalled Reaves.
Reaves told the Blade his doctor prescribed him the wrong type of testosterone. Health clinics that specifically treat trans and nonbinary people use what he described as “extremely outdated language,” but Reaves noted the facility’s doctor helped him get an appointment for his top surgery.
“Now that I’m fully onboarded, I think it’s actually been a little bit better than the U.S.,” he said, noting he receives testosterone blood tests at home. “The follow-ups are really easy.”
Kai also discussed the challenges navigating the Dutch health care system.
They said it would “have been a lot harder to receive care” if they had already undergone hormone replacement therapy, seen a psychiatrist, or had had surgeries. Kai told the Blade they “made the choice” to tell the clinic where they were receiving care that they were a man, as opposed to saying they are nonbinary.
“That’s not true, but I look enough like a man, and then I’m going to get the care that I need,” they said. “I’m sure it’s very different and difficult for folks, especially who are nonbinary, to say I am actually a woman, or I am actually a man, and to pretend that … and that’s still what the system says.”
“Just like with any system, if you want to get your needs met from the system, sometimes you have to meet the system where it’s at, and then once you get your needs met, then outside of the system you can be whoever you want,” Kai added.
Kai noted Dutch activists are “working to get some of those laws and some of those policies changed.” Their husband is working with one group “that is working to change things from if you don’t have a psychological diagnosis of being trans, then getting that care is going to be really hard.”
“What this group is working on is trying to get trans care to be — it’s what they use in the U.S., which is like informed consent, which is not what they use here,” said Kai. “But they’re working on putting together something to like push to governmental level to policy level to say that trans care should be informed consent, not the diagnosis.”
Gay PM: Netherlands needs to do more to defend trans people, rights
The Netherlands in 2001 became the first country in the world to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples.
The country’s nondiscrimination and hate crimes law include gender identity and expression. The Dutch government in 2021 formally apologized to trans and intersex people who were forced to become sterile in order to legally change their gender — The Gender Change Act, which was also known as the Transgender Act — was in place from 1985 until 2014.
Prime Minister Rob Jetten, who is the country’s first openly gay head of government, during a World Pride Human Rights Conference panel conceded the Netherlands needs to do more to defend trans people and their rights. Boris Dittrich, the Dutch Senate’s First Vice President and a member of Jetten’s D66 party who was previously global advocacy director for Human Rights Watch’s LGBTQ Rights Program, at the end of the panel asked about protecting intersex babies from what advocates maintain are unnecessary surgeries.
Reaves admitted he and his children are struggling to learn Dutch, but he added he and his family “appreciate” the Netherlands and “really enjoy living here.”
“I struggle in the Netherlands,” Reaves told the Blade. “I don’t speak the language
“It’s hard being away from home and your own culture and the things you grew up with,” he said. “But I’m safe here, and so that like gives it extra points.”
McCoy said their daughter has “experienced zero transphobia here so far.”
Kai told the Blade that their friends warned them that Dutch people would “call you out or they’ll stare at you or will be mean to you” if they “look nonbinary.”
“I had never had that experience,” they said.
All four of the people with whom the Blade spoke said they plan to apply for their Dutch or EU citizenship once they are legally able to do so. They all expressed reservations about returning to the U.S., even once the Trump-Vance administration is no longer in office.
“I’m actually very nervous that even if things turn around in the U.S. as far as getting rid of Trump, that people are still going to be anti-trans,” said the trans person with whom the Blade spoke in Amsterdam. “The poison’s in the water.”
Reaves said the U.S. “doesn’t really feel like it’s a safe place for trans people to come to.” McCoy added she would consider visiting the U.S., but “I would not move back.”
“That’s too risky,” she said. “It can change anytime.”
“It would probably take like a decade of democratic legislative changes before I would feel safe coming back,” added Reaves.
Canada
Monument to LGBTQ Canadians officially unveiled
Thunderhead honors those who suffered government-sanctioned discrimination
A monument that pays tribute to LGBTQ Canadians who suffered government-sanctioned persecution and discrimination officially opened in Ottawa on Aug. 21.
Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Governor General Louise Arbour, and Women and Gender Equality Minister Rechie Valdez are among those who attended the ceremony.
A Canadian government press release notes Thunderhead, which is located on Parliament Hill, “recognizes the historic discrimination faced by 2SLGBTQI+ (two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, plus) people in Canada, including during the LGBT (lesbiennes, gaies, bisexuelles, trans) Purge.”
(French and English are Canada’s official languages.)
Trudeau in 2017 formally apologized to Canadians who suffered persecution and discrimination under the country’s anti-LGBTQ laws — including those convicted of “gross indecency” before Canada decriminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations — and policies. Trudeau also formally apologized to those who were fired from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the country’s military and civil service from the 1950s to the mid-1990s because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The Canadian government later settled a class action lawsuit that LGBT Purge victims filed.
The settlement funded the monument.
The Canadian government’s press release notes an “all Canadian team” from Winnipeg, Manitoba, designed it. The monument is also located on the Anishinabe Algonquin Nation’s traditional territory.
“It celebrates the resilience and achievements of those who fought for equality, educates visitors, and inspires the change still needed so that everyone can openly love who they love and express and identify themselves as they choose,” reads the press release.
“Thunderhead stands as a tribute to the lives, stories, and contributions of 2SLGBTQI+ people across Canada,” said Prime Minister Mark Carney on Facebook. “It’s reminder of the discrimination too many endured — and honors those who fought to build a country where everyone can live freely, safely, and with dignity.”
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