CANADA

The mayor of Emo, Ontario, had his bank account garnished after he announced he would refuse to pay court-ordered damages of $5,000 to a local Pride organization. 

The drama started in 2020 when the small town of 5,000 people about 1,000 miles northwest of Toronto on the border with Minnesota refused a request by Borderlands Pride to issue a proclamation declaring June Pride Month in the town and fly a rainbow flag for a week. 

The town council voted down the request in an acrimonious debate in which now 76-year-old Mayor Harold McQuaker argued that flying the Pride flag was unfair because there’s no flag for “the other side.” Borderlands Pride then presented a petition asking the council to reconsider their request, but the council was unmoved. 

Four years later, the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal finally issued a ruling in the case, ordering the town to pay Borderlands Pride C$10,000 (approximately $7,000) and McQuaker to pay C$5,000 (approximately $3,500) and take the province’s “Human Rights 101” one-day course. 

McQuaker later told reporters that he would refuse to pay the judgement against him. That gave Borderlands Pride the ability to get a court order for garnishment of his bank account for the fine. 

“Sure, sex is great, but have you ever garnished your mayor’s bank account after he publicly refused to comply with a Tribunal’s order to pay damages?” Borderlands Pride posted on their Facebook account.

Emo Town Council has not yet announced if it will pay its portion of the judgment. 

The case has drawn attention from right-wing and far-right news outlets around the world, many of which are working overtime to paint McQuaker as a mild-mannered great-grandfather who is not at all homophobic.

But Borderlands Pride pushed back against that narrative with receipts. In another post on Facebook, the group shared letters McQuaker had published in newspapers going back nearly 20 years, when same-sex marriage was legalized in Canada. 

“Isn’t it funny we have all kinds of money to spend on same-sex crap and gun control, both of which will hurt our great nation,” McQuaker wrote in one letter.

“If a free vote had been allowed instead of party leaders forcing their MPs to their way, Mr. Harper would have defeated homosexual marriage legislation,” he wrote in another.

Five separate fundraisers on GiveSendGo and GoFundMe have raised around $28,000 for McQuaker and Emo’s legal defense, although none of these fundraisers appear to be directly linked to either.

JAPAN

The Fukuoka High Court ruled that Japan’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, in the latest court victory for couples seeking equal marriage rights in the country.

The ruling on Dec. 13 was the third appellate-level ruling to find the ban unconstitutional, following rulings earlier this year from the Tokyo and Sapporo High Courts. It was also the first ruling to find the ban violates the constitution’s protection of the “pursuit of happiness.”

“[The judge] understood our suffering, and I felt very reassured,” one of the plaintiffs, Masahiro, told reporters.

Six lower courts have ruled on same-sex marriage since 2021, with all but one finding the ban to be unconstitutional. Many of these cases are still being heard at the appellate level, and the issue is likely to be taken up by the Japanese Supreme Court.

While the rulings do not have immediate effect in changing the law, they add pressure on legislators to address the issue. 

A report from Mainichi Shinbum suggests that there is now a majority in Parliament in favor same-sex marriage, following elections in October. Still, the Liberal Democratic Party, which leads the government, is largely opposed to equal marriage. 

POLAND

QueerMuzeum, the first museum dedicated to the history of Poland’s LGBTQ community, opened in Warsaw this month, the first such museum in a post-communist country in Europe.

The new museum is operated by the Lambda Warsaw Association, the oldest operating Polish LGBTQ organization, and it has more than 150 artefacts on display, including items dating back to the 16th century.

“We are on Marszałkowska Street, in the heart of Warsaw,” said Miłosz Przepiórkowski, Lambda’s president. “This sends a message to politicians: ‘Look, we are opening the fifth queer museum in the world in a country with the worst legal situation for queer people in the EU.’”⁠

QueerMuzeum is also a way to bring Lambda’s aid and advocacy work into the public eye, Przepiórkowski says. 

The organization has more than 100,000 artifacts in its collection, including letters, photographs, and early activist materials. Preserving these materials has been challenging, as much of the records of Poland’s LGBTQ community have been private or discarded. 

Key figures from Poland’s queer activist circles during the communist era in the 1980s were on hand for the opening ceremony, and had donated important personal materials to the museum. 

Ryszard Kisiel donated a decades-old safe-sex pamphlet, while Andrzej Selerowicz donated a photograph of himself with his partner that is 45 years old. 

LGBTQ rights remain a polarizing topic in Poland more than a year after a center-left coalition was elected to replace a far-right government. The new government has struggled to pass a long-promised civil union bill and update hate speech laws to protect LGBTQ people, amid conflicts among more conservative coalition partners.

UNITED KINGDOM

The UK government has announced that it is indefinitely prohibiting the prescription of puberty blockers for use with transgender children, Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced on Dec 11.

The ban applies across the UK and was put in place following consultations with the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

It comes following the much-disputed Cass Review on gender treatment in the UK, which had recommended new restrictions on puberty blockers. Earlier this year, the previous Conservative government brought in emergency legislation to ban puberty blockers. Streeting’s announcement makes that ban indefinite, with the government saying it will review the legislation in 2027.

The ban applies to new patients only; patients already receiving puberty blockers as a form of care can continue to receive it.

Streeting says there is a plan to begin a clinical trial on puberty blockers next year, which would help “establish a clear evidence base for the use of this medicine.”

But trans activists rejected the government’s framing of the ban, as they have much of the findings of the Cass Review.

“The government is entirely disregarding the voices of trans youth, who made clear their deep opposition to the restriction of private prescriptions for puberty blockers during consultation,” Laura Stoner, the chief executive of the trans rights group Mermaids, told the Guardian.

Trans rights have become a notably polarizing issue in the UK over the last several years, as “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling has become one of the world’s most vocal critics of trans people, and successive UK governments have sought to weaken protections for trans people and restrict access to gender care or to women’s spaces, often in the name of women’s rights.

Other British stars like Daniel Radcliffe and David Tennant have been notable allies for trans people.