Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Tuesday signed a bill that will ban so-called LGBTQ propaganda in the country.

Members of Kazakhstan’s lower house of parliament last month unanimously approved the measure that would ban “‘LGBT propaganda’ online or in the media” with “fines for violators and up to 10 days in jail for repeat offenders.” The Kazakh Senate on Dec. 18 approved the bill.

Kazakhstan is a predominantly Muslim former Soviet republic in Central Asia that borders Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and China. Russia, Georgia, and Hungary are among the other countries with anti-LGBTQ propaganda laws.

The year 2025 brought unprecedented challenges to D.C. as President Trump initiated a takeover of local police operations and implemented ICE raids in the city. Below are our picks for the top 10 LGBTQ news stories of the year.

10. Man gets 15 years for drug sale that led to deaths of two gay men

A D.C. man was sentenced by a federal judge on June 26, 2025, to 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty three months earlier to conspiracy related charges that he distributed large amounts of fentanyl and cocaine in the D.C. area, including the sale of fentanyl that resulted in the December 2023 deaths of two D.C. gay men.

A statement released by the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C. said Jevaughn Mark, 33, was charged, among other things, with selling fentanyl rather than the requested ketamine, known as “Special K,” to one of the two gay victims who shared the drug with his gay friend. Police identified the men as Brandon Roman, 38, a prominent D.C. attorney and LGBTQ rights  advocate, and Robbie Barletta, 28, a home renovation business owner and historic preservationist.

An official with the D.C.-based group HIPS, which provides services to drug users, called the deaths of the two men a poisoning rather than an overdose because they unknowingly consumed the highly toxic fentanyl rather than the ketamine they thought they had.

9. Drag queens, protesters denounce Trump’s Kennedy Center takeover

D.C. drag performer Tara Hoot was among other drag queens and about 100 supporters who marched in February from Washington Circle to the Kennedy Center to protest President Donald Trump’s Kennedy Center “takeover” by his appointment of Trump supporters to the performing arts facility’s board of directors.

Hoot and three other local drag performers followed up with their own Kennedy Center protest in June by attending the Kennedy Center’s opening night performance of “Les Misérables” while Trump himself was in attendance. Among the concerns raised by the protesters was the Kennedy Center’s decision in February to cancel a performance by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington scheduled for May to celebrate the upcoming WorldPride 2025 DC events.  A Kennedy Center spokesperson said the performance was canceled because of “financial” and “scheduling” factors and not by the Trump initiated management changes.

8. D.C. LGBTQ Center celebrates opening of new, larger offices

The D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center officially opened its new expanded offices on April 26 at 1828 Wiltberger St., N.W., located one block from the Shaw Metro station.  

Spanning 6,671 square feet of intentionally designed space, Center Director Kimberley Bush said the new space would offer a wide range of resources for LGBTQ individuals in need – including mental health services, job readiness programs, cultural events and community support groups, all under one roof.

7. Deaths of five key local LGBTQ advocates in 2025

The LGBTQ community took note of the passing of at least five highly regarded local LGBTQ advocates in 2025. Among them were Jeri Hughes, 73, a longtime local transgender rights activist; Dale Sanders, 75, a highly acclaimed D.C. attorney for more than 40 years who played a leading role in providing legal services to people with HIV/AIDS; Patrick Shaw, 60, a highly regarded D.C. public schools teacher; Thomas Mangrum, 61, an acclaimed advocate for people with disabilities and LGBTQ rights activist involved in the city’s Capital Pride events; and Loraine Hutchins, a nationally known and acclaimed advocate for bisexual and LGBTQ rights, and co-author and editor of a groundbreaking book on bisexuality.

6. Pro-LGBTQ Spanberger elected Va. governor 

Former congresswoman and longtime LGBTQ rights supporter Abigail Spanberger (D) won her race for governor of Virginia on Nov. 6, defeating the state’s Republican lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, who expressed strong opposition to LGBTQ equality. Spanberger, who will succeed incumbent GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin in January, becomes Virginia’s first female governor.

Meanwhile, John Reid, a gay conservative radio talk show host in Richmond for many years, lost his race as the Republican candidate for  lieutenant governor in Virginia, falling short of becoming the state’s first openly gay person to win a statewide office. Reid lost to Democrat Ghazala Hashmi, a member of the Virginia State Senate, who became the first Muslim woman to win election to a statewide office in any state.

 5. Trans erasure hits D.C. 

The National Park Service, which owns and maintains Dupont Circle as a federal park, in February removed all references to transgender people from its website devoted to Dupont Circle history. In a development believed to be linked to one of President Trump’s early executive orders banning federal support for trans related issues, the Park Service removed all mention of trans people from its website but left on the site multiple references to the “GLB community.”

In yet another act of what LGBTQ activists are calling “trans erasure,” D.C.’s Children’s National Hospital in July announced it would discontinue beginning Aug. 30 gender transition medical care it has provided for juvenile patients for at least the past 20 years. In a statement posted on its website, the highly acclaimed pediatric hospital said the change was made “in light of escalating legal and regulatory risks to Children’s National.” Most observers interpreted that to mean the risk of federal funding cuts linked to the Trump administration’s animus toward trans supportive programs or policies.

4. D.C. Mayor Bowser announces she will not run for re-election

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a longtime vocal supporter of the LGBTQ community, announced on Nov. 25 that she will not run for a fourth term. Since first taking office as mayor in January 2015, Bowser has been an outspoken supporter on a wide range of LGBTQ-related issues, including marriage equality and services for LGBTQ youth and seniors.

LGBTQ activists have pointed out that Bowser’s record of support on LGBTQ issues dates back to her tenure as the Ward 4 D.C. Council member from 2007 through January 2015, when she took office as mayor. They also credit her with expanding and significantly increasing funding for the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and appointing the largest number of openly LGBTQ officials to D.C. government jobs than any prior D.C. mayor.

“It has been the honor of my life to be your mayor,” Bowser said in a statement.

3. D.C. LGBTQ bars ‘hanging in there’ amid tough economy

The owners of several of D.C.’s at least 25 LGBTQ bars told the Blade in November they had been negatively impacted by a series of developments and issues impacting most other D.C. bars, restaurants, and nightlife venues. Among the lead issues impacting them, they said, were the deployment by President Trump of National Guard troops on city streets, the nearly two-month-long federal government shutdown that ended in late November, and skyrocketing prices of food and other supplies brought about by the Trump administration’s tariff program.

Other factors cited were a decline in tourist visits to D.C. due to alienation from the Trump administration and a large increase in the number of LGBTQ bars in recent years that some observers said has resulted in fewer people going to each of the LGBTQ bars, the latest one, Rush at 14^th and U Street, N.W., having opened in December.

2. At least 1.2 million turn out for WorldPride D.C.

At least 1.2 million people turned out from throughout the U.S. and internationally for WorldPride D.C. 2025, which took place from mid-May through June. It included hundreds of events held across the city. Among them were an international human rights conference, a March on Washington for LGBTQ Equality, sporting events with LGBTQ athletes, concerts by LGBTQ choral groups and nationally acclaimed pop musicians.

The events culminated with a six-hour-long WorldPride Parade on June 7 that drew hundreds of thousands of participants and bystanders and included a 1,000-foot long rainbow flag that led the parade. The WorldPride street festival and concert took place that same day and the following day, on June 8, along Pennsylvania Ave, N.W. that included hundreds of booths.

The 1.2 million attendance and the a $310 million economic impact it had on the city were significantly less that what had been initially predicted by city officials, who, along with LGBTQ activists, said the lower attendance and economic impact was due in part to the anti-LGBTQ policies and alienation of many potential foreign visitors by the Trump administration.

1.    Trump takes control of D.C. police, deploys National Guard 

LGBTQ rights advocates joined community leaders across the city in condemning President Donald Trump’s decision in August to take control of the D.C Metropolitan Police Department and deploy 800 National Guard troops to address what he called a crime wave caused by “bloodthirsty criminals” and “roving mobs of wild youth.” 

A coalition of local LGBTQ advocacy organizations joined other community leaders, including gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), in calling Trump’s action a “power grab” aimed at eliminating D.C.’s locally elected government that would adversely impact people of color, the LGBTQ and immigrant communities.

In a development that captured national attention, a gay man was arrested on Aug. 10 on a misdemeanor assault charge for tossing a hero sandwich into the chest of a uniformed U.S. Customs and Border Control agent on a street near several gay bars in what he called an act of  protest and defiance of the Trump deployment of federal troops and agents in D.C. In what some observers called a gesture of support for gay sandwich thrower Sean Charles Dunn, a federal court jury handed down a verdict of not guilty for the assault charge.

There’s something about a calendar milestone that seems to demand the making of lists.

Whether it’s a list of resolutions for the future or a list of high points for the past, we are happy to oblige – so as we move past the first quarter of our current century, here’s our list of the top 25 queer films since the end of the last one, listed in order of their release, and chosen through a blended consideration of overall critical consensus, cultural impact, and yes, individual tastes.

Our favorites might not be the same as yours, because taste is always subjective, so look at this as an inspiration to celebrate yours by making a list of your own.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)

John Cameron Mitchell’s screen adaptation of his own genderqueer musical about a third-rate rock singer with a botched sex-change made his jubilantly rebellious off-Broadway hit accessible to uncountable queer audiences for whom its comically-tortured pseudo-autobiographical tale of empowerment through rebellious self-expression felt like “being seen,” and the rest is history. 

Mulholland Drive (2021)

Late revered auteur David Lynch’s neo-noir Hollywood mystery – delivered in his famously incomprehensible style – is also a film that strongly centers a same-sex love affair between naive Hollywood-hopeful actress (Naomi Watts) and the darker, more worldly woman (Laura Herring) with whom she becomes entangled. While their relationship may transmute throughout Lynch’s hallucinatory narrative, it remains the unequivocal emotional core of the film.

Bad Education (2004)

Renowned queer Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar scored a career high point with this boldly imaginative cinematic melodrama in which a gay film director (Fele Martínez) is reunited with a friend and lover (Gael García Bernal) from boarding school, who has written a script based on the story of their youthful relationship. A breathtaking exploration of a story’s evolution through many retellings – and of cinema’s power to illuminate the human truth behind it.

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

What can we say that hasn’t already been said? Ang Lee’s exquisitely heart-rending adaptation of Anne Proulx’s tale of two cowboys in love smashed open doors for queer storytelling in “mainstream” cinema and perfectly captured the agony of impossible longing that so many people in the rainbow community know all too well. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal will forever be the litmus test for true allyship, thanks to their fearless commitment to the validity of a love that simply can’t be “quit.”

Shortbus (2006)

John Cameron Mitchell makes a second appearance on our list for directing this controversial, groundbreaking dramedy featuring intertwined love stories – queer and otherwise – around an underground Manhattan “salon” hosted by Justin Vivian Bond. Featuring explicit scenes of un-simulated sex in a gently satirical commentary on the struggle to connect in a post-millennial world, it pushed boundaries while also validating an open view toward sexuality, relationships, and identity itself.

Pariah (2011)

Dee Rees’s drama about a Black lesbian teen (Adepero Oduye) coming to terms with her identity was a landmark of representation, amplifying both the struggle of queer people facing homophobia from within their own community and the self-empowerment that comes with embracing who you are.

Weekend (2011)

Gay British filmmaker Andrew Haigh made an impressive breakthrough with this romance about two gay Londoners (Tom Cullen and Chris New) who fall in love during a one-night stand, filmed with a mix of scripted structure and improvised performance to capture an eminently relatable queer portrait of the kind of fleeting connection that stays with us for a lifetime.

Stranger by the Lake (2013)

This erotic thriller from French filmmaker Alain Guiraudie channels Hitchcock at his most perverse for its story of a “cruiser” at a nude gay lakeside beach (Pierre Deladonchamps) who becomes infatuated with a man who may or may not be a serial murderer (Christophe Paou). Scary, sexy, and utterly hypnotic, there’s a reason it’s frequently named as one of the best queer horror films of all time.

Carol (2015)

Iconic queer filmmaker Todd Haynes has scored several hits this century, but most impactful of all is his adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s midcentury lesbian romance between a married woman (Cate Blanchett) and a shopgirl (Rooney Mara), which breaks radical ground by imagining the possibility of a happy ending for queer love in an era that represses it.

Tangerine (2015)

Future “Anora” Oscar-winner Sean Baker made his breakthrough with this gritty, iPhone-filmed dramedy about two trans sex workers on an all-night quest in the streets of Hollywood. Shot on iconic location and boasting the raw authenticity of real-life trans performers Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor, each of whom knew the “streetlife” of the movie firsthand, it represented a huge advancement in the way trans stories were depicted onscreen while revolutionizing the independent film scene with its DIY audacity.

Moonlight (2016)

Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of Tarell McCraney’s play about a closeted young Black man growing up in the crack-blighted projects of Miami became a landmark of queer cinema by winning the Best Picture Oscar, but its real accomplishment lies in its three-act depiction of coming to terms with queer sexuality in an environment of social disadvantage, entrenched homophobia, and limited opportunity for escape. An unequivocal masterpiece.

BPM (Beats per Minute) (2017)

French filmmaker Robin Campanello crafted this urgently contemporary historical drama about AIDS activism of the 1990s, based on his own real-life experiences as a member of the Parisian chapter of ACT UP, and the result is a thrilling portrait of shared community commitment – and heartbreak – that feels like the most powerful documentary you’ve ever seen.
 

Call Me by Your Name (2017)

Luca Guadagnino’s coming-of-age romance between a teen boy (an incandescent Timothée Chalamet)  and his father’s grad student assistant (Armie Hammer) in Tuscany of the early 1980s may have sparked some controversy over the supposed inappropriateness of the age gap between its onscreen lovers and later revelations about Hammer’s real-life inclinations, but this James Ivory-scripted distillation of the pangs of first queer love transcends all that to become an irresistibly potent masterwork – and touchstone – that gives eloquent voice to both a sense of queer longing and a spirit of pastoral bliss that we all know will always be too good to last.

God’s Own Country (2017)

Often (and perhaps unfairly) characterized as a sort of companion piece to “Brokeback Mountain,” this first directorial effort by UK filmmaker Francis Lee depicts a romance between a young sheep farmer (Josh O’Connor) and the Romanian immigrant worker (Alec Secăreanu) he hires to help him after his father is sidelined by a stroke. In this case, however, the obstacles to their union come from internalized homophobia, not from outside judgments, and the trope of an unhappy ending for queer lovers is – tentatively, at least – rejected for a palpable sense of hope. It’s a small shift, perhaps, but the impact is huge.

The Favourite (2018)

Greek absurdist filmmaker Yorgos Lanthomos won accolades for this historical drama about lesbian power struggles in the 18th-century court of Britain’s Queen Anne (Oscar-winner Olivia Colman), who plays two would-be mistresses (Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz) against each other in a Machiavellian competition for royal favor and the power that goes with it. Consistently appalling and frequently grotesque in its portrait of weaponized proximity to power, it’s as uncomfortably funny as it is radically feminist in its portrayal of forced female enmity in a society still governed by masculine standards, even when a woman holds the dominant position.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2018)

This French historical drama from Céline Sciamma might seem at first glance as if it were merely another iteration of the period lesbian romance that has become almost a cliche, but it transcends the tropes to assert a message of feminist rebellion against the male-dominated societal norms – magnified by its 18th century setting – which would dismiss and devalue the inner experience of women, and leaves us all wanting to see “The Patriarchy” burned to the ground.

Neptune Frost (2021)

In this singularly genre-defying musical romance from Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman, magical Afrofuturist realism collides with dystopian tech-driven sci-fi for a story of romance between an intersex refugee from Burundi (Cheryl Isheja/ Elvis Ngabo) and a rebellious coltan miner (Bertrand “Kaya Free” Ninteretse), blending elements of cosmic spirituality with brutally oppressive political reality to create a visually striking modern-day myth, rooted in African tradition, that incorporates the struggle for queer identity into a larger battle against suppression and domination by a shadowy over-class concerned only with power and profit. Palpably weird and unrepentantly radical, it speaks – and sings – truth to power in a way that most modern films could simply never imagine.

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

This multi-Oscar-winning surprise hit from the filmmaking team known collectively as “The Daniels” (Kwan and Schwienert are their real-life surnames) might be a brilliantly absurdist action comedy about a war for the fate of the multiverse, but it’s built around the struggle of an Asian-American mother (Michelle Yeoh) to reconcile her strained relationship with her queer daughter (Stephanie Hsu) and come to terms with her disillusionment over her devoted but seemingly incompetent husband (Ke Huy Quan) – all while negotiating her tax returns with a no-nonsense IRS agent (Jamie Lee Curtis) who may have been her lesbian lover in another reality. It might take a collective effort from dozens of alternative timelines, but the fight is definitely worth it, in the end.

Fire Island (2022)

Director Andrew Ahn teamed with writer/star Joel Kim Booster for this modernized gay adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” in which Jane Austen’s 19th-century social commentary is reframed in the world of queer culture, highlighting the class differences between economic and social status and amplifying the experience of queer Asian-American males in the predominantly white-centric queer heirarchy of the contemporary age. It sounds like a stretch, but it’s a more authentically heartfelt – and unapologetically intelligent – queer romcom than the much-touted “Bros,” which debuted the same year to a dishearteningly meager box office take.

Tar (2022)

Acclaimed Kubrick protege Mike Field’s third movie is this ethically challenging drama starring Cate Blanchett as a renowned lesbian conductor targeted by “cancel culture” over her history of predatory sexual misconduct. An alternately bemusing and horrifying portrait of toxic behavior and a world more interested in passing judgment than addressing inequities, it’s an uncompromisingly detached cautionary tale about female power in a world still governed by patriarchal standards, with Blanchett’s flawless performance as the glue that holds it all together.

All of Us Strangers (2023) Andrew Haigh makes a second appearance on our list as writer/director of this haunting adaptation of a novel by Japanese author Taichi Yamada, in which a lonely screenwriter (Andrew Scott) revisits his childhood home to commune with his long-dead parents (Jamie Bell, Claire Foy) while navigating a tentative new relationship with a melancholy neighbor (Paul Mescal) in his strangely deserted apartment building. Part ghost story, part melancholy romance, and all about the exploration of queer isolation and lingering childhood trauma, it’s an unexpectedly uplifting love story with supernatural overtones that render it into the stuff of mystical poetry. An essential queer classic, right out of the box.

I Saw the TV Glow (2024)

As queer cinema continues to struggle with the challenge of bringing trans stories to the big screen in the face of political pushback from transphobic culture warriors, filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun has bravely pushed forward, and this – her second feature – achieves full-on cinematic greatness, delivering a trans allegory in the shape of a disquieting horror movie about former teen schoolmates (Justice Smith and Jack Haven) haunted by phantom memories of a favorite TV show from their past. Capped with a final sequence that drives home the despair of living a life of pretense against your own inner truth, it’s a surreal and devastatingly immediate fantasia on themes of gender, sexuality, and conformity, but also an indictment against the outright erasure of trans identity in a world that would rather pretend it never existed in the first place.

Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

Rose Glass’s  lesbian neo-noir thriller teams queer icon Kristen Stewart with Katy O’Brien for a twisted love story between the daughter of a small-town crime boss and an aspiring steroid-addled bodybuilder which takes them both on a harrowing road of violence and terrible choices yet keeps us pulling for their union every step of the way. A slice of deliberate B-movie exploitation cinema at its most elevated, it embraces its generic camp to achieve a deeply satisfying spirit of rebellion that leaves us all calling for an end to the patriarchy, right now.

The Visitor (2024)

Underground filmmaker and “queercore” pioneer Bruce La Bruce has a long history of creating brilliant countercultural cinema underneath the mainstream radar, but he finds his way onto our list via his audacious remake of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Terorema,” in which a mysterious and sexually fluid stranger destroys a dissolute bourgeois household by seducing each of them – from father and mother to son, daughter, and maid – in turn. Reset into contemporary England and informed by a xenophobic fear of the “other,” it doubles down on Pasolini’s sociopolitical statement while upping the ante with transgressive scenes of un-simulated sex. The result is an unforgettable excursion into radical queer expression that fearlessly exposes the hypocrisies of so-called “straight” society while fostering an “eat the rich” attitude of sexual rebellion that has yet to be matched by any filmmaker working within “the system.”

The History of Sound (2025)

South African filmmaker Oliver Hermanus has made a number of passionate queer films during his career, but this WWI-era romantic drama about two music scholars (Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor). who fall in love while gathering folk songs in rural New England, surpasses his earlier triumphs by offering up a bittersweet-but-transcendent meditation on the power of music to preserve and immortalize the struggles and hardships of each generation, as humans – queer or otherwise – strive to find happiness in the proscribed limitations of their lives. Yes, it’s tragic; but thanks to the exceptional tenderness between its two stars and the compassion with which Hermanus extends to them, it leaves us with the memory of the good things while offering hope for a future that gives us – at long last – the freedom to be who we are.