Denmark is the latest country to issue a travel advisory for transgender people who plan to visit the United States, per The Washington Blade.
“When applying for an ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) or visa to the United States, there are two gender designations to choose from: Male or female,” reads the travel advisory from the Danish Foreign Affairs Ministry, according to the Associated Press. “If you have the gender designation ‘X’ in your passport, or you have changed your gender, it is recommended that you contact the U.S. Embassy prior to travel for guidance on how to proceed.” Germany and Finland have also issued advisories for trans and non-binary people who are planning to visit the States.
Outright International’s latest report, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Queer Women: An Overview of Emerging Security Threats, reveals a growing wave of online harassment and abuse targeting LBQ women in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, according to the group’s newsletter. LBQ women are marginalized on two fronts by the misogyny in enforced and unequal gender norms as well as homophobia. Outright’s primary research in the five countries reveals that LBQ women not only face hostile comments online about subjective ideas around “immoral” or “irreligious” behavior or lifestyle but simultaneously are sought to be disciplined and silenced with threats of sexual violence and assault. In addition, the existence of laws that criminalize LBQ women and the absence of protective laws exempt violators from punishment—making LBQ women easy targets.
In Uganda, the Nakawa Chief Magistrates Court dismissed charges against two human-rights activists who were accused of assaulting Elisha Mukisa, a self-proclaimed “ex-gay” crusader currently working with local anti-queer groups, Erasing 76 Crimes noted. On March 20, His Worship Frank Namanya ruled that there were no grounds for the case, leading to the acquittal of the accused. The two defendants are employees of the LGBTQ+-rights advocacy group Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG); they were arrested on May 19, 2022, at Ntinda Police Station in Kampala City, where they had gone to report an attack and malicious destruction of property at SMUG offices. “Rather than receiving the protection and justice they sought, they were unjustly arrested, coerced into making statements and detained on fabricated assault charges”, SMUG stated in a press release.
Also regarding Uganda, Ambassador Jan Sadek—the head of the European Union delegation in the African country—recently paid tribute to the late LGBTQ+-rights activist David Kato, Erasing 76 Crimes reported. At the Fourth Annual David Kato Kisule Memorial Lecture, held in Kampala on March 12, Sadek said, “LGBTQI+ activists like David Kato Kisule, whose life was taken far too soon because of his bravery and commitment to human dignity and equality, leave behind a legacy that calls us to action. It reminds us that the fight for human rights is never over and that each of us has a role to play in advancing justice and equality.” Kato was murdered in 2011 in an anti-queer attack.
India’s premier literary institution—the Sahitya Akademi—announced it would allow queer poets to participate in its marquee Festival of Letters in New Delhi for the first time, per The Washington Blade. The Sahitya Akademi, often seen as a mirror of the government’s cultural agenda, permitted openly LGBTQ+ poets into a high-profile poetry reading at the Rabindra Bhavan; they shared the stage with more than 700 writers across 50 languages. On March 9, trans-rights activist/author Kalki Subramaniam chaired a literary session titled “Discussion on Literary Works of LGBTQ Writers in the 21st Century,” which spotlighted contemporary queer voices.
Also in India, Catholic nuns started operating a short-stay home for transgender young people, New Ways Ministry noted. Jyothis Bhavan (“luminous house” in Sanskrit) is a short-stay home for trans people that was founded and managed by the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel. The home is located in the southern state of Kerala, where the 2014 state government survey counted 25,000 transgender people. The nuns work with residents to encourage them to find stability and work that will sustain them; they also work with government officials to sensitize and motivate them to issue the documents needed for the trans people to pursue education and careers.
Hungary is withdrawing from the world’s only permanent global tribunal for war crimes and genocide, the AP noted. “Hungary will withdraw from the International Criminal Court,” Gergely Gulyás, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s chief of staff, wrote in a brief statement. The announcement came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Budapest (Hungary’s capital) despite an international arrest warrant against him over his conduct of the war in the Gaza Strip. The EU recently criticized Hungary after the country passed a measure banning Pride celebrations and allowing law enforcement to use facial recognition technology to find people who attend such events, LGBTQ Nation noted.
A study published in The Lancet HIV noted that potential foreign aid cuts could lead to millions of HIV deaths and “soaring” rates of infections around the world, ABC News reported. The study authors—composed of a team from the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, Australia, and the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Department of Global HIV, Hepatitis and STIs Programs—said international funding has played a major role in reducing HIV transmission and deaths globally. At least five countries—the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany and the Netherlands, which together provide more than 90% of global funding to fight HIV—have announced plans to implement significant cuts to foreign aid, generally between 8% and 70% between 2025 and 2026, the authors said.
The National Institutes of Health concluded that the antiviral drug tecovirimat, used without other antivirals, did not reduce the time to clinical resolution of clade II mpox lesions or improve pain control among adults in an international clinical trial. The Study of Tecovirimat for Mpox (STOMP) began in September 2022 as part of the U.S. whole-of-government response to the clade II mpox outbreak. STOMP was a randomized international efficacy study that enrolled participants who had been ill with mpox for fewer than 14 days in Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Thailand and the United States, including Puerto Rico.
The total number of nations with anti-LGBTQ+ laws has creeped back up to 66 after the Trinidad and Tobago Court of Appeal reinstated that Caribbean country’s laws against homosexuality, Erasing 76 Crimes noted. Also, there was the recent adoption of a new homophobic penal code by the West African nation of Mali. Before those reversals, the number of countries with laws against gay sex had fallen to 64 from more than 90 at the beginning of the 2000s. The latest countries to end the criminalization of same-sex intimacy are Namibia and Dominica, in 2024.
UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting has been criticized for apparently telling a member of the public who was concerned about the trans-rights rollback to “get a grip,” per PinkNews. On social media, someone replied to one of Streeting’s Instagram posts, accusing the Ilford North MP of “attacking disabled people” and criticizing him for his decision in December to indefinitely extend a ban on puberty blockers. Streeting—an openly gay official who has made it clear that he no longer stands by his statement that “trans women are women”—responded that the government was “opening new gender identity clinics to support trans people and putting an extra £86 million (more than $111 million) into the disabled facilities grants,” adding that the person should “get a grip.” His comment to the member of the public was branded “extremely unprofessional” by some on Instagram.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more U.S. citizens have been settling in Madrid, France 24 noted. Last year, 11,000 of them were registered in the Spanish capital. The trend began during the first Donald Trump mandate and has gathered steam since he has returned to the White House. One of the reasons involves Trump’s attacks on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Queer Americans are among those choosing Madrid, saying it has a more accepting climate.
However, also in Spain, the Federation of Evangelical Religious Entities of Spain (FEREDE) published a detailed report on the educational protocols derived from regional LGBTQ+ laws and Spain’s trans law, MSN noted. The document analyzes the impact of these regulations on parents’ rights to educate their children in accordance with their convictions, as well as on the exercise of parental authority. The report highlights that in at least 14 autonomous communities, educational protocols have been implemented to support minors who identify as trans; one of the most sensitive aspects of the FEREDE analysis is the possibility that teachers or educational centers may start the protocol without any parental involvement. FEREDE is calling for a review of current protocols, emphasizing the need for parental consent and evaluation by medical professionals before any intervention.
Extreme-right West Indian influencer Eric Damaseau—who lives in Bordeaux, France—has increased his anti-LGBT polemics and outbursts on social networks despite receiving constant complaints, per Erasing 76 Crimes. These include a complaint by the French queer-rights advocacy group Stop Homophobie, which objects to Damaseau comparing homosexuality to a disease; in addition, Martinique’s LGBTQ+-rights association Kap Caraïbe has criticized him for politicizing people’s sexual orientation and gender identity. In a recent video, Damaseau labeled Kap Caraïbe as “an association of faggots” who engage in “faggot tricks.” He uses the term “makoumè”—a highly disparaging term for queers in West Indian Creole.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has been banned from seeking public office for five years, with immediate effect, for embezzlement, the AP reported. Although Le Pen can appeal the verdict, such a move won’t suspend her ineligibility, which could rule her out of the 2027 presidential race. She was one of the leading contenders to succeed President Emmanuel Macron at the end of his second and final term, which is slated to last into 2027. In ruling against Le Pen, the judge said she had been at the heart of “a system” that her party used to siphon off EU parliament money. Le Pen and 24 other officials from the National Rally were accused of using money intended for EU parliamentary aides to pay staff who worked for the party between 2004 and 2016, in violation of the EU’s regulations.
In Australia, the Lesbian Action Group is seeking to overturn a decision preventing them from discriminating against transgender women who are lesbians at public events, according to News.com.au. In 2023, the organization sought an five-year exemption of the Sexual Discrimination Act to hold regular “lesbians born female only” social events. However, the Human Rights Commission rejected the organization’s permit, finding that while it would be lawful for them to ban men and heterosexual women from events, they could not discriminate against transgender lesbian women. Now, the group has now challenged that decision in the Federal Court of Australia.
Gay British reality-TV figure John Whaite claimed that he lost a deal with car maker Peugeot after announcing an OnlyFans account, per Queerty. He posted a new video saying he’d been asked to return a car Peugeot had lent him—and Whaite believed it was linked to his career switch. A Peugeot spokesperson told The Daily Mail, ““We continuously review our collaborator community and, after careful consideration, we recently took the decision not to renew our existing partnership with John Whaite when it reached its agreed conclusion at the end of March. We understand John’s disappointment with our decision and wish him every success in the future.” Whaite first found fame as the out gay winner of The Great British Baking Show in 2012, and grabbed headlines in 2021 with his appearance on Strictly Come Dancing (the UK precursor of Dancing with the Stars).
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