Two of Senegal’s highest-profile celebrities were among 12 people rounded up and charged with committing “unnatural,” or homosexual, acts, among other crimes, police in the capital of Dakar announced Sunday.
Pape Cheikh Diallo, a widely admired TV and radio presenter, and Djiby Dramé, a popular musician, were two of the men charged in the case linked to an individual who has admitted to knowingly spreading HIV, according to The New York Times.
An HIV-positive individual “confessed to knowingly infecting about ten people he had contacted, primarily through WhatsApp groups,” authorities said.
Police didn’t elaborate on who the individual is or his connection with the other men, but all 12 men were remanded to prison while a judge investigates the case.
A preliminary indictment from prosecutors added a charge of money laundering to the evidence used to initially round the men up, Senegal news site Senewebreports. All of the men broke down in tears as the judge announced their pretrial detention.
“A lot of what’s being said in the media about Pape Cheikh is not true,” said a lawyer for TV presenter Diallo, Abdou Dieng, after the hearing. Other lawyers in court declined to comment.
Diallo, 42, is best known for interviewing celebrities on TV and radio, and enjoys a large fan base of young people on TikTok, with about three million followers.
Dramé, also in his 40s, appeals to older Senegalese and is well known for duets with his wife that feature prominently at weddings in the country. They host an annual high-society gala that celebrates Bazin, the luxurious damask cotton fabric with roots in West Africa.
Stop Homophobie, a Paris-based LGBTQ+ rights group with ties to Senegal, condemned the arrests. The state action will further expose the community to stigma in the devoutly Muslim country, the group’s director told Seneweb.
Senegal earns a score of 4 out of 100 on the Equaldex Equality Index.
The Senegal Penal Code states, “whoever will have committed an improper or unnatural act with a person of the same sex will be punished by imprisonment of between one and five years.”
As well as Diallo and Dramé, one of West Africa’s most iconic artists has been swept up in the controversy surrounding the arrests. TFM, the country’s most-watched television channel and Diallo’s employer, was founded by Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour, described by Rolling Stone as “perhaps the most famous singer alive” in Senegal and much of Africa.
Islamist critics of “degenerate” Western values are implicating N’Dour in the scandal over his connection with Diallo as his “boss” at TFM.
“Whoever plays games with Islam will suffer the wrath of God,” said one reply to Seneweb’s story of the arrests.
It was a quiet Thursday ahead of Thanksgiving break at the University at Buffalo (UB) when Maria B. Quagliana received an email from the school that said campus police had confiscated several firearms from a student in response to reports of a “concerning conversation.”
That student was Jacob Cassidy, the president of UB’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), a right-wing student group. Cassidy had been overheard threatening to shoot up the school, allegedly telling his friend that he had “a foldable AR in [his] bag,” adding: “I’ll shoot them in the foot and knee so they can’t get away.”
Quagliana, a first-year student at UB’s law school, had run into Cassidy a week earlier at a counter-protest of a YAF event in support of ICE deportations. While Cassidy has received an interim suspension, Quagliana has still felt “extremely anxious” since getting the alert.
“This person knows what I look like,” Quagliana told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “I’ve had multiple panic attacks either in my car or waiting to walk into the building.”
Quagliana says that this was just the latest in a string of incidents surrounding YAF on campus. The group, which was prominent in the 1960s but faded into the background over time, has experienced a resurgence in activity nationwide and now reportedly has over 400 chapters at colleges and high schools in the U.S. That resurgence comes in the wake of the assassination of conservative campus activist and co-founder of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) Charlie Kirk.
Like other right-wing campus groups, YAF has a reputation for provocative actions and rhetoric as well as for promoting anti-LGBTQ sentiments. Chapters have plastered campuses with chalk art denigrating gay marriage and hosted anti-trans speakers, including one who’s said that “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life.”
“Anti-LGBTQ groups on campus pose a unique threat to queer people because they’re in immediate proximity,” says Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, the author of “Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America.”
“They have access to their LGBTQ peers that off-campus agitators often cannot get. Anti-gay clubs are well-positioned to surveil, report on, and harass queer students, faculty, and other college employees where they spend the majority of their day either studying, working, and, in many cases, residing.”
What Is YAF?
YAF was founded in 1960 by conservative activist William F. Buckley Jr. It was one of the first campus-focused groups from a new wave of American conservatism pioneered by presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. The group garnered the support of future president Ronald Reagan and made its mark as an incubator for conservative politicians and activists. Noteworthy alumni include former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former Vice President Dan Quayle, as well as the founders of right-wing groups including the Leadership Institute and Citizens United.
Shepherd says YAF began falling apart in the 1970s and showed little sign of life until 2011, when it was officially made a subsidiary of the similarly named Young America’s Foundation, another right-wing group that hosts youth-focused conferences and programs and was a member of Project 2025’s advisory board. Since then, it has increased in prominence, alongside its much more popular counterpart TPUSA, propelled by funding from right-wing megadonors including the Koch Brothers and Richard and Helen DeVos.
Shepherd says that YAF’s revival took place as conservative activists began to emulate Donald Trump during his rise in 2015: more provocative, more confrontational and, in some cases, more extremist. In 2017, The New York Times reported on the group hosting controversial speakers like Ann Coulter and Ben Shapiro. At the same time, YAF leaders would offer training to young activists, teaching them regulations on chalking, flyering and recording conversations. They’d also give them tips on how to pressure schools to cover security costs for speakers.
“The provocative ‘debate me bro’ or ‘prove me wrong’ is how groups with lesser profiles get noticed,” says Matthew Boedy, an English professor at the University of North Georgia and author of “The Seven Mountains Mandate,” a book published in September about Charlie Kirk and TPUSA. “But also, social media virality demands a provocation. And that is the goal.”
Shepherd also notes that the group’s higher-ups are not youth and have little connection to college campuses. Young America’s Foundation’s current president is 58-year-old former Wisconsin governor and Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker.
“That has a lot to do with older people who want to spread the word about conservatism … and of course they’re going to recruit on college campuses, because those are young people who are getting ready to begin their careers,” says Shepherd. “So yes, I have seen the resurgence, but no, I don’t think it’s organic.”
Sowing Chaos
Part of that resurgence is due to the spike in campus conservative activity after Kirk’s assassination. In the two weeks after his death, TPUSA reported over 121,000 new chapter requests.
“After I heard about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I also was emboldened,” 20-year-old Kyle McBride told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “I’ve never been a joiner, but after that, it made me want to get involved.”
McBride, an engineering student at Rose State College in Oklahoma, says his school was home to one of those new TPUSA chapters. And since it launched at the start of the semester, he says it’s grown to become the second largest student group on campus, with 60 members.
Carrying that momentum, McBride is working to start a YAF chapter at his school. He says his main motivation for doing so is to boost his resume and to connect with like-minded people.
McBride says he believes gender transition is “morally wrong” and that “transgenderism, as a concept, should not be allocated across the United States,” but that trans people “must still be treated with full dignity” and “compassion.” Scholars and advocates have argued that there is no meaningful distinction between “transgenderism” and the existence of trans people.
While McBride and other right-wingers see this new wave of activity as an opportunity, Ted Pranikoff, a sophomore environmental design major at UB, feels endangered. He says that he got into an altercation with right-wing protestors on campus that ended in them grabbing and yanking at his wheelchair. Pranikoff also remembers YAF members and affiliates calling him and his friends “fags” and shouting, “Cripple repent and be healed.”
While McBride doesn’t agree with using slurs and insults because it “robs the person of their dignity,” he is also a proponent of free speech and doesn’t support “censorship,” even if it involves hateful rhetoric.
“You sort of just have to not condone it, but you kind of just have to let it go,” McBride says. “The only thing that’s really left to do is just say, ‘Hey, don’t do that.’”
Anti-LGBTQ Sentiment
Still, many YAF chapters use inflammatory rhetoric to get a response from progressive students on campus, which they later post online to attract support from right-wing media.
The YAF chapter at Oklahoma State University has gotten backlash for discriminatory rhetoric, including chalk art opposing gay marriage with statements like, “Humanity dies without traditional marriage, 1 man + 1 woman.”
Photos of the chalk art (shared by an anonymous OSU student)
According to Jack Green, who graduated from UB in winter 2024, this behavior is not new.
“YAF made traps: They noticed some people were taking down their posters, so what they would do is that they would put up like 20 on one board, and then if somebody came and took it down, they would film them,” Green told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “I don’t really know what their goal was besides wanting to doxx people, to harass people.”
As YAF’s resurgence continues, so does its anti-LGBTQ footprint. University of Iowa’s YAF chapter has faced calls for suspension following leaked messages from a group chat that showed members using transphobic slurs in a conversation about other students on campus.
At the University of Alabama, all student groups are required to include a non-discrimination clause in their constitution. However, after complaining to the university on an email chain that also included the state’s attorney general, the YAF chapter was given an exception that allowed them to remove the terms “gender identity,” “gender expression” and “sexual identity” from their statement.
And at the University of Utah, YAF put up several posters claiming that “men shouldn’t be in women’s bathrooms” and “the transgender movement harms children.”
Extremism
Shepherd describes the typical YAF student as someone who “[is] in a fraternity, potentially an athlete, maybe on the debate team, [or] wears a suit to school.”
But in terms of political ideology, its members vary widely. McBride says his politics are more aligned with his interpretation of Catholicism than with modern conservatism. As a result, he differs from the majority of the group on some issues.
“I’m big into civil liberties, maintaining and preserving dignity for all people,” he says. “I’m not strictly against Trump, but a lot of the things he does and says I’m not really on board with. But it’s the closest group that I could find that champions at least some of my ideology.”
The group also includes a sizable population of more violent radicals. In 2007, the YAF chapter at Michigan State University briefly held the dubious distinction of being the only college student group to be designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, following an anti-LGBTQ protest that included slogans such as “straight power” and “end faggotry.” In 2022, that chapter’s former leader reappeared on campus, causing one student’s thesis presentation on YAF’s connection to white nationalism to be moved online due to security concerns.
Cassidy, the allegedly thwarted shooter, seems to have had more radical beliefs for quite some time. Cain Pietraszewski, a UB student who went to high school with Cassidy, says he was a “very stereotypical redneck Republican.”
“He was very open about his opinions,” they say. “A lot of anti-immigration, anti-non-white, non-straight, non-cis stuff. … It didn’t surprise me that someone of [Cassidy’s] mindset would make these threats.”
Shepherd says this form of extremism isn’t representative of YAF as a whole, “but they’re not an anomaly either. … It’s a strong contingency.”
Boedy says that contingency has grown because white nationalist influencerNick Fuentes has pushed campus conservatism further to the right.
“There’s a different type of aggression or provocateurism that has come along in recent years, especially since Nick Fuentes came on the scene—he criticized and ambushed and did all different types of things to Turning Point to get it to be more racist,” Boedy says. “His followers will infiltrate these groups [and] become leaders. … He has influence on a lot of people who claim membership in Turning Point and YAF.”
At the same time, there are signs that anti-LGBTQ hate has been on the rise. In 2024, The Washington Post reported that annual hate crimes against LGBTQ people on both K-12 and college campuses had more than double the average for the latter half of the 2010s.
“It feels like [YAF] were almost restrained beforehand, and now they have permission to be mask-off, in-your-face racist,” says Pranikoff.
McBride says he’s not surprised to hear about this increase in extremism, but also says it wouldn’t dissuade him from starting his chapter.
“I was not intimately aware of YAF and its proclivity to produce or attract people like that, but I’m also not really surprised in general because this new alt-right pipeline is very potent,” he says. “If people come in and they’re interested in Catholicism, then I could probably easily dissuade them from a white supremacist or white nationalist kind of stance. But for people who are just with that view just because … I don’t know what I’d do with those people.”
Legal Threats
Despite YAF’s connection to radicalism, Green says the group is “coddled” by UB’s administration and often gets off with lighter treatment than other campus groups. He compares their reaction to YAF protests, which he says have rarely drawn the attention of campus police, with 2024’s pro-Palestinian encampment protests, where officers tackled and arrested protestors. More recently, campus police removed LGBTQ student activists from a sit-in protest at the end of the fall 2025 semester.
“Compared to us, it’s like night and day,” Green says. “YAF filming students without their consent, that didn’t cause them to have any [administrative] backlash at all. There also seems to be this weird support from the [campus police department] for YAF—whenever there’s a demonstration, you can always see a YAFer and a cop talking to each other and being friendly, while their relationship to basically everyone else is much more hostile.”
One reason may be that YAF chapters nationwide often respond to university backlash with legal threats. Last March, YAF’s Gettysburg College chapter filed a complaint with the Department of Education, accusing numerous diversity-related campus programs and LGBTQ student groups of “ongoing civil rights violations against conservative students.” And a legal threat convinced the University of Wisconsin-Madison to waive more than $4,000 in security and event fees for one of YAF’s events.
“Part of that can be explained by the fact that many YAF alumni are lawyers,” Shepherd says. “It’s a low-cost tactic because it’s in their professional wheelhouse. Lawsuits—or even just the threat of a suit—tend to scare colleges. They’d rather avoid a suit or settle than risk a headline.”
Protest against Daily Wire Correspondent Michael Knowles’ speech at University at Buffalo. (WGRZ)
One of the first major actions Green remembers from YAF was inviting a correspondent for the right-wing media outlet The Daily Wireto speak on campus just days after an infamous speech where he said that “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.” In response, the school changed some of its policies regarding affiliations between campus and national organizations, leading YAF to lose its official organization status. The group then lawyered up with Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom and sued for first amendment violations and discrimination.
While the lawsuit, in which Cassidy was named as a plaintiff, was eventually dismissed, the policy YAF took issue with was repealed before it ever even went into effect.
“UB backed down immediately,” Green says. “They seem to be afraid of their lawyers, but also trying to have this weird middle ground, trying to be this very open queer-friendly university but also wanting to have this very conservative, homophobic … group on campus.”
What Can Universities Do?
Shepherd and Boedy both say that while Kirk’s killing has emboldened campus conservatives in the short term, it’s unclear if and how that will continue.
“Whatever momentum or inertia was behind Charlie Kirk as a man, there’s evidence to me that that has died off,” Shepherd says. “Now, ideologues and funders, those people are still invested in stirring the pot and poking the fire and keeping it alive.”
Shepherd says that universities should be more courageous in calling out hate among their students.
“We’ve seen how administrators have buckled under pressure from free speech absolutists on the right,” Shepherd says. “What administrators and media organizations that cover higher ed can do is recognize right-wing hate speech for the threat that it is, and be brave enough to protect the speech of their most marginalized students.”
President Donald Trump directed the National Park Service (NPS) to remove the Rainbow Pride Flag from the Stonewall National Monument in New York City on February 5, 2026.
This came just one year after the NPS deleted all references to transgender and queer people from its website of the Stonewall National Monument through Trump’s executive order. The initialism that once read LGBTQ+ has been reduced to LGB, standing for lesbian, gay, and bisexual.
Local and state elected officials, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) and Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D), are planning to re-raise the Pride Flag in defiance of the president’s petty and cruel ban.
Many historians and activists place the beginning of the modern movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, an asexual equality at the Stonewall Inn, a small bar frequented by trans people, lesbians, bisexuals, gay males, street people, students, and others located at 53 Christopher Street in New York City’s Greenwich Village in late June 1969.
During his first and second regimes, Trump has issued several executive orders in his attempt to erase LGBTQ+ history, people, and identities from the U.S. experience. He has banned trans athletes from school and professional sports, from using the public facilities of their choice, and from choosing to have gender-affirming procedures to maintain their bodily autonomy.
Government documents, including passports, visas, and employee records, can only show “male” or “female.” The government will no longer pay for trans-related health care, such as for government employees, military personnel, or federal prisoners.
In addition, Trump ordered all transgender women incarcerated in federal prisons to be thrown into male prison facilities.
In another of Trump’s orders, the federal government will no longer even recognize the existence of trans people and will prevent federal funds from being spent on any programs that do so.
The order says, “Federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology,” and it directs the Bureau of Prisons to revise its policies to ensure that federal inmates do not receive “any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”
Trump has threatened to kick out trans service members from the military. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has banned Rainbow flags from flying in U.S. embassies.
Aspect of Anti-DEI Attacks
Trump’s assaults on queer people must not be seen in isolation, for they are directly connected with his attacks on programs and policies related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in governmental and private institutions. He has supported the banning of books and other curricular materials, training procedures, written policies, and other concerns in schools and in the workplace meant to ensure cultural sensitivity and understanding.
He has transformed the terms within the concept of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” into accusations and epithets for “unqualified,” “low experience,” “low education,” “low expectations,” “anti-white,” “anti-male,” and “anti-Christian” regarding workplace quality and performance.
In reality, however, to paraphrase the National Association for Multicultural Education: “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is a philosophical and educational model founded on principles of freedom, justice, equality, equity, and the empowerment of human agency, integrity, and dignity as illuminated in respective key documents, including the United States Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights. DEI affirms a standard of governmental, educational, and business policies and practices in organizing and sustaining positive, warm, and welcoming places essential in a democratic society. It values the many social and cultural differences and identities and prizes the pluralism that all people bring.”
What is more “pro-American” and “patriotic” than programs and people who are attempting to bring about the promise of our founding documents? In most social change efforts, however, opposing forces have launched a fierce, sustained backlash to roll back progress, as we are seeing now with DEI initiatives.
Trump, however, opposes the iconic motto of the United States, e pluribus unum (out of many, one), in favor of his “unitary executive theory,” which dictates total control of the federal executive branch.
While in the Oval Office during his first term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order in September 2020 banning DEI programs in government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and other institutions that held or applied for federal contracts. The stated purpose of the order was to “combat offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping.”
Trump has literally and symbolically grabbed the bulldozer by the horns to demolish the White House East Wing and Rose Garden in addition to the pillars of accountability based on the constitutional “checks and balances” between the three supposedly equal and independent branches of the federal government and between the federal government and the states.
The limestone he layered over the once beautiful White House Rose Garden figuratively functions as an expensive taxpayer-financed gravestone that Trump has placed at the head of a multicultural United States.
Donald Trump – who serves his puppet master, Stephen Miller, and other right-wing ideologues through the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” – pushes his image of the United States as a patriarchal heteronormative mainline Protestant white nationalist country.
And yes, this same project is equivalent to the German Nazis’ concept of the “Aryan” power state controlled by the Nietzschean Übermenschenover all others, the Letzter Menschen, also known as the subaltern – the marginalized, excluded from access to power.
As we are about to commemorate the 250th birthday of the United States of America on July 4th of this year, we stand at an inflection point in which we must decide as a nation whether we are truly unique among the nations across the globe organized and dedication to the philosophy of e pluribus unum, or whether we are maintained on the rule of a specific ethnicity, race, gender, sexual identity, or creed.
New analysis from trans journalist and researcher Jessica Kant has found that Fox News publishes more articles about trans people than any other media outlet in the country. And that includes LGBTQ+ publications.
The findings bolster what Democrats have long argued, that it’s actually Republicans who are obsessed with trans people and not the other way around. Kant also noted that right-leaning publications produce far more articles on trans people than the mainstream media.
“Our annihilation has become a central organizing principle of the Republican Party,” Kant wrote in her analysis, which used her research to unpack how the right “manufactured the illusion of a dangerous all-powerful enemy out of a tiny demographic with no political influence, financial resources, nor social capital.”
She called this effort “the outrage factory,” for which the anti-trans movement has crafted a library of misleading, fearmongering, and outright false stories designed to give Americans a common enemy.
“Every time I think I’ve scratched the surface… I lose an entire weekend combing through stacks of awfulness that takes a whole bank of monitors to see,” Kant wrote.
She found that, each year since 2023, Fox News produced more articles than there were days in the year, which comes out to multiple per day.
“While the post-mortem of the 2024 election endlessly cited the ‘Kamala is for they/them‘ attack ad as the tipping point,” she explained. “This elides the fact that even if this were said tipping point, it was only because not a single day passed from 2023 onward where Americans weren’t bombarded with articles about trans people that were at best negatively-valenced, at worst outright libel and incitement.”
“By the time that particular match was lit, the entire United States had become a densely packed powder keg.”
Kant explained that the right-wing media machine has focused on “emphasiz[ing] the absurd” to fuel anti-trans outrage. Her research, she said, shows that “any attempt at accuracy or veracity has gone completely out the window, with a chillingly familiar trend towards the bombastic that has led to pogroms at other times in history.”
She defines confirmation bias as the tendency “to equate how closely something aligns with their pre-existing views with its veracity.” So when people who had already bought into the anti-trans fearmongering heard the president’s lie, “the fact that this is not only absurd but logistically impossible did little to stop the spread,” she said.
“That procedures which take full operating rooms, a dozen staff and as many hours in the OR, alongside week long admissions and months of healing could be done in the course of a school day without anyone being the wiser should have permanently burned the credibility of the world’s most notoriously dishonest man. But it was rhetorically useful, and because it was useful, it made it to print.”
In the end, Kant emphasized that the absurd not only causes outrage, but also, “the absurd sells.”
“Why do conservatives believe that we’re everywhere, hiding in the bushes? Because powerful people won’t stop claiming it’s true, even if evidence to the contrary is everywhere.”
Kant also blamed news aggregators like Yahoo! (which she said “doesn’t try to distinguish between factual or reputable outlets and tabloids, and serves as a laundering mechanism for the latter”) and MSN for failing to discern between legitimate news articles and blog-like posts fueled by disinformation.
“MSN’s news portal is automatically piped to every Windows computer on the planet simultaneously,” she said, “with news alerts on start menus and push notifications displaying extremist websites alongside the Associated Press.”
Video content has also become a huge spreader of anti-trans vitriol. In 2025, Kant found that 108 videos from Fox spread anti-trans rhetoric.
“A single outlet, the one which happens to be the favorite of the president of the United States, can’t stop talking about us,” she concluded. “That’s the outrage factory.”
A new poll shows – like many recent polls – that the public has turned largely against transgender people’s rights.
The poll from the liberal publication The Argument found broad opposition to transgender rights among U.S. registered voters, with only around a third of Americans supporting letting trans kids get puberty blockers with parental consent and a doctor’s recommendation. Over half supported requiring trans people to use the restroom associated with their sex assigned at birth. And a large majority – 60% – supported trans sports bans.
Meanwhile, it has become pretty popular among certain people on the left to accuse Democrats, who have largely held the line in favor of trans equality, of wanting to abandon trans people. This is in spite of Democrats in Congress getting anti-trans riders taken out of appropriations bills again and again, as Republicans have used those bills to attack trans rights for the past several years. This is after state legislatures vote either strictly or almost entirely along party lines when it comes to anti-trans bills, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed.
Usually, the evidence cited for the Democrats’ supposed perfidy is a handful of statements on some podcasts over the past year. Rahm Emanuel’s name is often brought up as an example of how Democrats turned their backs on trans people, even though he hasn’t held elected office in years.
Gov. Gavin Newsom | Screenshot
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is the big exception to this, but even he has signed more pro-trans legislation into law than any other governor. While he made some bad statements about trans kids in sports on multiple podcasts last year, he hasn’t actually done anything with those views in terms of policy. California still has some of the strongest protections for trans kids in the country, and Newsom hasn’t so much as called for the state to pass a trans sports ban.
Considering that the Democrats are on the currently unpopular side of this issue – especially when it comes to school sports – it’s frankly astonishing that large swaths of Democratic elected officials haven’t broken ranks.
That hasn’t stopped people from criticizing Democrats for doing so online. One example of this mentality is Hasan Piker, an influential left-wing streamer (who is cis and straight) who got so mad at Democrats for allegedly abandoning trans people that he said they wanted to kill trans people.
“Trans people would not be safer under a Kamala Harris administration,” Piker said late last year, after Donald Trump had spent the year tearing apart all the trans protections put in place by the Biden-Harris administration. He accused Harris of making “concessions to transphobia” without specifying what they were, despite the fact that Trump made her support for trans rights a major issue in the 2024 elections.
And Piker is back in the news again, this time responding to a trans woman (Media Matters’ Ari Drennen) who pointed out that voting against Democrats in 2028 will undoubtedly hurt trans people.
“You’re yelling at one of the few people that does give a f**k about trans people,” Piker said on a stream last week, scolding Drennen. “They don’t give a f**k about you. They would literally shoot you in the f**king head if it meant it would secure them electoral wins. Shut the f**k up!”
Hasan Piker arrives for the ‘Jane’ Los Angeles Premiere on October 9, 2017 in Hollywood, California. | Shutterstock
So here we are in 2026: a decent-sized contingent on the left truly believes Democrats would sell trans people out if it would get them a single vote, to the point that they’re willing to curse out actual trans people. Meanwhile, there is a ton of evidence that Democrats actually could get a few more votes if they sold trans people out, but they have, by and large, not done so.
Democratic electeds are also more likely to meet with activists who support trans rights, to meet with trans constituents who lobby them for their votes, to hear trans people’s stories… in short, to live in a media and social ecosystem that supports equal rights for all.
Another part is that, despite the knee-jerk cynical comments people make, Democratic elected officials often go into politics with a strong sense of morality, and poll numbers aren’t going to be enough to get them to abandon equal rights for all.
Last, while the poll numbers show a lack of support for trans rights, that hasn’t translated into votes. A couple of GOP campaigns last year leaned heavily into transphobia, and they lost. Some polling shows that, while Americans don’t necessarily support trans rights, they also don’t care that much about them.
So even if this is a losing issue for Democrats, they don’t have much of a reason to change their positions. And those Democrats who hold the line are unlikely to be removed from office.
And this is how Democratic elected officials ended up far to the left of their constituents when it comes to trans issues.
Republicans won big in 2024, and the results have been disastrous for trans people. Trump ordered all the executive departments and offices he controls to stop recognizing the existence of trans people. He has weaponized the federal government to go after state and local support for trans youth when it comes to their access to health care, their ability to get an equal education (including sports education), and their privacy. He banned trans people from serving in the military, stopped trans people from getting the correct gender markers on passports, and has made it a lot harder for trans people seeking safety to come to the U.S.
Because voters decided not to give Democrats any federal power for two years, they can’t do much about it other than fight these fights at the state and local levels.
To turn this ship around in 2028, it’s going to require people to make an honest assessment of where the parties stand. And if Democrats are doing this much in the face of negative public opinion, imagine what they’d do if the public actually supported equality.
Throughout history, the belief that homosexuality is a disease that needs treatment has been pervasive. During the Cold War, the moral panic from the “lavender scare” caused many folks to view homosexuals as national security risks. And many still believe that homosexuality is a threat to the nuclear family.
Since at least the 1800s, doctors and religious organizations have createdvarious types of conversion therapy in an effort to cure LGBTQ people. But over time, the practice has become widely condemned by major medical organizations, 24 states have banned it for minors and a United Nations expert has said it “may amount to torture.”
Despite this, the Supreme Court appears set to overturn Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy in a case that was brought forth by Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).
The history and development of conversion therapy is long and complex. To make sense of it, here’s a timeline of key events over the last 140 years.
1886
Richard von Krafft-Ebing. Photo from the National Library of Medicine.
German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing publishes “Psychopathia Sexualis,” a foundational sexology text that describes homosexuality as a psycho-neuropathic degenerative illness. Krafft-Ebing attempts to convertpatients to heterosexuality through hypnosis. The practice marks an early foundation of what later becomes known as conversion therapy and reflects the medical community’s early efforts to find a cure for homosexuality.
“The experience of getting to personally know and work with such a great number of homosexual individuals made him change his initial views that same-sex desire was caused by hereditary degeneracy and accompanied by mental affliction and moral corruption. He came to the conclusion that most of his subjects were physically, mentally, and morally healthy, and that homosexuality was not the result of mental illness.”
1897
Magnus Hirschfeld, who was dubbed the “Einstein of Sex,” was unique in an era when people tried to cure LGBTQ people because he used science to argue against homophobia. In his 1902 “psychobiological questionnaire,” for example, he sought to provide data to show that homosexuals weren’t mentally ill. In 1897, he founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, the first LGBTQ rights organization, which had the motto: “Through science to justice.” Rather than trying to cure a patient’s homosexuality, he provided consultations to patients, often free of charge. Notably, Hirschfeld—who founded the Institute for Sexual Research in 1919—was the first documented physician in the world to provide hormone treatments and modern gender-affirming surgery to transgender folks. His work, however, would be tragically short lived when the Nazi’s destroyed the institute in 1933.
German psychiatrist, physician and paranormal researcher Albert von Schrenck-Notzing claims he turned gay men straight through 45 sessions of hypnosis and trips to the brothel. Schrenck-Notzing’s theory stems from the now debunked idea that behavioral modification—such as forcing patients to engage in heterosexual activity with sex workers—could cure homosexuality.
1913
Abraham Brill. Photo from the National Institutes of Health.
“Of the abnormal sexual manifestations that one encounters none, perhaps, is so enigmatical and … so abhorrent as homosexuality. … I can well recall my first scientific encounter with the problem, ten years ago, when I met a homosexual who was a patient in the Central Islip State Hospital. Since then I have devoted a great deal of time to the study of this complicated phenomenon.”
Brill claims that “curing” homosexuality is possible, worth pursuing and that he’s achieved it multiple times. He distinguishes himself by practicing psychoanalysis and by criticizing physical “treatments” his peers experiment with, such as bladder washing, rectal massage and castration.
Physiologist Eugen Steinach and surgeon Robert Lichtenstern—who both believe that homosexuality is caused by the testicles—begin work on the connections between hormones and homosexuality and publish“Conversion of Homosexuality through Exchange of Puberty Glands.” The article describes an experiment in which Lichtenstern replaces the testes of homosexual men with those of heterosexual men. After the transplant, they study the men’s sexual tendencies and conclude that heterosexual inclinations replace homosexual ones following surgery. However, the surgeon’s varying results lead medical professionals to doubt the validity of their findings.
In “THE PSYCHOGENESIS OF A CASE OF FEMALE HOMOSEXUALITY,” Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, argues that homosexuality develops under specific conditions and describes conversion as unlikely. Unlike many of his predecessors, Freud does not see homosexuality as an illness or neurosis. He writes that “to convert a fully developed homosexual into a heterosexual does not offer much more prospect of success than the reverse.”
1930
Austrian physician and psychologist Wilhelm Stekel views homosexuality as a disease and publishes “Is Homosexuality Curable?” in The Psychoanalytic Review. Like Freud, he focuses on psychoanalysis and says that treatment works best when the patient wants it, writing:
“My experience during the past few years absolutely confirms my belief that homosexuality is a psychic disease and is curable by-psychic treatment. Tersely expressed: This disease in question is not a congenital condition but a psychic state which can be handled by treatment correctly applied.”
1952
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) defines homosexuality as a mental disorder in the first edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a book that outlines recognized mental disorders and provides symptoms and evaluation criteria. The DSM classifies it as a “sociopathic personality disturbance.” This fuels a new era of psychiatrists and psychoanalysts who offer theories and cures, including talk therapy; aversion therapy, such as electric shocks or nausea-inducing drugs; hypnosis; and—in some cases—lobotomies.
1956
Psychoanalyst Edmund Bergler claims that if gay people want to change and receive the right therapeutic approach, they can be cured in 90% of cases. He uses confrontational therapy and frames punishment and shame as part of treatment, saying homosexuals suffer from “psychic masochism.” He publishes books with titles such as “Homosexuality: Disease or Way of Life” and “Counterfeit-Sex: Homosexuality, Impotence, Frigidity.”
“[He] pathologized homosexuality as a psychological illness and a moral failing, reinforcing the stigmatizing narratives about same-sex desire in mid-20th-century psychiatry. By sensationalizing his work through inflammatory language, Bergler positioned himself as a moral crusader, blurring the line between scientific inquiry and ideological condemnation.”
1973
After years of pressure from gay activists, the APA finally removes homosexuality from the DSM. The removal prompts many medical professionals to distance themselves from conversion therapy techniques. However, the DSM still contains “sexual orientation disturbance”—which would later be renamed “ego-dystonic homosexuality”—referencing individuals who are conflicted about their sexuality. For the next 14 years, this would serve as a backdoor to legitimizing conversion therapy as a valid practice.
Frank Worthen. Screenshot via Homosexual Confusion Redeemed.
A so-called “ex-gay” Christian ministry, Love in Action—also known as Restoration Path—is co-founded by Frank Worthen, who describes himself as a former homosexual.
One of their programs, Refuge, was a two-to-six week conversion therapy camp. Participants—mostly teenage boys—would spend their days engaging in acts such as “healing touch,” where the organization’s leaders would cradle and rock the boys in an effort to cure them.
In 2005, 16-year-old Zach Stark, who was a participant, wrote on his MySpace blog: “Even if I do come out straight, I’ll be so mentally unstable and depressed it won’t matter.”
The APA removes “ego-dystonic homosexuality” from the DSM-III-R, with experts arguing:
“If there are no categories of mental disorders for short people who are unhappy with their height, eye colour or complexion, then why should there be one for distress related to sexual orientation?”
1991
Joseph Nicolosi.
American clinical psychologist Joseph Nicolosi publishes “Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality: A New Clinical Approach.” In the book, Nicolosi advocates for conversion therapy for “non-gay homosexuals,” or people who face conflict due to the societal stigmatization of their sexuality and—as a result—do not want to be gay.
1992
Alongside psychiatrists Charles Socarides and Benjamin Kaufman, Nicolosi launches the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality. The organization positions itself against mainstream medical views of sexuality and aims to “make effective psychological therapy available to all homosexual men and women who seek change.”
1998
Family Research Council, the American Family Association and 13 other far-right Christian groups spend $600,000 to promote the effectiveness of conversion therapy through full-page newspaper ads, including in The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Family Research Council Director of Cultural Studies Robert Knight describes the ads as the “Normandy landing in the culture war.”
A few months later, the APA releases a position statement formally rebuking any “reparative” or “conversion” therapy designed to change a person’s sexuality. The position states that reparative therapy runs the risk of harming patients by causing depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior. The APA joins the American Psychological Association, the American Association of Social Workers and the American Academy of Pediatrics in making a policy against reparative therapy.
2001
U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher issues a report stating that “there is no valid scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed.” That same year, American psychiatrist Robert Spitzer publishes a study that claims highly motivated homosexual people can become primarily heterosexual with the help of reparative therapy.
2009
The American Psychological Association adopts a resolution stating that patients should not be advised they can change their sexuality and that treatments predicated on homosexuality being an illness promote harm. Judith M. Glassgold, the chair of the task force, says:
“There is insufficient evidence to support the use of psychological interventions to change sexual orientation.”
Exodus International, a major “ex-gay” faith-based ministry network that expanded into hundreds of local ministries since it was founded in 1976, publicly renounces conversion therapy. Their president, Alan Chambers, says, “We do not subscribe to therapies that make changing sexual orientation a main focus or goal.” Shortly after, Chambers would close the organization and apologize to participants for the “hurt” its programs caused.
That same year, Spitzer recants his study: “I owe the gay community an apology for my study making unproven claims of the efficacy of reparative therapy.”
In just the first year of the second Trump administration, the federal government has taken action to pull back or erase key sources of data about LGBTQ people. These data losses are occurring as the administration aggressively advances an anti-LGBTQ—and particularly anti-transgender—policy agenda.
New research by The Williams Institute finds that approximately 360 federal data collections have removed at least one sexual orientation and/or gender identity (SOGI) measure, the majority of which specifically target transgender, nonbinary, and gender expansive people.
In response, today the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) released a new report that reviews recent progress in federal LGBTQ data collection, documents the scope and consequences of current demographic data removals and rollbacks, and outlines strategies and resources to promote accountability and responsible data governance in an increasingly hostile federal environment. A Shifting Data LandscapeAfter years of substantial progress to strengthen federal data collection on underserved communities, including LGBTQ populations, under the Biden administration, President Trump’s Executive Order 14168 quickly sought to dismantle any and all institutionalized improvements in federal SOGI data collection processes. The executive order, which seeks to redefine sex for all federal policy purposes as binary and immutable, led to federal agencies removing SOGI data measures on existing data collections, prohibiting their future collection, and stopping ongoing methodological research.
The report explains the critical nature of these data, which enable policymakers, researchers, and service providers to identify disparities, allocate resources equitably, and deliver effective programs and services that respond to the needs of LGBTQ communities. The systematic removal of these measures renders LGBTQ people and their experiences invisible, obscuring the real-world harms and other impacts of policy decisions. Recent ChangesDue to 83% of SOGI removals not undergoing a formal public notice-and-comment period, little public visibility has been given to these changes. The report includes a list of concrete examples of removals that have occurred over the past 12 months, including the Household Pulse Survey, American Housing Survey, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the National Crime Victimization Survey, and many more.
In addition, the report brings attention to the Census Bureau’s recent decision to halt research assessing the feasibility of adding gender identity measures to the American Community Survey, the nation’s premier survey used to shape evidence based policy decisions, allocate trillions of dollars in public resources, and support enforcement of civil rights laws to protect people from discrimination. Hiding Harms & Masking Policy Impacts The elimination of federal LGBTQ data is part of a larger agenda. That agenda includes cuts to Medicaid, restrictions on gender-affirming care, cancelation of LGBTQ health research dollars, elimination of civil rights protections and attempts to deny the reality that transgender, nonbinary, gender expansive, and intersex people exist and have rights under the law. When SOGI data are selectively erased, altered, or suppressed, it becomes harder to track disparities, enforce civil rights laws, allocate resources fairly, or evaluate whether policies are working as intended.
“Removing SOGI data is not a neutral administrative change; it is a mechanism that obscures harm, limits accountability, and weakens the evidence base needed for effective and equitable policymaking and governance. The rapid elimination of these critical data ensures that harms driven by these anti-LGBTQ policies are more difficult to detect, measure, and challenge.”
— Caroline Medina, MAP’s Senior Advisor for Data Policy and Strategy
Moreover, the increased misuse and weaponization of data has led to increased distrust by underserved communities, which discourages participation, degrading data quality, and reinforcing cycles of invisibility and exclusion.
While LGBTQ communities may be among some of the first to feel these harms, the consequences extend far beyond any single population. Paths Ahead Currently, a range of accountability efforts are underway to monitor data removals, challenge unlawful actions, and support ethical, responsible SOGI data collection both at and beyond the federal level.
As the federal government withdraws from collecting SOGI data, it is increasingly critical that states, nonprofits, academic institutions, and private entities ensure ethical, responsible, and well-governed data practices. The report offers recommendations for those interested in LGBTQ-inclusive data collection, in addition to a short list of resources that have been developed to help researchers, policy experts, advocates, and the public understand the evolving landscape of federal data collection, access inclusive datasets, support ongoing advocacy and accountability work, and promote good data governance.
“SOGI data are essential building blocks to help understand how policies are affecting real people, and where interventions are most urgently needed,” Medina added. “Taking action to promote accountability, scientific integrity, and transparency, while combating misuse and protecting communities, is paramount.”
To schedule an interview with a MAP researcher or for questions, please contact Dana Juniel at dana@mapresearch.org. # # # About MAP: MAP’s mission is to provide independent and rigorous research, insight and communications that help speed equality and opportunity for all. MAP works to ensure that all people have a fair chance to pursue health and happiness, earn a living, take care of the ones they love, be safe in their communities, and participate in civic life. www.mapresearch.org
Sgt. Deon Jones, a gay, 24-year veteran officer with the Department of Corrections (DOC) in Washington, D.C. got a big payout with the district’s decision last week to award him $500,000 to resign, effectively immediately.
The city admitted no fault in a lawsuit Jones brought that accused department and city officials of anti-gay discrimination.
It’s the third lawsuit Jones has filed against the same parties over his long tenure with the department, and the latest to yield a settlement. He previously sued in 2006 for discrimination and harassment, with the city settling in 2011. They settled another dispute over his treatment at the DOC in 2019.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed the latest complaint in 2021, along with the white-shoe law firm WilmerHale, representing the corrections officer.
Jones first began working for the DOC in 1992, was laid off in 2001, and returned in 2006. He retires from the city agency as a medical liaison with the rank of sergeant.
“This is a horrific pattern of discrimination and retaliation that was known to the highest-level officials and ignored,” Scott Michelman, the Legal Director of ACLU District of Columbia, said in 2021 when the latest suit was filed.
While working at the DOC-managed D.C. Jail, Jones “endured pervasive acts of harassment based on his sexual orientation” that were so bad, he eventually suffered more than 15 panic attacks and was diagnosed both with PTSD and Major Depressive Disorder, the ACLU said in a summary of the case that accompanied the complaint.
The lawsuit named Jones’ supervisors as well as D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) as defendants who enacted or failed to stop the “loss of wages, loss of benefits, mental anguish, emotional distress, personal humiliation, indignity, embarrassment, inconvenience, stigma, pain and suffering, and damages to [Jones’s] personal and professional reputations.”
Jones alleged that in addition to regular abuse and threats from inmates, his own co-workers and fellow correctional staff called him slurs and verbally abused him: some told Jones they “don’t like f**got[s] or sissies,” and “hate working with f**gots.” The complaint alleged he was repeatedly called “f**got, “old f**got,” “f**got mess,” and “d**k eater” by DOC co-workers and even senior staff.
Not only did Jones receive verbal disrespect, but he often had his “safety at risk” because other officers refused “to answer his calls for assistance over the internal radio system when he was responding to inmates or attempting to execute his duties,” according to the complaint.
Jones also alleged that he was “almost raped” when he was left alone in an elevator with “an inmate who said he would cut my throat.” He said a supervisor was on duty at the time, but did nothing to help him.
“For years, I showed up to do my job with professionalism and pride, only to be targeted because of who I am,” Jones said after the award was announced. “This settlement affirms that my pain mattered — and that creating hostile workplaces has real consequences.”
Added the former officer: “For anyone who is LGBTQ or living with a disability and facing workplace discrimination or retaliation, know this: you are not powerless. You have rights. And when you stand up, you can achieve justice.”
Jayden is a 16-year-old Black queer teenager living in a low-income neighborhood on Atlanta’s west side. When he was unable to attend school because of his worsening panic attacks, he finally asked for help, but his cries went unanswered. The mental health system in this country wasn’t made for queer kids of color, which is why even when they go out to search for mental health care, too many are met with doors closed or closed minds.
Jayden isn’t real, but his story is. It is built from interviews, national survey data, and the experiences of BIPOC LGBTQ+ youth in low-income communities who tried, but failed, to access mental health care.Half of LGBTQ+ youth who said they wanted mental health care in the past year have been unable to get access to such resources and treatment.
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The result is an escalating crisis in which the young people who most stand to benefit from treatment for depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts are the least likely to get it.
According to the Trevor Project,Transgender and nonbinary (TGNB) youth in 2023 were nearly twice as likely to report anxiety (70% vs. 42%) and suicidal ideation (53% vs. 28%) compared to cisgender peers. This pattern persisted a year later in 2024.
This isn’t a story about lack of awareness or “kids being silent.” It is a piece that raises awareness and a call-to-action about systems designed at the intersections of racism, poverty, and anti-LGBTQ+ bias that determine who receives care, waits for it, or never gets access to it in the first place.
The Barriers No One Talks About
For some BIPOC queer young people, the obstacle to mental health care isn’t cost or access, it’s safety. For some, coming out to a therapist can result in being inadvertently (or directly) outed at home, judged by a provider, or being treated as if their identity is something that needs “fixing.”
When it comes to counseling, some young queer people of color say they steer clear not because they don’t believe in therapy, but because they’ve learned that medical spaces are not made for them. Instead, they’re there to observe, diagnose, or discipline them.
When mental health care professionals don’t understand racism, culture, or queerness, the burden changes. When receiving assistance, young people are expected to either explain themselves, defend themselves, or remain silent. In communities where therapy islooked down upon, the risk of it being misunderstood and punished far outweighs the possibility that it might be understood and helped.
It’s not that these kids don’t want help. It’s just that they are being asked to put themselves in harm’s way to get it.
The Provider Problem
There’s a shortage of qualified, affirming, and multicultural competent therapists forLGBTQ+ youth of color, where mental health services are available.
The vast majority of providers are trained to focus on treating white, cisgender, middle-class patients, leaving BIPOC LGBTQ+ youth in challenging positions of having to “translate” their identity and their traumatic experiences for someone who doesn’t share or may not fully comprehend their world.
Instead of getting relief, many young people say therapy is yet another place where they’re misgendered, stereotyped, or corrected, or where their life experience is talked about as if it were something that exists only in a dusty textbook.
Some youths have reported not sharing their whole self because the emotional labor of educating a therapist felt heavier than whatever mental health issue brought them in the door. The takeaway is this:representation in mental healthcare isn’t a bonus; it’s a barrier when absent.
The Cost of Care
For low-income LGBTQ+ youth of color, therapy isn’t just emotionally out of reach; it’s financially unfeasible. Even a “cheap” therapist charges $80 to $120 per session, but treatments can go for months, so that adds up.
For many families,Medicaid is the only insurance available. Yet, most private therapists won’t accept it, and those who will are often so booked up that they can’t take new patients for months.
According to the Trevor Project,forty percent of LGBTQ+ youth cannot afford mental health care. For children who don’t have access to their own money, health insurance, or even transportation, the idea of ‘just finding a therapist’ is more than an inconvenient privilege masquerading as advice.
Mental health care costs don’t stop after the session fee is paid. There are prices of drugs, bus fares, telehealth data costs, and the psychological cost of soliciting help from a system that already doesn’t include you.
When your family is deliberating whether to spend on groceries or rent, a $100 therapy hour is not “care,” it’s math.
Why Intersectionality Matters
BIPOC LGBTQ+ youth inhabit the intersection of both race and sexuality, and it’s at that crossroad where systems leave them out in the cold. The mental health care system in the United States is designed around whiteness, wealth, and heteronormativity, which means that anyone who doesn’t fit into those categories will have to fight their way into a system that was never meant for them.
Multiple systems of oppression influence Queer POCs’ lives. “The most relevant social systems of oppression for an individual, group, or community depend on their unique identity intersections … and the social contexts in which they are embedded.” They experience racism not separate from queerness; poverty not separate from identity. These facts pile up, overlap, and compound one another.
A queer youth are traversing medical racism, class barriers, and a broader culture of silence all at once. By flattening identities, we flatten the harm and erase the very youth who are most affected.
What’s Being Done (and What Isn’t)
There are people and programs committed to closing the gap, but not in sufficient quantity to meet the crisis.Community-based organizations, particularly those run by queer people of color, are among the service providers that fill in where the mental-health system won’t go.
Many programs intended to provide support are underfunded and understaffed. They are forced to function like Band-Aids on a systemic gaping hole. Meanwhile, state and federal-level funding continues to pour into other institutions. The solutions exist. What’s needed is investment and scale, and political will.
The reality is that communities have been doing the work all along. It’s the system that won’t catch up. The true crisis isn’t that BIPOC LGBTQ+ youth are suffering. Instead, it’s the structures designed to help them that are choosing not to.
Whenever care is denied to a BIPOC LGBTQ+ youth, the country is asking them to be “strong,” “hang on,” or “reach out again.” Resiliency is not a treatment plan, and access to mental health care should not depend on your zip code, race, insurance status, or whether a provider thinks your identity is valid.
The question now is not whether this crisis is real, but whether we’re willing to fix it, and it starts by revamping the system that keeps on shutting them out.
Toy Ingram is a 24-year U.S. Army veteran whose life experiences have shaped a passion for promoting social justice and activism in the community.
The UK’s asylum system’s designation of Nigeria as a “safe country” poses real risk to queer Nigerians facing persecution, reporter Daniel Anthony outlines for PinkNews.
Under UK asylum policy, Nigeria is treated as a country that is generally stable rather than affected by civil war, active conflict, or a failing government. It is listed as a safe country of origin for men, meaning UK authorities presume that, in general, there is no serious or widespread risk of persecution or indiscriminate violence.
However, for queer Nigerians, this perception of safety is misleading and dangerous.
In Nigeria, safety can disappear with a whisper, a hint of effeminacy, a phone search, a neighbour’s suspicion, or the arrival of police who know that Nigeria’s homophobic laws will protect them and justify whatever horrific fate they are about to impose on you.
Nigeria prohibits same-sex relationships under federal law. The Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act (SSMPA), enacted in 2014, criminalises same-sex relationships and in several northern states, Sharia-based penal codes impose severe penalties, including the death penalty.
Weeks later, in September, a young gay man named Hillary was thrown from a three-story building to his death because of his sexual orientation. Earlier this year, during New Year celebrations in northern Nigeria, two underage girls were stoned to death after being accused of lesbianism, without evidence, trial, or mercy.
Perhaps the most widely reported case is the murder of Abuja Area Mama, a well-known TikTok creator and LGBTQI+ figure. In August 2024, her stabbed and mutilated body was found by the roadside in Nigeria’s capital. No suspects have been identified, and the case remains unsolved — a grim reminder of how easily fatal violence against queer people fades into silence.
Often, violence against queer people in Nigeria is not condemned but celebrated. Videos of beatings, abuse and public humiliation circulate widely online, filmed by bystanders and shared for entertainment. Comment sections fill with applause, mockery, and calls for harsher punishment, signalling that violence against LGBTQI+ people is not only tolerated but socially rewarded. In this environment, harm is learned early, repeated often, and carried out with impunity — collapsing any meaningful distinction between mob violence and state violence.
Rights groups say this is not exceptional. In 2023, more than 1,000 violationsbased on real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity were recorded, and in 2024, civil society monitors documented 556 violations affecting over 850 people — a snapshot they believed to represent only a fraction of actual unreported incidents.
One common form of abuse is “KITO”, where queer men are lured online, taken to private locations, beaten, filmed, and blackmailed — with videos sent to families and threats of exposure or death if ransoms are not paid.
Survivors report that this cycle of abuse, which accounts for about 70 per cent of the mistreatment of queer individuals in Nigeria, has driven many victims to despair and suicide.
One gay man from Nigeria, now living in the UK after being granted asylum, described how a “KITO” attack permanently altered the course of his life, an experience that left him deeply traumatised and suicidal.
“That incident ruined my life,” he told me. “I tried taking my own life, but it didn’t work. I was depressed and I became a shadow of myself.”
He said the psychological damage outlasted the physical violence. Returning to daily life in Nigeria after his exposure meant living under constant ostracization, repeated attacks, and public scrutiny.
“There was no safety after that,” he said. “You’re just waiting for the next thing to happen.”
With the help of a friend, he eventually fled and sought asylum in the UK.
The contrast, he said, was stark.
“I spent 30 years of my life in Nigeria. But in just over a year here, I’ve had more peace than I ever had back there,” he said. “I would rather jump in front of a speeding bus — than relive that experience again. That kind of life, I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.”
What haunts him most, he added, is not only what he survived, but the people he left behind.
“There are still men like me back there, dealing with this every day,” he said. “That’s what breaks my heart.”
This is the reality many queer Nigerians are fleeing — and the context UK asylum policy increasingly fails to account for.
Under the UK government’s proposed asylum reforms, safety is being treated as a fixed for a nation, assessed from a distance and applied broadly. As the asylum system tightens, claims are judged less on lived risk and more on whether a country is deemed generally “safe”.
For LGBTQI+ Nigerians, whose danger is constant and systemic, this approach is especially dangerous.
In practice, this logic misreads how persecution operates. The violence enabled by Nigeria’s Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act — police extortion, arbitrary arrests, mob attacks — is routinely treated as incidental rather than structural. When asylum seekers raise these experiences in the UK system, they are often dismissed as isolated incidents or deemed insufficiently severe, leaving LGBTQI+ applicants with an almost impossible evidentiary burden.
This is where the UK’s latest reforms, which would make refugee status contingent on a country of origin never becoming safe, become dangerous and further reinforce misconceptions. By relying more heavily on country-of-origin designations, the system shifts away from group-specific risk and toward blanket assessments that assume danger must be universal to be credible.
But queer persecution rarely works that way.
LGBTQI+ people are targeted precisely because they are minorities. Their persecution is localised, informal, and socially enforced — carried out by families, vigilantes, or corrupt officials rather than through formal state channels. These realities rarely leave paper trails and do not fit neatly into asylum frameworks that privilege documentation and national stability over lived risk.
How does one document a lynching that no authority investigated?
How does one prove the constant threat of exposure in a society, where queerness itself is treated as criminal intent?
Charities supporting LGBTQI+ asylum seekers warn that this gap routinely leads to wrongful refusals, even as the Home Office acknowledges that LGBTQI+ people from countries like Nigeria face persecution. Rainbow Migration has assisted Nigerians whose claims were rejected by the UK government on credibility grounds, overlooking the surveillance, blackmail, and violence faced by queer individuals in the country.
This is both a moral and legal failure. According to the 1951 Refugee Convention, individuals persecuted for their sexual orientation or gender identity are entitled to protection, regardless of their country’s overall safety. International law only requires that the risk of persecution is real and that the state fails to provide protection.
There is also a history that remains largely unacknowledged.
Nigeria’s criminalisation of same-sex relationships is rooted in British colonial rule, which imposed sodomy laws later absorbed into postcolonial legal systems and currently being reinforced by political and religious leaders. Yet when queer Nigerians seek asylum, Britain positions itself as a neutral evaluator of safety — without reckoning with its role in shaping the danger they are fleeing.
If the UK is genuinely committed to its human rights obligations, it must reject the misleading simplicity of “safe country” narratives. The safety of minorities cannot be determined by national averages. Asylum systems should be evaluated not on how effectively they exclude people, but on whether they adequately protect those who are most in need.
For queer Nigerians, asylum is not a policy abstraction. It is a vital lifeline.
