Despite Viktor Orbán winning re-election in Hungary, Budapest Pride refuses to be defeated.
Using anti-LGBT+ hate and propaganda as some of the cornerstones of his campaign, Viktor Orbán and his right-wing party, Fidesz, secured a fourth term in Sunday’s (3 April) general election.
The Fidesz government has become increasingly hostile to the queer community, banning same-sex adoption, ending legal gender recognition for trans people, and restricting content that depicts LGBT+ people.
On the same day as the election, Orbán sought to cement his latest attack on LGBT+ rights with a loaded referendum on inclusive education and trans kids. Though 90 per cent of voters backed Orbán’s position, there were not enough votes for it to become legally binding.
The election result was, understandably, troubling for LGBT+ Hungarians. Ahead of the vote, Vice interviewed a gay writer who was fleeing the country with his partner. He’s not the only person left feeling like there’s no alternative.
But Budapest Pride is determined to stay and fight.
“Don’t forget: you are not alone,” it wrote on Facebook.
“Hungary is not open to hate-mongering against LGBT+ people.”
Johanna Majercsik, a spokesperson for Budapest Pride, told PinkNews that the organisation is determined to continue its work, even in the face of government crackdowns.
“We talked a lot, but no one is packing,” she said. “As a team, we think that this is our responsibility. If something is ruined, or if someone ruins it, we don’t just leave it behind.”
Budapest Pride added in a statement: “Whatever policy the current government of Hungary follows, if they value our work or try to shut us down, we will be here and work for the interest of LGBTQ people.”
Though fleeing is an understandable response, Majercsik believes most LGBT+ people will stay in the country despite the election result.
“Leaving is a privilege,” she said. “And not everyone wants to go either: many wouldn’t leave their friends and family, the language behind.”
Majercsik noted that although the referendum was “invalid”, the government will present it as a victory.
“And I can imagine that they will frame it so they portray us as frivolous people who think that the institution of the referendum is a joke.”
Right now, Budapest Pride is focusing on organising its annual march, planned for July 23, and on providing housing and help for refugees from Ukraine.
The devolved governments in Wales and Scotland have expressed their commitment to banning “draconian” conversion therapy in all forms, in spite of Boris Johnson.
Johnson was widely condemned after first U-turning on plans to ban conversion therapy, before changing tack and promising that a ban would be forthcoming – though reportedly, it will now not include trans conversion therapy.
After initially stating that the government would pursue non-legislative measures against conversion therapy, a spokesperson told PinkNews on Friday (1 April): “The government has a proud record on LGBT rights, and the prime minister is committed to bringing forward legislation to ban conversion therapy.
“The content, scope and timing of the proposed bill will be confirmed in due course.”
Representatives for Wales and Scotland have both released official statements affirming their commitments to banning conversion therapy in the wake of the two U-turns.
Though Scotland is not affected by Boris Johnson’s plans – the UK government had already said its ban would be for England and Wales only – a minister said in a statement that the practice has “no place in our society”.
Christina McKelvie, minister for equalities and older people, said: “Conversion practices that try to change a person’s sexuality or gender identity are harmful, discriminatory, and have no place in our society.
“We are committed to ensuring Scotland has legislation that will be comprehensive in banning conversion practices as far as possible within our devolved competences while safeguarding the freedoms of speech, religion and belief.
“We are also considering what non-legislative steps we can take to end conversion practices, and support survivors.”
Wales has expressed its desire to ban conversion therapy even if it is not possible within the legislation Johnson will set out, stating that the Welsh government is seeking “urgent legal advice” on the action it is able to take as a devolved nation.
Deputy minister for social partnership, Hannah Blythyn, said: “Yesterday I became aware of UK government documents and a statement from Downing Street that Prime Minister Boris Johnson intended on abandoning the very clear commitments made to end the draconian practice of conversion ‘therapy’.
“It appears today that the rightful public backlash has resulted in a partial reversal of this minus the critical protections that were promised to the transgender community.
“This is unacceptable, and the partial U-turn is not a victory. The LGBTQ+ community stands as one, and none of us are equal while our rights are up for discussion or barter.
“Today, I can announce that the Welsh government will be commissioning urgent legal advice on the unilateral action we are able to take to ban conversion ‘therapy’. We will do all we can within our devolved powers to protect our LGBTQ+ community. We can no longer have faith that the UK government will do the same.
“We will also seek the devolution of any necessary additional powers required to see this through.”
Just weeks ago, on 4 March, equalities minister Mike Freer promised that a conversion therapy ban would be forthcoming, and that it would cover religious practices and all LGBT+ people – including trans people.
A public consultation document on the subject was published in October 2021, but the proposal contained loopholes which would permit “consenting” adults to undergo conversion therapy (experts say consent is not possible in such a scenario) and had religious carve-outs.
In the time that the UK has continued to delay, Canada, France, New Zealand and India have all put comprehensive bans on the practice in place.
The microstate of San Marino has just elected an openly gay head of state, becoming the first country in the world to do so.
Paolo Rondelli, 58, was elected one of two “captains regent” of San Marino, one of the world’s oldest and smallest republics which has just 34,000 inhabitants.
He was elected on 1 April and will share the position with Oscar Mina for six months. They will be presiding over the nations’ Grand and General General.
“I’ll probably be the world’s first LGBT+ head of state,” Rondelli said in a Facebook post. “And that’s how we crash…”
Rondelli is a deputy in the Grand and General Council, San Marino’s parliament. He was an ambassador to the US until 2016.
Furthermore, he is a vocal advocate for the rights of LGBT+ people, Monica Cirinnà, Italian senator and LGBT+ activist, said in a post.
“It’s a historic day, that fills me with joy and pride, because Paolo Rondelli will be the first head of the state belonging to the LGBT+ community, not only in San Marino, but in the world,” Cirinnà added.
Arcigay Rimini, an LGBT+ rights organisation based in neighbouring Rimini, thanked Rondelli for “his service to the LGBTI community” and for fighting “for the rights of all” in a Facebook post.
Though Rondelli is the first known LGBT+ head of state, many nations have elected queer heads of government, including Luxembourg’s prime minister, Xavier Bettel and the Serbian prime minister, Ana Brnabić.
Arcigay Rimini said it hoped that Italy will follow San Marino’s example “from this path of progress and civil rights”.
Italy has been criticised for being slow to take action on LGBT+ rights. Last year, its senate blocked a bill to tackle hate crimes against women, LGBT+ people and those with disabilities after an unprecedented intervention by the Vatican.
“It is expected that Italy should take an example from this path of civil progress and rights,” Arcigay Rimini added. According to ANSA, Rondelli was formerly a vice-president of the organisation.
San Marino introduced legal recognition for same-sex couples in 2016. This was a significant step for the state, where homosexuality was punishable by jail time until 2004.
San Marino was founded in the early fourth century. Surrounded by the Italian mountains, it is one of a few city-states in Europe that survived to the present day, along with Andorra, Liechtenstein and Monaco.
LGBT+ rights groups have filed a lawsuit against far-right French presidential candidate Éric Zemmour who say he denied gay Holocaust victims.
Zemmour, who is Jewish, is being sued by six LGBT+ organisations in the country: Inter-LGBT, SOS Homophobie, Stop Homophobie, Adheos, Quazar and Mousse.
The lawsuit stems from Zemmour’s latest book La France n’a pas dit son denier mot (“France has not said its final word”). The complaint highlights that a portion of the book claimed that the deportation of gay people in France due to their sexual orientation is a “legend”, NPRreported.
The lawsuit is the first time legal claims have been filed against an individual for denying that queer people were rounded up and deported during France’s occupation in the Second World War, according to a statement by the groups’ attorney Etienne Deshoulières.
The groups said the case against Zemmour is an “opportunity for LGBT+associations and historians” to form a front against the “denial of violence committed against homosexuals”.
“Éric Zemmour falsified history to justify his homophobic positions,” the statement continued. “He will have to answer for it before the French courts.”
However, representatives for Zemmour told France 24 that he was merely presenting another politician’s ideas, arguing “it is not Zemmour’s words that are cited in the book”. They described the lawsuit as an attempt to smear the far-right presidential candidate ahead of the first round of voting in the presidential election on 10 April.
According to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 men who were accused of homosexuality were deported to concentration camps. The UK-based charity reported that “most died in the camps”, “many were castrated” and some were “subjected to gruesome medical experiments”.
At least 500 men accused of homosexuality were arrested in France during the country’s occupation in World War II, according to academic research cited in the LGBT+ groups’ lawsuit. The research found that at least 200 men were deported during the German occupation.
This is not the first time that Éric Zemmour has been taken to court.
Zemmour has been convicted two times for hate speech and is appealing a third, the Guardian reported. The most recent conviction against him came in January after he said that child migrants were “thieves, killers” and “rapists”, adding “we should send them back”.
Cuba’s communist government is seeking to rally support for a new family code that would open the door to gay marriage and boost women’s rights, but experts and a recent survey suggest an upcoming referendum vote may not provide a rubber stamp.
The new code would legalize same sex marriage and civil unions, allow such couples to adopt children, double down on women’s rights, and promote equal sharing of domestic responsibilities. It also adds such novelties as prenuptial agreements and assisted pregnancy.
But the outcome of the referendum vote, slated for sometime this fall, is far from certain. The Cuban Roman Catholic Church has lashed out against gay marriage, saying the proposal is riddled with “gender ideology” and would lead to “indoctrination of children in schools without parental consent.”
In a major judgment issued this week, a United Nations treaty body called on Sri Lanka’s government to repeal its law criminalizing adult, consensual same-sex conduct – including between women.
The case was brought under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) by Rosanna Flamer-Caldera, an LGBT rights activist who faced harassment and discrimination for her sexual orientation and human rights advocacy on behalf of sexual and gender minorities.
The judgment by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women concerned Sri Lanka’s Penal Code, a relic of British colonial rule that dates to 1883. Section 365 punishes “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” with up to 10 years in prison and a fine. Section 365A punishes “any act of gross indecency” with up to two years in prison and a fine.
These provisions are widely understood to criminalize consensual sex between same-sex partners. Section 365A originally criminalized same-sex relations between men; however, the provision was amended in 1995 after the law was criticized for being discriminatory on the basis of sex, to include same-sex relations between women.
Many countries only criminalize same-sex relations between men, and at least 38 countries criminalize same-sex conduct regardless of sex or expressly criminalize sexual conduct between women. At least 10 countries have, since 1986, explicitly enacted laws that criminalize sex between women as well as men, sometimes perversely framing this as a gesture toward equality – such as in the case of Sri Lanka.
Around the world, laws that criminalize same-sex relations are being repealed as courts and governments recognize they are discriminatory and harmful – including the Indian Supreme Court striking down penal code section 377 in 2018.
In a 2016 report, Human Rights Watch documented that Sri Lanka’s penal code casts a shadow over LGBT people’s lives, impacting their ability to access health care and housing, and creates pressure to conceal and conform their identities.
The CEDAW committee judgment noted that “the criminalization of same-sex sexual activity between women in Sri Lanka has meant that [Flamer-Caldera] has had difficulties with finding a partner, has to hide her relations and runs the risk of being investigated and prosecuted in this context.”
With this call for change from the CEDAW committee, Sri Lanka should urgently repeal its outdated and discriminatory law.
In February news circulated that a 23-year-old transgender woman, Doski Azad, had been killed by her brother in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. I read the news, having just concluded my research on armed groups’ killings, abductions, torture, and sexual violence against LGBT people in Iraq, and thought, how can LGBT people get justice and accountability when they can be killed and abused with impunity, even in their own homes?
Over the past six months, I interviewed 54 LGBT Iraqis who have survived harrowing violence at the hands of Iraqi armed groups and the police. Some of them also had intimate knowledge of other LGBT Iraqis who had been killed or disappeared by armed groups due to their gender presentation or perceived sexual orientation.
Our new report documents 8 abductions, 8 attempted murders, 4 extrajudicial killings, 27 instances of sexual violence, 45 threats to rape and kill, and 42 cases of online targeting by armed units within the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), groups nominally under the prime minister’s control since 2016, against LGBT people in Iraq. In eight cases, abuses by armed groups and police were against children as young as 15. In thirty-nine cases, the victims were able to identify the armed group behind the attack against them.
The numbers are most likely much higher. The attackers are known. Yet, as with so many killings and disappearances in Iraq, the perpetrators have not been held accountable.
Many of the people I interviewed were young enough to have just graduated from high school, yet the fear and isolation they described stretched as far as they could remember. Most had never spoken to anyone about what had happened to them. I found myself on several occasions setting aside my interview questions and just talking to them. I listened to a 27-year-old gay man describe how his boyfriend was tortured in front of him. “Then they shot him five times,” he said.
The story of one 21-year-old gay man stayed with me. He survived an attempt to kill him in November 2019, while three masked men stabbed the friend who was with him to death. He told me, gasping for breath, “They kept screaming: ‘Faggot! Faggot! You are faggot scum and deserve to die.’ One of them stabbed me in the shoulder, and I still don’t know how, but I ran for my life.”
His own father broke both his knees while beating him with a baton after he found him chatting with a man online. He said his father forces him to work at a family-owned laundromat for 16 hours per day in an underground room he called “a dungeon.” His father gives him leftovers from others’ plates and had previously thrown food in the garbage and told him to find it there.
Or the 31-year-old Iraqi transgender woman who was on her way home from work when six men in a Hummer with tinted windows stopped her next to a garbage dump in Baghdad. “They pulled out a razor blade and a screwdriver and poked and cut me all over, especially my ass, crotch, and thighs,” she said. “They sliced me up and poured around five liters of gasoline all over my body and face and set me alight….”
Her neighbors rescued her. Today, scars from her burns stretch from her neck to her feet. “They wanted me dead,” she said. “They have constrained my body, and I cannot love or be loved….I even contemplated suicide.”
Another transgender woman who had been kidnapped, tortured, and gang-raped in June 2020 by a PMF group, told me that after her abduction she stopped eating, failed her university exams, and attempted suicide. “I feel like the walking dead,” she said.
Where does justice begin for these individuals? No Iraqi laws protect LGBT Iraqis from violence. In fact, some provisions of Iraq’s Penal Code, like articles 41(1) and 128, empower attackers against them under the pretext of “honor,” knowing that the attackers can and most likely will get away with it. All of the people I interviewed said they would not report violence against them to the authorities because they are terrified that they would be targeted again, dismissed by the police, or detained.
The Iraqi government is responsible for ending the bloodshed and impunity, and it should start by investigating all reports of violence by armed groups or others against all victims including LGBT people and publicly condemning all such violence. The justice system should prosecute and appropriately punish those found responsible.
The government should take all measures to end torture, disappearances, summary killings, and other abuses based on sexual orientation and gender expression and identity, and compensate the families of all victims of unlawful killings and survivors of serious abuse. Justice only begins there.
The Metropolitan Police made assumptions about “the lifestyles of gay men” in investigating the crimes of Stephen Port, according to a leaked report from the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC).
The unpublished report, seen by Channel 4 News, states that “the public cannot be satisfied that police are making decisions based on evidence and fact” because of the assumptions made in the investigation into Port, who murdered four gay men.
Port, known as a the “Grindr killer”, murdered Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor over a 15-month period in 2014 and 2015.
He approached his victims via dating apps before giving them fatal doses of the date rape drug GHB, and was finally sentenced to life in prison in 2016.
Last year, following a lengthy inquest, a jury ruled that there had been police “failures” in investigating Port’s crimes and, had they been avoided, some of his victims may still be alive.
But the leaked IOPC report tells a different story.
It states that officers made assumptions about “the lifestyles of gay men”, and adds: “The investigations into the four deaths reveal that assumptions were made and could have been based, consciously or unconsciously, on discriminatory views.”
The families of Stephen Port victims want an inquiry into whether there is institutional ‘homophobia’ within the Met
Although the idea that homophobia could have allowed Stephen Port’s murder spree to continue is reprehensible, it could come as some relief for the families of his victims.
A petition launched by the families, which has been signed by more than 42,000 people, is calling for an inquiry into homophobia in the Met, and for officers involved in the investigation to be harshly punished.
During the recent inquest, it was revealed that five police officers who were reprimanded for “performance failings” have since been promoted to more senior roles.
Furthermore, following Port’s arrest, nine detectives were told by the IOPC that their performance had “fallen below the standard required”.
Yet not a single officer was fired.
The petition reads: “We need justice for Jack, Anthony, Gabriel and Daniel.
“The families need justice. The officers need to be held accountable. They should not be in the positions of authority they currently hold.
“There is widespread homophobic and gender-phobic discrimination in the police forces, a full public inquiry should be launched to fully investigate the police failings and make an example of those who let down the families of Stephen Port victims.”
In December, a group of 18 MPs wrote a letter to then Met Police chief Cressida Dick to demand a public inquiry into whether the Met Police is “institutionally homophobic”.
They said: “The key question everyone is asking is yet to be answered – whether institutional homophobia in the Met played a role in these investigations… It is imperative that a public inquiry takes place urgently to consider if institutional homophobia played a role in this case.”
In a statement to Channel 4 News, a spokesperson for the Met Police said: “In an organisation of more than 44,000 people, we have already acknowledged there will be a small number with attitudes and beliefs that are not welcome in the Met; we will challenge, educate and discipline as appropriate.”
“We are concerned to hear that, anecdotally, the IOPC has learned some of our LGBT+ advisers have experienced discrimination from colleagues,” they added.
“This is a serious matter and we will be exploring this further.”
PinkNews has contacted the Met Police and the IOPC for comment.
A lesbian woman has been stabbed to death in Umlazi, South Africa, after reportedly rejecting a man’s advances, leaving the local community “very disturbed”.
IOL Daily News reported that 32-year-old Pinky Shongwe was stabbed to death while going to a local shop after an “unknown” man allegedly harassed her with unwanted advances.
A spokesperson for Umlazi police, lieutenant-colonel Nqobile Gwala, said that the case is now being investigated as a murder.
“She was found lying on the road and was taken to hospital where she succumbed to her injuries on arrival. The motive of the killing is unknown and the matter is still under investigation,” Gwala said.
A spokesperson for KwaZulu-Natal Social Development said he was “disturbed” to hear about the incident after several awareness campaigns for LGBT+ equality in the area.
Mhlaba Memela told IOL Daily News: “We are very disturbed to hear of another brutal murder of a lesbian woman.
“We are angry after our department has done a lot of public awareness campaigns to teach people to accept and live side by side with gays and lesbians. We have been telling people that gay and lesbian rights were protected by the constitution.
“We believe it is high time that our courts start treating this violence differently, and not be lenient when sentencing the perpetrators.”
The tragic stabbing comes after a slew of violent crimes against the LGBT+ population in South Africa in recent years, including the murder of another lesbian in September 2021 in an area only around 15 miles away from Shongwe’s killing.
Previous victims also include Lonwabo Jack, a 22-year-old gay man found tragically murdered on his birthday.
Nonhlanhla Khoza, a politician serving in the Department of Social Development, said in a 2021 statement: “We are deeply ashamed that, in our nation, we still have people facing discrimination based on their sexual orientation.
“This is a gross violation of basic human rights and we should unite to end such crimes.
“It must sink in the minds of all those involved in such crimes that no one has a right to take a life and abuse someone else because of their sexuality.
“Our government has made giant strides towards safeguarding LGBTQ+ rights. However, incidents similar to this one water down all efforts that have been made.”
As the world continues to watch the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine with horror, one question continues to plague the minds of queer activists in the West: what about the LGBTQ people?
Russian leader Vladimir Putin has a long record of oppression of the queer community from public humiliation and imprisonment to encouraging mob violence. Filmmaker David France documented Putin’s anti-gay campaign in his film Welcome to Chechnya [now streaming on HBO Max] which detailed queer oppression in the titular Russia-allied republic.
Will Ukraine face the same fate? We sat down with France to discuss the situation for LGBTQ people living in Russia and Ukraine, the state of the underground resistance, and how Vladimir Putin has declared all-out war on queer people. France also reveals how the same forces of oppression have infected the United States, and how preserving democracy may hold the only hope for LGBTQ people in the future.
Are you in contact with the Rainbow Railroad (an underground resistance that smuggles queer people out of Eastern Europe) in Ukraine?
I did just speak with David Isteev [from Welcome to Chechnya] who is doing rescues in the Caucasus. He wanted to talk about what was happening to queers in Russia because of the invasion.
So what’s the situation there?
They are despairing. I’ve never heard the kind of grimness from the folks I know that we’re hearing now. The entire leadership of the LGBTQ movement in Russia is now outside Russia.
They’ve all had to flee?
Correct. Not just because of the invasion, but there was also a crackdown in the months leading up. [The Putin government] has made it impossible for queer leaders to do their work, and they’ve strangled their source of funding. Now the borders are closed, so it’s not possible to move money into the country. It’s not possible to access the money they have in the country. And the people outside the country trying to help are delivering money to the border in cash.
Refugees fleeing Kiev. Via Shutterstock
I’m sure that carries a whole other set of risks.
Yes. And if they bring money in US dollars, is it possible to change it into rubles? And if it is rubles, it’s worth almost nothing.
So is the solution to escape?
Well, here’s another problem. It’s not possible to enter most countries without proving vaccination status, and with an approved vaccine. Almost nobody has approved Sputnik 5, the Russian vaccine, because they’ve never produced reputable data. So if you have Sputnik 5, you’re not getting into Europe.
Putin’s persecution of LGBTQ people is nothing new. Is this personal for him?
It is a strategy that works. 10 or 15 years ago, he discovered the more he spoke against queer folks, the more he generated a divide that turned people against people, instead of against the government.
Putin said he wants to install a new government in Ukraine. How safe is it to believe he would install a leader similar to the one he appointed in Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov?
Well, Putin has been using an anti-queer plank in Ukraine for the past decade alleging that if Ukraine joins NATO, they will have to recognize marriage equality. And in some corners, it has worked. It worked with the Russian Orthodox Church—in the past week, they’ve come out in favor of the invasion and against “the gay agenda.”
So what you’re actually saying—Putin’s fighting an international war on LGBTQ people?
Absolutely true. He’s saying modernity and liberalism equal queerness. He’s pulling the Iron Curtain closed again to resist the queer movement. It’s that central.
The Western media implies that the invasion of Ukraine is unpopular in Russia…
Well, from what I understand from my Russian friends is just the opposite. The people they talk to, family, for example, don’t believe [the invasion] is happening.
Pro-Ukrainian independence/LGBTQ protest. Via Shutterstock.
They don’t believe the war is real?
Correct. They have no access to Western or social media. The Kremlin made it a crime to report on Ukraine. People don’t have any reason to believe there is a war unless they have children coming back in body bags.
That’s a total page out of the Stalinist playbook.
That’s why it’s an Iron Curtain—you can’t communicate. And so many young Russians have great experiences traveling across Europe. They’re very integrated into world culture. And those are the people protesting in little pockets here and there. But between 10-15,000 have been arrested. People are just disappearing for saying there’s a war.
So let me ask you then: there seems to be this link between autocracy and autocratic-type leaders and homophobia or anti-queer sentiment. Why?
People want to know what’s causing their problems. It just turns out that it works if you say queers are to blame. Since Putin started his return to power on the backs of the queer community, other leaders take note. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is doing that in Hungary. It’s happening in Poland. It’s a successful campaign in Belarus. And Trump discovered you could do it here.
Indeed.
It’s a huge shock. For those of us that saw 50 years of LGBTQ civic engagement and thought it was a permanent victory are having to reckon with it getting rolled back. Look what just happened in the Virginia Governor’s race.
Or Florida. Or Texas. Or Georgia.
Mmhmm. And what’s happening to queers in Ukraine—many queer Russians had fled there. The LGBTQ community had a stronghold there, and now that’s at risk. Putin’s state department issued a “kill list” for invading forces to round up and kill political leadership in the country as well as LGBTQ leaders. They gave the hit list to an elite force out of Chechnya. And men can’t get out of Ukraine. They’re terrified.
What’s happening now has people scared. Will Putin go for broke? Will he level Kiev? Will flatten Odessa? Will he drop a nuclear bomb?
Russian bombing in Kiev. Via Shutterstock.
Well, if he drops a nuclear bomb, we all have a lot more to worry about.
Yes. And that’s why everyone is praising the Ukrainian resistance, but talking about [Putin’s] “off ramp.” He may feel like he has no choice but to throw everything at it. And if the West gives him Ukraine, what does that mean [for the rest of Eastern Europe]?
Is there anything we can do in the West?
We need to start talking about how queer panic is being weaponized as the chief articulation of Putin’s dissent for his own military actions. Continue to support the Rainbow Railroad. They’re not solving problems, but they are creating a pipeline for flight. That saves lives. And look to LGA Europe and LGA Asia. They’re doing important work too.
So then, how much of the future of LGBTQ equality is tied to democracy?
It is plain that where democracy is strong, our movement has been successful. There’s a 100% correlation. But crushing democracy in Ukraine will only harm queers there along with everybody else. Putin and his oligarchs have sucked trillions out of the economy and done nothing for the Russian people.
