LGBTQ groups around the world loses funding

 

A new report that Outright International released notes 90 percent of LGBTQ rights groups around the world have lost funding since January 2025.

Forty-nine percent of the organizations said they have lost more than half of their total budget since January 2025, and 75 percent of the groups said they lost more than a quarter of their total funding.

“What was initially framed as a temporary freeze has become a structural disruption,” notes the report. “The effects have cascaded far beyond US government funding: corporate, institutional, and philanthropic donors have also shifted, stalled, or quietly withdrawn, often without public scrutiny.”

“The broader environment in which LGBTQ movements operate has continued to deteriorate — with democratic backsliding, anti-NGO legislation, rising violence, coordinated legislative attacks on trans and intersex people’s rights, and emboldened anti-rights actors filling the space left by the retreat of US global leadership,” the report added.

“At the same time, LGBTQ organizations have not stood still,” reads the report. “They have continued to resist, adapt, and serve their communities under extraordinary pressure, often absorbing the costs of these funding shocks in ways that remain largely invisible.”

Check the report here

UN human rights chief alerts over comprehensive onslaught against LGBTQ rights

 

United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said there is a comprehensive onslaught against LGBTQ rights around the world.

“We know that progress for human rights has never been linear … but today’s backlash is deep and it is coordinated and the persecution of LGBTQ people around the world is escalating at an alarming rate,” he said.

“We know that across every region, LGBTQ people continue to live and to love in the face of hostility and exclusion. Their rights, safety, well-being are under attack … it’s a comprehensive onslaught,” he added,

Türk also noted “more and more candidates and political parties … use bigotry in order to promote anti-LGBTQ sentiments” during election campaigns. He pointed out trans people and women are often targeted.

In his remarks, he specifically referenced Russia, Turkey and Senegal, which further criminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations earlier this year.  He also noted some countries. like Indonesia, have deemed LGBTQ groups as terrorists, extremists, or national security threats.

La bola negra

 

La bola negra (The Black Ball) is a 2026 Spanish drama film directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi (Los Javis), inspired by the unfinished work of the same name by Federico García Lorca. 

Los Javis may no longer be together, but their creative partnership is as strong as ever. The pair are back with The Black Ball, an epic drama following the interconnected lives of three gay men. The plot shifts between 1932, 1937, and 2017.

Loosely adapted from the work of renowned Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, the movie stars some big names, like Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close, and Guitarricadelafuente in his acting debut. 

The pair emphasised their focus was honouring the queer community. Ambrossi shared: “As part of the LGBTQIA+ community, do we honour like we should the people who were murdered, who endured repression, who fought for our rights? Would they look at us and be proud? I ask myself this very often.”

Calvo also added: “We also wanted to explore the idea of inheritance – the inherited hatred and shame – and how that is pervasive even today.”

The film had its world premiere in the main competition of the 79th Cannes Film Festival, earning Calvo and Ambrossi the Best Director prize. Reviews praise the film for its period-drama ambition and scale. 

6,000,000 thanks!!!

 

Of course America is ready for a gay president

 

Pete Buttigieg said 'of course' America is ready for a gay president.

The former Transportation Secretary, who ran for president in 2020, tells Meet the Press he wouldn’t have run if he didn’t believe the country was ready for a gay president in the first place as he weighs a potential 2028 bid.

70% of voters in the US would vote for a gay man as president, a poll has found. The poll, which was conducted by Quinnipiac, found that 85% of Democrats and 46% of Republicans were willing to see a gay man become president.

The US Senate in a historic and overwhelmingly bipartisan vote confirmed Buttigieg's nomination 86-13 as Secretary of Transportation. He was the first openly gay person to lead a department and hold a Cabinet-level position.

Watch the moment below:

Crackdown on LGBTQ community widens in Türkiye

 

Turkish authorities have begun proceedings aimed at closing two LGBTQ rights associations and also blocked 14 websites and 186 personal social media accounts, expanding a nationwide crackdown that has led to the pretrial detention of at least 62 people.

The move came as authorities broadened an operation against the LGBTQ community in which more than 200 people were detained, sparking a backlash from rights groups at home and abroad. 

Justice Minister Akın Gürlek announced that the operation involved legal action against 162 people, nine associations and 13 businesses in 15 provinces.

Turkish courts have jailed more LGBTQ activists and supporters, raising to 62 the number remanded in custody following a weekend crackdown.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who heads an Islamo-conservative government, has described the LGBTQ community as a "deviant movement of perverts".

Türkiye has banned Pride marches in İstanbul since 2015, citing security and public order concerns. Rights groups say restrictions on LGBTQ events and organizations have expanded in recent years, while authorities repeatedly described LGBTQ rights as incompatible with traditional family values.

Russia fines Booking.com for violating gay propaganda law

 

Russia has slapped the international travel site Booking.com with an approximately $70,000 fine (6 million rubles) for violating the country’s so-called gay propaganda law.

The court of Moscow reportedly handed down two three-million-ruble fines to the company in response to a newsletter sent to foreign partner hotels that contained information on housing LGBTQ+ tourists for Pride Month events.

Putin initially passed its propaganda law in 2013, banning  propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations directed at children. In 2022, Russia’s Duma expanded the law to include all ages, criminalizing any action or the spreading of any information that is considered an attempt to promote homosexuality in public, online, or in films, books, or advertising.

Then, in 2023, the country took it a step further, with the Supreme Court deeming the international LGBTQ+ movement an extremist organization.

Romeo Beckham makes acting debut in gay tennis romance

 

Forty Love, a drama set in professional tennis, exploring the balance between ambition, performance, and intimacy on the French Riviera.

The movie marks the feature film directing debut of fashion photographer Pierre-Ange Carlotti, who also co-wrote the script alongside Gaëlle Macé.

The story revolves around Sacha Gallo, a tennis superstar who’s been training with his father to win a major trophy in Paris. But the arrival of a charismatic new rival — played by Romeo Beckham — challenges everything Sacha thought he understood about competition, ambition and himself. 

For the first time, Sacha faces an opponent of an entirely different nature: love. A force as exhilarating as it is destabilizing and far more dangerous than anything he has encountered on the court.

The young cast of Forty Love: Beckam, Kircher and Voisin

Joe Locke stars in a new movie

 

Heartstopper actor Joe Locke stars alongside Tom Cullen in queer drama Black Church Bay. The film director is Rhys Marc Jones.

In a remote Welsh coastal village, the disappearance of an openly-gay sixth form student disrupts the delicate balance of local life for one deputy head teacher, exposing long-buried secrets and threatening to tear the community apart.

Rather than treating the relationship as a straightforward forbidden romance, the story appears positioned to examine the enormous imbalance of power between an adult teacher and a teenage student, while asking what happens when a seemingly idyllic community is forced to confront the secrets hiding beneath its surface.

The film is scheduled to premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on October 15.

Joe Locke spent four years playing Charlie Spring, alongside Kit Connor, in Heartstopper, one of television’s gentlest gay love stories.

Watch the movie's trailer here or here.

Poland already recognises foreign same-sex marriages

 

Poland has officially started legally recognising same-sex marriages performed abroad, though same-sex marriage is illegal in the country.

The move follows a ruling in the EU Court of Justice, which sided with a same-sex couple whose marriage, which was performed in Germany, was not granted legal recognition in Poland.

In July, president Karol Nawrocki vetoed the legislation, which was backed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, which would have given same-sex couples the ability to register a legal agreement that would give them rights in joint property ownership, access to a partner’s medical information, inheritance tax exemptions, joint tax settlement, and the ability to make burial decisions.

PM Tusk assured that the country would begin recognising same-sex marriages performed in other European Union countries. Let's see.