Poland’s top court rules not to recognise EU same-sex marriages

 

Poland’s top court has rejected plans to recognise same-sex marriages that were carried out in other EU member states, in a huge blow to the country’s LGBTQ+ community.

In a statement, the Constitutional Tribunal Court said that the ruling was unanimous and final and that EU same-sex marriages could not be copied into Poland’s civil registry.

In overturning the plans, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal Court has defied an order from the Court of Justice of the European Union. The denial could lead to tension between the Polish court and the EU.

The news comes just two months after Poland’s Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, assured that the country would begin recognising same-sex marriages performed in other European Union countries.

Then, Poland needs to change the law as other EU countries did before.

Pride march in Romania goes ahead despite being blocked four years in a row by municipality

 

An LGBTQ+ Pride march in Romania went ahead despite it being banned for the fourth consecutive year. The march took place in Oradea, a city in western Romania with a population of around 180,000 people. 

The city hall rejected all proposed routes and explicitly cited alleged violations of social conduct and morality norms, making Oradea a rare case within the EU for repeatedly blocking Pride. 

Despite the official ban, over a thousand of activists and supporters went ahead and held a peaceful demonstration in front of the city hall. Besides, more than 152 organisations from 30 countries have signed a statement calling on officials to allow the march to take place in complete safety and in line with EU law.

In 2025, six hundred people attended an unauthorised march in the same city, with nine participants later fined. This time representatives from several diplomatic missions took part, along with Romania’s ombudsman.

Over 30,000 people joined Pride march in Bucharest, demanding civil union partnership legislation and equal rights after presidential election buoyed the far right in Romania.

This is not an LGBTQ+ issue. This is a democratic issue. It’s about the freedom to public assembly. And if a local LGBTQ+ community in Romania can be denied this basic human right without any repercussion, it can happen pretty much anywhere in Europe, for pretty much any community.

Happy Pride!!!

2026 edition drew a record-breaking crowd 
of over 35,000 participants to Romania's capital

Discrimination rises in football, statistics says

 

LGBTQ+ football charity Kick It Out has shared that it received 203 reports of homophobia in the sport during 2025/26, which marks a 43 percent rise from the previous season.

The troubling statistics have prompted Football v Homophobia, a campaign group that was set up to fight discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in football, to issue an urgent call for action.

According to Kick It Out, the number of reports of homophobia in football during the 2025/26 season amounted to the total from the last four seasons combined.

The charity counts homophobia as everything from individual prejudice against certain players to homophobic and transphobic mass chanting from fans.

Alarmingly, the stats for youth football were even higher this season, and saw a 90 percent increase in reported incidents.

Racism remains the most reported form of discrimination, with 792 reports, up 19% year-on-year and making up 45% of the total.

Read the full statistics here.

Amsterdam and Berlin become LGBTQ capitals in 2026

 

From July 25 to August 8, Amsterdam will host WorldPride 2026, welcoming hundreds of thousands of visitors from every continent. The Dutch capital could hardly be a more fitting host. 

The Netherlands has long been recognized as one of the world’s most progressive and inclusive societies, becoming the first country to legalize same-sex marriage in 2001. Hosting WorldPride is not only a celebration of that history—it is a powerful reminder that freedom, equality, and acceptance remain values worth protecting.

This year’s WorldPride theme, “Unity,” could not be more relevant. When the world seems increasingly divided by war, political polarization, nationalism, and fear, celebrating WorldPride has become about far more than LGBTQ rights. It has evolved into one of the world’s most visible expressions of tolerance, openness, and the belief that people from different cultures, identities, and backgrounds can live together peacefully.

Amsterdam is not standing alone. Only a few hundred kilometers away, Berlin is preparing for one of Europe’s largest Christopher Street Day (CSD) celebrations. 

The German capital has long symbolized freedom, resilience, and reconciliation. Once divided by a wall representing ideological conflict, Berlin today represents exactly the opposite—a city where diversity is celebrated and differences are embraced.

This year’s Pride celebrations create a remarkable connection between the two European cities. Happy Pride!!!

A human rainbow flag in Canary Islands by Spencer Tunick

 

Spencer Tunick stripped the Spanish city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria bare beneath a gigantic rainbow flag made of human skin.

Hundreds of naked people, painted in eleven different colors, occupied the plaza, following the American photographer's instructions, until they formed a gigantic rainbow flag made of human bodies.

For a few minutes, the artwork transformed one of the most emblematic spaces in the capital of Canary Islands into a symbol of diversity, freedom, and the fight for LGBTQ+ rights.

Far from presenting nudity as a provocation, Tunick once again used the human body as artistic material. The volunteers became the canvas for a work conceived to represent the plurality of sexual identities and orientations through eleven different shades.

The artwork also opened the Culture & Business Pride 2026 program, which will bring together conferences, cultural activities, and performances focused on defending human rights and diversity.

Watch the making of below:

LGBTQ culture becomes a national threat in Indonesia

 

Indonesia President Prabowo Subianto has designated the spread of LGBTQ culture as a nonmilitary threat under Indonesia’s 2025–2029 National Defense Policy.

The regulation defines nonmilitary threats as organized, non-armed activities that could endanger national sovereignty, territorial integrity and security. 

It classifies the spread of LGBTQ culture as a socio-cultural threat that could contribute to the erosion of nationalism.

The category is grouped alongside terrorism, separatism, online gambling, the spread of prohibited ideologies, human trafficking, piracy, large-scale theft of natural resources and narcotics trafficking. 

The regulation also states that LGBTQ-related issues will be addressed using approaches applied to extraordinary crimes.

The presidential regulation provides new legitimation to enact legislation that penalises and discriminates against LGBTQ individuals merely because of their identities.

So far, LGBTQ identities are not criminalised in most of Indonesia, but same-sex relations are illegal under Shariah Laws and in Aceh, the westernmost province of the country. 

Unlike the rest of Indonesia, Aceh province follows strict Islamic laws, which make sexual activity outside marriage and same-sex relations illegal. The state's Sharia criminal code went into effect in September 2015. 

From now, it will be worst for LGBTQ people in the whole country.

Corporal punishment will continue in Indonesia for being gay

Ranking all 48 World Cup countries on LGBTQ rights

 

Some of the 48 World Cup countries are very gay-friendly, with robust laws and protections, while some are in-between. And nearly a third are downright hostile, with LGBTQ protections nonexistent and punishment for same-sex behavior a prison sentence or worse.

The website Equaldex is a valuable resource for a country-by-country look at the state of LGBTQ equality.

It uses a 100-point scale to rank countries on the laws surrounding whether homosexuality is legal, and laws on same-sex marriage, censorship, changing gender, gender-affirming care, employment and housing discrimination, adoption, serving in the military and conversion therapy. It also parses public opinion on LGBTQ issues.

Using the site’s 100-point scale, World Cup countries Norway, Uruguay, Spain and New Zealand all rank in the top six in the world. Iceland (1st) and Denmark (5th) did not qualify.

At the opposite end, Iran (ranked 191) and Senegal (192) are among the seven least LGBTQ-accepting countries in the world. Overall, there isn’t much difference in countries ranked 10-20 points from each other.

Check the website here.

Equaldex map

Senegal amends constitution to ban same-sex marriage

 

The National Assembly of Senegal has amended the country’s constitution to define marriage exclusively as the union between a man and a woman, thus banning same-sex marriage.

Same-sex sexual activity has been prohibited in Senegal since 1965, five years after the country gained independence from France. Both men and women are affected by the law, which describes the activity as unnatural acts.

In March this year, Senegal’s National Assembly passed a bill that will double the maximum penalty for same-sex relations, making them punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Same-sex marriage has never been legal in Senegal, but the constitution’s wording around the matter has previously been vague. Now, Senegal amends constitution to ban same-sex marriage after all 129 members of the assembly vote in favour and zero against.

Spain approves a law to punish conversion therapies with prison

 

The Spanish Parliament approved the reform of the Criminal Code that will allow prison sentences for so-called conversion therapies, practices aimed at changing or suppressing a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

The initiative, promoted by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), has been passed with 178 votes in favor, 32 against—those of far right party Vox—and 137 abstentions from the conservative party Popular Party (PP).

The reform provides for prison sentences of between 6 months and 2 years, as well as financial penalties, for those who apply, carry out, or promote methods, techniques, or procedures intended to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, even when there is consent from the victim or their legal representative.

Until now, these practices were already banned in Spain and were classified as a very serious administrative offence under the 2023 Trans Law. Fines could reach up to €150,000, but they were not included as a criminal offence in the Criminal Code.

With this reform in Spain, the aim is to strengthen the protection of LGBTQ+ rights and improve the ability to respond to practices that many organisations and experts consider particularly harmful and discriminatory.

Madrid hosts every year the biggest pride in Europe

Türkiye blocks LGBTQ+ cruise ship from docking

 

Türkiye has blocked an LGBTQ+ cruise ship chartered by a US travel company from docking at two Turkish ports, saying the voyage was incompatible with the country’s “moral values” and forcing organizers to change the Mediterranean itinerary.

The governor’s office said the ship would not be allowed to stop at the Aegean port of Kuşadası because it had been leased by groups “known for behaviors incompatible with the fabric of our society and our moral values.” 

The governor’s office said “there is absolutely no possibility” that the group would be permitted to visit the province “for an event of this nature.”

Atlantis Events, a US company that specializes in vacations for LGBTQ+ travelers, said Turkish officials had canceled both of the ship’s planned stops in Turkiye, which forced the company to revise the itinerary. Instead of visiting Kuşadası and İstanbul, the ship will now call at Cairo and the Greek island of Crete.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan 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 Erdoğan has repeatedly described LGBTQ+ rights as incompatible with traditional family values.

Turkish government drafts new anti-LGBTQ+ laws

US Supreme Court rules against trans women participating in female sports

 

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states can ban transgender women from competing in female school and college sports.

The court considered cases from students in two different states who had challenged bans on participation. The two states, Idaho and West Virginia, enacted laws that required public school and college sports teams to compete in accordance with their sex recorded at birth.

One of the two challenges said the ban violates equal rights protections in the US Constitution. The other said it contradicts civil rights laws.

More than two dozen states have enacted bans since Idaho did so in 2020. Donald Trump celebrated the decision in a social media post as a "BIG WIN". Last year, Trump signed an executive order that aimed to ban transgender women from competing on female sports teams in schools and colleges.

Under those state bans, a transgender woman - a biological male who identifies as a woman - is not permitted to compete in female sports at schools and colleges.

Seattle hosts World Cup Pride Match despite objections

 

Seattle's LGBTQ community members say they hope that World Cup "Pride Match" between Egypt and Iran, two countries where homosexuality is criminalised, can be an opportunity to change minds.

Seattle revels in its reputation as a welcoming place and Pride flags are ‌visible all over the city, all year round. Its June Pride weekend is one of the biggest in the United States.

So, ahead of December's World ‌Cup draw, it was only natural that local organisers designated the June 26 match to be held in the city as a "Pride Match."

Then the draw happened — and the two teams scheduled to play the game were ​Egypt and Iran.

Egypt urged global soccer governing body FIFA to prevent any Pride-related activities. And Iran, where same-sex relations can carry the death penalty, filed an objection with FIFA.

But in Seattle, there is no question that the Pride Match will go ahead as planned. 

Supreme Court of Nepal rules in favour of marriage equality

 

Nepal’s Supreme Court has ruled in favour of equal marriage in a huge win for LGBTQ+ rights. The court ordered the country’s government to ensure equal marriage rights for queer and trans people. 

This landmark ruling marks a historic milestone for equality, dignity, and human rights in Nepal, while providing crucial legal clarity and protection for the rights of same-sex couples.

The verdict confirms that gender and sexual minority couples are entitled to equal protection of the law and reinforces Nepal’s commitment to inclusion, equality, and non-discrimination

The ruling makes Nepal the 40th country worldwide to legally recognise equal marriage.

Worldwide laws regarding same-sex intercourse, unions and expression

Iranian singer sentenced to 74 lashes for performing without a hijab

Iranian authorities have sentenced singer Parastoo Ahmadi to a punishment of 74 lashes for performing in a YouTube video that has racked up 2.9 million views over the last two years. 

Ahmadi sang the well-known patriotic song From The Blood Of The Youth to an empty theater space in 2024 with the help of eight musicians and crew. 

They have also been sentenced to flogging, a travel ban, and a prohibition on any "artistic activities" for the next two years. 

Ahmadi was accused of "offending public decency" after she performed without a hijab, the head covering mandated by Iranian morality police.

What a shame mr. Trump!

 

Homosexuality now criminalized in Niger

 

Niger adopted a new Penal Code which criminalizes for the first time same-sex relations, but also certain "intersex" and "asexual" practices.

Until now, homosexuality was not enshrined in Nigerien law. It remained largely taboo in a predominantly Muslim and conservative society, without, however, being the subject of a specific criminal offense.

The new law stipulates prison sentences of 5 to 10 years for anyone found guilty of "indecent or unnatural acts" or same-sex relations. Penalties are increased in several cases. Same-sex marriage is now punishable by 10 to 20 years in prison. 

The same sentence applies to anyone who "manages, directs, finances, or participates" in organizations, associations, or structures related to LGBTQ+ people.

The text also targets, in its own words, "LGBTQ+ practices" , explicitly including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual people.

This reform is part of the institutional overhaul process initiated after the military coup of July 26, 2023, which ousted President Mohamed Bazoum. Now, Niger’s military government has joined several African nations that criminalize same-sex relations.

Trump’s ban of US trans troops found to be illegal

 

Transgender troops are permitted to stay in the U.S. military, an appeals court ruled on 1 June, however the military may continue to block enlistment.

The ruling was a split decision, and it’s reportedly expected to be challenged by Donald Trump’s government and will likely end up in the supreme court.

The decision goes against Trump’s January 2025 ban order which said trans military members must be removed from service.

Trump consulted with “generals and military experts” on the sweeping policy, he said: “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail”, he tweeted.

Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defence, has already indicated the decision will be appealed. He wrote on X: “See you at SCOTUS.”

See you then!

65 countries still criminalize same-sex relationships

 

According to the most recent data from the ILGA World Database, 65 UN member states still criminalize consensual same-sex sexual acts.

Furthermore, in 2025 the total number increased for the first time in almost a decade, a particularly alarming sign in an international context marked by the rise of reactionary rhetoric and anti-LGBTQ policies.

The organization also warns that the death penalty remains a legally prescribed punishment for consensual same-sex sexual acts in 7 UN member states, while in another 5 countries there is no full legal certainty.

The global comparison leads to a clear conclusion: rights do not advance linearly. In some territories, laws promoting equality, legal recognition of gender identity, or marriage equality are being passed, while in others, criminalization, censorship, or institutional persecution are being reinforced.

ILGA World's new maps allow you to see the situation in each country and compare it with the rest of the world, offering a key tool for understanding how laws affect the daily lives of LGBTQ people.

Check ILGA World's maps here.

Pride returns to Budapest!

 

Authorities in Budapest have given the green light for the Hungarian capital’s Pride parade to march again this June, after last year’s event was banned under authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán.

Last year, Orbán passed legislation to ban all Pride events in Hungary. In response, more than 200,000 attendees showed up in defiance, attracting supporters from across Europe.

For almost 16 years, Hungary has been governed under Orbán, a right-wing populist, and his national-conservative party Fidesz. Orbán has also drawn criticism internationally for repression of the LGBTQ+ community.

Last month, he and his party were defeated in Hungary's elections, and the new leader of Tisza party, Péter Magyar, said at his swearing-in. “Hungary will be home for every Hungarian, and everyone can feel like they have a place in the Hungarian nation. Family, friends, and communities will be able to speak to each other again.” 

“We warmly welcome everyone in June who took part in last year’s demonstration, as well as those who continue to believe in equal rights and a democratic Hungary, and those who would like to once again celebrate the transition to democracy,” Budapest Pride said in a statement.

It seems, things will change in Hungary.

May China’s top court says LGBTQ+ discrimination is unlawful?

 

China’s Supreme People’s Court has issued a major response reinforcing legal protections for LGBTQ+ people against discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.

The Court has issued guidance indicating that insults or discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity can violate personal dignity under existing laws, potentially leading to apologies and compensation. 

It also references employment discrimination and school bullying, encouraging more consistent application of civil and labour laws in China.

This is a written response from the Research Office of the Supreme People’s Court to a Chinese citizen who petitioned the court to clarify anti-discrimination principles in judicial adjudication. Petition, is a centuries-old channel through which people in China have appealed directly to the authorities.

Although they may offer some insight into how the responding authority views a given issue, but should not be read as formal policy change.

Homosexuality is not illegal in China and it was officially removed from a list of mental disorders in 2001. But experts and activists say LGBT people still face persistent discrimination and prejudice.

UK to host European IDAHOT+ Forum 2027

 

UK to serve as host nation for the European International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT+) Forum in London in May 2027.

For the first time, the UK, in partnership with the Council of Europe, will serve as the host nation for the European IDAHOT+ Forum in London in May 2027. 

The forum will convene governments, civil society organisations, policymakers, and advocates from across Europe, turning London into a focal point for international co-operation and progress on LGBT+ equality.

The European IDAHOT+ Forum is one of the major European annual events that brings together member states of the Council of Europe, government representatives, policy makers, experts, and academics, as well as representatives from national and international organisations. 

As the main state-organised European LGBT+ conference, it primarily aims to promote co-operation between governments but also between governments and civil society organisations.

The 2026 IDAHOT+ takes place in Copenhagen (Denmark)