Orbán bans Budapest Pride parade

 

Hungary’s government said that Budapest Pride parade will not take place in a public form this year. 

The announcement comes after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that he would advise the organizers of the LGBTQ+ march “not to bother preparing their march for this year” as “it would be a waste of time and money.” 

“There will be no Pride in the public form in which we have known it in recent decades,” the government’s spokesperson said. “We believe that the country should not tolerate Pride marching through the city center.”

The banning of the LGBTQ+ march is in line with a proposed constitutional amendment stating that “the right of children to physical, mental and moral development is irrevocable.”

Responding to a question about why he claims that Pride marches are harmful to children, the spokesperson said: “A family man doesn’t usually go near Pride, he avoids that part of the city,” the minister said, adding that any application of the law is based on common sense."

Last year over 30,000 people marched at Budapest Pride to protest Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws.

US federal judge blocks Trump's order from sending transgender women to men's prisons

 

A U.S. federal judge has blocked the Trump Administration from forcibly transferring transgender women in federal custody to men’s prisons, ruling that the move likely violates their constitutional rights and would expose them to serious harm.

Trump’s executive order, signed on his first day back in office, bars federal recognition of transgender and nonbinary identities, eliminates gender-affirming care in federal prisons and mandates that housing placements be based strictly on sex assigned at birth.

Judge Royce Lamberth issued a preliminary injunction to protect incarcerated transgender women from imminent transfer. In his order, Lamberth said that the government had failed to justify its actions.

The judge wrote: “Summarily removing the possibility of housing the plaintiffs in a women’s facility, when that was determined to be the appropriate facility under the existing constitutional and statutory regime, demonstrates a likelihood of success on the merits of the plaintiffs’ Eighth Amendment claim.”

The judge also emphasized that the dangers these women faced extended beyond physical violence. The mere act of placing them in a men’s prison “will exacerbate the symptoms of their gender dysphoria, even if they are not subject to physical or sexual violence in their new facility."

Just leave us alone!!

 

Carla Antonelli, a Spanish politician and LGBTQ activist, has delivered a rabble-rousing speech in defence of trans rights in the Spanish parliament. Antonelli made history as the first publicly transgender person elected to the Senate of Spain.

Addressing the room, she said: “Trans people – we are everyone’s topic of conversation. Everyone has to have an opinion about us. If we are trans, what we are, what we are not.”

Antonelli went on to address Vox, a Spanish far right party: “Members of Vox, today you came here to derogate my colleague Jimena [González, another Spanish politician who is trans], to derogate me. Honestly, don’t you feel ashamed?"

“Do you not feel any shame at all for trying to remove, to erase, to cut out of this society a historically persecuted group of people?”

The lawmaker continued: “People who are finally starting to life our heads, trying to find our place in this world? You are making our lives absolutely unbearable. Just leave us alone, for God’s sake!”

Watch the Antonelli's speech here.

Trump's anti-DEI executive orders sued by LGBTQ nonprofits

 

San Francisco AIDS foundation and the GLBT Historical Society sued the Trump Administration over a trio of executive orders denying the existence of transgender people and cracking down on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

The complaint filed in federal court in San Francisco follows a similar case brought in Washington, which challenged the constitutionality of the same three executive orders.

The California suit said the administration is seeking to punish and defund the nonprofits for acknowledging the existence of transgender people and advocating for their rights. Its orders, therefore, violate the groups’ free speech, equal protection, and due process rights.

The lawsuit comes after some of the nonprofits say they have received funding termination or stop work orders from federal agencies in recent weeks. The groups seek a court order blocking the enforcement of the executive orders and declaring them unconstitutional.

Not one step back!!

Transgender troops backed by majority in U.S.

 

A majority of Americans believe trans people should be allowed to serve in the armed services, new Gallup research has shown.

Although a slight fall from previous years, more than half the respondents (58 per cent) still said they openly support trans women and men serving in the military.

The most support came from Democrat voters, with 84 per cent backing the idea, while only 23 per cent of Republicans felt the same way, a fall from 43 per cent in 2019. Among Independents, backing fell from 78 per cent to 62 per cent during the same period.

This research comes after Trump signed an executive order laying the groundwork for reinstating a ban on trans people in the military after it was repealed by then president Joe Biden in 2021.

In his order, Trump claimed that service by troops who identify as a gender other than their biological one “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life” and is harmful to military readiness, requiring a revised policy to address the matter.

The Department of Defense doesn’t publicly report how many trans people are serving in the military, and estimates vary widely. One 2014 report by the Williams Institute at UCLA found that about 15,500 transgender people were serving in the military.

#NoTransMilitaryBan!!!

Google removes diversity-related and other cultural events from its calendar

 

Google previously highlighted cultural events such as Pride Month and Black History Month as default holidays or national observances on Google Calendar.

At some point, Google removed the diversity-related holidays from the calendar app, with some people now noticing and getting upset about the change. 

Other cultural events that no longer appear on the calendar include Indigenous People Month, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jewish Heritage, and Hispanic Heritage. 

Google asserts that the calendar change is not related to the political landscape, but the Google CEO Sundar Pichai was one of several Big Tech leaders who attended Trump’s inauguration, and there have recently been conspicuous efforts in Silicon Valley to roll back on diversity, equity, and inclusion measures (DEI), mirroring the approach of the new Trump's Administration.

Does everyone think this is just a coincidence?

Lessons of Tolerance, how Ukrainians have changed over LGBTQ people

 

Lessons of Tolerance, directed by Arkadii Nepytaliuk, follows a Ukrainian family overcoming their homophobia, an education that war with Russia seems to be giving many in the country.

Inspired by Igor Bilyts’ 2017 play Gay Parade, the film follows a struggling, homophobic Ukrainian family who agree to host a gay activist in exchange for funding from the EU. They play games promoting equality and empathy, using humor against prejudice.

Like the family in his film, Nepytaliuk found his prejudices started to give way to acceptance by “studying, talking and working” with LGBTQ+ people as he got older. “I discovered that these people are just like me … and in [that] process of discovery my fear of LGBT people decreased and disappeared.”

Despite Ukraine being the first post-Soviet country to decriminalise homosexuality in 1991, legal progress and social acceptance has lagged. Although there are laws against discrimination in the workplace, there is no recognition of any form of same-sex union, nor are there any laws recognising anti-LGBTQ hate crimes or banning conversion practices.

For years, LGBTQ people in Ukraine have fought to be recognised as equal members of society, but now, as Russian invasion imperils Ukraine’s very existence, LGBTQ Ukrainians are working and fighting to save a country that has not yet accepted them as full citizens.

According to a poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in 2023, the number of people who have a "negative view" of the LGBTQ community has decreased from 60.4% to 38.2%, over the past six years.

Watch the trailer below:

Twinless awarded at Sundance

 

Twinless is a black comedy film written and directed by James Sweeney. It stars Dylan O'Brien and Sweeney.

The film follows the romance of two young men, Rocky (O'Brien) and Dennis (Sweeney), who spark up a relationship while participating in a support group for twinless twins (someone whose twin has died). 

They both suffer from a similar codependency issue, both a little needy without someone around who is always there, eager to do everything together. But the closer they get, the film around them suddenly shifts and we realise that things are not at all that they seem.

The movie was premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award.

Watch O'Brien and Sweeney interview at Sundance red carpet:

LGBTQ+ people will be tracked in Russia

 

Russia’s Interior Ministry has plans for a sweeping electronic database of LGBTQ+ people in the country. The database will be a “large-scale” system to track members of the LGBTQ+ community at large.

The plans has been in discussion since last year after Russia’s Supreme Court outlawed the so-called “international LGBT movement” as an “extremist organization” at the urging of Vladimir Putin.

Russian police has been keeping informal lists of LGBTQ+ individuals since the Supreme Court ruling was announced.

In 2024, police conducted at least 42 raids on LGBTQ+ friendly venues across Russia. Beatings, forced confinement, and sadistic humiliations based on sexual and gender identities are regular features of the sweeps.

The raids, in addition to intimidating the queer community at large and forcing the closure of several venues, have provided security officials with information that would supply an electronic LGBTQ+ registry.

Russian officials also fined nightclub revellers for "looking too gay" in their choice of outfits after a police raid on a nightclub. 

#NeverGiveUp

Argentines march in defence of diversity, blasting Milei's hate speech

 

Argentine LGBT collectives organized the “Federal March of Anti-Fascist and Anti-Racist Pride” in rejection of President Javier Milei’s hate speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, in which he attacked the “LGBT agenda,” “nefarious gender ideology,” and “radical feminism,” and linked homosexuality to pedophilia.

Thousands of demonstrators rallied in Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires and in cities across the country in defence of minority rights and in protest at President Javier Milei’s tirades against "wokeism", feminism and other progressive ideals.

More than a hundred collectives and civil organizations gathered at the National Congress in Buenos Aires to march to the iconic Plaza de Mayo, where the Casa Rosada (seat of the government) is located. The colorful procession held aloft the rainbow flag and waved placards stating: "Not a step back".

Milei, a libertarian former economist sometimes compared to Donald Trump, dissolved the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity as well as the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism in his first year in office. 

Argentina is one of nine Latin American countries to allow same-sex marriage, and Not a step back!