LGBT News

The Middle East Eye reports: Draft legislation could see “biological sex” written into law in Turkey and the “promotion” of LGBTQ rights criminalised. The Turkish penal code would mandate that a “person who publicly encourages, praises or promotes attitudes and behaviours contrary to the biological sex at birth and public morality shall be sentenced to imprisonment of one year to …

The Washington Post reports: Hungary’s government said Thursday that it would ban a Pride march through central Budapest this summer, as Viktor Orban and his ruling Fidesz party escalate their long-standing push to enact anti-LGBTQ+ policies ahead of elections next year. “The country does not have to tolerate Pride marching through downtown Budapest,” Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, said …

The Washington Post reports: Openly transgender service members will be disqualified from serving in the U.S. military and will soon be removed from the ranks, according to a Pentagon memo that marks a significant shift from previous Defense Department policy that prohibited discrimination based on gender identity. The memo states that exceptions could be made for transgender service members who …

Bloomberg Government reports: A Department of Homeland Security unit eliminated policies prohibiting personnel from conducting intelligence activities based solely on a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation. The Office of Intelligence and Analysis posted an updated policy manual late last week that removes references to those characteristics in sections that set guardrails on gathering intelligence. The revisions follow President Donald …

The New York Times reports: The Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday over an employment discrimination suit filed by a straight woman who twice lost positions to gay workers. The court seemed likely to issue a brief and perhaps unanimous decision in favor of the woman, Marlean A. Ames. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said he envisioned “a really short opinion that …

The Guardian reports: Hungary’s Budapest Pride should be held in a “closed venue” this year rather than on a city centre avenue as in previous years, the prime minister Viktor Orbán’s chief of staff has said, citing child protection. The plan, announced on Wednesday, appeared to be part of Orbán’s restrictions on the activities of the LGBTQ+ community as the …

NBC News reports: The Supreme Court on Wednesday considers the novel legal question of whether a woman can pursue a workplace sex discrimination case over claims she was discriminated against because she is straight. The court’s ultimate ruling could lower the bar for people belonging to majority groups to bring so-called reverse discrimination claims. Marlean Ames brought a claim against the …

Sonora, California’s KVML radio reports: Tuolumne County District Attorney Cassandra Jenecke reports that a criminal complaint has now been filed against a Jamestown man accused of attacking another man at an apartment complex on January 28. The incident has drawn heavy local interest, especially from allies of the LGBTQ community. The victim was allegedly lured to the apartment and attacked …

The Associated Press reports: An Islamic Shariah court in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province on Monday sentenced two men to public caning for having gay sex. The couple, aged 24 and 18, were arrested on Nov. 7, after neighborhood vigilantes in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, suspected them of being gay and broke into their rented room to catch them naked …

The Associated Press reports: Hungary will be the one to decide whether Ukraine is able to achieve its hopes of joining the European Union in the future, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Saturday in an escalation of his adversarial posture toward Hungary’s war-ravaged neighbor. Seeming to question Ukraine’s statehood, Orbán said Saturday that the war Russia launched nearly three …

Miami’s NBC affiliate reports: Authorities at a news conference Friday said a man who allegedly confessed to two separate murders in Miami and Miami Beach may have been “targeting the elderly, gay community.” Zsolt Zsolyomi, 25, a Hungarian national, is charged with second-degree murder in both cases, according to jail records. “Both victims were elderly, disabled males,” Miami police said …

Seattle’s NBC affiliate reports: A popular bar for many in the LGBTQ+ community became the target of hate on Tuesday night, according to police and witnesses. “It’s just not okay. You know, it terrorizes people,” said Ade Connere, a bartender at Pony. Connere was working when the crime occurred. “They were basically driving around just sort of harassing people that …

Axios reports: Local LGBTQ-serving community organizations are among nine nonprofits that sued the Trump administration Friday over executive orders targeting transgender and nonbinary people.  President Trump ran his campaign on an incendiary anti-trans platform that promoted false claims about the community, which make up 1.3% of U.S. adults. Filed by Lambda Legal, the lawsuit alleges Trump’s actions “pose an existential …

404 Media reports: HHS is wasting workers’ time and taxpayer dollars on “a witch hunt to find any content deemed ‘bad.” Specifically, people who work on HHS websites are spending days scanning those sites and any documents they share in search of a list terms like “gay,” “sexuality,” “non-binary,” “inclusion,” “queer,” and “gender,” potentially so they could be later removed …

Metro UK reports: Russia has spent more than a year creating an electronic database of its LGBTQ+ citizens, independent Russian media has reported. The country’s top court declared the international LGBTQ+ rights movement ‘extremist’ in November 2023. In the months since, law enforcement officials have been building a register to track ‘extremist’ LGBTQ+ Russians, insiders told Meduza. The officials, members …

Phoenix’s NBC affiliate reports: A video shared online shows a scary encounter between a family and an unknown woman at a West Valley In-N-Out. The video is just over two minutes long and shows an unknown woman acting aggressively towards Barbara Hilleren, her wife, Terri Policy, and their 18 and 22-year-old Guatemalan adopted daughters. “She thought we were sex trafficking …

Statehouse News reports: State lawmakers are once again being asked to consider a ban on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The sponsor of the bill says it may be more important now that ever, but suggests the odds are stacked against it. Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood) has sponsored the Ohio Fairness Act since …

Gallup Polling reports: Gallup’s latest update on LGBTQ+ identification finds 9.3% of U.S. adults identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual in 2024. This represents an increase of more than a percentage point versus the prior estimate, from 2023. Longer term, the figure has nearly doubled since 2020 and is up from 3.5% in 2012, when …

Columbus’s NBC affiliate reports: Westerville voted on Tuesday to become the 13th city in Ohio to ban anti-LGBTQ+ practices known as “conversion therapy” that falsely claim to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Westerville City Council passed the ordinance 5-2 to prohibit healthcare professionals in the city from engaging in conversion therapy with minors. While one speaker argued …

Politico Magazine reports: Booz Allen Hamilton, the mammoth Beltway federal contractor, has long been a supporter of LGBTQ+ causes. “For two decades and counting, we’ve dedicated ourselves to the advancement of our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, queer, and questioning employees,” a page on the firm’s site declared in 2024. So when Washington first won the right to host one …