Brazil Supreme Court rules homophobic slurs are illegal

Kosovo may try to introduce civil unions again

Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled 9-1 that homophobic slurs directed at individuals are illegal and can be punished with prison sentences, equating anti-LGBT speech with racist speech, which is already explicitly against the law. The decision expands a 2019 ruling that banned homophobic speech that vilifies the entire LGBT community, by extending its protection to speech directed at/about individual LGBT people.

Per the Twitter account @Kos_Data, Kosovo’s government is once again trying to introduce a new Civil Code that would allow same-sex civil unions and open the door to future legalization of same-sex marriage. A previous attempt was voted down by Parliament in 2020. If this attempt passes (and it’s not clear that it will), Kosovo will be the first Muslim-majority country to recognize same-sex unions.

A congressional committee in Chile advanced a bill to expand the country’s ban on conversion therapy by medical professionals to a criminal prohibition on all conversion therapy.

The premier of Australia’s New South Wales state announced that his government will introduce its own bill to ban conversion therapy, just as an independent MP announced his own private member’s bill that would achieve more comprehensive reforms around LGBT rights in the state. The other Australian states either have bans or have announced plans to ban the practice, but none has a bill before their parliaments yet.

Germany’s cabinet has approved a new gender self-determination bill, which would allow minors from age 16 to update their legal gender without a doctor’s diagnosis. The bill would must now be presented to the Bundestag for voting.

Meanwhile, in Czechia, the Supreme Court has ruled against a trans person who wanted their government ID updated to reflect their lived gender. The court ruled that this is impossible without first have sex reassignment surgery, going against the trend in most Western countries.

In Canada, following yesterday’s announcement that Saskatchewan will no longer allow trans students under 16 to change the pronoun used in schools without their parents’ consent, New Brunswick has doubled-down on its own policy requiring parental notice and consent for pronoun changes. This also follows a damning report from NB’s own Child Advocate who ruled the policy unconstitutional.

And Maryland has expanded marital benefits around inheritance and taxes to unmarried cohabiting couples, including same-sex couples.