Lesbian couple denied marriage license and forced to separate in Nepal
Pro-LGBT bills pass in Connecticut, Colorado, and Washington
For the Los Angeles Blade, I wrote up a preview of A Noise Within Theatre’s revival of A Man of No Importance, which opened this weekend and plays through the beginning of June.
Finland: The Evangelical Church of Finland – the country’s largest denomination – has rejected a proposal to formally recognize same-sex marriage, which has been legal there since 2017. While a 3/5 majority of the church council voted in favor of same-sex marriage, it fell short of the requires 3/4 majority required to amend the church’s constitution. The current system, where individual priests can choose to marry same-sex couples or not, remains in place.
Greece: Tovima has a deep dive on Greek surrogacy law, amid a government proposal to restrict same-sex couples from accessing it.
UK: Activists are speaking out against the delay in bringing forward a long-promised conversion therapy ban.
By the way, tomorrow, ILGA-Europe releases its Rainbow Europe Map update on the continent’s LGBT rights laws for 2025. I’ll be back on Thursday with an analysis.
Belgium: The minister for equalities wants to see same-sex marriage explicitly protected in the national constitution.
New Zealand: The government is close to closing consultations on a new sex ed curriculum that critics say erases queer and trans people, at the behest of the far-right New Zealand First party, which is party of the governing coalition.
Dominican Republic: A senator has withdrawn his proposed bill to criminalize hate speech after backlash.
Guatemala: Anti-government actors are spreading a conspiracy theory that the government’s action to withdraw its reservation to article 27 of the Vienna Convention on International Treaties – the article clarifies that states cannot use domestic law as an excuse not to uphold international treaty obligations – is a back door for same-sex marriage and other LGBT rights. This is nonsense, and in fact, the courts and government had already been acting as if the reservation was nonfunctional.
Grenada: The government announced at the UN Universal Periodic Review that it intends to abolish the death penalty, although no timeline has been announced. Capital punishment is a vestige of UK colonial law that is no longer enforced, as is the country’s sodomy law, which still faces a pending challenge in local courts.
Nepal: The Kathmandu Post has a horrible report of a lesbian couple who were denied a marriage license, then detained by police, who eventually returned them to family members who forcibly separated them. Same-sex marriage is supposed to be legal nationwide since a 2023 supreme court ruling, but the ruling has been inconsistently enforced across districts.
Tanzania: Amid a growing democratic crisis, the EU Parliament has called on the African country to free jailed opposition politician Tundu Lissu. The EuParl resolution also calls on the government to respect human and civil rights, including for LGBTQ people, and to end criminalization of homosexuality.
Meanwhile, in the States
The Trump administration has rescinded a 2016 executive order that allows people to use bathrooms in federal facilities that align with their gender identity. That repealed order also specified that federal law banning sex discrimination included gender identity discrimination, a fact that was eventually confirmed by the Supreme Court in 2020.
Connecticut: The state house passed a bill banning anti-LGBT discrimination in long-term care facilities. It now heads to the senate.
Lawmakers are also looking at ways to protect librarians and schools from arbitrary and discriminatory challenges against books from far-right activists.
Colorado: The legislature gave final approval to a trans rights bill that simplifies the process for legal gender change and clarifies that deadnaming and misgendering are considered acts of discrimination. The bill had a section relating to parental custody removed before passage. It heads to the governor for signature.
Washington: The governor has signed into law a bill that clarifies and expands hate crime laws in the state.
Louisiana: Republicans hastily rewrote an anti-DEI bill to include bans on teaching a wide range of topics around race and gender in mandatory college classes and advanced it out of committee. It now heads to the house floor.
Alabama: The last day of the state legislature today could see votes on two bills that would ban discussions about LGBT people and ban Pride flags in all preK-12 schools, and a bill that would ban minors from attending drag performances without their parents’ permission.