Tag: LGBTQrights

Trans woman now fears travelling without legal gender documents. She’s not alone.

*This is reported by LGBTQ Nation

Transgender woman Michelle Rosenblum, of Ventura, California, has been planning a family vacation to Hawaii, but recent law changes regarding identification documents have made her wary of travel.

After President Donald Trump’s election to a second term last November, Rosenblum had been rushing to get her identification in order as a safety precaution.

According to Rosenblum, she updated her California birth certificate to show she had transitioned and renewed her passport.

Rosenblum was shocked to receive a letter from the State Department telling her she needed to correct her information on her passport application to show her biological sex at birth.

As Rosenblum prepares to fly, she fears that the discrepancies between her California Real ID and her passport will create problems when traveling. While the federal government requires Real ID for air travelers, states oversee the gender marker listed on the IDs.

Rosenblum is now debating traveling with a stack of documents, such as her birth certificate, Social Security card, and a court order showing her gender change.

Rosenblum tells The Los Angeles Times, “In the 10 years that I’ve been transitioned, I have never felt like, ‘Whoa, I need to get all my papers together.’ I was never concerned about traveling.” 

Rosenblum’s experience echoes similar concerns that trans people have about traveling, as noted in a recent survey conducted by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. In the survey, 302 trans, nonbinary, and other gender non-conforming American adults were surveyed — nearly a third said they were travelling less frequently as a result of the 2024 election.

Though the survey was conducted a month before Trump’s official inauguration. Trump’s campaign focused heavily on attacking the rights of trans people. On the day of his inauguration, President Trump issued an executive order directing the federal government to no longer acknowledge the existence of trans people in any capacity. This led the State Department, which issues passports to U.S. citizens, to announce they no longer accept gender markers that do not align with a person’s sex assigned at birth.

Trump’s continual attacks on the trans community in his official capacity as president have emboldened many GOP members to begin proposing anti-trans legislation in their home states, making travel even less desirable.

In the survey, nearly 70% of respondents said they’d be less willing to vacation in states they viewed as more hostile to trans people, particularly states that hold a GOP majority.

The survey also showed that 48% of respondents were considering moving to or had already moved to states they viewed as safer, particularly states with a liberal majority, such as Washington, California, New York, and Minnesota.

Lead author of the survey, Abbie Goldberg, wrote, “When you feel that you need to consider moving, you’ve been pushed to a certain point…. If you’re a trans person living in the U.S., particularly in a state with not a lot of protections and some explicitly anti-trans legislation, you’re thinking about your physical safety, your children’s safety at school, the possibility you could be fired from your job, and no way to push back.”

Rosenblum said she is grateful to live in California, where she is protected by anti-discrimination laws but as she gets ready for vacation, she said, “It feels like people are trying to shove me back into the closet.”

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Maryland becomes 5th state to decriminalize HIV

*This is reported by LGBTQ Nation

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) signed legislation on Tuesday that decriminalizes HIV. The Carlton R. Smith Act – named for a local HIV activist who died last year – eliminates criminal penalties based on one’s HIV status. Maryland is the 5th state to decriminalize HIV, with North Dakota making the move just last month.

Until now, it was a misdemeanor in Maryland to “knowingly transfer or attempt to transfer” HIV to someone else. The law did not require intent to transmit, actual transmission, or conduct that would transmit the virus. Penalties included up to three years incarceration and a fine of up to $2,500.

Laws like this can deter people from being tested and treated for HIV. In addition, Maryland’s law has been disproportionately used to target Black people.

The Williams Institute found that from 2000 to 2020, Black people accounted for 82% of HIV-related criminal cases in the state, despite only making up 30% of the population and 71% of the people living with HIV. The study also found that Black men make up 68% of people accused in HIV-related criminal cases, despite being 14% of the state’s population and 44% of the population living with HIV.

When the study was released, Williams Institute HIV Criminalization Project Director Nathan Cisneros explained that the law was put in place “at the height of the AIDS crisis before we had effective treatments for HIV.”

“We now have medical treatments that wholly eliminate the risk of transmitting HIV through sex,” Cisneros explained, “yet these advances are not reflected in Maryland law despite several reform attempts in recent years.”

In a statement, Phillip Westry, director of the state LGBTQ+ organization FreeState Justice, celebrated the passage of the Carlton R. Smith Act, calling it “a testament to the power of education, research, and courageous leadership.”

“It sends a clear message,” Westry continued, “Maryland is committed to evidence-based policymaking and to ending the criminalization of people living with HIV. We honor the memory of Carlton R. Smith by continuing the work of building a more just, inclusive, and informed society.”

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Paris unveils memorial to gay Holocaust victims

*This is reported by LGBTQ Nation.

A memorial to the gay people who were sent to concentration camps during the Third Reich was unveiled in Paris this weekend.

The monument is a giant steel star created by artist Jean-Luc Verna and is located near Place de la Bastille in a park. The monument recognizes the estimated 5000 to 15,000 people sent to concentration camps during World War II for homosexuality.

“Recognition means saying ‘This happened’ and saying ‘We don’t want this to happen again,’” Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said at the inauguration ceremony. She said that there is still an “obligation to fight against denial and mitigation” and that there “are, today, extremely dangerous, strong, opposing winds that would like to deny the diversity of the victims.”

The memorial is “a big thing so that it’s seen, so that it’s finally seen,” artist Verna told the French LGBTQ+ magazine TETU, describing the symbolism of the memorial. “The black side of the star is the bodies that were burned, it’s grief, it’s also a shadow that tells us that these things can happen again. The other side, the mirror, is the present, with colors from the weather and the sky of Paris that change as fast as public opinion can turn backwards.”

The memorial was unveiled on May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT), and comes after France started recognizing in recent decades that gay people were also victims of the Holocaust.

According to TETU, for years after World War II, people didn’t discuss the pink triangles that were used to designate people put in concentration camps due to their sexuality, until the 1990s when testimony from Pierre Seel was published. Seel was sent to the Schirmeck Concentration Camp in Alsace in 1941 after the Third Reich took over that part of France. In 2010, a memorial plaque was installed in Seel’s hometown of Mulhouse in “memory of Pierre Seel and other anonymous Mulhousiens arrested and sent to concentration camps due to homosexuality.”

“We are here to remember that the Nazis wanted to eliminate the most weak, the most fragile, the people suffering from handicap whose existence was considered an affront to their concept of man and society,” former French President Jacques Chiarc said in 2005. “In Germany, as well as in our territory, those who were different, I’m thinking about the homosexuals, were hunted down, arrested, and sent to concentration camps.”

Today, historians estimate that there were anywhere between 60 and 200 people sent to concentration camps due to their sexuality from France.

There are also monuments to the gay victims of the Holocaust in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Tel Aviv, and Sydney, all in the shape of a pink triangle, the symbol that the Nazis had sewn to the people held in concentration camps for homosexuality.

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Lesbian teen brutally beaten at Illinois McDonald’s

*This is reported by NBC News

Two teenagers, one a juvenile, brutally beat a 19-year-old woman inside a suburban McDonald’s after making derogatory comments about her sexual orientation, according to local police.

The May 13 incident occurred at the fast food chain’s location in Carpentersville, Illinois, about 40 miles from Chicago, with officers responding to a report of a fight in progress, according to news release from the Carpentersville Police Department.

The victim, who was later identified as Kady Grass, sustained severe injuries and was transported to a local hospital, where she was treated and has since been released.

Following an investigation, the Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office approved multiple felony charges against the suspects, according to police. John Kammrad, 19, was charged with aggravated battery, great bodily harm, aggravated battery in a public place, mob action and more. Kammrad was taken into custody on Saturday, while the juvenile suspect turned himself in on Friday.

Photos posted to a GoFundMe account for Grass show the extent of her injuries, which span her face and her legs. In an interview with NBC Chicago, Grass said the attack happened while she was in town to see her 13-year-old cousin’s choir concert.

“One hit me in the jaw and one was hitting me in the front, and then I didn’t realize that I was getting hit behind until a little bit later, like it took me a while to realize,” Grass said. “I was unconscious when they were stomping on my head, so I don’t remember that part, but my 13-year-old cousin does.”

Carpentersville Police Deputy Chief Kevin Stankowitz said the incident “underscores the importance of addressing violence and discrimination” within the community, according to the news release.

In an email to NBC Chicago, Stankowitz said the department collaborated with the Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office on whether or not to file hate crime charges. After a review of the case, Stankowitz said, the office declined to file them.

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A Bill That Would Ban Pornography in the U.S. Also Takes Aim at Trans People

*This is reported by Them.

Republicans in Congress have introduced a bill that would dramatically redefine the U.S. legal definition of “obscenity” to include any sexual content, escalating the right-wing campaign to define transgender people as inherently pornographic and obscene.

On May 8, Utah Sen. Mike Lee reintroduced his “Interstate Obscenity Definition Act” (IODA) with support in the House from Illinois Rep. Mary Miller. Lee is a fervent anti-trans Republican, having previously pressured Amazon to stop selling a trans-themed children’s book and supported legislation to ban trans students from school sports leagues. Miller, meanwhile, is perhaps best known for intentionally misgendering trans Rep. Sarah McBride earlier this year, and for declaring in 2022 that the overturning of Roe v. Wade was a “historic victory for white life.”

The bill would add a new definition of “obscene” speech to the Communications Act of 1934: if passed, obscenity would be redefined as anything which “appeals to the prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion”; “depicts, describes, or represents, an actual or simulated sexual act […] with the objective intent to arouse, titillate, or gratify the sexual desires of a person”; and “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” (Legally, appealing to the “prurient interest” means that something elicits sexual desire in the viewer.)

The bill was referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. This is the third time Lee has introduced IODA, as Mashable noted, following IODA’s defeat in 2022 and 2024.

IODA had not yet received any cosponsors at time of writing, meaning it’s uncertain whether the bill will gain enough Congressional support to pass. But its intent is nevertheless chilling for U.S. free speech law, advocates say. “Obscene” speech — which is not protected by the First Amendment — was defined in the 1973 Supreme Court case Miller v. California, in which the Court established a three-pronged test to determine whether a given image or statement is legally obscene. Under the “Miller test,” speech is considered obscene if “the average person, applying contemporary community standards,” would consider it appealing to the prurient interest, and if it also depicts sexual activity “in a patently offensive way.”

IODA’s text would effectively remove the Miller test’s reliance on “community standards” and whether material is “patently offensive” from obscenity law, making it significantly easier to bring legal cases against any depiction of sexual activity — whether through photography, film, or even the written word.

Jacob Mchangama and Ashkhen Kazaryan, representing the think tank The Future of Free Speech, called IODA “dangerous” in an editorial for MSNBC on Tuesday. “By discarding the concept of community standards, the IODA removes a key safeguard that allows local norms to shape what counts as obscenity,” Mchangama and Kazaryan wrote. “Without it, the federal government could impose a single national standard that fails to account for regional differences, cultural context or evolving social values.”

By making standards for obscenity more subjective, IODA could also open the door for conservatives to legally declare trans people in general to be “obscene.” Lee is a longtime ally of the Heritage Foundation, the far-right think tank responsible for drafting Project 2025, a massive policy blueprint for President Donald Trump’s second term. (Trump tapped Project 2025 architect Russell Vought to head the Office of Management and Budget in February.) The sprawling 920-page document falsely declares that trans people are a threat to children, that transitioning itself is equivalent to pornography, and that pornography must be outlawed in the U.S.

“Pornography [is] manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children,” Project 2025’s forward reads in part. “Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women [….] Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.” The document also claims that children in public schools “suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries,” referencing right-wing campaigns against Drag Story Hour events and LGBTQ+ books of any kind.

“If you pull back and you look at the broad picture of censorship that’s going on, from any information about trans people to sexual health information, certainly to anything that has adult content, they are following their promises in Project 2025. And this is just another attempt,” Ricci Levy, president and CEO of the sexual freedom nonprofit Woodhull Freedom Foundation, told Mashable this week.

The right-wing campaign against “obscenity” and anything deemed “pornographic” is moving forward at the state level as well. In January, Oklahoma State Sen. Dusty Deevers, a Republican, introduced legislation that would ban all pornography across the board and establish a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison for “trafficking” in porn. New age verification laws made Pornhub inaccessible in 16 states earlier this year, covering most of the Southern U.S.

It’s not just Republicans who are pushing for such laws, however. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, signed another such age verification bill into law earlier this week. And in Congress, Republican Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Majority Leader John Thune joined with Democrats Richard Blumenthal and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to reintroduce the Kids Online Safety Act on Wednesday, which free speech advocates say would threaten LGBTQ+ speech while failing to protect children online.

“Its outrageous that Democrat lawmakers are still willing to go along with this charade just to score ‘protect the children’ political points,” wrote Evan Greer, director of the free speech nonprofit Fight for the Future, in a Bluesky post reacting to KOSA’s return on Wednesday.

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Why LGBTQ Americans Are Moving to Portugal: Freedom, Safety & a Fresh Start

We sit down and chat with Josh Polanco, an expat living and working as a real estate agent in Lisbon.

More and more LGBTQ Americans are choosing to move abroad—and Portugal is rising to the top of the list. In this video, we explore why Portugal is becoming a haven for LGBTQ individuals seeking safety, civil rights, and a better quality of life amidst growing political threats in the United States.

From inclusive laws and national healthcare to thriving queer communities in Lisbon and Porto, Portugal offers a refreshing contrast to the increasingly hostile policies emerging in red states across the U.S. This video is part of the Flee Red States project, a movement dedicated to helping LGBTQ people identify safer, more welcoming places to live—both within the U.S. and abroad.

As the Trump administration and the Republican Party work to dismantle LGBTQ civil rights protections, Flee Red States provides tools, support, and real-world stories to empower our community to make informed decisions about relocation. Whether you’re just curious or seriously planning your next chapter, this video is for you.

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Trump Judge Rules It’s OK to Discriminate Against LGBTQ People

*This is reported by New Republic Opinion via Yahoo News.

A MAGA judge in Texas has issued a sweeping ruling that destroys workplace discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people in the United States. 

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who holds a reputation for being a far-right activist judge, declared that while Title VII of the Civil Rights Act does not protect LGBTQ people from workplace harassment based on their sexual or gender orientation. The case was brought forth by the Heritage Foundation, a far-right, culturally conservative organization that heavily influenced the writings and goals of Project 2025.  

Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, specifically targeted transgender people in his ruling, stating that they had to simply deal with any kind of discriminatory treatment in their workplace. He deduced that “a male employee must use male facilities like other males,” an assertion that completely invalidates transgender identity in its entirety rather than actually acknowledging the issues they face at work. Kacsmaryk even went so far as to order federal employment policy to remove“all language defining ‘sex’ in Title VII to include ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity.”. 

This all directly contradicts the Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County ruling, which stated plainly that Title VII protects LGBTQ workers from identity-based firing and harassment. 

Kacsmaryk is not new to this. He has been referred to as the “go-to jurist” for right wingers looking for judicial validation for cruel, oppressive, and deeply culturally conservative policy. He attacked LGBTQ protections in the Affordable Care Act, suspended FDA approval of the live-saving abortion pill mifepristone, and tried (and failed) to make Planned Parenthood pay $2 billion to Texas and Louisiana on the grounds that they were “defrauding” Medicaid. This is yet another coordinated attack from the right intended to erode hard fought social justice victories.

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Ohio Republicans introduce ‘Natural Family Month’ bill, excluding LGBTQ families

*This is reported by NBC News

More than two dozen Ohio lawmakers are supporting a bill that would designate the weeks between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day “Natural Family Month.”

Though the bill, introduced by Republican state Reps. Josh Williams and Beth Lear, doesn’t define “natural family” in its text, critics say it is intended to exclude LGBTQ families and promote marriage and childrearing between heterosexual, monogamous couples only.

When asked whether “Natural Family Month” will also recognize gay couples and parents with adopted children, Williams said in an emailed statement to NBC News that “the purpose of the month is to promote natural families—meaning a man, a woman, and their children—as a way to encourage higher birth rates.” 

He added, “This is not about discriminating against other family structures, but about supporting the one most directly tied to the creation and raising of children.”

Lear did not return a request for comment. 

After introducing the bill earlier this week, Williams and Lear said in joint statements that the initiative is intended to promote child rearing. 

“At a time when marriage is trending downward and young couples are often choosing to remain childless, it’s important for the State of Ohio to make a statement that marriage and families are the cornerstone of civil society, and absolutely imperative if we want to maintain a healthy and stable Republic,” Lear said. 

As of Friday, the bill had 26 additional Republican co-sponsors.

Dwayne Steward, the director of statewide LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Ohio, told a local queer news site that the bill is both bad policy and a “calculated act of strategic erasure.” 

“It not only invalidates the existence of single parents and countless other caregivers, but it takes direct aim at LGBTQ+ families across our state,” Steward told the Buckeye Flame. “The so-called ‘Natural Family Foundation,’ the group pushing this legislation, has made their ideology clear: if you’re not a heterosexual, monogamous couple with children, you don’t count as a family at all.” 

Steward, who did not immediately return NBC News’ request for comment, added, “As an adoptive parent, myself, I feel this erasure personally. This bill is not just offensive; it’s dangerous.”

Several local news websites, including the Buckeye Flame, reported that the Natural Family Foundation, a conservative advocacy group that is against same-sex marriage and promotes families with a “clear male leader,” was involved in lobbying for the bill. The foundation did not immediately return a request for comment. 

Last year, Ohio considered eight bills targeting LGBTQ people, according to a tally by the American Civil Liberties Union. Two of those — a provision that requires school personnel to notify parents of “any request by a student to identify as a gender that does not align with the student’s” birth sex, and a measure that prohibits certain transition-related medical care for minors — became law.

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Military ordered to identify troops with “symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria” to kick out

*This is reported by LGBTQ Nation.

The military has been ordered to identify troops who either have or may have gender dysphoria, the psychological term for the distress caused by one’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth not being the same. The goal is to get started on forcing transgender people out of the military ahead of the June 6 date set by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to start the purge.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration could start forcing transgender people out of the military, while several legal challenges to the trans military ban are being heard by lower courts. Hegseth then said that transgender service members would have until June 6 (or July 7 for those in the reserves) to voluntarily leave the military and have a chance to keep some of the benefits they accrued in their time in the armed services.

Orders issued yesterday, Advocate reports, will have each branch of the military start identifying transgender people to kick out after June 6. It tells each branch to identify people who have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria or “symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria” and review their medical records.

“Commanders who are aware of service members in their units with gender dysphoria, a history of gender dysphoria, or symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria will direct individualized medical record reviews,” the directive says. It also reaffirms that gender-affirming care is banned for transgender active-duty members of the military.

Stars and Stripes reports that an unnamed senior Defense Department official explained that commanders can now start medical screenings for servicemembers who don’t identify as transgender but who they suspect may have gender dysphoria.

“[This] is also consistent with what we expect and require of commanders generally, to ensure that their service members are fit and capable for duty — whether it’s under this policy or any other qualification where they may have concern that that service member requires medical intervention or is not able to perform their duties,” they said.

“The implementation requires some steps to ensure that those who go forward in service remain eligible to meet the high standards of the department. The department requires high standards to ensure that the force is ready to fight and win the nation’s wars as called upon.”

On May 8, Hegseth issued a memo saying that transgender servicemembers would have until June 6 to voluntarily start the process of leaving the military and get an honorable discharge, which would make them eligible for voluntary separation pay, as well as some health care and employment assistance benefits.

“There’s no guarantee to access to your pension or severance or an honorable discharge,” said Rae Timberlake of the trans service member organization Sparta Pride. They are one of the estimated 1000 transgender service members choosing to leave the military voluntarily now in order to get some of the benefits they have been earning throughout their career that might not be available if the military forces them out for being transgender after June 6.

“This is not voluntary,” they said. “This is a decision that folks are coming to under duress.”

National Center for Lesbian Rights attorney Shannon Minter told Advocate that the May 15 memo is “disturbing.”

“From the beginning this policy has been implemented in a rushed and chaotic manner that is completely unnecessary and deeply disrespectful to these service members, who deserve at the very least clear information and an orderly process so that they can make informed decisions that will have such a profound effect on their lives and their families,” he said.

“It is also deeply concerning that the separation codes that this guidance indicates will appear on the records of officers who are involuntarily separated will create the false impression that they are some sort of risk to national security. This is grossly untrue and will needlessly limit their civilian employment opportunities.”

The purge stems from an executive order issued in January that said that trans people can’t lead “an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle and that not using pronouns associated with a person’s sex assigned at birth violates the military’s “high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity.” This runs counter to actual studies of transgender people in the military that have found that they can serve without issue.

The executive order led to several lawsuits challenging it, including a lawsuit filed in Washington state brought by seven transgender servicemembers and one trans person who wants to join the military. A federal judge in that case issued a temporary injunction, blocking the Department of Defense from implementing the ban while the court heard the case.

Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) appealed the injunction, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit refused to lift it. So, the DOJ appealed to the Supreme Court, which lifted the injunction earlier this month.

Stars and Stripes reports that there are around 4200 service members with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

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UK plummets down European rankings for LGBTQ+ rights – after topping list just a decade ago

*This is reported by Pink News

The Rainbow Map and Index has been published annually since 2009 and ranks all 49 European countries on legal and policy practices for LGBTQ+ people.

The latest rankings, published on Wednesday (14 May), show that the UK had dropped to 22nd, with an overall score of 46 per cent, making it now the second-worst country for LGBTQ+ laws in western Europe and Scandinavia – above only Italy.

The UK was named the best place in Europe for LGBTQ+ rights, with an 86 per cent rating, in 2015. But it has been falling ever since and dropped seven places from last year’s position, mainly because of the recent Supreme Court ruling which deemed that the protected characteristic of “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act was based on “biology” and excluded trans people.

For laws that relate to the recognition of trans people’s gender identity, the UK is now ranked 45th. ILGA-Europe said that the Supreme Court’s verdict constituted a legal block on effective recognition of trans people’s identities. The only other European nations in a similar position are Bulgaria, Georgia, Hungary and Russia.

While Scotland had had introduced the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, which came into effect last year, the legislation only applies to the devolved nation so had only a minimal effect on the UK’s overall score.

Malta tops the new list, with a score of 89 per cent, followed by Belgium (85 per cent), Iceland (84 per cent), Denmark (80 per cent) and Spain (78 per cent).

Other nations above the UK include Finland (70 per cent), Ireland (63 per cent), Austria (54 per cent), Croatia (49 per cent) and Estonia (46 per cent).

‘The UK must do better’

Commenting on the rankings, ILGA-Europe’s executive director, Chaber, said: “The time to push back is now, before the targeted attacks we’re seeing in countries like Hungary, the UK and Georgia become the norm rather than the exception. Political leaders must lead by example and turn their words into action.”

A spokesperson for TGEU, the European transgender rights network, claimed that while the UK was once a “frontrunner on equality”, it now has a Supreme Court, prime minister and equality watchdog “singing from the same hymn sheet as anti-trans campaigners”.

They went on to say: “The UK Supreme Court’s decision, which defined a ‘woman’ for the anti-discrimination law, has severely undermined legal certainty for trans people. Furthermore, it has reinforced privacy risks and exclusion from essential services such as hospital wards, public toilets, changing rooms and refuges, as well as reception centres for asylum seekers.” 

Meanwhile, Equality Network chief executive Rebecca Don Kennedy said: “It is shameful that having been ranked best in Europe for LGBTI+ laws 10 years ago, we have fallen so far. For our treatment of trans people after the Supreme Court ruling, we are now known as one of the worst countries in Europe. The UK must do better.

“Scotland, when analysed separately, has in the past been considered progressive and a beacon of LGBTI+ equality and human rights. That seems to be quickly deteriorating. We ask the Scottish government to act now and do everything they can to improve the lives of LGBTI+ people and to not submit to growing anti-LGBTI+ narratives both globally and right here in Scotland.

And Vic Valentine, the manager of Scottish Trans, said: “That the UK has slipped so far down the rankings for LGBTI+ equality in Europe is an important reminder that we can’t take progress for granted.

“From the outside, the UK is viewed as a cautionary tale of how things can go backwards rather than forwards. But none of this is inevitable.

“Governments and parliaments can – and should be – forced to protect and promote the rights of everyone. Yet politicians across the UK are quietly watching on as last month’s Supreme Court ruling seems to have set back trans people’s rights by two decades. It is very much in their power to put us back on the right path.

‘We call on the UK government to urgently take whatever action is needed to ensure that trans people can live safely and freely, and [to] reverse this decade of decline in the rights of LGBTI+ people.” 

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