The Trump Administration ended $25 million in annual federal support to the nonprofit Trevor Project, which provides a suicide hotline for LGBTQ youth. But now, thanks to a $45 million donation from MacKenzie Scott, the nonprofit says they are on a mission to help those who need it most. And they’re seeing more demand than in years past.
Read more at LGBTQ Nation.
Two bills in Florida advanced out of committee last week that would give the state attorney general more power to investigate and press felony charges against health care professionals who provide gender-affirming care in the state, including against therapists who discuss gender issues with minor patients and pharmacists who fill prescriptions that may be used as gender-affirming care.
Last week, the Criminal Justice Subcommittee passed H.B. 743 in a 12-5 vote, Florida Politics reports. The bill would allow state Attorney General James Uthmeier to sue health care practitioners for up to $100,000 per violation for providing gender-affirming care to minors. Mainstream medical organizations support gender-affirming care for trans kids because it has been shown to be life-saving and safe.
S.B. 1010 would make it a felony for doctors, school counselors, or psychologists to advise minors on gender-affirming care or “aid or abet” another health care professional in helping minors get gender-affirming care. The bill gained near-unanimous support from the state senate’s Committee on Children, Families, and Elder Affairs, according to the Florida Phoenix.
If that version of the bill passes, medical professionals could get a $100,000 fine per violation and up to five years in prison.
Florida banned gender-affirming care for trans youth in 2023. Supporters of the new bills say that they are necessary to further crack down on gender-affirming care in the state for “biblical” reasons.
“We have to uphold the principles and standards that made this country great, biblical, constitutional law, and order at all costs. And sometimes that stings,” state Rep. Taylor Yarkowsky said at last week’s hearing.
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Lauren Melo (R), stressed that pharmacists would be punished under her bill, something she says is necessary because, she claimed, health care professionals are “committing fraud” by prescribing gender-affirming care medications but recording the purpose of the medications as something other than gender-affirming care.
“What we’re seeing is there’s coding that’s actually being used that is becoming the problem, and hundreds of thousands of dollars is spent per child for them to transition and codes are being misrepresented where they are saying that it’s an indoctrination disorder instead of saying it’s a gender identity disorder,” she said.
Democrats stressed that the bill could have unintentional side effects. State Rep. Kelly Skidmore (D) said that the bill is not about gender-affirming care but is being pushed by state Attorney General Uthmeier to expand his power.
“It is about giving one individual and maybe his successors authority that they don’t deserve and they cannot manage,” she said, referring to Uthmeier’s involvement in the Hope Florida scandal, where state Republicans are accused of laundering money and committing fraud. “They’ve proven that they cannot be trusted. This is a terrible bill.”
State Rep. Mike Gottlieb (D) said that doctors might be scared from prescribing hormonal medications to people with severe menstrual symptoms lest a pharmacist misinterpret the reason for the prescription.
“You’re going to see doctors not wanting to prescribe those kinds of medications because they’re now subject to a $100,000 penalty,” he said. “We’re really not considering what we’re doing and some of the collateral harms that it’s having.”
Behavioral health care professional Savannah Thompson told WUSF that the bill would make it more difficult for doctors to even talk to trans patients.
“This could increase the feelings of fear from my clients who are under 18, but it also can increase the likelihood that these professionals won’t be able to talk with their clients, honestly and openly, to give them the care and the support that they deserve and need,” she said.
Read more at WTVB.
The U.S. agency that enforces laws prohibiting workplace discrimination on Thursday rescinded legal guidance that had strengthened protections against unlawful harassment for LGBTQ workers and women who have abortions.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted 2-1 to repeal the 2024 guidance, which had incorporated major court rulings and laws passed in the roughly 25 years since the agency last updated its guidance.
The five-member EEOC can make rules and issue guidance explaining how federal laws that protect workers from discrimination based on characteristics such as race, sex, religion and disability should be applied. A separate arm of the agency, led by the general counsel, vets discrimination complaints filed by workers and can broker settlements and bring lawsuits against employers accused of violating those laws.
EEOC guidance is not legally binding, but lays out a blueprint for how the commission will enforce anti-discrimination laws and is often cited by judges deciding novel legal issues.
Since President Donald Trump took office last year, his appointees at the EEOC have stopped pursuing most cases involving transgender workers and have launched probes into workplace diversity policies and alleged antisemitism on college campuses.
The repeal of the 2024 guidance was expected and comes less than three months after the U.S. Senate confirmed Trump nominee Brittany Panuccio to the commission, restoring a quorum of three members and giving Republicans a 2-1 majority.
The commission in the 2024 guidance had adopted a broad view of the type of conduct that amounts to unlawful workplace harassment, saying it included discriminating against employees because they have abortions or use contraception and refusing to use transgender workers’ preferred names and pronouns.
EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas, a Trump appointee, ahead of Thursday’s vote said the EEOC had overstepped its authority by issuing guidance that imposed new obligations on employers rather than interpreting existing law.
But critics of the move said it could discourage employers from preventing harassment and leave workers without recourse when they face it.
“This action is likely to increase the amount of harassment that occurs in workplaces across the country,” a dozen former EEOC and U.S. Department of Labor officials said in a joint statement before the vote. Most of the officials were appointed by Democratic presidents.
The 2024 guidance covered an array of topics, including a landmark 2020 Supreme Court ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County that said workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is a form of unlawful sex discrimination. The commission had said that while Bostock involved a gay worker’s termination and not harassment claims, the Supreme Court’s reasoning in the decision extended to cases alleging harassment of LGBTQ workers.
A federal judge in Texas last year had blocked that portion of the guidance, saying that finding was novel and was beyond the scope of the EEOC’s powers in issuing guidance. Two other judges separately barred the agency from enforcing the guidance against religious organizations that sued.
Read more at the Des Moines Register.
Iowa’s public K-12 schools would be barred from teaching students about topics related to gender identity and sexual orientation at all grade levels under a bill expanding what critics have dubbed the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.
It would subject all of Iowa’s K-12 students to a law Gov. Kim Reynolds signed in 2023 that bans instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation through sixth grade. The wide-ranging education legislation also ordered schools to remove books that depict sex acts.
A Senate subcommittee voted 2-1 Wednesday, Jan. 21, to advance Senate Study Bill 2003, which would extend the prohibition on LGBTQ-related teaching through high school.
“I think just as not all parents want others to teach their children about sex education because it involves family religious beliefs about sexuality, so not all parents want others to teach children about sexual orientation and gender identity because it too involves family religious beliefs about sexuality and sexual ethics,” Sen. Sandy Salmon, R-Janesville, said.
She and Sen. Jesse Green, R-Boone, who introduced the bill, voted to advance it.
Iowa’s 2023 law, Senate File 496, is being challenged as unconstitutional in a federal lawsuit. A federal judge initially granted an injunction blocking parts of the law, including the ban on teaching about gender orientation and sexual identity, while the lawsuit is decided.
But the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his decision, allowing the law to take effect. Attorneys argued the law’s constitutionality in federal court last week.
Sen. Molly Donahue, D-Marion, voted against moving the bill forward, calling it a “distraction” from other issues facing the state.
“Iowans are definitely tired of this type of legislation, and we’re seeing that with the voting records, not just in Iowa but across the United States,” Donahue said. “We should be focused on prioritizing public schools, funding affordability for our people in this state and making sure that we’re balancing a budget in this state that is currently over $1 billion in deficit. We are focusing on the wrong things when we bring bills like this.”
Iowa is one of several Republican-led states, including Florida, with similar prohibitions on classroom teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation.
The bill says that Iowa’s public school districts and charter schools cannot provide “any program, curriculum, test, survey, questionnaire, promotion or instruction relating to gender theory or sexual orientation” to K-12 students.
Similar legislation has not advanced in past years, including in 2025 after a House proposal stalled once it passed out of subcommittee.
Opponents outnumbered supporters of the bill at the hearing Wednesday at the Capitol, as LGBTQ Iowans and LGBTQ rights groups shared opposition with lawmakers, while religious and conservative groups spoke in favor of the measure.
Kaylara Hoadley, of Mason City, cried as she showed lawmakers a photograph of her 15-year-old nonbinary child, saying the bill does not keep students safe.
As a caseworker for families in crisis, Hoadley said she supports youth who are homeless or facing other crises whose only safe space is their school.
“When the law silences teachers, counselors and staff, vulnerable youth suffer and suicide rates increase. … When does a child’s suicide matter to you?” she asked the Republican senators as her voice wavered.
Melissa Peterson, representing the Iowa State Education Association, said questions remain as to whether the current law is discriminatory toward LGBTQ students as it remains tied up in court and urged lawmakers to oppose expanding the law.
“We want to get back to basics and provide a safe learning environment for every single one of our students as closely to as free from discrimination as possible,” Peterson said.
Damian Thompson, external affairs director for Iowa Safe Schools, said the bill would amplify the existing law’s constitutional problems by applying it to older students who have well-established constitutional rights.
“High school students can vote soon, they can serve in the military and they’re expected to understand complex and social and health issues as they enter adulthood,” Thompson said. “Federal courts have been consistently clear that students do not shed their First Amendment rights when they enter a public school.”
Bethany Snyder, of Urbandale, who has a trans partner and is a lesbian mother to a freshman at Valley High School, said silence isolates children and does not protect them.
“My partner and I grew up in that silence,” Snyder said. “We didn’t see ourselves reflected in school. We learned very early what shame sounds like in the absence of words. High school should prepare students for the real world and the real world. LGBTQ people exist as parents, coworkers, legislators, historical figures and leaders and families like mine and families like hers.”
Her daughter Evelynn Snyder-Maul said she has never received instruction on gender identity in school beyond sharing that she has a trans father and queer mother.
“If I’m telling someone about my family, could I get reported?” Snyder-Maul said. “However, that is the least of my concerns. Lawmakers who want to pass this bill are snowflakes. You think that love is inappropriate and you think that it is forcing kids to believe they like the same gender. If your kid is gay, whether they are taught that gay exists or not, they are still going to be gay.”
Danny Carroll, a senior policy adviser with The Family Leader and a former state lawmaker, said the bill would “remove unnecessary distraction” from Iowa classrooms.
“I think Iowans have grown a little bit weary of the distraction — and sometimes very loud and profane distraction — that gender theory has brought on, and I think they’re inclined to think perhaps we should return our schools to some of the fundamentals of learning and put this aside,” Carroll said. “I can see no way that this would interfere with teaching goodwill, friendship, respect for each other.”
Patty Alexander, a retired educator from Indianola, said discussing sexual identity is not an educator’s job.
“We do not believe in labeling students or grouping them by sexual preferences,” Alexander said. “We are here to meet their learning needs. We are not mental health counselors, and forcing us to group and label students only divides and causes rifts. Forcing us to discuss sexuality furthers the mistrust of educators between parents and their children.”
Jeff Pitts, representing the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, said the group supports expanding the existing law through high school.
“Our schools are not the place to promote political ideology,” Pitts said.
Read more at QNotes Carolinas.
For LGBTQ+ people, safety has never been an abstract idea. Concerns for our community show up in legislation, healthcare and how the government treats its citizens. In the United States, where LGBTQ+ rights are being rolled back at both the state and federal level following President Donald Trump’s reelection, many people are quietly asking the same question: where, if anywhere, does stability still exist, and what does real safety actually look like?
That question shapes real decisions. Not just about travel, but about long-term plans, family, work, medical care and whether it is possible to build a future without constant political uncertainty. International data from organizations including ILGA-Europe and Equaldex, alongside migration analysis and residency reporting from Get Golden Visa, points to a widening global divide. Some countries are strengthening legal protections and expanding access to care. Others are narrowing definitions of who is protected under the law, often by targeting transgender people first and testing how much rollback the public will tolerate.
The countries highlighted here represent a snapshot of places that currently offer strong legal protections and relative social stability for LGBTQ+ people. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and conditions can change quickly as governments shift and political climates evolve. Still, these examples help illustrate what safety looks like when it is embedded into legal systems, healthcare infrastructure, and public accountability, rather than left to cultural goodwill or temporary leadership.
One country that consistently ranks at the top is Malta. It has held the number one position on ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Index for multiple consecutive years, a reflection of both legal protections and enforcement. Same-sex marriage has been legal since 2017, conversion therapy is banned nationwide, and gender identity is explicitly protected under the constitution. Legal gender recognition is based on self-determination, without medical or psychiatric requirements, and those protections extend into healthcare, employment, education, and family law, creating long-term security rather than symbolic inclusion.
Iceland also continues to stand out for both legal protections and social acceptance. Same-sex marriage has been legal since 2010, non-binary gender markers are recognized, and gender-affirming care is available through the public healthcare system. Comprehensive anti-discrimination laws are paired with high levels of public trust in institutions, which means LGBTQ+ protections are not constantly relitigated or politicized, but treated as settled rights reflected in daily life.
.Finland has taken meaningful steps in recent years, particularly for transgender people. A 2023 update to its law allows transgender adults to change their gender through self-determination, removing medical gatekeeping that had long been criticized by advocacy groups. While non-binary recognition remains limited, Finland’s strong social safety net and political consensus around equality have kept LGBTQ+ rights largely outside culture war framing, offering stability rather than constant legal vulnerability.
Spain has long been viewed as one of Europe’s most LGBTQ+-affirming countries, and recent legislation has reinforced that reputation. Same-sex marriage has been legal since 2005, and a 2023 gender self-identification law allows people to change legal gender without medical or psychological evaluations. Conversion therapy is banned, and public opinion surveys consistently show strong support for LGBTQ+ equality, particularly in major cities where protections are paired with visible community infrastructure.
In North America, Canada has become a focal point for LGBTQ+ Americans seeking stability. Same-sex marriage has been legal since 2005, non-binary gender markers are available on federal identification, and conversion therapy was banned nationwide in 2022. Advocacy organizations and international reporting have documented a rise in inquiries from U.S. LGBTQ+ residents since the 2024 election, especially among transgender people weighing whether legal protections at home will continue to erode.
The Netherlands remains one of the most legally secure environments for LGBTQ+ people. As the first country to legalize same-sex marriage, it continues to offer robust anti-discrimination protections and publicly funded gender-affirming healthcare. For some U.S. citizens, the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty has made relocation more feasible, a trend that has accelerated since the 2024 US presidential election.
None of these countries are immune to political change, and none represent a perfect solution. But in 2026, they show what becomes possible when LGBTQ+ safety is treated as a structural commitment rather than a cultural preference. As rights erode in some places, the countries that choose to protect them are defining where dignity, stability, and the possibility of a future still exist.
Read more at Erasing 76 Crimes.
Criminalized Sodomy: Burkina Faso, Trinidad & Tobago
Decriminalized Sodomy: St. Lucia, Niue (reported in 2025; it happened in 2024).
Decriminalized Sodomy in Armed Forces: Dominican Republic
Repeal of Sodomy Laws Proposed: Guyana, Sri Lanka; Massachusetts (USA)
Court Challenges Pending: Grenada, Trinidad & Tobago, Zambia, possibly also St Vincent & the Grenadines and Jamaica
Criminalization Proposed: Niger
The net change in the number of criminalizing states was zero, thanks to losing two states as we gained two others, keeping the total at 65. The same thing happened in 2024, when Mali and Iraq criminalized sodomy while Namibia and Dominica decriminalized it. The number of criminalizing states hasn’t dropped since 2023, when Cook Islands and Mauritius decriminalized. And in fact, prior to 2024, no state had made sodomy a crime since 2019.
It should also be noted that the four states that criminalized sodomy in 2024-25 are all internationally recognized sovereign states with large populations, while the four decriminalizing states include three microstates, two of which aren’t sovereign.
Looking ahead to 2026, we can probably expect the criminalization wave across West Africa to continue into Niger, and possibly some other former French colonies in the area. As for decriminalization, our most likely candidates are Guyana, whose president vowed to decriminalize during last fall’s elections, and Grenada, the last of five Caribbean countries where a constitutional challenge was pending before the local courts. We may see a court challenge go ahead in Zambia this year as well, though the timeline is not currently clear. We’re also unlikely to get a result on the Privy Council appeal of Trinidad & Tobago’s sodomy law until 2027 or later. It also appears that efforts to get decriminalization passed in Sri Lanka have stalled.
Equal Marriage Brought into Effect: Liechtenstein, Thailand (both passed in 2024)
Equal Marriage codified: Guanajuato (Mexico)
Codification of Equal Marriage Proposed: Brazil; Virginia, Ohio, Oregon, Missouri (USA, by referendum); Aguascalientes, Chihuahua (Mexico)
Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage: Gabon (passed 2024)
Criminalized Same-Sex Marriage: Burkina Faso
Constitutional Ban on Gay People Adopting: Slovakia
Civil Unions: Lithuania (court ruling, legislation pending), Okinawa (Japan)
Civil Unions Enhanced: Czechia (passed in 2024)
Limited Recognition of Same-Sex Unions: Suriname, Turks & Caicos Islands (UK), Japan, India, European Union (court ruling affecting Poland, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Romania, yet to be implemented)
Court Challenges for Equal Marriage Pending: Japan, Botswana
Civil Union Bill Pending: Poland, Lithuania, Nagasaki (Japan)
Same-Sex Adoption Legalized: Guanajuato (Mexico – Codified), Czechia (stepchild only; passed in 2024), Thailand (passed in 2024)
Ended Discrimination against Same-Sex Couples in Adoption: Luxembourg, Israel, Chile
Surrogacy Legalized: Western Australia
Despite the number of developments listed above, we’ve entered a period where advances in same-sex marriage rights have slowed down, and we should be upfront about that going into 2026. We didn’t win same-sex marriage anywhere, and courts and governments only granted limited civil unions or relationship recognition for a specific limited rights in a handful of jurisdictions.
2026 doesn’t appear to offer much hope for advances, either. A supreme court case in Japan could go either way – or could even find that banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional but order no solution. Sint Maarten (Netherlands) appears to just be waiting for a court challenge to copy the successful challenge in its partner states Aruba and Curacao in 2024, but none has been filed as far as I can see. And no other states in Europe or Latin America appear open to it now, with one asterisk.
At time of writing, the US military has imposed a regime change in Venezuela, removing its sitting president/dictator Nicolas Maduro to stand trial in New York. Who knows who’ll be running Venezuela by the end of 2026? Trump has ruled out the opposition leader who won a Nobel Peace Prize last year, and he insists that the US will be running the country somehow. Meanwhile, Maduro’s vice president has assumed the presidency with the support of Maduro’s supreme court. It’s easy to imagine a democratic Venezuela that is more amenable to LGBT rights than Maduro – there have been intermittent discussions about it in government since 2009. But it’s also easy to imagine that a US-imposed leader may not be keen to advance LGBT rights while dependent on Trump’s support, or another despot taking over in the event of a power vacuum.
Various countries in Africa and in parts of the Muslim world have proposed bills that would impose criminal sanctions on same-sex marriage, including Ghana and Niger. We’ll have to watch out for these.
Poland’s government agreed to a weak civil union bill in the last week of December, but it remains to be seen if even that will survive a threatened presidential veto. And Lithuania’s government has been lukewarm to codifying civil unions into law after the 2025 court ruling made them possible.
Sexual Orientation Discrimination Banned: Dominican Republic (court ruling), Aklan (Philippines), Karnataka (India)
Gender Expression Discrimination Banned: Manitoba (Canada), Aklan (Philippines), Karnataka (India)
Gender Identity Discrimination Ban Ordered by Court: Kenya
Discrimination Protections Removed: USA (Trump executive order); Iowa (gender identity protections repealed); UK (supreme court ruled trans women aren’t women under equality law)
SOGIE Discrimination Bans Proposed: Ukraine, Montenegro; Castille & Leon and Asturias (Spain)
Constitutional Ban on SOGIE Discrimination Proposed: Oregon, Ohio, Missouri, Vermont, Connecticut (USA, by referendum)
Conversion Therapy Banned: Spain (penalties enhanced); South Australia & New South Wales (passed 2024); Chiapas, Tamaulipas, Durango, San Luis Potosi & Guanajuato (Mexico, banned federally since 2024); Quezon City (Philippines); New South Wales, South Australia (Australia, both passed in 2024)
Conversion Therapy Bans Proposed/Pending: UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland, Colombia; Tasmania, Western Australia (Australia); Gibraltar (UK)
LGBTQ Hate Crime Laws: Australia (Nationwide) and Victoria and Tasmania; Karnataka (India)
Hate Crime Law Proposed: Mexico
Hate Crime Law Enhancements Proposed: Canada, Argentina, Ukraine, Romania, UK
Blood Donation Ban Ends: Australia
Blood Donation Ban Reinstated: Greece
Once again, we saw very limited gains in 2025 across these fields, though there were some milestones. The court finding that sexual orientation discrimination is banned under the Dominican Republic constitution is a major development that will likely have ripple effects going forward. And the developments across Australia have been positive even if they were mostly traced to last year.
Looking ahead to 2026, we’re probably heading into another bad year in the United States, which will likely only be mitigated or reversed if Democrats pull off major electoral victories in mid-term and state legislative elections in November. But the supreme court also looks likely to strike down all conversion therapy ban laws across the country during this session too.
Prospects look a little bit brighter in Europe, where applicant EU countries are all racing to shore up their LGBTQ human rights standards and discrimination rules as part of the accession negotiation process. I think the European countries with proposed conversion therapy bans also seem likely to actually pass them this year – maybe the Australian states too.
New Laws Banning LGBTQ Expression/Pride Events Passed: Hungary, Kazakhstan (signed in 2026), Burkina Faso
Laws Banning LGBTQ Expression/Assembly Proposed: Turkiye, Ghana, Senegal, Niger
These laws, modeled after the “LGBT Propaganda” laws passed by Russia back in 2013 and Uganda’s “Anti-Homosexuality Act” from 2024, have been multiplying in recent years in countries in Russia’s orbit and across Africa. The EU is doing work to push back against such laws, but with limited success.
Hungary will hold elections in the spring, which will present the best chance to get a less hostile government in power — and hopefully they can reverse the worst anti-LGBT and anti-democratic actions of the Orban regime.
Gender Recognition Law Passed: Cuba; Veracruz (Mexico); New South Wales, ACT (Australia, passed in 2024)
Gender Recognition Made Easier: Czechia (surgical requirement ended); Poland (administrative process); Tabasco (Mexico, administrative process)
Gender Recognition Law Proposed: Costa Rica, Montenegro
Non-binary Gender Recognition Passed: Brazil (limited court order); Mexico City (Mexico)
Non-binary Gender Recognition Proposed: Luxembourg
Legal Gender Change Banned: Slovakia, Peru
Gender Care Banned/Restricted: USA (Supreme Court decision upholding bans in 27 states); Brazil; Sweden (passed 2024); New Zealand; Queensland (Australia)
Gender Care Ban/Restrictions Proposed: Turkiye; Argentina; Colorado, Missouri (USA, referendum pending)
Trans People Banned from Military: USA
Trans Sports Ban Proposed: Colorado, Washington (USA, referendum pending)
Transfemicide Laws Passed: Nayarit, Mexico City, Baja California, Baja California Sur, Campeche, and Mexico (Mexico)
Trans people made some substantial gains in 2025, particularly in Mexico, but also suffered some huge setbacks as a global anti-trans movement increasingly found its footing with right-wing governments. In particular, anti-trans activists have found success pushing bans on gender care for minors, but the agenda is clear that they want to expand this to all gender care and legal gender recognition cases.
Looking ahead to 2026, I think Mexico and the EU and its applicants are the likeliest states to see positive developments, though the anti-trans movement in Europe has been strong too. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re going to see a change in the trajectory of the USA on these issues unless Democrats win big in November.
Read more at LGBTQ Nation.
Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz (R) says his Republican majority intends to permanently ban gender-affirming care for minors this year. The move comes more than seven months after the release of a Utah Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) report, mandated by a Republican-backed state law, which found that medical evidence actually supports access to gender-affirming healthcare for minors, a different result than many conservatives were hoping for.
Utah already has what former state Rep. Mike Kennedy (R) — who now represents the state’s third district in Congress — described to Deseret News as a “permanent” ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Passed in January 2023, S.B. 16 banned gender-affirming surgeries for minors — despite such surgeries being exceptionally rare — and instituted an indefinite moratorium on providing puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to minors for the purposes of gender-affirming care.
Kennedy, who co-sponsored S.B. 16, admitted to Deseret News that characterizing the law’s ban on puberty blockers and HRT as a “moratorium” was essentially a tactic to win over lawmakers who wanted more data on the effects of such treatments. The ban, he said, is already effectively permanent unless Utah lawmakers act to lift it.
S.B. 16 also ordered the state DHHS to commission a review of medical evidence around puberty blockers and HRT prescribed for the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors, with the goal of lawmakers using the report’s findings to inform future policy decisions.
That review, conducted by the University of Utah’s Drug Regimen Center, was released last May, and as Mother Jones reported at the time, its conclusions “unambiguously” supported the benefits of gender-affirming care for trans young people.
However, Utah Republicans, including Schultz, Kennedy, and state Rep. Katy Hall — who co-sponsored S.B. 16 — have dismissed the report.
“Common sense is common sense,” Schultz told Deseret News. “I don’t need a report, one way or the other, to tell me that. I just firmly believe that minors should not be transitioning.”
At the same time, however, Schultz told the outlet that he agrees with a separate review of the DHHS report by anti-trans advocacy group Do No Harm. The group’s review, published early last month, claims that the DHHS report does not meet the standards of a true systematic review of medical evidence, according to Deseret News.
“Unlike true systematic reviews, it does not assess the reliability of studies and whether the research can provide guidance for weighing the risks and benefits of medical intervention for children with gender dysphoria,” Do No Harm’s report claims.
Deseret News — which is owned, through a subsidiary, by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — also notes that the Utah DHHS review’s findings contradict those in both the Cass Review and one released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last year. Both of those reviews have been widely criticized.
A spokesperson for University of Utah Health defended the Utah DHHS review, telling Deseret News in a statement that it was based on “an extensive body of research regarding the safety and efficacy of these treatments.”
“Our review also found that the consensus of that evidence is that the treatments are safe in terms of changes to bone density, cardiovascular risk factors, and metabolic changes; and they are effective in terms of positive mental health and psychosocial outcomes,” the statement read, according to Deseret News.
Read more at Colorado Newsline.
A Colorado organization is leading two ballot measures that would restrict rights for transgender children in the state.
Protect Kids Colorado, a coalition led by prominent anti-LGBTQ activist Erin Lee, is gathering signatures for ballot measures that would prevent transgender children from participating in school sports and receiving gender-affirming surgeries. Lee led several anti-LGBTQ initiatives that the Colorado Title Board rejected ahead of the 2024 election.
The group has until Feb. 20 to submit 124,238 valid signatures from registered voters for each initiative to the Colorado secretary of state’s office. If that threshold is met, the measures would be placed on the November 2026 ballot.
Z Williams, co-director of the Denver nonprofit Bread and Roses Legal Center, said both of the issues the ballot measures seek to address are relatively minute. Williams said they have yet to see “actual validated science” that supports the need for the initiatives.
“The number of trans athletes is incredibly small, and the number of gender-affirming surgeries done for transgender youth or minors is even smaller,” Williams said. “We have two ballot measures … that are going to require hundreds of thousands of dollars, waste a lot of time, create a lot of confusion during the election over two pretty much manufactured issues.”
Protect Kids Colorado did not respond to Newsline’s request for comment on the initiatives.
Coloradans value freedom, a freedom that belongs to everyone, including transgender youth and their families.
– Cal Solverson, spokesperson for One Colorado
There isn’t clear data on the number of transgender student athletes in Colorado, and the two major hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors do not offer surgeries to minors.
Cal Solverson, spokesperson for LGBTQ+ advocacy organization One Colorado, said the ballot measures are ill-informed and jeopardize individual freedom. They also put transgender people, their families and health care providers across the state at risk, Solverson said.
“Coloradans value freedom, a freedom that belongs to everyone, including transgender youth and their families,” Solverson said in a statement. “The right to exist as we are extends beyond the exam room to the playing field, where every child deserves the opportunity to stay active, develop life skills, and experience the deep camaraderie of a team.”
If the measures make it to the ballot, Solverson said One Colorado trusts that Colorado voters will defend transgender youth and “ensure that freedom continues to exist for all Coloradans and not just some.”
Ballot Initiative 110 would prohibit health care professionals from knowingly performing any surgery on a minor “for the purpose of altering biological sex characteristics.”
The measure would also prohibit state and federal funding including Medicaid from being used to pay for gender-affirming procedures.
Children’s Hospital Colorado and Denver Health have paused gender-affirming care for youth amid the Trump administration’s threats to pull Medicaid and Medicare funding entirely.
A document on Protect Kids Colorado’s website says that Children’s Hospital Colorado performs gender-affirming surgeries on minors, but Children’s Hospital said in a statement that it has never provided gender-affirming surgical care to patients under 18, and it stopped offering such surgeries to adults in 2023. Denver Health stopped offering surgeries to minors in early 2025.
The document also says that while the ballot measure only targets gender-affirming surgeries, the organizations has “a multi-pronged plan to outlaw puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors as well.”
The language in the initiative includes medical terms that aren’t necessarily related to surgery, such as prescriptions. It also applies to health care professionals such as podiatrists, dentists and chiropractors, who wouldn’t be performing gender-affirming surgeries in the first place. That adds concern about how the measure would affect other elements of gender-affirming care, according to Mardi Moore, CEO of LGBTQ+ advocacy group Rocky Mountain Equality.
“It’s kind of like they’re throwing the spaghetti at the wall to see what’s going to stick,” Moore said. “There’s not a lot of people you can trust anymore, and I think Protect Kids Colorado is one of those groups that cannot be trusted to think they will keep all children safe.”
If the measure passes, it would lead to discriminatory practices in medical care, affecting all children, not just transgender children, Moore said.
Ballot Initiative 109 would create definitions in state statute aiming to define boys and girls based on physical anatomy, excluding transgender people.
Sports teams sponsored by schools or athletic associations would be required to expressly designate those teams as for men, women or co-ed. Schools and their athletic departments would be required to adopt policies implementing the requirements of the initiative.
The measure would not affect any student’s ability to participate in co-ed sports.
The state’s commissioner of education would be tasked with enforcing the measure, and would have discretion to determine how to “take appropriate remedial action” against any school not in compliance with its requirements.
“It would mean a little 8-year-old who loves to play soccer and who happens to be trans couldn’t play anymore,” Moore said of Initiative 109.
Colorado is known to be a safe place for LGBTQ+ people, Williams said, and families have moved to the state from around the country because they share those values.
“When I was a kid, we were ‘the hate state,’ and Colorado has unequivocally disavowed that stance,” Williams said. “So I think we need to remember that these are folks that are trying to use a very marginalized community to rebuild a political ideology that’s been rejected for a very long time here.”
Protect Kids Colorado is running a third ballot measure to increase penalties for people convicted of human trafficking of a minor.
Read more at LGBTQ Nation.
A far-right political action committee says it has collected enough signatures to potentially get a trans sports ban onto Washington state’s ballot in November, and that ban would require girls to undergo physical examinations to participate in school sports.
As the Washington State Standard reports, Let’s Go Washington collected 445,187 signatures in support of Initiative Measure No. IL26-638, exceeding the 386,000 needed to advance the measure. The initiative would ban transgender girls from competing in girls’ school sports statewide
IL26-638 interprets existing state law as requiring students “to undergo a routine physical examination prior to participation in interscholastic sports, which includes documentation of the student’s sex assigned at birth.” It would require school districts and nonprofit entities to “prohibit biologically male students from competing with and against female students in athletic activities with separate classifications for male and female students.”
Under the proposed measure, students who want to participate in girls’ sports would be required to provide “a health examination and consent form or other statement signed by the student’s personal health care provider that verifies the student’s biological sex, relying only on one or more of the following: The student’s reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels.”
As journalist Erin Reed notes in her newsletter Erin in the Morning, trans sports bans with similar requirements have been highly controversial, as they could potentially result in minors being subjected to invasive physical exams simply to participate in school sports.
Reed cites the failure last March of the so-called Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which would have amended Title IX — the federal civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination in government-funded schools and education programs — to prohibit schools from allowing trans female athletes to participate in athletic programs or activities “designated for women or girls.” The Congressional Equality Caucus noted that the bill could have forced “any student to answer invasive personal questions about their bodies & face humiliating physical inspections to ‘prove’ that they’re a girl.”
Along with the signatures in support of IL26-638, Let’s Go Washington also submitted 416,201 signatures in support of a measure repealing changes to another of the PAC’s recent initiatives. The Let’s Go Washington-backed Initiative 2081, approved in 2024, codified the rights of the parents of public school students into law. As Reed notes, however, state lawmakers watered down provisions that would have reportedly mandated that schools out trans students to their parents.
According to Reed, Let’s Go Washington’s IL26-001 would restore language to the 2024 parental rights law that would effectively require the forced outing of trans students to their parents.
As the Washington State Standard reports, Let’s Go Washington submitted signatures in support of both measures to the Washington Secretary of State’s office on Friday. The Secretary of State’s office told the outlet that it may take up to four weeks to verify the signatures for the initiatives. Once verified, the initiatives will go before the state legislature, which can either approve them or reject them. If the state legislature rejects them, they will either appear on the November ballot on their own or alongside alternatives proposed by lawmakers.
Brian Heywood, the millionaire hedge fund manager and Republican megadonor who leads Let’s Go Washington, claimed that roughly half of the signatures the PAC had collected in support of the initiatives were from independent voters and Democrats. “This is not a partisan issue, this is a common sense issue,” Heywood said, according to the Standard. “This has broad support.”
However, in a statement issued by WA Families for Freedom, Gender Justice League board member Sophia Lee accused Let’s Go Washington of “playing political games with the lives of vulnerable trans and queer kids.”
Reed, meanwhile, notes that the trans sports ban is likely to face constitutional challenges should it become law. But it’s unclear whether the measure would succeed on the ballot. Reed notes that anti-trans messaging from Republicans last year coincided with significant GOP losses across the country in November’s off-year elections.
Read more at Erasing 76 Crimes.
Morocco: Morocco has been under a long-term project to revise its legal system, and this year published reforms to the code of criminal procedure that ought to at least make the justice system more fair and limit pre-trial detention. Then again, we’ve also heard reports this year of continued crackdowns on queer people for pro-LGBT expression on the internet. [See “Coalition demands release of Morocco LGBT activist after 100 days in prison” (November 2025)]
Morocco also intends to revise its penal code, and some campaigners have been pushing to delete its sodomy and extramarital sex provisions when that happens, but no progress was made this year. I think the likelihood Morocco actually deletes its sodomy law is very slim.
Meanwhile, in October, the UN Security Council backed Morocco’s plan to resolve the dispute over the Western Sahara/Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which would make it autonomous under Moroccan rule. The UN called on both sides to negotiate an actual settlement, but this seems like a big step toward eliminating an entire country from the map (which would decrease by one the number of states that criminalize homosexuality).
Tunisia: Multiple mass arrests of queer people were reported this year. [For example, “Tunisia steps up anti-LGBTI crackdown with wave of arrests” (February 2025), “Queer people suffer double punishment in Tunisian prisons” (June 2025), “Tunisia and Malaysia arrest dozens of queer people in escalating crackdowns” (July 2025), and “More than 70 arrested in Tunisia’s anti-LGBT crackdown” (November 2025).]
Chad: The government launched a commission on reinstating the death penalty, which was abolished in 2020.
Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger: These three states run by military juntas following coups over the past half-decade took steps to deepen their integration into the Alliance of Sahel States (yes, the ASS), which is something between a supranational organization and a proto-state in its own right. They all withdrew from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and they announced their intention to withdraw from the International Criminal Court. The states are motivated in part by antipathy to France and the West, Islamic faith, and support for and from Russia, all of which is exemplified in their pursuit of anti-LGBT policies.
Mali criminalized gay sex and promoting homosexuality in 2024, and Burkina Faso followed up in 2025. Niger has promised to enact a similar law but has not done so yet. Notably, as former French colonies, none previously had a sodomy law on the books.
Burkina Faso is also considering reinstating the death penalty as it overhauls its penal code, which ought to be a worrying sign. The new code also includes a crime of “promotion of homosexual practices and similar acts.”
Niger held a national conference that voted to extend the junta’s rule by five years and also to oppose any effort to legalize same-sex marriage.
Worryingly, some other neighbors, Chad and Togo (which both criminalize gay sex) have publicly mused about joined the ASS and have even taken some steps to integrate with them.
Of course, if the ASS ever does replace these three to five states, it would at least reduce the number of criminalizing states on the chart.
Ghana: A draconian anti-LGBTQ bill modelled after Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act was reintroduced to parliament after a previous version lapsed without the president’s signature before the end of the term. This one is sponsored by a group of opposition MPs, but the government has said it intends to introduce its own version at some point. The current president has strongly suggested he will sign it.
Ghana also ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The Trump administration used Ghana and Togo as places to deport asylum seekers, including at least one who was seeking asylum due to his sexual orientation.
The constitution review committee proposed an amendment to specifically bar the use of the death penalty. Ghana abolished the penalty in 2023 for ordinary crimes only, and the repeal was not retroactive, so those on death row still face execution.
Liberia: The government undertook a review of its laws for gender discriminatory effects – particularly around marriage, citizenship, rape, and children’s rights – but the review did not take sexual orientation or gender identity into account. I haven’t heard of further action being taken on this file.
The government intervened in the United Methodist Church over its support of same-sex marriage, including a senate investigation and even police detention. The local church has made clear its opposition to same-sex marriage.
A lawmaker was removed from a session of parliament after he disruptively attempted to introduce an anti-LGBT bill that would have imposed criminal penalties on same-sex marriage. Watch out for this to come back.
Nigeria: In a climate of regular violence against queer people, the governor of Kano state submitted a bill to the legislature to criminalize same-sex marriage. It’s already criminalized federally.
The senate was also considering a bill to expand the use of the death penalty.
Senegal: The government forced the UN and the Dutch embassy to cancel a planned film screening and discussion of LGBT issues. [Dozens of LGBTI Senegalese were arrested in police crackdowns as 2025 drew to a close.]
Cameroon: Erasing 76 Crimes reported on numerous cases of men being jailed for homosexuality. The government also accused the country’s most prominent human rights lawyer of money laundering and terrorism.
Gabon: A constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, passed in 2024, took effect in 2025.
Kenya: In August, the high court directed the government to protect transgender peoples’ rights, including recognition of their chosen gender and dignified treatment in government custody. The court ordered the government enact a specific Transgender Protection Rights Act or add amendments to that effect to the Intersex Persons Act.
Meanwhile, an MP vowed to bring forward a bill to criminalize LGBTQ advocacy, but he hasn’t done so yet. Parliament was also considering a bill to abolish the death penalty.
Uganda: The World Bank has ended its suspension of lending to Uganda, which was imposed in 2023 after the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act. The Bank now claims it has put in place mitigation measures to ensure its funds won’t be used to discriminate, which, frankly doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Tanzania: The government has announced it is moving forward with toughening existing criminal laws banning same-sex intercourse to further ban same-sex relationships and marriages, but I haven’t actually seen legislation come forward yet.
Rwanda: Parliament passed a new health care law that specifically excludes same-sex couples from accessing surrogacy and assisted reproduction.
Mauritius: The UK and Mauritius finalized and published a treaty on the handover of the British Indian Ocean Territory, with the UK maintaining sovereignty over the military base on Diego Garcia. While the treaty hasn’t yet been ratified, once it does the BIOT will cease to exist as a separate jurisdiction where same-sex marriage is legal – unless the UK recreates it in some form to cover Diego Garcia only.
Comoros: Joined the Biological Weapons Convention.
Eritrea: Ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Botswana: A lesbian couple filed a constitutional challenge seeking the right to marry, saying the current ban violates various sections of the constitution guaranteeing the right to equality. The high court struck down Botswana’s sodomy law in 2019, in part after finding that the constitutional prohibition on sex discrimination included sexual orientation discrimination, a decision that was upheld by the court of appeal in 2021.
Namibia: We’re still waiting on a ruling from the supreme court on the government’s appeal of 2024’s lower court decision decriminalizing sodomy.
The former president officially vetoed a bill that aimed to criminalize same-sex marriage and LGBT advocacy before leaving office (he signed a different bill late in 2024 that banned same-sex marriage, however). His successor – the country’s first female president – says she’ll fight for equality for everyone but has avoided saying anything about LGBT people. Meanwhile, Equal Namibia was seeking couples who want to challenge the country’s ban on same-sex marriage.
South Africa: The government continued to work on a unified marriage act which will combine several marriage laws for different religious communities and the same-sex Civil Union Act into a single law. It has not yet cleared parliament.
Eswatini: The leading LGBT advocacy group Eswatini Sexual and Gender Minorities went back to court to challenge the government’s decision to deny them a company registration. The supreme court had ordered the government to reconsider their application back in 2023, but the minister’s decision remained the same.
Malawi: The Minister of Justice said the country is committed to abolishing the death penalty, having already completed public consultations, but no bill has been brought forward yet.
Zambia: The constitutional court dismissed a challenge to the country’s sodomy laws, ruling that the court lacked jurisdiction as the challenge needed to be filed before the country’s high court first. The Zambia Civil Liberties Union says they will refile the case.
Zimbabwe: In July, the government launched a legal reform process to recognize the rights of intersex people. We’ll see what comes of this.
The ruling party’s national conference also vowed to intensify and enforce laws banning homosexuality in late 2024, though no new legislation has been put forward.
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