The Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that SB 99, a 2023 Montana law that bans life-saving gender-affirming care for transgender youth, is unconstitutional under the Montana Constitution’s privacy clause, which prohibits government intrusion into private medical decisions. This ruling will allow Montana communities and families to continue accessing medical treatments for transgender minors with gender dysphoria, the ACLU announced in a statement.

 “I will never understand why my representatives are working to strip me of my rights and the rights of other transgender kids,” Phoebe Cross, a 17-year-old transgender boy told the ACLU. “Just living as a trans teenager is difficult enough, the last thing me and my peers need is to have our rights taken away.”

“Fortunately, the Montana Supreme Court understands the danger of the state interfering with critical healthcare,” said Lambda Legal Counsel Kell Olson. “Because Montana’s constitutional protections are even stronger than their federal counterparts, transgender youth in Montana can sleep easier tonight knowing that they can continue to thrive for now, without this looming threat hanging over their heads.”

“We are so thankful for this opportunity to protect trans youth, their families, and their medical providers from this baseless and dangerous law,” said Malita Picasso, Staff Attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. “Every day that transgender Montanans are able to access this care is a critical and life-saving victory. We will never stop fighting until every transgender person has the care and support they need to thrive.”

“Today’s ruling permits our clients to breathe a sigh of relief,” said Akilah Deernose, Executive Director of the ACLU of Montana. “But the fight for trans rights is far from over. We will continue to push for the right of all Montanans, including those who are transgender, to be themselves and live their lives free of intrusive government interference.”

The Court found that the Plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their privacy claim, holding: “The Legislature did not make gender-affirming care unlawful. Nor did it make the treatments unlawful for all minors. Instead, it restricted a broad swath of medical treatments only when sought for a particular purpose. The record indicates that Provider Plaintiffs, or other medical professionals providing gender-affirming care, are recognized as competent in the medical community to provide that care.[T]he law puts governmental regulation in the mix of an individual’s fundamental right ‘to make medical judgments affecting her or his bodily integrity and health in partnership with a chosen health care provider.’

Two justices filed a concurrence arguing that the Court should also clarify that discrimination on the basis of transgender status is a form of sex discrimination prohibited by Montana’s Equal Protection Clause, the ACLU reported.

About 15 protestors affiliated with the Gender Liberation Movement were arrested on Thursday for protesting the anti-trans bathroom policy that was introduced by U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and enacted last month by U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).

Whistleblower Chelsea Manning and social justice advocates Raquel Willis and Renee Bracey Sherman were among those who were arrested in the women’s bathroom and the hallway outside Johnson’s office in the Cannon House Office Building.

Demonstrators held banners reading “FLUSH BATHROOM BIGOTRY” and “CONGRESS: STOP PISSING ON OUR RIGHTS!” They chanted, “SPEAKER JOHNSON, NANCY MACE, OUR GENDERS ARE NO DEBATE!” and “WHEN TRANS FOLKS ARE UNDER ATTACK WHAT DO WE DO? ACT UP, FIGHT BACK!”

Protests began around 12:10 p.m. ET. Within 30 minutes, Capitol Police arrived on the scene, began making arrests, and cleared the area. A spokesperson told Axios the demonstration was an illegal violation of the D.C. code against crowding, obstructing or incommoding.

Mace and her flame-throwing House GOP allies have said the bathroom policy was meant to target Sarah McBride, the Delaware state senator who will become the first transgender member of Congress after she is seated in January.

LGBTQ groups, elected Democrats, and others have denounced the move as a bigoted effort to bully and intimidate a new colleague, with many asking how the policy’s proponents would enforce the measure.

Outside her office in the Longworth House Office Building, the Washington Blade requested comment from Mace about the protests and arrests.

“Yeah, I went to the Capitol Police station where they were being processed, so I’ll be posting what I said shortly,” the congresswoman said.

U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) (Washington Blade photo by Christopher Kane)

Using an anti-trans slur, Mace posted a video to her X account in which she says, “alright, so some tranny protestors showed up at the Capitol today to protest my bathroom bill, but they got arrested — poor things.”

“So I have a message for the protestors who got arrested,” the congresswoman continued, and then spoke into a megaphone as she read the Miranda warning. “If you cannot afford an attorney — I doubt many of you can — one will be provided to you at the government’s expense,” she said.

“Everyone deserves to use the restroom without fear of discrimination or violence. Trans folks are no different. We deserve dignity and respect and we will fight until we get it,” Gender Liberation Movement co-founder Raquel Willis said in a press release.

“In the 2024 election, trans folks were left to fend for ourselves after nearly $200 million of attack ads were disseminated across the United States,” she said. “Now, as Republican politicians, try to remove us from public life, Democratic leaders are silent as hell.”

Willis continued, “But we can’t transform bigotry and hate with inaction. We must confront it head on. Democrats must rise up, filibuster, and block this bill.”

In a statement released Tuesday, the conservative Heritage Foundation praised House Republicans’ military spending bill, including the provision added by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) that would ban gender-affirming healthcare interventions for the children of U.S. service members.

Victoria Coates, vice president of the organization’s Kathyrn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, said the National Defense Authorization Act, which was passed by the U.S. House Rules Committee along party lines on Monday, marks an “important step toward a defense budget that flows from strategy and directs DOD to become as lethal as possible to protect the national security of Americans.”

“The bill authorizes resources for DOD at the border, retains the House’s ban on corrosive race-based policies, eliminates the Senate’s provision to draft our daughters, prohibits transgender surgeries for minors under TRICARE, supports military construction in the Indo-Pacific and shipbuilding, including a third Arleigh Burke–class destroyer, and incremental funding for a second Virginia-class submarine,” Coates said. “These policies in this bill, combined with new military leadership, will make America stronger.” 

In April 2022, the Heritage Foundation published Project 2025, a comprehensive 920-page governing blueprint for President-elect Donald Trump’s second term that proposes radical reforms to imbue the federal government with “biblical principles” and advance a Christian nationalist agenda, including by stripping rights away from LGBTQ Americans while abandoning efforts to promote equality for sexual and gender minorities abroad.

“The next conservative president must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors,” the authors explain on page four, beginning “with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term … out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.”

The document also lays the groundwork for the incoming administration to revive the ban on military service by transgender troops that Trump implemented during his first term, arguing that “gender dysphoria is incompatible with the demands of military service.”

Leading up to the election, when Project 2025 became a political liability for Trump, he tried to distance himself from the document and its policy proposals, but as the New York Times documented, an “analysis of the Project 2025 playbook and its 307 authors and contributors revealed that well over half of them had been in Mr. Trump’s administration or on his campaign or transition teams.”

The Times also noted that Trump has held meetings with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts and a co-founder, Edwin Feulner.

In October, the Congressional Equality Caucus published a report entitled, “Ripping Away Our Freedoms: How House Republicans are Working to Implement Project 2025’s Assault on LGBTQI+ Americans’ Rights.”

The group’s openly gay chair, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), noted that “When Republicans took control of the House of Representatives last year, we saw an avalanche of attacks against the LGBTQI+ community.”

The congressman added, “During the past two years, they forced more than 70 anti-LGBTQI+ votes on the House floor. And nearly every bill and amendment idea was ripped out of the pages of Project 2025’s ‘Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise.’”

The NDAA filed by House Republicans is unlikely to pass through the U.S. Senate while the chamber remains under Democratic control, and President Joe Biden has vowed to veto legislation that discriminates against transgender and LGBQ communities, but the spending package will face far fewer obstacles after the new Congress is seated on Jan. 3 and Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20.

Objecting to the spending bill’s inclusion of language prohibiting military families from accessing gender affirming care are congressional Democrats like U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.), who serves as the ranking member of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, and advocacy groups like the Human Rights Campaign and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The State Department on Tuesday honored a Ghanaian LGBTQ+ activist and seven other human rights advocates from around the world.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken presented Rightify Ghana Executive Director Ebenezer Peegah with the Secretary of State’s Human Rights Defender Award during a ceremony at the State Department.

“He’s been a prominent figure advocating for equality and justice,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Enrique Roig told the Washington Blade on Tuesday during an interview.

The other human rights activists who received the award include:

• Mary Ann Abunda, a migrant workers advocate in Kuwait

• Permanent Human Rights Assembly of Bolivia President Amparo Carvajal

• Aida Dzhumanazarova, country director for the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law in Kyrgyzstan

• Mang Hre Lian, founder of the Chin Media Network in Myanmar

• Juana Ruiz of Asociación Asvidas, an organization that advocates for survivors of gender-based violence in Colombia

• Rufat Sararov, a former prosecutor who runs Defense Line in Azerbaijan

The State Department posthumously honored Thulani Maseko, a prominent human rights activist from Eswatini who was killed in 2023. His wife, Tanele Maseko, accepted the award on his behalf.

The ceremony took place on International Human Rights Day, which commemorates the U.N. General Assembly’s ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Dec. 10, 1948. Sararov did not attend because Azeri authorities arrested him before he could obtain a visa that would have allowed him to travel to the U.S.

Ghanaian Supreme Court to rule on anti-LGBTQ+ law on Dec. 18

Ghanaian lawmakers on Feb. 28 approved the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill that would, among other things, criminalize allyship. President Nana Akufo-Addo has said he will not sign the bill until the Supreme Court rules on whether it is constitutional or not. 

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the law on Dec. 18. John Dramani Mahama, the country’s president-elect, will take office on Jan. 7.

Ruig applauded Peegah’s efforts to highlight the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill.

“For us in the U.S. government, the work that he’s done on this issue has also been instrumental in our own discussions with the current government as well as the incoming administration around the concerns that we’ve expressed with regards to this legislation,” Roig told the Washington Blade “He’s been an important partner in all this as well.”

Peegah on Aug. 14 met with Pope Francis at the Vatican.

Former Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama from the opposition National Democratic Congress has won Saturday’s general elections, defeating current Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia of the New Patriotic Party.

The NDC before the election had pledged its support for the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, which would further criminalize LGBTQ+ people and those who support them.

The bill, which MPs approved in February, has yet to be signed by outgoing President Nana Akufo-Addo because of a ruling the Supreme Court is expected to issue on Dec. 18. Richard Dela Sky, a journalist and private lawyer, challenged the law in March.

The NDC, NPP and other parties used recognition of LGBTQ+ rights to persuade Ghanaians to vote for them. Mahama during a BBC interview last week said LGBTQ+ rights are against African culture and religious doctrine.

Berinyuy Hans Burinyuy, LGBT+ Rights Ghana’s director for communications, said homophobic attacks and public demonstrations increased during the campaign.

“The passage of the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill into law will institutionalize State-sanctioned discrimination and violence against LGBTQ+ individuals, leaving little to no legal recourse for those affected,” said Burinyuy. “The climate of fear and uncertainty that has gripped Ghana’s LGBTQ+ community cannot be overstated.”

“While the political atmosphere remains hostile, there is still hope that the Supreme Court will rule in favor of human rights and constitutional protections,” added Burinyuy. “Should the court strike down the bill, it will be a significant victory for LGBTQ+ rights and a blow to the growing wave of homophobia that has swept the country.”

Awo Dufie, an intersex person and cross-dresser, said the LGBTQ+ community is going to be at increased risk under the NDC-led government because it supports anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.

“Mahama supported the anti-LGBT bill as well as the arrest and prosecution of human rights defenders,” noted Dufie. “Politicizing queer rights as a distraction actually started under Atta Mills (the-late president of Ghana) and the NDC government in 2011, and it was an NDC MP (Sam George) who furthered this in 2021 vocalizing support for the anti-LGBT bill.”

Dufie added Ghanaians “voted out a worse corrupt government who had no respect for human rights, and brought in a former corrupt president who has also promised to not respect human rights.”

Activism Ghana, another LGBTQ+ rights group, said the attacks against LGBTQ+ Ghanaians are a series of political ploys designed to win votes as opposed to accelerating development.

“Hate the gays, win the votes, and when they win and fail to deliver development and prosperity, they scapegoat the gays to take away attention from real problems,” said Activism Ghana.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday congratulated Mahama’s election, and noted Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang will become the country’s first female vice president.

“The United States commends the Electoral Commission, its hundreds of thousands of poll workers, civil society, and the country’s security forces, who helped ensure a peaceful and transparent process,” said Blinken in a statement. “We also applaud Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia for his gracious acceptance of the results.”

Mahama’s inauguration will take place on Jan. 7.

Advocacy groups continue to urge Akufo-Addo to veto the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill or amend sections that further criminalize LGBTQ+ people and allies.

Former Bogotá Mayor Claudia López did not specifically discuss the growing speculation over whether she will run for president of Colombia in 2026 when she spoke at Saturday’s LGBTQ+ Victory Institute’s Annual International LGBTQ Leaders Conference in D.C., or with the Washington Blade.

“In a week I am going to return to Colombia and I’m coming back with a very, very punctual task,” she said in a speech she gave after the Victory Institute inducted her into its LGBTQ+ Political Hall of Fame at the JW Marriott. “Democracy in the world in general needs emotional reconnection.”

López, 54, was a student protest movement leader, journalist, and political scientist before she entered politics.

She returned to Colombia in 2013 after she earned her Ph.D in political science at Columbia University.

In her speech, López said Juan Francisco “Kiko” Gomez, a former governor of La Guajíra Department in northern Colombia, threatened to assassinate her because she wrote about his ties to criminal gangs. A Bogotá judge in 2017 convicted Gómez of ordering members of a paramilitary group to kill former Barrancas Mayor Yandra Brito, her husband and bodyguard, sentencing him to 55 years in prison.

López in 2014 returned to Colombia and ran for the country’s Senate as a member of the center-left Green Alliance party after she recovered from breast cancer. López won after a 10-week campaign that cost $80,000.

“I was the only woman, the only LGBTQ member of my caucus,” she said in her speech. “Of course I had the honor, but also the responsibility to represent them particularly well, [and] of course all the citizens who trust me and all the citizens of Colombia.”

“Once you are elected, you are elected to represent equally and faithfully all of the people, not only your own people,” added López.

In 2018, López was her party’s candidate to succeed then-President Juan Manuel Santos when he left office. López in 2019 became the first woman and first lesbian elected mayor of Bogotá, the Colombian capital and the country’s largest city.

“This of course speaks incredibly well of my city,” she said in her speech.

López took office on Jan. 1, 2020, less than a month after she married her wife, Colombian Sen. Angélica Lozano. (López was not out when she was elected to the Senate.) Lozano was with López at the Victory Institute conference.

López’s term ended on Dec. 31, 2023. She will return to Colombia once her Advanced Leadership Fellowship at Harvard University ends this month.

“I ended my mayorship,” López told the Blade. “It has been, of course, the honor of my life to be the first female mayor of my city. It was an absolutely beautiful job, but very challenging.”

“I needed a year of rest, of relaxation, and I was fortunate to receive a Harvard scholarship this year,” she added.

López during the interview called for an end to polarization and reiterated her support for democracy.

“We need to listen to each other again, we need to have a coffee with each other again, we need to touch each other’s skin,” she said.

López said parties, candidates, and their political coalitions in Colombia and around the world need to “listen, reconnect, and organize with people” at the grassroots level. López also told the Blade there is a “global crisis of democracy.”

“Each country has its own contexts and challenges, but it seems to me that there is a common element there,” she said.

“So, I return to Colombia rested, grateful after a year of reflection, with proposals in mind, but determined to dedicate time to what I consider the most important work for democracy at this time, which is to reconnect from the grassroots,” added López.

‘I know what love and education can do for any person’

López took office less than three months before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

“We were full of hope, ready to go to offer a new social and environmental contract for Bogotá society for the 21st century,” she said. “But a couple of (months) after being sworn into office, the pandemic of COVID-19 came.”

Unemployment and poverty rates soared in Bogotá during the pandemic, and the city’s residents had less access to health care and other basic services.

López noted her administration in response to the pandemic offered scholarships to young people, supported businesses, and increased funding of the city’s social services. López also said her administration implemented Latin America’s first city-based care system for female care givers, and build three more LGBTQ+ community centers in poor and working-class neighborhoods.

“I know what love and education can do for any person,” she said.

The U.N. Refugee Agency says upwards of three million Venezuelans are now in Colombia.

Then-Colombian President Iván Duque in February 2021 announced Venezuelan migrants who register with the country’s government will be legally recognized.

Former Bogotá Mayor Gustavo Petro, a former senator who was once a member of the M-19 guerrilla movement that disbanded in the 1990s, succeeded Duque as president on Aug. 7, 2022. Colombia and Venezuela restored diplomatic ties less than a month later.

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council on July 28 declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner of the country’s disputed presidential election. Tamara Adrián, the country’s first transgender congresswoman who ran in the presidential primary earlier this year, are among those who denounced voting irregularities.

WPLG, a South Florida television station on March 16, 2021, reported López sparked controversy after she told reporters there have been “some very violent acts from Venezuelans.”

“First they murder, and then they steal,” she said. “We need guarantees for Colombians.”

López made the comments after a Venezuelan migrant murdered a Colombian police officer in Bogotá.

“The problem is not migration from Venezuela,” López told the Blade in response to a question about Venezuela. “The problem is authoritarianism in Venezuela and you have to keep the focus on it.”

“The problem is what it is: It is not the migrants, it is in Maduro, it is in the dictatorship, it is in authoritarianism.”

More than 200,000 people died in the war between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that began in 1962.

Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Commander Rodrigo “Timochenko” Londoño on Sept 26, 2016, signed an LGBTQ-inclusive peace agreement. Colombian voters a few days later narrowly rejected it a referendum that took place against the backdrop of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric from religious and conservative groups.

Santos and Londoño less than two months later signed a second peace agreement, which also contains LGBTQ+-specific references.

López described herself as “a person totally committed to the peace process.” She added, however, she has “a bit of a bad taste in my mouth now that I look back.”

“The peace process with the FARC, which was to demobilize the FARC, period, certainly tried to have and had a gender focus, of course a diversity focus, a focus on human rights for all victims, and certainly (the) many LGBT victims who had been victims of FARC recruitment, abuse, stigmatization, etc.,” López told the Blade. “So, in some sense, or in many senses, having that gender and diversity perspective was a way of recognizing the victims of our community.”

She noted opponents lied about the LGBTQ+-specific provisions “to deceive and delegitimize the peace agreement.”

“It is not about making anything invisible, or even downplaying anything, but rather about being much more strategic in understanding that we do not want our flags and causes to be exposed in a way that ends up being a boomerang for our own community,” López added. “So, I say that is why it is a disappointment, because I think it is a lesson. At least for me, it made me think and it makes me think, and I have said it openly since then, that we have to be much more careful and much more, above all, strategic, in how we raise our flags so that they really do not only have symbolic, but real advances and so that in no case do they become a boomerang against ourselves.”

‘I know how you feel’

López during the interview praised the recent elections of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, Uruguayan Vice President Beatriz Argimón, and other women in Latin America. She also expressed sympathy with LGBTQ+ Americans who are concerned about the incoming Trump-Vance administration.

“I know how you feel,” said López in her speech. “I’ve been there when we lost the peace referendum in 2016. I’ve been there when three candidates who represented independent, new alternatives in Colombia, and policies were killed by mafia groups in 1990. I’ve been there when a mafia cartel was able to fund and elect a president for all of us. I’ve been there when paramilitary groups were able to support and elect another president in Colombia.”

“I know how obscure and difficult and challenging and painful democratic times are, but we cannot (back) democracy only when we win,” she added. “It’s precisely when things are challenging, when we suffer defeats that are painful, that we need to attach to our democratic and humanistic values and principles.”

CANADA

Transgender activists in the province of Alberta have filed the first of an expected series of lawsuits against a trio of anti-LGBTQ+ bills passed by the provincial legislature last week

The province’s United Conservative Party government passed the long-promised legislation which bars trans youth under 16 from accessing gender care, bans trans women and girls from women’s sports, requires parental notification and consent if a student under 16 wishes to use a different name or pronoun, and requires parental notification and consent ahead of any discussion of sexual orientation, gender identity or sexuality in classrooms.

On Friday, Canada’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy group Egale filed a joint legal challenge with the Calgary-based trans support center Skipping Stone and five families against the medical care ban, as that bill came into effect immediately upon passage.

“The actions of the government of Alberta are unprecedented. Never before in Canada has a government prohibited access to gender affirming health care,” says Kara Smyth, co-counsel in the case, in a press statement.

Egale says that the law violates the rights of trans people under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including the right to security of the person, freedom from cruel and unusual treatment, and equality. 

It also says the law violates Alberta’s recently amended Bill of Rights, including the right to not be subjected to, or coerced into receiving, medical care, medical treatment, or a medical procedure without consent. This was recently added into provincial law as a sop to far-right conspiracy theorists around vaccines in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This government has acted directly counter to expert guidance and evidence, as well as the voices of Albertan families, and introduced policies that use fear and disinformation to target a small and vulnerable part of the community: 2SLGBTQI young people. All Albertan families and youth deserve the ability to access health care and participate fully in their communities,” says Amelia Newbert, co-founder and managing director of Skipping Stone.

Even if the plaintiffs succeed in court, they may still lose, because Canada’s Charter of Rights includes a clause that allows provincial governments to override fundamental rights. That’s what happened when a court in neighboring Saskatchewan ruled against a law requiring schools to out trans students to their parents.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has so far refused to say whether she’ll invoke the “notwithstanding” clause to override a court decision if the province loses.

And the temperature for LGBTQ+ rights in Alberta keeps getting worse. Also last week, the town of Barrhaven passed a citizen-initiated referendum that bans Pride flags — and all flags other than the Canadian, Albertan, or town flag — from being raised or painted on municipal property. That’s going to require that the city remove a recently installed rainbow crosswalk.

It’s the second town in Alberta to ban the Pride flags this year, after Westlock held a similar referendum in February.

ROMANIA

A scheduled second-round presidential election was cancelled by the Constitutional Court amid allegations that Russia was interfering to aid far-right nationalist Călin Georgescu against progressive reformer Elena Lasconi.

The unprecedented move was condemned by both candidates, who accused Romania’s establishment parties of trying to usurp the democratic process. 

Declassified intelligence reports released by the government assert that Georgescu’s campaign was supported by a Russian influence operation, which was largely played out through a massive TikTok campaign that raised his profile from obscurity to winning the first-round election on Nov. 24. 

Fresh elections will be called by the new parliament that was elected separately on Dec 1. In those elections, establishment parties lost ground — and their parliamentary majority — as three far-right ultranationalist parties made major gains.

Georgescu and the three parties supporting him have long been hostile to LGBTQ+ rights. Lasconi’s record on LGBTQ+ rights is mixed. She’s previously expressed opposition to same-sex marriage, but during the campaign said she would support civil union legislation and eventually would be open to equal marriage. 

Regardless of who wins the election, it is unlikely Romania’s parliament will bring forward much pro-LGBTQ+ rights legislation.

LITHUANIA

A court in Lithuania has for the first time recognized a same-sex partner as a child’s parent, in a groundbreaking ruling in a country where same-sex couples and families have few legal rights.

The Vilnius District Court ruling came into effect on Friday, recognizing both women as the child’s parent, LRT English reports.

The couple at the center of the case are Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson Birutė Sabatauskaitė and her partner Jūratė Juškaitė, director of the Lithuanian Center for Human Rights. Juškaitė will now be able to have her name listed as a parent on all of her daughter’s documents, giving her all the rights of a mother.

“From today, our family feels safer. The Vilnius District Court’s ruling that recognises me as the mother of our little girl has come into effect,” Juškaitė posted on Facebook.

While the case does not set a legal precedent, it shows that the Lithuanian courts are open to same-sex couples in the interest of protecting family rights and children’s rights. 

“Family cases are very individual, but yes, it could certainly inspire and give hope to families who don’t fit into the traditional definition of a family,” says Donatas Murauskas, who represented Juškaitė in court.

Same-sex couples are not generally afforded legal recognition or any of the rights that married heterosexual couples have in Lithuania. A bill to recognize civil partnerships awaits a final vote in the Lithuanian parliament, but the newly elected government, a coalition of Social Democrats and nationalists, has not agreed to put the bill in their program. 

CHINA

A Hong Kong lawmaker is calling on the city to ignore last year’s Court of Final Appeal ruling ordering the government to recognize same-sex unions, and is urging the city to instead appeal to mainland China to overrule the court.

Under the “One Country, Two Systems” form of government that Hong Kong has had since the end of the British colonial period in 1997, the city enjoys limited autonomy from Beijing. But China has the power to intervene on matters with “permanent, serious consequences.”

Lawmaker Junius Ho says that a series of Court of Final Appeal rulings that require the city to recognize same-sex couples and grant them equal access to public housing and inheritance rights are serious enough to warrant intervention from Beijing.

He made the comments at a forum hosted by a group he founded to fight the rulings, International Probono Legal Services Association Limited.

“The Court of Final Appeal [made these rulings] on so-called same-sex marriages under just one notion, equal rights. What equal rights? Diversity, inclusiveness and equality,” Ho said. “[These] universal values cannot override the constitution.”

Last year, the Court of Final Appeal gave the city two years to establish a legal mechanism to recognize same-sex couples, but LGBTQ+ activists have been frustrated by the lack of legislative progress on the issue.

Even as same-sex couples have continued to win victories in court, queer people have noticed that space for free expression has shrunk as the government has cut funding for LGBTQ+ service organizations and it has become more risky to accept funding from foreign sources amid a broader crackdown from the mainland on Hong Kong’s democratic institutions.

Cape Town last month secured enough votes to host WorldPride in 2028.

The bidding process, which started in late October, took place in Medellín, Colombia, where the Guadalajara (Mexico) Pride and WorldPride Cape Town bidding teams contended for the rights to host WorldPride. InterPride, which organizes the event, on Nov. 8 officially declared Cape Town the host of WorldPride 2028.

It will be the first time WorldPride will take place in an African country.

South Africa is the only country on the continent that constitutionally recognizes LGBTQ+ rights. South Africa, as a result, in recent years has seen a surge in the number of LGBTQ+ asylum seekers from Africa and around the world.

Reacting to the historical precedence, Cape Town Pride said it was now time for Africa to shine and acknowledged the WorldPride Cape Town bidding team and the city of Cape Town for their role in the bidding process.

“This is a first for the whole continent of Africa,” said Cape Town Pride CEO Tommy Patterson. “A few weeks ago, in Medellín, Cape Town Pride, the city of Cape Town, and the bidding team presented our bid. The team did a wonderful job and we all forged great friendships and allies from Pride groups all over the globe.”

“Cape Town Pride is thrilled by the news and support shown by the global LGBTI+ family,” added Patterson.

Michael Gladwin of the WorldPride Cape Town bidding team echoed Patterson’s excitement.

“This will mark the first time WorldPride is held on the African continent, and we couldn’t be more excited to welcome the global LGBTQ+ community to our beautiful city,” said Gladwin. “A heartfelt thank you goes out to all our incredible partners who supported this journey. Together, we will showcase Cape Town as a beacon of inclusivity and diversity.”

Gladwin also congratulated Guadalajara Pride for their bid.

“Their commitment in promoting LGBTQ+ rights is inspiring, and we look forward to collaborating in the future,” said Gladwin.

Cape Town’s LGBTQ+ community is celebrating the successful bid, while others in the city have criticized it.

Rev. Oscar Bougardt, founder and lead pastor of the Calvary Hope Baptist Church, described WorldPride as “garbage” and “filth” that should be condemned.

“I am happy to say I am amongst the pastors in Cape Town who are in opposition and are outraged at this garbage planned for 2028,” said Bougardt. “The city of Cape Town and LGBTQ+ organizations planned this event without consulting rate payers, this bid was done in secret and taxpayers’ money will be used to fund this filth.”

“Just as the LGBTQ + organizations have the right to host WorldPride 2028, we have the right to say we don’t want it in Cape Town,” he added. “I pray more church leaders will stand up against the planned WorldPride 2028. To church leaders and parents, this is the time to unite and tell the city of Cape Town and LGBTQ+ organizations that we are disgusted at the planned event. Untied we stand and divided we will fall!”

Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in 2022 won the bid to host WorldPride 2025, but the local planning committee withdrew it amid a dispute with InterPride. WorldPride 2025 will take place in D.C. from May 17-June 8, 2025.

The 2024 ILGA World Conference took place last month in Cape Town.

At least 1,000 people rallied outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday as the justices considered whether a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth is unconstitutional.

Dueling rallies began early in the morning, with protesters supporting trans rights and protesters supporting Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care each stationed with podiums on opposite sides.

Trans rights protesters, who significantly outnumbered the other group, held signs reading “Keep hate out of healthcare,” and “Respect family medical decisions.” On the other side, protesters carried signs with messages like “Sex change is fantasy,” and “Stop transing gay kids.”

Ari, a trans person who grew up in Nashville and now lives in D.C., spoke to the Washington Blade about the negative effects of the Tennessee law on the well-being of trans youth. 

“I grew up with kids who died because of a lack of trans healthcare, and I am scared of that getting worse,” they said. “All that this bill brings is more dead kids.”

The Tennessee law that is being challenged in U.S. v Skrmetti took effect in 2023 and bans medical providers from prescribing medical treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone therapies to trans youth. 

A number of Democratic lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, and U.S. Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) addressed the crowd in support of trans rights. 

In his speech, Merkley said Americans deserved freedom in accessing gender affirming care and criticized the law as political intervention in private medical decisions. 

“Americans should have the freedom to make medical decisions in the privacy of their doctor’s office without politicians trying to dictate to them,” he said. 

Robert Garofalo, a chief doctor in the division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at a Chicago children’s hospital, emphasized the importance of trans youth having access to gender affirming care. 

“We [providers] are seeing patients and families every day, present with crippling fears, added stress and anxiety as they desperately try to locate care where it remains legal to do so,” Garofalo, who is also a professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University, told the crowd. “Transgender children and adolescents deserve health care that is grounded in compassion, science and principles of public health and human rights. They must not be denied life saving medical care — their lives depend on it.”

Major U.S. medical associations, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, support gender affirming care. 

Research has found gender affirming care improves the mental health and overall well-being of gender diverse children and adolescents. Those who are denied access to gender affirming care are at increased risk for significant mental health challenges.  

An unlikely coalition came out to support Tennessee’s ban on gender affirming care. Far-right figures, such as U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Matt Walsh — both of whom have a history of making homophobic statements — were joined by groups such as the LGBT Courage Coalition and Gays Against Groomers. 

The groups questioned the quality of the research finding gender-affirming care to have a positive effect on the well-being of trans and gender nonconforming youth and argued that minors cannot consent to medical treatment. Ben Appel, a co-founder of the LGBT Courage Coalition, which he notes was “co-founded by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans adults who oppose pediatric gender medicine, which we know to be non-evidence-based and harmful to young gay people,” said gender nonconformity is often part of the lesbian, gay, and bisexual experience and should not be “medicalized.” 

“I care about the adult gay detransitioners who have been harmed … by these homophobic practice,” he said “They should have just been told they’re gay.” 

Claire, a Maryland resident who attended the rally in favor of the Tennessee law and claims to have detransitioned, described being prescribed testosterone and having a mastectomy at 14, medical treatments she says she was unable to consent to at that age. She doesn’t oppose gender affirming care for adults but is opposed to “medical experimentation on children.”

“I think that adults should be allowed to do whatever they want with their bodies. I think that it is if someone is happy with the decision that they made that’s great,” she said. “I was not able to make that decision. I was a child.” 

But trans activists fear that a ruling in favor of Tennessee could pave the way for states to restrict access to gender-affirming care for adults.

“There’s also broader implications for civil rights and trans rights, more broadly, for adults in the future. There are some states that have tried to ban some healthcare for adults — they haven’t yet — but I think that’s something we might also see if the Supreme Court rules that way,” Ethan Rice, a senior attorney at Lambda Legal, one of the legal organizations representing the plaintiffs in U.S. v Skrmetti, said.

In the case, three Tennessee families and a physician are challenging the Tennessee law on the grounds that it violates the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment by drawing lines based on sex and discriminating against trans people. The statute bans medications for trans children while allowing the same medications to be used when treating minors suffering from other conditions, such as early-onset puberty. 

A 2020 Supreme Court decision determined sex-based discrimination includes discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. The key question in U.S. v. Skrmetti is whether this interpretation applies under the Equal Protection Clause.

“We really hope that the Supreme Court recognizes their own precedent on sex discrimination cases and comes out the right way, saying this is sex discrimination by the state of Tennessee and thus is unconstitutional,” Rice said. 

Twenty-six states currently have laws or policies restricting minors’ access to gender-affirming care. If the court rules against Tennessee, similar bans in other states would also be unconstitutional, granting trans youth greater access to gender affirming care nationwide. 

Edith Guffey, the board chair at PFLAG, expressed doubt the court will strike down the law, citing its sharp ideological turn to the right in recent years. But she said she remains hopeful. 

“I hope that the court will … step outside agendas and look at the needs of people and who has the right to say what’s good for their children,” she said.

Chase Strangio, an ACLU attorney representing the families, on Wednesday became the first openly trans lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court. He addressed the trans rights protesters after the hearing. 

“Whatever happens, we are the defiance,” Strangio said. “We are collectively a refutation of everything they say about us. And our fight for justice did not begin today, it will not end in June — whatever the court decides.”

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti on Wednesday, the case brought by the Biden-Harris administration’s Department of Justice to challenge Tennessee’s ban on gender affirming care for minors.

At issue is whether the law, which proscribes medical, surgical, and pharmacological interventions for purposes of gender transition, abridges the right to due process and equal protection under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as well as Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits sex-based discrimination.

The petitioners — U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who represents the federal government, and Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV Project — argue the Supreme Court should apply heightened scrutiny to laws whose application is based on transgender status rather than the rational basis test that was used by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, which is more deferential to decisions by legislators.

Legal experts agree the conservative justices are unlikely to be persuaded even though, as Tennessee Solicitor General J. Matthew Rice made clear on Wednesday, under the state’s statute “If a boy wants puberty blockers, the answer is yes, if you have precocious puberty; no, if you’re doing this to transition. If a girl wants puberty blockers, the answer is yes, if you have precocious puberty; no, if you’re doing this to transition.”

Oral arguments delved into a range of related topics, beginning with conservative Justice Samuel Alito’s questions about debates within the global scientific and medical communities about the necessity of these interventions for youth experiencing gender dysphoria and the risks and benefits associated with each treatment.

“Isn’t the purpose of intermediate scrutiny to make sure that we guard against — I’m not intending to insult — but we all have instinctual reactions, whether it’s parents or doctors or legislatures, to things that are wrong or right,” said liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

“For decades, women couldn’t hold licenses as butchers or as lawyers because legislatures thought that we weren’t strong enough to pursue those occupations,” she said. “And some, some people rightly believe that gender dysphoria may cause may be changed by some children, in some children, but the evidence is very clear that there are some children who actually need this treatment. Isn’t there?”

After Prelogar answered in the affirmative, Sotomayor continued, “Some children suffer incredibly with gender dysphoria, don’t they? Some attempt suicide. Drug addiction is very high among some of these children because of their distress. One of the petitioners in this case described going almost mute because of their inability to speak in a voice that they could live with.”

Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh focused his initial questions on whether the democratic process should adjudicate questions of science and policy, asserting that both sides have presented compelling arguments for their respective positions.

There are solutions that would allow policymakers to mitigate concerns with gender affirming medical interventions for minor youth without abridging the Equal Protection clause and Section 1557 of the ACA, Prelogar said.

For instance, “West Virginia was thinking about a total ban, like this one, on care for minors,” she said, “but then the Senate Majority Leader in West Virginia, who’s a doctor, looked at the underlying studies that demonstrate sharply reduced associations with suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, and the West Virginia Legislature changed course and imposed a set of guardrails that are far more precisely tailored to concerns surrounding the delivery of this care.”

She continued, “West Virginia requires that two different doctors diagnose the gender dysphoria and find that it’s severe and that the treatment is medically necessary to guard against the risk of self harm. The West Virginia law also requires mental health screening to try to rule out confounding diagnoses. It requires the parents to agree and the primary care physician to agree. And I think a law like that is going to fare much better under heightened scrutiny precisely because it would be tailored to the precise interests and not serve a more sweeping interest.”

Later, in an exchange with Rice, Sotoyamor said, “I thought that that’s why we had intermediate scrutiny when there are differences based on sex, to ensure that states were not acting on the basis of prejudice.”

She then asked whether a hypothetical law mirroring Tennessee’s that covered adults as well as minor youth would pass the rational basis test. Rice responded, “that just means it’s left to the democratic process, and that democracy is the best check on potentially misguided laws.”

“Well, Your Honor, of course, our position is there is no sex based classification. But to finish the answer, that to the extent that along with dealing with adults, would pass rational basis review, that just means it’s left to the democratic process, and that democracy is the best check on potentially misguided laws.”

“When you’re one percent of the population or less,” said Sotomayor, “it’s very hard to see how the democratic process is going to protect you. Blacks were a much larger percentage of the population and it didn’t protect them. It didn’t protect women for whole centuries.”