World
Efforts to evacuate LGBTQ Afghans to continue after US troop withdrawal
Taliban entered Kabul on Aug. 15
The last American troops have withdrawn from Afghanistan amid continued efforts to evacuate LGBTQ people from the country.
Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command told reporters on Monday the last American C-17 left Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, the Afghan capital, at 3:29 p.m. ET (11:59 p.m. in Afghanistan.)
“Tonight’s withdrawal signifies both the end of the military component of the evacuation but also the end of the nearly 20-year mission that began in Afghanistan shortly after September 11, 2001,” said McKenzie.
The previous White House in 2020 brokered a peace deal with the Taliban that set the stage for the withdrawal. President Biden last month announced American military operations in Afghanistan would end on Tuesday.
The Taliban entered Kabul on Aug. 15 and toppled then-President Ashraf Ghani’s government.
McKenzie and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday noted the U.S. evacuated more than 123,000 people — including 6,000 American citizens — from Afghanistan since the Taliban regained control of the country.
“This has been a massive military, diplomatic and humanitarian undertaking — one of the most difficult in our nation’s history — and an extraordinary feat of logistics and coordination under some of the most challenging circumstances imaginable,” said Blinken in remarks he delivered from the State Department.
Blinken acknowledged “a small number of Americans — under 200 and likely closer to 100 — who remain in Afghanistan and want to leave.” Blinken in his remarks did not specifically mention LGBTQ Afghans who remain in the country, but he did refer to “at-risk Afghans” when he referenced the Taliban’s commitment “to let anyone with proper documents leave the country in a safe and orderly manner.”
“We are all committed to ensuring that our citizens, nationals and residents, employees, Afghans who have worked with us and those who are at risk can continue to travel freely to destinations outside Afghanistan,” reads a statement the U.S. and more than 100 other countries signed on Sunday. “We have received assurances from the Taliban that all foreign nationals and any Afghan citizen with travel authorization from our countries will be allowed to proceed in a safe and orderly manner to points of departure and travel outside the country.”
“We will continue issuing travel documentation to designated Afghans, and we have the clear expectation of and commitment from the Taliban that they can travel to our respective countries,” adds the statement. “We note the public statements of the Taliban confirming this understanding.”
Blinken in his remarks noted the U.N. Security Council on Monday “passed a resolution that enshrines that responsibility — laying the groundwork to hold the Taliban accountable if they renege.”
“The international chorus on this is strong, and it will stay strong,” said Blinken. “We will hold the Taliban to their commitment on freedom of movement for foreign nationals, visa holders, at-risk Afghans.”
“We will work to secure their safe passage,” added Blinken.
Taliban ‘will kill us one by one’
The Taliban instituted a strict version of Sharia law in Kabul and the large swaths of Afghanistan it controlled from 1996 to 2001.
Dr. Ahmad Qais Munhazim, an assistant professor of global studies at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia who is originally from Afghanistan, in an op-ed the Washington Blade published earlier this month wrote the Taliban hanged men in soccer fields who had been accused of having same-sex relationships.
A Taliban judge last month said the group would once again execute people if it were to return to power in Afghanistan. One LGBTQ Afghan who commented under a Facebook post said the Taliban “will kill us one by one, so I have no choice but to escape.”
More than 60 members of Congress last week urged the U.S. to evacuate LGBTQ Afghans from their country. Canada thus far is the only country that has specifically said it would offer refuge to LGBTQ Afghans.
“With the Taliban’s takeover of the country, LGBTQ+ Afghans face the prospect of violent death. Sharia law, cemented in Afghanistan’s constitution, prohibits all forms of same-sex activity, and makes same-sex activity punishable by death,” reads the letter the members of Congress sent to Blinken. “Just as it was for ISIS in Iraq, Sharia law is the Taliban’s guiding compass as it establishes its rule over Afghanistan’s government and society. During its campaign in Iraq and Syria, ISIS frequently executed LGBTQ+ individuals by stoning them to death, castrating and hanging them in public squares, and throwing them off buildings.”
“Under Taliban rule, LGBTQ+ Afghans will suffer a similar fate,” it adds.
Nick Herbert, a member of the British House of Lords who advises Prime Minister Boris Johnson on LGBTQ issues, urged the U.K. to offer sanctuary to LGBTQ Afghans.
“The safety of LGBT+ people in Afghanistan is now a huge concern and many have not been able to leave,” tweeted Herbert on Aug. 27. “Afghans most in need, including LGBT+ people, will rightly be prioritized and welcomed to the UK under the Resettlement Scheme. We must do everything we can to help them.”
The safety of LGBT+ people in Afghanistan is now a huge concern and many have not been able to leave. Afghans most in need, including LGBT+ people, will rightly be prioritised and welcomed to the UK under the Resettlement Scheme. We must do everything we can to help them.
— Nick Herbert (@nickherbertcbe) August 27, 2021
Rainbow Railroad, a Toronto-based organization that assists LGBTQ refugees around the world, on Monday said it remains in contact with LGBTQ Afghans who hope to leave their country. Stonewall, a British LGBTQ rights group, tweeted it “won’t stop working to get LGBTQ+ Afghans to safety.”
Rainbow Railroad continues to liaise with #LGBTQI people on the ground in #Afghanistan. @KimahliPowell updated @CBCToronto and @chrisgloverCBC on our efforts to find safety for people caught in this conflict. https://t.co/ewP818TZYD
— Rainbow Railroad (@RainbowRailroad) August 30, 2021
Switzerland
Swiss government backs nationwide conversion therapy ban
Several cantons have already prohibited widely discredited practice
The Swiss government has said it supports a nationwide ban on so-called conversion therapy.
The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation on its website notes the government officially announced its position in a report it published on Wednesday.
Neuchâtel in 2023 became the first Swiss canton to ban conversion therapy.
Lawmakers in Valais and Vaud have also prohibited the widely discredited practice in their respective cantons. Bern and Geneva are among the other cantons in which lawmakers have considered similar prohibitions.
The European Commission earlier this year said all European Union countries should ban conversion therapy.
Switzerland is not a member of the EU, but lawmakers in neighboring Germany in 2020 passed a law that prohibits conversion therapy for minors and for adults who have not consented to undergoing the widely discredited practice.
Several EU countries — Belgium, Cyprus, France, Malta, Norway, Portugal, and Spain — have banned conversion therapy outright.
The Dutch Senate in June approved a bill that would ban conversion therapy in the Netherlands. The lower house of the country’s parliament approved the measure in September 2025.
Greece in 2022 banned conversion therapy for minors.
Bulgaria
Top Bulgarian court rules government must legally recognize trans people
Decision caps off decade-long legal fight
Bulgaria’s top court has ruled the country’s government must allow transgender people to legally change their name and gender on ID documents.
A trans woman from Bulgaria who moved to Italy, had tried to change her gender and name on her Bulgarian ID documents, but courts in the country denied her requests for nearly a decade.
The Bulgarian Supreme Court of Cassation in a 2023 ruling essentially banned trans people from legally changing their name and gender on ID documents.
The EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg, which is the European Union’s highest court, in March ruled in the “Shipova” case that member states must allow trans people to legally change their name and gender on ID documents. The lead plaintiff in the “Shipova” case is among the four litigants in the Bulgarian Supreme Court of Cassation case.
Two Bulgarian advocacy groups — Bilitis and Deystvie — along with TGEU – Trans Europe and Central Asia and ILGA-Europe in a joint statement they issued on Tuesday noted the Bulgarian Supreme Court of Cassation’s July 22 decision “aligns Bulgarian practice with the Court of Justice of the EU, enabling changes to gender markers, names, and personal identification numbers.”
“The judges also concluded that EU law requires Bulgaria to establish a legal procedure for legal gender recognition, which is necessary so that Bulgarian trans citizens can travel and reside freely inside the EU,” they added.
Bulgaria has been a member of the EU since 2007.
The country borders Romania, Serbia, North Macedonia, Greece, and Turkey.
“We are very glad to see that the judges of the Supreme Court clearly stated that it is actually a matter of rule of law for Bulgaria to respect the universal equality and the dignity of all human beings, including trans people for whom human rights-based legal gender recognition procedures are an indispensable element,” said Denitsa Lyubenova, co-chair of Deystvie who represented the four plaintiffs in the Bulgarian courts and the lead litigant in the “Shipova” case at the EU Court of Justice. “The government needs to act swiftly now to put in place an LGR procedure that is fully in line with European human rights case law, which means without any conditions requiring proof of medical, surgical or hormonal treatment.”
The groups also urged the Bulgarian government to codify the ruling into law.
“While lower courts are expected to follow this ruling directly, a court decision is not a substitute for law,” they said. “Bulgaria still needs a fast, transparent, and accessible legal gender recognition procedure written into legislation, not left to case-by-case court precedent. TGEU – Trans Europe and Central Asia, Bilitis, Deystvie, and ILGA-Europe call on the Bulgarian government to start that legislative process now, with meaningful involvement from civil society.”
France
Prominent French activist attacked outside Paris bar
Pierre Picavet hospitalized with internal bleeding, head injury
French prosecutors say a man shouted anti-gay slurs at a prominent activist before he attacked him in Paris on Saturday.
Media reports indicate Pierre Picavet, a police officer who is the president of FLAG!, a group within the French Justice and Interior Ministries that defends LGBTQ rights, was attacked as he left a bar in Paris’s Marais neighborhood.
The Marais since the 1980s has been center of the French capital’s LGBTQ community.
France 24 reported Picavet’s assailant struck him with a bottle. The attack left Picavet hospitalized with internal bleeding, a head wound, and other injuries.
“When I get better, when my wounds have healed, I will continue the fight,” Picavet told Radio France on Monday. “I am particularly shocked, but it tells me that there is still work to do.”
Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire is among those who condemned the attack.
STOP Homophobia (STOP homophobie), a French group that fights against anti-LGBTQ violence, on its social media pages published a picture of Picavet in the hospital.
“As a long-standing partner of FLAG!, STOP Homophobia wishes to express its solidarity with Pierre Picavet, his loved ones, and the entire association,” said the group. “STOP Homophobia condemns this assault in the strongest possible terms and reiterates that anti-LGBT violence remains a reality — even in spaces where everyone should be able to move freely and live out their sexual orientation or gender identity without fear of attack.”
STOP Homophobia also praised a bystander who came to Picavet’s aid after the attack, and the first responders and law enforcement personnel who responded.
“STOP Homophobia extends its full support to Pierre, his family, his loved ones, and the entire FLAG! team, and wishes him a full recovery,” said the group.
Reports indicate the assailant, who was born in 2006, was scheduled to appear in a Paris court on Monday at 1:30 p.m. local time.
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