World
Out in the World: LGBTQ news from Europe and Asia
Qatari authorities give suspended sentence to British Mexican man arrested in Grindr sting
QATAR

A British Mexican man who was arrested in a Grindr sting operation has been given a six-month suspended sentence and will be deported ā although the state has 30 days to launch an appeal, during which he is not allowed to leave ā the BBC reports.
Manuel Guerrero AviƱa, 44, was arrested on what his family are calling trumped up drug charges in Doha in February, after being lured to a fake meeting on the gay cruising app Grindr. This week, he was handed his sentence, which includes a fine of approximately $2,700.
Guerrero, who has lived in Qatar for seven years and works for an airline, has told the BBC he is considering an appeal.
His family has previously told the BBC that he was approached online by a man named āGio,ā who also used the screen name āMikeā on both Grindr and Tinder. Guerrero invited āGioā to his apartment, but when he went to the lobby to let him in, police were waiting and arrested him.
Police searched his apartment and allegedly found amphetamine and methamphetamine. They later administered a drug test which they say show evidence he had used the substances.
Guerrero says the drugs were planted as part of a sting operation targeting queer people. Under threat of torture and without a translator or lawyer, he was coerced into signing a document written in Arabic, a language he doesnāt read, admitting his possession of the drugs.
He spent 42 days in pretrial detention before being given provisional release, during which time police attempted to coerce him into naming other queer people.
Complicating his situation is the fact that he lives with HIV. While in detention, guards frequently withheld his medication, which could have enabled the virus to build up a resistance to it. He ran out of his prescription, which is not available in Qatar, in April, and has had to use a local substitute.
Several human rights groups have criticized the lack of due process in Guerreroās case, the evidence that he was targeted for his sexual identity, and the implication that a wider crackdown on queer people is in the works.
āThis has been about his LGBT status from the start and his desire to express that status and his identity, and thatās what this case is about,ā James Lynch, co-director of the human rights organization Fair Square, told the BBC. āHeās an LGBT person and he was targeted through a dating app. You donāt do that, unless thatās the thing you are focused on.ā
Qatari officials deny that Guerrero was targeted for any reason other than the possession of illegal substances.
Following Guerrero’s arrest, Grindr began displaying a warning to users in Qatar that āpolice are known to be making arrests on the app.ā
Same-sex intercourse between men is illegal in Qatar, with potential sentences of up to three years. The law also allows a death sentence to be imposed for unmarried Muslims who have sex regardless of gender, though there are no records it has ever been carried out.
UKRAINE

The Kyiv City Council denied a organizers of Kyiv Pride a permit to hold the annual human rights demonstration on the cityās metro system, citing security concerns and the need to maintain service on the subway network, the Kyiv Post reports.
Kyiv Pride organizers say they still plan to go ahead with their march in the metro on June 16 even without a city permit.
Kyiv has not held a Pride festival since the latest Russian invasion began in February 2022. The organizers of Kyiv Pride say they were inspired to hold their march on the metro system by a similar event held in the war-torn eastern city Kharkiv in 2022, where the metro was the safest place to gather during Russian bombardment.
Itās partly because the metro is used as a bomb shelter during Russian attacks that the city denied a permit for the event. The city released a statement on June 3 calling on organizers to find another venue.
āIn order not to endanger the participants and passengers, and to avoid possible provocations, the city authorities cannot allow the Equality March to take place in the metro,ā it said.
Organizers expect up to 500 people to take part in the Pride march this year. Theyāre asking participants to register in advance in order to limit the number of participants who show up at metro.
In a lengthy post on Kyiv Prideās Facebook page, the organizers underscore the importance of holding a highly visible Pride festival, even during the upheaval of wartime.
āIt is our obligation before Ukrainian queer soldiers who are also supporting the March to ensure that they return from the frontlines to a more just legal environment,ā the post says.
āBacked by society, the historic same-sex partnerships law and the law on hate crimes dropped from the parliamentās priority list. We must seize the opportunity to remind the government that ensuring dignity and equality for all Ukrainian citizens is not a second-tier priority. Organizing an LGBTQ+ civil rights march in Ukraine amid the ongoing Russian [sic] invasion is a complex and courageous endeavor.ā
ITALY

An Italian couple is planning to challenge social conventions even as they challenge the bonds of the earth itself, by becoming the first gay couple to get married in outer space.
Alessandro Monterosso, a 33-year-old health software entrepreneur, and Alec Sander, a 25-year-old recording artist, will exchange vows in 2025 aboard a private spaceflight offered by the U.S. company Space Perspective.
Space Perspective is not yet in commercial operation, but its website says it will offer bespoke experiences aboard a luxury capsule that is lifted to the edge of space by a hydrogen-filled balloon at a speed of 12 miles per hour.
Monterosso and Sander have booked a whole capsule for them and six guests at a cost of $125,000 per person, an even $1,000,000 total. They say they are not seeking sponsors.
Monterosso and Sander first met in Padua in 2017, and they dated for four years until Sander broke it off because it was difficult to date while Monterosso was still in the closet. A year later, they met up again and Monterosso asked Sander to marry him. Sander agreed, but he didnāt immediately know that his fiancĆ© wanted to hold the wedding in space.
āI was planning the trip as a civilian, to fulfill my childhood desire to become an astronaut. When I came into contact with the aerospace agency we relied on, it came naturally to me to ask:Ā but can I also get married in space?ā Monterosso told theĀ Corriere della Sera newspaper.
āIt seemed like such a romantic idea. I had struggled so much to accept myself as homosexual, not because I wasnāt sure, but because of the social context, and I told myself that now I would have to tell the whole world how I felt. Firstly because I know that there are many people who experience what I experienced, and then to confirm the infinite love I feel for Alec,ā he says.
But Monterosso and Sander have a political message behind their space wedding as well. Same-sex marriage is not legal in Italy, and its current far-right government has cracked down hard on same-sex parents.
āCouples like us are not always well regarded in Italy. In other places in the world, they are even illegal. In Russia we are considered terrorists. Well, we just want to say that itās time to normalize everything and amplify this message as much as possible. And if it is therefore so difficult to get married on Earth, then we are going to do it in space, with a galactic wedding whose aim is precisely to normalize these loves,ā Monterosso says. āThe message is aimed at people, because even today we still feel eyes on us if we hold hands while walking down the street. But if people normalize, politics must adapt.ā
Monterosso and Sander already have their sights set on more distant shores.
āFor our 20th anniversary, we are aiming for Mars,ā Monterosso says.
AUSTRALIA

The government of New South Wales issued a historic apology this week to queer people who were persecuted under old laws that criminalized same-sex intercourse.
New South Wales decriminalized same-sex intimacy in 1984, one of the last Australian states to do so. Forty years later, it has become the last state to issue an apology for criminalizing queer people, after all other states did so in 2016 and 2017.
Delivering a speech in the state parliament, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said he ārecognizes and regrets this parliamentās role in enacting laws and endorsing policies of successive governmentsā decisions that criminalized, persecuted and harmed people based on their sexuality and gender.
Minnsās apology acknowledged people were harmed by these laws even if they werenāt directly charged or convicted under them.
āTo those who survived these terrible years, and to those who never made it through, we are truly sorry. Weāre sorry for every person convicted under legislation that should never have existed. For every person that experienced fear as a result of that legislation.
āEveryone who lost a job, who lost their future, or who lost the love of family and friends. We are very sorry for every person, convicted or otherwise, who were made to live a smaller life because of these laws,ā he said.
People who had been convicted under New South Walesās old sodomy laws have been eligible to have the convictions expunged since a law change in 2014.
Minnsā government recently passed a ban on conversion therapy in March, making New South Wales the fourth jurisdiction in Australia to do so.
The stateās only openly gay MP, Independent Alex Greenwich, says that the apology has to be followed by more action to promote equality.
Heās put forward his own bill that would close a loophole in anti-discrimination law to ban discrimination by religious schools against LGBTQ students and teachers, and would allow trans people to change their legal gender without having to undergo a medical procedure.
āI rise as the only openly gay member of the Legislative Assembly to contribute to this apology,ā Greenwich said in the state parliament. āI am one of only two in this chamberās 186-year-old history. This in itself shows how much work we need to do.ā
Netherlands
Tens of thousands take part in World Pride March
Event capped off two weeks of celebrations in Amsterdam.
AMSTERDAM ā Tens of thousands of people on Saturday participated in the World Pride March in Amsterdam.
Outright International Executive Director Maria Sjƶdin and Paolo Rondelli, who in 2022 became the worldās first openly gay head of state when he became Captain Regent of San Marino, are among those who participated alongside Massachusetts state Rep. Jack Lewis and Olena Shevchenko, chair of Insight, an LGBTQ advocacy group in Ukraine, and others.
Members of D66, the centrist Dutch political party that Prime Minister Rob Jetten heads, also marched.
Jetten in February became the Netherlandsā first openly gay prime minister. He participated in the opening of the World Pride Human Rights Conference on Aug. 5 and spoke on a panel with Rondelli, former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, and other gay and lesbian current and former heads of government.
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
The march took place a week after hundreds of thousands of people lined Amsterdamās canals for the cityās annual Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade.
A terrorist attack at Berlinās Christopher Street Day on July 25 left one person dead and more than two dozen others injured.
The incident overshadowed World Pride, which began hours earlier and ended on Saturday.
Dutch authorities increased security measures in the aftermath of the July 25 attack. No incidents were reported during World Pride.
Netherlands
Dutch PM: More needs to be done to defend trans rights
Rob Jetten on Friday was on World Pride Human Rights Conference panel
Editorās note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key will be on assignment in Amsterdam until Aug. 10.
AMSTERDAM ā Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten on Friday said more needs to be done to defend transgender people and their rights.
āEverywhere in the Western world, itās definitely the group thatās the most vulnerable in the moment and itās rather well-picked also by our advisories,ā he said during a panel at the World Pride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam that Ying Xin and Diego GarcĆa Blum of Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program at the Harvard Kennedy Schoolās Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights Policy moderated. āTheyāve chosen the smallest group within our broader community (trans people) to attack them, to ensure that we can strip their rights and if theyāve done with that, theyāll go after the next group within our community, so we shouldnāt be naĆÆve about whatās behind it.ā
āItās very well-funded. Itās very well-organized and we have to organize as well to fight back and to win this fight,ā added Jetten. āWe also need to be more open in conversations that we are having within the community and also dive into it much deeper and maybe even have more difficult and annoying conversations.ā
Jetten in February became the Netherlands’ first openly gay prime minister.
He appeared on the panel alongside former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who in 2017 became his countryās first openly gay head of government, and former San Marino Captain Regent Paolo Rondelli, who was his countryās ambassador to the U.S. from 2007-2016.
Several other current former heads of government who are gay or lesbian also participated in the panel. They include former Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, former Luxembourgish Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, and Andorran Prime Minister Xavier Espot Zamora. California Congressman Mark Takano, who chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, and LGBTQ+ Victory Fund CEO Evan Low were among those who attended.
Jetten in his remarks said he was āvery surprisedā to learn that ānot only in the U.S. but also in some European countries that weāve let them decide what the gay group looked like.ā The Dutch prime minister further pointed out that conservatives began āto attack the debate on toilets or starting this debate about trans people in Olympic games.ā
āThat is, of course, a ridiculous debate to start, but weāve got distracted because we were so busy having this debate on Olympians, and then we actually forgot the real fight was about access to healthcare, just being yourself, being able to enlist in the army, or being able to be a young trans boy or girl in school,ā said Jetten. āWe got distracted by some fresh meat that was thrown into the area by some very conservative people.ā
āWe have to open our eyes and have very in-depth conservations within our community, and come up with a much better strategy to win this fight and to protect all our trans brothers and sisters, dolls, whatever,ā he added. āBecause if we donāt win this fight for trans people, weāre going to lose the bigger fight for all LGBTQ people in the world.ā
Varadkar noted Ireland in 2015 passed a law that allows people to legally change their gender without surgery or other medical interventions.
He conceded there was āa liberal wind blowing across the world at the time, and it was largely uncontested.ā
āIt would be harder now, quite frankly, to do that legislation,ā said Varadkar.

Scottish lawmakers in 2022 passed the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which lowered the age for anyone to legally change their gender without medical intervention from 18 to 16. Then-British Prime Minister Rishi Sunakās government later blocked the measure from taking effect.
The U.K. Supreme Court in 2025 ruled the legal definition of a woman under the countryās Equality Act is limited to ābiological women.ā Author J.K. Rowling is among those who praised the decision that stemmed from a case that challenged the Scottish governmentās decision to include trans women in its definition of women when it sought to increase the number of women on government boards.
The Trump-Vance administration on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day it was in office, issued a sweeping executive order that, among other things, declared the federal government would only recognize two genders: male and female. The White House earlier this year in its counterterrorism strategy said it āwill also prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist.ā
āWe have to stay united,ā said Rondelli. āThe strategy was, since the beginning, was a Nazi strategy to create groups, target groups, and to create maximum distractions to avoid discussion about some sort of policies.ā
āTrans people are the target at the moment,ā he added. āBut after them it will probably be some others, so we have to stay united.ā

Boris Dittrich, the Dutch Senateās First Vice President and a member of Jettenās D66 party who was previously global advocacy director for Human Rights Watchās LGBTQ Rights Program, at the end of the panel asked about protecting intersex babies from what advocates maintain are unnecessary surgeries.
Netherlands
Dutch prime minister opens World Pride Human Rights Conference
Rob Jetten is countryās first openly gay head of government
Editorās note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key are on assignment in Amsterdam through Aug. 10.
AMSTERDAM ā Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten on Wednesday opened the World Pride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam.
Jetten ā who in February became the countryās first openly gay prime minister ā began his remarks with an acknowledgment that the July 25 terrorist attack at Berlinās Christopher Street Day that left one person dead and more than two dozen others injured āfilled me with anger and sorrow.ā
He started to speak after a group of activists began to shout at him over his governmentās position on Palestine ā the International Criminal Court, which is based in The Hague, has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders in connection with crimes against humanity it says they committed in the Gaza Strip and Israel after Oct. 7.
Jetten stood silently and allowed them to protest before security personnel removed them from the room.
ĀView on Threads
Jetten in his speech acknowledged this year marks 25 years since the Netherlands became the first country to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples. He also pointed out 2025 marks Amsterdam Prideās Canal Parade‘s 30th year.
āMore and more in recent years, weāve seen hard won progress being eroded,ā conceded Jetten. āWeāve seen countries backsliding in equal rights legislation. Weāve seen homophobic hate speech becoming more overt and aggressive, and not only out in the real world, but online as well.ā
Jetten pointed out āonline hatred is one of the biggest threats facing the LGBTQIA+ people today.ā
āAll around the world … misinformation and disinformation can be spread in the blink of an eye with a single mouse click, reaching much further and much faster than NGOs, youth workers and health organizations can,ā he said. āThis is always how hatred takes hold. First in the shadows, outside the spotlight of society, underestimated by everyone, until, having grown into a many headed monster, it crawls out of the darkness.”
Jetten said his government this fall will launch āa social dialog on online discrimination and offering specific guidance on action to take.ā This will include ātraining courses for municipalities and civil society organizations to help them deal with online hate speech.ā
His government over the next three years will invest ā¬7.5 million each year āin improving the safety of the queer community in our cities with an alliance of organizations committed to safety, both in the public space and in the workspace for LGBTQI+ people, and with a public information campaign to combat discrimination and disinformation.ā Jetten also said the government will promote a campaign in Dutch schools that encourages students and teachers to wear purple as a way to show their support for the LGBTQ community.
āEqual rights are not a Western agendaā
Jetten in his speech also singled out āconservative forcesā in Uganda, Senegal, and in other countries who are framing LGBTQ rights ādevelopments as a neocolonial Western agenda.ā
āUnder the pretense of resisting so-called Western moral decadence, horrendous laws are enacted and promoted, laws that put the rights of free people under severe pressure,ā he said. āBut in reality, many communities in these countries have a long history of diversity and freedom, and the laws that impose the restrictions were in fact put in place by the colonial powers.ā
āNo matter how hard those conservative forces try to pull the wool over people’s eyes, queer communities around the world know that equal rights are not a Western agenda,ā added Jetten. āThey are first and foremost a human agenda.ā
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema and Nayyab Ali, co-chair of the Ending Violence Against Women and Girls Alliance Pakistan, are among those who also spoke on Wednesday. Lady Phyll, co-founder of UK Black Pride, and Camiel Welling, supervisor of the Amsterdam Trans Clinic, are co-hosting the conference that ends Friday.

