Thursday, August 31, 2023

The Worldwide Offensive against the Rights of the LGBTQ+ Community


EL PAÍS INTERNATIONAL: The community, which is celebrating International Pride Day, has been hit by both the rise of the far right and hate speech in democratic countries and by the wave of religious extremism in authoritarian regimes

Whenever the rights of LGBTQ+ people move forward in the world, be it with laws that recognize same-sex marriage or the administrative identity of trans people, there is backlash, to a greater or lesser degree. The historical struggle of the LGBTQ+ community, which today celebrates Pride Day, is full of advances and setbacks, but now that dynamic is rapidly going backwards. And it is happening all over the world.

The offensive can be clearly seen in several countries of the European Union, fueled by a far right that has found that attacks on LGBTQ+ rights can be a powerful electoral and ideological tool. This is the case in Hungary and Poland, where there are doubts about the administrations’ democratic rigor, and in Italy, where the far-right government of Giorgia Meloni is seeking to block the legal recognition of families with same-sex parents. Spain, which has been consolidating LGBTQ+ rights for almost two decades, recently approved one of the most progressive laws to protect the LGBTQ+ community, but the so-called trans law is now under attack by the conservative Popular Party (PP) and far-right Vox, which have put it in the spotlight ahead of the general elections on July 23. » | Sylvia Blanco | Andrea García Baroja | Wednesday, June 28, 2023