Lucy Middleton

As cardinals prepare to choose a new leader for the Catholic Church after the death of Pope Francis, LGBTQ+ faithful have praised the legacy left by a progressive pontiff who redefined relations with the community.

Pope Francis, who died on Easter Monday aged 88, met with trans women, urged the church to seek forgiveness from gay people, and allowed priests to bless same-sex couples, although he did not approve of same-sex relations or marriage equality.

Britain's top court ruled on Wednesday that the 2010 Equality Act's definition of a woman is based on biological sex and does not include transgender people with gender recognition certificates.

The Supreme Court was ruling on a lawsuit brought by campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) against the devolved Scottish government in 2018 over its guidance that said a trans woman with a gender recognition certificate was legally a woman.

U.S. President Donald Trump has signed multiple executive orders in his first three months in office that impact the lives of LGBTQ+ Americans, from healthcare, to legal recognition, to protection from discrimination.

Those who do not comply with the directives have begun facing a backlash from the administration.

U.S. President Donald Trump's foreign aid freeze could lead to more than three million HIV-related deaths, as supplies of life-saving drugs are disrupted in nations hit hardest by the virus, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

More than 20 million people in 55 countries were relying on U.S. funding to provide their antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV as of last year, U.S. government data shows.

The election of Zimbabwean Kirsty Coventry as president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) - the first woman and first African to take the job - could alter the future of transgender and intersex athletes in the Games.

Coventry, a former Olympian who won seven of Zimbabwe's eight Olympic medals, will take over from Thomas Bach on June 23.

During her campaign, she was vocal in her support for a blanket ban on trans women competing in female categories at the Olympics. At present, it is down to individual sporting bodies to decide if trans athletes are eligible to take part in an event.

Urs Vanessa Sager was swimming for the junior national Swiss team in 1971 when the intersex teen was told they no longer had a place in the binary categories of the sport.

"Because I grew breasts, I couldn't start with the men anymore. And because of what I have between my legs, I couldn't start with the women," Sager, co-chair of the Swiss Association for Intersex People, said in a video call with Context.

Crucial work furthering LGBTQ+ rights and preventing HIV in the Pacific Islands has been disrupted by U.S. President Donald Trump's freeze of foreign aid and may not recover, advocates in the region have said.

Despite being the world's most aid-dependent region, the Asia-Pacific received just 5% of global LGBTQ+ funding between 2021 and 2022, while being home to 55% of the world's population, according to the latest Global Resources Report.

Panicking families, suicide risk and spikes in calls to helplines - LGBTQ+ and rights organizations say they are already feeling what they see as foreboding impacts of U.S. President Trump's measures to undo protections for the community.

Trump started his term on Jan. 20 by issuing an executive order "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism," which declared the government will only recognize two sexes - male and female.

France's state-owned railway has been ordered to stop collecting passengers' gender markers when they buy tickets online, in what is being hailed as a landmark case for non-binary recognition in the European Union.

Train operator SNCF Connect only offered passengers the choice between selecting "monsieur" or "madame" on their website, which LGBTQ+ groups argued broke the governing principles of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

After a year that saw both major gains and a spate of setbacks for rights, 2025 is set to be another mixed year for LGBTQ+ people, with some countries achieving marriage equality and others criminalising diverse sexualities and genders. 

Last year progress was made through marriage equality in Greece and Thailand, the decriminalisation of gay sex in Namibia and Dominica and self-identification laws in Germany and Ecuador, which ease the process of changing legal gender.