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Lucy Middleton

LGBTQ+ Correspondent

Thomson Reuters Foundation

Lucy Middleton is the LGBTQ+ Correspondent for Context based in London.

June 10, 2025

The U.S. Supreme Court will rule this month on whether Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors discriminates against transgender youth in the state.

The 2023 law prohibits healthcare supporting gender identity for people under the age of 18 who wish to change gender or are experiencing gender dysphoria.

May 30, 2025

Seventeen-year-old Elliot Schneider knows how vital mental health support can be.

The American teenager, who uses the pronouns they/them, was just 12 when they came out as non-binary following a battle with depression and anxiety. Without their supportive parents and community, they are not sure they would have survived.

May 15, 2025

The European Union (EU) has come increasingly under fire for failing to act swiftly to combat the spread of anti-LGBTQ+ laws, including Hungary's Pride ban, with activists warning inaction could lead to further quashing of rights.

Hungary, under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, is leading the charge in LGBTQ+ censorship and, in 2021, passed a law restricting LGBTQ+ information in schools and the media.

May 13, 2025

The world was watching as Pope Leo XIV delivered his first mass on Sunday, days after becoming the first American elected pope.

Robert Francis Prevost has used his initial days as leader of the Catholic world to call for peace in Ukraine, a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of imprisoned journalists.

April 17, 2025

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.

April 16, 2025

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.

March 26, 2025

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.

March 21, 2025

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.

March 12, 2025

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.

February 28, 2025

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.