The Frontline

In this, the third and final episode of our mini-series exploring the opportunities and challenges that come with businesses supporting LGBTI equality , we are looking at how companies can bring about positive change through representation in advertising, meaningful campaigns, and partnering with LGBTI organisations. We’re looking at this through the lens of one very successful partnership and cam...

This is the first episode of our new mini-series exploring the opportunities and challenges that come with businesses supporting LGBTI equality. Over the past few years, more and more companies have been engaging with LGBTI rights and equality, from putting inclusive employment policies in place, to celebrating Pride in their marketing campaigns, to speaking out in favour of laws that would suppor...

With the war in Ukraine and the Russian threat to democracy it has intensified, now more than ever we need to be working together across many alliances to ensure that equality and freedom are at the cornerstones of European society. Our new mini-series was recorded before the war began, but with it’s deep dive into how actors in the private sector, from big corporates to small and medium businesse...

At ILGA-Europe we recognise that the war is not going to be a short-term situation for vulnerable people in Ukraine, Russia, neighbouring countries, and all countries in Europe and Central Asia that are and will be hosting displaced people. With our deep and nuanced knowledge of the human rights situation for LGBTI people across Europe and Central Asia, we know that there will be great complexity...

In this episode of The Frontline, we are looking back at the year that was 2021, and what it meant for the LGBTI movement in Europe. It was a year of further lockdowns, of new strains of the COVID virus, and the uncertainty they have brought, and most of all, enormous reverberations of the unprecedented events of 2020 on people’s lives. At ILGA-Europe, when the pandemic first kicked in, our motto...

Since the beginning of 2020, we have been deeply reminded that change can come unexpectedly and can wreak havoc. We’ve also seen in stark ways how our ability to deal with change is so often framed by bigger structures of inequalities, and most of us have been left with more questions than we have answers.  This episode of The Frontline features an enlightening conversation about navigating change...

What’s it like to be an LGBTI activist at this moment of enormous change for the world? What are the new challenges, and what’s the daily life of an LGBTI organisation like nowadays?   Joining us to talk about the reality of queer activism in the current context, the good sides and bad, are ILGA-Europe’s Programmes Director, Bjorn van Roozendaal; Ola Kaczorek, founding member of Love Does Not Excl...

To introduce our new series on empowering LGBTI activism, Bjorn Van Roozendaal from ILGA-Europe talks about the priorities of our work with activists in a world that’s going through enormous change, and what to expect as we explore the challenges are activists face in doing the work, and some of the key ways they are addressing those challenges.    Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for...

Wellbeing challenges have been affecting the work of the LGBTI movement for decades, but it is only recently that activists have begun talking about their wellbeing as an issue. While a number organisations and groups have already taken concrete steps to address wellbeing, there’s no golden rule on how to approach these challenges. In this episode we share what ILGA-Europe has been doing to suppor...

One thing is always clear, no activist or activism organisation can work alone, and the work needs support. But where can that support be found, how can it be accessed, and when it comes through, how can you use it effectively? In this episode, we’re exploring what it means and what it takes to be supported during the highs and lows of everyday activism. We’ll be taking a look at how international...

In 2019, the BBC appointed its first ever LGBT correspondent, Ben Hunte. Whenever an LGBT story breaks, he appears on the 6 or 10 o’clock news and across the BBC’s global websites. His first year on the job has been an unprecedented one, with the rise of anti-LGBT hatred in Europe, marked by stark developments in Poland and Hungary. In this episode of The Frontline, Ben sits down with us to talk a...

In this episode we welcome the internationally acclaimed Turkish novelist , essayist , and advocate for women’s and LGBTI rights and freedom of expression, Elif Shafak. The author of 18 books of fiction and non-fiction, including The Bastard of Istanbul, Honour , and Three Daughters of Eve, Elif has come under fire from the Turkish authorities for writing about human rights abuses that its governm...

In this episode we’re discussing the results of ILGA-Europe’s 12th Rainbow Europe Map, which was published on May 17, International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) 2021. Every year, Rainbow Europe ranks all 49 European countries based on the laws and policies in each to ensure equal rights and protection for LGBTI people. Countries are ranked from zero perc...

   In this episode of The Frontline, we looking at the rising issue of LGBTIQ youth homelessness in Europe. A new report from ILGA-Europe, in association with Cyndi Lauper’s LGBTIQ Youth Homelessness organisation True Colors United, and the Silberman Centre for Sexuality and Gender (SCSG) at Hunter College in New York, explores the experiences of LGBTIQ focused organisations in Europe working in w...

In the third part of our mini-series on rainbow family rights, during which we we’re looking at the issues affecting LGBTI partners, parents and their children across Europe, we are joined by Danijel Kalezić, president of the Governing Board of Queer Montenegro, which helped usher in legislation for civil unions for same-sex couples, which were signed into law last year, making Montenegro the seco...

   In the first part of our mini-series on rainbow family rights, during which we we’re looking at the issues affecting LGBTI partners, parents and their children across Europe, we meet Adrian Coman from Romania. Three years ago, Adrian and his partner Clai were successful bringing their case to the Court of Justice of the European Union, which judged that same-sex spouses are fully recognised as...

In the sixth and final episode in our mini-series on rainbow family rights in 2021, during which we we’re looking at the issues affecting same-sex parents and their children across Europe, ILGA-Europe’s advocacy director, Katrin Hugendubel and Björn Sieverding from the Network of European LGBTIQ Families explore the issues coming down the line in terms of rainbow family rights, including direct ch...

In March 2021, Transgender Europe (TGEU) published the report, “Stuck on the swing: experiences of trans parents with freedom of movement in the EU”, in which 18 trans parents from across Europe shared their stories and thoughts. The report found that trans parents and their families face serious barriers when it comes to moving safely and freely across the European Union. In the fifth part of our...

Several pathways for partnership rights were part of the Ukraine took in EU-Ukraine Association agreement 2014-2016. Based on it the Ukrainian government developed a human rights strategy plan 2013-2019 which included specific commitments to LGBT rights, but many elements of this strategy were not implemented, and civil partnership was dropped from it. However, post-revolution and against the back...

In the second part of our mini-series on rainbow family rights, during which we we’re looking at the issues affecting LGBTI partners, parents and their children across Europe, we meet Kalina and Jane, from Bulgaria and the UK respectively. Because their daughter Sara was born in Gibraltar, she cannot claim UK citizenship via Jane, so the couple applied to have her registered in Bulgaria. The Bulga...

ILGA-Europe’s 10th Annual Review of the Human Rights Situation of LGBTI People in Europe and Central Asia, comes after a year of unprecedented change for the world, and a pandemic that had a noted effect on LGBTI people and communities. Reporting from country after country provides a glaring clarification that progress which has been taken for granted is not only increasingly fragile, but particul...

In March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic went global, we worried that equality would slip off EU agendas as lockdowns and an unprecedented economic crisis took hold. In this episode of The Frontline, we look back at the extraordinary year that was 2020, and the engagement of the EU in LGBTI equality issues, exacerbated during the coronavirus crisis. Our Executive and Advocacy Directors, Evelyne P...

   “Attitudes towards LGBTI people are changing and changing fast,” says activist, Lilly Dragoeva from the Sofia-based Billitis Foundation, in this episode of The Frontline, which delves into the current situation in Bulgaria, a country we don’t often hear about as Poland and Hungary’s governmental persecution of LGBTI people grabs the headlines. There may not be LGBT-free zones in Bulgaria, but i...

   In this episode of The Frontline we delve deep into the situation for LGBTI people in Poland and the work of activists amid the rise of official anti-LGBTI campaigning and the recent crackdown. We talk to Polish activist Slava Melnyk from KPH (Campaign Against Homophobia) about how the situation has come to a head in the aftermath of the re-election of far-right President, Andrzej Duda. David S...