Politicians in at least 51 countries used Anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric during election / intensify discrimination, hand in hand with the ascension of authoritarianism

As the visibility of LGBTQ+ people has grown in many countries in the last decade, the negative reaction from the conservative segments of the society has also increased. In many cases, the reaction is fueled by far -right activists and politicians, according to a study conducted in 60 countries and in the EU, quoted by The Guardian.

Politicians in at least 51 countries used homophobic or transfobile rhetoric during last year's elections, from the description of LGBTQ+ as a foreign threat to the condemnation of “gender ideology”, a report by Outright International, an international non-governmental organization that militates for the equality of LGBTQ+.

On the other hand, the human rights group finds that in some countries there have been progress in terms of LGBTQ+representation.

People who have been open homosexual, bisexual and trans, have applied for public office in at least 36 countries, including for the first time in Botswana, Namibia and Romania-although without success-according to the Outright International report. Also, the number of officials elected LGBTQ+ has doubled, reaching at least 233 in Brazil.

The increasing negative reaction to LGBTQ+ people is fueled in many cases of far -right activists and politicians who use gay and transgender people as scapegoat for other issues, the report quoted by The Guardian shows.

There is a growing “militarization”, said Alberto de Belaúnde, director at Outright International.

“If you talk to a politician from Peru … or Hungary or the United Kingdom, you start to observe common trends and you realize that this is a global, coordinated and better funded effort to give LGBTIQ people,” he said.

Hate full speeches and a lot of money anti-lgbtq+ advertisements

LGBTQ+ candidates for public functions were subjected to online hatred speeches from electoral opponents and their supporters in El Salvador, Finland, Pakistan and USA, where Sarah McBride was chosen as the first transgender member of the Chamber of Representatives.

During the 2024 US elections, Republican campaigns spent $ 200 million on anti-transgender advertisements on national television (without including cable or streaming television), according to the data of the Adimpact advertisements.

In the campaign for the parliamentary elections in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, in October 2024, the Georgian government party Dream said that the LGBTQ+ activists were the “foreign agents” of the West, who wanted to corrupt the “traditional values” of the country.

Prior to the European elections of June 2024, in which the far-right-wing parties obtained important winnings, the Fidesz-Kdnp coalition of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that “the Elita from Brussels and the Soros network, fattened with an ideological war: the re-education of our children.”

In Germany, the far -right party alternative for Germany was declared against the equal treatment of “other forms of coexistence than that between a man and a woman.”

In Indonesia, who voted in February 2024, the National Commission for Human Rights condemned the reports that politicians promised “LGBT eradication”. And, although all three main parties in Pakistan promised to respect the rights of Transgender persons, Trans candidates reported that they were verbally harassed in both person and online, in the election campaign for the February 2024 vote.

The Outright International report showed that the intensification of discrimination against minorities went hand in hand with the ascension of authoritarianism: “In 2024, as in previous years, LGBTIQ communities and other marginalized groups were among the first victims of these antidemocratic attacks.”