In the United States, the death of Dolly Parton yesterday has eclipsed almost everything else (check out Ari Shapiro’s obituary and this piece in The Advocate). The mourning is about more than celebrity: it has become a kind of national mirror, exposing the widening distance between the American values she embodied—generosity, decency and a live-and-let-live spirit—and the reality of the country today. The contrast is particularly stark for LGBTQ+ Americans: the Log Cabin Republicans' announcement last week that they dropped the “T” in LGBTQ+ implies that everything, including values, is negotiable and has a price in 2026. Parton, on the other hand, spent decades standing with our community—openly, consistently, and without ever turning allyship into branding. Even readers who never owned one of her records feel the loss.
This week: Farewell, Dolly; Canada’s national LGBTQ+ monument; Attitude gets personal with PM Rob Jetten; Ghana’s Anglican Church on anti-gay bill; the Log Cabin Republicans; Coward; and much more…
Global News
Canada: First National LGBTQ+ Monument Unveiled in Ottawa
“Thunderhead,” an 11-meter monument commemorating victims of Canada’s LGBT Purge, opened August 21 along the Ottawa River, with Governor General Louise Arbor and Purge survivors in attendance. The design — a thundercloud breaking through a mirrored column — was funded in part by settlement money from the survivors’ class-action lawsuit against the federal government. Read more about the monument and its design here.
Ghana: Anglican Archbishop Breaks With Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill
Archbishop Cyril Kobina Ben-Smith publicly opposed pending legislation that would criminalize identifying as LGBTQ+ and mandate reporting of gay and lesbian citizens, telling the BBC “we do not support the criminalization of gay persons.” President John Dramani Mahama has not yet signed the bill — passed by a bare 34-member quorum in May and shaped by foreign influence. Details in PinkNews.
Netherlands: When the Gay Teenager Becomes Prime Minister
In this world-exclusive Attitude cover feature, Krishna Omkar sits down with Rob Jetten during WorldPride Amsterdam. Krishna, who has known Jetten since before his political rise, traces the arc from a fearful teenager who worried he’d never find love to a leader now engaged to Olympic hockey player Nicolás Keenan and steering his country through a fractured political era. The conversation moves fluidly between the personal and the political — coming out at 17, campaigning in far-right strongholds, the discipline he carries from his days as an elite 400m runner — while confronting the rising threats facing LGBTQ+ people worldwide. See in Attitude and its print edition.
Thailand: Gay Senator On Marriage Equality’s Global Ripple Effect
Pornchai Witayalerdpan, Thailand’s first openly gay senator, told the World Pride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam that the country’s 2025 marriage equality law — a first for Southeast Asia — “totally changed how the world perceived Thailand,” crediting collaboration between civil society and the pride movement. See in Meaws.
Brazil: queer candidates surge
Brazil’s 2026 election is producing a striking paradox: LGBTQ+ political participation is surging even as the overall candidate pool shrinks. VoteLGBT says it has identified more than 500 LGBTQ+ candidates nationwide, nearly 60% more than in 2022, while the total number of candidates has fallen by almost 30%. Visibility, predictably, comes with a price: the organization’s AI-powered monitoring system, Sentinela, says it has already detected more than 6,000 online attacks against LGBTQ+ candidates this election cycle. VoteLGBT itself has faced legal pressure from the Republicanos party over its election platform and mascot, Votinho; according to the organization, courts have ruled twice in its favor, and an appeal is ongoing. If you’re curious, check out the VoteLGBT website and its election dashboard.
Turkey: Mabel Matiz Faces New “Obscenity” Probe Over Ha Leylim
Turkish prosecutors have opened an “obscenity” investigation into openly gay pop singer Mabel Matiz over Ha Leylim, released on August 11, whose music video shows a groom at a heterosexual wedding exchanging lingering looks with another man—a quiet suggestion of concealed queer desire, not explicit content. The inquiry, launched August 13 after a pro-government and online backlash, carries a potential sentence of six months to three years under Article 226 of Turkey’s penal code; a court has also placed Matiz under judicial control and barred him from leaving the country. The case follows his May 8 acquittal on similar charges related to his 2025 song Perperişan. See here and check out the video below…maybe around 2:25.
US News
Log Cabin Republicans Drop Transgender People From Mission
The conservative LGBT group announced August 20 that it is refocusing as an “LGB advocacy” organization, removing transgender issues from its official mission a decade after adding them. President Ross Hemminger argued in an op-ed that trans advocacy has “ceased focusing on adults at all,” while HRC’s Delphine Luneau called it “exactly what anti-equality forces want to see happen.” Read more in LGBTQ Nation and check out my equally controversial Sunday article on the topic.
HRC: America Is Queerer Than We Thought
New HRC Foundation estimates, based on 2.4 million Census Bureau survey responses, put America’s LGBTQ+ population at a record 12% of adults—or 25.6 million people. Bisexual Americans alone represent more than 7% of all adults, making them by far its largest component, while growing numbers of people describe their gender outside the traditional binary. In other words, the expansion of LGBTQ+ America is not principally a dramatic increase in the number of people identifying as conventionally gay or lesbian; it reflects younger generations embracing a much broader spectrum of sexuality and gender, with nearly a third of 18-to-24-year-olds now identifying as LGBTQ+.
Is Surrogacy Entering the Culture War In The US?
A heartbreaking Texas custody battle, which I mentioned last week, over a critically ill newborn is becoming about much more than one family: after a California couple sought an abortion when their surrogate pregnancy revealed a severe congenital heart defect, the surrogate continued the pregnancy and is now challenging their parental authority, with anti-abortion groups and Republican politicians rallying behind her. The case lands amid a broader global pushback against surrogacy, from countries restricting or banning arrangements for foreign intended parents to feminist, religious and conservative movements questioning whether pregnancy can ever ethically be contractualized. I have warned for a while that this debate will be the next issue in the US.
Ninth Circuit Revives DOJ Investigation Into Trans Telehealth Provider
An appeals court reversed a lower-court block on a Justice Department subpoena targeting QueerDoc, a telehealth provider for transgender patients, one of more than 20 similar demands issued to clinics nationwide. Judge Carlos Bea wrote that “the goal of ending ‘gender-affirming care’ is not in and of itself an ‘improper’ policy objective,” while the district judge who’d blocked it called the conduct “calculated to intimidate rather than investigate.” See Advocate.com.
Although the subpoena here was validly based on an investigation of health care law violations, the goal of ending ‘gender-affirming care’ is not in and of itself an ‘improper’ policy objective
Lindsey Graham’s Sister Wins GOP Primary for His Senate Seat
Darline Graham, appointed to fill her late brother’s term after his July death, won the Republican runoff with 52.5% of the vote, backed by $827,000 in Trump-aligned super PAC spending. Her first campaign ad had leaned on the line “men don’t belong in women’s sports”. Details in Forbes.
Queering the Boardroom
October 26: PRISM Annual Summit in NYC
PRISM: The Association of LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors will host its 4th Annual LGBTQ+ Corporate governance gathering in NYC. Info here.
The Gay Business
UK: BBC On Pride After the Rainbow-Washing
This week, the BBC took a look at the uncertain future of Pride in Britain, where the retreat of corporate sponsors, shrinking public support and increasingly fraught politics around trans inclusion are colliding with an older critique from within our own community: that Pride became too commercial, too expensive and too detached from its protest roots. Corporate Pride mentions among the UK’s ten biggest companies reportedly fell 92% between 2023 and 2025, while councils and public agencies are reconsidering funding, flags and participation. To avoid being too depressing, the article ends up lauding the pride of local small towns.
A 2024 YouGov survey of more than 500 LGBT Britons, aged 16 to 24, found that 90% say it is “very” or “fairly” important that Pride month still exists.
Target apologizes — but the DEI vacuum is hard to ignore
Target has apologized and pulled a children’s Halloween costume after an online backlash over its offensive racial imagery, acknowledging that it “should never have been part of our assortment” and was particularly hurtful to Black guests, employees, and partners. The episode is also an uncomfortable reminder of what can happen when companies dismantle some of the very infrastructure designed to spot cultural and reputational risks before they reach the shelves. See here.
Semi-Cultural Desk
The Lesbian Space Princess Controversy Explained
The Australian 2025 animated film Lesbian Space Princess is becoming the common enemy in what social media has christened the “Great Fandom Truce of 2026.” Rival online fandoms are posting memes about temporarily setting aside their differences to attack the film, while Cartoon Brew argues that the backlash—including review-bombing, out-of-context clips and attacks on the filmmakers’ queer identities—looks less like spontaneous criticism than an inorganic pile-on. The irony is that Lesbian Space Princess, about an anxious lesbian from Clitopolis rescuing her ex from the “Straight White Maliens,” was hardly an obscure failure before reaching a much larger streaming audience this summer. Read more here.
Club Kid
Jordan Firstman’s Club Kid has gone from Cannes sensation to full-fledged A24 awards contender, with the first trailer now out ahead of its November 6 release. Written, directed by and starring Firstman, the film follows a queer New York party promoter who suddenly discovers he has a 10-year-old son, forcing a reckoning with aging, nightlife and the life he actually wants. After a reported $17 million bidding war at Cannes, the film is being positioned as a major fall release, with Cara Delevingne, Diego Calva, Kirby Howell-Baptiste and Reggie Absalom rounding out the cast.
Smithsonian Curator Fights to Keep Queer History on Display
Katherine Ott, the Smithsonian’s de facto LGBTQ+ archivist, was singled out in a White House report for her work on queer history exhibits even as the museum currently has no permanent in-person queer exhibition. “We’re tired,” she said, “but undeterred.” See in LGBTQ Nation.
Ireland’s First Permanent LGBTQ+ Museum Exhibition Opens in Cork
“We Were Always Here” opened August 23 at Cork Public Museum, alongside a four-month loan of the original Gilbert Baker rainbow flag — its first display outside the United States. Curator Orla Egan said the goal is to ensure that LGBTQ+ history “cannot be forgotten or ignored.” Details in Irish Times.
Belgium Selects Coward for 2027 Oscars
Belgium has selected Lukas Dhont’s Coward as its official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 99th Academy Awards, placing the queer World War I drama in the race for the 2027 Oscars. Set in the Belgian trenches, the film follows Pierre, a young soldier, and Francis, a flamboyant performer who stages gender-bending shows to lift troops’ morale; amid the violence of war, their friendship becomes a romance and a fragile refuge. Coward is Dhont’s third Oscar submission for Belgium, after Girl and the Oscar-nominated Close, and will open in U.S. and Canadian theaters on December 25, with a Mubi release.
The No Sex Socialization Trend
In a culture supposedly exhausted by hookup apps, perhaps the most subversive gay proposition is now… friendship. Britain’s provocatively named “No Gay Sex Weekend” has gone viral after creating gatherings where gay men meet with one explicit understanding: sex is not the point. Founded by digital creator Chris, the group says it wants to counter the hyper-sexualization of gay spaces and make room for friendships and meaningful connections without everyone immediately sizing one another up as a potential hookup. What began with an event in Oxford has reportedly grown to 1,300 members, with gatherings from Bristol to a recent London picnic—and, predictably, plenty of jokes and debate online about whether removing sex from the equation represents cultural “evolution” or needlessly stigmatizes a hard-won part of gay liberation. Read more in Queerty.
Coming and Going
Dolly Parton, Country Icon and Longtime LGBTQ+ Ally, Dies at 80
Parton died August 25 after a seven-decade career defined as much by her consistent, unshowy support for the LGBTQ+ community as by her music. “We’re supposed to accept people,“ she said in 2016, defending transgender dignity amid North Carolina’s bathroom-bill fight. “That’s God’s business.“ HRC remembered her as “a steadfast ally“ who “stood with our community long before others in entertainment.” Details in Metro Weekly.
Kate Kendell Honored
Our Family Coalition, the San Francisco organization supporting LGBTQ+ families, will celebrate its 30th anniversary on October 10 by honoring Gill Foundation CEO Kate Kendell with its Community Legacy Award. Before joining Gill, Kendell spent 22 years leading the National Center for Lesbian Rights, helping to build much of the legal architecture that protects LGBTQ+ people and their families. Horizons Foundation and its leaders Roger Doughty and Francisco O. Buchting.
LGBTQ+ Lawmakers Take Over Major California Legislative Caucuses
Assemblymember Corey A. Jackson was elected to chair the California Legislative Black Caucus, Sen. Caroline Menjivar is poised to lead the Legislative Women’s Caucus, and Sen. Sabrina Cervantes and Assemblymember José Luis Solache will become the first Latino leadership team atop the state’s LGBTQ Caucus — all for the 2027–2028 session. Jackson called it “an honor to have been selected as the next chief servant” of the caucus. See in JRL Charts.
The Gay Agenda
August 30–Sept. 7: Burning Man
Burning Man returns to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert from August 30 to September 7, despite the nearby Hawk Fire northwest of Reno. The main concern is smoke, with shifting winds potentially worsening air quality and complicating travel through northern Nevada. Also, people worry about AI glasses. I’ve never been, and somehow each passing year makes my debut on the playa statistically less likely. Then again, I’m leaving open the possibility of a spectacular second wind in my fifties—dust goggles, questionable decisions and all. Read more.
September 17–19: GLMA’s 44th Annual Conference on LGBTQ+
Health professionals gather at the Sheraton Grand Seattle for the country’s largest conference focused on LGBTQ+ health equity, training, and research. See GLMA.
October 3: Marche des Fiertés LGBTQIA+, Paris
Paris’s Pride march, postponed from June 27 because of the heatwave, finally takes to the streets this fall, departing Place d’Italie at 2 p.m. for Place de la Bastille, followed by a concert. The last-minute June cancellation left organizers with a roughly €50,000 shortfall, partly filled through crowdfunding and—in the most appropriately gay fundraising solution imaginable—a drag bingo. Details from Inter-LGBT.
October 11: National Coming Out Day
The annual observance marking the anniversary of the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights returns with nationwide organizing and visibility campaigns. According to National Today.
October 28-29: Koppa’s Annual Forum
On October 29–30, KOPPA — the LGBTI+ Economic Power Lab I co-founded — will host the second Global Inclusive Finance Forum at the Deutsche Bank Center in New York. This year, we are organizing the Forum around a simple but ambitious question: what would it take to build LGBTQ+ economies?
That’s it for this week—a little late, I admit, as things are picking up around here ahead of UNGA in September and the various Conferences I am involved in this October. Thank you to everyone who reacted to Sunday’s piece on the Log Cabin Republicans. One reader challenged my analogy to collaboration, fairly pointing out that it risked obscuring the argument I was trying to make: my point was that solidarity reveals its meaning precisely when it becomes costly and that the LCR’s timing is highly suspicious.
As the former editor of LGBTQ Nation AND someone who had some of my personal belongings in the Smithsonian LGBTQ history displays, I can confirm that Katherine Ott is genuinely one of the nicest and interesting people I’ve ever met.