Table of Contents
This week: Lula wins in Brazil, the Supreme Court and trans prisoners, New Zealand’s puberty-blocker ruling, Senegal meets the Youth Olympics, fake trans mailers in Texas, Mark Dybul’s return to the Global Fund, Glee and much more…
This update is provided by Fabrice Houdart, consider supporting his important work.
This week, Nathaniel Philbrick drew a “direct line” between California Gold Rush miners and today’s AI tech bros in The Washington Post, while The Guardian talks about an “AI gold rush” the White House shields from guardrails. Every gold rush has its winners and a much longer list of people left out. So my week is about economic power: on Monday, the PRISM Summit brought together the LGBTQ+ governance community and our allies; tonight, StartOut celebrates 15 years of LGBTQ+ founders; and on Thursday, Koppa opens its Forum on building LGBTQ+ economies. Our community has to decide what the next ten years are for: watching the wealth gap widen, or building our own economic power.
Global News
Brazil: Lula Wins, and Democracy Holds
On Sunday, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva beat Flávio Bolsonaro in the runoff, 51.8% to 48.2%, a margin of 4.4 million votes, and won a fourth term. Four years after his father refused to accept defeat and his supporters stormed Brasília, the Bolsonaro dynasty lost again at the ballot box. A few days before the vote, Flávio promised that LGBT people would “prosper like any citizen.” Brazilians had other ideas: the number of LGBTQ+ people elected this month nearly doubled, from 18 to 35, including 13 federal deputies, up from four, and Erika Hilton, a Black trans woman, became the most-voted woman deputy in the country’s history, with almost 1.6 million votes. In a year of bad news for democracies, Brazil is the good news. Read more in The New York Times; the LGBTQ+ count from IstoÉ.
Senegal: The Youth Olympics Open on Saturday, the Arrests Continue
Dakar hosts the first Olympic event ever held in Africa from October 31, and the crackdown we have covered for two weeks shows no sign of pausing for it. Since Senegal amended its penal code in March to double sentences and criminalize the “promotion” of homosexuality, hundreds of people have been arrested, many of them tested for HIV against their will, with patients now abandoning treatment for fear of being identified. The IOC, which never tires of reminding athletes that the Olympic Charter forbids discrimination, is still silent. Read more in Gay Times.
Kenya: Counted, and Then Targeted
On October 19, UNDP and the World Bank published Kenya’s first LGBTI Inclusion Index. HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men is 19.1%, six times the national rate, and 43% of LGBTI students surveyed report harassment; on jobs, mental health and violence, there is simply no public data. The same week, a parliamentary committee urged the government to strictly enforce the penal code articles that punish same-sex relations with up to 14 years in prison. Read the index.
New Zealand: High Court Strikes Down the Puberty-Blocker Ban
On October 21, New Zealand’s High Court ruled that the government’s November 2025 ban on new puberty-blocker prescriptions for under-18s was unlawful. The court found the consultation inadequate and the ban discriminatory against gender-diverse young people, and it set the regulations aside. PATHA, the professional association for transgender health, said it was “incredibly relieved.” Details in Attitude.
China: The UN Asks About LGBT Children, for the First Time
On October 2, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child adopted its list of questions for China’s first review since 2013, and for the first time it asks about LGBT children: discrimination and bullying in schools, conversion practices aimed at minors, the classification of “gender diversity disorder” as a mental illness, and birth registration for children of same-sex couples. Beijing must answer in writing by February 15, 2027. It is the result of years of patient work by Chinese activists, who chose to frame LGBTQ+ rights as children’s rights, a language the Chinese government itself likes to speak. Small, but not nothing. Read more from China Rainbow Observation.
UN: Five States That Criminalize Us Join the Human Rights Council
On October 7 in Geneva, 52 countries signed France’s declaration against the criminalization of homosexuality. Six days later, the General Assembly elected 15 members to the Human Rights Council for 2027–2029, all unopposed. Five of them, Burundi, Ghana, Kuwait, Nigeria and Zambia, criminalize same-sex relations. Uncontested slates are how this happens. See ISHR.
Turkey: KAOS GL’s Leaders, Six Weeks Without an Indictment
Seven board members and auditors of KAOS GL, Turkey’s oldest LGBTI+ organization, along with journalist Tuğba Tekerek, remain in pre-trial detention more than a month after the government launched its “My Family Is Safe” operation on September 12. No indictment has been filed. Coordinator Umut Güner describes his friends as hostages, and the Attitude Foundation has pledged emergency support. Read more in Attitude.
Montreal: Queer History, One Wikipedia Edit at a Time
On October 23, more than 150 editors from at least 30 countries met in Montreal for Queering Wiki 2026, the first fully in-person conference of LGBTQ+ Wikipedia contributors, six years after a planned edition in Austria was lost to COVID. Organized by Wikimedia LGBT+ and led by Bisi Alimi, it aimed to keep our history online as many governments work to erase it. For most people, Wikipedia is the first place they look us up, so who writes it matters. Read more in The Advocate.
UK: The BBC Blurs a T-Shirt and Erases Pride Pins
When Strictly Come Dancing aired a rehearsal clip of Bethany Antonia in a “Protect the Dolls” T-shirt this month, the slogan was blurred, and 206 viewers complained to Ofcom. The BBC says it routinely removes slogans. The same guidelines explain why the BBC digitally removed two University of Leicester students’ Pride pins from University Challenge, an edit one of them called “very Orwellian.” Details in PinkNews, and on University Challenge, here.
US News
The Supreme Court Keeps Care for Trans Prisoners, for Now
On October 21, the Court denied the Trump administration’s emergency request to enforce Bureau of Prisons rules that would have ended surgeries, phased out hormone therapy and removed accommodations for trans people in federal custody. About 600 incarcerated people received hormone therapy last year. Judge Royce Lamberth’s order keeping treatment in place stands while the case continues; Justices Thomas and Alito would have let the policy take effect. Read more in The Advocate.
Are Fewer Teens Identifying as LGB? Researchers Disagree
New CDC survey data set off a debate this month. Jean Twenge called lesbian, gay and bisexual identification among high schoolers a “free fall”: the share of ninth-grade girls identifying as bisexual fell from 26 percent in 2021 to 13 percent in 2025. Demographers are more cautious. Almost all of the change is among ninth-grade girls; the share identifying as lesbian or gay is stable at 3 to 5 percent, and wording changes to the survey make comparisons shaky. The survey also stopped asking about gender identity this year, in line with the administration’s executive order, so trans students simply vanish from the data. As Andrew Flores of the Williams Institute put it, erasing the data doesn’t make the problem go away. Read more in The New York Times.
The Trevor Project: What Actually Protects LGBTQ+ Youth
While researchers argue over who is still answering federal surveys, The Trevor Project followed 1,689 LGBTQ+ young people aged 13 to 24 for more than two years. Family support was linked to 45% lower odds of suicidal ideation; being threatened with or exposed to conversion therapy, to nearly three times higher odds. Self-harm and suicide attempts declined over the period, but anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts rose. Washington keeps asking whether these kids exist. The data keeps telling us what helps them. Read more in LGBTQ Nation.
Texas: Who Is Impersonating Trans Students?
As early voting opened, Texas households, apparently Republican ones, received glossy “Texas Trans & LGBTQ+ Student Resource Guides” from a “Texas Transgender Student Union,” carrying the website and QR code of the Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT). TENT wrote none of it. The sender is a Wyoming LLC created on September 2 through a registered agent long associated with shell companies. On October 22, TENT asked a state court for permission to take depositions to find out who paid for it. The real question is who wanted voters to receive them. Details in LGBTQ Nation; the conservative take in The Daily Signal.
Six Days Out: Democrats Still Arguing About Us
In Iowa, Democratic Senate nominee Josh Turek, a Paralympian who once spoke up for trans kids, released a closing ad backing a ban on federal funding for gender-affirming care. Advocates were not amused. The same week, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told her party that defending trans people is not a losing issue, and that running from them is. Meanwhile, Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska and Washington vote on measures targeting trans youth, and Virginia votes to repeal its same-sex marriage ban. Read more in LGBTQ Nation; GLAAD’s fact sheets on Arizona and Colorado.
Texas: Musk’s $158 Million for Ken Paxton
In September, Elon Musk gave $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, which quickly passed it to a PAC backing Ken Paxton against Democrat James Talarico, in what is now the most expensive Senate race in history. Talarico was the target of 182 anti-trans posts on X in the 26 hours after his primary win. Read more in TheWrap.
Long Island: Chris Gallant Is Not Ashamed
In New York’s 1st District, on eastern Long Island, Chris Gallant, an openly gay Democrat, Army National Guard Black Hawk pilot, former air traffic controller and volunteer firefighter, is taking on Republican Rep. Nick LaLota. When the New York Post published bondage photos from a 2010 shoot, he called it his “Kim Kardashian moment” and said all his friends know he is kinky. Rather than hide, he leaned in: “Make politics sexy again” is now a campaign slogan, and his fundraising surged. It is a long shot in a district Trump won. Read more in Washington Blade and Salon.
Queering the Boardroom
PRISM Summit: 45 Seats, a Leadership Circle and a Full Room
On Monday, the PRISM Summit brought more than 150 directors, executives, investors and search firms to Grant Thornton in New York. Michael Camuñez opened with our State of the Field: openly LGBTQ+ directors hold 45 Fortune 500 seats, down from 50 in 2024, the first decline since we began counting, and only one genuinely new openly LGBTQ+ director has joined that group since 2024. He also announced the PRISM Leadership Circle, 13 senior directors who sit on the boards of Dow, Bank of America, 3M, HubSpot, AIG, Macy’s, Lowe’s, Edison International and others, and who have agreed to open doors for the next generation. Read Michael’s full remarks, meet the Leadership Circle, and read the press release.
Jim Fitterling Joins Bank of America’s Board
Bank of America has named Jim Fitterling, Executive Chairman of Dow and one of the few openly gay CEOs in Fortune 500 history, to its board, alongside former KPMG global chief Bill Thomas. Jim, who is also lead director at 3M and a founding member of PRISM’s new Leadership Circle, now sits on three of America’s most consequential boards. It is a reminder that visibility at the very top still matters. Read more in Bank of America’s announcement.
The Gay Business
“Woke-Free” Beer, Now Also Beer-Free
Ultra Right Beer, launched in 2023 to cash in on the Bud Light boycott over Dylan Mulvaney, is under investigation by Georgia’s attorney general for ignoring compliance orders. The Better Business Bureau gives it an F, with 198 unanswered complaints from customers who say they paid and never received anything. It turns out outrage is easier to bottle than beer. Read more in PinkNews.
SAGE: Marilyn Maye, Sam Chandan and $1.2 Million for Our Elders
On Monday night, straight from the PRISM Summit, I made it to the SAGE Awards & Gala at the Ziegfeld Ballroom, at Jon Tilli’s table. Marilyn Maye, in her late nineties, accepted her Lifetime Achievement Award, then sang a few classics, and the room remembered why she holds the record for the most appearances by a singer on The Tonight Show (76). Congratulations to Sam Chandan, who received the Corporate Advocacy Award for putting LGBTQ+ people on the commercial real estate map, from the Real Estate Pride Council he chairs to his research on LGBTQ+ senior housing. Marti Cummings was a hilarious host who kept us laughing all night, Alex Newell brought the house down, and the evening raised $1.2 million for LGBTQ+ older people. Support SAGE.
Semi-Cultural Desk
Bruce Cohen Gets His Vito Russo Award
On Friday, at GLAAD’s New York Gala, the producer of American Beauty, Milk and Silver Linings Playbook, and co-producer of The Inheritance on Broadway, received the Vito Russo Award from Ariana DeBose, and his flowers from his daughter Ilaria. Friends in the room describe a barnstorming speech worth rebooking a flight for. Few people have put our lives on screen without apology. See Broadway World.
Fred Karger Tells His Own Story
Fred Karger, the first openly gay candidate to seek a major party’s presidential nomination (2012), has launched FRED WHO – Part 2: A Legacy, a ten-part documentary podcast hosted by journalist Matthew Breen. Episode one goes back to Utah and his “Stop the Hate” ad against the Mormon Church. After years of correcting stories that left his run out of LGBTQ history, Fred is telling it himself. Watch or listen here.
Club Kid: The Film Behind Sunday’s Essay
I saw Jordan Firstman’s directorial debut at NewFest on Friday. Firstman plays Peter, a washed-up Brooklyn party promoter who becomes guardian to the ten-year-old son he never knew he had, with Cara Delevingne and Diego Calva along for the ride. It is funny, tender, and best in the moment after the music stops. A24 opens it in theaters on November 6. My thoughts on it, Michael Warner and the question of queer purpose are here.
Glee Is Coming Back
A Glee reboot is in the works at Disney+ and Hulu, with Lea Michele returning as Rachel Berry. Ryan Murphy wrote the script with Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan and has reached out to about ten original cast members. For a generation of gay kids, Glee was the first high school show to feel like a refuge. From Variety.
The BBC Loses Drag Race, Gains a Dating Show
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK has left the BBC for the streamer WOW Presents Plus, and the broadcaster is now casting an 18-to-26 dating show open to all genders and sexualities, made for its YouTube channel and filming in London in early November. Public broadcasting’s queer budget, it seems, now fits on YouTube. See Instinct.
Time to Go: A Gay Vampire Gets Tired of the Apps
This week, The New Yorker’s Screening Room streams Time to Go, a 20-minute dark comedy by Argentine director Renzo Cozza. Patricio is a vampire who lives with his two demanding sisters and has to lure men into bed to feed the family, and the apps, not to mention the murders, are wearing him down. Then he meets someone he actually likes. Funny, sad, and not safe for work. Watch it at The New Yorker.
Coming and Going
Mark Dybul Returns to Lead the Global Fund
This morning in Geneva, the Global Fund’s board named Mark Dybul its next Executive Director, for a four-year term starting in early 2027. He succeeds Peter Sands. It is a homecoming: Dybul ran the Global Fund from 2013 to 2017, and before that helped build PEPFAR and served as U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator from 2006 to 2009. An openly gay doctor who has spent his career on HIV, he takes over as donors pull back from global health and the board talks of “country ownership” and “self-reliance.” Few people know better what happens to HIV programs when the money stops. Read more in the Global Fund’s announcement.
John Tanzella Makes the Out100
Out has named John Tanzella to its 2026 Out100 In Memoriam list. John, who died on June 7, led the International LGBTQ+ Travel Association for twenty years and grew it into a network spanning some 80 countries, convincing an entire industry that queer travelers were worth welcoming and keeping safe. In 2012, he founded the IGLTA Foundation, his proudest achievement; the John Tanzella Fellowship Fund now carries his name. As interim CEO Tony Warner put it, his superpower was making everyone he met feel seen. He did that for me too. Read his Out100 tribute.
The Countdown
Tomorrow: Global Inclusive Finance Forum
On Thursday and Friday, October 29 and 30, about 150 people from 28 countries gather at the Deutsche Bank Center in New York for Koppa’s second Global Inclusive Finance Forum, hosted by the ubiquitous Jon Tilli, to answer one question: what would it take to build LGBTQ+ economies? We go sector by sector, from healthcare and housing to tourism, climate, AI, and investment vehicles. I open in conversation with Jeremy Heimans of Purpose, and Paul Donovan of UBS Global Wealth Management closes. Register here.
9 days: Outsummit 2026, Friday, November 6
Outright International’s annual convening, “The Future We Claim,” brings activists from Chile, Kenya, Nigeria, Serbia, Thailand, Tunisia and Vietnam to New York. Laverne Cox opens with a reading and a conversation with Maria Sjödin, and ALOK gives a performance-lecture on gender liberation as collective joy. The main stage streams free from 9 a.m. ET: register to watch. Outsummit Asia follows online on November 11.
The Gay Agenda
October 29–30: Koppa’s Global Inclusive Finance Forum, Deutsche Bank Center, NYC. Register here.
October 29: Open for Business launches its new report on Taiwan in Taipei, in the run-up to Taipei Pride. More next week.
October 31–November 13: Youth Olympic Games, Dakar, Senegal. Watch who says what, and who says nothing.
October 31: Johannesburg Pride, Sandton, closing Africa’s oldest Pride month.
November 3: Election Day. Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska and Washington vote on trans youth; Virginia votes on marriage. Vote.
November 6: Club Kid opens in theaters; Heated Rivalry begins its run in cinemas (through November 30); Outsummit 2026 in New York and online; register to watch.
November 6–8: Greater Palm Springs Pride, 40th edition.
November 11: Outsummit Asia (online); registration is open.
November 13–20: Transgender Awareness Week, ending with the Transgender Day of Remembrance.
December 3–5: LGBTQ+ Victory Institute International LGBTQ+ Leaders Conference, Washington, D.C. Details.
December 25: Lukas Dhont’s Coward opens in US theaters.
