This week: Ecuador restricts adoption by LGBTQ+ parents, UN shenanigans, the ABA and DEI, lessons from “ex-gay” changes of heart, a “lesbian picnic,” Chris Pappas, Alice Weidel, and much more…
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Welcome back. I hope you are ready for September. Based on Outright’s latest news, it seems that a fight is brewing at the United Nations. This week, we have news from Switzerland and Ecuador, a fascinating look at why some people leave the “ex-gay” movement, and the launch of PRISM’s new website. On the cultural side, The L Word has resurfaced, along with my inexplicable crush on Shane, and a Kehinde Wiley controversy has reminded me of my excellent taste in lesbian picnics. Thank you for reading, and please forward this to someone who might enjoy a little LGBTQ+ news with their morning coffee (well, really with their Wednesday lunch).
Global News
Switzerland: National Conversion Therapy Ban
Switzerland’s federal government has formally endorsed nationwide legislation banning so-called conversion therapy, moving beyond the current patchwork of cantonal bans in Neuchâtel, Valais, and Vaud. The position, set out in a report published this week, would align Switzerland with Germany, France, Belgium, and several other European countries that have already outlawed the practice. See in The Blade.
Ecuador: New Adoption Law Bars LGBTQ+ Couples
Ecuador’s National Assembly passed adoption reform, in force since August 14, that restricts adoption to different-sex couples and requires single applicants to be straight, while opening a path to custody loss for parents accused of “promoting” gender-affirming care for trans children. Human Rights Watch called the law a pretext to “entrench discrimination,” and the Ecuadorian LGBT Federation noted that “being heterosexual does not demonstrate parental fitness.” The country legalized same-sex marriage in 2019. According to PinkNews.
UNGA: It Might Get Complicated
New York’s UN General Assembly High-Level Week is approaching, and the diplomatic family gathering may be more contentious than usual. Outright flagged the expected launch of a new “Pro Family and Pro Life” Core Group that could position itself as a counterpoint to the UN LGBTI Core Group. Meanwhile, the latter will hold its annual High-Level Week event, Championing Diversity in Times of Adversity: Standing Up for LGBTI Persons, on Monday, September 21, from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. New York time, at UN Headquarters, Conference Room 12. Special event tickets are limited, and the deadline is 9 a.m. on September 14.
[The Pro-LGBTI+ Core Group] has been so ‘successful’ that so-called sexual diversity appears to have no moral, legal, or physical limits today.
Surrogacy’s New Resistance
French legal publisher Dalloz-Lefebvre has just released Les nouvelles résistances à la GPA (New Resistances to Surrogacy), the proceedings of a June 2025 conference co-organized by Paris lawyer Caroline Mecary (whom I consulted for the twins’ French citizenship at the time). The collection brings together legal scholars and practitioners to examine the increasingly contested landscape of surrogacy, from restrictions in France and Italy to developments in Argentina and the United States. Some chapters address feminist opposition, the recognition of parent-child relationships established abroad, and the practical obstacles families encounter when seeking legal recognition.
United Nations: 63rd Human Rights Council Session Opens
The Human Rights Council’s latest session opened Monday and runs through October 7, with ILGA World hosting an “Intersex Superweek” bringing activists from multiple regions on implementing last year’s landmark intersex rights report. See ILGA World.
US News
Musk-Aligned Super PAC Spends on Anti-Trans Senate Ads
Make America Awesome, a super PAC tied to Elon Musk, has spent more than $1 million on ads in Nevada and Pennsylvania attacking Democratic Senate candidates over transgender rights and gender-affirming care, featuring Republicans Adam Laxalt and Lou Barletta. GLAAD’s Sarah Kate Ellis called the ads “designed to spread fear and misinformation,” while Rep. Pramila Jayapal called them “hateful and harmful.” See Axios and HRC.
EEOC Settlement Shields Christian Employers
A new EEOC settlement gives religious employers broad latitude to decline to hire or accommodate transgender employees on faith grounds, a shift advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom celebrated as employers being “free to conduct business consistent with their faith.” Critics warn the indefinite settlement could strip transgender workers of federal discrimination protections across a wide swath of employers. From The Intercept.
Why Some People Leave the “Ex-Gay” World — and Others Don’t
Michael Airhart has published a thoughtful two-part essay on a question LGBTQ+ advocates have wrestled with for decades: why do some leaders of the “ex-gay” movement eventually repudiate its ideology, while others remain committed to it despite mounting evidence and personal contradiction? Drawing on Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind, Airhart argues that facts alone rarely change beliefs when those beliefs are bound up with identity, faith, community, livelihood, and a sense of moral purpose. He suggests that curiosity, tolerance for uncertainty, relationships outside one’s ideological bubble, and having somewhere to “land” after changing one’s mind may matter as much as argument. The second essay asks an equally difficult question: whether anyone can help someone leave that worldview, concluding that persuasion is less about winning debates than about creating the conditions in which doubt, reflection, and ultimately change become possible.
Queering the Boardroom
PRISM’s New Website Is Live
PRISM: The Association of LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors has a new digital home. prismdirectors.org is now live, with a cleaner, more ambitious platform for the Association of LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors and the community we are building around LGBTQ+ board leadership. The new site brings together our membership information, board leadership, events, partners, speeches, and resources in one place, with more to come in the months ahead. It is a small milestone, but an important one for an organization that has grown considerably since its launch in June 2022: go have a look.
October 26: Sharper Perspective. Stronger Boards
On October 26, LGBTQ+ Directors will gather again in New York for PRISM’s 4th Annual LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors’ Summit, bringing together roughly 150 corporate directors, CEOs, investors, governance leaders, board recruiters, and senior executives. This year’s theme: Sharper Perspective. Stronger Boards, reflects PRISM’s belief that boards benefit from a wider range of experiences and perspectives, particularly as they navigate an increasingly complex business environment. Enquire here.
Board Appointments and Departures
Congratulations to Edward J. van Luinen, CEO and Board Advisor of Global Talent Builders, LLC, on joining the National Peace Corps Association’s Advisory Council, which advises NPCA’s leadership on advancing its mission and serving its community of nearly 240,000 Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. In other board news, Vanessa Pegueros departed the board of LivePerson on September 4, while Matthew K. Fust departed the board of Crinetics Pharmaceuticals on September 1. See NPCA’s announcement.
Sophia Bush Joins Women Business Collaborative’s Summit
The Women Business Collaborative has added Sophia Bush to its Women’s Capital Summit, taking place October 6–7 in New York. Bush — actress, activist, producer, author, general partner at Union Heritage Ventures, and investor and co-owner of Angel City FC — will join WBC CEO Gwen Young for a conversation on the rapid rise of women’s sports as an investment opportunity. Their session, Where Capital Meets Culture: The Rise of Women Sports Investing, will look at what happens when capital, culture, influence, and opportunity converge in a sector that has moved decisively from niche to mainstream. Register here.
The Gay Business
Grindr to Pay £26 Million Over UK HIV Status Data-Sharing Claims
Grindr agreed to settle a UK lawsuit brought by 12,000 users alleging the app shared sensitive data, including HIV status, with advertising companies before 2020. Each affected user will receive roughly £2,167, with payments running through March 2027. Grindr disputes the core allegations but “acknowledges the distress and loss of trust” from that period, before new ownership overhauled its privacy practices. Details in GCN.
Did the ABA Cave In?
The American Bar Association’s accreditation council voted 10-6 on Tuesday to eliminate its longtime requirement that law schools demonstrate “concrete action” toward diversity and inclusion, a standard in place since 1980 and suspended since February 2025 amid the Trump administration’s broader campaign against DEI in higher education. The move followed a 2025 executive order in which Trump accused the ABA of violating the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against race-conscious admissions, and came after an ABA committee warned in May that keeping the standard risked the group’s federal recognition as an accreditor. Council chair Melissa Hart said continued recognition by state courts and the Education Department was in students’ and the profession’s best interest, while critics like Yale law professor Justin Driver argued the ABA had capitulated rather than defend a standard meant to address the profession’s history of exclusion. See here.
The Semi-Cultural Desk
The L Word and Parasites
The Guardian revisited The L Word this week, 22 years after its debut, arguing that the series remains a cornerstone of sapphic culture despite everything that has aged badly: the whiteness, the transphobia, the improbable plotlines and, of course, the relentless sex. I am a fan of the show. In my younger days, when I was covering DRCongo for the World Bank, I once came down with parasites and, during a trip to Chicago, ended up binge-watching the entire series while recovering. Somewhere between the fever, the medication, and six seasons of lesbian melodrama, I found myself strangely attracted to Shane. The Guardian calls her “irresistible”.
State Department Removes Kehinde Wiley Painting
Where can we apply to obtain the discarded painting? The administration has come under scrutiny for quietly removing a 2015 Kehinde Wiley painting from the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic, initially citing misconduct allegations against the artist and remarks he’d made about race in another work. However, a previously overlooked April radio interview revealed a further motive: Ambassador Leah Campos had criticized the piece, which depicts art students against a floral backdrop, for appearing to show a same-sex gathering, framing it as ideological indoctrination despite the fact that the painting was commissioned under the Obama administration and that the Dominican Republic decriminalized same-sex relations back in 1822. The removal, carried out alongside Erin Scavino of the State Department’s Art in Embassies program, fits a broader pattern of the administration targeting government-funded artworks on political or aesthetic grounds. See in the NYTimes.
Coming and Going
A Historic First in Milwaukee
The Episcopal Church has marked a significant milestone with the installation of the Rev. Micah Cronin as dean of All Saints’ Cathedral in Milwaukee, believed to be the denomination’s first transgender cathedral dean. Cronin, who took up the role in August, has described the Episcopal Church as the place where he first felt able to live both his faith and his identity openly. His appointment is especially notable given the long and often contentious history of LGBTQ+ inclusion in American churches, from the consecration of Gene Robinson as the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop in 2003 to today’s broader debates over transgender clergy. The Christian Post covered the appointment in characteristically hostile language.
Alice Weidel and the Politics of Contradiction
Germany’s Alice Weidel remains one of the more striking paradoxes in European politics: the openly gay co-leader of the far-right AfD lives with her Sri Lankan-born female partner and their two sons, while leading a party that has opposed expanding LGBTQ+ rights, emphasized traditional family structures, and taken an increasingly hard line on immigration. The contradiction has become more visible as Weidel’s stature has grown nationally and the AfD has expanded its electoral influence. See here.
Chris Pappas Wins New Hampshire Senate Primary
U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas won New Hampshire’s Democratic Senate primary Tuesday with 60% of the vote, advancing to a competitive November race for Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s open seat against Republican John Sununu. A win would make Pappas the first out gay man elected to the U.S. Senate. Details in The Advocate.
Gloria Steinem, Feminist Icon and Evolving LGBTQ+ Ally, Dies at 92
Steinem died September 3 at her New York home. Beyond her foundational feminist work, she published trans writer Jan Morris’s autobiography excerpt in Ms. magazine in 1974, publicly revised early missteps on trans issues, and declared in 2013 that “transgender people... are living out real, authentic lives.” She co-signed a 2020 letter opposing Trump-era attacks on trans healthcare and joined over 460 feminists in 2021 affirming solidarity with transgender women and girls. See in LGBTQ Nation.
Vivian Wilson On Disobedience
Transgender model, Vivian Jenna Wilson stars in Desigual’s new Born to Disobey campaign, celebrating individuality and self-expression. Speaking to Out, she reflects on how fashion has helped her find confidence and urges queer people to build community: “You are not alone. Find queer community however you can.” Read more.
The Gay Agenda
September 18–28: UN General Assembly High-Level Week, New York
The main event of UN Week brings world leaders to Manhattan for the General Debate and a dense schedule of side events, including the diplomatic sparring over LGBTQ+ rights that plays out annually on the margins. See United Nations.
September 22–23: Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting, New York
CGI returns to New York for its annual meeting bringing together global leaders, philanthropists, and civil society on development and human rights commitments, timed to overlap with UN High-Level Week. Details in Clinton Foundation.
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? Enquire here.
Well, that’s it for this week. I had such a nice long weekend despite being away from the twins, who had a big day on Monday. I went to the beach twice and saw many friends. I read all of London Falling, which I highly recommend, but as a result, I haven’t made any progress reading The Disappearers. I guess we still have next weekend.
