Insights
Who Gets to Take Part
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Commentary
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Publish Date
September 15, 2026
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Early on Sunday, September 13, police in Türkiye raided the homes of LGBTIQ activists and the offices of their organizations in 15 provinces. Dozens of people were detained. Thirteen board members of Kaos GL, the country's longest-standing LGBTIQ rights association, were taken from their homes. The day before, a court had blocked the organizations' websites and social media accounts. I have known Kaos GL for 20 years. It was one of the first organizations I worked with when I began working internationally. Seeing an organization I have known for so long subjected to these raids was devastating.
The justice minister has announced legal proceedings against 162 people, nine associations, and 13 businesses, named the operation "My Family is Safe," and said its purpose was to protect children, the family, and public order.
September 15 was the International Day of Democracy, and I interpreted Sunday’s raids as a narrative about democracy. The key question of the day — who gets to participate? — is one our movement is addressing in three ways this month: through the polls, in the space between elections, and at the United Nations.
What 24 elections told us
On September 15, Outright published the Queering Democracy Monitor, a data set of the 24 countries that held elections between January 1 and June 30 of this year. Every entry cites its sources: activists, civil society monitoring reports, and news stories.
In at least 14 of the 24 countries, candidates or parties campaigned against LGBTIQ people. In at least nine, openly LGBTIQ candidates reported discrimination or violence. In at least four countries, trans, gender-diverse, and intersex voters faced barriers at the polling station because of who they are.
The script barely changes from one country to the next. In Costa Rica, the candidate who promised to "eliminate gender ideology" from the school system won the presidency; in Hungary, Viktor Orbán warned of a "gender threat emanating from Brussels" and lost. In Uganda, the Speaker of Parliament at the time accused the opposition of promoting homosexuality, a charge that can carry 20 years in prison under the Anti-Homosexuality Act, and told a rally that "in that evil, there is homosexuality." In Armenia, a disinformation campaign that experts attributed in part to Russian groups circulated AI-generated images of the prime minister at a Pride march, in a country that has never held one.
This is relatively new in terms of its globalization. In 2024, Outright found anti-LGBTIQ rhetoric in campaigns in 51 of the 61 jurisdictions we studied. What the Monitor contributes is the ability to observe patterns in real time. The same few phrases, "gender ideology," "traditional values," "protect the children," "foreign agenda," come from politicians who share almost nothing else. These concepts travel because it costs nothing. A candidate who cannot deliver on jobs or clean water can still promise to protect families from a threat that does not exist.
Candidates and voters
In Colombia, 26 of the 32 openly queer candidates in this year's congressional elections reported comments or attacks about their sexual orientation or gender identity. In France, a gay municipal candidate at the top of his party’s list received anonymous homophobic letters at his home, then an empty shotgun shell in his mailbox. His list won. His running mates chose someone else as mayor.
For voters, the barriers are quieter, and no country on the Monitor bars LGBTIQ people from voting by law. The exclusion happens in the mechanics. In Bangladesh, polling officials turned away hijra and trans voters whose appearance did not match their ID, and some were told their vote had already been cast. In the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the number of registered third-gender voters fell by more than 20 percent after a revision of the electoral rolls, from 9,464 to 7,617.
The same six months produced firsts. A party in Iceland chose the country's first openly nonbinary party leader. Scotland's parliament seated its first two openly transgender members, one of whom needed a security escort to reach the chamber for their own swearing-in. Institutions can respond when they choose to: Colombia's electoral council issued a protocol stating that a mismatch between a voter's gender expression and their ID cannot be used to deny them the vote.
Between elections, the door closes
Türkiye did not hold an election this year, and it belongs here because of what happens after a campaign ends. The vocabulary of Sunday's raids is the same as that of the campaigns above: children, family, public order, foreign money. The justice minister said financial investigators are now examining the associations' funding from abroad. We have watched the sequence in country after country. A campaign slogan becomes a law. The law becomes a police operation. The operation becomes an empty office, a blocked website, an activist in a cell.
Istanbul Pride has been banned since 2015. In our 2024 report, we documented queer communities in Türkiye joining pro-democracy protests in solidarity with other groups under pressure. On Sunday, the state went after the organizations that make such participation possible. Outright stands with Kaos GL and with every activist detained, questioned, or silenced on Sunday.
Governments cite foreign funding as grounds for investigation in the same year that global funding for LGBTIQ movements fell for the first time in the twelve years the Global Resources Report has tracked it. “Breaking Point,” the report we published last week, documents what that withdrawal costs on the ground
The room at the UN
Next week, world leaders arrive in New York for the General Assembly's High-Level Week. On Monday, September 21, the UN LGBTI Core Group, a coalition of member states currently co-chaired by Mexico and Norway, holds its annual event under the theme "Championing Diversity in Times of Adversity." Outright serves as the Core Group's secretariat, and I will be in the room. Activists from the movement will address the room, and the event will stream on UN Web TV.
Adversity is the right word. The UN is downsizing, and the Secretary-General is pressing ahead with a merger of UN Women and UNFPA over the objections of feminist and LGBTIQ organizations, ours among them. Anti-gender organizing has been happening at the UN for at least two decades. In March, member states voted down a resolution led by the United States at the Commission on the Status of Women that would have defined gender as strictly male and female. Similar proposals are expected this autumn in the Third Committee, where the General Assembly handles human rights, alongside a resolution on extrajudicial executions that has named gender identity and sexual orientation for two decades and whose language is now at risk. Being in that room, alongside activists who can speak to their own governments, gives LGBTIQ people a say in the votes ahead.
What we can do
LGBTIQ people take part in every election: as voters, candidates, election observers, journalists, and the organizers who keep polling stations honest. In every country on the Monitor, someone from the community documented what happened. That is how the map exists.
Outright's Inclusive Democracy program exists to keep that door open. Through this program, we fund LGBTIQ organizations to take part in democratic institutions. Our research, including this Monitor and last year's “Queering Democracy” report, gives election bodies and lawmakers evidence they cannot wave away.
Three things you can do this week. Explore the Monitor and share it with someone who works on elections. If you have information about an election in your country or region, write to us; the full “Queering Democracy” report on 2026 comes next year, and these numbers will grow. And if you want LGBTIQ organizations across the globe to be standing next year, support the movement that keeps them open.
Democracy is measured by who gets to take part. On Sunday in Türkiye, that question was answered at 1 a.m. by police armed with guns and warrants. In the countries on this map, it was answered at a polling station, in a party meeting, in a mailbox. Next week, it will be asked in a room at the UN. LGBTIQ people answer it too, every time they vote, run for office, document what happens, or speak to their own governments. Outright's part is to stand with them and carry their evidence to the people who make the rules. The work doesn’t stop.
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