Rooted in Rights: LGBTIQ Communities and the Future of Democracy

This year's IDAHOBIT theme — "At the Heart of Democracy" — arrives at a critical inflection point for democratic governance worldwide. In 2024, more than 1.5 billion people voted across 89 countries in a "super election year." Yet electoral and political spaces proved systematically hostile to LGBTIQ people — not as a marginal trend, but as deliberate strategy. In at least 85 percent of countries studied, candidates deployed anti-LGBTIQ rhetoric in their campaigns. Attacks on so-called "gender ideology," accusations of foreign influence, and deliberate scapegoating have become signature tools of anti-democratic movements worldwide.

The implications stretch well beyond LGBTIQ communities. When exclusionary politics take root against one group, the erosion of rights rarely stops there. LGBTIQ people have long served as early sentinels of democratic backsliding — raising alarms about shrinking civic space and the weaponization of law. From Bangladesh to Türkiye to Georgia, when democratic institutions came under threat, LGBTIQ communities mobilized for the democratic values that protect everyone.LGBTIQ movements have also long embodied the principles democracy aspires to: horizontal organizing, inclusive decision-making, coalition-building, and centering marginalized voices. No democracy can be complete while a significant portion of its citizens is excluded from full participation. Meaningful inclusion of LGBTIQ people — as voters, candidates, and policymakers — is not a peripheral demand, but a measure of democracy's integrity.