Pride Parade participants march on the Elisabeth bridge in Budapest, Hungary on 27 June 2026. Credit: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP
By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jul 15 2026 (IPS)
On the morning of 28 June, riot police sealed off Taksim Square with iron barriers and enforced bans on all weekend gatherings in Istanbul. Marchers pressed ahead anyway , re-emerging from side streets each time police dispersed them. By the end of the day police had detained at least 50 people , including a journalist. It was Istanbul Pride’s 24th edition, and the 12th year running that the authorities banned it outright.
Homosexuality is not illegal in Turkey, so the state cannot prosecute people for who they are. Instead, it punishes them for making themselves visible. Authorities ban marches on ‘public morality’ grounds, block access to the social media accounts of LGBTQI+ organisations and put activists on trial for ‘obscenity’.
The pattern repeats in country after country. For a movement that spent decades making progress in winning recognition of rights, this Pride season tells a story of regression. A concerted backlash is clawing back territory once claimed, and Pride has again become a protest.
Much of the current wave of regression is a direct response to the gains LGBTQI+ movements made over previous decades. Anti-discrimination laws, recognition of equal marriage rights and growing public visibility have given opponents a clear target to mobilise against, and governments under economic or political pressure have found a convenient scapegoat in the LGBTQI+ community.
Authoritarian and populist leaders, facing discontent over corruption, inflation and unemployment, redirect public anger towards a minority that can be attacked without political cost, while conservative religious institutions find in opposition to LGBTQI+ rights, and particularly trans rights, a rallying cause that restores their claim to define society’s moral order. The result is a mutually reinforcing alliance between political power and religious conservatism, dressed up as the defence of children, the family and national identity.
Existence criminalised
A growing number of states are going further, criminalising not only LGBTQI+ people’s visibility but their very existence. Four West African states have criminalised consensual same-sex relations in the past two years, framing their move as a defence of national sovereignty against western influence. Mali’s military government criminalised homosexuality in December 2024 and Burkina Faso’s junta followed in September 2025. Niger’s new penal code , adopted last month, imposes punishment of up to 20 years in prison. Within weeks, media reported at least 40 arrests , the suspension of HIV prevention services and people fleeing the country.
Electoral democracies aren’t immune. In Senegal, parliament doubled the maximum sentence for ‘unnatural acts’ to 10 years in March, and over 300 ‘suspected homosexuals’ have reportedly been arrested in the past few months. Ghana’s parliament passed a bill imposing jail sentences on anyone who identifies as LGBTQI+ and requiring people to report prohibited activities to the authorities. President John Mahama has yet to sign it into law, but the debate about the bill has already fuelled a rise in blackmail, evictions and workplace discrimination.
The model is Uganda’s 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act , which includes the death penalty for ‘aggravated homosexuality’ and punishes the vaguely defined crime of ‘promoting’ homosexuality with up to 20 years in prison.
All these laws, marketed as a rejection of foreign interference and imported values, have been promoted with foreign money. US-based conservative groups such as the American Center for Law and Justice and Family Watch International have played a key role in funding anti-rights advocacy . Days after passing its bill, Ghana’s parliament hosted the African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty , a platform with documented ties to those groups that has promoted Uganda’s law as a template for the continent.
Consensus in retreat
US anti-rights groups have their president’s ear. Since returning to office, Donald Trump has signed a series of executive orders rolling back federal protections, particularly targeting transgender people . Private companies heard the message. Major events including NYC Pride and San Francisco Pride lost sponsors in 2025, and Tampa Pride had to cancel its 2026 parade.
For years, activist groups such as New York’s Reclaim Pride Coalition accused corporations of pinkwashing, that is, turning Pride into a corporate vehicle without advancing demands for rights. Many sponsors are now gone, but for the wrong reasons. Whatever its motives, sponsorship functioned as a seal of approval from mainstream institutions. Money withdrawn out of political fear takes with it more than event budgets; it erodes a social consensus that took decades to build.
Marching for those who can’t
In this context, the year’s biggest marches have become acts of political defiance. A million people marched in São Paulo under the theme ‘The street summons, the ballot box confirms’, ahead of Brazil’s October general election. In Bangkok, an all-time record half a million people marched a year after Thailand’s marriage equality law took effect, a testament to what legal recognition can do for a community’s visibility.
On 27 June, tens of thousands joined the 31st Budapest Pride , the first held since voters removed the right-wing populist government that repeatedly banned it . Organisers are treating this as a starting point, pressing the new government with a list of 14 demands that begins with repealing a 2021 ‘anti-LGBT propaganda’ law the European Union’s top court has ruled incompatible with equality and human dignity. Hungary shows that change is possible after all.
In places like Indonesia, Iraq, Niger and Uganda, among many more, there’s no Pride march to ban, because holding one is unthinkable. Even private organising now risks prosecution. In those places, people are looking outward, hoping that a crowd marching freely somewhere else will march for them too. That’s the duty of Pride season for those still free to gather: to mobilise both for themselves and for the many being forced to hide who they are.
Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report . She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay .
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