https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/09/politicians-demonizing-lgbtq-people-for-electoral-success-is-a-global-phenomenon/

LGBTQ+ people were scapegoated in elections in 51 countries last year.

John Russell (He/Him)September 11, 2025, 2:00 pm EDT

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Politicians across the globe used anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric in their campaigns last year, according to a new report from LGBTQ+ rights NGO Outright International.

The organization’s just-released report “Queering Democracy: The Global Elections in 2024 and How LGBTIQ People Fared” examines “how LGBTIQ people navigated, participated in, and shaped electoral processes” in 60 countries and the European Union last year. Among its key findings, the report says that anti-LGBTQ+ hate became a widespread campaign strategy around the world even as queer and trans people made gains in some of the same countries.

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Outright International describes 2024 as a “super election year” in which more than 1.5 billion people in 73 countries voted. But, they say, “this historic moment also came at a time of democratic backsliding, when LGBTIQ communities and other marginalized groups were among the first to feel the impacts of shrinking freedoms.” The organization describes LGBTQ+ communities as “canaries in the coal mine — among the first targets when democratic norms erode.”

According to Outright International, “In at least 51 of the 61 jurisdictions studied, political candidates weaponized anti-LGBTIQ rhetoric for electoral gain.” Politicians, the organization found, “demonized ‘gender ideology,’ labeled LGBTIQ people as ‘foreign agents,’ and scapegoated sexual and gender minorities to deflect from policy failures. In some countries, elections devolved into what one observer called ‘a competition of who was the most homophobic.’”

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The report cites leaders in Jordan, Czechia, Portugal, and Namibia among those who scapegoated LGBTQ+ people in an attempt to distract voters from their own governance failures. Uruguay, Panama, Australia, Moldova, and the United Kingdom were among 27 countries in which politicians explicitly used the specter of so-called “gender ideology,” “gender madness,” and “indoctrination” to demonize LGBTQ+ people and particularly transgender people.

And leaders across Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East stoked both xenophobia and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment by describing gender and sexual diversity as the result of malign foreign influence. According to the report, anti-LGBTQ+ political rhetoric led to social media harassment and calls for violence as well as real-world crackdowns on the LGBTQ+ communities in Tunisia and Romania.

“You talk with a politician from Peru… or Hungary or the UK, you start to see common trends and you realize that it’s a global, coordinated and increasingly well-funded effort to diminish LGBTIQ people,” Outright International’s Alberto de Belaúnde told The Guardian.

Even ostensibly pro-LGBTQ+ parties and politicians in some countries appeared to turn on the community. As the report notes, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis claimed his New Democracy party “certainly suffered political damage” for supporting marriage equality. And in the U.S., some Democrats “blamed the party’s crushing defeat on the party’s perceived support for trans people’s rights, despite surveys showing that these issues were not a primary concern for voters.”

The report also includes a four-page case study on Republicans’ anti-trans messaging and misinformation during the 2024 U.S. election cycle, including the GOP candidate’s campaign’s $17 million investment in anti-trans ads. It concludes that the 2024 election cycle “highlights the vulnerability of marginalized communities to targeted misinformation, underscoring an urgent need for ongoing vigilance and robust advocacy to protect human rights amid escalating political adversity.”

The report also found that, while there was no evidence of laws explicitly denying LGBTQ+ people the right to vote, the community nonetheless faces significant barriers to participating in the democratic process around the world — fear of violence, political disillusionment, and lack of legal gender recognition among them.

Despite those barriers, Outright International says that LGBTQ+ communities consistently came out to defend democracy in the face of authoritarian movements in their home countries, most notably in Bangladesh, Türkiye, and Georgia.

Alongside its dire warnings about what de Belaúnde called a “weaponization” of anti-LGBTQ+ hate, the Queering Democracy report also highlighted significant political gains for LGBTQ+ people around the world. LGBTQ+ candidates ran for office in 36 countries last year, including for the first time in Botswana, Namibia, and Romania. It also notes trailblazing transgender candidates in Venezuela, El Salvador, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the U.S., where Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) became the first openly trans member of Congress.

The report includes a long list of recommendations for electoral management bodies, election monitoring organizations, political leaders, and candidates on how to combat anti-LGBTQ+ tactics. These include holding political parties and candidates accountable for hate speech, engaging with LGBTQ+ communities in developing political platforms, and supporting queer candidates.

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