Out in the World: Global LGBTQ orgs work to recalibrate strategies in new era of backsliding rights

  • by Heather Cassell, BAR Contributor
  • Monday February 3, 2025
Share this Post:
Kristopher Velasco, left, and Ezra Berkley Nepon are among those working to help global LGBTQ organizations develop new strategies for a changing world. Photos: Velasco, from X; Berkeley Nepon, from Facebook
Kristopher Velasco, left, and Ezra Berkley Nepon are among those working to help global LGBTQ organizations develop new strategies for a changing world. Photos: Velasco, from X; Berkeley Nepon, from Facebook

Global LGBTQ organizations are recalibrating their strategies to fight back against the anti-LGBTQ wave around the world. LGBTQ activists, thought leaders, and funders have been reexamining strategies to combat the global backlash against queer and gender-expansive communities for the past several years.

Not everyone likes some of the data they've analyzed or agrees on the right path forward, but they concur that LGBTQ advocates' responses will have to be creative.

The Bay Area Reporter spoke with experts from Harvard Kennedy School's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy's Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program, Princeton University, and the Global Philanthropy Project, or GPP, about the state of the LGBTQ movement globally following 2024 elections in 60 countries across the globe.

New funding and leadership training seem to be among the things most offered by experts in response to the changing dynamics surrounding LGBTQ rights.

Last month, the Harvard Kennedy School launched its Global LGBTQI+ Changemakers Network of around 1,600 activists from 114 countries and hosted its first free public virtual event on January 30, according to Diego Garcia Blum, program director at the Harvard Kennedy School Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program.

The event was followed by a virtual gathering of the program's first 60 participants made up of a diverse array of LGBTQ experts and emerging leaders from different fields January 31, he said. The cohort will go through a six-month virtual training that will culminate in 20 peer-selected classmates attending a summit at Harvard at the end of the year.

In November, GPP launched its $150 million Fund Our Futures campaign at its first-ever two-and-a-half-day Global LGBTI Funding Summit ahead of the ILGA World Conference in Cape Town, South Africa. Funders from around the world pledged $100 million in new funding to protect LGBTQ rights globally over the next three years and another $50 million in pledges is being raised by June. Grant makers will begin distributing funds to new LGBTQ initiatives bolstering projects that are already in action this year.

The questions people are debating are: how will these efforts hold the line on progress that's been made for LGBTQ rights? Will it be possible to advance LGBTQ rights in this new era? Or, will rights be rolled back?

Reality check

"We think [of] ourselves as we're the democratic beacon of the world, but our civil society organizations are actually funding a lot of anti-democratic, illiberal efforts around the world," said Kristopher Velasco, assistant professor of sociology who specializes in globalization at Princeton University.

The 33-year-old gay academic has been studying and writing about the American right-wing's anti-LGBTQ and anti-democratic efforts around the world for nearly a decade. He's currently working on a book about why and where anti-LGBTQ tactics are working and not working.

American right-wing groups are only one-sided when it comes to democracy, he said.

"We support democracy when it works for us, but if democracy isn't working then we're OK getting rid of democracy," Velasco said about the right-wing's perspective, "as long as our end goal is still being achieved."

The right-wing's end goal is maintaining their dominance in the world, he said. LGBTQ communities stand in the way.

Ezra Berkley Nepon, the GPP's deputy director, agreed, saying the keywords such as "anti-queer," "anti-trans," and "anti-choice," often correlates to "anti-democratic" in the right-wing perspective.

"What's really happening is power grab," said the 46-year-old trans masculine person who uses he/they pronouns.

Accountability falls on the U.S.

Velasco believes the U.S. should hold its nonprofit organizations that attack LGBTQ communities globally accountable.

"We need to recognize that our own nonprofits and our own churches are doing a lot of bad things in the world," he said, referring to non-LGBTQ organizations. But, he added, "What's our obligation to hold our own groups accountable?" and "What would accountability look like?"

David Grasso, a Harvard alumni board member and a Carr Center founder, believes that would be hard to do. Many of the organizations are faith-based that do a lot of good work and are supported by both Democrats and Republicans, Grasso said, but didn't provide any examples.

"It's hard to distinguish what the line is between anti-LGBT behavior and just servicing people who need help," Grasso said.

The 40-year-old gay man who works in philanthropy and is a media professional in Houston, said there is no plan to tackle the issue, and it is "a difficult public policy quandary." He also questions if it's the place of the U.S. to get involved.

Velasco doesn't see the issue the same way.

"The U.S. is quick to sanction African governments when they do something anti-LGBTQ, but what is the U.S. doing to hold its own groups accountable that make the law possible in the first place?" he asked, referencing Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2023. "If the U.S. actually held their own groups accountable, then perhaps, the Uganda bill never would have happened."

God's money vs. 'woke' funding

Funding has always been an uphill battle for the LGBTQ movement, as opposed to conservative groups.

"They seem like they have an open tap," Berkley Nepon said about the far-right groups' funding.

Velasco said Berkley Nepon isn't wrong.

In general, LGBTQ funding accounted for less than 39 cents for every $100 in foundation funding and only $0.04 of every $100 in Overseas Development Assistance in 2021-2022, according to GPP's Global Resources Report.

The issue LGBTQ organizations have is a perception problem and a "structural disadvantage," Velasco said. Anti-LGBTQ activists around the world believe the gays — especially from the U.S. — are "rich" and thereby fueling donations to the movement. At the same time, LGBTQ groups are tied up in bureaucracy and ethical debates about neocolonialism and giving over small sums of money compared to anti-LGBTQ groups' large donations that flow unhindered by checks and balances and moral debates through churches and faith-based organizations.

"For every $1 LGBTQ groups gave from America, anti-LGBTQ groups gave $690," he said. "We are debating that $1 so extensively not to impose LGBTQ Western ideals on queer organizations in the Global South. During the debate, that $690 is distributed and spent."

The anti-LGBTQ side "could not give a shit about colonialism," Velasco said, including the people receiving the funding. "They view it as it's all God's money."

"That means that they give more efficiently," he said. It's a "tension point," he stated, "the volume of money" and "how it's given" matters. The reality is it's a "structural disadvantage."

Things could get worse for many LGBTQ organizations in other countries regarding U.S. funding. President Donald Trump immediately froze federal aid a week after returning to the White House. Two federal judges blocked the freeze.

The U.S.'s Global Equality Fund, a public-private partnership, and USAIDS' websites were taken down after Trump's inauguration. On top of that, some longtime funders of LGBTQ rights are dialing back, closing programs, or shutting down completely.

Denitsa Lyubenova, who is head of Deystvie's legal program, Bulgaria's leading LGBTQ organization, said it's going to have a devastating effect on LGBTQ communities in countries like Armenia and Georgia. These communities are completely dependent on U.S. funding, she said during the network's inaugural virtual event, "Illiberal Playbooks: Preparing for Attacks on LGBTQI+ Rights in the U.S.," on January 30.

Lyubenova was joined by Luca Dudits, executive board member and head of communications of Háttér Society in Hungary, and Bart Staszewski, a Polish LGBTQI+ activist and founder and board member of the Lublin Equality March Association. Garcia Blum moderated the discussion.


Coming storm

Bracing for the storm, LGBTQ thought leaders and funders are responding to the changing geopolitical landscape with new funding and leadership training.

Francisco Buchting, left, vice president of grants, programs, and communications at the Horizons Foundation, talked with funders at the first-ever Global LGBTI Funding Summit held November 9-11, 2024 in Cape Town, South Africa. Photo: Sara Petersen  

Funders from around the world — 25 organizations and three governments — pledged $150 million in new funding over the next three years to the Fund Our Futures campaign, said Berkley Nepon.

The campaign was launched by the GPP days after voters returned Trump to the White House in November.

"I wouldn't be surprised if the U.S. election is a wake-up call that impacts the dynamic of the campaign," said Berkley Nepon. "Especially around the need to kind of double down on increasing trans funding because of the attacks that we see coming."

The fund's purpose is to infuse new money to support defending LGBTQ rights and advances of rights around the world.

"We're going to need to do more than defend," he continued. "We need to defend and expand the funding for our movements."

"We're hoping that more governments step up as well," added Francisco O. Buchting, Ph.D., a gay man who is vice president of grants, programs, and communications at San Francisco-based Horizons Foundation.

Horizons, a $12 million LGBTQ foundation, according to ProPublica, currently is the only LGBTQ foundation on the West Coast that is a key member of the GPP, said Buchting, 56, who serves as GPP's treasurer on the project's board of directors.

GPP is estimated to be a more than $2 million philanthropic network made up of 23 member organizations, according to Berkley Nepon. The project's goal is to provide support for LGBTQ and ally funders through events and research.

Horizon's global initiative is the Global Faith and Equality Fund, Buchting said. The fund focuses on the intersection of LGBTQI rights, reproductive justice, and faith in East, Central, and West Africa and in parts of Latin America.

Berkley Nepon and Buchting said the campaign's strategy deviates from typical fundraising. Each pledging organization will manage its own funds and giving goals and will report progress to GPP. The project will only provide support to the funders and grant makers.

Horizons plans to announce its pledge to the campaign early this year, Buchting said.

Training tomorrow's leaders
At Harvard, LGBTQ activists who have successfully pushed back against authoritarian governments, such as Hungary's ruling Fidesz party, are leading masterclasses along with Harvard Kennedy School professors for other activists through the Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program's new Global LGBTQI+ Changemakers Network.

Balkan and Central European LGBTQ activists led the first virtual class focused on tactics used by anti-LGBTQ governments and strategies LGBTQ organizations used to successfully push back on January 30.

"We understand that a lot of the 'illiberal playbook,' which is kind of like the Orban-style of doing that," said Garcia Blum, 34, a gay man, referencing anti-LGBTQ Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's tactics against LGBTQ Hungarians. He hoped American participants "learn something to prevent or get ahead of some of the things that are coming," that David Pressman, the gay former U.S. ambassador to Hungary, spoke about in his recent New York Times interview.

Garcia Blum and Grasso said the Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program launched in 2020 during COVID-19. In 2023, it piloted its program hosting 10 LGBTQ activists for a one-day summit at Harvard. The program received 1,000 applications for the summit that year. In 2024, the university allocated $100,000 to host 20 LGBTQ activists for a three-day summit in October. This year, the program completely shifted to a six-month virtual program with 60 LGBTQ activists who will end the year with 20 people attending the summit.

"It's important for me to really extend the same rights that have been afforded to me, luckily, because I live in America," said Grasso about the program's importance.

"What really struck me was that just being here and recognized was a game changer for their lives," added Garcia Blum, noting that for many participants going to Harvard for their LGBTQ work instilled a boldness and resolve for them that their work was serious.

Moving forward
Balkan and Central European LGBTQ activists who led the recent class described using grassroots efforts to push back against oppressive regimes. They used communication and education tools, marketing techniques, technology, enforcement of policies already in place, legal mechanisms, and civil disobedience to shift the narrative in their respective countries.

They've also shifted with the times. In Hungary, Dudits described pivoting from campaigns that won big just two years ago to smaller, more personal interactions with activists through "depolarizing" workshops, which are communication trainings that are winning in small ways.

"I think that once we change the hearts and minds of our communities," she said, "that will also have an effect on the institutions."

Staszewski, a Polish LGBTQ activist who is also a photographer and documentary film director, was more about civil disobedience.

"Be prepared to create a civil disobedience," he said. "We're going to do whatever is necessary to break the laws, break the rules, to show that they will not 'silence us.'"

Staszewski doesn't trust institutions and politicians. He was cynical, telling attendees at the virtual event, "Those liberal candidates, they are not our advocates. They use us when they need us."

"This is the horrible true story," he continued, advocating for using opportunities when politicians are supporting the LGBTQ community to push them through their excuses to "not introduce the laws that will protect us."

Staszewski believes only LGBTQ leaders in office will protect the LGBTQ community.

"We need [a] charismatic leader in our communities that will speak for ourselves," he said. "We will promote them instead of the politicians. This is the key for success."

Velasco said he sees only two options to change the LGBTQ funding perception and narrative. Handing over anti-LGBTQ governments and organizations' financials to local organizations so they can expose them, he said, or "making everything as transparent as humanly possible," to expose the hypocrisy.

Lyubenova agreed with Staszewski that being vocal in massive protests to oppose laws and policies has been an important part of Bulgaria's LGBTQ community's resistance to government attempts to pass Russian-styled anti-gay laws. However, she also felt finding strategic partners and using the local and regional laws and systems were the best strategy to fight back.

To learn more about the Harvard Carr Center for Human Rights Policy's Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program, click here.

To learn more about the GPP, click here.

This is Heather Cassell's last Out in the World column. For international LGBTQ news tips, email [email protected].

Updated, 2/10/25: This article has been updated to correct information about GPP. It is made up of 25 foundations and three governments.

Never miss a story! Keep up to date on the latest news, arts, politics, entertainment, and nightlife.
Sign up for the Bay Area Reporter's free weekday email newsletter. You'll receive our newsletters and special offers from our community partners.

Support California's largest LGBTQ newsroom. Your one-time, monthly, or annual contribution advocates for LGBTQ communities. Amplify a trusted voice providing news, information, and cultural coverage to all members of our community, regardless of their ability to pay -- Donate today!