From Thailand, Liechtenstein, Ghana, United Kingdom, and United States, good news is happening for LGBTQ people worldwide.
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Be sure to get your copy of our LGBTQ Holidays Guide and Rainbow Umbrellas at ProfessorPride.com
With everything bad happening in the United States right now under an alleged KGB officer as president and an illegal immigrant running the show with his sidekick "Big Balls69", we wanted to take your suggestion from our recent survey and focus an entire episode on only good news.
Let's start off in Thailand where a new law went into effect recently which gave same-sex couples the right to marry. Thousands of couples registered their marriages across the country on the first day including hundreds at a luxury shopping mall in the capital city of Bangkok which was decorated with a Pride carpet and 10 couples at a time getting married in the center.
Staying in Thailand for just a moment, just days after their new marriage equality law went into effect, their Public Health Ministry allocated 145.63 million baht, or about 4.3 million dollars to the National Health Security office to make Hormone Replacement Therapy to free health services available to all citizens. They estimate the funds will help about 200,000 transgender citizens in its first year.
Going back to marriage equality though, we now travel to Liechtenstein which voted in a nearly unanimous, 24 to 1 vote in their parliament, called the Landtag, in favor of making same-sex marriage legal across the country. Liechtenstein formally offered same-sex couples registered partnerships. Thanks to a 2016 law, it allowed partners to legally take the last name of their same-sex partner. In June 2021, the highest court in their country ruled same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt children and in 2022, it even ruled same-sex partners could adopt their partner's stepchildren.
Next up, we travel to Ghana in West Africa where a bill was introduced in 2021 called the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill. It called for a 3 year prison sentence for anyone identifying as LGBTQ and up to 5 years for anyone organizing or funding LGBTQ advocacy groups. But I told you this episode was all about good news and it is because the bill failed recently.
Their new president, John Mahama took office on January 7th after a landslide victory. He claims the discriminatory bill never made it to the desk of the previous president and so it never went into law. He also claims any bill the previous administration never signed is effectively dead and would have to be reintroduced to him, adding "I don't know what the promoters of the bill intended to do, but I think we should have a conversation about it again."
Advocates in the country have high hopes this means their new president is against the discrimination of LGBTQ people in the country.
Heading West to the United Kingdom, we have to go back to 1967 when parliament banned LGBTQ people from serving openly in their military. This rule lasted until 2000 but in that time, the military discharged thousands of service people who faced intimidation, blackmail, discrimination, harassment, seizure of personal letters and photographs, invasive medical exams, and even sexual assault before being forced to resign.
But now, 25 years after the law was repealed, not only is every service member that was fired for being LGBTQ being given 70,000 pounds, or about $85,000, but a new memorial is being constructed at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, just north of Birmingham.
The memorial will be made from bronze and sculpted to resemble a piece of paper with phrases written by LGBTQ soldiers during the recent investigation into the policy. The paper will be made to look like it was crumpled up, then opened again showcasing how parliament tried to hide LGBTQ voices but our community overcame the erasure. These phrases include, "A battle for love", "A place to belong", and "Together we stand".
Now traveling to the United States where more Americans than ever are openly identifying as LGBTQ. In a recent Gallup poll, 9.3% of US adults identified as LGBTQ which is up from 2023's survey by the same organization which only found 3.5% of adults identifying as members of our community. So, all of the discrimination we're facing from the current administration is only causing more of us to come out and show our Pride.
Inside the United States, there is even more good news in Oregon where the first openly lesbian state treasurer was just sworn into office by the state’s first openly lesbian governor. Her name is Dr. Elizabeth Steiner and she is a member of the democratic party. She officially became Oregon's first Jewish treasurer in 150 years, first ever woman and first LGBTQ treasurer in the state’s history. Last November, she won the general election with over a million votes and was sworn in this year by Governor Tina Kotek who in 2022 alongside Maura Healey of Massachusetts, became the first openly lesbian governors elected in American history. Steiner officially took office this year and has committed to helping younger citizens so they might have a brighter future without discrimination and with enhanced financial stability.
Moving on to the state of Michigan where Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed into law a bill which was originally proposed in 2023 that adds sexual orientation and gender identity to the state's hate crime law. This comes at a deeply needed time when the federal government is being run by such hatred that we may need state-level laws to come down hard on criminals who discriminate on LGBTQ people.
Keeping with the M states, we now travel to Massachusetts where the city council in Worchester voted overwhelmingly to make the city a sanctuary for LGBTQ people. In a vote of 9 to 2, city council passed a resolution was spearheaded by the first openly non-binary elected official in the state and aims to help LGBTQ people find comfort in the city despite the attacks from the national government.
In South Dakota, one state representative tried to pass a bill to make same-sex marriage illegal in the state. Similar bills have been proposed this year in Idaho, Michigan, Montana, and North Dakota. Other states like Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas have proposed bills in their state House of Representatives to make a new form of marriage called a "covenant marriage" which would be limited to only straight couples. Effectively, it would give straight couples more rights in marriage and hopefully send a challenge up to the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges which gave marriage equality to all states in June 2015.
But recently, this proposed bill in South Dakota failed in a 9 to 4 vote by the state's House Judiciary Committee and Republicans actually helped to vote it down. Republican State Representative Tim Reisch said, "When it comes to what the state does as far as the marriage license, I look at it as a civil contract between two people, two people that are joining into a household, and that does not affect me, does not affect my life, and I just cannot vote for [it]." referring to the discriminatory bill.
Finally today, we travel to San Francisco, California to Gene Comptons Cafeteria. This is, where in August 1966, 3 years before the Stonewall Riots, police raided the cafeteria when a drag queen threw a cup of coffee in the face of a policeman and a riot ensued. We cover the Gene Compton Cafeteria Riot more in a previous episode linked below.
But this historic site was just silently added to the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service. It was added to the official list but no public statement was made and no press release was sent to any news outlet. You might ask why this was done without any news coverage but as you might recall, the alleged KGB officer and convicted felon, Donald Trump signed an executive order to get rid of the "TQ+" on any federal website or landmark, including signage that is currently being constructed for the June 2025 expected opening of the Stonewall Riots National Monument Museum in New York.
So, in response to this order, the National Park Service added Gene Compton's Cafeteria to the list of Historic Places so it would be preserved and added as a monument to transgender history. But they did it without major press coverage so none of Trump's team would find it.
Anyway, while many things look grim in the United States and for our allies, I would like to say thank you to the 2,030 people who filled out our 2025 LGBTQ survey. We had more than 168,000 data points to review and summarize in this book, which we'll cover soon on the channel. But this news show came from the episode suggestions in that survey so I hope you enjoyed the revival of our LGBTQ news show. Let us know in the comments below if you want this to be a monthly series.
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