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Luis, a 26-year-old Panamanian man, has tried to donate blood four times in his life. The first time he was rejected. The other three times, he was allowed to do it only because he hid the fact that he has a boyfriend.

"I felt dirty, as if I was sick," Luis said of his first attempt to give blood to an ailing family member. He used a pseudonym because he feared the legal implications of breaching Panama's rules banning gay and bisexual men from donating blood.

Spain's first LGBTQ+ rights ambassador has set two priorities; working to decriminalise same-sex relations around the globe and fighting anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech online.

"Spain has decided not to stand on the sidelines, and to take a decisive step in defending the LGBTIQ+ community," Jorge Noval Álvarez told Context in an interview.

In Bangladesh, a country where a colonial-era law still criminalises same-sex relations, the grassroots group Noboprobhaat Foundation created a rare safe space for LGBTQ+ people living in the countryside.

The group provided HIV testing services, helped young people rejected by their families learn new job skills, offered free counselling and provided connections to lawyers to fight cases of blackmail and eviction.

A bill that will further criminalise LGBTQ+ people in Ghana could lead to a surge in HIV infections if passed, given that U.S. foreign aid cuts have already disrupted the battle against the virus, a Ghanaian health advocate said.

Originally approved last year, the bill was not signed into law by then-president Nana Akufo-Addo but was to parliament by a group of lawmakers in February.

Ten years after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling that legalised gay marriage, the White House is reversing a raft of LGBTQ+ rights and Republicans in at least six states are scrambling to ban same-sex weddings.

LGBTQ+ advocates say the right to marry a person of the same sex could be at risk, should judges vote to overturn the Supreme Court's historic 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.

U.S. President Donald Trump's foreign aid cuts are making life more dangerous for LGBTQ+ people in Uganda, one of most prominent gay activists in the East African country said.

In 2023, Uganda toughened its colonial-era law criminalising same-sex relations with new legislation that included the death penalty for what it calls serial offenders and a 20-year prison sentence for the "promotion of homosexuality".

U.S. President Donald Trump's crackdown on policies that champion diversity at work has prompted companies to back LGBTQ+ rights rather than parade their advocacy, says the head of a business campaign group.

Since Trump banned policies that underpin diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace, many firms have scurried to pull money out of high-profile Pride events and scrapped initiatives that support LGBTQ+ equality.

Juan Viana recalls having a happy childhood in a Christian community in Bogotá but when he came out as gay at age 18, that all changed.

"Unfortunately, that community of support became a place of deep repudiation of who I really was," Viana, now 48, told Context.

Two jabs a year of a groundbreaking, new anti-HIV drug could be a game changer in the global fight against the virus but experts worry it will be out of reach for those who most need it.

Lenacapavir, which is the world's first twice-yearly preventative treatment for HIV, has in the United States and the European Union (EU) - negotiations over pricing will help determine where else it might be used.

Russian activists say a new law that criminalises online searches for content that has been officially designated as "extremist" is the latest step in the Kremlin's crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights in the digital space.

, which came into effect on Sept. 1, imposes fines on people who use search engines for "extremist" content, which has included LGBTQ+ activism since 2024, allowing Vladimir Putin's government to intensify censorship of online content it says threatens "traditional values."