2025 LGBTQ rights global update: In North America, one nation raged alone

One of a series of updates about LGBTQ rights internationally, region by region

LGBTQ rights journalist Rob Salerno, an editor for Erasing 76 Crimes, surveys the status of LGBTQ rights and marriage equality in this  series.  (Click here to subscribe to his LGBTQ Global newsletter.)

USA

Well, we knew this year was going to be interesting, at least. Trump 2.0 smashed through the White House – literally and figuratively – through 2025, destroying what few norms of propriety, fair-dealing, and democratic norms remained after his first term.

I honestly don’t think I could reasonably list every anti-LGBT action the Trump administration, its allies in the Supreme Court, and Republican-led states took in 2025 in an article like this, but let’s just run through the highlights:

• Banned non-birth gender or X marker on federal identity documents (passports)
• Banned trans people from military service
• The Supreme Court ruled that laws banning gender-affirming care for minors are constitutional. 27 states now have such bans, and Puerto Rico passed a law banning gender care for people of all ages.
• The Supreme Court also heard a case challenging conversion therapy bans, and appears set to strike them down nationwide.
• Trump ordered non-enforcement of discrimination law to protect LGBT people
• Ended DEI/Pride/Employee Resource groups in federal public service
• Pressured states, municipalities, school boards, and universities to end DEI practices and nondiscrimination policies
• Banned pride flags on federal buildings; some states have also banned Pride flags or pressured cities to remove them
• Iowa repealed nondiscrimination protections for gender identity
• Abolishment of USAID and PEPFAR cut off US government support for LGBTQ rights promotion, HIV prevention/treatment, and health services abroad

There are a handful of bright spots to point out in this generally bleak time in America.

Democrat-led states have generally held the line on LGBTQ rights at least within their borders, and we even scored some big victories, like Colorado repealing its defunct same-sex marriage ban after last year’s referendum.

And there are some strong signs that Democrats will see a resurgence at the polls in November 2026. Democrats have vastly over-performed in special elections all through 2025 and also took sweeping victories in elections in New Jersey and Virginia and at the municipal elections last month. Assuming these trends continue, Democrats could be poised not only to retake the US congress but recapture some state legislatures and governorships that have been out of reach for a long time.

Speaking of elections, we’ll have a bunch of ballot questions on LGBTQ issues in 2026. Already approved for the ballot is a question banning gender care in Missouri, and one enshrining the right to abortion in Nevada.

Meanwhile, some other initiatives are in process. We’ll almost certainly see Virginia Democrats put repealing the state’s same-sex marriage ban and protecting abortion rights on the ballot this year, either in November or in the spring with a redistricting question. Democrats will also almost certainly put an LGBT nondiscrimination question on the ballot in Vermont. A similar resolution is in process in Connecticut but looks like it stalled last year. Delaware can simply amend its constitution legislatively and began the process to enshrine same-sex marriage rights last year; it’ll have to pass through the house this year, and then through the legislature again after the 2026 elections to become law.

Initiatives are also under way to repeal same-sex marriage bans in Oregon, Ohio, and Missouri, but campaigners in Michigan have postponed their initiative until 2028. On the flip side, ballot initiatives to prohibit gender care for minors in Colorado and to ban trans girls from school sports in Colorado and Washington also look set to be on the ballot in November.

One more note, this year, Massachusetts got closer than ever to repealing its archaic sodomy and “walking while trans” laws. The bill is just awaiting a final vote in the house, which could come any time in 2026.

Canada

Well, the biggest news in Canada was the tremendous reversal of fortune that kept the Liberal Party in government after years of disastrous polling. Canadians rallied around the party following former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation and a relentless and punishing trade war begun by the Trump administration. New PM Mark Carney’s Liberals came close to a majority government, and following defections from the Conservatives, the party is just one seat from controlling Parliament itself.

I’ve written before of the broad accomplishments (and misfires) of the Trudeau government on LGBTQ issues in Canada. He got a lot done: full decriminalization of sodomy; federal trans rights legislation including documentation; apology, expungement and compensation scheme for historic prosecutions under anti-LGBTQ laws; banning conversion therapy; ending the gay blood and tissue donation ban… the list is very respectable.

The list of Carney’s legislative accomplishments after nearly a year in office is rather slight. An old Trudeau-era promise to ban surgeries on intersex children appears to have disappeared entirely. The government has tabled legislation to strengthen hate speech and hate crime laws, as well as to strengthen laws on sexual abuse and gender-based violence.

Down at the local level, Alberta continued to vie for the title of worst province. This year, it attempted to shut down several court challenges of recently past laws – including three 2024 laws that restricted gender care for youth, barred trans kids from school sports, and prohibited use of trans kids’ preferred pronouns and names at school – by passing a law invoking the “notwithstanding” clause of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Neighboring Saskatchewan had already invoked the notwithstanding clause to shield its own similar anti-trans laws, but the local court of appeal there ruled this summer that the court can still hear a challenge and decide if the law is unconstitutional, even if the clause blocks the court from actually striking the law down.

Briefly, this clause of the constitution allows provincial governments to insulate laws from Charter challenges for a renewable period of five years. When it was added to the 1982 constitution as a compromise, the belief was that no province would actually invoke the clause because it would be so toxic to do so. That theory held for about 40 years, but we’re now seeing (conservative) provincial governments invoke the clause repeatedly, even on trivial legislation to insulate them from court scrutiny.

There’s currently a Supreme Court case in which the federal government has intervened to argue that the notwithstanding clause has to be limited somehow because the situation has gotten out of hand. Frankly, I don’t think a strict legal analysis would support that, but the Canadian Supreme Court has been doing some absolutely wacky things lately in the name of greater small-l liberalism and personal freedom, and I wouldn’t put it past them to rule that the notwithstanding clause says something it absolutely does not say.

One a somewhat sunnier note, the Manitoba government amended its human rights act to ban discrimination based on “gender expression.” Previously, it covered “gender identity” only, largely because Manitoba was one of the first provinces to add protections for trans rights, before the common legal language in Canada evolved to “gender identity or gender expression.”

Mexico

Mexico has been on a long-term left-wing/progressive trajectory – at least on paper – for over a decade now, with progress on LGBTQ rights advancing in leaps and bounds. At the very least, its great to see that Mexico resisted that far-right drift that afflicted the rest of Latin America over the last few years.

On the federal level, Mexico elected its first female President, Claudia Scheinbaum, who has continued the progressive legacy of her predecessor. A high-profile incident in which Scheinbaum was groped at a public event has actually led to a smattering of new laws against sexual abuse both at the federal level and across the country, which are in varying states of passage.

There was progress on multiple issues at the state level as well. Guanajuato finally codified same-sex marriage and adoption rights into state law in December. Now Aguascalientes and Chihuahua are the only states that have not yet codified it into law. An effort to do so in the latter seems to have stalled, while there buzz from legislators that Aguascalientes might move on the issue in the new year.

Veracruz passed a gender recognition law, leaving only nine states that do not recognize legal gender change. A court in Tabasco ordered the state to make the gender change process a simple administrative procedure, which has been done, although the legislature has still not amended its civil code to facilitate gender change, though a bill has been proposed. Mexico City also became the second state to officially recognize a nonbinary gender.

Six states have now passed laws recognizing “transfemicide” as a unique crime with stiffer penalties: Nayarit, Mexico City, Baja California, Baja California Sur, Campeche, and Mexico. A federal hate crime bill introduced last year appears to have stalled in congress.

Five more states passed local conversion therapy bans – Chiapas, Tamaulipas, Durango, San Luis Potosi, and Guanajuato – bringing the total to 24. A federal ban has been in place since last year.

Baja California became the latest state to decriminalize HIV transmission in October. A bill to repeal laws from the federal civil code that impede people with HIV from getting married was introduced, but has not advanced. Puebla eliminated a law that prevented people living with HIV from getting married or adopting, while Yucatan eliminated the need for couples to present medical certificates to get married. While the Supreme Court has ruled that HIV marriage bans are unconstitutional, this year, it was unable to agree that Morelos’ requirement to present medical certificates was unconstitutional.

Abortion decriminalization continued to move forward. A federal decriminalization bill has been proposed, while decriminalization was passed at the state level in Campeche, Chihuahua, Nayarit, Tabasco and Yucatan, bringing the total to 24/32 states. Morelos missed a court-imposed April 2025 deadline to decriminalize abortion.

Greenland

LGBTQ issues weren’t the top issue in Greenland this year, but it did strangely hold a lot of salience in the news in 2025. US President Trump’s ongoing quest to, uh, acquire, Greenland has been going over like a lead balloon with Greenlanders and allied countries (not to mention Americans) but that hasn’t slowed down the rhetoric.

Meanwhile, Greenlanders appear to be even more favorable to full independence from Denmark, although the new government elected this year seems to prefer focusing on developing the island’s economy before pursuing independence.

If Greenland were to become independent, it would arrive with one of the best records on LGBTQ rights in the world, with full marriage equality and nondiscrimination laws in place already.