Blogger Hilmi Forks reported that he was released after almost three years in prison. He wrote about this on social networks. “Well, I kicked back after 3 years. Hello everyone who was waiting, missed, worried. Now I’m with you,” Hilmi wrote. In December 2023, the Simonovsky District Court of Moscow sentenced the blogger to three years in a general regime colony for the production and distribution of pornography.

The film “Fatherland” was released in Europe about the journey through divided post-war Germany of Thomas and Erica Mann, father and daughter, a Nobel-winning writer and his secretary-assistant. Konstantin Kropotkin on why this costume road movie, for which Pawel Pawlikowski was awarded the director's prize at the Cannes Film Festival, is best viewed through a queer lens. And why does it resonate so painfully in us?

In the October 4 elections in Brazil, 34-year-old Tabatta Pimenta became the first transgender woman from the northeast of the country to be elected to the federal parliament. The politician represented the Green Party (PV) in the state of Rio Grande do Norte and received 92,743 votes, securing a seat in the Chamber of Deputies. “Rio Grande do Norte has just made history: for the first time, a transgender woman from northeast Brazil has become a member of the federal parliament.

In 2025, Russian courts imposed 182 fines under articles on “LGBT propaganda” for a total of almost 70 million rubles. Almost the entire amount went to Moscow, “Guys+” calculated. What else is interesting about lagging statistics? The Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of Russia published statistics for 2025 very late.

A former participant in one of the shows of Russian designer Gosha Rubchinsky publicly accused him of sexual assault. According to the man, Rubchinsky raped him when he was 15 years old. He wrote that soon after the incident he realized that what had happened was violence, sought help and told his friends about his experience to warn others. The man did not specify the circumstances of the incident.

“Project” published fragments of the book “The Tsar in Person” by Roman Badanin and Mikhail Rubin, dedicated to the Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin. In one chapter, the authors talk about years of rumors surrounding his sexual orientation and how, according to them, the politician tried to fight them. The publication came out after Volodin headed the State Duma for the third time.

Alexander Zane's Flexible Fog is a love story for those who want to better understand the transgender experience. And for anyone who has experienced rejection of their identity or orientation. The plot is based on collective experiences familiar to transgender people of any gender, as well as partly on the personal story of a transgender woman close to the author. The story is dark, but gives hope. And now she will not be superfluous to anyone.

The website of Moscow magistrates published the text of the decision, which at the end of August fined the head of the security service of the capital's Garage museum, Sergei Klyucherev, for “LGBT propaganda.” Mediazona was the first to notice . The fine, as it became known from the text, amounted to 100 thousand rubles. The “propaganda” was noticed by an employee of the investigative department of the district Ministry of Internal Affairs (this is usually done by the “E” center).

Anna Victoria Politkovskaya, the 19-year-old grandson of murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, spoke at a meeting of the European Parliament's subcommittee on human rights. She called on deputies to help evacuate victims of violence and repression. According to Novaya Gazeta Europe, Politkovskaya thanked the European authorities for their attempts to help victims of political persecution in Russia and other countries.

Artist and open lesbian Sasha Skochilenko told how a “partisan” edition of her book “My Prison Trip” is being sold in Russia. In two months, the book did not disappear from Ozon, received the maximum rating from readers, and Sasha herself showed what the publication looks like with black censorship stripes. “I don’t know when and under what circumstances I will be able to find myself in Russia again - but my book did it!

Guys+ founder and editor-in-chief Evgeny Pisemsky looks back at the eighteen-year history of the portal, which began as a “personal hobby” for the director of an HIV service organization and has become an important part of the Russian LGBT community—so important that it is recognized as an “extremist organization.” An honest conversation about how these changes affected Evgeny himself, the team and the understanding of the site’s mission is in his column. I created "Guys+" in 2008.

Turkish prosecutors have brought an “obscenity” case to court over the dance of two men in the Mabel Matiz – Ha Leylim video. Two years ago, another video of the same singer was banned in Russia. The plot of the video is dedicated to a mixed-sex wedding. As Turkish Minute reports , the prosecutor's office focused on the last scene in the video, where the credits begin and in the background the singer himself dances with the man playing the role of the groom in the video.

In Belarus, materials from eight online resources were recognized as “extremist” for “propaganda of childfree ideology and the LGBT movement.” This was stated by the Prosecutor General of Belarus Dmitry Gora at the 24th meeting of the heads of supervisory departments of the SCO countries in Kazan. It is not specified which resources are included in the list. In his speech, Gora spoke of protecting “traditional family values” and combating content that authorities consider harmful to minors.

A new criminal case was opened against the former director of the Nephroline-DMG dialysis center in Inza, Ilya Zhuravlev. Now he is accused of participating in the “international movement of Satanism” banned in Russia. The Prison Lawyer project reports this.

Even if a migrant succeeds in obtaining a court order to prevent deportation to his home country, he may still be deported to a third country, including where queerphobic laws exist and LGBTQ people face the risk of persecution. In the US, such cases are becoming increasingly common, CNN reports . Among CNN's interlocutors is a 28-year-old lesbian from Turkey, whom the publication calls Aileen.