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Dear John,
Today, we're releasing two resources that capture what the global LGBTIQ movement is learning in real time.
The first is a briefing paper drawn from a movement roundtable convened by Outright on November 6, 2025, on the sidelines of Outsummit. More than 40 activists, civil society leaders, and partners from 14 countries joined us for a closed-door conversation held under the Chatham House Rule. People needed space to be frank about what's working, what's failing, and what the last year has cost our movement.
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The paper captures practical takeaways across three areas that the movement keeps running into, everywhere:
** 1) Responding to the funding crisis
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After the January 2025 U.S. foreign assistance freeze, participants described the current environment as the most severe funding challenge in years. The briefing shares strategies people are already using to keep work alive: diversifying income streams, pooling community resources, partnering with other movements on joint proposals, building pro bono legal relationships in advance, and repurposing shuttered infrastructure for safety and care.
** 2) Building narratives that land
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Participants were blunt: far-right messaging is simple, consistent, and well-funded. Our side sometimes speaks like we're writing an academic paper. The briefing includes examples of what's resonating—localized language, values-based frames most people recognize, messages that invite people in, and even joy and humor used strategically.
** 3) Forging alliances before the next crisis
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With declining resources and rising repression, coalitions can't be an afterthought. The briefing offers tested approaches to mapping allies, rebuilding ties with feminist and gender justice movements, working with unexpected partners, and grounding partnerships in shared experiences of exclusion.
Read the Briefing Paper ([link removed])
The second resource is our Outsummit 2025 Summary Report, which captures insights from the full conference on November 7, which featured 31 speakers and was attended by 574 participants from over 70 countries.
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Alongside the challenges, the report documents what's actually working:
* Saint Lucia struck down a colonial-era law criminalizing same-sex intimacy after ten years of regional planning and coalition-building.
* Courts in India, Japan, and Hong Kong upheld trans people's rights to identity documents, legal recognition, and public services.
* Budapest Pride became the largest in Hungarian history—and one of the country's biggest public demonstrations—despite a government ban.
* Ukraine established the first LGBTIQ technical working group inside a UN humanitarian response.
* Ghana's intersex movement achieved groundbreaking national visibility and successfully lobbied to remove "intersex" from a proposed anti-LGBT bill.
The report also includes discussion of key outcomes from sessions on reclaiming "family values" narratives, the business case for LGBTIQ inclusion, and an intergenerational dialogue marking Outright's 35th anniversary.
Read the Outsummit 2025 Summary Report ([link removed])
These aren't universal roadmaps. Context always matters. But activists developed these strategies under funding shocks, censorship, criminalization, and coordinated disinformation—and they're sharing them because the movement can't afford to reinvent the wheel alone.
If you work at a foundation, in government, or within an institution that funds human rights, I hope you'll read both reports with a practical question in mind: what would it look like to fund movement resilience, not just projects? Activists were clear about what helps: flexible support, investment in narrative capacity and economic empowerment, and resources that don't collapse when politics change.
If you're part of the wider community, please share these with the people you think need them. Both are free to reproduce for nonprofit or educational use, as long as they're shared without alteration and with attribution.
Thank you for staying close in a moment that is testing all of us.
With solidarity,
Neela Ghoshal (any pronouns)
Senior Director of Law, Policy & Research
Outright International
** Stay Connected With Us
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