Understand the LGBTQIA+ news: Anti-trans charity under scrutiny from regulator over plan to 'map' Trans+ UK athletes

Anyone missing 2025 yet? The LGBTQIA+ news took a brief break over the holiday season, but the march of a new world order certainly didn't.

Trump's actions in Venezuela, capturing and imprisoning another country's head of state – while only giving warning to big oil bosses and only informing the US's democratic institutions after the fact – have shocked the world.

Many commentators agree that this week marks the start of a world order in which might and strength are paramount, as Russia, China, and the US dominate their 'spheres of influence'. Many are calling this a 'new' world order. But of course, queer communities know that colonialism, authoritarianism and imperialism are nothing new.

Worryingly, as we've detailed in our history articles and in our work with Trans+ History Week, our community is at high risk of erasure when despots seek to gain power in this way. That's why, as we'll detail this week, two former presidents of the International Association of Genocide Scholars have warned that Trans+ people are facing genocide in the US already. And elsewhere in the US we've seen state agents killing citizens despite no evidence of a crime taking place, including queer mother of three Renée Nicole Good.

Meanwhile, here in little Britain, the Human Rights Watch has warned that the UK is increasingly resembling Hungary in the pivotal years before the country lost its short-lived democratic freedoms. 

I remember visiting Hungary at this time. On a gay press trip, I was bemused by the lack of urgency the elite I spoke to had, while the grassroots organisations we met all week were panicking. One rich, prominent gay man, who hosted us at many of his businesses, brushed aside these concerns.

Just years later, he fled the country for his safety.

Far from the easy slide into the year we were all hoping for, 2026 is going to be a pivotal year for the LGBTQIA+ community globally, and here in the UK, where I write to you each week.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again - this is a pivotal moment for the world.  It's an acutely scary one for anyone from an underrepresented background, whether they be LGBTQIA+, Black, migrant or otherwise marginalised.

But that doesn't mean the future is hopeless. Far from it.

I've been proudly pursuing a queer militant agenda ever since I could stick a rainbow badge on my t-shirt. I know, so well, that we're a freakin' bunch who don’t take no for an answer.

Trust us when we say, in a new age of deep fakes making cash for tech bros, a crisis lack of investment the LGBTQIA+ charity sector, and continued misinformation about us from the mainstream press, we are going to double down on our efforts to:

• Invest in a new generation of LGBTQIA+ journalists to help you understand the queer news
• Deliver quality investigative journalism and analytical explainers so you can hold power to account
• Show you the light in the darkness, so that even when our analysis needs to express urgency, you'll leave this newsletter feeling able to see the joy our community gives and gives.

Let's get into it.

Jamie Wareham
Founder of QueerAF

Understand the LGBTQIA+ headlines and keep track of the latest queer content and perspectives. The QueerAF newsletter is written by Jamie Wareham and a different queer creative each week.

💬 This week:

• Sex Matters: The charity, which pursues anti-trans and gender-critical legal cases, is facing an "ongoing case" by the Charity Commission for its work with For Women Scotland on 'mapping' Trans+ athletes in the UK.
• Trans+ Genocide: Two genocide experts have warned Trans+ people are already facing genocide in the US.
• Fibromyalgia: William Elisabeth Cuthbert draws on their experience of chronic fatigue to remind us that there’s no such thing as ‘not working hard enough’, in the Queer Gaze.

Skip the doomscrolling and support queer creatives instead. We are QueerAF – and so are you.

Sex Matters facing "ongoing case" by Charity Commission for plan to 'map' UK Trans+ athletes

CW, Sexual Assault | TLDR: The gender critical charity is facing an "ongoing case" amid a number of complaints, including plans to 'map' Trans+ athletes in the UK, and for its connections to a man who has made gross remarks about child sexual abuse.