A new Aleanca LGBTI study found that 86% of discrimination incidents against LGBTQI students went unreported, and the Council of Europe's ECRI says the school climate for LGBTI young people in Albania appears to have worsened. Here's what the research shows, and what would change it.
Watch · 0:53 The story in under a minute Learning in Hiding: What Two 2026 Reports Say About LGBTI Students in Albania Watch now New guest every dayInspired by today's news
Tonight: Ardit, from Shkodër
A night-bus traveller from Shkodër, a re-enrolment form, and one name he wants read right.
Just in
Born in Mendoza in 1944, Ana Lupez danced through Argentina's revue theatres, left the country under the dictatorship, and became the star and then co-owner of one of Barcelona's most famous cabarets. She died on October 14 in the city where she was born.
FIFA's Social Media Protection Service checked 17.1 million posts about the 2026 World Cup and verified 240,676 as abusive. Homophobia was one of the most common forms of hate, France's players were hit hardest, and the most targeted player also faced the most homophobic and transphobic abuse.
Prime Minister Albin Kurti told the Assembly that Kosovo needs a full reform of its civil law, as an opposition MP vowed to block two paragraphs on same-sex unions. Three bills, including IVF access for single women and lesbian couples, are now on the government's agenda before the end of the year.
President Zelensky's decree approving Ukraine's National Human Rights Strategy to 2035 gives LGBTIQ+ protection its own operational goal: fighting discrimination, hate speech and hate crimes. Here's what it promises, what it leaves out, and what happens next.
Thomas Kahlert, one of 13 people worldwide considered cured of HIV, has stepped out under his own name as Berlin's Charité opens BeCURE, a research centre named in part after him. Why his case matters, and why a stem cell transplant isn't the answer for most people.
New NHS England guidance tells hospitals to run single-sex wards, toilets and staff changing rooms on the basis of biological sex, with single rooms and clinical need as the escape valves. What changed, who it covers, and what trans patients and staff can do now.
Open for Business puts the price of LGBTQ+ exclusion in Japan at ¥6.04–16.42 trillion a year, from health costs to a wage gap. With the population shrinking and no national anti-discrimination law, its message is simple: Japan can't afford to waste talent.
A month after the raids began, a group of independent UN human rights experts says Türkiye is using obscenity, morality and prostitution charges, frozen-out donors and blocked accounts to shut down LGBTI rights work. Here's what they found and what they're asking for.
Five years after the 2021 law made queer content off-limits to under-18s, and six months after the EU's top court called it a breach of the Union's 'very identity', Hungarian MPs have voted it out. Here's what changes, what doesn't, and what Hungarian activists say comes next.
In more than half of the violent incidents Zagreb Pride documented, police or courts failed to recognise the hate motive. Five years after Europe's human rights court ruled against Croatia over a €40 fine for a homophobic attack, activists say not enough has changed.
About 350 people walked from the Government building to Argentina Square on October 3 for the 14th Montenegro Pride. It passed peacefully, and the demands were concrete: trans recognition without forced medical procedures, and partnership rights that actually work.
Postponed from June by a heat wave, the Marche des Fiertés crossed Paris on October 3 with tens of thousands of people and one clear message ahead of next year's presidential election: the far right is not welcome.
Totnes Pride's 'Capture the Castle' drew around 400 people to watch a 150-metre Pride flag unfurled across Totnes Castle on September 26. Organisers said it shows 'queer people have always been here'. A few online critics disagreed, loudly.
Queer Montenegro's 14th Pride runs September 28 to October 3 in Podgorica, closing the Balkan Pride season with a march that puts trans sterilization requirements and missing family rights at the front of the line.
Viewers spotted that the pro-trans slogan had been digitally removed from the House of the Dragon actor's rehearsal top. The BBC points to its rules on branding and slogans; critics aren't buying it.
For LGBTQ+ History Month: Sarajevo Open Centre's free, 274-page History of Queer Life in Bosnia and Herzegovina digs through archives, folk songs and old newspapers to show queer lives from Ottoman Sarajevo to the first activists. Here are five stories worth knowing.
Simon Stone's Elsinore, with Andrew Scott as the gay Chariots of Fire star who played Hamlet while dying of AIDS, got a standing ovation at the BFI London Film Festival. Scott's message: 'The shame doesn't lie with us.'
Albania's queer film festival opened at Tirana's University of Arts with 19 films and 19 international guests, and runs until October 25. The bigger story is where it's going: 11 towns beyond the capital.
Only 12% of LGBTIQ people in Albania, 21% in North Macedonia and 29% in Serbia say they're fairly or very open, against 51% across the EU. On National Coming Out Day, here's what the numbers mean, and why coming out is yours to time.
Most anti-LGBTI violence in Albania is never reported. A 2026 Council of Europe report explains why, and what does exist: a free anti-discrimination complaints line, a hate-crime provision, and a dedicated LGBTI shelter. Here's how it all works.
We've lived in Tirana on and off since 2022, and spent time in Sarandë and Durrës too. Here's our honest answer to the question we get asked most: is Albania actually safe for a gay couple?
Pride season is over, WorldPride is pulling everyone toward Amsterdam, and we're still here in Tirana. Here's what an ordinary queer July looks like in the city we keep coming back to.
Albania just issued its first hormone therapy guideline for trans adults, and the country's religious leaders are pushing back hard. We're spending part of our year in Tirana. Here's what that argument looks like from the ground.
As Amsterdam hosts the global Pride movement this fortnight, the view from Tirana is a reminder that the distance between a canal parade and a still-banned march is measured in more than kilometers.
Skopje, Sarajevo, Pristina, Belgrade — one Pride after another went off this season, many without incident. Living here, we've learned the real question isn't the march. It's the 51 weeks after it.
Tirana Pride marches Saturday. On Friday we went to the diplomatic reception that traditionally opens Pride week here, and the most telling thing in the room was who was no longer at the front of it.
