“It's like we have been embraced and accepted by the people in the entire country.”

That's how Ann Chumaporn, an LGBTQI activist from Thailand and co-founder of the Bangkok Pride Parade, celebrated the introduction of same-sex marriages in her country just few weeks ago.

As the first country in Southeast Asia.

So I want to congratulate you, Ambassador Krischnamra, and you, Foreign Minister Deuba, whose country Nepal introduced same-sex marriages last year, on these historic decisions.

And I want to applaud the numerous civil society organisations and individuals who fought for these decisions for years, sometimes decades.

To be accepted and embraced for simply having the same rights as everybody else. This is what these decisions mean for the everyday life of so many people.

It marks a recognition of one of our most basic human freedoms, the freedom to fall in love and openly express this love with whomever we want. Without fear. Like everybody else.

Over the two past years, as members of the Equal Rights Coalition, we've also been able to celebrate progress in other important areas of LGBTQI rights.

Laws to decriminalise persons, to protect them from discrimination, were passed in various countries. From Estonia to the Pacific Islands, from Japan to Mauritius.

These changes are sometimes not even noticed by the majority of people in the respective societies. But they are so important to so many individuals. And I'm extremely grateful that you, all of you here today, are sharing these examples with us.

And I'm also very sorry, I have to admit this very frankly and openly, that I am just rushing in here and unfortunately will have to rush out as well after the speech. It is very important for me to be here. But you have probably also heard and noticed from abroad that our domestic politics are a bit shaky these days, as they are in other countries in our region.

But because these times are so shaky in European democracies, it was important for me, for us, to have this conference on equal rights, especially right now. And I'm really grateful to the foreign ministers and to all of the teams that are here today.

Because the challenges we all are facing in our societies have a lot to do with the activities of this coalition. LGBTQI rights are under pressure. Despite all of the successes we celebrated over the last two years. Similar to women's rights.

And this is no coincidence, and it is something we must all tackle together. This is why we formulated in our feminist foreign policy strategy:

Women's rights, as well as minority rights and the rights of other vulnerable groups, are a yardstick for the state of our societies. The stronger women's rights and the rights of all minorities are, the stronger our societies are.

And the opposite is also true. This is what we have to address today, in addition to celebrating the strength of our societies.

If women's rights and the rights of LGBTQI persons are under pressure, the freedom of a society in general is also under pressure.

The less free a society is for everybody, the more authoritarian and dictatorial tendencies we will see.

I challenge you to name just one autocracy that provides full protection of LGBTQI rights. Freedom and LGBTQI rights are closely interconnected.

Therefore this conference is not only addressing those countries and those societies and regimes where minority rights are under pressure or not implemented for everybody.

But if we are sincere about the rights of women and the rights of minorities being the yardstick for freedom in our own societies, then we have to keep a close look-out for alarming signals. We have to watch closely why, in addition to the success stories, there is a tendency toward pushback in our own societies.

This means also looking at us. Several states have fallen back into criminalising and punishing same-sex relationships and diverse gender identities, sometimes even sanctioning the closest bonds between human beings with the death penalty.

This is a deeply troubling development and in many cases it is also a grave violation of commitments that these countries have made under international treaties they have signed, such as the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or other international agreements.

And for us it's very important to not only outline these dramatic trends, but also to look where these tendencies started.

And this is what we are doing, both here in the European Union and with so many colleagues, countries, partners and friends around the world, for example, at the last COP29 climate conference.

What does this have to do with human rights and minority rights? Suddenly, at the COP, what I would call an interesting coalition emerged, to put it very diplomatically, a coalition between countries that included Saudi Arabia and Russia, but also the Holy See, that took the position that gender and the protection of human rights and equal rights have no place in an international climate text. And this is where it all starts. If we question whether there is space for gender at an international UN conference, which obviously should be based on human rights, then this is alarming.

Not only human rights defenders, but everybody present at such a gathering of the international community should speak out. It doesn't matter whether it's a climate conference, it doesn't matter whether it's a discussion in your own country or if it is at a conference like this one on human rights.

I'm making this so clear not to cast a shadow over what was achieved, but because I'm truly worried.

We are seeing also in our own countries, in Germany, that queer persons are being attacked. One incident every four hours.

This means, in our country, six cases per day, more than 2000 cases per year.

And this is shameful.

So if we do not speak up at international conferences, how can we call on our citizens and our people to speak up in a bus or at the workplace, if we as politicians at international conferences do not dare do the same?

Therefore, the question of putting human rights first at international conferences is a question of strengthening and defending our free societies, our democracies and our freedoms.

And this is why, turning now to a positive note, two years ago the German Government passed an action plan to do exactly that.

By modernising outdated provisions in our personal status laws. We made it possible for trans, intersex and non-binary persons to change names and gender entries in their passports without humiliating medical and psychological examinations.

A normal human right for many in our country, but not for all – and we ended this discrimination.

Other important improvements are still to be made. Like explicitly enshrining the protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in our Basic Law, our Grundgesetz.

This is a project that we weren't able to realise during this legislative term, but we will keep fighting for this in the future. Because like in many other countries around the world, I think, amending the constitution requires not only a simple majority, but a two-thirds majority.

And again, it is critical for all of us who are working on this issue that we remind people that this is not a so-called niche topic, but an expression of how free a country is. Our goal is to make protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity as crisis-proof as possible.

Protection against discrimination, this basic freedom concerning whom we love and who we are, should not depend on political moods or changing majorities.

Putting these changes in your constitution is so critically important because otherwise these rights will not be guaranteed when societies are under pressure.

Therefore, it is also important to intensify our cooperation, to have a very dense network of state and civil society actors, so that we spot the warning signs.

Unfortunately, we totally ignored these warning signs in our own neighbourhood.

For example, when Putin's Russia systematically cracked down on the country's LGBTQI community. This started back in in 2013, but nobody on the outside really cared, similar to the situation with women's rights.

Just one year later, Russia launched its attack against Ukraine with the illegal occupation of Crimea. This had something to do with the earlier attack on human rights in Russia.

And therefore I am so grateful to this coalition because it is a recognition that the protection of LGBTQI rights is not a question of North versus South, of rich versus poor, of us versus them. It is a question of freedom for societies all around the world. It is a question of our Universal Declaration of Human Rights for everybody.

And therefore, we are also here today to underline how important it is that we work on this as free societies together, and that we also identify the warning signs at this conference.

This is why I would like to point to one example in our European neighbourhood, namely Georgia. Earlier this year, the ruling government party pushed a series of legislative changes through parliament, once again targeting, everybody can guess, the LGBTQI community. In violation of European norms and values. And as part of a broader process to turn the country away from its freedom path, from its European path.

And now, just a couple of months later, we see brutal police violence perpetrated against peaceful protesters who are calling into question the results of the recent elections.

There's a reason why LGBTQI rights and democratic stability are so closely connected.

Because those fighting LGBTQI persons, those fighting the freedom of people, fear nothing more than diversity.

It is obvious – because, if you are an inclusive society, the more people you bring on board, the stronger you are. Therefore, populist movements are throwing false generalisations around and are attacking diversity in preparation for taking away freedoms – first those of some and then those of many.

This is what makes the discussions in some parties and governments so dangerous, pretending that the question of sexual orientation and gender identity is a zero sum game, where more choices and freedom for one group means a loss of freedom for others, thus insisting that something is wrong in a society. The opposite is true. The more choices and freedoms for every group in a society, the stronger that society is as a whole.

So our fight for the protection and recognition of LGBTQI rights is, first of all, a fight for human dignity, for human rights, for the individual.

But it's also a fight for our free societies. And this is what unites us in this coalition as a network to strengthen freedom and democracy, as a marketplace of ideas in which we learn from each other about the best way to get there.

Like in Ukraine, where the German embassy supported the re-opening of an LGBTQI safe space in city of Kharkiv. A safe space in a dual sense, as a meeting place for the local LGBTQI community, but also as a shelter against the indiscriminatory Russian air attacks that have threatened Ukrainians for over a thousand days now.

Or in Peru, where our embassy helped to establish a project to give transgender people easier access to healthcare.

And I'm grateful to all members of our ERC network for supporting these spaces, and for opening these spaces with your individual and bilateral actions. Spaces supported by governments, but also spaces supported by civil society organisations and individuals.

Organisations like the Federation Queer Diversity here in Germany, the LSVD+ Verband Queere Vielfalt, and the Fundación Arcoíris in Mexico, our partner for civil society cooperation and also the co-chair here at this ERC.

This cooperation between governmental experts and civil society underlines once again that this is not a question of South or North, rich or poor, left or right, progressive or whatever you call your parties. This is a question that relates to our society as such, that calls for cooperation between civil society and state representatives.

And I would like to specifically mention two persons here, Gloria Careaga and Klaus Jetz. I want to thank them for working so closely with us in this spirit of trust over the last two years, not only when it comes to giving speeches. But also living these statements, making clear what this coalition is really about, the daily work we do together, day-to-day cooperation between countries and collaboration with civil society and government officials.

In this regard, the establishment of a permanent secretariat for the ERC is an important contribution to making the alliance a firm and permanent firewall for LGBTQI protection worldwide – at international conferences, but also as a support for societies that are not in the public spotlight. Where they can use the strength of this network if they have to draw attention to warning signs in our communities.

And, again, also as a network of cooperation and learning from each other. Because this is another aspect that I fear we are losing in this time of crisis.

There are so many good examples around the world. There is so much progress, like in Thailand and Nepal, which we should put in the spotlight to make clear that changes are possible.

Because this is the great thing in human nature: even in the darkest hours, we as humans always turn to the light. So we have to put these examples in the spotlight, especially when the times are getting more shaky and sometimes a bit dark.

This is why Germany will continue its support for the LGBTQI network, also after we hand over the ERC co-chair to our successor.

The Federal Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development will provide more than 12 million euro to support LGBTQI until 2027, in accordance with our budget regulations.

As an investment in freedom and in strengthening our societies. And we will continue to work to fortify coalitions for LGBTQI protection worldwide.

To protect the most vulnerable groups in our societies.

And thereby to protect our democratic and free societies themselves.

To help love win over hatred.