Disillusioned about democracy? Think of it as a community garden

A short walk from where I live, there is a community garden. People of all ages can participate in designing its areas and learn how to cultivate plants. Together, they build and maintain the space for the benefit of the entire community.

Democracy works the same way. It flourishes when people can bring their energy, knowledge, and presence to the common ground. It works precisely because most of us want to nurture neighbourhoods where every life can flourish — no matter where we live, the colour of our skin, or the food we enjoy on our tables.

But today, reactionary political movements and governments worldwide are poisoning our gardens with the invasive weeds of their authoritarian policies and exclusionary legislation. According to the CIVICUS Monitor, seventy-three per cent of the world’s population lives in countries where governments repress fundamental civil society freedoms.

By now, we know the playbook. Whenever authoritarians seize our common garden, they drive out those they deem dispensable first. Very often, LGBTI people, racialised persons, and migrants are at the forefront of weathering the storm.

Only half a century ago, the wins that our movement has obtained seemed unthinkable. But those advances are always on the line, always one election away from the strongman of the hour deciding to unravel them.

On 17 May 1990, the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases (almost 30 years later, also in May, the removal of “gender identityrefers to a person’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth. More disorder” followed). The world celebrates this anniversary every year as the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia. This was a milestone in the global struggle for the rights of LGBTI people. Back then, 114 countries and territories worldwide still criminalised consensual same-sex sexual acts. Today, still 65 of them maintain those laws.

Progress has been steady. But in 2025, for the first time in years, that number started to grow again. Burkina Faso introduced a criminalising law for the first time in its history. Trinidad and Tobago reversed recent gains. Senegal further tightened the threat after years of intensifying violence.

The obsession of legislators and policymakers with people’s bodies has translated into paroxysmal attacks against transadjective/umbrella term to describe a person whose gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth. More and intersexan umbrella term for the spectrum of variations of sex characteristics that naturally occur within the human species. Intersex people are born with variations of sex characteristics (such as genitals, reproductive organs, hormonal and chromosomal patterns) that are more diverse than stereotypical definitions of male or female bodies. Up to 1.7% of the global population are born with such traits; yet, because their bodies are seen as different, intersex children and adults are often stigmatised and subject to harmful practices – including in medical settings - and discriminated against. More folks — from the 771 bills currently under consideration in the United States, to the disgraceful and misguided policy of the International Olympic Committee reintroducing sexrefers to the classification of a person as male, female, or other - usually made at birth, written on a birth certificate, and usually based on the appearance of their external anatomy. A person’s sex, however, is actually a combination of bodily characteristics, including chromosomes, hormones, internal and external reproductive organs, and secondary sex characteristics. More testing and banning trans and intersex women athletes from competing in the female category.

And isn’t it ironic, really, that legislators worldwide put so much effort into driving LGBTI people out of public spaces, when at least 61 UN member States still have legal barriers that prevent civil society organisations working on sexual, genderrefers to a social construct which places cultural and social expectations on individuals based on their assigned sex. More and bodily diversity issues from formally registering and operating?

Political scientists Phillip Ayoub and Kristina Stoeckl, writing in the Journal of Democracy, show that illiberal governments deliberately deploy state-sponsored LGBTI-phobia to mobilise constituencies and frame liberal democracy as a cultural threat. These governments weaponise democratic pluralism for endless culture wars.

The playbook passes from one authoritarian to the next, activist Rémy Bonny showed. What started in Russia in 2013, with a law against the “promotion of non-traditional sexual relationships”, has grown into a pattern that illiberal leaders worldwide use to silence opposition and gain international influence amongst conservatives.

What makes this strategy particularly vicious is how it pits discriminated groups against one another. Time and again, reactionary people in power speak of “protecting women” just to attack trans and intersex people — manufacturing conflict among communities that, in fact, share a common struggle to protect the freedom to decide over their own bodies.

Whenever governments need to distract the public from their failures to create a better garden for everyone, they need a scapegoat. More often than not, it is LGBTI folks. Often, it is those fighting for safe abortions or against racism. Some other times, it is those advocating respectful relations with our land and natural resources. But the attacks never stop at a single movement. Case in point? Only ten days ago, a government caved in to foreign influence and cancelled the largest global gathering on human rights in the digital age.

At ILGA World, we serve and work with LGBTI communities globally. We know that time and again, LGBTI people have resisted these pests, rolled up their sleeves alongside all the good people caring about their communities, and sown the seeds of change.

This year, the world will join to celebrate May 17 under the theme “At the heart of democracy.” Because, as disillusioned with the concept as people may be, deep down most of us believe that we all deserve a space where we can feel safe and thrive. And together, we can contribute to the beautiful, shared community garden that we deserve.