Using the Gender Norms Data Engine (GNDE), our research demonstrates a cascading link between community support for gender equality and improved economic and personal outcomes for adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) aged 15–24 in Nigeria and Kenya – where improving the community environment can spark positive change for young women.

As of November 2024, consensual same-sex sexual conduct is criminalized in more than 60 jurisdictions worldwide—about a third of all countries—including more than 50 percent of Commonwealth countries. Most of these criminal laws stem from British colonial rule. Others are founded in Sharia law (Islamic law). ■ Of these criminalizing jurisdictions, at least 40 (more than 60 percent) criminalize same-sex sexual conduct between females. Even in jurisdictions that do not explicitly have laws against female same-sex sexual conduct, lesbians and bisexual women have been subjected to arrest or threat of arrest.

On his first day in office, Trump claimed that trans and intersex people didn’t exist, erased non-discrimination provisions, and branded work with marginalized communities in the U.S. and abroad as un-American. Four days later, on January 24, Trump issued a 90-day freeze on nearly all foreign assistance. Organizations around the world that received U.S. government funds for work with LGBTIQ communities began to receive stop-work orders instructing them to immediately halt all programmatic work and cease all expenditures on their grants. LGBTIQ organizations and their allies were forced, with no notice, to shut down programs, lay off staff, suspend crucial research and advocacy work, and turn away beneficiaries from services. By February 7, some recipients of U.S. funds began to receive termination notices from the U.S. government, cutting off their U.S.-funded programming entirely.