A conversation with Leo Varadkar and Diego Garcia Blum, in partnership with Forbidden Colours and Harvard’s Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights and Weatherhead Center for International Affairs
LGBTQI+ rights are under pressure. What looks like targeted culture-war politics is in fact something deeper: a test of democratic resilience. Restricting free assembly, silencing classrooms, or politicising family life are not only about minorities, but about weakening the institutions that protect us all.
Former Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar—one of Europe’s youngest heads of government and the first openly gay leader in Ireland—will reflect on what is at stake, how leaders can defend equality, and what choices lie ahead for European democracies.
He will be joined in conversation by Diego Garcia Blum, Director of the Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program at Harvard University. The event will be introduced by Rémy Bonny, Executive Director of Forbidden Colours.
The event is organised in partnership between TheMerode and Forbidden Colours, with support from the Harvard Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
