Across Europe and Central Asia, Pride has become far more than a celebration of LGBTI visibility. Increasingly, it has become a measure of whether democratic rights and freedoms are under pressure.

In this episode of The Frontline, we ask why disinformation about LGBTI people has become one of the clearest challenges to democratic resilience. And we explore what attacks on Pride, including the appalling events at Berlin’s Christopher Street Day, reveal about the wider health of democracy.

Host Brian Finnegan is joined by Chris Kremidas-Courtney, Senior Advisor at Defend Democracy and the European Policy Centre, and Hripsime Kizogyan, Executive Director of Pink Armenia, who has documented how anti-LGBTI narratives are increasingly intertwined with anti-democratic politics in Armenia and across the region.

At the beginning of Pride season 2026, Chris wrote about Pride being Europe’s annual democracy test, which you can read here. More recently, Hripsime wrote about a disinformation campaign about Pride in Armenia, available here.

Together, our guests explore why governments so often target Pride before restricting other fundamental freedoms, how anti-LGBTI rhetoric and disinformation are being used to consolidate political power, what common patterns are emerging across different countries, and what European institutions must do to defend freedom of assembly and civic space.

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