At a moment when global progress on human rights often seems to be faltering, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has taken a long-overdue step forward.
Last month, the ICC issued arrest warrants for senior Taliban leaders, accusing them of crimes against humanity for the regime’s well-documented persecution of women and girls. Notably, however, the court also accused the Taliban officials, including Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani, of committing crimes against humanity by targeting LGBTQ people.
By issuing these warrants, the ICC has become the first international tribunal to determine that it is a crime against humanity to persecute people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. For the global LGBTQ community, this is a profound milestone.
The warrants pierce through the global indifference that has too often obscured the brutal realities faced by queer people in conflict zones. The top court’s action is a powerful promise that the global fight for dignity and justice extends to every corner of our community, no matter how long they have been ignored or overlooked.
Since taking over Kabul in 2021, the Taliban regime has violently enforced a rigid patriarchal order in Afghanistan. It has banned women and girls from pursuing higher and secondary education, barred them from public life by restricting their access to employment and freedom of movement, and mandated the wearing of the burqa again.
Under the extremist rule, LGBTQ Afghans have also endured a campaign of terror, including arrests, torture, sexual violence, and extrajudicial killings. Since August 2021, queer people have reportedly been detained and assaulted by Taliban police at checkpoints. The Taliban’s Supreme Court has proudly publicized the flogging of people accused of homosexuality. Last August, the same edict that banned women from speaking in public also reaffirmed that homosexuality is a crime.
Though gender-based violence has been committed in wars throughout history, international law has been slow to treat it as a serious crime. The 1998 treaty that created the ICC, known as the Rome Statute, was the first to classify “gender persecution” as a crime against humanity. But it was never prosecuted during the court’s first two decades. Plus, there was no explicit reference to LGBTQ people in the Rome Statute until 2022, when the ICC adopted a policy on the crime of gender persecution and embraced a contemporary, inclusive understanding of gender that explicitly includes LGBTQ protections.
Many jurists have long argued that targeting people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is a form of gender persecution, because they are being victimized for transgressing gender roles. But the ICC judges never had an opportunity to hear this analysis—until now.
That’s why the recent ICC arrest warrants are so historic. Under the ICC system, judges must determine that charges are legally sound before warrants are issued. Regardless of the outcome of the cases against Akhundzada and Haqqani, the court has thus issued a clear precedent that persecuting LGBTQ people is a crime against humanity. For the first time, an international tribunal is treating violence against this community as one of the gravest crimes under international law.
The ICC’s recognition of LGBTQ persecution as a crime against humanity marks a legal breakthrough. The precedent is not limited to Taliban crimes—it reshapes the legal landscape for how international law defines and prosecutes anti-queer violence globally.
This ruling opens the door for prosecutors around the world to apply the same reasoning in other conflict settings, including in cases involving nonstate actors such as militias, extremist groups, or de facto regimes. For example, future investigations into abuses in places such as Chechnya, parts of the Sahel, or areas under the influence of the Islamic State can now explicitly include violence against LGBTQ people as part of a broader pattern of gender-based persecution.
LGBTQ people have long been persecuted in conflicts around the world—with records dating as far back as World War II. One of the first pogroms after Adolf Hitler took power in Germany targeted an organization that promoted queer rights, facilitated scholarly research, and provided gender-affirming medical care. From 1933 to 1945, the Nazis persecuted queer people, sending thousands to concentration camps.
More recently, in 2015, the Islamic State captured the world’s attention when it executed men accused of homosexuality by throwing them off buildings in Syria and Iraq and issued death warrants for lesbians. LGBTQ individuals in Colombia have faced brutal, organized violence, including rape, executions, forced labor aimed at “correcting” their identities, and targeted attacks such as the proposed firebombing of gay establishments. In Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, LGBTQ individuals have been systematically targeted by Russian forces—subjected to torture, imprisonment, and other forms of gender persecution, including being forced to strip at checkpoints to reveal rainbow tattoos or gay dating apps—acts that likely amount to crimes against humanity.
Of course, charging Taliban leaders with these crimes is only the beginning of a long process of bringing them to justice. The ICC has no enforcement power of its own, which is one reason why so many question the value of international law to counter atrocities. For Taliban leaders to be brought to trial, they would first need to be arrested. This would require them to travel outside of Afghanistan and a foreign government to detain them, or for a regime to take power in Afghanistan that would willingly hand them over to The Hague.
It’s quite possible that Akhundzada and Haqqani may never be brought to trial for these crimes. But that doesn’t mean that these charges don’t matter.
As a special advisor to the ICC, I spent the past three years working on this case and the past two years meeting with queer Afghans who survived Taliban violence and managed to flee the country. Navigating a maze of stigma, fear, and risk, these Afghans shared their stories even as they faced death threats simply for existing. So many survivors are terrified about what could happen to them and their families for speaking up. Some remain terrified that they could still be forced to go back to Afghanistan and bear more violence from their community and the Taliban.
These warrants signal an important message to victims around the world: What the Taliban has done to LGBTQ people is wrong. It is a crime. And it is not just a crime against individual victims. The persecution of queer people is a crime against humanity—one that violates the dignity and security that everyone is entitled to—and it will no longer go unchallenged.
The ICC arrest warrants are not just about Afghanistan—they are a warning to all regimes that terrorize LGBTQ people, whether those people are citizens in Uganda or persons living under Russian control in occupied Ukraine territories.
These warrants also feel significant to me as a queer American at a time when President Donald Trump’s administration is emboldening the growing crusade against LGBTQ people in the United States. One of Trump’s first acts in office was to issue an executive order declaring that the federal government does not recognize transgender and intersex people. The administration launched an investigation into providers of gender-affirming care for trans youth, leading to hospitals around the country to roll back or ban such care altogether. It also threatened to cut federal funding for teen pregnancy prevention programs that include LGBTQ youth.
Simultaneously, the Trump administration has also imposed sanctions against the ICC prosecutor and four judges. These sanctions—typically reserved for war criminals and terrorists—undermine the legitimacy of the top court and send a chilling message to other international institutions seeking to hold powerful states accountable. More broadly, this action signals a rejection of multilateral norms and weakens the global framework for enforcing international human rights law.
Even in the face of unprecedented repression, the ICC’s warrants against the Taliban are a reminder that the LGBTQ community has allies around the world when our leaders have turned against us.
By ordering the arrest of Akhundzada and Haqqani for crimes against humanity, the ICC is taking on the forces of hate and repression. In this dangerous moment, it should strengthen the resolve of all of us engaged in the fight for justice.