Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan face severe challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents.

[1][2] Afghan members of the LGBTQ community are forced to keep their gender identity and sexual orientation secret, in fear of violence and the death penalty.

[1][2][3] The religious nature of the country has limited any opportunity for public discussion, with any mention of homosexuality and related terms deemed taboo.

[11] Under its first rule in the 1990s the group criminalized all sexual relationships outside of the heterosexual marriage, and would often publicly execute men and women for committing fornication and adultery and for engaging in sodomy.

[18] In 1994, the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Omar, saved a boy from being sodomized by two feuding generals in Kandahar and when he was subsequently given control of the city he decreed that both violent and mutually consensual sodomy would be capital crimes.

[21] Gay men have reportedly been lured to their deaths both by the Taliban government and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan: according to activists, national security officials would make fake profiles on social media sites and dupe them into meeting them, often killing and raping them.

In response to foreign inquiries, the Afghan Social Democratic Party stated that it "favored an international effort to fight the AIDS-HIV pandemic, but that homosexuality and same-sex marriages are opposed by all great religions."

Afghanistan law prohibited a political party, interest group or social club from advocating anything that is in opposition to Islamic morality.

Absent a change in the law, it was unlikely that a political or social organization advocating LGBT rights would be permitted to exist and promote its viewpoints.

[24] The US Marine Corps' handbook for Operational Culture for Deploying Personnel from May 2009 stated that "homosexual behavior is relatively common, but taboo, in rural Afghanistan, because there are no other outlets for normal sexual energies.

[sic]"[25] In 2009, Afghan author Hamid Zaher published a memoir, It Is Your Enemy Who is Dock-Tailed, about his experience as a gay man growing up in and later fleeing Afghanistan.

This practice involves teenage boys being dressed in women's clothing and made to participate in dance competitions and engage in sexual acts.

[35] US-backed Northern Alliance warlords have been notorious for kidnapping trafficking and raping young boys ever since the fall of the Taliban regime, using the pretext of bacha bazi, even though they bear little resemblance to the historical practice.

[36] While President Hamid Karzai signed an agreement to ban bacha bazi, it was rarely enforced[37][38] and police officers were reportedly complicit in related crimes.

[40] Low literacy rates, weak infrastructure and traditional social mores make it difficult to introduce comprehensive public health education initiatives.

"[44] These two provisions could be used to censor the distribution of materials advocating LGBT rights or the general topic of sexual orientation and gender identity issues.