I don't know if anybody will care about this, but basically the Specialty Coffee Association is hosting world championship coffee tournaments in the UAE in 2018, which isn't a particularly LGBT friendly country. Or friendly to anyone who isn't a male.

An excerpt from the SCA decision:

Under the new policy, national champions who have a qualifying circumstance that limits or prohibits them from participating may request to defer their world championship candidacy to the following year. National Bodies whose candidate’s deferment request is approved by the world championships committee of the WCE Events Advisory Council will be supported by a subsidy to cover additional travel expenses, should they occur.

And the response from Sprudge:

We could shed thousands of words on why, exactly, this policy is bullshit, but go and talk to any gay or queer person and they’ll tell you: formal outing in the name of bureaucratic authorization is wildly insensitive, untenable, and unacceptable. This is a direct affront to queer, trans, and allied coffee professionals across the planet, and it now the formal policy of the SCA. It is inherently exclusionary; it places the burden of resolution on the victim of the SCA’s decision to voluntarily award events to countries with homophobic laws; and it does not protect anyone else involved in the equation, including the SCA and WCE’s own staff, many of whom are gay or trans or queer or consider themselves allies, and for whom, hoo boy, this has got to be a real shit show.