NEW YORK

Rhed* and her partner Salyn* were denied COVID-19 food aid from their city in the Philippines because lesbian couples don’t count as a “family” in the eyes of the local government. Luckily, their housemates and extended family shared their food with them.

They are just two of the countless lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer (LGBTQ+) people around the world currently excluded from pandemic relief efforts because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

“I felt belittled, and I was thinking: what would happen to us if we were living on our own and renting a place and are excluded?” Rhed recalled. “How would we be able to sustain ourselves knowing that we are also affected by the crisis?

“Every time I remember that experience, I get so irritated,” Rhed told The New Humanitarian by phone through a translator. “What they did was so inhumane.”

As governments have enacted stay-at-home policies to contain the coronavirus, many citizens have been left without income and reliant on aid.

In the global conversation of the most vulnerable, analyses have underscored the need for gender-consciousness in understanding the burden of this disease. Much focus has been on gender-based violence: how this pandemic might impact women and girls, as well as worsen situations of domestic violence.

Rights groups, however, have pointed out that the LGBTQ+ community – and its particular vulnerabilities – have been excluded from many of these discussions. Read more via New Humanitarian