South Korea: Support across sectors

The biggest IDAHOT festivity in South Korean history was held by 103 LGBTI, women’s, people with disabilities’, labor, human rights, and civil society organizations and 159 supporters. With the title “STOP HATRED and OPEN the SQUARE”, over 1000 people from all over the country celebrated IDAHOT at the Seoul Station Square. 

The organizers issued “Demands of the Joint Action for the 2015 International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia (IDAHOBiT)” and “Resolution of the Joint Action for the 2015 International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia (IDAHOBiT)”. Read More

Albania: Activists ask the Prime Minister to keep his promises

Hundreds of activists participated in the 4th Pride event riding bicycles in the capital city Tirana. They protested the domestic violence which LGBTI people face every day and they demanded that Prime Minister Edi Rama keep his promises to the community.

“We were only 12 people who challenged the discrimination and fear in 2012 and now we are hundreds”, said Kristi Pinderi, activist. He added: “We know we are thousand and we protest today also on behalf of those who cannot be here.  Missing is our Prime Minister Edi Rama and the leader of the opposition Lulzim Basha who know very well they give promises but they always fail to keep them”. Read More 

Turkey: On IDAHOT, LGBTI individuals face countless problems

In Turkey, as in many other regions of the world, prejudice and discrimination not only cause LGBTIs to be excluded from health programs and limit their access to health services but also deprive them of the most basic human rights. Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity show themselves in the forms of violence and hate murders. While numerous LGBTIs are massacred in hate murders, many others are forced into making their voices heard through suicide. In the meantime, the government, which refuses to recognize the very reality of LGBTIs, fails to take any legal precautions to protect LGBTIs whom it deprives of basic human rights.

Social Policies, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Studies Association (SPoD) has began its journey with the goal of drawing attention to the discrimination against LGBTIs and of producing stronger solutions to their problems. SPoD has compiled 24 problems commonly experienced by LGBTIs. Read More

Lebanon: Gays come out to demand equality

As Lebanon's gay community kicks off a new public campaign to counter discrimination and the social taboos against homosexuality, its message is simple: "Being different isn't shameful. What's shameful is fighting diversity."

The group, Proud Lebanon, has roped in celebrities such as actors Christian Chueiri, Zeina Dakash and Fouad Yameen for its campaign. While Lebanon is sometimes dubbed the "gay paradise" of the Arab world, the community still remains vulnerable to exploitation.

Article 534 of the Lebanese penal code says sex "contrary to nature" is a criminal offence that can lead to jail time for the gay community. The campaign is trying to build on a 2013 decision by the country's psychiatric board to remove homosexuality from a list of mental illnesses. Read More 

Council of Europe: Human rights and intersex people.

European society remains largely unaware of the reality of intersex people. However, through the pioneering work of a growing number of intersex groups and individual activists, the human rights community and international organisations are becoming increasingly conscious of this situation and are working to draw on human rights standards to address such concerns. 

This issue paper aims to stimulate the development of a framework of action by suggesting a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, it calls on member states to end medically unnecessary “normalising” treatment of intersex persons when it is enforced or administered without the free and fully informed consent of the person concerned. On the other, it provides possible ways forward in terms of protection against discrimination of intersex people, adequate recognition of their sex on official documents and access to justice. 

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First Lady of Belize, Kim Simplis Barrow statement on Diversity

In her statement, Special Envoy for Children and Women, Kim Simplis Barrow warned against bullying and the loss of basic human rights from the LGBT community. Watch here

On the state of LGBTI Commonwealth citizens

Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma statement:  LGBTI Commonwealth citizens remain victims of stigma and discrimination in many of our communities. Appalling persecution and violence are suffered merely because of innate sexual orientation and gender identity. Such abuse is unacceptable: it robs millions of our fellow citizens of the right to live lives of dignity, undermining their mental and physical health, and sense of well-being. Read More

Jamaica Op-ed: Confront Anti-Gay Bigots

When Barack Obama referenced Angeline Jackson  in his remarks to young leaders during his visit to Jamaica, it was more than a statement about the bravery of an individual and the right of people, whatever their sexual orientation, to enjoy their fundamental human rights in a free and democratic society.

It was a declaration, too, of the nature of leadership: that, at its best, it is conditioned by neither opportunism nor narrow expedience.

We hope that Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller heard and was inspired to lead her administration in a frontal legislative defence of this country's gay and lesbian community to love who they wish, without fear of discrimination, official, or otherwise. In other words, it is not enough for the prime minister to designate a member of the Cabinet - as the Americans may have been advised she has done - to trove for complaints about government agencies that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and then use moral suasion in an effort to reverse such bigotry. Nor should such an initiative be secret, as it appears to be.  Read More 

Op-ed: How do you change the deeply held beliefs of a nation? Here’s one strategy.

The transformation over the last 20 years in how Americans view gay people is the result of one of the most successful social justice movements of modern time.
How did we build this broad social consensus that it is wrong to discriminate against gay people and unfair to exclude same-sex couples from the freedom to marry? The chief engine of this extraordinary change has been the wider discussion, greater visibility and increased awareness of shared values, understanding and empathy generated by the freedom to marry movement.

After some losses and blows to our efforts, we decided to overhaul the messaging in 2010. Working with partner organizations and movement supporters, we combined polling data research with the lessons learned through experience to figure out what messages and messengers could help build the majority we were seeking.

Research showed us that we had to shift our emphasis from abstract talk of rights and benefits to more personal connections tied to values. We had to touch the heart as well as the mind. Rather than focusing on, for example, how exclusion from marriage can mean denial of health coverage, Social Security or other critical legal protection, we talked more about the love and commitment that are at the heart of the desire to marry for gay and non-gay couples alike. We needed to highlight our connectedness. Read More 

South Koreans becoming more open-minded about LGBT rights

A recent South Korean poll showed young South Korean respondents are increasingly open-minded about the rights of sexual minorities and their favorable attitudes toward the LGBT community have doubled from 2010 to 2014. The trend, according to South Korea's Asan Institute, showed South Korea is moving toward consolidating its democratic and liberal values.

LGBT rights became a headline issue in South Korea when Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon told the San Francisco Examiner in 2014 that he hoped South Korea becomes the first Asian nation to legalize same-sex marriage. Read More

Russia: Anti-gay gang from Barnaul faces criminal charges over sexual assault and torture of teenager

Four young people from 16 to 20 years old, residents of Barnaul, a city in the West Siberian Plain and the administrative center of Altai Krai, calling themselves “fighters against same-sex love,” are to stand in trial on charges of crimes committed against a 16 year old teenager under several articles of the Criminal Code: beating, sexual assault, extortion, robbery.

At the end of January 2015, an unnamed 16-year-old boy met became friends with a 20-year-old young man via social media. The two agreed to meet in person. When the teenager arrived, gang members attacked him, beat, and sexually assaulted the boy. Read More

Making the pen give LGBT might

In a move to help make journalism as practiced in the Philippines more sensitive to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, Outrage Magazine has launched the Pink Ink.

Pink Ink is in line with the #HateWatchPH, which aims to: 1) document LGBT-related hate crimes happening in the Philippines, and 2) empower LGBT people to report, and/or do something when such crimes happen; and 3) form partnerships with like-minded organizations to eradicate – not just curb – LGBT-related hate crimes. It has numerous components as it attempts to help develop would-be journalists while they are still in campuses, and provide support to already professional media practitioners.  Read More