South Korea: Activist couple test gay rights barriers in conservative South Korea

Growing up as a gay man in South Korea in the 70s and 80s, film director Kim Jho Gwang-soo was warned that his homosexual “disease” would condemn him to a life of loveless, insatiable promiscuity. “From an early age, my dream was to become a director, but instead of making movies I was apparently going to waste all my time and energy looking for sexual partners,” Kim said.

Times have changed. The gay rights movement in South Korea is currently riding something of a mini-wave in terms of support. Last month’s gay pride parade had thousands marching through central Seoul despite vocal protests by conservative Christian groups. And earlier this month, Kim and his longtime partner, Kim Seung-hwan, went to court to demand legal status as a married couple.

The two Kims are the most high-profile gay couple in South Korea and the lawsuit they filed over their marriage license is the first of its kind. Their lawyer, Ryu Min-hee, said she is pushing for the recognition of precedent in existing rulings where courts have struck down discriminatory family law provisions using the constitution’s equal protection clause. 

“This case isn’t just about marriage rights,” Ryu said. “LGBT people in South Korea are discriminated against in law and life and we want to share this story with the Korean public,” she added. “That’s our goal.”  Read More 

Japan: Is same-sex marriage right for Japan?

Article 24 of the Japanese Constitution states, “Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes.” Whether this is a regulation denying same-sex marriage is an issue on which the opinions of scholars are divided. In Japan this spring, a law took effect in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward that recognizes same-sex couples.

How will the world move on same-sex marriage, and how should we consider its domestic institutionalization? We posed these questions to two individuals. Deciding whether to recognize same-sex marriage is a sensitive topic that divides countries right down the middle.

Recently, major corporations have started popping up in Japan that recognize marriage leave for same-sex couples. Such cases show that the eyes of Japanese society have now begun to turn toward the pleas of sexual minorities. From that perspective, the fact that laws granting certificates to same-sex couples have been enacted by local governments, which are so interwoven with the citizenry, is symbolic. We must continue, carefully, to debate whether to change legal systems such as the Civil Code. Read More 

Kenya: LGBT advocates meet with Obama

A White House official said LGBT advocates were among the more than 70 members of Kenyan civil society who attended a “town hall” with Obama in Nairobi. Eric Gitari, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, a Kenyan LGBT advocacy group, was among those who attended the gathering.

“We discussed the importance of creating strong movements and organizing collectively as civil society against oppression,” Gitari said, noting Kenyan television stations broadcast the meeting live. “The meeting was inclusive of other movements and mainstreamed our struggle with others. Our inclusion in it was monumentally symbolic.” Read More

Russia: From Burning Hearts To Civil Unions: The Unlikely Evolution Of Dmitry Kiselyov

Somewhere around the 98th minute of his weekly news roundup and commentary for Russia's Rossiya television channel this week, Dmitry Kiselyov got around to saying something truly unexpected.

In his coverage of the US Supreme Court, the head of Rossia Segodnya, Russia's massive state-controlled media conglomerate, came out in favor of same-sex civil unions: "We can figure out how to make life easier for adult people who want to take upon themselves -- including in a contractual way -- the obligations to care for one another. After all, love can work miracles," he added. "Who is against that?"

To be sure, it was a tepid statement from someone who is more famous for colorful pronouncements such as his March 2014 reminder that Russia is capable of turning the United States into "radioactive dust." In April 2012, Kiselyov raised eyebrows with this declaration on homosexuals: "[Gays] should be prohibited from donating blood or sperm. And their hearts, in case they die in a car accident, should be buried or burned as unfit for extending anyone's life." Read More

South Africa: Behind the reluctance to champion gay rights in Africa

South Africa is, in some ways, the exception to the generally grim situation facing the estimated 50 million-strong LGBTI community in Africa. Its progressive constitution explicitly prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. The country’s vibrant civil society includes a broad range of gay advocacy groups.

But South Africa’s stance on gay rights in Africa is opaque. Scientists from South Africa and Uganda produced research demonstrating that the rationale for repressive laws on the continent are baseless and pernicious. The study found that homosexuality is a normal sexual orientation and that criminalising it can have negative repercussions across society. In 2011, South Africa bravely led on gay rights issues by introducing a resolution to the UN Human Rights Council that called for equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation.

Yet less than three years later it was reticent about a follow on resolution calling for countries to report on LGBTI violations. Graeme Reid of Human Rights Watch described South Africa’s foreign policy on gay rights as “at best inconsistent and at worst obstructionist”. South Africa’s uncertainty on if, and how, it should promote gay rights in Africa stems from two primary sources. Read More

US: What’s marriage equality got to do with intersex?

Professor and author Georgiann Davis describes the challenge many intersex people go through in discovering and identifying with a gender and how marriage plays a part. excerpt: 

Intersex people have, consciously or not, been queering marriage long before activists were fighting for marriage equality. Some intersex people, encouraged by medical providers who wanted to make sure our gender identity aligned with the sex they surgically constructed, looked to heterosexual partnering to validate their gender identity.

As it was in my case, marriage was a path by which intersex people learned to accept themselves as “real” women, or in some cases “real” men, while also pleasing their parents, medical providers, and others in their lives by assuring them they made the correct medically unnecessary and irreversible surgical decisions.

When the Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage was a constitutional right, my social media exploded with excitement. Many of my intersex friends from around the world also shared these celebrations. But marriage has historically functioned as a heteronormative institution, and one of the primary ways intersex people have validated their gender assignment and normalized their selves. So I wasn’t surprised that the marriage equality ruling also seemed to cause some uneasiness among a few, albeit a minority, of intersex people and parents of intersex children.  Read More

Asians respond to question: ‘Would you tell your parents if you were gay?’

Asian adults have revealed how their parents would respond if they came out as gay, in a video created to educate others about Asian culture and values. Titled ‘Would You Tell Your Parents If You Were Gay’, in English, Chinese, Korean and Japanese, a range of adults of all ages answer three important questions: ‘What do Asians think of same-sex marriage?’, ‘Would you you tell your parents if you were gay?’ and ‘What would you do if your son or daughter was gay/lesbian?’

Despite many negative attitudes, some video participants were more accepting. ‘It’s up to the younger people to do their research and see if they can change the minds of the generations before them,’ one woman explained. Read More

Vietnam: Navigating the streets of Ho Chi Minh City

I’ve always been rather skeptical of those who claim to be on Grindr to ‘network’ or ‘look for a room’. Like – really? But having now used Grindr to find a tour guide in Vietnam, I’ve been forced to review my cynicism.
I was in Ho Chi Minh City – formerly known as Saigon, and now often abbreviated to HCMC – with one of my best friends from London. All the organized tours seemed rather expensive. There’s also that feeling of being on a tourist hamster wheel when being shown around a city by an official guide.

My friend suggested I ask the cute Vietnamese guy I’d been flirting with on Grindr if he would be interested in being our guide for the day. A few of the familiar bleeping purrs of Grindr later and the deal was done. Read More

Hungary: In Europe, Pride is a key political barometer. Budapest’s was safe, at times even joyful.

When Pride marchers had filled Elizabeth Bridge, the people walking in the front released hundreds of multicolored balloons, and the thousands of participants let out a happy cheer. I realized it was the first such cheer I had heard since the march began two hours earlier. “You see, it's a hybrid,” said Katalin Orban, a media studies professor who marched with her partner, Zsofia Ban, a prominent Hungarian fiction writer. “It's not like Moscow or Kiev, but it's not like Vienna, either—it's not a celebration.”

Something odd has happened in Europe: The continent's political dividing line seems to have become defined by the way the Pride march proceeds there—if it proceeds at all. In Moscow, an attempt to stage Pride in May was punished with beatings and jailings. In Kiev, Ukraine, in June, the police failed to adequately protect marchers, some of whom were beaten. Later in June, police used water canons to disperse the Pride march in Istanbul, Turkey.

Hungarian pride organizers have worked to normalize the event by attracting corporations, straight allies, and gay celebrities. Unlike last year, marchers did not walk through a tunnel of police in riot gear. But it also meant that spectators were too far away to see anything. This march was a statement, not a spectacle. The gathering place, in front of the opera house, stank of excrement. Shit had apparently been strewn along the bottoms of the trees that line Andrassy Street. This was a milder form of the tactics of Moscow's self-proclaimed Orthodox activists, who consistently throw human waste at LGBTQ demonstrators. Read More

US: Op-ed: LGBT work, housing protections needed now, says NAACP leader

The fight for full equality has been a long and winding journey. It has taken us from the Stonewall Riots and the AIDS pandemic to this moment in time, this place, an America when LGBT Americans have the right to marry in every state in the union. I am proud to have stood with so many on the right side of history, aligned with those who believe that all Americans deserve the dignity of equal treatment.

But our journey is nowhere near over. Because for millions of Americans, you can finally wed the person whose love sustains you, but that marriage could cost you your job, your home, and your basic rights. Because transgender Americans must still battle everyday discrimination in places that most people access without blinking an eye, and no one should be humiliated at the grocery store or dentist. Because for so many, true and lasting equality is still so far away. 

Every American has the right to build their lives on the bedrock principles of hard work and determination, with the full knowledge that if they can get a fair chance, they can earn a living, provide for their families, and protect the ones they love. But for LGBT people living in 31 states, those rights could be denied because of who they are or whom they love. They are judged, not on their performance, but on their personhood.   Read More

India: op-ed Why are we afraid of gays?

When Manabi Bandopadhyay became India's first transgender principal of a Kolkata college, we praised it as a gender-sensitive revolution. However, same-sex marriage in India remains a criminal offence. The attitude of the mainstream society, including political parties towards the Queer Pride March organised by Queer Pride Keralam in Thiruvananthapuram is a reflection that we are a homophobic society. 

There is high level of prejudice against homosexuality in the state though we claim to be progressive. The role of so-called progressive movements should be blamed for this, says P Surendran, who has exhaustively studied the issue of the third gender and the hijada community in the country . "While we cannot expect Gandhians to support such social realities, the communists too have failed to address the rights of LGBT community because they are afraid of such micro narratives," he says. "When you analyse society in terms of class struggle, you cannot comprehend the essence of gender identity and your thinking will end up being monolithic," he explains. 

It is a reality that homosexuals and transgender are prevalent in rural areas but they are afraid of coming out of the closet. Even Malayali women who openly declare their sexual identity abroad are afraid of doing so in their own native place. If we fail to recognize homosexuality as a social reality, which is genetically determined, the society, including police, will keep on hunting homosexuals.  Read More 

Kenya: African LGBTIQ youth speak out

Young African LGBTIQ activists from Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, and Uganda attending the Fifth Changing Faces Changing Spaces conference in Kenya gathered together to discuss issues affecting LGBTIQ youths in Africa. The participants shared our collective observations that the voices of young LGBTIQ Africans are quite often not heard even within LGBTIQ spaces.

There is the erroneous belief that young people lack the ability and capacity to organize due to lack of professional experience as well as misconception about their ability for self-determination around their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. These among other factors have silenced the voices of young LGBTIQ Africans in the struggle for LGBTIQ rights in the continent.

We, young LGBTIQ Africans are a huge part of the movement and in so many instances lead organizations that are not necessarily youth focused but are at the forerun in the struggle for LGBTIQ rights in our regions and countries. We have proven to be a driving force of the movement in Africa; both as leaders and as beneficiaries and are changing the notion that young people are being “recruited” into homosexuality in Africa. Read More