Global health group takes on gay conversion therapy

The world's largest organisation for psychiatrists - the World Psychiatric Association - has announced their opposition to the so-called practice of "gay conversion" or "reparative" therapy, declaring it unethical, unscientific and harmful to those who undergo it.

"There is no sound scientific evidence that innate sexual orientation can be changed," the group said in a statement released this month. "Furthermore, so-called treatments of homosexuality can create a setting in which prejudice and discrimination flourish, and they can be potentially harmful. The provision of any intervention purporting to 'treat' something that is not a disorder is wholly unethical."

As the WPA membership contains countries that criminalise homosexuality or may condone "reparative therapy", they hope this will force governments to re-evaluate the rights of their people. Read more via BBC

Mexico: Football body urges fans to stop anti-gay chants

The Mexican Soccer Federation launched a campaign on Tuesday urging fans to refrain from anti-gay chants that drew fines from FIFA earlier this year. It may be a tough fight, judging by the plea’s failure to deter fans at a Mexican national team game Tuesday night.

Called “Embraced by Soccer,” the campaign consists of a couple of 30-second videos in which popular stars including forward Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez, captain and defender Rafael Marquez and midfielder Andres Guardado ask fans not to engage in discriminatory behaviour. Announced hours before Mexico hosted Canada in a 2018 World Cup qualifier for the CONCACAF region, the campaign didn’t stop fans at the capital’s Azteca Stadium from making the chants during the nighttime match won 2-0 by the home team. The message was played for the crowd before the game and at halftime.

In a statement, the soccer federation said the videos aim to discourage “a practice that is contrary to respect and the dignity of people.” 

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Malaysia: Transgender activist wins US government award for courage

Malaysian transgender activist Nisha Ayub, once jailed for cross-dressing and sexually assaulted in prison, is the first trans woman to win the US Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award.

Nisha ― who co-founded two transgender rights NGOs, the SEED Foundation and Justice for Sisters ― was one of 14 women around the world who received the 2016 award yesterday. Read more via Malay Mail Online

Germany: Landlord must pay fine after refusing to rent to gay couple

A man has been slapped with a steep fine by a Cologne court after he refused to rent a villa to a same-sex couple. The landlord must pay €1,700 in compensation to the couple, a regional court said.

The man regularly rented out his personal villa to newly-weds to earn a bit more cash, but when he learned that the couple in question were gay, he refused to sign a contract with them.

The court charged the man with discrimination, stating that his refusal to rent to them was illegal and violated German law concerning equal treatment, calling it "discrimination based on sexual orientation". Read more via the Local

Mozambique: Enduring discrimination leaves gay men untreated for HIV

Despite a veneer of progressive policymaking, bias against the rising number of men with HIV remains commonplace in Mozambique, deterring many from seeking treatment
In June, Mozambique dropped a colonial-era law criminalising homosexual activities. The change passed relatively quietly in the southern African country. After all, no one had ever been convicted.

A few weeks later, Tony Andrea felt like he was coming down with malaria. The 22-year-old went to a government health clinic. Andrea is gay and, despite the recently overturned prohibition, had always felt safe being open about his sexuality. He certainly never suspected it might interfere with his ability to access malaria treatment.

When he arrived at the clinic, “the nurse told me, ‘People like you, you lie a lot … You don’t have malaria,’” he says. Andrea said he was not sure why she suspected he was gay, but he put it down to his dress or speech. Aside from being demoralising, discrimination against men who have sex with men is jeopardising government efforts to reduce the high incidence of HIV and AIDS. At 11.5%, Mozambique has one of the 10 highest HIV rates in the world. But in Maputo, the capital, among men who have sex with men and are aged 25 years and older, that rate nearly triples to 33.8%. Read more via the Guardian

Africa, Op-ed The challenge of secularism and human rights in Africa

African countries have been facing various challenges since independence and one of these major dilemmas is defining the relationship between religion and politics. At independence, African countries inherited multiple faiths, political religions that seek to control state formation and structure.

This challenge is evident in the controversies that have trailed the introduction and implementation of sharia law in places like Nigeria and Somalia, the violent reactions to religious differences in Sudan and Central African Republic, the ongoing campaign against islamic extremism in Nigeria, Kenya, Mali, Cameroon and in the North of Africa, the heated debates and fierce opposition to the enactment of legislations and policies that protect the human rights of persons particularly those human rights mechanisms that are deemed by some segments of the religious establishment as violations of the dictates and dogmas of their faiths.

Drawing from my experiences growing up in Nigeria and years of keenly following the use of religion for political ends or the use of politics religious ends in countries across the region, this piece highlights how mixing of religion and politics undermines secularism and the realization of Freedom of Religion and Belief (FORB) and human rights broadly. I propose models, not a model of secularism because the situation of religion and politics in Africa is not homogenous and often differs from country to country, sometimes within countries to warrant recommending just a model of secularism that may apply to over 52 countries in the region.  Read more via IEET

Using saliva as lube for anal sex significantly increases risk of gonorrhea

Saliva use as a lubricant for anal sex is a common sexual practice in MSM, and it may play an important role in gonorrhoea transmission. Almost half of rectal gonorrhoea cases may be eliminated if MSM stopped using partner's saliva for anal sex. 

The cross-sectional survey was conducted among MSM attending Melbourne Sexual Health Centre between 31 July 2014 and 30 June 2015. Read more via NCBI 

West Africa: Mapping of LGBTQ organizations

Commissioned by a group of donors and activists, We exist: Mapping of LGBTQ organizations in West Africa is in an explanatory and participatory process to initiate the creation of a new funding mechanism led by LGBTQ activists West Africa. A group of funders and activists came together in 2013 to propose the creation of a bilingual fund managed and led by West African LGBTQ activists. The creation of such a fund would not only provide emerging leaders with the tools and spaces they need to build a more effective, inclusive movement for LGBTQ rights in West Africa, but also serve as a much-needed activist-owned platform for social change.

It would provide international donors with a safe and trusted mechanism to invest strategically in the region and to ensure their resources were reaching the grassroots with accountability. It would introduce a mechanism through which local strategies could be shared and regional strategies developed collectively, both proactively and in response to crises. Finally, it would provide a point of coordination in a region of Africa where both organizing and donor engagement on LGBTQ rights remains uncoordinated, uneven, and linguistically divided.

The work of setting up such a fund requires a deeper understanding of LGBTQ activism in this vast and diverse region, as well as of the past and current funding landscape and the additional support available for the emerging movement, especially in Francophone countries, where organizing is still largely underground. Therefore, an exploratory and participatory process was undertaken to enable activists, funders, and allies to map the state of LGBTQ organizing in West Africa and gather data to help determine the appropriate initial structure and priorities of the fund.   Read more via Qayn

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Africa: Four in five Africans don't want gay neighbours

Africans are generally tolerant of people of different ethnic groups and religions - but not of gays and lesbians, according to a new report from Afrobarometer. The continent-wide collaborative group released the report based on more than 50,000 interviews with members of the public in 33 countries across the continent.

"While Africa is often portrayed as a continent of ethnic and religious division and intolerance," the report says, "(our) findings show high degrees of acceptance of people from different ethnic groups, people of different religions, immigrants, and people living with HIV/AIDS...

But the report goes on to add: "A major exception to Africa's high tolerance is its strongly negative attitude toward homosexuals... Only 21 percent of all citizens across the 33 countries say they would like or would not mind having homosexual neighbours."

The lack of tolerance is not universal - the report says most people in Cape Verde, South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique would tolerate gay neighbours. More than four in 10 in Mauritius, São Tomé and Principe and Botswana think likewise. Nevertheless, there is "near unanimity" in rejecting homosexuality in Senegal, Guinea, Uganda, Burkina Faso and Niger. And in Algeria, Egypt and Sudan the issue was not even surveyed because Afrobarometer deemed the question "too sensitive". Read more via All Africa

Cameroon: It’s time to repeal our anti-gay law

The repeal of Cameroon’s anti-LGBT law is long overdue, says a member of the Human Rights Commission of the Cameroon Bar Association. In fact, says barrister Walter Atoh, “It is absolutely sickening and ridiculous that in the 21st century a homosexual act gets a person in Cameroon six months to five years imprisonment.”

Atoh Walter M. Tchemi made his appeal for reform last month during a workshop on human rights in Douala, Cameroon, that was organized by Cameroon’s Association for the Defense of the Rights of Homosexuals. In connection with that workshop, Atoh wrote an open letter to Cameroon President Paul Biya in which he argued that the country’s anti-gay law, Article 347 bis of the Cameroon Penal Code, violates the nation’s international treaty obligations.

Atoh noted that in 2013, when Cameroon’s human rights record was last reviewed by other nations at the U.N. Human Rights Council, 15 nations urged  Cameroon to improve its treatment of LGBTI people. Atoh suggested that it’s currently a good time for Biya to act to repeal Article 347 bis, at a moment when many people are urging him to run for re-election in 2018. Read more via 76 Crimes

US: North Carolina enacts law to allow LGBT discrimination

Republican leaders of the North Carolina General Assembly rushed through a bill to repeal all local LGBT non-discrimination ordinances in the state and ban transgender people from certain restrooms. Republicans had unveiled the legislation Wednesday morning, arguing the measure was needed to protect women from transgender people and sex predators. They were reacting to an ordinance in Charlotte — which was scheduled to take effect April 1 — that would protect LGBT people from discrimination in housing and public accommodations.

Despite the focus on Charlotte, the state’s preemption law does more than stymie that city’s ordinance. House Bill 2 mandates that state law supersedes all local ordinances concerning wages, employment, and public accommodations. It also restricts single-sex public restrooms and locker rooms in publicly run facilities to people of the same sex on their birth certificate.

In addition, it bans transgender students from school restrooms that correspond with their gender identity — teeing up a potential legal clash with the federal government, which has found civil rights laws ban transgender discrimination in schools. Read more via Buzzfeed