India: Op-ed, They dare to hate this minority

How is it that a religious objection to freeing India’s LGBT community can pass muster in a democracy? There is a self-contradiction involved in religious bodies objecting to the admission of a curative petition against Section 377. Religious organisations function freely because the Constitution protects the citizen’s right to both freedom of expression and free speech.

Among these is the right to not only adopt the faith of one’s choice but also to propagate it. By denying sexual choice to the LGBT community the ACA and MPLB undermine the source of their own freedoms, the Constitution. Of course, it is not for the first time that we have witnessed the expression of intolerance by purohits, mullahs and padres. Usually they suppress women. This time they have united in their fear of sexual freedom and hatred of the other that dares to pursue it. The more important question is, how it is that we have come to tolerate such intolerance?

The origins of this inconsistency lie in the colonialist’s construction of India. 

Read more via The Hindu
 

Alarming: 77 trans people murdered in 70 days

Transgender Europe’s (TGEU) Trans Murder Monitoring project (TMM) reveals 77 reported murders of trans and gender diverse people in 17 countries globally in the first 70 days of 2016. There have been 31 reported murders of trans and gender diverse people in January, 35 in February, and already 11 in the first ten days of March.

Brazil, with a shocking amount of 36 reported murders, spearheads the list: one trans person killed every second day. Brazil is followed by Mexico (10 murders so far), the United States (6), El Salvador (5), Argentina (4), Colombia (3), Venezuela (3), as well as countries with one trans and gender diverse person reported murder: Bangladesh, Costa Rica, France, Georgia, Honduras, India, Nepal, Russia and Turkey. The American continent, therefore, accounts for 90% of the reported homicides of trans and gender diverse persons this year so far. Read more via TvT

Botswana: Groundbreaking judgment by Court of Appeal

A full bench of the Court of Appeal of Botswana has delivered a significant judgment in the case of Attorney General v Thuto Rammoge and 19 Others upholding the decision of the High Court and ordering the Botswana government to register the organisation Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana (LEGABIBO) as a society in terms of the Societies Act. 

In 2012, LEGABIBO applied but were refused registration as a society by the Minister of Labour and Home Affairs. The government’s position was that LGB persons’ rights were not recognised by the Constitution and the objectives of LEGABIBO were incompatible with peace, welfare and good order in Botswana.

Thuto Rammoge and other activists, with support from the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC), the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA) and BONELA, took the government to the High Court seeking a review of the decision to refuse registration. They argued that the decision was irrational and in violation of their constitutional rights to equal protection of the law, freedom of association and freedom of expression. The activists obtained a successful judgment in the High Court in November 2014, but the State appealed the decision.

The Court of Appeal reaffirmed that the refusal to register LEGABIBO was both irrational and in violation of the right to freedom of association. In an important judgment for the LGBTI community, the Court emphasised that there is no legislation in Botswana which prohibits anyone from being homosexual. The Court went further to hold that the objectives of LEGABIBO, which include promoting the human rights of LGBTI persons and advocating for law reform, were not unlawful. Importantly, the Court of Appeal emphasised that fundamental rights are to be enjoyed by every person and to deny this, is denying an individual’s human dignity.  

Read more via Southern Africa Litigation Centre
 

India: Shashi Tharoor’s bill on homosexuality defeated in LS for 2nd time

For the second time in three months, Lok Sabha voted on Friday against the introduction of a private member’s bill brought by Congress MP Shashi Thraoor to decriminalise homosexuality. 

Tharoor’s bill sought to amend the “colonial era” Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that criminalises homosexuality. In effect, the bill aims to decriminalise sexual intercourse in private between consenting adults, irrespective of their sexuality or gender by restricting the applicability of the section.

As Tharoor sought to introduce the private member’s bill, BJP members negated the motion and sought division of House, which was granted by speaker Sumitra Mahajan. 58 out of 73 members present voted against introduction of the bill, while 14 were in its favour. One member abstained from voting. Read more via Hindustan Times 

Ban on sexy music video raises gay rights campaign profile in Kenya

Kenya's first gay music video - swiftly banned by the country's film board is a remix of song "Same Love" originally recorded by an American hip hop duo during campaign to legalise same-sex marriage.

Artist Art Attack set out to provoke similar debate in the conservative East African nation, where homosexual acts are punishable by up to 14 years in jail: "We expected that this will create controversy...but we didn't expect the amount of publicity it has received," Art Attack said. Read more via Thomson Reuters Foundation

Venezuela: Safe sex is a luxury where a pack of condoms costs nearly $200

 Venezuela's economic crisis has caused unprecedented shortages of of basic goods—making contraception nearly impossible to find, and even harder to afford. As a result, teen pregnancy, illegal abortion, and HIV are all on the rise.

"The situation is critical," said Belmar Franceschi, head of PLAFAM, a Venezuela-based sexual and reproductive health advocacy group. "For over a year now, there have been shortages across the board. It is almost impossible to find condoms and other contraceptive methods, and when you do they are astronomically expensive."

In Venezuela's pharmacies, a pack of three condoms can cost as much as the equivalent of $169 USD, says Jhonatan Rodriguez, head of NGO StopVIH—which is roughly five days' salary for the average worker in the country. "We either eat or we buy other products. The minimum wage doesn't stretch far enough. It doesn't even cover basic groceries," he said.

On the country's flourishing black market, the price of condoms doubles or even triples. When products become available, many struggling Venezuelans buy them and sell them on at inflated prices that most can't afford. The practice has become so common that a new word has entered Venezuelan lexicon: "bachaquero," named after a leaf-carrying ant. "Bachaqueros buy contraception and then sell it to people at whatever price they want," said Freddy Ceballos, president of the Venezuelan Pharmaceutical Federation. "People are desperate. They are taking anything they can get hold of." Read more via Broadly 

Canada: Third country to approve PrEP

Canada followed in the footsteps of the US and France by becoming the latest country to approve HIV-prevention medication pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). The approval of PrEP is expected to lead to lower prices for the drug in Canada, as well as a potential increase in prescriptions.

The US has had PrEP since 2012 while France only had it approved last November. The World Health Organisation has also endorsed it. In Australia, doctors can prescribe the medication to patients but it is only available to those who can afford to import it from online pharmacies.

Following Canada’s approval of the drug, the Greens last week on the Federal Government to fast-track its approval in Australia.

“There is now a strong evidence base and consensus amongst Australian non-government organisations working in this area that PrEP, along with rapid HIV tests and home self-tests are vital to add to the prevention tools currently available, so the government should be doing all it can to speed up availability,” South Australian Greens Senator Robert Simms said.  Read more via Star Observer

Transgender people are at high risk for HIV, but too little is known about prevention and treatment

Transgender women have among the highest rates of HIV infection but little is known about HIV prevalence among trans men, Tonia Poteat of Johns Hopkins said in a plenary lecture on transgender health and HIV at the recent Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2016) in Boston – the first ever on this population at CROI. A growing number of studies and prevention and treatment programmes are addressing transgender populations, but more research is needed.

Dr Poteat noted that while mainstream knowledge about transgender men and women is relatively new in the US and Europe, people outside the male-female gender binary have long existed in many cultures, such as the hijra in India. Yet traditional ‘one-step’ data collection approaches can make it difficult to accurately identify trans people in HIV research.

One worldwide meta-analysis of 39 studies from 15 countries found that transgender women had an HIV prevalence rate of 19% – 49 times higher than that of the general population. In high-income countries the prevalence was 22%, with the highest rate among trans women of colour. 

A number of biological and social and structural factors may make transgender people more susceptible to HIV infection or less likely to use prevention methods or access treatment if they become infected.  Read more via AIDSmap

Putting human rights at the centre of the AIDS response

The Human Rights Council held a special session to discuss progress in and challenges of addressing human rights issues in the context of the AIDS response. In his keynote speech, UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director, Luiz Loures, stressed that the AIDS response continues to be an instrument for challenging social injustice. He urged countries and all stakeholders in the AIDS response to place human rights and the voice of those most affected by HIV at the centre of the AIDS response.

Participants said that evidence clearly shows that a lack of respect for health-related human rights leads to poorer health outcomes and the transmission of HIV. Discrimination, stigma, violence and other human rights violations continue to undermine efforts to end the AIDS epidemic. The panel called for rights-based responses to AIDS, universal health coverage to ensure equitable access, availability of medicines for all, an end to discrimination in health-care settings and increased investment in human rights programmes.  

There were also calls to eliminate punitive and discriminatory laws that lead to violations of human rights and poorer health outcomes by driving key populations away from HIV services. The panellists stressed that without addressing deeply entrenched inequalities, including gender inequality, and ensuring full enjoyment of sexual and reproductive health and rights, the world will not end the AIDS epidemic.  Read more via UNAIDS 

US: Teens these days are queer af, new study says

A new survey of young Americans aged 13 to 20 years old (also known, in marketing-speak, as "Generation Z") has found that they are far more open-minded and permissive than their older millennial counterparts when it comes to issues of gender and sexuality. According to a report by trend forecasting agency J. Walter Thompson Innovation Group, only 48% of Gen Zs identify as exclusively heterosexual, compared to 65% of millennials aged 21 to 34.

"We did a survey of Gen Z for a report released in May 2015 and found that 81% said that gender doesn't define a person as much as it used to," said Shepherd Laughlin, the director of trendspotting at J. Walter Thompson.

"That was an intriguing statistic that got a lot of attention in the media, but we weren't sure quite what it meant: Were they just saying, for example, that men or women could pursue any career they wanted to? Or did this reflect the more radical idea that gender itself isn't as important to personal identity as it used to be, or that gender shouldn't be seen as a binary? This new research shows that the latter idea is gaining significant traction among Gen Zers."

"Millennials are quite open when it comes to gender identity, generally, but they haven't been exposed to the range of vocabulary and nuance around this that Gen Z has become accustomed to, especially when it comes to discussions on online platforms like Tumblr," Laughlin said. "I think that as Gen Zers eventually enter the workplace and interact more with millennials as adults, millennials will gain a better understanding of these issues, and the gap will narrow."   Read more via Broadly

Op-ed, When governments curtail our freedoms, LGBT people are first in the firing line

There have been three instances of late of government censorship across the world: the Kenyan government wrestling with Google as it tries to ban a music video, Indonesia grappling with social media companies to try and remove certain emoticons, and most recently, the Chinese state editing out certain storylines from television programs. These developments all have something vital in common: they are all attempts to erase LGBT people from the public eye.

The justifications given by these states are similar enough. The Kenyan Classification and Film Board refused to license the video for Same-Love Remix by Art Attack because it “does not adhere to the morals of the country”. Indonesia banned emojis showing couples of the same gender holding hands claiming that “social media must respect the culture and local wisdom of the country”. And the Chinese government has banned television storylines featuring same-sex couples as part of its crackdown on “vulgar, immoral and unhealthy content”. The message is the same: LGBT people offend the majority, and so their existence should not be recognised.

These actions are troubling in and of themselves. However, it is also concerning on a deeper level, as it highlights the well-established link between LGBT persecution and authoritarianism.  Read more via New Statesman

Indonesia: The next big LGBT “Propaganda” ban being written

Indonesian lawmakers are in discussions to draft legislation to restrict LGBT rights, according to several members of the country’s legislature. LGBT content on the internet is the chief concern of these lawmakers, and on Saturday, the Jakarta Post reported that the government’s communications ministry would begin work on its own proposal to reign in online content in response.

Deding Ishak, a member of the National Assembly from the Golkar Party (the legislature’s second-largest bloc) and deputy chairman of the assembly’s committee on religious and cultural affairs, said in an interview in Jakarta that he’d like to see legislation that “aims to prevent and protect society from the massive propaganda launched by the LGBT community." "Their campaign has reached out on social media,” he said. “We need a solution to deal with this situation — it is like a warning to us all.”  Read more via Buzzfeed