It’s been quite the busy few months for the Council for Global Equality, for its 32 member organizations, and indeed for LGBTQI+ human rights advocates around the world. Finally, after Pride Month, after IDAHOBIT (the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia, and Transphobia), and all the other political developments of late, we have a moment to catch you up on what’s been going on.
Pride and IDAHOBIT
In June, the White House issued a historic Executive Order to protect LGBTQI+ youth and families, push back against the wave of discriminatory legislation being proposed at the state level, promote LGBTQI+ medical and mental health care, and combat so-called “conversion therapy.” CGE enthusiastically welcomes the Executive Order and will be working to support the Biden Administration’s commitment to end U.S. support for conversion practices overseas.
CGE staff and representatives from many of our member organizations attended the State Department’s Pride reception featuring remarks from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Special Envoy for LGBTQI+ Human Rights Jessica Stern.
In June, the State Department also updated its diplomatic guidance to empower U.S. embassies to support local marriage equality movements in countries where activists agree that such a victory is possible through legislative or judicial processes. Additionally, the White House issued new guidelines to protect transgender students.
Other IDABOBIT and Pride Month statements include:
- President Biden’s Statement for IDAHOBIT
- President Biden’s Pride Month Proclamation
- The State Department’s Commemoration of Pride Month
- The Pride Month Joint Statement from the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Additionally, Secretary Blinken held a roundtable with LGBTQI+ journalists, while Special Envoy Stern spoke with the Washington Blade. Brian Nichols, the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, penned the op-ed, “Why the Rainbow Flag?” that was published in The Nassau Guardian, the largest newspaper in The Bahamas.
Pride at CGE
In “About Pride, Freedom, and Liberation,” CGE celebrated the 53th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn rebellion, noting how the patrons at Stonewall knew from their everyday experience that LGBTQI+ rights were human rights and that human rights were LGBTQI+ rights. So too did the gay liberation, lesbian feminist, and revolutionary trans activists who organized in the years right after Stonewall, as they drew explicit connections between homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, and classism on the one hand and state violence, discrimination, and prejudice on the other.
We know we’ve come a long way over the half-century and more since Stonewall, and that we also have a long way to go, especially as anti-democratic movements at home and around the globe fight to undermine civil society and to rollback LGBTQI+ and reproductive rights.
Given the onslaught this year against LGBTQI+ youth and families here in the United States, and the rising tide of anti-LGBTQI+ violence and discrimination abroad, the words of Marsha P. Johnson, one of the heroes of Stonewall and of the modern LGBTQI+ movement, still sit heavy: “No pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.” But Urvashi Vaid, another hero of the movement whose loss we deeply grieve, reminds us of our future: “We stand for freedom as we have yet to know it. And we will not be denied.”
Roe, Dobbs, and the Supreme Court
For IDAHOBIT, we saw and named the coordinated anti-gender movement attacks on our bodies, our lives, and our rights, in the U.S. and across the world. LGBTQI+ rights and abortion rights are one, and we called for the democratic reforms necessary to protect voting rights in the United States, halt the rise in authoritarianism, and protect and promote everyone’s sexual and reproductive rights in the United States and beyond. This is what protecting democracy means today, right here.
Unfortunately, as we all know, in late June, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a devastating blow to reproductive rights specifically and to democracy and personal liberty broadly in its Dobbs v. Jackson ruling.
The Council for Global Equality denounces this cruel and disingenuous ruling in the strongest possible terms. The most immediate ramification of this decision will be to deny needed medical services to those in urgent need of them, as roughly half of the states in the U.S. prepare to outlaw abortion.
As CGE Co-Chair Julie Dorf notes, “The devastation of this decision will be felt not only by the American people unable to access abortions, but within our democracy itself. The long-term damage of the Trump Administration’s reckless extremism is being felt every day both by those of us here and by others around the world. We need to keep calling out extremism and the assault on rights here and everywhere.”
CGE Co-Chair Mark Bromley continues, “The United States routinely and appropriately denounces human rights abuses around the world. Unfortunately, we must now depend on rights-affirming governments around the world to join with our pro-choice majority in America to denounce today’s attack on human rights in our country. LGBTQI+ rights and abortion rights cannot be separated. Reproductive freedom is a fundamental human right for all.”
Propelled in equal measure by sorrow and rage, the Council for Global Equality remains determined to fight for reproductive freedom as a cornerstone of LGBTQI+ rights in this country and abroad.
U.S.-Mexico Border Crisis
In May, CGE took five members of Congress — Reps. Mark Takano, Katie Porter, Dr. Raul Ruiz, Juan Vargas, and Sara Jacobs, all from southern California — to Tijuana to two shelters for LGBTQI+ asylum seekers.
Our delegation’s visit was organized around a simple principle: Refugee rights are LGBTQI+ rights. LGBTQI+ individuals are disproportionately forced to flee systemic human rights violations, and LGBTQI+ migrants are more vulnerable during flight, while in refugee camps, and in immigration detention. The Department of Homeland Security has long recognized that LGBTQI+ individuals have “special vulnerabilities” based on sexual orientation and gender identity and has issued guidance to limit the detention of transgender asylum seekers — the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. Yet the Biden Administration continues to detain LGBTQI+ asylum seekers.
At the shelters, we heard heart-breaking tales of persecution and abuse from all sides: families who beat and ultimately rejected their children because they were effeminate or otherwise different; police who refused to protect, turned a blind eye to public violence, and even refused to take official police complaints; and brutal gangs who forced LGBTQI+ children into sex work and drug smuggling.
But because the U.S. border remains closed to asylum-seekers on spurious public health grounds related to COVID-19 — known by everyone at the border as “Title 42” — the migrants we met are waiting for the border to open to access their legal right to protection and a new chance at life. Some have been waiting for a year or even longer. A lucky few have been allowed to cross on an emergency basis, but most are still waiting.
Let’s be unmistakably clear: Title 42 isn’t about public health — it’s an illegal and disingenuous way to deny asylum to vulnerable people. Leading public health officials have rejected the public health justifications for Title 42, and leading international lawyers have called it “illegal” and “inhumane.” And since our trip to Tijuana, a Trump-appointed district judge in Louisiana ruled against the CDC’s attempt to rescind Title 42.
It’s time to lift Title 42 for good.
Our delegation heard one message clearly: LGBTQI+ detention is costly, cruel, and counterproductive. Asylum procedures for vulnerable LGBTQI+ refugees must be safe, timely, and humane — they still fail on all counts.We need a new asylum system that is centered on refugee protection and not just enforcement.
Check out additional coverage of CGE’s Congressional visit to Casa Arcoíris and Jardín de las Mariposas from the San Diego Union Tribune, the Washington Blade, and ORAM. Rep. Ruiz also spoke about Title 42 and the visit on “Good Morning America.”
State Department and Human Rights Reporting
As we do every year, CGE reviewed the latest State Department annual human rights reports, offering our observations on the strengths and weaknesses that we saw in this year’s reporting, along with the trendlines that emerge across the years. We paid close attention to criminalization laws and how those are used to marginalize LGBTQI+ communities; legal gender recognition; marriage equality and recognition of LGBTQI+ parents and families; the use of conversion practices; and the implication of major crises such as those in Afghanistan and Ukraine for LGBTQI+ people. We also pointed out the particular need for increased reporting on issues specifically facing lesbians and intersex persons.
Policing Fashion and Freedom in Nigeria
CGE is closely watching developments in Nigeria, where in April, a legislator introduced a bill in Nigeria’s House of Representatives seeking to ban cross-dressing. The bill seeks to amend the 2013 Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act, or SSMPA, by introducing cross-dressing as one of the offenses punishable under the Act. Even without this proposed legislation, Nigeria is widely considered hostile towards its LGBTQI+ community: the country scored a devastating 0% on the CGE-F&M Global Barometers LGBTQI Report Card released last December, failing to meet any of the 30 indicators measuring how the country protects LGBTQI+ human rights, protects LGBTQI+ citizens from violence, and advances LGBTQI+ socio-economic inclusion.
Nigerians are already suffering under the brutal force of law enforcement officials who organize raids and arbitrary arrests using fashion as a ground for suspicion of guilt, and there is little doubt that this bill, if passed, would place Nigeria’s most vulnerable citizens in even greater danger. The legislative assault on Nigeria’s LGBTQI+ community — both the original SSMPA and the proposed new bill — must be understood in the context of the fragile rule of law and the human rights violations to which vulnerable citizens are regularly subjected.
For an aspiring democracy with a thriving civil society, Nigeria should not undermine the rule of law by passing the proposed cross-dressing ban. Instead, Nigeria should focus on the path forward to building a functional democracy where freedom is upheld, justice is guaranteed, and the security of lives and property are protected. Ultimately, to strengthen its democracy, Abuja must safeguard the rights of its LGBTQI+ citizens and repeal the SSMPA, thus ensuring that the rights of every Nigerian are guaranteed and protected and that all citizens have the opportunity to fully participate in Nigerian democracy.
Transgender Day of Visibility
CGE observed International Transgender Day of Visibility by celebrating the news that the U.S. State Department is now making passports with nonbinary gender markers available to all U.S. citizens.
Self-determined gender is a cornerstone on a person’s identity and that legal gender recognition is fundamental to ensuring that transgender and other gender-diverse people enjoy the full rights of citizenship. As such, states have an obligation to provide access to gender recognition in a manner consistent with the rights to freedom from discrimination, freedom of expression, equal protection of the law, privacy, and identity. As Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the United Nations Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, has noted, “the lack of access to gender recognition negates the identity of a person to such an extent that it provokes a fundamental rupture of State obligations.”
As we call on all states to ensure trans-affirming legal gender recognition, to fight the surge in anti-transgender violence, and to stop promoting anti-transgender laws for cynical political posturing, we want to keep celebrating trans visibility and the victories that day by day, take us closer to a world where all people, of all gender identities and expressions, are celebrated, included, and accorded the full rights of citizenship.
CGE In The News
CGE was busy this Pride month talking about LGBTQI+ human rights around the world. Julie Dorf spoke with the Council on Foreign Relations about how the U.S. has promoted and can further advance LGBTQI+ human rights, while Ian Lekus mapped out the state of our movement for the Wilson Center.
Julie also spoke with the Democracy in Colorpodcast about co-founding what was the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (now OutRight Action International) and more generally about a life in the global LGBTQI+ human rights movement.
Representatives Joaquin Castro (TX-20), David Cicilline (RI-01), and Dina Titus (NV-01) have introduced the Lavender Offense Victim Exoneration (LOVE) Act to correct historic injustices perpetrated against State Department employees because of their real or perceived sexual orientation. The bill would also require the State Department to establish an Advancement Board to address issues faced by LGBTQI+ diplomats and report on its actions to ensure that foreign countries recognize and accredit the spouses of same-sex diplomats. Rep. Castro’s statement included Mark Bromley’s observations:
“During Pride month, we are reminded that our U.S. diplomats are standing proudly for equality for LGBTQI individuals around the world. But this bill also reminds us that our government has an historic debt to pay to our LGBTQI diplomats, especially those whose lives were upended in the lavender scare. And we have an ongoing obligation to our current LGBTQI diplomats who are not being recognized by foreign countries that refuse to extend diplomatic status to our LGBTQI families abroad.”
Urvashi Vaid, 1958-2022
Before we turn to developments around the world, we would be remiss to overlook the loss of one of the giants of the LGBTQI+ human rights movements and one of our dear friends and sources of inspiration, Urvashi Vaid.
Julie Dorf offers her memories of Urvashi, noting how she was the definition of a movement friend:
A few months ago, when she was being honored by the Williams Institute, Urvashi talked about the importance of her movement friends and community — not only as a factor in what kept her going, but one of the key ingredients of a strong queer movement. She was renowned for her “warm anger” — calling people “in” instead of calling people “out” — to help us all think harder and better about how we pursue justice, but not in a naming and shaming (or ever in a canceling) way. She supported leadership instinctively and built community, connecting people with differing opinions rather than adding to divisions.
Urvashi was absolutely a brilliant thought leader for our movement — particularly holding an intersectional lens before the term intersectional was even known in a very white, middle-class dominated LGBTQI+ movement. That principled, deeply political vision — in combination with her warmth as a human and her ability to support young leaders and build community among advocates — is what made her exceptional.
Global LGBTQI+ Developments
We’d like to draw your attention to two pieces that offer valuable context for the state of LGBTQI+ human rights around the world—both the progress we’re making and the forces we’re up against. Mark Gevisser’s essay, “From Florida to Poland, We Must March for the Right to Exist” ties together developments in U.S. statehouses, Ukraine and its neighbors, and Kenya’s sprawling refugee camps. Graeme Reid’s “A Year of Challenges and Some Successes for LGBT People” visits almost every corner of the world in its survey of the last 12 months.
U.S. Foreign Policy
CGE celebrates the confirmation and swearing-in of Dr. John Nkengasong as Ambassador-at-Large and U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator. We were delighted to see Ambassador Nkengasong at the White House and State Department Pride events, and we are pleased to see PEPFAR advocate for LGBTQI+ human rights as it works to end HIV as a public health threat by 2030.
LGBTQI+ communities face heightened risk of violence, discrimination, and health disparities in many countries where PEPFAR works, whether in countries such as Kenya and Nigeria served by PEPFAR country programs or those such as Indonesia and Jamaica where regional programs operate. We are heartened by the Pride Month statement by Ambassador Nkengasong, and we hope to see his office use its diplomatic influence to make sure that LGBTQI+ human rights are championed in practice, not just rhetoric.
We are also happy to see Ambassador Chantelle Wong, the U.S. Director of the Asian Development Bank and the first openly lesbian Ambassador in U.S. history, begin her work. Since she took office, the Treasury Department has endorsed an LGBTQI+-specific safeguard for the Asian Development Bank.
On July 22, Reps. Castro, Cicilline, and Albio Sires (NJ-08) led a House letter calling on the State Department and USAID to strengthen their commitment to supporting LGBTQI+ people in Latin America, including refugees and asylum seekers.
Their letter quoted CGE,
“The Council for Global Equality welcomes Congress’s call to action in response to a growing crisis for LGBTQI+ persons in Central America and beyond. We join Congress in calling for urgent action to surge funding to local LGBTQI-led organizations, target diplomatic engagement, and expand refugee protections. This three-pronged strategy is essential to end impunity, protect the rights and dignity of transgender individuals, and support the LGBTQI+ community as a constituency for democracy and human rights in some of the most dangerous Northern Triangle countries. In the meantime, immediate support also must be provided to aid LGBTQI+ refugees as they escape the circle of violence that so often threatens their lives and livelihoods,” said Mark Bromley, Co-Chair, Council for Global Equality
United Nations
We are absolutely delighted by the recent vote at the U.N. Human Rights Council to renew the mandate of the Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity for another three years. Voting on several amendments that were designed to gut the authority of the mandate were dishearteningly close. But the 23-17 vote (with seven abstentions, including perhaps surprising ones from Poland, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan) means that Victor Madrigal-Borloz will be able to continue his work to combat anti-LGBTQI+ discrimination and violence, to end criminalization of same-sex activities and diverse gender identities, and to protect the civic space of organizations working on LGBTQI+ issues. We look forward to welcoming Madrigal-Borloz in August, as he makes the first official visit of the U.N. SOGI Independent Expert to the United States.
Decriminalization
A major victory in the global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality came early in July when Antigua and Barbuda’s High Court for Justice declared unconstitutional the rules banning consensual, private acts between adults of the same sex. ECADE, the Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality, welcomed the ruling, while Human Rights Watch contextualized the victory within the larger struggle to decriminalize homosexuality throughout the Caribbean.
Marriage Equality
The road to comprehensive marriage equality and legal recognition of other LGBTQI+ families continuous to be a path full of twists and turns, of progress and setbacks. In early July, Slovenia became the 32nd country to implement full marriage equality, as the nation’s Constitutional Court struck down a ban on both same-sex marriage and adoption by same sex parents. In late July, Andorra amended its civil marriage laws to include same-sex couples, with the law likely to take effect in 2023.
Additionally, Switzerland’s new marriage equality law went into effect at the beginning of July.
Human rights advocates are also monitoring the petition in Ukraine to introduce marriage equality, which has gained enough signatures that President Zelensky is required to respond.
Elsewhere in the former Soviet bloc, the Czech Republic continues to debate marriage equality [also see this], while rather problematically, Cuba is proposing putting marriage equality rights up for a popular vote. We are also keeping close tabs on the situation in Uzbekistan, where proposed constitutional reforms include defining marriage in heterosexual terms only.
Last month, perhaps most disappointingly, the Osaka District Court ruled that Japan’s bans on same-sex marriage do not violate the Constitution, despite the obvious denial of equality and human rights inherent in such a decision. Last year a court in Sapporo found a constitutional right to marriage equality, so the split in decisions will likely provide ground for additional litigation.
Of course, it’s impossible to think about the global movement for marriage equality without considering the explicit threat to Obergefell v. Hodges raised by Clarence Thomas in the Dobbs ruling. NPR spoke with Jim Obergefell about his concerns for LGBTQI+ rights, women’s rights, and civil rights more broadly in a post-Roe era.
Ukraine War
Russia’s war in Ukraine continues to overshadow policymaking in Washington, from the threat of economic recession to global energy concerns to strategic partnerships where security concerns may outweigh human rights violations.
Some LGBTQI+, feminist, and other human rights defenders continue to flee the war-torn country, from the head of Ukraine’s support group for parents and friends of LGBTQI+ people to the leader of Pussy Riot. Other LGBTQI+ Ukrainians have joined the armed resistance to the Russian invasion, including the so-called “unicorns.”
In June, The Washington Post offered a substantive window into the situation facing LGBTQI+ Ukrainians, noting the “mixed impact” of the war, which spans from the embrace of inclusion as a core national value distinguishing Ukraine from Putin’s Russia to far-right nationalism. Meanwhile, as the war grinds on, KyivPride and other LGBTQI+ organizations in Ukraine continue to work to safeguard the lives and wellness of everyday community members. KyivPride also organized a joint LGBTQI+ Pride March with their Polish counterparts in Warsaw, as participants protested the war and nationalist homophobia in the region.
Inna Iryskina, head of transgender programs for the NGO Insight, also offers strong cautions against any simplistic narratives of the situation facing trans* Ukrainians, while Alyona Gruzina spoke in July with numerous Ukrainian LGBTQI+ and feminist organizations for updates on their work during the war and how allies can support them.
Inside the Russian Federation, the crackdown on dissent continues to accelerate. In Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the Russian Far East, Yulia Tsvetkova, an LGBTQI+ and feminist activist faces more than three years in prison for posting body-positive images of women to social media. Popular journalist Yury Dud, a critic of the Ukraine war, was fined 120,000 rubles under Russia’s anti-LGBTQI+ “propaganda” law.
On July 20, Russia’s top women’s tennis star, Daria Kasatkina, the #12th-ranked player in the world, came out as lesbian and condemned the Ukraine war.
In the Russian Duma, parliamentarians are debating expanding that original 2013 “propaganda” law, which originally outlawed “promotion of non-traditional sexual relations” to minors, to cover all positive public representations of LGBTQI+ relationships. As some Ukrainians are promoting inclusion to distinguish their country from Russia, so too are Russian politicians continuing to deploy homophobia and transphobia to attack the West.
“Don’t Say Gay”: The Discourse of Child Protection and Political Homophobia & Transphobia
The Russian trajectory from so-called “child protection” legislation to sweeping attacks on civil society and democratic institutions is being copied, from Eastern Europe to Central America to Sub-Saharan Africa.
Perhaps no country illustrates this more clearly than Hungary, where the Fidesz Party of fervently anti-democratic and anti-LGBTQI+ President Viktor Orbán recently held onto its sizeable parliamentary majority. However, the anti-LGBTQI+ referendum on the same ballot failed, with many voters spoiling their ballots. Fewer than 50% of voters cast valid ballots for the proposals framed in the language of “child protection,” largely due to the campaigning of Amnesty International Hungary, Budapest Pride, and their partners.
However, just a couple weeks later, Hungary’s Supreme Court upheld fines against Amnesty International Hungary and the Háttér Society, a local LGBTQI+ group, based on their advocacy for LGBTQI+ rights.
It’s hardly news for observers of the region that Orbán and other autocrats promoting such laws and using such rhetoric are directly drawing from Putin’s playbook. However, readers may be less familiar with how Florida politicians, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, drew directly from the example of Hungary in crafting that state’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Similar bills are now pending in other states, including Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, Romania is now considering following the path laid out by Putin and Orbán, as a similar bill prohibiting discussion of homosexuality and gender transition has passed the Senate and is pending in the Chamber of Deputies.
Brazil is another major hotspot in the campaign against comprehensive, LGBTQI+-affirming sex education. A Human Rights Watch report documents the 200+ bills introduced at the federal, state, and municipal levels since 2014 that target sexuality and gender education in the name of opposing “indoctrination” and “gender ideology.”
LGBTQI+ Rights and Civil Society
Continuing the theme of attacking LGBTQI people as a tactic to undermine democracy and shrink civil society, especially in the former Soviet bloc … right as this newsletter went to press, Amnesty International released a report on the harassment of human rights defenders in Poland standing up for the LGBTQI+ community.
One victory in Poland came in May, when a court threw out a case against activist Bartosz Staszewski, an activist who was protesting the so-called “LGBT-Free Zone” in the village of Niebylec. The court dismissed the claims of “defamation” levied by Niebylec and two other municipalities that had passed anti-LGBTQI+ resolutions.
Elsewhere in the former Soviet bloc, while civil society in Central Asia is highly restricted, LGBTQI+ activists persevere, as noted in this June interview with organizers from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Meanwhile, we are disturbed by the news from Lebanon, where in late June, the Interior Minister banned peaceful gatherings by LGBTQI+ people in public. This move violates both Lebanon’s international commitments and its constitutional guarantees of equality and of freedom of speech and assembly.
Ghana
The draconian anti-LGBTQI+ legislation in Ghana — widely considered to combine the worst features of existing laws in Russia, Hungary, Nigeria, and Uganda — is still pending.
It has been more than a year since Ghanaian authorities unlawfully arrested 21 human rights defenders in the city of Ho for the mere “crime” of meeting to discuss LGBTQI+ rights. This past June, an alliance of LGBTQI+ rights groups in Ghana filed suit against the nation’s Attorney General and Inspector General of Police to win justice for those wrongly detained for more than three weeks.
Meanwhile, as Twitter, Google, and other U.S.-based tech giants set up shop in Accra, the question remains: What, if anything, will they do to defend freedom of speech and the rights of LGBTQI+ Ghanaians?
Violence
In too many parts of the world, systemic homophobic and transphobic violence claims far, far too many lives, increases poverty, and makes LGBTQI+ inclusion in civil society difficult at best.
In Norway, a gunman’s rampage outside a gay nightclub hours before the Oslo Pride march claimed two lives and injured more than twenty people.
HRW’s report, “‘Everyone Wants Me Dead’: Killings, Abductions, Torture, and Sexual Violence Against LGBT People by Armed Groups in Iraq,” documents the crisis in that country. CGE and its partners are also closely monitoring the worsening situation in Cameroon, where anti-LGBTQI+ violence is on rise.
In South Africa, a Zimbabwean lesbian was “stoned to death” in May after she and her girlfriend had received repeated death threats and threats of sexual violence from men in the Katlehong township near Johannesburg where they lived. That same month in Senegal, a large crowd in Dakarattacked a gay man visiting from the U.S.
Transgender Rights
As U.S. advocates battle the surge of anti-trans legislation in the States, the struggle continues around the world as well. In El Salvador, beyond the epidemic of anti-LGBTQI+ violence there, trans citizens in particular face extensive discrimination in employment, banking, health care, and voting, as documented in a new HRW/COMCAVIS TRANS report.
The Salvadoran government has yet to comply with the February ruling from the Supreme Court to reform laws and procedures to make it easy for transgender people to change their name on identity documents.
More promisingly, the new government in Honduras has committed to implementing such procedures for legal gender recognition and accepted responsibility for its role in the death of trans activist Vicky Hernández during the 2009 coup.
Elsewhere, activists continue to press for legal gender recognition in Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, while in June, the Czech Republic Constitutional Court ruled that it is up to Parliament, not the judicial system, to create a system to legally recognize nonbinary citizens.
A victory for trans immigrants to the U.S. came in March when a federal appeals court ruled that Kelly Gonzalez Aguilar, a transgender woman, should have been granted asylum based on a record of “extensive evidence of widespread violence against transgender individuals in Honduras.” Indeed, the court found that “any reasonable adjudicator would find a pattern or practice of persecution against transgender women in Honduras.” Gonzalez Aguilar — the subject of a campaign by Amnesty International and numerous immigrant justice groups — was detained by ICE for more than 1000 days.
Intersex Rights
In mid-July, Greece became the fifth country (after Malta, Portugal, Germany, and Iceland) to ban intersex genital mutilation, or IGM, and other “normalization” interventions on intersex infants and children.
Meanwhile, in the U.S. and around the world, the work continues to make sure that the “I” in “LGBTQI+” doesn’t just represent token inclusion. Check out this op-ed from friend of CGE, Kimberly Zieselman, “No Pride Without the ‘I’.”
Brittney Griner
Russia’s detention of WNBA superstar Brittney Griner, now surpassing 150 days as of this writing, continues to gain more attention.
On the 4th of July, Griner penned a letter to the White House, directly appealing to President Biden, asking him, “please don't forget about me and the other detainees … Please do all you can to bring us home.” Shortly after, Biden, along with Vice President Harris, spoke directly with Cherelle Griner, Brittney’s wife [White House transcript here].
In June, CGE joined with dozens of other human rights and civil rights organizations in letter declaring solidarity with Griner and calling on the White House to strike a deal for her release. Griner’s agent, Lindsay Kagawa Colas, also penned an op-ed bringing attention to the pay gap for women athletes — especially BIPOC and/or LBTQI+ women & nonbinary athletes — that drivers players like Griner overseas in search of better incomes.
More recently, on July 7, Griner pleaded guilty to bringing a banned substance into Russia, a legal move widely seen as a prerequisite for a diplomatic deal between Washington and Moscow to bring her home.
Miscellaneous
… In South Korea, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling against the military’s longstanding ban on consensual activities between members of the same sex, although further measures are needed to protect the rights of LGBTQI+ South Koreans.
... In The Philippines, LGBTQI+ Catholics work to reconcile their faith, cultural inclusion, and official Church opposition to LGBTQI+ human rights.
... In Qatar, this fall’s World Cup draws closer, as the event’s director threatens to take away rainbow flags from attendees. Meanwhile, FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, and World Cup sponsors such as Coca-Cola and McDonald’s continue to fail to push the Qatari leadership for progress on LGBTQI+ rights or justice for the thousands of immigrants killed and abused in the construction of World Cup stadiums.
