23 Victories to Celebrate for Pride 2023

As Pride Month comes to a close, we thought we’d take a moment to look back at some of the victories we’ve seen in the movement for global LGBTQI+ human rights over the past year:

Decriminalization

1. Five more countries have struck down discriminatory colonial-era laws that criminalized homosexuality, including three Caribbean countries — Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, and St. Kitts and Nevis  — plus Singapore and the Cook Islands.

2. After last year’s historic ruling CEDAW ruling that Sri Lanka breached the rights of pioneering lesbian activist Rosanna Flamer-Caldera, Colombo has taken key steps towards decriminalizing homosexuality in the South Asian island country.

3. To the surprise of many, Pope Francis spoke out against laws criminalizing homosexuality.

Marriage Equality & Family Recognition

4. In December, President Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act after Congress passed the law enshrining the rights to same-sex marriage equality and interracial marriage into law.

5. Just last week, Estonia became the first former Soviet republic to introduce marriage equality. This comes after victories over the past year in Mexico, Cuba, Slovenia, Switzerland,and Andorra extending the equal right to marriage to same-sex couples.

6. Several Asian countries took important steps towards marriage equality this past year —  whether through elections or court rulings — including Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and just as we went to press, Nepal.

7. Other victories for LGBTQI+ families included Taiwan’s legislature approving adoption rights for same-sex parents; Bolivia’s highest court recognizing civil unions; Namibia’s Supreme Court recognizing the rights same-sex couples married abroad; and Nepal’s Supreme Court likewise recognizing the foreign spouse of a Nepali citizen married overseas.

Transgender Rights & Legal Gender Recognition

8. In February, Spain passed a landmark legal gender recognition law allowing transgender people to change their gender marker on official documents based solely on their self-identification. In April, Vietnam took major steps in the same direction.

9. Earlier this month, U.S. federal judges struck down Arkansas’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors and Tennessee’s ban on drag shows on core constitutional grounds. And just yesterday, federal judges similarly blocked portions of bans on gender-affirming care for minors from going into effect in Kentucky and Tennessee.

Ending Involuntary and Coercive Medical and Psychological Anti-LGBTQI+ Practices

10. Greece and Kenya took major steps to protect intersex children from medically unnecessary “sex normalization” surgeries.

11. Spain, Iceland, and Cyprus joined the list of countries of countries that ban so-called “conversion therapy” practices — a list that also includes Canada, France, Malta, and (for minors only) Germany, Greece, and New Zealand.

12. Following President Biden’s Pride Month Executive Order last year, the State Department recently rolled out the U.S. government’s action plan to globally combat these so-called “conversion therapy” practices.

13. Vietnam officially adopted the positions that same-sex attraction and transgender status are not mental health disorders, bringing the nation in line with global health and human rights standards.

Rights and Resistance

14. In February, Kenya’s high court ruled in favor of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, ending its decade-long battle for official recognition. And just this month, Eswatini’s Supreme Court similarly ruled that denying LGBTQI+ organizations the right to register is discriminatory and unconstitutional. 

15. In recognition of her extraordinary advocacy for LGBTQI+ rights in war-torn Ukraine, TIME named Olena Shevchenko, leader of the Insight NGO, as one of its Women of the Year.

16. Activists such as Aleksandr Voronov have continued to promote social, legal, and health services for LGBTQI+ Russians, and a free civil society more generally, despite being forced to leave their homeland.

17. Tens of thousands of people marched in the Warsaw Pride parade a week ago in defiance of the right-wing government. This comes after yet another court ruled in favor of activists protesting the so-called “LGBT-free zones” declared by many Polish cities and towns.

Multilateral Cooperation to Promote LGBTQI+ Human Rights

18. In advance of May’s G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japanese LGBTQI+ activists hosted their international counterparts in the first-ever meeting of the “Pride 7,” or P7, to promote both domestic LGBTQI+ rights and coordination by the largest alliance of democratic industrial economies to promote LGBTQI+ human rights globally. This led to the passage of Japan’s first LGBTQI+ rights law.

19. The list of countries with ambassador-level officials promoting global LGBTQI+ human rights has grown to five: Argentina, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. (Brazil and Germany also have high-level political appointees promoting internal LGBTQI+ rights.)

20. 50,000 people marched across the iconic Sydney Harbor Bridge as part of World Pride ’23 celebrations, a landmark event promoting LGBTQI+ human rights across Asia and the Pacific. And mark your calendars for World Pride ’25 in Washington, D.C.!

21. At World Pride, Australia announced its increased contribution to the Global Equality Fund. The Global Equality Fund, with the support of nearly twenty countries plus numerous private sector partners, has now distributed more than $100 million to promote LGBTQI+ civil society and protect LGBTQI+ human rights defenders in its ten years of operating. Earlier this spring, Spain became the 18th member of GEF, and just this week, New Zealand became #19.

22. USAID launched the Rainbow Fund, an initiative through which U.S. missions overseas integrate LGBTQI+ considerations into a broad range of sectors, including economic empowerment, education, health services, food security, and anti-corruption programs. USAID also launched the Alliance for Global Equality, a public-private partnership to promote LGBTQI+ community-based groups, build networks for LGBTQI+ workplace and social inclusion, and support leadership development in service of strengthening democracy. The State Department launched the Global LGBTQI+ Inclusive Democracy and Empowerment (GLIDE) initiative to support LGBTQI+ participation in democratic institutions.

23. Victor Madrigal-Borloz is just now completing his highly successful final term as the United Nations Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, promoting LGBTQI+ human rights all over the world and institutionalizing SOGIESC work within U.N. institutions. The LGBTI Core Group, an alliance of U.N. members dedicated to advancing LGBTQI+ human rights through the United Nations, welcomed six new members: Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Finland, Honduras, Ireland, and Timor Leste.

Yes, we know that some of these steps are partial victories, whether we’re looking at the limits of the U.S. Respect for Marriage Act, the watered-down compromise bill passed by the Japanese Diet, the ban on marriage equality written into Singapore’s repeal of Section 377A, or Pope Francis’s continued reference to homosexuality as “sin.” And none of these steps forward mitigate the horrors of the vicious anti-LGBTQI+ laws that have been passed recently in U.S. states and around the world, the transphobic hysteria whipped up by cynical politicians, the war still raging in Ukraine, or the violence endured and the fears experienced by our communities in too many parts of the world.

We know all that; we, and many of you, work day in and day out on those issues, and we never forget that. We keep up our advocacy to make U.S. foreign policy more LGBTQI+-inclusive, to strengthen LGBTQI+ civil society around the world, and to show that democracy and human rights for all really mean for all. Rights are hard-fought by our communities and by fearless advocates in all countries. Justice is achieved step by step, small victory after small victory.

As we wind down June, as we keep our eye on bending the arc of history towards justice, it’s important to take a moment to celebrate our victories and remember what we have indeed accomplished. After all, the movement for LGBTQI+ human rights is one that continues all year round, and that’s something to be proud of.

IDAHOBIT 2023: Ending Conversion Therapy Practices Globally

Today, we celebrate IDAHOBIT, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia, and Transphobia. IDAHOBIT’s organizers, in announcing this year’s theme — “Together Always: United in Diversity” — note how at “a time where the progress made by our LGBTQIA+ communities worldwide is increasingly at risk, it is crucial to recognize the power of solidarity, community, and allyship across different identities, movements, and borders.”

We are pleased to see, in observing IDAHOBIT this year, the United States government has demonstrated its solidarity and allyship with the global LGBTQI+ community by now rolling out its action plan to promote the end of conversion therapy practices around the world.

In a statement today marking IDAHOBIT, Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared …

the United States reaffirms our commitment to exposing the harm conversion therapy practices cause to LGBTQI+ persons. We reaffirm the importance of ensuring access to evidence-based healthcare without discrimination or stigma regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics. We recommit to opposing the criminalization of LGBTQI+ status or conduct, which can drive the pathologizing of LGBTQI+ persons and the practice of so-called conversion therapy. We confirm that conversion therapy practices are inconsistent with U.S. nondiscrimination policies and ineligible for support through taxpayer-funded foreign assistance grants and contracts.

As you may recall, President Biden issued an Executive Order for Pride Month last year that instructed the relevant agencies to “address so-called conversion therapy around the world … the Secretary of State, in collaboration with the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of HHS, and the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, shall develop an action plan to promote an end to its use around the world.” 

In response to E.O. 10475, the Council for Global Equality issued our recommendations for implementing President Biden’s order. The action plan announced today draws upon the CGE issue brief, along with the input of experts from State, USAID, Treasury, and HHS.

Now, fulfilling the directives promised in E.O. 10475, the U.S. government — through its embassies, consulates, and missions around the world and across a broad range of federal agencies — is committing itself to the numerous partnerships necessary to end these abusive practices. This includes working with LGBTQI+ community groups around the world; with like-minded allies and other partner governments; with counterparts in foreign ministries of health and justice; and with faith leaders, educators, professional associations, and other civil society networks.

The U.S. government also plans to work to end CTPs at various multilateral institutions, including the development banks and international development institutions to which the United States is a party, to ensure that no financial or programmatic support, direct or otherwise, goes towards CTPs.

The action plan draws from a well-equipped toolbox designed to make sure that initiatives to end conversion therapy practices globally are informed by local actors and suitably tailored to the local context. This toolbox includes, but is not limited to:

• Developing and promoting educational programs, technical assistance, and trainings for a broad range of partners
• Reviewing health guidance and programs to likewise prevent such practices
• Explicitly addressing CTPs in community engagement initiatives
• Working to ensure that U.S. taxpayer-funded foreign assistance grants and contracts do not permit or enable CTPs
• Soliciting proposals under the Global Equality Fund and the Rainbow Fund for programming to respond to and prevent CTPs globally by empowering civil society, improving acceptance and tolerance of LGBTQI+ persons, and advancing policies with the aim of responding to and preventing CTPs

Ending so-called “conversion therapy” — a deeply abusive and discredited set of practices bankrolled by pseudoscientific businesses, religious extremists, and other anti-LGBTQI+ forces to the tune of billions of dollars per year — will be a long but essential journey for our country and our global movement. But on this IDAHOBIT, as we celebrate the resilience, creativity, and bravery of our community in the face of those who would do us harm, we are grateful for the allyship of the Biden Administration in taking these steps towards a day when conversion therapy practices are confined to the dustbin of history.

Happy IDAHOBIT!

A Rainbow or a Shadow over the White House Summit for Democracy II?

by Susan Dicklitch-Nelson, Mark Bromley, Erin Hallenbeck, and Erin Maxwell

On March 29 and 30, more than 100 invited countries will convene in Washington for the second White House Summit for Democracy. Attending nations are expected to share democratic values and norms and embrace fundamental universal human rights principles. However, many have failed to do so, especially when it comes to protecting some of their most vulnerable citizens: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) people.

In fact, 60% of invited countries have earned a failing grade on the 2022 LGBTQI+ Human Rights Report Cards (HRRCs).  The report cards, created by the F&M Global Barometers in partnership with  The Council for Global Equality, measure the extent to which countries provide legislative protection for their LGBTQI+ citizens. Countries are scored on three dimensions: Basic Rights, Protection from Violence, and Socio-Economic Rights. The 30 items of the report card grade countries from an A for “Excellent” (90-100%) to an F for “Failing” (0-59%).

Only four of the 100+ Summit attendees received an A score for “Excellent”: Malta, Greece, Canada, and Uruguay. Malaysia and Nigeria have the unenviable distinction of earning zero on their report cards, while Dominica, Ghana, Indonesia, Malawi, Maldives, Senegal, Solomon Islands, and Tonga all follow closely behind at 3%. Overall, 47 Summit countries improved their LGBTQI+ score from 2020, while eleven countries experienced a decline in their HRRC scores. 52 countries experienced no change over the two-year period.

Angola and Barbados saw significant improvements, including a 30% increase in Angola’s score, which reflects both countries’ decriminalization of same-sex relationships and the related improvements in the security context. Chile saw a 20% increase and the United States a 17% rise because of Chile’s introduction of same-sex marriage and the improved legal landscape for trans, intersex, and non-binary citizens in both countries.

Recent attacks on LGBTQI+ people have cast an ominous shadow over the year of action and the invited democracies. Transgender rights are under attack across the United States. (Indeed, the improved U.S. score reflects improvements at the federal level even as state legislatures are debating and, far too often, passing hundreds of transphobic bills.) Ghana, which already criminalizes homosexuality, has a cross-party group of MPs advancing a bill that would criminalize gender identity and intersex corrective therapy and imprison any person or group seen as promoting LGBTQI+ identities. In Zambia, one of the five countries that will host regional meetings of the Summit for Democracy on March 30, four women were recently arrested for “holding a march against gender-based violence that police claim was used to ‘champion homosexuality.’” Zambia earned a grade of 7% from 2020 to 2022 on the HRRCs. Lawmakers in Kenya have proposed a dangerous anti-LGBTQI+ bill that is suspiciously similar to Ghana.  And Uganda didn’t earn an invitation to the Summit for Democracy, but its parliament just passed one of the most aggressive anti-LGBTQI+ bills anywhere, which awaits its president’s signature.  

Still, there are other notable advances. Nine countries instituted a ban on so-called gay conversion therapy, and eight countries strengthened their freedom from arbitrary arrest based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Gender identity and intersex rights have also improved in several places: Chile banned medically unnecessary, non-consensual surgical interventions and New Zealand removed barriers to legal gender recognition. While Kenya maintains its criminalization of homosexuality, it passed a landmark ruling in 2022 that granted equal rights and recognition to intersex people.

Legislation is not the sole indicator of how successful a country has been in protecting its most vulnerable citizens, but it is an important first step in guaranteeing that LGBTQI+ individuals have the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts. If countries believe in democracy, they cannot ignore legislative protections for their LGBTQI+ citizens, which are a baseline safety net to ensure that LGBTQI+ individuals have an opportunity to participate as equal citizens in their country’s democracy. When 25 participants in the Summit still criminalize homosexuality, and thus deny full rights to a vulnerable set of citizens, how can they be truly considered to be democratic?

However, democracy, citizenship, and human rights are not only about laws. What happens when we compare the lived LGBTQI+ human rights reality with the legislative reality?  Based on a six-question survey launched in the summer of 2022, the F&M Global Barometers LGBTQI+ Perception Index (GBPI) is the first truly global study of the lived human rights reality of the LGBTQI+ community worldwide. The survey focuses on safety, acceptance, police harassment, violence, safety in gathering, and discrimination. The survey measures the global LGBTQI+ population and the magnitude of the responses (over 167,000), and in doing so, it reveals the lived realities of LGBTQI+ people as juxtaposed with the legislative reality.

For example, although both Ghana and the United States earned a grade of “F” on their Report Cards, Ghana scored 34% on the GBPI and the United States scored a 70%. Malta scored a 100% (A), but its GBPI score was a 79% (C).

In reverse, Japan scored higher on the GBPI (74%) than on the HRRCs – a failing grade of 30% – because Japan has no specific laws in place to protect LGBTQI+ people from violence or socio-economic discrimination. While 30% is not a particularly high mark, it shows that despite the lack of legislative protections, LGBTQI+ people in Japan perceive their realities to be better than the legal protections they are denied.

Comparing perception with the reality of legislation shows that the health of a democracy is closely linked to how a society protects its most vulnerable populations, including LGBTQI+ people. While no country scored an “A” on the GBPI, all of the highest scoring GBPI countries, with the exception of Czechia and Malta, are categorized as “full” democracies according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index (2022).

The lowest-scoring nations are considered “flawed” or “hybrid” democracies, with the exception of those not scored by the EIU, and Iraq, which is classified as “authoritarian.” Our data tells us that the healthier the democracy, the better the lived human rights realities for LGBTQI+ individuals. The inverse is equally true: where LGBTQI+ citizens report a greater sense of safety and security, democracy itself is stronger and more inclusive.

We encourage you to watch the March 22 discussion, Advancing Inclusive LGBTQI+ Citizenship Globally, that we hosted with the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, featuring Tamara Adrían, a lawyer, professor, and former lawmaker at the National Assembly of Venezuela (2016-2021); Mark Bromley, Co-Chair of the Council for Global Equality; Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the U.N. Independent Expert on Protection from Violence and Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity; Jessica Stern, the U.S. Special Envoy to Advance the Human Rights of Lesbians, Gay Men, Bisexuals, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Persons; and moderator Dan Baer, the Senior Vice President for Policy Research and Director of the Europe Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

To view the complete results of the LGBTQI+ Human Rights Report Cards and F&M Global Barometers LGBTQI+ Perception Index, visit www.lgbtqiperceptionindex.org.

Giving Voice to LGBTQI+ Africans at the Upcoming U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit

Starting on December 13, the Biden Administration will host leaders from across Africa at a Washington, D.C. summit to promote diplomatic and economic cooperation. The framing of the summit recognizes that Africa is a continent long neglected but teeming with a large and vibrant youth population, where both opportunities and challenges are abundant.

In hosting the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, the Biden Administration plainly states that “Africa will shape the future — not just the future of the African people, but of the world. Africa will make the difference in tackling the most urgent challenges and seizing the opportunities we all face.”

One of those challenges, both for the United States and for Africa’s 54 countries, is to recognize that governments are failing their LGBTQI+ citizens.

Legal protections for LGBTQI+ individuals are deficient in all corners of the world, as demonstrated by the Franklin & Marshall College Global Barometers (FMGB), which tracks human rights protections for LGBTQI+ persons in 204 countries and regions. Here in the United States, more than 200 bills were introduced at the state and local level just this year to deny rights to LGBTQI+ individuals. Many of these bills have sought to deny transgender youth access to gender-affirming healthcare or to prevent LGBTQI+ topics from being discussed in public schools. And now, just weeks after a violent attack that left five people dead and dozens injured at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, the Supreme Court will decide if anti-discrimination laws are at odds with the First Amendment.

Our efforts to protect our LGBTQI+ citizens must then be tied with the rest of the world’s and guided by humility. So, as the U.S. prepares to welcome African heads of state, we must remind all parties that the legal reality on the African continent is stark. Every country in North Africa and more than half of those in Sub-Saharan Africa criminalize LGBTQI+ relationships; Mauritania, along with several northern Nigeria states that use shariah law, proscribes the death penalty for same-sex relations. And now, ominously, several more countries are currently debating new laws that would add additional penalties or further deny LGBTQI+ citizens their basic rights to freedoms of association and expression.

There have been recent bright spots to be sure, including a successful court challenge that struck down Botswana’s sodomy law in 2019 as an unconstitutional relic of colonialism. But in many parts of Africa, intolerance is increasing, and new laws designed to further persecute LGBTQI+ individuals are proliferating.

Earlier this year, the Council for Global Equality and the Franklin & Marshall College Global Barometers teamed up to create the Global Barometers LGBTQI+ Perception Index (GBPI)* and measure the lived realities of LGBTQI+ individuals around the world by asking six simple questions about how safe and secure they feel and whether they have experienced discrimination and violence. The results are calculated on a grading scale from 0-100%, with A being the highest and F the lowest.

These results were deeply concerning. No country received an A grade, with Iceland scoring the highest grade of B (86%). The United States scored a C (70%) on our scale. No African country scored above a D, and most African countries scored well within our F range. It must be noted that we were not able to reach enough members of the LGBTQI+ community in several African countries to make the data statistically meaningful, but what data we do have in those countries paints an equally bleak picture.

The GBPI data for Africa reinforce what we’ve long suspected. The African countries with the highest scores on the GBPI, meaning LGBTQI+ citizens in those countries report the highest levels of safety and inclusion, are countries that have decriminalized LGBTQI+ expression: Angola, Botswana, and South Africa. Mauritius comes next, and while homosexuality remains criminalized on the island nation, there is currently an active case challenging the sodomy law before the country’s supreme court. South Africa, which has Africa’s most protective legal landscape and even enshrines in its constitution rights based on sexual orientation, has the continent’s highest perception scores.

It is not a surprise, then, that the reverse also seems to be true. Countries with the worst perception scores — that is, those where LGBTQI+ citizens report the lowest levels of safety and inclusion — are also the countries with recently passed or currently pending laws that increase penalties and further limit the basic rights of LGBTQI+ individuals. These include:

• Ghana, which is debating a draconian new law to criminalize organizations and even average citizens who defend or in any way support LGBTQI+ persons;
• Nigeria, which passed a bill in 2013 that criminalizes LGBTQI+ associations and human rights advocacy as part of a sweeping assault on same-sex marriage; and
• Uganda, which adopted one of the continent’s harshest anti-LGBTQI+ bills in 2014, only to have it struck down by the constitutional court on a technicality. Ugandan authorities then adopted another harsh anti-LGBTQI+ law as part of the Sexual Offences Bill of 2019, and more recently, have banned one of the leading LGBTQI+ organizations in the country and are rumored to be considering a new version of the 2014 “anti-homosexuality” bill.

These recent anti-LGBTQI+ bills pile on new restrictions and harsher sentences in countries that already criminalized their LGBTQI+ citizens. They are, in a sense, recriminalizing already harshly penalized LGBTQI+ communities for domestic political theater.

The case of Ghana is particularly concerning. Ghana scores high marks on most democracy indicators, which usually correlates to a better legal framework for LGBTQI+ communities. But in the case of Ghana, we see the opposite. Anti-LGBTQI+ forces are exploiting a vibrant democratic system to introduce draconian laws that scapegoat LGBTQI+ minorities. If the LGBTQI+ community really is the canary in the coal mine, the future of human rights and democracy in Ghana must surely be questioned.

At next week’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, it’s essential to talk about the rights of the continent’s LGBTQI+ citizens. We know how much the words of heads of state matter: whether explicit or implicit, such elite cues play a key role in framing a political culture that either protects or persecutes members of marginalized groups.

So, will LGBTQI+ Africans be embraced as full citizens, fully able to contribute to the social and economic life of their communities? Will their dignity, human potential, and economic contributions be recognized? Or will LGBTQI+ Africans continue to serve as political scapegoats, attacked as convenient cover for the broader assault on democracy and civil society? Will they remain criminalized — or even be recriminalized — under cruel laws grounded in the continent’s colonial past and in the modern-day anti-rights movement?

The answer to these questions will likely be a powerful indicator of the future of Africa — and of the world.

One future leads to a safer and more prosperous continent that is integrated into a global society. The other entrenches dangerous autocracies and democratic decline that will gradually but systematically undermine the rights and opportunities of all citizens, heterosexual and LGBTQI+ alike.

To embrace prosperity and equality, the United States and the 49 African governments that are participating in the Summit  all have a long way to go in providing full citizenship to their LGBTQI+ citizens. This begins by rescinding existing anti-LGBTQI+ laws and preventing the enactment of new ones. But just as importantly, we must listen to the voices of LGBTQI+ persons if we are to build inclusive societies where LGBTQI+ citizens are embraced and encouraged to contribute to vibrant and prosperous democracies.

*The full results of the Global Barometers Perception Index (GBPI) are forthcoming in early 2023 and will be available on www.lgbtqiperceptionindex.org. To view the Global Barometers of Gay Rights (GBGR) and the Global Barometer of Transgender Rights (GBTR), visit www.fandmglobalbarometers.org. For questions about the F&M Global Barometers, please contact gbgr@fandm.edu.

The above graph illustrates the LGBTQI+ lived realities based on Questions 1, 3, and 4 of the Global Barometers LGBTQI+ Perception Index (GBPI) survey. The survey was open for three months from June to September 2022. Specifically, the questions asked LGBTQI+ people how safe they felt living as an LGBTQI+ person in their country; how fearful they felt of being arrested, harassed, or blackmailed by security forces/police because of their LGBTQI+ status; and how likely they were to be a victim of violence due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

This graph displays the lowest and highest scoring African countries on the Global Barometers Perception Index (GBPI) in comparison with the scores from the Global Barometer of Gay Rights (GBGR) (2020), the Global Barometer of Transgender Rights (GBTR) (2020) and the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Democracy Index (2021). For the GBPI, countries with a response size under 30 were omitted from the data. To learn more about the EIU’s Democracy Index, visit https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2021. 

©F&M Global Barometers

Dignity, Freedom, and Justice for All

On December 10^th, we celebrate Human Rights Day, on the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

For LGBTQI+ people in the United States and around the world, this has certainly been a challenging year, from war zones and refugee camps to rampant legislative assaults on our basic human rights to a surge in homophobic and transphobic violence. Given this, the theme of Human Rights Day 2022 — Dignity, Freedom, and Justice for All — is more urgent than ever.

Earlier this year, the Council for Global Equality and the Franklin & Marshall College Global Barometers teamed up to create the Global Barometers LGBTQI+ Perception Index (GBPI)* and measure the lived realities of LGBTQI+ individuals across the planet by asking six simple questions about how safe and secure they feel and whether they have experienced discrimination and violence. The results are calculated on a grading scale from 0-100%, with A being the highest and F the lowest. These results were deeply concerning. No country received an A grade, with Iceland scoring the highest grade of B (86%). The United States scored a C (70%) on our scale. 

But as we celebrate Human Rights Day this year, there are some larger trends that give us a sense of hope. We continue to see legal progress, in all corners of the world, towards the decriminalization of homosexuality, the recognition of marriage equality, and the expansion of transgender and intersex rights. We continue to see cultural attitudes shifting — sometimes quickly, sometimes more gradually — in favor of LGBTQI+ inclusion, again in Global North and Global South alike.

Despite the proliferation this year of anti-LGBTQI+ laws and policies globally, including more than 200 anti-LGBTQI+ bills introduced in state legislatures here in the United States, on this day in particular, we want to recognize several key trends that inspire us and feed our optimism. These three trends share one thing in common: divide-and-conquer tactics are failing.

First, more and more, activists are folding the call for LGBTQI+ rights into claims to full citizenship and democratic accountability. For too long, authoritarian politicians and right-wing religious figures have sought to separate LGBTQI+ rights from the full spectrum of political, social, and cultural rights. But from the grassroots to the halls of parliaments, human rights defenders are starting from the premise that the rights of LGBTQI+ citizens are indeed fundamental human rights and are foundational in any inclusive democracy. At 2023’s Summit for Democracy, we have an important opportunity for world leaders to advance the full inclusion and citizenship of LGBTQI+ people as part of the alliance to defend and promote democracy in the face of surging authoritarianism.

Second, we’re all familiar with the religious extremists who are front and center in the global movement against LGBTQI+ and women’s rights. But progressive grassroots faith networks are pushing back against religious-based intolerance. Moreover, the grassroots movement continues to build working relationships with prominent pro-LGBTQI+ faith leaders. From the grassroots up and the top down, we are hearing the clarion message that welcoming LGBTQI+ people is a core tenet of a generous faith, and that truly resilient, inclusive democracies are the best guarantors of both LGBTQI+ rights and the right to practice one’s religion.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, despite the cynical use of transphobia by anti-LGBTQI+ forces to divide lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals from transgender people, whether in the United States, the United Kingdom (perhaps most infamously), or elsewhere in the world, our community refuses to be divided. Here in the United States, where more than 35 states considered 200+ anti-LGBTQI bills — the majority of which specifically targeted trans people — our LGBTQI+ community stands united in support of transgender and nonbinary Americans who are being stripped of rights and opportunities and butchered in our streets and nightclubs. The global LGBTQI+ movement similarly refuses to be divided by the anti-gender ideologies that flatly deny the existence of — let alone the human rights of — transgender persons. Our unity remains our greatest strength.

So, on this Human Rights Day, let’s all take a moment to celebrate the victories we’ve won. The challenges we face are real, but this year reminds us that we are truly stronger together when we’re fighting for dignity, freedom, and justice for all.

* The full results of the Global Barometers Perception Index (GBPI) are forthcoming in early 2023 and will be available on www.lgbtqiperceptionindex.org. To view the Global Barometers of Gay Rights (GBGR) and the Global Barometer of Transgender Rights (GBTR), visit www.fandmglobalbarometers.org. For questions about the F&M Global Barometers, please contact gbgr@fandm.edu.

Governments and Human Rights

The Council pays particular attention to the role that foreign governments play, or fail to play, in preserving and advancing the rights of their LGBT citizens. In our own country, we’ve seen how policies pursued by this President have helped empower greater respect and protections for LGBT persons. The same could happen in many countries abroad.

Moving the needle on respect for LGBT people is a process, of course. Governments must play a role in that process – in molding attitudes, not just reflecting them, and in forming policies that promote and reinforce cross-society acceptance and cooperation. We believe all governments – ours yes, but also those of every other country, friend and foe alike – should be held accountable for:

• The tone that governing officials’ homo- or trans-phobic public rhetoric sets within society;
• Failure to redress legally sanctioned discrimination or bias-motivated crimes against LGBT individuals;
• The degree to which LGBT individuals are accorded equal access to services and opportunities, including health care, employment, education, and housing;
• Whether LGBT civil society organizations are able to register and function unimpaired;
• The prevalence of transgender-specific violence, abuse, and documentation issues, particularly in cases involving government action or inaction.
• Abuse of government and police powers, e.g. the use of tangential laws regarding loitering to arrest or detain LGBT individuals arbitrarily; the use of foreign agent or tax laws to place disproportionate restrictions on LGBT civil society; physical abuses by police, prison, and hospital officials; and bribery solicited by such officials in order either to provide services or to avoid abusive treatment; and
• The media climate in which LGBT rights are explained to and understood by the public, particularly when government-sponsored or –influenced media outlets are involved.

In addition, we should work with countries to understand intersex issues as a related set of human rights concerns. In this context, governments must be held accountable for policies or practices that unnecessarily and adversely impact the childhood development and adult health and sexuality of intersex persons. Appropriate government officials, including our own, must also enter into a new dialogue with intersex persons to identify best practices in the diagnosis, treatment and lifelong support for intersex health.

We know that the U.S. does not run the world by fiat. But we also recognize our responsibility, as citizens of a country that wields outsized influence in the world, to ensure this influence is put to positive use. We therefore hold our government accountable for encouraging foreign counterparts to guarantee the conditions in which the promise of the Universal Declaration can be realized for all citizens.

If fault is to be found in U.S. human rights policy, it certainly isn’t in our country’s attention to LGBT human rights, as the December 20 New York Times article alleges. Nor is it in failing to listen to the voices of local activists, as the Times article also suggests has been the case: to the contrary, we’ve found this Administration very much attuned to those local voices in framing its diplomatic dialogue and actions.

The fault we find, rather, is in this Administration’s lack of consistency in showing that human rights matter – and that deliberate abuse of those rights damages the fabric of our bilateral relationships.

Across this Administration’s tenure, the Council has urged that actions by foreign governments that abridge the human rights of any minority group automatically trigger a measured review of how those actions might impact U.S. programs in-country and, of consequence, potential U.S. policy responses.

We know, of course, that U.S. policy goals in any given country sometimes compete against each other. But if support for human rights is a principle, neither it nor its deterrent value should be shunted aside when inconvenient – not even when Nigerian oil contracts, Pacific trade deals, or terrorism concerns are in play.

We also see an urgent need for greater Administration transparency in the funding it provides for LGBT and other human rights programs, and in how those programs are evaluated. The State Department and USAID are embarrassingly far apart in how they measure their LGBT-related programming dollars – no doubt a contributing factor to the highly inflated, erroneous figure of $700 million reported in the New York Times. And unfortunately the World Bank and other multilateral development funders have yet to institute mechanisms needed to include LGBT minorities – who are so often denied basic livelihoods and excluded from the economic life of their own country – in the development opportunities that Bank programs are intended to promote.

Common counting practices, clear programmatic goals, and honestly reflective measurements of program results are basic to good governance.

LGBT and Intersex Youth Issues in Development

In honor of the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia (IDAHOT), the Council for Global Equality is pleased to release the report from the 2014 Conference to Advance the Human Rights of and Promote Inclusive Development for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) Persons. The conference was co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and USAID, with support from the Council for Global Equality.

The theme for this year’s IDAHOT events is “Stand with LGBTQI Youth: Fight for visibility, respect and equality.” Here in the United States, studies show that over 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBT. Across the world, similarly startling statistics reveal the disproportionate vulnerability that LGBT and intersex youth face due to bullying in schools and online, abuse and expulsion from home, forced marriages, denial of health services, discrimination at work, and increased risk of suicide and depression. Children born with intersex conditions are still misunderstood and inappropriately treated by doctors around the world in irreversibly harmful ways.

Younger LGBT and intersex members of our communities deserve our particular attention on this day. That attention should be more than symbolic or rhetorical. Our suggestions are:

• participate in the youth-sponsored thunderclap (just learning about a thunderclap is a dive into youth culture!);
• audit your own work or organization’s work to think about how you are addressing the needs of youth;
• read our report with an eye to how donor investments in equality for LGBT and intersex people can address the issues that our younger citizens face; and
• call on the U.S. government to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is the world’s most-ratified human rights treaty and provides important, age-based understandings of the rights of LGBT and intersex youth!

President Obama took a very important step earlier this year, publicly calling for a ban on “conversion therapy” for LGBT minors. This unprecedented move by a head of state in support of LGBT youth complements many positive developments by the Obama administration to combat bullying in schools, LGBTQ youth homelessness, and to promote acceptance in families.

In honor of this IDAHOT day and its youth focused theme, we call on the President to do all that his administration can do to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The United States is one of only two countries in the world that have yet to ratify the Convention, together with the government of Somalia. It’s time for our country to get on the right side of history – we owe it to America’s youth.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child states that all children “should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding.” As we think about LGBT and intersex youth on this year’s IDAHOT day, we call on our government to commit to this treaty obligation, but also to commit resources to this important goal, as it did during the donor conference on inclusive development.