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.

OAS LGBTI Core Group Statement: International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia

Joint Statement

Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs

Washington, DC

May 17, 2017

Today, on May 17, the members of the OAS LGBTI Core Group (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, United States and Uruguay) are proud to join other governments and civil society organizations from around the world to celebrate the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT). This year, the IDAHOT is an opportunity to celebrate the diversity of families and highlight the challenge faced by LGBTI children and parents.

There has been much progress in the Americas since this day was first celebrated in 2004. We are proud to see countries of the hemisphere have taken concrete steps toward the elimination of discrimination against LGBTI persons in the past year. Education, awareness-raising and dialogue have helped tremendously in addressing stereotypes and prejudice against LGBTI persons and we encourage all countries of the hemisphere to continue these efforts.

However, as the Inter-American Human Rights Commission highlighted recently, LGBTI persons are still too often victims of discrimination and violent hate crimes based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. They are often subjected to extreme hate-motivated violence, arbitrary arrest and related killings. Moreover, in some countries of the Americas, consensual same-sex conduct between adults is still criminalized.

We understand and respect that countries are at different stages of acceptance and engagement on this issue. However, we should never forget that the human rights of all persons are universal and indivisible, and these include the human rights of LGBTI persons.

We believe that May 17 is a day we can all come together and continue our dialogue and collaboration with all OAS member states and civil society organizations to help bring an end to discrimination and violence against LGBTI persons.

The Place of Human Rights

Another new year. Another chance to put things right.

For the Council for Global Equality, that means elevating the place of human rights – including those of LGBT, intersex and other vulnerable minorities – in America’s foreign policy.

The year of 2015 brought incredible progress on LGBT rights around the world. Marriage equality was won here in the United States as well as in Mexico and Ireland; Malta passed the world’s most protective law for transgender and intersex citizens; and Mozambique got rid of its colonial-era anti-sodomy law once and for all.

Yet challenges and dangers continue to confront LGBT people. ISIS continues to hunt down and kill suspected LGBT individuals in its territory. Refugees fleeing persecution last year reached a new post-World War II high, with LGBT refugees among the most vulnerable of them. And from Russia to Egypt, a broad array of countries continue to deny rights to their own LGBT citizens while leading the charge at the United Nations to deny human rights to LGBT individuals everywhere.

We enter the last full year of the Obama Administration with pride and respect for what our country has helped accomplish to ensure that LGBT people are no longer excluded from universal human rights protections. A White House conference last year identified new opportunities for our embassies to respond to escalating violence against LGBT persons globally. A new U.S. Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons is mobilizing diplomatic efforts to challenge LGBT human rights violations and to build alliances in the quest for equality. And last year, the Administration sought to build a case for global support for LGBT refugees fleeing targeted persecution, including through the first-ever briefing on that topic for the UN Security Council in August.

Perhaps most important, the Obama Administration last year leveraged our public diplomacy and development tools as never before to promote citizen exchanges, highlight the voices and messages of local LGBT leaders and help fund LGBT organizations to promote global equality. The President himself spoke in support of LGBT rights in many of his travels abroad. These efforts, amplified by our investments in educational and development opportunities through USAID and the State Department’s growing Global Equality Fund, bear witness to the Obama Administration’s unprecedented commitment to equality for LGBT individuals everywhere.

If we are to hold other governments accountable for how they honor and safeguard the rights of their LGBT citizens, we must continue to push our own towards even greater consistency and impactful actions. Over the next two weeks, we will set forth the expectations we hold of our own government in this regard.

The steps that are – or aren’t – taken in 2016 will etch the final and most compelling stories of this Administration’s human rights legacy. Then it will be up to us, the human rights community, to hold the next Administration accountable to this country’s proud tradition of standing up for universal human rights at every turn.