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

Cardin Statement on LGBT Rights, Issues at Start of Trump Administration

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released the following statement Tuesday:

“At the confirmation hearings of Rex Tillerson and Nikki Haley, it caught my attention when neither of them would say the phrase ‘LGBT’. I’ve now heard from constituents and activists that the State Department and White House websites have been scrubbed of LGBT content at the outset of the Trump Administration, including the recent apology former Secretary Kerry issued in response to my letter regarding the Department’s disturbing role in the McCarthy Era’s Lavender Scare – when approximately 1,000 dedicated civilians lost their jobs due to their perceived sexuality. This is alarming to me. I encourage the Administration to makes its public information portals reflective of all Americans and our values, and I will be monitoring this closely. We cannot and will not turn back the clock on the hard-fought civil rights of the LGBT community. Instead we must strengthen and expand them. I am continuing to ready legislation to compel the State Department to review its actions during the Lavender Scare and make amends.”

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Related Content: U.S. State Department Should Apologize for “Lavender Scare“

U.S. State Department Should Apologize for “Lavender Scare”

The Obama Administration clearly deserves great credit for turning the page on our country’s inattention to LGBT human rights abuse abroad. And we’re immensely proud of the State Department’s increasingly robust advocacy for LGBT-fair policies and practices in other countries.

But Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) has pointed to a hole in the State Department’s advocacy for LGBT fairness: there’s been no Department apology to the victims and families of the so-called “Lavender Scare” of the 50’s and 60’s, in which those suspected of being gay lost their Foreign and Civil Service jobs, or were denied prospective State Department employment.

That Cold War period seems, of course, strikingly outdated. Current federal employment policies prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. LGBT employees now serve proudly, and openly, in support of government missions and, indeed, the American people.

But Senator Ben Cardin’s call for an apology remains principled and right. An apology would only strengthen the integrity of State Department’s human rights advocacy abroad for those who are gay, lesbian and transgender. It equally would remind the incoming Trump Administration that there can be no rollback of fairness at home – and, indeed, that contract employees and their employers should be covered by LGBT non-discrimination provisions, too.

There’s time in this Administration for Secretary Kerry to act. We hope and urge that he will support Senator Cardin’s call.

When The U.S. Backs Gay And Lesbian Rights In Africa, Is There A Backlash?

Photo: Ben Curtis/AP

Repost from NPR

Everyone knew President Obama would say something about gay rights when he made his visit to Kenya last summer. Many American activists were pressing him to publicly condemn Kenya’s colonial-era law making homosexuality a crime.

But Kenyan gays and lesbians were wary. In the weeks leading up to Obama’s visit, Kenyan politicians took to the airwaves to assert their anti-gay bona fides. Deputy President William Ruto gave a guest sermon in a church to announce that Kenya “had no room” for homosexuality. As the vitriol increased, so did the incidents of violence, from assaults to rape.

“That was the most tense [period] in our life, before Obama came,” says John Mathenge, the director of a community center and health clinic in Nairobi called HOYMAS — Health Options for Young Men with HIV/AIDS and STIs. His clinic usually averages 50 visitors a day; in the weeks before Obama’s arrival there were no more than 2 or 3. “People weren’t even coming to collect their ARVs [anti-retroviral medication] because they feared they were going to be attacked.”

It wasn’t just Kenyans who were worried. OutRight Action International, a New York-based not-for-profit that advocates for LGBT rights around the world, took the position that President Obama should not mention gay rights when he visited Kenya.

“LGBTI rights have become a political lightning rod,” explained OutRight director Jessica Stern. Though the organization is devoted to pressing for gay rights overseas, she urged the U.S. government to push for “substance over symbolism” — that is, working behind the scenes to improve the legal and social climate for LGBT people rather than issuing too many public pronouncements that could be seen as finger-wagging and that could compromise the efforts of local activists. “We know it’s very easy for LGBTI Africans to be discredited as Western,” she said. (The acronym is a version of LGBT and stands for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex.”)

Over the last four years, the American government has engaged in an ambitious campaign to defend the rights of gay and lesbian people overseas, especially in Africa, where the majority of countries outlaw homosexuality and anti-gay sentiment remains strong. But African activists struggle with the double-edged sword of American support. While they say that U.S. attention has given a needed boost to their movement, the protection of an outsider can complicate the path to true acceptance. Continue Reading at NPR

Remarks by Ambassador Samantha Power at the White House Dialogue on Global LGBT Human Rights

Ambassador Samantha Power
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
U.S. Mission to the United Nations
Washington, DC
June 29, 2016

AS DELIVERED

It’s amazing to be here and to be with all of you. This is a really important thing to do, particularly in light of recent events, but anyway, to step back, and to look back at what has been achieved in this last five years. From the diplomatic corps representatives who are here, to civil society representatives – each of you have played a really critical role in bringing us to where we are today. I’m only going to speak very briefly, but do want to pull a few of the highlights out of the last five years and look at the legacy of the Presidential Memorandum, which is itself just a symptom of the President’s leadership.

Five years ago, when I was in the position occupied brilliantly now by Steve Pomper, I had the privilege, along with Ambassador David Pressman, who you will hear from a little bit later, of helping President Obama shepherd this historic LGBT memorandum through the U.S. government. When he signed the Presidential Memorandum – I remember as if it was yesterday – the response inside the government, as well as outside the government, was immediate. And in particular, I will never forget the outpouring of emotion from people around the United States – again, whether inside or outside the government – but also around the world, when they heard that LGBTI rights was being embedded, as Josh put it, into the DNA of the U.S. government.

Diversity In All of its Forms is a Shared Civic Value

Last weekend’s brutal massacre at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando is a stunning reminder that homophobic hatred continues to scar both our community and our country. Our hearts go out to the victims of this rampage, as well as to their families and friends. We acknowledge and share their grief.

In our work, the Council for Global Equality has been deeply impressed by the resilience of LGBT communities around the world. We are profoundly touched by the expressions of sadness and solidarity from these communities. Their love and support stand in stark contrast to the hatred that fueled this tragedy. The breadth of supportive government statements also heartens us, from countries that include Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates.

From this massacre, no doubt there will be calls for greater gun control, mental health awareness, and a strengthened fight against ISIS and all extremism. We strongly support these calls. But we are struck, too, by the cultural divide over the dignity and worth of LGBT people that this attack calls to mind. Diversity in all of its forms is a shared civic value, after all – a quality essential to our national fabric, and one that must be taught and understood more broadly in this country, even after – or maybe because of – the significant legal advances that the LGBT community has achieved in recent years.

The Obama Administration has done much to integrate LGBT human rights into our country’s overall human rights policy. We urge that these efforts be redoubled, with a view to helping all people understand that the rights of any minority group cannot be lower than those of the country as a whole.

That lesson begins at home. The call by some for a ban on Muslims entering our country is wholly at odds with the founding values of our country, and with the dignity and respect we seek from others. That exclusionary vision also runs counter to the Council’s mission, which is to build bridges across cultural divides.

Yesterday’s UN Security Council statement on Orlando’s tragedy – OUR tragedy – is an important and groundbreaking step in expressing the sadness of the international community at a tragedy that impacts not only LGBT people, but how the world embraces human rights. That, in fact, is a precious learning from Sunday’s tragic loss of life.

 

Related Content: After Orlando, Gay Rights Moves off Diplomatic Back Burner (NYT)

Nigerian activists respond to New York Times article “U.S. Support of Gay Rights in Africa May Have Done More Harm Than Good”

The Coalition for the Defense of Sexual Rights (CDSR) has issued a statement regarding the recent article published by New York Times alleging that US supports for LGBT rights in Nigeria may have done more harm than good.

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Coalition for the Defense of Sexual Rights- Nigeria

Statement on the backdrop of New York Times article on US Support for LGBT Rights in Nigeria

The Coalition for the Defense of Sexual Rights (CDSR), an umbrella body of organizations working to secure the human rights of all Nigerians, inclusive of LGBT rights is alarmed at the recent article published by New York Times alleging that US supports for LGBT rights in Nigeria may have done more harm than good. CDSR dissociates itself from the article and condemned it for its lack of journalistic rigour.

First reaction to the article was what was the aim of the author of the article? There are questionable assertions in the article and we are taken aback that some people say the support they receive from the US or the West has backfired on advocacy. CDSR stance on such statements is that it lacks rigour. Also quoting a community member who does not understand the process of advocacy or the relationship that advocates have with the US and other western nations is a slap to the journalism that produce the article. Also the statement credited to a leading member of CDSR and an early pioneer of LGBT activism in Nigeria, Ms. Dorothy Aken’Ova is misleading.

We categorically state that US and other western nations support for LGBT rights in Nigeria has actually brought our issues to the front burner of politics and policy making. In fact to a large extent, it has contributed to the visibility that we enjoy as a community and using that visibility to strengthen our advocacy. What has been challenging in the past was the tactics employed in the past by the West in speaking first without local consultations. This was especially after the comments of Prime Minister David Cameron on cutting aid to nations that had or were proposing discriminatory laws and policies regarding sexual orientation. The policy has since changed in that local activists are consulted first before any decision is adopted by the West, especially the US. Key members of CDSR are a testament to that. Recently, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, Steven Feldstein was in Lagos and met with activists. His key question was how should the US react?

CDSR welcomes the removal of USAID logo from documents of its partner organizations as it seeks to counter the cultural imperialism rhetoric that is being used by the right wing. However, the removal of the logo or not from these documents or office spaces does not in its entirety backfire on advocacy. This is because the conversation and advocacy to shift the rhetoric of cultural imperialism is a call of local activists and organizations working to promote human rights on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity for Nigerians. It is our call and we are constantly in discussion with each other on how to turn the table around. We must be able to challenge the hypocrisy of singling out LGBT rights out of all the humanitarian work that the US or other western nations fund.

And the issue of human rights violations has always been there before the advent of the anti-gay law. It won’t go away anytime sooner, US efforts or not. We state categorically that the anti-gay law caused a shift in human rights violation but to heap that blame on US support for LGBT rights in Nigeria lacks merit. We must remember that we had a government and system in place that was eager to use minorities’ lives as a politicking campaign and agenda.

And the case of police stopping and searching people on grounds of their perceived sexual orientation, there are plans to address the issues and raise them in the local media. Not raising this issue on the home front, especially in the media but then raising it on international media only contributes to the cultural imperialism that the article was referring to.

As the title of the anti-gay law in Nigeria was carefully worded to win the hearts and minds of Nigerians, the title of the article and its contents dance to the tune of our oppressors. Coming out in public to quote figures that the US support LGBT rights with is at the detriment of frontline activists, advocacy and our community members. It is in line with the notion that homosexuality is a western import. Caution must not be thrown to the wind especially as to how much the US or other western nation funds LGBT rights within media spaces. CDSR believes that such statements are for internal circulation as part of financial accountability of donor agencies.

CDSR is also alarmed that the article failed to mention the promotion of hate and the support of criminalization of homosexuality by the World Congress of Families but was quick in quoting an outrageous amount in US support of LGBT rights. CDSR expects that as a global media house, New York Times will balance its stories, cross-check facts and use its platform to call out against hate groups.

In correction of the misleading information as contained in the article, CDSR urges the New York Times to reproduce a more balance and unbiased article, and when seeking information on LGBT rights advocacy to speak with known frontline activists.

Finally, CDSR continues to count on the support its receives from the west and other donor agencies in ensuring that human rights for all Nigerian citizens becomes a reality without exclusion of any group.

Signed:

Coalition for the Defense of Sexual Rights

 

Council for Global Equality Calls on U.S. Senators to Reject Legislation Abandoning Syrian Refugees

November 25 — Members of the Council for Global Equality today sent a letter to U.S. Senators calling on them to reject legislation, already passed in the House of Representatives as H.R. 4038, that would “bring the refugee resettlement system, which already moves at a very slow pace, to a grinding halt.”  The letter recognizes that LGBT refugees in Syria and Iraq are among the most vulnerable; that they have been hunted down and killed in gruesome public executions; and that they face additional discrimination and violence in flight within their own refugee communities.

The Council’s refugee experts conclude that “[t]hese vulnerable refugees deserve our protection, and we know they can be resettled safely using current security screening and vetting processes. Denying them protection, or limiting protection to those who are Christian only, would be devastating to those who most need our compassion, and it would provide a public relations victory of sorts to ISIS and others who seek to justify their terrorism using cultural and religious propaganda.”

Protecting the persecuted, and resettling vulnerable refugees, are strong U.S. commitments that must not be rejected.  Our nation is better than that.

White House Resources on Syrian Refugees: https://www.whitehouse.gov/campaign/resources-on-syrian-refugees

The State of LGBT Rights Abroad

The three-month-late State Department release of the 2014 country human rights reports on June 25 passed largely under the radar. We’ll leave aside the obvious question as to why the Department, and Congress, allowed this mandated report to slide so far down the calendar. The substance of the report, after all, deserves note.

As in previous years, the newly released reports document a continued lack of respect for the lives, livelihoods and rights of LGBT people around the world:

• Laws criminalizing LGBT relations and relationships exist in every corner of the globe, from Kuwait to Singapore and from Turkmenistan to Zambia; anti-discrimination protections exclude LGBT people from the Czech Republic to Egypt and from Pakistan to the Philippines.
• In countries as wide-ranging as Algeria, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia and Sierra Leone, LGBT populations face barriers to critical health service needs.
• Media – even including government outlets – have engaged in anti-gay public messaging from Armenia to Angola and from Georgia to Mongolia and Singapore.
• LGBT organizations have been denied registration in Botswana, Bulgaria, and Afghanistan, and in many more countries it would be unthinkable to attempt to register such an organization.
• Transgender people lack protections or find it difficult, if not impossible, to change their identity documents in countries ranging from Ecuador to Cyprus, from Tajikistan to Vietnam and even in countries such as Thailand and the Philippines, with increasingly strong and visible transgender rights movements; many more countries require unwanted medical procedures or forced sterilization before a person can access appropriate identity documents, including countries ranging from Belgium to Iran.
• And, like in our own country, there is ample evidence that LGBT people too often are denied employment, education and housing opportunities or are subjected to inhumane and coercive medical practices and so-called “conversion therapies.”

These cases, of course, are in addition to the well-known and –documented homophobia of countries like Russia, Uganda and much of the Arab world.

The most egregious violations documented in the reports center on bias-motivated crimes and abuse – committed far too often, and with impunity, by government authorities. Many reports describe national police as subjecting LGBT people to arbitrary arrest or extortion, or even of being complicit in LGBT-directed hate violence. In dozens of countries, the reports describe police and other government authorities as having turned a blind eye to LGBT hate crimes, failing either to protect against or to prosecute those crimes.

By commission or omission, these violations challenge the integrity of the governments concerned. But the integrity of our own government’s human rights credentials is also at stake. A country that documents and champions human rights must make clear that LGBT human rights abuse has real consequences to the strength and extent of bilateral relations – something that this Administration has recognized but which has not occurred with the consistency required to have a deterrent effect. Equally important, the U.S. needs to use its bilateral law enforcement tools imaginatively to help partner countries prevent, investigate, and prosecute human rights abuse. In so doing, U.S. support must help change the fundamental mindset of other governments, especially those close U.S. friends and allies who insist on treating their LGBT citizens as criminals undeserving of protection – or, indeed, of the rule of law.

At a White House conference earlier this summer, the Administration showcased some of those international law enforcement tools. An important conclusion from that conference was that “improving access to justice for LGBT persons will require both an overall strengthening of the institutions that safeguard the rule of law, and increased education and training for law enforcement officials on promoting human rights and protecting vulnerable communities, including LGBT communities.”

The U.S. can, and should, take immediate action to impact that conclusion. U.S. Legal Attaches stationed abroad can proactively urge foreign governments to collect and disaggregate data on hate crimes abuse directed against LGBT people, to focus attention toward needed areas. Indeed, the United States is one of the few countries around the world that is trying to collect and disaggregate this data within its own jurisdiction. Justice Department legal advisors can provide host governments with needed expertise on legal reform tools. Overseas police training programs can offer greater attention to international LGBT bias-motivated violence. Inter-agency attention to bias-motivated violence abroad might benefit from enhanced coordinative structures or processes. And the U.S. can more purposefully support LGBT-affirming policies in other countries, and better match foreign assistance to LGBT civil society needs.

In short, the State Department devotes sizeable resources to documenting human rights abuses abroad each year; it needs to more purposefully use that documentation to drive U.S. human rights policy and funding priorities overseas. This is not only a matter of using taxpayer dollars wisely, but of demonstrating our commitment to the fundamental human rights that our country is right to champion.

Obama Applauds LGBT Advocate During Jamaica Speech

Repost from The Washington Blade

President Obama on Thursday applauded a prominent Jamaican LGBT rights advocate as he spoke during a town hall meeting in the country’s capital.

Angeline Jackson, executive director of Quality of Citizenship Jamaica, a group that advocates on behalf of lesbian and bisexual women and transgender Jamaicans, was among those in the audience at University of the West Indies in Kingston when Obama described her as one of the island’s “remarkable young leaders.”

Obama during his speech noted that Jackson founded Quality of Citizenship Jamaica after she and a friend were kidnapped, held at gunpoint and sexually assaulted.

“As a woman and as a lesbian, justice and society weren’t always on her side,” said the president. “But instead of remaining silent she chose to speak out and started her own organization to advocate for women like her, get them treatment and get them justice and push back against stereotypes and give them some sense of their own power. And she became a global activist.” Continue Reading