International Women’s Day: the issues faced by sexual and gender diverse women

On a day that champions the achievements of women while recognising the ongoing struggle of gender inequality, Anna Brown believes it’s important to highlight women who face intersectional discrimination – because of both their sexual and gender identities.

International Women’s Day is an annual celebration of women around the world, one that Brown sees as a significant opportunity to raise awareness around women in the LGBTI community:

“Around the world lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and intersex women face human rights abuses such as corrective rape, physical attacks, and even murder. As queer women in Australia we have an important role to play in standing in solidarity with women across the world. For instance, we need to ensure that our government’s foreign policy initiatives on women and girls are inclusive of lesbian, bisexual, trans, and intersex women.” 

 Read more via Star Observer
 

European Parliament demands protection LGBTI refugees, also from ‘safe’ countries

The European Parliament adopted a report on the situation of women refugees and asylum seekers in the EU, paying particular attention to the situation of LGBTI asylum seekers.

The report is a response to the invisibility of female refugees and their concerns in the wake of the steep increase of asylum seekers arriving in Europe. A significant part of the refugees and asylum seekers is LGBTI, who often face specific challenges, which are addressed in the report.

In response to the increased number of asylum seekers, the Commission has proposed establishing a common list of safe countries of origin, which would make it easier to send back asylum seekers coming from these countries. This list would include all Balkan states and Turkey. However, the Parliament recognized that LGBTI people may be subjected to abuse, even in countries which are considered ‘safe’. As such, it concludes, they have a legitimate request for protection. 

Read more via Intergroup on LGBT Rights
 

UK: Government pledges £1 million to tackle homophobic bullying

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan has announced £1 million of funding, which is being put towards tackling LGBT bullying in schools. Mrs Morgan, who is also Minister for Equalities, said: “I am determined to do all I can to consign homophobic and transphobic bullying to the dustbin of history.”

Despite having opposed marriage equality in 2013, Morgan has made homophobic bullying one of her top priorities since taking the Education portfolio in the Conservative government. She had previously delivered a £2 million package in October 2014 to tackle the same issue.

Stonewall Chief Executive Ruth Hunt said the funding – which has been announced less than a month after the government rejected recommendations for mandatory, inclusive sex and relationship education in schools – was “crucial” to teaching young people about the importance of inclusivity and acceptance. Read more via Attitude 

Australia: Meet the trans kids fighting for the right to transition

Access to medical treatment changes transgender people’s lives. It can mean the difference between employment and homelessness, education and dropping out, wellbeing and depression, anxiety and suicide. But for many, it remains out of reach.

Australia is the only Western country where transgender people under the age of 18 must seek court permission to start taking cross-sex hormones. At best, experts say, the delay causes emotional trauma and financial stress. At worst, it’s a matter of life and death. Read more via Buzzfeed

UK: This is what domestic violence is like when you’re LGBT

Sam was three months pregnant when her girlfriend Lynn raped her. They were at home. Sensing that Lynn wanted sex, Sam decided to tell her that she did not. “She suddenly got nasty,” says Sam, flatly. “She was physically a lot bigger than me. She pinned me against a doorway and said, ‘I’ll have what I fucking like if I fucking want it.’ She assaulted me.”

Sam is in her early thirties. It is only in the last few months she has felt able to talk about the events of her early twenties. She looks up briefly, as we sit talking in a half-empty restaurant, and asks, “How do you say to your friends, ‘My girlfriend rapes me’ when their only mental definition of rape is a man forcing his penis inside a woman’s vagina? How do you say you were assaulted when it comes back to the idea of ‘that doesn’t count’? Well, it does count.”

It is a story that not only Sam finds difficult to tell, but one that many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people struggle to disclose. BuzzFeed News spoke to both LGBT survivors of domestic abuse and an organisation trying to help them – amid a backdrop of cuts to funding.
As the accounts of violence, rape, bullying, coercion, and control surfaced, sometimes for the first time, two questions began to form: What prevents LGBT people in particular from speaking out? And, what external forces are stopping them from finding safety?  

Read more via Buzzfeed
 

Vietnam: Unlikely haven for gays and a lucrative business opportunity

If it had been in business a decade ago, Nguyen Anh Thuan’s restaurant would have been a target for late-night police raids to arrest lawbreakers and stamp out “social evils”. But Comga Cafe, in the heart of Vietnam’s capital, is no gambling den, after-hours bar or front for dealing drugs. It is a business friendly to people of all sexual preferences in a one-party state where conservative values are strong.

Yet Thuan is experiencing success instead of resistance. Prejudice is giving way to some liberalism, he says, in a country often labelled a human rights abuser but now one of Asia’s most progressive on gay, lesbian and transgender issues.

That has spawned a niche market of an estimated 1.6 million Vietnamese at a time of galloping growth, offering money-making opportunities to firms that provide services from travel and weddings to insurance and health care.

“Our business benefits a lot from the LGBT community,” said Thuan, who also advises businesses on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, which are often abbreviated as LGBT.   Read more via South China Morning Post

Australia: Malcolm Turnbull becomes first Prime Minister to attend Sydney Gay Mardi Gras

 More than 12,000 people marched through Oxford Street at the 38th annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, drawing some 500,000 spectators.

Not connected to the Catholic holiday, Sydney’s Mardi Gras has its origins, like Pride festivals in America, in an act of violence: In 1978, participants in a sanctioned demonstration were beaten and arrested by police. Almost four decades later, LGBT rights have grabbed the spotlight again, now that England, Ireland and the U.S. all have marriage equality. The issue has become as divisive Down Under as it is in the States—the current Conservative government wants to kick the issue down the road to at least 2017. So while Saturday’s event was an unabashed celebration, it was also a protest. 

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott was steadfastly opposed to marriage equality, but his successor, Malcolm Turnbull, became the first sitting PM to attend Mardi Gras. Read more via New Now Next

Netherlands: Gay Refugees Face Death Threats, Abuse In Netherlands

The Dutch parliament is calling on the country’s government to offer emergency housing for gay refugees, who for months have been subject to death threats, intimidation and other forms of harassment at temporary shelters, LGBT activists say.

Members of parliament voted in favor of a motion earlier this week, requesting that the government “provide the possibility of separate and safe housing for LGBT and other vulnerable groups, if noted that their security can’t be guaranteed."

Philip Tijsma, public affairs manager at an LGBT rights organization called COC Netherlands, called the motion a breakthrough. It calls for exactly what the refugees facing abuse asked for: a safe place: “What’s the use of having a roof over your head if you’re too afraid to leave your room because of all the bullying and harassment?”

Here’s a look at some of the numbers behind the violence gay refugees face as they seek safety in the Netherlands. Read more via Vocativ 

Poland: Office of Campaign Against Homophobia (KPH) has been attacked

Office of the Campaign Against Homophobia (KPH) was attacked on 3rd of March. Three young men tried to break into the premises of the KPH, shouting offensive terms to the employees of the organisation. Few activists of the KPH were present at the office by the time of the incident and they called the police immediately. However, the attackers managed to escape before the police officers arrived.

Worth noting that, this is the second occasion in the past few days when LGBT organisation has been under attack. Earlier this week, someone threw a brick to the office of the Lambda Warszawa and broke the windows. Everybody is safe and unhurt.  Read more via KPH

Italy: Gay rights activists rally for universal marriage and adoption rights

Donning the gay pride rainbow on their cheeks and holding banners which read "we want equality," "love counts" and "the law and its rights are for everybody," around 20,000 protestors gathered in Rome's famous Piazza del Popolo to protest government plans to implement a civil union bill which fails to recognize their right to legally marry and also adopt their partners' biological children.

Demonstrators say the proposal - which had been reined in in a bid to pass the senate, and is now being assessed by the lower house - only goes part of the way to securing rights for Italy's homosexual families.

"Today's demonstration is meant to show that the Italian people aren't happy with our parliament and government," Pietro Stramba-Badiale, spokesman for civil rights group ParteCivile, told DW.

But it was not only LGBTI activists, Stramba-Badiale added, who were out demonstrating on Saturday.  Read more via DW

South Africa: Minister of Justice calls on Africa to respect LGBTI people

South Africa’s Minister of Justice has called on African nations to accept the human rights of LGBTI people and to change their attitudes towards sexual orientation and gender identity.

Delegates from across the continent participated in the “Africa Regional Seminar on Finding Practical Solutions for Addressing Violence and Discrimination Against Persons Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression.” The seminar brought together officials, human rights groups, international and regional bodies, civil society and academics.

In his speech, Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Advocate Michael Masutha said that the seminar had its roots in the resolution adopted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in May 2014 condemning violence and other human rights violations against the LGBTI community. The historic resolution, while largely ignored by African governments, also condemned attacks by states against people on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Masutha said that at the heart of efforts to protect LGBTI Africans from “horrendous violations” was the understanding “that we must change societal attitudes”.  Read more via MambaOnline