India: Tackling the archaic LGBT law

A 15-year-old Class XI student set himself on fire after he was caught by one of his neighbours getting intimate with a male friend.  News spread, and teasing and harassment followed. Humiliated, he locked himself in his room for two days. On Sunday, he doused himself with diesel fuel and set himself on fire. "He is unable to speak properly,” the boy’s anguished father said. “The doctors say he is out of danger but I will only believe it when my son will talk to me."

The boy’s suicide attempt is the latest, tragic reminder that much work needs to be done in India to change public attitudes and reduce hysteria over so-called traditional values. In 2010, Srinivas Ramchandra Siras, a professor at Aligarh Muslim University, committed suicide after being vilified for his consensual gay relationship.

The most urgent need is repeal of India’s archaic law criminalizing same-sex relations. Even if rarely enforced, the law, section 377 of the penal code, reinforced the idea that discrimination and other mistreatment of LGBT people was acceptable in Indian society.  Read more via HRW

Tunisia: Advocates urge pressure on Tunisia to spare LGBT group

International human rights advocates at Front Line Defenders issued a statement today condemning Tunisia for ordering the LGBT group Shams to suspend activities. In the process, the statement clarified the context and background of this violation of Tunisian citizens’ rights to association and free speech. 

The Tunisian government had filed a complaint accusing Shams (‘sun’ in Arabic) of violating NGO laws which led to its 30-day suspension by the Tunisian Court of First Instance on January 4. Shams, which seeks the decriminalization of gay sex acts in the northern African country, is the first group of its kind to receive official authorization from the country’s interior ministry in May 2015.

Members of the group have however been subjected to systematic smear campaigns by conservative political groups and individuals, with some members receiving death threats following public appearances in the media. Read more via 76crimes 

US: Federal agency urges court to include sexual orientation under sex discrimination ban

The federal agency charged with enforcing existing civil rights laws has urged a federal appeals court to rule that sexual orientation discrimination is a form of sex discrimination and therefore illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

In a filing at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission wrote that “sexual orientation discrimination is sex discrimination, and such sex discrimination violates Title VII.” In supporting the appeal of Barbara Burrows, whose lawsuit against the College of Central Florida was tossed out by a trial court judge, the EEOC wrote, “The district court’s treatment of sexual orientation discrimination as distinct from sex discrimination is untenable and based on a fundamentally flawed premise.”

The move is the latest step from the EEOC and advocates in an effort to protect LGBT people from discrimination under existing civil rights law.   Read more via Buzzfeed

Fiji: PM says gays should go to Iceland and stay there

Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama has said LGBTI people in the Pacific island nation should go to Iceland and stay there. Bainimarama was responding to Shamima Ali, co-ordinator of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Center, who had called on the government to legalize gay marriage. 

‘Tell Shamima Ali, there will be no same-sex marriage in Fiji,’ he said in a televised interview, ‘Not in her lifetime and not in ours.’ If two women want to marry, ‘they should go and have it done in Iceland and stay and live there.’

Ali condemned Bainimarama’s statements: ‘It’s extreme homophobia and really total disrespect for a community in Fiji.' Read more via Gay Star News

Italy: Treat surrogate parents as sex offenders, says Italian minister

Italy’s interior minister has called for surrogate parents to be treated as sex offenders, as part of a broader campaign against the prime minister’s efforts to grant family rights to same-sex couples.

“We want ‘wombs for rent’ to become a universal crime. And that it is punished with prison. Just as happens for sexual crimes,” Angelino Alfano said.

The minister’s comments outline the fierce debate over family rights under way in Italy as the country prepares to give gay couples legal rights for the first time. The push for same-sex unions and stepchild adoption rights has proved perhaps the greatest challenge in the first two years of Matteo Renzi’s coalition government.

Surrogacy is illegal in Italy and punishable by steep fines and up to two years in prison, although a legal grey area has meant that couples who travel abroad for surrogacy are not prosecuted when they return home. A “family day” held in June brought hundreds of thousands of people to Rome, marching against proposed legal changes and lessons about gay families in schools. Read more via the Guardian 

UK: Transgender people are being let down by the government, say MPs

Transgender issues should never be treated as a mental health problem, according to a radical parliamentary report that demands a complete overhaul of the legal protections for transgender people in the UK.

The House of Commons women and equalities committee said the government should introduce a non-binary gender option on passports, require all police officers to undergo transphobic hate crime training, and ensure transgender people cannot be excluded from single-sex institutions such as women’s refuges.

The report also insists transgender prisoners should be allowed to serve their sentence in a prison that is appropriate to their gender, says 16- and 17-year-olds should be allowed to switch their legal gender, and calls for an explicit ban on anti-transgender hate speech.

“I can think of no group that suffers more discrimination than trans people,” committee chair Maria Miller said. “We must think about the human rights of every single person who lives in our country, and at the moment the human rights of trans people are not fully protected.” Read more via Buzzfeed

Hong Kong: LGBT community disappointed by long awaited report on discrimination against sexual minorities

A long-awaited report on discrimination against sexual minorities was finally released yesterday. In wording that disappointed rights activists, the report recommended “a further study” on other jurisdictions to inform “future consultation” on both legislative proposals and administrative measures. The group also called on the government to draw up a non-discrimination charter to be voluntarily adopted by employers, schools and landlords, as well as training for teachers, medical practitioners and social workers.

Hong Kong’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities have for years been asking for wider recognition of their rights. But their bid for legislation to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation was dashed on the last day of the year.

“It took two years to discuss, and the conclusion is to ‘further study’ whether to hold public consultation [over whether to legislate to protect sexual minorities from discrimination]? This is unacceptable,” said Brian Leung Siu-fai, of LGBT rights group Big Love Alliance.

Chan, a People Power lawmaker, criticised the group: “The report has been toned down and is very conservative now,” said Chan. “The current administration is absolutely not sincere in launching legislative work at all.”  Read more via South China Morning Post

US: Can states protect LGBT rights without compromising religious freedom?

Twenty-eight. That’s the number of states where it’s not against the law to discriminate against a gay person who’s looking for an apartment, applying for a job, or buying something from a store. Five more states have protections, but with exceptions: New York, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin don’t forbid discrimination against transgender people, for example, and Massachusetts and Utah don’t protect all LGBT people in all situations in which discrimination might arise.

The federal government does not protect against this kind of discrimination, either, except in limited cases. Although Democrats have proposed legislation that would change that, the chances of it successfully sliding through a Republican Congress in an election year seem slim.

The irony of gay marriage becoming legal in the United States is that it has made discrimination against LBGT people easier. For example: Many newlywed couples may be asking their employers for spousal benefits for the first time. Depending on where they live, it may or may not be illegal for that employer to respond by firing them—something that happened in a number of states in 2015. Some state legislatures have tentatively taken on this issue; Pennsylvania and Idaho, for example, both saw bills introduced in 2015.

But in many places, these efforts are complicated by a tangled political question: Should these laws make exceptions for religious individuals and organizations that object to employing and providing services to gay people? This question could produce some of the biggest political fights of 2016. Read more via the Atlantic

Chile: Ministry of Health to stop “normalising” interventions on intersex children

The Chilean Ministry of Health has issued instructions to its national health sector to stop “normalising” medical interventions on intersex infants and children. This guidance is a global first: the first time that a health ministry has shown leadership in taking this step without legislation or legal action. They have done this while awaiting the development of human rights-affirming treatment protocols and legislation to offer protection from discrimination on grounds of “sexual characteristics”.

The report entitled “Instructions on aspects of health care to intersex children“ instructs the ceasing of “unnecessary “normalization” treatment of intersex children, including irreversible genital surgeries, until they are old enough to decide about their bodies“, while work takes place to develop protocols that meet human rights standards. Read more via OII

Russia: Duma Committee Comes Out Against Antigay Bill

The Russian State Duma Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State-Building has declined to endorse a controversial draft bill that would introduce fines and arrests for people who publicly express their homosexuality. The parliamentary committee advised that the Duma unanimously vote against the bill in the event it reached a first reading.

The bill, initiated by lawmakers from the Communist Party and condemned as discriminatory by human rights activists, called for fines of up to 5,000 rubles (~ $65) for publicly expressing "nontraditional sexual orientation." The bill also proposed punishing those who express homosexuality at educational or cultural institutions with arrest and up to 15 days in jail. 

Communist lawmaker Igor Nikitchuk, one of the bill’s authors, defended the legislation during a meeting of the committee, calling homosexuality a “contagious disease” and a “threat to society,” as other lawmakers snickered.

Lawmaker Dmitry Gudkov, a rare anti-Kremlin opposition politician in the State Duma, wrote that the recommendation to reject the bill was made for "formal reasons."   Read more via Radio Free Europe

Guyana: Ramsammy lobbies for repeal of laws that discriminate against LGBT

Former health minister under the PPP administration Dr Leslie Ramsammy has called on Guyana and by extension the Caribbean community to repeal laws that “stigmatize, discriminate and criminalize” the LGBT community.

Ramsammy said, “Guyana is today one of about five countries in the world that in accordance with the law can sentence a person in the LGBT community .. for simply engaging in same-sex relations in the privacy of their homes.” Under the Criminal Law (Offences) Act same sex relations between gay men attract a jail term of 10 years to life.

Ramsammy said in a statement, “If we are serious about achieving the goals and targets to end AIDS by 2030 in accordance with the global collective agreements, Guyana signed under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), then we in Guyana and in Caricom must demonstrate leadership."   Read more via Stabroek 

Singapore: Decision to retain Section 377A ‘carefully considered, balanced’

Raising the LGBT issue in its human-rights report to the UN for the first time, the Singapore Government said its decision to retain Section 377A of the Penal Code, which criminalises sex between men, was a “carefully considered and finely balanced decision”.

The report--submitted to the UN in October and released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Dec 11--noted that the LGBT issue is a sensitive one in its multi-religious society, where segments “continue to hold strong views against homosexuality for various reasons, including religious convictions and moral values”.

So, its approach is to seek to “accommodate the sensitivities of different communities so that there is room for all to exist harmoniously together”, the Government said, noting that the statute is not proactively enforced, and all citizens, regardless of their sexual orientation, are free to lead their lives and pursue their activities in their private space without fear or violence or personal insecurity.

It added: “We believe that each country should be allowed to deal with such sensitive issues in its own way, taking into account its evolving social and cultural context.”  Read more via Today