Graeme Reid

In December 2022, ten months into the full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, the Duma extended the scope of Russia’s ‘gay propaganda’ law forbidding the public portrayal of ‘non-traditional sexual relations’. Previously focused on minors, the prohibited exposure would now apply to any age group. Why would Russia’s parliament do this in the middle of a war? The amendment might appear to have been a trivial effort to distract the public from Russian military losses in Ukraine. But the restrictions, which render life precarious for LGBT+ individuals in Russia, have a much more ambitious purpose—to consolidate conservative support at home and position Russia as the defender […]

June marks the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots over the treatment of LGBT people by New York City police, which was commemorated a year later with a protest march. In countries where it is possible, pride marches and parades are now ubiquitous, including in South Africa, which held its first in 1990.  Pride month is a time to reflect on progress but also ongoing challenges in advancing the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.  Many countries in Africa have poor reputations when it comes to LGBT rights. The anthropologist Zethu Matebeni has parodied this uniformly gloomy view in a piece entitled How Not to Write About Queer South Africa. But the same volume also highlights the ways in which sexual and gender minorities are marginalised by “African political, religious and traditional leaders”.  When it comes to the rights of sexual and gender minorities in Africa, the past year has been a mixed bag.  In the […]

For 30 days, beginning January 17, European Union commissioners received daily Twitter notifications linking to personal stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Poles who have been harmed  by the  so-called “LGBT Ideology Free Zones” or anti-LGBT “Family Charters” in nearly 100 Polish regions, towns, and cities. The tweets were part of a campaign led by two Polish LGBT groups, Campaign Against Homophobia (Kampania Przeciw Homofobii, KPH) and The Equality Foundation (Fundacja Równości, FR), calling on EU Commissioners to initiate an infringement procedure – a legal action that can lead to referral to the European Court of Justice – against Poland. The “LGBT-free zones” […]

It’s impossible to evaluate what the year 2020 looked like from the perspective of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people’s rights without recognizing how Covid-19 put a spanner in the works and made for an especially tumultuous year, including for LGBT people. The Covid-19 pandemic exposed fault lines of inequality, leaving some more vulnerable than others regarding infection, prognosis, and economic impact – including within LGBT communities. In countries where LGBT people face social stigma, moral opprobrium and legal discrimination, they have fewer economic opportunities, and more likely to be poor, particularly in contexts where some LGBT people were left out of […]