A community center that has become a lifeline for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Ukrainians – and hub of humanitarian activity since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – was broken into and vandalized on Tuesday. Photos show that the door of the Insight office in the northwestern city of Lutsk was shattered, with broken glass and paper covering the entryway. Activists say no electronics or documents appear to be missing.
Insight is a feminist organization that provides medical care, legal aid, and psychosocial services to queer community members. Since February 2022, the group has housed hundreds of people in three emergency shelters run by LGBT human rights defenders, and, together with the Women’s March volunteer team, distributed more than 25,000 emergency aid parcels.
Ukrainian authorities should conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the attack in consultation with Insight’s human rights defenders, who have long been targeted for their work. In April 2022, two unidentified assailants teargassed Insight chair Olena Shevchenko on the streets of Lviv while she was delivering humanitarian aid. This followed a 2016 far-right attack on the Equality Festival in Lviv, LGBT defenders being teargassed at Kyiv Pride in 2018, and two attackers physically beating Shevchenko in 2019 while shouting slurs at her.
Despite the clear pattern of harassment, police did not properly investigate last year’s attack. Lviv Regional Police Department #1 formally launched a criminal investigation and Shevchenko underwent a forensic medical examination, but the police neither informed her of the results of the exam nor did they collect her victim statement. In March 2023, Shevchenko’s lawyer sent a motion to police requesting that they collect her overdue statement from the 2022 attack, and in April her lawyer filed a claim to a Lviv court regarding police inaction.
The authorities need to properly investigate the break-in and damage to Insight’s office, as well as other abuses against Ukrainian LGBT human rights defenders. Such incidents might be reduced if the government were to enact comprehensive legislation that protects people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.
Estonia’s parliament approved on Tuesday a law to legalise same-sex marriage, making it the first central European country to do so.
Same-sex marriage is legal in much of western Europe but not in central European countries which were once under communist rule and members of the Moscow-led Warsaw Pact alliance but now members of NATO and, largely, the EU.
“My message (to central Europe) is that it’s a difficult fight, but marriage and love is something that you have to promote,” Prime Minister Kaja Kallas [photo] told Reuters after the vote.
55 members of the Riigikogu voted in favor of the measure, while 34 voted against. Going forward, alongside marriage, people will continue to enjoy the right to enter into a registered partnership.
Such a partnership guarantees the right of registered spouses to have a say in decisions pertaining to their partner and to obtain support and benefits as needed. Couples who enter into a registered partnership will also be able to convert their status to marriage in a simplified procedure should they wish to do so.
The proposal also clarifies the Family Law Act’s regulation of parenthood in regards to same-sex couples’ adoption rights. The act is planned to enter into force on January 1, 2024.
Estonia, population 1.4 million, joined the European Union and NATO in 2004.
The space for China’s LGBTQ community just got even smaller.
Founded in 2008, the Beijing LGBT Center had played a prominent role in combating prejudice against sexual and gender minorities in China. On May 15, four days after its 15th anniversary and two days before the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, the center said on its official WeChat account that it was closing because of “force majeure,” which in China often refers to being shut down by the government.
“We were all shocked by the news,” said Marry Yang, a volunteer at the center. “It’s quite sudden. Most people don’t know what happened.”
It is not clear whether the closing of the Beijing LGBT Center, which declined a request for comment, was ordered by officials. The publicity department for Beijing’s Chaoyang district, where the center was, said it was not aware of the situation.
Considered the biggest and most well-established LGBTQ organization in China, the center, also known as Beitong, gave sexual and gender minorities a sense of belonging, supporters said.
“It’s quite shocking because I thought the Beijing LGBT Center has a very perfect policy with all kinds of support,” Yang said. “But even so, they still shut down.”
Jinghua Qian, a Chinese Australian writer who worked as a journalist in China from 2016 to 2018, said the center’s closure was “a huge loss for not only the LGBTIQ+ community in China but for the world.”
“We will be poorer for it,” Qian told NBC News via email. “We will know less, we will understand less, about people and ideas that are quite crucial to understanding China today.”
“LGBTQ+ is viewed as a malign foreign influence that is stopping youth from getting married and having children by the Chinese government,” said Darius Longarino, a senior fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School who focuses on LGBTQ rights.
Although homosexuality is legal in China and major cities can have thriving LGBTQ social scenes, same-sex marriage and adoption are not allowed and LGBTQ people are not legally protected against discrimination.
LGBTQ people in China say their safe spaces have been squeezed under President Xi Jinping, who has overseen a crackdown on advocacy groups since coming to power a decade ago. The pressure has only intensified under a 2017 law that increased regulation of international nongovernmental organizations, said Stephanie Wang, an assistant professor at St. Lawrence University in New York state who has researched LGBTQ rights in China.
In 2019, Chengdu Milk LGBT Service Center announced that it would cease operations. In 2020, Shanghai Pride, which held China’s only major annual LGBTQ celebration, said it was suspending all activities after 11 years in existence. LGBT Rights Advocacy China, which had led major legal cases, shut down the following year, months after dozens of LGBTQ accounts run by university students were deleted from the WeChat social media platform.
There has also been an increase in government censorship, including a ban on “effeminate” men on TV as well as shows about close male relationships known as “boys’ love” dramas. Last year, an LGBTQ storyline was removed from a version of the American sitcom “Friends” being streamed on the Chinese mainland.
Harvey Zhu, 24, a university student in Beijing who had participated in Beijing LGBT Center activities, said the center’s closing was part of an “irresistible trend” in China.
I know that queers & feminists in China know how to work a loophole, a cat door, a hairline fracture, a whisper, a metaphor, but soon that’s too subtle and quiet to reach the people who need it. A secret handshake can’t replace a lighthouse.”
JINGHUA QIAN, CHINESE AUSTRALIAN WRITER
“You don’t feel surprised because you’ve actually expected it,” he said.
Qian, the Chinese Australian writer, nonetheless expressed disappointment and alarm.
“It’s evidence of how much the government has turned on queer and feminist organizations as enemies of the state, where in the past the relationship between NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] and the state was rocky but occasionally collegial as well,” said Qian, who uses gender-neutral pronouns.
Earlier, after hearing about the closure, they wrote on Twitter that “it just feels so utterly hopeless. I know that queers & feminists in China know how to work a loophole, a cat door, a hairline fracture, a whisper, a metaphor, but soon that’s too subtle and quiet to reach the people who need it. A secret handshake can’t replace a lighthouse.”
‘Homophobic social norms’
Zhu and others say conservative cultural values often keep them from sharing their identities with others.
“I haven’t told my parents about my sexuality because I’m afraid it’s not traditionally acceptable to them,” he said. “Although China is becoming more open to us now, it’s still difficult for sexual minorities to work in state organizations as rights-bearing officials because of traditional homophobic social norms.”
“Because you can’t just be open about your sexuality in there, you don’t know what that would entail,” he added.
Zhu sees a brighter future for sexual and gender minorities in China, albeit one that will take time to appear.
“Right now the upper echelons of the country’s leadership are still conservative older generations,” he said. “But I believe that in another decade or so when more open-minded people take up the role of policymakers, things will change.”
That makes organizations like the Beijing LGBT Center all the more important in the meantime, said Will Hai, founder of a queer group in the Chinese city of Changsha.
“It is especially obvious during the holidays,” Hai said, when single people returning to their hometowns face questions from family members about why they haven’t married and had children.
“I can see that straight people seem to be happy to go home for the [Lunar] New Year or something, but the LGBT group feels very depressed and suffocated,” he said.
“In this case, it is definitely important to have an organization for this kind of public discussion.”
Hai said he wanted to make his organization as meaningful as the Beijing LGBT Center.
“On the other hand, I can’t make it too meaningful,” he said, “because if it is too meaningful it will be censored.”
Sarit Ahmed, an 18-year-old queer Druze woman, died after being shot multiple times while sitting in her car in Northern Israel, in a killing allegedly motivated by her sexual orientation.
Ahmed was found lying in the street near Yarka, with multiple gunshot wounds to her upper body on Friday (9 June), according to Israeli emergency services. After being taken to Galilee Medical Centre in Israel’s Northern District, Ahmed was pronounced dead.
The 18-year-old had previously received death threats from her brothers due to her queer identity. In 2020, Ahmed filed a complaint against two of her brothers, claiming they had made explicit threats on her life.
The two brothers were convicted of threatening her life and jailed for three and four months, while Ahmed was placed in a shelter for at-risk young women.
According to the verdict, her brothers found out that Ahmed was not heterosexual and knew about a relationship she had had which was “contrary to the family’s opinion and what was accepted”.
Tensions and threats reportedly came to head in October 2020, when Ahmed’s eldest brother returned home and took Ahmed’s mobile phone from her. It was on the device that he found information about her sexual orientation.
Walla reported that Ahmed’s eldest brother advised her to “drink poison, it’s better for you”, while the younger brother threatened to stab her “in the stomach with a knife, and then I will go drink beer – as if nothing had happened”.
Ahmed’s phone was confiscated by her father and oldest brother, and she was barred from leaving the house unless accompanied by a family member. This situation lasted for over a month, as outlined in the indictment, until Ahmed ran away and filed a complaint against her brother.
In the brothers’ sentencing, the judge wrote: “I have every hope that after this sentence the parents will find the best way to return their little daughter to the family, to take care of her in a natural way, with understanding and persuasion and not by coercion and threats.”
After a period living in a shelter for her safety, Ahmed decided to live with her sister, but just three weeks ago, she approached police and asked for protection, as she feared for her life once again.
Police have so far not made any arrests and no formal suspects have been identified.
Ahmed’s killing raises questions about the lack of protection for LGBTQ+ Arabs in Israel. During a recent Knesset hearing, it was found that the Welfare Ministry employs only one social worker dedicated to helping LGBTQ+ Arabs, Haaretz reported.
According to Arwa Adam, director of Arab LGBTQ+ organisation Beit Al-Mim, the Social Equality Ministry approved the opening of a shelter for the LGBTQ+ Arab community, but it had not been implemented.
Hila Par, chair of the Association for the LGBT, said: “It is difficult to describe the pain of the murder of the young woman after she received threats on the background of her sexual orientation. It is a sad day for the gay community and the entire Israeli public where such a murder takes place.
“When it comes to a girl who has been threatened in the past because of her sexual orientation, we demand that the police thoroughly investigate the circumstances of the incident,” Parr added. “This harsh reality cannot continue.”
Ahmed was part of the Druze community, sometimes described as a “minority within a minority” of around 120,000 people who form just two per cent of Israel’s population. Druze people practise a form of Ismaili Islam, identifying with the wider community in Lebanon and Syria, and some form of Arab nationalism.
Since the beginning of 2023, the number of murder victims in the Arab community has risen to 93, including seven women and two children.
Palestinian citizens of Israel have long criticised the discrimination they face and police inaction when it comes to crime and violence that disproportionately affects their community.
In April, Israel police commissioner Kobi Shabtai claimed that it is in the “nature” and part of the “mentality” of Arabs to kill each other in a phone conversation with in a phone call with far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
“There is nothing that can be done. They kill each other. That is their nature. That is the mentality of the Arabs,” the Times of Israel reported Shabtai as saying.
Ahmed’s death follows the unrelated alleged crime gang-related shooting of five people at a car wash on Thursday (8 June) in the town of Yafa an-Naseriyye.
Elected officials in Russia have proposed a new law that would ban transgender people from accessing gender affirming health services – including voluntary surgeries – while allowing operations on intersex children to be carried out without their consent. The bill also prohibits people from changing their name and gender marker on official documents.
The bill essentially infringes on the rights of both transgender people and intersex children. Consenting transgender adults who seek medical interventions to affirm their gender identity will be barred from those services while children born with variations in their sex characteristics – also known as intersex children – will continue to be subjected to medically unnecessary, nonconsensual surgeries to “normalize” their healthy bodies. These provisions are not only discriminatory but also violate the rights to physical integrity and privacy.
The hypocrisy of not allowing adults to make decisions about their bodies while allowing irreversible, unnecessary, and high-risk operations to be carried out on children is not unique to Russia but rather part of a cynical and exploitative anti-rights tilt politicians around the world are taking.
In recent years, officials in state governments across the United States have introduced dozens of bills that limit gender-affirming care for transgender people while allowing nonconsensual interventions on intersex children. Intersex people are usually described in this legislation as “children with a medically verifiable disorder of sex development,” which is a pejorative term for intersex variations. In Russia, lawmakers are using the phrase “congenital physiological anomalies of sex formation in children,” which carries the same harmful impact.
Deputy Petr Tolstoy said of the bill: “We preserve Russia for posterity, with its cultural and family values, traditional foundations, putting up a barrier to the penetration of Western anti-family ideology.”
This rhetoric is emblematic of President Vladimir Putin’s wholesale rejection of universal human rights. In December 2022, ten months into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Duma extended the scope of Russia’s harmful “gay propaganda” law forbidding the public portrayal of “non-traditional sexual relations.” Previously focused on young people under 18, the prohibited exposure would now apply to any age group.
Russian politicians are harming transgender and intersex people by continuing to deploy cynical “family values” rhetoric to uphold regressive ideas about gender and sexuality while assaulting informed consent rights for adults and children.
Lawmakers in South Korea have introduced legislation that would extend the right to marry to same-sex couples. This important legislation would finally enshrine the rights of same-sex couples in the country.
The bill would amend the gendered definition of marriage in the country’s civil code, allowing same-sex couples to marry and extending them the same rights and benefits afforded to heterosexual married couples. Meanwhile, the National Assembly is also considering legislation that would create civil partnerships as an alternative to marriage for both same-sex couples and heterosexual couples.
In the absence of partnership recognition, same-sex couples in South Korea are particularly vulnerable to discrimination and rights violations, including discrimination in taxation, inheritance, and family law.
Earlier this year, South Korea’s High Court ruled that denying health insurance benefits to same-sex couples that were provided to heterosexual couples constituted discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
South Korea also lacks general legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. While comprehensive antidiscrimination legislation is widely popular in South Korea, it has been stymied by legislative inaction and opposition from a small but vocal segment of the population.
Get updates on human rights issues from around the globe. Join our movement today. Have it sent to your inbox. The marriage equality bill comes as lawmakers in other countries in the region are considering more protections for same-sex couples. In 2019, Taiwan became the first country in Asia to legalize marriage equality. Lawmakers in Japan, the Philippines, and Thailand are considering proposals to legally recognize marriages or civil unions for same-sex couples.
There is growing consensus among human rights bodies that states must offer some form of recognition for same-sex relationships to protect their rights. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has said that, “States have a positive obligation to provide legal recognition to couples, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics, as well as to their children,” and to ensure that benefits traditionally offered to heterosexual married couples are extended without discrimination.
South Korea’s National Assembly should embrace this opportunity to protect the rights of same-sex couples and enact the marriage equality bill into law.
An upcoming government report on homophobia in the U.K. armed forces will show a climate of blatant homophobia, incidents of blackmail and sexual assaults, and a campaign of drugs and electric shock treatment to “cure” LGBTQ+ service members of their homosexuality.
The report, which covers 1967 to 2000, when the country’s ban on LGBTQ+ service members ended, is set for release next month and an advance copy was seen by Bloomberg. Commissioned last year by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the report contains over a thousand anonymous submissions from individuals who served in the U.K. military between 1967 to 2000. Terence Etherton, the independent or crossbench member of the House of Lords who led the investigation, said many service members were left “severely traumatized” by their experienced.
The accounts from former service members “paint a vivid picture of overt homophobia at all levels of the armed forces…and of the bullying that inevitability reflected it,” Etherton said.
Many veterans said they were told they had to take medication and undergo psychiatric treatment to remain in the military. One person said his treatment took place while he was seated on a toilet and the medical staff questioning him were drinking beer. Another said they had electrodes placed on their head and received electric shocks when shown naked pictures.
“I had some type of bruising/burn marks where they put the electrodes,” the unnamed person revealed in the report.
Other accounts reportedly detail how LGBTQ+ service members were singled out for abuse. One female veteran said she was assaulted by two male service members, then placed in a psychiatric ward and later discharged when she complained. Another said her superior threatened to have her discharged for being gay if she reported his attempt at raping her. Others reported being followed by military police, having military police show up at local gay bars.
Nearly 1 in 10 adults across 30 countries identify as LGBTQ, according to a new global survey, but that number tells only part of the story. Age and geographic location played a central role in the findings, with younger respondents and those in more progressive countries significantly more likely to be included in that top-line number. Demographics, including gender, also figured noticeably in respondents’ views on issues like transgender discrimination and same-sex marriage.
Ipsos, a market-research company, surveyed 22,514 participants in 30 countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia in February and March, and found that 3% identified as lesbian or gay, 4% as bisexual, 0.9% as pansexual or omnisexual, and 0.9% as asexual.
Survey respondents in Generation Z (born after 1997) were two times as likely as millennials (born in 1981 to 1996) to identify as bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual or asexual, and four times as likely as those in Generation X (1965 to 1980) or baby boomers (1948 to 1964).
When survey results were broken down by geography, respondents in Spain were the most likely (6%) to identify as gay or lesbian, while those in Brazil and the Netherlands were the most likely to identify as bisexual (both 7%). By contrast, respondents in Japan were the least likely to identify as gay or lesbian (less than 1%) or as bisexual (1%).
In terms of gender identity, 0.8% of respondents identified as transgender; 1.3% percent as nonbinary, gender nonconforming or gender fluid; and 0.7% did not identify with any of these categories but also did not identify as male or female.
Like sexual identity, there are large — and growing — generation gaps. While 6% of Generation Z respondents identified as something other than exclusively male or only female, 3% of millennials reported the same, while only 1% of Generation X and boomers did.
“We are seeing generational shifts. Globally, only 4% of boomers identify as LGBT+ versus 18% of Gen Z,” Nicolas Boyon, a senior vice president at Ipsos, told NBC News. “Older generations are seeing this and are probably a little bit puzzled.”
LGBTQ visibility
Globally, LGBTQ visibility has increased since 2021, when Ipsos last conducted its global survey. Nearly half (47%) of adults say they have a relative, friend or colleague who is lesbian or gay, up from 42% in 2021, and more than a quarter (26%) say they know someone who is bisexual, an increase of 2 percentage points from 2021. When it comes to gender identity, 13% know someone who is trans, an increase of 3 percentage points since 2021.
The number of people who say they know someone who is LGBTQ varies widely by country. The highest visibility for gays, lesbians and bisexuals was in Brazil, Spain, Chile and New Zealand, while visibility was the lowest in Japan, South Korea, Romania and Turkey.
Gender diversity was most visible in Thailand, New Zealand, the U.S. and Australia, and least visible in Romania, South Korea, Japan and Hungary.
Younger people and women were more likely than men and older respondents to know someone who is LGBTQ, and younger people in particular were much more likely to know someone who is transgender, the report found.
Transgender discrimination
Globally, 67% of respondents said transgender people confront a fair or great deal of discrimination, while 19% said they face little to no discrimination. And more than three quarters (76%) of those surveyed — representing a majority in each of the 30 countries surveyed — said transgender people should be protected from discrimination in employment, housing and businesses such as restaurants and stores.
A majority of respondents also said they support trans-inclusive policies that have become political flashpoints in several countries: 60% said trans teens should be able to access gender-affirming care with parental consent; 55% said trans people should be allowed to access single-sex facilities that match their gender identity; and 53 percent said government-issued IDs should include options other than male or female.
Thailand and Chile were among the countries most in favor of pro-transgender measures, while the U.S. and the United Kingdom — where trans issues have “polarizing political issues,” according to the report — were among the least.
Same-sex marriage
More than half of all respondents (56%) said gay marriage should be legal, and an additional 16% said same-sex couples should be able to receive some form of legal recognition. By contrast, 14% opposed any form of legal recognition, and an additional 14% were unsure.
In the 20 countries surveyed where same-sex marriage is already legal, support for it ranged from 49% to 80%, with only Colombia coming in below the halfway mark. In the other 10, a majority support some form of recognition, with the exception of Turkey.
Support for same-sex marriage, however, has “softened in several Western countries since 2021,” the report found.
Of the 23 countries surveyed both this year and in 2021, the report found that nine showed a decline of 4 percentage points or more in the support of same-sex marriage, including the U.S., Canada and the U.K. Only two countries surveyed both years showed an increase of 4 percentage points or more: France and Peru.
“We see that there tends to be a lot of opposition where trans rights are a very political issue,” Boyon said. “I wonder if, to some extent, the political polarization has not spilled over to views about same-sex marriage and adoption.”
Similar patterns were also found regarding adoption by same-sex couples. Globally, 64% of respondents said same-sex couples should have the same adoption rights as opposite-sex couples, though the report found that support for same-sex adoption has “declined significantly” in the U.S., Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden and Turkey.
Women and younger respondents were more likely to support same-sex marriage and adoption than men and older respondents.
“Most LGBT+ related trends cross borders,” Boyon said.
The frontrunner to be Thailand’s next prime minister joined a Pride parade in Bangkok on Sunday, promising to pass a law that would allow same-sex marriage and gender identity rights if he becomes premier. Thousands of LGBTQ+ people, their allies and political leaders marched through central Bangkok, marking Pride month and promoting gender equality in the second official Pride parade to be held in the country.
Pita Limjaroenrat, leader of the progressive Move Forward party, is pushing to lead a coalition after winning the most seats in a May 14 general election. The coalition has made a joint pledge to pass laws, including the Marriage Equality Act, to ensure equal rights for all couples regardless of gender, after the passage of the draft law and related legislations were stalled in parliament under the previous government.
A court in Japan has ruled that not allowing same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.
On Tuesday (30 May), Nagoya District Court became the second to rule against Japan’s banning of same-sex marriage, despite the country’s prime minister Fumio Kishida claiming the ban wasn’t discriminatory to the LGBTQ+ community.
Japan is the only G7 nation that does not recognise same-sex marriage.
The ruling – welcomed by activists and supporters outside the court – follows Japan’s main opposition, the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP), submitting a bill calling for same-sex marriage to be legalised.
Lead lawyer on the case, Yoko Mizushima, spoke to journalists and supporters following the ruling, saying: “This has rescued us from the hurt of last year’s ruling that said there was nothing wrong with the ban, and the hurt [caused by] what the government keeps saying.”
Japan court voices concerns about human rights violations
In November, a Tokyo district court ruled that the ban on same-sex marriage was constitutional, but that the absence of a legal system to protect same-sex couples is aninfringement of their human rights.
Currently, same-sex couples are only able to engage in civil unions – and even then, only in certain areas, such as Tokyo – with Japan’s constitution stating that marriage is between a man and woman.
While civil unions afford certain rights, couples cannot inherit assets, adopt, or even see their partner in a hospital if they are involved in a medical emergency.
Kishida came under scrutiny in February after one of his aides, Masayoshi Arai, reportedly made anti-LGBTQ+ comments, including that he “doesn’t even want to look at” married same-sex couples.
Arai was promptly fired, and Kishida called the remarks “outrageous [and] completely incompatible with the administration’s policies”.
Public supports same-sex marriage
Calls for a marriage equality bill, along with anti-discrimination and other legal protections for LGBTQ+ people, increased following Arai’s remarks.
Kishida previously said that same-sex marriage “could change people’s views on family, sense of values and society”.
But the prime minister’s stance could result in his downfall. Polls show his approval ratings have halved to about 30 per cent since last year, and, according to a global Ipsos survey, at least 69 per cent of the Japanese population support legal recognition of same-sex marriage, with just six per cent opposing it.
In addition, 68 per cent believe same-sex couples should have the right to adopt, while 20 per cent do not agree with the proposal.
