LGBT+ refugees and asylum seekers are being excluded from crucial coronavirus relief packages offered by the South African government, multiple human rights groups have warned.
South Africa is a common destination for those fleeing countries that persecute sexual minorities, as 33 out of the 70 countries that criminalise homosexuality are in Africa.
But queer people arriving in the country have little access to basic amenities and are now facing starvation amid the ongoing lockdown.
The pandemic has cut them off from working in the informal trades that previously sustained them, including restaurants, bars, or sex work, and they are not eligible to receive government social grants or food parcels, as these are are distributed only to those with South African identity cards and Social Security cards.
Human Rights Watch is appealing to the country’s government to take urgent steps to help these migrants, who were already living on the economic margins before the pandemic began.
“The Ramaphosa administration should either ensure access to food for thousands of refugees and asylum seekers, or say that it can’t meet the need and seek donors to step in and provide assistance,” said Dewa Mavhinga, southern Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
“The government is ignoring the plight of refugees and asylum seekers currently confined in their homes and unable to work to provide for themselves.”
After hearing desperate pleas from refugees and asylum seekers, Human Rights Watch raised the issue with the South African Human Rights Commission.
The Commission confirmed receiving similar reports and pressed the authorities to extend support for these marginalised people during the coronavirus lockdown.
Their calls of alarm were joined by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The ACHPR delivered an urgent appeal to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, expressing concern at the lack of protection for vulnerable groups, which includes LGBT+ migrants.
“South Africa should make special efforts to protect the most vulnerable in the country and ensure that refugees and asylum seekers are not overlooked or forgotten,” Mavhinga said.
“The authorities should act and seek donor support to avert an imminent humanitarian catastrophe.”
Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen tyrant who orchestrated the region’s brutal gay purges, has reportedly been hospitalised with severe coronavirus symptoms.
Kadyrov is president of the Chechen republic in Russia, where LGBT+ people have been imprisoned, beaten, tortured and killed in gay concentration camps.
Despite countless refugee reports detailing the violent abuses they have suffered, Kadyrov has forcefully denied that the crackdown ever happened.
“This is nonsense,” he previously said when asked about the allegations. “We don’t have those kinds of people here. We don’t have any gays. If there are any, take them to Canada.
“Praise be to God. Take them far from us so we don’t have them at home. To purify our blood, if there are any here, take them.”
In what will no doubt be a fortunate twist of fate for the region’s remaining LGBT+ population, Kadyrov now appears to have earned the title of the first Russian official to fall seriously ill in the coronavirus pandemic.
According two Russian state news agencies, RIA Novosti and Tass, Kadyrov was flown to a clinic in Moscow as his symptoms rapidly deteriorated.
“Ramzan Kadyrov has been brought to Moscow by plane with suspected coronavirus. He is currently under medical observation,” Tass said, citing “a source in medical circles”.
Six in 10 gay and lesbian Europeans avoid holding hands with same-sex partners in public, and over half of LGBTQ people in Europe are almost never open about their sexual orientations or gender identities, according to a new survey.
“The overarching finding was that not much has changed and there’s a long way to go,” Miltos Pavlou, the survey’s project manager, told NBC News. “Hate and inequality remain a major challenge in our society.”
“Changing laws are incredibly important first steps, but really building meaningful acceptance takes years.”
EVELYNE PARADIS, ILGA-EUROPE
The report, “A long way to go for LGBTI equality,” published by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, found that there has been “little, if any, progress during the past seven years in the way LGBT people in the EU experience their human and fundamental rights in daily life” since the first edition of the report was issued in 2012. The findings are based on a survey of 140,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people in the E.U., the U.K., Serbia and North Macedonia.
Based on the survey’s criteria — which included questions about discrimination, awareness of rights, life satisfaction and experiences at work and in education — transgender and intersex respondents reported higher rates of discrimination and threat. For example, 1 in 5 trans and intersex people said they were physically or sexually attacked in the five years before the survey, double the proportion of other groups across the LGBTQ spectrum.
While LGBTQ people are legally protected in many nations across Europe, Pavlou said the survey found a hesitation to rely on law enforcement and other government officials. The report found that while one-third of respondents felt their national governments effectively combat prejudice and intolerance, only a fourth of trans respondents said they agreed, and 14 percent of LGBTQ survivors of physical or sexual assault do not report the crimes to the police.
“People are more aware of their rights, but at the same time they don’t report discrimination,” Pavlou said.
Evelyne Paradis, the executive director of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association of Europe, said the findings were “not entirely surprising.”
“It’s concerning that our sense of stagnation is confirmed,” said Paradis, whose organization was not involved with the report. “We would’ve hoped there would’ve been more progress.”
Echoing the survey’s findings, she said, “It’s very clear that in a broad rainbow umbrella, the trans and intersex communities are even more marginalized and vulnerable than lesbian, gay and bisexual people.”
When compared to the Agency for Fundamental Rights’ 2012 survey, the 2019 report shows little, if any, progress in how LGBTQ people in the E.U. are treated. While all LGBTQ people reported that they felt discriminated against in all aspects of life in the 12 months before the survey, transgender people reported a significant rise in overall discrimination — 60 percent today, up from 43 percent in 2012. Over 20 percent of all LGBTQ people reported feeling discriminated against at work in 2019, relatively unchanged from 19 percent in 2012.
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The comparison between the two surveys did find that LGBTQ people have become increasingly open about their sexual orientations and gender identities: In 2019, 52 percent of respondents over 18 said they were often or always open about their identities, compared with 36 percent in 2012.
“The main reason those who said the situation in their country was better was because of their openness, visibility and participation in society,” Pavlou said.
The report found that in some countries, such as Ireland, Malta and Finland, over 70 percent of respondents think society is more tolerant but that in others, such as Poland and France, more than half find it less accepting.
“It’s not just about policy and law. It’s about implementing them,” Pavlou said. “Belgium has been a progressive country, and they have one of the highest results in terms of hate and violence.”
Paradis said countries with legislation affirming LGBTQ rights become complacent. As people are more aware of the diversity of LGBTQ identity and experience, she said, governments need to continue to protect the LGBTQ population and endorse educational efforts to ensure that equality remains.
“The mistake that many governments still make is thinking that once you adopt the laws, then everything will work out,” Paradis said. “Changing laws are incredibly important first steps, but really building meaningful acceptance takes years.”
LGBT+ charities in 37 Commonwealth countries are urgently warning of an “unfolding humanitarian crisis” for LGBT+ people as a direct result of the pandemic.
Coronavirus is having a disproportionate impact on marginalised communities, and governments’ responses to the crisis are heightening the levels of inequality, exclusion, discrimination and poverty that LGBT+ people already experience every day.
A combination of job loss, housing and food insecurity, lack of physical and mental wellbeing and safety, lack of access to health services and life-saving medication are combining to create a rapidly deteriorating situation for the international LGBT+ community.
For example in Pakistan, trans people have been excluded from government-organised relief efforts and left to fend for themselves as NGOs stop working.
And in Uganda, 19 LGBT+ people were arrested in a homeless shelter and charged under the pretext of committing “a negligent act likely to spread infection” of coronavirus.
Charities like these which cater to LGBT+ are few in many Commonwealth countries, and they say their very survival is now at stake.
Of a total of of 34 charities consulted by the Kaleidoscope Trust, 85 per cent were concerned for the wellbeing of their service users and doubted their organisation’s ability to deliver meaningful interventions during the coronavirus crisis.
Eighty-eight per cent said they were concerned for the wellbeing of their staff and volunteers, while a further 81 per cent were worried about their current and projected losses of income.
“We are witnessing an emerging humanitarian crisis for LGBT+ people as government responses to COVID-19 leave vulnerable LGBT+ communities at grave risk,” said Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, executive director of Kaleidoscope Trust.
“Commonwealth states must act now to prevent further deterioration of the situation domestically, and the UK has the opportunity to show international leadership in its role as Commonwealth Chair-in-Office.”
She warned the UK not to leave LGBT+ people behind in the pandemic, urging the government to “make good on its promise” to redress the wrongs inflicted upon the LGBT+ community as a result of British colonial-era laws.
“The structural vulnerabilities codified in laws and social attitudes in countries across the world are made worse during a crisis like COVID-19. The UK government has a responsibility to ensure LGBT+ human rights work is able to continue during the COVID-19 crisis.”
Kaleidoscope Trust is calling on Boris Johnson to allocate immediate relief funding for grassroots activists and organisations, with additional funding to allow longer-term projects to continue again after the pandemic ends.
Canada has just approved a site for a C$8 million (£4.7 million) memorial to thousands of LGBT+ people who were forced out of government and military jobs by a five-decade institutional “purge”.
The memorial will be built in Ottawa, overlooking Canada’s Supreme Court and Parliament Hill, according to LGBTQ Nation.
Over five decades, from the 1940s until the mid-’90s, LGBT+ Canadians were discharged from the military or fired from the civil service.
A state-sponsored programme to root out gay and lesbian people was carried out until the late 60s, because it was a thought they posed a threat to national security.
Authorities in Canada used a creation called the Fruit Machine to supposedly identify homosexual people.
Queer Canadians underwent horrific tests and ‘cure’ treatment.
The discredited device, developed by a university in Ottawa, showed public servants and military personnel sexually explicit pictures and while measuring their perspiration, pupil dilation, and heart rate to look for signs of arousal.
Those who were thought to be gay, or admitted to being gay, were fired or forced to undergo psychiatric treatment to “cure” them.
LGBT+ people who were outed were subjected to discrimination by their families and friends, with many considering suicide.
Victims of the purge filed a class-action lawsuit against the government, and in 2018 a $145 million national compensation fund was created.
The Ottawa memorial was partly paid for by the fund. Although a national competition was set to decide the design of the memorial, it has been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
However, it is hoped that it will be completed on time in 2024.
Justin Trudeau apologised to victims of state-sponsored homophobia.
In an address live streamed on the internet, Trudeau teared up as he described the “devastating story” of the victims of state-sponsored discrimination and those convicted for being gay.
“This is the devastating story of people who were branded criminals by the government — people who lost their livelihoods, and in some cases, their lives,” he said.
“These aren’t distant practices of governments long forgotten. This happened systematically, in Canada, with a timeline more recent than any of us would like to admit.”
Attacks and insults against the LGBT+ community in France surged by more than 36 per cent in 2019, according to figures released Saturday by the interior ministry.
The figures released on the eve of International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) showed a steady drumbeat of rising hate crimes against queer folk in the European country, Agence France-Presse reported.
GBT+ men were more likely to be victims, the data showed, with the majority of crimes stemming from larger cities (36 per cent).
In 2019, Twitter timelines were seized by startling video footage of a trans woman brutally assaulted during a demonstration in central Paris.
The incident sparked fury from LGBT+ activists as well as amplifying the increasing visibility of the violence facing one of the most marginalised and vulnerable groups in French society.
Moreover, the data marked 30 years since the withdrawal of homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses by the World Health Organization.
Homophobia is ‘anchored’ in France, ministry says.
French law enforcement identified 1,870 victims of homophobic or transphobic offences, compared to 1,380 in 2018, the ministry said in a statement.
The data hints towards a two-fold change. A potential rise in the number of hate crimes carried out against the LGBT+ community, and/or an increase in the number of victims filing complaints.
This 36 per cent upswing in physical and verbal violence eclipsed what activists described in 2018 as a “black” year. The year was pockmarked by a severe surge in anti-LGBT+ violence.
“These figures testify to the deep anchoring of homophobia and transphobia in society,” the ministry said.
Department officials said that they form part of a broader increase in “hate acts and identity extremism” in France.
Verbal attacks account for 33 per cent of offences, the data showed. Around 28 per cent of complaints concerned physical and sexual violence.
Victims were predominantly men – 75 per cent –with around six in 10 offences perpetrated against those under 35 years of age.
But the number might be higher, activists and police warn, as many hate crimes still go unreported as victims never file a complaint to authorities.
The governing body for psychologists in Albania banned Saturday the long denounced, discredited and debased practise of conversion therapy to both the surprise and delight of countless LGBT+ activists across the European country.
Albania now joins Malta and Germany in stonewalling the harmful practice, while lawmakers in Spain and the UK are all considering nationwide bans, and Switzerland has a de facto ban.
A statement from the LGBT+ organisation Pink Embassy, seen by AP News, said the decision: “Places the Order of Psychologists in Albania in the forefront of the institutions respecting LGBTI rights.”
Psychologists in Albania now prohibited from conversion therapy, LGBT+ rights group say.
All registered psychologists in Albania must be members of the Order of Psychologists. As a result, the body’s decisions are “legally valid”, Pink Embassy stressed, and no hurdles loom ahead.
“This is the final decision which does not need to go through either the legislative or executive to enter into force,” said Pink Embassy head Altin Hazizaj.
“Although reports of the use of such therapies in Albania have been small, allowing them has been a serious concern.”
The measure could, activists hope, be one that reinvigorates Albania’s stalled LGBT+ rights movements. Negative attitudes against the community continue to lurk in the conservative country, at times colliding with lawmaker’s urgency in pressing ahead with equality laws.
Marriage, adoption and the right to change legal gender have long been kicked into the long grass by government. The annual Rainbow Map – which ranks European country’s commitment to LGBT+ rights – gave Albania a 31 per cent rating.
Rainbow Map emphasised that gender recognition measures had vastly stagnated in Albania.
What is conversion therapy?
Also called reparative therapy, medical organisations across the world have widely debunked and rejected the treatment as traumatising and psychologically scarring, especially to minors.
The practice, which has been around more than a century, has many techniques. Most commonly, talking therapy.
However, some physicians who practise the therapy are known to use shock treatments and induce associative nausea in patients, according to a 2018 study by the Williams Institute of the School of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The family of a transgender woman with HIV who died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in 2018 has filed a federal lawsuit against five private companies that were responsible for her care.
The Transgender Law Center and two immigration lawyers — Daniel Yohalem in Santa Fe., N.M., and R. Andrew Free in Nashville — filed the lawsuit on Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico. Management and Training Corporation, LaSalle Corrections, Global Precision Systems, TransCor America and CoreCivic are named as defendants.
Hernández, who was from Honduras, entered U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody on May 9, 2018, when she asked for asylum at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego. She was later sent to the Cibola County Correctional Center, a facility in Milan N.M., that CoreCivic, which was previously known as the Corrections Corporation of America, operates.
Hernández was admitted to Cibola General Hospital in Grants, N.M., shortly after she arrived at the detention center. Hernández died at Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque, N.M., on May 25, 2018.
Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque, N.M. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
The lawsuit alleges Hernández on May 14, 2018, “exhibited visible signs of deterioration requiring immediate medical intervention” when Management and Training Corporation transported her and 12 other trans detainees from San Ysidro to the San Luis Regional Detention Center, a facility in San Luis, Ariz., that LaSalle Corrections operates.
“MTC denied Roxsana and her fellow detainees food, water, and restroom access throughout their transfer,” reads the lawsuit.
The lawsuit notes one detainee said Hernández appeared “very weak and pale, almost yellow in pallor, with dark circles under her eyes” when she was at the San Luis Regional Detention Center.
Hernández was at the facility for only a “few hours,” but she “used the bathroom several times to vomit or spit up phlegm.” The lawsuit claims Hernández “was so weak from fever that she spent most of her time at SLRDC (San Luis Regional Detention Center) laying on the floor, coughing.”
“Officers of Defendant LaSalle Corrections witnessed Roxsana’s obvious state of medical need and failed to offer her emergency medical assistance,” reads the lawsuit. “Eventually during her time at SLRDC Roxsana was so ill she could not eat and had to use the restroom approximately every 15 minutes because she had such bad diarrhea.”
The lawsuit states Hernández and more than two dozen other trans detainees at around midnight on May 15 boarded a bus that took them to the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa.
“Roxsana was very ill during the four-hour bus ride and pleaded for help to a person who sat with her, saying words to the effect of, ‘Help me! I don’t know if I’m going to survive,’” reads the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges a LaSalle Corrections officer “threatened” Hernández and the other detainees with whom she was traveling. The lawsuit says one detainee asked officers in both English and Spanish to provide medical care to Hernández, but they “ignored her.”
“When they arrived at the airport, one of the people being transported by LaSalle alongside Roxsana told an officer with beige pants and long red hair that Roxsana was very sick and needed immediate medical attention,” reads the lawsuit. “The officer refused to respond to her. During her five hour stay in the Mesa airport Roxsana remained in LaSalle’s custody and was provided no medical care or assistance for her sickness.”
The lawsuit states Hernández and the other detainees flew to El Paso, Texas, and arrived at the El Paso Processing Center at around 3:15 p.m. The lawsuit notes Hernández remained at the facility until the morning of May 16, 2018.
“She and her fellow asylum seekers woke up to ICE officers presenting them food that they were instructed to eat for breakfast at around 5:00 a.m.,” reads the lawsuit. “Roxsana attempted to eat the meal provided, but ended up vomiting and then going back to sleep.”
“By this time, Roxsana appeared to all around her to be gravely ill,” reads the lawsuit. “Despite LaSalle’s knowledge of Roxsana’s urgent need for medical care, during the entire time Roxsana was in LaSalle’s custody LaSalle did not provide her with medical care or assistance to alleviate her suffering.”
The lawsuit says Hernández and 29 other detainees who were going to the Cibola County Correctional Center boarded a bus at around 9 a.m.
“Each person was provided an 8-ounce bottle of water and sandwich to last the entire five and-half hour journey to the Cibola detention center in New Mexico,” says the lawsuit, which notes the temperature in El Paso that day reached 97 degrees before noon.
The lawsuit notes Hernández asked an officer for water during the trip, but he told her that he did not speak Spanish.
Hernández reportedly “had a fever and produced a significant amount of phlegm during the trip” and had bloody sputum when she blew her nose. The lawsuit also notes Hernández “felt dizzy and extremely exhausted, and her stomach hurt badly.”
The lawsuit says the bus arrived at the ICE Criminal Alien Program facility in Albuquerque at around 2:30 p.m.
“Despite GPS’s knowledge of Roxsana’s urgent need for medical care, during the entire time Roxsana was in GPS’s custody GPS did not provide her with medical care or assistance to alleviate her suffering,” it reads.
The lawsuit says officers from TransCor drove Hernández and 28 other trans detainees to the Cibola County Correctional Center, which is roughly 80 miles west of Albuquerque. The detainees arrived at the facility shortly after 8 p.m.
“Throughout this trip, Roxsana continued to appear gravely ill,” reads the lawsuit, noting she was unable to eat. 94. “Roxsana required immediate medical assistance that TransCor employees neglected to provide.”
The Cibola County Correctional Center in Milan, N.M. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
The Cibola County Correctional Center at the time had a unit specifically for trans women who were in ICE custody.
The lawsuit states Hernández was booked into the facility at around 1:15 a.m. on May 17. It notes she spent the night in the facility’s “medical waiting room.”
“Roxsana lay on the floor, only getting up to use the restroom or drink a beverage officers brought around 4 a.m.,” reads the lawsuit. “Roxsana was so weak and ill that she became delirious.”
The lawsuit states Hernández was brought to an “onsite medical provider who conducted an intake screening.” Hernández received “electrolytes and Ensure” before she returned to a holding cell.
The lawsuit says “an onsite medical provider” examined Hernández at around 10 a.m. She reportedly weighted 89 lbs., and was diagnosed with “dehydration, starvation, extreme weight loss, muscle wasting, untreated HIV, fever and cough.” The lawsuit also notes Hernández’s blood pressure was 81/61 and she had “rough breathing sounds and increased amount of white phlegm mucus excreted in abnormally large quantities.”
The lawsuit states officers at the detention center called an ambulance that brought Hernández to Cibola General Hospital at 11:44 a.m. Hernández later that day was airlifted to Lovelace Medical Center where she died.
“Throughout her hospitalization, CoreCivic officers shackled Roxsana at her wrists and both ankles to her hospital bed except when medical personnel needed to remove them for certain medical procedures,” reads the lawsuit. “At least one armed CoreCivic officer guarded Roxsana at all times and checked that her restraints were secured at least every 20 minutes.”
“Each time medical staff needed CoreCivic officers to remove her restraints, the officer on duty made a call to ‘central’ to receive approval to remove them, delaying Roxsana’s receipt of medical care,” notes the lawsuit. “CoreCivic officers kept Roxsana shackled even after her treating medical providers medically paralyzed her and when she first went into cardiac arrest.”
‘Every private entity tasked with Roxsana’s care failed her’
An autopsy the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator performed concluded Hernández died from Castleman disease associated with AIDS.
A second autopsy` that former Georgia Chief Medical Examiner Kris Sperry performed at the Transgender Law Center’s request concluded the cause of death was “most probably severe complications of dehydration superimposed upon HIV infection, with the probable presence of one or more opportunistic infections.” The second autopsy also found “evidence of physical abuse” that included bruising on Hernández’s rib cage and contusions on her body.
“Every private entity tasked with Roxsana’s care failed her,” said Dale Melchert, a Transgender Law Center staff attorney, in a press release that announced the lawsuit. “What we know about the short time that Roxsana was in immigration custody is that the officers tasked with transporting her saw her health deteriorate, heard her cries for help, and did nothing. She needlessly suffered as a result of their inaction.”
ICE has denied allegations that Hernández was abused while in its custody.
Amanda Gilchrist, a spokesperson for CoreCivic, on Thursday told the Washington Blade in a statement the company offers “our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Roxsana Hernández.” Gilchrist also noted Hernández was “gravely ill” when she arrived at the Cibola County Correctional Center.
“When she arrived, she went through the intake process, which includes a medical evaluation,” said Gilchrist. “The medical team made the determination that she needed to be immediately transported to an outside hospital.”
“Ms. Hernandez was only at Cibola for 12 hours, where she stayed in the intake area before being transported to the hospital where she passed away nine days later,” she added.
Issa Arnita, a spokesperson for the Management and Training Corporation, on Thursday told the Blade in an email the company “disputes the allegations in the lawsuit, but is unable to comment any further because of the litigation.” Arnita in a second email noted Hernández was in Management and Training Corporation’s custody for “less than four hours, more than a week before her death.”
The annual Rainbow Map ranking has named Poland, Russia, Turkey and Azerbaijan as some of the worst countries to be LGBT+ in Europe, while the UK continues to slide down the rankings.
Since 2009, LGBT+ organisation ILGA-Europe has compiled an annual Rainbow Map ranking of the 49 countries in Europe based on each country’s commitment to LGBT+ rights and equality.
In the ranking each country is assigned a percentage point based on its standing in six key areas: equality and non-discrimination; family; hate crime and hate speech; legal gender recognition and bodily integrity; civil society space and asylum.
This year’s list names Azerbaijan as the worst country in Europe for LGBT+ rights and equality with a score of just 2.3 per cent. Other countries trailing behind include Turkey (3.8 per cent), Armenia (7.5 per cent), Russia (10 per cent) and Poland (16 per cent).
Conversely, Malta topped the ILGA-ranking for the fifth year in a row, coming out with an incredible 89 per cent score. It was followed by Belgium and Luxembourg (both 73 per cent), Denmark and Norway (both 68 per cent) and Spain (67 per cent).
UK falls down Rainbow Map rankings because of trans hostility and lack of reforms to GRA.
The United Kingdom finished in ninth place on the Rainbow Map ranking with a score of 66 per cent, having been eighth last year and fourth the year prior. Until 2015, it had been rated the best place in Europe for LGBT+ rights.
The organisation also noted that trans people in the UK are facing “a hostile climate” that is “fuelled by opposition groups”, and are served by a Gender Recognition Act is “not effective in practice”.
Worryingly, the ranking found that there has been no positive change for LGBT+ people in the past year in 49 per cent of the countries polled.
It also found that some countries are continuing to move backwards on LGBT+ rights and protections, a move that first appeared in last year’s index.
Trans and intersex people’s rights are in a state of flux across Europe.
The Rainbow Map index found that trans rights are in a state of flux across Europe — “for better or worse” — and that this is where the biggest shifts are taking place.
Some countries jumped up in the ILGA-Europe ranking this year after they extended essential rights to trans and intersex people. The organisation praised Andorra, Belgium, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, and Switzerland for including gender identity and sex characteristics under equality laws.
Iceland was also praised for introducing new gender recognition legislation and Spain was commended for introducing gender recognition for minors.
However, that progress has not been seen across the board, with gender recognition measures in Albania, Cyprus, Finland and Sweden stalling.
Viima Lampinen, co-chair of the ILGA-Europe executive board, said news that more governments are adopting pro-trans, intersex and non-binary laws should be read with “extreme caution”.
A chart of each country’s performance in the ILGA-Europe Rainbow Map ranking, 2020 (Courtesy of ILGA-Europe)
“Targeted attacks on trans rights by opposition groups have been observed in an increasing number of countries across the region, especially transphobic speech fuelled online,” Lampinen said.
“The safety and wellbeing of trans communities in Europe remains precarious and only made more fragile by governments’ responses to the current pandemic, which is affecting these communities particularly hard.”
Some countries are taking ‘active measures’ to target LGBT+ people.
ILGA-Europe executive director Evelyne Paradis said it is “a critical time for LGBTI equality in Europe” and noted that “more and more countries” are falling behind on their commitments to LGBT+ rights.
Furthermore, she said some governments are taking “active measures” to target LGBT+ communities during the coronavirus pandemic.
“History shows that those who are vulnerable before a crisis only become more vulnerable after a crisis, so we have every reason to worry that political complacency, increased repression and socio-economic hardship will create a perfect storm for many LGBTI people in Europe in the next few years,” she said.
ILGA-Europe is calling on governments across Europe to make LGBT+ equality a “high political priority” over the next year.
“The results of this year’s Rainbow Map show that equality measures are falling through the cracks in several countries, not because of lack of political and public support but because of widespread complacency about the need for LGBTI equality measures,” Paradis said.
“Fewer and fewer decision-makers are picking up the mantle to see important pieces of legislation through and keep political momentum, so processes are stalling or not being followed up.
“There are reasons to be extremely worried that this situation will spread as political attention is immersed in the economic fall-out of COVID-19.”
Equal marriage has finally been legalised in Costa Rica, with the first-ever same-sex marriage registrations to be processed at the end of this month.
According toQ Costa Rica, the country’s Civil Registry will begin processing the registrations on May 26.
Official Luis Guillermo Chinchilla told the publication that everything had been prepared, and said: “The Civil Registry has made significant efforts in adjusting all the computer systems in civil registry matters, with the purpose of managing these registrations in a timely and expeditious manner, always within the framework of suitable and effective registry security as usual by our institution.”
In August, 2018, the country’s Supreme Court finally ruled that it was unconstitutional to ban same-sex couples from getting married, and set a time limit of 18 months for the legislature to implement changes through law, but the Central American country’s LGBT+ community has been fighting for marriage equality for a long time.
In 2016, then-president Luis Guillermo Solis promised to expand LGBT+ rights in Costa Rica and called for the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to rule that human rights laws require the implementation of same-sex marriage, which it did.
Costa Rica’s 2017-18 presidential election was dominated by the issue of LGBT+ rights in the wake of the ruling.
Fringe evangelical presidential candidate Fabricio Alvarado Muñoz emerged from sixth place to become the frontrunner on the back of an aggressive anti-gay marriage campaign and a pledge to withdraw from human rights courts.
The centrist candidate Carlos Alvarado Quesada eventually saw off the anti-gay challenger in a run-off vote.
The politician said: “The country split in half. This was the issue. We weren’t talking about taxes or infrastructure or poverty, they were talking about gay rights, yes or no?
“It was like a referendum on gay rights. We went through torture during those months because, for the first time in my country, gay people were feeling fear. It was hateful.”
