Namibia is on pace to decriminalise homosexuality by the end of the year as ministers pave a long-sought path to scrapping its decades-old anal sex ban.
The government’s Law Reform and Development Commission, a law reform agency, recommended in reports published Monday (17 May) that the country’s sodomy laws be overturned.
Justice minister Yvonne Dausa confirmed to the Windhoek Observer, a local newspaper, that she will be submitting draft proposals to the cabinet to do just that in two weeks time – with a potential for the ban to be binned by the end of the year.
As the committee reports were handed to her department, Dausa said that state-sanctioned homophobia must come to an end, the Windhoek Express reported.
“No Namibian should be comfortable with any part of our society feeling either they are second class citizens, that they are being excluded, or stigmatised and discriminated against either on the basis of their sexual orientation, or the basis of their disability, or status in a particular society,” she said.
In one report, committee members wrote that the ban’s “very existence violates the fundamental rights of the individuals who could be affected, as well as creating and reinforcing a culture of homophobia and intolerance against LGBT+ people”.
Committee members stressed in their report that between 2012 and 2019, 23 men were arrested on sodomy charges.
The provisions might only infrequently enforced, but they still reduce queer people to “criminals” and “enough to create a realistic fear of possible arrest”.
Dausa stressed in a statement to the Observer that the reports are not law, “but rather informed conclusions based on legal research” by the commission.
“After which it will go through the normal law-making process,” Dausa explained of the next steps.
“Principal approval from Cabinet, scrutiny from the Cabinet Committee on Legislation, possible further discussions with the Law Reform and Development Commission, certification from the Attorney General, drafters and then National Assembly.
“I think give or take we may see this go to the NA before the year ends.”
Namibia’s laws around being queer have long been one of mixed messages. Indeed, being gay per se is perfectly legal in the republic – anal sex, however, is illegal and has been since the late 1800s.
When Namibia gained independence 1990, it inherited the colonial-era Roman-Dutch sodomy provisions, locking the ban into place for decades to come.
Ever since the laws have rarely been enforced and attitudes towards LGBT+ people have overall eased. Namibia’s lawmakers and officials have, often in fits-and-bursts, sought to scrap the ban, but progress remains spotty and sluggish.
“Freedom will ring,” wrote advocacy group Equal Namibia on Facebook.
“The future is equal because every one of you stood up and demanded justice for all vulnerable Namibians.
This summer, New York City will launch the nation’s largest and most comprehensive workforce development program for at-risk LGBTQ youth.
NYC Unity Works, a $2.6 million initiative that will reach 90 participants over the next four years, is targeted at young adults ages 16 to 24 who are homeless or at risk of experiencing homelessness. Along with job training, it will provide educational opportunities, mental health services, paid internships and job placement, all with the goal of establishing long-term employment and a secure financial future.
The program is an offshoot of the NYC Unity Project, a citywide effort to help at-risk LGBTQ youth launched in 2017 by New York City’s first lady, Chirlane McCray, wife of Mayor Bill de Blasio.
In a statement, McCray said Unity Works “marks the first time that any city has taken this particular set of comprehensive steps to provide training, mental health services and social supports that are critical to long-term success and stability for LGBTQI youth.”
Ashe McGovern, Unity Project’s executive director and a senior LGBTQ policy adviser in de Blasio’s office, praised McCray for prioritizing queer youth.
“I can say unequivocally if the first lady was not at City Hall championing this project, it wouldn’t exist,” McGovern, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, said. “She’s personally committed to it. She’s pushed for it.”
The pilot program will be run through the Department of Youth and Community Development in partnership with the NYC Center for Youth Employment and the Ali Forney Center, the nation’s largest LGBTQ homeless youth service provider.
But a Supreme Court ruling isn’t a magic bullet, McGovern cautioned.
“Nondiscrimination policies aren’t self-actualizing,” they said. “They don’t automatically create a pathway for success for people who have been marginalized their whole lives. Who have been rejected by their families … We need to give young people the skills to be competitive for jobs — even entry-level jobs. It’s an important paradigm shift.”
A recent survey by The Trevor Project, a nonprofit that provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth, found 35 percent of LGBTQ young people experience employment discrimination. For young transgender people, that percentage jumps to 61 percent.
Up to 40 percent of homeless young people identify as LGBTQ, according to numerous studies. Many are forced out of their homes due to a lack of support and seek acceptance in large (and typically expensive) progressive cities like New York. Without a permanent address, suitable work clothes or even reliable internet, they can be locked out of the job market.
“Many of them are literally in survival mode,” McGovern said of Unity Works’ target applicants. “There’s not space, time or support to think long term or feel energized and joyful about the future. We’re trying to give them that.”
To ensure their success, the staff will help participants with challenges such as changing identity documents and accessing public benefits. And participating agencies and employers are expected to demonstrate cultural responsiveness and competency.
In addition to two years of direct services, Unity Works participants will receive an additional year of followup from LGBTQ-affirming case workers and therapists.
“We know that young LGBTQ people are largely homeless because their family rejected them,” McGovern said. “They may face peer rejection, school rejection, community rejection, so we knew this had to be trauma-informed. It’s not enough to just give people resumé building tips and say ‘good luck.’ This program is a larger support system to help them feel empowered.”
Mario Smith, a 20-year-old who identifies as transgender and nonbinary and uses gender-neutral pronouns, said Unity Works has the potential to be life-changing.
“Giving trans people the tools to work and get educated — it’s not a handout,” they said. “It’s going to create such a productive group of people who can turn around and help their community.”
Smith immigrated to the U.S. from Jamaica as a teen and worked with the Ali Forney Center to get a green card and housing. Now they’re enrolling in Unity Works to study psychology and eventually become a youth health advocate.
“Everyone’s at a different place in their life,” they said. “Some people need job placement, some need help furthering their education. You can’t just have a cookie-cutter answer. This program is tailor-made to the individual.”
As much as Unity Works will benefit Smith and the other New York-based participants, McGovern is thinking even bigger.
“Ultimately we want to build a model we can prove and push it across other jurisdictions,” they said. “I want this to be such a success that it’s replicated all across the country.”
In the summer of 1953, Audrey Hartmann was 23 years old and on vacation with friends. She was staying in Ocean Bay Park, a small beach town on Fire Island, 60 miles from New York City.
She’d heard whispers about a place down the beach called Cherry Grove. A few miles away, it was said to be a welcoming community of gay people. She’d heard there were lesbians there.
Hartmann walked down, and what she saw is on display at a new exhibit at the New-York Historical Society, as well as chronicled in the 1993 book “Cherry Grove, Fire Island: Sixty Years in America’s First Gay and Lesbian Town” by Esther Newton. Hartmann encountered “charming little houses” lit by gas lamps, and wherever she walked were canopies of trees. She caught a glimpse into some of the homes and said, “I remember seeing women by candlelight sitting there,” and wished she was one of them.
Maggie McCorkle and Audrey Hartmann in Cherry Grove, ca. 1963.Cherry Grove Archives Collection
Her wish came true. She would go on to live in Cherry Grove and became a beloved member of the community. She and her longtime partner were some of the first women to buy a home on the island. Hartmann, now 90, was interviewed for the exhibit, “Safe/Haven: Gay Life in 1950s Cherry Grove,” which opens Friday at the New-York Historical Society, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. In a recording, Hartmann says of Cherry Grove, “It was an escape for everyone to be able to come out here on the weekend and be yourself. It was a safe haven. I could say to someone, ‘I’m Audrey Hartmann … and I’m gay.’”
That, at the time, was unheard of.
The exhibit includes 70 photographs and additional ephemera contributed by the Cherry Grove Archives Collection. Included in the exhibit are recorded accounts from notable residents, including Hartmann.
Hot House, 1958.Cherry Grove Archives Collection
Cherry Grove was one of the first gay beach towns in the United States, joining a handful of LGBTQ vacation spots and resorts that became popular in the pre-Stonewall era, along with places like Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Saugatuck-Douglas, Michigan.
The striking images in the collection are special because of their rarity, as well as the joy and intimacy displayed in them. There is a relaxed nature to the photos, of couples with their arms around each other, friends out at parties or spending time together on the beach.
“Most people didn’t share themselves in that way because they couldn’t be documented. It could be held against them legally,” said Parker Sargent, 46, one of the curators of the exhibit and a representative of the Cherry Grove Archives Collection. In Cherry Grove, gay residents were able to form a community, have a voice in how things were run and be out. “And that’s revolutionary in a really quiet way,” Sergeant said.
“Patricia Fitzgerald & Kay Guinness, Cherry Grove Beach,” September 1952.Cherry Grove Archives Collection
Part of what makes Cherry Grove special is its remote location on a barrier island between Long Island and the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the island is only accessible by boat and inaccessible to cars. Cherry Grove provided a sanctuary while also offering queer people the distance and safety required to be themselves, away from the New York laws prohibiting their queer identities and the constant police enforcement of anti-LGBTQ policies.
“Because it’s isolated, people are not judging you, like you’d be afraid of in the real world,” said Susan Kravitz, 77, who curated the exhibit with Sargent and is a committee member of the Cherry Grove archive. “The women in the ‘50s had to wear skirts and dresses … but when they came to Cherry Grove, they could wear trousers — and that was a big deal. Not just pants, but trousers … It’s always about freeing oneself to be who you want to be, and where else can you do that?”
Cherry Grove did have its share of raids and arrests, but the last boat left the island at midnight, meaning there was no police presence once the boat left the dock. That contributed to a vibrant nightlife, one so integral to the community a section of the exhibit is devoted to theater, performance and the social scene. Theater is a lasting legacy of Cherry Grove, as it was theater people who began to vacation there as early as the 1930s, laying a foundation of creativity and openness that has had a lasting draw for the LGBTQ community.
Pat Fitzgerald, Kay Guinness, Mary Ronin and Bea Greer, c. 1950. Cherry Grove Archives Collection
Cherry Grove was different from the city, where the gay bars were run by the mob, according to Sargent, who described these urban watering holes as “dark and seedy clubs” where “you always had to be careful that the lights would come on,” signaling a police raid.
“In Cherry Grove, you were suddenly out in nature and sitting on people’s front porches and going to house parties,” Sargent said. “There was a levity and a freedom of not being caught.”
Cherry Grove continued to evolve after the 1950s, moving from a sanctuary for mostly white and affluent gay men and women to a more inclusive place with the advent of the 1960s, as the civil rights movement gained traction and more commercial real estate in the area led to affordable housing options for greater swaths of the community. As the decades move forward, photographs begin to show queer people of color and working-class LGBTQ people.
“You will see such joy in these photographs, you will see happiness, you will see laughter, and you would never think that would be the case given the times in which these people lived,” Kravitz said.
“Parasol Party.”Cherry Grove Archives Collection
Part of the mission behind “Safe/Haven: Gay Life in 1950s Cherry Grove” is to create an archive where there has been none.
“It’s more than just the photos or the old videos,” Sargent said. “It’s getting that material out there for people to see and to rewrite our history in a way that has been very blank because we tend to think that gay life started at Stonewall. … People have a look at gay history before Stonewall. We’ve always been here.”
Today, Cherry Grove remains a beloved summer destination for LGBTQ beachgoers, particularly lesbians, as has the adjoining community of the Fire Island Pines, which has traditionally catered to gay men. Though the world has become more accepting over the decades, these two Fire Island enclaves remain important to the community, and just as vibrant as ever, welcoming hundreds of thousands of visitors to its boardwalks every season.
A proposed law that would criminalize violence and hate speech against LGBT people in Italy has thrown together an unlikely alliance of opponents.
Some feminists and lesbian associations have joined the Catholic church and the political right in opposing a bill that would add gay, transgender people and the disabled to the categories protected by a law punishing religion and race-based hate crimes.
Conflict over the proposed legislation has become an ideological battle at the heart of the culture wars in Italy, pitting freedom of expression against protection of those at risk of discrimination and victimization.
Catholic leaders say the so-called Zan bill, named for a Democratic Party lawmaker and gay rights activist Alessandro Zan, amounted to “a liberticide,” with conservatives warning the bill risks criminalizing those who publicly oppose gay marriage or adoptions by gay people. Opposition from some lesbian and feminist groups centers on concerns that recognizing gender identity could put at risk rights won by women.
But even among LGBT and feminist groups, there is great divide over the bill, with some groups splitting from a top national lesbian association after it came out against the legislation.
Although Italy approved same-sex civil unions in 2016, the country lags behind its EU counterparts and is on similar footing with the likes of Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Lithuania in terms of anti-homophobia measures, according to ILGA Europe, a federation of groups pushing for civil rights. Italy placed 35th out of 49 European and Central Asian countries on a list ranking the legal and policy situation of LGBTI people compiled by ILGA.
A homophobia and transphobia helpline run by the Gay Center association in Italy receives about 20,000 requests for help a year from those who experience violence or threats.
The Zan bill was approved in the lower house of parliament last year. But its passage through the upper house, or Senate, for it to become law has been delayed by a change of government and obstruction by the right-wing League, for whom it has become a rallying cry at a time when, constrained by being in a so-called government of national unity, the party is struggling to differentiate itself.
The case of Malika Chalhy, a 22-year-old from Tuscany, who was thrown out of her home and sent death threats by her family when she came out as gay earlier this year has led to renewed calls for urgent approval of the bill.
Using gender identity instead of biological sex means that “everything that is dedicated to women can be occupied by men who identify as women or say they perceive themselves as women,” the groups said in a statement.
When ArciLesbica, one of the country’s top national lesbian associations, signed onto the joint letter, several of its local affiliates distanced themselves from its stance.
Zan also rejected the letter. “To say that trans women are not real women is not acceptable,” he said. “We are talking about people who are particularly discriminated against.” There are more murders of transgender people in Italy than in any other European country, he said, “showing an extremely high level of cultural discrimination.”
His bill does not repress freedom of expression, he said, but only the inciting of violence and hatred. “If I say my son is gay and he should be burned to death, it is clear this is not an opinion but an instigation to violence.”
Zan said it was regrettable that the left was not united: “Unfortunately, some statements by historic and radical feminists have the same content as the extreme right and religious fundamentalists.”
Despite the setbacks for the bill, there are signs that the proposed Zan law has increased popular support.
Italy’s most influential Instagrammers, power couple Chiara Ferragni, a fashion mogul, and rapper Fedez, have taken the cause to heart. There were protests in favor of the bill in 54 towns and cities around Italy last weekend, suggesting the younger generation of Italians may be ready to address the lack of LGBT protection.
Even the feminists are changing, according to Zan. “The new generation of feminists are inclusive not exclusionary — for them, giving rights to someone doesn’t take away from the rights of someone else.”
LA Pride has announced its 2021 pride theme this year called “Thrive With Pride”.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the infamous Los Angeles Pride parade in West Hollywood was cancelled, which would have been its 50th anniversary, and in its place a protest march was held on June 14th for All Black Lives Matter.
Christopher Street West (CSW), producer of the annual LA Pride, announced the All Black Lives Matter protest march on its website.
“Out of recognition and respect to the years of work and action of Black LGBTQ+ leadership and community organizers, Christopher Street West and LA Pride will no longer co-organize the All Black Lives Matter march,” the announcement says. “However, they are in full support and stand unapologetically in solidarity with efforts to dismantle racial (in)justice, systemic oppression, institutional barriers, police brutality and discrimination of all kinds.”
However this year the focus of Pride has shifted to a celebration of resilience and overcoming odds in the midst of a pandemic with a theme that reflects that focus called “Thrive With Pride”.
On May 6th LA Pride announced a list of events for the upcoming Pride season on its website. The events will include a free streaming concert presented by TikTok, the Thrive with Pride Celebration one-hour special on ABC7, and LA Pride Makes a Difference, a new, month-long calendar of events focused on volunteering and community service around Los Angeles.
According to LA Pride’s website this years theme was chosen, “not just to highlight health and wellness as we slowly emerge from the pandemic, but more notably, to underscore the belief that thriving is an act of social justice within the LGBTQ+ community, especially for our underserved or overlooked members. When we live with a sense of belonging, confidence, security, and self-worth, we’re not just surviving, we’re thriving!”.
“To thrive means to flourish and progress despite the circumstances. Pride this year is a moment for you to stop and breathe,” said Sharon-Franklin Brown, CSW Board of Directors President. “It’s a moment to remember you’re not just surviving one of the hardest years in recent memory, but growing into your truth. If we as a community can come together, even for a moment, to realize we’ve broken down some barriers put on us, it’ll strengthen our resolve to continue tearing more down for those to come after us.”
All LA Pride 2021 events will use the hashtag #ThrivewithPride.
On Thursday night June 10th English singer song-writer Charlie XCX will kick off LA Pride 2021 with a free Thrive with Pride Concert, live streamed exclusively on TikTok from a fabulous LA location.
Charli spent last year working on new tracks by sharing and collaborating with her fans on Zoom. The resulting new album, How I’m Feeling Now received critical acclaim, and singles in her signature “hyper-pop” style are getting well over one million views online.
Rounding out the show, up and coming LGBTQ+ artists from across genres will be making their LA Pride concert debuts.
On Saturday June 12th at 9pm LA Pride’s broadcast partner, ABC7/KABC-TV Los Angeles will air a one-hour primetime special.
Hosts Ellen Leyva and Brandi Hitt will be joined by Karl Schmid and Eric Resendiz as they present the best of LA Pride’s LGBTQ+ Los Angeles community. Trans profiles, celebrity shout-outs, spotlights on LA Pride’s 2021 Honorees, a special Pride performance by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles from the Getty Center, and more.
For the entire month of June, CSW will be partnering with Big Sunday, an organization that produces hundreds of events every year for people of all backgrounds and demographics to get together and work on all kinds of service projects, to create “Pride Makes A Difference”.
“Pride Makes A Difference” is a 30-day calendar of events focused on volunteering, community service, and opportunities to donate time, goods and money to worthy causes that benefit the LGBTQ+ community, and Los Angeles nonprofits.
Pride Makes a Difference will have its own website with calls-to-action in the areas of food insecurity, housing insecurity, mental health and wellness, and abuse. A list of selected local organizations will be available to choose from, as well as event details, fun group opportunities, and sign-up forms. CSW intends to make Pride Makes a Difference a permanent part of its Pride programming going forward.
For more information visit LA Pride at https://lapride.org/la-pride-2021-events-announced/
A high school in Indiana has ordered teachers to remove Pride flags from their classrooms to “maintain viewpoint neutrality”, and students have slammed the decision.
The principal of Pendleton Heights High School, Connie Rickert, ordered three teachers to remove Pride flags from their classrooms, local newspaper The Herald Bulletin reported.
“Teachers are legally obligated to maintain viewpoint neutrality during their official duties to ensure all students can focus on learning and we can maintain educational activities and school operations,” she stated. “Our counselors are trained to respond to any student who desires support.”
Despite outrage from students, other senior staff also issued statements about the ban, with one comparing the Pride flag to a white supremacy flag. One student slammed the comparison, telling The Indianapolis Star: “One is about inclusiveness and the other is about hate.”
The president of the board of trustees for the local district wrote in an email to parents: “The issue with displaying the flag in a school is a double-edged sword.
“If an LGBTQ+ flag is allowed to be displayed, then any other group would have the same ability. That could include such flags as supporting white supremacy, which is in direct conflict with LGBTQ+. I hope we can model equality and support through our actions.”
Student Bryce Axel-Adams started an online petition, calling for the school board to officially allow Pride flags in classrooms. At the time of writing, it has more than 3,500 signatures.
Bryce wrote: “Having a pride flag is one of the clearest ways to say, ‘I support you, and I’m here for you. You are loved.’
“That is so important for LGBTQ+ youth, we have always been told that teachers will always be there for us, and being able to easily identify teachers we can safely go to is extremely important to our mental health.”
Bryce later added that they had received an update from the school administrators saying they had changed their stance, and weren’t banning the flags because they are “political speech”, but to “avoid a discrimination lawsuit”.
The petition received a number of heart-warming responses from teachers in other districts, Pendleton alumni and other students.
New York’s Stonewall Inn will kick off LGBTQ Pride Month with a star-studded streaming concert on June 1 to benefit The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Safe Spaces Initiatives. Presenters and performers for the event, produced by Tom D’Angora, Michael D’Angora and Victoria Varela, include Billy Eichner, Chelsea Clinton, Margaret Cho, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Julianne Moore, Fran Drescher, Lea DeLaria, Alexandra Billings, Beto O’Rourke, Amy Poehler, Randy Rainbow, Jordin Sparks, Lance Bass, Sophia Bush, Jackie Cox, Sasha Velour, Debra Messing, Laith Ashley, Omar Sharif Jr., Rita Wilson, André De Shields and more.
The Safe Spaces Initiative will identify and designate entertainment venues, food and beverage locations, stores, businesses, and other public venues, as safe spaces for LGBTQ members of the community.
“The Stonewall Inn is one of the original safe spaces, and it’s important that we create more Safe Spaces for the LGBTQA+ community across the country,” said Stonewall Inn co-owner Kurt Kelly.
“We need to make sure that public venues, stores, business, etc. that say they are LGBTQA+ friendly and a safe space for the community are putting in the work and have the policies, procedures, and training to make sure they truly are a safe and affirming space for our community,” said Stonewall Inn co-owner Stacy Lentz, who also serves as CEO of The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative.
The concert is sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery, FCB Health New York, Hawkins Mikita, Jagermeister USA, Jennifer Brown Consulting, JetBlue, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Video Out.
Stonewall Day Celebration
Pride Live is teaming up with Outloud: Raising Voices for the fourth annual Stonewall Day celebration, a three-day concert at Los Angeles’ Memorial Coliseum June 4-6. Adam Lambert is set to curate and perform at the event, which will also feature Chelsea Clinton, Whoopi Goldberg, Kim Petras, Geena Rocero, Angelica Ross, Rafael Silva, Sam Sparro, Ryan Jamaal Swain, George Takei, VINCINT, Chely Wright and Conchita Wurst.
Pride organisers in Melbourne, Australia, have been called to ban uniformed police officers from an annual parade because the force “pose a risk” to LGBT+ attendees.
Midsumma Pride, run by the decades-old arts and culture organisation Midsumma Festival, is facing fierce calls from two top state and local advocacy groups to ban cops from its annual parade on 23 May.
For almost two decades, the authorities have taken part in Midsumma Pride, with a contingent from the Victoria Police and Sheriff’s Office Of Victoria set to march in the emergency services wave this year.
But the Victorian Pride Lobby and the Sydney-based Pride in Protest groups have both sought a response from the board of Midsumma to prevent police from marching.
In their letters, activists spoke of the historically fraught relationship between the LGBT+ community and law enforcement. To the groups, the police are simply out of place to considering Pride’s roots as a defiant anti-police uprising.
“Police pose a risk to the safety of many LGBT+ community members, particularly First Nations people, people of colour, poor people, sex workers, people with disability and trans and gender diverse people,” the letter from Pride in Protest stated.
“To expect people who have survived police violence to march with their oppressors denies their right to justice and safety at Melbourne Pride.
“Inviting police to march actively excludes the most vulnerable in the LGBTQIA+ community.”
Such calls were amplified by the Victorian Pride Lobby in its own letter. “Pride march should be a safe space for all LGBT+ Victorians, but sadly, due to a long history police violence, harassment and discrimination, this isn’t the case,” the letter stated.
Victorian Pride Lobby co-convenor Nevena Spirovska added in the letter: “The LGBT+ community has a fraught history with the police.
“And that’s why the Victorian Pride Lobby does not support police officers and corrections officers marching at Pride in uniform.
“It is important to note that no individual, no matter their occupation or background, is being excluded from participating in Pride March and that people have the opportunity to join other community floats that are involved.”
It comes after New York City Pride last week took steps to ban police and correctional officers from its annual Pride march until at least 2025.
While from Wisconsin, US, to Toronto, Canada, Pride organisers banning uniformed police officers from taking part in parades is in no way uncommon.
As much as some Pride events, such as London’s, continue to grapple with barring officers, such decisions highlight the increasing pressure law enforcement now faces to address longstanding grievances about diversity.
Transgender people in Japan face continuing barriers to changing their legally recognized gender, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Japanese government should heed increasing calls from activists and experts to revise its abusive and outdated transgender recognition law.
The 43-page report, “‘The Law Undermines Dignity’: Momentum to Revise Japan’s Legal Gender Recognition Process,” documents the persistent barriers transgender people face in Japan under the Gender Identity Disorder (GID) Special Cases Act. The procedure for changing one’s legally recognized gender, which requires sterilization surgery and an outdated psychiatric diagnosis, is anachronistic, harmful, and discriminatory. Many transgender people in Japan and domestic medical, legal, and academic experts, as well as international health and human rights bodies, have said that the law should be substantially revised.May 25, 2021
“Transgender people are courageously speaking out against Japan’s abusive and discriminatory transgender law, and increasingly gaining support from experts in medicine, law, and academia,” said Kanae Doi, Japan director at Human Rights Watch. “Tokyo officials should embrace public opinion and local-level policies and update the law to reflect current medical and legal perspectives.”
The current law has five requirements for a transgender person to be legally recognized according to their gender identity. They must be: at least 20 years old; unmarried; not have any children under age 20; not have gonads or permanently lack functioning gonads; and have a physical form that is “endowed with genitalia that closely resemble the physical form of an alternative gender.”
Each of these requirements contravenes Japan’s international human rights obligations, and is opposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other medical expert bodies. The medical requirements in particular underpin widespread prejudice against transgender people. The diagnosis requirement rests on an outdated and pejorative notion that a transgender identity is a “mental disorder” and the surgery requirements force transgender people who want legal recognition to undergo lengthy, expensive, invasive, and irreversible medical procedures. Forcing people to divorce and not allowing those under 20 to change their legal gender is discriminatory.
Itsuki Dohi, a transgender woman and teacher in Kyoto, told Human Rights Watch: “The five requirements of the GID Law all narrow down the life choices that transgender people have. This undermines our dignity.” Miho Mitsunari, a professor at Nara Women’s University, said: “The five requirements are based on the idea of changing transgender people’s sex from ‘deviations’ to ‘normal.’ It promotes prejudice against transgender people who cannot, or do not want to, change their body.”
This is the third report by Human Rights Watch since 2016 addressing transgender issues in Japan. The 2016 and 2019 reports documented the stories of transgender people who described their struggles to fit into rigid school systems designed around strict gender binaries, to seek and obtain employment, to access health care, and to raise families in accordance with their basic rights.
Japan’s GID Special Cases Act was drafted in 2003 and came into force in 2004. For that era, it is not unique. Other legal regimes around the world from that period contain similar discriminatory and abusive provisions. Legislatures, domestic courts, and regional human rights courts and bodies have in recent years found that such requirements violate international human rights law. Governments around the world have removed sterilization requirements, or drafted laws without surgery requirements at all. Some countries, such as Sweden and the Netherlands, have recognized compulsory sterilizations of transgender people that took place in the past as rights violations, and compensated survivors.
Medical expert bodies have similarly urged governments to remove medical requirements from legal gender recognition procedures. In 2019 the WHO, in its revised International Classification of Diseases, removed “transsexualism” and “gender identity disorder” as “mental disorders.” Reacting to the changes, the prominent Japanese transgender activist Fumino Sugiyama wrote: “The WHO says I don’t have a mental disorder, but in Japan my government says I do.” Sugiyama, who co-chairs Tokyo Rainbow Pride, the annual festival, said: “I underwent a mastectomy in 2009 because I wanted the surgery to affirm my identity and shape how my body felt. But like many other trans people I know, I don’t want to be sterilized.”
Over time, an increasing number of trans people in Japan have taken the legally prescribed steps and changed their legal gender. In 2019, 948 people were approved for legal gender change, but activists have said the law limits the number of people who are willing to undergo the full procedure.
“The five requirements in Japan’s legal gender recognition law need to become a thing of the past,” Doi said. “Japan’s government should urgently turn to revising the law.”
Pennsylvania State University officials approved a measure that would remove gendered and binary terms like “freshman” and “upperclassman” from course and program descriptions late last month.
The changes were suggested in a Penn State University Faculty Senate proposition, AD84 Preferred Name and Gender Identity Policy, which passed on April 27, a university spokesperson told the student newspaper The Daily Collegian. It was unclear when the updated language would be implemented.
The proposition recommended changing the nomenclature of college classes from “freshman,” “sophomore,” “junior” and “senior” to “first-year,” “second-year,” “third-year” and “fourth-year.”
Among its other recommendations were replacing the terms “underclassmen” and “upperclassmen” with “lower division” and “upper division,” as well as he/him/his and she/her/hers pronouns with they/them/theirs pronouns.
The impetus for the changes was to move beyond the school’s lexicon of “sexist and classist” terms and to build a more inclusive and welcoming environment for all students, according to the proposition.
Terms like “freshman” and “upperclassmen” carried a “strong, male-centric, binary character” and terms like “junior” and “senior” ran “parallel to western male father-son naming conventions,” the proposition said.
If implemented, the recommendations would be enforced in all written materials, including recruiting information, admissions materials, internal documents and school websites.
Penn State University did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The move comes on the heels of wider education and visibility of the use of nonbinary gender pronouns and terms.
In a survey conducted last year by The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization, 1 in 4 LGBTQ youths said they used pronouns other than he/him or she/hers.
The survey, which asked 40,000 LGBTQ young people ages 13 to 24, found that 75 percent of those who use pronouns other than the gender binary choose a combination of he/him, she/her and they/them to express their genders. For example, a person might use “he and they” or “she and they” or “he, she and they.”
An increasing number of actors and musicians have also identified as nonbinary in the past few years.
