Although few Americans heard about it at the time, LGBTQ+ Africans remember that Kamala Harris stood up for them when she visited Africa as vice president in March 2023.  

On March 27, 2023, she appeared at a joint news conference in Accra, Ghana, with Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo. The final question came from Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times. Referring to the bill that would impose harsh jail terms on LGBTQ+ people, then being considered by the Ghanaian parliament, and citing the Biden administration’s commitment to” calling out any foreign government that advanced anti-gay legislation or violates human rights,” he asked her “what have you said to the president and plan to say to other leaders on this trip about the crackdown on human rights?”

Under the “Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill,” which was passed by the Ghanaian parliament on Feb. 28, 2024, people who engage in same-sex relations will be subject to up to three years imprisonment, anyone who promotes LGBTQ+ rights can be jailed for six to 10 years, and all LGBTQ+ organizations will be banned. The act is now being challenged in the country’s Supreme Court as unconstitutional.

As Nii-Quarterlai Quartner, professor at Pepperdine University, writes in his new book, “Kamala, the Motherland, and Me,” “even before he completed his inquiry, members of the Ghanaian cabinet made their disapproval apparent. You could see their faces get tight and hear the whispers. You could even hear some laughter. Was it nervous laughter? Was it belittling laughter? Was it somewhere in between? I don’t know. But the immediate shift in energy was palpable. Despite the angry stares and even some snickers from around the room, Vice President Harris never paused or hesitated in her response.”

Standing at Akufo-Addo’s side, Harris answered the question directly and at length. 

“I’ll start,” she said, “I have raised this issue, and let me be clear about where we stand. First of all, for the American press who are here, you know that a great deal of work in my career has been to address human rights issues, equality issues across the board, including as it relates to the LGBTQ+ community. And I feel very strongly about the importance of supporting freedom and supporting and fighting for equality among all people, and that all people be treated equally. I will also say that this is an issue that we consider, and I consider to be a human rights issue, and that will not change.”

Former President Donald Trump’s policy, if he wins the election this coming November, would be quite different.  

According to the Project 2025 report, prepared under the direction of the Heritage Foundation by leading Trump advisors, in Trump’s second term, the United States will “stop promoting policies birthed in the American culture wars” and stop pressing African governments to respect the rule of law, human rights/LGBT+ rights, political and civil rights, democracy, and women’s rights, especially abortion rights. “African nations are particularly (and reasonably) non-receptive to the US social policies such as abortion and pro-LGBT initiatives being imposed on them,” by the United States, the report declares. Therefore, “the United States should focus on core security, economic, and human rights engagement with African partners and reject the promotion of divisive policies that hurt the deepening of shared goals between the US and its African partners.”

The fate of LGBTQ+ Africans may not matter much to most American voters, but the results of the US election matter to them. Their safety, freedom, and lives depend on it.

Daniel Volman is the director of the African Security Research Project in Washington, D.C., and a specialist on US national security policy toward Africa and African security issues.

Ukrainian men are being pulled away from vital humanitarian work and drafted into the military under new conscription laws, according to local activists.

One huge challenge facing Ukraine’s war effort is a shortage of conscripts. Kyiv hopes new laws passed in April 2024 aimed at recruiting many more soldiers will help it get on the front foot militarily, particularly after a fresh wave of attacks from Russia in May 2024 in the northeast.

Vasyl Malikov is the Kharkiv coordinator of Alliance.Global northeastern Ukraine. The NGO provides a wide range of services to the LGBTQ community in the Kharkiv region, including HIV prevention and testing, psychosocial help, medical, and humanitarian aid.

He told me that most of the men who work with the organization to provide these services as well as their volunteers are liable to be called up for military service under the new conscription drive.

Russian invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 have resulted in a protracted war being fought along a front line stretching over several hundred miles. In August 2024 Ukraine opened a new line of attack when it pushed into Russia’s Kursk region, with reports estimating Ukraine could commit as many as 10,000 troops to the attack. Despite the widespread use of new technology on the battlefield, much of the war is being fought by more traditional means, with large numbers of soldiers armed with rifles defending the country from trenches.

The new laws aim to reinforce Ukraine’s tiring military and lower the age of conscription from 27 to 25, although volunteers over 18 are still accepted.

Ukraine has for a decade been successfully pressing the United States government and leaders in Europe for weapons to defend itself against Russian aggression, but having enough soldiers to use them is a significant challenge.

An initial target of conscripting 450,000 to 500,000 new recruits has been lowered, but it is not clear what the new number is. I’ve been regularly reporting from the front line in and around Kharkiv, the country’s second biggest city, over the last two years, and it’s obvious that Ukraine’s military is running short of personnel.

Malikov says some of the men who work with Alliance.Global have already been called into the army, and are hard to replace. “Good international practice is that many of the services we provide to LGBTQ people are best done by social workers and volunteers who come from the communities they serve (peer-to-peer),” he said. 

“We do an enormous amount of work providing vital social and other support to gay men and bisexual men in and around Kharkiv. Trust is important in the outreach to these communities, and if men from our team are taken for the army you can’t just get anyone to replace them. These are experienced professionals, committed to this work.”

A few of the Alliance.Global team are exempt from the military draft on medical grounds, or for some other reason. Malikov is himself currently exempt because he is also a university professor, but this academic certificate has to be renewed every three months – a long bureaucratic process, he says, which can involve him queueing for five hours at a time. 

This new challenge comes as the country’s LGBTQ community confronts a halt to progress on legislation to introduce same-sex civil partnerships, despite more than 70 percent of Ukrainians polled saying that LGBTQ people should have the same rights as other citizens. This is a huge improvement from 2010 attitudes, when only 28 percent of Ukrainians thought that “gay men and lesbians should be free to live their lives as they wish.”

Yet, as Bogdan Globa, president and co-founder of QUA – LGBTQ Ukrainians in America, notes, “thousands of LGBTQI+ are serving in the army with a civilian partner back at home. For straight couples, if something happens with a military partner (wounded or killed), a civilian partner will obtain a variety of government benefits, from cash support to housing. In the case of same-sex couples, they are invisible to the government and have no help or recognition. A civilian person has no right to even bury their partner’s body.” 

Malikov says, “any Ukrainian man could find himself in the military in a matter of weeks from now, because it’s a civic duty of Ukrainian men during wartime, including any number of the 80 or more men who are part of the Alliance.Global network.” 

The new recruitment drive presents new tests for his work in Kharkiv. “It makes things very difficult to plan. We don’t know who will be called up, or when, and it’s another layer of unpredictability to an already uncertain future,” he says.

For more, see Human Rights First’s new report, “New Recruits: Ukraine’s Military Conscription Laws Threaten Humanitarian Efforts,” written by Maya Fernandez-Powell and myself.

Brian Dooley is senior adviser for Human Rights First.

It is time those who keep trying to compare this election to previous elections to recognize there is no comparison. There has never been a sitting vice president running against a disgraced former president, who lost the last time he ran. There has never been an African American/Asian American woman, running for president as a major party nominee. There has never been a candidate who replaced the original candidate of a major party on the ticket, with only three months until the election. 

There also has never in recent years been such a unified Democratic Party, running against not a political party, but a cult. There has never been a major party candidate running for president held liable for sexual assault and convicted of 34 felonies. There has never been a time when a woman’s right to control her own healthcare has been taken away after being considered a constitutional right for nearly 50 years. There has never been a time when a woman’s right to an abortion has been on so many state ballots. And there has never been a candidate who rants regularly on his social media platform, mostly inane nonsense, at the same time his running mate tells a sitting vice president to ‘go to hell,’ in response to something she never even said. We have never had a candidate for vice president who has in essence told women without children they are useless. The total lack of class of the MAGA Republican ticket is also something we have never seen before. So to all those like the MAGA Republican Marc Theissen, who writes in the Washington Post, saying he can compare this election to previous ones, they might want to take the time to read some history.

What’s clear is we don’t know who will win this election. We don’t know how many Americans there are who would choose to vote for a once defeated former president, convicted felon, who tried to stage a coup to remain in office. Yes, he could win even if that were to seem like an alternate reality. Unfortunately, with today’s divided electorate, we can surmise what the result in 43 states will be. It is only in seven states that there is some doubt about the result. I wish I had a crystal ball, but I don’t, and neither does anyone else. From what we have seen in recent years, polling is not an accurate predictor. 

There are the types of issues in this campaign we have seen in previous elections, when wars and the economy have played a big role. Today we have divisions over the Israel/Hamas war, with debates on how the United States should deal with Israel, and the future of the Palestinian people. There is the war in Ukraine and questions some have about our continued support for Ukraine, and how we are working with our allies. Then there are what are usually called kitchen table issues: inflation, and the cost of food, gas, rent, and education. Then add the issue of crime. We know climate change is taking a much larger role in elections, especially for young people who will live longer with the results if we do nothing about it. These are the issues, even if not exactly the same, that have been around in previous elections. Yet this election is still so different. 

It is what is new and scary I believe this election will be decided on. It will be decided by a very small number of voters, in a small number of states. It will be won by Harris if enough voters fully understand our democracy is actually at risk if Trump wins. They must understand the impact of the Supreme Court ruling granting a president nearly absolute immunity. Understand what happens if Trump’s acolytes, who will be in his government, remake our government based on the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. It will be decided by those who understand what additional rights will be taken away if Trump is able to appoint more judges with lifetime terms to the Supreme Court, and other federal courts.

With all this at stake we still don’t know how people will vote. But I have confidence in the American people, and believe Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will win. But I also know for that to happen, they will need everyone who supports them to be out and working hard, whether raising money, knocking on doors, or talking to family and friends to get them to vote. That last one can really have the greatest impact over the next two months. 

Everyone who supports the Harris/Walz ticket needs to sit down and make a list of every one of their friends and family members. Then start calling. First you need to ask each person for a commitment to vote. Then you must help them understand why their vote is so important. Explain to them they are not only voting for themselves in this election, they are voting for you. 

You need to share with them what this election could mean to your life. If you are a young person concerned with climate change, explain to them they are voting to make the world safer and healthier for you, who will be living in it the longest. If you are a woman who wants to ensure you have control of your own healthcare, and the right to an abortion, explain to them why this election is so crucial to you. If you are a member of the LGBTQ community and want to ensure your rights aren’t taken away, and instead of going backwards, you have a chance to get full equality, explain to them why their vote in this election will have a direct impact on your life. If you are African American and want to ensure you have your civil rights, economic equality, the right to vote, and that the nation doesn’t go back to giving police ultimate power, and the right to ‘stop and frisk’ as Trump has stated he supports, then explain to them why this could literally be a vote for your life. If you are Latino and a Dreamer, and want the right to live safely in this country without looking over your shoulder every day, worrying about the possibility of a member of your family being deported, explain to them why this is a vote for your safety and your future. If you are Asian American and want to ensure you can live without discrimination, explain why this is a vote for you. 

This election must be made to feel personal for each voter. People need to understand what electing Trump will mean to each one of us, and how it will directly impact every person’s life. You can do that by calling all your friends and family, and then asking them to call their friends, like a giant telephone tree. It will make the difference to winning or losing.

Again, in the end, this election is about all of us. It is about our individual rights as guaranteed in our Constitution. It is about what our country will look like going into the future. It is about how we interact with the rest of the world knowing we have a global economy, and the result and impact of doing nothing about climate change doesn’t stop at our border. It is about the opportunity to continue to move forward toward that ‘more perfect union,’ promised in our Constitution. So, when you speak with your friends and family do so honestly, and do it with passion. Because for all of us to live a good, safe, and healthy life, in a peaceful, safer, and healthier world, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz must win.

Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.