World
Fighting for LGBTQ rights in the Global South
Activists in Thailand and Lebanon forge ahead
The Global South presents unique challenges for LGBTQ activists and advocacy groups.
The Human Rights Campaign notes 29 countries have extended marriage rights to same-sex couples, and the majority of them are located in the Global North that comprises more developed countries in the Americas and Europe. Less than a handful of these countries — such as South Africa and Brazil — are in the Global South. Countries in the Global North, as a result, are more likely to harbor LGBTQ-friendly public sentiments compared to the Global South, which is rife with restrictive anti-LGBTQ laws.
This reality not only makes life tumultuous for both openly and closeted queer individuals in the Global South, the chances of encountering LGBTQ-friendly sentiments in these regions are also close to non-existent. Ensuring the fundamental human rights of the queer people who live in these regions are guaranteed is imperative for activists.
The Washington Blade recently spoke with activists from Thailand and Lebanon about their advocacy work and also how they celebrated Pride in countries where LGBTQ identity is not widely acknowledged.
Thailand
Midnight Poonkasetwattana is the executive director of the Asian Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health (APCOM), a non-profit organization located in Bangkok. The organization’s work centers on addressing sexual health-related issues by collecting data on gay men and men who have sex with men in 35 countries across Asia and the Pacific.
“What we do in general is empowering communities on the ground to be able to speak their truth, and also participate meaningfully in country, regional, and global fora so they can have their voices and actually articulate what is it the needs of communities on the ground are,” says Poonkasetwattana.
APCOM, by giving these communities the ability to articulate their concerns, creates and facilitates an environment where LGBTQ people’s sexual and mental health needs are met, even though discrimination remains a barrier to accessing these services.
APCOM’s work does not come without its challenges because of the prevalence of anti-LGBTQ laws in many Asian countries. Their work, however, usually continues undeterred because of their ability to work with local community organizations in the public health sector.
“There are some opportunities to work under public health, and we’ve been able to do that in certain places [like Afghanistan] where it’s still difficult to talk about equality,” says Poonkasetwattana. “When we talk about ensuring that those who are marginalized and most at risk to [contract] HIV are able to get prevention and treatment, [we focus on working] with community-based organizations.”
APCOM, as a result, has been able to facilitate important conversations around HIV/AIDS, with the specific information about the use of necessary and appropriate language in web programming that recognizes people’s different sexual identities and encourages direct conversations around drug use and sex work.
APCOM, in order to commemorate Asia’s LGBTQ community’s tenacity, began Pride month with a virtual discussion that the Australian Embassy in Thailand sponsored. The event, titled “Celebrating Pride Month 2021: LGBTQI Inclusion and the Effect of COVID-19,” had two sessions.
The first session, “Voices from Thai LGBTQI: Launch of Khormoon Report,” discussed COVID-19’s impact in Thailand. The second, “COVID-19 Recovery and LGBTQI Inclusion: A Perspective from the Business Sector,” focused on how Thailand’s business sector practiced inclusion and how it will further propel LGBTQ advocacy.
As APCOM prepares to ease back into normalcy as the pandemic wanes, Poonkasetwattana will begin to prepare for the organization’s HERO Awards (HIV, Equality and Rights), a fundraising gala that honors outstanding LGBTQ activists, HIV/AIDS service providers and allies from across Asia and the Pacific and also raises money for the HIV prevention and human rights work of APCOM.
Lebanon
Helem, whose executive director is Tarek Zeidan, is an LGBTQ advocacy organization in Beirut, Lebanon. Founded in 2001, this non-governmental entity works to improve the legal and social status of LGTBQ people in the Middle East and North Africa.
Lebanon is what Zeidan describes as a slightly safer place for queer people. Lebanon, compared to Egypt and Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East, has emerged as a more inclusive and liberal place despite it being anything but a safe haven for queer people.
“When it comes to LGBTQ rights, Lebanon packs a punch way above its weight,” says Zeidan. “Because, in a region which is notorious for LGBTQ rights violations, Lebanon has enjoyed, and here I use the word enjoy very loosely, a relatively safer and more inclusive sort of experience.”
Helem in its many incarnations throughout its 21-year history has always had one main goal: React to whatever priorities and needs that queer people in the Middle East have.
Helem is structurally divided into three parts.
The first is the services department which does a lot of work to protect and assist LGBTQ people in crisis.
“We [offer] emergency intervention, case management, emergency cash, free mental health support, free medical aid, everything,” says Zeidan. “Food security [also] acts primarily as the hub in which we gather a lot of data, particularly data on the locale, density, and type of human rights violations, as well as demographic information.”
The second part of the organization is its community department.
Helem runs the largest non-commercial queer space in the Arab world that serves as a community center. This space is where the Zeidan guides localization work, community building, power building work, capacity building and vocational training.
“That’s where we do our family support, youth outreach, and all of that sort of community building and integration time work,” says Zeidan.
The final leg is the advocacy part or “bureau” that anchors on policy work, procedure, cultural change, public awareness, and legislation. Helem’s advocacy work also focuses on criminalization that Zeidan describes as “getting more attention,” even though it is not a central focus.
“In addition, criminalization, which is something we always do gets a lot of attention, but it’s really not the central thing that we engage with,” says Zeidan. “There are multiple ways in which you can guarantee LGBTQ rights and inclusion that don’t necessarily pass through Parliament, or the Supreme Court, especially when those two are blocked. So in a nutshell, the central question that we ask is, what can we do in order to improve institutions to become LGBTQ inclusive? How do we improve the lives of LGBTQ people?”
Zeidan further mentions that this strategy makes way for avenues that are not necessarily within the traditional human rights view by extracting opportunities from both development and human rights frameworks.
When tackling the lack of employment within Arab LGBTQ communities, for example, Helem doesn’t approach corporations that are more likely to be LGBTQ-inclusive. It instead identifies the industries that target LGBTQ people.
“We are more interested in targeting small and medium enterprises as locales for employment rather than big banks, because that’s where most of the working class and low income queer people are, and that’s where they get most of their livelihoods,” says Zeidan.
Zeidan says he anticipates even more engagement with LGBTQ activism in the Middle East in the future.
“We’re really excited about deciphering the question: What does regional activism really look like in the Middle East,” says Zeidan. “This is a very complicated question.”
He further mentions this goal is complicated because the Middle East does not have a regional organization to which they can turn for advocacy. Africa, for example, has the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, but the Middle East does not have such a body.
Helem’s modus operandi will therefore be engorged in trying to make sense of how to best liberate queer Arabs.
The Vatican
New Vatican report acknowledges LGBTQ Catholics feel isolated in the church
Document contains testimonies of two gay married men
A report the Vatican released on Tuesday acknowledges LGBTQ Catholics have felt isolated within the church.
The report, which the Vatican’s General Secretariat of the Synod’s Study Group 9 released, includes testimony from two married gay Catholics from the U.S. and Portugal.
“Regarding the resistances — limiting ourselves to those emerging from the lived experiences shared with us — we wish to highlight the following: the solitude, anguish, and stigma that accompany persons with same-sex attractions and their families, not only in society but also within the church; this is often linked to the temptation to hide in a ‘double life,'” reads the report. “Within this problematic outlook lie the positions expressed in the pressure to undergo reparative therapies or, even more gravely, in the simplistic advice to enter the sacrament of marriage.”
“At the root of both the emerging openings and the persisting resistances, it seems possible to identify a difficulty in coordinating pastoral practice and the doctrinal approach. Other testimonies received by our study group from believers with same-sex attractions further confirm how arduous it is for individuals and Christian communities to reconcile “doctrinal firmness” with “pastoral welcome,'” it adds.
The report appears to criticize so-called conversion therapy. It also states “every person, first and foremost, is singular, irreducible, irreplaceable, and original” and “this is the meaning of the Biblical-theological theme of the human being, male and female, created in the image and likeness of God.”
The National Catholic Reporter notes “a group of theologians, including bishops, priests, a sister and a layperson” the Vatican commissioned “to study ‘controversial’ issues that Pope Francis’s Synod on Synodality raised wrote the report.
Francis in 2023 launched the multi-year synod to examine on ways to reform the church.
The Argentine-born pontiff died in April 2025. Pope Leo XIV, who was born in Chicago, succeeded him.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday met with Leo at the Vatican. The meeting took place against the backdrop of increased tensions between the U.S. and the Holy See over the Iran war.
LGBTQ Catholic groups largely welcome report
LGBTQ Catholic groups welcomed the report; even though it will not change church teachings on homosexuality, marriage, and gender identity.
“It was a really bold choice to make LGBTQ issues — or homosexuality — one of the case studies,” Brian Flanagan, a senior fellow at New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, told the Washington Blade on Wednesday during a telephone interview.
Flanagan is also the John Cardinal Cody Chair of Catholic Theology at Loyola University in Chicago.
“They (the study group) could have punted and said something easier,” he said. “Instead, they’re putting what was frankly one of the hottest issues leading up to and after the Synod and addressing it more head on.”
New Ways Ministry Executive Director Francis DeBernardo in a statement described the report as a “breath of refreshing air, the first acknowledgment that LGBTQ+ issues were taken seriously by the three-year global consultation of all levels of the church.”
“By establishing mechanisms and recommendations to continue dialoguing with LGBTQ+ people, the report is a significant step forward in the church’s process to become a more welcoming place for its LGBTQ+ members,” he said.
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, an LGBTQ Catholic organization, in her own statement said the report “demonstrates a welcome humility and openness to learning from the People of God about people’s lives and faith journeys.”
“It is clear that the study group members understand that the doctrines of the church undermine the deep relationship with God that many LGBTQ+ people have, or try to have, and that this needs to be corrected,” she said. “Church officials have decades of testimony from people who have found their sexual orientation or gender identity to be a blessing and a gift, and their relationships to be sacred. To see this reality reflected and respected in this document is a long-awaited positive step.”
Duddy-Burke added the report largely ignores “the experiences of transgender and nonbinary people.” She further notes it “provides few concrete recommendations and proposes no doctrinal changes.”
“Rather, it calls for dialogue, encounter, and communal theological reflection to shape how the Catholic Church moves forward in addressing doctrine and pastoral practice,” said Duddy-Burke. “The paradigm shift repeatedly called for in this report is a significant and very welcome change. Experience, especially of those most impacted, must be key to developing dogma.”
Ukraine
Ukrainian MPs advance new Civil Code without protections for same-sex couples
Advocacy groups say proposal would ‘contradict European standards’
Ukrainian lawmakers have advanced a proposed new Civil Code that does not contain legal protections for same-sex couples.
The Kyiv Independent reported the proposal passed on its first reading on April 28 by a 254-2 vote margin.
The newspaper notes more than two dozen advocacy groups in a statement said some of the proposed Civil Code’s provisions “contradict European standards” and “violate Ukraine’s commitments under its EU accession process.”
“The most worrying provisions are those that make it impossible for a court to recognize the existence of a family relationship between people of the same sex,” the statement reads. “This overturns the already established case law on this issue, and closes the only legal avenue that allows partners to somehow protect their rights in individual cases.”
“Moreover, the draft completely ignores the obligations that Ukraine should have already fulfilled as part of its accession to the EU, as it lacks provisions that would allow people of the same sex to register their relationships,” it adds.
“The provisions also stipulate that all marriages concluded by people who have changed their gender automatically become invalid,” the statement further notes. “This is not just stagnation in the field of human rights or lack of progress on the path to European integration, but an actual setback in the legal sphere.”
Olena Shevchenko, chair of Insight, a Ukrainian LGBTQ advocacy group, in an April 28 Facebook post said the new Civil Code “is a step back on upholding the rights of women and the LGBT+ community in Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian constitution defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2022 publicly backed civil partnerships for same-sex couples.
The Ukrainian Supreme Court on Feb. 25 recognized Zoryan Kis and Tymur Levchuk — a gay couple who has lived together since 2013 and married in the U.S. in 2021 — as a family. Ukraine the day before marked four years since Russia began its war against the country.
Commentary
How do you vote a child out of their future?
Students reportedly expelled from Eswatini schools over alleged same-sex relationships
There is something deeply unsettling about a society that turns a child’s future into a public referendum. In Eswatini, there were reports that students were expelled from school over alleged same-sex relationships, and that parents were invited to vote on whether those children should remain, forcing us to confront a difficult question on when did education stop being a right and become a favor granted by collective approval? Because this is a non-neutral vote.
A vote reflects power, prejudice and personal beliefs, which are often linked to tradition, culture, politics and religion. It is shaped by fear, by stigma, by long-standing narratives about morality and belonging. To ask parents, many of whom may already hold hostile views about LGBTIQ+ people, to decide the fate of children is not consultation. It is deferring the responsibility and repercussion. It is placing the lives of young people in the hands of those most likely to deny them protection.
And where is the law in all of this?
The Kingdom of Eswatini is not operating in a vacuum. It has a constitution that guarantees the promotion and protection of fundamental rights, including equality before the law, equal protection of the laws, and the right to dignity. The constitution further goes on to protect the rights of the child, including that a child shall not be subjected to abuse, torture or other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.
The Children’s Protection and Welfare Act of 2012 extends the constitution and international human rights instruments, standards and protocols on the protection, welfare, care and maintenance of children in Eswatini. The Children’s Protection and Welfare Act of 2012 promotes nondiscrimination of any child in Eswatini and says that every child must have psychosocial and mental well-being and be protected from any form of harm. The acts of this very instance place the six students prone to harm and violence. The expulsion goes against one of the mandates of this act, which stipulates that access to education is fundamental to development, therefore, taking students out of school and denying them education contradicts the law.
Eswatini is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. These are not just commitments made to make our governments look good and appeasing. They are obligations. The Convention on the Rights of the Child is clear regarding all actions concerning children. The best interests of the child MUST be a primary consideration and NOT secondary one. According to the CRC, as indicated in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, “the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.” It is not something to be weighed against public discomfort and popularity.
The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child reinforces this, grounding rights in non-discrimination (Article 3), privacy (Article 10) and protection from all forms of torture (Article 16). Access to education (Article 11) within these frameworks is not conditional but is a foundational right. It is not something that can be taken away because a child is perceived as falling outside social norms and threatening the moral fabric of society. It is a foundational right and determines one’s ability to participate in civic actions with dignity.
So again, where is the law when children are being expelled?
It is tempting to say the law is silent but that would be too generous. The law is not silent rather, it is being ignored and bypassed in favor of systems of decision-making that make those in power comfortable. When schools and their leadership defer to parental votes rather than legal standards, they are not acting neutrally. Expelling a child from school because of allegations is not a decision to be taken lightly. It disrupts education and limits future opportunities and for children already navigating identity and social pressure, this kind of exclusion can have profound psychological effects. It isolates them. It marks them for potential harm. Imagine being a child whose future is discussed in a room where people debate your worth. That is exposure. That is harm. There is a tendency to justify these actions in the language of culture, tradition, religion and protecting social cohesion. But culture is not static and the practice of Ubuntu values is not an excuse to violate rights. If anything, the principle of Ubuntu demands the opposite of what is happening here.
Ubuntu is not about conformity. It is about recognition and is the understanding that our humanity is bound up in one another. That we are diminished when others are excluded. That care, dignity, respect and compassion are not optional extras but central to how we exist together. Where, then, is Ubuntu in a school where some children are deemed unworthy of access to education?
Why are those entrusted with protecting children are failing to do so?
There is a very loud contradiction at play. On one hand, there is a claim to shared values and to the importance of community. On the other hand, there is a willingness to isolate and exclude those who do not fit within the narrow definition of what is acceptable. You cannot have both. A community that thrives on exclusion is neither cohesive nor safe.
It is worth asking why these decisions are being made in this way. Why not follow the established legal processes? Why not ensure that any disciplinary action within schools aligns with national and international obligations? Why introduce a vote at all? The answer is uncomfortable and lies in legitimacy and accountability. A vote creates the appearance of a collective agreement. But again, I reiterate, it distributes responsibility across many hands, making it hard to hold anyone accountable. It allows the school leadership to say “lesi sincumo sebantfu”(“This is what the community decided, not me”) rather than confronting their own role in human rights violations. If the law is clear and rights, responsibilities and obligations are established, then the question is not what the community feels. The question is why those entrusted with protecting children are failing to do so.
There is also a deeper issue here about whose rights are seen as negotiable. When we talk about children, we often speak of care, of understanding, of protection and safeguarding them because they are the future. But that language becomes selective when it intersects with sexuality, particularly when it involves LGBTIQ+ identities. Suddenly, care, understanding, protection, and safeguarding give way to punishment.
Easy decisions are not always just ones.
If the kingdom is serious about its commitments under its constitution, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, then those commitments must be visible in practice, not just in policy documents. Rather, they must guide decision-making in schools and in communities. That means recognizing that a child’s right to education cannot be overridden by a show of hands. It means ensuring that schools remain spaces of inclusion rather than sites of moral policing. It means holding leaders and institutions accountable when they fail to protect those in their care.
Bradley Fortuin is a consultant at the Southern Africa Litigation Center and a human rights activist.
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