World
Global Pride events in full swing
Activists plan to demand rights, protest inequalities
Pride events are in full swing around the world.
Thousands of people on June 5 attended Bangkok’s first official Pride parade in 16 years.
Openly gay Lithuanian MP Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius and U.S. Ambassador to Lithuania Bob Gilchrist are among those who participated in Baltic Pride 2022 that took place in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, on June 4. Jerusalem’s annual Pride parade occurred two days earlier against the backdrop of the arrest of a man in connection with death threats made against its organizers.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on June 1 helped raise the Progress Pride flag over his country’s Parliament. “This is a time to celebrate our differences and support one another and to make sure that ever day we are building a Canada where everyone is free to be who they are and love who they love,” he said in a video he posted to his Twitter page.
Today, we raised the Pride flag on Parliament Hill. The flag is a symbol of hope, solidarity, and diversity – and raising it is a symbol of our ongoing commitment to building a country where everyone can be who they are and love whom they love. Happy Pride season, everyone! 🏳️🌈 pic.twitter.com/lCjonmxw31
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) June 2, 2022
Olena Shevchenko, chair of Insight, a Ukrainian LGBTQ rights group, told the Washington Blade that she and other activists from her war-torn country plan to attend Warsaw Pride in Poland on June 25.
This year marks London Pride’s 50th anniversary.
The British government was to have hosted a global LGBTQ rights conference in London from June 29-July 1, but it cancelled it in April after advocacy groups announced a boycott in response to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to support a bill to ban so-called conversion therapy without gender identity. The London Pride parade is scheduled to take place on July 2.
The Cayman LGBTQ Foundation in the Cayman Islands will hold its annual Pride parade on July 30. The event will take place less than five months after the Privy Council’s Judicial Committee in London ruled same-sex couples in the British territory don’t have a constitutional right to marry.
Jamaica is among the upwards of 70 countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized. J-FLAG and other Jamaican LGBTQ rights groups will hold a series of Pride events during the first week of August, which coincides with the country’s Emancipation and Independence Days.
“It’s always been incident free,” J-FLAG Associate Director of Marketing and Communications and Engagement Elton Johnson told the Blade on Tuesday from Kingston, the Jamaican capital. “We get support from the police. We get support from many organizations, schools.”
African LGBTQ groups to continue decriminalization push
LGBTQ activists in Africa are also planning to commemorate Pride.
The government of Botswana in January said it will abide by a ruling that decriminalized homosexuality in the country. A plethora of other African countries still outlaw same-sex relations and those found guilty of homosexuality in places where Sharia law exists face the death penalty. Advocacy groups on the continent plan to use Pride to further push for decriminalization.
“The 2SLGBTQIA+ community has made dramatic strides in recent decades that absolutely should be celebrated, [but] there is still much more work to do to ensure intersectional equality and justice for all but as we prepare to commemorate the 2SLGBTQIA+ Pride, let us be cognizant that the discrimination of 2SLGBTQIA+ persons in the country is still rife,” said the Rock of Hope, an LGBTQ rights group in Eswatini. “These events or awareness activities should bring meaning and strengthen the movement such that one day we can reside in a country free of hate, stigmatization and discrimination of individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity expression.”
Beit el-Meem, an Egyptian LGBTQ rights group, echoed the Rock of Hope.
“The road is not easy, but not impossible, and what distinguishes us is that each individual of us excels with the power of love and acceptance, and with this energy we will give to everyone around us,” said Beit el-Meem.
LGBT+ Rights Ghana has been at the forefront of the campaign against a bill that would criminalize LGBTQ identity and allyship in the country.
The U.S. Embassy in Ghana on Tuesday tweeted a picture of President Biden speaking in support of LGBTQ rights. The tweet also said the U.S. “reaffirms that LGBTQI+ rights are human rights and that no group should be excluded from those protections, regardless of race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, sex characteristics, disability status, age, religion or belief.”
The U.S. reaffirms that LGBTQI+ rights are human rights and that no group should be excluded from those protections, regardless of race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, sex characteristics, disability status, age, religion or belief. #Pride2022 pic.twitter.com/UTdh9cFWYE
— U.S. Embassy Ghana (@USEmbassyGhana) June 7, 2022
LGBT+ Rights Ghana said it plans to mark Pride with its virtual Color Dialogue conversations it holds every year.
“This year promises to be fun, hopeful and filled with lots of love,” said the group. “Join us everyday at 6 p.m. GMT on our Instagram page as we discuss the struggles, hopes and joy of the Ghanaian Queer community.”
Brazil presidential election overshadows São Paulo Pride
São Paulo’s annual Pride parade, which is one of the largest in the world, will take place on June 19.
Brazilian activists will mark Pride against the backdrop of their country’s presidential election campaign. HIV/AIDS service providers and LGBTQ activists with whom the Washington Blade spoke while on assignment in Brazil in March said they are afraid of what may happen in their country is President Jair Bolsonaro wins a second term later this year.
“He represents a danger to the environment,” Mariah Rafaela Silva, a transgender woman of indigenous descent who works with the Washington-based International Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights, told the Blade on March 21 during an interview at a Rio de Janeiro restaurant. “He represents a danger to diversity. He represents a danger to Black people. He represents a danger to indigenous people.”
Activists in other South American countries plan to use Pride events to demand further rights.
Organizers of the annual Pride parade that will take place in Santiago, Chile, on June 25 plan to call for additional reforms to the country’s Penal Code and anti-discrimination law and demand an end of violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The event will take place less than a month after a trans woman, Yuridia Pizarro, was killed in Iquique, a city in northern Chile.
Pride parades are also scheduled to take place in the capitals of Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia respectively on June 25.
Somosgay, an LGBTQ rights group in Paraguay, is planning to hold a Pride march in Asunción, the country’s capital, on July 2. A Pride march dedicated to León Zuleta and Manuel Velandia, the founders of Colombia’s LGBTQ rights movement, will take place in Bogotá, the country’s capital, on the same day.
A Pride march is scheduled to take place in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas on July 3. Activists in Argentina and Uruguay will hold Pride marches later this year.
Belarus
Belarusian lawmakers approve bill to crackdown on LGBTQ rights
Country’s president known as ‘Europe’s last dictator’
Lawmakers in Belarus on Thursday approved a bill that would allow the government to crack down on LGBTQ advocacy.
The Associated Press notes the bill would punish anyone found guilty of “propaganda of homosexual relations, gender change, refusal to have children, and pedophilia” with fines, community labor, and 15 days in jail.
The House of Representatives, the lower house of the Belarusian National Assembly, last month approved the bill. The Council of the Republic, which is the parliament’s upper chamber, passed it on Thursday.
President Alexander Lukashenko is expected to sign it.
Belarus borders Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Lukashenko — known as “Europe’s last dictator” is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Kazakhstan is among the countries that have enacted Russian-style anti-LGBTQ propaganda laws in recent years.
Vika Biran, a Belarusian LGBTQ activist, is among those arrested during anti-Lukashenko protests that took place in 2020 after he declared victory in the country’s presidential election.
Kenya
Kenyan advocacy groups launch LGBTQ voter mobilization campaign
As Kenya prepares for next year’s August general election, local queer rights groups have joined Gen Zers in also mobilizing their members to register as voters.
The groups’ drive began ahead of the electoral commission’s official launch of a one-month nationwide mass voter registration on March 30, targeting 6.5 million new voters to bring the total to more than 28 million.
The groups — led by the Initiative for Equality and Non-Discrimination (INEND) and Galck+ — note that politics is not optional, but rather it is “our responsibility” to use the ballot to put an end to bad leadership and discriminatory laws against them.
“Voting is one of the most powerful ways we exercise our autonomy and remind the State that our human rights are not ‘Western imports’; our struggles for housing, employment, safety, and dignity are fundamentally Kenyan issues,” INEND states.
It reminds queer individuals that the nation entrusts them with an identity card at age 18 as a recognition of their ability to make decisions, follow laws, and take responsibility for the country’s future.
INEND also notes that despite this honor, LGBTQ people get kicked out of their homes due to homophobia, are discriminated against at work, and face violence in public places due to the punitive laws that the same State legislates.
“As queer Kenyans, our vote matters,” INEND states. “Our voice belongs in the democratic and governance conversations, and true democracy includes everyone.”
Some voter mobilization initiatives the queer lobby groups have been using include ‘Queering the Ballot’ Podcasts on civic participation, dubbed ‘Your Vote is Your Future’. The topics explored include how laws shape their lives, the relationship between lived experiences of common citizens, discrimination fatigue, distrust in government systems, and voter apathy.
The groups through the mobilization drive hope to create a queer voting bloc to actively participate in restructuring and reconstructing the existing governance system they argue has been a problem for them. They maintain the queer community navigates a system that was not built for them from its questioning of their right to exist, yet the Kenyan Constitution clearly states that no citizen should be discriminated against based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
The Court of Appeal next month will hear a case challenging the constitutionality of provisions in Kenya’s Penal Code that criminalize consensual same-sex relationships among adults. The appeals court postponed the case after adjourning on Feb. 4, its first substantive hearing since the High Court judgement in 2019.
“Change requires more than pointing fingers. It requires reflection, action, and showing up, especially at the ballot box as LGBTQ Kenyan citizens and declaring that this is our country, our business, and we can no longer watch from the sidelines,” INEND states.
The group notes that they want a governance system that embraces queer people as they go about their daily lives without any form of homophobic discrimination, harassment, or arrests. Queer people are therefore urged to pick the right leaders who listen to them in Kenya’s six elective positions, from the president down to the local government representatives, as their decisions while in power affect them.
“It is very irresponsible for any human being, even around the world, to assume that they don’t have political responsibility. It is easy and sounds fancy to say ‘I don’t like politics,’ but it does not make one good as it makes one abandon their political responsibility as a citizen,” INEND states.
The groups are also concerned with the existing homophobia among Kenyans, especially whenever they join them in street protests against the government’s punitive measures or advocating for change. However, they maintain that the LGBTQ community won’t be left behind despite being marginalized in society, yet they are the most affected group when the government raids people’s pockets for taxes.
“Now we are moving from the margins to the centre of this political conversation early enough to ensure that our community sees the sense because if we live in a country that doesn’t work, we will be the most affected,” INEND states.
INEND, with the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and Galck+, last November launched the second Queering the Ballot Campaign and the 2024 Situation Report on queer participation in Kenya’s democracy.
The report surveyed 14 of the country’s 47 local governments, whose key findings affirm that queer Kenyans are not outsiders to democracy but its heartbeat.
“The title ‘Our Vote, Our Future: LGBTQ+ Inclusion in Democratic and Governance Processes’ in Kenya is an ode to the spirit of the queer movement in Kenya; unshaken in the face of adversity, determined in its pursuit of justice, and unrelenting in demand to be seen, heard and counted in democratic and political processes,” reads the report forwarded by former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga.
The report calls on Parliament, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, the County Assemblies, and every Kenyan to make inclusion not symbolic but systemic.
Vice President JD Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, will visit Hungary next week.
An announcement the White House released on Thursday said the Vances will be in Budapest, the Hungarian capital, from April 7-8.
JD Vance “will hold bilateral meetings with” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The announcement further indicates the vice president “will also deliver remarks on the rich partnership between the United States and Hungary.”
The Vances will travel to Hungary less than a week before the country’s parliamentary elections take place on April 12.
Orbán, who has been in office since 2010, and his Fidesz-KDNP coalition government have faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
The Associated Press notes polls indicate Orbán is trailing Péter Magyar and his center-right Tisza party.
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