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From accepting a transgender mayor in Bangladesh, restoring homosexual rights within the US to decriminalizing homosexuality in Botswana, a number of nations have provided glimmers of hope this yr in advancing LGBTQ rights.
Internationally, homosexual individuals have gained many protections with modifications in legal guidelines and norms surrounding the difficulty of same-sex marriage, discrimination and equal rights. World acceptance of the LGBTQ group, an acronym that means lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning, is on the rise, in keeping with the US-based Pew Analysis Heart.
However that does not imply that stigma, discrimination and homophobic assaults have ended. Locations resembling Poland and Hungary have seen a reversal of hard-won progress, with conservative governments stoking anti-LGBTQ sentiment within the title of household values. In lots of nations, LGBTQ communities have been disproportionately affected by a world backsliding on democracy and human rights and by the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.
However regardless of setbacks and abuses, a number of components of the world have rekindled hope by taking steps this yr to advance the rights of the LGBTQ group. Here is an summary.
Asia
The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan grew to become the newest Asian nation to decriminalize homosexuality this yr. In February, King Druk Gyalpo signed off on a regulation handed by lawmakers, amending a line from Bhutan’s penal code that criminalized “sodomy or some other sexual conduct that’s towards the order of nature,” beforehand handled as a reference to homosexual intercourse.
Activists have hailed the transfer in a rustic the place stigma and discrimination are rife and it is common for homosexual individuals to be blackmailed. Many say the nation now wants to start the exhausting work of preventing homophobia.
Bangladesh elected its first transgender mayor in 2021. Nazrul Islam Ritu, who’s “third gender,” the official designation for transgender individuals within the Muslim-majority nation, beat her rival in a landslide election in November to turn out to be mayor of the small rural city of Trilochanpur in western Bangladesh, the place she was born.
Chatting with native media, she mentioned her victory confirmed rising acceptance of the “Hijra” group, an umbrella time period for these assigned male gender at delivery however who don’t seek advice from themselves as both a person or girl. Bangladesh is house to an estimated 1.5 million transgender individuals, who face discrimination and violence and are sometimes pressured to outlive by begging or working within the intercourse commerce.
One other Himalayan nation, Nepal, launched a 3rd gender class in its census this yr for the primary time. Respondents have the choice of selecting “others” as their gender, alongside female and male. Rights activists mentioned the LGBTQ group — estimated at 90,000-strong — nonetheless faces discrimination, significantly in jobs, well being and schooling and from a scarcity of knowledge, which has hobbled entry to advantages. It is hoped the info gathered by means of the census may help the group push for his or her rights.
North America
The US this yr noticed a restoration of rights associated to sexual orientation and gender id that had been rolled again by the earlier Trump administration. US President Joe Biden ended a ban on service by transgender individuals within the army, reversed a coverage which beforehand allowed well being care firms to disclaim protection to homosexual and transgender individuals and signed an govt order vowing to make use of American diplomacy and US overseas help to advertise and defend LGBTQ rights internationally.
The White Home additionally introduced the appointment of Jessica Stern as US particular envoy for world LGBTQ points, filling a put up left vacant by the Trump administration.
In February, former 2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg grew to become the primary brazenly homosexual Cupboard member confirmed by the US Senate. “As I used to be in that listening to taking these questions from senators, you possibly can see my husband, Chasten, over my shoulder, and that’s one thing that has by no means occurred earlier than for a Cupboard nominee,” Buttigieg mentioned in an interview with ABC’s The View. “My hope is that, in flip, makes it simpler for the subsequent particular person to come back alongside, in order that that is by no means even seen as a barrier by a future technology.”
Buttigieg, who’s transportation secretary in Biden’s Cupboard, brought on a flutter in October by going away on parental go away for a number of weeks after he and his husband adopted twins.
Earlier this month, Canada joined a rising push world wide to ban conversion remedy by passing a invoice formally outlawing it. The extensively discredited apply is aimed toward altering an individual’s sexual orientation or gender id. Ways can vary from speak and behavioral remedy to medical therapies.
Critics have mentioned conversion remedy causes hurt to its victims and is predicated on the false premise that sexual orientation and gender id can, or must be, “cured.” The Canadian regulation makes it a prison offense to trigger somebody to endure conversion remedy, and to advertise or promote the apply. Activists in Canada have hailed it as a historic second.
Europe
Switzerland grew to become one of many final remaining nations in Western Europe to approve same-sex marriage in September, with almost two-thirds of voters backing it in a referendum. The regulation change will permit same-sex {couples} to marry in civil ceremonies and supply them with the identical rights as different married {couples}. Overseas spouses will turn out to be eligible to use for citizenship by means of a simplified process, and same-sex {couples} will probably be permitted to collectively undertake.
“Right now displays the change of mentality during the last 20 years,” Olga Baranova, a spokeswoman for the ‘Sure Marketing campaign,’ informed information company Agence France-Presse. “It’s actually the reflection of a really broad and crucial acceptance of LGBT individuals in society.”
In June, France handed a regulation that expanded entry to its free fertility therapies, resembling synthetic insemination and in vitro fertilization (IVF), to girls in same-sex relationships and single girls.The process was beforehand reserved for infertile heterosexual {couples}, forcing lesbian {couples} and single girls to buy overseas for IVF therapy.
Whereas conservative teams have mentioned the invoice will result in a surge in “fatherless” youngsters, advocates say the regulation lastly brings France in step with a few of its European neighbors. “An important factor about this laws is that it permits all girls to decide on for themselves in the event that they need to have a toddler and the way they need to have it,” Benedicte Blanchet who works for Mam’en Solo, a company that campaigns for the rights of single moms in France, informed DW on the time. “It is about respecting their particular person selection.”
Africa
Botswana’s court docket of enchantment in November upheld a 2019 ruling that decriminalized same-sex relationships, in what was hailed as a significant victory for homosexual rights campaigners on the continent. Earlier than the 2019 Excessive Court docket ruling, partaking in homosexual intercourse in Botswana was punishable by as much as seven years in jail.
The bench of 5 judges unanimously dominated that criminaliying same-sex relationships was a violation of the constitutional rights of LGBTQ people to dignity, liberty, privateness and equality. Activists are hoping the choice units an instance for different African nations. Homosexuality is illegitimate in lots of African nations, with convictions carrying a loss of life sentence in some locations.
In February, a brand new prison code went into impact in Angola after the parliament handed it in 2019 and the president signed it into regulation in November 2020. The brand new penal code scraps a 133-year passage banning same-sex relations, put in place when the southwest African nation was nonetheless a Portuguese colony. It additionally comprises full anti-discrimination protections on the idea of sexuality and gender id.
Despite the fact that LGBT individuals have not confronted prosecution in current many years, same-sex relationships had been nonetheless largely thought-about taboo by Angola’s conservative authorities, largely as a result of highly effective affect of the Catholic Church.
South America
Earlier this month, Chile handed a historic invoice granting equal marriage rights to same-sex {couples}. The nation legalized same-sex civil unions in 2015, and had been eagerly awaiting the legalization of homosexual marriage since then-president Michelle Bachelet despatched a invoice to Congress in 2017.
Chile’s new regulation will allow same-sex mother and father to have parental rights over the organic or adopted youngsters of a partner and creates normal guidelines on inheritance and different monetary issues. Chile joins only a handful of countries in majority Catholic South America with comparable legal guidelines. They embody Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador.
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