by Elise

In this time of Pride, let us recognize that circumstances for LGBTQ+ people worldwide are varied. Despite worldwide protests and presented with a consolidated petition calling for the elimination of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023 (“Queer Notes,” News & Letters, May-June 2023), the nation’s Constitutional Court upheld the Act. Life imprisonment or death could be imposed upon those found guilty of having same-sex relations.

U.S. RIGHT-WING EVANGELICALS SPREAD HATE

Bangkok Pride Parade 2024. Photo: Chainwit, CC BY 4.0

Recently in Indonesia, LGBTQ+ people are fighting increasing hostility. Historically, Indonesia was accepting of Trans and same-sex practices, but Islam and the West’s conservative evangelical Christians have been spreading Queerphobia. Islam is Indonesia’s largest religion. In 2022, the Criminal Code was revised so that only heterosexual sex within marriage is legal. Support and community groups, therapy and counseling are all offered online even though sites are shut down by the government, especially those for Queer youth. But fortunately internet resources remain, including, but not limited to, Transmen Indonesia, Pesatuan Priawan and Ardhanary Institute.

On the plus side, Thailand made same-sex marriage legal this year—the first Asian UN member to do so. In Namibia, it is now unconstitutional to ban same-sex relations, after a Namibia high court ruling.

Protests pressured a court in Padua to overturn an anti-Queer order by Giorgia Meloni, the Prime Minister of Italy, that only biological parents of children living in same-sex households can be listed on birth certificates. The court said Meloni was “driven by an entirely ideological fury.” The court ruled that both mothers can be listed, but that ruling was overturned on appeal. This means that only a biological parent has any say over what happens to a couple’s children.

STRUGGLE TO LIVE FREELY CONTINUES

The determination to live life openly as who we are was seen in Poland, where more than 20,000 supporters showed up for the Warsaw Pride Parade, even though Poland’s LGBTQ+ people are oppressed by the government and met with bullying and harassment. Also in Central Europe, Czechoslovakia (now split into two countries, Slovakia and the Czech Republic) decriminalized homosexuality in 1961. Even though the society remains largely heteronormative, 67% of the population of the Czech Republic approves of same-sex marriage.

Artists worldwide continue to push for Queer rights. South African photographer Zanele Muholi’s stories of Black Queer people’s lives are on display at Tate Modern, in London. Queer bi/pansexual visual artists Lyndi Lou, Alexandra Rumsey and Mia Farrugia run Aurora Gallery and Boutique in Louisville, Kentucky, where they welcome diverse artists to sell their works. Ex-gay therapy is still legal in Kentucky, where LGBTQ+ people can be fired and denied housing and services.

In the U.S. and Canada, anti-Queer actions are on the rise. The provinces of Alberta and New Brunswick require teachers to notify parents when students ask to be called a name or pronoun different from that on their birth certificates, as now parents’ permission is required for the name or pronoun change. What if the child is from a hostile home? Gender-affirming care is denied to minors, in direct opposition to physician Greta Bauer’s data, which was misrepresented by New Brunswick’s Premier Blaine Higgs. Protests at drag story times and family drag brunches as well as online harassment and threats, including to librarians, are happening across both countries. Five hundred and ten anti-LGBTQ+ bills—overwhelmingly anti-Trans—were filed in the U.S., with 84 signed into law in 23 states. The Republicans’ Project 2025 promises to criminalize the display of books that have positive or neutral LGBTQ+ themes.

Let’s end on some good notes. The UK’s new Prime Minister Keir Starmer rescinded his predecessor Rishi Sunak’s so-called Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill (“Queer Notes,” News & Letters, May 2024). And in the U.S., Minnesota passed a law prohibiting book banning in libraries. Now in Minnesota, books cannot be banned solely because of “viewpoint, content, message, idea or opinion conveyed.”