From the March-April 2018 issue of News & Letters

by Elise

The Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project has launched. Housed at the Transgender Law Center in Oakland, Calif., the Project will provide legal support and community-building events and will create regional organizing networks. Their work will help protect LGBTQIA people as the police and ICE target Black Queer people for particular persecution.

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Founded in 1980, Grupo Gay da Bahia, the oldest LGBT rights group in Brazil, holds two support meetings each week. It houses the largest collection of archives documenting killings and other violence against Queer people of color. It seeks to educate the public about LGBTQ people. Its several sub-groups include the Brazilian Association of Parents and Friends of Homosexuals and the Quimbanda-Dudu Group of Black Gays of Bahia. Only a few states and municipalities in Brazil have banned discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

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There were more out LGBT athletes in this year’s Winter Olympics than at any other. Among them were Canada’s Eric Radford, Australia’s Belle Brockhoff, the Netherlands’ Ireen Wust and the U.S.’s Adam Rippon and Gus Kenworthy, both of whom have been publicly critical of anti-Queer Vice President Mike Pence, who led the U.S. contingent in the Opening Ceremonies.