From the September-October 2022 issue of News & Letters
by Elise
In Ghana, Queer Education Fund and other groups sued the Attorney General on behalf of an Intersex person who was stripped, genitally searched and sexually assaulted by police during a raid and violent shutdowns of a Queer safehouse and an LGBTQ+ human rights workshop last year (see “Queer Notes,” N&L, April 8, 2021). With the threat of a new queerphobic law, Queer rights supporters posted billboards calling for human rights for everyone and held Pride events. The bill could legalize so-called reparative therapy, force surgery on Intersex people and prison time for anyone caught having same-sex relations or suspected of distributing information “promoting” the Queer lifestyle. Unfortunately, the billboards were torn down almost as soon as they went up.
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UpRising Bakery and Café in Lake in the Hills, Ill., held a family-friendly drag brunch in August despite being vandalized with hate-filled graffiti and a smashed-in door and window. Phone messages accused the bakery’s personnel of being groomers and pedophiles. The July drag brunch was cancelled after the village declared that the bakery was not zoned for entertainment, which the ACLU helped reverse. Allies’ messages of support, written on the boarded-up windows, helped UpRising decide to go forward with the brunch.
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South Korea’s Seoul Queer Culture Festival went forward this year after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID pandemic. About 13,000 people attended. That included booths run by various LGBTQ+ and other human rights and service groups, various religious organizations and embassies. Anti-LGBTQ+ Christians and conservatives protested it. The fact that Pride celebration attendance increases each year causes some to hope that South Korea is becoming more accepting of Queer people.