SF Pride Blog

Image Credit: Fry 1989

More than two years have passed since the massive earthquake in Haiti, and still its effects remain a hefty daily reality for hundreds of thousands of people. One of the lessons emerging from this disaster is the increased need to be mindful of improving humanitarian aid for vulnerable populations, like the LGBT community.

After the earthquake, LGBT survivors faced increased persecution as religious leaders and community authorities blamed the disaster on the LGBT community. It was suggested that gays and lesbians had angered God and that their sins had brought this quake upon the country. There were reports of LGBT people being left to die in the rubble of their houses as well as physical and sexual violence stemming from the scapegoating.

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, along with SEROvie which is an LGBT rights oriented HIV services organization in Haiti, documented the arrest of 40 lesbian women in a camp for Continue reading →

Image Credit: Fry1989

After hosting the country’s first lesbian wedding and recognizing a “third gender” in its census data, Nepal recently announced that it will be hosting an LGBT national sporting event. In what many call South Asia’s most LGBT friendly country, this will be the region’s first sports competition held exclusively for the LGBT community.

The event, called the Blue Diamond National Sport Competition, is scheduled to begin late this September and will feature a multitude of sporting events, including football, martial arts, tennis, volleyball and more. A gay rights group in Kathmandu called the Blue Diamond Society is spearheading the event.

Sunil Babu Pant is a gay rights activist and head of the Blue Diamond Society who also plans to compete in the event on a volleyball team. He is expecting Continue reading →

Photo Credit: Fry 1989

In 2009, the Delhi High Court in India struck down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, decriminalizing gay sex among consensual adults in the region. However, this has not stopped LGBT opponents from trying to overturn the decision.

The Union Home Ministry has recently been attempting to get the apex court to reconsider the ruling, saying that Section 377 ought to remain law to prevent cases of child sexual abuse and what it calls other unnatural offenses.

Gay rights activist in the country are standing up in opposition to the Union Home Ministry, deploring their calls for reconsideration of the law. Mohnish Malorta organizes the annual gay pride march in New Delhi and is a gay rights activist. He recently told the India Times, “If the government is trying to decide what is immoral or unnatural by Continue reading →

Photo Credit: Darwinek

A coalition of LGBT and women’s rights groups in Ecuador recently celebrated a huge victory. After years of advocacy and protest, Fundación Causana, Taller de Comunicación Mujer and Artikulación Esporádika lobbied the government of Ecuador to investigate and shut down clinics across the country that were using abuse and torture to “cure” lesbians. These clinics often disguised themselves as addiction treatment centers and offered cures for homosexuality in covert ways.

After working with women who had escaped these clinics, human rights activists gathered disturbing stories of physical and psychological abuse. Women described being detained without consent, starved, shackled, beaten, and sexually abused in efforts to make them “straight”.

After a decade of advocacy, women’s and LGBT rights groups in Ecuador have recently been successful in Continue reading →