17 May marks the global celebration of the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexphobia/Interphobia, and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT). The theme for this year’s celebration is “Together: Resisting, Supporting, Healing!”.
IDAHOBIT was a concept conceived in 2004 by Louis-Georges Tin after a year-long campaign that resulted in the International Day Against Homophobia on 17 May 2005. The date of 17 May was chosen as it commemorates the day the World Health Organization made the decision in 1990 to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder. By 2009, transphobia was added to the name of the campaign and in 2014/5, biphobia was added.
IDAHOBIT was created to highlight the violence, discrimination, and repression experienced by LGBTQIA+ people all over the world, and today it is celebrated in more than 130 countries, including places that still criminalise the LGBTQIA+ community.
ILGA WORLD STATE-SPONSORED HOMOPHOBIA REPORT
The State-Sponsored Homophobia Report released by ILGA World confirms that as of December 2020, “there are currently 67 UN Member States with provisions criminalising consensual same-sex conduct, with two additional UN member states having de facto criminalisation. Additionally, there is one non-independent jurisdiction that criminalises same-sex sex”. For the report, de facto criminalisation is understood as countries which have unusual cases of arrest for the practice of consensual same-sex activity but have not explicitly made provisions in their criminal penal code criminalising same-sex sexual acts. Additionally, for the report, non-independent jurisdictions are autonomous territories which are governed by external powers. Examples of these are British Overseas Territories, French Collectivities, Dutch territories in the Caribbean, and Danish territories.
Above is the ILGA World map on sexual orientation laws.
The Report outlines the range of protections or lack thereof that can be found around the world. The Report outlines the range of protections from the eleven member states that offer constitutional protection down to those countries where there is the possibility of the death penalty as a result of the criminalisation of consensual same-sex sexual acts between adults. The report also highlights that several Western industrialised nations that the mainstream view as “the pinnacles of LGBTQIA+ equality” only offer broad protections and do not yet formally protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation in their respective constitutions. Such states include Canada, Australia, the UK, Ireland, Spain, France, Norway, Germany, Finland, and Iceland. The report also assesses trends of legal recognition of marriage or other forms of a legal union for same-sex couples and whether adoption is open to same-sex couples, and also showcases the various legal barriers in place to limit the exercising of rights –– this include barriers to freedom of expression on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression and Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC) issues and barriers to the registration or operations of sexual orientation related civil society organisations. The State-Sponsored Homophobia Report offers an in-depth and accessible insight into many of the victories that have taken place through community activism at the local and regional level while acknowledging and emphasising that there is still more progress to be made both at the national and international level.
COMPLEMENTARY REPORTS SHINING A LIGHT ON PARTICULAR GROUPS
ILGA World also releases two other complementary reports which further investigate and focus on particular groups within the LGBTQIA+ community and a persistent problem that the community is still actively working to dismantle globally.
The Trans Legal Mapping Report details the impact of laws and policies on trans persons across the global (covering 143 UN member states) and the Curbing Deception: “Conversion Therapy” Report is an extensive global research project into laws banning “conversion therapies”. These reports are not only important tools to better understand the advocacy efforts of LGBTQIA+ activists and allies, but also emphasise the importance and values of an awareness day like IDAHOBIT. For example, within the Trans Legal Mapping Report a reader will come away better understanding that the aim is to “achieve legal gender recognition through a self-determination model that is, without requirements such as surgical, hormonal[,] or sterilisation criteria, needing a person to be divorced, not hav[ing] dependent children, be kept in psychiatric facilities, or undergo a 'real life test', etc”. The availability of such reports is not only useful in informing the public, advocacy, and grassroots activism, but the report further highlights the importance of awareness days, despite the days being a potentially negative and traumatising experience for members of the LBTQIA+ community (as many organisations go about such days without the necessary tact, dexterity, or insight to adequality celebrate and raise awareness and advocacy efforts of the community). Such reports show that we are still unfortunately a global society and community who needs to be reminded and made aware that there is still ostracisation, harm, and legal and social exclusion faced by members of the LGBTQIA+ community all over the world. Even in places where state-sanctioned or legally-codified violence is not actively enabled the LGBTQIA+ community is not positively incorporated and embraced by local communities or the law in an adequate enough way in many parts of the world.
On this 17 May we must continue to challenge ourselves to stand actively and against homophobia, biphobia, interphobia, and transphobia. Such awareness should not be limited or focused onto a single day but instead is an ongoing process in which the LGBTQIA+ community has already reached incredible legal milestones and continues to do so even in the midst of a global pandemic that has emboldened the state to more freely crackdown and stifle the freedom of assembly and the right to protest.
To leave on a more positive note, here is a relatively up-to-date timeline of global LGBTQIA+ rights progress because, as ever, we are “born free and equal in dignity and rights,” which we will fight and demand to have recognised.
Tofunmi Odugbemi is a challenger and disrupter of spaces. She applies her developed sense of justice, ingenuity, and leadership in areas where academia intersects with the legal world. Womanism, Black feminism, anti-ableist, anti-racist, anti-establishment, abolitionist, anti-capitalist, and queer movements inform her work.