22 Dec 2016 - NPWJ News Digest on LGBTI rights

Articles

From beauty pageants to bathroom battles, major gains for LGBTI rights in 2016
By Reuters, 22 Dec 2016

Gay and transgender rights took more prominence than ever in the global media spotlight after several high-profile legal battles, and celebrity and cultural endorsements. Yet LGBTI people worldwide still face discrimination in many aspects of life such as employment, education and healthcare, and are subjected to widespread violence, campaigners say. However, here are some of the biggest gains for LGBTI rights in 2016: 1) United Nations appoints first gay rights investigator. The United Nations in September appointed its first gay rights independent investigator to help protect homosexual and transgender people worldwide from violence and discrimination. 2) U.S. celebrities, corporations boycott North Carolina over transgender bathroom law. Entertainers such as Bruce Springsteen and companies ranging from PayPal to Deutsche Bank have pulled events and jobs from North Carolina to protest a law restricting bathroom access for transgender people in government buildings and public schools. 3) Malta bans conversion therapy to lead way in Europe. Malta became the first country in Europe to ban conversion therapy, a much-criticized and discredited practice that aims to change sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

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Gay youngsters being forced from the family home in 'dramatically increasing' numbers, charities warn
By The Independent, 19 Dec 2016

Growing numbers of young gay people are being forced from their homes because their parents refuse to accept their sexuality, two leading LGBT charities have warned. Despite the apparent progress suggested by equality legislation and gay marriage, the Albert Kennedy Trust and Stonewall Housing have reported a “dramatic increase” in young LGBT people being forced into homelessness by parental hostility. Some young LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people are being “beaten out of their homes” by physically violent parents; others report being sent abroad in an attempt to “cure” them of their homosexuality. Some young LGBT people forced into homelessness by violent parents have told the Albert Kennedy Trust of having to sell themselves for sex to survive. Others are being driven into homelessness, not by the hostility of their parents, but by aggression from the wider community. LGBT youth homelessness charity the Albert Kennedy Trust said it had seen a 20 per cent increase in the numbers of young LGBT people seeking its help with homelessness, from 622 in 2012-13, to 750 in 2015-16.  The charity estimates that 4,800 young LGBT people – a figure it says equates to up to 24 per cent of the youth homeless population – are now homeless or living in hostile environments. “Homeless LGBT young people,” the trust concluded, “are one of the most disenfranchised and marginalised groups within the UK.” The trust’s chief executive Tim Sigsworth told The Independent: “LGBT people in this country have seen the benefit of many positive changes to legislation in recent years, and to some it might appear that the big battles have been won. They haven’t been."

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African states narrowly fail to stop U.N. gay rights envoy work
by Reuters, 19 Dec 2016

African states narrowly failed on Monday for a second time to halt the work of the first U.N. independent investigator appointed to help protect gay and transgender people worldwide from violence and discrimination. The attempt was voted down in the U.N. General Assembly 84 to 77 with 16 abstentions, a month after African states made a similar unsuccessful move in the General Assembly's third committee, which deals with human rights. The 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council, based in Geneva, created the position in June and in September appointed Vitit Muntarbhorn of Thailand, who has a three-year mandate to investigate abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people. Being gay is a crime in at least 73 countries, the U.N. has said. The issue of gay rights consistently sparks heated debate at the United Nations. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said the bid by the African states on Monday was "rooted in a real disagreement over whether people of a certain sexual orientation and gender identity are in fact entitled to equal rights." 

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Mexico's gay couples fight backlash against same-sex marriage
by The Guardian, 19 Dec 2016

After 19 years together, Inés Acevedo and Yolanda Torres finally tied the knot last September, at a collective wedding in the Mexican city of Querétaro. But their marriage was tragically short lived: less than a month later, Torres suffered a fatal heart attack. Her death triggered a period of intense grief for Acevedo – but also the start of a bitter legal battle to have the couple’s legal rights respected. When Acevedo tried to obtain a certified copy of the marriage licence so she could process her pension, she was told the document didn’t exist. Only after a complaint to state human rights officials did the document appear – though the registry director told Acevedes that she was receiving it “due to extraordinary circumstances”. Same-sex couples have been able to marry in Mexico since 2009, when the country’s capital became the first city in Latin America to pass marriage equality laws. But in recent months, a well-organized and well-funded backlash has emerged, claiming credit for derailing a presidential proposal to entrench marriage equality in the country’s constitution. Meanwhile, a string of cases like Acevedo’s suggest that rights for gay people are still treated as exceptions to be granted at the discretion of local officials. 

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