Some might be tempted to subsume the needs of country’s queer population beneath the other challenges the fledgling state faces — most of the country lives on less than $1 a day, only 25% of adults are literate, and less than 90% of children survive beyond the age of 5. But, in the spirit of Georgette Heyer’s observation – that “there are more important things than clothes. But not when one is getting dressed” – for queer members of Sudanese society, these questions are literally a matter of life and death.

Sudan is one of the countries in the world where the punishment for homosexuality is death. This policy, however, is part of the Islamic Sharia law that has been implemented by the government in the north. One of the main reasons for the split is because the residents of southern Sudan are primarily animist and Christian, so, with the break, there’s theoretically a potential for change.

And that’s where the hope lies: Whenever a new state is formed – or an existing country emerges from internal conflict – there’s an opportunity to start fresh and make a break from the past.  While scholars like Christine Bell have pointed out that, “matters which address underlying issues of discrimination, domination, respect for human dignity, and improvement of physical, social and legal security are often addressed as second to the central issues of power and territory, and sometimes left unaddressed altogether,” others, like The New York Times, note that in the case of South Sudan, “building a functional new country will take decades of hard work,” and will hopefully include brand-new opportunities for progress as well.

As I’ve pointed out before, LGBT rights in Africa is a mixed bag. At first glance, however, the prognosis for South Sudan looks bleak. The country’s first president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, made it clear last year that he believes homosexuality will never be welcome in his country: “It is not in our character [...] it is not there and if anybody wants to import it to Sudan [...] it will always be condemned by everybody.”

It’s this idea of “importing,” however, that may work in the LGBT community’s favor. The future of South Sudan, perhaps more than any other country in recent memory, will be heavily shaped by foreign governments and international actors. In an article for the Times, Jeffrey Gettleman points out that, in the case of South Sudan’s independence, there were some unlikely factors at play: “American celebrities and religious groups teamed up with policy makers and helped a forlorn underdog region.”

As long as these outside influences keep working in the region, there’s a chance they might have an increasingly large impact on how things play out in South Sudan. Whether this will be to the benefit or detriment of LGBT individuals, however, has yet to be known. For now, the world will have to wait and watch.

Despite the ease with which many would consider these events a hate crime, one specific term has been used in conjunction with this incident: corrective rape. In fact, rather than focusing on Nogwaza herself, many news outlets chose to run headlines in the same vein as “South Africa: Corrective Rape Claims Another Victim,” leading with the name of the crime, as if the term itself was responsible for this poor woman’s suffering and death.

So, what is “corrective rape” exactly? It’s a term that’s only been in existence for a several years and refers to a very specific crime: The sexual assault of South African lesbians in order to “cure” them. This bit of vocabulary entered the global lexicon three years ago when Eudy Simelane, a well-known and openly queer South African soccer player, was similarly raped and murdered. The term has since become a kind of shorthand for any attack on a gay man or lesbian, anywhere in the world, by a member or members of the opposite sex in which the stated purpose of the assault is to convert the victim to heterosexuality.

When I was sent the link to the story about Nogwaza’s death, it was accompanied by a suggestion that I write about it, since I’ve been writing on queer international issues for a number of years now. I’ve touched on the subject of corrective rape briefly in previous writings, but this would be an opportunity to go more into more depth about it – one that I certainly welcomed. I decided I would write a post about it that weekend. But I didn’t. And I continued to not write about it. The problem was: What exactly would I say? Would simply reporting the facts after they had already been reported on elsewhere and adding my voice to the choir of those decrying such a crime really be helpful? And that was the real issue: I wanted to somehow help end these kinds of crimes, but was so completely removed from the situation that anything I wrote would likely just end up sounding trite and redundant.

Finally, I remembered a post I authored in 2009 called “Queering International Journalism?” I wrote this rambling article right after I was introduced to the concept of Peace Journalism, which Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick define as “When editors and reporters make choices – about what stories to cover, and how to cover them – which create opportunities for society at large to consider and to value non-violent, developmental responses to conflict.” Essentially, Peace Journalism is the idea that the way we talk about and report on conflicts can actually help to promote peace. This got me thinking about how this underlying principle could be applied to the struggle for LGBT rights around the world: perhaps if mentions of gay issues and attitudes were included in more of the context of ‘mainstream’ news stories, all readers may understand the circumstances within each country, and the awareness raised may help to stop problems related to sexual minorities around the world before they develop?

When considering corrective rape through this lens, however, I came to a much more direct conclusion: We need to stop using the term “corrective rape” altogether. Why? Because it seems to me that by calling such a terrible act “corrective rape,” rather than just “rape,” or even “homophobic rape” or “anti-lesbian rape,” we may actually be creating an atmosphere that perpetuates the attitudes that make it possible in the first place. The term “corrective” privileges the perspective of the perpetrators, not the victims and survivors, and lends the practice an air of tacit benevolence or usefulness while also suggesting that the victims – or in rare cases, survivors – are in some way flawed. We don’t refer to hate crimes as “corrective crimes,” after all, even though beating up a queer person could be construed by a very twisted individual as helping them in some way. Even just adjusting the terminology to “conversion rape” or some similar construct would serve the function of distinguishing this crime from others, without bestowing some ambiguous suggestion of helpfulness upon the attackers.

Besides, with so many of these crimes ending in murder, the idea that even the perpetrators believe they’re in some way encouraging their victims to “reform” and lead a better life becomes more than a little suspect. It seems to me that it may help weaken any culture of permissiveness and impunity that exists around these crimes if we just called these attacks what they are: violent and heinous punishments directed at those who dare step out of traditional societal roles and identities, not attempts to “help” them see the saving light of having consensual sexual relations with members of the opposite sex.

Having said all of this, is it possible that simply adjusting the dialog around something as horrific as “corrective rape” will actually make lesbians safer in South Africa and around the world? Maybe not; but I believe that by personally not using this term, I will feel much better knowing that I am in no way suggesting that there was anything about Noxolo Nogwaza, or any of the men and women like her, that needed fixing.

The latest site of this uproar is Brazil. A few of the country’s extensive networks of samba schools, popular clubs or academies dedicated to teaching and performing the African-Brazilian dance, have recently instituted a policy setting aside bathrooms expressly for use by homosexuals and transvestites. The policy has incited protests and outcry on both sides of the issue.

Defenders claim that the policy is meant to create safe spaces for queer students to feel comfortable and secure. They also highlight the fact that the restrooms are optional and LGBT students are not forced to use them. “I don’t see any problem,”  Iran Araujo, who heads cultural programs for the Independent League of Samba Schools, told the Daily Mail in response to the protests.

Opponents, however, equate the creation of these separate facilities to forced segregation. “They are carnival apartheid,” Claudio Nascimento, a government official, was quoted by the Mail as saying. In more practical terms, many gay groups are worried that the use of these bathrooms will make queer individuals easy targets for ridicule or violence and potentially put them in harm’s way.

In my own opinion, I would be much more troubled if the use of these facilities was in some way compulsory and the option of using the other bathrooms was not available to students identified or labeled as queer. As it stands now, it seems more like a policy born of good intentions that was not  fully thought-out. The former amateur queer theorist buried deep inside me thinks this whole mess could be avoided if all facilities were open to everyone regardless of gender or sexuality, but that’s not a particularly realistic solution for the time being.

What do you think? Do these gay-only toilets represent a form of separation and stigmatization or an attempt to ensure the safety and comfort of queer Brazilians? Deposit your $0.02 in the comments below!

Es macht nichts. It DOESN’T matter.

That is what the European fans are telling Nadine Angerer in response to her coming out as bisexual in a recent interview with the German paper Die Zeit.

“I am very open about this, because I am of the opinion there are nice guys and nice women. Besides, I find it totally silly to have a general definition,” Angerer told the paper

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the pro footballer, 32 year old Angerer has helped her teams secure 94 caps and two Women’s World Cup wins, 2003 and 2007. With her track record, she looks to be a sure bet to win a 3rd in the 2011 games.

“I see no problem for me to come out of the closet,”  she said. “I do not know if you need a special kind of courage. I am someone who is generally opposed to stereotyped thinking. This is nothing new for me, so I can deal with the issue in a totally relaxed manner.”

While there may still be some fan back lash from her admission, made earlier this week,  no one can dispute her talents on the field. At the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup Angerer became the leading goalkeeper of the national team.  She did not concede a single goal during the entire tournament, setting a record for most consecutive minutes played without conceding a goal during World Cup play to 540 minutes. This included the now famous blocking of a penalty kick shot by Marta Vieira da Silva during the final against Brazil.

In addition to Angerer, other German players have recently been very outspoken on the topic of sexuality. Germany’s reserve goalkeeper Ursula Hull made no secret of her marriage to long time girlfriend Carina over the summer while Bayern Munich striker Mario Gomez told German magazine Bunte that being honest about their sexuality would improve gay players’ performance.

“They would play as if they had been liberated,” Gomez said to the magazine. “Being gay should no longer be a taboo topic.”

We asked by the German paper if she had anyone special in her life at the moment, Angerer replied,” That is not interesting to anyone.”

Last year, the international media were among the few entities working on the side of queer Ugandans. Today an Ugandan magazine represents one of the loudest voices in favor of discrimination and violence in the country. A month ago the Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone (no connection to the U.S. music magazine of the same name, obviously) began publishing a list of known and suspected homosexuals in its pages. Unfortunately, the prize for landing on this “Top 100 Homosexuals” list was not fame, but the chance of being hanged to death, which is what the tabloid was advocating.

In an unexpectedly positive move, however, Uganda’s High Court ordered Rolling Stone to stop publishing the names, photographs and addresses of alleged gay men. Despite this glimmer of hope, however, the magazine has continued to publish the names and has only become more brazen in the face of opposition.

And things may continue to get worse. On the national level, the much-discussed proposed anti-homosexuality bill, which has been decried by much of the international community, including President Obama, for making homosexuality a crime punishable by death, is now back on the path to becoming actual law.

Further complicating matters is the news that, during a time when LGBT Ugandans are being threatened with death on a daily basis, the United Nations General Assembly just took a huge step backward by voting to remove sexual orientation from a UN resolution condemning extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. According to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), “the resolution urges States to protect the right to life of all people, including by calling on states to investigate killings based on discriminatory grounds. For the past 10 years, the resolution has included sexual orientation in the list of discriminatory grounds on which killings are often based.”

The group’s Executive Director, Cary Alan Johnson, summed up the situation by saying: “This vote is a dangerous and disturbing development. It essentially removes the important recognition of the particular vulnerability faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people – a recognition that is crucial at a time when 76 countries around the world criminalize homosexuality, five consider it a capital crime, and countries like Uganda are considering adding the death penalty to their laws criminalizing homosexuality.” Needless to say, Uganda was one of the 79 countries who voted in favor of removing sexual orientation from the resolution.

What we have learned over the past year is that, in some cases, international attention can be a way of deterring a country from taking discriminatory action (as illustrated by the fact that anti-homosexuality bill has still not passed), but that vigilance is more important than ever. Now that the mainstream media attention has died down, it’s time that the international community truly steps up and supports Uganda’s queer community in earnest.

I’ve touched on the position of the LGBT community in Poland in past Global Gaze posts. While the country is fairly unique in that homosexuality has never been criminalized under Polish law (though such laws were imposed by various occupying countries at different points), same-sex couples and households headed by same-sex couples are not recognized by the government and are therefore not eligible for the same benefits and protections afforded opposite-sex couples. Socially, Poles overwhelmingly oppose gay marriage and same-sex adoption laws as well.

Into this unwelcoming climate, Love Doesn’t Exclude has emerged. The project represents a group of Poles taking matters into their own hands – as they say, “We don’t want to keep pleading or asking. With the Love Does Not Exclude campaign we want to show that the time of demanding has come.”

And they are making their demands very public. As in, billboards-on-the-busiest-streets-in-Warsaw-and-Lodz (the largest cities in Poland) public. The posters, which are combined with social networking and other tools, feature photos of children and adults and speak bluntly to the viewing public: Those children, they will not have equal rights one says, and We demand a civil partnership law declares another.

The advertisements have a dual effect: They put human faces on the issue of LGBT equality and also act as a time-honored tool of human rights campaigning, the so-called tactic of “naming and shaming.” This is especially important, the organizers feel, as “Poland is the biggest European Union Member State in which same-sex couples are invisible for the law,” and therefore, “one of the aims of the campaign is to show that legal frameworks for same-sex relationships are a European civilization standard and that social evolution in this area has not bypassed Poland.”

You can take a look at other ads produced by the campaign on its website and check out a video below, complete with English subtitles. What do you think – are large-scale advertisements an effective tool of advocating for human rights? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

]]> http://thenewgay.net/2010/11/advertising-for-equality-in-poland.html/feed 1 http://thenewgay.net/2010/11/power-up-gambia.html http://thenewgay.net/2010/11/power-up-gambia.html#comments Thu, 11 Nov 2010 15:00:41 +0000 Claire Rychlewski http://thenewgay.net/?p=43467

Photo cred: Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 2010

Power Up Gambia is a grassroots non-profit whose mission it is to provide Gambian hospitals with the renewable energy, allowing these hospitals to run more effectively. Initially a small organization started by Kathryn Hall, a med-school student at UPenn, Power Up Gambia continues to expand and provide for more hospitals in the Gambia, as well as work with Gambian communities toward self-sufficiency in healthcare and energy. Paul Blore, Director of Development at Power Up Gambia, spoke to The New Gay on the organization’s start-up, mission, projects, and future.

The Trip that Changed Everything

The New Gay: Who started Power Up Gambia and why?

Paul Blore: Power Up Gambia was started by a young woman named Kathryn Hall. She was 20 years old and a University of Pennsylvania pre-med student going on a short-term volunteer trip to a hospital [Sulayman Junkung General Hospital] in the Gambia in 2006. During her time there, she got to know the CEO of the hospital really well. They would sort of rehash the day everyday and she saw a lot of distressing stuff when she was there, because the hospital got maybe only ten hours a day of electricity. Some of that was from the electrical grid—and even the grid itself is unreliable. They had diesel generators to back up the grid, but those were unreliable as well. The hospital couldn’t afford to keep the power on past two in the morning. There were people coming in at emergent states—and they were delivering children by candlelight.

The CEO told Kathryn that almost 20 percent of the annual budget (whereas here in the United states it’s about one or two percent) is spent on energy costs. They’re spending a huge portion of their annual budget—which is small to begin with—on fuel. So when they can’t have reliable electricity, that has tons of implications. If you can’t keep a refrigerator going, that means your vaccines aren’t reliable anymore, that you can’t keep a blood bank. In terms of delivering children, you need to have that blood; in terms of malaria, you need it for blood transfusions. And the hospital had donations of equipment form various countries, but what good is it if there’s no power supply?

Getting Started

I can tell you a very specific story: There’s a big problem with mothers being malnourished when pregnant—and then the child is malnourished, so the odds are against them when they’re first born. Kathryn witnessed a child when it was born—it was a day old, and premature as well. In the States we put premature children in an incubator with oxygen concentrator that basically breathes for them. She tells the story as here in the States it would have been rough but the baby would have probably survived. There, there was no oxygen concentrator, so when she came back the following day, the baby had died.

Kathryn asked the CEO, “What can I do to help once I’ve left?” She was expecting him to say something like collect band-aids, or collect equipment and ship them over here. But he knew that the answer to all their problems was being able to generate power on site, so the answer was solar power. In the Gambia they have 6 months out of the year without rain, so these are the perfect conditions for solar power. He pulled out a quote of how much it would cost, which was 300,000 dollars. So she sort of had sticker shock at first [he laughs] but she came back to the States and talked to whoever she could, and over the course of the next 18 months she was able to raise 300,000 dollars. Installation was put in in November of 2008, but the sort of celebratory inauguration was in March of 2009. We’ve already finished fundraising, and the installation itself was completed last month on a clinic that’s about 9 kilometers from the hospital. It is called Somita Clinic, and it is satellite clinic that refers its customers to the hospital.

The First Project

The first hospital was done in phases—it was first dedicated to the water and pumping of the water and it was some months later before the larger installation took place. But it was at that water installation that the people of the village came along and basically said, “We want support for our community clinic, please come help us.” So our group went out and did an assessment and they were astonished at what they saw. The place was spotless which is nearly impossible in West Africa because there’s sand and red dirt everywhere. If I’m correct they actually built the clinic themselves some time ago because they wanted a clinic for their community. So this is not just us going in and saying, “Here this is something you need.” This is community initiative.

TNG: Does the organization operate independently, or are you working with other non-profits?

PB: We’ve talked with other non-profits and we might get together on an event or this or that. There aren’t any official affiliations with us and other non-profits. There have been other groups that come to us and say, “Help us do this in Kenya, etc.” But we are small and grassroots and focused on our original mission. Hopefully we can be an inspiration to other organizations, but this is what we’re focusing on.

TNG: Was there ever a point when your task seemed too daunting to take on?

PB: Sure. I’m speaking on behalf of Kathryn right now—she’s in her third year of medical school and not really available for interviews. I’ve heard her say enough that she didn’t think she’d do all of this when she got started, but when she got back to U.S. and told her mother, her mother said “You can do this.” Within a few months they had raised 20,000 dollars within themselves and the group they gathered around them. I guess it was her mother that really helped push things forward. I don’t think there was ever a point where it was too much—after the initial hump, I think things sort of clarified and began to be real for Kathryn. They [Kathryn and her mother] had a lunch with a woman whose name I’m not supposed to give out, and Kathryn and her mother were asking this woman, “Here’s what we’re doing, could you maybe donate 1,000 dollars,” but before they even got to that part, this woman said, “Okay, sounds great, I’ll give you 50,000 dollars.” But, [he laughs] Kathryn heard 15,000. And so the woman got up and left and said “I’ll write you the check soon,” and Kathryn and her mother immediately started crying, talking about how this was the first big donation. But her mother had to tell her that, no, it’s not 15,000, its 50,000 and that’s when it became real in Kathryn’s mind. It gave her the confidence and it gave donors the confidence that this wasn’t just a lemonade stand here.

Basang Hospital

TNG: What is your next step/project? Tell me a little bit about it.

PB:We actually have two projects on the way. For our first one we’ve chosen a solar installation site–Bansang Hospital—which is going to be a similar installation to Sulayman Junkung, but Bansang is the largest and the most strained of all hospitals in Gambia. It is the farthest from the grid and farthest from the main port, which means that is 400 mile roundtrip to get more diesel fuel. The diesel fuel is very unreliable anyway so its expensive, and budget keeps getting cut back and the road they have to go down is unreliable especially during rainy season—so there was a period of three months they had to go without electricity because of the rainy season. The hospital covers an area of about 600,000 Gambians for whom this is their first recourse for healthcare. The thing is, most people don’t get preventative care—they go to the hospital only when they are in a state of emergent need. So that’s our next site and there’s a woman named Anita Smith who has been working to improve conditions at that hospital for 18 years. She’s a pretty brilliant woman and she is completely dedicated to that place. She refers to the people there as her family and it looks like the Gambians feel that way about her too. She’s made it her mission to provide for the staff there—a lot of staff is from the community and they want to support their own community. She claims there’s about 100 percent staff retention, which is unheard of in West Africa. If you can’t do your job because there’s no lights or no power to run equipment that you need, then you’re probably gonna get fed up and you’re gonna somewhere where your hands aren’t tied. But there’s still a long way to go and that’s where we’re trying to come in and improve their capacity as well.

Helping Gambians Help Themselves

The other project is that we are partnering with the engineering department of the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, because they have done a few solar installations at schools in the Gambia, and they bring down students and have them design an energy system for whatever the needs are for that particular school. We’re raising money so the faculty can create a curriculum in technical training for solar systems—the design, and the implementation of these systems—and that curriculum will be taught at the Gambia Technical Trade Institute, which is an institute that a lot of young Gambians go to for electrical degrees. But right now there is nothing for solar installations. This curriculum means that anything going on in the Gambia can get maintenance of their systems. So it supports our systems and it also gives high-level skills to young Gambians in a region that has high unemployment.

TNG:How can ordinary people get involved? Beyond donating, is there a way for our readers who are interested to volunteer with the organization?

PB: There is. We have regular meetings with what we call our core team, which is mostly volunteers but they act as staff—that’s hard for people who are farther away but the biggest thing that this org has done was getting a lot of people to help in their small way which usually turns out to be in a big way. A lot of the fundraising has come from schools who have gotten interested, and a lot of it has been done through fundraising and small events. But I can say that we need more writers, and we need more people that are just willing to talk about us and get the word out in their community. We’re trying to see chapters around the country.

TNG: Do you have any last remarks? Anything you’d like to add?

PB: Earlier in the year in March, I wrote an article about a project for a different organization and was able to talk to the CEO, Kebba Badgie. He had tons of great things to say about how the installation has effected change. Aside from being able to have a blood bank, and a place to store vaccines, it has increased staff morale because they’re able to get their work done. It’s also meant that other organizations are more compelled to donate equipment because they knows its’ going to be put to good use and volunteer organizations are sending in more volunteers. It’s increased morale in the community, and credibility in the hospital, which means people come earlier seeking out care. The hospital is seeing more patients, which is a good thing. And the biggest piece of news was that before the installation they were seeing between three to six deaths of either infant or mother per year, but the year following installation they had zero— which none of the other hospitals in the Gambia were able to claim.

To find out more about Power Up Gambia visit their homepage, and visit here to get involved.

One perennial debate surrounding Pride is over the nature of the festivities themselves – should Pride be a debauched celebration or somber opportunity for advancing LGBT rights? Something in between? Both? If it is to be used as an opportunity for activism, should this activism be limited to gay rights alone or incorporate other Progressive issues, such as immigration reform? And then there’s the question of inclusion itself. The persistent criticism in the US that the modern LGBT community is completely dominated by affluent Caucasian men has spawned events such as Trans Pride, Black and Latino Pride and special events just for queer women. While some find these specialized celebrations empowering, others feel that they’re unnecessary divisive.

Rarely are all of these ongoing debates so overtly put on display as they were last week at Berlin’s 2010 Pride festivities. The controversy surrounded Judith Butler, an American academic and activist who most people who’ve taken an introductory class in gender and/or queer studies should have at least heard of, publicly rejecting an award for civil courage at the Christopher Street Day parade on June 19th. While the German press has emphasized her motivation for turning down the award being that Pride has become too commercial and superficial, her words reveal another objection.

A press release by the German organization SUSPECT, which calls itself “a new group of queer and trans migrants, Black people, people of colour and allies,” which aims “to monitor the effects of hate crimes debates and to build communities which are free from violence in all its interpersonal and institutional forms,” opens by framing the event thusly:

As Berlin Queer and Trans Activists of Colour and Allies we welcome Judith Butler’s decision to turn down the Zivilcourage Prize awarded by Berlin Pride. We are delighted that a renowned theorist has used her celebrity status to honour queer of colour critiques against racism, war, borders, police violence and apartheid.

You can see her whole speech in the video below, in which she says (according to the translation provided – I don’t speak German myself so I cannot speak for its accuracy):

Some of the organizers expressed themselves [to be] explicitly racist, or didn’t distance themselves from such expressions. The hosting organizations reject to understand anti-racist policies as [an] integral part of their work. In this sense, I have to distance myself from this complicity, including anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim racism.

She goes on to say that LGBT people have been used by European governments in the pursuit of nationalistic and militaristic ends, convincing queer individuals that they are protecting our freedoms by waging wars in the Muslim world and passing anti-immigrant policies. She then passed the award along to groups like GLADT, LesMigraS, SUSPECT and ReachOut. The event’s organizer then takes to the stage to deny the allegations of racism and tells those cheering Butler on that they are not the majority and should stop screaming.

Germany obviously has a complex and dark history with racism and exclusion. It’s striking, however, to hear an event such as Pride, which historically has considered itself/had been considered by others to be a fringe or anti-establishment celebration, be accused of being a co-opted extension of the government, and to witness its organizers discount naysayers because they’re in the minority. While this was an event that was specific to Germany, it should certainly serve as a catalyst for self-reflection by queer communities all around the world this Pride month.

So, do you agree with Butler that Pride in some cases has been co-opted and come to represent something different than it was originally intended? Do her remarks about racism and exclusion and the queer community apply here in the US? Do you approve of the way in which she aired her grievances? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

In this regard, we’ve discussed previously the use of traditional Indian dance to highlight the gay rights struggle. This past week another medium emerged in the country and the international press that continues to show the opening of society towards LGBT peoples: film.

Dunno Y … Na Jaane Kyun is a film that’s being billed as India’s answer to Brokeback Mountain (sidenote: I loved Brokeback as much as the next gay, but, really, it’s time to find a new cultural touchstone) because it includes the first gay male kiss in the country’s cinematic history. The UK’s Guardian explains:

Already dubbed India’s answer to Brokeback Mountain it tells the story of an aspiring model who travels to Mumbai, India’s commercial and film capital, to seek his fortune and enters into a homosexual relationship, in part to further his career.

Trailers of the film have been well received by activists.

“It looks good,” said Ashok Row Kavi, editor of Bombay Dost, India’s first gay magazine. It talks of the complexities [of being gay] in India. Taboos are still very strong and hopefully it will change things.”

The movement isn’t coming just from within the country, either. Mumbai has recently played host to India’s biggest LGBT film festival, featuring entries from all over the world:

It is the first time in India that more than 100 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual-themed films have got past censors to be shown in public cinemas alongside mainstream Bollywood and Hollywood releases.

The films came from 25 countries including Australia, the United Kingdom, France and Israel.

While these films and their screenings have their opponents within Indian society, this a step forward for the country in terms of confronting conservative attitudes and providing greater visibility and awareness of the queer community in India as a whole.

For DC residents looking to support queer films from conservative countries but can’t make it to India, there’s a local option. GLOE at the WDCJCC is presenting a screening next week of the Israeli film Eyes Wide Open:

Aaron, a respectable butcher in Jerusalem’s ultra-orthodox Jewish community, is married to Rivka and is a dedicated father of four children. One day, he hires Ezri, a handsome twenty-two year old student, as an apprentice and soon develops feelings for him.

As the relationship grows, Aaron starts to neglect his family and community life, swept away by his love–and lust–for Ezri. But a foreboding guilt, inner torment and intense condemnation from the community catch up with him, leading him to make a radical decision.

So, TNG foreign film lovers – any good, recent queer movies from around the world we should know about? Share your picks in the comments below!

The original eco-queer?

In honor of Earth Day 2010 being tomorrow, instead of highlighting an international LGBT news story or issue, I’m going to take a brief moment to highlight one that affects everyone on this planet: preserving the environment. I can in no way be considered a true environmentalist, but hopefully I can point out some resources that might be helpful for the green gays among us.

First of all, you may be wondering why environmentalism should be covered in an international LGBT affairs column. Aside from the obvious, that the gay people are people and they live on this planet, queer individuals tend to be more concerned with environmental issues than other groups of people:

Two-thirds (66%) of lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender adults, asked in a new national survey conducted online, say that it is important to support environmental causes, compared with 56% of non-LGBT adults. Three-quarters (75%) of LGBT adults (compared with 53% of heterosexuals) believe global warming is happening right now, and by more than two to one proportions, 39% of LGBT adults say they have seen or read Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” while only 20% of heterosexuals say they have seen or read it.

Clearly, LGBT people care about the environment as individuals. But what about as a movement? I’ve often wondered what would happen to our community if we, poof, one day magically achieved full equality. Because, as a group, sexual minorities seem so bound together by our common struggle for equal rights, I wonder if our movement would dissolve, or take up other issues.

We’ve had many discussions on TNG about whether the gay rights movement should incorporate other issues, and I, for one, feel similarly to Denise Levertov, who once said, regarding feminism: “Not to deny the history of women, but women who see exclusively the oppression of women tend to forget other types of oppression.” In other words, I think there’s room within any movement for concern about other issues.

Plus, as self-proclaimed “eco queer” Blake Smith told Advocate magazine in 2008:

“We’ve done a lot for so many causes — HIV, gay marriage—but the green thing hasn’t entered the consciousness yet. And I feel like it needs to. One of the most important reasons for gays to go green is that our community is perceived as just taking care of itself. Environmental sustainability is an issue that affects us all. If the community took a leadership role in climate-change issues, we would be showing the world that we’re interested in helping people other than ourselves.”

And, much like the gay rights movement, Earth Day itself began in the United States and spread throughout the world. While the cultural dynamics surrounding homosexuality can vary wildly from country to country, a common concern for the environment may provide a jumping off point for greater mutual understanding.

So what’s an environmentally-conscious queer to do? First, you can catch up on Michael’s column “It’s Easy Being Green,” which addresses the intersection of these issues much more adeptly than I can. You can also check out and support groups like OUT for Sustainability, an organization that “engages and mobilizes the LGBTQ community to advance social and environmental sustainability.” Also, be sure to check out the official Earth Day 2010 website for info about events in your area.

So, Global Gazers, do you think green issues should be taken up by the LGBT community? Do you feel strongly about these issues yourself? Any special plans to celebrate tomorrow?

Hicham Boudiz in Morocco

“I’m an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort.”

This line, from E. M. Forster’s novel Maurice, has long been my favorite literary euphemism for declaring one’s homosexuality.  For Moroccan writer Hicham Bouzid, author of the forthcoming novel Kafavis’ Syndrome: An Odyssey of a Bisexual Moslem (Publish America, May 2010), when searching for the proper reference point for examining the struggles bisexuals face in the Muslim world, he went all the way back to origins of epic poetry itself.

He did make one important stop along the way, however, in late 19th and early 20th Century Greek poetry. The title of his book is a reference to Constantine P. Cavafy, aka Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, a homosexual poet who lived in Alexandria, Egypt from 1863 to 1933 and was himself deeply affected by Homer’s Odyssey. These layers of historical and literary references all help Bouzid to tell a story that is actually quite modern.

Born in Rabat in the mid-1970s, Bouzid found himself in a deep rut following his graduation from university. It was reading that helped him through this difficult time.

“Due to my insomnia and depression, I had to stop what I was doing and became no one, doing nothing for a long time,” he recalls. “I read and did nothing else.”

After moving to Italy and working odd jobs in both agriculture and industry, he rediscovered a passion for one particular type of literature.

“I am a great fan of Greek mythology, though it sometimes makes for boring reading,” he admits. “But when I started applying the principles of psychoanalysis I learned in school, the Greek mythology became a treasure that can tell us a lot about ourselves.”

It was while he was in Italy that he first stumbled upon Kavafis’ poetry dealing with Homer’s original work, which inspired Hicham to write his own book with both men in mind. Boudiz is now married and living with his wife in Germany, but he chose to make the central story of his novel one that has gone largely untold: The plight of bisexuals living in the Muslim world.

He describes Kafavis’ Syndrome as “a story about an unhappy man, who lives as a pariah in his own mind and community.” This man’s life is characterized as “an odyssey that lurches him from pedophilia to impotence; homosexuality to fleeting moments of himself.”

“Bisexuality can be both a curse and a blessing, which is often hidden in the midst of the other problems facing gay men or lesbians,” Bouzid explains. “The bisexual can be seen as a hypocrite as he can fool both the heterosexual and the homosexual world.

“But the character in my book is honest and as a result he suffers for this honesty. He sees the world either black or white – there are no mixed hues in his world, and for that he suffers. I feel attracted to the subject as I personally find it unfair that one should suffer for what he or she didn’t choose.”

While his book tells the story of a highly individual internal and external struggle, it does so by referencing a work that should be extremely familiar to anyone who’s taken a high school or college English class and one that includes themes that are staggeringly universal.

“The Odyssey appealed to me for its trials and tribulations that any of us can face in this world,” he says. “The challenges are many, and I think a man is born of iron but as challenges come he melts, and if he holds onto that the process of melting turns him into another shape, another quality, that of becoming steel.”

Kavafis writes of this same process, also through the lens of the Odyssey, in his poem entitled “Ithaca“: “Always keep Ithaca in your mind/To arrive there is your ultimate goal./But do not hurry the voyage at all./It is better to let it last for many years;/and to anchor at the island when you are old,/rich with all you have gained on the way,/not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.” In other words, it is the journey and its powers of transformation that is actually the destination.

And so, while we all have our personal struggles, Bouzid is hoping to shed some light on one easily overlooked type. In terms of his own journey, Kavafis’ Syndrome will be publish on May 10 and Hicham’s next project will be a book about LGBT rights in Morocco – the non-fiction companion to his fictional narrator’s struggles.

Ultimately, however, Bouzid describes his own “Ithaca” is a simple place, yet one that can be difficult to reach: “I only ask people for tolerance.”

“The impression that people in Africa have of America is that America is no longer the world’s policeman,” Dr. Peter Mugyenyi, a pioneer in the fight against AIDS in the East African country, declares. “It is now Africa’s friend. What an image.”

This struck me as both hyperbolic and odd, mostly because I have been following the events surrounding Uganda’s now infamous Anti-Homosexuality Bill for months now and the dialogue between the U.S. and Uganda has been anything but friendly on this particular subject. The United States has joined with many other Western nations in denouncing the Bill, while Ugandan politicians have made it clear from the beginning that they have no intention of letting other countries shape Ugandan attitudes toward homosexuality.

And yet, none of this came up during the report. Even as Simon interviewed Pastor Martin Ssempa, well known for his HIV/AIDS work and also for infamously surprising his congregation with hardcore gay pornography in an effort to rally them behind the anti-homosexual legislation, the controversy was never addressed, even in passing.

Why does this matter? After all, it’s been years since HIV/AIDS was viewed as the “Gay Cancer” and the present efforts in Uganda have focused on heterosexual couples, not sexual minorities.

It matters because, while the progress made in Uganda has certainly been impressive – Dr. Mugyenyi claims “there has never been a rescue mission, a mission of mercy of this magnitude that has produced such magnanimous results” – by attempting to drive homosexuals into the closet and limit their rights, Uganda is flirting with the possibility of throwing all of this progress away.

As Michel Sidibé, executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, warned last month, HIV rates amongst gay men in increasingly homophobic countries are on the rise. The original version of Uganda’s proposed legislation made having same-sex relations with someone with HIV a crime punishable by death, which most certainly would discourage homosexuals from seeking out medical treatment and therefore put others in danger.

Ultimately, the success of the U.S.’s HIV/AIDS program may be a good thing for supporters of gay rights in Uganda. While the Ugandan government may be resistant to heeding Western views on homosexuality in general, perhaps they will be more sympathetic if the U.S. couches its opposition in terms of concern for the HIV/AIDS programs America’s been funneling billions of dollars into over the past few years. And while putting conditions on aid to any country always makes me wary, seeing as this is literally a matter of life and death, perhaps it is something that should be considered.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe

It’s supposed to be the benefit of diminished expectations: You set the bar so low that it becomes difficult to be disappointed. That’s the theory, at least. In practice, however, when I’m presented with a situation like the one that’s playing out in Zimbabwe, a country where gay rights have never been likely to flourish and there are so many other political and economic issues to address simultaneously, I still feel a twinge of regret when I see opportunities to legislate LGBT equality pass by unacknowledged.

Zimbabwe is a country that I’ve written a lot about. Sadly, from a journalistic standpoint, the landlocked southern African state is like a terribly depressing gift that keeps on giving: There seems to always be some new tragic situation taking place to write about.

The country has been led by 86-year-old Robert Mugabe for over 20 years and his blatant subversion of the democratic process will likely ensure that his stint as President continues for years to come. Politically, the government is more or less split in half, with attempts at reform being mostly led by current Prime Minister and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who is now in the process of attempting to form a coalition government with Mugabe and his ruling party.

Compounding these issues is the fact that the country’s economy is literally in shambles. Zimbabwe has the dubious honor of being the go-to modern example of hyperinflation, with the annual inflation rate reaching 89.7 sextillion percent (aka 89,700,000,000,000,000,000,000 percent) in November, 2008. Things have gotten so bad that the 100 trillion dollar bill that was introduced in January, 2009 was rendered useless almost immediately upon distribution.

It’s not particularly surprising then that gay rights in the country have basically been a non-issue.  Male homosexuality remains illegal in the country and the government has carried out systematic violations of LGBT people’s human rights for years.  Mugabe has famously likened homosexuals to pigs and dogs and the subject remains highly taboo in the conservative society.

And yet, despite all of this, an opportunity to turn this trend around has presented itself in the last few weeks. Zimbabwe has undertaken the uncommon process of drafting a new constitution as part of a recent power-sharing deal between the two major opposing political parties currently operating in the government: Mugabe’s ZANU-PF and Tsvangirai’s MDC-T.

The drafting of a new constitution, while a rare occurrence, is also an incredible opportunity to insert LGBT rights into a country’s institutional structure where they previously haven’t existed. Zimbabwe’s neighbor to the south, South Africa, did just that in the mid-1990’s when it crafted its own post-apartheid constitution. Despite much opposition from the majority of the populace, through political maneuvering and international influence, the country became the first in the world to include sexual orientation in its national non-discrimination clause. While the South African case was pretty much exceptional in every way, a glimmer of hope still exists that lightning may strike twice somewhere else in the world.

Unfortunately, it’s not going to be in Zimbabwe, not this time:

Zimbabwe’s president says gay rights will not be protected in a constitution being drawn up under a power-sharing deal.

State radio on Friday quoted President Robert Mugabe saying that Western rights groups have called for constitutional reforms to include gay rights. He calls that “insanity.”

Alrighty then. That was fun while it lasted.

While Mugabe’s attitude should surprise absolutely no one, the second, and perhaps bigger, disappointment stemming from this scenario is that Tsvangirai, who agrees with Mugabe on approximately nothing, has won multiple international awards for his support of human rights and was even in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize last year, managed to find a rare common ground with the President over their mutual opposition to gay rights. The New York Times reports:

Mr. Tsvangirai’s response, according to the news media, was, “Why should a man seek to have a relationship with another man when women make up 52 percent of the population?”

On Friday, the prime minister’s spokesman, James Maridadi, tried to play down the significance of the remarks. “Tsvangirai was speaking off the cuff in a very lighthearted way… He wasn’t getting into the rights of gays. Whatever he said, it was a personal opinion, and he always invites people to agree or disagree with his personal opinions.”

Gay rights has not been a matter of friction between [Tsvangirai and Mugabe]. In fact, Mr. Tsvangirai’s party, the Movement for Democratic Change, has “no position on gay rights per se,” said its spokesman, Nelson Chamisa. “We are for human rights, but Zimbabweans are very conservative, and something like gay marriage is condemned, not just by our culture but by religion.”

He added, “We believe people should have the latitude to decide whatever is best for them. But — and I underline the word ‘but’ — the position of people in this country is that the word ‘gay’ should not appear in the constitution.”

Sigh. Another missed opportunity. And yet, the stubborn optimist in me can’t help but think it’s a minutely positive sign that this discussion has even occurred in the first place and that securing gay rights in the constitution was ever close enough to the realm of possibility that these questions were being asked.

What say you, Global Gaze readers? Were you surprised by these events? Disappointed? Totally unphased? Do you see the same the same tiny speck of hope I see, or am I just being naïve? How do you think the international community can best ensure that the next time such an opportunity presents itself, whether in Zimbabwe or any other country, that it is capitalized upon? Feel free to leave your thoughts in comment form below!

Interestingly, thinking about the health of LGBT peoples led me to consider the state of same-sex marriage throughout the international community. Now, I’m known for making some fairly random connections between subjects, but this one is actually pretty straightforward. According to Psychology Today, a new study suggests that bans on gay marriage hurt the mental health of queer individuals. While this may seem commonsensical, as it never feels good to be hated, putting numbers behind this anecdotal evidence can be a powerful thing:

Despite the existence of multiple forms of institutional discrimination toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) populations, few studies have examined the consequences of this form of discrimination for the mental health of LGB populations. A new study by my colleague, Mark Hatzenbuehler, and his collaborators does just that.

The study was published in this month’s issue of American Journal of Public Health. Researchers analyzed data from LGB individuals who were interviewed in 2001-2002 and 2004-2005 for the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. Because this is a national study, some of the participants lived in states that instituted constitutional amendments banning gay marriage following the 2004-2005 elections. Other participants lived in states where there was no change in the status of gay marriage.

The study found that Psychiatric Disorders, defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV, increased significantly between waves 1 and 2 among LGB respondents living in states that banned gay marriage for the following outcomes: any mood disorder (36.6% increase), generalized anxiety disorder (248.2% increase), any alcohol use disorder (41.9% increase), and psychiatric comorbidity (36.3% increase). In other words, there was more than a doubling in anxiety disorders among LGB people in states that passed anti-gay marriage laws.

So the next time you’re tempted to say “I don’t just want to marry my partner for our health, you know,” you may want to rethink this statement. Of course, this could potentially add an entire other dimension to calls for marriage equality. And such calls can be pivotal in countries such as Italy and Poland where debates over the legalization of same-sex marriage are making international headlines at the moment.

And, frankly, it’s heartening merely to see LGBT people included in such important studies. This is, however, more often the exception to the rule. The New York Times reported last week:

Gay men and lesbians are barred from taking part in many clinical trials that deal with sexual functions and occasionally from other studies as well, researchers are reporting.

Writing in last week’s issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, the study’s authors say that the scientific rationale for the exclusions, if any, is not at all clear. “Researchers should be held to careful scientific reasons,” they add, “when they develop exclusion criteria that are based on sexual orientation.”

As with all other aspects of life, maintaining visibility in terms of health research is vitally important for all queer people around the world.

Finally, in between hurling epithets, Tea Partiers this weekend decried what they considered to be socialized medicine (while calling for simultaneously calling for the protection of Medicare, which is a whole different post all together). While they clearly considered this to be a pejorative term, it reminded me of a hopeful and encouraging example of a similar story out of Cuba. Basically, the country is now allowing sexual reassignment surgery to be covered by Cuba’s universal health system, and it’s having a positive impact on the nation’s trans population:

Looking in the mirror used to make Yiliam Gonzalez sick to her stomach.

“I would see myself, and my body didn’t match who I was,” said the 28-year-old wedding pianist, who went by William before receiving a sex change under Cuba’s universal health care system.

Gonzalez is living proof of a small but remarkable transformation for the rugged revolution of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and a band of ever-macho, bearded rebels, who long punished gays and transsexuals — but now are paying for sex changes.

Cuba has taken some remarkable steps in the last few years in the area of LGBT rights and, in a time when laws relating to gender in other countries are moving backward, it’s awfully encouraging to see.

Anything I’ve missed? Add your own prescriptive reading suggestions in the comments below!

One of the world’s largest and oldest Pride parades takes place towards the end of February each year in Sydney, Australia as part of the country’s annual Mardi Gras celebrations. And this year was no exception. Sydney, which was recently named the gay-friendliest city in the world, played host to a massive event:

“Almost 10,000 people shimmied, strutted and strode through the ages on Saturday as Sydney celebrated its 32nd gay and lesbian Mardi Gras parade.

More than 100 floats with 9,500 performers filled the city’s streets, with Osama bin Laden and Michael Jackson among figures to feature in the History of the World” themed event.

And that only includes the people that actually marched in the parade itself. If you count those who came out to celebrate the number is much higher:

Balmy weather meant crowds were bigger than last year, with media reports suggesting as many as 300,000 turned out to watch the Saturday night parade, which featured drag queens and scores of George Michael look-alikes.

As with any massive event, the festivities weren’t without their problems. There were three stabbing incidents and thirty-five people were arrested over the course of the weekend, which is actually down from last year and pretty good, I’d say, given the sheer number of people in attendance. As the event’s organizer said: “It is enormously heartening to see our gay pride event so eagerly supported by the broader community.”

Elsewhere, Pride festivities took on a more serious and political tone.  Earlier this month, Cape Town, South Africa held their annual Pride festivities, complete with a healthy dose of protest to complement the revelry. As I’ve mentioned before, South Africa is in a unique position as the first country in the world to write non-discrimination based on sexual orientation into its constitution and one of the few countries in the world to legalize same-sex marriage while also being part of a region that is currently having some very public battles over gay rights play out on the national level. And, sure enough, this contrast was evident at the festivities:

Thousands of people took part in a raucous gay pride march Saturday in Cape Town, South Africa’s gay capital, pressing for more tolerance in Africa, one of the world’s most homophobic regions… They held up banners saying “Your hate won’t make me straight,” “I was born gay,” “Jesus says ‘love your neighbour’,” and “Hate is unAfrican.” The marchers denounced a proposed anti-gay law in Uganda calling for tough penalties against homosexuality, including the death penalty, and the jailing of two men in nearby Malawi after staging the nation’s first public same-sex wedding.

It appears that, overall, the event was a success.

In some additional Pride news from up North, it appears that the eastern European country of Slovakia will attempt hold a Pride festival this May. I say “attempt” because Pride festivities are usually very controversial and even violent events in Eastern Europe, as evidenced by the fact that a Lithuanian Member of Parliament is already trying to derail this year’s Baltic Pride, which is scheduled for May as well.

Have any Global Gaze readers been to a Pride celebration down South? Any differences you’ve noticed from the events you’ve been to elsewhere? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below!

For many sexual minorities around the world living under homophobic governments, leaving their home country is the best way to ensure that they can continue the fight for their rights from a safe distance. For every Val Kalende or Walter Trochez who chooses to stay and work against his or her own government domestically, there are those who escape to countries like the U.S. to marshal international support and dream of the day they can safely return to their homes.

With the recent attention and international backlash aimed at Uganda over the last few months, more and more Ugandan ex-patriots have come forward to fight against their government’s hateful policies.  One such activist goes by the name Moses and you may recognize his masked face from a clip like the one above that played during an episode of The Rachel Maddow Show, in which he appeared at a press conference for an event protesting the National Prayer Breakfast with a bag over his head to protect his identity. Below, Moses shares more of his personal story with TNG.

Flight

Growing up gay in Uganda was not an easy or pleasant experience for Moses.

A recent photo of Moses, who prefers to keep his identity hidden to protect himself and his family.

“Homosexuality is seen as out of character – deviant behavior [in Uganda]. It is seen as impossible for a person’s child to be gay. It’s abnormal. It’s seen as a Western ploy to recolonize the country,” Moses recalls during a recent conversation via email. “It was very hard for me to come out to people but my behaviors would tell.”

Eventually, through a mix of familial and societal pressure, Moses married a woman. When he couldn’t perform sexually, he was prescribed drugs and it was through this method that he was eventually able to have a child with his wife. However, following a sexual assault by a male police officer that he could not report and years of living in constant fear of being outed by family members, co-workers and even media outlets known for publicly “naming and shaming” sexual minorities, Moses knew he could not stay.

“There is nothing more disturbing in this world than living in fear,” he says. “So, when I was invited to attend an HIV/AIDS conference, that is how I found my way here to the USA. That was in 2009. This was the time when the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was also introduced in Parliament, so I decided to seek asylum.”

Achieving asylum in the U.S. is particularly difficult, however, for sexual minorities.

“Seeking asylum isn’t easy. It is a long process and takes time,” he explains. “I arrived in this country not knowing anyone. This has been a challenge, but people have responded to my outcry and that’s why I am here. Bureaucracy like in any other nation slows down most of the process. But patience pays.”

Fight

Moses hasn’t been sitting on his hands in the meantime. He has become active in a very public campaign against the proposed homophobic legislation in Uganda, even as he has had to hide his identity to protect himself and his family back home. This work led to his most recent appearance in the national media as a spokesperson for the American Prayer Hour, which was held last month.

Moses gained national attention when he shared his story at a press conference for the American Prayer Hour last month.

“I was in Texas and received an email from Truth Wins Out inviting me to participate, but at first I was reluctant and fearful,” Moses says. “I responded ‘yes’ after two days of intense consultation. They hooked me up with the HRC, who sponsored the trip.

“I worked as a teacher back in Uganda, so speaking before people isn’t always a problem, although this was going to be aired on many national channels and maybe international ones, so I had to prepare myself for that. I said what I had experienced personally and my view of the consequences of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. I enjoyed it because this was the time for me to bring out all the issues that affect gay people in my country and Africa at large.”

Ultimately, the important issue for Moses is not the law itself but its consequences for the lives of individuals.

“I was always in constant fear. I had many thoughts, of reporting myself to the international organizations like Amnesty International, but feared exposing myself to the authorities where I would be subjected to more arrests and torture. Always in fear, fear and fear and now that the law is in Parliament, I fear going back to this country and I also have great fear for my gay friends there for the hell they are going through,” he explains.

“The world we are living in is dynamic. It’s high time people realize that and come to terms with it and accept homosexuality and let people live open lives.”

And, in his own humble way, Moses is hoping to help bring this about for everyone, regardless of the country they find themselves in.

Let’s start our little trip around the world in this hemisphere.  A transgender group in the small South American country of Guyana is taking on the state to challenge the government’s interference in one of the most fundamental components of gender expression: clothing.  In addition to outlawing homosexuality, Guyana has made cross-dressing illegal, which led to the imprisonment of six individuals last February. Now an organization, with the help of international supporters, has taken a stand for the accused and is challenging these laws:

“It was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. I felt like I was less than human,” Seon Clarke, who was among those detained last year, said in a statement from Guyana’s Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD) on Monday.

Clarke is also one of those who on Friday filed a motion for the Supreme Court to overturn the sexual orientation and dress laws. SASOD, which is representing the group, said it had assembled an international team of lawyers for the case.

While the suit has little chance of being effective, it’s encouraging to see activism, simultaneously on the individual, national and international levels, taking place in Guyana.

Across the globe in Turkey, a coalition of influential domestic and international organization is stepping in to protect Turkish transgendered citizens.  In response to the recent murder of two transwomen, Pembe Hayat “Pink Life,” Human Rights Watch, the European Region of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA-Europe), and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) presented the government of Turkey with a letter demanding the protection of transgendered people:

The targeted killing of transgender women is part of a broader pattern of violence against LGBT people in Turkey… Turkish authorities has an obligation to conduct an effective investigation into all murders of LGBT people and prosecute those responsible, and we acknowledge and are grateful for police efforts to investigate and resolve these crimes. However, it is deeply troubling that incidents of murder and violence against LGBT people in Turkey, especially transgender people, continue unabated.

The letter also included a list of demands. It’s particularly worth noting that the European organization has gotten involved, since it has a say in Turkey’s (eternally) ongoing campaign to be accepted into the EU. It will be interesting to see how the government responds.

Finally, a story out of France reminds us that even in countries with fairly advanced LGBT rights protections, there’s still room for progress. As TIME reports:

Several decades have passed since the West stopped considering homosexuality a mental illness. But for transsexuals, this kind of milestone has been elusive — until now. Last month, France became the first country in the world to remove transsexualism from its official list of mental disorders — a major victory when it comes to acceptance of this oft-misunderstood condition.

To be completely honest, I had no idea that every country in the world listed transsexualism a mental disorder. It’s stories like this that reminds us that passing equality laws are really just the beginning of the struggle for full euqality.

To end with some lighter news: India crowned its first trans beauty queen last week and Amanda Lepore kicked off Australia’s Pride festivities, boosting the visibility of transgendered people in popular culture.

Any big stories I’ve missed? Enlighten me, and your fellow Global Gaze readers, in the comment sections below!

For some general context on LGBT rights in this are of the world, you can check out my brief overview here. In light of recent events in Kenya, for those wanting a more specific look at certain countries, you can take a moment to read my original post about the situation in Uganda and a follow up post on what Americans can do to help in that country and in nearby Malawi.

While the majority of the stories are bleak, there is some hope out there, which I hope to show in the weeks to come. In an article that I wrote a little while back for another publication entitled “How Will the Dominoes Fall?“, I argued that there is still potential for some truly good things to come out of this recent rash of intense homophobia in sub-Saharan Africa:

There has been an opposite (if not equal) reaction to this anti-gay push: African LGBT activists have become bolder, more vocal and more recognized on the international stage. Ugandan activist Val Kalende has become world-renowned for her bravery in speaking out against her government’s treatment of homosexuals, while the possible clampdown in Malawi was spurred by two men putting their freedom and safety at risk to allegedly engage in an illegal same-sex marriage.

For concerned members of the international community this phenomenon is potentially good news. While many African governments respond negatively to policy recommendations from the West, human rights activists are often welcomed by determined, but often monetarily and numbers-challenged, LGBT groups in the region.

I’d love to hear whether you agree or feel I’m being being far too naive -  or something in between.

Be sure to check back here in the weeks to come for fresh, new and hopefully enlightening Global Gaze content! And, as always, if you’ve got a topic you’d like to see covered in this space, email me at jolly@thenewgay.net!

The first story is older, more high-profile and also largely symbolic for LGBT people in England. The modern component of the saga began last September when a petition for a formal apology from the British government gained sudden popularity:

A petition calling for a government apology to gay mathematician Alan Turing has reached 17,900 signatures.

It is now the eighth most popular petition on the Downing Street website. Only 500 signatures are needed for a government response.

For those rusty on both their English and mathematical histories (I’m guilty on both counts) Turing was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist who is credited as being a major force in the creation of the modern computer. He was also the inventor the Turing machine, which helped to crack the German Enigma code during World War II. Oh, and he was also gay. When his sexual orientation was discovered in 1952, when it was still a crime in the UK, he “chose” treatment with female hormones, aka chemical castration, to keep himself out of prison. In 1954, Turing took his own life by ingesting a deadly dose of cyanide.

The formal petition read, in part: “The British Government should apologize to Alan Turing for his treatment and recognize that his work created much of the world we live in and saved us from Nazi Germany. And an apology would recognize the tragic consequences of prejudice that ended this man’s life and career.” The outpouring of support, which gained the support of renowned individuals  such as Richard Dawkins, Ian McEwan, Peter Tachell and Stephen Fry and ultimately 30,805 signatories, resulted in Prime Minister Gordon Brown making an official statement a few weeks later:

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue… So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.

While many have felt that the apology was too little too late, history appears to be repeating itself today, except that the man in question is very much alive and is still suffering for past injustices:

John Crawford, a retired butler from London, was convicted in 1959 aged 19 for having consensual sex with another man. He told the Guardian he made a confession to the crime after being held in a cell and beaten for a week.

Mr. Crawford said he discovered the conviction remained on the police national computer (PNC) when he applied for a job as volunteer at Wormwood Scrubs prison eight years ago. He told the newspaper: “I saw John Crawford. 1959. Charged on two counts of buggery. Since then, I’ve analysed my life and found out the amount of my jobs that I’ve lost because I’ve got a criminal record.”

Now Crawford, with the help of a lawyer and a London-based LGBT charity, are going to court to fight so that other men won’t have to continue to be discriminated against the way he has been.

I am, much to my parents’ disappointment, no legal expert and I do not know if their crusade will be successful in court, but for those in the international community working towards true and holistic equality for queer individuals around the world this serves as an important lesson: Change doesn’t happen in a day – it has to happen every day.

First, a little background. Malawi is a small country in southeastern Africa that gets very little Western attention (except for when certain gay-friendly pop stars decide to adopt children from there). While geographical diminutive, the country has the dubious distinction of being one of the most densely populated and underdeveloped in the region, ranked 160 out of 182 countries on the 2009 Human Development Index. Interestingly, Malawi lacks the official extreme distrust of Western countries that many of its counterparts in the region exhibit. As a result, the country’s foreign policy has been described at pro-Western and the government maintains excellent diplomatic relations with most Western and African countries.

In terms of LGBT rights, the picture has never been particularly rosy in Malawi. It is one of the countries in the international community where homosexuality remains illegal and “offenders” face a maximum prison sentence of 14 years and hard labor as punishment. Section 153 of the country’s constitution prohibits “unnatural offenses,” while another Section that addresses “public decency” is used to justify the punishment of homosexual acts. And don’t look for the country to be courting the almighty Pink Dollar anytime soon: tourists who engage in homosexual acts with locals can be labeled “undesirable aliens” and kicked out of the country.

While things have never been particularly good for queer Malawians, the situation recently has become markedly worse. By now, most people have heard about the imprisonment of Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza for taking part in a traditional marriage ceremony. This event, which may not have even made international headlines without the events taking place in nearby Uganda, has seemed to set off a string of troubling events. Shortly after the couple’s arrest, the government cracked down on activists seeking to defend the two men:

Three Malawi human rights activists are free on bail after being arrested for helping to defend a gay male couple that held a same-sex engagement ceremony in Malawi on December 26.

“We find this very disturbing that Malawi, which has made a transition to democracy over the last two decades, now seems to be slipping backwards into the bad old ways during the era of the Hastings Banda dictatorship,” [Peter Tatchell of the London-based rights group Outrage! ] noted.

More recently, a similar event took place:

Malawian police have arrested a man for allegedly putting up posters supporting homosexuality, which is illegal in the southern African nation.

Peter Sawali was charged this week with conduct likely to cause breach of peace, said police spokesman Davie Chingwalu.

Sawali, 21, was putting up posters that read, “Gay rights are human rights,” on a busy road in the city of Blantyre, the spokesman said.

Given Malawi’s relatively close relationship with Western governments, might the international community be able to step in to help LGBT individuals before the atmosphere in the country gets as toxic as it’s become in Uganda? Possibly.

First of all, Malawi is generally regarded as marginally more reliant on international sources of aid than countries like Uganda. The country receives aid money from Canada, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Iceland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK and the U.S., among others.The World Bank, the IMF, the EU, the African Development Bank, and various UN organizations are also active in the country. This, coupled with the country’s generally pro-Western foreign policies, offers some hope that international governments and organizations may be persuasive if they choose to step in and prevent Uganda-like situation from developing at some point. Additionally, NGOs such as the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and Human Rights Watch are speaking out on Chimbalanga and Monjeza’s imprisonment and you should feel free to take a moment to lend your voice to their calls.

Only time will tell how far and fast this latest wave of hostility will escalate in Malawi. In the meantime, it’s at least somewhat encouraging to know that the international community and press seem interested and active in preventing the spread of anti-gay legislation and enforcement in this part of the world.

Photos courtesy of Colin MacDonald

I’ve been writing about the desperate situation LGBTQ Ugandans now find themselves in for weeks now. And while keeping oneself informed is important and there are some signs that international pressure seems to be working in making the Ugandan government slowly step away from the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, it’s difficult not to feel helpless when watching such events unfold from half a world away. So, when an organization presents us with an opportunity to show queer Ugandans support and solidarity without having to leave our home city, it’s hard not to take notice.

One such organization, Full Equality Now! DC, has done just that for DC-area residents. The group has planned two events, a protest rally today and an interfaith meeting tomorrow, to protest the role of American conservatives in Uganda. In order to better understand the purpose of the events and how U.S. citizens might further get involved, I chatted with FENDC’s own Colin MacDonald.

The New Gay: Can you talk a little bit about Full Equality Now! DC? What is your role there and how did you become involved?

Colin MacDonald: Full Equality Now! DC (FENDC) is a grassroots group born out of last October’s massively successful National Equality March. Our group formerly was the Host Committee for the march and is now the local independent affiliate of Equality Across America. Like many EAA affiliates, FENDC wants to transform the strategy by which we seek full equality from a state-by-state approach to one in which we simultaneously address local, state, national, and international LGBTQ issues to push for full legal equality.

Personally, I became involved in the closing weeks and days before the march and continued to work with the group in response to the ballot initiative that stripped LGBTQ citizens in Maine of their right to marry as well as our response to a heinous string of hate crimes against LGBTQ people in Puerto Rico, Texas, and Baltimore. Near the end of last year, I was elected to serve as part of the interim coordinating team and continue to comprise one half of that team.

TNG: How did the organization become interested in the situation in Uganda?

CM: Though our members have been aware of the bill in Uganda since it was first introduced (a nod to you and other great LGBTQ news sources), only in late November did we realize the connection with U.S. individuals and “the Family.” As we dug deeper, the things we found got uglier, and we knew that we had no option but to get involved.

Photos courtesy of Colin MacDonald

TNG: What kinds of events do you have planned and what other advocacy work is FENDC involved in?

CM: We have two major events which we are involved in planning on this issue, focusing on the Family’s upcoming National Prayer Breakfast. The night before, at the Family’s C Street House, we will be protesting to demand that the Family publicly call upon Uganda to drop its Anti-Homosexuality Bill, call upon the U.S. government to grant asylum to persecuted LGBTQ individuals, and live up to the Christian values that they espouse.

The next morning, we are co-sponsoring the American Prayer Hour, a positive prayer opportunity to coincide with the National Prayer Breakfast. This inclusive gathering allows all people of all faiths, races, sexual orientation, and walks of life (by whatever variable you may define them) the chance to pray for a harmonious future in which we do not fear one another for our differences, but rather embrace each other for what we all can add to the rich tapestry of humanity. This event is to be led by a coalition of clergy with one uniting factor: love.

We continue to fight for full legal equality for Americans and Washingtonians. On January 27, I testified on the behalf of FENDC before the Board of Elections and Ethics to ensure that the recently passed Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009 is not allowed to go to a public vote because no group has the authority to vote on the basic rights of its individual members, no matter how much they may want to do it. We continue to urge the Board of Elections, the DC Courts, and the United States Congress to allow this to become law and not attempt to strip any member of the community of their rights.

Furthermore, we maintain our call on authorities at both the District and federal level to enforce applicable hate crimes laws in all justified cases to ensure that nobody must live in fear for the sole reason of being who they are.

TNG: Are there any other ways individuals around the country can help the LGBTQ community in Uganda?

CM: We implore people across the country (and for that matter, around the world) to call their elected leaders and tell them to put pressure on the government of Uganda to respect the basic human rights of all people, regardless of sexual orientation, by throwing out the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

TNG: Anything else TNG readers should know?

CM: We encourage everyone in the DC area to stop by one of our meetings on Wednesday nights (with the exception of this upcoming one, given we’ll be at C Street) at the Metropolitan Community Church at 5th and Ridge Streets NW (two blocks from the Convention Center Metro Station) and visit our website at FullEqualityNowDC.org for continuing updates.

The most obvious case to point to this week comes straight out of Uganda. There’s been little happening in Uganda recently for international LGBT activists to consider even remotely positive (although I would, and have, argued differently). This is why when a headline pops up in the Ugandan media like “Anti-Gay Meeting Flops,” one tends to take notice.

You see, Pastor Martin Ssempa, a Kampala-based religious leader and HIV/AIDS activist with ties to Rick Warren, had set up a very nice anti-gay meeting in support of Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, complete with two ex-gay speakers. Few of the audience members in attendance, including Ssempa’s two young sons, however, got to hear from the ex-gay man and woman, because they were too busy fleeing the hardcore gay pornography that the pastor had downloaded from the Internet and began playing for the group without warning:

In support of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, Pastor Martin Ssempa of Kampala wanted to make a loud and clear statement that tough penalties are needed against homosexuals in Uganda. So, he decided to show graphic images of people having hardcore gay sex to an invited audience at a press conference that included his two sons, according to The Daily Monitor.

Most of the audience walked out, some of them in tears.

While this bizarre, seemingly self-defeating event is at best a strange anecdote, the fact that Ugandan President Museveni has begun publicly distancing himself from the Anti-Homosexuality Bill due to its disastrous foreign policy and foreign investment implications is a good sign.

Such gaffes can happen outside of the political realm as well. Just ask Paul Richards, the conservative Christian owner of New Zealand’s Club Physical gym franchise (ironic slogan: Where You Belong). In an effort to drum up some responses to his five-year-old, much-ignored email newsletter, Richards included a controversial story:

Club Physical chief executive Paul Richards included a link to an article on the conservative World Net Daily website. He said he was “intrigued” by it and wanted to hear other opinions.

The article, by Jim Rutz, claimed that soy was full of estrogen and this was turning boys gay. Rutz claimed: “Soy is feminising, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality.” He added that homosexuality is “always deviant”.

Well, the newsletter did get a number of responses, but, unfortunately for Richards, they were mostly from clients seeking to cancel their memberships, prompting him to issue a formal apology.

Finally, in the category of “actions that will hopefully one day fall into this category,” Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov has started his annual war on the city’s Pride Parade early this year. As you may remember, this is the mayor who has successfully blocked the parade year after year, and in advance of the proposed May 29, 2010 date for Moscow’s Pride festivities, he spoke out this past Monday:

“For several years, Moscow has experienced unprecedented pressure to conduct a gay pride parade, which cannot be called anything but a Satanic act,” Luzhkov said. “We have prevented such a parade and we will not allow it in the future. Everyone needs to accept this as an axiom.”

“It is high time to crack down on the parade with all the power and justice of the law, instead of talking about human rights.”

Unfortunately for Luzhkov, however, international and domestic attention and pressure has grown each year that he’s denied Pride organizers their rights, and hopefully these strong words and open dismissal of human rights norms will attract enough of a negative outcry that 2010 may be different in Moscow.

So, do you know of any recent anti-gay gaffes we can add to the list? If so, share them in the comments section below!

While these arguments continue to rage on year after year, the beauty pageant model, which originally developed as part of May Day festivities in medieval Europe, is popping up in various countries around the world and is being adapted to accommodate some surprising communities. Many of these events, however, have begun attracting international attention and outcries from individuals inside and outside of these countries.

For example, last year the popularity of beauty pageants in Rwanda gained international media attention. While these events’ organizers claimed that the pageants represented a united Rwanda to the world, others found it troubling that the country was encouraging the judging of physical beauty when, less than 15 years ago, individuals were selected to be killed in a massive genocide partly based on something as arbitrary as the wideness of their nose or how “European” their features were.  Around the same time, in Angola, the first ever Miss Landmine Survivor competition was held. The contest’s European organizers defended the pageant by saying it restored dignity to these maimed women and raised awareness of the issue in the country, while opponents found it exploitative and argued that it actually took attention away from the issue and focused it on the shock value of the event instead. (You can read more about both events here).

With all of this expansion, it was only a matter of time before international pageants became a fixture of the LGBT community. Such pageants for gay men, however, are still a relatively recent phenomenon. The Mr. Gay Europe pageant, for example, has only existed since 2005, though national pageants have existed in countries such as Sweden since 1999. As these events begin to spread to other areas of the globe, particularly countries where homosexuality remains taboo or even illegal, the more their cultural impact must be analyzed.

The global queer community was offered just such an opportunity in the form of the inaugural Mr. Gay China pageant, which was to be held this past Friday. China has made a number of strides in terms of gay rights and queer visibility over the past year, including holding its first Pride events and opening its first state-funded gay bar.  For many international observers, Friday’s event was yet another sign of the country’s tolerance of its LGBT population. Marianne Barriaux, writing for the Agence France-Presse, sure thought so:

Eight Chinese men will strut their stuff in front of hundreds of people Friday at China’s first gay pageant, in a sign of new openness about homosexuality in a nation where it remains largely taboo.

Her own article, however, reveals some troubling attitudes surrounding the event. Take this excerpt, for instance:

“If the winner is some guy who is masculine, caring and a responsible person, this image will help society,” Jiang Bo, 29, one of the contestants from southwestern Sichuan province, told AFP. “Lots of people have misunderstandings about gay people, they think gay people are sissies and feminine. But it’s not true — some of them are very straight-acting, they’re totally responsible just like straight men.”

Oh boy. How’s that for a loaded statement? Some of it may be chocked up to a poor translation, but in a country still just developing an out LGBT community these preferences for “masculine” and “straight-acting” men can easily leave those that differ from this norm feeling left out and even more ostracized from their fellow citizens, gay and straight. As Jean highlighted last week, even countries with more developed queer communities struggle with gender norms and perceptions of masculinity and femininity, so it’s troubling to see these issues taking hold in such a nascent community.

And there are other indications that this event might not have been the best thing for China’s LGBT community right now:

Jiang, a member of the Tujia ethnic minority, says he entered the contest as a personal challenge, but there could be higher stakes. He has not yet come out to his family, and said he hopes they won’t find out because of the pageant, which is being staged at a Beijing club and is being covered mostly by foreign media, according to organisers.

In addition to this young man’s own less-than-ideal situation of participating while still being in the closet, which is his personal business and none of mine, the part that really gets me is the bit about the foreign media coverage. Shanghai’s Pride events last summer, you may remember, were criticized in part for being mostly geared toward foreigners and not the Chinese LGBT community itself. This makes me wonder how much of the movement is actually coming organically from the Chinese people, which in turn makes me more a little concerned for its legitimacy and future prospects.

Ultimately, we’ll never truly know how this event would have impacted China, as the one aspect of the pageant that’s currently garnering the most international attention, ironically, is that the police shut it down before it could actually happen:

The stage was set, the event sold-out. International media cameras lined up along on the catwalk beneath rows of gleaming spotlights, but an hour before the Mr. Gay China pageant was supposed to start, police shut it down… According to Gayographic, police cited lack of proper licensing as a reason to cancel the pageant.

In response to the pageant’s cancellation, it’s organizer said: “I wouldn’t say it’s a step back, but it’s definitely not a step forward.” And so it might ultimately be with the spread of gay pageants around the world: Perhaps their diffusion is not totally damaging, but it also may not be the great leap forward for gay rights and visibility that some would herald it as.

But what do you think, Global Gaze readers? Am I being too hard on LGBT pageants? Too easy? How can they be done right? Can they be done right? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

As I’ve highlighted several times in the past, the latter route was the one taken a lesbian couple in Russia recently, which began a global discussion of the gay rights struggle in that country and even got the European Court of Human Rights to investigate the situation further. In other parts of the world, similar approaches are being taken today by same-sex couples, with varying results. Even more interesting, perhaps, than the outcome of these couples’ individual unions is the effect their actions may have on their entire region and even the international community as a whole.

It was with great happiness that I reported several weeks ago about the first gay marriage in Latin America, which was held in Buenos Aires. As with many victories in the international march towards equality, however, there was almost immediately a setback. Following the city court decision to issue the pair a marriage license, a federal judge overturned that ruling, effectively invalidating Jose Maria Di Bello and Alex Freyre’s marriage. What seemed like a total reversal of fortune turned out to be a minor and temporary setback, as Fabiana Rios, Governor of the southern province of Tierra del Fuego, issued a special decree allowing the two to be married within that jurisdiction. An official bill and Supreme Court ruling in the country on marriage equality has been continually stalled, meaning the couple and Rios have jump started the process and the dialogue as well.

Another instance of a gay couple “going rogue,” so to speak, when it comes to marriage equality, took place smack in the middle of the most currently controversial region of the world in terms of LGBT rights. Across the globe, in Malawi, Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza became the first couple in the nation’s history to take part in a same-sex marriage, which was illegal and therefore symbolic.  This didn’t stop the government from taking notice, however, as the couple was promptly arrested and taken into custody. A judge then denied the two men bail on their charges of public indecency, saying he was doing it for their own good, as “the public out there is angry with them.” Malawi is one of the countries in the world where homosexuality remains illegal and carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. The couple is currently awaiting trial.

While these two weddings ended very differently for the couples involved, their larger implications may in fact be drastically disparate as well. In the case of Argentina, while some political and logistical strategy had to be employed, the event, taken in sum with other advances in Colombia and Mexico City, points to a positive trend for some, and one that might spread beyond just Latin America. Writes David Knowles:

On Monday, two Argentinean men became the first gay couple in Latin America to legally wed. But even as advocates celebrate that milestone, opponents of gay marriage are digging in to blunt the movement’s global momentum. The wedding between Jose Maria Di Bello and Alex Freyre in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina’s southernmost province, was by no means an isolated victory for gay rights groups in Latin America. In 2002, Buenos Aires became the first Latin American city to permit same-sex civil unions. In 2007, Uruguay legalized civil unions for gay and lesbian couples. Ecuador did so in 2008. Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled this year that gay couples must be afforded all of the same rights as straight ones, and last week, Mexico City became the first Latin American capital to pass a law legalizing gay marriage.

As Knowles said, while this progress is hopeful, there’s also evidence that gay rights opponents are also being instigated into action. Malawi has begun cracking down on its LGBT population since the same-sex marriage news broke and, in light of recent pieces of anti-gay legislation introduced in Uganda and Rwanda, international observers are starting to wonder if this might be the beginning of a larger regional clamp down on the rights of sexual minorities. Writing for Newsweek, Kate Dailey analyzes this so-called African Domino Theory:

Still, precedents set in one country can inspire dormant culture wars to flare up anew in surrounding areas, especially when those areas are as connected as those in eastern Africa. Hughes sees that from her vantage point in Nairobi, too. “The law in Uganda is extreme, even by African standards, but the fallout may be a preview of Africa’s own version of a ‘culture war,’ ” she writes. Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and their neighbors are connected by mobile populations and religious networks. As Johnson notes, many influential leaders in Rwanda are, in fact, Ugandan; they grew up in Uganda, speak English, and hear voices like Stephen Langa, Scott Lively, Martin Ssempa, and Rick Warren coming across the airwaves. That even includes Rwandan President Paul Kagame; similarly, his wife grew up in Burundi, then lived in both Kenya and Uganda. The connections are evident on the op-ed pages of Rwanda’s newspapers. “These homos are probably running out of Uganda and coming to Rwanda, where there is no specific law that prohibits them from practicing this forbidden habit,” wrote one contributor to The New Times, Rwanda’s state-owned paper. “Just like Ugandans have passed the antigay bill, Rwandans too should follow this path in order to maintain the intergrity and dignity that we have held for all these decades.” Whether its geopolitical reality or the boldness of its legislation is at root, Uganda is clearly setting an example.

The diffusion of anti-gay sentiments is indeed troubling, but it’s important to remember that this situation could indeed end differently. For more of a discussion on that possibly, read this post I wrote for another publication on this subject.

So, where do you fall on these issues? Is “going rogue” the right way to address marriage inequality, or should international activists be working within the system? Do you feel that opinions are changing one way or another across the globe, or are these merely isolated incidents?

Photo by Carol Kaplanian

Washington, DC, while having the fact that it’s both my home and the political center of the free world going for it, is pretty lacking in the fashion department. In fact, I’d venture to say that the majority of DC residents are aggressively and purposely unfashionable, as if doing one’s part to save the world and wearing running shoes with a suit or pencil skirt are necessarily linked. I know we’re all trying to show how seriously we’re contemplating planetary concerns by not caring about what’s on our backs, but to deny that fashion, like any other area of culture, affects politics or societal norms in a meaningful way is to be willfully ignorant. Considering that industries such as fashion and design are fields in which LGBT people are disproportionately represented (or, at least, recognizable), this interplay is certainly worth thinking about.

While, in general, it’s not particularly revelatory or noteworthy for an individual to be openly gay in the fashion industry in the U.S. and other Western countries, in other parts of the world, especially regions currently negotiating sensitive issues like the acceptance of LGBT peoples and an influx of Western culture, an out homosexual living his or her life openly in any industry can become a force for change.

This has been the experience of Khalid, a young model and writer who is making his mark in the fashion industry while also challenging perceptions about homosexuality in and around the Middle East.

For Khalid, who grew up in Jordan, developing an interest in fashion mirrored his desire to understand who he is and what his place in the world may one day be.

“When I was younger, I wanted to be everything, but I never felt I could be part of anything,” he said recently, via email. “The fashion world interested me earlier in life, then it became a calling, so in one way or another I always wanted to be part of the fashion world. I always say, you end up living what you’re attracted to in life. You are what you want to be.”

When he was 14-years-old he stood head and shoulders above everyone else in his class and was taller than many of the boys in the older grades as well. While his height was initially a source of insecurity for Khalid, when a female friend told him that models are tall and suggested he look into fashion, he knew he had found his life’s work.

“I began modeling slightly thereafter, doing everything from participating in school fashion-related events to modeling for school student magazines and writing for local magazines in Jordan, which I took seriously for a while,” Khalid recalls. “Then I started to consider modeling for my own articles and writing became my ticket into the industry. Combining both was very original for me. I still practice both.”

Photo by Carol Kaplanian

In addition to recently appearing in features in the Dutch magazine Join and the Palestinian magazine Beksoos, Khalid keeps up with his writing by running the online publication My.Kali.mag.

“My.Kali.mag is an LGBT online magazine that speaks to the minds that live in the Middle East or the Arab world,” he explains. “Many LGBT people live in isolation, feeling they’re the only ones who are going through this. In one way or another, the media forces certain images on the public, especially Western images that couldn’t possibly be worn in our culture, which is often opposed to lifestyle differences.

“My.Kali.mag doesn’t force a certain image for others to copy or embrace. The idea of the magazine is to comfort our readers, to let them know what self-love and acceptance are and how to find them. And that is the essence of My.Kali.mag, to know what it really feels like to love yourself and relate to others.”

While Khalid has no interest in imposing his personal style on others, he does take its cultivation very seriously.

“Every style has its own inspirational code, starting with simple basics, moving on to completing the outfit with what’s fashionably and acceptably ‘weird,’ and then ending with original personal touches. Fashion is passion, after all. I like to base my picks on the 80s cool-vibes, which encapsulate my sense of style.”

And his own personal style development has fallen in line recently with that of some parts of Amman, Jordan’s capital city and Khalid’s home. As the city has become more cosmopolitan and open to new fashions, it has also inched its way toward a greater acceptance of LGBT peoples -  an impressive feat in a country where homosexuality is not technically illegal but is still considered highly taboo.

“High street-fashion is what I consider the Ammani look. However, Amman is a very relaxed city; fashion is still green here, which allows new outfitters to pop up effortlessly in their own ways,” Khalid says.

“Jordan is letting the arms of judgment down slowly, giving space for the LBGT community to breathe a little. Social life for LGBT people had progressed much more compared to just a few years back. Gay hangouts and parties are always in reach. But just like any kind of development, it has its pros and cons. The liberated lifestyle that is being embraced here could be taken into the extreme, which Amman may not be ready for. If we forget the conservative environment we still live in, in the longer run it could turn ugly. Don’t get me wrong, if Amman isn’t as open minded as I’m saying, I wouldn’t be here. There’s the sense of decency our culture requires, however, and we shouldn’t pass on that. We need to own respect to demand it.”

Photo by Carol Kaplanian

And how does Khalid feel about being, in one tiny way, a part of that opening up? Of being an openly gay model in the Middle East?

“It’s not as difficult as others may think, but sometimes I get the feeling of ‘What the heck am I doing?’ But when people come up to me at events telling me how inspired they are, then I feel like I must have done something right. But I don’t think my sexuality has affected my life negatively in any way. If anything, my life feels very whole.”

While Khalid is proud to be part of a cultural transformation in Jordan, he’s unsure of how his work can, or should, impact gay politics in the region.

“In our generation everything is possible, but it’s hard to imagine [that fashion can directly influence LGBT politics],” he says. “They’re both in two different categories that can’t be combined in one chapter. Fashion could be influenced by politics, because fashion always loves its opposites, but not the other way around. Right now you can’t be a fashion designer and a politician, although I think it’s a cool idea.

“However, in terms of personal politics, as I recently learned, many designers do let you wear your sexual identity in their own designs, and that could be a statement in and of itself. So in that sense, fashion and design could definitely influence people’s personal politics when it comes to LGBT issues.”