Communities across the globe are marking Pride Month in June, after a year in which several countries have passed legislation affecting the rights of LGBTQ+ people.
“The past year has witnessed an ever-increasing sense of othering, exclusion, and discrimination faced by LGBTI people from the USA to Uganda,” Nadia Rahman, Amnesty International’s researcher and adviser on sexual orientation and gender identity, said in an email. “There is a roll back of their human rights.”
Here’s how life has changed for LGBTQ+ people in parts of the world:
Demonstrators gather on the steps to the State Capitol to speak against transgender-related legislation bills being considered in the Texas Senate and House, May 20, 2021, in Austin, Texas. AP Photo/Eric Gay, File
U.S. sees GOP-led wave of bills targeting transgender rights
More anti-LGBTQ+ bills passed into state law in the first four months of this year than at any other time in U.S. history, a Washington Post analysis found. Many of these laws focused on transgender rights, and were signed into law either by Republican governors or GOP legislatures that overrode Democratic governors’ vetoes.
The American Civil Liberties Union has tracked almost 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in states across the country so far this year, and notes that “while not all of these bills will become law, they all cause harm for LGBTQ+ people.”
In May, North Dakota banned schools from adopting policies requiring the use of transgender students’ pronouns, and required educators to inform parents or guardians if their child identifies as transgender. Indiana has also enacted similar legislation.
Lawmakers in Texas also voted to ban gender-affirming care, such as puberty-suppressing drugs, to children. If and when Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signs the bill into law, Texas will join at least 17 other states with similar bans, according to the Associated Press.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has signed into law a number of bills targeting LGBTQ+ rights, including expanding an existing ban to prevent the teaching of gender and sexual orientation — which originally applied from kindergarten to the third grade — to all grades in K-12 public schools, and preventing transgender people from using many bathrooms that match their gender identity.
President Joe Biden has described anti-transgender legislation in Florida as “close to sinful.” In December, he also signed the Respect for Marriage Act, granting federal protections to same-sex and interracial couples, in response to the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in many states.
Ugandan MP John Musila wears clothes with an anti-LGBTQ message March 21 as he enters the Parliament to vote on a harsh new anti-gay bill. Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni has signed into law tough new anti-gay legislation supported by many in the country but widely condemned by rights activists and others abroad, it was announced May 29. AP file photo
Uganda enacts death penalty for ‘aggravated homosexuality’
Uganda’s president this week enacted a law that includes life imprisonment for same-sex activity and even imposes the death penalty in some cases.
The law would punish with death those found guilty of “aggravated homosexuality,” a broadly defined category that includes seducing someone through “misrepresentation” or “undue influence.” It also calls for a 20-year sentence for “promoting” homosexuality, according to Reuters.
Rights activists said the move signaled an escalating crackdown on LGBTQ+ communities in the East African nation, where same-sex activity has long been punishable under laws dating back to British colonial statutes.
The U.N. human rights commissioner Volker Türk described the legislation as “among the worst of its kind in the world.” His office said its passage into law was “a recipe for systematic violations of the rights of LGBT people and the wider population.”
Bulgaria bans changing legal gender
Bulgaria’s Supreme Court issued a ruling in February barring people from legally changing their gender.
The decision in Bulgaria means transgender people cannot change their registered gender on government-issued documents in the Balkan nation, where same-sex marriage remains unrecognized.
Only a few governments allow legal gender change by self-declaration, which means it does not require state or medical intervention, such as undergoing surgery or psychological assessments. They include Denmark, Argentina and, as of February, Spain.
Pakistan’s Islamic court tries to roll back law protecting trans people
In May, the Federal Shariat Court — a religious court that is part of the top rung of the country’s judiciary — ruled that key provisions of a landmark 2018 law that ensured transgender rights were “un-Islamic.”
The 2018 legislation banned discrimination against trans people and protects their access to legal recognition, among other rights. Uzma Yaqoob, founder and executive director of Pakistani trans rights group Forum for Dignity Initiative, hailed Pakistan for “leading in the region” on the issue of trans rights at the time.
The May ruling rejected parts of the law recognizing a transgender person’s identity, their right to obtain a driving license or passport, and their right to inherit. Trans rights activists plan to appeal the sharia court’s decision to Pakistan’s Supreme Court, the AP reported.
But even with the legal protections the 2018 law offered, discrimination and even violence has remained widespread in the country, with seven transgender women killed in 2022 in the conservative Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province alone, according to Human Rights Watch.
Laura Gil, center, stands with her mother Lisset Diaz Vallejo, center, Oct. 21 outside the the notary office after her mother married her partner Liusba Grajales, right, in Santa Clara, Cuba. The couple, which has been together for seven years, said they considered marriage a way to also protect their children if something were to ever happen to them. The new Family Code opened up everything from equal marriage to surrogate mothers. AP file photo
Cuba allows same-sex marriage
In September, Cuba held a landmark referendum which gave same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt, as part of an overhaul to its family law.
Two-thirds of voters on the island accepted the changes, which had been rejected in another referendum several years earlier.
The country’s one-party communist government, which once sent gay men to forced labor camps, championed the changes in the 2022 referendum, with President Miguel Díaz-Canel saying: “Voting ‘yes’ is saying yes to unity, to the revolution, to socialism.”
Cuba wasn’t the only country in Latin America that moved to protect LGBTQ+ rights over the past year: In May, Mexico issued its first passports with a nonbinary option, in a move the country’s foreign minister described as “a great leap for people’s freedom and dignity.” According to the government, it became the 16th country in the world to do so.
Taiwan grants same-sex couples adoption rights
Taiwan passed legal amendments in May granting same-sex couples the right to adoption, lifting what advocates had described as a lingering hurdle toward marriage equality.
Taiwan’s legislature in 2019 became the first in Asia to vote to recognize same-sex marriage and, in the four years since then, the self-governing island has become a regional leader in LGBTQ+ rights.
Until this year same-sex couples could not jointly adopt children that were not biologically related to either of them. Taiwanese LGBTQ+ organizations welcomed the change as a big step toward protecting the rights of gay people and promoting gender equality.
In January, the government decided to allow Taiwanese people to marry a foreigner of the same sex, even if the spouse is from a jurisdiction where same-sex marriage is illegal. The directive does not apply to same-sex partners from China, which claims the island as its own territory.
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