International Humanitarian Organization releases first-of-its-kind glossary of terminology for LGBT individuals

Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration (ORAM) has released a first-of-its-kind glossary of terminology to assist humanitarian professionals to communicate with people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. The 124-page glossary, “Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Gender Expression: Essential Terminology for the Humanitarian Sector” contains the most appropriate and culturally sensitive terms for communicating with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals in five languages.

In most of the world’s languages, terminology related to the lives of LGBT individuals is limited and often times pejorative. Only a small handful of languages contain substantial culturally appropriate lexicons. This phenomenon is largely a function of the cultures in which these languages developed; until very recently, sexual and gender diversity was taboo in virtually all of the world’s cultures. 

“The development of this ground-breaking glossary of LGBT terminology in five distinct languages is designed to benefit the work of humanitarian and refugee professionals around the globe,” continued Grungras. “By providing professionals with this helpful field guide, it will allow them to better address issues unique to LGBT people, encourage truthful self-disclosure and will hopefully create a greater awareness and understanding of the perspectives of those LGBT people with whom they interface with on a daily basis.”   Read more via MileHighGay

South Africa: Imaginative gay rights campaign launched

Scalabrini Centre, a migrant rights and resources organisation, officially launched its ‘Let’s Face It’ campaign in March as part of an effort to promote gay and lesbian rights and highlight emerging hate crimes legislation. They’ve cited the 20th anniversary of South Africa’s Constitution, the first to recognise gay rights, as a fitting time to take up the issue.

In a photo-campaign they call “Pop Up Pride,” starting on Human Rights Day, the Human Rights team at Scalabrini has been taking a rainbow cutout of Africa around various areas in Cape Town.

The board contains information about gay and lesbian rights and why it isn’t Un-African, an idea they say is commonly used to oppose the rights of people with different sexual orientations on the continent. Read more via GroundUp

Spain: 'Imagine Madrid without gays' metro advert sparks row

Madrid locals have been criticizing a poster in the city's metro which asks the public to imagine the city without gay people. The poster, which features shots of the empty streets of the Spanish capital, features the slogan: "Imagine Madrid without gays". 

Rather than the "imagine Madrid without gays" (wouldn’t it be great) as many people have inferred the poster is actually trying to say imagine how terrible Madrid would be without its gay population. The message appears to be a little too subtle, however, and the public have reacted strongly.

"I understand the main goal of the add is to attract attention but this has been done in such an ambiguous way that any homophobic person would feel good about it - 'Let the gays go far away this would be a calmer and nicer city without them," Rion Blake, who tweeted about the advert said.  Read more via the Local

China: For Gay Chinese, getting married means getting creative

Every time Benjamin Zhang talks about marriage, he uses the following words in abundance: "job," "duty," "my parents," "problem," and "urgent".

"The most urgent matter for me now is to find a spouse. I'm not young anymore. I see my peers getting married one by one and having kids, and I have nothing. I just feel very dejected," said the 31-year-old native of the northeastern city of Harbin -- who also admits he loves children and hopes to have his own one day. "When I'm married and have a child, I'd have done my job as a son. That's most important for me."

Benjamin shares the anxiety of millions other bachelors in China, where it's almost a given that people of a marriageable age set off to start a family.

But unlike most of them, Benjamin is looking for a lesbian wife. Benjamin is gay, and he's trying to obtain a xinghun - a new Chinese term coined to describe a "cooperative marriage" between a gay man and a lesbian woman. The marriage, essentially, is a sham: both the husband and wife continue to have their own same-sex partners and may not even live together. Read more via the Atlantic 

Sweden: Government to pay compensation to trans people who were ‘forcibly sterilized’

The Swedish government will shell out compensation to transgender people who were victims of forced sterilization, the country’s public health minister has confirmed.

Until 2013, Swedish law specified that people who wanted to change legal gender had to be “lacking the ability to procreate”. This meant that hundreds of transgender people were forced to undergo surgery to prevent them from ever having children.
More than 160 victims of the policy brought a claim against the government over the practice – and after a long political battle lasting years, the Swedish government confirmed it would settle the case and pay out compensation.

In a statement, Public Health minister Gabriel Wikström confirmed that the government will develop legislation in order to allow compensation to be paid. Read more via PinkNews

Malaysia: Learn from Filipino counterparts and engage with LGBT community, local police told

A transgender rights group told local police today to engage with the LGBTQ community here, highlighting the Philippines police force that has undergone sensitisation training with such groups.

Justice for Sisters expressed concern that Deputy Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Datuk Seri Noor Rashid Ibrahim’s statement about not allowing openly LGBT people into the force, even if they are qualified, would further perpetuate homophobia and transphobia among police officers.

The group highlighted a report by international rights group Human Rights Watch that documented claims of police actions against trans people, such as sexual violence, arbitrary arrests based on gender identity, arbitrary urine tests, extortion of money or sexual avours, and lack of urgency and bias in investigating police reports lodged by transgender people. Read more via Malay Mail Online

Beyond Binary across the world

In communities around the globe, non-binary people are rejecting the categories of ‘male’ and ‘female’, and attempting to redefine gender identity. Queer, gender-queer, gender-fluid, gender-variant, third gender – these are all terms non-binary people use to describe themselves.

In Beyond Binary, for the Identity Season on the BBC World Service, Linda Pressly hears stories from activists who are part of this contemporary movement, and from those simply trying to live free from the constraints of the expectations of gender. And she travels to Thailand and Canada to find out more about gender non-conformers in ancient cultures. Read/Watch more

India: Why terms like ‘transgender’ don’t work for #India’s ‘third-gender’ communities

Indian society, if we can momentarily suppose such a monolithic entity, is far older than the post-Victorian, normative society that defines the modern cultures of the West. People we might consider transgender have existed across societies for as long as they themselves have existed, but in South Asia they have formed distinct communities with histories and mythologies that go back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Age-old texts such as the "Mahabharata" and the "Kama Sutra" refer to eunuchs, and there are tales of gods — even the most powerful of them — who change genders on a whim.

That is partly why the term "transgender" is seldom used in the Indian context. In Indian legalese, the term most commonly employed is "third gender" — as when, two Aprils ago, India's "third gender" was acknowledged by the country's Supreme Court, which stated that "it is the right of every human being to choose their gender." Those wishing to can now indicate that status on government-issued identification and other formal documents, but, more importantly, Indian states were directed to afford special considerations through affirmative action and welfare programs.

In everyday usage, however, terms such as "hijra," "kothi," "kinnar," "shiv-shakti" and "aravani" are more common, depending on which region of the country one is in.  Read more via Washington Post