If you asked me a multiple-choice question in 2015 about where we would be in 2023, fighting tooth and nail to win over basic rights for the LGBTQ+ community would not even have been an option under it. Because you would only assume that by now, a fair amount of headway might have been made and that LGBTQ+ would have won at least half of the battle.
However, reading a news article about how the Hungarian right-wing government has imposed a rule which required bookstores to segregate and place books that depict homosexuality in closed packaging, proved otherwise. Apparently, some bookstores have even been heftily fined for not abiding by the law.
The current stance that the world is taking on LGBTQ+ remains ambiguous, which is more harmful than not. The more ambiguous the laws and regulations for and against it are, the easier it is for authorities and governments to manipulate them based on whims and fancies. This is not to say that even amidst such gimmicks there is no progress. Of course, there is. However, each of those progress stories is followed by a ‘but’ that takes away from the satisfaction of the achievement. Despite all of that, many believe that when analysing and tracking the global direction of travel of LGBTQ+ communities, there is reason to be optimistic and hope for more.
More progress or more challenges?
The year 2023 has seen quite a bit of bright spots when it came to the progression of LGBTQ+ rights around the world. As of pride month, five more countries had decriminalised consensual same-sex relations. This included three Caribbean states: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, and St. Kitts and Nevis. The High Court of Justice for Antigua and Barbuda repudiated colonial-era laws that were outrageously discriminatory. The reason why they rejected such laws was because the laws denied same-sex relations their liberty, protection of the law, freedom of expression, protection of personal privacy, and safety from discrimination. However, while same-sex relations are decriminalised in 134 countries, only 34 of them allow same-sex marriages to take place.
Another remarkable win that was celebrated was when after dozens of years of trying and failed court challenges, activists in Singapore were able to heave a sigh of relief, albeit partially. This is because Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong declared that Singapore would revoke a penal code provision that banned gay sex. The reason why it was dubbed as a partial win was because in the same breath the Prime Minister also introduced a constitutional amendment to limit marriage to heterosexual couples.
Interestingly, even Sri Lanka had made an advancement where the Supreme Court and parliament members had agreed to stand for and not against a private member bill. This bill sought to revoke the colonial-era law that had declared same-sex relationships illegal.
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What is interesting about post-colonial countries that enter the debate of should LGBTQ+ rights be realised or not is that they come with the preconceived notion that this is an imperialist agenda. So, in the hope of being anti-imperialist and retaining their nationalistic identity, they seem to withdraw from making progress that goes all the way. And instead, settle for an abridged or a restrained progression.
While all of these were about decriminalising same sex-marriages, Spain turned over a new leaf in February 2023 by passing clear legislation to advance the rights of LGBTQI persons – specifically their identity. Apart from the comprehensive details that were provided that left no room for doubt or unfair exploitation of the law, they also went the distance and included a provision that permitted legal gender recognition. This is a significant victory because it gives leeway for the community to self-identify with the gender that they prefer and does not negate the existence of diverse genders.
Furthermore, South Korea made a huge leap in terms of recognising same-sex couples. This country has been stubbornly withholding itself from giving the basic recognition that gay couples deserve so far. For everyone’s relief, in February a South Korean court ruled that the health benefits that a same-sex couple receives through the National Health Insurance Service should be on par with what different-sex couples receive. This will go down in history as the first time that any court in South Korea endorsed the rights of a same-sex couple.
These achievements clearly illustrate that despite significant setbacks and political homophobia, there has been notable progress in how the world is perceiving the LGBTQ+ communities.
Nevertheless, every step that is taken forward is often attacked by things that can be quite discouraging. Because if you place the progression against the regression, the latter seems to be threatening to take all the progress that the LGBTQ+ community has made back to square one. Some may claim that this is a jaded opinion. But if you simply Google the battles won by LGBTQ+, amidst the victories, there will appear more than a few handfuls of heart-breaking stories.
To give you perspective, one of the most recent headlines posted on NBC news reads: “British chain Costa Coffee faces boycott calls over transgender illustration”. An angry bunch of anti-LGBTQ social media users is threatening to boycott the world’s second-largest coffee chain. The reason being? A photo of one of its mobile coffee vans which had a mural of a transgender person has been circulating on the internet and apparently, it has offended some of their customers. They had gone so far as to come up with a hashtag that read #BoycottCostaCoffee. The protestors were angry over an illustration on a coffee van. It may sound unbelievable that something as petty as that may trigger someone But, unfortunately that is how the world seems to be functioning.
While the LGBTQ+ community is tirelessly fighting to be identified and recognised under the law so that they would not be criminalised on unfair grounds, the backlash that they get that has seemingly no gravity could harm their journey in more ways than one. This is why one could argue that the way that the world is reacting to concerns regarding the LGBTQ+ community is ambiguous, to say the least. The LGBTQ+ community deserves a pat on the back and a standing ovation for breaking these barriers and setbacks and going ahead, despite it all. Kudos to them! However, humanity must understand one important fact. The LGBTQ+ community should have the leeway, freedom, and basic human right to have the cake and eat it too.
(Sandunlekha Ekanayake)