Gender & Minorities

The horrific shootings targeting the LGBTI community in the United States sent a chilling message that was heard with crystal clarity around the world.

The 47-member Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council has adopted a landmark resolution on “Protection Against Violence and Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity”.

In much of the world, organizations working with gender and sexual minorities (GSM) have never had an open space to work in. For these groups, the idea of “closing space” is not a shift—it’s been their daily reality for decades.

It was in Louisville, Kentucky, that I first encountered the problem that ultimately – but remotely – resulted in the tragic deaths of five policemen in Dallas, Texas, last week.

The problem? The hostility between Black men (especially young ones) and white police officers.

On June 13, when a judge in Oregon allowed a person to legally choose neither sex and be classified as “nonbinary,” transgender activists rejoiced.

June is Gay Pride Month and it is a good time as any to bring attention to the 35^th anniversary of the 1981 bathhouse raids in Toronto, which gave rise to the queer liberation movement in Canada.

When the swollen bodies of ten sex workers in the town of Nakuru, Kenya, were discovered in the fall of 2015, showing signs of torture and ritualistic killing, police did practically nothing to solve these serial murders.

1. Introduction

Black Music Month is going unnoticed by President Barack Obama. President Barack Hussein Obama, the first African president of the United States, will be remembered for bombing Libya and murdering its leader Muammar Gaddafi. Libya is not in the Middle East.

I had to go to India. Believe it or not, it was my first time – at the age of 25. I had to go; I had to go alone; and I had to go now. My entire life I have struggled with my ethnic identity, and with a lack of that feeling of belonging to a people or a place.