May 17 – International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia

Know more about IDAHOT here: http://dayagainsthomophobia.org/

May 17 was first known as the “International Day against Homophobia” and mainstreamed through its acronym “I.DA.HO”
In 2009, Transphobia was added explicitly in the title of the name, in the recognition of the very different issues at stake between sexual orientation and gender expression. “IDAHOT” became another popular acronym used alongside the initial one.
Since 2015, biphobia is added to the title, to acknowledge the specific issues faced by bisexual people.

At the level of our Committee, we have kept the acronym ‘IDAHOT’, which we’ve been consolidating for years. We acknowledge this is an imperfect solution, but a necessity for communications consistency. We totally support other organisations who adapt the name of the day to their contexts and their priorities. In the UK for examples, the Day is increasingly known as IDAHOBiT*, in Latin America Lesbophobia is almost systematically included and placed first, etc.

To ensure even more inclusion and reflect the diversity of sexual and gender minorities, we have created at global level the baseline “A global celebration of sexual and gender diversities”. This is probably the only “solution” to the issue of inclusion and reflection of other diversities, such as Queer, Asexual, Pansexual and regional identities such as Hijras, Weres, Two-Spirit, etc.

The Day is not one central trademarked brand and everyone is free to communicate as they wish. This creates inconsistency but this is the cost to bear for large ownership.

*Consultations on the name with activists in 120 countries have concluded that the reference to hobbits might be clever for some parts of the world, but were seen elsewhere as an imposition of Western . In many places where people are facing daily life threats, this proposal was considered highly inappropriate.