Defend LGBTQIA+ Rights! Fight for Equality and #SRHR4All

“Pride is a protest and we need to protest now more than ever.”

On June 12, the fourth anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting which claimed the lives of 49 individuals, including many queer and trans people, the Trump administration moved forward with a policy that would roll back healthcare discrimination protections for LGBTQIA+ people under the Affordable Care Act. 

The new administrative rule of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) enables health care providers to deny care to anyone they perceive as trans or gay. It will allow hospitals to house trans women and men according to their birth-assigned sex, or condition emergency treatment on the stoppage of cross-sex hormones. It would also allow insurance companies to reinstate blanket bans on transition-related care like gender-affirming surgery or hormone replacement therapy.

The same administrative rule allows healthcare workers, hospitals and insurance companies that receive federal funding to refuse provision of safe abortion services. This follows a previous attack by the Trump administration on sexual and reproductive health and rights through a letter from Acting USAID Administrator John Barsa’s to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres demanding that the United Nations remove reference to “sexual and reproductive health” from the Global Humanitarian Response Plan’s (HRP) guidance on COVID-19. 

The Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights condemns the Trump administration’s egregious moves to deny essential health services to persons of various sexual orientation and gender identity and expression (SOGIE) amid an ongoing public health crisis and during Pride month no less.

We condemn, as well, other governments and state entities using this pandemic as a pretext to rollback on women and LGBTQIA+ rights. Decades of struggle for LGBTQIA+ and SRHR and conservative and repressive states and entities continue to harass women and LGBTQIA+ for claiming their civil and political rights. 

Last March 29, Ugandan police raided the shelter of Children of the Sun Foundation Uganda (Cosf Uganda), a local LGBT organisation on the outskirts of the Ugandan capital, Kampala, charging 23 LGBT Ugandans with disobeying a presidential directive against large meetings. The LGBT community members were beaten and forced to take a “walk of shame” through the village from their shelter to Nkokonjeru Police Post, a 20 minute-drive from Kampala City.

Last March 31, the Hungarian government submitted a bill to parliament that, among other things, would  make it impossible for transgender people to legally change their gender. It was unclear when parliament might debate and vote on the bill. 

The pandemic has also not delayed the Puerto Rico government in passing a new Civil Code which, according to many human rights groups, follows suit with Trump administration policies by infringing on the gains of women and LGBTQI+ people by giving rights to fetuses, limiting people’s ability to amend their birth certificates in ways that are consistent with their gender identities and failing to explicitly prohibit discrimination.

Yesterday, the Philippine National Police arrested 29 individuals, majority of which are members of to LGBTQIA+ organisation Bahaghari and allied progressive organisations, for staging a protest activity in commemoration of Pride month. The protestors were forcefully taken by the police without proper charges or citation of their violations.

Religious leaders and politicians from all over the globe have also directed blame on the LGBTQIA+ community for the global outbreak of COVID-19. The UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights cites a case in Iraq of a Shia Cleric warning that “COVID-19 would not subside unless governments repealed laws legalising same-sex marriages”. The OHCHR also cited a similar appeal made by a Carribean Cayman Islands legislator who said that disasters and epidemics are “warnings from God not to allow same-sex marriage”.

In South Korea, known for their effective response to COVID-19, a Christian newspaper prompted fears of a second wave of outbreak by falsely reporting that the few dozen new cases associated with nightclubs in the Itaewon area were gay venues.

In Israel, a Rabbi also attacked Pride by calling celebrations, “parades against nature,” and stated that the coronavirus is the “revenge” for such activities.

This Pride month, WGNRR joins all progressive groups in defending LGBTQIA+ rights and sustaining the call for #SRHR4All. We join many groups in recognizing Pride’s roots as a solidarity movement protesting against sexist, homophobic, transphobic, racist, fascist and repressive forces, asserting equal rights for all, and celebrating diversity in the fullest sense of the word. 

Pride is a protest and we need to protest now more than ever.

Finally, we fully commit to the mutual struggles of the Reproductive Justice and LGBTQIA+ movements as they continue to work together, not only in recognition of common enemies, but on the basis of intersectionality and a common understanding of human rights as universal and inalienable, indivisible,  interdependent and interrelated.

#Pride2020 #FreePride20 #SRHR4All #NoLockdownonRights