Staff Writer Sofia Montagna attended a talk discussing the rights of nonbinary people globally. Editor’s warning: mentions of transphobia and violence.

On Monday, March 6, the Human Rights Working Group, Spectrum, and the Institute of Latin American Studies presented “Transgender Rights Around the World”—a talk on the state of LGBTQ+ rights globally in the International Affairs Building. Four speakers—human rights activists from Brazil, South Africa, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—gave students an overview of cultural and systemic barriers to human rights as well as progress made towards equality.

The speakers, who asked to be left anonymous so as not to face persecution in their home countries, painted a picture of the violence, limited access to healthcare, legal discrimination, hateful rhetoric, and sociopolitical barriers faced by the gender nonbinary community.

According to the first speaker, Brazil has high rates of violence against transgender and queer people relative to other countries. Although transphobia has been criminalized in Brazil since 2019, Brazil led the list of the largest number of transgender and queer people murdered in the world for the 13th consecutive year in 2021. However, she reported that, amid this violence, the past ten years have seen significant progress towards equality: improvements in public health have increased individuals’ options for exploring their identities (i.e. increased access to hormone therapy), and a shift in the public mindset towards transgender individuals is underway.

The second speaker reported limited access to healthcare in South Africa as a barrier to equality—much of the population can’t afford the psychological evaluations the country requires for attaining gender recognition. 

According to the third speaker, Ethiopia has seen a rise in anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, thus dehumanizing the transgender community. However, increased exposure to media has helped people in Ethiopia gain exposure to a wider variety of gender identities: the speaker reported their culture is “trying to discover, in terms of language, how can we as individuals re-identify ourselves?”

The last speaker, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, echoed the previous activists’ reports of limited access to healthcare, noting that hospitals in the Democratic Republic don’t recognize gender nonbinary identities. Furthermore, they reported transgender women’s lack of access to education and a space to share their experiences with sexual assault. However, amid this grim picture, they noted that the American Bar Association and the IMA World Organization are providing legal and mental health support for victims of sexual assault and other discrimination in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A Q&A followed the talk, giving students the opportunity to ask questions about global human rights, grassroots organizations’ efforts, and the speakers’ personal inspirations for joining their activist organizations. In light of increasing violations of gender nonbinary peoples’ rights globally, the work these activists are doing “is important work,” one of the speakers told us; LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.

IAB via Bwog Archives