Tag: Gay rights

Trans rights in Europe: Where does your country stand?

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While a number of European nations have been praised by leading trans organisations for their commitment to improving rights for the marginalised group, others – including Slovakia and the UK – have been told they still have a long way to go.

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Rights for transgender people are always a hot topic of discussion – dividing friends, colleagues and ruining the legacies of the rich and famous.

This week in Japan, the Asian nation’s Supreme Court ruled that a law requiring transgender people to have their reproductive organs removed in order to officially change their gender was unconstitutional.

The decision, made by the top court’s 15-judge Grand Bench, was its first on the constitutionality of Japan’s 2003 law requiring the removal of reproductive organs for a state-recognised gender change – a practice long criticised by international rights and medical groups.

Closer to home, the picture is not much clearer – and equally as divisive.

While a recent report from Transgender Europe (TGEU) showed the European approach to transgender rights has made positive progress, there is also a notable increase concerning anti-trans backlash from some governments and a number of media outlets.

While there has been progress in implementing more rights for trans people in Europe during 2022 and 2023, that only builds on 2022’s return to progress which followed years of decreasing levels of rights.

It’s not an entirely positive picture, though.

TGEU say the risk of regression and anti-trans backlash across swathes of the continent remains a pressing issue for the community.

Slovakia is, they say, in particular danger of further regression.

Debates there have been raging over the possibility of banning legal gender recognition.

Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Belarus and Bulgaria are also widely considered to be weak when it comes to the protection of trans people.

At the other end of the scale, countries praised for their development of trans rights were Spain, Moldova, Andorra, Finland and Iceland.

This year, Iceland managed to overtake Malta to be listed at the top of the ranking.

Spain has made huge changes too, with its far-reaching law covering employment, protections for trans migrants and discrimination based on gender expression.

That law means that the southern European nation has adopted legal gender recognition based on self-determination.

While there has been some criticism that nonbinary people were left out of the legal gender recognition change, Spain’s move means that 11 countries across Europe now have a form of ‘Self-ID’ – or, in layman’s terms, a self-determination-based legal gender recognition model.

The UK is very much seen as lagging behind more progressive countries in Europe.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been accused of mocking trans people and his government is set to push ahead with plans to ban gay and trans conversion practices.

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Senior Conservatives have spoken about their concern that the issue might split the party on the issue. Some MPs have expressed worry that an outright ban on trans conversion practices specifically could unintentionally criminalise parents or teachers who give advice to children struggling with their gender identities.

Earlier this year, Westminster blocked a bill supporting Self-ID passed by the devolved Scottish government. There have been cries of discrimination over that decision and it is currently going through the courts.

Interestingly, less secular countries including Spain and Greece have also made strides on banning so-called ‘conversion therapy’ on grounds of gender identity and Moldova has moved to protect trans people from discrimination as well as hate crimes and speech.

On the whole, it seems as if the move toward trans acceptance is going in the right direction, but as Nadya Yurinova from TGEU tells Euronews, there is still more to be done.

“Ideally, all countries should start with legal gender recognition and access to trans-specific healthcare for all, especially for further marginalised groups at the intersections with refugees, BIPOC, asylum seekers and disabled people communities. We also call for trans-informed journalism and public awareness about trans lives; the discrimination and violence trans people face on a daily basis,” Yurinova explains.

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In a report seen by Euronews, TGEU criticises many EU member states as “failing to meet their obligations to trans people”.

They say nine countries – Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, France, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Romania – fail to provide asylum protection and that this is in violation of EU law. TGEU believes that by upholding rigid rules for asylum seekers from diverse – particularly trans – backgrounds, the individuals in question are immediately at a disadvantage when it comes to being accepted into a new country.

That seems to be only one issue concerning those who speak out on behalf of the trans community.

Pekka Rantala, who is the chairperson of SETA – Finland’s oldest and most prominent LGBTI rights organisation – tells Euronews the situation is bleak, even in the progressive Nordic nation.

“Based on my experience in Finland and discussing with LGBTIQA+ activists around the world the situation around hate-speech continues to be bad. Based on that, I would say the situation continues as it was in 2022,” he says.

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Rantala explains that conservatism in politics and “aggressive social media approaches taken by anti-trans groups” are to blame, but believes there is hope for the future for the trans community.

“General awareness raising campaigns for the public, training for officials and media, prevention and combating hate speech and making sure proper safeguards are in place to prevent discrimination in the society are key actions to take,” he says.

“These actions would both make society more aware and understanding of the trans community but would also allow an often strained – if not severed – bond between the trans community and wider society to begin healing,” Rantala adds.



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The UK moves to ban conversion therapy. Which EU countries lag behind?

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Only seven countries in Europe have imposed bans on conversion therapy, the controversial practice trying to “cure” LGBTQ+ people from their sexual orientation and gender identity.

After years of failed attempts and unkept promises, the UK is getting closer to finally banning conversion therapy.

Conversion therapy, the practice of forcing gay, lesbians, queer, and trans people into emotionally and physically harmful practices to “cure” their attraction to the same sex or “fix” their gender identity, is fully banned in only seven countries in Europe.

Across the majority of the continent the practice is generally condemned, but technically still legal.

Even as the European Parliament voted 435-109 to adopt a text condemning practices trying to “cure” queer people from their sexual orientation and gender expression, attempts to ban conversion therapy in countries like Austria, the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands have repeatedly failed.

But in the UK, a bill to ban the controversial practice has finally landed on the prime minister’s desk, according to Paul Brand, an ITV reporter who’s been tracking the issue for the past five years.

“It’s been a long journey to get to this point,” Robbie de Santos, Director of External Affairs at LGBTQ+ rights group Stonewall in the UK, told Euronews. “It’s almost exactly five years since the ban was first promised. It’s very much a wait-and-see moment now.”

Does conversion therapy still exist?

When people think of conversion therapy, they think of the 1950s, de Santos said, when people were kept against their will in institutions where they received electroshock therapy.

“There are many people still alive today in our community who’ve been through that, but it’s really important to understand that conversion therapies are a broader concept, which includes practices hiding almost in plain sight in society,” de Santos explained.

Conversion therapy today takes place in family, religious, and psychiatric settings – and it’s much more common than the stigma around it would suggest.

“We know that 7% of the LGBTQ+ population in the UK has been offered or has undergone conversion therapy, and that goes up to 13% of trans people,” he said, adding that trans people are almost twice as likely to have been offered or have experienced conversion therapy.

De Santos knows many people who have experienced conversion therapy in the UK and abroad. He says the practice has caused significant harm to these people, often breaking the trust they had in their families, traumatising them, forcing them to repress their identity and suppress joy.

“In so many cases, it has a long-term impact on people,” he said. “It leads into a suicidal space. And some people do end up taking their lives.”

Where has a ban already been implemented?

The first European country to ban conversion therapy was Malta, which did so in 2016 — four years before two other countries, Germany and Albania, dared to follow in the same direction.

Malta, which was named the best European country for LGBTQ+ rights by advocacy group ILGA-Europe in both 2015 and 2023, voted in 2016 to pass a law dictating that anyone who tries to “change, repress or eliminate a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression” will be fined or even jailed. Fines can reach up to €10,000 and possible jail time up to one year.

Germany banned conversion therapy for minors in 2020 and for non-consenting adults in 2021. Since then, “medical interventions aimed at deliberately changing or suppressing the sexual orientation or self-perceived gender identity of a person, and the advertisement of such therapies” have been forbidden in the country.

Under German law, the practice can be punished with a prison sentence of up to a year in case a minor is involved, or a fine up to €30,000. Adults who willingly decide to subject themselves to conversion therapy can still legally do so.

Albania also banned conversion therapy in 2020, but only for minors.

In France, conversion therapy was banned in January 2022, when the National Assembly voted unanimously to approve the new law, with a 142-0 vote. Anyone found to practice conversion therapy can be sentenced to up to two years in jail or face a fine of €30,000, which can be increased to €45,000 in case a minor is involved.

In the same year Greece also banned conversion therapy. In May, the country passed an amendment to an already existing law making “treatments or conversion practices” aimed at suppressing someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity was passed for minors only. Consenting adults can legally subject themselves to such a practice.

Spain banned conversion therapy in any form in February this year, as part of a new legislation package allowing gender self-determination, introducing menstrual leave, and making access to abortion easier.

In May, Cyprus joined the short list of European countries which have already banned conversion therapy, after 36 members of parliament out of a total of 50 voted to pass the new bill into law.

Why are other countries lagging behind?

Several countries are considering banning conversion therapy, including Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and the UK. But previous attempts have failed for a number of reasons, often political.

Last week, Austria’s conservative-Green government was meant to push forward a new bill in the country’s parliament, but the law was blocked due to disagreements around whether trans people should also be protected by a ban on conversion therapy.

Austrian Justice Minister Alma Zadić of the Greens rejected a proposal from conservatives to pass the ban for sexual orientation only, calling it “a sham solution which does not protect all people of the LGBTQ+ community from these ‘pseudo-therapies’.”

Belgium’s State Secretary for Gender Equality, Equal Opportunity and Diversity announced a conversion therapy ban in late 2022, but the ban is yet to formally be introduced.

The Netherlands introduced a bill to ban the practice in February 2022, but it failed to pass, with the Council of State saying it breached the constitutional right to religious freedom and did not consider adults who might voluntarily choose to be subjected to the practice.

The issue of consenting adults is a sticking point for the UK too, de Santos said. “It would be a waste of parliamentary time to pass a law that includes such a gaping loophole as allowing adults to consent to conversion practices,” he argued.

“What is consent when a practice is abusive? Can you consent to rape, for example? It’s a huge legal grey area,” he added. “We’ve got to make sure that it’s absolutely crystal clear that conversion therapy is simply abusive and has no place at all in society.”



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Uganda activists call on EU to cut off aid after anti-LGBT+ law

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Uganda’s LGBT community are living “in total fear” after a new bill was passed last month making it illegal to identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. 

Penalties include life in prison or even a death sentence in come cases. 

Now activists are calling on the European Union to stop sending aid to the African nation, and use it instead as leverage for greater human rights protections. 

Edward Mutebi, a Ugandan citizen residing in Germany, told Euronews that the bill was passed in the Ugandan parliament “in a spirit of hypocrisy […] with hatred, anger and misinformation,” and that persecution of the LGBT community was already increasing ahead of the vote. 

Ugandan religious leaders have ratcheted up the rhetoric, calling for for LGBT individuals to be killed, Mutebi said, “and the effect on the community has been really, really bad.”

“Imagine we’ve been suffering from persecution before, but now it’s on another level,” he told Euronews. 

“They’re calling for our extinction, they want to round up everyone who identifies as gay and put them in prison for life. Some people are even calling for the castration of homosexuals,” he continued. “We’re worried about what’s coming next.”

Cries for help from the community

The NGO which Mutebi founded,  ‘Let’s Walk Uganda‘, has been flooded with calls for help from the LGBT community for months, with people seeking advice on how to leave the country and go to Kenya — although issues related to LGBT rights have also been at the centre of a recent debate in the neighbouring country.

“There’s one phone call I received which drew me to tears,” Mutebi said. 

“A boy of 17 who told his family he was gay and was thrown out of his home. He’s now living in the street. But you can’t even engage as an organisation, this is a minor, and you’d be arrested.”

Mutebi fears that an already terrible situation might soon get even worse. “ We’ve received stories of people being attacked, undressed, beaten up, and even castrated,” he said. “And that was before the bill was even passed. […] We can’t see this happening in the modern era, that people can be put in prison for life just because they love each other.” 

Calls to withdraw EU aid

One tactict that Mutebi thinks would make Uganda’s government reconsider the laws is if the EU withdrew aid. 

Stopping funds would “definitely be very helpful” in challenging the anti-gay policies, he said. 

Uganda, traditionally one of the largest recipients of international aid, has already seen its generous aid budget being significantly cut in 2014 after President Yoweri Museveni — who was once seen as an example of enlightened African leadership — signed a law which made homosexuality a crime punishable with life imprisonment in the East African country. 

Initially, the bill — known as the ‘kill-the-gays’ bill — wanted homosexuality to be considered a crime punishable by death. It was later amended after receiving widespread condemnation.

Back in 2014, the EU decided against cutting aid to Uganda or imposing sanctions on the country in response to the violations of LGBTQ+ rights in Uganda, preferring to exert social public pressure on the country through political dialogue rather than material pressure.

The lack of material pressure was contested by some members of the European Parliament, but others feared that cutting funding to the Ugandan government might make the situation for LGBT people in the country even more difficult; while still other MEPs were concerned that any sanctions imposed on the East African country might appear like a neo-colonial practice.

But the Ugandan government’s attacks on LGBT people have only gotten worse in the last ten years. 

Homosexuality is currently banned in more than 30 African countries, including Uganda, but the bill approved by the country’s parliament — and which is now awaiting Museveni’s signature to become effective — is the first to make it a crime to simply identify as a member of the LGBT community.

Meanwhile, Uganda — one of the EU’s most important development partners in the region — is still cashing in millions in aid from the EU. In 2022, the East African country received over €40 million in humanitarian funding alone for the more than 1.4 million refugees staying in Uganda. The EU‘s Multiannual Indicative Programme (MIP) for Uganda for 2021-2024 — which includes funds that should help the country transition towards a greener and more sustainable economy and strengthen democracy and human rights — amounts to €375 million.

“Uganda is one country which survives on donor funding, and our economy and budget are fueled by Western funds and support, from the health sector to the military,” explained Edward Mutebi. 

The pressure of the EU withdrawing funds from Uganda would “definitely work” in forcing the Ugandan government to withdraw its anti-LGBT legislation “because the government cannot operate without funding.”

In 2014, three European countries – Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands – decided to cut aid to Uganda in response to the Ugandan government’s anti-LGBT law, which they strongly condemned. Norway said it would have withheld $8 million (€7.3 million) in development aid, while Denmark said it would have diverted $9 million (€8.2 million) from the government. The Netherlands declared it would have suspended aid to the government but continued funding non-profit groups in the country.

“If any country really stands up and says we’re not going to give you funding because of this and that, the government will definitely listen,” Mutebi added. “I want to invite all countries, European countries and all Western countries to stand up against this bill which is in violation of human rights. Every country in Europe which believes in human rights […] should withdraw funding until the government of Uganda drops this bill.”

Commenting on the possibility of the EU cutting development funds to Uganda, an EU spokesperson told Euronews: “It is too early to say. We will follow the developments regarding the promulgation of the law carefully and assess the situation as it develops.”

In a statement, the EU said it was “deeply concerned by the passing of an anti-homosexuality bill by the Ugandan Parliament, which introduces severe punishments, including the death penalty. The EU is opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances.

“According to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, ‘every individual shall have the duty to respect and consider his fellow beings without discrimination, and to maintain relations aimed at promoting, safeguarding and reinforcing mutual respect and tolerance'”.

Who is driving Uganda’s anti-LGBTQ+ push?

The anti-LGBTQ+ push in the East African country is coming from both Ugandan political leaders and religious leaders.

On the religious side, this wave of hate is being fueled by the American culture wars and the West, Mutebi said. 

“Anti-LGBT pastors are being funded by anti-gender movements from the West and America, they’re giving them funds to spread hatred in the country,” he said.

On the political side, Mutebi thinks that the persecution and discrimination of the LGBT community is a “diversion” from Uganda’s economic problems and the government’s failures. 

“We’re scapegoats. How can we divert people’s minds from our problems? The diversion they’ve always pushed forward is that of homosexuality.”

Uganda’s first anti-gay bill was introduced by the country’s parliament in 2009 and came into force in 2014.

“Ten years down the road, they’re coming back with the same thing, the same threat,” Mutebi said. 

“Every time the country is approaching an election they’ll bring out the topic of homosexuality to divert people’s attention from discussing very serious issues like inflation and the cost of living.”

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Pope Francis: 10 years of papacy in 10 points

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It was just after 7 pm local time on 13 March 2013 when Jorge Mario Bergoglio looked out from his balcony over St Peter’s Square and said in Italian: ‘Brothers and sisters, good evening’.

This was the beginning of Pope Francis’ journey. A papacy marked by memorable moments, landmark journeys and phrases that would rewrite history.

To mark his 10th anniversary as head of the Roman Catholic Church here are ten of the most salient events of Bergoglio’s pontificate:

Alone in St Peter’s Square

On 27 March 2020, Pope Francis presided over a moment of prayer on the parvis of St Peter’s Basilica. In front of him, was an unusually empty square. A fortnight prior, the World Health Organization declared a pandemic and the whole of Italy went into lockdown. 

Francis prayed: “Lord, bless the world, give health to bodies and comfort to hearts,” he said before the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and the Urbi et Orbi blessing.

The Pope of migrants

 “I felt I had to come here to pray”. With these words, Pope Francis began his homily at the Lampedusa stadium on 8 July 2013, for his first pastoral journey outside of Rome. 

Even then, the pontiff’s message was clear: “The globalisation of indifference has robbed us of the ability to weep. We ask forgiveness for our indifference”. And it was certainly not indifference that prompted him to take with him on the return flight from the Greek island of Lesbos, twelve refugees, who were hosted in Rome by the Catholic lay association, Sant’Egidio, in 2016.

The Vatican went on to host several families of migrants.

The Pope and women

 “A better, more just, inclusive and fully sustainable world cannot be pursued without the contribution of women,” wrote the pontiff in his preface to the book ‘More Women’s Leadership for a Better World’.

 According to a survey conducted by Vatican News, 1,165 women currently work in the Vatican, the highest number of female employees to ever work at the Holy See. 

At the beginning of Francis’ pontificate, there were 846. At the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development, a female secretary was appointed for the first time in 2021, the highest position ever held by a woman at the Holy See.

Prayer at the Wailing Wall

 On 26 May 2014, just over a year after his election, Pope Francis visited Jerusalem. “Let no one instrumentalise the name of God for violence, but let us work together for justice and peace,” he said in the Holy City. 

He first met Grand Mufti Muhammad Ahmad Hussein on the Esplanade of the Mosques, a place sacred to Islam, then embraced the Argentinean Imam Aboud and the Buenos Aires rabbi Skorka at the Wailing Wall, where he stopped for a moment of prayer. 

Finally, he went to Mount Herzl, to visit the tomb containing the remains of the founder of the Zionist Movement and the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

The trip to Congo and South Sudan

For his 40th apostolic journey, Pope Francis travelled from January 31 to February 5 to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.

In Juba, Francis invited the population to “overcome those antipathies and aversions that, over time, have become chronic and risk pitting tribes and ethnic groups against each other”. 

Meeting with the authorities he asked: “No more bloodshed, no more conflict, no more violence and mutual accusations on those who commit them, no more leaving the people thirsting for peace”.

 Previously in Kinshasa, he had said “Hands off Africa! No more suffocating it: it is not a mine to be exploited or a land to be plundered”.

The penitential pilgrimage to Canada

In May 2021, the remains of 215 children are found in a mass grave on the grounds of a former Indian residential school in British Colombia.

A scandal soon emerged involving schools founded by the Canadian government in the 19th century and administered by the Catholic Church.

Under the 1876 Indian Act and the Indian Residential School System (IRSS) institutions removed the Indigenous children from their communities in a bid to replace Indigenous languages, culture and identity with Euro-Canadian values. 

In July 2022, Bergoglio visited Indigenous children and asked for forgiveness: “I am deeply saddened, I feel indignation and shame. I ask forgiveness for the ways in which, unfortunately, many Christians have supported the colonising mentality of the powers that have oppressed the Indigenous peoples”.

The washing of the feet

It was on March 28, 2013, two weeks after his election, when Bergoglio choose the juvenile prison of Casal del Marmo, Rome for maundy or the washing of the feet. 

Fifty young inmates, including girls, participate in the rite, letting the Pope wash their feet, dry them and kiss them. 

He later repeated the action in other prisons, centres for the disabled and migrant centres. According to his Holiness, it has always been an act of love, to repeat what Jesus did with his disciples in the Gospel.

“Who am I to judge?”

On a return flight from Brazil in July 2013, Pope Francis spoke about homosexuality: “The problem is lobbying of any tendency: political lobbying, Masonic lobbying and also gay lobbying. All lobbies are not good. Whereas if one is gay and seeks the Lord, who am I to judge him? These people should not be discriminated against or marginalised”. 

Ten years later, in an interview with the Associated Press, he crystallised the laws of states that criminalise homosexuality, calling them unjust. 

He urged Catholic bishops to welcome LGBTQ people into the Church. “Homosexuality is not a crime,” he said.

The Synod for the Pan-Amazonian Region

 The Synod for the Amazon opened in Rome on 6 October 2019, a major ecclesial, civil and ecological project which aimed to cross borders and redefine pastoral lines, adapting them for the modern age.

 The main objective, to use the pontiff’s words, was to “find new ways to evangelise to rural communities, particularly Indigenous groups, who are often forgotten about and without the prospect of a serene future, also because of the crisis of the Amazon forest, a lung of fundamental importance for our planet”.

Impromptu wedding

On a flight from the Chilean cities of Santiago to Iquique in January 2018, Francis surprisingly married a couple onboard. Two stewards with Latam Airlines had a civil ceremony but were forced to cancel their religious wedding because the church they had chosen had collapsed in the 2010 earthquake. Bergoglio decided to marry the pair himself.

While his Holiness is widely praised for his progressive views, his pontificate is also marred with several scandals, such as the disgraced Cardinal Angelo Becciu’s corruption trial or the more recent revelations of sexual abuse within the Portuguese Catholic Church.

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