Gay is Global

1. Gay is Global by John Toro Introduction to Global Studies Professor Barbara Seater

2. sexual orientation • sexual orientation is a classification of individuals as heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual • based on their emotional and sexual attraction, relationships, self-identity, and lifestyle

3. groups experiencing prejudice and discrimination due to sexual orientation • lesbigay population • term referring to lesbians, gays, and bisexuals • transgendered individuals • persons who do not fit neatly into either the male or female category • LGBT • term that refers collectively to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals

4. problems of identification and categorization • stigma associated with not being heterosexual causes individuals to conceal their sexual orientation • exact numbers of non-herosexuals unknown • distinctions of sexual orientation categories are not clear-cut • may change across the life span

5. gender identity and sexual behavior globally • Western ideas about sex and gender not directly exportable to other cultures and countries • gay identified men are a small subset of men who have sex with men • most men who have sex with men are precisely and only that: men who have sex with men • same thing for lesbian women

6. gays pre-20th century • instances of same-sex love and sexuality within almost all ancient civilization • transgender & third sex peoples have also been recorded in almost all cultures across human history • acceptance in both: • ancient Greece & Rome • ancient China & Japan • different attitude in Middle Ages in Europe

7. Judeo-Christian attitudes toward homosexuality • historically negative attitudes toward homosexuality • biblical injunction in Leviticus “You shall not lie with a man as one lies with a female - it is an abomination”

8. Judaism today: • Orthodox Jews: homosexual acts forbidden, homosexuals must try to “work against” their inclinations • Conservative Judaism: temples may perform same-sex commitment ceremonies and hire gay rabbis and cantors • Reform Judaism: support gay commitment ceremonies and gay families • many homosexual Jews are reformed Jews • reinterpret “to-evah” from “abomination” to “idolatrous acts” • thus, the Bible prohibits cult-like homosexual acts as practiced in Biblical times, not as homosexual relationships are today

9. Islamic views toward homosexuality • homosexuality strictly forbidden among men • implicitly extends to women

10. societal attitudes (U.S.) • early to mid-1900s societal shift: from sinner to sickness • drastic attempts used to “cure” homosexuality, including castration, lobotomy, drugs, hormones, hypnosis, electroshock treatment, and aversion therapy (pairing shock or nausea-induction w/homosexual stimuli) • 1973: APA removed homosexuality from list of mental disorders

11. first transexuals • in Ancient Greece, the Goddess Cybele was worshiped by a cult of people who castrated themselves • took female dress • referred to themselves as female

12. ancient China and Japan Scholar Pan Guangdan (潘光旦) claimed that nearly every emperor in the Han Dynasty had one or more male sex partners no persecution as in Europe in Japan, emperors involved in homosexual relationships and to “handsome boys retained for sexual purposes”

13. Middle Ages – Europe • Roman Catholic Church only condemned gay people in the 12th Century • no special concern about homosexuality before • initially church leaders worried most about lesbian sex • imprisonment and executions • modern word “lesbian” traced back to 1732

14. rapidly, male homosexuality became of primary concern • condemnation is well-documented

15. non-heterosexual adultsin the United States • more than 10 million gay and lesbian adults in the U. S., • represents between 4% and 5% of the adult population • 2004 poll found that 5% of U.S. high school students identify as lesbian or gay • estimated 1 to 3 million Americans older than age 65 are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender

16. non-heterosexual adults worldwide • globally: 300 to 500 million of them either are – or could grow up to be gay or lesbian • United Kingdom: 3 to 5 million people could well be lesbian or gay

17. transexuality worldwide • globally as many as 3 to 5 million people were potentially transsexual • ratio of transsexuals in the US is officially estimated as 1 per 30,000 adult males and 1 per 100,000 adult females • 1 in 2,500 men have already had reassignment to female (0.04%) • Hijra of India are a sect which includes intersex as well as transgendered people • are estimated at 1 million • represents 0.1% of society

18. intersexed worldwide • most conservative estimates are 0.018% and the most generous 1.7% • difference is due to disagreement about what actually constitutes intersex • according to reports in 2003 up to 5% of the male population in Western Europe and North America are now born with intersex-like genital ambiguities • around 30 to 50 million people worldwide could well be intersexed, and forced to live in shame and secrecy

19. same-sex couple households (U. S.) • 2000 census found that about 1 in 9 unmarried-partner households involve partners of the same sex • 22.3% of gay male couples and 34.3% of lesbian couples have children • 99.3% of U.S. counties reported same-sex cohabiting partners • compared to 52% of counties in 1990

20. Massachusetts is the only state in the United States that allows same-sex couples to obtain marriage licenses • several other states - including New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, California, Oregon, Washington state, Hawaii - and Washington D.C. offer civil unions or domestic partnerships • New York, Rhode Island, and New Mexico recognize foreign marriage licenses but do not grant them or any other form of same-sex relationship recognition

21. first civil unions recognized with same rights as marriage Denmark 1989

22. gay marriage around the world • Netherlands was the first country to allow same-sex marriage in 2001 • same-sex marriages are also recognized in Belgium, Spain, Canada and South Africa

23. legal status (U. S.) • June 2003 a Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas invalidated state laws that criminalize sodomy—oral and anal sexual acts • historic decision overruled a 1986 Supreme Court case (Bowers v. Hardwick), which upheld a Georgia sodomy law as constitutional

24. before Lawrence v. Texas, sodomy was illegal in 13 states: • Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia • penalties for engaging in sodomy ranged from a $200 fine to 20 years’ imprisonment

25. discrimination in marriage • Defense of Marriage Act (1996) which that marriage is a “legal union between one man and one woman” • denies federal recognition of same-sex marriage • allows states to either recognize or not recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states

26. as of May 2005, 39 states had banned gay marriage and 15 states had passed antigay family measures that ban other forms of partner recognition in addition to marriage, such as domestic partnerships and civil unions

27. California (1992) Connecticut (1991) Hawaii (1991) Illinois (2005) Maine (2005) Maryland (2001) Massachusetts (1989) Minnesota (1993) Nevada (1999) New Hampshire (1997) New Jersey (1992) New Mexico (2003) New York (2002) Rhode Island (2001) Vermont (1992) Wisconsin (1982) states banning discrimination based on sexual orientation

28. gay around the world

29. international law • Articles 1 and 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantee full and equal human rights for all, including the right of every person to protection against discrimination • existing international human rights law does not extend protection to all victims against systematic discrimination, including sexual minorities

30. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) • guarantees right “without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status” • Human Rights Committee (1994) held that “held that sexual orientation” was a status protected under the ICCPR from discrimination, with reference to “sex” including sexual orientation” • three more UN bodies have also pronounced on abuse of LGBT

31. Nicolas Toonen vs. Australia (1994): the UN Human Rights Committee struck down the Tasmania sodomy law and in that judgment held that "such laws violate protections against discrimination in the ICCPR, as well as article 17, which protects the right to privacy"

32. global anti-gay consequnces • Amnesty International (2000) highlighted that many people around the world are tortured, imprisoned and killed because of their sexuality or gender identity • minorities are often not tolerated in much of North and South America, the Middle East, Africa and parts of Europe • people are targeted for simply being who they are – and this is sometimes sanctioned by the state

33. in most middle-income countries, violence against sexual minorities is still highly prevalent • Egypt, Romania, India, etc.

34. WHO World Report on Violence and Health (2002) • sexual violence against men takes place in homes, schools, on the street, in the military, during wars, in prison, and at police posts • 3.6 percent of men report such violence in Namibia, 20 percent in Peru

35. forced sexual initiation during adolescence common for both men and women • from 6. 4 % of men in South African study to 30 percent in Cameroon study

36. antigay laws worldwide • 84 countries define sexual activity between consenting adults of the same sex is illegal • 55 of these countries have laws criminalizing same-sex sexual behavior applied to both gay and lesbian behaviors • 29 of these countries have laws that apply to male homosexuality only

37. the death penalty may be applied to individuals found guilty of homosexual acts in a number of nations including: Afghanistan Iran Mauritania Pakistan Saudi Arabia Somalia Sudan United Arab Emirates Yemen consequences

38. African Law

39. case study: Uganda • homosexuality is illegal in Uganda • but there are gays and lesbians (self-identified) throughout the country • persecution and prosecution tends to come in waves • diversity in experience, expression and circumstances • different cultures and different families react differently to news of a gay or lesbian child

40. church makes the situation worse • economic hardship is major consequence • little activism

41. case study: Dakar • lives characterized by rejection and violence • half verbally abused by family members • a fourth forced to move in the last 12 months • 37 percent forced to have sex in last 12 months • 13 percent have been raped by a policeman

42. mean age at first sexual contact: 15 years • one third of sample: • first male sexual encounter with family member • vast majority have had sex with women • of these 88 % had vaginal sex, 25 % anal sex • 13 % are married, 25 % have children

43. a global phenomenon • the developed world the gay liberation movement started to gain importance only since 1969, and even there violence on account of sexual orientation has not yet been rooted out

44. Stonewall Riots • Autumn 1959 • closure of all gay bars in NY • 27th June 1969: • Police raid Stonewall Inn • Rioting in Greenwich Village in protest. • considered a turning point in the LGBT rights movement • at the time media coverage was minor • commemorative march 1 year later: • 6,000 protestors march up 6th Avenue. • worldwide publicity, brought LGBT rights firmly into the spotlight

45. the future: gay pride

46. gay pride: San Francisco

47. first Gay Pride march in the United Kingdom (June 1978) t t t t

48. Gay Pride Day - Latvia

49. Gay Pride parade – New York City

50. gay organizations in the Middle East • Muslim organizations • Al-Fatiha foundation • progressive Islamic nonprofit that promotes acceptance of homosexuality as natural • Straightway • support group/web site for Muslims who feel same-sex attraction • promotes “help” in avoiding acting on same-sex attractions