Gay Rights

Il libro di Gianfrancesco Zanetti propone un'attenta riflessione sullo sviluppo del dibattito anglosassone intorno al rapporto fra omosessualità e diritto. Facendo perno sui principi codificati da John Stuart Mill in "On liberty" (1859) e muovendosi su tre dicotomie giuridiche, il saggio ricostruisce il percorso di emancipazione che va dalle leggi criminalizzanti l'omosessualità dell'Inghilterra vittoriana alla sentenza della Corte Suprema statunitense che ha garantito costituzionalmente il matrimonio egualitario.

Terence McKenna argued that sovereignty over one’s consciousness is the next great civil rights struggle after sexism, racism, and homophobia. “Coming out” about one’s psychedelic identity, interests, and/or experiences is an important part of redefining the public perception of psychedelics and of those who choose to experience their effects. Even non-using “allies” (comparable to LGBTQ allies) can join the conversation in supportive roles. In light of the shifting legal status of psychoactive plants and chemicals, what might it mean to identify as psychedelic in a post-prohibition world?

Democratizing processes in Latin America are giving way to new citizen demands. As the political process opens, more actors find access to the public sphere. This paper analyzes the growing demands for LGBT rights in Latin America. The region stands out as remarkable changes have taken place throughout with legalization of domestic partnerships in Colombia, Ecuador, northern Mexico, Brazil and Uruguay and same-sex marriage in Argentina, Mexico City. The paper explores the range of policy changes throughout the region, and how these developments have changed the landscape of rights-based discourses in Latin America. Is there something intrinsically different about Latin American societies that have given rise to LGBT rights and political recognition of this marginalized group? Have democratization processes favored LGBT groups or are their demands consistent with processes of political development in the region? Given the degree of social mobilization of LGBT political actors, relatively little attention has been paid to the advances through persuasive tactics of this smaller group. Nonetheless, meaningful policy changes have taken place within the last decade, in particular with regards to the extension of same-sex marriage or recognition of civil unions. The trend is significant and surprising since not until recently this same population was prosecuted, victimized and to the very least discriminated against. Do these policy changes symbolize a transformation of societal configurations? Or have social mobilizations by LGBT groups been effective in framing policy issues? This paper will explore these questions while taking on the task of summarizing the underlying trends in the changing political landscape of sexual politics in Latin America.

In September 2016, the UN Human Rights Council appointed an Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). Less than a month later, the World Bank President announced the appointment of an advisor on SOGI, a newly created senior position tasked with promoting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) inclusion throughout the work of the World Bank. Both developments are part of a wider trend of global institutions beginning to engage with LGBT/LGBTI issues.

In this article, I identify and analyse these developments, arguing that we are witnessing an emerging phenomenon I call 'global gay governance' (GGG). By 'gay governance', following the work of scholars on governance feminism, I mean the forms in which LGBT advocacy and ideas get incorporated into state, state-like and state-affiliated power. In previous work, I showed that gay governance occurs at the municipal, national and global levels. This article extends this work by focusing on GGG at the level of global institutions.

Although lesbian gay bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) seniors face issues similar to their heterosexual counterparts such as declining health, dwindling finances, depression, social isolation, and ageism, they also face unique issues such as discrimination based on sexual orientation, and are at an even greater risk for health problems such as depression, substance abuse, and even suicide. Therefore LGBT seniors require support services specifically designed to meet their unique needs. The housing needs of LGBT seniors are one such area that must be addressed as more LGBT persons enter their advanced years.

The animal rights movement is fundamentally based on love for other animals and a radical recognition of human-nonhuman relationships as valid and important. In a world that has normalized wholescale violence against other animals, recognizing nonhuman animal personhood and expressing compassion for all kinds is a vital act of social justice.  This talk examines social movement theories of liberation for other animals with specific reference to the gay rights movement as an adjacent project from which we might draw inspiration and wisdom.

This article examines the role of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and its youth wing, the Young Communist League (YCL), in the advancement of gay rights in the 1970s and 1980s. Although the CPGB was the first major organization of the British labour movement—and the British left—to advance a policy of gay rights, its participation in the gay liberation movement has tended to be neglected by scholars. In contrast to the general perception of the CPGB in the last decade (or so) of its existence as a party of declining influence and cohesion, easily ignored by the mainstream of the labour movement, we argue that the embrace of gay rights provided communists with a means of pushing for a diversification of labour politics. This coalesced in the mid-1980s with the co-founding of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) by the communist activist Mark Ashton. With the recent scholarly and public interest in the LGSM and its impact upon the Labour Party's attitude to gay rights, this article aims to reveal that the 'pre-history' of the group is firmly rooted in the CPGB/YCL and the Eurocommunist section of the British communist movement. The year 2014 saw the 13th anniversary of the beginning of the 1984–5 miners' strike and the establishment of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM). The moment was used to launch the British film Pride, which tells the story of LGSM. One of the controversial points of the film's narrative was the silence over the co-founder of LGSM Mark Ashton's membership of the Communist Party of Great Britain

This report, written for the Law Centre NI, sets out the evidence on the treatment of gay persons in Somalia.

It sustains the claim that gay persons from Somalia seeking asylum on the basis of persecution due to their sexual orientation should not be returned to Somalia, and that they should be granted refugee status.

Asylum claims for gay Somalians are supported by seven findings in the report:

(a) Somalian law criminalises homosexuality and gay persons are given no legal protection from either discrimination or hate crimes. The provisions on gay persons in Somalian law constitute state-sanctioned homophobia. Somalia’s criminalisation of sexual activity between consenting adults is a clear violation of international human rights law.

(b) Al-Shabaab subscribe to, and enforce a strict interpretation of Shariah Law. Shariah law explicitly outlaws homosexuality. The punishment for those ‘found guilty’ is at a judge’s discretion – and may be punished by death. This puts gay persons at particular risk in the parts of Somalia which are still under Al-Shabaab’s control (this includes much of Southern and Central Somalia).

(c) The death penalty is used as a punishment for individuals who are ‘found guilty’ of engaging in consensual, same-sex sexual relations in Somalia.

(d) UN and UK guidance recommends that gay persons are at particular risk with regards to returns to Somalia - they constitute a ‘risk profile’ which may require them needing protection under the Refugee Convention.

(e) Sexual orientation is a taboo topic in Somalia and gay persons are stigmatised. Gay people cannot be open about their sexuality in Somalia without facing violence, threats to their life and even execution. The risks faced by gay persons in Somalia are compounded by the absence of legal provisions to prevent anti-gay hate crimes or discrimination.

(f) Somalian prison conditions are inhumane. A gay person who is prosecuted and imprisoned in Somalia will face treatment which falls well below ECHR Article 3 standards and United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.

(g) IDP camp conditions in Somalia are also inhumane. The UK Country Information Guidance report for Somalia recognises that persons living in IDP camps in Somalia face a real risk of being exposed to treatment in breach of Article 3 due to the humanitarian conditions there.

Graded 90/100 at UC Riverside
In another novel, Giovanni’s Room published in 1956, Baldwin explores the relationship between gay love, public opinion and shame in a physical as well as ideological jail. The Room not only is an apartment but also the embodiment of one’s body, trapped in its self.
In this quest between love, life and death, isn’t the ultimate point of no return a way to deny who we are and how we feel, although it seems to be a relatively painless way to run away from the enigma, that is what we are, which is what threatens us?

---- graded 90/100 at the University of California, Riverside

In the 2000s, the controversial issue of gay marriage became a central battle waged in the culture wars. Intense news coverage of the divisive issue in the U.S. media focused unprecedented attention on gay and lesbian life. Through an analysis of hundreds of media reports and over thirty in-depth interviews with leaders of the contemporary gay rights movement, "The Battle over Marriage" offers a critical and longitudinal examination of how prominent news outlets framed this definitive civil rights issue. The book interrogates the aims and challenges of gay rights activists who sought to harness the power of mainstream news media to “change hearts and minds”—to advocate for their cause and reform images of their community. While doing battle over marriage in the media gave activists a “larger microphone” to talk about gay and lesbian families, it also constrained discourses, pressuring activists to soften gay life for mainstream audiences. Ultimately, The Battle over Marriage reveals both the promises and the limitations of commercial media as a route to social change.

"A comprehensive, engaging, and required study for those interested in same-sex marriage, social activism, journalism, media studies, and the benefits and consequences of visibility. Highly Recommended."--Choice

“The book provides an invaluable road map for historians who are interested in traversing the maze of developments that led to gay marriage as it came to be defined in 2013.”--American Journalism

"A very significant contribution to advancing understanding of media coverage of gay marriage. Moscowitz presents a controversial topic in a way that lets the facts and players speak for themselves."--Felix F. Gutierrez, coauthor of Racism, Sexism, and the News Media: Multicultural Issues into the New Communications Age

In the last decade, there have been public discussions about homosexuality in Ghana, especially on social and legacy media (TV, radio and print media). This chapter examines journalistic discourses on homosexuality in Ghana through an analysis of news stories published on the websites of popular Ghanaian media organizations. I argue that news reports about homosexuality reinforce the seeming legitimation of homophobia in the societal realm. To provide space for understanding homophobia, I deconstruct sexual taboos and the sanctions associated with them drawing parallels between societal treatment of sexual taboos and its treatment of homosexuality. I draw on a postcolonial perspective to situate conversations on homosexuality in Ghana’s history and in contemporary discourse to conceptualize gender and sexuality. Framing is the guiding analytical framework through which trends in the news reports are highlighted. This chapter asserts that principal stakeholders affiliated with institutions such as religion, education, the government and traditional political authority support one another in their justification of homophobia in public conversations. I further argue that to understand homophobia in Ghana, we must examine the notion of sexuality and sexual taboos within this socio-cultural context.

SOMMARIO: 1. Giurisprudenza costituzionale e tutela successoria del convivente more uxorio prima della legge 76/2016. -2. Gli strumenti per la tutela successoria del convivente more uxorio prima della legge 76/2016. -3. Il trattamento successorio delle parti dell'unione civile: un'innovazione, ma nel solco della tradizione del diritto successorio. -4. L'opportunità di una riforma del diritto successorio di più ampio respiro. -5. Il regime successorio della convivenza di fatto regolata dalla legge 76/2016. 1. Prima dell'approvazione della legge 20 maggio 2016, n. 76 la tutela successoria del convivente more uxorio si caratterizzava per debolezza e frammentarietà 1 , restando inascoltate le voci di quanti già da tempo auspicavano che al convivente more uxorio fossero riconosciuti diritti nell'ambito della successione legittima o, quantomeno, diritti analoghi a quelli di abitazione e uso riservati al coniuge sulla casa adibita a residenza familiare dall'art. 540, II co., c.c.

Yaoi/BL Fandom Survey (only takes 10 mins to complete): https://leeds.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/blfandomsurvey

The aim of this study is to compare Sinophone and Anglophone fan fiction consisting of female-oriented male-male romance: danmei and slash, respectively. To increase comparability, we analysed Harry Potter fan fiction in which the characters Harry and Draco are married. Male-male marriage was selected because our online Sinophone and Anglophone BL fandom surveys indicate this to be the most popular story element of the nine options we provided. We analysed five stories originally written in Chinese and five originally written in English which subsequently had been fan-translated into Chinese. Using Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) we found some robust patterns. In contrast to the Anglophone fiction, the Sinophone tended to: stress the importance of family approval for the marriage; incorporate a wedding ceremony; employ clearly gendered roles between partners; utilise extended, as opposed to nuclear, families; and showed the couple to produce children, particularly boys. Hence, the stories mirror the relative social conservatism and social liberalism of their cultures of origin. However, in reading and writing such danmei young Chinese women are still pushing at the boundaries of the traditional family.

1992 Colorado Case-Study by Cara DeGette in this 2012 PRA report by Pam Chamberlain is essential reading in 2016, as North Carolina pushes against history and progress to single-out Queers for discrimination.  If you ever wished for more than marriage, here's why.

Since the foundation of Mormonism, popular perception of gender and sexuality has radically changed, but church doctrine on gender hasn't. This paper examines those changes and the church's proactive actions to maintain a gendered culture. It asks (but doesn't answer) whether the church can continue to provide emotional support and hope for current members, and continue to attract new members, in a post-gender society.

This paper is written from a sociological, feminist perspective. It analyzes the gendered cosmology of Mormon doctrine and the historical importance placed on the family. It examines how the church's commitment to traditional gender roles has influenced (and been influenced by) secular American society-- including political influence in the Equal Rights Amendment and Proposition 8. This paper finally addresses the impacts these gender roles have on the mental health of Latter Day Saint women, particularly those who identify as LGBT.

The history of the struggle for homosexual liberation is also a history of the struggle against legal, political, religious, medical and social constrains placed upon homosexuality. Since the middle of the 20 th century, the fight to liberate homosexuals has been founded upon the politicisation of the very identity that has so long been the source of repression. For gay liberation proponents, the shame of being an outcast must be reversed through the articulation of one's pride in being a homosexual, a reclaiming of a once illicit name. Yet, among some academics and scholars, there is another resistance. If one is to resist the state's repression of sexuality, why not go all the way? Why not resist sexual identities all together? This is a resistance against the very discourse that produces the knowledge we have today of what constitutes sexual identities. Laws, policies, doctrines and attitudes, according to this line of thinking, are merely manifestations of a knowledge that produces sexual identities such as homosexuals, heterosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, etc. For these scholars then, one way to resist homophobia is to resist the naming of the homosexual as a sexual identity, in fact, to resist Western sexual epistemology. But how is sexual identity constructed by the state and what is at stake in utilising this construction for liberation? How can one resist this construction and will this resistance also lead to liberation of sexual subjects?

SOMMARIO: 1. La condizione omosessuale tra natura e cultura. – 2. I precedenti e l’ordine pubblico. – 3. Rilevanza dell’unione same-sex. – 4. Disparità di trattamento tra omosessuali e transessuali. – 5. Il falso limite della “società naturale”. – 6. I parametri interposti ex art. 117 Cost.: giurisprudenza CEDU e ordinamento europeo. – 7. Note conclusive.

This article contributes to the understanding of the role of religion in the public and political controversies about homosexuality in Africa. As a case study it investigates the heated public debate in Zambia following a February 2012 visit by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who emphasised the need for the country to recognise the human rights of homosexuals. The focus is on a particular Christian discourse in this debate, in which the international pressure to recognise gay rights is considered a sign of the end times, and Ban Ki-moon, the UN and other international organisations are associated with the Antichrist and the Devil. Here, the debate about homosexuality becomes eschatologically enchanted through millennialist thought. Building on discussions about public religion and religion and politics in Africa, this article avoids popular explanations in terms of fundamentalist religion and African homophobia, but rather highlights the political significance of this discourse in a postcolonial African context.

At the center of recent protests over civil liberties and religious sensibilities in Turkey looms a half-woman, half-snake figure known as Şahmeran. The mythical creature was included in a pro-LGBTQ poster on display at a recent exhibit at the prestigious Bosphorus University in Istanbul. Her image was superimposed over the Kaaba-a sacred black cuboid structure in Mecca that Muslims the world over face when praying. Although the artist remained anonymous, several university students have been arrested and charged with insulting Islam in relation to the poster, which also included gender-identity flags.

https://theconversation.com/what-the-mythical-figure-of-sahmeran-in-turkey-represents-and-why-activists-use-it-155606?fbclid=IwAR3SX7BrQee_Fr5rg77OKeMx0-cO-hrG7ZZjaWBWpXKmdiSeX0enS2FeCrY

El concepto tradicional de una familia está determinado por un apellido, las relaciones de sangre o documentos legales. La definición tradicional de una familia en Colombia, según la constitución de 1991 en el artículo 42, es que "La familia es el núcleo fundamental de la sociedad. Se constituye por vínculos naturales o jurídicos, por la decisión libre de un hombre y una mujer de contraer matrimonio o por la voluntad responsable de conformarla."

The recent positions taken by the Constitutional Court, the comparative context, the jurisprudence of both the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice suggest filling the legal lack of recognition of the rights of homosexual couples. In the Article, the attention will be focus, first, on the Constitutional framework, in order to verify if there are rights, bans or simply orientations involving the issue. At the supranational level, the jurisprudence of both the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice will be analyzed to identify principles that can provide guidance for Italian legislator. Finally, Article will linger on the introduction of civil partnerships, which is currently under consideration in Parliament.

The paper intervenes in the burgeoning field of comparative constitutionalism. Adopting comparative constitutional research on gay rights as a case study, it addresses the scholarship that comparative constitutionalists are producing, including the methodology and underlying assumptions about constitutions. It criticizes the mainstream comparative work on gay rights for its methodological thinness. Such research views constitutions as rule-based, privileging the judgments of constitutional courts over the practice of constitutionalism in other sites of governance. Foreign examples are pressed into service to bring about change in a designated place. From the vantage of an activist or advocate, the comparative constitutional work on gay rights that is prevalent now may prove misleading. Undue emphasis on courts as the site of constitutional change directs efforts to litigation away from other forms of activism. The literature also exaggerates the transferability of constitutional precedents by abstracting them from their discursive and cultural context. Moreover, the consistent selection of a handful of success stories from pioneering jurisdictions distracts from the potential lessons waiting in the failures, where reform efforts have foundered. From a scholar's perspective, the work is also unsatisfactory. Comparative constitutionalists, by accepting the current framing of debates, are failing to imagine transformations beyond same-sex marriage litigation and, consequently, falling short of their distinctive power as scholars. The paper argues for thick instrumentalism as a mode of comparative constitutional scholarship. Thick instrumentalism combines commitment to a justice project for gay rights with a richer, more discursive and culturally sensitive understanding of the multiple sites in which constitutional rights are respected - and infringed.

In recent years the use of ‘gay cure’ therapies by religions has become a major public controversy in the West. Deliverance, or exorcism, is pointed to as an example of a Christian practice used to try and change a person’s sexuality. Pentecostal churches specialising in deliverance have become particularly popular on the African continent in the last few decades, where beliefs that homosexuality is immoral and un-African are also widespread. At the same time, public discourse about African attitudes to sexuality in the West tends to misunderstand the way religion contributes to cultures of heteronormativity in Africa. This article analyses how African deliverance churches view same-sex relations by investigating a large Nigerian deliverance church publicly accused of practising conversion therapies. It argues that the church’s views on homosexuality derive from its theological understanding of human creation, and that there is more scope for queer expression than first appears.

Lezbiyen, gey, biseksüel ve trans (LGBT) hakları hareketinin
özellikle Latin Amerika, Batı Avrupa ve Kuzey Amerika’da
kazandığı başarılar LGBT haklarını yakın dönemde
uluslararası insan hakları çerçevesinin parçası haline getirdi.
Avrupa Birliği ve Birleşmiş Milletler düzeyinde LGBT
haklarının tanınmasına yönelik olumlu gelişmelere rağmen,
Türkiye halen LGBT’leri koruyacak ayrımcılık karşıtı
düzenlemeleri yürürlüğe koymamış ve LGBT haklarını yasal
düzeyde tanımamış durumda. Fakat hem uluslararası hem de
yerel dinamikler LGBT haklarını siyasi gündemin üst
sıralarında tutuyor. Uluslararası düzeyde Avrupa Birliği her
yıl yayınladığı ilerleme raporlarında LGBT hakları ihlallerine
ve LGBT’lerin karşı karşıya kaldıkları ayrımcı uygulamalara
dikkat çekerek LGBT hakları hareketine önemli bir siyasi
kaldıraç oluşturuyor. Yerel düzeyde ise Türkiye 1990’lı
yıllardan itibaren canlı bir LGBT hakları hareketinin
yükselişine ve 2000’li yılların ortalarından itibaren ise bu
hareketin daha görünür hale gelmesine, kendi siyasî sözünü
güçlü bir biçimde üretmesine ve güçlenmesine sahne oluyor.
Türkiye LGBT hakları hareketinin ülkenin toplumsal ve
siyasi çerçevesine etkisi henüz yeterince incelenmedi. Bu
çerçevede bu makale toplumsal hareketlerin incelenmesinde
sosyal yapılandırmacılık yaklaşımının izinden giderek
Türkiye LGBT hakları hareketinin meclis merkezli siyaset
üzerindeki etkisini incelemektedir. Makale mecliste verilen
LGBT hakları temaları ile ilişkili soru ve araştırma
önergelerinin taramasına dayanmaktadır. Bu çalışma
üzerinden makale Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi’nde (TBMM)
LGBT hakları gündeminin doğuşu ve gelişmesini Türkiye’de LGBT hakları hareketinin siyasî tarihi ile birlikte
değerlendirmektedir. Makale 2000’li yılların ortalarından
itibaren Türkiye’de LGBT hakları hareketinin gelişiminin ve
bu gelişime paralel meclis merkezli siyaset ile kurduğu
bağların LGBT hakları meselesinin TBMM’nin gündemine
gelmesini sağladığını iddia etmektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Toplumsal Hareketler, Parlamenter
Siyaset, LGBT Hakları, Eşcinsel Hakları, Trans Hakları,
Savunuculuk.

This paper applies rhetorical theory (specifically the rhetorical theorist Michael Leff's concept of hermeneutical rhetoric) to the " gay debate " in American evangelicalism. Given that liberal and conservative positions arise from contrasting interpretations of the Christian scriptures, which in turn arise from a contest of hermeneutical priorities, I suggest that hermeneutical rhetoric potentially creates interpretive common ground because it does not prioritize historical data over scriptural authority—a hermeneutic method that has been resisted consistently by American evangelicals. Through the specific case study of the 2006 Soulforce Equality Ride at Wheaton College, I demonstrate how hermeneutical rhetoric circumvents stakeholders' implicit observance of the hermeneutical fault line between liberal-historicism and evangelical-biblicism.

The institutionalized gay and lesbian social movement emerged in Romania after the decriminalization of homosexuality in 2001. Using a narrative analysis I reconstruct the development of social activism centered on sexuality. Using oral history and grey data, I bring forward the story of a marginalized and excluded group. I argue that Romanian gay and lesbian activists framed their demands under the larger concepts of human rights and Europeanization. I look at points of access for activists in their relationship with the Romanian state and at the transnational structures used in order to promote gay and lesbian rights. I show that this relationship was a sinuous one, mostly influenced by transnational entities such as the EU or international human rights organizations. After Romania joined the EU, gay and lesbian rights became less of a priority for the Romanian state. I underline the main debates within the gay and lesbian movement in Romania showing that after 2005, a schism took place, with one side continuing its top-down strategy, relying mostly on lobby and advocacy, and the new one applying an American-type, bottom-up grassroots strategy in order to build a community, using HIV/AIDS prevention as a frame. I argue that the top-down approach lead to the advancement of a favorable legislation, but it failed to build a community. The grassroots approach survived as long as it had funding. Since important international donors withdrew from Romania after 2012, the gay and lesbian movement has been experiencing a major crisis.

The role of media in collective action repertoires has been extensively studied, but media as an agent of socialization in social movement identity is less understood. It could be that social movement media is normalizing a particular activist identity to the exclusion of other demographics. For instance, Harper has identified white-centrism in anti-speciesist media produced by the Nonhuman Animal rights movement and supposes that this lack of diversity stunts movement potential. Using the lesser-studied Nonhuman Animal rights movement as a starting point, this study investigates two prominent Nonhuman Animal rights magazines. We compare those findings with an analysis of comparable leftist movements also known to exhibit diversity strains. A content analysis of Nonhuman Animal rights, women's rights, and gay rights magazine covers spanning from 2000 to 2012 was undertaken to determine the manifestation of gender, race, body type, and sexualization. We find that the Nonhuman Animal rights media in our sample overwhelmingly portrays white women with a tendency toward thinness, but with low levels of sexualization as comparable to that of the other movements. All three movement samples unevenly depicted gender, overrepresented whites, and underrepresented non-thin body types.

美國聯邦最高法院判決同志婚姻合憲的24小時內，許多人的臉書都被「彩虹洗版」。然而，彩虹轉眼散去，狂歡終將散攤。「彩虹洗版」後，台灣同運即將面對三道難題：反智文化、「政商教集團」與「同志國族主義」。

高穎超(2015)彩虹洗版後，台灣同運的三道難題。刊出版見《風傳媒》，7月7日， http://www.storm.mg/lifestyle/55934。†

Kao, Ying-Chao. 2015, July 7. “After the FaceBook Rainbow-washing, Three Challenges the Taiwan Tongzhi Movement Faces.” Storm.mg (http://www.storm.mg/lifestyle/55934). †

What role should rights play in feminist efforts to end sexual oppression?  The quest for legal rights has been central to feminist political movements in the U.S., as in other countries.  It has also been controversial, because it is not clear that the language of rights is adequate to feminist objectives, or how far legal rights improve the lives of women.  As Wendy Brown suggests, scepticism about rights is especially appropriate in light of the undesirable, unintended, but seemingly inescapable, consequences of feminist efforts either to use liberal rights on behalf of women, or to embody feminist criticisms of liberalism in rights. Although not persuaded that these problems are as paradoxical as Brown claims, or that seeing rights as paradoxes is as liberating as she implies, I will argue that her article highlights the importance of political judgement and strategy to rights discourse and practice. Too often we neglect such questions when thinking about rights, even as we insist that we wish to politicise rights, and the ways in which we describe and analyse them.  So, though I worry that to see rights as paradoxes risks mystifying and reifying them, I will argue that it can help us to think critically about the relationship of law and politics, and imaginatively about the ways we might handle some familiar theoretical and practical problems.

This article examines collective legal mobilization through the courts, or
collective litigation, in a non-liberal regime. It analyses the emergence
and development of collective litigation to challenge the constitutionality
of section 377A of the Penal Code, the law that criminalizes same-sex
sexual conduct in Singapore. The analysis focuses on the relational
dynamics of collective litigation and legal subjectivities of the social
actors involved, highlighting how social positions and strategic interests
shaped their interactions and decisions on litigation. While gay rights
activists emphasized their movement's collective interests when choosing
the appropriate case and lawyers, a movement outsider pursued
individual interests on behalf of a client. Due to their divergent social
positions and strategic interests, the two teams competed with each other
as they initiated two separate constitutional challenges. Tension between
the teams led to conflict with constituents of the gay rights movement and
influenced their relational dynamics with other parties.

A comparative analysis of incrementalist approaches to gay rights as they are deployed in the United States and Singapore demonstrates that seeking gay rights in a full democracy is actually no better than seeking them in an authoritarian regime. Incrementalism ultimately promotes sexual normativity by dividing the gay community into " good gays, " who deserve equal protections, and " bad queers, " who are further marginalized. Incrementalism in the United States began with decriminalization of sodomy and terminated with the recognition of gay marriage but did so by imagining gay sexuality within the context of committed relationships. The gay rights movement in Singapore is currently challenging the constitutionality of the country's anti-sodomy statute, but has also encountered problems with bifurcating good gays from bad queers. Singaporean gay rights advocacy has adopted an approach that looks similar to incrementalism in the United States, but is actually adapted as a strategy of survival within the authoritarian structures of its illiberal democratic government. Dissecting these similarities shows how gay rights in the United States has acquiesced to a similar, but more hidden, disciplinary regime of social control that venerates marriage as an imagined ideal and suppresses other forms of sexual expression. The recent decision by the Singapore judiciary to reject the good gay and bad queer dichotomy and treat the two similarly, however, has forced gay rights advocacy to adapt and imagine a different and more unified strategy than in the United States.

This paper draws insights from Amartya Sen's capability approach in order to formulate responses to three arguments against marriage equality. The three arguments responded to, in shorthand terms, are the following: 1) that marriage equality is already in place, 2) that marriage equality is a threat to the democratic rights of the majority, and 3) that there are more important problems that society should address before marriage equality. In the course of elaborating and reflecting on the responses to these three arguments, this paper recurrently espouses Sen's concern on the expansion of people's freedoms and capabilities to actually live the lives they value and have reasons to value, as the general argumentative theme within the more general discourses of human development and Sen's capability approach. This paper ultimately argues that if human development is to be accepted as a universal human aspiration and ideal, then marriage equality should not only be permitted but also collectively advanced.

First academic article on the lesbian advocacy at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women at Beijing. A report on the prior organizing and the experiences of the "lesbian tent" and the NGO forum. || 1995年在北京举行的联合国世界妇女大会上发表的第一篇关于女同性恋倡导的学术文章。关于“女同性恋帐篷”和非政府组织论坛的先前组织和经验的报告。|| Prvi akademski članak o lezbejskom zalaganju na Svetskoj konferenciji UN o ženama u Pekingu 1995. Izveštaj o prethodnom organizovanju i iskustvima "lezbejskog šatora" i foruma nevladinih organizacija. || بیجنگ میں خواتین کے بارے میں 1995 کی اقوام متحدہ کی عالمی کانفرنس میں ہم جنس پرستوں کی وکالت پر پہلا تعلیمی مضمون۔ "ہم جنس پرست خیمہ" اور این جی او فورم کے سابقہ اہتمام اور تجربات پر ایک رپورٹ. || Primer artículo académico sobre la defensa de las lesbianas en la Conferencia Mundial de las Naciones Unidas sobre la Mujer de 1995 en Beijing. Un informe sobre la organización previa y las experiencias de la "carpa lésbica" y el foro de ONG.

Ya hace más de una década ingresamos al Siglo XXI, cambios en todos los ámbitos de la vida humana han surgido, en lo político, económico, cultural y social. El cambio jurídico a nivel internacional a tráves de múltiples integraciones no ha sido la exepción. En la evolución del Ser Humano esta en reconocer que cada uno es único e irrepetible, con vida íntima y social por naturaleza, es decir en reconocer los Derechos y Obligaciones que les son propios a todo habitante del mundo, en nuestro caso observaremos en la Argentina este interrogante ¿Esta bien la Ley de Matrimonio Igualitario?