“Australia, India, Uganda, Russia, and now [Nigeria] — great year in the US, but globally? Turning out to be one of the worst,” summed up one international LGBT issues expert.
Dmitry Lovetsky / AP
Philippe Laurenson / Reuters
WASHINGTON — For the global LGBT movement, 2013 was a year of extremes.
Victories on marriage in countries like the U.S., UK, and France signaled a major tipping point for gay rights activists. After decades of losing major battles, it seemed they had won the argument that gays and lesbians were entitled to full citizenship in the democracies long regarded as the standard-bearers for human rights worldwide. (Trans activists also made some gains in places like California and the Netherlands, though the same level of consensus does not appear to have formed in support of their rights.)
Which is perhaps why passage of Russia's so-called "gay propaganda" law — which technically prohibits promoting "non-traditional sexual relationships to minors" — struck a deep chord with Western activists. Musician Melissa Etheridge spoke for many American gays and lesbians when she said at a recent fundraiser for Russian LGBT organizations: "All of us [in the U.S.] who have gone that journey [towards equality], when we see what's happening in Russia, [we say] "No no no no. We are never, ever, ever going back."
Bad news for LGBT people grew as the year drew to a close. The Supreme Court of India reinstated a sodomy law, recriminalizing same-sex relationships in a country home to 1.2 billion people. Uganda's parliament unexpectedly passed its long-pending "Kill the Gays" bill (though penalties were revised down to life in prison in the final version), while Nigeria — the world's seventh largest country — is on the verge of enacting the world's broadest laws targeting LGBT rights.
"Australia, India, Uganda, Russia, and now this," Ken Kero-Metz, foreign policy fellow with the U.S. Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus, said in an email to BuzzFeed. "Great year in the U.S., but globally? Turning out to be one of the worst."
While a global human rights debate is not reducible to a score card, this statistic is instructive: While 18 countries, home to more than 10 percent of the world's population, now recognize same-sex marriage, 77 countries still outlaw sodomy.
In some cases — Russia is the clearest example — the crackdown on LGBT rights was a calculated political move by national leaders to frame the nation in opposition to the West. But in other places, like India, Zimbabwe, or Singapore, internal legal and political disputes explain a lot more about the retreat from LGBT rights than international dynamics. Yet the language in which the debates are fought reflect the way the fight has been globalized: LGBT activists use the language of universal human rights, while their opponents respond by claiming they are fighting to preserve local traditions and religious beliefs against "foreign" attack.
Here is a review of some of the most important global LGBT rights stories of 2013.
