Shocking Sex-Ed Lessons in Lithuania Teach that Gay People are “Mentally Ill”

Lithuanian broadcaster INFO TV reported in an episode of its news program “Info Day” that twelfth-graders in Lithuania have been receiving sexual education lessons not about traditional family planning, nor about perceptions of sexuality and accepting others, but how awful it is to be gay. Curriculum materials explain that homosexuality occurs due to “insufficient attention

LGL’s Executive Director re-elected to ILGA-Europe Board for the Second Term

On November 1-4, 2017 during the 21st Annual ILGA-Europe Conference, organized in Warsaw, LGL’s Executive Director Vladimir Simonko was re-elected to the organization’s Board for the period of 2018-2019. “I’m pleased that for the 2018-2019 term, Lithuania will remain visible with a representative on the Board of the international LGBTI organization,” commented the Executive Director

Activists are calling on foreign nations to oppose the bill before it’s too late. Egypt is set to enact one of the world’s most sweeping and extreme pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation following a harsh crackdown on the local queer community. On Wednesday, member of parliament Ryad Abdel Sattar introduced a bill that would criminalize homosexuality

Intersex Awareness Day: Commemorating the Intersex Version of Stonewall

Intersex Awareness Day commemorates what I call ‘intersex Stonewall.’ On 26 October 1996, two intersex activists were removed from the American Academy of Pediatrics Conference in Boston. They tried to address the conference to challenge the treatment of intersex children, which still includes surgeries and other unnecessary and irreversible intervention to ‘normalize’ their genitals. That

Vladimir for ILGA-Europe Board 2018-2019: Making Europe Better

Dear friends, I would like to kindly address my thanks to you for the trust you expressed in me during the elections to the ILGA-Europe Board for the period of 2016-2017 at the Annual Conference, held in October, 2015 in Athens (Greece). I am thankful for this experience. As an LGBTI human rights activist, active

Epidemic of Hate in Lithuania: To Report, or Not to Report?

“Burn the faggots!”, “Kill them!” – said a flood of Facebook comments a few years ago on a picture of two young hay men kissing, which the couple had taken to celebrate the start of their relationship. “So you really were not trying to ‘hit on’ this person who attacked you?” – a gay Italian

Lithuanian Parliament Adopts Family Law: No to Same-Sex Families

On 19 October 2017 the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania adopted the Law on Strengthening Families. The law established the family model exclusively based on a marriage between a man and a woman, thus discriminating other alternative families. 60 MPs voted in favor of the new legislation, 5 MPs voted against and 9 MPs

Tajikistan has created a list of homosexual people in a move which it called “Operation Purge”. Officials have drawn up a register of 367 gay and lesbian people, who they have intimated will be forced to undergo testing to avoid “the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases”. The list includes 319 gay men, 48 lesbians and no

“Humanity and Its Rights” Workshop with University Students

Yesterday, 17th October, a team from LGL visited the Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU). This visit was due to a workshop on LGBT* issues organized in partnership with the local ESN VGTU group. 13 participants including LGL members Kamila, our volunteer coordinator, Tatiana, our EVS volunteer and Cintia, our intern, attended the workshop entitled “Humanity

California Becomes First State to Recognize Nonbinary Gender on Legal Documents

Governor Jerry Brown also signed three more bills aiding LGBTI Californians. On October 15, California Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 179, or the Gender Recognition Act. This bill adds nonbinary as a gender option on all state-issued IDs. The state legislature passed the bill last month. California isn’t the first state to offer a