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
News / Human Rights
On October 25th 2017, the 2nd Nordic Rainbow History & Art Month took place in Vilnius, with participants from numerous countries including Great Britain, Sweden, Portugal, U.S.A, Italy and Lithuania. There were three main speakers, Tony Fenwick from Schools OUT UK, Giordano Campanelli, an EVS volunteer at LGL and Bill Schiller from Tulipak (Network of Nordic Rainbow
“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
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
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
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
LGBT activists in Kosovo are celebrating their first ever pride parade. Hundreds of people attended the first ever official pride, held in the country’s capital of Pristina. There had been unofficial marches in the country previously, in an effort to tackle homophobia and transphobia in the state. Even the country’s president, Hashim Thaçi, who led
The university wants to help trans people overcome stigma and become involved in society. A university in Pakistan announced it will give free education to trans people. Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) based in the capital Islamabad was Asia’s first distance learning university. It’s motto ‘education for all’ helped frame its decision to provide free
On September 29 – October 1, 2017 Eglė Kuktoraitė, Communications Coordinator of the National LGBT* rights organization LGL, participated in the annual conference of the international LGBTI youth organization “IGLYO” in Zagreb (Croatia). During the annual “IGLYO” conference, representatives of member organizations had an opportunity to discuss activities of “IGLYO”, elect its new Board Members,
The Trump administration is continuing its attack on civil rights laws by rolling back a policy protecting transgender employees from discrimination. The move, from Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is just the latest in a string of attacks on trans equality in the past few months. As well as banning transgender people from serving in the
On the occasion of the International Coming Out Day on October 11th, 2017 at 6 PM the National LGBT* rights organization LGL, in collaboration with the Embassy of Israel in Vilnius, will organize the movie screening of “Out in the Dark” in Vilnius. An Israeli drama “Out in the Dark” (2012), centered on the love affair between two