All of Germany’s Muslim MPs Voted for Same-sex Marriage Equality

It was the best news of last week: Germany finally followed its European neighbors by voting in favor of same-sex marriage equality on Friday morning. The snap vote showed 393 MPs voted in favor, while seven abstained or were absent. Meanwhile, the country’s leader Angela Merkel was one of 226 to vote against the move, disappointing many. She has furthermore said marriage ‘should be

Thousands March for Same-sex Marriage in Belfast

Northern Ireland remains the only part of the UK not to have the right to same-sex marriage. Thousands of people marched in Belfast Sunday July, 3 calling for the legalization of gay marriage in Northern Ireland. The march, organized by the Love Equality campaign, began at Writers’ Square before culminating at a rally at Belfast

In this article we show how, in recent years, a combination of European Convention cases and advocacy at national and Strasbourg levels[1] is moving forward the debate on the rights of trans persons in Lithuania, a country where political and faith-based opposition is such that any progress for long seemed impossible. The right of trans

First Baltic Pride March in Ten Years Took Place in Tallinn

On 8th July, 2017 the Baltic Pride in Tallinn invited all supporters of a fair, equal, and inclusive society to march in the first LGBT+ event in Tallinn in ten years. The representatives of the National LGBT* rights organization LGL also participated in the the Baltic Pride 2017 celebrations in Tallinn. The Baltic Pride LGBT+

Study Reveals LGBT Rental Housing Discrimination

A newly released study by the D.C.-based Urban Institute found that some landlords that were subjected to discrimination “testing” in the D.C. metropolitan area showed a bias against renting apartments to applicants who self-identified as transgender compared to applicants not identifying as transgender. The study also conducted several hundred discrimination tests in the Los Angeles

Representatives of LGL Took Part in the Oslo Pride events

On 28th June – 2nd July, 2017 Virginija Prasmickaitė, Project Coordinator of the National LGBT* rights organization LGL, and Ieva Ruzgytė, LGL Member, took part in the Oslo Pride events. The International programme hosted by Oslo Pride jointly supported by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Amnesty International Norway and the Norwegian Organization for Sexual and Gender

The Battle over the Concept of Family Continues in the Lithuanian Parliament

On 11th July, 2017 the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania voted in favor of the amendment to the Law on Equal Opportunities of the Republic of Lithuania, submitted by MPs Petras Gražulis and Agnė Širinskienė, proposing to delete any references to registered partnership in the definition of family formed by EU and EEA citizens.

On 15th June, 2017 the Ministry of Interior Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania hosted a roundtable discussion “An Effective Response to Hate Crimes”. Representatives of the National LGBT* rights organization LGL, law enforcement, judicial institutions, Equal Opportunities Ombudspersons Office, the Inspector of Journalist Ethics along with number of  NGOs attended the meeting. Eimutis Misiūnas,

Kozma has a long history of supporting anti-trans ‘bathroom bills’ Reports have recently surfaced that Donald Trump has chosen anti-transgender activist Bethany Kozma to serve as Senior Advisor to the Office of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment at the US Agency for International Development. In the past, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has

Pentagon Agrees to 6-month Delay for Transgender Enlistments

Defense Secretary James Mattis has agreed to a request from military service chiefs for a six-month delay in allowing openly transgender people to enlist into the U.S. armed forces. Dana White, a Pentagon spokesperson, said Mattis on Friday “approved a recommendation by the services to defer accessing transgender applicants into the military until Jan. 1,

On July 3rd, 2017 European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) invited a number of Lithuanian NGOs representatives to debate gender equality issues together with the first Vice-president of the European Commission Mr. Frans Timmermans. EVS volunteer Tatiana Kováčová of the National LGBT* Rights Organization LGL was one of them. The participants presented their organizations, introduced

Trans Man Wins Court Battle to Have the Right Gender on School Records

‘The authorities… should readily extend their helping hand rather than denying the same looking down upon them.’ A man who transitioned after graduating from university should be allowed to update his school records to reflect his true gender. The Madras High Court in Tamil Nadu, India ruled on a petition filed by a transgender software engineer