Our globalized world allows communities of support to come together via online technology to speak up while also standing up to hate crimes, unfair laws, and bigotry against the LGBTQ community in their own towns and in countries across the world. Just as Not In Our Town focuses on community actions for change, individuals and groups across the world are using many creative ways to get heard from marches and other visible actions, to international boycotts and petitions.
lgbtq international series
Although there remains a lot of discussion and resistance on the global level, the recognition that LGBT people do have human rights is on the rise. In the European Union, there is progress on employment rights, the recognition of same-sex marriage and even trans* rights. However, a notable laggard in this list is the right to education.
My partner and I had a Civil Partnership this summer. We stood up in front of friends and family and made vows to each other, exchanged rings, had a Celtic handfasting, and signed on the dotted line to declare that we are joined in law as well as in spirit. Afterwards we ate, drank and danced with those closest to us, all coming together to celebrate our relationship. We were able to do so because of the Civil Partnership Act 2004, which extends legal rights to same-sex couples, almost identical to those enjoyed by married mixed-sex couples. Such legal protections and rights were unimaginable to me as a teenager coming out in my home town in the early 1990s, when Section 28 still prevented ‘the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’.
One of the main aspects of Dutch tolerance is that anyone can do what they want, as long as others are not bothered by it. Feeling "bothered" may range from the formal demands of Christian schools to not have to accept LGBT teachers or students in their schools, to any visibility of LGBT expressions that are not within the heterosexist norm of an individual.
While Singaporean society is seemingly getting more polarized, the prominent visibility of queer lives—including celebrities who have come out in other parts of the world—ensures that gay youth now have role models they can emulate.
In honor of this year’s Pride Month, June 2015, Not In Our School is launching a blog series about LGBTQ histories and experiences in different countries.