One of the major human rights stories of the past decade in the United States has been the astonishing progress toward equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. The advance of marriage equality across the states before the Supreme Court made it the law of the land; the narratives of bullying and suicide that aroused public sympathy; and the swift rise in the visibility of transgender people have been tremendously gratifying and exciting to witness.
But while the United States can be awfully myopic, it’s impossible to ignore that this progress hasn’t been global. Sexual minorities in Uganda have been attacked with greater frequency since the country passed a law creating a new range of offenses related to sexual orientation, pairing them with correspondingly harsh penalties. Russia criminalized so-called “gay propaganda” as part of widespread government efforts to clamp down on free speech supposedly in defense of traditional Russian culture. And earlier this year, two gay rights activists were killed in Bangladesh.
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In this context, it’s particularly interesting to read the results of a study released today by ILGA and Logo and conducted in conjunction with RIWI, a Canadian research company that has made a specialty of public opinion research in countries where it’s difficult to do traditional polling. The results from 96,331 respondents in 65 countries provide a broad — if not necessarily complete, because the surveys were conducted online — look at how the world feels about LGBT people. And it also suggests ways that gay rights movements around the world might advance in directions different from the one in the United States.
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First, the broad picture: Thirty-five percent of respondents worldwide said that their attitudes about gay, lesbian, transgender and intersex people had become much more favorable or somewhat more favorable over the past five years. Fifteen percent said their feelings had become less favorable, and 50 percent reported no change. Sixty-seven percent agreed with the statement that “human rights should be applied to everyone, regardless of whom they feel attracted to or the gender they identify with.” Just 16 percent disagreed.
In no region of the world do a clear majority of respondents agree that “being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or intersex should be a crime,” though 42 percent of respondents in the Middle East and North Africa, and 43 percent of respondents in other African countries, said that being a sexual minority, transgender or intersex should be illegal. And 68 percent of respondents around the world said that they would be very or somewhat upset if their child said they were in love with someone of the same gender, though it’s hard to determine whether that response comes from opposition to homosexuality or concern for a child’s safety and acceptance.
Figures like these remind us of what we already know: that gay rights movements around the world are operating in vastly different cultural and political environments and have achieved varying levels of success and visibility. And it’s particularly interesting to look at the responses to the questions that ask respondents of other countries about subjects that provided powerful leverage for LGBT rights movements in the United States.
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Take bullying of young people, an issue that provided rafts of sympathetic headlines, as well as plotlines on shows like “Glee.” Sixty-three percent of North American respondents to the survey said they agreed that “Bullying of young people who identify or are perceived as gay, lesbian, or transgender is a significant problem.” And while there was no region where a majority of respondents rejected the idea that bullying was a problem, there is less consensus on the issue in other regions than in the United States. Just 40 percent of respondents in Latin America and the Caribbean said that bullying was a significant issue, and 49 percent of Middle Eastern and North African respondents agreed.
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