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The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) is an organization who is committed to advancing human rights to all people, disregarding gender identity, sex characteristics and expression. ILGA participates in a multitude of agendas within the United Nations, such as creating visibility for LGBTI issues by conducting advocacy and outreach at the Human Rights Council, working with members to help their government improve LGBTI rights, ensuring LGBTI members are not forgotten in international law, and advocating for LBTI women’s issues at the Commission on the Status of Women.


History

The International Lesbian and Gay Association was founded in 1978 by activists from United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Australia, the United States, and elsewhere. Finding it difficult to repeal the
criminalization of homosexuality Criminalization of homosexuality is the classification of some or all sexual acts between men, and less frequently between women, as a criminal offense. Most of the time, such laws are unenforced with regard to consensual same-sex conduct, but ...
based on the
common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipres ...
tradition, the activists adopted a
human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
based framing and focused on international courts, especially the
European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that ...
as it was easier to access. ILGA was involved in the ''
Dudgeon v. United Kingdom ''Dudgeon v the United Kingdom'' (1981) was a European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case, which held that Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 which criminalised male homosexual acts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland violate ...
'' (1981) and '' Norris v. Ireland'' (1988) cases that led to the repeal of laws criminalizing homosexuality in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. At the same time, it worked on cases related to unequal ages of consent, military service, transgender rights, asylum and housing rights, but these did not lead to a successful outcome. ILGA was formerly known as International Lesbian and Gay Association, it adopted its current title in 2008. ILGA has grown to include 1,600 organizations from over 150 countries to fight for equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people. The Coventry conference also called upon Amnesty International (AI) to take up the issue of persecution of lesbians and gays. After a 13-year campaign AI made the human rights of lesbians and gays part of its mandate in 1991 and now advocates for LGBT rights on the international level. ILGA obtained consultative status at the
United Nations Economic and Social Council The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC; french: links=no, Conseil économique et social des Nations unies, ) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, responsible for coordinating the economic and social fields ...
(ECOSOC) in mid-1993. Statements were made in the name of ILGA in the 1993 and 1994 sessions of the United Nations
Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities The Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (before 1999, known as the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities) was a think tank of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. It was wou ...
and in the 1994 session of the
United Nations Commission on Human Rights The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006. It was a subsidiary body of ...
. ILGA's NGO status was suspended in September 1994 due to the group's perceived ties with pro-pedophilia organizations such as the
North American Man/Boy Love Association The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) is a pedophilia and pederasty advocacy organization in the United States. It works to abolish age-of-consent laws criminalizing adult sexual involvement with minors and campaigns for the rel ...
. In 1994, these groups were expelled from the organization, and in June 2011, the ECOSOC granted consultative status to ILGA after a 29 to 14 vote, despite the strong opposition from African and Islamic countries. Consultative status gives the ILGA the ability to attend and speak at UN meetings and participate in Human Rights Council proceedings. ILGA was involved in getting the
World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of ...
to drop homosexuality from its list of illnesses.


Conferences

According to its constitution, ILGA has a world conference in which all of its member organisations can attend. The world conference normally sets the time and place for the next conference. However, the Executive Board has used its power under the constitution to set an alternative venue, in the event the venue originally set becomes unviable, as was the case in 2008, when the originally chosen venue of Quebec had to be abandoned due to difficulties encountered by the local organizing committee in raising the necessary funds and the conference had to be held in Vienna instead. The 2010 ILGA world conference took place in São Paulo, Brazil, the 2012 Conference took place in Stockholm, and the 2014 Conference took place in Mexico City. Protests often made the conferences that the organization held more dramatic and having more negative attention then would've been wanted. A problem encountered was financial in nature which recently came to a head when an ILGA conference actually had to be postponed because of lack of
funding Funding is the act of providing resources to finance a need, program, or project. While this is usually in the form of money, it can also take the form of effort or time from an organization or company. Generally, this word is used when a firm use ...
. In 2022, ILGA held its first world conference since the beginning of the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
in
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.


International Intersex Forum

With a move to include intersex people in its remit, ILGA and
ILGA-Europe ILGA-Europe is the European region of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association. It is an advocacy group promoting the interests of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex ( LGBTI) people, at the European level ...
have sponsored the only international gathering of intersex activists and organisations. The
International Intersex Forum The International Intersex Forum is an annual event organised, then later supported, by the ILGA and ILGA-Europe that and organisations from multiple regions of the world, and it is believed to be the first and only such intersex event. Predec ...
has taken place annually since 2011.Global intersex community affirms shared goals
Star Observer The ''Star Observer'' is a free monthly magazine and online newspaper that caters to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex communities in Australia. Since 20 June 2019 the ''Star Observer'' is owned by media company Out Publicati ...
, December 4, 2013
The third forum was held in
Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
with 34 people representing 30 organisations "from all continents". The closing statement affirmed the existence of intersex people, reaffirmed "the principles of the First and Second International Intersex Fora and extend the demands aiming to end discrimination against intersex people and to ensure the right of bodily integrity, physical autonomy and self-determination". For the first time, participants made a statement on birth registrations, in addition to other human rights issues.


Funding

ILGA's main source of income are donations from governments, organizations, private foundations, amongst the contribution of individuals. In 2020
the total income of ILGA amounted to 2,213,268 CHF


Reports


State-Sponsored Homophobia

In 2011, ILGA released its State-Sponsored Homophobia Report and map that brings to light 75 countries that still criminalize same-sex relationships between two consenting adults. These countries are mainly in Africa and in Asia. In 2016, ILGA released an updated version of the ''State-Sponsored Homophobia Report''. The Report found that "same-sex sexual acts" are illegal in 72 countries. These countries are 37% of the States in the United Nations. Of these 72 countries, 33 are in Africa, 23 are in Asia, 11 are in the Americas, and six are in Oceania. Historian
Samuel Huneke Samuel ''Šəmūʾēl'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Šămūʾēl''; ar, شموئيل or صموئيل '; el, Σαμουήλ ''Samouḗl''; la, Samūēl is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transit ...
criticized ILGA maps for showing most Western and non-Western countries in different colors, stating that while "This division probably make sense to the casual observer... queer scholars and activists have noted that it also has colonial overtones".


Global Attitudes Survey

In 2016, ILGA published its ''2016 Global Attitudes Survey on LGBTI People''. The principal subject surveyed was attitudes about "sexual orientation."


See also

* European Lesbian* Conference * International Lesbian Information Service (ILIS) * International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Intersex Law Association *
Intersex human rights Intersex people are born with sex characteristics, such as chromosomes, gonads, or genitals, that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies." Intersex peo ...
*
LGBT social movements Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...


Notes


Further reading

* * * * Johansson, Warren & Percy, William A. ''Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence''. Harrington Park Press, 1994. pp. 192–193. * * * * *


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans And Intersex Association International LGBT political advocacy groups Organisations based in Brussels Organizations established in 1978 1978 establishments in England