The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA[2]) is a LGBTQ+ rights organization.
It participates in a multitude of agendas within the United Nations, such as creating visibility for LGBTQ+ 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.
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 based on the common law tradition, the activists adopted a human rights based framing and focused on international courts, especially the European Court of Human Rights as it was easier to access. ILGA was involved in the Dudgeon v. United Kingdom (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.[3]
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, following the Brazilian Resolution,[4][5] now advocates for LGBT rights on the international level.[6]
According to its constitution,[11] 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.[12] 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.[13]
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.[14] In 2022, ILGA held its first world conference since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Long Beach, California.[15]
With a move to include intersex people in its remit, ILGA and ILGA-Europe have sponsored the only international gathering of intersex activists and organisations. The International Intersex Forum has taken place annually since 2011.[16][17][18][19]
The third forum was held in Malta 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.[19][20][21]
In 2011, ILGA released its State-Sponsored Homophobia Report[22] 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.[23][24]
Historian Samuel Clowes Huneke 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".[25]
Curbing Deception
In February 2020, ILGA launched Curbing Deception - A Comprehensive Global Survey on Legal Restrictions of 'Conversion Therapies'.[26] This research report examines laws at both national and subnational levels that prohibit efforts to change sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Additionally, the report delves into a wide range of techniques historically and currently employed in an attempt to modify the sexual orientation of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals, impede transgender youth from transitioning, induce detransitioning in transgender individuals, or enforce adherence to societal stereotypes of masculinity and femininity regarding gender expression and roles.[27]
Our Identities under Arrest
Our Identities under Arrest is the first publication specifically focusing on the enforcement of laws that criminalize consensual same-sex sexual acts and diverse gender expressions at a global level. It goes beyond the black letter law to track how these provisions are effectively enforced. The first edition was published in December 2021 and it reviewed over 900 instances in which law enforcement authorities have subjected LGBTQ+ and gender-diverse individuals to fines, arbitrary arrests, prosecutions, corporal punishments, imprisonments, and potentially even the death penalty.[28][29]
The report provides evidence revealing the significant underreporting of arrests and prosecutions across different countries. It highlights the notable gap between official records on enforcement published by certain governments (such as Morocco, Uzbekistan, Cameroon, and Sri Lanka) and the number of instances documented through alternative sources collected by ILGA World for this report.[30] The report also found that judicial prosecution is a poor indicator to assess levels of enforcement, as arrests and detentions without formal judicial proceedings are the predominant methods of enforcing criminalizing provisions. In many countries, individuals can be detained for extended periods, ranging from several days to weeks or even months, without any form of judicial or administrative review.[30]
The report also highlights the fluctuating nature of the enforcement of criminalizing provisions, which can vary in frequency and intensity over time, with periods characterized by a significant increase in documented instances, followed by periods with no recorded or documented cases of enforcement. The report found that in many criminalizing countries, authorities and law enforcement officials sporadically enforce these provisions in ways that are often unpredictable. Even countries that are considered "safe" or where little information on enforcement is available can experience sudden and unexpected shifts in their approach to these provisions.[30]
Global Attitudes Survey
In 2016, ILGA published its 2016 Global Attitudes Survey on LGBTI People. The principal subject surveyed was attitudes about "sexual orientation."[31]
Adam, Barry D. (2001). "Globalization and the Mobilization of Gay and Lesbian Communities". Globalization and Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 166–179. ISBN978-0-230-55444-3.
Ayoub, Phillip M.; Paternotte, David (2016). "L'International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) et l'expansion du militantisme LGBT dans une Europe unifiée". Critique Internationale. 70 (1): 55. doi:10.3917/crii.070.0055.
Croucher, Sheila (2002). "South Africa's Democratisation and the Politics of Gay Liberation". Journal of Southern African Studies. 28 (2): 315–330. doi:10.1080/03057070220140720. S2CID144395845.
Johansson, Warren & Percy, William A. Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence. Harrington Park Press, 1994. pp. 192–193.
Paternotte, David (2014). "The International (Lesbian and) Gay Association and the question of pedophilia: Tracking the demise of gay liberation ideals". Sexualities. 17 (1–2): 121–138. doi:10.1177/1363460713511103. S2CID144898738.
Swiebel, Joke (2009). "Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender human rights: the search for an international strategy". Contemporary Politics. 15 (1): 19–35. doi:10.1080/13569770802674196. S2CID154229358.
Tremblay, Manon; Paternotte, David (2015). The Ashgate Research Companion to Lesbian and Gay Activism. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN978-1-4094-5709-1.
