AFRICAN SAME-SEX SEXUALITIES AND GENDER DIVERSITY: PRACTICES, IDENTITIES AND COMMUNITIES

First Announcement

International Conference on African Same-Sex Sexualities and Gender Diversity, to be held February 13 – 16, 2011 in Pretoria, South Africa.

Conference Mission: To identify and celebrate indigenous and evolving male, female and/or gender variant same-sex sexual practices, identities and communities, including expressions of gender diversity, and to promote their social acceptance and their physical and social well-being.
Primary target group: Persons knowledgeable about or scholarly engaged in the study of same-sex practices, identities, and communities from a liberating or emancipatory perspective (persons from Sub-Saharan Africa are encouraged to attend), sexual rights advocates, and persons from Sub-Saharan Africa engaged in the artistic expression of gender and same-sex sexuality issues.|

Call for abstract submission will be released soon.
The conference is a joint initiative of the following organizations: AMSHeR (African Men for Sexual Health and Rights), Behind the Mask (South Africa), GALCK (Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya; Kenya), Gender DynamiX (South Africa), HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies (New York), Hivos (Netherlands, main sponsor), Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC; South Africa), Humure (Burundi), International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (ILGHRC), Oxfam, UNDP (Southern & Eastern Africa).

 

Thanks to Fareeda Jadwat for this.

STOP RWANDA'S PROPOSALS TO CRIMINALISE HOMOSEXUALITY
Horizon Community Association
Horizon Community Association (HOCA), an LGBTI organisation in Rwanda, in collaboration with the Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL) and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) calls on all human rights defenders, organisations, governments, civil society, globally, to immediately take action against a proposed article in the draft Penal
Code Act in Rwanda which would criminalise homosexuality. The Lower House of the Rwandan Parliament will hold its final debate on this draft code Wednesday 16 December 2009. A vote on this draft code will occur before the end of this week.
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/action/61081

State-sponsored homophobia: a world survey of laws prohibiting same sex activity between consenting adults
This site provides free access to a 64 page report published by The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association in May 2009. It provides a worldwide country by country survey of national legal system and laws, highlighting examples which discriminate against gay, lesbian and transsexual sexual activities. From Intute.ac.uk
http://www.ilga.org/statehomophobia/ILGA_State_Sponsored_Homophobia_2009.pdf

From The Guardian:

Raped and killed for being a lesbian: South Africa ignores 'corrective' attacks

Video link to Interviews with SA women victims of "corrective rape"

 

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) is a leading international organization dedicated to human rights advocacy on behalf of people who experience discrimination or abuse on the basis of their actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.

Gay and lesbian review worldwide

'The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide: a bimonthly journal of history, culture and politics' is a regular intellectual publication published from Boston in the U.S.A. This journal initially appears to offer about 80 articles online, for free, as well as general tables of contents organised by issue. But browsing these tables of contents reveals more free content than is listed elsewhere. Even in its limited online form, the generous range of free content means that this is a useful and unique publication. A range of notable writers contribute to the publication. The website has details of subscriptions to the paper version, the editors and publishers, and advertising rates. There is an associated weblog. The website content can be searched by keyword. The Review was formerly called the 'The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review', from 1994 to 1999. From Intute.ac.uk
http://www.glreview.com/

International gay & lesbian review
'The International Gay & Lesbian Review' is a full-text ejournal that offers summaries and reviews of books of lesbigay interest. The Review claims to be "the world's first academic journal to be published entirely on the World Wide Web." Nearly 1000 short reviews are available, although some are available in abstract rather than full-text form. Both fiction and non-fiction books are reviewed, on a wide variety of topics and by a wide variety of reviewers. Reviews are usually in a tone suitable for the general university-educated reader. Some reviews are taken from now-defunct print publications such as Gay Today. The website has information about how to submit reviews. There is the ability to search by title, or by the surname of a book's author. For those without access to commercial book review databases, this will be a useful website to use in conjuction with Google Books and Amazon reviews. From: Intute.ac.uk
http://gaybookreviews.info/

This handbook is designed for LGBT and human rights organisations who intend to monitor the occurrence of homophobic and transphobic incidents and violence in order to advocate for legislative changes to increase legal protections from violence motivated by hatred towards LGBT people at national, European and international levels. ILGA-Europe is the European region of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) .