Balancing Gender Rights: Pakistan’s Federal Shariat Court’s Verdict on Self-Perceived Gender Identity
The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2018 (the ‘Act’), passed by Pakistan’s Parliament in May 2018, marked a significant milestone following a decade-long judicial effort aimed at safeguarding the...
Horizontal Reservation for India’s Transgender Community: Can the Supreme Court Deliver?
India’s queer community is struggling to realise its civil rights on multiple fronts. The Indian Supreme Court has begun hearing petitions on marriage equality from a panoply of petitioners, including...
Gender-based Violence, LGBTQIA+ Rights, and Christian Values in Zambia
Since 2019 the Sistah Sistah Foundation (SSF) has marched in protest of sexual and gender-based violence in Zambia. Zambia’s national Gender Based Violence (GBV) statistics allege that a total of...
Depathologising Gender Identity at the United Nations: A Call to South Africa
On 29 March 2023, a cross-regional group of countries led by Argentina, called for United Nations Member States to implement laws and policies based on self-determined gender identity. This reform...
Uganda’s Draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023
After an unsuccessful attempt to propagate the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2014, the Ugandan Parliament yet again decided to reintroduce the Bill in March 2023. The Ugandan Parliament, led by...
The Forgotten I in LGBTQIA+: ECtHR Turns its Back on Intersex People
Image Description: Picture of two fists, with the letters LGBTQIA+ written across the knuckles in rainbow colours On 31 January, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued its first-ever...
Equality Doesn’t Always Mean Integration: The Right to Education for Neurodiverse People
Image Description: A young woman with pink hair is tossing her head in joy. Proponents of the rights of people with disabilities widely subscribe to the social model of disability:...
Surrogacy in India: The Need for Inclusive Laws
Image description: Seven women sit on a panel in front of a banner entitled “National Consultation on Surrogacy Issues” in New Delhi, India Recently, a petition challenging surrogacy laws in...
Gender Recognition With a Price: Q & Tse Henry Edward v Commissioner of Registration
Image description: A group of people walking under a rainbow flag. The Hong Kong Court of Appeal recently delivered a judgment reaffirming full sex reassignment surgery (“SRS”) as a prerequisite...
Advancing Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Equality Through CEDAW
Women’s enjoyment of their human rights is inextricably informed and shaped in important ways by their sexual orientation and gender identity. Yet the equality of lesbian, bisexual, queer and trans...
Do Not Thwart Women’s Employment, Facilitate It: Indian Supreme Court Strikes Down Arbitrary Gender-Based Restrictions to Restaurant Orchestras
Image description: A group of women, many of whom are smiling or laughing. The Indian Supreme Court recently delivered a pathbreaking judgment reminding the State of its obligation to facilitate...
Y v. Poland: Trans Rights and Strasbourg’s Search for a Proper Discrimination Theory
Image Description: Seven small Trans rights flags erected on grass. There are flowers growing in the background. On 17.2.22 the ECtHR passed judgment in another trans-rights case, finding that the...
