Radio Free Qtopia

On this very special episode, we mark Human Rights Day by speaking with Jessica Stern, the fierce & fabulous Executive Director of OutRight Action International. Founded in 1990 as the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), OutRight is one of the world's oldest & most important organizations working to advance LGBTI human rights. Collaborating with grassroots activists, researchers, elected officials, the United Nations, and many more partners across the globe, Jessica & OutRight are truly indispensable to the work of creating truly LGBTI-inclusive societies.

For World AIDS Day, Greg Millett surveys where we are in the fight against HIV: the good news, the challenges & concerns, and the surprising news. Greg is the Vice President and Director of Public Policy for amfAR, the American Foundation for AIDS Research, and has previously held leadership roles at the White House Office of National AIDS Policy and at the Centers for Disease Control. A globally recognized advocate and researcher, Greg's work has fundamentally transformed how we understand the disparities of HIV infection for African American gay, bisexual, and other men who sex with men. This is a must-listen interview!

 

Links

• Linda Villarosa, "America's Hidden HIV Epidemic," New York Times (June 6, 2017)

• Greg Millett, "Time to Close HIV's Racial Disparities," CNN (Feb. 7, 2015)

• Tim Murphy, "HIV: Mystery Solved?" The Nation (Feb. 15, 2016)

On September 26, the United Nations released its global Standards of Conduct to support the business community as it tackles discrimination against LGBTI people. In this episode, we speak with Fabrice Houdart from the UN Human Rights Office about these new Standards, the role of business in promoting human rights, and more generally the connections between business, development, and supporting LGBTI people around the world.

 

Read more about the United Nations Free and Equal campaign against homophobia & transphobia, and follow Fabrice on Twitter at @houdartUN.

What do you know about the “I” in “LGBTI”? On this week’s episode, we talk with Irene, an activist with Intersex Russia, who talks about her experiences being intersex – including how a Buzzfeed video (really!) changed her life.

 

As mentioned in the episode, here’s Irene’s article, "I Discovered I'm Intersex from the Buzzfeed Video," along with the original Buzzfeed video, "What It's Like to Be Intersex."

 

Check out Intersex Russia and InterACT's websites. The two 2017 reports mentioned in our conversation are:

 

• Human Rights Watch and InterACT, "I Want to Be Like Nature Made Me: Medically Unnecessary Surgeries on Intersex Children in the US"

• Amnesty International, "First, Do No Harm: Ensuring the Rights of Children Born Intersex"

 

Today, Luis Larraín, a Chilean gay activist, talks about coming out, the LGBTQ movement in Chile, and his election campaign to become the first openly gay member of Chile's Chamber of Deputies.

 

You can follow Luis on Twitter at @luislarrain and check out his website at luislarrain.cl.

In this week's episode. Jennifer Lu from the Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association talks about the movement for marriage equality in Taiwan, changing attitudes in Taiwanese society, and how Taiwan's LGBTQ movement and legal victories resonate throughout Asia, especially in China.

In this episode, Nigerian-Swedish-American photographer Mikael Owunna discusses his project, Limit(less), which documents the fashion and style of LGBTQ Africans in North America and Europe. Owunna explores queer African style in the diaspora in order to debunk the myth that being LGBTQ is somehow “un-African.”

 

Check out Limit(less) at limitlessafricans.com and Mikael's whole portfolio at www.mikaelowunna.com.

 

As Pride Month ends, we go to El Salvador for a conversation with Andrea Ayala, the Executive Director of ESMULES, Espacio de Mujeres Lesbianas Salvadoreñas por la Diversidad. Violence, both in general and specifically against LGBTI people, is epidemic in El Salvador, but in this conversation, Andrea discusses the resilient work her organization is doing to make key Salvadoran institutions more responsive to the needs of the LGBTI community.

 

You can find ESMULES on Facebook and on Twitter. For more information about its work with LGBTI seniors, go to adult-tez.org.

 

Also see Uniformed Injustice: State Violence Against LGBT People in El Salvador, a 2017 report from the Georgetown Law Human Rights Institute.

This week, we’re tackling 2017’s biggest story in queer human rights: the crisis in Chechnya. My guest is Kimahli Powell, the Executive Director of Rainbow Railroad. Based in Toronto, Rainbow Railroad has been working very closely with Russian activists to get gay Chechens to safety. We’ll be discussing this urgent work and the organization’s other work to offer a “rainbow railroad” to LGBTI people all over the world at immediate risk of danger.

Links mentioned in the episode:

• Rainbow Railroad

• Russian LGBT Network: English | Русский

• Human Rights Watch, "They Have Long Arms and They Can Find Me": Anti-Gay Purge by Local Authorities in Russia's Chechen Republic (May 26, 2017)

 

2019 update from Human Rights Watch: “Russia: New Wave of Anti-LGBT Persecution” in Chechnya (Feb. 15, 2019)

My guest for this first episode is Urooj Arshad, a fierce & fabulous queer Pakistani-American activist working for reproductive justice and against Islamophobia & homophobia. From Karachi to Illinois to Washington, D.C., Urooj's journey speaks powerfully to how we navigate our many identities in a complex & contradictory world.

 

Articles mentioned in this episode:

• Urooj Arshad, "Finding Blingistan: My Journey Home to the LGBT Community in Pakistan"
  
• Metro Weekly, "Queer, Muslim, an Immigrant, and Female: Urooj Arshad Has Every Reason to Fear the Trump Administration."