Out of DSM: Depathologizing Homosexuality
In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed the diagnosis of “homosexuality” from the second edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). This resulted after comparing competing theories, those that pathologized homosexuality and those that viewed it as normal. In an effort to explain how that decision came about, this paper by Jack Drescher […]
Read moreGAPW Policy Brief marks World AIDS Day 2015
One of the main NGOs in the country and engaged in fighting HIV / AIDS for 28 years, the Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association – (ABIA)/ Global AIDS Policy Watch (GAPW) marks World AIDS Day (December 1) beginning with the publication of a GAPW Policy Brief – Prevention Literacy: Reinventing HIV Prevention for the 21st Century […]
Read moreSexual Politics in November 2015
As we were finalizing the compilation of sexual politics related events that make the headlines in November the screens were taken over by the armed attack on the Colorado abortion clinic that killed three people and left many other gravely hurt. There was no time to develop an in depth analysis of this tragic event, […]
Read moreThe marks on our bodies
Mauro Cabral draws a line between the marks on his flesh and the words that clinicians use to define and treat intersex bodies. Thirty years ago, in a small pediatric clinic that still works at Baigorrí Street, Córdoba, Argentina, a gynecologist discovered that my body was different from those of other girls who were my […]
Read moreIntersex rights and freedoms
Published in the UNSW Law Society journal “Court of Conscience” issue 9, 2015, on “rights and freedoms”, this paper considers what it means to address the rights and freedoms of people born with intersex traits. “Intersex status” is a new attribute in federal anti-discrimination law, introduced in 2013, but few institutions have yet responded to […]
Read moreQueering Paradigms V – Queering narratives of modernity
The authors of this edited volume use a queer perspective to address colonialism as localized in the Global South, to analyse how the queer can be decolonized and to map the implications of such conversations on hegemonic and alternative understandings of modernity. This book is distinct in at least four ways. First, its content is […]
Read moreOf Flags and Fetishes – The Paris Attacks and A Misplaced Politics of Solidarity: Debaditya Bhattacharya
I have absolutely no problems with flag filters on Facebook. Or for that matter, profile-picture revolutions that happen all too often. I’m not, in the least bit indignant about such a competitive exhibitionism of feeling – indexed through a currency of memes and emoticons. In an age of such mass-production of violence (‘terroristic’ or ‘humanitarian’), it is no surprise that the event of mourning must become a symptom of the incompatibility between ‘act’ and ‘response’.
Read moreTransgender women living with HIV in Los Angeles County face an array of unmet legal needs
Transgender women living with HIV in Los Angeles County face a variety of legal needs that have a significant impact on their access to resources such as income, health care and housing, but most do not receive any legal assistance, according to a new analysis by researchers at the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.
Read more“Mourning becomes the law”—Judith Butler from Paris
Letter from Judith Butler, Paris, Saturday 14th November I am in Paris and passed near the scene of killing on Boulevard Beaumarchais on Friday evening. I had dinner ten minutes from another target. Everyone I know is safe, but many people I do not know are dead or traumatized or in mourning. It is shocking […]
Read moreGlobal homocapitalism – Rahul Rao

In this article I ask why leading institutions of global capitalism have begun to take activist stances against homophobia, and why they have done so now. I want to understand the terms on which the figure of the queer has come to be adopted as an object of concern for the development industry.
Read moreLaunching IM-Defensoras report on violence against WHRDs in Mesoamerica
AWID, as IM-Defensoras Steering Group member, has launched the Second Regional Report on the Situation of WHRDs in Mexico and Central America, which includes and compares information gathered between 2012 and 2014. This report is the result of the collective effort by those who make up the Mesoamerican Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders (IM-Defensoras). AWID is […]
Read moreNew issue of Jacobin is out
The new issue of Jacobin was released. “Uneven and Combined” takes on questions of development in the Global South, the (less than emancipatory) rise of the BRICS, and possible alternatives to neoliberalism. Click here to learn more.
Read moreSummary of the New Zealand Prostitution Reform Act
The Prostitution Reform Act (PRA) came into operation in New Zealand in June, 2003. The PRA decriminalised prostitution; created a framework to safe guard the human rights of sex workers; promoted the welfare and occupational health and safety of sex workers; and prohibited the use in prostitution of persons under 18 years of age. The […]
Read more‘Coming Out of Concrete Closets’: LGBTQ Criminalization as Reproductive Injustice
The data in Coming Out of Concrete Closets sheds light on the ways in which systemic discrimination of LGBTQ communities—particularly low-income communities and communities of color—forms a dragnet of criminalization for the most marginalized. (Shutterstock)
Read moreThe Sexual Politics Landscape in October 2015
Check the main facts in October 2015. We highlight the Stop Trans Pathologization Campaign 2015; the Synod on the Family’s final statement; Brazilian feminists protests against partially approved legislation that criminalizes providing information and assistance in regard to abortion; and the Indonesian regressive law against sexual freedom.
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