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In meetings at the Supreme Court, Congress, and Brazilian universities, Reem Alsalem made anti-trans statements and was criticized by feminist and LGBTQIAPN+ organizations. By Dany Avelar (AzMina website), translated by SPW.

On January 22, Trump’s administrarion announced it was suspending the funding for foreign organizations that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. SPW summarized the main changes, which expand the restrictions set by the Mexico City Policy and will have many ramifications. Check it out below:

The politics of abortion rights in Brazil entered a new chapter in October. Before his voluntary retirement, the last act of Federal Supreme Court (STF) Justice Luís Roberto Barroso was to cast a vote in favor of lawsuit ADPF 442, which seeks to decriminalize abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy.

To mark the launch of SPW’s new website, we invited some long-term partners to explore our archive and select a piece of content (a publication,

To mark the launch of SPW’s new website, we invited some long-term partners to explore our archive and select a piece of content (a publication,

By: Tomás Ojeda, Mariana Gaba, Isidora Paiva-Mack, Rodrigo Sierra Rosales, Débora Fernández y Alemka Tomicic Year: 2024 This piece explores the relationship between gender-affirming interventions,

Sonia Corrêa In April 2024, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith, the main doctrinal body of the Holy See, published the Declaration Dignitas Infinita. This

by Sonia Corrêa Introduction I was motivated to write this commentary after reading a series of articles that revisit the conditions in which a transnational

Originally from Jamil Chade,UOL columnist in Geneva.  Translation to English by Giulia de Vito ______________________ Civil society organisations have appealed to the United Nations, asking international

This text is a chapter authored by Sonia Corrêa, David Paternotte, Claire House and published in Routledge Handbook of Sexuality, Gender, Health and Rights. Download

By Nana Soares. In July 2022, we published an article echoing and contextualising the guidelines then adopted by the International Swimming Federation (FINA) regarding the participation of trans women in their competitions. As we highlight in the article, gender policing in sports is not a new debate, but it is one that has intensified and taken on new forms in recent years.

By Tomás Ojeda Thank you, Sonia, and hello everyone. Thanks for being here with us at the launch of the English version of these case

By Sonia Corrêa. These notes on the end of the Bolsonaro government are brief and very preliminary. As I was writing I was just adjusting to the atmosphere that started to be installed in Brazil on Sunday. To be more precise, last night when it became clear that, despite a cowardly and deplorable statement and last-minute coup attempts, we began a new political cycle. I will start sharing my sentiments and not objective information. My feeling today November 2nd 2022 is very different from the one that seized me, in 2018, when, in the wake of the astonishing electoral process that elected Bolsonaro to the presidency, I was overtaken by a productive anger. It made me immediately sit down and write an essay that, inspired an article by Celso Rocha Barros published that same day, I have titled  “Brazilian Elections: Perfect Catastrophe?”

By Nana Soares The International Swimming Federation (FINA) announced at the World Championship, held in June in Budapest, a new technical-medical rule to regulate the

By Jamil Chade* Dear young girl, While your story was the subject of a dramatic debate in Brazil, I tell you that in a room

By Carmen Barroso I first met Adrienne when she went to Brazil in 1974 as a young Ford Foundation program officer.  I knew right away

By Manuela Lavinas Picq. This law is a victory for regulating the right to abortion due to rape, even allowing survivors to avoid police procedures, but advocates of decriminalization contested exclusionary aspects that will affect the most vulnerable. The dark side of the law? The deadlines.

Originally published at Radis. Author: Richard Parker. Translated by SPW. Available at: https://radis.ensp.fiocruz.br/opiniao/pos-tudo/covid-19-e-a-producao-da-ignorancia/ The first year of the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us many lessons

At the beginning of September 2021, although she was on vacation, the Brazilian National Secretary for the Family, Angela Gandra, went to Portugal and Spain.

In September 2021, the Chinese government released the new policy guideline on women, namely “Program for Women and Development (2021-2030)”. In the area of “Women

On February 8th, 2021, the National Confederation of Workers in Education and the National Confederation of Workers in Health presented a petition to the Brazilian

By Sonia Corrêa In September, Pope Francis visited Hungary and Slovakia, and in the latter country, in a conversation with a group of Jesuits, he

Pedro Castillo Terrones is 51 years old and is a primary school teacher, farmer, and militia member. He studied education and obtained a master’s degree in Educational Psychology from the Universidad César Vallejo. He gained public notoriety after leading the teachers’ strike in 2017 and 2018 which stopped classes for months with the demand for salary improvements and the elimination of teacher evaluation. He was active in Perú Posible, the party of former president Alejandro Toledo, and was a member of the Cajamarca committee from 2005 until 2017, when the grouping lost its registration.

by Thais Rodrigues and Edson Sardinha* Brazilian conservative and extreme-right parliamentarians are planing to take advantage of the new presidency of the House, MP Arthur

With the contribution and/or endorsement of 100 academics from universities such as Harvard, Brown and Columbia, and of organizations such as Greenpeace USA, Amazon Watch,

Since 2013, Pope Francis I has been making unexpected comments about homosexuality, which usually call for compassion and tolerance. While these speech acts erupt here

By Sonia Corrêa A new encyclical signed by Pope Francis I was published in early October 2020. Entitled Fratelli Tutti, the new papal exhortation was

By Massimo Prearo* That words such as “revolution”, “change” or “turn” can be attributed to a religious institution like the Catholic Church, or to the

By Sonia Corrêa & Rajnia de Vito Recently, references to pedophilia have increased vertiginously in Brazilian social networks and the press. At first glance, this

A series of memes and messages were recently circulated throughout the continent with the aim of alerting people to an alleged movement that would be

By Sonia Corrêa Since 1940, Brazilian law has permitted abortion in cases of rape,  and sexual intercourse with persons under 14 years old is automatically 

On Monday, June 15th, anti-gender activist Sara Winter was arrested in Brasilia in a Federal Police operation. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes issued a

A widespread orientation of what is presented today under the name of gender, calls into question the revealed fact: «Man and woman He created them».

By Bárbara Sepúlveda Hales & Lieta Vivaldi Macho The recent appointment of the new Minister of Women and Gender Equality, Macarena Santelices, by President Sebastián

By Lorena Moraes* Last weekend, the largest Brazilian national survey on Covid-19 suffered resistance in a number of cities, most of them located in the

As Brazil has been rising the tops of global coronavirus dissemination curve and Bolsonaro’s popularity hits a new low, his most radical support base has

By Richard Parker* In the COVID-19 pandemic, the history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic emergence and responses offers lessons for reflecting on the current challenges and

By Sonia Corrêa[1] But, people die, don’t they? Yes, indeed. However, the current naturalization of death erases thinking – Santiago López Petit In the first week of

SPW begins a series of brief analyses of the Covid-19 crisis in contexts that are generally under-reported by the mainstream press and which are characterized

“Amor en los tiempos del covid-19” march, organized by the government. Photo: EFE. Nicaragua and the dance of horrors in the struggle against COVID 19

By Santiago Puyol* The elections held in Uruguay on Sunday, October 27th, represented the greatest news for the Uruguayan political system fifteen years after the

By Jaime Barrientos, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Chile, and Manuel Cárdenas, Escuela de Psicología, Universidad Valparaíso, Chile. In Chile, at the beginning of

By Isabela Kalil The Context On October 29, 2019, Jornal Nacional (the main Brazilian television newspaper, broadcast by Rede Globo) reported that the name of

On Tuesday, September 3rd, JMB has Twitted that he mandated the Minister of Education to draft bill to prohibit the diffusion of “gender ideology” in

On May 30, the US State Department announced the creation of the “Inalienable Rights Commission” to advise Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The body, chaired

At present, 15 bills related to “gender ideology” are being processed in the Parliament. Eight of them were presented in the first half of 2019,

SPW has transcripted and translated Minister of Foreign Affairs Ernesto Araújo remarks during a Public Hearing on July 8th, 2019, when he was summoned to

By Sonia Corrêa A few days before completing the symbolic mark of Jair Messias Bolsonaro’s – or  JMB’s – first 100 days of government, consecrated

By Fábio Grotz A continuous state of war driven by the government is what drives the speech and activities of actors engaged in the redemptive

With great pleasure, SPW offers an assessment of sexuality and gender politics, including abortion rights, in the first (almost) six months of the Jair Messias

By Sonia Corrêa What has been happening, since January,  in the Brazilian Congress regarding abortion rights and gender must be situated in a longer political.

By Rajnia de Vito and Marco Aurélio Prado In a political scene that is thoroughly saturated with sex and gender tropes and memes, Damares Alves,

By Fábio Grotz With regards to the trajectory of the policy response to HIV and reproductive health in Brazil — which, between 1980 and the

Rio de Janeiro, May 27th, 2019 Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association (ABIA) After the justifications given by the Ministry of Health for the establishment of the

Brazil’s national AIDS movement – comprised of networks, collectives, CSOs and activists signed below – repudiates Decree N. 9795 (read in Portuguese), released on May

SPW republishes the article “Reflecting on 2011 events: scattered notes on how sexual politics intersect with a shifting global landscape“, written by Sonia Corrêa, who

The Ministry of Education (MEC) created on Wednesday (March 20th) a three-person commission to assess the national exam whose scores are used to get in

By Marco Aurélio Máximo Prado, Professor at the Psychology Department at UFMG In the last few weeks, the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) has

By Sonia Corrêa Time to mourn Politics is both reasoning and affect. This is how the first version of this essay, written in the immediate aftermath

Read Sonia Corrêa’s article on the antecedents, outcomes and meanings of the 2018 Brazilian presidential elections.

Text by Berenice Bento (UnB) published at Outras Palavras, on Dec. 12, 2018. Translated by SPW. Available here. At first glance, nothing seems stranger to

By Isabela Oliveira Kalil[1] An article published by The New York Times, on September 24, examined the Brazilian presidential election scenario and defined Jair Bolsonaro,

By Denise Mantovani[1] and Maria Lígia Elias[2] It is not easy to analyze an electoral context in “real time”. But we cannot, however, escape from examining

By Jaime Barrientos Chile began 2018 with a visit from Pope Francis. The country still remembered the one paid by John Paul II who, in

By Angela Freitas Feminists, networks and organizations engaged in the struggle for the right to abortion in Brazil had two months to prepare a mobilization

Download Sonia Corrêa’s article on the public hearings for abortion decriminalization in Brazil — a landmark event in the feminist struggle for abortion rights.

By Marco Aurélio Máximo Prado “I contend that these values all derive from important Jewish sources, which is not to say that they are only

By Roberta Clarke  On May 24th, Mia Mottley became Prime Minister of Barbados with her Barbados Labour Party (BLP) winning all thirty parliamentary seats. This

Three Argentinean partners who work on gender, sexuality and abortion matters generously share their views on key undercurrents of the process leading to the partial

By Fábio Grotz and Sonia Corrêa A new chapter of the ongoing institutional debate on abortion rights in Brazil is scheduled for August 3rd and

  By Franklin Gil Hernandes Apparently, attacks on “gender ideology”, quite central to the  2016 peace referendum, were peripheral in the 2018 Colombian presidential campaign.

By Fábio Grotz Since early June, BBC Brazil — possibly with a view to feeding the national debate around ADPF 442/2017 or perhaps as a

By Sandra Mazo Cardona An inside look from gender and sexuality on the circumstances that led to Duque’s victory in the Colombian presidential elections On

By Sonia Corrêa In the first week of November 2017, Judith Butler was viciously attacked in Brazil by a heterogeneous group of actors who define themselves as

Blas Radi (Universidad de Buenos Aires)[1] The sexual and (non) reproductive health of trans men is a challenging issue. In the first place, because it

We gather here our monthly briefing writing efforts on the international context in regard to the state of the art and developments of abortion rights

On July 13-15th, 2016 Sexuality Policy Watch organized the seminar/workshop SexPolitics: Mapping Key Trends and Tensions in the Early 21st Century in Durban, South Africa.

By José Manuel Morán Faúndes Things did not turn out as expected in Chile. Pope Francis, whose image as a charismatic leader sharply contrasts with

By Victoria Pedrido On March 20, five draft bills to pass the Voluntary Pregnancy Termination law were debated by Commissions in Parliament. Of those, one

Can a subaltern speak? No, is the response of the feminist philosopher Gayatri Spivak, when she realizes that to “have the right to a voice” the place of the subaltern must be subverted.

By Sonia Corrêa Brazilian abortion and sexual politics continue ensnarled by the uncertainties of the overall political environment. On February 16th, a presidential decree determined

By Sonia Corrêa In late January 2018, three people departed whose voices, or better said whose writings, inhabit very special places in my memory and

Remembering Teresita De Barbieri who passed away on January 21, 2018. By Ana Laura de Giorgi Uruguayan, feminist and academically committed. First exiled in Chile, then

By Magaly Marques Los Angeles, January 21st, 2018 The best part of a protest or demonstration is to witness the creativity with which people express

By Sonia Corrêa In the third week of October 2017, an array of openly right-wing formations comprised of the Catholic hierarchy, evangelical Christians, conservative psychologists

By Rajnia de Vito and Angela de Freitas In order to properly situate sexual politics in Brazil (while paying special attention to abortion), we must

What happens when a big name of the anti-gender crusade is involved in a sex scandal? By Rogério Diniz Junqueira* Monsignor Tony Anatrella is a

By Vik Muniz In Brazil, evangelical politicians and a conservative press are working to suppress art by forcing museums to shut down or reject shows,

As SPW readers know, for some years now Brazil has been undergoing regressions in gender and sexual politics and, since last year, a full conservative

By Carla Batista and Sonia Corrêa* In November 2016, the first bench of the Brazilian Supreme Court, in a judgment of a habeas corpus of

by Seona Smiles. Barbara Hau’ofa was a quiet, modest person who nonetheless justifiably stood out in a crowd. For a start she was extremely tall and slim. As her short chubby friend who was seen constantly in her company on the University of the South Pacific campus, I believe we were nicknamed ‘Bat and Ball’.

By María Amelia Viteri and Gabriel Ocampo. Homosexuality was criminalized in Ecuador until November, 1997[1]. As a result, until then, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons were considered criminals, could face imprisonment and were often tortured and even killed.

By Matthew Waites. The Queer Asia conference has emerged as one of the most fresh and ground breaking conference events in global queer studies. The event is held at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, yet the organising team nevertheless managed to bring together presentations

By João Manuel de Oliveira. The legend says that Portugal is a conservative country with a supposedly glorious past, whenever colonization and its engagement with the slave traffic eliminated from the equation. It is also described as a profoundly religious country, deeply marked by the influence of endemic Catholicism. Sociologists, using an equation

As this highly volatile and complex political context was building up, PEC 29/2015, the Constitutional amendment on the right to life from conception — tabled by Senator Magno Malta in 2015 and dormant ever since in the Committee on Constitution and Justice — was re-introduced for rapid processing.

The criminalization of abortion by the 1940 Brazilian Penal Code is incompatible with women’s fundamental rights enshrined in the 1988 Federal Constitution. This premise grounds the petition presented to the Supreme Court (STF), on March 7th 2017

by Gloria Careaga* Differently from other Mexican states, Mexico City, the Federal District of the Republic, did not have its own Constitution until February 5th,

By Sonia Corrêa In the first two weeks of his administration Donald Trump has opened a can of worms spreading around draconian and regressive conservative

With endorsement of the Republican Party, the Trump campaign openly disrespected and insulted more than half of the US population and this led to what can be described as a “pressure cooker effect”. After months of an unprecedented election season when Hillary and all women were mistreated by the candidate — who felt entitled to abuse his position– and sometimes also by the press; after outrageous remarks and threats to attack immigrants, Muslims, Mexican-Americans and the entire American population of African descent, the build up of outrage was steaming from coast to coast.

In the midst of the conservative restoration that has swept Brazil in 2016, on November 29th, the First Chamber of the Brazilian Supreme Court – in which five of the eleven judges have a seat – has issued, an unexpected decision arguing in favor of decriminalization of abortion

By Laura Trajber Waisbich . As a first exercise, we will give a brief background to how social participation has been played out in the BRICS. After one full cycle of BRICS chairmanships, since South Africa joined the group in 2011, civil society engagement with the BRICS (both at the national level and internationally) has evolved significantly, albeit in a setting constantly full of obstacles.

By Mara Vivero. In this text I will present some elements on gender ideology, its antecedents and contemporary uses and secondly I will refer to the Colombian case, as one of the cases in which the term “gender ideology” has been used as part of a conservative rhetorical strategy to the constant interfaces between religious and political sectors that oppose the changes that have occurred in society in terms of gender and sexuality.

In the midst of the conservative restoration that swept Brazil in 2016, the First Chamber of the Brazilian Supreme Court, where five of the eleven

At a time in which electoral processes are undermining democracy not only in Brazil, but also in many other countries, electoral results can give in sight to many questions regarding the foundations of the democratic process.

  There are two questions that voters in the US from the left of center are asking themselves: Who are these people who voted for

The UN Human Rights Council has nominated its first independent investigator aimed at protecting people in regard to sexual orientation and gender identity across the

The session examined how the geopolitical shifts implied in the articulation of these global South countries in new blocs, especially the BRICS, has generated expectations that this emergence of “powers from the South” would eventually open up space for new platforms for the political work on sexuality, gender and human rights, that would not be caught by overlapping North-South tensions (or post-colonial effects) that perennially cross these fields of debate.

It also seemed to me that the general mood of pessimism came from the fact that most of the meeting’s participants were not digital natives, not exactly the ”globalized children”. This meant – again, with notable exceptions – that we still saw activism and policy advocacy

by Franklin Gil Hernández [1]   The implementation of sexual and reproductive rights in Colombia can be described as ”half way done”. In all areas in

by Laura Molinari Alonso and Jimena de Garay The 2016 Olympics have been portrayed as the women’s Games. In fact, 2016 has seen the highest

by Leonardo Peçanha The Rio Olympic Games were a landmark in regard to gay and lesbian athletes openly disclosing their sexual orientation. This visibility and

Since August 5th, as in an extended Carnival, ordinary life in Brazil, particularly in Rio, was suspended.  At their end the Olympic Games 2016 have

As soon as the Olympics were over, Rio — the city that projected the global image of a new Mount Olympus of fit and sensual

 by Sonia Corrêa “The discourses that legitimize punitive power, as established in the middle Ages, are in full force. This is when criminology was born

In June, 2016, as the impeachment of Dilma Roussef followed its course, it became increasingly evident that one of the strongest motivations of the power maneuvering that led to the April parliamentary coup was the interest of many of those supporting this move to strangle the ongoing investigations on corruption.

At the UN Human Rights Council the LAC Group 5 – formed by Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Uruguay – announced the decision to submit

It is not exactly to keep track of the Brazilian political development these days. On May 11th, the Brazilian Senate confirmed the admissibility of the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, which had been approved by the House on April 17th.

Since our reports of early 2015, SPW has always linked developments in the abortion debate to the on-going Brazilian political and economic crisis. On April 17th, 2016, this crisis reached an initial point of culmination when the House of Representatives voted for and approved the admissibility of the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff.

Luana Barbosa dos Reis Santos was brutally killed by Brazilian cops in the city of Ribeirão Preto (São Paulo) in early April. She was taking

SPW shares an unnamed letter written by  Bangladesh activist after the murders of LGBT activists in the Asian country in the past weeks. The letter

As underlined by Michel Foucault in his writings, in modern times, children and adolescent sexualities have been under close and systematic surveillance. While in the

In an article written for SPW, Alejandra Sardá-Chandiramani, from Akahatá, analyzes the sexual politics scenario after the 2015 elections. In her own words: The open

During 2015, as previously reported by SPW, Brazilian abortion politics continued to evolve under pressures created by the unsettled intersection of regressive policy trends (which have been gaining strength since the mid 2000’s) and the macro-political crisis which has overtaken the Brazilian res publica.

In July 2015, during the 29th Session of the Human Rights Council, as reported by SPW and many other sources, a Resolution on the Protection

On February 5th, the Argentinean trans leadership Lohana Berkins has departed. Lohana was recognized worldwide as a champion of trans rights as well as a

If things had gone well, 2014 would have been the perfect year to commemorate the positive developments of sexual and reproductive health and rights in Brazil.

October and November 2015 will be marked in the Brazilian calendar as a colorful time of feminist occupations. Feminist bodies, voices, lemmas, writings, images have invaded the streets, social networks, the male writers op-ed spaces in the mainstream press. Feminist voices of all ages and social strata arose everywhere to make clear that we have had enough.

As it has been systematically reported by SPW in the last few months, Brazil is now a battleground in regard to the right to legal

The front slide image is a detail of Social Fabric, a drawing by the Brazilian artist Rosana Paulino Article by Sonia Corrêa and Fábio Grotz *

Image: Barbara Kruger By Sonia Corrêa[1] As previously reported by SPW (here and here), for some time now, growing obstacles have been impairing any movement

Pope Francis once more gained global visibility by allowing priests to forgive women who have had an abortion. His speech — delivered on September first

Written by Fábio Grotz (in collaboration with Sonia Corrêa) Since the heyday of preparation for the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD, Cairo, 1994),

Michelle Agnoletti [1] In July 2015 a heated controversy around sex work and human rights erupted globally. A campaign was launched by international organizations that

Sonia Corrêa The UN Committee on Human Rights is developing a new General Comment on Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political

Gay and lesbian tourism companies have, in the past several years, taken a turn for the calculative. More and more, we are seeing rankings like Spartacus International Gay Guide’s “Gay Travel Index” which purport to determine which countries are the friendliest for gay and lesbian tourists, and which are not.

by Juan Marco Vaggione Since his inauguration as the new pontiff, Bergoglio has generated new complexities for those of us who think that it is

By Gloria Careaga Perez Since 2009, when same sex marriage was legalized in Mexico City, obbstacles faced by same-sex couples to be granted full rights

In the first week of June 2015, two articles have reached us that spoke to the unabated tensions – and perhaps unresolvable – tensions between those streams of feminism that deny the validity and ‘authenticity’ of female transgender identities and experiences.

Since very early in time SPW has included Sexuality and Art as one topic of its Newsletter. In doing so we aimed at making  visibility

In Sexuality, Health and Human Rights (Corrêa, Parker and Petchesky, 2008) we have examined the early 2000’s French controversies, which  led to the banning of

In Biopolitics at the Crossroads of Sexuality and Disaster: The Case of Haiti, Rosalind Petchesky begins her reflections by sharing a definition of intersectionality: “An

by By Manuela L. Picq* A debate on abortion suspended the voting on the new penal code in the Ecuadorian Congress this week. Congresswoman Soledad Buendía,

Read the article Young Women: Analysis of the Public Safety and Justice Systems in Rio de Janeiro, by Carla Gomes and Beatriz Galli.

Fábio Grotz & Sonia Corrêa Abortion is criminalized in Brazil, except in the cases of woman’s life risk, rape and anencephalic mal formation of the

by the SPW team In the statement, that appraises the decision of the African Court on Human and People’s Rights in granting observer status the

Jandira Cruz and Elisângela Barbosa died after resorting to unsafe clandestine abortion clinics. Their deaths are now inevitably interwoven with the 2014 intense and complex

The four figures of the law:  Brief theoretical inquiries into the Queer movement’s relationship with law Vqueeram Aditya Sahay* This piece is about what the

The 2013 Indian Supreme Court decision on section 377: beyond the law Jordan Osserman * While many LGBTQ activists across the globe expressed mourning, rage

“When the light of our century may blind us” Nitya Vasudevan* When does the idea of a global solidarity threaten to compromise contextualised political struggles?

Moving forward, perhaps: The 2013  India Supreme Court Decision on Section 377 Gautam Bhan* In the immediate moment, it simply felt difficult to breathe. It

The Paradoxical Geopolitics of Recriminalizing Homosexuality in Uganda: One of Three Ugly Sisters Stella Nyanzi* Uganda’s re-criminalization of homosexuality is not an isolated case, but

The Queer body between the Judicial and the Political – reflections on the anti-homosexuality laws in India and Uganda akshay khanna* Nostalgia for a recent

Read the new IDS Working Paper The Changing Faces of Citizen Action: A Mapping Study through an ‘Unruly’ Lens, which speaks of Brazilian contemporary experience of citizenship struggles.

May 17th is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO). In 2013, some 100 countries have reported activities to be held in remembrance of the Day and of the victims of homophobia and transphobia. We selected some of the amazing initiatives, which you can see here and get inspired to take part in this movement.

Read the “Transcription of the Brazilian NGOs original note,” with concerns on the ordinance published by the Ministry of Health of that allows states and municipalities to use, for “general health purposes,” those funds that had been originally transferred by the Union for the exclusive use of AIDS programs, but were not used until december 2011.

Read “INTRODUCTION: Sexual and reproductive rights at the 2012 Universal Periodic Review of Brazil”, written for the SPW Newsletter N. 12, based on analysis of Magaly Pazello, from EMERGE-Communication and Emergence Research Centre and Women’s Networking Support Programme of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC).

Read “The Inter-American Human Rights System is under threat: Implications for the Sexuality and Human Rights Agenda”, written by Marcelo Ferreyra, Latin America and Caribbean Coordinator at Global Initiative for Sexuality and Human Rights – Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights, for the SPW Newsletter N. 12.

Argentina: On April 24, 2012 the Senate Committees on General Legislation and on Population and Development signed in Buenos Aires an agreement that authorizes the discussion on the Gender Identity Law at the Argentine Senate to proceed. Read more.

For the SPW Newsletter No 11, Lilián Abracinskas, director of Mujer y Salud en Uruguay (MYSU), wrote the article “Abortion law reform in Uruguay: The state of art”, presenting the current state of affairs of abortion reform in Uruguay. Read more.

Hakima Abbas, the Executive Director of Fahamu Network for Social Justice, wrote for the SPW Newsletter n. 11 the article “Aid, resistance and Queer power”, on the effects of the aid conditionality to the LGBTIQ issues in Africa.

Read the article Aid conditionality and respect for LGBT people rights, written by Luis Abolafia Anguita, from Fundación Triángulo, a Spanish LGBT organization wich works with development cooperation. The article debates the threats, reactions and effects of the recent initiative to reduce the development aid to countries that criminalize homosexuality.

From September 26 to 29 2011, the Sexuality Policy Watch (SPW) organized the Inter-Regional Dialogue on Sexuality and Politics, in Rio de Janeiro, gathering researchers and activist members of the global forum, as well as people involved with the Regional Dialogues on Sexuality and Geopolitics, which took place in Asia (April 2009, Hanoi, Vietnam), Latin America (August 2009, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and Africa (October 2010, Lagos, Nigeria).

Thailand: In September 2011, the “16th Asia Pacific Forum’s Annual meeting” took place in Bangkok and Professor Vitit Muntarbhorn presented the report written by the Advisory Council of Jurists on issues of sexual orientation and gender identity. Read the Douglas Sander’s article.

Read the article “Argentina uncategorized: Debates about human trafficking, prostitution and sex work,” by Carolina Justo von Lurzer and Santiago Morcillo, on the debate organized by the Sexualities Studies Group of the Gino Germani Research Institute of the University of Buenos Aires to discuss the public policies related to prostitution, after president Cristina Fernandez Kirchner announced the enactment of the decree 936/11, which prohibits advertisements that promote sexual services in all media.

Read the “Reflecting on 2011: incomplete notes on how sexual politics intersect with a shifting landscape”, by Sonia Corrêa, published in the Newsletter n.10.

From May 30 to June 17, 2011, the “17th session of the UN Human Rights Council” took place in Geneva, Switzerland. Invited by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), Marina Maria, SPW’s communication and project assistant, participated in the panel Internet rights are human rights, organized by APC on June 3, to present some outcomes from the research “EroTICs: Sex, rights and the internet – An exploratory research study”.

The following is a rough English translation of the statement read in Arabic by the Saudi Arabia representative at the HRC session in Geneva: Your

As part of the EroTICs: Sexuality and the Internet – an exploratory research project, SPW and CLAM have prepared an Executive Summary for the Brazilian chapter of the research, that is available at the last issue of the electronic magazine genderIT.org.

Read “Same-Sex Africa and the Fantasy of Global Participation”: Brief notes, written by Rafael de la Dehesa, on the Tavia Nyong’o reflections about the recent efforts by activists in the Global North to promote LGBT rights in several East African nations.

Read the article “The meaning of the Kampala Court Decision”, by Kasha Jacqueline, from the Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG), on the Uganda’s high court decision permanently prohibiting the tabloid Rolling Stone (no relation to the venerable U.S. publication by the same name) from continuing its public vigilante campaign against that country’s LGBT community.

Brazil: On November 29th, representatives of Brazilian NGOs, including the SPW’s Co-chairs Richard Parker and Sonia Corrêa, participated in a meeting with an UNAIDS mission that visited Brazil. The visit occured in the week of December 1st that marks the International Day of Fight against AIDS, therefore we also offer more information on HIV/AIDS.

In the article “Abortion and Human Rights in Brazil – Part 2” SPW’s Co-chair Sonia Corrêa analizes that the debate on abortion has continued to interweave with the complex political dynamics of the electoral period in Brazil. As she highlighted, even before the campaign was in its full fledge mode after August, abortion had already become one main issue.

Read “Internet and sexuality from IGF 2010”, written by Marina Maria, project assistant of the Sexuality Policy Watch. In this article, Marina describres her experience participating in the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2010, that took place in Vilnius, Lithuania, from September 14-17, analysing some aspects on gender and sexuality issues debated during this meeting.

By Aziza Ahmed* The International AIDS Conference in 2010 held one of the first plenary sessions dedicated to abortion and HIV. The plenary focused on

SPW has just concluded the Brazilian stage of the EroTICs: sexuality and the internet – an exploratory research project, sponsored by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). Soon, a final report presenting the observations, analysis, and findings of the study will be published, in which it was tried to map and analyze recent initiatives and debates concerning internet regulation.

Carlos Figari* and Mario Pecheny** In July 15th, 2010, at 4 am, the Argentine Senate voted for the reform of civil marriage. The project had

By Rosalind Petchesky and Sonia Corrêa* Judith Butler’s refusal to receive the Berlin Christopher Street Day (Gay Pride) Civil Courage Prize echoed ideas we have

Brazil: On May 13th, 2010, President Lula finally signed a new decree altering the text of III National Program for Human Rights (PNDH3), in which the Catholic Church and other conservative voices’ prevailed. Read “The III Brazilian Human Rights Program: a last chapter?”, an analisis by Jandira Queiroz and Sonia Corrêa, members of the SPW team.

USA: Rhonda Copelon, a US human rights lawyer and an intellectual leader and pioneer in the field of sexual and reproductive rights, died on 2010 May 6th. Read a note by SPW and more.

USA: Elderly gay couple forcibly separated by county officials in California. Click here to read a short article written by Kenneth Camargo and more on it.

Read here the synthesis of presentations and some highlights of the African Dialogue and be informed about the main issues debated during the meeting. >

Read the article “Homophobia, Africa and Evangelical Neocolonialism” on the Uganda’s anti-homophobia Bill, written by Rosalind P. Petchesky, Member of the SPW’s Steering Committee and Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Hunter College and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York.

Read the article “Back to the Future? Beijing +15 and the UN Commission on the Status of Women Only Partly Delivers on SRRH”, by Cynthia Rothschild, a sexual rights and human rights activist based in New York, on the 54th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) from March 1-12, 2010.

Read the article “Abortion and Human Rights: the current Brazilian controversy”, by Sonia Corrêa, on the important setbacks in regard to abortion that Brazil has been experiencing in recent years.

Due to the larger representation of trans people in this edition of ILGA-LAC, there was a greater exchange of experiences, and more effective integration amongst

Planned preparatory meetings on the 26th and 27th of January 2010, preceded the main event, with themes directly related to the defence of LGBT rights.

As well as examples of achievements regarding public policy and LGBTI citizenship in Latin America, the conference also promoted the exchange of experiences about different

Brazil: 5th ILGA-LAC Conference brings together more than 400 LGBT activists in Curitiba, Brazil.

In the article “Draconian laws against homosexuality in Africa”, Cesnabmihilo Aken’ova discusses on the state homophobia that has swept over the African continent. She analyses the draconian laws against homosexuality proposed by some leaders and positions that have placed the human rights of same sex loving people and people who are perceived to be gay under attack.

By Mauro ï Cabral (1) 1. Each year, during this week, I write a text that can be short or long, as well as more

Brazil:President Lula creates National Coordination and Council for the Promotion of LGBT Rights. SPW heard LGBT activists about the innitiative.

The program of the Latin American Dialogue includeded the following sessions: Sexuality, State and Political Processes This session discussed the actual situation of sexual politics

Between August 24th and 26th, 2009, the Latin American Dialogue on Sexuality and Geopolitics took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Organized by Sexuality Policy

Fourth panel – Religion and Sexual Politics Afternoon – August 25, 2009 After the presentation and debate of the conference overview paper on religion and

Fourth Session – Sexuality, Religion and Politics Afternoon – August 25, 2009 The last session of the Dialogue, coordinated by Gloria Careaga, started with the

Third Panel – Sexuality and Economics: visibilities and invisibilities Morning – August 25, 2009 The panel that followed was chaired by Lucila Esquivel, coordinator of

Third Session – Sexuality and Economics: visibilities and invisibilities Morning – August 25, 2009 The overview paper, Prostitution as economic activity in urban Brazil, was

Second panel — Science and Sexual Politics Afternoon – August 24, 2009 In the panel that followed, these points were further examined from rather distinct

Second session—Science and Sexual Politics Afternoon – August 24, 2009 The overview paper presented in the afternoon section, Science, Gender and Sexuality, was written by

First panel – Sexuality, States and Political Processes Morning—August 24 , 2009 The panel that followed was coordinated by Sérgio Carrara, co-director of the Latin

First Session – Sexuality, States and Political Processes Morning—August 24 , 2009 The first session of the Latin American Dialogue on Sexuality and Geopolitics was

After two days of intense discussions, during which the politics of sexuality in Asia were examined from a variety of angles, the chairs of the

In its second day, the Asian Regional Dialogue on Sexuality and Geopolitics addressed two critical realms that intersect with each other and have critical impacts

The second session of the meeting discussed aspects related to the negotiation of multiple sexual identities being politically expressed within Asia, but are denied recognition

This session brought to the larger audience that was at 2009 IASSCS Conference a synthesis of the discussions held at the first Asia Regional Dialogue

In the first session of the Asian Regional Dialogue on Sexuality and Geopolitics, held in the Sofitel Plaza Hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam on April 10th,

Asia, with its high-income countries and rapidly industrializing centers rising in the midst of widespread poverty and regional inequalities, is a primary source and locus

The juxtaposition of “Condom” and “Viagra” in the title of the proposed session is to indicate that there are different perceptions and values centering on

This session would aim to peel away the layers of meaning that exist between the personal and political. It would cover religion, culture, class, sexualities,

Argentina uncategorized: Debates about human trafficking, prostitution and sex work In this article, Carolina Justo von Lurzer and Santiago Morcillo present the main points debateted

Internet Regulation and Sexual Politics in Brazil The issue 55(2) of Development – Citzenship for Change assesses the potential and unpacks the myths around new

In order to prepare for the Asia Regional Dialogue, a regional Task Force was formed with the goal of identifying key themes and key individuals

It was agreed that the broad focus of the Dialogue would be on the politics of sexuality: the political processes, actors and outcomes that have

By Daniel Sarmento* One of the most important human rights issues in the current world regards discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Notwithstanding

By Marina Maria* The First Brazilian National GLBT Conference will be held in Brasília between June, 6th – 8th, 2008. Roughly 600 participants are expected,

By Angela Collet* Since its creation in 2006, the Human Rights Council has been engaged in intense efforts to advance the notion of sexual rights

By Marina Maria* The First Brazilian National Conference on LGBT public policies was held in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, from June 5th to 8th

By Radhika Ramassuban* India continues to have on its statute books a 150-year-old anti-sodomy law enacted in the mid-nineteenth century by the British colonizers in

Pinar Ilkkaracan* In July 2007, the religious conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP)¹ was re-elected in secular Turkey. Since the election, Turkish feminists, LGBTT activists

By Sonia Corrêa* When 2007 begun, abortion rights advocates worldwide were, on the one hand, deeply regretting the abolition of the therapeutic abortion clause from

Por Alejandra Sardá-Chandiramani* El XI Foro Internacional AWID de Ciudad del Cabo fue mi tercer Foro AWID, ya que antes había estado en Guadalajara (2002)

By Gloria Careaga* In New York City on December 18th, 2008, 66 UN member states joined together for the first time ever to support a

resumo

By Marina Maria* In the International Conference Dis/organized – Changing bodies, rights and cultures, carried out in June, in Peru, and promoted by the International

On 7 October 2008, a special reception was held at the City University of New York (CUNY) in the USA to honor the new book Sexuality, Health and Human Rights by Sonia Corrêa, Richard Parker and Rosalind Petchesky, published by Routledge in August 2008.

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