Yet lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people continue to face high levels of violence and discrimination across the world.

72 countries criminalise male homosexuality, with 45 also criminalising female homosexuality.

In the Commonwealth, 36 of its 53 countries maintain laws that make same-sex intimacy between men a crime and, in 16 of them, it is also punishable offence between women.

In the majority of criminalising countries, homophobic laws are a legacy of British colonisation.

Although the number of countries that criminalise LGBT+ people is slowly decreasing, with Belize and the Seychelles decriminalising in the last couple of years, deep stigmatisation persists.

A new series of photographs captures the faces of the LGBT+ rights movement in the Commonwealth.
The photos, taken by photographer Eivind Hansen, were commissioned by UK-based LGBT+ rights charity Kaleidoscope Trust.

I've always wanted my work to represent a positive change in the world. Photographing people within the LGBT+ spectrum has become something that's very important to me", East London-based photographer Hansen said.

"I hope the photos can create more visibility around LGBT+ people and their struggle for equality in the countries they come from.Queer Commonwealth: Faces of the LGBT+ Movement captures 33 members of the Commonwealth Equality Network (TCEN), which in 2017 became the first LGBT+ network to receive Commonwealth accreditation", said Paul Dillane, executive director of Kaleidoscope Trust.

As a founding member and Secretariat of The Commonwealth Equality Network, Kaleidoscope Trust strongly believes in joint advocacy.

With 36 out of 53 Commonwealth nations criminalising homosexuality, the fight for global LGBT+ rights continues.

These photos celebrate the vibrancy, positivity and diversity of LGBT+ activists from across the Commonwealth.

Making its debut in central London this week to coincide with the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), the exhibition features subjects from Belize and Tonga, Namibia and Sri Lanka, Cyprus and Malaysia and beyond.

At CHOGM, leaders of Commonwealth governments, including Theresa May, Cyril Ramaphosa and Justin Trudeau, will meet in London to decide collective policies and agree joint work.

The advocates featured in these images stand ready to ensure the concerns and the rights of the Commonwealth's LGBT+ people are heard and represented.

Donnya Piggott is an LGBT+ activist from Barbados, where homosexuality carries a potential penalty of life imprisonment.

Donnya founded Barbados Gays and Lesbians Against Discrimination (B-GLAD) in 2012. B-GLAD focuses on public education and advocacy, working on behalf of the community to increase public understanding of the needs of LGBT+ Barbadians.

"In order to create real change we have to work with the public at large. Whether it's going to churches and having those difficult conversations with people of different faiths, or reaching out to people who engage in behaviours that harm the queer community", she said.

Qasim Iqbal is an LGBT+ and HIV activist based in Pakistan.

In Pakistan homosexuality is illegal, though the sodomy ban is rarely enforced. In 2011, Qasim launched Naz Male Health Alliance (NMHA), the first and only LGBT+ community-based organisation in Pakistan, which provides support for improving the sexual health, welfare and human rights of LGBT+ people.

Seven years later, he remains the only openly gay and HIV positive activist in Pakistan.

"As a young boy I was bullied. I learned to be strong, but to this day I see many of my childhood friends who struggle with maintaining a stable self esteem because of the bullying they faced.

Seeing their struggle made me realise that I had to stand up for justice and for humanity in a country where even the government is a bully", said Iqbal. Continue reading

• Images: Indy100 by Eivind Hansen

1. Human sexuality is an objective biological binary trait: "XY" and "XX" are genetic markers of health - not genetic markers of a disorder.The norm for human design is to be conceived either male or female.

Human sexuality is binary by design with the obvious purpose being the reproduction and flourishing of our species. This principle is self-evident.

The exceedingly rare disorders of sexual differentiation (DSDs), including but not limited to testicular feminization and congenital adrenal hyperplasia, are all medically identifiable deviations from the sexual binary norm, and are rightly recognized as disorders of human design.

Individuals with DSDs do not constitute a third sex.

2. No one is born with a gender. Everyone is born with a biological sex. Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept; not an objective biological one.

No one is born with an awareness of themselves as male or female; this awareness develops over time and, like all developmental processes, may be derailed by a child's subjective perceptions, relationships, and adverse experiences from infancy forward.

People who identify as "feeling like the opposite sex" or "somewhere in between" do not comprise a third sex. They remain biological men or biological women.

3. A person's belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking. When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body, and it should be treated as such.

These children suffer from gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria (GD), formerly listed as Gender Identity Disorder (GID), is a recognized mental disorder in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-V).

The psychodynamic and social learning theories of GD/GID have never been disproved. Continue reading

Sources

• American College of Pediatricians
• Image: YourNewsWire.com

The priest said he couldn't answer that.

More than 20 years later Shawn Reynolds still remembers the anguish on the couple's faces. "He didn't say anything about Christ's love," Reynolds says.

Those were the days of "tears and fears," says Mary Ellen Lopata, co-founder of the support group Fortunate Families.

"Now parents are reacting with fire and ire. Things have changed dramatically. The church has lost so much in not welcoming our gay and lesbian children. They have left the church in droves because they are not welcomed. They can stay if they're silent, suppressing a big part of who they are. Now the church is starting to lose their parents as well."

Her husband, Casey Lopata, says that the role families play is crucial, and that while gay and lesbian Catholics are often dismissed, their parents are not.

"Gay and lesbian children are growing up in our parishes," he says.

"We need to be conscious of that. Are they good or not? Parents have a lot to say."

Deb Word, a board member of Fortunate Families and a foster mom with a gay and lesbian youth program in Memphis, Tennessee, says that her role as a Catholic is to remind her friends and her church that God loves these kids, always.

"We have to start by acknowledging that there are GLBT kids in the pews, and that God loves them," she says. " 'God loves you, but . . .' is different from 'God loves you.' " Continue reading

Image: Wikimedia Commons