Out of sight. Out of excuses.

By Includovate Communications Team

On 14 July, we celebrate International Non-Binary People’s Day. It is a celebration of diversity but also a moment to recall the discrimination, exclusion, and violence experienced by so many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning and asexual people and those from other sexual and gender minority groups (LGBTIQA+) across the
world on a daily basis. It’s also a sobering fact that such discrimination and violence is exacerbated during times of resource-poverty and crisis.

‘Leave no-one behind’ is the much-vaunted rallying call of governments and development and humanitarian organisations committed to ensuring ‘the most vulnerable’ are not excluded from their assistance and protection. The panel discussions, statements, papers and public commitments are doubtlessly well-intentioned but ring a bit hollow as millions of people are, in fact, left behind. Way behind.

If LGBTIQA+ people and their needs and rights are referenced at all in development and humanitarian discussions or programmes, it’s often to say how difficult and/or dangerous it is to attempt to support them.  LGBTIQA+ people are described as ‘out of sight’ (IFRC, 2018), ‘invisible’ or ‘invisibilised’ (ODI, Edge Effect, 2021) and a ‘blind spot’ (Margalit, ICRC International Review, 2019). Addressing their needs and rights in development and humanitarian contexts is also often described as being too difficult or in the ‘too hard basket’ (Humanitarian Advisory Group and V-Pride, 2018).

To achieve the goal of ‘leaving no-one behind’, the development and humanitarian sectors must include the most marginalised and excluded. And so, LGBTIQA+ people and communities should be prioritised, right? Unfortunately, this is not the case. But, there are reasons to be hopeful that long-awaited and needed change is possible, if and only if the development and humanitarian donors and actors take courageous steps that have long been signposted for them.

In the past few years, the world has witnessed critical events that sparked new conversations, perspectives, and momentum about shifting power from international and government to local and civil society actors as well as the colonial roots of racism. Here, I’d add the colonial roots of discrimination against sexual and gender minorities (OHCHR, 2023). Conversations started at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit, voices were raised during the 2017 #MeToo / #AidToo campaigns, and the world clamoured at the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. We can’t let these events be for nothing. We must, absolutely must, seize the opportunity that this momentum and the activism behind the commitments, hashtags and campaigns create, including the rich and urgent discussions around #ShiftThePower, #FlipTheNarrative and #DecolonialiseAid, to demand different solutions to all too familiar issues.

So, what does this mean for addressing LGBTQIA+ needs and rights in development and humanitarian assistance? An Open Letter to the UN Secretary General (21 June 2023) from a group of feminists and gender equality advocates provides inspiration to this huge and important question. Referring to the Independent Review of the UN System’s Capacity to Deliver for Gender Equality, this group noted that “bureaucratic box-ticking” has weighed gender mainstreaming down and what’s required now is a “jolt” that brings transformative and holistic change that is led by feminist advocates and organisations at country and community level, not by UN agencies.

In the same way, attention to LGBTIQA+ people’s assistance and protection needs and rights in development and humanitarian action require intimate local knowledge and experience of the contexts, conditions and actions that have advanced and can advance the agendas and have delivered and can deliver transformative results for support and protection in specific countries. This call is huge. It’s the seismic shift from tinkering with to toppling and transforming huge and complex systems.

But, while the world contemplates that, international development and humanitarian actors struggle with how, or hesitate to respond to draconian legislation and penalties around LGBTIQA+ rights, fearing a collision with the governments with whom they partner. Or, potentially causing more harm to already marginalised groups, and risking real or perceived reinforcement of cultural colonialism. At the same time, national and local LGBTIQA+ people and organisations and their allies are getting on with the work and finding solutions and ways forward to support and protect each other. If development and humanitarian actors, including donors, are serious about responding to the assistance and protection of the needs and rights of LGBTIQA+ people, they must get serious about better funding national and local LGBTIQA+ organisations and other organisations that support and defend them.