France
The European Court of Human Rights has upheld a French law criminalising some aspects of sex work, but activists call it a “missed opportunity” that will continue to put sex workers’ lives at risk.
In a July 25 ruling, the court found that a 2016 French law criminalizing organized aspects of sex work, such as buying prostitution or running brothels, does not violate Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees freedom of privacy. The court did not consider whether the law violated other articles of the convention that guarantee the right to life or freedom from torture.
The French law is based on the so-called “Nordic model” of criminalising sex work, pioneered in Sweden and Norway in 1999 and 2009 respectively. The model aimed to curb prostitution and trafficking without criminalising sex workers themselves, who are seen as vulnerable or victims of exploitation.
Advocacy groups have criticised the Nordic model for putting sex workers at risk and have increasingly called for the complete decriminalisation of sex work.
The lawsuit was brought by 261 sex workers, both male and female, of various nationalities. The plaintiffs argued that the law made sex workers’ positions more precarious by prohibiting them from working together or hiring security guards, for fear of being arrested by clients. This forced sex workers to meet clients alone, in private and potentially exposing them to violence or clients who refused to use condoms. It also reduced the prices they could charge for their services.
Still, the court found that France’s efforts to regulate and abolish sex work without actually banning it should be given “room to be evaluated.”
Human rights groups immediately condemned the sentence.
“This does not change the evidence presented by 261 sex workers – many of them migrants, women of colour, and LGBT people – to the European Court of Human Rights,” said Erin Kilbride, LGBT rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Criminalisation increases physical attacks, sexual violence, and police abuse against prostitutes, while having no discernible effect on ending trafficking. The sex workers’ rights movement is strong and will continue to fight to protect the rights and lives of all sex workers.”
Amnesty International, which intervened in the case to support sex workers, said global experience showed that the French law would put sex workers’ lives at risk.
“Our research shows that laws intended to protect sex workers actually put them at risk of abuse and violence, including rape and physical attacks,” said Anna Brüsch, women’s rights researcher at Amnesty International.
“Today’s ruling is a blow to the brave sex workers who brought this case, and we will continue to stand with them as they demand protections for their human rights and seek justice for the violations committed against their community.”
Germany
A record 1.2 million people took part in Cologne’s annual Christopher Street Day parade on July 21. The rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has taken on new urgency at pride events across Germany.
Pride events in Germany are often called “Christopher Street Day” after the street in New York that houses the Stonewall Inn, and the 1969 Stonewall riots that are said to have sparked the modern LGBTQ rights movement.
The Cologne Christopher Street Day Parade attracted over 60,000 participants and 90 floats, and kicked off with speeches from prominent German politicians, including Bundestag Speaker Bärbel Bas, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, and Culture Minister Claudia Roth. Bill Kaulitz, the openly gay frontman of German pop rock band Tokio Hotel, also participated in one of the floats.
Despite the celebratory mood, a group of 13 men shouted right-wing extremist and homophobic remarks and tried to disrupt the celebrations by pulling down the rainbow flag. Cologne police quickly intervened and detained the men. Some of the men, aged between 18 and 30, were dressed in black, shirtless and had shaved heads. Police also investigated threats against the parade that had been posted online the previous day, but dismissed them as not serious.
Berlin’s Christopher Street Day parade took place on Saturday, with organizers calling for Germany’s Basic Law, or constitution, to be amended to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, which is already interpreted to ban discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
The calls for greater protection of LGBTQ rights come as the AfD, which opposes LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage, has risen to the top of opinion polls.
A man takes part in the Christopher Street Day Parade in Berlin in 2022. (Photo by Michael K. Lubbers, Washington Blade)
Canada
The City of Edmonton, Alberta, is celebrating the city’s LGBTQ history with a new exhibit running all summer at Fort Edmonton Park, shining a spotlight on important figures and moments often overlooked in its official history.
Fort Edmonton Park is a city-owned living history museum showcasing the history of the Edmonton region from its earliest Indigenous communities through the 1920s. The new exhibit, titled “Regulating Morals,” was built by the Edmonton Queer History Project and highlights key historical events such as the AIDS pandemic and the legal and political struggles for equal rights and same-sex marriage. The new exhibit is part of an effort to expand the types of history preserved in the park beyond that of the white colonial Christian community.
“We want all visitors who come here to see themselves reflected in Edmonton’s history, and we can’t do that unless we create the space to tell these stories,” said Neil Kramer, public interpretation coordinator for Fort Edmonton Park.
Alberta has been the epicenter of some of the most significant fights for LGBTQ rights in Canada.
Long hailed as Canada’s most conservative province, Alberta politicians have vigorously resisted many advances on gay rights. In 1998, an Edmonton school teacher who was fired for being gay won a Supreme Court case after a seven-year legal battle that found anti-discrimination laws must include protections for sexual orientation.
More recently, the Premier of Alberta has come under fire for her transphobic policies that ban minors from accessing gender-neutralizing care and require parental notification and consent if students want to use aliases or pronouns during class.
“Knowing our past helps us imagine the future, which is really important in these difficult and challenging times,” said Christopher Wells, founder of the Edmonton Queer History Project.
(Big Stock Photo)
Olympic
Gay dating app Grindr said in a blog post on July 24 that it had disabled location services and many other features in the Olympic Village to protect athletes’ privacy.
The move comes in response to incidents at the 2016 Rio Olympics, when The Daily Beast published a story by reporter Nico Hines about the hook-up culture among athletes. Hines described several athletes who were identified on Grindr, which he said could have exposed them and put them at risk in their home countries, where homosexuality is criminalized or socially unaccepted. Grindr is taking similar measures to protect athletes at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
“If an athlete is not out or comes from a country where being LGBTQ+ is unsafe or illegal, using Grindr puts them at risk of exposure by inquisitive individuals seeking to identify and expose them on the app,” the company said in a blog post.
Grindr users will not be able to use the “explore” and “roam” features within the Olympic Village, the “show distance” feature will be turned off by default, the app will also allow users in the Village to send unlimited disappearing messages and unsend messages, as well as disable profile pictures, chat screenshots and private videos.
“Our goal is to enable athletes to interact without worrying about their location being unintentionally revealed or identified,” the company said.
According to the website Outsports, of the 175 openly LGBTQ athletes competing in the Olympics, only 20 of them are cisgender men.
Ireland
The Irish government has said it may not be able to keep its promise to introduce a ban on conversion therapy, saying the issue is too complex to legislate before the end of the government’s term, The Irish Times reported.
A ban on conversion therapy was promised as part of the coalition agreement struck between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party after the 2020 election, but consultations on the ban have dragged on for years and no legislation has yet been introduced, despite the government repeatedly stating that it was a priority at the time.
The next Irish election must be held by March 2025.
Minister for Equality and Children Roderic O’Gorman said legislation on the issue was “extremely complex” at an event at Trinity College Dublin on July 12, where three professional bodies representing psychiatrists, psychologists and counsellors pledged their members not to practice conversion therapy. The ban, held by the Irish Association of Psychiatrists, the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and the Irish Psychological Society, extends to both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK.
O’Gorman said crafting legislation covering non-medical practices is proving difficult.
“We wanted to make sure that we covered quasi-religious practices and quasi-therapeutic practices and that the very necessary conversations that take place when someone is exploring their gender identity and sexual orientation were not impacted,” O’Gorman said.
