26th April 2024
The 22nd of April to the 28th of April marks lesbian visibility week. Lesbian Visibility Week is observed annually and aims to celebrate lesbians, in all their diversity, and increase awareness about the experiences of lesbians.
Across the world, lesbians are vulnerable to and experience discrimination, stigma, and violence based on their sexual orientation and gender identities. Faced with the increasing anti-homosexuality laws spreading across the African continent, violence, discrimination and stigma are exacerbated.
Globally, we find ourselves with just under six years to achieve the 2030 sustainable development goals and securing this success is dependent on implementing interventions, programming and policies that acknowledge how different and intersecting identities inform how girls, women, and gender-diverse people experience oppression and violence. While global commitments and policies, although not always implemented, are more likely to acknowledge the experiences and needs of cisgendered and heterosexual girls and women, there is seldom a concerted effort to address the experiences and needs of lesbians.
As we advocate for a global HIV response that centres human rights and gender equality, we call on governments and communities to go beyond the gender binary in the planning and implementation of interventions and programming and for policies that take seriously the flight of lesbians. This is particularly urgent taking note of the growing anti-rights, anti-choice and anti-gender movement that is sweeping through the world and showing its manifestations across Africa.
UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima often speaks about how inequalities drive the HIV pandemic and how, without ending inequalities, we cannot end HIV as a global health crisis. These inequalities are layered and intersecting, requiring analysis that goes beyond class, gender, locality, and race. These inequalities include sexual orientations that do not align with heteronormativity. These inequalities show themselves in the kind of advocacy, research and funding that is prioritised even in the light of pushback. According to research conducted by AWID, “between 2013 and 2017, the anti-gender movement received over USD 3.7 billion in funding – more than triple the funding for LGBTQIA+ groups globally in those years”.
There is an abundance of research that affirms the disproportionate rate at which adolescent girls and young women across sub-Saharan are affected by and living with HIV. This research often approaches the impact of the HIV pandemic and transmissions from heteronormative perspectives. However, there is little research that takes a nuanced approach to lesbians’ vulnerabilities and experiences concerning HIV. There is a gap in information, interventions, programming and policies aimed at reducing transmissions between same-sex sexual relations between people with vulvas. And there is likely to be less with the continuous expansion of the anti-rights, anti-choice and anti-gender movement.
We call on governments and communities to end all forms of inequalities. We call on governments and communities to ensure that healthcare facilities and services are lesbian, friendly and affirming. We call on governments and communities to unite to end stigma and discrimination against lesbians. We call on governments to provide comprehensive sexuality education that is SOGI-based. We call on governments to enforce harsh penalties on perpetrators of homophobic and transphobic violence. We call on the global and local communities to unite to repeal anti-homosexuality laws. We call on governments and communities to recognise the nuances of our experiences and deep dive into how our intersecting identities increase our vulnerabilities to harm and inform our needs. We call on governments and funders to invest in interventions, programming and research that centres on lesbians. We call on governments and communities to recognise, protect and promote the dignity and well-being of lesbians – by showing up for them and standing in solidarity with them, through bold action, as their lives matter.