Violence against Global LGBTQ+ Communities

A close look at the nature of violence against sexual and gender minorities (LGBTQ+ people) with a global framework that examines the features of violence, while also exploring the ways it manifests various cultural ideas about sexuality and gender, family structures, and intersectional identities.

Here we examine closely the prevalence of global violence against LGBTQ+ individuals and how it is experienced differently among various groups, considering intersecting identities (e.g., race, gender, economic status) and the types of harms that this violence creates and sustains. Focusing on who is perpetrating violence, from states/nations, to known others such as family and friends, to complete strangers, we examine how these experiences impact the individuals and shape community perceptions of safety and well-being. First-hand accounts are woven throughout that personalize those experiences of violence, but that also illustrate resistance and response to violence in ways that are personal, political, and cultural.

Coverage will range from nations with more advanced attention on LGBTQ+ human rights (e.g., the US, South Africa, Sweden, Argentina, and Australia), as well as those that are still emerging in their implementation of rights and protections (e.g., Georgia, Bulgaria, Namibia) to those that still actively resist human rights efforts on behalf of LGBTQ+ people (e.g., Iran, Mauritania, Somalia, Indonesia). Readers will be able to understand violence against LGBTQ+ people as something with shared characteristics across the world, but also that is specific and grounded in local contexts and that are unique individual experiences.