Statement of the LBTQ Caucus at ILGA Asia 2017
Date:
Summary:
“Lesbian, bisexual, trans women, trans men, and queer persons (LBTQ) exist in all of human diversity. Our issues and concerns cut across diverse groups and communities, including other marginalized groups such as people with disabilities, refugees, migrant workers, and indigenous peoples.
LBTQ persons experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and violence in multiple spaces based on our assigned, actual, or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC). We face arbitrary persecution, socio-economic marginalization, and violation of our self-determination, sexual autonomy, and bodily integrity because of our SOGIESC. Our experiences are often invisible, silenced, and unaddressed.”
This statement emerged from a 2-day forum focusing on lesbian, bisexual and queer women’s needs, organized by ASEAN SOGIE Caucus (ASC), Sayoni, UN Women Asia Pacific, Justice for Sisters & the Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies (CSBR) and supported by OutRight Action International and ILGA Asia. For the caucus, women is based on self-determination, and includes intersex, transgender, cisgender and all who identify as women. The LBTQ Caucus was held from 4-5 December 2017, in advance of the ILGA-Asia regional conference which ran from 6-8 December 2017 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.