LGBT rights by country or territory

This article is about current LGBT rights around the world. For historical and current movements to further LGBT rights, see LGBT social movements.

Laws affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or territory—everything from legal recognition of same-sex marriage or other types of partnerships, to the death penalty as punishment for same-sex sexual activity or identity.

LGBT-related laws include but are not limited to: government recognition of same-sex relationships, LGBT adoption, sexual orientation and military service, immigration equality, anti-discrimination laws, hate crime laws regarding violence against LGBT people, sodomy laws, anti-lesbianism laws, and higher ages of consent for same-sex activity.

In 2011, the United Nations passed its first resolution recognizing LGBT rights, and followed up with a report documenting violations of the rights of LGBT people, including hate crime, criminalization of homosexuality, and discrimination.^[1][2]

History of LGBT-related laws

Ancient India

Throughout Hindu and Vedic texts there are many descriptions of saints, demigods, and even the Supreme Lord transcending gender norms and manifesting multiple combinations of sex and gender.^[3] There are several instances in ancient Indian epic poetry of same sex depictions and unions by gods and goddesses. There are several stories of depicting love between same sexes especially among kings and queens. Kamasutra, the ancient Indian treatise on love talks about feelings for same sexes. Transsexuals are also venerated e.g. Lord Vishnu as Mohini and Lord Shiva as Ardhanarishwara (which means half woman). ^[4]

Ancient Israel and the Near East

The ancient Law of Moses (the Torah) forbids men lying with men (intercourse) in Leviticus 18 and gives a story of attempted homosexual rape in Genesis in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities being soon destroyed after that. The death penalty was prescribed.

Middle Assyrian Law Codes dating 1075 BC states: "If a man have intercourse with his brother-in-arms, they shall turn him into a eunuch.

Ancient Rome

The "conquest mentality" of the ancient Romans shaped Roman homosexual practices.^[5] In the Roman Republic, a citizen's political liberty was defined in part by the right to preserve his body from physical compulsion or use by others;^[6] for the male citizen to submit his body to the giving of pleasure was considered servile.^[7] As long as a man played the penetrative role, it was socially acceptable and considered natural for him to have same-sex relations, without a perceived loss of his masculinity or social standing.^[8] The bodies of citizen youths were strictly off-limits, and the Lex Scantinia imposed penalites on those who committed a sex crime (stuprum) against a freeborn male minor.^[9] Acceptable same-sex partners were males excluded from legal protections as citizens: slaves, male prostitutes, and the infames, entertainers or others who might be technically free but whose lifestyles set them outside the law.

"Homosexual" and "heterosexual" were thus not categories of Roman sexuality, and no words exist in Latin that would precisely translate these concepts.^[10] A male citizen who willingly performed oral sex or received anal sex was disparaged, but there is only limited evidence of legal penalties against these men, who were presumably "homosexual" in the modern sense.^[11] In courtroom and political rhetoric, charges of effeminacy and passive sexual behaviors were directed particularly at "democratic" politicians (populares) such as Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.^[12]

Roman law addressed the rape of a male citizen as early as the 2nd century BC, when a ruling was issued in a case that may have involved a man of same-sex orientation. It was ruled that even a man who was "disreputable and questionable" had the same right as other citizens not to have his body subjected to forced sex.^[13] A law probably dating to the dictatorship of Julius Caesar defined rape as forced sex against "boy, woman, or anyone"; the rapist was subject to execution, a rare penalty in Roman law.^[14] A male classified as infamis, such as a prostitute or actor, could not as a matter of law be raped, nor could a slave, who was legally classified as property; the slave's owner, however, could prosecute the rapist for property damage.^[15]

In the Roman army of the Republic, sex among fellow soldiers violated the decorum against intercourse with citizens and was subject to harsh penalties, including death,^[16] as a violation of military discipline.^[17] The Greek historian Polybius (2nd century BC) lists deserters, thieves, perjurers, and "those who in youth have abused their persons" as subject to the fustuarium, clubbing to death.^[18] Ancient sources are most concerned with the effects of sexual harassment by officers, but the young soldier who brought an accusation against his superior needed to show that he had not willingly taken the passive role or prostituted himself.^[19] Soldiers were free to have relations with their male slaves;^[20] the use of a fellow citizen-soldier's body was prohibited, not homosexual behaviors per se.^[21] By the late Republic and throughout the Imperial period, there is increasing evidence that men whose lifestyle marked them as "homosexual" in the modern sense served openly.^[22]

Although Roman law did not recognize marriage between men, and in general Romans regarded marriage as a heterosexual union with the primary purpose of producing children, in the early Imperial period some male couples were celebrating traditional marriage rites. Juvenal remarks with disapproval that his friends often attended such ceremonies.^[23] The emperor Nero had two marriages to men, once as the bride and once as the groom. His consort Sporus appeared in public as Nero's wife wearing the regalia that was customary for the Roman empress.^[24]

Apart from measures to protect the prerogatives of citizens, the prosecution of homosexuality as a general crime began in the 3rd century of the Christian era when male prostitution was banned by Philip the Arab. By the end of the 4th century, after the Roman Empire had come under Christian rule, passive homosexuality was punishable by burning.^[25] "Death by sword" was the punishment for a "man coupling like a woman" under the Theodosian Code.^[26] Under Justinian, all same-sex acts, passive or active, no matter who the partners, were declared contrary to nature and punishable by death.^[27]

Feudal Japan

In feudal Japan, homosexuality was recognized, between equals (bi-do), in terms of pederasty (wakashudo), and in terms of prostitution. The Samurai period was one in which homosexuality was seen as particularly positive. In Japan, the younger partner in a pederastic relationship was expected to make the first move; the opposite was true in ancient Greece. Homosexuality was later briefly criminalized due to Westernization.^[28]

China

Laws prohibiting homosexuality were also passed in China. (China neither adopted an Abrahamic religion nor was colonized, except for Hong Kong and Macau which were colonized with Victorian era social mores and maintain separate legal system from the rest of China.) Homosexuality was not decriminalized there until 1997.^[29] Prior to 1997, homosexual in mainland China was found guilty included in a general definition under the vague vocabulary of hooliganism, there are no specifically anti-homosexual laws.^[30]

LGBT-related laws by country or territory

In modern times nine countries have no official heterosexist discrimination. They are Argentina, Belgium, Canada ^[31][32], Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, South Africa, and Spain. This full non-discrimination includes the rights of marriage and adoption. Portugal has also marriage rights for same-sex couples but this right does not include same-sex adoption. The Canadian Blood Services’ policy indefinitely defers any man who has sex with another man, even once, since 1977.^[33] LGBT people in the US face different laws for certain medical procedures than other groups. For example, gay men have been prohibited from giving blood since 1983,^[34][35] and George W. Bush's FDA guidelines barred them from being sperm donors as of 2005, even though all donated sperm is screened for sexually-transmitted diseases.^[36]

Africa

Northern Africa

Western Africa

Middle Africa

Eastern Africa

Southern Africa

Partially recognised states

The Americas

Northern America

Central America

Caribbean islands

South America

Asia

Central Asia

Western Asia

South Asia

East Asia

Southeast Asia

Female legal

Europe

European Union

Northern Europe

Western Europe

Central Europe

Eastern Europe

Southern Europe

Partially recognised states

Oceania

Australasia

Melanesia

Micronesia

Polynesia

See also

References

External links

• International Lesbian and Gay Association
  • Map on LGBTI rights around the world — 2008 version
  • State-sponsored Homophobia — 2008 edition of worldwide survey of homosexuality laws
  • State-sponsored Homophobia — 2009 edition of worldwide survey of homosexuality laws
• Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual: Law at the Open Directory Project
• Amnesty International USA: LGBT legal status around the world — interactive map
• GayLawNet: Laws — information by country
• International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
  • Resource links — for researching legal information
• International Commission of Jurists, Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Justice - A Comparative Law Casebook
• United Nations Human Rights Council, Discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, an annual report