The Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000 (c.44) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It changed the age of consent for male homosexual sexual activities from 18 to that for heterosexual and lesbian sexual activities at 16, or 17 in Northern Ireland. It also introduced the new offence of 'having sexual intercourse or engaging in any other sexual activity with a person under 18 if in a position of trust in relation to that person'.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in New Zealand are some of the most extensive in the world. The protection of LGBT rights is advanced, relative to other countries in Oceania, and among the most liberal in the world, with the country being the first in the region and thirteenth in the world to enact same-sex marriage.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in Cyprus face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Both male and female same-sex sexual activity are legal in Cyprus since 1998, and civil unions which grant several of the rights and benefits of marriage have been legal since December 2015. Conversion therapy was banned in Cyprus in May 2023.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in the British Crown dependency of the Isle of Man have evolved substantially since the early 2000s. Private and consensual acts of male homosexuality on the island were decriminalised in 1992. LGBT rights have been extended and recognised in law since then, such as an equal age of consent (2006), employment protection from discrimination (2006), gender identity recognition (2009), the right to enter into a civil partnership (2011), the right to adopt children (2011) and the right to enter into a civil marriage (2016).
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in Dominica face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Sodomy, also known as "buggery", is illegal for both heterosexuals and homosexuals. Dominica provides no recognition to same-sex unions, whether in the form of marriage or civil unions, and no law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in Uganda face severe legal challenges, active discrimination, state persecution and stigmatisation not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Both male and female homosexual activity are illegal in Uganda.
With the exception of South Africa and Cape Verde, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in Africa are limited in comparison to the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Out of the 55 states recognised by the United Nations or African Union or both, the International Gay and Lesbian Association stated in 2015 that homosexuality is outlawed in 34 African countries. Human Rights Watch notes that another two countries, Benin and the Central African Republic, do not outlaw homosexuality, but have certain laws which discriminate against homosexual individuals. Many of the laws that criminalize homosexuality are colonial-era laws.
Oceania is, like other regions, quite diverse in its laws regarding homosexuality. This ranges from significant rights granted to the LGBT community in New Zealand, Australia, Guam, Hawaii, Easter Island, Northern Mariana Islands, Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia, French Polynesia and Pitcairn Islands to remaining criminal penalties for homosexual activity in 6 countries and one territory. Although acceptance is growing across the Pacific, violence and social stigma remain issues for LGBTI communities. This also leads to problems with healthcare, including access to HIV treatment in countries such as Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands where homosexuality is criminalised.
A sodomy law is a law that defines certain sexual acts as crimes. The precise sexual acts meant by the term sodomy are rarely spelled out in the law, but are typically understood by courts to include any sexual act deemed to be "unnatural" or "immoral". Sodomy typically includes anal sex, oral sex, and bestiality. In practice, sodomy laws have rarely been enforced against heterosexual couples, and have mostly been used to target homosexual couples.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in Queensland have advanced significantly from the late 20th century onwards, in line with progress on LGBT rights in Australia nationally. Private consensual sex between men has been legal in the state since 1991, with lesbian sexual acts never criminalised. The age of consent was equalised to 16 years for all sexual acts in 2016. Sexuality and gender identity are protected attributes under both state and federal anti-discrimination laws. Same-sex couples may marry under Australian law, enter into a civil partnership under state law or live together in an unregistered de facto relationship. Same-sex couples may become parents through adoption, foster care, altruistic surrogacy and, for lesbian couples, IVF. In 2020, Queensland became the first jurisdiction within Australia to pass a law banning conversion therapy, with a maximum penalty of 18 months imprisonment and fines. State anti-discrimination protections for sexuality and gender identity were introduced in 2002 and in 2017 the gay panic defence was abolished from the criminal law. Transgender and intersex Queenslanders are able to update their government records and birth certificate, with the "forced divorce" requirement abolished in 2018 and activists calling for the sexual reassignment surgery requirement to be repealed, and the repeal of the surgery requirements in 2023.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in the Australian state of New South Wales have most of the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual cisgender people.
The Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2014 was an act passed by the Parliament of Uganda on 20 December 2013, which prohibited sexual relations between persons of the same sex. The act was previously called the "Kill the Gays bill" in the western mainstream media due to death penalty clauses proposed in the original version, but the penalty was later amended to life imprisonment. The bill was signed into law by the President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni on 24 February 2014. On 1 August 2014, however, the Constitutional Court of Uganda ruled the act invalid on procedural grounds.
This is a timeline of notable events in the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in South Africa.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the Australian state of Tasmania have the same legal rights as non-LGBT residents. Tasmania has a transformative history with respect to the rights of LGBT people. Initially dubbed "Bigots Island" by international media due to intense social and political hostility to LGBT rights up until the late 1990s, the state has subsequently been recognised for LGBT law reforms that have been described by activists such as Rodney Croome as among the most extensive and noteworthy in the world. Tasmania imposed the harshest penalties in the Western world for homosexual activity until 1997, when it was the last Australian jurisdiction to decriminalise homosexuality after a United Nations Human Rights Committee ruling, the passage of federal sexual privacy legislation and a High Court challenge to the state's anti-homosexuality laws. Following decriminalisation, social and political attitudes in the state rapidly shifted in favour of LGBT rights ahead of national trends with strong anti-LGBT discrimination laws passed in 1999, and the first state relationship registration scheme to include same-sex couples introduced in 2003. In 2019, Tasmania passed and implemented the world's most progressive gender-optional birth certificate laws.
The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) is one of Australia's leading jurisdictions with respect to the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) people. The ACT has made a number of reforms to territory law designed to prevent discrimination of LGBT people; it was the only state or territory jurisdiction in Australia to pass a law for same-sex marriage, which was later overturned by the High Court of Australia. The Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and Queensland are the only jurisdictions within Australia to legally ban conversion therapy on children. The ACT's laws also apply to the smaller Jervis Bay Territory.
John "Longjones" Abdallah Wambere is a Ugandan gay rights activist and co-founder of Spectrum Uganda Initiatives, a Kampala-based LGBTI rights advocacy organization with a focus on health education. Because of the threat of violence and persecution he faces in Uganda, Wambere was approved for asylum in the United States by the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services on September 11, 2014. He currently resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Capital punishment as a criminal punishment for homosexuality has been implemented by a number of countries in their history. It currently remains a legal punishment in several countries and regions, most of which have sharia-based criminal laws except for Uganda. Gay people also face extrajudicial killings by state and non-state actors, as in Chechnya in 2019, though it is denied by the Chechen authorities and Russia.
Monicah Amoding is a Ugandan politician, lawyer and social worker, who served as the district woman representative of Kumi District, in the 10th Ugandan Parliament, (2016–2021), as a member of the ruling National Resistance Movement political party.
This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights taking place in the year 2023.
The Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2023 is an act of the Parliament of Uganda that restricts freedom of speech on LGBT civil rights and introduces harsher penalties for certain types of homosexual acts. On 21 March 2023, the bill was read a third time, and was then sent to President Yoweri Museveni for assent. On 21 April 2023, Museveni returned it to Parliament, which passed it again with minor amendments on 2 May. On 26 May, Museveni signed the bill.
