World Wide Wave

Brazil was once a progressive country for LGBTIQ rights. It brought in anti-discrimination laws and the right to change gender, it was the first South America country to legalise same sex marriage in 2011 and conversion therapy is banned. While the election of Jair Bolsonaro is often cited as a turning point for LGBTIQ rights in Brazil, there were signs, as early as 2017, that the situation was changing.

Gaudencio Fidelis is a curator and art historian specialising in modern and contemporary art from the Americas. In 2017 he curated the exhibition QueerMuseum: Cartographies of Difference in Brazilian Art. He had to flee Brazil this year after the exhibition he curated incited a heated debate about freedom of expression and what qualified as art in Brazil. The exhibition was quickly closed down and it took a legal battle to enabled it to reopen a year later… a battle that was about much more than art.

Listen to the week’s World Wide Wrap where we round up all that was in international LGBTIQ+ news for the week to June 2, 2020.

World Wide Wave aims to promote awareness of international LGBT issues. Our program provides in-depth analysis and interviews. We focus on the challenges facing the global LGBT community as well as some of our successes.

We take pride in interviewing a wide range of international LGBT people and supporters including politicians, activists, academics, parents, authors, students, professionals and more.

From a once dominant “British empire”, the Commonwealth remains one of the largest political associations with 54 member countries across the globe. Even though the ties are now historical rather than legal, many of its members have retained their colonial-era laws. This includes the infamous Section 377 or sodomy laws that have made life difficult for LGBTI people for centuries.

UK-based charity and lawyer collective, the Human Dignity Trust, has detailed the nature and extent of anti-LGBT hate crimes across the Commonwealth. Their report not only looks at the laws that help perpetuate these crimes, but also the impacts hate crimes have on LGBTI people.

Téa Braun the Director of the Human Dignity Trust spoke to us from London about how the Commonwealth could make changes.

Listen to the week’s World Wide Wrap where we round up all that was in international LGBTIQ+ news for the week to May 26, 2020.

World Wide Wave aims to promote awareness of international LGBT issues. Our program provides in-depth analysis and interviews. We focus on the challenges facing the global LGBT community as well as some of our successes.

We take pride in interviewing a wide range of international LGBT people and supporters including politicians, activists, academics, parents, authors, students, professionals and more.

Something was missing last weekend from our television screens that has been held without interruption for 65 years, until this year. For the first time in its history, the Eurovision Song Contest was cancelled. It had been scheduled to hosted by the Netherlands in Rotterdam and the Grand Final should have crowned a new champion in the early hours of Sunday morning for Australian fans.

We are joined in this podcast by two fans from around the globe to talk Eurovision and the impact of the cancellation:

* Maxxy Rainbow, an avid Eurovision Song Contest fan, Youtube blogger and drag queen from the USA, and

* William Lee Adams, an American living in the UK and the editor in chief of Wiwiblogg, the most visited independent site dedicated to the Eurovision Song Contest.

Listen to the week’s World Wide Wrap where we round up all that was in international LGBTIQ+ news for the week to May 19, 2020.

World Wide Wave aims to promote awareness of international LGBT issues. Our program provides in-depth analysis and interviews. We focus on the challenges facing the global LGBT community as well as some of our successes.

We take pride in interviewing a wide range of international LGBT people and supporters including politicians, activists, academics, parents, authors, students, professionals and more.

One third of Poland has been declared an “LGBT-Free zone”. Under the guise of anti-propaganda and pro-family laws, almost 100 local municipalities have adopted resolutions against LGBT people. These are creating dangerous zones of hostility. But the Polish LGBTI community is standing firm and forcing the Federal government to act.

To find out what is happening on the ground, we spoke with Professor Pawel Leszkowicz from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland. He is a lecturer, freelance curator specialising in international contemporary art and queer culture plus an LGBT Activist.

Listen to the week’s World Wide Wrap where we round up all that was in international LGBTIQ+ news for the week to May 12, 2020.

World Wide Wave aims to promote awareness of international LGBT issues. Our program provides in-depth analysis and interviews. We focus on the challenges facing the global LGBT community as well as some of our successes.

We take pride in interviewing a wide range of international LGBT people and supporters including politicians, activists, academics, parents, authors, students, professionals and more.

The Kingdom of Morocco, located in North Africa, has long been a major tourist destination. The once French ruled country continues to criminalise same sex activity and also sexual activity outside of wedlock. And now the actions of a member of the LGBTI community have placed Morocco’s gay community, and men who have sex with men, in peril.

A Moroccan born trans woman and Instagram influencer has posted to her 600,000+ followers encouraging them to create fake profiles on gay dating apps in order to “catfish” their brothers, sons, husbands and neighbours in order to “out” them. While her Instagram profile has since been suspended,there are media reports of many men being outed, causing distress and despair in the gay and trans communities.

To find out what is happening on the ground, we spoke to Ahmed Benchemsi, the Advocacy and Communications Director for Human Rights Watch Middle East and North Africa division, based in Morocco.

Listen to the week’s World Wide Wrap where we round up all that was in international LGBTIQ+ news for the week to May 5, 2020.

World Wide Wave aims to promote awareness of international LGBT issues. Our program provides in-depth analysis and interviews. We focus on the challenges facing the global LGBT community as well as some of our successes.

We take pride in interviewing a wide range of international LGBT people and supporters including politicians, activists, academics, parents, authors, students, professionals and more.