International Day against LGBTI-phobia

17/05/2020 - 14:37

Commemorations.. 17M - International Day against LGBTI-phobia Communiqué from the Municipal LGBTI Council

The World Health Organisation removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses on 17 May 1990. This year marks the 30th anniversary of that landmark in the fight against LGBTI-phobia.

This international day has been held every 17 May in a Barcelona district for some years on, with local organisations and the LGBTI Municipal Council working on the event’s programme. The event is aimed at raising awareness of LGBTI-phobia, promoting the goals of the authorities and citizens alike to safeguard LGBTI rights and explaining the 17 May event and its significance throughout the district’s various neighbourhoods.

The emergency health situation caused by the COVID-19 outbreak may have prevented this annual event from being commemorated the usual way over the last few years but, for all that, the organisers are determined to let the show go on and highlight the fact that the very reasons for holding the event continue to this day.

So the LGBTI banner has been unfurled and hung from the district council headquarters at Eixample, the chosen district for this year’s commemorative events. And the LGBTI International Day work group at the Barcelona LGBTI Council has decided to express its position by sending a communiqué read out by the Deputy Chair of the that council, Rodrigo Araneda, from the Rambla, the location in the city where the Spanish State’s first demonstration for LGBTI rights was held.

The intention this 17 May is to celebrate the 30th anniversary of this annual commemoration and, above all, underscore how the pandemic has put the spotlight on and worsened the vulnerable situations already experienced by LGBTI groups and how this needs to be understood and tackled urgently, through an intersectional approach. And to demand, now more than ever, how we must not backtrack in our fight for LGBTI rights and against LGBTI-phobia. More specifically, as explained by the Deputy Chair of the LGBTI Municipal Council, Rodrigo Araneda, the need in this position for considering in particular the LGBTI groups worst hit by this pandemic: migrants, refugees and asylum seekers; trans people with labour-insertion problems and a lack of family support; LGBTI sex workers; young people experiencing LGBTI-phobia in the family environment or in certain shelters; elderly LGBTI people; LGBTI living out in the street.

The Barcelona LGBTI Centre and associations from the city’s LGBTI activist movement have organised a series of activities you can check out on this link.