Humankind’s strength is its diversity. Free expression of sexuality and gender increasingly defines the societies in which we want to live in the 21st century. But progress is uneven. In 2011, the first UN Resolution on human rights, sexualorientation and gender identity was supported by over 40 countries. Yet in many others, governments still legitimize and sponsor violence against LGBT* citizens through legal discrimination, condoned police violence and hate speech.

In May 2014, Salzburg Global Seminar and the German Federal Foreign Office will host an international working group and public symposium in Berlin, Germany to discuss and develop long-term approaches that can support and sustain global LGBT human rights organizations. The program is part of Salzburg Global Seminar’s multi-year Global LGBT Forum, which was initiated in 2013.   

The goal of the program will be to examine the specific ways that LGBT issues are addressed by ministries of foreign affairs and their embassies and how their support for human rights issues can help to ensure that LGBT and other human rights organizations, embassies, and other actors can build closer networks and more effective relationships.  

The program in Berlin will build on the first Global LGBT Forum, convened by Salzburg Global Seminar in June 2013, with support from the German Federal Foreign Office, Hivos, Open Society Foundations, EVZ, and other international partners. 

*LGBT: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender. We are using this term as it is currently widely used in human rights conversations on sexual orientation and gender identity in many parts of the world, but we would not wish it to be read as exclusive of other cultural concepts, contemporary or historical, to express sexuality and gender, intersex and gender-nonconforming identities.