LGBTQ+ Rights
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This Week’s Spotlight on Human Rights
Tags Share Michael Brown’s mom pushes for justice for her son in public hearing The mother of Michael Brown — who was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer in 2014 sparking protests around the county — gave testimony to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) to review the case of her son’s killing in…
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This Week’s Spotlight on Human Rights
Tags Share This Pride, Embody the True Spirit of Queer Liberation As we enter another Pride Month overrun with corporate rainbows and empty overtures, it’s important to remember that Pride started as a protest — a riot, to be more specific. On a hot June day in 1969 when the New York Police Department raided the popular…
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This Week’s Spotlight on Human Rights
Tags Share RFK Human Rights Award Laureate brings LGBTQ+ activism, immigration rights together in life’s work Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights’ 2024 Human Rights Award recipient Arely Westley, a trans-Latinx Honduran woman, knows well the fate of many of her sisters. She escaped from her native country of Honduras just two years after transgender activist…
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RFK Human Rights Award Laureate brings LGBTQ+ activism, immigration rights together in life’s work
Tags Share Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights’ 2024 Human Rights Award recipient Arely Westley, a trans-Latinx Honduran woman, knows well the fate of many of her sisters. She escaped from her native country of Honduras just two years after transgender activist Vicky Hernández was murdered on the streets of San Pedro Sula in 2009. And…
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Uganda: anti-LGBTQ+ Law Should be Repealed
Tags Share Today, Uganda’s Constitutional Court announced its verdict on a legal challenge against the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), which was signed into law by President Museveni in May 2023. The AHA is one of the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws. Rather than strike it down, the Court unanimously ruled that only certain provisions are nullified…
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Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Announces Arely Westley as the 2024 Human Rights Award Laureate
Tags Share WASHINGTON, D.C., March 31, 2024 – Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights today announced Arely Westley, an LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights activist, as the recipient of its 41st annual RFK Human Rights Award. A ceremony honoring Westley is scheduled for the first week of June in Washington, D.C. A longtime advocate for immigrant, Latinx,…
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Trans murder in Honduras
Tags Share In 2009, 26-year-old trans woman and LGBTQ+ rights activist Vicky Hernández was murdered in Honduras during a coup d’etat perpetrated by a right-wing sector of society. For years, the legal team at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights fought for accountability in Vicky’s case. In 2021, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued a…
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Bringing Trans and Non-Binary Rights to the Everyday Classroom
Tags Share Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and the Human Rights Campaign made history this spring, as the organizations partnered to release a free classroom resource aimed at making students better allies of the LGBTQ+ community in their everyday lives. Laura Osterndorf, training manager for RFK Human Rights’ Speak Truth to Power program, was a…
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Jamie Nabozny
Jamie Nabozny was born in 1975 in Ashland, Wisconsin, a small town on the south shore of Lake Superior. From a young age, he knew he was gay and confided in his family, but he didn’t come out to friends and classmates. Nonetheless, in middle school he was the object of physical violence and degradation,…
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Frank Mugisha
Mugisha knew he was gay when he was a young teenager, but his Catholic faith told him to pray those feelings away. When he finally came out to his family, they tried many times to “cure” him. And though they were eventually accepting, they continued to wish he would not be so open with others.…
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Andrea Jenkins
Born in 1961, Andrea Jenkins was raised on Chicago’s West Side by a single mother from a working-class community. Her father battled addiction and was incarcerated through much of her childhood, but her mother was loving and emphasized the importance of a good education. Jenkins discovered literature and poetry at a young age, along with…
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Gavin Grimm
Gavin Grimm grew up in Gloucester, Virginia. He came out as transgender in 2014 during his sophomore year at Gloucester High School. With his principal’s permission, he used the boys’ restrooms at school for several months without any problems, before a handful of parents went to the school board to complain. A public meeting was…
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