Gay Does Not Always Translate....

By Ted Kerr
August 7, 2008

In the Frontier Province of Pakistan there is a tradition of marriage between prepubescent boys and older men, says Shivananda Khan who works in the region as the Executive Director of the Naz Foundation International. According to him, a boy marriage is arranged between the two families and lasts only until the boy reaches puberty. After the marriage is over, it is then the older man's responsibility to find the younger man a wife.

In 2005, one such boy marriage was wrongly reported by western media outlets, including the BBC, as "Pakistan first Gay Marriage." Khan, also a steering committee member for the Global Forum on MSM and HIV, says the construct of boy marriage is very different than gay marriage, something that members of the western media would not understand without proper investigating. As a result of the media attention, both the boy and the families were victims of family and shamed in their region.

It is assumptions and confusion like what happened in Pakistan that makes MSM and LGBT rights work in the global south difficult."Language and incorrect terminology", says Khan "can wreak havoc in local communities. Certain words are like red flags to a bull for many local governments and leaders around the world." Terms like gay and LGBT are western centric says Khan and tend only to resonate with middle and upper middle class people in low and middle income countries.

As it has been discussed at the 17th annualInternational AIDS Conference in Mexico City, achieving LGBT and MSM rights is part of what is needed to end new HIV infections. "Homophobia continues to fuel the spread of HIV," said International AIDS Society Executive Director CraigMcLure in a prepared statement for a press conference at the IAC. "This must change. Research has demonstrated over and over again that reducing the social exclusion of men who have sex with men through the promotion and protection of Human Rights is not only consistent with, but a prerequisite to, good public health."

The MSM GF and the International AIDS Society hosted the press conference. The MSM GF also was responsible for the preconference on global MSM issues, where Jeff O'Malley from the UNDP echoed those of McClure's but held within them a cautionary word, " We have to work for LGBT rights while avoiding backlash that could put our peers in danger in countries that are not as open (as ours). We need to work carefully and the work should be led through health services"

Director of the National HIV/AIDS Programme of Mexico and Latin American LGBT hero Jorge Saavedra is a good example of employing the vehicle of health services to create social change. He started the 1stambulatory HIV/AIDS clinic, which he labeled an anti-homophobia space. He also hired the first transgender person in the government. Through his work, he has launched anti-machismo and anti-homophobia campaigns and has shown the world that through working on important basic needs like health social issues can be addressed.

Khan, through his work at the Naz Foundation, provides another example of how LGBT and MSM rights can be achieved in possibly hostile environments. The Southern Asian-based NAZ foundation, empowers low-income MSM collectives though ‘technical, finanacial and institutional support" that enables these groups to better develop self help sex health programs and advocate for human rights from the ground up.

While there are many barriers and considerations before and while engaging in global sexual minority rights and HIV prevention work, Joel Nana, a MSM GF steering committee member from Cameroon quotes, Martin Luther King for encouragement. "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

As the final days are upon us at the AIDS conference, we all leave feeling maybe equipped to change the world. It is in our collective best interest to watch how we change it and ensure that it is for the better.