In August, the Sexuality Policy Watch (SPW) published the outcomes from the three Regional Dialogues organized in Asia (2009), Latin America (2009) and Africa (2010) and the inter-regional meeting (2011) on Sexuality and Politics.
In the realm of non-conforming gender identities, trans persons have achieved a victory, albeit not definitive. The ICD (International Classification of Dieseases), published by the World Health Organization – which is a set of guidelines that define diseases and pathologies – is under review. In the draft guideline of the 11th edition, all definitions related to transgender conditions were excluded from the chapter on “Mental and behavioral disorders” to be placed in a new section on conditions of sexual health. Read here the statement issued by GATE (Global Action for Trans Equality) and the Stop Pathologization Campaign.
The abortion frontlines
Abortion was a prominent theme in August, particularly in the Latin American context. The SPW republished an article circulated by the Uruguayan organization MYSU (Mujer y Salud in Uruguay) that highlights the criminalization and repression of reproductive rights in Chile, Honduras, El Salvador, Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. In these countries, the termination of pregnancy is prohibited in all circumstances, endangering women’s health that perform the procedure clandestinely. Information on Misoprostol – the drug recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) for its benefits in obsteric care, including for safe abortion – is the theme of the Spanish publication “Hablemos de aborto y misoprostol: información segura y experiencias sobre su uso“, produced by the Peruvian movement “Collective información por la libre for las mujeres “.
Lastly, The Nation published an interesting article on the abortifacient effects of tear gas, widely used in the crackdown on protests in the American city of Ferguson, after the death of a young black man. The article, ironically, questions why groups opposed to abortion did not speak out loudly against the use of the gas as they do in relation to other aborfacient substances.
Finally, we highlight the collective performance proposed by the Bolivian feminist art collective Mujeres Creando for the 31st Biennial of Art in São Paulo. The event will comprise a space to discuss the topic from personal stories and a march on the 6th of September, at 15h, in Ibirapuera Park.