- Lesotho is moving towards legislating gender affirmation treatment for children, and recognising changes of sex on birth certificates.
- It does not yet recognise homosexual marriage.
- The LGBTQI community in the kingdom consider even an open discussion in parliament to be a win.
Lesotho could soon have legislation to ensure access to gender affirmation treatment for children and birth certificates that reflect a transition.
Those provisions are contained in a proposed amendment to the country’s Children’s Protection and Welfare Bill, now set down for a third reading.
The law should “ensure that transgender and intersex children are allowed gender affirmation medical procedures and healthcare”, said Mantu Phooko, Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) proportional representation member of parliament, last week.
Thereafter they should have the right to see “their legal documents be changed to align with their new gender identity”.
In 2012, Lesotho formally dropped a legal ban on same-sex sexual activity, but same-sex marriage and civil unions are not recognised by the nation’s laws and customs.
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But the LGBTQI community is pleased with what they see as progress.
“It’s been years of resistance and non-acceptance in some communities in Lesotho, but now that our issues are being discussed openly in parliament it is a big win,” Tampose Mothopeng, executive director at The People’s Matrix Association, told News24.
“LGBTQI rights are human rights and a landmark law is on the horizon,” he said.
On 9 November, Maseru hosted the Lesotho Pride festival under them theme “let’s make discrimination a thing of the past”.
Southern Africa is a mixed bag when it comes to LGBTQI rights.
In Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe consensual same-sex relationships are criminalised.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, lawmakers introduced an anti-homosexuality bill. If passed, those found guilty would spend between five to ten years in jail.
Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, and most recently, Namibia have decriminalised consensual same-sex relationships, and have various levels of rights protection in place.
The News24 Africa Desk is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation. The stories produced through the Africa Desk and the opinions and statements that may be contained herein do not reflect those of the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
