Milestones

1990
U.S. activist Julie Dorf launches IGLHRC in the belief that all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV status are entitled to human rights.

1991
IGLHRC is incorporated as a US non-profit. IGLHRC works collaboratively with other activists in a campaign to ensure that Amnesty International changes its mandate to include abuses against LGBT people.

1992
IGLHRC and Congressman Barney Frank organize a trip to Russia to meet officials and lobby against the sodomy law—a legal legacy of the Stalinist era punishing consensual sex between men with 5 years imprisonment. The law is subsequently repealed. IGLHRC also helps win asylum in Canada for a 28-year-old gay man from Argentina, the very first time that asylum is granted to a person fleeing persecution on the basis of sexual orientation.

1993
IGLHRC creates the Asylum Documentation Program and documents the previous decade in Brazilian history as one marred by more than 1,200 murders of homosexuals. This information is introduced as key evidence in the case of Marcelo Tenorio, the first person granted asylum in the United States on the grounds that his sexual orientation places him in a persecuted social group. IGLHRC also convinces the U.S. State Department to include the persecution of LGBT people in their annual country reports on human rights.

1994
IGLHRC launches the Felipa de Souza Award, named after a Brazilian lesbian who endured torture and exile after proudly declaring her love for another woman in the 16th century.

1995
IGLHRC advocates for sexual rights to be included in the official discussions at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, a successful move that gives lesbian issues unprecedented visibility.

1996
IGLHRC begins intensive regional work in Africa and the Middle East, and produces the first ever resource guide addressing asylum based on sexual orientation.

1997
IGLHRC works with South Asian activists to orchestrate the first meeting between LGBT community leaders and the Dalai Lama to discuss sexual rights. Also, IGLHRC helps win asylum for a Russian lesbian who was arrested and forced to undergo psychiatric treatment at hands of the military.

1998
After an historic meeting, the President of Romania agrees to pardon gay men and lesbians imprisoned under that country’s sodomy law. Also, IGLHRC conducts an intensive training in New York City for activists from Argentina, Hong Kong, Hungary, Nicaragua, South Africa, Turkey and Zimbabwe.

1999
IGLHRC establishes a network of pro bono attorneys to work on LGBT issues in South Africa and increases collaboration with activists in Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. IGLHRC also launches a campaign with other U.S. activists to persuade the World Trade Organization to make life-saving AIDS drugs readily available to those who need them.

2000
As part of the Pink Triangle Coalition, IGLHRC convenes a conference in Berlin on the Nazi persecution of homosexuals. An IGLHRC publication describing how sexuality is used to attack women’s organizing is enthusiastically received by hundreds of activists at a UN-sponsored event celebrating the 5th anniversary of the Beijing Conference on Women.

2001
IGLHRC mobilizes its Emergency Response Network to help win the release of four HIV prevention workers in India after they are imprisoned for 5 weeks for doing life-saving work. IGLHRC is the first organization to draw attention to 52 Egyptian men who are put in jail after a raid on a Cairo disco.

2002
IGLHRC conducts a human rights training with activists in Puerto Rico, Paraguay, Mexico, South Africa and India and starts a harm-reduction program with AIDS activists in Thailand.

2003
IGLHRC releases a report on the consequences of state-sponsored homophobia in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe and works with the U.S. State Department to promote immigration and asylum policies that are supportive of LGBT issues.

2004
IGLHRC works with Nepal's Blue Diamond Society to release 39 arbitrarily imprisoned HIV workers and to fight a lawsuit attempting to revoke BDS’ legal status. IGLHRC brings dozens of activists to the UN Human Rights Commission to support the Brazil Resolution on human rights and sexual orientation.

2005
IGLHRC launches its first Latin American Human Rights Advocacy Institute. Twenty trans and intersex activists from across the region participate.

2006
IGLHRC succeeds in gaining release of 11 gay men in Cameroon; at IGLHRC’s, request the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions intervenes. IGLHRC and global colleagues succeed in gaining consultative status for LGBT groups at the United Nations.

2007
IGLHRC relocates its regional programmatic work on Africa to a new office in Cape Town, South Africa and holds its second Latin American Human Rights Advocacy Institute—this time for lesbian and bisexual women from Central America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean who are emerging leaders in the activist world.

2008
IGLHRC gives its OUTSPOKEN Award to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, recognizing his leadership as a global ally of the LGBT community. Tutu gives his first direct address to a large LGBT gathering in the U.S. and apologizes on behalf of his Church for ostracizing gay people at IGLHRC’s San Francisco A Celebration of Courage event.