LGBTQ Breaking News Service

Gay-Listers Guide is a series of destination glimpses through the personal experience of prominent LGBT personalities. 

In this edition of Gay-Listers Guide, legendary New York City drag queen, actor and musician Sherry Vine takes us to her current favorite place in the world, Tel Aviv, Israel.

How much time have you spent in Tel Aviv?

I’ve been to Tel Aviv four times, always in the month of June. My longest visit was for 2 weeks and the shortest was four days.

What’s your favorite memory there?

It’s so hard to pick just one! I have been a guest of the Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival (TLVFest) and was presented with The TLVFest 2019 Honorary Award for my “contribution to the art of drag.” That was definitely an honor and highlight.

Your worst memory?

Waking up at 3 a.m. to get in drag to do a 6 a.m. show at a club in Jerusalem. She wasn’t pretty!

What do you love most about Tel Aviv?

I adore all of my friends there, and the local queens. There is a surprisingly large and active LGBTQ+ scene. The last time I was there for Pride, in 2019, I was shocked that every single store had a pride flag in the window.

What do you not love?

It’s hard to separate myself from the politics but I think it’s political to go there, in the Middle East, and do drag shows.

Where are your favorite places to eat in Tel Aviv?

I can’t remember the name of this restaurant I found—very small, off the beaten path—but they had the most delicious dish I have ever had anywhere in the world. It was a fish stew with garlic, pistachios, olives and a tomato-based sauce. Divine! Also, I love the restaurants in Jaffa where they bring like 20 small dishes of hummus, eggplant, etc.

And to drink?

NYX Hotel Tel Aviv has a rooftop where we all love to gather for drinks. They usually have a DJ, and it’s quite popular. And any place near the beach.

What do you love to do here during the day?

I’m a Pisces and I feel right at home on the beach! Tel Aviv is small enough that you really can walk everywhere. I love to wake up, load up on coffee, walk to the beach and lay out for a few hours. Then walk back and shower, paint my face and hit the town.

Favorite clubs or nighttime hangouts here?

It seems to always change. Every time I go, the queens take me somewhere I’d never been before that’s “the party.” I know that’s not helpful! The dance party on the gay beach (Hilton Beach) is amazing! I’ve also gone to several parties at Tel Aviv Cinematheque to have drinks and socialize in the lobby.

Do you have a favorite place to stay here?

NYX Hotel!

Describe the LGBT scene here, and what an LGBT visitor should be sure to check out.

Tel Aviv is a gay mecca and very international. I met people from all over the world there. Pride is a very popular event—one of the biggest I’ve ever seen. I suggest picking a part of the city and walking and exploring, then another area the next day. The markets are massive and exciting, and Rothschild Boulevard is beautiful. Very touristy, but lovely shops, restaurants and small cafés where you can grab a coffee and keep walking. Don’t forget the beach!

What else should we know?

The locals sometimes have a wall up at first, but it’s easy to poke through and then you’re friends for life.

Anything new to plug?

Look for my new TV show, The Sherry Vine Variety Show, on OUTTv, airing this April. And, of course, my “live from my living room” online shows.

(This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.)

For 30 days, beginning January 17, European Union commissioners received daily Twitter notifications linking to personal stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Poles who have been harmed  by the  so-called “LGBT Ideology Free Zones” or anti-LGBT “Family Charters” in nearly 100 Polish regions, towns, and cities.

The tweets were part of a campaign led by two Polish LGBT groups, Campaign Against Homophobia (Kampania Przeciw Homofobii, KPH) and The Equality Foundation (Fundacja Równości, FR), calling on EU Commissioners to initiate an infringement procedure – a legal action that can lead to referral to the European Court of Justice – against Poland. The “LGBT-free zones” and other discriminatory measures, activists asserted in a legal complaint submitted to the European Commission in September, breach Poland’s legal obligations under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and a European Council directive for equal treatment in employment and occupation.

The “Infringement Now” campaign is the latest salvo in an ongoing political tug-o-war between a far-right nationalist government, which welcomes the economic benefits of EU membership but shows utter contempt to the obligations associated with it, and advocates for EU institutions to play their role as guardian of the rights protected by EU treaties. Together with the fate of the country’s judiciary and the ongoing pressure on its media and civil society, the rights of LGBT people and of women and girls are among the battlegrounds for Poland’s future.

 Last August the EU Commission cancelled grants  for six Polish towns that had declared themselves  “LGBT-ideology free zones.” While that measure was more symbolic than material, it was a boiling point in a dispute that had been simmering for years.

LGBT rights have symbolic currency on both sides. For the Warsaw mayor and 2020 presidential candidate Rafał Trzaskowski of the centrist Civic Platform Party, being an outspoken LGBT ally speaks  to his vision of an inclusive society and pro-EU Poland. In 2019 Trzaskowski signed an LGBT+ declaration for Warsaw, a 10-point plan for overcoming discrimination and promoting equality.

In the wake of the controversy sparked by his pro-LGBT stance, the ruling Law and Justice Party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS) intensified its anti-LGBT rhetoric, ensuring that LGBT rights became a key battleground in the 2019 parliamentary elections. And in the run up to the 2020 presidential election, the PiS candidate and president Andrezj Duda signed the so-called “Family Charter.” which opposes same-sex marriage and adoption rights as well as comprehensive sexuality education in schools.

Why do questions around gender and sexuality stoke such intense passions? This scenario is neither new nor unique. Minorities have invariably been scapegoated in situations of conflict.  Rights around individual autonomy, in this case, the rights of LGBT people, together with reproductive rights, protections against domestic violence, and sex education have become emblematic of broader social values, Poland’s relationship with the EU and the strength of human rights writ large. 

This has been accompanied by other attacks on rights. In July 2020, Poland’s justice minister announced that he would pursue withdrawing the country from the Istanbul Convention that seeks to combat violence against women, including domestic violence. In January, amid widespread protest, a Constitutional Tribunal ruling that virtually bans legal abortion went into effect after the government bypassed Parliament to put the issue before the politically influenced court.  A bill that would potentially  criminalize anyone providing sex education, is pending.

With PiS returned to power and proceeding apace with its anti-LGBT agenda, LGBT advocates and their supporters are doing their best to use the limited options for redress in Poland. The Polish Ombudsman has challenged the adoption of anti-LGBT declarations before local administrative courts, and succeeded in four cases, although public prosecutors have appealed these decisions. LGBT advocates have appealed to human rights norms that transcend national boundaries, such as the appeal to the European Commission to censure Poland for breaching its human rights obligations. As Bartosz Staszewski, of the Lublin Pride Association said: “We cannot count on our government, we cannot count on our president, the only thing we can count on is the European Union.”  

Membership of the EU comes with obligations, such as adherence to the EU’s founding values including respect for human rights and the core principles of non-discrimination and tolerance. In December 2017, in response to problematic judicial reforms, the European Commission triggered Article 7 of the EU Treaty against Poland, which can lead to suspension of a member state’s rights if it is found to persistently breach those values.

Given Poland’s sustained attack on the human rights of LGBT people, as well as women and others, the European Commission can and should do more. Initiating an infringement procedure would send a strong message that these kinds of policies have no place in the EU, could press the Polish government to change route, and would offer a chance to the EU Court of Justice to reaffirm states’ obligations to protect, not neglect, their LGBT citizens.

In Poland human rights and  tenets  of democracy are under threat, including the independence of the judiciary and free press. In this assault, LGBT rights are seen as a soft target. In standing up for the rights of LGBT people in Poland, the EU would be moving not only to protect the rights of  a vulnerable minority, but human rights writ large.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — About one in 10 LGBT adults in the U.S. (9.6%) are married to a same-sex spouse, with a slightly smaller proportion (7.1%) living with a same-sex domestic partner. Half of LGBT adults have never been married, while 11.4% are married to an opposite-sex spouse and 9.5% are either divorced or separated.

Overall, less than 1% of U.S. adults are married to a same-sex spouse. The greatest percentage of Americans, 47.7%, are married to an opposite-sex spouse.

These results are based on aggregated data from 2020 Gallup surveys, encompassing interviews with more than 15,000 U.S. adults. According to Gallup’s latest estimate, 5.6% of U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, with over half of them saying they are bisexual. LGBT identification is most prevalent among young adults, explaining the high proportion of the subgroup that has never been married.

The percentage of LGBT adults in same-sex marriages appears to have leveled off after increasing following the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized same-sex marriages nationwide. In the six-month period before the Obergefell ruling, Gallup found that 7.9% of LGBT adults were in same-sex marriages. That percentage increased to 9.6% in the first year after the decision (through June 2016) and is the same in the 2020 average.

However, because of the growth in LGBT identification in recent years, coupled with the growth in the U.S. population more generally, the number of same-sex marriages has likely increased significantly. In the pre-Obergefell decision period, Gallup estimated that 0.3% of U.S. adults overall were married to a same-sex spouse. In the first year after that ruling, the proportion of U.S. adults in same-sex marriages was 0.4%, and is 0.6% today.

Extrapolating those percentages to the U.S. population suggests that an estimated 1.5 million U.S. adults are married to a same-sex spouse, which would translate to about 750,000 same-sex marriages. Previously, Gallup estimated there were 368,000 same-sex marriages before the Obergefell decision and 491,000 in the first 12 months after it.

Same-sex marriage rates are similar among most demographic subgroups of U.S. adults, although the percentage does exceed 1% among higher-socioeconomic-status Americans — those in upper-income households (annual incomes of $100,000 or more) and those with education beyond a four-year college degree. The percentage of people married to a same-sex spouse also exceeds 1% among political liberals, Democrats and those with no religious affiliation.

Additionally, Gallup trends show that same-sex cohabiting couples are increasingly opting for marriage rather than domestic partnership. In the months leading up to the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015, many more LGBT Americans in same-sex cohabiting couples were living together but not married (62%) as opposed to being married (38%). In the first 12 months after same-sex marriages were legalized, the split was roughly even, with 49% being married and 51% not married. Since then, about six in 10 same-sex couples have been married, including 57% in the 2020 data.

Same-Sex Committed Relationships Uncommon for Bisexual Adults

Notably, same-sex marriages are largely confined to gay, lesbian or transgender adults. Only 1.0% of bisexual adults — who comprise the largest segment of the LGBT population — report being married to a same-sex spouse. Meanwhile, 17.2% of bisexual adults are married to a spouse of the opposite sex, which explains why LGBT adults overall are somewhat more likely to be married to an opposite-sex spouse than to someone of the same gender.

Bisexual adults are also much less likely to have a same-sex domestic partner (2.7%) than to have an opposite-sex domestic partner (13.3%), which also leads to more LGBT adults in opposite-sex than same-sex domestic partnerships.

As might be expected, the patterns are different among gay and lesbian adults, who are much more likely to be in same-sex marriages and domestic partnerships than to be married to or in domestic partnerships with members of the opposite sex. Still, close to half of gay and lesbian adults identify their marital status as single.

Gallup does not have sufficient data for transgender adults to yield reliable estimates of marital status among that group.

Bottom Line

Same-sex marriages are not common in the U.S., or even very common among LGBT adults. But they are becoming more prevalent in the U.S. because of the increase in the LGBT population more generally and because more same-sex cohabiting couples are opting to marry rather than be unmarried partners.

What is unclear is how marital rates among LGBT adults will change as the population grows older and many reach the age when they would want to be in a committed relationship. Though it has been more than five years since same-sex marriage became legal, LGBT adults aged 30 and older are much more likely than non-LGBT adults in the same age group to describe their marital status as single (27.5% vs. 10.9%, respectively).

But decisions about entering committed relationships will be coming at a time when societal trends and attitudes are moving away from marriage. The 48% of Americans who reported being married in 2020 is down from 55% less than a generation ago, in 2006. Additionally, fewer Americans today than in the recent past believe it is important that people be married if they have children together, or if they want to spend the rest of their lives together.

It is unclear what those attitudes are among LGBT Americans, but young adults, nonreligious people, Democrats and political liberals — the subgroups most likely to be LGBT — are among the least likely subgroups to see marriage as being relevant.

And while many LGBT adults may decide not to get married, Americans increasingly support their right to marry a same-sex partner if they choose to do so.

Learn more about how the Gallup Poll Social Series works.

It’s impossible to evaluate what the year 2020 looked like from the perspective of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people’s rights without recognizing how Covid-19 put a spanner in the works and made for an especially tumultuous year, including for LGBT people. The Covid-19 pandemic exposed fault lines of inequality, leaving some more vulnerable than others regarding infection, prognosis, and economic impact – including within LGBT communities. In countries where LGBT people face social stigma, moral opprobrium and legal discrimination, they have fewer economic opportunities, and more likely to be poor, particularly in contexts where some LGBT people were left out of government’s economic recovery measures. While struggling with the fallout of Covid-19, LGBT people also contended with an onslaught of run-of-the-mill homophobia and transphobia, wielded by governments, politicians and ordinary members of the public.

Anti-LGBT bias was directly evident in responses to Covid-19 in all regions of the world. In Uganda police detained some 20 LGBT homeless youth on spurious charges of breaking Covid-19 restrictions and tortured them in prison. In the Philippines, village officials humiliated LGBT people while enforcing curfew. In South Korea, social media users scapegoated LGBT people after some media linked an outbreak to gay clubs. In Panama, police and private security officials discriminated against transgender people while enforcing a gender-based quarantine. Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orbán used Covid-19 emergency powers to rush through discriminatory legislation against transgender people.

Rejecting Rights

The US government under former president Donald J. Trump sought to push back against rights claims related to sexual orientation and gender identity, sending a dangerous signal to governments around the world that such rights are disposable. It established a Commission on Unalienable Rights (CUR), framed as a corrective to a so-called “proliferation of rights.” The commission set out to distinguish between fundamental and so called extraneous rights, creating a false hierarchy in which women’s rights and LGBT rights were at the bottom rung and property and religious rights at the top. In short, the CUR sought to create a US blueprint for rights at odds with principles of universality and indivisibility. The CUR was formed in the context of a roll back of LGBT rights in the US under the banner of religious exemptions, most notably a systematic attack on the rights of transgender people.

In one retort to the Trump administration’s attempts to circumscribe rights, the US Supreme Court declared that federal law bans employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It interpreted reference to “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which makes it illegal for employers to discriminate in employment on various grounds, as inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity, in a ruling with far-reaching implications for other non-discrimination protections, in the US and potentially elsewhere. Any ambiguity in the existing law would be dispelled if the US Congress reintroduces and passes the 2019 Equality Act, a bill passed by the US House of Representatives but stalled in the Senate, and which expressly prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in education, housing, public spaces, federally funded programs, credit, and jury service. Congressional Democrats and the administration of Joseph R. Biden have both signaled their intention to prioritize the bill this session. Given that so many important advances have been made through the US courts, the appointment of three conservative judges to the US Supreme Court, and dozens to federal courts throughout the country, is a concern for the enduring protection of LGBT rights in the US. A ruling on Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, which asks whether Philadelphia may require agencies to abide by its nondiscrimination policy and place foster kids with same-sex couples, is expected in 2021 and will serve as a bellwether for court protection of LGBT people’s rights.

The United Kingdom has become a vocal battleground over trans rights, as an unusual alliance of social conservatives, some feminists and their supporters on the left have aligned in disavowing transgender identity, based on an essentialist view of gender as immutable, and presenting it as a threat to women and children, and the protection of women and trans people’s rights as a zero sum game. In December the High Court ruled that children under 16 could not consent to drugs known as puberty blockers, designed to give trans identified youth time to decide on gender transition by delaying the onset of puberty. Puberty blockers are part of the standard of care for trans youth in several countries including the Netherlands and the US. A former patient had brought suit against the Tavistock clinic, the only National Health Service gender clinic, saying she had not been adequately assessed by the clinic before being placed on puberty blockers and now regretted her subsequent decision to transition. The case occurs in a politically charged environment in which some groups are pushing back against trans inclusion, to the detriment of trans youth who are particularly vulnerable, with limited treatment options. In this case, the court unfairly singles out transgender care for heightened scrutiny, a particularly significant blow after the conservative government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson failed meaningfully to amend the Gender Recognition Act in response to trans groups’ demands for a rights-respecting path to legal gender recognition, a move the previous Conservative government had promised. It is likely that trans issues will remain at the center of ongoing culture wars, in the UK and elsewhere. In politically charged times those perceived to embody ambiguity are invariably singled out for heightened scrutiny.

Meanwhile, Poland and Hungary hard right conservative governments stoked anti-LGBT sentiment in the name of family values, obscuring the real objective: a distraction from their anti-democratic power grabs. In additional to anti-trans legislation, Hungary banned adoptions by same sex couples, while Poland’s president likened LGBT to an ideology worse than communism, signed a “Family Charter” pledging to block gay marriage, adoption by same sex couples, and the teaching on LGBT issues in schools, and also encouraged the increasing numbers of local authorities declaring themselves to be “LBGT free” zones.

While the US and UK saw some claw back of rights related to sexual orientation and gender identity, Egypt refused to recognize the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” at all during its Universal Periodic Review, the peer review mechanism of the UN, effectively denying the existence of LGBT people—while routinely detaining them. Egypt is one of the worst offenders in a context of criminalization, violence and discrimination in all regions of the world, detaining dozens of LGBT people and submitting them to abuses including forced anal exams. In June, activist Sarah Hegazy, who had been detained, tortured and sexually assaulted in an Egyptian prison for having the temerity to wave a rainbow flag at a music concert in Cairo in 2017, took her own life in exile in Canada. Despite Egypt’s appalling rights record, condemnation from other governments is inadequate, since Egypt is seen by allies as a strategic security partner—a shortsighted view that does not consider the long-term consequence of bolstering a regime that systematically rides rough shod over human rights.

Abuses in Medical Settings

Egypt was not alone in performing unscientific forced anal exams, that can rise to the level of torture: medical practitioners in Tunisia, Uganda, Tanzania, and Sri Lanka, among others, were complicit in performing them in 2020.

The year saw a growing international momentum for an end to conversion therapy, the practice of attempting to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Countries including Albania, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Malta, Ireland, New Zealand, Spain, United Kingdom, have either enacted some form of ban or taken steps towards doing so. The EU has also called on states to ban the practice. The UN Independent Expert on Combatting Violence and Discrimination based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity presented a report to the UN on the topic. Conversion therapy has been shown to cause considerable harm, especially to children. In some instances, it is regarded as a form or torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. That said, there is room for caution given some jurisdiction’s reliance on vague and overly broad definitions of what constitutes ‘conversion therapy’ and overreliance on punitive criminal penalties that may themselves further violate rights. A rights-respecting, holistic approach is called for including tailored legal bans, public education, and psychosocial support for survivors.

Boston Hospital became the second major children’s hospital in the US (joining Lurie’s Children’s Hospital in Chicago) to refine its standard of care for intersex children, reversing course on conducting some cosmetic, non-consensual surgeries. These developments auger well for an end to medically unnecessary, non-consensual surgeries on intersex children, although a legislative effort to ban such surgeries in California was unsuccessful. As the new year dawned, it brought promising news that India’s child rights agency was recommending a country-wide ban on these so-called “normalizing” surgeries.

Unexpected Allies

In October, a video documentary was aired on the life and times of Pope Francis that included an extract from an interview in which he expressed support for civil unions. Despite the fact that official doctrine of the Catholic Church remains unchanged, Pope Francis has had a moderating influence with regard to discrimination based on sexual orientation–both through his ‘who am I to judge?’ stance and his refocus on critical issues of our time such as poverty, inequality and climate catastrophe over traditional sexual moral issues. His endorsement of civil unions takes this stance a step further, lending the Vatican’s weight to a message long advanced by gay advocacy groups that society will not fall, and will indeed be strengthened if the civil, secular law provides orderly recognition of same-sex relationships.

Going into 2021, LGBT rights advocates should build on successes challenging medical abuses–while being wary of resorting to criminalization as a one-size-fits-all solution—and should push back against efforts to narrow the scope of what constitutes a human right or who should enjoy such rights. They should also be mindful of the stark reality laid bare by the Covid-19 pandemic: fault lines of inequality underlie every social movement, and if struggles for the human rights of LGBT people leave out those who are socially and economically marginalized, only some will benefit.