Diego Garcia Blum MPP 2021 was working for the U.S.-based Human Rights Campaign when he met another activist from his native Colombia, a mother whose son had died by suicide after being bullied at school for being gay. He says the meeting prompted two powerful realizations—the first was that he could have been that young man had his parents not immigrated to the United States years earlier. The second was that his advocacy efforts were needed abroad at least as much as they were in America.
“I really just felt that, while we need to fight for change here, we can't forget there are so many people out there in the world who are living in societies that completely misunderstand them,” Garcia Blum said. “They’re living in places where coming out means losing your family and getting persecuted by your government or being put in jail, or killed by a family member, or losing any kind of career.”
This month, Garcia Blum’s spark of an idea became a reality—he is now director of the Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program based at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at HKS. The program has three major objectives:
- Training advocates for LGBTQI+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, queer, intersex, and other) people from around the world in best practices
- Conducting research on the best ways to counter misconceptions, misunderstandings, and discrimination involving LGBTQI people, and
- Convening events to raise awareness and facilitate important conversations.
“LGBTQI+ rights are not secured in a large number of countries in the world, and even where things seem good, there often remains a risk of a backlash,” said Mathias Risse, the Berthold Beitz Professor of Human Rights at HKS, who serves as faculty director of both the Carr Center and the new program. “Creating a nexus of activity in this domain is precisely the kind of work the Carr Center ought to be doing.”
“We can't forget there are so many people out there in the world who are living in societies that completely misunderstand them.”
The program was developed out of the 2023 LGBTQI+ Activism Summit, which was organized by Garcia Blum and former HKS Lecturer Timothy Patrick McCarthy, who is now faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. McCarthy and Garcia Blum also teach “Queer Nation: LGBTQ Protest, Politics, and Policy in the United States” (DPI-376), the only HKS course dedicated to LGBTQ matters.
“The summit was an inspiring catalyst for this expansive new Carr Center program, which we hope will bring new energy and attention to the global movement for LGBTQI+ human rights at a time of great urgency and possibility,” McCarthy said.
Garcia Blum also worked on developing the program as a Social Change Fellow at the Center for Public Leadership (CPL) under its outgoing director, former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, including finding funding. The program is financially supported by the Open Gate Foundation, the David Bohnett Foundation, and individual donors.
Risse, Garcia Blum, and McCarthy envision establishing the Carr Center as a key international focal point for LGBTQI+ human rights policy, training, ideas, and dialogue that will amplify the impact of activism on the ground and facilitate global collaboration among activists, academics, policymakers, and the media. They said ensuring the safety and well-being of LGBTQI+ people globally is a pressing human rights issue that requires urgent action. In addition to longstanding religious and cultural prejudices, they say LGBTQI+ people face increasing pressure from authoritarian regimes who are taking cues from actions such as Russia's classification of LGBTQI+ groups as extremist and using the suppression of LGBTQI+ rights to tighten their grip on power.
The 2024 LGBTQI+ Activism Summit is already being planned for October and several new research initiatives are already underway, Garcia Blum said.
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Photograph by Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images