by MEGHAN LEWIS
“Feelings, oh feelings, please accept this. I have not wronged – even in law. We wish to have a place in this world and to love one another freely.” Noy Sitha, 58, Women’s Network for Unity
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people exist in all countries yet in many places they remain largely invisible and subject to discrimination and human rights violations. In more than 80 countries homosexuality is punishable by law and in several of those countries the punishment for same-sex love may be death. Even in “progressive” countries like England or the United States, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people are still fighting for equal rights including the right to employment, to marry, and to have a family.
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Noy Sitha, 58, is an outreach volunteer for Women’s Network for Unity, a collective of sex workers, lesbians, and garment workers in Phnom Penh. Sitha shares with me how she was discriminated against at her workplace, “I worked at the Department of Classical Arts and they would only let me speak on the radio. One of the reasons they did not let me perform visually is because of my masculine appearance. I did not wear skirts.”
Women’s International Perspective for more