Out South
More and more people in the global South are declaring their sexual difference. But at the same time a worldwide right-wing backlash is mounting against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender minorities. Vanessa Baird reports.

World news
With a different spin.

Eric Miller / Panos Pictures

Out in Africa
Shuaib Rahim reports from the country that has taken a world lead in getting legal equality for sexual minorities.

For people like us
'Indian and lesbian' is the saucy claim that's sparking a furore. Ashwini Sukthankar chronicles the controversy.

THE FACTS - Love, hate and the law

Holy hatred
Anissa Hélie examines current attitudes to sexual non-conformity in many Muslim societies.

Taboo breakers
Individuals who are giving old prejudices a shaking.

It's what you do
Men having sex with other men is not unusual, but they don't all identify as gay. Jeremy Seabrook explores the implications for HIV prevention in the South.

ACTION on Sexual Minorities

This issue of the NI is good news. That doesn't mean it contains only good news - it wouldn't be the NI if it did! But even a decade ago an entire issue on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other sexual minority people in the global South would have been difficult - often they were invisible or could not dare risk identification.

The North-South editorial collaboration on this magazine might not have been possible either. One of us - Shuaib - lives in a country where homosexuality was illegal until quite recently.

But here we are - and here is the magazine. A sign that progress really is possible.

There are, however, still many parts of the world where silence prevails. Where people who don't fit the heterosexual mould live twilight lives, controlled by fear, prejudice and, sometimes, brutal repression.

And there's one thing you can be sure of when it comes to this subject: no news is, almost invariably, bad news.