Today marks 50 years since the Stonewall Riots in New York City, which are celebrated as the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. In the years since, progress toward equal protections for LGBT people has been remarkable and hard-won, but still geographically uneven. Significant advances have been made in much of Western Europe and the Americas, while LGBT rights lag in most of Africa and Asia. Here's a global look at the legal environment for LGBT people across the globe, with a few recent changes highlighted.
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Graphic Truth: LGBT Worlds Apart
By Willis Sparks,
Willis Sparks
Willis Sparks is a senior editor for GZERO Daily. He is also a Director in the Global Macro practice at Eurasia Group, where he has worked since 2005. He has made speeches on international politics on every continent except Antarctica. Willis holds degrees from Brown University, the Juilliard School, Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris. He also holds an honorary degree from the Moscow Art Theatre School. A native of Macon, Georgia, Willis has worked as a stuntman at New York's Metropolitan Opera. As a child, he declined an opportunity to spend an afternoon riding the Great American Scream Machine, a rollercoaster, with Ronald McDonald, for money. He has never regretted that decision.
