Jean Wyllys said he was currently outside of the country and had no plans to return after a growing number of threats in past year

Brazil’s first and only openly gay congressman has announced that he is leaving his job – and the country – after receiving death threats.

In a newspaper interview on Thursday, Jean Wyllys said he was currently outside of Brazil and had no plans to return after a growing number of threats over the past year.

Brazil’s fearful LGBT community prepares for a ‘proud homophobe’ Read more

Wyllys, who was re-elected in October and had been set to begin a third term in February, was a close friend of Marielle Franco, the gay Rio councilwoman who was shot and killed along with her driver in March.

His departure is likely to add to fears among Brazil’s LGBT community that homophobia is set to rise even further under the government of president Jair Bolsonaro, who has won notoriety for his overt homophobia.

In the interview, Wyllys said his decision to leave wasn’t because of Bolsonaro’s rise, but rather the climate of heated rhetoric and intensifying violence toward members of the LGBT community in the wake of last year’s heated election campaign.

Bolsonaro made no explicit comment on Wyllys’s announcement, but soon after posted a thumbs-up emoji on his twitter feed. Bolsonaro’s son Carlos – also a Rio city councilman – greeted the news with a tweet saying: “Go with God and be happy.”

Wyllys told the Folha de São Paulo newspaper that the decision had been a painful one, but he asked: “Why would I want to live four years of my life in an armoured car with bodyguards? Four years of my life when I can’t just go where I want to go?”

Wyllys first found national fame when he won Brazil’s version of Big Brother, and went on to become one of the country’s most high-profile advocates for gay rights – a role which led to frequent attacks from the religious right.

“It is a difficult battle to fight. Sometimes I feel like Don Quixote, you know?” he told the Guardian in 2012. “But this is my vocation. My calling. I feel that I need to be here.”

Wyllys said that the former Uruguayan president Pepe Mújica had advised him to take the death threats seriously. “He told me: ‘Take care, man. Martyrs are not heroes.’ And he’s right: I don’t want to sacrifice myself,” Wyllys said.

In Congress, Wyllys was frequently at odds with Bolsonaro, a congressman for 28 years with a long history of homophobic, racist and sexist comments.

In their most notorious public clash, Wyllys spit towards Bolsonaro on the floor of the lower House of Deputies after Bolsonaro dedicated his vote to impeach then-president Dilma Rousseff to a dictatorship-era torturer.

In a tweet on Thursday, Wyllys said: “Preserving a threatened life is also a strategy to fight for better days. We did a lot for the common good. And we will do much more when new times come.”

Jean Wyllys (@jeanwyllys_real) Preservar a vida ameaçada é também uma estratégia da luta por dias melhores. Fizemos muito pelo bem comum. E faremos muito mais quando chegar o novo tempo, não importa que façamos por outros meios! Obrigado a todas e todos vocês, de todo coração. Axé! ✊ https://t.co/Xy6SyDNXDy pic.twitter.com/Tf6SGmZFHq

Despite Brazil’s image as an inclusive nation that is home to the world’s largest gay parade, homophobia is rampant, and often violent. In 2017, at least 445 LGBT Brazilians died as victims of homophobia – a 30% increase from 2016.</s>Brazil's only openly gay lawmaker announced Thursday he would not serve his third term and had fled the country because of mounting death threats since the election of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

"To preserve threatened life is also a strategy to fight for better days," Jean Wyllys, 44, is a member of the left-wing Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), wrote on Twitter.

"We did a lot for the common good. And we will do a lot more when new times arrive," added the deputy, a forceful representative of the LGBT community.

While the Chamber of Deputies' press service said Wyllys had not formally resigned, his office told AFP he had decided to step down, and would stay "out of the country" for a period of time -- without saying where he had gone.

Wyllys told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that Bolsonaro's October election in and of itself did not prompt his decision -- but rather the "level of violence that increased after the election," highlighting intensifying attacks on members of the LGBT community.

In November, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) asked Brazil to take "necessary measures to protect the rights to life and personal integrity" of Wyllys and his family.

Wyllys and Bolsonaro have long clashed in Congress: during leftist former president Dilma Rousseff's April 2016 impeachment hearings, Wyllys spat in Bolsonaro's face after Bolsonaro dedicated his impeachment vote to a torturer from Brazil's military dictatorship.

Wyllys is one of 10 elected PSOL deputies -- and will be replaced by David Miranda, who is also gay.

Their party is that of slain Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco, a high-profile lawmaker and black rights activist who was critical of police violence.

Franco was shot dead last March along with her driver Anderson Gomes, in a case that has not yet been solved.</s>A prominent gay congressman in Brazil announced on Thursday that he was leaving his job and fleeing the country because of increased death threats made against him.

Jean Wyllys, the country’s first openly gay congressman, told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper he had left Brazil and was going to work in academia, with no plans to return home.

“Preserving a life under threat is also a strategy to fight for better days,” Wyllys wrote on Twitter with a link to the article.

“We have done much for the common good. And we will do much more when the new era arrives, and it doesn’t matter that we do it by other means! Thank you to all of you with all my heart.”

Wyllys, who was re-elected to a third term in parliament last October, had received numerous death threats in the past, but according to the report in Folha, these had intensified significantly since the killing last March of Wyllys’ close friend Marielle Franco, a Rio de Janeiro councilwoman.

A representative from Wyllys’ communication team told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the congressman would not be giving interviews for safety reasons, and would not reveal Wyllys’ current location.

The news provoked dismay among Brazilian LGBT+ rights activists, many of whom saw Wyllys as a leader in the fight for gay rights, particularly under President Jair Bolsonaro, who has become well known for his homophobic comments.

“I understand his decision, but I am very sorry that we are going through this situation,” Luis Arruda, a prominent LGBT+ activist told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“It’s regrettable that an elected parliamentarian felt so pressured, and so emotionally hurt, that he had to leave his country. It’s really sad.”

Wyllys was an outspoken critic of the president prior to Bolsonaro’s election win last year, and had clashed with him numerous times in parliament.

The most notable incident occurred during the heated impeachment hearings of former President Dilma Rousseff in 2016, when Wyllys spit on then-congressman Bolsonaro.

Following Bolsonaro’s presidential victory in October, Wyllys said that the rate of violence in Brazil, particularly against LGBT people, has increased significantly, to the point where he felt compelled to leave the country.

“It was not Bolsonaro’s election itself. It was the level of violence that has increased since he was elected,” Wyllys told Folha.

Wyllys is set to be replaced in parliament by David Miranda, another openly gay politician who is currently serving as a member of the Rio de Janeiro city council and belongs to Wyllys’ Socialism and Liberty Party.

Miranda, another outspoken critic of Bolsonaro, has promised to defend LGBT+ rights in Brazil under the current administration.

“The LGBT community is always struggling - in every country in this world,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“With this government it’s not going to be any different. We’re going to have to learn to hold the rights we were able to obtain over the years. But at the same time, we have to struggle to sustain our survival.”</s>An openly gay congressman who frequently clashed with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said Thursday he was leaving his job and the country because of mounting death threats.

In an interview published by daily Folha de S. Paulo, Congressman Jean Wyllys said he was currently outside of Brazil and had no plans to return. Instead, he said he would work in academia but did not say where.

Wyllys, who was re-elected in October and set to begin a third term in February, said death threats against him had increased significantly since Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco was shot and killed along with her driver in March. Franco was a friend and ally of Wyllys.

Many in Latin America’s largest nation saw Franco, who was black, lesbian and hailed from one of Rio de Janeiro’s most violent slums, as a symbol of hope for her strong advocacy for LGBT rights and outspoken criticism of police brutality in poor neighbourhoods. Her death led to large protests in Brazil and in several countries.

Ten months later, no one has been arrested for her murder.

Since then, Wyllys, who represents Rio de Janeiro, has used a security detail.

“How is it that I’m going to live four years of my life inside an armoured car and with bodyguards?” he said.

In a tweet that posted a link to the Folha de S. Paulo article, Wyllys said: “Preserving a threatened life is also a strategy to fight for better days.”

Contacted by The Associated Press, an aide said Wyllys would not be making any further comment and declined to disclose the congressman’s location.

Wyllys’ announcement quickly became the leading story in Brazilian media, underscoring a politically charged climate and prompting discussions about public security, one of Brazil’s long-standing problems.

“The departure of Wyllys shows that the exercising of democracy in Brazil can be dangerous,” said Mauricio Santoro, a political science professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. “As shown by the crime, still unresolved, against Marielle Franco and now the threats against Wyllys, (the state) can’t guarantee the security of its own agents.”

Wyllys’ post will be filled by David Miranda, a Rio de Janeiro councilman from the same leftist Socialism and Liberty Party.

Wyllys rose to fame several years ago after becoming a finalist on the reality show “Big Brother Brasil,” causing a lot of controversy in deeply conservative country as an openly gay contestant. He combined that notoriety with political activism, and in 2010 won a seat in Congress.

Wyllys was frequently at odds with Bolsonaro, a congressman for 28 years with a long history of homophobic, racist and sexist comments.

In arguably their most public clash, Wyllys spit on Bolsonaro on the floor of the lower House of Deputies during the 2016 impeachment process of then-President Dilma Rousseff. Bolsonaro, a former army captain, voted for Rousseff’s impeachment while giving tribute to a former colonel who tortured Rousseff when she was jailed as a guerrilla fighter during the dictatorship.

In the hours after Folha published its story, Bolsonaro, set to return from the economic forum in Davos, put out a series of tweets that many interpreted as cheering Wyllys’ departure. They included icons of a hand giving a thumb’s up, a Brazilian flag and an icon of a plane.

“Fake News!” Bolsonaro wrote, posting a tweet of O Globo daily that framed his messages as celebratory. “I was referring to mission completed, productive meetings with heads of state and return to the country I love.”

In the interview, Wyllys said his decision to leave wasn’t because of Bolsonaro’s rise, but rather the climate of heated rhetoric and intensifying violence toward members of the LGBT community in the wake of last year’s campaigns.

Wyllys said that former Uruguayan President Jose Mujica, learning of the death threats, told him: “‘Be careful, man. Martyrs are not heroes.“’

“It’s exactly that,” said Wyllys. “I don’t want to sacrifice myself.”</s>Brazil´s Congress has lost an important voice for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people at a time when it is most needed: Jean Wyllys, an openly gay member of Congress, has announced he will give up his seat over fears for his life.

“I want to take care of myself and remain alive,” said Wyllys, who said he will live abroad.

During two terms in office, Wyllys, born into a poor family in 1974, was an unwavering defender of human rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. That made him a favorite target of harassment and intimidation from religious zealots who see homosexuality as a sin.

He endured a deluge of false accusations on social media – which he kept refuting on his webpage – and has reported receiving multiple threats.

A turning point came in March 2018, when unknown assailants gunned down human rights activist and councilwoman Marielle Franco, a defender of the poor, Afro-Brazilians, and LGBT people in Rio de Janeiro, the state that Wyllys represented in Brasilia.

Wyllys says that Franco’s murder made him realize the seriousness of the threats against him. Wyllys had reported them to the Federal Police, but he complained that the investigation led nowhere. In November 2018, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found his life was “at grave risk” and the state was not doing enough to protect him.

His passionate defense of LGBT rights led him to clash with congressman Jair Bolsonaro, who became president of Brazil in January. In a 2015 interview, Bolsonaro described Wyllys as “a gay activist with absurd projects that do not add anything to the defense of the family.”

Wyllys said that Bolsonaro´s electoral victory in itself did not make him leave, but rather the “scary increase” in violence against LGBT people that he feels it has brought in its wake. He cited the January 21 murder of a trans woman, whose killer ripped open her chest and placed there a religious image.

No politician, from the left or the right, should feel forced to abandon their seat in Congress because of threats to their life. Wyllys´s decision is understandable. But it´s a great loss for all Brazilians, who have the right to hear different opinions and to express them without fear of reprisals.</s>BRASILIA (Reuters) - Jean Wyllys, Brazil’s second openly gay congressman, said on Thursday he will not serve the new term for which he was re-elected due to death threats and he now plans to live abroad.

But Wyllys’ Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) said his seat in Brasilia will go to a substitute lawmaker who is also gay: Rio councilman David Miranda, the husband of Pulitzer Prize-winning U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald.

In a letter to the party explaining his decision to leave Brazil, Wyllys said death threats made his life unbearable and he hardly left his Rio home. His siblings and his mother had also been threatened, he said in the letter released by the PSOL.

Wyllys said in a newspaper interview that the climate of violence in Brazil, which had one of the world’s highest murder rates last year, had worsened since the October election of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who has disparaged gays and other minorities.

Wyllys said he was tired of living with bodyguards since the execution-style murder last year of popular Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco, a fellow PSOL member.

“It was not Bolsonaro’s election itself. It was the level of violence that has increased since he was elected,” Wyllys told the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper.

A legislative aide in Brasilia confirmed that Wyllys will not return to Brazil from his current travels in Europe.

Wyllys told Folha that he was the target of constant death threats and defamatory campaigns on social media and got pushed in the street even with bodyguards.

“I don’t want to sacrifice myself,” he told Folha. “I want to take care of myself and stay alive.”

The last straw, he said, were revelations that Bolsonaro’s son Flavio had employed on his Rio state assembly staff relatives of a fugitive former police officer suspected of involvement in Franco’s assassination in March.

Wyllys, 44, was a staunch advocate for gay rights and fought religious discrimination and violence against women during his two terms in Congress.

Brazil’s first openly gay Congressman was fashion designer and television presenter Clodovil Hernandes who represented Sao Paulo for two years in Brasilia and died of a stroke in 2009. Unlike Wyllys, he did not publicly defend the LGBT cause.</s>Jean Wyllys has been a staunch advocate for gay rights in Brazil

An openly gay congressman in Brazil has quit and fled the country after receiving death threats following the election of President Jair Bolsonaro.

Jean Wyllys announced on Thursday that he would not be serving his new term in office, starting next month, despite being re-elected for the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) in October.

In a resignation letter, Mr Wyllys said threats of violence made against him, and his mother and siblings, had made his life unbearable.

He said he had barely left his home in Rio de Janeiro in recent weeks, and partly blamed a worsening culture of violence in the country on the rise to power of the controversial far-right figure Mr Bolsonaro.

Mr Bolsonaro's election campaign was marked by divisive rhetoric and derogatory remarks about women, gay people and ethnic minorities, which saw him dubbed the "Trump of the Tropics".

Among the incendiary comments he has made during his 28-year political career were remarks that he would "rather his son die in a car accident than be gay" and another where he he said that "if I see two men kissing on the street, I'm going to hit them".

Mr Wyllys has been travelling in Europe and will not return to his homeland, with his seat in Brasilia to be filled by Rio councilman David Miranda - the husband of Pulitzer Prize-winning US journalist Glenn Greenwald.

According to the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper, Mr Wyllys had grown tired of being the target of defamatory campaigns on social media and needing bodyguards whenever he was out in public.

He said: "I don't want to sacrifice myself. I want to take care of myself and stay alive.

"To preserve one's threatened life is also a strategy to fight for better days."

The 44-year-old said the final straw was a recent revelation that Flavio Bolsonaro, son of the president, had employed relatives of a fugitive former police officer suspected of involvement in the assassination of a PSOL colleague last year.

Marielle Franco, a popular Rio councilwoman, was killed in March. No one has been arrested for her murder.

Since her death, Mr Wyllys - who rose to prominence after winning the Brazilian version of Big Brother in 2005 - along with several other PSOL members have required bodyguards.

Mr Wyllys has been a staunch advocate for gay rights and has fought religious discrimination and violence against women in the years since his TV success.

He has said his victory was of "great political relevance" because "I was a homosexual and I still won the programme in a country that is homophobic".</s>Brazil's first openly gay congressman, Jean Wyllys, revealed in an interview published Thursday that he has resigned his seat and left the country in the face of death threats.

The lawmaker, who became famous as the winner of the Brazilian version of TV reality show "Big Brother," told Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper that he began contemplating retirement from public life after the murder last March of another high-profile LGBT politician, Rio de Janeiro city councilor Marielle Franco.</s>'I Do Not Want To Be A Martyr': Openly Gay Lawmaker Leaves Brazil

An openly gay congressman in Brazil says he has received death threats and that he has left the country and given up his third term in office because he fears for his life.

Jean Wyllys, a champion of LGBT rights and a critic of newly elected President Jair Bolsonaro, also told the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo that he faced a deluge of false accusations on social media and an increasingly hostile environment for LGBT people in Brazil.

"For the future of this cause, I need to be alive," Wyllys said in an interview published Thursday. "I do not want to be a martyr. I want to live."

He declined to reveal where he is currently but said he plans to study, write and work on a doctorate. Wyllys, who was re-elected in October, would have been sworn in for his third term as Rio de Janeiro congressman in February.

David Miranda, a Rio de Janeiro councilman from the leftist Socialism and Liberty Party that Wyllys belonged to, will fill the vacant spot. Miranda is the partner of Intercept journalist Glenn Greenwald.

"One LGBT comes out but another comes in," Miranda tweeted Thursday.

Wyllys told the newspaper he had been physically harassed and that he realized the gravity of the death threats against him after Marielle Franco, a lesbian Rio councilwoman and human rights advocate, was shot and killed in March 2018. After her death, Wyllys said he began traveling with a security detail.

"How will I live four years of my life in an armored car and under escort?" he asked Folha.

Wyllys' departure is likely to heighten existing concerns among Brazilians that the election of far-right populist Bolsonaro has stoked homophobic violence. LGBT people in Brazil have been targets of rampant prejudice and sometimes violent or deadly attacks for years, and many view the rise of the far right as a threat to their safety, as NPR's Philip Reeves reports.

On his first day in office, Bolsonaro's government, which accuses the gay rights movement of undermining family values, effectively removed the LGBT community from the list of groups covered by the country's human rights ministry.

Wyllys had frequently clashed with Bolsonaro when the two served as colleagues in Brazil's Congress, even spitting at him during a 2016 hearing to impeach then-President Dilma Rousseff.

Wyllys said his decision to leave was motivated not by Bolsonaro's rise to the presidency, but rather by the violent climate against the LGBT community in the wake of last year's polarizing presidential election. "In one week, three lesbian couples were attacked," he told Folha. "One of them was executed. Violence against LGBTs in Brazil has grown frightening."

Bolsonaro's administration has not responded to Wyllys' departure, but a couple of celebratory tweets posted Thursday by the president and his son Carlos Bolsonaro were interpreted on social media as a comment on Wyllys. But Bolsonaro later clarified that a tweet reading "Great day!" with a thumbs up emoji was not a reference to Wyllys.

Last year, Wyllys said his name had been falsely linked with pedophilia, and he released a video that appeared to show doctored photos of his supporters holding up signs with statements that supported the sexual exploitation of children.

"I saw my reputation destroyed by lies, and I, powerless, unable to do anything," he told Folha this week. "People have no idea what it's like to be the target."

He said leaving his friends, family and supporters in Brazil was a difficult decision that "involved a lot of pain."

Wyllys, a professor who grew up in poverty in the northeastern state of Bahia, became the country's first congressman to campaign on an LGBT-rights platform, The Guardian reports. But he had captured the national spotlight years earlier, drawing both praise and criticism as the first openly gay participant of the reality TV show Big Brother Brasil, which he won in 2005.

He called working toward the legalization of same-sex marriage in Brazil in 2013 one of the highlights of his political career.

"I'm very proud of what I did," he said. "During these eight years, I faced all this with great dignity. But I'm human and I reached my limit."</s>Amid a mass of colour and pounding Latin rhythms, revellers at this year’s Bogotá Pride march waved banners stating “not one step back”. They were among tens of thousands who took to the streets to celebrate and support Colombia’s LGBT community.

Many annual Pride marches that were once solemn protests against repression have become celebrations of now-existing rights or progress, reflecting the strength of LGBT communities.

In Bogotá, for example, the capital of a macho and socially conservative country, there has been surprising progress in LGBT rights.

In March, Angélica Lozano Correa, a former member of the Bogotá city council, became the first openly LGBT person to be elected to the country’s Senate. In 2016 the country’s government passed laws allowing same-sex couples to adopt and marry, and the previous year it granted transgender people the right to change their identity on official government documents – policies which have allowed more equality and openness.

But while these laws and political representation might suggest Bogotá is “friendly” and tolerant of the LGBT community, the issue is not clear-cut. This year’s Bogotá Pride march was marked by an undertone of resistance to and fear of the right-wing government of the new president, Ivan Duque.

Duque openly opposes the LGBT-inclusive peace agreement his predecessor, Juan Manuel Santos, signed with leftist rebels Farc in 2016. Activists claim he is also against same-sex marriage and adoption rights.

“Although the government promised there would be no setbacks to LGBT rights, the appointment of several anti-LGBT officials, cuts in resources for public policies and the continued strengthening of radical religious movements that promote hate speech and misinformation against the LGBT population are worrying,” says Marcela Sánchez, director of Colombia Diversa, a leading LGBT rights organisation.

Indeed, determining a city’s attitude towards the LGBT community is complex. Studies that try to do this often look at political or legal metrics such as freedom to marry, or laws protecting against discrimination.

Equaldex, a collaborative knowledge base for the global LGBT movement that maps the legality of homosexuality, identifies a number of factors including freedom to change gender and to adopt – although it hasn’t ranked countries or cities in order of best to worst.

An index from the Human Rights Campaign looks at municipal services, law enforcement and the city leadership’s public position on equality across the US.

Seventy-eight out of 506 US cities had a “perfect score” of 100, for reasons such as introducing trans-inclusive health benefits to city employees, as in Brookings, South Dakota. Birmingham, Alabama, obtained a full score for passing comprehensive nondiscrimination ordinances, along with other cities such as Cleveland in Ohio, a state that had previously prohibited same-sex marriage and civil unions.

However, the Human Rights Campaign clearly states its index does not and cannot reflect a city’s friendliness.

Other global surveys have tried to assess friendliness by covering public attitudes, access to nightlife and personal safety. A 2017 survey by the housing website Nestpick ranked the best LGBT cities by asking thousands of people how friendly they felt their city was based on safety and nightlife. Madrid, Amsterdam and Toronto came out as the top three.

“Modern strongholds for LGBTQI culture remain in western Europe and Canada,” says Merryn Johns, editor and chief for Curve, a lesbian-focused magazine in New York.

Arguably the size of the LGBT population in urban areas could reflect the level of friendliness, as “many LGBTI folk head to cities from rural areas because of the promise of a freer, more tolerant life there,” says André du Plessis, executive director of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association.

A study of US metro areas found San Francisco has the biggest proportion of LGBT residents in the country at 6.2%, followed by Portland and Austin. San Francisco has often been called the “gay capital of the world” for its culture of tolerance and vibrant scene.

But even when cities seem progressive on the surface, the lived experience of members of the LGBT community can tell a dramatically different story.

“For a certain social strata [sic], Cape Town and Johannesburg are gay meccas, but at the same time black lesbians living in poor areas there are dealing with violence and targeted rape,” says Graeme Reid, director of the LGBT rights programme at Human Rights Watch.

A study in 2017 found that four in 10 LGBT South Africans know of someone who has been killed for “being or suspected of being” LGBT. Black members of this community are twice as likely (49%) as white people (26%) to know of an LGBT person who has been murdered.

Even in London and Paris, which both have a reputation of being queer-friendly cities, hate crimes have increased in recent years. A report from Stonewall in 2017 found that 25% of London’s LGBT community had experienced harassment or assault.

Brazil’s second-largest city, Rio de Janeiro, has been branding itself as an LGBT tourist destination for years. It has made huge efforts in providing anti-bullying projects aimed at students, and has outlawed discrimination in nightclubs. However, the last year has seen record numbers of violent attacks against the queer community.

And with a newly elected far-right government, there are fears it could get worse.

“With the election of an openly homophobic president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has infamously said he would rather have a dead son than a gay son, Rio’s reputation as a destination city may falter, and violence increase,” Reid says. “Rio is seen as a liberated city, but also has high levels of [homophobic] violence.”

Conversely, in some countries with backward and dangerous attitudes to the LGBT community, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, discreet but vibrant underground scenes can thrive. This is even the case in Russia, where activists say two people were killed last week and nearly 40 detained, as part of a new homophobic crackdown by police in the Chechnya region.

“You’ll find a gay scene in many places that may surprise you,” says Ed Salvato, an LGBT travel expert. “Some places like Moscow and St Petersburghave vibrant gay communities, despite the homophobic laws there.”

In Dublin, an exciting scene exploded out of a staunchly Catholic country.

“Dublin is like gay Disneyland now, and that wasn’t the case 20 or 30 years ago,” says Prof Andrew Reynolds, founder of the University of North Carolina’s LGBTQ Representation and Rights Research Initiative.

“With the last couple of referendums, Ireland and Dublin have embraced their new presentation as an inclusive, progressive and loving place.”

When Reynolds visited Ireland in 2016, many from the LGBT population told him stories of growing up in conservative coastal towns and moving away due to prejudice. The country was the first to legalise gay marriage by popular vote, in a 2015 referendum with a yes vote of 62%.

He says: “They went to Australia. They went to America. Now they’ve come home.”

The political glass ceiling has broken for many LGBT people across the world, which inevitably has ripple effects on the community.

Minneapolis made US history last year by electing Andrea Jenkins, the first openly trans woman of colour to office in 2017. The gay stronghold of Palm Springs, California, has elected an entire city council that identifies as LGBT. And in November, Jared Polis became the first openly gay man to be elected as a US state governor.

In Poland, one of Europe’s most Catholic and conservative countries, voters in the small city of Slupsk this year elected a gay atheist mayor, Robert Biedron. Just a few years ago, Biedron was attacked on the streets of his city because of his sexuality.

In Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunil Pant became Asia’s first openly gay federal-level elected official in 2008, resulting in a spate of public scrutiny.

“I think that the spinoff is that Kathmandu is a lot more gay-friendly than it was before,” says Reynolds. “Whilst it is not perfect by any stretch, like Bogotá, it is a place now that I feel like is much more friendly and accepting – and that’s obviously coming from a place where the Hindu religion was not helpful before.”

As the most direct representatives of citizens, city officials are uniquely positioned to understand and address the needs of their communities, says Xavier Persad of the Human Rights Campaign, pointing to “the need to provide for one’s family without the fear of being fired, to secure housing without the fear of eviction, and to participate in community life”.

“When cities enact LGBTQ-inclusive protections,” he adds, “they send a clear message that they value and welcome everyone, attracting the country’s top talent and spurring economic growth.”

Ultimately, even the most progressive laws and equal representation at political levels do not necessarily reflect the efficiency of enforcement, or indeed capture the lived experience of discrimination and fear many LGBT people face every day.

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Brazilian legislator and LGBT rights activist Jean Wyllys announces he will leave his office and his country after death threats against him increase in number and intensity. Wyllys will be replaced by fellow PSOL politician David Miranda.