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Tomorrow (May 17) is the International Day Against Homophobia. In case you need reminding of what the day is for, here are 17 reasons why we desperately need to keep fighting homophobia:

1. South African football player Eudy Simelane was raped and murdered last week in the latest of several anti-gay killings in the country
2. Homosexuality is still a crime in 85 countries
3. Kids think the word ‘gay’ is perfectly fine as an all-purpose insult
4. ‘Lesbian’ is also a fine insult for adults to use, apparently
5. There are no out gay footballers in UK football. The only player to say he was gay committed suicide because of homophobia
6. 97% of gay pupils in the UK regularly hear homophobic insults at school, and two thirds have had a personal experience of homophobic bullying.
7. Lesbians are thrown out of restaurants for not looking feminine enough in the US
8. In 2006-07, 6,054 homophobic hate crimes were reported to the police in the UK
   
9. Gay men are banned from giving blood
10. London’s mayor Boris Johnson thinks it’s fine to say “If gay marriage was OK - and I was uncertain on the issue - then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men; or indeed three men and a dog.”
11. The Catholic church believes that homosexuality is a disorder
12. Some inhabitants of the island Lesbos are trying to sue a Greek LGBT group for using the word ‘lesbian
13. Oklahama representative Sally Kern can publicly say that ‘homosexuality is a bigger threat than terrorism or Islam’
14. Homophobia is a hidden but very real motive for murder and violence in war across the world
15. News reporters are free to make vomiting noises in response to a story about a pregnant transgender man
16. LGBT asylum seekers in the UK are regularly deported to countries where they are at risk because of their sexuality
17. 2 boys were executed in Iran in 2005 for being gay. Since 1079, 4000 other gay men and women in Iran have been murdered for the same reason.

Homosexuality was only removed from the World Health Organisation’s list of mental disorders on 17 May 1990. 18 years on, homophobia is still a huge problem across the world - we need to keep fighting against it.

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