Same-sex consensual acts were only legalized in Belize in 2016, when the Supreme Court of Belize ruled the anti-sodomy laws to be unconstitutional. In the same case (The Attorney General v. Caleb Orozco), the court determined that the constitution’s prohibition of discrimination based on sex included discrimination based on sexual orientation. These were landmark decisions for LGBT rights in Belize, but received major pushback from the Belizean government, the Catholic Church, and the National Evangelical Association of Belize. Despite these advances, there is little research done or information regarding the status of transgender individuals in Belize, a signal that there is still much work to do.
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Marriage for Same-Sex Couples
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Civil Unions
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Joint Adoption
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Second Parent Adoption
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Employment Nondiscrimination Laws
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Broad Protections
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Criminalization of Violence
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Ban of Conversion Therapy
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Consensual Same-Sex Acts are Legal?
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Gender
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Max Penalty (Yrs in Prison)
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Belize: LGBTI. Asylum Research Centre. 2012. https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/50af2ee72.pdf
Caserta, S., & Madsen, M. R. (2016). Caribbean Community-Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas-freedom of movement under Community law-indirect and direct effect of international law-LGBT rights. The American Journal of International Law; Washington, 110(3), 533–540. https://login.proxy.lib.duke.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1830058040?accountid=10598
Corrales, J. (2015). The Politics of LGBT Rights in Latin America and the Caribbean: Research Agendas. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y Del Caribe, 100, 53–62. JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43673537
Novak, A. (2018). Using International and Foreign Law in Human Rights Litigation: The Decriminalization of Homosexuality in Belize. Journal of Human Rights Practice, 10(2), 346–354. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/huy014
Orozco, Caleb. Resistance to criminalisation, and social movement organising to advance LGBT rights in Belize. Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights: (Neo)colonialism, Neoliberalism, Resistance and Hope. https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/39392/9780993110283.pdf?sequence=1#page=279
Sharpe, J. A., MRC Psych. (2016). 36.1 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth in the english-speaking caribbean. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry,55(10), S55-S55. https://libkey.io/libraries/229/articles/60703776/full-text-file?utm_source=api_519
The Attorney General v. Caleb Orozco. The Court of Appeal Belize. 2019. https://www.humandignitytrust.org/wp-content/uploads/resources/CIVIL-APPEAL-32-OF-2016-JUDGEMENT-30-Dec-19_compressed.pdf