No regional pattern: LGBTIQ rights and politics in Asia

In Asia, there is both engagement with and resistance to rights protection on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). This chapter will sketch the contemporary situation and then indicate how it is that, once LGBTQ rights are recognised as human rights, they may also be recognised within regional iterations of the global human rights regime. I trace two threads of activity in the region: one concerns the engagement of national human rights institutions in Asia with LGBTQ concerns; the other is the United Nations Development Programme’s regionally unique ‘Being LGBTI in Asia’ initiative.