By the Cinemata Curatorial Team

In Amnesty International Philippines, we engage and work with a diverse network of partners and coalitions in our human rights work: school administrations and school-based organizations, youth groups, civil society organizations, government institutions, companies, and professional organizations such as lawyers’ and medical associations, solidarity and pressure groups, academic institutions open to human rights work, religious-based organizations, funding NGOs, developmental NGOs and people’s organizations, trade unions, environmental groups, women’s groups, humanitarian and peace groups, and NGO networks as well as the wide range of groups and organizations covering civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.

The Covid-19 pandemic caused widespread, and often deeply damaging disruptions to the health, economic and social lives of millions of people across the world. But these impacts were not experienced equally. Transgender people – who were already subject to deep-rooted and persistent structural inequalities – found their pre-existing marginalisation exacerbated by the pandemic and related public health measures and suffered disproportionately. This report documents the experiences of transgender people in 15 countries in South, Southeast and East Asia, and the Pacific Islands during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Prior to the conduct of the METU Pride March on 10 June 2022, the METU administration sent an e-mail on 7 June to all the university’s students, attempting to prohibit the planned Pride march, stating that it ‘has been absolutely banned’ and threatening students with police intervention if they go ahead with their plans to have a peaceful demonstration.