Progress
In 1988, Israel decriminalized homosexuality, and within five years, the country had begun allowing openly gay
soldiers to serve in the military and instituted a ban on anti-LGBTQ employment discrimination. Since 2006, Israel
has recognized same-sex marriages performed abroad; 2008 marked the year that Israel began allowing same-sex
couples to adopt children together; and, in 2014, Israel lowered the minimum age requirement for gender-affirming
surgery for the transgender community. Just this month, incoming Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz
announced that he would remove all questions about sexual activity from questionnaires for prospective blood
donors, thus allowing gay men to give blood.
Over the past twenty-three years, LGBTQ rights have progressed at warp speed in Israel. In Tel Aviv, a city where
only twenty or thirty years ago gay men were harassed on the streets by bullies both civilian and police, there is
now a Municipal LGBT Center. Funded by the
city government, this center aims to support, educate, and empower the city’s LGBTQ residents. The idea that
taxpayer funds could go toward such an effort – especially in a state so influenced by intolerant religious
attitudes – is nothing short of revolutionary.
