Graeme Reid on human rights, diplomacy, and global advocacy at the United Nations

As UN independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Graeme Reid operates at the intersection of diplomacy, research, and global advocacy. 

In 2025, he presented major thematic reports to the UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly, conducted an official country visit to Colombia, and engaged governments and civil society organizations across regions amid growing political polarization and tightening resources within the UN system. Alongside his UN mandate, Reid remains engaged in academic life at Yale, teaching, publishing, and involving students directly in international human rights work. 

In a recent interview, he discussed his path to the role, lessons from recent country visits, emerging global trends, and the challenges of advancing human rights in a divided world.

What led you to serve as a UN independent expert?

There are really two strands to my background. One is academic. My training is in anthropology, and my research focused on cross-cultural understandings of gender and sexuality. The other is advocacy. Before becoming a UN independent expert, I spent 12 years leading the LGBT rights program at Human Rights Watch.

That combination — moving between academia and advocacy — shaped the work I do now. As an independent expert, my role is to monitor human rights abuses related to sexual orientation and gender identity around the world and to engage states on how they can improve their human rights records. It’s a position that sits between scholarship, diplomacy, and advocacy, which reflects the trajectory of my career.

You’ve conducted recent country visits, including to Albania and Colombia. What stood out from those experiences?

Albania and Colombia were illuminating in different ways.

Albania is particularly interesting because of its aspiration to join the European Union. That goal creates real leverage. Government officials at local, regional, and national levels were clear that strengthening human rights protections — including for sexual orientation and gender identity — is part of demonstrating readiness for EU membership. Albania has developed a national action plan to align its laws with EU standards, and there was a strong sense that strengthening human rights protections is itself an aspirational goal closely linked to joining the Union.

Colombia, by contrast, already has a robust legal and policy framework protecting LGBT rights. The challenge there is implementation: how laws and policies translate into real improvements in people’s everyday lives. Colombia also faces systemic challenges, including ongoing violence, which disproportionately affects LGBT people. So the focus there is less on legal reform and more on ensuring protection on the ground.

You have an official visit to Mongolia planned for May 2026. Why Mongolia?

One distinctive feature of UN country visits is that experts must be formally invited — you can’t simply decide to go. I had been trying to secure invitations in several parts of Asia, and Mongolia stood out. The country has made slow but meaningful progress in protecting LGBT rights, including in employment law, and it has a strong civil society community. In fact, it was a conversation with a Mongolian activist at a conference in Cape Town — a very effective elevator pitch — that convinced me a visit could be particularly timely and useful.

Mongolia has also invited other UN mandate holders, signaling openness to engagement and positioning itself somewhat differently from its neighbors. The visit will focus on assessing progress to date and offering recommendations to strengthen protections going forward.

How do you structure a UN country visit once an invitation is issued?

Typically, the government — often through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — organizes meetings with relevant officials and ministries. That allows me to understand the state’s perspective, policies, and constraints. Separately, and critically, I meet with civil society organizations. Those meetings are arranged independently, without government oversight. Keeping those tracks distinct is essential. Civil society and government actors often have very different perspectives, and listening to both allows me to produce reporting that reflects the full picture.

Do Yale students take part in this work?

Yes. Yale students assist with legal research and the preparation of thematic reports, and have participated in visits to Geneva during Human Rights Council sessions, providing direct exposure to how research feeds into UN reporting and intergovernmental processes. I’m currently appointing a Yale student as a research assistant to support background research, report drafting, and preparation for country visits. I’ve also brought students to international and regional conferences, including the Pan Africa ILGA Conference in Johannesburg last year. There’s another regional conference coming up in Rio de Janeiro, and I expect Yale students to participate there as well. These experiences help students see how academic research connects directly to global human rights practice.

What global trends are you seeing around LGBTQ rights?

Everything is highly context-specific, but there are worrying global patterns. One is the spread of laws restricting public expression of identity — such as so-called “propaganda” laws in Russia, similar measures in parts of Eastern Europe, and “promotion of homosexuality” laws in parts of Africa. These laws often come with restrictions on civil society organizations and hostile political rhetoric that portrays LGBT people as threats to families, children, or even the state itself. That combination of rhetoric and regulation is deeply concerning, and it’s a focus of one of my recent thematic reports to the Human Rights Council.

At the same time, there has been genuine progress, though it isn’t always headline-grabbing. Decriminalization of consensual same-sex conduct continues in some regions, including parts of the Eastern Caribbean. Other advances, such as employment protections, may seem incremental but can have a profound impact on people’s lives.

Is there anything about this moment in global politics that makes your work particularly challenging?

One of the key challenges today is that LGBT rights have become symbolic language in broader geopolitical conflicts. Questions of gender and sexuality are often used to articulate larger political struggles, which creates intense polarization.

That polarization limits engagement. There are states that resist even the idea that these issues belong within the human rights system. A significant part of my work involves trying to engage those governments — finding points of common ground and emphasizing basic human rights protections, even in a deeply divided global environment.