The Yogyakarta Principles continue to be invoked by governments around the world. What are they? Who created them? And why are governments adopting them? Find out in this repost.
In 2008 the Arcus Foundation, which bills itself as an American philanthropic organization, gave its first large donation to ARC International, a Canadian corporation located in the tourist town of Dartmouth, NS (pop 92,000).
ARC’s official name is Allied Rainbow Communities International and it is registered in Canada as a tax-exempt private corporation. Its executive director is Kim Vance Mubanga, who founded ARC in 2003 with John Fisher (now Geneva Director of Human Rights Watch) to promote “LGBT” rights. Its website states that it:
played a key role in the various phases of the Yogyakarta Principles. We initiated the project, convened a coalition of NGOs to implement it, facilitated meetings of the coalition, worked closely on the preparations for and conduct of the experts’ meeting, worked with partners to successfully launch the Principles, prepared backgrounders and advocacy materials to support regional launch initiatives, developed a website, track the ongoing use of the Principles, are participating in the development of an activists’ guide, and conduct ongoing training and support for organizations using the Principles.
ARC International’s mission, its sole mission, is to spread the document’s influence around the world by targeting top level institutions — policy makers, institutions, courts, parliaments, constitution makers, law enforcement, justice departments as well as influential NGOs.
The company has been wildly successful in its mission.
But who is behind this? The Arcus Foundation is owned by Jon Stryker, heir to the American medical device company, the Stryker Corporation. Its money comes from the Stryker Corporation. Four years ago the Chronicle of Philanthropy reported that Stryker had donated “at least $336.3 million” primarily to his foundation. InfluenceWatch reports that he has given more than $500 million to Arcus.
Arcus donates up to half its money to projects in support of great apes; the rest – 100% of the money it donates to human causes — goes to the sorts of organizations that might provide a market for the family business – LGBTQ centres and charities. This leads to a question that sounds like the start of a very bad joke – what do trans-identified people and apes have in common?
A scroll through the information provided on the Arcus Grantee site for grants given to members of humanity’s closest living relatives — gorillas, gibbons, bonobos and chimpanzees — reveals repeated references to diseases, including human diseases and covid-19.
The bad joke, then, is that both the ape and human populations served by Arcus require ongoing medical interventions and pharmaceuticals. To regard Arcus as anything other than a marketing organization for the American medical industrial complex – tasked with sustaining and creating markets — is clearly naïve.