Sri Lankan activist Rosanna Flamer-Caldera on 2024 TIME100 list
Sri Lakan LGBTQI activist Rosanna Flamer-Caldera is in TIME magazines 100 most influential people in the world for 2024.
TIME revealed the 2024 TIME100, its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
The issue has 4 worldwide covers, each highlighting a member of the TIME100: singer-songwriter Dua Lipa, football quarterback Patrick Mahomes, actor Taraji P. Henson, and Yulia Navalnaya, a leader of Russia’s opposition movement.
Rosanna Flamer-Caldera has spent more than two decades advocating for LGBTQ rights in Sri Lanka, and her relentless advocacy led to a major victory for queer women globally.
In a landmark decision in 2022, the U.N. sided with Flamer-Caldera in her case against Sri Lanka’s ban on same-sex intimacy between women, declaring it a human-rights violation.
The case brought LGBTQ rights to the fore in Sri Lankan politics, and soon after the decision, a lawmaker introduced a bill to decriminalize homosexuality in the country.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe has said he won’t oppose the amendment, but the proposed law’s constitutionality was challenged before the Supreme Court.
Flamer-Caldera’s LGBTQ-rights group, Equal Ground, was among those that petitioned to support the bill.
The court ruled in their favor last year, clearing the path for the law to progress in Parliament, where Equal Ground is now working to help ensure it passes.
The TIME100 list includes surprising pairings of the list members and the guest contributors TIME selects to write about them. The twenty-first annual list features: Alex Rodriguez on Patrick Mahomes, Burna Boy on 21 Savage, Maren Morris on Jack Antonoff, Blake Lively on America Ferrera, Kate Hudson on Leslie Odom Jr., Michelle Obama on Thelma Golden, Jon Huntsman on William Lai, Naomi Watts on Tory Burch, Tom Brady on A’ja Wilson, Mark Zuckerberg on Jensen Huang, Ryan Reynolds on Michael J. Fox, Richard Branson on Jigar Shah, Joe Biden on Shawn Fain, and more.
TIME Chief Executive Officer Jessica Sibley said: “The influence recognized on this year’s TIME100 list of the world’s most influential people spans industries and continents. With our TIME100 partners, we are proud to convene the newest members of the TIME100 community for a day of conversation at the TIME100 Summit and for our annual TIME100 Gala, which we will once again bring viewers inside with a primetime special on ABC.” (Colombo Gazette / Time)
