Working for Change
Joseph Aoun manages Helem’s newly reopened community center – one of the few safe spaces for LGBTIQ residents of Beirut. He came to the organization seven months ago after several years of independent activism. Joseph joins Helem at a critical moment when its history of legal advocacy for prisoners and defendants is leading to judicial […]
No One Should Feel Alone
Instead of accepting that this isolation and sadness are part of many queer persons’ lives, Eric chose to take action by helping found Hanoi Queer. “When I moved to the city to study and work and I realized that there is an LGBTQ community and I was not the only one. And, I realized the […]
LGBT Voices From Sudan
Azza identifies as a Sudanese lesbian, Muslim, Nubian feminist who finds inspiration in the many intersections of her identity. She began her activism in 2007 using social media and blogging queer poetry and short stories to raise awareness around sexual orientation and gender identity issues among lesbian and bisexual Arabic-speaking women in the Middle East […]
Q&A with Creator of “All About Sec 377”
Alturi: How did the idea for “All About Sec 377” come about? How has it evolved over time? Gypsy: I have a small and relatively new production house called The Creative Gypsy and have made 3 short films which have won accolades at various international festivals like Cannes and Nice. I love to work with […]
Bringing LGBTI News from Turkey to the World
Her work as an urban sociologist in Istanbul has brought an understanding of social norms as a constraint on the ways people define themselves and, for her, are “as mangling as Cinderella’s shoes.” Zeynep is currently working on her Masters Thesis on the construction of normalcy through metaphors of impairment and sexuality in Turkish melodramas. […]
Hearing LGBTI Lives
Mike highlights his interview with John Adewoye, “a former priest who battled with his sexual orientation for many years, denying the truth of who he is, and then travelled abroad with the hope of finding a ‘cure’ for his gayness. He discovered that there is no cure anywhere for being gay. This not only debunks […]
Therapy for LGBTI Torture Victims
As a father of four children – three having been born in different East-African cities while he was working on a variety of humanitarian efforts – Pablo feels that “The best legacy I can transmit to them is the awareness of the existence of injustice that human beings suffer. And, of course, what their father […]
Conversion Therapy in the UK
As the battle over the future of Obamacare returns in the United States, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service is often held up as a more enlightened approach to providing healthcare. So it might come as a surprise to learn that the NHS pays for 40% of so-called conversion therapy sought for LGBTQ people in […]