Lesbian parents in Germany move court for equal rights
When Inga celebrated the birth of her first child with her wife Jenny, the last thing she expected in her bid to be recognised as the baby’s second mother was a criminal record check. So, Inga went to court to change the law. In Germany, only the biological mother is legally recognised as a parent […]
President of Tonga LGBT Rights Group Murdered
Media reports indicate Tonga Leitis Association President Polikalepo Kefu was killed near their home in Lapaha, a village on the island of Tongatapu on which the Tongan capital of Nuku’alofa is located. Deputy Tonga Police Commissioner Tevita Vailea on Monday in a statement said authorities have charged a 27-year-old man with murder. “This is a […]
Croatian court backs same-sex adoption in new LGBT+ win
A Croatian court has ruled that same-sex partners can now adopt children, backing a gay couple in their five-year fight for the right to family life, the government said on Thursday. Zagreb’s Administrative Court ruled on April 21 that same-sex couples should not face discrimination in state adoption, the Rainbow Families Association (RFA), an LGBT+ […]
Taiwan court ruling on Macau citizen opens door to international same-sex marriages
A high court on Thursday (May 6) ruled that same-sex marriage between a Taiwanese citizen and a Macau national should be recognized in Taiwan, opening the door to marriages with others who come from countries where same-sex marriage is illegal. On Thursday, the Taipei High Administrative Court ruled that the Household Registration office must allow […]
Outpouring of grief after alleged murder of leading Tongan LGBTQI activist
Police in Tonga are investigating the death of one of the country’s leading LGBTQI+ activists after his body was found on a beach near his home in Tongatapu, Tonga’s main island. A 27-year-old man has been charged with the murder of Polikalepo Kefu, 41. Kefu, who was affectionately known as “Poli”, was the president of […]
Conservative millionaire Vasadze, who suggested anti-LGBT vigilante groups, to launch political movement
After years of denying his intention to go into politics, the conservative millionaire Levan Vasadze finally announced on Thursday that he is launching a public movement. “I’ve made a very difficult decision in my personal life to say goodbye to my favorite status as a private person, and wade into and participate in the socio-political […]
Uncertain future for LGBT+ rights in Uganda as controversial bill is passed
The Ugandan Parliament on Monday passed the Sexual Offenses Bill, which contains a clause to criminalize same-sex relationships. The bill prescribes a five-year-jail term for anyone guilty of same-sex acts, and awaits the signature of President Yoweri Museveni. For many, the bill sounds like a repeat of a similar law passed in the Ugandan parliament […]
Uzbek Blogger Bazarov Under House Arrest Facing Libel Charges
A month after suffering a brutal beating for championing LGBT rights, Uzbek blogger Miraziz Bazarov was released from the hospital on April 29. He was, according to his lawyer, immediately taken by local authorities to the Tashkent City Main Directorate of Interior Affairs and interrogated. He was then sent home on house arrest and ordered […]
Egypt’s Al-Sisi Regime Is Still “Disappearing” Researchers Who Oppose Its Crimes
It is three months since reproductive rights researcher Ahmed Samir Abdelhay Ali presented himself at the fifth district police station in central Cairo. He is still yet to be freed. Samir, a twenty-nine-year-old graduate student at Vienna’s Central European University, had traveled from the Austrian capital to Egypt for his school’s Christmas break, where he […]
Roma and Gadji: The Love Story of Two Women United in Matrimony
Sveta is 29 years old and lives in Chieri, Italy. Occasionally, she works as an online Russian teacher, volunteers at some Roma camps in Turin, and has started a fundraiser attempting to be as active as possible in this area, especially for LGBTQIA Romani (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, and asexual). She likes to […]
Policing Intersex Americans’ Sex and Gender
But in one 1629 case, the Virginia General Court took up the question of how to understand an adult intersex person. Thomas/Thomasine Hall was arrested for wearing women’s clothes and having sex with a maid. Hall explained that they had been baptized as a girl, but had switched gender roles several times, and that they […]
Uganda strengthens anti-gay laws, brands gay sex an unnatural offense
Uganda has further strengthened its anti-gay laws with new legislation that brands gay sex an “unnatural offense.” The African nation already criminalizes same-sex sexual relations, with Uganda’s Penal Code outlawing “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” and gay people facing up to life in prison if convicted. But that wasn’t sufficient for lawmakers in […]
Hate crimes against LGBT+ people in Germany rise 36% in 2020
BERLIN (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Hate crimes against LGBT+ people increased by 36% in Germany in 2020, highlighting an increase in homophobic attacks and politically motivated violence in the country in recent years, the government and campaigners said on Tuesday. A total of 782 crimes targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people were reported last […]
Kosovo Police investigate threat to LGBTI activist
Kosovo Police said on Tuesday that they are looking into allegations that the life of a well-known LGBT activist, Lend Mustafa, was threatened at the weekend. “We are currently working on an investigation of circumstances of the incident and in coordination with the prosecutor have initiated an investigation into the intimidation,” police told BIRN in […]
Hate crimes against LGBT+ people in Germany rise 36% in 2020
Hate crimes against LGBT+ people increased by 36% in Germany in 2020, highlighting an increase in homophobic attacks and politically motivated violence in the country in recent years, the government and campaigners said on Tuesday. A total of 782 crimes targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people were reported last year, about 150 of which […]
Policing Intersex Americans’ Sex and Gender
Unlike many other cultures, the Anglo-American mainstream has always relied on a binary view of sex and gender. In the case of intersex people, who have inherent biological characteristics that don’t divide neatly into male or female, authorities have gone to great lengths to maintain a binary, as historian Elizabeth Reis explains. Reis writes that […]
Uganda strengthens anti-gay laws, brands gay sex an “unnatural offense”
Uganda has further strengthened its anti-gay laws with new legislation that brands gay sex an “unnatural offense.” The African nation already criminalizes same-sex sexual relations, with Uganda’s Penal Code outlawing “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” and gay people facing up to life in prison if convicted. But that wasn’t sufficient for lawmakers in […]
Kosovo Police investigate threat to LGBTI activist
Kosovo Police said on Tuesday that they are looking into allegations that the life of a well-known LGBT activist, Lend Mustafa, was threatened at the weekend. “We are currently working on an investigation of circumstances of the incident and in coordination with the prosecutor have initiated an investigation into the intimidation,” police told BIRN in […]
Hundreds rally against anti-trans bills erasing years of LGBT+ progress ‘with the swipe of a pen’
Hundreds of people took to the streets of North Carolina to protest two devastating anti-trans bills that threaten “the basic human right to be human”, activists say. Multiple advocacy groups marched in downtown Asheville on Sunday (2 May) as the state proposes legislation that could deny trans youth the right to healthcare or make it […]
Meet the Ugandan trans activist fighting for rights on social media
“If you want to know that [Keem] is a man, just snatch away his phone and run,” taunted an Internet troll under Keem Love Black’s new profile picture on Facebook. As a transgender woman living in Uganda, Black is no stranger to the homophobia and transphobia that the LGBT community receives in the East African […]
Eitan Ginzburg to become Israel’s third gay cabinet minister on Monday
Israel has a record three cabinet ministers from the LGBT community after Blue and White faction chairman Eitan Ginzburg was sworn in as communications minister in the Knesset plenum late Monday night. Ginzburg, the former mayor of Ra’anana, was Israel’s first openly gay mayor. He will serve alongside gay ministers Itzik Shmuli, who left Labor, […]
Catholic parishes in Germany to include gay and lesbian couples in planned ‘blessing services for lovers’
Bonn (KNA) “Love wins” – that is the name of the initiative in which Catholic chaplains in parishes across Germany plan to invite people to “blessing services for lovers” on and around May 10. It was launched in Hamburg at the weekend. The campaign’s website said the aim was to celebrate “the diversity of people’s […]
EUROVISION’S VASIL IS READY TO BE A VOICE FOR LGBTQ PEOPLE IN NORTH MACEDONIA AND THE BALKANS
When Vasil Garvanliev declares early on in our interview that being gay is probably the least interesting thing about him, it’s hard to argue: Born in 1984 in the city of Strumica – then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – North Macedonia’s 2021 Eurovision representative is a former child star whose family […]
Undoing 4 years of ‘damage’: LGBTQ advocates on Biden’s first 100 days
Finn Cooper, who lives in Cincinnati, volunteered for the Michigan Democratic Party to call voters in the swing state on behalf of the Biden-Harris presidential campaign in the months leading up to the election. Cooper, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, said they supported Joe Biden’s message on LGBTQ rights. “I thought he seemed like a good […]
Court could force Honduras to stop ‘social cleansing’ of trans people
International LGBT+ advocates are waiting anxiously for the verdict of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which monitors human rights in the western hemisphe. The top tribunal was prompted to intervene last year in Honduras, the country with world’s highest rate of trans homicides. Experts put the average life expectancy of transgender women at just […]
Gay refugee ‘ambushed’ by homophobe and left with broken leg: ‘I feel like the world has rejected me’
As Canary Murungi walked on foot to the shops in the Kakuma Refugee Camp at 11am, a fellow refugee from Sudan spotted him, he told PinkNews. “He ambushed me,” the 24-year-old said, “and questioned why I am a homosexual. He then violently pushed me, causing me to reinjure my right leg.” Medics at the camp’s […]
LGBTI refugees denied asylum by Home Affairs bigotry
A report released on Thursday by several civil society organisations has found evidence that LGBT refugees are being denied asylum in South Africa despite being, “… eligible for protection under international and domestic law”, GroundUp reports. The authors of the report surveyed denial letters for 67 asylum applicants who had applied for asylum on the […]
Donald Trump’s cruel ban on trans people joining the military is officially over
Pentagon policies that allow trans folk to serve in the US military went into effect Thursday (April 30), finally undoing Donald Trump’s cruel and unnecessary ban. It was the upshot of a tug-of-war between administrations and a year of litigation but in 2019, the former president’s abrupt ban formally went into effect. Closing the ranks […]
Russian LGBT Activist On Trial For ‘Pornography’ Launches Hunger Strike
A Russian LGBT activist and artist has declared a hunger strike to protest the proceedings of her closed-door trial on pornography charges. Yulia Tsvetkova’s trial began on April 12 after a nearly 1 1/2-year investigation, during which time she has been fined for spreading LGBT “propaganda” and put under house arrest in the city of […]
Gender-affirming care leads to better mental health among trans people
Transgender people who are able to receive gender-affirming surgery reported improved mental health outcomes, according to a new study published Wednesday. The study, published in JAMA Surgery found that overall, gender-affirming surgery was associated with a 42 percent reduction in psychological distress in transgender individuals, a 44 percent reduction in suicidal thoughts and a 35 […]