Catholic college responds to trans man coming out with ‘brilliant’ show of love and support
Ben Hodge, 20, didn’t feel able to come out as a trans man at school – despite coming out as non-binary at 14 and using they/them pronouns. It was only when he went to college that he felt comfortable telling his peers and teachers that he’s a trans man. And despite attending a Catholic college, […]
The struggle for LGBT inclusion in US St Patrick’s Day parades
In 1992, Cork made history when its St Patrick’s parade included the first-ever LGBT float to take part, which also won best new entry in that year’s parade. But over in New York, all was not well. “With only eight days to go before March 17th,” Conor O’Clery wrote in a piece published on March […]
Moscow’s first queer dance festival challenges homophobia
In a dance studio tucked away off a Moscow side street, a couple dozen people are working on their tango. While the footwork is their focus, the dancers also have a wider aim: They are part of the Russian capital’s first queer dance festival, which hopes to change attitudes toward the LGBTQ community in a […]
Unique transgender vulnerabilities require tailored and specific interventions
The virtual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2020) this week has included research assessing HIV prevalence, risk, access and adherence to medication in transgender women and men in the United States, Kenya and Zimbabwe. Transgender women continue to have high rates of HIV infection globally, with an estimated prevalence of around 19%. Although […]
A Clash Across America Over Transgender Rights
By the time Peyton Badalucco came out to his mother as transgender, he had been secretly binding his chest in a desperate attempt to hide his body. He was 14 years old and so miserable that he could barely muster the emotional strength to leave the house. Coming out led to months of counseling, a […]
How Indian Pride Festivals Have Become Political Battlegrounds
For most queer people, pride is seen as a space to celebrate diversity and resist oppression. It’s a space where they feel safe and seen. But this year’s pride in Mumbai has changed that for the LGBTQ+ community in India, perhaps forever. Last month, the 2020 pride march in Mumbai, scheduled for February 1, was […]
A British court ruling may change laws for LGBT+ people around the world
Years of legal battles around same-sex marriage in Bermuda will come to a head 5,548kms away in London on 7 and 8 December this year. And the result may help make same-sex marriage legal and strike down laws against gay sex in dozens of countries. Some of those countries, including Jamaica, are currently among the […]
Russian LGBT activist faces porn trial for vagina drawings
Yulia Tsvetkova posted delicate drawings and embroidered images of vulvas on a social media page called “Vagina Monologues” that she hoped would help lift the taboo on women’s bodies. Instead, the Russian artist and campaigner for women’s and LGBT rights has been put under house arrest for the posts. Since she was detained in November, […]
Ghana bans LGBT+ conference after Christian groups protest
Ghana’s government has said it will not allow a major gathering of LGBT+ activists to go ahead after an outcry from conservative Christian groups in the country. The conference, scheduled for July, would be the first of its kind in West Africa and aims to bring together LGBT+ leaders to share ideas and work together […]
Advocates: Transgender Woman Sexually Assaulted at ICE Site
A transgender woman seeking asylum should be released after she was sexually assaulted and harassed while being detained in an Arizona immigration facility with men for nine months, advocates said Thursday. Alejandra Alor Reyes, who is from Mexico, is suffering from PTSD and should be released on humanitarian grounds while she awaits an appeal in […]
Toxic masculinity is literally toxic, causing health problems for men in later life
Toxic masculinity can actually be harmful to men’s health, causing a host of health problems in later life, according to a new study. The study, published in the journal Sex Roles, was conducted by researchers at Michigan State University (MSU). MSU assistant sociology professor Stef Shuster defined toxic masculinity as a pressure on men to […]
Trans whistleblower Chelsea Manning has just been made a free woman
A judge has ordered the release of whistleblower Chelsea Manning, after she spent a year back behind bars. Manning, a former intelligence analyst, is best known for exposing US war crimes by leaking classified documents – and came out as transgender while serving a prison sentence in 2013. She was freed after having her sentence […]
LGBTQ community unites to empower one another
It is said that for years, the LGBT or LGBTQ community has been overlooked and discriminated against. Over the past weekend, the LGBTQ community came together to find solutions to the problems that mostly affect them. Enter Your New Dreams Media, in partnership with Engage Men’s Health, presented the Bring Back The Dignity of Lesbian, […]
Seven Asian movies celebrating LGBT romance
While Hollywood has blockbuster queer films Brokeback Mountain (2005), Moonlight (2016) and Call Me By Your Name (2017), social stigmas and cultural taboos mean that LGBTQ+ characters in Asian cinema are scarce. However, several filmmakers have made equally beautiful films celebrating LGBTQ+ characters around Asia. Notably the most-acclaimed gay Asian film, Happy Together is the […]
LGBT+ community at heightened risk of coronavirus, groups warn
More than 100 LGBT+ rights groups on Wednesday called on U.S. public health officials to address the heightened vulnerability of gay and trans people to the coronavirus, warning that their frequently weakened immune systems can put them at risk. Rates of HIV and cancer that are higher than in the overall population make LGBT+ people […]
Romania Pride is first LGBT+ march to postpone over coronavirus
The organizer of Bucharest Pride said on Wednesday that the event would be delayed by at least three months due to coronavirus, the first of many LGBT+ rallies likely to be affected. The event, which attracts about 10,000 people, was postponed from May 23 until August or September, said executive director Teodora Ion-Rotaru, as Romania […]
South Africa opens continent’s first Queer Wellness Centre
LGBT+ South Africans said the continent’s first Queer Wellness Centre, which opened on Tuesday, would spare gay and trans people the shame, rejection and confusion that they often face when seeking medical care. The founders of the center in Johannesburg, the country’s biggest city, said it would provide clients with “stigma-free” sexual and mental health […]
Miami Mayor to Honor Brazil’s Anti-LGBT, Climate-Change-Denying President
Miami politicians, quite reasonably, do not like communists. But Miami Mayor Francis Suarez apparently has no problem with raging right-wingers who hate LGBTQ people, heap praise on dictatorships, defend Hitler admirers, deny climate change, threaten indigenous territories, and tell a woman she’s too ugly to rape. If you’re thinking that sounds like the president of […]
Court rules against gender-neutral passports and says people must define as either male or female
The UK’s Court of Appeal has ruled against campaigner Christie Elan-Cane in per fight for a gender-neutral passport. Christie Elan-Cane had challenged the legality of the UK government’s passport policy, which requires that either a “M” or “F” gender marker appear on every UK passport. The court said that the policy is not unlawful, but […]
In Face of Threats, Lawyer Defends Gays in Cameroon
In a country where homosexuality is criminalized, Alice Nkom was the first lawyer in Cameroon to defend suspected gay people. For this, she says she has faced attacks and death threats. Despite this, Nkom, who is also the first female lawyer in the country, says she is determined to continue to defend minorities. Yannick, a […]
Bollywood goes LGBT: Gay romcom Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan is a game-changer
Bollywood has long stereotyped LGBTQ+ characters into farcical clichés – the brothel-owning transgender villain, effeminate horny gay man, cross-dressers, sexualised lesbians and predatory transgender men – typically cast as mere accessories, crude caricatures, and the butt of jokes in most films. Times have changed. Bollywood is now challenging the norm by providing LGBTQ+ characters a […]
Why I’m reclaiming the homophobic slur I used to fear
Growing up, “faggot” was the one word I never wanted to be called. I could stand sissy, punk and even homo. But “faggot” felt like a scarlet letter I would never be able to remove once someone pinned it on me. As a black, still-figuring-it-out queer kid at a conservative Texas middle school, I quickly […]
London’s only specialist HIV/AIDS hospital, famously visited by Princess Diana, faces imminent closure
Countless people living with HIV are worried about their future as Mildmay Hospital, London’s only specialist hospital for supporting them, is threatened with closure. Mildmay Hospital, in the trendy East London neighbourhood of Shoreditch, has treated people living with HIV for decades. But its closure has raised alarms for people reliant on the hub for […]
Africa’s policies hold key to LGBT rights on the continent: here’s how
Questions of sexual orientation and gender identity and expression have continued to divide opinion across the globe. This is primarily driven by legal, cultural and religious beliefs and interpretations. In Africa, colonial-heritage laws have been applied to proscribe and criminalise same-sex relationships, behaviours and expressions. These laws stipulate penalties for same-sex relationships ranging from 10 […]
Right-Wing Pastor Compares Gay People to Coronavirus
COVID-19 is literally sweeping the globe and not in a good way, with almost 90,000 confirmed cases around the world. While people should be focused on preventing the spread of this disease, right-wing pastor E.W. Jackson decided to compare LGBT people to COVID-19 in that he believes, like the disease, homosexuality is destroying families, according […]
South Carolina lawmaker wants referendum to make county similar to Poland’s ‘LGBT-free’ zones
Earlier this week councilman Joe Dill voted to block the repeal of an anti-gay resolution from 1996, which stated that “lifestyles advocated by the gay community should not be endorsed by government policymakers, because they are incompatible with the standards to which this community subscribes.” Not content with simply keeping a homophobic resolution on the […]
Repression in Egypt: 92 LGBTIQ+ arrests last year
Egyptian police continued to harass LGBTIQ+ people last year, entrapping some of them through dating apps and arresting dozens of others at random on the street. That persecution keeps happening even though, in the vast majority of cases, defendants are cleared in court. The Legal Aid Project’s annual report for the Bedayaa LGBTIQ+ rights organization […]
Disney’s ‘Onward’ Banned In Middle East Over Lesbian Character
Multiple Middle Eastern markets have banned the Disney/Pixar animated movie “Onward” for featuring an explicitly lesbian character. “Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have all banned the film due to the reference,” reports Deadline. “The film, released regionally this week, is nowhere to be seen on cinema schedules in those territories. Other Middle East markets […]
Mayor condemns posters spreading ‘fear and hate’ that targeted Saskatoon LGBT, newcomer groups
Saskatoon’s mayor says a poster campaign spreading “fear and hate” that targeted OUTSaskatoon and the Saskatoon Open Door Society has no place in the city. The posters, which featured messaging about the “replacement” of European Canadians, were glued to the front of the offices of the newcomer settlement organization and the LGBTQ advocacy group earlier […]
Transgender queen crowned in Thailand as coronavirus limits crowd
After temperature checks for contestants and with a smaller crowd than last year because of coronavirus fears, Mexico’s Valentina Fluchaire was crowned in Thailand as winner of what is billed as the world’s biggest transgender pageant on Saturday. Although Miss International Queen 2020 went ahead, unlike many events canceled around the world since the coronavirus […]