Report: LGBT People Of Color Lives In Rural America
Media coverage often portrays rural America as singularly white, conservative and working-class. Yet at least 10 million people of color, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people of color, call rural America home. Today, the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) released a new report, Where We Call Home: LGBT People of Color in Rural America, […]
Gay couple held down and prayed over against their will at a church to ‘turn them straight’
A gay man said that he and his boyfriend were attacked by a congregation at his Mother’s church in an attempt to convert them to heterosexuality. Sean Cormie, 23, recently came out to his family in Blackwell Oklahoma who have been trying to get him to go to their church The First Assembly of God Church […]
Myanmar’s ‘tomboys’ stride out of the shadows
In seventh grade, at school in a small town five hours’ drive north of Yangon, Jel Li developed a crush on another girl. Confused, she wrote her feelings down, but then burned the paper. “I felt I was abnormal. … I didn’t know what was happening to me,” said Jel Li, who has now adopted […]
Trans woman defies danger to champion LGBTI rights in El Salvador
Bianka Rodríguez was leaving a San Salvador shopping centre when a man with a gun came up and forced her into his car. He proceeded to drive aimlessly around the city, rattling off a list of places she frequented to make it clear that he had been stalking her. He rifled through her purse, sniffed […]
Qantas and Virgin bosses reject Morrison government calls to be silent on social issues
The chief executives of Australia’s major airlines have warned they will not be silent on social issues, with Qantas’s Alan Joyce arguing it was not just “morally right” but also in its business interests to fight for marriage equality. At the National Press Club on Wednesday Joyce and Virgin Australia’s Paul Scurrah both pushed back […]
Photojournalist Rescues Victim Of Anti-LGBT Mob
On September 15, around 2,000 LGBT rights activists marched through Kharkiv in the first event of its kind in the eastern Ukrainian city. When the march ended, most of the participants left safely through a nearby subway station, but a crowd of far-right counterdemonstrators had gathered in a neighboring park, apparently on the hunt for […]
Homophobia and ‘Soviet hangover’ driving HIV infections in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, says David Furnish
Homophobia and a “Soviet hangover” are driving HIV infections in parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, according to David Furnish, AIDS campaigner and Sir Elton John’s husband. While the rate of new HIV infections is decreasing globally – falling 40 per cent since its peak in 1997 – certain areas of the world are […]
‘I’m not giving up’: Belgrade Pride calls for Serbia to address LGBT rights
Marching under the slogan ‘’I’m not giving up’’ #NeOdricemSe, Sunday evening saw thousands take part in Belgrade’s eighth Pride Parade. The latest Balkans capital to hold Pride events, the walk passed the main government institutions, to which protesters have been addressing their demands for improved LGBT rights. Despite the appointment of openly gay prime minister […]
Nepal’s sexual minorities say progress in rights has stalled
Nepal seized the lead in equal rights for sexual minorities in South Asia four years ago with a new constitution that forbids all discrimination based on sexual orientation. Even citizenship certificates and passports now allow a “non-male, non-female” category. But same-sex couples such as Niraj Sunwar and Aashik Lama say progress has stalled since the […]
Transgender sex workers feel under attack. These women are working to protect their own.
With a bag of condoms and a stack of business cards, Tamika Spellman began a route she knew by heart, peering out the window of her Lincoln sedan at dark sidewalks where she once stood. West Virginia Avenue. K Street. Eastern Avenue. Street corners and alleyways where women wait for a steady trickle of clients, […]
Anti-gay candidate leads in Tunisia’s presidential election
Anti-gay law professor Kais Saied won the most votes in the first round of Tunisia’s presidential election, the Tunisian electoral commission announced. This is the country’s second free presidential election since protesters during the 2011 Arab Spring ousted Tunisian leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Africa News reported that Saied, a political outsider, received 18.4 […]
Arizona Supreme Court rules business can discriminate against gays & lesbians
The Brush & Nib Studio’s owners have won a major LGBTQ discrimination case despite never being accused of discriminating against anyone. Instead, the business preemptively sued for the right to refuse to print wedding invitations for gay and lesbian couples in an attempt to nullify the city of Phoenix’s nondiscrimination law. The company was represented […]
Inside Australia’s Christian churches where gay people are told they are ‘broken’ and ‘need to be fixed’ before they undergo ‘conversion therapy’
Gay Christians are being sent to ‘conversion therapy’, an outdated form of ‘counselling’ which teaches homosexuality is a form of ‘brokenness’, it has been revealed. An explosive investigation by 60 Minutes showed at least 10 organisations in Australia and New Zealand are offering conversion therapy, which is known to cause ‘severe mental trauma’. Robert Williams […]
Jamaica tops Caribbean countries for human rights violation, Guyana comes second
Jamaica has recorded the most incidents of human rights violation when compared to its Caribbean neighbours. According to the regional civil society-led human rights reporting mechanism, the Shared Incident Database (SID), of the 1,413 reports received for the period August 2013 to 2018, Jamaica had a total of 505 incidents, most of which were violence […]
Ex-rugby star could become role model for HIV+ people – HIV/AIDS groups
Former rugby international Gareth Thomas’s decision to come out as HIV-positive could transform the sports star into a role model for millions of people living with the virus, HIV/AIDS groups said on Monday. Ash Kotak, who leads the AIDSMemoryUK Campaign to establish a national tribute to HIV/AIDS in Britain, said Thomas’s reputation as a successful […]
‘We are seeing a push back on human rights’
LGBTQ and women’s rights are particularly targeted in the current proliferation of hate speech and backsliding on human rights in the world, including in some EU countries. This is acknowledged by the EU Special Representative for Human Rights, appointed in March, that explained his priorities, this week, to the new members of the European Parliament. […]
London’s first ever Trans+ Pride march – in pictures
On September 14, thousands of transgender people and their allies took to the streets of London in a historic first – the UK capital’s first-ever Trans+ Pride march. London Trans Pride was born partly as a response to the hijacking of the front of the Pride in London parade in 2018 by a group of […]
China: Discrimination against same-sex couples must come to an end
Despite government commitment to equal opportunities for all, many discriminatory practices are still entrenched by policies and legislation. More often than not, the court needs to step in to speed up necessary overhaul, as in the case with the victory of the fight for same-sex spousal benefits and joint taxation assessment by a gay civil […]
Rwandan gospel singer comes out as gay, to country’s shock
Friends of Albert Nabonibo, a well-known gospel singer in Rwanda who recently came out as a gay man, do not want their names revealed. It is too shameful, one says. Another says he is anguished because his family knows he often used to socialize with Nabonibo. Nabonibo shocked many Rwandans in August when he revealed […]
Transgender Woman Found Burned Beyond Recognition in Florida, Officials Say
The body of a black transgender woman, said by the authorities to have been burned beyond recognition, was found inside an abandoned car in Florida. The victim, Bee Love Slater, 23, was the 18th transgender person known to have been killed in the United States this year, according to Human Rights Campaign, a civil rights […]
73% of news stories on LGBTQ topics are flagged as inappropriate for advertisers, survey finds
A new report found that nearly three-quarters of articles on LGBTQ news are flagged as brand-unsafe to advertisers. The survey, designed by the cybersecurity company CHEQ, showed that 73% of the articles from LGBTQ news sites such as The Advocate and the U.K.’s PinkNews had been blacklisted. The simple mention of terms such as “lesbian,” […]
Conservative Christians, feminists unite to fight transgender rights in Australia
Conservative Christians and feminist campaigners may seem unlikely bed fellows – but the two groups have found common cause when it comes to blocking transgender rights in Australia. Both argue that trans women pose a risk to women and children in changing rooms, toilets and rape shelters, in a microcosm of an increasingly vicious culture […]
Death threats ‘broke my heart’ says popular Lebanese band singer
The lead singer of one of the Middle East’s most popular bands said on Thursday he was heartbroken by rising homophobia in Lebanon, after death threats stopped him performing last month. Organisers of the Byblos International Festival – one of the largest in Lebanon – said indie rock band Mashrou’ Leila’s slot was axed “to […]
Surge in chemsex parties arranged on ‘hook-up’ apps is fuelling fresh HIV epidemic in European cities, doctors warn
A surge in “chemsex” parties, where some people spend days getting high on drugs and having sex with scores of partners, is refuelling epidemics of HIV among gay men in European towns and cities, doctors say. Despite much higher risks of contracting the virus that causes AIDS, as well as other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), […]
Kazakhstan: Feminist Group Denied Registration
An appeals court in Kazakhstan on September 3 upheld a decision denying Feminita, a national feminist initiative, registration as a nongovernmental organization (NGO). The group’s focus includes the rights of lesbian, bisexual, and queer women. The Almaty department of the Justice Ministry had refused the group registration on the grounds that it didn’t comply with […]
New film captures the truth of gay life in Nigeria
Members of the gay community in Nigeria are excitedly anticipating the release of a new film that people believe has captured the true experience of life for gay men in Nigeria. The new film ‘Walking With Shadows’ is based on an award-winning 2005 novel of the same name by Jude Dibia. The Initiative for Equal […]
NYC Council wants to repeal a ban on LGBT conversion therapy
The City Council is moving to repeal a ban on conversion therapy to avoid fallout from a pending lawsuit that advocates and lawmakers fear could curtail LGBT protections across the country. Speaker Corey Johnson, who is gay, will introduce a bill Thursday overturning a law passed in 2017 that banned all forms of LGBT conversion […]
EQUAL MARRIAGE: HARBOE POSTPONED VOTE AND MOVILH DENOUNCED CENSORSHIP
The president of the Senate Constitution Commission, Felipe Harboe (PPD), postponed the vote on the idea of legislating for equal marriage , arguing that he should listen to various organizations. The Movilh denounced that the parliamentarian did not allow his intervention. “The processing of today was totally useless and inefficient, because no step was advanced […]
Uruguay: Government will authorize this year equal marriage for foreign visitors
In addition to promoting the right to marriage between people of the same sex, it seeks to attract more tourists. It was announced by the Minister of Education and Culture, at the opening of the fourth Congress of the LGBT Chamber of Commerce and Business, which takes place until Wednesday at the Municipality of Montevideo. […]
“ONE OF A KIND” DAY OF EVENTS TO DRAW FRESH ATTENTION TO MARRIAGE EQUALITY BILL
An international conference on marriage equality will take place at the Czech Senate on Thursday, followed by a demonstration in support of the issue nearby. Organisers We Are Fair! are hoping those events will focus fresh attention on a bill, submitted well over a year ago, that would make the Czech Republic the first ex-Eastern […]