Lebanon’s LGBT community is often denied healthcare, and it’s not OK
With absent or inadequate sex education in school curricula, Lebanese youth are pushed to learn about sex from unreliable sources, with all the risks it entails. The issue is all the more alarming when it comes to the country’s LGBTIQ+ community, whose members face a multitude of struggles and misconceptions pertaining to their sexual health. […]
Multiple Birmingham Schools Refuse to Teach LGBTI and Diversity Lessons After Parents Protest
Another four schools in Birmingham have reportedly halted lessons on diversity and LGBT issues following complaints by parents. In a letter quoted by the BBC, Leigh Trust said it was suspending the No Outsiders project, which teaches tolerance of diverse groups, including those of different races, genders and sexual orientation, until an agreement with parents had been reached. It […]
Gay Lawmaker Who Fled Brazil Amid Death Threats: Bolsonaro ‘turned me into a pariah
Brazil’s first openly gay lawmaker, Jean Wyllys, who fled his country over mounting death threats after the election of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, fears he won’t be returning home anytime soon. In an interview with AFP in Paris, the 45-year-old politician and LGBT activist, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Europe since January, […]
A Chinese Dating App for Gay Men Is Helping Them Have Kids, Too
The urge to have a child hit Geng Le hard after age 35. A former cop from China’s Hebei province, he’d launched a gay dating app called Blued a couple of years earlier, in 2012, and had become something of an icon for the Chinese LGBT community. Still, he felt his life was somehow incomplete without […]
Japan Urged to Stop Requiring Transgender People to be Sterilised
Human Rights Watch has urged Japan to drop its requirement that transgender people be sterilised to have their gender changed on official documents. A 2004 law says people wishing to register a gender change must have their original reproductive organs removed and have a body that “appears to have parts that resemble the genital organs” of […]
These LGBT Refugees Came to Kenya Seeking Freedom. Now They Say They’ve Been Imprisoned and Abused
On Feb. 22, activists, reporters and well-wishers from Kenya and all over the world gathered in a courtroom in Nairobi, hoping to witness a historic moment: the decriminalization of homosexual conduct for the first time in conservative East Africa, a region where anti-LGBT crackdowns are common, sometimes even at the behest of presidents. A judge ultimately deflated […]
#GoodNews: India’s First LGBT Theatre Group Launched in Kerala
At the back of the temporary stage built on Queer Pride day, Prijith stands looking tense. He looks preoccupied even as he describes to journalists the new programmes they are about to announce after the march ends at Manaveeyam Veedi in Thiruvananthapuram. There would be the launch of an LGBT theatre group, Q Rang, the […]
Presidential Hopeful Cory Booker Pledges to Reverse Trump’s anti-LGBTI Policies
Presidential challenger Cory Booker has pledged to reverse a number of Trump administration policies undermining LGBT+ rights. The Democratic senator, one of 14 candidates who are seeking the party’s nomination in 2020, set out his commitments on LGBT+ issues at a rally in Davenport, Iowa on Sunday (March 17). Addressing an audience question from a […]
Turkish Police Officer Suspended for Being Gay – DW
A Turkish police officer in the eastern city of Van has been suspended from duty because he is gay, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) reported on Sunday. It all started in late 2017, when 34-year-old Metin, who has served in the police for over 10 years, was imprisoned for eight days last year for sexual violence as […]
Northern Ireland Equal Marriage Activists: UK Government ‘doesn’t care’
Activists have accused the UK government of “not caring” about equal marriage in Northern Ireland, after a car crash meeting with Northern Ireland secretary Karen Bradley. Karen Bradley met with LGBT+ campaigners from Northern Ireland on Monday (March 18) who are fighting to break the impasse that has left Northern Ireland as the only part […]
U.S. Top Court Hands Defeat to Hawaii B&B That Spurned Lesbian Couple
The U.S. Supreme Court handed a defeat on Monday to a bed and breakfast owner in Hawaii who turned away a lesbian couple due to her Christian beliefs, but it could soon take up another major case on the conflict between gay and religious rights. The justices refused to hear an appeal by Phyllis Young, […]
Dramatic increase in violence against LGBT people in Cameroon
Humanity First Cameroon and Alternatives-Cameroon are two leading organizations advocating for human rights in Cameroon, with a particular focus on the rights of LGBT people. Working together and in cooperation with other groups throughout the country — namely Positive Vision, AAH, Alcondoms Cameroun and ASEMIR de l’Ouest — they have compiled a report on anti-LGBTI […]
Will the African nation of Botswana decriminalise homosexuality in June?
Botswana’s High Court is considering a challenge to the provisions of the penal code criminalising consensual same-sex relations in the country. It will hand down its judgment in June. The challenge raises similar legal issues as the one pending at the Kenya High Court, which is due for a decision in May. Same sex relations […]
Russian court jails top Chechen rights activist for 4 years
A Russian court on Monday sentenced a top Chechen rights activist to four years in a penal colony after a drugs trial that has drawn condemnation from international groups. Oyub Titiyev, head of the Chechnya branch of rights group Memorial, was arrested at the start of last year on what supporters said were trumped-up charges. […]
Google’s queer female pi world record breaker hopes to inspire LGBT community
Emma Haruka Iwao, a queer software engineer at Google, who calculated pi to a new world record, has said that she hopes her achievement will inspire others in the LGBT+ community. Speaking to PinkNews, Iwao, who is from Tokyo, Japan, said she believed that the work of those from the LGBT+ community, women, people of […]
Sydney to make Jewish LGBT+ history
Event convenor, Dayenu’s Kim Gotlieb, said the program for this landmark conference – the first of its kind to be held in the Asia-Pacific region – is “absolutely exceptional”. He emphasised it will offer abundant opportunities for everyone – regardless of their religious affiliation, sexual orientation or gender identity – to learn about pressing local […]
Rainbow Rage: Kyrgyz Rail Against LGBT Community After Central Asia’s ‘First’ Gay-Pride March
What many consider the first gay-pride march ever held in Central Asia has unleashed a storm of controversy in Kyrgyzstan, with threats of violence against participants, counterprotests, and fiery parliamentary debate over whether to rein in civil society. The peaceful march by some 400 people in central Bishkek on Women’s Day on March 8 promoting […]
Germany pays compensation to people investigated under anti-gay laws
Germany has begun offering compensation to men who faced criminal investigations under historical anti-gay laws. The country extended compensation for LGBT+ people who faced oppression under authorities in both East and West Germany following the fall of the Nazis. Gay people were just one of many minority groups persecuted by the Nazis, but the law […]
Poland’s Ruling Chief Speaks Strongly Against LGBT Rights
The leader of Poland’s right-wing ruling party used hostile language Saturday while speaking against rights for LGBT persons, a subject that has risen to prominence in his political campaign ahead of crucial elections in Poland this year. Jaroslaw Kaczynski spoke to Law and Justice party activists and government members at a convention in Katowice, ahead […]
LGBT Purge survivors urge education, awareness
From the 1950s to mid-1990s, thousands of LGBT members of RCMP, the Canadian Armed Forces, and Federal Public Services were weeded out through an unspoken policy known as ‘The Purge’. For Davis, it brought a swift end to an 18-year career as a staff sergeant. In fact, homosexuality was illegal in Canada during his first […]
Authorities cancel activist youth festival in Russia’s Far East
An activist youth arts festival in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the Russian Far East has been cancelled after authorities raised concerns that it was promoting an LGBT agenda, apparently because of a play called Blue and Pink that was meant to spur discussion of gender stereotypes. The Colour of Saffron festival had been scheduled for 16 and […]
No truth for Gambia’s queer people
Gambia is accounting for its past. Two years after the end of Yahya Jammeh’s brutal 23-year rule, the country’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission is under way. Its objective is to “promote healing and reconciliation” by creating an impartial record of the nature, causes and extent of violations and abuses of human rights committed during […]
LGBT attitudes in Wales: ‘Huge distance’ travelled in 30 years
Lisa Power, who lives in Cardiff, was the first openly LGBT person to speak on gay rights at the UN and has been a campaigner for decades. “When I came out in the 1970s, it was perfectly legal to sack people for being gay, it was unheard of for anybody to be out as a […]
Pakatan vows no lgbt freedom after rowdy women’s day in Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia probably saw its first pro-LGBT march in the country but it has more than that to worry about with a surge in ‘religious’ attacks online Last week was an eventful one for Malaysia, with an LGBT march in Kuala Lumpur, the arrest and jailing of Malaysians for insulting the Prophet of Islam. The country […]
LGBTI groups condemn terrorist attacks at two New Zealand mosques
LGBTI advocacy groups around the world have condemned Friday’s terrorist attack at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, that have left at least 49 people dead. Express, an LGBTI newspaper in Auckland, reported organizers of the Wellington International Pride Parade that was scheduled to take place in Wellington, the country’s capital, on Saturday have postponed […]
Fresno’s LGBT community ‘outraged’ over plea deal for man in transgender woman’s death
Members of Fresno’s LGBT community are “outraged” over a plea deal reached with a man charged in the fatal stabbing of a transgender woman nearly four years ago. According to the Fresno Bee, Richard Joseph Lopez, 39, pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter in the 2015 death of Kenton “KC” Haggard, 66. The deal was […]
Poland’s ruling party picks LGBT rights as election battlefront
Poland’s ruling nationalist party aims to stem a decline in its popularity ahead of two key elections this year with warnings that opposition support for LGBT education is a threat to Polish culture and should be blocked wherever possible. The Law and Justice Party (PiS) has condemned a new school sex education program planned in […]
LGBT Brazilians’ Mental Health Plummets With Anti-Gay President
When the proudly homophobic President Jair Bolsonaro took office in January, LGBT community members were worried their rights would be taken away. Two months later, watchdog groups are saying suicide among LGBT people has skyrocketed as a result. There are no official figures, according to Grupo Gay da Bahia, the Brazilian watchdog group, but after […]
Groups blast ‘homophobic’ and ‘unjust’ family bill
A coalition of LGBT rights groups yesterday urged Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lai Shyh-bao to withdraw his draft bill on same-sex families, which they said could undermine the legalization of same-sex marriage. The bill is “homophobic” and “basically offers zero protection for same-sex families,” Taiwan LGBT Family Rights Advocacy vice president Tsai Shang-wen said […]
Nigerian lesbian: I need to marry a gay man
In Nigeria, many LGBTI persons grow anxious as they get older and confront pressures from their families and society to get married. They can’t simply marry the people they love because Nigeria’s anti-gay law outlaws same-sex marriage. They’re deprived of the basic human right to live their lives with their loved ones. That’s the predicament […]