Pride Event in Israeli Settlement Draws Opposition From Multiple Directions
An LGBTQ Pride event in Ariel on Thursday marked one of the first such events in an Israeli settlement. The event was the initiative of 26-year-old Gal Hevroni, a gay former combat soldier now in his third year of civil engineering studies at Ariel University. Staging it was an uphill battle, though: Ariel, the fourth-largest […]
Hungary and Poland prime ministers with defiant rainbow protest
Rémy Bonny, an LGBT+ activist and the executive director of nonprofit organisation Forbidden Colours, shared images of the bold demonstration on Twitter Friday (9 July). The images show a variety of LGBT+ Pride flags entwined in a fence across from a busy road and walkway. Bonny explained: “Slovenian LGBTIQ organisations prepared a rainbow welcome to […]
Raffaella Carrà, Italian cultural institution and LGBT icon, laid to rest in Rome
In Italy’s week of mourning for Raffaella Carrà, one image summed up her universal appeal: a rainbow flag – the symbol of the LGBT movement – next to her coffin in a Catholic church. Carrà, who died on Monday aged 78, was a cultural institution in her home country, regarded as its “best-loved woman”. The […]
Israel’s Supreme Court rules in favour of same-sex couple surrogacy rights
Israel’s Supreme Court on Sunday ruled that current legal restrictions barring same-sex couples from becoming parents through surrogacy were unlawful and must be lifted within six months. The country’s LGBTQ+ community praised the decision as a breakthrough. It had demanded for years to be allowed to pursue surrogacy, which is already accessible to heterosexual couples […]
Georgian TV Cameraman Dies, Was Injured Amid Anti-LGBT Violence
A Georgian TV cameraman who was among dozens of journalists attacked by a right-wing mob during a melee aimed at LGBT campaigners has died. Co-workers of Lekso Lashkarava said on July 11 that he had died, apparently of injuries suffered during the violence six days earlier, but provided no further details. Lashkarava’s employer, Pirveli TV, […]
Chinese social media shutdown of LGBT student groups ‘highlights backlash against Western influences’
The closure of dozens of LGBT student organisations’ WeChat accounts this week may be the result of a larger Chinese nationalist backlash against perceived Western influences, according to cultural academics. “There is a tendency in China for some people to relate homosexuality and LGBT people to Western lifestyles or capitalistic, bourgeois decadence, so this was […]
Pakistan opens first state-run school for transgender people
Pakistan has opened its first government-funded school for transgender women, who are often bullied out of mainstream education as children in the deeply conservative nation. The country’s Khawaja Sira community date back hundreds of years and are treated as a third sex in South Asia. Many are ostracised by their families and shunned by society, […]
The podcast celebrating Singapore’s ‘hidden’ gay community
Through stories of personal experiences and interviews with guests, a groundbreaking podcast is trying to “celebrate and stop hiding” the LGBTQ+ community in Singapore, where sex between consenting male adults is still a crime. With a direct and engaging style, the three hosts of “The SG Boys” discuss everyday issues and bigger global problems while […]
Hungary Bans LGBTQ Content From Schools, But Some Teachers Say They Will Defy It
Viktoria Radvanyi says her job has never been so stressful. She’s on the board of Budapest Pride, Hungary’s annual LGBTQ event, whose monthlong festival is currently underway. “The clear effect of [Hungarian Prime Minister] Viktor Orban’s very, very homophobic and autocratic politics is that, year by year, we find it harder and harder to find […]
LGBTQ Activists Condemn the Dominican Republic For New Penal Code That Makes Anti-Gay Discrimination Legal
Recently, the hashtags #DontCometoDR and #DRisnotgayfriendly began to trend on social media. The trend was in response to a new penal code that the Dominican Republic‘s government passed. The Dominican Republic’s new penal code states that “sexual orientation” is no longer lawfully protected from discrimination. Article 186, section two of the country’s new penal code […]
Hungary fines bookshop chain over picture book depicting LGBT families
A bookshop chain in Hungary has been fined for selling a children’s story depicting a day in the life of a child with same-sex parents, with officials condemning the picture book for featuring such families. The picture book, Micsoda család!, is a Hungarian translation combining two titles by US author Lawrence Schimel and illustrator Elīna […]
China’s LGBTQ community is fading from rainbow to gray
During this year’s Pride Month, soccer star Li Ying made history as China’s first female athlete to come out publicly as gay, in a candid series of celebratory photos posted on social media, showing her posing happily alongside her partner. It’s increasingly common worldwide for celebrities and high-profile sports stars to come out, often to […]
Violence in the name of God
On July 5, Georgian far-right activists dispersed the planned Tbilisi Pride week by physically attacking more than 50 people, of which 53 were members of the local and international media. The anti-gay crowd also stormed the offices of Georgia’s LGBT rights organization and the civil movement Shame – all of which was done in the […]
Spanish police hold fourth suspect over suspected homophobic killing
MADRID, July 8 (Reuters) – Spanish police said on Thursday it detained a fourth suspect over the killing of Samuel Luiz, who was beaten to death in the northern city of A Coruna on Saturday in a suspected anti-gay hate crime that sparked mass protests across the country. “He is a man between 20 and […]
The fight to save one of America’s last lesbian bars: ‘We’re like an endangered species’
There are only 21 lesbian bars remaining in the US – a vertiginous drop from 200 in the 1980s. The much-loved Cubbyhole is one of them. Everyone at the Cubbyhole has an origin story. Mona Williams was 21, queer, and had been kicked out by their family when they first arrived at the quaint little […]
Crusade Against Hypocrisy Inspires First Transgender Candidate for German Bundestag
MUNICH (Reuters) – As the first transgender candidate for Germany’s parliament, Tessa Ganserer doesn’t mince words when it comes to identifying those responsible for the legislative prejudice that she believes LGBT+ voters face. “That kind of hypocritical show of tolerance just stinks,” she tells Reuters, referring to the Conservative lawmakers she accuses of blocking pro-LGBT+ […]
U.S. concerned by reports of China LGBTQI Plus social media curbs
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday it was concerned about reports that China had restricted use of social media accounts of LGBTQI Plus student groups and non-governmental organizations. Members of LGBT groups told Reuters that Chinese tech giant Tencent’s WeChat social media platform had deleted dozens of LGBT accounts run by […]
Cannot Be Excused’: Thousands Rally In Georgia To Denounce Anti-LGBT Violence
TBILISI — Thousands have rallied in the Georgian capital to denounce violence against the LGBTQ community that shocked the nation and drew condemnation from Western embassies in the Caucasus nation. LGBTQ activists were forced to call off a pride march on July 5 in Tbilisi after opponents attacked activists and journalists and after the Georgian […]
LGBT visibility grows in Japan ahead of ‘diversity’ Olympics
Fumino Sugiyama, a former female fencer for the Japan women’s national team who came out as a man more than a decade ago, last week became the first transgender board member of the Japan Olympic Committee. Speaking with Nikkei Asia less than a month from the start of the “Unity in Diversity” Games, Sugiyama said […]
Hungary’s controversial anti-LGBT law goes into effect despite EU warnings
A new law that bans the dissemination of content in schools deemed to promote homosexuality and gender change went into effect Wednesday despite a warning from Europe’s top rights watchdog that the law risks discrimination against LGBT people. The new law that comes into force across Hungary prohibits sharing content on homosexuality or sex reassignment […]
For Turkey’s LGBT+ community, discrimination said to loom larger
Cayan Hakiki trimmed their finger nails and scrubbed off the polish last week in order to take Turkish university entrance exams without being hassled, as advocacy groups say LGBT+ people face increasingly open discrimination. “I didn’t want any problems at the entrance,” Hakiki, 23, told Reuters at home in the capital Ankara. Hakiki identifies as […]
European Court Upholds Russian Transgender Woman’s Right to Family Life
In a victory for a transgender parent’s right to maintain contact with her children, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on July 6 that Russia’s denial of her visitation violated her rights to family life and freedom from discrimination. The woman, known in court documents as A.M., had two children with her spouse before […]
LGBTQ Social Media Groups at Most Major Chinese Universities Shuttered Overnight
Tencent’s WeChat social media platform on Tuesday evening blocked and wiped all past content of the accounts for the campus LGBTQ groups of China’s top universities, striking a major blow against LGBTQ awareness and rights. Many campus LGBTQ clubs have never been officially recognized or condoned, but have been able to operate unofficially for years […]
Georgian LGBT Activists Call Off Pride March After Violent Attacks
LGBT campaigners in Georgia have canceled a planned Pride march after opponents attacked activists and journalists and the government and church spoke out against the event. Hundreds of violent counter-protesters took to the streets of Tbilisi against the Pride march scheduled for the evening. At least 15 journalists were attacked by mobs at different locations, […]
Russian retailer apologizes for lesbian couple in ad
MOSCOW, July 5 – A high-end Russian food retailer has angered both gay rights campaigners and opponents by running and then apologizing for an ad that included a profile of a family in which a mother and her adult daughter both have female partners. A 2013 Russian law, decried by Western countries as state-enforced bigotry, […]
Protests in Spain against suspected LGBT hate crime
BARCELONA, July 5 (Reuters) – People took to the streets of Spain’s biggest cities on Monday evening to express their anger at the death of a man in a suspected homophobic attack at the weekend. Crowds filled a central Madrid square and activists marched down a major street in Barcelona, chanting slogans and waving placards […]
Georgian Patriarchate condemns int’l support for ‘LGBTQ+ propaganda activities’ at Tbilisi Pride
The Georgian Patriarchate says the ‘drastic interference’ of foreign officials ‘in our public and spiritual life’ through supporting Tbilisi Pride events ‘is a matter of severe concern and [is] unacceptable’. Tbilisi Pride, a civic movement which opposes homo/transphobia and fights to overcome it through exercising the constitutional right of assembly and manifestation, is holding events […]
LGBTQ+: Bagbin’s neutrality soiled after becoming cheerleader for anti-LGBTQ bill
On the matter of the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, welcoming a bill presented to the House that would criminalize the “promotion, advocacy, funding and act of homosexuality in all its forms,” a professor of law has described it as a failure on the part of the astute lawmaker. According to the Executive Director of […]
France drops homophobic Senegal, Ghana, Benin from ‘safe’ countries list
In a decision mostly focused on the dangers facing LGBT people in homophobic nations, Benin, Senegal and Ghana have been dropped from the list of “safe” countries from which France does not expect to receive refugees fleeing for their lives. “This list of 16 countries drawn up by OFPRA (the French Office for the Protection […]
Rainbow flag burned and marchers assaulted at Zagreb gay pride march
Croatian police have detained several people over incidents during and after this weekend’s Pride march in the capital of Zagreb. The incidents included verbal and physical attacks on some participants and the burning of a rainbow-colored LGBT flag, the Zagreb police said Sunday. Police are still looking for some of the perpetrators. Franko Dota, from […]