Anti-trans legislation will have drastic effects on intersex people & their healthcare
For months, a conservative-backed wave of anti-transgender legislation has taken the country by storm, leading this year to have the most anti-LGBTQ laws enacted in American history. And the laws are likely to have a negative effect on intersex people just as they are on trans and gender non-conforming people — but for a different […]
2 transgender men in court fight over changing sex listed on Hong Kong ID cards
A person does not have to undergo complete sex reassignment surgery to be considered as having changed into a man or woman, lawyers for two transgender men have told Hong Kong’s High Court. The court began hearing their appeal on Monday against a ruling that backed a government policy on how a person’s sex can […]
Harassment led transgender nurse to develop health issues
A labor ministry office in Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture, concluded that a transgender hospital worker’s mental health issues were the result of months of being misgendered by other employees, The Asahi Shimbun has learned. The Ibaraki Labor Standards Inspection Office ruled in February this year that an assistant nurse developed her mental health problems due to […]
LGBTQ+ Agudah hosts Polish chief rabbi to begin new project for Diaspora
The Agudah – The Association for LGBTQ Equality in Israel has launched a new plan to help LGBTQ+ Jews in the Diaspora and olim to Israel, hosting a meeting with Jewish leader and LGBTQ+ activists in Poland and Hungary recently in a landmark event. The association has recruited dozens of LGBTQ+ Jewish ambassadors from around […]
Queer South Koreans Hope for an Anti-Discrimination Law to End Decades of Discrimination
This article can be read in Korean here. Receiving even the most basic of services can be difficult for Park Edhi, a South Korean woman living in the country’s capital Seoul. Because official documents do not reflect the fact that Park is transgender, her identity is questioned at every turn. To apply for a credit […]
Two New Jersey agencies are working with HRC toward fully LGBTQ inclusive foster care
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation released a new report, 2021 Change-Makers, highlighting the HRC Foundation All Children-All Families (ACAF) program’s partnership with 119 organizations—a 19 percent increase in participation from last year. These partners are working to improve the services provided for the LGBTQ community, including children in foster care. The organizations serve more […]
What is abrosexuality? We asked abrosexual people to explain
The LGBTQIA+ community is vast—it includes a plus sign for a reason. Identities that have never been represented or celebrated before are now making their way into the cultural conversation. More and more diversified identities have surfaced throughout time and better aid queer individuals to have accurate representation. Terms like demisexual, asexual and pansexual (to […]
N.S. filmmaker hopes to inspire Indigenous representation with coming-of-age film
TORONTO — Two-spirit filmmaker Bretten Hannam says they hope their new film “Wildhood” will inspire and open doors for more movie makers to show the lives Indigenous people in the LGBTQ community, but also encourage viewers to see parts of themselves in the characters. Debuting at the Toronto International Film Festival, “Wildhood” follows a mixed-race […]
Evangelical Lutheran church installs 1st transgender bishop
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America installed its first openly transgender bishop in a service held in San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral on Saturday. The Rev. Megan Rohrer will lead one of the church’s 65 synods, overseeing nearly 200 congregations in Northern California and northern Nevada. “My call is … to be up to the same […]
Hundreds protest against rise in homophobic attacks in Madrid
Hundreds of people gathered in central Madrid on Saturday to call for better protection for LGBT rights after a series of homophobic attacks that have shocked Spain in recent months. People waved rainbow flags and carried banners reading: “justice”, “touch one of us, touch us all”, “we are being killed”. “We are here to protest […]
UCT vice-chancellor apologises to LGBTQIA+ community
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town (UCT) Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng apologised to the LGBTQIA+ community for a seminar she co-hosted on Sunday, September 4. The seminar, which was hosted by Phakeng with Dr Kgomotso Mathabe, a practising urologist and a member of the Steve Biko Academic Hospital’s Gender Clinic, was streamed on social media […]
Ugandan government shamefully claims queer people fleeing its homophobia are fake ‘economic gays’
Homosexuality is illegal and punishable by life imprisonment in Uganda, which has some of the strictest anti-LGBT+ laws in the world. Most queer Ugandans survive by staying under the radar, and many who manage to escape fear death if they return. Yet foreign minister general Jeje Odongo cast doubt on the legitimacy of queer asylum […]
OPINION: Invest in the LGBT+ movement and change will come
By the time I have my last day at the end of this week, I will have served as executive director of OutRight Action International for nine years and 358 days. My friend tells me that’s a decade. Almost. But I’ve always prized precision in the global fight for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and […]
Spain searches for answers after string of homophobic attacks
More than four decades after Spain lifted laws that made homosexuality illegal and 16 years after becoming a pioneer in the introduction of same-sex marriage, a surge in hate crimes has instilled fear in its LGBT community. The issue has been pushed to the fore by the brutal killing in July of a 24-year-old man, […]
Could Texas abortion ban strategy be double-edged sword?
The unusual legal strategy used to ban most abortions in Texas is already increasingly being employed in Republican-led states to target pornography, LGBT rights and other hot-button cultural issues. While private residents filing lawsuits is a fixture of some arenas like environmental law, some warn that expanding it and applying it to new areas could […]
Camp True Colors gives LGBTQ+ teens a place to be themselves
Camp True Colors, at a woodsy, lakeside retreat just north of Hinckley, Minn., is summer camp with all the trappings. There’s canoeing and archery and tie-dyeing and a giant water trampoline. There are bunks in the cabins and cookouts over campfires — and, some believe, a friendly ghost inhabiting the bathroom, who campers contact via […]
Hungary Says It Won’t Repeal Anti-LGBTQ Law for EU Pandemic Aid
Hungary won’t repeal a law that critics, including the European Union’s executive, say discriminates against the LGBTQ community, even if that’s the price of accessing billions of euros in pandemic aid, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said. Szijjarto, in a briefing late Friday, said Hungary’s pandemic plan was slated for EU approval during the summer but […]
Sex education becomes battlefield in U.S. culture war over LGBT+ rights
Sex education is emerging as the next battleground in a U.S. culture war over LGBT+ rights, as some conservative state legislators seek to keep discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity out of the nation’s classrooms. Lawmakers in three Republican-led states backed legislation this year to let parents take children out of classes covering LGBT+ […]
Spain’s PM to convene hate crime commission after suspected homophobic assault
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will chair on Friday an urgent meeting of Spain’s commission against hate crimes amid an uproar over a suspected homophobic assault on a 20-year-old Spaniard in central Madrid. The young man was returning home on Sunday afternoon when eight people wearing hoods managed to surround him in his building’s hallway and […]
Radical groups targeting gay men warns Spanish minister after Madrid attack
Spain’s government has warned about a rise in hate crimes by radical groups after a brutal assault on a gay man by hooded men who carved the word “f****t” on one of his buttocks. Fernando Grande-Marlaska, the Spanish interior minister, said the groups were targeting anyone who was “different”. “Within these groups, the objective is […]
The Guardian accused of ‘censoring’ Judith Butler interview comparing TERFs to fascists: ‘Cowards’
The Guardian has been accused of “censoring” feminist icon Judith Butler after the newspaper deleted part of an interview in which they compared trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) to fascists. This week, an interview was published by The Guardian with the feminist philosopher, and Butler discussed the links between anti-trans “feminists” and the far-right. One of […]
Anger over UCT Vice Chancellor’s “harmful” webinar on LGBTIQA+ community
Gender diversity organisations have slammed UCT Vice-Chancellor Mamokgethi Phakeng for hosting a social media seminar described as “harmful and hurtful” to the LGBTIQA+ community. Titled, What does science says about LGBTQA+, the 5 September webinar featured Dr Kgomotso Mathabe, a practising urologist and a member of the Steve Biko Academic Hospital’s Gender Clinic. The event […]
Tory MP demands government act on ‘cruel and unusual’ trans healthcare crisis
Tory MP Crispin Blunt has condemned the “unacceptable crisis in trans healthcare” and demanded the government pay for trans patients to have gender-affirming surgeries abroad. Blunt, who is chair of the APPG on global LGBT+ rights, pointed to the “continued failure” of the NHS to provide an essential gender-affirming surgery for trans men and non-binary […]
Misinterpretation of conversion therapy ban bill causing confusion in some churches
Concerns have been raised about how far the proposed legislation goes, and whether parents could be criminalised for having conversations with their children about their sexuality or gender identity. The Bill aims to protect people from conversion practices intended to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. Submissions for the […]
LGBT groups slam partylist for backing Sara Duterte 2022 bid, say Dutertes ‘no ally to us’
More than 40 LGBTQ+ organizations and individuals on Monday denounced a partylist claiming to represent their community after it issued a statement backing Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio’s potential Palace bid and hailed her father President Rodrigo Duterte’s policies it said “broke new grounds in the fight for equal rights.” Partylist LGBT Pilipinas is under […]
Georgian ombudsman names priest, blogger as organizers of July 5 anti-LGBTQ rally and calls for their prosecution
The ombudsman calls for the prosecution of an ultra-nationalist journalist and an archpriest of the Georgian Orthodox Church for organizing violence against journalists and LGBTQ rights activists. Ombudsman Nino Lomjaria said 53 people have been identified as victims of the July 5 gang violence and 27 people have been prosecuted. However, no one has been […]
Church in Wales to vote on blessings for same-sex marriages
Same-sex couples can now have their marriage blessed by the Church in Wales after a vote was held. However, the church will still not marry same-sex couples. Former Dean of St Albans, the Very Reverend Jeffrey John, supported the change but described it as a “halfway house” that did not go far enough. The Evangelical […]
2023 European Games host Council refusal to withdraw anti-LGBT resolution puts EU funding at risk
The Council in Malopolska, which includes Kraków, has voted to re-affirm its status as an “LGBT-free zone”, despite the European Union (EU) threatening to remove billions of euros in funding which could affect preparations for the 2023 European Games which it is due to stage. Malopolska passed a resolution in 2019 which declared itself an […]
The Supreme Court could allow attacks to marriage equality just as they are with abortion
The five right-wing justices of the Supreme Court who decided to uphold Texas’s anti-abortion law last week are sending a strong signal about the shaky future of LGBTQ rights, including marriage equality. Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas cleared the way for a new law in Texas — which […]
Local walking tour takes deep dive into the world of Hong Kong’s LGBT community
Beneath a rainbow-coloured umbrella, tour guide Michael Tsang Chi-fai addresses a rapt audience about a four-hour walk ahead. “We’re going to visit different places you may have never been to, but they’re each significant to the LGBT community,” he said. On a humid Saturday morning, more than 20 people gathered for a walking tour centred […]