Transgender Navy SEAL: Biden order ‘going to give a lot of other individuals that chance to finally be themselves’
When Navy SEAL Ashley Nefzger heard rumblings that President Joe Biden could sign an executive order to repeal a Trump-era ban on most transgender Americans joining the military, she was cautiously hopeful. “I didn’t necessarily want to get my hopes up,” she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on “Full Circle” Friday. “I was hopeful for it, […]
Cameroon: 4 shelters welcome LGBTQ+ victims of violence
The shelters, supported by Care Cameroon’s Human Rights Grant program, are run by LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations — Camfaids in Yaoundé, 2HRC in Bertoua, Alcondoms in Douala and Colibri in Bafoussam. The project is funded by Pepfar (the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief) and supervised by USAID. The shelters are a response to anti-LGBTI […]
German LGBT actors come out en masse in plea for diversity
A group of 185 LGBT German actors staged a mass coming-out in a national newspaper on Friday in an appeal for more diversity in the worlds of TV, film and theatre. The gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender actors published a joint manifesto in the Süddeutsche Zeitung magazine calling for a change in attitudes and more […]
Russia Returns Escaped Gay Men to Chechen Police – NGO
Russian police have allegedly detained two gay men who escaped from the republic of Chechnya and handed them over to authorities in their home region, the Russian LGBT Network reported Thursday. The LGBT Network had helped the two men, Salekh Magamadov and Ismail Isayev, flee from Chechnya and relocate to the city of Nizhny Novgorod […]
LGBT+ history month: remembering the ‘Glamour Boys’ – the gay MPs who warned 1930s Britain about Nazism
In the 1920s and 1930s of buttoned-up Britain, homosexuality was an illicit act, and would remain that way until 1967 when the law changed in England and Wales. Even though gay culture was vibrant, it existed mostly underground, its community forced to socialise with a certain degree of covertness in order to avoid exposure and […]
LGBT+ people are facing a dire situation in Turkey. This is how it got so bad, and why you should care
The abuse and restrictions against Turkey’s LGBT+ population are growing increasingly more alarming. On 2 February 2021, Twitter took the still relatively unusual step of flagging a politician’s tweets for “hateful conduct”, the same thing it did to tweets from former US president Donald Trump before his ban. Twitter’s target this time was Turkish interior […]
Ankara calls student protesters ‘LGBT perverts’ amid artwork controversy
Clashes between students from Bogazici University and Turkish police show no sign of abating. Many students have been arrested, while the interior minister has lashed out with homophobic hate speech over an artwork. Turkish police have responded to protests by students at Istanbul’s Bogazici University with an iron fist. On Monday alone, they arrested 159 […]
Discrimination Leads to Internalized Homophobia, Increased Suicide Risk for Sexual Minorities
A recent article, published in the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, examined the relationships between external minority stressors, internalized homophobia, LGBT community connectedness, and suicidal ideation. The researchers suggest that internalized homophobia is accounted for by greater external minority stressors and can lead to a higher rate of suicidal ideation. Their analysis also […]
LGBT Members Across India Reaching Delhi In Support Of Chakka Jaam
Thousands of farmers camping in the national capital since November 2020 against the central government’s three farm bills have gained national and international momentum. Navya Singh, a Trans-Woman Model was born as Parvinder Singh Sodhi in Punjab, extended support to the ongoing farmers’ agitation in Delhi. Navya told Afternoon Voice, “I belong to Sikh farmer’s […]
LGBT+ history month: forgotten figures who challenged gender expression and identity centuries ago
Non-binary and trans people have always been here, not least in every recorded society from the ancient world onwards. Why is it then that they’re often absent from the tales and lists of historical figures we hear about? The answer lies, in part, with how history is recorded and who records it. People who belong […]
As Poland’s Church embraces politics, Catholics depart
Katarzyna Lipka is no longer Catholic, and she says that is a political statement. Like most Poles, the 35-year-old has marked life’s milestones in the Church, a beacon of freedom in Communist times. Also like many, she’d been drifting away. In November, after the country’s courts decreed a clampdown on abortion that the bishops had […]
Erdogan says he will not let Turkish university protests swell
President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday his government would not allow month-long demonstrations at a Turkish university to grow into anti-government protests similar to those in 2013, calling the protesters “terrorists”. Defying a government ban on demonstrations, students and teachers at Istanbul’s Bogazici University have protested Erdogan’s appointment of Melih Bulu, an academic and former […]
New York Repeals ‘Walking While Trans’ Law
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill Tuesday that repeals a state anti-loitering law, commonly called the “walking while trans” ban, that critics say police used to harass and arrest law-abiding trans people, in particular. The new measure effectively takes off the books a 1976 law that sought to prohibit loitering for the purpose […]
What’s next for these transgender asylum seekers stranded in Mexico?
Kataleya Nativi Baca, 29, can see the yellow grasslands of San Ysidro, California, from the crests of Tijuana’s hills. The palm trees swaying less than a mile from her shack are rooted in the place she calls el otro lado—the other side. When she goes to the beach in Tijuana, the sands of San Diego […]
State Department’s 1st openly gay spokesperson sends signal to the world, advocates say
Just over two decades ago, President Bill Clinton had to use a recess appointment to install the first openly gay U.S. ambassador over Republican senators’ opposition. Now, on Tuesday, the State Department’s new openly gay spokesperson will hold his first daily press briefing. That the voice of the Biden administration on the world stage, whose […]
Twitter says Turkish minister’s LGBT comments about protesters “hateful conduct”
Turkey’s interior minister on Tuesday condemned protesters at a top Istanbul university as “LGBT deviants” in a statement which Twitter deemed as hateful conduct. Students and teachers at Istanbul’s Bogazici University have held protests for the last month against the appointment of Melih Bulu as rector by President Tayyip Erdogan, which they said was undemocratic. […]
Singapore’s gay sex ban and the LGBTQ+ movement: The story so far
It has been an important week for LGBTQ+ activists in Singapore, both in the courtroom and on the streets. While the affluent country has seen some moves towards liberalisation, the queer community continue to fight against legal and social inequality. Recently, campaigners launched an appeal against the 2020 High Court decision to uphold Singapore’s colonial-era […]
Scottish government withdraws amendment to exempt ‘criticism of transgender identity’ from hate crime law after backlash
The Scottish government has pulled an amendment that sought to exempt “criticism of transgender identity” from hate crime laws. The country’s justice minister Humza Yousaf announced via Twitter on Monday (1 February) that he had pulled a planned amendment to the proposed Hate Crime and Public Order bill, which seeks to modernise and consolidate hate […]
Uganda: Electoral defeat for 2 notoriously anti-gay officials
The two defeated politicians are Haji Abdul Kiyimba, the former Mayor of Nsangi Town Council in Wakiso District in central Uganda, and the Rev. Simon Lokodo, the Minister of Ethics and Integrity. Kiyimba is facing charges of torture and degrading treatment of young men arrested last year during a raid that he spearheaded last March […]
Erdogan hits out at ‘LGBT youth’ as police break up fresh protest
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday lashed out at Turkey’s LGBT movement, accusing it of “vandalism” following an outbreak of student protests. Four people were arrested over the weekend for depicting Islam’s holiest site with pictures of the LGBT rainbow flag during a rally at Istanbul’s Bogazici University. And shortly after Erdogan’s televised speech on […]
UK Supreme Court to hear case for gender-neutral markings on passports in July
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom have announced they will begin hearing a case for whether gender-neutral markings, like ‘X’, should be allowed on passports. The specific dates that the court will hear the case are on the 12/13 July. The case is being brought by Christie Elan-Cane, who has fought for legal recognition […]
The Largest Native American Two-Spirit Powwow Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary
On February 11th, 2012, the Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits organization (BAAITS) held the first ever Native American Two-Spirit Powwow. A powwow is a cultural celebration that includes traditions like singing, dancing, and drumming. The team behind the first BAAITS Powwow sought to de-gender these traditions and bring Two-Spirit people, those who do not identify […]
Eddie Izzard wants to become the UK’s first-ever transgender MP
Eddie Izzard, the genderfluid stand-up comedian and longtime Labour campaigner, has a simple mission: Become Britain’s first openly trans member of Parliament. Speaking to the Sunday Mirror newspaper, the 58-year-old is trading show business for politics as she branded premier Boris Johnson a “liar” and vowed to fight alongside opposition leader Keir Starmer. While the […]
Three lives, one message: Stop killing Mexico’s transgender women
Mexico is the second most dangerous country in the world to be transgender, according to human rights groups. Only Brazil has higher rates of transphobia and violence against the trans community. Most attacks go unpunished, including murder. Three women are fighting for change. In a small paved patio beneath a bust of the Virgin de […]
Central government to respond on pleas to recognise same-sex marriage
The Delhi High Court Friday granted a last opportunity to the Centre and the Delhi government to respond to three separate pleas, including by two couples, seeking that same-sex marriage be recognised by law. A bench of Justices Rajiv Sahai Endlaw and Sanjeev Narula which had earlier issued notice and directed the centre and Delhi […]
How China’s ‘gay capital’ is resisting closure
It’s Saturday night at the HUNK club in Chengdu and men in gold lycra shorts and black boots dance on stage. They wear kimonos, in an apparent tactical compromise with new morality codes creeping into China’s “gay capital”. But across town, young women still lounge on leather sofas drinking beer at a lesbian club, while a […]
One of Poland’s LGBT-free zones becomes first in the country to strike down shameful homophobic ideology
As women’s rights advocates, LGBT+ activists, among other allies, poured onto the streets of Warsaw to battle the country’s near-total ban on abortion, a small town made a hugely symbolic decision. Councillors in Nowa Dęba, a town with some 11,000 residents in the south-eastern county of Tarnobrzeg, voted to withdraw its anti-LGBT+ resolution, according to […]
Turkish students depict sacred Islamic site alongside rainbows. They’re detained and dubbed ‘deviants’ by ministers
The Kaaba is the most sacred site in Islam, being a building in the centre of the Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Tensions have simmered at Boğaziçi University in Instanbul after a supposed loyalist of Turkey’s governing party, the Justice and Development Party, was appointed as a senior official by president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Student-led pushback erupted earlier this […]
Should the President of Magdalen be forced out over a gay marriage case?
Dinah Rose QC is a human rights lawyer of great distinction. A former Barrister of the Year, she has appeared in several high profile cases, ranging from extraordinary rendition and Julian Assange to the admissions policy of the Jewish Free School. After the Jimmy Savile scandal, the BBC appointed her to investigate bullying and sexual […]
Grieving gay widower devastated by Tanzania’s homophobic red tape
In August last year, Hannes Human, 55, was in Zanzibar relaxing for a few days after being stuck for five months in Burkina Faso – where he had been working – due to Covid-19 restrictions. His husband of 16 years, events designer Johann Els, was in South Africa finalising the couple’s long-planned dream move to Portugal […]