Time for Swaziland to Follow Botswana’s Lead and Decriminalise Gay Sex
Swaziland should follow the example of its near-neighbour Botswana and decriminalise gay sex. The kingdom, also known as eSwatini, has much in common with Botswana. Both were protectorates of Great Britain and have laws relating to homosexuality dating back to that time. They became independent in the 1960s. Both countries have small but active fundamentalist […]
Mexico City’s LGBT-Inclusive School Uniforms Policy
Mexico City’s Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum announced on June 3 that children in Mexico City would be allowed to choose the uniform they wear to school. The policy applies to pre-schools, elementary schools, and secondary schools. Sheinbaum called “the era in which girls had to wear a skirt and boys had to wear trousers a thing […]
Ecuador approves same-sex marriage as LGBT+ groups hail landmark week
Ecuador’s decision to allow same-sex marriage has topped a landmark week for LGBT+ rights after Botswana decriminalised gay sex and Bhutan took the first steps to do so, said campaigners marking the 50th anniversary of the gay equality movement. Five of nine judges in Ecuador’s top court on Wednesday ruled in favor of two gay […]
Brazil transgender soccer team fights prejudice
On a late May afternoon, the Bigtboys soccer team played its first match, a friendly game on a flood-lit neighborhood pitch bordered by chain-link fencing. With only four months of weekly training in the bag, the Bigtboys lost 9-1 to the more established Alligaytors. But just being on the field was unusually liberating to players […]
Samoa Fa’afafine Association protests censor of Elton John film
LGBTI rights advocates in Samoa are protesting against the censoring of the Elton John biopic Rocketman. Samoa’s only cinema revealed the ban on Friday on its Facebook page and employees told local media it was due to the portrayal of gay sex in the film. In conservative Samoa – where around 98 percent of people […]
Bermuda to hold first gay pride march
Bermuda’s first march to celebrate gay pride is to be held this summer. LGBTQ people and same-sex marriage campaigners said the Bermuda Pride event would help to reinforce that gay people are part of island society. A spokesman for OutBermuda, the main sponsor of the march, said: “OutBermuda is proud to support Bermuda Pride 2019. […]
‘I categorically deny this vicious libel’: Malaysian minister Azmin Ali condemns gay sex video as attempt to ruin his reputation
Malaysia’s Economic Affairs Minister Azmin Ali rejected claims he was in a gay sex video that went viral earlier this week, and vowed to expose those behind the “abominable” allegations. “I categorically deny this vicious libel upon me,” he said in a statement on Wednesday evening. “This is nothing but a nefarious plot to assassinate […]
With the help of his boyfriend, a German reporter asked Iran’s foreign minister why the country executes people for being gay
When Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif faced questions from foreign journalists on Monday in Tehran after a meeting with his German counterpart, Heiko Maas, he may have expected some uncomfortable questions. But in a country that imposes severe punishments including the death penalty for gay sex, the question he may have struggled with most […]
Pakistani transgender woman ‘kidnapped and tortured’ by gang
A gang of thugs reportedly kidnapped and tortured a transgender woman in Mardan, Pakistan, shaving off her hair after she refused to give them money. Shakeela claims to have been taken from outside of a mosque on the first day of Eid al-Fitr, which fell on June 5 in Pakistan. She said that the attackers […]
How L.G.B.T. Couples in Russia Decide Whether to Leave the Country
In March, a member of the Russian senate asked the prosecutor general to look into the issue of yoga in pretrial detention. Yoga classes, organized on the recommendation of human-rights activists, had been offered to a limited number of inmates since September. But then Alexander Dvorkin, a man who is considered the country’s preëminent expert […]
Scores of LGBT+ refugees in Kenya slum face homophobic attacks, eviction
Scores of LGBT+ refugees are in desperate need of emergency shelter after facing homophobic threats, violence and eviction warnings from community members in a Nairobi slum, the refugees and human rights campaigners said on Tuesday. The 76 LGBT+ refugees – mostly from Congo but also from Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Ethiopia and South Sudan – have […]
New lawyers’ group fights violence and stigma in Cameroon
A group of young lawyers and courtroom professionals has founded Defenders Without Borders (Défenseurs Sans Frontières, or DSF), a human rights organization working on behalf of vulnerable Cameroonian citizens, including young women, gay men and lesbians. It also helps victims of discrimination and torture, people subject to arbitrary arrest, and detainees who lack legal and […]
Vatican issues guidance questioning modern gender identity
The Vatican has released a new document challenging modern conceptions of gender identity. The 31-page teaching guidance, released on Monday, is titled Male and Female He Created Them. It speaks of an “educational crisis” and says the current debate can “annihilate the concept of nature” and destabilise the family institution. The document, released during Pride […]
IRAN’S FM AFFIRMS RIGHT TO EXECUTE GAYS AND BLASTS U.S. AND ISRAEL
In response to questions today in Tehran from a reporter for the mass circulation German paper Bild, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reiterated his country’s lethal homophobic law and its opposition to the Jewish state and the US. Ronzheimer wrote that Zarif answered: “The problem is the aggressive policies of […]
Germany: Gay conversion ‘therapy’ ban presented
German Health Minister Jens Spahn announced his plan on Tuesday to ban so-called gay conversion therapy nationwide. Although the practice is not as common in Germany as it is in other nations, it is still sometimes practiced in religious communities. “Homosexuality is not a disease and therefore does not require treatment,” said Spahn, presenting his […]
Pence says it was ‘right decision’ to prohibit flying LGBT rainbow flag outside US embassies
Vice President Pence on Monday defended the State Department’s decision to bar U.S. embassies from flying rainbow flags on their flagpoles during LGBT Pride Month, saying that it was the “right” move. Pence acknowledged in an interview with NBC News that he was aware that the State Department had “indicated” that the American flag should […]
Botswana’s High Court Decriminalizes Gay Sex
Botswana’s High Court ruled on Tuesday to overturn colonial-era laws that criminalized homosexuality, a decision hailed by activists as a significant step for gay rights on the African continent. “Human dignity is harmed when minority groups are marginalized,” Judge Michael Leburu said as he delivered the judgment, adding that laws that banned gay sex were […]
Botswana to rule on scrapping anti-gay laws
Botswana could decriminalise gay sex on Tuesday when its high court is due to rule in a landmark case being watched across Africa after Kenya recently upheld its own anti-homosexuality laws. Homosexual acts are outlawed in Botswana — one of Africa’s most stable, democratic nations — under the country’s penal code of 1965. An unnamed […]
LGBT bullying in schools takes heavy toll, reveals Unesco report
A few months ago, Orinam, an all volunteer collective of LGBTIQA+ people based in Chennai, celebrated its 15th anniversary. There they had an unexpected speakera 17-year-old who, on an impulse, shared his ordeal of being bullied at school for being “effeminate”. His tormentors weren’t just students but teachers too. “If this support group hadn’t helped […]
Munroe Bergdorf: NSPCC cuts ties with transgender activist
Transgender activist Munroe Bergdorf says she is “unbelievably sad” that the NSPCC has cut ties with her, days after she revealed she was Childline’s “first LGBT+ campaigner”. She said the charity was “bowing down to pressure from a transphobic lobby”. Her appointment had been criticised by some on Twitter, with Ms Bergdorf described as a […]
L is for lesbian, G is for gay: Indian parents learn ABC of LGBT
After her son came out as gay, Sushma Samudra consulted astrologers, quizzed psychiatrists, performed prayers and implored gods and goddesses to cure his abnormality. Nothing worked. Undeterred, she tasked her husband to feed a stray dog each morning with a roti generously coated with ghee, closely following the curative advice of an expert astrologer. Samudra […]
LGBT+ pride marches in US interrupted by neo-Nazis and stampede
Separate LGBT+ pride marches in the US were disrupted on Saturday, one by a stampede triggered over fears of a shooting and another by one of America’s biggest neo-Nazi groups. In Washington DC, seven people were taken to hospital after fears of a potential gunman at the pride event sparked panic. Hundreds of people were […]
A little tiff over LGBT normalisation in Malaysia
A Malaysian conservative Muslim rights activist called out Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah for his alleged lack of concern regarding the ‘normalisation’ of LGBT in the country. Rafidah Hanim Mokhtar is the president of the anti-LGBT group WAFIQ (Women’s Alliance for Family and Quality Education). In a tweet, she said that she has issues regarding Minister […]
Outcry after police drug raid on Tel Aviv gay club ahead of Pride week
Police in Tel Aviv raided a gay club on Friday night and arrested the owner and another worker after drugs were found on the premises. Fourteen other individuals were briefly detained for questioning and then released, and the venue was immediately shut down. People present at the time of the raid told Channel 12 news […]
U.S. embassies display pride flag, despite Trump administration advisory against it
On Friday, the Trump Administration was reportedly rejecting requests from U.S. embassies to display the rainbow pride flag on official flagpoles in celebration of Pride Month, according to an NBC News report. Since then, some diplomats are finding ways around the initial rejection. “The U.S. embassies in Israel, Germany, Brazil and Latvia are among those […]
Warsaw to Hold Gay Pride Parade Amid Fears and Threats in Poland
The largest pride parade in central and Eastern Europe was expected to bring thousands of people to the streets of Warsaw on Saturday, at a time when the gay rights movement in Poland is under siege by hate speech and a government campaign depicting it as a threat to families and society. Diplomats from Canada, […]
‘If nothing changes, I’ll kill myself’: The horrific plight of LGBT+ asylum seekers in Russia
“Russia is the last place I wanted to end up,” says Ahmet, 25. “But I don’t have a choice – it is either this or death.” Ahmet, originally from Gaza, was never supposed to have ended up in Russia. Now he is stuck here. Ahmet’s dream was to pursue a medical career in the US […]
Lesbian couple viciously beaten in homophobic attack on London bus
Five teenagers have been arrested in connection with a homophobic attack on two women on a London bus that prompted widespread condemnation in the UK. The attack took place on a night bus on May 30 as the couple, Melania Geymonat and her partner Chris, were traveling home from an evening out together. Geymonat posted […]
Bhutan moves to decriminalise homosexuality
Bhutan’s National Assembly has begun the process of decriminalising gay sex, a move which could hand LGBT+ people improved rights. The Buddhist kingdom’s lower house voted on Friday (June 7) to remove two sections of its penal code which outlaw “unnatural sex,” defined as “sodomy or any other sexual conduct that is against the order […]
Queer in the caravan: The dangers LGBT migrants face in search for asylum
The journey north for migrants traveling through Mexico carries multiple risks—food insecurity, exposure to elements, assault, injury and more. Traveling with a caravan offers a measure of safety against some of these dangers. But for LGBT migrants making the 2,400-mile journey north, there are yet additional risks like discrimination and harassment from homophobic government officials, […]