US: With endorsement from Target, corporate support for the Equality Act continues to grow

HRC hailed Target for its announcement this morning that it is has endorsed the recently-introduced Equality Act, a landmark federal bill that would guarantee explicit, permanent protections for LGBT people from discrimination in many of the most important aspects of their lives.

Currently, 31 states across the country lack fully-inclusive non-discrimination protections for LGBT Americans. Target joins a number of leading American corporations, including Amazon, American Airlines, Apple, the Dow Chemical Company, Facebook, General Electric, General Mills, Google, HP, IBM, Intel, Levi Strauss & Co, Microsoft, Nike, Oracle, Orbitz, PayPal and Symantec Corporation in support of federal LGBT non-discrimination protections.

The Equality Act provides basic protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in employment, access to public spaces, housing, education, jury service, credit and federal funding.  Read More via Human Rights Campaign

Globally, one in four people have a transgender work colleague

The latest Randstad Workmonitor survey has explored global attitudes to sexual orientation diversity in the workplace. One of the questions asked employees in 34 countries whether they had any transgender work colleagues.

On average, 26% of those polled said that they had one (or more) transgender colleagues. This figure rose to 45% in Greece, 46% in Brazil and 50% in India. In the US, 29% of those polled said they had a transgender work colleague, while the figure was 26% in the UK.

Helen Belcher, of Trans Media Watch said, ‘Trans issues have been treated as marginal and unimportant for years. I’ve been saying for a long time that trans issues don’t just affect the trans person, but their families, friends and work colleagues also. Read More via Gay Star News 

Singapore: More accessible to queer travellers than ever before

In June, Singapore’s current PM Lee Hsien Loong eagerly reminded progressive critics that “There are gay groups in Singapore, there are gay people in Singapore and they have a place to stay here and we let them live their own lives. And we do not harass them or discriminate against them.”

Singapore’s legal code tells a slightly different story: male homosexuality remains a crime under Section 377A; LGBT defence force personnel are banned from serving in “sensitive” units, and anti-discrimination laws, as well as recognition for same-sex couples, are completely off the table for the foreseeable future.

Yet there’s also some truth to Lee’s claim. Section 377A has not been enforced in years, and seemingly remains on the books to appease the country’s influential Christian organisations. Singapore may be in no hurry to shake its rigorously organised reputation. But those who arrive expecting a staid, joyless police state will quickly discover a side of the city that’s keen to subvert expectations. Read More via Daily Xtra

This terrifying new Windows 10 feature could ‘out’ kids to their parents

Computers running Windows 10 could be automatically telling parents that their teens are visiting LGBT support websites. The new operating system, which was rolled out last month as a free upgrade, has raised concern over the new ‘activity reports‘ feature.

The feature is enabled by default for users who have set up registered ‘family’ accounts, sending weekly breakdowns of browsing history to the parents – even if the kids browse anonymously or try to clear it. Once active, the feature emails the parents a weekly summary of all the child’s internet usage, including the details of websites visited.

The tool also specifically flags up search terms and blocked content that children tried to access – meaning that teens experimenting with their sexuality could have their sexual fantasies emailed directly to their parents. Read More via PinkNews 

Czech Republic: Pride Business Forum says openness pays off

Businesses do better when employees come out of the closet, especially at the CEO or senior management level. That was one of the key messages of the fifth Pride Business Forum, one of the main side events to Prague Pride week. The event featured business leaders from Central and Eastern Europe discussing leadership, LGBTI diversity and inclusion, and business opportunities for those companies that create an inclusive environment.

Among the highlights was a discussion between the BBC’s economic anchor, Evan Davis, with Lord John Browne, author of The Glass Closet and former head of energy giant BP.

Pavlina Kalousova from Business Society led a panel of business leaders on ‘How diversity fits into the business agenda’. One of the organizing partners of the Forum is the Netherlands-based Workplace Pride. Its Executive Director, David Pollard, said, ‘This event, which includes Czech as well as international companies, is another excellent example of how working closely with the LGBT community in the workplace just makes good business sense for employers, both in the public and private sectors.’  Read More 

How La Nogalera came to be Torremolinos’ gay hot-spot

THE year was 1962. Spain was bowed in submission under the oppressive rule of General Franco. Freedom was a rare commodity, homosexuality a crime that dared not speak its name. Across the country, gay men and women were being thrown into prison and publicly lambasted for their sexuality.

But one corner of the Costa del Sol didn’t buy into the dictator’s harsh regime.

Sticking two fingers up to Fascism, Torremolinos offered Europeans the chance to live the free life they desired. Read More

Germany: Facebook banned from enforcing its real name policy in country

Facebook may not stop users in Germany creating accounts under false names, a Hamburg privacy watchdog has said. The Hamburg data protection authority said the social network could not change people's chosen usernames or ask them to provide any official ID. The ruling came after Facebook blocked an account set up by a woman using a pseudonym and changed it to her name. 

The company's real-name policy has been the subject of recent protests from demonstrators, including drag queens, Native Americans and domestic violence victims who believe anonymity is crucial to their personal safety. Some drag queens want to use their stage names on the site, while Native Americans' names often incorporate animals, natural features or other elements that can be wrongly identified as pseudonyms.

In October 2014, Facebook clarified its real-name policy, saying users would have to "use the authentic name they use in real life". But the company has been slow to change its rules. The Hamburg watchdog, which regulates the social network in Germany, said making users sign up under their real names violated an individual's privacy rights. Read More

Cuba: Stands out as a tourist paradise for gay community

Amid the "boom" in tourism that Cuba is experiencing with over 2 million foreign tourists, the island is emerging as a destination for the gay community. Cuba's "Mi Cayito Cuba" is the first online travel agency specializing in tours geared towards the LGBT community. 

"The island has great potential as living space. We are open to all, and we believe in a free and tolerant space where respect is valued," says director Alain Castillo. Despite being a society still dominated by a patriarchal and sexist vision, Cuba is already seeing noticeable advances in LGBT rights.

"It's vacation time. It is time to Cuba. The new gay paradise", you can read the brochures promoted on social networks. Read More

Black market for Truvada PrEP may undermine treatment adherence in marginalised people living with HIV

The increasing demand for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is likely to increase the likelihood that some marginalised individuals living with HIV interrupt their own treatment to sell some of their prescribed medication to pill brokers and drug dealers, according to a study presented to the Conference of the Association for the Social Sciences and Humanities in HIV in South Africa last week.

Dr. Steven Kurtz said that several reports have documented street markets for diverted antiretrovirals (ARVs) in the US. In his study of men who have sex with men, people who didn’t sell their drugs also reported being approached by traders. Less frequently, ARVs were sold or given to individuals who would use the pills themselves, sometimes in exchange for recreational drugs or sex.

There was little evidence that individuals purchased ARVs from the black market for self-treatment of HIV infection, but that the illicit use of Truvada for prevention purposes has been documented. Many HIV-negative people who are at high risk of HIV infection do not have health insurance, perhaps making them more likely to turn to the black market.  “The potential intersection of widespread ARV street markets and misinformed at-risk populations about the effective use of PrEP is a major public health concern,” Kurtz concluded. Read More 

Serbia: Fake condoms flood region

The Serbian Agency of Medicines (Agenciji za lekove) has confirmed that counterfeit condoms have flooded local markets of Belgrade and Novi Pazar. The condoms carry names from prominent manufacturers, but carry false expiration dates, serial numbers, and country of origins. In a local interview, Doctor Nevenka Dimitrijevic warned that these condoms would not provide protection against sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy. Read More

US: New app 'MyTransHealth' will help trans patients find healthcare

MyFitnessPal, Uber and CityMapper are all apps which make things a little easier. However, a soon-to-be released app MyTransHealth is set to change life as we know it for trans people everywhere. The crowdsourced program will allow people to see reviews on doctors before attending an appointment, so they can choose the most trans-friendly. 

Users will be able to see how healthcare professionals match up in terms of inclusiveness under the categories medical, legal, mental health, and crisis. They can then delve even deeper and work out their score in terms of language and insurance issues. Read More

South Korea: Samsung & Google censor LGBT content in some App stores

Samsung, one of South Korea’s largest business conglomerates and the largest maker of smartphones worldwide, rejected an application from gay hookup app Hornet to be listed in its app store in 2013. In a memo sent from Samsung to Hornet’s CEO, said the app could not be listed because, “due to the local moral values or laws, content containing LGBT is not allowed” in places like the Middle East, parts of east and south Asia, and LGBT-friendly places like the U.S. and the Nordic countries.

This kind of censorship of LGBT content — sometimes under government order and sometimes under internal corporate policies — reveals the paradox of South Korea: It is a hub of international industry, one of the most wired nations in the world, and a democracy closely allied with the United States. But it also has a government that has created an extensive censorship regime in the name of protecting the state from North Korea, with which it is technically still at war, and has extended that apparatus to monitoring “obscenity” and “material harmful to minors” in a way that often silences the LGBT community.  Read More