InterTech, the UK-based LGBT network for those who work in the tech industries, have announced that its next event will be a #MakeStuffBetter Holiday Hackathon at the offices of Facebook in Euston, London.
The 24-hour event will run from on Saturday 12 December. They’re wanting tech workers who can aid in the creation of products that may spread tolerance, promote health or create awareness.
Previous hackathons have led to the creation of the LGBT Whip, a website that allows you to check on the voting record of MPs, and online, stereotype-questioning game Hansel in Distress. Read more via Gay Star News
Some top-ranked companies on LGBT scorecard work in harshly anti-LGBT nations
Companies doing business in countries with harsh anti-LGBT laws are among the top scorers in the Human Rights Campaign’s first ever corporate LGBT scorecard to consider international operations alongside domestic ones. HRC launches its 14th annual Corporate Equality Index, which scores hundreds of companies on measures like health insurance coverage for transgender workers and employee benefits for employees’ same-sex partners.
Only one area that employers were scored on this year actually applied to work overseas: whether the company has a nondiscrimination policy covering LGBT workers that applies throughout its global operations. Some of the companies that met this requirement have operations in countries that not only make same-sex relationships or wearing non-gender conforming clothing illegal, but actively seek out LGBT people for arrest, have extreme jail sentences or flogging as penalties, or criminalize support for LGBT rights.
In such countries, invoking a company’s nondiscrimination protections might require LGBT employees to out themselves to company officers in a way that could expose them to arrest or extortion. That could mean policies on paper have little effect on the ground, or might force companies into difficult confrontations with local governments. Read more via Buzzfeed
Asia: Global HIV targets ‘could be derailed’ by hook up apps
A new UN report cites the boom in hook-up apps as one of the drivers of a worsening HIV epidemic in Asia. The report found that HIV infections had surged among young people, aged 10-19, in the Asia-Pacific region.
Analysing data from Thailand, it notes: “Bangkok’s intensifying HIV epidemic among young MSM is largely a result of extensive sexual risk-taking, a higher number of partners, overall increased biological vulnerability through unprotected anal sex with an HIV positive partner, low uptake of HIV testing, and an earlier age of first sex – frequently in the low to mid-teens.
“The explosion of smartphone gay dating apps has expanded the options for casual spontaneous sex as never before – mobile app users in the same vicinity (if not the same street) can locate each other and arrange an immediate sexual encounter with a few screen touches.” Read more via PinkNews
Grindr and World AIDS Day 2015
When we created Grindr for Equality, we envisioned education and support for sexual health in addition to our work for LGBTQ rights. Today, World AIDS Day, we proudly recommit to these efforts, which exist in a four-pronged plan for your health. In the latter half of 2015, we took a deep dive into the third piece of this plan, as we sought to understand our users’ experience with pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP.
So along with our partners at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF) and with help from the Center for Disease Control and the Gilead science team, we fielded a survey and heard from Grindr users who shared their experiences. We’re very excited here to be able to share a little bit of what we found. Read more via Grindr
Grindr and other hook-up apps offer free adverts to HIV testing service
Three dating apps popular with gay and bisexual men – Grindr, Hornet and Planet Romeo – have announced that they are to host free advertising to promote a new, mobile-optimized European HIV Test Finder.
The test finder was devised by Aidsmap and lists over 2,000 HIV testing centers and clinics in all 28 EU countries. The initiative has been organized by a pan-country group of HIV organizations, including Terrence Higgins Trust in the UK, Soak Aids in the Netherlands and RSFL (Sweden), the European Centre of Disease Prevention, among others.
Dr Andrew Amato-Gauci, Head of the ECDC Programme on HIV/AIDS, STI and viral hepatitis said in a statement: ‘Across Europe, 47 per cent of newly reported HIV cases are diagnosed late although we know that those tested early are a lot less likely to pass the virus on to others because of both lower infectivity when on treatment and changes in sexual and drug injecting behavior.
‘Whether on your computer or on your mobile phone, with the European HIV Test Finder it will only take you a few seconds to locate a testing site near you – wherever you are in Europe.” Read more via Gay Star News
Is your fav vacation spot Paradise or Persecution for LGBT people?
Can you tell heaven from hell? It's not all palm trees and blue seas for local LGBT people. Take the quiz yourself and help improve the lives of LGBT people.
The quality of the local nightlife, museums and beaches matters more to people thinking of a holiday abroad than whether their hotel waiter is likely to be sentenced to death or imprisoned for being gay.
That’s a finding from an opinion poll by an international HIV charity ahead of the launch of an online quiz, ‘Paradise or Persecution’ , which aims to raise awareness of the more than 75 countries in the world that criminalise people on the grounds of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
But a HIV charity thinks people would probably think twice about holidaying in a country that criminalises Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender (LGBT) communities, if they knew the scale of the problem. More
UK: Making business the frontline in the fight against HIV
In the UK, HIV represents one of the most serious health conditions; there are an estimated 107,800 people living with HIV, one quarter of whom are estimated to be unaware of their infection. The main routes of transmission vary, but infection rates remain stubbornly and disproportionately higher in some key populations such as men who have sex with men, migrant populations, injecting drug users and sex workers.
One way to reach those who either don’t want to or don’t feel able to use sexual health clinics is to deliver services where those who need them are--creating opportunities for healthier “settings”, or more supportive environments for health. A bar, club, or sauna can be developed into a healthy place to reach target populations.
In recent projects business owners successfully engaged with HIV prevention and other health promotion interventions. They provided customers with access to condoms and lubricants, HIV/STI information on prevention and treatment, and offered HIV/STI testing. In some cases, business owners went even further. Important changes were made to workplace policies to support HIV issues. Staff got sexual health training so they were better able to support customers, while staff and clients were assured non-disclosure and non-discrimination through supportive policies and practices. Read more via The Conversation
US: Weddings of same-sex couples boosted state and local economies by $813M this summer
Marriages by same-sex couples have generated an estimated $813 million boost to state and local economies and $52 million in state and local sales tax revenue since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision extending marriage equality, according to a new study.
Since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, 96,000 same-sex couples have tied the knot. This study, titled “Estimating the Economic Impact of Marriage for Same-sex Couples after Obergefell,” estimates the impact of those marriages on state and local economies, sales tax revenue and job creation. Read more via Williams Institute
Australia: Business study says firms can do more to promote diversity and inclusion
A study carried out by the University of Sydney Business School (USBS) has concluded that Australian companies could be doing more to promote diversity and inclusion (D&I), and that doing so will boost business performance. The study, entitled Benchmarking Diversity and Inclusion Practices in Australia, found that approximately 4 out of ten companies (39%) who responded to the survey had no diversity and inclusion budget.
‘I think the budget issue is quite a complex one,’ said Associate Professor Di van den Broek from the University of Sydney’s Business School. ‘Sixty per cent of our respondents said they had a budget but a lot of those who had a budget said it was inadequate to push through the diversity and inclusion agenda that they wanted.’
Another key finding was that only 41% of diversity and inclusion practitioners said that their organizations measured the outcomes of their D&I initiatives. This is despite the fact that an increasing number of companies are recognizing the business benefits of promoting diversity and inclusion. Read more via Gay Star News
Japan: Lifenet to let same-sex partners be designated policy beneficiaries
Lifenet Insurance Co. has said it will allow policyholders to designate their same-sex partners as their life insurance beneficiaries. The Japanese company currently restricts the scope of beneficiary designation to legal spouses and relatives within two degrees of relationship, as well as to opposite-sex partners in de facto relationships under certain conditions.
The move comes after Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward put an ordinance into force in April to allow the municipality to certify same-sex partnerships as equivalent to marriage. The ward began accepting applications this week. Read more via Japan Times
US: Gay issues enter the world of philanthropy
When a donor made a $100,000 gift to the Girl Scouts’ Western Washington Council last March, it was time to break out the hand-shaped clappers. One hundred thousand dollars was a big donation for the council, which represents about 25,500 girls in 17 counties in the western part of Washington State.
But in late April, after the funds were in hand, Ms. Ferland received a letter from the donor. "They wanted assurance that their funds would not help support transgender girls participating and if I couldn’t give that assurance they wanted the money returned.” Before she even finished reading the letter, “I thought to myself, ‘The money’s going back.’”
After the money was returned, Ms. Ferland says, a staff member suggested the organization start a crowd-funded campaign to replace the lost donation.
“Help us raise back the $100,000 a donor asked us to return because we welcome transgender girls." In a little over five hours, the site had already received over $100,000 in donations. By the end of that first day, the number was up to $243,958 from 4,760 donors. By the time the fund-raising effort was concluded a month later, the organization had raised $365,573.
US: Dating apps fire back at billboards linking STD spread
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is defending an ad campaign in Los Angeles that links popular dating apps with the spread of sexual transmitted diseases. The group has sponsored billboards and bus benches that are aimed at reminding users about the risks of casual sex and offering free STD tests.
"In many ways, location-based mobile dating apps are becoming a digital bathhouse for millennials wherein the next sexual encounter can literally just be a few feet away — as well as the next STD," Whitney Engeran-Cordova, senior public health director for the foundation, said in a statement.
Tinder sent a cease and desist letter claiming the campaign falsely associates the dating app with the spread of venereal diseases: "These unprovoked and wholly unsubstantiated accusations are made to irreparably damage Tinder's reputation in an attempt to encourage others to take an HIV test offered by your organization," a lawyer for Tinder wrote.
The foundation sent a letter to Tinder denying that it disparaged the company and saying it would not remove the reference to the app. Read More via AP