This time it's still a warning for the LGBT people who were netted in the previous raids.
Trinidad and Tobago: Teacher wants a gun
A teacher at the prestigious Naparima College in San Fernando, is under fire, for a rant against homosexuality, going as far as wanting a gun to deal with such persons and other problems in the world. The teacher is said to have made initial comments on the issue during morning assembly at the school on Thursday last and subsequently in a classroom session. According to reports, a student announced to the assembly it was 'ok to be gay' before he was verbally attacked by the teacher.
Referring to the parents of a student who had openly professed to being gay, the teacher reportedly said: “He has two parents, who should not be parents. They are both screw-ups, they are atheists, they do not believe in God.” “You see me,” she is said to have continued, “Give me a gun and I will fix all the problems in the world, both of them (parents) first, then their offspring. Do not tell me there is no God,” she added while noting that persons with such beliefs should keep it to themselves.
The audio recording of which the teacher’s voice has been identified, as the one addressing a classroom session, has gone viral on social media, generating numerous comments both for her gun talk and jab at homosexuals. A senior official at the school confirmed the incident, saying that a report was being prepared to be passed to the Ministry of Education.
Scotland is training a small army of LGBT-friendly police officers to stamp out hate crime
Scotland’s police force has ramped up its commitment to tacking anti-LGBT hate crime. LGBTI charity the Equality Network is collaborating with Police Scotland to deliver a training programme for police at locations around the country – aimed at helping police support victims of hate crime, and increasing public confidence in police.
The more than 60 new LGBT Liaison Officers are intended to be the hub of a network across Scotland, that is accessible to the local LGBT and intersex communities. Superintendent Jim Baird of Police Scotland’s Safer Communities Department said: “Tackling hate crime is a priority for Police Scotland. We are delighted to have worked with the Equality Network.
"Research and studies show hate crime against the LGBTI community is often under reported. We hope that these specially trained officers will encourage more LGBTI people to come forward with the confidence in Police Scotland to help reverse this trend.” Read more via PinkNews
India: Op-ed, They dare to hate this minority
How is it that a religious objection to freeing India’s LGBT community can pass muster in a democracy? There is a self-contradiction involved in religious bodies objecting to the admission of a curative petition against Section 377. Religious organisations function freely because the Constitution protects the citizen’s right to both freedom of expression and free speech.
Among these is the right to not only adopt the faith of one’s choice but also to propagate it. By denying sexual choice to the LGBT community the ACA and MPLB undermine the source of their own freedoms, the Constitution. Of course, it is not for the first time that we have witnessed the expression of intolerance by purohits, mullahs and padres. Usually they suppress women. This time they have united in their fear of sexual freedom and hatred of the other that dares to pursue it. The more important question is, how it is that we have come to tolerate such intolerance?
The origins of this inconsistency lie in the colonialist’s construction of India.
Alarming: 77 trans people murdered in 70 days
Transgender Europe’s (TGEU) Trans Murder Monitoring project (TMM) reveals 77 reported murders of trans and gender diverse people in 17 countries globally in the first 70 days of 2016. There have been 31 reported murders of trans and gender diverse people in January, 35 in February, and already 11 in the first ten days of March.
Brazil, with a shocking amount of 36 reported murders, spearheads the list: one trans person killed every second day. Brazil is followed by Mexico (10 murders so far), the United States (6), El Salvador (5), Argentina (4), Colombia (3), Venezuela (3), as well as countries with one trans and gender diverse person reported murder: Bangladesh, Costa Rica, France, Georgia, Honduras, India, Nepal, Russia and Turkey. The American continent, therefore, accounts for 90% of the reported homicides of trans and gender diverse persons this year so far. Read more via TvT
Under attack, Indonesian LGBT groups set up safehouses, live in fear
LGBT activists, facing a barrage of homophobia and hate speech by Indonesian authorities, are setting up hotlines and safehouses, while "unfriending" people on social media and deleting website directories that could expose them to violence. Indonesia's LGBT rights groups have been active for decades and have come under attack before, but usually only for one or two days at a time. This time, the anti-LGBT rhetoric began about two months ago, say activists who describe a community living in fear.
"This is the first time it's actually lasted this long," said Dede Oetomo, a prominent activist who founded one of the country's oldest LGBT rights groups, GAYa NUSANTARA, in 1987. There have been a few incidents of LGBT people being harassed, and Oetomo said LGBT groups are now working to set up safehouses and draw up evacuation plans in case of need.
International Women’s Day: the issues faced by sexual and gender diverse women
On a day that champions the achievements of women while recognising the ongoing struggle of gender inequality, Anna Brown believes it’s important to highlight women who face intersectional discrimination – because of both their sexual and gender identities.
International Women’s Day is an annual celebration of women around the world, one that Brown sees as a significant opportunity to raise awareness around women in the LGBTI community:
“Around the world lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and intersex women face human rights abuses such as corrective rape, physical attacks, and even murder. As queer women in Australia we have an important role to play in standing in solidarity with women across the world. For instance, we need to ensure that our government’s foreign policy initiatives on women and girls are inclusive of lesbian, bisexual, trans, and intersex women.”
UK: This is what domestic violence is like when you’re LGBT
Sam was three months pregnant when her girlfriend Lynn raped her. They were at home. Sensing that Lynn wanted sex, Sam decided to tell her that she did not. “She suddenly got nasty,” says Sam, flatly. “She was physically a lot bigger than me. She pinned me against a doorway and said, ‘I’ll have what I fucking like if I fucking want it.’ She assaulted me.”
Sam is in her early thirties. It is only in the last few months she has felt able to talk about the events of her early twenties. She looks up briefly, as we sit talking in a half-empty restaurant, and asks, “How do you say to your friends, ‘My girlfriend rapes me’ when their only mental definition of rape is a man forcing his penis inside a woman’s vagina? How do you say you were assaulted when it comes back to the idea of ‘that doesn’t count’? Well, it does count.”
It is a story that not only Sam finds difficult to tell, but one that many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people struggle to disclose. BuzzFeed News spoke to both LGBT survivors of domestic abuse and an organisation trying to help them – amid a backdrop of cuts to funding.
As the accounts of violence, rape, bullying, coercion, and control surfaced, sometimes for the first time, two questions began to form: What prevents LGBT people in particular from speaking out? And, what external forces are stopping them from finding safety?
Poland: Office of Campaign Against Homophobia (KPH) has been attacked
Office of the Campaign Against Homophobia (KPH) was attacked on 3rd of March. Three young men tried to break into the premises of the KPH, shouting offensive terms to the employees of the organisation. Few activists of the KPH were present at the office by the time of the incident and they called the police immediately. However, the attackers managed to escape before the police officers arrived.
Worth noting that, this is the second occasion in the past few days when LGBT organisation has been under attack. Earlier this week, someone threw a brick to the office of the Lambda Warszawa and broke the windows. Everybody is safe and unhurt. Read more via KPH
Nigeria: The trials of modern LGBT life
excerpt: I’ve dedicated some time to write articles on the gay issues in Africa, with a special focus on my home country, Nigeria. The great thing about sharing my story, aside from creating awareness, is that I’ve met lots of African gays who share their own stories, including a friend of mine, Sam, who was in Lagos, when he went to a café to meet up with a guy he found on Grindr last year. The guy followed him from the cafe and asked Sam for his phone. Suddenly, two guys appeared, telling Sam to cooperate. It dawned on him that this was a set up.
Instinctively Sam began yelling, “Thief!” to draw attention from passers-by. He had no gay content on his phone so these men couldn’t prove anything. The men began yelling, “Gay, Gay, Gay!” thinking the passers-by would attack Sam. Sam, with the confidence that there was no evidence of his sexuality, told them he’d get the police involved.
Three passers-by stopped and asked what was wrong. The men told them that Sam was gay and they set a trap for him. They said they had proof that Sam was gay. By then, eight people had joined the onlookers. A lady spoke up, “If he is gay, what’s your business?” Someone else said, “Homosexuality is legal is several countries, what’s your point?” Read more via EQ views
US: Father aims loaded gun at daughter after she comes out as lesbian
A man has been arrested in North Dakota for aiming a loaded gun at his teenage daughter after she came out as a lesbian. Police responded to a phone call at about 6.45pm Sunday from Bakir’s daughter, who said he was going to ‘blow her head off.’ Bakir surrendered the gun to officers and said he did not intend to harm his daughter but was just upset that she is a lesbian, court papers said.
Russia: This gay assault victim has the best response for those who thinks he should stay closeted
A gay Russian man was brutally attacked outside a grocery store for looking like a ‘fag’. Posting the images of his injuries on social media, many told him if he dyed his hair a normal color and he should keep closeted for his own safety. He doesn’t agree.
‘According to some, I need to stop talking about gay rights and to accept the reality that in Syzran and Russia that all gays will never be accepted as the norm,’ he wrote on his VK page. ‘Live as yourself behind closed doors with a boyfriend, and everything will be alright. If I wasn’t “searching for trouble”, my life would be a fairy tale. That “happily ever after” is a lie. If you submit to homophobes, if you submit to the closet, you’re not living your best possible life. While I might have a broken face, you have a broken life.' Read more via Gay Star News