Australia’s first out gay MP uses maiden speech to speak out for gay people

Australia's first openly gay MP in the House of Representatives used his maiden speech to denounce homophobia and people who “peddle prejudice”.

Trent Zimmerman won the seat of North Sydney in a by-election after his predecessor, former federal Treasurer Joe Hockey, quit politics in 2015. After he was sworn into parliament a month ago, Zimmerman vowed to work for the rights of LGBTI people and for the issues important in his electorate.

At 12.30pm today, he rose to deliver his first speech as an MP, flanked by marriage equality advocate and far north Queensland Liberal MP Warren Entsch who wore a rainbow tie in support. Zimmerman’s speech proved to be popular, going viral and trending on Twitter nationally for more than five hours at the time of print.  Read more via Star Observer

Indonesia's Defence Minister threatens 'warfare' against gay community

Indonesia's gay community has come under attack, with the country's Defence Minister labelling the community a "threat" and likening fighting it to "a kind of modern warfare". Ministers and religious leaders have denounced homosexuality, blocked lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) websites and emboldened hardliners launching anti-gay raids.

When a minister criticised counselling services for gay students at a university last month, it triggered a heated media debate and was the start of what activists say has been a sustained assault on gay rights.   Read more via ABC
 

Australia: Safe Schools Coalition: what is the Christian Right afraid of?

At the instigation of conservative Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has requested an investigation into the Safe Schools Coalition. In doing so, Turnbull has given voice to, and legitimised, discredited and prejudiced views that inclusive sexuality education will turn kids gay.

Safe Schools is a world-leading, evidence-based program to make schools safe environments for same-sex-attracted, intersex and gender-diverse students, staff and families. 

Sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and intersex status are protected grounds in international human rights legislation on education. They are also protected in Australian national legislation. Australia’s work opposing homophobia and transphobia in schools is internationally celebrated, and featured in UNESCO best-practice documentation. This begs the question: on what grounds should we be investigating this program? 

Read more via the Conversation

Australia: Malcolm Turnbull requests investigation into program helping LGBTI students

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has requested an investigation into a taxpayer-funded program aimed at helping lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and/or intersex (LGBTI) school students.

Key points:

Safe Schools program criticised for raising 'inappropriate' sexual issues with children
Review of program's material expected to be completed by March
Cory Bernardi says "radical" program is "indoctrinating" children
Penny Wong says program addressing discrimination against LGBTI community
The Safe Schools education program is set to be reviewed following fierce criticism from some Coalition backbenchers.

According to its website, the Safe Schools Coalition offers resources and support to equip staff and students with "skills, practical ideas and greater confidence" to create a safe and inclusive environment for same-sex attracted, intersex and gender diverse students, staff and families.

But some Coalition MPs have been agitating against the program, saying it raises sexual issues which are inappropriate for teenagers and young children. Read more via ABC

UK: The gay teacher transforming a Muslim school

It took one complaint from a parent “as a Christian” to undo all Andrew Moffat’s work teaching children respect for people of different sexual orientation. A meeting of 40 parents followed with calls for an apology. Above all, the parents objected that he had told children he was gay. Moffat felt he could no longer continue and resigned. Far from retreating to a safe haven, however, he crossed Birmingham to take up an even greater challenge: assistant headteacher at Parkfield Community school, where 98.9% of pupils are from Muslim families.

That was two years ago. With the backing of the headteacher, Moffat went on to introduce a No Outsiders policy promoting diversity at the 770-pupil school, where 23 nationalities are represented. That includes welcoming people of any race, colour or religion and those who are LGBT.

A gay teacher teaching gay rights to pupils from a faith that believes homosexuality is a sin, punishable by death in some countries? It doesn’t seem possible and yet the school’s Muslim parents appear to have accepted that children can be taught about Britain’s anti-discrimination laws without undermining their religious beliefs. Learning from his unhappy experience at his previous school, Moffat has been careful to centre the policy around the Equality Act 2010, to first gain the support of the governing body, and to keep parents fully informed, inviting them in to see the books that would be used.  Read more via the Guardian

Australia: After this anti-gay group tried to ruin a dance for LGBTI teens, everyone just donated to it instead

An anti-gay group’s attempt to ruin a formal for LGBTI youth backfired badly after people on social media responded by donating to the event instead. A Facebook page for 'Stop Safe Schools Coalition' is encouraging followers to buy tickets to an upcoming LGBTI youth formal in order to prevent young people from being able to attend. Ironically, the dance is not funded by Safe Schools Coalition, but another non-profit: Minus18.

After learning of the protest, people began donating to support Minus18 and the formal— exceeding $48,000 via chuffed.org  so far (you can still donate). Organisers say they’re “ecstatic”, and are looking at making the event free for all by refunding tickets bought by those actually attending.  

Read more via Buzzfeed
 

Turkey: All gender bathroom initiative achieves success at Boğaziçi University

Today, we talked to Beren Azizi and Görkem Ulumeriç of Boğaziçi University LGBTI Studies Association about the “All Gender Bathroom” campaign, which officially yielded its initial successful outcome.

Beren Azizi: This idea emerged from analyses of the “violation of rights” that result from “deprivation.” Education is a human right, because everyone is equal; however in practice we see that things do not really work that way. LGBTI+ students drop out of their studies, do not come to school, they are depressed or “unsuccessful.”

When you start asking what happened and what went wrong, you realize that places, where a fundamental right such as education is offered, are in fact filled with challenges and obstacles for the LGBTI+’s. Toilets, as we see from numerous scientific studies around the world, are one of those obstacles. Based on the feedback we received from LGBTI+ students, we realized that “All Gender Bathroom” is a right and we should demand it.  Read more via LGBTI News Turkey

UK: Sex education will not be compulsory

England's education secretary has rejected MPs' calls to make sex-and-relationship education compulsory in all schools, infuriating campaigners. Four key House of Commons committees wrote to Nicky Morgan last month, pressing for sex education to be made statutory in primaries and secondaries. In response, Mrs Morgan now says the government "will continue" to keep the subject's status "under review".

But the National Aids Trust said it was "extremely disappointed". The trust's chief executive Deborah Gold said the decision meant the subject "will continue to be delivered according to the whims of individual head teachers rather than the needs of young people".

Last month, the chairmen of the education, health, home affairs and business committees wrote to Mrs Morgan saying personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE), which includes sex education, was a "crucial part of preparing young people for life". Read more via BBC

Five things you can do for your intersex child

I was born with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, an intersex trait that wasn’t discovered until I was a teenager. I’m externally female, meaning I was born with a vagina, so my parents had no reason or way to know that I was intersex. I was a teenager when doctors discovered, because of an unrelated event, that I had XY chromosomes, internal testes, and a blind-ended vaginal pouch.

When doctors told my parents I was intersex, they also instructed them to withhold the diagnosis from me in order to protect the development of my gender identity. My parents went along with the doctor’s recommendation, and a few years after my diagnosis, when doctors determined my breasts were sufficiently developed and I was of a reasonable height for a woman, my testes were surgically removed. At the time of the surgery, I didn’t know that the surgeon was removing my testes, because I didn’t even know I had them.

Given my experience as an intersex person, activist, and sociologist who studies intersex, I offer below a list of five things I hope you do for your intersex child.  Read more via The Parents Project 

US: List of schools allowed to discriminate against LGBT students will be published online

Religious schools that receive federal money yet obtain federal exemptions to discriminate against LGBT students and employees will have their waivers posted online for public view, under a decision by the Department of Education. Announced in a letter to lawmakers, the decision comes one month after eight U.S. senators requested more transparency into the practice of granting school waivers from Title IX of the Education Act.

The 1972 law bans publicly funded schools from engaging in sex-based discrimination — which the Obama administration has applied to protect LGBT students — but Congress also provided an exemption for religious schools.

The assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department, Catherine Lhamon, told the senators on Wednesday that her office is planning to post the waiver requests and the government’s reply letters “on our website with a basic search tool so that applicants, students, parents, and others can be better informed about which educational institutions have sought and/or received a religious exemption.”

Led by Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the lawmakers said in December, “We are concerned these waivers allow for discrimination under the guise of religious freedom.” They continued: “At a very minimum, we believe that parents, students, and taxpayers have a right to know when institutions of higher education — as recipients of tax dollars — seek and receive exemptions under Title IX as well as the justification of those exemptions.”  Read more via Buzzfeed 

Iceland primary school introduces gender-neutral toilets

An Icelandic elementary school has removed gender signs from its bathrooms in an effort to become “gender neutral”. The principal thinks that other schools should do the same: “One simply has to be conscious about the fact that we are not all the same and everybody has the right to be as they are,” says Sigurbjörg Róbertsdóttir, principal of Reykjanesbær’s elementary school, Akurskóli, where school officials have had gender signs removed from the school’s restrooms.

And removing gender signs from restroom isn’t the only change the school has brought about this year. It has also changed one of the instructions regarding swimming lessons, in a memo that is sent home to parents. Instead of the typical phrasing of “girls should wear swimsuits and boys should wear swimtrunks”, it simply states that children should wear appropriate swim-attire, without categorizing which gender should wear what.

The procedure itself wasn’t explained specifically to the children. However the school asked Samtökin ’78, the national queer organization, to come and do a lecture on prejudice.  Read more via Gay Iceland