Australia: Safe Schools stoush highlights deep divisions in Coalition

A stoush over Safe Schools has highlighted deep divisions within the Coalition as some MPs air their grievances with the anti-bullying program while others throw their support behind it.

A review into the program was ordered by the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, late last month after backbench unrest about its content. The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said: “I think it’s beyond a joke that Mr Turnbull is fanning the fires of the lunar right of his political party.

“Mr Turnbull has to show leadership. His mistake was not in slapping down this issue earlier. Now he has a standoff between an insurgent rightwing backbench and his minister for education.”

Conservatives within the Coalition say the anti-bullying campaign, which aims to stamp out homophobia and transphobia, undermines a parent’s ability to teach their children about gender and sexuality.  

 Read more via the Guardian
 

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.  

Read more via Newsdays
 

US: Teens these days are queer af, new study says

A new survey of young Americans aged 13 to 20 years old (also known, in marketing-speak, as "Generation Z") has found that they are far more open-minded and permissive than their older millennial counterparts when it comes to issues of gender and sexuality. According to a report by trend forecasting agency J. Walter Thompson Innovation Group, only 48% of Gen Zs identify as exclusively heterosexual, compared to 65% of millennials aged 21 to 34.

"We did a survey of Gen Z for a report released in May 2015 and found that 81% said that gender doesn't define a person as much as it used to," said Shepherd Laughlin, the director of trendspotting at J. Walter Thompson.

"That was an intriguing statistic that got a lot of attention in the media, but we weren't sure quite what it meant: Were they just saying, for example, that men or women could pursue any career they wanted to? Or did this reflect the more radical idea that gender itself isn't as important to personal identity as it used to be, or that gender shouldn't be seen as a binary? This new research shows that the latter idea is gaining significant traction among Gen Zers."

"Millennials are quite open when it comes to gender identity, generally, but they haven't been exposed to the range of vocabulary and nuance around this that Gen Z has become accustomed to, especially when it comes to discussions on online platforms like Tumblr," Laughlin said. "I think that as Gen Zers eventually enter the workplace and interact more with millennials as adults, millennials will gain a better understanding of these issues, and the gap will narrow."   Read more via Broadly

UK: Government pledges £1 million to tackle homophobic bullying

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan has announced £1 million of funding, which is being put towards tackling LGBT bullying in schools. Mrs Morgan, who is also Minister for Equalities, said: “I am determined to do all I can to consign homophobic and transphobic bullying to the dustbin of history.”

Despite having opposed marriage equality in 2013, Morgan has made homophobic bullying one of her top priorities since taking the Education portfolio in the Conservative government. She had previously delivered a £2 million package in October 2014 to tackle the same issue.

Stonewall Chief Executive Ruth Hunt said the funding – which has been announced less than a month after the government rejected recommendations for mandatory, inclusive sex and relationship education in schools – was “crucial” to teaching young people about the importance of inclusivity and acceptance. Read more via Attitude 

Australia: Meet the trans kids fighting for the right to transition

Access to medical treatment changes transgender people’s lives. It can mean the difference between employment and homelessness, education and dropping out, wellbeing and depression, anxiety and suicide. But for many, it remains out of reach.

Australia is the only Western country where transgender people under the age of 18 must seek court permission to start taking cross-sex hormones. At best, experts say, the delay causes emotional trauma and financial stress. At worst, it’s a matter of life and death. Read more via Buzzfeed

Kiddle the child-friendly, Google-powered search censoring 'bisexual' and 'transgender'

A new search engine aimed at children blocks words such as “bisexual” and “transgender” and says that they are “bad words”. The search engine uses Google’s technology by allowing people to search in a custom Google search bar. But it is meant to keep children safe, by excluding words that could be damaging to children.

Many of those words lead to pages that could be useful to children, however. And sites related to sexuality, gender and other important topics are still being missed. The site also still allows people to see adult content when searching for words like Pamela Anderson, and does not filter a story about a Danish radio host killing a rabbit.

The site says that its search results “are either handpicked and checked by our editors or filtered by Google safe search”. That process means that people “get kid-oriented results without any explicit content”.  Read more via the Independent

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