Transgender persons and activists welcome Kerala State Youth Commission’s order which says that there should be a column for male, female and transgenders in college and work applications.
Malaysia: LGBT pride march in Taylor’s University cancelled after Islamist pressure
Japan: Sexual minority group offers photo shoot with school uniforms
Poland: Why Online Sex Education is Necessary in Poland Today
Natalia Trybus is a sex educator and YouTuber. Her channel PinkCandy has over 50,000 subscribers. In her short films, she talks about female condoms, hymen types, masturbation, stand-to-pee devices and STDs. If not for her job at a Poznań sex shop, she would never have found the courage to start her YouTube channel on human sexuality.
US: This bus is on a road trip to convince you that transgender people aren’t real
An orange bus rolled onto the streets of Manhattan to make its first stop on an East Coast tour, during which a load of activist passengers will evangelize that transgender people don't exist and citizens must rise up to complain about their growing acceptance.
The creators are calling it the "Free Speech Bus," and they've decorated it with male and female stick figures along with the slogan: "Boys are boys... and always will be. Girls are girls... and always will be. You can't change sex. Respect all."
On Wednesday, they parked outside the United Nations headquarters, where ambassadors are considering a sex education resolution that a spokesperson for the bus argued promotes "an ideology that gender is fluid."
"We are trying to strike back against that," said Joseph Grabowski, a spokesperson for the National Organization for Marriage, one of the three conservative groups behind the project. They hope parading the bus through major cities will unleash a silent majority that they believe is frustrated by shifting norms about gender and families.
In their efforts to block LGBT legal protections since the Supreme Court resolved questions about same-sex marriage, religious conservatives have struggled to spark conversations among ordinary people. While they have sometimes reached the airwaves during controversies around bills to restrict bathroom usage, they've often played political defense, or found their message buried in the back of newspapers and the back rooms of legislatures. Read more via Buzzfeed
Don't worry, @ChelseaClinton, we'll be there soon. 😉 #FreeSpeechBus @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/gAJh6haRfs
— CitizenGO (@CitizenGO) March 4, 2017
South Africa: Equality Court rules in favour of transgender learner
US: White House Reverses Obama-Era Transgender Bathroom Protections
by Ali Vitali, Pete Williams and Mary Emily O'Hara
In a complete reversal of the Obama administration's position, President Donald Trump's administration formally rescinded past guidance on transgender bathroom protections in public schools.
Letters from the Justice and Education departments late Wednesday notified the Supreme Court and the nation's public schools that the administration is changing its position on the issue.
Former President Barack Obama instructed public schools that they must allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with a child's chosen gender identity. The guidance was issued as an interpretation of Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.
Now, the administration is revoking key guidance on which that policy was based. The letter informs the court that the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division will no longer "rely on the views expressed in that guidance, and instead will consider further and more completely the legal issues involved."
The two federal departments advise their belief that "there must be due regard for the primary role of the States and local school districts in establishing educational policy."
In addition, the letter knocks down the past administration's interpretation of transgender rights as an extension of Title IX by saying the Obama administration's guidance did not "contain extensive legal analysis or explain how the position is consistent with the express language of Title IX, nor did they undergo any formal public process." Read more via NBC
US: Eight states censor LGBTQ topics in school. Now, a lawsuit is challenging that
As a 16-year-old junior in high school, Harper McGee had to fight for the ability to say “gay” on campus.
At the time, McGee and a friend were trying to create a Gay-Straight Alliance group at Lone Peak High School in Highland, Utah, in the fall of 2014. McGee wanted to have an organized place where students could talk about LGBTQ issues, but It wasn’t easy. School officials were concerned about the name because, as one of them said, it “include[d] a reference to human sexuality.”
Utah is one of eight states that has laws, sometimes called “no promo homo” laws, that limit how teachers can talk about LGBTQ issues with students, or forbid it altogether. While some teachers say the laws reflect parents’ concerns about discussing sex at school, some LGBTQ activists say they perpetuate a culture of fear among students who need support. And now, for the first time, a lawsuit is aiming to overturn one of them. Read more via PBS
China: Qiubai sued the Ministry of Education for calling teaching materials "stigma"
Today (10th) afternoon, the "Qiubai sued the Ministry of Education" case involving discrimination against sexual orientation was opened in the second instance of the Beijing Higher People's Court. The case was not pronounced in court. The plaintiff's attorney Yu Liying stated that Qiu Baifang provided new evidence and expanded the content of the infringement, but the Ministry of Education did not recognize the relevance of the evidence.
Beijing News Express (Reporter Wang Wei, intern Wu Linyue) Today (10th) afternoon, the "Qiubai sued the Ministry of Education" involving sexual orientation discrimination opened in the second instance of the Beijing Higher People's Court, and the case was not pronounced in court. The plaintiff's attorney Yu Liying stated that Qiu Baifang provided new evidence and expanded the content of the infringement, but the Ministry of Education did not recognize the relevance of the evidence.
The Beijing News previously reported that in August 2015, Qiubai (pseudonym), a homosexual female college student in Guangzhou, took the Ministry of Education to court because the Ministry of Education did not respond to her application for “discrimination against homosexuality in college textbooks” and did not fulfill it. Information disclosure responsibilities.
At 3:45 this afternoon, Qiubai's case against the Ministry of Education opened. The focus of the case is still "whether the handling of teaching materials supervision matters has violated Qiubai's rights."
The attorney Yu Liying disclosed to the Beijing News reporter that the plaintiff claimed in the first instance that Qiubai had violated his personal rights and the right to education when he was reading textbooks involving "stigmatizing homosexuality". In the second trial, Qiu Baifang submitted supplementary evidence that Qiu Bai bought a textbook that stigmatizes homosexuality-"Mental Health Course" as an elective course, and suffered property losses. In summary, the Ministry of Education's ineffective supervision of teaching materials has a stake in Qiubai's personal rights, education rights, and property rights.
According to his description of the court hearing, the Ministry of Education insisted on the opinion of the first instance and believed that the handling of materials supervision matters did not directly infringe Qiubai's rights. "The Ministry of Education denied the relevance of the evidence we presented when responding, saying that these were not direct evidence."
After the trial, Qiubai told the Beijing News reporter that he "will never give up" the revision of college textbooks that discriminate against homosexuality. "If I lose the case, I can still appeal to the procuratorate. If this is possible, I will certainly try. I will also go directly to lobby publishers and editors to revise the textbook."
Case review: Qiubai's "Three Sues" Ministry of Education
Today is the fourth time Qiubai has filed a lawsuit with the Ministry of Education, and the sixth time he has filed a lawsuit for "stigmatizing homosexuals in college teaching materials."
In May 2015, Qiubai sued Guangdong Higher Education Press for harming his reputation due to a similar description of "homosexuality is pathological" in textbooks. However, the court held that "the publication has no direct legal relationship with Qiubai" and did not file a case. Qiubai turned to the Ministry of Education to file a lawsuit three times.
"One suit": pre-trial mediation, withdrawal of the suit
On November 24, 2015, Qiubai held a dialogue with officials of the Ministry of Education in the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court in the form of pre-trial mediation. The Ministry of Education stated that it had not received any report from Qiubai on "homophobia" teaching materials, and suggested that it should be reported. Qiubai withdrew the lawsuit.
From December 2015 to March 2016, Baifang sent a letter to the Ministry of Education, but did not receive a reply.
"Second complaint": the court did not file a case
On April 25, 2016, Qiubai sued the Ministry of Education for inaction, and the court did not file a case.
In May 2016, Qiubai filed an administrative reconsideration against the Ministry of Education, which will not be accepted.
"Three Accusations": Lost in the first instance
On February 22, 2016, Qiubai mailed a report letter to the Ministry of Education, but the Ministry of Education did not reply.
On May 16, 2016, Qiubai applied to the Ministry of Education for administrative reconsideration and again asked for a reply. The Ministry of Education decided not to accept it.
On June 14, 2016, Qiubai took the Ministry of Education to court for the third time, and Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court filed the case. This case is called "the first case of gay education rights in China".
On September 27, 2016, the verdict of the first instance was pronounced and Qiu Bai lost the case. The court held that Qiubai had no interest in his request. Qiubai immediately appealed.
The fear of trans bodies.
Chinese gay activist challenges homosexuality 'disorder' textbooks
A gay Chinese student activist on Monday lodged a suit against the Ministry of Education over school textbooks describing homosexuality as a mental disorder, the latest step by China’s small but growing gay rights movement.
It is not illegal to be gay in China and these days many large Chinese cities have thriving gay scenes, though there is still a lot of family pressure to get married and have children, even for gay men and women.
Homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder until 2001.
However, Chinese universities continue to use textbooks that contain terms such as “disorder” and “impediment” to refer to homosexuality, research the Gay and Lesbian Campus Association of China carried out in 2014 found.
Qiu Bai, 21 and a media studies student at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, told Reuters she came across similar materials when she turned to the books in her university library after beginning to question her own sexual orientation. Read more via Reuters