Scott Wiener, San Francisco Supervisor, District 8: "I'm HIV-negative, and I want to remain that way. I recently decided to be public about my use of PrEP in order to raise awareness about this relatively new tool for preventing HIV. It's important to encourage people at risk for HIV to talk to their medical providers." Wiener isn't the only one coming out for PrEP, everyday couples and individuals share their stories about being proactive for safer sex. Read More
Is 'Undetectable' the New Safe Sex?
The landmark Partner study that everyone is talking about—which tracked HIV transmission risk through condomless sex if the HIV-positive partner is on suppressive antiretroviral medication—has so far found not even one case of an HIV-positive person with an undetectable viral load transmitting the virus to a partner. But people in your everyday life may still be a little disbelieving.
“The most common response I get from disbelievers is that positive men use ‘undetectable’ as a way of getting people to sleep with them without a condom,” says Tyler Curry, an editor with the new group HIV Equal, who has written about his frustration with gay men still ignorant about what it means to be undetectable. “Positive men don’t want to transmit the virus to someone who is negative just as much as a negative person doesn’t want to become positive,” Curry emphasizes. Read More
Why Are HIV Rates So High in Russia?
In 2013, Russia's national parliament, the State Duma, passed a federal law banning gay "propaganda", amid a Kremlin push to enshrine deeply conservative values. Human rights campaigners said the law had resulted in an increase in homophobic and transphobic violence, along with the suppression of information on sexual health and HIV for the LGBT community. Read More
Because You Are, Therefore I Am: African leaders discuss sexuality, religion, and equality
Leaders from Botswana, Cameroon, Lesotho, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe gathered for a historic consultation. Rev. Dr. Kaypa Kaoma and I worked with leaders from the World Council of Churches and Dr. Gerald West, University of KwaZulu-Natal in organizing this consultation.
We are committed to changing the narrative in Africa from persecution of LGBTI persons and their families to acceptance. We are committed to making change happen in faith communities, theological schools, universities and in civil society.
Chad becomes 37th African state to seek ban on homosexuality
Chad government ministers voted to make same-sex relations a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison and 50,000-500,000 Central African francs.
The decision was condemned by human rights groups as another setback in the struggle for gay rights on the continent. Chad’s penal code is more than half a century old and does not explicitly mention homosexuality. The cabinet claims the measure is intended to “protect the family and to comply with Chadian society”. Read More
Israel warns public about dangers of ‘ex-gay’ therapies
Israel’s Health Ministry has formally adopted the recommendations of its country’s Council of Psychologists and the Israeli Psychological Association against so-called reparative therapies aimed at changing a person’s sexual orientation - issuing a public warning against them on Sunday. Read More
Xiao Zhen on Trying to End ‘Gay Conversion Therapy’ in China
A man going by the pseudonym Xiao Zhen is the first person in China to file a lawsuit against a clinic offering “gay conversion therapy,” to change sexual orientation that medical experts criticize as ineffective and harmful. With the help of the Beijing LGBT Center, Xiao Zhen has sued the Xinyupiaoxiang Counseling Center, as well as Baidu, China’s Internet search engine, for posting the ads that led him there. Read More
The Free and Equal campaign is 1 year old… 1 billion rising
A year ago, the United Nations Human Rights Office launched an unprecedented global public education campaign for lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender rights: Free & Equal. This inspiring video tells the story of what happened next.
Serbia Gay Pride march returns after four years
Serbia's first Gay Pride march for four years has been held in the capital Belgrade, amid huge security, including special forces and armoured vehicles. Authorities had cancelled the event every year since marchers were attacked in 2010 - nine years after Gay Pride was first held in Belgrade.
Earlier in September a German LGBT rights speaker was treated in hospital after being beaten in Belgrade. In response to the attack, Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said: "We will not allow this kind of thing to remain unpunished." Read More
Kyrgyz Parliament Proposes Criminal Liability for Protection of LGBT People's Rights
The gay divide
THERE was a teenager in Arizona in the 1970s who “could no more imagine longing to touch a woman than longing to touch a toaster”. But he convinced himself that he was not gay. Longing to be “normal”, he blamed his obsession with muscular men on envy of their good looks. It was not until he was 25 that he admitted the truth to himself—let alone other people. In 1996 he wrote a cover leader for The Economist in favour of same-sex marriage. He never thought it would happen during his lifetime. Yet now he is married to the man he loves and living in a Virginia suburb where few think this odd.
The change in attitudes to homosexuality in many countries—not just the West but also Latin America, China and other places—is one of the wonders of the world (see article). This week America’s Supreme Court gave gay marriage another big boost, by rejecting several challenges to it; most Americans already live in states where gays can wed. But five countries still execute gay people: Iran hangs them; Saudi Arabia stones them. Gay sex is illegal in 78 countries, and a few have recently passed laws that make gay life even grimmer. The gay divide is one of the world’s widest (see article). What caused it? And will tolerance eventually spread? Read More
The Closeted Continent
38 out of 55 African nations have laws punishing sodomy. And things may get worse before they get better.
The progress for LGBT equality has been powered by an increasingly potent global gay rights movement driven by major international organizations like Human Rights Campaign and the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, as well as smaller grassroots gay groups that have sprouted up (or, in some cases, chosen to work underground for fear of activists' safety) in many dozens of countries worldwide.
Elsewhere in the world, though, signs of momentum in the global gay rights struggle are fueling a determined effort to slam the closet door though legal measures, harassment, and violence. Read More