India's Justice Shah: Sec 377 damaging psychological well-being of homosexuals

Law Commission Chairman Justice Ajit Prakash Shah has said that the Supreme Court's December 2013 decision to uphold Section 377 of the IPC and re-criminalise gay sex was constitutionally wrong as it deprives homosexuals of basic rights and also affects them psychologically.

 "Section 377 is discriminatory in its application, unreasonable in its intent, deprives a group of its personal autonomy and violates individual privacy and human dignity. Consequences of the laws in our country on gay sex include damage to the psychological well being of homosexuals, encouragement of violence and facilitation of police harassment and discrimination against the LGBT community," Justice Shah said.   Read More

India: Pride Parade Amid Fears Created by Return of Law That Bans Gay Sex

Hundreds of people turned out for Mumbai's annual Pride Parade on Saturday, demanding equality and rights for the LGBT community in India.

Wearing an array of outfits, participants danced under huge rainbow flags and carried multi-colored balloons through neighborhoods of India's financial capital chanting "Homophobia Bharat chorro," a slogan that translates in English to "Homophobia get lost from India." Read More

Israel: Hebro Presents First-Ever Gay Jewish Auschwitz Tour

Jayson Littman, founder of Hebro Travel, a new tour company serving “gay Jews and those who love us,” is serving up trips that blend historical exploration, cultural discovery — and some serious partying.

An Israel trip timed for Tel Aviv Pride in June will take travelers to a famously gay-friendly environment. But it’s Littman’s latest tour offering that’s generating attention — and raising eyebrows. The history-making Poland & Prague Pride Trip includes a Jewish heritage tour of the Kazimierz District and Schindler’s List route; visits to historic synagogues; and stops at Auschwitz and Theresienstadt and ends with Prague’s Gay Pride festivities.  Read More

Chinese short film appealing to parents to accept their gay children goes viral

Ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays next week, PFLAG China has launched a short film to promote family reunions between parents and their gay children. The touching short film, which tells the story of a young gay man who became estranged from his parents after coming out, and eventually being accepted by them years later, has gone viral with over 100 million views. Read More 

China: Alibaba’s Latest Marketing Campaign Supports Same-Sex Marriage

Alibaba marketplace Taobao will celebrate Valentine’s Day by sending gay couples to the U.S. and other countries where same-sex marriage is legal. 

Taobao, China’s largest online marketplace by far, will team up with Danlan, a gay-focused website, as well as advocacy groups including Beijing LGBT Center and PFLAG China, for We Do. Public votes will narrow down the 20 couples listed on We Do’s site to ten, who will receive a free trip to California, one of the states in the U.S. where same-sex marriage is legal. Read More

Jamaica: Harrison-Henry Vows To Defend Rights Of All

Arlene Harrison Henry, who was appointed recently as Jamaica's first female public defender, has indicated that her mission is to defend the rights of all citizens, especially the vulnerable groups in society.

"The LGBT (lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgender) group is also a delicate matter in our country, but they, too, are entitled to equality, representation, and equal protection of laws," she said.

Henry added: "The bottom line is I won't be partial, and if I encounter someone from that group whose rights have been breached, I will be defending them just the same, and every sector in society will be represented." Read More 

Beverly Hills Hotel Boycott: John Legend Backs Out of 'L.A. Confidential' Party

Los Angeles Confidential's plans to host the first major entertainment industry party inside the Beverly Hills Hotel amid a widespread Hollywood boycott have backfired as its cover star John Legend has backed out of a planned appearance and the Human Rights Campaign has fired off an official letter to the mag's publisher.

The party would be the first notable event held at the BHH since early 2014 when the boycott started following the Sultan of Brunei's passage of barbaric Sharia Law, which calls for the stoning of gays and adulterers. (Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah owns the BHH and the Hotel Bel-Air through his Dorchester Collection.) Read More

ExxonMobil Relents, Adds LGBT Worker Protections

ExxonMobil has reversed its longstanding opposition to providing LGBT employment protections, a sign of the impact of President Obama’s executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.   Read More

Predicting LGBT-Affirming Behavior in Teens

To counter homophobic behavior in schools, research is needed on heterosexual youth who act as allies to LGBT youth by engaging in LGBT-affirming behavior. This study found that critical thinking, self-reflection, lower sexual prejudice, having more LGBT friends, and having sexual orientation-based discussions with peers were associated with engaging in more LGBT-affirming behavior. Having LGBT friends was more strongly associated with affirming behavior for youth who felt more connected and had more sexual orientation-based discussions with these friends. Read More

Ireland: Government launches push to tackle homophobia in primary schools

The Irish government has launched its first resource to help primary school teachers tackle homophobic bullying. The guide, titled Respect, will be officially launched by Education minister Jan O’Sullivan this evening.

It was created by the Department of Education and Skills, alongside the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation and Ireland’s Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN). The resource – which is the first of its kind on the Republic of Ireland – encourages teachers to challenge children to think about family, love and gender from an early age. Read More 

Pivotal time for trans people as rigid notion of gender challenged

For Kate Bornstein, the American author and pioneer gender activist, this is a pivotal time in history for transgender people as the rigid concept of two sexes is challenged by a growing number of individuals who don't conform to either. Some even suggest the notion of gender as we know it, the categorization of individuals as either male or female, might become obsolete altogether.

"Most college students are okay with the idea of someone who defines themselves as not a man or a woman," said Bornstein, 66, who was born a man but had a sex change operation in the 1980s. "That's very different from their parents or even their older siblings," she said. Now gender non-conformity, also known as genderqueer, and transsexuality are far more visible.  Read More

What to Do When 'I Do' Is Done

With the widely shared expectation that the Supreme Court will soon return to the issue of marriage and may strike down marriage bans nationwide, LGBT leaders find themselves asking a question that would have seemed improbable just a few years ago: What should be the priorities of the LGBT movement once legal marriage equality has been achieved?

The most likely candidate for the kind of coordinated, national- and state-level strategy that fueled the marriage equality campaign is a push to get all LGBT Americans covered by laws barring discrimination against them in employment, housing, health care, and public accommodations. Brutal persecution of LGBT people around the globe, often with the collusion or encouragement of American anti-gay activists, is another growing concern. Those issues are likely to draw support from across the ideological spectrum of LGBT organizations. Read More